HUGE HUGE NEWS......The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday.
Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.
The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.
Together we are slowly but surly getting the attention of the Man/The Change Agent. With him stopping arrests, this opens up the door to an even greater expansion of the legalization of marijuana!!!!
This is a big step forward in the fight for the legalization of marijuana!!!
Here is a good video showing a great panel of political guests including the Ex. Head of the DEA talking about the legalization of marijuana. There are some great facts people talk about including how the DEA spent $10 billion fighting just marijuana as well as how consumption has gone up a huge amount. It also talks about how legalizing it would help the economy, comparing legalizing alcohol after the great depression to legalizing marijuana with our recession now.
Time Magazine once again comes out with a great article on why legalizing marijuana makes sense. If Time Magazine is writing an article titled "Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense" then we must be progressing.
Keep up the support of the cause and Time Magazine and other media that talk about it!!!!!!!
A couple of years ago before medical marijuana became legal in Rhode Island, Joycelyn Elders, the former U.S. Surgeon General of 1993-1994 wrote a great article of why Rhode Island should legalize medical marijuana. Within the article she talks about why it should be legal and covers almost every single myth their is about marijuana.
Just think about it for one minute A U.S. SURGEON GENERAL Feels Medical Marijuana Should Be Legal!!
Here is an awesome video of the Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen talking/schooling the FBI Director, Robert Mueller on marijuana legalization and the "gateway theory." It shows you that more and more politicians are stepping up and joining the cause to legalize marijuana.
A growing numbers of Americans support legalizing marijuana. A Rasmussen Reports poll released this week shows that 40% of Americans have joined with such public figures as the late Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper in saying that marijuana should be legal.
Looking at the map it is both amazing to see how many states have decriminalized or made medical marijuana legal as well as how many states remain keeping it illegal!!!!
A great article written by MSNBC talks about how requests for medical marijuana are up from 50-300%. They list a number of reasons for the increase, including how many have turned to medical marijuana with so many people being out of health insurance due to the economy. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that at least 45 million Americans under age 65 are now without health insurance. This leaves medical marijuana is the least expensive medication.
An episode of Frontline on "Americas war on marijuana" had an interview with Eric Schlosser, who has written several articles on the history and impact of marijuana law enforcement.
The interview is amazing and unbelievable. It shows how much the government is wasting our tax paying dollars.
A little sample:
When asked about the number of inmates in jail in relation to marijuana:
It's a pretty large number, in the sense that, certainly, in the federal system, about one out of every six federal inmates is in federal prison for marijuana. That's a very large number. There are more people now in federal prison for marijuana offenses than for violent offenses. Out of the 1.1 million people in American prisons, the marijuana offenders are not the majority. But there are a lot of them. And certainly, at a time when there's a shortage of prison space and when murderers are serving on average about six years in prison, it seems absurd to have non-violent marijuana offenders locked up in those large numbers.
I recently stumbled across an article written a couple months ago about how medical marijuana could help California's economy and set an example for the rest of the country in helping turn around our current economic status.
The most interesting part of the article was what publication it came from. It wasn't an underground internet news site or a far left wing liberal publication either. The article came from Time Magazine a well balanced, major news source for millions of Americans all over the world.
I want to change the laws on marijuana. I want marijuana to be 100% legal. My motivation for this is because recently my mother received the news that she had cancer. All throughout summer I thought of the pain and suffering she would go through while undergoing many treatments of chemotherapy and radiation. It was then when the idea of her possibly using medical marijuana to relieve the pain was brought up through discussions within my family. Although she hasn’t agreed yet, and even though it is legal through the state it got me thinking of how unjust it is for all of the states who don’t offer it legally. On top of it, even though it is recognized through the state, there have been numerous incidents when the federal government has raided medical marijuana pharmacies. Why raid a pharmacy? What is the biggest difference between medical marijuana and and any other pharmaceutical drug? If anything, pharmaceutical drug are far more harmful and addictive, however you will never be denied getting sold with a prescription. It was after thinking of this and doing a great deal of research that I then went even further into looking into legalizing it all together and the benefits that would come with it. Being one whose parents have suffered from the economy, I find it horrendous that the government is spending so much money on criminalizing marijuana instead of capitalizing on it. They can also cut crime down dramatically, taking out a key element (almost half) of the drug industry as well as the people incarcerated from marijuana related offenses. I feel that my knowledge of the laws on marijuana as well as the personal knowledge of knowing what it’s like to be the son of someone who could have possibly not been able to receive the correct medication to keep pain away makes me a perfect candidate for writing this blog and trying to create change in America.
This blog will have videos, interviews, links and other useful, interesting, and effective tools to motivate and effectively create change.
Ultimately the person I want to have this blog reach (my change agent) is President Obama. With him behind the cause, the most powerful man in America, it will open up many more doors to succeeding in bringing the legalization of marijuana.
