Endorsements to Legalize Cannabis / Progress 2010-2011

[RainDog]

Last edited Wed Apr 18, 2012, 05:58 PM - Edit history (1)

These statements range from 2010, when Prop. 19 was on the ballot in CA to Dec. 2011.

Four Former Mayors of Vancouver
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/23/legalize-pot-four-former-vancouver-mayors-say/

Norm Stamper, Former FBI chief in Seattle, endorses marijuana legalization initiative (Nov. 2011)
http://today.seattletimes.com/2011/11/former-fbi-chief-in-seattle-endorses-marijuana-legalization-initiative/

California Medical Association
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/15/local/la-me-doctors-marijuana-20111016

The NAACP
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20084203-503544.html

LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/40-anniversary-war-on-drugs-cops-obama_n_877702.html

Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced a bill (H.B. 2306) modeled on the 21st amendment to repeal prohibition, to end the federal govt's prohibition of cannabis. This was the first time such a bill has been entered in the house (June 2011.)

Democratic Reps. John Conyers (MI), Steve Cohen (TN), Jared Polis (CO) and Barbara Lee (CA) are co-sponsors of the bill.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/23/251897/paul-frank-introduce-bill-to-legalize-marijuana/

The Editorial Board of The Seattle Times
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/03/01/the-seattle-times-calls-for-pot-legalization-the-drug-czar-calls-the-seattle-times-your-tax-dollars-at-work-stifling-debate/

Stop the Violence, a high profile group of Canadian business, political, and educational, legal and law enforcement professionals, includes former B.C. Supreme Court justice Ross Lander and B.C.'s former chief coroner Vince Cain, launched a high-profile political campaign to "end the cannabis cash cow of organized crime."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/10/27/bc-stop-the-violence-marijuana-coalition.html

The following Commissioners from the Global Commission on Drug Policy:

» Asma Jahangir
- human rights activist, former UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Executions, Pakistan

» Carlos Fuentes
- writer and public intellectual, Mexico

» César Gaviria
- former President of Colômbia

» Ernesto Zedillo
- former President of México

» Fernando Henrique Cardoso
- former President of Brazil (chair)

» George Papandreou
- Prime Minister of Greece

» George Shultz
- former Secretary of State, United States (honorary chair)

» Javier Solana
- former European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Spain

» John Whitehead
- banker and civil servant, chair of the World Trade Center Memorial, United States

» Kofi Annan
- former Secretary General of the United Nations, Ghana

» Louise Arbour
- former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, president of the International Crisis Group, Canada

» Maria Cattaui
- Member of the Board, Petroplus Holdings; former Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce, Switzerland

» Marion Caspers-Merk
- former State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Health, Germany

» Mario Vargas Llosa
- writer and public intellectual, Peru

» Michel Kazatchkine
- executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, France

» Paul Volcker
- former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve and of the Economic Recovery Board, US

» Richard Branson
- entrepreneur, advocate for social causes, founder of the Virgin Group, cofounder of The Elders, United Kingdom

» Ruth Dreifuss
- former President of Switzerland and Minister of Home Affairs

» Thorvald Stoltenberg
- former Minister of Foreign Affairs and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Norway

http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Commission

Edward Schumacher-Matos, The Washington Post (2010)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/21/AR2010102102957.html?sub=AR

65 Law Professors who signed on to Vote Yes on Prop. 19 (2010)
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/dozens-of-prominent-law-professors-endorse-california-prop-19/27674

The Editorial Board of the British Medical Journal (2010) - and recommend it be sold in stores like cigarettes and alcohol.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8056292/Cannabis-should-be-sold-in-shops-alongside-beer-and-cigarettes-doctors-journal-says.html

International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, based in Vancouver, Canada (2010)
http://www.cfenet.ubc.ca/news/releases/new-report-us-government-data-demonstrates-failure-cannabis-prohibition

Roger Pertwee, UK's Leading Pharmacological Expert on Cannabis, Calls for Legalization
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/14/cannabis-licence-legalisation-pertwee

Joseph McNamara, Former San Jose Chief of Police, Calls For Legalization of Cannabis
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/148149/former_police_chief%3A_legalize_pot%2C_now

California Council of Churches IMPACT (21 different denominations and over 1.5 million members within the mainstream and progressive Protestant communities of faith) endorses legalization of cannabis
http://www.examiner.com/progressive-in-portland/prop-19-california-council-of-churches-says-yes-to-legal-marijuana

The California council of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the state's largest union, endorses legalization in 2010.
http://norml.org/news/2010/09/23/california-state-s-largest-labor-union-endorses-marijuana-depenalization-initiative

Former (Republican) Governor of New Mexico, Gary E. Johnson
http://my.firedoglake.com/garyjohnson/2010/09/03/legalize-marijuana-to-stop-the-drug-cartels/

Former Mexican Foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302205.html

John McKay, the prosecutor who sent "prince of pot" Marc Emery to jail
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2012804422_guest05mckay.html

Please feel free to add others that I have missed.