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One, two, three…(to the tune of Happy Birthday)…Happy Birthday to…
Screw it.
I actually had a song in mind to commerate this milestone, but my singing would make Simon Cowell writhe in horror. Instead, I’ll opt for an overview of the accomplishments and victories that America’s longest running domestic war has produced.
“In the last 20 years, California made 850,000 arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana, and half a million arrests in the last 10 years. The people arrested were disproportionately African Americans and Latinos, overwhelmingly young people, especially young men….From 2006 through to 2008, major cities in California arrested and prosecuted Latinos for marijuana possession at double to nearly triple the rate of whites.” (Source: “Arresting Latinos for Marijuana in California” Drug Policy Alliance and the William C. Velasquez Institute, Oct 2010)
“The U.S. federal government spent over $15 billion dollars in 2010 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $500 per second.” (Source: Office of National Drug Control Policy)
“State and local governments spent at least another 25 billion dollars (in 2010).” (Source: Jeffrey A. Miron & Kathrine Waldock: “The Budgetary Impact of Drug Prohibition,” 2010.)
“Police arrested an estimated 858,408 persons for cannabis violations in 2009. Of those charged with cannabis violations, approximately 89 percent were charged with possession only. An American is arrested for violating cannabis laws every 30 seconds.”
(Source: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation)
As a user of cannabis (yes I have a medical card) and someone who has extensively studied the history of this current flawed and failed policy, I would like to pose this question to the Drug Warriors of Democratic and Republican ilks. What aspect or characteristic of marijuana/cannabis justifies making it illegal and putting people in jail?
Given the fact that there have been ZERO (0) deaths from overdose on cannabis (a virtual impossibility no matter how hard I have tried) compared to the countless number of overdose deaths from FDA approved/”legal” drugs like Rush Limbaugh’s beloved OxyContin, asprin, Vicodin, et al. and alcohol, it seems pretty stupid that we have turned a health problem like drug abuse, which should be treated by a health professional, in a criminal offense treated by law enforcement. Just like it’s inane to have the local cop, who most likely has no background in health science or addiction medicine, talk about the dangers of drug abuse to our schoolchildren as part of the flawed and ineffective D.A.R.E. program.
What the bipartisan Drug Warriors don’t tell you is that the initial war on marijuana in 1937 was based solely on racial paranoia. A paranoia that was perpetuated and enabled by both political parties (to say that the Drug War was an exclusively Republican creation is a complete falsehood) The lie that was perpetuated by our nation’s 1st Drug Czar, Harry J. Anslinger, was that African American jazz musicians were preying on white women while hopped up on weed. With the blessing of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, Anslinger lead the way into getting the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 passed by a Democratic Party majority Congress and signed into law.
For you right wingers and Republicans foaming at the mouth over this fact, you don’t get off that easy either. 40 years ago, Yorba Linda’s favorite son Richard M. Nixon declared his “war on drugs” as a way of diverting the nation’s attention from our involvement in Vietnam and the subsequent illegal bombings in Cambodia. Instead of using the likes of Charlie “Bird” Parker and Dizzy Gillespie as his chosen bogeyman, it was those long haired hippie galoots with poor hygenie and tye dyed t shirts speaking out against the war.
Without a debate from Congress, the Drug Enforcement Administration was created in 1973. In 1989, as an overture to Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign, the Office of National Drug Control Policy was made into a cabinet level position (aka “Drug Czar”) as part of the Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1988, a House bill sponored by former Speaker of the House Thomas Foley (D-WA). The bill passed 346 – 11 in the House and 87-3 in the Senate. In fact it was then Sen. Joe Biden who we can credit for coining the term “drug czar.”
Fast forward several years later since the signing of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 and the creations of the DEA and ONDCP. Is it any coincidence that a lot of the people that get arrested and imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses (i.e. simple possession) happen to be minorities or people from economically challenged given the original justification for beginning this war? For every high profile drug bust you hear about on the news, the demand for these drugs and the proliferation of these illegal sales and trafficking on our borders, southern and northern (yes, those damn Canadians are doing it too!), continues to increase at the same rate as the body count of victims from drug cartel violence in our inner cities and on our borders.
And yet, there are few voices of either party calling for an end to this immoral War on Drugs. While the politicians continue to justify their stances as “protecting children,” “security,” “public safety” or some smoke and mirrors claptrap rhetoric, the public is beginning to see this war for what it is as the poll numbers favoring legalization and ending the Drug War keep increasing at a steady clip year after year.
I’ve have seen some symbolic overtures from the state chapters of the Republican Liberty Caucus and several local state chapters the Young Democrats favoring legalization, but nothing very committal to ending this fiscal and social quagmire that we are knee deep in since they seem to support candidates that tend to vote for increased funding for the DEA and ONDCP. In fact, there are only three political parties in the state of California that have unanimously committed to ending this Drug War in their platform language since their founding: The Peace and Freedom Party (since 1967), the Libertarian Party (since 1971) and the Green Party (since 1990). I’m sure Juice friend, former Green Party nominee for US Senate and virtual thorn in the side of our editor Duane Roberts can attest to this.
Sorry to spoil your birthday celebration Drug Warriors. I didn’t mean to piss on the Kool Aid that you continue to drink and shit on the cake that you are eating. Go ahead and continue your birthday celebration. We’ll pretend that there’s nothing to see here like we have for the last 70 years. We’ll just continue with the assumption that drug use equals abuse and that all drug users should be in jail.
“security and protecting children”……… Hmmmm
Unfortunately the Liberals and Socialists are the one who use the “security and protecting children” to promulgate their draconian agendas.
So “We have met the enemy and he is us” (a key verse from the Gospel According to Pogo)
….and life is spiraling.
Let’s see — unilaterally imposed protection, eh? You mean shutting down family planning clinics, not teaching science in favor of mythology, denying the terminally ill the choice of assisted suicide, shutting down pot clinics because they may despoil the average brain in some manner, having prayer in all manner of locations to make us holier and therefore better — whose crowd is that? If there is an enemy, it’s your folks.
Stan doesn’t have “folks.” All the rightwing oppressors you just described, he would also call “socialist.” Hard to figure out, that Stan; but evidently we’re all socialists except for him.
I concur with Vern…which makes me a socialist in the eyes of Stan.
But have no fear. It will all make sense when we begin to understand the spiral/circle/vortex of life theory.
Where do chem-trails fit into the “spiral of life”?
Seeing that picture of the pile of protein we should adopt cannibalism (it is on the spiral of life in some future point of time) to create GREEN food industry and GREEN jobs to comply with liberal agenda and make Nelson and Winships happy.
I should add that your Band GF should kick in a provide the recipe from the prior life spiral.
Like scalps with garlic and brain butter……
Txxxxxxx raw…….
Cxxxxxxx on corn…….
I am sure there is more.
Wow!……. amazing!……. two words which are appropriate even for preschool children TV and radio were censured by Vern Nelson.
Now who is obscene?…….. I?
Would that be “Soylent Green” that you are speaking of? We all know what Charlton Heston discovered in the self titled film and it wasn’t that the Planet of the Apes was really an apocalyptic, dystopian version of Manhattan ruled by simians.
To make you happy Stan, I’ll refrain from submitting my recipe for Poached P3nis topped with a Peach and Port reduction sauce. (PPPP…get it?)
Speaking of the circle, spiral or cycle of life, wasn’t this already talked about in that Disney classic “The Lion King?” Not that I would compare any of us to Disney characters…..(***wink, wink***)
*Pat Nixon said it first, then Roselyn Carer, then Nancy Reagan, then Laura Bush……..”We don’t smoke marijuana in Messkoggi…..We don’t take our trips on LSD. We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse and we all respect the College Dean. We don’t make a party out of lovin, but we ask our kids to wear galoshes….and we still want those kids to don those
snowshoes……even if it hails…….” ….or something similar.
Pat Nixon said it first, then Roselyn Carer, then Nancy Reagan, then Laura Bush……. Hmmm
Lets abort the bastards?
In the case of Laura, her abortion was political assassination of the future president down the spiral. She should be prosecuted same as Oswald Harvey was.
Once again, I need to take a hit of LSD to comprehend what the Winships wrote.
Must have been the picture of the Soylent Green “meat market” that turned them on.
*Just Say NO…..Dr. Fawkes……what, we have to issue you a written invitation? Don’t forget,
if your Viagra prescription runs out……go to one of those local Roundup Grass stores!
Thanks Nancy…sounds like a real “WINNING!!!!” strategy (apologies to Charlie Sheen)
I was going to ask to borrow your prescription of Soylent Green since Soylent Green are PEOPLE!!! Besides, aren’t the practices of cannibalism and the philosophy of the California and Orange County Republican Party compatible with one another? Seems like the Repugs love to eat their own which is the only thing they are consistent at.
And you seem to think smoking weed makes me sadistic and crazy? Child, please!
Minships, the fact that cannabis: helps mature adults to see and hear better, makes food taste better, orgasm’s last longer, drive safer, concentrate and laugh a lot just to name a few herbal benefits, should not want to make you go out and smoke weed.
So I recommend you kick back in your house, eat (1/2) a cannabis cookie, write a blog post (maybe one that I might read) and enjoy.
I recommend a lobotomy for Mr. Star.
Dr, Feelgood:
Stan is wonderful comic relief. As long as you don’t take him too seriously. Just remember three words when conversing with him: “spiral of life.” The visual of him eating a cannabis cookie and expounding on his “spiral of life” philosophy has a lot of entertainment potential.
The Winships’ commentary show why you should never mix alcohol with prescription medication.
It’s probably time to revisit the video that Stan and I made a few months ago:
Vern, thanks for the reminder of the youtube clip with you and Mr. Star. It made me realize that I was wrong with my recommendation that a lobotomy to Mr. Star would help because it won’t.
Lets sing some more comrade Vern!…. Lets do Ol’ Man River.
I will put on Black shoeshine paste and big white lipstick around my moth to protest Obama’s depiction as Ape.
Dr. Feelgood,
It is nice to meet a knowledge person on the care, feeding and ingestion of cannabis. We
haven’t seen the like since 1965. The truth of the matter is simple: Get a prescription from
a qualified professional if you need a Cannabis Therapy. Otherwise just add it to a list of
things that can become additive and harmful to the health of others through misuse….like
cough syrup and baby aspirin. Give it up dude. You sound cool…like two words for cool.
Public Policy has never had anything to do with personal responsibility…but we think it should.
We stand ready for your next argument.
Ron & Ann, “…… argument.”? For god sakes I recommended you get a prescription for cannabis.
BTW, where are you two connected, at the hip?
Guy, I always enjoy reading your post and I do appreciate your compassion for Mr. Star’s feelings, however I continue to believe he needs a lobotomy.
Dr. Feelgood
I don’t know if it is compassion for Stan that I am displaying. I am more than amused by his rants and philosophies than anything. To here a coherent argument from him with the aid of cannabis would be the ultimate second hand high. Hell, I may never use weed again if I was to witness that live.
To be called comrade and a socialist by him is a badge of honor. Getting worked up over his statements is good energy wasted.
The Winships are a product of the Reefer Madness generation. The Ariel and Will Durant of OC politics? Try Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels from Dumb and Dumber.
Now that I think about it, that is a low blow. Carrey and Daniels are actually coherent, funny and talented people.
Happy belated 4-20
*Dr. Feelgood,
Presently….we have no need for a “Pay to weed prescription”. We do understand that many
with a variety of ailments may benefit ……in positive ways. Strict guidelines however should
be followed and open season on Alcapulo Gold should not be allowed under any conditions.
Yes, Anna and Ron are tied at the hip. Yes, you could call us the Ariel and Will Durant of
OC Politics…..but then that might be over doing it a bit.
Hey dude, the pic of Anslinger is wrong!
It’s Benito Mussolini that one!
They are similar…