Jane, there’s a typo in the sixth paragraph. Should be “the Just Say Now Campaign website”.

[modnote: fixed, thank you.]

Anyway, that’s a very diverse board, with a good representation of the professions most directly affected by marijuana law repeal or change.

I didn’t notice any logo campaign thing. Did I miss it? By that I mean a logo and URL to plaster on one’s blog to support the campaign.

spent quite a bit of time on the Just Say Now! website last night – it is fantastic ! chock full of great info and resources

p.s. would love to peruse Glenn Greenwald’s 08 study on the Portugal law

Great that the buttons and t-shirts for sale are union made and printed, of hemp in the case of the shirts. Nice touch.

Actually, I DON’T believe marijuana should be “taxed and regulated,” and especially not like alcohol. I think it should just cease to exist as a legal issue.

Americans consume 113 billion dollars worth of marijuana each year

In this economy?

Very impressive board….can’t hardly be dismissed as a gaggle of DFHs. Thanks for all you do!

marijuana should be taxed and regulated

Alcohol is a manufactured product and can, to some extent, be controlled. The product itself can be taxed at many levels. Weed, on the other hand, is just that, a weed. It is easy to grow, particularly for “personal” use. Even in the northerly climes of Canada the weed can be grown outside. The idea of legalizing for taxing will not work. I agree with TaosJohn.

That is no doubt one of those law enforcement figures that add the cost of every high school $5 joint and assume that all weed is sold that way. It is not.

almost all states have a sales tax on everything and usually some form of regulation (i.e. can’t be poisonous, must be what it is labeled as, etc…) You think it should get even a different treatment that every other product?

I’ve already made a donation Jane. I can squeeze a few bucks out of my budget for a worthy cause. Great board. I’m pleased but not surprised to see Glenzilla represent.

I can grow tomatoes outdoors (which I do) but that does not change the bulk of them are sold through a regulated and taxed structure in my state.

President Obama:
You campaigned and were elected to office in 2008 on the hope, and even explicit promise, that your presidency would bring about a significant change for the lives of millions of working people. After more than a year in office as President, after a year in which the Democratic Party held a majority in both houses of Congress, you have profoundly betrayed this hope and promise for change, for improvement in the condition of working people.

Mr. Obama, you and the Democratic Party majority. have destroyed all hopes of a significant change from the reviled policies of the last eight years of Bush and the Republican Party.

In fact, with many major crises created by the Bush/Cheney regime, you have further expanded the economic, political and social crises to the profit of the now already powerful corporate, military and wealth elites of this country. You have enhanced their wealth and power at the expense of the dire needs of increasingly impoverished working people and their families.

Millions of working people are now unemployed. For the last 30 years, millions of jobs have left the U.S. to Asia and Central America, creating “slave-wage” conditions for millions in other countries. The effect of this thirty year decline of U.S. capitalism
has meant wages in the U.S. have remained steady and declined.
Today, with the collapse of U.S. and global capitalism, additional millions of jobs are additionally lost. This has resulted in loss of homes, health care benefits, pensions, to individuals.

Immigration from Central America has exacerbated the condition of working people. But Mr. President, you have not in any way attacked the cause of the this immigration of millions of desperately poor people. You have not called for the cancellation of NAFTA or CAFTA, or ended the subsidies to agri-business which has dumped cheap corn on Mexico forcing over a million off the land. Instead of dealing with the cause of immigration, you have further just furthered profits for the “security” corporations in spending billions to build walls, sent troops, terrorized and compounded the misery of impoverished working people.

You have looted billions and trillions of dollars from the tax treasury of the people, to expand all these corporate-profit enhancing activities at the expense of the people of this country.
They have all deepened the major crises we are now facing, and done nothing to solve the major crises inherited from Bush.

War for oil, war for profit, has been continued and expanded not only in the Middle East and Central Asia. You have continued the militarily supported of Israel’s imperialistic adventures. You have expanded operations in Columbia, Honduras, Costa Rica and continue to undermine and attack Venezuela, presumably to acquire control of Venezuela’s oil reserves. Tens of billions of the people’s money are being consumed in these illegal and immoral wars.

Billions and trillions of dollars were handed over the run-amok, gangster Wall Street bankers, auto industry, etc. even returning to power the corrupt people who created the immediate economic crises.

Global Warming continues unabated, with fraudulent profitable schemes like “Cap and Trade” that does not put profitable polluters out of business.

Since your coming to office, tens of thousands of public school teachers have been fired, as schools are closed and essential education for the people is undercut and destroyed by “lack of funds”. The essential funding for public education, to support state and local governments to maintain services, has all been squandered by your regime, Mr. Obama.

Mr. Obama, the “Health Care Reform” is pure fraud, to further enrich corporate interests.

Social Security and Medicare, programs only rhetorically threatened by Bush, are now being rigorously a

ttacked by your government, Mr. Obama. These programs are the most critically essential programs essential to the very survival to working people, retired and disabled working people. Again Mr. Obama is vigorously expanding the Bush agenda.

It is now obvious that the AFL-CIO Executive Committee can no longer support you, President Obama, or the Democratic Party in this November election or in the Presidential election of 2012. Obviously, we cannot support the anti-labor Republican Party, which working people have suffered under for eight years.

Thus, the AFL-CIO Executive Council, is now using this occasion to issue a call to found a new political party, independent of corporate money and agendas, that is based on promoting the economic interests and well-being of all working people, organized and unorganized.

The many corporate-profiting crises must be dealt with in a manner appropriate to their seriousness, appropriate to understanding the root cause of these crises: that the run-amok, gangster capitalist economy must be phased out and transitioned to a socialist economy that serves the needs of the people.

One of the platform planks of the new party might include:

NATIONALIZE THE OIL INDUSTRY.
1. To finally end the pollution of the oil industry, including companies such as BP in the Gulf, and worldwide, that are destroying the environment. BP will forever pay fines (chump change) and continue all the profitable but destructive exploitation of resources belonging to the people.
2. To end the wars in the Middle East which are all based on securing profit from oil resources that can only be secured by war.
3. To end Global Warming. Air, water, environmental destruction caused by the entire fossil fuel industry.

The revenues derived from Nationalizing the oil industry alone can be used to end the crises created by this industry, to create massive funding to state governments, public education, public health.

To accomplish these critically important goals, a new socialist political party is needed that is not dominated by corporate campaign contributions and agendas.

Mr. Obama you and the Democratic Party, have proven incapable of furthering the economic and social needs of the people. You are, fully besotted with corporate campaign funds and agendas, are the enemy of organized labor and all working people.

————————————————————————-
Will the AFL-CIO Executive Board and Mr. Trumka assert the huge power it has, with millions of dues paying members, to at last lead working people out of the many crises we are now facing?

What about this? Regulate it just like homebrewed beer is. People can grow a limited amount for their personal use but if they decide to go into business it has to be regulated just like anything else. I know the Libertarian idea of complete deregulation has an appeal and I agree that we have far too many laws right now but society also has to be paid for. I’m not adverse to that.

Very impressive lineup, Jane. And you knocked ‘em dead yesterday on CNN. That dude you were “debating?” If I may respectfully submit: What a putz.

I eat my own tomatoes. I store what I do not eat right away. I pay no taxes for growing nor does anyone else. This is also possible with weed.

The issue comes down to “control”, one imagines, nomolos.

This is an authoritarian society, at the moment, as it has been, if we are honest, from its inception. In such a society, in order to reach the level that you and TaosJohn rightly, properly, and humanly suggest, will require “baby steps” which pacify this “need”, this pathology of control. Decades of fear-mongering and political opportunism have seen to it.

As a practical matter, most people will not wish to grow their own, though many will, and those many, harming no one, destroying nothing, must, someday, sooner rather than later be, not “accommodated” or “tolerated” but respected as exercising fundamental, basic, rights and standing for the actual truth of the matter.

However, given all that, if even the tiniest steps toward reason, tolerance and understanding may occur, then there is and will be, something to build justice upon … which, now, is totally lacking.

Beyond that, Jane, what an impressive board and most important undertaking.

This way leads to sanity.

What obtains, at present, does not.

DW

So if 113 billion dollars is an exaggeration, are the projected tax revenues exaggerated as well?

However, given all that, if even the tiniest steps toward reason, tolerance and understanding may occur, then there is and will be, something to build justice upon … which, now, is totally lacking.

I agree with you. However once a tax is levied on a weed the tax collectors will start to accrue “rights” allowing them to search property for “taxable weeds”. What come next, a loosestrife tax? A brussel sprout tax? A cabbage tax? A dandelion tax? It will not work, it is a red herring and it is wasteful to be pushing or proposing the issue when what we should be doing is pushing for decriminalization.

An even better analogy is tobacco which grows fairly well in most parts of the US (in fact it is an indigenous plant). How many people grow their own instead of contributing to the profits of big tobacco?

That would be my guess. Look if a pound of weed costs, we will say, $2.5K and on can get 60 joints from an ounce at $5 per that is $4,800 but most weed is not sold by the joint so the figures are bogus, the “real” figure is $2.5K

The homemade beer/wine situation is a good analogy. I can brew beer at home (or make wine or hard cider) and it is not taxed. I can give a small amount away as gifts.

What I cannot do without breaking the law is sell my beer, wine or hard cider.

There will be folks who grow a summer plot of pot, just as there are people who grow a summer plot of tomatoes or fresh herbs.

But most people in this society don’t have the time, interest or aerable land to be self sufficient farmers of any commodity.

The tyranny of the tax-man.

Agreed.

(If dandelions are taxed, then the prisons will overflow, especially considering how easily the seeds “go” …)

Should is the gist, but we’re still stuck in “could” and great blithering fear of what “would” …

DW

What I cannot do without breaking the law is sell my beer, wine or hard cider.

I agree with you that a lot of people will not have the time, location or energy to have a pot of pot in the house. However if you brew beer and I grow pot wouldn’t it make sense that we can we exchange gifts without breaking the law or involving the tax man?

Jane and eleven men? Seriously?

I have met a lot more people who grow pot than tobacco, in fact I have only met one person who grew their own tobacco.

It is just the selling of the legalizing of pot by selling that it would be taxable. Either it should be legal or not regardless of the tax issue. The tax issue is nothing to do with whether it should be decriminalized.

This is a great idea and I’m all for it .

I bought my tee shirt this morning, real hemp, ought to be cool !

What a great blog !

let’s analyze that $113B dollar figure:

Using $400/ounce that puts $113B at 282,500,000 ounces consumed annually in the US. Nearly one ounce for everyone in the US.

Current use (within past month) is estimated at 10% of the adult population. So $113B is equivalent to every cannabis consumer using about 9 ounces per year, or 3/4 per month. Plausible.

Realistically $400/ounce is on the high side – that’s saying users buy $50 eighth ounces about twice a week and don’t look for volume pricing.

In comparison annual sales of alcoholic beverages for home consumption in the US amounted to $103B in 2006.

In addition some portion of the meals and beverages consumed in restaurants $471B is alcohol… I’m not finding that broken down any further. I think home consumption is more relevant as cannabis is not sold in restaurants.

The question Progressives SHOULD be asking is, WHY is this gaining steam NOW? The answer’s simple, to once again misdirect stupid voters away from holding elected officials accountable for their actions. NOT ME, folks. They can not undue the once in 30 years opportunities they’ve squandered. I don’t care what they do to try to appease us between now & Nov., I will vote AGAINST EVERY Democratic Incumbent seeking reelection this year & vote against those in office now who will seek reelection in ’12.

Great job Jane.

The young should turn out and vote for it.

Interesting. One does have to wonder how much the “usage” figure would drop if people could legally grow sufficient for “personal”use.

Anyway I have to go and water my tomatoes, onions, cabbage, brussells, chard, potatoes, corn, squash, winter squash, beans, peppers parsley, thyme, sage, rosemary, other herbs and flowers.

I find that fascinating.

I don’t dispute any of your numbers, but it’s kind of hard for me to follow.

You say 10% of adult population, so this stat could be correct:

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2007, 14.4 million Americans aged 12 or older used marijuana at least once in the month prior to being surveyed, which is similar to the 2006 rate.

So regular pot smokers spend $8000 a year on average?

As I asked before, in this economy?

Hmm, I’m 62, and a recovering addict who does NOT anymore use marijuana, and I WILL be voting for the Oregon initiative to set up marijuana dispensaries under the Medical Marijuana program. I know a lot of Boomers and even older folks who would vote for legalization. This isn’t because they use, but because they see the corrupt nature of the prohibition. So, it’s not a generational thing. It’s about time this hypocritical system is abolished.
The Supreme Court has, in the past, acknowledged that as a preponderance of states move toward a policy consensus, that it will support such a consensus in contravention of federal law. This is just such a movement.
There are already 14 states that, in some way, recognize medial marijuana usage. The idea of an end to all prohibition is just a matter of time in that continuum.
As Peter Tosh said, many years ago, “Legalize it, don’t criticize it.”

And, BTW, Bailey2739, how is this a distraction? And gee, when you vote out every Dem, who’ll take their places, guys like J.D. Hayworth? That’ll really work…

I didn’t research current use numbers – you did. But yes 14.4 million users means 19.61 ounces (at $400 per ounce) per user or about $8,000 a year.

That is getting into implausible territory.

Re-legalized cannabis shouldn’t be promoted as a huge source of tax revenue, lest disappointing tax revenues dissuade future states from re-legalizing. it’s a tempting argument, because people like to think sinners will be paying for their sins (non users feel like they get something from the change). Say some tax revenue is possible. The other side of this is a winner – the money we don’t spend on enforcement is a win. And we get to use a tea-party meme – cut spending, not raise taxes.

personally I’d be OK with a state license to grow. At least two tiers – personal use license to have say 10 plants in flowering stage at any time, and commercial production license for growers supplying the legal market. Some sin taxes on processed product from the commercial growers as well. Prices would still come down because the risk premium of black market sales is a large part of current prices.

Absolutely agree, nomolos.

DW

60 joints from an ounce? You must be joking. There’d be more paper than pot.

Jane,

I watched last night on the teevee where you debated the bozo from the No on Prop. 19 group and you did great. You are a great spokesperson for the group.

I published Sinsemilla Tips magazine (THE trade journal for the domestic industry) during the 1980s of Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No decade and it is amazing that the same sane and rational arguments that I used on Donahue, Geraldo and Nightline are still relevant now. It is also amazing legalization has taken so long and it is amazing it is happening now during our lifetimes.

Keep up the good work.

that’s a little under a 1/2 gram per joint. That’s not pin joints.

Just allow people to grow for personal use. Like tomatoes. Buy the fancy commercial product and pay the tax or grow your own. Just don’t try to tax above the black market price. If you do the black market will remain and nothing will be accomplished.

When I was in the USAF stationed in HI, the “GI special” was three grams for $20 (this was late ’70s/early ’80s time frame).

You could usually get 9 to 10 joints per 3 grams, rolled using single paper zigzags.

So yeah, if it is good hi-test sensi, 60 joints or more from an ounce is quite conceivable

Aaron Houston on The Colbert Report, July 26, 2007
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/183180/july-26-2007/aaron-houston

Enjoy …

Growing tobacco is a challenge. Growing pot from seed is ridiculously easy. I would expect a brisk market in seeds.

But is NOT a Lucky Strike one either..

Practically figuring, if marijuana is not prohibited but regulated (like alcohol, tobacco, and firearms), there will be commercial growers, processors, and distributers. The revenue streams from tobacco during its peak decades, and from alcohol, are staggeringly high. So, of course, the domestic economy will surge if marijuana is not prohibited.

Marijuana is still the largest domestic cash crop, isn’t it? And the billions of dollars that leave the US (forever) to pay for marijuana would stay in the US. If my $1000 that ‘now’ goes to Mexico instead pays a legal and domestic commercial enterprise, it’s a $2000 gain (gross, not net).

I’ve delighted in reading all the comments, but I have to ask myself: Am I better off today than I was 4,000 years ago?

I only get one (I roll big joints).

h/t to Cheech and Chong

You’re assuming there is zero waste. Granted it’s not like the old days when half the bag was seeds. On the other hand, back then (late ’70s to early ’80s) it was $35 an ounce or $40 if it was exceptionally good.

One of the effects of Nancy Reagan’s war on drugs was that people stopped smuggling marijuana. The domestic sinsemilla crop was higher quality but cost a lot more. Once Americans got used to paying exorbitant prices smugglers decided it was worth importing again. Still a lot more grown domestically than there was 30 years ago, though.

From Wikipedia’s article on Hemp:

“Industrial hemp is produced in many countries around the world. Major producers include Canada, France, and China. While more hemp is exported to the United States than to any other country, the United States Government does not consistently distinguish between marijuana and the non-psychoactive Cannabis used for industrial and commercial purposes.”

and

“Biofuels, such as biodiesel and alcohol fuel, can be made from the oils in hemp seeds and stalks, and the fermentation of the plant as a whole, respectively. Biodiesel produced from hemp is sometimes known as hempoline.[39] Hemp biodiesel is clean burning and non-toxic.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp

Pot prices vary alan. I have a trucker friend who sells fancy two hit pot for thirty dollars per gram. That’s two rich for me. I can buy an oz of street pot any day for $120. My wife and I are evening smokers probably six of seven evenings. Annual cost for us both is something like 800 bucks. If we each smoked a pack of cigs each day at 5 bucks a pop – that’s $3,650.00. We don’t smoke tobacco.

Nobody knows how many pot smokers there are or how much they smoke. Nobody knows how greedy the taxing authorities will be. If they impose punishing taxes like on cigarettes (my guess is they will try that) the black market will remain and we will be back where we started.

With the hi-test sensi there’s very little waste – scissors to cut it up (even the stems are supple enough to cut and smoke), few seeds and those usually worth saving and planting.

the stuff that one hitters were invented for as well.

The Just Say Now Campaign is currently the lead story at HuffPo. A sampling of the 3,000+ comments indicates an overwhelming consensus in favor of legalization, including even self-described conservative commenters who usually only contribute to stir up anger.

PInners.

I don’t know folks much anymore who roll joints.

Pipes.

One or two tokes at a time.

At the prices and the strength of today’s pot, one or two tokes is all they need.

NO ONE I know rolls joints, too inefficient and wasted smoke.

Judges say, that’s ok, they roll big one’s too.

:30 seconds Bob.

Starts with a B.

Ends with a B.

*G*

Wow, nice observation, Ratfood . . . . . and very interesting as HuffPo is NOT a bastion of progressive thinking at times in their comments . . . . .

WOW…maybe we can return to the days when you could make yourself a great pillow out of a key, and get an ultra smooth night’s rest…until your partner snatched it away! ;>)

JUST SAY NOW!

May you wake up tomorrow and see JUST SAY NOW bumper stickers everywhere! I hope I wake up soon and see THANKS CBL2! bumper stickers everywhere.

nope much better!!

Indeed, However I read somewhere spliffs have the least tar per toke.

Maybe…but ya know where most of the tar goes in a pipe…without the tobacco. Now, hookahs, that’s a horse of another stripe!

Check out “The Environmental Benefits of Using Industrial Hemp.” The production of bio-based plastics is pretty exciting … seems like the polymer chemists should be all over this. I am speculating that there is also a partial substitution industrial hemp can provide over petrochemical inputs (for synthetics; see http://www.lukoil.com/materials/images/Petrochemicals/2009/%D0%9E%D0%A4_58-62_eng.pdf to the pharmaceutical industrial processes. Also, “[..] approximately 1.3 acres per household would eliminate the need for petroleum products or 2.6 acres if you rotate with a nitrogen fixing crop which is then plowed under.” Hot!– there was a reason this was an important industrial crop during the 1800s.

If it becomes legal I want a plant. They’re beautiful and leaves are so glossy.

OK– here’s an idea free for the taking: how about a hemp-based bio-plastic composite shell for the Tesla, the computer you can drive? Now we’d be rockin’ out!

Now this is absurd
Jane “putting money that is going into the pockets of the drug cartels into American economy.”

As if all of the marijuana growing in the U.S. profits being made both from indoors and outdoor growing in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas, Oregon, Colorado,California, Hawaii etc etc over the last 4 decades has not been going into the local U.S. economy. Now I will agree marijuana should be legalized and taxed (billions lost) but alleging that all of the marijuana growing and profits from sales are going into drug cartel pockets is just bullshit. Obviously the pot coming out of Mexico falls into that category, but growers in California are growing far more than they are legally allowed and have been growing for decades. Those profits go into the local economies everyday.

Quite the board line up. Hope folks dig into how many people have done time or are still doing time based on the mandatory minimum sentencing legislation passed in the 80′s. Families ruined, lives ruined all based on MMS.

Spectacular organizing, Jane!

You might be interested to hear that Randi Rhodes mentioned this yesterday on her radio show (there’s a subscription achive online), played a clip from Jane’s TV appearance and lauded this development! Randi has no personal interest in using marijuana but she is also dissecting the class warfare we are experiencing. Every day. With an electron microscope.

Randi also made the excellent point that propositions like this on ballots will do more than any GOTV effort to bring YOUNG VOTERS to the polls! This dynamic alone makes this campaign a brilliant strategic move.

And you make the case expertly that this is good policy on the merits.

Win – win – win – win by my count!

Carry On!

Another interesting string to pull on …

Conrad Black’s statements on leaving prison (bail pending his Supreme Court generated appeal) INCLUDE very, very harsh criticism of the inequities of the drug laws and sentencing rules that he observed firsthand.

Nobody does putdowns like Conrad. And he’s got a logical streak five miles deep. Interesting stuff.

Generally I am no fan of Black, but *anything* to support the cause!

Good Job, Just Say Now! California’s Proposition 19 will allow ordinary American citizens to grow a little marijuana in their own backyards. It will carve the guts out of the drug gangs, get the drug cartels out of our communities, put an end to most of the border violence, and reduce illegal immigration.
As the discussion goes forward, let’s remember to ask ourselves, “If my child or grandchild got a little off track and got caught with a little marijuana, would I want him or her to go to jail, lose their college financial aid, spend a few days locked up with the sexual predators…?” Or would we rather have the chance to help them work through it WITHOUT a criminal record?

Californians: register to vote at
h t t p s://w w w .sos.ca.gov/nvrc/fedform/ Just fill out the form and mail it in!

Citizens of other states can Google your state name and “voter registration” to find out how to register; a lot of states allow instant on-line registration. Do it now so you can vote in November!

These voter registration sites might be worth passing along:
ARIZONA citizens can register to vote at h t t p ://w w w .azsos.gov/election/voterregistration.htm
until October 3, 2010.
CALIFORNIA citizens can register to vote at
h t t p s://w w w .sos.ca.gov/nvrc/fedform/ Just fill out the form and mail it in!
COLRADO at h t t p ://w w w .sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/ . There’s a link in the “Voter Information” section.
GEORGIA at h t t p ://w w w .sos.georgia.gov/elections/voter_registration/voter_reg_app.htm until October 4, 2010.
KANSAS at
h t t p s://w w w .kdor.org/voterregistration/Default.aspx until October 16 or 17, 2010.
MAINE citizens have to register in person; you can read about it at h t t p ://w w w .maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/voterguide.html all the way up until election day!
MICHIGAN at
h t t p ://w w w .michigan.gov/sos/0,1607,7-127-50050_50420-175878–,00.html until October 1, 2010.
MINNESOTA at h t t p ://w w w .sos.state.mn.us/index.aspx?page=204 until October 10, 2010.
MONTANA citizens can check their registration status and find other information at h t t p s://app.mt.gov/voterinfo/ or get the voter registration form at h t t p ://w w w .co.yellowstone.mt.gov/elections/ (sorry, I couldn’t find a state-wide site!)
NEVADA at h t t p ://nvsos.gov/index.aspx?page=76 until October 12.
NORTH CAROLINA at
h t t p ://w w w .sboe.state.nc.us/content.aspx?id=23 until October 7, 2010.
OREGON citizens can register online at
h t t p ://w w w .sos.state.or.us/elections/votreg/vreg.htm until October 16.
SOUTH DAKOTA citizens can get the voter registration form online at
h t t p ://w w w .sdsos.gov/electionsvoteregistration/registrationvoting.shtm until October 10.
WASHINGTON citizens can register online at
h t t p ://wei.secstate.wa.gov/osos/en/voterinformation/Pages/RegistertoVote.aspx
until October 4, 2010.
Other states: Google your State name and the phrase “voter registration” to find out how to REGISTER TODAY so you can VOTE.

Quite the board line up

I agree!

I’ve seen Scott Morgan on local DC news b4. He’s a great spokesperson for this stuff – extremely knowledgeable, young, and talks in soundbites.

Although is Jane the only woman. Looks like it. Now that I look again not much diversity there. Not at all