These 4 States Will Reform Their Marijuana Laws in 2013
The pot reform movement picks up speed.
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GoogleIt's been only two months since Washington and Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana, but the advocates who raised millions to pass Amendment 64 and Initiative 502 aren't wasting time celebrating. In addition to helping craft the rules and regulations in the Centennial and Evergreen states, they're also providing support to state legislators who will introduce marijuana bills—more than 20 altogether—in 2013.
"While not all of them will pass," says Morgan Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), the debates around them will be different than in years past. "What I'm hearing is that a dam broke," says Jill Harris, managing director of strategic initiatives for the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). "Before Colorado and Washington, the idea of legal marijuana existed in the realm of fantasy. But after Colorado and Washington, we can have a more serious conversation."
With the start of the 2013 legislative session, that conversation has officially begun. Incremental reforms are going to happen in the next 12 months, even if the next state to fully legalize marijuana doesn't do so until 2014 or (more likely) 2016. We asked the folks at MPP, which was instrumental in the passage of Amendment 64, and DPA, which led the charge in Washington, which state legislatures could make big changes to their marijuana laws in 2013. These are the four they told us about.
1. Medical Marijuana in New Hampshire
New Hampshire in recent years has come painfully close to legalizing medical marijuana, but can't seem to seal the deal. In 2009, Democratic Gov. John Lynch vetoed the first medical marijuana bill to pass the Republican-led state legislature, even though U.S. Attorney John Kacavas—an Obama appointee—said his office wouldn't prosecute patients. A 2011 version of the bill never made it to Lynch's desk, due to language allowing for dispensaries, which Kacavas opposed. The 2012 version of the bill was more conservative, limiting marijuana only to specific caregivers and patients, but was once again killed by Lynch.
But now New Hampshire has Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, a former state senator who voted for medical marijuana in 2009 after meeting with patients. "The testimony that was the most compelling was from a woman who had small children," Hassan told local media. "She had a debilitating medical illness. There were other options, but the side-effects were so strong that she couldn't make them lunch and get them off to school."
The Marijuana Policy Project is confident Hassan's presence in the governor's office will seal the deal. "With Lynch retiring and being replaced by medical marijuana supporter Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire appears poised to finally pass this bill into law with a governor’s signature in 2013."
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First?
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Sweet, every geek gets his day I guess!
Oh yeah, fuck anti-drug laws.
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Re: shirts
Great ideas, horrible graphic design.
(Look at me in the stands, part of the booboisie, just throwing stones at the people who are actually trying to do something. I make myself sick.)
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The testimony that was the most compelling was from a woman who had small children
No shit, Sherlock; the class with the highest victim points.
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Drug use makes people less productive. Less productive people are more likely to go on welfare. Therefore we can't legalize drugs until we end the welfare state.
/sarcasm
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As Bill Clinton said, less productive people produce fewer profits for big business. Drugs are illegal because the capitalists own both you and the state.
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If I wasn't clear: bosses don't like the idea of their serfs using drugs and getting lazy.
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http://images.sodahead.com/pol.....large.jpeg
Of course, in a just society, your employer could always just fire you for getting lazy. Or any other reason he felt like.
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That's every lefty's excuse for the destruction of capitalism and freedom by the state: "Durr itz da freedumz fault" You don't get it: the state has power to sell because you have been brainwashed to think they should somehow be in control of businessmen. That's the joker in the whole system, bud; it is the intervention of the state into economics that creates the problems, not the other way around.
No, asswipe, drug laws and all the laws under the sun (and the corruption they create) are entirely the fault of the statists who have been telling Americans for 100 years that the answer to every disaster caused by government is to give more power to the government (and to call it "progress" lol)
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We'll only legalize drugs if we can also raise your FICA taxes. Also, you are now mandated to provide health insurance for your marijuana. That doesn't sound like a good plan to you? What are you, a racist statist communist xenophobe nativist cocksucker?!?!
/touche
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"Your property rights and national sovereignty are nativith and rathitht, we will make up snarky hipster faggot bullshit to pretend we aren't just egalitarian leftists who wanted to play the dandy and call ourselves libertarians."
But in case there's anyone here who cares to live on earth, and doesn't want to evade reality, realize the difference between having open immigration 100 years ago (no welfare state, no income tax to dodge, no economic regulations to disincentivize the hiring of US citizens) versus today, where the obozo regime is advertising welfare programs on Mexican radio...ask yourself (and do not evade the answer) what kind of immigrants we are attracking today.
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You guys make Tony-esque arguments are then try to present yourselves as the True Libertarians fighting the "hipster faggot leftists?"
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I think arguably the "If you don't support mass legalization with no attendant reform of the immigration, welfare, and labor regulation system you hate teh brown peoplez!!!one11eleventy!!" bullshit is a lot more T o n y-esque than pointing out some of the practical implications of addressing a massive failure of government on many levels 1/1000th at a time.
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Nevada came a hair's breadth from legalization a few years ago ('06, IIRC - I was living there at the time). I think given another shot in light of the Colorado and Washington initiatives it might pass there as well.
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I guess it's okay that Riggs wrote this article but it was really unnecessary.
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Nicest chat and chat Iraqi entertaining Adject all over the world
http://www.iraaqna.com -
just before I looked at the check which was of $9519, I be certain that...my... mother in law woz like they say truly making money part-time on there computar.. there best friend haz done this 4 only about fifteen months and at present cleard the mortgage on their place and purchased themselves a BMW M3. we looked here, http://www.FLY38.com
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I dare not speak much further;
But cruel are the times, when we are traitors
And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,
But float upon a wild and violent sea
Each way and none.
