SURVEY SAYS: What Does the Survey Say???

MSNBC - Today's near-headline news...

 TOPIC:  "Most in U.S. Against Legalizing Pot, Poll Shows" ***

 The poll was conducted by AP-CNBC.


Among the reasons: "fear of Reefer Madness", "fear that people will use it as an 'excuse' to avoid prosecution in crimes"; "fear of the unknown..." it suggested those "over 65 years of age were particularly concerned". And MSNBC added it's own poll... "Do You Think Marijuana Should Be Legal in the U.S.?", with quite the opposite results!

As of tonight there were 15,866 votes on the poll at MSNBC... of those votes, 13,567 are in favor of legalization! That's 85.5% that say yes!

7.6% say NO.

Hey, aren't we suppose to say "NO"???

In another example about how people want change... Change.Org has hundreds of petitions a year asking the public what's on their minds, what do they want to see changed? Of the hundreds of important and noble causes, the top-most petition for change goes to (Link to Change.org): "Legalizing  Medicinal and Recreational Use of Cannabis". Change.Org vows to follow through to the White house and other government to present the ten top-most petitions... this is the second year in a row cannabis reform has made the top ten.

Today on the steps of the State House in Concord, NH, over 100 supporters of legalized ganja sat on the steps and lit up... from inside the State House state police watched... no one was arrested that I've heard about, the statement from the state police was in the order of, "as long as they're peaceful..." well, ganja users are hardly aggressive... in fact, it must have taken a lot of motivation to get the stoners out of their crypts! The reason they are there is the Senate takes up the vote tonight to legalize possession of a 1/4 oz for adults, the bill the House voted overwhelmingly to approve. According to NHPR the bill is expected to fail, and if it does by chance pass, Gov. John Lynch is ready with his mighty pen to veto the bill"

... thank-you governor... you want a 4th term... you're not getting my vote!!!

For those of you unfamiliar with why this matters to me... a little history.

In the early 70's I was a complete loner; disillusioned with life; with education; I believe I was headed in one of two directions... towards suicide or a life as a serial killer - I hated people, I really did. I'd suffered a lot of bullying through much of my childhood and teenage years. I was an extreme example of a right-wing conservative... and I believed marijuana was an extremely dangerous drug!

Surprise... around 18 or 19 a close friend offered myself and another close friend some pot... Panama Red, drugs! I almost shouted "FIRE"... but stopped myself... and the three of us smoked it. What happened was the exact opposite of what I expected. For days after I kept waiting fearfully for the urge to shoot heroin, or to go through marijuana withdrawal. I felt extremely guilt-ridden, and confused. I used it again a week or so later, and each time I did, I felt more relaxed, and eventually more motivated... to face my fears.

My fears: people, education, and loneliness, and failure. Instead of becoming the "poster boy" for why marijuana is bad, I discovered my life turned around... and within a few short years I had more friends than I could spend time with, girlfriends, and my zest for education and knowledge did a 180 degree turn...  and I dove into it... I discovered, though life was difficult, it was a beautiful world... and i changed. I realized my years of anger and hatred were wrong, and misguided. I shudder to think of the person I may have become... a killer? I doubt it, but I really wasn't a happy guy. And I had literally no concept of my place in humanity, that I belonged - "like the trees and the stars".

To date I have three college degrees, a BA in English, AA in Liberal Arts, and AA in medical assisting, the later I graduated Magna Cum Laude, with a 3.9 gpa. I only admit that since my gpa in HS was around 2.3, my first couple years in college about the same, my BA, ten years later I was already up to a 3.0. Yeah, marijuana destroyed me alright...  not!

By the way... the historical reference to marijuana in the United States is ganja, not marijuana. And as long as news media refers to ganja as pot, we might just as well refer to alcohol as booze and moon-shine, and tobacco as cancer sticks. If anything should be regulated as a Schedule One Drug by the DEA it's tobacco... but that would assume our laws are just and rational, which they're not.

Is it any wonder the "Tea Party" is so vocal these days? Is it any wonder Second Amendment activists are holding rallies in Nation Forest near the White House?

The irony is, the other day I was part of a drug-free birthday party... aside from the cigarettes. And one of the partiers mentioned the reason pot should be illegal and prohibited is it's illegal. Wow. The bad thing about pot is it's illegal. And that makes it bad. Now that's logic for Americans to live by. Too bad it didn't work during Prohibition of alcohol, or in Wall St.

And if so many people are concerned about breaking the law, why during my daily 3 hour commute are there so many speeders and aggressive drivers on the highways? Why was one of  the liquor commissioners in NH arrested for DWI the other day?

The survey says there will always be those opposed to legalized cannabis, but the majority approve of it. It is a safer alternative and in fact does have clinically proven medical benefits... much as ginseng or St. John's Wort does. The fact that cannabis is a Schedule One controlled drug and tobacco is not should be a wake-up call to most! It's like comparing the boogyman to Jeffery Dalmer - one's a myth, the other is real.

I've had my fill of "marijuana surveys"... and "government" that takes a predatory stance towards ganja with no fact to justify the harm the laws of the past 70+ years has caused. It is, time for a change.