Tag: marijuana

Congresswoman Says She’ll Break the Law if Her Daughter Needs Medical Cannabis

In the United States, cannabis is legal for recreational use in 11 states while 33 other states allow some form of medical use. One would think that with this widespread legalization, which seems to be speeding up, that police officers would start concentrating their efforts elsewhere and arrest actual criminals who hurt people — not kidnap and cage innocent people for using a plant. Sadly, however, the incentives for arresting cannabis users are too addictive and the police state marches on, laying waste to all the lives it touches along the way.

Despite a massive number of anecdotal accounts coupled with an equally massive amount of research on the medical benefits of using cannabis as medicine, most states in the “land of the free” still kidnap and cage people for using it.

Sadly, in the land of the free, realizing the true benefits of cannabis is limited by the plant’s schedule 1 classification by the federal government. As cops continue to kidnap and cage people for cannabis, this plant’s life-saving potential is hindered. This seems especially egregious knowing the plant’s promise for alleviating the horrific opioid epidemic we are currently facing along with its numerous other potential treatments.

The good news is that most people now see cannabis prohibition for the tyrannical horse manure that it is and are willing to disobey. After all, most positive change comes — not in the form of begging politicians — but when good people choose to disobey bad laws.

This disobedience seems to be spreading too — all the way to Congress, aparently.

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The First Thing Sold On The Internet Was A Bag Of Weed

Several researchers have pointed to a drug deal that took place in 1971 or 1972 as the first online transaction made on the internet. As the legend goes, Stanford students using Arpanet accounts at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, used the network to sell some cannabis to other tech students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The historic event was detailed in two books, “What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry”, which was released in 2005 by John Markoff, and “The Dark Net,” which was released more recently by Jamie Bartlett.

In “What The Dormouse Said,” Markoff Writes: “In 1971 or 1972, Stanford students using Arpanet accounts at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory engaged in a commercial transaction with their counterparts at Massachussetts Institute of Technology. Before Amazon, before eBay, the seminal act of e-commerce was a drug deal. The students used the network to quietly arrange the sale of an undetermined amount of mariju**a.“

Bartlett gives a nearly identical description in his book ‘The Dark Net’, which discusses online marketplaces that have made headlines in recent years.

The Silk Road, which launched in 2011, was the first truly anonymous online marketplace, and it quickly became a target for politicians and law enforcement because of the large volume of drugs that were being sold through the site. On the Silk Road, drug users and vendors were able to trade anonymously using Bitcoin, making it one of the first major commerce platforms to adopt the cryptocurrency. The website’s alleged creator, Ross Ulbricht, is currently serving a double life sentence with no possibility of parole for operating the online marketplace.

One important point that was heavily overlooked by the media during the Ulbricht trial was the fact that the Silk Road actually made the world a safer place by undermining prohibition. Even though drugs are illegal, large numbers of people still use them on a regular basis and these people are often put in dangerous situations because of these prohibitions.

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More people were arrested for Cannabis possession than ALL violent crimes put together in the US last year

With legal recreational and medical cannabis now available in so many different US states, it is easy to get the impression that the war on cannabis users is over.

However, cannabis users still represent a significant portion of the people who are filling jails and courthouses throughout the country.

According to the FBI’s recent Uniform Crime Report, more people were arrested for cannabis possession last year than for all violent crimes put together.

The data showed that 545,602 people were arrested in the US for cannabis-related crimes last year. Meanwhile, just 495,871 people were arrested for violent crimes.

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Nebraska Supreme Court Just Killed November’s Medical Marijuana Initiative

Nebraska’s Supreme Court just ruled that a previously approved measure to legalize medical marijuana is “unconstitutional” and therefore cannot appear on the state’s election ballot in November. This is, of course, anti-democratic and infuriating, but let’s take a look at how this happened. 

First off, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is an idiot. Just last week he declared, “There is no such thing as medical marijuana.” Ricketts proclaimed this falsehood as the leader of a state where 77 percent of residents support legalizing cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Now on to the nitty gritty. Last July, the activist group Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana (NMM) collected more than enough signatures to qualify a medical weed bill to be included on the November election ballot. 

Then, on August 28 the Secretary of State made it official: Nebraskans could decide for themselves whether or not to legalize medical marijuana by voting on Nebraska Medical Cannabis Constitutional Amendment (NMCCA). 

Three days later, however, Sheriff Terry Wagner filed a lawsuit to block the measure, claiming it overstepped constitutional boundaries by covering too many topics for a single initiative. A state court initially tossed out the challenge. Yesterday, however, Sheriff “No-Pot” won.

The Nebraska Supreme Court declared that it agreed with Sheriff Wagner — a man who puts people in jail for possessing and using cannabis. With only two justices dissenting, the Supremes formally removed the proposal from the ballot.

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