cannabisnews.com: Fans of Legal Marijuana Cheer 
function share_this(num) {
 tit=encodeURIComponent('Fans of Legal Marijuana Cheer ');
 url=encodeURIComponent('http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/27/thread27625.shtml');
 site = new Array(5);
 site[0]='http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[1]='http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit.php?url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[2]='http://digg.com/submit?topic=political_opinion&media=video&url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[3]='http://reddit.com/submit?url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[4]='http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&noui&jump=close&url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 window.open(site[num],'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=620,height=500');
 return false;
}






Fans of Legal Marijuana Cheer 
Posted by CN Staff on September 10, 2013 at 05:55:40 PT
By Bill Laitner, Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
Source: Detroit Free Press
Washington, D.C. -- The pros and cons of marijuana will take center stage Tuesday in Washington, D.C., when the Senate Judiciary Committee holds a landmark hearing on legalization.Requested by committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the hearing was triggered by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement last month that federal authorities no longer will interfere as states adopt laws to allow medical marijuana or to legalize the drug entirely.
The hearing is on conflicts between state and federal marijuana laws. In calling for it, Leahy questioned whether, at a time of severe budget cutting, federal prosecutions of marijuana users are the best use of taxpayer dollars.Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for the nonprofit lobby group Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., said he hopes for a breakthrough in the hearing that would lead to changes in federal banking laws, allowing marijuana sellers to accept credit cards and checks, not just cash.That would do a lot to legitimize the nation’s marijuana industry, safeguarding transactions from the risk of robberies and smoothing the route away from the black market and Mexico’s drug cartels, Riffle said.But “the elephant in the room is that we have an administration that’s essentially working around federal law” to allow states to legalize marijuana, he said. “What we should do is just change federal law — just legalize marijuana.”This fall, Michigan lawmakers could take up bills that would ease laws on marijuana and widen medical users’ access to it.With public attitudes bending toward legalization in the last three years and reaching a majority in March, those who favor legal weed say they’ve reached a watershed year — one like 1930 might have felt to those who welcomed the nationwide legalization of alcohol in 1933.“It is historic — you can feel it,” said Matt Abel, a Detroit lawyer who heads Michigan NORML, the state chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.Fans of legal marijuana say their cause just hit the tipping point, and point to a series of events that they say prove that legalization is on the cusp of being more than a pipe dream. They include that:* In March, for the first time, a majority of Americans — 52% — told pollsters they favored legalizing marijuana, according to the Pew Research Center.* In anticipation of retail pot stores opening this January, recreational users are flocking to Colorado and Washington state.* Two national opinion leaders signaled changes of heart about cannabis. CNN medical correspondent and Novi native Dr. Sanjay Gupta, in his documentary “Weed” last month, reversed the stance he expressed in his 2009 Time magazine article, “Why I Would Vote No on Pot.” And U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told an audience in Tucson last week, “Maybe we should legalize marijuana. ... I respect the will of the people.”Planning to be in a front-row seat at Tuesday’s hearing is Neill Franklin, who heads LEAP — for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition — a nationwide group of mostly retired police, judges and corrections officers who want to see all street drugs legalized.“A nationwide policy of prohibition leads to organized crime, underground crime, mass incarceration, very costly law enforcement, and ironically, the drugs become widely available and more dangerous because there are no quality-control standards,” Franklin said last week.“We saw that with alcohol,” he said.But not all at the hearing will be in favor of all-out legalization.Kevin Sabet, a former senior adviser on drug policy to President Barack Obama’s drug czar, is expected to testify that legalization is being rushed into the states without understanding its consequences.His arguments are laid out in detail in his new book “Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths about Marijuana” (Beaufort Books, New York: $14.95), Sabet said.“It’s an appeal for a science-based and a health-based marijuana policy, not based on legalization but also not based on incarceration for small amounts” — and instead advocates wider access for marijuana users to state-of-the-art drug treatment programs, said Sabet, the director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida.Sabet will bring his message to Michigan next month as a presenter at a public conference on youths and the consequences of marijuana. It’s Oct. 10 at the Oakland County Intermediate School District offices.“Yes, there are medical properties in marijuana,” Sabet said, “but we don’t need to deliver that by smoking a joint or eating a brownie.”Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)Author: Bill Laitner, Detroit Free Press Staff WriterPublished: September 10, 2013Copyright: 2013 Detroit Free PressWebsite: http://www.freep.com/Contact: letters freepress.comURL: http://drugsense.org/url/3LZleuvRCannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml 
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help 
     
     
     
     




Comment #8 posted by ekim on September 11, 2013 at 15:59:46 PT
yes thank you HW for rockefellerdrugwars,com link
who will be the one to ask Sen. Grassly to defend the 
reasons given to outlaw Cannabis from the face of the planet for the good of the children.Does the Sen. really think that we mere men can make better
plants than our creator.from the link'Harry was also responsible for making films like Reefer Madness (1936), which is about a group of naive high school and college students who experiment with marijuana and then supposedly go crazy. One of the students commits suicide and the other one has to be put away in a mental institution because allegedly marijuana destroyed his mind. This propaganda film of government deceit and deception was poorly made, poorly acted and poorly directed. Reefer Madness was your classic government brainwashing film. The message of this ridiculous, pathetic and poorly made brainwashing film was that one puff from a marijuana cigarette (reefer) made you addicted for life and headed you down the path of crime and ruin. Harry especially targeted parents for his scare tactics, frightening them into thinking that the lives of their children were in jeopardy if they smoked even one reefer. Back during the 1960s the film was discovered sitting in some old film archives and was redistributed to be shown in art theaters and college campus theaters throughout the country. College students who viewed the film found it to be hilariously funny because of its absurdly false depiction of marijuana users. It is easy to spoof the film because people now know that the film is as absurdly false, misleading and deceptive as can be. 
   
This film is so false as to be almost like a cartoon and so comical that it is hard to believe that people would actually believe such nonsense. This is because students today know that marijuana does not cause people to do what the film claims it does. However, back in the 1930s this was a film made to make people believe the pathetic and dangerous lies that the government was telling about marijuana. Soon the film became a cult classic. Anyone who wants to view the film can do a search on the Internet for Reefer Madness, where the film can be viewed for free. 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #7 posted by afterburner on September 10, 2013 at 21:14:24 PT
HempWorld #1 
http://www.rockefellerdrugwars.comExcellent source material! I'm still reading. No wonder this free cannabis battle has lasted so long. We are fighting against a toxic octopus with interrelated scams that enrich the Rockefeller Family Empire to the detriment of better alternatives and American/world freedom of choice. All these arms of deceit are being challenged by the Internet-fueled soldiers of freedom.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #6 posted by mexweed on September 10, 2013 at 16:07:41 PT:
Questions to ask Sabet if you get a chance
"... advocates wider access for marijuana users to state-of-the-art drug treatment programs, said Sabet, the director of the Drug Policy Institute."Note HEAVY USE (sorry Dr. Freud) of the word "drug" here. Does "DRUG TREATMENT" mean they give you drugs, or get you off drugs? Why would any cannabis user ever want a drug treatment (except to be released from prosecution)?"... we don’t need to deliver [medical benefits] by smoking a joint or eating a brownie.”Note that he didn't mention VAPORIZERS-- or vaping with a 25-mg one-hitter. Check and see if he mentions those in the book-- or is he mentally "tuned away" from mentioning any herbal-inhalant dosage/harm-reduction alternatives the $igarette industry with its high-profit 700-mg overdose format doesn't like?
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #5 posted by pijion on September 10, 2013 at 11:45:14 PT
Thank God!
Thank God the voice against all of this at the hearing is just this Sabet schmuck. I even though why would Obama have this guy as the senior drug adviser and then I read closer and I saw "former", Ha! even the president can see this guy is a joke.
I agree with museman, this is just going to be a plug for his book.
Also his "Pharma influence" comment...“Yes, there are medical properties in marijuana,” Sabet said, “but we don’t need to deliver that by smoking a joint or eating a brownie.”So what is he going to suggest? a pill? Ha HA what a joke.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #4 posted by ekim on September 10, 2013 at 09:51:53 PT
hearings at 2:30 today
http://michiganmedicalmarijuana.org/topic/44258-historic-senate-hearing-on-pot/#entry458420
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by runruff on September 10, 2013 at 09:19:30 PT
Sabet!
Somebody needs to slip him a mickey.A Mickey Mouse that is, this guy needs a sense of humor.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by museman on September 10, 2013 at 08:28:11 PT
evil
That's what it is. All that journalistic mundanity, rehashing the obvious, but advertising the book of an idiot!So I thought it only proper american response to rebut with this;
The Emperor Wears No Clothes
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by HempWorld on September 10, 2013 at 07:59:41 PT
"legalization is being rushed into the states
without understanding its consequences."Mr. Kevin Sabet, please just spare us all and go home!Prohibition of marijuana has been with us at least since 1914, or a good 100 years. Prohibition is a fascist policy that was forced on American society by design and on the order of the ruling elite. The negative consequences that followed this policy are numerous to mention here; turf wars, gangs, crime, murders went up as did police corruption.So to say that we are rushing into legalization, is disingenuous, it is a false argument. This is all we can expect from the likes of Mr. Sabet, they don't like to look at the facts and cloud the discussion.Very clever Mr. Sabet, but we won't go for your bs!Check the interview with Dr. Milton Friedman at www.legaliseit.com rushing into legalization? Give me a break!http://www.rockefellerdrugwars.com
Legalize It!
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment