Legalize it already.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/02/20/notes022009.DTL
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Smoke This Recession
It's simple: First we tax the booze. Then we legalize the pot. Done.

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, February 20, 2009

It is a time of strange bedfellows and bizarre contortions and extraordinary responses to extreme situations, all overslathered with gobs of panic and dread and oh my God, I might have to sell the Range Rover.

In other words, it is a time -- like you don't already know -- of plentiful alarmist rhetoric, resulting in weird outbursts of ingenuity and wanton ethics-loosening, all in a desperate effort to suck up some much-needed cash.

Translation: Money's tight, baby. City's in trouble. State's deep in the hole. Nation's broke.

Solution? Upend the system. Think differently. Get creative. Demolish Ye Olde Ways. And maybe get a really nice buzz on while you're at it.

Where to begin? How can the city/state refill their empty coffers and further gouge the populace to make ends meet? Increased bridge tolls? A new per-mile driving tax? Heavier parking fines? State parks abandoned and left to seed? Child's play, darling.

You want to raise funds in an instant? You want a sure-fire, double-barreled source of nearly limitless funds from a wary, burned-out citizenry? That's easy. Go after its biggest vices, its most beloved balms.

Up first: booze. Already local governments are quietly proposing jacking up the alcohol tax and loosening sales restrictions because, well, why the hell not? Aren't you, right this very moment, as you prepare your taxes and weep over your gutted portfolio and stare down one very bleak 2009, more in need of a drink or three than at any time in recent history except for the entirety of the last eight miserable, Bush-stabbed years? Well, there you go. Tax increases on cocktails, here they come.

But it's not just governments. Check out the happily shameless TV networks who, for the first time in a whocares number of years, are allowing ads for alcohol and K-Y lube during prime-time programming. Oh the outrage! Oh the debauchery! Who, pray who, will protect the children? Oh wait, the children are out buying daddy some more beer and applying for a job at Starbucks to help pay rent. Never mind.

New taxes on the other Great American vices: porn, gambling, prescription meds, pro sports, obesity, Mylie Cyrus? Watch for it.

Now, let's get serious. Because there are, of course, bigger fish to fry in the sea of potentially lucrative, all-American inebriates. There is a far more potent, obvious solution to the state's budget woes, a huge, untapped revenue source, and now might be the perfect time to, you know, light it up.

Really now, could there be a better time to decriminalize/fully legalize pot? Or, more fully, to decriminalize pot, and then spread respectable pot shops and vending machines and dispensaries far and wide, instill quality control and decent oversight and then tax the living hell out of the glorious, stress-reducing goodness, as we stop wasting billions fighting its grand ubiquity and instead sink into profitable pools of warm, hazy progress? Don't you already know the answer?

It's difficult to imagine that some intrepid legislator hasn't already walked into Arnie "Pot is not a drug" Schwarzenegger's office and said, "Governator, now is the time. Light it up. Inhale the new reality. Pot is, by a huge margin, the single largest cash crop in the state unless you count porn stars and celebrity rehab. It rakes in upwards of $14 billion a year -- maybe a lot more than that -- and that's just from five clever hippies and a couple intrepid grandmas in Ukiah. Imagine what we could do if we went all-in."

Are the discussions ongoing? Are they passing the bong of possibility around the state Senate chambers? You're damn right they are. What's holding them back? Probably the usual: the negative PR, looking "soft" on crime, encouraging permissiveness, pressure from prison lobbies, and so on. Don't worry, Sacramento. Everyone's already plenty drunk/high on prescription meds trying to alleviate fears of losing their job to care about that nonsense right now. Get to it.

There won't be much pushback from D.C. President Obama's already stated that his upcoming appointee to head the DEA is going to knock it the hell off with the insidious raids of harmless medical pot shops in California, and wants to quit using federal resources to bash hippies and circumvent state laws.

Look. Is there really anyone left who doesn't already know the "War on Drugs" is a pathetic joke, an abject failure and a taxpayer nightmare, and the only reason it survives at all is to fund the CIA and fellate the prison guard unions and support a shameful prison system, and to let politicians say they're "tough on crime" so they can to deflect all those uninformed parents who relentlessly whine about pot in public schools just before dashing off a wine-tasting party to snort a nice line of Bolivian coke?

Anyone left, furthermore, who doesn't know that pot is far safer than booze, less addictive, nonviolent, more transportable, easier to light, and generally won't interfere with your ability to crawl across the carpet and lick cookie crumbs from your lover's thighs? And sure, while heavy, daily usage can make you slow and stupid and rather useless to the world, well, so can a six-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper and six hours of TV every day. Gateway drug? That's on Channel 2, right after "Oprah."

And another thing. Maybe it wouldn't be merely tax 'n' puff. Maybe California, already the pot-growing capital of the nation, could become something more. A hub. A world-class research center. Pot education, study, medicine, import/export, the works. We could ship our crop to various nations in desperate need of chilling the hell out, like Israel. Palestine. Pakistan. Russia. The N-Judah on a Friday afternoon. We could become the largest research and manufacturing center in the world. How proud we would be. You know, sort of.

Let's phrase this grand scenario in another way: Why the hell not try it? What have we got to lose? What, we could go more broke? We could get more desperate and anxious? Fact is, economic nightmares need not breed only miserable stories of lost homes and lost jobs and shuttered businesses. They can also spawn creative solutions, innovative thinking, widespread munchies. Now is the time.

Let's not get carried away. Pot's only one little inebriate, one mild and -- let's just admit it -- relatively boring feel-good plant. California is $40 billion in debt and we're running low on water and we can't give away those hideous tract developments out in Stockton. Milking the pot cow for all she's worth might net us, at best, a few billion a year. To get out of this massive hole, we'd have to legalize Ecstasy too. (Someday, honey, someday).

But it's something. It's radical new thinking that's not the slightest bit radical, or new, and in fact the notion is now even more obvious than it's been for the past 30 years. What are we waiting for? A match?

I sometimes wonder if pot is not the perfect antidote for the toxic side effects of
modern social stress. 100 years ago, you would not have heard another human voice
unless that person was in the room with you. This increase in human communication can
over-amp a person's thinking and identity circuits - and these lead to release of
cortisol, stress and premature aging. So to counter the effect of being
overcommunicated to a world of generally slovenly, mean people; the cannabis high is a
sort of relieving withdraw. Like a religious experience, the weed takes the energy
off shields (these overstimulated communications and identity circuits) and gives the
person a blissful moment of non-idenitity - where acting the life of *any* character
is a charade, however seriously the mockup. And from the removed perspective of the
actor out of character, one can have a smoke and directly sidestep the dangerous
over - ego unnatural overself relfection and the associated internal dialog - like
some fucking narrator reading the script of one's life, that people actually believe
their thoughts happen in words - so deeply removed from their mysterious cogntive
primitivity and its empowering totality.

Yet, this is meditation, is it not, nothing to do with drugs really, but just dropping
the pretense that your character matters at all, and in that holy surrender, for a
moment off the clock and off your bullshit story. And when the cage of identity and
the horror of the flat earth of commercial stupidization really get to you, you can
smoke a doobie and revel in the holiness to survive.

We need to publish a cannabis bible - one with a beautifully poetic treatise,
that we can use to quote from like the other assholes quote from their bible.
Perhaps we need to find the missing verses where jesus gets his devotees high with
god's holy weed.

Everything is made to be confused when it is knot confused. What is before us is a huge knot. A knot really wrapped around every kind of absurdity their is. Fluoride, mercury, GMO, Empire, consolidated media, electoral college, no paper trail, boxcutters brought down the Twin Towers and building 7 and so on and so on.

Sure some people want to try to put on a certain piece of rope trying to see if it has two ends and will come free. Well, it won't because it is all one rope. The pile needs fire.

It is a shame though because of what Free Cannabis would mean for socialization and cooperation is as big as the laws are onerous, so big that nobody has a writing to describe them all. The dining experience would be finer and people would know what is meant by Appetizer 2.0. Concerts and public performing of music would have new life. The alcohol habit would have a much superior alternative and people would sit around in circles and talk instead of disabling the anger controls.

Cannabis would be the medicine for the spirit of man. Times with no money are better than times with no pot. The medicine for the madness that knots us is forbidden. You will suffer in body and spirit. Chase your medpot loopholes, but be sure and pay a doctor. Have that illness first. Get sick to get well. Play repair medicine instead of prevention and be sure and not put oil in your engine until it locks up. Buying engines is good for the economy. What is good for the economy is good for you.

Why is it the health care industry instead of the health industry. If we sell $300 million of pills why are we the sickest people on the planet? Where are the healthy pill eaters is what I want to know. Go ahead and go bankrupt chasing that best Rockefeller medicine man and have a doughnut while you wait. Then you can be sicker when you are homeless and then you can start on the path to welfare king.

It is one big mess and Johnny Carson is not here to give us some insight into how big is it. If only people would get some couch lock and and took a trip on zero tolerance, They might find the side effect of stoner's nights sleep is something others only dream of, a warning label that is advertisement, not that it doesn't sell itself.

Play pretend until the end. Keep talking to that television. The new thing is to have a television shoe available in all colors and many materials. Just be hip. The enhanced life will wait for our poor and sick children. When they are sitting in their wheel chairs all legless and hopeful for the smallest of change, they can play pretend too. Pretend we thought of the children.

"Grow a plant and get life" needs some inversion. There are two sides to "Take no prisoners" and I like the Free Cannabis side. Keep your hate up or let your love grow. Feel or stay cold. Taboo or not taboo. This side of freedom or the Free side of freedom. Play pretend or get real. Be sick poor or healthy wealthy. Get elevated or be low.

Please don't talk to each other. Okay, now it is an order. Stop that talking. Shout something hateful. Get back to that television and grab something. Get 7 or 8 slogans and you are an expert. Get some attitude and be a consultant. Lie beyond exaggeration and get your job in protecting people. Tell them what we want them to hear and shut down their frontal lobe so they hear what they want.

Prohibitionist dinner isn't fit to eat. Expensive too. Worse money on top of bad money until no money. Can I get a refund. I can't swallow onw bite.

If they made pot legal, it would take away the best way to defy the treason that rules us. We would lose that and what could take its place. We have the pot parades coming in places that are not mad as hell and will not take it any more. Beware the medpotters, for their leaves tell the future. We have to go to Oppression 3.0 or we will have Liberty 1.0.

That reminds me. I need more peace flowers. Mine always catches fire. Shouldn't being out of pot be an absurdity? Dam are things fucked up.

If only there was a grass roots movement to change things. Someone that felt injustice down to the last cell. Someone that didn't listen shit. Some unstoppable force. Someone with real rope. A choir with a song.

The only thing in the way is a worn out fraud and some lying, treasonous bastards that everybody hates anyway. Grass up, we of the high ground. Let's take out the trash. Life enhancement for everyone. There is pot at the end of the rainbow. Ah, the power of oz.

http://www.marijuana-uses.com/contribute.html

Contribute

THE GENERAL IDEA

For as long as I can remember, the debate over cannabis has centered on whether it is harmful. I would like to focus instead on marijuana's uses and possible benefits. Some ten million Americans smoke marijuana regularly. Millions more use it occasionally. But why, exactly? I know that some people use marijuana as a medicine, while others use it simply to "party." But between these two poles are many other uses and effects that might best be described by words like enhancing, therapeutic, exploratory, expansive, and so on. The Uses of Marijuana will explore these various possibilities. I hope you will join me by writing about your experience.

Here are a few suggestions:

# You could write a personal essay or contribute to our blog -- serious, whimsical, or some of each -- about the place of marijuana in your life, or why you use it, or what you especially enjoy about it.

# Or you could cover the same ground in other ways: by exchanging a series of letters (or e-mails) with a friend and sending them on to us; by writing up a dialogue about marijuana with your spouse or partner; by sending sections from a journal; or perhaps even by keeping a journal for a few weeks and sending us some excerpts from it.

# Or you might write up an interview with yourself on the subject of marijuana, or ask a friend to interview you; or send us something you have already written on this subject -- or any other writing about marijuana that you'd like us to be aware of.

THE FINE PRINT

Whether or not we can use your name, please identify who you are and how to contact you. And kindly provide at least four basic details: your age, your gender, your occupation, and what part of the country you live in. If you'd like to identify yourself further, please do.

Submissions to The Uses of Marijuana should be typed and easy to read. Longer contributions are fine, but whatever you send, please keep a copy. I hope to respond to all contributions within 2-3 weeks. If you have questions or comments about this project, I'll do my best to respond.

Please forward your submissions as soon as possible!

Please send all submissions and correspondence, preferably in electronic form, to:

Lester_Grinspoon@hms.Harvard.edu

or

Lester Grinspoon, MD
35 Skyline Drive
Wellesley, MA 02482

Cordially,

Lester Grinspoon, M.D.

===================================


B. This is the first entry after Grinspoons blog of January 2nd at http://www.marijuana-uses.com/blog.html

Sunday, February 22, 2009
Legalize pot on religious grounds
Pardon me if I banter Christians more than the other organized religionists; I’m a product of the Catholic school system from grammar school to Boston College. The other religions are equally as farfetched. It’s just that I’m better acquainted with the doctrines of the church than the conventions and convictions of Judaism or Islam.

I rejected religious ideas at a very early age. The fables were too unbelievable, even to a seven year old: Jonah living in the belly of a whale; Adam and Eve chatting with that slimy, duplicitous snake; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego hopping out of the furnace and scaring the piss out of mean King Nebuchadnezzar. Jesus thrashing the money changers for doing business in the temple was another one; He should at least have been as non-violent as Confucius or Buddha, methinks. What a tragic example he set by condoning violence when morally offended. How many fanatical soldiers lost their lives fighting while morally vexed —even in foreign lands where they didn’t belong?

In high school the fundamental concepts of Christianity perplexed and irritated me: An omnipotent being creates a peculiar ape that disobeys and offends him. He is angry and his feelings are hurt. So He wills that his only son transmogrifies into a peculiar ape and gets tortured by His brutish, bloodthirsty creation. All so God could appease himself.

So my first argument for legalized pot is to appeal to the country’s sense of fair play. Weed is to my religion what Holy Communion is to Catholicism. Communicants are told to believe bread and wine are the actual body and blood of Christ—no symbolism, we’re talking about real meat you can chew on. That’s okay. If they want to make believe they are sanctified and blessed by carrying the lord around in their bodies, that’s fine. It’s far out but à chaqu’un son gout. It’s a free country.

But grass has a tangible, perceivable effect on my brain at the molecular level. Neurotransmitters get stimulated and turned on. The basal ganglia and the limbic system in all of us— including other mammals—are rich in CBI receptors. These receptors are essentially absent in the medulla oblongata, the part of the brain stem that is responsible for respiratory and cardiovascular functions. There is no risk of respiratory or cardiovascular dysfunction as there is with many other drugs. CBI receptors appear to be responsible for the euphoric and anticonvulsive effects of cannabis.

The high’s quite real and I feel euphoric. Tetrahydrocanabinol is a euphoriant. At this very moment I’m as high as a GPS satellite, observing and enjoying earthly phenomena with godlike fancy. I’m listening to the glorious Camille Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, and at the organ’s grand entrance in the third movement, I feel I’m standing at the portals of heaven. Order, peace, harmony, reason. Art is the human intellect at its most sublime. The high leads me to believe that heaven on Earth is possible for all human beings once we shirk the stultifying effects of mine-controlling ideolgy and we resume evolving. Unlike Holy Communion, where the communicants feel a self-delusionary, make-believe high, there is an actual change of consciousness on grass.

I’ll never forget the first time a smoked some good weed. It was the time of Woodstock Nation, John Lennon, Allan Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. A psych major from NYU’s class of ’66 marched to the beat of different drummer, that’s for sure. When I witnessed how people acted on TV commercials—deranged by consumerism—I felt like I was from another planet.

Twenty-six years old, standing on the banks of Lake Willoughby in the lovely, rolling Green Mountains of northern Vermont. A kaleidoscope of chlorophylls and carotenes tickled my retina with shimmering light—earthy colors of rust and yellow, brown and beige, every shade of red that sunrays could irradiate. The leaves on the far embankment seemed to sparkle in the midday sun. The glinting crests of tiny wavelets on the lake blended with the leaves so as to present a panorama of continuous light—like a Monet or Cezanne.

As a NYC boy, the amorphous lake was the most beautiful natural beauty I had ever seen. Before that day, Central Park was the most beautiful nature I had ever experienced. The rise in consciousness was palpable.

On a nearby white birch tree, a lazy squirrel hung by his hind claws. Dangling upside down, propped up on his elbows, he confidently held an acorn like a kid in front of a TV with a bag of popcorn. He wasn’t afraid but with my delightful high I could absolutely determine he was wondering what I was doing there emitting this peculiar ropy smell. I felt a holy communion all right, but with the living— mammal to mammal, each enjoying life in our own way.

Grass increases one’s connection with nature. I hesitate to make a blanket statement but it sure does for me and many people I know. The image of the squirrel stayed with me nearly fifty years.

Along Foliage Road on the other side of the lake, a dump truck intruded into my personal heaven. It hissed, growled and devoured the sleepy country road. The sounds were threatening and a conspicuous intrusion into the peacefulness of the lake. Over the tops of the tree, I could make out in the back of the truck plastic pipes and rubber tubing, flailing and whirling in all directions like the snakes of Hydra’s hair. The monster was undoubtedly headed for some construction site to devastate scenery as lovely as this.

Poor Earth.

With grass, the programming and indoctrination of school and “socialization” melt away like chains of ice. I don’t passively accept that the driver has to earn a living. I view the lake and think of Henry David Thoreau. What would he say about the dump truck meeting up with bull dozers and other earth movers? What misguided powers have preordained the truck to invade my idyllic reverie? Powers far-away, in glass and aluminum, cubical skyscraper offices. They have no idea what they are doing because they forfeited feeling for Lake Willoughby. Their religions have numbed their sensibilities and ability to empathize with nature and the biodiversity of life. Love and respect that belongs to Nature are diverted to a hallucinatory Moloch.

“Religion,” an interesting etymology. “Re,” of course, “again” or “back.” But “lig” refers to a tying, as in “ligature.” We’re talking about a reconnect, but unfortunately for humanity the retying has been to human organizations with bank accounts, presidents, boards of directors, real property and an army of working professionals. The Mother Church has usurped love and devotion that belongs to nature.

I felt like grabbing the truck driver (the logger, construction worker, land surveyor) and getting in his/er face: “Look, man, with all due respect, you don’t know what you’re doing. Think of how unfeeling and robotic you have to be to mutilate the land itself. What kind of people would devastate our nation’s ineffable natural beauty in favor of strip malls and shopping malls, chemical plants and plastic factories? You need to reconnect. Hop out of your mental cage and smell the wildflowers—the bars of the cage are all in your head.”

As I stared across the shimmering lake, a chilly New England breeze made me feel the hair on my arms and blood streaming faster down my legs. A dappled rock bass jumped a few yards away.

How wrong and sad it is that the truck driver pays respect, homage and love to a non-existent god rather than Nature. If he weren’t sidetracked by mythological, conditioned beliefs, he’d probably be getting high, enjoying the beauty of nature and art, striving to be a good person and thinking about generations to follow. We grew out of the planet; there’s no doubt about it to a bio teacher. The wellbeing of all future life depends powerfully on how well we understand the cosmos and planet from which we arose abiogenetically (without parents) and evolved.

Now nearly fifty years after Lake Willoughby, Carl Sagan urges a new religion based on our perception of the cosmos as revealed by science. Instead of the writings of ancient goat-herders and fishermen, we need a religion based on information revealed by telescopes and microscopes, computers and spacecraft sent to the outer reaches of the solar system.

I dreamed of a new religion when I fantasized about scolding the truck driver. Weed can be our holy eucharist. Instead of each person mutely receiving a sterile wafer, people of a New Age religion will pass around a joint and rap about philosophy, science and art, instead of humiliating silence with simulated piety. They’ll actively participate; they’ll be the religion because they are real. Instead of making sacrifices, they’ll share a peace pipe and have fun listening to music, perhaps enjoying views of nature by a pristine mountain lake.

How about John Lennon for the hippie religion’s first martyr and saint?

James Dean could be John the Baptist, urging the young not to repent but rebel. How wrong it is for professional clerics to teach kids that they are born in sin; how ungrateful to the serendipity of evolution to inculcate students with the belief that sex and their naked bodies are shameful and dirty.

Bob Dylan could be the first prophet.

Okay, maybe Dean shouldn’t be John the Baptist and John Lennon the first voice in the wilderness. Imagine there’s no religion at all. What difference does it make? It’ll be a disorganized religion. Some days we’ll meet on Wednesdays at 10 am, some nights on Tuesday at 11 pm. Who needs dogma and rituals? A disorganized religion belongs in a free country.

Churches and synagogues could be converted into community centers where lovers of the human condition congregate to have fun and get to know one another. Let’s produce plays and bring back poetry instead of watching TV. Let’s play our own game of baseball instead watching overpaid cheaters. Enjoying educational and humanistic activities is more beneficial to the community than listening to the same tiresome sermon week after week. Education makes you a better person.

(Please note: I’m not talking of any seizure of property. I’m speaking about the legal sale of church property due to lack of interest by the public—or when the churches are asked to pay their fair share of taxes.)

A 1960s song title: They called for a war and nobody volunteered. They called for a mass and nobody was interested.

Visionaries don’t care how unpopular or farfetched their ideas. I know humanity can not go on worshipping plastic idols forever: we are reproducing exponentially as millions starve every year. Every religion exhorts its following to spawn as many babies as possible. The planet is at its carrying capacity right now. It’s certain Gaia eventually will have enough of this nonsense and refuse to take any more abuse from the apish bipeds. If unbridled reproduction continues, Gaia will punish mankind’s imagined self importance and contemptible arrogance. Most of the world’s religionists have the delusion that we have some privilege in this vast cosmos other than our humble and limited consciousness.

As far as the slippery-slope argument goes, people don’t become homeless winos from a sip of burgundy. THC isn’t chemically related to the hard drugs. It’s not even close in composition. Legal oxycodone and its derivatives like Oxycortin and Percocet are chemically closer to heroin than marijuana. They are addictive and scientifically- documented depressants to the central nervous system. Plus there are terrible side effects like constipation and lethargy. With grass you can’t even overdose because you’ll pass out and wake up in the morning without even a hangover.

Denis Miller asserts in one of his gigs, “If Prozac and marijuana went head to head as the drug of choice, Prozac would lose.” Pot is illegal because Big Pharma wants it that way and wastes millions on bogus organizations like Partnership for a Drug-free America and DARE. Money that could have been used fixing up inner city schools or sheltering the homeless.

To present evidence that marijuana is not a source of disease, I end this post with a link to an interview last year with my friends Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard and radio host, Lynn Thompson of Living on Purpose.com.

http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/living-purpose/episode-127-lester-grinspoon-md

As far as psychological addiction goes, I’m reminded of the late comedian Bill Hicks’ comment about Art Linkletter’s kid who jumped out the window. “Dork, why did she have to ruin it for everybody?” (Ironically, toxicology tests confirmed there was no evidence of LSD usage.) Just because something is good doesn’t mean you have the right to abuse it. We recommend responsible use. I’ve been smoking nearly 50 years but only on special occasions like parties or an opera. I don’t even like the sight of needles.

Perhaps President Obama at the 2012 Democratic Convention will repeat the words of FDR in ’32: "This convention wants repeal. Your candidate wants repeal.And I am confident that the United States of America wants repeal."

But he’ll be talking about grass instead of booze. Just ask the eighty million of our citizens who have tried grass with zesty inhales.

posted by Aristopus at 3:18 PM 0 Comments

There is not one of the 18 comment in opposition to this. Not one. You mean after 71 years nobody has a coherent argument to criminalize the greatest plant on the planet. Surely you jest, there must be good reason for arresting 800,000 people a year for pot. Surely there is an overwhelming argument for all the harms of these onerous laws. Surely there is. Why doesn't LTB Obomem tell everyone what they are, from his own LTB lips?

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2009/02/legalize_it_ammiano_to_introdu.php
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Legalize It: Ammiano to Introduce Legislation Monday to Allow Pot -- and Tax It
By Joe Eskenazi in Breaking News, Government
Sunday, Feb. 22 2009 @ 5:00PM

The story SF Weekly broke on Friday is true: Assemblyman Tom Ammiano will announce legislation on Monday to legalize marijuana and earn perhaps $1 billion annually by taxing it.

Quintin Mecke, Ammiano's press secretary, confirmed to SF Weekly that the assemblyman's 10 a.m. Monday press conference regarding "new legislation related to the state's fiscal crisis" will broach the subject of reaping untold -- and much-needed -- wealth from the state's No. 1 cash crop.

Mecke said Ammiano's proposed bill "would remove all penalties in California law on cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, or use of marijuana, natural THC, or paraphernalia for persons over the age of 21."

The bill would additionally prohibit state and local law officials from enforcing federal marijuana laws. As for Step Two -- profit -- Ammiano's bill calls for "establishing a fee on the sale of marijuana at a rate of $50 per ounce." Mecke said that would bring in roughly $1 billion for the state, according to estimates made by marijuana advocacy organizations.

http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/1646399.html
and
http://cannabisnews.com/news/24/thread24510.shtml

I do not debate legalization of cannabis because its prohibition is a fraud, an aburdity equal to the electoral college, and a crime against humanity. Besides if you have something to say, somebody on the Internet has probably already said it well enough. I cannot give a link that supports criminalization with any sense because there isn't one. Here is a link for ending criminalization of The Sacred Grass- http://freespeach.gnn.tv/blogs/24812/The_Top_Ten_Reasons_Marijuana_Should_Be_Legal?r=3

With the sincerest of voices I would like to say that it takes a fool to oppose Free Cannabis and a fool in the truest since of the word.

Free Cannabliss for Everyone.

There are 396 comments and a slide show at http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/1646399.html
=======================

Published: Monday, Feb. 23, 2009 - 10:33 am
Last Modified: Monday, Feb. 23, 2009 - 11:59 am

California may be going to pot - literally.

Marijuana would be grown and sold openly to adults 21 and older under legislation introduced this morning by a San Francisco lawmaker.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, said the cash-starved state could generate more than a billion dollars by taxing pot growers and sellers.

Ammiano predicted that the public would support loosening marijuana laws that require substantial public funds to enforce.

"I think there's a mentality throughout the state and the country that this isn't the highest priority," he said. "And that maybe we should start to reassess."

Before California could legalize marijuana, however, it also might have to persuade the federal government to alter its prohibition on cannabis.

Ammiano said federal officials may be receptive to such changes under the administration of President Barack Obama.

"We may be on a parallel track here," said Ammiano, a freshman legislator who was sworn into office less than three months ago.

The Drug Policy Alliance, an advocate of loosening pot laws, applauded Ammiano's proposal.

"Marijuana already plays a huge role in the California economy," said Stephen Gutwillig, the group's California state director. "It's a revenue opportunity we literally can't afford to ignore any longer."

Assemblyman Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, said legalizing marijuana would be a bad idea. He said he considers pot a "gateway drug" from which many users graduate to harder and more dangerous substances.

"I don't think we're particularly well served in our society to further accommodate or even encourage something that's going to be unproductive and damaging to the individual -- especially not for the reason of generating revenue," he said.

Ammiano's bill, Assembly Bill 390, would allow marijuana to be sold openly - like alcohol - in retail outlets statewide.

The state would gain by charging sellers a fee of $50 per ounce. Pot growers also would be charged under the measure.

Driving under the influence of marijuana would continue to be illegal.

AB 390 calls for numerous other restrictions, such as banning use near schools or growing cannabis in public view, according to Ammiano aides.

Besides generating new tax revenue, Ammiano said his bill would save money by easing pressure on law enforcement and prisons.

"People in general are supportive," he said.

Ammiano said he hopes that legalizing pot could be a step toward avoiding shortfalls as large as the recent $40 billion projection that prompted months of partisan fighting and, ultimately, tense all-night sessions last week before agreement was reached on a new budget.

"After being locked up with my colleagues for three days, I never want to do that again," Ammiano said, chuckling.

Marc Paquette is the man behind Medpot.net and one of about 2600 licensed exemptees by the Hellth Canada medpot program. Hellth Canada is Marc's term. Canada has a population on par with California and California has 200,000 people with doctor's recommendations which goes a long way in explaining "Hellth Canada. Canada has a million medpot users.

I would put this up for sweetheart alone knowing everyone else can skip over it. To him it will be self-explanatory to others it may reveal in some small measure why it is important to legalize cannabis. There is an eloquence to the composition around the pictures, plus it talks about "white ghost" which is an obscurity that I want to pass to sweetheart and others. To see the white ghost you have to zoom in twice and the third time will start the loop over. Later in the thread Marc will tell go into a list of ailments that contribute to his disability with Hep C threatening his life. Here Marc is talking about a strain that is very important to his life that he has kept alive for 7 years, because it is not just a plant to him, it is his only life and strain attributes make a difference.

So sweetheart, this bud is for you- http://medpot.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=73918&pid=121258&st=0&#entry121258