>> ^drattus:

We're the most imprisoned nation in the world, both per capita and in raw terms and that's been a fact since the Clinton administration. If the more than a decade long title holder for most imprisoned nation in the world isn't a police state, then exactly what is it?
International Centre for Prison Studies
http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/wpb_stats.php


I agree that the US has a stupidly high imprisonment rate, mostly due to your insane and useless "war on drugs", but at least there is a process. The laws behind it may be retarded, but as a general rule, you aren't living in fear of being snatched off the street by uniformed goons. Hyperbole doesn't really help anyone, and frankly, calling the US a police state is trivialising the struggles of those who live in real oppression (i.e. North Korea, sharia law, etc).

That's not to say you shouldn't complain about injustice in your country, simply that you should call it what it is.

>> ^vaire2ube:

The War on Drugs is a War on People... or quite literally, a War on Freedom.
Who else hates our freedom as much as the DEA?? Ask Daniel Chong... Bin Laden has nothing on what the DEA did to him.


I agree, but let me devils advocate for a second. Everyone has heard of sin taxes, extra taxes placed on things like cigarettes to discourage their use. These things fly in the face of freedom as well, they just don't send you to jail, just the poor house. The scary part about sin taxes isn't the tax itself, even though it is bad, but it is the justification it then grants the government in the matters of regulating what you consume. There is the FDA on the other side of that argument as well. Lets say Mary Jane gets legalized, you can bet your ass the stuff you grown in your back yard STILL isn't going to be legal. You are going to need some kind of licence, some sort of standardized testing procedure to make sure you aren't poisoning yourself...ect ect.

My point is, harping on the drug war is fine, and it is right to do so. But there are SO many different agencies and areas the government tells us what do and what not to do. IN that, the drug war is just an extension of those things. If you still want the FDA by the logic, that the drug war is a war on people, I don't think it will stand the test. Instead, you have to take a MUCH less ideological position of "more people want to do it than don't, so it is the exception in regulator matters". That is the problem you get into when you start trying to make everyone safe...there isn't such an actual idea as safe. Safe is a completely subjective idea...some people feel safe skydiving...fuck that noise.

As a crazy libertarian, I am fine with most government agencies shutting down. To that end, I do think life wouldn't change to much. The entities in the government evolved from our desire for them to exist. They would all most likely come to be in the private sector as well, a consumer reports of food, ect. And with places like the sift and redit, I do think the second age of the information age is going to place a LOT of pressure on governments and challenge their ability to deal with challenges. The internet might unlock a democratic meritocracy in certain instances, and for that I am very hopeful. </rant>

The War on Drugs is a War on People... or quite literally, a War on Freedom.

Who else hates our freedom as much as the DEA?? Ask Daniel Chong... Bin Laden has nothing on what the DEA did to him.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/06/03/1334230/how-chemistry-stymies-attempts-to-regulate-synthetic-drugs

There is an ever increasing crackdown on vendors of these stimulants, and an ever increasing response from the chemists by synthesizing more. One of the people who ran a website just for vendors got caught up in a sting operation, and he is one of many similar stories taking place.

http://internetchem.blogspot.com/2012/04/federal-crackdown-on-research-chemical.html

The legislation in response to this has been to basically ban "chemicals" ... and i wish i were kidding about the specificity in some of the laws... although in all cases, banning a specific one does nothing.

It's almost like you can't win a war on drugs... only a war on the people who use them... that's a fact sure to help cure the paranoia, but just in case, lets make sure people who are angry and under-medicated can get guns.


if we're the majority who is deciding our lives for us...the plot thickens*!







*just kidding its old white men and their nagging wives.

>> ^entr0py:

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
Bath Salts: make you crazy - Legal
Cannabis: makes you sleepy - Illegal

Yay War on Drugs! We're winning! Just like in Afghanistan!

It's not actually legal, they are in violation of the Federal Analog Act. The whole bath salts euphemism is an attempt to get away with breaking the law, but there's no real doubt they're breaking it.
But yeah, it makes all the enforcement efforts against pot seem even more ridiculous and heavy handed when untested designer drugs are an actual danger to the public.


Wow...that's a pretty scary act. I just love it when the idiots in Congress try to legislate stuff that doesn't exist yet. It's guaranteed to produce a trainwreck of generalities and vagaries. I'm amazed this hasn't yet been found unconstitutional yet.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Bath Salts: make you crazy - Legal
Cannabis: makes you sleepy - Illegal

Yay War on Drugs! We're winning! Just like in Afghanistan!


It's not actually legal, they are in violation of the Federal Analog Act. The whole bath salts euphemism is an attempt to get away with breaking the law, but there's no real doubt they're breaking it.

But yeah, it makes all the enforcement efforts against pot seem even more ridiculous and heavy handed when untested designer drugs are an actual danger to the public.

Bath Salts: make you crazy - Legal

Cannabis: makes you sleepy - Illegal


Yay War on Drugs! We're winning! Just like in Afghanistan!

>> ^shang:

yea I just recently went over all the evidence about it myself on another forum looks like folks at anonymous are putting the "threads" together huge online investigation that linked the recent video to his past 2010 animal abuse videos and last night people are wondering if this crazy naked man eating the homeless guy could possibly be the perpetrator since his myspace had listed his last where-a-bouts in Miami.
If you go to encyclopediadramatica.se even though it's crazy and usually full of trolls if you do a search for Luka Magnotta a lot of the "investigation" stuff has been posted there, even including a 2009 magazine article he wrote on how to disappear from society.
an ex porn star that went insane and unless this video is him getting shot, then he's still on the loose.


"Rudy Eugene, 31, pictured in an old police mugshot was shot dead in Miami, Florida yesterday following the horrific attack."~www.dailymail.co.uk

They suspect it was the widely available and soon-to-be un-available (thank god), bath salts. Some idiots suggest the effects resemble that of LSD. These same idiots are obviously people who have never used Lysergic acid diethylamide rather, the only drugs they are on are those dispensed by the propagandists and mind-control agents of the war on (drugs, terror, etc).

I've never had pot, or any other illegal drug for that matter. I have never smoked or chewed tobacco, and I actually didn't drink alcohol until I turned 21, and only very rarely since then.

I don't really have any interest in it. I *hate* cigarette smoke, so the primary method of consumption (smoking) is repellant to me. With regards to alcohol, a light buzz is a somewhat good sensation for me but I strongly dislike the feeling of being drunk. I don't mean being hung over, I mean that when I am drunk I can tell that my brain isn't operating at peak efficiency and it just bothers me. That minor positive feeling I get with having 1-2 drinks honestly doesn't justify the cost of alcohol vs other beverages, and that is before the risk of drinking too much and the discomfort of being drunk.

I don't mean to push any of that on anyone -- I know and am friends with a lot of people who like getting drunk, quite a few that like to smoke, and some that smoke pot. I just mention it to present my perspective.

The thing that bothers me about most discussion about pot is that you only hear from the two opposite extremes. You've got your narc ATF-types that tell you that pot is highly addictive, it takes otherwise productive people and makes they lazy and apathetic, it is a surefire gateway to stronger drugs, it ruins lives, etc. etc. Then you've got the High Times-types that tell you that it cures every affliction known to mankind, it has no negative effects whatsoever, and that we might as well grind it up and put it in the water supply or something.

Having had no direct personal experience with it, my best guess is that pot impairs your judgement and mental faculties to a degree roughly equivalent to alcohol, possibly less so. Smoking it probably has negative health consequences roughly similar to smoking tobacco, but probably a little bit less bad -- for one thing, there are probably many more people who smoke a pack or two of cigarettes per day than people who smoke an equivalent number of joints. Less inhaled smoke probably means less detriment to health. In terms of addictiveness, it appears to me that pot is far less addictive than either alcohol OR tobacco.

Combine all that stuff together, and I don't understand why alcohol and tobacco are legal while pot isn't. Prohibition was a disaster, and the war on drugs (particularly pot) seems to be a failure to learn from that. That being said, if a high school student brings alcohol or tobacco to school and gets caught with them, they will probably be confiscated and given some punishment. Contrary to what Rogan says, I have heard of undercover/sting operations to bust underage drinking, particularly in order to punish adults to distribute alcohol to minors. All that is fine with me, probably a good thing.

In this clip, I didn't think that Dr. Drew's statements were all that extreme towards the ATF extreme side -- at least, not really any more than Rogan's were towards the High Times side. Still, upvote for presenting his viewpoint honestly and directly. I think that we need more discussion about this, with the likely result being that we get some real information that lands somewhere in the middle.

>> ^entr0py:

>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^jonny:
"he spent in a 5 ft. by 10 ft. cell, where he could not spread his arms out wide."
How long are this dude's arms?!?!

He was handcuffed. Odd wording but it's the only explanation.
All they seized were some soft drugs - shrooms, weed, ecstacy, some other crap and "some weapons" ie. various things that you'd find in a normal house that can be used to fluff out the report and make sure such drugs are associated with violence!
Someone remind me again what's so terrible about taking those things in the privacy of your own property?

Here's a more recent CNN story.
Yes, he was handcuffed in the cell. The house that was raided seemed to be an MDMA distribution center, and the DEA claims they seized 18,000 pills, as well as several guns and cases of ammo. But it also wasn't the kids house; it seems he was just there with friends to get high. Which is why he wasn't charged and supposed to be released.


I'm glad there's a company line being towed on why an innocent person nearly died thanks to the war on drugs

War on Drugs = War on Freedom

War on Freedom = Terrorism

DEA = Terrorists.


See how easy? Also hilarious, this pot user ends up introduced to Meth by the DEA, forcefully.

Any more absurdity and I'm going to have to pay an insane amount of money to be educated WHY this system is a failure. Oh.... dang....

bradley manning didnt get any speed.

If you have ever seen Requiem for a Dream you may have realized at some point that were there no war on drugs, all the shit that happened to the main characters has almost zero chance of happening. The main problem with drugs is that they are hidden, not the drugs themselves. More openness would lead people to make better more informed choices as to which substances they put in their bodies and how much they are actually using. It would be easier to get help and to notice people who might need help. It would free up resources to deal with problems rather than using resources to create problems. Etc.

>> ^my15minutes:

and that's very true as well, gallow.
unfortunately, most people will not listen to someone they don't like.
no matter how accurate or compelling their arguments.
someone who's against pot is more likely to be swayed by Pat Robertson's recent startling admission. or by judges and cops who know the war on drugs is an unwinnable farce that only detracts from their ability to deal with actual crime.>> ^Gallowflak:
But Cheech and Chong? Come on. If the marijuana legalization movement is to be taken as seriously as we need it to be, we're going to need more articulate spokespeople. Preferably ones that don't so completely fit into the stereotype of the stoner.


Yeah, true enough. Damnit.

and that's very true as well, gallow.
unfortunately, most people will not listen to someone they don't like.
no matter how accurate or compelling their arguments.

someone who's against pot is more likely to be swayed by Pat Robertson's recent startling admission. or by judges and cops who know the war on drugs is an unwinnable farce that only detracts from their ability to deal with actual crime.>> ^Gallowflak:

But Cheech and Chong? Come on. If the marijuana legalization movement is to be taken as seriously as we need it to be, we're going to need more articulate spokespeople. Preferably ones that don't so completely fit into the stereotype of the stoner.