RAD initiatives to re-legalize marijuana and all other drugs in Arizona I am with a group called RAD, which stands for Re-legalize All Drugs. RAD recently filed two initiatives to 1) re-legalize marijuana in Arizona and to 2) re-legalize ALL drugs in Arizona. Perhaps your magazine could help us in two ways. Tell your readers about us so they can help us circulate our petitions. This is a grass roots effort to end the insane war on drugs so we don't have any money to pay people to circulate petitions. Perhaps you can write an article about our efforts. We are willing to have an interview with you. RAD wants to totally re-legalize drugs. RAD's initiatives are not phony baloney initiatives to re-legalize marijuana like the MPP or Marijuana Policy Project's initiatives seem to be. The initial initiatives proposed by MPP or Marijuana Policy Project here in Arizona seem to be initiatives that create a government monopoly on growing and selling marijuana for the dispensaries and seem to screw the man on the street. If the RAD initiative passes and marijuana is fully re-legalized with no government controls we expect the price of Mexican brick marijuana will drop to the price of a pound of potatoes or a pound of tomatoes. Not the outrageous rip off price of $300 an ounce that medical marijuana is currently selling for her in Arizona or in Washington and Colorado where recreational marijuana is legal. On Jan 26, 2015 RAD filed two initiatives with the Arizona Secretary of State which we hope to get on the 2016 ballot. The first initiative is number C-02-2016 and asks the voters re-legalize marijuana in the 2016 election. The second initiative is number C-03-2016 and asks the voters re-legalize ALL drugs in the 2016 election. Both initiatives call for full blown legalization of either marijuana or all drugs. Both initiatives forbid the government from taxing or regulating in any way either marijuana or all drugs including marijuana. Both initiatives order the government to pardon and clear the records of all people who have been arrested for either marijuana or for any victimless drug war crime. Both initiatives tell the government that drugs, if they are are problem should be a medical problem, not a criminal problem and order the government to stop jailing people for victimless drug war crimes. It seems like bother of our groups have a some common goals when it comes to the insane and unconstitutional “War on Drugs”. If your groups have booths on the ASU mall on a regular basis perhaps you could help us circulate our petitions to re-legalize both marijuana and all other drugs. It would be even more helpful if your groups could help us recruit people to circulate either or both of our initiatives to re-legalize marijuana or all drugs in Arizona. Even if our petitions don't get on the ballot, we will succeed in blazing the path towards re-legalizing all drugs in the future. This is an educational effort and we need to educate the people of Arizona and the people of American that it's time to end the insane, immoral and senseless war on drugs and re-legalize all drugs. If you would like us to talk you your groups about our initiatives we will gladly come speak to you. You can contact us at e-mail: relegalize420@gmail.com Phone: (602)492-4201 – Mike Shipley Here is a copy of our initiative to completely re-legalize marijuana in Arizona. The initiative to re-legalize heroin, cocaine, marijuana and all other drugs is identical, the only changes being that the word marijuana has been replaced with text saying all other drugs. Last please don't laugh at our effort to re-legalize ALL drugs. Back in 1997 Arizona was the first state in the union where the voters passed a law allowing doctors to prescribe ANY illegal drug for medical purposes. That included medical heroin, medical LSD, medical cocaine. Sadly the DEA shot that law down when they said they would revoke the license of any doctor that wrote a prescription for an illegal drug. And because of that all voter initiatives since then throughout the United States require doctors to write recommendations for illegal drugs, not prescriptions. Arizona has passed 3 initiatives legalizing medical marijuana. The first was shot down by the DEA. The second was repealed by the Arizona legislator. The third initiative is now in effect and can't by repealed by the Arizona legislator unless they get a super majority two-thirds or three-fourths vote. Thanks Mike RE-LEGALIZE MARIJUANA 1. The state of Arizona shall recognize that marijuana and marijuana abuse are NOT criminal problems to be solved by arresting people and putting them in prison, fining them and seizing their assets. 2. The state of Arizona shall recognize that marijuana and marijuana abuse are medical problems that are to be solved by the person who uses the marijuana. It is NOT the government's job to solve people's marijuana problems. 3. Government entities in the state of Arizona shall not tax, regulate, control, or pass any laws governing the use, smoking, consumption, drinking, injecting, sale, transfer, growth, cultivating, manufacture, production, storage, possession, transportation, or importation of marijuana or any of the chemicals in any marijuana plant. 4. Nor shall any city, county, state or other government agency or government entity in Arizona assist other government agencies, such as the Federal government, foreign governments, Indian governments or other state governments in enforcing their laws against marijuana. 5. Nor shall any government entity in the state of Arizona pass any regulations discriminating against people or entities that use use, smoke, consume, drink, inject, sell, transfer, grow, cultivate, manufacture, produce, store, possess, transport, or import marijuana. 6. For this initiative the word marijuana refers to any form of marijuana, marijuana products, cannabis or hemp and includes concentrated forms such as hashish, hash oil, wax and shatter. 7. Any person arrested or convicted of any marijuana offense in the past shall automatically have their criminal record cleared for those charges and automatically receive a full pardon for those charges. 8. Any person arrested for any marijuana offense in the past who accepted a plea bargain for reduced charges shall automatically have their criminal record cleared for those reduced charges and automatically receive a full pardon for those reduced charges. 9. The state of Arizona shall not extradite a person to another state or country if the person could be charged with marijuana crimes which would be legal in Arizona. 10. Any government employee, police officer or prosecutor that interferes with a persons marijuana rights defined in this initiative shall be personally and civilly liable to each person for each incident for a minimum of $1 million in damages or 10 times the actual amount of damages which ever is greater. There shall be no immunity to police offices or prosecutors who claim to be "acting in good faith" or other reasons. 11. This constitutional amendment will not effect the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act which shall continue to exist in parallel. ---------- Here is a link to a web page with copies of the initiative as filed with the Arizona Secretary of State: http://relegalize.100webspace.net/images_filing_papers/images_filing.html We are still working on create a real website for RAD. We are also on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/RADArizona There will probably be 3 groups circulating petitions to re-legalize marijuana in Arizona in this election cycle. Or course our group was the first group to file our initiatives. Our initiative to re-legalize marijuana is only 11 lines long. Same for the initiative to re-legalize all drugs. Safer Arizona, whom we consider good guys will probably also be circulating a petition to re-legalize marijuana in Arizona. Their initiative allows a lot of government regulation of marijuana. Their initiative also limits the the amount of marijuana you can posses (2.5 ounces) and the number of plants you can grow. The Safer Arizona petition from the last election cycle can be seen here. It is a 7 pages long compared to the 11 lines of the RAD petition. http://super-tech.com/2016_Draft_XXXI_Amendment.pdf or http://bureaucrats.100webspace.net/pdf_file//dennis_bohlke_legalize_marijuana.pdf MPP or Marijuana Policy Project will also probably be circulating petitions in Arizona to re-legalize marijuana. We consider MPP to be the bad guys. Personally I think the MPP initiative is an oxymoron, because it doesn't really re-legalize marijuana other then allowing people to smoke it and possess small amounts. Basically the MPP initiative creates a government monopoly for the dispensaries on growing and selling marijuana so they can sell it to us consumers at $300+ an ounce rip off prices. I have only read the 1st draft of it. The first draft only allows people to possess one stinking ounce of marijuana. The first draft only allows people to grow 6 marijuana plants. The first draft charges outrages rip off taxes for any business that wants to get into the marijuana business. I think the lowest initial tax is $5,000 and maxes out at $30,000. The first draft still allows people to be put in jail for marijuana crimes. The first draft creates a huge government bureaucracy to regulate marijuana in Arizona. They came out with a final draft yesterday, but I have not read it, nor do I have a copy I can give you. If you are going to read it get a bottle of aspirin (if you are not a medical marijuana patient) and plan to spend a couple hours re-reading and analyzing. Here is a link to my copy of the MPP initiative: http://relegalize.100webspace.net/mpp_documents/mpp_az_draft_1_26_15_html.html