Arizona Medical Marijuana Vote Too Close to Certify
Two days out, Arizona's medical marijuana vote is still too close to certify. With precinct reports submitted, but 374,000 mail-in and provisional ballots remaining to be processed, Prop 203 was losing 50.26% to 49.74%, 664,609 to 657,667 -- a difference of less than 7,000 -- according to unofficial results published by the Secretary of State's office. If support for Prop 203 among yet to be counted ballots varies upward from the state average by two percent or more, the measure will pass.
Lily Rose, cancer survivor and Prop 203 proponent
For example, late mail-in voters could hail disproportionately from Arizona's cities, including Democratic strongholds like Tucson or Flagstaff. Voters who sent their ballots in at the last minute, or who were classified as provisional because they forgot to bring ID, might be less organized than the average Arizona voter. But lower organization could correlate with being more "creative," which in term might correlate to support for liberalizing of drug laws. Just some speculations to ponder while we await the results -- we are probably looking at a week from tomorrow, according to a news release by the Secretary of State's office, with final certification later in the month.
IMPORTANT: If you or anyone you know is a "provisional voter" in Arizona -- e.g. you cast a ballot but your eligibility to vote was in question -- you have until Tuesday of next week, November 9, to get your proof of voting eligibility to your local election office. PLEASE MAKE SURE TO DO THAT, AND SPREAD THE WORD. If medical marijuana supporters in Arizona whose ballots are provisional mobilize on that over the next five days, that could very well win this for Arizona, which in turn would give drug policy reform one statewide victory this year.
Location:
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United States
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"medical" marijuana
Truth is: there is no such thing as "medical" marijuana. Whether prescribed by a doctor or bought off the street: pot is pot. FDA hasn't approved of it and though it may decrease pain in cancer patients, the only people who really need it (speaking of California and other "medical" marijuana states) are less than 17%. It is documented in California, an undercover MALE cop went in and complained of MENSTRUAL CRAMPS, he then obtained a prescription for "medical" marijuana. This shows how stupid this law is. And people say the supporters of this law don't want to legalize it: ha! Look at California's ballot, that thank goodness didn't pass! They wanted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Oh, and by the way, there are now more drop outs in Cali now that they have the "medical" marijuana and the rate of teen pot smokers is higher in states with "medical" marijuana than it is in states without the joke of a law. I suggest you do research next time before voting "yes" on "medical" marijuana.
Ill Informed Bully
You are nothing more than an ill-informed bully.
If you don't want to use it, the answer is simple, DON'T!
Only sociopaths demand to control total strangers.
Maybe you worship the FDA and take their word as holy truth, but I suggest you think like an adult instead and investigate the crooked maze of politics, ignorance, and traps set by mean-spirited thugs to thwart all attempts at using one of God's plants for good.
Many people have suffered from scurvy over the ages, but who ever thought of prefacing limes, oranges, or pine needles with "medical?" But I bet if your teeth were dropping out you would most definitely want a medical lime or a medical orange, and you'd even eat medical pine needles.
You are also wrong about your assertions on teen use. Ending the black market and its forbidden fruit status will go a long way towards teens getting real jobs that pay better.
And you have the gall to tell these folks to do their homework?!
wow
Wow, you really are ignorant aren't you. Marijuana should not have been made illegal in the first place. Don't worry the ignorance will one day end. Its a shame your parents and grandparents were fed this bullcrap and they believed it.
Don't buy into propaganda, educate people!
They don't understand that their kids will grow up to buy it illegally and take BIG PHARMA drugs too, alcohol as well. Which is the most dangerous? Not Weed!!! Big Pharma can't list the number of side effects on drugs passed by the FDA unless they print a book with each prescription.
Nancy Reagan was ill one big uninformed, ignorant throw back from Nixon who started the "Drug War" to deflect from his bombing of Cambodia etc... There's the culprit for propaganda...NIXON. The original CROOK!
Well for those of you who
Well for those of you who don't listen to your kids or are simply out of touch with reality your kids are already taking prescription drugs and the parents are often the ones supplying them. I have to say that smoking or eating marijuana is a lot better than that. There has never been any kind of an overdoes on marijuana and just because someone smokes it doesn't mean that they will never amount to anything. There are thousands of people in college that smoke it and have MAs, PHDs and Doctorates. It all depends on the person that is smoking it that determines who they will become. If your a bad or misguided person then that is what you will be. Besides were talking about legalizing it for patients not children. If your worried about your kids then be a better parent, support then and teach them to be a person with a mind of their own.
Truth is?
Ok Anonymous213, its best not to start with "truth is" when you dont know wtf you are talking about. FDA hasnt approved it because it is a schedule 1 drug and so it cant be regulated properly. Marijuana does more than ease pain in many patients who have cancer and otherwise. I have Crohn's disease (look it up), It not only makes my pain easier to deal with, but also increases my appetite, helps me sleep, and lifts my spirits. We dont need people like you telling us what it may or may not do if you dont use it. Because you simply dont know. I doubt you have ill health or any health problems, so until you know suffering, keep your opinion to yourself. Sure the doc's in Cali prescribe it for many aches and pains, but what do you think is better, Marijuana or some other pill that has rediculous side effects? I'd like to see the proof of the guy cop complaining of Menstrual cramps and getting a card. Sounds like B.S. but stranger things have happened.
As for your disbelief about people who support medical marijuana not supporting legalization. There are many opinions on this. But it all depends on where you are coming from. For example some growers, and dealers wont support legalization due to the fact it will start to cut into their profits when the government get their hands all over it. When the gov does get their hands on it eventually, the price of Marijuana will go down, cutting deep into profits. Best thing for growers and dealers is to keep it as medical, and even better decriminalized.
And to speculate that Medical Marijuana is the reason for students dropping out. That is B.S. too. Education is not blanketed over the entire US. Every state is different and deals with their education differently.
I suggest that you or anyone like you does some EXTENSIVE research before they post on a site with their propaganda promoting opinion. It might help if you know someone who is actually sick who uses medical marijuana or might benefit from it. Otherwise you're just being ignorant. If you've never seen or felt real suffering and pain, you will not get it.
Seriously?
For those of you who don't know our government and the FDA Actually consider Cocaine and morphine a less toxic drug than marijuana. Yes, I do no believe that this drug should be abused by teenagers, but that doesn't stop them from drinking or smoking and these absolutely lethal substances are readily available. How many teenagers do we read about each year that get drunk at their senior prom and die in a car accident. Marijuana may be discouraged by some but if my children were out at a prom party I would rather have them smoking weed than getting drunk and totally inebriating their decision making capabilities. Not only that but Alcohol causes death by chronic alcoholism, terminal alcohol overdose, alcohol-related traffic deaths, loss of life from severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and the lost of life of children due to severe fetal alcohol syndrome and other fatal birth defects. I think if anything should have a closer eye on it is alcohol. I don't know about you but I feel weed is one of the least worrisome things in our economy at this time.
The available evidence strongly suggests that you are wrong
Here are some extracts from "MARIJUANA USE BY YOUNG PEOPLE: THE IMPACT OF STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS By Karen O’Keefe, Esq. Legislative Analyst Marijuana Policy Project and Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology University at Albany, State University of New York:
Overall, the trends in states with medical marijuana laws are slightly more favorable than the trends nationwide. California, Washington, and Colorado have all seen much greater drops in marijuana usage than have occurred nationwide. When states consider proposals to allow the medical use of marijuana under state law, the concern often arises that such laws might “send the wrong message” and therefore cause an increase in marijuana use among young people. The available evidence strongly suggests that this hypothesis is incorrect and that enactment of state medical marijuana laws has not increased adolescent marijuana use. Consequently, legislators should evaluate medical marijuana proposals based on their own merits — without regard for the speculative and unsupported assertions about the bills sending the “wrong message.”
In California — which has the longest-term, most detailed data available — the number of ninth graders reporting marijuana use in the last 30 days declined by 47% from 1996 (when the state’s medical marijuana law passed) to 2004. An analysis commissioned by the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs found “no evidence supporting that the passage of Proposition 215 increased marijuana use during this period.”
In Washington state, sixth graders’ current and lifetime marijuana use has dropped by at least 50% since the 1998 enactment of the state’s medical marijuana law. All other surveyed grade levels have seen both lifetime and current marijuana use drop by between 25% and 50%.
In Hawaii, youth marijuana use has decreased among all surveyed grade levels — by as much as 38% — since the 2000 passage of the state’s medical marijuana law.
Data from Maine suggest a modest decline since the 1999 passage of its law. Data from Nevada (whose law was passed in 2000) and Alaska (whose law was passed in
1998) show overall decreases in marijuana use, with a modest increase in a few individual grade levels.
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/sourcefiles/2005TeenUseReport.pdf
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/sourcefiles/1999StateDataNHSDA.pdf
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/sourcefiles/2006StateDateNHSDA.pdf
Less than 17% --
How many is that? How many humans should be allowed to simply die in pain, in violence and in cages, so that tens of thousands of other human beings may simply LIVE in pain, in violence and in cages?
Wrong
It sounds like to me YOU need to do a little bit of research. Yes, maby people will abuse it and complain about pain they really do not have just to obtain it, but look at it this way. People do that for other drugs such as: Oxys, Perks, Morphine and a lot more. These other drugs are a lot WORSE. People die from overdoses of them everyday. So therefore if they were to prescribe Marijuana instead it would decrease deaths and would have a lot of good effects for the people who do need it. Seriously, FDA does not need to approve it because there has been a lot of research done on it otherwise that proves it can help for a lot of different things. In case you did not know there has never been a recorded overdose or death de to Marijuana. I would gladly debate with you on this over the phone or e-mail. I am not saying that they should ever make it legal for recreational use though. If they did that smoking marijuana would not have the same thrill as it does being illegal knowing your not aloud to smoke it. And please do not blame drop-out rates on medical marijuana that is very illogical. Do you not relies what our economy is at? If anything it is the economy, either that or they are depressed about the Dallas Cowboys crappy playing haha.
thanks for the update...a lot
thanks for the update...a lot of the media is reporting this as already dead...it would be great, if this passed
Distorting Medical Facts Is About As Low As It Gets
cannabis has been used medicinally for millennia, just take a look at any encyclopedia or read the latest position paper from the American College of Physicians, released in February of 2008, entitled “Supporting Research into the Therapeutic Role of Marijuana.”
just google to find the ACP's paper...for some reason, my link may be triggering the spam filter and i can't get this comment and the ACP's link to post...
cannabis has amazing therapeutic versatility and cannot kill from toxicity, which is mind-boggling considering fda-approved medications kill tens of thousands of people each year -- even when properly prescribed and properly taken...
and you cannot patent "natural source material" like natural, unmodified, whole plant cannabis; so no pharmaceutical company is going to pay the millions and millions marshalling cannabis through the FDA trials; because without a patent, which gives exclusive rights to sell the drug for 15 years after the day the drug is approved by regulators, you can't recoup the FDA trial expenses...
besides, we know a lot more about cannabis, since it has been studied and dissected for centuries, than we know about new drugs, like Vioxx, which the FDA "fast-tracked" through their trials in record time, and then Vioxx killed more than 27,000 people, according to the FDA...that's a lot of people...of course we should have medical access to cannabis in its most natural and least toxic form...
at this point, considering cannabis's history and efficacy as a medicine are widely known and considering the extensive medical evidence and broad medical support, only the profoundly ignorant or paid liars would be ignorant or corrupt enough to say cannabis isn't medicine...
trying to keep safe medicine from people is just plain wrong...
Get your head in the game. Our government is corrupt.
For those of you who don't know our government and the FDA Actually consider Cocaine and morphine a less toxic drug than marijuana. Yes, I do no believe that this drug should be abused by teenagers, but that doesn't stop them from drinking or smoking and these absolutely lethal substances are readily available. How many teenagers do we read about each year that get drunk at their senior prom and die in a car accident. Marijuana may be discouraged by some but if my children were out at a prom party I would rather have them smoking weed than getting drunk and totally inebriating their decision making capabilities. Not only that but Alcohol causes death by chronic alcoholism, terminal alcohol overdose, alcohol-related traffic deaths, loss of life from severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and the lost of life of children due to severe fetal alcohol syndrome and other fatal birth defects. I think if anything should have a closer eye on it is alcohol. I don't know about you but I feel weed is one of the least worrisome things in our economy at this time.
New Update, it's looking better
Could it pass? Marijuana race now CLOSER
http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/state/could-it-pass-marijuana-race-now-closer
"Nearly 50,000 provisional and left over early ballots were counted Thursday, according to Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell."
"Those ballots shrunk the Prop. 203 margin of difference to just over 3,000 votes."
"Earlier in the day, there was a 7,000 vote difference between the sides."
They still have several hundred thousand to count! :)
A Nurse's Opinion
Having been an ICU nurse for many years, there is nothing that breaks my heart more than not being able to relieve my patients' pain. To look in their suffering eyes, hour after hour, day after day, as they beg me to help them, is excruciating not only for them, but for their families, and everyone trying to help them. Medical marijuana can help relieve their suffering without narcotics that affect their breathing, their appetite, and their sense of control.
If a teenager wants pot, they can get it easily. Not so much for an elderly cancer patient.
Also, although I have cared for thousands of people withdrawing from alcohol, I have never had a marijuana withdrawl case. If it ever came down to "either/or", marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol, both medically and financially.
Re: A Nurse's Opinion
How anyone could read this comment and still be against medicinal cannabis is beyond me. I guess some people just have hearts of ice.
May I ask you all to please
May I ask you all to please consider the following very carefully: It wasn't alcohol that caused the surge in crime and homicide during alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, it was the prohibition of alcohol. That's why many of us find it hard to believe that the same thing is not happening now. We clearly have a prohibition fueled violent crime problem. A huge number of these violent crimes are perpetrated by criminal syndicates and gangs who use the proceeds from the sales of illegal substances to further even more of their criminal activities.
The second biggest business during prohibition in Detroit was liquor at $215 million a year and employing about 50,000 people. Authorities were not only helpless to stop it, many were part of the problem. During one raid the state police arrested Detroit Mayor John Smith, Michigan Congressman Robert Clancy and Sheriff Edward Stein.
The Mexican cartels are ready to show, that when it comes to business, they also like to be nonpartisan. They will buy-out or threaten politicians of any party, make deals with whoever can benefit them, and kill those who are brave or foolish enough to get in their way.
If you support prohibition then you're either a black market profiteer, a terrorist, a corrupt politician, a sadomoralist, a socialist or a fake-conservative.
If you support prohibition then you've helped trigger the worst crime wave in history, raising gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging.
If you support prohibition you've a helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike.
If you support prohibition you've helped to make these dangerous substances available in schools and prisons.
If you support prohibition you've helped put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets.
If you support prohibition you've helped to escalate Murder, Theft, Muggings and Burglaries.
If you support prohibition you've helped to divert scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting your fellow citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property.
If you support prohibition you've helped to prevent the sick and dying from obtaining safe and effective medication.
If you support prohibition you've helped remove many important civil liberties from those citizens you falsely claim to represent.
If you support prohibition you've helped create the prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords.
If you support prohibition you've helped escalate the number of people on welfare who can't find employment due to their felony status.
If you support prohibition you're responsible for the horrific racial disparities which have breed generations of incarcerated and disenfranchised Afro Americans.
If you support prohibition you've helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.
If you support prohibition you're promoting a policy which kills our children, endangers our troops, counteracts our foreign policy and reduces much of the developing world to anarchy.
Neurotics build castles in the sky, psychotics live in them; the concept of a "Drug-Free Society" is a neurotic fantasy and Prohibition's ills are a product of this psychotic delusion.
Prohibition is nothing less than a grotesque dystopian nightmare; if you support it you must be either ignorant, stupid, brainwashed, corrupt or criminally insane.
If you support prohibition then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.
Good piece, Malcolm
I always like to use this quote, in arguments against prohibitionists:
"It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil." -- Fredrich von Hayek, Nobel Laureate in Economics, from "The Constitution of Liberty"
The problem with America, today, is that the majority of Americans don't know how to mind their own damn business when it comes to matters of personal choice in exercising our individual freedom! Some Americans seem to think it is ok for them to tell others what those others are allowed to do with their own bodies, but if one were to suggest that some item or action of which those "some Americans" approve should be prohibited, watch them scream "unconstitutional restriction of freedom"! They are blind to the contradiction, the double standard; blind to the fact that they are full out hypocrites.
Fact-Resistant Propaganda
Great responses to the ONDCP/DEA rep or DEA-wannabe poster who started this thread. When you examine cannabis's 70+year old monstrous lie from an information management & propaganda point of view, cannabis propaganda is some of the most successful, most ambitious, and most engrained disinformation ever spread -- all over the world -- thanks to creative liars, like Anslinger and his media buddy Hearst. And today's ethically and morally-challenged propagandists continue repeating the same old lies, over and over again, as anonymous just illustrated. They don't care that they are blocking access to safe medicine, I fully understand this: they are indeed corrupt to the core and will do just about anything to prevent this medicine from getting to people who medically need it. They are some sick bleeps.
An ethical, courageous President could put an end to all these blatant lies TODAY. I will not give any more money or use any of my energy for OBAMA, given he blatantly lied about honoring states' rights and is denying patients the right to make informed decisions about safe medicine. And I donated a whole month of my time and thousands of dollars. I am enraged that Obama and Holder blatantly lied, which emboldened and encouraged the FEDS to trample states' rights. I am not surprised he lied -- that's what too may politicians do best -- but i won't stand for it, and I won't help him anymore, at all (no more explaining that Obama didn't create this economy and explaining we didn't really have enough time to assess his progress...).
In the fourteen legal states, state governors who believe the Constitution should have some part in America's future direction need to forbid the DEA from trampling the U.S. Constitution and forbid them from entering their states, if they are unjustly targeting medical marijuana. And state and local police should be protecting patients and caregivers from a very real war on our own people, on our rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and on MEDICINE.
And for you wannabe constitutional scholars or paid constitutional distorters, the Tenth Amendment is crystal-clear that issues not enumerated by the constitution are left for the states to decide. No Debate. Done Deal.
And, the Supremacy Clause that the FEDS love to throw into any discussion about cannabis, whether its relevant or not, pertains to laws made in pursuance of the Constitution, or those clearly enumerated in the Constitution, state laws notwithstanding. And the CSA was not and has never been a part of The Constitution or in pursuance of The Constitution.
The FEDS just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper into a lie that is morally, constitutionally, and intellectually indefensible...too many people know the truth for this charade to continue...obviously, there are some powerful interests that perpetuate this insanity...
You must be dreaming
In which of the MMJ states do you think you will find a governor who believes "the Constitution should have some part in America's future direction"? They're all sold out whores who only see the power they want in their own futures, and who want every uSofA taxpayers' penny they can get their hands on from the federal government; so they willingly and happily dance to the fed gov's tune, and screw the peoples' liberty. I think every one of them has ignored the voters of their states on the cannabis issues and tried to stop attempts to make any use of the herb re-legalized. The only governor I know of who supports an end to the war on drug(user)s is the former governor of NM, Gary Johnson.
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