In the last post, I was trying to describe the INCB – The independent and quasi-judicial control organ monitoring the implementation of the United Nations drug control conventions.
Here’s another way of looking at it.
A lot of you are too young to remember this, but there was a charlatan named Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple back in 1978. He was a dangerous cult figure. On November 18, in Jonestown, Guyana, the entire cult committed mass suicide, drinking cyanide-laced grape-flavored “Kool-Aid.” 909 died, 276 of them children. Not all were willing. Core members made sure all “participated.”
…
The U.N. drug control conventions are the suicide pact. The drug war is the cyanide-laced grape-flavored Kool-Aid. The INCB are the folks that make sure everyone “participates.”
according to newsweek it was flavor-aid the cheaper brand of kool-aid. jim was piker even in the kitchen
correction: flavour-aide per newsweek 4 dec 78, p 39 and 41
It doesn’t seem to me they have any real power. Nobody has even heard of them–why should we listen to what some unaccountable UN apparatchiks have to say about the matter?
If California flatly legalizes MJ, and there’s a good chance that will happen, nobody is going to care what the INCB thinks, which is as it should be. Some treaties are made to be followed, while others are empty promises mouthed to deceive godless savages. 🙂
I’m more worried about the U.S. federal government. It seems that Obama, too, makes empty promises. What are we to think after all that talk about not going after MJ dispensaries? Both the president and Eric Holder made it very clear they were going to stop the raids, yet the raids continue.
Actions speak louder than words, my fellow godless savages. Obama’s promise to stop the raids was a lie. If you voted for him thinking he would stop the raids, you have been betrayed.
The analogy is spot on.
INCB – The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator was the first thing that came to mind when I saw INCB. CB or TP? Had to think about it. I didn’t consent to being governed by this alphabet group, in any event.
Paul, for people in Illinois, Barack Obama has been betraying them since 1996, when he was first elected. Illinois is always in the top five cannabis/drug arrest states, and he did nothing about until 2004, when he went to the Senate, and still hasn’t done anything about it to this day. Obama did nothing to improve the situation, I should say, because Obama did expand the drug war by championing the push to make salvia illegal in Illinois. Barack Obama is a drug warrior. Barack Obama is also, apparently, still addicted to the drug nicotine, meaning our President is a drug addict.
A vote for Barack Obama was a vote to lock innocent human beings in cages. Its that simple. My conscious in clear, although I still regret voting for Clinton which was my last vote to lock innocent human beings in cages. I hope more will join me in the future.
It is not the power of a UN agency we have to worry about,it is all our allies in the war on drugs. If the majority of the UN stops cooperating with America,then we have to foot the bill and fight the war by ourselves.
The US wrote or heavily edited all those drug agreements and now we have a “medical marijuana policy” in our DOJ and 14 states with m/m laws,with #15,16,17 waiting in the wings and yet we have not changed marijuana from a schedule 1 drug,here or in the UN classification.
Since marijuana has been portrayed as a dangerous drug only by lies,now our government has to convince the world that it is advantageous to them to continue their
participation in this fiasco. I would imagine that most of the countries around the world spend most of their anti-drug money fighting marijuana,the same as here
and every country is trying to trim their budgets any way they can. They are just telling America that you
can’t change the rules in the middle of the river and have “legal” marijuana as long as it is schedule 1.
It is probably just going to cost us more International subsidies to smooth their feathers and if America pays enough,they will probably go ahead and support America’s new two-faced policy.
PS. When you add the facts on the 2009 opium crop,it is getting harder(more expensive) to keep the world dancing to our music.
thelburt: Yes, I know it was Flavor-aid. That’s why I put quotes around Kool-Aid. But because of this event, the term “drinking the Kool-Aid” has an entire powerful meaning (even if it’s not technically correct) referring to being mindlessly manipulated by a speaker or idea. So I felt it important to refer to Kool-Aid.
Paul: It’s true. They have very little real power. Same with the core members of the Jim Jones group. If all 900 had said “No, we don’t want to drink that,” it wouldn’t have happened. When the people in a country start getting their own ideas about not following the UN drug conventions fully, the INCB rattles their chains and gets the governments to remember that they’re part of the suicide pact that they signed. There’s always enough authoritarians in any government to be able to say “Hey wait, there’s this treaty we signed. I guess reform is out of the question” in an attempt to shut down real change. That argument has even been used by our past drug czars in a misguided attempt to derail medical marijuana.
Claygooding: Yes, if enough countries defect, then the power goes away. But remarkably, countries have seemed afraid of defecting from these treaties. Perhaps that will change.
Pete @ Claygooding: Yes, if enough countries defect, then the power goes away. But remarkably, countries have seemed afraid of defecting from these treaties. Perhaps that will change
Hey Pete , if Cali or washington state or who knows some other state legalizes it , other will surely follow. Then we can show these other countries what real defection from the drug policies is alll about. I feel in many cases it may take the states to get the ball rolling world wide. Mexico have rattled some cages but it hasnt been loud enough. We need that “earth shattering kaboom”(as the martian says) that will bring the wall down, or at least put a sizable hole in it.
Cali might just supply that “Kaboom!” We can only hope. And, VOTE!
The INCB, like other aspects of the drug war, is not about harm-reduction, decreasing use, or public-education – the organization exists to create policies & recommendations supporting key players of the drug war (i.e. America, Columbia, et al). The United Nations, in total, is often times dominated by a specific interests that uses committees & recommendations to undermine the greater democratic process of the organization, always to the favor of a select few.
Without a juggernaut like the United States supporting this board, it surely would collapse. The INCB has already taken an official position opposed to medical-marijuana, so it looks like we would need more than 14 states behind a movement in order for our federal policy to affect our foreign policy.
Drug diplomacy in the twentieth century: an international history. William B. McAllister. Routledge, 2000
Fascinating, well-researched book on history and personalities involved in the formation of the UN drug treaties. Must read.
@Fidelity
I, too, have wondered “How many states will it take?” Half? Half + one, 2/3rds, 3/4rs? I have come to the conclusion that it’s either ALL or nothing. And since we’re not even half way yet, there’s still loads of work to do, for each and every one of us. The only way to take on something as large as the Fed is to BE as large as the Fed.
Before you get the blues, remember when we had NO states. That wasn’t that long ago. It’s the old addage of “how do you move a mountain?” “One rock at a time!”
And that is how we will reach legalization,one state at a time. The ONDCP will,if he is not stopped by congress,continue spending 15 billion+ a year,claiming he is winning the war against marijuana when there is only 1 state where it is illegal.
I’ll take coke over kool-aid every time…
I never have seen what anyone gets out of coke,the carbonated water ruins my sinuses.
Daniel E. Williams: Hahaha, I got a laugh out of it.
The wall came down in Germany because freedom & liberty prevailed.Prohibition will not end until once again liberty & freedom prevail.
” Jim Rogers
March 1st, 2010 at 7:34 pm
The wall came down in Germany because freedom & liberty prevailed.Prohibition will not end until once again liberty & freedom prevail.”
That is a big task as was the wall in germany. Not only are we fighting this prohibition wall but at the same time we are fighting to keep freedom and liberty alive , the very tool we need to end prohibition. I think most will agree our constitution is under attack , if it is shredded so is freedom and liberty and this fight will be over and the real fight for freedom will begin.. IMHO it seems to me there are forces trying to cause a revolution or civil war in this country.
In 1989, due to prevailing conditions, one hole in the right wall was all it took to set of a positive chain reaction which quickly engulfed the whole region; likewise, from here on in, the end of Cannabis legalization/regulation in any one state, will I believe, have a very similar effect.
This ties well in with Transforms article “Drugs Prohibition – Child protection or Protection Racket”
http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2008/04/drugs-prohibition-child-protection-or.html
Scariest account I read about the Jim Jones incident can be found in Robert B. Cialdini’s “Influence: science and practice”.
I know I keep pushing that book, but it’s because it’s so important.
There aren’t too many jokes about the Jonestown Massacre. That’s because the punch lines are too long.