The 2012 Michigan Ballot Initiative to End Marijuana Prohibition

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Marijuana prohibition has failed. Outlawing (prohibiting) marijuana has not reduced its availability, made society safe or reduced access to marijuana for minors. Please, volunteer to help us end it.

Marijuana prohibition in Michigan has:

• Made it easier for minors to obtain marijuana
• Wasted limited law enforcement and municipal resources
• Created massive profits for drug cartels and terrorists
• Decreased the health and public safety of Michigan families
• Removed the rights of parents to raise and discipline our children according to our own family values, rather than the values of the failed drug war
• Eroded the public’s relationship with law enforcement
• Denied relief to the suffering of seriously ill, injured, and dying citizens

Regulate alcohol and tobacco in the same manner as marijuana.

We the people wish to understand and have a serious conversation as to how these dangerous drugs are considered legal when their effects/risks can be far more dangerous than of marijuana.

Created: Oct 28, 2011

Issues: Regulatory Reform

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE TO Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol

What We Have to Say About Legalizing Marijuana | The White House

What We Have to Say About Legalizing Marijuana

By: Gil Kerlikowske

When the President took office, he directed all of his policymakers to develop policies based on science and research, not ideology or politics. So our concern about marijuana is based on what the science tells us about the drug's effects.

According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health- the world's largest source of drug abuse research - marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease, and cognitive impairment. We know from an array of treatment admission information and Federal data that marijuana use is a significant source for voluntary drug treatment admissions and visits to emergency rooms. Studies also reveal that marijuana potency has almost tripled over the past 20 years, raising serious concerns about what this means for public health – especially among young people who use the drug because research shows their brains continue to develop well into their 20's. Simply put, it is not a benign drug.

Like many, we are interested in the potential marijuana may have in providing relief to individuals diagnosed with certain serious illnesses. That is why we ardently support ongoing research into determining what components of the marijuana plant can be used as medicine. To date, however, neither the FDA nor the Institute of Medicine have found smoked marijuana to meet the modern standard for safe or effective medicine for any condition.

As a former police chief, I recognize we are not going to arrest our way out of the problem. We also recognize that legalizing marijuana would not provide the answer to any of the health, social, youth education, criminal justice, and community quality of life challenges associated with drug use.

That is why the President's National Drug Control Strategy is balanced and comprehensive, emphasizing prevention and treatment while at the same time supporting innovative law enforcement efforts that protect public safety and disrupt the supply of drugs entering our communities. Preventing drug use is the most cost-effective way to reduce drug use and its consequences in America. And, as we've seen in our work through community coalitions across the country, this approach works in making communities healthier and safer. We're also focused on expanding access to drug treatment for addicts. Treatment works. In fact, millions of Americans are in successful recovery for drug and alcoholism today. And through our work with innovative drug courts across the Nation, we are improving our criminal justice system to divert non-violent offenders into treatment.

Our commitment to a balanced approach to drug control is real. This last fiscal year alone, the Federal Government spent over $10 billion on drug education and treatment programs compared to just over $9 billion on drug related law enforcement in the U.S.

Thank you for making your voice heard. I encourage you to take a moment to read about the President's approach to drug control to learn more.

Resources:

• National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
• Marijuana Facts (ONDCP)
• Drug Abuse Warning Network (HHS)
• Treatment Episode Data Set (HHS)
• National Survey on Drug Use and Health (HHS)
• Monitoring the Future Survey, University of Michigan

Gil Kerlikowske is Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy

Record-High 50% of Americans Favor Legalizing Marijuana Use

Record-High 50% of Americans Favor Legalizing Marijuana Use
PRINCETON, NJ -- A record-high 50% of Americans now say the use of marijuana should be made legal, up from 46% last year. Forty-six percent say marijuana use should remain illegal.

When Gallup first asked about legalizing marijuana, in 1969, 12% of Americans favored it, while 84% were opposed. Support remained in the mid-20s in Gallup measures from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, but has crept up since, passing 30% in 2000 and 40% in 2009 before reaching the 50% level in this year's Oct. 6-9 annual Crime survey.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, "Marijuana is the most commonly abused illicit drug in the United States." The National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2009 found that "16.7 million Americans aged 12 or older used marijuana at least once in the month prior to being surveyed, an increase over the rates reported in all years between 2002 and 2008."

The advocacy group National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws claims that marijuana is the third-most-popular recreational drug in America, behind only alcohol and tobacco. Some states have decriminalized marijuana's use, some have made it legal for medicinal use, and some officials, including former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, have called for legalizing its use.

A Gallup survey last year found that 70% favored making it legal for doctors to prescribe marijuana in order to reduce pain and suffering. Americans have consistently been more likely to favor the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes than to favor its legalization generally.

Younger Americans Most in Favor of Legalizing Marijuana

Support for legalizing marijuana is directly and inversely proportional to age, ranging from 62% approval among those 18 to 29 down to 31% among those 65 and older. Liberals are twice as likely as conservatives to favor legalizing marijuana. And Democrats and independents are more likely to be in favor than are Republicans.

More men than women support legalizing the drug. Those in the West and Midwest are more likely to favor it than those in the South.

Bottom Line

Support for legalizing marijuana has been increasing over the past several years, rising to 50% today -- the highest on record. If this current trend on legalizing marijuana continues, pressure may build to bring the nation's laws into compliance with the people's wishes.

The start of a real discussion?

Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol. | The White House

We the people want to know when we can have our "perfectly legitimate" discussion on marijuana legalization. Marijuana prohibition has resulted in the arrest of over 20 million Americans since 1965, countless lives ruined and hundreds of billions of tax dollars squandered and yet this policy has still failed to achieve its stated goals of lowering use rates, limiting the drug's access, and creating safer communities.

Isn't it time to legalize and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol? If not, please explain why you feel that the continued criminalization of cannabis will achieve the results in the future that it has never achieved in the past?

Harry J. Anslinger

Legalize 2012 : Colorado Marijuana Legalization Campaign

Legalize 2012 is putting a citizen's initiative on the ballot in Colorado in 2012 to amend the Constitution to re-legalize cannabis and hemp for all uses. The Legalize 2012 Project is a grassroots organization working with all cannabis activists in the state to write an initiative that has a broad base of support.

For medical cannabis patients, the Legalize 2012 Constitutional Amendment is an important step in fixing Amendment 20, Colorado's flawed medical marijuana law that was passed by voters in 2000. Amendment 20 was poorly-written by out-of-state interests and has allowed the state to take over the medical marijuana program to the point where there is now a new branch of law enforcement dedicated to fingerprinting and videotaping patients and tracking every gram of cannabis from "seed to sale." Citizens can write a better initiative that will allow all adult Coloradans to have safe access to cannabis, thus protecting the rights of sick people to also have unfettered, safe access.

Get involved in the real grassroots effort to put an initiative on the ballot in Colorado: Legalize 2012.

Opinion Poll

Some states have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Where do you stand?

4 hours later

"Going to pot? April 21, 2011"

Mexico's Ex-President: Drug Prohibition Doesn't Work

​Former Mexican President Vicente Fox, said at Thursday news conference in San Diego that prohibiting drugs doesn't work.

"We're talking about the last frontier of prohibition," Fox said. "Tell me something else that is prohibited today? Abortion is permitted. Marriage between same-sex [people] now is permitted ... Smoking cigarettes is permitted; alcohol is permitted."

To little to late I guess.