"Let's face reality: Taxing and regulating marijuana will make it less available to children than it is today."

Judge James Gray, USA Today 3/10/2010

There's a variety of reports this week regarding America's slow and reluctant march out of stupidity and repression and towards freedom and intelligent policy.

Of course I am speaking of cannabis reform efforts.

Below the fold are a variety of stories to which I would direct your attention, at least for a moment.

Freedom IS on the march, despite all the efforts of some very backwards and hateful people who insist on standing in the way.

First, USA Today has a nice, if not somehwat simplisitc, interactive map of the USA on which you can click to see where freedom is making strides and where it remains mired in ignorance and prejudice.

Unsuprisingly, The South is by far the most repressive place. Why I live here I can't really say. I thought it was cheaper to move here than out West when I was younger and that seems to have been very short-sighted on my part.

From the article:

[Judge James] Gray is part of a growing national movement to rethink pot laws. From California, where lawmakers may outright legalize marijuana, to New Jersey, which implemented a medical use law Jan. 19, states are taking unprecedented steps to loosen marijuana restrictions. Advocates of legalizing marijuana say generational, political and cultural shifts have taken the USA to a unique moment in its history of drug prohibition that could topple 40 years of tough restrictions on both medicinal and recreational marijuana use.

A Gallup Poll last October found 44% favor making marijuana legal, an eight-point jump since the question was asked in 2005. An ABC News-Washington Post poll in January found 81% favor making marijuana legal for medical use.

Attorney General Eric Holder last fall announced that raiding medical marijuana facilities would be the lowest priority for U.S. law enforcement agents — a major shift that is spurring many states to re-examine their policies. The American Medical Association recommended in November that Congress reclassify marijuana as a drug with possible medicinal benefit.

There is more on the AMA decision here.

In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.

"Despite more than 30 years of clinical research, only a small number of randomized, controlled trials have been conducted on smoked cannabis," said Dr. Edward Langston, an AMA board member, noting that the limited number of studies was "insufficient to satisfy the current standards for a prescription drug product."

The decision by the organization's delegates at a meeting in Houston marks another step in the evolving view of marijuana, which an AMA report notes was once linked by the federal government to homicidal mania. Since California voters approved the use of medical marijuana in 1996, marijuana has moved steadily into the cultural mainstream spurred by the growing awareness that it can have beneficial effects for some chronically ill people.

This year, the Obama administration sped up that drift when it ordered federal narcotics agents not to arrest medical marijuana users and providers who follow state laws. Polls show broadening support for marijuana legalization.

No.... the AMA is not endorsing "legalization" and I, personally, would not expect them to. They're doctors and USUALLY doctors aren't thrilled by people inhaling burning plant smoke. But they DO want the backwards and countrer-productive government controls eased so people - scientists - can do actual, proper research.

Actual, proper research and honest communication WILL BE the demise of America's artificially superstitious marijuana laws, though.

As I wrote recently the focus of propaganda and media complicity in broadcasting debunked propaganda is specifically to squelch such an informed dialog in this country. reports like the USA Today article, and the others that follow in a moment, are evidence that despite the overwhelming complicity of the MS to agencies of the Federal Government such as the ONDCP, people simply don't buy it anymore and attitudes HAVE changed and are drifting colser and closer to demanding reform.

Jacob Sullum writes at Reason:

Three recent legislative developments reinforce the impression of growing tolerance (or at least waning repression):

1. On March 2, Hawaii's Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill that would eliminate criminal penalties for possessing up to an ounce of marijuana, currently a misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. The new maximum penalty would be a civil fine of $300 for a first offense and $500 for a subsequent offense.

2. Also on March 2, residents of Montpelier, Vermont, approved a referendum urging the state legislature to "pass a bill to replace criminal penalties with a civil fine for adults who possess a small amount of marijuana." The vote was 1,530 to 585.

3. On Wednesday, New Hampshire's House of Representatives, by a vote of 214 to 137, approved a bill that would reduce the maximum penalty for possessing up to a quarter of an ounce of marijuana, currently a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine, to a $200 civil fine. Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat who last year vetoed a bill that would have permitted medical use of marijuana, said he will veto the decriminalization bill as well. The bill did not attract enough votes in the House to override a veto.

With Democrats like Lynch, Republicans can spend more time relaxing.

It's Democrats who should be taking the lead on this and who should be actively conspiring to take the credit for reforming cannabis laws at the federal level. No... really. Sullum again:

Polls consistently find that most Americans don't think people should go to jail for smoking pot, so this sort of reform does not seem terribly risky in political terms.

That sounds like something Democrats would be interested in: a non-risky political issue. Again, rationality has nothing to do with it though. Between the bullshit-uber-alles mentality of human politics and the hyper-emotionalization of cannabis reform still rife in the American mainstream media, (most)Democrats remain frightened of their own shadow on this topic.

Lastly - but not leastly - there's a new amazing outrageous marijuana sentencing to tell you about.

It's from Texas, of course.

Henry Walter Wooten is definately NOT the sharpest tool in the shed, by any stretch of the imagination. He was recently caught smoking the evil weed inside some 'drug free zone" and apparently near a "day care center" with a bit over 4 ounces of marijuana in his truck, bagged for sale. Bus-ted.

I expect few arguments that this was dumb. Cops smelled the evil smoke, swooped in and saved Texas from sure disaster. Prosecutors - you know how they are - wanted 99 years for him due to some other historical convictions against him, including an unspecified felony conviction in the 1980's.

He ended up with 35 years.

That’s 420 months. This jury, this court and this prosecutor are sending a message directly to marijuana consumers the nation over.

*****

Now he’s likely facing death in a cement cage; although, the greatest travesty here was that Smith County Assistant District Attorney Richard Vance first sought a sentence of 99 years. Ninety-nine years?!?

Wooten’s sentence is identical to the punishment dealt to Alejandro Arreola, who was given 35 years in jail by a jury in Del Rio, Texas for his involvement in a multimillion dollar marijuana smuggling ring. Arreola, according to reports, transported over 24 TONS of the stuff into the United States. His accomplice, Casey Bob Hutto, got 24 years.

Twenty-four tons? Meet 4.6 ounces. You’ll both be sitting here for three and a half decades. And I ask you, WHERE IS THE EQUALITY OF JUSTICE?

If you click on the USA Today map, linked above, you'll see - not like it's a surprise - that Texas is still one of the fiercely backwards states without cannabis reform law 1 one the books or even pending. They likes them some ig-nernce. And because of that, a man, who isn't likely any real threat to people, is going to pay a huge price to be a slap in the face to the growing majority of people who want this nonsense truncated. And the prosecutor will have another scalp on his or her belt as he or she builds their resume to eventually seek a raise or run for office.

Change.org has taken up the fight to rectify this -gross miscarriage- obscene abortion of justice.

35 years for marijuana possession is cruel and unusual punishment! Marijuana should never have been criminalized. Free Henry Walter Wooten now!

I expect at least some of you to go to the Change.org page and sign their petition to help put pressure on Texas to fix this travesty.

Thank you for reading.

Doc
_______

@xxdr_zombiexx

Vote Result

Score: 8.6, Votes: 7

Bookmark/Search this post with:

| | | | | |