When we find people more articulate than ourselves, we feature them. I mean, why wouldn’t we? The following essay by Princeton University historian Julian Zilizer breaks down the reason legalization is inevitable. We couldn’t have said it better….
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/11/opinion/zelizer-marijuana-moment-arrives/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
At HigherGround, our responsibility is to show you all sides of the debate in and around the legalization of marijuana (aka Prohibition), and let you decide where you stand. The following is an ad from a coalition who opposed the recent editorial decision at the New Times Editorial Board which endorsed the legalization movement. Have a read, and we’ll be following up with additional thoughts and perspectives.
(From the Washington Post)
A coalition of groups is running a full-page advertisement in the New York Times this weekend, advocating against the maturing movement to legalize marijuana.
The ad comes in response to a New York Times editorial series launched last weekend arguing for an end to marijuana prohibition. In it, the newspaper’s editorial board advocated for an end to the federal ban on the drug. The ad, pictured below, features a businessman with the pasted-on head of a hippie, a visual metaphor for what the groups warn is the disconnected perception and reality when it comes to legalization.
“The legalization of marijuana means ushering in an entirely new group of corporations whose primary source of revenue is a highly habit-forming product,” the ad reads. “Sounds a lot like another industry we just put in its place. Many facts are being ignored by this and other news organizations. Go to GrasslsNotGreener.com to see why so many major medical associations oppose marijuana legalization.”
The website, which contains resources about the dangers of marijuana, is affiliated with Project SAM, which stands for Smart Approaches to Marijuana. The nonprofit was co-founded by former congressman and former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Patrick Kennedy and former Obama administration drug policy adviser professor Kevin Sabet. It advocates against legalization, but in favor of dropping mandatory minimum sentences and removing criminal penalties while expunging records for low-level users of the drug, and pushes for better access to treatment, education and prevention. The group contends that legalization risks the creation of a predatory industry
“In the marijuana business, the values of the flower children have been quickly replaced by the values of Wall St. power brokers,” Sabet said in a statement. “We’re on the brink of creating the next Big Tobacco. We feel like this is an important message most Americans have not considered.”
The implementation of legalization by Colorado officials–some of them at least initially opposed to it–has been described as a success, though it’s too early to assess the public health impact of the law itself. In Washington, the only other state to also legalize pot, the drug went on sale this month. Legalization is on the November ballot in Oregon and Alaska.
The coalition behind the new website includes:
The American Society of Addiction Medicine, a group that boasts more than 3,000 addiction physician and professional members
The National Association of Drug Court Professionals, a nonprofit whose members include judges, attorneys and clinical specialists
National Families in Action, a group dedicated to getting state laws passed to prevent marketing of drugs and drug use to children.
Parents Opposed to Pot.
(Thanks to Niraj Chokshi for this story. Niraj also reports for GovBeat, The Post’s state and local policy blog.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/08/02/coalition-runs-full-page-new-york-times-ad-to-dispute-pro-marijuana-editorial/
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished. It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol.
The federal government should repeal the ban on marijuana.
We reached that conclusion after a great deal of discussion among the members of The Times’s Editorial Board, inspired by a rapidly growing movement among the states to reform marijuana laws.
There are no perfect answers to people’s legitimate concerns about marijuana use. But neither are there such answers about tobacco or alcohol, and we believe that on every level — health effects, the impact on society and law-and-order issues — the balance falls squarely on the side of national legalization. That will put decisions on whether to allow recreational or medicinal production and use where it belongs — at the state level.
We considered whether it would be best for Washington to hold back while the states continued experimenting with legalizing medicinal uses of marijuana, reducing penalties, or even simply legalizing all use. Nearly three-quarters of the states have done one of these.
But that would leave their citizens vulnerable to the whims of whoever happens to be in the White House and chooses to enforce or not enforce the federal law.
The social costs of the marijuana laws are vast. There were 658,000 arrests for marijuana possession in 2012, according to F.B.I. figures, compared with 256,000 for cocaine, heroin and their derivatives. Even worse, the result is racist, falling disproportionately on young black men, ruining their lives and creating new generations of career criminals.
There is honest debate among scientists about the health effects of marijuana, but we believe that the evidence is overwhelming that addiction and dependence are relatively minor problems, especially compared with alcohol and tobacco. Moderate use of marijuana does not appear to pose a risk for otherwise healthy adults. Claims that marijuana is a gateway to more dangerous drugs are as fanciful as the “Reefer Madness” images of murder, rape and suicide.
There are legitimate concerns about marijuana on the development of adolescent brains. For that reason, we advocate the prohibition of sales to people under 21.
Creating systems for regulating manufacture, sale and marketing will be complex. But those problems are solvable, and would have long been dealt with had we as a nation not clung to the decision to make marijuana production and use a federal crime.
In coming days, we will publish articles by members of the Editorial Board and supplementary material that will examine these questions. We invite readers to offer their ideas, and we will report back on their responses, pro and con.
We recognize that this Congress is as unlikely to take action on marijuana as it has been on other big issues. But it is long past time to repeal this version of Prohibition.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/27/opinion/sunday/high-time-marijuana-legalization.html?_r=3&smid=tw-share
Second time may be a charm for cannabis is Oregon. The initiative has gathered enough signatures for another vote on legalizing marijuana.
If it passes this November, Oregon will become the latest in a string of U.S. states to liberalize marijuana laws, either for recreational or medical use. Alaska will also vote this year, then California in 2015, and the tide will have turned….
READ MORE at Reuters
The investigative reporters at Higher Ground caught State Senator buying a bag of marijuana red-handed – capturing the entire event on tape!
This was no Mayor Rob Ford scandal – instead, State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, who has been instrumental in crafting medical marijuana legislation since 1995, was one of the first customers to legally purchase pot at a recreational store today.
Check out some of the first day’s less scandalous coverage here:
And, most importantly, my post on The Good Men Project
The moment in history has arrived – enabling citizens to walk into a store and LEGALLY buy a bag of marijuana! But hold on a sec…
If there’s any way you can wait a few days to buy your legal weed from a recreational store in Washington State, you should. Seattle’s first retail pot shop, Cannabis City, is going to be a mob-scene when the doors open at (high) noon – and then they’re gonna run out of marijuana. The same will be true with the other 23 stores given retail licenses by the state today.
Though Washington State made weed legal a year and a half ago with the passage of Initiative 502, it’s taken some time to fine-tune the details. State agencies have had to vet growers, deal with inspections (now there’s a fun job!), quarantine herb before it could be shipped, and grant licenses to retailers who then had to install security cameras, tinted windows, pot-tracking software(!) and hopefully a Slurpee machine! (Imagine if they ran these kinds of background checks for folks trying to buy firearms!)
Right off the bat, there will be extremely limited supplies for ganja, as only 79 growers got the permits (from over 7000 applications!), and most those harvests won’t come in until late this month. So if you were looking forward to the PowerPurpleKushBerryCrunch that won the Cannabis Cup, yer gonna be waiting a bit longer. But hey – all good things are worth waiting for – besides, that SuperChronicHydroponic stuff will put you on the couch for days on end. Moderation, man! Prices will start high (up to $400 an ounce – ouch), but like Teslas, Furby dolls and the Galaxy S5, come down over time. Besides, would you rather pay $25 for a legal gram, or go black-market style, potentially rooming in the tank with Big Bubba while funding Mexican cartels and an over-crowded and money-sucking prison system?
Oh – and those Reefer’s Peanut Butter cup brownies you were so excited to try – that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon either. No edibles have so far been given the green light in Washington, as the process for licensing kitchens has been painfully slow. (Part of the debate has been a good one, with lawmakers wishing to make sure THC-laden edibles and sodas are not targeted to kids and that labels are clear enough even for Maureen Dowd to understand.) While I like the idea of child-resistant packaging, it’s hard enough for non-stoned adults to open a damn aspirin bottle, so I do hope they don’t make things too difficult…
Within a month or so, things will be running as smooth as the cool-kids have it goin’ on in Colorado, with varied and plentiful products, and more tax dollars than ever to blow on items like roads, infrastructure, and, hopefully, drug education and teacher’s salaries. Unlike Colorado, a major hurdle in Washington that has never been addressed is the way medical marijuana dispensaries will be treated. As of now, the myriad of retail regs are not being applied to these long-standing dispensaries, causing hell and havoc for many card-carrying marijuana patients who are truly in need and benefit greatly from the medicinal uses of weed.
The good news for those who do have marijuana cards – the strange gray-area they currently reside in allows them to purchase edibles of all-kinds – including licorice chews, gourmet chocolates and marijuana-infused hard candies. Not that I’ve tried any…
When it comes to the marijuana movement, it’s important to keep the mellow in mind, and visualize the Big Picture. As of this very moment: two States have legalized weed, and 20 more are scheduled to vote on the issue in the next two years. Like marriage equality, it’s going to happen – we just need the naysayers, Bible-thumpers and right-wing fundamentalists to come to their senses or, more likely, succumb to the will of the people – and the democratic process.
The Obama administration just issued new guidelines to folks in the weed business; perhaps he should issue some guidelines to a few other businesses while he’s at it….
CNN reporter Randi Kaye does the best job showing America what retail weed stores will look like that we’ve seen on Higher Ground. She also gets a hilarious contact high from being “hotboxed”in a Cannabis Tourbus.
(Washington Post)
The Hershey Co. has filed a trademark suit against an edible marijuana company for selling weed-infused snacks with packaging that mimics some of Hershey’s signature candies.
In the lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Denver, Hershey claims that the Colorado-based medical marijuana manufacturer Tincture Belle is selling products that look suspiciously like its Reese’s, Heath, Almond Joy and York Peppermint Pattie brands.
Not only are the products packaged in similar colors as the Hershey originals, the candy-making giant contends, their names are also reminiscent of their analogs: Hashees, Hasheath, Ganja Joy and Dabby Patty.
Hershey says that the packaging is not only a clear trademark violation, but also a safety risk to consumers — especially children — “who may not distinguish between Hershey’s candy products and defendants’ cannabis- and/or tetrahydrocannabinol-based products.”
Although recreational and medicinal marijuana sales are legal in Colorado, the burgeoning edible pot industry has raised some safety concerns.
In April, a Denver teen plunged off a balcony after eating six times the recommended amount of a marijuana brownie. And another man was accused of killing his wife in a hallucinatory episode after eating marijuana candy and rolling a joint, according to CBS News.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s own encounter with a caramel-chocolate flavored candy bar prompted her to argue in her column for greater regulation of the edibles industry.
It appears that Tincture Belle’s Web site and Facebook page are down. But according to the Associated Press, the products can be found in Colorado’s pot shops and medical marijuana dispensaries.
According to Tincture Belle, their pot products are gluten-free, vegan, sugar-free, GMO-free and peanut-free — although they do come with a hint of imitation.
(Thanks to Abby Philip for original post in Washington Post)
We may have an issue with all those annoying BuzzFeed Quizzes (“What Spirit Animal Are You!?), but when they do something well, we here at Higher Ground give ‘em props. Here’s a nice and simple explanation of what’s going on in Colorado regarding the legalization of marijuana.
