What do you think is the most effective way to turn this idea into real policy? Add your suggestions here for how you think we should run an advocacy campaign to advance the idea – including the overall strategy, messaging, targets, and tactics.

Approach this from the standpoint that people reading this forum already agree with you on the importance of the issue, and are asking "What can we do to help make this a reality?"

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1. 

   To move this idea forward through those that don't want it legalized you must first change their perception. This can be done through immediately ending the current anti-marijuana ads that are on tv. These ads portray an image that just isn't right.
   
   If the image of people who smoke marijuana being lazy, then how did this topic get voted to the top numerous times. The second thing that can be done is to launch a campaign showing, just as in the depression, stopping prohibition on marijuana can create jobs and put thousands, if not millions of people to work right now. Even those that are against it, would say that in this environment, make it legal and get people to work.
   
   Please consider this idea and be a leader Mr. President. The younger generations are over whelming in support of this idea. It will be legal one day why not be the one who does it and starts collecting the tax money now?
   
   Thank you for providing this forum and your time.
   

   Suggested by Robert Schuman on 01/16/2009 @ 09:13AM PT

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2. 

   Given that legalizing medical and social use of cannabis has topped the ideas poll twice now, The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation would like to work with change.org to help take this issue to the federal government. We want the new president, in whom we in the cannabis reform movement have invested our volunteer work, our campaign contributions and our own audacity of hope, to impanel a group of scientists and experts to advise the government on how to proceed to change the laws regarding hemp & cannabis.
   
   Please read my blog, our mission and projects statements on change.org/hemp
   
   Our nonprofit 501c3 organization, The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation, has offices in 8 states, a paid staff of 55, and we have helped over 50,000 patients by hiring doctors who help medical marijuana patients obtain their state's permit for medical marijuana. Our affiliated political committee, Campaign for the Restoration & Regulation of Hemp, or CRRH, is a 501c4 and has developed a regulatory model to regulate adult marijuana sales, place cannabis in pharmacies and restore industrial hemp.
   
   www.hemp.org
   www.cannabistaxact.org
   
   
   
   

   Suggested by The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation on 01/16/2009 @ 09:02AM PT

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3. 

   I think that a national ad campain showing americans how useful hemp had been up until 1937 would help gain support for the industrial hemp market. Facts on how much greener hemp is for the environment could be told such as; Hemp paper products can be recycled up to 7 times when our current paper can be recycled less than 4 times. I feel that re-start of Americas hemp industry would be a small step to legalization.

   Suggested by richard brown on 01/16/2009 @ 07:55AM PT

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4. 

   Congress and President Obama, it's time for YOU to hop on board with the few such as Ron Paul and Barney Frank and get H.R. 5843 and H.R. 5842 passed or re-introduced as soon as possible.  Decriminalization is not the answer, it's just an improvement.  Having Ron Paul or another supporter introduce a new bill legalizing cannibis IS what 19,500 voted for and got #1 by over 4,000 votes to the runner up.  Re-post that if you feel like it JUST to remind these people!

   Suggested by Clayton Riisoe on 01/16/2009 @ 07:54AM PT

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5. 

   oops HR 5843

   Suggested by Gary Silvia on 01/16/2009 @ 07:37AM PT

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6. 

   Well Barney Frank and Ron Paul both introduced HR 5834, let's get that done, emediately lift the ban on Hemp production with an executive order, clearing the way to a new prosperity in America. Pretty soon some nation on this planet is going to wake up, why not us first, let the USA be the one to feel the benefits of an enormously prosperous hemp industry. Fact is England did not want to give up a territory that had such huge potential to supply it's navy with rope and sails, a major factor behind the Revolutionary war. Another fun fact, Bush is alive today thanks to a parachute made from Hemp, the same substance he worked so hard to vilify.
   

   Suggested by Gary Silvia on 01/16/2009 @ 07:32AM PT

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7. 

   There were two bills that were introduced in Congress, H.R. 5842 and H.R. 5843.  These two bills could (and should) be the starting point for this effort.  Local governments are way ahead of the federal government on this subject... and this should dictate how we approach this campaign. 
   
   The first thing to get the federal government to do is to perform studies and research that will erase the myths and misinformation the public has been fed over the past 70+ years.  Marijuana is not as harmful (and very comparable) to alcohol and tobacco... so it needs to be stripped of the Schedule I classification it currently holds.  This will allow organization and research firms to do studies on marijuana's compounds to help determine it's medical benefits.  It will also allow the federal government to divert law enforcement of this drug to the local level.
   
   To accomplish this, the next step would be to get bills such as H.R. 5842 and H.R. 5843 passed in Congress and signed off by the President.  H.R. 5842 was a bill directly aimed at rescheduling marijuana to a Schedule II drug and stopping the federal government from arresting patients that were abiding by local and state laws.  Once we can get a bill like this passed, we can progress to the next step... a bill similar to H.R. 5843.  This bill was directly aimed and reducing the number of arrests for simple marijuana possession.  This would prevent a responsible adult that possesses a smaller amount of marijuana from being arrested and prosecuted for such a petty offense.  This would put marijuana in a similar class as tobacco and alcohol and would allow local governments to set the laws for this substance.  No longer would we fill our jails and prisons with adults for simple possession and furthermore, stop hurting and ruining the lives of millions of citizens that have criminal records only because they were arrested for simple possession.  It would also save money and resources for law enforcement agencies and allow them to focus on more serious crimes.
   
   Finally, the last step would be to get marijuana legalized and have it regulated like tobacco and alcohol.  Much research has been done on the effects of legalizing marijuana.  Amsterdam is a perfect example of how legalizing marijuana can actually reduce the number of people that use it.  Right here in our on United States, we have a perfect example of what regulation can accomplish:  teen use for tobacco has greatly fallen because it is regulated while teen use of marijuana continues to rise and has approached the use of tobacco by teens, all because we can't regulate it in it's current format.  This isn't the only upside, with regulation comes taxation... which would put one of our nation's top cash crops as a major source of tax dollars for our nation.

   Suggested by Brad Zimmerman on 01/16/2009 @ 07:31AM PT

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8. 

   "Prohibition's impact on American drinking patterns was reinforced during the post-Prohibition years by a new web of regulations woven around alcohol use by the states. A few states retained prohibition; the last, Mississippi, repealed its dry law in 1966. Most, however, created either state agencies to issue licenses for retail sales, state monopolies on liquor sales, or hybrid blends of the two systems. State liquor agencies exercised a broad range of powers over the conditions under which alcohol was advertised, sold, and consumed. In the beginning, state officials used their powers to favor off-premises over on-premises consumption. As Prohibition faded further into the background, however, this policy was gradually relaxed.In the aftermath of Prohibition's repeal, a new suasionist initiative emerged. In 1935, two habitual drunkards created a grassroots movement, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), to provide mutual support to those who wished to stop drinking but could not do so alone. A publicity organization, the National Council on Alcoholism, formed to propagate AA's basic principle, that chronic drunkenness, which was now called "alcoholism," was addictive and a disease. The disease concept of alcoholism was also furthered by the work of an academic research institute, the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies. Such arguments, together with a rising level of per capita alcohol consumption during the 1960s, led the federal government to involve itself for the first time in alcohol research, through creation in 1970 of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. This initiative, however, followed the lead of many states, which had previously mandated their own state alcoholism agencies, some of which took on treatment as well as research functions. Alcoholism treatment also flourished as many corporations and governments created "occupational alcoholism" programs, which often became "employee assistance" programs devoted to dealing with a broad range of personal problems.At the end of the twentieth century, legal regulation of alcohol use focused upon two issues: the drinking age and drinking and driving. During the 1980s, the federal government briefly attempted to withhold highway funding from states that mandated a lower age than twenty-one years as the legal drinking age. Wider and deeper concern was manifested over drunken driving as automobile use became pervasive. New organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (founded 1980) organized at the grass roots, while state governments manipulated criminal laws in an effort to reduce highway carnage."
   http://www.answers.com/topic/alcohol-regulation-of
   I believe we should follow much the same path with the legalization of marijuana.
   LicensesThe government should start issuing licenses for the sale of marijuana. We want to make "distribution without a license" illegal and carry a HUGE fine. We want to stifle the criminal market while promoting the capitalist market. To that end, we'll tax marijuana cigarettes at the going rate of tobacco cigarettes.
   
   HealthClinics nationwide will offer information (as it is known currently) on marijuana use. Something along the lines of "Is Cannabis Right For You?" that informs people of the potential risks of using marijuana along with the benefits of the drug. To this end, programs will work as much as cheap pamphlets that can be distributed not just to clinics, but to hospitals, pharmacies, and even party stores (i.e. 7-11, Safeway, etc.).
   
   Hemp"So it is with the hemp plant. Use of the leaves makes it ‘marijuana’, but the nutritional hemp seeds are known as that – or hemp nuts. In addition, when Cannabis sativa is grown for its fiber and edible seed, it is a stalky crop with only a few leaves remaining on top; but if marijuana is the desired result, the crop has to be grown differently. Therefore, it becomes bushy with many leaves."http://www.innvista.com/health/foods/hemp/hempbiol.htm
   Since hemp is grown a different way than marijuana, no licenses need be applied. Clothing and other fiber products would get a huge boost from such a material.

   Suggested by Jacob "Bear" Elert on 01/16/2009 @ 07:29AM PT

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