Just more proof that the Drug War is like the War on Terror in that it has been eroding our rights and freedoms away since its inception. Don’t take my word for it! The first African-American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshal is saying the same thing here, that the drug war erodes our rights! So many people have claimed that the drug war does not erode our rights… Those people are simply wrong.
Anytime any politician speaks of any type of war we should all tremble at the long history of using wars and war terminology to dismiss the rights of citizens.
More and more ordinary people, elected officials, newspaper columnists, economists, doctors, judges and even the Surgeon General of the United States are concluding that the effects of our drug control policy are at least as harmful as the effects of drugs themselves. After decades of criminal prohibition and intensive law enforcement efforts to rid the country of illegal drugs, violent traffickers still endanger life in our cities, a steady stream of drug offenders still pours into our jails and prisons, and tons of cocaine, heroin and marijuana still cross our borders unimpeded. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposes criminal prohibition of drugs. Not only is prohibition a proven failure as a drug control strategy, but it subjects otherwise law-abiding citizens to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for what they do in private. In trying to enforce the drug laws, the government violates the fundamental rights of privacy and personal autonomy that are guaranteed by our Constitution. The ACLU believes that unless they do harm to others, people should not be punished — even if they do harm to themselves. There are better ways to control drug use, ways that will ultimately lead to a healthier, freer and less crime-ridden society. Currently Illegal Drugs Have Not Always Been Illegal During the Civil War, morphine (an opium derivative and cousin of heroin) was found to have pain-killing properties and soon became the main ingredient in several patent medicines. In the late 19th century, marijuana and cocaine were put to various medicinal uses — marijuana to treat migraines, rheumatism and insomnia, and cocaine to treat sinusitis, hay fever and chronic fatigue. All of these drugs were also used recreationally, and cocaine, in particular, was a common incredient in wines and soda pop — including the popular Coca Cola. At the turn of the century, many drugs were made illegal when a mood of temperance swept the nation. In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Act, banning opiates and cocaine. Alcohol prohibition quickly followed, and by 1918 the U.S. was officially a “dry” nation. That did not mean, however, an end to drug use. It meant that, suddenly, people were arrested and jailed for doing what they had previously done without government interference. Prohibition also meant the emergence of a black market, operated by criminals and marked by violence. In 1933, because of concern over widespread organized crime, police corruption and violence, the public demanded repeal of alcohol prohibition and the return of regulatory power to the states. Most states immediately replaced criminal bans with laws regulating the quality, potency and commercial sale of alcohol; as a result, the harms associated with alcohol prohibition disappeared. Meanwhile, federal prohibition of heroin and cocaine remained, and with passage of the Marijuana Stamp Act in 1937 marijuana was prohibited as well. Federal drug policy has remained strictly prohibitionist to this day. Decades of Drug Prohibition: A History of Failure Criminal prohibition, the centerpiece of U.S. drug policy, has failed miserably. Since 1981, tax dollars to the tune of $150 billion have been spent trying to prevent Columbian cocaine, Burmese heroin and Jamaican marijuana from penetrating our borders. Yet the evidence is that for every ton seized, hundreds more get through. Hundreds of thousands of otherwise law abiding people have been arrested and jailed for drug possession. Between 1968 and 1992, the annual number of drug-related arrests increased from 200,000 to over 1.2 million. One-third of those were marijuana arrests, most for mere possession. The best evidence of prohibition’s failure is the government’s current war on drugs. This war, instead of employing a strategy of prevention, research, education and social programs designed to address problems such as permanent poverty, long term unemployment and deteriorating living conditions in our inner cities, has employed a strategy of law enforcement. While this military approach continues to devour billions of tax dollars and sends tens of thousands of people to prison, illegal drug trafficking thrives, violence escalates and drug abuse continues to debilitate lives. Compounding these problems is the largely unchecked spread of the AIDS virus among drug-users, their sexual partners and their offspring. Those who benefit the most from prohibition are organized crime barons, who derive an estimated $10 to $50 billion a year from the illegal drug trade. Indeed, the criminal drug laws protect drug traffickers from taxation, regulation and quality control. Those laws also support artificially high prices and assure that commercial disputes among drug dealers and their customers will be settled not in courts of law, but with automatic weapons in the streets. Drug Prohibition is a Public Health Menace Drug prohibition promises a healthier society by denying people the opportunit
A Veterans Plea for Common Sense on the Drug War, Racism, and Cannabis policy.
“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” -Martin Luther King Jr.
People of Boston and the Nation. A tragic and inequitable situation has risen…
Racism, ignorance, and immorality are destroying our communities…
We must educate ourselves and fight to change this reality or in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “perish together as fools”
The following ideas are absolutely not original to this post and can all be found researched through links on BostonCannabis.Info …
Mass incarceration is an immoral tragedy created through racism and ignorance.
Cannabis is the scientific name for what propagandists have referred to disparagingly as Marijuana.
Cannabis possession is the most popular drug crime and is responsible for the most drug arrests and charges.
Cannabis is a super-food and provides complete protein (hemp-seed), can be used safely to treat many diseases and ailments, and can be made into over 30,000 legal products.
Please stay with me as I elaborate…
Kentucky Industrial Hemp
Cannabis was the number one agricultural crop in the world and was listed in the American Pharmacopoeia of drugs and their approved uses until 1940 when American Politicians and officials campaigned for it to be illegal on purely racist and ignorant grounds.
Only made illegal after extremely racist public officials lied repeatedly to the American population. They said false, ridiculous, mean, hateful, racist, and ignorant things to support a wave of new drug laws that were not aimed at decreasing drug use, but were ONLY aimed at controlling ethnic populations, Blacks, Mexicans, Chinese…
Cannabis was made illegal only twice in American history. The first time was for racist purposes, 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. They said cannabis (marihuana) made Mexicans and African-Americans violent, and then later they said it makes them communist and pacifist, all lies of course.
Billie Holiday was a Singer and entertainer that was hounded by Anslinger and his goons till her death day. Anslingers goons handcuffed her to a bed as she lay dying in need of medicine which they refused her.Anslinger hated Billie Holiday personally because she was a succesful black, woman, activist. She popularized the song “Strange Fruit” an anti-lynching song. Anslinger used his new drug agency to persecute, humiliate, terrorize, and eventually kill Billie Holiday as she lay handcuffed in front of friends and family. Anslinger was a terrorist with the backing of the US Govt for over 30 years.
White society has been known to see foreign or different ethnic cultural elements as scary or satanic. Just as certain Christian societies have viewed things non-Christian or not conforming to their culture as satanic. The only party invoking Satan into the discussion was the fearful white society.
Why doesn’t freedom of religion here in America protect cannabis use, as it is indeed used for religious worship the world over and through all time? Research will lead you once again to ignorance and racism folks!
Discrimination against Chinese-Americans
Drug laws were first used to oppress the Chinese-Americans that were now coming to America at the turn of 20th century (1900s), and had become the focus of hostilities due to economic and social struggles. A popular Chinese cultural practice was the use of opium.
“Prohibition… goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes… A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.” – Abraham Lincoln
They were not under the false notion that they could stop opium use throughout the nation. They just wanted to be able to criminalize and control the Chinese populations which they blamed for certain problems of society.
Racist Harry J Anslinger 1st Drug Czar
Anslinger and others used this precedent to improve upon their system of oppression and inflate their new government agency using our society’s most vulnerable populations to be the nation’s punching bag. After alcohol prohibition failed so miserably, new civil rights laws were being enacted in congress leading to racist filibusters on the Congress floor; The Dust Bowl, Great Depression, and the Dirty Thirties laid waste to economies families and farmers and destroyed their way of life. Jobs were scarce. Charlatans whipped up vulnerable crowds into the politics of hatred and blaming others for all problems of society, Not unlike Donald Trump does today.
American TerrorismAmerican TerrorismAmerican Terrorism
American TerrorismAmerican Terrorism
American Terrorism
Lynching of African-Americans was commonplace at this point in US history, as is the modern gunning down of black-men by police, vigilantes, blacks and other Americans who have internalized the racial hatred and dysfunction of American society today.
The new law forced people to get a stamp for their cannabis but few stamps were handed out. The issue was tax revenue NOT public safety! They didn’t make any money in taxes if you grew your own medicine and supplies or decided to grow and sell the same. Department of Treasury NOT a public safety agency was who the New Federal Bureau of Narcotics would be under. Public safety concerns were racist fears of Blacks, Mexicans, and Chinese not the effects of medicine or drugs on individuals. Americans of the time transferred their fear of the black and Mexican population to a common, useful, household herb. Marijuana Tax Act was challenged and overturned by Timothy Leary and The Supreme Court in 1969. It was found to be unconstitutional.
This became a very valuable political dynamic for racist republicans and effectively silenced the political voices of millions. The drug war has been a war on Americans, a war on families, and a war on truth and liberty itself.
Reagan is Ignorant or LyingRonnies infinite wisdom! More lies.
Other Republicans like Reagan doubled down on Nixon’s policies. Democrats too. Leading us to the situation we have today. Reagan’s fake push to cure cancer in the 1980s was a lie to raise money while they hid cannabis related cancer research with the help of the DEA.
Feel safe lately? No? Thank your leaders for lying to us all and creating a dangerous, uninformed system of oppression and misery, that is destroying the country.
Ignorant Ronald ReaganGeorge Orwell
Drug prohibition made our streets and cities dangerous in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s just like Alcohol Prohibition did (1920-1933). Al Capone and the new American organized crime wave of the 1920s has become Pablo Escobar and El Chapo Guzman of the 80s, 90s and 2000s. We ended alcohol prohibition and now people do not shoot each other over a barrel of beer. Hopefully if we get smart and end drug prohibition… people will no longer shoot each other over drugs either. Drugs are not bad or dangerous on their own, their monetary value has been multiplied and inflated because of their imposed illegality. Illegal drugs and medicines are simply worth more money than other products because of prohibition. Drugs are medicines. NOT dangerous but helpful to all when used properly.
Michele Alexander The New Jim Crow
Many things can kill you when misused, does that make them all dangerous to where we need prohibition? Cannabis can NOT kill you even when misused! Is cannabis dangerous?
The bias against cannabis is cultural. Americans must stop supporting this corrupt, racist, ignorant, and immoral drug war! End institutional racism now! END DRUG PROHIBITION NOW!
If we do not find the courage to call out, expose, and honestly deal with all elements of oppression racial, gender, and otherwise, then we are all destined for complete failure due to cowardice. Cowardice to face the issues. You cannot ignore the systematic assault and oppression of so many people and then wonder why communities and institutions are failing. It is an ignorant and naive position and a vicious lie to say so. I challenge ANYONE to reference this course of events and defend any of this drug war behavior as not corrupt, not racist, not ignorant, not a tragic hypocrisy and morally right. Please see definitions for the following terms corrupt, racist, ignorant, and immoral at end of article.
“In things racial… we have always been and I believe continue to be in too many ways a nation of cowards.” Attorney General Eric Holder United States Department of Justice
US Attorney General Eric Holder
Cowardice is defined as a lack of bravery. Fits well. You think?
Modern politicians and voters that believe and buy into the propaganda of “Reefer Madness” are still acting in unison with the racist and immoral officials of the past. Supporting racist and ignorant policies decades after they have been proven to be illegitimate, harmful, misinformed, and unconstitutional.
The last few presidential campaigns illustrate very clearly that a republican party goal is to disenfranchise people of color. Republicans do not want African-Americans and many others to vote, and have acted on those goals regularly for decades but increasingly more so recently. How different are today’s white Americans than all of those White Americans watching on in satisfaction or indifference as black families were tortured and murdered in the public square, as a sign to others. Not unlike how modern terrorists and groups, ISIS and ISIL (Islamic State In Syria/Libya), publicly torture and murder their victims to warn others. And not unlike so many American Police Departments that broadcast the murders that they will be getting away with every day on tv and the internet. It is a powerful message that law enforcement has been sending the black community for so many years. It goes something like this…
“We are given the power to destroy you on sight, publicly or privately and wherever or whenever we so please. You have no recourse so when you see police officers know that they have the right to do as they please with you, your person, your property, and your family. You have NO rights when an officer is talking to you BOY so listen up or suffer whatever the officer decides your punishment or execution should be. We can beat you, shoot you, rape or sodomize you, and kidnap and imprison you to do it all over every day for the rest of your miserable black life. Our society says as a white officer I’m better than you and its my job to make sure you are oppressed. I take my job serious and you should too.”
The presidential campaign of Republican Nominee Donald Trump is openly encouraging physical violence against African Americans now in August of 2016 and is promising to punish Muslims, people of Mexican heritage, and foreigners as well.
Are citizens allowed to fight back against oppression? The culture in America and Boston must change. These changes must happen or we can all expect the pitiful situation that our culture has created today to continue. The drug war, racist institutions, mass incarceration, police terrorism of the black population, increasing racial violence and white supremacist media rhetoric and groups, the Jim Crow paradigm, all will continue to lead us as a nation towards ruin. No one will feel safe or content until agents of oppression cease fire. The public will NOT trust government, law enforcement, or any of their representatives because it has been their policy to treat so many Americans as targets of oppression and have not bothered to change the dynamic. We have been waiting a VERY long time.
END AMERICAN COWARDICE!!! STOP OPPRESSION!!! END JIM CROW!!!
Loyalty Duty Respect Selfless Service Honor Integrity Personal Courge L.D.R.S.H.I.P.
Nothing about the drug war can be said to embody ANY of these American Army Values which are required to be memorized and practiced by all US Soldiers.. The Drug War is and always has been immoral. So as far as this veteran is concerned, The Drug War has no place in our society. For those that wish to continue the racist and immoral drug war… please let us know why the oppression of so many is necessary?
USA Drug Policy Reeks with Oppression
“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” – Thomas Paine
None of the previous has been a secret folks.. when will reasonable people act?
Chief – from BostonCannabis.Info
cor·rup·tion
noun
1.
dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.
cor·rupt
adjective
1.
having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain.
rac·ist
noun
1.
a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another.
adjective
1.
having or showing the belief that a particular race is superior to another.
ig·no·rant
adjective
lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.
Looks Like Mike Capuano receives the only A grade? He is the onl one s far to cosponsor*H.R. 1013 Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol Act.
Shame I thought Joseph P Kennedy III was making addiction an important part of what he does? He and Bill Keating received the lowest ratings for their positions on cannabis from Norml of the Massachusetts US Representatives.
Jim Mcgovern cosponsored *H.R. 2076: Marijuana Businesses Access to Banking Act of 2015 and receives a B rating from Norml.
The majority community spread lies and propaganda about the jewish community.. saying they slaughtered christian children for sacrifices and potions..
This of course resulted in hostility towards jewish people everywhere they went..
Bias.. both explicit and implicit.. was what they experienced daily..
Jews could quickly find themselves being executed for the accusation of blood libel or heresy or witch craft..
After the Christian church had been established.. The victims of previous claims of blood libel now would come to use it against women… accused of heresy, blood libel or witchcraft..
The myth of Adam and Eve shows clearly how women were to be seen as likely to consort with devils and demons at any turn.
This was sexist propaganda that proved very effective.. just like the racist Reefer Madness Campaign started in the 1930s..
Women only recently received right to vote in USA by 19th Constitutional Amendment (1920). Cannabis and those that use it are still the subject of witch hunts..
Thousands of women were burned and hung as witches in Europe and the Americas..
How many more were raped or tortured before being killed?
How many were not killed but violently scarred?
How many more were terrorized by the public spectacle and attitude?
Racist
a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another.
adjective
having or showing the belief that a particular race is superior to another.
US Cannabis/Drug policy was racist from the start..
Harry Anslinger who was the first Commissioner for Federal Bureau of Narcotics was not ashamed of his racism then and is quoted saying all kinds of racist garbage like “Marijuana makes darkies want to sleep with white women” in a time when black men were regularly humiliated, attacked, assaulted, tortured, executed, and hung by upstanding members of society all over the country.. his organization which he ran for 30 years would later become the DEA under another Racist political leader of Americas past President Richard “Tricky” Dick Nixon.
These two scumbags, Nixon and Anslinger are responsible for our current federal cannabis policy, they are also both dead so…
Anslinger and Nixon have now thoroughly been discredited as racist liars that used their positions to make immoral racist and illegal laws against their social and political enemies.. not recognizing their rights as citizens.. Anslingers 1937 Marijuana Tax Act was later found unconstitutional but the damage had been done over the 30 years it took to be challenged.. Nixon picked up the torch readily as one of Americas most criminal political campaigners… losing the highest seat in the land to his own dishonesty and willingness to break the law in order to get over on his political enemies..
Nixon started a tradition and framework to continue to criminalize non-violent drug crime and minority populations. He also showed future republicans how to win the white house through racist propaganda and campaigning.. “The Southern Strategy” is Tricky Dick’s contribution to American Politics.
Thanks DICK!!! and the Republican Party..
politics and money… drug prohibition has never been about the health of the public. Its about over-policing the minorities and everyone here in America has known this for a long time now. NOT a mystery.. How long has The New Jim Crow been on the New York Times Bestseller list? 118weeks+!! July 22/2016
Michelle Alexander is a respected professor who was confronted with these theories and denied them at first for some time and then finally came around to giving it a serious look and was drawn in to the nightmare that is US justice or the lack thereof.
Our police forces all across America continue to play out the sick racist fantasies of a twisted depression era America looking to place blame on the vulnerable for the problems of the larger society..and a disgraced political monster with no regard for millions of Americans… where minorities (black folks) hanging from trees with bloated eyes and stiff hands were a more normal and accepted part of American life..and where civil rights heroes were unconstitutionally followed, abused, spied on, conspired against and harassed… all billed to American taxpayers of course by the same criminals that brought us the drug war.
Ronald Reagan added money to his war on drugs.. putting the words mass incarceration on the lips of all Americans by 2016..
Americans have not yet had the courage to face this ugly part of our culture, and more importantly our justice system that provides so very little justice to the millions of people of color in this country due to racist policies exemplified by the drug war. The situation is, of course, and has been unsustainable… do what you will with this information, but please don’t be confused about the nature of the drug war.
We have been lied to about cannabis for so many years that there exists a lot of bad info out there about cannabis.
Government propaganda pumped lies into our collective heads for so long that anytime someone says “this is your brain” someone inevitably comlpletes the misled 1980s era propaganda phrase with “on drugs!”
Cannabis does not fry your brain like an egg, or any other breakfast food for that matter, but it was a powerful and well funded message..
The following are Chief’s selection of must see cannabis docs and vids..
The Magic Weed: History of the Marijuana Plant
The Culture High
The Union: The Business of Getting High.. was the Producers and makers of The Culture High’s previous effort. Both fantasticly informative productions with the aim of informing people about the dynamics of the drug war. Both films are highly recommended.
Must See Cannabis Documentaries and Videos
These films are a wonderful start to our modern relationship with cannabis.
One of the most groundbreaking pieces of video I have ever witnessed is actually Chris Bennet’s old videos from the 90s where he goes into detail about Cannabis’ Biblical history and then cannabis throughout the ancient world. The Burning Shiva Hour!
Hemp For Victory US Govt.. War Department film 1942… Acttivist Jack Herrer petitioned govt to release film after many denials that it even existed!
