I started doing a statistical tally of how President Obama did in comparison to all the cannabis initiatives that were also going on around the country.
I'll start off with legalization measures, then do states that had medical cannabis measures.
Colorado:
Good job!
Amendment 64 got 1,291,771 (54.8%) votes for it, and 1,064,342 (45.1%) voted against it.
In contrast President Obama received 1,238,490 (51%) votes.
That means that cannabis legalization was more popular than President Obama by 53,281 voters in the state of Colorado.
Washington:
Good job!
Initiative 502 got 1,056,355 (55.44%) for it, and 848,919 (44.56%) against it.
President Obama got 1,187,256 (55.25%) of the states vote.
In Washington, President Obama got only 131,101 more votes than cannabis legalization.
Oregon:
Nice try!
State Ballot Measure No: 80 got 753,952 (46.29%) votes for it, and 874,945 (53.71%) voted against it.
President Obama received 907,351 votes. That's 153,399 more votes than cannabis
Massachusetts:
Good job!
Yes Medical Marijuana got 1,895,340 (63%) for it, and 1,097,797 (37%) against it.
President Obama got 1,900,575 (60.88%) He only got 5,235 votes more than medicinal cannabis.
Arkansas:
Damn close!
Issue 5 got 502,419 (49%) for it, and 532,419 (51%) against it. It was defeated by exactly 30,000 votes.
President Obama got 390,339 (39%) of the states votes. In Arkansas, medicinal cannabis was more popular than the President by a whooping 112,080 voters.
Summary:
In total, there were 5,529,837 voters for cannabis reform, and 4,418,422 voters against cannabis reform.
The total amount of voters who voted for cannabis reform outnumbered those against it by 1,111,415 votes.
Cannabis reform got 5,529,837 total votes, and President Obama got 5,624,011 total votes in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, & Arkansas .
President Obama barely beat cannabis reform by 94,174 votes
--------------------------------------------
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
The Drug War's Forgotten Children
One of the most common counterpoints to cannabis prohibition is the argument "What about the children?"
Suburban parents with teenagers can understandably overcompensate by being overly protective when it comes to their children and drugs. In no way do I begrudge a parent for wanting to protect their children. In fact, I'd do the same. However, I don't believe our country's current drug policies are the best way to protect them.
If the people who support cannabis prohibition want to use the argument "what about the children?" it is imperative to take into consideration all children ... not just the children in the United States. My argument is what is the best policy for ALL of the children? For one moment put yourself in the position of a parent in Mexico, where the drug policies of another nation affect your own children negatively, yet you have no recourse ... no way to vote, or establish means to correct the problem.
How has the United States' drug war negatively affected children in Mexico and Latin America? I have compiled some research that demonstrates how cannabis prohibition hurts children in other countries, as well as the United States. References and quotes are based off websites that report news:
Shootout at Mexican hospital (Youtube video, embedding is disabled)
This video shows parents with small children fleeing a hospital because two victims of drug cartel violence were being treated there, so the attackers went there to finish off the job. Doctors and nurses lives are threatened if they treat gunshot patients. Ambulance drivers and first responders take a chance every time they attempt to save someones life.
You never hear about drug cartels shooting up a hospital and assassinating people in the U.S.
Border Patrol agent fires at rock-throwers in Mexico, killing teen
In this article, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed a Mexican teen throwing rocks at him from across the border. The Border Patrol agent was there responding to a call to investigate alleged drug smuggling activity.
Another teen died the same way just 2 years ago. According to this article, the family tried to sue the United States government for the unlawful death of their child and failed. Here is why.
"Border agents are generally allowed to use lethal force against rock throwers.
In 2010, a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent firing his weapon from El Paso, Texas, into Juarez, Mexico. Some witnesses said people on the Mexican side of the river, including the teen, were throwing rocks at the agent as he tried to arrest an illegal immigrant crossing the Rio Grande.
A federal judge in El Paso last year dismissed a lawsuit by the family of the boy because the teen was on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande when he was shot. U.S. law gives the government immunity when such claims arise in a foreign country, the judge noted."
Mexico Teen Assassin Arrested, Suspected Of 50 Killings
"Mexican prosecutors said Thursday they were investigating a 16-year-old suspected hitman who was believed to have participated in at least 50 murders while working for a drug gang.
A spokesman for prosecutors in the northeastern state of Sinaloa said the teenager, identified as Francisco Miguel N., was part of a gang known as Los Mazatlecos, a criminal group attached to the Beltran Leyva drugs cartel.
Police arrested the teen for carrying a loaded gun and drugs. He later confessed to working as a hitman for the group, local prosecutors said in a statement.
The teenager said he had taken part in executions of police, farmers and even a musician since February.
The 16-year-old, one of whose nicknames was "El Nino" or "The Boy," said he was given an AK-47 rifle and a pistol to carry out the various attacks in Sinaloa, a violent coastal state with a long tradition of drug trafficking.
Sinaloa is home to the powerful drug cartel of the same name, led by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman. Once allied to Guzman, the Beltran Leyva gang has fought with him since breaking from the Sinaloa cartel in 2008.
A number of teenagers have been captured working for drug gangs, lured by the prospect of quick money. In June 2011, a group of six teenage drug gang members were captured after a shootout with police in central Mexico."
U.S. teen admits to beheading 4 for Mexico drug gang
"Molly Molloy,
a researcher at New Mexico State University, tallies more than 100,000
Mexicans killed to wage a war financed and mandated by American
authorities and led by Mexican president Felipe Calderón.
The carnage has been so remarkable — mass executions, beheadings, mutilations, men, women, children — that the outgoing Calderón has announced he may leave the country lest he become a statistic.
And yet on July 4, the New York Times declared the War on Drugs a cruel failure, claiming that the price of cocaine, for example, is 74 percent cheaper now than it was 30 years ago. America has spent $20 billion to $25 billion a year to stem the flow of narcotics, to no good end."
Mexico's growing legion of narco orphans
"Decapitated bodies. Murder victims hanging from bridges. Blood crusted on street curbs where an assassin has struck. These are the gruesome images the world has come to associate with Mexico's drug war. But, out of view, the plight of so-called narco orphans like Bryan is just as haunting. It may also foretell more mayhem in the years to come.
With shoddy education standards and poor career prospects already holding back Mexico's youth, people like Casas worry about the impact on society of tens of thousands of kids growing up emotionally traumatized and with their prospects for building a better life for themselves in tatters.
"There is an enormous cost because these kids aren't children as they should be. They are future criminals. What other aspirations are they going to have? What kind of future awaits them?" Casas said over an uncomfortably early supper in a brightly lit mall in Ciudad Juarez, where these days people avoid side streets and don't stay out after dark.
Neither Mexico's government nor the various independent groups studying organized crime keep track of the number of narco orphans who have lost fathers, and sometimes mothers too, to the drug war."
Gunmen kill 13 at birthday party in Mexico
"I threw myself down on the floor and then a lot of other people piled on top of me," a young man who survived the shooting late on Friday told Reuters, declining to give his name out of fear of reprisals."
The celebration was for a boy's 15th birthday, he said.
At least four of the people killed at the house party were teenagers and a 9-year-old boy was among the wounded, officials said.
"A group of heavily armed men arrived in two minivans. At least 10 men burst into the party," Carlos Gonzalez, a spokesman for state prosecutors, told the Reforma newspaper.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon condemned the shooting, saying it caused "deep outrage."
Teen survives being shot, dangled from bridge
MONTERREY, Mexico —
A kicking, screaming teenager with a gunshot wound was found dangling from a rope over a busy highway Wednesday in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey. Police said another man alongside him was dead by the time rescuers arrived and a third was found dead below.
Witnesses told police that a group of gunmen descended from a vehicle and hanged the men off a bridge around 10 a.m., stopping traffic along one of the busiest routes in Mexico's third-largest city, which has been plagued by drug-gang violence.
All three of the men had been shot and tortured, and their hands were bound with duct tape, said a Nuevo Leon state police investigator who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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The evidence I have presented should be compelling enough for anyone to see. The United States needs to make a huge step in the right direction, by ending cannabis prohibition. This act alone would cut drug cartel finances by 70%, and it would make law enforcement easier there to protect it's people.
If you support cannabis prohibition then you also support this kind of activity here in the United States:
The skateboarding 17-year-old drug kingpin who earned $20,000 a month from marijuana trade
"On the surface, he was a small-town high school student, but cops say an Ohio teen was cleaning up as the kingpin of a major marijuana operation - and even his mother was in the dark about it.
The teen, who has not been identified, had six lieutenants, selling as much as $20,000 of high-grade homegrown marijuana every month to high school students in Mason, Ohio.
Investigators said those who participated in the sophisticated operation were careful not to do business on school grounds where they knew it was riskier.
And all this before he graduated.
The 17-year-old high school student was the center of a high-grade marijuana distribution ring that operated in two Cincinnati-area schools, the Warren County Drug Task Force said Monday.
A yearlong investigation culminated in the arrest of the teen and seven adults, as well as the seizure of more than 600 hydroponically grown marijuana plants with a street value of around $3million, the agency said."
Outside America, the "What about the children?" argument is nothing but rhetoric and rings a hollow tone.
Ending cannabis prohibition is the best policy for ALL children.
Suburban parents with teenagers can understandably overcompensate by being overly protective when it comes to their children and drugs. In no way do I begrudge a parent for wanting to protect their children. In fact, I'd do the same. However, I don't believe our country's current drug policies are the best way to protect them.
If the people who support cannabis prohibition want to use the argument "what about the children?" it is imperative to take into consideration all children ... not just the children in the United States. My argument is what is the best policy for ALL of the children? For one moment put yourself in the position of a parent in Mexico, where the drug policies of another nation affect your own children negatively, yet you have no recourse ... no way to vote, or establish means to correct the problem.
How has the United States' drug war negatively affected children in Mexico and Latin America? I have compiled some research that demonstrates how cannabis prohibition hurts children in other countries, as well as the United States. References and quotes are based off websites that report news:
Shootout at Mexican hospital (Youtube video, embedding is disabled)
This video shows parents with small children fleeing a hospital because two victims of drug cartel violence were being treated there, so the attackers went there to finish off the job. Doctors and nurses lives are threatened if they treat gunshot patients. Ambulance drivers and first responders take a chance every time they attempt to save someones life.
You never hear about drug cartels shooting up a hospital and assassinating people in the U.S.
Border Patrol agent fires at rock-throwers in Mexico, killing teen
In this article, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed a Mexican teen throwing rocks at him from across the border. The Border Patrol agent was there responding to a call to investigate alleged drug smuggling activity.
Another teen died the same way just 2 years ago. According to this article, the family tried to sue the United States government for the unlawful death of their child and failed. Here is why.
"Border agents are generally allowed to use lethal force against rock throwers.
In 2010, a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent firing his weapon from El Paso, Texas, into Juarez, Mexico. Some witnesses said people on the Mexican side of the river, including the teen, were throwing rocks at the agent as he tried to arrest an illegal immigrant crossing the Rio Grande.
A federal judge in El Paso last year dismissed a lawsuit by the family of the boy because the teen was on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande when he was shot. U.S. law gives the government immunity when such claims arise in a foreign country, the judge noted."
Mexico Teen Assassin Arrested, Suspected Of 50 Killings
"Mexican prosecutors said Thursday they were investigating a 16-year-old suspected hitman who was believed to have participated in at least 50 murders while working for a drug gang.
A spokesman for prosecutors in the northeastern state of Sinaloa said the teenager, identified as Francisco Miguel N., was part of a gang known as Los Mazatlecos, a criminal group attached to the Beltran Leyva drugs cartel.
Police arrested the teen for carrying a loaded gun and drugs. He later confessed to working as a hitman for the group, local prosecutors said in a statement.
The teenager said he had taken part in executions of police, farmers and even a musician since February.
The 16-year-old, one of whose nicknames was "El Nino" or "The Boy," said he was given an AK-47 rifle and a pistol to carry out the various attacks in Sinaloa, a violent coastal state with a long tradition of drug trafficking.
Sinaloa is home to the powerful drug cartel of the same name, led by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman. Once allied to Guzman, the Beltran Leyva gang has fought with him since breaking from the Sinaloa cartel in 2008.
A number of teenagers have been captured working for drug gangs, lured by the prospect of quick money. In June 2011, a group of six teenage drug gang members were captured after a shootout with police in central Mexico."
U.S. teen admits to beheading 4 for Mexico drug gang
"MEXICO
CITY — Mexican troops captured a 14-year-old U.S. citizen said to have
specialized in beheadings as an assassin for one of Mexico's most
vicious drug gangs. His pay: $2,500 a killing.
Soldiers detained Edgar Jimenez late Thursday at an airport outside Cuernavaca, 50 miles south of Mexico City, as he prepared to board a flight to Tijuana."
"I didn't know what I
was doing," Jimenez said, according to media accounts, but added that
he was paid $2,500 per killing. Army officials accused Jimenez's sister,
identified as 19-year-old Elizabeth, of also working for the gang.
Neither has been formerly charged.
Jimenez
said he was sorry to have gotten involved both with Mexican gangsters
and with killing people. If he beats the charges, he said, he'll change
his ways.
"I didn't join," he said of his gangland career, which reportedly began when he was 12. "They pulled me in."
The carnage has been so remarkable — mass executions, beheadings, mutilations, men, women, children — that the outgoing Calderón has announced he may leave the country lest he become a statistic.
And yet on July 4, the New York Times declared the War on Drugs a cruel failure, claiming that the price of cocaine, for example, is 74 percent cheaper now than it was 30 years ago. America has spent $20 billion to $25 billion a year to stem the flow of narcotics, to no good end."
Mexico's growing legion of narco orphans
"Decapitated bodies. Murder victims hanging from bridges. Blood crusted on street curbs where an assassin has struck. These are the gruesome images the world has come to associate with Mexico's drug war. But, out of view, the plight of so-called narco orphans like Bryan is just as haunting. It may also foretell more mayhem in the years to come.
With shoddy education standards and poor career prospects already holding back Mexico's youth, people like Casas worry about the impact on society of tens of thousands of kids growing up emotionally traumatized and with their prospects for building a better life for themselves in tatters.
"There is an enormous cost because these kids aren't children as they should be. They are future criminals. What other aspirations are they going to have? What kind of future awaits them?" Casas said over an uncomfortably early supper in a brightly lit mall in Ciudad Juarez, where these days people avoid side streets and don't stay out after dark.
Neither Mexico's government nor the various independent groups studying organized crime keep track of the number of narco orphans who have lost fathers, and sometimes mothers too, to the drug war."
Gunmen kill 13 at birthday party in Mexico
"I threw myself down on the floor and then a lot of other people piled on top of me," a young man who survived the shooting late on Friday told Reuters, declining to give his name out of fear of reprisals."
The celebration was for a boy's 15th birthday, he said.
At least four of the people killed at the house party were teenagers and a 9-year-old boy was among the wounded, officials said.
"A group of heavily armed men arrived in two minivans. At least 10 men burst into the party," Carlos Gonzalez, a spokesman for state prosecutors, told the Reforma newspaper.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon condemned the shooting, saying it caused "deep outrage."
Teen survives being shot, dangled from bridge
MONTERREY, Mexico —
A kicking, screaming teenager with a gunshot wound was found dangling from a rope over a busy highway Wednesday in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey. Police said another man alongside him was dead by the time rescuers arrived and a third was found dead below.
Witnesses told police that a group of gunmen descended from a vehicle and hanged the men off a bridge around 10 a.m., stopping traffic along one of the busiest routes in Mexico's third-largest city, which has been plagued by drug-gang violence.
All three of the men had been shot and tortured, and their hands were bound with duct tape, said a Nuevo Leon state police investigator who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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The evidence I have presented should be compelling enough for anyone to see. The United States needs to make a huge step in the right direction, by ending cannabis prohibition. This act alone would cut drug cartel finances by 70%, and it would make law enforcement easier there to protect it's people.
If you support cannabis prohibition then you also support this kind of activity here in the United States:
The skateboarding 17-year-old drug kingpin who earned $20,000 a month from marijuana trade
"On the surface, he was a small-town high school student, but cops say an Ohio teen was cleaning up as the kingpin of a major marijuana operation - and even his mother was in the dark about it.
The teen, who has not been identified, had six lieutenants, selling as much as $20,000 of high-grade homegrown marijuana every month to high school students in Mason, Ohio.
Investigators said those who participated in the sophisticated operation were careful not to do business on school grounds where they knew it was riskier.
And all this before he graduated.
The 17-year-old high school student was the center of a high-grade marijuana distribution ring that operated in two Cincinnati-area schools, the Warren County Drug Task Force said Monday.
A yearlong investigation culminated in the arrest of the teen and seven adults, as well as the seizure of more than 600 hydroponically grown marijuana plants with a street value of around $3million, the agency said."
Outside America, the "What about the children?" argument is nothing but rhetoric and rings a hollow tone.
Ending cannabis prohibition is the best policy for ALL children.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Alternatives for cannabis reform during an election cycle that ignores it
I read this article today. It concerned the war on drugs in Mexico, and the new president elect's participatory strategy to fight it.
Since 2006 War on drugs has caused 100,000 deaths in Mexico.
About 4 paragraphs into the article, I read this:
"Recently released government figures place Mexico's total homicide tally from 2007 to 2011 at 99,632, a number that will easily surpass 100,000 by the time President Felipe Calderón ends his term."
Back in the 1990's, I lived in El Paso for several years. I spent many trips across the border and never once felt uneasy walking around Juarez with my family or by myself. I even got to spend a lot of time in Mexico when I was a kid back in the 1970's with my mom and step dad. It was quite a wake up call to be introduced to a completely different culture compared to suburban America with my Luke Skywalker hover pod action set.
I saw children begging for money, old ladies that would superstitiously turn away from a passing glance in fear of getting the evil eye. People living in homes made out of palm fronds and dirt floors.
I remember seeing a solstice festival at some Aztec ruins with people spinning around upside down hang by a rope tied to their feet way up in the air. I met really nice people in Mexico, and it has always been a positive experience that I have fondly looked back upon. So, I have had in interest in watching what has been going on in Mexico for many years.
Nowadays, I wouldn't go to Mexico if you paid me.
What is often neglected (Especially in our current elections) is the big picture of the America's war on drug policies in one country adversely affecting surrounding countries.
I am worried about what our next President of the United States will do to fix cannabis policies.
Considering Mitt Romney has roots in Mexico as well, you would think he would be enlightened enough that he would realize how our policies in the United states have negatively affected Mexico. 100,000 deaths in less than 6 years is not insignificant.
I wonder what Mitt Romney would tell the next President of Mexico if he got elected? " I'm sorry President Enrique Peña Nieto, don't waste my time with that silly insignificant drug war issue." His current foreign policy to our neighboring country is execrable.
Mitt Romney is not even altruistic towards the disabled either. Check out his contemptuous reaction to being questioned by a man in a wheelchair about his policy towards medicinal cannabis. He is totally against cannabis reform even medical.
So in a nutshell Mitt Romney does not care about our peoples health issues. I bet if alcohol was still prohibited, he would not end alcohol prohibition under his watch either.
As far as president Obama goes, he has been the Hypocrite in Chief regarding cannabis reform.
- Between giving executive privilege to Eric Holder over the whistle-blowing incident called Fast and Furious, and over 300 people dying because the guns were intended for drug cartels.
- The constant attempts of ignoring cannabis policies when Americans speak out to discuss the issue in his public town-hall forums online.
- The closings and raids of legal medical cannabis dispensaries. While promising as a candidate to honor states rights concerning cannabis.
- Denying in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine, that he did not have the ability to change cannabis laws on his own. Which is completely untrue!
President Obama can reschedule cannabis with a stroke of a pen using executive privilege. He only uses that card when his main guy in the Dept of Justice gets his ass in a sling over selling guns to drug cartels.
- By the time President Obama finishes his first term as President of the United States, 3.2 million people will of been arrested for cannabis prohibition.
-During this election so far President Obama has not gone on the record regarding anything about the war on drugs. It has seemed like it has been purposely avoided by him. I guess 100,000 deaths, and 3.2 million cannabis arrests must seem insignificant to him as well.
The other option we have is the third party candidate. Libertarian candidate for President Gary Johnson has a more worldly view on the war on drugs and has a good record as Governor of New Mexico.
I recently got a chance to listen to him speak at the demonstration area at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC this past week.
Gary Johnson is on the right track, and hopefully other politicians will come around to his way of thinking regarding cannabis policy. Gary Johnson is on the ballot on all 50 states. Unfortunately he does not have a very good chance at all of being elected.
In the end, it is my hope that Gary Johnson succeeds in bringing cannabis reform into the light much the same way Ron Paul did when it came to bringing attention to the Federal Reserve and having it audited.
The world is walking away from America's policies on the war on drugs. A global commission on drug policy, backed many many world leaders, was recently shunned by the United States. We are no longer looking like a legitimate freedom caring nation in the eyes of the world.
Sure there are other important matters to the country that should come first. Everyone wants more jobs and a stable economy, but cannabis reform shouldn't be ignored. It is not an insignificant issue.
In summary, I do not see any change in the right direction in this Presidential election. People will succumb to being force fed the lesser of two evils and the status quot will endeavor to persevere.
More and more states will become cannabis friendly, but our Federal Government will not.
That leads me to this. Until we can change cannabis laws we can legally challenge them.
Cannabis arrests don't have to mean easy money for the government if more and more people challenge the law in court.
Do like NJ Weedman did, and encourage your friends and other activists to stand outside a courthouse with signs explaining Jury Nullification. He utilized the internet and social media to gain support to help contest his marijuana possession charges.
Or consider this before you take a plea deal...
How about contesting the evidence?
When one is arrested for marijuana charges, regardless of the circumstances or what the person believes he/she possesses, the prosecution has to subsequently scientifically prove the presence of marijuana in any seized substance. The most commonly used test is the Duquenois-Levine. But studies have showed, the Duquenois-Levine test does not prove the presence of marijuana. Theoretically then, if the defense attorney working with an expert, challenges the “proof,” the case should be dismissed.
Consider contesting the evidence before a plea deal, and if the judge admits the evidence. then try to utilize jury nullification in the court.
If you would like more information on locating a drug test expert witness to contest cannabis charges, fill out the contact form on the link below.
BEAT MARIJUANA CHARGES.COM
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
President Obama's Message of "Don't get caught"
Recently I found this meme on Facebook, and it got a reaction out of me. I got to thinking just how true and profound it really was. All it would of taken is one arrest, and our present time would be completely different.
I sat in front of my computer, smoking a joint, and watched the smoke dispersing into the room as I exhale. I starting thinking deeper into it, wondering what would have happened if a young Barack Obama/Barry Sotero was hanging out with his friends, having a good time, and ended up getting busted with an ounce of cannabis. .
I took another hit off my pipe, looking around the room, bothering nobody, and wondered why almost a million people a year were going to get arrested for cannabis. A million dreamers aspirations of lifetime goals and possibilities thrown aside. The day after a drug bust they wake up to a new life, with a new label, a criminal.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting to get a different result. The war on cannabis has proven to be the epitome of insanity.
------------------------------------
I had an idea for a meme, and it went viral. Within a few hours it had gotten shared to tens of thousands of people on Facebook! The icing on the cake though, was when I started seeing people I don't even know, tweeting it directly to Barack Obama. I have had a great time time reading peoples perspectives on it, and I can tell that it kind of touched a nerve.
Anyways I think I had made a pretty good point with it. That being the blatant hypocrisy our President has committed by continuing to ignore the peoples desire to end the war on cannabis. It was good enough for him to do it, flippantly bragging about it to look all hip and shit. Why can't he do the right thing and just put his pen on a piece of paper and reschedule cannabis. Why should more and more people be busted for what he is guilty of doing himself?
Considering the ratio of blacks getting arrested compared to whites is staggering. He is so frigging lucky he had never gotten arrested. In every single state in the United States, except for one, (Hawaii) more blacks are arrested than whites.
Marijuana Possession Arrest Rates by State and Race (2006)
So what kind of choice is a person supposed to have come November? A hypocrite, or the 250 million dollar man? I don't care for republicans at all. For one reason the Republicans have traditionally opposed cannabis reform, the majority of them view it as being soft on criminals.
I read in The New York Times, that Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said that half of the 6,200 people who were charged with low-level marijuana possession last year in Manhattan had never been arrested before.
No one wants our politicians, or our police to be soft on criminals. Instead of considering someone who is arrested for the first time in their life because of cannabis a criminal....Why not consider them just a person? We already incarcerate more people than any other country in the world, so why should we just exasperate the problem further?
......................................................................................
On another note, I read today where a local law enforcement have gone so far out of their way to get a cannabis arrest.They used constant surveillance of a hydroponic shop to go after people who purchased there. Taking tag numbers and looking up addresses, then fabricating tips to search homes.
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
can only guess it
is over pressure from your bosses to specifically target cannabis users
so they can receive Federal Subsidies set aside for local law
enforcement for quotas on cannabis arrests. How much is it up to now? A
million bucks,... more?
Was it the thrill of taking someones home away from them, and all their other personal possessions so you can turn a quick buck on a sheriff's auction?
Cannabis has never killed anyone, but our law enforcement would have us believe that cannabis users are public enemy number one. Why else would they spend the majority of their time focusing on cannabis arrests?
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
Was it the thrill of taking someones home away from them, and all their other personal possessions so you can turn a quick buck on a sheriff's auction?
Cannabis has never killed anyone, but our law enforcement would have us believe that cannabis users are public enemy number one. Why else would they spend the majority of their time focusing on cannabis arrests?
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
The question I
have to ask is what motivated these Police Officers to lie to a judge,
just to set someone up for a cannabis charge? What is motivating them to
go so far to violating peoples civil liberties by invading their
privacy, based simply on where they shopped?
I can only guess it is over pressure from your bosses to specifically target cannabis users so they can receive Federal Subsidies set aside for local law enforcement for quotas on cannabis arrests. How much is it up to now? A million bucks,... more?
Was it the thrill of taking someones home away from them, and all their other personal possessions so you can turn a quick buck on a sheriff's auction?
Cannabis has never killed anyone, but our law enforcement would have us believe that cannabis users are public enemy number one. Why else would they spend the majority of their time focusing on cannabis arrests?
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
I can only guess it is over pressure from your bosses to specifically target cannabis users so they can receive Federal Subsidies set aside for local law enforcement for quotas on cannabis arrests. How much is it up to now? A million bucks,... more?
Was it the thrill of taking someones home away from them, and all their other personal possessions so you can turn a quick buck on a sheriff's auction?
Cannabis has never killed anyone, but our law enforcement would have us believe that cannabis users are public enemy number one. Why else would they spend the majority of their time focusing on cannabis arrests?
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
The question I
have to ask is what motivated these Police Officers to lie to a judge,
just to set someone up for a cannabis charge? What is motivating them to
go so far to violating peoples civil liberties by invading their
privacy, based simply on where they shopped?
I can only guess it is over pressure from your bosses to specifically target cannabis users so they can receive Federal Subsidies set aside for local law enforcement for quotas on cannabis arrests. How much is it up to now? A million bucks,... more?
Was it the thrill of taking someones home away from them, and all their other personal possessions so you can turn a quick buck on a sheriff's auction?
Cannabis has never killed anyone, but our law enforcement would have us believe that cannabis users are public enemy number one. Why else would they spend the majority of their time focusing on cannabis arrests?
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
I can only guess it is over pressure from your bosses to specifically target cannabis users so they can receive Federal Subsidies set aside for local law enforcement for quotas on cannabis arrests. How much is it up to now? A million bucks,... more?
Was it the thrill of taking someones home away from them, and all their other personal possessions so you can turn a quick buck on a sheriff's auction?
Cannabis has never killed anyone, but our law enforcement would have us believe that cannabis users are public enemy number one. Why else would they spend the majority of their time focusing on cannabis arrests?
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
The question I
have to ask is what motivated these Police Officers to lie to a judge,
just to set someone up for a cannabis charge? What is motivating them to
go so far to violating peoples civil liberties by invading their
privacy, based simply on where they shopped?
I can only guess it is over pressure from your bosses to specifically target cannabis users so they can receive Federal Subsidies set aside for local law enforcement for quotas on cannabis arrests. How much is it up to now? A million bucks,... more?
Was it the thrill of taking someones home away from them, and all their other personal possessions so you can turn a quick buck on a sheriff's auction?
Cannabis has never killed anyone, but our law enforcement would have us believe that cannabis users are public enemy number one. Why else would they spend the majority of their time focusing on cannabis arrests?
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
I can only guess it is over pressure from your bosses to specifically target cannabis users so they can receive Federal Subsidies set aside for local law enforcement for quotas on cannabis arrests. How much is it up to now? A million bucks,... more?
Was it the thrill of taking someones home away from them, and all their other personal possessions so you can turn a quick buck on a sheriff's auction?
Cannabis has never killed anyone, but our law enforcement would have us believe that cannabis users are public enemy number one. Why else would they spend the majority of their time focusing on cannabis arrests?
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
The question I
have to ask is what motivated these Police Officers to lie to a judge,
just to set someone up for a cannabis charge? What is motivating them to
go so far to violating peoples civil liberties by invading their
privacy, based simply on where they shopped?
I can only guess it is over pressure from your bosses to specifically target cannabis users so they can receive Federal Subsidies set aside for local law enforcement for quotas on cannabis arrests. How much is it up to now? A million bucks,... more?
Was it the thrill of taking someones home away from them, and all their other personal possessions so you can turn a quick buck on a sheriff's auction?
Cannabis has never killed anyone, but our law enforcement would have us believe that cannabis users are public enemy number one. Why else would they spend the majority of their time focusing on cannabis arrests?
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
I can only guess it is over pressure from your bosses to specifically target cannabis users so they can receive Federal Subsidies set aside for local law enforcement for quotas on cannabis arrests. How much is it up to now? A million bucks,... more?
Was it the thrill of taking someones home away from them, and all their other personal possessions so you can turn a quick buck on a sheriff's auction?
Cannabis has never killed anyone, but our law enforcement would have us believe that cannabis users are public enemy number one. Why else would they spend the majority of their time focusing on cannabis arrests?
Look at the big picture. Our own DEA, ILLEGALLY sold guns to drug cartels. The guns have been linked to over 200 murders. Including a Border Patrol Agent.
Our local law enforcement goes so far as to lying to judges, incarcerating people over a plant.
How are we supposed to be reassured by our police that they are not just out to put us in jail?
Like I said cannabis never killed anyone, it never ruined lives, only the results of it's prohibition has caused that.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
How cannabis prohibitionist Rep. Frank Wolf, was bought by lobbyist
Back on May 9th, congress sent a bill to stop the DEA from spending tax money on enforcing federal laws against states who have medical marijuana. The bill was debated heatedly, and was voted against by a majority in congress.
During the debating process, one particular congressman really stood out to me in particular. That was Republican Representative Frank Wolf, of Virgina's 10th District.
Representative Frank Wolf basically stuck to parroting all the talking points of cannabis prohibitionist for the past 70 years, interjecting miscellaneous straw man arguments along the way. He questioned the boundaries of states rights, stating, "If a state said that sex trafficking is okay, would we honor that and say that we are not gonna protect? I would hope not. States in the past have done things that were not good for this country." He also touched on the pill mill problems in Florida, stating "We talk about doctors, the number of doctors that were ripping off people with oxycontin - the number of doctors [that would be] devasting. You could go down to Broward County, in Florida, and go into some of these pain clinics -- There are buses coming down, and planes coming down, to buy it, and doctors are writing prescriptions. So we are going to hide behind it and just say doctors are? The number of doctors that ruin young people on oxycontin. .. that whereby they died, they died! Instead they hide behind a "doctor says" [and] that that means it's okay .."
We might be able to agree that the pain management policies are being abused, but the fact remains that people with legitimate pain are roped into the mix and are being treated like criminals. Many of the people who are traveling by buses and planes to Florida are going there because they are unable to get proper pain management alternatives in their home states, so they are forced to be scrutinized unfairly just to be able to receive treatment.
The comparison of states rights to use cannabis, and the problem with Florida's pill mills only exemplifies the need for states to have other alternatives for treatment.
I personally experienced a close friend go through quite an ordeal with pain management in Florida. She got into a car accident and sought a legal way to help cope with their pain. At first the doctors had trouble locating her injury and they did not want to prescribe pain killers, even though her pain was very real and excruciating. Eventually the doctors were able to pinpoint the problem and finally starting her on a precription of oxycodone.
One of the procedures utilized to locate her pain, in turn, elevated her pain and her prescription was increased. She became fearful of building up a tolerance against the medication - or worse, she feared she may become addicted. Her doctor placated her fears with a proverbial "pat on the head". Within several months, despite addressing these concerns with her doctor, she did end up addicted, and eventually had to find an alternative to the oxycodone. After spending time in drug rehabilitation she is now on methadone - probably for the rest of her life. To this day, her health has been seriously affected as a result of using the only legal way to find relief from her injuries.
Perhaps it's time we search for alternatives?
Medication errors harming millions
As a modern nation we have the responsibility to provide access to the best treatment available. There needs to be more than just highly addictive and expensive pills to provide needed relief for pain. By not giving people the legal choice for an alternative to pain pills when something else is available is wrong.
17 states recognize the medical efficacy of cannabis and they do not suffer the same problems Florida does with it's addiction to pill mills. Why? They have an legal alternative. An alternative that is extremely less addictive, and with substantially less lethal side effects.
Unfortunately, our government put a red X over those 17 states and targeted attacks against the people who voted for the right to be able to use medicinal cannabis, spending billions of dollars, arresting, and seizing assets, of the people providing access to medicinal cannabis.
After watching this debate in congress, I started wondering whether Representative Frank Wolf was influenced by lobbyists, and started doing some in depth research into who has invested in his campaigns since he was elected. What I found honestly was not surprising.
Here is my evidence that Representative Frank Wolf is nothing more than a bought out talking head for cannabis prohibitionist.
5 special interest groups that help keep cannabis illegal
The 5 special interest groups that keep cannabis illegal are: Police Unions, Private Prisons Corporations, Alcohol and Beer Companies, Pharmaceutical Corporations, and Prison Guard Unions.
Representative Frank Wolf has received campaign contributions from at least 6 contributors on the list.
Representative Frank Wolf's full list of donors.
Corporate Prisons:
CORRECTIONS CORPORATION OF AMERICA POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
Pharmaceutical:
BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB CO. EMPLOYEE PAC
ELI LILLY AND COMPANY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
NATIONAL COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS ASSOCIATION - PAC
PFIZER INC. PAC
Drug Testing:
QUEST DIAGNOSTICS INCORPORATED POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
So you see, this is a prime example of how lobbyists have bought and paid for Representative Frank Wolf. The good news is, he is running for re-election this year.
Running against Representative Frank Wolf is Jeff Barnett. Unfortunately, I have been unable to determine if he is worth endorsing due to the fact I couldn't find any information on his stand regarding current drug policies.
During the debating process, one particular congressman really stood out to me in particular. That was Republican Representative Frank Wolf, of Virgina's 10th District.
Representative Frank Wolf basically stuck to parroting all the talking points of cannabis prohibitionist for the past 70 years, interjecting miscellaneous straw man arguments along the way. He questioned the boundaries of states rights, stating, "If a state said that sex trafficking is okay, would we honor that and say that we are not gonna protect? I would hope not. States in the past have done things that were not good for this country." He also touched on the pill mill problems in Florida, stating "We talk about doctors, the number of doctors that were ripping off people with oxycontin - the number of doctors [that would be] devasting. You could go down to Broward County, in Florida, and go into some of these pain clinics -- There are buses coming down, and planes coming down, to buy it, and doctors are writing prescriptions. So we are going to hide behind it and just say doctors are? The number of doctors that ruin young people on oxycontin. .. that whereby they died, they died! Instead they hide behind a "doctor says" [and] that that means it's okay .."
We might be able to agree that the pain management policies are being abused, but the fact remains that people with legitimate pain are roped into the mix and are being treated like criminals. Many of the people who are traveling by buses and planes to Florida are going there because they are unable to get proper pain management alternatives in their home states, so they are forced to be scrutinized unfairly just to be able to receive treatment.
The comparison of states rights to use cannabis, and the problem with Florida's pill mills only exemplifies the need for states to have other alternatives for treatment.
I personally experienced a close friend go through quite an ordeal with pain management in Florida. She got into a car accident and sought a legal way to help cope with their pain. At first the doctors had trouble locating her injury and they did not want to prescribe pain killers, even though her pain was very real and excruciating. Eventually the doctors were able to pinpoint the problem and finally starting her on a precription of oxycodone.
One of the procedures utilized to locate her pain, in turn, elevated her pain and her prescription was increased. She became fearful of building up a tolerance against the medication - or worse, she feared she may become addicted. Her doctor placated her fears with a proverbial "pat on the head". Within several months, despite addressing these concerns with her doctor, she did end up addicted, and eventually had to find an alternative to the oxycodone. After spending time in drug rehabilitation she is now on methadone - probably for the rest of her life. To this day, her health has been seriously affected as a result of using the only legal way to find relief from her injuries.
Perhaps it's time we search for alternatives?
Medication errors harming millions
As a modern nation we have the responsibility to provide access to the best treatment available. There needs to be more than just highly addictive and expensive pills to provide needed relief for pain. By not giving people the legal choice for an alternative to pain pills when something else is available is wrong.
17 states recognize the medical efficacy of cannabis and they do not suffer the same problems Florida does with it's addiction to pill mills. Why? They have an legal alternative. An alternative that is extremely less addictive, and with substantially less lethal side effects.
Unfortunately, our government put a red X over those 17 states and targeted attacks against the people who voted for the right to be able to use medicinal cannabis, spending billions of dollars, arresting, and seizing assets, of the people providing access to medicinal cannabis.
After watching this debate in congress, I started wondering whether Representative Frank Wolf was influenced by lobbyists, and started doing some in depth research into who has invested in his campaigns since he was elected. What I found honestly was not surprising.
Here is my evidence that Representative Frank Wolf is nothing more than a bought out talking head for cannabis prohibitionist.
5 special interest groups that help keep cannabis illegal
The 5 special interest groups that keep cannabis illegal are: Police Unions, Private Prisons Corporations, Alcohol and Beer Companies, Pharmaceutical Corporations, and Prison Guard Unions.
Representative Frank Wolf has received campaign contributions from at least 6 contributors on the list.
Representative Frank Wolf's full list of donors.
Corporate Prisons:
CORRECTIONS CORPORATION OF AMERICA POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
Pharmaceutical:
BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB CO. EMPLOYEE PAC
ELI LILLY AND COMPANY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
NATIONAL COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS ASSOCIATION - PAC
PFIZER INC. PAC
Drug Testing:
QUEST DIAGNOSTICS INCORPORATED POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
So you see, this is a prime example of how lobbyists have bought and paid for Representative Frank Wolf. The good news is, he is running for re-election this year.
Running against Representative Frank Wolf is Jeff Barnett. Unfortunately, I have been unable to determine if he is worth endorsing due to the fact I couldn't find any information on his stand regarding current drug policies.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
How we won the moral majority over cannabis reform
Over the past few years, Americans have increasingly grown in numbers supporting cannabis reform. For the last couple of years it has finally gotten to the point in which the moral majority of Americans approve of cannabis reform.
How did we finally get past Reefer Madness? Our country has spent over a trillion dollars fighting the war on drugs. Much of it spent on propaganda, telling us how bad cannabis is, and yet we are looking past that now.
Seeing a majority of Americans finally speaking out fearlessly against cannabis reform gives me hope. Politically, it is the elephant always in the room. It is a civil rights issue, and a human rights issue complexly combined. It's time has finally come to fruition.
I appreciate all the hard work cannabis activists are doing. They have worked together networking and helping folks understand that cannabis reform is not about just getting high. (Albeit, I'm okay with that too) It is making a difference.
Politicians are no longer afraid to admit they used cannabis. Nowadays, it makes them look hip or something to the younger voters. Politicians who were serious cannabis prohibitionists are starting to get voted out of office.
Take Texas Representative Sylvester Reyes for example, he sat in office representing west Texas for 16 years. He had twice as much campaign money as his challenger, and an endorsement from our President. Yesterday, he got knocked off the November ballot for reelection. (cya!)
His challenger, former El Paso city councilman Beto O'Rourke won the Democratic nomination for Texas' 16th congressional district with just over 50 percent of the vote. Beto O'Rourke ran his campaign primarily focused on drug reform. Unlike Representative Sylvester Reyes, who has cast a blind eye on whatever has been happening on our border, by uncompromisingly supporting the status quo regarding cannabis prohibition.
The votes are starting to come our way.
The moral majority of Americans are seeing first hand the consequences of our war on drugs. They are becoming more educated on all the real benefits that ending cannabis prohibition would bring to our country.
We are tired of seeing our veterans coming home from fighting wars, and not getting all the support they deserve to help them with disabilities and ptsd, by denying veterans access to medicinal cannabis.
We are reaching out to seniors who are a force to be reckoned with in the voting booth, People like Robert Platshorn are making a difference by promoting The Silver Tour. Robert Platshorn is the longest serving inmate in our countries history for a cannabis charge. When he finally got released he became an influential activist who has been working hard to get petitions signed to get medicinal cannabis on the ballot. He is also touring the state of Florida educating seniors who never considered cannabis as an alternative to expensive prescriptions.
How many veterans are going to go out and risk going to jail because they deal with their issues better with the aid of cannabis? Americans who have served their country are wanting alternatives to pharmaceuticals.
Considering the exponential rate of veterans filing for disability and the high rate of suicides, I would only hope our leaders would utilize good science over ideology and rhetoric. Our veterans deserve it, and so do all the other American citizens.
Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access Reply To Response from the Obama Administration
Americans are disappointed in our president, who had he been caught using cannabis when he was younger, he wouldn't be president today. Sure he straightened up, and quit smoking pot. I guess he realized being a black male smoking cannabis, that the odds were he would get busted eventually. Especially since the majority of the people arrested for cannabis are black males.
Since President Obama has been in office almost 3 million people have been arrested for cannabis related crimes. Mostly simple possession.
"The president, when asked why he doesn’t do something positive about medical marijuana, is quoted in Rolling Stone magazine as saying “I can’t nullify congressional law. I can’t ask the Justice Department to say, ‘Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books."
I hate to say it, but either the President is flat out lying or he is completely ignorant of what he can do with his executive powers. Why is it that a high school drop out with a GED, understands that the president has the power to reschedule cannabis without congressional approval, but my president who is a lawyer who graduated from Harvard does not?
I'm leaning towards lying to the American people...
It becomes blatantly obvious that the people who are against cannabis reform are the ones who stand to lose the most money. We see our elected officials constantly taking money from lobbyist representing, beer and alcohol companies, law enforcement, private prisons, pharmaceutical companies, just to keep cannabis illegal.
Americans are seeing the DEA's self serving desire to protect their jobs by cock blocking earnest attempts to have cannabis rescheduled so medicinal research can be done, and the tons of anecdotal evidence can finally be tested utilizing peer reviewed science.
Americans are disgusted by seeing the DEA selling guns to drug cartels, screwing whores in Bogota, Colombia, to shooting pregnant women fishing in a boat from a helicopter in the Honduras.
So we are becoming more educated. We are seeing past all the misinformation put out there. We are starting to elect politicians who are ready to change our nations drug policies.
We are in the right, and we will prevail!
Monday, May 28, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Reason Rally: Politics and Ideology Takes A Backseat For The Advocation Of Science!
The Reason Rally organizers had set up special rates for the event. My wife and I stayed in comfort at the Hilton. The tram to downtown Washington, D.C. was conveniently located across the street.
I went to this event primarily to support the atheist community,
and secondly to speak out for the advancement of scientific research,
free from politics and ideology.
When President Obama signed the
executive order to allow stem cell research, he boldly made this
assertion. Now, 3 years later, other than stem cell research, politics and ideology are a side note to scientific openness, and rings as
nothing more than hollow political rhetoric.Why cant our country get serious about utilizing real science by allowing peer reviewed, scientific research, to determine if cannabis has medicinal properties, and quit making criminals out of the people who want to use it for their own personal needs?
It was an honor and a privilege to be in the attendance of so many like minded people, and getting a chance to listen to a line up of such influential speakers.
I made this video, and PZ Myers put it on his net-famous blog Pharyngula!
There were some unforgettable moments that stood out. Such as the young lady, Jessica Ahlquist. She won a lawsuit against the state of Rhode Island, and managed to have a prayer banner taken down in her high school. The end result was, she was threatened and harassed, to the point of needing police protection. Rhode Island state representative Peter G. Palumbo, jumped on the christian bandwagon and dubbed this young high school girl an "evil little thing"
She received a scholarship check from the American Humanist Association for $62,000.00
It was a lot of fun watching Tim Minchin drop almost 100 F-bombs in like 20 minutes across the loudspeakers on the National Mall. Supposedly it was a new record!
Here are a few more random pictures I took during the event:
Nate Phelps gave up religion when he became an adult. His father ironically is Fred Phelps, pastor/figurehead of the much loathed Westboro Baptist Church.
Cristina Rad aka: ZOMGitsCriss! An infamous Youtube Celeb came all the way from Romania. My wife Tricia, watches her all the time.
Monday, January 16, 2012
US Drug Policy Is Killing People Every Half Hour In Mexico
This past week, Mexico's President Philipe Calderon, begrudgingly released details on it's national death toll caused by the United State's war on drugs.
Mexico releases drug war death toll estimate: One killing every half hour
Inexplicably, this has not even been a footnote on the televised news programs. Why is that? Why must so many lives be ignored as this ghoulish statistic grows every day? Why are the governments not avidly discussing different proposals on their policies to turn this around?
I don't think that many people who are smoking cannabis imported from Mexico realize that they are contributing to the deaths of so many people. I kind of equate it to the meat industry. If people actually saw what the process entailed, or had to take some part of the slaughter process, their would probably be less people eating meat. We have plausible deny ability once it is grilled and presented nicely on our plates. The same goes for Mexican cannabis. We only see it in a plastic bag, all fluffed up and smelling good.
We have no empathy for the cows and chickens no more than we have for the people who die in the war on drugs. So, we blindly consume to satiate our voracious appetites.
A serious debate needs to happen on our countries drug policies. How many more people need to die or go to prison over the cannabis plant? Unfortunately most people who go to prison in the United States for cannabis possession are non violent offenders, compared to what is happening in Mexico.
The United States policy of focusing on it's domestic growers, and simple consumers may be good for law enforcement financially, but it does not have any far reaching affect on the people who kill to import cannabis into the United States.
How much safer is our country for arresting Willy Nelson and Snoop Dog? All that managed to do is bring more awareness to the simple fact that our nation's drug policies are not working, and that people are wanting a change in direction. Willie Nelson's Tea Pot Party is a good example of this. Because of his arrest a national movement was created focusing on only electing political candidates who were more inclined to be cannabis friendly.
Our current policies on the war on drugs are not harm reduction policies. They are doing more harm, and we need to take a serious look at how our country should be leading the way in actually creating a real harm reduction policy.
Things like this need to be put on our national agenda and discussed:
A good step in the right direction is by convincing our politicians to endorse the call of the Global Commission on Drug Policy to recognize the failure of current policy and to embark on a study of evidence based alternatives.
http://www.
Mexico releases drug war death toll estimate: One killing every half hour
Inexplicably, this has not even been a footnote on the televised news programs. Why is that? Why must so many lives be ignored as this ghoulish statistic grows every day? Why are the governments not avidly discussing different proposals on their policies to turn this around?
I don't think that many people who are smoking cannabis imported from Mexico realize that they are contributing to the deaths of so many people. I kind of equate it to the meat industry. If people actually saw what the process entailed, or had to take some part of the slaughter process, their would probably be less people eating meat. We have plausible deny ability once it is grilled and presented nicely on our plates. The same goes for Mexican cannabis. We only see it in a plastic bag, all fluffed up and smelling good.
We have no empathy for the cows and chickens no more than we have for the people who die in the war on drugs. So, we blindly consume to satiate our voracious appetites.
A serious debate needs to happen on our countries drug policies. How many more people need to die or go to prison over the cannabis plant? Unfortunately most people who go to prison in the United States for cannabis possession are non violent offenders, compared to what is happening in Mexico.
The United States policy of focusing on it's domestic growers, and simple consumers may be good for law enforcement financially, but it does not have any far reaching affect on the people who kill to import cannabis into the United States.
How much safer is our country for arresting Willy Nelson and Snoop Dog? All that managed to do is bring more awareness to the simple fact that our nation's drug policies are not working, and that people are wanting a change in direction. Willie Nelson's Tea Pot Party is a good example of this. Because of his arrest a national movement was created focusing on only electing political candidates who were more inclined to be cannabis friendly.
Our current policies on the war on drugs are not harm reduction policies. They are doing more harm, and we need to take a serious look at how our country should be leading the way in actually creating a real harm reduction policy.
Things like this need to be put on our national agenda and discussed:
- Ending Federal subsidies to law enforcement for primarily focusing on cannabis convictions, instead of focusing on more violent crimes affecting our neighborhoods.
- Making drug addiction a health care issue instead of a criminal issue.
- Rescheduling cannabis so legitimate research can be conducted on it's medicinal properties, and ending conflicts between the Federal Government and states rights.
- Taking away 70% of drug cartels income by ending demand for illegally imported cannabis.
- Looking at the big financial picture and discussing all the jobs that could potentially be created by allowing farmers to grow hemp for ethanol, hempcrete, hemp resins, nutritional supplements, clothing, etc.
A good step in the right direction is by convincing our politicians to endorse the call of the Global Commission on Drug Policy to recognize the failure of current policy and to embark on a study of evidence based alternatives.
http://www.
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