how to end prohibition.

[newactivist]

Good call treetops. Everyone is making ethanol out of corn for 300 gallons an acre when hemp will produce over a 1000. This increase in efficiency makes ethanol far less expensive than petro gas. Many people believe it is why "marijuana" is truly illegal today.

Antikoala, just support NORML, MPP and/or SAFER. Meet others who know what they are doing to end this garbage.

www.jackherer.com

[antikoala]

Antikoala, just support NORML, MPP and/or SAFER. Meet others who know what they are doing to end this garbage.

Wish I could newactivist, but my neighborhood in the world village is a bit far from yours and our front is an especially tough one (just look for the country with the strickest laws on MJ in the EU on your travel guide). My heart is with every free thinker though

[newactivist]

Well, maybe if we get it legalized or decriminalized here then it will happen there as well. It seems the US is the primary pressure keeping other countries from doing the same. Peace.

[antikoala]

Well, maybe if we get it legalized or decriminalized here then it will happen there as well. It seems the US is the primary pressure keeping other countries from doing the same. Peace.

You couldn't possibly be more accurate on that one. Our national organization for drug prevention simply echoes the arguments of federal american policy. Unfortunately, our information on (US)state-wide laws and laws of the other individual EU members remain well restricted

[Dutch Masta]

Frivilous activist loopholes such as Medicinal Marijuana (which while viewed as effective, is still unpractical when compared to the abundance of currently accepted medical treatments) and hemp fuel are NOT going to be enough to justify everyones rights to freely smoke marijuana. Not to mention that the government already has a justified response when it comes to this "medicinal marijuana" loophole craze, with the production of Marinol, which contains the active ingredient in Marijuana, THC.. in pill form. So don't count on it fellas.

Its hard to say when and if Marijuana will ever be legal or decriminalized. As time goes by, the rate of users will increase (it has been increasing every decade), and the general acceptance will increase as well.

Remember that when something is made illegal, it is not made illegal under the intention that the crime will be completely abolished, but rather reduced. Those who are under the impression that the transition from Marijuana being illegal to legal would be an easy one, are terribly mistaken. We all need to consider just how difficult regulating such a widely used drug truly is, expecially at this point in time where the drug has already set itself into society.

[antikoala]

Frivilous activist loopholes such as Medicinal Marijuana (which while viewed as effective, is still unpractical when compared to the abundance of currently accepted medical treatments) and hemp fuel are NOT going to be enough to justify everyones rights to freely smoke marijuana. Not to mention that the government already has a justified response when it comes to this "medicinal marijuana" loophole craze, with the production of Marinol, which contains the active ingredient in Marijuana, THC.. in pill form. So don't count on it fellas.

I have to disagree with you on that one. Actually, it's not just about the benefits of Medical Marijuana themselves, which are alone significant (in my opinion extremely).

I see the main side gain from fully legalizing Medical Marijuana as putting society on a track which inevitably leads to ending the demonization of the plant once and for all. Imagine the number of people who will be lawfully eligible to use it and society's reaction when realizing in full that sick people next door not only lack the dreadful consequences described by the wagers of the Drug War, on the contrary many of them have enhanced quality of life at best (or tend to smile a lot more at worst ).

This will cause an avalanche of voices being raised, this time shielded from public mockery and social condemnation by a vastness of medical cases, and access to empirical evidence from frequent users will be available to the wide public at last, this time not by the "resenting" figure of the "neighborhood pothead" but by grandma Claire and Sam the retired postman

"A small joint for a man, a giant high for mankind"

(p.s. Marinol contains synthetic THC -which has numerous differences than the actual chemical found in nature- and none of the other active ingredients,many of which play a significant part in the plant's therapeutic abilities)

[Dutch Masta]

I have to disagree with you on that one. Actually, it's not just about the benefits of Medical Marijuana themselves, which are alone significant (in my opinion extremely).

I see the main side gain from fully legalizing Medical Marijuana as putting society on a track which inevitably leads to ending the demonization of the plant once and for all. Imagine the number of people who will be lawfully eligible to use it and society's reaction when realizing in full that sick people next door not only lack the dreadful consequences described by the wagers of the Drug War, on the contrary many of them have enhanced quality of life at best (or tend to smile a lot more at worst ).

This will cause an avalanche of voices being raised, this time shielded from public mockery and social condemnation by a vastness of medical cases, and access to empirical evidence from frequent users will be available to the wide public at last, this time not by the "resenting" figure of the "neighborhood pothead" but by grandma Claire and Sam the retired postman

"A small joint for a man, a giant high for mankind"

(p.s. Marinol contains synthetic THC -which has numerous differences than the actual chemical found in nature- and none of the other active ingredients,many of which play a significant part in the plant's therapeutic abilities)

Thats a creative way of thinking, but I regret to inform you that things would never realistically turn out that way. Medical Marijuana won't change any viewpoints on the drug, because none of us are going to be taking it for its questionable medical benefits.. we're all going to take it to get high, the same way we've always been doing it. People aren't against any health factors/risks of Marijuana, they are against the lifestyle it provokes and effects, so the fact that it has medical benefits that do not apply to us in any way, will not change a thing..

Medical Marijuana is nothing but a loophole activists, (or just about any pot smoker for that matter it seems) is banking on, in hopes that weed is legalized/decriminalized, and the government already knows this. I'm not against medicinal marijuana, but its time to face the facts and stop clinging to a false hope. The DEA's website themselves state the following:

Any determination of a drug's valid medical use must be based on the best available science undertaken by medical professionals. The Institute of Medicine conducted a comprehensive study in 1999 to assess the potential health benefits of marijuana and its constituent cannabinoids. The study concluded that smoking marijuana is not recommended for the treatment of any disease condition. In addition, there are more effective medications currently available. For those reasons, the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is little future in smoked marijuana as a medically approved medication.

Straight from the DEA website, and that bolded part is bolded from their website, thats not something I am trying to emphasize, thats them..
http://www.dea.gov/ongoing/marijuana.html

The government has made it clear that Medicinal Marijuana will not be a solution. See, my point about Marinol was not to discuss its effectiveness, or compare it to marijuana effects, but rather to prove a point that the government has the active ingredient in Marijuana, synthetically produced it in pill form, and they are using it in their defense.

[newactivist]

OK Negative Nelly, oops, I mean Dutch Masta. I disagree with you too. Please allow me to elucidate.

At the moment the DEA is in control of whether or not this drug is illegal but only because we let them. This is my point of giving our votes to MPP, NORML and SAFER as they are taking this decision away from the government and putting it in the hands of the people through direct vote.

Now, I have argued marijuana prohibition with police officers, at least one judge, and numerous people who do not smoke marijuana and started with a very negative view of it. When I was done with the debate I generally win my three seperate goals of medical rescheduling, industrial hemp and decriminalization. I will argue/debate it with anyone, any time and anywhere as long as the debate follows standard rules. These talkshow yelling matches may spark emotion, which is good for ratings, but are useless for comparing facts so I would want college debate rules. That said I have destroyed everyone that has stood up and tried to spout the government line when a vote of the listeners was taken afterwards.

The key to this is education and making the government propagandists justify their view. Brainwashed people have a problem when they run outside of the parameters of their indoctrination. When they have no answers that they haven't been fed and I start hitting them with facts they never even heard of it does one of two things. They either get really angry because they know they are losing and take it personally or they actually learn something.

This is what happens when people, intelligent people, are given all the facts and they realize that they have been let down by a large force (government) through lies, lies of omission and dishonesty. A force in their life that they have been trained to trust and obey. It pulls the rug from any support from the government position. Usually I hit them with the fact that marijuana components can cure cancer and they never rescheduled it for research, in fact destroying the research we paid for, as my closer. That usually bring a stunned quiet, to realize that our government is perfectly willing to allow people (us) die horrible deaths instead of allowing researchers to explore marijuana's medical potential. Just like they do right now for heroin and cocaine.

If we educate and let the facts speak for themselves then there is every chance of achieving our goals. It just takes people willing to get off their asses and do something effective.

[Dutch Masta]

I'm not being negaitve. I'm being real. My posting in this thread was to make it clear that medicinal marijuana is not going to be the loophole that will make it legal. Disappointing? No. Because even if marijuana were made legal via perscription, it would mean nothing to anyone besides patients because we'd all still be using it just to get high like we always have.

Again, not being negative or pessimistic at all. Just pointing out what so many people are missing. Another quote straight from the DEA's website:

Drug legalizers use "medical marijuana" as red herring in effort to advocate broader legalization of drug use.

I am not saying that I agree with the DEA's stance in any way. I'm saying: Like it or not, they are in control. Like it or not, they have made it clear why medicinal marijuana will not be accepted. Like it or not, they are also aware that users will bank to any hope at a broader legalization of the drug.

[newactivist]

Like it or not, the DEA can kiss our asses if it goes to direct vote and they lose. Short of overthrowing our constitution, which has zero chance of happening.

Once it's on the ballet it doesn't matter what the DEA thinks. If the people vote to decriminalize/legalize then the only thing the DEA can do is start laying off agents or retasking them for something useful like meth, crack, and heroin.

You seem to feel the DEA is the law when in actuality they are only allowed to enforce them. If the law says decriminalize then they have to follow it. Medical marijuana is just the most obvious place to start because the governments weakness in this position. As more and more people get educated about this issue then we will gain more support when it comes time to vote.

If the DEA is so strong in their beliefs then let them stand up on their two hind legs and debate it in public. They have consistently refused to over the past decades and this tells me their position has no strength.