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“..In all my years on the streets, it was an extremely rare occasion to have a night go by without an alcohol-related incident. More often than not, there were multiple alcohol-related calls during a shift. I became accustomed to the pattern (and the odor). If I was called to a part of town with a concentration of bars or to the local university, I could expect to be greeted by one or more drunks, flexing their “beer muscles,” either in the throes of a fight or looking to start one. Sadly, the same was often true when I received a domestic abuse call. More often than not, these conflicts–many having erupted into physical violence–were fueled by one or both participants having overindulged in alcohol.
In case you might be thinking my observations are unique, let me share the results of some informal research I have conducted on my own. Over the past four years, out of a general interest in this subject, I’ve been asking police officers throughout the U.S. (and Canada) two questions. First: “When’s the last time you had to fight someone under the influence of marijuana?” (And by this I mean marijuana only, not pot plus a six-pack or fifth of tequila.) My colleagues pause; they reflect. Their eyes widen as they realize that in their five or fifteen or thirty years on the job they have never had to fight a marijuana user. I then ask, “When’s the last time you had to fight a drunk?” They look at their watches. It’s telling that the booze question is answered in terms of hours, not days or weeks.
The plain and simple truth is that alcohol fuels violent behavior and marijuana does not. As described in great detail in Chapter 7, alcohol contributes to literally millions of acts of violence in the United States each year. It is a major contributing factor to crimes like domestic violence, sexual assault, and homicide. Marijuana use, on the other hand, is absent in that regard from both crime reports and the scientific literature. There is simply no causal link to be found.
As one who has been entrusted with maintaining the public’s safety, I strongly believe–and most people agree–that our laws should punish people who do harm to others. This is true whether we are talking about violent crimes like murder and assault or nonviolent crimes like shoplifting or insider trading. It is also appropriate to punish other behavior that threatens public safety such as speeding or driving through red lights. All of these laws are clearly designed to protect our citizens
But by banning the use of marijuana and punishing individuals who merely possess the substance, it is difficult to see what harm we are trying to prevent. It bears repeating: From my own work and the experiences of other members of the law enforcement community, it is abundantly clear that marijuana is rarely, if ever, the cause of harmfully disruptive or violent behavior. In fact, I would go so far as to say that marijuana use often helps to tamp down tensions where they otherwise might exist.
That marijuana causes very little social harm is reason enough in a free society to legalize it for adults. But as Steve, Paul, and Mason so brilliantly demonstrate in this book, an even more persuasive reason is that by prohibiting marijuana we are steering people toward a substance that far too many people already abuse, namely alcohol. Can marijuana be abused? Of course. But, as this book makes clear, it is a much safer product for social and recreational use than alcohol. Where is the logic, then, in allowing adults to use alcohol but arresting them and branding them as criminals if they choose to use marijuana instead?
Let me be clear. The problem does not lie with law enforcement officials. Your police officers take an oath to uphold the law and cannot simply turn their backs when they see marijuana statutes violated. What we need is to replace the current system of prohibition with new laws that permit and regulate the sale of marijuana, an excellent framework for which is provided in this extraordinary book. Read it, and you’ll agree it is time we stop driving the American people to drink. Instead, we should simply and logically allow them to use a safer alternative, if that is what they prefer.”
Norm Stamper
June 2009
I’m happy to join in a conspiracy of the authors to get this book into as many hands as possible. They would like you to consider taking part in The Great Marijuana Book Bomb of 2009 on Thursday, August 20. The authors of Marijuana is Safer are making a one-day push on Amazon.com to drive the book to #1 on the site’s rankings. Just visit the Book Bomb site, and enter your email address and you will receive a reminder on August 20. Or just make a note in your calendar to buy the book on Amazon.com that day. I hope you will support the effort.
Follow Norm Stamper on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CopsSayLegalize
“It’s been 31 years since America got its first whiff of ‘Up in Smoke’ and the herbally-enhanced comedic stylings of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. Now, in 2009, after decades of very high highs and some behind-bars lows, the toking duo is being heralded for their impact on culture in VH1’s ‘Lords of the Revolution’ (airing Aug. 10-14 on VH1) along with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Andy Warhol and other legends. PopEater was able to chat with Cheech and Chong about the honors, Cheech’s marriage just this past weekend and also how legalized marijuana could kill the recession..”
Click here to read the full article, which also has some interesting videos and links.
For the most powerful man in the world, that’s probably a brutal question. Not because there’s any chance he will actually light up in front of all the cameras during Thursday’s little shindig, but–being a fellow nicotine addict–I know how great the two go together. Just like all too many of my fellow ‘consumers’, I know these things all too well. And, I do believe that our President fits into that same category.
Whether we like it or not, we (even those of us who don’t drink or smoke) are all a bunch of addicts to a wide variety of behaviors that are killing us. Yet, when it comes to beer and nicotine, we often understand these risks and proceed anyway. (Whereas, with many other bad habits, we do them without any second thoughts or understanding of their existence whatsoever.)
Let’s take the beers that they plan to drink for example: according to medical professors at colleges such as Harvard, alcohol has been proven to be a key factor in escalating already tense situations between headstrong individuals. Furthermore, excessive consumption of beer (or any form of alcohol) has repeatedly been proven to lead to violence and/or idiotic behavior from the participants–proof of which can be found easily by searching YouTube for clips of a drunken G.W. Bush; a guy who, by the way, was probably a riot at parties… So, why is a guy as smart as Obama doing this?
The answer to this question is probably just a challenging as the first–and yet, it is as plain as day for anyone who enjoys beer: mind-altering drugs can also often make tense social situations much more tolerable, and possibly even enjoyable. Beyond this, it represents an adherence to group ritualistic behavior and often leads to at least a certain degree of “bonding” between the individuals.
Or, perhaps his logic behind the offer was as simple as acknowledging that drinking a beer helps him to take the edge off–which, honestly, seems pretty necessary for a guy who’s being asked to save this country from a depression that’s been a hundred years in the making. Who could blame the guy for wanting to share a few beers? And, what the hell, maybe smoke some cigars? How many of our great leaders, cops, professors and writers of the past have thoroughly enjoyed the taste of a good cigar–does any of us have the right to criticize what these dedicated public servants puts into their own body? Talk about your loaded questions..
Racism is a Legitimate (and much bigger) Problem
If the President and his future drinking buddies were to research a bit more of what Harvard professors are saying about mind-altering drugs, they may well be turning those cigars into blunts. For those unfamiliar with the term, a “blunt” is a cigar that has been hollowed out and packed with marijuana, or cannabis sativa, if you prefer not to use the racist slang term officially adopted by our federal government.
Cannabis, as it turns out, has been used throughout the world as medicine for more than four thousand years–roughly when the herb was first recorded as useful medicine in the Chinese pharmacopoeia. Scientific data and leading researchers all point to the vast potential of this natural medicine, yet our federal government has failed to acknowledge that the plant is a legitimate medicine for any sort of ailment whatsoever.
A well-respected Harvard professor, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, first published a book about the potential of cannabis in 1971. To date, he is still a professor at the school and is reportedly coming out with a new book detailing the seemingly infinite uses of cannabis as medicine. The book is a much-anticipated extension of his popular website, Marijuana-Uses.com. According to an article written by Grinspoon, and found here: “To Smoke or not to Smoke: A Cannabis Odyssey”, the evidence of marijuana’s effectiveness and relatively minor side-effects overwhelmed his original intent–over thirty years ago–to debunk and finally put to rest the persistent rumors that marijuana was safer and more effective than anything our pharmaceutical companies could produce. But what, exactly, does this have to do with racism being a legitimate problem?
The reality is that we live in a world infatuated with drugs, and by ‘drugs’ I mean mind-altering substances. I recognize that there are countless medicines which are, in fact, technically ‘drugs’–yet do not mess with your mind, however for the purposes of this document they seem irrelevant. Or, rather, they seem much less interesting than the illegal substances which can reportedly have massive effects on our minds. And, when we are dealing with ‘drugs’ that have been deemed illegal, these substances also have massive effects on our entire culture.
Prohibition was declared a failure over seventy years ago, so why are we still trying to make it work against indigenous cultures and various peoples who have chosen to intoxicate themselves with something other than beer and cigarettes? Considering the disproportionate and sickening number of minority inmates doing time for involvement with illegal drugs, how can anyone deny the racial implications of our current federal policy?
How can our President ignore the bloodshed in Mexico that is a direct result of our misguided policies, and exactly how long can Congress continue to justify spending Trillions of taxpayer dollars to ensure that there will always be a healthy black market to fund terrorism and criminal activity throughout the globe?
For a much more in-depth look at the realities of our drug wars, check out this Bill Moyers interview with former journalist and creator of the acclaimed series, “The Wire”, David Simon. It is, hands down, the best interview I personally have ever seen anywyhere. There is no doubt that prohibition continues to be a horrible failure and tremendous burden on us all, and I know that our President feels the same way. Perhaps not because of his recent actions, but rather due to his background and statements before running for president.
Given the overwhelming endorsement–by no less than Obama’s now-famous legion of online supporters–of drug law reform despite a massive propaganda campagin that you and I continue to fund, it seems inevitable that hemp production will once again be legal and marijuana sales will soon be taxed. In doing so, our new President will be revitalizing the American economy, helping the environment immensely and proving to the world that we are ready to face the reality we have created. And, eventually, maybe we can even start to build cars like the Lotus Elise below, which is constructed mainly of hemp-based fibers and resins–actually making it lighter and stronger than the original production model. With cars this green, driving may be one of the healthiest addictions there is. Maybe not quite, but it beats the hell out of smoking a cigarette.
The following is an excerpt from the amazing article with the above title, which can be found here.
“…Our watershed moment to change the world economic system has not just been squandered, we have inadvertently reinforced the same structures and institutions that have created the mess in the first place…
As Robert Hunter Wade, professor at the London School of Economics, told me this week; regulation is now coming into play that will allow banks to become even more reckless with taxpayers’ money, because they have become too big for any government to allow them to fail…
So we went from having 15 banks to having around six. And these remaining banks have more power as their importance is now set in regulatory stone – and they know it.
Instead of bringing the banking sector to heel – we have given it a kiss of life and pumped it with steroids. And these steroids are financed by the taxpayer.
Secondly, we have strengthened that other financial institution that directly affects almost every home and every individual in the developing world – the International Monetary Fund (IMF)…
We bolstered IMF funds by something close to $1 trillion. This call for fortifying the role of the IMF will be repeated in this week’s G8 summit.
The IMF was used to force neoliberalism – that poisonous cocktail of financial deregulation, free markets, privatisation and the rolling back of the state – on developing countries.
IMF policies have been, despite the heartache, the wrecked lives, the savaging of countries’ agriculture, education and institutions, granted legitimacy during this crisis.
So, all in all, our leaders multilateral solutions to the crisis have been about entrenching the existing world economic order rather than changing it.
But where does this leave us? You know, us in the real economy…”
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What we choose to put into our bodies can have serious consequences. Prescription drugs have been declared safe by the FDA, yet every year more and more people are dying from their–often downplayed or ignored–side effects. Apparently, six months of limited clinical testing is not always sufficient for determining the safety of the medication. Yet, we need medicine and the pharmaceutical giants need to turn a profit. As do the mega-corporations now in charge of virtually every facet of our endangered (and often deadly) food supply.
Whoever controls your food, controls YOU
(excerpts from an interview with Robert Kenner, documentary filmmaker, about his new film Food, Inc.)
“..A good portion of the film focuses on the dichotomy of cheap food versus expensive healthcare: subsidized crops make certain foods dirt-cheap at the check-out counter or fast food window but wreak havoc on human health and put families into debt.
[That subsidized corn and soy not only goes into hundreds of food products, but it also acts as cheap feed for livestock]. So basically you now bring this artificially inexpensive corn to these feedlots. And when [a small farmer] grows corn on their own property and is not getting a government subsidy you can’t then feed his food to these animals and be in competition to these mega-corporations. So we’re subsidizing food that ultimately turns into sugar in our bodies, and all of a sudden, we’re getting massive amounts of sugar, because of the corn and soy, and that sugar is making us fat.
The film very briefly touches on herbicide and pesticide chemical runoff finding its way into waterways and also mentions that increased cattle grazing has led to deforestation in, for example, the Amazon. But it leaves it at that. Was it a conscious choice to keep the environmental impacts brief?
We could have gone on about the environment. Ultimately, food accounts for a little over 20-25% of our carbon footprint. Like health reform, you can’t have environmental reform without changing the system and what I realized in making this film – perhaps it’s obvious but for me it really hit me – is that this is an unsustainable system. It’s a brand new system. We’ve had agricultural for ten thousand years. This system is about 40, 50 years old. And it’s not working for two giant reasons. It’s based on gasoline, which is a diminishing [resource] and as it starts to run out and as its prices start to get up to those historic highs, we’re going to have very expensive food. It takes so much gasoline to grow and transport this food. Also, there is so much pollution involved with this system; we’re depleting, poisoning the soil, the riverways, the oceans. So there are many things we don’t hit on entirely in the film, but basically what the film is about is connecting the dots to show you that this industrial system is not working.’…”
Below is a trailer for the film, which should be a great catalyst for change in what has become perhaps the most important topics of the day: health care reform and sustainability.
“Under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.”
The President of the United States of America has been widely quoted with the above statement. In the speech, discussed in the article found here, he also made the following remarks:
“We have watched as scientific integrity has been undermined and scientific research politicised in an effort to advance predetermined ideological agendas,” Obama said. “We know that our country is better than this.”
Sadly, our country is beginning to look more and more like a banana republic. There is also little argument today that this country is facing a number of pressing issues–or, if you’d like to use stronger language–potentially disastrous crises. The economy, energy supply and even topsoil are all in dire straits. All of these problems, however, would benefit hugely from an end to our (failed) prohibition of certain drugs; as would the all-important food supply.
The underlying problem, which already appears to be widely acknowledged, is that our federal programs are being dictated from the top-down. Science, justice and our so-called rights all still take a backseat to lobbyists and campaign supporters; and no amount of fancy words from our new president are going to change the facts of the following article, or the shocking number like it:
The EPA suppresses dissent and opinion, and apparently decides issues in advance of public comment
This article discusses a study which contradicted the current administration’s stance on climate change, and largely centered around the following evidence:
“The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision… I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.” - Internal EPA email, March 17th, 2009
Self-preservation is undoubtedly a popular motive within our current culture, but it is also at the heart of the problems we now must confront. In terms of changing government policy, for example, we have a massive misallocation of funds.
According to the drug czar in a recent interview, the word “legalization” is not in his or the president’s vocabulary. Just moments after reminding us how important free speech is in our country, he explains that he won’t even listen to any arguments involving the idea of legalization. Then he quickly steps away from the podium, assuming that he’s successfully defended his precious war once again. The War which, he said so himself, is now officially over; yet is somehow still effectively in full swing.
In another bit of news, a European group named Charity has stirred controversy yet again by issueing a “Forgetful Politicians” deck of cards with faces on each card. The deck of cards is part of their ongoing Nice People Take Drugs campaign, and can be viewed in full on their website at www.NicePeopleTakeDrugs.org. Obama is the ace of hearts, baby Bush is the joker and Al Gore is the jack of spades. Every picture also comes with a quote from the corresponding politician, in order to show the depth of delusion these people are apparently under.
For instance, Al Gore claims:
“When I was young, I did things young people do. When I grew up I put away childish things.”
So, is it any surprise at all that his son was eventually arrested on drug charges? His argument is simply that he made a childish mistake, but since he got away with it and supposedly doesn’t do it anymore then there’s no problem. Aside from that whole bit about his son’s life potentially being ruined..
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is the queen of clubs, and is quoted with the following statement of supreme arrogance and indifference towards humanity:
“I was smart enough to use pot without getting caught, and now I’m on the Supreme Court. If you were stupid enough to get caught, that’s your problem. Your appeal is denied.”
But perhaps most troubling is the inconsistencies in our newly-elected President’s approach towards drugs. According to his card, he once stated the following–possibly in one of his books:
“Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when I could afford it…I inhaled frequently. That was the point.”
Now he has acknowledged the medical utility of cannabis sativa, and even promised to end the DEA raids on clinics which conform to state law. What he has failed so far to acknowledge, however, is that by agreeing the herb has medicinal use he has directly contradicted its current “Schedule I” classification. Beyond this, he was also once quoted as saying that “the war on drugs is an utter failure” yet as President has continued pouring money into the very system that is currently destroying Mexico and making us bankrupt (and no, we are not just talking ‘morality’ here.)
Prohibition has Failed; We have now moved on to Addiction Treatment and Health Care Reform
It often seem like the prohibition debate gets limited to cannabis, yet groups such as LEAP and the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, among others, recommend a complete end to the current drug prohibition laws in favor of a health-based approach. Roughly the same position the U.N. seems to now be taking, and getting awfully close to the latest statements from our own drug czar.
Those asking for a debate or change in laws should perhaps focus on fine-tuning this approach to ensure that our constitutional rights to grow medicinal and even entheogenic (like DMT, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote..) plants are once again upheld by Congress. We don’t even need to call it legalization, because all that’s required is a removal of the most racist and horrific atrocity that our government is (hopefully) still directly responsible for.
All we need is an open, honest debate and to follow the guide of scientific discovery–which has been in full swing for some time now. Decades, if your name happens to be Dr. Rick Strassman. The clinical research psychiatrist, and co-founder of the Cottonwood Research Foundation, is someone our President and other nicotine fiends might want to ask a few questions regarding addiction treatment.
Beyond the President’s own personal health, hopefully a former Constitutional Law Professor can understand that the changes required to once again honor the voice of science and reason will not always be easy. But, in the case of ending the drug war (by repealing the failed prohibition of some drugs), doing so will save the government billions, if not trillions of dollars. Or, rather, will allow the government to use our TAXPAYER MONEY to finance something other than a war waged directly against any citizens who do not conform to the dominant (white, European-influenced) American culture of the mid- twentieth century.
This will also free up plenty of money and personnel to deal with the skyrocketing addictions to various prescription and over-the-counter drugs, which is exactly where the newly appointed drug czar has already stated that his focus ought to be.
Anyone else currently employed as a drug warrior and afraid of losing their job ought to keep in mind that the drugs being used throughout our food supply are virtually unregulated–and a much greater threat to the population than any illicit mind-altering substances have ever been.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/24/un-backs-drug-decriminali_n_220013.html:
“..Jack Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and a retired undercover narcotics detective, objected to the report’s classification of current policy as “control.”
“The world’s ‘drug czar,’ Antonio Maria Costa, would have you believe that the legalization movement is calling for the abolition of drug control,” he said. “Quite the contrary, we are demanding that governments replace the failed policy of prohibition with a system that actually regulates and controls drugs, including their purity and prices, as well as who produces them and who they can be sold to. You can’t have effective control under prohibition, as we should have learned from our failed experiment with alcohol in the U.S. between 1920 and 1933.”
“Democracy is an extraordinary adventure. It’s difficult, full of daring and risk and danger. But it’s the greatest gift we have,” the Academy Award-winning actor said Tuesday during a visit to The Washington Times newsroom.
“The people who voted for President Obama are just beginning to wake up to exactly what they brought in. The ‘change’ they envisioned is not the ‘change’ they have gotten.” Mr. Voight said.
He likens the Obama administration to a Hollywood script, rife with technique and craft, very compelling but not necessarily real.
“It is a very, very slick, relentless campaign to build Obama as the answer to all our needs. They know what people want and they give it in a package that can be read off a teleprompter. That’s not what our country is based upon,” Mr. Voight said.
He offered a terse review of the principal player.
“Obama is a very good actor. He knows how to play it. And he is very adept at creating this ‘Obama’ – this character who is there whenever the world needs something,” he said..
“The news media has lied itself out of the business. Now, real accountability journalism. That says it all. That’s what’s been missing so long,” he said.
He is vexed by bureaucracy, big government and soft-peddling by political correctness.
“This lie of political correctness is bringing this country down. You just want to break through it all.”
Click here to read the full article at the Washington Times.
For more information, go to: Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth.
A “twtpoll” has been circulating Twitter the last month asking tweeters, “Do You Support the Legalization of Marijuana in the United States?”, the poll is now in it’s final days. Scheduled to close voting on June 1st, this poll was set to allow unique votes only to ensure nobody used the poll to promote their own personal agenda. You may be surprised to learn, some 96% of Twitter users are in favor of legalizing the “demon weed” in one form or another.
Now before you start thinking this poll was only circulated in stoner circles, you should know hundreds of users tweeted this poll. Some of these retweeters have tens of thousands of followers such as @Zaibatsu and @BuzzEdition, so it is safe to say this is a healthy representation of the twitter collective mind on the subject.
During the course of this poll, a few people commented to me this isn’t an accurate representation of twitter users because only those in favor of legalization were likely to respond to the poll. I concede the results indicate the overwhelming response came from those in support of legalization, but what does that say about those that oppose? Like any election or poll, abstinence from voting sends a message also. It says you aren’t passionate about this issue one way or another. While you can’t put a number on Twitter users in this camp, it’s obvious by the results of the poll – those that oppose legalization are losing the will to fight about it.
That’s good news for patients around the country who are desperately hoping marijuana is legalized in their area, at least for medicinal use. It is also good news for states and the federal government as they increasingly look for new revenue streams to continue funding public projects and even to simply pay their staff. Those states debating the marijuana issue should find results like this encouraging, it’s no longer the political suicide it used to be.
A short, powerful clip produced by Brave New Films:
