Keep studying, Ben

Ben Kubic, a junior government and politics and operations management major at the University of Maryland, attempt to apply his studies to drug policy (as a response to the recent SSDP conference hosted at U of MD) and fails miserably.

Ms. Alexander argues marijuana is absolutely harmless, a ploy by the government to hold down minorities. Overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise. In Canada, crime syndicates sell marijuana and use the proceeds to support “weapons … trafficking, cocaine smuggling and stock market fraud,” according to Interpol. Both the Spanish and French governments have found that the proceeds from cannabis sales have gone directly into the pockets of groups affiliated with al-Qaeda. The group responsible for the March 2004 bombings in Madrid that killed 191 innocent civilians bought their explosives using money from marijuana sales. Another such group used the drug money to fund two bombings in Algiers that killed 30 people and injured 200.
Other drugs are even more closely linked with death. Every day in Afghanistan, our soldiers face rocket launchers, roadside bombs and AK-47s that were purchased with proceeds from opium poppy sales. In Colombia, drug lords kill farmers who fail to produce enough. […]
Environmentalists should also be concerned with marijuana use. To avoid border-crossing issues, many drug cartels grow marijuana in U.S. national parks. To meet demand, these cartels use weed and bug sprays that have been banned in the United States because of how they devastate the surrounding environment; ABC News reports that the areas of national parks where the marijuana is being grown are “the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America.”

Of course, all of you loyal readers could refute this in your sleep by now.
And boy did Benjamin get schooled in the comments. The readers commenting were pretty much unanimous (with the exception of Jeff, the racist) in their intelligent smackdowns.