PNJ Viewpoints on Amendment 2

http://www.pnj.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/09/13/viewpoint-medical-marijuana-belong-state-constitution/15534535/

http://www.pnj.com/story/opinion/2014/09/13/viewpoint-colorado-going-pot-let-florida/15534781/

One opinion piece is out of Colorado and one is from a former Florida Supreme Court judge. Both pieces are against passage of Amendment 2. I was most intrigued by the comments beneath each article.

I think Amendment 2 will pass very handily. I am not a marijuana user (I have never used it) but will likely vote for the law.

Marijuana prohibition has been a dismal and complete failure, just as it was for alcohol in the 1920s. Perhaps removing prohibition will lessen the burden on law enforcement and help curb the power of drug cartels, reduce smuggling/drug trafficking, etc. Amendment 2 is a step in that direction; in any case, a different course needs to be charted over the current one.

How will it do the things you say if it is still illegal for Rec use ? How will making it legal for medicinal use lower demand?

https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/hundreds-economists-marijuana-prohibition-costs-billions-legalization-would

4/16/2012

Hundreds of Economists: Marijuana Prohibition Costs Billions, Legalization Would Earn Billions

Over 300 economists, including three Nobel Laureates, recently signed a petition that encourages the president, Congress, governors and state legislatures to carefully consider marijuana legalization in America. The petition draws attention to an article by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, whose findings highlight the substantial cost-savings our government could incur if it were to tax and regulate marijuana, rather than needlessly spending billions of dollars enforcing its prohibition.

Miron predicts that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement, in addition to generating $2.4 billion annually if taxed like most consumer goods, or $6 billion per year if taxed similarly to alcohol and tobacco. The economists signing the petition note that the budgetary implications of marijuana prohibition are just one of many factors to be considered, but declare it essential that these findings become a serious part of the national decriminalization discussion.

The advantages of marijuana legalization extend far beyond an opportunity to make a dent in our federal deficit. The criminalization of marijuana is one of the many fights in the War on Drugs that has failed miserably. And while it's tempting to associate only the harder, "scarier" drugs with this botched crusade, the fact remains that marijuana prohibition is very much a part of the battle. The federal government has even classified marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance (its most serious category of substances), placing it in a more dangerous category than cocaine. More than 800,000 people are arrested for marijuana use and possession each year, and 46 percent of all drug prosecutions across the country are for marijuana possession. Yet this costly and time-consuming targeting of marijuana users by law enforcement and lawmakers has done little to quell use of the drug.

The criminalization of marijuana has not only resulted in a startlingly high number of arrests, it also reflects the devastating disparate racial impact of the War on Drugs. Despite ample evidence that marijuana is used more frequently by white people, Blacks and Latinos account for a grossly disproportionate percentage of the 800,000 people arrested annually for marijuana use and possession. These convictions hinder one's ability to find or keep employment, vote or gain access to affordable housing. The fact that these hard-to-shake consequences – bad enough as they are — are suffered more frequently by a demographic that uses marijuana less makes our current policies toward marijuana all the more unfair, unwise and unacceptable.

Our marijuana policies have proven ineffective, expensive and discriminatory. Our courtrooms, jails and prisons remain crowded with nonviolent drug offenders. And yet, the government persists in its costly, racist and counterproductive criminalization of marijuana. We learned our lesson decades ago with alcohol prohibition; it is long overdue for us to do the same with marijuana prohibition. In the face of Miron's new report, and its support from hundreds of economists, we are hopeful that not only will the national conversation surrounding marijuana change, but so will our disastrous policies.

**********************

http://web.archive.org/web/20110718082631/http:/www.prohibitioncosts.org/mironreport.html

PACEDOG#1 wrote:How will it do the things you say if it is still  illegal for Rec use ? How will making it legal for medicinal use lower demand?

Always on the wrong side of history.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/police-rake-in-bonanzas-from-people-who-have-committed-no-crime/2014/09/10/d9d5a51a-386d-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html

By Editorial Board September 10


"THE POLICE can take your car and everything in it — including the cash you are transporting to buy a used truck, a fixer-upper house or equipment for your restaurant — even if you’re not guilty of any crime. Getting your property back can take months and cost thousands. Sometimes authorities will offer to give those who complain half their money back, which makes little sense if the cash is free from association with a serious crime — or if it isn’t.

If all of that seems like it couldn’t possibly happen in the United States, welcome to the weird legal backroads of civil forfeiture. A Post three-part investigation this week showed that law enforcement officers deploy this extraordinary power across the country, too often against innocent people, with the assistance and encouragement of the federal government.

Civil forfeiture policies are in place to combat drug rings and other organized crime. If law enforcement officials believe that property — cars, homes or, especially, cash — is connected to criminal activity, they can take it. But officers’ pretexts can be shockingly thin: cars that have tinted windows, cars that are too clean, cars that are too dirty, drivers who are too nervous, the presence of energy drinks and so forth. Rightful owners have to hire lawyers and prove that the cash came from legitimate savings and not from a drug smuggler. That takes time and often comes in the form of a settlement in which victims must promise not to sue.
Local police departments have discovered that they can claim revenue and glory by seizing large amounts of property from motorists. Unsurprisingly, reporters have been turning up anecdotal accounts of police abuse. The New Yorker last year detailed how overzealous officials in Tenaha, Tex., shook down out-of-state drivers by, among other things, threatening to take their children away from them, then funneled the confiscated cash into officer bonuses and popcorn machines.


Though state laws sanction much of this, the federal government helped create a nationwide forfeiture bonanza. If a local police department confiscates property on behalf of the feds, it gets a large slice of the value back through a program known as “equitable sharing.” The Post’s Robert O’Harrow Jr., Michael Sallah and Steven Rich found that, through the program, authorities have made 61,998 cash seizures without search warrants or indictments since 9/11. They raked in $2.5 billion, in large part through confiscating relatively small amounts.

“Hundreds of state and local departments and drug task forces appear to rely on seized cash, despite a federal ban on [using] the money to pay salaries or otherwise support budgets,” The Post reported, adding that “298 departments and 210 task forces have seized the equivalent of 20 percent or more of their annual budgets since 2008.”

Congress and state governments should demand that confiscated money not be used to fund police operations, and they should develop policies to limit the application of civil forfeiture to the kingpins it was supposed to target.

****************

You progressives (L & R) should take note of the process by which marijuana and even hemp became illegal.

Here's a clue... it always involves a noble intent... and is usually promoted by monied interests and social intervention.

I doubt Colorado is seeing this windfall of tax revenue. What will be the costs of rehabilitative addiction counseling tied to pot use? Colorado is seeing the negatives for that already in increases pot DUis and such. I still have no answer to how legalization for medicinal use will impact illicit use and eliminate the cartels and such. Everyone isn't going to be able to get a pot script just for the hell of it.

Being a stoner is the wrong side of History.

http://www.naturalnews.com/046843_painkillers_prescription_drug_abuse_opioids.html##ixzz3DLCmJSBG

PACEDOG#1 wrote:I doubt Colorado is seeing this windfall of tax revenue.

Actually, tax revenue has exploded while crime has fallen.

Link or are you just pontificating ?

I don't even think it offsets the added
Cost of social services

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/11/colorado-marijuana-tax-revenues-surge-as-recreational-sales-surpass-medical-for-the-first-time/

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/Revenue-Main/XRM/1251633259746

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/03/11/its-no-toke-colorado-pulls-in-millions-in-marijuana-tax-revenue/

http://rt.com/usa/163644-colorado-marijuana-crime-drop/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2680499/Crime-tax-revenues-11million-Six-months-Colorado-voted-legalize-marijuana-sky-fallen-stoner-state-long-term-consequences-unclear.html

http://www.allgov.com/news/unusual-news/violent-crime-down-since-colorado-legalized-marijuana-140610?news=853366

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/07/denver_marijuana_crime_louisia.html

we aren't voting on legalizing pot, just medicinal use

http://backandneck.about.com/od/chronicpainconditions/i/medmar_2.htm

Th Dude wrote:You progressives (L & R) should take note of the process by which marijuana and even hemp became illegal.

Here's a clue... it always involves a noble intent... and is usually promoted by monied interests and social intervention.

Social intervention...you don't have a clue what your saying. It was William Randolph Hearst, who owned lots and lots of forests and paper mills and didn't want the competition from hemp.




Then it was Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon, who didn't want opposition to the Vietnam War.

I go in Thursday to get a prescription for MM which will be available in January.

Floridatexan wrote:

Th Dude wrote:You progressives (L & R) should take note of the process by which marijuana and even hemp became illegal.

Here's a clue... it always involves a noble intent... and is usually promoted by monied interests and social intervention.

Social intervention...you don't have a clue what your saying. It was William Randolph Hearst, who owned lots and lots of forests and paper mills and didn't want the competition from hemp.




Then it was Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon, who didn't want opposition to the Vietnam War.

That's right... Hearst used his papers and his influence to manipulate the govt and populist support... a govt always willing it seems to intercede into what shouldn't be it's business. Luckily for Hearst he had a receptive progressive only too willing to enact social interventions. But before any on the right jump on this... Nixon really amped up the game. Of course this is all done for our own good... right?

Anyone who wishes to use the govt to force and enforce their subjective opinions is a progressive... it doesn't matter if you have a religious rationalization, an ideological rational, or a maniacal self-deluded narcissism that somehow entitles you to decide for other people... it's wrong and it's evil.

Nixon got us out of war.....

PACEDOG#1 wrote:Nixon got us out of war.....

Nixon LIED about ending the war. Once again, you need a history lesson:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vietnam-war-for-political-gainand-johnson-knew-about-it-newly-unclassified-tapes-suggest-3595441/?no-ist

"In 1968, the Paris Peace talks, intended to put an end to the 13-year-long Vietnam War, failed because an aide working for then-Presidential candidate Richard Nixon convinced the South Vietnamese to walk away from the dealings, says a new report by the BBC’s David Taylor. By the late 1960s Americans had been involved in the Vietnam War for nearly a decade, and the ongoing conflict was an incredibly contentious issue, says PBS:

In 1967, with American troop strength in Vietnam reaching 500,000, protest against U.S. participation in the Vietnam War had grown stronger as growing numbers of Americans questioned whether the U.S. war effort could succeed or was morally justifiable. They took their protests to the streets in peace marches, demonstrations, and acts of civil disobedience. Despite the country’s polarization, the balance of American public opinion was beginning to sway toward “de-escalation” of the war.

Nixon’s Presidental campaign needed the war to continue, since Nixon was running on a platform that opposed the war. The BBC:

Nixon feared a breakthrough at the Paris Peace talks designed to find a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam war, and he knew this would derail his campaign.

… In late October 1968 there were major concessions from Hanoi which promised to allow meaningful talks to get underway in Paris – concessions that would justify Johnson calling for a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam. This was exactly what Nixon feared..."

[...]

Though the basic story of Nixon’s involvement in stalling the Vietnam peace talks has been around before, the new tapes, says the Atlantic Wire, describe how President Johnson knew all about the on-goings but chose not to bring them to the public’s attention: he thought that his intended successor, Hubert Humphrey, was going to beat Nixon in the upcoming election anyway. And, by revealing that he knew about Nixon’s dealings, he’d also have to admit to having spied on the South Vietnamese ambassador.

Eventually, Nixon won by just 1 percent of the popular vote. “Once in office he escalated the war into Laos and Cambodia, with the loss of an additional 22,000 American lives, before finally settling for a peace agreement in 1973 that was within grasp in 1968,” says the BBC.




Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vietnam-war-for-political-gainand-johnson-knew-about-it-newly-unclassified-tapes-suggest-3595441/#UZhrLAHJ7Bqxfa8T.99

Sorry FT, but while Johnson created the biggest military boondoggle ever, Nixon got the US out of the war in Nam and even ended the draft.

The war expanded to other nations because the viet cong was using those countries for safe harbors. Johnson had tied the hands of the military where they could not fight appropriately.