The logic seems to be “WOW they keep on getting caught therefore they are addicted!”

HOWEVER, I am sure that the vast majority of the time, the cop will simply take their stash and smash it on the ground, which is the case in many cities in the US. (Still BS. but at least they didn’t get “charged” with anything, aside from their destroyed stash)

“Now with all that being said…Why is our government being so damned hard headed? Why not just start the process of legalizing cannabis and cut the legs out from under these cartels? ”

They won’t do it until a clear majority of American voters support legalization. You know only something like 5 or 6 people in Congress will openly support legalization today, less than 2% of them, even though over 40% of American voters want marijuana to be legalized and regulated similar to alcohol. Surely a lot more of them are for legalization, but they’re afraid that coming out for legalization would be political suicide.

There was one national Zogby poll this year where 52% said they were for legalization, but several other national polls this year that came out before and after that Zogby poll only put support in the low to mid forties. Support for legalization is growing every year and in a few years it looks like it’s going to get to the point that the polls are consistently coming back with the majority supporting legalization. When that happens we’re going to start seeing more and more politicians coming out for legalization and at some point marijuana will be legalized. It’s just not going to happen though without a solid majority of the voting public being for it. Without strong majority support not many politicians are going to go out on that limb.

Our main focus really needs to be getting the people on board with legalization. That’s the key. That’s how we’ll win. Luckily, we have the “age out” effect on our side. The old people who grew up before marijuana became popular are almost all strongly opposed to legalization, but they are steadily dying off and being replaced by people much more open to legalization. The momentum is going our way. We just need to capitalize on it as best we can. We need to convince as many people as possible that the ban does more harm than good.

We also need to work on getting young people to the polls, even for mid term elections. A high percentage of young voters, particularly those 18 to 29, support legalization. The problem is that these younger voters aren’t very good at showing up to vote. The old geezers who in most all cases are strongly opposed to legalization tend to be people who vote every time the polls open up. Their votes more than cancel out all the support we have from young voters, and politicians know this. They are a lot more afraid of older voters than younger voters. So, aside from just convincing people that we need to legalize marijuana, it would be great if we could get younger people to the polls so that politicians will fear them as much as they fear older voters.

In my experience it usually does show up at the trial. Maybe things work differently in your state, but in simple possession cases in my area the officers always show up with the pot they seized. Sometimes they won’t bring out in big drug cases, which is actually fine with me. I’ve been involved with drug mule cases where they’ll bring several hundred pounds of pot out and stack it up in front of the jury and that’s not really helpful to our clients. It’s usually been sitting in some evidence shack somewhere for a year or so and it’s all moldy and smelly and of course there’s just so much of it it makes the guy caught with it look really bad.

Man you really nailed it. Mant of us outhere already know much of this and the general public is starting to see this also now.

Now with all that being said…Why is our government being so damned hard headed? Why not just start the process of legalizing cannabis and cut the legs out from under these cartels? Why not end the suffering and madness this all brings to those across the border and here in the USA? Is it really just greed on the part of some politicians and Lwa enforcement? Is it the public has been brain washed and havent come to their senses yet? A combination of all? I feel its the latter,but thats just me and my limited veiw of things.

What say you TKDietz? And how can we activists end this faster?