I've just returned to my home in Washington, D.C. from a trip to the "other Washington" -- specifically, Seattle. My two visits to Seattle in the past month have convinced me that Washington state will probably be one of the first two states to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol.
In mid-August, I attended Seattle's Hempfest for the sixth time in seven years. For those who don't know, Hempfest isn't your run-of-the-mill marijuana rally. In fact, if it were, I wouldn't attend. This year's Hempfest, which was the 19th in 20 years, was the largest yet, with an estimated 300,000 people visiting Myrtle Edwards Park on the waterfront over two days. Each year, Seattle Hempfest is literally the largest marijuana-related event in the world.
And bigger is better; there's safety in numbers. For two days each August, using, possessing, and transferring marijuana for no remuneration (passing a joint) is legal in the park. For a few years, this policy was an informal understanding between the Seattle police and the 100,000+ people they were serving and protecting. But, in recent years, the higher-ups in the police department have actually directed their rank-and-file not to arrest people at Hempfest for marijuana (unless someone is selling it or pushing it on children).
What events preceded this normalization of marijuana?
In 1998, 59% of Washington state voters passed a medical marijuana initiative; then, in 2007, the Washington legislature instructed the state Department of Health to define a 60-day supply of medical marijuana. In 2008, the Department of Health defined a 60-day supply as up to 24 ounces of usable marijuana and 15 plants at any stage of growth.
On a separate track, in 2003, 59% of Seattle voters passed a local initiative to make marijuana possession the lowest arrest priority for local police. After that, the number of arrests within city limits plummeted, and, in January of this year, the city attorney for Seattle announced that his office would no longer prosecute people for marijuana possession.
Seattle Hempfest both led to -- and benefited from -- the local 2003 initiative victory, for which my organization, the Marijuana Policy Project, provided substantial funding. For two days each year, Hempfest attendees see what it's like for the public use of marijuana to be legal: There's no violence (alcohol is prohibited during the event), and there's good company and music and speeches. And the police see the same thing -- especially the no-violence part.
The police and non-police leave with these observations and tell their friends and colleagues. Over the course of the last two decades, perhaps 1.5 million people -- most of whom live in Washington -- have witnessed this phenomenon. Quite simply, Hempfest has changed the local culture around marijuana. So it's no wonder that the 2003 initiative passed, which then led to a more formal policy change with respect to marijuana arrests at Hempfest ... and then the whole city year-round.
And now, support for making marijuana legal has broken the 50% threshold in the state. The three most recent statewide polls show that 56% of adults support "making marijuana possession legal" (January 2010), 54% of adults support "allow[ing] state-run liquor stores to sell and tax marijuana" (January 2010), and 52% of registered voters support "removing state civil and criminal penalties for possession or use of marijuana" (May 2010).
The 52% figure is probably the most accurate, because it's important to survey registered voters -- as opposed to all adults -- when you're thinking about supporting a statewide initiative, as MPP is considering doing in Washington state for the November 2012 ballot.
Because there are many supportive young people and independent voters who vote only in presidential elections, it's vitally important to place difficult-to-pass marijuana initiatives on presidential-election ballots. Indeed, MPP's initiatives have passed by surprisingly large margins in Massachusetts, Michigan, and Montana during presidential elections, while both of our initiatives in Nevada lost during midterm elections.
If we can agree on an initiative that's drafted to appeal to swing voters (meaning it can't be too radical) and it's placed on the November 2012 ballot, I predict that marijuana will be made legal in Washington state in just 26 months.
And this would be a particularly sweet victory, since Gil Kerlikowske, the White House drug czar, is the former police chief of ... Seattle.
Saw you at Portland Norml conference.
You have become obese. Lose weight.
The situation is untenable.
The private prison industry is trying to buy elections across America.
Here’s a list of campaigns the biggest private prison company (Corrections Corporation of America) has supported: http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/com_supopp/C00366468/
(It’s a total of $857,250 in more than 600 separate campaign contributions)
Rob Kampia or Huffington Post: If you want to shine some light into the dirteist sewer in America today, scratch around in the private prison industry's contributions to political candidates and referendums. There's probably a Pulitzer Prize in there for somebody who can do some digging and get this into the press (to say nothing of blowing the lid off of the nastiest piece of anti-American politics going on today).
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
http://www.desmoinesamplified.com/show_date.asp?showid=116&id=642
Active Iowa Patient in Studio..Reverend Reefer Terry Mitchell.
9/18/2010
Rev Reefer Terry Mitchell brings his walking stick to GCS...TURN SOUND DOWN thru ad(clean audio after .20 seconds)Once again thanks desmoinesamplified.com..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)
SHOW FIVE BRING IT LIVE !!!!!!!
http://www.drugwarrant.com/2010/09/alcohol-lobby-funds-prop-19-opposition/
The second biggest business during prohibition in Detroit was liquor at $215 million a year and employing about 50,000 people. Authorities were not only helpless to stop it, many were part of the problem. During one raid the state police arrested Detroit Mayor John Smith, Michigan Congressman Robert Clancy and Sheriff Edward Stein.
The Mexican cartels are ready to show, that when it comes to business, they also like to be nonpartisan. They will buy-out or threaten politicians of any party, make deals with whoever can benefit them, and kill those who are brave or foolish enough to get in their way.
If you support prohibition you've helped create the prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords.
If you support prohibition you've helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.
Prohibition is nothing less than a grotesque dystopian nightmare. We have to regulate and we have to do it now!
One in every hundred Americans is now locked behind bars and one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision. As the prison population is growing faster than the government can build prisons, private companies see an opportunity for profit.
The US government's outsources prisons and prisoners to the private sector. It is therefor in the interest of this sector to forcibly stand in the way of any criminal justice reform that would cut into their revenue, even if this results in sacrificing public safety or citizens rights.
Here's a transcript of a 2008 PBS special:
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/419/transcript.html
The following link will show you the very close relationship between Prohibition and the Prison-Industrial-Complex:
http://www.hermes-press.com/prisons_drugs.htm
The fact is, prison-for-profit prohibitionists don't care! They don't care that, historically, the prohibition of any mind altering substance has never succeeded. They don't care that America has the highest percentage of it's citizens incarcerated of any country in the history of the planet. They don't care about spawning far worse conditions than those they claim to be alleviating. These despotic imbeciles are actually quite happy to create as much mayhem as possible. After all, it's what fills their prisons and gets them elected.
Here's what the UK Economist Magazine thinks of us: "Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little" http://www.economist.com/node/16636027
facebook.com/freetheleaf
As a Christian who takes seriously Jesus command to do unto others what I would have them do unto me, I know that if my child were using marijuana, I would want to work with him or her as a parent rather than seeing him or her with a criminal record, in jail with the sexual predators, lose their college financial aid, and all of the very real harm that would be caused, not by marijuana, but by the law. I would hate for that to happen to any kid, but it does, every day.
Likewise, if my aging parents were to try a little marijuana to ease the aches and pains of growing older, I would not want to see the police confiscate their home and sell it under the property forfeiture laws. I would hate for that to happen to any aging parent, but it does. Register to vote. Just google your state name and the phrase “voter registration”. You have to register well in advance of election day.
California citizens can register at:
www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vr.htm
Others: Google your state name and “voter registration.”
College students: You can usually register as a citizen of either your hometown or your college residence town. Share the voter registration info through your student newspaper, twitter, etc.
5 minutes. Change the world. Share the links.