loveabadgirlme
Comedic genius Bill Hicks on marijuana legalization.
Ask a Christian Republican about this sentiment — just for fun — this Sunday.
(via cognitivedissonance)
cwnl:stfusexists:sinidentidades:
Dylan Ratigan: Racism was rebranded ‘the war on drugs’
MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan on Monday highlighted the concerning racial disparities that existed within America’s war against illegal drugs.
“Our big story on this Martin Luther King holiday is the new math of racism in America,” he said. “The greedy bastards have rebranded racism, calling it ‘the war on drugs.’ They’ve made it both acceptable and profitable. While the concerns of racism from the 1950s and 60s have improved in this country, if you look at the numbers the war on drugs has become a racist war.”
He noted that African Americans are ten times more likely than white Americans to be imprisoned for the same drug charges. He also noted there were more African Americans in prison or on probation today than there were slaves in America before the civil war.
Dylan added that American taxpayers spent $74 billion on prisons in 2007, with a growing percentage of that money going to private prisons.
“And yes, publicly traded for profit prison companies exist,” he said. “These companies have massive political and lobbying wings to keep the war on drugs alive, as they also happen to use the very prisoners as cheap labor.”
As a white blogger, I am happy to inform everyone that racism totally doesn’t exist anymore.
Oh wait.
Gives blind justification to all the racial profiling that goes on in NYC. I think the majority of colored people of NY have had their run-in with authorities on drug related issues despite drug use being equally used on the entire racial spectrum.
Majority of Canadians support legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana, new poll suggests
Canadians have green on their minds, but not in the environmental sense, according to a new poll.Released on Tuesday, the poll suggests 66% of Canadians are in favour of the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana, with just 20% supporting leaving the laws as they are now.
The poll, conducted by Toronto-based Forum Research Inc., showed that residents of British Columbia were the most likely to support marijuana laws reform, with 73% of respondents indicating laws should be changed. Quebec had the lowest support for reforms, though the majority of respondents, 61%, supported changing marijuana legislation.
“The public no longer favours devoting the time and resources required to restrict marijuana use and possession, while many feel the best strategy is to legalize and tax its sale,” wrote Lorne Bozinoff, president of Forum Research Inc., in a press release accompanying the research. “For a majority of Canadians, the war on this particular drug needs to end.” (Photo: Aaron Lynett/National Post)
Dad Gives Toddler Battling Brain Cancer Medical Marijuana
Dangerous Precedent of the Day: Hot on the heels of a major crackdown by the Obama administration on medical marijuana dispensaries, the House Judiciary Committee yesterday passed a bill sponsored by chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) that aims to criminalize the discussion or planning of any activities abroad that would violate the United States’ Controlled Substances Act.
This includes activities which would be perfectly legal in the countries where they would be performed.
“Under this bill, if a young couple plans a wedding in Amsterdam, and as part of the wedding, they plan to buy the bridal party some marijuana, they would be subject to prosecution,” Drug Policy Alliance director Bill Piper is quoted as saying. “The strange thing is that the purchase of and smoking the marijuana while you’re there wouldn’t be illegal. But this law would make planning the wedding from the U.S. a federal crime.”
The bill is so vague, the doctors and academics discussing drug decriminalization and needle exchange programs with foreign colleagues might be subject to charges. Even something as innocent as an email to a friend in Mexico about over-the-counter drugs that require a prescription in the US might land a person in hot water.
The law was proposed in response to a 2007 court case involving two Miami men convicted of planning to transfer cocaine from Colombia to Saudi Arabia who had their convictions overturned because the drugs were not intended for US distribution.
Piper notes that the Smith bill goes too far in making it illegal to plan legal drug-related activities.
“They could have limited this law to prohibiting the planning of activities that are illegal in the countries where they take place,” he said. “That would have allowed them to convict the guys in the Miami case. There was an amendment proposed to do that and it was voted down on party lines. They intentionally made sure the bill includes activities that legal in other countries. Which means this is an attempt to apply U.S. law all over the globe.”
[huffpo.]
Reach Out To A Woman Who Needs Support
If you haven’t heard already, the woman pictured here is named Patricia Spottedcrow. She sold $30 worth of marijuana in the state of Oklahoma and was sentenced to 12 years in prison with no probation by a judge (Pritchett) who retired a month after her sentencing.
Judge Pritchett had seen several cases worse than Patricia’s yet, her sentencing was much harsher on her. One case in particular, a woman (wife of a deputy) was arrested for hiding marijuana in her underwear. She apologized to the judge and served not a single day in jail.
Patricia had never been arrested for anything before and this was her first arrest & conviction. 12 years for 30 dollars worth of marijuana with no probation.
Now, most of you know that this is pretty horrendous. Sentencing a mother of four children to prison for 12 years completely hurts the children and ruins the lives of all involved.
Her kids are being taken care of by her mother now but they cannot afford to visit her.
This means Patricia is extremely isolated in prison. Her one year old doesn’t even recognize her anymore.
Studies have shown that prisoner’s mental health relies on support from outside of prison. Prison as many of you should know, is not the healthiest place to be. It is isolating, confining and can be a scary place to be. Especially for 12 years without probation.
Take five minutes of your time and write a letter to Patricia about anything. Support, your day (like a penpal), a poem, anything to keep her company. Send your e-mail to : marijuanaprisoner@gmail.com
-Put her name in the subject line. -1,000 words or less. -Text only. -Remember prison guards/officials will be reading through it as well.
More information about this project here.
News article and video about her case here.
A reblog with some action. Will be doing this.
That’s Newsweek’s Andrew Romano, writer of this week’s profile of Jim Webb and his “crusade” to reform the criminal-justice system. (via newsweek)
I wonder if the War on Drugs has any correlation to this explosion of prisoners over the last 30 years. How many of those 2.3 million are drug offenders (we’ll ignore the classification questions: weed vs heroin, etc, and look at all drugs)? (via joshsternberg)
This is just a rhetorical question, right?
(via aatombomb)
The war on drugs is a war on minorities and the poor. The numbers don’t lie. The Civil Rights movement won a major victory in the late sixties, and in the early seventies we began to wage the war on drugs. We didn’t miss a beat.
— E.D. Kain
The things that tend to go viral the quickest around here are often less than inspiring, but I’m delighted that this one is getting so much attention.
War Is Over (If You Want It) of the Day: The Global Commission on Drug Policy — a 19-member panel which includes former leaders of Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil, as well as former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and billionaire Sir Richard Branson — has released a report saying the so-called “war on drugs” has “failed.”
The report, which was promptly rejected by the US and Mexican governments as “misguided,” asserts that current anti-drug policies have led to the expansion of organized crime, cost millions of tax dollars, and are directly responsible for thousands of deaths.
From the report:
Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won.
The commission urges the decriminalization of drugs, and advises a shift to policies based on empirically proven methods. “We hope [the US] at least starts to think there are alternatives,” former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria is quoted as saying.
SIGN THIS PETITION TO HELP END THE WAR ON DRUGS
In 72 hours, we could finally see the beginning of the end of the ‘war on drugs’. This expensive war has completely failed to curb the plague of drug addiction, while costing countless lives, devastating communities, and funneling trillions of dollars into violent organized crime networks.
Experts all agree that the most sensible policy is to regulate, but politicians are afraid to touch the issue. In days, a global commission including former heads of state and foreign policy chiefs of the UN, EU, US, Brazil, Mexico and more will break the taboo and publicly call for new approaches including decriminalization and regulation of drugs.
This could be a once-in-a-generation tipping-point moment — if enough of us call for an end to this madness. Politicians say they understand that the war on drugs has failed, but claim the public isn’t ready for an alternative. Let’s show them we not only accept a sane and humane policy — we demand it. Sign the petition and share with everyone — when we reach 1/2 million, it will be personally delivered to world leaders by the global commission.
Offered in conjunction with an article in LA Progressive, which notes that ““More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began.”
“Most of that increase is due to the War on Drugs, a war waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color,” she said, even though studies have shown that whites use and sell illegal drugs at rates equal to or above blacks…
However change is to come, a big impediment will be the massive prison-industrial system. “If we were to return prison populations to 1970 levels, before the War on Drugs began,” she said, “more than a million people working in the system would see their jobs disappear.”[via azspot]
Obama Says Legalizing Drugs is Worthy of Debate
Well then. This time, the president was forced to take this question seriously (unlike in 2009) but he still said a whole lot of nothing. He and his Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske, repeatedly claim to favor treatment over interdiction (i.e. to treat drug addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal issue…like…alcoholism…) but the ONDCP’s FY 2011 budget does not reflect this at all. The budget “is generally following the same course as the Bush administration and appears to be flying on autopilot.” Change, shmange.
