Via Radley’s tweet, here is what some prohibitionists apparently think is a good argument for continuing prohibition.
Joint Cause Commercial from Wil Wells on Vimeo.
Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got?
This is from CADFY (Community Alliances for Drug Free Youth), who have this gem of a response regarding the relative dangers of marijuana and alcohol…
The pro-legalization supporters will say:
“Marijuana is safer than alcohol, yet it’s illegal.â€
The truth:
- If we applied that standard, alcohol would be illegal and crack-cocaine would be legal, since alcohol use trumps all other drugs with respect to its contribution to violent crime.
- Alcohol, unlike marijuana or any other illegal drug, has a long, wide-spread history of use in Western culture, dating back to the Old Testament and Ancient Rome.
- Yes, marijuana has been used for a while, but not in a broad, wide-spread manner like alcohol.
Wow.
Here’s the group at a press conference prior to the California hearings on legalization. This looks like the cast of extras in a Mel Brooks movie.
Untitled from Wil Wells on Vimeo.
Note that they’re all wearing the “Seriously?” buttons.
It must be hard to be creative for them.. funny, our side doesn’t have that problem.
and alcohol has been around longer than ganja?! Seriously? WTF, ign’ant bastuhds… trying to rewrite history, again?
This guy was reading from a piece of paper and he still bumbles through all of his talking points. I don’t think he wrote these arguments himself – maybe he just took a swig at the Prohibitionists Pub and came to the press conference to puke them up?
He couldn’t even get Tom Ammiano’s name correct – Tom Amamino?
I can’t wait until these propagandists get so frustrated saying the same bullish crap over and over again, that they devolve into Glenn Beck-style screaming and fake-crying. Now that will make for some entertaining television!
Poor prohibs just dont get it. Their days of ruining peoples lives are bout over.
Now why would you want to ? I mean really, comparing legalizing cigs to cannabis..lol ok here it is.
Cigs are proven to CAUSE cancer among many other health problem that KILL. No if cigs were illegal I could care less. I gave them nasty things up many years ago.
Canabis has been proven VERY promising to KILL cancers. Would you want research on that, wouldnt you want this just in case you or a family member got cancer. I do.
This cig to cannabis comparison concerning being legal/illegal is just more word twisted rhetoric.
One day these people will see the world isnt flat.
To me, this is glorious. Their arguments are so weak and childish, that they can’t stand to attract but only the most hardwired of the prohibitionists.
You’re right, if this is what we’re up against no problem. They’ve already taken the loser’s mentality, they are the ones crying that it won’t be a fair discussion, they are the ones trailing in the polls, and they are the ones resorting to name calling and bad satire.
We already look like we’re winning, now we just gotta focus and win.
John
What’s the crap this guy’s talking about medicinal marijuana causing increasing rates of crime in its respective communities? Has anyone else heard of these aforementioned spikes in crime in any of the California communities allowing medicinal cannabis that could be directly tied to those dispensaries presence?
Outright lies, and poorly spoken, bumbling nonsense..It really is only a matter of time..
Hmmmm… Maybe the crime he is talking about is those criminals who target dispensaries? Or maybe he could even be talking about the “increase” in people smoking pot for medical reasons. It is still a federal crime, so I guess it could count.
And what about the part about selling to minors? I mean, really? I am no longer a CA resident so I have not been following close enough to know if this is true. But I find it very hard to believe that it is.
Fact-checking Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey by Tim Lynch
I appeared on the CNN program Lou Dobbs Tonight last Thursday (Oct. 22) to discuss the medical marijuana issue and the drug war in general. There were two other guests: Peter Moskos from John Jay College and the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and Barry McCaffrey, retired General of the U.S. Army and former “Drug Czar†under President Bill Clinton.
I was really astonished by the doubletalk coming from McCaffrey. Watch the clip below and then I’ll explain two of the worst examples so you can come to your own conclusions about this guy.
Doubletalk: Example One: continued…
“The voters in this country should not be expected to decide
which medicines are safe and effective.”
~ Gen. CzarBarry McCaffrey
Civil disobedience the proper way to end prohibition
VIDEO: Oct 27 2009
Over the last few days in Keene, New Hampshire as many as 150 individuals have been smoking marijuana in public. They have dubbed the effort the “4:20 Smoke Club” and have yet to be brutalized by the out-manned local police force.
DEA Agents Forced into Afghan War
Kirk Tousaw
Digby has a disturbing post on how several DEA helicopter pilots have apparently been pressured into service in Afghanistan.
Karzai’s Brother ‘on CIA Payroll’
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s brother has been on the payroll of the CIA for years, even though he is suspected of being a major figure in the illicit opium trade.
Pot Activist David Malmo-Levine Sentenced To Six Months In Jail
Vancouver ‘Herb School’ activist David Malmo-Levine was handed a six-month prison sentence yesterday by a B.C. Provincial Court judge.
… and you, the sheep obedient to bad laws, based on lies, are cowards and traitors, and no amount of flag jerking is gonna change that. The drug worrier ticks and leeches will pay their dues in the History books. After the Drug War Crimes Tribunal. Same as your ancestors paid. The ones that didn’t escape to spawn selfish liars sucking the tax teat dry. Your grand children will learn of how you caged sick people, How your lies and greed terrorized innocents and depleted valuable resources from the tax payers.
Vile degenerate lapdogs doing the bidding of the corporations, mass retardation thinking these International G-20 Ganjawar sponsors and lobbies, will trickle down anything but a pat on the head, maybe a campaign contribution. Canadian Pussies licking the boots of American Fascists stealing your own citizens, without a whimper. Same as you did under Klintoon and Boosh. DEAth Mongers selling a war that can’t be won or lost without losing the profit, the reason for the war in the first place. Scum.
Your tin badges only cover the hole where your heart once lived. Pitifuckingfools. Bowing down to the Queens dollar keeping out Ganja, much safer for the environment. No infrastructure tanks and vats, distilleries with miles of steel, fossil fools and plastic. Trucks and roads to haul it to more strip mined ore in the warehouses. Off to refrigerated distributors, more wasted fossil fools. Just to get to some redneck forgetting about his bossman’s yells. Or a plant in the kitchen, mellows out the stress, not inebriation.
USA! Qaeda Drug Worriers collateral damage on kids suckered into snitching on their siblings. So gung ho these wannabe soldiers, cops with swat toys caging the parents. Confiscate the furniture, toys and car and sell the deed for the house. Another proud DARE graduate. Propaganda from the Media and Church, always siding with the despots. Low life spoiled sons of Emily.
True Conservatives Serve the Constituents,
they are not Neo-conjob lapdogs for WTO thugs.
True Patriots have the balls to protest bad laws.
Bully’s with money picking on the oppressed are still cowards.
Obedient cowards, afraid of their own thoughts. Appeasers.
ConPromising on the Laws of Physics,
their lies serving means to ends again.
Be Well David Malmo Levine
In a republic like ours, people often think that the proper response to an unjust law is to try to use the political process to change the law, but to obey and respect the law until it is changed. But if the law is itself clearly unjust, and the lawmaking process is not designed to quickly obliterate such unjust laws, then the law deserves no respect — break the law.
– Henry David Thoreau
It’s a good guess that most of the members of CADFY are getting regular big money from their sponsors, whoever they might be (Partnership for Drug-Free America?) and are expected to raise their voices like this every now and then to keep getting the money.
Sometime ago, like after the Vietnam war, it became very fashionable for Americans in positions of authority to sell their hearts, minds, and souls for big money. That’s one of the main reasons why the USA and all that it touches is turning to $h*t.
Here’s a rapid response:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eArWa51l5hs
Not a bad rapid response. “Unprecedented” is spelled wrong, though.
Thanks for pointing that out!
Here’s a better version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVPowtY3m_0
i dont know about the rest of you but every single time i hear a prohibitionist talk, i wish i could stop them after every single sentance they say and tell them why its either wrong, or has nothing to do with marijuana at all.
They cant make it 2 sentances without spewing some false or extremely misleading information. That is why public opinion is changing.
“What’s the crap this guy’s talking about medicinal marijuana causing increasing rates of crime in its respective communities?”
It’s definitely increased crime that’s reported. Get your grow ripped by home invaders in a non-medical state and you go to jail if you call and report it. In CA, they actually investigate the criminals. I recall reading about a guy in SF who called the SF police when a couple of DEA agents confiscated a couple of pounds of pot from him.
Are crime rates up? or is reported crime up?
The name of this “campaign” is JOINT CAUSE?
That sounds like a pro-cannabis lobby. I wonder if that was deliberate?
The level of cleverness in their stupid little PSA is a telling thing indeed: THESE are jokes WE HEARD YEARS AGO. You think just because we’re high we’re still going to laugh at them?
Maybe we will…but out of pity, not out of a tickling of the funnybone.
When all else fails,make statistics up to fill the void.
The DEA and ONDCP have been skewing statistics,using myth’s and old wives tales to keep marijuana illegal that their fellow prohibitionists have resorted too the same tactics.
We are winning when all they have left are maybe’s and could possibles.
This is so simple, just legalize cannabis.Tobacco, Alcohol, prescription drugs should be illegal.
This is all about their money, they just can’t give up their jobs,what would they do if they can’t harass people that smoke cannabis. So let people live the way they want and stop interfering with our lives!!
I agree with many of the critical comments above. Alcohol is more dangerous. He did mangle Ammiano’s name. Cannabis and tobacco are different. Prohibition is causing more damage than the drug.
However, I get worried when I see these people underestimated. I am afraid that zealots will get up earlier and stay up later to hammer their cause. They will not stop. We will have to stay active and thwart their undying efforts.
Notice that cannabis has been illegal since 1937. That’s 72 years, mates. We cannot laugh the prohibitionists out of the game.
Pete,
I’m a long time reader of your blog, and often your insight is thoughtful and impressive. However, this piece really upset me.
While I respect free speech, I can’t tolerate such garish slander of dencent public figures. They work tirelessly for our benefit. Where’s your decency sir? How can you insult Mel Brooks like this?
I’ve never had the honor of meeting Mr. Brooks, but I know he works hard to make such a hilarious product, and his shows are things of beauty. Blazing Saddles, the first fart joke on film!
The trainwreck you showed us has none of this. Where’s the animation, the passion, the actually knowing what you’re saying and not reading from notes? Sure, that guy’s speech was just as much nonsense as a decent Brooks monologue, but this stuff is stale, one that could have been given about any marijuana bill for the last 20 years. Where is the entertainment Pete?
I just won’t stand by and let you reduce Mr. Brooks to a rambling group of angry establishment bluster. Please, for the sake of film, retract any relation between that mob and the work of Mel Brooks.
Bailey, about the CADFY’s
You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.
Alcohol, unlike marijuana or any other illegal drug, has a long, wide-spread history of use in Western culture, dating back to the Old Testament and Ancient Rome.
2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
Researchers say they have located the world’s oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.
History of Medical Cannabis
UNtil 2008, the earliest known evidence of marijuana in human hands dated back approximately 10,000 years. Findings on a dig in Central Asia that features evidence of the use of cannabis by a prehistoric medicine man some 27,000 years ago.
Cannabis and Longevity
by Chris Bennett – Wednesday, October 21 2009
I think they’re more like the cast of “Airplane”
Flying a plane is no different than riding a bicycle,
just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes… Seriously!
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines
There’s no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you’ll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?
If this were all that we are up against, that would be great….but what we are really up against is backwards laws, police enforcing those laws and lawmakers dragging their feet, thus keeping those laws in place.
dragging their feet?
I think after this many years, and countless scientific reports.
The dragging their feet is part of an agenda. When their lies don’t work. Its hard to believe they are either that stupid, and continue getting elected. After Trent Lott became a lobbyist, and Dick Armey and Tom Delay and also Democrats I’m sure. It was clear they are interchangeable positions. Same as Monsanto making up the FDA employees, and job security after they leave the FDA. Donald Rumsfeld CEO of Searle Pharmacuticals fast tracking aspartame. Cheney Halliburton Asbestos co, losing billions in law suits knowingly spreading cancer, then no bid contracts taking a huge hunk of the trillion dollars spent on the Boosh lie perpetuated by Biraq Obomba. Time for appeasing these creatures is over. Its time for Justice and a thorough cleaning of the Houses.
The virtues are too many, for the booze and white powders, Even the Fraud of 37, didn’t outlaw Hemp or RxGanja. That was Nexxon’s Lie, Al Capone and Watergate were Red Herrings. Both Alcohol and Cannabis Prohibitions were Corporate fabrications.
Is there any way to get that ‘Seriously?’ button through the mail? It looks like a pretty stoner thing to wear, even if it is anti-marijuana.