Legalize Pot, Saidth Cops : Be Like Amsterdam

If any of you remembered my little post I did some Friday ago, “Take Five:Trippin into October” about some Law Enforcement officers finding a Big Marijuana crop.  The article had a lot of people commenting about it .  Interesting comments!  You can see right away, Marijuana is a topic people in general get all worked up about.  See, there are people who think the War on Drugs is great and think it’s cool to put some bloke away just because he enjoys tokin.  Others think the War on Drugs is a waste and that we’d be better off for the financial sake of our country not to be spending trillions of dollars on something that isn’t working the way it was intended to work, in the first place.

I came across one commenter who produced a link for LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)  We’re not just talking about alcohol here.  We’re talking about something that is currently illegal, such as Marijuana.

LEAP’s mission statement is as follows:

The mission of LEAP is to reduce the multitude of unintended harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by ultimately ending drug prohibition.

Why do these Law Enforcement officials believe ending the prohibition of the use of illegal drugs would make our lives even better?  It’s all a matter of public safety for many.  Serious crimes are being committed by real criminals and not chased after while officers are being told to chase the Willie Nelsons of the USA.

Basically, polls were done to find out whether people would use, for example, cocaine or heroin if it was legal.  Turns out approximately 99 percent of the people have replied NO to that question.

The idea is that we wouldn’t be spending too much money fighting it by arresting people, incarcerating people, and in the process, wasting trillions of tax dollars with this current policy of the war on drugs.  We never hear of anyone robbing a bank to smoke marijuana, yet, people are send to prison just for tokin. Drugs are cheaper to get, drug barons and terrorists get richer, and as a result, drug crimes escalates.  LEAP believes “a system of regulation and control of production and distribution will be far more effective and ethical”  In other words, they believe that our government should control the distribution and the sale of drugs, such as marijuana.  Maybe one day we might even see a Marijuana store right next to a Liquor store or even a Marijuana section within a grocery store, or something like that.  Or as in Amsterdam, a “smokehouse” where it’s the only legal place to get stoned. Think of coffeehouses here in America.

This war on drug has been going on for at least 35 years.  And, it is losing BIG TIME.

Drugs have always had a bad reputation.  It would be fair to say, in my opinion, that some drugs are beneficial than others.  And as the argument goes, there are more damage with alcohol than there are with marijuana. Statistics even proves that.  I personally think some drugs should be legal based on its beneficial value to a person’s whole being.  Then there are some drugs that one shouldn’t mess with for obvious reasons.  And then, there will always be someone who has a disposition to certain vices and becomes a drug addict just as there will always be alcoholics.  There’s even statistics that shows that alcoholism does more damage, towards self, family relationships and so on, than most drugs out there.

Studies have been done on both animals and humans, to see the studies and results, click here.

Currently, twelve states have passed Medical Marijuana laws, mostly in the western states with three on the eastern shores.  

Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was created at the time to simply levy a tax on a product as one would with Alcohol.  But, it was deceptive at best, since if one were to buy Marihuana Tax Stamp, there is a penalty provisions of five years’ imprisonment, a $2,000 fine, for the purchase of a the tax stamp.

Marihuana Tax Stamp was valid during 1937 until 1969 and was extremely hard for anyone to get.  Timothy Leary challenged the Marihuana Tax Act in 1969 and the Supreme Court Agreed that it was unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated the right of protection from self-incrimination.

Marijuana was first outlawed in 1913 in California for no reason other than an “obscure technical amendment by the State Board of Pharmacy.”  There was never any indication that marijuana was a problem in the state.

Other states followed eventually and in the southwest states marijuana was outlawed because of racial prejudice against the Mexicans who used it.  It was widely believed that Marijuana was a Mexican drug.   Utah’s Mormons brought marijuana with them back to Utah after they had settled in Mexico for a while.  One Texas legislator said “All Mexicans are crazy and this stuff (weed) is what makes them crazy.”

And then in 1937, on a national level, the Marihuana Tax Act was passed.  Some of the quotes from the testimony that helped pass the Act were lace with racial quotes, mostly in reference to the Mexicans.  Some states outlawed marijuana due to fear that heroin addiction would lead them to the use of Marijuana as opposed to it being the other way around.

Congressional transcripts of the hearings and related documents reveals more which will have most people perplexed at some of the racially charged statements, not to mention, lack of substantial scientific evidences.

Even if states passed a ballot, legalizing marijuana, Federal law banning Marihuana takes precedence.  Just this past spring Frank Barney, a democrat house member of Congress introduced a bill that will remove Federal penalties on personal use of Marijuana.   ** See updated link at end of this article regarding Frank Barney’s bill.

What’s interesting is that Marijuana is classified as Schedule I drug which is the highest Classification for scheduled drug and is in the same category as Morphine and Heroin.  Is Marijuana a misunderstood drug or is it as dangerous as the authorities wants to have us believe?  If one were to have a major surgery, one would be given intravenous drip of Morphine to ease the pain.  But, one would not be given a joint to toke.  Granted other classification of schedule I drug such as Meth is pretty dangerous as it can “drill” holes inside your brain.  Not all schedule I drug are beneficial, yet, some are.  Many advocates of marijuana will tell you that Marihuana is wrongly classified.

According to this site, it claims that Marijuana has psychological, physical and spiritual benefits and impacts the  Autonomic Nervous System (ANS.)  Being stoned is being relaxed and alert according to the article.  Wow, I mean, I smoked when I was in college, I was never able to come up with a good description of what being stoned was like.  I think that pretty much sums it up.

The true light on the health risk myths and realities shows that no one has ever died of marijuana overdose.  It does not produce toxins that can kill them, and there’s no evidence of brain damage for using.  Short term memory is only affected during “intoxication” and does not affect short term memory before or after smoking Mary Jane. There is no evidence of long-term heart problems, however, it may complicate high blood pressure and related “stress” characteristics of body’s blood circulation.  As for testosterone or other sex hormones, it has not been found change the levels, yet, heavy alcohol use is known to lower testosterone levels.  Marijuana does not damage the reproductive system.  There are no numbers to support the fact that immune system is adversely affected by the use of Marijuana, however, extremely large quantities of THC in lab rats showed certain properties of liver which affects undesirable changes, but in human, it has been known to reverse certain liver diseases such as Hepatitis C.

There is a war on drugs clock where you’ll find on going numbers related to the amount being spend and the number of arrests.  Drug sense dot com advocates for drug policy reform.

And if you want to know which candidates support legalization of Marijuana, you can check it out here, where there are also interesting information to check out as well.

Certain states still have Marijuana Tax Stamps for purchase, many stamp collectors value these stamps.

For many people who are pro-legalization of marijuana, they do not even smoke weed themselves.  See, like them, I understand the good effect it would have on our economy, public safety and seeing trillions of dollars going to a better program for our people.

And IF America IS smart, they’d look to Amsterdam!

**Update: Here’s the correct link to Frank Barney’s bill on legalizing for personal use.

Subtitled “Let it Rock” by Kevin Rudolf featuring Lil Wayne

Video by: henryfitroyluver0923 at YouTube