legalization

The Vienna Declaration - Sign Today! Tell your friends!

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 07/05/2010 - 2:12pm
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The criminalisation of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in
overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences. A full policy reorientation is needed.

 
In response to the health and social harms of illegal drugs, a large international drug prohibition regime has been developed under the umbrella of the United Nations.1 Decades of research provide a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the global “War on Drugs” and, as thousands of individuals gather in Vienna at the XVIII International AIDS Conference, the international scientific community calls for an acknowledgement of the limits and harms of drug prohibition, and for drug policy reform to remove barriers to effective HIV prevention, treatment and care.

Get Involved! Help Defeat Prohibition

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 01/01/2009 - 1:00am
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We need to get a lot of work done to legalize marijuana, here's some ways to help!
 
Get active helping build activism in Canada!
 
May 7, 2011 is the Global Marijuana March, and of course there is always 4/20 (April 20) and Cannabis Day, July 1. We need organizers working across Canada on these and other events.
 
Send that link out over Facebook and Twitter, encourage your friends to sign up! WhyProhibition.ca will is the basis for a number of important campaigns, including a new BC referendum to legalize Marijuana. We need people to register so they can find out about upcoming protests, rallies, and laws.
 
We need bloggers, researchers, newshawks, and activists to get posting! You can use the userblogs section to post blogs, news, upload files (especially pamphlets, we're looking to host as many drug policy pamphlets as we can find!)
 
One of the most important things you can do is get involved in your local community. Join other activist groups, volunteer at soup kitchens, march in local parades. When we get involved, not only do we reach out to potential allies, but we also represent the best of our community to people who may be unfamiliar with it. If you're unsure about a group, attend some meetings and see if they're amenable to drug policy reform.
 

Marijuana legalization initiative a statistical dead heat in recent polls

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 07/29/2010 - 12:02pm
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by Greg Lucas, Caivn.org
 
The wild card in November’s election is marijuana. It just depends on who decides to vote. The kind of voters drawn to the polls by Proposition 19, which legalizes marijuana and allows localities to tax and regulate it, may be a determining factor.
 
Asked at the state Democratic Party convention in April how Democrats can re-energize President Obama voters from 2008, Party Chair John Burton replied: “Pot.” Without arguing the merits of legalization, Burton said the ballot measure “will turn out people.”
 
The already high-profile proposition would allow cities and counties to adopt ordinances that license and regulate the “cultivation, processing, distribution, transportation and sale” of marijuana. Some estimates say taxing retail sales, which are limited to one ounce to persons 21 years of age or older, could raise as much as $1.4 billion annually.

Two US polls show marijuana legalization support growing higher and higher

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 07/26/2010 - 2:45pm
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By Ron Brynaert, RawStory
 
"Every man got to legalize it, and don't criticize it," Reggae legend Peter Tosh sang in 1976.
 
While US support for marijuana legalization may never hit the "every man" level -- at least not publicly, that is -- two recent national polls definitely show that it is growing higher and higher.
 
"Americans are evenly divided over whether marijuana should be legalized in the United States, but most expect it to happen within the next decade," a Rasmussen Reports press release states.
 
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Adults nationally shows 43% believe marijuana should be legalized. But 42% think it should remain an illegal drug. Another 15% are not sure.

Sex toys retailer pumps $100,000 into California marijuana push

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 07/26/2010 - 2:37pm
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by Peter Hecht, Sacbee
 
A new campaign committee supporting California's initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use is being backed by a wealthy entrepreneur in other forms of recreation - sex toys and porn.
 
Philip D. Harvey has donated $100,000 to the Drug Policy Action Committee to Tax and Regulate Marijuana. The committee is backing Proposition 19, the November ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for adults over 21, allow small residential cultivation and permit local governments to tax and regulate pot sales.
 
Harvey, so far the only listed donor to the committee, is president of Adam & Eve, a North Carolina mail order and retail firm that has been billed as America's largest provider of sexual products and adult films.

If gambling is good, why not legalize, tax and regulate pot?

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 07/23/2010 - 11:45am
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By Christopher Foulds - Kamloops This Week
 
I spoke to Kevin Krueger this week to ask him to explain the difference between his party’s voracious criticism of gambling expansion (in particular online wagering) while in opposition and the fact it is salivating as it expands gambling like no other government in North America.
 
During the conversation, the Kamloops-South Thompson MLA and tourism minister compared government involvement in cyber-casinos to the failed prohibition experience of eight decades ago.
 
“There’s no going back,” he said of government’s foray into gambling. “It’s like alcohol. Prohibition ended up benefitting organized crime and government changed its mind.”
 
Based on that view, I asked, why, then, shouldn’t marijuana — or any other illegal drug, for that matter — be legalized? It’s a fact prohibition benefits criminals and, the stricter the prohibition, the more money flows into the pockets of the underworld.

Experts turn against war on drugs

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Fri, 07/23/2010 - 10:42am
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By Ian Dunt
 
Advocates of drug law reform had reason to celebrate today after public statements by senior figures in the medical and legal community suggested the argument was turning in their favour.
 
The chair of the Bar Council argued in his most recent report that decriminalising drug use would have substantial public benefits, while the editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the UK's most well-respected medical publication, came out publicly in support of drug law reform.
 
The twin developments come at an exciting time for those calling for a more liberal drug policy. Both deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and prime minister David Cameron are on record questioning the effectiveness of Britain's drug laws. Activists hope reform might be in the pipeline.
 
In his most recent report the chair of the Bar Council, Nicholas Green QC, argued that decriminalising drugs did not lead to greater use and would have the effect of cutting crime.

Prop 19 Would Fix Police Priorities, Make Money, Protect Public

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 4:57pm
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By. Steve Elliot, Toke of the Town
 
Proposition 19, the California ballot measure to legalize, regulate and tax cannabis, would enable the state to steer police resources toward more pressing matters, generate hundreds of millions in revenue to fund vital services, and protect children, roadways, and workplaces, according to a new nonpartisan report.
 
The report (PDF) confirms that Prop 19 will enable state and local governments to tax marijuana and generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
 
According to the report, "Proposition 19 allows local governments to authorize, regulate, and tax various commercial marijuana-related activities... We estimate that the state and local governments could eventually collect hundreds of millions of dollars annual in additional revenues.
 
The California Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), which provides nonpartisan fiscal and policy advice, released the report Tuesday.
 
Proposition 109 would enable California to sensibly adjust police priorities, according to the report.

Abandoning moralistic war on drugs becomes centrepiece of AIDS meeting

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 4:43pm
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By. André Picard, Globe and Mail
 
A Canadian-led initiative that calls on governments to abandon the moralistic war on drugs and adopt evidence-based drug policies has become a centrepiece of the International AIDS Conference.
 
The Vienna Declaration – a scientific statement that argues the criminalization of drug use is fuelling the HIV/AIDS epidemic – has garnered a vast array of supporters, including Nobel Prize winners, political leaders, law-enforcement officials, public-health officials and community groups.
 
“There's a horrible discordance between evidence and policy in this realm so we felt a need to speak out,” said Evan Wood, founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, co-chair of the committee that drafted the document and a professor at the University of British Columbia.

DARE Attacks Marijuana Legalization While Praising Alcohol

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Wed, 07/21/2010 - 2:21pm
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by Scott Morgan
 
Skip Miller is the chairman of DARE America and, as you might guess, he's terrified of what could happen if marijuana becomes legal:
 
Do we really want to make it easier to get stoned?
 
Cut through the smoke and that's really what California voters will be deciding in November with Proposition 19, which would make this the only state to fully legalize marijuana — a drug with proven negative health consequences.
…
The concern with marijuana is not based on my personal disapproval or bias but upon what science tells us about the drug's effects. The science is clear: Marijuana is associated with physical and mental illness, poor motor performance and cognitive impairment. [San Jose Mercury News]
 
So according to Skip Miller, science compels us to keep marijuana illegal. Yet, as SAFER points out, his website takes a very different tone when it comes to alcohol:
 
Take a minute and think how often adults drink alcohol: a cold beer at a baseball game, a glass of Chardonnay with a piece of broiled fish, a gin and tonic on a warm day. Social drinking is an acceptable and pleasurable activity for millions of Americans. It relaxes you, curbs stress, and chases away inhibitions… [DARE.org]
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