Saturday, May 07, 2005


Marijuana petition drive for 2006 ballot is under way
One can dream....

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Marijuana laws in Michigan would be transformed under a proposed amendment to the state constitution to legalize the drug that backers hope to place before voters in 2006.

A group based in Sterling Heights called Win-the-War has begun circulating petitions for a proposal to regulate marijuana in Michigan in the same way as liquor, and hopes to collect more than 320,000 petition signatures by Oct. 1, the Detroit Free Press reported Friday.

Bruce Ritchie, who describes himself as a full-time activist, told a panel of state elections officials Thursday that legalization of marijuana would lower crime rates and the use of hard drugs by getting marijuana out of the underworld and protect kids by setting the legal age of consumption at 21.

"This is about controlling and regulating marijuana to take it off the streets and out of the black market," Ritchie said in a Friday story by the Lansing State Journal.

If approved, the initiative would push Michigan further than any other state toward legalizing marijuana and condone the possession, purchase or sale of pot and hemp products by adults 21 and older, Ritchie said.

Which makes perfect sense. Which is, of course, why it will never pass.