Jacob Sullum does an excellent job of analyzing this year’s stragety: Obama’s ‘Third Way’ Looks a Lot Like the War on Drugs
As Sullum appropriately notes, it’s a mixture of good and bad elements, but it still overall adds up to more drug war.
According to the latest National Drug Control Strategy, which was released today by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), “we must seek to avoid over-simplified debates between the idea of a ‘war on drugs’ and the notion of legalization as a panacea.” Fans of Obamaspeak will appreciate the way that sentence poses a false choice while renouncing false choices. After all, legalization need not be a “panacea,” or anything resembling one, to be better than the disastrous war on drugs, which Obama himself once called “an utter failure.
What is the president offering in its place? “Drug use and its consequences are complex phenomena requiring an array of evidence-based policy responses,” the ONDCP says. Understanding this reality, “the Administration remains committed to charting this ‘third way’ toward a healthier, safer, and more prosperous America.” But in practice, Obama’s “third way” looks an awful lot like the first way, because he refuses to renounce the use of violence to stop people from consuming politically incorrect drugs.
Possibly the “panacea†is the Obama “boys’ night out” with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper at the bar the governor used to own? http://tinyurl.com/p5c55l9
“Substance Use Disorders” is a very political term and not at all a scientific one. This “use disorder” can be defined in any agreed upon terms. It depends on who you listen to. Or who you pay that does the talking.
Addiction and the Brain-Disease Fallacy http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3939769/ is a case in point. Its not science guiding the ONDCP, and its not the American public – who favors legalization.
Local and State law enforcement across the country, the DEA, the FBI, the FDA, the CIA, NIDA, the NSA, etc., to name a few have financial structures and incentives that depend upon keeping marijuana illegal.
The only substance use disorder having to do with marijuana is the one that keeps the criminal justice and law enforcement machines running with plenty of cash to spare. The same goes for the government sponsored substance abuse industry surrounding the “disorder” of marijuana. One that would not exist without support from the government and the criminal justice system courts, and the government sponsored studies that were done to convince you and I of how dangerous pot is.
Most of the country knows better. I don’t know about you, but I think its time for the government to quit trying to blow smoke up our ass. Its pretty damn bad when a terminal cancer patient faces death in prison for his condition and the medicine that he can’t discuss in court to defend himself http://tinyurl.com/ltfw3qk. Its also pretty bad when our national drug control policy causes it. This ONDCP policy is a national disaster.
OT, but did anyone see poor Gil get his ass chewed out by Sen McCain?
Bet he wishes he had his old job back…
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2014/07/10/senator-mccain-immigration-facility/
Poor Gil. He oversteps everywhere he goes. Poor Droopy Dog. If ever there was a clear example of “The Peter Principle,” this is but one of the many in this Administration. Truly, the blind leading the inept.
If pot and crystal meth etc are so dangerous, than why isn’t driving illegal as well, given if we can actually prove car crashes exist and have happened. Since Actions do speak louder than words and generally indicate the true belief of individuals, we must assume that most in law enforcement, most in the courts and in our government do not believe car crashes exist. Yes, we can all state that they outlawed drugs for various reasons stemming from greed, lust for power etc, but let’s be honest as well: most cops, judges, attorneys and politicians don’t believe in the existence of car wrecks, and they don’t believe guns can shoot or kill and they don’t believe lots of sugar or over eating is unhealthy as well. If cops and the gov believed obesity or gunshots were real, we’d have laws protecting us from fat and guns, the way we have laws protecting us from drugs. I don’t feel comfortable giving a man my license and insurance when he doesn’t believe car crashes exist. I’m no longer going to pretend all these drugs are illegal simply because of harms, the potential for addiction, corruption, power, greed etc, while dangerous vehicles are still legal. Nope, I’ll put the logic where it belongs: cops etc don’t believe in car crashes or they would enforce the prohibition on driving laws, which automatically should exist as long as other substances are prohibited. Laws must go full circle and not half way nor randomly skip a beat.
If they can tell me that using pot makes me a bad person and other reefer madness insults, then surely I can tell them that by not enforcing the prohibition laws in regards to guns, obesity, cars etc, merely indicates said person doesn’t believe in the above dangers. It’s either all illegal or all legal.
“Over the past 5 years, perception of harm regarding marijuana use among 12th graders has decreased, signaling potential continued increases in marijuana use.”
This is a line from page 7 of the National Drug Control Strategy 2014.
If I am reading this correctly, the governments position by reason of making this point is that we should increase the perception of harm in children in order to bring down marijuana use. So, my thinking is that this will mean more money for any studies designed to give that kind of ammunition to the policy. It also means lying to children by exaggerating the harms to scare them, while down playing any benefit or talk of harmlessness. Truth is not mentioned in this strategy. This is though: “Studies have shown that among youth who earn mostly Ds and Fs in school, 66 percent had used marijuana” This is not scientific. It is not useful because it gives the FALSE IMPRESSION that marijuana causes poor progress in school. Giving this information to children purposely misleads them. Is this how our national drug control strategy should work? by deception and outright foolery?
That is the way it has always worked, why would it change now? Not saying that’s how it should work, just that’s the way it does work.
Well the way it works doesn’t work. In their quest to lie to the kids, they are bringing along adults who are now misinformed and lied to. Its not just bad policy. Its manipulation of an adult population with lies, misinterpretations and outright falsehoods. These liars have no business teaching children anything. I think its time we pay attention to what we are being told by our government.
Its the kids I am worried about. I am tired of letting it slide because they have always done it. We have always let them get away with it. We don’t have to this time.
This ONDCP Drug Control Strategy is no panacea.
Yeah that sounds like their policy is “Lie Harder”, or maybe its – “Lie Bigger, No – Bigger Than That, No No No = REALLY BIG! Okay, that oughta do it for now…”
Clowns.
Her is what the ONDCP works for. Increase the perception of harm in children. Result:
9-year-old who ratted out parents’ grow to police: “Doing drugs is bad” http://tinyurl.com/q3bk8as
Pingback: Federal drug chief visits Roanoke – Roanoke Times | Internet News 247
so an iowa jury found benton mckenzie guilty. how did the prosecution manage to find the 12 stupidest people in iowa?
By simply refusing to let anyone who seemed to be remotely intelligent and/or compassionate from serving on the jury, I’d expect. Process of elimination.
Voir dire is a tool used by the prosecution in order to winnow out from juries those that know their rights and responsibilities as citizens, as explained in the conclusion of US vs. Moylan:
“We recognize, as appellants urge, the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge, and contrary to the evidence. This is a power that must exist as long as we adhere to the general verdict in criminal cases, for the courts cannot search the minds of the jurors to find the basis upon which they judge. If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused, is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision.”
In other words, as most here know, the entire machinery of prohibition can be severely monkeywrenched by one juror who knows this. And our educational system doesn’t help matters by producing those whose understanding of their duties as citizens is to obey authority, not question it.
Isn’t the only way to be a “straight A” student to never question authority?
More or less; the system is deliberately designed that way
I’m not joking. Because the designers made it abundantly clear what they had in mind: (Scroll down to Page 6 of Paper No. 1 for the whole thing.)
“In our dreams…people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk.
We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple…we will organize children…and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.” (Emphasis mine – k.)
All this decades before the phrase ‘dumbing down’ was heard.
Children as lab rats, schools as laboratories…have resulted in children as prisoners and schools as prisons. All started so long ago only curmudgeonly historians like me would bother to dig it up.
Exactly, Kap. The whole purpose of public education was to create a populace of compliant/obedient worker bees via indoctrination; a populace just educated enough to do the job, and cowed enough so they could be exploited by the industrialists and politicians who seek to benefit at the expense of all of us, each public educated child is robbed of the knowledge of their absolute right to stand up for their unalienable rights to life (and lifestyle), liberty (so long as they do not violate the equal rights of others), and property. This is why I so frequently (everywhere I land on the net) advise parents to unschool their children, to learn for themselves the real purpose of the Constitution (to limit government from interfering in the lives, finances, and businesses of the citizenry), what are their unalienable rights (that they need to exercise those rights openly and freely, and that they do not need to ask permission from government to exercise ANY of their unalienable rights), what are the differences between crimes and vices and why vices are NOT crimes (read Lysander Spooner), and also to read John Taylor Gatto’s essays and books to learn how and why to unschool their children.
Beckley Foundation â€@BeckleyDrugs
Progressive change of language in Malta white paper on drug strategy; no longer assumes all drug use is abuse. http://buff.ly/VLIHoG
Good comment at Sullum’s page on the ridiculously dishonest “third way”:
“Some say that all of Our Sacred, High and Holy, Sacred Drug Warriors & other Pubic Servants should be UTTERLY Worshipped, and given ANYTHING that Their Noble, Selfless Selves express any fleeting desire for… Others say that they should be slowly boiled in putrid oil for many weeks. I call for a middle ground, where they are merely yanked off of the public’s tits, and made to go and get honest jobs, filling needs that people are willing to pay for, of their own free will.â€
Now, I can understand the government’s proclivity for draconian drug-war policies from their point of view, because from my point of view option 2 looks pretty good. But I’d happily settle for option 3, because it gets me what I want and besides, most of these folks would probably rather be slowly boiled in oil than pursue honest work that “people* are willing to pay for of their own free will”, because there’s nothing in their life experience to prepare them for it — they simply wouldn’t know how to go about it.
* By “people” I mean members of the public, not government tyrants and the apologist sycophants who enable them with this sort of “third way” nonsense.
This is the only kind of “third-way nonsense” I can support…
Why not give ‘these folks’ the choice of being boiled slowly in oil or getting an honest job? If they would rather boil, accommodate them. Either way society wins.
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Now why would you want to go and waste perfectly good oil like that?
What about the carbon footprint?
Lets go the fourth way,,where we lock up all the drug warriors to keep their prisons full and they can try to stop drugs in the prisons.
Snake in the grass alert:
‘”The plan we released today calls on healthcare providers to prevent and treat addictive disorders just like they would treat any other chronic disorder, like diabetes or heart disease,†Botticelli wrote. “It calls on law enforcement, courts, and doctors to collaborate with each other to treat addiction as a public health issue, not a crime.”‘
If it’s not a crime why would doctors need to “collaborate” (an interesting choice of word) with law enforcement and the courts?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/09/michael-botticelli-drug-policy_n_5572293.html
Gotta keep their stories straight, or this high-faluting Three-Card-Monty won’t sell.
Heard this morning that KCDA Ken Thompson won’t prosecute low-count marijuana offenses, yet NYPD Chief Bratton insists on continuing the arrests…why clog up the court system with un-offenses?
Police are going to keep doing what they do. Notice that all the “unions are evil” pols stop short at the police unions.
Every marijuana arrest counts towards verification of active drug law enforcement by a police agency for federal grants,,,it isn’t that the marijuana arrests pay anything ,,it is their cumulative effect that pays off.
No prosecution is needed,,just an arrest,,so it is still drug war on in the streets.
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Then there’s the “broken windows” logical fallacy.
clay, kudos for knowing that Byrne grants aren’t specifically awarded for cannabis law violation arrests. Heck it was only within the last couple of months that I became aware of that. The only reason that I came to that knowledge was because one day I decided it might be jolly good fun to know those particular data and started searching for them.
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kaptin, IMO Mr. Orwell was a prophet. About the only thing he didn’t get right was the timing.
Warshington bubble-think at it’s best. Trying to normalize the Orwellian.
Weaponized health”care”, plain and simple.
Is it my imagination that Kevin and his cohorts at SAM sound amazingly similar to the new ONDCP Strategy? I would say that its an amazing case of Synchronicity:
http://tinyurl.com/6xkxqc
Definition of SYNCHRONICITY (#2 seems to fit)
1. the quality or fact of being synchronous
2. the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung
I’d dearly love to see an investigative reporter (the real kind) examine the connections between ONDCP and SAM.
Methinks they are joined at the wallet…and the brain-pan.
could it be that they merely mimic any new talking points because the old ones they have been so discredited that they are useless? They needed something else to say so they wouldn’t keep getting shot down. When SAM(e) came out with their mythical ‘third way’ it sounded just a bit different, so the other prohibidiots embraced it. Now that it is being shown to be the same old same old, they have nothing else to say. They have been unable to muster any logical arguments to replace the old ones. They keep on just like an old parrot who can’t learn new words, just keeps on screeching the old ones, and are being listened to about as much.
Primus, as far as Kevvie’s ‘Third Way” horseshite, he’s been peddling that especially rank manure as far back as 2006:
A Third Way On Drug Laws By Kevin A. Sabet
None of his bilge is new, just rewarmed, stale old clap-trap.
And as to the prohibs having run out of lies, well, it’s not just the lies, but the kinds of lies.
DrugWar propaganda was tailored for a generation with a decidedly authoritarian zeitgeist. Nixon’s ‘Silent Majority’. A “Do as I say, or else!” mentality. Which is why there is a heavy emphasis on enforcement, rather than the more rational approach of treatment for truly debilitating addictions.
One need only look at the wording used by them to describe how they view the problem and realize that immediately. ‘War’. ‘Attack’. ‘Defeat’, etc.
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I don’t think that synchronicity is an accurate descriptor because IMO the events are coordinated.
Colorado’s troubles with potBy Kevin A. Sabet
July 10, 2014
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Poor Allan Ste. Pierre. But at least we’ve learned with certainty that he has a cast iron stomach. I’m certain that it would have given me projectile vomiting. We should at least send him a get well quick card and a bouquet of flowers.
Make the Case: Should Marijuana Be Legalized?
I couldn’t agree with you more Duncan. I will admit to snark and sarcasm about it having anything to do with being psychic.
Kevin is masterful at his art of skewing statistics, telling half truths, and enraging others with a presentation of his version of the “facts”. His job, from what I can see is to increase the perception of harm from marijuana and foster fear through the purposeful misrepresentation of statistics which are then touted as facts.
It’s right in line with Obama’s third way and Boticelli’s Drug Control Strategy of increasing the perception of harm from marijuana in order to bring down marijuana use.
Kevins a natural. He’s been there. He knows the routine.
Joseph Goebbels would be proud of his philosophical descendant. As you can see by the second link, just like all good propagandists, Kevvie’s modus operandi is virtually identical to Goebbels’.
Whether he is an ideological descendant, well, as the old saying goes, “You are known by the company you keep.” Kevvie keeps company with liars, cheats, and murderers of innocent people in the name of their Holy Crusade to Save The Children.
Goebbels would have felt right at home working for the same people Kevvie does. Like his philosophical father before him, Kevvie resides in an ivory tower with soft, clean hands, spouting lofty rhetoric to justify abomination while the ‘lesser breeds’ do the actual dirty – and bloody and murderous – ‘work’.
He and the whole ONDCP gaggle remind me of a line from a favorite movie of mine, Serenity: “…men covered in blood, it never touched them but they’re drowning in it.”
Apologists for the DrugWar try to keep the debate on the clean floor of a stage, not the blood-flecked streets that what they support excels in creating. Like any dog in need of housebreaking, they won’t change until they have their noses rubbed in the mess they condone making.
Ahhh…. Firefly. One day, we better get a Season 2…
I stopped reading Kevin’s screed when I got to the bit about “not your father’s weed that some may remember from Woodstock.”
I can’t remember when I last heard anything new from Sabet, so if ONDCP is thinking he can rejuvenate their tired old message they are mistaken.
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You silly man! Kev-Kev’s screeds aren’t for reading! They’re a much more effective and less expensive (often free!) substitute for syrup of ipecac!
Of course it’s not your father’s weed from Woodstock! He smoked every little hit of that pot in 1969!
kev-kev wasn’t even a gleam in his daddies eye when Woodstock happened and Panama Red and Acapulco Gold hit the streets shortly after,,and I would put either of those strains up against any of today.
La Linda has shown up at the Comment section. And is getting her arse reamed. On what is essentially an international forum. I feel embarrassed for her, and her ilk.
The prohibs remind me of ‘developmentally challenged’ children further afflicted with Tourette’s Syndrome. They’ll publicly blurt out their nonsense, completely oblivious to the fact that those around them are taking their intelligence measurement with every outburst, and with each one the quotient shrinks.
They seem to be so lacking in self-awareness that they ought to be objects of pity…so long as they are not armed.
Has she started claiming since she is the only one using her real name she is the only honest poster,,,always loved that since I always use my name.
No, Clay, not yet. But she has, in typical LT style, already unthinkingly insulted any potential converts…with her repeated admonishments to “Think!”
As if those reading and commenting at such a forum were all low-wattage sorts. There were a few, but in the main, as usual, the reformers and reform-minded folks showed their higher wattage with their commentaries. She really knows how to ‘make friends and influence people’, doesn’t she?
But what will really turn off a great many is the standard right wing ‘conspiracy theory’ that moneyman George Soros is behind drug law reform, and it’s all an evil plot to drug all Americans into robots.
(Sigh) Like I keep saying, sometimes when I am answering some prohib, I feel like I’m giving a beating to a man in a wheelchair. They’re “D List” at best.
And what’s worse, they’re doing this on, not just a national forum, but an international one. The prohibs are shamelessly, thoughtlessly exhibiting their ignorance, malice and mania on a world stage for anyone who can comprehend English. As if Americans would be the only ones reading there. It sometimes makes me ashamed that I share the same country with such perfect examples of the 21st century version of an Ugly American’
Having some fun over there with her now. Her replies are getting shorter and shorter; usually a sign your opponent is weakening. I almost feel guilty…almost.
Sabet got the third rail way as a drug advisor under Clinton. It was originally McCaffrey’s forced rehab treatment over jails Sabet regurgitated.
mccaffreycancertrmnt
http://i44.tinypic.com/szh4pw.jpg
sabetklintoon
http://i44.tinypic.com/28jw8cw.jpg
General Barry R. McCaffrey Sworn in as New Drug Czar
At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 27, McCaffrey pledged to increase coordination and cooperation among various law enforcement bodies on the local, state, and federal level. “If confirmed by the Senate, I can assure you that we, the senior officials of the government, will work together to forge a coherent strategy and in a responsive manner to Congressional viewpoints,” McCaffrey told the Committee (Christopher S. Wren, “General Urges Drug Problem To Be Treated Like a Cancer,” New York Times, February 28, 1996, p. A13).
Senator Joseph R. Biden (D-DE), the ranking Democrat, accused Presidents Clinton and Bush of doing a “disservice in this war on drugs” by downgrading the drug czar’s office. Biden urged McCaffrey to resign in he didn’t get the full support of President Clinton, and he promised to stand with McCaffrey at a press conference to announce such a resignation. Biden said the war on drugs must be fought in the streets of every community.
Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) decried President Clinton’s “abdication of responsibility” exemplified by a cut in the Department of Defense interdiction budget by more than half, from $854 million in FY 1992 to $395 million in FY 1995.
Kevin Abraham Sabet huffingtonpost
Working on drug policy issues for more than eighteen years, Kevin Abraham Sabet, Ph.D., is an internationally-acclaimed expert on substance abuse. From 2009-2011, he served in the Obama Administration as the Senior Advisor to Director Kerlikowske at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Representing his non-partisan commitment to drug policy, he previously worked on research, policy and speech writing at ONDCP in 2000 and from 2003-2004 in the Clinton and Bush Administrations, respectively. He remains the only staff member at ONDCP to hold a political appointment in both the Bush and Obama Administrations.
Until Lyinghard came along…
Kevin apparently has a “non-partisan commitment to drug policy,” having served the cause of prohibition under Clinton, Bush and Obama.
As if the dems and repubs were the only two partisan choices, or even a choice at all on drug reform. No wonder he called his spin machine project Sam(e)
The only commitment he has is to the preservation of his bank account. He’s a merc who knows what noises to make to insure continued employment…except now the electorate he so desperately needs to convince is not interested, as they’ve heard it all their school life and now as adults they mean to end the need for such parasites.
And since the only value he has is as a professional BSer, he’ll find his employment opportunities rather limited from now on. In this hard nosed world the banksters have given us with their Crash, nobody has time for it anymore.
True. I had momentarily forgotten that Barry McC had been ramping-up his attempt to forestall the inevitable collapse of the prohib regime by switching from ‘hard’ enforcement to the ‘soft’ enforcement of ‘treatment’…while, out of the public’s sight, the gun is still held to the head of the captured illicit drug user.
And as to what motivates ol’ Kevvie, I get the sneaking suspicion that he’s always rankled at being the ONDCP ‘water boy’, and now sees a chance at being minor royalty in Prohiblandia.
Bad time to choose such a career move when the kingdom’s about to be brought down by the legal cannabis revolution.
i saw a commercial for Burger King… did u guys see it? It was a pro Gay commercial.. they had a “pride whopper”.
Considering what I do and my feelings, of course I understand…
I am not too old but i am definitely old enough to remember a time when something like that would have been national discussion, front page type stuff… it is really amazing the change in homophobia the past decade..growing up, it was a real taboo topic…
its amazing to me, the way the world has changed its views on two people poking eachother with their needles… i just want to poke myself with a needle, and they’d have my head for it.
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It’s a rotten shame that BK doesn’t sell tube steak.
Yes, I can differentiate between a snake and a steak. But sometimes I ignore that task.
Yeah CJ, Is Jack in the Box Targeting Stoners With Their Munchies Meal Campaign?
Need further proof that Americans’ (as well as our government’s and police officers’) attitudes toward marijuana are shifting? Flip on your TV and check out Jack in the Box’s Munchies Meal campaign.
OT;
[Florida] Medical marijuana: Who supplies the suppliers?
http://tinyurl.com/ngsdfd6
The juicy morsel;
State Rep. Katie Edwards, D-Plantation, the bill’s other co-sponsor, would have the state procure the plant through the back door of academia.
“If you look at the language of the bill and you determine what research and university entity is going to work with these organizations, it’s the University of Florida, which is a federal land-grant university,” Edwards said. “Now, there is a federal marijuana farm at another land-grant university, the University of Mississippi … Why wouldn’t it be able to get it to the University of Florida and then get it to growers? That sounds more plausible than getting someone to break the law by bringing it in from out of state.”
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Now isn’t there a particular assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Florida who would just load his silk shorts if cannabis were to be grown on campus grounds, hopefully within seeing distance from his office window?
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
(please cannabis gods, make this happen)
It’s one thing to pass state legislation legalizing mmj. But it’s quite another to advise your constituents on how to engage in interstate trafficking of a controlled substance. What that rep said, sounds to me like he could be charged with conspiracy.
Sounds like the voice of experience to me. He said that was the “easiest” way, so that means he’s also tried other methods.
“To err is human. To persist in it is diabolical.†– Seneca (c. 4 BCE – 65 CE)
Everything You Do Is Unethical, So Shut the Fuck Up
http://www.vice.com/read/everything-you-do-is-unethical-so-get-off-your-high-horse-already?utm_source=vicetwitterus
College Students’ Spending on Marijuana: Survey Results
http://mjnewsnetwork.com/business/college-students-spending-on-marijuana-survey-results/
The Failure of Catch and Release Drug Treatment Court
http://www.thefix.com/content/drug-treatment-court-mother-heroin-addict2088
I find this one highly disturbing. How the heck can things like this go on behind my back?
They really, truly do have a playbook. Classic ONDCP/DEA verbiage…and classically stale:
“The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics is encouraging people not to sign the medical marijuana petition, at least until they research both sides of the issue, according to spokesman Mark Woodward.” (Emphasis mine – k.)
(Facepalm, looks up over hand, eyes hard with suppressed rage) They still don’t get it. The public has had continual haranguing on this subject by their putative servants for decades; we already know what their ‘side’ is.
But they imply that we have dominated the conversation, we, little David with a paper megaphone, while Goliath has had HUNDREDS of BILLIONS our money for the past 40+ years to purchase a gigantic sound system that blasts propaganda 24/7/365.
But they’re terrified of our ‘still, small voice’. The way an elephant is supposed to be terrified of a mouse.
They are beneath contempt.
Lower than the proverbial whale shite, Kap’n.Washington sold it’s first handful of overpriced 2 gram packages of bunk weed (yes, I saw it. Good commercial grade sensi, at best)so now like clockwork they’re back trying to kill medical protections here in Washington.
Anybody surprised that the prohibitionist snakes are hard at work trying to make cannabis (to paraphrase Mark Kleiman) “More expensive and harder to obtain under legalization than under prohibition…”?
Sadly, police officers have chased petition gathers away from public lands in Tulsa. Connie Johnson is Oklahoma’s greatest hope for reform since she’s the only one in office who seeks legalization, MMJ and the end of our industrial prison complex. But what can you hope for from a state that outlaws voting rights for ‘independents’ during the primaries and where the news papers and universities keep 3rd party candidates away from public debates by barring candidates in a district from speaking at said public debate? A state that has utilized private contract companies to pull over and search drivers on state and county roads?
Children of the Drug Wars (NYT):
http://tinyurl.com/p4z33sp
Luke Russert making a total idiot of himself, linking terrorism with recreational drug use:
“You know what’s one way to fix all this, Alex? If people in America would stop doing drugs when they go out at nightclubs every frickin’ weekend…. every time you take a drug you’re actually fueling narco-terrorism.”
Comes up towards the end of the video after 1:35.
The host then comments : ‘”Wow,” Alex Wagner replied. “Luke Russert conducting his own war on drugs.”‘
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/11/luke-russert-drugs_n_5579225.html
I’ve always known that my drug use was my fault, but that it was the 100% fault of the cops and politicians if I bought illegal drugs, hence the not too old saying: ‘no greater ally of the 9/11 hijackers than the NYPD.’ Since illegal drugs are why 9/11 could be funded and it’s the police and politicians and judges who keep it illegal, then it’s their jobs in prohibition that funds the terrorists and creates much of our immigration problems, not our drug use. Not a whole lot of Narco-Terrorism happened until dope was made illegal.
But his position on the War on Drugs makes him guilty of God knows how many crimes . . . he’s also a sex offender for helping people obtain the kind of drug money that enables bad men to do far worse acts because of the power drug money offers, like rape or war. He’s not dumb enough to not know that narco-terrorists technically rape children and adults as a way of obtaining victory and submission . . . the more dope they sell, the more recruits and power to rape with and what does this young Russert do? He gives the bad guys our laws that generate the dope money fueling so many problems. We have all seen Luke hold down the hands and ankles of young boys and girls trying to free themselves from a rape. He is a rapist and a murder and logically allied with Jihad and Mexican cartels etc through cause and effect stemming from his beliefs and their actions. If we cannot blame guys like him for the war in Mexico and 9/11, then we’ll never have enough proof to blame Hitler for Genocide and war. If we cannot treat these prohibitionists like the child molesters they are, then why do we need to end the war on drugs? One is guilty if one engages in the mechanism that creates disaster, while knowing the consequences. The drug laws and their act of keeping them on the books and enforcing them has long been defaulted for horror.
the la times calls DEA losers: http://tinyurl.com/pzwr6ff
I said long ago, here and in other fora, that when the media smells prohib blood in the water, the feeding frenzy will begin.
In all the years I’ve been monitoring media coverage of the DrugWar, this is the first time I’ve seen such an article.
Merely by showing the array of those who the DEA has antagonized, and mentioning its many sins, it makes it quite clear the article was not going to be the typical puff piece/prohib stenography the media has been guilty of the past two decades.
The LA Times just ripped the first chunk out of the prohib’s flanks. There’s enough blood in the water to attract others interested in a snack.
It shouldn’t take much longer before the entire school of media piranhas close in for a ready-made meal. And with all the scandals in the DEA’s past, it’s “Chow time! Chow time!”
i hope you are right, Kaptin the charade could stop working in an instant when enough people see through it.
Yup. Seattle’s only pot shop met my expectations by staying open for two WHOLE DAYS (I had called two days, tops) before running out of supply. http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/http%3A//www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Seattle-pot-shop-runs-out-closes-for-10-15-days-5615577.php
All they wanted was 25% of the market,,2 days out of 7 is real close,,,if they can open 2 days a week they are meeting their expectations,,,since we know if the stores are open all pot shoppers will continue to pay 3 times the street price for low mids.
Well, Kleiman’s work is done. He’s gotten what he always wanted: severe limits on availability to throttle use. WA became his Frankenstein’s laboratory to test his pet theories, and guess what abomination lurches up out of the restraints?
I’d never be so stupid to seek architectural advice on constructing chicken coops from a fox. And I’m certainly no Einstein, Feynman or Hawking. It’s just common sense.
And I can’t believe that those that hired Kleiman could be so…naive….about his past support of prohibition. I suspected that something like this was going to happen.
I hate to say it, but, from my perspective, something really stinks there.
No, not naive, they got exactly what they paid for. And exactly what they wanted.
This may have been a citizen’s initiative, but it was implemented by prohibitionists, and they handed it to the most worthless, incompetent bureaucracy in the entire history of the world. The WSLCB.
The Black Market is safe, but the patients are low hanging fruit.
Pot Shop Owners Blame State Bureaucracy For Shortage http://www.420magazine.com/forums/international-cannabis-news/223959-pot-shop-owners-blame-state-bureaucracy-shortage.html#post2159925