About the USWeedLaws Freedom Score
Understanding the Freedom Score
We take this subject very seriously. Our position at USWeedLaws is that people who have found relief or pleasure through the use of Marijuana have been unfairly villified for nearly a century and it's time for that nonsense to stop.
The villification takes the form not only of making people socially uncomfortable with the fact that they enjoy cannabis and the stigma which in many areas still surrounds this useful plant but even more directly through unfair fines and incarcerations.
We'll go further then to express that imprisoning people for a healthy plant is about as un-american as one can imagine. This very country was founded on the rights to personal liberty and this invasion of our freedom and privacy can NOT be accepted.
With that, we want to credit the states which have taken it upon themselves to counter these unjecst laws in the USA by issuing a Freedom Score to indicate in which States a person can consider themselves "Free" to pursue Happiness on their own terms.
States which score higher respect your right to live as you wish so long as you harm noone. States with failing or low grades are essentially slave states to at least some degree where you're free to end up in jail for relaxing with a nice doob, yet go get a fifth or whisky (which kills you and impairs so much) and you're fine there.
How we arrive at the score
If Freedom Scores are not yet listed on this site, count on the fact that we're working on developing the algorithm and intend to have it placed soon.
Overall the score provides a grade from 0 (%) (no freedom, go to jail, go directly to jail) to 100 (%) woohoo, smoke as you wish and maybe some other mind-altering substances as well!
This will include points for Medical Legal, Personal Legal and Home Grow Legal as well as availability for points indicating hwo good or bad each of those details are set up, again, in respect to personal liberty.
Medical
40 points
We strongly believe that allowing Medical access is the most important of rights. For those who are diagnosed with illness or simply dealing with the stress of life. If a person is in such a situation and Cannabis will help them feel better this MUST be allowed. States immediately get 40 points credit for having a medical program in the state that allows full THC.
This is more than the two other sections as it iis both critically important to people and also often the first step we've seen states take to opening up to the real freedom we deserve which is personal use.
States will get the 40 points at this stage regardless of how good or bad their medical access is but points can be added or removed later in evaluation if their program is particularly good or bad.
Personal Use
30 points
We believe Personal Use* is the next major measure of Freedom. While states are currently using the term "recreational" we strongly feel this is a misnomer. The reasons people want cannabis are personal and none of anyones business. More on that to come.
That said, all states which offer Personal Use access are granted 30 points. There can be particulars of a personal use program which c ould add or detract from that in the general purpose detail.
Home Grow
15 points
Home grow is another "right" we take seriously. If we remove the bureaucracy (and bs) "Weed" isn't that hard to cultivate. Many hobbyists would do this on their own and botanists would be creating new variants with nutritional profiles for a myriad of conditions. Another thing likely to happen then is it would help contain costs as dispensaries would now cost factor that if prices are too high and people need it for medicinal or personal use they have the option to grow their own and it should mean for a small fraction of the current cost.
The main reason this isn't set at as high a value as Personal and Medical legal is mostly that this tends to follow those legal steps as a transition. Once those are in place it becomes easier to have the right to create our own.
Considerations here: How to keep it safe so people who are too young to be responsible for some of the potential adverse affects are protected and prevented from premature dependency?
Etc. +/-
15 points
Then we have the etc. factor which differentiates between the better programs and bad ones.
For example, if a state has medical but very restrictive points can be deducted for that reason. If the state has Personal Use and it's awesomely crafted to serve the people who consume and communities impacted greatly by prohibition they can be added points. States with great Medical, Personal and Home Grow programs could earn all points and score 100%. Very rare but we are eager to document this all for you.
