Johann Hari nails it:
In the Western world today, there is a group of people who live in a haze of unreality, and are prone at any moment to break into paranoia, hallucinations, and screaming. If you try to get between them and their addiction, they will become angry and aggressive and lash out. They need our help. I am talking, of course, about the Drug Prohibitionists: the gaggle of politicians, bishops and journalists who still insist that the only way to deal with the very widespread drug use in our societies is for it to be criminalized, where it is untaxed, unregulated, controlled by armed criminal gangs, and horribly adulterated.
Hopefully, we can get these folks into rehab quick. They’re dangerous out on the streets.
Firestarter, I no longer believe you’re real. You’re some prohibitionist asshole just trying to sew division. Good luck, cop.
darkcycle, unfortunately there is a cohort of potheads who seem to believe the dogma that Firestarter is spewing. If you go over to
icmag.com/ic/forumdisplay.php?f=6 and you will find people that have been posting for years spewing similar horse crap. One of the most fucked up things about Prop 19 is that if it fails it will almost certainly be because of idiot know nothing potheads who have the imbecilic idea that we can write our own ticket with regard to re-legalizing cannabis. Oh sure, lets include amnesty as well as 40 acres and a mule compensation for those who have been convicted of the prohibition laws. Christ on a crutch, can’t they go read the current attacks in the offensive to defeat Prop 19? That’s with all the concessions that Prop 19 has made with the know nothings. Can’t these people look at the polls and see that Prop 19 is fluctuating around the 50% axis? That’s with the compromises offered to the know nothing prohibitionists. I just don’t understand how these people think. My mistake is that I could just be imagining things when I presume that they are able and/or willing to think.
We’d a had it too if the dimwits at NORML hadn’t screwed over the movement by getting caught tooting cocaine with the drug czar (that day’s equivalent to the drug czar today. I always get a kick whenever someone tries to credit or put the on Tricky Dick for starting the war on (some) drugs. Until last year I actually never knew the level of voter support at that time for decriminalizing cannabis (no way was a distribution chain going to be allowed back then). Well it turns out it was fluctuating in the low 30% range. This was so consistent in the last 3 decades of the 20th century it was for all intents and purposes a flat line graph, until the turn of the century when support for re-legalization started edging up and is now firmly ensconced in the mid 40s with a nationwide average 40s nationwide average. nationwide. So why this decade? We had W & Cheney & friends looting the treasury, the economy heading into a tail spin, 9-11 to compel the politicians to borrow more money to squander prosecuting evil & senseless wars. Well I guess that they did manage to direct the damage from all that into the housing bubble. But when the shit hit the fan in late ’07 early ’08 there just was nothing left to throw at it to make it go away. I actually had a consult today with an attorney about getting some capital to expand my dog & pony show. When I showed him how much I had available in never used credit accounts cards he seemed ready to shit himself because it was over $500K. It wasn’t like I went out an applied for these credit lines. No need for that the major issuers were pushing the loans down people’s throats.I’d call the issuer after I’d open an account and the typical dialogue would be ‘well I see we’ve only given you a $20,000 credit limit but if you do a balance transfer now we’ll give you a year with the money interest free and boost that credit line up to $50k. What? You don’t have any balances to transfer? No problem we deposit the money directly into your designated bank account.” Back then the banks were still paying 4-5% interest. $50k at 5% is a little less than $2500 in free money for me. I’ll take every dollar you want to lend me interest free. Why the heck would I just say no to free money? I admit I pretty much stopped paying attention after it got over 300k. But that was a direct result of Bush’s monetary policy and Alan Greenspan’s administration of that policy. I seriously doubt that these men didn’t understand the likely consequences of such idiotic policies. Though I admit I was never able to here what Mr. Greenspan had to say. When he’d come on the TV and started to speak Greenspanish all I could here was ‘blah, blah, lower rates, blah.” His speeches always reminded me of the adults in a Charlie Brown/Peanuts TV special, the only difference being that the Charlie Brown adults were more understandable than Greenspanish. Oh well, perhaps if I understood economics as well as Mr. Greenspan I could have gotten a bail out too.
it’s time for everybody to get real on prop 19 and other activities in california. yes, passing prop 19 will be a minor incremental improvement, but no it isn’t going to change anything anywhere else — at least not that quickly, and maybe not even for the good.
i get tired of having to keep reminding the cheerleaders that it is *completely legal* in alaska to grow and smoke your own — that happened in the mid 70s (74 iirc). yet here we are, nearly 40 years later sporting wood over the idea that another domino may be ready to tip over.
i don’t have another 40 fucking years — incrementalism is bullshit!
yes, you can improve many things in the world incrementally, but what we’re trying to do is to destroy something: prohibiton. you don’t destroy something by taking it apart one brick at a time.
anybody who believes that prop 19 represents the dawn of a new day or whatever other poetic bullshit you choose to describe it are totally not paying attention.
if prop 19 passes, then good for you, california tokers — oops, you’re still going to lose your job when you get piss tested.
we have a ton of work still left to do, and it requires that we all get our heads around the reality that we’ve spent 40 years chasing red herrings while focused on pot.
it ain’t about pot. hell people, at its core it isn’t even about drugs.
while there is no reason to try to stop prop 19 from passing, sadly enough, there is also no reason to start the victory dance.
the public at large is still completely unprepared for what needs to happen — and reformers are still not doing a good job of creating a coherent, consistent message to get things truly moving in the right direction.
until we do, clawing along with one prop 19 after another is nowhere near as useful or as desirable as people believe.
let it pass — but don’t think for one second that it it’s the beginning of the end. it’s just one small stutter step that follows several hundred that preceded it.
the promised land really is just over the next ridge – but that ridge is a lot farther away than it looks.
Brian,
I think everyone realizes this. However, even a small victory displays popular intent and those who come in from the bush will take a little time to celebrate before hitting the stump again.
It’s like building a bridge. In the beginning, the work isn’t noticable because it’s only lowly placed on the shores. Now, we’ve raised the bridge’s structure to where it’s highly noticable by those without bridges. When they see that we’re successful at building ours, it’s hoped that they’ll begin construction of theirs.
Congress will never change without a foot-dragging fight. This was the original reason we quit fighting on the Federal level and took it to the State level. We will be asking the question “How many States does it take?” for a long time, until something concrete comes together. Till then, we each have the battleground in our own front yards.
hell EZ if i didn’t believe that i would have quit the game long ago.
the problem though, is that far too many cannabists appear to be acting purely from immediate self-interest. when they get what they want, they will leave the party. that seems quite obvious in the current squabbling among the californians.
lack of genuine leadership continues to be our achilles’ heel.
Brian,
I agree. We need a solidified force now to join all fifty factions into one solid movement. Unfortunately, that single entity doesn’t exist today. Maybe it’s time to organize another. One with the specific intent of bringing the California idea to the rest of the country. However, as a grunt, that’s far and above my abilities. Although I’d love to join such a group.
The movement groups we have today are totally lacking and crammed with in-fighting. Leave them to wither on the vine. We need a “3 Muskateer” organization. Their mission statement could be “Bringing Cannabis legalization to the Nation, One State at a Time!”
You and I probably wouldn’t be around to see the end of it. That’s sad. However, we’d “die with our boots on.”
What to do? I don’t know. But I take orders well. 😉
It’s just a bunch of selfish,bored lawmakers trying to make everyone’s life miserable while looking righteous!!