How to end prohibition from within the political system

**Ferre**

I think, in our struggle to RE-legalize Cannabis, we need to support those politicians who have the guts, and brains, to end the prohibition. This issue can only be solved from within the political system and pressure from the outside has little effect as long as the political establishment has no ears for it, as we have seen the past 30 years.
The past 30+ years it is very common public knowledge that more than 70% of the world population is in favor of ending prohibition laws and there have been numerous demonstrations with millions of participants during the past few decades all over the world, with no effect on politics, simple because those who are in political charge have other interests and do not want to start the political discussion on this issue.

However, there are numerous politicians all over the world who do have the will to change the absurd situation we are living in, the problem is that those politicians at present times have not enough political power to actually start the discussion from within and are not with enough numbers to make changes when they can vote on laws.

In my opinion, when we, all who want to see an end to prohibition, would start voting massively on politicians and parties who share our cause we could make a difference. After all, we are the majority.

Having said that, I think that the 'cannabis community' should be more aware of this than they are now, I know many people who simply do not vote at all because they do not feel any affiliation with our current system and the decisions that are being made, not many people actually do vote because of that reason and I think that's the weakness in the system that we can use in our advantage. The fact that the actual numbers of people who do vote are not that high, means that when a large group in society decides to use their votes their numbers, compared to the overall population, are very influential.
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Nachtschattenreich · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:07 pm Post subject:

The problem with a single-issue vote is that you may end up with a candidate who rides your cause only to sell his otherwise crappy platform, or one who may be an expert in his particular field, but a successful politician only for the price of slavish party discipline in all other issues.

Let´s face it, there is no global holistic approach to the prohibition problem in the current field of politics, there only are ambitioned individuals with a more or less clear idea how to get their nation´s supreme court to produce a precedent in international law that is expected to cause huge domino effects by both proponents and opponents, and in most cases these are vague ideas.

E.g. have you seen any political candidates argue that the manpower that is wasted to quench the black market for Cannabis and other plants could be recycled into an useful purpose againt the black market for WMD? Your standard campaign politician is likely to give fiery speeches against the war budget and the hypocrisy of prohibition, but quite unlikely to suggest practical measures to grow something fresh from the current mess.

And of course the question is, does the THC Ministry rely on politicians, or can politicians rely on the THC Ministry?

IntrepidEZJ · Cannabis Sacrament Minister Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 381

Excellent points nach.

**Ferre** · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:53 am Post subject:

Nachtschattenreich · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:04 am Post subject:

Corruption in politics is the normality these days:

Don Quixote · Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 5:38 am Post subject:

Excellent idea brother Ferre,

I have to admit , in the past i have either abstained from voting or have deliberately spoiled the ballot paper.

when i have voted it is usualy for the Green party.The problem is this -

When i ask my friends "do you think the greens have the best policies ?"

answere "yes"

then i ask "why not vote for the greens then ?"

answere "they have no chance of winning."

All of my friends , despite being intelligent human beings , treat the voting system like a horse race - they vote for whoever they think has the best chance to win the race !

You can test this by asking your friends to name 10 of the policies of the party they have voted for in the past.if they can name 3 i would be surprised.

This time i am going to vote for Cannabis and environmental issues.I am going to vote for policies , not 'spin' or well tailored suites.

PEACE

.

David · Bard Joined: 28 Sep 2003 Posts: 1261

I think you know how I feel about this Ferre,

I would vote if I knew what name to vote for, but at present the only thing I can do is remove the goverment from there power. The only way I can do that is not let them organise my world. If the goverment is in The house's of parliment, I certainly not going to load the basement up with gun powder. I will just refuse to reckonise that building as a building of power, but elect another build as far away as possible (and there are plenty of cities to do that in). thus removing the fear they now hold,

WHO DO I VOTE FOR, tell me because I can not bring myself to vote for a goverment that is so disorganised.

Silver_Candle · Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 3:21 am Post subject:

it`s kind of hard for me to vote....

all the politicians out here are corrupt. Either that or completely insane... ( at least one of them is)

and in addition to that, none of them support legislation of cannabis.

there`s merely one or 2 parties that simply have no opinion of it. which means that it would automatically add to the no of the rest of the chamber.

there have been alot of legalize it! demonstrations here, but they were always driven back because there`s a handfull of crackheads in the demonstration.
this makes it hard, because the complete demonstration will be halted if the police finds even only 1 person using it duiring the demonstration.
when there`s hundreds or maybe thousands coming from everywhere, it`s kind of hard to go check on every person for it... and I `m not talking about police, I`m talking about the Legalize it! community, that can`t go checking if everyone in their demonstration is clean of harddrugs.
however, they have always been set responsible for this, which is why it`s never been successfull in the past years.

Grannymouse · Cannabis Sacrament Minister Joined: 28 Apr 2007 Posts: 128

You will get more political bang for your buck, paying attention to the local elections. Know your sheriff candidates and push to get the 'right guys' elected.

When the people can count on their locals to consider cannabis their lowest priority thats a good start.

When attempts fail, as you have described...it brings back memories of a person that commented about RELIGIOUS users of cannabis(In a negative way)..they said that the religious users gave heads a bad name. i couldn't help but wonder if recreational users of alcohol get a bad name from the wine-sacrament folk. Point being, there's always those who cannot reason... the bigger the crowd, the more of those you will find. Perhaps targeting smaller groups would be more beneficial?
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**Brother Adam** · Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 5:49 pm Post subject:

I submit to you that we will never regain our rights unless we TAKE them back. Begging for them just gives those jerks something to giggle about.
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