on Colorado's recent legalization.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130530132531.htm



Hello, DEA. We're sick of your lies. Stop treating this plant like it's a dangerous drug, like, say, all those pharmaceuticals that you have no problem with in spite of their many negative side effects.

Sincerely, American People

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/05/marijuana_possession_new_orlea.html

I sent out some love to Louisiana here the other day... http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022893488



The earlier bill failed - the penalties were less than in the current bill that passed in the House. But I'm so happy to see places that make bad laws a little better, at least.

Still have a ways to go, but every bit of progress matters.

Discussion of the recent legislation in Colorado

#!

http://the420times.com/2013/05/l-a-city-councilman-bill-rosendahl-says-obama-betrayed-me-on-every-step-of-the-way-on-marijuana-policy/

The video is nearly 30 minutes long at the link, but well worth listening to as Rosendahl talks about cannabis policy and his own experience with cannabis as a cancer patient.

State Rep. Austin Badon (D-New Orleans) had introduced a bill to address this reality:



http://www.noladefender.com/content/badon-bill-se45eks-redu78ced-pot-prison-sentences

HB 103 was intended to create more appropriate sentences for marijuana. A third arrest for marijuana possession in Louisiana can result in a 20 year sentence. No distinction is made between people arrested for something like simple possession and violent offenders under sentencing laws in the state.



Please, Louisiana. Stop this nonsense.

The legislation can be brought to vote again.

Pops was arrested for possession back in the day. Your law could've prevented the inventor of the jazz solo from ever achieving his brilliance. You're so proud of your jazz, Louisiana. Jazz and reefer have a long and storied history. Stop pretending it's something it's not and stop undermining the lives of the people in your state.

http://www.alternet.org/cops-go-undercover-high-school-bust-special-needs-kid-pot-why-are-police-so-desperate-throw-kids

Californians Doug and Catherine Snodgrass are suing their son’s high school for allowing undercover police officers to set up the 17-year-old special-needs student for a drug arrest.

In a video segment on ABC News, they say they were "thrilled" when their son -- who has Asperger's and other disabilities and struggled to make friends -- appeared to have instantly made a friend named Daniel.

"Daniel," however, was an undercover cop with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department who " hounded" the teenager to sell him his prescription medication. When he refused, the undercover cop gave him $20 to buy him weed, and he complied -- not realizing the guy he wanted to befriend wanted him behind bars.

In December, the unnamed senior was arrested along with 21 other students from three schools, all charged with crimes related to the two officers' undercover drug operation at two public schools in Temecula, California (Chaparral and Temecula Valley High School). This March, Judge Marian H. Tully ruled that Temecula Valley Unified School District could not expel the student, and had in fact failed to provide him with proper services.

So, police are resorting to entrapment to get special needs kids to sell them drugs so they can arrest them???????

FUCK THIS SHIT.

What the fuck is wrong with this nation that police are going after AUTISTIC KIDS to put them IN JAIL after ASKING THEM to break the law?

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Filner-Urges-Jury-Nullification-In-Medical-Pot-Dispensary-Case-208246501.html



If you are called for jury duty on a marijuana case, you can choose not to enforce federal law. You can inform your fellow jurors of the possibility of jury nullification and refuse to convict based upon corrupt, outdated, racist-inspired law.

The more this happens, the sooner we will be rid of current federal prohibition.

surely has an impact upon employment opportunities, beyond the basics of economic life, such as access to opportunities by who you know, the history of wealth accumulation among a very few, to the exclusion of everyone else, and laws that have worked to undo advances previously made in this nation to actually have a govt. that serves the people of this nation, not just the rich people of this nation.



From The Sentencing Project's "Prison Privatization and the Use of Incarceration" (2004) - the War on Drugs became the spur to create private prisons because of overcrowding in prisons from the laws enacted (Mandatory Minimums, Three Strikes, Stop and Frisk, sentencing disparities based upon race.)

The current for-profit prison system, begun in the 1980s, has made the U.S. more of a penal colony than China - that's the gift from conservatives that keeps on giving, year after year, with cumulative effects on earning power over a lifetimes, as well as effects on employment options.

http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet

-African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population
-African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites
-Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population.
-5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites
-African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months).

This isn't the first time various states have used prison to deny rights to African-Americans. During Reconstruction, whites could arrest blacks (mostly men) and put them on work gangs - and this was never challenged because of the racism that undergirded the practice among the powerful.

Another function of the for-profit prison system is to increase population numbers in rural, predominantly white areas of states, which gives more voting power to those who are elected from those areas - and this, as well, becomes a self-reinforcing form of racism because it is in the vested interests of politicians and certain members of the population to create economies built on imprisoning other members of society.

Kurt Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore, noted that the war on drugs is really a war on African-Americans and Hispanics, since they are disproportionately singled out for arrest and because, when other avenues to create revenue are blocked, illegal activity is the way for someone to make money outside of the system in place for those who are either part of the elite or the few who get "elevated" to the elite to serve as a sop to everyone else of a particular race or gender so they can ignore the systemic dysfunction that comes from the racism and sexism that is part of the foundation of the history of property.

Both African-American men and women have been harder hit than white females.



In the cases of both race and gender, the legacy of slavery continues to impact people, whether the slavery was based upon race or gender.

The commonality between all African-Americans and all women is that both groups, in American society, were not simply considered second-class citizens, they were considered property.