Crossposted from frontpage @ Smirking Chimp & from My Left Wing where it's on the recommended list.
BUZZ! | Digg
The wait is over.
No more delays.
No more excuses.
No more stalling, foot-dragging, stonewalling, if's ands or buts.
No more whining about "it’s divisive" or "it will cost us elections".
It is time for the Democratic Party to take the lead and fix America's cannabis prohibition policy problems and get it out of the way.
It's just not possible to not avoid this anymore, no matter how much some want to.
Cannabis Refoms Win Big in 2008
There is no point in discussing the "whys" of cannabis prohibition primarily because there are no actual valid, salient reasons involved. Discussions of corporate greed or white racism do not have any discernible bearing on why cannabis remains illegal in our modern, 21st century world.
Americans have wanted cannabis relegalized since before the Nixon Administration. Americans have worked and worked since then to get the cannabis plant relegalized and to stop the all-out war against it and the people who are caught with it.
No need to talk about "why cannabis is illegal.
There are many reason cannabis became illegal decades ago but they don't matter tody. The real question to answer today is WHY is it STILL illegal.
The answer to that is Republicans.
Nixon took marijuana prohibition in the late 1960's/early 1970s and solidified reefer madness as a core element of Republican ideology. The exact point was when he trashed his own Shafer Commission report (it didn't say what he wanted it to say) and forged ahead with the "War on Drugs".
Ronald Reagan and Bush 1 spent their time in office boosting the war on drugs (marijuana) further and further. We have them to thank for drug testing.
Clinton came into office and did NOTHING to stem the tide. (And yet he's still called "too liberal" by the nutjob side of the aisle.)
Then came Bush 2: 750,000 to over 800,000 arrests per YEAR for cannabis touching, even after 9/11. They never got bin Laden or the anthrax mailer(s) but they sure arrested a good-size city full of pot touchers. (You get arrested for touching pot, not smoking it. Did you know that? That's what "possession" means.)
Blame the Republican Party.
It is still illegal primarily – and for all practical purposes - because of the Republican party. The Repubs made reefer madness a core plank of their party ideology. No repub can advance far in the party without endorsing reefer madness.
In the 1980's, Newt Gingrich was writing medical marijuana laws. When he went on his big Repub power trip, he wrote laws trying to give the death penalty for possession of a pound or more. When that woman from Alaska was approached about Vice-Presidentin' she repudiated her own marijuana smoking as a "bad message to the children." When that Duke Cunningham guy got busted for all his illegal bribe-taking, he assured everybody that mo matter what else was alleged about him, he has never smoked a marijuana cigarette. It is my sincere hope that even the dullest reader is grasping the the picture, because I have to move on.
OK... sure...the Republican party has had endless assistance from a very spineless Democratic party. Dems have aided and abetted this travesty every step of the way, just like they do with so many other bad republican policies, but they cannot be shown to have "reefer madness" as a central value. They just don't.
It's the Republican's baby, through and through.
And now the Republicans are falling apart.
Now is the time to jump on this.
America has rejected Republican Ideology
With the election of Barack Obama, America has done more than just elect the first African-American person to the Presidency. They have thrown out Movement Conservatism in all it's manifestations.
The prohibition of the cannabis plant is central in that ideology as is reflected in the logjam of mean-spirited laws against possession. And never mind people like Buckley who would claim from time to time that cannabis reform is a conservative value. That was always bullshit.
30-some years of Movement Conservatism is fragmenting and appearing to be headed for the dustbin of history...thankfully enough. As Obama and the Democratic Party curry favor with Americans in the "mainstream", the GOP is descending into blaming and bitterness.
With their demise on the horizon, we can see them losing the power that has plagued and frightened Democratic leadership types for the past several years (or decades).
As I keep saying, Americans are quite ready for cannabis law reform, they are ready to lose the stupidity of all that propaganda they are forced to pay for and watch but which they only laugh at. Nobody but fools believe it.
In 2009, the Democratic party needs to begin to talk about reforming cannabis laws like the intelligent adults we busted our asses to elect.
Republican talking points will have to be smashed and the issue reframed before we can expect any significant progress in Washington DC.
Here are my takes on dealing with the most pernicious framing examples that have to be dismantled.
No - it's not a bad message to the children.
This is a (if not the) central feature of the Republican anti-marijuana propaganda stream. This invokes both fear and guilt in parents and casts a general pall over anybody - like yours truly - who might try to get a contradictory message through that stream: the messenger is pre-slimed.
Anytime Americans have had anything similar to a ration discussion of cannabis issues break out, were are told - usually in a screeching, histrionic tone - that ANY move to make marijuana anything less than completely illegal will send a "bad message" to the children.
This is actually really stupid when you stop and think about it (which, of course, is hoped not to occur). Most children are all for adults not smoking anything. I work with children an they tell me this a lot. It's pretty easy to send the message to them. Changing the laws on cannabis has nothing to do with children "being allowed to smoke". How stupid is this?
This is a powerful GOP talking point employed all the time to make people feel bad, scared, and guilty for suggesting any changes in these backwards and draconian laws.
Beer is legal - doesn't THAT send a bad message to the kids? Don't we try to keep kids from beer? How about cigarettes? Deadly tobacco sticks are legal - doesn't that send a bad message to the kids? Are people encouraged to hide their tobacco and alcohol consumption from children?
Of course they aren't.
This is really just plain silly.
GOP anti-marijuana propaganda has insinuated itself in-between parents and their children. Nobody in their right mind can actually realistically suggest that reform of cannabis laws will tell children it's "ok" to 'smoke pot". That's just stupid and people are stupid for suggesting this.
Cannabis will always be illegal for people under a certain age (I am not interested in debating the actual age), just like tobacco and alcohol. Nobody is going to seriously suggest anything otherwise.
Does it really take a $100,000,000 study and advertising campaign to make people grasp this?
Seriously....We really need to move on.
No...It’s not "Soft on Crime"
This is yet another stupid republican talking point. Dems fall for it oer and over and over. They positively wet themselves to avoid this label, but, alas, they have let Bush skate by without so much as a slap on the wrist and are thus Permanently Soft on Crime. The damage is done - the title is theirs.
The point is specifically that legalizing cannabis is somehow encouraging crime, as if the plant itself causes crime to happen (which it is hoped you will actually believe).
Some repubs will bring up "So what’s next, legalizing bank robbery" Rape?" "Child molestation"? People like Mark Souder say this sort of crap. He's single-handedly responsible for thousands of people to be barred from college loans. That's a hell of an accomplishment, all in the name of Republican Ideology.
Preventing Public Discourse
The reason for these sorts of talking points is to derail the rational American discourse and inject an emotional red herring that keeps it from really congealing. The fallacy is that the things they bring up are real crimes involving criminal acts against other people – nothing to do with cannabis touching. It's just more republican lying and fearmongering.
The other game going on here is blaming the plant for the effects of prohibition. They expect people not to grasp black market dynamics so that people think crime will continue when the plant is relegalized. People dutifully do not think it it through (often because they think this isn’t an important issue...)
Regulation, just like with alcohol and tobacco, will kill the funding for the black market dynamics. The black markets dynamics encourage and nurture criminal activities of all sort. When people can buy it at the store, they won’t buy from "dealers". And the collateral criminal activity will change.
About Hard Drugs
I am focusing ONLY on cannabis which is far and away the safest "recreational drug" we know.
Real drugs or "hard drugs" (Cocaine, heroin, pharmaceuticals) are beyond the scope of this effort. 10's of millions of Americans smoke pot but only a tiny fraction are real hard drug users.
And the reality is that those particular substances are going to be serious health issues whether they are legal or not. Illegality exacerbates the problems but I have no intelligent answer for addressing this issue other than being illegal creates a huge amount of violent crime.
This just in.... ho ho ho, legal drugs kill far more people than all illegal drugs combined. Deal with that, will ya?
Cannabis just isn't a similar sort of issue and people have to stop acting like pot is "dangerous".
Relegalization = Regulation.
When I use the term "relegalize" it is specifically used to tell you the plant USED to be legal, once upon a time. Now the time is here for it to be made legal again.
Just like tobacco and alcohol.
Cannabis is no different, on one hand, than tobacco or alcohol. It's ok for adults and not ok for kids. Is that so hard to grasp?
On the other hand, cannabis is not like tobacco or alcohol in that it is not associated with the illness and diseases caused by their use, nor the deaths caused by both legal substances.
400,000 deaths, caused each year by tobacco and alcohol, are not seen as sufficient reasons to make the substances illegal. As cannabis does not cause this sort of death or disease, there should be no logical reason to continue restricting people from possessing the plant.
Medical
The US Federal government policy is to lie, lie, lie about medical marijuana.
The truth is the plant is ripe with the promise of many new useful medications and drugs and Bayer is already marketing Savitex for the control of muscle spasms in cases of Multiple Sclerosis.
Industrial/Agricultural
It's simple. The DEA Runaround continues, an all-out effort to prevent the commercial hemp industry from re-emerging, particularly when we are really needing jobs.
[A] lawyer for two North Dakota farmers argues his clients should be able to grow industrial hemp under state regulations without fear of federal prosecution.
Attorney Joe Sandler argued today before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that his clients' lawsuit against the government should more forward. The lawsuit was dismissed by a U.S. District Court.
Melissa Patterson, a Justice Department attorney, told the appeals panel that the farmers must first go through a registration process with the Drug Enforcement Administration to grow hemp rather than taking the issue to court.
Sandler says that process has taken too long.
The farmers want to grow hemp as a cash crop for its fiber and oil. Hemp is related to marijuana, but generally can't be used as a drug.
Because of the highly emotionalized propaganda, everybody feels compelled to add this "cant be used for drugs" bit - the core of the issue really. Why not allow this?
Cannabis and The Reformation of the Democratic Party
As we move forward electing more and better Democrats, resolving the cannabis issue helps this by 1)getting the topic out of the way and 2) allowing Dems to take credit and demonstrate real leadership.
Even though I and many others consider this a no-brainer and a popular move, it can still be presented by the Democratic party as "bold leadership".
Other Democratic lawmakers have been working on this already - Obama doesn't have to actually wade into the fray - just sign legislation once we get it there.
The real leadership, however, will begin with simply talking about reform. Reform is not possible until people can talk about it without getting histrionic, regurgitating republican talking points or making the customary "pot shot" comments. Democratic lawmakers talking about reform, about the financial gains, about the improved control and ability to regulate it will be essential before a law can be passed.
So, 2009 is the Year we tell people to STFU with excuses and make people understand this is not going away and it can be resolved easily, quickly, and inexpensively.
The Time has simply come.
My Personal Disclosure
I really and truly just want this problem fixed. Resolved through regulation so we can just focus on other things far more important.
I have zero intention, plans, or expectations of any sort of definable financial gain from the reform of cannabis laws. I know that's almost unAmerican, but it's the truth.
I don’t grow or sell cannabis now and never really have. I don't have stocks in hemp companies or medical marijuana endeavors. Nothing.
I will indirectly benefit from no longer paying for it or buying it at some reasonable price at a local store, without fear of being harassed, arrested, assaulted, tasered or shot by a police officer with nothing better to do, nor ruined financially by the court system and having my home stolen under forfeiture laws.
I will grow my own when the laws are fixed but that will be for my own benefit. I won’t make any money at all.
Also - I am just one individual working alone. I am aligned with no particular organization outside of openly voting Democratic and being very displeased with Republicans. Nobody funds me. I work my ass off in the real world with a variety of jobs. I am buying a home, have a couple vehicles, tax payer, etc..
I don’t use my real name on the Internets because I wish to remain employable and I don’t wish to make it easy for me to be found by loonies and cranks. I have used this internet name for 8 years or so. I know it's wired - just call me "Doc".