You may or may not already know some of these, but it really is astounding what kinds of things we could accomplish if our government would change its policy on drugs. From reducing racial discrimination, cutting down on the national deficit, and treating drug addiction as a public health concern rather than a criminal offense, the road to a drug free world requires an end to the war on drugs. Click here for some interesting findings.
Colorado announces rules for recreational Marijuana sales
By Michael Komorn
The state was required to release rules and guidelines for how recreational marijuana would be regulated by July 1st. The department of revenue, tasked with producing the rules, was mostly concerned with product testing and labeling. Washington, which also passed marijuana for recreational use last year, is due to release its own set of rules before sales begin in January. It will be interesting to see how the Federal Government responds and what kinds of numbers we see coming out of Colorado and Washington in the coming year. To read more, follow these links.
The Colorado Department of Revenue, tasked with providing the guidelines of how legal marijuana would be distributed, issued its “Emergency Rules Related to the Marijuana Code,” which outlines the rules for the distribution and retail of Marijuana. This is huge, and is the equivalent of an amoeba crawling out of the water. When referring to how his Administration would treat states such as Colorado, which passed legislation legalizing marijuana for recreational use, President Obama said, “We have bigger fish to fry.” It will be interesting to see if that statement still stands. To view what the Department of Revenue came up with, click the PDF below. Colorado Retail Marijuana Code (effective July 1, 2013)
The government would save an estimated $13.7 billion on prohibition enforcement costs and tax revenue by legalizing marijuana, according to a paper endorsed by 300 economists.
The city of Oakland, California raised $1.3 million in tax revenue from medical marijuana dispensaries in 2011, 3 percent of the city’s total business tax revenue, according to The New York Times. To read more, click here: Generated By Dispensaries Help Struggling Cities
In 2005, nearly 800,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana related charges. In 2006, more than 830,000 were arrested. in 2007? A staggering 873,000. The latest statistics released by the FBI show that in 2011, there were about 1.5 million drug arrests, with 750,000 of them marijuana related. The costs for processing these individuals, not including trying and imprisonment, is between 1.5-3 billion dollars. The costs of imprisonment mentioned in the title of this post were estimated by examining figures released by the US Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics which said that roughly 13 percent of federal and state inmates were incarcerated for marijuana. If you multiply the total number of inmates in each of these prisons by that percentage, you get around 34,000 State and 11,000 Federal inmates. Multiply those figures by the cost of housing an inmate and the figure is over $1 Billion annually. Further more, how do we estimate the cost of a child growing up without a father or mother because they are serving time for marijuana? And how much does it cost society to have that child grow up on welfare because his mom or dad can’t get a job because of a prior conviction? We must ask ourselves if it is worth it as a free society to incarcerate people for a substance that the leading scientific expert has said may even prevent cancer.
If you or someone you know is facing charges as a result of Medical Marijuana prescribed to you as a Medical Marijuana patient under the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, or would like to explore the benefit of Medical Marijuana as a natural healing solution, contact Komorn Law and ensure your rights are protected.
Michael Komorn is recognized as a leading expert on the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act. He is the President of theMichigan Medical Marijuana Association (MMMA), a nonprofit patient advocacy group with over 26,000 members, which advocates for medical marijuana patients, and caregiver rights. Michael is also the host of Planet Green Trees Radio, a marijuana reform based show, which is broadcast every Thursday night 8-10 pm EST. Follow Komorn onTwitter.
