According to a Reason-Rupe Public Opinion survey released this week, not only do a majority of Americans believe the federal government should not arrest consumers of cannabis in states that have elected to regulate it, but that view extends to growers and sellers as well.
The poll, conducted from January 17th to 21st, revealed that 72% of Americans thought the federal government should not arrest users of marijuana in states that pass laws regulating it. The majority of them also believe this protection should extend to other aspects of the legalized industry. 68% of respondents responded that the federal government should not arrest growers and 64% said they should also not arrest sellers.
When presented with the question, “Some people argue the government should treat marijuana the same as alcohol. Do you agree or disagree?” 53% replied in the affirmative and only 45% disagreed.
You can view the full poll results here.
Yes I will also agree the FED’S need to stay out of people’s buisness and marijuana need to be legal for eveyone to use not just medical
Each State should be allowed to regulate their laws by themselves; the federal entities should focus on the international worries.
we did it! we finally knocked over that first domino!!!
What i don’t understand is if the federal government feels this way then shouldn’t the state government get into the same amount of trouble as the grower for taking the tax money obtained illegally according the the federal government.
just legalize it in all 50 states!!!
YES!!!! That’s why I switched to the Libertarian Party. More Freedom Less Government!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We pay taxes We need to be left alone.
The federal government need to trash out the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 and the DEA, but the federal government prevent that from happening by allowing the DEA the full entitlement and the supreme judge of those laws. Just like Homeland Security.
It’s a virus created by madness and propaganda.
Legalize MMJ in Mississippi, call your SENATOR and REPS to support SB2369.
If you trace it’s roots you will see it is blessing , those who keep it illegal and lie to our youth should be the one behind bars 10 – life…..
You guys need to remember the US has signed onto numerous treaties requiring Marijuana not to be used for fun. There are UN treaties for this!! International laws need to be respected, and end with the US doing whatever it likes to do regardless in a Cowboy mentality.
Cowboy , tell that to the Indians ! Laws that hide the truth should be international crime.This plant is medicine and should be legal to all!
LawsRWW, in all seriousness, respecting these laws for marijuana is A) not in our best interested and B) not in anyone else’s interests either. People have been victimized and continue to be killed by these malformed laws and it needs to end.
The UN can and will legalize marijuana, so please go cry in your split milk. It doesn’t matter what country you are in, it is just a bullshit excuse to harass and arrest folks.
He’ll thanks to gator aid you dont have to worry about internal combustion. Well it seem when do a lot of research don’t we!
Very nice Dave
The laws stay on the books as a result of group think resulting in cognitive incest. This excerpt from “Understanding Stupidity” by James F. Welles sums it up quite nicely:
“Most social groups exist for two related functions: group maintenance and goal achievement. The relative importance of these two functions will vary with conditions, and with compromise the normal state, most people live in a genial, casual pursuit of some particular achievement. As sacrifice is the nature of compromise, one of society’s inherent stupidities is that goal achievement must often be traded off so as to perpetuate an organization whose expressed purpose is to accomplish that goal.
It is in this dual nature of group function that one finds pressures for both accuracy in and distortion of knowledge. To maintain a group, some accuracy may have to be sacrificed, making goal achievement a little less likely or more difficult. The ultimate in the chronic stupidity of institutional life is, of course, that maintaining the group may become an end in itself. In such a situation, cognitive incest obliterates any pretense at logical justification for self-sustaining acts.
Groups undergoing this process begin to separate from reality and define their own existence when the proper handling of and response to incoming information demands socially intolerable adjustments of group procedure and structure. This trend is climaxed as social inertia comes to disrupt effective reaction to the external milieu.
Civil service bureaucracies are notorious centers for such useless workfare programs. These repositories for the dysfunctional contribute nothing to the nation’s health or wealth. It would be absurd even to suggest a scale for measuring their monumental waste and pathetic inefficiency. However, if they are an overall drain on society, they contribute indirectly to the self-respect of a nation which, in its stupid magnificence, provides a place of employment for the hopelessly inept—the government.”
It is a shame that people still think marijuana and alcohol are equivalent. Alcohol is a dangerous addictive poison but the availability model is a very good start for marijuana regulation. I would like to see the idea that the legal regulation could encourage the use of non-smoking preparations of cannabis since these are the most healthy. Analogous to the way that beer is often considered differently to whisky and other hard liqueurs.
When i was young we were told that the if the communist won the cold war we would be exposed to propaganda and non truths. here we are many years later being lied to and imprisoned by our government for smoking one of gods plants. Some free country, run by the people(laugh} and for the people. The people are telling our political jokers that they want MJ legal and yet they ignore us. It will be legal not because its a good thing but because our leaders will get green fever $. the government local,state and federal are going to work this out for their own reasons not ours. Have faith! How many citizens will have to suffer until they do is another story. Our government is always crying they have an over burdened court system that is hemorrhaging the tax payers money. Here is their chance to save billions on court cost. You know that budget they are trying to balance so hard! Watch out for BIDEN he is the architect of these crazy 1970’s laws we have on the books. Our government should work with the states not against them.
Obama, Barry, get the feds out. De-fund, limit the federal funds so that they can NOT be used in cannabis states. Then more states will jump on the cannabis money train, damn we need the jobs and revenue something bad, knowing the feds won’t swoop in and fuck up things. Unfortunately, Congress won’t do the right thing, won’t legalize until they’re left no other choice.
The longer they take, the longer the economy needs to keep be run into the ground. Cannabis prohibition is a government program that is an utter failure and needs to be cut immediately to demonstrate that the federal government is no longer of the mindset that they have money to waste, especially on failed programs like Cannabis Prohibition.
Not to mention the 45% of people who vote it should not be treated like alchohol obviously dont know the truth about marijuana theres no beneficial aspects of drinking alchohol. They are blinded by the stereotypical view of marijuana that the government and media created.
or in the states it isnt legal..
The picture at the top of the article prejudices the issue– a hand sittin’ there holding a cigarette…idleness… stoned… readers know a marijuana joint is meant, meanwhile the Instant Unconscious link between cannabis and idleness or disablement is made without anyone admitting it overtly.
John Doe Sr., with his quote from James F. Welles, makes a good point:
“Civil service bureaucracies are notorious centers for such useless workfare programs [which] contribute nothing to the nation’s health or wealth.”
It turns out there are “private sector” bureaucracies employing millions of “corporate” workfare employees carrying out essential bureaucratic learned-by-rote tasks, from the agricultural workers who plant and reap the tobacco to the lady 10% or 20% of whose work at some big box store consist of handing out the little boxes of $quares and taking the money at the cashier. They are all bureaucrats making sure the hot burning overdose monoxide $igarettes get delivered and “satisfy” i.e. pander to the slave victim/customers’ craving for more watchguard-alertness drug nicotine.
Under the leadership of a kind of conspiratorial oligarchy that “industry” succeeds in maintaining itself (i.e. its workfare program) by getting another 800,000 kids (USA) hooked on nicotine each year (oh yes they say 400,000 are dying each year) and the mainstay of this addiction-pushing wear is MARIJUANA PROHIBITION– supported by well-intended but ignorant non-smokers who have thought cannabis was to blame for the kind of personality and behavior disorders that resulted from joint smoking and its frequent consequence, addiction to $igarette smoking.
CDC estimate of $igarette industry contribution to nation’s health or wealth:\
$96-bil./year health COST for medical help
$97-bil./year lost productivity COST.
Cannabis to the rescue?
Legalizing nationwide would immediatly create a better country to live in. Cannabis use makes one non violent, introspective, healthier and happier. These are the reasons it remains illegal, besides the threats to business profits. The televised and print ads from big pharma are sickening. Who in their right minds would take these pushed drugs of death? The side effects always include the possibility of death, by untested poisons that currently kill 200,000 American’s yearly.
To bad the majority of Americans are not in charge of the country anymore. The real enemies of marijuana are corporations..www.TruthHurtsCorporations.org
Today, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is not welcome in our federal courtrooms. They know that the juries will not convict if they know the whole truth when they drag grow operators into court from states where that is legal. Instead of nothing but the truth, the federal courts use the 4th and 5th methods of lying to trick juries into convicting such people by keeping the jury from knowing the grower was licensed by his state, regulated by his state, and that he paid taxes to the state and the federal government.
Even those that support prohibition in their hearts are starting to see the horrible damage the war has done to American Society.
I believe that is why the numbers are changing so rapidly.
I would encourage everyone to promote the use of vaporizers. One big anti-marijuana propaganda technique is to say that smoked marijuana will never be accepted by the medical community because of its deleterious effect on the pulmonary system. The vaporizer produces a mist, similar to asthma inhalers, that contain no toxic smoke products, only the cannabinoids.
I feel the Feds are a cancer and should keep there hands off other people stuff. No one likes cancer lol. Pot should be treated like a glass of water most of the time and like alcohol at other times. Companies should not be aloud to test you unless you are a server of public transportation. The only thing a drug test is good for is POT. I’m sick of regulations. Let people do what they want. Crack heads could crack it up till they die and no more crack head. Coke heads could coke it up till there dead. Natural selection has worked for billions of years. Why is it we think we can do it any better. Such arrogance. We have laws to face when you park your car on some one while under the influence. Let the folks do what they want and pay the piper or learn some personal responsibility. I often say you can’t raise a kid to be a responsible adult with a tit in his or her mouth.
I think that the time is now to end the money and other resources being spent at all levels on the effort to curb the use, production and and distribution of marijuana. All of the efforts have only succeeded in making criminals of our citizens, even those who are seeking medical relief. Instead of draining public coffers, legalization will let the money coming from taxation pour in, allowing DANGEROUS drugs more attention.
If there are 800,000 arrests every year for simple cannabis possession, why can’t all these people get together and do something about it like voting and making their voices be heard. The problem is the shame that society is placing in all of these individuals, the shame of getting their lives destroyed and labeling them as drug addicts. So many decent people hide in the shadows thinking that as long as they do not get caught, it will be fine. There is much more shame in using alcohol or tobacco that most politicians proudly admit. It is time to come out of the shadows and right all of the lies and big money interests that continue to destroy lives and make money in the process.