War on Drugs
This country's war on drugs is embarrassing.
Beyond this point you can replace "War on Drugs" with "War on Citizens"
or more specifically, a war on those that have little social or economic power
and choose a method of escape other than alcohol and/or prescription drugs.
Cannabis in the War On Drugs
occupies the same position as 9/11 in the War on/of Terror.
Both based on lies. Fear works very, very well.
Our leaders need to address this nations addiction to drug
war money.
LEAP ( Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition ) has a great idea.
Legalize and Regulate Dangerous Drugs.
Good MP3
from
Time4Hemp.com
It is not the fault of everyday people
and it is not the fault of most of our law
enforcement.
It is the system and it's policies regarding drugs and the people
who choose to use them.
Especially with regard to Marijuana, we have failed. Absolutely Failed.
Progress in the drug war can only be measured with respect to hiding its
failure.
Once you realize that a good portion of your money that is going to fight drugs
is for arrest
and prosecution of Marijuana possession charges (over 750,000 people in 2008) ,
it becomes apparent that we are throwing money down a hole. It didn't work for alcohol 80
years ago and it's not working now.
Put pot in the same class as alcohol
and nicotine and control it accordingly, take all the money we're throwing down
that hole now and put it into real drug programs for the serious drugs. We could
then re-label our war as a successful campaign. But then I realize there
is much more money available for a war on drugs as opposed to a successful
campaign.
You just have to wonder: If the tens of thousands of law
enforcement officers, the millions of man-hours, and the billions of dollars
that were spent monitoring, investigating, arresting, charging, processing,
jailing, and bringing to trial non-violent marijuana users had been used,
instead, for harmful drugs.
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The 1972 National
Commission on Marijuana and Drug Use. In its report, that commission,
appointed by President Richard M. Nixon, contained this conclusion:
"Marihuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of
individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a
social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it.
This judgment is based on prevalent, use patterns, on behavior exhibited
by the vast majority of users and on our interpretations of existing
medical and scientific data. This position also is consistent with the
estimate by law enforcement personnel that the elimination of use is
unattainable."
These findings are just as valid now as then. Unfortunately for all
of us, the commission's findings were not what Nixon or other repressive
people wanted to hear, so the report was never acted upon. We still
treat marijuana as if it were some kind of deadly poison. |
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