There’s a new site (put together by some very good people I know) called The Marijuana Majority
But too many people who support replacing marijuana prohibition with legalization or decriminalization are afraid to say so. Because they don’t realize that a majority of Americans — including some of the most influential voices from across the political spectrum — feel exactly the same way, these silenced supporters see speaking out as risky.
Marijuana Majority exists to help people understand that ending our ineffective and harmful marijuana prohibition laws not only makes perfect policy sense, but is a completely mainstream position that enjoys broad support.
On this site, we’ve collected in one place quotes and videos from politicians, religious leaders, celebrities, medical professionals, members of law enforcement and others who think it’s time to end the war on marijuana. And we’ve made it easy to search by issue and by type of person or organization so you can, for example, see members of Congress, actors, medical organizations and business leaders who support decriminalizing marijuana, allowing medical marijuana or legalizing and regulating marijuana sales.
They hope to use the site to encourage other influential leaders to speak out and to make it easy for people to share these quotes with their friends through social media.
It’s a good project and worth checking out.
Update: Turns out they included me, as well.
Thanks, Pete! We really do think this site is going to help more people realize that speaking out is OK and is what they ought to do.
If everyone can tweet to some of our target “Get out the Quote” celebs today and over the next few days, that will sure help us turn this vision into a reality.
Thanks again, and we look forward to more feedback from the DWR community.
Tom,,need to get a moderator in place to screen your comments,,this couch has a lot of people that have fallen down and can’t quit typing.
Should do a lot to get out the mostly liberal “marijuana majority” on that website.
You mean like Pat Robertson, John McLaughlin, Rick Perry, Michael Steele, Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Grover Norquist, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Felipe Colderon, Newt Gingrich, Jesse Ventura, Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, Dana Rohrabacher, David Koch, Militon Friedman, Paul Volcker, Bill O’Reilly, Blenn Beck, Andrew Sullivan, the National Review, Rich Lowry, etc.
Yeah, out of 600 people on that website. The vast majority are liberal Democrats with some libertarian Republicans who carry little weight east of Colorado and south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Then line up some more conservatives to give a quote and send them in. I can guarantee that the site creators would be thrilled to have them.
We’ll soon be at the point where it’s the dwindling supporters of cannabis prohibition who are too embarrassed to publicly voice their views. Of course, they should be embarrassed.
Kudos, Pete. You made the cut. Of course, had you not, the couch brigade would had that corrected. You’ve done much more than most listed there. It’s good to see ya in the mix.
He is on the same line as Nadlemann and I love Russel Brand’s title,,recreational addict
comment awaiting moderation at site,,always like to beat Malcolm,,he don’t leave you much ammo to work with after he carpet bombs prohibs.
dang, it’s one of these new-fangled sites, must be an adobe flash-player, won’t load for me, my dial-up modem and my old qwerty. sigh…
…yeah, uses a Flash plugin.
HA! They’ve got my buddy Mike Resnicek in there, but, but, but, if Mike is there, where am I? …..oh yeah. I’m still (mostly) anonymous. Heh, well I don’t want no credit, I just want it legal. Good on you, Pete. And I’m giving Mike a call as soon as the hour is decent…I wonder if he even knows about it yet.
What a useful site to share with folks who aren’t as hardcore.
I was surprised to see Bill O’Reilly on the list, but then I read his quote: “My philosophy is if you want to smoke marijuana in your basement, I don’t care. I’m not going to get a search warrant and kick your door in. I think that’s foolish… But… if you get behind the wheel of a car, if you sell the dope to my kid, if my kid sees you smoking… I then will demand that the authorities protect me and my family from you, the marijuana smoker in public. Am I wrong?â€
What’s so fundamentally wrong with a child to witness someone smoking pot? Why is it okay for a child to witness an adult drinking beer? The prohibition on smoking in public is a political concession but it can’t be philosophically justified.
Deep Dish, drinking in public has been against the law every place I have ever lived.
Around here, casually drinking in your front yard and a cop drives by…. Lets just say that if they coax you onto the easement (5 ft onto your lawn from the street) carrying said drink, you will have a very bad evening.
And they pull that crap on you in apartments, too; if you step outside your apartment into the hallway for a ‘friendly chat’ while inebriated, you’re considered ‘drunk in public’ and arrestable.
Disgusting that LE has to stoop so low…
Intoxication of beer at least has indecency. Drunks are prone to vomitting, obnoxiousness, talking too loud, and violence. Stoners are objectively as offensive and dangerous as a 65-year old grandma.
We’re all adults here and we all like to enjoy our sensual pleasures. LE doesn’t see us as adults but as children.
I think we’d all agree that there’s a difference between being indecently drunk in public and drinking a beer in public. The difference is responsibility and limits. But to many LE there really is no difference.
If an LE is bored they don’t really differentiate between you standing by your garage, beer in hand, chatting with your neighbor and you running around in your undies, screaming at grandmas with a mickey of vodka in your boot and vomit on your chest.
They see you in that alley, even if it’s two feet from your property and they want to mess with you? They now have a reason. (As if they really need one.)
Stereotyping drinkers just because some abuse it is no different then bashing smokers because some are idiots.
As a tobacco smoker ( yes I know cannabis would be healthier 🙂 ) there are now more and more laws against smoking in a variety of public places. That I have to move 50 feet away from the door of a bar is ridiculous. This is an example of the “think of the children” types who will give a film an NC-17 for drug use, but murder only gets an R. Okay…rant over. I do think more drug users need to “come out” the problem is unlike declaring your sexuality you can easily loose a job if you announce you use any drugs other than those on the approved list. This is non-sense, one of the most productive bosses I ever had kept cocaine under her keyboard for the occasional “pick-me-up”.
It is more about the propaganda on second hand smoke,,even though the researchers admitted exaggerating the statistics and dangers,,non smokers never saw that and just as with prohibs,,why let facts get in the way of good propaganda,
Great idea. Its ashame it doesnt run with Internet Explorer though. I know it sucks but roughly half the population uses it. Talk about dropping the ball to whoever made the decsion to make a site that doesnt run on IE.
Sick. I feel somewhat dirty for making any dog-shooting jokes after this one. Officers (indeed ANY human being) who does this sort of thing should never be allowed to possess a firearm, much less be charged with protecting the public!
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/police-chase-and-kill-3-dogs-marijuana-raid-shooting-deer
Completely unrelated, garenteed to keep you sadated. Words are heavly medicated. Yo protest the gays,or they may try that gay agenda we be hearing about. them gospals scream and shout it. Somewhere we missed it? Billy Ray Cyrus is a tyrant. defiant country star we ani’t buying it. Trash talk the police,for picking up the city streets, of tokening black kids,incararate them,we don’t tolerate em. we hate em, don’t educate em. they’ll destroy the last great white hope; america’s youth is all hooked on dope. filling their minds with more dopamine I’ve become the couch’s internet meme. nigga fled from the scene. cops shot at him cause they angry and mean. and now all i can say is i just smoked a dirty with crack and methpehiemes. all there’s left to say is hot pockets, new age drug task force use rockets.they wanna fill up they pockets; gouge out your pups eye sockets.
All of us liking his post is liable to cause him to get writers block
Hey, pass the Wiggler that bowl.
OT:
Obama Administration Speaks Out on Marijuana Ballot Measures: Federal Raids Are Here to Stay
Good job here by Mike Riggs
http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/22/obama-administration-speaks-out-on-marij
Yeppers. I hope those who think Obama will do anything different after the election read that.
Oh, he’ll ‘do something’, alright. He’s having the Feds act as cheap muscle to crush the dispensaries in time for Sativex.
This is what people in his Administration mean when they unctuously, patronizingly tell you not to worry, they’re working on it, and we can expect to see big changes after he’s elected, so we’re supposed to work our arses off for him like many drug law reformers did last time.
And when the time comes, they’ll turn to their reformer supporters after approving Sativex as the only FDA- (translation: BigPharma-) approved cannabis-based med, and sweetly, smilingly inform them that they ‘kept their promise’.
I have more faith in pissed off, hungry rattlesnakes not biting me than I do in any promises this Administration makes.
TO: More good work by Mr. Riggs
Why Firing a Bad Cop Is Damn Near Impossible
A brief history of the “law enforcement bill of rights”
http://reason.com/archives/2012/10/19/how-special-rights-for-law-enforcement-m
And what are the odds of jury nullification or a hung jury in a state where the people voted to legalize?
How many hung jury’s will it take for the fed prosecutor to quit wasting money on them?
“How many hung jury’s will it take for the fed prosecutor to quit wasting money on them?”
Do you think that is something that will ever cross their minds? The entire drug war had been wasting money for decades. “Its for the children. We can’t spend enough to protect them.”
I’d say the odds were worth making book on.
A State that votes for legalization must, perforce, have a large number of activists that know their DrugWar catechism…and that must always include jury nullification. Which has always been a matter of informing other citizens of the right to jury nullification that judges and prosecutors have sought to prevent them from learning. The word gets out, no matter what obfuscation and outright lies judges and prosecutors tell. As a saying from an old movie goes, “Truth is a virus.” And it spreads.
Add with the generational shift, with more people below the age of 50 who know the truth about cannabis serving on juries, the prosecutors are looking at a rising rebellion against the DrugWar-corrupted assembly-line nature of the so-called ‘justice system’. Know the origin of the word ‘sabotage’? Well, there’s millions of shoes slated for the sensitive guts of the ‘justice’ machinery, just waiting to be thrown.
Enough of that, and the nullification bug born of the truth virus will bring down the system, as nullification is applied elsewhere, in other issues.
The entire machine is threatened. If those who want to keep running it don’t adapt to this cultural and generational shift regarding cannabis, they risk losing everything as more and more people learn to retake the system. It will become obvious that in order to save what they can, those who benefit so handsomely from it will have to curb their greed and powerlust and back off, or risk derailing their own gravy train.
As others have commented before, this is partly how the last chemical prohibition ended, partly by nullification and the terrible threat nullification tacitly implies. For when the system is so corrupted that the citizens must take matters into their own hands, when the system is viewed as being intrinsically hostile to the very people it is supposed to serve, revolution is not far behind.
I hate to sound so negative here, because I really hope you and Clay are right, but Jury Nullification only works if you have an attorney willing to go to trial. Many of the less fortunate will have a public defender with a case-load so ridiculous they almost always push for a plea-deal.
I want to believe, maybe I am to cynical.
They have to allow you a Jury trial. But it comes at a potential cost. the plea deal will be for less time and for lesser charges. If you DO demand a jury trial and reject the plea bargain (your right), expect the prosecutor to try to charge you with everything he can pile on. It’s risky, that’s how they make them a deal too good to refuse. It is probable that the majority people who insist on a jury trial in federal cases are truly innocent. But they tend to be sent to jail for very, very, long times.
It’s a risky path, any lawyer will advise you to “take the deal” for that reason alone.
“I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be. We really need a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment.â€
That comment was from prohibition war-criminal bill clinton, the man who presided over the biggest increase of incarceration in us history. The site editors might want to start a basement of shame and move bill into it promptly. And the other bill, oreilly, can join him.
Rick Perry belongs in the basement too, sucking scum alongside Bildo O’Reilly.
Rick Perry being elected twice as governor for TX sure doesn’t say much for the intelligence of it’s voters,,,brain dead just doesn’t cover it for him.
Without oil and their fracking mess, those voters have no incentive to grow a brain.
I think it is more that the elections are rigged than that the voters are electing and re-electing people like we now have in office in every State and the fed gov.
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Are these people seriously trying to get us to believe that there is such a thing as a fatal overdose of caffeine?
F.D.A. Receives Death Reports Citing Popular Energy Drink
Well caffeine does have and ld50 of about 200mg/kg in rats ( cocaine is about 100mg/kg for comparison ) So overdose is possible, but since caffeine is legal no one is concentrating and smoking or injecting caffeine, rather they are using weak plant extractions which are quite safe.
Yeah. It’s possible. And more likely since the teen in the piece had an underlying heart condition. Those drinks are not harmless…they give ME heart palpitations…I don’t use them, although I DO drink gallons of coffee. (I am a North Westerner, after all.) Coffee does not have the same effect on me.
A Bunn coffee maker that takes three minutes to make a pot and it is usually repeated about 8 times a day,,Folgers and Cains mixed.
Oh…Clay. Message me on FB with your address. I’m adding you to my Christmas list. You’re getting some decent coffee. I’ll at least send you some from Tony’s here in B’Ham. You should treat yourself better.
good coffee is as important as good weed, good beer (I’m still astounded that there are loads of people that think Bud Light is beer) and nice weather in the midst of bad. Yep, I’m a NWer too…
But I’ll go as far as to say that coffee is more important to my sanity and health than is herb. I don’t mind skipping a bowl or a day or a month (last time was almost a year) w/o some greenery but coffee? Lots of good coffee twice a day.
Oh… and here’s a good piece on Uruguay’s coming “legalization” of marijuana: http://www.voxxi.com/uruguay-rejects-war-on-drugs/
saw a headline (Phillip Smith at Cannabis Culture) that said France is going to introduce supervised injection sites… ’bout time, no?
and once again I’m shocked – shocked I say – that the drug war hasn’t come up in tonite’s “debate” (major finger quotes there). Willard makes me cringe. Obama just pisses me off. And Johnson and Gray get my vote.
I’m finally working from home as a software developer for some like-minded people after a year stint at a corporate job. It wasn’t bad, but never again will I have to compromise my integrity for employment. They flew me out to Cali for an interview; this time, the drug test involved knowing which end of a joint to light! Anyway, that brings me on topic: can you recommend some good coffee? Because I’m already set on the good bud!
Depends. With a sativa in the morning, I like a nice Guatamalan, in a medium roast. Later, in the evening, I like a couchlock indica, and a jolt of dark french roast Jamaican, or maybe even a strong Italian roast, just to counter the “Indica couch-lock”. But I always go “fair trade”. The conditions endured by the corporate coffee growers are pathetic.
I live on a budget and my cabinet is not big enough to grow my own coffee too.
Caffeine can cause psychosis and 5g will probably kill you. It’s lethal dose is lower than GHB (which was originally sold as a dietary supplement and later ‘orphaned’ by stupid prohibs).
Nothin beats organic KONA coffee grown by my townsfolk. 100% swirling,lipsmackn goodness.
The Ka’u coffee is becoming as famous and is a little cheaper (don’t let the fact it wuz served at obummers inauguration sway you).
Just don’t pay more than $20 a pound plus shipping.
your welcome
and a fun and chock-full-o’-facts piece on federal law enforcement agencies operating on foreign soil:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/334691
Obama just bitch slapped Romney verbally and proved he was air brushing history on nearly every point on foreign policy,,especially on the car bailout and trade with China,,,I don’t know how any Republican could possibly vote for anyone but Gary Johnson,,,,
Grits for breakfast has a great blog posted
Cutting off snake heads failing strategy for drug-war Hydra
http://tinyurl.com/8e7byko
Hercules battling the Hydra
Grits was fascinated to see a headline from last week in the LA Times declaring “Two-thirds of most-wanted Mexican drug lords are now in custody, dead” (Oct. 18). However, asked the Times, “have the captures or killings of cartel leaders helped stem the violence in Mexico or reduce the flow of drugs to the United States? Not significantly.” Instead, “The death or capture of a cartel leader, analysts repeatedly argue, usually sparks infighting for succession among lieutenants and thus more bloodshed.” ‘snipped’
And we know the drugs haven’t stopped,,so that pretty much spells failure.
Have you already heard of cannabinoid hyperemesis? Apparently it’s a form of cyclic nausea that makes you take hot showers compulsively and costs taxpayers a lot of money due to it being very hard to diagnose, should the patient refrain from mentioning their chronic cannabis or Spice use… Oh, darn, I think they just pointed out one more reason to legalise!
Via Medical Xpress:
What a fucking joke,,2 cases and this quack is in the papers as someone that knows his ass from a hole in the ground.
That’s weird. For me, it’s the drug warriors’ anti-cannabis propaganda (like the above) that makes me feel nauseated and like I need to shower. Cannabis, on the other hand, is the only treatment I’ve found that works for this condition.
Yep, it’s been reported on before here, a year or so ago. 125 cases. To my knowledge, no additional cases have been uncovered since this first cropped up. Notice it was researchers Down Under, who first “identified” this syndrome. The Aussies are big producers of “prohibitionist science”
Plus, 125 cases…gee, isn’t that nearly every pothead in the world? Excuse me, I have to go vomit.
Didn’t Dr. Crissien-Martinez mention laughing all the way to the bank and all the way back home?
End Criminal Sanctions For Growing And Possessing Cannabis, British Study Says
http://tinyurl.com/9bu6l8x
“”Possessing and cultivating personal use amounts of cannabis should no longer be a criminal offense, according to the recommendations of a six-year study released last week by a coalition of leading British drug policy experts, treatment specialists, and law enforcement.”” ‘snipped’
69% Favor Decriminalizing Marijuana In BBC Poll
http://tinyurl.com/8wwpxso
“”The report(above) prompted the BBC’s Sunday Morning Live Show, a weekly topical political news show aired at 10 a.m. every Sunday, to hold a debate on cannabis.
The show included a debate in the studio with journalists and broadcasters Germaine Greer, Peter Hitchens, James O’brien, Gary Parker and contributions via Skype from former government drugs advisor Prof. David Nutt, drugs rehab worker, Gary Parker, and Clark French, a medicinal cannabis user with multiple sclerosis who is also NORML UK’s national spokesperson.
During the show, the BBC ran a viewers poll asking whether cannabis should be decriminalized. The result showed an overwhelming majority in favor, with 69 percent voting yes against only 31 percent who were opposed.”” ‘snipped’
Is Great Britain posturing to legalize marijuana if CO or WA ballot initiatives are successful,,,or will they legalize before the elections to claim the honor of ending prohibition?
Damn,,this thing is picking up speed.
Neither. The Brits won’t legalize until uncle sammy says they can, neither will the gutless government of Canada. When one of the state initiatives passes this November, nothing will change because the political pressure from DC will cause the governor to obstruct carrying out the initiative a la NJ governor Christie.
Primus, I might agree with you, save for the economic angle is working its’ magic in our favor…as is that generational shift I keep mentioning.
The worm is turning, and how fast it turns and how deeply it bites those who used it to maul us will depend on Federal intransigence.
If they want to cause a Constitutional Convention, which could completely re-write the Constitution and have the people once more commanding their own destinies free of Federal ‘assistance’, the best way to assure that happening is to try to run roughshod over the expressed political will of the voters in the initiative States.
Do they really want the people, through their representatives, during a CC, eliminating the worst aspects of the Constitution that have made their power grab possible? Aspects like the much-abused Commerce Clause, and re-writing it more tightly, with more protections for the States and the individual? How about an Amendment that declares companies are NOT individuals with rights? How about an Amendment for medical freedom, as once attributed to one of the Founders, Dr. Benjamin Rush, that forces BigPharma and its’ lackey the FDA to butt out of our lives? These and more are the kinds of things our would-be masters are terrified of.
I submit that this is the sort of thing that makes bureaucrats lose sleep and sweat bullets, because the sins they committed under the rubric of drug prohibition may come back to haunt them. As has been said here many times, the real goal of prohibition is POWER…to the gain of the unscrupulous and the loss of the citizen. A victory in any one initiative State would begin to reverse that process, and a CC would give that process warp engines.
So, this time, the Feds are faced with an unpalatable choice: the slow death of drug prohibition State-by-State, with them having time to find something better to do…or be faced with a CC that will immediately shatter the very foundations of their power…and remove from them the protections that power provided.
Did any of you watch the 3rd party debate last night? I did, watched part online and finished watching on C-SPAN (hubby had control of TV until we sat down to dinner, then I took it over). It was well worth my time and i urge any of you who did not see it to go to C-SPAN site and view it when they post it (should be only a day or so before it is available). There will be another on the 30th, but only two will be debating then, those two who pass the instant runoff voting on the site over the next 18 hours or so. My son who was watching with me said he heard more sense from those 4 in their debate than from Romney and Obama on Monday night’s debate, he’s correct.