...The California Council of Churches IMPACT, which represents 21 different denominations and over 1.5 million members within the mainstream and progressive Protestant communities of faith, endorsed Proposition 19, the initiative to control and tax cannabis in California.
“Proposition 19 is the moral choice for California,” said Rev. Dr. Rick Schlosser, Executive Director of the California Council of Churches IMPACT. “The prohibition of marijuana has failed. It’s created a culture of criminality around a substance that is less harmful than both alcohol and tobacco, which are both legal, controlled, and taxed. Let’s control marijuana like alcohol by passing Proposition 19 in November.”
The Council's endorsement joins a growing list of medical, religious, political, civic, law enforcement, labor, and academic voices who have spoken out in support of Proposition 19.
A list of endorsements is available at this link.
Former (Republican) Governor of New Mexico, Gary E. Johnson has also joined former Mexican Foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda, speaking out in favor of Prop. 19.
Gary E. Johnson:
Mexican drug cartels make at least 60 percent of their revenue from selling marijuana in the United States, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The FBI estimates that the cartels now control distribution in more than 230 American cities, from the Southwest to New England.
How are they able to do this? Because America’s policy for almost 70 years has been to keep marijuana—arguably no more harmful than alcohol and used by 15 million Americans every month—confined to the illicit market, meaning we’ve given criminals a virtual monopoly on something that U.S. researcher Jon Gettman estimates is a $36 billion a year industry, greater than corn and wheat combined. We have implemented laws that are not enforceable, which has thereby created a thriving black market. By denying reality and not regulating and taxing marijuana, we are fueling not only this massive illicit economy, but a war that we are clearly losing.
Castaneda:
A growing number of distinguished Mexicans from all walks of life have recently come out in favor of some form of drug legalization. Former presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox, novelists Carlos Fuentes and Angeles Mastretta, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Mario Molina, and movie star Gael García Bernal have all expressed support for this idea, and polls show that ordinary Mexicans are increasingly willing to contemplate the notion.
Via Raw Story
No comments:
Post a Comment