MERP is a one syllable contraction of the acronym MRPP which is short for the “Marijuana Re-Legalization Policy Project.” The MERP Model for Marijuana Re-Legalization is elegant in its simplicity and can be succinctly described as follows:
“The MERP model of Marijuana Re-Legalization would minimally allow non-commercial cultivation of up to 100 plants, by adults above the age of 18, without any form of government taxation, regulation or other interference.”
The MERP Model is really not significantly different than the way we allow US citizens to produce beer and wine within our homes. Home beer and wine production is neither taxed nor is it regulated. And many activists need to be weaned from this false notion that the government should get to tax everything. If they don’t tax your tomatoes or your beer, why should they be allowed to tax your Cannabis?
None of the moneyed organizations, such as MPP or DPA, currently support the MERP Model as they tend to favor models that “tax and regulate” Marijuana much like we tax and regulate “hard liquor.” They continue to reject the MERP Model by saying support is still well below fifty percent. But I no longer think this is actually true. 55 percent of Canadians support complete legalization in 2009 and 58 percent support now exists in California. Harris and Zogby polls under report because they are based on surveys through landlines. Since many younger Americans use “cell phones” their support is under reported. And just like “hard liquor” there would be a very good chance that they would not allow you to grow your own under their “tax and regulate” models for Marijuana Re-Legalization.. And if you were able to grow your own the government would probably insist on charging you a hefty annual license fee to allow you such a privilege under these “tax and regulate” models.
There are really two main things that need to be done in order to implement the MERP Model in the United States:
(1) Take Marijuana completely off of the Federal Controlled Substances Act (1970)
(2) Withdraw from all United Nation Drug Treaties or minimally refuse to recognize any constraints concerning the cultivation, taxation and consumption of Marijuana.
The ball lickers have their fingers in every pie, including marijuana policy. None of the politicians have ever talked about marijuana legalization from the perspective of personal liberty, they are concerned only with revenue. It has finally reached the point where they can extract more revenue from us by way of taxing us than they can by fining us. We mustn't allow the corporate douchebags to reframe this issue in a manner that guarantees an outcome that makes us worse off than we are now.
This is my playground. I run it because I enjoy it - at least I used to enjoy it. Lately you bastards have done nothing but piss me off. I set up an irc server where all users in the main channel would be operators; an experiment in user moderated chat. Note that there are other channels, run by other users, which have their own rules - this is as it ought to be. However I have to admit that my experiment has failed, mostly because some users are not able to accept this principle of equality. It defeats the purpose to make some users more equal than others! Check the stats : in 2 years I have kicked 4 users from #stonedworld. I pay for everything here and I recieve no revenue back, and yet I do not reserve for myself any special privileges. Any user can kick or ban me for any reason, and sometimes they do. I try very hard not to violate the principle of user equality myself, and yet I have turned a blind eye and have elevated some users above other users. This is a personal failing, and I should have known better. I am posting this to announce my renewed dedication to providing a USER MODERATED chat experience. In a way, the post title is misleading, because the users should be the boss - and within the framework provided, they are. However I will no longer cater to the whims of one user over another. You don't like the way things work here then fuck off and die. Thanks,
"To each according to his needs; from each according to his abilities." -Karl Marx
The thing that bothered me most about you the entire time we were dating was, at the base of it, a sense of entitlement. A sense that people owed you something. Daddy's Little Princess Syndrome. I think I'll never understand the way you'd berate people who were only trying to help you because they weren't helping you *properly.* The times I listened to you throw a tantrum when on the phone with your father because your car wasn't running were almost unbearable. I know exactly what he must have been thinking, because I've attempted to help you with computer things on the phone, only to have you chastise me for what a terrible job I was doing. You're a visual learner, and people should understand this! Wake up, princess: the world doesn't owe you anything.
(I've bolded portions of this seminal document that are, in my opinion, extremely relevant today. It is disturbing to note how far we've drifted, as a country, away from the ideas expressed so eloquently within. Clearly the Federal Government no longer believes that it "is the right of the people to alter or abolish it" when government becomse destructive to its citizens pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Lincoln obliterated that idea over 100 years ago when the south was not allowed to leave the Union. The Constitution with its Bill of Rights was not drafted to grant rights to the people - the Declaration says the people have these rights as a matter of natural right. In the view of Jefferson and others of the time, that government is best which governs least and the Constitution provided for a limited central government with most powers reserved to the states or to the people. That document, too, has been ignored, as the 200 year history of court cases which consistantly have held that the Constitution mandates Federal government meddling in virtually every aspect of our lives clearly shows.)
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends,
it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that governments long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than
to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under
absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
