One headline yesterday that just screamed bullshit was atop stories of THC found in Trayvon Martin’s bloodstream — a medical examiner’s report also revealed traces of cannabinoids in his urine.
All the MSM news stories carried that in its lede — and the problem?
Instead of having an actual impact on what happened the night Martin was murdered, the result just creates immediate flak for marijuana as a negative force in society.
What bullshit!
If George Zimmerman had done a bowl instead of fondling his 9-millimeter, most-likely Trayvon might be alive today.
Mostly overlooked yesterday was this particular story from New York state and an most-unlikely voice in legalizing pot.
Via Reuters:
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach, who is being treated for pancreatic cancer, wrote in a New York Times article on Thursday that he had been using marijuana provided by friends at “great personal risk” to help him cope with the nausea, sleeplessness and loss of appetite from chemotherapy treatments.
“This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights issue,” wrote Reichbach, 65, who has spent 21 years on the bench in Kings County Supreme Court, and continues to hear cases even as he receives cancer treatment.
…
“It’s brave and wonderful, but it’s heart-wrenching,” said Ellen Yaroshefsky, a law professor at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.
“There are key moments in history where a judge makes a bold stand.
This is one of the moments, and we should be proud of it.”
But where does it lead?
Apparently, nowhere:
Support for medical-marijuana legislation is gaining support among New Yorkers.
A poll from Siena Research Institute released on Wednesday found 57 percent of New Yorkers supported establishing a legal framework for allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana for cancer, chronic pain and other illnesses.
On Tuesday, a New York Assembly committee approved medical-marijuana legislation, and the Democratic-controlled Assembly appears poised to pass it for the third time in five years.
A spokesman for the state Senate Republican majority said that chamber was unlikely to act on the measure this year.
My underline, but alas and hence, more stupid.
In a poll released Wednesday by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research found that 74 percent of respondents wants President Obama to lay off raids on medical marijuana dispensaries — sixteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of medical marijuana, including us out here on the Left Coast: “The results of this survey demonstrate that there is virtually no support in the country for the Obama administration’s crackdown on state medical marijuana laws,” said Steve Fox, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project.
And also this: An unrelated New Hampshire poll whose results were released Thursday, coincidentally, reported that “65 percent of voters support legalizing medical marijuana to 24 percent opposed. That includes more than 70 percent of Democrats and independents and even a plurality of GOP voters (46/43).”
This comes on the heels of a Gallup poll last fall that found 50 percent of US peoples say it’s time to legalize marijuana: When Gallup first asked about legalizing marijuana, in 1969, 12 percent of Americans favored it, while 84 percent were opposed. Support remained in the mid-20s in Gallup measures from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, but has crept up since, passing 30 percent in 2000 and 40 percent in 2009 before reaching the 50 percent level in this year’s Oct. 6-9 annual Crime survey.
Time has way passed.
This recent federal crackdown on these dispensaries has opened the door to a chance to bolster the horror-hole of state budgets — like the $16 billion deficit here in California.
Similar to other products, legalize and tax the shit out of it.
Ethan Nadelmann, the Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance:
“When the gangsters are making billions of dollars off of providing a commodity that tens of millions of Americans want, you make it legal and you tax it and control it and regulate it,” Nadelmann said.
California State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is sponsoring a bill that would do just that.
A long-time proponent of medical marijuana, Ammiano now wants to tax the $14-$15 billion dollar illegal marijuana trade in California.
“We estimated that if marijuana were legalized, it may result in maybe two billion bucks more … in California’s budget,” the Democratic assemblyman representing San Francisco said.
Legal marijuana sounds more than reasonable.
The near-40-year war on drugs is a nasty, horrible joke — look at Mexico where a war more vile and horrendous than anything found in Iraq or Afghanistan is tearing that poor country apart, literally.
Last September, the FBI released its crime report, and amongst the findings: 853,838 people were arrested for marijuana-related offenses, or 97.5 people per hour, the highest ever reported. 52 percent of all drug arrests in the US are marijuana-related, 46 percent of those are for possession.
Insane.