A Potent New Strain of Marijuana Advocate
This isn’t your father’s marijuana advocate. Move over Hockey Moms and Soccer Moms; make way for Marijuana Moms.
There are several women's groups — including Moms for Marijuana and the Women’s Marijuana Movement — that are campaigning for marijuana legalization.
The majority of women are still against legalizing pot. One recent survey shows legalization favored by 52% of men and 37% of women. The most common reason for mothers being in favor of legalized pot is that it’s safer than alcohol and tobacco. Another reason: the fact that pot is illegal means that your child’s pot connection brings him/her into contact with a lot of unsavory people who sell harder drugs.
It’s the old “gateway drug” nonsense being looked at from a different (logical) angle. If it’s true that “98% of all heroin addicts started off on marijuana!!!” — it’s because of our drug laws; not the drug itself. If you have access to pot, you probably have access to other drugs too. There isn’t anything intrinsic in marijuana itself that makes it a gateway drug. Pot doesn’t contain an alkaloid that makes you go “huh, this is OK, but now I want to move up to cocaine, then speed, then heroin.”
But who needs logic when we can have eighty years of “Reefer Madness!” and “Assassin of Youth!” hysteria.
There’s another organization called Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), which is planning a campaign of lobbying and protesting. A group member, Jessica Corry, says “it’s our own little tea party moment.” (And she’s a Republican by the way.)
Corry compares the potential of these groups to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and the fact that a women’s group — Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform — played a large role in getting Prohibition repealed in 1929.
Labels: Jessica Corry, Moms For Marijuana, SAFER, Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, Women’s Marijuana Movement
18 Comments:
I could, in theory, theoretically speaking, afford weed. No way in fuck I could afford coke. Plus who wants a hyperactive heart? I just want to mellow out. In theory.
Oh brother... That is exactly what we need; more stoned people in the country...
Far be it from me to pee on anyone's good time but exactly where does it end? One of the driving forces behind drugs at the moment is economic. Take away the economic incentives for marijuana and what would a cartel have left? Obviously cocaine, speed and heroin would be the next source of income. We also know that a whole bunch of kids are getting high via the family doctor. Oh and I forgot to mention huffing and the strangulation game.
Your thoughts on that?
The existence of cannabis is proof that God made a mistake, and conservatives are the only ones wise enough to correct it.
In our Paranoia'd frenzy this Country banned Heroin -the most effective pain killer ever and replaced it with lessor pain killers and other Opiates that are even more addicting. The Other Painkillers are being abused as well and prescription drug abuse is on the rise (Hello Rush). Again!
I say bring Heroin back and let it be controlled. As for Marijuana, I favor control and legalization, it just bothers me when it's advocates treat it like a miracle cure-all weed. Just call it what it is.
Erik
Randal: That's the beauty of Crack. It's cheaper than coke, AND it's more potent. (Kidding!)
TP: This is where the "Freedom!" "Limited Government" crowd loses all credibility. A multibillion dollar corporation, whose decisions affect millions of people, should be allowed to do whatever it wants when it wants. But if an individual wants to get wasted on this drug instead of that drug, we need a big government crackdown.
And that's totally backwards.
Demeur: Be sure to pee into this cup while you're peeing on our good time :)
My thoughts -- uhh...it's a tough call. But drug laws haven't solved anything; they've only made it worse. In the early 1900s and earlier, I don't think we had any drug laws, and we weren't a nation of stoners and junkies. I'm not sure, but I think the whole anti-drug crusade started with the pot hysteria in the 1930s.
I think Portugal, of all countries, has gone the furthest toward legalizing most drugs. Amsterdam (whose government is separate from the rest of Holland) gets all the publicity as being a stoners' paradise, but I think Portugal has gone a lot further.
Prohibition was a mistake, and I don't see our current drug laws any differently.
Dave: God is portrayed as a liberal by that pinko Bible. Fortunately, Phyllis Schafly's son is busy rectifying that terrible situation by rewriting the Bible to tell us what God really meant.
Cannabis was created by Satan to tempt our youth.
Erik: I didn't know that about heroin. By all means bring it back then (regulated of course).
That's true about pot, it's either Evil or it's a magic cure for everything.
Mr. Harper, I am more libertarian about drugs actually. I think they are foolish and I have never seen any good come from recreational use of drugs.
That being said, I don't care what adults of legal age do behind closed doors personally.
If some idiot were to get wasted and then got into his car and hurt my family though, he had damned well better hope the police get to him before I do!
Legalizing marijuana would provide another source of income for farmers, as well another source of revenue for the government. Not only that, but all the money spent on the "War on Drugs" and incarcerating potheads could be better spent elsewhere. As well as more stoned people in the country, legalizing marijuana wouldn't make more people want to smoke it, it would just make them more sensible and less paranoid about using it.
Erik I took Methadone for nerve pain for a few days. Had to stop, it was literally knocking me on my butt and I was all loopy all the time. I have heard that for others it is like the difference between night and day with their pain levels so there is that. Oxycontin/opiates are horrible, is all I will say about it.
The most effective thing I have used since my accident, has been weed HANDS down. I do not like the pharma drugs they gave me. I had a couple that gave me hallucinations, some that caused dreadful sick to my stomach feeling. I started to use it when I was going through chemo treatments, to help me with the nausea and just the lack of appetite. Greatest plant EVER if you ask me for pain. I would not advocating for its usse for the common cold, but for chronic pain and nausea oh yeah it is the best ever.
These Jessica people know how to get things done don't they :) I'm going to look into the SAFER group later.
TP: I'm glad I misunderstood your earlier comment; that's what I was hoping. I agree there's no point or intelligence to using drugs recreationally. But millions of people do, and it shouldn't be a police matter. I did some dabbling in various drugs in the past, but nowadays my only drug is alcohol, and that's strictly for medicinal purposes :)
And I certainly agree with your last sentence. Anyone who drives while they're impaired by any drug, legal or illegal, needs to be dealt with extremely harshly.
Lew: I agree, legalizing pot isn't going to increase the use of it. I personally have never known anyone who wanted to try marijuana but refused to because it's illegal, and/or who would make a beeline for the nearest drug dispensary if drugs were legalized. And yes, since pot is already one of the country's largest cash crops (if not the largest), why not tax it.
Jess: Interesting; I'm glad pot worked when you needed it. It's certain to have fewer side effects than all these wonder drugs where they spend the whole commercial warning viewers about the terrible side effects.
Jess,
All I know is from talking to the Pain specialist while I was with the Pharmaceutical Industry and what they say. You are right, extreme pain relief does not always translate to a well being. These people just want to stop screaming, to be able to move a little, to sleep even, without pain. The Cost is, as you say more then just loopyness, It can be total Incoherence but there would be no (less) pain.
What a trade off eh?
They say Heroin is the best thing made, and actually less addicting then it's successors. Some people really need relief, and we shouldn't let paranoid thinking from over 60 years ago stop them.
Erik
Erik, I imagine if people were taking heroin, strictly for pain relief it would be different. You know, like when it starts getting really bad pain wise, they take a little to take the edge off and then stop.
Methadone did help a little bit with the pain, for me, but the side effects were just way too much for me to handle. I think that is one of those drugs they found out had a secondary use, like Neurontin I took for a bit right after surgery. That was initially a seizure medication, but they found out it worked really well for nerve pain. That is the one that gave me hallucinations.
The thing that gets me is, they go after these doctors, that are really just trying to help patients cope with chronic pain and bust them. It has happened here in California several times I have heard about. I guess some people do become addicted more than others, but that is just the actual side effect of life and living it isn't it? One person can deal and someone else may not be able to.
I think you(generic) just have to find what works for you and stay with that, instead of suffering through what I lovingly call the medicine dance.
I wonder if they would be able to find what it is that is so addicting in the heroin. Maybe if they could separate that, it could be used. I don't know, I am not a scientist or anything, just talking out loud I suppose.
Jess,
I don't need it, but I know people that do.
Erik
Where were those moms when I was a youth?
I think legalization and taxation is an excellent strategy...
Holte: Damn right, where were they when we needed them?
Kevin: I agree, excellent strategy.
I agree with Paine on one of his points in the argument about legalizing pot, and that is the likelihood of more stoned drivers. If science can come up with something like a breathalyzer test for marijuana, I would feel better about the whole thing.
I believe that if pot was grown and controlled by the feds and sold in state liquor stores, there would be so much money made that the "no more taxes" crowd might just get a big part of that wish granted. As it is now, the powers that be are so paranoid about pot that the paranoia even extends to hemp, which could be a HUGE cash crop in this country for the purpose of making clothing, oil, paper, rope, etc.
Check out the following. Scroll down past the truly goofy stuff at the first, to the part that begins with "The Great Marijuana Conspiracy".
http://www.iahushua.com/Hemp.html
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