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Taiwanese Animated Report on Prop 19 Marijuana Initiative
This video more or less speaks for itself. I doubt that marijuana smoking would be allowed in some of the public places where it depicts people doing that, but they were trying to present the arguments being made by both sides. One commenter on the video noted that they presented the stoned driver as going too slowly, not fast and recklessly, an insightful detail.
As an east coaster it took me a few moments to remember this, but the bear is a symbol for the state of California.No Accepted Medical Use? Three Perspectives on Medical Cannabis (Video -- ReasonTV)
The Right to Survive Overdoses
Our friends at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, in honor of Overdose Awareness Day (August 31), have produced a new video, "Take Home Naloxone -- The Right to Survive Overdoses." There are many legal, political and attitudinal barriers that currently stand in the way of getting this life-saving medication to the people who need it, when they need it, and numerous lives have been needlessly lost as a result. You can help overcome those barriers by distributing this video and helping to eliminate the prejudices and inertia that currently stand in the way of Naloxone distribution.
Nation's First Medical Marijuana TV Commercial
While some California TV stations are censoring pro-legalization-of-marijuana ads, at least one Sacramento station has aired what is claimed to be the nation's first TV ad for marijuana itself:
CNN also covered the story.
Give up, prohibitionists. This one is so over.
America's First Medical Marijuana TV Ad
Kelly Ayotte Supports Persecuting Medical Marijuana Patients
Kelly Ayotte, former attorney general of New Hampshire and the state's leading Republican contender for Senate, wouldn't tell a disabled Navy veteran Manchester GOP Candidate Fair and Straw Poll that he was a criminal for needing medical marijuana. But it's hard to distinguish her position from that idea.
That and more candidate video footage appears at NHCompassion.org, a project of the New Hampshire Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy.
(This article was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)
With 28,000 Killed Since 2006, Movement for Drug Legalization in Mexico Takes Hold (Video)
Mexico Debates Drug Legalisation (Video)
Bill Clinton Calls for Harm Reduction
Three new videos from the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, filmed at the Vienna AIDS 2010 conference this month. In one of them, former US President Bill Clinton calls for harm reduction, an approach to substance misuse and other social issues of which the most well-known example is needle exchange programs.
In another, Anya Sarang, director of the Andrey Rylkov Foundation, criticizes Russia's drug policy -- timely, in light of the recent appointment of Russian diplomat Yuri Fedotov as UN drug czar.
A third video documents the conference's March for Human Rights, including interviews with participants.
The best known example of harm reduction practices is needle exchange. Under President Clinton, the federal government recognized that needle exchange programs reduce the spread of HIV, but do not increase the prevalence of drug use -- two determinations that by statute allowed the administration to lift the ban on states using federal AIDS funds by states to support needle exchange programs. However, the administration did not actually lift that ban, a decision that advocates attribute to the influence of former US drug czar Barry McCaffrey. In his biography published after leaving office, Clinton expressed support for needle exchange.
