The War on Drugs and sound science.

[Oldenuff]

When it comes to the EPA, President Obama recently said that "rigid ideology has overruled sound science" as he implemented some well-needed science back into the department. I just want to know how soon we can apply this to the War on Drugs, which has wasted so much money, ruined so many lives and has kept a black market thriving because demand hasn't dropped at all. We have a full-on narco war across the Mexican border, which is spilling into our cities and national parks. We have more people in prison for non-violent drug possession than most other countries do for all crimes combined. And the DEA continues to raid medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have approved them, even though Obama has said these raids will stop under his administration. To wit: On Jan. 22, the DEA - assisted by the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, the South Lake Tahoe-El Dorado County Narcotics Enforcement Team and the South Lake Tahoe Police - raided Ken Estes' Patient to Patient Collective in Lake Tahoe. It occured just two days after the Inauguration. Estes, a 44-year-old quadriplegic and single parent, had nine employees and had paid over $51,000 in sales taxes to the state in the past three months. One more fact: in 2007, over 800,000 people were arrested on marijuana-related offenses, 89% for simple possession, according to NORML. The US has the highest level of marijuana use despite having some of the strictest anti-marijuana laws. The fact that the laws are doing nothing to undermine demand should be a huge red flag that our drug policies are not working for us. Well, they are working for the Prison Industry and for the Law Enforcement budget and for the Black Market, but certainly not for US Citizens individually or collectively.

More at the click:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/sound-science-and-the-war_b_162117.html

[wildbilln864]

1. it is insanity....

the drug war. Thanks for posting this.
And all the while the feds are prosecuting marijuana users, they're manufacturing and distributing marijuana to seven recipients in the federal marijuana program. WTF!?? :banghead:

[Occulus]

3. I heard about these people years and years ago

As I recall, our local paper did a rather surprisingly lengthy article on the program well over a decade ago.

How is it that these people can, and the rest of us cannot? Why are they completely free from prosecution, while something like 99.99~% of the rest of us are not?

Can someone explain to me how this is legal? Precisely and exactly how?

Cite the statute, if you will. I'm very curious, and equally certain the details of this program are just as obscure. Methinks, with MA decriminalizing and several states (including mine) legalizing for medical purposes, the public deserves to be reminded of this.

[Webster Green]

5. I have toked up with two out of the seven..

We've been lied to since 1937, and it is time to put an end to the lies.

Obama knows the pot laws are bullshit. He should step up, and put an end to it!

I don't think there is a down-side. Everyone knows that the laws are fucked. (except for the 17%ers) Fuck them!

[Greyhound]

6. Yet every cycle we are told, and probably will be here as well, that there

is just no political or popular support for it. That any politician that advocates legalization will be voted out of office.

80 years of suffering and loss to protect the paper, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries.

[wildbilln864]

8. and the oil industries!

Hemp oil is much better than deisel(siq)! :hi:

[Greyhound]

10. Indeed, I didn't include that or any of the dozens of other uses because they weren't

really significant in '37. Domestic oil was cheap and plentiful then.

[wildbilln864]

9. And how can the government say that....

their pain is any more deserving of marijuana than mine? :banghead: I watched Montel Williams on a video protesting that fact.

[mrgerbik]

14. while we are at it

let's reconstitute some form of alcohol from crops (it dosent HAVE to be corn to work well) for fuel .. like the old days where almost every farmer would produce his own fuel from his excess crop. This in conjunction with growing hemp for other uses and the many other 'lost arts' of sustainable living would so WONDERS for this fUkd up, centralized bullshit economy where the majority of almost every single dollar we spend gets siphoned off to a small majortiy on Wall St. Its time!

check out permaculture http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/index/ its been talking about this for years -- its just too bad that we have to relearn alot of the things our forefathers took for granted. we've been dumbed down and we know it :P

[Oldenuff]

12. Yep,

99.99% of Americans have no idea that the federal government has a Medical Marijuana Program....If you are a federal MMJ participant no problem.If you are a State MMJ patient,you are fair game for the DEA...Ahhh,hypocrisy at it's finest, and i it's truest form.
Thanks for mentioning the federal program!

[mrgerbik]

2. the war on drugs

was put in place to allow the cia-mobsters to stay in control of the worldwide drug trade. ever seen how much more poppy is coming out of afghanistan since the invasion?

[misanthrope]

4. Yeah right, with drug warrior supreme Joe Biden playing second banana?...

...Yet one more POTUS with no spine for doling out the hard truth in regard to this matter.

[Greyhound]

7. K&R #5, welcome ot the greatest page.

[Uncle Joe]

11. This is a good column explaining the history or roots behind

the asinine, illogical policy of "The War Against Marijuana Users and Hemp Growers."

Wouldn't you know it, the same people/corporations; Bil Oil, making obscene profits and now accused of destroying life as we know it via global warming climate change were/are behind it.

In short, weed was demonized by the devil.

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Oldenuff.

[MagickMuffin]

13. Yet Mad king Boy George PARDONS coke dealers

Didn't ya know if Congress don't pass tougher laws then they are "SOFT on DRUGS."

You have to be "HARD ON drugs."

rethuglicons have been getting their HARD ONs for a very long long time when it comes to Cannabis.

It's all part of their hatred for the Counter Culture.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. "Would legalising marijuana do harm" is the wrong question.

The answer to that one is almost certainly "yes, it will drive a small but non-trivial number of people to schizophrenia, among other things".

But the right question is "will legalising marijuana do more harm than continuing to criminalise it".

Try and work out what else could be done with the time and money spend on fighting marijuana use and imprisoning users.

[Oldenuff]

16. for me

it's all about personal freedoms,and the notion that a government has the right to legislate those freedoms.

I should think that a constitutional lawyer would understand the concept...not that I am "digging" at anyone who might be a constitutional lawyer or anything.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

17. All legislation legislates personal freedoms

If the government doesn't have the right to pass legislation preventing people doing things they were previously free to do, it doesn't have the right to pass legislation.

The question is not "does the government have the right to ban marijuana" - it does; it *has* the right to do anything the laws and the electorate allow it do to - but "is the government right to ban marijuana".

[Enthusiast]

18. If we simply removed every law

pertaining to marijuana from the books we would be better off. Street values of marijuana would drop to almost nothing in a flash.