Cannabis Industry Boom

A BBC news video reports that Canada's pot industry makes $7 billion a year.

Canada's booming cannabis industry ranks alongside tourism and forestry as a money earner and employer but the illegal trade has angered its US neighbour.

(Via TYWKIWDBI)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Anonymous

Canadian here. TBH I’m rather confused about the actual legal status of cannabis. I spent awhile chatting with a cannabis aficionado in a bar recently, and he seemed rather convinced, and convincing, that it was effectively entirely legit to grow your own. Seed sellers openly advertise and ship to anyone with a Canadian address (no THC in the seed, I guess, just the genes). Cannabis smoke shops appear in mainstream shopping malls. And, at least according to him, the police pay no attention to folks growing for their own use. Maybe it’s different if you’re selling, stealing electricity, or are running a violent street gang.
Anonymous

Weewillie – I’m a born and raised USA citizen. And I agree with your post 100%.

Now I’m going to sit in my home and commit a terrible crime. I’m firing up my Vapo. Yes, I have a college degree and work full time. Also a parent.

…and a subversive drug-using criminal according to archaic US laws.
Anonymous

Your friend is wrong. It is still very much illegal to smoke, and especially to grow. If you are caught growing, you could very likely end up in prison.

Which is not to say that you shouldn’t grow it. If you’re going to smoke it, by all means grow your own. I cannot in good conscience advise you to buy it from the Hells Angels or some other gang they have doing their flunky work, and risk exposure to maybe crystal meth or something else they’ve added to it to get you hooked.

Prohibition must end!

Ack! Captcha!
ab5tract

Stop calling it marijuana. Using that word plays directly into their narrative and ignores the other, even more valuable half of the cannabis dyad.

It’s like if pro-choice people were constantly labeling themselves “anti-life advocates”. That is, it’s using their (demonizing) terminology which they simply tamp down with their well heeled narrative.
Brainspore

@ #18 posted by weewillie:

It’s just that we live next to the USA – the biggest bunch of f*cktards ever. So Canada can’t legalize the weed until the USA’s prison/police state is dismantled.

Hey, I don’t like my country’s drug policies either but I’m not letting you put this on us. Do you honestly think our Air Force is going to start carpet bombing Vancouver if you legalize the stuff? Why don’t you just grow a pair already and legalize it yourselves?

Canada didn’t wait for the U.S. to repeal alcohol prohibition before allowing your countrymen to enjoy a drink, so I don’t know why you seem so worried about what the neighbors think now.

To paraphrase Obi-Wan: “Who is the greater fucktard, the fucktard or the fucktard who follows him?”
Anonymous

Here in Oakland California, if your a California resident, you can get a medical card for $100.(approx!)30 minutes later walk into a clean well run cannabis club, buy any kind of weed/cannabis food or extract. You can buy huge clones and the grow supply stores are all over.

I live in Oakland and it took me years to finally to realize how things have changed since the bad old days and the passage of Prop 215. America is not only being divided into seperate geographic regions by economic and social class but by cannabis as well. Richard Florida please investigate. The war is over if you want it.
urshrew

#48 posted by Ugly Canuck,

I think I should have put my comment in tags, but you’re still right. I just wanted to comment on the stupidity of trying to regulate an easily available thing. Its not like people who made these laws didn’t have the historic example of the 18th amendment available to them, and think about how waaaaaaay more complicated it is to make and distribute alcohol then weed.
Anonymous

http://www.rastavacations.com is offering trips to “cannabis friendly” destinations, including a California “Medical Marijuana Discovery Tour.”
Anonymous

Legalize
Regulate
Tax
Educate
Phikus

We were talking-about the space between us all
And the people-who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion.
Never glimpse the truth-then it’s far too late-when they pass away.
We were talking-about the love we all could share-when we find it
To try our best to hold it there-with our love
With our love-we could save the world-if they only knew.
Try to realize it’s all within yourself
No-one else can make you change.
And to see you’re really only very small,
And life flows ON within you and without you.
We were talking-about the love that’s gone so cold and the people,
Who gain the world and lose their soul-
They don’t know-they can’t see-are you one of them?
When you’ve seen beyond yourself-then you may find, peace of mind,
Is waiting there-
And the time will come when you see
we’re all one, and life flows on within you and without you.
ianm

#22 posted by Brainspore

You assume canada has sovereignty. Although we have a good deal of leeway, generally, all laws/policy adopted in Canada are tacitly or explicitly condoned by america. We have room for negotiation on some issues, but in the end our options our limited by the length of US toleration.

The thing for the Canadian health care system? If the US adopted a single payer system.

The best thing for our drug laws? If the US adopted sensible drug policy, eliminated the DEA, and stopped the war on drugs. Our policies may be domestic, but our possible choices are determined south of the border.
Brainspore

@ #36 posted by akbar56:

We haven’t tried a war with Canada in almost 200 years cause the last time we tried, they came and burned the White House down!

I know, all the more reason that they shouldn’t be all namby pamby about hurting our feelings if they legalize a plant. It really doesn’t matter to me whether they do or not, just as long as they don’t blame that decision on us.

@ Anonymous #34 and The UN Single Convention on Narcotics:

1) Who forced Canada to sign that treaty in the first place?
2) Since when has any country been stopped from doing something it wanted to do because of a UN treaty anyway?
3) According to the Wikipedia page on the treaty “It is unclear whether or not the treaty requires criminalization of drug possession for personal use.” That’s good enough for me, especially since the Netherlands has created precedent.

That treaty was mostly designed to control international drug trafficking, so I doubt the UN is about to send in the troops for what Canadians decide to grow and smoke in their own country.

If you don’t like the drug policies in your country then you should look to your own government to fix them.
Anonymous

so i have a question..
lets see if you can answer this,

if someone is in the process of getting a u.s citizenship and they want a California marijuana club card and now they have one…
a)would the federal gov. who is reviewing there papers see that they now have one
b)if a cannabis club gets raided by the d.e.a (or any federal law enforcement) and all of the patients papers get confiscated, are they sent to the federal gov were the persons name would be found and u.s citizenship will be denied.
Brainspore

@ #25 posted by ianm:

Although we have a good deal of leeway, generally, all laws/policy adopted in Canada are tacitly or explicitly condoned by america. We have room for negotiation on some issues, but in the end our options our limited by the length of US toleration.

Well whose fault is that? The U.S. hasn’t seriously entertained the notion of war with Canada for nearly 200 years, so if your government is licking the boots of American politicians then that’s on you, not us. You’ve bucked our pressure before, from the aforementioned legalization of alcohol in the ’20s to sitting out of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Let’s see that independent spirit that was the stuff of lumberjack legend!

@ Anonymous #24: Hypothetically, if an Oakland resident wanted one of those cards and didn’t have any kind of medical condition how would he go about getting one? I ask for, um, a friend who happens to live about 5 blocks from Oaksterdam University on 19th & Broadway.
Anonymous

legalize it?
please explain how this would be done and how organized crime would tolerate it?

people seem to forget that it is used in barter for other drugs, weapons and other goods in place of currency and fuels a rather huge criminal underground economy that, in the case of B.C. Canada,supports a large part of the local economies.. Pot fueled the housing boom here in large part as an example. (the stats are out there…)

legalizing it would create more problems than it might be worth, but again, show your work.

the people who collect the payola in government don’t want to see it go and the crooks don’t want to see its use as currency diminished or removed.

the “legalize, educate” baloney is pretty idealist if not infantile. it won’t be legalised anytime soon, unless you want to arm yourself against the gangs.

and as for the earlier comment about MJ being “mistakenly criminalized” get your facts straight.

The US went to great lengths and expense on behalf of the newspaper industry Czars to make sure that HEMP was made illegal to ensure that newsprint was made from paper to benefit the lumber barons and “pot” was made illegal because it can be grown anywhere by anyone and is not a controllable substance.

funny that American money (as is most currency on the planet) is made of hemp and cotton fiber.

i digress..

but yeah, you “legalize it” guys pipe up with the plan. the question isn’t how to legalize it, the question is the fallout.
IWood

#6 posted by Anonymous:

Well.. if the U.S. wasn’t so supid, and so corrupt, the natural plant grown by nature, a miricle plant if we care to exploit it’s resins, its fibers, and its nutrients (oils).

Not to mention medicinal marijuana.

But the U.S. and “smart” are two concepts that will never, ever meet.

Self-pwnage is funny.
Anonymous

I may be one of about four people in BC who doesn’t smoke the herb, why is BBC making such a fuss over this? It can only lead to more tourists…
Anonymous

I can’t wait until it’s legalized, because everyone will be focused on the bitching about the potheads and their second hand smoke, etc and smokers can gets some peace for a bit. =X!!
Anonymous

here is a doc on cannabis in canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8B8T5ARp4M
EH

ob: “duuuuuuuuuude, eh?”
Anonymous

Anon24:

What do mean you have no medical conditions? You are one sick puppy. Now,get a copy of the Oakland Tribune,Sf Chronicle,East Bay Express,Bay Area Guardian etc, etc,. The wisdom of Prop.215 is that it was written for the people not for the police. I urge your friend to continue to investigate the matter in the spirit of malice toward none and good will to all.
Anonymous

@AKBAR56,

I’m a patriotic Canadian but the burning of the White House should not be a source of pride. The British/Canadian forces snuck in at night, encountered a few women out for a walk, and met with no one else on their way to a silly symbolic little arson.

For real battles that meant something, check out Stoney Creek, the Plains of Abraham, and Quebec City. Defensive all, as are most battles won in wars.
mdh

I encourage everyone to look at the regulations recently enacted in Massachusetts.

Possession of <1 oz = $100 fine. No CORI.

Possession < 1oz + < age 18 = $100 fine and mandatory outpatient rehab. No CORI.

It’s still a DUI if you’re driving and smoking, same as open container laws for alcohol.
dculberson

I thought California’s MJ trade was around $14 billion a year. Why should Canada bother controlling their weed if the US can’t?
Anonymous

As an Ontarian I can say it’s certainly not like this all across Canada. Pot laws are upheld to a high degree on this side of the country. Pretty sure BC is the only province with such a lax attitude, but I could be wrong.
- Anonymous
  
  Sorry, but you are most certainly wrong… There are at least 4 bring your own bud cafÃ¨s in Toronto alone. And there will be more, as many as the market can support, until they are like Starbucks, empty of controversy, a staple of communities, that you may disagree with, but don’t harm you. And unlike the bars that riddle the city, you will never see a fight there. I’ve seen people of all races, creeds, and ages (18-too old to tell) peacefully coinciding in these establishments. I take it back, I’m not sorry you’re wrong, as I love Canada and the freedoms I can enjoy, such as smoking a vapor bag in a peaceful, safe, place.
Pantograph

Great! More tourists to Canada. As a lifelong resident of Amsterdam (the original), I can sympathise. Those drug tourists can really lower the tone of the place.

Legalise worldwide and leave us to smoke in peace.
David Newland

Pot is a big part of Canadian culture these days, to be sure. It’s prevalent, tolerated, relatively inexpensive and, on the consumer side, mostly benign.

Unfortunately it’s not exactly la-la land for all concerned. As long as it remains illegal there are serious criminals interested in controlling the trade.

And the relatively lax gun laws in the US combined with the relatively lax enforcement on pot in Canada are creating a cross-border guns-for-drugs issue that only benefits drug dealers, crime lords, and thugs.
edgore

Mark, what were you smoking when you typed that title?
Anonymous

annon #34: I spoke with one of the persons involved in writing Prop 215 in California when it became law in 1996 and he too said that for persons with other than serious medical conditions using the system would jeopardize access to medical marijuana for cancer or AIDS patients. I refrained for 12 years from particpating in the medical pot program in California. I watched how the system has faired over the years and that viewpoint in my opinion is not accurate. I have come to believe that the more people who participate, within the guidelines of Prop 215 the stronger the law becomes. I believe that unlike the laws of other states California’s direct ballot system allows the public to decide cannabis laws not the DEA, or local police organizations. Californians: don’t let special interest groups, like AIDS or cancer patient groups guilt trip you out of your right as a Californian to have access to cannabis. You don’t have to contract AIDS or MS or cancer to get access to legal cannabis.
Patrick Dodds

Short term memory loss – a sure sign.
Anonymous

Well.. if the U.S. wasn’t so stupid, and so corrupt, the natural plant grown by nature, a miracle plant if we care to exploit it’s resins, its fibers, and its nutrients (oils).

Not to mention medicinal marijuana.

But the U.S. and “smart” are two concepts that will never, ever meet.
Patrick Dodds

Short term memory loss – a sure sign.
Lt DirtyFreq

ok ok ok… no need to argue on the 420 issue
Yeah being in America, I do agree our political system is stupid. I am not a pot smoker nor ever tried to smoke it (but I am willing to try a brownie or cookie). The best description of pot in America is the newest Family Guy episode “420″. Go watch the entire episode on FOX.
Robbo

Short term memory loss – a sure — no, wait — just doing my bit for the Canadian economy.

Cheers.
Anonymous

@ everyone claiming that canada should just grow a pair and legalize.:

I do believe that would be in violation of international law,

The UN Single Convention on Narcotics.

I may be mistaken on this, but I believe it is mandatory for all UN countries to sign on to this mandate thanks to good old Tricky Dick Nixon. The Netherlands only gets away with it via a loophole or two, even there it’s still technically illegal, it’s just “tolerated”.

@ all of those claiming to just get a Prop 215 medical card, ( even if you don’t need one)….

consider that you may be participating in ruining a system put in place for people who REALLY need cannabis as a medicine.
Ugly Canuck

A link for those to lazy 2 read the above:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oosnc1ACxh4
Anonymous

The world would be best-served by a system that offered help to “addicts” without excluding drug use to anyone.

People would be free to choose their recreation or pain relief, and would also be able to get help they need.

What, too sensible?
Anonymous

Well.. if the U.S. wasn’t so supid, and so corrupt, the natural plant grown by nature, a miricle plant if we care to exploit it’s resins, its fibers, and its nutrients (oils).

Not to mention medicinal marijuana.

But the U.S. and “smart” are two concepts that will never, ever meet.

Are you from the US?
Ugly Canuck

Urshrew: Don’t confuse the cannabis law and the law of unintended consequences.
There’s no “genius” in marijuana prohibition: it is simply bad government policy. With bad effects on modern human society.
GeekMan

@#2: As an Ontarian, I’m sure you would be so uppity as to say that we have a “lax attitude”.

BC municipal police and the RCMP spend huge money and manpower to shut down grow-ops every week. The problem is that there are so many grow-ops that the police don’t have the resources to shut them down. There are so many, in fact, that the crown has stopped bothering to prosecute small-scale grow operators, since the sheer number of cases would clog up our court system.
Phikus

Did someone say something about short term memory loss?
Ugly Canuck

As to the UN “no reefer” Convention: so this can be used to overrule the desires of the citizens of a free & democratic society?
Since when? Have we lost our sovereign right to reserve our observance of the treaty, either in whole or in part?
Or is this not rather the prohibitionists’ desired view of the Treaty? If we should withdraw from this Convention in part, shall we be the target of the next “UN Police Action”?
And when shall we hold our American friends to the strict observance of the provisions of the UN Torture Conventions?
Kaden

Here at Eccentric Manors (in the heart of beautiful East Vanistan)at this very moment there are twigs, stalk and shake blowing down the back laneway like tumbleweeds.
Anonymous

@#2: As an Ontarian, I would say Ontarians have a lax attitude as well.
InsertFingerHere

Look, it ain’t all land of milk and honey here. People hold up Canada like you can buy weed at any Starbucks. It’s not like that at all. Maybe in Vancouver, but not in Winnipeg. I *wish* there was open buying over the counter, but unless you are willing to feign friendship with a dozen sketchy guys just so you can improve the odds of getting a bag on a Friday night, drug culture and availability is very regional.
Alex_M

#34 you’re wrong.
First, marijuana for personal use IS legal in the Netherlands.
Second, _no_ UN treaty or convention is mandatory for _any_ UN member. Not even the Convention on Human Rights. A UN member is only bound to the UN charter. (and given the arrears the USA has racked up, it’s arguable if that’s even enforced)

Finally, the UN nations are never going to sanction a country over a democratically-made decision to legalize any narcotic. They can’t even get their act together to sanction countries over shit that matters.
(thanks to the oh-so-sacred Security-Council permanent members)
akbar56

@27 Brainspore

We haven’t tried a war with Canada in almost 200 years cause the last time we tried, they came and burned the White House down!

It’s true!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7jlFZhprU4
airship

Definition of a Conservative; Someone who is very concerned that someone, somewhere, is having a good time.
mdh

epic html fail, me, above.

tried to use less than symbol, got eated as tag.

MA law is still good middle ground.
Mister Staal

@ #10: At least we had the chance today to vote for parties with a more open-minded view of marijuana!

Heck, even the Liberal party got on the pro-legalization bandwagon via Kash Heed (the former police chief of West Van!)
HotPepperMan

What were we all talking about?
urshrew

I think the laws on marijuana are ingenious. They took a common weed and figured out a way to make people pay for it, generating a billion dollar industry for something that was originally free and easily available. Pure Genius!

Now they should make a law to ban the production, distribution and use of daisies.
Anonymous

Heard a presentation from a BC utility exec who said that grow-ops are a major source of electricity theft for them. Can’t remember the exact details as to % and whatnot, but I thought it was interesting.
Mindpowered

Ahh.. pot.

We have a nicely benign attitude towards sex, sushi, drugs and deep house music. This has attracted schlock TV since the 1980′s when Hard Copy used to up and do specials on our decadence.

It’s odd because the rest of the province in deeply moralistic and anti drug. By the suburbs of Vancouver, there is a hardline moral majority deeply opposed to the hedonism that goes on closer to the coast.

Of course it’s not all fun and Olympic games, as we’re in the middle of Gangwar where high school students are being kidnapped and shot, and we still have one of the highest petty crime rates in the world. Power theft and illegal power connections are huge problem and the proliferation of grow ops and meth labs means that renting is high risk occupation, for both landlord and renter,and if you like mentally ill heroin addicted beggars we have them in spades because in the drive to become the best place on earth we’ve shut down our long term care facilities and kicked thousands of people onto the streets.

But if you’re looking for the place to have nice night out, (meth and viagra for him, ecstasy and cocaine for her) followed by some down time at the cannabis cafe on hastings st., come on down.
ianm

As an ex-Manitoban, current Ontarian I would have to say strongly that marijuana is generally accepted almost everywhere in Canada.

I am sure it is a huge export product in Manitoba given the relatively small population and tradition of agriculture (and infiltration of biker gangs). Good weed is plentiful and easily available in MB. This does not mean the police don’t go out from time to time and grab headlines on the so-called low hanging fruit of grow ops and dealers to justify their drug task force funding.

In Toronto, its very common and generally accepted. See for example ‘Youngesterdam’ ( http://www.yongesterdam.com/Intro.html / http://www.torontohemp.com/toronto.htm ) which has a vibrant weed-friendly culture including smoking lounges and cafes. Not to mention the various 420-friendly establishments now open in Kensington market.

That said, the TO police got bored recently and decided to destroy a responsible local business (the Kindred Cafe) who were selling baked good (i.e. pot brownies and cookies which were common to several businesses) to knowledgeable, consenting buyers. In the process, they ransacked the place, and seized a variety of non-weed related equipment (computers, cash registers) and generally sent a chill through the community such that ‘edibles’ are no longer available anywhere and one business got a stiff dose of violence for providing a service the community obviously wanted. ( http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2008/11/21/toronto-police-target-yongesterdam.aspx )

But in reference to the video – which had some decent coverage, but failed to note that the ‘political action’ was actually the annual 4/20 party/demonstration – if governments actually decriminalized/re-legalized we would have no need for these ridiculous over-indulgent smoke-in stunts that cause people to go overboard in public. Of course, stoners being stoners, do not need 4/20 to engage in large sessions, but relaxing the rules would allow people to go about their lives without the need for the rebellious public binge that makes them look foolish and politically unimportant.

For the record, the 4/20 celebration in Winnipeg on the years I’ve attended, has mostly been high school kids ditching school and going to the legislature to get very very high in a public place – the Vancouver scene is far more ‘adult’ than the teenage bacchanal that has emerged in recent Winnipeg history.

In short, Weed in Canada is used regularly and openly by diverse classes of people. It is here to stay, and needs to be addressed properly by officials whop simply ought to follow the recommendations of the Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, which proved in 2002 that:

“Members of a special Senate committee unanimously urged Parliament to amend federal law to allow for the regulated use, possession and distribution of marijuana for recreational and medicinal purposes, in a 600-page report released yesterday by the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs.”

http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=5405

http://www.cfdp.ca/sen2000.htm

http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/Committee_SenHome.asp?Language=E&Parl=37&Ses=1&comm_id=85
Anonymous

Ill be simple.
1: Marijuana didnt cause anyone any problems until it was mistakenly made illegal.
2: Over 10,000 years of written use for both medicine and recreation and not one person was harmed or imprisoned because of it. Now 1,ooo,ooo people every year that you may even know and love, get arrested for it.
3: No law should cause more harm to society as a whole or an individual that the supposed crime it protects the society or individual from. When some grown man sits in his own home that he works hard for and decides to smoke a joint instead of drink a six pack of beer, he is harming NOBODY. But if a cop sees this he may be beaten, arrested, hauled away, and his children taken from him, lose time at his job, etc. All degrading to society.
4: The only CRIME that marijuana has is that it is illegal and therefor atrocities are commited against peaceful people who use the plant. Both for medicine or recreation.
5: We only live for a short period of time, 80 spins around the sun and the games over. Who am I to tell a grown man he cannot drink or smoke something that comes from the earth when it in no way affects me or anyone he comes into contact with?
prunk

wow lots of posts already, this topic’s so hot it’s smoking
(i was once told a bad pun is like a festering infection and must be gotten rid off and never kept inside)

i live in vancouver anc I can tell you this is a big exaggeration to show this video as a simple pot rally. this is 4:20 day at the vancouver art gallery. a once a year event that is so massive that to try and arrest people would turn to a very challenging and potentially dangerous event. i say potentially because come on, they’re all high.

as for the other 364 days of the year, well it’s not that it’s not tolerated but you don’t want to be caught smoking it in front of a cop. and if you are ever a violent dealer you can bet you’d be taken in if they have your position.
chriskarate

POT THREAD

Happy to see that BC is acting reasonable.. or at least, pursuing one of the least-bad options.

Sometimes I think that pot legalization won’t occur until advances in cognitive technology have rendered it irrelevant. Or, that said advances that might render marijuana irrelevant would be outlawed themselves when they’re on the horizon.

But at that point, my imagination becomes a sci-fi plot, divorced from the terrible banality of actual reality, where marijuana will likely be decriminalized in some countries while remaining a universal symbol of despicable otherness. And then the robots will come.

/realpolitik
weewillie

Most of the recent gang warfare in Vancouver is tied to gangs that sell marijuana. If we legalize marijuana then we remove a huge part of the criminal incentive and financing. That’s why most of our BC political parties support some kind of legalization or decriminalization.

Did you know BC has the BC Marijuana Party (dot com) as a legitimate political party?

It’s just that we live next to the USA – the biggest bunch of f*cktards ever. So Canada can’t legalize the weed until the USA’s prison/police state is dismantled. The US just makes too much money from major marijuana busts, courts, and imprisonment for there to be any kind of incentive to dismantle the police state.

Damn you USA for screwing the rest of the world with your impossible pipe dreams of prohibition.

Now, I’m going to smoke a fatty on my front lawn – just because I live in Canada – the land of the truly free and the home of the truly brave.
eustace

Surely this makes Canadians better neighbors, yes? At least to Washingtonians, Oregonians, and us Californians; all of whom enjoy comparable gray economies and the fruits thereof.
Anonymous

Is it legal for the Federal Government of America to enforce the current Cannabis laws on only some of its citizens? Because unless you live in states with Medical Marijuana laws you are still a criminal. This is discrimination by a government against its own people.

Is it legal for a government to use deadly force to push a unfounded and unfair law on its people?
Terrorism is the act of enforcing such actions. The people have spoken and the government denies their rights, denies the truth, and uses military tactics to “control” millions. The people respond with peaceful protests, and get labeled and laughed at.

When the U.S. bases its laws on the Bible, use the Bible to swear in people in court, then on page one of the Bible we find God made all plants and tells us to use them. Either the U.S. laws are truthful or God is. Supporting the War against Cannabis is anti-god, anti-truth, anti-amrican. Either you support the truth of the Bible or you support the pollution complex killing the world, that is if the Bible is true.

Smoking, using, possessing Cannabis is my religion, which should be protected by my first amendment rights in America, yet the very foundation of all religions is trying to be controlled by unfair labeling of a plant. When I speak up, I get no answers except to be laughed at by my President who said he used to smoke pot himself.

By legalizing Cannabis, tobacco smokers could finally have a different non-toxic choice.

It really comes down to letting smokers have two or so plants a year vs wasting billions giving the illusion of control. This money is job security for those employeed by the Justice Department at the expense of true, justice and the American way.

Does the corruption in washington stem from the 1947 Marijuana Tax Act? It was based on lies, supported by fraud, and profited lobbyests. Since then billions of tax dollars are misdirected to fund unfounded concepts based on nothing.

America would not be here today with the cultivation of Cannabis. Either we are free or we are not.
Anonymous

This is the weed that jack grew

This is the money
That comes from the weed that Jack grew

This is the economy
That took the money
That comes from the weed that Jack grew

This is the law
That killed the economy
That took the money
That comes from the weed that Jack grew

This is the DEA
That used the law
That killed the economy
That took the money
That comes from the weed that Jack grew

This is the religion with the misguided norms
That trusted the DEA
That used the law
That killed the economy
That took the money
That comes from the weed that Jack grew

This is the people all forlorn,
That come from religions with the misguided norms
That trusted the DEA
That used the law
That killed the economy
That took the money
That comes from the weed that Jack grew

This is the government all elected and sworn
That lied to the people all forlorn,
That come from religions with the misguided norms
That trusted the DEA
That used the law
That killed the economy
That took the money
That comes from the weed that Jack grew

This is the industries limiting resources all along
That used the government all elected and sworn
That lied to the people all forlorn,
That come from religions with the misguided norms
That trusted the DEA
That used the law
That killed the economy
That took the money
That comes from the weed that Jack grew

This is the plant that we were required to grow
That built the industries limiting resources all along
That used the government all elected and sworn
That lied to the people all forlorn,
That come from religions with the misguided norms
That trusted the DEA
That used the law
That killed the economy
That took the money
That comes from the weed that Jack grew

This is the farmer jailed for growing his own weed
That congress ordered and required us to grow
That built the industries limiting resources all along
That used the government all elected and sworn
That lied to the people all forlorn,
That come from religions with the misguided norms
That trusted the DEA
That used the law
That killed the economy
That took the money
That comes from the weed that Jack grew