The "War on Drugs"?
I am going to RANT here...
It was brought to my attention at News and Stuff ( a good blog at www.ekpardo.blogspot.com) that Alaskan voters are being asked to pass a measure which would "prohibit prosecution of anyone 21 or older who consumes, grows or distributes pot for private personal use. It would allow authorities to regulate marijuana along the lines of alcohol and tobacco — for example, taxing it and barring its use in public."
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will... but from what information I've gathered duing the last few years, I've learned that early in the 20th century some bright American inventor made an agricultural machine called a decorticator (or some enterprising American introduced this machine from Europe.) Its purpose? To make hemp an easily harvestable product. Seemingly overnight, hemp was going to become one of America's biggest cash crops. Hemp would even be used in place of wood for paper products.
Meanwhile, William Randolph Hearst had large interests in timber. Being a powerful and wealthy man, he helped whip up an anti-"Marihuana" campaign that brought us things like "Reefer Madness". America became afraid of marijuana, and it became associated with comeercial hemp. Laws were enacted out of irrational fears, and because marijuana is illegal there are now many obstacles to the growing of hemp in our country. As a result, the timber industry still has the market cornered on the manufacture of paper after all these years... despite the fact that hemp paper is of higher quality (far less acid, much stronger).
From what I understand, it is pretty tough to get high off of a plain old hemp plant. Still, the conservatives like to argue that some "druggie" types would plant marijuana in the hemp fields and nobody would be able to tell the high-potency plants from the hemp. Doesn't it seem logical that the potency of the marijuana would be gradually diluted by its mixing with the hemp?
Anyway, I hope Alaska's measure passes and that it serves as a shining example to the rest of the nation. If drugs were legalized, sold in state-run stores, grown and produced by the government... just think. It could become much harder for "druglords" to get their money, and kids might not have as much access to drugs (maybe they would get the pot out of their parents' liquor cabinet instead of from a pusher on a street corner...) I wouldn't buy it myself, but I don't see any harm in people using it in their own homes, or why it shouldn't be available for medicinal purposes.
If legalization of drugs would cause a severe blow to the druglords in Central and South America, wouldn't that be a good thing? If the US was growing its own pot, selling it and making boatloads of money from it, why couldn't the money pay for a national health care plan? Why doesn't our government legalize drugs? Why should the druglords be getting all that money instead of American programs getting it? Are our leaders just using the "war on drugs" as a smokescreen, so we won't go poking into their affairs and find out they're taking in vast sums from large-scale producers in Mexico and South America?
Anyway, I hope Alaska's pot measure passes and that it serves as a shining example to the rest of the nation. If drugs were legalized, sold in state-run stores, and grown and produced by the government, I believe it would become much harder for "druglords" to get their money; the number of "middle-men" would be greatly reduced; pushers would mostly be out of work; and kids shouldn't have as much access to drugs (maybe they would steal the pot out of their parents' liquor cabinet instead of buying it from a pusher on a street corner...)
I know that all of this may sound more than just a bit WHACK, but sometimes I have to wonder... and therefore, sometimes I have to RANT!
It was brought to my attention at News and Stuff ( a good blog at www.ekpardo.blogspot.com) that Alaskan voters are being asked to pass a measure which would "prohibit prosecution of anyone 21 or older who consumes, grows or distributes pot for private personal use. It would allow authorities to regulate marijuana along the lines of alcohol and tobacco — for example, taxing it and barring its use in public."
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will... but from what information I've gathered duing the last few years, I've learned that early in the 20th century some bright American inventor made an agricultural machine called a decorticator (or some enterprising American introduced this machine from Europe.) Its purpose? To make hemp an easily harvestable product. Seemingly overnight, hemp was going to become one of America's biggest cash crops. Hemp would even be used in place of wood for paper products.
Meanwhile, William Randolph Hearst had large interests in timber. Being a powerful and wealthy man, he helped whip up an anti-"Marihuana" campaign that brought us things like "Reefer Madness". America became afraid of marijuana, and it became associated with comeercial hemp. Laws were enacted out of irrational fears, and because marijuana is illegal there are now many obstacles to the growing of hemp in our country. As a result, the timber industry still has the market cornered on the manufacture of paper after all these years... despite the fact that hemp paper is of higher quality (far less acid, much stronger).
From what I understand, it is pretty tough to get high off of a plain old hemp plant. Still, the conservatives like to argue that some "druggie" types would plant marijuana in the hemp fields and nobody would be able to tell the high-potency plants from the hemp. Doesn't it seem logical that the potency of the marijuana would be gradually diluted by its mixing with the hemp?
Anyway, I hope Alaska's measure passes and that it serves as a shining example to the rest of the nation. If drugs were legalized, sold in state-run stores, grown and produced by the government... just think. It could become much harder for "druglords" to get their money, and kids might not have as much access to drugs (maybe they would get the pot out of their parents' liquor cabinet instead of from a pusher on a street corner...) I wouldn't buy it myself, but I don't see any harm in people using it in their own homes, or why it shouldn't be available for medicinal purposes.
If legalization of drugs would cause a severe blow to the druglords in Central and South America, wouldn't that be a good thing? If the US was growing its own pot, selling it and making boatloads of money from it, why couldn't the money pay for a national health care plan? Why doesn't our government legalize drugs? Why should the druglords be getting all that money instead of American programs getting it? Are our leaders just using the "war on drugs" as a smokescreen, so we won't go poking into their affairs and find out they're taking in vast sums from large-scale producers in Mexico and South America?
Anyway, I hope Alaska's pot measure passes and that it serves as a shining example to the rest of the nation. If drugs were legalized, sold in state-run stores, and grown and produced by the government, I believe it would become much harder for "druglords" to get their money; the number of "middle-men" would be greatly reduced; pushers would mostly be out of work; and kids shouldn't have as much access to drugs (maybe they would steal the pot out of their parents' liquor cabinet instead of buying it from a pusher on a street corner...)
I know that all of this may sound more than just a bit WHACK, but sometimes I have to wonder... and therefore, sometimes I have to RANT!
1 Comments:
I couldn't agree more. For years I have been saying that drugs should be legalized. The money that is being wasted on the failed "war on drugs" could be much better spent. That money could be used for early childhood education so kids don't start in the first place, and treatment on demand. As someone that has been through treatment several times, I know this subject well. The drug treatment system in this country is a joke.
If drugs were legalized, the courts, jails and prisons could be used for real criminals. The prisons would no longer be overcrowded and we could go back to building schools & colleges instead of more prisons.
Most people say, you can't legalize drugs because then kids could get them. However, ask just about any kid if he/she knows where to get them...they already know.
If drugs were legalized, all of the violence that surrounds it would go away. Druglords & dealers would be out of business. I could go on & on, but this site can do it better: http://www.thoughtcrime.org/drugs.html
Ranting feels good. Thanks for bringing up the subject, Snave.
Post a Comment
<< Home