MPP executive director Rob Kampia is interviewed on “The Agenda,” a popular political show on the Las Vegas NBC affiliate. In particular, he discusses the prospects for legalizing marijuana in Nevada and the growing public support for ending marijuana prohibition nationwide.
What’s most interesting is that now we have legislators getting in front of legalization measures instead of voter initiatives. Legalization is no longer a political liability. It’s a political capital builder. And the smart legislators are getting out in front of this before the next round of elections, where they might get voted out if they are on the Prohibitionist side. Politicians beholden to law enforcement are the most vulnerable: the public largely knows this whole damn thing is one big cluster-, and no one meaningfully ascribes credibility to LOE’s opinions on this matter. ‘Yeah, you arrested my son over this ridiculous law. He lost his grants and was fired from his internship. He lives in our basement. You support [legislator] and their Prohibitionist stance? OK time to look at the other candidate.’
People are seeing elected officials at every level of government completely disregarding the will of voters and imposing whatever measure they can think of to stop or render impotent any measures inacted. The battles in CA municipalities as well as the rush to institute moratoriums in MA and even IL (no medical cannabis but the bill is expected to pass so local communities are already trying to figure out how to block dispensaries) prove that Prohibitionist elected officials will not act in good faith when it comes to implementing the law. It’s only a matter of time before something is done at the Federal level. Communities who pass moratoriums or enact onerous zoning restrictions will end up losing large amounts of tax revenues, wrestle with escalating police costs for bootleg enforcement, and dangerous chemicals like synthetic marijuana will proliferate, placing citizens and children in particular at great risk. And it’s because LEOs infiltrate the minds of politicians, or in many cases the politician is from law enforcement or is a former prosecutor.
If your local politician is a Prohibitionist, follow the money. I will be going in the front door of the police department at ever escalating rates, and right back out the back door as a paycheck for overtime and bloated pensions for all the cops. Corrupt to the very core, and your politicians who defer to LEO’s are really just part of the corruption.
Then, they turn around and get campaign money from corporations looking to protect their own markets. It happens with local businesses and local politicians just as with state leaders and large corps.
Unfortunately for those people, or fortunately for everyone else, their tyranny is coming to an end. The public’s onto them, hates them for it, and equates their deception, belligerence and openly racist enforcement statistics to death, suffering, inequality, and destruction. It’s why politicians are distancing themselves from LEOs and why legislation is emerging everywhere. Prohibitionists are a dying breed, and appropriately and thankfully so. Mankind will be better off.