Well, I guess it’s fitting that it took this long to get our NORML Convention coverage up. But we did it, and we hope this little montage of interviews is informative and perhaps even reassuring for all you folks who are tired of an irrational attitude towards drugs in America. After all, demonizing drugs clearly doesn’t work given the rates of drug abuse in the U.S. compared to places where drugs are not so publicly hated on.

I love how the media spins stories like this to portray marijuana as the villain. Within the past week over 26,000 marijuana plants were discovered and removed from the Sequoia National Forest. According to the Federal and State officials, Mexican drug cartels have been sending illegal immigrants across the border with supplies to grow and cultivate large crops worth $40 million (street value).

Officials are also claiming that the creation of these crops are the cause of environmental degradation within the area. 7,000 feet of irrigation tubing, over 2,000 pounds of garbage and “hazardous waste”, over 200 pounds of fertilizer and two gallons of pesticides were removed from the marijuana farm as well. Bears and other animals are said to have been killed by these so called armed and dangerous marijuana growers.

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The war on drugs is non-existent and with the latest results from a World Health Organization survey of 17 countries, the United States drug policies have clearly failed. According to the recent survey, the United States ranks the highest in marijuana and cocaine use

42.4 percent of the US citizens surveyed admitted to having used marijuana. New Zealand trailed close behind with 41.9 percent. However, the United States leads the world in cocaine use by a large margin.

What is most interesting are the results from the Netherlands where adults are allowed to possess and purchase small amounts of marijuana from regulated businesses. While many U.S. officials accuse the Dutch drug policy of fueling drug abuse, only 19.8 percent have used marijuana. Looks like the land of the free has got it all backwards. The question now is whether the U.S. can flip the drug culture from drug abuse to recreational drug use; sounds like a “change we can believe in” to me.

(via DoseNation)