The Argument Against Marijuana Is Losing Steam.

Share |

How is it that we have a Federal Law Enforcement Agency dedicated to Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, yet the focus remains on marijuana as if it were the most lethal substance known to man.

Below are the statistics for 2009 in the United Stated for deaths related directly to Alcohol, Tobacco, Fireams, and Marijuana.






Alcohol................................. .85,000

Tobacco ...............................435,000

Incidents Involving Firearms.....29,000

Marijuana ........................................0

There seems to be no logical argument for not legalizing marijuana. I don't mean just for medical proposes. I mean for any adult who cares to use marijuana. There is a shopping center near my home where I can buy a bottle of booze, a carton of smokes, and a God Damn shotgun and box of shells in a matter of minutes. That's perfectly legal and there are folks all over the country where that may seem like a typical day of shopping.

Exactly who is the beneficiary of the war on drugs and particularly the war against marijuana? - What about the more then half a million Americans that will die as a direct result of Alcohol, Tobacco, or Firearms? - Shouldn't we launch a war on those three controlled substances first? - It makes sence if we're trying to save lives. Let's close down all of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearm dispensaries. It's time to make a serious choice. Either Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firarms will have to be outlawed like marijuana, or marijuana will have to be legalized for sales, pruchase, and consumption like alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.

Proponents of an initiative to make California the first state to legalize marijuana have collected about 693,800 signatures, virtually guaranteeing that the measure will appear on a crowded November ballot.

"This is a historic first step toward ending cannabis prohibition," said Richard Lee, the measure's main backer.

Advocates, trailed by television cameras and photographers, dropped off petitions with elections officials in the state's largest counties, including Los Angeles, where organizers said 143,105 voters signed.

Lee, a successful Oakland marijuana entrepreneur, bankrolled a professional signature-gathering effort that circulated the petition in every county except Alpine, which only has about 800 registered voters.

The initiative would make it legal for anyone 21 and older to possess an ounce of marijuana and grow plants in an area no larger than 25 square feet for personal use. It would also allow cities and counties to permit marijuana to be grown and sold, and to impose taxes on it.

Polls have shown growing support nationwide for legalization. In California, a Field Poll taken in April found that 56% of voters in the state and 60% in Los Angeles County want to make pot legal and tax it.

Foes also have started to organize. Paul Chabot, founder of the Coalition for a Drug Free California, said teachers, youth activists, religious leaders, small-business men, law enforcement personnel and elected officials are putting together a coalition. "We're going to fight them head on; we're not going to go away," he said. "We're looking forward to victory in California and spreading that message like a tidal wave across the United States."

On a lighter note: "When it absolutely, positively has to be there tomorrow." don't ship weed to your homegirl via FedEx. I'm just sayin'

- Chico Brisbane

Gun Control Opposition Will Only Expand Gun Control Legislation

Share |

Trying to come to some sort of consensus between the Second Amendment and gun control legislation is made even more difficult due to the topic not being just a two sided issue. It's easy to know where people stand when the there are only those who are for or against an issue. In the case of gun control, I am one of those who is somewhere in the middle of the issue. The Second Amendment of the Constitution provides the right for individuls to keep and bare arms and that is a right that should never be taken away. EVER! - Now having said that, I do think that like many provisions of the constitution, changes in society make it necessary to sometimes expand, reduce the provisions of the amendment.

Obama is actually straddling the issue somewhat like the Bush Administration did when it filed a brief in the [D.C. gun] case last month. He does support individual rights, but says—and this is the qualifier--the government can impose reasonable restrictions on gun ownership. And he then suggests that any existing laws are reasonable.

To cite Justice Scalia himself from his majority opinion:

"Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited...[It is not a] right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."

If anyone is hurting the Second Amendment and the right to bare arms, it's the NRA and their ultra radical fear mongering and George Bush type ALL-OR-NOTHING mentality. As gun owners, I think that we can start to regulate ourselves or run the risk of having the Government do it for us. On every single level, from the election of Barack Obama and Joe Biden to House Congressional races and local ballot initiatives, the gun lobby's fear mongering lost, and sensible candidates who support gun violence prevention won. In states where the gun lobby boasts of its power in key battleground states, and where the NRA claims to have large numbers of hunters and NRA members, such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, Barack Obama rolled right of their "perception" of power and rightfully so.

If any gun owner and NRA member what's to preserve the right to own a gun, they'd better think twice if they think that the NRA can responsibly champion thecause via scare tactics and the tired "From my dead cold hands" mantra. In 2007, there were approximately 12,000 people killed in gun-related homicides, yet at the same time 16,750 people committed suicide with a gun, plus another 650 unintentional gun related death. Not to take away from those sad statistics, there were 625,328 people who died by other accidental means during the same time period. About 40,000 of which died in traffic accidents. And a large percentage of those accidents involved alcohol. The rest resulted for other types of accidents including, but not limited to work and industrial, drug overdoses and drowning, slips and falls, and recreational accidents just to namr a few.

With a population of 305,519,779 people in the United States, the odds of being killed in a gun-related crime are not worth depriving an entire country of their constitution right to own a gun(s) - The question is: How many, what types, and what requirements must be met to exercize that right.

The video below illustrates an exaggerated view of the opposition over the issue, but as I said before. One has to question the motives of those who want to own an arsonal of weapons and particularlly unregistered firearms without Government intrusion whatsoever. If you have to prove that the can safely operate a motor vehicle in this country before being licenced to do so, than something similar should be mandated to own and operate a firearm.
Barack Obama and Archie Bunker On Gun Control

WATCH VIDEO: