Time to legalize?
How come in one state a man is locked in prison, has his car taken away, his house taken away and loses his job because he is placed in prison for marijuana, while in another state men and women openly smoke marijuana in the street without fear of prosecution? How is this America? How is this fair to patients trying to relieve their symptoms using a safe and natural and most effective medicine for their ailment?? Answer that!
OAKLAND, California (CNN) — Richard Lee greets students, shopkeepers and tourists as he rolls his wheelchair down Broadway at the speed of a brisk jog, hailing them with, “Hi. How ya doin’?”
In this nine-block district of Oakland, California, called Oaksterdam, Lee is a celebrity.
Oaksterdam is Lee’s brainchild, a small pocket of urban renewal built on a thriving trade in medical marijuana. The district’s name comes from a marriage of Oakland and Amsterdam, a city in the Netherlands renowned for its easy attitude toward sex and drugs.
Lee is the founder of Oaksterdam University, which he describes as a trade school that specializes in all things marijuana: how to grow it, how to market it, how to consume it. The school, which has a curriculum, classes and teachers, claims 3,500 graduates.
Lee also owns a medical marijuana dispensary, a coffee house, a large indoor marijuana plantation, and a museum/store devoted to the cause of legalizing marijuana.
Marijuana is safer than alcohol, and they sell alcohol across the street from schools and churches and on all commercial streets that have liquor stores. Think of how many stores in your area sell alcohol, which is not even a drug, its a toxin!
“I really see this as following the history of alcohol. The way prohibition was repealed there,” Lee says, adding that he believes he is close to achieving his mission.
Lee is organizing a petition drive to place a marijuana legalization measure on the ballot in 2010, and he thinks the measure stands a good chance of being approved by voters.
It is far past time for Americans to stand up to the government regarding this incendieary topic. It is TIME TO LEGALIZE marijuana in the United States.
A recent California Field Poll showed that more than half the people in the state, where marijuana for medical use was approved more than a decade ago, would approve of decriminalizing pot.
The state’s faltering economy is one reason why. If legalized, marijuana could become California’s No. 1 cash crop. It could bring in an estimated $1 billion a year in state taxes.
Democratic State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is spearheading a cannabis legalization bill in the California Assembly. He believes the state’s need to increase tax revenues will work in his bill’s favor.
“I think it’s a seductive part of the equation,” he says.
Ammiano says there are a number of ways legalized pot could be marketed, “It could be a Walgreens, it could be a hospital, a medical marijuana facility, whatever could be convenient. Adequate enforcement of the rules. Nobody under 21. No driving under the influence.”
Even California’s Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, says legalizing marijuana deserves serious consideration.
“I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana,” Schwarzenegger says.
But Ammiano says selling a legalized marijuana bill to his fellow legislators remains a delicate matter.
Delicate matter yes, but should it be allowed to those who do not feel pain everyday to decide? Should people who think “pot is bad” be able to dictate whether it has medicinal qualities or not? Fact is, marijuana has been a medicine for thousands of years, and for anyone to state otherwise is insane.
Nonviolent medical marijuana users are being arrested and thrown in jail, costing states and cities millions and millions of dollars, while drunks walk the streets free and able to get their alcohol on every street in America. Not only is this unjust, it says something about the compassion of American’s towards the ill in this land.
There are 24-hour bars, and 24 hour liquor stores in this country, but somehow police and politicians feel threatened about a medical facility that forces patients to produce a doctor’s recommendation for a medicine that helps them? Absurd! Patients must pay to see a doctor, pay to have the state issued medical marijuana card before getting access to their medicine… however, underage teens need look no further than next to the milk in the fridge to get ahold of dad’s beer.
Children drink alcohol taken from liquor cabinets and fridges every single day in America. Marijuana is much more regulated and in states like California, teen marijuana use has DECLINED since medical marijuana has become so popular and less of it is being sold illegally on the street considering so many patients have now become legal, law abiding pot smokers. Unlike liquor stores that sell alcohol to underage kids every day in America, medical marijuana dispensaries are ran like pharmacies and have security guards and one does not get their medicine until ID and doctor recommendation, or state issued card is shown!
See through their smoke screen, yes, it is time to legalize. Not tomorrow, TODAY!