Its truly NOT an argument… Mickey d’s kills.
obviously
(via warpedpassage)
My new present…time to get educated on emerging markets for industrial design possibilities.
This could change things…DRASTICALLY.
And would also make for an interesting Bud Bowl revival for Super Bowl ad season.
Among other things.
Colorado, Washington Legalize Marijuana | Drug War Chronicle
- WASHINGTON: Initiative 502 legalizes the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults 21 and over, but does not allow for personal cultivation, except by or for medical marijuana patients. It will license marijuana cultivation and retail and wholesale sales, with restrictions on advertising. Regulation will be the remit of the state liquor control board, which will have to come up with rules by December 2013. The measure creates a 25% excise tax on marijuana sales, with 40% of revenues dedicated to the general fund and 60% dedicated to substance abuse prevention, research, and healthcare. It also creates a per se driving under the influence standard of 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood.
- COLORADO: Amendment 64 allows adults 21 and over to possess up to an ounce of marijuana or six marijuana plants, three of which can be mature. It will create a system of state-licensed cultivation, manufacturing, and testing facilities and state-licensed retail stores. Local governments would have the option of regulating or prohibiting such facilities. The amendment also requires the state legislature to enact legislation governing industrial hemp cultivation, processing, and sale, and to create an excise tax on wholesale marijuana sales. The first $40 million of that annual revenue will be dedicated to building public schools.
Proud to have voted for this in Washington
(via goodgolly-missmolly11)
A new study from The Instituto Mexicano Para La Competitividad A.C. (Mexican Institute for Competitiveness) reveals potentially devastating consequences for a number of Mexican drug cartels should marijuana be legalized in a handful of the United States. The Mexican think thank believes the legalization measures on the ballot in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington could cut combined cartel profits by as much as 22 to 30 percent, and could severely cripple the infamous Sinaloa Cartel that operates in Western Mexico. source
There are, I believe, five states with cannabis legalization measures (medical or total). Let this study be a sign to support Cannabis freedom.
Unless you support Mexican drug cartels. Then, vote for the status quo, the cartels will thank you.
(via goodgolly-missmolly11)
#Zing
Source: NBC news
All the more reason to raid people’s homes to ensure they are not self-medicating.
Q
daenerys-catgaryen asked:
I was about to say that I'm pretty sure pot isn't the biggest issue we should be focusing on in the world because that's how you made your recent post seem, but then I looked at the article and saw "drug wars" and then my mind was immediately changed. I don't think the whole marijuana thing is "laughable" but I don't think making marijuana legal everywhere is imperative to making our society better- probably because I've never smoked it and never will and don't know the culture behind it.
A
Well, first, thanks for your comment! I do agree with most everything you’ve stated. But, my interest in the issue is both a personal and professional matter. I have smoked it and actually prefer it over alcohol. It wasn’t until 2002 that I took a deeper understanding of the whole issue with my interests in marijuana being illegal, primarily because of a quote I happened to run across from Harry Anslinger who was the director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (now the DEA) which essentially demonized Filipinos and blacks who smoked marijuana:
“Marijuana is the most violence causing drug in the history of mankind. Most marijuana smokers are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana usage.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/editorials/jan-june01/drug_laws.html
I’m not one who is easily offended but that struck a nerve because my mom’s Filipino, my dad’s black, and under the influence of marijuana, I NEVER had any violent tendencies. In fact, what I felt was the exact opposite. This only helped to spark my curiosity as to why it was made illegal in the first place with a claim, to me, that failed to hold any truth to it.
From that point on, I later discovered there was more to this issue which rolls into my professional Industrial Design background. Hemp, a cousin to the more popular cannabis plant, also has a long history with industrial applications. Around the time hemp and marijuana were made illegal, in 1937, the petrochemical industry was beginning to prosper and companies like DuPont and General Motors were looking to partner and capitalize on it. Hemp, which is relatively easy to grow, did pose a threat, and was a fundamental ingredient to Henry Ford’s agenda of manufacturing cars made from plant-based resources.
http://ushistory4you.hubpages.com/hub/Henry-Fords-Hemp-Car
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/us-supreme-court-rules-against-du-pont-in-general-motors-suit
Another industry it seemed was also threatened by hemp and it was one largely controlled by a media conglomerate, William Randolph Hearst, who owned acres of timber farm specifically for his newspaper companies.
“Hearst was a notorious xenophobe. He reportedly hated minorities, and he used his chain of newspapers to aggravate racial tensions at every opportunity. He especially hated Mexicans, portraying them as lazy, degenerate, and violent, and as marijuana smokers and job stealers. However, the real motive behind this prejudice may well have been that Hearst had lost 800,000 acres of prime timberland to the rebel Pancho Villa, suggesting that Hearst’s racism was fueled by Mexican threats to his empire’s source of newsprint.”
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/celebrity/wm_randolph_hearst/11.html
Looking back, it was relatively easy to put blame on non-whites for many of society’s problems. One only has to see what happened to loyal Japanese-American citizens during World War II: http://www.sfmuseum.org/war/evactxt.html
Marijuana was made illegal at a time when the world, it seemed, wanted to get rid of anything which was not white: Japanese, Jews, blacks, Filipinos, etc. And it was the perfect storm for certain industries to take advantage of this opportunity by placing that blame on marijuana as a root cause for negative behavior and was still a plant most people hadn’t even heard of.
So, no I don’t think making marijuana legal everywhere would make society better, but we cannot continue to support marijuana and hemp being illegal when it was made illegal for all the wrong reasons over 70 years ago.
It’s a law which, at its very core, is fundamentally wrong even if you, yourself, have never ingested it. If you did, you are still 100% more likely to survive its ingestion than if you had ingested a gallon of home-brewed beer in one sitting.
What I do hope to see change though is that we could use hemp as a renewable source of energy by growing our own oil and people could grow their own medicine either themselves or in a co-op scenario.
Lastly, the police won’t be necessary to raid people’s homes and incarcerating them for possessing a non-lethal plant.
Portugal’s innovative drug policy offers hope
The decriminalisation of drug use is just part of a broader set of policies, aimed at reducing both supply and demand, and including measures of prevention, treatment, harm reduction and social reinsertion, Dr. João Castel-Branco Goulão, the architect of the reform of Portugal’s drug policy and the president of the country’s Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, told IPS.
Perhaps the biggest stride forward was in the area of drug addiction-related damage, like the spread of HIV/AIDS.
In 2000, contagion among intravenous drug users accounted for 52 percent of all new cases of HIV. By 2009, that proportion had plunged to 16 percent.
(via urissdp)
The funny thing is I knew that this was going to happen.
He knew it was going to happen.
It’s been happening since Day 1 and the response has been to dismiss the issue of legalizing marijuana.
Millions of people, most of whom are minorities, are being incarcerated just for possessing a plant which has claimed zero lives from overdose.
#NBD
very inspirational.
“If you’ve never failed, you’ve never tried anything new.”
I hope to add my name to this by re-legalizing a plant that is high in omega-3 fatty acids, can be used to make plastic, paper, & textiles, is a source of renewable energy, has medicinal benefits, and lastly from the Drug Enforcement Agency, has been responsible for NO reported deaths from overdose.
But for some reason, it will bring a deathstorm of militarized weaponry into your home for possessing it.
Why is that?
Olympics vs Mars
This is interesting because the Olympics takes place every 4 years and roughly represents $13.7 Billion which is what we could save, annually, from the legalization of cannabis.
(via npr)
It’s really challenging advocating for legalized cannabis.
Especially considering the following:
1.) Obama himself has smoked cannabis on more than one occasion
2.) The DEA unequivocally states that there are “no reported deaths” from overdosing on it
3.) Every household in America has, at the very least, one thing significantly more harmful (or deadlier) than cannabis whether it was held (properly / improperly), ingested, or even looked at
I’m advocating for the legalization of this plant because we are spending BILLIONS of dollars keeping it illegal for reasons beyond comprehension.
Yet, I can’t help feeling I will be judged and looked negatively down upon for my advocacy.
If you are such a person to judge ME, how do YOU justify the allocation of BILLIONS of dollars, time, and resources to raid, with militarized force, American households subjecting citizens to fear and oftentimes shooting them and/or their pets (graphic video), merely because the DEA says marijuana is NOT a medicine and can be abused?
300 economists agree that legalization could save $13.7 BILLION annually.
Instead, $13,700,000,000 could also pay, annually:
274,000 unemployed people a salary of $50,000
or
1,370,000 teachers a bonus of $10,000
or
13,700,000 students a $1,000 scholarship
or
$274,000,000 for each state in our union to repair/upgrade infrastructure EVERY YEAR
OR, we could continue to do nothing but increase the incarcerated population (made-up largely of non-white persons) AND make them all tax-payer burdens.
As an example, in the state of New Jersey alone, one year’s tuition at Princeton costs $37,000. One year of prison for possessing or growing a non-lethal plant costs $44,000 per person.
I ask again, why do YOU think we should keep marijuana illegal?
