Search Results: 2012-election/ (2)

ACLU

By Jack Rikess
Toke of the Town
Northern California Correspondent
I am such a downer. Since Election Day, many friends, colleagues, and even my in-laws and family members who don’t fancy one of theirs being a pot writer, called or wrote wanting to know what I thought of Washington and Colorado passing what they’re calling “the legalization of marijuana.”
I should be ecstatic, as many of the well-wishers have commented. I tell them that it is a win. I tell them that it is progress. What I can’t tell them… is what’s going to happen next.
What we’re dealing with here are cultural norms. 
The question to me is, what is society going to do? How as a nation are we going to look at marijuana? What kind of resistance is there going to be?

Opposing Views
Drug Czar Gil Kerlkikowske adamantly refuses to consider rational policy alternatives that don’t involve criminal penalties, according to the Marijuana Policy Project’s Morgan Fox

Marijuana Use Rises in 2011 While Alcohol and Prescription Drug Use Decline
 
In a press conference Monday morning, representatives from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced the release of the latest results of the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health. As is their custom, the federal officials used the event — and the survey itself — as an opportunity to decry the use of marijuana in the United States and focused on perceived risk as a driving factor for increased use.
Marijuana use has slightly increased in the past year, while alcohol use has declined.