Jim Finnel
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex News Moderator
Stories of violent attacks, hate crimes and murder fill the media. Its happening right here in Central Texas. Two young women were found killed execution style in Grandbury and three Dallas children were shot in the back seat of their mom's Mercedes recently.
We all want, "Resilient Teens, Empowered Parents, Strong Communities," don't we? That is what Joy Strickland's Mothers Against Teen Violence organization is all about. Following the tragedy of losing her son Charles Christopher Lewis (Chris), 19, and his friend, Kendrick Demond Lott, 18, who were robbed and brutally murdered in Dallas. Joy believes the war on drugs undermines the safety of our children and her's and James Capra's, DEA agent arguments on the subjects have been published recently in the Dallas Morning News.
Have you ever done a search for violent crime statistics?
Or unsolved child murders? Many violent crimes go unsolved every year!
Alcohol makes domestic violence 8xs more likely; marijuana does not according to a 2003 study. Steroids show a strong connection in the news lately to violent behavior among pro-wrestlers and body builders.
Going postal is not slowing down and is often triggered by prescribed drugs. There is a link between pharmaceutical psychotropic drugs and violence ncluding school violence!
Prescription meds mixed with alcohol figure in most suicides. Treating drug abusers ompassionately, as patients with an illness might help prevent this tragedy and any others.. The sweet milk of human desire or our consuming passions can destroy us or, as we gain more control, make us stronger.
Enforcement did not work for alcohol and prohibition will never work for any drug. Making a product illegal increases violence and corruption for its market. It decreases public safety, ruining lives instead of saving them.
Atlanta police killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston in a botched drug raid not long ago and the carnage continues. An Ohio SWAT team, serving an ordinary drug search warrant, shot and killed an innocent woman! They killed Tarika Wilson and shot her one-year-old son. The boy lost at least one of his fingers and two dogs were shot as well.
Prohibition's legacy is legend in the waste of our precious lives and resources. Deaths and needless injuries happen too often in botched paramilitary drug raids.
In comparison to the carnage of innocents, only five American drug enforcement officers died last year. Yet police repeatedly warn that they face grave danger from drug dealers, necessitating the resort to SWAT-style policing on routine drug raids.
Do we have to let the carnage escalate to the blood baths of violence during alcohol prohibition? Mexico is already experiencing it with many innocents and children murdered in the crossfire.
Drug prohibition triggers violence and corruption as did alcohol prohibition; history repeats itself. Official lawlessness rules once more, "There's No Justice in the War on Drugs!"
Snipers, killers and violent sexual and other hate filled predators roam free, while we use up limited resources policing individual medicinal and recreational drug use. Drug warriors don't have to look far for something better to do.
Alcohol drug reformers used the slogan, "Save the Children from Prohibition." Support for the federal war on drugs is inconsistent with support for individual freedom, constitutional government and the teachings of Jesus.
In the spirit of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. with our Bible and Constitution always close at hand, "We will overcome," drug abuse with compassion, science based education and treatment.
Over a thousand people die each day due to tobacco use! Close to 300 a day die from rescribed pharmaceuticals. The tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceuticals gangs deal drugs that kill many more annually than all illicit drugs. We tolerate their salesmen!
We want a better drug policy. We can restore justice by constructing cience based drug policies about saving and rehabilitating instead of ruining lives. We can celebrate our similarities, building bridges of tolerance to differences in religion, race and lifestyle, creating a world of abundance and peace.
It is much safer for us, as individuals, to grow herb gardens and take responsibility for control of our own health and appetites than to expect the government or a pill to fix all of our ills.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy is pushing the concept of pot addiction but science shows that withdrawal symptoms from caffeine are much worse than those for cannabis. Cannabis is one of the most benign chemicals we can ingest. Arresting nonviolent people for making a safer health choice in a medicinal/recreational drug is scandalous reefer madness.
We are punishing people because servants of tyranny ignore science in naming their choice unwise when in fact it is a scientifically proven safer, wiser health choice, compared to legal alternatives. Taking children from the homes of parents who made a safer health choice in a medicinal or recreational drug is insane policy.
Taking property from these same, destroyed by government families, is legalized extortion ! States seized $1.52 billion in 2007; Texas alone seized more than $125 million last year. End asset forfeiture! We owe reparations to people for all this tyranny.
The bodies pile up like cordwood or holocaust victims (more than 33,000 precious lives lost in 2005) but does anyone care if overdose deaths skyrocket!?...that research shows little or no overdose deaths before prohibition? Dr. Leveque, of Salem, Oregon points out, "marijuana was once used to help people withdraw from opium and opiates."
Our failure to help stem the worldwide AIDS epidemic is a truly horrifying crime against humanity. Eight thousand people die of AIDS related illness every day. Treating AIDS is expensive, providing sterile syringes to addicts is a cheap and effective way to curb the epidemic. Yet, the United States has used its influence in the United Nations to prevent countries that receive UN aid from distributing sterile syringes for disease prevention.
We can see where our laws are causing more harm than good and change accordingly; with modern unbiased, science based statistical reporting. More democracy leads to less internal violence and democide, empirical statistical evidence strongly shows. Democide is a term coined by political scientist R. J. Rummel in his book, DEATH by GOVERNMENT to describe "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder."
Once Americans stood proudly for freedom from oppression. America now has the dubious honor of being number one in the world for having the most people in prison. The Land of the Used-to-be-Free has become the most incarcerated nation in history!
The Pew Center on the States recently released a report showing that more than 1 in 100 American adults are presently in jail or prison. A good percentage are nonviolent parents who made a safer choice! This astonishingly high rate is racially skewed. One in nine black men (20 to 34 years old) and one out of every thirty-six adult Hispanic men are serving time. Human Rights Watch is also shining a critical spotlight on this evident racism.
"Is the war on drugs doing more damage than the drugs themselves?" Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey video will compel you to ask yourself this question if you haven't already done so.
The legendary Frank Serpico (the man who blew the whistle on corruption in the New York Police Department, and who was shot in the face for his efforts) is a member of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. He is just one of these mighty rebels with just cause, true, alive today, walking, talking American heroes, who testify to the corruption, ruined lives and violence triggered by the current quagmire we call drug policy.
Overzealous, unconscionable to the extreme, situations are occurring!
Like Ashley Villarreal: in San Antonio.DEA agents shoot innocent 14-year-old girl in the head, but deny any wrongdoing.
Like Rachel Hoffman: a young college grad, coerced by police to act as an informant after she was arrested for marijuana possession and then killed by drug dealers following a botched drug sting.
"The heavy penalties facing drug offenders create pressure to cooperate with law enforcement," stated Kris Krane, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. The group advocates that drug use be treated as a public-health issue rather than a law-enforcement issue, and has chapters on 120 campuses nationwide.
"The overwhelming majority of informants are people busted for drugs," Krane said. "Police can do an effective job of scaring people especially young people into complicity. People are getting caught in the middle of the war on drugs every day." That's especially true for college students, Krane said, because they risk losing their financial aid if they have a drug conviction. He suggests, young people often don't know their rights and should seek counsel if arrested.
It is easier for retired New Jersey State Police Lt. Jack Cole to look himself in the eye theses days. He made headlines when he teamed up with other former cops to form the drug policy reform group LEAP. The organization's message is an "aha" moment for many: "The Drug War is a lie that ruins lives and damages the reputation of and respect for police. If you want to control the market for illicit drugs, legalize them – it's the only way to regulate their distribution and use."
Stop further restrictions on our freedoms in the name of the drug war; warrantless surveillance, wiretaps and searches including searches of our trash cans and medical records. Stop confiscation of cars and other property without trials, entrapment and long prison sentences for the nonviolent. Stop racial profiling, useless drug testing, "no knock" military-style raids on people's homes and especially oooops, we made a mistake raids. Most horrific, stop the un-American activities of harassing sick and dying people for making a safer health choice and stop the threat of arrest for good Samaritans and overdose survivors after life saving calls for help.
"Over the lifetime of the drug war, we have given U.S. law enforcement more than $1 trillion to stop the flow of drugs." Rants Dean Becker, Producer of Drug Truth Network. Over that same period more than $10 trillion untaxed dollars flowed to terrorists, dangerous cartels and violent gangs.
Stop spending tens of billions of our tax dollars each year enforcing a punitive drug war policy. Illegal drugs are readily available everywhere and the damages triggered by prohibition continue to mount.
The countless daily injustices mean it's time to ramp up efforts to end the Drug War, repeal prohibition! That's what the TRUTH 08 CAMPAIGN at STOP THE DRUG WAR.org is about! European harm reduction policy works so much better than our current response.
It is a fallacy to believe the evils of the drug war are unintended. Felony convictions disenfranchise mostly poor and minority Americans.
Dick "Tater" Nixon was really good at hiding tyranny under the guise of good intentions, a con used by the servants of tyranny, throughout history. He said on a white house tape "marijuana was the drug of choice for Mexicans, hippies and black people," making perfectly clear his racism and authoritarian leanings.
The DEA he started could be called the Drug Encouragement Administration. Use of drugs in the last 35 years has increased. Drugs are more potent and available. Disband the DEA.
Most Texans and Americans agree and believe health care is the responsibility of the individual. The use of marijuana has been demonized and made a crime, when in truth, it is a health care story about a safer choice!
Ooooops! Who spilled the beans? scientists and patients all over the world, that's who!
Cannabis medicines were once the “drugs of choice” in the United States. Until they were declared illegal, they had been used in about 30 prescription medicines for a 100 specific medical problems.
Some scientists speculate that cannabinoids play a protective role in the brain, slowing the rate of disease.
Patients all over the world testify to Cannabis' help in treating chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, gastrointestinal (GI) tract disorders, HIV/AIDS and cancer! . Some scientists speculate that cannabinoids play a protective role in the brain, slowing the rate of disease. A study has shown THC is far more effective than available Alzheimer's drugs to treat symptoms and halt the disease's progression.
Dr. Paul tells it like it is! "We have seen cases where harmless elderly women, having committed no act of violence, are arrested for raising marijuana in the yard to use for relief of severe arthritic pain . . . Any new suggestions for changing our drug laws that is, liberalizing them – is seen as political suicide by the hypocritical politicians and a society legally hooked on alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, aspirin and Valium."
If some carry on the ancient tradition of using drugs as a sacrament, to enhance spiritual growth, it is cause for rejoicing not incarceration.
US Representative Barney Frank has filed a bipartisan federal bill to legalize "small amounts" of marijuana and make room for serious criminals. Representative Ron Paul is a cosponsor. This Texas straight talker says we are "politicizing pain." Visit Marijuana Policy Projects Legislation page to write your Congress person about "The Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act"- HR 5843.
Write your Congress person from Marijuana Policy Projects Legislation page about “Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act”- HR 5842 which would allow the medical use of marijuana in states that have chosen to make its use for medical purposes legal with a doctor's recommendation. The debate over medical marijuana or cannabis is really a scandalous controversy over whether this very easy-to-grow herb should be allowed to compete with pharmaceuticals for pennies on the dollar.
Should Illegal Drugs be Legal? How about Prostitution? "I think the government's role should not be involved in personal habits. When you defend freedom, you defend freedom of choice, and you can't be picking and choosing how people use those freedoms . . .whether it's personal behavior or economic behavior, I want people to have freedom of choice," Ron Paul asserts. He also said we shouldn't treat addicts as criminals. "We treat 'em as criminals rather than sick people, we have pushed a lot of people into prostitution. So prostitution is related to the mistakes we've made in the drug war." Definitely, less poor souls would get stuck on skid row or in prostitution with compassionate policy offering helpful treatment.
Let's let history repeat itself, repeal prohibition. Gain better control by regulating all drugs like we do pharmaceuticals, tobacco or alcohol. We tolerate the salesmen of these drug gangs that cause more death annually than all illicit drugs.
Regulation and offering compassionate treatment to abusers will seriously cool drug problems. It would freeze the racism and violence triggered by a policy that ignores history and common sense. It would melt the gargantuan iceberg of official corruption and stop cold terrorists' sources of funding worldwide. We want drug laws that don't kill our troops by giving money and
power to terrorists.
Abstinence from recreational drugs is safest for all, especially youth but few will choose it. Parents do need to set an example for their children. However, most parents who use drugs and alcohol do not abuse them. They are responsible drug users, especially marijuana users as it is the safest choice.
Science based education & harm reduction is a better drug policy. The truth about drugs will keep our children off them. Sound medical and unbiased scientific knowledge are the most effective moral persuasions. Present policy falsehoods and scare tactics undermine our credibility.
The tool we need to fight drug abuse is compassion. Treat nonviolent abusers as patients not criminals. Fight use with factual evidence! We are diminishing the use of tobacco with the campaign; Knowledge is Contagious, so Infect Truth!
Effective drug education based on medical science builds student's confidence to make informed responsible choices. We want to encourage drug free behavior not awaken their curiosity. Truth, trust and reason encourage open communications between youth, parents and faculties.
The real visionaries, who laid down our laws, those who defined what an American patriot would be, were rebels with just cause. They made it not just our right but our patriotic duty to rebel against big government waste and corruption. "Freedom is popular," Ron Paul crows these days.
Special interests like the pharmaceutical, prison and defense industries, lobby for harsher drug laws or a military approach to drug enforcement. Other special interest groups are simply disinclined to support a dialogue that could lead to more effective polices because they benefit from current policy and do not care if lives are damaged by the status quo.
Many of today's leaders are servants of tyranny, others seem to have minds like concrete; thoroughly mixed up and permanently set. Blinded by the light of billions in tax and lobby money; bleeding leaders, thus corrupted, are blithely unconscious of the societal harm their policies cause. Jiminy Cricket, where is their conscience?
Join the Easy Revolution. The web is the fastest growing communications medium in the history of the world. A powerful tool, a window of opportunity, in our war of good over evil; the Internet continues to revolutionize the way we communicate and has enormous potential for reshaping the political process.
President John F. Kennedy warned: “Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”
Restore justice in America; construct science based drug policies about saving and rehabilitating instead of ruining lives. Warriors can get their adrenaline rush catching murderers and violent sexual predators. Many of whom we know are out there, some where. Then our peace keepers will truly be making our neighborhoods safer.
All major religions believe that life is sacred. Save the Children, just say NO to Prohibition! People of all faiths and goodwill can stand together for a more just, science based and compassionate alternatives to the current senseless policy.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: ProgressiveU.org.
Copyright: 2008 Creative Commons License
Contact: Progressive U | The new media voice for students
Website: Weed Out Violence, Racism & Tyranny | Progressive U
We all want, "Resilient Teens, Empowered Parents, Strong Communities," don't we? That is what Joy Strickland's Mothers Against Teen Violence organization is all about. Following the tragedy of losing her son Charles Christopher Lewis (Chris), 19, and his friend, Kendrick Demond Lott, 18, who were robbed and brutally murdered in Dallas. Joy believes the war on drugs undermines the safety of our children and her's and James Capra's, DEA agent arguments on the subjects have been published recently in the Dallas Morning News.
Have you ever done a search for violent crime statistics?
Or unsolved child murders? Many violent crimes go unsolved every year!
Alcohol makes domestic violence 8xs more likely; marijuana does not according to a 2003 study. Steroids show a strong connection in the news lately to violent behavior among pro-wrestlers and body builders.
Going postal is not slowing down and is often triggered by prescribed drugs. There is a link between pharmaceutical psychotropic drugs and violence ncluding school violence!
Prescription meds mixed with alcohol figure in most suicides. Treating drug abusers ompassionately, as patients with an illness might help prevent this tragedy and any others.. The sweet milk of human desire or our consuming passions can destroy us or, as we gain more control, make us stronger.
Enforcement did not work for alcohol and prohibition will never work for any drug. Making a product illegal increases violence and corruption for its market. It decreases public safety, ruining lives instead of saving them.
Atlanta police killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston in a botched drug raid not long ago and the carnage continues. An Ohio SWAT team, serving an ordinary drug search warrant, shot and killed an innocent woman! They killed Tarika Wilson and shot her one-year-old son. The boy lost at least one of his fingers and two dogs were shot as well.
Prohibition's legacy is legend in the waste of our precious lives and resources. Deaths and needless injuries happen too often in botched paramilitary drug raids.
In comparison to the carnage of innocents, only five American drug enforcement officers died last year. Yet police repeatedly warn that they face grave danger from drug dealers, necessitating the resort to SWAT-style policing on routine drug raids.
Do we have to let the carnage escalate to the blood baths of violence during alcohol prohibition? Mexico is already experiencing it with many innocents and children murdered in the crossfire.
Drug prohibition triggers violence and corruption as did alcohol prohibition; history repeats itself. Official lawlessness rules once more, "There's No Justice in the War on Drugs!"
Snipers, killers and violent sexual and other hate filled predators roam free, while we use up limited resources policing individual medicinal and recreational drug use. Drug warriors don't have to look far for something better to do.
Alcohol drug reformers used the slogan, "Save the Children from Prohibition." Support for the federal war on drugs is inconsistent with support for individual freedom, constitutional government and the teachings of Jesus.
In the spirit of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. with our Bible and Constitution always close at hand, "We will overcome," drug abuse with compassion, science based education and treatment.
Over a thousand people die each day due to tobacco use! Close to 300 a day die from rescribed pharmaceuticals. The tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceuticals gangs deal drugs that kill many more annually than all illicit drugs. We tolerate their salesmen!
We want a better drug policy. We can restore justice by constructing cience based drug policies about saving and rehabilitating instead of ruining lives. We can celebrate our similarities, building bridges of tolerance to differences in religion, race and lifestyle, creating a world of abundance and peace.
It is much safer for us, as individuals, to grow herb gardens and take responsibility for control of our own health and appetites than to expect the government or a pill to fix all of our ills.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy is pushing the concept of pot addiction but science shows that withdrawal symptoms from caffeine are much worse than those for cannabis. Cannabis is one of the most benign chemicals we can ingest. Arresting nonviolent people for making a safer health choice in a medicinal/recreational drug is scandalous reefer madness.
We are punishing people because servants of tyranny ignore science in naming their choice unwise when in fact it is a scientifically proven safer, wiser health choice, compared to legal alternatives. Taking children from the homes of parents who made a safer health choice in a medicinal or recreational drug is insane policy.
Taking property from these same, destroyed by government families, is legalized extortion ! States seized $1.52 billion in 2007; Texas alone seized more than $125 million last year. End asset forfeiture! We owe reparations to people for all this tyranny.
The bodies pile up like cordwood or holocaust victims (more than 33,000 precious lives lost in 2005) but does anyone care if overdose deaths skyrocket!?...that research shows little or no overdose deaths before prohibition? Dr. Leveque, of Salem, Oregon points out, "marijuana was once used to help people withdraw from opium and opiates."
Our failure to help stem the worldwide AIDS epidemic is a truly horrifying crime against humanity. Eight thousand people die of AIDS related illness every day. Treating AIDS is expensive, providing sterile syringes to addicts is a cheap and effective way to curb the epidemic. Yet, the United States has used its influence in the United Nations to prevent countries that receive UN aid from distributing sterile syringes for disease prevention.
We can see where our laws are causing more harm than good and change accordingly; with modern unbiased, science based statistical reporting. More democracy leads to less internal violence and democide, empirical statistical evidence strongly shows. Democide is a term coined by political scientist R. J. Rummel in his book, DEATH by GOVERNMENT to describe "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder."
Once Americans stood proudly for freedom from oppression. America now has the dubious honor of being number one in the world for having the most people in prison. The Land of the Used-to-be-Free has become the most incarcerated nation in history!
The Pew Center on the States recently released a report showing that more than 1 in 100 American adults are presently in jail or prison. A good percentage are nonviolent parents who made a safer choice! This astonishingly high rate is racially skewed. One in nine black men (20 to 34 years old) and one out of every thirty-six adult Hispanic men are serving time. Human Rights Watch is also shining a critical spotlight on this evident racism.
"Is the war on drugs doing more damage than the drugs themselves?" Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey video will compel you to ask yourself this question if you haven't already done so.
The legendary Frank Serpico (the man who blew the whistle on corruption in the New York Police Department, and who was shot in the face for his efforts) is a member of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. He is just one of these mighty rebels with just cause, true, alive today, walking, talking American heroes, who testify to the corruption, ruined lives and violence triggered by the current quagmire we call drug policy.
Overzealous, unconscionable to the extreme, situations are occurring!
Like Ashley Villarreal: in San Antonio.DEA agents shoot innocent 14-year-old girl in the head, but deny any wrongdoing.
Like Rachel Hoffman: a young college grad, coerced by police to act as an informant after she was arrested for marijuana possession and then killed by drug dealers following a botched drug sting.
"The heavy penalties facing drug offenders create pressure to cooperate with law enforcement," stated Kris Krane, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. The group advocates that drug use be treated as a public-health issue rather than a law-enforcement issue, and has chapters on 120 campuses nationwide.
"The overwhelming majority of informants are people busted for drugs," Krane said. "Police can do an effective job of scaring people especially young people into complicity. People are getting caught in the middle of the war on drugs every day." That's especially true for college students, Krane said, because they risk losing their financial aid if they have a drug conviction. He suggests, young people often don't know their rights and should seek counsel if arrested.
It is easier for retired New Jersey State Police Lt. Jack Cole to look himself in the eye theses days. He made headlines when he teamed up with other former cops to form the drug policy reform group LEAP. The organization's message is an "aha" moment for many: "The Drug War is a lie that ruins lives and damages the reputation of and respect for police. If you want to control the market for illicit drugs, legalize them – it's the only way to regulate their distribution and use."
Stop further restrictions on our freedoms in the name of the drug war; warrantless surveillance, wiretaps and searches including searches of our trash cans and medical records. Stop confiscation of cars and other property without trials, entrapment and long prison sentences for the nonviolent. Stop racial profiling, useless drug testing, "no knock" military-style raids on people's homes and especially oooops, we made a mistake raids. Most horrific, stop the un-American activities of harassing sick and dying people for making a safer health choice and stop the threat of arrest for good Samaritans and overdose survivors after life saving calls for help.
"Over the lifetime of the drug war, we have given U.S. law enforcement more than $1 trillion to stop the flow of drugs." Rants Dean Becker, Producer of Drug Truth Network. Over that same period more than $10 trillion untaxed dollars flowed to terrorists, dangerous cartels and violent gangs.
Stop spending tens of billions of our tax dollars each year enforcing a punitive drug war policy. Illegal drugs are readily available everywhere and the damages triggered by prohibition continue to mount.
The countless daily injustices mean it's time to ramp up efforts to end the Drug War, repeal prohibition! That's what the TRUTH 08 CAMPAIGN at STOP THE DRUG WAR.org is about! European harm reduction policy works so much better than our current response.
It is a fallacy to believe the evils of the drug war are unintended. Felony convictions disenfranchise mostly poor and minority Americans.
Dick "Tater" Nixon was really good at hiding tyranny under the guise of good intentions, a con used by the servants of tyranny, throughout history. He said on a white house tape "marijuana was the drug of choice for Mexicans, hippies and black people," making perfectly clear his racism and authoritarian leanings.
The DEA he started could be called the Drug Encouragement Administration. Use of drugs in the last 35 years has increased. Drugs are more potent and available. Disband the DEA.
Most Texans and Americans agree and believe health care is the responsibility of the individual. The use of marijuana has been demonized and made a crime, when in truth, it is a health care story about a safer choice!
Ooooops! Who spilled the beans? scientists and patients all over the world, that's who!
Cannabis medicines were once the “drugs of choice” in the United States. Until they were declared illegal, they had been used in about 30 prescription medicines for a 100 specific medical problems.
Some scientists speculate that cannabinoids play a protective role in the brain, slowing the rate of disease.
Patients all over the world testify to Cannabis' help in treating chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, gastrointestinal (GI) tract disorders, HIV/AIDS and cancer! . Some scientists speculate that cannabinoids play a protective role in the brain, slowing the rate of disease. A study has shown THC is far more effective than available Alzheimer's drugs to treat symptoms and halt the disease's progression.
Dr. Paul tells it like it is! "We have seen cases where harmless elderly women, having committed no act of violence, are arrested for raising marijuana in the yard to use for relief of severe arthritic pain . . . Any new suggestions for changing our drug laws that is, liberalizing them – is seen as political suicide by the hypocritical politicians and a society legally hooked on alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, aspirin and Valium."
If some carry on the ancient tradition of using drugs as a sacrament, to enhance spiritual growth, it is cause for rejoicing not incarceration.
US Representative Barney Frank has filed a bipartisan federal bill to legalize "small amounts" of marijuana and make room for serious criminals. Representative Ron Paul is a cosponsor. This Texas straight talker says we are "politicizing pain." Visit Marijuana Policy Projects Legislation page to write your Congress person about "The Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act"- HR 5843.
Write your Congress person from Marijuana Policy Projects Legislation page about “Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act”- HR 5842 which would allow the medical use of marijuana in states that have chosen to make its use for medical purposes legal with a doctor's recommendation. The debate over medical marijuana or cannabis is really a scandalous controversy over whether this very easy-to-grow herb should be allowed to compete with pharmaceuticals for pennies on the dollar.
Should Illegal Drugs be Legal? How about Prostitution? "I think the government's role should not be involved in personal habits. When you defend freedom, you defend freedom of choice, and you can't be picking and choosing how people use those freedoms . . .whether it's personal behavior or economic behavior, I want people to have freedom of choice," Ron Paul asserts. He also said we shouldn't treat addicts as criminals. "We treat 'em as criminals rather than sick people, we have pushed a lot of people into prostitution. So prostitution is related to the mistakes we've made in the drug war." Definitely, less poor souls would get stuck on skid row or in prostitution with compassionate policy offering helpful treatment.
Let's let history repeat itself, repeal prohibition. Gain better control by regulating all drugs like we do pharmaceuticals, tobacco or alcohol. We tolerate the salesmen of these drug gangs that cause more death annually than all illicit drugs.
Regulation and offering compassionate treatment to abusers will seriously cool drug problems. It would freeze the racism and violence triggered by a policy that ignores history and common sense. It would melt the gargantuan iceberg of official corruption and stop cold terrorists' sources of funding worldwide. We want drug laws that don't kill our troops by giving money and
power to terrorists.
Abstinence from recreational drugs is safest for all, especially youth but few will choose it. Parents do need to set an example for their children. However, most parents who use drugs and alcohol do not abuse them. They are responsible drug users, especially marijuana users as it is the safest choice.
Science based education & harm reduction is a better drug policy. The truth about drugs will keep our children off them. Sound medical and unbiased scientific knowledge are the most effective moral persuasions. Present policy falsehoods and scare tactics undermine our credibility.
The tool we need to fight drug abuse is compassion. Treat nonviolent abusers as patients not criminals. Fight use with factual evidence! We are diminishing the use of tobacco with the campaign; Knowledge is Contagious, so Infect Truth!
Effective drug education based on medical science builds student's confidence to make informed responsible choices. We want to encourage drug free behavior not awaken their curiosity. Truth, trust and reason encourage open communications between youth, parents and faculties.
The real visionaries, who laid down our laws, those who defined what an American patriot would be, were rebels with just cause. They made it not just our right but our patriotic duty to rebel against big government waste and corruption. "Freedom is popular," Ron Paul crows these days.
Special interests like the pharmaceutical, prison and defense industries, lobby for harsher drug laws or a military approach to drug enforcement. Other special interest groups are simply disinclined to support a dialogue that could lead to more effective polices because they benefit from current policy and do not care if lives are damaged by the status quo.
Many of today's leaders are servants of tyranny, others seem to have minds like concrete; thoroughly mixed up and permanently set. Blinded by the light of billions in tax and lobby money; bleeding leaders, thus corrupted, are blithely unconscious of the societal harm their policies cause. Jiminy Cricket, where is their conscience?
Join the Easy Revolution. The web is the fastest growing communications medium in the history of the world. A powerful tool, a window of opportunity, in our war of good over evil; the Internet continues to revolutionize the way we communicate and has enormous potential for reshaping the political process.
President John F. Kennedy warned: “Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”
Restore justice in America; construct science based drug policies about saving and rehabilitating instead of ruining lives. Warriors can get their adrenaline rush catching murderers and violent sexual predators. Many of whom we know are out there, some where. Then our peace keepers will truly be making our neighborhoods safer.
All major religions believe that life is sacred. Save the Children, just say NO to Prohibition! People of all faiths and goodwill can stand together for a more just, science based and compassionate alternatives to the current senseless policy.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: ProgressiveU.org.
Copyright: 2008 Creative Commons License
Contact: Progressive U | The new media voice for students
Website: Weed Out Violence, Racism & Tyranny | Progressive U
