Tag Archive: Marijuana Legalization


Colorado Crime Levels See Little Change Since Marijuana Legalization – Study

 

 

 

 

 

” Less than six months into the experiment that Colorado took up by legalizing marijuana, state officials have released new data indicating that crime has fallen across a number of demographics since January 1.

  The Colorado Department of Public Safety released data through the end of February indicating that not only has the doomsday scenario that law enforcement officials predicted not come true, but crime has fallen by significant margins.

  Compared to the same time period in 2013, overall property crime fell by 14.6 percent in Denver. Homicide rates, while not leaving the single digits in either year, fell by 66.7 percent while the number of robberies decreased by seven percent. Other violent offenses have remained consistent or increased.

  Authorities have admitted that the two-month sample size is far too small to be conclusive, although the signs are encouraging after fears that Denver would descend into a metropolitan hellscape if cannabis were to become legal for residents over 18 years old.

“ We quite frankly don’t know,” Henny Lasley, spokesperson for Smart Colorado, which aims to keep marijuana away from children, told Vox. “We’ve had three complete months of retail marijuana. We were getting those questions three days into legalization. It’s a pretty short window.” “

 

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Maryland Police Chief Humiliated After Citing Satirical Article To Oppose Pot Legalization

 

 

 

” Testifying against legislation that would decriminalize marijuana in Maryland, the Annapolis police chief cited a satirical article that claimed 37 pot deaths occurred on the first day Colorado legalized its sale.

“ The first day of legalization, that’s when Colorado experienced 37 deaths that day from overdose on marijuana,” Chief Michael Pristoop said on Tuesday as part of testimony during a Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee hearing. “I remember the first day it was decriminalized there were 37 deaths.”

  Pristoop was quickly corrected by a sponsor of one of the bills, according to the Capital Gazette.

“ Unless you have some other source for this, I’m afraid I’ve got to spoil the party here,” said Sen. Jamie Raskin. “Your assertion that 37 people died of a marijuana overdose in Colorado was a hoax on the Daily Currant and the Comedy Central website.”

  The Daily Currant posted the article – Marijuana Overdoses Kill 37 in Colorado on First Day of Legalization – on Jan. 2. It has since been shared over 24,000 times across various social media and other web platforms.”

 

    Good Lord , we are led by idiots … this man and thousands like him are the ones we should trust to protect us ? A man of tremendous authority over the citizenry that cannot even distinguish fact from fiction ? God help us .

Read the rest … and groan

 

 

 

 

 

Phillip Morris Introduces Marlboro Marijuana Cigarettes

 

marijuana-cigarettes

 

 

” Phillip Morris, the world’s biggest cigarette producer, announced today that they will join the marijuana legalization bandwagon and start producing marijuana cigarettes. Marketed under the brand “Marlboro M”, the cigarettes will be made available for sale through marijuana-licensed outlets in the state of Colorado, and the state of Washington when it becomes commercially legal there later this year.

  Norcik added that they have begun contacting former drug lords in Mexico and Paraguay, currently the largest marijuana-producing countries in the world, for the possibility of setting up a distribution ring across the North and South American continents, to streamline the supply lines.”

 

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OVER-65S ONLY AGE GROUP OPPOSED TO LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

 

 

 

” Support for legalizing marijuana is high among every group except over-65s, but even most over-65s think that it’s more trouble than it’s worth to enforce marijuana laws. 

  On January 1st, 2014 Colorado became the first state in the union where marijuana can be bought and sold in shops in much the same way as liquor. The state imposes heavy taxes on marijuana, limits purchases to over-21s and makes it a criminal offense to take marijuana outside of the state. Despite changes to state law, marijuana is still illegal according to federal law. The federal government has said, however, that it won’t block marijuana legalization in Colorado, though this is conditional on successfully stopping marijuana being used by under-21s as well as making sure that marijuana does not cross state lines to states where it is still illegal.

  The latest research from YouGov shows that support for legalizing marijuana is high, with 48% of the public believing that marijuana should be legalized, compared to 37% who want it to remain illegal. There’s a significant generational divide, but only between those aged over 65 and under 65. Half of Americans under the age of 65 tend to support legalization of marijuana, while half of Americans over the age of 65 want it to remain illegal.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Report On Liberty From Reason Magazine

 

 

 

 

” Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch’s The Declaration of Independents, published in 2011, provides a hopeful outlook for the future of freedom, a vision of how libertarian politics can fix America’s problems. How did 2013 pan out for the libertarian moment upon us? Here are seven pieces of good news for freedom this year from some of us here at Reason– Ed Krayewski

 

1. No Tolerance for Zero Tolerance

  WHNSAs 2013 began, America was still reeling from a mass murder at a Connecticut elementary school. Parents and officials across the country were nervous that something similar might happen in their backyards, and that nervousness translated into a series of strange school security scares, many of them involving absurd zero-tolerance decrees. The most infamous might be the second-grader in Maryland who was suspended for chewing a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun.

  It was easy to assume that the reign of zero tolerance was just going to get worse, as school districts felt the same bureaucratic imperatives that swept the nation after the Columbine massacre of 1999. It didn’t help that both liberals and conservatives were calling for measures that had fed the zero-tolerance beast in the past. But then something unexpected happened. Those silly security scares were mocked in the press. Politicians proposed bills to roll back zero tolerance’s excesses, and schools across the country adopted new policies that might not be a civil libertarian’s dream but at least give officials more flexibility in doling out punishments and make it less likely that a misbehaving student will be pushed into the criminal justice system. As victories go, these may be small, but a year ago I didn’t expect this to be an area where there would be victories to celebrate at all. —Jesse Walker “

 

 

See the other six advances of liberty at Reason.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michigan Man Driving Wheelchair To White House For Marijuana

 

 

” Curtis Kile, 52, said he left his Taylor home June 14 on a mission to steer his motorized wheelchair to the White House for a chat with President Barack Obama about nationwide legalization of marijuana, a drug he said has been instrumental in his treatment, the Detroit Free Press reported Monday.”

 

 

 

 

” Kile said Saturday in Hagerstown, Md., he is hoping to roll up to the White House and meet with Obama July 4.”