Laws regarding marijuana sale, possession and cultivation vary greatly from state to state. While federal laws such as the Controlled Substances Act and the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 have sought to consolidate laws regarding marijuana and narcotics, each of the 50 states have put into effect their own policies regarding marijuana. Because of this federalist approach to controlling drug policy, Ohio along with Oregon, Colorado, California, Arkansas, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina and Nebraska have passed laws decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana.

Smoking, Growing and Selling in Ohio

In 1975, the Ohio legislature joined California, Oregon, New York and several other states in de-criminalizing small amounts of marijuana. The Ohio revised code was amended to state that possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana is a civil citation carrying a fine of $100. The sale or delivery of 20 grams or less of marijuana, for no remuneration (payment), is also considered possession, and is a civil citation carrying a $100 fine.

Many words are taboo when used to describe Israel's actions against Palestinians.  One word in specific, genocide, sparks emotions that echo across Israel, Europe and America.  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines genocide as 'the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.' What is happening in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip today is dangerously encroaching on genocide, close enough so that the pictures of Palestinians in Rafah loading their meager belongings on carts and evacuating their homes are too reminiscent of another time, another place and another people. These very same images should be setting off alarms in the hearts and minds of Israelis. Unfortunately, at stake is not the lexicon of conflict but rather, our children, and we refuse to sit still to watch a deaf, dumb and blind world steal their future from them.

A few weeks ago, Israeli Professor and Political Sociologist at Ben Gurion University Lev Grinberg wrote an article that created an uproar in Israel titled, Symbolic Genocide [1].  In it Professor Grinberg wrote, 'Unable to

OCEANSIDE -- Head south from Los Angeles on Interstate 5 and the only respite from the houses, subdivisions and trailer parks marching down the Pacific coastline comes with the thousands of acres of the U.S. Marine Corps training base at Camp Pendleton and the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (tastefully labeled SONGS on Southern California Edison's signs). Protected by the Marines and the graceful twin domes of the nuclear plant, nature survives on the coastal bluffs above the beaches.

            If the empire's forward outpost is currently in Baghdad, surely the valley bottoms, mesas and shoreline of San Diego County, guarded on its northern edge by Camp Pendleton, offer a useful clue as to how power and privilege work in the imperial homeland. Looking beyond the laconic surfers lining up at dawn at Old Man's at San Onofre, and at the eager sightseers swarming into Legoland, we see a sour tableau of speculation, hyper-charged suburban development, dislocation and skyrocketing household debt.

I am a frustrated Australian. Apart from one or to journalists with the courage to print the truth, all our daily papers are nothing but mouth pieces supporting our governments participation in this sham. Harvey Wasserman's article resonates my views precisely, except I would take it further. Apart from jailing these despots, I would also make them pay war reparations to Iraq from their own finances, I believe that would be fair.

They have lied and passed the buck enough. With the plethora of intelligence agencies at their disposal, only a complete fool could believe that the President of the United States had no knowledge of the torture that was transpiring, and that they were unaware that Saddam Hussein was not a threat to America or world peace. In both cases they had the unmitigated audacity to pass the buck pleading their ignorance. These court martials are nothing more than a diabolical  side show to appease the international the community, and the Iraqi populace.