Please Support The Marijuana Policy Project

[mybeans420]

Hello,
I'm starting this thread to raise awareness of the exceptional work the MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT has been doing. I being a supporter highly reccommend that those serious about taking action to remove penalties for the use, sale, cultivation, and MOST IMPORTANTLY MEDICAL USE of marijuana show your support by contributing to this organization. Whether it be through volunteer work, or monetary donation.
I will be posting regular updates to this thread regarding steps being take by the MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT The following is an about MPP statement from thier website WWW.MPP.ORG :

ABOUT THE MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT

The Marijuana Policy Project works to minimize the harm associated with marijuana -- both the consumption of marijuana, and the laws that are intended to prohibit such use. MPP believes that the greatest harm associated with marijuana is prison. To this end, MPP focuses on removing criminal penalties for marijuana use, with a particular emphasis on making marijuana medically available to seriously ill people who have the approval of their doctors.


MISSION STATEMENT:

In the United States, more than 70 million people have tried marijuana, and millions of adults still consume it on a regular basis. Almost everyone has a friend, relative, neighbor, or co-worker who consumes marijuana. Because of the widespread economic and criminal justice ramifications of the illicit marijuana market and of Marijuana Prohibition, the marijuana phenomenon touches nearly everyone's life.

All drugs are potentially harmful; marijuana is no exception -- and the entire range of marijuana policies, from total prohibition to total legalization, has drawbacks as well as benefits. As with alcohol and tobacco, there is no simple solution.

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) understands that no one policy will solve all problems. Each potentially harmful effect of marijuana consumption and the myriad public and private marijuana control efforts must be thoroughly evaluated. Each policy option should be judged according to whether the overall harm is reduced or increased. Furthermore, public policies must be grounded in the reality that marijuana consumption is already widespread despite the present prohibition laws.

A "marijuana-free America" has been proven to be an unrealistic goal.



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The Marijuana Policy Project's purpose is to develop and promote policies to minimize the harm associated with marijuana. Accordingly, MPP ...

researches the public health, economic, social, criminal justice, and other effects of marijuana consumption and the prohibition thereof;

formulates realistic, utilitarian marijuana-related regulations and policies;

works with the appropriate agencies, such as Congress, the executive branch, the courts, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and other government bodies to implement such policies and to amend those to the contrary; and

increases public confidence in such policies through speaking engagements, educational seminars, the mass media, and other means.
MPP has identified the following issues that must be addressed with appropriate public policies:


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Issue #1: Public Health Effects
Goal #1: An individual's marijuana consumption must not harm or threaten the health and safety of others. For example, operating motor vehicles while impaired, subjecting others to unwanted second-hand smoke, engaging in hazardous cultivation practices, and distributing marijuana to minors must be discouraged and/or prohibited.

Goal #2: Some individuals (e.g., minors) should not consume marijuana.

Goal #3: Misuse and abuse must be discouraged. Honest, realistic, and effective education must be promoted, and appropriate treatment programs must be made available.

Goal #4: Marijuana consumers should not be subjected to extraneous health hazards. Individuals who already consume marijuana, despite the present laws, should not be unnecessarily exposed to adulterated or impure marijuana, nor should they be forbidden to use devices that reduce potential harms, such as water pipes that cool and filter smoke.

Goal #5: Links between marijuana and other drugs should be minimized. Mixed drug markets and dishonest drug education increase the likelihood that marijuana consumers will abuse harder drugs.

Goal #6: Medicinal uses of marijuana must not be suppressed.

Goal #7: Sound research must be promoted.



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Issue #2: Economic Effects
Goal #1: Efficiently utilize limited public funds. Scarce public resources should not be wasted on "feel-good" policies that cause more harm than good.

Goal #2: Keep money in the legitimate U.S. economy. Minimize international marijuana trafficking and money laundering.

Goal #3: Raise revenue by taxing marijuana businesses.

Goal #4: Permit domestic cultivation of industrial/environmental hemp. Allow fair marketplace competition with other sources of paper pulp, fiber, fuel, and food.



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Issue #3: Societal Effects
Goal #1: Require responsibility for actions. Marijuana consumers must be held fully accountable for any crimes or other anti-social activities in which they engage.

Goal #2: Reduce crime. Adopt prudent marijuana policies to reduce the amount of organized crime, violence, and other predatory crime.

Goal #3: Reduce impairment on the job and in the classroom.

Goal #4: Reduce symbolic generational conflicts and foster respect for authority among youths.



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Issue #4: Criminal Justice System Effects
Goal #1: Uphold law and order. Increase the likelihood that policies and laws will be known, understood, accepted, and fairly and consistently enforced.

Goal #2: Foster respect for and cooperation with law-enforcement authorities.

Goal #3: Reduce corruption of law-enforcement and other criminal justice system officials.

Goal #4: Minimize underhanded law-enforcement practices, such as the use of informants, whose mission is to create trust for the purpose of betraying it.

Goal #5: Safeguard civil liberties and personal freedom.



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The Marijuana Policy Project believes that the best interim policy -- and an essential element of any successful long-term strategy -- is to allow responsible adults to cultivate small amounts of marijuana in their homes for personal use, subject to appropriate regulations and restrictions.

The Marijuana Policy Project evaluates current marijuana policies and all newly proposed policies in light of the aforementioned issues and goals. Policies incompatible with these goals are actively opposed. Policies in accordance with these goals are refined and actively promoted. The Marijuana Policy Project serves primarily as a lobbying organization.


MORE TO COME PEOPLE

 

[mybeans420]

Harmful effects of Marijuana Prohibition ... and MPP's response
Donald Scott was shot to death during a raid of his California home on October 2, 1992. The police lied to obtain the search warrant, hoping to find marijuana and seize his multi-million dollar estate. No marijuana was found.

It can happen to anyone ...
There have been more than 10 million marijuana arrests in the United States since 1970.
[Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, Washington, D.C.: Department of Justice, 1966-1998]

Another marijuana user is arrested every 43 seconds. That's more than 700,000 arrests in one year!



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Picture several heavily armed police officers kicking down a door in the middle of the night; wrestling residents to the floor, binding their hands behind their backs with metal clamps; aiming guns at everyone, including children; tearing the entire house apart -- furniture, cupboards, dressers, and closets; rummaging through boxes of photos, checkbooks, and other personal items ...

... every 43 seconds.

Soon the contraband is discovered: a small plastic baggie of dried vegetable matter ... maybe even some live plants in the closet. The marijuana is seized, along with phone lists, financial records and, of course, people ...

... every 43 seconds.



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Excessive Sentences
The criminal penalties for marijuana are often far more damaging than the use of the substance itself:

bail money ... attorney fees ... court costs ...
fines ... property forfeiture ... life-long criminal records
... and prison.

Every year, tens of thousands of nonviolent, productive, otherwise law-abiding citizens are locked in cages with the most dangerous criminals in our society.

Indeed, the federal mandatory minimum prison sentence for growing 100 marijuana plants is five years -- the average sentence for kidnapping and hostage taking!

Altogether, taxpayers spend $9 billion annually to hunt down, arrest, try, and incarcerate marijuana consumers.




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Prohibition: Turning a Problem Into a Disaster
Marijuana prohibition simply does not work. More than 70 million Americans have tried marijuana, and millions of adults consume it on a regular basis. Present marijuana policies do not prevent people from using marijuana -- instead, they punish those who are unlucky enough to get caught.

Marijuana prohibition creates a mixed drug market, which puts marijuana consumers in contact with hard-drug dealers. Regulating marijuana sales -- and allowing adults to grow their own -- would separate marijuana from cocaine, heroin, and other hard drugs.

This approach works in Holland.


Marijuana regulations should serve as a barrier
between marijuana and harder drugs.


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Banned Medicine
Marijuana is beneficial to people suffering from cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and chronic pain. Yet only eight people in the United States are currently allowed to use marijuana as medicine.

Millions of patients who could benefit from marijuana must either suffer or use it illegally and risk arrest.


Kenny and Barbra Jenks (above) were
arrested in 1990 for using marijuana to
treat their AIDS-related wasting syndrome.
They have since died.


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Learning From History
Earlier this century, alcohol prohibition caused an increase in crime and violence, but it did not prevent people from drinking. Alcohol prohibition failed -- and was repealed in 1933.

Marijuana prohibition has also failed. In 1972, President Nixon's National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse declared that adults should not be criminalized for using marijuana.

Nixon ignored his advisors and escalated his "war on drugs." By the end of the decade, marijuana use and abuse had increased manyfold.

A "marijuana-free America" has proven to be an unrealistic goal. And by wasting valuable law-enforcement resources and maintaining an unregulated market, prohibition only makes matters worse for marijuana consumers and society as a whole.


Policies should instead minimize the harm associated with marijuana.



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Civil Liberties
Because marijuana is typically used in private, trampling the Bill of Rights is a necessary part of marijuana-law enforcement.

The courts have routinely upheld many privacy-invading techniques: drug dogs, urine tests, phone taps, government informants, curbside garbage searches, military helicopters, infrared heat detectors.

And the worst may be yet to come ...

The 1995-96 crime bills would permit evidence obtained by police through a warrantless search to be used in court! This would encourage police to invade anyone's home on the slightest suspicion of any crime.


Law-enforcement officers on a drug raid.
Because marijuana is the most widely used illicit substance (more than seven times as prevalent as cocaine), removing marijuana from the domain of law enforcement would reduce the need for such dangerous law-enforcement policies.



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Other Damaging Effects of Marijuana Prohibition:
Because vigorous enforcement of the marijuana laws forces the roughest, toughest criminals to take over marijuana trafficking, prohibition causes violence and increases predatory crime.

Prohibition invites corruption within the criminal justice system by giving officials easy, tempting opportunities to accept bribes, steal and sell marijuana, and plant evidence on innocent people.

By placing marijuana in an unregulated, underground drug market, prohibition creates additional health hazards from impure or contaminated marijuana.

By lumping marijuana in with harder drugs, prohibition thwarts realistic drug education and fosters irresponsible drug consumption.


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When the laws are more damaging to individuals and to society than the use of the outlawed substance itself, then the laws must be changed.
The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) works to devise and promote policies to minimize the harm associated with marijuana.

MPP contends that marijuana prohibition should be replaced with realistic, practical regulations and policies. Treatment and education should replace criminal sanctions.

MPP is a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying organization.

Founded in January 1995, MPP is filling a longstanding void by lobbying for marijuana-law reform on the federal level -- the first time any organization has done so in more than a decade.

And MPP has already succeeded in changing policy:
MPP orchestrated testimony before the U.S. Sentencing Commission on March 14, 1995, in support of an amendment to the federal sentencing guidelines to reduce the penalties for marijuana cultivation. On April 10, the commission voted 7-0 in favor of this amendment!


MPP Executive Director Robert Kampia (left)
testifies before the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
This demonstrates that marijuana policies can be reformed through diligent, focused lobbying.

MPP is also working to mobilize grassroots support through e-mail updates, Internet postings, and communication with MPP members through the monthly Marijuana Policy Report.

But we must be realistic. Prohibition will not be replaced by regulation overnight. MPP is taking the first necessary steps by:

opposing all harsh, prohibitionist, marijuana-related legislation in the new Congressional crime bills and

beginning to chip away at the current excesses of marijuana prohibition -- starting with the ban on medicinal marijuana.
The Marijuana Policy Project is working to replace marijuana prohibition with a system that would (1) allow responsible adults to grow their own marijuana and (2) regulate and tax marijuana businesses.

Not only will these changes minimize the harm associated with marijuana, but they will help secure freedom for everyone.

We need your support! To help fund MPP's lobbying efforts and to receive our quarterly newsletter, please join MPP now.

 

[mybeans420]

Study Debunks Feds' Marijuana Claims
Regulated Sales May Stop "Gateway Effect" Without Increasing Marijuana Use
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A new study appearing in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health debunks several of the major claims made by the federal government and other proponents of marijuana prohibition. The study, which compared patterns of marijuana use in Amsterdam, where possession and purchase of small amounts of marijuana by adults are allowed under a legally regulated system, and San Francisco, where such activities are illegal and punishable by fines or jail, found no significant differences in patterns of marijuana use in the two cities, and greater use of hard drugs in San Francisco.

Researchers from the University of California and the University of Amsterdam conducted detailed interviews with hundreds of randomly chosen marijuana users -- people who had used marijuana at least 25 timesÑin both cities. "Proponents of criminalization attribute to their preferred drug-control regimen a special power to affect user behavior," the authors write. "Our findings cast doubt on such attributions. Despite widespread lawful availability of cannabis [marijuana] in Amsterdam, there were no differences between the two cities in age at onset of use, age at first regular use, or age at the start of maximum use. ... We also found consistent similarities in patterns of use across the different policy contexts."

One significant difference: Marijuana users in San Francisco were much more likely to use powder or crack cocaine, opiates, amphetamines or ecstasy than their Amsterdam counterparts. Lifetime crack cocaine use in the San Francisco sample was five times that of the Amsterdam group. "Dutch decriminalization does not appear to be associated with greater use of other drugs," the researchers report. "Indeed, to judge from the lifetime prevalence of other illicit drug use, the reverse may be the case."

Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, commented, "Despite the claims by federal officials like White House Drug Czar John Walters, the evidence continues to grow that marijuana prohibition not only doesn't curb marijuana use, it actually contributes to the so-called 'gateway effect,' by exposing marijuana users to criminal dealers of hard drugs. A system of responsible regulation can break the link between marijuana and far more dangerous substances."

The full study can be obtained on the American Journal of Public Health's web site, http://www.ajph.org.

With more than 15,000 members and 77,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP works to minimize the harm associated with marijuana -- both the consumption of marijuana and the laws that are intended to prohibit such use. MPP believes that the greatest harm associated with marijuana is imprisonment. For more information, please visit MarijuanaPolicy.org.