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legalize it! ALL OF IT, apparently.
Posts
"The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy." President Obama said it with a chuckle last week at a town hall-style forum. The idea was for Obama to answer some questions about the economy submitted to the White House website. The most popular ones all had something to do with the virtues of legalizing and taxing marijuana. “I don’t know what this says about the online audience,” Obama joshed, and the good Americans assembled at the forum shared a little laugh. What does it say about the online audience? Maybe it says that advocates of marijuana legalization have hope that a president who once inhaled will, even in the middle of a recession, devote some attention to our country's disastrous drug policies.
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Did you know that the United States of America, the Land of the Free, puts a larger portion of its population behind bars than any country on earth? Thanks in large part to the War on Drugs, Americans lock more of their own in cages than do the thuggish Russians or those “Islamofascist” Saudis. As it happens, American drug prohibition and sentencing policies hit poor black men the hardest, devastating already disadvantaged black families and communities—a tragic, mocking contrast to the achievement of Obama’s election. Militarized police departments across the nation month after month kick down the wrong doors, terrify innocent families, shoot lawful citizens, and often kill the family dog.
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Barack Obama inhaled. “The point was to inhale,” he once smartly observed. But Obama also knows how to get elected president. Sadly, at this point in history, it remains a political liability to have become intoxicated on certain safe but illegal and stigmatized substances, like marijuana. Obama has said his past drug use was a regrettable youthful indiscretion, and he might even believe it. But why regret it? He managed to become president, didn’t he? It’s easy to laugh off the folks who jammed the White House switchboard when we imagine them as pranking “stoners,” and this picture of “the online audience” concedes the harmlessness of marijuana users while refusing to take them seriously. But why not imagine them as regular folks motivated by a love of liberty, justice, peace, and, sure, maybe a taste for grass? Why not imagine them as successful professionals, unlike Barack Obama only in political ambition?
Marijuana is neither evil nor dangerous. Scientists have proven its medical uses. It has spared millions from anguish. But the casual pleasure marijuana has delivered is orders of magnitude greater than the pain it has assuaged, and pleasure matters too. That’s probably why Barack Obama smoked up the second and third times: because he liked it. That’s why tens of millions of Americans regularly take a puff, despite the misconceived laws meant to save us from our own wickedness.
The Atlantic Monthly’s Andrew Sullivan has been documenting on his blog the stories of typical, productive Americans—kids’ football coaches, secretaries of the PTA—who smoke marijuana because they like to smoke marijuana, but who understandably fear emerging fully from the “cannabis closet.” This is a profoundly necessary idea. If we’re to begin to roll back our stupid and deadly drug war, the stigma of responsible drug use has got to end, and marijuana is the best place to start. The super-savvy Barack Obama managed to turn a buck by coming out of the cannabis (and cocaine) closet in a bestselling memoir. That’s progress. But his admission came with the politicians’ caveat of regret. We’ll make real progress when solid, upstanding folk come out of the cannabis closet, heads held high.
So here we go. My name is Will Wilkinson. I smoke marijuana, and I like it.
This whole goddamn issue just drives me insane. And it felt like a slap in the face the way Obama handled it. It was a smaller scale version of "Any weapons of mass destruction under here? No, what about here?"
I really think you, and a few people I talk to, in fact everyone who has ever tried to magic away debate with the line of reasoning "they've got bigger things to handle."
Well, no shit there are other bigger issues. But
1. They're usually severely underestimating the value of this issue. And
2. They're seriously overestimating the time consumption of those other issues.
It's not like politicians have all locked themselves in one single room. Quarantined until they can solve all the world's problem. They still take a ton of vacations, and spend hours and hours being as arduous and tedious and bureaucratic as possible.
They could squeeze in the issue that sends near a million to jail a year for a completely harmless activity, based on ass-backwards moral legislation.
Of course moreover, it's possible he really doesn't care for this issue - politicians do tend to have a list of things they want to accomplish and stick to it pretty closely - though again, same reason.
Uh.
The Republicans are already nuts.
EDIT: by which I mean against the war on drugs.
This a hugely fucking pragmatic issue. I can't stand the fact that something that should be the RATIONAL course of action would be "political suicide."
You know what, you might be right. Probably are. But I like to hope not, because it's just fucking sane.
Someone needs to beat congress into having a debate about the issue where no moral platitudes are allowed unless backed up by real world consequences and weighed against the alternatives.
But seriously, this law is as outdated as being able to beat your wife on churchhouse steps on sundays.
And you know what amazes me? Its the #1 issue on the fuckers website, every election year its a big debate in states. Hell, denver legalized it. 14 states have it legal for medical reasons. Yet, anybody in power just brushes it aside. Hey fucker, we elected you to deal with OUR ISSUES!! Guess what, to the normal population, who can't just do blow and get hookers whenver we want, IT IS AN ISSUE!
but then again Im based as a mother fucker.
And yes, I agree, we have bigger issues as a nation. However, it could help us recover from where we are.
And my answer to the deficit? Tax toilet paper 3 cents a roll. NObody would notice it, everybody needs shitter paper, government profit?
They're to busy doing cocaine and getting blow jobs from hookers in resturaunt bathrooms.
Of course I don't expect him to legalize it. But massively scale back the War on Drugs and try to reform our laws would be a good start.
When I think Kucinich, I don't think "political powerhouse".
I fear it will take more than that. The U.S. are signatories to the UN Single Convention on Narcotics. It does not allow for Marijuana to be legalized. Now, there is some legal wrangling on whether it must be criminalized. For now, decriminalization is the very best for which we can hope.
Sadly, 55% of federal inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses. That comes out to half a million drug prisoners. That's not "just" an annual loss of at least $20 Billion of productivity and $20 Billion direct imprisonment cost, but also huge future social cost (single parenting, orphans, substance abuse, further criminalization, recidivism...).
The War on Drugs is literally unreasonable.
So true, which makes super frustrating that the issue is simply laughed at when anyone brings all of this up in any type of discussion. It's as though politicians need something to demonize and scapegoat, and this is the easiest issue.
Right. Druggies, terrorists, convicts, anyone even briefly suspected in a sex crime case... all demographics that nobody wants to stick up for.
"Fucking drug smokers. I heard on the teevee that they want to be able to sell pot outside schools! Glad I don't know anyone that smokes that stuff, eh Fred?"
"Uhh... yeaaaah.
>.>
<.<
Never underestimate the ability people have to get extremely outraged over extremely stupid things. There was recently an uproar in my province because the price of beer went up about 2-3 cents per can.
So what, we're actually abiding by treaties now?
Seriously, if we really wanted to legalize marijuana do you think a UN convention would stop us, or that any other nation would honestly care if we pulled out of that treaty?
I don't necessarily think that Obama should be the one out leading on weed deciminalization, but if some congressional reps with job security started floating legislation, I think there'd be more support than people think.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
No, judges do not actually have discretion. If you meet the criteria, you are eligible. And yes, dealing is one of the eligible charges.
That said, judges do set the difficulty of the program. They can make things really hard on you, expecting you to screw up. Once you screw up once, they have full discretion to kick you out of the program or forgive you.
I still think it should be legalized.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/08/portugal/index.html
More articles on the resounding success that decriminalization has been in Portgul.
New AIDS cases from needles went down from 1,400 in 2000 to 400 in 2006. Users aren't just locked away, they're offered treatment. Drug use also declined, and the country didn't become a "drug haven" despite what critics have said, and a few have come out specifically to say that it hasn't.
This is just a repeat of abstinence-only sex education failure.
Never have sex or ELSEEEEEE ends with lots of people having sex in stupid and dangerous ways.
If you do have sex, do it safely and with protection ends with the same number of people having sex, but in safer and more intelligent ways.
Same thing with drugs.
Don't do drugs or you'll go to JAAAIIILLL ends with lots of people in jail.
If you do have drugs, do it safely ends with a really charming Amsterdam community full of happy and friendly people.
I am skeptical of their results.
Judging from what I saw on FOX news, the real reason pot helps is the pact you must make with The Devil before you can begin to toke up.