Just Say Now - It's Time to End Cannabis Prohibition

[Kathryn in MA]

Horror stories of SWAT teams invading homes and shooting the family dog have shocked us all and are forcing us to reconsider our values and priorities concerning the Prohibition of Cannabis. This thread will be where we bring our best analysis of the problem, our best fact-finding efforts, and our best arguments of persuasion to end Prohibition.

The sweep of history has been long enough that we can look back and reasonably determine what conditions have been good for humankind and what have been unmitigated disaster. One such disaster has been the attempt to legislate morality over human nature, whether it was prohibition of alcohol, drugs, gambling, and prostitution. It may be the job of the church, temple, or mosque to preach exemplary behavior and threaten doom, but no amount of law enforcement or punishment has been able to change human nature.

Prohibition of Alcohol may have been a result of efforts to improve society by improving moral behavior, but the result was still disastrous, and the social experiment ended after 13 years. Prohibition of Cannabis, however, was instituted for financial gain, racial bias, and political payback, and it's despicable nature has lead to horrendous levels of violence as organized crime and organized crime-fighting bureaucracies protect their revenue streams.

Prohibition instituted for financial gain, racial bias, and political payback is despicable and should be reason enough to end Prohibition forthwith. The sheer scale of human misery and tragedy in the wake of Prohibition should be reason enough to end Prohibition forthwith. That a neighboring country is begging us to end Prohibition because the cartels are destabilizing the very government should be reason enough to end Prohibition forthwith.

However, it is also human nature to be scared of the unknown, and to be reluctant to move from a bad place to a promised better place, if no one knows what that better place looks like. Moses led his people out of slavery, but had his hands full trying to keep everyone focused on the unknowable future when all they wanted was their old familiar situation, now looking rather rosy in hindsight. So, let us bring our best persuasions, how industry, medicine, community, will all be better for ending prohibition.

Thank you.

 

[Kathryn in MA]

Bill King, Lovely County, AK writes a very good overview of the money-making reasons for outlawing cannabis.

420Magazine-editorial-just-say-no.html
Lovely County Citizen: Editorial: Editorial - Just say NO (09/01/10)

In the latest front/affront in the war on a medicinal herb, the U.S. government, with help from the Arkansas National Guard, state police and the sheriff, invaded the gardens of Carroll County residents, terrorizing citizens, endangering lives and wasting resources. Shame on all those participating in these unconstitutional, tyrannical, police state tactics.

Greedy billionaires created the war on marijuana, and more than 70 years later their sham continues to ruin countless lives and make criminals out of productive citizens.

The history of marijuana prohibition is a sordid tale indeed. It wasn't really about cannabis the "drug," but rather the financial impact of hemp on the timber and plastics industries. It was about money for rich people. Some things never change.

 

[Kathryn in MA]

I'm going to research and post about
1. the difference between opioids and cannabis and the endocannabinoid system,
2. the use of cannabis in Buddhism as an aide to 'awareness'
3. the use of cannabis as a 'general tonic' in Chinese medicine over the last few thousand years.
4. the environmental benefits (and cost benefits!) of hempcrete,
5. an analysis of politicians who use fear tactics for personal gain,
6. the creation of an underclass of people and the enrichment of an elite,
7. Cannabis was an ingredient in the anointing oil recipe Moses gave to Aaron (verified!)

hmm, any other reality-based points of discussion?

 

[Kathryn in MA]

Here is the website of Just Say Now - an awesome coalition of Firedoglake, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, including LEAP, 420Magazine, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, and more!

Domain Registered at Safenames

Just Say Now is a campaign for marijuana legalization, made of a transpartisan alliance of organizations seeking to improve our nation’s drug laws. Our effort is spearheaded by two groups. Firedoglake is a progressive blog and activist hub dedicated to bringing greater transparency and accountability to government. Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) is an international grassroots organization of students who recognize the failure that is our war on drugs. Together, our two organizations will work to organize an effective online/offline movement to help pass marijuana legalization in the elections of 2010, 2012 and beyond.

 

[sinbad]

Good luck-everyone needs to be aware of the facts on MM and mary jane use-smoking can cure not kill

 

[Kathryn in MA]

CANNABIS RECONSIDERED A Paradigm Shift - from Escalating Punishment to Least Harm

There is a video online showing a SWAT team invading a home, terrifying a woman and her 7-year-old son, shooting two dogs, shoving a man up against a wall, and cuffing him. He cries out in anguish, “You shot my dog? You shot my dog? She was a good dog!” His cries of anguish must have risen to heaven and God must have heard, because plenty of us here on earth have. And our reaction is that this is wrong. This level of violence on the part of law enforcement is wrong. This is a heinous state of affairs and it shocks the conscience.

Our next reaction is to ask ourselves, “How did we get to this place?” And we find that the genesis of the War on Drugs was in corruption and racism. Two corporatists made their competitor’s product illegal and wrapped that in racial hysteria. By stoking fears of Mexican laborers and black jazz musicians, William Randolph Hearst insured forests would be leveled for newsprint and DuPont insured that BP would ruin the Gulf for plastic bags.

Cannabis prohibition entered a new phase when President Richard Nixon ignored his own commissioned report advocating for legalization and used his War on Drugs as vindictive political retribution against the hippies harshing his Vietnam war.

Our current phase in cannabis prohibition is from President Ronald Reagan’s privatization of prisons – prisons for profit. Halliburton makes prisons and profits from full prisons. And cannabis smokers are an easy bust. One expects that the next phase of the War on Drugs will be the privatization of enforcement duties over to Blackwater.

Further examination of cannabis prohibition enforcement patterns reveals more corruption. Minority communities bear the brunt of the War on Drug’s activities. A greater percentage of the poor and people of color are labeled felons than well-to-do whites. This has cascading repercussions in social mobility when an entire class of people are prohibited from student loans, housing vouchers, and other aides to upward mobility. Creating a permanent underclass guarantees prison profits, and thus the downward vicious cycle. This is the logical consequence of cannabis prohibition. One cannot deny history.

The truly inspirational action we can take in the face of this is to come together as caring human beings and determine that we, together, will change this state of affairs by turning our backs on the present paradigm, that of Escalating Violence and Punishment, taking cannabis out of the realm of law enforcement, and putting cannabis into the realms of health, with the new paradigm of ‘Least Harm.’

If all of us declare cannabis to be a medical herb, due all the respect and responsibilities of an aide to human well-being, immense benefits will immediately be manifest. Wrongs will be righted – those imprisoned will be released, and more blessings will flow – those in pain will find relief. Other things, like industrial applications and medical research, will generate jobs and paychecks – not trivial benefits, at all. And law enforcement will be able to pay more attention to more grevous crimes.

As voters are asked whether they would vote to end prohibition, many rightly complain that they do not know enough about the issue, realizing that everything they have heard, the racist Reefer Madness campaigns, may be wrong, but what is the truth? How do we know, if we relegalize cannabis, that hell won’t break loose?

I propose that we call for a moratorium on the War on Drugs, a cease fire, a stand down. Effective immediately. In the span of time from now until election day, we will see with our own eyes what changes take place or not. We all must stand up and insist that our community leaders stand up. Each of us act – print out letters, articles, anything persuasive, and meet face-to-face with our religious leaders and encourage our law enforcement departments to join LEAP – Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Let’s start the discussion. End the War on Drugs, starting with a cease fire.

And in the duration, allow cannabis in places like hospice, where the medical and spiritual sides of cannabis will shine, giving those starting their last journey respite from pain and energy for their inspirational, creative, and spiritual needs.

 

[Kathryn in MA]

Family sues SWAT team home invasion.
Family Sues in Missouri Dog-Shooting SWAT Raid | StoptheDrugWar.org

If everyone spoke to their police dept, urged them to join LEAP, and a moratorium on home invasions, the law might get the message! This is not acceptable.

 

[Kathryn in MA]

I'm very proud to say the essay cross-posted at the Seminal/Firedoglake has been highlighted at the Just Say Now site.
Cannabis Reconsidered: A Paradigm Shift – from Escalating Punishment to Least Harm | Just Say Now: Legalize Marijuana

 

[SnowBender]

Any successful repeal of prohibition needs a multi-pronged approach.


Medical.
Recreational.
Industrial. (hemp)
Tax revenue. (sales and tourism)
Civil rights (constitutional freedoms)
Environmental. (largest scrubber of greenhouse gasses per acre)
Harm reduction. (alternative for those addicted to harmful drugs)
ect...

 

[adobeboxer]

but no amount of law enforcement or punishment has been able to change human nature.

Who is asserting that this is the role or mission of law enforcement? Are you implying that getting high is a part of human nature? The real course of ending prohibition is not practicable in our lifetimes. The only "compromise" would be the legalizing of pot, as sanctioned by medical law, and that is not a situation I find consistent with greater individual freedom, or, its guarantee. This legalization debate, of appealing to the very same powers that have made the war on drugs the dismal failure it is, to me, is counterintuitive and counterproductive. Think Constitution, Libs!