11-18-14 - From Huff Post: California Attorney General Kamala Harris
says
legalized marijuana is inevitable and wisely adds the details must
be worked out first.
Meanwhile - 'California Gov. Jerry Brown, also a Democrat, has
expressed strong misgivings about legalizing marijuana. On
NBC’s Meet The Press in March, Brown asked, “How many people can get
stoned and still have a great state or a great nation?"' I'd say another
question is How many people can you persecute and imprison for
making an unapproved choice and still be a great state or a great nation?
Earlier Brown said he opposed legalizing marijuana because it makes people
less alert. If the decision is to persecute and imprison people for
practices that decrease alertness, then there should be studies to
determine what makes people less alert in order to determine whom to go
after. Alcohol, TV, overeating, prescription drugs, too little or too much
sleep may rank high. As a former Jesuit seminarian, Brown has been
associated with an organization that persecuted harmless people for
practices not in accord with the reigning power's idea of what makes a
great society. Surely they thought they were doing the right thing as
surely he thinks he has the right position. I think he should reconsider
the implications. - DC (Drug and alcohol free [except for
tea and chocolate] for coming up on a decade, supporting the approach of
harm reduction, and wishing for a world free of the most sinister
addiction: persecution.)8-03-14 - An excellent editorial on the War on Drugs and the effect of marijuana on young brains by Ariana Huffington. (Sorry Clay - too late for you) - dc
6-12-14 -
The “war on drugs” has been lost and should never have been waged. I can think of no right more fundamental than the right to peacefully steward the contents of one’s own consciousness. The fact that we pointlessly ruin the lives of nonviolent drug users by incarcerating them, at enormous expense, constitutes one of the great moral failures of our time. (And the fact that we make room for them in our prisons by paroling murderers, rapists, and child molesters makes one wonder whether civilization isn’t simply doomed.)
5-07-14 - End The War On Drugs, Say Nobel Prize-Winning Economists - pointing to enourmous suffering it causes, urge harm reduction. - posted in Engaged Buddhism/Current Events
9-05-13 - Another study showing LSD etc not harmful, even helpful. Not that I've had any since February of 1967, my point always being to stop the cruel and pointless persecution of those who use and distribute it.
Molly deaths may be caused by other drugs - again, I don't do anything but tea with caffeine, but if MDMA were legal, people would know what they were getting. - dc
11-12-12 - New pot laws in the face of the feds - John Stewart and Andrew Sullivan have both recently pointed to the giggles that frequently accompany this topic when covered by TV media, not taking it seriously. Obama brushed it off with a joke too when legalization was topic #1 on his Internet ask-the-president thing a few years ago. But surely he knows the suffering these pointless draconian laws cause - to millions, especially to the poor and minorities. Around 750,000 arrested last year in the US followed by jail time, sometimes many years, stigma, loss of jobs, job opportunities, Federal aid to education and housing. If Obama who was a pot head had been by chance he'd not be president. - dc
Legal drugs, deadly outcomes - LA Times
9-03-12 - CBD - revolutionizing medical marijuana
Read The Straight Dope, including a review of Smoke Signals.
I've always seen the war on pot as cruel persecution but used to be suspicious of pot as medicine but not now. The war on drugs causes more harm than the drugs is nothing new but the more I know the worse it looks - a war on superior medicine and a great overall plant. And millions thrown in cages and screwed over by our hysterical criminal justice system for involvement with pot. It's our version of burning witches.
6-26-12 - War on Drugs a boon to the spread of AIDS according to prestigious international body.
5-25-12 - Penn Jillette Accuses Obama Of Class Warfare on Drug Policy
Harm reduction - working to reduce the harm caused by drugs and the war on drugs
6-17-11 - On 40th Anniversary Of War On Drugs, Cops Decry Obama's Drug Policy
6-02-11 - Drug War Has Failed And Governments Should Explore Legalizing Marijuana, Says Report from Huff Post
Global War on Drugs has Failed - BBC
5-28-2010 - Defeat in the war on drugs
4-20-10
- Today's the big day for pot.
Why?--that's right - kids from around here (Marin County, CA)
started it. May people
be persecuted for using pot no more. See NORML
and Legalization of
Marijuana dot com and MPP. I
don't use it or anything but caffienated tea - but I don't use persecution
either--that most harmful and addictive drug. That's why cuke dot com
enthusiastically supports harm reduction - reducing the harm from drugs
and the war on drugs (read war on people).
What is harm reduction?
Harm reduction on Drug Policy dot org
10-15-09 - American Drug War dot com
Ron Paul strikes again - this time on the war on drugs, especially pot.
4-20-08 - End the war on people called the war on drugs, stop our addiction to filling our jails and prisons this way - bring on harm reduction and sanity.
Today we feature Drug War Facts - marijuana on the new Harm Reduction Page
Also, see in today's dchad misc - Shunryu Suzuki on drugs and alcohol
7-05-07 - LIFE SENTENCES: COLLATERAL SANCTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH MARIJUANA OFFENSES on the CCLE website (Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics) sent by the Marijuana Policy Project.
cuke.com
supports Harm Reduction and an end to the war on people called the war on
drugs. See this entry from
earlier this year.
click on thumbnail to see ACLU
decriminalization ad
5-03-06 - On Mexico's Intent to Legalize All Drugs - which they didn't do - for now.
4-26-05 - In addition to the Drug Policy Alliance mentioned below on 2-27-05, check out the Marijuana Policy Project. Both organizations emphasize "harm reduction" meaning their goal is to reduce the harm from the war on drugs as well as the drugs. Of course the war on drugs causes a great deal more harm than the drugs as it did even during the prohibition of alcohol which is infinitely more harmful than marijuana.
2-27-05 - The Drug Policy Alliance is a terrific group, originally funded, as I understand it, by progressive philanthropist George Soros, which works toward reducing the harm from drugs and the war on drugs. Go to this website and check them out. Especially right now look at what they're doing to combat the attack on AARP.