Thread: Drug war tyranny may come to an end with Ron Paul's Effort

Four decades of drug war tyranny may come to an end with Ron Paul's new effort to legalize marijuana


(NaturalNews) Four decades of the so-called "War on Drugs" has led only to the suffering of millions of innocents, the crowding of our prisons with non-violent citizens, the utter waste of billions of dollars on law enforcement and the (in)justice system, and the enriching of underground drug gangs who thrive on violence. The outlawing of marijuana in America has been a disastrous political policy and an insane medical policy. It has labeled biochemical addicts "criminals" and thrown them in prisons to be treated like dogs.

The War on Drugs, through interdicting street supplies of drugs, has only made the drug gangs wealthier by driving up the value of the drugs that remain readily available. And it is now admitted that the ATF actually placed tens of thousands of weapons directly into the hands of Mexican drug gangs, giving rise to the very gang violence the agency claims to be preventing (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011...).

The U.S. government, it turns out, is actually contributing to the drug war violence!

Ron Paul, Barney Frank join forces to end the insanity
In an effort to end the insanity, Rep. Ron Paul has joined forces with Rep. Barney Frank to introduce legislation legalizing marijuana in America. President Obama, you may recall, promised voters on the campaign trail that he would do this, too, but it seems he's been too busy bombing Libya and using the U.S. Constitution as a floor mat to bother keeping any actual promises. (GITMO is still open for business, too, in case you haven't noticed...)


Of course, the War on Drugs is a very effective tool of tyranny to be used against the American people. It empowers the DEA and the federal government to conduct surprise searches of any home or business for any reason whatsoever (even without a warrant), it keeps the prison industry overflowing with endless cheap human labor, and it grants the big drug companies a monopoly over all those recreational drugs that are now sold as pharmaceuticals.

"Speed," for example, is now sold as an ADHD treatment for children. Big Pharma is also going after THC chemicals in marijuana and hopes to sell them as prescription drugs. By keeping the War on Drugs in place, Big Pharma is assured a monopoly that even the drug lords haven't been able to accomplish.

An issue that crosses political boundaries
One thing that's especially interesting about the so-called War on Drugs is how the best-informed people on both the left and the right now see it all as a complete fraud. Perhaps that's why Rep. Ron Paul (Republican) and Rep. Barney Frank (Democrat) are the perfect sponsors of this bill. Each has staked out positions on the opposite ends of the political spectrum for some issues, yet they both agree that it's time to end the failed Nixon-era policies that have only brought this nation suffering and injustice.

Ending the failed War on Drugs is not a conservative idea nor a liberal idea; it's a principle of liberty whose time has come in America.

Because in observing the War on Drugs, the prison crowding, the drug underground economy and all the other unintended consequence of marijuana prohibition, we must ask the question: Is society served in any way by criminalizing marijuana smokers? How does taking a medical addict and throwing them behind bars accomplish anything at all?

The prohibition against marijuana accomplishes nothing for society
For starters, it halts the contributions of a tax paying citizen. Most pot smokers actually have jobs and pay taxes. They are functioning citizens -- lawyers, accountants, musicians, administrators and more. By throwing them in prison, you're destroying their own ability to participate in the economy while actually placing a new cost burden on the rest of society.

Secondly, from a moral perspective, pot smokers need medical support, not criminal indictment. If someone is suffering from a substance addiction, how does throwing them in prison and surrounding them with other addicts and hardened criminals serve any positive purpose whatsoever? Today, U.S. prisons actually function more like criminal training camps where people come out as far more violent criminals than when they went in. So the justice system actually ends up capturing people who are relatively peaceful, tax-paying citizens and then turning them into hardened criminals who are eventually released onto the streets.

How insane is that?

Wouldn't it make more sense to allow them to continue to function in society but help them with their drug addiction through a medical / health perspective? Addicts need support, not incarceration. And today's justice system does absolutely nothing to rehabilitate prisoners. It only makes them far worse criminals.

And finally, from an economic perspective alone, can any U.S. state really afford to continue incarcerating people for non-violent crimes that have no victims? Who is harmed with a guy down the street lights up a joint? No one. There are no victims. There is no crime, either, other than the fictional crime the State fabricates to incarcerate people.

A "real" crime is a crime that has a victim: A rape, a burglary, a mugging, or a murder. Those crimes deserve proper consideration by the justice system, and people who commit such crimes are precisely the kind of people society can justifiably put behind bars. But carrying a few ounces of marijuana in your pocket -- or even lighting up a smoke -- violates no person or property. Nor does it violate any moral or ethical principle. It is, in every way, an act that is improperly and unjustifiably criminalized through legal fictions engineered by the state.

The solution to marijuana prohibition is finally at hand
It is time to end those legal fictions and end the War on Drugs in America. The solution is to:

#1) LEGALIZE marijuana across the country.

#2) REGULATE marijuana and allow it to be sold through licensed retailers.

#3) TAX marijuana sales and use the tax proceeds to fund addiction support programs for those small percentage of users who end up addicted.

The results of these actions will be:

#1) A COLLAPSE of the drug gangs. If marijuana is suddenly legal, who would bother buying it from a street dealer?

#2) A COLLAPSE of drug profits. If it's legal, the price goes down. Suddenly there's no more money in trafficking the drug, either, so the drug gangs are instantly out of business.

#3) A HUGE INCREASE in revenues to the states from collecting taxes on the legal sale of marijuana.

#4) A REDUCTION in young people trying the drug. What teenager wants to try something if it's LEGAL? Legalizing pot takes all the "fun" out of it for many young people. It's no longer cool. Kinda boring, actually. And it makes you cough.

#5) A SAVINGS of billions of dollars off all the money states are right now spending arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating people for possessing marijuana. This money could be used to build schools, roads, job re-education programs and more. And don't court judges have better things to do than sentence pot smokers?

#6) AN END to prison overcrowding. End the sentences for those incarcerated merely for marijuana possession. Set them free and end the prison crowding. Save the prisons for the real criminals such as murderers, child molesters and Wall Street bankers.

#7) A FREER, more just society that respects human dignity. If you treat addicts like criminals, you take away their dignity, and your entire society suffers a net loss. By recognizing the humanity behind the addiction, we can restore human dignity to the entire process of how we deal with drug addicts in society today.


http://www.naturalnews.com/032791_legal ... _Paul.html

What a stupid article. There is no way the drug cartels would collapse from making Weed legal. They would simply undercut the price of "legal" weed. Collapse of drug profits? Highly doubtful. Taxes and more taxes would keep the drug cartels in business.

A reduction in people smoking? Really? Let me read the study that proves that point. What, you don't have one? I know a lot of people who smoke weed and none of them do it because its "cool to do something illegal". They do it for the feeling they get from smoking.

I don't have the facts on 5 and there is no link posted to back it up. I can say that most places I lived won't arrest someone with weed unless they piss off the cop or have way too much on hand.

Over crowded prisons? Where are the statistics to back up how many people are currently in jail for weed? There are other ways to free up jail space, like deporting illegals.

A freer society that respects human dignity? That's an opinion and one I strongly disagree with.

Funny that this article makes no mention of all the nasty side effects that are associated with smoking weed.

Funny that this article makes no mention of all the nasty side effects that are associated with smoking weed.

What nasty side effects ?

June 23, 2011

Ron Paul, Barney Frank team up to legalize marijuana

By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY

Here's one of the strangest pairings of late in Congress: Reps. Ron Paul and Barney Frank are teaming up today on legislation that would legalize marijuana.

The legislation by Paul, a libertarian-thinking Texas Republican running for president, and Frank, a liberal Massachusetts Democrat, is being touted by the advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).

The bill to be introduced by Frank and Paul would allow states to "legalize, regulate, tax and control marijuana without federal interference."

Last year, California voters rejected Proposition 19, which would have allowed marijuana to be sold for recreational use. Voters in Colorado and Washington state could vote on the issue this year.

The Marijuana Policy Project highlights that 46.5% of Californians voted for Proposition 19. It also cites a report released this month by the Global Commission on Drug Policy that slammed the decades-old war on drugs and called on governments to take a look at decriminalizing marijuana and other drugs.

The bill by Frank and Paul would "end state/federal conflicts over marijuana policy, re-prioritize federal resources and provide more room for states to do what is best for their own citizens," the group says.

MPP says the bill will also be sponsored Democratic Reps. John Conyers of Michigan, Steve Cohen of Tennessee, Jared Polis of Colorado and Barbara Lee of California.
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http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... rijuana-/1

Drug use involved in 25% of fatal crashes, study finds

By Jonathan Shorman, USA TODAYUpdated <1m ago

Drivers who die in crashes test positive for drugs 25% of the time, a new study finds.

Researchers examined data on more than 44,000 drivers in single-vehicle crashes who died between 1999 and 2009. They found that 24.9% tested positive for drugs and 37% had blood-alcohol levels in excess of 0.08, the legal limit. Fifty-eight percent had no alcohol in their systems; 5% had less than 0.08. The data were from a government database on traffic fatalities.

Study co-authors Eduardo Romano and Robert Voas of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Calverton, Md., say their study is one of the first to show the prevalence of drug use among fatally injured drivers. Among drivers who tested positive for drugs, 22% were positive for marijuana, 22% for stimulants and 9% for narcotics.

The study also examined interaction between alcohol and drugs in fatal crashes. Researchers found no evidence that combining drugs and alcohol produced greater impairment.

"When a driver is drunk, it doesn't matter what drugs are in their system. The alcohol takes over," Romano says.

Unlike data for drunken driving, data on drugged driving are limited, says Robert DuPont, former head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. But in 2007, the National Roadside Survey found that 16% of nighttime weekend drivers tested positive for illegal drugs. "There's still an inadequate appreciation of drugged driving separate from the alcohol problem," DuPont says.

Only 19 states have laws prohibiting any amount of drugs while operating a vehicle, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/sto ... 48740704/1