Jacob Sullum nails it: Chris Christie Will End The War On Drugs – Just Like Obama Did
It turns out that Christie, who first called the war on a drugs a “failure†in 2012 (eight years after Barack Obama did), has something similar in mind. He does not want to stop responding to drug use with violence; he just wants to make “drug treatment†more “available,†which entails forcing nonviolent drug offenders into treatment by threatening to lock them in cages. Sadly, that does count as an improvement. Most people arrested on drug charges no doubt would prefer treatment to jail. But what is the moral justification for compelling that choice? If the state does not take that approach with alcoholics (except when they have broken the law in ways that endanger or harm others), why should it treat users of arbitrarily proscribed drugs this way?
We have certainly succeeded in getting the public to realize that the drug war is something they don’t want. So now we’re in the ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ phase.
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As John Stewart said recently, Christie is an embarrassment to New Jersey Corruption. Take that man’s traffic cones away from him before he hurts himself.
The Outlaw Jersey Whale strikes again,,,and Jacob left out the “if you can afford it” although through Obamacare their will be less imprisonment because Medicare will pay for the rehab,,however they won’t pay court costs and fines,if any,so the poor and indigent will continue to fill our prisons,,imagine creating a fix for over population of your money making prison system by paying for some of your chattel to be directed to another money making industry owned by drug warriors and inside trader legislators,,it iis almost like having your citizens paying you directly to fuck us,,priceless.
If all that didn’t come out exactly right blame it on Darkcycle
Actually the judges can act as a safety valve for the prisons,,they can keep them as full as possible and then dismiss the court costs and fees and let the poor go to rehab until they need a refill at the prison,,neato,,they stop getting warnings from the feds about over crowding,,the excess poor people are going to rehab to show how they are improving and everything cooks along like a pressure cooker,,no wonder they are so pissed off at us for fucking up this scam.
The Outlaw Jersey Whale . . . reminds me of a movie title staring Eastwood. I love it Clay. You just made my day.
I was chatting with a guy and I said
christie looked like a beached whale and he sent back that one back at me,,and for the life of me can’t remember where,,since I can’t remember who said it I must have thought it up cause I have too good a memory to forget something like that. that’s my story and I am sticking with it.
Christie is a shoe-in for Republican candidate for pres. because of his ‘hardball’ politics. He did what he did and hasn’t really apologised, he is a bully, he is arrogant and heartless, a real sociopath, so he is a perfect candidate from their perspective.
I think the Repugs will implode this next time. Their lack of common sense and the urge by too many of them to be hard-ass pricks will see that party devolve into chaos.
The puritanical Christian conservatives in the GOP are going to put the final bullet into the still walking corpse (zombie?) of the GOP as an influential party. And that will make room for the libertarians to come up front and spread their message of “Libertarians, plotting to take over the world and …
LEAVE YOU THE HELL ALONE!”
Once that happens, and as libertarians start taking more and more offices at those levels of government, you will see local and State government start to decrease in size and it will move up to the federal level soon after.
Why? Because most people DO want the government to leave them the hell alone.
OT: Juan Manuel Santos, Kofi Annan, Kenneth Roth, Rick Perry, Enrique Acevedo all speaking at the World Economic Forum RIGHT NOW about “The Drugs Dilemma”.
http://www.weforum.org/
Gov Perry is getting shot-down left and right.
Christie and Kennedy…two desperadoes trying to save their careers. We should encourage them to speak out because the more they do, the more the public will disbelieve what they say on the topic of the drug war. Now, if they could get Bernie Madoff and Jerry Sandusky to join them we’d really be laughing…
IMNSHO, the whole problem with revision of the WOD, SAM, blah, blah, blah is that revising and revamping a policy that should have never been implemented in the first place confuses and misses the point. If they really want to do something beneficial, they should throw out the whole concept of attempting to control what people ingest via legislation, and then start from scratch seeing what they might be able to come up with that would mitigate the unintended consequences of drug use, like the creating and funding of criminal empires, the variability of dosages and purity that tend to be what kills people, and the government WOD empire that is no more than a disastrous and oppressive jobs program.
Like Obama almost hinted, the government itself should make available non-lethal doses of these various substances to lower mortality, and invalidate the black market. Truly a little pragmatism is in order.
There is no winning in their war unless everyone is simply killed, and since no one is advocating that, (thank heaven), victory is impossible. They know it though, and just don’t want to shrink (eliminate) all of those nice DEA etc. government jobs until they are thrown up against the wall.
Well, THUD, as another one bounces off the wall.
It’s notable that the first political life raft Gov. Christie reaches for in his current struggles to stay afloat is ending the drug war. It used to be the ‘third rail’ of politics. How can he go wrong (Christie asks himself) when 82-percent in a Pew poll say the drug war is a huge failure?
Maybe he’s miscalculated and the anti-drug-war life raft isn’t big enough to hold a screw-up as humongous as Chris Christie. Maybe no one wants a bully in their life raft. Time will tell if his anti-drug-war ploy works to gain him sympathy.
I doubt it, he’s always been a bully and he will always be a bully, and people are damn tired of bullies and having government bullies bullying them around.
Jacob Sullum is the best journalist to read day-today to fully understand contemporary efforts to legalize marijuana in the United States.
The third-way crap needs to die with the politicians who believe in and use it.
My commenting has been light the last few days because I’ve just been so impressed with the quality of the comments recently. Didn’t feel like I needed to add anything.
Quite often, Pete’s little corner of the internet is the BEST reading out there!
the couch (for me) is a forum in the oldest and best tradition. Freedom – to speak, to think, to learn – in an open public, respectful dialogue is rare these days. As always I give props to all that doth here sitteth.
That goes for me too. Respect to the Couch.
Well Spaketh, gentlemen, now kindly passeth me the
Royal Hand Grenade of Legalization so that I may smite thou prohibitionist heathen!
That reminds me of a commercial for a local? deli called Erik’s where the pickles are protesting a lack of respect they have gotten over the years. Always second billing to the sandwiches. Holding signs and shouting We’re Not Bitter, we’re Dill! Respect Your Pickles!
I concur. Pete’s couch is one of the best forums around; definitely one of the most intelligent.
I am afraid to say anything,,I might miss my turn on the bong,,you guys have put up with me while I am doing this one item on my bucket list,,see marijuana/hemp come off Schedule 1,,that may sound less than the goal we all want but when the DEA moves marijuana off schedule 1 they lose control of the studies and that is all we really need,,one 3RD rate scientist and a couple of hippies from the backwoods of WA,OR,CA,NV.WY,HI,AK,ID,NE,ND,SD,KS,OK,AZ,NM.TX,LA,AR,MO,IA,IL,WI,MI,NY,CT,VT,ME,MA,VA,WV,MS,LA,AL,NC,SC,PA,RI,GA,FL,TN,UT,KY,DE,MD,MN,OH,AL,IN and even NJ can get it off the CSA entirely.
Thanks guys for teaching me so much.
Clay, I’m devastated. CO hasn’t made it on your list.
Dang right! This is the best couch EVAH!!!
*cough* *cough*
‘ear
*passes bong to Clay*
If Jamaica makes the deal with Canada to furnish medical marijuana is that international trade that falls under the Sherman Treaty about not being able to keep American citizens out of a legal international mrket?
http://tinyurl.com/ka6wmzw
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Canada is willing to purchase marijuana from Jamaica, a lucrative deal that could potentially earn billions of dollars for the country annually.
Blaine Dowdle (pictured left), chief executive officer of Canada-based MedCannAccess, is urging Jamaica to act quickly and seize the vast economic opportunity that could come from legalizing marijuana and establishing an export market for the product.
According to Dowdle, his country is looking to engage in the potential CDN$1.2-billion medical marijuana market. However, it is very expensive to grow marijuana in Canada, and investors there would be more than willing to import it from Jamaica.
I imagine that if the Sherman Treaty could be applied then we would not be locked out of growing hemp. Either way, great point Clay.
The Sherman Treaty or the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act? I’ve long believed that the DEA were in the same business as Nike and K-Mart and not ‘Federal’ because of the Sherman violations in regard to Hemp and forcing Americans to buy foreign products instead of American products when it comes to hemp goods . . . what’s next: giving Payless Shoes company badges and Federal Authority? I haven’t believed the DEA were legally ‘Federal’ for a few years because of hemp and their role in it.
WTF? As if the Canucks didn’t have some primo class ganja growers of their own?? I knew some back in the last decade that you might have thought they were wizards, they were so good. More practical botanical knowledge than most college profs. Health Canada has always acted an @$$ on this sort of thing.
I smell rodentia. Lot’s of ’em
Ever since R.v.Parker, which case found that the cannabis laws of Canada are unconstitutional because they did not allow for legitimate medical use, and which led to government-run distribution, the government of this country has stonewalled, blocked, obfuscated, delayed and generally did their level best to make the system fail. They were subsequently spanked when courts found that their regulations were inadequate to satisfy the courts’ requirement that a way be found to supply people with legitimate medical need. They either ignored the findings or else made minimal changes which changed nothing, claiming all the while that they had fixed the problem. Only to be spanked again a couple of years later by the courts. Repeat ad nauseum. This has gone on for years, and the system is no closer to working now than at the beginning. In so doing, the government thumbed their noses at the constitution and the top court. They castrated the supreme court by ignoring its rulings and getting away with it. The government of this country is in contempt of court and nobody is calling them on it. The supreme court has been shown to be powerless. When the country was founded, there was a role for the supreme court, to protect the citizens from an over-zealous government, to enforce the Constitution, (and, subsequently the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) and to ensure that the people are treated fairly by the government. Now that the supremes have been rendered powerless, there has been a vast power shift in this country. No longer is there a REAL court of final appeal, just a toothless remnant. Unfortunately that leaves we the citizens naked and vulnerable. We get the consequences, not them.
Primus, it’s worse than you think. Google the following:
Harper Versailles France 2003
Since growing your own falls under interstate commerce, according to SCOTUS, then why shouldn’t the Sherman treaty apply here under the same (actually better) logic?
Accoding to the National Institute on Drug Abuse clearly printed for anyone to see is a chart that reports deaths attributed to each drug:
Alcohol kills thousands every year. Marijuana has never killed anyone.
I know death is not a big issue for law enforcement that gets bounty money for marijuana arrests and healthcare specialist that work in rehab center that depend on the marijuana addicts the courts send them for customers,,but most people choose the one that can’t KILL you.
Safety Testing over.
http://tinyurl.com/pkwe539
Marijuana, alcohol risks debated during changing climate
“Alcohol is a legal substance, and it’s abusable, but the difference in that is that with marijuana use we don’t really understand its effect on the brain longterm,†he said. “In some respects marijuana is more dangerous because of its subtlety. With chronic use, we don’t know what the effect of marijuana will be on the brain or the lungs. I expect fully that we will find more and more harmful side effects, especially from chronic use.â€
Sic em.
Profits determine what is sealed with approval. Drunks may kill thousands but they wound even more. Ganja tends to make drivers more cautious. Doesn’t even eat your liver. Not only helps people, it doesn’t hurt them. If cures or prevention are legit. Not good for the health treatment biz. Booze has an entire infrastructure of fossil fools cookery fuel, plastic, aluminum, glass, copper, stainless steel with more heat from coal and Monsanto grain, hops, barley, tractors, diesel. Ganja needs dirt and a rolling paper. Prohibition keeps out competition and takes taxes from the peoples needs. Needy people work cheap. Tax Going to the Court Jesters and Whiz Quizzers, Anal probers and the $5k to get some of that ole time rehabilitation the SAM’s and Cruelvina’s are cashing in on. Really rather despicable or Déjà vu.
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…
Well drop my drawers and spank me like you mean it!!
We can’t keep up,,even with the internet,,the shit is hitting the fan,,only the first time we are on the upwind side!!!
Gov Rick Perry supports decriminalization
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Gov-Rick-Perry-for-decriminalization-of-pot-5168667.php
PS:Visualization of first line could be hazardous to your health but videos are available for a nominal fee..
Even more third way nonsense;
“Legalization is no penalty at all, where as decriminalization doesn’t necessarily mean jail time (for minor possession offenses.) It means more of a fine or counseling or some sort of program where you don’t end up in jail but in a rehabilitative program,†said Lucy Nashed, a spokesman for Perry.
I know Clay, old Good Hair seems to be evolving. But he’s just know coming around to this third way joke? Fortunately he’s now more irrelevant than ever…
Howard,,even a fake backing off from marijuana laws will cause more people to come out and protest any laws against it at all.
Look what that first memo did.
Yeah, I agree. My cynicism is showing ;). Any crack in the door is the beginning of an eventually wide open door.
And now even Jindal is starting to crack…a little;
http://tinyurl.com/lvb965p
” you don’t end up in jail but in a rehabilitative program,”
Wow! Rick’s become a Maoist.
What makes dangerous neighborhoods? Drug wars, right? What else do dangerous neighborhoods create? Here’s the late-breaking research:
Drug wars create aggressive children, who in turn may have a better chance of growing up to recreate dangerous neighborhoods that sequentially create more aggressive neighborhood children. The research paints drug war violence as a vicious cycle that feeds new violence in neighborhoods throughout the world. The same cycle would be expected to produce non-drug crimes that might be absent were it not for the drug war.
That is a relief Servetus,,according to Nancy Grace and police LEADERSHIP marijuana causes ALL the violence in the hood.
Battle of New Orleans, In 2014
In 2014 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jack down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little Bud and we took a little Greens
And we caught the bloody Prohibitches in the town of New Orleans.
We looked down the river and we see’d the Prohibitches come.
And there must have been a hundred of’em beatin’ on the drum.
They seemed so high and they made the bugles ring.
We stood by our hemp bales and didn’t say a thing.
Old Jack said we could take ’em by surprise
If we didn’t fire our Bowls ’til we looked ’em in the eye
We held our fire ’til we see’d their faces well.
Then we opened up with thunderfuck and really gave ’em … well
Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go.
They ran so fast that the smoke couldn’t catch ’em
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.**
We fired our Bong ’til the barrel melted down.
So we grabbed an alligator clip and we fought another round.
We filled a Bowl with Temple balls, and powder from some Kynd
And when we touched the powder off, the Drug Czar lost his mind.
Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go.
They ran so fast that the smoke couldn’t catch ’em
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.**
Rick Simpson Oil update:
After being totally temporarily disabled (SSI) since 1995 I may soon be in the position of looking for work.
I’ve been using morphine in addition to cannabis during this period for severe symptoms of osteoarthritis. I’ve had one hip replaced and thought I would need the other one done as well.
The effect of full extract cannabis oil on my arthritis symptoms have been incredibly significant. I had also been using Cannabidiol (CBD) tincture for nasty nerve pain in my neck, shoulder, arm, and hand. After about three months using a very small dose of the oil on a daily basis I no longer even needed the CBD.
The CBD had been remarkably effective for neuropathy and I didn’t expect the high-THC full extract oil would allow me to discontinue the CBD, but it appears to be the case.
What’s really cool is that in the last couple of months I had “spontaneous REGRESSION” of some cervical-spine bulging of maybe 3mm to 4mm. I used to be able to rock back and forth against a wall like a pivot because of the bulging from disc degeneration. Now I can’t do that because my spine realigned itself! MY SPINE REALIGNED ITSELF with a little help from cannabinoids.
Here’s where it gets interesting in respect to acupuncture and the endocannabinoid system. Two years previous I ALSO had a similar case of “spontaneous REGRESSION” of some lumbar-spine bulging. However, in that case it was a result of “electro-acupuncture.”
In the case of my lumbar spine the effect seems to have been replacing the stinging painful stabs of neuropathy with numbness. My right leg and foot get numb when I try to drive or sit in a car. I’ll take numbness over sciatica any day though.
I’ve spent weeks doing cervical traction at physical rehab over the years that attempted and failed to do what the cannabinoids from the oil achieved. This is freaking weird, and if it hadn’t happened to me I don’t know if I would buy hearing this story from another source with studies and verification.
All the buds, edibles, concentrates, suckers, brownies, joints, bowls and hits vaporized or not NEVER achieved what a small non-psychoactive (after tolerance is achieved) daily dose of full extract cannabis oil has accomplished for me.
Anecdotal evidence like this needs to be viewed carefully. It’s entirely possible that my results are based exclusively on the PLACEBO effect. I don’t believe that to be the case, but there’s always that possibility. However, IT SIMPLY NEVER occurred to me that I might realign my spinal bulging by ingestion of full extract cannabis oil. If I wasn’t expecting a certain outcome would that still count as possible placebo effect? Placebo or not, RESULTS ARE RESULTS!
F.Y.I. here’s the current stats on my full extract cannabis oil: 54.4% THC, 2.2% CBD, 0.7% THCV, 1.1% CBN, 2.2% CBG. It can vary from batch to batch. Some versions I get are practically CBD-free.
The ratio of THC-to-CBD in this version of the oil departs significantly from the 1:1 ratio that G.W.Pharmaceuticals (Sativex) has had such great success with, or the 20-to-1 CBD-to-THC typical of the oil in what’s called “Charlotte’s Web,” named after Dravet Syndrome patient Charlotte Figi.
What this means is that we don’t have to wait on Big Pharma to come up with all their cannabinoid-based “single bullet” medications that will cost 4 or 5 times more than the full extract cannabis oil.
Here’s my new problem. Cannabis full extract oil may allow me to work again, but without access and the ability to use the oil I AM DISABLED.
Did I just fucking put myself into a really, really, shitty Catch-22? That is, can I ask my physician to take into account that as long as the federal government views cannabis as a schedule I drug I’m at risk of losing employment through drug testing?
Legally, I don’t believe he’s expected to consider what might happen once I become employed, but morally I believe he has my life in his hands. Here’s my fear. Employers have a huge bias against folks that have been unemployed for over a few months. What job ISN’T going to drug test someone who has been out of the workforce for over twenty years?
I’m smart enough to make way more than I get from SSI but I can’t do it without cannabis-based medicines. I’m not thrilled about even considering fraud in the medical sense, but exposing myself to possible drug testing would be the worst possible outcome for my quality of life and future.
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Correction: most people who have never been to jail would prefer “treatment” to incarceration. Everything else being equal I’ll choose incarceration over “treatment” every friggin’ day of the year. It’s bad enough being locked up but put some ignorant social worker dishing out “tough love” mind games in the mix AND give them “discretion” about when you get out AND if you don’t please their whimsy you get to go do the jail time too and I can’t see anyone except those who are unaware of how the system works making that choice.
Seriously, imagine getting to “treatment” and realizing that your fate is now in the paws of Calvina Fay or “Dr.” Drew or Ed Gogek or some other equally malignant narcissist?
Something that I noticed on the inside was that it was the short timers that actually freaked out about being incarcerated. A guy comes back from sentencing with a couple of life terms plus umpteen years without parole and his only question is “what’s for dinner tonight?” A drunk driver comes back with 30 days and he’s whining like a little baby. “I just can’t DO 30 days!” Being an empathetic and sensitive man I’d point out that the kindly guards were there to help him through the ordeal by keeping the exits locked. It ain’t like you get any choice in the matter short of suicide.
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Speaking of lipstick on a pig, why is it that I’ve never seen a photograph of Linda Taylor and Gov. Christie together?
OT: what’s up with Illinois wanting to take away gun ownership rights for one to qualify as a medical patient? Did I read that right . . . It’s just a proposal right? I hope they don’t implement something along the lines of trading one right for another.
I don’t think it will pass because I don’t think they can classify marijuana as causing violence,,now maybe some of those mood elevators or steroids that have a history of violence might squeeze by but marijuana???????
And if they get it passed and the feds end prohibition the law doesn’t apply anymore.
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War Vet, they did require that patients relinquish any permit to own or carry concealed. I agree that it’s heinous but at least there’s something akin to a reason for it. I was shocked that the Illinois Legislature didn’t require that patients surrender their driver’s licenses. That’s not fantasy land speculation. They’ve been trying to get a medicinal cannabis patient protection law and surrender of the patients’ drivers licenses was included in every one of past year proposed legislation.
Do you recall Willis v Winters which was a case decided by the Oregon Supreme Court in 2011?
Willis v Winters was decided on the basis that Agents of the State of Oregon enforce Oregon laws. There was nothing in Oregon law authorizing their decision to refuse to issue gun permits based on Federal law.
It’s really amazing how few people understand that the various States aren’t authorized to enforce Federal law. They’re not even allowed to volunteer to do so. It’s beyond mind boggling how few LEOs and State employed attorneys realize that.
Thanks for sharing with me guys. Oklahoma now seems to be serious about medical and possibly legal. Constance Johnson is a saint of a lady who’s been battling for medical in the state legislature for a while. Thinking about Colorado’s push, I cannot help but wonder how Hunter S. Thompson would feel if he was still around . . . and I do believe his efforts in the past did huge favors for the state of Colorado.
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