"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."*1 "The greatest service that can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture."*1 “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.”*1 “If the words “Life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness” don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.”*2 "The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."*3“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot long retain it.” *4 "In any civilized society, it is every citizen's responsibility to obey just laws. But at the same time, it is every citizen's responsibility to disobey unjust laws."*5 "Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves."*6 "If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."*1 “Penalties against possession of a substance should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of that substance; & where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use…”*7 "In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. It is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."*11 "Hemp is the standard fiber of the world. It has great tensile strength and durability. It is used to produce more than 5,000 textile products, ranging from rope to fine laces, and the woody "hurds" remaining after the fiber has been removed contain more than seventy-seven per cent cellulose, and can be used to produce more than 25,000 products, ranging from dynamite to Cellophane."*15 “Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making & the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest & mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?”*9 “Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, & sow it everywhere!”*10 “I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.”*12 “When a private enterprise fails, it is closed down; when a government enterprise fails, it is expanded. Isn’t that what’s been happening with drugs?”*8 “It will be found an unjust & unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.”*10 “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums but normalcy, not revolution, but restoration.” *13 Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit… unnatural?*14 "We in this country have to make up our minds -- -- we can not have it both ways: we cannot be both drug-free and free." *16 "Marijuana gives rise to insanity -- not in its users but in the policies directed against it. A nation that sentences the possessor of a single joint to life imprisonment without parole but sets a murderer free after perhaps six years is in the grips of a deep psychosis."*17 In 1938 Popular Mechanics published “AMERICAN farmers are promised a new cash crop with an annual value of several hundred million dollars, all because a machine has been invented which solves a problem more than 6,000 years old. It is hemp, a crop that will not compete with other American products. Instead, it will displace imports of raw material and manufactured products produced by underpaid coolie and peasant labor and it will provide thousands of jobs for American workers throughout the land.”*18 My question is; Are we ready yet? Cannabis Quotes Petition Sighting *1) President Thomas Jefferson *2) Terence McKenna *3) Albert Einstein *4) Abraham Lincoln *5) Martin Luther King Jr. *6) Ronald Reagan *7) Jimmy Carter 39th U.S. President *8) Milton Friedman *9) Henry Ford *10) George Washington 1st U.S. President *11) Francis L. Young, Administrative Law Judge of the US drug police DEA, September 6, 1988 *12) Ulysses S. Grant *13) Warren g. Harding *14) Bill Hicks *15) from Popular Mechanics, "Billion Dollar Crop", 1938 (four months after the enactment of The Marihuana Tax Stamp Act): *16) Lester Grinspoon, M.D., *17) - Eric Schlosser. *18) http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/New_Billion_Dollar_Crop_1938.html