Opinions - Pot arrest puts face on 'drug-war' scam

[chillinwill]

From: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/...362/-1/opinion

Many were saddened by the arrest of local farmer David Orde for the "crime" of growing marijuana. (July 30: "Lull Farm owner arrested after police find marijuana plants").

But beyond feeling sad, we should all feel guilty for condoning the insane criminalization of the most basic of human rights – the right to sovereignty over your own body.

Like the Iraq war and the "war on terror," the so-called "drug war" is a government contrived "war" based on lies that generates massive profits for a few while causing massive suffering for many.

The drug war is futile by design (and thus never-ending) because it doesn't "fight" drugs – quite the contrary – it strongly encourages production and distribution of prohibited drugs by guaranteeing extremely high profits.

But the most insidious and evil aspect of the drug war is it manufactures its own enemies by criminalizing the most basic of human rights – the right of sovereignty over your own body. The drug war could not exist without first inventing a bogus crime.

Our government wastes billions of tax dollars each year harassing and jailing millions of decent, productive Americans for a government-invented "crime." The use of drugs – even dangerous drugs like alcohol and nicotine – simply doesn't meet any reasonable definition of "crime."

Real crime requires action that harms another. Real crime requires both a victim and a perpetrator. For example, robbery harms another and has both a victim and a perpetrator. Only a corrupt, depraved government could invent a crime you commit against yourself.

If you use certain drugs, our government claims you're both a criminal and a victim at the same time. Since the perpetrator can't be separated from the victim, the victim is further punished for the "crime." This pathetic perversion of justice is vigorously championed by our government for selfish political reasons.

More than 50 government agencies share billions of your tax dollars each year "fighting" a government-created crime. Of the millions of illegal drug users, the vast majority use marijuana.

If marijuana were legal like alcohol, these government agencies would suddenly lose billions of dollars because millions of former "criminals" would suddenly be granted sovereignty over their own bodies. The vast army amassed to fight the drug war would need to be dissolved at great cost.

That's why our government strongly opposes even honest debate about marijuana legalization because the massive money-making scam would soon end.

By using lies and deception our government convinces gullible Americans that simply putting something into your own body is a serious crime.

But evidence clearly shows that nearly all the harm associated with drug use is caused by creating the bogus crime, not from the actual drug use. There are millions of drug users but relatively few are harmed by their drug use. These few should be patients, not criminals.

We're appalled when Islamic regimes invent bogus crimes against reading certain books or listening to certain music. Using certain drugs is our government's version of the same thing.

But the worldwide consequences of U.S. drug prohibition are far more serious and severe. All of these "crimes" lack the moral basis of real crime. All are clear cases of a repressive government dictating the private personal behavior of its citizens.

If real crime is knowingly causing harm to others, then the real crime here is not drug use, but making drug use a "crime." And the real criminals are not drug users, but ordinary people like us, who sit back and condone a ruthless scam that has been exported and exploited around the world, leaving massive human suffering in its wake.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	interesting...
	bravo

[vinylmesh]

nicely put!

[Richard_smoker]

...interesting...

[Evil GIR]

The war on drugs is nothing more than a way to bully or intimidate and to steal peoples cars and houses under the lame proceeds of crime act. I bet the goverment makes a killing on all the drug money they find. Not forgetting all that coke which goes missing as you cant tell me that the police are just going to destroy 20Kg ++ of coke theu have in theri stores.

[Greenport]

Legalize freedom.

[Lobsang]

Well maybe all people in the world need to just all at once start taking drugs publically in the streets. Like doing bongs, shooting dope, tripping. Just people going crazy all over the place. Dancing in the streets. I mean they could not arrest everyone. After a while the threshold of criminality would change.

[Joel90]

Originally Posted by Lobsang

Well maybe all people in the world need to just all at once start taking drugs publically in the streets. Like doing bongs, shooting dope, tripping. Just people going crazy all over the place. Dancing in the streets. I mean they could not arrest everyone. After a while the threshold of criminality would change.

You just put your finger on the very reason legalising drugs would be a bad idea, methinks.

If one could trip all the time, and shoot smack in the street, well... more people would just do it. A society can not be run by heroin addicts.

I'm not saying everybody who does heroin will be rendered useless. But the people who are rendered usless by smack are the people who are brought up to beleive heroin isn't that bad, and get addicted quickly, and shortly that's all they can think about. In some cases. But these cases would become more frequent, I beleive, if society didn't view drugs as criminal.

Having said that, nothing pisses SWIM off more then having to buy what may or may not be MDMA, Amphetamine or whatever and having to test it and put SWIMself at risk because its illegal. SWIM beleives that the only risk involved with SWIM's drug use is getting bad stuff. Which is why SWIM hates that it's illegal.

[Panthers007]

Well Joel90, that's quite the paradox you are faced with: Damned if you do - and damned if you don't. But the facts remain obvious from experience in different nations.

When the Netherlands opted to not prosecute citizens for such as cannabis, did the usage of such increase? The answer is no - it went down below that of other nations where it remains/ed illegal and prosecuted. Ditto in the United Kingdom when heroin was handed out to addicts. The numbers didn't increase - they spiraled down.

Re-legalization won't be easy. But it will come one day. First we need to re-tool people's belief in the Boogeyman, teach harm-reduction in the schools, and be dreadfully honest with our citizens. To fight a "War On Drugs" in perpetuity, which can never be won, is insanity. It costs lives. Tears apart families. And kills our children. Keep thinking Joel90. Keep thinking.

[Lobsang]

Re-legalization won't be easy. But it will come one day. First we need to re-tool people's belief in the Boogeyman, teach harm-reduction in the schools, and be dreadfully honest with our citizens. To fight a "War On Drugs" in perpetuity, which can never be won, is insanity. It costs lives. Tears apart families. And kills our children. Keep thinking Joel90. Keep thinking.

Well social implications aside. Jesus is against drugs. Everybody knows that. Didn't you go to Bible school as a child?

[passer-by]

Let's hear the passage, Lobsang.

[Lobsang]

Originally Posted by passer-by

Let's hear the passage, Lobsang.

Well there is no passage because Jesus told me this directly. He talks to me through his little glow in the dark plastic statue on the table by my bed. He is my advisor. While the blue canary by the lightswitch is my protector.

[passer-by]

Firstly, you do not need a material object to communicate with beings of higher density, which gives me doubts about your sanity. Secondly, you asked the others if they ever went to bible school or else they would know Jesus is "against drugs"; okay, but you said there's no passage in the Bible saying that, so where's the logic?

~ sorry everyone for going off-topic, I just had to. If this conversation continues it will be via PM.

[tryptamaster]

i hope you know he is being sarcastic....

[Lobsang]

Originally Posted by passer-by

Firstly, you do not need a material object to communicate with beings of higher density, which gives me doubts about your sanity. Secondly, you asked the others if they ever went to bible school or else they would know Jesus is "against drugs"; okay, but you said there's no passage in the Bible saying that, so where's the logic?

~ sorry everyone for going off-topic, I just had to. If this conversation continues it will be via PM.

Here I answered you on an appropriate thread so we do not derail this thread..

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/sho...313#post457313

[entheogensmurf]

Originally Posted by Joel90

You just put your finger on the very reason legalising drugs would be a bad idea, methinks.

If one could trip all the time, and shoot smack in the street, well... more people would just do it. A society can not be run by heroin addicts.

People do "trip" all the time now. It simply is not legal, at least with specific drugs.
You are aware that people abuse Rx drugs constantly, right? Drugs that dull the senses... and some that help focus

Also, why is it that we do not see chaos and discord in excess in countries where cannabis is legal compared to other countries where it is illegal?

There is no data which supports the idea that if many of the now illegal drugs were made legal, we'd see some Reefer-Induced-Madness mania.

As for your "heroin addicts." I agree, if there was anything which suggested that everyone would start shooting up... Again, what leads you to believe the legal status would turn a country into a society of heroin addicts?

Look up the alcohol prohibition thingy in the USA. What were the results? Why do we not see alcohol prohibition in the USA now?

Snagged from: http://www.bigthink.com/policy-politics/10343

At Prohibition's end, industrial magnate John D. Rockefeller, Jr. wrote, ... drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.