Marijuana.com

nacrypt

Quickly on the heals of the successful Denver legalization vote, the SAFER group is working to get the same question on the 2006 state ballot.

Check out this footage from the citywide campaign:

Pot-TV: Denver Legalizes Pot!

Reply what you thought of the footage...

 

TenaciousPlant

Woot! and them Council people in Denver, and probably alot of other places in America are Cruel and mean as hell when on t.v with some one whos pro legalization. How do all the bad people get these positions

Buzzby

They get elected by the majority of their constituencies. Don't forget that 2/3 of Americans are against the legalization of marijuana. As marijuana legalization activists, our primary job is to educate the public to change that.

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nacrypt

That is your estimate, but who knows what the real percentage is? Only about %40 of American's vote anyway so it's really what share of that pool will vote to legalize.

Anyway, people often vote for an issue because they have respect for the people or person who has publicly endorsed it. Or, they made be persuaded by logical arguments presented to them through the media. The SAFER campaign has been remarkably successful because they have come up with an effective way to compare marijuana and alcohol.

Also, Mason Tvert, the Executive Director of the campaign has proven himself to be a masterful politician. He is young and smart, but he effectively debates people much older than him. He is very polite but is still able to point out the hypocrisy of his opponents.

In the videos from the link on the original post you can see that Mason effectively debates a City Council Member (Charlie Brown ) and a DEA agent. The people he debates do a good job of making themselves sound like assholes who are stuck in the past, then Mason comes in with a simple argument that seemed to resonate with the voters.

TheNewGuy

Thats a very good point. Generally (at least in my experience) people who are against cannabis being legal don't care so much that they'll go out and vote against it, or start an anti-MJ organization. People who want it legalized are much more likely to actually go out and vote for it. Then theres that huge group of people who just don't care either way.

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"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

 

Buzzby

It's not my estimate. It's from the results of a Gallup poll run in October 2005:

Who Supports Marijuana Legalization?


The people who should be most for it, the users, don't bother to support the legalization movement. There are an estimated 25,000,000 users in the US. The three major legalization organizations have a total membership of 60,000. These three organizations operate on a total budget of $12,000,000, less than 50 cents per user. Sadly, most of that $12,000,000 comes from two billionaires.

Most of the people I know who smoke don't bother to vote. "What's the point? Politicians are all the same." Conservative Christians are organized by their churches as a voting block. That's why we have the government we've got.

There will never be a "vote to legalize" on a national level because the United States Constitution doesn't allow for referenda. If there was, we'd lose by a landslide unless we convert a lot more public opinion. Without a lot more support for the major legalization organizations, that's going to be a slow process.

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)

Marijuana Policy Project (MPP)

Drug Policy Alliance (DPA)

nacrypt

Ok, that's pretty good support for those numbers, but did they ask a different question than what was asked on the Denver ballot? When asked solely about marijuana people may defer to stereotypical notions about pot-heads but when the question is posed next to information about the well-known problems of alcohol abuse then legalizing marijuana suddenly seems more sensible. The difference between a poll and a campaign is that a campaign has people out there trying to convince people to vote one way or another, polls try to avoid biases. Mason Tvert is the most trustworthy politician I've ever seen (if you don't believe me then watch the video)!

Everyone should support these orgs! The MPP was involved in the Denver legalization vote by helping construct a billboard. So the money sent to them does do good work. However, the Denver SAFER group is an independent organization and their leader Mason Tvert has stuck a bigger blow against marijuana prohibition than any of these organization have done in their years of action. Still, these major organizations will be needed to make sure this snowball gets bigger as it rolls downhill.

Buzzby pointed out that the Federal Govt. has no provision for public referendum. He is right. Still in a "federal" system considerable power is granted to states. Don't think of the "Raich" decision as the final word. Rhode Island recently passing a medical m.j. bill after the Supreme Court ruling shows that states are not willing to give up their power so easily.

I believe that if a few states legalize pot then the national system will become politically unsustainable. I saw the Drug Czar himself, John Walters, on CSPAN and he said that marijuana was the only drug that people were willing to publically stand up for. This means that he's feeling the heat. The Rhode Island vote was a failure for him and the Denver vote was a MAJOR failure. But, I think the cat is out of the bag now and we (the freedom fighters) should redouble our efforts because 2006 is going to be a great year for the legalization of marijuana!

ChronicSmoke7

Smokers aren' t the only ones who vote for legalization, Stoners have friends who don't do drugs, yet wouldn't care if you smoked, viewed as if he was just drinking a beer. Then there's parents who don't want to see their kids lives ruined. Broadens the range of voters. Why you always so negative

urania3

It's not negative; it's factual. He's trying to illustrate that less than one-quarter of one per cent of marijuana users (< 0.25% !) are actively involved in one of the major marijuana legalization organizations and it's further compounded by those who are users who don't vote. While you do bring up a good point that there's more than just users who perhaps would be pro-legalization, how many of them vote? And of those, how many vote for candidates with respect to their views on marijuana?

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Why is it that we cannot face the simple truth? Religion is at best unsubstantiated superstition. (Massimo Pigliucci)

Buzzby

I never suggested that only smokers would vote for legalization. If I believed that to be true I wouldn't bother working for legalization. The Gallup poll to which I referred would include a cross-section of the entire population, including smokers, non-smokers, their friends, parents, and beer-drinkers. The results were that only a third are currently in favor of legalization.


I'm not. If you don't like the facts it's not my fault.