The politics of pot

I've been battling inertia, a bad back and severe anxiety in the last couple of days but the battle for reform goes on with or without me. This reminder from Jack Cole of LEAP offers a constructive and simple way to help the drug policy reform movement. Mega NGO Move-On is accepting suggestions for issues of importance to address in the next year or two. Drop them a note here and tell them ending the war on some drugs would go a long way towards curing what ails us as a society.

Now I'm not a big fan of Move-On any more myself. I loved the whole netroots thing in the beginning but as with most organizations, once they reached a certain level of influence, it appeared to me they became too interested in maintaining their own power and less interested in advancing common efforts with other lesser known groups. Nonetheless, one can't ignore their reach and their efficacy in educating the public. It would be a very good thing if they took on policy reform, so fill out the form right now.

And while we're on politics, I just found out Steve Kubby is a declared candidate for the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party. Regular readers and reformers will recognize Kubby as a long time activist for medical marijuana and a former drug war refugee who spent many years in self-exile in Canada before he finally turned himself in here in the US to serve a prison sentence on a trumped up drug charge.

According to party insider Thomas Knapp, the nomination race is Kubby's to lose. That may be true, but I have to wonder if his health issues wouldn't become a liability in the general election. People tend to be leery of electing candidates who could drop dead of fatal diseases at any time. Still we wish him luck in the race.