Make Peace With Pot

NY Times ^ | April 26, 2004 | ERIC SCHLOSSER

[cinFLA]

"It tastes like lumber."

Since when is medicine required to taste good?

[cinFLA]

I thought it was Reagan:

"While Nixon had gone after the drug users, Reagan waged war on the dealers. He needed more federal police power for that. Reagan was able to press the FBI into service, something presidents Johnson and Nixon had been unable to do. This was after the death of J. Edgar Hoover, who knew the enormous potential for police corruption by the narcotics trade, and had protected his agency from that duty during the sixty years that he led it.
Congress took the ball and ran. One politician after another "piled on" to try to outdo each other in their anti-drug extremism, like sharks in a feeding frenzy, and this culminated in the Omnibus Crime Bill of 1984. This bill appropriated vast sums of money and instituted emergency measures—mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, preventive detention (no bail) for drug suspects, and a market-driven approach to law-enforcement through confiscation of suspects' assets. October 11th, the day of its passage, may well have been the "D-Day" in the War on Drugs.

As Reagan and his Congress were turning the drug war into an inquisition, the Supreme Court was blessing its crusaders with extraordinary new powers. First among them was the broad application of RICO—the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—to drug dealing cases, and the blurring of civil and criminal forfeiture into a single method by which law enforcement agencies could take away someone's home without even filing any charges against them. Police departments were allowed to sell these assets and keep the proceeds. The forfeiture business eventually became so lucrative that law-enforcement agencies dropped practically everything else and went scrambling after boats and homes.

The hundred-year-old Possee Comitatus Act, which had forbid the use of the military in civilian law-enforcement, was suspended. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger advised that, "Reliance on military forces to accomplish civilian tasks is detrimental to both military readiness and democratic process." Others would would use stronger words; that using the military for civilian law-enforcement constitutes martial law.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing us freedom from unwarranted search, was finally rejected. Customs instituted "involuntary indefinite incommunicado detentions," requiring international travelers to defecate into a bag upon demand. The exclusionary rule, which had required that evidence be obtained by legal means, no longer applied as long as the police acted in "good faith" to solve a crime. Probable cause was no longer needed to search people; drug courier profiles, such as "belonging to a minority group associated with the drug trade," were sufficient. Anonymous informants and tips could now be used to obtain search warrants, inviting people to use law-enforcement as a weapon against their enemies. "

[cinFLA]

It HAS to be Reagan ...

"How Ronald Reagan Solved Two Problems with Cocaine
When times changed, so did the drug wars. Under Ronald Reagan, during the 1980s, drug policy became an important part of the way the U.S. ruling class dealt with two important political problems.

First, Reagan needed a way to finance the counter-revolutionary war that the U.S. was waging against Nicaragua. While everyone knew that the U.S. was running this war, the government couldn't admit it for political, legal and diplomatic reasons. So it had to be officially secret and officially unfunded.

Second, Reagan needed a way to justify his program for dealing with the crisis in the ghettos. In those Reagan years, the economy passed through a hard period of recession and an expansion of "rustbelt" shutdowns. Cuts in government spending and other cutbacks, on top of the huge job loss, created levels of misery that hadn't been seen in 50 years. Such misery created instability and the danger of resistance.

Reagan's people, particularly the forces around Vice President George Bush and the CIA, solved the first problem by taking the counter-revolutionary forces in Nicaragua (the contras) and directing them toward the illegal drug business. The CIA essentially hired the private airlines of drug traffickers in the Caribbean basin to secretly transport guns and supplies for the contras. In exchange, the drug operations of these traffickers and their contra allies were allowed to fly into the U.S. unopposed--including onto major U.S. airports and military bases. Funds from major drug rings in L.A. and Miami flowed to the contras.

Contras and allied drug-traffickers who ran afoul of drug agents were repeatedly helped by their contacts in the U.S. government. Agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency circulated complaints inside the government that whenever they had developed a legal case against some major drug-trafficker, the CIA would come in and use this legal threat to blackmail the trafficker into the network supplying their secret war. And the DEA was then "called off"--because the trafficker was now valuable as an "asset."

Beginning around 1983, and in significant part pushed on by the CIA-sponsored contras themselves, cheap cocaine flooded into ghettos of New York and L.A.--into the economic life of inner cities that were becoming a wasteland of closing factories. Much of it was turned into crack--a smokeable form of cocaine that gives the same intense high at a much cheaper price. Soon, crack was widely available in the ghettos and barrios of New York and L.A. Within several years, nearly every major city was faced with a tidal wave of crack.

The CIA has (predictably) denied any role in the cocaine trade. And the system's mainstream media act like it is "paranoia" to believe that the government might specifically target Black communities with cheap cocaine."

[tacticalogic]

Let me guess. You're a big fan of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

[cinFLA]

vote Libertarian.

And legalize crack for kids and same sex /any sex unions and open the borders to the terrorists and end the war against terrorism ...

[cinFLA]

You are quoting a 1995 article which is first, out of date and second, not verifiable.

[cinFLA]

Why believe anything from a person that believes the MLDA was 18 in Florida in the Sixties.

[cinFLA]

I don't have the numbers, but isn't the MJ consumed in the US primarily grown in North America?

No.

[cinFLA]

In the case of the Netherlands, doesn't most of the money from the MJ trade go to the small, regulated retailers and the government? Can't imagine there's much of a black market there for pot.

Boy are you ignorant of the Netherlands! Where do you think the coffee shops get their supply?

[cinFLA]

- The biggest drug pusher -


The billionaire financier said he, too, bears some responsibility for the new anti-Semitism, citing last month’s speech by Malaysia’s outgoing prime minister, Mahathir Mohammad, who said, “Jews rule the world by proxy.”

“I’m also very concerned about my own role because the new anti-Semitism holds that the Jews rule the world,” said Soros, whose projects and funding have influenced governments and promoted various political causes around the world.

“As an unintended consequence of my actions,” he said, “I also contribute to that image.”

[tacticalogic]

No.

I'm willing to bet you can't back that up.

[tacticalogic]

Sorry, I'm not making peace with the New Deal so you can have a war on pot.

[cinFLA]

Sorry, I'm not making peace with the New Deal so you can have a war on pot.

Doesn't make sense? Are you saying that you, like your associate, tpaine, support Soros?

[N3WBI3]

medicinal purposes, without a prescription

I have no problem with people using pot, but I think its better to draw the line on pot than I do on crack. I love the pot heads always claiming the medicinal benefits of pot but notice the 'without prescription' part, just an excuse for them to toke up..

[N3WBI3]

And Crack Cocain, and meth, and acid, and toad licking, and repeal the age limits on any of these drugs, and lets give more abotion on demand... vote Libertarian..

[robertpaulsen]

"you would have us believe there is no such thing as a responsible pot smoker"

There is no such thing as a responsible pot smoker. Breaking the law is not responsible behavior.

Alcohol is legal. But would you say a 15-year-old drinking bourbon is acting responsibly?

Hell, you probably would.

[cinFLA]

Do you agree that a black market in pot provides more of an opportunity for terrorist funding than a regulated, above ground market, as the Dutch have?

Please. If you are going to talk about drugs, get educated. The pot market in the Netherands is all black market!

[Dominic Harr]

Alcohol can be used responsibly. The only purpose of drug use is to get high and getting high is a negligent act that endangers innocent people.

This is one of the 'IQ Test' issues out there today, an issue so obvious that it can be used as an indicator of someone's ability to reason.

If you can't see the obvious contradiction in the above quote, then there is literally no helping you, reason is just not one of your skill sets.

[cinFLA]

Of course. Without question.

How can you agree with his false posit?

[robertpaulsen]

"The only purpose of alcohol use is to get drunk ..."

What???

Alcohol is used in religious ceremonies, in social settings, as a toast, in recipes, as gifts, to enhance meals, in medicine, to quench a thirst, all without "getting drunk".