On the positive side, Kerlikowske hails from Seattle — a city that has elected to make the enforcement marijuana crimes cops’ lowest priority. And although the police chief spoke out against the initiative effort — which passed with 58 percent of the vote in 2003 — he’s abided by the will of the people since then.
Which American political leader has the guts and foresight to become “the William Wilberforce” of the great campaign to end marijuana prohibition?? Your place in history is waiting.
t must have been a slow news day.
According to Google News, more than 750 media outlets — that’s 7-5-0, folks — have now weighed in on this week’s pot scare story du jour: “Smoking marijuana causes testicular cancer.”
So is there any truth behind the provocative headline? Some, but hardly enough to justify the media’s feeding frenzy.
A television station in Columbia, S.C., is reporting that local law enforcement officials have made eight arrests in connection with a house party where Olympian Michael Phelps’ photo may have been taken with a marijuana bong in his hands. Seven of the arrests were for drug possession and the eighth was for drug distribution, according to the WIS-TV (Channel 10) report.
Michael Phelps should have come by and read it. His publicized admission that he toked from a bong at a frat party in a South Carolina dorm has stirred a whirlwind of controversy and put him in harm’s way.
Late Thursday, cereal and snack manufacturer Kellogg’s announced that it will not renew its sponsorship contract with 14-time Olympic gold medal champion Michael Phelps. The company said that Phelps’ recent acknowledgment of marijuana use, and subsequent apology, was “not consistent with the image” of the company.
Nearly three-quarters of the American public agrees with this position. According to a new national poll of 1,053 likely voters by Zogby International and commissioned by the NORML Foundation, seventy-two percent of voters say that President Obama should “stop federal raids against medical marijuana providers in the 13 states where medical marijuana has become legal.”
Well, once again it’s time to give folks on Capitol Hill a dose of ‘reefer reality.’
This morning NORML is taking our message to lawmakers in Washington, DC via the highly influential Hill.com blog.