La Vita è Bella Life is Beautiful. La Vita es Bonita. 美麗人生　

242愛的鼓勵 7訂閱站台

加州有一項呼籲大麻合法化的運動正積極地展開，早在1972年嬉痞蔚風潮的年代，就有過這個運動，但是即便是一個反戰與嬉痞風行的年代，大麻合法化的提議並未獲得大眾的支持。而今年捲土重來會不會過關呢？就在十一月時的投票，就會揭曉了。

要談「合法化」，那麼可見之前這項物品或活動曾被「非法化」－也就是被宣告為非法。被宣告為非法，這也是一種規則的制定，所以這個規則是為了調節社會行為？還是為了掩飾當權者在支配的地位而設？顯然是前者，但是當初宣告大麻為非法地原因至今一個也沒有消失，為什要推翻當初的宣告？－人們的觀念改變了！？因為大麻和酒對人的影響差不多，既然酒可以喝，那麼大麻為什麼要禁？這也很可能是宗教、文化、經濟或政治上的因素。

最近在讀一些社會心理學的書，因此漸漸學習到以「權力」的角度來思考問題。撇開「權力」，「資本主義」社會強調市場機制，供給、需求是所有價值的準繩，其他所有的價值都需讓位給市場機制。有許許多多的人需要大麻，卻無法得到供給，這在資本主義國家裡的確是要出亂子的。

酒商、煙草商、軍火商、...大麻商聽起來也滿像回事的。加州的奧克蘭郡(Oakland)有奧克斯丹(Oaksterdam)之稱，那裡就有不少合法的大麻商，醫藥用的大麻是合法的。－然而有多少人士假借醫藥之名來享用大麻呢？以務實的角度來看，就乾脆開放，讓大麻合法。

「合法化」是個神奇的用語。"voters in California are now set to consider asingle-word solution to help ease some of the state’s money troubles:legalize."但是讓大麻合法真的每年可以增加14億美元的稅收嗎？這個稅沒有排擠效應嗎？不會增加其他的福利與醫療保險支出嗎？

如果每個人都能為自己的行為負責，那麼一個人要如何對待自己的生活與健康，與他人無涉，政府是不該介入。但是基於社會安全的考量，一個人生病了，沒有錢生活下去了，我們能放任不管任其自生自滅嗎？再則，在神經系統受到影響下，一個人也很可能危及他人生命與財產的安全。－今年十一月就會揭曉加州會不會成為可以合法使用／食用大麻了。






Legal-Marijuana Advocates Focus on a New Green

By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: March 25, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO — Perhaps only in California could a group of marijuana smokers call themselves fiscal realists.

And yet, faced with a $20 billion deficit, strained state services and regular legislative paralysis, voters in California are now set to consider a single-word solution to help ease some of the state’s money troubles: legalize.

On Wednesday, the California secretary of state certified a November vote on a ballot measure that would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana, a plan that advocates say could raise $1.4 billion and save precious law enforcement and prison resources.

Indeed, unlike previous efforts at legalization — including a failed 1972 measure in California — the 2010 campaign will not dwell on assertions of marijuana’s harmlessness or its social acceptance, but rather on cold cash.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Supporters of a ballot measure that would tax andregulate marijuana in California say it could raise $1.4 billion ayear.

“We need the tax money,” said Richard Lee, founder of Oaksterdam University, a trade school for marijuana growers, in Oakland, who backed the ballot measure’s successful petition drive. “Second, we need the tax savings on police and law enforcement, and have that law enforcement directed towards real crime.”

Supporters are hoping to raise $10 million to $20 million for the campaign, primarily on the Internet, with national groups planning to urge marijuana fans to contribute $4.20 at a time, a nod to 420, a popular shorthand for the drug.

420, 4:20 or 4/20 (pronounced four-twenty) refers to consumption of cannabis and, by extension,  way to identify oneself with cannabis drug subculture.  For details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_%28cannabis_culture%29

The law would permit licensed retailers to sell up to one ounce at a time. Those sales would be a new source of sales tax revenue for the state.

Opponents, however, scoff at the notion that legalizing marijuana could somehow help with the state’s woes. They tick off a list of social ills — including tardiness and absenteeism in the workplace — that such an act would contribute to.

“We just don’t think any good is going to come from this,” said John Standish, president of the California Peace Officers Association, whose 3,800 members include police chiefs and sheriffs. “It’s not going to better society. It’s going to denigrate it.”

Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Plants in Humboldt County, Calif., grown for medical use.

The question of legalization, which a 2009 Field Poll showed 56 percent of Californians supporting, will undoubtedly color the state race for governor. The two major Republican candidates — the former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman and the insurance commissioner, Steve Poizner — have said they oppose the bill.

Jerry Brown, the Democratic attorney general who is also running for governor, opposes the idea as well, saying it violates federal law.

And while the Obama administration has signaled that it will tolerate medical marijuana users who abide the law in the 14 states where it is legal, a law authorizing personal use would conflict with federal law.

Supporters of the bill say the proposal’s language would allow cities or local governments to opt out, likely creating “dry counties” in some parts of the state. The proposed law would allow only those over 21 to buy, and would ban smoking marijuana in public or around minors.

Stephen Gutwillig, the California state director for the Drug Policy Alliance, a New York-based group that plans to raise money in favor of the measure, said he expected “a conservative implementation,” if passed.

“I think most local jurisdictions are not going to authorize sales,” Mr. Gutwillig said.

Local opt-out provisions are part of a strategy to allay people’s fears about adding another legal vice and to help capture a group considered key to passing the bill: non-pot-smoking swing voters.

“There’s going to be a large sector of the electorate that would never do this themselves that’s going to sort out what the harm would be versus what the supposed good would be,” said Frank Schubert, a longtime California political strategist who opposes the bill. “That’s where the election is going to be won.”

But Dan Newman, a San Francisco-based strategist for the ballot measure, said he expected broad, bipartisan support for the bill, especially among those Californians worried about the recession.

“Voters’ No. 1 concern right now is the budget and the economy,” Mr. Newman said, “which makes them look particularly favorable at something that will bring in more than $1 billion a year.” Opponents, however, question that figure — which is based on a 2009 report from the Board of Equalization, which oversees taxes in the state — and argue that whatever income is brought in will be spent dealing with more marijuana-related crimes.

Mr. Standish said: “We have a hard enough time now with drunk drivers on the road. This is just going to add to the problems.”

He added: “I cannot think of one crime scene I’ve been to where people said, ‘Thank God the person was just under the influence of marijuana.’ ”

Advocates of the measure plan to counter what is expected to be a strong law enforcement opposition with advertisements like one scheduled to be broadcast on radio in San Francisco and Los Angeles starting on Monday. The advertisements will feature a former deputy sheriff saying the war on marijuana has failed.

“It’s time to control it,” he concludes, “and tax it.”

Not everyone in the community is supportive. Don Duncan, a co-founder of Americans for Safe Access, which lobbies for medical marijuana, said he had reservations about the prospect of casual users joining the ranks of those with prescriptions.

“The taxation and regulation of cannabis at the local or state level may or may not improve conditions for medical cannabis patients,” Mr. Duncan said in an e-mail message. He added that issues like “police harassment and the price and quality of medicine might arise if legalization for recreational users occurs.”

Still, the idea of legal marijuana does not seem too far-fetched to people like Shelley Kutilek, a San Francisco resident, loyal church employee and registered California voter, who said she would vote “yes” in November.

“It’s no worse than alcohol,” said Ms. Kutilek, 30, an administrator at Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco. “Drunk people get really belligerent. I don’t know anybody who gets belligerent on marijuana. They just get chill.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/us/26pot.html?scp=2&sq=california,%20marijuana&st=cse



California mulls legalising marijuana

Emilio San Pedro
BBC News

In 1996, voters in California approved a referendum that made it legal for the first time in decades in the US for people to consume cannabis for medicinal purposes.

More than a dozen states have followed suit since and several others - the most recent of which is Massachusetts - have approved laws decriminalising the possession of small amounts of the drug.

Now, there are moves afoot in California to go further to fully legalise marijuana.

Evidence of the impact that the approval of medicinal marijuana has had on some areas of California is clear in Oakland.

Across the bay from San Francisco, it has come to be known as Oaksterdam, in a nod to the symbolic global capital of marijuana deregulation, Amsterdam.

The relaxed approach to marijuana use in this part of Oakland has led to the opening of several marijuana dispensaries.

They are establishments in this once deprived area of town which sell a broad array of cannabis related products, from food products such as brownies and cereal bars laced with cannabis to traditional marijuana for smoking.

Oaksterdam University

"This is where it all started," says Richard Lee, a leading advocate of the legalisation of cannabis, pointing to a building where the first ever dispensary was opened in 1996.

His sense of excitement is palpable as he shows me around Oaksterdam, which is also home to a facility where state residents can get the ID needed to establish their right to use cannabis for medical purposes.


The area is also home to the Oaksterdam University, which Mr Lee runs.

He shows me around the student union of the university, which he describes as a trade school for all of those interested in finding a place in the thriving cannabis trade that medicinal marijuana has spawned.

Mr Lee tells me that making cannabis use legal would make economic sense but would also help in the fight against the Mexican drugs cartels.

"According to some estimates, the Mexican cartels get 60-70% of their money - their profit - from cannabis," he tells me.

"So if we cut that out of the equation then theoretically 60-70% of the violence they perpetrate would be cut out, because they'd have less money for the guns and weapons and ammunition to kill people and to spend on bribing officials and all the rest," Mr Lee says.

Trailblazing

That perspective, along with the fact that California state authorities estimate marijuana could bring in nearly $1.5bn a year in much needed tax revenue if it were legalised, has led to increased support among the state's voters for the full legalisation of the drug.

Politicians like Tom Ammiano, who represents one of the most liberal districts of San Francisco in the California state assembly, have been paying close attention.

Mr Ammiano came into politics as a trailblazing gay rights activist in the 1970s and has long advocated greater tolerance of cannabis use.

Earlier this year, he took that approach one step further and introduced a bill in the California state assembly which, if approved, would grant cannabis the same legal status in the state as alcohol and tobacco.

That would put California ahead of even Amsterdam, where marijuana use is tolerated but not altogether legal.

Sitting with him in his office in the state government building in San Francisco, with its sweeping views of the city, it becomes clear that his proposal is far from a flight of fancy.

He tells me he has been finding that more and more of his colleagues in the state assembly are coming around to seeing why moving towards legalisation makes perfect sense.

'Lighten up'

"People across the board, whether they're conservative or liberal, have come to realise that the so-called war on drugs has failed and failed miserably," Mr Ammiano says.

"In fact, it's costing us money instead of saving us money. This new approach would be a way for the policing efforts to be focused on the big bad guys, the cartels, with their violence and murder, and lighten up on the more minor offences. We like to say prohibition is chaos and regulation is control," he adds.

"On the streets, a drug dealer does not ask a kid for his ID before selling him cannabis," he concludes with an acerbic, humorous tone that serves as proof that he has, beyond politics, also had some success in his other career as a stand-up comedian.


But, despite his optimistic tone, Mr Ammiano says he knows that those who oppose his proposal, including key figures in the medical and law enforcement community, are armed with statistics pointing to the damaging long-term effects of the drug and have the stamina and resources to wage a major fight to ensure that the bill never gets signed into law.

One of those opponents is Ronald Brooks, president of the National Narcotic Officers' Associations' Coalition, which represents more than 70,000 narcotics enforcement officers in the US.


We meet in the town of Redwood City, south of San Francisco and, as I get in his car, we drive past what appears to be a nondescript office building.

'Seriously flawed'

However, he tells me that in the 1980s it was a bank - the place where his partner on the police force was killed in front of him by a ruthless marijuana dealer, who was carrying out a bank robbery to fund his drug business.

He says experiences like that have strengthened his resolve that America can't allow itself to take a more lenient approach to marijuana.

"This argument of freeing up law enforcement so that we can take on the cartels is seriously flawed," he tells me.

"This is really a hoax being perpetrated on the voters of California to authorise their political agenda - that is to legalise marijuana as one step to legalise drugs in America because they simply don't think the government ought to control drugs," he adds.

"The people who are going to lose if this gets approved are the taxpayers, because we're going to have increased costs associated with this, both healthcare and law enforcement costs, and the people who have to drive on the state's highways who are going to be in danger from being hit by someone intoxicated from using cannabis. This is simply a reckless public policy," he concludes.

Back across the San Francisco Bay in Oakland, specifically Oaksterdam, the patrons of the Bulldog Cafe are enjoying their legally sanctioned right to consume marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Emerging industry

Gary has travelled from Texas for the weekend to attend a seminar on the cannabis trade at the Oaksterdam University across the street.

He is in his 50s, but says he is hoping to take the information he has picked up in his course on the cannabis business and make a life-transforming move in the coming months to California.

"My girlfriend and I are interested in moving to California from Texas to become a part of this here. We're not quite sure where we fit in but we want to get into the business itself. We feel it's an emerging industry, and this is where I feel compelled to come," he tells me as the smell of cannabis wafts through the room.

Like Gary, there are hundreds of others participating in the courses at the Oaksterdam University on any given week.

Beyond that, there are more than 200,000 people in the state registered as consumers of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

As for Mr Ammiano's proposal to legalise marijuana in the state, that is still making its way through the California state assembly and it is difficult to say whether it will succeed or not.

What is clear, however, is that whatever the outcome of the legalisation proposal, the medical marijuana law and the multi-million dollar industry it has spawned appear to be here to stay in California.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8275794.stm

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The stories were taken from the websites of The New York Times and BBC.  The copyright remains with the original owners.  The New York Times and BBC do not endorse, nor are involved with the production of this blog.

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