WATCH: State Rep Says Weed Should Be Illegal Because It Makes Black People Crazy

A Kansas lawmaker is under fire this week after channeling the 1930"s mentality on marijuana and claiming blacks are more susceptible to it.

BREAKING: DoJ to Rescind Marijuana Policy—Making it Illegal for States to Legalize Weed

The U.S. Attorney General is reportedly rescinding a policy that keeps federal prosecutors from interfering with states that have legalized cannabis.

Hero Cops Kidnap 80-Year-old Couple, Steal Their Christmas Presents, Arrest Them for Having a Plant

An elderly couple is facing years in prison after police found cannabis in their car that they claimed was meant to be used as Christmas presents for family.

Because Cali Legalized Weed, 500,000 ‘Convicts’ Get a Second Chance at Freedom

Nearly half a million people who have been labeled as felons for possessing a plant, could see their cannabis convictions cleared in California.

Good Cop Risks His Career to Openly Advocate for Legalization of Cannabis

A veteran police officer who has criticized arrest quotas and corruption in his own department is now speaking out in support of cannabis legalization.

Wiz Khalifa Just Hijacked an MLB Game to Provide a Real Solution to Racist Policing

This week, rap superstar and Pittsburgh native Wiz Khalifa caused an uproar as he threw out the first pitch at the Pirates’ final home game of the season. Taking the pitcher’s mound, while sporting a “Legalize It” t-shirt, Khalifa pretended to toke a joint prior to throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.

While NFL players are causing a public debate by taking a knee during the national anthem, in a purported stand against police brutality and racism, the sentiment expressed by Khalifa – that cannabis should be legalized – would almost certainly be a more effective prescription to combat racist policing and brutality.

Well, according to the Drug Policy Alliance:

The drug war has produced profoundly unequal outcomes across racial groups, manifested through racial discrimination by law enforcement and disproportionate drug war misery suffered by communities of color.

Although rates of drug use and selling are comparable across racial lines, people of color are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are whites.

Higher arrest and incarceration rates for African Americans and Latinos are not reflective of increased prevalence of drug use or sales in these communities, but rather of a law enforcement focus on urban areas, on lower-income communities and on communities of color as well as inequitable treatment by the criminal justice system. We believe that the mass criminalization of people of color, particularly young African American men, is as profound a system of racial control as the Jim Crow laws were in this country until the mid-1960s.

The life-long penalties and exclusions that follow a drug conviction have created a permanent second-class status for millions of Americans, who may be prohibited from voting, being licensed, accessing public assistance and any number of other activities and opportunities. The drug war’s racist enforcement means that all of these exclusions fall more heavily on people and communities of color.

Of course, in typical fashion, Major League Baseball (MLB) issued a statement rebuking Khalifa’s pro-marijuana stance, noting: “Marijuana is a (prohibited) substance in all of our drug programs and it is unfortunate this situation occurred.”

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Historically, the prohibition of cannabis began as a racist endeavor meant to control Mexican immigration into the United States and to help boost the profits of large pharmaceutical companies.

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According to a report by the Foundation for Economic Education:

Around 1910, the Mexican Revolution was starting to boil over, and many Mexicans immigrated to the U.S. to escape the conflict. This Mexican population had its own uses for cannabis, and they referred to it as “marihuana.” Not only did they use it for medicinal purposes, but they smoked it recreationally – a new concept for white Americans. U.S. politicians quickly jumped on the opportunity to label cannabis “marihuana” in order to give it a bad rep by making it sound more authentically Mexican at a time of extreme prejudice.

It worked. Southern states became worried about the dangers this drug would bring, and newspapers began calling Mexican cannabis use a “marijuana menace.”

During the 1920s, many anti-marijuana campaigns were conducted to raise awareness about the many harmful effects the drug caused. These campaigns included radical claims stating that marijuana turned users into killers and drug addicts.

The “war against marijuana” arguably began in 1930, where a new division in the Treasury Department was established — the Federal Bureau of Narcotics — and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This, if anything, marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana.

Anslinger realized that opiates and cocaine would not be enough to build his new agency, so he turned towards marijuana and worked relentlessly to make it illegal on a federal level. Some anti-marijuana quotes from Anslinger’s agency read:

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

While on the surface, an MLB game seems like a somewhat odd venue to promote cannabis legalization, what better stage to use as a platform than that of a publicly televised event that reaches a wide segment of the population.

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Currently, recreational cannabis is not legal in Pennsylvania, but medical marijuana is.

The night after Khalifa’s MLB cannabis “protest,” the rap mega-star appeared at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Music Hall of Oakland as a speaker at Thrival Innovation’s marquee event — a discussion about the intersection of cannabis, medical marijuana, and technology.

“If you think it’s a bad thing, you’re just going to think it’s bad,” he told the crowd on Thursday evening. “Until you fully experience it, or someone around you benefits off of it … I feel like for the people who are open to it, when they do they change their mind, it’s always significant.”

Khalifa appeared on stage during a public chat with cannabis investor Marc Ruxin and John Battelle, founding editor of Wired magazine, at the opening of the two-day Thrival music festival at Carrie Furnace.

“I see it being like alcohol or something that’s more acceptable and accessible for the people,” he said of marijuana. “There’s edibles, there’s oils, there’s vapes and all of that different stuff.”

“Just with the way technology changes, peoples’ minds change on how we are actually using it. I think that’s really going to revolutionize it and make it stand out,” he continued.

Khalifa actually owns his own strain of cannabis, called “Khalifa Kush,” which is sold in three states that have legalized marijuana.

“Being that I smoke as much as I do or use as much cannabis as I do, I wanted people to have an experience that was like mine,” he said. “And I was really passionate about bringing a high-quality product that was accessible to everybody.”

The rap superstar also discussed the extreme medical benefits of medical marijuana, noting that his acting coach is using CBDs, or cannabidiol, to recover from injuries sustained during a car accident. CBD, which is derived from cannabis but is non-psychoactive, is used for various forms of pain relief in many states where medical cannabis is legal.

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“She said she wouldn’t be able to make it through her days if it wasn’t for CBDs,” Khalifa said of his acting coach. “It helps a lot of with pain and people put it in creams so you’re not necessarily getting stoned off of it, but you’re still getting all of the benefits from it.”

“I’ve seen a lot of people who before might have been scared of it or might have run away from it. But now they are in situations when they are in need of it and it really helps them,” Khalifa said, in reference to the therapeutic use of cannabis for pain relief.

Although the federal government labels cannabis a Schedule I substances, denoting no known medical value, while a substance like cocaine is considered a Schedule II drug and alcohol is legal, it clearly remains the safest, and more importantly, the most medically useful of the three.

So, while NFL players take a knee in protest, what Wiz Khalifa is advocating is a viable solution to actually stemming racist policing and brutality. Ending the war on cannabis would have a drastic effect, and is a much more effective means than simply kneeling.

Please share this story to help others understand the extreme societal benefit of legalizing cannabis!

Cops Arrest More People for Pot Than All Violent Crimes—Combined—Blame Lack of Resources

Police in Ohio are blaming a lack of resources for the fact that unsolved homicide cases greatly outnumber the cases that are solved, yet they seem to have the resources to arrest thousands of suspected cannabis users.

The failed War on Drugs is alive and well in the state of Ohio where an average of over 20,000 people are arrested on charges of cannabis possession each year. While the Drug Policy Alliance reported that around 30,494 people are arrested for drug-related offenses annually, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws noted that the majority, or around an average of 20,453 arrests, are for cannabis possession and sales.

While Ohio legalized cannabis for medicinal use in 2016, it has taken over one year for regulators to finally start “to formalize how and where pot will be grown and available to medical patients,” which means that patients will just now start to see a difference.

However, despite the fact that they seem to have plenty of resources when it comes to arresting and detaining nonviolent offenders, police in Ohio are blaming a lack of resources for the fact that the number of homicide cases they solve continues to decline.

According to a report from The Columbus Dispatch, while over 80 people have been murdered in Columbus, Ohio, in 2017, police have made arrests in just 22 cases, with five cases being solved through “exceptional clearance” which occurs when the killing was self-defense, or the suspect dies. This puts the city at a 34 percent clearance rate for the year.

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“It does appear homicide clearances are becoming rarer,” Thomas Hargrove, chairman of the Murder Accountability Project, told the Dispatch. “I’m afraid Columbus is joining a number of cities where most murders go unsolved.”

The homicide clearance rate is calculated by dividing the number of homicides that are cleared—or have suspects that are charged—by the number of homicides that are recorded. While the national average for homicide clearance rate was over 90 percent in the 1960s, it declined to around 64 percent in 2015.

Detectives cited in the report from the Dispatch listed “a lack of cooperation from witnesses in communities, a double-digit spike in homicides, which has only taxed limited resources, and the turnaround time at the lab” as reasons from the declining clearance rate.

Hargrove insisted that “more homicides will be solved when there are more resources, mainly detectives,” and said that cities such as Columbus has struggled financially, and the detectives they do have, are spread too thin as it is.

While there has been a recent increase in the murder rate in Ohio, the overall question remains: How did police in the United States go from solving over 90 percent of homicides in the 1960s to around 60 percent today, with cities like Columbus solving as little as 30 percent of homicides? It was not a change in resources—it was the introduction of the Drug War.

Former President Richard Nixon declared the official start of the “War on Drugs” in June 1971:

“America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive. I have asked the Congress to provide the legislative authority and the funds to fuel this kind of an offensive. This will be a worldwide offensive dealing with the problems of sources of supply, as well as Americans who may be stationed abroad, wherever they are in the world. It will be government wide, pulling together the nine different fragmented areas within the government in which this problem is now being handled, and it will be nationwide in terms of a new educational program that we trust will result from the discussions that we have had.”

However, the trend in Ohio has been a trend reflected in many states across the country—the war on drugs has turned into a war on cannabis. The majority of the individuals arrested on drug charges have been arrested for possessing a plant that at least 86 percent of Americans support legalizing in some form.

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“Around the country, police make more arrests for drug possession than for any other crime,” an ACLU and Human Rights Watch report found last year. “More than one of every nine arrests by state law enforcement is for drug possession, amounting to more than 1.25 million arrests each year.”

In fact, police make more arrests for marijuana possession alone than for all violent crimes combined.

Aside from caring more about arresting people for a plant than catching a murderer, cops also make arrests disproportionately among race. According to the report, in spite of whites and blacks using drugs at the same rates, black adults are arrested 250% more than their white counterpart for drug posession.

As people literally take to the streets to oppose systemic racism, unfortunately, most of them aren’t pushing for the one solution that would have the biggest effect on stifling it—end the drug war.

The Free Thought Project has provided in-depth coverage of stories that show the true power of cannabis, such as a groundbreaking study published last month, which found that cannabis can stop HIV from becoming AIDS; a study that confirmed that the majority of cannabis users give up prescription opiate medications; and a study that confirmed that cannabis has a “significant” effect on killing cancer cells.

As states like Ohio find that the number of unsolved homicide cases greatly outnumber the cases that are solved, it makes you wonder—what more could they accomplish if they were able to use their resources to track down violent murder suspects, instead of wasting them on nonviolent individuals who are found in possession of a plant?

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PARADIGM SHIFT – New Poll Says 86% of Americans Support Legalization of Cannabis

The latest survey on support for cannabis legalization found that a clear majority of Americans are in favor legalizing the plant that the federal government claims is among one of the deadliest drugs in the country.

According to a survey from Harvard-Harris Poll, 86 percent of Americans now support some form of cannabis legalization—with 49 percent of respondents saying it should be legalized for both recreational and medicinal use, and 37 percent saying it should be legalized for medicinal use only.

Heartening enough is that only 14 percent of Americans are stuck in the dark ages and want to keep it illegal, according to the poll.

The poll, which surveyed 2,051 registered voters online from July 19-24, found that only 14 percent of respondents said that they think cannabis should remain illegal. In contrast, 57 percent of respondents said legalizing cannabis would make society better, and 69 percent said it would not bother them if cannabis was legalized in their state.

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In addition to the growing support for legalization, the survey also found that 72 percent of Americans support no jail time for individuals who are found possessing small amounts of cannabis—even if the plant is illegal.

Harvard-Harris Co-Director Mark Penn told The Hill that while the survey showed that voters are concerned about a rise in drug-related crimes, they appear to view cannabis as separate from other drugs that are currently illegal at the federal level.

“Voters point to drugs as the major source of crime and support tough sentences for drug dealers but view marijuana in a wholly different light,” Penn said. “Most think legalization of marijuana would probably be helpful in reducing crime and almost half support legalization.”

In fact, as the Free Thought Project has reported on multiple occasions, legal weed does reduce crime.

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 In the days following the survey, lawmakers ignored public opinion and adhered to the standard set by federal law, by blocking an amendment from the debate that sought to let Veterans Affairs hospitals prescribe cannabis to patients in need.

As The Free Thought Project has reported, “even though therapeutic cannabis is legal in 29 states, many veterans face significant hurdles to lawfully obtain it, and instead, end up on addictive and deadly opiates and other big pharma solutions.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has also ignored growing support for legalization, and he has instead pushed for the federal government punishing states that legalize cannabis. In a memo to the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and Department of Justice component heads, Sessions discussed the mission of President Trump’s Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety.

“Task Force subcommittees will also undertake a review of existing policies in the areas of charging, sentencing, and marijuana to ensure consistency with the Department’s overall strategy on reducing violent crime and with Administration goals and priorities,” Sessions wrote.

While cannabis is listed as a “Schedule I” drug in the United States—which means that it should have no medicinal value—it should be noted that the U.S. government actually holds the patent to cannabis as medicine, affirming its value.

The Free Thought Project has provided in-depth coverage of stories that show the true power of cannabis, such as a groundbreaking study published last month, which found that cannabis can stop HIV from becoming AIDS; a study that confirmed that the majority of cannabis users give up prescription opiate medications; and a study that confirmed that cannabis has a “significant” effect on killing cancer cells.

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It is quite amazing and equally disheartening to see people advocate for kidnaping and caging people for possessing a plant that saves the lives of countless children, helps people recover from serious disease, and is far safer recreationally than alcohol. The good news is, according to this survey, is that we only have a few people left to convince.