So to summarise: A person spoke up that had no MEDICAL background but whos comment was taken and RECORDED as that of a REAL Medical authority (sic), and LAW was enacted from that….fast forward to present day….And people are aware of this, and yet Marijuana remains illegal why?? Paul Armentano, to be sure, could probably put his finger on the quote and text verbatim of the excerpts to which I type, if not the original Congressional hearing I should wager, especially when it comes to this “he said/dias eh” mirror and more rhetoric and debate would happen but alas, its all about money!

If you had a budget of say 500K to use every year in keeping Marijuana illegal, and you could take peoples homes, belongings, possessions, money, stocks etc and sell them to pad that “budget” just because they grew/sold/used marijuana, don’t you think you’d keep doing it?! Of course you would. And you’d keep people in PRISON a long time just because of a harmless smoked PLANT. Tobacco lobbyists don’t want Marijuana legal, nor do Tobacco Farmers, or Forest/Timber Industries as they would see the RAPID loss of revenues. Neither do the makers of Alcohol or Denim (Blue Jeans used to be made of Hemp and lasted ALOT longer than they do now)or paper goods.

They needn’t suffer. Get on board with the rest of the populace. Stop wasting our tax dollars prosecuting and maintaining a “Corps of elite” to eradicate growers of Hemp/Marijuana and stop taking their real and personal property Nay! Rights! away. Stop telling our Law Enforcement Officials to go after people that grow/consume it and start telling them to go after the Drug Cartels that create the violence associated with buying Marijuana (Buy the bag, the money goes to a drug czar who uses it to buy weapons and in turn uses those weapons on warring/competing czars..) in the first place. Lets make “Made in the U.S.A.” mean something again, instead of being laughed at for convicting a rapist to 13 years in Prison and a Hemp Grower to 25. Wake up Congress! Wake up House and Senate!! Its time for a change. And the time is now! So whilst we’re at it, lets’ make sure employers are made to toe the line and cannot “shake the trees” to lose its workers when they find out that they consume marijuana.

Workers Compensation Claim denials: Worker had used Marijuana three days prior while off duty and AWAY from place of employ. While walking to his workstation one day, a ceiling tile fell, and cut his shoulder and back, requiring medical care. He was made to take a blood, breath and urine test, and when the results of the tests came back POSITIVE for THC, he was FIRED ON THE SPOT!! Company policy needs to be made to immediately reflect the legalisation of Hemp/Marijuana. So lets not forget that we need to hold employers to the line when it comes to our privacy as well!

Okay, I’ll get off the soapbox now, as I know I was merely preaching to the Choir..

Cheers

[Paul Armentano responds: I dedicate an entire chapter to the history of cannabis prohibition in the U.S. in my book. Time.com just published a short summary of this history here:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1931247,00.html

"It wasn't until 1914 that drug use was defined as a crime, under the
Harrison Act. To get around states' rights issues, the act used a tax to
regulate opium- and coca-derived drugs: it levied a tax on non-medical uses of the drugs that was much higher than the cost of the drugs themselves, and punished anyone using the drugs without paying the tax. By 1937, twenty-three states had outlawed marijuana: some to stop former morphine addicts from taking up a new drug, and some as a backlash against newly arrived Mexican immigrants, some of whom brought the drug with them. Also in 1937, the federal government passed the Marihuana Tax Act, which made nonmedical use of marijuana illegal. Only the birdseed industry, which argued that hemp seeds gave birds' feathers a particularly shiny gloss, was exempted from the act, and to this day birdseed producers are allowed to use imported hemp seeds treated so they don't sprout."

Also, please note that marijuana is illegal under federal law today because it is classified by Congress as a Sched I controlled substance under the 1970 CSA. The Marijuana Tax Act was deemed unconstitutional in 1969.]

[Paul Armentano responds: Under the proposed bill you would NOT pay a tax on the marijuana you grow for personal use.]

Keep doing a awsome job guys.

Criminal laws do not affect individual rights to liberty and property as well as privacy? These individual rights are not protected from unreasonable government intrusion?

Don’t forget to throw your seeds in the pathways and properties of our government. Those city planters and all those foreclosed homes and those divided highways are just waiting for your seeds. We will just out grow them in to respecting our rights.

I hear what you are saying but your going to tell me, that with whats going on in Cali with the Federal DEA circumventing the state law there, that Alaska having no other US State boardering it thus affording other US citizens outside that state the opportunity to circumvent their states laws by puchasing in Alaska, that the DEA doesnt see Alaska as a threat to “Domino theory” country wide legalization?

[Paul Armentano responds: The DEA's actions in California pertain to open-market sales of cannabis. Alaska's longtime policy does not enable such behavior. Several states have reduced personal possession and even in some cases cultivation to non-arrestable offenses -- Ohio for instance -- and the DEA and the Feds have never challenged these changes.]

Its Harvest time in the northwest for apples, wheat and marijuana the value of last years apple crop was one billion two hundred eighty three million one hundred sixty three thousand dollars. Wheat came in for this state at seven hundred fifteen million one hundred sixty three thousand dollars.
No one knows the value of the marijuana harvested in Washington every year. A very rough 1995 estimate of five hundred fifty million dollar market value was all I could find, marijuana’s illegal the growers don’t tell the value of the crop and they don’t pay taxes on the profit. Instead of legalizing marijuana and collecting taxes our state spends millions on eradication
The Marijuana Eradication Program (MEP) is sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Administration and managed by the Washington State Patrol. The emphasis of this program is to combine the efforts of federal, state, and local enforcement agencies to eradicate marijuana-growing operations within the state of Washington.. Last year the MEP took credit for ripping out and destroying one hundred thirty six thousand pot plants state wide the estimated street value of those plants two hundred seventy two million dollars. So that and what ever the operational costs for MEP came out of our states economy.

There are other draw backs beside waste, to the enforcement and eradication of cannabis law enforcement agencies often turn suspects arrested for other crimes by offering reductions of charges against them in exchange for gathering and giving information these snitches or confidential informants are often turned loose without regard to the CI’s criminal history and the danger to the community
The MEP Hotline receives and monitors anonymous information from concerned citizens about marijuana-growing operations. This information is sent to an enforcement agency near the reported marijuana grow for action. Some of your neighbors may hold a grudge..
We now have decades of proof that treating marijuana use as a crime is a failed strategy.
In 2010 the Washington legislature will consider MARIJUANA DECRIMINALIZATION BILL # 5616 I support 5616 but I believe it should go farther. To allow regulated and taxed sales just like liquor if sales are allowed the drug cartels will disappear. Law abiding gardeners will gladly grow legally and pay taxes and merchants will sell legally and collect sales tax.
Some of our state legislators do not believe there is support for any of this legislation . We have to show them we support legal pot.
A phone call or letter may be enough to show we are a majority if not we may all have to go to Olympia in 2010
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