Pot Legalized

Quote: reno

I think the U.S. government's single biggest mistake in their futile war on drugs has been their stubborn refusal to admit that pot has a handful of medical applications. Huge, huge mistake.

I don't disagree, but the whole "war on drugs" thing is not just futile, but very very harmful on many levels (domestic, international, social, criminal, etc.) It's rather like prescribing hammer blows to the head to treat a headache: it makes the condition worse and causes great harm.

I'm not a defender of drugs, nor do think most of them should ever be used. Pot seems as harmless, overall, as alcohol. Heroine, cocaine and others seem much worse. Still, criminalizing drugs has made things worse and returned no tangible benefits.

Rather than criminalizing drugs, and making criminals of drug users, what society should do is fight drug addiction (including alcohol addiction). That makes a lot more sense, it leaves casual users who cause no harm out of it, and might even work and bring positive, tangible benefits.

Quote: Nareed

Rather than criminalizing drugs, and making criminals of drug users, what society should do is fight drug addiction (including alcohol addiction). That makes a lot more sense, it leaves casual users who cause no harm out of it, and might even work and bring positive, tangible benefits.

We're more or less on the same page. But regarding the hard drugs (cocaine, meth, heroin) I agree that users should go to treatment, not to jail. But what about dealers? Should coke or heroin dealers be locked up? Maybe it doesn't make sense to lock up small time dealers because it's a waste of jail space... but should big time cocaine drug lords (top dogs in a cartel) be locked up? And if a heroin user refuses to get treatment, should they be forced to? Should heroin users have access to heroin via a pharmacy to avoid funding drug dealers?

Pot's easy: legalize it. Problem solved. But those other drugs are trickier.

Quote: reno

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I think the U.S. government's single biggest mistake in their futile war on drugs has been their stubborn refusal to admit that pot has a handful of medical applications. Huge, huge mistake.

I don't think it is/was a "mistake" at all. It worked perfectly, as planned. The phony "war on drugs" was never about lessoning drugs, it is and always was about "control".

It is well known that the cia flies cocaine/heroin in to this country and sells it to finance black ops. I have posted links before.

Cannabis has been used for over 7 thousand years for medicine. They know, they have always known. During the formation of this country it was the law that small farmers were required to grow "hemp". Hemp, I know is only a cousin to mj but I believe the fact is if used properly and with good intention could go a long way toward helping with world peace. Hence lessoning the need for murder control systems. By using hemp for paper, fuel, plastics, clothing, etc, it would decrease the demand for crude substantially. These are facts, this too is not news to the ptb. War and killing and lust for power is their product, it is what they sell. There is no money in everybody just getting along.

Here's why:

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1) TV news footage of cops arresting cancer patients and multiple sclerosis patients in wheelchairs is terrible for public relations. Everyone knows that jail is more dangerous for a cancer patient than pot.

There is no money in curing cancer, only "treating" it, hence keep mmj in contention and at odds with the ama.

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2) Refusing to admit that pot can be used medically undermines the government's trustworthiness and turns the DEA into laughing stocks who ignore basic science.

See above, the government has no trustworthiness, they stay in power with murder control systems and the amount of sheep asleep and on the "dole". imo

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3) This is the biggie: by prohibiting distrubion via hospitals & retail pharmacies (Walgreens, CVS) in states with legal medical marijuana, the government inadvertantly created a semi-legal industry of pot clinics. Those clinics are extraordinarily profitable, (it's just a weed, after all) and as a result, tons of money was funnelled into campaigns to legalize recreational pot (Colorado, Washington state.)

They continue to keep the price up which is their goal. There is much more capital to be extracted from taxing mmj at 300 an ounce then taxing it at ten dollars per ounce. Simple math. The gov. is not going to let go of their military police system, regardless of how we pay, by tax or blood, they will not relinquish control. Look at the biggest business's in the world. Pharmaceutical and the military industrial complex are right up there as well as a proportionate amount of campaign donations. Look who finances the anti-legalization every single time it is put up for a vote. Big pharma,and the liquor lobby are the biggest contributors to stopping the out and out legalization by swaying public opinion with large donations to the local media.

The longer the government holds out on medical pot, the more ridiculous they look. (In 2014, it's still illegal in most US states for an epilepsy patient to grow a plant in their own backyard which reduces their epilepsy seizures??? That's nuts.)

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Ironically, the government's stubbornness on medical pot was probably the best thing to ever happen to the legalization movement. The government should have compromised, but I'm glad they didn't.

Quote: reno

We're more or less on the same page. But regarding the hard drugs (cocaine, meth, heroin) I agree that users should go to treatment, not to jail. But what about dealers? Should coke or heroin dealers be locked up?

No. Should alcohol dealers be locked up? Again, no.

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And if a heroin user refuses to get treatment, should they be forced to? Should heroin users have access to heroin via a pharmacy to avoid funding drug dealers?

No.

The only offenses which require incarceration, or even a fine, are those that harm the rights of other people. Merely taking heroine harms no one else but the perpetrator. We don't lock up alcoholics or force them into treatment, unless they do something actually criminal like DUI.

Ideally the government shouldn't be involved at all. Certainly not in imposing a drug prohibition. But the government's already involved. So it would be best if it began to get uninvolved by remanding addicts to treatment rather than jail.

In any case, once pot gets legalized nationwide, which will happen in a few years, other drugs will inevitably follow.

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Pot's easy: legalize it. Problem solved. But those other drugs are trickier.

Not in principle.

There is a role for government, a legitimate one. For one thing a legal age can be set, and other protections to keep drugs away from children. Then, too, there's the matter of driving and operating machinery under the influence of drugs. Also being high at the time when a crime is committed, say a robbery or rape, the drugs can be an aggravating factor (I hope I'm saying this right), rather than an extenuating circumstance; that is, if you took heroin and then robbed a bank, that makes it worse than if you'd only robbed a bank.

Quote: petroglyph

It is still illegal, you can still go to jail for it in any state. My take is like in Wash., now they won't put you in jail for possession due to popular vote, but now they will imprison you for growing your own and possessing mj without a tax stamp.

You're right, the war on pot is not over yet. But the writing's on the wall, and the days of criminalized pot are numbered. Eventually Colorado & Washington state will relax the rules on home cultivation, but I admit it might take another 10 years.

Mississippi didn't end Prohibition until 1966. In fact, Mississippi didn't legalize homebrewing until 2013.

Quote: Nareed

No.

The only offenses which require incarceration, or even a fine, are those that harm the rights of other people. Merely taking heroine harms no one else but the perpetrator. We don't lock up alcoholics or force them into treatment, unless they do something actually criminal like DUI.

Ok, should heroin, coke, & meth be available at your corner liquor store right next to the Marlboros & Budweiser?

I'm drawing a distinction between decriminalization and full legalization. I think pot should be fully legalized. I'm not sure crack should.

Quote: reno

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You're right, the war on pot is not over yet.

I respectfully wish to re phrase.

The "war on pot" or Nixons "war on drugs" isn't a war on drugs. It is a war on people. To me it is not too different than the Salem witch trials where the authorities at the time [read church] hung or burned people alive. The ptb so far has the "people" thinking that other people are their enemies simply because they use cannabis. Ridiculous as burning someone to death for witchcraft or crucifying someone because of their faith. [Murder control systems]

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But the writing's on the wall, and the days of criminalized pot are numbered

If you are correct and I truly hope you are, the government will contrive other means to extract 90% of the fruit of our labor as a means to control us. It has never been any different. Remember it is the winners who get to write the history books.They will tax our water or air if need be. People are already being arrested for collecting rain water, and the masses huddle and shudder and promise to never do that again lest it be them in court. Fear and pain are efficient control mechanisms.

The "war on drugs", the war on poverty, illiteracy, obesity, the war on terror, all of these phony wars [see Bernays] are not only failed policy they were never meant to succeed, they are just tools used to produce the results that they have. Control. Where I worked everyone around me had to take random drug tests. Ostensibly to eliminate drugs. That too, wasn't to reduce drug use, it was/is about control. Drug testing for pre/post employment last I looked was a 7 billion dollar per year industry. It didn't do squat to curb overall drug use in this country, it did however help waste a lot of money and make sheeple "toe the line".

I don't know if Orwell and Huxley are still required reading in school, but they should be. I think it was '84 where Orwell said "bombs are the only thing that a society can produce that are of no good to anyone" [paraphrased]. If the value extracted from the population to produce those bombs was left in their hands, they could work significantly shorter hours and have such little use for this mega government we now have, the gov would be reduced to what they were supposed to be in the first place. But,,,,they wouldn't like that. So keep something as innocent as cannabis illegal and whole industry's are formed around it, grow ops, psy'ops, co-ops and a private for profit prison industry. It is all about control, things are seldom as they appear.

This reminds me so much of the conversation between Nicola Tesla and Westinghouse. Tesla had devised a means by which everyone on the planet could have free electricity and Westinghouse exclaimed "but where would we put the meter". [Easily researched]

The answer is simple, but not necessarily easy.

Quote: reno

Ok, should heroin, coke, & meth be available at your corner liquor store right next to the Marlboros & Budweiser?

No, but then some people don't like the Marlboros and Budweiser's to be available either.

IMO some drugs will be like Neo-Nazi literature: legal, but carried only by a few stores. And quite honestly the former is a lot more dangerous than the latter.

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I'm drawing a distinction between decriminalization and full legalization. I think pot should be fully legalized. I'm not sure crack should.

I'm drawing a distinction between what's moral and what should be legal.

I'm a bit surprised that our friend Sheldon Adelson (chief of Las Vegas' Venetian & Palazzo) is providing almost all of the funding to prevent medical pot from being legalized in Florida. He's donated $5 million of the $5.8 million raised by the drug warriors.

Why am I so surprised? Because Mr. Adelson has also funded research showing that pot helps patients with multiple sclerosis!

Weird.

Quote: reno

I'm a bit surprised that our friend Sheldon Adelson (chief of Las Vegas' Venetian & Palazzo) is providing almost all of the funding to prevent medical pot from being legalized in Florida. He's donated $5 million of the $5.8 million raised by the drug warriors.

Why am I so surprised? Because Mr. Adelson has also funded research showing that pot helps patients with multiple sclerosis!

Weird.

Could it be his money is in imported narcotics? Anything that would challenge the money that goes to the ptb can't be allowed. People can easily grow cannabis in their own yards and not buy coke or heroin imported by the cia at ludicrous prices. They have a monopoly on those drugs. Coke should cost just a little more than pancake batter. They may have to find another way to fund their black ops?

http://www.bing.com/search?q=Sheldon+Adelson+pharmaceuticals&go=Submit&qs=n&form=QBLH&pq=sheldon+adelson+pharmaceuticals&sc=0-16&sp=-1&sk=&cvid=ec63e2828c094adfba350c9a3f9c2b19