gdp's Comments

WPRI.com | Eyewitness News : Kennedy Lobbies Against Legal Marijuana | WPRI.com

Tue, 8 Jan 2013 20:47:02 +0000

If Rep. Kennedy knows how to stop people using marijuana then he should do it! Because there are millions of people buying marijuana illegally today and when they do they draw drug dealers into our neighborhoods and around our children. It is reprehensible for Rep. Kennedy to know of some magical way to end illegal marijuana sales and to keep it to himself. And if he thinks that "increased treatment" for marijuana use is going to stop people buying marijuana illegally -- when SEVENTY YEARS of prohibition failed to achieve that -- then he's living in a fantasy world. The ONLY thing that will end illegal marijuana sales is to legalize marijuana like beer and wine.

Longmont Times-Call : Weld commissioners oppose marijuana legalization - Longmont Times-Call

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:42:03 +0000

American taxpayers are being forced to pay $40 Billion a year for a prohibition that causes 10,000 brutal murders & 800,000 needless arrests each year, but which doesn't even stop CHILDREN from getting marijuana. After seventy years of prohibition, it's obvious that the federal marijuana prohibition causes FAR more harm than good and must END! Drug Dealers Don't Card, Supermarkets Do.

http://www.journal-advocate.com/ : Logan County Commissioners approve resolution opposing recreational marijuana amendment - Journal Ad

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:41:11 +0000

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ : Weed out cannabis or we\'ll be stuck with Cypress Hill - News Analysis, Opinion - Belfasttelegraph.c

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 14:59:38 +0000

That's right - "that's if you can find one still alive at 38"! Cannabis is safer than alcohol, and if alcohol is legal then so should be its far safer alternative, cannabis. A lot of the disease, violence and harm currently caused by alcohol could be eliminated by giving people the right to switch to cannabis. Cannabis has repeatedly been proven to NOT cause cancer, heart disease, brain damage, liver disease, emphysema, or any other significant health issue, and its addiction potential is about on par with coffee.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ : Weed out cannabis or we\'ll be stuck with Cypress Hill - News Analysis, Opinion - Belfasttelegraph.c

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 13:50:02 +0000

How were they able to find ANYONE who'd actually consumed cannabis? Cannabis has been illegal for more than 70 years which would make cannabis impossible to get and cannabis users non-existent. Unless they're suggesting that the federal cannabis prohibition DOESN'T WORK? And if the prohibition doesn't work then why are taxpayers forced to pay $40 Billion a year to fund it and why are we forced to accept the 10,000 brutal murders and 800,000 needless arrests that the prohibition causes each year when it doesn't even stop CHILDREN getting cannabis? The man who made cannabis illegal said that the cannabis user is "an immoral, vicious, social leper, who cannot escape responsibility for his actions, who must feel the force of swift, impartial punishment". This was Harry Anslinger's SOLE justification for prohibiting cannabis. Cannabis is FAR safer than alcohol. If YOU don't feel that cannabis users are "immoral, vicious, social lepers" then you don't support the cannabis prohibition.

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Man attacked by pit bulls in Kirkland park, opens fire | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking New

Wed, 25 May 2011 13:58:28 +0000

Mr. LaValley is lucky. I would have used a shotgun.

KATU - Portland, OR : Push to sell marijuana in Oregon kicks off | KATU.com - Portland News, Sports, Traffic Weather and B

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:00:46 +0000

We need a professional survey undertaken to determine to what extent profits of gas stations, supermarkets, pharmacies and liquor stores will increase by when they're legally allowed to sell marijuana to adults. These corporations should be demanding the right to sell marijuana, not just for the good of their stakeholders, but in order to undermine drug dealers' prices and drive them out of our communities and away from our children! Marijuana has repeatedly been proven to NOT cause cancer, heart disease, brain damage, liver disease, emphysema, or any other significant health issue, and its addiction potential is about on par with coffee. In all respects, marijuana is far safer than beer and wine and should, at the very least, be controlled by exactly the same laws that we use for alcohol. Our current marijuana prohibition empowers drug dealers and the Mexican drug cartels by preventing any form of legal competition to their activities. Instead of protecting children from marijuana, these laws create an environment of zero legal supply amidst massive and unrelenting demand and effectively serve to make our children LESS safe. It is *because* of the failings of the prohibition that our children now have easier access to marijuana than to alcohol! Our communities need legal adult marijuana sales for exactly the same reason they need legal alcohol and tobacco sales - to keep unscrupulous black-market criminals out of our neighborhoods and away from our children. Parents work hard to keep drugs away from their children and they need effective, logic-based laws to help them with this. In order to greatly improve the safety of our children we need legal adult marijuana sales in gas stations and supermarkets at prices too low for drug dealers to match - just as beer and wine are sold today. Our laws should be based on logic, fact and reason, and NOT on ideological positions and unproven assumptions!

http://healthnewsdigest.com/ : Post

Fri, 9 Apr 2010 04:27:46 +0000

Seventy years of prohibition has left us with millions of daily users. The prohibition does NOT stop people using marijuana! DEA, police chiefs, addiction centers - your unshakable assumption that things would be worse without the prohibition is INVALID. The numbers don't support your claims. The DEA's own website claims that "with a 95 percent success rate — bolstered by an effective, three-pronged strategy combining education/prevention, enforcement, and treatment — we shouldn’t give up now". How DARE you say that every nonsmoker refrains due to the prohibition! The vast majority of the millions of people not smoking in this country do so for just one reason - they don't WANT to smoke! It has NOTHING to do with your ineffective and bloody prohibition. They don't want to smoke, they wouldn't want to smoke if it were legal, and you have NO right claiming that they would smoke if you ended the prohibition. Ask *your* legislators to sponsor a bill to legalize the production and sale of marijuana to adults!!

KY3 : Many facts are still secret about murder of girl near Jefferson City | KY3 News, Weather, Sports - S

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:23:22 +0000

Sounds fair to me too.

KY3 : Many facts are still secret about murder of girl near Jefferson City | KY3 News, Weather, Sports - S

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:12:41 +0000

Calling her evil belittles her actions. She is either psychopathic or insane, either way she took the life of an innocent 9 yr-old and subjected her to intense terror, for that she deserves the worst we can give her.

Big Hollywood : Change? Not so Far: Our Border Drug War Still Rages

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:22:30 +0000

It was from John Walters, the last head of the ONDCP. He stated that figure near the beginning of last year: http://tr.im/oEnB "American drug users are paying ruthless Mexican kingpins nearly $14 billion annually for their meth, heroin, cocaine and especially marijuana – monies that are helping fund an unprecedented bloody turf war that's threatening Mexican institutions, the White House drug czar said. John P. Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said marijuana, not heroin or cocaine, is the "bread and butter," "the center of gravity" for Mexican drug cartels that every year smuggle tons of it through the porous U.S.-Mexico border. Of the $13.8 billion that Americans contributed to Mexican drug traffickers in 2004-05, about 62 percent, or $8.6 billion, comes from marijuana consumption. "

Big Hollywood : Change? Not so Far: Our Border Drug War Still Rages

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:50:38 +0000

It doesn't matter how draconian you make the sentences, there will ALWAYS be someone else willing to take the risk. Keeping it illegal keeps it in the hands of criminals. The more you clamp down on them the more you drive up prices and profits. The result is worse and worse criminals are drawn into the market for the higher and higher profits you're creating. Is that really your long-term goal?

Big Hollywood : Change? Not so Far: Our Border Drug War Still Rages

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:43:12 +0000

Nonsense. First of all the FDA is NOT trying to make tobacco illegal. A prohibition on tobacco would be a stupid, deadly failure just as the prohibition on alcohol was and the prohibition on marijuana is. Basic economics will tell you that where there's demand there will always be supply to fill it. If you make a product illegal the demand doesn't magically go away, it's simply diverted to illegal suppliers. That's a simple truism of economics and is why prohibition does not work. And as far as "pot is more carcinogenic", yes it very well might contain more carcinogenic chemicals, but it also contains something that not only prevents them from causing cancer but that removes cancerous cells from our body. That's why marijuana doesn't cause cancer and is why cancer rates don't go up with an increase in marijuana use. And as to your last point, many athletes enjoy marijuana. Many successful business people do too. People who sit around eating junk food all day may or may not be marijuana users. You can't enforce a policy on our society that causes 2,000 arrests a day and 6,000 brutal murders a year just because some people haven't learned yet how to look after themselves! Education and legalization for adults will keep people safe and end the horrific and obscene cartel murders.

Big Hollywood : Change? Not so Far: Our Border Drug War Still Rages

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:18:52 +0000

You're dead right man! I just can't see where the confusion is. People say to me "you're wrong, learn the facts" but they never once cite even one source to back up their statements. The cartels openly and blatantly murder both their opponents and innocent people in order to intimidate law enforcement into leaving them alone. They're open about their reasons for these killings - they confess it when they're caught, they send notes to police officers telling them and they put signs up around their cities boasting of it. They kill to protect their drug profits. 60 - 70% of their profits come from marijuana. So when we legalize marijuana, with the same restrictions as alcohol and tobacco, we'll eliminate 60 - 70% of the cartel's income and that will END the murders. If anyone can prove otherwise then please cite your sources - don't just post unsubstantiated opinion.

Big Hollywood : Change? Not so Far: Our Border Drug War Still Rages

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:11:45 +0000

How can you make that statement, Rob? Amsterdam never legalized the production of marijuana so where do you think all the herb comes from that's sold in the coffeeshops? ..illegal sources of course! It's an absolutely ludicrous situation! Who in their right mind would allow a product to be sold but then not allow it to be produced? The only place that's available to meet demand is illegal sources. But even still it's a better system than ours, the Netherlands is now closing prisons due to lack of prisoners. Crime is down and people are safer because of their system, and when they legalize production they'll drive out the criminal gangs altogether. And the story you tell about the criminality and corruption in a "drug-based economy" was observed by you during a period of prohibition. Do you observe the same levels of criminality and corruption associated with the legal tobacco and alcohol markets? Of course not, because they are legal. The legal alcohol market "works", the legal tobacco market "works", and both of these products are mass killers. A legal marijuana market will also "work", and unlike the alcohol and tobacco, marijuana has never killed anybody.

Big Hollywood : Change? Not so Far: Our Border Drug War Still Rages

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:54:00 +0000

But what we don't have are running gun battles in our streets as illegal alcohol suppliers kill each other securing lucrative alcohol markets. Disputes between rival breweries are settled in court, not on the street. Rival brands sell alongside each other in stores today, and the death rate caused by illegal alcohol suppliers is zero. That's the success of legalizing the production and sale of alcohol to adults. The exact same thing will be achieved when we legalize the production and sale of marijuana to adults. In the second half of this year an estimated 3,000 people will die at the hands of the cartels in order to secure their drug profits. If we legalized marijuana today the vast majority of these people would still be alive come Christmas. Everybody who supports the prohibition supports the continuation of these savage murders. Give these people a break, end the prohibition!

Big Hollywood : Change? Not so Far: Our Border Drug War Still Rages

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:39:26 +0000

Of course the cartels will stop selling pot, their customers will desert them for the LEGAL, safe and attractive "marijuana bars" (or whatever we want to call them) that open up. Answer us this question Peregry, when was the last time you bought your beer from "some guy" selling out the back of his car? We do a great job of stopping "unlicensed distributors" of tobacco and alcohol today, what makes you think marijuana will be any different? People want quality, they want to know that their herb hasn't been laced with lead, glass and hairspray, what better way to do that than to buy the lower-priced, quality-guaranteed herb sold at the legal marijuana stores? Legalization will decimate the cartels in exactly the same way legalization of alcohol destroyed the gangsters 75 years ago. Actually we can know the impact the prohibition has had on marijuana use. Everywhere that's moved to legalize marijuana (including Amsterdam) has seen a reduction in use, NOT an increase. Legalization makes marijuana much harder for kids to obtain because it drives out illegal sellers and forces the legal sellers to card their customers, just like with tobacco and alcohol today. And even if we did not know, as you claim, is that justification for the continued arrest of 2,000 people every *day*? Or the continued shooting of family pets by SWAT teams? Or the no-knock raids? Or the alienation of our police forces from our young people? Or the denial of sick and dying people to the medicine that works for them? Marijuana prohibition is significantly more harmful that marijuana could ever be! Marijuana's production and sale to adults must be legalized. It must be allowed to be sold in bars under exactly the same laws as alcohol.

Big Hollywood : Change? Not so Far: Our Border Drug War Still Rages

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:10:20 +0000

We *must* legalize marijuana. According to the ONDCP, 60 - 70% of the cartel's income comes solely from marijuana sales in the U.S. Legalizing marijuana will therefore strip the cartels of 60 - 70% of their income and bankrupt them. No business could survive a loss like that! Legalization is the only way for us to win the drug war. The cartels have corrupted the Mexican police and government, and now the troops sent in to fix the problem are themselves accepting cartel bribes and committing rape, murder and torture with immunity from the Mexican military justice system. The amount of marijuana money the cartels receive is so great that we will not be safe until it is eliminated. Seventy years of prohibition in this country has resulted in 15 million regular marijuana users, and a further 100 million people who acknowledge they have obtained and consumed marijuana during the prohibition. The prohibition is NOT reducing marijuana use! Legalizing the production and sale of marijuana to adults will end the cartel murders, end drug dealers in our schools and end the easy access children have to marijuana. An estimated 3,000 people will be murdered by the cartels during the second half of this year. These are lives that would be saved if we legalized marijuana today. We *must* legalize marijuana!

KATU - Portland, OR : Stimulus dollars fund local study on marijuana | KATU.com - Portland, Oregon | Local

Tue, 2 Jun 2009 20:27:27 +0000

Seventy years of prohibition has left us with 15 million regular marijuana users. It doesn't matter whether marijuana "works" or not, people are *always* going to smoke it. What is important is the consequences of the prohibition. Obviously it doesn't stop people smoking marijuana so we can't actually say that it's benefited us in any way. What it has done is divert $7 billion annually to the Mexican drug cartels. They protect this cash flow with violence, murdering more than 6,000 people last year and almost 3,000 so far this year. That is too much for my conscience! The drug dealers in our schools weren't there before the prohibition, they are there *because* of the prohibition. The easy access that children have to marijuana wasn't there before the prohibition, it's a product of the prohibition! Protect our children. Save a life, end the cartel killings. End the Prohibition!

KOMO - Seattle, WA : Oregon boy, 12, invents solar cell to help solve country\'s energy crisis | KOMO News- Seattle, Wash

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:57:31 +0000

sounds like a threat to the oil companies to me ..this'll be the last we'll hear of it!