A week after the ballot measure to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana in Alaska was officially certified, five speakers debated issues surrounding the initiative to hundreds who had gathered at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium at the University of Alaska Anchorage Wednesday evening. The event, sponsored by the UAA Justice Center and Justice Club, began with keynote speaker Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, giving an impassioned speech about drug policy in the United States. Calling the war on drugs a "rat hole of waste," Nadelmann paced the stage, microphone in hand, to the applause of several hundred audience members, many of whom were in their 20s and 30s. [continues 1382 words]
The leader of a group working against a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana in Alaska said the regulations it calls for are a "facade." But the real facade is the effort being made to prop up the failed -- and devilish -- policy of prohibition. Did anyone else find it interesting that Kevin Sabet, ex-government-subsidized cannabis (marijuana, if you prefer the historically chosen government derogatory term) prohibitionist and co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, claimed the proposed regulations to re-legalize cannabis in Alaska is a "facade"? [continues 596 words]
Did anyone else find it interesting that Kevin Sabet, ex-government-subsidized cannabis (marijuana, if you prefer the historically chosen government derogatory term) prohibitionist and co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, claimed the proposed regulations to re-legalize cannabis in Alaska is a "facade"? I hope Alaskans don't mind me butting in, but the real facade is cannabis prohibition itself, one of America's worst policy failures in history, founded on lies, half-truths and propaganda from the beginning and dependent on them to continue. [continues 564 words]
Opposition to the marijuana legalization initiative in Alaska will ramp up in coming months. Kevin Sabet, co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), said Monday that the organization was approached by a "handful of leaders" in Alaska's medical and scientific communities expressing their concern over the legalization of marijuana in Alaska. Alaska marijuana legalization initiative turns in 45,000 signatures Legal marijuana in Colorado: Was rollout a success? "This is all homegrown," Sabet said. He declined to name the Alaskans who contacted his group, but said that they would be available in coming months. [continues 425 words]
NEW YORK - Danielle Bradford was raised in state custody because of her parent's abuse and drug dependencies. When she was 18 she moved out, found work at a local waffle shop and got her first apartment in Nashville, Tenn. Her estranged father helped by co-signing on the lease. One evening she was at home with her neighbors when three police officers knocked on the door. They said they had received a report that there was a portable meth lab on her property. "I allowed them to look, and obviously they did not find anything," she said. What the police did find was that her neighbor had some marijuana and a bowl that she had prepared for him. [continues 4844 words]
