Obama could be one of the best ever

Topspin

Topspin

Verified User
Presidents.
1. Crush the prison industrial complex (PIC) - 1 out of 9 black men in jail. WTF!!!
Imagine millions more men working and paying taxes.

2. Pass HR 5843 - then tax it like booz, pay for free healthcard.
2 things nearly all educated americans can agree on, the right wing Jesus freaks can go complain in church 70% don't agree with them on these major items.

3. GTF out of the middle east.
4. Drill US oil, and spend the 15 billion on green energy.

BAM!!! THE MAN HAS A PLAN:clink:
 
Dude I am telling you, you really need to stop getting your hopes up about HR 5843.

It's going to end in a massive disappointment. It always does. Believe me I've been following decriminalization bills like this for a decade.

I totally hope you're right, but it still seems unlikely at best.
 
Topspin said:
Presidents.
1. Crush the prison industrial complex (PIC) - 1 out of 9 black men in jail. WTF!!!
Imagine millions more men working and paying taxes.
Click to expand...

I imagine millions more out on the streets robbing convenience stores to pay for their pot.

2. Pass HR 5843 - then tax it like booz, pay for free healthcard.
2 things nearly all educated americans can agree on, the right wing Jesus freaks can go complain in church 70% don't agree with them on these major items.
Click to expand...

See above

3. GTF out of the middle east.
4. Drill US oil, and spend the 15 billion on green energy.

BAM!!! THE MAN HAS A PLAN:clink:
Click to expand...

I agree with both of these.
 
Okay first of all Leaning, the only reason pot is so expensive is because there is a black market. Dealers charge higher prices because of the risks associated with being involved in an illicit trade.

You have an importer, three or four layers of regional distributers, and then at least 2 or 3 layers of local dealers in a city. Each one of them is adding their own "tax" (usually about 5-15%) onto the product before passing it down the chain.

Pot would be infinitely cheaper for addicts, which would actually reduce the amount of crime to pay for drugs. It is readily available already, so I don't even think we would see much of an increase in usage. Mostly we would see is tax receipts and less crime.

This is one of those things that just convinces me of American stupidity. It's such an utter no-brainer that I'm amazed the government has been able to sustain this for so long. We spend money to arrest drug users and dealers, then spend money to eradicate their drugs, then spend money to incarcerate them. We spend tens of billions of dollars every year on the enforcement aspect of the Drug War alone.

It just utterly blows my mind that anyone could be so stupid as to continue to support criminalization. There are a thousand reasons to decriminalize that appeal to every part of the spectrum.
 
Something I wrote a while back for a column:

As recently as the 1920s, Americans bought, sold, and used marijuana and opiates openly without fear of prosecution. Taxes were levied on their sales, and little or no social stigma was attached to their use. Colonial laws actually required farmers to grow hemp, due its versatility for ropes and sails on ships as well as paper products.

Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp at their respective homes of Mount Vernon and Monticello. In the 19th century, Chinese and Mexican immigrants opened hugely successful hashish and opium dens, where Americans legally enjoyed a puff of flavored tobacco or marijuana after a long day's work.

During the Civil War, opiates saw widespread use as a painkiller for field surgeries. From 1850 all the way until 1942, marijuana was listed in the United States Pharmacopeia, and saw frequent use as a painkiller for various conditions such as labor pains, nausea, and rheumatism. Throughout this period up until 1930, recreational use of marijuana was accepted and well tolerated.

Every major American city had opened hashish parlors; in 1883 police estimated that five hundred such parlors operated in New York City alone. The availability and socially accepted use of marijuana both recreationally and medicinally from the mid 19th century until the 1930s stands as a permanent rebuke to the claims of modern prohibitionists who claim that legalization of marijuana would spawn a massive increase in the number of users and addicts.
 
Cost:

The cost of the Drug War is spread among federal, state, and local authorities as well as funding for international counter-narcotics operations, such as Plan Colombo in Columbia, making the absolute cost of the Drug War to the taxpayer very difficult to calculate.

In 2003, the federal government alone spent around $20 billion dollars, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. This amounts to a rate of $36,000 spent per minute by the federal government alone. State and local funding for the Drug War costs at least an addition $30 billion per year in 2003, and state and federal budgets for drug enforcement have been increased since then.

With around 1.7 million arrests for drug law violations so far in 2007, amounting to an arrest every twenty seconds, the cost of incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders should also be considered in the formulation of America's marijuana policy.

Considering the cost of federal incarceration for one year is slightly over $26,000 per inmate, the Drug War adds well over ten billion dollars per year to federal incarceration costs, not even including state figures for incarcerating non-violent drug offenders.
 
Epi you are prob right.
I can tell you in San Fran they are very casual about pot. I say at least 4 people burning tree at fishermans wharf like it was a cig.
 
Racism:

Nearly three quarters of drug-related criminal charges connected to marijuana, and sixty-five percent of these charges were for simple cannabis possession. The War on Drugs has contributed substantially to the well over 2.2 million inmates currently incarcerated in America. Of the world's nine million prisoners, the US prison system holds twenty five percent of them.

As of 2005, one in thirty-two adults in America were under some phase of correctional supervision including incarceration, probation, or parole. In thirty-eight states, immediate jail time awaits even first time offenders possessing even a tiny amount.

Many observers believe an element of racism is a significant factor in the continuing Drug War. In 2005, nearly 4.7% of all black males were incarcerated in prison or jail; considerably less than the 1.9% of Hispanic males and a stark contrast from the 0.7% of white males incarcerated.

An examination of black males in their late twenties reveals a stunning incarceration rate of nearly 12%. More than one in ten black males in their late twenties are currently in some phase of the American justice system.
 
they convinced lilly white america it's ok to put millions of black kids in jail for MJ. It's a crime against Humanity.
 
Epi, I couldn't agree w/ you more on pot.

I wonder if Washington will ever have the guts to make it legal, or ease up in a significant way on prosecution...
 
Barney Frank is heading 5843, I doubt they've had such an influencial person backing in the past. In fact isn't this the first official national bill?
 
You know who else supports continued criminalization, Leaning?

High level drug dealers.

You're in good company. Keep making that money for the mob, I'm sure they appreciate it.
 
Onceler said:
Epi, I couldn't agree w/ you more on pot.

I wonder if Washington will ever have the guts to make it legal, or ease up in a significant way on prosecution...
Click to expand...

Someday they will have to. The fiscal conservatives will jump ship from the social conservatives once the cost becomes unbearable.

Now I don't know if that will happen in Obama's term or even in my lifetime, but it will happen eventually. The current situation is unsustainable.

Mississippi, as backwater redstate as you can get, has decriminalized marijuana for that very reason.
 
DigitalDave said:
They rob convenient stores because its easy to rob.
Click to expand...
It is stupid to face prison time for $30. Five times my stores were robbed, back when I managed them. All total they got $107. Each of them faced time as a Bubba Wife in the local pen. Was it worth it?
 
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