According to the West Wing (television show with political people as writers and producers, including ex-Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers), 35% of all people in federal prisons are non-violent first time offenders whose only crime was to supply or become addicted to drugs.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, an acre of hemp plants can produce 4 times as much paper as an acre of trees with 1/5 the pollution, and can be regrown every season. It is a strong natural fiber (rope and textiles were mostly made with it before the 20th century). It can run a car (methanol).
So why do we continue to have the drug war when we could simply create facilities for treatment for these people? They aren’t harming anyone else and shouldn’t be imprisoned for becoming addicted to something, in my opinion.
And why is hemp not legalized for industrial purposes? It can help save the environment in many ways. Because some people want to smoke it and kill their brain cells why do the rest of us have to suffer?
I think the war on marijuana users is a big waste of time and money.
Also, you may want to know that Cecil has written a bit about the uses of hemp here
BTW, is the TV show the “West Wing” really such a great source to be citing? Seems to me like TV shows make stuff up all the time if it suits them…
The West Wing basically has stuff that Martin Sheen and the other actors want to happen in real life. Like the dissolution of the DEA. I’ve been trying to find those statistics elsewhere, and I’ll post again if I find them or if they’re conflicting or something.
What, give up now when we are so close to victory? We just need to give more money and power to the government so it can similarly cure all ills in society.
I think its obvious to most people (whether or not you agree or disagree with the notion of the war on drugs) that it has been a simple out-and-out failure. What a waste of time and money on ATTEMPTING to stop people enjoying a completely altruistic pastime such as smoking a joint, bong, doobie - whatever you want to call it. The fact remains that ganja has been around far longer than alcohol (which is produced using an unnatural man-made process) and to those of us who know (ie. smoke regularly) it does not in any way lead the way to harder drugs. The powers that be (ie. the 50 somethings who fail to see the hipocrisy in allowing cigarette and alcohol sales to flourish) are simply out of touch with the world today.
Here in Australia we have fairly liberal laws governing drugs, however, the main difference is the Australian authorities sensibly acknowledge those lesser drugs such as pot as being a whole different ball game to the harder class: smack, ecstacy, cocaine etc etc. (all of which incidentally are NOT naturally occurring products). In some states, all a bag of weed will get you is a slap on the hand from the cops, but if they feel you have “too much” to be only for personal use, you could be done for dealing and do some time, otherwise you are not likely to see the inside of a prison cell.
The bottom line is that as far as drugs go, give me a substance to smoke in its natural form, untouched and untampered with, and I’ll be far happier doper than a drunk with vomit on his shoes and his car wrapped around a pole.
WaterJ: given your posts in the socialism thread, I’ll assume that was a joke.
As to the drug war: there was an excellent article in Harper’s magazine a couple months ago about how the drug war violates people’s constitutional rights - practically all of them.
Then, of course, there’s the research that supposedly shows that the CIA began the drug war by distributing crack cocaine, and then subsequently investigated itself and declared itself free of charges.
Whatever. In Canada, there’s more and more of a movement afoot - a serious movement at all levels of government - to legalize marijuana. In fact, there is almost no risk (at least in my city) of getting arrested for possession or use, or even selling. I know several (I am not making this up) marijuana delivery services. And I’ve been to protests where hundreds of people are smoking ganja right on the street and the police didn’t do anything at all (interesting, considering they usually use a lot more flimsy charges when they find themselves inclied to bash protesters’ heads). This is a good thing.
Much like how they declared that they were going to stop harassing prostitutes, so that the prostitutes would feel more comfortable coming to the police if they are raped. Once in a while, the occasional political movement in this country takes it upon itself to make sense.
Ok, I don’t know much about this topic and had planned to only lurk, but GabbaGabbaHey has reminded me of a question I have always had.
Alaska used to have a similar policy with marijuana. If you possessed a small amount for personal use, you were alright, but if you possessed more you’d be at risk for drug trafficking charges. My question is:
How can you have a small amount for personal use if you didn’t buy it from somebody? How can someody sell it to you if they don’t have more than the personal amount? What is the logic behind arresting the traffickers, but condoning users?
While I agree that the failure of the US to distinguish between hard and soft drugs is probably one of the sources of the failure of the war on drugs(the other being, obviously, that prohibition rarely, if ever, works anyway), I would like to point out that ecstacy is generally not considered one of the hard drugs. It’s not mariajuana, but at the same time it’s certainly not like smack, coke, or meth. I usually divide drugs into three, rather than two catagories, just to avoid the problems involved with some, admittedly dangerous, drugs being put in the same group as mariajuana. Ecstacy, being a phenethylamine just like, say, mescaline, would fall into that secondary group, along with most of the triptamines and phenethylamines(psilocybin being the one exception that I can think of off hand).
No, the drug war began in the US in 1914. In Canada, marijuana was first outlawed in the 1920s through the work of Janey Canuck. You can read extensive histories of the subject at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer under Historical Research. I recommend you start with the story of the US marijuana laws, which you can find at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm It is a fascinating and funny story.
Better you should ask what was the original reason for the laws. Marijuana was outlawed because “All Mexicans are crazy and marijuana is what makes them crazy” and because of the fear that heroin addiction would lead to the use of marijuana. (Yes, you read that right.)
Arguing that drug laws should be repealed because “they do not work” is not sufficient. People still do many crimes on the books that we would never think of abolishing, and in fact, rampant non-compliance of laws against murder and rape would most likely result in harsher panalties and stricter enforcement on those crimes with nary a complaint from most people.
I do feel as well that drugs should be legal, but in my case because I feel them to be a personal decision which does not effect others and the dangers of them are quite well known. I would say that drugs should be legalized with the same restrictions on the currently legal drugs we have including alcohol (driving while drunk and being drunk and disorderly are illegal) and tobacco (most public places are off-limits to cigarette smoking these days).
Oh, and of course, tax the hell out of them like we do those other legal drugs as well.
Yer pal,
Satan
TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
One month, one week, four days, 17 hours, 18 minutes and 3 seconds.
1668 cigarettes not smoked, saving $208.60.
Life saved: 5 days, 19 hours, 0 minutes.
An example of how the war on all drugs just creates more problems.
In British prisons you will be tested for drugs on a random but regular basis. There are two categories of test, completely random, suspicion like if you see someone with eyes like pisshole in the snow.
In addition there now exists a system of earned privelidges culminating in parole.
If you fail a test you will lose some days but also your attempt to reach the next privelidge will be put back at least 3 months and this may well put you back on a long waiting list to do the necessary study work which is part of your requirements to achieve parole or go to a lower security prison.
Now cannabis will stay in your system for as much as 28 days so this gives a pretty strong chance of getting caught out, but OTOH, Heroin is gone in less than 3 days so what you do, as a prisoner, is get out of your head on a Friday, knowing that testing is much reduced at the weekend and by Monday you are clear.Same goes for Tamalgesics and many other Barbiturates, in fact Cannabis stays with you longer than all the addictive drugs taken in prisons.
You will not be surprised to learn that prisoners enter the system smoking weed and leave with a far more serious problem. Not very clever at all really.
Prisoners get into debt far more quickly and uncontrllably when they use heroin too which means that they feed their own habits by working for the Barons.This makes it far harder to keep good order and decreases the liklihood of succesful rehabilitation.
We used to prescribe heroin for addicts so that they could maintain themselves, that is, function virtually normally.They then had no need to go to a dealer and the drug market was far smaller.
Nowadays it is very much harder to get a “script” as they are called which has had obvious effects.
These policies came about by right wing politicians trying to win votes by seeing who could be the toughest, and they were warned about the likely consequencies.
First things first, get rid of the ‘650-lifer laws’, like the one in Michigan. If you haven’t heard, that’s if you have a certain amount of drugs by weight, you go in for life, no matter your criminal history. It’s supposed to be a tool to use against high-level dealers, but you know how these things usually end up. You go after Scarface, and you arrest Huggy Bear.
I read a while back that kid’s fears of prison aren’t of the loss of freedoms, or any of that jazz, it’s rape. Lock a kid in the can with a violent criminal, and see what kind of monster we get back. If he wasn’t a violent criminal before, he is now. It’s not like we’re teaching them to use Microsoft Excel in there (which we should)-they are learning better ways to commit crime, networking with the criminal element, and getting buff.
I don’t use, and wouldn’t want my (future) kids to, but I think the ‘war on drugs’ should be stopped to free up the money being spent on prisons so we could use it for education, especially in underpriviledged areas. Heck, if they have good jobs, maybe less crime and drug use, huh?
Another reason for stopping it is the loss of privacy, and ‘bounty hunter mentality’ that is becoming all too commonplace. They killed that rich dude on his farm in California in a raid that merely suspected him of having drugs. Why the zeal? Was he selling to schoolkids? Nope–his farm was worth beaucoup $$ and the local police knew they got a percentage of what the place would auction for. Turns out there wasn’t even a seed out there. Tell it to his widow.
The war on drugs is kind of like cutting off your head to get rid of a headache.
Not sure about the non-violent first time offender part, but according to the United States Bureau of Prisons 58% of all prisoners are there for drug-related crimes. That’s 56,000 people.
“The people” want stronger and tougher drug laws, so this question is academic.
BTW, the law in Michigan is so tough that one person got a life sentence for making a phone call. The charge: conspiracy to distribute 650 grams of cocaine.
Often “the people” are told what their opinion should be by politicians presenting arguments in a style where the choice of answer is carefully limited.
We call it the “when did you stop beating your wife” type debate.
Things like “are you concrened about drug abuse?”
or “Should we let junkies wander the streets?”
These things win votes but I have seen directly the effect of trying to treat all drugs in the same way and know that it can make the problem worse.
The people have had a decades long propaganda campaign foisted upon them, and the great majority of people couldn’t answer any factual questions about the subject. The fact is that the evidence is overwhelming for repeal of the current drug laws.
And what effect, if any did that have on the availability of cocaine?