General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJoin us to oppose the war on drugs
Ready to join U.S. and Mexico's "Caravan of Peace"? I want to be join this, somewhere along the line with as many friends as I can. Anyone interested in joining in, too? I would love to have some DU'ers be part of the Caravan.
U.S. and Mexico's "Caravan of Peace" Gearing Up to End the Drug War
Groups concerned with the border, immigrant rights, human rights, racial justice, and labor are all coming on board to end the war on drugs.
Aghast and appalled at the bloody results of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's war on drugs, which has resulted in at least 50,000 deaths since he deployed the military against the so-called drug cartels in December 2006 and possibly as many as 70,000, dozens of organizations in Mexico and the US announced Monday that they will take part in a "Caravan for Peace" that will journey across the US late this summer in a bid to change failed drug war policies on both sides of the border.
Caravan launch at Museo Memoria y Tolerancia, Plaza Juárez, Mexico City (@CaravanaUSA @MxLaPazMx)
Led by Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, who was spurred to action by the murder of his son by cartel members in Cuernavaca in 2010, and the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) he heads, the caravan will depart from San Diego on August 12 and arrive in Washington on September 10 after traveling some 6,000 miles to bring to the American people and their elected officials the bi-national message that failed, murderous drug war policies must end.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/155945/u.s._and_mexico%27s_%22caravan_of_peace%22_gearing_up_to_end_the_drug_war/?page=1
Peace and Justice of La Luz
http://pajoll.org
oldgeezer1928
(2 posts)Americas WAR on DRUGS
A coup de tat against the Constitution for the United States
and the Fifth and Sixth Articles of Amendment thereto!
June 21, 2012 By: Duane R. Olson
Theory of Constitution Law and Strategy of Argument
Careful research and analysis of the seductive capacity of toxic words and words of art in the bifurcated and cryptic statutes of the COMPREHENSIVE DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION and CONTROL ACT of 1970 reveal the undeniable self-evident fact that the Ninety-First Congress never intended that a violation of Title 21, United States Code, Section 841(a)(1) to be a federal-crime against the laws of the United States by any person at random who would buy, sell, use, or abuse drugs, narcotics, hallucinates, or controlled substances .
While it is true that Congress has the power to regulate-commerce interstate/intrastate by virtue of the necessary and proper clause, the Ninety-First Congress has absolutely NO constitutional or statutory power to PROHIBIT, FORBID, or make it UNLAWFUL for any person at random and NOT registered by the attorney general to buy, sell, use, or abuse drugs, narcotics, hallucinates, or controlled substances, whatever they are now or ever will be! The Peoples insatiable desire to use and abuse drugs, narcotics, and hallucinates, has nothing whatsoever to do with Congress desire To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations and among the several States.
Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, * * * are constitutional Chief Justice Marshall, McCulloch: 4 Wheat (17U.S.) @ 421
To be precise, federal jurisdictional authority to arrest, prosecute, hear, adjudicate, and punish any person alleged, found, or who admitted to be in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Section 841(a)(1) comes NOT from any language in the Constitution or the enumerated power of nterstate and foreign commerce in the controlling statute, Title 21 U.S.C. § 841, to conduct Americas IL-legal and UN-constitutional WAR on DRUGS, but rather;
Federal jurisdictional authority to arrest, prosecute, hear, adjudicate, and punish any person alleged, found, or who admitted to be in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Section 841(a)(1) comes from a real, binding, and voluntary contractual agreement where money changed hands between the registrant and the attorney general of the United States for federal jurisdiction to be federally-regulated in the closed commercial system of controlled substances!
After the Ninety-First Congress enacted the Controlled Substance Act of 1970, nothing much happened with the federal drug laws and then, in 1975, Mr. Justice LEWIS F. POWELL penned the constructive implication for the unanimous opinion of the BURGER Supreme Court that the isolated and truncated phrase of; nlawful for any person in the statute §841 of Title 21, United States Code, quote; By its own terms . . . reaches any person without any identification of the jurisdictional element in either the Constitution or the statute §841 itself for federal jurisdiction in personam over the conduct of any person on this planet.
Without further reference to the Legislative History of Public Law: 91-513, or any other reference to either the eighteen enumerated powers of the federal Constitution or the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 and particularly, the statute §841 itself, Mr. Justice POWELL went on to make his own conclusion of law to create the constructive-crime against any person on this planet by stating, quote; §841 was reserved for prosecution of those outside the legitimate distribution chain [and] the severe punishment provided for in §841(b) [are] for those seeking to avoid regulation entirely by not registering. In point of fact, it would be IL-legal and UN-constitutional to punish any person for NOT voluntarily entering into a contractual agreement with anyone!
MOREOVER; there is not one syllable of language in the text of the Legislative History of Public Law: 91-513 or the Controlled Substance Act itself and more importantly, in the language of the text of the statute §841 itself that even suggests that; [t]he severe penalties provided for in §841(b) [are] for those seeking to avoid regulation entirely by not registering.
That is to say, a violation of Title 21, United States Code, Section 841(a)(1) is NOT a federal-crime against the laws of the United States but rather; a violation of Title 21, United States Code, Section 841(a)(1) is a material breach of a real and binding contractual agreement with the attorney general of the United States and a civil matter of equity in which ONLY the attorney general of the United States suffered-injury for which the law offers a remedy. There is no identifiable language in Title 21, United States Code, Section 841 that indicates any-injury or the actus reus element to interstate/intrastate or foreign commerce!
Consequently, the executive and judicial branches of the government of the United States have conducted their WAR on DRUGS against any person in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution for 35-years to arrest, prosecute, convict, and punish hundreds of thousands of men and women from nearly every nation on this planet (with dead-bodies on both sides) in the most repugnant scheme every perpetrated by a government against its own people in the History of the World under color of assumptions, presumptions, and F R A U D !
Self-evident proof
The punishment prescribed by the Ninety-First Congress is Intentionally and Specifically reserved, restricted, and limited to; [a]ny person who violates subsection(a) of this section referencing; Title 21, United States Code, Section 841 and; (a) Except as authorized by this subchapter referencing the Authorized activities of Title 21, United States Code, Section 822(b) and; Persons registered by the Attorney General [who] are authorized to possess, manufacture, distribute, or dispense such substances * * * to the extent authorized by their registration and contractual agreement!
Moreover; unless one fabricates some sort of legislative-power for Congress to enact statutory law that would VOID the Peoples Perpetual Protections Secured and Guaranteed by the due process of law clauses in the Fifth and Sixth Articles of Amendment to the Constitution for the United States;
The exemptions and exceptions of the Burden of proof statute, Title 21, United States Code, Section 885, make it constitutionally I M P O S I B L E for a violation of Title 21, United States Code, Section 841(a)(1) to ever be a federal-crime against the laws of the United States
The injured-party is NOT nterstate commerce or foreign trade but rather the injured-party is the attorney general of the United States and whether or not the PENALTIES prescribed in Title 21, United States Code, Section 841(b) are constitutional or [c]ruel and unusual punishment for a material breach of a voluntary contractual agreement with the attorney general of the United States need not be addressed in this paper.
Xyzse
(8,217 posts)To say that one "opposes" a "war on drugs" just doesn't sound right.
How about, "Re-focusing the war on drugs" or something that involves changing tactics. Because opposing something that is generally perceived to be going against something bad seems like a losing proposition.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)50,000 people brutally murdered in Mexico over the past few years means that what should have been policies to reduce the use of drugs including education and treatment, has instead created a powerful 'army' of armed and dangerous, murderous thugs, not to mention taking away many of our rights, bolstering the Private Prison Industry, creating in the US the biggest prison population in the world, while doing nothing to reduce drug-use.
When policies fail to this extent, it is imperative to change them, IF the goal actually was to deal with drug-use.
How many decades has this 'war' been going on, how much money has been spent on it?
Addiction is not a crime, it is a medical problem and had all this money been spent on research and treatment, we might have made some progress towards reducing the awful effects of drug-use.
Instead, this 'war' has contributed to unbelievable violence empowering some of the lowest of the low members of society who now have more power in some cases, than governments. Killing judges, law-enforcement agents with impunity, while the only people going to jail are apparently pot smokers.
The first step towards ending this disaster is to de-criminalize drugs then regulate them, removing the money from the hands of society's most criminal elements.
That seems to be what has finally dawned on countries most affected by our great War on Drugs, after all these years. Too bad it took so long.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)They begin in San Diego on August 12 and will go 6,000 miles and hit 25 cities on their way to DC.
A whole lot of interrelated issues are in play here: War on drugs, immigration policy, militarization of the border, human rights...