While we are making great strides in reforming drug policy, there are still horrific abuses happening in the drug war.
President Obama, Commute Sharanda Jones’ Sentence
Sharanda Jones is currently serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole at Carswell Federal Prison in Texas. Life without the possibility of parole is the second-harshest sentence our justice system can mete out, short only of the death penalty, and that not by much. What, you might ask yourself, did Sharanda Jones do to merit this sentence?
She was convicted of a single, non-violent drug offense involving crack cocaine. This conviction stemmed from her first ever arrest, and she was not even caught with crack in her possession.
If the above two paragraphs do not shock you, then you haven’t spent enough time in the criminal justice system to know how often violent crimes – including intentional homicides – are not punished with life sentences, much less life without parole. It is actually difficult, in many state court systems in particular, to get sentenced to LWP, even for repeat violent offender.
The fact that Sharanda Jones received this sentence for what amounts to being a drug mule is indicative of the unthinking and senseless drug sentencing policy that infected this country for far too long and which has resulted in a gradually worsening over-incarceration problem in the United States, which costs American taxpayers billions of dollars a year.
It’s not enough to legalize marijuana. We must end this drug war.
Nice to see this posted at a conservative site like RedState. Even though the author doesn’t attack the WOD head on, at least he recognizes the injustice of this woman’s sentence and by extension other WOD sentences in general. Baby steps, I guess.
Because 100% of conservatives are supporters of the WOD, right? Milton Friedman and William F Buckley Jr were both just pinko commies who wanted everyone stoned and on government welfare.
Meanwhile, in Sweden…
Unreal, I’d like to know what your estimate of the percentage of conservatives (in America) that support the WOD is?
.
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There’s nothing even remotely conservative about the war on (some) drugs.
Prohibition was invented by the Progressive Party. But facts and history don’t seem to matter to today’s liberals. It’s all just us against them to you people. Have you bothered to consider that dropping your hatred might move things along quicker? And yes, please don’t forget that I’m one of “them” in this instance.
Nixon lied to schedule Ganja #1
“You know, it’s a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?
“You’re enough of a pro,” Nixon tells Shafer, “to know that for you to come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and what the country feels, and what we’re planning to do, would make your commission just look bad as hell.”
– Richard Milhouse Nixon
“Marijuana does not lead to physical dependency, although some evidence indicates that the heavy, long-term users may develop a psychological dependence on the drug”
The Shafer Commission of 1970
The Hype: Brain Damage in Dead Monkeys
I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb
Ronald Reagan
Cannabis Shrinks Tumors: Government Knew in 74
☛ The DEA shut down all cannabis/tumor research.
☛ Gerald Ford ended all public research.
Who’s Really Fighting Legal Weed
☛ 3/4th of a Century of Gossip and Gutter Science
☛ A Very Lucrative Evil Hoax
☛ Only 13% of the medical schools surveyed
mention the endocannabinoid science to our future doctors.
Note that’s “mention” GanjaRx. None of the Med Schools teach students, future doctors. Censorship is the same result as illiteracy.
☛ “… the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”
☛ “You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”
☛ “marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”
☛ “Marihuana is an addictive drug which
produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”
~ Harry J. Anslinger
A Roundup of Hearst’s Hysterical Headlines:
“Marijuana leads to homosexuality, the breakdown of the immune system, and ultimately, AIDS.”
Official Corruption: Carlton Turner
Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6 (1969)
Thus, Leary’s conviction was overturned. Congress responded shortly thereafter by repealing the Marihuana Tax Act and passing the Controlled Substances Act to continue the prohibition of certain drugs in the United States.
Throughout his life Buckley continued taking staunchly conservative positions, railing against desegregation in the 1950s and criticizing Nixon for going to China in the 1970s. But as a cultural critic, Buckley also injected himself into smaller controversies. “Beatle Hater William F. Buckley Dead At 82,”
Nixon’s Drug War – Re-Inventing Jim Crow,
Targeting The Counter Culture
“Look, we understood we couldn’t make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue…that we couldn’t resist it.”
– John Ehrlichman, White House counsel to President Nixon on the rationale of the War on Drugs.
“[Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks” Haldeman, his Chief of Staff wrote, “The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”
And then he came up with the War On Drugs and the Southern Strategy. \
(THE ATLANTIC) The War on Drugs:
How President Nixon Tied Addiction to Crime
By shifting public perception, and making us believe that drug users were dangerous and a threat to America, Nixon justified his actions.
Well,Unreal, there was one of them on there who would just as soon see me put to death for what I just lit up..don’t know if he falls into the “conservative” or “nut” category
.
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Is it really that hard for you to identify someone who pushes an unconstitutional on its face law as being anything other than a nutcake? I submit that if that’s even remotely controversial in your mind that some extensive psychotherapy might be beneficial to you.
Duncan Old Boy..
Relax, will you ?
Milton Friedman and William F Buckley Jr were the last conservative republicans. Look what they did to his magazine. Try to find one of Buckley’s quotes. Friedman was speaking as an economist, not conservative.
The last liberal president was John Kennedy. The last republican conservative running for president was Barry Goldwater.
Barry Goldwater Ganja & Twelve US Presidents
1996, …Goldwater endorsed an Arizona initiative to legalize medical marijuana against the countervailing opinion of social conservatives.
Americans smuggle cigarettes like crazy
No, the last republican conservative who ran for president was Ron Paul.
I say Paul and his kid were Libertarian rino’s.
Polling data shows much higher support for legalization among self-described liberals compared with that among conservatives. So regardless of the origin of prohibition and regardless of the opinion of some once-influential conservatives, it’s fair to note that on average, legalization enjoys more support among liberals. Sorry if those facts bother you.
Snippage from the article;
“Something is desperately wrong when our prisons cannot hold repeat violent offenders because it is too full of nonviolent drug offenders who are there on mandatory sentences.”
—————————–
The response from those who wish the WOD to remain exactly as it is — or even intensify;
“Uh, what? …Oh, hey look, a butterfly!”
Many Psychology Findings Not as Strong as Claimed,
Study Says
☛ Drug mishandling may have tainted 40,000 cases
☛ The Hype: Brain Damage in Dead Monkeys
☛ Cannabis Shrinks Tumors: Government Knew in 74
☛ Who’s Really Fighting Legal Weed
☛ A Roundup of Hearst’s Hysterical Headlines:
☛ Official Corruption: Carlton Turner
☛ Marijuana Does Not Affect Brain Volume Study Finds
☛ Study Confirms Marijuana is Over 110 Times Safer Than Alcohol
☛ Marijuana Users no More Likely to Experience
Depression, Psychosis or Asthma, Study Says
☛ Teen Marijuana Use Not Linked to Later Depression,
Lung Cancer, Other Health Problems, Research Finds
☛ Chronic marijuana use in teens not linked to later health issues
☛Using Pot To Save Brains!
I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb
Ronald Reagan
Whether ultra-severe penalties deter crime is an ongoing argument, having been debated far longer than the period of time Sharanda Jones was imprisoned.
At the time of her sentencing, only the most naïve or ignorant lawmakers and politicians believed indefinite incarceration would scare the hopeless, destitute multitudes from consuming drugs and marketing them for economic survival. In Sharanda’s case, authorities erred on the side of persecution. What’s the point of mandatory minimums, or life without parole, for guilt by association, if not mere eliminationism?
One of the problems encountered when human rights lawyers prosecuted those responsible for the 50,000 disappeared in Argentina was that a majority of Argentinians were in denial their modern government could have been responsible for such a horrendous crime. Despite a 54% majority favoring the government’s innocence, and immunity laws enacted by those desperate to defer blame, Pinochet and a number of other malefactors were eventually prosecuted.
Drug reformers likely face a similar problem. It’s going to be difficult to convince people that their own government could have been this foul and evil at this stage of its history–not impossible, though.
Any time someone says that potential severe punishment deters crime, ask them what crimes they are personally deterred from. Is the only reason they’re not out on a killing spree is because they might get sent to prison? The answer is usually that the deterrent effect is mainly for other people. People who aren’t as wise as those making the laws and need to be shown right from wrong, by force if necessary.
This, exactly.
Pinochet was the president of Chile.
My bad. You’re right. I’m getting my tyrants mixed up.
Pingback: Race Away from Hell | Spirit Wave Journal
I’m disgusted by the actions of LEOs and government officials everywhere.
Explain this: SWAT Team Kills Man Over $2 Worth of Pot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ayt34Oj-XUU
A former middle school classmate I knew suffered the same fate for the same reasons. A desperate and dishonest informant set him up in order to get her own drug charges dismissed and her children back, who had been made wards of the state. He died with 28 police bullet holes in his body from a fully automated assault weapon, all for less than 1/16th ounce of weed.
The Local.es:
“The 2,000 marijuana plants confiscated by the force over the course of the summer have been stored in the station’s underground car park, as well as in several offices, for over three weeks now due to lack of space.
The drugs are causing “discomfort” and “headaches” to the workforce, the Mossos union, the USPAC, said in its complaint.
The police station in Olot has an “unbearable smell” according to the union, giving police officers the sensation “that they are feeling the effects of having smoked something illegal” such as feeling unwell and experiencing headaches.
“What will people who come to report incidents think when they enter the police stations and smell such a strong odour?” the union said in the complaint.
It is calling for outside containers to be installed to remove the pungent drugs from inside areas of the station.”
http://www.thelocal.es/20150902/catalan-police-complain-confiscated-weed
I have a garage they can store them in.
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I’m thinking that the people at ResponsibleOhio must be grossly incompetent. How the heck can you take an issue as polarizing as cannabis law reform and and get people on both sides of the debate to condemn your proposal?
Meet the “Joe Camel” of “Big Marijuana”: Buddie the animated, mutant pot plant. I know and I know that you know that he wasn’t created to entice children. There won’t be any Ohioans younger than 18 going to the polls to cast their votes. [Damn, doesn’t Buddie look very, very familiar?]
That article was written by Keith Stroup. But do you know what I’ve just realized? The quibbling colleagues of cannabis law reform are remarkably united in recommending rejection of Ohio’s Issue 3 on Election Day. A person should really consider the possibility that they have genuinely and truly screwed the proverbial pooch if they’ve managed to get us to agree on something.
Now just to make it a little more astounding, by and large the prohibitionists are in on the consensus. That’s probably something along the lines of the USSR joining the Allies in WW2. But maybe the wacko christians are right after all and the “rapture” is imminent.
Kev Kev doesn’t support the continued embrace of prohibition. He just doesn’t want cannabis to be re-legalized.
But we know for a fact that the prohibitionists see all sorts of things that aren’t there. Heck, when you have the misfortune of crossing paths just ask any Kev Kev to fill you in on this “Big Marijuana” thing. It just plain doesn’t exist. Even if it did it’s just plain stupid to believe that something a bunch of (probably dead and buried) corporate executives did 60, 70, 80 years ago has any bearing on what happens today. Kev Kev must think the general population is pretty darn stupid. Big Tobacco did a bunch of heinous things but it required the ignorance of the general public. We’ve seen all of their tricks. Why in the world could “Big Marijuana” get away with doing those same things now that we know what to look for?
Speaking of tricks, here is a good one:
Clinton lays out plan for substance abuse ‘epidemic’
http://tinyurl.com/p5vgld2
She is pandering to the drug war.
Clinton and Christie push drug-addiction fight
Both Neocons. Which base will hold them accountable?
While some of the goals appear laudable, the specter of forced treatment for low level drug offenses sounds like Kevin Sabet’s waking nightmare for marijuana consumers. Obamacare was supposed to provide for drug treatment for those who needed it, so what’s with the $10-billion proposal if not to mostly prop up drug hysteria and get naïve people to vote for Clinton?
The image of politicians exploiting drug consumers for political gain is by now nauseating to those who understand the evil portents drug prohibition brings. Clinton’s latest drug announcement demonstrates that whoever wins the White House in 2016 will matter little to ending the drug war. More government is the problem in drug wars, not the solution.
The Clintons and Christies we love to hate are mouthpieces of corporations. Why not go after the corporations rather than the mouthpieces? Too hard to think of the world that way I guess. I love to hate those mouthpieces myself.
I say we go after them all. Never leave a front in the drug war unchallenged.
That said, it’s much easier to knock off bureaucrats than corporations. Exposing pompous, phony bureaucrats is what makes it fun. Also, addiction corporations need bureaucrats in D.C. to exist, but car companies don’t. The bureaucrats are thus guilty by association. They’re traditionally sacrificed during times of revolution anyway.
Then there’s the Vatican, the oldest, largest organization on earth. It exists within the U.S. as separate non-profit corporations, differing according to locale for legal protection against lawsuits. It’s willing to bargain with devils like Mussolini and Hitler to survive and flourish, and dead set against any other psychoactive substance besides alcohol. These guys are a tough nut to crack, but not impossible. We’re living in an era in which international human rights law is beginning to focus its protections on the individual, and less on the self-aggrandizing status quo of an organization made up of drunken pervs in robes.
Hillary is trying to work both sides. With her first face, she says nobody should be imprisoned for addiction, then the other face starts speaking in dog whistle to the prison and treatment industries (who have been so generous to her campaign).
She apparently has no problems with forcing people with no problem into court ordered drug “treatment”, and then locking up those who do not comply.
Problem is, that is the same rhetoric employed by the LAST FOUR PRESIDENTS. People have figured out by now what this really means: She will support the status quo.
Anyone who is a handmaiden of the Elite is up to their hair follicles in drug money laundering.
Google the following: June 6 2008 Chantilly Virginia and you get to see whose arse you have to kiss to be Prez. Bankster arse. Money laundering arse. Running-the-spook-trade arse.
I guess Hillary couldn’t apply enough suction, then. Someone else got the job due to greater vacuum production (plainly, he sucked more), and she was told she’d have to settle for SecState until the present puppet was replaced.
Which makes the DrugWar the farce it is: money laundering banksters who got rich from prohibition choosing which (publicly) anti-drugs buffoon will be installed on the throne. While the dim-witted prohib bottom feeders rail on as they have for decades, and the trade rolls on as it has for a century.
Don’t forget Mena International Municipal Airport in Arkansas and the CIA’s use of real Anthrax spores to combat an American police officer sticking his nose into their cocaine business.
this coming Jan 26 16 will be 20 years since i was sent
a copy of the Feb 12 96 issue of NR.
the opening page February 12,1996 Vol. XLVIII, No.2
Cover Story
34 The War on Drugs Is Lost
Wm.F Buckley Jr. reflecting on his own statement
before the New York Bar Association on the War on
Drugs, sought reactions from a group of men who had
chosen,or been forced in the course of their duties, to
reflect on this topic. Joining him in this symposium are
drug-policy researcher Ethan A. Nadelmann,
Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, Former police chief
Joseph D. McNamara, Judge Robert W. Sweet, psy-
chiatrist Thomas Szasz, and Professor Steven B.Duke.
They differ among themselves (as do NR’s editors) as
to which aspects of the War on Drugs they find most
disquieting, and how far they would go toward legal-
ization. But they all agree: the War on Drugs has
failed.
The next to the last sentence of his statement to the NYBA.
I would hope that the good offices of your vital profession would mobilize at least to protest such excesses of wartime zeal, the legal equivalent of a
My Lai massacre. And perhaps proceed to
recommend the legalization of the sale of most drugs, ex-
cept to minors.
Firm grasp of the obvious eh?
Last May or so NR, after firing Buckley Jr. before btw. Removed all of the quotes. Maybe they’re back. Its well known Buckley was against the drug war. He smoked pot once outside of the US boundaries and maybe after. Only once that he admitted. I’ve heard him advocate decriminalizing. He spoke at Peter McWilliams funeral I believe. But he wasn’t considered an advocate of using cannabis. I think he eventually came around to the medicinal use for some things. But probably never used it for his own illness. At least not publicly. Like I said Buckley was probably one of the last true Conservatives. As Kennedy was the last Liberal President. Certainly not Clinton busting more than Nixon, Reagan and Bush combined. Or Carter joining the Tri Lateral Commission and only decriminalizing small amounts to a fine.
Now Neocons rule DC for Wall St. Conservatives are long gone. Right wing religionist, war mongering, big government prison system and drug war. That is their platform. To say that is trumped by a couple of individuals is, well pretty standard for republicans following the rino label. Not that progressives are different. The base is different. Again a few claiming conservatism advocate laws for pot. Most of us have been smoking for decades and laws only bring compromises, pisstastes, restrictions and maintains the prohibition and its profits. It has no business being a controlled substance and anything less is out of desperation for those who can’t give remedy’s to children with seizures unless a politicians says its ok. Those who need laws to use cannabis also believe you need a job to feed the hungry. All you need is food. All you need to smoke a joint is a paper and some flame.
Thinking Clearly April 4, 2015 dwr
DdC; The link for William F. Buckley, Jr. 1983 in the National Review went dead, and that was source on his quotes. Can’t find a good proof source anymore. Do you know of an original source print available on the net?
1983 NR, Enough various sources used the quote and heard him speak. The NR went far rightious after firing Buckley’s kid. I don’t keep up with them or Buckley outside of his logic of prohibition and the drug war. They can weasel out of archives or maybe its a members only access. The quote is 1983 and yet archives that year and some others are missing | 1980 | 1986 | 2001 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2010 | 2011 | 2013 | 2014
This says The National Review Archive (1955-present) but select month button only goes back to Dec, 2001.
William F. Buckley Requiescat In Pace May 1 11
Lost political causes By William Buckley
William F. Buckley – 10/12/01 21:10:24
☛ Lost political causes
☛ Is marijuana fear a myth?
☛ McWilliams at bat
☛ ON THE RIGHT: THE DEA STRIKES BACK!
☛ Perjury everywhere?
☛ In Pursuit of Truth & Justice in California
☛ William F. Buckley Requiescat In Pace
Voices National W.F. Buckley Archives/Forum 04/25/00
He was a beautiful rumpled, brilliant prince of a man.
Got to love the Oklahoma bureau of narcotics. This from their Facebook page:
“Anointing oil in The Bible is not cannabis. Hebrew tradition clearly taught the use of holy anointing using olive oil. Psalm 92, a psalm for the Sabbath. In verse 10, it says, ‘But my horn You have exalted like a wild ox; I have been anointed with fresh oil.’ God expects us to have fresh oil because when oil gets stagnant, it becomes stale.”
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/say-what-oklahoma-bureau-narcotics-ready-answer-your-questions-about-bible
I wonder where I can get my horn anointed? Maybe Rick Santorum would know.
Funny thing, none of the quotes from the article supported the OBN’s position that the anointing oil is NOT cannabis. It’s like saying that being gay is evil then quoting “thou shalt not kill.”
Are they seriously saying that olive oil is greener than cannabis oil? Patently absurd.
If you ever find yourself in the Mississippi of the north get to a bus stop, airport or train station fast:
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/breaking-indiana-police-call-military-raid-146-dangerous-marijuana-plots/
Sargent Stadenko’s assistant Lardass was overheard yelling the code phrase “shoot the moon” into a bullhorn at the start of the raid on the fierce *evul* cannabis plants.
A lot of injustice concerning people with drug use backgrounds happen everyday. I find it unfair that individuals with power get away with it most of the time but commoners like us don’t even get a second chance in life?
Absolutely true Jeff. Drug warriors and sado-moralists call these life-long additional punishments “collateral damage,” as though it were an accidental result of waging the drug war. In fact the government have quite deliberately ensured that even the most trivial drug conviction will ensure a life-time of harassment, denial of benefits, kidnapping of children, immigration bans unemployment and many other life changing disadvantages. The only second chances are given to people like Bush2 and Pat Kennedy.
These self appointed moralists are not warriors by any stretch of the imagination. It soils every warrior when such sniveling cowards are given the title. These worry warts and busybodies and liars perpetuate a myth and then cash in on the suffering they cause. Drug Worriers are the Scum of the Earth, and are in no way shape or form, Warriors.
Freedom Is The Distance
Between Church And State
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics jumps into Bible, pot debate
Archeologists
Ancient Temple Hashish Incense! Did Jesus Inhale?
Cannabis Seed
The Most Nutritionally Complete Food on the Planet
The Tree of Life… Literally. No shit!
The 7 Corporal Works of Mercy With Cannabis
Starving Babies and Illegal Food ✔
Hemp Milk ✔
Hemp Clothing ✔
House of hemp ✔
Granny Storm Crow’s MMJ Reference List ✔
The Pot Prisoners of WoD ✔
Cannabis and the Dead ✔
And just to add, for at least the last 40 years it’s been open season on any citizens the government arbitrarily designate as drug-consumers in Congress. So called cross-party bills co-written by conspirators like Bill clinton and Newt Gingrich pass almost unanimously as more and more penalties are attached to those convicted (Gringrich even proposed the death penalty to show how “tough on drugs” he was/is).
Forget Big Marijuana. Big Fascism is wielding its strength in Crivitz, Wisconsin. Public schools there are invoking random violations of students’ 4th Amendment rights through the use of mandatory drug testing. Students may opt out of having their civil rights violated, but only by becoming second-class citizens within their school:
What passes for education in Crivitz is mere preparatory training for living in a totalitarian society. No doubt the school system also teaches the Walt Disney version of American history, leaving students mired in an anti-intellectual landscape designed to make them believe drug testing companies and a corrupted government can do no wrong. Revolt appears to be the only option left for students protecting themselves from the drug war. With education like this, it’s no wonder Wisconsin is on the list of failed states, along with a failed governor.
There’s a whole generation or two who grew up with piss testing and it’s just part of their world like Youtube and Niki Minaj. You could call that a victory for The Corporation and fascism.
Scary Hari gets destroyed by Hictchens according to Milo.
https://mobile.twitter.com/nero/status/552152557095628801
Judge it for yourself, even I’m not completely convinced.
Baltimore police are getting stung by a Sting Ray II. The device is a cell tower simulator used for cellphone surveillance. Its illegal use by the local police may cost the city of Baltimore up to 2,000 convictions.
Cop corruption for using Stingrays will be expensive for Baltimore. Other municipalities will probably learn nothing from Baltimore’s example. More of these abuses can be expected, as defense attorneys elsewhere look for evidence of the use of Stingrays in faked police reports.
the fact that Sharanda Jones and Paul Free and thousands more, probably, are doing life without parole for things that are not really crimes takes some of the shine off the home of the free. the best country on earth. you would think we could come up with a way to avoid committing gross injustice against the citizenry.