press release

By. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

On Tuesday, California state legislators will take historic votes on legalizing, regulating and taxing the sale of marijuana. A group of cops and judges who previously sent people to jail for marijuana offenses is supporting the legalization bill.

Sacramento, CA -- A group of police officers, judges and prosecutors who fought in the failed "war on drugs" is cheering this Tuesday's upcoming marijuana legalization votes in the California Assembly's Public Safety and Health committees as a sign of increasing public frustration with the harms caused by prohibition and the widespread desire for a new approach.

Judge Jim Gray, who retired last year from the California Superior Court in Orange County and is a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) said, "The mere fact that there will be votes in the Assembly to regulate and control the sale and distribution of marijuana would have been unthinkable even one year ago. And if the bill doesn't pass this year, it will soon. Or, the bill will be irrelevant because the voters will have passed the measure to regulate and tax marijuana that will be on the ballot this November."

Groups opposing the bill claim it is more harmful then helpful

By. Britt Carlsen

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - For the first time in Canadian history, if passed, Bill C-15 proposes to apply a mandatory minimum sentence for a wide range of drug offences, even growing a single marijuana plant. Jacob Hunter of Beyond Prohibition Foundation believes that this will cause more harm than good. Hunter says we'll see more violent drug markets fueled by higher profit and characterized by a greater participation of organized crime if the bill is passed.  He added that more hardened criminals will use the mandatory minimums to justify large scale grow operations.

So what is Hunter's group proposing? He says his groups aim is a regulated, taxed and legal marketplace for cannabis. Hunter believes that prohibition is causing more dangerous effects to our society than marijuana ever could and he's not the only one. When asked about what he thought of the proposed Bill C-15 Vancouver's so-called Prince of Pot, Mark Emery, said anything that puts people in jail for drugs is going to fill prisons.

Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson claimed in the National Post Thursday that his Conservative government's mandatory minimum sentencing bills would make Canada safer. The same day the most comprehensive analysis of United States sentencing and arrest rates for drugs, which are among the highest in the world, was released. Its conclusion: that these harsh sentences have failed to decrease drug use or associated crime; often they have increased it.

“It's absolutely clear from international evidence that harsh laws do not decrease drug use or associated crime” said Jacob Hunter, Beyond Prohibition Foundation Policy Director,  “The Minister of Justice has either consulted no evidence or he is intentionally misleading Canadians”