The War on Weed

[SpeedRacer 1]

Your tax dollars hard at work.
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‘Pot 2.0’: Where Can I Get Some?
by Paul Armentano
by Paul Armentano




Heard the latest from the Feds regarding their multi-billion dollar war on weed? According to the latest warnings from law enforcement, today’s cannabis is nearly twice as strong as the pot available in the 1970s and 80s. Sounds like its time for the Drug Enforcement Administration to don some new duds. How about t-shirts saying: "I’ve arrested millions, and all I got was stronger pot?"

Naturally, most police and federal bureaucrats have little sense of humor when it comes to these matters. "We’re no longer talking about the drug of the 1960s and 1970s," Drug Czar John Walters told Reuters News Wire. (The Czar failed to explain why if previous decades’ pot was innocuous police still arrested you for it.) "This is Pot 2.0."

Speaking recently to the Associated Press, DEA chief Mark R. Trouville, who heads the agency’s Miami office, took an even more dire tone. "This ain’t your grandfather’s or your father’s marijuana," he said. "This will hurt you. This will addict you. This will kill you."

For our friends at the DEA, here’s a news flash. Unlike booze, sleeping pills, or even aspirin, pot poses no risk of fatal overdose, regardless of its THC content. (In fact, my physician can prescribe me a pill called Marinol that’s 100 percent THC and nobody at the Drug Czar’s office seems to mind.) Moreover, cannabis consumers readily distinguish between low potency and high potency marijuana and moderate their use accordingly – taking smaller and fewer puffs of the "good stuff" than they do the "shwag."

Besides, isn’t variety the spice of life? Last time I visited my local, state-sanctioned liquor store I had my choice of a head-spinning variety of alcoholic beverages, all of various strengths and sizes. I passed on the Bacardi 151, picked up a pint of vodka (80 proof) and then went next door to the supermarket to buy a six-pack of beer (7 percent alcohol by volume). Other customers made similar purchases. Nobody from the White House seemed terribly concerned.

But why the suggestion that today’s pot is so addictive that just one puff is a one-way ticket to drug rehab? In this case, the devil is in the details.

According to the latest data from federal Drug and Alcohol Services Information System (DASIS), more individuals are, in fact, enrolled in drug treatment for pot than ever before. However, this increase is a direct result of the fact that more Americans are being arrested for pot than ever before. (For example, a new study published in the online journal BMC Public Health reports among the 27,000+ adults entered into Texas drug treatment clinics between 2000 and 2005, a whopping 70 percent of them were diverted to treatment as a condition of sentencing, parole, or probation.) Faced with the choice of jail or attending drug treatment, most offenders – not surprisingly – choose treatment, whether they need it (most don’t) or not.

Finally, despite prohibitionists’ claims that marijuana alters the brain, it is important to note that THC – regardless of its potency – is surprisingly nontoxic to the adult, as well as the teenage, mind. Recently, scientists at New York's Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research reported in the Harm Reduction Journal that they could find "no ... evidence of cerebral atrophy or loss of white matter integrity" attributable to cannabis use in the brains of frequent adolescent marijuana users (compared to non-using controls) after performing MRI scans and other advanced imaging technology. (Read the study here.) Separate studies assessing the cognitive skills of long-term marijuana smokers have also reported no lingering deficits.

So let’s review, shall we? Our federal government wants Americans to get off the pot. So they spend billions of dollars outlawing the plant and driving its producers underground where breeders clandestinely develop stronger and more sophisticated herbal strains than ever existed prior to prohibition. The Feds then go out and inadvertently give America’s pot farmers billions of dollars in free advertising by telling the world that their weed is more potent than anything Allen Ginsberg, Tommy Chong or Jerry Garcia ever smoked in their heyday. In response, tens of millions of Americans head immediately to their nearest street-corner in search of a dealer (or college student) willing to sell them a dimebag of the new, super-potent pot they’ve been hearing about on TV.

And politicians wonder why we’re not "winning" the drug war?


November 2, 2007

Speed Racer
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[pirana 0]

What are you gonna do? Isn't it ironic that the ill-intentioned and ill-fated efforts to eradicate useage have become industries in themselves? It is almost certainly prolonging the prohibition.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Quote

So let’s review, shall we? Our federal government wants Americans to get off the pot. So they spend billions of dollars outlawing the plant and driving its producers underground where breeders clandestinely develop stronger and more sophisticated herbal strains than ever existed prior to prohibition.

There is no evidence that there is a causal relationship between prohibition and horticultural results. The tobacco industry proceeded in the same fashion during roughly the same time frame (actually the MJ industry appears to have mimicked the Tobacco industry's success) in the absence of prohibition. The science was largely underwritten by the Department of Agriculture.

[masterrig 1]

I guess, the government really thinks the American public is stupid. Just like trying to stop 'moonshining'! The war on drugs has been the biggest joke ever. The Feds, are going to have to really get after it if, they have the slightest hope of stopping dope. Do they really want to stop it... hmmmm???


Chuck

[lawrocket 3]

The War on Drugs? Losing battle, let's get out of it.
The War on Poverty? Losing battle. Trillions blown on it. Let's get out of it.
The War in Iraq? Losing battle. Probably trillions will be lost. Let's get out of it.

Notice anything common about "wars?"

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[nerdgirl 0]

Quote

The War on Drugs? Losing battle, let's get out of it.
The War on Poverty? Losing battle. Trillions blown on it. Let's get out of it.
The War in Iraq? Losing battle. Probably trillions will be lost. Let's get out of it.

Notice anything common about "wars?"

How about the "War on Cancer"?

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[SpeedRacer 1]

When ordinary people have a problem, they try to solve it.

The government does not attempt to solve a problem. They just declare War on it.

And it becomes a huge, bloated government program which either does little or nothing or makes the problem worse.

Speed Racer
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[Armour666 0]

there is also questionable relation to the strenght of current and past levels of THC as on of the studies as taken samples from pot thats been sitting on a shelf for 15-20 years and it has been showen THC breaks down over time. So how much would you trust a govement study on an issues the goverment is declearing war on?

SO this one time at band camp.....

"Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most."

[kschilk 0]

Awww sweet, sounds like a remake of "Reefer Madness"!

Mostly...the quality evolution had nothing to do with prohibition, it was a natural progression. Prohibition only raised the price.

The fact that the "Marijuana Laws" were only enacted as an excuse to deport non-whites from the U.S., should have no bearing.

"T'was ever thus."

[smiles 0]

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'Legalize it, control it
and tax the livin' hell out of it'

Larry Campbell has seen the effects of Canada's marijuana prohibition laws first-hand, as an RCMP drug officer for eight years and as chief coroner of B.C. before his election as mayor of Vancouver in 2002.

He figures the drug should be legalized, controlled --and taxed like tobacco.
..............
"The time is here that we should simply take this out of the criminal element and regulate it. The idea that marijuana is virtually any of the things that the drug warriors in the United States say is ludicrous.

"They're much like the Conservative government -- they don't believe in scientific fact. The fact of the matter is that if we regulated it, we would probably find ourselves in much the same way as we are with tobacco right now."
...................
Campbell says one thing has convinced opponents marijuana should be illegal: ideology.
"It's all ideology -- if they're wrong on this, then what else are they wrong on? They won't even allow hemp. That's how stupid these people are -- and they are stupid. I describe [White House drug czar John] Walters as a moron, and he is truly a moron.
......................
"In the United States, they have more people in jail per capita than anywhere in the world, and the majority of them are in there on drug-related charges.

"Legalizing [marijuana] means you don't have to come down hard on anyone, plus you get at the $8 billion that we're losing [in taxes] in the economy of British Columbia.

"If you get to tax it, you get to control it [and] you get to decide who's going to use it. If you want to reduce the use of marijuana, you reduce it exactly the same way as we do with cigarettes -- you raise the taxes and educate the people on any harms that there may be................http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=cdf9aed6-718c-4991-8328-2475bfda76e6

I agree totally with Larry Campbell In Vancouver B.C. Canada. Drop in price of B.C. pot = organized crime =gangs and turf wars.

Quote

Police fear a recent drop in the price of marijuana in B.C. could lead to increased gang violence as rival organized crime groups battle for control of the province's $6-billion pot trade.
...................
Campbell says "there's no question" Canada's marijuana laws are dictated by the U.S. war on drugs.

"We dance entirely to their tune. We're afraid of what will happen if we ever legalize marijuana."

Asked what the U.S. could do in response, Campbell says: "They could invade us. That's not outside the realm of possibility. They've invaded lots of other friends over the years.

Nadeau said the marijuana export trade has become the number-one money-maker for organized crime groups, who use profits from the trade to finance other ventures, such as the importation of cocaine and guns.

"It's becoming more and more apparent that every organized crime group is looking to grow-ops to generate money that supports other criminal activity," said Nadeau. "It's become their money machine."

Det. Jim Fisher, a Vancouver police department expert on Asian gangs, said even Chinese gangs such as the Big Circle Boys, which traditionally focused on importing heroin into B.C., are getting involved in pot.

"The profit is as good as heroin," said Fisher. "I don't think people understand how big it is. It's changed the dynamic of organized crime here."
.................
One recent intelligence report estimated that a typical marijuana-growing operation offers a 55-per-cent return on investment in three or four months -- the average time it takes for plants to mature.
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Sgt. Gord Friesen, head of the Surrey RCMP drug section, said about 90 per cent of the suspects arrested for marijuana growing in his city now are Vietnamese.

Even when they don't make an arrest, police can usually tell which crime group a grow operation belongs to just by looking at the growing techniques being used -- Hells Angels prefer a hydroponic water bath system and Asian gangs grow pot in soil.

Police say Vietnamese gangs have become increasingly sophisticated and systematic in establishing growing operations.

Often in concert with corrupt real estate agents, the gangs purchase or lease houses that meet their specific needs -- ideally with a chimney, for venting out fumes, and unfinished basements to make wiring up the operation easier.

Then, dedicated crews -- usually including a professional electrician -- go out and set up the growing operation.

"You'll see an electrician come in with a number of individuals with electrical equipment and they will work day and night as quickly as they possibly can to get it up and running," said Friesen.

The gangs then typically recruit recent immigrants to tend the plants in exchange for living in the house rent-free.

A separate team of harvesters then comes every few months to take the plants.

Friesen said police believe dozens of separate Vietnamese gangs each control a network of between six and 25 growing operations.

"They're highly organized and structured," he said.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/specials/websterawards/story.html?id=ae971b40-4ac7-43c9-bcd6-e7807130af20

SMiles

[Esquilax 0]

Until it is legal, expect to be punished if caught and convicted. No whining.

Ostriches and rheas are the only birds that urinate and defecate separately. They read Parachutist while doing #2.

[SpeedRacer 1]

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Until it is legal, expect to be punished if caught and convicted. No whining.

Ah yes. The old "Marijuana is illegal because it's against the law" argument.

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[Andrewwhyte 1]

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Until it is legal, expect to be punished if caught and convicted. No whining.

...and until it is legal innocent taxpayers are going to be caught up in gang wars funded by drug profits.
http://www.nowpublic.com/crime/two-six-surrey-murder-victims-were-innocents-caught-gang-hit

[ryoder 1,590]

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Until it is legal, expect to be punished if caught and convicted. No whining.

The first few years I drove a car in IN, I flagrantly broke the law every time I drove. A few years later, the IN penal code was finally revamped, and the law I was breaking was discarded. However if I had been caught driving without a man carrying a red lantern walking 100 feet in front of my car, I should have accepted that I had broken the law, and deserved to be punished, right?

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[Esquilax 0]

Quote

Quote

Until it is legal, expect to be punished if caught and convicted. No whining.

...and until it is legal innocent taxpayers are going to be caught up in gang wars funded by drug profits.
http://www.nowpublic.com/crime/two-six-surrey-murder-victims-were-innocents-caught-gang-hit

I'm not debating the morality of the law, just the state of it.

Ostriches and rheas are the only birds that urinate and defecate separately. They read Parachutist while doing #2.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Have you noticed that the topic every one else has chosen to discuss is the
morality of it.

[Esquilax 0]

And they cry that they cannot get stoned. Wah.

Ostriches and rheas are the only birds that urinate and defecate separately. They read Parachutist while doing #2.

[SpeedRacer 1]

I don't even use the stuff, so I'm not whining about that. I just don't want my tax dollars wasted on this BS which is only INCREASING crime, clogging up our courts & jails, & putting more money in the pockets of gangsters.

Speed Racer
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[Esquilax 0]

I really don't care either way. Legalize it or not, I give less than a shit. People should stop whining when they get caught breaking a well-publicized law.

If you want to not go to jail over pot laws, change the law or don't break it.

Although I doubt most stoners are organized enough to effectively engage the legislative process. Kinda hard when your world revolves around spray cheese and Teletubbies.

Ostriches and rheas are the only birds that urinate and defecate separately. They read Parachutist while doing #2.

[SpeedRacer 1]

The other problem is (as we see here) that whenever ANYONE dares to speak out against it, some people assume that person is a stoner.

Speed Racer
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[jakee 1,497]

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Although I doubt most stoners are organized enough to effectively engage the legislative process. Kinda hard when your world revolves around spray cheese and Teletubbies.

And yet alcohol remains legal when everyone knows users are all alcoholic drink driving wife beaters!

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[freethefly 6]

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I really don't care either way. Legalize it or not, I give less than a shit. People should stop whining when they get caught breaking a well-publicized law.

Obvious that you do give a shit, one way or the other, you posted your opinion.

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If you want to not go to jail over pot laws, change the law or don't break it.

The battle to change the law has been going on for well over 30 years.

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Although I doubt most stoners are organized enough to effectively engage the legislative process. Kinda hard when your world revolves around spray cheese and Teletubbies.

There are many well organized grassroot groups that have overturned convictions and have changed laws concerning mj for personal and medical use.
I see by your statement concerning spray cheese and teletubbies that you are one who buys into stereotyping people.
Many of the worlds most intelligent minds were pot smokers. Maybe you consider that Carl Sagan was a moron? Hmmm you should pull your head out of the sand and look around you. I guarantee that on a daily basis you come in contact with at least one person whom have just smoked a joint and you have no clue that they had done such. The stereotype that pot smokers are lazy dropouts is so far from the truth it cannot be explained.
Honestly, I don't even know why I am responding to your post as I feel you are but a non-skydiving troll.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[78RATS 0]

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"It's all ideology -- if they're wrong on this, then what else are they wrong on? They won't even allow hemp. That's how stupid these people are -- and they are stupid.

Nail meet head.

Not to derail the thread, but what on earth can possibly be wrong with legalizing hemp?


It can be grown efficently, is less destructive to the planet than corn, and can be used to make tons of different things. But yet it is illegal. Stupid.

Fact is pharmacutical lobbyist throw money at politicians who maintain stautus quo on prescription pill industry and oil lobbyist do the same to block alternative fuel sources.

Rat for Life - Fly till I die
When them stupid ass bitches ask why

[ryoder 1,590]

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If you want to not go to jail over pot laws, change the law or don't break it.

You think you need to use it in order to be a victim of the laws? Guess again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Maye

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[Esquilax 0]

Quote

Quote

If you want to not go to jail over pot laws, change the law or don't break it.

You think you need to use it in order to be a victim of the laws? Guess again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Maye

Quote

Four of the officers who took part in the raid testified they knocked on Maye's door and identified themselves as law enforcement officers. Maye testified he heard neither knocks on his door nor anyone announce themselves.

I'd believe the cop over some lowlife drug dealer.

Ostriches and rheas are the only birds that urinate and defecate separately. They read Parachutist while doing #2.