Dennis! Kucinich, along with “Gramma’s for Ganja” and “Moms for Marijuana,” spoke at “Hempfest” in Seattle this past weekend. Among other things, Dennis! said America should legalize gay marriage, pot, end wars, and all write our names with exclamation marks after them.
He also urged the rally attendees to push for these outcomes themselves, saying “mass action” on the public’s part is what creates change.
“This is why and how recent movements for freedom in Tunisia and Egypt gained momentum,” he said. Also, that’s how he got the deli up the street from his house to start carrying Tahitian Treat.
This article appears in Aug 17-23, 2011.
Regardless of which side of the political fence we stand I think we can all agree that our laws should cause more good than harm.
So what good do we get from the federal marijuana prohibition and what harm does it cause? Some would argue that its greatest benefit is in that it “sends the right message” to our children, but it’s hard to really see that when marijuana’s classification in the same schedule as heroin sends a message to our children that heroin is no more dangerous than pot.
And since we can’t stop millions of Americans from using marijuana and since we allow no legal supply of the stuff, how do the harms caused by maintaining zero legal supply amidst massive and unrelenting demand weigh up against the benefits we receive from the prohibition? These harms include 800,000 needless arrests each year, 40,000 brutal murders at the hands of the Mexican drug cartels in just the last five years and drug dealers drawn into our neighborhoods looking to sell marijuana to our children.
If we really do believe that our laws should be logical then we must demand an end to the federal marijuana prohibition and insist that our supermarkets be given the right to legally sell marijuana to adults at prices too low for the drug dealers and cartels to match.