Legalization
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Opposition To DEA Pot Raids Spreads Across Political Spectrum
Posted on August 3rd, 2010 by Dakta Bourbon | Filed under America, Information, Legalization, Medical, News. No Comments »
by By Steve Elliott on tokeofthetown.com
Two ideologically diverse advocates on Wednesday echoed an earlier call by a coalition of drug-policy reform groups by condemning a series of recent raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration on medical marijuana collectives operating legally under state law.
The Tenth Amendment Center, a group that advocates for states’ rights, and Jane Hamsher, the publisher of Firedoglake.com, called on the DEA to respect duly adopted state medical marijuana laws and immediately end those raids.
“The federal government is only authorized to exercise those powers that ‘We The People’ delegated to it in the Constitution,” said Michael Boldin, founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. “It is especially egregious when these laws are used to justify raids in states where the use and distribution of cannabis is expressly allowed by law.”
“How many hundreds of thousands of people are going to be arrested before We The People say ‘enough is enough’?” Boldin asked. “The time to end this unconstitutional, immoral, and costly federal war on people is now.”
Under the “leadership” of acting administrator Michele Leonhart, the DEA has staged medical marijuana raids in apparent disregard of Attorney General Eric Holder’s directive to respect state medical marijuana laws. Read the rest of this entry »
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Yes on Prop 19 Winning 52%-36%; Majority Supports Legalizing Marijuana
Posted on July 27th, 2010 by Dakta Bourbon | Filed under America, Legalization, News. No Comments »
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.
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New Poll: Majority of American Adults Support Legalizing Marijuana, Oppose Drug War
Posted on July 23rd, 2010 by Dakta Bourbon | Filed under America, Information, Legalization, News. 1 Comment »
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 »
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California Dems Endorse Pot Legalization, Proposition 19
Posted on July 14th, 2010 by Dakta Bourbon | Filed under America, Legalization, News. 1 Comment »
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 »
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Yes on Prop 19: Marijuana Legalization Gets its Number in California
Posted on June 30th, 2010 by Dakta Bourbon | Filed under America, Featured, Legalization, News. No Comments »
by: Michael Whitney, Monday June 28 (elections.firedoglake.com)
Yes on 19 Marijuana Legalization Campaign Poster from 1972. (Bolerium Books/LA Weekly)
While California confirmed its state’s marijuana legalization initiative would be on the November ballot months ago, today the state assigned proposition numbers to this year’s slate of initiatives. Get used to hearing about Proposition 19, which is where you’ll get to vote to legalize marijuana in California.
The state restarts the counter for proposition numbers every ten years, last doing so in 2008 (hence why gay marriage was Prop 8 in 2009). While it’s inevitable proposition numbers will be reused, the LA Weekly notes a strange coincidence in the legalization initiative’s number. When pot legalization was on the ballot in 1972, it was also Proposition 19. Read the rest of this entry »
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Washington State Democratic Party Endorses Marijuana Legalization
Posted on June 29th, 2010 by Dakta Bourbon | Filed under America, Blog, Information, Legalization, Medical. 1 Comment »
At yesterday’s Washington State Democratic Convention, party delegates overwhelmingly voted to endorse I-1068, a potential ballot measure to legalize cannabis in the state. From Publicola.net:
Bucking the recommendation of their executive board, delegates to the Washington State Democratic Convention endorsed I-1068 (the marijuana legalization initiative) with 62 percent “yes” vote (314 to 185). The executive board had given no recommendation on the initiative because “the committee was even more split than the delegates,” according to State Vice Chair Sharon Smith.
The endorsement of the State Democratic Party may be too late to ensure marijuana legalization is on the ballot this November. A petition with signatures from at least 241,153 registered voters must be submitted by July 2nd, just five days from now in order to put I-1068 on the ballot. Read the rest of this entry »
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Oregon Board of Pharmacy vote a marijuana milestone
Posted on June 25th, 2010 by Dakta Bourbon | Filed under America, Information, Legalization, Medical, News. No Comments »
reposted from www.katu.com
SALEM, Ore. – The State of Oregon has re-classified how it views marijuana.
The State Board of Pharmacy voted Wednesday to recognize pot as a drug that has medical use.
The move came because of a law passed last year that ordered marijuana to be removed from a list of drugs that have “high abuse potential and no acceptable medical use.”
Marijuana will now be what is known as a “Schedule II controlled substance.” That’s a drug that has medical use but still has “high abuse potential.”
Oregon becomes the first state in the nation to make marijuana anything less serious than a Schedule I drug.
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Oregon and Detroit Both to have Marijuana on the Ballot in Fall
Posted on June 17th, 2010 by Dakta Bourbon | Filed under America, Legalization, Medical. No Comments »
A campaign for a system of medical marijuana supply systems in Oregon turned in enough signatures to put the measure on the November ballot – if the signatures are valid. According to an early turn-in, the initiative for a medical marijuana supply system has gathered 115,404 signatures. It needs 82,769 verified names of registered voters to make the ballot.
The preliminary total only reflects the signatures gathered by paid petitioners through May. The campaign will continue to gather signatures up to the July 2 deadline to give them a cushion for names that have to be thrown out.
Also, a Detroit City Council committee passed today on amending a city ordinance to allow adults in the city to legally possess a small amount of marijuana. Instead voters will get to decide in November. Read the rest of this entry »
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California voters back pot legalization, but support is shaky
Posted on June 4th, 2010 by Dakta Bourbon | Filed under America, Information, Legalization. 1 Comment »
Survey finds 49% support the ballot measure but a third of those only “somewhat” support it. Of the 41% who oppose it, a vast majority believe it will worsen social problems. One in 10 are undecided.
LOS ANGELES TIMES/USC POLL
May 31, 2010|By John Hoeffel, Los Angeles TimesCalifornia voters, by a modest margin, think they should be allowed to grow and consume marijuana, according to a new poll that also found more than 1 in 3 voters had tried pot and more than 1 in 10 had lit up in the past year.
The Los Angeles Times/USC poll found that voters back the marijuana legalization measure on the November ballot, 49% to 41%, with 10% uncertain about it. But support for the initiative is unstable, with one-third of the supporters saying they favor it only “somewhat.”
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Huge, Legal Cannabis Farm Study Surprises Industry, Officials
Posted on May 28th, 2010 by Dakta SiFFiN | Filed under America, Information, Legalization, News. 1 Comment »
The groundbreaking study showing how the City of Oakland could make $2 million per year licensing a medical cannabis growing warehouse caught many locals by surprise this week. Even though city officials and the cannabis industry are looking toward licensing large-scale grows allowed under state law SB 420, the hard numbers appear to be the first of their kind. Economist Joanne Brion of Brion and Associates, who did the six-month, $16,000 report said she was surprised at how potent an economic force cannabis is.
“My gut instinct said that this would be a great revenue and job generator for the city,” she said. “But after running the numbers, “I went, ‘Wow, that’s really a job generator.’” Read the rest of this entry »