Reuters: Driven To Drink By Marijuana Laws?

Reuters columnist Bernd Debusmann ‘gets it.’

In a society awash in alcohol, he dares to ask the pivotal question:

Why do our laws embrace and celebrate the use of alcohol, an intoxicant that directly contributes to tens of thousands of deaths annually and countless social problems, while stigmatizing and criminalizing the use of cannabis, a substance that is incapable of causing lethal overdose and is associated with far fewer societal costs?

Driven to drink by marijuana laws?
via Reuters: The Great Debate

Tough marijuana laws are driving millions of Americans to a more dangerous mood-altering substance, alcohol. The unintended consequence: violence and thousands of unnecessary deaths. It’s time, therefore, for a serious public debate of the case for marijuana versus alcohol.

That’s the message groups advocating the legalization of marijuana are beginning to press, against a background of shifting attitudes which have already prompted 13 states to relax draconian laws dating back to the 1930s, when the government ended alcohol prohibition and began a determined but futile effort to stamp out marijuana.

Of course, I can’t help but blush when Bernd highlights my forthcoming book, Marijuana Is Safer, as the inspiration behind his astute analysis.

The case for adding a compare-and-contrast dimension to the debate is laid out in a statistics-laden book to be published next month entitled “Marijuana is Safer, So why are we driving people to drink?” The authors are prominent legalization advocates - Steve Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project, Paul Armentano of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and Mason Tvert, co-founder of SAFER (Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation).

“The plain and simple truth is that alcohol fuels violent behaviour and marijuana does not,” Norm Stamper, [Editor's note: Stamper is on NORML's advisory board] a former Seattle police chief, writes in the foreword of the book. “Alcohol … contributes to literally millions of acts of violence in the United States each year. It is a major contributing factor to crimes like domestic violence, sexual assault and homicide. Marijuana use … is absent in that regard from both crime reports and the scientific literature. There is simply no causal link to be found.”

I’ll be providing folks with further information regarding Marijuana Is Safer in the coming days and weeks. (The book is expected to hit stores by mid-August). But for now, why not join the vibrant discussion taking place on Reuters.com on whether pot prohibition is driving America to drink?

Featured On Norml.org

Tags: country, Great Debate, Marijuana, medical, neurogenesis129, News, Norm Stamper, norml-chapters, Reuters, Time, truth

Fox News: If You Support Taxing And Regulating Pot You Must Be An “Internet Troll!”

On three separate occasions, the White House has asked the public to provide them with feedback on the top public policy questions facing the nation. And on three separate occasions, the leading question for the new administration — as chosen on and voted by the American public — pertained to the legalization of marijuana.

One might examine these results and conclude that marijuana law reform is an issue that is becoming increasingly popular with America’s voters. Of course if you’re Fox News, you interpret these results another way.

Obama’s Effort at Online Transparency Stymied by Internet Trolls
via Fox News

“Three and a half million people participated in the event, but the ‘trolls’ had their way: Following a coordinated campaign by marijuana advocates to vote their topic to the top of the list, questions on the future of the U.S. dollar and the rising unemployment rate were superseded by questions about legalizing pot as an economic remedy.”

Got to hand it to the folks at Fox. (PS: For the record, Wired makes the same accusation!) National polls show that the public’s support for legalization has never been greater. Leading political and media pundits are now demanding that we end the criminal prohibition of pot. Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, the old guard at Fox News cynically clings to the notion that nobody supports taxing and regulating marijuana aside from a handful of “Internet trolls.” We report, you decide, huh?

Of course, Fox News didn’t come up with this spin on their own. After all, it was White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs — yes, the same Robert Gibbs who couldn’t come up with one valid reason to oppose regulating pot besides “uh” — who initially tried to downplay the popularity of marijuana law reform, telling the New York Times that “advocates for legalizing marijuana, … includ[ing] NORML, had mounted a drive to rack up votes for the question.”

So let’s set the record straight shall we. On the afternoon of March 25, with only a few hours left for voting in the White House’s poll, I posted the following blog to NORML’s homepage: “Obama ‘Open For Questions’ About The Economy — Ask Him To Support Taxing And Regulating Marijuana.” Here’s what I wrote in my post:

The topic of this week’s forum is the national economy, and not surprisingly, many of you have already put forward questions to the President regarding the taxation and regulation of cannabis.

For example, the most popular question in the category “Budget” is: “With over 1 out of 30 Americans controlled by the penal system, why not legalize, control, and tax marijuana to change the failed war on drugs into a money making, money saving boost to the economy?”

Similarly, under the topic “Financial Stability,” most asked question is: “Would you support the bill currently going through the California legislature to legalize and tax marijuana, boosting the economy and reducing drug cartel related violence?”

Marijuana-related questions also top the “Green Jobs and Energy” category, and are among the top vote-getters on the site overall.

That’s right, the questions pertaining to marijuana law reform were already the top vote-getters before NORML ever put pen to paper!

Further, NORML at no time engaged in any sort of “coordinated campaign” (to quote Fox) to “rack up votes” (to quote the Obama administration). NORML did not list-serv news of the White House poll to our tens of thousands of e-zine subscribers, nor did we publicize the poll to the hundreds of thousands of people that have joined us on Facebook and Myspace. And to the best of my knowledge, no other marijuana law reform group did so either.

In short, there was no orchestrated “campaign” and there is no grand conspiracy. The simple explanation for the White House poll results is this: Marijuana law reform is immensely popular with the public. That’s why we win initiatives — time and time again. And that’s why when the public is asked whether they support ending prohibition they say ‘yes’ — in overwhelming numbers!

As my colleague Scott Morgan writes at stopthedrugwar.org: “This is a movement, and it isn’t going away. Our issue is bigger than the organizations backing it.” He’s right.

Americans are demanding a serious and objective political debate regarding the merits of legalizing marijuana. They have come to this conclusion on their own — simply by witnessing the failure of the drug war all around them.

President Obama, the time for adolescent jokes and giggles is over. Fox News, the time for insults has long passed. The public is serious; why aren’t you?

Go here to read the rest: 
Fox News: If You Support Taxing And Regulating Pot You Must Be An “Internet Troll!”

Tags: april-19th, country, Obama, people, polls, president, republican, Time

Update From NORML’s ‘A Different Kind Of Tea Party’ Tax Day Protest

NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre presented a mock check to the U.S. Treasury Department in the sum of $14 billion this morning at a press conference on the steps of the General Post Office in New York City.

The $14 billion check total represents the combined savings and tax revenues that would be generated by regulating the sale and production of cannabis like alcohol, according to a 2005 analysis by Harvard University senior lecturer Jeffrey Miron and endorsed by over 500 distinguished economists.

Media representatives from CNN, Fox News, Sirius Satellite Radio, and other news outlets were on hand to cover the event.

“On a day when so many Americans lament having to pay state and federal income taxes, we’re representing America’s millions of otherwise law-abiding cannabis consumers, who are ready, willing, and able to contribute to our struggling economy — while providing truly ‘green’ jobs and allowing police to focus on more important priorities,” NORML told reporters. “All we ask in exchange for our $14 billion is the right to enjoy pot responsibly and in peace.”

Additional background information and photos from this morning’s event are available at The Huffington Post here, and at The Hill’s Congress blog here. As always, NORML encourages you to leave your feedback in support of marijuana law reform at these to influential blog sites.

NORML is holding follow up, public protest later today at 4:20pm est. We hope to see you there!

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Update From NORML’s ‘A Different Kind Of Tea Party’ Tax Day Protest

Tags: Allen St. Pierre, article, chair, congress, drug, Government, media, message, New York City, News, norml, people, tea party, Time

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