Random Thoughts V3.0

[Pippenainteazy But getting banned IS!]

Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron has estimated that the cost of cannabis prohibition is $13 billion annually, with an additional $7 billion lost in potential tax revenue. Even the students at Lee's Oaksterdam University cite the job market as a reason for showing up: one man, there with his 21-year-old son, told NEWSWEEK he'd lost his business in the housing bust; another was looking for a way to supplement his income as a contractor. "Alcohol prohibition, the result of a century-long anti-alcohol crusade, was fairly quickly repealed in part because of the onset of the Great Depression," says Craig Reinarman, a sociologist at UC Santa Cruz and the coauthor of Crack in America. "I think we're in a similar situation now, where states are so strapped for money that any source of new revenue is going to be welcomed."

Oakland has become a kind of test lab for what legalized marijuana might look like. City Council member Rebecca Kaplan tells NEWSWEEK that the new tax revenue will help save libraries, parks, and other public services, and that the once destitute area where Oaksterdam now thrives has seen a clear boost. Over the past six years, 160 new businesses have moved into downtown Oakland, and the area's vacancy rate has dropped from 25 percent to less than 5, according to Oakland's Community and Economic Development Agency. And while that can't be attributed to Oaksterdam directly, some local business owners believe it's played a key role?particularly as it relates to local tourism. Lee hosts 500 students at Oaksterdam University each month?about 20 percent of them from out of state?and has graduated nearly 4,000 since he opened the school in late 2007, inspired by a "cannabis college" he discovered on a trip to Amsterdam. The Blue Sky Coffeeshop serves about 1,000 visitors a day, half of them from out of town, and neighboring stores say the traffic has helped drive business their way. Regulation, say advocates, has also made consumption safer. They say it gets rid of hazardous strains of the drug, and eliminates the crime that can accompany underground dealing.

Presently, 13 states allow medical marijuana, with similar legalization campaigns underway in more than a dozen others. And a number of cities, such as Oakland and Seattle, have passed measures making prosecution of adult pot use the lowest law-enforcement priority. Now Lee, along with an army of volunteers, has begun collecting signatures for a statewide legalization measure (for Californians 21 and over) that he plans to place on the November 2010 ballot. Backed by former state senate president Don Perata, he's already collected a fourth of the needed 434,000 signatures, and pledged to spend $1 million of his own funds to support the effort.

In California, where voters rule, getting an amendment on the ballot doesn't take much more than a fat wallet, but the amount of attention Lee's campaign has received has drawn attention to just how far American attitudes have changed over the past decade. In April, an ABC/Washington Post survey showed that 46 percent of Americans support legalization measures, up from 22 percent in 1997. And in California, a recent Field Poll showed that 56 percent are already on board to legalize and tax the drug. "This is a new world," says Robert MacCoun, a professor of law and public policy at UC Berkeley and the coauthor of Drug War Heresies. "If you'd have asked me four years ago whether we'd be having this debate today, I can't say I would have predicted it."

The fact that we now are debating it?at least in some parts of the country?is the result of a number of forces that, as MacCoun puts it, have created the perfect pot storm: the failure of the War on Drugs, the growing death toll of murderous drug cartels, pop culture, the economy, and a generation of voters that have simply grown up around the stuff. Today there are pot television shows and frequent references to the drug in film, music, and books. And everyone from the president to the most successful athlete in modern history has talked about smoking it at one point or another. "Whether it's the economy or Obama or Michael Phelps, I think all of these things have really worked to galvanize the public," says Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the coauthor of a new book, Marijuana Is Safer; So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?"At the very least, it's started a national conversation."

That conversation, in some sense, has always existed. In 1972?a year after President Nixon declared his "War on Drugs"?the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse urged Congress to decriminalize possession of marijuana for personal use. That never happened, in part because marijuana regulation has always been more about politics than actual science, say advocates. But these days, the masses, at least in California, seem to be heading toward, shall we say, greener pastures. "This is sort of the trendy thing to do right now, but I also think there's an expectation that the time has come to simply acknowledge the reality," says Armentano. "Hundreds of thousands of Californians use marijuana, and we should regulate this commodity like we do others." It's a fight that's heating up. And the pro-pot crowd in Oakland is ready to light the way.

[bobbyd1536]

^^^^^Who the fuck is this guy?

[Nekyo]

Says the 37 posts guy

[ThatHaole]

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Fat, high and stupid is no way to go through life.

Put this shit in the right thread crackhead. Take a minute and figure out how things work around here. Not every thread has to be about smoking dope.

[Pippenainteazy But getting banned IS!]

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Actually I'm skinny, high and stupid and contrary to popular belief its a hell of a way to go thru life.

Yes this is true. I shall start making thread's about 40s and pussy. good thinking.

[Pippenainteazy But getting banned IS!]

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I know right. the nerve of that guy.

[Frothy Afterbirth]

^^^ Yoohoooooo Mega, a noobie seems to have a liking for you! Why don't you give him a kiss and say hello!

[Pippenainteazy But getting banned IS!]

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I love to make out. Do you think he will want to blaze first or after?

[Frothy Afterbirth]

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He'll blaze afterwords once he rapes you in triumph.