LOL `Jamie Lynn,
I appreciate your honesty, and your thoughts.
I am surprised by all the senior citizen's in my small community
that fire `up. Many state they `smoke it because it is
better then the Xpensive Med's they get from their doc's.
My g/father admitted that he smoked it in the 60's
I think my g/f & I would smokeZome on special occassions `if it was legal : )~*
I get `high enough on `Life 4 Now 4-Sure : )
In my area, there seems 2 `be many that indulge.
I know when the bum's & I went 2 Kuwait, we all were tested
for drugs. We all passed, but one of the Bum's stills sneaks/smokes.
I rather save my $'s 4 another `Monte 4-Sure.
Peace/Smok'in `Out

? ? ?
Some interesting infor below ?Post what U `Think

Florida: Is drug war working?

March 31st, 2009 @ 4:20 AM

During an “excercise” to cut a cumulative 19 percent or so of the criminal-justice budget, Democratic Sen. Frederica Wilson interrupted a presentation on drug courts to ask: Is the war on drugs working?
“This is a never-ending war. It costs us billions and trillions of dollars,” Wilson said. “It has been going on longer than both world wars. We’re still fighting it and building prisons.”
Wilson brought up California’s “medical marijuana” initiative and wondered if it were worth pursuing. Republican Sen. Victor Crist of Tampa asked if she were advocating legalizing the drug. Wilson, a congressional candidate, stopped short, saying she’s just “fishing” (phishing?) for answers.
Said Crist: “Maybe sales of junk food would go up. It (marijuana) gives you the munchies.” Yeah, Brownie's
Other options that Wilson mentioned: Expand post-and pre-trial drug courts to counties without them (e.g., Miami-Dade and Leon); mandatory diversion for first-time drug offenders; reducing mandatory-minimums for non-violent offenders from 85 percent of the time to 82 percent (estimated savings $410m).
Marc Caputo, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau


Former Orange County judge backs the legalization of pot


March 30th, 2009 | No Comments »

Steve Lopez visited a former Orange County judge who is not just supporting a bill that would legalize marijuana so that the state could tax it, but he is willing to go on the record to say that the war on drugs is a lost.

Lopez writes “If Gray had his way, no one under 21 could buy drugs. But anyone older than that could legally buy marijuana — which, he says, causes nowhere near the amount of death and disease as alcohol. The state would need to see how that works, he said, before moving on to legalizing the sale of harder drugs. Sure, he says, legalization might lead to more toking at first, but he believes drug use would wane when it’s no longer forbidden and the novelty wears off.”
So the question is, what do you think? Have we lost the war on drugs? Is it more economical to legalize the weed and tax it? State your case below in the comments and/or vote in the poll here.
– Tony Pierce- Los Angeles Times


Joint resolution: Taxing pot just makes cents A lot of sCents


March 30th, 2009 |
It’s time to legalize marijuana, tax it to death, then let struggling Joe Citizen - instead of Joe Dope Dealer - reap the pot profits.



Top 10 reasons Marijuana should be legalized


March 28th, 2009 |

Editor’s note: There are millions of regular pot smokers in America and millions more infrequent smokers. Smoking pot clearly has far fewer dangerous and hazardous effects on society than legal drugs such as alcohol. Here is High Times’s top 10 reasons that marijuana should be legal, part of its 420 Campaign legalization strategy.
10. Prohibition has failed to control the use and domestic production of marijuana. The government has tried to use criminal penalties to prevent marijuana use for over 75 years and yet: marijuana is now used by over 25 million people annually, cannabis is currently the largest cash crop in the United States, and marijuana is grown all over the planet. Claims that marijuana prohibition is a successful policy are ludicrous and unsupported by the facts, and the idea that marijuana will soon be eliminated from America and the rest of the world is a ridiculous fantasy.
9. Arrests for marijuana possession disproportionately affect blacks and Hispanics and reinforce the perception that law enforcement is biased and prejudiced against minorities. African-Americans account for approximately 13% of the population of the United States and about 13.5% of annual marijuana users, however, blacks also account for 26% of all marijuana arrests. Recent studies have demonstrated that blacks and Hispanics account for the majority of marijuana possession arrests in New York City, primarily for smoking marijuana in public view. Law enforcement has failed to demonstrate that marijuana laws can be enforced fairly without regard to race; far too often minorities are arrested for marijuana use while white/non-Hispanic Americans face a much lower risk of arrest.
8. A regulated, legal market in marijuana would reduce marijuana sales and use among teenagers, as well as reduce their exposure to other drugs in the illegal market. The illegality of marijuana makes it more valuable than if it were legal, providing opportunities for teenagers to make easy money selling it to their friends. If the excessive profits for marijuana sales were ended through legalization there would be less incentive for teens to sell it to one another. Teenage use of alcohol and tobacco remain serious public health problems even though those drugs are legal for adults, however, the availability of alcohol and tobacco is not made even more widespread by providing kids with economic incentives to sell either one to their friends and peers.
7. Legalized marijuana would reduce the flow of money from the American economy to international criminal gangs. Marijuana’s illegality makes foreign cultivation and smuggling to the United States extremely profitable, sending billions of dollars overseas in an underground economy while diverting funds from productive economic development.
6. Marijuana’s legalization would simplify the development of hemp as a valuable and diverse agricultural crop in the United States, including its development as a new bio-fuel to reduce carbon emissions. Canada and European countries have managed to support legal hemp cultivation without legalizing marijuana, but in the United States opposition to legal marijuana remains the biggest obstacle to development of industrial hemp as a valuable agricultural commodity. As US energy policy continues to embrace and promote the development of bio-fuels as an alternative to oil dependency and a way to reduce carbon emissions, it is all the more important to develop industrial hemp as a bio-fuel source - especially since use of hemp stalks as a fuel source will not increase demand and prices for food, such as corn. Legalization of marijuana will greatly simplify the regulatory burden on prospective hemp cultivation in the United States.
5. Prohibition is based on lies and disinformation. Justification of marijuana’s illegality increasingly requires distortions and selective uses of the scientific record, causing harm to the credibility of teachers, law enforcement officials, and scientists throughout the country. The dangers of marijuana use have been exaggerated for almost a century and the modern scientific record does not support the reefer madness predictions of the past and present. Many claims of marijuana’s danger are based on old 20th century prejudices that originated in a time when science was uncertain how marijuana produced its characteristic effects. Since the cannabinoid receptor system was discovered in the late 1980s these hysterical concerns about marijuana’s dangerousness have not been confirmed with modern research. Everyone agrees that marijuana, or any other drug use such as alcohol or tobacco use, is not for children. Nonetheless, adults have demonstrated over the last several decades that marijuana can be used moderately without harmful impacts to the individual or society.
4. Marijuana is not a lethal drug and is safer than alcohol. It is established scientific fact that marijuana is not toxic to humans; marijuana overdoses are nearly impossible, and marijuana is not nearly as addictive as alcohol or tobacco. It is unfair and unjust to treat marijuana users more harshly under the law than the users of alcohol or tobacco.
3. Marijuana is too expensive for our justice system and should instead be taxed to support beneficial government programs. Law enforcement has more important responsibilities than arresting 750,000 individuals a year for marijuana possession, especially given the additional justice costs of disposing of each of these cases. Marijuana arrests make justice more expensive and less efficient in the United States, wasting jail space, clogging up court systems, and diverting time of police, attorneys, judges, and corrections officials away from violent crime, the sexual abuse of children, and terrorism. Furthermore, taxation of marijuana can provide needed and generous funding of many important criminal justice and social programs.
2. Marijuana use has positive attributes, such as its medical value and use as a recreational drug with relatively mild side effects. Many people use marijuana because they have made an informed decision that it is good for them, especially Americans suffering from a variety of serious ailments. Marijuana provides relief from pain, nausea, spasticity, and other symptoms for many individuals who have not been treated successfully with conventional medications. Many American adults prefer marijuana to the use of alcohol as a mild and moderate way to relax. Americans use marijuana because they choose to, and one of the reasons for that choice is their personal observation that the drug has a relatively low dependence liability and easy-to-manage side effects. Most marijuana users develop tolerance to many of marijuana’s side effects, and those who do not, choose to stop using the drug. Marijuana use is the result of informed consent in which individuals have decided that the benefits of use outweigh the risks, especially since, for most Americans, the greatest risk of using marijuana is the relatively low risk of arrest.
1. Marijuana users are determined to stand up to the injustice of marijuana probation and accomplish legalization, no matter how long or what it takes to succeed. Despite the threat of arrests and a variety of other punishments and sanctions marijuana users have persisted in their support for legalization for over a generation. They refuse to give up their long quest for justice because they believe in the fundamental values of American society. Prohibition has failed to silence marijuana users despite its best attempts over the last generation. The issue of marijuana’s legalization is a persistent issue that, like marijuana, will simply not go away. Marijuana will be legalized because marijuana users will continue to fight for it until they succeed.
Alternet.com


Pot Legalization Could Be Part Of Criminal Justice Overhaul


March 28th, 2009 |

Sen. Jim Webb, fresh off his passage of an historic expansion of the GI Bill, has found a new issue: the criminal justice system. And when Webb, a Virginia Democrat, sets his legislative sites on a priority, his colleagues pay attention.
On Thursday, Webb, along with the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), introduced a bill to create a commission that would undertake an 18-month study of the criminal justice system and come back with legislative recommendations.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Webb said that everything should be considered. And he means everything.
“I think everything should be on the table, and we specifically say that we want recommendations on how to deal with drug policy in our country. And we’ll get it to the people who have the credibility and the expertise and see what they come up with,” said Webb.
What about legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana?
Webb paused. “I think they should do a very careful examination of all aspects of drug policy. I’ve done a couple of very extensive hearings on this, so we’ll wait to see what they say about that,” he said.
So it’s on the table? Webb flashed a wry grin, laughing mischievously.
The last government study group to look at drug policy, the 1972 Shafer Commission, recommended that President Richard Nixon decriminalize marijuana. He didn’t.
This commission will have a broader mandate, said Webb. He expects a “pretty broad range of legislative priorities to come out of it [covering] not just incarceration but the entire panorama of criminal justice.”
Webb’s bill, he said, is backed by Judiciary Committee chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) as well as Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — the chairman and ranking Republican of the Crime and Drugs Subcommittee. It has a powerful list of cosponsors, including the top four Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), Durbin, Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.).
“We’ve got a good chance to get this done this year,” said Webb, suggesting that the “dramatic” growth of the prison population makes it an issue that needs to be addressed. See the charts Webb brought to the Senate floor.
Webb cited “the exponential growth of incarceration since 1980,” saying that “a huge percentage of that growth has been nonviolent crimes associated with drugs.”
Webb, a decorated Vietnam veteran who was Secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan, has as much military cred as any Democrat. “I’m very concerned about the issue of gangs and transnational gangs and I think a big piece of that — not all of it — a big piece of that is the movement of drugs. So that’s a huge piece of this,” said Webb.
The growing prison population has bipartisan roots, which I explore in a book be published soon, This Is Your Country On Drugs. Throughout the 1980s, Democrats in Congress and state governments around the country increased prison sentences for drug offenses, coming down particularly hard on crack. In 1986, Congress instituted mandatory-minimum sentences for powder and crack cocaine. To trigger the powder minimum, a dealer needed to possess 500 grams. For crack, just five grams. Two years later, the law was extended to anybody who was associated with the dealer — girlfriends, roommates, etc.
In 1991, Michigander Allen Harmelin argued that his life sentence for possessing roughly a pound and a half of cocaine is cruel and unusual. The Supreme Court ruled that it is neither. California enacted its three-strikes law in 1994 — three felonies equals a minimum of 25 years — and the feds one-upped the state, declaring a third felony to result in life without parole. Twenty-three more states enacted three-strikes laws by 1995.
In 1984, just over 30,000 people were in prison for drug crimes; by 1991, the number had soared to more than 150,000. The Department of Justice found in a study of the prison population that the average length of a federal stay drastically increased between 1986 and 1997. If you walked into prison in 1986, your average stay would have been 21 months. In 1997, it was 47 months. For weapons offenders, the rise was from 23 to 75 months, and for drug offenders, it was from 30 to 66 months. Not all criminals could expect such increased time behind bars, however: A bank robber could expect 74 months in 1986 and only 83 months a decade later.
Three-strikes laws and lengthening prison sentences explain what appears to be a contradiction: U.S. crime rates are falling while U.S. incarceration rates are rising. It stands to reason that if fewer people are committing crimes, then fewer people should be locked up. But locking up fewer people every year and putting them away for much longer mushrooms the prison population.
The result is that more than one out of every 100 Americans is currently in prison. If you’re a black male between 20 and 34, there’s a better than one in nine chance that you’re imprisoned. To keep all of these people behind bars, states spent a combined $44 billion in 2007.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he’s open to working with Webb. “It’ll be interesting,” Cornyn, a former prosecutor, said of the coming debate. “I would be open to ideas that would take certain first-time, nonviolent offenders and try to give them a shock probation or something like that which would encourage treatment but then would go serve their time if they didn’t fully cooperate,” he said.
Huffington Post


Marijuana questions popular for President Obama


March 28th, 2009 |

When the president opened his first Internet town hall Thursday, what he got, amid questions about the economy, health care and education, was a host of queries that could have come from Sean Penn’s pothead-philosopher in the movie ”Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
Several marijuana legalization questions, including a suggestion from 2007 Quakertown High School grad Ryan McLaughlin, ranked among the most popular submitted to the White House Web site for the live ”Open for Questions” Webcast.
They got so much online support that Obama was forced to acknowledge the budding interest in the topic.

”There was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high, and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation. And I don’t know what this says about the online audienceÂ…” Obama said to smattering of laughs. ”The answer is, no, I don’t think that is a good strategy to grow our economy.”
The Web site allowed registered users to submit questions and cast votes in support of others. McLaughlin’s suggestion that legalized marijuana could be heavily taxed and regulated ranked fourth in the ”budget” category behind three other marijuana legalization questions.
A 19-year-old student at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire, McLaughlin was careful to note in his suggestion that he doesn’t use marijuana. He said he found out about the town hall through a pro-Obama Facebook group.
”There are many students who use marijuana products,” McLaughlin said in a phone interview. ”I was just thinking if there was a large amount of a young population using marijuana, why not just make it legal and tax as much as you can out of it? It could be a source of income for us instead of our money going to drug cartels.”
He said he was a little bummed Obama dismissed the idea so quickly, but that he’s still a supporter.
The questions didn’t come completely out of left field.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that federal prosecutors will discontinue medical marijuana prosecutions in states that allow the practice.
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws was at least partly responsible for the pot questions’ popularity. It put out a call Wednesday for members to submit and vote for the questions.
The group’s president, Allen St. Pierre, said he doesn’t think the whole thing was a result of his group’s effort, which was posted on its Web site eight hours before the window closed for questions.
”Overall, the Net is very libertarian on this topic, and politicians who open themselves up to the Internet will open themselves up to this topic,” St. Pierre said.
The group expressed its disappointment at Obama’s ”cynical rebuff” of the questions.
Political consultant Mark Dion of Revolution Media Group in Washington, D.C., said Internet town halls are especially vulnerable to organized efforts to ‘’stack the deck.”
”People just need to be at a computer to have an impact,” Dion said. ”A small group can make a lot of noise just by being organized.”
WHAT STUDENT SAID
”I am not a marijuana user, but I do believe that making marijuana legal could provide some relief as to it could be heavily taxed and regulated. Legalization of marijuana will also be a detriment to the drug cartels in Latin America.”
– Ryan McLaughlin, college student in Rindge, N.H., and a 2007 graduate of Quakertown High School
By Scott Kraus |Of The Morning Call March 31, 2009 @ 4:20 AM

Member's Post your thoughts/opinions

LOL `Duane = Cowboy

Hi Members,
Many of the Senior Citizens that helped raise/taught me
visit the MCF & reads my posts.
Several had comments, pro's & con's on my Pot Poll : )~*
They said it was one sided, so here is the other side
for those that may be interested.

content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/6/347 - Similar pages
Addiction and Hazards of smoking weed??? - YaHooka Forums I love weed. I'm saying it right now, out in the open. Now this might confuse most of you... I RARELY smoke more than twice a month.
www.yahooka.com/forum/inquiring-minds/27508-addi... - 135k - Similar pages
http://www.yahooka.com/forum/inquiri...king-weed.html
An unclouded view of the hazards of smoking - Psychologist f... An unclouded view of the hazards of smoking. Psychologist follows unique sample group from womb to adulthood. Posted Dec. 4/03 ...
researchworks.carleton.ca/2003_Fall/18.htm - 24k - Similar pages
http://researchworks.carleton.ca/2003_Fall/18.htm
The Benefits and Hazards of Marijuana Feb 14, 1999 ... The Benefits and Hazards of Marijuana. By Dr. W. Gifford Jones ... Smoking pot has been described as harmless fun. But is it? ...
www.canadafreepress.com/medical/respiratory02149... - 33k - Similar pages

or
Post your opinions.
I think many posts on the MCF are made
under the influence Oh `No
4-Sure

We must stay informed.
Disclaimer
The MCF does not condone posting while under the influence.
This is a Family Forum
PeacePipeOut