By Jonathan Elinoff, click here to view other works by Jonathan Elinoff
One of the 8 major sellout moments listed in the article about promises broken by President Obama I wrote a while back, I talk about how the President is allowing the Federal DEA to raid legally approved medicinal marijuana dispensaries. I am not a Republican and I am not a Democrat but I get accused of being one or the other all the time since I run a website that posts stories about corruption, so naturally, I gravitate towards reporting about either party from time to time. I do not hesitate to post on the Democrats or Republicans.
Remember how the youth was asking for legalization of marijuana and decriminalization at the very least? Well that wasn't taken seriously by his campaign but he did promise to end DEA raids on medical marijuana facilities. Well unfortunately, multiple raids have taken place all over the United States on legal growing operations, and continue all the time, even in California. Also, the controversial no-knock raids have continued. These are when the DEA or local Police get a team of guys together in military gear, sneak up on someone's house in the middle of the night, make a quick few knocks saying "Police, open up" and then breakdown the door shooting anything in sight, like little children, or people's innocent dogs, or old grandmothers. They knock and demand to be allowed in really, really quickly so that they can "legally claim" they asked first before entering, even though they choose the middle of the night knowing people are sleeping and only give the person a few seconds to answer the door. They go in with guns drawn and loaded, ready to kill whatever. Recently, Huffington Post posted an article that finally called out Obama's selling out on promising an end to DEA raids and even questioned the legality of a president to overrule state decisions about medicinal marijuana.
Decriminalization is a lot more about ethics with regards to punishment for possession than it is about endorsing the use of the drug. Most people don't support placing people in prison or ruining their life for mere possession of alcohol, right? If you use alcohol irresponsibly, you probably broke other laws, like driving drunk, drinking in public, stealing to support your habit, etc. What I am asking you to consider is that decriminalization of possession of marijuana is NOT the same as telling people to use the drug, it is about ethical treatment of people who responsibly use the drug. Here in Colorado, my state was the 1st to legalize possession of the drug up to 1 ounce and our crime rates went down, believe it or not.
We did not decriminalize illicit behavior, like trafficking of the drug out of state, using the drug irresponsibly or using it at a job or in public, or anything like that. We just decriminalized the simple possession so long as you didn't violate any other laws. I think Americans should consider what Colorado is leading the charge on and as a Colorado activist leader myself, waking people up to worldwide corruption, conspiracy and political behavior all over the planet includes what we here in Colorado think is being done with non-violent people, marijuana users, who are having their lives ruined not by the drug, but by society dictating to them they were a threat to someone other than themselves. Saying that the simple possession of the drug is somehow a serious crime is preposterous and insulting to everyone's intelligence. People with a marijuana addiction, however, might need to see a doctor or something, but not a jail cell. Everyone, including the medical experts and legal experts can agree on this. Consider decriminalization of possession a matter of ethics with regards to treatment of non-violent people in your community that you are partaking in ruining their life further by placing them in prison... Help these people properly, get them a doctor, not a jail cell. Our society has a long way to go until it understands that decriminalization is not the same as endorsing the drug, its about ethical perspective, balanced treatment, equal rights, and making sure the punishments in our society fit the crimes we accuse people of having committed. Marijuana growers are placed in the same category as cocaine/heroin smugglers and treated as very serious felons, when more than half of them are some of the most peacful, non-violent "hippies" I have ever seen in my life. These people were no threat to society and posed no risk to the safety of others, at any time, yet are treated as such. It is no different than looking at bootleggers during the prohibition era. This is not to say that many people see drug trafficing with gangs, militant mercenaries and what have you, and there is no doubt about these kinds of realities, but in all fairness, those are only in place because of the illegality of the substance, which in other words means that if the drug were legal, those factors would not be there AT ALL.
It is also important to understand that the abuse of many if not most of our society's current prescribed drugs have serious side effects. I am not saying Marijuana is "healthy" but what I am saying is that I don't think it is any more or less healthy than the majority of drugs used to treat any symptoms. When compared on the market to painkillers, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety or what have you, marijuana is no more or less dangerous than those unless it is abused, but if abused, it is no more or less dangerous than the others if the others were abused too. My take on it is I treat Marijuana like the other drugs in its category, I just think the political side of it, society's classification if you will, is not matching Marijuana's actual medical classification as a drug. Society incorrectly labels it a "dangerous" drug to the extent it is classified with "violent offenses" in society and it is not. I wrote this article to try to reason with intellectuals and tell those of you out there with any sense or sincerity this. Look, if you really compare it with other drugs like pain killers and the ones I mentioned, it is not as dangerous even if abused and if used correctly, practically harmless. I wouldn't use the term "healthy" but I wouldn't classify marijuana as dangerous.
The plant is very effective as a pain medicine. Many strains of the drug have been found to be benefitial to cancer treatment, including completely destroying the very tumors that grow in a person's body that has cancer. This is a proven fact these days and is one of the many reasons it has been approved for medicinal use. Recently, a 2 year old child dying from cancer was given the THC extracted oil that Rick Simpson and other medical studies claim cures cancer. The result, documented by scientists, stunned the medical establishment. It cured the 2 year old of his cancer, establishing yet another scientific case, documenting that THC extracted oils are a viable treatment for cancer. It is good for anti-depression and other psychiatric treatments, especially for people that need to calm down. I know therapists that say there is promising research on marijuana as a treatment for certain stress disorders and such.
Pain killers can do far more damage to your liver than any marijuana edible would ever do so when people talk about marijuana being dangerous, I tell them that if you talk to cancer patients and people prescribed Oxycontin for their pain, they disagree about it being dangerous. They say marijuana is preferable over some of the pills that doctor's prescribe and I have to tell you that I agree so far. The edibles seem to be just as effective for pain treatment as the Oxycodone I was prescribed when I was hit by a drunk driver and nearly died. I am still in physical therapy and I have had to go through a lot to recover but medical marijuana is far superior than Oxycontin as a pain medicine. I don't smoke marijuana, because I don't smoke anything and I don't have lungs that can handle that kind of stuff but after trying the oil extracts and edibles, I realized it is nothing like smoking it. I also realized the difference between the Indica and Sativa strains. Marijuana is not habit forming where as Oxycodone is habit forming since it is a derivative of opiates. Its like getting someone hooked on Heroin. Talk about dangerous.
Marijuana is not habit forming, it can not cause death and it is not dangerous. Unlike what you might hear from the propaganda mill, marijuana is not dangerous. People will tell you that it destroys brain cells. ANY smoke is dangerous to living cells, whether it is smoke from a camp fire, smoke from cigarettes, smoke from marijuana or smoke from chemical fires or whatever. Smoke is dangerous to living things and can be carcinogenic. People who smoke marijuana need to understand that. But Marijuana itself is NOT something that will kill cells. Some research has shown that marijuana does damage the brain after long term use and medical studies show that it might actually deposit carcinogenic layers inside the body. With that said, no one is arguing these points, what I am arguing is very simple. The argument is and remains to be that the punishment for possession of the drug does not fit the crime. Alcohol, cigarettes, even painkillers are all legal drugs, they just require different levels of control to access. Marijuana should be treated no differently. Why place it in the category that it is linked to the criminal mind.
You should know that there is incredible research coming out of Canada and a few other countries showing that marijuana might actually be a treatment for certain types of cancers, believe it or not. There is a Harvard study about it even, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSXhwP5QjUQ&feature=youtu.be
Recently, a 2 year old child dying from cancer was given the THC extracted oil that Rick Simpson and other medical studies claim cures cancer. The result, documented by scientists, stunned the medical establishment. It cured the 2 year old of his cancer, establishing yet another scientific case, documenting that THC extracted oils are a viable treatment for cancer.
People who know me and hang out with me know I do not smoke marijuana, and I am offered it all the time. I have smoked it before and I definitely consider a hit once in a great while but I personally don't like the drug. With that said, I have many friends who have had their lives ruined because of the current laws. Many, if not most of these friends, were no threat to society and were of no danger to any children. The propaganda mill releases mountains of disinformation making claims that marijuana is ruining the lives of schoolchildren. I have new for you, almost every single entrepreneur and successful athlete, artist, writer, teacher, and even business manager I personally know has used or regularly uses marijuana on a daily basis. I know people that work for the city and county of many places in Colorado who REGULARLY USE marijuana, and there life has NEVER been negatively impacted by the drug. The only negative impact on these people is what SOCIETY has done to them when wanting to be their "parent," overstepping what I think is government's constitutional boundaries, and "punishing" people for the possession, who committed NO CRIME of violence, NO CRIME that was a threat to others or themselves, and didn't even violate any of the 10 commandments. So why is it illegal?
There are people who use marijuana without smoking it. Vaporizers are popular because of this and so are edibles. Marijuana bakeries and even pure THC oils are very common and can be ingested very easily without any complication or harm. Remember, it is the smoke that is carcinogenic, not the marijuana. All the studies attempting to claim marijuana having any negative affect base it on the smoke itself. That is all. Marijuana's active ingredient, THC, does not kill brain cells. What it does is alter your brain's chemistry and signals for a brief period of time. This use and sometimes abuse of the drug can alter memory and thinking abilities but there is no possible overdose of the drug and you can not harm yourself with it. Classifications of dangerous drugs are usually based on the fact that they affect your body's critical function. Heart rate, for example, is a critical bodily function so drugs like cocaine or heroin can speed up or slow down your heart rate and therefore you can die as a result of too much use of the drug or overdose. Marijuana does NOT affect critical body functions but for some reason is classified in the same category as drugs that do affect your critical body functions.
This is the whole base of my argument, that the classification of the drug is incorrect. We have drugs in our society classified in various groups for a reason. Some you have to be certain ages to purchase and some you need doctor's permission to use. Some drugs have warning labels and some drugs are over the counter. We live in a society that embraces ingestion of supplements, vitamins, drugs and all kinds of things and we classify all of them to appropriately address their affects and dangers to our body. Placing marijuana in the classification of a dangerous drug was not just a mistake, it was an overreaction. Just because you don't like the use of the drug doesn't give you the right to mislabel it or incorrectly classify it. That mistake has caused countless millions of people to be punished incorrectly for a crime that they were not guilty of.
Drug distribution is not the same as drug use and neither of those are the same as possession. If you posses painkillers with a prescription, is that a crime itself? No. If you try to distribute painkillers without a license, is that a crime? Yes. If you rob a liquor store or gas station to support your addictive drug use of painkillers, is this a crime? Yes. The actual possession of the drug is not necessarily a crime, because that action itself has no victim. What I am asking you to consider in this thesis is look at the punishments of possession itself. The crime makes no sense. It is not a dangerous drug and the person has done nothing to society. If someone has an addiction to any drug, they might need to see a doctor, but do they need to be incarcerated?
Does their future need to be taken away from them because people who don't use the drug want to dictate how to live your life? Think about it. The punishments are based on factually untrue information presented by the Federal Narcotics Bureau from back in the 1930's which was later admitted to be false by the bureau and by multiple investigations by Mayor LaGuardia of New York, scientific communities, medical papers and so on.
The motivation for placing marijuana in the classification of a dangerous drug was first about racism, because it targeted people of ethnicity other than white and it could be used in the south to arrest, detain and force labor on these people.
The 2nd motivation for the false classification of the drug, as you will learn in this essay, was based on the fact that marijuana encourages free thinking and rebel minded folks to perform artistic merit and this was a threat to certain people in the established religions and governments who saw this as a problem. It threatened their control on society.
A 3rd motivation for the misclassification of the drug was from the cotton industry, which sees hemp as a cheaper and stronger product for clothing and it would threaten their industrial establishment and profits.
The 4th motivation for the misclassification was from the oil industry, which sees the fuel from the plants threatening their stranglehold on society and it certainly threatens their position in society at the top of the totem pole.
The 5th motivation for the misclassification of the drug was from the pharmaceutical companies which can not patent a plant and therefore the billions and now trillions of dollars they make off of dangerous drugs for pain relief, among many other drugs, would be threatened if marijuana were used as an alternative medication. It certainly has these medical benefits.
The 6th motivation for the misclassification of the drug comes from the government power brokers and private prison system, which makes hundreds of billions of dollars on the detention and forced labor of prisoners. The prison population is not just growing exponential (a phenomenon that started in society with the war on drugs criminalizing normal behavior in society) but the prison population is a money making industry. For every prisoner, there are tax dollars collected to house, clothe and feed the prisoner and the maintenance of the prison, which is a for profit industry in many cases. There are actually many conflict of interest cases being fought now in our society that show many judges who are either bribed by or are themselves the shareholders of some of the private detention facilities. Now the overcrowded detention system doesn't look so weird, huh? The judge is literally making money based on the decisions they make placing people in jail.
See how marijuana misclassification is such a benefit to so many established industries? It is no joke; everything I am telling you is factually true and can be verified with a little research on the web.
Recently I saw a video a guy posted in Hawaii of Dog the Bounty Hunter taking away some guy's private property because he was filming him. First of all, that is theft since it is private property and second, that is a violation of the guy's liberty. I hate the paparazzi, but that doesn't mean they don't have a right to film public officials or celebrities. It is a total invasion of privacy but I have always argued that you have a right to film cops or bounty hunters. Read my article on the legal defense for your right to film a police officer, you might change your mind if you think that should remain illegal. You are legally protected in filming officers of the law, in my opinion. You can read my article on your legal argument to film cops by clicking here.
With that said, I am someone who does NOT believe the war on drugs is being fought correctly. I believe that those who know better, those who are educated that is, are aware that the war on drugs was setup to first target minorities and second it was setup to criminalize relatively normal behavior. People who posses or use drugs are NOT a threat to society just because they posses the drug. The same goes with anyone who is engaging in responsible use of the drug. Yes, I said it and believe it or not there are countless millions of people out there who responsibly use drugs. People who commit crimes to obtain drugs or money (like robbery) to purchase drugs are already breaking the law to begin with, so that should not be thrown in with people who posses the drugs. You don't blame all gun owners for the actions of one gun user, do you?
Well, if I am speaking to the conservative right (which this article is largely addressing) I assume you carry this belief that those who responsibly pursue the ownership of weapons should not be treated as criminals just because there are crimes committed with guns. There are countless millions of people who are non violent offenders who are arrested for merely possessing a drug. For drug possession to be thrown into the same category as violent crime offenders is despicable.
People who have a drug addiction have a serious problem and they might need to see a doctor, they are a threat to themselves and their own good, but they are not a threat to society and certainly you don't need to see incarceration as a form of correction for someone who has not harmed others. Incarceration is setup to cage people who are a problem to other people in society. Just because you might not engage in marijuana use doesn't give you the right to cage people who do, they haven't done anything to you. This is an argument for liberty, not so much medical right. Think about it. Let me explain.
The correctional institution of the United States ruins people’s lives who are otherwise people with futures and futures that include being productive members of society. Their records are ruined after incarceration; they can't get jobs and insurance coverage they might seek.
They are ineligible for certain loans and even voting in their towns or states where their own liberty is being decided upon by elected representatives. They have to pay fines, sometimes even random urinalysis that they have to pay for as well. They have to find transportation and pay for that which of course is all paid for by getting jobs that are unavailable. The reduction of privileges in their life is a perfect example of how the "corrections" in the United States is certainly not "correcting" a lot of people.
But over possession? Mere possession is not the same as addiction and neither of those are the same as someone who has committed another crime related to drugs. What I am asking you to recognize is that the simple possession and, yes, responsible use of the drug, has punishments that DO NOT fit the crime. Think about it. I mean, really think about it. What "crime" have they committed against you or anyone for that matter?
It is making matters worse. Decriminalizing possession of certain drugs is a matter of ethics and intelligence. It is a matter of equal treatment and balanced treatment of people who have committed no crime. It has to do with making the punishment fit the crime. Why ruin people's lives and their futures because of perhaps poor choices and addiction problems that were a threat to themselves and themselves alone? Why make them owe society a debt, psychologically, physically, monetarily, and so fourth because of your personal interpretation of how you choose to live your life and pursue your liberty?
The war on drugs is not about targeting the threats to society; it is about generalizing drugs into one category and embracing "collective punishment" of people who are in different classes of society. The war on drugs is about people who choose not to use them for their own personal reasons dictating to all other people their way of life, what they see as right and wrong. This is supposed to be the land where people escaped persecution for their way of life, not put in jail because of it.
Violent offenders are a different world than non-violent. People who merely posses a drug verses people who commit other crimes to obtain drugs are completely different types of people, for example, one is a criminal and one is not. A BIG difference; but treating them the same with the same punishments is not just a mistake, it is immoral and it is a willful disregard for ethics and equal justice in a land where liberty and justice is supposed to be the center of our defining principles.
Anyone who participates in the aide of arresting and incarcerating people who posses certain drugs are complicit in the further destruction of that person's life. Dog the Bounty Hunter has certainly targeted a lot of criminals who need to be put away, but has also arrested people in the "war on drugs" that I feel are not a threat to society so for me, personally, I take issue with Dog the Bounty Hunter's moral obligation he has with his creator and the world he lives on since he feels he is doing good. Doing good and doing what established positions of authority have declared "legal" are two different things. Not surprisingly, my personal take on tobacco goes to show you how I feel our society has it backwards with drug classifications.
Click here to read my article about the deep, dark truth you won't hear with Tobacco companies and why cigarettes are not regulated by the FDA...
Drugs are everywhere in society, including over the counter drugs that can kill you if too much is taken. There are drugs that you need to be certain ages to purchase, like cigarettes or alcohol. Certain drugs require a doctor's prescription. There are drugs and vitamins or supplements that require no approval that may kill you as well. The whole point here is that we live in a society that classifies drugs and has certain laws in place for the possession of those drugs, the use of those drugs and the distribution of those drugs.
The war on drugs is currently embracing the foul practice of classifying non-lethal drugs and many "medically beneficial" drugs as illegal, and not just illegal, but the punishments for possession of these drugs such as Marijuana include prison sentences which ruin people's lives and any possible future they might want to choose to become productive members of society in one day. In fact, the Feds have known that canabanoids kill cancer for years.
Instead of taxing the non-lethal drug sales, the government is embracing arresting these people and charging the tax-payers a bill to incarcerate the person, ruining their life. You are paying to house, feed, clothe and maintain prisons where people are forced to work for pennies an hour and many of these prisons are privately owned, for profit industires. When these people are released from jail, they tend to go back to environments that influence that behavior, which include elevated stress, no income and lack of education. So the government has decided to embrace a philosophy not helping the person with their clear medical problems of addiction to a drug by seeing a doctor, the government believes these people should be treated the same way as criminals who have violently disrupted society and hurt other people than themselves. This is how the government "corrects" the drug user. Funny thing is, it isn't working. For years now, the results show they are not "correcting" anything.
There are obviously 2 different demographics of society being thrown in the same label, but because of cleverly placed false and factually inaccurate propaganda that has since been proven wrong even by the people who spread it, the government can claim that marijuana, for example, has some kind of connection to the "criminal mind." It doesn't. It never has. It probably never will. This all begain with FALSE testimony by Harry J. Anslinger to congress in 1937. He was the head of The Federal Bureau of Narcotics which was, at that time, the agency that spread disinformation and propaganda that marijuana was the reason a young boy murdered his family with an axe. Turns out, the kid had multiple personalities and a psychiatric examination of the kid told a different story. The examining psychiatrist, Dr. H. Mason Smith, concluded that Licata's insanity was probably hereditary. His parents were first cousins and a granduncle and two paternal cousins had been committed to insane asylums. Licata's younger brother - one of his victims - had been diagnosed with dementia praecox. At the Florida State Mental Hospital, he was diagnosed as suffering dementia praecox with homicidal tendencies, and he was observed to be overtly psychotic. In the hospital, Licata killed another patient and finally hanged himself.
Hospital records do not blame either Licata's crimes or his lifelong mental illness on marijuana. In fact, marijuana is never mentioned. Yet Anslinger misrepresented the Licata case for over 15 years in order to terrify the public about marijuana.
The irony is that the propaganda technique of calling it a "gateway drug" only gained some truth because when society tells children that marijuana is bad for you and then the kids try it, they realize they were lied to because the drug is so harmless. The children then question what else they have been lied to about. The only reason why there is any documented case of marijuana leading to other drug use is because the children believe that if you lied to them about marijuana being bad, they assume you lied to them about the other drugs. In other words, as long as Marijuana continues to be mislabeled and falsely represented as a dangerous drug, it will possibly continue to be a gateway drug. By lying to children, you are in turn giving them a reason to question your accurate descriptions of more dangerous drugs that are actually harmful.
For most of human history, marijuana has been completely legal. It’s not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long-standing law. Marijuana has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that it’s been in use. Its known uses go back further than 7,000 B.C. and it was legal as recently as when Ronald Reagan was a boy.
The marijuana (hemp) plant, of course, has an incredible number of uses. The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, and over the centuries the plant was used for food, incense, cloth, rope, and much more. This adds to some of the confusion over its introduction in the United States, as the plant was well known from the early 1600′s, but did not reach public awareness as a recreational drug until the early 1900′s.
America’s first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law “ordering” all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other “must grow” laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp — try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements – rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.
The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp “plantations” (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.
I mean listen, George Washington even grew hemp and Benjamin Franklin grew Marijuana! They talked about how it eased their stress and helped them think. You hear that? The "framers" of the constitution, the free thinking rebels who went against England, were pot smokers. Not surprisingly, less than 3% of the population actually fought in the Revolutionary War and if you think about today, probably 3% of the people truly lead a rebel mind against the establishment today. Not much has changed. Including the fact that most if not all the rebels smoke pot today too.
See, remember I said a lot of the criminalizing of marijuana was about racism? Well in the old days, especially in the eastern states, the “problem” of marijuana was attributed to a combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong’s “Muggles”, Cab Calloway’s “That Funny Reefer Man”, Fats Waller’s “Viper’s Drag”).
Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: “Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.”
Two other fear-tactic rumors started to spread: one, that Mexicans, Blacks and other foreigners were snaring white children with marijuana; and two, the story of the “assassins.” Early stories of Marco Polo had told of “hasheesh-eaters” or hashashin, from which derived the term “assassin.” In the original stories, these professional killers were given large doses of hashish and brought to the ruler’s garden (to give them a glimpse of the paradise that awaited them upon successful completion of their mission). Then, after the effects of the drug disappeared, the assassin would fulfill his ruler’s wishes with cool, calculating loyalty.
By the 1930s, the story had changed. Dr. A. E. Fossier wrote in the 1931 New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal: “Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp.” Within a very short time, marijuana started being linked to violent behavior.
See what I mean about misclassification of the drug having such a negative impact? If you really want to learn why marijuana is illegal, continue reading here.
You don't place Pepto-Bismol or Neosporin or any other over the counter drug in a classification that groups it with drugs that affect your heart rate like Cocaine or Heroin, do you? Of course not. Why? Because they are not in the same classification.
No one is claiming that marijuana has no affect on the body, experts are just saying it is not in the correct classification. In a society that embraces alcohol consumption and cigarette inhalation, there is no moral defense to claim that marijuana couldn't be a similar recreational drug. Its medical benefits have been proven time and time again fro pain relief and cancer treatment, among many other realities but I am talking about your personal right, your personal liberty to smoke marijuana. No one has the right to tell you that you can not posses or responsibly use marijuana in a society that embraces drug use of drugs that are lethal and drugs that impair your ability to drive, think, operate heavy machinery, etc.
There is this great myth that people like to project that claims that if you decriminalize marijuana, somehow that is the same as encouraging the use of the drug. This is factually not true. No one is encouraging such ridiculous behavior and that behavior should remain illegal. You can't drink and drive, right? You can't drink in public, right? Well, in most states, you can't be intoxicated in public, even though bars are located in commercial districts, which means people are driving to get drunk and then going home. You ever look at the parking lot of a bar? You see less cars than there are people in the bar and most people know a lot of the customers are single drivers, which means we all know that drinking and driving is going on and even killing children every year, when these drunk run into people or damage property over and over. Instead od ethically addressing our own participation in creating the environment for these people to drive to bars and drink and drive home, we just have harsh punishments. Why can't we have harsh punishments for irresonsible mairjuana use? What is wrong with treating marijuana like alcohol? They both impair your ability to drive (most people at least) and they both can't be done at work or in public and they both shouldn't be available to minors and they both have more similarities than we can name only marijuana doesn't kill your liver, among many things.
Because you can responsibly embrace the use of alcohol. Do people use it irresponsibly? Of course they do, but the decriminalization of alcohol is not causing that. We just have harsh punishments for "criminals" or in other words, responsible use of alcohol and mere possession of it is NOT a criminal act. When you think about it, this should be no different than our philosophy as a society with marijuana.
It is still a crime to use alcohol irresponsibly or drink and drive,and you can get a ticket or arrested. No one is saying that should change, they are saying that marijuana should be treated no differently.
The mere possession of it, the responsible use of it should NOT be a crime.
This is a matter of ethics and intelligent treatment of people who are choosing to embrace their right to liberty; their right to do what they want, responsibly. Isn’t that what the United States was fought for? Isn't that the fundamental reason that the United States is supposed to be the best country in the world? Because people come here to escape religious persecution. They come here to pursue their own liberty, their own way of life, whatever it may be, so far as it doesn't get forced upon others without their consent and that they don't harm others. How is marijuana consumption not a matter of liberty?
My point is obvious; that the medical legalization of marijuana is something that never needed to be debated but it has been proven time and time again, but separate from that is the reality that the mere use of the drug, the responsible, recreational use of the drug, should NOT be illegal. ESPECIALLY the mere possession of it.
The United States does NOT embrace laws based on the moral interpretation of declared liberties, it is based on the idea of protecting everyone's liberty and their way of life, including their right to light fireworks, smoke lethal cigarettes, practice whatever religions or cults, speak whatever languages and engage in ANY behavior they choose so long as you, as a sovereign human being of your own cognitive recognition, decide to do it on your own property or any other private property that allows it.
This is the land of the free, the land where people do what they want so long as it doesn't get forced on others or harm others. This is not the land where we declare what practice of liberty you are to take, what language you are to speak, what religion you are to practice. If you want to goof around, if you want to party, if you want to have a good time, if you want to drink or even, for heavens sake, even if you want to gamble or have sex, you can DO IT because this is the land that is supposed to PROTECT your liberty and your personally right to engage in silly behavior, so long as you are responsible.
When the United States criminalized marijuana, it began practicing the fundamental oppression and tyranny other nation’s practice that dictate a way of life. It stopped protecting people's liberty and began persecuting people's life choices and building a whole system of incarceration and not just simple detainment, but even control over people's lives after incarceration through parole, the threat of more prison, financial fines and fees, total monitoring of people's lives. This all might be debatably acceptable for violent offenders, but remember, we are talking about NON-VIOLENT offenders here. People merely possessing, responsibly using the drug.
You don't target people who legally jump through the hoops and obtain all the training and certifications to own a gun if you want to stop criminals, do you? Obviously the stereotype of the republican and conservative party is to be pro-gun rights and anti-marijuana legalization. I am pleading with you to recognize the same respect you demand for your liberty and right to drink or own a gun, I am asking you to recognize this exact liberty, this exact right to posses and/or responsible use marijuana.
I saw an interview with a politician, Gary Johnson, who seemed to be on the same page as me about marijuana laws but the weirdest thing in the world is that he was Republican:
With all this, it sucks seeing stuff like this:
A friend of mine commented on facebook about public smoking bans. I just wanted to share this with everyone so that you have ammunition for all of your republican/democrat friends who may or may not realize this:
At the very bottom of this article are the list of the 599 additives and chemicals that are KNOWN poisons in cigarette. If there wasn't such a serious debate over the legality of modern day cigarettes and your health, there wouldn't be such an effort to ban cigarette in public places. What the smokers NEED to understand is that this is not so much about people telling you what you can do, it is about people telling you what you can not do in public places regarding hazardous health related products that you force others to engage in. who is asking who to engage in activity they don't want to partake in? it is a serious question. Travelers have the right not to go out to places that allow smoking right? Isn't it also true for the opposite that travelers have the right to wait and smoke where it is allowed? Aren't both kind of right? Well, interestingly, what if the debate is about something else...
I wouldn't be so inclined to comment if I didn't already believe in this cause, but I do. In fact, I talk about it all the time on my radio show and in my presentations. It is one I am VERY familiar with and well researched on. you ready? Here it is:
I wanted to share this fun fact. Cigarette companies spend many hundreds of millions of dollars on multiple lobbyist groups to make sure they are not regulated by the FDA, like all others in this society. I am not going to share my politics on smoking bans, but I will tell you this, if I started selling painter masks on the market and these masks had known carcinogens like Acetone - also found in finger nail polish remover, Ammonia - used in household cleaning compounds, Arsenic - commonly used in rat poison. Butane - key ingredient in lighter fluid, Cadmium, etc, etc, etc through the 600 more in alphabetical order that you find in cigarettes... Well if these were in any small trace amount in my painter masks I was selling, my company would be shut down. I would be held accountable, fines imposed and potential charges of pre-meditated mass murder.
Do you know why the FDA does not regulate cigarettes? because if they did, it would HAVE to be disclosed a complete list of ingredients. If that happened, it would be ILLEGAL to sell 99% of all cigarettes on the market. It is pre-meditated mass murder, no exceptions. Every single cigarette company already knows this, that is why they spend that money on lobbyists to ensure that they are not regulated. god forbid they have to sell pure tobacco cigarettes, without additives and less profit or addiction...
My point is this: Why is it that all people in society of the United States are forced to be regulated by the government for all products sold on the market that your body may absorb but cigarettes are exempt. All you folks here about government control in our lives, the whole debate is that they are exempt from the ALREADY in place government regulation that you and I are forced to experience.
Tobacco has tar and you still experience inhaling carbon monoxide which kills people in their homes every year just because you can not smell carbon monoxide (not to be confused with carbon dioixide). Any smoking is hazardous to your health, you always risk it. You were not meant to inhale water just like your lungs were not meant to inhale smoke. We breathe air, that is the natural state. if you alter that behavior, just like your nutrition or exercise, expect health problems. I don't believe in telling people they don't have a right to engage in unhealthy or risky behavior, but I DO believe in the idea that people have a right to be informed of that, legally and morally. Cigarette companies spend millions of dollars to prevent this from happening. The Surgeon general warning is NOT from the FDA.
When you look on the box of cigarettes, there are NO ingredients. Do you know why this is? Because the FDA believes that cigarettes are not "ingested" but just smoked. Do you want to know how asinine this is? "Ingested" has nothing to do with it. First of all, smoking IS ingesting. second of all, we force ALL make up and shampoo companies to disclose the ingredients on their products and undergo intense testing for toxic chemicals just for products that go "ON" your body. You know why, because your skin absorbs chemicals. LET ALONE SMOKING SOMETHING, which goes INTO your bloodstream and circulatory and respiratory system, AS WELL, as your digestive system.
NOT ONLY are objections justified about a right to force people to obey public smoking ban laws but that is protected on the ideology of American politics but all you nay-sayers are ALSO correct about your community at the same time and not wanting government control in your life. But ALL of you need to understand that cigarette companies are APART of the problem. I don't give 2 shits if people smoke. I don't think cigarettes should be illegal. But I do think that ALL CORPORATIONS should be required to experience the same level of bullshit that the rest of us have to go through, and that includes the REALITY that if I am forced to be regulated by the FDA, they should be too.
Corporations should not have the right to buy their way out of the system to conduct CRIMINAL activity of selling products that include cancer, but not only, they include KNOWN poisons. If I was a nurse and I put a small amount of cyanide in someone's soup everyday, I would go to fu**ing prison. Do you get this? Cigarette companies are adding additives that have NOTHING to do with preservation (preservatives) and they have nothing to do with flavor. Cigarette companies have added black powder and incendiaries in the paper to ensure the cigarette relights every now and then SO LONG as you smoke it AND they also have chemicals in the paper to make sure the cigarette goes out if not smoked after a period of time. Along with that are other additives.
If I add nicotine into my products because I paid scientists millions of dollars to find a chemical that would ENSURE that people become addicted to my product, that would be completely legal under our law. However, it should be disclosed, according to the regulations of drugs by the FDA. The reason that cigarettes are exempt is because of the lobbying, but the real reason is because if they were ever forced to be regulated for their drug, and YES IT IS A DAMN DRUG GET OVER YOURSELF, if they were forced to be regulated, everyone pay attention now, it would be LEGALLY disclosed that the cigarette companies are KNOWINGLY adding chemicals and drugs to their products that also kill you over time. Like the known 600 poisons. If I add a known poison in small doses to my product ON TOP of a drug that makes you addicted to my product, how is this not premeditated mass murder?
Well, it is. No ifs, and's or buts about it. No excuses everybody. Enough is enough. I say this because I want to protect people's right to smoke cigarettes, but I think they should have the legal right to be told the truth and cigarette companies SHOULD NOT be allowed to add any drug without regulations by the drug administration and cigarette companies should NEVER be allowed to add known poisons, toxins and carcinogens.
AND, if a community or state wants to ban the use of a drug in public places where sovereignty laws are forced to be affected by regulation by the masses, well that is up to that state or community. THIS IS LIMITED GOVERNMENT. If you have a problem with this and think this is government oppression, you are not a libertarian or conservative. You are an anarchist. Sorry, just my opinion here.
By the way, I am friends with many anarchists who agree that cigarette companies should not have the right to sell death legally.
This debate about public smoking in my opinion is absolutely legit. Most activists on both sides of the debate, as well as myself, do not want known toxins and poisons to be released in my environment in public places where I attend. Just as you have the right to go anywhere where smoking is not taking place, you also have the right to go anywhere where smoking is embraced. It works both ways. Limited government means that if a big corporation is dumping chemicals into the public water supply, we can regulate them and go after them and tell them NOT to do it, just as we have that right, as a community under the republic, to do with individuals who do the same crime. Until cigarettes are just plain tobacco, Sorry, but until then, I agree with smoking ban laws. This is a matter of serious debate.
The whole angle with public smoking bans is that if cigarette companies know that they can't have the FDA regulate them because they would be forced to disclose the illegality of their products, which is why they spend the money with lobbyists, then we can all agree that even though cigarettes are legal, that doesn't mean they are OK to push in people's faces. They are borderline illegal in any system that would treat cigarettes with the same scrutiny all other products on the market have to go through and it is highly debatable if people have the right to force others to engage in secondary smoke, which there is absolutely no debate has unhealthy, risky or dangerous side effects. Private property laws should always be respected so I believe that public smoking bans have NO place to tell private establishments what to do, but public smoking bans in public places and most businesses is the gray zone.
Who is being unrealistic in the scenario, that is for your community and judges to decide. do smokers have a right to make others engage in the risky health environment or do the non smokers have the right to tell smokers to do it in private places. There is a BIG difference between telling someone what to engage in and asking someone to refrain from behavior around others. No one is telling smokers they can't smoke, they are saying you can't force others to tolerate your behavior if it affects their health. And as such, smokers asking non smokers to deal with it are actually making the non smokers engage in behavior they don't want to partake in. The difference is there. You can't expect people to do what you want them to do, but you can ask them to respect not doing something if it should involve another person's consent... Smokers don't need other people's consent to smoke, however they might need it to smoke next to someone. It is very realistic, polite and just fair to see public smoking ban laws as not evasive into your life. To compare government tyranny over your life with smoking ban laws is an extreme and borderline insulting stretch of the imagination, in my opinion.
Here is a list of the 599 additives and chemicals that are KNOWN poisons in cigarettes:
http://www.newworldorderreport.com/News/tabid/266/ID/3887/The-List-of-599-Additives-in-Cigarettes.aspx