Cannabis Study House - NORML Weekly News in Audio 2007.10.4

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Weekly News in Audio

October 4, 2007

Last Chance To Join NORML In Los Angeles - Join High Times, travel guru Rick Steves, and leading marijuana law reformers at nation’s largest pot conference

Pot Prohibition Costs Taxpayers More Than $40 Billion Per Year, Study Says

Quarter Of A Million Facebook Users Voice Their Support For Ending Pot Prohibition

Washington, DC:
Last Chance To Join NORML In Los Angeles - Join High Times, travel guru Rick Steves, and leading marijuana law reformers at nation’s largest pot conference

There is still time to register to attend NORML’s 2007 National Conference, taking place October 12 and 13 at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Los Angeles.

Network with the nation's top advocates, mingle with celebrities and members of High Times Magazine, as well as NORML's staff and board of directors, and enjoy a variety of unique after-hours events 窶� including the 7th Annual "Stony Awards" for cannabis-friendly cinema Saturday evening at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood.

Speakers at this year’s conference include PBS travel guru and NORML Advisory Board member Rick Steves, Drug Policy Alliance Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann, actor and NORML Advisory Board member Tommy Chong, and Reason Foundation Executive Director David Nott.

Topics at this year’s conference include:

Cannabis Conundrum: Why is California America’s Only Pot-Tolerant State?
Will You Still Arrest Me When I’m 64? (Pot Use and Senior Citizens)
Medicinal Cannabis Distribution in America After Prop. 215
Cannabis Consumer Safety (Practical Tips for Pot Consumers)
The High Times Guide to Growing Your Own Medicine

"For the first time in NORML’s 37-year history, our organization will be holding our annual conference in Los Angeles 窶� a location we chose because it is ‘ground zero’ in the federal government’s war on medical pot," NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said. "We join Southern California’s vibrant marijuana law reform community to express our solidarity against the federal government’s excessive and unpopular attacks on Los Angeles’ patients and providers, and to strategize for an end to criminal cannabis prohibition."

Washington, DC:
Pot Prohibition Costs Taxpayers More Than $40 Billion Per Year, Study Says

Marijuana prohibition costs US taxpayers nearly $42 billion dollars per year in criminal justice costs and in lost tax revenues, according to an economic analysis released this week.

According to the study, "Lost Taxes and Other Costs of Marijuana Laws," law enforcement spends $10.7 billion annually to arrest and prosecute marijuana offenders. This amount comprises nearly six percent of America’s total criminal justice expenditures.

Pot’s criminalization also artificially raises the plant’s retail price and diverts billions of dollars into the black market economy, the study finds. According to the report, Americans spend some $113 billion dollars annually to consume an estimated 31.1 million pounds of pot. By criminalizing this market, the study estimates that the government loses more than $30 billion per year in tax revenue.

"The market in marijuana in the United States is illicit, illegal, and as such it diverts capital away from the channels of the licit or legal economy, especially the channels from which local, state, and the federal government collect tax revenue," the study concludes. "If [the billions of dollars America’s currently spend on marijuana] were spent on legal commodities … those economic transactions would produce billions in tax revenues for local, state, and the federal government."

According to data released last week by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), police arrested a record 829,625 persons for marijuana violations in 2006. Of those arrested, 738,915 Americans (89 percent) were charged with marijuana possession.

Washington, DC:
Quarter Of A Million Facebook Users Voice Their Support For Ending Pot Prohibition

Nearly 250,000 online subscribers to the online social networking website Facebook have voiced their support for marijuana law reform by joining NORML's newly launched ‘Cause’ group. 'Cause' pages, a new feature of Facebook, allow subscribers to use the site to financially donate directly to their favorite non-profit organizations.

"We are extremely pleased that NORML is leading the way in online activism -- not only among drug policy reform groups, but among all non-profit organizations," NORML Outreach Coordinator Ron Fisher said. "Building effective and influential coalitions within online communities such as Facebook, MySpace, Second Life, and other emerging online networks is an integral part of NORML’s educational and outreach activities."

Fisher continued: "We are particularly excited about encouraging our supporters to utilize GoodSearch.com, a Yahoo-powered search engine where users raise funds for select non-profits every time they search the web. If all of NORML’s online supporters simply set GoodSearch as their default search engine and selected NORML as their beneficiary, it would raise substantial funds to assist NORML's marijuana law reform efforts. It's clear that these emerging web technologies -- such as Facebook, GoodSearch, and MySpace -- offer NORML a powerful tool for harnessing public support against America's archaic and ineffective pot laws."

Fisher added that NORML's daily podcast remains one of the most downloaded political podcasts on the Internet.

In September, NORML launched an 'in-world' office on the popular 3-D virtual world Second Life.

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