The 2016 election continued the trend of marijuana legalization, but the new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has threatened a federal crackdown on marijuana in spite of state law. Here are the videos for the meeting:
- John Oliver's Take on Marijuana
- Obama on Marijuana Legalization and Criminalization
- Elizabeth Warren on using marijuana to tackle the opioid crisis
- Maryland's attempt to legalize recreational marijuana
- Marijuana could be legalized in Canada by 2018
- Future Legal Marijuana Business
------------------------------------------ Updated 5/11/17 ---------------------------------------
Here are the other videos shown at the meeting:
The following excerpt is from an article by Eric Schlosser 20 years ago and raises at least a couple of significant questions: Was it true then and, if so, is it still true today?
ReplyDelete"The vehemence of marijuana's opponents and the harsh punishments routinely administered to marijuana offenders cannot be explained by a simple concern for public health. Paraplegics, cancer patients, epileptics, people with AIDS, and people suffering from multiple sclerosis have in recent years been imprisoned for using marijuana as medicine. The attack on marijuana, since its origins early in this century, has in reality been a cultural war -- a moral crusade in defense of traditional American values. The laws used to fight marijuana are now causing far more harm to those values than the drug itself. In order to eliminate marijuana use, state and federal legislators have sanctioned an enormous increase in prosecutorial power, the emergence of a class of professional informers, and the widespread confiscation of private property by the government without trial -- legal weapons reminiscent of those used in the former Soviet-bloc nations. The long prison sentences given to growers and dealers have pushed marijuana prices skyward, creating a domestic industry whose annual revenues now rival those of cotton, soybeans, or corn. U.S. public officials, like their counterparts in Mexico, Colombia, and Bolivia, are being corrupted with drug money. Millions of ordinary Americans have been arrested for marijuana offenses in the past decade, and hundreds of thousands have been imprisoned, yet marijuana use is increasing and has regained its status as a symbol of youthful rebellion. Instead of debating the wisdom of our current policies, members of Congress and of the Administration are competing to see who can appear toughest on drugs. For years the war on drugs has been driven by political concerns, without regard to its consequences. But at the state and local levels, where the costs of that war are most keenly felt and unlikely alliances have begun to form, there are signs that madness may give way to common sense."
The vehemence of anti-marihuana laws is consistent with THIS conspiracy theory on how the was on marihuana got started.
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