

Medical



Cannabis has proven to be effective and side-effect free relief for numerous illnesses, as well as healthy preventative therapy. Patients can choose various methods of medicating, such as food, tea, oil, inhaled or raw juiced.

Patients have a right to choose their own medicine and therefore medical, organic or natural cannabis must be available.



Industrial



Hemp, the non-psychoactive form of the cannabis plant, has tens of thousands of industrial applications. Anything that can be done with petroleum, soy, or cotton can be done with hemp, and done much better. Hemp grows without need of herbicide, pesticide or other chemical treatment. It can grow in marginal soil making it perfect for regenerating industrially scarred land.

Hemp’s versatility provides economic opportunity consistent with Green Party values of green, local economic development; as opposed to centralized corporate servitude. Among the many products that can be made with hemp are plastics that are biodegradable, building products, fuel, soaps and lotions, food and feed, clothes, paper and many other products. Such versatility provides opportunity from the farm, to manufacturing, to wholesale and retail sales. Hemp is valuable to farmers as a cash crop and is ideal in strategies of erosion prevention.

The cannabis/hemp plant is one the world’s most effective in removing CO2 from the air, providing benefit concerning global warming.



Recreational



Cannabis prohibition pre-dates the Drug War by about 30 years. Initiated just after repeal of alcohol prohibition, its effect has been just as harmful, or worse, than alcohol prohibition. At the beginning of the War on Drugs there were about 300,000 Americans incarcerated in the US. Today that number has grown to nearly 2.5 million today. Also, prohibition has fueled organized crime, corrupted police departments and denied tax revenue that would be available with legal, regulated cannabis.

The past 20 years have seen an alarming growth in private prisons, which would not be needed if prohibition were repealed.

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