California Cannabis Hemp & Health Initiative 2008

[Happy Kitty]

8. No California law enforcement personnel or funds shall be used to assist or aid and abet in the enforcement of Federal cannabis/hemp/ marijuana laws involving acts which are hereby no longer illegal in the state of California.

This is one of my favorite parts!!!

DoctorDubs, if you don't call people fucks you might get your point across better. As soon as you said that, all form of intelligence was lost in whatever you had to say. I would have voted for it anyway, ya jerk. Where are you from? Be brave enough to fill out your profile a little bit.

 

[ZedRules]

Yeah I agree w/ HappyKitty....bro, tame down your post regarding us here in California...this initiative is a result of OUR activism...and BTW, if this passes, the other MMJ states can then challange the feds and even you will benefit...We are leading the way... brother, :sasmokin: either go in our direction or get the f*ck off the road

 

[JamesF]

Medical purposes passed in 1996 with like, 56% in favor or something. For recreational use, i don't know much of a chance they have to pass it..

 

[drktwr]

Does anyone know who created this proposed act? Who in Sacramento can I call to voice support? Thanks.

 

[fish_in_bowl]

OK we are fired up so were do we push now to make life better? I'm not the first to ask this same question, so give a driving point to go with this ASAP!
"love long and live well" the ( fish_in_bowl )

 

[Justme_Pooh]

I copied this (California Cannabis Hemp & Health Initiative 2008) into Word and made it into a two-sided single page flyer. I also made another one with the info on 'How Dangerous is Marijuana Compared with Other Substances?' from www.jackherer.com. I am going to make lots of copies on florescent paper and distribute them through out my community.

Let's start our own * truth - knowledge is infectious campaign!

 

[ZedRules]

I like your style kid...we can all do that... I feel very encouraged & hopeful...we have huge hurdles to overcome here... If each one of us would reach out to others who really don't have good information concerning the relative safety of cannabis compared to everything but water & air ...u know, we could see something truly exciting happen here that is a win/win for California...more people will want to come here...my property value goes skyward More jobs...tax revenue...prosperity and freedom over excessive prices.:sasmokin:

 

[Justme_Pooh]

Thanks! I seem to have picked the perfect week to want to do this. Here's some info I borrowed and sent to all my and my daughter's email friends:

WHAT'S ALL THIS FUSS ABOUT HEMP? ​

What is hemp?
For our purposes, hemp is the plant called cannabis sativa. There are other plants that are called hemp, but cannabis hemp is the most useful of these plants. In fact, cannabis sativa means useful (sativa) hemp (cannabis). Hemp is any durable plant that has been used since pre-history for many purposes. Fiber is the most well known product, and the word hemp can mean the rope or twine which is made from the hemp plant, as well as just the stalk of the plant which produced it.

What is cannabis?
Cannabis is the most durable of the hemp plants, and it produces the toughest cloth, called canvass (canvass was widely used as sails in the early shipping industry, as it was the only cloth which would not rot on contact with sea spray). The cannabis plant also produces three other very important products which the other hemp plants do not (in usable form, that is): seed, pulp, and medicine. The pulp is used as fuel, and to make paper. The seed is suitable for both human and animal foods. The oil from the seed can be used in as a base for paints and varnishes. The medicine is a tincture or admixture of the sticky resin in the blossoms and leaves of the hemp plant, and is used for a variety of purposes.

How can hemp be used as a food?
Hemp seed is a highly nutritious source of protein and essential fatty oils. Many populations have grown hemp for its seed. Most of them eat it as gruel, which is a lot like oatmeal. Hemp seeds do not contain any marijuana and they do not get you high. Hemp seed protein closely resembles protein as it is found in the human blood. It is fantastically easy to digest, and many patients who have trouble digesting food are given hemp seed by their doctors. Hemp seed was once called edestine and was used by scientists as the model for vegetable protein. Hemp seed oil provides the human body with essential fatty acids. Hemp seed is the only seed which contains these oils with almost no saturated fat. As a supplement to the diet, these oils can reduce the risk of heart disease. It is because of these oils that birds will live much longer if they eat hemp seed. With hemp seed, a vegan or vegetarian can survive and eat virtually no saturated fats. One handful of hemp seed per day will supply adequate protein and essential oils for an adult.

What are the benefits of hemp compared to other food crops?
Hemp requires little fertilizer, and grows well almost everywhere. It also resists pests, so it uses little pesticides. Hemp puts down deep roots, which is good for the soil, and when the leaves drop off the hemp plant, minerals and nitrogen are returned to the soil. Hemp has been grown on the same soil for twenty years in a row without any noticeable depletion of the soil. Using less fertilizer and agricultural chemicals is good for two reasons. First, it costs less and requires less effort. Second, many agricultural chemicals are dangerous and contaminate the environment - the less we have to use, the better.

How can hemp be used for cloth?
The stalk of the hemp plant has two parts, called the bast and the hurd. The fiber (bast) of the hemp plant can be woven into almost any kind of cloth. It is very durable. In fact, the first Levi's blue jeans were made out of hemp for just this reason. Compared to all the other natural fibers available, hemp is more suitable for a large number of applications. The cloth that hemp makes may be a little less soft than cotton, (though there are also special kinds of hemp, or ways to grow or treat hemp, that can produce a soft cloth) but it is much stronger and longer lasting. (It does not stretch out.) Environmentally, hemp is a better crop to grow than cotton, especially the way cotton is grown nowadays. In the United States, the cotton crop uses half of the total pesticides. (Yes, you heard right, one half of the pesticides used in the entire U.S. are used on cotton.) Cotton is a soil damaging crop and needs a lot of fertilizer.

How can hemp be used to make paper?
Both the fiber (bast) and pulp (hurd) of the hemp plant can be used to make paper. Fiber paper was the first kind of paper, and the first batch was made out of hemp in ancient China. Fiber paper is thin, tough, brittle, and a bit rough. Pulp paper is not as strong as fiber paper, but it is easier to make, softer, thicker, and preferable for most everyday purposes. The paper we use most today is a ‘chemical pulp’ paper made from trees. Hemp pulp paper can be made without chemicals from the hemp hurd. Most hemp paper made today uses the entire hemp stalk, bast and hurd. High-strength fiber paper can be made from the hemp baste, also without chemicals. The problem with today's paper is that so many chemicals are used to make it. High strength acids are needed to make quality (smooth, strong, and white) paper out of trees. These acids produce chemicals which are very dangerous to the environment. Paper companies do their best to clean these chemicals up, we hope. Hemp offers us an opportunity to make affordable and environmentally safe paper for all of our needs, since it does not need much chemical treatment. It is up to consumers, though, to make the right choice – these dangerous chemicals can also be used on hemp to make a slightly more attractive product. Instead of buying the whiter, brighter role of toilet paper, we will need to think about what we are doing to the planet. Because of the chemicals in today's paper, it will turn yellow and fall apart as acids eat away at the pulp. This takes several decades, but because of this publishers, libraries and archives have to order specially processed acid free paper, which is much more expensive, in order to keep records. Paper made naturally from hemp is acid free and will last for centuries.

Why can't we just keep using trees?
The chemicals used to make wood chemical pulp paper today could cause us a lot of trouble tomorrow. Environmentalists have long been concerned about the effects of dioxin and other compounds on wildlife and even people. Beyond the chemical pollution, there are agricultural reasons why we should use cannabis hemp instead. When trees are harvested, minerals are taken with them. Hemp is much less damaging to the land where it is grown because it leaves these minerals behind. A simpler answer to the above question is: BECAUSE WE ARE RUNNING OUT! When the first wood paper became a huge industry, the United States Department of Agriculture began to worry about the tree supply. That is why they went in search of plant pulp to replace wood. Today some conservatives argue that there are more forests now than there ever were. This is neither true, realistic, nor conservative - these statistics do not reflect the real world. Once trees have been removed from a plot of land, it takes many decades before biological diversity and natural cycles return to the forest, and commercial tree farms simply do not count as forest - they are farm land. As just mentioned, many plant fibers were investigated by the USDA - some, like kenaf, were even better suited than cannabis hemp for making some qualities of paper, but hemp had one huge advantage: robust vitality. Hemp generates immense amounts of plant matter in a three month growing season. When it came down to producing the deluge of paper used by Americans, only hemp could compete with trees. In fact, according to the 1916 calculations of the USDA, one acre of hemp would replace an entire four acres of forest. And, at the same time, this acre would be producing textiles and rope. Today, only 4% of America's old-growth forest remains standing Will our policy makers realize in time how easy it would be to save them?

How can hemp be used as a fuel?
The pulp (hurd) of the hemp plant can be burned as is or processed into charcoal, methanol, methane, or gasoline. The process for doing this is called destructive distillation, or pyrolysis. Fuels made out of plants like this are called ‘biomass’ fuels. This charcoal may be burned in today's coal-powered electric generators. Methanol makes a good automobile fuel, in fact it is used in professional automobile races. It may someday replace gasoline. Hemp may also be used to produce ethanol (grain alcohol). The United States government has developed a way to make this automobile fuel additive from cellulosic biomass. Hemp is an excellent source of high quality cellulosic biomass. One other way to use hemp as fuel is to use the oil from the hemp seed - some diesel engines can run on pure pressed hemp seed oil. However, the oil is more useful for other purposes, even if we could produce and press enough hemp seed to power many millions of cars. Biomass fuels are clean and virtually free from metals and sulfur, so they do not cause nearly as much air pollution as fossil fuels. Even more importantly, burning biomass fuels does not increase the total amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. When petroleum products are burned, carbon that has been stored underground for millions of years is added to the air; this may contribute to global warming through the Greenhouse Effect (a popular theory which says that certain gases will act like a wool blanket over the entire Earth, preventing heat from escaping into space) In order to make biomass fuels, this carbon dioxide has to be taken out of the air to begin with. When they are burned it is just being put back where it started. Another advantage over fossil fuels is that biomass fuels can be made right here in the United States, instead of buying them from other countries. Instead of paying oil drillers, super-tanker captains, and soldiers to get our fuel to us, we could pay local farmers and delivery drivers instead. Of course, it is possible to chop down trees and use them as biomass. This would not be as beneficial to the environment as using hemp, especially since trees that are cut down for burning are ‘whole tree harvested.’ This means the entire tree is ripped up and burned, not just the wood. Since most of the minerals which trees use are in the leaves, this practice could ruin the soil where the trees are grown. In several places in the United States, power companies are starting to do this - burning the trees in order to produce electricity, because that is cheaper than using coal. They should be using hemp, like researchers in Australia started doing a few years ago. Besides, hemp provides a higher quality and quantity of biomass than trees do.

How can hemp be used as a medicine?
Marijuana has thousands of possible uses in medicine. Cannabis extract was available as a medicine legally in this country until 1937, and was sold as a nerve tonic, but mankind has been using cannabis medicines much longer than that. Marijuana appears in almost every known book of medicine written by ancient scholars and wise men. It is usually ranked among the top medicines, called ‘panaceas’, a word which means cure-all. The list of diseases which cannabis can be used for includes: multiple sclerosis, cancer treatment, AIDS and AIDS treatment, glaucoma, depression, epilepsy, migraine headaches, asthma, pruritis, sclerodoma, severe pain, and dystonia. This list does not even consider the other medicines which can be made out of marijuana - these are just some of the illnesses for which people smoke or eat whole marijuana today. There are over 60 chemicals in marijuana which may have medical uses. It is relatively easy to extract these into food or beverage, or into some sort of lotion, using butter, fat, oil, or alcohol. One chemical, cannabinol, may be useful to help people who cannot sleep. Another is taken from premature buds and is called cannabidiolic acid. It is a powerful disinfectant/anti-biotic. Marijuana dissolved in rubbing alcohol helps people with the skin disease herpes control their sores, and a salve like this was one of the earliest medical uses for cannabis. The leaves were once used in bandages and a relaxing non-psychoactive herbal tea can be made from small cannabis stems. The most well known use of marijuana today is to control nausea and vomiting. Marijuana is also useful for fighting two other very serious and wide-spread disabilities. Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness, caused by uncontrollable eye pressure. Marijuana can control the eye pressure and keep glaucoma from causing blindness. Multiple Sclerosis is a disease where the body's immune system attacks nerve cells. Spasms and many other problems result from this. Marijuana not only helps stop these spasms, but it may also keep multiple sclerosis from getting worse.

What other uses for hemp are there?
One of the newest uses of hemp is in construction materials. Hemp can be used in the manufacture of press board or composite board. This involves gluing fibrous hemp stalks together under pressure to produce a board which is many times more elastic and durable than hardwood. Because hemp produces a long, tough fiber it is the perfect source for press-board. Another interesting application of hemp in industry is making plastic. Many plastics can be made from the high-cellulose hemp hurd. Hemp seed oil has a multitude of uses in products such as varnishes and lubricants. Using hemp to build is by no means a new idea. French archeologists have discovered bridges built with a process that mineralizes hemp stalks into a long-lasting cement. The process involves no synthetic chemicals and produces a material which works as a filler in building construction. Called Isochanvre, it is gaining popularity in France. Isochanvre can be used as drywall, insulates against heat and noise, and is very long lasting. Bio-plastics are not a new idea, either - way back in the 1930's Henry Ford had already made a whole car body out of them - but the processes for making them do need more research and development. Bio-plastics can be made without much pollution. Unfortunately, companies are not likely to explore bio-plastics if they have to either import the raw materials or break the law. (Not to mention compete with the already established petrochemical products)

How and why was hemp made illegal?
To make a long story short, during the first decades of this century, opium was made illegal to kick out the Chinese immigrants who had flooded the work-force. ******* was made illegal to repress and control the Black community. And, marijuana was made illegal in order to control Mexicans and Blacks in the Southeast. All these laws were based mainly on emotional racism, without much else to back them up (you can easily tell this by reading the hearings held in state legislatures). All this set the stage for a law passed in the Federal legislature which put a prohibitive tax on marijuana. This is what killed the hemp industry in 1937, since it made business in hemp impossible.

To make the short story longer, at the beginning of the Great Depression, there was a very popular movement called ‘Prohibition’, which made alcohol illegal. This was motivated mainly by a Puritan religious ethic left over from the first European settlers. Since it is perhaps the world's most popular drug, alcohol prohibition spawned a huge black market where illegal alcohol was smuggled and traded at extremely high prices. Crime got out-of-hand as criminals fought with each other over who could sell alcohol where. Organized crime became an American institution, and hard liquor, which was easy to smuggle, took the place of beer and wine. In order to combat the crime wave, a large police force was formed. The number of police grew rapidly until the end of Prohibition when the government decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to just give up and allow people to use alcohol legally. After Prohibition the United States was left with nothing to show but a decade of political turmoil and a lot of unemployed police officers. Incidentally, it was about this time when the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs was reformed, and a man named Harry J. Anslinger was appointed as its head. (Anslinger was appointed by his uncle-in-law, Andrew Mellon, who was the Secretary of the United States Treasury.) Anslinger campaigned tirelessly for funding in order to hire a large force of narcotics officers. The FBNDD is the organization which preceded what we now call the DEA, and was responsible for enforcing the new Federal drug laws against heroin, opium, and *******. One of Anslinger's biggest concerns as head of the FBNDD was getting uniform drug laws passed in all States and the Federal legislature. Anslinger frequented parent's and teacher's meetings giving scary speeches about the dangers of marijuana, and this period of time became known as ‘Reefer Madness’ (The name comes from the title of a movie produced by a public health group)

Before the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, the state of Kentucky was the center of a relatively large American hemp industry which produced cloth and tow (rope for use in shipping). The industry would have been larger, but hemp had one major disadvantage: processing it required a lot of work. Men had to brake hemp stalks in order to separate the fiber from the woody core. This was done on a small machine called a hand-brake, and it was a job fit for Hercules. It was not until the 1930's that machines to do this became widely available. Today we use paper made by a process called chemical pulping. Before this, trees were processed by mechanical pulping instead, which was much more expensive. At about the same time as machines to brake hemp appeared, the idea of using hemp hurds for making paper and plastic was proposed. Hemp hurds were normally considered to be a worthless waste product that was thrown away after it was stripped of fiber. New research showed that these hurds could be used instead of wood in mechanical pulping, and that this would drastically reduce the cost of making paper. Popular Mechanics Magazine predicted that hemp would rise to become the number one crop in America. In fact, the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act was so unexpected that Popular Mechanics had already gone to press with a cover story about hemp, published in 1938 just two months after the Tax Act took effect.

Chemical pulping paper was invented at about this time by Dupont Chemicals, as part of a multi-million dollar deal with a timber holding company and newspaper chain owned by William Randolph Hearst. This deal would provide Hearst with a source of very cheap paper. He knew that he could drive other papers out of competition with this new advantage. Hemp paper threatened to ruin this whole plan. It had to be stopped, and the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was the way they did it. As a drug law, the Tax Act really was not a very big step - it did not really accomplish much at all and many historians have caught themselves wondering why the bill was even written. Big business interests took advantage of the political climate of racism and anti-drug rhetoric to close the free market to hemp products, and that, is how hemp became illegal.

For the 1930's, this business venture was one very large transaction; it included other timber companies and a few railroads. Dupont's entire deal was backed by a banker named Andrew Mellon (that's the same Andrew Mellon who appointed his nephew-in-law Harry Anslinger to head up the FBNDD in 1931). The Marijuana Tax Act was passed in a very unorthodox way, and nobody who would have objected was informed about the bill. The American Medical Association found out about the bill only two days before the hearings, and sent a representative to object to the banning of cannabis medicines. A hemp bird seed salesman also showed up and complained. However, the bill was passed, partially due to the testimony of Harry J. Anslinger. Not that Americans would have protested against this bill, even if they had known it existed most Americans did not know that cannabis hemp and marijuana is the same thing. The separate word ‘marijuana’ was one of the reasons for this. Nobody would associate the evil weed from Mexico with the stuff they tied their shoes with. Also, this was the time when synthetic fabrics were the latest fad - nobody was interested in natural fibers any more. To top this all off the word ‘hemp’ was often wrongly used to refer to other natural fabrics, specifically jute, and the ignorance of hemp continues today.

During the 1970's (Reefer Madness II) all mention of the word ‘hemp’ was removed from high school text books here in the United States. So much for free speech When Jack Herer, the world's most beloved hemp activist, asked a curator at the Smithsonian Museum why this word had been removed from all their exhibits, the answer he got was astounding: “Children do not need to know about hemp anymore. It confuses them.'' Jack Herer went on to uncover a film made by the United States government, a film which the government did not want to admit existed. The film “Hemp For Victory” details how the United States government bypassed the Tax Act during World War II, when they needed hemp for the War Effort, and ran a large hemp growing project in Kentucky and California.

Is there a lesson to be learned from all this?
Several. The first is that hate does not pay. It is ironic that the racism of the American people would end up hurting them this way - a sort of divine justice if you will. Because Americans were blinded by fear, hatred and intolerance of other races, they allowed a prosperous future to slip between their fingers. Another thing this whole history tells us is that Americans need to take Democracy more seriously. If they had devoted more of their time to informing themselves about the world around them, they would have known what the real issues were. Finally, now that we have put marijuana prohibition into historical context, we can see clearly that it had nothing to do with public safety, or national security, or what have you. By all rights, marijuana should not have been made illegal in the first place. If today prohibition still has no rational basis to stand on, then let us repeal it.

One point which bears emphasizing is this: the laws which are passed in this country may not mean what they say on paper. Historically the United States has a long record of passing laws with ulterior motives. Even when there is no ulterior motive, though, passing laws which are not specific enough leads to abuse. Most of our tough drug laws are like this - enacted to fight drug kingpins, but enforced against casual drug users and small-time drug dealers. In fact, most of these laws never even get used against a real drug kingpin, and the first people prosecuted under the statutes are not what the legislators had in mind. If this upsets you, you should pay more attention to what goes on in your legislature.

What can I do to bring some sense into our marijuana laws?
There are many things you can do. Activists are working right now at all levels to reform marijuana laws. If you cannot afford to be an activist, there are many ways you can help - activists find themselves short of money, time, and occasionally even friendly company. Get to know a hemp or marijuana legalization activists in your area, and just keep up to date on what they are planning. Odds are you will find something that you can easily do which will help them out a whole lot. There is a list available called the Liberty Activist's List which will give you the phone numbers or address of groups near you. Also, you may call the National Office of NORML (The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) at 1-202-483-5500. The most important thing you can do on your own, though, is to keep tabs on your state and local legislators, and let them know that this is an issue to be taken seriously.

But, isn't marijuana a ‘gateway drug’? Doesn't it lead to use of harder drugs?
This is totally untrue. In fact, researchers are looking into using marijuana to help crack addicts to quit. There are 40 million people in this country (U.S.) who have smoked marijuana for a period of their lives - why aren't there tens of millions of heroin users, then? In Amsterdam, both marijuana use and heroin use went down after marijuana was decriminalized - even though there was a short rise in cannabis use right after decriminalization. Unlike addictive drugs, marijuana causes almost no tolerance. Some people even report a reverse tolerance. That is, the longer they have used the less marijuana they need to get ‘high.’ So users of marijuana do not usually get bored and ‘look for something more powerful.’ If anything, marijuana keeps people from doing harder drugs. The idea that using marijuana will lead you to use heroin or speed is called the ‘gateway theory’ or the ‘stepping stone hypothesis.’ It has been a favorite trick of the anti-drug propaganda artists, because it casts marijuana as something insidious with hidden dangers and pitfalls. There have never been any real statistics to back this idea up, but somehow it was the single biggest thing which the newspapers yelled about during Reefer Madness II. (Perhaps this was because the CIA was looking for someone to blame for the increase in heroin use after Viet Nam.) The gateway theory of drug use is no longer generally accepted by the medical community. Prohibitionists used to point at numbers which showed that a large percentage of the hard drug users ‘started with marijuana.’ They had it backwards - many hard drug users also use marijuana. There are two reasons for this. One is that marijuana can be used to ‘take the edge off’ the effects of some hard drugs. The other is a recently discovered fact of adolescent psychology - there is a personality type which uses drugs, basically because drugs are exciting and dangerous, a thrill. On sociological grounds, another sort of gateway theory has been argued which claims that marijuana is the source of the drug subculture and leads to other drugs through that culture. By the same token this is untrue - marijuana does not create the drug subculture, the drug subculture uses marijuana. There are many marijuana users who are not a part of the subculture.

This brings up another example of how marijuana legalization could actually reduce the use of illicit drugs. Even though there is no magical ‘stepping stone’ effect, people who choose to buy marijuana often buy from dealers who deal in many different illegal drugs. This means that they have access to illegal drugs, and might decide to try them out. In this case it is the laws which lead to hard drug use. If marijuana were legal, the drug markets would be separated, and less people would start using the illegal drugs. Maybe this is why emergency room admissions for hard drugs have gone down in the states that decriminalized marijuana during the 70's.

I don't want children to be able to smoke marijuana. How can I stop this?
Legalize it. They can smoke it now; it is about as easy to get as alcohol. There would be less marijuana being sold in schools and street corners, though, if it was sold legally through pharmacies - because the dealers would not be able to compete with the prices. Your children are not going to walk up to you and tell you that they use an illegal drug, but if it was not such a big deal they might give you a chance to explain your feelings. Besides, would you rather children use speed, *******, and alcohol? Consider, also, that children have a natural urge to do things that they aren't supposed to. It is called curiosity. By making such a fuss over marijuana, you make it interesting. This is made worse when children are lied to about drugs by teachers and police - they lose respect for the school and the government. In a lot of ways, it is the hysteria about drugs which causes the most harm. When marijuana users do none of the horrible things they are supposed to, children may think that other more harmful drugs are OK, too.

Won't children be able to steal marijuana plants that people are growing?
Well, if you are worried about them stealing the hemp plants from the paper-pulp farm down the road, you should know that the commercial grades of hemp do not contain much THC (the stuff that gets you high) If they were to smoke it, they would probably just get a headache. Otherwise, it should be the responsibility of the grower to take measures to prevent this. Most “home-grown” marijuana is cultivated indoors anyway. If the children in your town have nothing better to do than go around stealing marijuana to smoke, your town needs to buy a library or something.

Isn't smoking marijuana worse for you than smoking cigarettes?
You may have heard that “one joint is equal to ten cigarettes” but this is exaggerated and misleading. Scientists have shown that smoking any plant is bad for your lungs, because it increases the number of ‘lesions’ in your small airways. This usually does not threaten your life, but there is a chance it will lead to infections. Marijuana users who are worried about this can find less harmful ways of taking marijuana like eating or vaporizing. Marijuana smokers generally don't chain smoke, and so they smoke less. The more potent marijuana is, the less a smoker will use at a time. Tobacco contains nicotine, and marijuana doesn't. Nicotine may harden the arteries and may be responsible for much of the heart disease caused by tobacco. Marijuana contains THC. THC is a bronchial dilator, which means it works like a cough drop and opens up your lungs, which aids clearance of smoke and dirt. Nicotine does just the opposite; it makes your lungs bunch up and makes it harder to cough anything up. There are other benefits from marijuana that you don't get from tobacco. Mainly, marijuana makes you relax, which improves your health and well-being. Scientists do not really know what it is that causes malignant lung cancer in tobacco. Many think it may be a substance known as Lead 210. Of course, there are many other theories as to what does cause cancer, but if this is true, it is easy to see why NO CASE OF LUNG CANCER RESULTING FROM MARIJUANA USE ALONE HAS EVER BEEN DOCUMENTED, because tobacco contains much more of this substance than marijuana.

Doesn't Marijuana cause brain damage?
The short answer: No. The long answer: The reason why you ask this is because you probably heard or read somewhere that marijuana damages brain cells or makes you stupid. These claims are untrue. The first one - marijuana kills brain cells - is based on research done during the second Reefer Madness Movement. A study attempted to show that marijuana smoking damaged brain structures in monkeys. However, the study was poorly performed and it was severely criticized by a medical review board. Studies done afterwards failed to show any brain damage, in fact a very recent study on Rhesus monkeys used technology so sensitive that scientists could actually see the effect of learning on brain cells, and it found no damage. But this was Reefer Madness II, and the prohibitionists were looking around for anything they could find to keep the marijuana legalization movement in check, so this study was widely used in anti-marijuana propaganda. It was recanted later. The truth is, no study has ever demonstrated cellular damage, stupidity, mental impairment, or insanity brought on specifically by marijuana use - even heavy marijuana use.

Don't people die from smoking pot?
Nobody has ever overdosed. For any given substance, there are bound to be some people who have allergic reactions. With marijuana this is extremely rare, but it could happen with anything from apples to pop-tarts. Not one death has ever been directly linked to marijuana itself. In contrast, many legal drugs cause hundreds to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year, foremost among them are alcohol, nicotine, Valium, aspirin, and caffeine. The biggest danger with marijuana is that it is illegal, and someone may mix it with another drug like PCP. Marijuana is so safe that it would be almost impossible to overdose on it. Doctors determine how safe a drug is by measuring how much it takes to kill a person (they call this the LD50) and comparing it to the amount of the drug which is usually taken (ED50). This makes marijuana hundreds of times safer than alcohol, tobacco, or caffeine. According to a DEA Judge “marijuana is the safest therapeutically active substance known to mankind.”

Doesn't marijuana cause a lot of automobile accidents?
Not really. The marijuana using public has the same or lower rate of automobile accidents as the general public. Studies of marijuana smoking while driving showed that it does affect reaction time, but not nearly as much as alcohol. Also, those who drive ‘stoned’ have been shown to be less foolish on the road, they demonstrate increased risk aversion. Recent studies have emphasized that alcohol is the major problem on our highways, and that illicit drugs do not even come close to being as dangerous. As funny as it may seem, you may be safer driving ‘stoned’, as long as you aren't ‘totally blasted’ and seeing things, but few users are irresponsible enough to drive in this state of mind, anyway. Still, many people have reported making mistakes while driving because they were stoned.

Aren't you afraid everyone will get hooked?
Marijuana produces no withdrawal symptoms no matter how heavy it is used. It is habit forming (psychologically addictive), but not physically addictive. For a drug to be physically addictive, it must be reinforcing, produce withdrawal symptoms, and produce tolerance. Marijuana is reinforcing, because it feels good, but it does not do the other two things. Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol are all physically addictive.

Everyone knows that marijuana users are bad employees, right?
Wrong, or at least someone forgot to tell the millions of hard working marijuana smokers that. Drug testing companies will hand you piles of statistics which they say prove marijuana use costs you money. The truth is there are just as many studies which show that marijuana users are more successful, use less health care, and produce more than non-users. Before you buy into workplace drug testing, make sure you get the other side of the story.

In the 1980's, the Bush administration went to great lengths to promote drug testing. In fact, George Bush estimated the cost of drug use at over 60 billion dollars a year, based on a study which supposedly showed that persons who had used marijuana at some time during their life were less successful. The very same study could be used to show that current, heavy users of marijuana and other illegal drugs were actually more successful. Something is a bit fishy here, and when you add to that the fact that several former heads of the DEA and former Drug Czars now own or work in the urinalysis industry, this whole scene begins to smell a bit funny.

Okay...So Why is it STILL illegal?
The official answer: Because you shouldn't use it. You can't use it because it is illegal, and it is illegal so you can't use it. You should not use it. It is illegal. It is illegal so you should not use it.

The manic-depressive answer: It'll never happen. People are too unorganized/stupid /dis-empowered/scared. I won't get my hopes up. Try, but don't expect to get anywhere.

The paranoid answer: Don't you see? The guys at the top own and control everything They'll never let it happen. You shouldn't mess with THEM, THEY know everything. The only way to get it to happen is to become one of THEM. You'd better watch it or THEY will come and take you away. THEY do that, you know. It's all a CONSPIRACY

The neurotic answer: Marijuana? Don't you know that stuff is dangerous? People don't make laws for no good reason If anybody even knew you thought it should be legal they'd never talk to you again

THE REAL ANSWER: Marijuana is still illegal because enough people have not yet stood up together and said: “THIS IS STUPID!! I WANT CANNABIS/HEMP LEGAL!!” Without large-scale grass roots support, marijuana will never be legal. Every person that stands up for hemp legalization makes us that much stronger, and our voices that much louder

Politicians love to tell us that marijuana must remain illegal for our own good. Now that you have examined some of the facts about marijuana, you can decide for yourselves whether you agree or not. Is marijuana prohibition there to protect the people, or is it just the result of decades of refusal to admit our mistakes? It is pretty obvious to users that marijuana prohibition laws are not “for their own good.” If you aren't convinced yet, Or if you are having trouble swallowing any of the answers given, I encourage you to learn more about the issues. If you're for the cause, let everybody know the truth - but most importantly, keep an eye on what's going on and try to lend a hand when you can.

 

[samhc222]

No initiative has qualified for a California ballot strictly by volunteers since 1972, however, many have qualified with a substantial number -- more than half -- submitted by volunteers. That was most recently accomplished in the 1990's by a campaign led and financed by Ted Danson to protect the wild horse herds in the Eastern Sierras.

Professionals are held to a 72% rate so it is necessary to collect 600,000 to 650,000 signatures to qualify a statutory initiative. However, volunteers have a very dismal validity percentage, depending on their dedication to the issue and their political and educational sophistication.

Petitioners in CA receive a minimum of $.25 per signature. An initiative may be qualified for a gross cost of as little as $.85 per signature. That's the minimum I can do it for, and that includes overhead costs. Any more is pure profiteering.


I did this as a volunteer from 1971-1990. In 1971-72 I was an Orange County Coordinator for Prop 19, and in 1979-80 I founded Sonoma NORML and was the Sonoma/Napa/Marin Coordinator for a\ cannabis decrim initiative that missed the ballot by 800 sigs.

I did this as a professional from 1990-2004. At the height of my professional career I had more than 300 professional petitioners, and hundreds more volunteers, turning signatures in to me from all over the state. I personally led the campaign that qualified Prop 66 (to amend the three-strikes law) for the November, 2004, ballot.

While this is a pretty well-thought-out proposal, there has been no recent poll conducted that shows such a proposed initiative would have any chance of success. The most recent polls demonstrate merely a 40% level of support, and an initiative like this would need at least 57% support to be passed by the voters. Therefore, it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

It would be far more effective for individuals to cooperate with the Measure Z people in Oakland, the Oakland Civil Liberties Alliance, and establish "lowest possible priority" policies on a city-by-city and a county-by-county basis. When a majority of California cities and counties have been converted in this manner, it will be possible to consider doing it on a state level.

--
Sam H. Clauder II
P.O. Box 50, PMB 156 (mail)
28200 Hwy 189, #N-100 (deliveries)
Lake Arrowhead, CA 92352-0050
909-338-8215
S.Clauder@charter.net

 

[slntchttrbx]

thats it, im packing my shit, moving to california......
Hotel California.. here i come....lol.. i enjoyed getting this in my mail box.
so my only q. is, do i move before i go to prison, or wait till i serve my sentence??????
sorry for the sarcasm.. i needed to... laugh with me cmon!

 

[420]

bump

 

[whiteraven86]

we really need to start working at the federal level to get cannabis taken off the list of other dangerous drugs like Heroin. There is sufficient data now to support the contention that Cannabis does have medical applications and damages society far less than alcohol abuse. Contact your legislators and apply the pressure. Lets get this done!

 

[EricSilentbob]

I can't wait!