Proclivities wrote: 

Malia Obama Allegedly Smoking Pot Isn't a Big Deal, President Obama's Foot-Dragging on Marijuana Reform Is

Misdemeanor drug convictions can still ruin young people's present and cripple their future.

 

 

 

 

Want to Stop Gun Violence? End The War On Drugs (or at least make a golly-whopper dent in it)

Every December 5th, American beer, wine, and spirit enthusiasts celebrate Repeal Day. It was on this day in 1933 that the United States officially passed the 21st Amendment, effectively ending the failed “noble experiment” known as Prohibition. This was not only a good day for liberty and libations; it also marked the end of a violent era in American history.

The transport and sale of illicit booze became a prolific criminal enterprise backed by well-armed, violent gangs. The result: a homicide rate in the United States that steadily climbed between 1920 and 1933. In addition, the rise of “victimless crimes”—namely, consumption or possession of alcohol—added to the already overburdened judicial system. Furthermore, alcohol consumption—what Prohibition laws sought to minimize—actually increased nearly 70 percent.

To call Prohibition a failure would be an understatement.

Repealing Prohibition destroyed the monopoly on alcohol maintained by organized crime. Disempowering the black market produced a noticeable decline in the homicide rate. In fact, homicides continued to diminish each year for eleven years straight.

Breaking Good

FTA: Would it ever make sense to jail a chain-smoker for smoking or an alcoholic for touching drink? On the basis that the answer is no, the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) is urging the government to decriminalise the personal possession and use of all illegal drugs. 

Nixon Policy Advisor Admits He Invented War On Drugs to Suppress 'Anti-War Left and Black People'

Dan Baum, writing in support of drug legalization at Harper’s, has unleashed a frank 1994 quote from former Nixon policy advisor John Ehrlichman, and as inadvertently salient an argument for legalizing drugs as any I’ve ever seen:

At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

I must have looked shocked. Ehrlichman just shrugged. Then he looked at his watch, handed me a signed copy of his steamy spy novel, The Company, and led me to the door.

(...)

'Staggering corruption': 46 correctional officers charged in years-long drug trafficking sting

(...) Among those arrested were five members of an elite squad aimed at busting up drug dealing in prison, called the Cobra unit. Also rounded up in the bust were two civilians and one inmate.

The probe found that prison guards and staff were smuggling contraband such as liquor, tobacco and cell phones into the cell blocks for money. Inmates used the illegal cell phones to commit wire fraud, money laundering and identify theft.

Officers are also charged with using their badges to facilitate drug deals on either side of the prison wall. The trafficking is said to include multiple kilos of cocaine and meth in exchange for thousands of dollars in bribe money. (...)

TODAY IN WHITE PRIVILEGE: DEA AGENT’S DAUGHTER CALLED ‘ADORABLE DRUG KINGPIN’

 haresfur wrote: 
Perform for the President at the Kennedy Center and see what's waiting for you back stage.

 ajlept wrote: 
Yeah but not for everyone. You'll only be allowed to do drugs if you have your artistic license.

When alcohol was taken away from the criminals in gov't in the '30's, they needed drugs to take it's place. They recruited the gullible churches to push the "moral" issue and brainwash their flock into believing the evils of such temptations that God put on this earth to test us. Naturally, this peaked the curiosity of many and the higher (no pun intended) demand created an underground market for the pushers in gov't to use and enslave their constituents, whether by imprisonment or addiction. Drugs have given us some of the greatest creative geniuses in history like Poe, Lennon, and too many others to think of....

There's a subject....famous people who've been creatively influenced by drugs?

 oldviolin wrote: 
dude.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
I can see that...man...

 oldviolin wrote: 
cultural appropriation, man

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
Your lack of plastic nose disturbs me.

 FourFortyEight wrote: 
brutal

 islander wrote: 
...as The Eagles began to play.

 

 sirdroseph wrote: 
While sitting in a car being transported by a train that is going over a cliff!

 bokey wrote: 

Ahhh the trifecta!

 sirdroseph wrote: 
What's the accident rate with guns while drunk and/or on drugs?