marijuana

marijuana leaf

Over-Policing of Marijuana Possession by Maricopa County Attorney & ASU

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marijuana leafThe case of Andre Maestas, a student at Arizona State University and a medical marijuana card holder, is a prime example of what’s wrong with Arizona’s drug enforcement policies and our conflicting laws.

Marijuana prohibition zealot and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery filed felony marijuana possession charges against Maestas because he had 0.6 grams of marijuana and smoking paraphernalia in his dorm room. (0.6 grams is approximately a teaspoon of pot.)

How could a medical marijuana patient be charged with felony possession– especially for such a tiny amount? Patients are allowed to possess and purchase up to  2.5 ounces of pot every two weeks. Maestas had 0.02 ounces. (Did I mention that Maestas is black?)

Apparently, Maestas was charged and found guilty under a 2012 law passed by the Arizona Legislature (and backed by the universities) which bans medical pot on college campuses. Maestas’ case claims the 2012 law– which changes the 2010 voter-approved Medical Marijuana Act– is illegal because of the 1998 voter-approved Voter Protection Act, which prohibits the Legislature from changing or over-turning citizen initiatives. (The Voter Protection Act was passed two years after Arizona voters overwhelmingly passed medical marijuana the first time.) So far– the courts are not buying Maestas’ argument, and he is scheduled to be sentenced in early October. What’s wrong with this picture?

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medical marijuana

#1 Reason to Legalize Pot Is Humanitarian, Not Economic (video)

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medical marijuanaDuring the 2014 election season LD9 Rep. Ethan Orr caused a minor media stir when the Freshman Republican said he would “push” for marijuana legalization if re-elected to the Arizona Legislature (which didn’t happen). Orr suggested marijuana legalization as a way the state to make money through taxation and fees, since Arizona faces ongoing budget problems.

Fast forward to this election season, and as many as six cannabis-related citizens’ initiatives are collecting signatures to get on the 2016 ballot. The initiative backed by the Marijuana Policy Project includes a 15% sales tax on recreational marijuana; it could raise as much as $40 million for public education and public health. (Colorado’s legalization initiative called for a 25% tax on marijuana; the state has earmarked $40 million of the tax revenue for schools, according to the Arizona Republic.)

Although the money-making aspect of legalization is enticing to some, there are strong humanitarian reasons for legalization of marijuana. Here are my top five reasons for marijuana legalization and a video explaining the cannabis-related initiatives that could be on the 2016 ballot.

5- End Over-Policing of Personal Marijuana Use. Over-policing of marijuana possession is a multi-million-dollar nationwide problem. The US spends $51 billion per year on the failed War on Drugs. With that, law enforcement arrested 1.55 million Americans in 2012 for non-violent drug use. Of that, 48% (749,825) were arrested for marijuana violations, and 88% of those people (658,231) were arrested for simple possession.

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Arizona Senate

AZ Budget Solution: Grow the Economy, Don’t Starve It (video)

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Arizona Senate
Arizona Senate Chambers

Governor Doug Ducey and Republican leadership in the Legislature made headlines and sparked street protests this week when they tried to ram through a starvation budget that was negotiated in secret.

The wrong-headed budget starved universities with $104 million-dollar in cuts;  it stole even more money from K-12 education with a $98 million hit this year and another $157 million hit in the next year; just for fun, it cut an additional $8-15 from TUSD; it crippled job training with $30 million in cuts; it completely defunded community colleges in Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa Counties; it cut provider rates for people who provide medical care to Medicaid/AHCCCS patients by $127 million (which would result in the loss of $588 million of federal funds). And these are just the highlights.

This severe austerity budget will do nothing to grow the economy. It will starve the economy by taking more than a billion dollars out. This means more lay-offs, more bankruptcies, more business failures, more home foreclosures, more poverty, people on on public assistance, more homelessness, more crime, more incarceration, and more people and businesses leaving our state.

When Republicans talk about budgeting, they often give folksy example of a family sitting around the kitchen table to work out the budget and decide together how they are going to tighten their belts and make ends meet. Didn’t anyone at the kitchen table ever say, “Paw, I could get another job to bring in more money”?

Earlier this year, the media speculated how Ducey could possibly keep his campaign promise of balancing the budget without raising taxes and at the same time allow hundreds of millions of dollars in unaffordable planned corporate tax cuts (passed during the Brewer era) to go forward. (Besides all that, there is the court order that said the Legislature unlawfully cut Arizona school funding and should pay back $317 million in this budget and $1.6 billion in the future.)

Earlier this year, Ducey famously said, just because we don’t have enough money, doesn’t mean we need to raise revenue. Why not? Putting money into the economy grows it; taking money out, starves it. Arizona has options besides austerity. We can raise revenue and pay for the services we want: 1) legalize marijuana; 2) establish a public bank; 3) stop implementation of unaffordable tax cuts for out-of-state corporations; 4) invest in innovation.

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Prop 122

Prop 122 Passed: I Declare the Controlled Substances Act as Unconstitutional

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Prop 122
Prop 122 allows Arizonans or their elected representatives to determine the Constitutionality of federal laws.

Prop 122— the misguided nullification of federal law ballot initiative– has passed and will now become law. Liberals bemoaned this initiative before the elections, but we lost. 🙁

Rather than cry in our beer, we liberals should put on our thinking caps and come up with laws that we believe are unconstitutional. (Remember how the Satanists turned the Hobby Lobby decision to their advantage?)

After all, any Arizonan can play the Constitutionality game because Prop 122 says “… the people or their representatives [can] exercise their authority pursuant to this section…” What about laws promoting voter suppression, restrictions on abortion clinics, unnecessary medical procedures (like vaginal ultrasound), or racial profiling. Aren’t those unconstitutional? Oops. Those are state laws.

Turning to federal laws, I declare the Controlled Substances Act to be unconstitutional. Here’s why…

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HRC AZ disappoints with Ethan “Bros Before Hoes” Orr endorsement as news media fawn over his weed announcement

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

e orr

I learned via good sources on Facebook earlier that the Human Rights Campaign of Arizona has decided to endorse incumbent Ethan Orr (R) along with Dr. Randall Freise (D) for Legislative District 9. It’s bad enough they are snubbing Orr’s seatmate Victoria Steele (D) but they are throwing their support to a guy who has a lousy voting record on human rights issues. (CORRECTION: I have since learned that HRC AZ is endorsing Steele. They picked Orr over Friese.)

I understand that Orr is nominally pro-LGBT rights and, who knows, maybe he has finally come out in support of marriage equality. HRC AZ may be rewarding him for voting against SB1062 (not that it mattered since the bill passed anyway). If that’s the case, I would urge extreme caution about that. Ethan Orr strongly opposes a woman’s right to choose, which should be upsetting enough if you believe that human rights should be a full meal for all, not a cafeteria plan for some. But what that also means is that if/when SB1062 comes back, it will be (as I’ve explained many times) disguised as a “Hobby Lobby”-type measure. They’ll just say the magic word “abortifacients” and Ethan Orr will be on board. Thus, he really cannot be pro-LGBT if he is also anti-choice.

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