According to a recently filed campaign finance report, the campaign to defeat a marijuana legalization initiative in California is receiving substantial funding from the alcohol industry. Now marijuana advocates are fighting back, calling on the opposition campaign to explain why it is working with Big Alcohol to keep marijuana illegal.
On September 7th, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors contributed $10,000 to the No on Prop. 19 campaign, which calls itself "Public Safety First." Proposition 19 would establish a legally regulated marijuana market in which marijuana is controlled and taxed in a fashion similar to alcohol.
It's clear why the alcohol industry is in this fight -- to protect its turf and keep Californians drinking. This is the same California Beer and Beverage Distributors gave $100,000 to oppose Proposition 5, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA), which would have reduced marijuana possession from a misdemeanor to an infraction. With marijuana being the second most popular recreational substance (despite its prohibition), the booze industry must recognize the threat legal marijuana poses to its bottom line. Thus, it has a vast financial interest in keeping marijuana illegal and steering Californians away from using it.
But why does the No on Prop. 19 campaign share Big Alcohol's goal of an alcohol-only society? It seems odd that a group that purports to be committed to enhancing public safety wants to ensure Californians can only drink and cannot use marijuana as a safer recreational alternative.
After all, every objective study on marijuana has concluded that it is far safer than alcohol to the user and society. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alcohol use alone contributes to more than 35,000 deaths each year -- including several hundred from overdoses -- whereas marijuana use does not contribute to any deaths and has never resulted in a fatal overdose in history. Also, whereas alcohol is a major contributing factor in domestic violence, sexual assaults, fights, and other violent crimes, marijuana has never been found to contribute to such problems.
In light of "Public Safety First's" decision to team up with the alcohol industry to ensure the booze keeps flowing and the pot does not, Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), the organization I run, called on No on Prop. 19 Campaign Manager Tim Rosales to explain the campaign's desire to ensure alcohol is the only legal intoxicant available for adults.
Mr. Rosales has yet to respond to the upwards of 1,000 e-mails he has received from Prop. 19 supporters throughout California and across the nation. So I'll ask him again here:
Mr. Rosales, if you and your campaign are so concerned about public safety, why do you want to continue driving Californians to drink, and why on earth wouldn't you want adults to be able to make the rational choice to use a far less harmful substance?
Needless to say, I won't be holding my breath as I await his response... I'll just be at the bar drinking my worries away until the day I can legally make the safer choice to use marijuana instead.
Follow Mason Tvert on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SAFERchoice
http://www.saferchoice.org/content/view/24/53/
The real criminals here are the people in the alcohol and beer industry that are trying to keep their alcohol flowing while saying "keep pot illegal!". The sheer hypocrisy is disgusting.
Prohibition has ruined the lives of GOOD people, while enriching the most evil. Prohibition has stagnated the American economy, while criminal enterprises control this untaxed cash-crop. Prohibition has left America ignorant of the most logical solution to a number of problems...medicinal, industrial, chemical, agricultural, ecological, commercial...
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They don't care if you can't drive drunk, can't walk in public with open containers, etc... People still do it and by then it's out of their hands.
They made their millions either way. Doesn't matter if someone kills a child driving drunk, they still made a heafty profit on the alcohol that led to that child's death.
I suppose you don't believe in Big Tobbacco either. But we've seen it in action. They get fined, they raise the prices, the only ones who lose out are the ones paying higher prices AND being poisoned.
When I have weed I drink less AND feel better. Of course they don't want the competition.
it's alot easier for small companies to make products out of a cheap and easily growable plant then it is to start up chemical production on a large scale. So Dupont makes out with less competition because nobody can afford to compete on their level.
Cotton industry is also anti-MJ. MJ grows anywhere and faster than cotton which has limited growing locals. it also is strong and softer, thus a better product.
And of course the timber industry has alot to lose, they get access to govt land like nobody else and sell tons of products that can be better and cheaper if made with hemp. thus they lose out.
greed is the major factor in the prhibition of not only MJ but industrial hemp (we are the only industrial nation who outlawwed growing hemp) although we can buy products like clothes, hemp oil (human food supplement) and birdseed that are made from it.
Rev Reefer Terry Mitchell brings his walking stick to GreenCentralStation...TURN SOUND DOWN thru ad(clean audio after .20 seconds)Rev Reefer Terry Mitchell was our in studio-guest along with NORML/515 corresponent Lord Mota reporting out to GCS from Portland Oregon, attending both the 39th annual NORML conference and Hempstalk event. Lord Mota even met show#3 tele-guest 'the Black Tuna' Robert Platshorn and ex-New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson who spoke of GCS host Saint Michael at the NORML conference.(video on page)
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1ds1kjDDAPB1PKHDqAA7SRi8aw8uGmUz7yMTqdtBwpyE
The recent drug abuse study said METH use went up 60%....... the MOST ADDICTIVE. Smokers relax, meth freeks rampage all night. Another CO$T to society.
I'm 60 years old and replaced alcohol with cannibis at 18. I had a 3.89 GPA at MSU and later, as a single mother---divorced due to alcohol violence---developed a successful business. I lost the business due to mold exposure from leaking plumbing concealed in the wall. Mold is primarilly studied in animal feed. Mold causes yeast overgrowth in the body. The skins of yeast have acetaldehyde...the same chemical that causes a hangover. The "hair of the dog" helps, because another drink restarts the detoxification of acetaldehyde....if you still have the nutrients to supply detoxification.
I have a tendency to brain surf and was diagnosed with "early dementia" in 1992, but hope I've passed on some beneficial info. Google glutathione if I have sparked your interest. If you drink, take extra folic acid to detoxify the acetaldehyde. It is in prenatal vitamins to prevent neurological damage, but the FDA limits the amount in vitamins so it doesn't interfere with an outdated B12 test. Lack of these nutrients are also implicated in dementias. Aloha
Everybody knows many victims of big alcohol who had their lives destroyed by their addiction to alcohol.
Of course high priced high profit drinks the black labels, rare wines (all based on PR=B$), will have their profits slashed when their product becomes the unhealthy intoxicant.