Suggestions For Media Reporting On Marijuana Reform In 2013

[The Compassion Chronicles]

 

Suggestions for Media Reporting on Marijuana Reform in 2013

 

01 Jan, 2013

 

 

 

By Charmie Gholson

 

Dear Mainstream Media:

 

As we enter 2013,  I’m sure you’ll be equally if not more obsessed than you were in 2012 with the word “marijuana” as a way of reporting, gaining viewers and making money.

 

That’s great. We really appreciate your coverage of our reform efforts, and we’re happy to provide you with content. And yes, it was very exciting when Washington State and Colorado fully legalized and regulated marijuana in November. Thank you for hyping up our successes.

 

However, we have some requests for you to consider when reporting on marijuana reform in the upcoming year. We feel it’s time for you to mature in your reporting. You know, be more effective.

 

Suggestions for reporters covering marijuana reform in 2013:

 

1-Stop making jokes about snacks, munchies and stoners. This policy puts hundreds of thousands of Americans in handcuffs every year and gives them barriers to housing, employment and education. It’s not funny. It only discredits you as a legitimate news source.

 

You can start here for more research, but it’s honestly not that difficult to find statistics on how drug arrests ruin lives.

 

You can also profile drug war victims. You can start here, but again, a simple search will bring you more work than you can get to. At least it has for me.

 

2- Replace photos/video of people doing bong hits with SWAT teams breaking into homes and terrorizing families.  The militarization of the police escalated in the 1980’s and by now, most local law enforcement agencies have received ample training and equipment from the Pentagon.  Our local police are, in many cases, no longer law enforcers who face citizens protected by the Bill of Rights, but rather soldiers who face enemy combatants.

 

 

 

 

 

Please reference anything by Radley Balko for more information. Here’s an excerpt from his 2006 White Paper, “Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.”

 

These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects.

 

Read the rest of Charmie's message to mainstream media concerning the reporting on cannabis related issues-

 

http://www.thecompassionchronicles.com/2013/01/01/suggestions-for-media-reporting-on-marijuana-reform-in-2013/

 

 

[TheHarvester]

It makes a tremendous amount of sense to start exploring paths of re identification. great article