NORML’s Weekly Legislative Round Up: Which State Will Be The Next To Legalize Medicinal Cannabis?

A number of state legislatures are actively vying to join Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington to become the fourteenth state to legalize the physician-supervised use of medicinal marijuana.

Here’s how you can help make these efforts a reality.

Illinois: This week the Marijuana Policy Project began running targeted ads in support of House Bill 2514 and Senate Bill 1381, the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Acts. Both bills have already passed various legislative committees and are expected to receive floor votes imminently. If you live in Illinois and have not yet contacted your House and Senate members in support of these measures, please do so now by going here.

Minnesota: A pair of bills (SF 97 and HF 292) seeking to allow for the use and distribution of medicinal cannabis have cleared committee and are expected to be voted on shortly by members of the full House and Senate. One potential hurdle: Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has voiced opposition to the measures. Tell the Governor that “it is unconscionable to deny this effective medicine to sick and dying patients” by going here.

New Hampshire: Members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee are expected to take action on HB 648 later this week. UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE! THE COMMITTEE VOTED 4-1 IN FAVOR OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA THIS AFTERNOON. THE FULL SENATE WILL DECIDE ON HB 648 NEXT WEEK! Contact information for the New Hampshire state senate and Gov. John Lynch is available here.

New Jersey: In February, members of the state Senate approved the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act by a vote of 22 to 16. Yet months later, leadership in the Assembly has still not taken any action on this measure, which has received the support of the Governor and the Attorney General. Please contact your member of the Assembly here, and urge him or her demand that their colleagues hold hearings on medical marijuana.

New York: Lawmakers in the state Senate and Assembly introduced legislation this week to legalize the state-sanctioned use and distribution of medicinal marijuana. The bills’ sponsors are confident that they have the necessary votes to pass medical marijuana law reform in both chambers. Further, according to news reports, Gov. Patterson is also privately supportive of medical marijuana law reform. If you reside in New York, please consider assisting this campaign by going here and by contacting your elected officials here.

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NORML’s Weekly Legislative Round Up: Which State Will Be The Next To Legalize Medicinal Cannabis?

Tags: Florida, house, Minnesota, new jersey, New York, News, norml, virginia, week

The Hill: America’s New Marijuana Zeitgeist

Via The Hill.com

Writing last week in Time.com, Joe Klein became the latest in a steady stream of media pundits to call for the legalization of marijuana (”Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense”). That’s right, ‘legalization’ — with an “L.”

While the notion of regulating the sale and consumption of cannabis for adults might still induce reflexive giggles from the Oval Office, the issue is no longer a laughing matter among the public.

Lawmakers in two states — California and Massachusetts –- are debating the merits of taxing pot like alcohol, and a pair of recent polls (here and here) indicate that Western voters endorse this proposal by a solid majority. According to statistician Nate Silver, national support for legalization could reach “supermajority” status in just over a decade!

Why this momentum now? Klein sums up three primary reasons.

1) Americans are spending billions in judicial resources arresting and prosecuting minor marijuana offenders; these monies could be better redirected elsewhere.

2) America is in the midst of an economic recession; taxing marijuana could redirect criminal justice costs toward more serious crimes, raise tax revenue, and greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the involvement of drug cartels in the illicit marijuana trade.

3) The use of marijuana by adults is objectively less dangerous — both to the user and to society as a whole — than the consumption of alcohol. (Case in point: Drinking alcohol, even low to moderate amounts, was recently associated with elevated incidences of cancer, particularly among women. By contrast, a study published last week in the Clinical Journal of Investigation shows that cannabis kills malignant cancer cells.) It is illogical to endorse a public policy that arbitrarily prohibits the former while embracing the latter.

Of course, Klein is hardly the only mainstream pundit as of late to jump on the marijuana ‘legalization’ bandwagon.

In the past days, leading commentators like David Sirota (The Nation), Kathleen Parker (Washington Post), Paul Jacob (TownHall.com), Hendrik Hertzberg (The New Yorker), Andrew Sullivan (The Atlantic), Glenn Greenwald (Salon), Debra Saunders (San Francisco Chronicle), Leonard Pitts (Miami Herald), John Richardson (Esquire), and Margery Eagan (Boston Herald), have all opined in favor of regulating cannabis. In fact, Americans’ sudden support for legalization is even beginning to draw attention from those outside the United States.

As well it should be.

American’s support for marijuana law reform is fast approaching a tipping point — a scenario made all that more remarkable when one considers that the federal government has spent nearly seven decades propagandizing against it. Mainstream America is coming to terms with marijuana, and growing more and more dissatisfied with our nation’s failing pot policies. Writes Klein: “Obviously, marijuana can be abused. But the costs of criminalization have proved to be enormous, perhaps unsustainable. Would legalization be any worse?”

He’s no longer the only one asking.

As always, please post your feedback and comments to The Hill by going here. Congress is listening; tell them what’s on your mind.

Tags: California, Cannabis and Health, David Sirota, Government, Legalization, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, new jersey, Raid, Time, zeitgeist