Defeat of the failed War on Marijuana – long opposed by the Libertarian Party – took another giant step forward on January 15 when the New Hampshire House became the first legislative body in the U.S. to vote in favor of legalization of cannabis.
The bill, HB 492, would decriminalize possession of one ounce of marijuana by adults and would allow residents to grow up to six plants. It passed in the House by a vote of 170-162 after heated debate.
Although Democratic governor Maggie Hassan has threatened to veto the bill, the House will vote on it again in February or March, after which it will move to the Senate for a vote.
Sixty percent of New Hampshire residents support the bill while only 36 percent oppose it. Medical marijuana is already legal in the state, with restrictions.
Read more:
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/01/15/new-hampshire-house-votes-to-legalize-pot
http://www.mpp.org/states/new-hampshire/
The first sentence of the article is a little clunky and makes it seem as though maybe the Libertarian Party supported marijuana prohibition,
I’m not seeing how you would read it that way.
Yeah, Libertarians spend so much time talking about politics with other Libertarians that we often forget that people reading our stuff may not be familiar with what we’re talking about. LP is a big one. I think its safe to say that nobody outside of the liberty movement knows what that stands for. It happens all the time when talking about legislation too. Calling bills by their sponsors’ names (Dodd-Frank for example) works fine in conversation with most Libertarians. But, I’d bet that not more than 5% of the general population knows what you’re talking about if you use it in conversation at an outreach booth.
In written material and speeches, it’s pretty easy to avoid. Just have things that are intended for a general audience edited by someone who is not an “insider.”. As for off the cuff conversation, its a little harder to do. Since I first noticed the problem 2-3 years ago, I’ve tried to call legislation by names like “bailout bill” or “sales tax increase” even in conversation with other Libertarians, just to get in the habit of doing so. I think it has helped me a little bit. I’m terrible with the LP vs. Libertarian Party thing though. As are almost all Libertarians, it seems.
I agree, but this is straight from lp.org, so I don’t think it’s for me to rewrite. I’ll occasionally rework some titles to be properly capitalized (a pet peeve of mine) and change acronyms into the actual wording to be more attractive to casual viewers (many outsiders wouldn’t know that LP stands for Libertarian Party), but I try to keep the articles themselves fairly intact.
Good job in New Hampshire.
The first sentence of the article is a little clunky and makes it seem as though maybe the Libertarian Party supported marijuana prohibition, you may want to rewrite it.