Demand CBS Reverse Decision Declaring Pro-Marijuana Ad “Too Political” Criminal Justice Change.org
Targeting: Leslie Moonves (CBS CEO), Dana McClintock (CBS Senior VP for Corporate Communications) and Jeremy Murphy (CBS Outdoor VP Communications)
Started by: Change.org
CBS, which recently ran a superbowl ad sponsored by the extreme right-wing group Focus on the Family, has just rejected an ad by NORML calling for the legalization of marijuana.
The ad was supposed to run on Times Square billboards owned by CBS in New York City. The slogan at the end of the ad was simply “Legalize Marijuana – Billions in Taxes.”
CBS previously rejected ads from a variety of progressive organizations including MoveOn and the United Church of Christ by saying that it didn’t accept “advocacy” ads at all. In response to the controversy surrounding the Focus on the Family ad, however, the company claimed it changed its policy and would now accept “responsibly produced” advocacy ads.
An email from the ad buying company NORML used told the organization “that If CBS changes their morals we will let you know.”
CBS is clearly acting in bad faith as it accepts conservative political ads but not progressive ones. The company is not only banning NORML’s message, it is implicitly endorsing Focus on the Family at the same time.
Send an email to CBS and tell them to accept the NORML ad now! Sign the Petition by clicking here.
Showing posts with label legalization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legalization. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Petition to End Drug Prohibition
The Petition to End Drug Prohibition
The Petition to End Drug Prohibition
www.enddrugprohibition.com
Students for Sensible Drug Policy is committed to providing education on harms caused by the War on Drugs, working to involve youth in the political process, and promoting an open, honest, and rational discussion of alternative solutions to our nation's drug problems
http://www.enddrugprohibition.com/?sid=5&sub=1
The Petition to End Drug Prohibition
www.enddrugprohibition.com
Students for Sensible Drug Policy is committed to providing education on harms caused by the War on Drugs, working to involve youth in the political process, and promoting an open, honest, and rational discussion of alternative solutions to our nation's drug problems
http://www.enddrugprohibition.com/?sid=5&sub=1
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
FOX News Says Marijuana Activists are Just Internet Trolls
Good reply to FOX News' failure to admit defeat in the elections so they attack people with a purpose thinking they'll break them down...activists are the bleeding heart liberals that the GOP made fun of for sooooooo many years....nothing will break us after the last 8 years of hell...nothing! Boo-Yah!
Peace to those that believe everything is possible!
soul
Posted in Speakeasy Main by Scott Morgan
Really, FOX News? You are so incapable of understanding our argument that you would dismiss us as saboteurs? If the mere mention of reforming marijuana laws is such a grand affront to civil discourse, let me introduce you to a few more "trolls" out there on the internet spreading crazy ideas about not arresting people for marijuana:read more digg story
There's Joe Klein at Time, David Sirota at The Nation, Kathleen Parker at the Washington Post, Paul Jacob at TownHall.com, Hendrik Hertzberg at The New Yorker, Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, Glenn Greenwald at Salon, Debra Saunders at the San Francisco Chronicle, Leonard Pitts at Miami Herald, John Richardson at Esquire, Margery Eagan at Boston Herald and many more. If these names sound familiar to you, it's becaue they aren't trolls at all, rather they are respected journalists who are joining the national conversation about the harms of our vicious marijuana laws.
In one of Obama's recent online forums, I saw this question: "How many donuts can I fit on my dong?" That was a troll, and it got deleted. This is a movement, and it isn't going away. Our issue is bigger than the organizations backing it. It didn't win Obama's forum because marijuana reformers know something about online organizing that other interest groups don't. It won because it is this defining question that quickly separates petty hypocrites from bold leaders, that distinguishes self-evident truths from antiquated propaganda, and that pits common sense against the mindless drug war hysteria that maintains a frigid stranglehold on our political culture, rendering impotent the promise of change that inspired so many hopeful Americans to lay their hopes and dreams at the steps of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Mexican Congress debates legalizing marijuana
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's Congress opened a three-day debate Monday on the merits of legalizing marijuana for personal use, a policy backed by three former Latin American presidents who warned that a crackdown on drug cartels is not working.
Although President Felipe Calderon has opposed the idea, the unprecedented forum shows legalizing marijuana is gaining support in Mexico amid brutal drug violence.
Such a measure would be sure to strain relations with the United States at a time when the two countries are stepping up cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking. The congressional debate — open to academics, experts and government officials — ends a day before President Barack Obama arrives in Mexico for talks on the drug war.
Proponents had a boost in February when three former presidents — Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Fernando Cardoso of Brazil — urged Latin American countries to consider legalizing the drug to undermine a major source of income for cartels.
The congressional discussion takes on a subject "that had been taboo" in our country, said opposition lawmaker Javier Gonzalez, adding that his Democratic Revolution Party supports legalizing personal marijuana consumption.
"What we don't want is to criminalize youths for consuming or possessing marijuana," he said.
read more digg story
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's Congress opened a three-day debate Monday on the merits of legalizing marijuana for personal use, a policy backed by three former Latin American presidents who warned that a crackdown on drug cartels is not working.
Although President Felipe Calderon has opposed the idea, the unprecedented forum shows legalizing marijuana is gaining support in Mexico amid brutal drug violence.
Such a measure would be sure to strain relations with the United States at a time when the two countries are stepping up cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking. The congressional debate — open to academics, experts and government officials — ends a day before President Barack Obama arrives in Mexico for talks on the drug war.
Proponents had a boost in February when three former presidents — Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Fernando Cardoso of Brazil — urged Latin American countries to consider legalizing the drug to undermine a major source of income for cartels.
The congressional discussion takes on a subject "that had been taboo" in our country, said opposition lawmaker Javier Gonzalez, adding that his Democratic Revolution Party supports legalizing personal marijuana consumption.
"What we don't want is to criminalize youths for consuming or possessing marijuana," he said.
read more digg story
We Tried A War Like This Once Before...
By Mike Gray
Sunday, April 12, 2009
In 1932, Alphonse Capone, an influential businessman then living in Chicago, used to drive through the city in a caravan of armor-plated limos built to his specifications by General Motors. Submachine-gun-toting associates led the motorcade and brought up the rear. It is a measure of how thoroughly the mob mentality had permeated everyday life that this was considered normal.
Capone and his boys were agents of misguided policy. Ninety years ago, the United States tried to cure the national thirst for alcohol, and it led to an explosion of violence unlike anything we'd ever seen. Today, it's hard to ignore the echoes of Prohibition in the drug-related mayhem along our southern border. Over the past 15 months, there have been 7,200 drug-war deaths in Mexico alone, as the government there battles an army of killers that would scare the pants off Al Capone.
Now U.S. officials are warning that the vandals may be headed in this direction. Too late: They're already here. And they're in a good position to take over organized crime in this country as well.
After decades of trying to stem the influx of illegal narcotics into the United States, it's clear that the drug war, like Prohibition, has led us into a gruesome blind alley. Drugs are cheaper than ever before and you can buy them anywhere. As Mexico's cash-starved government struggles to keep up the good fight, the drug barons rake in more than enough to buy political protection and military power while still maintaining profit margins beyond imagining. And what's driving this desperate struggle may be the ubiquitous weed: Southwestern lawmen say that marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the cartels' income.
At last, the spectacular violence in Mexico has captured everybody's attention, and in an eerie replay of the end of alcohol prohibition, we may at last be witnessing the final act in the war on drugs.
One hint of a shifting wind came in February, when a state legislator from San Francisco introduced a bill to tax, regulate and legalize adult use of cannabis. This sort of grandstanding is always met with derision, and this was no exception. But then something strange happened: California's chief tax collector said that the measure would bring in $1.3 billion a year and save another $1 billion on enforcement and incarceration. In a state facing an $18 billion deficit, suddenly nobody was laughing.
Four days later Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who's no legalizer, said that he, too, thinks we should take another look at marijuana prohibition. "The most effective way to establish a virtual barrier against the criminal activities is to take the profit out of it," he told a U.S. Senate subcommittee.
The next day, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced a minor policy shift with enormous implications: The federal government would no longer go after groups that supply medical marijuana in the 13 states where it is legal. The Drug Enforcement Administration had been raiding dispensaries routinely, and dozens of patients and growers are behind bars today despite their legal status in California's eyes. Now that threat has vanished for those who comply with state law. For California, this amounts to de facto legalization.
At his recent cyberspace town hall meeting, President Obama fielded a question about whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy. "No," he replied as the audience giggled. But that answer sheds no light on his actual thinking. Obama has already called the drug war an "utter failure." And since he himself is an admitted ex-toker, it's hard to believe that he'd cancel some kid's college education over a crime he got away with.
Of course, resistance to marijuana legalization remains rock solid in Washington among those who can't face the failure of prohibition. But that has more to do with politics than science. The Department of Health and Human Services says that there are 32 million drug abusers in the country, but that includes 25 million marijuana smokers. If you strike them from the list, how do you justify spending $60 billion a year in this economy trying to stop 2 percent of the population from being self-destructive? It would be dramatically cheaper to follow the Swiss example: Provide treatment for all who want it, and supply the rest with pure drugs under medical supervision.
When we erected an artificial barrier between alcohol producers and consumers in 1920, we created a bonanza more lucrative than the Gold Rush. The staggering profits from illegal booze gave mobsters the financial power to take over legitimate businesses and expand into casinos, loan sharking, labor racketeering and extortion. Thus we created the major crime syndicates -- and the U.S. murder rate jumped tenfold.
Fortunately, the Roaring '20s were interrupted by the Crash of '29, and when the money ran out, the battle against booze was a luxury we could no longer afford. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and over the next decade the U.S. murder rate was cut in half.
Today it's back up where it was at the peak of Prohibition -- 10 per 100,000 -- a jump clearly connected to the war on drugs. And anyone who's watching what's going on south of the border can see that we're headed for an era of mayhem that would make Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello weak in the knees.
Profits from the Mexican drug trade are estimated at about $35 billion a year. And since the cartels spend half to two-thirds of their income on bribery, that would be around $20 billion going into the pockets of police officers, army generals, judges, prosecutors and politicians. Last fall, Mexico's attorney general announced that his former top drug enforcer, chief prosecutor Noe Ramirez Mandujano, was getting $450,000 a month under the table from the Sinaloa cartel. The cartel can of course afford to be generous -- Sinaloa chief Joaquin Guzmán recently made the Forbes List of Billionaires.
The depth of Guzmán's penetration into the United States was revealed a few weeks ago, when the DEA proudly announced hundreds of arrests all over the country in a major operation against the "dangerously powerful" Sinaloa cartel. One jarring detail was the admission that Mexican cartels are now operating in 230 cities inside the United States.
This disaster has been slowly unfolding since the early 1980s, when Vice President George H.W. Bush shut down the Caribbean cocaine pipeline between Colombia and Miami. The Colombians switched to the land route and began hiring Mexicans to deliver the goods across the U.S. border. But when the Mexicans got a glimpse of the truckloads of cash headed south, they decided that they didn't need the Colombians at all. Today the Mexican cartels are full-service commercial organizations with their own suppliers, refineries and a distribution network that covers all of North America.
As we awaken to the threat spilling over our southern border, the reactions are predictable. In addition to walling off the border, Congress wants to send helicopters, military hardware and unmanned reconnaissance drones into the fray -- and it wants the Pentagon to train Mexican troops in counterinsurgency tactics.
Our anti-drug warriors have apparently learned nothing from the past two decades. A few years ago we trained several units of the Mexican army in counterinsurgency warfare. They studied their lessons, then promptly deserted to form the Zetas, a thoroughly professional narco hit squad for the Gulf cartel, which offered considerably better pay. Over the past eight years, the Mexican army has had more than 100,000 deserters.
The president of Mexico rightly points out that U.S. policy is at the root of this nightmare. Not only did we invent the war on drugs, but we are the primary consumers.
The obvious solution is cutting the demand for drugs in the United States. Clearly, it would be the death of the cartels if we could simply dry up the market. Unfortunately, every effort to do this has met with resounding failure. But now that the Roaring '00s have hit the Crash of '09, the money has vanished once again, and we can no longer ignore the collateral damage of Prohibition II.
Writing last month in the Wall Street Journal, three former Latin American presidents -- Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, César Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico -- declared the war on drugs a failure. Responding to a situation they say is "urgent in light of the rising levels of violence and corruption," they are demanding a reexamination of U.S.-inspired drug policies.
Two weeks ago, a conservative former superior court judge in Orange County told the Los Angeles Times that legalization was the only answer, and of 4,400 readers who responded immediately, the Times reported that "a staggering 94 percent" agreed with him.
This is another pivotal moment in U.S. history, strangely resonant with 1933. The war on drugs has been a riveting drama: It has given us great television, filled our prisons and employed hundreds of thousands as guards, police, prosecutors and probation officers. But the party's over.
read more digg story
Sunday, April 12, 2009
In 1932, Alphonse Capone, an influential businessman then living in Chicago, used to drive through the city in a caravan of armor-plated limos built to his specifications by General Motors. Submachine-gun-toting associates led the motorcade and brought up the rear. It is a measure of how thoroughly the mob mentality had permeated everyday life that this was considered normal.
Capone and his boys were agents of misguided policy. Ninety years ago, the United States tried to cure the national thirst for alcohol, and it led to an explosion of violence unlike anything we'd ever seen. Today, it's hard to ignore the echoes of Prohibition in the drug-related mayhem along our southern border. Over the past 15 months, there have been 7,200 drug-war deaths in Mexico alone, as the government there battles an army of killers that would scare the pants off Al Capone.
Now U.S. officials are warning that the vandals may be headed in this direction. Too late: They're already here. And they're in a good position to take over organized crime in this country as well.
After decades of trying to stem the influx of illegal narcotics into the United States, it's clear that the drug war, like Prohibition, has led us into a gruesome blind alley. Drugs are cheaper than ever before and you can buy them anywhere. As Mexico's cash-starved government struggles to keep up the good fight, the drug barons rake in more than enough to buy political protection and military power while still maintaining profit margins beyond imagining. And what's driving this desperate struggle may be the ubiquitous weed: Southwestern lawmen say that marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the cartels' income.
At last, the spectacular violence in Mexico has captured everybody's attention, and in an eerie replay of the end of alcohol prohibition, we may at last be witnessing the final act in the war on drugs.
One hint of a shifting wind came in February, when a state legislator from San Francisco introduced a bill to tax, regulate and legalize adult use of cannabis. This sort of grandstanding is always met with derision, and this was no exception. But then something strange happened: California's chief tax collector said that the measure would bring in $1.3 billion a year and save another $1 billion on enforcement and incarceration. In a state facing an $18 billion deficit, suddenly nobody was laughing.
Four days later Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who's no legalizer, said that he, too, thinks we should take another look at marijuana prohibition. "The most effective way to establish a virtual barrier against the criminal activities is to take the profit out of it," he told a U.S. Senate subcommittee.
The next day, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced a minor policy shift with enormous implications: The federal government would no longer go after groups that supply medical marijuana in the 13 states where it is legal. The Drug Enforcement Administration had been raiding dispensaries routinely, and dozens of patients and growers are behind bars today despite their legal status in California's eyes. Now that threat has vanished for those who comply with state law. For California, this amounts to de facto legalization.
At his recent cyberspace town hall meeting, President Obama fielded a question about whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy. "No," he replied as the audience giggled. But that answer sheds no light on his actual thinking. Obama has already called the drug war an "utter failure." And since he himself is an admitted ex-toker, it's hard to believe that he'd cancel some kid's college education over a crime he got away with.
Of course, resistance to marijuana legalization remains rock solid in Washington among those who can't face the failure of prohibition. But that has more to do with politics than science. The Department of Health and Human Services says that there are 32 million drug abusers in the country, but that includes 25 million marijuana smokers. If you strike them from the list, how do you justify spending $60 billion a year in this economy trying to stop 2 percent of the population from being self-destructive? It would be dramatically cheaper to follow the Swiss example: Provide treatment for all who want it, and supply the rest with pure drugs under medical supervision.
When we erected an artificial barrier between alcohol producers and consumers in 1920, we created a bonanza more lucrative than the Gold Rush. The staggering profits from illegal booze gave mobsters the financial power to take over legitimate businesses and expand into casinos, loan sharking, labor racketeering and extortion. Thus we created the major crime syndicates -- and the U.S. murder rate jumped tenfold.
Fortunately, the Roaring '20s were interrupted by the Crash of '29, and when the money ran out, the battle against booze was a luxury we could no longer afford. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and over the next decade the U.S. murder rate was cut in half.
Today it's back up where it was at the peak of Prohibition -- 10 per 100,000 -- a jump clearly connected to the war on drugs. And anyone who's watching what's going on south of the border can see that we're headed for an era of mayhem that would make Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello weak in the knees.
Profits from the Mexican drug trade are estimated at about $35 billion a year. And since the cartels spend half to two-thirds of their income on bribery, that would be around $20 billion going into the pockets of police officers, army generals, judges, prosecutors and politicians. Last fall, Mexico's attorney general announced that his former top drug enforcer, chief prosecutor Noe Ramirez Mandujano, was getting $450,000 a month under the table from the Sinaloa cartel. The cartel can of course afford to be generous -- Sinaloa chief Joaquin Guzmán recently made the Forbes List of Billionaires.
The depth of Guzmán's penetration into the United States was revealed a few weeks ago, when the DEA proudly announced hundreds of arrests all over the country in a major operation against the "dangerously powerful" Sinaloa cartel. One jarring detail was the admission that Mexican cartels are now operating in 230 cities inside the United States.
This disaster has been slowly unfolding since the early 1980s, when Vice President George H.W. Bush shut down the Caribbean cocaine pipeline between Colombia and Miami. The Colombians switched to the land route and began hiring Mexicans to deliver the goods across the U.S. border. But when the Mexicans got a glimpse of the truckloads of cash headed south, they decided that they didn't need the Colombians at all. Today the Mexican cartels are full-service commercial organizations with their own suppliers, refineries and a distribution network that covers all of North America.
As we awaken to the threat spilling over our southern border, the reactions are predictable. In addition to walling off the border, Congress wants to send helicopters, military hardware and unmanned reconnaissance drones into the fray -- and it wants the Pentagon to train Mexican troops in counterinsurgency tactics.
Our anti-drug warriors have apparently learned nothing from the past two decades. A few years ago we trained several units of the Mexican army in counterinsurgency warfare. They studied their lessons, then promptly deserted to form the Zetas, a thoroughly professional narco hit squad for the Gulf cartel, which offered considerably better pay. Over the past eight years, the Mexican army has had more than 100,000 deserters.
The president of Mexico rightly points out that U.S. policy is at the root of this nightmare. Not only did we invent the war on drugs, but we are the primary consumers.
The obvious solution is cutting the demand for drugs in the United States. Clearly, it would be the death of the cartels if we could simply dry up the market. Unfortunately, every effort to do this has met with resounding failure. But now that the Roaring '00s have hit the Crash of '09, the money has vanished once again, and we can no longer ignore the collateral damage of Prohibition II.
Writing last month in the Wall Street Journal, three former Latin American presidents -- Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, César Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico -- declared the war on drugs a failure. Responding to a situation they say is "urgent in light of the rising levels of violence and corruption," they are demanding a reexamination of U.S.-inspired drug policies.
Two weeks ago, a conservative former superior court judge in Orange County told the Los Angeles Times that legalization was the only answer, and of 4,400 readers who responded immediately, the Times reported that "a staggering 94 percent" agreed with him.
This is another pivotal moment in U.S. history, strangely resonant with 1933. The war on drugs has been a riveting drama: It has given us great television, filled our prisons and employed hundreds of thousands as guards, police, prosecutors and probation officers. But the party's over.
read more digg story
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Drug Decriminalization in Portugal
From Drug WarRant by Pete Guither
Reminder: Glenn Greenwald will be at the Cato Institute tomorrow (Friday) at noon Eastern to talk about his paper: Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies. Peter Reuter will be responding, and Tim Lynch, moderating.
If you can't get to the Cato Institute, you can watch the event live here.
The paper itself is now available to read online at Cato or you can download the pdf.
It's a fascinating paper.
It's amazing how little we have discussed Portugal and their drug policies in the states. I would imagine that is, in part, a function of how unfamiliar we are with the language. Fortunately, Glenn is fluent and bridges that gap for us.
Decriminalization in Portugal really works. It's certainly not what I would wish for an end goal here - I want to see regulated legalization, not merely decriminalization. Yet what Portugal has in place is far superior to our criminalized approach. It's more effective, it's smarter, and it's more... human. We can learn a lot. In particular, we can learn that moving away from criminalization will not result in the social breakdown that is the warped fantasy of prohibitionists.
read more digg story
Reminder: Glenn Greenwald will be at the Cato Institute tomorrow (Friday) at noon Eastern to talk about his paper: Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies. Peter Reuter will be responding, and Tim Lynch, moderating.
If you can't get to the Cato Institute, you can watch the event live here.
The paper itself is now available to read online at Cato or you can download the pdf.
It's a fascinating paper.
It's amazing how little we have discussed Portugal and their drug policies in the states. I would imagine that is, in part, a function of how unfamiliar we are with the language. Fortunately, Glenn is fluent and bridges that gap for us.
Decriminalization in Portugal really works. It's certainly not what I would wish for an end goal here - I want to see regulated legalization, not merely decriminalization. Yet what Portugal has in place is far superior to our criminalized approach. It's more effective, it's smarter, and it's more... human. We can learn a lot. In particular, we can learn that moving away from criminalization will not result in the social breakdown that is the warped fantasy of prohibitionists.
read more digg story
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