Parts of Colorado’s pot legalization strategy exported to other states (Denver Post)
But the true test for marijuana activists will come in 2016, the next presidential election year. That is when Kampia hopes to run legalization initiatives in California, Massachusetts, Oregon and Maine.
“There’s a lot of young voters who only come out for presidential elections,” Kampia said at the conference. “The reason we had such a large margin of victory in Colorado and Washington was because it was a presidential election.”
I think he’s right on that, and it gives four years to really develop a good campaign. Still, I’m hopeful that there will also be faster movement on other fronts, since the momentum seems to be there.
$150 Billion in Civil Service Pension Funds to be Suspended Monday as US Government Gears up for Potential Civil Unrest in August
http://tinyurl.com/cur9csd
US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner set a deadline of August 2 as the end of an economic safe zone created from excess government spending as the US Treasuries debt limit of $14.3 trillion will be reached this coming Monday, requiring both political parties to reach a resolution. However, judging by the nations previous track record the outcome will be predictable.
The most disturbing aspect of this is just how serious this issue really is, as these type funds are considered some of the most secure in the world potentially triggering panic amongst financial markets, banking insiders and governments worldwide.
President Obama has already attempted to try and pacify the situation prolonging the economic death of America a little longer by suggesting that the debt ceiling be raised to $16.394 trillion.
This all dovetails into the fact that the US Government has purchased hundreds of millions of rounds of ammo to use against the people of the United States in the event of civil unrest.
An article written by renowned Infowars.com writer Paul Joseph Watson back in April details;
Fears that federal authorities are preparing for mass civil unrest have increased after it was revealed that the Department of Homeland Security is planning to buy a further 750 million rounds of ammo in addition to the 450 million rounds of hollow point bullets already purchased earlier this year.
A solicitation originally issued by the DHS in April but updated on Friday calls on suppliers to provide a plethora of different types of ammunition, including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls.
The PDF file for the solicitation lists the different units of ammo required by the thousand, with the total ammo purchase exceeding 750 million rounds.
However, keep in mind that the bankers have threatened martial law before as a way to pass more illegal bailouts allowing the total looting of our once great nation.
I think Kapt was waiting for this axe to fall!
I saw that article at The Daily Sheeple too. But it didn’t make much sense to me. There isn’t any connection between the $150 billion in pensions mentioned in the title to the rest of the article and their projections of doom. I just don’t get what that article is supposed to mean, other that stirring up fear.
Heck the state of Illinois ALONE owes their pensions funds $100 Billion, and if you throw in Cook County and Chicago pension obligations and add the free healthcare for life promise for government employees, the state of Illinois and Cook/Chicago are at least $300 BILLION in debt to future government employee retirees. 12 million people in Illinois, and only 7 million of them pay state income taxes. Illinois needs $43,000 from every taxpayer in the state TODAY just to get caught up on pensions and benefits. Think about that for a second.
In 2018 if not sooner, Illinois pension funds will run dry and they won’t even be able to cover pension payments for current retirees. The union flackees in charge of the pension funds still are planning on a 8.5% return every year, even though last year the return was 0.3% and in 2018 there won’t be any reserve funds at all to draw returns on. Last year they raised the income tax by 67% and added $1/pack cigarette tax and it didn’t even make a dent in the past due bills, let alone the outrageous pension/benefit obligations. Thats how to stir up fear better than that article if you ask me. Do the math.
For the past five years Illinois has spent billions more than they brought in from taxes, contrary to the state constitution. The state owes vendors and service providers (mostly healthcare industry) $9 Billion in past due bills. Small town mom and pop pharmacies went out of business waiting for Illinois to pay its bills. Illinois had to borrow billions just to make payroll the past 5 years. At a cost of $1 Billion in 2010 ($143 per taxpayer), more than half of all children born in the state were paid for by Medicaid. Last year Quinn/Madigan/Cullerton cut Medicaid by $2.5 billion by reducing eligibility and cutting services even in the face of their hero and his Obamacare. For the first time in the history of the United States, Illinois is one of 11 states that have more people on state government assistance than the number of people who have private sector jobs. Think about that for a second. How long can it last?
Illinois will be to the USA as Greece is to Europe very quickly. Not as soon as August, probably, but the collapse is coming fast. California will collapse right behind Illinois as we are already seeing cities in California going bankrupt, Vallejo, Stockton. The US and most of the world is in a debt bubble right now. We are living off of borrowed money and printed money. The debt bubble will pop as you can’t keep borrowing and printing forever. If people woke up to fiscal reality tomorrow and started withdrawing their money from banks, the US Dollar would not survive. The only thing keeping us going right now is consumer confidence and the FED printing ungodly amounts of money each month that they are giving to the banksters.
Legalization four years from now? I believe we’ll have much bigger fish to fry by then. Everything will be legal again when places like Stockton, CA can’t possibly pay to staff a police office, let alone all their retired officers too. And if the US Dollar is worthless? Well, lets hope we all wake up by then, but it doesn’t look good. If we can manage to push that debt bubble down the road more than four years before it bursts, then good luck getting legalization passed and I’ll be there fighting again. I’d like to see Michigan give it a try in 2 years instead of waiting for 4. Obama got fewer votes than legalization did almost everywhere, so I’m not sure if the Presidential election strategy still holds true like it did the past ten years.
Rice, beans, get some rabbits/chicken/goats, plant your gardens and learn to can. A worthless US Dollar CAN happen. The Euro will go first, and then watch the dominoes fall in the US. I can’t see the people of Washington State being willing to bail out Illinois and California.
New Barrington, MA is already devising a “local/regional” currency called the BerkShare to prepare for the failure of the Dollar – through the New Economics Institute with local banks and businesses already accepting it for payment for the last 5 years. Sandpoint, Idaho is preparing and have started the Sandpoint Transition Initiative with more than 20 other cities joining in to prepare for the bursting of our massive debt bubble so they can transition to a new sustainable economy.
Call me crazy if you want, but my math does not lie and there are millions out there, including whole communities, who also understand simple math. $17 TRILLION in US debt right now, not even counting states like Illinois or cities like Stockton. The FED will print more than $1 TRILLION in “new” money this year and hand it to the same banksters that bet on real estate derivatives and lost our money. Who owns the debt? China and government employee pension funds. If you think government employee retirees will be willing to forgive that debt and give up their pensions and benefits, think again. Look at Greece where a 25% reduction in all government employee pensions still hasn’t helped them one bit.
If I weren’t penniless I’d be obtaining some land in Michigan and getting a sustainable homestead going for me and my friends. Even you, darkcycle. Even if we do somehow get this economy turned around no one can predict the future prices of food, fuel, and electricity as a result of inflation from all the money the FED is printing. Keep on fighting for the true end of the war on some drugs, but be prepared. Remember, the exact same idiots who believe Prohibition is a good idea are the same idiots who believe we can just keep borrowing and printing money forever without any bad consequences. “Fiscal cliff”? That’s just a distraction from the true reality of our fiscal condition. Take care everyone.
http://www.shtfplan.com/
Right now we are living in a bubble of debt-fueled false prosperity that allows us to continue to consume far more wealth than we produce, but when that bubble bursts we are going to experience the most painful economic “adjustment†that America has ever gone through. We need to be able to explain to our fellow Americans what is coming, why it is coming and what needs to be done. Hopefully the crazy economic numbers that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up.
The end of the year is a time when people tend to gather with family and friends more than they do during the rest of the year. Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help start some conversations about the coming economic collapse with your loved ones. Sadly, most Americans still tend to doubt that we are heading into economic oblivion. So if you have someone among your family and friends that believes that everything is going to be “just fineâ€, just show them these numbers. They are a good summary of the problems that the U.S. economy is currently facing.
#1 In December 2008, 31.6 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, a new all-time record of 47.7 million Americans are on food stamps. That number has increased by more than 50 percent over the past four years, and yet the mainstream media still has the gall to insist that “things are getting betterâ€.
#2 Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.
#3 According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.â€
#4 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all Americans have received money from a safety net program run by the federal government at some point in their lives.
#5 For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.
#6 Median household income in the U.S. has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.
#7 Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.
#8 The percentage of working age Americans with a job has been under 59 percent for 39 months in a row.
#9 In September 2009, during the depths of the last economic crisis, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed. In November 2012, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed. It is more then 3 years later, and we are in the exact same place.
#10 When you total up all working age Americans that do not have a job in America today, it comes to more than 100 million.
#11 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all small business owners in America “say they would not start a business today given what they know now and in the current environment.â€
#12 The number of jobs at new small businesses continues to decline. According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the decline in the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration…
Bush Sr.: 11.3
Clinton: 11.2
Bush Jr.: 10.8
Obama: 7.8
#13 The U.S. share of global GDP has fallen from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percent in 2011.
#14 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.
#15 There are four major U.S. banks that each have more than 40 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives.
#16 In 2000, there were more than 17 million Americans working in manufacturing, but now there are less than 12 million.
#17 According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of all Americans were “middle income†back in 1971. Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are.
#18 The Pew Research Center has also found that 85 percent of all middle class Americans say that it is harder to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.
#19 62 percent of all middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.
#20 Right now, approximately 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income†or are living in poverty.
#21 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income†or impoverished.
#22 According to one survey, 77 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time.
#23 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today,less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.
#24 The average amount of time that an unemployed worker stays out of work in the United States is 40 weeks.
#25 If you can believe it, approximately one out of every four American workers makes 10 dollars an hour or less.
#26 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government. Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.
#27 Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare. Overall, there are almost 80 different “means-tested welfare programs†that the federal government is currently running.
#28 When you account for all government transfer payments and all forms of government employment, more than half of all Americans are now at least partially financially dependent on the government.
#29 Barack Obama has been president for less than four years, and during that time the number of Americans “not in the labor force†has increased by nearly 8.5 million. Something seems really “off†about that number, because during the entire decade of the 1980s the number of Americans “not in the labor force†only rose by about 2.5 million.
#30 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
#31 According to USA Today, many Americans have actually seen their water bills triple over the past 12 years.
#32 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.
#33 Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.
#34 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.
#35 At this point, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States are good jobs.
#36 In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.
#37 Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.
#38 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.
#39 One survey of business executives has ranked California as the worst state in America to do business for 8 years in a row.
#40 In the city of Detroit today, more than 50 percent of all children are living in poverty, and close to 50 percent of all adults are functionally illiterate.
#41 It is being projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18 years of age.
#42 More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2012.
#43 If you can believe it, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor’s degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed last year.
#44 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs. 60 percentof the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
#45 Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was $295.5 billion. That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the planet.
#46 The United States has lost an average of approximately 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
#47 According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.
#48 The U.S. tax code is now more than 3.8 million words long. If you took all of William Shakespeare’s works and collected them together, the entire collection would only be about 900,000 words long.
#49 According to the IMF, the global elite are holding a total of 18 trillion dollars in offshore banking havens such as the Cayman Islands.
#50 The value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.
#51 2012 was the third year in a row that the yield for corn has declined in the United States.
#52 Experts are telling us that global food reserves have reached their lowest level in almost 40 years.
#53 One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.
#54 If you can believe it, one recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.
#55 Medical costs related to obesity in the United States are estimated to be approximately$147 billion a year.
#56 Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high. Meanwhile, wages as a percentage of GDP are near an all-time low.
#57 Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.
#58 The wealthiest 400 families in the United States have about as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of all Americans combined.
#59 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to thebottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.
#60 At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
#61 Nearly 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.
#62 In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year. Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.
#63 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.
#64 Nearly 15,000 retired federal workers are collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually. The list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.
#65 U.S. taxpayers spend more than 20 times as much on the Obamas as British taxpayers spend on the royal family.
#66 Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.
#67 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.
#68 During fiscal year 2012, 62 percent of the federal budget was spent on entitlements.
#69 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#70 It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.
#71 Medicare is also growing by leaps and bounds. As I wrote about recently, it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.
#72 Thanks to our foolish politicians (including Obama), Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years. That comes to approximately $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.
#73 Amazingly, the U.S. national debt is now up to 16.3 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.
#74 During the first four years of the Obama administration, the U.S. government accumulated about as much debt as it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that George W. Bush took office.
#75 Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was originally created back in 1913.
Please share this article with as many people as you can. Time is running out, and we need to wake up as many people as possible.
Give me the strength to change things needing change and the wisdom to recognize the things I can’t.
Most people are just going to ride out whatever life deals us the best we can and most do not have the funding required to even buy enough weapons for self protection in the situation you describe.
Since I am one of the people on Medicare,,never having used it,as many that are on Medicare don’t use it,makes those statistics a little less ominous and since live off SSI my “emergency” bank account is non-existent. If the economy bellies up I will have no choice but to move to a lake where food and water is available and I can grow cannabis for trade/barter,,,that is my basic/total survival plan.
No one has apparently considered that there was a change of the types and caliber of guns used by the fed gov agencies and, therefore, they needed to buy all new caliber ammo for those guns. Just one possible explanation (and I’m not one who EVER gives gov any credit nor the benefit of the doubt, but it DOES make sense).
Windy, the calibers purchased for range from .357 (hardly new) to .223 to .50 cal. this purchase covered virtually all pistol calibers, heavy on the 9mm and .40 S&W (.40 S&W has been the standard for L.E. for over ten years).
Well, I meant new in the sense it wasn’t a caliber they’d been using all along, 9mm was what most carried before, .40 is the one to which they went, according to someone who works for gov with whom the hubby was conversing. Perhaps the purchases of the others weren’t known to that person.
A local libertarian friend of mine, who is also a fb friend, was just bitching, today on fb, about how the shelves are empty of .223 ammo at all the local stores which carry usually it.
“”I think he’s right on that, and it gives four years to really develop a good campaign. Still, I’m hopeful that there will also be faster movement on other fronts, since the momentum seems to be there.””
I expect several state legislatures in states where ballot initiatives are available to put bills through in an attempt to insure that the politicians can control any legalization regulations instead of the politicians “working” around a voters initiative regulations.
Control freaks won’t like waiting and possibly missing out on any extra dollars of revenue.
Oregon won’t be waiting for 4 years. I think the Oregon legislature will put forward a legalization bill in the upcoming session, probably led by Rep Peter Buckley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Hi0ZChY6U
And Buckley is hardly alone, my local Rep, Floyd Prozanski has for years (since the Conde days) been on our side. As Buckley states in the video, Oregon is in crisis over finances – as in we’re running out. Here in Eugene the County jail is releasing all but the most violent offenders because there aren’t enough funds to run the jail at anywhere close to capacity. Our schools have one of the highest teacher-to-student ratios in the country…
No, their problem is that their platform is based entirely on bald-faced lies, half truths, and hysterical rhetoric (to borrow a phrase from Duncan). Their other problem is that we’re now living in the information age so that kind of crap doesn’t fly like it used to. And I think it’s hilarious to see the prohibitionists blame their losses on a lack of money to get their message out. How many billions has the government spent on propaganda in its decades-long effort to demonize cannabis? What’s the monetary value of all the in-kind contributions to that effort that have been provided by a complicit media?
The Prohibs are facing the same future as the other “dynosaurs.” Extinction. Lends a nice additional odor to the air, don’t ya think? Their moneypipe has dwendled down to a trickle and no one will listen to them any longer. LEO Prohibs have turned into the new “preppers.” Bullets and guns are all they know. They’ve proven they’re clueless when it comes down to actual law, itself.
I’m waiting for them to slap the “tarbaby.”
Wait four more years to end the atrocity? Life is too short. Legalize it YESTERDAY.
Add an Amen! to that…
But it is what it is and here we all are.
We’ve done severe damage to the drug war machine. I haven’t gone to the 1st link Clay provided but it is important to note that 2013 will b the 50th anniversary of the march on WDC… and I noticed Clay’s headline, as US Government Gears up for Potential Civil Unrest in August…
If folks aren’t talking about a march this summer yet, ain’t no time like now. As MLK liked to point out, now is always the best time to do what’s right. And what is right is ending the racist, anti-American war-on-drugs-and-the-people-that-consume-them.
I’m pretty sure if there is a positive result in ASA v. DEA, all the states listed won’t bother waiting. My home state of MA has had a bill sitting in study waiting for the federal laws to change. We have also passed multiple non-binding (sigh) initiatives in favor of legalization, in both 2012 and 2010, IIRC.
The real test will be on the federal level. If they can’t withstand the resistance of two states, odds are the whole stack of cards is going to come down reasonably fast as other states use that momentum to pass their own bills via legislature. Multiple states are bringing up bills in the coming session, and if WA’s and CO’s bills are still standing… well, they’re going to get some reinforcements. Perhaps even global ones. Turns out that when you unmask the charade you can’t just put the same mask on and be as effective as before.
As far as lobbying goes, I am pretty sure there is a growing war chest for legalization, filled by various upstarts and established companies just waiting for the full-fledged Green Rush to begin. I know here in MA there are small businesses waiting to compete (that is, fight tooth and nail) for the relatively small number of dispensary licenses. And there is already talk of how it has the potential to become a worthwhile industry in the region.
just a thought NT… what would Nevada’s economy be w/o gambling? Here in oregon the tourism industry employees some 100,000 workers and those tourists spend almost $9 billion annually. The cannabis cafes in the Netherlands bring in $2.5 billion annually (w/ the Dutch gov’t brining in $500 million in tax revenue) and account for an estimated 1,000,000 visitors (who require hotels, meals…)
Nevada would probably suffer. Imagine if gambling was totally illegal there and they had to prosecute people who would, if not for the laws, follow regulations and pay taxes.
Funny how black markets work. Proper regulation and pricing can make the underground markets untenable for so many other desired things…
If I was younger and had capitol I would bypass the lure of big money in marijuana and go for a hydroponic supply specializing in the cabinet/closet growers line,,especially if the feds keep the production restricted to indoor grows.
Here’s an interesting and rather surprising turn of events:
Oh no! The government may have to declare martian law!!
Imagine that. people in high contact sports preferring a drug known to relieve the various aches and pains related to those sports… along with the pleasant side effects.
Nice job on their part for being open about it. test for peds, but leave pot out… all it ever enhanced for me was creativity and the taste of ice cream.
Yep, it enhances creativity for me as well as a deeper understanding of topics I examine (or read about or watch) while high. It also increases the level of pleasure I experience from pleasurable things: a hot shower, a beautiful flower, or tree, or bird, or sunrise/set; the clear night sky, the warmth of the sun, cuddling my dogs, making love with my husband, eating a tasty food, etc., etc., etc.!
‘Martians’, huh? (Muttering) Damned illegal aliens! (Shouting) Somebody call ICE!
“there’d be a fucking shit-storm”
The interesting part starts at 17:50
Totally off topic but worth being reminded of the opinion of Carl Sagan on the use of medical cannabis and the irrationality of prohibition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JVOHgCFd-Q
“California State Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has announced his support for legalization of marijuana in California…”
http://www.onenewsnow.com/culture/2012/12/28/gavin-newsom-joins-pro-pot-bandwagon
Could this be a trial balloon from Jerry Brown? I think he’d love the tax money.
CA has a knot tied in it’s tail,,bypassing the chance to be the first state to legalize and the ensuing flood of federal enforcement has even the dispensary owners and growers wishing they had kept their mouths shut and let recreational marijuana take the heat off of the mmj industry.
It is also pretty amazing that only 4 of the over 70 dispensaries busted are demanding a jury trial,,,if I was compliant with state laws I would have a jury trial in a state where the jury panel is going to be made up of voters that legalized my activity.
CMON guys CMON
no no no – totally unacceptable. TOTALLY.
4 years? no way jose.
4 years from now I’ll be 31. 31 years old and weed possibly being legal in 14-16 whatever it is states.
That speed is way too slow for me as many of you know I’m happy for weed smokers that love weed and can smoke it legally but I’m unhappy for my own fortunes because I love heroin.
So 4 years from now, some more. 4 years after that, we’re getting to the half way mark.
I cannot accept this because by the time I’m 60 years old I think we MAY just MAY BEGIN having talks about an insite, forget HAT or anything else.
Besides, there is no way in hell I’ll be alive at 60 when I’m in my later-ish 20s (I guess 27 is late 20s right?) and prohibition has already done a number on me – I think I may have some H.I.V, definitely have Hep C, I’ve got unaddressed medical issues stemming from injecting myself with potentially dirty, very dull, blackened overused needles that were more like swiss knives. Dude there is no way I will be 60 years old. Not if the next 33 years has prohibition moving at even close to it’s moderate speed.
That sucks but its reality and I’m not complaining about THAT, infact, IDK if I’m complaining let me put it to you like this, if you don’t mind – it’s like about a year and a half ago some little time after my last arrest, that’s about when I found the online reform movement. I devoured everything I could. CATO research, this site, other sites, historical texts, books, “outskirt publisher” type books, speeches, bla bla bla bla bla ok? Now I’m telling you coming into election day I’d completely forgot about the pot ballots – no, not on account of not enjoying weed for myself or opinions like that, more so because I genuinely did not believe there was a chance in hell it would work out. Seriously and honestly – all pot prejudice I’ve got aside – it was really a matter of thinking this movement, the reform movement, was still too fringe and really maybe just approaching POSSIBLE mainstream visability or extended visability.
But I’ve never been afraid to admit when I’m wrong and I was totally wrong man, completely. But the point is, really, just a few months ago I thought there was no chance in Hell that those states would legalize. I thought so not because of dislike of pot but of my assesment of the situation. My prediction was definitely wrong and it’s like, now that I see this, I’ve come to think that this movement – the reform movement is bigger and stronger than I knew. I don’t think 4 years need to go by for another dozen states to legalize. Not at all.
I think within a decade radical change will happen in drug policy. That’s what I think. Beyond weed, of course but definitely weed will be first, I’m not gonna kid myself about that. I think in 4 years drug policy debate, drug policy policy, will be in a far different place than just being brought to ballot for a dozen or so more states. I think we’ll be well into some other important aspect of reform with pot in the rearview mirror, victorious.
and I definitely can manage a decade. I’m pretty sure man. I mean, you never know when a stamp may be a hot shot but that aside, I can prob. stick around a decade.
happy new year.
CJ…. “Besides, there is no way in hell I’ll be alive at 60 when I’m in my later-ish 20s”…
there’s still time for you. I didn’t get into recovery from heroin addiction until i was 37, and I am now, yes, a 60 year old recovering addict. Regardless of what the government does or doesn’t do in the coming decades, I know from experience that the heroin lovers lifestyle is not sustainable, and too many of my friends are gone too soon. I genuinely hope you find your own solution, but the government has no role in that apart from making an early death more likely. Good luck to you.
What is the “event” in August that Homeland expects will realize the need for all requested firepower? Anyone know the significence of the August mention? Ideas?
my guess… 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington
Sturgis
Damn, Clay. I wasn’t reading far enough ahead and lost one. 😉
My hubby is going to ride his Harley to Sturgis this year with 3 friends, he’ll be 70 and they will be gone about 9 days (but only plan to be in Sturgis for one or two days, they plan to visit all the other sights around the area while there. They already have reserved rooms in their planned overnight stops along the way (round trip), and while there.
I really hope that event goes off with no unpleasant surprises, I definitely would hate to lose my hubby when he is so far from home. It would be hard enough to lose him here where I could be at his side, we’ve been married for 50 years, he truly is a vital part of my heart and life.
Actually,,Aug 2nd is when the retirement funds for government workers starts drawing on the principal because the government won’t be paying the interest,,meaning retirement funds will be on a steadily declining rate until it’s broke,,government employees includes DEA,ATF,FBI,and every other letter gang you can think of,,not sure if it effects pensions for legislators,,but that is a lot of people to steal retirement benefits from..armed and dangerous people.
I won’t venture a guess. Whatever they have planned sounds ugly.
Whom do we know that could convince insurance companies of the savings in health costs just by legalizing marijuana?
The savings in prescription drugs is obvious but when you add cancer blocking and hash oil cancer cures the savings to health insurance companies would be staggering.
Noam Chomsky delivers a mind searing indictment of the American education system and the political economy, while pausing briefly to describe the role of the drug war in the overall scheme of things:
I admire Pete for his pragmatism on this issue but I think he’s being a little to polite to Kampia. Pete has to deal with these folks from time to time but I don’t.
If you’re too lazy to vote in the mid-term elections to support cannabis legalization, fuck you!
Hell,Tx has a decrim bill and it has me giddy while pokeing at them about why not legalize and keep those millions of dollars in Texas instead of sending it to support Mexico’s economy.
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That’s an exogenous influence NorCalNative. You have to be willing to fuck yourself if you’re going to tell the “Too lazy to vote in the mid-term elections to support cannabis [re-]legalization” to fuck themselves because you’re doing so just isn’t going to change this reality.
Aside from all of that the MPP doesn’t own an exclusive right to promote the reform of cannabis laws. If you think that the question belongs on the 2013 ballot (Maine) or the 2014 ballot then pull the resources together and do it. That’s how Prop 19 (2010) got on the ballot in California. Of course the people you’re railing against held the same opinion of that loser of a ballot initiative too.
It really is amazing to me just how many people think that less than 10% of the voters can dictate reality and make demands on the other 90% without some compromise of political accommodation. Those people just do not share you’re extremist view of right and wrong.