An initiative petition in Missouri has 10 months to gather enough signatures to put a measure on the ballot. The Columbia Tribune reports Show-Me Cannabis has made a request with the Secretary of State's office to circulate a petition to unconditionally legalize all forms of marijuana.
The group has two petitions it wants to circulate. One requires 100,000 signatures to put a statutory change on the ballot. A second petition needs 160,000 voter signatures and would amend the Missouri Constitution. Both initiatives must gather enough support by May 6 to get on the ballot in November 2012.
At issue will be saving taxpayers' money and giving the General Assembly the authority to raise taxes on the sale of marijuana. Opponents, such as law enforcement officials, would come out against the proposal saying the legalization of marijuana in Missouri would cause more trouble than it's worth.
The Bulletin of Cannabis Reform states 55 percent of drug arrests in Missouri during 2007 were because of marijuana-related offenses. Over 23,000 charges were filed relating to marijuana possession and sales. Eliminating the burden on the legal system is one impetus of the reform.
The Missouri Office of Prosecution Services will be holding an online seminar entitled "What You Need to Know About Medical Marijuana." They are one group that has spoken out against legalizing marijuana and will likely oppose the measure should it be put on the ballot.
Legalizing the drug in Missouri wouldn't just affect Missourians. People would come from out of state to buy products related to the drug. There may even be growers that sell their products over the Internet to interest buyers over state lines.
Growers in Missouri would multiply as marijuana would become a small cash crop. But at least they would be regulated as to the amounts of the drug could be in cigarettes and other products.
In a best case scenario, legalizing pot eases the legal system. Missouri would have more money to spend in the treasury and law enforcement can focus on other issues in the state.
At worst, it creates a burden on medical personnel who would have to deal with marijuana overdoses and other medical maladies associated with pot. Driving while under the influence may also become a more prominent problem with pot smokers if more marijuana is allowed. Taking the products over state lines may place a burden on other states.
WebMD states about four percent of Americans smoked pot at least once a year. About one in 300 of those are addicted. Marijuana increases your heart rate, increases blood pressure, causes redness of the eyes and slows reaction times.
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In an apparent effort to prevent marijuana legalization from again dominating the discussion, Obama's next online townhall event will not allow participants to vote on their favorite questions for the president. But what does that say about the politics of social media? And will it even work?
It started with a simple and promising idea. The young voters who helped put Obama in office congregate on the Internet, and the best way to keep them involved in the political process is to meet them on their own turf. The incoming Obama Administration planned online forums mimicking the "thumbs up, thumbs down" voting systems that help rank the best content on popular viral sites like YouTube, Reddit and Digg. The President would solicit questions from the public and see what people cared about the most.
What no one anticipated was that the legalization of marijuana would emerge as the most popular political topic among the online public. Despite being initially chastised as "Internet trolls," supporters of marijuana reform repeatedly demonstrated their momentum in an open exercise of online democracy.
As startling as it was to see marijuana legalization taking a front row seat in mainstream politics, the outcome couldn't be ignored without defeating the purpose of the exercise entirely. Obama was forced to respond, and after an unfortunate first attempt to brush the issue aside, he eventually conceded just months ago that legalization is "an entirely legitimate topic of debate," but rejected it without explanation nevertheless.
It had become clear that as long as Obama's forums allowed the public to vote on topics for the president to address, the top-ranked questions would be about legalizing marijuana or even ending the War on Drugs altogether. Reluctant to confront the issue further, the White House recently changed its approach and announced an April 20, 2011 event on Facebook in which participants will not be allowed to vote at all. Questions can be sent in by email or posted on the Facebook page, but Obama's staff will make selections without any public input.
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WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama plans to take questions from YouTube viewers Thursday afternoon, and for the third time in as many years, the overwhelmingly most popular query involves the legalization of marijuana.
Of the top 100 most popular questions as rated by YouTube users, 99 are about the drug war or pot. Of the next one hundred, 99 are again about drug policy. Somehow, two questions about clean energy made their way into the top 200.
The pot questions don't stop there, but HuffPost stopped counting deep into the 200s, as the president is unlikely to answer all of them. If past history is any guide, he may not answer any of them.
A White House spokesman tells HuffPost that the president on Thursday will answer whatever questions YouTube puts before him. "A selection of top voted questions has been made to insure that as many of the most important questions as voted by the YouTube community will be asked," a YouTube spokesperson told HuffPost.
Obama did answer the question in 2009, addressing folks who asked if the president would consider legalizing marijuana to boost the economy and tax revenue.
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