Supreme Court Says Government Can Prosecute Medical Marijuana Patients

Of course it does. You've been conditioned to look at it in those terms. The fact that you see it that way without knowing any users just proves my point. Propoganda works. Prescription pain killers are just as addictive as cocaine. Do you assume that most people use them responsibly? If so, why? (hint: they aren't demonized)

I gave up on them when they said sex is bad for you..



Personal Responsibility, I am all for that. I am also a member of the LP (www.LP.org) and for small government.

I do not think the issue is whether Pot is bad for you.

Alcohol is bad for you.

Smoking is bad for you.

Realisticly if were going to ban things just becuase they are bad for you -

Ban Automobiles - car accidents being the leading cuase of death for people under 40.

Ban most fast Food / more then half what is sold in the super market - since poor diet kills more people than marajuana does.

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The fact is they banned these drugs becuase they could, and at the time knew there wouldnt be much uproar. They were able to ban alcohol also, though it failed.

Remember at the time overwhelmingly US voters were all men , white, anglo saxon, protestant and the majority were regualar church goers and deeply religeous.

The temperance movement was a major issue supported by churches.

Of course they had to allow Alcohol again .. but there just wasnt much demand for the other drugs at the time.

I think the war on drugs became instituted into our culture and the government wont let it go now.

If we want to legalize drugs and the arguement is "how adictive it is" maybe the benchmark should be alcohol.

Run some studies if a drug is less addictive than alcohol then approve it an let it in. Regulate it , tax it. Make reasonable rules for people who make it at home (like alcohol is.)

Its hypocrytical to say Alcohol, Tobacco, and Caffine are acceptable drugs ,

And not even consider Marajuana and other drugs.

And now, a word from a past president with the weight of our Founding Fathers:

"Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans' appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was founded."

-Abraham Lincoln (December 1840)

In 1983, the year President Reagan declared the War on Drugs, 3,900 Americans died from drug overdoses (National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the US, 1983, Vol. II, Mortality) and 500 more died in drug-related murders (FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 1983).

Twelve years later, in 1995 after more than 10 million drug arrests and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on law enforcement, education, treatment, interdiction and increasingly harsh punishments 7,200 Americans died from drug over doses (National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the US, 1995, Vol. II, Mortality) and 1,900 died in drug-related murders (FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 1995).

Furthermore, in 1988, even though President Reagan, citing University of Michigan surveys, proclaimed the War on Drugs a success saying, "The message is out, and America's young people have heard it" (L.A. Times, 1/17/8, the facts show otherwise.

Reagan and his people completely ignored the fact that the surveys that they cited, showing declining drug use among teens since the early 70's, actually showed that almost all of that reduction occurred before Reagan declared the War on Drugs. In fact, since the War on Drugs began, the teen drug death toll has risen by 25 percent.

To top it all off, a Justice Policy Institute report (reported by the L.A. Times and archived by the Media Awareness Project) determined that on about February 15, 2001, the United States set a new World Record:

2 MILLION U.S. citizens behind bars.


The Reality??? More people died from taking asprin than from crack cocaine.

Annual Causes of Death in the United States

Tobacco 435,000

Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity 365,000

Alcohol 85,000

Microbial Agents 75,000

Toxic Agents 55,000

Motor Vehicle Crashes 26,347

Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs 32,000

Suicide 30,622

Incidents Involving Firearms 29,000

Homicide 20,308

Sexual Behaviors 20,000

All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect 17,000

Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin 7,600

Marijuana 0

The most recent figures available from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) indicate that, in 1999, federal expenditures on control of illegal drugs surpassed $17 billion; combined expenditures by federal, state, and local governments exceeded $30 billion. What is more, the nation's so-called 'drug war' is a protracted one. The country has spent roughly this amount annually throughout the 1990s."

According to the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, federal spending ALONE on the drug war in 2001 totaled $18.095 Billion, rising to $18.822 Billion in 2002 and $19.179 Billion for 2003.

Since 1982 total justice expenditures more than quadrupled from nearly $36 billion to over $167 billion, a 366% increase. The average annual increase for all levels of government between 1982 and 2001 was 8%

And here's a lovely twist to the war on drugs:

According to estimates some 3.5 million prisoners will be released between now and 2010, and an additional 500,000 each year thereafter.

"Such a large-scale release of unskilled people - most of them cannot even read and write - will have a negative impact on wages, which are already low in deprived urban areas, due to a massive influx of men desperate to get a job; especially, since the reform of the welfare system in 1996 severely reduced felons' access to welfare money."

All I can say is "America - wake the fuck up, the war on drugs is NOT working".

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True, the major money in the campaign to declare pot illegal was the cotton and paper industry, both of whom wanted hemp gone for good.

You also had at that time the #1 smokers were Jazz players and Mexican immigrants. It was a way to keep them down. So the History Challen said. But the #1 was cotton #2 was wood paper.