Boston.com has The Big Picture — 37 photos from the world of drug use and the drug war.
These are powerful and sometimes very disturbing images.
It’s interesting how perspective changes based on what you know. I look at these photos and I see graphic proof of the undeniable need to end this war on drugs.
And yet, based on the comments, there are others who see these photos as evidence that we need to continue the war on drugs.
Lots of good comments, and some heated words…
…and then there are the ones like this:
So it would be easier to legalize drugs rather than fight the war? That has got to be the dumbest thing I ever heard. What about legalizing murder and pedophilia because they too have been around forever, and people will always kill and harm children anyway. We could just get them counseling and slowly ween them away from their violent and distructive behavior. That is the problem with the liberal mind and why this world is in the shape its in. KILL ALL DEALORS AND THEIR FAMILIES, thats a solution
Sigh.
Some people are serious Thug Addicts!
Would this be “Bob” again?
What’s the deal with prohibs, anyway? They think and sound like Nazis: the only solution is the final solution…etc.
It amazes me how people can’t tell the difference between an action that harms other people and an action that only harms oneself.
If I can murder you, then you can murder me, and society will fall apart. As such, all reasonable people can agree to give up our right to commit murder (and I believe there IS a right to commit murder, but it’s a right that people in any functional society must willingly give up). On the other hand, if I can use heroin then you can use heroin. Okay – so what? As long as you don’t drive while intoxicated I have no problem with you using heroin – even if I decide that I don’t want to exercise my own right to do so. I still like to know I have rights even if I probably wouldn’t use them.
I have no intention of using heroin, but who knows – I may be in a situation where I’m suffering from horrible pain, have no access to doctors or pain medicine, and someone has some heroin they will give/sell to me. Depending on how bad the pain is, I’d like to know that I could take action to relieve it without having to worry about getting put in a cage for a few decades.
People are so willing and eager to give up their rights, it never ceases to amaze me. “Please take away my rights! I don’t want freedom! Take my liberty or give me death!”
If we are going too kill all the dealers and their families,can we start with the druggists at the corner drug store? After all,the most abused drugs today are the pharmaceutical drugs sold at drug stores.
You can abuse a puppy, you can’t abuse a drug.
Kiwl da Wabbit… Pete you can’t keep picking up these Elmer Fudds. Giving their hate a forum keeps it alive. But its fun making fun of the idiots. I just wish they were’t actual breathing humans…
Ya Clay but then we’d have to kill all the bartenders, tavern owners, football stadium vendors and Mrs John McCain, the beer distributor. I think a distributer trumps a dealOR. Have to kill her twice. The fat food industry and sugar mills obesing the lil tikes.
“Beware of the fish people, they are the true enemy.”
— Frank Zappa,
speech to a pro-choice rally in Los Angeles around 1989-90
Certain Drugs worriers spout the same nasty violent threats as the anti certain abortions-ists, or the chickenhawks and teabog bully’s. None are pro life, not even pro fetus. Just foolish liars. Violent foolish liars. No need for logic or facts, they have “faith” in the bogus Ganjawar laws, and a tax paid liars club called the ONDCP, with a blindly obedient DEAth enforcing the lies.
When they don’t have the laws, for lynching or poll tax or segregation they stack the juries, stack the ballots or spend millions lobbying around the laws and regulations. Ends justify Means. All of the Iran Contra criminals found jobs with Boosh or Fox. Killed 30,000 Nicaraguans and Secord got a $50 fine for “leading” it. Kerry’s investigation, like Rainbow Farm. Tidy. Elected or selected employees for lobbyists bringing their corporate masters billions. Like they broker “police actions” for profit, billed as sanctioned wars defending the country. Or cut out the middleman like Trent Lot, just lobby as a representative. Interchangable jobs. No vested ignorance. “Trust me” is as good as checks and balances costing the tax payers.
The joke of a free press doesn’t get in the way. Schools teaching fiction and lies agreed upon. Graduating don’t bees to keep outlawing do bees. 24 hour telethons to raise funds to persecute and even terrorize Americans in the traitors Ganjawar. Lil ole ladies sending their SS check, so Pats fortune 700 club can fix her goiter via the local cable provider. Then send a cut to Calvina. I don’t think they are Nazi’s. I think they are descendants, and a lot sneakier.
Their end game is to sabotage reform. Perpetuate not win or lose. Thats what they do… Profit on the misery of innocent flag waving hard working blue collar Americans. Remember we pay $300 billion a year in interest on loans Boosh took out to bail out the same Banksters and Insurance and pay for this ungodly mess war on our own citizens. Tain’t dat a Merka home of the fleas, ticks and other drug worrier parasites. If Americans really stand for Truth and Justice they will end the Ganjawar. 72 years they haven’t, but you never know.
“I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.”
–Randall Terry, Founder of Operation Rescue,
The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 8-16-93
The only reason the whole “anti-abortion” movement got started in the late 1800s/early 1900s is because of racism. White women could afford the luxury of family planning (whether it be contraception, abortion, etc) while freed slaves, a/k/a the blacks, well they were reproducing like cockroaches, having dozens of children per family. The white people became afraid that the black people – who were no longer the property of whites and who could vote, serve on juries, take their jobs, own guns, and exercise other basic American rights – were a rapidly growing population, growing much faster than the population of white people. Giving blacks free abortions and contraception would have been seen as a blatant attempt at “nigger population control” and would have been a political disaster. So the white people attacked the problem from the other direction – they’d make all women give up the right to family planning. No contraception and no abortions for anyone.
Back when black pregnancies meant “asset growth” for white people, nobody gave two shits about abortion.
Yeah I guess he should just go buy a gun and cap off 1/2 the people he knows then…. whatever… we’ll have our day in the sun and it’s people like this that will go down in history as being part of the lunatic fringe (see ‘know-nothing” party, the kkk, Jim crow lovers.) At least, I hope thats how it goes!
Sorry to double post here but, I think it’s great that Pete links us to this stuff.
After all……… we get to comment aswell.
@BruceM: I stopped being baffled by it once I saw this little neat Penn & Teller video that shows why magic works:
(2m 45s)
Why magic works
I won’t spoil it by actually telling, but ask if you don’t think it’s all that obvious and I’ll throw in some nice, scientific theory to substantiate this funny video 🙂
I love P&T but I’ve never see that particular video. That’s classic!
Did you see their P&T bullshit episode where they convinced people to put slugs on their faces to “look younger”? That was quite amazing.
So the guy starts out sarcastically saying “why don’t we just legalize murder and pedophilia too”…then goes on to advocate killing drug dealers (with an “o”) and their families. That’s drug war logic for ya.
For some reason, when someone is against allowing people to exercise their rights, they cite a random crime as a reason not to let people exercise those rights.
Gay marriage? Why not just allow rape?
Drug use? Why not just allow murder?
This ‘argument’ (not sure what it is, exactly) seems to be the newest logical fallacy. Socrates would be amazed.
@Bruce… further proof of human “devolution”
And just another sign how much better off we are when we spend more on incarcerating folks than on educating them.
Racism was the original motivating factor or intent…
same with the Ganjawar.
Now its the Bible Belt anti abortionists like Op Rescue,
having the abortions. Calling them miscarriages.
From the tons of pesticides and other poisons.
Not used on Hemp. 90 million pounds on US cotton alone.
Maybe its God’s wrath, I think its the corporations lobbyists and prohibitionists keeping competition out and profits in “maintaining the dysfunction.
racism and religion are always intertwined. Black people have the curse of Ham (or whatever that’s called). Non-whites are infidels, heathens, etc. There’s a reason the KKK burns Christian crosses on the property of people they hate, rather than burning big N’s or J’s (for “Nigger” or “Jew” respectively).
I doubt we’d have much racism without religion. Yes people will always initially fear and distrust people who look different. But it takes religion to affirmatively justify those feelings.
Hey, on a slightly related topic, if you want to see a recent Boston Globe “Big Picture” article that will make you smile rather than grimace like the above exhibit, check out this recommended by BoingBoing.com shots of the giant puppets in Berlin earlier this month http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/the_berlin_reunion.html and then this YouTube vid of same here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umX0FgAQQeM .
(I highly recommend thinking about stuff other than the drug war from time to time or reframing as “stuff I like to look at while on drugs 😉
Thanks jackl – the Berlin Reunion pics today were fun to see and interesting.
I wrote some other replies about The Big Picture of The drug war but my computer seems to go off-line just as I’m about to submit something.
That happened to me yesterday also.
I saw the world’s largest collection of real dinosaurs in Salt Lake City last week (just a tid-bit more on the topic of giants.)
My story I lost was comparing the giant marionette Reunion in Berlin to slumbering Mary Jane Giant in comparison to the Giant Scuba Diver being Uncle Sam.
They are celebrating twenty year’s since the wall came down. The giant puppets are together again after a long over-due separation.
Another Blogger (#179) with regards to the Drug War compares weed to being God and the opium/heroin/tobacco/alcohol/pharmaceuticals/meth/
cocaine/morphine addicitions to being the Third Reich and I must agree. I was able to relate this awesomely artistic scenario to what he was saying. (thanks..)
Blogger #186 – Yeah! Why are cigarettes legal in the first place – money, power, greed, corruption gave innocent Mary Jane the scapegoat bummer rap. I for one am thankful for positive change beginning. (thanks..)
It is the healing and comforting benefits to recover from the disasters of the hard drugs in peaceful cannabis use.
It is a natural muscle relaxer and an appetite stimulant and naturally fights stress, our number one killer. And now the real truth that it inhibits some cancer growth is coming forth.
One person cannot control another’s natural impulse to medicate for whatever reasons and I would much rather see a kid get pot before they so easily get booze and cigs. Why don’t people get it…curiousity is another birth-given right as we grow, adapt, and mature into this world.
Don’t blame a confused kid for being confused and smoking a little pot, but instead get to the root of the problem in the first place of why a kid is possibly considering it anyway.
Honesty is our best bet and we have President Obama’s Administration for that toe in the door to end this stupid killing situation. The only way up now to end this war has been illuminated world-wide for the betterment of human beings.
The reverence in one’s private garden is sanctioned with our Constiutional Right To Privacy, to have a personal cup of tea protected by already existing laws.
Jesus was said to have made miracles to heal the blind and lame. That can certainly be related to treatment of glaucoma and paralysis woes in today’s world.
I know it allowed me to hobble up onto a cane for a few years and learn to walk again.
I would not be here without the intermittent use of medical marijuana over the decades of my life.
Just some food for thought…Thank You Everyone. G-nite!
{KILL ALL DEALORS AND THEIR FAMILIES, thats a solution}
And when this person has a family member that use drugs, will he/she then stay with this thought. Will you then kill your family?
What a dumb shit.
Yay for Wendy; salutes to BruceM; boo to he waterheads who equate weed to pharmaceutical poisons.