ACLU Endorses Colorado Initiative to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol
On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union officially announced its endorsement of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol in Colorado, which is currently collecting signatures to be on the ballot in 2012.
Among the reasons cited for the endorsement are the disproportionately high arrest rates of minorities for simple possession of marijuana and the unjustifiable expense of public funds.
According to a statement from the ACLU: “The war on drugs has failed. Prohibition is not a sensible way to deal with marijuana. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol will move us toward a more rational approach to drug laws.”
Colorado currently represents the best chance of any of the states to end marijuana prohibition by taxing and regulating this relatively safe substance. We need all the help we can get to gather the signatures necessary to get this initiative on the ballot. If you want the chance to vote on a sensible marijuana policy for Colorado please volunteer or donate here. Even if you don’t live in Colorado, please consider helping out. Once one state begins to tax and regulate marijuana, it won’t be long before others follow suit.
September 16, 2011 18 Comments
Marijuana Prohibition Leads to Death of Young Man
On July 2, Eric Perez turned eighteen. On July 10, his family mourned his untimely death.
Mr. Perez suffered a medical emergency while being held at a detention center in Florida. Despite vomiting and crying for help, Mr. Perez was left to suffer for over six hours before receiving medical attention. Tragically, by the time he was seen by emergency personnel, it was too late. So what was Mr. Perez doing in a detention center to begin with? The non-violent act of possessing a small amount of marijuana.
On the night of June 29, three days before his eighteenth birthday, police stopped Mr. Perez for riding his bicycle without a night-light. Police searched Mr. Perez and found the marijuana. Mr. Perez was on probation for a “years old” robbery charge and was cuffed and sent to a detention center. It was in this detention center that he breathed his last breath.
Let’s engage in a thought experiment here. Say Florida had a taxed and regulated system of marijuana distribution for adult, non-medical use. In that scenario, Mr. Perez is never arrested for possessing a small amount of a relatively harmless drug. He may even be praised for choosing to ride his bicycle as opposed to driving a car. Perhaps he’s given a ticket or sent to drug education for underage possession of marijuana. Either way, in this hypothetical, Mr. Perez is not in jail during his medical emergency, thus providing him a better chance of receiving prompt medical attention. Mr. Perez could still be alive.
Even a policy that simply decriminalizes the possession of only a small amount of marijuana would have been preferable. Fourteen other states have already removed the possibility of jail time for possessing a small amount of marijuana and replaced it with a simple civil violation. If Florida were one of them, Mr. Perez would have been given a ticket and sent on his way. Again, all indications point to the fact that had his medical emergency happened on the outside, he would have stood a much better chance of surviving.
Unfortunately for Mr. Perez’s family, we do not live our lives in hypotheticals. Policy decisions carry with them very real consequences. When it comes to our current marijuana policy, those consequences tend to lean towards the tragic — lost lives, destroyed families, and government waste. Until we replace our failed marijuana policies with more sensible and less destructive alternatives, we will continue to see stories like Mr. Perez’s.
August 3, 2011 76 Comments
U.S. Supreme Court orders California to release over 30,000 prisoners
Today, in a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a decision ordering California to reduce its state prison population by more than 30,000 prisoners. It found that as a result of overcrowding, the prisoners’ “medical and mental health care … has fallen short of minimum constitutional requirements … .” Even after the prison population is reduced, California’s prisons could still be over 37% above capacity.
The dissent painted a picture of a public safety disaster if the inmates were released. But, in reality, California prisons are far more dangerous to some of these inmates than those inmates have ever been to society. As the court noted, “needless suffering and death have been the well documented result” of current conditions.
Outrageously, many prisoners are there for nothing more than growing or delivering a plant that has never caused a fatal overdose — marijuana. In California, cultivation of marijuana (other than under the medical marijuana law) is a felony punishable by up to three years in state prison.
For participating in the production or sale of a substance safer than alcohol, these non-violent marijuana offenders face possible death in prison. The Supreme Court quoted a lower court ruling that prisoners were needlessly dying every five to six days as a result of the conditions. For example, “A prisoner with severe abdominal pain died after a five-week delay in referral to a specialist; a prisoner with ‘constant and extreme’ chest pain died after an eight-hour delay in evaluation by a doctor; and a prisoner died of testicular cancer after a ‘failure of MDs to work up for cancer in a young man with 17 months of testicular pain.’”
The state of California will decide who will be released. But this decision should result in the release of all non-violent marijuana offenders who are in state prison. Unlike violent and property criminals, their crimes had no victims. Then again, if decisions on who to imprison and who to let free were in keeping with reason and morality, we wouldn’t see non-violent marijuana offenders sentenced to life while convicted child sex offenders walk free on probation …
May 23, 2011 17 Comments
Define Legalization for President Obama
Two weeks ago, when drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told reporters that “marijuana is dangerous and has no medical benefit,” he also repeated a line he’s been using since taking the job as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy: “Legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary, and it’s not in mine.”
This oft-repeated line (see an example here) is concerning to those of us who want President Obama making informed decisions about our nation’s marijuana policies. How can he discuss its merits if he doesn’t know the word?
To solve this problem, MPP has created a Web page that allows you to e-mail President Obama the definition.
Click here to define “legalization” for President Obama.
It also lets you add a message about why you support ending marijuana prohibition. Go ahead and take action today, and help MPP arm President Obama with the knowledge he’ll need to make an informed decision about the future of America’s marijuana laws.
August 5, 2009 65 Comments
The Red Line between Love and Hate
Steve Fox, MPP’s new director of state campaigns (who was also MPP’s federal lobbyist from 2002-2005), sends in the following dispatch:
While riding the Metro’s Red Line yesterday, I spotted former drug czar John Walters entering the train. When he ended up standing right beside me, I realized I couldn’t pass up the chance for a conversation. I know it sounds like a fruitless endeavor, but I’m an eternal optimist and thought, “Maybe if we have a casual lunch together, he’ll come to see the folly of keeping marijuana illegal.” [Read more →]
June 30, 2009 55 Comments
