D.L. Hughley vs Ronald Brooks

This is a great discussion between comedian and Marijuana advocate D.L. Hughley and Ronald Brooks. Brooks is the President of the National Narcotic Officers' Associations' Coalition, which represents more than 70,000 narcotics enforcement officers in the US. The discussion is very informative and quite hilarious Hughley grills brooks and shuts him down on every point that Brooks has against the legalization of Marijuana. My favorite quote by Hughley in this is by a retired Superior Court Justice, James Gray:

"By decriminalizing Marijuana and ceasing to arrest, prosecute, and imprison non-violent offenders the state could save $1 Billion. In addition, 42% of Americans admitted to using Marijuana while only 20% of the residents of the Netherlands, where it is completely legal, use it."

NORML

In my last post I referred to the fight for Marijuana law reform as a "movement," to further elaborate on why it is worthy of being considered a movement I will dedicate this post to profile the national organization dedicated to lobbying the government to legalize pot. The organization is called the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML for short.

The organization is complimented by the NORML Foundation, which was created in 1997 to educate the public on Marijuana policy through the use of Advertising and Media campaigns.

This was an add from a 2001 campaign

This organization has spent countless amounts of time and money to not only educate the public, but to also testify in front of congress and give their expert opinion on cost-effective and responsible Marijuana law reform. They have tracking systems to give up to date information on the legislative measures that concern Marijuana reform in 50 states, they include highlights of their finding in a periodic newsletter. In addition, they have a legal committee comprised of 350 criminal defense attorneys to oversee information disseminated by the organization.

To learn more visit http://norml.org/

ProtectYouth.org says regulate it like tobacco

A common criticism made by opponents of the Marijuana legalization movement is that full legalization would make the pot more accessible to minors and in turn corrupt young impressionable adolescents. ProtectYouth.org, a Dallas based non-profit and lobbying group, has chosen to speak up against these critics. Craig Johnson, Executive Director of ProtectYouth.org, says that the ONLY way to protect children from coming into contact with Marijuana is to legalize and tax it the way we do cigarettes. Doing so would make it less accessible and stop the dealing of the substance on street corners and school yards.

"We're more able to efficiently regulate the tobacco market than the marijuana market," Johnson says. "So why not adapt some of the same regulation to both weeds? Effective regulation beats our current system of ineffective criminalization any day."

To back up this claim he turns to a study showing that in 1996 56% of convenient store retailers reported selling cigarettes to minors. Following this finding stricter enforcement was implemented and the number of retailers who reported selling to minors dramatically dropped to 11.3%.

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2009-08-20/news/smokey-dare-maybe-it-s-time-to-regulate-marijuana-like-cigarettes/

Marijuana: The Gateway Drug

In 2006 a study conducted by researchers at University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry showed that Marijuana was in fact NOT a gateway drug. The study considered the results of 214 boys over the course of 12 years. They tried to prove that early adolescent use of Marijuana would lead to an increased likelihood that they would later use other substances. The study found that correlations were not any more common than if Alcohol or Cigarettes were used at an early age.

In my opinion -- as a user who has been on both the legal and recreational side of marijuana use -- it is not that Marijuana will make you want to try other drugs but that smoking pot can often make it easier to come into contact with other, more dangerous substances. For example, people without a medical reason to use Marijuana will often turn to their "neighborhood pharmacist" these shady members of the community will often have other, more addictive and expensive, substances for sale that they may want to encourage customers to buy. So in this sense pot can be looked upon as being a gateway drug, but much like this study shows it is due to environmental and social pressures instead of caused by the pot itself. But if Marijuana were legal people could go to a store were their sale would be regulated and their would be no shady "pharmacists" pushing their other products on you.




http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/study-say-marijuana-no-gateway-drug-12116.html

Dangerous?

Some critics do not deny the "pain killing" properties of Marijuana use, instead they argue against the claim that is safe. They focus on the fact that Marijuana is introduced into the body by way of smoke inhalation, bringing up arguments that it may have negative effects similar to those caused by smoking cigarettes. Aside from the obvious defense that cigarettes, although proven to cause cancer, are still legal let's consider a study published by UCLA. The study was conducted by Donald Tashkin, a pulmonologist who has studied Marijuana for over 30 years. The study was to prove that heavy use of Marijuana would lead to increased risk of lung cancer. In fact, he found evidence that the chemical in pot that gets you "intoxicated," actually has a very beneficial side effect. When introduced to the body, THC targets and kills aging cells and in turn prevents them from becoming cancerous.

This was the largest controlled study ever conducted, with subjects ranging from moderate users to very heavy users. The effects were compared to heavy cigarette smokers and results showed that cigarette smokers were 20 times more likely to be at risk of lung cancer."We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.

This chart compares the use of Marijuana to other popular drugs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html

The Wonder Drug

"Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." -- Judge Francis Young in a 1988 ruling.

Don't take the judge's word for it though, instead let us consider studies conducted by top scientists in their field. In 2007 the University of California, San Francisco published a study in the journal "Neurology" showing that Marijuana use decreased certain types of pain persistent in subjects with HIV. This same type of pain, known as peripheral neuropathy, is found in people with diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Patients with this condition are often given Morphine or Oxycontin, which many consider to be the pill form of Heroin. These powerful narcotics usually do little to alleviate the associated pain, while Marijuana seems to have immediate results.

This image lists diseases and disorders whose pain can be treated with the use of Marijuana.

http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2009/10/pennsylvania_needs_to_legalize.html

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2007/03/01/marijuana_as_wonder_drug/

Saving money by abolishing misguided Marijuana arrests

Now that we know that legalizing Marijuana could make the state billions of dollars in tax revenue, lets explore how it would help the state SAVE money. The chart below shows the arrests per hour nationwide.

The chart shows that there has been an increasing amount of Marijuana related arrests in the United States. These figures are on a national scale, but consider this...of those 99 arrests per hour, 1 of almost every 10 arrests takes place in California. According to The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the final year represented in this chart showed a 13% overall increase in arrests and an 81% increase in felony charges, the same charge for murder and rape.

This year California announced that they would release 40,000 state prisoners because they could no longer afford to house them. If Marijuana were just legalized we could have avoided arresting over 74,000 people in 2007 alone. This would have saved the state tons of money on housing these so-called criminals as well as in enforcing these misguided laws.




http://www.canorml.org/news/2007arrests.html

http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/california-release-40-000-prisoners-2888749