The Petition to End Drug Prohibition
The Petition to End Drug Prohibition
www.enddrugprohibition.com
Students for Sensible Drug Policy is committed to providing education on harms caused by the War on Drugs, working to involve youth in the political process, and promoting an open, honest, and rational discussion of alternative solutions to our nation's drug problems
http://www.enddrugprohibition.com/?sid=5&sub=1
Showing posts with label prohibition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prohibition. Show all posts
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Monday, April 13, 2009
In Calif., Medical Marijuana Laws Are Moving Pot Into the Mainstream
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES -- With little notice and even less controversy, marijuana is now available as a medical treatment in California to almost anyone who tells a willing physician he would feel better if he smoked.
Pot is now retailed over the counter in hundreds of storefronts across Los Angeles and is credited with reviving a section of downtown Oakland, where an entrepreneur sells out classes offering "quality training for the cannabis industry." The tabloid LA Journal of Education for Medical Marijuana is fat with ads for Magic Purple, Strawberry Cough and other offerings in more than 400 "dispensaries" operating in the city.
Los Angeles officials say applications for retail outlets surged after Feb. 26, when U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that the Drug Enforcement Administration will no longer raid such stores. Those pressing for change in drug laws regard the announcement as a watershed in a 40-year battle against marijuana's official listing as a dangerous drug -- a legal fight that, in California, is being waged on ground that has shifted dramatically toward acceptance.
read more digg story
Washington Post Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES -- With little notice and even less controversy, marijuana is now available as a medical treatment in California to almost anyone who tells a willing physician he would feel better if he smoked.
Pot is now retailed over the counter in hundreds of storefronts across Los Angeles and is credited with reviving a section of downtown Oakland, where an entrepreneur sells out classes offering "quality training for the cannabis industry." The tabloid LA Journal of Education for Medical Marijuana is fat with ads for Magic Purple, Strawberry Cough and other offerings in more than 400 "dispensaries" operating in the city.
Los Angeles officials say applications for retail outlets surged after Feb. 26, when U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that the Drug Enforcement Administration will no longer raid such stores. Those pressing for change in drug laws regard the announcement as a watershed in a 40-year battle against marijuana's official listing as a dangerous drug -- a legal fight that, in California, is being waged on ground that has shifted dramatically toward acceptance.
read more digg story
We Tried A War Like This Once Before...
By Mike Gray
Sunday, April 12, 2009
In 1932, Alphonse Capone, an influential businessman then living in Chicago, used to drive through the city in a caravan of armor-plated limos built to his specifications by General Motors. Submachine-gun-toting associates led the motorcade and brought up the rear. It is a measure of how thoroughly the mob mentality had permeated everyday life that this was considered normal.
Capone and his boys were agents of misguided policy. Ninety years ago, the United States tried to cure the national thirst for alcohol, and it led to an explosion of violence unlike anything we'd ever seen. Today, it's hard to ignore the echoes of Prohibition in the drug-related mayhem along our southern border. Over the past 15 months, there have been 7,200 drug-war deaths in Mexico alone, as the government there battles an army of killers that would scare the pants off Al Capone.
Now U.S. officials are warning that the vandals may be headed in this direction. Too late: They're already here. And they're in a good position to take over organized crime in this country as well.
After decades of trying to stem the influx of illegal narcotics into the United States, it's clear that the drug war, like Prohibition, has led us into a gruesome blind alley. Drugs are cheaper than ever before and you can buy them anywhere. As Mexico's cash-starved government struggles to keep up the good fight, the drug barons rake in more than enough to buy political protection and military power while still maintaining profit margins beyond imagining. And what's driving this desperate struggle may be the ubiquitous weed: Southwestern lawmen say that marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the cartels' income.
At last, the spectacular violence in Mexico has captured everybody's attention, and in an eerie replay of the end of alcohol prohibition, we may at last be witnessing the final act in the war on drugs.
One hint of a shifting wind came in February, when a state legislator from San Francisco introduced a bill to tax, regulate and legalize adult use of cannabis. This sort of grandstanding is always met with derision, and this was no exception. But then something strange happened: California's chief tax collector said that the measure would bring in $1.3 billion a year and save another $1 billion on enforcement and incarceration. In a state facing an $18 billion deficit, suddenly nobody was laughing.
Four days later Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who's no legalizer, said that he, too, thinks we should take another look at marijuana prohibition. "The most effective way to establish a virtual barrier against the criminal activities is to take the profit out of it," he told a U.S. Senate subcommittee.
The next day, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced a minor policy shift with enormous implications: The federal government would no longer go after groups that supply medical marijuana in the 13 states where it is legal. The Drug Enforcement Administration had been raiding dispensaries routinely, and dozens of patients and growers are behind bars today despite their legal status in California's eyes. Now that threat has vanished for those who comply with state law. For California, this amounts to de facto legalization.
At his recent cyberspace town hall meeting, President Obama fielded a question about whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy. "No," he replied as the audience giggled. But that answer sheds no light on his actual thinking. Obama has already called the drug war an "utter failure." And since he himself is an admitted ex-toker, it's hard to believe that he'd cancel some kid's college education over a crime he got away with.
Of course, resistance to marijuana legalization remains rock solid in Washington among those who can't face the failure of prohibition. But that has more to do with politics than science. The Department of Health and Human Services says that there are 32 million drug abusers in the country, but that includes 25 million marijuana smokers. If you strike them from the list, how do you justify spending $60 billion a year in this economy trying to stop 2 percent of the population from being self-destructive? It would be dramatically cheaper to follow the Swiss example: Provide treatment for all who want it, and supply the rest with pure drugs under medical supervision.
When we erected an artificial barrier between alcohol producers and consumers in 1920, we created a bonanza more lucrative than the Gold Rush. The staggering profits from illegal booze gave mobsters the financial power to take over legitimate businesses and expand into casinos, loan sharking, labor racketeering and extortion. Thus we created the major crime syndicates -- and the U.S. murder rate jumped tenfold.
Fortunately, the Roaring '20s were interrupted by the Crash of '29, and when the money ran out, the battle against booze was a luxury we could no longer afford. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and over the next decade the U.S. murder rate was cut in half.
Today it's back up where it was at the peak of Prohibition -- 10 per 100,000 -- a jump clearly connected to the war on drugs. And anyone who's watching what's going on south of the border can see that we're headed for an era of mayhem that would make Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello weak in the knees.
Profits from the Mexican drug trade are estimated at about $35 billion a year. And since the cartels spend half to two-thirds of their income on bribery, that would be around $20 billion going into the pockets of police officers, army generals, judges, prosecutors and politicians. Last fall, Mexico's attorney general announced that his former top drug enforcer, chief prosecutor Noe Ramirez Mandujano, was getting $450,000 a month under the table from the Sinaloa cartel. The cartel can of course afford to be generous -- Sinaloa chief Joaquin Guzmán recently made the Forbes List of Billionaires.
The depth of Guzmán's penetration into the United States was revealed a few weeks ago, when the DEA proudly announced hundreds of arrests all over the country in a major operation against the "dangerously powerful" Sinaloa cartel. One jarring detail was the admission that Mexican cartels are now operating in 230 cities inside the United States.
This disaster has been slowly unfolding since the early 1980s, when Vice President George H.W. Bush shut down the Caribbean cocaine pipeline between Colombia and Miami. The Colombians switched to the land route and began hiring Mexicans to deliver the goods across the U.S. border. But when the Mexicans got a glimpse of the truckloads of cash headed south, they decided that they didn't need the Colombians at all. Today the Mexican cartels are full-service commercial organizations with their own suppliers, refineries and a distribution network that covers all of North America.
As we awaken to the threat spilling over our southern border, the reactions are predictable. In addition to walling off the border, Congress wants to send helicopters, military hardware and unmanned reconnaissance drones into the fray -- and it wants the Pentagon to train Mexican troops in counterinsurgency tactics.
Our anti-drug warriors have apparently learned nothing from the past two decades. A few years ago we trained several units of the Mexican army in counterinsurgency warfare. They studied their lessons, then promptly deserted to form the Zetas, a thoroughly professional narco hit squad for the Gulf cartel, which offered considerably better pay. Over the past eight years, the Mexican army has had more than 100,000 deserters.
The president of Mexico rightly points out that U.S. policy is at the root of this nightmare. Not only did we invent the war on drugs, but we are the primary consumers.
The obvious solution is cutting the demand for drugs in the United States. Clearly, it would be the death of the cartels if we could simply dry up the market. Unfortunately, every effort to do this has met with resounding failure. But now that the Roaring '00s have hit the Crash of '09, the money has vanished once again, and we can no longer ignore the collateral damage of Prohibition II.
Writing last month in the Wall Street Journal, three former Latin American presidents -- Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, César Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico -- declared the war on drugs a failure. Responding to a situation they say is "urgent in light of the rising levels of violence and corruption," they are demanding a reexamination of U.S.-inspired drug policies.
Two weeks ago, a conservative former superior court judge in Orange County told the Los Angeles Times that legalization was the only answer, and of 4,400 readers who responded immediately, the Times reported that "a staggering 94 percent" agreed with him.
This is another pivotal moment in U.S. history, strangely resonant with 1933. The war on drugs has been a riveting drama: It has given us great television, filled our prisons and employed hundreds of thousands as guards, police, prosecutors and probation officers. But the party's over.
read more digg story
Sunday, April 12, 2009
In 1932, Alphonse Capone, an influential businessman then living in Chicago, used to drive through the city in a caravan of armor-plated limos built to his specifications by General Motors. Submachine-gun-toting associates led the motorcade and brought up the rear. It is a measure of how thoroughly the mob mentality had permeated everyday life that this was considered normal.
Capone and his boys were agents of misguided policy. Ninety years ago, the United States tried to cure the national thirst for alcohol, and it led to an explosion of violence unlike anything we'd ever seen. Today, it's hard to ignore the echoes of Prohibition in the drug-related mayhem along our southern border. Over the past 15 months, there have been 7,200 drug-war deaths in Mexico alone, as the government there battles an army of killers that would scare the pants off Al Capone.
Now U.S. officials are warning that the vandals may be headed in this direction. Too late: They're already here. And they're in a good position to take over organized crime in this country as well.
After decades of trying to stem the influx of illegal narcotics into the United States, it's clear that the drug war, like Prohibition, has led us into a gruesome blind alley. Drugs are cheaper than ever before and you can buy them anywhere. As Mexico's cash-starved government struggles to keep up the good fight, the drug barons rake in more than enough to buy political protection and military power while still maintaining profit margins beyond imagining. And what's driving this desperate struggle may be the ubiquitous weed: Southwestern lawmen say that marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the cartels' income.
At last, the spectacular violence in Mexico has captured everybody's attention, and in an eerie replay of the end of alcohol prohibition, we may at last be witnessing the final act in the war on drugs.
One hint of a shifting wind came in February, when a state legislator from San Francisco introduced a bill to tax, regulate and legalize adult use of cannabis. This sort of grandstanding is always met with derision, and this was no exception. But then something strange happened: California's chief tax collector said that the measure would bring in $1.3 billion a year and save another $1 billion on enforcement and incarceration. In a state facing an $18 billion deficit, suddenly nobody was laughing.
Four days later Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who's no legalizer, said that he, too, thinks we should take another look at marijuana prohibition. "The most effective way to establish a virtual barrier against the criminal activities is to take the profit out of it," he told a U.S. Senate subcommittee.
The next day, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced a minor policy shift with enormous implications: The federal government would no longer go after groups that supply medical marijuana in the 13 states where it is legal. The Drug Enforcement Administration had been raiding dispensaries routinely, and dozens of patients and growers are behind bars today despite their legal status in California's eyes. Now that threat has vanished for those who comply with state law. For California, this amounts to de facto legalization.
At his recent cyberspace town hall meeting, President Obama fielded a question about whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy. "No," he replied as the audience giggled. But that answer sheds no light on his actual thinking. Obama has already called the drug war an "utter failure." And since he himself is an admitted ex-toker, it's hard to believe that he'd cancel some kid's college education over a crime he got away with.
Of course, resistance to marijuana legalization remains rock solid in Washington among those who can't face the failure of prohibition. But that has more to do with politics than science. The Department of Health and Human Services says that there are 32 million drug abusers in the country, but that includes 25 million marijuana smokers. If you strike them from the list, how do you justify spending $60 billion a year in this economy trying to stop 2 percent of the population from being self-destructive? It would be dramatically cheaper to follow the Swiss example: Provide treatment for all who want it, and supply the rest with pure drugs under medical supervision.
When we erected an artificial barrier between alcohol producers and consumers in 1920, we created a bonanza more lucrative than the Gold Rush. The staggering profits from illegal booze gave mobsters the financial power to take over legitimate businesses and expand into casinos, loan sharking, labor racketeering and extortion. Thus we created the major crime syndicates -- and the U.S. murder rate jumped tenfold.
Fortunately, the Roaring '20s were interrupted by the Crash of '29, and when the money ran out, the battle against booze was a luxury we could no longer afford. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and over the next decade the U.S. murder rate was cut in half.
Today it's back up where it was at the peak of Prohibition -- 10 per 100,000 -- a jump clearly connected to the war on drugs. And anyone who's watching what's going on south of the border can see that we're headed for an era of mayhem that would make Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello weak in the knees.
Profits from the Mexican drug trade are estimated at about $35 billion a year. And since the cartels spend half to two-thirds of their income on bribery, that would be around $20 billion going into the pockets of police officers, army generals, judges, prosecutors and politicians. Last fall, Mexico's attorney general announced that his former top drug enforcer, chief prosecutor Noe Ramirez Mandujano, was getting $450,000 a month under the table from the Sinaloa cartel. The cartel can of course afford to be generous -- Sinaloa chief Joaquin Guzmán recently made the Forbes List of Billionaires.
The depth of Guzmán's penetration into the United States was revealed a few weeks ago, when the DEA proudly announced hundreds of arrests all over the country in a major operation against the "dangerously powerful" Sinaloa cartel. One jarring detail was the admission that Mexican cartels are now operating in 230 cities inside the United States.
This disaster has been slowly unfolding since the early 1980s, when Vice President George H.W. Bush shut down the Caribbean cocaine pipeline between Colombia and Miami. The Colombians switched to the land route and began hiring Mexicans to deliver the goods across the U.S. border. But when the Mexicans got a glimpse of the truckloads of cash headed south, they decided that they didn't need the Colombians at all. Today the Mexican cartels are full-service commercial organizations with their own suppliers, refineries and a distribution network that covers all of North America.
As we awaken to the threat spilling over our southern border, the reactions are predictable. In addition to walling off the border, Congress wants to send helicopters, military hardware and unmanned reconnaissance drones into the fray -- and it wants the Pentagon to train Mexican troops in counterinsurgency tactics.
Our anti-drug warriors have apparently learned nothing from the past two decades. A few years ago we trained several units of the Mexican army in counterinsurgency warfare. They studied their lessons, then promptly deserted to form the Zetas, a thoroughly professional narco hit squad for the Gulf cartel, which offered considerably better pay. Over the past eight years, the Mexican army has had more than 100,000 deserters.
The president of Mexico rightly points out that U.S. policy is at the root of this nightmare. Not only did we invent the war on drugs, but we are the primary consumers.
The obvious solution is cutting the demand for drugs in the United States. Clearly, it would be the death of the cartels if we could simply dry up the market. Unfortunately, every effort to do this has met with resounding failure. But now that the Roaring '00s have hit the Crash of '09, the money has vanished once again, and we can no longer ignore the collateral damage of Prohibition II.
Writing last month in the Wall Street Journal, three former Latin American presidents -- Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, César Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico -- declared the war on drugs a failure. Responding to a situation they say is "urgent in light of the rising levels of violence and corruption," they are demanding a reexamination of U.S.-inspired drug policies.
Two weeks ago, a conservative former superior court judge in Orange County told the Los Angeles Times that legalization was the only answer, and of 4,400 readers who responded immediately, the Times reported that "a staggering 94 percent" agreed with him.
This is another pivotal moment in U.S. history, strangely resonant with 1933. The war on drugs has been a riveting drama: It has given us great television, filled our prisons and employed hundreds of thousands as guards, police, prosecutors and probation officers. But the party's over.
read more digg story
Monday, March 30, 2009
Why is Marijuana Illegal?
A brief history of the criminalization of cannabis
Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug.
The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You'll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.
You'll also see that the history of marijuana's criminalization is filled with:
Racism
Fear
Protection of Corporate Profits
Yellow Journalism
Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
Personal Career Advancement and Greed
These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.
read more digg story
This account only scratches the surface of the story. If you want to know more about the history of marijuana, Harry Anslinger, and the saga of criminalization in the United States and elsewhere, visit some of the excellent links below. (All data and quotes for this piece came from these sources as well).
The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School. A Speech to the California Judges Association 1995 annual conference.
THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE LEGAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN MARIJUANA PROHIBITION by Richard J. Bonnie & Charles H. Whitebread, II. VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW. VOLUME 56 OCTOBER 1970 NUMBER 6
The Consumers Union Report - Licit and Illicit Drugs by Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine
The History of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 By David F. Musto, M.D., New Haven, Conn. Originally published in Arch. Gen. Psychiat. Volume 26, February, 1972
The Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse I. Control of Marihuana, Alcohol and Tobacco. History of Marihuana Legislation
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The history of how the Marihuana Tax Act came to be the law of the land.
Marijuana - The First Twelve Thousand Years by Ernest L. Abel, 1980
Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug.
The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You'll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.
You'll also see that the history of marijuana's criminalization is filled with:
Racism
Fear
Protection of Corporate Profits
Yellow Journalism
Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
Personal Career Advancement and Greed
These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.
read more digg story
This account only scratches the surface of the story. If you want to know more about the history of marijuana, Harry Anslinger, and the saga of criminalization in the United States and elsewhere, visit some of the excellent links below. (All data and quotes for this piece came from these sources as well).
The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School. A Speech to the California Judges Association 1995 annual conference.
THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE LEGAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN MARIJUANA PROHIBITION by Richard J. Bonnie & Charles H. Whitebread, II. VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW. VOLUME 56 OCTOBER 1970 NUMBER 6
The Consumers Union Report - Licit and Illicit Drugs by Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine
The History of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 By David F. Musto, M.D., New Haven, Conn. Originally published in Arch. Gen. Psychiat. Volume 26, February, 1972
The Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse I. Control of Marihuana, Alcohol and Tobacco. History of Marihuana Legislation
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The history of how the Marihuana Tax Act came to be the law of the land.
Marijuana - The First Twelve Thousand Years by Ernest L. Abel, 1980
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The case for a domestic marijuana industry
Like it or not, marijuana is a massive industry. One hundred million Americans admit to government survey-takers that they've used it, with nearly 15 million acknowledging use in the past month. That's a huge market -- exceeding the number of Americans who will buy a new car or truck this year, or who bought one last year.
The only way to stop drug gangs is to end their monopoly on production.
By Aaron Houston
Violence in Mexico is getting worse by the day. There are reports of beheadings, killings in the several thousands, and an environment of fear that makes it impossible for Mexican officials to do their work. The country's very stability may be threatened.
It's time to put an end to U.S. policies that subsidize these murderous drug gangs. The first step, as a growing chorus of voices is arguing, is to end the quixotic policy of prohibition, a proven failure. But the United States can do even better; by empowering a domestic marijuana industry, the United States would squeeze Mexican cartels' profits, cutting off the financial lifeline that sustains organized narcocrime.
According to U.S. and Mexican officials, some 60 percent of the profits that fuel Mexican narcotrafficking come from just one drug: marijuana. Although such estimates are inherently imprecise, there is no doubt that marijuana is the cash cow that makes these gangs the powerful, dangerous force they are -- both in Mexico and in the 230 U.S. cities where cartels are thought to operate. The chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Mexico and Central America Section recently told the New York Times that marijuana is the "king crop" for Mexican cartels, because it "consistently sustains its marketability and profitability."
Last November, the U.S. Joint Forces Command warned in its "Joint Operating Environment" report that Mexico "bear[s] consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse" due to drug cartel violence. Some critics saw the report as unduly dire, but at a minimum, as outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden warned, drug cartels "threaten ... the well-being of the Mexican people and the Mexican state." A further increase in instability would constitute a national security and humanitarian crisis on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. For now, there is no end in sight to the worsening violence and no adequate plan to address it.
This appalling situation is not just happenstance. It is the direct result of prohibitionist U.S. policies.
read more digg story
The only way to stop drug gangs is to end their monopoly on production.
By Aaron Houston
Violence in Mexico is getting worse by the day. There are reports of beheadings, killings in the several thousands, and an environment of fear that makes it impossible for Mexican officials to do their work. The country's very stability may be threatened.
It's time to put an end to U.S. policies that subsidize these murderous drug gangs. The first step, as a growing chorus of voices is arguing, is to end the quixotic policy of prohibition, a proven failure. But the United States can do even better; by empowering a domestic marijuana industry, the United States would squeeze Mexican cartels' profits, cutting off the financial lifeline that sustains organized narcocrime.
According to U.S. and Mexican officials, some 60 percent of the profits that fuel Mexican narcotrafficking come from just one drug: marijuana. Although such estimates are inherently imprecise, there is no doubt that marijuana is the cash cow that makes these gangs the powerful, dangerous force they are -- both in Mexico and in the 230 U.S. cities where cartels are thought to operate. The chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Mexico and Central America Section recently told the New York Times that marijuana is the "king crop" for Mexican cartels, because it "consistently sustains its marketability and profitability."
Last November, the U.S. Joint Forces Command warned in its "Joint Operating Environment" report that Mexico "bear[s] consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse" due to drug cartel violence. Some critics saw the report as unduly dire, but at a minimum, as outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden warned, drug cartels "threaten ... the well-being of the Mexican people and the Mexican state." A further increase in instability would constitute a national security and humanitarian crisis on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. For now, there is no end in sight to the worsening violence and no adequate plan to address it.
This appalling situation is not just happenstance. It is the direct result of prohibitionist U.S. policies.
read more digg story
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Hypocracy of the war on drugs
A very funny but very true short clip. Why are there drugs being pushed by the pharmaceutical companies w/ stated side affects of death when marijuana is illegal!?!?
read more digg story
read more digg story
Monday, March 16, 2009
America's #1 Request of Obama... Legalize Pot
Most Americans say marijuana should be legal. Are we coming closer to nation wide legalization of marijuana. According to this video America wants it.
read more digg story
read more digg story
Sunday, March 15, 2009
The success of drug decriminalization in Portugal
by Glenn Greenwald - It's been seven years since that country decriminalized all drugs. What lessons are there for American drug policy debates?
The counter-productive effects of drug criminalization are at least as evident now for the U.S. as they were for pre-decriminalization Portugal. Beyond one's ideological beliefs regarding the legitimacy of criminalization, drug policy should be determined by objective, empirical assessments of what works and what does not work.read more digg story
It's now been more than seven years since Portugal decriminalized all drugs, and
dispassionately examining the effects of that decision provides a unique opportunity to assess questions of drug policy in the most rational and empirical manner possible.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
When Will Proposed Pot Legalization Bill See Light of Day?
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano's marijuana bill - innocuously named "Assembly Bill 390" - has now been shunted into the pipeline, like so many other bills dealing with issues such as roads or schools (that don't spur mile-long threads at marijuana-legalization listservs).
By Joe Eskenazi - In the weeks following his introduction of an Assembly bill that would legalize -- and tax -- marijuana, the always quotable Tom Ammiano became one of the nation's most sought-after sources of quotes. His bill was discussed in every major paper in the state, and many nationally (including Zig-Zag, yes) and he even sat for interviews with French and Danish TV crews. An interview with CBS' national evening news was scheduled for last night.
The fizz is finally going down a little bit -- Ammiano's press secretary, Quintin Mecke, said this week was the first he wasn't being barraged with all marijuana questions, all the time.
The innocuously named "Assembly Bill 390" has now been shunted into the pipeline, like so many other bills dealing with issues such as roads or schools (that don't spur mile-long threads at marijuana-legalization listservs). Ammiano's bill was referred to both the public safety and health committees -- Mecke says that a double referral isn't unusual for "bills that have multiple reaches" as Ammiano's does, and could be heard in committee(s) "sometime this spring" --though he hopes to learn a more specific date in the coming weeks. The Assemblyman's colleagues have, ostensibly, had time to thumb their ways through the 60-page bill, and Ammiano is looking to make friends and influence people.
"I do have support from a lot of colleagues, who say: 'Oh my God, I think this is great, but I don't think I can vote for it,'" Ammanio told Salon.com. "So it's going to be my job, even in conservative areas, to say: "Vote for it. This is something that will help your community. You may be a Republican, you may be conservative, but your health clinic just closed, your husband just got laid off."
read more digg story
By Joe Eskenazi - In the weeks following his introduction of an Assembly bill that would legalize -- and tax -- marijuana, the always quotable Tom Ammiano became one of the nation's most sought-after sources of quotes. His bill was discussed in every major paper in the state, and many nationally (including Zig-Zag, yes) and he even sat for interviews with French and Danish TV crews. An interview with CBS' national evening news was scheduled for last night.
The fizz is finally going down a little bit -- Ammiano's press secretary, Quintin Mecke, said this week was the first he wasn't being barraged with all marijuana questions, all the time.
The innocuously named "Assembly Bill 390" has now been shunted into the pipeline, like so many other bills dealing with issues such as roads or schools (that don't spur mile-long threads at marijuana-legalization listservs). Ammiano's bill was referred to both the public safety and health committees -- Mecke says that a double referral isn't unusual for "bills that have multiple reaches" as Ammiano's does, and could be heard in committee(s) "sometime this spring" --though he hopes to learn a more specific date in the coming weeks. The Assemblyman's colleagues have, ostensibly, had time to thumb their ways through the 60-page bill, and Ammiano is looking to make friends and influence people.
"I do have support from a lot of colleagues, who say: 'Oh my God, I think this is great, but I don't think I can vote for it,'" Ammanio told Salon.com. "So it's going to be my job, even in conservative areas, to say: "Vote for it. This is something that will help your community. You may be a Republican, you may be conservative, but your health clinic just closed, your husband just got laid off."
read more digg story
Friday, March 13, 2009
Penn Jilette Says: Legalize Marijuana
As the one guy who's never smoked dope, Penn Says, STOP the war on drugs now! When Penn Jillette has an opinion, it's a safe bet he won't hold back.
read more digg story
read more digg story
Should Hard Times Permit High Times?
Advocates of legal pot compare marijuana laws to alcohol prohibition, approved during prosperous times in 1920 only to become unpopular during the Great Depression. Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933, in part due to the cost of reining in illegal booze and the need to recoup lost tax revenue in tough economic times.
New America Media, News Report, Marcelo Ballvé
NEW YORK -- In 1977, President Jimmy Carter asked Congress to decriminalize marijuana possession (it never did). The next year, the Ladies Home Journal described a summer jazz festival on the White House's South Lawn where "a haze of marijuana smoke hung heavy under the low-bending branches of a magnolia tree."
The late 1970's may have been the high-water mark for permissiveness regarding marijuana. But advocates of decriminalized pot believe a confluence of factors, especially the country's economic malaise, are leading to another countrywide reappraisal of the drug.
"There is momentum of the sort I haven't seen since I've been involved in this," says Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, which supports easing marijuana laws.
He says incidents like then-candidate Barack Obama's early admission of pot use or the flap over Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps's bong-smoking may lead to initial public hand-wringing, but in the end they tend to legitimize pot use. So does the growing recognition of medical marijuana.
But, he adds, "the economic crisis is the single most important factor" in this new shift in perceptions.
That's because the ailing economy is triggering a scramble for new government savings or sources of revenue. Nadelmann compares today's marijuana laws to alcohol prohibition, approved during prosperous times in 1920 only to become unpopular during the Great Depression. Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933, in part due to the cost of reining in illegal booze and the need to recoup lost tax revenue in tough economic times.
As he signed a law easing prohibition, President Franklin Roosevelt reportedly quipped, "I think this would be a good time for a beer."
Is our recession-plagued present a good time for a joint? Legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana, would pull the rug out from under pot dealers in urban America, and create a crisis for them, but it would likely prove a boon for state budgets. In an oft-cited 2006 report on U.S. marijuana production, expert Jon Gettman used "conservative price estimates" to peg the value of the annual crop at $36 billion--more valuable than corn and wheat combined.
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New America Media, News Report, Marcelo Ballvé
NEW YORK -- In 1977, President Jimmy Carter asked Congress to decriminalize marijuana possession (it never did). The next year, the Ladies Home Journal described a summer jazz festival on the White House's South Lawn where "a haze of marijuana smoke hung heavy under the low-bending branches of a magnolia tree."
The late 1970's may have been the high-water mark for permissiveness regarding marijuana. But advocates of decriminalized pot believe a confluence of factors, especially the country's economic malaise, are leading to another countrywide reappraisal of the drug.
"There is momentum of the sort I haven't seen since I've been involved in this," says Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, which supports easing marijuana laws.
He says incidents like then-candidate Barack Obama's early admission of pot use or the flap over Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps's bong-smoking may lead to initial public hand-wringing, but in the end they tend to legitimize pot use. So does the growing recognition of medical marijuana.
But, he adds, "the economic crisis is the single most important factor" in this new shift in perceptions.
That's because the ailing economy is triggering a scramble for new government savings or sources of revenue. Nadelmann compares today's marijuana laws to alcohol prohibition, approved during prosperous times in 1920 only to become unpopular during the Great Depression. Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933, in part due to the cost of reining in illegal booze and the need to recoup lost tax revenue in tough economic times.
As he signed a law easing prohibition, President Franklin Roosevelt reportedly quipped, "I think this would be a good time for a beer."
Is our recession-plagued present a good time for a joint? Legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana, would pull the rug out from under pot dealers in urban America, and create a crisis for them, but it would likely prove a boon for state budgets. In an oft-cited 2006 report on U.S. marijuana production, expert Jon Gettman used "conservative price estimates" to peg the value of the annual crop at $36 billion--more valuable than corn and wheat combined.
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Sunday, March 8, 2009
Judge Calls the DEA "Addicts" of Government money
A candid explanation by a sitting judge as to why the drug war and prohibition of marijuana are a losing battle. He lists off all the winners in the war and drugs, and you may be surprised by who he includes on that list.
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Saturday, March 7, 2009
How to stop the drug wars (Prohibition has failed)
Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution - The United States alone spends some $40 billion each year on trying to eliminate the supply of drugs. It arrests 1.5m of its citizens each year for drug offences, locking up half a million of them ... Yet prohibition itself vitiates the efforts of the drug warriors.
From The Economist - A HUNDRED years ago a group of foreign diplomats gathered in Shanghai for the first-ever international effort to ban trade in a narcotic drug. On February 26th 1909 they agreed to set up the International Opium Commission—just a few decades after Britain had fought a war with China to assert its right to peddle the stuff. Many other bans of mood-altering drugs have followed. In 1998 the UN General Assembly committed member countries to achieving a “drug-free world” and to “eliminating or significantly reducing” the production of opium, cocaine and cannabis by 2008.
That is the kind of promise politicians love to make. It assuages the sense of moral panic that has been the handmaiden of prohibition for a century. It is intended to reassure the parents of teenagers across the world. Yet it is a hugely irresponsible promise, because it cannot be fulfilled.
Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to legalise drugs.
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Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to legalise drugs.
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Saturday, February 28, 2009
today’s quote…
From MassCann: The Massachusetts Chapter of NORML…
Useful Quotes
Good quotes make great letters.
"It is my considered opinion at present that marihuana is not harmful unless it is taken in enormous and excessive amounts. I believe that we are damaging this country, damaging our law enforcement situation, damaging the trust between older people and younger people by its prohibition, and this is far more serious than any damage that might be done to a few overusers."
-Testimony of anthropologist Margaret Mead to Congress (October 27, 1969)
Thursday, February 26, 2009
California considers junking marijuana prohibition
Rob Kampia of Marijuana Policy Project on the end of marijuana prohibition in California
Marijuana Policy Project Alert
February 26, 2009
On Monday, a California state legislator introduced historic legislation that would end marijuana prohibition in California. The bill — authored by Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) — would eliminate criminal penalties for responsible marijuana use and set up a system to regulate and tax marijuana sales similarly to alcohol.
Last night, I appeared on "Glenn Beck" on the Fox News Channel to discuss the legislation. You can watch the segment here:
Rob Kampia, executive director of MPP, is interviewed by Glenn Beck about the California bill introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol.
As the nation's largest state, California's serious consideration of ending marijuana prohibition is making huge waves. Within hours of the bill's introduction, it made national headlines and has since generated media coverage across the country, including the Associated Press, USA Today, Washington Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, and much more. MPP has already been featured in at least 20 TV, radio, and print stories about the bill. For instance, one of California's most respected political columnists, Dan Walters, opined in support of the bill in his Tuesday column, quoting MPP's Aaron Smith.
While the legislation isn't likely to become law this year, it's a strong signal that we're making tremendous strides. And California has a reputation for leading the way for other states. When I co-founded MPP in 1995, most people thought medical marijuana wasn't going to become legal anytime soon, but a year later California approved the nation's first medical marijuana law, and since then a dozen other states have followed suit.
MPP is the leading organization working on this and other efforts to end the government's war on marijuana users.
Sincerely,
Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Politics of Prohibition: it's government greed, not rights
Don Boudreaux July 31, 2007 - This is the history your government school history books DIDN'T teach, and it applies to today's prohibition-failure, too. I'm sure alcohol prohibition was an expensive failure akin to prohibitions on other drugs for years, but it took a fiscal clusterfuck akin to today's clusterfuck to get "change." It's all about the money, not individual rights.
So, if the history of alcohol prohibition is a guide, drug prohibition will not end merely because there are many sound, sensible and humane reasons to end it. Instead, it will end only if and when Congress gets desperate for another revenue source.
That's the sorry logic of politics and Prohibition.
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Latin America Ex-Leaders Urge Reform of US Drug War
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 11 (Reuters) - The war against drugs is failing and the U.S. government should break with "prohibition" policies that have achieved little more than cram its prisons and stoke violence, three former Latin American presidents said on Wednesday.
The respected former presidents urged the United States and Latin American governments to move away from jailing drug users to debate the legalization of marijuana and place more emphasis on the treatment of addicts.
Former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria said there was no meaningful debate over drugs policy in the United States, despite a broad consensus that current policies had failed.
"The problem today in the U.S. is that narco-trafficking is a crime and so any politician is fearful of talking about narco-trafficking or talking about policies because they will be called soft," he said.
Gaviria has joined with former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo to try to change the debate on drugs in Latin America, where trafficking gangs have killed tens of thousands of people and weakened democracies through corruption.
From Mexico's gang wars to the drug-funded FARC guerrilla group in Colombia and daily shoot-outs between gangs and police in Rio de Janeiro's shantytowns, much of the region is scarred by drug violence and many believe U.S. policies have failed.
A United Nations meeting in Vienna next month will frame international drugs policy for the next 10 years, and the three former presidents, whose group is called the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, said it is time for change.
They pointed to falling street prices for cocaine and still high levels of consumption in the United States despite decades of policies focused on punishing users and cutting supplies from Latin American countries such as Colombia.
read more digg story
The respected former presidents urged the United States and Latin American governments to move away from jailing drug users to debate the legalization of marijuana and place more emphasis on the treatment of addicts.
Former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria said there was no meaningful debate over drugs policy in the United States, despite a broad consensus that current policies had failed.
"The problem today in the U.S. is that narco-trafficking is a crime and so any politician is fearful of talking about narco-trafficking or talking about policies because they will be called soft," he said.
Gaviria has joined with former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo to try to change the debate on drugs in Latin America, where trafficking gangs have killed tens of thousands of people and weakened democracies through corruption.
From Mexico's gang wars to the drug-funded FARC guerrilla group in Colombia and daily shoot-outs between gangs and police in Rio de Janeiro's shantytowns, much of the region is scarred by drug violence and many believe U.S. policies have failed.
A United Nations meeting in Vienna next month will frame international drugs policy for the next 10 years, and the three former presidents, whose group is called the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, said it is time for change.
They pointed to falling street prices for cocaine and still high levels of consumption in the United States despite decades of policies focused on punishing users and cutting supplies from Latin American countries such as Colombia.
read more digg story
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Let's End Drug Prohibition - Prohibition's 75th Aniversary
Wall Street Journal: Today is the 75th anniversary of that blessed day in 1933 when Utah became the 36th and deciding state to ratify the 21st amendment, thereby repealing the 18th amendment. This ended the nation's disastrous experiment with alcohol prohibition.
The Americans who voted in 1933 to repeal prohibition differed greatly in their reasons for overturning the system. But almost all agreed that the evils of failed suppression far outweighed the evils of alcohol consumption.
The change from just 15 years earlier, when most Americans saw alcohol as the root of the problem and voted to ban it, was dramatic. Prohibition's failure to create an Alcohol Free Society sank in quickly. Booze flowed as readily as before, but now it was illicit, filling criminal coffers at taxpayer expense.
Some opponents of prohibition pointed to Al Capone and increasing crime, violence and corruption. Others were troubled by the labeling of tens of millions of Americans as criminals, overflowing prisons, and the consequent broadening of disrespect for the law. Americans were disquieted by dangerous expansions of federal police powers, encroachments on individual liberties, increasing government expenditure devoted to enforcing the prohibition laws, and the billions in forgone tax revenues. And still others were disturbed by the specter of so many citizens blinded, paralyzed and killed by poisonous moonshine and industrial alcohol.
Supporters of prohibition blamed the consumers, and some went so far as to argue that those who violated the laws deserved whatever ills befell them. But by 1933, most Americans blamed prohibition itself.
When repeal came, it was not just with the support of those with a taste for alcohol, but also those who disliked and even hated it but could no longer ignore the dreadful consequences of a failed prohibition. They saw what most Americans still fail to see today: That a failed drug prohibition can cause greater harm than the drug it was intended to banish.
Consider the consequences of drug prohibition today: 500,000 people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails for nonviolent drug-law violations; 1.8 million drug arrests last year; tens of billions of taxpayer dollars expended annually to fund a drug war that 76% of Americans say has failed; millions now marked for life as former drug felons; many thousands dying each year from drug overdoses that have more to do with prohibitionist policies than the drugs themselves, and tens of thousands more needlessly infected with AIDS and Hepatitis C because those same policies undermine and block responsible public-health policies.
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