Patrick Kennedy and Kevin Sabet sink to a new low in their letter in the New York Times responding to the Times editorial about the racial disparity that exists nationwide in marijuana arrests, which is all out of proportion to how marijuana is used in the population.
Second, legalization would exacerbate, not reduce, racial disparities in both our criminal justice and health care systems.
We can expect the legal marijuana industry to target minorities in the same way the alcohol and tobacco industries do today. There are eight times as many liquor stores in poor communities of color versus upper-class white areas. Additionally, even though they use drugs at roughly the same rate as whites, African-Americans are more likely to need treatment because of reduced access to health care and social supports. Communities of color will bear the brunt of marijuana legalization.
This is what it sounds like they’re saying (are they channeling Anslinger a bit?):
You don’t understand… if we legalize marijuana, those black people won’t be able to resist Big Marijuana and they’ll just go crazy smoking that reefer. And it’ll make them commit crimes and it’ll make them sick with nobody to help them. It’s just the… humane… thing to do — arresting black people. For their own good, you know.
Stay classy, guys.
The Drugwar was sired by elitism and racial bigotry; how can we expect the (toxic) fruit to fall far from the (poison) tree?
More to the point:
“Have you ever seen the rhetoric that goes around the gambling prohibition? You know what it is. Look, we have had a good time. We have been together yesterday, we have been together today, I have known a lot of you guys for ages. How about after the talk, we have a minute or two, let’s go on up to your room and we will play a little nickel, dime, quarter poker. Want to play some poker this afternoon? Why not? It’s a nice thing to do.
Would we be outraged if the California State Police came barreling through the door and arrested us for violation of California’s prohibition on gambling? Of course we would. Because, who is not supposed to gamble? Oh, you know who is not supposed to gamble — them poor people, that’s who. My God, they will spend the milk money. They don’t know how to control it. They can’t handle it. But us? We know what we are doing.
That’s it. Every criminal prohibition has that same touch to it, doesn’t it? It is enacted by US and it always regulates the conduct of THEM. And so, if you understand that is the name of the game, you don’t have to ask me, or any of the other people which prohibitions will be abolished and which ones won’t because you will always know. The iron law of prohibitions — all of them — is that they are passed by an identifiable US to control the conduct of an identifiable THEM.
And a prohibition is absolutely done for when it does what? Comes back and bothers US. If, at any time, in any way, that prohibition comes back and bothers us, we will get rid of it for sure, every doggoned time. Look at the alcohol prohibition if you want a quick example. As long as it is only THEM — you know, them criminals, them crazy people, them young people, them minority group members — we are fine. But any prohibition that comes back and bothers US is done for.
from The History Of The Non-Medical Use Of Drugs In The United States
A Speech to the California Judges Association 995 annual conference by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School
That racially bigoted attitude was bolstered by pseudoscience of the grossest nature.
From this, and not one shred of scientific evidence, do our drug laws come. And it is that same unconscious(?) attitude regarding their fellow citizen’s abilities to control their appetites that has led to this mess. Such tender concern for their less fortunate brethren. (Spitting sound)
…Nixon says (to Art Linkletter). “A person does not drink to get drunk. . . . A person drinks to have fun.”
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Do you recall from a few years back the dad from Colorado who blamed his son’s suicide on cannabis? When John Walters was the ONDCP HDIC he liked to trot him out from time to time. Later the fact that the boy had been being forcibly re-educated in a drug “rehabilitation” program and had 6 months of metabolite free urine before committing suicide pretty much killed the propaganda value of the lie.
My point is that the prohibitionist parasites aren’t above using grieving parents to promote their agenda. When Mr. Linkletter had that conversation with Dick Nixon he was also grieving the loss of his daughter to suicide. At the time it was believed that she was tripping on LSD and thought she could fly. It wasn’t until this century that I learned that the tripping part was just propaganda. I don’t know if Mr. Linkletter believed that but any way you slice it the man was in the grip of grief.
Sure, I still call the lame “reasoning” that some people drink to not get drunk making it acceptable to keep drinking alcohol legal The Linkletter Excuse but for some unknown reason feel compelled to point out that it wasn’t long after that meeting that Mr. Linkletter recanted and repudiated those claims.
Taking advantage of a parent that has had to bury one of their children has got to be right down at the bottom of the most despicable list of stuff done by the prohibasites.
That’s exactly right Kaptinemo, They can’t handle it and they can’t even afford to get help. You know how those blacks are…
– Direct Quote from Dr A. Porot during the League of Nations meeting advocating cannabis prohibition.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00740.x/abstract
frum s hand is in there too. he said the same thing about legalization making class divisions greater.
8 sentences, 159 words — um, did you guys really need to tag team that one? (I’m guessing Kennedy’s contribution was signing his name — although he may have needed help with that.)
It may not have been needed, but it sure as heck is enjoyable.
by the way i think poor old pat is being used as a patsy but is not bright enough to realize
He was hired for his name recognition and they forgot to check his IQ,,however the people doing the hiring were not looking for anyone that could read science so perhaps they did check his IQ,,just above an ice cube.
I’m sorry, I should have kept them caged and chained up . . . I know they were cute when they were babies . . . I shouldn’t have flushed them down the toilet, where they could survive and thus grow into stronger Prohibs in the sewers of America. Do you have any Prohib bait? The truth doesn’t seem to affect them at all when we spray it on them . . . I knew I should have neutered them when I had the chance.
He might be a ‘stalking horse’ designed to find out what the public really thinks so the real power can then be seen as progressive and on the side of the people. Why would he do this? Perhaps to atone for past misdeeds and earn brownie points for his future political needs. Or he could just be stupid.
I wonder how long it will be before the rest of the country realizes that all these fools are doing is stealing our talking points, and applying them to their goal of ending prohibition. I’d love to be at the planning table with this group.
“Yeah Pat! That’s a good one! And then lets say that ENDING prohibition will create MORE RACISM1” High fives, all around..
Kennedy’s complaint that marijuana retailers will focus their advertising on minorities is ridiculous. Marijuana sells itself. The herb is like baking flour; it doesn’t need advertising to make it useful or desirable, which is why it has endured under prohibition, if not in spite of it.
It’s not the fault of any minority citizen if liquor stores and bars are zoned to operate in impoverished neighborhoods. That’s typically not a choice made by residents who reside there, but by city planners who like to zone sinful activities and commodities within rundown areas of a city as a kind of symbolic gesture. Cigarette advertising flourishes in liquor store windows because the laws allow it, otherwise it wouldn’t be there. It’s not the 1950s anymore.
Kevin Sabet and Patrick Kennedy continually demonstrate their ignorance of drugs and science, but this time they’ve demonstrated they can’t spot racism, and if given an opportunity, they couldn’t market their way out of a wet paper bag in the middle of a monsoon.
“It’s not the fault of any minority citizen if liquor stores and bars are zoned to operate in impoverished neighborhoods. That’s typically not a choice made by residents who reside there, but by city planners who like to zone sinful activities and commodities within rundown areas of a city as a kind of symbolic gesture.”
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Yeah, that statistic about there being eight times as many liquor stores in poor minority areas as there are in upper-class white ones was incredibly disingenuous. Hey, they probably have 100 times as many junkyards, too! (That would obviously indicate that poor black people produce 100 times as much garbage as rich white ones.) BTW, I wonder if google can tell me anything about alcohol consumption patterns as they relate to blacks vs. whites or socioeconomic status.
Hmm, that’s weird.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Well, what do you know? I guess Kev and Pat are full of it.
They are so full of it I was thinking of naming a laxative after them.
junkyards. great line. completely skewers them as liers by statistics
The lower the social class the less disposable income they have. Rich people can afford recreational drugs and still pay the rent.
I’m skeptical that it’s even true that poor neighborhoods have more liquor stores than rich ones. when I lived in NYC you had to walk ten blocks or more to find one in Brooklyn. First Ave on the Upper East Side had one every two blocks or so. Same story on the Upper West Side.
Shorter Sabet/Kennedy: Legalizing marijuana will lead to more arrests of black people for marijuana…what???
When you have nothing to defend your position and no science to back up your claims of harms you have to make it up the best you can,,the other option,,admitting prohibition causes society any problem is out of the question,,,when your mantra and the very foundation of your failed policies are rooted in racial bigotry and lies there is no limit to the lies you can add to your talking points.
“There are eight times as many liquor stores in poor communities of color versus upper-class white areas.”
That makes the availability of a legal non-toxic alternative in those communities some eight times more desperately needed. Q.E.D.
From “the more things change, the more they stay the same” category:
College Women Who Smoke Marijuana Are More Likely To Hook Up, Study Finds
That was a good one Duncan. I sent it to my daughters who attend college.
A great Sunday morning chuckle.
The entire alarmist prohibitionist rhetoric against marijuana legalization reminds me of the dire predictions that were made in the 1980s of the consequences of letting Americans drive faster than 55 MPH.
only about 80% crazier
I stand corrected.
I love the last line of the article, (probably the only straightforward line in it IMHO, emphasis mine):
“What WE need are smarter, more equitable policing and treatment expansion…”
Gee, do ya think there is any profit motive in evidence here?
I’m honestly surprised the Times printed this drivel, but I guess even craziness is good for ratings. (Help!)
Racism is never the end result, it is a tool to maintain the dysfunction they profit on. Cheap labor is the game. Outsourcing or prison slave labor. Racism keeps them from being victims to show compassion for, keeping them the hideous enemy out to get your kids. This is just the latest version to keep profits on prohibition. Racism separates one group to portray as evil. Same with the drug war and the results aren’t surprising that more people of color are making kochs, calvina and califono’s profits treating problems they themselves create.
Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing. Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind. Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death. You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother. Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men. …the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.
Federal Bureau of Narcotics Chief Harry J. Anslinger
SCAPEGOATING – Blaming social problems on a cultural, racial, or behaviorial group. PREJUDICE – Selling the public on the idea that all members of the targeted group are ‘bad’ people. LIES – ‘Facts’, which cannot be verified, and pseudo scientific studies are used as propaganda against the targeted group. History is rewritten. NO PUBLIC DEBATE – “These people have no right to have their viewpoiunt aired.” and ” Anyone who disagrees or questions us must be one of them!” DEHUMANIZATION – Characterizing all members of a targeted group as subhuman and typically capable of monstrous deeds and/or crimes. PROTECT OUR CHILDREN – “They corrupt, seduce and or destroy our children.” CIVIL LIBERTIES SACRIFICED – “We must give up some of our freedoms, liberties, and rights in order to combat this menace to society.” LEGAL DESCRIMINATION – Laws criminalize members of targeted group and they may be denied jobs, the right to own property and/or be restricted as to where they may live or go. INFORMERS – Citizens are urged to ‘turn in’ friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members. SECRET POLICE – Non-uniformed police squads set up to wage war on targeted groups utilizing deception, infiltration, espionage and entrapment. CONFISCATION OF PROPERTY – Property and assets are seized from people who are members of targeted group. Property may be divided between the informer and the state. REMOVAL FROM SOCIETY – Prisons, rehabilitation camps, ‘hospitals’, executions and genocide…
“Kill Them All” “Zero Tolerance”
Why Do Democrats Defend Nixon’s Drug War?
Sen. Ron Wyden blames marijuana users for federal industrial hemp bill failure
Wyden Fails as Statesman after Hemp Bill Ignored
After his federal industrial hemp bill failed to move forward late last week, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden wagged his finger in shame not at the closed-minded Senate that wouldn’t work with Wyden, but at marijuana users.
Money Grubbing Dung Worriers
NeoConflicts of Interest
MJ Research Cut as Support Grows
Bush Barthwell & Drugs
Pete Guither nails it.
The Drug War is about social control. If you fit the profile of an “upstanding citizen” with a single-family home and a mortgage and late model car, no one care what you do behind your perfectly manicured lawn.
But if you’re a poor person well, just you wait and see how you get treated if you get in trouble.
here is an interesting article from Washington state” http://tinyurl.com/m9rqp6d
and those same towns that refuse to allow marijuana sales or production in them will be the first in line for any state taxes gathered from other places that grow and sell.
My local city’s Mayor Linville has informed the U.S. Conference of Mayors that she is happy to add her name as a co-sponsor of the resolution in support of states setting their own marijuana policies without federal interference.
“Second, legalization would exacerbate, not reduce, racial disparities in both our criminal justice and health care systems.”
Evidently, these two yokels don’t get what a scene of legality would look like. If it’s legal, there will be more people in court for it! Really?
And treatment. Most of those in treatment are there due to the courts. So, legality drops those numbers drastically by ending the need for the courts. Their buddies lose income but that’s not the topic.
Both should assume that with the direction the country’s headed in, there WILL be a final Drug War Court and their names are listed on the docket.
For more Sabet lunacy check out this article. And Calvina Fay’s drivel is a bonus;
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/florida-prepares-for-medical-marijuana-petition-drive/2128052
Here’s something interesting;
“There is no doubt that marijuana has some medical properties.” Sabet says. “The question is, do we need to smoke it? We don’t smoke opium to get the effects of morphine. We don’t chew willow bark to get the effects of aspirin.”
No Kevin, YOU just get out of the way. WE will do is we see fit.
who doesn’t smoke opium and chew willow bark?
Oh no! I’ve been chewing opium and smoking willow bark! I always get everything wrong, darn it all.
“We don’t chew willow bark to get the effects of aspirin.â€
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Good point, Kev. And if someone DID chew willow bark, we’d obviously have a societal obligation to arrest and cage them. You know, for the children.
BTW, I just checked on Amazon and found a shocking number of listings for “willow bark tea.” Pretty damn brazen if you ask me. Does someone else want to make the call to the DEA or should I do it?
I’ll do it!
please don’t dark,,you already have to wait 30 seconds for all the keystroke copiers and recording devices to turn on when you get online now.
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So no one is going to point out that smoking isn’t required to gain the benefits of cannabis, whether for medicinal need or just for enjoyment?
For Mr. Sabet I’d recommend that he use the suppositories since he doesn’t like the idea of smoking. It’s much more efficient than edibles and I think society would benefit if we could keep that particular asshole busy.
Big Up Duncan!!!! I’m laughing my ass off. (pun incidental!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEMPhXK-8P4
Clay. Hahahahahahaha! Somebody’s gotta do it!
AFA this drug war goes, we’ve got them on the run. I feel it is my duty to kick their asses all the way back to where ever it is they came from.
Burn Babylon. Leave no vestige.
“If physicians were treating patients with other untested substances,
there would be a public outcry,â€
~ Dr. Andrea Grubbs Barthwell
There is dear…
Marijuana Wins Majority Support in Nationwide Poll
By 52% to 45%
Grubbs honey, your unsubstantiated Hobgoblins of future tragedy never pan out from past predictions. You sell fear and that is reprehensible and makes you a coward vulture feeding on kids. pitifool!
NeoConflicts of Interest
MJ Research Cut as Support Grows
The majority of prohibitionists profit on the drug war, and that is their only motive.
Bush Barthwell & Drugs
Former Deputy Drug Czar Andrea Barthwell is the new spokesperson for getting GW Pharmaceuticals’ Sativex for use in the United States.
Is The DEA Legalizing THC?
So, in other words, if a pharmaceutical product contains THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would be a legal commodity. But if you or I possessed THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would remain an illegal commodity. Since the cannabis plant itself will remain illegal under federal law, then from whom precisely could Big Pharma legally obtain their soon-to-be legal THC extracts? There’s only one answer: The federal government’s lone legally licensed marijuana cultivator, The University of Mississippi at Oxford, which already has the licensing agreements with the pharmaceutical industry in hand.
As well as keeping Hemp from family farmers.
Calvina Fay Prohibition Inc.
“Persons using this narcotic [marijuana] smoke the dried leaves of the plant, which has the effect of driving them completely insane. The addict loses all sense of moral responsibility. Addicts to this drug, while under its influence, are immune to pain, and could be injured without having any realization of their condition.”
~ Emily Murphy – Canadian Prohibitionist (1923)
Passing Bills without Reading Them; FULL OF FAIL
TONITE on CNN
CNN ‘Inside Man’ with Morgan Spurlock, Marijuana fight tonight
No Miss TV spotlight: Tonight the premiere of “Inside Man” with Morgan Spurlock takes a balanced approach to the “should they stay or should they go” political wars over legal Marijuana dispensaries of California.
The existing conundrum in California is over existing pot shops in compliance with voter approved laws, while Big Pharma-backed politicians are hell bent on closing them down amidst contradictory state and federal laws.
The episode is a great watch and informative, with Spurlock constantly denied access to US Attorney for NorCal, Melinda Haag for commentary on the subject. We hear first-hand from people with severe afflictions from mental illness, war and disease how medically prescribed cannabis is their best, most effective cure for pain and sleep aid. The shop highlighted in the premiere episode is Harborside Health Center of Oakland, CA., operating within the laws of the state, under threat of closure for perceived illegal or abusive activity by some state and federal politicans.
The CNN Original series Inside Man, hosted and produced by Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, premieres Sunday, June 23 at 10:00 p.m. ET.
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Off topic: A SCOTUS ruling in the controversy over California’s Prop 8 2008 is imminent. So far every Federal Appeals Court has held that law unconstitutional. I’d imagine that if the SCOTUS upholds the right for gay people to marry that there might be some people who consider that event to be very significant.
Duncan20903
the world returns to balance… Twinkies® Resurrection, July 15…
Forget the Twinkies, when to I get my imitation Raspberry filled powdered donut replicas???
Have to settle for organic, local grown…
2013 Bay Area Medical Cannabis Cup
San Francisco Triumph
Have a look at the winners of the 2013 HIGH TIMES Bay Area Medical Cannabis Cup…
meanwhile back in no man’s land of DEAth…
U.S. Attorney Said Montana Medical Pot Growers Wouldn’t Be Prosecuted — Now They’re Facing Life in Prison
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Didn’t I assure everyone that Twinkies weren’t going away? There are even more choices now. TastyKaka has introduced “Dreamies” and of course there’s The Snack Artist’s knockoff. Anything that Hostess owned that is even marginally profitable will be resurrected and re-issued.
just re read kev and pats letter. overwhelming sense of patriarchy. its the “what about the children” argument only applied to black adults. unadulterated racial superiority. a dog whistle argument aimed at biggots. ronnie reagan couldnt have done it better
I consider myself an “American” and not just a minority. As I am labeled such I don’t need Kevin Sabet and Patrick Kennedy to protect me from myself although I’s sho nuff ‘preciate it boss. I certainly can’t believe these idiots would suggest that jailing blacks is in fact protecting them. Amazing!
It would be delicious irony if “Big Marijuana” exists one day and communists start protesting against it.
Don’t mind me…