(Los Angeles Times) An initiative to legalize marijuana and allow it to be sold and taxed will appear on the November ballot, state election officials announced Wednesday, triggering what will probably be a much-watched campaign that once again puts California on the forefront of the nation’s debate over whether to soften drug laws.
The number of valid signatures reported by Los Angeles County, submitted minutes before Wednesday’s 5 p.m. deadline, put the measure well beyond the 433,971 it needed to be certified. Supporters turned in 694,248 signatures, collecting them in every county except Alpine. County election officials estimated that 523,531 were valid.
[Oaksterdam's Richard] Lee, tapping $1.3 million from his businesses, has put together a highly organized campaign that he emphasized Wednesday would be led by a team of experienced political consultants, including Chris Lehane, a veteran operative who has worked in the White House and on presidential campaigns.
Opponents have also started to put together their campaign. “There’s going to be a very broad coalition opposing this that will include law enforcement,” said John Lovell, a Sacramento lobbyist who represents the California Police Chiefs Assn. and other law enforcement groups. “We’ll educate people as to what this measure really entails.”
As California goes, so goes the nation. (Bonus factoid: the initiative will probably be numbered “20″ on the ballot. ”Vote for 20″. Sounds good, doesn’t it?)
You can expect to see a lot of Gil Kerlikowske using our federal tax dollars to campaign against this state initiative. With the new Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, you can bet that alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical behemoths will be pouring millions into anti-legalization ads, not to mention the state’s most powerful Prison Guards Union and other law enforcement, drug rehab, and drug testing entities.
If we legalize pot, the terrorists win. Seriously, the caption at NipItInTheBud2010 for this picture: "Will legalizing Marijuana place our National Security at risk? We think so. It has been proven that Marijuana use causes memory loss. How will California defend itself in a newly intoxicated condition? - Not very well. Marijuana use causes poor judgment and forgetfulness. Marijuana blocks pain receptors, causing emotional and metabolic instability. Can we afford to be this irresposnible and have a casual attitude about Marijuana in a world haunted by the lessons we have to learn each day from terror?"
But if the following is any indication of the quality of their arguments, we’ll have a sure win in November. The first website I could find against the initiative is called NipItInTheBud2010.org, and it is unintentionally hilarious. The lead headline to scare you from legalizing marijuana?
Killer fungus festers on Marijuana plants
In a recent interview with KQED Public Media radio host Michael Krasny, highly regarded attorney and lobbyist John Lovell brought up a most interesting and quite frankly frightening reality which we have confirmed. While Lovell pointed out the fact that Marijuana has cancer causing agents, he also confirmed Marijuana carried Aspergillus, a toxic fungus with fatal consequences.
Ah, the old Aspergillus argument. This is the reason given to transplant patients as to why they can’t use medical marijuana, because the deadly mold would compromise the survival of the transplanted organ. That deadly mold which causes 0.88255 deaths per 1 million people in the United States, with 261 deaths in 2004, is something we’re supposed to fear more than “accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed” (327 deaths), “acute appendicitis” (371 deaths), and “acid reflux disease” (721 deaths) (and that’s just the “A’s”).
Aspergillus is something the community should be aware of, just as people should know eating undercooked eggs, shellfish, and meat can lead to salmonella or e coli poisoning. But the way we protect diners from these diseases (which, by the way, kill 5,000 a year) is with warnings about undercooked food on menus and rules for food preparation and sanitization for workers.
In California, the development of quasi-legal dispensaries has led to standardization of marijuana production and very careful inspection of cannabis plants prior to harvest and sale. Just as a restaurant would go out of business if poor sanitation led to e coli deaths of its diners, a dispensary will not sell mold-infected cannabis. With a tax and regulate system in place where the state of California can enforce stringent plant quality guidelines, aspergillus deaths would be less likely than under the prohibition we have now.
Alexandra Datig says "We must not allow the Marijuana activists to sell us on the idea that intoxicating California with Marijuana is somehow going to help our productivity, make our schools safer, our communities stronger and our lives healthier."
Alexandra Datig is behind this website and offers a personal plea to stop marijuana legalization in its tracks:
“Our children, adults, senior citizens and pets would inhale second-had [sic] smoke from Marijuana, which has been proven to be five times more harmful than the smoke from tobacco products.”
Gee, since 440,000 Americans die from tobacco smoking every year, that must mean 2.2 million people die every year from cannabis smoking, right? That would be “five times more harmful”, right?
Datig is referencing the hoary old “cannabis smoke has 5x the carcinogens of tobacco smoke” shibboleth. It’s true; cannabis smoke – any smoke – contains carcinogens. That’s not the same as saying it causes cancer.
This notion of cannabis and carcinogens is what led Dr. Donald Tashkin at UCLA to study pot smoking for thirty years to verify that it had some link to lung cancer:
(Current) “What we found instead was no association and even a suggestion of some protective effect,” says Tashkin, whose research was the largest case-control study ever conducted. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Tobacco smokers in the study had as much as a 21-fold increase in lung cancer risk. Cigarette smokers, too, developed COPD more often in the study, and researchers found that marijuana did not impair lung function. Tashkin, supported by other research, concluded that the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, has an “anti- tumoral effect” in which “cells die earlier before they age enough to develop mutations that might lead to lung cancer.”
However, the smoke from marijuana did swell the airways and lead to a greater risk of chronic bronchitis.
“Early on, when our research appeared as if there would be a negative impact on lung health, I was opposed to legalization because I thought it would lead to increased use and that would lead to increased health effects,” Tashkin says.
“But at this point, I’d be in favor of legalization. I wouldn’t encourage anybody to smoke any substances, because of the potential for harm. But I don’t think it should be stigmatized as an illegal substance.
“Tobacco smoking causes far more harm. And in terms of an intoxicant, alcohol causes far more harm.”
Alexandra continues:
“The T.H.C. from second-hand Marijuana smoke would stay in non-users systems for at least 10 days. If a drug test were necessary for a job opportunity, innocent victims of second-hand Marijuana smoke would lose his or her opportunity because he or she would not pass a drug test.”
Because, you know, if cannabis is re-legalized in California, everywhere you go you will be subject to rooms full of people smoking cannabis. Funny, every time I ever tried to use the “second-hand smoke” argument at a drug test they just laughed at me. So does Craig Medical, a leading manufacturer of urine screening kits for cannabis use:
Q: My teenager tests positive for THC but claims exposure to “second hand smoke”. Is this possible?
A: No. Urine concentrations of THC above the cutoff sensitivity level of the test, or a positive result, are not possible by exposure to second hand smoke.
Alexandra, please, go on:
The Marijuana activists want to fully legalize Marijuana now and they are demanding that we apply the same standards to Marijuana that we use with alcohol. The activists are not going near any comparison when it comes to tobacco because they know we have learned enough about the harms of tobacco to know it’s [sic] health consequences can be fatal over time.
Which makes me wonder why she isn’t arguing for tobacco prohibition. But speaking of tobacco, isn’t it interesting that the most highly-addictive drug out there has plummeted in popularity, not by arresting people, but by keeping it legal, tightly regulated, and educating people honestly about the harms of tobacco.
The Marijuana activists also know that they would not get anywhere with the people if they compared Marijuana to tobacco. Therefore they are shadowboxing with alcohol as their argument of “equal legitimacy”, however they do not acknowledge that Marijuana has no regulations in place. Alcohol is government regulated and controlled. Alcohol must go through various rigorous approval processes from the first to the last step of labeling and bottling.
Uhhhhh… I think I just lost ten IQ points reading that last paragraph. The entire point of this initiative is to put regulations in place for cannabis so that it is regulated and controlled like alcohol!
The Marijuana activists want adults to become “pot-gardeners” and legalized drug dealers, free from responsible processes and realistic oversight. Fertilizers will pollute groundwater resources. Pesticides will make users sick. The smoke from the Marijuana will pollute the environment that is already in dire need.
No, that’s what we have now. Prohibition forces commercial growers into the national forests, terracing land, spilling diesel, and polluting the environment. The TaxCannabis2010 initiative allows a personal garden of 5′ x 5′; hardly more area than what you’d expect for someone’s tomato, cucumber, and radish garden and no more in need of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Commercial growers will be subject to the land use, zoning, and agricultural regulations adopted by those localities that choose to allow commercial production.
(I’m also having trouble picturing how “The smoke from the Marijuana will pollute the environment” any more than it is now, with at least 1 in 10 Californians using cannabis now.)
On another page, the website helps us see “through the Haze and Confusion of Marijuana“:
Marijuana has never killed anyone, has it?
Answer: Marijuana has claimed 279 lives between the years of 1997 and 2005.
The link provided for this “stat” takes us to ProCon.org’s main page. After digging through the “Should we legalize medical marijuana” link, I found a link to “medical risks” and then to “Can marijuana use cause death?” The “pro” side lists no such “279 lives” stat, and the “con” side includes an Associate Director for Clinical Research at Kaiser Permanente; a former US Surgeon General; the U.S. Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; and the DEA’s own Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young, who found:
At present it is estimated that marijuana’s LD-50 [lethal dose for at least 50% of subjects] is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means in order to induce death, a smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette.
NIDA-supplied [National Institute of Drug Abuse] marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately 0.9 grams. A smoker would have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about 15 minutes to induce a lethal response.
More unintentional hilarity from the site:
Is Marijuana used by people who want to come down from Meth, Cocaine or other stimulant use?
Answer: Yes. Marijuana is the number one cross-addiction drug in the United States, for addicts who want to avoid seeing his or her doctor to undergo a physical and obtain prescription drugs.
Brian Zembic, you didn't need to buy breast implants to win that bet! Just smoke a whole lot of pot, according to Alexandra Datig. (And do a man's nipples really need to be covered?)
Wait, you’re admitting that people can come down from hard drugs by using cannabis? And you’re framing that as a bad thing? How weird is it to have human beings with enough intellect to put together some late-90′s-quality HTML web site, yet daft enough to prefer an addict take methadone or some other prescription drug to kick addiction rather than cannabis?
Will smoking Marijuana affect my physique?
Answer: Marijuana can cause the “man-boob” symdrome [sic]. It will also stimulate your appetite and if you are a borderline diabetic can make you into a full diabetic if you are not careful with over stimulated reflexes that have your hands reaching for food. This may result in weight gain and there are also studies that indicate men may develop a “man-boob” chest, making a man look like he has a woman’s chest.
So there you have it: we can’t legalize marijuana in California because the good kids will flunk drug tests from the second-hand smoke of our man-boobed teenaged pot addicts as they inhale deadly molds and die of lung cancer. I can’t quite explain why this hasn’t happened over the course of the past few decades of marijuana use in California… and neither can Alexandra and the reefer mad prohibitionists.
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[...] This is the tired old Aspergillus argument. This is a mold that can occur when someone cures harvested cannabis improperly. How much of a real risk is that? As I wrote back in March: [...]
[...] This is the tired old Aspergillus argument. Â This is a mold that can occur when someone cures harvested cannabis improperly. Â How much of a real risk is that? Â As I wrote back in March: [...]
[...] That same federal law that finds Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act to be null and void, that Seely uses to defend discrimination against cannabis patients, still applies to these veterans, yet the federal government is looking the other way now. Is the government that allows medical marijuana-using vets to get liver-killing opioids really going to step in and force OHSU to deny that same vet a life saving liver transplant? (Well, probably. In five years on the front lines of the drug war, nothing the government would do surprises me. But shouldn't doctors and hospitals be fighting for the lives of patients, not cowering before the government?) Seely says that, in addition, transplant doctors are afraid of a fungal infection occurring in patients who smoke marijuana. This is the tired old Aspergillus argument. This is a mold that can occur when someone cures harvested cannabis improperly. How much of a real risk is that? As I wrote back in March: [...]
LEGALIZE IT!
Historic statewide initiative in California to legalize, control, and tax cannabis. Help build national support for the movement. Sign up on the website, join the campaign! taxcannabis.org
I would like to see the research and sources on the man-boob syndrome argument. What next if they legalize, our dogs will start talking to us too? This is just another “Stoners in the Mist” propaganda piece with no science or research behind it. Only a few facts taken out of context and a few Red Herrings to feed the sheeple. Right marijuana has anything to do with 9/11. It reminds me of the Family Guy where Lois runs for mayor and her whole speech is “9/11″ again and again with the anticipation and adoration of the audience growing each time she says it. Weed doesn’t make me emotionless or forgetful. Actually it turns my thoughts to deeper things and the significance and meaning of all the crap that we have to deal with in this world. Sometimes we use it to escape, too, when the physical or emotional pain gets too real and we just need a little bit of relief, but that’s not all its about. And weed certainly won’t make all of those problems go away. No duh.
The “nipitinthebud2010″ site is hilarious too. NORML is a well funded, well designed network of webpages. This…this looks like the basic MS Notepad HTML I did in high-school computer class. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be attacking their web-designers. It’s besides the point.
It’s just beyond me how anyone could be persuaded by these prohib arguments. There seems to be nothing they can claim that we didn’t debunk with actual research years ago. The flaws and fallacies in their arguments (at least Datig’s) are so blatant. “We should not have to learn the devastating and costly lessons we had to learn from the days of tobacco.” AS IF tobacco is a distant memory of the past??? Correct me if i’m wrong but civilization has been using cannabis much longer than tobacco, right? Don’t you think if there were “devastating and costly lessons” to learn we would have learned them a long time ago? Of course we didn’t know the dangers and health effects of tobacco until we developed more advanced science and research, but cannabis has been around just as long and just as extensively researched as we can manage with it being illegal.
That little graphic on the right hand side with the picture of the cute little lab mouse arguing that the FDA needs to study Cannabis effects on animals first, before humans: That only seems to make sense when Big Pharma-corp is throwing together any combination of chemicals into a pill, of course we’d want THAT to kill a mouse before a human, right? Now how many Law firm commercials do you see saying, “If you took Poppapillophen and got sick or DIED, you may be entitled to monetary compensation…” and many of those very medicines were or are still advertised on every channel you watch! Obviously the FDA has some quality-control issues and shouldn’t be the gold standard for whats safe and what isn’t. And BESIDES all of that, how many diet pills, energy supplements, vitamins, herbal remedies, and experimental treatments do you see for sale or advertised every day that specifically disclaim in the fine print, “These statements/products have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to cure, prevent, or treat any disease or illness.” Yes Alexandra, we are allowed to put things into our body without the FDA to tell us if its safe. We, get this, “think for ourselves” and “take risks.” Can you say “liberty”, Alexandra? Cannabis isn’t some new prescription drug with no human trials it’s been around almost forever and used my millions throughout history. Of course, my ganja-brethren already know this.
Last thing, Alexandra, do you realize what platinum bleach does to your hair, the environment, and my sensitive eyes? How dare you!
Well good job Russ, great article and you said it better than I ever could. I’m only a grasshoppah.
The other comments are awesome too! I totally agree on hemp, but I am curious on how all the male pollen would effect our Mary Jane gardens. Are there any articles around that can answer some FAQs about that?
Holy Poop!
I can’t believe that the prohibitionists hired a hooker!
Can hardly wrap my brain around that one!
Of all the people they could have tapped for the job, they choose a whore…unbelievable
It looks like their side is crumbling…remember when Hitler ordered the elderly, young, and sick to fight in the battle of Berlin? Seems like the prohibitionists are on the last of their resources, at least human resources…
After smoking pot for 6 years on and off… I wish my man-boobs were bigger so I could have something to play with when I am lonely… Too bad they are still as flat as they were before I started smoking. Under her reasoning McDonald´s should now be illegal because it cause man-boobs. Makes logical sense…
Her whole bit about the regulation of alcohol vs cannabis made me dumber too Russ
There’s a question for Dr. Mitch: Is there ANY way to test and confirm that someone’s aspergillus infection came from cannabis? If so, whats that number, and why the heck are the prohibitionists too dumb to use that number…i have a feeling its because such data is non-existant.
I’ll post the response from Dr. Earleywine here as soon as I get an answer.
Here’s to the good doc!
Secondly, MJ smoke pollutes the environment?! What does Ms Datig think the authorities do to a field, or a shipment once it is busted? They burn it, they burn it all. If prohibitionists were really concerned for the environment they could simply compost all the confiscated plant material. This fact reveals that prohibitionists are simply playing lip-service to environmentalists for personal gain (in the form of increased funding and promotions to continue the failed war on drugs)
It’s not Us that scares them. They just USE us to scare everyone else, so nobody notices what it is that REALLY scares them HEMP.
I’m beginning to think that maybe we’re pushing against the hardest wall unnecessarily. Maybe we could get our way faster if we push over the hemp wall first
Hemp is after all the biggest threat to the corporocracy but unfortunately for them their argument against it is the one that holds the least water, so they turn to us as a last hope.
She used to be one of Heidi Fleiss’ call girls too:
Ex-hooker sues, saying book she co-athored libels her
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1683&dat=19960419&id=IHAaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_C0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=3110,3657846
—
Now she’s working for the law enforcement lobby. Ah yes, there’s no whore like an old whore.
http://www.jackherer.com/chapter01.html The Emperor Wears No Clothes By Jack Herer
“In later times, some shall…speak lies in hypocrisy…commanding to abstain from that which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” Paul: 1 Tim. 4:1
In 1938 Popular Mechanics headline was The billion dollar crop Today it would probably be The trillion dollar crop They know it They know mj is a miracle drug but won’t admit it Otherwise how could they keep hemp illegal Hemp laws are their control of the economy and treason against the republic Ya probably most politicians are duped by the lies themselves I’m putting Jacks link in all my posts and emails Spread the word
Vote 4 20
LOVE IT! I hope its question 20 *crosses fingers*
These reefer madness claims will be debunked in about .015 seconds, or about the time it takes to google NORML.ORG. We will tear the prohibitionists a new one faster tha than the blink of an eye (about .5 seconds.) We have the truth, hear us ROAR!
Sometimes you just gotta feel sorry for these people. They have grown up spending their whole lives strictly adhering to what other people thought and never questioning their beliefs. They are so afraid to step out of the comfort zone of a reality by dictate that if their brains were capable of comprehending the truth for a moment, it might cause a grand mal seizure of paranoid psychosis.
They are afraid to live, they are afraid to be, they are afraid to think. All we can do is publicly repudiate their arguments and hope enough people are smart enough to actually listen and not simply judge based on what they’ve been told.
Luckily the truth is on our side, for what THAT’s worth.
This us just a thought, but why do we always let the anti people run these types of debates. They all focus on the buzz and “dangers of smoking” and we all play right into it. How about shifting the conversation to hemp, and demand that they find fault in that. Second hand smoke? Grow your plants indoors to convert the smoke into clean air. Hemp is a master air quality controller.
Health dangers? Poverty is a huge detriment to health, Hemp grown and sold for industrial uses would have many environmental implications as well as fiscal ones.
Hell, we could even entice them with the fact that hemp would reduce production of unfavorable variants that they fight against in that mass hemp production would cause seeding of the females that we love to smoke. If Hemp was grown all over the state, it would be hard not to pollinate an outdoor grow for medicinal and recreational use. The hemp arguments could almost all be in their favor, if hemp wasn’t Marijuana in disguise. Which is about the only argument they could use against Hemp.
Just an idea.
Peace
I don’t know whether tp puke or be jealous about that manboob thing I’ve been trying over 40 yrs and ain’t got a handful
OMG, that website is hilarious. The fear mongering on it is also very laughable. I believe that only helps our cause.
Good one Russ .. These people have me scratching my head … what do that have of substance. Then then present tea party insanity comes to mind … It does not matter if something is real to these people. If FOX news says it, it must be true. We will see what FOX has to say…