I’m really kind of surprised that Forbes Magazine is giving space to an absolutely ignorant nut-job like Paul Johnson.
The War On Drugs: A Defining Moment
Johnson attempts to explain some of the terrible things that might happen if we legalize drugs…
Another possibility to consider is that a rogue state, such as North Korea, will enter the burgeoning drug market. North Korea’s evil regime survives by performing tasks no other government is able or willing to contemplate. For instance, it has supplied nuclear technology to other rogue states in contravention of all international law. Both Syria and Iran have paid North Korea in gold for its aid in their nuclear efforts. There is no way to stop these transactions as long as China refuses to take punitive steps against its former military and ideological ally.
Recreational drugs are comparatively easy for a ruthless and determined government to grow and/or manufacture. Supplying these drugs to Americans is precisely the kind of prospect that would appeal to the North Korean leadership. They’ve always claimed that capitalist democracies are essentially corrupt and decadent. This would enable them to “prove†it, especially if the release of vast quantities of cheap soft drugs into Western cities were followed by an increase in the supply and use of hard drugs, as many experts believe would be inevitable.
China, which has a drug problem of its own, might be prepared to act against North Korea in this context. But it would extract a high price from the West, which might result in the balance of power in the Pacific tilting in China’s favor.
I’ve been discussing possibilities. But in the world of highly dangerous drugs, it’s safer to treat possible outcomes as probabilities. If we allow this drug use to become legal, we’ll be embarking on a voyage into horror with our eyes open.
This has got to be the stupidest reason for not legalizing that I’ve heard yet. It doesn’t even make enough false sense to debunk. If marijuana is legal, why in the world would we buy it from North Korea?
Somebody at Forbes has got to have some egg on their face.
Funny thing is, weed is legal and grown openly in North Korea: North Korea Has a Surprising Attitude to Marijuana.
Heh, the specter of seeing prohibitionists fretting over how North Korea might react to regulated and taxed legalized cannabis in the US when they don’t ban it or even regulate it at all and never have, is stupendous.
It’s a strange planet we inhabit, where a horrifically brutal dictatorship that punishes meth possession by firing squad has a more sane and liberal cannabis policy than anywhere in the “free world”.
My Gawd that’s one of the best prohib spiels I’ve heard in a while.
I read an article a while back that cannabis is freely grown and consumed in North Korea but it’s low quality .
Basically they smoke leaf casually grown in their gardens, not the high quality bud produced in the Western world.
So the Koreans are going to dominate the weed market?
Ha ha they better pull up their socks if they want to sell something better than I can produce in my humble basement or purchase from the guy down the road.
I see atrocity has provided the link to that article
You sure that’s Forbes and NOT the Onion? It wouldn’t let me complete the log in, I’ll try later.
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Are you sure that it isn’t eggs fu yung on Forbes’ face?
I know I’ve said it before. I know that I’ll say it again. But it makes my heart swell with pride to be an American when I see that we produce the highest quality hysterical rhetoric in the world!
Marijuana is legal in North Korea while heroin can bring the death penalty.
Some lunatics are afraid that people could discover marijuana to be in a different class / schedule than heroin and their house of glass will shatter.
I get it… he and Hitchens are having a contest to see which can be the biggest jack-ass in print. I believe in Great Britain they call it a jack-off.
There isn’t enough sense in Johnson’s piece to bother rebutting. Stupid at that level stands on its own.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again: the more the prohibs get backed into a corner, the more bleedin’, bughouse, b@tsh*t crazy they’ll reveal themselves to be. Not to mention the more ant-democratic and authoritarian they are.
The rest of America will see what we have been dealing with for all this time, and they won’t be too happy that their taxpayer dollars are supporting people who want to strip them of their sovereign franchise by nullifying their vote.
It will be just like the 2012 Election debates, with the Republicans making thundering arses of themselves, resembling nothing so much as the trial scene in Idiocracy. The people got a good look at what they could expect, and voted the other way, if only for a semblance of sanity.
So, go ahead, prohibs, by all means, do rave on. Every word you utter brings us closer to our victory.
in many ways it makes sense for Forbes to run this piece. How bright shines the light of blooming prohibitionist stupidity! If the prohibs want this to be their song, have at it. Thanks to Forbes for helping them out.
I was talking to my son earlier about Holder’s testimony on the Aaron Swartz case. So cold and heartless… Aaron Swartz was guilty of nothing except trying to share knowledge and scholarly journals – a task to be applauded, not persecuted. He was young and brilliant, an asset. Wasted. (I always had to go to friends if I found something I wanted in Jstor)
I think more and more that the Nov ’12 WA and CO pot votes really did catch this administration w/ its pants down and they’re stuck twixt a rock and a hard place. It’s a bitch trying to serve two masters.
Some days I really do want to be in these folks faces publicly, at about the same distance my DI in basic training used to get when he weren’t happy. Asking them just where the f*** do they think they are?
And if they don’t like last Nov’s results in CO and WA go ahead and mess with them and there will be more states lining up than ever.
Another point I’m kinda feeling is that last election pot heads and their friends showed the world the power of the ballot. What an eloquent rebuttal to all those accusations of amotivation. I mean everybody everywhere knows that there’s legal pot now. We did that. Not a small thang at all.
I have been saying for eons that we always had the numbers. We did. Hundreds of thousands, of cannabists to every hard-core prohib. Like Napoleon said if Chine, we were the ‘sleeping giant’…who slumbers no more. The Cannabis Bloc has arisen…and we’re still rising.
I understand their reasoning: A bicycle because a vest has no sleeves.
Forbes are to be commended for publishing what is perhaps a rare glimpse into the utterly confused mind of a drug warrior.
^^^”uncle usually locked in the attic”
I’ll be looking for North Korean beer in the bar across the street from my house. Why anyone would buy their “soft drugs” is a mystery to me – novelty maybe? Dennis Rodman as spokesperson? The whole concept is too bizarre to contemplate, really…
Perfect example of:
“If you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bulls..t.”
I know I should just look away but lord… that’s the shit there. I think I give Johnson the edge over Hitchens.
I mean the excrementalists (a spinoff for a Patrick Jayne, the Mentalist clone show… the Excrementalist…) were always a strange batch and took bizarre notions to great depths (anyone who followed Linda Taylor’s spew can vouch for the authenticity of that). But this is good. And what better parody than an author that is a genuine believer yet so bizarre he mocks that in which he believes so fervently and expresses in this outrageous fantasy.
Besides, we have body snatched Pat Robertson (but our pods look like huge ganja seeds) and now… he is one of us! bwahahaha…
Old as that guy is,,his statements about ending marijuana arrests carried a lot of weight with the “Geritol” gangs,,I think Black Tuna said something about it getting easier to have his “Senior Citizens” education gatherings following Robertson’s awakening.