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True to their word, a group of young advocates for local liberalization of marijuana possession laws rolled into City Hall for Tuesday’s meeting of the Athens-Clarke County Commission, once again arguing for a “parallel ordinance” allowing police officers the discretion to determine whether someone found in possession of marijuana should simply be cited and fined, or arrested and taken to jail.

“We’re not going to give up,” one of the young people told commissioners Tuesday. Since March, the group, affiliated with the Athens Campaign for Access, Reform and Education — part of Georgia C.A.R.E., a group working to “end marijuana prohibition in Georgia” — has been a regular presence at the commission’s monthly voting meeting.

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WHITFIELD COUNTY, GA (WRCB) – Voters in Whitfield County say yes to legalization.  It was a question in a democratic straw poll.  Voters were asked, should Georgia legalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana for adults 21 and older? On their ballot it’s a non-binding question  and 64-percent of voters think it should be legal.

Georgia democrats included the legalization question on the ballot to get people out to vote.  Straw polls also serve to gauge voters opinion.

Under current Georgia law, less than an ounce of cannabis can get you up to one year in prison, anything more than that and you could spend up to 10 years behind bars.

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The first legal sale of marijuana to people 21 years of age and older began in the morning at selected clinics in Colorado-the first State in the country, and the first government in the world, to control and regulate a legal marijuana industry for recreational purposes.

“This is a great day,” said Tom Angell, chairman of the Marijuana Reform Group majority, at The Huffington Post. “With what Colorado is doing now, and what the state of Washington and Uruguay will do later this year, we finally have the opportunity to show the world the benefits of legalizing and regulating marijuana that we’ve been talking about for so many years. Raising the market above the land will generate tax revenues, create jobs and withdraw money from the cartels and violent drug gangs that control the trade where marijuana is illegal. Once other states and countries see these results proven, they will want to get rid of their prohibition laws as well.”

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Polls show that more and more Americans favor ending the federal ban on pot. A handful of states in the U.S. have lifted legal restrictions on the drug in recent years — including Colorado and Washington — putting Obama in an awkward place. A pot smoker in his younger days, he must decide whether to instruct his Department of Justice to challenge those state laws, or to simply let them be.

The president likely felt it necessary to touch on drugs in his speech today since marijuana is a chief import from Mexico to the United States. It is also largely to blame for the rising swell of cartel violence that has killed thousands in Mexico over the years, and has occasionally spilled over into the southern U.S.

Obama said that his administration must focus on an all-encompassing strategy to deal with drug users at home, as well as figure out a way to reduce demand for drugs.

“We understand that much of the root cause of violence that’s been happening here in Mexico, for which many so Mexicans have suffered, is the demand for illegal drugs in the United States. And so we’ve got to continue to make progress on that front.”

He added that fixing the problem will require “a comprehensive approach — not just law enforcement, but education and prevention and treatment.”

Those words reflect the latest plan put forth by Obama’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, which essentially considers recreational drug use to be a public health issue. Rather than advocating for reforming drug users through jails and prisons, the plan calls for blending strong prevention techniques with effective rehabilitation programs in order to curb future drug use.

The Obama administration’s strategy, though, is somewhat controversial since it technically defines regular pot users as people with brain diseases — addiction, the administration says, is a brain disease. Scores of marijuana defenders, however, say that there is no proof that the drug is addictive.

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