Half of Americans now support legalizing marijuana use, a record level, amid growing support for decriminalization that could build pressure to eventually change U.S. laws on the drug, a Gallup poll showed on Monday.
The poll showed that support was highest among liberals and adults under age 30, with more than 60 percent of respondents in those categories favoring legalization. Support was lowest, at just 31 percent, among Americans over age 65.
“Support for legalizing marijuana has been increasing over the past several years, rising to 50 percent today, the highest on record,” a summary of the poll said. Another 46 percent said marijuana should remain illegal.
“If this current trend on legalizing marijuana continues, pressure may build to bring the nation’s laws into compliance with the people’s wishes,” the summary added.
Gallup said support for legalization had crept up from just 12 percent in 1969 to 30 percent in 2000 and 40 percent in 2009. Last year, a Gallup survey found 70 percent of Americans favored making it legal for doctors to prescribe marijuana to relieve pain and suffering.
California in 1996 became the first state to decriminalize medical marijuana, and a number of other U.S. states have followed suit with their own statutes. Cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under federal law.
A separate national survey released last month showed that marijuana was increasingly becoming the drug of choice among young adults in the United States, with nearly seven percent of Americans aged 12 and older having used marijuana in 2010.
The Gallup poll released on Monday showed that Democrats, at 57 percent, were more likely to support legalization than Republicans, only 35 percent of whom favored such a move. Men, at 55 percent, were also more likely to back legalization than women, at 46 percent.
By geography, more than half of Americans in the West, Midwest and East supported legalization while in the South, 44 percent favored such a move.
The poll was based on telephone interviews conducted October 6-9 with a random sample of 1,005 adults across the country. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
From HERE.
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Trial of ‘Lord of War’ weapons smuggler underway in New York
JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
He is considered the world’s most notorious weapons smuggler; dubbed ‘the merchant of death’, his life’s story inspired the Hollywood blockbuster Lord of War. But his trial, which is currently underway in New York, has so far gone largely unnoticed by the world’s media. Viktor Bout, a former Soviet military intelligence (GRU) officer, was arrested in a sting operation in Bangkok, Thailand, in March of 2008. At the time of his arrest, he and his two collaborators were negotiating a complex weapons deal with two individuals who said they were representatives of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America’s largest leftist paramilitary group. However, the interested buyers turned out to be informants of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which was employing them as part of a sophisticated sting operation. Bout was arrested by the Thai Royal Police and was imprisoned in Bangkok, before being extradited to the United States last year. He is now being tried in Manhattan for attempting to supply arms to the FARC, including machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and even two airplanes. Earlier this week, the jury heard excerpts from recorded conversations between Bout, his accomplices, and the DEA informants, in which the Russian weapons merchant is heard saying that he and the FARC “have the same enemy” —namely the Americans. Bout voiced this comment in response to a DEA informant’s exclamation that the FARC wanted to use the weapons supplied by Bout “to knock down those American sons of bitches”.
MORE.
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USPS: ZIP Code Lookup “Look up postal abbreviations, search for ZIP codes, and browse other information about the U.S. Postal Service.”
Cocaine is the most frequently reported substance associated with drug abuse deaths and causes an estimated 39% of drug-related fatalities. – Provided by The World Almanac 2011
“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.” – Charles Bukowski
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Forget terrorism, Bloomberg shifts focus to a new enemy… cupcakes
As we have seen, the legislator thinks he is the potter and mankind is the clay. Unfortunately, when this idea prevails, everyone wants to be the potter and no one wants to be the clay.
Frederic Bastiat, The Law
With terrorists descending on NY from all over the world, Bloomberg is tirelessly defending us from… cupcakes. Fantastic!
Last month, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a speech at the U.N. where he made some bizarre comments about the role of government in society. Some of his statements seemed more like a justification for why he is forcing his values on the rest of society rather than a description of a coherent political philosophy.
Let’s take a look at the money quote from Bloomberg’s speech – where he claims that the highest duty of government is to force people to eat healthy food. After that, I’ll follow with two questions he needs to answer before this nonsense can have any kind of logical credibility:
“There are powers only governments can exercise, policies only governments can mandate and enforce and results only governments can achieve. To halt the worldwide epidemic of non-communicable diseases, governments at all levels must make healthy solutions the default social option. That is ultimately government’s highest duty.”
1. If there are powers only a government can exercise, then where did they get these supernatural powers?
Any just government derives it’s power from the people. So if the people don’t have the power to do something, they obviously can’t grant that authority to the government. Power is just like anything else – you can’t give away something you don’t have.
[snip]
2. Why is it appropriate for Bloomberg – or anyone in government – to force his idea of a good life on everyone else?
Michael Bloomberg feels that it’s worth the sacrifice for him to give up certain foods in order to live a long, healthy life. Good for him.
What if it isn’t for me?
Read the article here.
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Penny Postcards from the Past – Pick your state…interesting what I have found there!
The parents of ROSIE O’DONNELL’s sexy new lover Michelle Rounds are devastated that their beautiful daughter has hooked up with the outspoken lesbian talk-show host.
Read MORE.
Whether it’s worn by a police officer, hockey player, usher, or soldier, surely the ostensible reason for donning a uniform is to have, well, uniformity.
But things are changing in regard to uniforms at that ever-sensitive “service” formerly known as the Toronto police force.
Indeed, the police have announced they’re going to accommodate Muslim policewomen who want to wear the hijab on duty.
Some might hail such a move as another shining example of “reasonable accommodation”; others — count me among them — look upon this directive as another assault against Canadian traditions.
Yet again, a public institution appears to be bowing to the tyranny of political correctness — bending over backwards to accommodate certain individuals, some of whom are quite unaccommodating of western values.
The question arises: What’s driving this directive? Why is it important for the police to have hijab-wearing policewomen in the first place?
Contrary to widespread popular belief, the Qur’an doesn’t mandate Muslim women to wear the hijab.
In this regard, the apparel accommodation isn’t the same as allowing a Sikh to wear a turban.
(I’d also argue there’s an historical reason for permitting Sikhs to wear turbans, given that Sikh military brigades have long been an integral part of the British Empire.) If anything, the hijab is a political statement and a symbol of fundamentalism.
In some cases, a woman wearing such a headscarf is being pressured by her family to do so (case in point, the dearly departed Aqsa Parvez.) Either way, seeing such a garment as part of a police uniform is odd. Imagine if a citizen was to call the cops regarding a suspected honour killing in the neighbourhood and the policewoman who responds is decked out in a hijab? Would this not be unsettling?
Originally posted 2011-10-23 14:44:07. Republished by Blog Post Promoter