LEGALIZE IT!

Short Takes

The marijuana law reform group Connecticut Cannabis Policy Forum (CCPF)
proved its potential as a valuable educational resource and well-spoken
tour de force for change at the JOHNES Festival last month.

The JOHNES (Join Our Hemp Nation Earth Day Spectacular) successfully
gathered several thousand activist citizens for a day-long dialogue about
the failings of contemporary marijuana policies.

CCPF will stoke the fires once again this Saturday when it presents
"Marijuana Prohibition: Why It Must End" at Yale's Dwight Hall. CCPF
executive director Mike Gogulski, who's also the news editor for the Media
Awareness Project of DrugSense, was a dynamic speaker for JOHNES and will
undoubtedly work his open-minded magic at this event.

He will be joined by speakers Mark Braunstein, the Connecticut plaintiff in
the current federal class action lawsuit for medical marijuana, and John
Kardaras, an attorney and an activist with Community-Based Solutions. The
event is focused on separating marijuana fact from fiction, clarifying who
benefits from marijuana prohibition and at what cost, considering why
public opinion is turning away from prohibition, and solidifying ideas on
how the law can be changed.

"The most important thing to do right now is get the message out because
people buy the government line about marijuana and are afraid of any change
in policy because they think it's going to harm their children," said
Gogulski, who moonlights as a data communications engineer in New Haven.
"We believe that the current policy harms their children--the health risks
of jail are far greater than the health risks of smoking marijuana."

The CCPF seeks a regulated, though decriminalized, system of controlling
marijuana use. "People's lives should not be tainted by criminal
convictions or criminal sanctions for the use of something which, were it a
different period in history, would not even be a crime." Gogulski said. "We
as taxpayers, at the federal level alone, are paying $9 billion a year to
keep marijuana illegal, and there's no good reason for it. Marijuana has
been scientifically shown [in a recently released and damning study
commissioned by the federal government itself] to be less harmful than
alcohol, less harmful than tobacco, both of which are legal drugs." The
study also showed marijuana has medical value, is not very addictive and
did not lead to the use of harder drugs.

Whatever your stance on marijuana, you owe it to yourself to have all the
facts before constructing your personal ideology--CCPF is the place to get
educated.

Marijuana Prohibition: Why It Must End takes place on May 8, 3-5 p.m., at
Dwight Hall, Yale campus, 67 High St., New Haven. Call (203) 787-7157 for
more information or visit the CCPF website at www.ccpf.org.