Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 11 to 16 of 16
  1. #11
    Professional Poster DJ_Asia's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Somewhere Over The Rainbow
    Posts
    1,402

    Default

    War on drugs...well where do we start wth this fiasco....

    Booze is legal...person consumes too much booze, gets behind the wheel,kills family of four.
    Person drinks too much,comes home and beats the family cuz the house is messy...

    Pot is illegal...person gets high on weed and viciously attacks a bag of Doritos,watches a Cheech and Chong flick and and has pretty nifty lucid dreams...

    Is it just me or does ths make zero sense?

    Personally I dont like weed.makes me paranoid as fuck,but facts are facts...weed isnt a killer drug like crack or horse.Why the govt doesnt pull its head of the Christian conservatives asses and just legalize the shit,tax it,control it,is beyond me.As it is in its current illegal status as of 10 years ago it was the #2 cash crop in America!

    Then you have these twits who say its a gateway to harder drugs...well as George Carlin once said...if you wanna be technical about it,then all drug use must be blamed on mothers milk.

    Im sure there are still all sorts of drugs for arms black ops going on that we dont hear about,and the story runs much deeper than what it appears to be.that being said I doubt if America will see weed legalized anytime in the near future,if ever.

    DJ Asia



  2. #12
    Platinum Poster
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    The United States of kiss-my-ass
    Posts
    8,004

    Default

    Here's an editorial that is relevant to this thread-

    Marijuana Morals
    Davis Sweet 3/28/2006

    From the AP story, "Medical Marijuana Issue Returns to Court:"

    "There is no fundamental right to distribute, cultivate or possess marijuana," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Quinlivan, the government's lead medical marijuana attorney, wrote to the appeals court.
    Good point, Mr. Quinlivan. But surely you'd concede that there is also no fundamental right to confiscate or destroy marijuana, or to imprison those who possess marijuana.Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
    What the anti-marijuana moralists refuse to accept is that there is zero moral component to medical marijuana -- or marijuana, period. Just as with alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, misuse and abuse and general stupidity can turn a beneficial or morally neutral instrument into a bad thing. With marijuana, though, the "bad" end doesn't kill anybody, not even the abuser, unless you combine it with a car.

    There is no legitimate foundation for this government's war on marijuana (like some other wars I could mention). It's based exclusively on imaginary benefits, which make horrible, overreaching laws.

    The desperate prohibition rationalists really are stoned, and I want none of what they're smoking. From the White House Drug Policy Web site, which is the only place I've seen the term "peace-loving flower children" this century:

    According to officers with the Forest Service and other agencies, many of California's illegal marijuana fields are controlled not by peace-loving flower children but by employees of Mexican drug-trafficking organizations carrying high-powered assault weapons.
    Unfortunately, their bad trip (I'm guessing they're huffing gasoline, what with the prez telling us they're all addicted to the stuff) doesn't prevent them from doing violence to generally peaceful others:


    There were a total of 1,745,712 state and local arrests for drug abuse violations in the United States during 2004. Of the drug arrests, 5.0% were for marijuana sale/manufacturing and 39.2% were for marijuana possession.

    In FY 2003, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) made 5,679 arrests related to cannabis, accounting for 20.9% of all DEA arrests during the year. This is an increase from FY 2002, when 5,576 cannabis-related arrests were made by the DEA, accounting for 18.5% of all DEA arrests.

    According to a 1997 Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) survey of Federal and state prisoners approximately 19% of Federal and 13% of state drug offenders were incarcerated for a marijuana-related offense.


    There's your law. Almost one in five of the federal jail beds -- which we like to reserve for, you know, terrorists and other profoundly dangerous people -- are crowded with pot smokers, college dorm entrepreneurs, and unlucky botanists. Feel safer? Feel proud? Feel like the DEA might be strawberry coughing its way through its "priorities" meetings?

    It's instructive to imagine the prohibitionists' benefit proposition. It's not easy, because the rationale is essentially "because we've done it that way for sixty years." But here goes: by lumping marijuana in with the world's most harmful substances under the law, we can keep a certain number of people from trying it. By keeping those people from trying marijuana, we keep them from possibly enjoying it, which could lead to someone driving a car while impaired, which could lead to someone being hurt or killed. Not a bad argument, really, since nobody wants to see impaired folks driving.

    But replace "marijuana" in that argument with any of the following: alcohol, Ambien, energy drinks, religious ecstasy, driving-while-getting-a-blowjob. Precisely the same risks; unconscionably different prohibitions and penalties. You could sure smash up a herd of schoolchildren if you tried to operate a moving vehicle while a good friend bobbed in your lap, but lap-bobbing on its own isn't a crime. In most states, anyway. Driving while impaired, including being impaired by lust, is already and justifiably illegal, not to mention breathtakingly stupid. Where is the societal benefit in jailing, robbing, and, for our medicine-using friends, torturing and killing people who aren't driving while impaired? It doesn't exist.

    Or if you're grasping at stems, trying to drum up any "evil" in this popularly smoked flower, you might point to the corporatists' argument: the demon weed drains your ambition. For a very few people, in my experience, this appears true-ish. For many more people, this is demonstrably false. But I'm indulging the paranoiacs, so let's say it's true universally. Does it affect a body's get-up-and-go more than video games, satellite teevee, or cheap bacon quintuple-cheeseburgers? Not in the least. If you're predisposed to be lazy or to go all-out and embrace self-destruction, you don't need marijuana to help. In fact, it probably sucks for the consciously lazy, because it sparks all kinds of creativity and neural growth in the brain which you'd have to smother with something genuinely harmful like alcohol.

    The unspoken terror is that a matted-haired, red-eyed someone unacquainted with the workings of a shower will walk up to an old Republican lady on the street and ask her for a buck, startling her a little bit and making her vaguely uncomfy for maybe the whole morning. (Yes, dear-heart, preventing this kind of encounter -- giving Grannie Blue-hair a moment's jolt of adrenaline and/or putting her in a position to get a whiff of brown-people sweat -- is why a butt-load of our laws exist and why we imprison at least some of the millions of Americans we cage.) That scenario is not a hazard of cannabis, though, but rather of homelessness and, maybe, hippiedom. Neither of which is illegal. There is a contingent of the weed demonization promoters who want hippie-ness to be illegal, of course, and they believe that if you starve the hippies of their imagined herbal fuel, you'll eventually wipe them out. (Tip to the hippie-averse: if you really want to wipe out the hippies, eliminate church.)

    Folks, the threat of a pothead nation simply doesn't exist. It is a pipe dream. There is no consequence of responsible marijuana use that justifies any of this malicious, violent, immoral prohibition. We need leaders who will assert that the government can't take away selected freedoms simply because they're fun or interesting or they keep Hostess's Twinkie division in business.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/davis-...s_b_18042.html


    "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." - Poe

  3. #13
    Platinum Poster
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    The United States of kiss-my-ass
    Posts
    8,004

    Default



    On Rummy, Meaningful Hallucinogenic Experiences, and Ending the Drug War

    Arianna Huffington

    "How many people here have had a meaningful hallucinogenic experience?" So asked one of the speakers at a fundraising dinner for the Drug Policy Alliance held last night in Los Angeles.

    Only a few hands went up in an audience that was surprisingly light on youthful stoner-types. It was much more of a pro-justice, pro-human rights, anti-drug war crowd.


    The event, honoring anti-drug war activists Jodie Evans and Max Palevsky (and, truth in blogging, me), and billed as "An Evening of Comedy and Music to Benefit the DPA," certainly delivered on that promise, with funny and topical performances by John Fugelsang, Beth Lapides, Jeffrey Ross, singer Jill Sobule, and an Andy Kaufman-eque appearance by Andy Dick featuring a wheelchair, a broken guitar, and a hash pipe. All hosted by Bruce Vilanch, who joked that he only got the gig "because they couldn't find an illegal immigrant to do the job."

    When it was my turn to speak, I confessed that I have never had a meaningful hallucinogenic experience -- indeed that I have never even had a meaningless hallucinogenic experience. Other than the time I was seated next to Don Rumsfeld at a Washington dinner party.

    "It was a long, hard slog," I told the crowd. "But, as you know, you have to go to dinner with the dinner companion you have, not the dinner companion you want."

    The Rummy riff was more than a punchline -- it was a way of highlighting the many similarities between the debacle in Iraq and America's disastrous war on drugs. Both are wildly expensive, counterproductive, and underreported wars that have left tens of thousands of ruined lives in their wake.

    And both wars are laying waste to the MSM's musty right-wing-vs.-left-wing frame, as more and more conservatives are taking stands against the Bush administration's failed war in Iraq and failed war on drugs.

    Let's face it, it's not exactly left-wing to come out against a $40-billion-dollar-a-year War on Drugs that has unfairly targeted people of color, siphoned resources from the war on terror, and pitted the government against its own people.

    Nor is it left-wing to want to put an end to a War on Drugs that has turned into a war on America's minority communities. While blacks make up 13 percent of drug users, they account for 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of those convicted, and 74 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. And the average prison term for black drug offenders is 69% longer than for whites.

    It's not left-wing. It's not right-wing. It's common sense. And it's why people from all parts of the political spectrum are finally speaking out on the issue.

    As I've said before, on how many issues do Jesse Jackson, George Soros, Walter Cronkite, the ACLU, Cato, Bill Buckley, George Shultz and the Heritage Foundation agree?

    We saw this left/right realignment played out on the issue of drug treatment vs. incarceration for nonviolent offenders here in California back in 2000 when Prop. 36 passed despite being solidly opposed by the state's Democratic political establishment, including Diane Feinstein and Gray Davis. The measure was supported by Republican Tom Campbell, then a member of the House, who until recently served as Gov. Schwarzenegger's finance director.

    Campbell's influence is likely one of the reasons the Governor has thankfully earmarked another $120 million to continue funding of Prop. 36 in his next budget.

    The other reason, of course, is that treatment flat-out works -- as a new study from UCLA proves. According to the study, diverting nonviolent first and second time drug offenders from jail into rehab has saved the taxpayers of California $800 million over the last five years.

    What could be more conservative than that?

    The only ones who don't seem convinced are our political leaders, who continue to hide on the issue -- just as so many of them are hiding on the war in Iraq. And they're doing it for the same reason: they are terrified of being seen as soft on defense, soft on the military, soft on terror, and soft on crime and drugs.

    And their fear is making them soft in the head -- and soft in the spine.

    Aren't you sick and tired of politicians who are supposed to be on your side betraying you -- and betraying common sense -- because of their fears?


    And it's not like they even need to worry about offending voters, who have shown time and again that, by a large majority, they see drug abuse as a medical problem best handled through treatment, rather than as a crime best handled by incarceration.

    So, once again, the public, which has been leading the way in opposing the war in Iraq, is also leading the way in opposing the war on drugs.

    Bottom line: both when it comes to Iraq and when it comes to America's War on Drugs, it's time for our troops to stand down.

    this article and related links here-

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ariann...l_b_18922.html


    "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." - Poe

  4. #14
    Platinum Poster
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    The United States of kiss-my-ass
    Posts
    8,004

    Default

    Telling it like it is-

    Taking the "Drug War"...Seriously
    John Fugelsang

    I was watching Fox News the other night (because I'm a thinker) when I came across a commercial for the drug war. Perhaps you've seen it. It's the one that says "If you buy drugs, even pot, your money may go to fund terrorists.

    Now this was really an eye opener for me.

    I grew up in America's public schools, with all the traditional fear-mongering propaganda about Pot. You know what I'm talking about - all the horror stories they feed you about the evil things pot will do to your brain? I can't recall any of it right now, but you get the idea.

    They always told us "Pot makes you violent. And Lazy." Which never scared any kids I knew. I always thought if the violent people were lazy, we'd have a lot less crime. Imagine the thug who threatens, "I'm gonna kill you, man. Right after this burrito."

    And this is why so many kids have a hard time taking the drug war seriously. We're always changing the reasons, but the message stays the same. We keep telling them "drugs are bad! Drugs are bad! Drugs are bad!" and that, my friends, is not the problem.

    The problem is not that drugs are bad. The problem is that drugs are great. That's the problem.

    Addiction is bad. Overdosing is bad. Making stupid choices when you're high is bad, and all you potheads who paid to see "I Robot" know what I'm talking about.

    But now the White House is saying that if you buy pot, your money will go to terrorists. Clearly, the message George Bush is sending? Grow your own.

    I actually find it funny that the government is now actively linking the war on drugs to the current war on terror. You see, the Drug War as we know it began in that bastion of morality, San Francisco, back in 1873.

    Back then, Chinese immigrants were the group everybody was allowed to hate, and people really didn't like the thought of good Christian folks going to smoke in the opium dens of "the heathen Chinese." . White people took opium too, but they usually ate it, or shot it up. You know, the wholesome way.

    So they passed a law taxing imported smokable opium. This is noteworthy, since besides the obvious racism, it was the first time the government used taxes not to raise money (as the founders intended), but to punish and control private behavior. Thus began a long tradition of drug laws that work about as well as British toothpaste.

    The well regulated, law abiding opium houses shut down, the Chinese underworld grew stronger: violence erupted; lives disrupted; police and politicians corrupted; America interrupted.

    So it's extra ironic they'd link the drug war to the terror war. Because now that the Taliban is out of power, people can finally get decent opium again.

    The Drug war's been around so long it seems like it's part of our heritage. But cannabis hemp was a major American crop from the earliest colonial days. The US census of 1850 counted 8000 hemp plantations.

    I'm going to repeat that, because I think it's worth noting. The 1850 US Census counted 8000 cannabis hemp plantations. Growing cannabis was as American as apple pie. And everyone knew that if you smoked the flowery top of the plant, you'd want to eat a lot of apple pies. But it was never a concern. Then, as now, the biggest drug problem was alcohol.

    When the government made Marijuana illegal in 1937, the American Medical Association officially protested. Because for hundreds of years, it's medicinal and industrial uses were well documented.

    Washington grew hemp at Mount Vernon. Thomas Jefferson grew it at Monticello, and actually helped smuggle rare hemp seeds out of China. Nowadays, they'd go to jail for it. That is, if we ever started locking up the rich white guys

    Benjamin Franklin started a colonial paper mill that made paper from hemp fiber. I'm not suggesting Ben ever smoked any - I'm sure lots of sober guys fly kites during thunderstorms.

    And since it's April, it's worth mentioning that from the 1600s to the 1800s, cannabis hemp was used as a currency - legal tender. In fact for over 200 years you could pay your taxes in cannabis hemp. So next April 15th, try to send the IRS a few loose marijuana cigarettes. I'm sure they'll appreciate your knowledge of our history, and you can even file it as a "joint return."

    The point is, Cannabis has been in America for hundreds of years - even longer than white people. But it's only been illegal for the past 70. So technically, decriminalizing it is the true Conservative point of view...

    And it's the issue of medical marijuana that makes this a moral battle. I grew up in a Catholic family. An extremely Catholic family. We used to have open casket reunions. Now I'm not anti-Christian at all. My Mother is an ex-nun and my Father an ex-Franciscan brother. I just view Jesus the way I view Elvis. I love the guy, but some of the fan clubs scare me.

    Because what I learned from the bible as a child was that Jesus was a radical nonviolent revolutionary; a man who hung around with lepers, hookers and crooks; who never spoke English and wasn't an American citizen; was anti-death penalty, anti-capitalist, anti public prayer (Matthew 6:5, please remind them) but Never anti gay; and was a long haired, brown skinned (yes, it's in there), homeless, middle eastern Jew. And all he wants us to do is love people - especially the people we don't like.

    So I have a hard time believing that JC would advocate locking up sick people.

    In 1996 the voters of California approved a medical marijuana proposal. The Clinton White House promptly put the kibosh on it. George W. Bush is also opposed to medical marijuana. Now both of these presidents have been vague, at best, about their drug histories. But they've had no problem locking up others for the same behaviors. Which I take as a sign that neither of them truly believes in the drug war.

    Because if they really felt at their core that illegal drug use was evil, they'd confess their crimes and ask forgiveness. Remember - if they thought it was a sin, they'd turn themselves in. Imagine Johnnie Cochran saying it - it'll sound better.

    I'm not saying that these two presidents are evil men. It's just part of why the drug war makes no sense. It's a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle where the pieces don't fit - and it's never going to look like what they promised you on the box..

    The drug war violates civil liberties, privacy rights, rights against search and seizure. It's led to out of control crime, corrupted law enforcement & business officials, and shown that the wealthy can get away with what the poor cannot - in short, it makes a mockery of any claim to be a free country.

    The war on drugs is a war on Americans. It's not even about race anymore , but class - and the only color that matters is lack of green.

    But we can't stop? You know why? We as a nation, a people, a tribe, are hooked.

    Like Caffeine, Oxycontin, fructose or Vicodin - we are addicted to the drug war.

    We know it doesn't work - we can't stop.
    We know it's too expensive and we can't afford it - we can't stop.
    We know there are a million people in prison and every year we pay 40 grand apiece to keep them in jail; when they could be out working, paying taxes and contributing to the economy - but we cannot stop.

    There are two types of people who keep repeating the same behaviors over and over, always expecting different outcome. Addicts, and crazy people.

    So we'd better hope we're addicts. Because I don't' want to believe the country I love is this insane. And the good news is this : if we are addicted, we can get treatment.

    I've had the pleasure of being on 2 different episodes of Politically InCorrect with Arianna Huffington, and to me she's a shining example of how an opened heart and an opened mind can enrich any community. My respect goes out to everyone intervening to help America break this ill-natured addiction.

    Thank you all for doing the Lord's work.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-f...-_b_19082.html


    "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." - Poe

  5. #15
    Platinum Poster BeardedOne's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Mid-Atlantic
    Posts
    7,343

    Default

    Hey, they tried.
    Attached Images Attached Images  


    "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

  6. #16
    Platinum Poster
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    The United States of kiss-my-ass
    Posts
    8,004

    Default

    "I Know Dick Cheney's Secret Service Guys Smoke Pot...I Sold Them Bongs"...

    Tommy Chong addresses NORML conference
    Chris Durant

    The Times-Standard

    SAN FRANCISCO -- Actor and comedian Tommy Chong entertained more than 500 National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws conference-goers Friday.

    ”If more people were stoned there would be less violence in the world,” Chong said.

    Chong was introduced by NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre.

    ”It was Tom Chong the man that was wrongly sentenced to nine months in jail when everyone else paid a fine,” St. Pierre said. “I'm so proud and happy that Tommy is joining us today.”

    Chong took the stage to a standing ovation.

    ”I would like to thank what's his name,” Chong joked.

    He began by talking about his time in prison, saying the rumors about prison are wrong.

    ”It doesn't hurt,” Chong said. “But it does hurt when the government is doing it to you.”

    He talked about politics, too.

    ”I know Dick Cheney's Secret Service guys smoke pot,” Chong said. “The reason I know that is I sold them bongs.”

    He insinuated that President Bush was on methamphetamines.

    ”The dangerous thing about tweakers is they can take things apart but they can't put them back together again,” Chong said. “That's what George Bush has done to this country.”

    Chong described when law enforcement officials raided his home as part of Operation Pipe Dreams.

    ”When they raided my home they asked me, 'Do you have any drugs in here?'” Chong said. “Of course I do.”

    In prison he was enrolled in a drug education class.

    ”I signed up, I wanted to learn,” Chong said. “I ended up teaching it.”

    Marijuana wasn't the only drug Chong talked about.

    ”Coke (cocaine) karma is the worst,” Chong said. “There's nothing worse than a coke-head talking to another coke-head.”

    Chong appeared to get nostalgic when he talked about his former comedy partner Cheech Marin.

    ”When Cheech and I broke up it was weird,” Chong said. “I didn't know we were broken up for four years. I went to the last Cheech and Chong movie and I wasn't in it.”

    At the conclusion of Chong's speech there was a showing of a new documentary about Chong called “AKA Chong.”

    As soon as the lights were dimmed lighters
    started to spark and the banquet room at the Golden Gateway Holiday Inn began to fill with smoke. About half-way through the movie hotel security turned on all the lights and ordered everyone out of the banquet room because they were concerned that the smoke would set off the smoke alarms.

    Medical marijuana was the topic of Friday's panel discussions.

    Jeff Jones, executive director of the Oakland Cannabis Buyer's Cooperative, discussed dealing with federal law enforcement's involvement in medical marijuana dispensaries.

    ”We have to see it coming and we have to be able to move and shake,” Jones said.

    He talked about the growing number of dispensaries and that it's overwhelming federal law enforcement.

    ”There's no way they can keep up with us,” Jones said.

    People from all over the United States are attending the conference, like Tammera Halphen from Houston, who is part of the Texas medical marijuana effort and Rodolfo Rivera, a student from Florida Atlantic University who is part of the NORML chapter on his campus. Rivera's NORML chapter was recently featured in High Times Magazine as the “Freedom Fighters” of the month.

    The conference was also attended by people from Japan.

    Humboldt County was represented at the conference. A woman selling T-shirts and other merchandise trying to raise money for a Bayside resident who needs a medical procedure. The woman, who only wanted to be known as a family friend, said Miranda Kelly, 21, has a “serious lung condition” and needs a transplant. She raised $500 Thursday, the first day of the conference, and had her donation jar filling up Friday. A fund-raiser is planned for the Bayside Grange May 6. More information on Kelly can be found at www.mirandakelly.org .

    The conference is scheduled to conclude today, with panel discussions focussing on the drug war.
    http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3739230
    Attached Images Attached Images  


    "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." - Poe

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •