John Morgan – For the People – Medical Marijuana Ad
You’ve seen his ads,,, John Morgan… now listen to this radio ad for medical marijuana in Florida.
ACLU Calls For Marijuana Legalization As Georgia ranks Sixth In Marijuana Arrests
A new, damning report by the American Civil Liberties Union illustrates how costly, ineffective, and racist the policing and criminalization of marijuana has become in the United States, with New York State leading the way in marijuana-related arrests.
The study analyzes how over the past ten years, marijuana arrests have come to make up over half of all drug arrests in the United States, and that in 2010 a marijuana arrest happened every thirty-seven seconds.
Even more staggering than the cost of marijuana enforcement (which cost states $3.6 billion in 2010) is the racial dynamic of marijuana policing: a Black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though blacks and whites use the drug at a similar rate.
Obama Says No To Legalizing Marijuana
“I’ve been asked, and I honestly do not believe that legalizing drugs is the answer,” the president told a large gathering of young Mexicans at the city’s Anthropology Museum.
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.