Why do you think Obama won't legalize marijuana and tax it?
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kingblaze84
Members Posts: 14,288 ✭✭✭✭✭
Look how bad this economy is........
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/27/gdp-estimate-commerce-dep_n_696623.html
WASHINGTON — The government is about to confirm what many people have felt for some time: The economy barely has a pulse.
The Commerce Department on Friday will revise its estimate for economic growth in the April-to-June period and Wall Street economists forecast it will be cut almost in half, to a 1.4 percent annual rate from 2.4 percent.
That's a sharp slowdown from the first quarter, when the economy grew at a 3.7 percent annual rate, and economists say it's a taste of the weakness to come. The current quarter isn't expected to be much better, with many economists forecasting growth of only 1.7 percent.
Such slow growth won't feel much like an economic recovery and won't lead to much hiring. The unemployment rate, now at 9.5 percent, could even rise by the end of the year.
"The economy is going to limp along for the next few months," said Gus Faucher, an economist at Moody's Analytics. There's even a one in three chance it could slip back into recession, he said.
Many temporary factors that boosted the economy earlier this year are fading. Companies built up their inventories after cutting them sharply in the recession to match slower sales. The increase provided a boost to manufacturers, but now many companies' stockpiles are in line with sales and don't need to grow as much.
In addition, the impact of the government's $862 billion fiscal stimulus program is lessening.
That leaves the private sector to pick up the slack. But businesses are cutting back on their spending on machines, computers and software, according to a government report earlier this week. And the housing sector is slumping again after a popular home buyer's tax credit expired in April.
Yet despite all this, Obama and his administration are not even considering a change to America's harsh anti-marijuana laws.
Legalizing weed would create a brand new industry that could create new jobs for the private sector, lessen the drug violence in Mexico and here in the USA, and more importantly than anything else, free up money that is used to build prisons that can be used to pay down the deficit. States could use the money too, look at how many govt jobs are being cut. I'm trying to understand Obama's mentality here, so what do you think is the main reason he and the govt want weed to remain illegal, despite its many, proven benefits?????
Weed is often used to treat cancer throughout the world, yet politicians here want it to remain outlawed. What's the logic behind this? It can't be as simple as "weed is bad for you".....cigarettes are legal.......
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/27/gdp-estimate-commerce-dep_n_696623.html
WASHINGTON — The government is about to confirm what many people have felt for some time: The economy barely has a pulse.
The Commerce Department on Friday will revise its estimate for economic growth in the April-to-June period and Wall Street economists forecast it will be cut almost in half, to a 1.4 percent annual rate from 2.4 percent.
That's a sharp slowdown from the first quarter, when the economy grew at a 3.7 percent annual rate, and economists say it's a taste of the weakness to come. The current quarter isn't expected to be much better, with many economists forecasting growth of only 1.7 percent.
Such slow growth won't feel much like an economic recovery and won't lead to much hiring. The unemployment rate, now at 9.5 percent, could even rise by the end of the year.
"The economy is going to limp along for the next few months," said Gus Faucher, an economist at Moody's Analytics. There's even a one in three chance it could slip back into recession, he said.
Many temporary factors that boosted the economy earlier this year are fading. Companies built up their inventories after cutting them sharply in the recession to match slower sales. The increase provided a boost to manufacturers, but now many companies' stockpiles are in line with sales and don't need to grow as much.
In addition, the impact of the government's $862 billion fiscal stimulus program is lessening.
That leaves the private sector to pick up the slack. But businesses are cutting back on their spending on machines, computers and software, according to a government report earlier this week. And the housing sector is slumping again after a popular home buyer's tax credit expired in April.
Yet despite all this, Obama and his administration are not even considering a change to America's harsh anti-marijuana laws.
Legalizing weed would create a brand new industry that could create new jobs for the private sector, lessen the drug violence in Mexico and here in the USA, and more importantly than anything else, free up money that is used to build prisons that can be used to pay down the deficit. States could use the money too, look at how many govt jobs are being cut. I'm trying to understand Obama's mentality here, so what do you think is the main reason he and the govt want weed to remain illegal, despite its many, proven benefits?????
Weed is often used to treat cancer throughout the world, yet politicians here want it to remain outlawed. What's the logic behind this? It can't be as simple as "weed is bad for you".....cigarettes are legal.......
Comments
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realistically, I dont think it would make it past congress. and he would lose a lot of the older vote if he did. like ? marriage, this issue is just gonna have to wait a few more decades, until the baby boomers die out.
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its over: 2012! wrote: »But Obama is a baby-boomer.
...so, how do you make sense here?
Sort of but not really. The real baby boomers were born in the 40's and early 50's after WWII ended. Obama was born in 1961. Some people tie that in, but it's really pretty much another generation. It's a bit of a close call, but it's a huge different between someone who came of age in the late 60's and someone who came of age in the early 80's, like Obama did. -
shootemwon wrote: »Sort of but not really. The real baby boomers were born in the 40's and early 50's after WWII ended. Obama was born in 1961. Some people tie that in, but it's really pretty much another generation. It's a bit of a close call, but it's a huge different between someone who came of age in the late 60's and someone who came of age in the early 80's, like Obama did.
Obama is not a baby-boomer, the birthrate started to decline in the mid-to-late 50's and was steadily declining by the 60's -
2012 people are stupid. Not everybody is working with a full deck. Even the dumbest person in the SL is probably smarter than the average middle aged ? in America.
Each state only gets 2 senators and we forget (because these states are forgettable and so are their people) that there is a lot of America between NY and CA and the people in those states are usually 10-15 years behind us in every way imaginable. These people are worthless, Jesus Freak ? losers who think marijuana is dangerous and worse than cigarettes. -
2012 people are stupid. Not everybody is working with a full deck. Even the dumbest person in the SL is probably smarter than the average middle aged ? in America.
Each state only gets 2 senators and we forget (because these states are forgettable and so are their people) that there is a lot of America between NY and CA and the people in those states are usually 10-15 years behind us in every way imaginable. These people are worthless, Jesus Freak ? losers who think marijuana is dangerous and worse than cigarettes.
^^^This. I don't even smoke but I can tell you having lived in NYC, DC,CHI and now in SC, things are very different around the country. Most folks are still on "just say no." But in reality MJ being illegal (vs. alcohol and tobacco) is even more backwards than folks with the confederate flag driving around, or waving it in front of their houses, talking about being patriotic when the attempt at the confederacy was actually treason. -
IMO
Decriminalizing marijuana possession nation wide is the only way to go.....it should NEVER be legalized.
There was a study done that if they legalized it in Cali, the state would stand to make 4 billion dollars. Why not make money off it? -
Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)
Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, ? , heroin and methamphetamine.
At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.
See the world's most influential people in the 2009 TIME 100.
The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.
The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new ? infections caused by sharing of ? needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.
"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used ? than Portuguese have used marijuana.
The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New ? infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.
Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of ? and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. (including Holland) has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it also has less drug use.
"I think we can learn that we should stop being reflexively opposed when someone else does [decriminalize] and should take seriously the possibility that anti-user enforcement isn't having much influence on our drug consumption," says Mark Kleiman, author of the forthcoming When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and director of the drug policy analysis program at UCLA. Kleiman does not consider Portugal a realistic model for the U.S., however, because of differences in size and culture between the two countries.
But there is a movement afoot in the U.S., in the legislatures of New York State, California and Massachusetts, to reconsider our overly punitive drug laws. Recently, Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter proposed that Congress create a national commission, not unlike Portugal's, to deal with prison reform and overhaul drug-sentencing policy. As Webb noted, the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.
At the Cato Institute in early April, Greenwald contended that a major problem with most American drug policy debate is that it's based on "speculation and fear mongering," rather than empirical evidence on the effects of more lenient drug policies. In Portugal, the effect was to neutralize what had become the country's number one public health problem, he says.
"The impact in the life of families and our society is much lower than it was before decriminalization," says Joao Castel-Branco Goulao, Portugual's "drug czar" and president of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, adding that police are now able to re-focus on tracking much higher level dealers and larger quantities of drugs.
Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Maryland, like Kleiman, is skeptical. He conceded in a presentation at the Cato Institute that "it's fair to say that decriminalization in Portugal has met its central goal. Drug use did not rise." However, he notes that Portugal is a small country and that the cyclical nature of drug epidemics — which tends to occur no matter what policies are in place — may account for the declines in heroin use and deaths.
The Cato report's author, Greenwald, hews to the first point: that the data shows that decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Since that is what concerns the public and policymakers most about decriminalization, he says, "that is the central concession that will transform the debate."
See pictures of Culiacan, the home of Mexico's drug-trafficking industry.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html#ixzz0xoz0sZN4 -
Well that's your opinion.....My state has all ready decriminalized it (possession of less than ounce) & that's fine with me....how 'bout this novel concept let our politicians balance the budget and stop relying on the legalization of this drug to compensate for their incompleteness & catering to every single special interest group(s) wanting entitlements 4 every tom ? and,harry.
So let the drug dealer profit it off of it and not the greater population? Not only does it not reduce the violent crime and black market dealings, and all the comes with it, but it prevents the greater community from benefiting off it. Money that could be used for better health care, more education on the ills of drug use, as well as the opening of more rehabilitation centres -
Why does Kingblaze always act like legalization would single-handedly rescue both the economy and the budget? I mean I want it legalized too, but come on son.
As for "Why won't Obama...." because Obama knows that legalization doesn't have enough support yet. It just doesn't. Its gettin there....but not yet. I agree with Nate Silver's analysis that we'll need to see legalization getting 60%+ approval before it can make it thru Congress.
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The Prop 19 polling is looking good tho......get out the vote in Caliits over: 2012! wrote: »He won't legalize it, because he hates Black males.
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Interesting that people assume Obama can wave his hands and create a law.
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Why would they legalize it when they can still pack prisons? Maybe one day they will legalize it, I really don't care I stopped smoking ? years ago. I see their coming up with new ways other than using paid federal informants to trap people. Like when your Cell phone, wallet or computer is booked into property they can hide GPS tracking with Audio the size of thread to monitor you. Don't believe me.
Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on cars
POLICE STATE
Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on cars.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/27/...ex.html?hpt=T1
Law enforcement officers may secretly place a GPS device on a person's car without seeking a warrant from a judge, according to a recent federal appeals court ruling in California.
Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Oregon in 2007 surreptitiously attached a GPS to the silver Jeep owned by Juan Pineda-Moreno, whom they suspected of growing marijuana, according to court papers.
When Pineda-Moreno was arrested and charged, one piece of evidence was the GPS data, including the longitude and latitude of where the Jeep was driven, and how long it stayed. Prosecutors asserted the Jeep had been driven several times to remote rural locations where agents discovered marijuana being grown, court documents show.
Pineda-Moreno eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to grow marijuana, and is serving a 51-month sentence, according to
his lawyer.
But he appealed on the grounds that sneaking onto a person's driveway and secretly tracking their car violates a person's reasonable expectation of privacy.
"They went onto the property several times in the middle of the night without his knowledge and without his permission," said his lawyer, Harrison Latto.
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal twice -- in January of this year by a three-judge panel, and then again by the full court earlier this month. The judges who affirmed Pineda-Moreno's conviction did so without comment.
Latto says the Ninth Circuit decision means law enforcement can place trackers on cars, without seeking a court's permission, in the nine western states the California-based circuit covers.
The ruling likely won't be the end of the matter. A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., arrived at a different conclusion in similar case, saying officers who attached a GPS to the car of a suspected drug dealer should have sought a warrant.
Experts say the issue could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
One of the dissenting judges in Pineda-Moreno's case, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, said the defendant's driveway was private and that the decision would allow police to use tactics he called "creepy" and "underhanded."
"The vast majority of the 60 million people living in the Ninth Circuit will see their privacy materially diminished by the panel's ruling," Kozinksi wrote in his dissent.
"I think it is Orwellian," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which advocates for privacy rights.
"If the courts allow the police to gather up this information without a warrant," he said, "the police could place a tracking device on any individual's car -- without having to ever justify the reason they did that."
But supporters of the decision see the GPS trackers as a law enforcement tool that is no more intrusive than other means of surveillance, such as visually following a person, that do not require a court's approval.
"You left place A, at this time, you went to place B, you took this street -- that information can be gleaned in a variety of ways," said David Rivkin, a former Justice Department attorney. "It can be old surveillance, by tailing you unbeknownst to you; it could be a GPS."
He says that a person cannot automatically expect privacy just because something is on private property.
"You have to take measures -- to build a fence, to put the car in the garage" or post a no-trespassing sign, he said. "If you don't do that, you're not going to get the privacy." -
Plus, it's the snitches ya"ll think is Bosses trapping ya"ll. They can put a snitch in the county have him playing cards around you for about a couple of weeks & he got yo trust. You see the how good he eat'en for the short while he was in there.
After you read the web addresses below you will see that even when the DEA is guilty they go free. If their found guilty than people can sue the United States of America Department of Justice. A not guilty verdict only leave the victims with a civil suit. What are they going to do split his pension? You see, when someone in law enforcement like a drug task force agent or a DEA, FBI or CIA agent is found guilty it usually mean it's not the first time, which means the Government could face more law suites. So they bury it. But lives are altered sometime for life. If you think informants [snitches] are small time ? heads, your wrong! Andrew Chambers made millions of dollars a year working as a DEA Informant.
Read the news articles or google Andrew Chambers Frontline Andrew ChamberS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl.../chambers.html
The frame-up http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010...adicts_de.html
The Frame-up part 2 http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/lee_lucas/index.html
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?ui...54&topic=17481
Do you think ex-military narcotics officers, drug task force, DEA, FBI & CIA agents spend years studying in college to successfully finish all phases of the rigorous in-depth hiring process all so that a high school drop out, drug user, paid informant can make hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some cases even millions of dollars on the street without them getting their cut? Bull! The reason they never really get caught is because no ex-military, narcotics officers, drug task force, DEA, FBI & the CIAl agents ant interested in being no ghetto celebrity or a living legend on the street. Their currency is liquid, it's invested and washed very well.
Before you say, "what's wrong with snitching?"
Why college students?
Because college students love to explore and experiment with a number of extracurricular activities, parties and drugs. That's where PAID federal Informants have an open playing field selling Marijuana, Ecstasy, ["Addy"] Ritalin, Coke, Adderall, ["? "] Methamphetamine, Amphetamines, aka uppers, LSD, ? and Mushrooms Heroin. These are some of the colleges that were used & being used Ohio State University, Cleveland State University, Case Western Reserve University, Wilberforce University, Central State University, Kent State University. Hell, you may as list most colleges in Ohio. Also, UCLA & USC, The University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas. Penn State University, Florida State, Howard University, University of Penn, Harvard University, Temple University, LSU, University Tenn, UNC, University of Cincinnati, UCSB. There are simply to many colleges & Universities to name. Of course most high school & colleges have their own informants & it's were the FBI & other law enforcement do a lot of recruiting.
This PAID federal informant will travel from Cleveland, OH to Columbus, OH, Akron, OH, Kent, OH, Ravenna, OH, Mansfield, OH, Toledo, OH, Cincinnati, OH, Florida, Texas, New York, PA, Maryland, Myrtle Beach & to Cali in a heartbeat. The snitch got his family lying for him because they all living below middle class & some are ex-crackheads that got their life together. And the family they got that are paid are trying to save their ? .
What name will he be using for this new semester? The class of 91'-93' at Shaw High school & Cleveland Heights High school may remember Shan & Keith.
Shanton Cassell aka "Shan" is working as a Federal Informant and could also be living off of disability faking a mental illness. Put this snitch in a whip [car] & he think he can out slick anybody. Shan is a black male age 37 or 38. Shan can go up in weight & come down in weight. Fat than medium. You want see him walking around because he stays mobil in a whip. Shan use to live in East Cleveland & Cleveland Hts. before he moved to Columbus, Ohio back in the 90's. Shan dropped out of Cleveland Heights High School in 1989. But of course to work as a government informant no experience or education is desired. Shan liked to smoke prems & wet & chain smoke blunts. He also can grow cheap weed. Shanton Cassell aka "Shan" could be using the last name Smith. Shan father name is Shanton "Toby" Smith. Shanton better known as "Shan" maybe a member of the Freemasons & Order of the Amaranth, Vice Lords, Folks, Gangsta Disciple. You name it his suburb ? will act like he a member. What name will they be using?
Shan is a expert car thief & they can switch up cars. I don't know if some of the cars & bikes are seized property the government let them drive around in to show off but they can afford them as well as limos, chauffeured driven Lincoln Town cars.
Keith and Shan both moved to Columbus, Ohio back in the 90's.
Keith Bumber aka Chilly "B" is from Cleveland, Hts. a suburb in Cleveland, OH. Keith is a wannabe rapper, a high school drop out back in the 90's. Keith paid someone to take his GED. Keith like to hang in Texas.Keith will use the name Darail after moving to Columbus, Ohio in the 90's. Keith lived right around the corner from his high school on Kildare Rd. Keith hang with T-Ray, Ed, Cotrail, Cotrail, Cotrail, let me tell you about Cotrail, Cotrail use to get on his back & kick his arms & legs & scream " I'm a dying cockroac, no more raid," just to hang, "you can not deny this Cotrail, you use to do this in front of girls, it was like hazing, so nobody tripped, but if you are down with an informant trying to frame people, don't think we don't know about the gun charge you caught in the military. Mikey & Kipper the twin brothers. They had a grouo Kappa Phi Nasty that use to get beat-up by a group in that suburb called the Homeboys & the Brothers they also got beat-up by East Cleveland Shaw High school students.
Ask Cleveland Heights High School class of 89-92 about them.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=2208990 331 -
its over: 2012! wrote: »He won't legalize it, because he hates Black males.
And anyone in this Nation knows that legalizing marijuana = ending The War On Black Males;
no way Obama is willing to do that
growing up in Northern Virginia. white kids smoke WAAAAAAY more weed than black males.
Second, he's already made the archaic ? /? disparity illegal. i don't think it's fair to say that about him. -
Lorenzo de Medici wrote: »growing up in Northern Virginia. white kids smoke WAAAAAAY more weed than black males.
Second, he's already made the archaic ? /? disparity illegal. i don't think it's fair to say that about him.
You just hate the fact that Obama hates black males. Factually and accurately, he has shown that he hates black people, males specifically, because we're the only ones that smoke weed, this is undeniable, and if you challenge this then you wear pink panties. I'm sorry to bring this truth and lower your self-esteem. -
major pain wrote: »You just hate the fact that Obama hates black males. Factually and accurately, he has shown that he hates black people, males specifically, because we're the only ones that smoke weed, this is undeniable, and if you challenge this then you wear pink panties. I'm sorry to bring this truth and lower your self-esteem.
black people the only ones who smoke weed? if the aint the dumbest statement i seen in here. all types of people smoke tree, not jus black folk. working at random jobs and gettin to kno people and come to find out my elders or suit and tie guy. its not jus black folk. now it wont get legalized cause there is no way get a hold of all the mj and tax it. u can go jus about anywhere and get, sum places r better than others. the money is in the courts, puttin ur ass in jail and paying fines and court costs! -
2012 people are stupid. Not everybody is working with a full deck. Even the dumbest person in the SL is probably smarter than the average middle aged ? in America.
Each state only gets 2 senators and we forget (because these states are forgettable and so are their people) that there is a lot of America between NY and CA and the people in those states are usually 10-15 years behind us in every way imaginable. These people are worthless, Jesus Freak ? losers who think marijuana is dangerous and worse than cigarettes.
I live in the middle of the country and we're way more advanced than most places on either coast.
:truth -
beaten to this, but Obama cannot clap his hands and create a law that legalizes marijuana.kingblaze84 wrote: »----Yet despite all this, Obama and his administration are not even considering a change to America's harsh anti-marijuana laws. -
maalymaal81 wrote: »black people the only ones who smoke weed? if the aint the dumbest statement i seen in here. all types of people smoke tree, not jus black folk. working at random jobs and gettin to kno people and come to find out my elders or suit and tie guy. its not jus black folk. now it wont get legalized cause there is no way get a hold of all the mj and tax it. u can go jus about anywhere and get, sum places r better than others. the money is in the courts, puttin ur ass in jail and paying fines and court costs!
Breh breh, my entire post was sarcastic and an attempt to take the attitude of certain poster(s) here. -
its over: 2012! wrote: »But Obama is a baby-boomer.
...so, how do you make sense here?shootemwon wrote: »Sort of but not really. The real baby boomers were born in the 40's and early 50's after WWII ended. Obama was born in 1961. Some people tie that in, but it's really pretty much another generation. It's a bit of a close call, but it's a huge different between someone who came of age in the late 60's and someone who came of age in the early 80's, like Obama did.
2012, much like the movie, loses yet again. -
Lorenzo de Medici wrote: »growing up in Northern Virginia. white kids smoke WAAAAAAY more weed than black males.
Second, he's already made the archaic ? /? disparity illegal. i don't think it's fair to say that about him.
I agree, remember when ? was legal as medication & they used it in soda? As soon as a large number of black people started hustling ? white AmeriKKKans were scared to death of an evil crazed greasy drugged up fiend killing them & ? white women. At least that was the excuse. The real reason was blacks were making a lot of money selling it to white women & white men that couldn't get it as a prescription medication. As soon as the money started rolling in & black people started showing off & running their mouth white Amerikkka changed the law. You do know one black man in white Amerikkka relaxed suburban life may as will be a million ? running wild? A couple of crazy drugged up black men on ? is enough for white Amerikkka to change the law. -
I co-sign on this. I know white college students that toke more bud than ? in the projects. A lot of them bring it freshly grown & make a killing. You would never suspect them because they never broke the law & they don't advertise, meaning smoking all in public out in the open. They don't think their invincible. Their just some white students that have a lot of friends that enjoy smoking good marijuana. Check the local bodega type store around college campuses them Indians or Arabs will tell you more white, Asian, Indian & Arab students come in & buy blunt wrappers, even though most college students like smoking out a bomb or pipe. Saying that black people are the only one's that smoke is crazy considering most of the smoke outs on the West Coast are ran by white people. They just put a intellectual purpose behind smoking weed. After smoking ? they don't feel like they the Boss of the city or the biggest ganagsta's in the hood. No, they sit & enjoy the enlightment.
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earth two superman wrote: »realistically, I dont think it would make it past congress. and he would lose a lot of the older vote if he did. like ? marriage, this issue is just gonna have to wait a few more decades, until the baby boomers die out.
I understand what you're saying, but Obama should at least make the case that the war on drugs is getting expensive for us, and that state budgets need a new way to create revenue. Sure, there are many court costs and other monies that are gained from marijuana being illegal, but as of right now, the drug dealers are making a KILLING selling it.
WW2 was not popular amongst the American people when it first started, but FDR sold the war to the American public. Obama sold the public BARELY for healthcare reform, and now, most Americans actually support the legislation that created it.
All it takes is some courage on Obama's part and marijuana can be the cash cow that it was meant to be. It's not as hazardous to one's health the way alcohol and cigarettes are, so why not make some money off it? -
Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)
Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, ? , heroin and methamphetamine.
At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.
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The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.
The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new ? infections caused by sharing of ? needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.
"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used ? than Portuguese have used marijuana.
The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New ? infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.
Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of ? and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. (including Holland) has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it also has less drug use.
"I think we can learn that we should stop being reflexively opposed when someone else does [decriminalize] and should take seriously the possibility that anti-user enforcement isn't having much influence on our drug consumption," says Mark Kleiman, author of the forthcoming When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and director of the drug policy analysis program at UCLA. Kleiman does not consider Portugal a realistic model for the U.S., however, because of differences in size and culture between the two countries.
But there is a movement afoot in the U.S., in the legislatures of New York State, California and Massachusetts, to reconsider our overly punitive drug laws. Recently, Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter proposed that Congress create a national commission, not unlike Portugal's, to deal with prison reform and overhaul drug-sentencing policy. As Webb noted, the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.
At the Cato Institute in early April, Greenwald contended that a major problem with most American drug policy debate is that it's based on "speculation and fear mongering," rather than empirical evidence on the effects of more lenient drug policies. In Portugal, the effect was to neutralize what had become the country's number one public health problem, he says.
"The impact in the life of families and our society is much lower than it was before decriminalization," says Joao Castel-Branco Goulao, Portugual's "drug czar" and president of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, adding that police are now able to re-focus on tracking much higher level dealers and larger quantities of drugs.
Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Maryland, like Kleiman, is skeptical. He conceded in a presentation at the Cato Institute that "it's fair to say that decriminalization in Portugal has met its central goal. Drug use did not rise." However, he notes that Portugal is a small country and that the cyclical nature of drug epidemics — which tends to occur no matter what policies are in place — may account for the declines in heroin use and deaths.
The Cato report's author, Greenwald, hews to the first point: that the data shows that decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Since that is what concerns the public and policymakers most about decriminalization, he says, "that is the central concession that will transform the debate."
See pictures of Culiacan, the home of Mexico's drug-trafficking industry.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html#ixzz0xoz0sZN4
Great post.......all Obama has to do to sell this to the public is mention how parts of Europe have survived the decriminalization of weed. If he emphasizes how states need a new source of revenue, I think the case will be even more powerful. -
beaten to this, but Obama cannot clap his hands and create a law that legalizes marijuana.
Name one time I said he can just clap his hands and legalize marijuana.
Of course he has to work with Congress and others, but as President, he has the power to at least make an agenda and try to spread it. If he can create an agenda that suggests RIGHTLY that state budgets need a new source of revenue due to the ? up economy, the American people will be very open to marijuana. It's already being smoked in some parts of the nation as a MEDICINE, I think Obama and his administration can make a very good case for legalizing weed without appearing to be a bunch of drug loving hippies.
Never forget marijuana was not always illegal in the USA..... -
because it happens to take more than courage on Obama's part. do i think he SHOULD make the argument that it would be beneficial to legalize it? sure. but he's going to play politics with it, like everything else, which means that he's not going to take a stance on such a controversial concept.kingblaze84 wrote: »All it takes is some courage on Obama's part and marijuana can be the cash cow that it was meant to be. It's not as hazardous to one's health the way alcohol and cigarettes are, so why not make some money off it?
that response is not solely about you alone.kingblaze84 wrote: »Name one time I said he can just clap his hands and legalize marijuana.
