Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy has chosen the new political lobbyist and communications firm Axiom Public Affairs to represent their movement against the state’s recreational marijuana legalization initiative.
The ballot measure’s final draft was submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office in April by the Marijuana Policy Project, which is also leading legal weed efforts for next year in California, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts. Safer Arizona, MPP of Arizona, and other advocacy groups are in the process of gathering the roughly more than 150,000 signatures needed to get the initiative on the 2016 ballot.
The Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy PAC isn’t down with any measure that would green light the use, sale, possession and cultivation of ganja. The group mobilizes around the state to raise awareness of the plant’s alleged harms, as well as recruits donors and supporters who’ll help with the crusade. They fear legalizing weed will mean it’ll wound up in the hands of children, among other negative outcomes.
“Unlike the industry and lobby groups that are funding efforts to legalize a dangerous drug in Arizona, we at ARDP are all working on a volunteer basis, so we are delighted to be able hire the A-team of consultants in Arizona to help us out,” said a statement by Seth Leibsohn, chairman of Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy.
Arizona’s measure would allow adults 21 and up to buy no more than an ounce of pot through a state-licensed retailer or dispensary. An adult 21 or older would be able to grow six plants and there will be a limit of no more than 12 plants per household. There is a license, worth $7,500, for people who want to sell their pot, without jumping into a full-on dispensary.
MPP expects taxes, set at 15 percent, to bring revenue of between $60 million and $100 million. The funds would go toward sales regulation, education and public health efforts.
Safer Arizona plans to host a series of public forums to answer everyone’s weed questions.
The deadline to present signatures is June 2016.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2015.
Pima County is running ads about the dangers of marijuana use. Who is wrong?
While the potential harms of using cannabis are widely publicized (and often exaggerated), little is mentioned of the harms of its prohibition. When making cannabis policy decisions, it would be irresponsible to ignore these harms…and costs.
For this prohibition to be justified it needs to be established that:
1) Cannabis is particularly harmful (at least more than alcohol)
2) The prohibition will significantly reduce problematic usage
And:
3) The direct and indirect costs of prohibition to an American society need to be less than any gains from 1 and 2 (don’t underestimate the value we place on freedom and liberty)
None of these 3 requirements have ever been established. After decades of research, the relative safety and medical efficacy of cannabis have been established well enough to conclude that it is significantly less harmful and more useful than alcohol. The vast majority of preventable harms related to cannabis are caused by the very laws that are supposed to “protect us” from it. Some of these harms are:
•Increased deaths of countless people involved on all sides of the “war”, including those of law enforcement and bystanders
•The spending of 100’s of billions of our dollars seeking out, arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating otherwise law-abiding citizens
•The loss of billions in tax revenue from cultivation, distribution, and sales, which can be used for all substance abuse treatment
•The redirection of valuable police time and resources from solving and preventing true crime
•The filling of our jails with non-violent offenders, exposing them to true criminals and forcing the early release of dangerous criminals
•All sales, over 20 million pounds per year, are unregulated and placed in the hands of criminals who never check ID
•The empowerment and expansion of underground markets as a very popular substance is placed within them
•Increased violent crime as dealers and buyers have no legal recourse to resolve disputes
•Increased exposure to hard drugs as many cannabis consumers buy from suppliers who have access to them, even push them
•Increased likelihood of contamination with anything from harmful pesticides and molds to other drugs
•The prevention of some adults from choosing a recreational substance less harmful than alcohol
•The notion that all illegal drugs are particularly dangerous is weakened
•Increased corruption within the legal system
•The invasion of our civil liberties, which in America we hold in especially high regard
•The prevention of people from receiving effective medicine
•The prevention of people from receiving decent employment, scholarship money, and student aid due to their “criminal” record, which affects not just them but their family as well
•Increased support of tremendous multinational criminal networks
•Increased public mistrust, disrespect, and disdain for our legal system, police, and government, which is devastating to our country
Considering these great costs, it is unreasonable to continue this policy against a substance objectively less harmful than alcohol. Why are we forcing police to deal with something that is, if anything, a minor public health issue? Why are we criminalizing people for something that has been safely enjoyed by millions of Americans for decades, something that a majority of Americans believe should be legalized recreationally?
Cannabis prohibition is a travesty of justice based on irrational fears and paranoia from an archaic era that needs to end now. Cannabis must be legalized and regulated similar to alcohol. Prohibition policies do not work for popular things that are safely enjoyed by many…especially not in a country that values liberty, justice, and freedom.
A vote to end cannabis prohibition is a vote to condemn a costly prohibition that causes more harm than it prevents.
Please urge your legislators to implement a cannabis policy similar to that of alcohol. Consider what the following cannabis legalization organizations have to say. Help end this harmful, unjust, unfounded, unpopular, un-American prohibition by joining their mailing lists, signing their petitions and writing your legislators when they call for it.
MPP – The Marijuana Policy Project – http://www.mpp.org/
DPA – Drug Policy Alliance – http://www.drugpolicy.org/
NORML – National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws – http://norml.org/
LEAP – Law Enforcement Against Prohibition – http://www.leap.cc/
Prohibition works so well, sure keep it going! What is wrong with people!
“They fear legalizing weed will mean it’ll wound up in the hands of children,”
News flash – it already is. Pot is ridiculously easy to get. Prohibition is a joke.
At least if it’s legalized we know vendors won’t sell to minors. Today most pot dealers will because they’re already breaking the law so they have nothing to lose. We’ll also be able to regulate how it’s grown, pesticides used, etc.
Connect the dots:
The shill fronting ARDP is Seth Leibsohn…a minor league “think tanker” and “radio personality” and minor sidekick of the most anti-education “Secretary of Education” of all time, W. Bennet…
Connected to the right-wing Claremont Institute: “The Claremont Institute, based in Claremont, California, is a conservative non-profit institution that houses a number of right-wing and militarist policy programs. The institute also employs a number of acolytes of Leo Strauss, the obscure political philosopher who inspired a number of neoconservative figures, including Irving Kristol.”
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile…
Doubtless funded by Big PhRMA…
Remember when they had ink in the fire alarms pulls at school that sprayed the culprit if it was a false alarm? Couldn’t they do something like that with marijuana? If they could add something to make them sound smarter we couldn’t tell who was using it. And then get them a job. One that would start before noon.
They called cannabis a dangerous drug. That is a lie. According to DEA administrative law judge Franics Young, cannabis is “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man”. Besides curing almost every ailment out there, it is a beneficial health tonic to improve organ function and prevent Alzheimer’s.
As a nation, we’re slowly starting to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. None of us would want our kids put in jail over a little marijuana. None of us would want the police to confiscate and sell our parents’ home because they grew a couple of plants to help with the aches and pains of growing older. Let’s start treating other people the way we would want to be treated.
We are American citizens! We can contact our representatives at:
Congresswomen and Congressmen: http://www.house.gov/representatives/
Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Polite + Friendly + Responsible = Success!
I bet if you had certain criteria you have to meet to use it there would be low numbers. 1. Can not use if you are obtaining any form of government subsides. 2. can not use if you have a felony. 3. do not have means to self support yourself financially you can not use.
Colorado State SUPREME court ruled 5-1 that a medical marijuana patient can not get this job back after being fired for failing his jobs drug test. The court rules since it is ILLEGAL under federal law can not be considered legal off duty activity. BOOM pro recreational movement blown out of the water. Don’t even think about it now all your theories thrown out. Not matter if the state finds it legal to use for medical or recreational as long as the FEDERAL law is there you can forget about it.
In Arizona our prosecutors are running around the state spending RICO and taxpayer money to kill a voter initiative to legalize and regulate marijuana like alcohol. They have even asked for an attorney general’s opinion to make sure that they do a legal job screwing Arizonans. They are worried that teens will lower their IQ’s and that everyone in the state will smoke marijuana if it is legal and regulated. They pretend that marijuana is not ALREADY available in every school and prison in the state. One has to imagine what they are on to come to the conclusion that an underground, unregulated system that sells other far more dangerous drugs is better for our kids than local and legal marijuana retailers that ask for ID’s. Legalize and regulate like alcohol in Arizona in 2016!
Dave K If you failed to notice it is still ILLEGAL and you can be prosecuted by federal law. Yes drugs are at every school but your are too native to think that it isn’t. Here is simple math. You talk all this unregulated system of far more dangerous. Drug cartel marijuana is cheaper and under cuts legal marijuana which is heavily taxed. the consumer will buy the cheaper.
But, but, but……what about the Rabbits? Poor bunnies can’t decarboxylate their weed. I just love it when DEA agents have to think on their feet. They say the stupidest things. All the negatives are coulds and might bes not hard facts.
The quibbling over Cannabis legalization is so useless. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to see the trends in people’s attitudes about Cannabis. The 80 years of prohibition is a pimple to the 12,000 years of human use and the flow of history will soon put it all in perspective. The obstructionists are just a morph of the prohibitionists who are very poor losers. The next generation will have a heard time grasping the uselessness and ignorance of the War On Drugs. Nannies belong in the nursery and not trying to control the lives of people.
Bahahaha Jim Heffner another person who is tooo dense to understand. Regardless if state passes laws if it is illegal in Federal meaning overall America then it is a crime. The ignorance is obviously yours
KO, ignorance is the lack of information, while stupidity is being proud of that state. I’ll cop to ignorance any day before stupidity. My disrespect for unjust and thoughtless laws is deliberate. So explain my ignorance. Civil disobedience is an old American tradition that has helped form our present state of government. I’ll match my understanding on many subjects with yours but especially on ‘Human Rights’. Now since you obviously do not feel positively about ignorance, why don’t you educate yourself and correct your deficiencies such as your English vocabulary, the history of Civil Disobedience, and American history.