Activists look to ease pot laws in Springfield

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri marijuana advocates whose efforts to put a legal pot initiative on the November statewide ballot fell short are now pursuing a decriminalization law in Springfield.

Show-Me Cannabis organizers say they’re targeting a southwest Missouri city seen as conservative to demonstrate what they call broad support for new drug laws. In 2004, Columbia voters approved a similar law that classifies possession of 35 grams of marijuana or less as a low-level misdemeanor offense.

The pro-pot group says it plans to use a professional signature-gathering firm to help collect the 2,101 signatures required for the fall ballot in Springfield. A 2008 effort to decriminalize marijuana in Joplin fell 531 names short, and the statewide measure failed to garner the roughly 144,000 voter signatures needed before an early May deadline.

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Sequoia 11 months ago

I don't think pot is harmless.

I think South Part put it best... pot makes doing nothing seem really fun, until you wake up one day and discover that you're not good at anything useful.

But I do think prohibition of pot is actually more harmful than pot itself.

Not only would I like to see this measure decriminlizing small amounts for personal use, I would also like to see the government allow people to grow their own, in small amounts, and to allow non-profit transfers for people who don't have the space or wherewithall to have a plant of their own.

I would still support laws against mass production, inter-state or inter-national transport, and against selling.

The existing drug war apparatus could stay largely intact, pursuing smugglers and for-profit dealers.

The method I described above would give responsible recreational users a way to do so without breaking the law, but it would prohibit any kind of "above-ground" commerce and advertising (ie, beer commercials, except for pot) that might suggest that pot is harmless.

I think a legal avenue for recreational marijuana use would actually reduce overdose deaths and accidents associated with meth, heroin, and alcohol.

asb 11 months ago

I mostly agree, but am libertarian enough to allow commercial production and sale of all vices, just no advertising for any. Vice can be very harmful, but a free society only suffers more from corruption and wasted resources attempting to control it.

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