Over at FireDogLake voting is still going on in the second set of names for the contest to name their marijuana legalization campaign.
Jane also notes the new website for an opposition group to legalization in California: Public Safety First. This is a much more dangerous (and well organized) group than the pathetic CALM folks (with their stolen stock images).
As Jane says:
It would more appropriately be called the Prison Industrial Complex Profit Protection Racket, because they are the same outfit who organized against California’s Prop 5, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act of 2008. The deceptive advertising that brought that measure down was financed to the tune of almost $2 million by the Prison Guard’s union, who were afraid that passage would negatively impact their business.
They’re really pushing the “drugged driving” idea. Sad that they don’t take that force and demand a testing instrument that identifies ACTIVE components instead of trash elements. Why aren’t they using their funds to direct a development in that direction? No, instead, they just want to “San NO” for everyone else. I wouldn’t have a problem with a test that stated the truth, just like the Breathalyzer for alcohol. But a metabolite detector? No way!
They’re not interested in their self-proclaimed problem. If they were, they’d be doing something about testing for it. Instead, they’re trying to blanket bamboozle everyone.
As we know, ALL government jobs are parasite jobs that leach off the tax payer and kill small buisness opportunities. I think these parasites should buzz off, our form of bug spray is getting much stronger. Wont be long, as soon as cali legalizes these lobby leaches will be climbing the walls like dying roaches that they are. Can you say good by government jobs?
These type jobs are just numbers the politicians can put out there and tout ” See our plans are working, unemployment is going down.” Mean while in the real world, taxes payers that have money are footing the bill(hello rich people this means you. Do you enjoy footing the bill for non violent offenders mean while you lose?), that means less money for developing small buisnesses, less opportunities for the little guy to get a job. I think some politicians are afraid legalization would pull the rug from under thier shell game and expose them for the frauds they are. And of course the prison lobbies are afraid they will lose their meal ticket. I couldnt go to sleep at night knowing I am ruining peoples lives just to keep my paycheck.
It seems to me that there is a very effective campaign commercial to be made in favor of Tax Cannabis 2010 that highlights the sick and twisted influence of the prison guard lobby. Maybe two guards joking about how easy it is to watch over the peaceful pot people, then one of them worrying that they’ll lose their job if they have no more peaceful pot people to watch over. Tagline: “Opposition to Tax Cannabis 2010… brought to you by prison guards.”
And what Dudeman has said needs some amplification. I recall very clearly commercials way back in the late 1970’s about how some guy at the Post Office is complaining about how many more days he has to go until retiring while shutting a counter in a customer’s face repeatedly; the customer then went to a parcel service like UPS. The implication was clear.
So is the implication of putative’ public servants using resources supplied by the taxpayers in lobbying against something the public wants. A point that can be hammered home without any danger of backlash, as there’s lots of unemployed people who could suuuuuure use that money right now (hint, hint, hint).
The self-serving nature of special interests…always a good target, and especially now.
Donated to the Tax Cannabis campaign today after reading about this Public Safety First campaign. People who think that keeping drugs illegal somehow promotes public safety as opposed to turning urban environments into warzones makes me fucking pissed. Here’s hoping that a drug cartel hit squad mistakenly identifies some of these people as drug war targets.
Time to boycott CoachAmerica.
“Here’s hoping that a drug cartel hit squad mistakenly identifies some of these people as drug war targets.”
WHAT??? And kill their greatest and most trustworthy allies? That would be unconscionable! Sacrilege!
No, the cartels prefer to leave that dirty chore to their counterparts, the police, to take care of.
I can’t help but wonder just how many dim-witted supporters of the DrugWar have been subjected to potentially (and occasionally) deadly home invasions by ‘their’ DrugWarrior ‘heroes’ and found out the hard way what it’s like to be Professor Whitebread’s ‘THEM’ instead of the drug prohibition-supporting “US” they thought themselves to be.
We’ll never know, unless the victims can successfully raise a stink. But they’re out there, and they know the truth, too.
Yea I’d be fine with them being victims of itchy-trigger-finger mistaken-address SWAT team drug raids as well. Same result with the same message that prohibition encourages the complete opposite of public safety. I really wish I could walk these people and President Obama down a West Baltimore street and show them what the War on Drugs really looks like.
Nearly every federal agency receives funds from the ONDCP,even the post office,so when we discuss removing marijuana from the ONDCP’s jurisdiction,it will “trickle” down to all those agencies that now rely on the funding.
So legalization will be discussed by all these agencies
keeping in mind their possible loss of funds. I expect we will hear from these agencies very soon,carrying the prohibition propaganda from even more sources that people
will listen too,even though everyone knows that you can’t trust the government.
There’s a campaign ad : drug cartels and drug warriors – Partners in Crime
Meanwhile,patient harassment by obtuse law enforcement continues…
…a Norfolk OPP officer questioned two local women — one being a medical marijuana cardholder — after they left his King Street shop in Delhi on Tuesday night…the officer questioned and then lectured them about marijuana.
I’m trying to get in touch with her to discuss a lawsuit.
As the economic situation becomes more dire, I can imagine this declaration made by the American public, who is getting squeezed by higher prices, more taxes and tenuous empoyment opportunities to the prohibitionist drug warriors who are financially unscathed and living the same life they have always lived:
You know, times are getting really tight here, everyone’s struggling to make ends meet and a lot of us are going without basics, like decent clothing and housing.
We are watching our friends, neighbors and relatives lose good paying jobs which they diligently performed for a long time hoping to maybe eke out a meager retirement after 40 or so years of solid working.
We have watched the banksters, politrixters and the pin stripped bandits plunder our economy, retirements and any hope for anything like what you so called ‘public servants’ receive in wages and benefits. They’ve stripped the cupboard bare folks and you have to understand that we can’t afford you anymore.
So basically , what we are trying to say is.. we’re going to have to let you go. Security will escort you to your desk and then out of the building. Good luck in the job market.
By the way, we are hiring for some killing we need done in Afghanistan if you’re interested. The only problem with this opportunity is the people we are sending you to kill can shoot back. Have a nice day, your unemployment runs out in about a year or two.
It would be interesting to see the actual average number of people on unemployment benefits who could be paid for every typical Federal or State drug warrior taken off the government teat.
There is a real bizarre disconnect going on. California cannot afford its prison system. Yet the prison guard union will spend its dues resources on media buys to advocate for continuing something that already can’t be afforded. Wages paid by taxpayers are going to try and continue doing something taxpayers can’t afford. Conservatives who want to see government spending reduced and refuse to see taxes raised advocate for continuing prohibition. These are also people who scream all day about less government and smaller government. Ending prohibition works to further all those goals. The blockage is the perception of “public health and safety”. They tolerate all the ideological compromise because of that. It’s too bad they don’t understand that ending prohibition is the way to improve health and safety at a far lower cost.
@ezrydn, if they really are pushing the “drugged driving” idea, it’s important to counter with evidence. Erowid has a great resource page on cannabis and driving.
The BBC has an excellent demonstration of cannabis versus alcohol on driving: Should I Smoke Dope? with Nicky Taylor Part 4 of 6
The very same politicians who OPPOSE the legalization of Marijuana, are on the LOBBY PAYROLL for the big pharmaceutical companies,,,,who DO peddle dangerous drugs, and DO make thousands of percent profits, at a time when America needs to put people to work and get revenues flowing, the legalization of Marijuana would do more for those two things than ANYTHING the stimulus programs have done,,,,,and would make revenues instead of being a cost burden,,,,the government needs to fess up and quit telling lies about Marijuana,,,every one they have told,,,has been debunked,,repeatedly.