Toms Corner

[grateful411]

 

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Two months from now, the City of Saginaw will defy conventional wisdom and vote on whether to legalize the possession and use of marijuana within the city limits.

The city and its residents have already been warned by the Governor and the Attorney General that the state has laws that trump local laws, and that arrests will continue.

Tonight in Tom’s Corner, our Tom Van Howe says it might be a good idea for enforcement to back off  and see what results this experiment reveals.

 

 

http://www.wwmt.com/news/features/tomscorner/stories/Saginaw-considers-marijuana-legalization-should-others-follow-29463.shtml#.VAnNGXi9Kc0

[knucklehead bob]

http://www.wwmt.com/news/features/tomscorner/stories/Saginaw-considers-marijuana-legalization-should-others-follow-29463.shtml#.VAnNGXi9Kc0

 

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Two months from now, the City of Saginaw will defy conventional wisdom and vote on whether to legalize the possession and use of marijuana within the city limits.

 

The city and its residents have already been warned by the Governor and the Attorney General that the state has laws that trump local laws, and that arrests will continue.

 

Tonight in Tom’s Corner, our Tom Van Howe says it might be a good idea for enforcement to back off  and see what results this experiment reveals.

 

=====================

 

We are in desperate need of a new approach to dealing with drugs in this country.

 

The national drug war launched 40 years ago has been a colossal trillion-dollar failure. Drug use hasn’t diminished a bit. And demand is high.

 

Our prisons are stuffed with users and dealers at a taxpayers cost of up to $50,000 a year—each.

 

The Michigan Department of Corrections budget is just short of $2 billion a year.

 

We can boast of having 25 percent of the world’s inmates in our prisons--most of them there on drug charges--with just five percent of the world’s population.

 

We keep doing the same thing over and over again, year after year, expecting a different result--which, by the way, was Einstein’s definition of insanity.

 

So along comes the City of Saginaw with its 51,000 residents to decide in November whether 

to legalize pot.

 

A medium-sized town thumbing its nose at convention. And a state not taking that snub lightly.

 

The residents have been warned by Governor Snyder and Attorney General Schuette that state law supercedes local law. Violators will bet busted.

 

But given  a little time,  if the voters say yes, the Saginaw experiment  could actually 

help get us out of the long-running, mind-numbing rut we’re in.

 

Because more and more research says it clearly: pot isn’t the problem.

 

According to DrugWarFacts.com, hundreds of thousands of people die from tobacco-related illnesses. Some 40-thousand people die by overdosing on both prescription and illicit drugs. Roughly 26,000 die from alcohol.

 

And from marijuana? Not a single death reported. Not one.

 

Can marijuana cause people to be unproductive? A little fuzzy? Eat too many Cheetos? Find 

bad jokes to be insanely funny? Yes.

 

Is regular recreational pot use a good idea? No.

 

Are there more and more medical benefits from smoking pot? Absolutely.

 

There are lots of questions without clear answers. Is marijuana a gateway drug? Some argue yes. Others argue that it’s not. There are not clear cut answers.

 

But should people who occasionally use marijuana be arrested, jailed, stigmatized, taken away from their families, and often turned into career criminals? The answer seems clear. Absolutely not.

 

Yet nearly 700,000 people in this country were arrested last year for using a substance far less dangerous than alcohol.

 

It doesn’t make sense. None of it.

 

It’s time for both  federal and state governments to repeal the ban on marijuana. Its long overdue.

 

And if it takes a city like Saginaw to show the way, fine. A little patience here might be just the ticket.

 

In this corner...I’m Tom Van Howe.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2014 by knucklehead bob

[GregS]

Saginaw has learned some important lessons, In 2009 the City's effort to establish a moratorium on all medical use was met with stern opposition from the community. The then Saginaw/Bay City club and the MMMA went to lengths to pack government chambers and provide a lot of testimony in opposition. The City subsequently acquiesced to our demands that the moratorium not go forward. A few months later the City Attorney reported in the media that there were subsequently no problems that arose from the agreement. With luck they will file Bill and Rick's objections where they belong, and move ahead despite state intrusion.

[garyfisher]

Meanwhile, Gangs run rampant in the streets of Saginaw, Flint, Detroit, Kalamazoo unleashing violence on a daily basis. 
 

The crime rate in kalamazoo is more than double across the boards in all categories compared to national average.

http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Kalamazoo-Michigan.html

 

Violent crime rates in Saginaw are more than TRIPLE the national average.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Saginaw-Michigan.html

Edited September 5, 2014 by garyfisher

[GregS]

There always has been violence in the City. There were a lot of crimes in the seventies.

 

I still think the answer is to repeal any and all prohibition and hand the issue off to Obamacare, however that may or may not affect rates. Odds are it will be less costly than interdiction.

Edited September 5, 2014 by GregS