Our nation’s marijuana laws are being held hostage by a prohibition industrial complex.
The latest Wall St. Journal/NBC poll shows, yet again, that the majority of Americans support legalizing the recreational use of marijuana for adults age 21 and over. But despite this surge in support (several other national polls have seen similar results), there are a few well financed, politically powerful groups that remain staunchly against reform – and will likely serve as the biggest hinderance to widespread change. These folks have made a lot of money off of marijuana’s current legal status, and those individuals (as well as their businesses/shareholders) are deeply invested in making sure things stay the way they are. The wide range of direct and auxiliary enforcement mechanisms, as well as the increase in drug testing laws are driven by companies and businesses who provide the services necessary to support this disastrous and wasteful policy.
One such industry that has a financial interest in maintaining the status quo is law enforcement, especially drug officers and private prisons. Drug officers benefit from forfeiture and federal grants. Private prisons keep their jails full and multi-million dollar state contracts in place. The Office of National Drug Control Policy requested $9.4 billion in funding for 2013, the majority of which went to enforcement and incarceration. More specifically, California police – one of the most vocal opponents to legalization in the state made $181.4 million by seizing and selling the homes and cars of Californians involved in marijuana cases from 2002 to 2012. Police in Washington are already taking budget hits as a result of the passage of I-502, the state’s marijuana legalization initiative that passed in 2012. It was reported that some police drug task forces lost 15 percent of funding due to decreased revenue from marijuana forfeiture cases. On a national level, marijuana cases netted $1 billion in assets forfeited between 2002 and 2012. Assets can be seized under federal or state law, depending on the situation. The Wall St. Journal recently reported that marijuana law reform would cut into a significant percentage of drug task forces’ revenue. Most cash generated from drug-related property forfeitures goes to the law enforcement agency that made the bust. The Journal reports that “Nationally, assets forfeited in marijuana cases from 2002 through 2012 accounted for $1 billion of the $6.5 billion from all drug busts.” Task forces also rely heavily on federal grants.
One example of a federal grant relied heavily upon by drug task forces is Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program. The amount of money distributed is based on the number of drug arrests made for that year, among other components. The more drug arrests made, the more grant money provided, and 50% of all drug arrests are marijuana related. No drug will be able to fill the void of marijuana arrests. Marijuana is easier to spot and smell, and is consumed by more people than any other illegal drug, making marijuana arrest rates a significant percentage of overall revenue. Then you have state contracts with private prisons, which mandate that facilities be filled at 90% capacity at all times. If 50% inmates are there as a result of drug-related crimes, and half of that is for marijuana – legalization would be a serious threat to new contracts and increased profits.
Another industry tied into the prohibition industrial complex is the drug testing market. It’s a multi-billion dollar a year industry with its own, built in legislative advocacy machine. Take DATIA , the Drug & Alcohol Testing Industry Association for example. This industry organization represents more than 1,200 companies and employs a DC-based lobbying firm, Washington Policy Associates. Their mission statement includes, among other things, creating “new opportunities for the drug testing industry.”
In 2002, a representative from the influential drug-testing management firm Besinger, DuPont & Associates (Robert DuPont, Nixon’s first drug czar is a high profile opponent to legalization) heralded schools as “potentially a much bigger market than the workplace.” Workplace drug testing is a declining market due to the fact that employees see minimal return on investment. In fact, a DATIA newsletter dubbed school children “the next frontier.” Unsurprisingly, this industry advocates testing in all grades and for all extracurricular activities. It should be noted that several reports have concluded that drug testing minors is not only ineffective but can be emotionally and psychologically damaging. Lucky, many schools have been reluctant to embrace testing.
Year after year, the drug testing industry gears up for another legislative push, ghostwriting bills for local and national lawmakers demanding testing for people who receive public assistance. Many of these elected officials are either financially investment in these companies, or received significant financial contributions from industry organizations. For example, in February 2012, Congress amended federal rules to allow states to drug-test select unemployment applicants. Among the lawmakers advocating for the change was Congressman Dave Camp, who owns at least $81,000 in assets in companies that are major players in the drug-testing industry, such as LabCorp and Abbott Laboratories. He has also received $5,000 in federal campaign contributions from LabCorp over the past three years. Abbott Laboratories spent $133,500 on campaign donations to Ohio and Texas state politician promoting drug testing to welfare recipients, in the lead-up to the 2010 and 2012 elections, in addition to more than $500,000 spent by the company on state lobbying contracts since 2010.
The industry is once again flexing its political arm pushing for policies that mandate drug testing for welfare recipients. Legislation has already been introduced in Virginia, New York, Arizona, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois and Mississippi, for the 2014 legislative session.
Two of the most outspoken opponents of marijuana legalization are David Evans and Robert DuPont. DuPont, Founder of Besinger, DuPont & Associates served as the nation’s first drug policy director under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. During that time he had advocated decriminalizing marijuana and its use a “minor problem.” Once he left public office however, he became a “drug-testing management” consultant. David Evans worked for Hoffmann-La Roche, a multi-billion dollar drug testing group encouraging workplace drug testing policies. He now runs his own lobby firm and has ghostwritten several state laws to expand drug testing. Drug testing overall detects marijuana more than any other drug, which stays in the body for up to a month — as opposed to other harder drugs like cocaine and heroin, which are metabolized within one to three days. That is why they have such significant stake in keeping the plant illegal.
The total income for all of these industries combined adds up to hundreds of billions of dollars annually, a significant amount derived from taxpayer dollars. An industrial complex is when there is a policy and monetary relationship between legislators, the public sector and an industrial base that supports them. Just like the military industrial complex, the prohibition industrial complex, and its cycle of laws, enforcement and contracts will pose a major challenge to reform efforts. This will be especially true in states that don’t have ballot initiatives, which is why it is so important for everyone to get active on a local level, and hold lawmakers accountable. Though difficult, this will not be an impossible challenge to overcome, as long as we remain diligent and active in the political process.
Please take a minute of your time today to utilize NORML’s Take Action Center to contact your representatives and urge them to support or sponsor marijuana law reform legislation. Click here to see if there is a bill pending in your state, and here to find contact information for your elected officials.
It’s the new Jim Crow in the age of shareholder capitalism, which looks somewhat like a new kind of marketplace passive-aggressive neonationalsocialism because government coercion, the law, is used to marginalize large groups of people, of whom many are poor people of color or free thinkers. Unequal application, enforcement, of the law ensures that the preferred type of people get the advantage of not having competition for jobs and social status from the marginalized and disenfranchised people busted and ruined for pot.
Legal cannabis banking + keep running the economy into the ground for the everyman=more states jumping on the cannabis money train.
If the feds do not interfere, no busts, no IRS shit, states are free to set up soil to store taxable brick and mortar systems. Cash strapped states will be like, hey, these other states are milking this cash cow, feds are letting them, so why are we (Pennsylvania) being so stupid and not going for the money grab, too?
Pennsylvania is all fucked up, and the sooner Governor Corbett is out of office the better. Governor Christie can come over to campaign for his re-election to help drive home the point that bullies, birds of a feather flock together. Some big shindig at the Hershey Hotel with all you can eat chocolate ought to ensure Christie will be there. Hell, Governor “My Mom’s Sicilian” Christie can take a shitload of chocolate back to Jersey with him, runs the damn state like a mobster, just that Corbett’s a tad bit sneakier.
MMJ hearings today at the Pennsylvania capital, predictably going nowhwere. That could all fall in line with the 80 some percent of the public who want MMJ legal if the politicians can stuff some of the cannabis cash in their own pockets somehow.
this proves the main thing that holds legalization back…..MONEY! its all about money. not that their is anything wrong with cannabis,its just about the money. how shitty does that REALLY look? this article needs to get out in msm! I mean ,they all do but this tells the REAL story…sickening!
Paranoid conspiracy theory doesn’t help our cause…
Know thy enemies. Only then can you defeat them. Keep shining the sunlight on that scum and eventually they will be sanitized. Great job Sabrina.
The billion dollar profits mentioned by Sabrina are impressive, but consider this figure from the new Surgeon General Report: $igarette $moking costs the US economy $289-billion a year and almost half of that is for medical care– i.e. a big percent of the money made by doctors, hospitals, drug companies is for “managing” avoidable $moking-related diseases which will be drastically cut back by cannabis legalization because (A) millions of kids will experiment with cannabis instead of tobacco and NOT get hooked on something that causes high profit di$ea$es; (B) once cannabis is legalized, “paraphernalia laws” will fall away and no one will be afraid to own or carry a vaporizer or a 25-mg -Long-Drawtube One-Hitter (safer alternatives to the 500-mg joint or the 700-mg H-ot B-urning O-verdose M-onoxide high-profit $igarette).
Corruption in the form of an “Industrial Complex” has been an evolving parasite on this country since the day we dropped anchor on the shores of America. Accountability will always rein supreme in the fight for keeping legislators within their roles as stewards of democracy. When we speak of any problem and cite its unjust attributes without citing the core cause we waste valuable time and do nothing to solve the problem. And citing the CSA as core cause to the longevity of cannabis prohibition is precisely marking the ground where the fight centers itself.
@Sabrina Fendrick- You are the sharp voice that I always look for in this ongoing discussion of truth for change. When you say,”This will be especially true in states that don’t have ballot initiatives, which is why it is so important for everyone to get active on a local level, and hold lawmakers accountable. Though difficult, this will not be an impossible challenge to overcome, as long as we remain diligent and active in the political process.”,.. THAT is cutting to the chase and marking the ground where the fight centers itself. Having an indirect democracy just removes the power of “by the people” from the voting hands of many states, and is an injustice that has kept these industrial complexes alive for so long. If our legislators could be held more accountable, they would think long and hard about their choices. Us being active is the way, just as our founding father advised that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. In those states that don’t have ballot initiatives, the fight will be long and hard.
It took me some time to find a way to voice myself as I do now. I also had to wait until my situation allowed me the safe conditions to do so. Being retired, and not having to worry about losing a job is huge in terms of freedom to speak freely. Living in Mississippi doesn’t give me all the freedom I want, but that will change soon. Moving to California will allow me greater freedom to be more active in this fight. My point for now is we should all find whatever thing it is that we can do and just do it. If you can see a way to do something great, then by all means do that also. It brings more and more purpose to my life the more I become involved. Fight the good fight.
Let’s not forget to include the counseling industry who always produce inflated figures of teens who “need” help with their “addictions.” Though not all are there through some judges decree, the rest have been “encouraged” by concerned parents.
It’s called policing for profit.
Why don’t they apply those grants to the hungry, schools or to solve robbery, attempted murder, murder and rape cases? That way those could start getting solved! Giving rewards for drug busts creates a huge problem. The problem is dirty law enforcement has and will continue to violate our GUARENTEED RIGHTS and or plant evidence for those extra funds. I’m sure the DEA and other law enforcement stage grow bust. Build them and say they are doing steak outs for a long time and come in and have no suspects! When I say violate rights I mean just that! Them being able to search a vehicle on smell? I’ve actually witnessed this bullshit personally when there wasn’t any smell at all. In sealed bag. On vacation get pulled over for doing 5mph over in a 75mph. I was doing 75mph w/ cruise control on. Went to jail. Paid over 100,000 after all said and done. Who needs the mafia when you have the police? Who ever enacted that law is as unamerican as North Korea. So was Harry j. Turdeater.
Also if traveling through utah especially I80 or I15 do not have California tags and do not travel at night alone without a camera! They will pull you over for nothing. Mud flap violation? 5mph over in 75mph when your doing 75mph. Watch out for the laser pointers and or laser dazzlers while you’re driving normally. I’m for real on this. I hope who ever reads this has no worries and has a great life. –
God even said cannabis is good in genesis! How are you gonna argue with that? Lmao
Well-researched and well-argued, Sabrina. Well done.
You here disseminate some very relevant yet not very known facts about several of the monied interested supporting the present status quo. There are myriad industries which rely upon keeping our freedoms at bay so they can keep their shareholders in the black.
We have so many forward-thinking, logic-based and fact-filled arguments on our side, it can sometimes be difficult to keep them all straight, or to stay focused on thoroughly destroying one of the prohibitionists’ conjectures without needlessly tangenting to another of our points.
But this, Sabrina, is an essay which makes its point succinctly, while shedding light on a very real prohibition-industrial complex which is not widely known to the populace, but would be decidedly in our favor if it were.
Good job.
Well thank God for NORML, votehemp and non for profit advocacy for keeping piss tests out of food stamps and the hemp research amendment in the Farm Bill.
DuPont sold their timber and petrochemical patents to Koch Industries in 2006, the same Koch brothers who funded the State Policy Network, who funds the Tea Party that shut the government down the same day the old Farm Bill expired. The Koch brothers, with patents for synthetics like stainmaster carpets and own Georgia Pacific dont want to compete with a domestic hemp market. But for all their delay tactics, or cover ups by donating to “think tanks” like the CATO institute that pays for summer internships at the Drug Policy Alliance, the hemp research amendment picked up support from the conservative Farm Bureau Federation and is geared to pass anyway!
Have no fear of the prohibition complex. What Americans need is simple: to grow our own medicine. We need to grow our own sustainable celulosic hemp ethanol, our own building materials, our own organic vegetables…( Or as our Grandparents called them; vegetables). As more and more Americans open their eyes to what we can achieve with cannabis cultivation, the intimidating walls of submissive urinals, disproportionate incarcerations and wars for profit will continue to diminish from society. Make no mistake; ending cannabis prohibition is the greatest civil rights battle of our time. We must remain confident in the victory of Good over Evil. Above all, we must remain educated and call our local Congressman regularly. If we don’t know the difference between grape juice and wine, there are those who would dare to return alcohol prohibition if we let them.
Legalize and educate. Soon we will celebrate.
Wow, that guy David Evans is like the Energier Bunny of Marijuana Lies. What is with these freaks?
It is called a “Conflict of Interest”, why can’t we get these asshole prohibitionists a prison cell already?
The military industrial complex is also dependant on the drug war to a large degree. The entire security industry is involved. The CIA runs coke to pay for covert operations which are of the worst order of violation of laws and rights. That is they use the money to destabilize nations. The drug war of its own destabilizes nations and has funded to power numerous regimes. The drug war has made the world far more violent than it would other wise be so it helps make the argument for massive military expenditure. We could save a lot of money by ending the drug war.
the government is to greedy for this leagalization to not happen. they will see a huge increase in taxes in WA, and CO. after they see that and then do the math they will relize that, unlike big pharma and private prisons and drug testing companies, we the people will give them money in tax dollars and not expect any thing other than not to be criminals in return. the gravy train is getting ready to leave the station. 1 story covering cannabis every day for the last 6 days on yahoo. no matter how minor this is fast becoming main stream info, Thank you norml for all your hard work, keep it up!
Wait! This can’t be true! After all, I’m assured by some that legalization of MJ and exclusion of MJ as a drug testing target won’t affect drug testing one iota, because catching cokeheads and other hard drug users will be more than enough to keep DT a lucrative and profitable field! And since legalizing MJ and removing MJ from drug testing results won’t hurt the drug testing industry at all, it’s impossible that the drug testing industry could really be a major enemy of legalization! /SNARK
Of course, snark. I love to ask people “if drug testing won’t be harmed by MJ legalization and if hard drugs will be more than enough reason to keep it going and keep it profitable, then why are they trying to hard to forcibly prevent legalization from happening?” There’s no way the drug testing industry will survive without marijuana padding it’s numbers and creating its illusion of efficacy.
Hmm, drug testing is on the decline? I have a question for NORML regarding this–where is it in the decline? I’m in Ohio and it’s getting damn near impossible to find anyone who doesn’t hold out a piss cup for a job, including the lowest of McJobs. But then, Ohio is a decriminalized state, but not a MMJ state and, of course, not legalized like CO and WA too. Is this a reason we’re not seeing such a trend here, and the decline is more in states that have more reform than we do? Does drug testing in the workplace decrease in a particular state when that state adopts legalized MJ, perhaps because companies fear the lawsuits and resulting bad PR that comes from punishing sick people for taking their medicine? That would explain why over the last year or so there has been an upsurge in workplace drug testing programs where none existed before: drug testing industry efforts to recoup losses from MMJ and legalized states by preying even more on the states that lag behind on MJ and drug law reform.
Maybe at some point we can compile a list, state by state, of companies that do or don’t drug test, for purposes of application, boycott, and public pressure campaigns. That kind of thing might hurt the DT companies and their business, giving them less money with which to thwart the will of the people (much like StopRush has been stripping Limbaugh of all his sponsors). (Yes, I know testclear has something like that, but it’s not very well organized and is kind of unclear and incomplete in many ways, and I can’t even find the form to report a company anymore, as I was planning to report my company for its new drug testing program, which is a bummer as I’d love to throw a wrench in their piss-sniffing agenda).
BTW, also, thank you for this awesome article! For some reason, the drug testing industry always seems to get overlooked entirely when tallies of powerful and affluent Drug War supporters/Prohibitionists are made, yet the drug testing industry is definitely in the elite levels of Drug War/Prohibition support and is possibly the most influential industry regarding the prevention of marijuana legalization. I’m glad to see that this truth is getting noticed more and more!
A $100 says they have chapo Guzman locked up in Guantanamo bay or has been killed and they are using him as the boogie monster. Don’t forget about the CIA plane with 4 tons of cocaine crashing in the yucatan peninsula! They have to make it look like there is a problem to have one. Prohibition should be banned. Logic and prohibition dictates that education and regulation work. The grows in the national forest wouldn’t be a so called hazard if cannabis was legal.
-May your jar be filled to the brim with that super good always.
Also The police should start arresting themselves for impaired driving. Those laptops that they live on in their squad cars. They cause impairment worse than a drunk would have. I could never understand how I was supposed to respect someone who has robbed me. Thieves usually wear a mask or own a bank. All the police have to wear is a badge. They are supposed to uphold the law not violate it!
-May your jar overfloweth with that super good, always.
If anyone really WANTS a pee-cup job paying 7.25 an hour then feel FREE to come to Idaho.
Sabrina,
Great job on this one, our prohibition on marijuana only creates a revolving door for our for profit prison system. The DEA makes sure enough drugs get through the system to create a new generation of users which creates continued employment.
If they did their job right nothing would get through the system, and we know this is not even remotely possible.
Your next article should talk about the dangers of total eradication of hemp which has such a larger impact on our environment.
Eradication of hemp has links to the following
Decrease in song bird population
Poisoning of honeybee and bumblebee population
Increase in destructive logging
Extinction of animal species
Increase in CO2 levels
Increase in petroleum use
Increase in non-recyclable fiber products
Importing of hemp products from other countries
And so much more.
I believe this lack of hemp is a major cause of our environmental problems. I know this is a marijuana site but this is to big to ignore.
Keep up the great work,
Ray
Not to mention Big Pharma and petro-chemical.
Demonhype, even as the country moves to normalize marijuana, drug testing and drug punishments are rising, which goes to show how not intouch Rebublicans are. Christie vetoes a Hemp Bill for no reason, saying he will not support marijuana, which hemp isn’t. Is he confused and stupid, or is he being paid to act that way?
I’d like to thank Sabrina Fendrick for this great information.
Not only is the Emperor naked, his entire system of justice and legislative and judicial arms are spread out in a give-me-a-hug to AUTHORITARIAN POLICE STATE TACTICS embrace.
History will NOT BE KIND to any society, nation, or civilization that chose to ignore the ENDOCANNABINOID SYSTEM.
Let me explain this clearly: Talking about medical cannabis or legalized cannabis is ALWAYS a discussion of Schedule I status at the root.
The role of private prisons and law enforcement ONLY exist due to Schedule I status.
So, what’s the solution?
TEACHING THE ENDOCANNABINOID SYSTEM. Teaching it at medical schools, writing letters-to-the-editor, e-mails and letters to congress, spreading the word about this system which is the MASTER CONTROL PANEL FOR HOMEOSTASIS is critical.
How critical? Imagine trying to talk about religion without the concept of a deity. Now, that is EXACTLY where the movement places itself when the endocannabinoid system isn’t mentioned at every possible chance and opportunity.
HOMEOSTASIS is about as medical as you can get. Cannabis and cannabinoids assist human health because they work to improve homeostasis.
Excellent article. Should “Workplace drug testing is a declining market due to the fact that employees see minimal return on investment.” read “…employers…”? Isn’t Kevin Sabet invested in the drug test industry? I thought I had read an article with that information, but cannot currently find it.
in florida EVERY Job drug tests. Even the 9 year old paperboy gets randoms. Our governor RICK SCOTT owns a chain of drug testing clinics. When they called it a conflict of interest he signed them over to his wife which apparently is fine.
Million Man Marijuana March!!!
Hopefully Coming Soon to Washington DC
Let’s make it happen NORML
It is real hard to believe that this money these drug gestapo’s are making is ours. After years of this sham they think it is their money and are entitled to continue receiving it.. It is hard to see these people as working for us and protecting and serving our citizens. Our government is our adversary not a working partner. The UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT IS CORRUPT ! POT WILL BE LEGAL WHEN THE GREAT POWERS THAT BE FIND THAT THEY WILL MAKE MORE MONEY WITH IT LEGAL. AMERICANS WOKE UP AND FOUND PRISONS FOR PROFIT ON THEIR DOOR STEP. A sign that incompetent government can not efficiently run the prisons we already have. Americans have taken the steps to lose the freedom we once knew! Some shining city on a hill..
What is needed is a complete glogal reset. How would the concept of government Of, By and For the People sit with you. I demand my right to Cannabis!
http://www.amazon.com/People-perspective-Earth-Human-Being/dp/1495234703/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390509654&sr=1-1
Just got time to pick up one of the local small town papers after reading this story on these Industrial Complexes a second time and there it is. The prohibition industrial complex falling apart right on the front page of the SunHerald, our Southern Mississippi News Leader. Sheriff Mike Byrd stands now with almost 3 dozen charges of federal and state crimes.
http://www.sunherald.com/2014/01/25/5286136/inventory-to-shed-light-on-byrd.html
“The state of Mississippi has charged Byrd on 10 counts of embezzlement, 10 counts of fraud, two counts of hindering prosecution in the second degree, two counts of tampering with a witness, one count of perjury, two counts of attempt subornation of perjury, two counts of intimidating an officer in the discharge of his duties and two counts of extortion.” The Jackson County Narcotics Task Force has been disbanded. They’re still trying to figure out whats going on with the money, cars, atvs, trucks, military APCs, helicopters, cell phones and other equipment.
Searches on http://www.sunherald.com for Sheriff Mike Byrd will get you 182 hits and some of the reading is just beyond belief.
http://www.sunherald.com/2014/01/16/5262512/stahl-pleads-guilty-to-2-charges.html
There’s just too many links to put in here so please read some of them.
John Mark Stahl steals a police car, runs 17 miles and into Alabama before being caught. Then later while in handcuffs and being held by officers Sheriff Byrd kicks and beats this guy. He’s got three years to do in prison and the prosecutor is agreeing to 6 month of house arrest for the Sheriff for the assault. (Sheriff Byrd is still to answer for the other charges) This is the injustice that the war on drugs is producing. Mr. Stahl, most importantly, is the the victim and also a criminal here. Sheriff Byrd and his officers being worst criminals demonstrate the level of disrespect that the war on drugs breeds into the minds of our authorities.
The laws that shield corporate leaders, police officers, or even presidents from accountability violate us all.
Please sign this petition: Legalize and tax Cannabis on a federal level
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/legalize-and-tax-cannabis-federal-level/lcv948Tg
The drug testers cost me a job.
The federal drug warriors cost me a job.
These last few years of my life could have been as a productive, tax paying citizen. But, No. The Drug Warriors know better.
I know of an acquaintance that grew in a greenhouse in California, and shipped 375 pounds of marijuana and shipped it to the east coast. It was intercepted on the east coast by the police. The next day there was a news article in the paper, quoted the police that they discovered 75 lbs of pot! I wonder what happened to the other 300 pounds……
What a great police system we have! Thank you for protecting us from this harmful stuff!
The anti-pot billboards for the upcoming Super Bowl are put there by the Industrial Complex. Not their best move considering someone might see one.
Last nite, I was scanning the radio, and came in on some guy on a church radio station saying something about do not do drugs, really, I believe his kind probably believes Jesus’ last name was Christ, he must not even know what
Christ means, and he probably does not know that CANNABIS used to be in the Bible either, before either ignorance, or hate for the nifty plant, or who knows, maybe feeble minded dotes removed it, but it originaly was in the bible, and JESUS used pounds of the stuff to heal people…and as technically, Cannabis is a drug, how dare HIM of all people come on a radio show touting CHRIST-ianity, and be against CHRIST, it is telling of how dumbed down this society is, and it is all due I believe to the prohibition of all of our constitutional rights, including US in the cannabis community, however lol, DO NOT BE FAINT HEARTED!
Chris Bennett has compiled some interesting nuggets of niftiness about the bible, and the meaning of Christ, and no, Christ is not Jesus’ last name…
http://forbiddenfruitpublishing.com/chris/
And no, I do not go around using that name, as doing so would be not only arrogant but just wrong, back then the name took on a much more spiritual meaning, to where the deciples actually were on entheogens as they were learning all they could about life, they used entheogens, I believe, not for partying as the heathen do today, as the COMMON types endulge in stupifying drunkenness and unrullyness, I believe the biblical folk used entheogens for real enlightenment, oh, I suppose they used it for lots of things too, but and the deciples, I believe, back in the biblical days were rumored to have seen due to their entheogenical imbibation of Cannabis, and who knows what else, perhaps mushrooms, and who knows what else to get the effects they achieved, they were believe it or not, they it is written believed Jesus looked like he was standing on water, but I believe that they’re vision’s accuity was hightened to the point that they could see a few inches into everything, making it look like the floor was water, that is my belief, and I have the right to interpret the Bible as I please, just as any one else should have, and yet the anti-chist lovers, the haters of what Jesus used, which was CANNABIS, the haters of our constitution, the idiots who would have Jesus in a prison, if he were here today, the treasonous scum, but I believe Jesus used Cannabis, and God to heal the sick, and I believe that the treasonous hate that the prohibs have for what Jesus used should NOT rule over every one elses beliefs, because we are all supposed to have freedom to believe in our religion any way we want, I tell you the prohibs of the USA are the DESTROYERS of the USA’s souls, and perhaps our bodies as well, as it is also written in the Bible that back then people lived a thousand years, one person is rumored to secretly be living accoridng to a google search
Pleasant toking;-)
I say to the mean people on that church radio, that their mean words of filthy war loving hate means “Pachalafaka”, which I heard a long time ago on the Dr Demento show, which means NOTHING, they are nothing but irratants, like a bur in ones side, an annoyance, and soon they will stop their slander, we are all on this globe together, let us all get along and toke our bongs if we want
@Galileo Galilei – Seriously!
Many many thousands of people who would have otherwise been good productive members of our society have had their lives wasted because of being caught up in this immoral war on drugs (marijuana in particular of course). Prohibition has harmed this country greatly and most members of Congress don’t seem to give a damn as long as they have their cigarettes and booze.
Cannabis is a Trillion dollar crop. Industrial use will dwarf recreational and medical use combined. Marijuana is a smoke screen to hide the hemp fields.
@Dave Evans: At this point, I do think that most of them are paid off. Perhaps there are a few who are just still buying into that Reefer Madness BS, but the vast majority of such people are over 70 and I have a hard time believing that so many people under that age who are supposed to be serving the will of the people and concern themselves with what benefits society are honestly ignoring both public will and scientific fact. At this point, I do think that money is what is hampering the legalization movement, and I think most of that is coming from companies that profiteer off of the Drug War and especially marijuana (which the lynchpin of the Drug War, the very thing that keeps everything in place working for the corporate and DEA profit and without which the entire fraudulent profiteering system would finally fall).
I don’t know if they’re all taking payouts from such companies though, as many people here have mentioned that some of them, like Rick Scott in Florida, OWN their own drug testing companies (and no, signing it over to your wife doesn’t make it not yours anymore, and just see how far that kind of scam would fly if one of us low-income peons tried that). Many others have personal stock in these industries, especially drug testing companies and have a vested interest in creating legislation to expand such profits and protecting legislation (like Prohibition and the Drug War) that protect their profit margin.
IMO, this is why states with no initiative process are going to have the hardest time legalizing, and why it’s still going to be hard in states that do have an initiative process (why else do you think the initiative process failed to make the ballot in Maine recently? the profiteers want to isolate the voting public from this issue because they know they’ll lose at this point). IMO, as long as any of this is in the hands of Drug War zealots or politicians paid off by the Drug War profiteers or politicians who have some kind of investment in a Drug War profiteering company.
In fact, I almost feel that the real battleground might even be in the initiative states, because that is where the first legalization is almost guaranteed to happen and that is possibly the only thing that might cause the politicians in the non-initiative states to finally spurn their Drug War profiteer payouts in the face of overwhelming anger from their citizens. In non-initiative states, all they have to do is keep the payouts coming and the politicians will avoid displeasing their true masters, especially as long as what their masters want continues to be the unchallenged status quo.
Which is why I think if you live in an initiative state and your politicians vote against the right of the people to vote on this issue, you especially need to vote out their jobs in the next election. Initiative states are where the weak point exists in prohibition, and I suspect that is where the prohibitionists are going to focus. They’ve lost the war of the facts, they’ve lost the will of the people, and now their last hope, legislatively, is going to be to keep the people from voting their will on the issue in states where the will of the people is still respected in any way. If all the initiative states legalize, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the states are forced to follow suit, and only a matter of time before the federal law goes bye bye.
And I do think that drug testing is going to be their non-legislative last stand, to try and force prohibition by de facto means. And as long as the federal law continues to exist and companies continue to get tax breaks and payouts for accepting taxpayer-funded drug testing services from Uncle Sam, we will never have true legalization. For legalization to really happen, we have to eliminate the Drug War apparatus entirely and start an entirely new system for drug control, one based on compassion, scientific fact, and personal rights as well. This will never happen with the DEA or any other Drug War-based organization, because the rot and corruption run too deep to fix and those who work in those organizations, when not too irredeemably corrupted with power and money, have drunk far to much of the Kool-aid to ever come back.
I also think that anyone involved in working with the Drug War should be prohibited from investing in or owning any such company. If I can be prohibited from various acts in my employment that might constitute a conflict of interests, then so should people with far more power to abuse than I have. And that prohibition from such investment includes your wife and close relatives.
I also think that everyone involved in the DEA and Drug War, and everyone who supports the Drug War (specifically powerful public figures and speakers like Scott or Sabet) should be thoroughly investigated for such personal conflict of interests.
I mean, why is it that people like on this site, people who use marijuana, are so routinely dismissed as “junkies trying to protect their habit”, who have a fatal conflict of interests, but a DEA agent or outspoken Drug Warrior governor who own DW profiteering companies and/or own stock in such companies and/or have close friends and loved ones who own or own stock in such companies are considered to have completely pure interests in continuing the failed Drug War and lying about the facts and abuses to keep it going?
“Abbott Laboratories spent $133,500 on campaign donations to Ohio and Texas state politician promoting drug testing to welfare recipients,” This make me SICK! Those people are trying to make an end meet…
@Demonhype
The referendum and initiative processes are the true strategic batleground weapons we have in the states that have direct democracy. And yes, the states that have an indirect democracy have been betrayed be their legislators along time ago by placing themselves between the voters and ballots. As I’ve said before, the reasons our elected elite don’t always listen to us is some of them have more power than us and they know it. Americans aren’t equal when it comes to the referendum and initiative processes. Early on Democracy in its many butchered forms was a work in progress from state to state moving from east to west mostly. As the country grew so did the forms of Democracy. After the Civil War and the rich had time to grow its industrial complex the people fought back and managed to form what we have today with the referendum and initiative processes across the US. But it didn’t happen equally as it was formed. The eastern industrial complex was well rooted and voters rights suffered the most. As the adoption of these laws migrated to the west it improve for the people. To illustrate this just do an image search on a map of initiative and referendum types in the US. Then do a image search on a map of medicinal marijuana. You will see the two maps that have very much in common. While polls show the majority of american want marijuana legalized the enacted laws paint the true picture of where the peoples power resides.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiatives_and_referendums_in_the_United_States
http://www.iandrinstitute.org/statewide_i%26r.htm
Ballot Measures that are of the Direct Democracy type are the easy keys for the west mostly and Indirect Democracy types are the coveted tools of the Industrial Complexes because they keep the legislators in between citizens and the voting ballot. The good news is there are enough states that have Direct Democracy systems to vote a majority of states into legal medical cannabis. A majority is what needs to be in place so as to declare medical cannabis access a “fundamental right” under federal law, and could supersede any other federal law. This what is what is being heard in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The brief has already been presented.
http://norml.org/legal/brief-bank/item/ninth-circuit-court-of-appeals-to-hear-whether-citizens-have-a-fundamental-right-under-the-us-constitution-to-use-cannabis-for-medical-purposes?category_id=743
We are close.
Why do we keep going back to the very criminal illegitimate ‘government’ and beg for our basic right? There are enough of us disenfranchised to have our own enconomy, social structures, government and military to defend. The description of the corruption is endless. These people have only the authority we give them. Turn away from all that. They have no right to tax medicine and food. The human species has a symbiotic relationship with the cannabis plant. Not only is it the most basic industrial raw material known, the seed is the only grain on this planet which is a complete protien for human life.
The entire Celtic civilization from what today is Russia to Ireland was based on and built with the cannabis plant. One reason there are not a lot of ruins of ancient cities is the people lived more in harmony with the natural environment and built homes from natural materials.
A perfectly preserved body was found in the Apls between Italy and Austria some years back. His clothes were made from hemp, had a bag of seeds for food, had a pipe and bud to smoke even dried psilicybin mushrooms. The body was dated to 5,000 years ago.
There are many books and articles to explain the many uses of cannabis and hemp which are genetic twins. We need to form our own society and recognize the enemy for who and what they are. The attack on cannabis is an attack on our lives, cost of living, health, environment, energy, everthing. I can determine good vs evil like a razor by support for or against cannabis. There is nothing in any major holy belief system which condems cannabis.
When are we going to stop pleading for our basic rights and turn away from all that to form our own society?
Military Industrial Complex is competing for available public funding. National security personnel are now performing training of police departments everywhere.
Great article, thank you.
I am working on the theory that the drug war has been a form of ethnic cleansing. Here in my hometown of Franklin, Tennessee census figures show the black population is declining. One way we got there I believe is by arresting 3.8 black people – particularly young men – for every white person in the war on marijuana. Take away a huge percentage of the young men from a minority population and guess who will no longer be reproducing? Yep, the same population many southerners have been wanting to be rid of since the end of chattel. The Klan itself could not devise a better means of eliminating the black population, than setting police to work arresting 3.8 blacks for every white arrested for the same crime. Now, this wasn’t written policy – it didn’t have to be. Southern whites have a long history of oppressing and eliminating blacks. In the drug war, we just fell to it naturally. I say call in the airstrikes! Where is President Clinton when you need him? Where is the Regime Change Chorus, when the Balkans are our back yard?
this is what ive been trying to tell everybody all along ..the size and the power of the drug war industry (this is a $1 trillion lobby) makes prohibition a law of nature like gravity.. and even more difficult to overturn…
dont waste your time trying to get permission to light your spliff…ill just lite mines up without permission instead…
Bill Clinton is a very good point. Specifically, what more can he do to nudge legalization along in New York?
Right now, all eyes are on the Super Bowl to see if Christie is going to sick his dawgz on the fans coming in from the cannabis states, you know; I don’t want to see any busts for folks who have cannabis on them in the security searches to get in to the stadium. Be seated 2 hours before game time, sounds like a lot of fans will have frigid asses. I don’t want to see any negative fire-up celebratory cannabis footage in the news after the big game, only positive. The NFL should see to it that their fans in the nation and watching overseas (military, expats) get put off by possible cannabis busts. Watch that profit margin.
Once we get legal cannabis banking in the U.S. can we get legal cannabis banking in Mexico, Netherlands, Morocco, Denmark, Jamaica, etc. too? Seems like it would save a lot of lives in Mexico and create instant tax and revenue generating jobs in Mexico and elsewhere. How do you do immigration reform right before cannabis is legalized? I mean, I hear the dog whistle and occasionally hear the Republican talking point on immigration framed such that they complain about the illegal (Mexicans) immigrants being here and some (how many remains a blur) are selling marijuana either to supplement their non-living wages or are living solely off selling cannabis basically for the Mexican cartels. Let them keep their jobs and legitimize them once there is legal cannabis banking at the earliest, at latest once cannabis is legal. Business wants the cheap labor from illegals because it likes its workers cowering and not demanding more, but rather willing to take pay and benefit shavings and even disband unions and collective bargaining organizations. Problem is both not paying a living wage and illegal residency status trading in cannabis to supplement income or as a sole income brings violence.
Getting back to Bill Clinton, the white guy who was sometimes referred to as America’s first black president, he must be weighing how what he does is going to affect Hilliary if she decides to make a presidential run. I don’t recall her having said a peep of a newsbyte pro-cannabis. I can’t recall anything she ever said about cannabis. Must be footage or transcripts somewhere. My concern here is legalization of cannabis, not getting Hillary elected or not elected. How can the Republicans link Hillary and marijuana and Benghazi together? Sounds like a job for Fox News.
The Farm Bill needs to address the drought in California as well as hemp cultivation, because California is in line to legalize recreational cannabis. They need water for reservoirs for the new reality, the new drastic weather situations that arguably are resulting because of climate change. Cannabis can help pay for the construction and maintenance of new and existing reservoirs that store water brought in by pipeline from elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada. How do you pay for that? Have a damn good look at get funding for it from the Farm Bill, if not that then having money from this controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. If anybody has got a hell of a lot of money, it’s definitely Big Oil. You want your dirty oil pipeline? Well, it’s got to be clean enough and maintained enough to have clean fresh water pipelines (pipelines, plural) running alongside some of the way. You guys are going to construct the necessary massive water pipeline to supply both communities and agricultural irrigation. You plan in oxygen parks, irrigated to create oxygen producing plants, parks, green areas out of desert areas to offset some of the pollution you, Big Oil, will be putting into the atmosphere of this planet–indirectly but still through your profit. You will develop and modernize the Mexican water management system. Mexico desperately needs water, too. U.S. as the wealthier nation will benefit from footing the lion’s share of the bill by creating cheap food from more areas in Mexico and California with the abundance, plus instant jobs building the pipelines, reservoirs, and in agribusiness and the cannabis sector. U.S. gets a traceable money trail and intelligence gathering from visible cannabis networks, enterprises, individuals to see who the money goes back to in order to make damn sure they don’t use the money to try to attack us. Like all that money the U.S. sends to Afghanistan that ends up unaccounted for, well you got to bring things above ground and trace all that shit back to whomever. Give them modern creature comforts and education. That’s what they should be spending all that money on and not weapons.
Clarence Page was on McLaughlin’s show, and he said something about education reform ought to switch to some kind of merit public school system like they have in Germany to make the best competitive use of the brainpower of the youth, so when you get this cannabis money stop pissing it away on charter shit, cyber shit, voucher shit, and more tax cuts and incentives to attract business while continuing to underfund education, like Corbett in Pennsylvania cutting education by $1 billion and giving $1 billion in tax breaks and incentives. He enjoys giving it to the public sector unions and their members. Shell got this tax break out by Pittsburgh, and he won’t tax Marcellus Shale, and is driving the economy into the ground with his austerity. Apropos, he is still against medical marijuana even in the face over overwhelming evidence of its efficacy in treating Dravet’s. I haven’t heard shit on it either from Attorney General Kane since she last state she was against it because of the usual prohibitionist arguments: needs more research stalling tactic and sends the wrong message to children.
Wrong message?! Hey Kathleen, how about if you have Dravet’s you don’t give a shit about them?!
They got their sights set on their Voter ID law (Turzai) to try to suppress the Democratic vote, looks like.
My concern is getting people the medicine they need, and getting government out of the way of adults having the freedom they deserve to make the Safer Choice and to relax recreational and socially with cannabis rather than alcohol.
I want to see more positive progress on legalization ready to go after the Super Bowl and Olympics are over. Enjoy the sporting events, but it’s something to try to get the public to focus on afterward, something other than the seemingly never-ending scandals.
i dont mean to be a wet blanket..but the prohibition industrial complex seems quite invincible from where im sitting.. not the least because they have $1 trillion to buy out congressional elections…
if anybody has any suggestions..pls share them with us…
@ Brent, it isn’t the reason for the War On Drugs. Locking up Black People, is what I’m referring to here. It isn’t the “purpose” of the War on Drugs, but it is a form of payment to the Folks the Do Hate Blacks. It really is a tit for tat kind of situation. “We’ll let you lock as many black/spanish/brown people as you like, just keep letting us (the feds) lock up as many people as you like. Please don’t invoke your state’s rights.” It is the same thing as the fortiture laws–it condones and teaches the police corruption.
Sorry, was a bit drunk last night. I meant to say is that the Federal Government had learned the lesson of racism and passed the Civil Rights Acts. But there was a push back. There are way too many people in this country that see success as failure–they think wealth comes from taking it from their neighbors; which is exactly what the Republican Party has become. A haven for fake conservatives that don’t believe in anything Jesus taught, they just believe their greed leads to making the “right decisions”. Taking from the weak and poor is their Right so they can feel better about themselves. Paying you a non-living wage is their Right; having all the money isn’t enough you shouldn’t even be allowed to form unions according to these evil people.
Allowing the picking on of minorities is just a form a payment to the police in more racist areas of the country. But the War on Drugs supports all kinds of corruption! Not just institutional racism, but it teaches the police to be thieves, it teaches them to selectively blame people for health conditions. We have had white police attack white people for being diabetic!!! Actually beat them up and charge them with drunk driving while they are dieing from a sugar problem and still being ignored. Because all these dicks know what to do and attack and cast blame.
Hilary has no understanding of marijuana. She would legalize, but also stupefy it! Like New Jersey with ridiculous over-regulations any “Republican” should be ashamed of if the target of said regulations is anything other than toxic waste. Hillary will support any and all over-regulation, she will support turning marijuana’ed driving into a felony. Can you just see how terrible having a “Federal automatic/persay Law” turning people with legal buds and safe driving into felons will be??? If not, then vote for the woman without a clue. Really, all Hillary knows to do is position herself politically like her husband, instead vote for a woman with a brain like Susan Rice.
They say Bill was the county’s first black president. Well then do not forget Bill put more police on the streets than any other president. All those police then went on to wage this illegal and unjust Drug War locking blacks by the millions. So I suppose Bill is the first black president to also be a backstabbing cracker. Fuck the Clintons, they suck almost as bad as the Neocons.
It’s time to take the trash out.
Has anyone done a close study as to the pcycological damages from being forced to participate in an illegal activity such as locking yer doors just to smoke weed (what are the long term effects tward alienating an human being for what he or she believes in. Because the laws are unconstitutional at best an morally wrong to judge someone for civil consumption of cannabis (yet as citizens it’s horrible to not even be allowed common access to our homes lots yards ect ect ect in a peaceable Manner (in outher words can’t even when wer at home trying to enjoy life isnt there a unreasonable amount of self imprisonment an these laws manipulate the human condition) an even usurp the the one most importain law of Jesus (love thy neighbor) love doesn’t lock us in a cloth set or stereotype us or fine or imprisson us especially in our own country yard home ect ect ect.
@Roland,,I know how it feel to have to hide like a rat. I know what it feels like to be considered the scum of the earth. YES. I know what its like. And for what. To feed the narcissistic law enforcement that needs another drug bust to justify the task force budget. It’s been the worst witch hunt in American history. In North Korea they kick doors down for a Bible. Here they do it for a weed.
it is true that things look awful dire at times in life-
with no medical cannabis in my head, life is sometimes filled with a lot of strife-
but post medded things don’t look so bad-
even though we have asinine laws, i’m not being hasstled personally, so i’m not so sad-
actually, if they want my pee-
before they employ me at the employment agency-
then isn’t that a form a discriminatory practice
that this so-called United States of America, which should ideally be united in our moralistically ideals-
even if we agree to agree on different particulars on what we all think is important and ultimately most important and for us the real-
well, there is more but it occurs to me that i have not medded enough to combat this snow storm-
so i am off to enjoy life and stay warm:-)
Love out to the non cannabis haters
you are the best – laters
Great article. I would have to say however, based on Nixon’s history and also oval office recordings, that the Prohibition Industrial Complex is part of the same entity as the Military Industrial Complex.
Nixon’s largest policy changes implemented were each elements of a larger scheme.
Cannabis becomes legal after the Supreme Court strikes down the Marihuana Tax Stamp Act as unConstitutional.
Nixon and AG Mitchell make up the Controlled Substances Act and the arbitrary, unscientific scheduling system within it, making cannabis illegal again, in the worst category with heroin and meth. A score of govt. agencies spring forth to enforce the arbitrary, paternalistic drug war deemed “ineffective” or “a failure”
Nixon campaigns two times to end the war in Vietnam, and only grows the campaign of genocidal bombing, spreading to even Cambodia and Laos, who were not even involved. Daniel Ellsworth leaks the Pentagon Papers, which makes clear that there was no plan to win, but have troops on the ground with no directives, with constant carpet bombing in the background. Nixon’s anger and frustration over this leak was both telling and humorous when considering Nixon’s character. His concession speech for his CA gubernatorial run will always be famous as the most disgraceful, even childish concession speech given by a losing candidate. “You won’t have ole’ Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.”
Nixon created the Health Management Organization or HMO, privatized health care. You know, hospitals, pharma, insurance in business together, conveniently. Nixon’s HMO reason why the world’s “most advanced” medical treatments are over-priced and inaccessable. Cancer treatment is so over-priced and most lucrative, without doubt there are many who would rather there never be a cure for cancer, but would rather keep the wealth flowing or maintain the “cure researcher” job they have, indefinitely.
Nixon starts a “War on Cancer.” Even though the Shafer commission on Cannabis noted that preliminary studies have demonstrated anti-tumor properties in the lab, and plainly stated that criminalization and criminal penalties were not warranted for cannabis.
This was a Commission of fifteen people, of which Nixon picked eight, stacking it in his favor. Yet he was nevertheless confronted with the truth, to his chagrin, their advice he ignored, flippantly.
Heroin makes the schedule 1 list and is transported, traded, and sold during the Vietnam war.
The CSA was responsible for the creation of 20+ federal agencies that deal with “drugs.” The Nat’l Institutes of Drug Abuse has the explicit mission to grant federal research funding to studies regarding drugs, but only if the studies “prove” the harm of drugs, not the good, or possible medicinal benefits.
NIDA are the ones who grew the cannabis schwag at the University of Mississippi and gave out the joints to the Compassionate Use patients, by order of the Supreme Court, but was later phased out. There should not be an agency that is intentionally biased and unscientific in such a way as to serve as a full time cover-up of information.
NIDA’s duty is to allow drug war lies regarding cannabis to remain unchallenged by suppressing alternative research and refusing to federaly fund studies that don’t involve “finding” the desired conclusions they want.
“In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating 10 raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care.
[DEA Administrative Law Judge – 1988]
“Therapeutically Active Substance” = MEDICINE
No matter the subject of these articles or their intended discorse, we all seem to bottom-line the conversation with the human toll in terms of personal suffering. While being primary and paramount to us all there is another element to our suffering that will haunt our oppressors far into the future. That element will be the absence of forgiveness. Just as we don’t forgive those that inflict cruel undeserved punishment to the weak, so will be the fate of our elected elite and their minions. The blame for this personal suffering is theirs and theirs alone. My children who are of age already understand this because I’ve made sure that they do. I teach them the true manner in which the prohabition industrial complex works so they will be intollerant of it. Some might say that this is wrong, but I disagree. Make no mistake, hatred of evil is right, and I stand proud of it. What one does with hatred is where right and wrong are defined. What we do with hatred here in this blog is right.
Here’s anouther thought. Sounded good on paper you got base roots for language. Such as. The. Very similar. To thc. The fundamentals of human life language an skills. Thc/the. A good idea for a shirt. Thc the fundamentals. Of all life. An about above wer talking about a country where acc to illinois state police precurser an admendmendment chemical to make horrible shit such as methamphetamine. Are our constitutional rights. That’s bullshit. It’s not our rights to harm ourselfs or anyone else. Under common law that’s criminal damages to property an person. (Yet yer typical Walgreens will distribute enough psuedoeffedrine. To manufacture 100 grams of meth per average store. There comes a time to say enough is enough it don’t take 25 years to figure out that hurting people rather thru laws or outher means just describes that our country is irresponsible wreck less an ignorant to common sence life factors. On a cosmic scale.
I would like to thank the ACLU for their hard work last year on the lawsuit, that along with another lawsuit filed by prison inmates, ended operation of the state prison south of Boise by a private contractor.
“NIDA’s duty is to allow drug war lies regarding cannabis to remain unchallenged by suppressing alternative research and refusing to federally fund studies that don’t involve “finding” the desired conclusions they want.”
And then go testify these are facts–on an going program to defraud the people of the United States. Why are there no contempt hearings?
In all of these comments, many people are holding on to the pretense that we have a legitimate government. We do not. It is that simple. Check out the link I posted earlier.
It is kind of amazing to me that so many Americans, especially, still think that begging and pleading for their basic inalienable rights from an illegitimate ‘government’ is somehow a solution. Why ask why when in your heart you already know the answer. We have the Creator and the forces of Life on our side. It ultimately is a metaphysical problem and an existential threat.
It is a very good sign that so many of you have chosen to know the truth about cannabis and refuse the massive orchestrated lies. That gives me hope for our future. Maybe we can establish a government Of, By and For the People where our inalienable right to cannabis is recognized as a simple fact of life.
Peace on Earth, what a concept.
Thanks Jimmy. I didn’t hate Nixon enough already, what with his Economic Stability Act of 1970 creating the international corporate lobbyist that turned Congress into fundraisers. And then there was executive privilege that he and his Attorney General wrote into the Controlled Substances Act because they knew damn well that what Congress was allowing the executive branch to do– write drug policy– was not only unconstitutional, but that every president from then on would get busted in bold faced lies, From Nixon’s iron triangle full of heroin to Obama’s Fast and Furious scandal. Asset forfeitures put the icing on the dirty drug cake.
But now I know it was Nixon that started HMOs?!! You mean HE’S the reason why our medical expenses are over-inflated AND he prohibited the HERB?!!
F%ۤ!!!
…I need to go buy a vaporizer. I think a dead man just gave me a migraine.
Prohibition creates black markets.
Prohibition creates the artifical value, hugely over-inflated, on commodities that would other
wise be cheap or free.
Prohibition creates organized crime that is motivated to compete for the money to be made from
the artificial value created.
Prohibition is responsible for the underground economies that develop from those black markets.
There are no statistics obviously, but these underground economies are hugely significant, or
would be, if not for the prohibition.
The harsher the penalties for cannabis related offenses, or for any drugs, the higher the
“market” value of the drug.
Just a wild guess here, but some of the people who are benefiting most from prohibition policy
are (possibly?) in direct or indirect control of the public policies regarding cannabis or
“drugs”
Whoever these people are, they must be very powerful to have direct control of the executive
regarding anything related to cannabis, including structuring of the DOJ, and likely they have
the power to initiate armed conficts abroad.
Wouldn’t it seem likely that the most powerful, as in, powerful enough to start wars or ban a substance from an entire population, and using lies to justify it. The cost they’ll pay to attempt to control any use of such a substance, is transparent and institutionalized violations of human rights. The blame in the end will be not be on the “government” or the elected or selected officials, not on the agencies or agents, or the local law enforcement that participated in the savagery and greed-fest. It certainly won’t be on the people who control the government to their own ends.
It’s just a crazy reign of terror based on fundamentalist-like worship of the Controlled Substances Act. They treat the CSA and its rules like they’re absolutely unquestionable all the while they know they’re lying about cannabis, lies which serve as the “good reasons” to maintain a ban of it from the population, and terrorize citizens who question their mandates.
And to note, it was Nixon who in 1971, removed the gold standard from the US dollar in international commerce and trade. That made the dollar into the Federal Reserve Note, which is not backed by any value like gold, but is legal tender, meaning it’s value is arguable in court. All the countries followed suit.
The money system officially became a currency system of fiat money, fiat meaning forced, or that notes have value because agree to do so, by convention, not because the money is redeemable for a certain quantity of gold (value).
The result is that the money system is based on something else, even if not of any substantial value, and that is debt. If every dollar of debt were paid off today, there would be no money in circulation. Congress writes these debts as IOU’s to the Federal Reserve, which sends an electronic transfer for 10% of the money Congress wants, to the Treasury which prints the money. The money is given to the system of banks, which lend it out at interest, collecting or rather, creating the other 90%.
Because of the Federal Reserve Act of 1912, banks need only 10% or a fraction of a reserve of wealth held at the site, that backs the products like loans, which they sell at interest. That means that if the banks customers all came in and withrew all their money, the bank could not deliver back all it was holding for people, only 10% is their responsibility. Some financial institutions don’t even a reserve requirement at all. This allows for things such as invented products like derivatives, which are not backed by real value.
Since the value of money is not backed by a specfic standard, like an equivalent amount of gold, it is arbitrary, nominal, fluctuates, and countries can devalue their money, claiming it has less value than it does, in order to say, become a more favorable trading partner.
Other results of the fractional reserve system of money and banking that have developed over time into “the law” is that we have inflation and deflation. And we also have to pay back what Congress borrows from the Federal Reserve, also known as the National Debt.
http://www.themoneymasters.com/the-money-masters/famous-quotations-on-banking/
“The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. -Abraham Lincoln
Despite these warnings, Woodrow Wilson signed the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. A few years later he wrote: I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. -Woodrow Wilson”
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial
element in the large centers has owned the government ever since
the days of Andrew Jackson… -Franklin D. Roosevelt (in a letter to Colonel House, dated November 21, 1933)
To Nixon’s grocery list of obeying every order of the most powerful and self-interested people who run the military/prohibition complex, add the national debt. Hope your migraine’s better.
(sorry about that messed up text, above). idk
http://www.themoneymasters.com/the-money-masters/famous-quotations-on-banking/
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.
“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled. With something so important, a deeper mystery seems only decent.” John Kenneth Galbraith (1908- ), former professor of economics at Harvard, writing in ‘Money: Whence it came, where it went’ (1975).
How to remove the national debt and sever US relations with international banking cartels?
Through full reserve banking, by way of the Monetary Reform Act.
http://www.themoneymasters.com/monetary-reform-act/
http://www.themoneymasters.com/monetary-reform-act/
@jimmy-You’ve coined a phrase that holds such truth,
“transparent and institutionalized violations of human rights”,
I couldn’t hardly read on without glancing back to that phrase.
thank you
“It is kind of amazing to me that so many Americans, especially, still think that begging and pleading for their basic inalienable rights from an illegitimate ‘government’ is somehow a solution.”
Wow, while we do have a lot of illegitimate players in our government, the “government” itself is completely legitimate. That is rather like saying since my dad abuses he isn’t my “legitimate” father. Sorry we can’t go back in time and change that. But looking forward, that asshole can be arrested and/or be removed from being able to cause further harm and maybe mom can find a real man that is positive influence… That is where we are at with the War on Drugs. They are the ones saying drug spread via ‘peer pressure’, but nearly all the ‘pressure’ is coming from them, the Drug Warriors!!! Do kids mock each over little things like not liking something or stupid things like having glasses? Sure, but they mock each other about everything! They are kids, it is one of the ways they learn social skills. Like many abusive people, they come to embody everything they say they want protect you from. And by regulating marijuana it is a lot easier to keep it out of kids hands. Kids will still be kids, but fewer of them will be playing with marijuana. The Drug Warriors are causing the problem they say they want to “fix” by keeping thing the way they are. They are putting weed in the kids hands!
How the World Really Works
by Alan B. Jones
http://www.amazon.com/How-The-World-Really-Works/dp/0964084813
“More and more Americans are coming to feel that something has gone fundamentally wrong in our society. We have suffered repetitive wars, big and small, some won and some lost, but with the peace always lost. Our society has been drained of around $5 trillion in welfare costs since LBJ’s War on Poverty was declared, but with no diminution in the incidence of “poverty.” Our “War on Drugs” has also been lost, with its societal costs running around $500 billion per year. The cost of fixes for runaway environmentalism has reached about $1 trillion since the birth of the EPA in 1970. Our national debt is over $5 trillion and still going up. Two bread¬winners per family has become normal, just to keep bread on the table.
Americans feel put upon, and they are right, but they don’t know who’s doing it to them or why. Such issues have been pondered by researchers for many years, but the historical facts are finally bringing the pieces of the puzzle together. This book paints a picture of that largely completed puzzle, and lays out who the culprits are, why they are doing what they are doing, and how they are managing to pull off what is probably the biggest mass robbery of wealth and individual freedom in human history.
Your reading this book will help to expose and stop the destruction, and help to guarantee a future of freedom rather than slavery for your children.” (author)
Thank you Jimmy… Not for the migraine but for the mind-altering insight.
Tell us more about this Monetary Reform Act.
Meanwhile, I propose a “Reverse Everything Nixon Ever Signed Into Law Migraine Recovery Act.”
To add to your points Jimmy:
Andrew Jackson won the presidency touring the nation by stagecoach with a successful campaign against executive privilege.
After winning, the Supreme Court shot down the Indian Removal Act.
Andrew Jackson promptly used executive privelege to Remove the Cherokee and Creek Indian nations from their soveriegn ancestoral lands anyway. Every president ever since has used (or in Nixon’s case expanded) executive privelege ever since. And ever since, the executive branch of the U.S. Government has compromised our hard-earned Democracy.
I found your analysis of fiat vs. Commodity currency both compelling and fascinating. I would caution the “vs.” dialogue, as with many human complexities and values for power the answer is not either/or but both and more.
What stands out in my mind in context of prohibition is the fantastic irony that hemp was, for the greater part of our history, a commodity currency. Both used in trade and monetary value, hemp was even used to print the fiat dollars that prohibited its own cultivation.
There are myriad warnings and examples from other civilizations that did not balance principal or legislative values between mineral ore commodity standards (silver and gold), fiat money (paper dollars, coins, notes debt and credit) and living currency (water and hemp, i.e., resources).
One such example was the fall of the last Chinese imperial dynasty at the start of globalization 500 years ago.
At least 6,000 years ago, the Chinese built their civilization out of hemp, rice and bamboo. In the 11th century A.D., they were the first to create paper currency. But then the Mongols invaded, discovered they could purchase weapons and concubines with the emperor’s stamp, and in very little time they invented inflation. Even Genghis Khan’s dynasty in Samarkand fell back to the dark ages because markets would no longer value paper currency (often made from hemp). It was back to stringing tons of coins to the backs of mules again. A serious problem if youre a poor peasant in the mountains, who would live off the land wherever one could.
The Chinese needed more silver, but the Japanese had it all. The Japanese were using rice for currency, but the Yellow River in China had most of it.
When Legazpi’s sailors docked in Manila 500 years ago, they thought fireworks from the first Chinese ships were threats instead of celebration. (“1493”, Charles Mann). By the time Legazpi had returned from scanning the Phillipine Coasts his men sank all but one ship. But the Chinese ship had three vital commodities; porcelain, hemp and silk. And the Spanish had three items from South America that would change the world; silver, corn and sweet potatoes.
And here is the lesson we need to learn; Imperial law in China required that all trade commodities be brought and tithed to the emperor. The law also required that no foreignors were allowed to trade inside of China. All this concentrated power had a fateful flaw; the emperor was so much more interested in the silver to control the nation’s wealth that he failed to value much less research what the sweet potatoe would do to the Chinese economy. Within a few short decades, the Chinese peasants took the sweet potatoe up into the mountains where the landlords who controlled the silver trade could not tax them. As a result of poor legislation and failed agricultural research, the poor began to clear cut the mountain tops for sweet potatoes (and corn), even replacing hemp fields that detained erosion. During the rainy seasons, all the good top soil flushed down the mountain sides and wiped out the heart of the Chinese economy; the rice fields flooded. Perhaps millions starved as the cycle continued. China fell from being the wealthiest most powerful civilization on earth because of inadequate agricultural research; they clear-cut their timber and hemp down to grow sweet potatoes, and as a result became a Communist nation as the wealthy devised desperate means to retain control.
No, the moral of the story is not “sweet potatoes are bad.” To be fair, the Chinese could not have been any more prepared for American food supplies than American Indians could have prevented communicable diseases from foreign domesticated livestock from decimating so many lives.
But we can still research and prepare. That is why this Hemp Research Amendment is SO vital to the balance of all life. We ALL NEED the education from how individual crops impact our environment.
Just imagine: We can still reforest and rebuild our estuaries and water supplies by planting hemp. Because ultimately in the needless battle for power between fiat and commodity currencies we ignore the resources that give us that power; the REAL power that we all need to share and are a part of:
Water.
Now THAT is power. We ARE water. If we poison it, we poison ourselves. If we prohibit it from others, we prohibit it from ourselves. If you ever want to cut through all the political bullshit and figure out what we’re fighting for, ask where the water and resources are at first. Then lets figure out how we CAN figure out how to share it and keep fresh water sustainable and clean for all nations and future generations. Hemp can help us do that.
“Wow, while we do have a lot of illegitimate players in our government, the “government” itself is completely legitimate.”
Sorry man, if you have so little understanding of the world around you, nothing I can say will fix that. You keep your criminal cabal and serve it, call it legitimate if you want. The Illuminati love guys willing to serve. Be sure not to ask questions or look where you are not supposed to though. Oh, and try not to do a thing called critical thinking, they hate that. If you take lots of flouride the chemical lobotomy will go faster. Its all good. The chemtrails are for your protection. I hear Lucifer is a really nice guy, just as long as you never disagree with him.
As for myself, I will continue to demand my inalienable rights and work to manifest a government of, by and for the People. Maybe someday you will want that for you and yours as well.
Smoke in peace.
Thank you for that important lesson that people could learn from, Julian.
Another example of agricultural disaster occurred during the Irish Potato famine. The growers of potatoes had become accustomed to using a single strain of potato, one which had almost ideal characteristics, like size, yield, growing time, etc.
Potato growing ended being grown as a monoculture, or genetically identical crops. The problem with this sort of artificial selection is that it removes normal, natural variations among the potatoes that grow. When the blight, or fungal parasite hit, there was no genetic variation that could have been more resistant or totally resistant to the fungus. Instead the monoculture they were growing was easily over-taken and their food supply for the winter was gone.
Monoculture and the sort of environmental tampering (removal of native crops like hemp) Julian mentioned were lessons that were hard-learned and our job is to learn from past mistakes with dire consequences. Monsanto type monoculture, where their patented, genetically modified crops resistant to their herbicide, RoundUP, has been sytematically forced onto soybean growers with the help of the USDA.
To address another topic, I think sometimes the term “government” is used too loosely. The distinction between the system of government (outlined by the Constitution) and the use of the term in reference to the current elected officials and other people filling the seats.
One has to wonder, what or who could be more powerful than the President or control the Executive such that they keep making the same mistakes and keep following the orders of actual higher ups?
Who could be higher up than the government itself?
Possibly if “you” were an entity that the government had to come to, in order to borrow money to pay off the perennial budget deficits, it might be easier to see this point.
If the government has to borrow money from someone, “you,” that someone, or “you,” is more powerful than the government.
Period. This needs no explanation.
The govt. comes to “you” asking for a loan.
Who is the more powerful in that case? It’s “you,” obviously.
And who does Congress has to beg for money from? I’ll leave that an open question.
Jimmy,
You would love the book 1493 by Charles Mann. He doesn’t get deeply enough into hemp history almost purposefully, (perhaps he was worried he might get derailed in his narrative…) Nor does he explain enough of the structure of Joint Stock Companies, or early corporations, save to say that wealthy people in London, Paris, Madrid and Lisbon started the concentrated control of world trade.
What Mr. Mann does very well is to explain are the dangers of corporate globalization, or the “homogenocene” of our planet, which is still going on today.
For example, there is a rubber plantation in southeast Asia the size of England that is vulnerable to a single native fungus in South America listed by the State Department that I won’t even name. This plantation supplies more than half of the world’s natural rubber supply from plane tires to vital rubber mechanical seals. The fungus is not as dangerous in South America because rubber trees grow naturally apart even in Brazil, where a horrific campaign to create rubber plantations ended in disaster after the American Civil War sparked industrialization; and a demand for rubber. But in Asia, the trees grow together, branch to branch, vulnerable to a simple fungus.
This is what happened during the Irish potato famine. As you point out, only the large white potato was brought from Peru, despite a countless variety of potatoes that are grown there together. The potato blight was brought from guano; specifically tons of bird shit from commorants on an island off the coast of Peru mined under horrific conditions by displaced Chinese slaves who were told they were going to mine gold in America. It was all to feed a growing need for fertilizer by Europe, who was now addicted to the potato in an uncontrolled population explosion. By the 18th century, the Irish lived off a healthy diet of potatoes and milk. By the end of the century, there were more Irish in America than Ireland, and it would take more than 150 years to regain their population.
Agricultural diversification is VITAL.
Back to the 16th century, America:
It was tobacco, sugar cane and hemp that were used as fuel for the galleon trade and institutionalized slavery because the crops required unlimited supplies of labor.
Hemp was brought by the Spanish, English and Dutch East India Company to the Americas as it was vital for the ropes, sails and oil required to maintain the ships at sea. Hemp harvests were hard work, but more productive and safer than tobacco and sugar cane production.
Tobacco harvesting requires dangerous exposure to nicotene poisoning, something that undocumented immigrants are still subjected to in U.S. Tobacco fields today. Cane sugar harvesting I have done first hand near my father-in-law’s ranch in Mexico. It’s back-breaking work. And the cane cuts the flesh, allowing sweat to burn into the wounds. I won’t even speculate what the public cost for rum production and consumption from sugar cane have had on society at large, suffice it to say it kept the slaves working and the pirates… well… being pirates.
From the Virginia Company that started the Tobacco trade, the colonial/ corporate monoculture that started globalization viewed human life as a commodity. “Settlers” were slaves. History tries to erase this fact, but before it was discovered that west Africans were more resistant to malaria, countless Irish and Scottish, recently defeated by the British, were worked to death from Barbados to Jamestown. All we get from textbooks is to explain that “citizens from Jamestown were reduced to cannibalism.” Chief Powhatan was too busy hunting down escaped European pigs and cattle that were eating up winter food supplies to help the starving “colonists.” School books, and the Virginia Company themselves, didn’t explain to the “colonists” they were in fact abandonded slaves. The Corporations were so geared on profit, people were told to stay in their dismal swamps to stay close to port after John Smith discovered tobacco grew well on the farms. Tobacco began replacing hemp. Stay close to the coasts, they were told, or “savages would attack.” The problem for the unwitting slaves is they brought malaria-ridden mosquitos with them which thrived in the swamps. The corporate convenience of living near the boat docks proved fatal. Now, neither white or red men could last three months in the swamps.
… Quite a modern conundrum… To think a corporation would transport people without telling them they were slaves… And then re-write history and say, “no, the settlers weren’t slaves, the Africans were…” The question is, does anyone living on unsustainable plantation style food monoculture qualify as an “unwitting slave?”
Excuses for Profit and Slavery
The Spanish in 1492 were resentful to Africa after 700 years of occupation.
The Irish certainly welcomed someone else being enslaved: Dutch-African pirates were sacking entire Irish villages and selling them to slavery in Africa well into the 17th century. In one case, the Dutch pirate Anthony Van Salée, known as the Turk, sacked the entire Irish town of Baltimore, married the Sultans daughter after selling the captives in Salée, (Morrocco), and then retired in New Amsterdam (New York) where he ran a pig farm on what is present day Wall Street. (Ever wondered who first “occupied” Wall Street from the Manhattan Indians?)
American Indians were forbidden for slavery by order of the Spanish crown, thanks to the advocacy of the missionary-turned-pope, Bartalomé de las Casas who reported the atrocities of genocide committed by Columbus. But Conquistadors used Indian slaves anyway, from the silver mines of La Plata, (Bolivia) to the cane fields of St. Augustine (Florida) by claiming they were tresspassing on their own lands. But it was imported disease and Fractionalism that defeated Indian Nations, not the Spanish sword. It wasnt long before Africans were brought to the Carribean, intermarried with surviving Taino Indians, abandoned the coastal plantations and took the hemp, corn and variety gardens up hill and soon had the Spanish begging them to stop attacking their ships. Remember that malaria was so pervasive that no stock shareholder could survive running plantations even if they wanted to.
16th and 17th century New England
Indian lands were well cultivated, not “wild and untouched by man as they were made by their creator,” in the words of Thereau. By the time the English were arriving at the bay of Massachussets, entire Indian villages were cleared by smallpox that previous European traders most unwittingly gave them through trading blankets for supplies. The “virgin lands” (translation: “up for grabs”) described by romantic poets during the 16th century were cultivated Indian lands that had been reclaimed by a new forest after Indians perished from communicable disease from domestic livestock (smallpox from horses, swine flu from pigs). The lands early colonists saw was anything but “wild.” American land was under siege from a host of new species that changed everything from under American feet. Earthworms dropped from English ship ballasts ate up the undergrowth of leaves Indians used to burn back and clear the forest to plant walnuts and other mast. Pigs escaped from colonial farms and ate the emergency stores of food after decimating gardens and fields. European honey bees, dubbed “white man’s flies” were absolutely vital to the monoculture of orchards popping up in Florida and Georgia.
American Indians from Canada, to Mexico, Brazil all the way to Tierra del Fuego burned seasonally, replanted corn and mast, Completely reshaping the environment with a more productive variety plants and trees. Just because food wasnt planted in rows, Europeans assumed the food was “wild.”
The greater success of American Indian agriculture is exemplified by the traditional Mexican “milpa,” or variety garden. Historically, Indian nations recount the story of the “three sisters” : corn, squash and beans, which were meant to grow together, not in a monoculture of farms. One plant supplies nitrogen back into the soil while the other serves as a climbing pole for sunlight. These food supplies were never cultivated to grow in long tilled fields filled with the same genetic crop; Indians had no horses or mules to plow with anyway. Prior to Columbus, Indians cleared lands with controlled burnings.
Back to Columbus:
I think it worthy to note here that instead of staying to establish a city or grow hemp, Columbus was so obsessed with finding a route to China that he once got lost off the coast of Venezuela, looking for “the nipple of the earth” where only the “elite” could go. Thats right: Every year we close our banks and schools for a guy who convinced Queen Isabella our planet was not round (NOT flat) like the Greeks already knew; Greek mathematicians knew the circumference of the earth since 600 bc: We celebrate Columbus Day for a lobbyist who even had King Ferdinand in his pocket when he said “The Greeks were wrong, the earth’s circumference is smaller, and shaped like a woman’s breast.”
Columbus never found the route to China, Legazpi did. That’s the power of a powerful lobbyist. Once you give them all the money, it’s too embarrassing to document their failures in our textbooks.
Variety, Slavery and the Monoculture:
The only well documented Indian nations that did grow a monoculture of corn was Chaco Canyon in Arizona and Cahokia, in present day East St. Louis, and archeologists are STILL trying to figure out how these civilizations fell long before Europeans arrived… Problems with the food supply perhaps?
It wasn’t until about 100 years ago when the Army Corps of Engineers drained the Eastern Swamps that we even realized it was mosquitos spreading the malaria that made it profitable to pay pirates to go all the way to Africa for slaves in the first place. By then, Great Brittain had long since ended its trade war over hemp supplies between Russia and the fledgling Democracy in the United States, which culminated into the war of 1812.
But even 100 years later, hard labor was still required to cultivate hemp until the Germans invented a machine that could separate leaves, seeds and fibers.
Conclusion:
The question remains: If hemp and marijuana cultivation is legalized in the U.S. for corporate monocultural use, yet prohibited for personal garden variety self-sustainability like medicine, herbicide and pesticide-free food, building materials and fuel, then are we really free or are we all still slaves?
There is freedom in hard labor and self sustainability. To have our food and medicine supplied to us by patented corporations for profit is the vulnerable surrender of our natural role as stewards of our lands.
God made all seed bearing plants and herbs to use. Genesis wasn’t talking to Monsantos.
Julian, communism is slavery-the state is the cracker.
There are many in the US that look to China and see Our Future. Take Mitt Romney for example. It is sad, people used to escape from places like the USSR and China to the USA, now we just might become them.
This piece mealing out the protection of inalienable rights of citizens as individuals of a Free Nation to individual states is not the road to preserving anything but surly a fast road to ruin. United we Stand, Divided we fall, on this one issue alone We as a Country are refusing to come together to support the rights of our brothers and sisters in a battle to preserve their individual right to do something that harms NO ONE but may or may not result in arrest and incarceration with all that implies. Whether you think cannabis is the scourge of the planet or the best mood lifting, health food God ever planted, beside the point, Do you as an American citizens believe in your brother and sister’s right to pursue health and happiness in anyway they wish so long as they cause NO HARM to another? Does not the burden of infraction then fall to the definition of HARM Done? These folks making a living off this whole scam on the American People (known as Prohibition and ESPECIALLY on Cannabis) has turned the rule of law into a sham and seriously usurped the rights (to the pursuit of happiness, and good health) of Americans as individuals as citizens and as Free Human Beings. The next trend could dictate they come after you and your right to do something you value. Like say choose your own religion or spouse. The Constitution was meant to establish the path to the Governance of a Nation of FREE individuals and that was by considering the Bill of Rights and The Declaration of Independence in concert with the Constitution. The longer the division is blatantly ignored and even suppressed the greater the damage being done. The Federal government can not afford to get this wrong and certainly the American People will be the ones to loose if they do.
@NORML:
I asked a question about this, but I think maybe it got lost in the conversation. Cut/paste below:
“Hmm, drug testing is on the decline? I have a question for NORML regarding this–where is it in the decline? I’m in Ohio and it’s getting damn near impossible to find anyone who doesn’t hold out a piss cup for a job, including the lowest of McJobs. But then, Ohio is a decriminalized state, but not a MMJ state and, of course, not legalized like CO and WA too. Is this a reason we’re not seeing such a trend here, and the decline is more in states that have more reform than we do? Does drug testing in the workplace decrease in a particular state when that state adopts legalized MJ, perhaps because companies fear the lawsuits and resulting bad PR that comes from punishing sick people for taking their medicine? That would explain why over the last year or so there has been an upsurge in workplace drug testing programs where none existed before: drug testing industry efforts to recoup losses from MMJ and legalized states by preying even more on the states that lag behind on MJ and drug law reform.”
I would REALLY like to hear more about this decline and where it is happening, because in this benighted state of Ohio, it seems to be on the rise and it’s damn near impossible to get even the lowliest McJob for slave wages without pissing in a cup for the dubious honor. For the last seven or eight months, since my company decided to sell out to the Drug Warriors and implement no-cause drug testing, I have had no motivation in my life besides suicide. I am not a user, just a highly ethical person, and being told that to keep my crappy job or get another job I have to take a drug test is to me like being told I have to strangle a puppy–it’s just wrong, and I can’t live with myself if I’m doing something wrong and/or supporting something wrong (like submitting to drug testing like a good serf). I would like to know what state I might like to move to, if this decline is being realized somewhere besides Ohio, or what kind of employment is eliminating this atrocity so I can focus on finding work there. Basically, it would be incredibly helpful to me and possibly save my life if you could give me some background on this claim that workplace drug testing is on the decline when in my area it is clearly on the increase.
Thank you.
[Paul Armentano responds: Statistics kept by the American Management Association shows that the percentage of companies drug testing their employees has fallen significantly over the past two decades: http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1211429,00.html.%5D
Chain, chain chain…. chain, chain, chain…sorry about the need to donate bodily fluids for the right to work now…so who is implementing this crap? oh that’s right. Our neighbors. You know the same ones who look the other way when a tree falls on your house. Those neighbors. chain, chain, chain…love your brothers and sisters, hate your neighbors, or is it, hate your brothers and sisters, love your neighbors? does it matter? Is there even a difference? chain, chain, chain…
@Julian, thank you for sharing your knowledge of disruption to agricultural systems. Human interactions on habitats on a small or moderate scale seem to have far more consequences than we like to believe. Monoculture is definitely not sound policy, is extremely high risk with no potential gain but factory-manufacturing style simplicity, lowered costs. You make excellent points.
I find it interesting you worked with sugar. I took a course on Central American History. Sugar processing should be the poster child for the show Dirty Jobs. Incrediby labor intensive and difficult, tropical heat and the huge fired crocks to boil the harvest. It was so hard, they channeled a trade of slaves to the Caribbean, like Haiti, Jamaica. Europe at the time was indulging on their latest colonial discovery and fad, coffee from South America. Sugar tended to take the edge off the bitter tasting but invigorating bean drink.
There’s no need for genetic modification of crops except for the sake of the lazy corporate gardener in search of quick fixes instead of well-known and proven principles, like “feeding the soil, not the plant.”
There was supposedly, as many biologists seem to agree, a “green revolution” where the understanding of genetics led to improved crop yields and therefore, less hunger in the world. Food could grow where it could not, previously. This was and still is touted as he application of lofty ivory academic science, in the service of humanity and ameliorating the astounding amount of hunger and suffering in the world, and in the United States. This mentality seems to have pushed a tendency to look for simple genetic “fixes” that when taken to extreme, ends up in patented gene crops that are ultimately experimental when introduced into the earth.
However, I don’t think there is a danger with big tobacco or some multinational using marketing and brute force capital investment to streamline cannabis into a monoculture that is less involved through use of selected cultivars, more adapted for corporate needs than customer appreciation.
The inevitable legalization of cannabis will follow what Ed Rosenthal called the “Tomato Model.” When I first read it, it was years ago when the very idea of legalization seemed so elusive, it was usually doused with second-guessing and dismissal because of the Iron Fist of fake federal pharmacology rules. The model makes sense.
Tomatoes that are bought at the grocery are typically hard, pink, flavor-deficient. These were selectively bred this way specifically for ease in transport because the bruising and damage by delivery was unacceptable. So the tomatoes available in the store are famously poor in quality and intended to be that way.
Hence, the majority of tomatoes grown are by many who grow their own tomatoes in gardens, patio containers, baskets, Topsy Turvies, and so on. Because the alternative stinks.
Real tomatoes that people can grow on their own were selected for flavor, sweetness, and delicate texture. These are like a different fruit (or vegetable) than store tomatoes or the leathery slices found in commercial food, fast food or slower.
There are heirloom tomato varieties in addition with cultivars that have been genetically modified to resist certain pathogens like plant viruses.
Yet organic heirloom seeds grow vigorously and naturally when conditions are supportive for them to achieve their almost full potential.
Just to mention aside, this idea is something that holds true of people too, that provision of our basic needs allows people to flourish and tap their natural potentials.
The founding fathers understood this, that free and informed individuals will fare better, as well as their society as a whole, when they are allowed to act as moral agents, entrusted with responsibility, and to live free from unreasonable persecution. This is how people and society fourish. We are still in awe of the Ancient Greeks, their advancements and brilliance. Their needs were met (though they had a slave system), and so they had time to think about things besides constant warfare (that changed later).
Just like most people dissatisfied with their work often mention that they feel a lack of control regarding their duties, like being micro-managed, and monitored to ensure what appears like maximum productivity. This poor ineffective management style of trampling personal liberties simply kills morale and job satisfaction. When people are indirectly told they are not trusted to work unsupervised, it is a criticism and creates distrust and animosity, not the goal, anyway
Prohibition is the same kind of condescending over-use, abuse, of power in areas of people’s lives that are simply not for public discussion and scrutiny, like medical history (or choice of medicine).
Roughly one-third of arrests are for cannabis related “rules.” So the message must be that people can’t live unsupervised, and this “rule-breaking” choice that people make regardless of mere disapproval, regardless of the misinformed, the ignorant, the willfully ingorant, the intellectual dishonest, and down the line, to the lowest depths of the inferno.
The public servants. from their view, are prudently safe-guarding our health (ha). Through the use of prohibition, cheap commodities become scarce commodities whose values spike. News reports will state such nonsense headlines like “$2 million in marihuana seized…” BS. More like “A lot of free plants were seized…” by unnecessary workers, job duties result from work creation, or doing a job not previously necessary. simply for the sake of appearance. Make-up work. Prohibition destroys competition by using the political machine to exclude an invaluable human resource from the economy based on suspect federal pharmacology rules.
Man learned to grow crops and farm by observing the cannabis growing nearby, and managed to make a connection between how it grows dioeciously, in male and female forms, just like people. That’s how the Chinese described it, in naming and pictogram, the plant that grows as a man and as a woman. Cannabis was the agrarian revolution.
Cannabis is believed to be, accepted as, the most likely plant to the the first purposefully cultivated by humans.
This is supported by the fact plants offering rewards to “gatherers” like berries and fruit came from long-growing perennials. The fact that male and female plants grow together naturally, fertilize in close proximity, and this recurs annually, so early humans more easily could “see” the plant life cycles and reproduction without any knowledge of sexual reproduction or genetic recombination.
Before agriculture and food storage, people woke up at dawn and searched for food all day long, grazing on what they could find. In the states, most people were farmers till the 20th century. It’s easy to take for granted how much free time was created by adopting farming and then learning to store it.
This resource has been with us as long as we extended from consciousness to consciousness with abstract thought and reasoning. Just by incredible chance this plant also creates biological molecules that look and act just like the endogenous cannabinoids we produce in our bodies, like anandamide. These molecules are pervasive in areas of the body, especially the brain, and assist in regulating mood, hunger, and healthy immune function.
Michael Pollan, in the Botany of Desire, makes the thesis that there are certain plants whose genetic qualities have affected our own genes in such a way that we actually will work to keep these plants. These plants have the incredible biological advantage, a characteristic appreciated by people who will grow, nurture, even breed them. Apples provide sweetness, Tulips provide beauty, Potatoes provide sustenance,
Cannabis provides medicine and supplements our endocannabinoid deficient bodies, wracked by stress, environmental contamination, poor nutrition & dietary education, legal and culturally “acceptable” toxins, pharma pills, OTC pills, non-scheduled alcohol and tobacco drugs.
Constantly present with humans, cannabis seeds provided substantial nutrition including omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (oils). These are considered essential fatty acids, specifically, that they are essential at certain stages of human development, not necessarily critical to have after those periods, nevertheless important to a balanced nutrition.
Some have speculated that the earliest humans scavenged shellfish on the coastlines which provided omega fatty acids, which eventually led to our dependence on them early in life. Yet they dismiss the obvious, that cannabis was ubiquitous with humans, who carried it to every continent, using it as fiber, medicine, and food, a source of nearly complete nutrition providing all essential amino acids. Other staples like rice, corn, beans, do not provide all eight of the necessary amino acids. Only by mixing beans and rice or rice and corn can one attain what one needs. An abundant, fast-growing food source could really help the hungry and oppressed in nations that are crippled with debt from the international banking cartels, the IMF and World Bank who basically control those governments, and arguably this one too.
Humans do not make vitamin C, or ascorbic acid. But other non-human animals do. Our furry canine friends don’t need Flinstones vitamins, they make vitamin C. Humans therefore have to consume vitamin C. When this occurred during human natural history, the environmental influence must have been an abundace of vitamin C for many, many generations. The inability to create vitamin C was a mutation that would have been eventally lethal, beyond scurvy, if it had not provided by food sources.
Dogs, who also co-evolved with humans, can sense our moods and emotions. They look to us for cues as to what to do. This uncanny ability does not also extend to animals that were merely domesticated as livestock or chattel.
It seems almost intuitive to understand that cannabis hemp has been with us for so long, and is so adaptable it could acclimate in a few generations and establish itself every place humans went.
Endocannabinoid deficiency is a health problem that no one ever addresses thanks to big brother doing busy work that does not change people’s behavior or understanding that the drug war is a means of oppression and subjugation.
The best example of failed public policy is not prohibition, it is prohibition #2 that is contrived and forced on people, despite the lessons of the past, hard learned, but ignored for the sake of nothing more than… greed, period. Sometimes the cheerleaders and peanut gallery chime in with their mere disapproval from ignorance and life-long social conditioning to non-facts and propaganda.
Nancy Grace invites discussions about cannabis, then throws in red herrings the whole time, “yes, but is it addictive?” as if that means anything. Machine sun tanning, video games, Botox, Facebook can all be addicting. The question is when discussing addiction, what is the harm? People who are addicted, like to tobacco, both love and hate their addictions. They are ambivalent because on one side, there is pleasure, the other side is the cost, like relationship and work problems or loss. The harm is no worse than alcohol (binge drinking) which costs hundreds of billions in lost productivity. Yet these are the kinds of choices that people make, that they are free to make, while accepting the possible consequences, just like for any action. Their choice is a non-crime are allowed to make without fear of being caged or robbed or killed.
Humans are endowed with certain unalienable rights. These rights are usually more clear in cases of common law. A man steals your mule, and you can’t farm, can’t earn your living, that is a crime of theft. We abide by rules against theft because are in a contract. We don’t however agree to a social contract where the political layer (that decides who gets what=is all politics is) makes arbitrary rules into punishable crimes, even when people choose to consume something at their own peril, usually understanding cannabis poses them less risk than legal drugs.
The drug war does not deter people. We know this because no one ever claims that the drug war has been effective, that it changed peoples’ behavior or choices, or that it has lowered crime rates. You can’t change people’s behavior by passing some frivolous, unjustly punished, insane rule. A malicious rule that should never be digified with the qualifier “law.”
Why does this medieval stupidity persist under the guise of public safety? The concern that seems to justify the savagery is only believable if one is socialized to believe it before they can even question its intent thoroughly, but instead believe mommy and daddy won’t love them if they break an arbitrary, unjust rule (not law). A glaringly unjust law is no law at all.
If the country were not broken, prohibition would have been a memory about 20th century alcohol problems and the temperance movement, and the discovery of how to create, motivate, and sustain massive organized crime powerful enough to influence policy.
Prohibition is concerned not about you, but controlling peoople from the top levels, as in, above the oval office and congress, are surprisingly, bankers who create and support the fractional reserve system of fiat currency printed out of thin air by the Federal Reserve, a non-governmental agency. Despite the word “Federal” and that they have a little square building on the national mall for appearances, they are are not government although they claim to be both independent and governmental.
http://www.themoneymasters.com/monetary-reform-act/
Full reserve banking through the monetary reform act, would bring reserve minimums to 100% instead of 10% or less, within a gradual time frame of one year. The Congress and Treasury would be the sole authority to create and circulate money. By printing US NOTES, in the amount roughly owed on the national debt (it is the debt, to the Fed). This would remove the national debt and create no change in inflation or deflation.
The United States would cut all ties with international banking cartels, IMF, World Bank, Int’l Bank of Settlements.
All systems that used fractional reserve banking have failed. The lenders, the financiers who finance governments, even ours, who have even positioned governments they finance against each other in war. They want to control everything, it is the eventual goal of these individuals as history has shown. There should be no such thing as the govt borrowing from the so-called “1%.” Eighty-five (85) people hold half the world’s wealth. I’ve stopped tracking the global population numbers, but I don’t think “the rest of the world” equals 85 people.
When prohibition is breath-takingly stupid failed public policy dished out by a police & prison state, yet continues for 45 years…someone else is at the helm.
http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/essays/human-rights-case-for-drug-reform
“When prohibition is breath-takingly stupid failed public policy dished out by a police & prison state, yet continues for 45 years…someone else is at the helm.”
Very true, but I’d also add “corporate” to “police & prison” there. Corporations (ie: the new American aristocracy) sees labor not as human beings but as cogs in their moneymaking mechanism, mere things to control, to extract the maximum amount of productivity out of, and for the minimum amount of payment. If they could stack us up on company property, like they do in China, and feed us the minimum amount of calories to keep our organs alive, like the Nazis did to their slaves in the concentration camps, work us for 30 hour shifts and give us each a large canvas shirt to wear, they would do it in a heartbeat. And that is where drug testing comes from: a desire of Corporate America to control their “cogs”. I mean, since my stupid company decided to sell out to the piss-test brigade, the manager is more and more inclined to feel that he is ENTITLED to know EVERYTHING that goes on in your life. It wasn’t like that so much before, but now there is even more of an effort to weasel their now-piss-drenched corporate finger into even more deeply into our private lives, as if they have a right to know why you can’t work mornings or why you need a certain day off, or anything else about what you do on your private time. They feel that you are not an equal citizen whom they have agreed to pay a certain wage in exchange for your labor, they feel that you are a corporate possession, company property, your body and your home and your time, 24/7, belongs to them and they have a right to watch it, to control it, to decide for you what you will do on “their” time (because even though they only pay you for 4-8 hours a day, up to 5 days a week, they still feel that ALL your time is their property, as well as your body.)
Thank you for the link, Paul! I’m not sure how helpful it is, because it is dated 2006 and I’m fairly sure that some of the increase in drug testing around these parts is a reaction to the 2012 legalization of MJ in CO and WA and the sudden knowledge of the inevitability of MJ legalization. But it does give me an excellent starting point to hunt down ongoing statistics, which I hope I can get at the American Management Association website. Thanks!