We Shall Overcome...
Posted on 07/23/2004 7:55:29 AM PDT by cryptical
Marijuana Prohibition: Who Does It Protect?
By Henry Koch
Is marijuana illegal in the United States to protect Americans or to protect a handful of well-connected industries that believe ending prohibition would affect their profits?
Every study, whether privately or government sponsored, has declared the penalties against cannabis far out of line with the substance. Every study has illustrated how tobacco and alcohol do far more damage to individuals and society than marijuana. The draconian laws against this naturally occurring herb have ruined millions of lives. These laws have done far more damage during the current 66-year period of prohibition than the plant has done since its first recorded use and cultivation nearly 6,000 years ago.
Yet today, a cadre of individuals and industries is spending billions of dollars to keep marijuana illegal. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Office of National Drug Control Policy contribute to these private efforts by refusing to acknowledge the validity of reports whose results run contrary to current drug policy. The DEA and the ONDCP even reject studies commissioned by the Congress and other U.S. government agencies.
When the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed there was no scientific evidence as to the effects marijuana had on consumers. (The psychoactive component of cannabis, THC, was not isolated until 1965.) The congressional hearings leading to the passage of the Tax Act were held in secret and considered no scientific evidence. Harry Anslinger, director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 to 1962, presented popular fabrications about marijuana as fact to the congressional committees investigating the substance.
Here are a few of Anslinger's more memorable quotes about marijuana:
"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."
"Marijuana is taken by ... musicians. And I'm not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type."
"Marijuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing."
Industries that have a high interest in keeping marijuana illegal include the tobacco industry, the alcoholic beverage industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the petrochemical industry, the pulp and paper industry, the prison-building industry, the prison guard unions and organizations, and law enforcement organizations.
The tobacco and alcohol industries realize that when people smoke marijuana, they use less tobacco and alcohol. Nicotine and alcohol are both highly addictive. Current research has not shown marijuana to cause physical dependency.
The pharmaceutical industry knows of the medical benefits of the Cannabis sativa plant and does not want individuals cultivating their own medications.
The petrochemical industry knows that industrial hemp and its myriad products could replace 98 percent of our hydrocarbon-based petroleum. Instead of pumping an exhaustible resource out of the ground, we could produce enough hemp seed to provide nearly all the petrochemical raw materials we need.
The pulp and paper industry knows that hemp can provide more fiber for pulp per acre than trees. Plus, hemp fiber can be converted to pulp without the pollutants created by the sulfuric acid process currently used to turn trees into paper. Converting to hemp for fiber would cost millions up front but would save billions in the long run, with the added bonus of greatly improving the environment.
The American prison system is the largest in the world, with more than 2.1 million prisoners at the end of 2003. This has made the prison-building industry one of the fastest growing industries in the country. The major growth of prison population in the United States is due mainly to the war on drugs. Marijuana arrests account for almost 80 percent of all drug arrests. Having the largest prison system also requires the largest prison guard industry, and this industry depends on the current drug policy for its members' job security.
Many law enforcement organizations receive more funding from the war on drugs budget than they do from their respective municipal budgets. If the laws against marijuana were changed to eliminate arrest for possession, almost every law enforcement organization in the United States would be required to eliminate personnel.
Prohibition has never worked, and it isn't working for marijuana. According to a nationwide poll conducted by Time magazine and CNN in October 2000, 80 percent of Americans support the medicinal use of marijuana and 72 percent say that adults who use marijuana recreationally should be fined, but not jailed. Only 19 percent of respondents favored jailing recreational pot smokers. In addition, 40 percent of respondents also said that they favored the legalization of small amounts of marijuana.
Who is marijuana prohibition really protecting? Is it the American public and our way of life or is it protecting the interests of the giants of industry who have friends in high government positions?
Henry Koch is president of the Midlands chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). For more information on Midlands NORML, visit www.midlands-norml.org.
I never made that statement.
"Yeah and drug dealing is easy money for losers who don't wanna get a job."
Very few "drug dealers" support themselves by dealing drugs. The vast majority of people who sell pot are pot smokers who buy extra for a quantity discount and sell a little so their pot will be free and probably for a little spare cash. Most all I've ever come across have jobs. There are people making big money somewhere up the delivery chain, but the vast majority of "retail suppliers" out there participating in the black market aren't making a living from their activities. Most of them are only selling a little to their friends, especially in the small towns all over America where they don't have open air drug markets in parks and in the projects where people sell to complete strangers.
bump
"Are there no fines assessed?"
Fines are rare in the drug mule and delivery cases because usually these guys are going to prison and most don't have any money anyway. Otherwise they'd hire private attorneys. In standard possession cases fines are usually assessed, but these funds if collected are squandered by the counties or cities who impose them. Public defenders in my state are paid by the state, not by counties or cities.
Nonsense. Maybe to you, but that doesn't make it so.
Calling them a "criminal" is also irrelevant.
Nonsense. Using drugs is a crime. Those who do it are criminals by definition. I don't take lectures on crime from criminals.
Are all bad laws to be obeyed?
No. But when the criminal is advocating laws which they themselves have violated it is hypocritical at best.
Where do you draw the line on resistance to improper and corrupt government authority?
I can see you are defending yourself by defending the poster. If you start advocating incarceration for others who have committed the same crimes as you when you haven't served your sentence, you will come in for the same criticism.
If you want to start calling people who violate prohibition criminals, call us all criminals,
Anyone who commits crimes is a criminal. I didn't write the laws. In fact I oppose the WOD.
It's not against the law to not "lift a hand" to stop people from doing legal things. In fact, it's against the law to stop them. Your idea about everyone being criminals and murderers is moronic.
BTW, not that it matters, but I oppose abortion and I "lift a hand" to vote for pro life candidates.
Good information. I have no doubt that the overall impact is a net loss.
To: Labyrinthos That is certainly not my experiendce after self medicating with reefer since the late 1970's. I used to "self-medicate" with reefers but I grew out of that phase. 16 posted on 07/21/2004 8:44:33 AM CDT by cinFLA [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
Please post a link to the post. Anyone can write anything with a keyboard.
I absoutely declare that I never made that statement and that I did not self-medicate in the late 1970's.
We Shall Overcome...
Anyone know where this guy gets his numbers?
According to the FBI's 2000 numbers, Table 4.1, 40.9% of all drug arrests were for marijuana possession and 5.6% for marijuana sales/distribution. That's 46.5% total, not 80%.
Of the 2.1 million prisoners, about 400,000 (20%) are drug offenders, and most of them are scumbag drug dealers or drug traffickers.
Nice try, I see your attempt to mislead. This is what you said in bold. The other statement was made by the other poster.
To: Labyrinthos
That is certainly not my experiendce after self medicating with reefer since the late 1970's. I used to "self-medicate" with reefers but I grew out of that phase.
16 posted on 07/21/2004 8:44:33 AM CDT by cinFLA [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
LOL, nice try. I posted the evidence.
Works pretty good for my dealer. ;)
Pointing out your errors is misleading? Hmmm.
Hippie.
Have you ever used paper made with hemp pulp? It is far superior to the "recycled" junk, and equivalent to (or better than) the wood product. Also, it requires significantly less chemical processing than either raw or recycled wood pulp products. I don't recall the exact amount of pulp per acre, but do remember that it is quite a bit higher than timber, when you take into account that it can be harvested annually.
It makes lousy cloth however (scratchy), and nylon is far superior as a rope (hemp rope rots). I certainly agree with you there. It makes great paper and cardboard though.
What I was trying to say here was that if the drug culture would stop associating it with pot it might be considered as a replacement for wood pulp. The pot-heads are trying to use it as a stepping stone to legalizing marijuana, by saying that pot plants are useful as pulp. Hemp is, but marijuana isn't. As long as people treat hemp like a drug, it will never be used in any kind of significant quantities.
But you admitted your error in #52!
Ah. It's right next to the part that says women have a right to kill their unborn children.
>Hemp and Marijuana are NOT the same plant!
>>Sure they are, just bred for different characteristics.
Right; like humans and apes, horses and zebras, house cats and lions, etc.
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