Mayor of Ithaca, NY Announces Support for Legalizing Marijuana

New Poll Shows 58% of U.S. Voters Support Legalization.

Mayor Svante Myrick Ithaca, NY Photo": syracuse.com

(ITHACA, NY) - Svante Myrick, the mayor of Ithaca, NY, announced on Tuesday that he thinks it's time to legalize marijuana. The 25-year-old elected official's announcement comes one month after voters in Colorado and Washington strongly approved measures legalizing marijuana.

“Despite having arrested over 20 million people for marijuana nationally, a number larger than the entire population of New York State, marijuana prohibition has failed to make our communities safer," Mayor Myrick announced exclusively to the organization Marijuana Majority. "By legalizing and regulating marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol we can free up our already overburdened courts and law enforcement agencies to focus on serious and violent crime. Plus, we can take money out of the hands of the criminal black market and generate enormous revenues for the government while creating thousands of new jobs. New York should lead on this issue just as we led on repealing alcohol prohibition.”

Mayor Myrick's quote can be found at http://MarijuanaMajority.com/SvanteMyrick

Also on Tuesday, a new poll was released showing that 58% of American voters support legalizing marijuana and that 50% predict marijuana will be legal under federal law within the next 10 years. The full results of the poll, which was commissioned by Marijuana Policy Project, can be found at http://www.mpp.org/assets/pdfs/blog/MPPResults.pdf

"Marijuana prohibition's days are numbered. New prominent voices are joining the chorus calling for change every day," said Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority. "Most thoughtful politicians have known for a long time that our marijuana prohibition laws are broken, but until recently the issue was considered too controversial to speak out about. Now more elected officials are beginning to realize that working to repeal failed status quo policies is not only the right thing to do, but that there's a large and growing constituency of voters who will have their backs in case out-of-touch opponents decide to launch stale 'soft on crime' attacks."

Source: MARIJUANA MAJORITY

Marijuana Majority exists to help people understand that replacing marijuana prohibition with solutions like legalization, decriminalization and medical marijuana are mainstream, majority-support positions, and that no one who supports reform should be afraid to say so.  More info at http://www.MarijuanaMajority.com.

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