Voters could relax marijuana penalties

[struggle4progress]

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
By John Gramlich, Stateline.org Staff Writer

Ballot questions next month will give voters in California, Massachusetts and Michigan a chance to revisit their states’ policies on marijuana. If approved, the measures are likely to exacerbate tensions between states and the federal government over the drug.

In California and Massachusetts, voters will decide Nov. 4 whether to join 10 other states that have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a national advocacy group working to legalize the drug. Instead of facing arrest and time behind bars, those caught with up to an ounce of marijuana would be subject to civil fines of $100 or less — similar to those paid for traffic violations.

In Michigan, voters could make the state the first in the Great Lakes region to authorize “medical marijuana.” Proposal 1 on the state’s ballot would allow residents to cultivate marijuana plants and use the drug — with a doctor’s recommendation — to treat pain from cancer, HIV and other diseases. California authorized medical marijuana in 1996 and 11 states have followed, including New Mexico and Rhode Island last year ...

http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=347763

[Stump]

1. Here to wishing...

all the propositions pass.

[Loge23]

2. The least of our problems now

But symbolic of our misplaced priorities.
Get arrested for pot and you will go to jail and very possibly have some of your assets seized (car, house, bank accounts, etc.)
Steal billions form the Treasury? Go off to your McMansion or another country and live the rest of your decrepit life in luxury.

At this rate, marijuana may HAVE TO be legalized just to calm down the masses if nothing else.

[zeemike]

3. If we applied the same law to pot as to alcohol.

It would deal a heavy blow to the drug trade, and save us billions in enforcement.
Once people were allowed to grow it for their own use their would be no market for it.

[liberal renegade]

5. there will always be a market.

It might not be as profitable as it is now. not everybody has a green thumb.

[Kazak]

4. I'll toke to that! n/t

:)

[GDAEx2]

6. Marijuana could relax voters

[sinkingfeeling]

7. We've got one at the city level, asking police to treat marijuana possession as the lowest priority.

[Iggo]

8. Pot woulda been legal a long time ago...

...if not for the fact that pot smokers just don't get to the polls as often as they'd like to.

[Le Taz Hot]

9. A little clarity might be needed here.

CA decriminalized Marijuana in 1978. Get caught with less than an ounce and the most they can do to you is give you a $100.00 ticket and make you throw out the pot. (Unless, of course, it's really good pot at which point it gets taken in for "evidence.")

Proposition 5 pertains to non-violent parolees and probationers not having their parole/probation revoked for marijuana possession. Instead, it allocates an additional $460M to expand currently-existing treatment programs. (First time offenders are already currently directed to rehab instead of jail/prison). Basically, it's trying to reduce jail/prison recidivism over simple pot possession.

As the article also states, we voted in MM in 1996, however, the Gropenator just vetoed a bill prohibiting employers from discriminating against MM patients. The good news on the CA MM front is that most counties now issue licenses (including newly added Fresno County), more and more are adding dispensaries and the small growers are no longer being harassed.

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. The Feds have shut down all dispensaries around me within 150 miles

When the Feds and Blackwater get off the backs of the clinics then maybe
something positive will happen.

[Le Taz Hot]

15. Tulare County

is swimming in them. Doesn't sound like these are exactly in your neck of the woods but if you're ever in the area . . . (Visalia, Porterville, Exeter) We'll have some in Fresno County soon as well.

[Fumesucker]

12. Pot is less addictive than caffeine...

I don't recall ever seeing a "treatment program" for caffeine..

Why are "treatment programs" needed for pot?

[Uncle Joe]

13. Possibly because pot is illegal and as such

costs much more than coffee or soda, therefore pot's use if not grown by the user can have a much heavier financial impact.

Not going to jail may also be a motivation for some pot treatment program clients, if you had the choice of going to jail or going in to a coffee treatment program, it would be easy to stand up and confess, I am a Folgers drinker and it has ruined my life.

[Fumesucker]

14. But it's not very addictive..

People are not driven to consume pot the way they are driven to consume alcohol, tobacco, caffeine or any number of other licit and illicit drugs.

Buying a bag of pot to smoke at home is still cheaper than going out to a bar and getting drunk there at bar prices, it's easy to drop fifty bucks in the bar for an evening of drinking.

[Uncle Joe]

16. I agree with your post.

I was just answering your question, as to why we have pot treatment programs, I didn't read it as to why we "need" them so much as why we "have" them.

[Le Taz Hot]

17. Actually, pot has no addictive elements

The "treatment programs" are a way to NOT send parolees & probationers back to prison or county jail due to pot possession.

[ellie]

11. Even my 77-year-old mom

thinks pot should be legalized.