It'd be great if the opposition to Prop 19 had any credible facts to debate us with. Since they don't, we're left with Falafel guy's antics.
Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly bet guest John Stossel $10,000 (to a charity of the winner’s choice) that Proposition 19, the California ballot measure that would make marijuana legal for all adults, will fail.
Stossel, who supports Prop 19, said that it’s time to end marijuana prohibition because "it’s a war on our own people."
A war is a war is a war, and I don't think Republicans can say 'no' to any type of war. Not even the Drug War that we've been fighting since Nixon. And losing. A new study tells us what we already know: Meg Whitman is lying about Prop 19, which would INCREASE public safety, not decrease it.
[in other news, Dr. Jocelyn Elders came out in favor of Prop 19. ]
Be sure to visit www.yeson19.com
(flip)
Thanks to the Marijuana Policy Project for noting this interview, because the only time I cared to watch O-Reilly was when Colbert went on his show and completed owned Bill. (par for the course for the genius that is Colbert).
In another poor and puzzling attempt to defend our failed status quo, O’Reilly tried to compare marijuana to tobacco, by saying "marijuana is exactly as addictive as tobacco."
Once again, he’s wrong. From TIME magazine yesterday: "Estimates vary, but compared with tobacco, which hooks about 20% to 30% of smokers, marijuana is much less addictive, coming in at 9% to 10%." According a 1999 report from the federal government’s Institute of Medicine, "Compared to most other drugs ... dependence among marijuana users is relatively rare ... [A]lthough few marijuana users develop dependence, some do. But they appear to be less likely to do so than users of other drugs (including alcohol and tobacco), and marijuana dependence appears to be less severe than dependence on other drugs."
More importantly, tobacco is responsible for killing more than 400,000 Americans every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Marijuana kills no one. But tobacco is legal – and few families have their doors broken down, children terrorized, and pets murdered because a parent is in possession of a cigarette.
Also, tobacco costs taxpayersbillions of dollars in healthcare costs and lost productivity. $800 per tobacco user, in fact, is the tally for taxpayers. Futhermore, I can prove that pot politics is the most bizarre topic out there, when you have
bloviators like O'Reilly still making up outlandish lies when even Sarah nutjob Palinsupports cannabis decrim.
In other news, many of you are aware that some states allow felons to vote so long as they are off parole. In California, we have thousands of parolees (like myself) being released from supervised parole and put on "non-revocable parole". Are there any legal beagles here that know whether or not those of us on Non-revocable parole are allowed to vote? I registered just in case. The CA rule states that inmates and parolees can't vote, but non-revocable parole is brand new and just started this year. That's thousands of votes for Prop 19(and Democrats) that possibly won't count because your average parolee doesn't know about new changes to voting laws.