cannabisnews.com: Don't Fear The Reefer










  Don't Fear The Reefer

Posted by CN Staff on January 24, 2005 at 08:28:59 PT
Staff Editorial 
Source: Columbia Daily Spectator 

We’re happy that the New York Legislature voted last month to reform the arcane Rockefeller Drug Laws. We look forward to seeing judges give fairer prison sentences to nonviolent men and women convicted of selling or possessing narcotics. Yet while these laws are a step in the right direction, they don’t go far enough. A key component of any rational drug policy must include the legalization of marijuana.
Nearly one in every three Americans has tried marijuana, with rates of its use highest among those aged 18 to 20. Last year, authorities arrested a Columbia College senior for possessing six pounds of marijuana in his dorm room on the third floor of Broadway Residence Hall. The former student, Rich Lipkin ’04, now has a criminal record. He, of course, is lucky. Unlike the vast majority of those arrested for marijuana possession, he attended an Ivy League university, and therefore does not have to worry about his criminal record permanently preventing him from escaping a life of poverty.Marijuana isn’t that harmful. According to the National Academy of Sciences, a joint deposits up to four times as much tar in a smoker’s lungs as would a cigarette of comparable weight, but the average marijuana smoker consumes far fewer joints per day than do those who smoke tobacco cigarettes.Moreover, marijuana is less addictive than tobacco or alcohol: the NAS reports that while 32 percent of tobacco users and 15 percent of alcohol users become dependent on their drugs of choice, only nine percent of marijuana users do. While nearly 50,000 people die every year from alcohol poisoning—and hundreds of thousands more die in drunk-driving accidents—not one death from a marijuana overdose has ever been recorded. The British medical journal The Lancet has reported that “the smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat than alcohol or tobacco.”Many call marijuana a gateway drug, one that drives its users to experiment with harder drugs later on. But according to the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws, for every 104 Americans who try marijuana, only one will become a regular user of cocaine and less than one of heroin. In all likelihood, it is marijuana’s prohibition, not its use, that leads its smokers to harder drugs. People seeking marijuana must currently turn to a black market, where it is sold alongside and often laced with a host of harder drugs. Legalization would preserve the integrity of the marijuana supply while protecting Americans from exposure to more harmful and addictive substances.Marijuana isn’t that dangerous or addictive, and enforcement falls disproportionately upon the poor.It’s time to legalize it.Newshawk: global_warming Source: Columbia Daily Spectator (Columbia, NY Edu)Published: January 24, 2005Copyright: 2005 Spectator Publishing CompanyContact: opinion columbiaspectator.comWebsite: http://www.columbiaspectator.com/NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/CannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml

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Comment #14 posted by FoM on January 25, 2005 at 17:47:45 PT
Siege 
Thank you. The next time we have to drive to the VA Hospital I will ask them. It is about 130 miles so it's a long trip. 
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Comment #13 posted by Hope on January 25, 2005 at 07:05:14 PT
Siege
I'm so sorry that trouble from Government intrusion has come to your household. I'm so sorry. It's not right.You're on my mind and in my prayers.
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Comment #12 posted by Siege on January 24, 2005 at 23:06:13 PT
FoM
check it out next VA. app. it is Mileage from home to Hospital. for travel pay go to the Casher window or ask at desk and find out if he can get it, it is not much one way on gas. 
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Comment #11 posted by FoM on January 24, 2005 at 19:07:54 PT
Off Topic: Health Related
Human-to-Human Transmission of Bird Flu Confirmed Posted on Mon, Jan. 24, 2005 Raising concerns that a form of bird flu is poised to cause a worldwide pandemic, health officials announced Monday that the disease has indeed spread among humans in Thailand, killing one woman and sickening another.Complete Article: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/10722780.htm?1c
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on January 24, 2005 at 18:39:27 PT

siege
My husband hasn't ever gotten any checks from the government for travel or anything except when he was in the service. You must get something my husband doesn't get. He pays into SS so he can have benefits when he retires. That's about all I know. It's all so confusing. The VA was a God Send when he got sick. He gets a check up every six months and they do blood tests to see how he's doing because of them finding Hep C. So far his liver enzymes have remained normal thank goodness.
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Comment #9 posted by siege on January 24, 2005 at 18:32:36 PT

FoM
I started SS after they cut the VA. I hope they did not change his, there changing A lot of the Veterans, they where geting drug and prescription free. know a lot more are on co pay, no travel pay, from what I heard they are to make some of the tests ( co pay ) for some. We will not know all of it for a while. The service officer don't know all of what is gong ON.
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on January 24, 2005 at 18:00:04 PT

siege
I don't understand about how they cut your SS. My husband uses the VA. He doesn't get any medicine though. He has had quite a few tests. He's never been charged for the tests or anything. If he needed a prescription drug he might need to pay a little but not the full price that would need to be paid if he went to a regular M.D. His co pay if he needed a drug would be $7.00 and it was $2.00 per prescription.
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Comment #7 posted by siege on January 24, 2005 at 16:55:09 PT

va care
from what I hear it is just part of what they are going to do 
they have cut some of the drugs that Patients are to get or they have to pay for them know when they where geting them free and some of the other Incare has been cut I do not know all of it. pension cuts, there are 8 in this town that say there benefits & med's. have been cut by 1/2. or pay for it.

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Comment #6 posted by dongenero on January 24, 2005 at 15:41:21 PT

siege
Sorry to hear that siege. It sounds awful. Is that the cut in retirement funds for veterans that Bush initiated?I wish you the best and hope that things turn around for you.
Keep your head up.
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Comment #5 posted by goneposthole on January 24, 2005 at 15:39:25 PT

cost of freedom
200 billion dollars for the war in Iraq would have bought 4 billion barrels of oil.24,000,000 Iraqis could have divided that 200 000 000 000 and received about six grand each. No wonder you lost your benefits. The US gov is broke.200 billion bucks would buy anywhere from one billion to 500 million ounces of kind bud.Instead it has bought 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians and over 1300 dead American soldiers. That's 'freedom'.  That's our 'government' at work.yikes
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Comment #4 posted by siege on January 24, 2005 at 15:24:08 PT

part of Dec. & Jan. 
I have lost all my VA as of Nov.04 Im on SS now not then 1/3 of what the va pension was. They say I made to much pension and it was cut. and when I had my say about it, in 3 weeks the cops come in and messup the house and every thing and they got me on 650+ counts of paraphanialia these where smoking pipes from all over the world. the court did throw it out. part of Dec. & Jan. was in jail. to have my say about Marijuana.
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Comment #3 posted by global_warming on January 24, 2005 at 14:41:28 PT

re:#2
"How many are willing to sacrifice their fun time or financial resources."I think this a large part of the problem, many of us are "locked" into our jobs, pension plans, social and religious systems, that force many of us to live in fear, fear of losing our benifits, losing our jobs, our place in the community,..Slowly many of us are starting to see the chink between the armor, the light of truth is starting to peek through the cracks in this system.There are too many of us, including those voting seniors, who are watching closely their benifts sliding away.Like Babylon, this corrupted system will fall, from the sheer weight of the greed that has made it so top heavy and unforgiving.The times are a chainging,...End this war on people, -gw
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Comment #2 posted by siege on January 24, 2005 at 13:56:30 PT

movement
We are the freedom movement, we have been doing the same thing for decades that doesn't work. How many times are We/You going to ask the same member of your state legislature or Congress to do something and they continue to ignore you, i.e. In reguards to Marijuana ? No one wants to be the one doing it all the time, they would rather some one eles fight for their freedom and take the risks involved with standing up for everyone's rights.1. In the last 5 weeks I have wrote 6 letters and made 6 phonecalls the letters no answers and the phone was cut off each time. Just a though have I hit a nerve with them or are they just being rude? Or is it that reality is coming home to them or are they going to stick there Heads deeper in there sandbox. How many are willing to sacrifice their fun time or financial resources. (I know here there are quit a few that do!) Is it realy easier to write a check to the RNC or the DNC and let them pick the Rotten, corrupt candidates to
humbul every one With for the next election. So let us just go poke some holes in the card and go do our thing people. Doze it realy matter that the ballot box is completey compromised because of the electronic machines. 
It is time to put new faces in the offices of the legislature so we can Move Forward, and give away the diewood that is there, they all think they have a home for the next 100 years.

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Comment #1 posted by FoM on January 24, 2005 at 09:02:01 PT

Two Articles Worth a Look
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2005/01/01-24-05tdc/01-24-05dnews-13.asphttp://citypaper.net/articles/current/cb3.shtml
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