The Informant

The government wants people to want marijuana. This way they can charge out the A$$ and people would be willing to pay.

When prop 19 passes , the feds will be forced either way ,give up prohibition or arrest 1/2 the population of CA

all the other states will follow just like MMJ

prop dis prop dat wtf……lol too many propz!

The federal government will withhold billions more in funds than the taxation of marijuana could ever produce. If marijuana is to be legalized it will have to first be done at the federal level.

Money is just about the only thing that could cause prop 19 to not pass. If the opposition gets large sums of money closer to election day they could spew reefer madness all over the place, but it will be the awful tv ads that would be most critical. Right now, neither side has money for tv ads. I've been keeping an eye on this prop since it was written and I really think the authors were preparing for all the attacks that have come out recently. They knew every little thing crazy prohibitionists were going to say about this and they wrote prop 19 around that. I predict that as this prop gets shot through the media like the political juggernaut it will soon be, in terms of exposure, the absurd and unreasoned attacks coming from the opposition (cough— Feinstein) will work against them. The Broadus effect, I think, will add at least 1% in favor, which will only be known on election day. Overall, unless large sums of money come pouring in from either side, I think prop 19 will win by at least 52%.

You don't read, or know, much about US history, I take it… Let's go back less than 100 years, and look at the beginnings of the end of alcohol prohibition. (Hint: it started at the STATE level)

When Prop 19 passes, it will be chaos. There will be a lot more drug cartels in CA shipping CA marijuana to other states with more killings and violence. Corruption will be at an all time high with people not following and enforcing marijuana laws because the whole thing becomes out of control and unenforceable. Millions of people will grow pot at home for more than 25 sq ft and traffic them to the other states for millions of dollars. The CA forests and any empty land in CA will be used to grow pot to traffic to the other states for millions more. The other states will become fed up and will legalize marijuana. Once, legal in the USA, the tax money from marijuana will go to the pension plans of the government employees. Then a year later, the government will say, “We do not have any money. We still have a big deficit. We need to raise sales taxes, etc.” Then it is back to square one, except for now, the entire country is doped and the government employees have more lucrative pension plans.

Passage of the CA Proposition 19 will deal a serious blow to the Mexican drug cartels and to the “drug war” in general. It will also restore sanity to the California State budget by collecting sizable Cannabis revenues and eliminating the wasteful spending on the so-called anti-Cannabis “enforcement”. It is established by the science of addiction medicine that the so-called “gateway drug” theory, advanced by the opponents of the measure is a complete fantasy, as is the assertion that Cannabis is “physically addictive”. Cannabis is NOT physically addictive, as there is no clearly definable and reproducible PHYSICAL withdrawal syndrome, associated with its use, as opposed to truly physically addictive substances such as opiates or alcohol. In fact, the latest addiction medicine research reveals that Cannabis may serve as an “exit” substance with the potential of helping former alcoholics or hard drug users to abstain from alcohol, hard drugs, or even dangerous and physically addictive prescription drugs! It is also being established that Cannabis use may help prevent such serious illnesses as cancer and Alzheimer's disease! Cannabis use also suppresses violent urges and behaviors. Let's not be intimidated by the scare-tactics of the “opponents”, but be motivated instead by science, reason and understanding of these issues, and this means voting YES on California Proposition 19 on November 2!

Hi, mmj.

When the 28th Amendment was repealed, it was chaos. There were bootlegers shipping booze to dry counties with more killings and violence. Corruption was at an all time high with people not following and not enforcing alcohol laws, and the whole thing became out of control and nuenforcable. Millions of people fermented alcohol at home and trafficked it to other states for millions of dollars. State forests and all empty land was used to construct breweries to make alcohol to traffic out of state for millions more. Every dry county eventually got fed up and legalized sales. The government used alcohol excise taxes to pad its employees' pensions, but no one cared because everyone was too drunk.

Oh, wait. None of that happened.

Usually that level of absurd paranoia only comes from someone very, very high

“When the 28th Amendment was repealed, it was chaos. There were bootlegers shipping booze to dry counties ” There are still dry counties in the US, Wikipedia has a list. You don't hear about it because it is not a problem. I doubt there is much bootlegging today as you can buy the safe real booze. The only reason to bootleg these days is to evade taxes and possibly cultural.

The way this will get defeated is if folks do not like the land owner controlled gardens of just 5×5 and only one per property.
Folks may want personal gardening freedom.

But then again most folks don't know the difference between decriminalization and re-legalization.

They will when they find a millionaire can grow all the pot he wants but poor people will go to jail for too many plants or lack of permission to grow from on overlord.

The “Marijuana will bring more money to the state” is a total hoax. It is as big of a hoax as “If we legalize lottery gambling in California, the money will go to education.” Guess, what? Where did the money go? Why are the schools saying, we had our budgets cut? But the pensions of the government employees. Wow! Very very lucrative. Fire chief retires at about $150K a year all from taxpayers and the fire chief is under 55 year of age. 150K a year for the rest of his life. Government employees get $20-$40K a year for the rest of their lives? Wow. Who gets that in the private sector?
THEN 5 years later…. The state has a budget deficit. We are bleeding. Then the stoners will go… “Legalizing cocaine which came from a natural coca plant will help the state with the budget problems. Let's do it. Cocaine is safe.” It is the same old trick.

Marijuana is NOT safe. STOP the Prop 19 propaganda that pot is safe.

The Price Of Addiction (The Colton Louder Story)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MEbqPnyUVw

Just Legalize it!

You are a moron.

You are a moron.

Marijuana prohibition completely failed to prevent Colton Louder (in the above video) from doing drugs. Arresting drug addicts only further victimizes someone who is already suffering. Moreover, drug addicts continue their addiction in prison. Prohibition fails on every level to stop the ravages of drug addictions – which are a mental health problem and should be dealt with as such.

Not only is medical treatment for addiction vastly cheaper than the price of incarceration, but it is the only humane response to families who suffer from drug addiction. Tii, prohibition is nothing but cruelty, so spare us your holier than thou sanctimony.

Also – according to the NIDA, 9% of those who smoke pot become dependent upon it, and 91% do not. According to the NIDA, 15% of those who drink alcohol become dependent, and 85% do not. You can overdose on alcohol, you can't on pot. So explain to me why alcohol is legal and pot is not.

And finally – there are plenty of things (aside from alcohol) that are legal and are far more harmful than pot. In 2009, automobiles killed 33,963 people. A quick google search revealed that 300,000 people die each year from obesity. The number one cause of obesity? Sugared drinks. So shouldn't we make pepsi and coke illegal? Why stop there? Shouldn't we make McDonalds and Burger King illegal as well? No. Because in a free society we allow citizens to make their own decisions.

Prohibition, not marijuana, creates drug cartels. Violence assoicated with the sale of marijuana is caused by prohibition. There is no violence associated with the sale of alcohol or cigaretts (or caffeine). The violence associated with alcohol trafficking ended when prohibition ended.

The alcohol industry is a multi billion dollar industry that is not threatened in the least by people brewing their own beer, wine and/or whiskey. There is no data or statistics or anecdotal evidence to support the assumption/prediction that everyone will be growing their own weed should Prop 19 pass.

Governments will always be bloated and overbudget. However, prohibition has cost us around a trillion dollars over the past 40 years. Cutting out that expense alone will save billions.

But the most important reason to legalize marijuana – prohibition fails to stop anyone from smoking weed and only succedes in putting black men in prison. Prohibition is the New Jim Crow. (Check out the book entitled: The New Jim Crow)

MJ is a multi-billion dollar industry. To suggest that a LEGAL market of that size would not create tax revenue is absurd.

The MJ industry means thousands of jobs. If legalized, each business owner and all their employees will pay taxes just as Anheiser Bush and Phillip Morris do. In addition, there will be all sorts of tangential industries (lawyers, hydroponics stores, growing supplies, smoke shops, cafes, etc) which will thrive and also pay taxes.

Will the government squander this vast resource? Most probably.

cocaine is safe……duhhhhh

This is so interested! Where can I find more like this?

CCPOA is the cash-cow of Don Perata's PAC and he is backing 19. In that context the linked pacovilla post is correct. It debunks rolling stone's false assertion CO union supports bills to pump up the prison population.

You must be high.

If this his addiction was meth, that is totally different than cannabis. I had a brother in law get messed up from laced marijuana. If people choose to do these things we have to make sure it is not contaminated with bad chemicals and pure. Take it off the streets. The only way to do it is to legalize and regulate it.

Oh Johnny. Let me ask you this. What if Federal Law changes the status of cannabis to that of alcohol but your state keeps it schedule 1?
Federal means squat unless it's in the constitution.

I looked into this case and have to say that Tiii completely misrepresented this case in a very dishonest way.

The guy did methamphetamines (which are proven to be detrimental to the brain) which invalidates your “marijuana” theory. The gateway theory has been shown to be flawed time and time again. You need CAUSATION, not mere correlation. Yes depressed people self medicate, and sometimes the easier to try drugs (like marijuana) are not strong enough and they move on to other drugs. The guy would have STILL done meth even if he never tried marijuana. With legal marijuana research could be done and the most effective strains isolated for different problems (such as depression) which could prevent such tragic outcomes in the future.

He probably would have drunk bleach if it he made him forget his problems for 10 minutes without the immediate vomiting of blood. Actually, many people do that also — it’s called suicide. I know that you probably don’t understand this but for some people life is incredibly painful, dark, depressing and leaves with no hope for things getting better. THEN they use drugs because it makes living just barely tolerable and they get addicted because of that. MILLIONS of others use drugs responsibly.

quote: “Colton got into drugs by having a little bit of depression, not admitting the real problem”

And there is the smoking gun, right off the bat, admitted by the family. But they cannot admit to themselves that they saw his depression and didn’t do enough, so it must be the drugs fault, right? Shifting the blame is very common. And I’m NOT judging the family here, they might have even tried harder than most families. I’m saying that they feel guilty (who wouldn’t?) and to ease their burden they shift the blame. And it’s perfectly find for THEM to do that — but it is unacceptable for us to do so and it is unacceptable for us to set social policy on such a flawed basis.

The REAL problem is that the guy has mental issues, was probably abused in some way (or he felt abused/persecuted if he was delusional) and because he wasn’t getting help he SELF-MEDICATED. If you are depressed SEEK HELP, period. Blaming marijuana for someones life problems is among the most ignorant things human beings have ever done.

You want to show causation? Show me statistics on kids who have these types of mental problems, who are depressed, who are abused (or feel abused) and don’t get help and don’t self-medicate. You can visit kids like these in the morgue every single day.

quote: “my mom was up all night with him sometimes and he just, be staring out the window and be like ‘mom do you see those people out there? they want me to come’”

More evidence of serious mental issues, there is absolutely NO evidence in his case that marijuana contributed to his REAL problems. Methamphetamines certainly could have.

quote: “your not in the right state of mind when you’re on meth”

Ah — and finally the confession. Depressed, self-medicating, seeking destructive behaviors, ends up using methamphetamines. Now WHY did he use methamphetamines? Maybe he couldn’t get a hold of safer, more effective medications? Maybe if Marijuana were legal so it could be properly studied we might be able to evaluate and improve on it’s anti-depressive effects? Na, that would make too much sense.

I’m sure these people are hurting but they are not thinking clearly and they are grossly misinformed because they have been LIED to.

I also found out that the uncle (Ackerman) was also high on methamphetamine at the time of the shooting and Colton was being chased by the uncle. It’s not clear why the uncle was chasing him but it probably wasn’t to give him a hug.

You can believe an extremely emotional family and have more deaths and suffering or you can follow the science and minimize the harm to society on a solid, rational basis.