Sean Parker Contributes $9 Million As States Push To Legalize Marijuana (gazettenet.com)

Sean Parker has now donated nearly $9 million in his effort to legalize marijuana in California. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes Billboard: Whether it's founding Napster, guiding Facebook or investing in Spotify, Sean Parker has developed a reputation for pushing change forward, and now he's at the forefront of California's marijuana legalization movement... [A] competing proposal from the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform was folded into Parker's, making his the leading ballot measure, by default, for 2016 in a state with the largest medical marijuana market in the country.
The U.S currently has a hodgepodge of legislation, with marijuana entirely legal only in Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, as well as in the District of Columbia, and in individual cities in Michigan and Maine. But with five more states now voting on legalization, pro-marijuana campaign ads are being broadcast in Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, California and Arizona. ("You decide who wins -- criminals and cartels, or Arizona schools?") And meanwhile, Slashdot reader schwit1 has identified one voter who's definitely opposing police efforts to hunt down marijuana growers: All that remains of the solitary marijuana plant an 81-year-old grandmother had been growing behind her South Amherst home is a stump and a ragged hole in the ground... Tucked away in a raspberry patch and separated by a fence from any neighbors, the [medicinal] plant was nearly ready for harvest when a military-style helicopter and police descended on Sept. 21...

Comments

Re:Good for him

[The-Ixian]

You know... I could grow tomatoes in my back yard... but I don't... I buy them at retail.

Re:Not legalization.

[kilfarsnar]

Wake me up when a state actually means legalize when they say legalize, as in you could grow it yourself. From everything I've seen what they mean when they say legalize is to decriminalize it's use and build/protect an industry. I'm OK with the first part the second part is really kinda disgusting.

Phase two after decriminalization never seems to be legalization, what it ends up being is a bunch of people swooping in to corner the grow/supply market and once they are in place they tend to lobby for laws that make it that much harder for competition to move in. Even if that perceived competition is the average citizen growing their own marijuana for personal use.

Hey, wake up.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_64,_Marijuana_Legalization_(2016)

From that link: "An individual would be permitted to grow up to six plants within a private home, as long as the area is locked and not visible from a public place"

Colorado's laws are similar; one is allowed to grow a limited number of plants. When they say legalize, they mean legalize. Consider me your alarm clock.

Re:Well...

[kilfarsnar]

I think that marijuana is going to be the sequel to tobacco. Smoking different stuff isn't healthier. Around the 2030s we will probably see lung cancer and throat cancer go up again along with everything else as the second anti-smoking campaign begins. Or, you know, we could just try to stop it now.

Do some research. Pot smoking is not linked to lung cancer or COPD.

https://www.hellomd.com/health-wellness/marijuana-found-to-shrink-aggressive-brain-cancer

In fact, marijuana has been shown to have an anti-tumor effect. From the linked article:

In addition to the recent findings that cannabinoids may be an effective treatment for glioma, researchers have discovered over the years that marijuana may also have powerful anti-tumor effects, which could stop cancer from ever forming in the first place. While the research isn't new, it paved the way for further evaluations of the connection between cannabis and cancer. In one 1996 study, researchers found that lab mice given doses of THC over a two-year period experienced a decrease in the rate of certain cancers and benign tumors in areas such as the pancreas, uterus, testes and mammary tissue.

More recent research has shed some light on how cannabis produces these effects. According to a 2014 study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, THC acts on cannabinoid cell receptors to inhibit the interactions between them, thus decreasing the risk that cancer will form or interrupting cancer that is already growing. Further research has shown that THC is capable of decreasing the rate of lung cancer cell growth by 50 percent as well as preventing pre-existing cancer from metastasizing throughout the body. Studies have also shown that cannabis is capable of killing brain cancer cells. The anti-cancer benefits of cannabis are extensive and clearly noted, and, when used correctly, can help providers offer powerful cancer treatment without the dangerous and uncomfortable side-effects present in other treatment options."

Marijuana really is medicine. It just so happens that it's also nice to enjoy recreationally.

Re: What the actual fuck

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't drink any alcohol then do you? If you want to talk drugs. Alcohol and tobacco are 1000s of times worse for your body than any amount of weed. There is no reason at all that marijuana should be treated any differently than alcohol or tobacco. You are just spouting off a stereotype and nothing else.

You'd be surprised at how many very productive people smoke weed and I'm no talking about artists or musicians either. I'm talking about CEOS and other very powerful people.

It is impossible to OD on weed. Try drinking 2 gallons of alcohol and get back to me if you live. I'll eat 2 pounds worth of edibles and smoke 2 pounds if that was even possible and report my findings. Oh I'll be alive and 100% sober a few hours after I'm done.