Drug War Issues
Politics & Advocacy
A CBS News poll released late last week has support for marijuana legalization at an all-time high, with as many Americans now saying it should be legal as saying it should not. Some 47% of respondents said it should be legal, while another 47% were opposed.
The poll is in line with a growing number of polls in the last couple of years that show marijuana legalization hovering on the cusp of majority support. A Gallup poll last year had support at 50%, while an Angus-Reid poll last week had support at 54%.
And in what could be a warning signal to Washington, the poll found that 59% thought states should determine whether marijuana should be legal, while only 34% thought the federal government should.
Pot legalization had majority support among independents (55%) and Democrats (51%), but not Republicans (27%). It had majority support among young people (18-to-29, 54%; 30-to-44, 53%), but not among the middle aged (46%) or those 65 and older (30%). The poll did not provide a breakdown by gender.
The poll also found overwhelming support for medical marijuana (83%), even though only 29% thought most medical marijuana "is being used to alleviate suffering from serious illnesses."
The poll was conducted November 16-19 with 1,100 respondents using both land lines and cell phones. The margin of error is +/- 3.1%.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Comments
prohibition is crumbling
bit by bit
I can only hope that as older Americans die off (sorry) that we'll see these number keep creeping up, to the point where we will finally get mainstream politicians willing to run on clear platforms including legalizing at various levels. It is so stupid that some official believes they should decide what I smoke. Crazy!!
The Land of the Free
Pot prohibition was SYMBOLIC
Pot prohibition was always SYMBOLIC.
Pot prohibition is ending through the processes of psychotic breakdowns, which are SYMBOLIC of the psychotic breakdowns of the whole of Neolithic civilization.
It was BECAUSE hemp was the single best plant on the planet for people that the laws asserted that "marijuana is almost as bad as murder" and backed that legalized lie up with ruthless legalized violence for decade after decade. Pot prohibition fit into the overall fascist plutocracy, building a fascist police state. The war on drugs was always mostly the war against marijuana. The war on drugs segued from slavery and racism, and mostly was a coded way to accomplish the same things.
THE BASIC SYSTEM WAS DEBT SLAVERY, BACKED BY WARS BASED ON DECEITS.
That debt slavery has become debt insanity! Just look at the numbers, which are nuts! The system of privatized fiat money, made out of nothing, as debts, was always the triumph of organized crime taking control of governments, primarily through the history of the funding of the political processes. (That included things like assassination of politicians that refused to become puppets.)
The same pyramidion people, who made and maintained the social pyramid system of Neolithic civilization, evolved throughout history. For a few hundred years, their primary manifestation has been through the international bankers, and their central banks, and other privatized banks, that were able to control governments to legalize counterfeiting. Those who gained that power were then able to take over the mass media, and just about everything else too!
Those international banksters are the biggest gangsters, that were behind funding all sides of almost every war and revolution for the last few Centuries. They were behind the League of Nations, and then the United Nations. ONE OF THE SYMBOLIC THINGS THEY DROVE WAS CRIMINALIZING ALL CANNABIS CULTIVATION.
It was typical for those people to make profits from every possible evil thing that they could possibly do. The banksters running the fascist plutocracy were the ones that benefited the most, all the way around, from the drug wars, and criminalizing cannabis. They launder the organized crime drug money, and they benefit from having excuses to build a bigger fascist police state!
Think of it this way: Neolithic civilization was primarily agriculture, and probably one of the first crops was cannabis. What did it SYMBOLIZE to make the single best plant on the planet for people become criminal to cultivate? Who benefits from such huge lies, backed by so much violence, for so long?
That is the context in which to understand that we are reaching a tipping point, where enough of the mainstream morons are switching their opinions about pot prohibition. That it taking place within the overall context that the vast majority of people are political idiots, that have been brainwashed to believe in Huge Lies, and subjected to professional lying by omission, their whole lives.
Therefore, it is SYMBOLICALLY significant that we are reaching a tipping point where the majority of those people no longer believe those "reefer madness" lies that "marijuana is almost as bad as murder." Hence, pot prohibition is heading towards psychotic breakdowns. The overgrowing of the government is prevailing. The suffering of enormous numbers of people paying the price for black market marijuana is breaking the back of the government's will and ability to continue to enforce their lies with more violence.
By and large, the "legalize marijuana" movements are led by the same kinds of mainstream morons as one will find common throughout the rest of society. They want to make marijuana become a "normal" part of society, to be regulated and taxed like other products. By and large, those people are political idiots, just like the vast majority of other mainstream people.
What is interesting is whether the tipping point and turning of tides regarding pot prohibition is SYMBOLIC of the same things in the bigger picture???
Pot prohibition has always been the single simplest symbol and the most extreme example of the general pattern of social facts. Ending pot prohibition is potentially SYMBOLIC of much, much more than merely legalizing marijuana, and that is still true, even though the majority of people are still way too ignorant to understand that fully.
Most of the people who talk about the dominoes maybe falling having no idea about how bit that domino board really may be! Metaphorically speaking, marijuana is potentially like mental spinach for Popeyes everywhere!
Co-evolution
As hokey as it sounds, I think there is a lot of merit to the whole cannabis/homo sapien co-evolution theory.
Humanity certainly helped Cannabis propagate to all four corners of the world, and resulted in it's increased genetic diversity and its prevalence in nature.
Where it gets a bit more obscure is how it helped us. But scientists will agree, that our brain is hardwired to interact with it like no other creature on Earth. I've heard theories that Cannabis may have helped push us along to develop the complex emotions and free will that led to the development of civilization and the like.
Yes, I realize how corny it sounds, there is some good literature on the subject though. The Botany of Desire is a good one. So before you utterly dismiss this idea, do a little research, it may at the very least make you do a mental double-take on the matter before writing it off as corny stoner logic.
That all being said, if the effects of cannabis on the human mind is something that would push our awareness to a higher level, it would make sense to want to ban it. How can you control people if they are "evolving?"
So much for personal freedom and the GOP
We heard all through the last campaign that republicans were more for freedom of choice than democrats.I don't know about the latter but the former said what they thought in this poll.My Province,BC votes at over 75% for legalisation all the time.The state of Washington going legal was seen as the last real barrier to this happening.Of course that ignores Stephen Harper.Harper is as opposed to cannabis as he is to a Palestinian state.Who knows who he'll recall if Obama lets Washington go legal?There's nothing worse or less logical than a religious zealot.
The most useful plant on the planet
Marijuana aka cannabis hemp is the most useful plant on the planet. Food, clothing, shelter, energy, medicine, insight, re-creation. Henry Ford even built a car out of it. The people are waking up and thanks to all who have helped in the awakening.
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