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What should marijuana opponents do when their cause fails? A lesson from Prohibition
The Boston Globe ^ | June 23rd, 2018 | Stephanie Schorow

Posted on 06/23/2018 2:47:03 PM PDT by Mariner

Some day soon, even as sweet, skunky smoke drifts in from the streets outside, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other staunch opponents of marijuana may draw inspiration from a true believer named Morris Sheppard. After the repeal of national Prohibition in 1933 and until his death in 1941, the Texas senator embraced a yearly custom. A progressive Democrat often considered “the father of Prohibition,” Sheppard would rise on the Senate floor to rail against alcohol and call for a repeal of Repeal.

“It was a ritual,” Daniel Okrent, author of the 2010 book “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition,” explained in an interview. “Clearly he didn’t expect anything was going to happen. It was paying homage to his cause.”

Sheppard, a proponent of bank reform and an advocate of women’s suffrage, may have been the country’s most sincere Prohibitionist, but he ended up on the losing side of history. As such, he faced a dilemma that may soon become familiar to another group of prohibitionists: marijuana opponents. When society turns away from a cause, how long should its supporters fight on? After committing themselves to a lengthy, even decades-long struggle, how can they simply let it drop?

On July 1, Massachusetts will join states such as Colorado, Washington, and California, whose voters have chosen to legalize cannabis for recreational purposes. The implementation of the law has been bumpy, not least because Sessions and the federal Justice Department still have the authority to crack down on cannabis use.

(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cannabis; depression; dopefiends; mania; marijuana; mrleroy; pot; potheads; prohibition; schizophrenia; wod
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To: TheStickman; Garth Tater
ping
61 posted on 06/23/2018 4:03:25 PM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: Mariner
For this thread:

Recommended.

62 posted on 06/23/2018 4:03:37 PM PDT by Simon Green ("Arm your daughter, sir, and pay no attention to petty bureaucrats.")
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To: a fool in paradise
There is neo-prohibition in this world of demon rum (restricted hours of purchase in all but 3 cities)

Restricted hours of purchase is a pale shadow of Prohibition.

63 posted on 06/23/2018 4:05:01 PM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: Mariner

The author doesn’t believe they will

>>Some day soon, even as sweet, skunky smoke “drifts in from the streets outside”, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions


64 posted on 06/23/2018 4:07:46 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Spygate's clock began in 2015 - what did President Obama know and when did he know it)
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To: NobleFree; All

Thanks for the ping.

I’m laughing at the authoritarian prohibitionists again. They are out in force the last couple of days still spewing their BS.

Cannabis saved my life & rather than be happy for me, prohibitionists have spent many lines of text trying to tell me its “going to go wrong for you” over these many months. Fact is I’m still logging 25 miles of walking every week. I feel amazing every day & thank my Heavenly Father every day for the medicine in the cannabis plant that has saved me from depression, anxiety & insomnia.

One day maybe authoritarian prohibitionists will swallow their pride & consider the possibility they’ve been wrong for all these decades. I know when I learned I had been lied to about the effects of cannabis it really threw me for a loop & I had to question those in authority who’ve been lying to the public.

In any case, I am a thankful cannabis patient here in the state of Florida. I challenge any prohibitionist to come interview me & my family so they can see what cannabis has done for me & by extension, my family.


65 posted on 06/23/2018 4:21:39 PM PDT by TheStickman (#MAGA all day every day!)
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To: a fool in paradise

Drug warriors were the ones who weaponized zero-tolerance in the first place. All these intrusive nanny-state laws you rightfully mock and condemn took their cue from zero-tolerance drug warriors. A pox on both their houses.

Here’s an example of what Drug Warriors did to 900 children in a mass drug search =>

______

“Mass search of Georgia high school students included genital touching ...”

June 06, 2017

a) Deputies ordered students to stand facing the wall with their hands and legs spread wide apart;

b) Deputies touched and manipulated students’ breasts and genitals;

c) Deputies inserted fingers inside girls’ bras, and pulled up girls’ bras, touching and partially exposing their bare breasts;

d) Deputies touched girls’ underwear by placing hands inside the waistbands of their pants or reaching up their dresses;

e) Deputies touched girls’ vaginal areas through their underwear;

f) Deputies cupped or groped boys’ genitals and touched their buttocks through their pants.

This is shocking, at least at first glance. But perhaps it shouldn’t be. If police believe the drug war gives them authorization to conduct anal and vaginal cavity searches, forced enemas, and colonoscopies based on little more than a police officer’s suspicion that someone is hiding some quantity of illegal drugs, allegations of a little over-the-clothes groping of high school students ought not surprise us in the least.

According to the lawsuit, the deputies had a list of 13 suspected students. Three of them were in school that day. For that, they searched 900 students. (And, let’s just point out again, found nothing. In a school of 900.)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3559602/posts

______

It makes you wonder how many children have been molested in the name of the War on Drugs, doesn’t it?


66 posted on 06/23/2018 4:22:02 PM PDT by Ken H (Best election ever!)
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To: NobleFree

Name any other product treated that way.


67 posted on 06/23/2018 4:27:45 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Spygate's clock began in 2015 - what did President Obama know and when did he know it)
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To: airborne
20 years ago the big popular drug was opiods. We see how that worked out.

I see THC in a similar place 20 years down the road.

Could you explain what that even means?
Are you trying to say that marijuana hasn't been popular for fifty years? Are you saying there is not an opioid crisis now?

No, I don't see how anything you referred to worked out.

68 posted on 06/23/2018 4:27:55 PM PDT by higgmeister ( In the Shadow of The Big Chicken)
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To: Simon Green

Camp.

Like sh!t eating in Pink Flamingos.


69 posted on 06/23/2018 4:28:30 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Spygate's clock began in 2015 - what did President Obama know and when did he know it)
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To: a fool in paradise
Restricted hours of purchase is a pale shadow of Prohibition.

Name any other product treated that way.

I can't - which in no way contradicts my statement.

70 posted on 06/23/2018 4:30:39 PM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: Mariner

Not really. Pot changed personalities and mental acuteness. Alcohol was a weekend drunk but Ok afterwards. I know of a few alcoholics over t, he yearsbut none personally. I lost a cousin who started with pot in high school and graduated to harder stuff later in life and was an OD. There is an epidemic of hard drug users in our community now and all of whom I am aware started on pot. In my morning coffee group of old guys we often talk on he subject. Some of their family are involved. I guess the change in life style among pot users is something we all recognize.


71 posted on 06/23/2018 4:31:00 PM PDT by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said theoal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-hereQaeda" and its allies.)
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To: elpadre
There is an epidemic of hard drug users in our community now and all of whom I am aware started on pot.

None of them ever drank?

72 posted on 06/23/2018 4:41:56 PM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: Mariner

marker


73 posted on 06/23/2018 4:42:11 PM PDT by higgmeister ( In the Shadow of The Big Chicken)
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To: elpadre; Mariner

“RESULTS: Results from the Guttman scale indicated that alcohol represented the “gateway” drug, leading to the use of tobacco, marijuana, and other illicit substances. Moreover, students who used alcohol exhibited a significantly greater likelihood of using both licit and illicit drugs.” - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22712674


74 posted on 06/23/2018 4:44:28 PM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: Vision

Yes they do.

I only drink a couple times per year, and when I do, I prefer two Abita Andygators.

And let me tell you, they make me feel quite euphoric!

And while other people could easily drive on two of those, I can’t. No tolerance.


75 posted on 06/23/2018 4:49:27 PM PDT by chris37 ("I am everybody." -Mark Robinson)
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To: a fool in paradise
Camp. Like sh!t eating in Pink Flamingos.

While I'll grant that Reefer Madness (the musical) is campy, it's hardly comparable to Pink Flamingos. It's far closer to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

76 posted on 06/23/2018 4:49:41 PM PDT by Simon Green ("Arm your daughter, sir, and pay no attention to petty bureaucrats.")
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To: Artemis Webb
“Dave, it was a failure the first time”. He said the Government just “didn’t do it right”.

Reminds me of liberals and socialism/communism.

77 posted on 06/23/2018 4:51:27 PM PDT by libertylover (If people come here legally, they're immigrants; if they come here illegally, they're invaders.)
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To: Vision

You can’t save people from their own demons.

If a soul is put here to battle that demon, battle will be done regardless of whether or not the demon is legal or illegal.


78 posted on 06/23/2018 4:52:55 PM PDT by chris37 ("I am everybody." -Mark Robinson)
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To: exDemMom
Furthermore, our bodies have a dedicated metabolic pathway that exists only to destroy alcohol.

Which it does only at decaying-fruit levels; every time one 'relaxes' from a drink, let alone gets drunk, alcohol has overwhelmed and gotten past that destruction.

79 posted on 06/23/2018 4:53:19 PM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: elpadre
"There is an epidemic of hard drug users in our community now and all of whom I am aware started on pot."

______

Legalized states are doing better overall than prohibition states with regard to ODs. Oregon, for example, had a decline in deaths between 2010 and 2016. You have to go all the way down to the 32nd position among the states in the graphic below before you get to a legalized state (Alaska). From the CDC =>

source => https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/images/data/2010_2016DrugOverdose-Deaths-Graphic.JPG

80 posted on 06/23/2018 4:54:41 PM PDT by Ken H (Best election ever!)
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