BREAKING: Initiative to legalize marijuana qualifies for California's November ballot

By GottaLaff

Via an e-mail alert, this was inevitable. This morning's L.A. Times all but said it was:

State election officials announced Wednesday that an initiative to legalize marijuana will be on the November ballot, triggering what will likely be an expensive, divisive and much-watched campaign to decide whether California will again lead the nation in softening drug laws.

Los Angeles County election officials turned in their official estimate of the number of valid signatures just before 5 p.m. Wednesday, putting the measure beyond the 433,971 needed to make the ballot. The county, where one-fifth of the signatures were collected, was the last to report its count.

More soon at: http://latimes.com/lanow/

Groovy.

4/20

By GottaLaff

The Father of Our Country definitely grew hemp, but it's the dollar bill that will likely bring in the legalization of hemp, and marijuana.

Your daily dose of BuzzFlash:

4/20 might be the right time to consider legalizing marijuana, but tax revenue will be the reason

Fundraising jump for marijuana group after Obama snub

By GottaLaff

Remember this clip from the president's online town hall meeting? An ironic twist, courtesy of the Department of Dazed and Confused:

Marijuana backers aren't laughing about President Obama's flippant dismissal of a pot-related question during Thursday's online town hall meeting — and the country's leading marijuana advocacy group, The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, has seen its donations quadruple over the last 24 hours.

What they don't tell you is that half of those donations were Twinkies and Cheetos.

Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of NORML, told CNN "our donation boxes started to flood" after Obama laughed off a Web question about whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation. St. Pierre said traffic to the group's Web site has "increased precipitously" since Thursday.

"About half of the donation comments have a reference to Mr. Obama's comments," St. Pierre said. "As far as I'm concerned, he could show up every single day and rag on marijuana."

Those would be the Twinkie/Cheeto crowd. I should know. I was really good friends with them in college.

But St. Pierre said the anger among marijuana legalization advocates is real.

Bill Maher could be heard grumbling, "Wtf? I thought Prez O was cool."

St. Pierre acknowledged that marijuana legalization is "by no means at the top of national concerns" like two wars and a troubled economy. However, he said the online question was a serious one, arguing that marijuana legalization would help law enforcement officials cut costs. He also said a legal marijuana industry, like tobacco and alcohol, would create billions in tax revenue for the government.

Agreed.

St. Pierre believes the president and his attorney general, Eric Holder, will be friendlier to marijuana advocates than the previous administration, but he said he knows the topic remains "political dynamite" for any elected official.

That's what I said in my post (see link above). He couldn't very well advocate for legalization in that format. It's too complicated to devote a mere minute or two in a new and novel arena.

He needs time for a more serious, substantial discussion, not just a sound bite op for the Rushpublics to jump on.

VIDEO: President Obama discusses ::gasp!:: legalizing The Weed

By GottaLaff


I wish he hadn't been so dismissive. Politics, politics, politics. And time constraints. And politics.