Endorsements to Legalize Cannabis / Progress 2010-2011

[RainDog]

Last edited Wed Apr 18, 2012, 05:58 PM - Edit history (1)

These statements range from 2010, when Prop. 19 was on the ballot in CA to Dec. 2011.

Four Former Mayors of Vancouver
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/23/legalize-pot-four-former-vancouver-mayors-say/

Norm Stamper, Former FBI chief in Seattle, endorses marijuana legalization initiative (Nov. 2011)
http://today.seattletimes.com/2011/11/former-fbi-chief-in-seattle-endorses-marijuana-legalization-initiative/

California Medical Association
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/15/local/la-me-doctors-marijuana-20111016

The NAACP
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20084203-503544.html

LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/40-anniversary-war-on-drugs-cops-obama_n_877702.html

Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced a bill (H.B. 2306) modeled on the 21st amendment to repeal prohibition, to end the federal govt's prohibition of cannabis. This was the first time such a bill has been entered in the house (June 2011.)

Democratic Reps. John Conyers (MI), Steve Cohen (TN), Jared Polis (CO) and Barbara Lee (CA) are co-sponsors of the bill.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/23/251897/paul-frank-introduce-bill-to-legalize-marijuana/

The Editorial Board of The Seattle Times
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/03/01/the-seattle-times-calls-for-pot-legalization-the-drug-czar-calls-the-seattle-times-your-tax-dollars-at-work-stifling-debate/

Stop the Violence, a high profile group of Canadian business, political, and educational, legal and law enforcement professionals, includes former B.C. Supreme Court justice Ross Lander and B.C.'s former chief coroner Vince Cain, launched a high-profile political campaign to "end the cannabis cash cow of organized crime."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/10/27/bc-stop-the-violence-marijuana-coalition.html

The following Commissioners from the Global Commission on Drug Policy:

» Asma Jahangir
- human rights activist, former UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Executions, Pakistan

» Carlos Fuentes
- writer and public intellectual, Mexico

» César Gaviria
- former President of Colômbia

» Ernesto Zedillo
- former President of México

» Fernando Henrique Cardoso
- former President of Brazil (chair)

» George Papandreou
- Prime Minister of Greece

» George Shultz
- former Secretary of State, United States (honorary chair)

» Javier Solana
- former European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Spain

» John Whitehead
- banker and civil servant, chair of the World Trade Center Memorial, United States

» Kofi Annan
- former Secretary General of the United Nations, Ghana

» Louise Arbour
- former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, president of the International Crisis Group, Canada

» Maria Cattaui
- Member of the Board, Petroplus Holdings; former Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce, Switzerland

» Marion Caspers-Merk
- former State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Health, Germany

» Mario Vargas Llosa
- writer and public intellectual, Peru

» Michel Kazatchkine
- executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, France

» Paul Volcker
- former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve and of the Economic Recovery Board, US

» Richard Branson
- entrepreneur, advocate for social causes, founder of the Virgin Group, cofounder of The Elders, United Kingdom

» Ruth Dreifuss
- former President of Switzerland and Minister of Home Affairs

» Thorvald Stoltenberg
- former Minister of Foreign Affairs and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Norway

http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Commission

Edward Schumacher-Matos, The Washington Post (2010)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/21/AR2010102102957.html?sub=AR

65 Law Professors who signed on to Vote Yes on Prop. 19 (2010)
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/dozens-of-prominent-law-professors-endorse-california-prop-19/27674

The Editorial Board of the British Medical Journal (2010) - and recommend it be sold in stores like cigarettes and alcohol.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8056292/Cannabis-should-be-sold-in-shops-alongside-beer-and-cigarettes-doctors-journal-says.html

International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, based in Vancouver, Canada (2010)
http://www.cfenet.ubc.ca/news/releases/new-report-us-government-data-demonstrates-failure-cannabis-prohibition

Roger Pertwee, UK's Leading Pharmacological Expert on Cannabis, Calls for Legalization
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/14/cannabis-licence-legalisation-pertwee

Joseph McNamara, Former San Jose Chief of Police, Calls For Legalization of Cannabis
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/148149/former_police_chief%3A_legalize_pot%2C_now

California Council of Churches IMPACT (21 different denominations and over 1.5 million members within the mainstream and progressive Protestant communities of faith) endorses legalization of cannabis
http://www.examiner.com/progressive-in-portland/prop-19-california-council-of-churches-says-yes-to-legal-marijuana

The California council of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the state's largest union, endorses legalization in 2010.
http://norml.org/news/2010/09/23/california-state-s-largest-labor-union-endorses-marijuana-depenalization-initiative

Former (Republican) Governor of New Mexico, Gary E. Johnson
http://my.firedoglake.com/garyjohnson/2010/09/03/legalize-marijuana-to-stop-the-drug-cartels/

Former Mexican Foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302205.html

John McKay, the prosecutor who sent "prince of pot" Marc Emery to jail
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2012804422_guest05mckay.html

Please feel free to add others that I have missed.

[DCKit]

1. An impressive list, for sure. nt

[RainDog]

2. It certainly is. Thanks to DU3, I compiled this. :)

Last edited Tue Dec 13, 2011, 04:04 AM - Edit history (1)

I think it's important to see - and important to recognize the many who share this view but don't speak out.

[felix_numinous]

3. Raindog--Thank you for carrying the torch

for this forum. It is such a key civil rights issue and needs to be kept alive. You have been working your ass off here.


MM has been invaluable in helping my pain and cancer symptoms for the last year, and I want to thank everyone out there working to spread the good word.

[RainDog]

4. thanks for the kind words

I wanted to make a lot of documents available that can help people educate themselves and others.

I sort of felt weird, like I was spamming, but did it anyway to provide some content and context.

btw, if you haven't read Michael Pollan's essay in the link on the "Reagan's greatest legacy" post - I highly recommend it. He's a great writer and he provides a look at the outcome of the last few decades of the WoD.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, RainDog.

[CanSocDem]

6. Good to see such support.

I add my voice to the others who commend you for this list and all that you are doing for this cause.

I've been waiting for 45 years for a government to step up and tell me what I was doing wasn't illegal. A few have toyed with me, got my hopes up but never actually convinced me to give up my unsanctioned sources.

After a few decades of this and despite having (at least for now) LEGAL grow rooms within reach, many of us are still doing what has always served us best....staying low, eschewing attention and being grateful we can still score good pot.

.

[T S Justly]

7. K&R (nt)