Medicinal Marijuana - Is Bush a moron for opposing it?

Hillary's a great actor/actress and that's about as much as you'll see from her or any other pol running for president on this issue. it's far to contraversial at this point in time. it will go state by state on reform until you get enough states to back it for 'medicinal' use.
there's a lot of revenue in it for the feds to keep it illegal until there's a majority and that could take another 20 yrs or so unfortunately.

Provincetown, along with a few other towns here want to change things and just write you a ticket with a $50 fine for posession as it would save the town money wasted on police overtime in court, paper work etc. in new england i think we have maine, vermont and the state of rhode island leading the pack where you can grow so many plants so that's 3 out of 5 but i'm not sure about new hampshire. i would not be surprised at all to see our new governor back some kind of change in policy at some point in time.

medical marijuana should not be controversial, at all.

it is quite simply, much safer than many or most of the painkillers that are given to some patients that absolutely need such things, period. this is an issue of human decency vs. greed, propaganda, and resulting misunderstanding, but nothing else.

there are cancer patients that would suffer much less if they were given marijuana, instead they are given heavier, more dangerous narcotics, that over time might not be as effective. marijuana is special. i've met some of these patients, stood outside with them to campaign for legalization, we are hurting them a great deal with our politics. some of them go ahead and use it anyway. some of them get permission to as well.

personally, i believe all use is medical. but with regards to patients with regular pain, it's very black and white. fortunately for most people, most people just don't understand the issue here.

that of course, doesn't do these people that deserve our mercy any good at all. so i hope they will all be able to leave this retarded nation we live in, and go somewhere where politics takes a back seat to humanity. oh, politicians get their grubby, disgusting little webbed paws into every nation, but regardless, there are at least countries where someone dying of cancer can do so in peace, while being more conscious, relatively sane, and above all happier and better functioning than they would be on the things we put them on instead that create larger profits.

it's a corporate world. natural remedies are verboten. pity that, because humanity itself is a natural remedy.

Forget the Medical aspect of it - I enjoy using Marijuana as a recreational drug. I don't see what's wrong with that at all. I can honestly say that my life has been better since I switched to primarily using marijuana instead of alcohol. I feel better, my doc says I'm in good health and it is certainly cheaper.

Cycloptichorn

I had you pegged as a pothead.

Well, as I've never hidden my usage of it - and you and I discussed it probably two years ago - you are correct, but no bonus points for you.

Cycloptichorn

Same here. There was a time where I did more drinking alcohol than I should have and I couldn't function nearly as well as I do now that I can no longer drink alcohol.
I've been smoking grass since I was 13 and it doesn't interfere in my life one single bit. It doesn't make me lazy, like some would say it does.
It doesn't make me do stupid **** and bottom line, I'm not hurting anyone and it truly sucks knowing that every time I light up, I'm breaking the law.
It's a stupid law!
I can see issues with even alcohol, but not with marijuana! I've seen people hurt others when they drank alcohol, but I've yet to see anyone hurt someone after smoking a joint.

Stupid, stupid law!!!!

I wont call him a moron, but I will say he is wrong for opposing it.

light up daily....

I live in a relatively poor county that spends a fortune in busting people growing, possessing, and dealing in pot. The county even uses planes to spot marijuana fields. The county is so poor that it can't afford to replace its decrepit jail, which is a disgrace.

When I asked the sheriff whether his department's priorities are askew, he said he is forced to spend a lot on pot because of the drug laws on the books. This, of course, is nonsense.

Some governments like to push their weight around and if you ask me, it's just one big power trip.
They throw our hard earned taxes on whatever they damn well feel like it and we can't do a damn thing about it.

I keep reading that the government works for us, the people who actually pay their wages, yet I still haven't lived long enough to see that and am not holding my breath.

The people no longer have a say in anything. People are being thrown in jail for drugs, yet the government can kill as many innocent people as they want as long as they word everything correctly. Instead of calling it a terrorist attack, they call it a necessary war meant to protect our freedom.

The government doesn't work for us.

Re: Facts


If nothing else, he does appear to be shallow and egocentric. That's scary enough, but his term is over in a year or so. The electorate that voted for him the first time voted for him again despite his record. That's really scary. Are we so weak-willed that we can easily be manipulated with a few equivocations, catch phrases, and dirty campaign and scare tactics.

Yes, we are.

Marijuana gives rise to insanity-not in its users but in the policies directed against it. A nation that sentences the possessor of a single joint to life imprisonment without parole but sets a murderer free after perhaps six years is, the author writes, "in the grip of a deep psychosis

The war on drugs, launched by President Ronald Reagan in 1982, began as an assault on marijuana. Its effects are now felt throughout America's criminal-justice system. In 1980 there were almost twice as many violent offenders in federal prison as drug offenders. Today there are far more people in federal prison for marijuana crimes than for violent crimes. More people are now incarcerated in the nation's prisons for marijuana than for manslaughter or rape

The vehemence of marijuana's opponents and the harsh punishments routinely administered to marijuana offenders cannot be explained by a simple concern for public health. Paraplegics, cancer patients, epileptics, people with AIDS, and people suffering from multiple sclerosis have in recent years been imprisoned for using marijuana as medicine. The attack on marijuana, since its origins early in this century, has in reality been a cultural war-a moral crusade in defense of traditional American values. The laws used to fight marijuana are now causing far more harm to those values than the drug itself

The long prison sentences now given to marijuana offenders have turned marijuana-a hardy weed that grows wild in all fifty states-into a precious commodity. Some marijuana is currently worth more per ounce than gold

http://www.larryelder.com/drugs/reefermadness.htm

They obviously don't care if their insane war on drugs is not working. The governments that were created to service the people who pay for it, have turned into a bunch of money hungry, war mongering brats who do whatever they want, regardless of what the majority want, just because they can.

There's nothing that makes me cringe more than a politician and for some reason, every time they see me, they want to shake my hand

The most ironic thing to me is that I had to flee the US because they (Social Services) threatened to take my son away if I continued to refuse to drug him with Ritalin!

It just blows my mind!

Today's poll in the Cape od Times was,

"About a dozen states have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana- but not Massachusetts. Should Massachusetts legalize it?". After I voted it showed that the results were 70.1 percent for it and 2.9 percent against. That tells the story bigtime.....unfortunately it won't let me vote again so help me out here and vote.

www.capecodtimes.com

What would you buy if you had an extra $42 billion to spend every year? What might our government buy if it suddenly had that much money dropped onto its lap every year?
For one thing, it might pay for the entire $7 billion annual increase in the State Children's Health Insurance Program that President Bush is threatening to veto because of its cost -- and there'd still be $35 billion left over.
Or perhaps you'd hire 880,000 schoolteachers at the average U.S. teacher salary of $47,602 per year.
Or give every one of our current teachers a 30 percent raise (at a cost of $15 billion, according to the American Federation of Teachers) and use what's left to take a $27 billion whack out of the federal deficit.
Or use all $42 billion for a massive tax cut that would put an extra $140 in the pockets of every person in the country -- $560 for a family of four.
The mind reels at the ways such a massive sum of money could be put to use.
Why $42 billion? Because that's what our current marijuana laws cost American taxpayers each year, according to a new study by researcher Jon Gettman, Ph.D. -- $10.7 billion in direct law enforcement costs, and $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. And that may be an underestimate, at least on the law enforcement side, since Gettman made his calculations before the FBI released its latest arrest statistics in late September. The new FBI stats show an all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006, 43,000 more than in 2005.
That's like arresting every man, woman and child in the state of North Dakota plus every man, woman, and child in Des Moines, Iowa on marijuana charges ... every year. Arrests for marijuana possession -- not sales or trafficking, just possession -- totaled 738,916. By comparison, there were 611,523 arrests last year for all violent crimes combined.
Basing his calculations mainly on U.S. government statistics, Gettman concludes that marijuana in the U.S. is a $113 billion dollar business. That's a huge chunk of economic activity that is unregulated and untaxed because it's almost entirely off the books.
Of course, the cost of our marijuana laws goes far beyond lost tax revenues and money spent on law enforcement. By consigning a very popular product -- one that's been used by about 100 million Americans, according to government surveys -- to the criminal underground, we've effectively cut legitimate businesspeople out of the market and handed a monopoly to criminals and gangs.
Strangely, government officials love to warn us that some unsavory characters profit off of marijuana sales, while ignoring the obvious: Our prohibitionist laws handed them the marijuana business in the first place, effectively giving marijuana dealers a $113 billion free ride.
All this might make some sense if marijuana were so terribly dangerous that it needed to be banned at all costs, but science long ago came to precisely the opposite conclusion. Compared to alcohol, for example, marijuana is astonishingly safe. For one thing, marijuana is much less addictive than alcohol, with just nine percent of users becoming dependent, as opposed to 15 percent for booze. And marijuana is much less toxic. Heavy drinking is well-documented to damage the brain and liver, and to increase the risk of many types of cancer. Marijuana, on the other hand, has never caused a medically documented overdose death, and scientists are still debating whether even heavy marijuana use causes any permanent harm at all. And then there's violence. Again, the scientific findings are overwhelming: Booze incites violence and aggression; marijuana doesn't.
Despite all that, we now arrest one American every 38 seconds on marijuana charges. And we do so at a staggering cost in law enforcement expenses, lost tax revenues, and staggering profits for criminal gangs.
The alternative is clear: Regulate marijuana just as we do beer, wine, and liquor. The only thing lacking is the political will.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Drug_War/War_On_Pot.html

Activists look to decriminalize pot

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 27, 2007

BOSTON - Activists pushing a ballot question to decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of marijuana say it will save the state millions of dollars in law enforcement costs and spare thousands of state residents from arrest.

Instead of facing a criminal record, those caught with a small amount of marijuana for personal use would instead pay a civil fine of $100 - much like a traffic ticket.

Backers say they've already collected 105,000 signatures, far more than the 67,000 required to get the question on the 2008 ballot. Those signatures have to be delivered to the secretary of state's office next week.

They said the tide of public opinion is on their side. They point to more than two dozen nonbinding referendum questions placed on local ballots in Massachusetts in the past six years. In each, a majority of voters supported the idea of decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana.

About a dozen states have already adopted similar laws.

"The public is definitely in favor of this," said Whitney Taylor of the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy. "The science and the voters are ahead of the politicians."

Surprisingly, some of the toughest criticism of the proposed ballot question is coming from other activist groups also pushing for the decriminalization of marijuana.

They point to a portion of the proposed ballot question that would define possession of marijuana to include finding traces of the drug "in the urine, blood, saliva, sweat, hair, fingernails, toe nails or other tissue or fluid of the human body."

"It uses the drug laws to identify marijuana smokers not who are impaired, but who might have smoked in the past six weeks or so," Keith Stroup, founder of NORML, a national nonprofit group advocating for the easing of marijuana laws.

"If it makes it to the ballot, a lot of people who would be strong supporters of decriminalizing marijuana may not be able to support this fatally flawed language," said Stroup, who was arrested for smoking a marijuana cigarette at a rally on Boston Common.

Longtime marijuana activist Steven Epstein, of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition, said the group hasn't decided if they will support the question.

He said under the question, a person who smoked marijuana in a location where it is legal could be fined weeks later after returning to Massachusetts.

He pointed to another potential glitch in the ballot question, which equates an ounce of marijuana with an ounce of tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient of the marijuana - essentially a much more concentrated version of the drug.

"It won't kill anybody and should probably be legal too, but will the voters of Massachusetts support it?" said Epstein, who said he hasn't decided whether he will vote in favor of the question if it reaches the ballot.

Other critics say they oppose decriminalizing any amount of marijuana, saying it could send a signal to children that smoking pot is no big deal.

Michael Mather, a retired police officer and head of the anti-drug education group DARE-Massachusetts, says easing the marijuana laws is a bad idea. "It's not the right thing to do to our youth. Our youth needs to be strong and not have these drugs inside of them," he said.

He also said marijuana could act as a so-called "gateway drug" to other, more harmful drugs.

"I'm not saying that everyone who smokes pot will do heroin, but almost everyone who does heroin didn't start out with heroin," he said.

Marijuana activists dismiss the gateway argument.

"It's like saying every one who rides a bicycle goes on to ride a motorcycle," Taylor said.

The ballot question isn't the only effort underway to ease the state's drug laws.

A bill working its way through the Statehouse would also decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of the drug, but set a higher fine of $250.

The bill has already received a public hearing, but won't come up for debate and a possible vote until next year.

Asked if he would support the bill, Gov. Deval Patrick said Monday he was focused on other priorities.

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On the Net:

Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy: http://www.sensiblemarijuanapolicy.org

NORML: http://norml.org/

link to article: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071127/NEWS11/71127001

Bush is moron. Period.

What do we call those who continue to support this moron?

Moronists?