Category — Video

At the Center for American Progress on May 1, Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske answered a question from MPP’s Steve Fox regarding marijuana prohibition. Or did he? What Steve essentially asked is that if a great many Americans use both marijuana and alcohol, and alcohol causes disease, violence and death while marijuana is not responsible for any of these problems, why are there laws prohibiting the use of marijuana, if alcohol is legal?

Now, with the exception of some brief gibberish about alcohol prohibition, the issue of allowing a harmful substance (alcohol) to be legally consumed by adults while outlawing a harmless substance (marijuana) was completely ignored. What was addressed, however, was the issue of prescription drugs.

The drug czar argued that there is no reason to tax, regulate, and control marijuana because legal prescription drugs take over 15,000 lives a year, saying, “we do a very poor job of keeping them out of the hands of abusers and young people.” This is interesting for several reasons, the first of which being that marijuana has not been responsible for any deaths in recorded human history. Also, medical marijuana patients are able to substitute marijuana for many of the dangerous prescriptions Gil is talking about, thereby minimizing their risk of becoming one of the 15,000 killed each year by legal prescription medications. Another reason for skepticism, and probably the most obvious: why should responsible users of a harmless substance be penalized because the ONDCP is bad at its job? By keeping marijuana illegal, Gil and the Obama administration are giving drug dealers and cartels responsibility for deciding who can and cannot buy marijuana instead of an objective system of regulation, and to be honest, I’ve never heard of a drug dealer who checked IDs.

You can see the full video here. This kind of doubletalk is disrespectful to both the audience and the American people. If someone cannot be trusted to be honest enough to answer a simple question, how can that same person be trusted to make decisions that impact the lives of private citizens?

Many of you will no doubt be enjoying this day by taking advantage of the relatively lax enforcement of marijuana laws in certain parts of the country. Some of you, particularly folks in California whose fame may or may not protect them from the long arm of the law, may be partying like this:

But during your celebrations today, please take a minute to remember that people still get arrested for simple marijuana possession all over the country. People still do time for this relatively harmless plant.

The majority of Americans realize how idiotic it is to arrest people for marijuana, but our elected leaders refuse to listen and instead keep telling us that they know what is best for us.

[Read more →]

Last week, a number of medical marijuana patients and supporters, including MPP’s Dan Riffle, were at the Maryland statehouse to testify on the need to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest.

Here is some TV coverage of the hearing:

The bill, sponsored by Sen. David Brinkley, is based on one of two draft bills proposed by members of Maryland’s medical marijuana workgroup. Only one version, the one suggested by Del. Dan Morhaim and MPP’s director of state policies Karen O’Keefe, would provide patients with safe and reliable access to their medicine.

Unfortunately, Gov. O’Malley has promised to veto the bill in its current form due to concerns of possible federal prosecution of state employees. To date, no state official has been charged with a crime for following medical marijuana laws. The bill is now being amended in an attempt to ease these unjustified concerns.

Earlier this week, Tom Angell of LEAP showed me this video of TV evangelist and political pundit Pat Robertson speaking out about prison overpopulation and harsh sentences for non-violent offenders. In this clip, Robertson, who is known for being a staunch social conservative, repeatedly calls for marijuana to be made legal.

Throughout this segment, Robertson repeatedly blames liberals for the “tough-on-crime” approach that has led to massive over-incarceration. Traditionally, most people are probably used to hearing liberals blaming conservatives for the very same thing. The truth is that there is more than enough blame to spread around on both sides of the political spectrum. It is interesting to note, however, that these statements come just as Vice President Biden is publicly cementing the Obama administration’s firm stance against real reform, even as leaders from across Latin America are calling for decriminalization.

Yesterday, Robertson went a step further and announced his endorsement of Amendment 64 in Colorado and I-502 in Washington, both of which would end criminal penalties for adult marijuana use and treat marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. While he will not be campaigning for the initiatives, Robertson said the time has come for people of all political and moral backgrounds to get behind them.

“I just want to be on the right side,” he said. “And I think on this one, I’m on the right side.”

Ron Paul may have achieved something of a victory by coming in third in the Iowa caucus yesterday, which is something few political wonks could have imagined a couple of months ago. Still, something should be said for the fact that he maintained his firm stance against the drug war after being narrowly beaten by candidates who are absolutely against marijuana reform.

In an early morning interview, Paul renewed his call to end federal interference in state marijuana laws and repeatedly called the drug war a failure. He even went so far as to call it a worse failure than alcohol prohibition! And according to Paul, his performance at the Iowa caucus proves that many Americans agree with him and are fed up.

Here’s the video, courtesy of Huffington Post.

And then we have Newt Gingrich. Earlier today at a press conference in New Hampshire, an SSDP member asked the candidate how he felt about states’ rights and how the Founding Fathers would have felt about growing marijuana. [Read more →]