Worth Repeating: Want To Help With Cannabis Legalization? Sign These 11 Petitions!

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Sign These 11 White House Petitions Today!

Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.

Worth Repeating

By Ron Marczyk, R.N.
Health Education Teacher (Retired)

(Editor’s note: Major props to Morgan Fox over at Marijuana Policy Project, who, as I was preparing Ron Marczyk’s post, published MPP’s list of petitions to sign, here.)

That’s right, from the comfort of your living room, you can have green petition party, punctuated with bong rips if you so desire.
If this community can get all 11 of these petitions maxed out with signatures, it’ll help put medical cannabis issues on the table for the 2012 Presidential race.
Click on the name of each petition to go to the White House page where you can vote for it.

PETITION #1
This petition asks that the government recognize the medical value of cannabis (marijuana.)


American Medical Marijuana Society

PETITION #2

Our government has waged a war on cannabis, while holding a patent since 2003 (Patent #6630507, “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants”).
This patent states, “Cannabinoids (are) useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of a wide variety of associated diseases,” and “in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and HIV dementia.”
Since this statement would surely seem to be the truth as known by our government, this petition requests that the government (1) release and fully disclose all information they have regarding the healing and beneficial powers of cannabis and cannabinoids; (2) encourage and fund studies to further explore the potential benefits of cannabis; and (3) disclose all results of such studies.

PETITION #3

We the People of the United States of America, being of sound mind and sharing a unified spirit of common sense and striving for the betterment of the decisions made by the leaders of our country, set forth a petition to you, the Government of the United States of America, asking for a repeal of any and all laws regarding cannabis in any form and/or any materials, tools, devices or utensils needed in the use or production of said plant.
We believe you are needlessly wasting billions of dollars incarcerating otherwise law-abiding citizens for a crime in which there is no victim, thereby placing them in harm’s way.
We believe that the major crime and violence are a direct result of illegalization.
We believe it is scientifically proven less harmful than any drug approved by the FDA.

Esquire

PETITION #4

Modern research has proven what disabled veterans have known for a very long time: Cannabis is an effective medicine.
Veterans from the time of the United States Revolution through World War I had legal access to cannabis but in 1942, due to the efforts of a handful of powerful men, cannabis was removed from the United States Formulary.
Modern science has shown us that the human body makes its own cannabis-like substances called cannabinoids and that these cannabinoids are shown to be involved in various functions throughout the body like pain and anxiety.
Marijuana works with this natural body system to ease the symptoms of PTSD, giving disabled veterans a big improvement in their quality of life. We owe our disabled veterans our freedom; the least we should do is treat their pain and PTSD.
PETITION #5

Marijuana prohibition as a policy has failed. We have taken a substance less harmful than alcohol and, through prohibition, have allowed its production and sale to generate massive profits for drug cartels and other criminal actors.
Voters and legislators in states across the country are taking steps to reform marijuana laws for both medical and non-medical use so that they serve the best interest of their citizens. These are thoughtful, rational and beneficial reforms.
Do you, as President, trust the people and leaders in the individual states to enact their own marijuana laws or do you feel the federal government should impose prohibition on all 50 states?

Zazzle

PETITION #6

There is an overwhelming lack of evidence that marijuana is a dangerous drug that should be classified with heroin or cocaine. Hundreds of thousands of otherwise peaceful, law-abiding citizens are arrested each year for simple possession, at enormous cost to our society.
Our prisons are too crowded, we need the money, and the regulated sale of marijuana would be safer for everybody. Americans would rather deal with shopkeepers than drug dealers when buying the marijuana they will consume regardless of its legal status.
Prohibition failed in the ’20s, and is failing us now.
PETITION #7

We the people want to know when we can have our “perfectly legitimate” discussion on marijuana legalization.
Marijuana prohibition has resulted in the arrest of over 20 million Americans since 1965, countless lives ruined and hundreds of billions of tax dollars squandered and yet this policy has still failed to achieve its stated goals of lowering use rates, limiting the drug’s access, and creating safer communities.
Isn’t it time to legalize and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol? If not, please explain why you feel that the continued criminalization of cannabis will achieve the results in the future that it has never achieved in the past?

Hemptopia.org

PETITION #8

In order to resolve a wealth of inequities, we the people do entreat the White House to dismantle or redirect law enforcement agencies, and the approximately $400 BILLION per year spent on the “War on Drugs.”
The U.S. represents 5 percent of the world population, but imprisons 25 percent of all the world’s inmates. It is not the U.S. people who are excessively criminal. It is overzealous policy that destroys the future of America’s youth at great expense to the taxpayer.
Where would you be, Mr. President, had you been convicted and imprisoned because of your admitted marijuana usage? What great future leaders, thinkers and innovators are being destroyed today because of this useless policy?
Drug use is a social issue, and should be addressed by health care professionals, not the prison system.
PETITION #9

Lost opportunities for farmers and businesses have real consequences. With over $419 million in estimated U.S. retail sales, American companies making hemp products have no choice but to import their raw materials because American farmers continue to fear they will be prosecuted due to an outdated federal policy which confuses non-drug industrial hemp with drug varieties of cannabis.
Sustainable hemp seed, fiber and oil and already used in nutritious food, textiles, body care and even auto parts. Many American companies are using imported hemp in their products today.
We urge you to allow U.S. farmers to follow in the footsteps of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, all who were hemp farmers, and once again grow this sustainable and profitable non-drug crop.
…….
Note from Ron: Free all nonviolent cannabis prisoners starting with the two below. Who else can we add to this list? Post their names in the comments below!

…….

The Intel Hub

PETITION #10

I was the Officer working around Jason as a supervisor. I am now retired and feel it to be a moral imperative that this man (locked up on a first offense as a teenager) be set free.
Nine years locked up more than meet the requirements of most any state. A similar offense in California would have netted a person less than a year.
Jason has been the ideal inmate while I worked in the prison and I am confident he will make an excellent free citizen. It makes absolutely no sense to waste tax dollars on Jason’s further incarceration.
PETITION #11

We formally request that President Obama pardon and release Marc Scott Emery.
Marc Emery, a well-known Canadian political activist, publisher, businessman and leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party, was arrested in 20095 at the request of the United States for selling cannabis seeds through the mail.
The DEA press release by Administrator Karen Tandy on July 29, 2005 clearly explained the United States’ extradition request was a “significant blow … to the marijuana legalization movement” because Marc Emery’s money had been “channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada” — and therefore was for the purpose of prosecuting and punishing him by reason of his political opinion, activity and involvement.
(DEA press release seen at www.FreeMarc.ca)
[Editor’s note: Let’s make it an even dozen with this very deserving petition from activist Adela Falk.]
PETITION #12

This Petition is for an immediate release of all inmates who are incarcerated for non-violent drug offensives. We need immediate release for all inmates who are incarcerated for cannabis related crimes, even for probation violations.
Editor’s note: Ron Marczyk is a retired high school health education teacher who taught Wellness and Disease Prevention, Drug and Sex Ed, and AIDS education to teens aged 13-17. He also taught a high school International Baccalaureate psychology course. He taught in a New York City public school as a Drug Prevention Specialist. He is a Registered Nurse with six years of ER/Critical Care experience in NYC hospitals, earned an M.S. in cardiac rehabilitation and exercise physiology, and worked as a New York City police officer for two years. Currently he is focused on how evolutionary psychology explains human behavior.
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