While leaders from both major political parties whisper privately about the insanity of the drug war, they decline to take a rational public position in support of legalization or decriminalization. Instead, they continue to cater to an ill-conceived misunderstanding of what their respective constituencies believe our marijuana policies should be.
Democrats, ever fearful of appearing soft on crime, calculate that they will have nothing to gain by supporting legalization. Instead, they throw scraps of sentencing reform out in an effort to silent those most passionately calling for change. Republicans, meanwhile, fear angering a socially conservative base of voters all too eager to forget its beer-bonging college days.
In the video she repeats many of the themes I have been hammering for years.
What is her game plan for bringing Republicans on board?
...Corry, who does not smoke pot, is trying to organize Republican women around the cause. So far, she has commitments from 20 fellow Coloradoans, most of them lawyers, like Corry. Her husband, also an attorney, represents medical marijuana users.
Corry's arguments focus not only on the inhumanity of further punishing sick people who seek relief through pot, but also on protecting her own children should they decide to try marijuana someday. There's nothing like imagining one's own children as "criminals" to put irrational laws in perspective.
Corry is hardly alone and, in fact, may be part of a "toking point." (Is there a drug yet for "Tipping Point Fatigue"?) In its October issue, Marie Claire magazine featured "Stiletto Stoners" about accomplished career women who prefer to relax with pot. A September Fortune cover story, "Is Pot Already Legal?" examined the issue. In April, former (2006) Miss New Jersey, Georgine DiMaria, outed herself as a stealth marijuana user to treat her asthma.
States' rights and conservatism are old friends - except when they're not. While many Republicans nurse a libertarian streak, the party has been selective in its support of federalist principles.
Yep. The Republican Party I know so well. Champions of smaller government. Except when they are not. Way to go my principled friends.
Let me just say this. Med pot consistently polls in the 55% to 65% range. In Maine it just garnered 58% in a referendum to make medical marijuana growing and SALES legal. What are you waiting for Republicans? The votes are there for the taking.
Want to grow your own where it is legal? This should help:
Here is a video made in Israel that is short and funny. It shows a guy drinking and getting belligerent and who do the police arrest? The pot smoker. Sorry no English subtitles. One thing that is amusing in an ugly sort of way is that the one minute clip represents something that is unfortunately nearly universal.