Hi, everybody.
Time for a look into the world of Marijuana Prohibition to see how well this brilliant idea is faring.
First, some news you already heard: The Global Commission on Drug Policy recommends relegalization of marijuana.
Surprise.
You never saw that coming did you?
Well, you should have. Most commissions of intelligent people arrive at the same conclusion:
The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.
Fifty Years of FAIL, but the responsible serious adults who run this country aren't about to hear it.
Facts have absolutely no place in this non-debate in which we see report after report (Nixon's own Shafer Commission, the Canadian Government Report back in 2002, and now this one) finds that marijuana prohibition is dangerously counterproductive, causes more crime that they would have you believe it resolves, and, mostly, encourages a violent criminal element.
We saw it in the 20th century with alcohol prohibition: massive organized crime resulted with rampant killings.
Now in Mexico we have massive organized crimes with rampant killings.
The current Mexico-Washington DC 'strategy' - if it can be called that - is to, of course, crank up more of the same. More military-style intervention which is just guaran-damn-teed to exacerbate the situation further. Pay no attention to politicians' promises that the proverbial corner has been turned. They don't know what they are talking about.
The Iron Law of Prohibition states
the more intense the law enforcement, the more potent the prohibited substance becomes." This is based on the premise that when drugs or alcohol are prohibited, they will be produced only in black markets in their most concentrated and powerful forms. If all alcohol beverages are prohibited, a bootlegger will be more profitable if he smuggles highly distilled liquors than if he smuggles the same volume of small beer. In addition, the black-market goods are more likely to be adulterated with unknown or dangerous substances. The government cannot regulate and inspect the production process, and harmed consumers have no recourse in law.
In addition, the local small-time dealers - 'Mom and Pop' organizations - are run out of business either by law enforcement or by the those the black markets create: people and organizations that can take out anybody smaller as well as deal with law enforcement (either through bribes and corruption or via assassination - all of which we see rampant in Mexico right now). And those people just get worse and worse.
Now you see them in Mexico totally out of control, able to battle the army, able to buy mayors or kill them, able to destroy whole police forces.
This is the result of 50+ years of marijuana prohibition and all our current leaders can suggest is to simply jack up the war on drugs further.
It will never work and this heinous situation will just get worse and worse and worse.
They will never ever ever get better.
In Mexico, the little guys were run out of business a long time ago and the now-infamous cartels have taken their place.
Mexico has turned its military loose on the cartels and more than 38000 people have been killing in the past 4 years or so and ther is no end in sight.
so how does it get worse?
More firepower and narco ‘tank’ factories?
"We found two home-made armored trucks in the warehouse, which belongs to the Gulf Cartel," the military source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The trucks were covered in steel plates one inch (2.5 centimeters) thick, strong enough to "resist the caliber of personal weapons the soldiers use," said the source.
The air-conditioned armored vehicles were equipped with portholes where snipers could open fire from and remain protected.
Soldiers also found two other trucks that were in the process of being armored, as well as 23 powerful big-rig trucks that were apparently going to be armored.
The vehicles, locally known as "monsters," can even resist fire from a heavy .50 caliber machine gun and can only be destroyed with anti-tank weapons, according to the military.
They have confiscated 109.
There's a lot more where those came from because some (less than enlightened) Americans INSIST on supporting the cartels marijuana business through the war on drugs.
Many people in America are working hard to get the laws changed, fixed as the case may be. The law create the black markets and thus are directly responsible for the ensuing violence.
One group is SAFER and their message is pretty simple: Marijuana is far less toxic and less addictive than alcohol.
This country managed to legalize and REGULATE alcohol, squashing the violence and black market very very quickly.
Here in the 21st century we have this amazing upside-down situation where alcohol and tobacco are legal and encouraged while cannabis (marijuana) is illegal and demonized with the first salient fact to back up the hate speech that passes for 'marijuana facts".
This has created a boomtime for Mexican drug smuggling cartels who make about 50-60% of their $8 billion a year or so from marijuana smuggling.
The violence you see rampant in Mexico isn't because of "drugs". That's a propaganda lie.
It's about MONEY. It's about control of smuggling routes and operations.
There is a huge demand for marijuana in America - because it is popular and it is popular to some extent because it is superior to tobacco-smoking and superior to alcohol. It's much, much safer than either tobacco or alcohol, but very illegal.
SAFER's idea is that the illegality of marijuana augmented by hair and piss tests drives people to drink alcohol. It's legal and not the focus of most 'drug' testing per se.
I take this up and focus on the fact that alcohol is dangerous,.....and it's 'buzz' is terrible compared to marijuana, its incapacitating - it's flammable and people can overdose on it. Marijuana doesn't do any of that. It's SAFER.
So the fine people at SAFER have themselves a facebook account and decided to advertise their book on facebook, but facebook has come out in favor of prohibition.
The social networking website Facebook has refused to run an advertisement for a book that compares the harms and legal status of marijuana and alcohol.
The publisher of "Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?" hoped to use a Facebook ad to promote a special price being offered to celebrate the book's success, but their proposed ad was denied. In a message sent to the publisher, Facebook said that the "content advertised by this ad is prohibited" because the popular website does "not allow ads for marijuana and any products related to it."
Why do major corporations insist on showing us exactly how stupid they are?
I have often heard it said that the burden of proof falls on the advocate for change and in the case of cannabis law reform, we have mountains of facts. Read this if nothing else. (pdf...sorry)
It's just that facts don't mean anything to those who support the continuation of this failed, stupid policy. It's an emotional topic and they simply cannot digest cannabis facts. They INVARIABLY fall back on emotionalized ideas such as "that sends a bad message to the children" or "my child will die from heroin if mari0ju0anna is made legal". That's propaganda garbage. Your kids have a MUCH easier time of getting weed now - much better than I do.
SAFER isn't advertising a "marijuana product" - its a book of facts and thus just another marijuana product to the ever-so-intelligent beings that run farcebook.
It then necessarily means that facebook is in favor of ignorance.
In favor of continuing the Massive FAIL.
And, ergo, in support of the black markets and the crime and terror and mayhem that comes with them.
Meanwhile in America we still have cops arresting over 800000 Americans a year while Wall Street robs us blind and steals our homes and retiement. Nobody's doing jack shit about that (other than releasing hot air) but buddy, we can crack down on something irrelevant!
Very responsible.
Very serious
Very adult.
Very FAIL.