*deaed

>> ^rougy:
It just enrages me that we still have to submit to so much scrutiny for something that is so benign.
The media insists on emphasizing a stigma of guilt, of "doing something wrong" with smoking marijuana unless you're doing it for "medicinal reasons."
That stigma is for the most part non-existent. Most people don't really care. The only people who care are the people who are gaining from pot's illegal status, i.e. the DEA, law enforcement agencies, drug companies, and all of the business interests associated with those institutions.
It's a charade of hypocrisy posing as morality, and it's "high time" our country grew up and moved on to more important things.


Well said. We're only allowed to take the drugs they can sell us!

"One of the great promises of America, one which we have yet to fully live up to, is the promise of freedom, the promise that we can explore our creativity and push the limits of human potential. America's founders invented a constitution that granted new freedoms, but now we lead the world in oppressing people's freedom to alter consciousness.

For us, it has been a religious issue. Religious freedom shouldn't be limited to established religions. Marijuana can certainly be a means to a qualitative religious experience. It helps you appreciate the complexity and beauty of the universe. If we really believed in religious freedom we'd say that there are millions of people who derive something spiritual and meaningful from this marijuana. They should have the right to enjoy what they consider sacred. Smoking marijuana can be an aperture to a deep appreciation of what is holy, beautiful and sacred. We should encourage people to do this wisely, instead of persecuting them." - Ann Druyan

It just enrages me that we still have to submit to so much scrutiny for something that is so benign.

The media insists on emphasizing a stigma of guilt, of "doing something wrong" with smoking marijuana unless you're doing it for "medicinal reasons."

That stigma is for the most part non-existent. Most people don't really care. The only people who care are the people who are gaining from pot's illegal status, i.e. the DEA, law enforcement agencies, drug companies, and all of the business interests associated with those institutions.

It's a charade of hypocrisy posing as morality, and it's "high time" our country grew up and moved on to more important things.

these guys pay a lot of attention to detail. like any cops episode has the guy saying "I didn't do anything!!".

Soon the DEA is going to declare a war on twitter

I wouldn't say low salaries are completely unavoidable, there are jobs that can only offer such salaries but the long-term tendency in a free market is for better salaries to be available to those more competent and specialized, with a general increase in quality of life and purchasing power attenuating most concerns on the lower end.

Minimum wages today are calculated with goals like "sustaining a family of four" or something, but teenagers or people who live with their parents sometimes are just working for extra bucks, or they might be looking for entry level employment for the experience, to acquire a skill, etc. So the govt steps in and says NO, and that represses an entire market for lesser jobs in every sector of the economy, taking away freedom of choice both from the unemployed and the employers. In the end, it won't matter when unemployment reaches high percentages and desperation sets in.

Why did Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac (FM2) offer free credit and backed up loans made in the real estate market? Because politicians decided it should be easier for people to have houses, yay! A noble goal any politician would promise for votes.

Now here's a thing about the nature of people: They're greedy, but they're also fearful. It's a very important balance because they want stuff, but they also fear losing what they have. But FM2 stepped in and took away the fear: ZERO risk, we are federal institutions and we totally back up all your loans! So people were free to be greedy without the fear. That's the housing bubble in an austrian nutshell for you.

Money spent by govt is, in principle, rarely spent as wisely as money spent by people, because people work to earn and therefore value their money, they usually have to be productive to earn it (which isn't easy), while govt is just politicians and bureaucrats deciding over money they easily appropriate from productive people. I don't know how I can put this in simpler terms.

The govt isn't just police officers and VA hospitals. How about our multi-trillion dollar warfare machine, how can any liberal think that's indispensable? What about institutions like Homeland Security, Departments of Education, Agriculture, DEA, FDA, and countless other needless resource wasting bureaucracies at the Federal level? I'm all for cutting them out first.

You say you're not pleased with the bailouts, yet you don't consider govt at fault for handing money to investment banks. Could you elaborate on this apparent contradiction?

When I give you money, the money is now yours, what you do with it is your own business. But when I'm the govt, and I give you money, I'm giving you money that IS NOT MINE and that I SHOULDN'T BE GIVING TO YOU (at least that's what I'm arguing, a keynesian might think differently). So there lies the root of the problem: govt is to blame for handing out free money, not what people did with it, because it's expected that people will be careless about money that is freely handed to them, as opposed to money that is earned.

People with guns don't inevitably commit murder. About the bus driver, it's expected that he'll drive poorly and crash when drunk (maybe not though if he's lucky), even though I said he was force-fed the alcohol, which is not accurate since I'm not sure investment banks were legally obligated to accept govt money, but it's easy to imagine how a bank might be strongly influenced to accept money if it has no strings attached and it's also offered to its competitors.

The rest of us go bankrupt or get jail time if we lose or steal money, a politician, with luck, doesn't get reelected. That's what I meant with "exempt from accountability".

Even though I think Ben Bernanke is an idiot, he's smart enough to be the current chairman of the Fed and even he thinks the Fed helped cause the Great Depression. The conclusions one can take about what happened in the 20's and 30's are not as clear cut as you'd think. What is important to understand are the motivations behind those that acted and those who interpret what happened.

The privileges granted from the govt to the Fed make it a very very powerful institution, and the govt LIKES the Fed. Just keep that in mind.

^ Like the DEA and the prisons...

Three things from a stoner:

1) If the weed is stronger, that means you smoke less of it.

2) There are many varieties of low- to moderate-grade weed still available, and it's easier to find that product when it is legalized and when the THC ratio is clearly displayed.

3) DEA agents really don't give a shit about anything but their jobs, which exist only because drugs are illegal.

under the bush administration the DEA and other related federal institutions (DOJ)were given the authority to over-ride state laws.
i believe it was in 2004.
they have been selective in their prosecution of said authority,mainly in california.
the question of state rights/laws trumping federal law has been a contentious subject since the beginning of america.
i would refer to the federalist papers,article 51,in which alexander hamilton and james madison make such an argument on state vs federal powers.
i swear,its almost like we are living in bizzaro world,where republican and democrat have flipped ideologies on these matters.
how can something you do in the privacy of your own home,harm noone,can be considered against the law?
thanks to henry anslinger and his propaganda machine in the late 30's and early 40's demonizing weed,the american citizen has had to endure this egregious breach in our right to privacy.
its an inane,ill-thought and redundant law,based on bad science and even worse social engineering.
and we call ourselves free..pfffft.

And the former DEA agent saying "if you give drugs to kids, they will use them..."

GRRRR!!! No one is suggesting that we do that! We just want the government to stop wasting billions of dollars hunting down and imprisoning adults who like a toke before dinner in their own goddamn homes.

YEEEAAARRRGGHH!!

Okay, much better now.

The old money, the big money, the trans-national corporations.

In reply to this comment by jpg1023:
In reply to this comment by rougy:
>> ^Lolthien:
What kind of world do we live in where that WON'T happen?


It's happening anyway.

Given that we have honest, compassionate people watching over things--and in America, that's never going to happen--legalization would give us the control instead of leaving it to the syndicates and, yes, the banks and other "legal" institutions who thrive on the profits of illegal drugs.

The CIA and other dirtbags make a lot of money off heroin, and they use it as a weapon, too.

Nothing is going to change because as with the Democrats and the Republicans, the difference between the DEA and the drug cartels is just an illusion, a front for the people who are really in charge.

Enlighten me, who are the people really in charge?

>> ^Lolthien:
What kind of world do we live in where that WON'T happen?


It's happening anyway.

Given that we have honest, compassionate people watching over things--and in America, that's never going to happen--legalization would give us the control instead of leaving it to the syndicates and, yes, the banks and other "legal" institutions who thrive on the profits of illegal drugs.

The CIA and other dirtbags make a lot of money off heroin, and they use it as a weapon, too.

Nothing is going to change because as with the Democrats and the Republicans, the difference between the DEA and the drug cartels is just an illusion, a front for the people who are really in charge.

This isn't anything really to do with 9/11 or police states or anything. They're just doing it so they can make enough busts to met some target or because they're bored and want a power trip. It's starting operating procedure all over the developed world: there are things the police (or TSA/customs/etc) can not order you to do such as answer questions, open bags, take off clothes, things like that - it varies of course. If you stick to your rights and politely refuse, they generally try two tricks:

1) Request disguised as order. It can be pretty intimidating especially if you're alone around several officers as I was at airport Customs recently. They will do things like say in a formal, stern voice "Would you empty your trouser/pants pockets onto that table please?" which they make sound like an order but it isn't and if you obey, hey, they just asked, nothing wrong with that.

2) Escalate. Won't co-operate? We'll bring in the FBI and DEA, or we'll take you down town for questioning. Been caught speeding and the cop suspects you of carrying weed? They'll give you a choice of a ticket and a search, or to be "taken down town". This is often a bluff (bringing someone in for no reason is a lot of hassle for the officer) and even if it isn't, it's only a police station - except for making you be late, nothing's changed. Don't admit to anything and demand a lawyer sooner rather than later. Even if you've nothing to hide, there is the principal of the matter and anyway, you never know what might be around - maybe a friend left a roach on the floor in the back.

Keep alert. Don't say anything you don't have to. If in doubt, ask if instruction is a legal order or a request, like this guy does. Finally, be polite and restrained, physically and verbally. If you go beyond sticking to your rights and get angry, you might say something careless and you'll certainly piss the cops off and increase their determination and of course, if it kicks off you will get your ass handed to you, by the cops and then by Bubba.

YMMV. IANAL.

and that's all you need to know... in one short video. brilliantly delivered without any stonerisms, too!

thank you Irv! FU to the still-raiding DEA criminals!

Oh, antiquated drug laws. You're so quaint and retarded.

Now why doesn't the DEA raid the pharmaceutical companies that made the products like Vioxx that kill people?

And next up: tobacco and liquor companies for slowly killing people?

>> ^KnivesOut:
Interesting take on the illegality, that it was for racist reasons. I haven't that before.


Southern white-supremacist senators, congressmen and law enforcement pushed for criminalization to drive out the Mexican population by taking away their biggest cash crops, and tossing the perps in jail.

The propoganda from Harry Anslinger in the 20s and 30s pushed ideas that "negros" high on marijuana were impervious to .32 caliber bullets. Also, they attacked the jazz scene in New Orleans warning that whites and blacks were dancing in "teahouses" together to their crazy jungle music, and these scary black reefer smokers were coming to get your wife next!


“When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff… he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies..All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy.”