ACTION ALERT - H 3060 Needs Your Support!

ACTION ALERT - Columbia SC Norml

Please, contact your state representative and express your support for passage of H 3060. Enactment of H 3060 would remove mandatory minimum sentences for certain controlled substances offenses in favor of less punitive penalties and establish a study commission of 5 senators and 5 representatives that would review South Carolina's drug laws.

The representatives listed below are members of the House Judiciary Committee. If your state representative is on this committee, they most certainly need to hear from you. Check www.scstatehouse.gov to find your representative and district.

Write, call, or pay them a visit!!!

Name/Party/District
Delleney, "Greg", Jr., Chairman- R 43
Smith, James E., Jr., 1st V.C.- D 72
Quinn, Rick, 2nd V.C.- R 69
Bannister, Bruce W.- R 24
Bowen, Don C.- R 8
Clemmons, Alan D.- R 107
Cole, J. Derham, Jr.- R 32
Funderburk, Laurie Slade- D 52
Hamilton, Daniel P. "Dan"- R 20
Horne, Jenny Anderson- R 94
Kennedy, Ralph Shealy, Jr.- R 39
McCoy, Peter M., Jr.- R 115
McEachern, Joseph A. "Joe"- D 77
McLeod, Walton J.- D 40
Munnerlyn, Elizabeth R.- D 54
Murphy, Christopher J. "Chris"- R 98
Nanney, Wendy K.- R 22
Newton, Wm. Weston J.- R 120
Pope, Thomas E. "Tommy"- R 47
Rutherford, J. Todd- D 74
Sellers, Bakari T.- D 90
Tallon, Edward R. "Eddie", Sr.- R 33
Thayer, Anne J.- R 9
Weeks, J. David- D 51
Whipper, J. Seth- D 113

Lastly, S 220, South Carolina's medical marijuana bill will be my personal priority. Another member and myself have a meeting this Thursday with state Senator Larry Martin of Pickens, District 2 (Pickens County). He is the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who will choose the 5 senators on the drug law study committee should H3060 pass. We need phone calls, emails, and letters to inundate his office, as well as the office of every member of the Medical Affairs committee where S 220 remains idle. The chairman of the Medical Affairs committee is Harvey Peeler of Cherokee, District 14 (Cherokee, Spartanburg, Union & York Counties). The other members of this committee are listed below. Call, email, write, or visit them to express your support and urge them to move this to floor for passage.

Peeler, Harvey S., Jr., Chairman- R 14
Courson, John E.- R 20
Hayes, Robert W., Jr.- R 15
Jackson, Darrell- D 21
Fair, Michael L.- R 6
Hutto, C. Bradley- D 40
Pinckney, Clementa C.- D 45
Verdin, Daniel B. “Danny”, III- R 9
Cleary, Raymond E., III- R 34
Lourie, Joel- D 22
Martin, Shane R.- R 13
Nicholson, Floyd- D 10
Scott, John L., Jr.- D 19
Ford, Robert- D 42
Alexander, Thomas C.- R 1
Bright, Lee- R 12
Davis, Tom- R 46

Wayne Borders,
acting president, Columbia NORML

Guest Post: If Drugs Were Legal...

GUEST POST: Skip Johnson, Short Takes By Skip

If drugs were legal...

By now we all recognize that the so-called "War on Drugs" has failed. It's over. Now it's time to move on and replace it with something else. But what?

I vote that we legalize all drugs such as heroin, cocaine and marijuana (especially marijuana) for adults, regulate them the way we do other addictive drugs such as alcohol and tobacco, and tax them heavily.

What would happen if we did?

Drug crimes at all levels would drop overnight, because where there is no profit motive there is no crime. Drug dealers who infest our nation's schools would evaporate, making it much harder for teenagers to obtain drugs. Drugs-related turf wars and other street crimes in our neighborhoods would end. International terrorism, which illegal drugs help finance, would suffer a crushing blow.

Law enforcement agents could spend their time chasing real criminals -- yes, real criminals, people who endanger society, not people we're just mad at.

Clogged court dockets would clear. The problem of overcrowded prisons everywhere would vanish as countless nonviolent inmates -- the ones we're just mad at -- go free. And taxpayers would save a bare minimum of $15,000 per prisoner per year.

Drug addicts would be treated as alcohol addicts are -- as sick people who need our help, not criminals who need to be imprisoned.

Legalizing drugs also would create jobs, guarantee users a clean and safe supply, reduce illness, restore some of our lost civil rights -- much more, but I promised to keep this blog under 300 words.

Just one more thing. Legalizing drugs would not cause drug use to rise. The sad fact is that anyone who wants to use drugs is using drugs. To a drug user, the law is almost irrelevant.

-Skip

Research Shows Marijuana Can Help Relieve Chronic Pain

I am often asked if medical marijuana can be an effective tool to reduce chronic and neuropathic pain.

While I can't speak from personal experience, I have followed the research and believe strongly that marijuana has been proven to be an effective medicine against pain for many people with many different kinds of pain.

Here are some summaries of the research out there. I hope you find this information helpful.

Ever onward...

• California Pot Research Backs Therapeutic Claims
• Low Potency Cannabis Mitigates Neuropathic Pain
• Medical Marijuana & Pain: 105 Studies
• How Medical Marijuana Eases Pain
• Cannabis Makes Pain More Bearable
• Patients Deserve Medical Marijuana
• A Canadien Perspective on Moving Ahead with Medical Marijuana