The ONDCP has, from the President's Cabinet, issued orders to local, state, and federal officers to treat cannabis the same as heroin, meth, coke, crack, and smoking cigarettes anywhere- indoors or out- in Bouler, CO.
Since it's inception in the 80's, the ONDCP has given us so much more than three word slogans and acronyms...it's helped give us the highest percentage of incarcerated citizens in the world. Thanks, ONDCP, really.
From it's position as part of the Cabinet, the ONDCP has been able to operate grossly unobserved- the assumed voice and opinion of the President- as well as appallingly mismanaged, wrongly focused, and run by absolute fucking zealots with "holy" agendas.
Pause (and read) For The Cause below...
Last week, yet another report came out stating...can you believe it?...marijuana prohibition isn't working!
I'll let you catch your breath.
Beckett and Herbert found that enforcing marijuana laws consumes major portions of government budgets. The domestic law enforcement component of the federal drug control budget more than doubled from 1991 to 2002, to $9.5 billion, and marijuana arrests accounted for nearly all of the increase in drug arrests during that time. Furthermore, 28,000 people are serving time in federal or state prison for marijuana offenses; the researchers estimate that their incarceration costs over $600 million a year, a figure that does not include the costs of detaining marijuana offenders in county jails or supervising them after release. The authors note that Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron concludes that marijuana legalization would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditures – resources that could be redirected to more important priorities like violent crimes and property crimes.
And not just violent crimes and property crimes, but actual drug crime as well. I mean, Jaysus Galloping-on-a-dinosaur Christ...isn't there some kind of Methdemic going on right now? When I hear people talking about cannabis (like the "Dr." chick on Morning Woe earlier today) with the same ignorance they display when talking about, well, everything else, really, it just...it just clogs my fucking bong stem when I realize that their ill-informed condescension has been echoed and enforced from the Cabinet (and by extension, the POTUS).
$7.7 billion! Don't we, you know, kinda need some scratch right about now?
The researchers also found that marijuana arrests in the U.S. have increased dramatically over the past 15 years, now constituting nearly half of the almost 2 million drug arrests each year. Yet increased enforcement has not produced the government's desired results:
* the price of marijuana has dropped;
* its average potency has increased;
* it has become more readily available; and
* use rates have often increased during times of escalating enforcement.
The nomination of Seattle's Police Chief, Gil Kerlikowske, as well as AG Holder putting an end to DEA raids on Cannabis Clubs in the Bear Republic are wonderful signs that we're lumbering towards progress in the dope department. And now this:
Lastly, it was also announced yesterday by the 1980s congressional author of the ONDCP charter, no less and with sweet karmic irony, Vice President Joe Biden, that despite the best intentions of placing the ONDCP into the President’s cabinet in 1988, from this point forward the ONDCP is no longer going to be a cabinet-level office.
Hopefully, this is a sign that the overall attitude towards the way drug enforcement is handled will be moving in a less "Fuck you!" direction. Kerlikowske even used the term "harm reduction" like he meant it...which is about as 180 degrees away from the last 81 years as we've been thus far.
It's in that spirit that I propose a Beckish gathering of my own:
"We Gather In Appropriately Sized Circles Near Where They're Surrounding Them...Which, As It Turns Out, Is Actually Us In The First Place"
It's a working title...
Cheers,
RR