Europe: Move Afoot in Poland to Legalize Marijuana
According to Polish Radio, a campaign to loosen the marijuana laws is underway in Poland. A petition to the Ministry of Justice requesting the legalization of marijuana for personal use has already been signed by hundreds of people, including drug rehab specialists and members of Monar, a nonprofit group that works with addicts, the HIV/AIDS positive, and the homeless.
Now, would-be legalizers are trying a new tack: direct contact with members of parliament (MPs). "Cannabis canvassers" recruited via the Internet have been paying visits to politicians in an effort to win them over, and it seems to be working. The canvassers have already collected the signatures of five MPs, including former health minister Marek Balicki.
Legalization of personal possession (or decriminalization) would be a step forward for Poland. Under current law, possession of even small amounts of marijuana is a serious criminal offense.
Comments
Legal Marijuana
When will the USA see that the war on drugs is a joke using taxpayers money to line someones pocket.
There are several new countries that are approaching leagalizing Marijuana. They have seen & know its not a war to be won, when will the Usa soften up also, Its beer and cigarettes that need illegalized, not Marijuana, booze and cigarettes kills more than pot ever has or will. Pot has never once killed Anyone, unlike legal booze and cigarettes. Wisen up USA
And why is it if a big wigs kid gets caught with massive amounts of drugs they just get a hand smacking? Could it be Daddy helping? I think so.
America wants legal marijuana so lets get busy and get it right, Dave
In reply to Legal Marijuana by Anonymous (not verified)
My pet project this month ...
I strongly disagree with you on whether to criminalize alcohol and tobacco. Did you sleep through history class when the issue of US alcohol prohibition came up? If you knew history and drug policy from a broader view than just cannabis you'd know that prohibition on pretty much ANY drug tends to be disastrous in almost unimaginable ways.
Prohibition as it is conceived of today does NOT solve any of the problems it is supposed. Just as prohibition doesn't work for cannabis so it doesn't for other drugs. Not only is the effect of criminalization non-existant and doesn't in anyway predict the level of drug use and absue in a country, but it clearly makes already dangerous drugs more dangerous and creates a very harmful black market.
While pot happens to be relatively safe it is no laughing matter to increase the dangers of heroin, cocaine, Ecstasy-pills or GHB/Fantasy. Prohibition causes many needless deaths because it makes drug quality, purity and potency unpredictable.
Also, be quite aware that when you employ arguments as the one you use here you are actually admitting to the prohibitionists that prohibition as a strategy works wonders. Why else would you support Prohibition against those other drugs? And if it works such wonders against those other drugs ... why not emply it against cannabis as well?
Prohibition as a strategy happens to simply not work. It doesn't accomplish its goals.
Prohibition also happens to be strongly against personal freedom, and it actually furthers the Socialist concept that somehow "the state owns the individual, so it is reasonable to infringe on personal freedoms because the state has every right ot prevent damage to its property".
In reply to My pet project this month ... by Malkavian (not verified)
About Prohibition Not Working...
Yeah, that's fine. Let's keep Alcohol legal as well, yeah? Easy there.
Since America is "The Land of the Free", why don't they give us the FREEDOM to choose what drug/plant/toxins/man-made liver & lung killers...etc. that we want to ingest in our bodies??? Where is our freedom to choose, America?
Maybe in the beginning, laws were put in place for a logical purpose, but now it seems that they exist only to make a profit for the state and federal government.
I'm very frustrated with this aspect of America. And some others...
In reply to Legal Marijuana by Anonymous (not verified)
Legal???
When will the US taxpayer see that the government is keeping drugs (in toto) illegal so they can justify a paramilitary state and an un-winnable war. The powers that be are in bed with the pharmaceutical behemoths so that we are forced to take their poison.
Just my opinion, and we already know what that's worth.
Won't they need "permission"
Won't they need "permission" from the US? God forbid some independent, sovereign nation might stand up against the imperialistic bully world-policeman.
DOWN WITH THE U.S.A. and all nations that suck up to it!
In reply to Won't they need "permission" by Anonymous (not verified)
I get your point, and I
I get your point, and I completely agree with it. However, the part in big letters is offensive. That's unnecessary.
In reply to Won't they need "permission" by Anonymous (not verified)
Very Intelligent
The USA goes down, and everyone else goes with it. Thats a guarantee. Just deal with the fact we are the richest, most powerful nation in the world and we tend to get our way. I disagree with alot of the actions and policies of the United States myself, and I want prohibition on certain things to end. But you are just making a terrible judgmental error in saying down with the U.S. We will be the last nation standing if it comes down to it. And you will be a refugee.
In reply to Very Intelligent by Anonymous (not verified)
True?
I am not sure if I agree that we would be the last nation standing, but I understand and feel the same way. I am aware that our country makes horrible mistakes and some of our policies are, for lack of a better word, retarded. I understand 100% of all the crap that is blasted in the way of the US, I only wish that the people from other countries that are so hateful towards americans would realize that we are not all CRAZY like a majority of the people who lead this country and the cold sad truth of the matter is, this country is run by money. If you have money you can rig elections, those "elected" are then turned into puppets. So really our country is run by those who have money. And I do not. So please do not lump me in with the hypocritcal morons who have enough money to pull the strings. I DO NOT AGREE WITH THEM!
God Bless our United States
God Bless our United States and give us wisdom as a people and a nation as we sort the issue of prohibition and lead and are a part of the whole world. I am on probation right now for growing pot in my closet here in Iowa. If I want to get high I can open my bottles of percocet or morphine or fentoria right now and eat enough to die.
So when I confront the P.O. and tell her, "Let's have a laugh together and U.A. me!" she doesn't quite feel like attacking on me. I am turning lemons into lemonaid by slowly informing her of the inconsistencies and lies we smoker/growers are aware of. By being less confrontational than I could be I am slowly teaching her I am a human being who will continue to smoke pot and I am not going to hurt her life or our country.
The cops have been lied to and the fad to destroy us is still on, but we can gently stop the adrenalization with the truth.
We are within a pendulum of public perception on this and many simultaneous issues. I would deeply desire to reduce the extreams of the pendulum swings with the truth. We just are not benefited as a society by jailing people such as I. I totally refuse to be mind-controlled by idiots in monkeysuits in a jail. Exposing such as I to genuine psychotics in an open prison yard is a great evil and a national disgrace. It is a very extream swing of the pendulum and is a great wrong.
Now, the other side of the pendulum swings: in the early nineteen hundreds the third grade school teacher could be legally fall down drunk by noon. The doctors could and sometimes were, narcotically blasted. The effect of the Great Prohibition, lasting to this day, is greater safety because we stopped relying on getting numb to dampen the fear of early death.
As the science became stronger our reasonable fear of early death was reduced. As our fears lessened our need to reduce these overpowering fears was reduced. This increase in knowledge was happening at the same time as the Great Prohibition was. As such, Penicillin had something to do with not needing to get high so often, though it was later in history.
We who get high are self medicators. Do not waste everyones time lecturing me with your favorite lecture points. Power is not allowed to change anything for long. Nature is not well installed into a box for long.
We need the middle ground very badly. But first, we have got to secure ourselves from the drug warriors who are insane with adrenaline and jail to fix things with. They are a symptom of the problems so terrible they have disease characteristics themselves.
Remember, there are multiple pendulums swinging. Now, go look up I.T.E.R. and ignore the parts that are over your head because there are many that are not over your head.
Can you see the future better now? Is it not full of promise? It sure is!
Work hard, come home, smoke your pot. Enjoy your family stoned or otherwise. You are not alone. Not controlling anything totally, you do not bear the burden of control, either.
Sorry Poland, Thanks for playing!
Sorry Poland thanks for playing, but if you want to be in the United Nations you cannot legalize Marijuana, period. Look it up, it is a restriction imposed by the United States through the UN. The best that you can hope for is for the police to just not enforce the law, as in Amsterdam, or decriminalize the shit out of it, like getting a ticket. Sad and true the history of the ganja. The truth of why its illegal, even growing hemp, is one part military industrial complex, one part textile industrial complex, one part pharmaceutical industrial complex(it is a non patentable panacea), one part Oil industry(it makes spectacular bio-diesel), one part prison industrial complex, and two parts of fear that it may expand the minds and placate the people to the point they will not be super-consumers. Because it is mass consumption that keeps this civilization dragging the fuck along.
Nice
Boy its nice to know that there are countries out there with Common Sense!
jess
www.anonymize.us.tc
Decriminalization is the way
It doesn't even really have to be legal. We can dream all we want, but it's going to be a long time coming before marijuana is actually legalized. Just decriminalize it to the point where you get a slap on the wrist for doing it in certain situations, like in a non-smoking area or in front of a school, or whatever. As long as I'm not instantly a social stigma based on the fact that I enjoy marijuana, I don't really care what the legalization status is.
Suprising that more counties
Suprising that more counties have not followed the way of amsterdam with their drug laws
http://idonothaveasite.com
Legalise or decriminalise?
No, Cannabis has to be legalised completely. Did you know that tobacco is actually in a state of decriminalisation? You are not allowed to grow your own Tobacco. There are serious fines for that, they are even heavier than for Cannabis. And heaven forbid if you actually tried to sell the stuff, you would get time. Tobacco farmers pay a hefty permit fee to grow Tobacco.
The fact is, if people grew their own tobacco, they would be able to grow old, non-GM and non-hybridised strains and grow them organically. And small scale growers, if they could sell that kind of produce, would be the basis of a cottage industry. The product would still contain that dangerous nicotine but overall it would be nowhere near as bad for the smoker.
Did you know that Thailand does not allow western tobacco into their country. You can see stalls here totally covered in all kinds of locally grown tobacco products. And tobacco related deaths are one quarter in Thailand of what there are in the west. And the smell of Thai Tobacco is not as offensive as western tobacco.
And if we properly deregulated the tobacco industry, we would have a viable cottage industry that could bring wealth back to small, rural communities and so too could Cannabis.
Absolutely no way should Cannabis fall prey to these same kind of restrictions or we would end up with another low quality, dangerous product that fed the coffers of giant multi-national corporations at the expense of the farmers, our rural communities and the consumers.
LEGALIZE MARIHUANA IN POLAND
LEGALIZE MARIHUANA IN POLAND WE NEED HELP FROM HOLLAND !
Damian from poland , bless
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