Some FACTs - Environmental Information
| FACT: Organizations that have endorsed medical access to marijuana include the AIDS Action Council, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Public Health Association, California Medical Association, California Society of Addiction Medicine, Florida Medical Association, Lymphoma Foundation of America, National Association of People With AIDS, National Nurses Society on Addictions, the New England Journal of Medicine, and others. A few of the many editorial boards that have endorsed medical access to marijuana include: Boston Globe; Chicago Tribune; Miami Herald; New York Times; Orange County Register; USA Today and The South Bend Tribune. |
| FACT: Nearly 80% of U.S. voters support medical access to marijuana. |
| FACT: Recent studies show that the vast majority of Americans favor treatment and education over law enforcement. By 53% to 34%, Americans view drug abuse as a public health problem best handled by prevention and treatment programs, rather than a crime problem best handled by the criminal justice system. |
| FACT: Civil forfeiture laws allow police to seize the money and property of suspected marijuana offenders -- charges need not even be filed. The claim is against the property, not the defendant. The property owner must then prove that the property is "innocent" -- and indigents have no right to appointed legal counsel. Enforcement abuses stemming from forfeiture laws abound. |
Below is important environmental Information from
THE COMPOST THEATER CO. OF ITHACA, NY........
| HOW TO COMPOST 1. Start with a six-inch layer of sticks and twigs to circulate air beneath the pile. 2. Add a layer of dry “brown” material (leaves, grass clippings, straw, etc). 3. Add a layer of organic kitchen waste (food scraps) and remember NO MEAT or DAIRY. 4. Always cover with “brown” material to stop odor and pests. 5. Repeat steps 2-4 until pile is about 3 feet high. 6. After 6-12 months, the compost is ready. 7. Use a handful of your old compost to inoculate you new compost bin. Note: There are various ways and materials you can use to build the actual bin. We recommend 1 inch gauge welded wire, 4 feet tall, and about 11 feet in length. It makes a moveable, lightweight bin that will last a lifetime at a cost of about $20. Use sandwich ties to hold it together and for easy disassembling to get at that lovely compost. Of course we also recommend anything recycled or free. COMPOST INFORMATION: Composting saves you money! Composting produces a wonderful product! Using compost improves soil structure. Done correctly, a compost bin should NEVER SMELL. Always cover your bin with brown material (dried grass, straw, shredded paper, and the likes). Every year we dispose of 24 million tons of leaves and grass clipping which could be composted to reserve landfill space. Food waste is the 1/3 largest component of generated waste. The amount of food waste has increased by 1.2 million tons in the last 25 years. It costs over 1billion dollars each year to dispose of food waste. Meanwhile 11 million Americans go hungry every year. Your tasty green plants love compost, but it’s too much power for the seedlings. TOP 10 REASONS TO BUY ORGANIC 1. Protect Future Generations The average child receives 4 times more exposure than an adult. 2. Prevent Soil Erosion More than 3 billion tons of topsoil are eroded from US croplands each year, 7 times faster than it is being built up naturally. 3. Protect Water Quality Water makes up 2/3 of our body mass and covers * of the planet, need we say more? 4. Save Energy More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizer than to till, cultivate and harvest all the crops in the US. 5. Keep Chemicals Off Your Plate The EPA now considers 90% of all fungicides, 60% of all herbicides and 30% of all insecticides to be cancer causing. 6. Protect Farm Worker Health In California, pesticide poisonings among farm workers have risen an average of 14% a year since 1973 and doubled between 1975 and 1985. 7. Help Small Farmers It’s estimated that the US has lost more than 650,000 family farms in the past decade. 8. Support a True Economy Conventional food prices do not reflect the hidden cost supported by taxpayers….pesticide regulation and testing, hazardous waste disposal and clean up, and environmental damage. 9. Promote Biodiversity Continuously planted single crops diminish soil nutrients and minerals, are more susceptible to pests and increases the want of pesticides. 10.Taste Better Flavor It just tastes soooo much better. RECYCLNG INFORMATION: REDUCE and REUSE first, then RECYCLE. HALF of what we throw away is could be recycled. North Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles….. EVERY HOUR! Every Sunday, more than a half million trees are used to produce the Sunday newspapers, 88% of which are not recycled. Every 3 months, Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire US commercial airline fleet. In the US, more than half the paper and glass produced and about 1/3 of the plastics are made into items with a life span of less than one year. The Federal Government pours an average of 12.6 billion dollars a year into subsidies that discourage recycling. Instead they’re in favor of chopping trees, mining metals, smelting aluminum and burying trash. CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN! Recycling creates more jobs for both urban and rural communities than landfills or incineration options, as well as being cost competitive. POLLUTION INFORMATION: Americans uses approximately 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides every year. Research shows that target pests will eventually develop resistance to these pesticides anyway.73 different pesticides have been found in our ground water, which is potential drinking water. More than 100 active pesticide ingredients are suspected of causing CANCER, BIRTH DEFFECTS, and GENE MUTATION. Each year US factories spew 3 million tons of toxic chemicals into the air, land, and water. More than 20% of all insecticides are used to treat a pest that could be controlled by simply using crop rotation. The ozone hole over Antarctica is 3 times the size of the continental US. For every 2% decrease in the ozone layer, there is a 1% increase in skin cancer. Atrazine, a top selling pesticide, contaminated the drinking supplies of 796 towns and cities this summer. WATER INFORMATION: 1.3 Billion people worldwide have no access to clean water. 2.4 Million rural Americans are badly in need of a source of safe drinking water. 1 Million rural Americans are without piped water. By 2025, 1 in every 3 people will live in a country with a shortage of fresh water. Household pesticide use is the #1 polluter of our fresh water supply, not factories. There is the same amount of water on the Earth as there was when the Earth was formed. This summer, the tap water of 796 US towns and cities was contaminated with Trazine, a top selling pesticide that is known to cause cancer. The average person in the US uses 50 gallons of water at home everyday. North American households use twice as much water as European households, but pay half as much for it. The cost of one nuclear weapons test could finance the installation of 80,000 hand pumps, giving third world villages access to clean water. A 7,000 square mile dead zone exists in the Gulf of Mexico from the fertilizer runoff carried by the Mississippi River, and it’s getting worse. 10% of all the world’s coral reef has died. TO SAVE WATER Don’t let it run needlessly…turn off the faucet! Make sure faucets don’t drip. Water lawn in morning to prevent evaporation. Use cold water whenever you can. Take quick showers & linger in lakes and oceans. HOW CLEAN IS YOUR WATER? Pesticides currently contaminate almost every stream and half of all wells sampled in the US. At any particular time, averages of 7-8 different pesticides have been found in each stream. The most commonly detected pesticides in streams and ground water are weedkillers, including Atrazine, Metachlor, Prometon, and Simazine. Water is the primary media in which pesticides are transported from application area to your neck of the woods. SOLID WASTE INFORMATION: The US generates approximately 208 million tons of solid waste every year. That means each person throws away 4.3 pound a day and 1,569 pounds a year. 95% of solid waste goes into landfills. 50% of all US landfills desperately need repairs so they won’t leak. Every year some 45,000 tons of plastic waste is dumped into the worlds oceans, killing 100,000 marine animals and 1 million seabirds. Waste disposal costs the US more than 10 billion dollars, every year. NYC will close its last remaining landfill in 2001…. LOOK OUT UPSTATE NY!!!! Interstate shipments of garbage are on the rise. From 1995-1997, shipments rose 32%. Reducing the amount of waste you generate saves you $$$. (Composting is free) WHAT YOU CAN DO! WALK!!!…..*1/2 of all US auto trips are under 3 miles. At the very least, carpool. TURN OFF THE LIGHTS….. Electricity uses more fresh water than any other activity. BUY ORGANIC…..Doesn’t pollute the Earth of you! AVOID DISPOSABLE…..Come on…Grandma did without it and so can you! CARRY A MUG WITH YOU….You’ll be amazed what you save everyday. CARRY REUSABLE BAGS…..The average family uses 13 shopping bags a week or 676 bags a year. BUY LOCAL!!!….It saves transportation fuel, reduces packaging, and supports your neighbors. AVOID BUYING OVERPACKAGED GOODS …. Packaging accounts for 50% of all paper and 90% of all glass produced in North America. BUY DURABLE GOODS… Products like hemp are more durable and will last longer. COMP0ST PILE….Save organics from the over-crowded landfills and save yourself money. REPLACE PAPER PRODUCTS….Use reusable cloth versions of paper products. DO NOT USE PESTICIDES….Most pests become immune eventually but the cancer stays with you forever….need we say more? Organic methods are available. SOAKER HOSES…Use drip irrigation to reduce water waste. INFORM YOURSELF… 7 out of 10 Americans can’t identify the source of “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. (Declaration of Independence) BUY IN BULK….Reduces packaging and saves $$$ WASHDAY…Install a clothesline and do full loads. SCRAP PAPER…Use both sides of all paper before recycling. CLOTHING...No dry cleaning! (dreadful chemicals) |
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