cannabisnews.com: Why Question 9 is Bad for Nevada
Why Question 9 is Bad for Nevada
Posted by CN Staff on October 09, 2002 at 17:55:21 PT
By Ron Pierini
Source: Nevada Appeal
On Nov. 5, you will have an opportunity to vote on ballot Question 9, which is an initiative relating to "allow the use and possession of three ounces or less of marijuana by persons aged 21 years or older, to require the Legislature to provide or maintain penalties for using, distributing, selling or possessing marijuana under certain circumstances, and to provide a system of regulation for cultivation, taxation, sale and distribution of marijuana."
If passed by the voters, this initiative would amend our state's constitution and Nevada would be the first state in the America to pass the legalization of marijuana. However, uniquely enough, it would be in direct violation of federal and international drug treaties and our state will be subject to sanctions and the risk of federal prosecution.Setting aside the legal issues, our state will suffer far-reaching and negative impacts and public safety will be threatened.The members of the Nevada Sheriffs and Chiefs Association and the Nevada District Attorney's Association unamously voted "against" supporting this initative and they are now attempting to educate the voters that the passage of this law would lead to increased drug usage with the anticipation of increased criminal activity.The following are just a few reasons why this initiative must be defeated:-- Marijuana is a "gateway drug." It is a proven fact that kids who smoke marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than non-marijuana smokers. In Washoe County, 84 percent of individuals referred to Drug Court started with marijuana.-- According to U.S.Drug Enforcement Director Asa Hutchinson, 225,000 Americans entered substance abuse treatment primarily for marijuana dependence in 1999.-- Health insurance, liability insurance, and lawsuits against employers will increase significantly as results of accidents, injuries, and death attributed to marijuana use by employees. Drug using employees have a 300 percent higher medical cost than non-users.-- In Southern Nevada, 41.2 percent of those arrested for domestic violence tested positive for marijuana; 31.8 percent of those arrested for violent crimes tested positive for marijuana and 34.4 percent of those arrested for property crimes tested positive for marijuana-- According to the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, marijuana causes long term effects to include a) harmful effects to respiratory systems (similar to the same breathing problems that tobacco users experience, including bronchitis and emphysema), b) cancer: marijuana contains more cancer-causing agents than found in tobacco smoke, c) reproductive system: marijuana can effect male and female hormones, diminish or extinguish sexual pleasure, and cause a temporary loss in fertility and cause irregular menstrual cycles for women, and d) immune system: THC can damage the cells and tissues that help guard against disease-- Since this initiative would also change Nevada's driving under the influence laws, drivers would be permitted to drive under the influence of marijuana as long as they were not "driving dangerously." Currently, there is no way to determine the "level of intoxication" from marijuana use as there is with alcohol.You may be asking yourself who is behind this initiative? According to the Nevada Secretary of State's Office, $575,000.00 was contributed to the Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement from the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. Nevadans contributed only $275.MPP is supporting the legalization of marijuana in other states also, including Arizona, California, and Washington and has spent almost $20 million on their efforts nationwide. Billionaire George Soros, and two millionaires, John Sperling of Phoenix and Peter Lewis of Cleveland, have made substantial donations to support this ill-conceived initiative. Obviously, this is not a Nevada "grass roots" campaign.This initiative should not be confused with the passing of a Nevada law in 2001 allowing individuals to use marijuana for medical reasons. In some of the publicized literature produced by MPP, they allude to the medical benefits of marijuana in an effort to gain support and confuse voters.I encourage you to vote "no" on Question 9. By voting "no," we send a strong and clear message to our youth that we support law enforcement's effort to provide a drug free and safe environment in our community.Ronald P. Pierini is sheriff of Douglas County.Source: Nevada Appeal (NV)Author: Ron Pierini Published: October 9, 2002Copyright: 2002 Nevada AppealContact: appeal tahoe.comWebsite: http://www.nevadaappeal.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:NRLEhttp://www.nrle.org/Marijuana Policy Projecthttp://www.mpp.org/Sheriffs, Police Chiefs Oppose Marijuana Questionhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14340.shtmlNevada Could Be Drug Haven if Question 9 Passeshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14344.shtml
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Comment #13 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on October 10, 2002 at 15:33:53 PT
Long-winded but necessary LTE
Sirs, Douglas County Sheriff Ron Pierini's statements regarding Question 9 deserve further examination. To wit:-- Marijuana is a "gateway drug." First of all, this is a logical fallacy - "if before, then because". Or, to quote comedian George Carlin, "Mother's milk leads to everything." How many people who used cocaine had previously drank alcohol? Or caffeine? Yet we do not consider these "gateway drugs". If there is any truth to this, it is because marijuana is lumped in with heroin and cocaine as "illegal drugs", which are sold on the very unregulated black market. Someone who smokes marijuana will eventually come in contact with someone selling heroin or cocaine. If we sold marijuana in a licenced shop where heroin and cocaine were strictly forbidden, marijuana would be no more of a "gateway" than alcohol. This is the way the Dutch treat this issue, and they have the lowest per-capita percentage of hard drug users in the European Union.-- According to U.S.Drug Enforcement Director Asa Hutchinson, 225,000 Americans entered substance abuse treatment primarily for marijuana dependence in 1999. Our drug courts forced the majority of these people to choose between treatment or incarceration. If alcohol drinkers were arrested and forced to make the same choice, we would see a dramatic rise in the amount of people entering rehab for alcohol. Likewise, if we stopped forcing people into treatment for marijuana, then more spaces would be available for people who really want to be there.-- Health insurance, liability insurance, and lawsuits against employers will increase significantly as results of accidents, injuries, and death attributed to marijuana use by employees. Drug using employees have a 300 percent higher medical cost than non-users. Nobody has ever died as a result of using marijuana in all of recorded history. The only people who die over marijuana are those killed by police or drug gangsters - both by-products of prohibition. We haven't seen liquor gangs shooting each other up over turf wars in the past seventy years, ever since we ended the war on booze. And this assumes that marijuana use will skyrocket once it is legal, although many studies have shown that our current criminal sanctions do not stop people who want to get high.-- In Southern Nevada, 41.2 percent of those arrested for domestic violence tested positive for marijuana; 31.8 percent of those arrested for violent crimes tested positive for marijuana and 34.4 percent of those arrested for property crimes tested positive for marijuana. Marijuana can be detected in the body for up to 30 days after the intoxication wears off. If we tested arrestees for caffeine, we'd probably see even higher percentages. Yet we don't blame the caffeine for someone's actions, even though we know it can affect personal behaviour.-- According to the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, marijuana causes long term effects to include a) harmful effects to respiratory systems (similar to the same breathing problems that tobacco users experience, including bronchitis and emphysema), b) cancer: marijuana contains more cancer-causing agents than found in tobacco smoke, c) reproductive system: marijuana can effect male and female hormones, diminish or extinguish sexual pleasure, and cause a temporary loss in fertility and cause irregular menstrual cycles for women, and d) immune system: THC can damage the cells and tissues that help guard against disease. A) Then why is tobacco legal? B) Then why is there no epidemic of cancer in Rastafarians? C) Alcohol, in large doses, can cause impotence. Yet it is legal. And most cannabis users will attest to the opposite - marijuana enhanses sexual pleasure, and eases the symptoms of PMS. D) There have been numerous studies proving the opposite, but so what? We allow much more dangerous drugs on the market. Long term alcohol use will wreck your liver. Yet no American wishes to return to the days of Al Capone...-- Since this initiative would also change Nevada's driving under the influence laws, drivers would be permitted to drive under the influence of marijuana as long as they were not "driving dangerously." Currently, there is no way to determine the "level of intoxication" from marijuana use as there is with alcohol. The recent Canadian Senate Committee report concluded that drivers who smoke marijuana pose a very minimal risk if any. The greatest danger, they said, resulted from drivers who had both smoked cannabis and drank alcohol - they reccomended reducing the legal blood alcohol limit when cannabis is detected from .1% to .04%. But if cannabis is only truly dangerous when combined with alcohol, then why is alcohol legal and cannabis isn't? The Sheriff also claims that NRLE has spent $575,000 to promote Question 9, but fails to mention how much money the state and federal governments have spent to oppose it. John Walters' recent appearances in Nevada and Arizona were paid for with taxpayer dollars. The same can be said for the new spate of anti-marijuana propaganda issuing from the ONDCP. I always believed a Sheriff was a law enforcement agent, not a lawmaker. Please, Mr. Pierini, let the voters decide, and then enforce the laws of the state, regardless of your personal beliefs about them.
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Comment #12 posted by Prime on October 10, 2002 at 06:16:27 PT
Thanks DdC...
Just had coffee come out my nose.
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Comment #11 posted by mayan on October 10, 2002 at 03:37:22 PT
Pigs
Question 9 is bad because,well...it just is! And if it passes, we pigs will have to put down our donuts & fight real crime. Boo-Hoo!!!
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Comment #10 posted by BGreen on October 10, 2002 at 01:03:02 PT
No more HTML Tags
We were never supposed to use them. That's why you see all the different colors people are using.
CannabisNews.com Help
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Comment #9 posted by firedog on October 09, 2002 at 23:48:17 PT
Question about HTML tags
Hey... I'm trying to post a message but my HTML tags don't seem to be showing up. Can anyone help me out with this?I'm only trying to use the tags for bold and italics in my message, nothing real fancy.Thanks,firedog
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Comment #8 posted by DdC on October 09, 2002 at 23:12:53 PT
Maybe this visual will help Prime...
http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/28/28457.jpgAnd a reminder...It's bad enough when people stand around and do nothing about ignorance, another when they aid in its perpetuation. Peace, Love and Liberty or D.E.A.th...DdC"No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. ....the 63% of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, HOWEVER TEMPORARY, to stamp it out."
-William L. Shirer
THE POLICE STATE COMETH by Rep.Ron Paul
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Comment #7 posted by legalizeit on October 09, 2002 at 22:06:22 PT
Why Ronald P. Pierini is bad for Nevada
So much for the cops' cop-out, "We don't make laws, just enforce them." He probably thinks he is making some metaphysical revelations that will sway voters to vote down the horrible weed, but he just regurgitates the same crap Booker and the rest have been vomiting the last couple of weeks, almost verbatim!The only lie I hadn't seen was the "increase in health care and insurance costs" - where does he get that? The measure does not legalize being high on the job, and a responsible employer would terminate someone who was performing a hazardous operation while obviously baked off his ass. There is absolutely no rationale behind linking someone who possesses and uses pot in his private home to on-the-job accidents!>By voting "no," we send a strong and clear message to our youth that we support law enforcement's effort to provide a drug free and safe environment in our community.Of course he says nothing about the hordes of casino patrons getting in their cars and driving down I-15 full of complimentary booze...Sheriff Ron may have done some good in some areas, but this is definitely not one of them!
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Comment #6 posted by canaman on October 09, 2002 at 21:19:02 PT
Yes, Prime
With a little help from you maybe the good Sheriff Ron will get his head out of his ass and see the light...so to speak!
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Comment #5 posted by Prime on October 09, 2002 at 21:12:49 PT
NRLE donation...
I'm making a donation to the NRLE in the name of Sheriff Ron. He'll be so pleased.Oh, you can comment on this article in the Nevada Appeals forums.http://www.nevadaappeal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/news_messages?Category=OPINION&ThemeID=124&GroupID=29921
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Comment #4 posted by Prime on October 09, 2002 at 21:08:25 PT
Sheriff Ron...
I know Ron Pierini. He is a good man and a good Sheriff. He is seriously misguided on this issue.I cant bash him because I know of alot of good things he has done in Douglas County, NV. Sometimes we forget that there are other things cops do besides enforce stupid drug laws. A little girl was sexually assaulted and murdered in Stateline, NV about 2 years ago and it tore this town apart. Ron served as a great community leader and was there for alot of people. He is truly a friend of everyone in Douglas County.There, I said it. Even though we sometimes disagree vehimently with some of these individuals, we need to remember they are our fellow country men, neighbors and yes friends. The next time I talk to Ron, I'll be sure to tell him to get his head out of his ass.
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Comment #3 posted by DdC on October 09, 2002 at 19:22:52 PT
The U.S. Declaration of Independance from D.E.A.th
http://www.usacitylink.com/usa/declaration.htmlWhen, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers form the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. The history of the present Drugczar is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.He has dissolved representative (safe) houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.(Sick people at that)He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:For imposing taxes (fines) on us without our consent:For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of D.E.A.th, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a Cabenet Position in a civilized nation.In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these states, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the D.E.A.th, and that all political connection between them and the states of America, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor...."In a civilised society, it is the duty of all citizens to obey just laws. But at the same time it is the duty of all citizens to disobey unjust laws." - Martin Luther King Jr."No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. ....the 63% of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, HOWEVER TEMPORARY, to stamp it out." -William L. ShirerWalters the Terrorist
http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/politics/media/39/39850.jpgPeace, Love and Liberty in Solidarity or The Murdering D.E.A.th!
DdCD.E.A.th Deceptions
http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ddc/DEAth.htmlU.S.Al Qaeda!
http://www.cannabinoid.com/boards/politics/media/39/39670.gif
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Comment #2 posted by afterburner on October 09, 2002 at 18:48:32 PT:
Batter up!
Who wants the privilege of answering these lies one more time?
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Comment #1 posted by knox42897 on October 09, 2002 at 18:22:38 PT:
PROTEST RALLY TOMORROW
Who: NRLE, the campaign to pass Question 9What: A rally to support Question 9. Assemblywoman Chris Giunchiliangi will
be tapping a segment opposite the Federal Drug Czar on John
Ralston's show, "day one" on channel 8.When: THURSDAY, October 10, 2002. 11:00 a.m. PRESS EVENT.
Supporters please arrive by 10:15 a.m.Where: Near the Channel 8 Studios. 3228 Channel 8 Drive, the cross streets
are paradise and convention center drive. We will meet outside the
parking garage and assemble on the sidewalk near the studios. We will
validate your parking ticket.Why: To show our support for Question 9 and courageous spokespeople like
Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani. Nevadans DON'T appreciate the
Federal Government coming into our state and telling us how to vote on
Question 9. This is YOUR chance to be part of this historic effort. Look
professional-- the dress is business casual. We will have signs on hand
for supports to wave.
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