The Last Frontier is legalizing weed! The state is already among the 13 states in the union where marijuana is decriminalized. Marijuana is decriminalized, legal medicinally (see here: http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000881), or both — in 25 of America’s United States. Here’s a map with the break down from http://www.theweedblog.com
According to the Alaska Dispatch, the Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell on Friday certified a ballot initiative which would legalize recreational cannabis use in the state, where some medicinal use is already sanctioned. Legal pot enthusiasts now have a year to gather about 30,000 signatures from qualified voters to get the question on the ballot, according to The Associated Press. npr.org reports that this past Tuesday, “Vermont moved to decriminalize the possession of marijuana for quantities up to an ounce, replacing potential prison time for arrests with fines… Mona Lynch, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who studies the criminal justice system, says that stereotypes of marijuana usage in popular culture don’t come across as very threatening. “There’s not a lot of uproar around marijuana [as] a crushing problem,” she says… Ezekiel Edwards, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Criminal Law Reform Project, says that in 2001 years ago, marijuana possession arrests made up 34 percent of all drug arrests. And now? “Half of all drug arrests are now marijuana-related,” he says — and 9 in 10 of those are for possession… Both Edwards and Lynch say that part of the reason marijuana is getting more attention from law enforcement agencies is that police departments are being subsidized with lots of federal dollars to stop drugs, but the crack epidemic has since waned. “Institutions don’t like to shrink,” Lynch says. “It’s actually a reverse kind of pattern — drug arrests are going up [even] as crime drops.”
The proposal in Alaska would legalize smoking and possessing up to one ounce of cannabis legally for people 21 and older, as well as set out provisions for legal grow operations and establish an excise tax. A few years ago I spoke to several coffee shop owners of cafes in Amsterdam about decriminalization and legalization of cannabis in Holland and the United States. My documentary short “Coffee Shopping in AMsterdam was featured in film festivals in New York City and Martha’s Vineyard in 2007. You an view via the link below:
https://museumofuncutfunk.com/2012/07/10/my-funky-documentary-coffee-shopping-in-amsterdam/
https://museumofuncutfunk.com/2014/07/13/the-eminent-legalization-of-cannabis/
UPDATE – 6/3/15… http://www.alaskacommons.com/2015/05/31/legal-marijuana-is-here-and-taking-applications
in favor of a green nation
c-dub
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