Washington Post hints Wisconsin ripe for legalizing marijuana
I recently covered a story that is making people talk about hemp and cannabis with truth, honesty and compassion, especially when addressing the problems with prohibition. Alcohol prohibition did not work and neither is the war on marijuana our country continues to wage. As with any war, innocents victims are slaughtered everyday, both with death and unjustified expenses and burdens to our public safety. The story I covered addressed a study that just came out showing alcohol is more lethal than heroin and crack cocaine.
Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.
Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, were the most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social effects, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the deadliest. But overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.
I was reading an article this morning in the Washington Post covering what they called the “mixed views on marijuana” in The Melthing Pot. I did grab a couple nuggets from the article to share with you on why Wisconsin is revealing the truth about this often misunderstood plant. Not surprising is who works hard lobbying to keep recreational cannabis/marijuana from users.
The biggest lobbyist: . . . for continued illegality is the alcohol industry.
The article goes on to comment about the increasing public safety concerns and destruction of our public lands by Mexican Drug Cartels. Even the threat of stumbling into these “grow ops” and the constant warnings by Wisconsin news media and DNR are driving our tourists away in droves, not to mention some indicate harming our deer herd population. A comment from Illinois caught my attention.
Elmhurst,Ill.: If legalizing it will reduce crime, then I am all for it. It scares me when I hear a news report from Wisconsin warning hunters this season to be cautious of running into drug dealers who are growing pot in the Northwoods.
Adrian Higgins: Yes. Curiously, Wisconsin has become a state where the cartels are supposedly cultivating it.
Not curiously, scary. The recent “drug busts” or illegal grows in our state forests and common lands, along with the costs of these “operations” are taking the toll on the non-marijuana user and not putting a dent in marijuana production or consumption. Wisconsin is back in then news again, with 3000 pounds of pot found at a Toro plant in Plymouth. Now innocent workers and employees are in danger also? This is getting ridiculous. The costs in enforcement alone are killing us. If you look up the costs to fly a drug war helicopter around spotting plants in the woods and how much that could aide our students in our schools, I think you would be disgusted with our uncontrolled, unregulated, unjustified and wasteful spending on marijuana. How much did it cost and who paid for the more than 200 local, state, and federal agents flooded the two counties in an effort to dismantle marijuana operations this past August in Wisconsin? After it is all said and done, rather than harvest the plant and sell it or give to Michigan or the other states that allow medical marijuana, they burn it for themselves. NO PUN INTENDED!

Another target of that wasteful spending is mandatory and required drug testing. In the field I have heard examples of parolees testing positive for marijuana and being forced to come back in two weeks to “pea in the cup” again, and then again, and again, and again. Drug testing is a huge business and as our friend James Gierach from http://www.leap.cc/ (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) points out “that many people and their jobs/income come from riding the drug war gravy train” and reminds us to question authority and where their income and funding comes from. There is more to the subject of course, but the Washington Post article hits on some of them.
Falls Church: If medical marijuana becomes legal in the District, what do you think will happen to all the government employees who are randomly drug tested? A surprisingly large number of paper-pusher jobs are subject to random drug testing.
Adrian Higgins: This is one of the unintended offshoots of legalization. It’s an issue legislatures and courts are grappling with.
No matter which way you cut it, marijuana reform is big business. Some argue prohibition leads to big government business and creates the very attractive “drug war gravy train” and stomping speech for politicians to save our kids from drugs. While others touch on the other side of the issue, that marijuana is big business in agriculture of course, some state will have to grow all these crops, but the plethora of jobs that exist is just now being touched on.
Reston: How do you expect big business will get into the grab a dollar from legalization of marijuana?
DNA modified varieties which are licensed to growers like corn crops?
Adrian Higgins: Like everything else, they will mass produce it and then market it to death.
This is the only time you will see me associate marijuana with death. Despite conventional belief marijuana is non-toxic and non-intoxicating. Marijuana is similar to caffeine, it is psychoactive. But because THC does not react with the brain stem, it is impossible to overdose. No one has ever died from consuming marijuana and people have been using cannabis since prehistory.
Wisconsin is known for regulations on business, high taxes and even higher regard for public safety. Finally these “virtues” will an asset when designing comprehensive laws to regulate, tax and protect the marijuana industry. In these trying economic times, economic recovery, energy independence and improved public safety are critical. Legalizing Industrial Hemp, Medical Marijuana and Recreational Cannabis will help with this three items and provide funding for additional agendas.

With marijuana laws changing from coast to coast, some states will be left behind and some state will benefit the most. Help Wisconsin move FORWARD today and donate to the Campaign Fund for Friends of Jay Selthofner, Independent Candidate for Wisconsin State Assembly in District 41.
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