JUST SAY NOW! Damnit!

There needs to be full decriminalization for 18-21 year olds, not just those over 21. Why should we make criminals of those in that age bracket?

x2

Now.

I hope we get lots of responses and have a robust and transparent debate about the way forward. My two cents:

1. Develop and implement a pre-emptive ‘not about children’ strategy to counter the late arrival of brochure with school bus crashes and media focus on pot-related car accidents.

2. Broaden the movement to include the stakeholders who actively opposed Prop 19. There’s no reason long-time pot growers, smokers, workers, retailers and harvesters in Humboldt should have opposed an effort to legalize. Really spend some time building bridges; it’s what JSN is all about, anyway.

3. Demographics is destiny. Continue to educate pot activists about the toxicity of the mid-term electorate for pot efforts.

I’m sure there are lots of great ideas. I’m excited about hearing them debated here. Let’s make this a real grassroots effort, just like you’ve suggested.

I’m not a fan of it as I remember first smoking at 18. But it does put it on a par with alcohol which also has the 21 age limit (although I managed to find plenty of alcohol when I was in high school and college and the drinking age was always 21 in Kentucky)

Number 3 is really important.

OK I just took the survey. Any government that tries to tell adults what they can and can’t smoke in the privacy of their own home doesn’t deserve to be in existence in the first place. Pot smokers in the U.S. are second-class citizens. This country sucks ass.

Point out that it is no more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco, both of which are legal and fairly easily available. Also, as far as I know, tobacco is far more addictive – it ought to be classed with heroin – and far less medically useful than pot. And do it every time someone goes off into ‘reefer madness’ territory.

Emphasize how much desperately needed revenue could be generated from legal pot. Mitigate the what about the kids argument by legislating that XXX amount of the newly generated revenue will go to children’s services.

In other words, give non-smokers a reason to support legal pot.

Good point. Here’s another argument I always use when a prude starts in with the “What kind of a message would legalizing it send to our children?” crap. I just say “Well, what kind of a message does keeping it illegal send to the children? It tells them that no matter how old they are, whether they’re 21 or 98, their government will never consider them to be responsible enough adults to make the adult choice of what to ingest. It tells them that the government they are paying taxes to will always consider them to be little irresponsible children. Legalizing it tells them that once they reach adulthood their government will consider them responsible enough to make adult decisions.”

That always shuts them up because there is no counter to it.

We’re going to have to see this as two completely separate and unrelated political systems. I forget where I read it, but the difference between the electorates every two years is striking, and growing.

The ‘desperately needed revenue’ turns off a LOT of people currently involved in the underground but non-violent part of the pot community. We have to de-couple the revenue arguments from the legalization argument. Sure, talk about the savings from the reduced law enforcement and prison industry spending, but don’t make it sound like government is gonna find a bonanza in the currently lightly-taxed pot industry.

It turns off some of our best potential allies, and makes it sound like we’re typical tax-and-spend liberals, leaving the libertarian allies on pot high and dry, too.

There were all kinds of crazy stories about how much Prop 19 would cost the casual home grower — $3,000 per square foot per year, with five square feet required per plant. No one wants a new class of ‘revenooer’ checking up on their homegrown.

If “the Marijuana movement” were more actively concerned with ending the drug war at large, and not merely ending Marijuana prohibition, it would have more support. As a single issue removed from the horrible injustice of the US WOD, it is seen by some people who are its natural allies as merely hedonistic, nihilistic or even a sideshow. The WOD writ large goes to the heart of American Imperialism at home and abroad.

I agree, legalize all drugs. I was talking specifically about pot only because that’s what this survey was about. But you are correct, this country needs to end the “War on Drugs” and legalize all of them.

We need radio and TV time. I never heard or saw one ad for Prop 19 other than what I saw on pro 19 websites.

We also need big name, trusted celebs and politicians. We need more support from middle class couples in the 35-50 age group, so we need to have the right people to reach out to them. One of their own.

We need to answer their scare tactics with something that puts to rest their argument about drugged driver nightmares and the stoned workforce. As absurd as it is, prohibitionists make great strides with those two issues. It needs to be effectively dealt with.

I think we should focus on civil rights and the first amendment, especially religious freedom. The prohibition is religious prejudice, why shouldn’t the solution be freedom of religion?

In fact, we don’t have to wait until the next election to make an impact, we have a religious user in jail as we speak. His plight could really use some progressive press and it would mean a whole lot to me personally if anybody would be willing to help us.

Free Roger Christie!
THC Ministry

Cannabis Minister Roger Christie Refused Bail in Religious Freedom Case
http://mensnewsdaily.com/2010/07/23/cannabis-minister-roger-christie-refused-bail-in-religious-freedom-case/

73 days in Detention: Roger Christie Sends THC Ministry Anniversary Greetings
http://cannabisnewsdaily.com/2010/09/20/73-days-in-detention-roger-christie-sends-thc-ministry-anniversary-greetings/

Thank you and blessed be.

Sister Lauren
THC Ministry

Let’s go deep into the voter demographics, try to determine who supports pot and needs better targetting and GOTV. And who is convincable.

Don’t get sucked into the “it’s not as bad for you as (insert your intoxicant of choice here).” The core issue is not whether toking is better or worse for you than coffee, but whether or not people should be assigned the status of “criminal,” and deprived of their libery and property, simply for using natural or chemical substances that change their state of mind.

Then, when it comes to debating the incorporation of anti-drug sentiment into law, ask your interlocuter if they can think of a single principle that they would use to justify continued criminalization of drugs that they would choose to see applied consistently in every other area of the law to which it applies. I’ve debated the subject in many public forums over the years, and that’s the question that I’ve never gotten a single, even remotely satisfactory answer to.

When it becomes obvious that the question cannot be answered satisfactorily, it becomes equally obvious that reason plays no role whatsoever in justifying continuation of the WOD. At it’s root, it’s all about using the law as a means of enforcing uniformity of thought while at the same time claiming to occupy the moral high ground. There is nothing moral about using coercion to manufacture conformity to an arbitrary set of norms concerning how one contols their own thoughts and emotions.