Moms for Marijuana are proud women who are calling for the educated regulation of marijuana. Kudos to them.
Now remember, it’s Moms for Marijuana, not Marijuana for Moms. Don’t show up to dinner tomorrow with an eighth for her, unless she’s expecting it. I recommend lillies — that’s what I gave my mom.
A City Attorney who really knows his stuff. City Attorney John Russo from Oakland has an outstanding OpEd on the legalization of marijuana in California.
He hits a whole range of important points in a very clear way.
The Drug Czar will be talking about the new National Drug Control Strategy (to be officially released Monday) at the National Press Club on Wednesday.
R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, will address a Speakers Press Conference at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 12 in the Fourth Estate Restaurant.
Kerlikowske will speak on the Obama administration’s new national drug control strategy, due to be announced May 10. His remarks will be followed by a moderated question-and-answer session.
I wonder if any of the press will be willing to ask the tough questions, and who will be moderating.
If you don’t buy this drug war, we’ll kill this dog.
Really strange thinking from across the pond. Kathy Gyngell calls for stopping the reliance on evidence and science-based drug policy, and instead using your personal experience and reason to create policy.
Evidence is over-rated, experience and reason underrated. These are the clues to the poisoned chalice of secular, morally unimpeachable thought that the Conservatives must avoid drinking from if they are to make real change.
Of course, the mere notion that drug policy has been based on science and needs to change is absurd. That’s the problem. It hasn’t been evidence-based at all. Yet she wants to throw out what we need to do and instead advocate “for policy makers to draw on the real life, non laboratory, experience of those who have recovered from addiction.”
Yeah, that’ll work.
Drug War Chronicle – weekly update of drug war news and analysis from Stop the Drug War.org.
This is an open thread.
Pete, it would be great if you could get a press pass and ask some questions to follow up on your successful challenge of the drug czar’s use of the NHTSA study. I wonder if the new National Drug Control Strategy will be any different from the leaked version, or does it really matter?
Does the “National Drug Control Strategy” actually affect policy, or is it just some form of bureaucratic masturbation?
Not to put a damper on Mother’s Day however, it’s not happy for all mom’s. Let’s not forget about the Mother’s who will have to hear happy mothers day from their son or daughter who is in prison for a non-violent crime due to the disgusting war on drugs.
the ndcs doesn’t amount to jack shit.
“Question Authority” around the 6:05 mark.
“Pot heads” not “alcoholics”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6AP35eVdrM
Nice link denmark.
Happy Mother’s day to Mother Earth for lovingly crafting cannabis sativa!
If memory serves, the National Drug Control Strategy contains a budget summary (roughly $12,000,000,000 last year, I believe).
Our side of the movement has estimated the cost of drug prohibition to be roughly $150,000,000,000 annually at this point.
I rely heavily on the prohibitionists’ most conservative amount, because it still clearly serves to their discredit, and avoids any ‘drug reformer bias’ accusation.
Our best strategy is to take what the prohibitionists are saying and use it to their discredit.
For example, combine their $12,000,000,000 budget request (they didn’t get that amount, but they got most of it, again if memory serves) with last year’s National Drug Use & Health Survey (‘current’ drug use remained steady at about 8%) and National Drug Threat Assessment (a tiny and temporary dent in illicit drug imports), and you clearly get billions of wasted taxpayer money without pointing to a single report easily dismissed as ‘drug reformer biased’.
Our lead point comes in the form of simply asking prohibitionists to prove the disasters they proclaimed prior to each penalty reduction relevant to illicit drugs, as it is to their benefit to now do so.
There are multiple penalty reductions to work with (at the top of my head, I can think of 30 — some of them going back to the mid-70’s — ample time to prove the proclaimed disaster happened).
When they fail to prove that disaster struck (trying things equivalent to the ridiculous “jobs saved” statistic provided by our current presidential administration), remaining public support for drug prohibition naturally ends, and then we shift to a full lobbying blitz that the then publicly-discredited “incarceration lobby” can no longer counter.
Too many people still believe that drug prohibition is an honest effort to benefit society, and will logically accept the struggles of law enforcement and the corresponding “collateral damage” (e.g. botched drug raids) in this “war”, but they will not continue to support a full-blown ‘We cannot publicly prove our policy works at all.’
A perpetual and national public relations campaign challenging prohibitionists to prove the disasters they have proclaimed (and are still proclaiming to prevent legalization now) is what our movement truly and promptly needs.
Without those disasters, no one can prove the need for drug prohibition.
Feel free to sprinkle in simple-yet-powerful points like, “We don’t even have a drug-free prison system.”
My favorite when it comes to dealing with conservatives is the clear disconnect between the ruling of Gonzales v. Raich and the original Commerce Clause (proving judicial activism at the highest level of our judicial branch), and the fact that drug prohibition is “constitutional” solely due to the abuse of the Commerce Clause (e.g. New Deal) that has led to the bulk of private sector regulation that conservatives heavily oppose.
The decision by the people of this country concerning legalization of the marijuana medicinal plant that has been used by humans for thousands of years is based in choosing between two opinions. The first one, articulated by the “father” of marijuana prohibition in the 1930-s and the second one by Dr Greenspoon, one of the leading contemporary experts in this country. These are the the direct quotes from the prohibitionist Harry Anslinger pushing the “Marijuana Tax Act” of 1937: “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.†“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.†“Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.†“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.†“Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing†“You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.†“Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.†And this is what Dr. Greenspoon said in 2006 about Cannabis Sativa medicinal Plant: “Cannabis will one day be seen as a wonder drug, as was penicillin in the 1940s. Like penicillin, herbal marijuana is remarkably nontoxic, has a wide range of therapeutic applications and would be quite inexpensive if it were legal”. Dr. Lester Grinspoon, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Los Angeles Times, May 5, 2006 ” These are two opinions the citizens around the country will be asked to compare and to choose from. I do not believe that the choice is an exceedingly difficult one. What I believe is that the fear-tactics must be rejected once and for all, and at least MEDICAL marijuana should be legalized in all 50 States ASAP.