Showing posts with label prohibition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prohibition. Show all posts

Charles Seeburger: 10 Facts About The Economics Of Weed

From black market to free market. From the legal markets thriving in states like Colorado and Washington, to the underground trade that generates billions of Mexican cartels, the economics of weed are crazy. Ganja. Smoke. Dro. Chronic. Spliffage. The names are as varied as the opinions about it: from rather innocuous plant, to cure all, to   ... MORE

Flawed Ohio Marijuana Legalization Initiative Defeated

by Ilya Somin.   An anti-marijuana or anti-monopoly vote? Ohio Issue 3 – the seriously flawed marijuana legalization referendum initiative that I nonetheless defended because of its superiority to the status quo, has gone down to defeat. While not all of the votes have yet been counted, it is likely that it will lose by a large margin (currently 65-35,       ... MORE

Hell's Angels Say Canada’s Plans To Legalize Marijuana Will Deal Massive Blow To Their Organized Crime Operations

by Emily Gray Brosious.  Canada’s newly elected Liberal government has promised to legalize marijuana “right away,” and that’s not sitting well with thousands of Hells Angels members who say the move would cost the organized crime outfit hundreds of thousands of jobs, as reported by World News Daily. Thousands of members of the organized   ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Pot Pleasure, Pot Problems

As prohibition collapses, abuse is less likely.  It stands to reason that legalizing marijuana, by making it easier, cheaper, and less risky to obtain, would encourage consumption. That is mostly a positive development, since it implies greater consumer satisfaction as more people enjoy a product that prohibition made harder to get.     ... MORE

Federal Court Orders The DEA To Stop Harassing Medical Marijuana Providers And Instead Start Obeying The Law

Enforcement zealots must learn to obey the law. In a scathing decision, a federal court in California has ruled that the Drug Enforcement Administration's interpretation of a recent medical marijuana bill "defies language and logic," "tortures the plain meaning of the statute" and is "at odds with fundamental notions of the rule of law." The ruling     ... MORE

Richard Juman: Why A Man Who Fought The Drug War For 30 Years Is Now Spearheading The Project To Stop It

Understanding Portugal's model.     When it comes to the War on Drugs, there are few people in a better position to comment on the futility, brutality and tragedy of the endeavor than retired Major Neill Franklin. He spent over 30 years participating in, and directing, state and local police anti-drug efforts before retiring to become the    ... MORE

VIDEO: Where Can You Smoke Legal Pot In Colorado?

Nullification In Effect: Oregonians Defy Feds, Spend Millions On Marijuana In First Week Of Legal Sales

$3.5 million of sales on first day.        In the first week of limited marijuana sales in Oregon, dispensaries sold a staggering $11 million of weed – more than double the numbers from Colorado’s first week – proving state laws legalizing cannabis truly do nullify federal prohibition in practice. The Free Thought Project reported on the first week  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Prohibition Kills

Government bans make drugs more dangerous.  Remember the guy who bought 80-proof vodka that turned out to be 190-proof Everclear and died from alcohol poisoning? Probably not, because that sort of thing almost never happens in a legal drug market, where merchants or manufacturers who made such a substitution, whether           ... MORE

59 Million More Americans Could Access Marijuana In 2016

by Todd Campbell.     California and Florida could both be liberated by next year. Marijuana advocates have been gaining momentum in states that have yet to legalize marijuana, but supporters and those interested in the legalization efforts are undeniably watching most closely to see what happens in California and Florida. Those two states have different ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Did Marijuana Make Him Do It?

What passes for the prohibitionist's cautionary tale.  Between 1911, when Massachusetts became the first state to ban marijuana, and 1937, when Congress made pot prohibition the law of the land, cannabis acquired a reputation as a "killer drug" that drove people to irrational acts of violence. Since 2012, when Colorado became the first state  ... MORE

Don’t Forget The Jury’s Power To Rule On Moral Grounds

by James Weeks II.        In recent years, many people have fallen victim to government tyranny, everything from drug offenses to tax resisters. Historically, going back to the Magna Carta, it has been the job of the jury to stand in the way of government tyranny and judge the law as well as the case. Jury nullification was used to deny convictions  ... MORE

Marijuana Legalization: Disaster or Catastrophe?

by Jacob Sullum.    Drug warriors are desperate to make repeal of pot prohibition look like a mistake. In 2012 Coloradans approved Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana for recreational use, by avote of 55 percent to 45 percent. Last February a Quinnipiac University poll found that 58 percent of Colorado voters supported that decision, while 38   ... MORE

John Stossel: Law And Border

How many wars can we fight? Our presidential candidates demand "stronger action" against both illegal immigration and illegal drugs. But those goals conflict. The War on Drugs makes border enforcement much harder! America's 44-year-long Drug War hasn't made a dent in American drug use or the supply of illegal drugs. If it had some positive   ... MORE

Learn About Jury Nullification: Medical Marijuana Patient Could Spend Close To 100 Years In Prison For Pot Charges

by Maria Ines Taracena.    The thought of possibly spending close to 100 years in prison terrifies Kyle Catlin. But he's mostly concerned about his mom. She's not in the best of health. If something were to happen to her, "I may not even be allowed to leave prison to go to my mom's funeral, and that's super fucked up," he says. "I'm probably not gonna   ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: 5 Popular Drugs Scares Vs. Reality -- The Disconnect Between Drug Use And Public Alarm About It

Dangerous drug use is on the decline.       Last year I noted the disconnect between rising public alarm about methamphetamine and falling rates of use. By 2005, when Newsweek identified "The Meth Epidemic" as "America's New Drug Crisis" in a sensational cover story, illicit methamphetamine use had been declining for years. A new     ... MORE