Marijuana and Cannabis News

I'm a registered Libertarian, so I know all about Gary Johnson. In fact, I ran for the Libertarian VP slot on the 2008 ticket. I ran on the signature issue of repealing drug prohibition, and was shunned by the Party's leadership, telling me the Libertarian Party's biggest negative was being the "druggie" party. I traveled the country spending a shitload of money trying to convince Libertarians that repealing drug prohibition was a good idea and one whose time had come, and it was working. When Bob Barr won the presidential nomination, the radical fringe freaked and I went from being a lock to Who's he? and Wayne Root got the VP nod. And I never heard from the LP leadership again. I like Gary Johnson amd will vote for him only if it appears Obama will be defeated by Romney. Getting Obama out of the White House is the most important thing for me in 2012. And please, no lectures.

 whatever.  I guess some people like to be called a criminal when they aren't.  No on I-502

*The only thing REAL is your fallacious arguments !!!*

If you are into taking chances, he isn't the one to take chances on. Try Gary Johnson. No chances there - he promises legalization.

Blah, blah, blah... Until the White House occupant sets the tone, nothing is going to change. Obama is a hypocrite amd can't be trusted. I'd be willing to give Romney a chance - not that he'll be any better than Obama but he just may surprise us.

 Sorry but I-502 gets a big thumbs down from me.  Its now where near legalization.  Its a joke and more criminalization of cannabis users for bullshit DUID.  Oregon is going to blaze the real legalization trail.

Don't worry the Govt. will have those drugs back on the street in no time so the money goes in their pockets.

The numbers you use for statistics for users of MJ are from people who are either brave enough to stand up to the USG of USA and state their use of MJ, or they are from people who are stupid enough to narc themselves out to the USG of USA. This, however, is not the actual number of all people who use MJ. This # if it were known to the USG of USA would send them into a hissy tissy over the real # of users/enjoyers of this plant.

While bullets fly into El Paso, bodies pile up in the streets of Juarez, and thugs with gold-plated AK-47s and albino tiger pens are beheading federal officials and dissolving their torsos in vats of acid, here are some facts concerning the peaceful situation in Holland. --Please save a copy and use it as a reference when debating prohibitionists who claim the exact opposite concerning reality as presented here below: Cannabis-coffee-shops are not only restricted to the Capital of Holland, Amsterdam. They can be found in more than 50 cities and towns across the country. At present, only the retail sale of five grams is tolerated, so production remains criminalized. The mayors of a majority of the cities with coffeeshops have long urged the national government to also decriminalize the supply side. A poll taken in 2010 indicated that some 50% of the Dutch population thinks cannabis should be fully legalized while only 25% wanted a complete ban. Even though 62% of the voters said they had never taken cannabis. An earlier poll also indicated 80% opposing coffee shop closures.  http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/02/public_split_on_cannabis_legal.php It is true that the number of coffee shops has fallen from its peak of around 2,500 throughout the country to around 700 now. The problems, if any, concern mostly marijuana-tourists and are largely confined to cities and small towns near the borders with Germany and Belgium. These problems, mostly involve traffic jams, and are the result of cannabis prohibition in neighboring countries. Public nuisance problems with the coffee shops are minimal when compared with bars, as is demonstrated by the rarity of calls for the police for problems at coffee shops. While it is true that lifetime and past-month use rates did increase back in the seventies and eighties, the critics shamefully fail to report that there were comparable and larger increases in cannabis use in most, if not all, neighboring countries which continued complete prohibition. According to the World Health Organization only 19.8 percent of the Dutch have used marijuana, less than half the U.S. figure.  In Holland 9.7% of young adults (aged 15 to 24) consume soft drugs once a month, comparable to the level in Italy (10.9%) and Germany (9.9%) and less than in the UK (15.8%) and Spain (16.4%). Few transcend to becoming problem drug users (0.44%), well below the average (0.52%) of the compared countries. The WHO survey of 17 countries finds that the United States has the highest usage rates for nearly all illegal substances. In the U.S. 42.4 percent admitted having used marijuana. The only other nation that came close was New Zealand, another bastion of get-tough policies, at 41.9 percent. No one else was even close. The results for cocaine use were similar, with the U.S. again leading the world by a large margin. Even more striking is what the researchers found when they asked young adults when they had started using marijuana. Again, the U.S. led the world, with 20.2 percent trying marijuana by age 15. No other country was even close, and in Holland, just 7 percent used marijuana by 15 -- roughly one-third of the U.S. figure. http://www.alternet.org/drugs/90295/ In 1998, the US Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey claimed that the U.S. had less than half the murder rate of the Netherlands. That’s drugs, he explained. The Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics immediately issued a special press release explaining that the actual Dutch murder rate is 1.8 per 100,000 people, or less than one-quarter the U.S. murder rate. Here is a very recent article by a psychiatrist from Amsterdam, exposing Drug Czar misinformation http://tinyurl.com/247a8mp The Dutch justice ministry announced, in May 2009, the closure of eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty. There's simply not enough criminals http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2246821.ece/Netherlands_to_close_prisons_for_lack_of_criminals For further information, kindly check out this very informative FAQ provided by Radio Netherlands: http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/faq-soft-drugs-netherlands or go to this page: http://www.rnw.nl/english/dossier/Soft-drugs *** At least 600 people have lost their jobs since all cannabis cafes in three Dutch border provinces have been turned into members' only clubs, and hundreds of people have been arrested (in one provence alone) for drug offenses. In addition, Maastricht University researchers have said that youngsters are now being exposed to other drugs because the strict separation between hard and soft drugs no longer applies. There has also been an increase in demand for seeds and other equipment required to grow marijuana at home. http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2012/07/at_least_600_jobs_go_as_cannab.php http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/07/09/Study-Dutch-weed-pass-ups-street-sales/UPI-50311341835059/