Marijuana News
Legalizing MMJ is absolutely a step towards full legalization, there is simply no way to get around that. This fear of the "slippery slope" is absolutely true. I don't think we should try to pretend otherwise. Reason being, once marijuana is medically accepted and studied properly, the ignorance still surrounding marijuana will be eliminated and the reasons for prohibition will come crashing down. It is the lack of understanding about this plant that gives the prohibitionists power. 70 years of stifled information and false propaganda has taken it's toll, but once one reads the truth about the hemp plant and learn how it was the world's number 1 agricultural resource for 5,000 years, they question why did this suddenly change? Then they explore further and find that all of a sudden marijuana and hemp became evil in the 1930s when the synthetics industry wanted to use oil for energy and to create plastics and other materials. Hemp was a convenient plant to eliminate by demonizing one of its natural medicine products, Marijuana. By taking away this infinitely renewable natural resource they were able to make money by using the inferior, limited quantity product we all know and love, oil.
Think about that point in time, how much pollution and deforestation did that one decision by the US Government create? How many landfills of non-biodegradable plastic, how many oil spills, how many lives lost in the wars for oil? Why? Because Hemp oil the other energy choice for centuries was made illegal through fear and propaganda against marijuana. (Side Note: Henry Ford had the technology in the 1930's to run a car purely on hemp oil, that would be nice nowadays wouldn't it?)
If the enlightened reader quests further he or she will find out about how the process of prohibition of Marijuana and Hemp came about. They would read the story of a certain senate hearing which a case against marijuana and hemp was held. A case built behind closed doors and blasted upon an unprepared congress (huh, I've never seen that in government before, like not with this health bill or anything... oh wait...) Worse yet, the AMA, was fully unprepared, and had no notice about the hearing, and so with a little famous lie told by a certain politician:
The committee passed the legislation on. And on the floor of the house, the entire discussion was:
Member from upstate New York: “Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?”
Speaker Rayburn: “I don’t know. It has something to do with a thing called marijuana. I think it’s a narcotic of some kind.”
“Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?”
Member on the committee jumps up and says: “Their Doctor Wentworth[sic] came down here. They support this bill 100 percent.”
There was never any approval from the AMA for this bill, and so perjury made this infinitely renewable resource illegal. Hemp and Marijuana were effectively taken off the market providing a monopoly on energy for the oil industry.
It is also a simple truth that if someone wants to smoke marijuana, they're going to smoke marijuana; laws and restrictions no longer hold meaning in this issue, so full legalization is the inevitable outcome. Do you know why? They call this "drug seeking behavior," however, apparently some science was actually performed on THC, and oddly enough it seems humans have specific receptors built for THC. Well, gee, that explains why it worked as a medicine for 5,000 years. People still have instincts whether or not we like to admit it, seeking marijuana to help you live your life is one of these instincts. And here the government is persecuting us for our animal driven need for natural medicine -talk about 1st amendment violations.
Last check by Gallup 44% of Americans approve of full legalization of marijuana. 44% of us at the very least have at some time sought out Marijuana because of an instinct we've had for centuries. This also means that full legalization is more popular than our last 2 Presidents... this eliminates my worry about losing supporters by re-framing the issue. Instead we should focus on finding new supporters by touching on issues that have meaning to them through the use of the full Hemp plant. Has this been attempted before?
Yes, I agree that keeping the focus on just the public health issue is more honest, (technically I'd have to just shoot for full legalization if I were to be honest) but honesty and directness have no place in politics. Not if you want to accomplish something anyway. Honesty usually means expressing things that benefit you directly, in politics you must express how they benefit everyone. The state senate won't simply approve a drug that has been illegal for 70 years unless you present them with something new, arguments they haven't heard before and new ways of looking at the issue as opposed to simple medicine vs. not.
With the drug war, as soon as you make it an us vs. them issue, you psychologically place them in a position where they have to defend their beliefs and once they have become defensive, there will be no convincing them of another opinion. You have to throw them off of their defensive posture. You can do this by shattering their basic assumptions about the drug and show them how it can be useful to the state. This can be done through re-framing legalization in ways that they may not have considered.
The public heath issue worked well in the 90s because everyone was going AIDS crazy, this is no longer the case. Now the biggest issues are the economy and jobs, so in order to put the most pressure on the state senate, marijuana / hemp should be framed for its economic benefits. Taking money away from the black market and putting it in the state coffers and in the pockets of the unskilled labor force.
Legalization is coming to a head very quickly. We need to throw as much weight into this issue now, while it has momentum. With the AMA finally recognizing the potential benefits of MMJ and the Fed leaving the decision up to the state, never before have we had the opportunity that we do now. It isn't time to try the same old tired tactics, we need to push hard and with everything we can.
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." --Albert Einstein
--Keith
