Soros behind Mass. effort to decriminalize pot

BOSTON (AP) — A measure that would decriminalize minor marijuana-possession cases is on the ballot in Massachusetts largely because of one man: billionaire financier and liberal activist George Soros.

Of the $429,000 collected last year by the group advancing the measure, $400,000 came from Soros, who has championed similar efforts in several states and spent $24 million to fight President Bush's 2004 re-election bid. The Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy needed about $315,000 of that just to collect the more than 100,000 signatures that secured a spot on the ballot, according to campaign finance reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

"All of us owe George Soros a great deal of gratitude," said Keith Stroup, founder of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Alcohol and Pot are both gateway drugs and equally destructive. People neglect their children all the time due to getting high on pot.

I had a roommate who was divorced from his wife and received a limited visitation due to his life being dysfunctional as the result of his marijuana use.

He had his child every other weekend and the bastard had to get stoned before he picked his daughter up for the weekend.

I had two roommates that were both marijuana addicts.

We didn't make that much money back then at our workplace and sadly they couldn't exist without their daily high.

One of my Roommates was a Democrat and the other a Republican. I came home from work one day and as I walked passed one of their bedrooms I witnessed the dresser pulled out from the wall and the two of them crawling on the floor in a bipartisan effort trying to find just enough buds in the carpet for their bong pipe to get them their next high.

Who could find witnesses of other daily pot smokers that don't exhibit similar types of degrading addictive behavior?

I'm sure George Soros would love to see everyone in a bipartisan effort down on their hands and knees.

And you are suggesting that we make another “gateway” drug more readily available to the public.

You guys use the arguments that alcohol is legal and is bad and therefor we should make another drug, pot, that you admit is bad but not as bad, available to the public.

You give examples of the evils of alcohol and that somehow makes pot better.

Yup, that makes a lot of sense.

Actually, you have convinced me — make pot illegal. Maybe something a lot stronger is better. A permanent high would be perfect. The more people like you who are out of mainstream society, the better. We could ship you all to a farm. A happy druggie is a passive druggie.

What a shame. Because there are probably some really brilliant people who will never make great discoveries because they can't find their way out of their parent's basement.

Actually, that is what Soros is hoping for.

I’ve seen my share of lives destroyed by drug abuse, but if I go back an look at the primary cause of damage, I can attribute more of it to alcohol and prescription drug abuse than marijuana. Hard cases make bad law. Sarah Brady thinks her personal experience makes her better qualified than most of us to decide what reasnoable gun regulation is. I think the truth is quite the opposite.

I am suggesting that we make marijuana legal and regulate it similar to the way we regulate alcohol. It is already readily available to the public. I don't really think it is better than alcohol. I just don't think it's a lot worse. And whether you like it or not, it is already readily available. People are already using it, millions and millions of them, more than all other illegal drugs combined. According to government estimates between 12,000 and 25,000 metric tons of it are available on our streets every year after law enforcement seize what they are going to seize. The market is huge and that's not going to change. It's not going away. We've tried making it go away for decades and we've just caused more problems than we've solved. The laws stop precious few who want to use it from using it. Billions and billions of dollars in marijuana profits are going to organized crime every year and we are making it easier for them to peddle the super hard drugs like meth because they are already supplyinmg most of the marijuana and through the huge existing marijuana networks they have access to a lot of people with like to “party” and who obviously aren't too concerned with whether all their party supplies are completely legal. Costs us a fortune, but our ban on marijuana creates windfall profits for organized crime. Yes, it is true that marijuana is not good for people. It can cause some serious problems. It usually doesn't though, but at the very least it's probably a waste of time for people that fool with it. It is bad. It's just not bad enough to justify spending all the money and causing all the problems we cause trying in vain to keep up the ban.

As for the rest of your post, I couldn't really put my response into words. If I had to just use two the second word would be “you” and the first word would rhyme with “truck.”

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