Archive for July, 2010
Yes on Prop 19 Winning 52%-36%; Majority Supports Legalizing Marijuana
July 27th, 2010
Dakta Bourbon
Proposition 19, which would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana for adults over 21 years old, is currently winning by a wide margin among California voters according to a new PPP poll. The measure is supported by 52% of voters while opposed by only 36%.
- Prop 19 PPP
- Support 52%
- Oppose 36%
This is the largest margin of support we have seen from recent polling on Prop 19. Interestingly, the poll found support among African Americans to be extremely high. From PPP blog:
Democrats are more likely to throw their support behind the prop than Republicans. 62% of Democrats, 37% of Republicans and 55% of Independents support Prop 19.
African-Americans are the strongest supporters of Prop 19; 68:32, followed by Whites who support it 53:37.
Those are surprisingly high numbers among African Americans. A SurveyUSA poll from earlier this month had African Americans on average about as likely to support Prop 19 as whites. Significantly, a small percentage of African Americans said they were certain to oppose it.
New Poll: Majority of American Adults Support Legalizing Marijuana, Oppose Drug War
July 23rd, 2010
Dakta Bourbon
By: Jon Walker Wednesday July 21, 2010 10:01 pm
According to a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll (PDF), American adults overwhelmingly believe the “War on Drugs” has been a failure: 65 percent of adults describe it that way, while only eight percent call it a success and 27 percent are not sure. After several decades, billions of dollars spent and hundreds of thousands of arrests as part of the War on Drugs, illegal drugs remain easily available throughout the nation. It’s no surprise Americans say the policy has failed.
With so many Americans viewing the War on Drugs as a policy failure, they’re now open to legalizing the most common and safest of illegal substances, marijuana. Read the rest of this entry »
Medical Marijuana Saves Child’s Life
July 20th, 2010
Dakta Bourbon
Knocking on deaths door, 10 year old Joey Perez was slowly dying. The potpourri of prescription medications he’d consumed since the age of 5 were damaging his body beyond repair. The side effects were literally killing him. Doctors had no answers, or any safe alternatives. Their only suggestion was the combination of a few more meds, and to experiment with what happened next. Mieko, Joeys mother, knew his body was weak and shutting down. She knew his fragile body could not handle the addition of any more toxic medicines. Luckily for Joey, her experience as a legal researcher gave her the tools she needed to start her and Joey on this journey. A healing journey with an effective treatment – Medical Marijuana.
Read the rest of this article at compassionassociates.org
California Dems Endorse Pot Legalization, Proposition 19
July 14th, 2010
Dakta Bourbon
Democratic lawmakers from California are hoping that a proposition to legalize marijuana on the November ballot will help drive progressive voter turnout, but most are so far unwilling to state publicly how they’ll vote when the curtain closes. Three House Democrats, however, tell HuffPost that they’ll be supporting the measure, which would authorize cities and counties to tax and regulate the sale of marijuana for adults 21 and over.
Three may not seem like a high number, but it represents the most public support that legalization has garnered from a single state’s delegation — and it signals the effect that ballot initiatives can have on advancing the public debate over marijuana policy. Many of the rest of the Democrats in the delegation said they were open to supporting it. The state’s chapter of the NAACP has also come out in favor of it. Read the rest of this entry »
Pot Versus Alcohol: Experts Say Booze Is the Bigger Danger
July 3rd, 2010
Dakta Bourbon
For more than three decades, America’s marijuana policies have been based upon rhetoric. Perhaps it’s time to begin listening to what the experts have to say.
Speaking privately with Richard Nixon in 1971, the late Art Linkletter offered this view on the use of marijuana versus alcohol. “When people smoke marijuana, they smoke it to get high. In every case, when most people drink, they drink to be sociable.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” Nixon agreed. “A person does not drink to get drunk A person drinks to have fun.”
The following year Linkletter announced that he had reversed his position on pot, concluding instead that the drug’s social harms were not significant enough to warrant its criminal prohibition. Nixon however stayed the course — launching the so-called “war” on drugs, a social policy that now results in the arrest of more than 800,000 Americans each year for violating marijuana laws.