From the Galysh campaign:
All three support Proposition 19, also known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010. It legalizes various marijuana-related activities, allows local governments to regulate these activities, permits local governments to impose and collect marijuana-related fees and taxes, and authorizes various criminal and civil penalties.
Judge James Gray states, “As a retired Orange County judge, I’ve been on the front lines of the drug war for three decades, and I know from experience that the current approach is simply not working. Controlling marijuana with regulations similar to those currently in place for alcohol will put street drug dealers and organized crime out of business, while allowing police to focus on protecting the public by preventing violent crime.”
Famous comedian Tommy Chong, who in 2003 was imprisoned when the feds nabbed him for selling bongs, states, “The privatized jails and the law enforcement budget pigs want to keep it illegal so they can maximize their bottom line. Don’t let this happen any longer. Vote Yes on Prop 19 on November 2!”
Musician Adrian Galysh offers a more libertarian reason for supporting Proposition 19, “People should never be prosecuted for what they own, for what they think, for what they eat, drink, or smoke, or for what they believe. They should be prosecuted only for the physical harm they do to others. We need to jail violent criminals, not peaceful drug users.”
Adrian Galysh, a professional musician, earns a living teaching guitar, performing, and recording. With three solo albums under his belt, he decided to run for California State Senate, in District 20, which includes much of the San Fernando Valley. Galysh’s strong campaign has brought the musician’s message of government spending cuts, lower taxes, and school choice to groups including the Los Angeles Urban League of Students Candidate Forum at USC, San Fernando Valley Tea Party Patriots “Candidate Sampler”, Thousand Oaks Glenn Beck 9-12 book club, LA JEMM Medical Marijuana Awareness Festival, and UCLA’s Young Americans For Liberty.
You can learn more about Adrian Galysh and his campaign at www.ElectAdrianGalysh.com
All of that is due to the direct or indirect effects of prohibition.
Meth should be legal as well. Prohibition has only made things worse for all drugs, just as it did with alcohol.
That didn’t happen with alcohol being legalized, if anything use went down because it was no longer the “forbidden fruit” and the larger profits due to taking legal risks were taken out of it. It hasn’t happened in the Netherlands, their drug use rates are lower than the US and marijuana is practically legal and sold openly in cafes while hard drugs are decriminalized, still sold on the street but the users are not put in jail. The jails and prisons are being closed down because crime is so low. The only reason anyone moves from marijuana to other drugs is that they are all sold by the same dealers in a criminal underworld. There is nothing inherent with using marijuana that makes someone go out and do hard drugs. And by the way I have been through all the above myself as well.
I grew up with hippies parents and around drugs and drug dealing my entire life. Instead of getting an education in school I dealt drugs and partied off the huge, easy money. I have seen NOTHING but sorrow from the drug world. You can claim marijuana doesn’t lead to other drugs, you can claim it also does not lead to violent crime but I know better. People I know have gang raped teenage girls, stolen from teenagers parent’s homes, robbed retail stores, gang beat rivals, committed murder, ripped off drug buyers for start up cash, turned informants to stay out of jail, one guy even put a chicks baby kitten in a microwave to see what would happen ALL on pot. Most of my family does drugs and I have nine family members who are convicted felons with five serving sentences right now ranging from murder to meth cooking to DWI and drug dealing. Drugs use of ANY kind is a scourge on society and nothing good will ever come from it. Legalizing marijuana would be a huge mistake, I already know friends planning a major push into methamphetamine dealing to replace lost profits on pot sales due to medical marijuana. Drug dealers have no intention of going out of the business of easy money and teenagers are a primary market for pot sales who are now our main focus for methamphetamine sales. You are promoting the destruction of others for your own personal financial gain. In the criminal world there are NO RULES, the gloves are off and marijuana legalization will create a nation of chronic drug users more easily plied into using narcotics which will dominate the future of street drug sales and that comes from an “inside” source. You children are my property and I gotta get my paper dog.
If we can STOP people using marijuana then we need to do so NOW…
The Marijuana Tax Act was passed 73 years ago. I think the government has had plenty of time to stop people from smoking pot and it has been a miserable failure.
Perhaps the do-gooders are ready to try the prohibition of alcohol again to keep the prison-industrial police state in clover.
$113 billion is spent on marijuana every year in the U.S., and because of the federal prohibition *every* dollar of it goes straight into the hands of criminals. Far from preventing people from using marijuana, the prohibition instead creates zero legal supply amid massive and unrelenting demand.
According to the ONDCP, at least sixty percent of Mexican drug cartel money comes from selling marijuana in the U.S., they protect this revenue by brutally torturing, murdering and dismembering countless innocent people.
If we can STOP people using marijuana then we need to do so NOW, but if we can’t then we need to legalize the production and sale of marijuana to adults with after-tax prices set too low for the cartels to match. One way or the other, we have to force the cartels out of the marijuana market and eliminate their highly lucrative marijuana incomes – no business can withstand the loss of sixty percent of its revenue!
To date, the cartels have amassed more than 100,000 “foot soldiers” and operate in 230 U.S. cities, and Arizona police are now conceding that parts of their state are under cartel control. The longer the cartels are allowed to exploit the prohibition the more powerful they’re going to get and the more our own personal security will be put in jeopardy.