In a recent "Poor Me" article from the SacBee marijuana industry leaders complained about how the black market was stealing business from "Legal" businesses because of the high tax on their product. In reading this article I found several mistakes that made it obvious that the author Brad Branan either didn't do his homework or he's playing on the side of the industry and helping spread more misinformation. It was also obvious that these "Industry Leaders" were too busy selling a ballot initiative that they hadn't bothered to read or they were too busy getting stoned to celebrate the initiative making the ballot. If these people are the leaders of the marijuana industry then the industry has more problems then it realizes . It sounds like there is a whole lot of money and not enough brains.

     Let's dig into the complaints of the industry and see what they're mad about.

    One issue that Branan says the industry leaders are upset about is the high taxes on retail product. Well if these leaders had actually read the text of Prop 64 then they would have seen that it called for a 15%  state tax to retail marijuana and allowed for local county and municipal taxation. It wasn't a secret that there would be additional taxes. Then someone with common sense would have known that the state of California has a sales tax that would apply to marijuana purchases, I mean it doesn't take a genius to figure some of this stuff out. Again, if these are the industry leaders this industry is in really big trouble.

    Branan says that all states except Oregon have a state and local tax on recreational sales. According to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission's website cities and counties have authorization to implement % tax on recreational marijuana sales. I am even more convinced that Branan didn't do any research before writing this piece. After that claim he quotes Assemblyman Ash Karla of San Jose as saying " Moral judgments about this will stop when they see all the money coming in"........What money? Schools in Colorado, Oregon and Washington are asking where the money is at? Police Departments in those states are also curious to know where their money is too. 

    In conclusion here it is obvious that the author of this piece and the legislators quoted in it are in the pockets of the industry. It's only a matter of time before we find out for a fact that they are.  Despite any claims made by Branan or any of the legislators, the claims of Legalizers in all of these initiatives are not happening. All of the issues that other states are having such as black market activity, teen use, BHO explosions and DUI's are only going to be worse in California. 
     
    
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8 states currently have recreational legalization and 28 states have legal medical marijuana laws. Legalizers are saying that legalization is working in states that have recreational use laws and that medical marijuana is reducing opioid use in states that have legalized for medicinal purposes. The problem with these claims is that the data doesn't back them up.

       Governor Hickenlooper in Colorado recently did an interview on "Meet the Press" where he made some claims insinuating that legalization was doing what it was said to do. He also said that if legalization was on the ballot today that he would probably vote for it. Well a group of experts took notice of the claims by the Governor and united in writing a letter to him asking him to correct his statements. "I'm getting close," Hickenlooper said about supporting legalization. "...we didn't see a spike in teenage use. If anything it's come down in the last year. And we're getting anecdotal reports of less drug dealers. I mean, that's, to get rid of that black market..." Oh Governor, it saddens me that you're believing the lies or you have been on the marijuana lobby payroll. 

Do you think it's a coincidence that when top Legalizer group National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws shortens their name that it spells NORML? After all, what is their goal? To NORML-ize marijuana by reducing the perception of harm so that people will be more accepting when legalization starts knocking.


More NORML-ization from Stroup

The Founder and current Board Member of NORML released a new blog on the organizations website earlier today on how marijuana users are still being unjustly singled out, but not as much as before. In this blog Stroup talks about how teen use is down while adult use is up. I was little concerned about the numbers he used in the area of people being arrested because the link to the FBI data had nothing to support his points. When you open the link you are taken to a page that towards the bottom had a table with drug arrests, but the stats are in percentages and not actual numbers. The rest of the page is stats or links to stats for violent crimes and property crimes. Just like his entire career as a marijuana activist these stats seem to be made up or assumptions. One thing I can tell you is that marijuana possession arrests aren't even close to being as high as Stroup and other Legalizers will tell you. The actual amount of people arrested for possession of small amounts of marijuana is less than 1% of the total people arrested.

The next part of his blog is about public acceptance and how more adults are using as compared to past years. I don't really see that as a good thing, but even with the latest polls adult marijuana users only make up about 10% of the total US population. For hundreds of years we have sat back and watched as tobacco 

The argument being fought over as the legalization push continues is whether or not the Marijuana industry is stealing from the Tobacco and Alcohol play books by targeting children. Addiction for profit industries rely on getting the next generations hooked on their products to continue their business. The similarities are really close.

For years the Big Tobacco used Doctors to push their products in advertising saying that Doctors approved the use of tobacco denying the health risks associated with its use. Now we have the Marijuana industry using Doctors to push their products by saying that marijuana is harmless or "Safer than Alcohol".  Despite what the advertising was 50 years ago with tobacco, we are seeing the health risks associated with its use. One big step with tobacco and teen use was using science to educate our kids on the dangers of using tobacco. When we use that approach with Marijuana we should see the same declines in teen marijuana use. That is why the Marijuana industry and its supporters are so quick to try and discredit the science that contradicts their claims. They saw what science based education did with tobacco and they know that when science is used to educate on marijuana they will lose money on this fledgling industry. If they can't get the next generation then legalization is a waste of time. 

 A new poll released suggests that Colorado voters are happy with legalization, with 61% saying that it's been good for their state. A recent article in the Washington Post by, None other than, Christopher Ingraham has a lot of claims with a few links to back them up. But what I was able to find were connections to the marijuana industry and their supporters.
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      In the Washington Post article by Christopher Ingraham "Most Colorado voters say legal weed has been good for the economy" he lays out how he got this information. The first problem though is that Ingraham is a supporter of legalization. So of course he is going to manipulate the data he's going to report. In his article he cites two sources for his data as being the Cato Institute and Public Policy Polling. When reading the article you will see that the poll by Public Policy Polling was commissioned by the pro 

California is being billed as the legalization swing state because they're saying if California goes so does the rest of the country. But is legalization really in the best interest of the state? Sure California has one of the biggest economies in the country, but with all those people California runs the risk of taking the current problems of legal states and amplifying them. So as November approaches Californians will need some questions answered.

TEEN USE
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Will legalization reduce youth use? The easy answer for that is no. The complicated answer is just that, complicated. There are so many factors in answering that question. With legalization comes expanded access to the drug with home grows and oversaturation of marijuana dispensaries. Now that marijuana is legal parents 

Those pesky Legalizers sure have a good imagination, don't they?
You might have seen this picture being circulated with a pretty scary story along with it.  Telling you that the FDA has recently approved candy flavored Meth to treat kids with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), but is there any truth to this scare tactic or is it just another ploy to make marijuana edibles looks more appealing? A little research and one will find that NO the FDA did not approve Meth for kids.

From SAM Action Press Release:

​Historic fundraising effort to counter non-medical marijuana initiatives comes on the heels of proposed measures that would legalize pot advertising and candies.


August 1, 2016

[Alexandria, VA] - SAM Action, the non-profit 501(c)(4) affiliate of SAM, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, co-founded by a former Obama Administration drug policy advisor Kevin Sabet, announced today a fundraising milestone of more than $2 million dedicated to defeating ballot measures that would legalize marijuana advertising, pot candies, and legitimize massive marijuana special interest groups across the country.

"The ballot initiatives in California, Arizona, Nevada, Massachusetts, and Maine usher in massive commercialization of kid-friendly marijuana products," said Sabet. "They go way beyond just legalization for adults' personal use. These proposed initiatives do things like legalize marijuana advertising on television and industrial production and marketing of pot candies like gummy bears and lollipops. It's a money grab by a massive new addictive industry - and particularly ironic given how we are in the process of tightening tobacco laws."

For example, the initiatives include provisions that would:

• allow pot smoking ads on prime-time television (CA)
• pack the state marijuana advisory bodies with industry representatives (AZ, CA, MA)
• weaken impaired driving laws (AZ, CA)
• give special treatment to existing marijuana business over ordinary citizens (AZ, CA, NV, MA, ME)
• allow kid-friendly edibles to be advertised and sold (AZ, CA, NV, MA, ME)
• provide no criminal penalties for pot shops that sell to minors (ME),

"For those of us who care about public health and civil rights, marijuana legalization can sound like a good idea at first," said Patrick J. Kennedy, SAM's Honorary Advisor. "But marijuana legalization has turned out to be a false promise on both fronts. It is putting our children at-risk, and has exposed children from communities of color to more racial discrimination than before. "

"The marijuana industry wants to turn back the clock to the 1970s and put smoking commercials back on TV after a 40-year ban," noted Jeffrey Zinsmeister, SAM Action's Executive Vice President. "And in one state, unlike cigarettes, they'll also be able to advertise pot candies and brownies on prime-time shows with millions of children and teenage viewers. These are regressive initiatives in the most literal sense of the word."

The multimillion dollar commitment represents the single largest fundraising amount ever dedicated to fighting the legalization of non-medical marijuana via ballot initiative. The money was given by private citizens concerned about addiction for profit. None of this money was donated by corporations, corporate interest groups, or people acting on their behalf.

"Private citizens heard that these initiatives were written so broadly, and they acted," said Sabet. "This is about stopping the next Big Tobacco."