Prohibition: a set of laws that harm everybody based on the false assumption that they’ll prevent a small minority from harming themselves.
…
And this, of course, identifies the hole in the policy approach of S.A.M. and Kevin Sabet that is big enough to drive a truck through. But since Kevin is so good at baffling with bullshit, few people notice that the question is never answered.
After the second of his recent interview articles at PolicyMic, I tweeted the writer:
.@gabethegrand Oh, so close! The one question that Kevin has not yet answered: “What do you do with non-problematic marijuana users?â€
Gabe responded:
@DrugWarRant … All I can say is … to stay tuned for part 3 on Monday…
Monday came and part 3 came, but the question wasn’t there, so I asked:
.@gabethegrand So was the question not asked? Or not answered?
Gabe replied:
@DrugWarRant Not trying to put words in Kevin’s mouth, so I’ll quote him (from Part 2): “Legalization is not about the quirky uncle or the artsy neighbor smoking pot once in a while in the privacy of their own home. So those people are not going to be targeted.” Not sure if that answer satisfies you, but I think it’s at least a response to your question.
Um, no.
.@gabethegrand It’s his usual non-response. How can you have policy that’s vague about how it applies to majority of users?
Of course, Kevin isn’t going to answer that question when I put it to him, because either he’s going to have to say that there is no such thing as non-problematic users, and that’s going to make him unpopular, or he’s going to have to say that non-problematic users should have their life ruined in some way and that’s going to make him unpopular. I was hoping that a journalist would at least have the balls to make him answer the question.
What if said journalist is being handsomely paid to not ask such an awkward question?
Medical Marijuana as Treatment for Alcoholism & Addiction
Looks like Sabetage’ Gravy Train just ran out a track…
Cops Spray Woman’s Vagina With Mace
To “Punish†Her After Drug Arrest
Kinky Kop Kult probing our nations youth.
@gabethegrand (from Part 2): “Legalization is not about the quirky uncle or the artsy neighbor smoking pot once in a while in the privacy of their own home. So those people are not going to be targeted.â€
The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color
and Criminal Justice in the United States
A Look at the Racial Disparities
Inherent in Our Nation’s Criminal-Justice System
Growth in cannabis consumption has shifted use to older, not younger, tokers. @RadicalRuss
Quirky, Artsy Senior Americans Overwhelmingly Support Legalizing Pot
☮Teaching Seniors the Benefits of Ganja
☮Seniors Using Ganja For A Good Night’s Sleep
☮Kansas Silver-Haired Legislature endorses medical marijuana
Cop Shoots Cuffed Teen In The Face With A Taser
DEATH FOR CANNABIS?
google: sentenced+to+death+marijuana
☮Gary Johnson: Gingrich ‘proposed the death penalty for marijuana
☮Weed dealers in Malaysia sentenced to death by hanging
☮Two Men Sentenced To Death For 3/4 Ounce Marijuana
☮British man sentenced to death in UAE for selling marijuana
☮Laundry Operator Sentenced To Death For Marijuana
☮Three men sentenced to death by hanging for selling weed
☮Death Sentence – German Girl Caught with Marijuana
my thing is problematic users should be left alone too. i mean, we need to define the term problem somewhat. i am a problematic heroin shooter because i am living on a sidewalk in manhattan, stealing and begging everyday to try and keep up with this habit (yes, it is very very very cold all the time and largely life sucks but the peace i get when things finally work out make it all worth it.) but you see the problem is that i am paying so much money for so little heroin and further issue is the nature of the substance, heroin, im sure you all know this but unless youve been through it you could never REALLY get it, but, without it there is a physical illness that comes that is, without question, the most insane physical pain you could ever experience, indeed you beg for death at times… so its not very easy to look in the mirror, realize youve lost everything, realize how your barely hanging on to the one thing left that matters, and then say, well shoot, i gotta just stop this for awhile, reorganize my game plan and then go back at it… no it doesnt quite work like that… oh i dont even say a word about quitting anymore, its all BS it’s not going to happen but theres a huge community of homeless users here and most of them, despite having accumulated so much experience in this and thus they ought to know better, they still have that gov’t sponsored shame and sill go through that “oh im gonna get clean” syndrome… but they never do and the next day they wake up with that sickness starting and all they said the day before about stopping is like they never said anything. i mean a bag of dope is a very small little thing… grab a standard edition sugar or salt shaker turn it upside down for a few seconds and let it spill out… maybe 6-7 seconds then stop the spilling and what you see is pretty much how much dope is in the bag.. yes a little bag with that little bitty amount of stuff you’ve spilt… 10 dollars, in NYC.. yes in NJ they got cheaper bags but you need more of them so you aren’t really saving money and of course in westchester county and above you’re looking at 15-20 dollar bags, and the further north you go the more it is… these bags of dope should probably cost a dollar from what i understand, it would still be insane profits for big pharma even at a dollar a bag.
i guess ill just say this because i get nervous indoors people starring at me and im sure a few have walked behind me already trying to see what this freezing homeless junkie is looking at on the internet and it must be rich if they see that im at a site called drug war rant… LOL.. one of the coolest dudes ive ever known, honestly one of the most honest dudes, if he ever stopped drinking alcohol he would probably die… some frightening s#!t i’ve seen when he hasnt had a 1 dollar budweiser for a few hours… the man is way older than me, im 28 btw, but he would be defined as a problematic user im sure, he lives in a truck behind a fast food restaurant in the bronx. he is one of the most awesome, most honest, most intelligent dudes ive ever known… he has chosen to spend his whole life, and knowingly, drinking himself into oblivion. yes im sure the simple minded would ridicule me and make fun when i say what’s so bad about this… but you see, when i was born, when he was born, when all of us were born, we had no choice in this, and i assure you that i signed no contract agreeing to drug prohibition, nor did i sign any contract or agree to finish public/private education, enter the work force etc. etc. whatever hobbies i used to have before prohibition destroyed me, well, if they in turn would have made me money, they would have only been pursued and done BECAUSE they were my hobby, not because i wanted to have any part in the play of commercial competition. I find the person who wakes up every day and gets hammered on the weekends but wakes up and works everyday is just as much a slave to something as the guy behind the fast food place and as well as myself but i do believe I and the man behind the restaurant, are enjoying our chains way more than the person at the cubicle, or that dentist who is growing so desperate the barrel of the gun hidden in his closet is becoming more and more inviting. (the dentist is one of the highest of the suicidal occupations.) i think as children we are all unawares that there is so much harm in the world and so many selfish, evil people, but i think it well to maintain some of that innocence and that desire for all people to be happy so long as they dont hurt anybody else, and, no, im sorry mom and dad, but, science is on my side, heroin doesnt hurt me, prohibition does, and since heroin isnt hurting me your argument that im killing myself is flawed, dont be mad at me, take a lesson from michael douglas, be mad at the system. theres nothing wrong with doing heroin every day.
I often think that silence is more detrimental and damaging to healthy debate than rebuttal. At least with rebuttal one makes their position known, with that information an issue can progress. How many other issues just aren’t discussed, and think just how effective this is in stifling progress.
I know I’ll probably get ‘red numbered’ on this, but truth must be told at any cost 🙂 …
Regulations: a set of laws that harm everybody based on the false assumption that they’ll prevent a small minority from harming others or themselves.
Despite their obscenely gross popularity, corruption is never defeated by regulations, such laws offering opportunities (too often seized upon) for more corruption without even addressing the corruption spawning the regulation (due to bribery, favoritism, etc.)
Moreover, regulations are slippery slope starters definitely (i.e. in fact) opposing the unalienable right to liberty, one of the truths to be held self-evident in our nation set to help prevent the worst form of abuse due to its mainly broad scope of destruction — law abuse (e.g. war on some drugs).
Despite terribly not withstanding corruption in our Founding Father’s generation and sooner, such right should have freed slaves and granted equal liberty to everyone (including women, gay couples, any recreational drug user, “assault rifle” owners, and anyone else not directly infringing upon another person’s rights), all without seriously abusing law (e.g. allowing the judicial branch to illegal redefine the first three words of the constitutional Commerce Clause from “To regulate Commerce” to “to regulate any activity having a substantial effect on commerce” to achieve the New Deal and basically all of progressivism/liberalism, redundant rights called “civil”, the war on some drugs, etc.)
Note that emphasis on the word “directly” above means indirect or potential rights infringement is off the table for legal response (despite the enormous ignoring of this fact spanning American history). This is due to the act of breathing indirectly and potentially leading to all rights infringement (e.g. if you can’t breathe, you can’t murder). I could clarify further, but brevity requires you to put the remaining pieces together on this key point, if you want to (hint: public servants illegally drawing liberty line separating breathing from holding a certain popular plant in your hand).
When opposing such right, regulations oppose our Constitution (i.e. the self-proclaimed “supreme law of the land”), and therefore cannot be lawful nationally (amendment nine: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”).
Corruption is defeated by sufficient public exposure (e.g. publicly exposing the war on some drugs to apply undeniable pressure provided by the sufficiently organized masses to prevent further law abuse — such pressure proven repeatedly effective throughout history).
For dominant (i.e. mainstream) society to define “regular” (and therefore regulations) is seriously dangerous and defies our national obligations serving to provide healthy societal flexibility. Athletes need to stay loose for a game to be able to adapt for optimal performance and minimal injury risk. Society needs similar flexibility in this extremely dynamic reality, which requires the unalienable right to liberty (i.e. liberty only limited by the right itself without any slippery slope starting exception, instead of the national history spanning mainstream public’s legally enforced definition of risk — e.g. war on some drugs).
Otherwise, society’s “muscles” tighten up via ever-growing structures of regulations (including more tightening from more tax money coming out of our wallets to pay for them) until the unhealthy stress reaches critical mass and a public backlash (e.g. seriously violent revolution) occurs to reset the national stage where the same “legal” slippery slopes begin to ensure history repeats itself ad nauseum.
Fairness is part of the definition of justice. Fairness requires solely an objective base for law (which has been horribly laughably ignored throughout history). We don’t have a justice system (that’s a fact). We have an agenda system, where people battle it out to leverage law for their agenda (the more powerful a battler is, the more likely their victory is achieved, regardless of the public good).
The result is a behemoth, unwieldy rule-of-law, at least including over 70,000 pages of federal regulations alone, a huge tax code, and an enormous bombardment of state and local laws, a “legal minefield blowing up too many responsibly behaving — i.e. non-rights-infringing — individuals” to serious societal detriment (and therefore the discredit of the rule-of-law, naturally destabilizing our nation). Importantly note any overwhelmingly complex system (e.g. our rule-of-law) is a “breeding ground” for corruption, according to common sense.
To the astute among you (I assume all of you), this comment is obviously equally addressing Pete’s last post praising regulation recommendations (I can feel your hatred, reader, hit the red number and join the dark side, but this “jedi” promotes truth even despite its unpopularity at times, truth being the extremely powerful reality that completely works against the war on some drugs for which proponents of such war literally cannot honestly sustain a single point in their favor, the extremely powerful reality allowing us “dopes” to survive and even thrive to an extent against enormously dominant wealth, weapons, and popular support for decades).
Happy Thanksgiving!
gobble gobble
Years ago I read an interesting analysis of the drug ‘problem’ in the United States. The analysis went something like this: At the turn of the 20th century it was estimated that those chronically addicted to drugs was approximately 1.4% of the US population. The early 1900’s was chosen as a starting point because at that time most substances defined as ‘drugs’ were not illegal. The analysts then looked at the ensuing several decades, with the War on Drugs in full swing, and estimated that those chronically addicted to drugs stood at — you guessed it — approximately 1.4%. The analysts then went on to suggest that if the chronically addicted were assisted from a health care perspective — not arresting them, not bashing their doors down, not terrorizing their families or shooting their dogs — a large part of the drug ‘problem’, and all that goes with it, would be mitigated.
Of course, this runs counter to the philosophy of Dr. Kevin Sabet. To him and his ilk, anyone using ANY illegal substance needs to be scrutinized for possible intervention (minus the few quirky uncles and artsy neighbors). Wrong side of history, wrong side of public policy, Mr. Sabet at the young age of 34, is already a befuddled old man.
“Legalization is not about the quirky uncle or the artsy neighbor smoking pot once in a while in the privacy of their own home. So those people are not going to be targeted.â€
According to Kevin Sabet, it’s not just your uncle, it’s your ‘quirky’ uncle who smokes pot. It’s not just your neighbor, but your ‘artsy’ neighbor who smokes. Kevin betrays an agenda of contempt when he uses language of this sort. According to Kevin, people can’t be normal people if they smoke or ingest marijuana, they’re quirky or artsy.
The use of the word ‘targeted’ explains much, since in the real world the quirky and the artsy do get targeted, and sometimes eliminated. The Sabet/SAM agenda is one of categorizing and deprecating people based on their use of unapproved chemical substances. It’s much like the 19th century charlatans who pioneered physiognomy, the pseudoscience of placing people into unequal social categories based on their physical appearance, although Kevin does it with substance use.
Physiognomy led to phrenology (the reading of bumps on one’s head), and to the eugenics movement in the U.S. and Germany. These strange customs are collectively viewed as typecasting. The usefulness of these methods has been compared to guessing how much cash is locked in a safe by looking at and feeling the knobs on the outside. There appears to be a compelling need for Sabet to typecast a segment of the drug consuming population for purposes of targeting it for elimination, equating people in this case solely with an alleged or real addiction.
That passage jumped out at me too…it unwittingly reveals Sabet for the fascist he is…and he can’t blame it on the tenets of his Baha’i faith as even that generally prohibitionist religion makes allowances for prescribed medical use. The best any non-problematic user of cannabis can hope for under a Sabet regime is “not being targeted.” Doesn’t that make you feel safer?
Like I keep saying, the more the prohibs are pushed into the corner like trapped rats, the more they’ll reveal Their Inner Fascist. And they can cut loose with some real doozies when they think they’re amongst their own and ‘let their hair down’.
Just go to DEAWatch and read there almost any day; you’ll get an eyeful about how rank-and-file prohibitches really feel about women and minorities. A hint: if anyone ever needed an example of racism and sexism practiced while on the payroll, you won’t have to look far.
When this hidden stuff gets revealed, the general public is usually shocked at the extant of the malevolence and disdain ‘our’ so-called ‘public servants’ have for their paymasters. But this is what resides within every prohib. And this is what they will show as the veneer of respectability wears thinner and thinner…
Sabet deserves contempt. In fact, he’s beyond contempt.
“it unwittingly reveals Sabet for the fascist he is”
Did you get that Kev?
I never advocate drugging people, but wherever KevKev has his thanksgiving, someone should make sure he tries some of the special stuffing.
Guaranteed someone in his family is on our side, and is very good at keeping it a secret.
That is, assuming, he has a family.
Happy gobble gobble to my couch mates!!
One of my proudest moments was calling out that smarmy son of a bitch at a conference about five years ago. The little bastard skulked off through the back door.
OT but newsworthy.
Canadian MMJ patient has his RCMP uniform taken away because he smokes his medicine.
If he smoked cigarettes…well, no problem.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/pot-smoking-mountie-has-uniform-seized-by-rcmp-1.2444352?cmp=rss
Should be interesting to see how this plays out.
Follow #supportCplFrancis on Twitter.
Very compelling interview with Cpl. Francis tonight on As it Happens (also played on a lot of NPR stations):
http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/
Unfortunately, a lot of disgusting, heartless, and frankly, UN-Canadian comments on social media and comment threads. Perhaps tinged with racism, since Cpl. Francis is aboriginal.
Paging LEAP…
Happy Thanksgiving, couch mates. This year we have much to be thankful for. I stocked the ‘fridge with leftovers, so help yourself.
This year, I’m thankful….for the hand wringing going on in the Sabet, Holder, DuPont, Leonhardt, and Kennedy households. May they cry in their gravy all night. Here, pass this around, ‘mates!
that last thought is the perfect nightcap. happy thanksgiving, brothers and sisters. hope you are as stuffed as me.
This year, I’m thankful….for the hand wringing going on in the Sabet, Holder, DuPont, Leonhardt, and Kennedy households. May they cry in their gravy all night.
Second that! When I hear Kleiman say “I think commercial production and sale of cannabis is going to end in tearsâ€, this is what I’m thinking.
I tell ya, I’m almost tempted to go get myself some press credentials or whatever and ask him myself.
I wonder if he dealt with this in some way during his Reddit AMA. I will have to look it over again at some point.
…for ammunition