Marijuana is the foe, and after a century of battle, the weed is winning! (Hightower)

[kpete]

The War on Weed: Marijuana Is Basically Harmless -- The Monumentally Stupid Drug War Is Not

By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown. Posted November 23, 2009.

The war on marijuana is insane; our officials keep sacrificing tax dollars, lives, civil liberties, and their own credibility in this misguided and losing effort.

.................

The drug war is rife with major failures and absurdities, including the rise of a vast, murderous narco-state within Mexico, caused by U.S. consumer demand for drugs outlawed by our government; Plan Colombia, a secretive, multibillion-dollar U.S. military operation started by Bill Clinton in 2000 to eradicate coca production in that country, which now produces 15% more coca than it did before the plan was launched; the racist and grossly unjust sentencing disparity, established by lawmakers in the 1980s, between crack-cocaine users (mostly black) and powder snorters (mostly white); and the ridiculous refusal by pious federal authorities to allow our farmers to grow hemp--a useful, profitable, sustainable, and historic crop (see Lowdown, May 1999).

Here we focus on one particular piece of policy insanity that has afflicted our country for nearly 100 years and was foisted on us by political demagogues, power-hungry police agencies, fire-breathing preachers, fear-mongering media moguls, self-appointed moralists, and other forces of ignorance and arrogance. Thanks to them, America is mired in--get this--a war on a weed. Marijuana is the foe, and after a century of battle, the weed is winning!

..............

Tidbit: It's not widely publicized by the U.S. Agriculture Department, but marijuana is America's largest cash crop--topping the value of corn and wheat combined. A 2005 analysis by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron found that legalization would generate $7.7 billion a year in enforcement savings for local, state, and federal taxpayers, while producing annual tax revenues of $6.2 billion. Numbers like these have caught the attention of such officials as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who says legalization should be considered seriously.

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more (4 pages):
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/144115/the_war_on_weed%3A_marijuana_is_basically_harmless_--_the_monumentally_stupid_drug_war_is_not

[midnight]

1. K&R.

[tekisui]

2. knr!~

It is happening!

[pscot]

3. Why do you think they call it dope?

Because it makes politicians behave like imbeciles.

[Fumesucker]

4. This thread is useless without pictures..

[Echo In Light]

6. There's a youtube clip of him walking/talking about how much fun he had getting high w/Tommy Chong

[eShirl]

9. +1

[Ganja Ninja]

5. They shipped all our jobs overseas.

They have us bailing out companies that turn around and use the cash on their foreign subsidiaries rather than invest here.
They don't want to educate our kids.
They don't want to provide us with health care.
They're importing cheap labor here to take away even the most menial low paying jobs.
We're fighting for corporate access to oil fields and cheaper labor all over the planet.
We're losing our jobs.
We're losing our pensions
We're losing our investments.
We're losing our homes.

What's left? How much more are we expected to take? Making pot legal would be about the only positive thing the government has done in the last 50 years for the American economy.

[Echo In Light]

7. Do you get the suspiciously odd feeling that it's the Establishment's way of tossing us a bone...

... during times where they've otherwise used us a doormats repeatedly and unapologetically?

[Ganja Ninja]

10. No I think there's a light coming on in some heads.

They're realizing they can raise revenue with pot and cut taxes (or at least not raise them) for the rich. They could care less about throwing us a bone but if it means a tax cut for the rich they'll fall all over themselves to vote for it.

[Voice for Peace]

13. interesting idea.. a new version of bread and circus? keep the leftward masses happy and stoned?

:shrug:

[Fumesucker]

8. If the government were to do something positive for the American economy..

That would be soshulism and we can't have that now, can we?

And besides, dirty fucking hippies like pot.

[Echo In Light]

11. "Hey, hey, my, my..."

"dirty fucking hippies like pot"

:bounce: :hi:

[PHIMG]

12. Plan Colombia

Plan Columbia is about making sure the only drug runners operating out of Columbia are blessed by the CIA.

Off balance sheet Narco-dollars grease the world economy. It's a function of economic warfare. USA has been providing liquidity to world markets in this way for years.