Don't Think The Radiation From Fukushima Is Affecting The US? Here's 28 Reasons You're Wrong

Michael Snyder, Guest

Waking Times

The map below comes from the Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center. It shows that radiation levels at radiation monitoring stations all over the country are elevated. As you will notice, this is particularly true along the west coast of the United States. Every single day, 300 tons of radioactive water from Fukushima enters the Pacific Ocean. That means that the total amount of radioactive material released from Fukushima is constantly increasing, and it is steadily building up in our food chain.

Ultimately, all of this nuclear radiation will outlive all of us by a very wide margin. They are saying that it could take up to 40 years to clean up the Fukushima disaster, and meanwhile countless innocent people will develop cancer and other health problems as a result of exposure to high levels of nuclear radiation. We are talking about a nuclear disaster that is absolutely unprecedented, and it is constantly getting worse. The following are 28 signs that the west coast of North America is being absolutely fried with nuclear radiation from Fukushima…

1. Polar bears, seals and walruses along the Alaska coastline are suffering from fur loss and open sores…

Wildlife experts are studying whether fur loss and open sores detected in nine polar bears in recent weeks is widespread and related to similar incidents among seals and walruses.

The bears were among 33 spotted near Barrow, Alaska, during routine survey work along the Arctic coastline. Tests showed they had “alopecia, or loss of fur, and other skin lesions,” the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement.

2. There is an epidemic of sea lion deaths along the California coastline…

At island rookeries off the Southern California coast, 45 percent of the pups born in June have died, said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service based in Seattle. Normally, less than one-third of the pups would die.   It’s gotten so bad in the past two weeks that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an “unusual mortality event.”

3. Along the Pacific coast of Canada and the Alaska coastline, the population of sockeye salmon is at a historic low.  Many are blaming Fukushima.

4. Something is causing fish all along the west coast of Canada to bleed from their gills, bellies and eyeballs.

5. A vast field of radioactive debris from Fukushima that is approximately the size of California has crossed the Pacific Ocean and is starting to collide with the west coast.

6. It is being projected that the radioactivity of coastal waters off the U.S. west coast could double over the next five to six years.

7. Experts have found very high levels of cesium-137 in plankton living in the waters of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the west coast.

8. One test in California found that 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna were contaminated with radiation from Fukushima.

9. Back in 2012, the Vancouver Sun reported that cesium-137 was being found in a very high percentage of the fish that Japan was selling to Canada…

• 73 percent of mackerel tested
• 91 percent of the halibut
• 92 percent of the sardines
• 93 percent of the tuna and eel
• 94 percent of the cod and anchovies
• 100 percent of the carp, seaweed, shark and monkfish

10. Canadian authorities are finding extremely high levels of nuclear radiation in certain fish samples…

Some fish samples tested to date have had very high levels of radiation: one sea bass sample collected in July, for example, had 1,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium. 

11. Some experts believe that we could see very high levels of cancer along the west coast just from people eating contaminated fish…

“Look at what’s going on now: They’re dumping huge amounts of radioactivity into the ocean — no one expected that in 2011,” Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear policy lecturer at the University of California-Santa Cruz, told Global Security Newswire. “We could have large numbers of cancer from ingestion of fish.”

12. BBC News recently reported that radiation levels around Fukushima are “18 times higher” than previously believed.

13. An EU-funded study concluded that Fukushima released up to 210 quadrillion becquerels of cesium-137 into the atmosphere.

14. Atmospheric radiation from Fukushima reached the west coast of the United States within a few days back in 2011.

15. At this point, 300 tons of contaminated water is pouring into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day.

16. A senior researcher of marine chemistry at the Japan Meteorological Agency’s Meteorological Research Institute says that “30 billion becquerels of radioactive cesium and 30 billion becquerels of radioactive strontium” are being released into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day.

17. According to Tepco, a total of somewhere between 20 trillion and 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium have gotten into the Pacific Ocean since the Fukushima disaster first began.

18. According to a professor at Tokyo University, 3 gigabecquerels of cesium-137 are flowing into the port at Fukushima Daiichi every single day.

19. It has been estimated that up to 100 times as much nuclear radiation has been released into the ocean from Fukushima than was released during the entire Chernobyl disaster.

20. One recent study concluded that a very large plume of cesium-137 from the Fukushima disaster will start flowing into U.S. coastal waters early next year…

Ocean simulations showed that the plume of radioactive cesium-137 released by the Fukushima disaster in 2011 could begin flowing into U.S. coastal waters starting in early 2014 and peak in 2016.

21. It is being projected that significant levels of cesium-137 will reach every corner of the Pacific Ocean by the year 2020.

22. It is being projected that the entire Pacific Ocean will soon “have cesium levels 5 to 10 times higher” than what we witnessed during the era of heavy atomic bomb testing in the Pacific many decades ago.

23. The immense amounts of nuclear radiation getting into the water in the Pacific Ocean has caused environmental activist Joe Martino to issue the following warning…

Your days of eating Pacific Ocean fish are over.

24. The Iodine-131, Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 that are constantly coming from Fukushima are going to affect the health of those living the the northern hemisphere for a very, very long time.  Just consider what Harvey Wasserman had to say about this…

Iodine-131, for example, can be ingested into the thyroid, where it emits beta particles (electrons) that damage tissue. A plague of damaged thyroids has already been reported among as many as 40 percent of the children in the Fukushima area. That percentage can only go higher. In developing youngsters, it can stunt both physical and mental growth. Among adults it causes a very wide range of ancillary ailments, including cancer.

Strontium-90’s half-life is around 29 years. It mimics calcium and goes to our bones.

25. According to a recent Planet Infowars report, the California coastline is being transformed into “a dead zone”…

The California coastline is becoming like a dead zone.

If you haven’t been to a California beach lately, you probably don’t know that the rocks are unnaturally CLEAN – there’s hardly any kelp, barnacles, sea urchins, etc. anymore and the tide pools are similarly eerily devoid of crabs, snails and other scurrying signs of life… and especially as compared to 10 – 15 years ago when one was wise to wear tennis shoes on a trip to the beach in order to avoid cutting one’s feet on all the STUFF of life – broken shells, bones, glass, driftwood, etc.

There are also days when I am hard-pressed to find even a half dozen seagulls and/or terns on the county beach.

You can still find a few gulls trolling the picnic areas and some of the restaurants (with outdoor seating areas) for food, of course, but, when I think back to 10 – 15 years ago, the skies and ALL the beaches were literally filled with seagulls and the haunting sound of their cries both day and night…

NOW it’s unnaturally quiet.

26. A study conducted last year came to the conclusion that radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster could negatively affect human life along the west coast of North America from Mexico to Alaska “for decades”.

27. According to the Wall Street Journal, it is being projected that the cleanup of Fukushima could take up to 40 years to complete.

28. Yale Professor Charles Perrow is warning that if the cleanup of Fukushima is not handled with 100% precision that humanity could be threatened “for thousands of years“…

Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years.

Are you starting to understand why so many people are so deeply concerned about what is going on at Fukushima?

For much more on all of this, please check out the video posted below…

About the Author

Michael T. Snyder is a former Washington D.C. attorney who now publishes The Truth. His new thriller entitled “The Beginning Of The End” is now available on Amazon.com.

**This article was featured at Activist Post**

Russell Brand Blows Our Mind Once Again!

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HISTORIC HIGH: 58% of Americans Want Marijuana Legalized

By Erik Altieri, NORML Communications Director

Gallup released new polling data this week (10/22/13) that shows an overwhelming majority of Americans want marijuana to be legalized. According to their survey, 58% of Americans support legalizing marijuana, while only 39% are opposed. This is up significantly from the last time Gallup polled the question in 2012, when only 48% of Americans were in favor and 50% were opposed. For historical perspective, the first time they surveyed this question in 1969 a paltry 12% of Americans were in favor of legalization.

The support for marijuana legalization has seen unprecedented momentum in the past several years. Gallup observes, “Whatever the reasons for Americans’ greater acceptance of marijuana, it is likely that this momentum will spur further legalization efforts across the United States. Advocates of legalizing marijuana say taxing and regulating the drug could be financially beneficial to states and municipalities nationwide.”

“The American people have opened their eyes to the failure that is marijuana prohibition and there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. Following the successful passage of marijuana legalization initiatives in Colorado and Washington in 2012, the people of this country see that a new approach to marijuana policy is both required and possible,” stated NORML Communications Director Erik Altieri, “The majority of Americans agree that prohibition has failed and it is time to legalize and regulate. The issue can no longer be ignored or sidelined. Legalization is now the mainstream position and supporters of perpetuating our war on marijuana will continue to be further relegated to the fringe.”

The strongest support was coming from those ages 18-29 (67%), ages 30-49 (62%), Democrats (65%), and Independents (62%). The only major demographic groups lacking majority support are those 65+ (45%) and Republicans (35%).

Full poll results can be viewed here.

Originally posted on: Norml

You Thought Your Life Was Hard? Think Again...

Life is tough on Skid Row, the downtown part of Los Angeles that is home to thousands of homeless people who have hit rock bottom. 

From short-term workers and migrants feeling the hardships of the Great Depression, to servicemen shipping out during the Second World War and Vietnam, Skid Row has always had a transient nature. 

Its most recent inhabitants have been those who find they have nowhere else to turn as drug addicts and alcoholics come to its streets to try to fight their demons.

Rock bottom: Recovering alcoholic George Mendez, center, sits in front of a drunk woman in the Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles

Help: A recovering addict walks by a sign of positive messages at a narcotics anonymous meeting

Surviving: Antonio Garcia, a 54-year-old former mathematician, peeks through the top of a box he shelters in

Reach out: Young volunteers from the Dream Center church mission look at homeless people from the windows of their bus

Their everyday battle has been captured in a series of photographs by Jae C Hong.

On Skid Row addicts are offered a place to sleep, food, counseling and even spiritual support. With this backup some are able to turn their lives around, but plenty don't.

It's common to see addicts openly taking drugs on the streets, even while police are patrolling the area. 

While temptation may lurk on every corner, so do helping hands with charities and church missions offering shelter and food to those in need. 

Tent city: Torrance Moore, 46, pulls cardboard that he will use as bedding into his tent on a Skid Row sidewalk

Food line: A line forms outside a charity organization that hands out free hotdogs

Salvage: A homeless woman searches through trash for anything that she may be able to use

Steps to recovery: Former addict Trina Bohannan sings outside a karaoke club where she now works as an usher after finding a low income apartment to live in

Homeless: Late afternoon sunlight shines on a man as he sleeps in the middle of a Los Angeles sidewalk

No room: Sonya Martinez, 38, has been homeless on and off for the past ten years. In January 1,020 homeless people were counted on Skid Row streets, and 2,443 were in emergency shelters

Faith: Residents at the Emmanuel Baptist Rescue Mission attend a Bible study class, which is required for anyone wanting to stay at the shelter

Mission: The shadow of a woman is cast across a Jesus Loves You sign in Skid Row

Stories: A homeless woman leans on a gate for support as she talks to a man in Los Angeles

Addiction: Outside a church in Skid Row an addict prepares to inject himself with heroin

Street life: A barefoot homeless woman sings and dances on a Skid Row street

On the move: A woman pulls a suitcase along in what has always been a transient Los Angeles neighborhood

Moment of calm: Birds gather to eat bread crumbs on a deserted street

Messages: Graffiti calling for help from Jesus is scrawled alongside a heart

Lost hope: Shawn McGray, a 34-year-old trying to save enough money to move into a small apartment with his girlfriend, searches through a dumpster

Change: Cesar Solozano, a 60-year-old recovering drink and drug addict, laughs as he crosses a street

Despair: Jesse Raca, a 58-year-old homeless alcoholic rests against the shutters of a store

Prayer: Pastor Tony Stallworth, center, who used to be a homeless drug addict, leads a moment of reflection at a karaoke night

Sleeping rough: Margaret Warrick, 55, settles on a bench for the night outside Skid Row's Midnight Mission

Rest: Homeless people sleep near their belongings in the courtyard of the Midnight Mission - a safer alternative than sleeping on the street

Icon: A homeless man covers his face with a torn piece of paper showing a deity

Deserted: Wearing a Barbie backpack and pushing a trolley filled with her possessions, a woman makes her way along the street

Light relief: 60-year-old Tricia Warren, homeless for three weeks because of financial problems, sings at a karaoke night put on for the homeless

End of the road: The Skid Row section of Los Angeles, where homeless addicts struggle to survive

Ray of light: Pastor Emmanuel Okoli gives a sermon to those finding shelter at the Outreach Mission

Shadows: Many of the inhabitants of Skid Row have found themselves homeless because of financial trouble or addiction

Lifetime of struggles: Antoinette Theus, 45, has been homeless for 30 years

Originally posted on: Daily Mail

The Most Honest Three Minutes In The History of Television

Beginning scene of the new HBO series The Newsroom explaining why America's not the greatest country any longer... but it still can be.

The Man Who Doesn't Want Your Money

Irishman Mark Boyle tried to live life with no income, no bank balance and no spending. Here’s how he finds it.

If someone told me seven years ago, in my final year of a business and economics degree, that I’d now be living without money, I’d have probably choked on my microwaved ready meal. The plan back then was to get a ‘good’ job, make as much money as possible, and buy the stuff that would show society I was successful.

For a while I did it – I had a fantastic job managing a big organic food company; had myself a yacht on the harbour. If it hadn’t been for the chance purchase of a video called Gandhi, I’d still be doing it today. Instead, for the last fifteen months, I haven’t spent or received a single penny. Zilch.

The change in life path came one evening on the yacht whilst philosophising with a friend over a glass of merlot. Whilst I had been significantly influenced by the Mahatma’s quote “be the change you want to see in the world”, I had no idea what that change was up until then. We began talking about all major issues in the world – environmental destruction, resource wars, factory farms, sweatshop labour – and wondering which of these we would be best devoting our time to. Not that we felt we could make any difference, being two small drops in a highly polluted ocean.

But that evening I had a realisation. These issues weren’t as unrelated as I had previously thought – they had a common root cause. I believe the fact that we no longer see the direct repercussions our purchases have on the people, environment and animals they affect is the factor that unites these problems.

The degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have increased so much that it now means we’re completely unaware of the levels of destruction and suffering embodied in the ‘stuff’ we buy.

Very few people actually want to cause suffering to others; most just don’t have any idea that they directly are. The tool that has enabled this separation is money, especially in its globalised format.

Take this for an example: if we grew our own food, we wouldn’t waste a third of it as we do today.

If we made our own tables and chairs, we wouldn’t throw them out the moment we changed the interior décor.

If we had to clean our own drinking water, we probably wouldn’t shit in it.

So to be the change I wanted to see in the world, it unfortunately meant I was going to have to give up money, which I decided to do for a year initially. So I made a list of the basics I’d need to survive. I adore food, so it was at the top. There are four legs to the food-for-free table: foraging wild food, growing your own, bartering and using waste grub, of which there far too much.

On my first day I fed 150 people a three course meal with waste and foraged food. Most of the year I ate my own crops though and waste only made up about five per cent my diet. I cooked outside – rain or shine – on a rocket stove.

Next up was shelter. So I got myself a caravan from Freecycle, parked it on an organic farm I was volunteering with, and kitted it out to be off the electricity grid. I’d use wood I either coppiced or scavenged to heat my humble abode in a wood burner made from an old gas bottle, and I had a compost loo to make ‘humanure’ for my veggies.

I bathed in a river, and for toothpaste I used washed up cuttlefish bone with wild fennel seeds, an oddity for a vegan. For loo roll I’d relieve the local newsagents of its papers (I once wiped my arse with a story about myself); it wasn’t double quilted but it quickly became normal. To get around I had a bike and trailer, and the 55 km commute to the city doubled up as my gym subscription. For lighting I’d use beeswax candles.

Many people label me an anti-capitalist. Whilst I do believe capitalism is fundamentally flawed, requiring infinite growth on a finite planet, I am not anti anything. I am pro-nature, pro-community and pro-happiness. And that’s the thing I don’t get – if all this consumerism and environmental destruction brought happiness, it would make some sense. But all the key indicators of unhappiness – depression, crime, mental illness, obesity, suicide and so on are on the increase. More money it seems, does not equate to more happiness.

Ironically, I have found this year to be the happiest of my life. I’ve more friends in my community than ever, I haven’t been ill since I began, and I’ve never been fitter. I’ve found that friendship, not money, is real security. That most western poverty is spiritual. And that independence is really interdependence.

Could we all live like this tomorrow? No. It would be a catastrophe, we are too addicted to both it and cheap energy, and have managed to build an entire global infrastructure around the abundance of both. But if we devolved decision making and re-localised down to communities of no larger than 150 people, then why not? For over 90 per cent of our time on this planet, a period when we lived much more ecologically, we lived without money. Now we are the only species to use it, probably because we are the species most out of touch with nature.

People now often ask me what is missing compared to my old world of lucre and business. Stress. Traffic-jams. Bank statements. Utility bills. Oh yeah, and the odd pint of organic ale with my mates down the local.

Originally posted on: World Observer Online

Mexico City Moves to Legalize Pot

Though deprived of sunlight and breathing the smog-ridden air of Mexico’s mountain capital, the marijuana plants, from a strain known as purple kush, reach 0.9 m in a brick home at a middle-class suburb. They are alimented with electric lights and kept behind closed curtains by the owner, who says he grows them to smoke himself. If police found them, he could be nailed for drug production and face a hefty prison sentence under laws designed to tackle the country’s ultraviolent cartels.

But that situation could change with a series of bills that Mexico City legislators plan to file at the end of this month to legalize and regulate marijuana consumption. Proposals include the setting up of cannabis clubs to grow herb for their members and tolerance of anyone carrying up to 30 g, or just over an ounce, of marijuana. Leftist lawmakers say the measures would free up police to focus on serious crime and take a step toward ending the country’s catastrophic drug war, which has claimed more than 60,000 lives in the past six years. “The war against drugs is a failure. We are not going to win it,” says assemblyman Vidal Llerenas, who is working on the legislation. “We cannot hope for a drug-free world. But we can hope to limit the damage and take the profits away from organized crime.”

The Mexico City bills are part of a wave of marijuana proposals across the Americas in the wake of the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington voting to legalize cannabis last November. The Uruguayan lower house has passed a legalization law, which the Senate is expected to vote on this month, and advocates are looking at measures from Brazil to Argentina to Canada. While the U.S. was long a world leader in drug prohibition, U.S. legalization has now become an influential force outside its borders. Alison Holcomb, the chief architect of the Washington State law, has spoken across the continent this year, including at a recent forum in Mexico. “I have seen a sea change in thinking. People are no longer asking if it can be done, but how it can be done,” says Holcomb, who is the drug-policy director for the ACLU in Washington State. If the Mexican capital, which is the largest city on the continent, were to legalize marijuana, it would add even more momentum to the prolegalization wave, possibly paving the way for similar measures in other Mexican states and in neighboring Central American nations like Guatemala.

(MORE: Uruguay’s Marijuana Laws Open New Chapter in Global Pot Debate)

Like in Washington State, Mexico City aims to take advantage of a federal system to forge a drug policy independent of the rest of the country. The Mexican capital’s assembly, dominated by the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, has the same power as state legislature. In recent years, it has carried out a wave of socially liberal reforms, including the legalization of abortion and same-sex marriage. To supporters, this makes the capital a progressive beacon of hope in a conservative, Catholic country; to critics, it is a den of sin. Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera, who took power last year, has spoken positively about marijuana reform, and some speculate he could use the issue to make his mark during his six-year term.

A 2009 Mexico federal law decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs, including up to 5 g, or about a sixth of an ounce, of marijuana. However, police are still arresting many people with a little over this amount, filling police stations and prisons with relatively harmless criminals, Llerenas said. The assemblyman is looking at legislation for anything up to 30 g of cannabis to be taken out of the hands of prosecutors and handled by “dissuasion committees,” which would advise people to go to treatment if caught repeatedly.

Meanwhile, the idea of cannabis clubs aims to circumvent federal laws against selling marijuana as members would be simply paying to grow for their own use. Lawmakers are considering the idea of associations with up to 100 members, who would pay a subscription and receive about 50 g of marijuana per month. The Mexican drug-policy-reform group Cupihd, which has done extensive research into the issue, believes such clubs could take up 70% of the Mexico City marijuana market, which it estimates is now worth about $30 million a year. “With clubs, marijuana can be regulated without profits, and give the users control,” says Cupihd director Jorge Hernández. “They can open a space to show that regulation is better than denial and failed prohibition.” Mexico City could be used as a laboratory for policymakers across the country — and, indeed, the continent — to observe and learn from, Hernández says.

(MORE: U.S.-Friendly Latin American Organization Calls for Marijuana Reform)

However, such clubs could still be open to challenges from Mexico’s federal government over violation of drug-production laws. President Enrique Peña Nieto has said he is personally opposed to marijuana legalization but in favor of a new debate on the issue. The U.S. federal government’s call to not intervene in Colorado and Washington State could have an influence on decisions south of the border. “We look foolish trying to be champions of prohibition, when the United States is legalizing,” the lawmaker Llerenas says.

While former President Felipe Calderón waged a military-led offensive against drug cartels, Peña Nieto has focused on crime prevention and reducing homicides. Mexican cartels make billions of dollars trafficking cocaine, heroin and crystal meth as well as marijuana to the U.S., so legal cannabis in Mexico City would have only a minor impact on their business. However, advocates see the move as an important step in gradually shifting drug policies in Mexico and the U.S.

It is yet to be seen how much resistance the Mexico City marijuana proposals will meet. Opponents include conservative parent groups and the Catholic Church. “It is irresponsible to say that marijuana is not harmful,” says Father Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico City. “We need to hear the voices of the families of addicts in this debate.” However, the same groups are also robustly opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage, but failed to stop them being legalized in the capital.

On the other side, Mexican politicians and personalities from across the spectrum have recently spoken in favor of marijuana legalization. A newspaper advertisement supporting reform was signed by 67 prominent figures, including actors Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, two former Health Secretaries, Nobel laureate Mario Molina and Calderón’s former Interior Secretary Fernando Gómez Mont. Former President Vicente Fox has become a particularly robust advocate, saying he would even like to work with a U.S. Internet impresario in a marijuana company. “This is not an issue of left against right,” Hernández of Cupihd says. “Many in the political class are coming to realize that something has to be done."

Originally posted on: Time World

Uruguay First To Fully Legalize Marijuana

On July 31st 2013 Uruguay’s lower house successfully passed a marijuana legalization bill. Setting Uruguay in position to become the first country that will legally regulate the production, distribution and sale of marijuana.

All 50 members of the governing Broad Front coalition approved the proposal in a party line vote just before midnight Wednesday, keeping a narrow majority of the 96 lawmakers present after more than 13 hours of passionate debate.

The President of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, has been on a mission to deal with the rise in illegal drug trade and trafficking which has plagued the region.

An Institute for Regulation and Control of Cannabis would be created, with the power to grant licenses for all aspects of a legal industry to produce marijuana for recreational, medicinal or industrial use.

The government will purchase marijuana from licensed growers and distribute it to pharmacies, while private citizens will be permitted to grow the plant for personal use.

Uruguay is now at the forefront of globally reforming our ever costly, and perpetually failing archaic drug policies. If this endeavor succeeds, Uruguay will become the first nation that will allow its citizens to legally grow and consume marijuana for non-medical purposes.

The movement started with people like myself who preferred to grow our own instead of exposing ourselves to the danger of buying from drug dealers
- Juan Vaz, head of AECU (the Uruguayan Cannabis Studies Association).

The bill originally proposed that the marijuana should be solely produced by the state. However, the version of the bill that was approved enables the government to establish an institution which will grant licenses to private growers. The production of those private growers is going to be sold only through pharmacies to registered users.

“The government will control the whole chain of production, with quality  and price controls from the grower to the pharmacies,” says Sebastián  Sabini, the young congressman who drafted the final bill. “The law will go into force once it is approved by the Senate in the next couple of months,”

This will be the first time that a country will legalize marijuana and allow for a legal regulatory system of growing and distribution of the product.

What Happens Next?

The fight isn’t over yet

The bill still has to move through the Senate, but with a government majority in the upper house it is expected to pass at some point in the fall.

Once passed, the legislation would make the small South American country the first in the world to completely legalize marijuana.

Uruguayan President Jose Mujica has said he hopes the legislation will neutralize drug-smuggling gangs in his country, adding: “We know we are embarking on a cutting-edge experiment for the whole world.”

Not surprising, the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board condemned the success of the bill, and the movement of the government in Uruguay to legalize marijuana.

It’s Time To Reform Our Drug Policies

Uruguay has become another step in the right direction of reforming our failing stance and policies on drug use. Joining other successes such as Colorado and Washington, which were successful in legalizing marijuana for recreational use. After decades there has been billions of dollars spent on the war on drugs, and yet it has failed to achieve any of its goals.

Thankfully, it is becoming a more widely accepted and popular belief that individuals should be free to consume whatever they want to, as long as they are not harming any other person or another person’s property. A belief guided by the moral compass of individual liberty and non-aggression. Getting tougher on drug use has shown not to reduce recidivism or prevent drug use. Our drug policies are failing. Meanwhile more people are learning about the benefits of industrial hemp, and the consumption of marijuana.

Trying to list all of the medicinal and medical benefits of marijuana is like trying to name and list all of the stars in the sky.

Read more: Exposing The Truth
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