Posted on 04/03/2009 5:15:06 PM PDT by sdcraigo
For the past several years, I've been harboring a fantasy, a last political crusade for the baby-boom generation. We, who started on the path of righteousness, marching for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam, need to find an appropriately high-minded approach to life's exit ramp...I even have a slogan for the campaign: "Tune in, turn on, drop dead." A fantasy, I suppose. But, beneath the furious roil of the economic crisis, a national conversation has quietly begun about the irrationality of our drug laws. It is going on in state legislatures, like New York's, where the draconian Rockefeller drug laws are up for review; in other states, from California to Massachusetts, various forms of marijuana decriminalization are being enacted. And it has reached the floor of Congress, where Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter have proposed a major prison-reform package, which would directly address drug-sentencing policy. ...The hypocrisy inherent in the American conversation about stimulants is staggering. But there are big issues here, issues of economy and simple justice, especially on the sentencing side. As Webb pointed out in a cover story in Parade magazine, the U.S. is, by far, the most "criminal" country in the world, with 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
How disengenuos." Most drug dealers, drug cartel members are committing "non-violent drug crimes" until they have to whack somebody. 1/3 of prisoners in this country aren't in prison for breaking up an ounce of pot with their buddies.
Take the profit out of selling dope and the gangsters doing it will find another criminal enterprise like kidnapping and home invasions.
I actually agree with legalizing marijuana, and then taxing the hell out of it.
Legalizing “happy smoke”, no matter which party does it, will triple the size of the DemocRATS’ voter base. Good move here for the ‘RATS.
potheads don’t give a CRAP about anything besides pot. That is ALL that matters.
The rest is just silly diversions to their addiction and mental problems.
Remember Ashly Roachclip's excuse for legalizing marijuana?
It’s illegal because it’s immoral, not immoral because it’s illegal.
Is alcohol immoral?
There is water at the bottom of the ocean.
When is the last time you saw a pothead go on a shooting rampage ?
“Weed will get you through the times of no money better than money will get you through the times of no weed”... Furry Freak Brothers
No, despite my allusion to Cheech and Chong I have actually seen none of their material. I suppose you might enlighten us? :)
Legalize it! And watch them disappear into a purple haze.
On voting day, they will be too busy to go.
Make it legal and tax them for what they previously paid for dealer protection.
Offer rehab to those strong enough to resist...they are the conservatives.
Before he died, William F. Buckley Jr., founder and once senior editor of National Review - “Mr. Conservative” in my youth - wrote articles, a number of times, discussing why HE was in favor of ‘decriminalization’ of Marijuana.
Those looking for, or who think they have, a “Conservative” position on this issue should at least look at what Mr. Buckley said about it. No one can doubt his Conservative credentials or his lack of intellectual rigor.
As for hard-drugs, from the opiate class, I think a program that offers addiction-treatment, in separate, mandatory treatment facilities, for minor offenses, instead of regular prison, in exchange for identification of suppliers, all the way up the chain, would be more affective at ending the drug networks than has the massive imprisonment-for-minor-offenses practiced over the past forty years. Offer help to get out of the drug-life in exchange for their help in getting to those running the drug rings. I think it would cost less and I think it would be more affective, in the long run.
What cannot be ignored though is that ‘addiction’ is often a personality behavioral condition, and alcohol, cocaine and the rest are merely choices that satisfy an inclination to addictive behavior. What also should not be ignored is that the person can be helped to break addictive behavior but prison is seldom the route that does that - prison life is so corrupt, rarely does an addiction have to be postponed while incarcerated.
Nice slogan for the product! I can picture Obama reading it from the telepromter.
Holy Crap! Maybe you didn't know this but... "Reefer Madness" was NOT a documentary.
The cartels have already branched out into other illegal activities¹, so the upside for revenue is limited. They are conglomerates of crime, and marijuana provides nearly 2/3 of their revenue according to the ONDCP.² Legalization would be a severe blow to the cartels.
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¹ They operate a range of illicit businesses from the regular extortion of street vendors to charging other groups for passage through their territory, to gun and drug smuggling, human smuggling, kidnapping for ransom, money laundering and the operation of a vast network of illegal businesses.
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?id=97554&lng=en
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²John P. Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said marijuana, not heroin or cocaine, is the "bread and butter," "the center of gravity" for Mexican drug cartels that every year smuggle tons of it through the porous U.S.-Mexico border. Of the $13.8 billion that Americans contributed to Mexican drug traffickers in 2004-05, about 62 percent, or $8.6 billion, comes from marijuana consumption.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/022208dnintdrugs.3a98bb0.html
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