Release the Marijuana prisoners NOW!

[mopaul]

The subject of decriminalizing marijuana doesn't seem to generate much heat around here, although it comes up frequently. I personally believe that all drugs should be decriminalized, including the bad ones. There are always going to be junkies around, they are a tiny percentage of our overall society. Although crack and heroin and meth are inherently evil, marijuana is not, and that mis-perception should be put to rest permanently.

Without arguing all the pros and cons on the herb, my only point here is that all those who are currently in prison for marijuana 'crimes', are POLITICAL PRISONERS, imprisoned for selling or possessing a practically harmless herb. Compared to a man who's been on a 3 day meth bender, pot heads are absolutely benevolent.

I know one poor lady who was busted 10 years ago with a small amount, and her and her daughter both went to prison for 3 years each. and then 5 years strict probation, and her two younger kids were taken from her. It has all been resolved, but only after her life was totally ruined. That's just one small horror story, there are millions more.

I was once busted for it, back in 72, I had it coming, I was being an idiot about it, but there are literally millions of people of all stripes, who smoke the green weed, and who are committing no other crimes. Millions are currently being unjustly imprisoned, and are in actuality, political prisoners. Prisoners in their own country, treated as slaves, housed with murderers, victims of an asinine and misguided 'war on drugs', that has ruined more lives than it was supposedly designed to save.

These smokers should be given immediate amnesty and released, clearing up the prisons for truly violent and criminal people. The existing liquor laws would be applied to the mota as well. Any adult who wanted a good smoke, could buy it, and smoke it in his own home.
No more smugglers, dope dealers, drive by shootings, and lives ruined by pointless prison terms.

There is more money in it being ILLEGAL, than there is if it were legal. That needs to be reversed, and all the marijuana prisoners should be freed, and allowed to return to their families, and to productive lives.

bong time................

[IronLionZion]

1. free the users, jail the dealers I say

compare our policy with Canada's and you can see how retarded Americans can be.

[mdmc]

8. I say don't jail either, but if you have to jail one of them

I'll agree with you.

[IronLionZion]

17. If you sell drugs to kids

then you need to go to jail. But the adult who likes to smoke a little weed on his own property should not.

[mopaul]

22. i was confused....you are correct

i guess i meant to say marijuana dealers, but it's true, selling crack to kids would still be a criminal activity, and those types should be locked up.

[mopaul]

9. wouldn't even BE any dealers if it was legal

that problem would eliminate itself. like with liquor prohibition, in one day, all the crime was taken out of it.

[Nikia]

30. It is unfair to jail dealers

I know that some dealers are slime and committ crimes other than selling pot. In many cases though, dealers are mainly helping out people who they know and paying for their own habit or because there aren't good jobs in their area. If you are buying pot, it came from somewhere. If you want to be free to use the substance, in most cases people need to be free to sell it as well. If it were sold in stores, the dealers would make the decision to continue to be dealers of illegal drugs or not. Some would not becaue they only currently sell a substance which they do not personally consider harmful, while they consider other stuff harmful.

[KG]

2. let's be honest, the US is the least enlightened 1st world country

on the planet.

[mopaul]

6. we gotta be the most two-faced

we claim to be the most religious nation, but that's highly debatable.
we claim to be waging war against drugs, but the profits are too huge for it to stop, and the government itself is involved in smuggling. always has been. and comparing cocaine to pot is just silly

[stepnw1f]

3. I Second Your Sentiments mopaul

I have never seen people fight or hurt one another while smoking pot. It has got to be one of the most benign drugs out there. Caffeine causes more friction between people than herb does. It's all about money not morals people, and that is immoral

[PragMantisT]

4. We may need plenty of room in the prisons for *&co

We may see decriminalization as the panacea for the huge debt we ill see in the future due to the actions of the current administration i.e. Iraq, Medicare, Social Security.

[mmm]

5. I don't smoke it but I agree 100% with what you say

[HydroAddict]

7. Free the weed, brudda!

And let world peace ensue.

[boobooday]

10. War on Drugs

End the war against inanimate objects! A war on drugs is a war on PEOPLE! AMERICAN PEOPLE!

Imagine the money we would save if we weren't locking up everybody who got caught with a doobie.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[plurality]

11. damn straight

and speaking of, i haven't been able to find a hook up since i moved to dc. what's with that?

[mopaul]

12. don't they have it at the quick trip?

they should, just like the beer they have there, there should also be packs of panama red, twenty to the pack, for $12 a pack.

jeez the money they could make off of just me alone

[plurality]

15. $12 a pack?!? Fuck that. If cigs are $4, joints should be $2

But other than that, I'd be all over it, except I'd buy a few packs to get me by until my garden begins to bloom :)

[dawn]

13. Yes!

I totally agree. I think all drugs should be decriminalized, but I only think marijuana should be legalized and sold in stores.

[mdmc]

14. thanks for the thread

Marijuana doesn't stir the blood of DU up too much, perhaps because there is more agreement on this subject than most others. I agree that the drug use industry should be regulated.

Thank you for sharing your story regarding your involvement in the War on Drugs. We need more personal stories of the "ruined lives" to help curve the war on drugs.

The war on drugs reminds me of the witch trials. Witch trials ended when women with powerful families to protect them, were accused of being witches. The witch trials were successful when they were focused on a hated social minority ('witches' were usually women without family, "bad neighbors", mental problems). Witch trials were not tolerated when they were used against regular people. Regular people fought against the trials, and eventually the practice was ended.

Currently, in my state of NY, our drug laws are liberal, but we are not free. America just doesn't want to go that extra step to reform the law. Some states continue draconian sentencing, and have refused to back down on the war on drugs. This is very disheartening.

I disagree that there is more money in prohibition, in marijuana being illegal. Free trade works, and I think that a regulated market could generate profit.

:~)

[HollywoodLiberal]

16. Here's an idea...

Free all marijauna users... Jail all republicans for life!


Also why is marijuana any worse than beer? Can anyone explain?

[mdmc]

19. I can explain, I can't except it

We come from a European tradition of drinking beer. We made herb illegal to spite Mexican workers, who liked to smoke herb. America wanted them to convert to tobacco, lol.

[IronLionZion]

21. I think beer is worse

people don't get high and beat up their wives. It should be regulated the same way alcohol is meaning you shouldn't drive high or go to work high. The government could make a killing from the tax revenue.

[rocktop15]

18. Pot is an interesting substance

People talk about it like it's this harmless drug that has no detrimental side effects. Well, one night, I smoked too much and got a massive panic attack that scared me to death. I thought I was dying. Since then, I can't smoke it anymore because I get a lot of paranoia and anxiety.

I say keep the dealers in jail. I don't think drugs should be legalized. Pot should be legalized in my opinion.

[HollywoodLiberal]

20. What's the big deal?

Plenty of people have had horrible nights while drinking. Anything can have dangerous side effects... including drugs.


Motorcycle riding can kill you, but should we make that illegal?

[IronLionZion]

24. Mcdonalds food can kill you

lets make it illegal!

[mopaul]

25. how bout the cigarette smokers who feel put upon?

always whining about how their rights to smoke are being taken away, complaining about being forced outside in the cold to have a smoke.....at least they arent' being jailed for it.

and cigarettes don't even get you high, just kill you, but they are legal of course

[IronLionZion]

23. The real reason Marijuana is illegal.

I heard the real reason it's illegal is because of the fuel that could be produced by hemp. The Carter administration found out that hemp is a better source of methanol than anything else on the planet, it's twice as good as corn. Much cheaper and cleaner than gasoline and you can grow hemp right here in the US of A. Ray-Gun and his oil buddies put a stop to the research and destroyed the records. But that's what I heard, I don't know if it's a fact.

[Capn Sunshine]

26. Legalize growing , rescale posession charges

Legalize growing, take it out of the drug dealers control.

Posession/smoking in public, same as alcohol drinking and open container laws.. Minor posession still minor possession.

But this all disrupts the prison lobby's plan to criminalize 25% of America by 2010.

[Beam Me Up]

27. How Pot was made illegal

EXCERPTS FROM
The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States
by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School


<long historical snip>

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937

<snip>

When we asked at the Library of Congress for a copy of the (Congressional) hearings (on the prohibition of Marijuana), to the shock of the Library of Congress, none could be found. We went "What?" It took them four months to finally honor our request because -- are you ready for this? -- the hearings were so brief that the volume had slid down inside the side shelf of the bookcase and was so thin it had slid right down to the bottom inside the bookshelf. That's how brief they were. Are you ready for this? They had to break the bookshelf open because it had slid down inside.

There were three bodies of testimony at the hearings on the national marijuana prohibition.

The first testimony came from Commissioner Harry Anslinger, the newly named Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (son-in law of the DuPont family, by the way).

<long, interesting snip>

So, over the objection of the American Medical Association, the bill passed out of committee and on to the floor of Congress. Now, some of you may think that the debate on the floor of Congress was more extensive on the marijuana prohibition. It wasn't. It lasted one minute and thirty-two seconds by my count and, as such, I will give it to you verbatim.

The entire debate on the national marijuana prohibition was as follows -- and, by the way, if you had grown up in Washington, DC as I had you would appreciate this date. Are you ready? The bill was brought on to the floor of the House of Representatives -- there never was any Senate debate on it not one word -- 5:45 Friday afternoon, August 20. Now, in pre-air-conditioning Washington, who was on the floor of the House? Who was on the floor of the House? Not very many people.

Speaker Sam Rayburn called for the bill to be passed on "tellers". Does everyone know "tellers"? Did you know that for the vast bulk of legislation in this country, there is not a recorded vote. It is simply, more people walk past this point than walk past that point and it passes -- it's called "tellers". They were getting ready to pass this thing on tellers without discussion and without a recorded vote when one of the few Republicans left in Congress, a guy from upstate New York, stood up and asked two questions, which constituted the entire debate on the national marijuana prohibition.

"Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?"

To which Speaker Rayburn replied, "I don't know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it's a narcotic of some kind."

Undaunted, the guy from Upstate New York asked a second question, which was as important to the Republicans as it was unimportant to the Democrats. "Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?"

In one of the most remarkable things I have ever found in any research, a guy who was on the committee, and who later went on to become a Supreme Court Justice, stood up and -- do you remember? The AMA guy was named William C. Woodward -- a member of the committee who had supported the bill leaped to his feet and he said, "Their Doctor Wentworth came down here. They support this bill 100 percent." It wasn't true, but it was good enough for the Republicans. They sat down and the bill passed on tellers, without a recorded vote.

In the Senate there never was any debate or a recorded vote, and the bill went to President Roosevelt's desk and he signed it and we had the national marijuana prohibition.

<another big snip>

...if you want to read the whole thing, you can find it on line at: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/whiteb1.htm

[mopinko]

28. it was my understanding

that it was outlawed because jazz (read-black/race mixing) musicians smoked it.
and yeah, it is ridicuous that it is outlawed. there are no shootouts in the liquor department of my grocery store here. i still don't understand why nobody seems to remember why al capone was in business. or why prohition fell- so that the black market was brought above ground and taxed. with all the emphasis in local govs on sin taxes, it just seems like this ought to happen any day.
maybe the above post about the witch trials will prove prophetic.
signed,
wistful former toker.

[Beam Me Up]

29. According to professor Whitebread:

". . .When Professor Bonnie and I set out to try to track the legal history of marijuana in this country, we were shocked that nobody had ever done that work before. And, secondly, the few people who had even conjectured about it went back to the 1937 Federal Act and said "Well, there's the beginning of it." No. If you go back to 1937, that fails to take account of the fact that, in the period from 1915 to 1937, some 27 states passed criminal laws against the use of marijuana. What Professor Bonnie and I did was, unique to our work, to go back to the legislative records in those states and back to the newspapers in the state capitols at the time these laws were passed to try to find out what motivated these 27 states to enact criminal laws against the use of marijuana. What we found was that the 27 states divided into three groups by explanation.

"The first group of states to have marijuana laws in that part of the century were Rocky Mountain and southwestern states. By that, I mean Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana. You didn't have to go anywhere but to the legislative records to find out what had motivated those marijuana laws. The only thing you need to know to understand the early marijuana laws in the southwest and Rocky Mountain areas of this country is to know, that in the period just after 1914, into all of those areas was a substantial migration of Mexicans. They had come across the border in search of better economic conditions, they worked heavily as rural laborers, beet field workers, cotton pickers, things of that sort. And with them, they had brought marijuana.

"Basically, none of the white people in these states knew anything about marijuana, and I make a distinction between white people and Mexicans to reflect a distinction that any legislator in one of these states at the time would have made. And all you had to do to find out what motivated the marijuana laws in the Rocky mountain and southwestern states was to go to the legislative records themselves. Probably the best single statement was the statement of a proponent of Texas first marijuana law. He said on the floor of the Texas Senate, and I quote, "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff (referring to marijuana) is what makes them crazy." Or, as the proponent of Montana's first marijuana law said, (and imagine this on the floor of the state legislature) and I quote, "Give one of these Mexican beet field workers a couple of puffs on a marijuana cigarette and he thinks he is in the bullring at Barcelona."

"Well, there it was, you didn't have to look another foot as you went from state to state right on the floor of the state legislature. And so what was the genesis for the early state marijuana laws in the Rocky Mountain and southwestern areas of this country? It wasn't hostility to the drug, it was hostility to the newly arrived Mexican community that used it.

"A second group of states that had criminal laws against the use of marijuana were in the Northeast, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York -- had one and then repealed it and then had one again -- New Jersey. Well, clearly no hypothesis about Mexican immigration will explain the genesis of those laws because, as you know, the Northeast has never had, still doesn't really, any substantial Mexican-American population. So we had to dig a little deeper to find the genesis of those laws. We had to go not only to the legislative records but to the newspapers in the state capitols at the time these laws were passed and what we found, in the early marijuana laws in the Northeast, we labeled the "fear of substitution." If I may, let me paraphrase an editorial from the New York Times in 1919 so we will get exactly the flavor of this fear of substitution.

"The New York Times in an editorial in 1919 said, "No one here in New York uses this drug marijuana. We have only just heard about it from down in the Southwest," and here comes the substitution. "But," said the New York Times, "we had better prohibit its use before it gets here. Otherwise" -- here's the substitution concept -- "all the heroin and hard narcotics addicts cut off from their drug by the Harrison Act and all the alcohol drinkers cut off from their drug by 1919 alcohol Prohibition will substitute this new and unknown drug marijuana for the drugs they used to use."

"Well, from state to state, on the theory that this newly encountered drug marijuana would be substituted by the hard narcotics addicts or by the alcohol drinkers for their previous drug that had been prohibited, state to state this fear of substitution carried, and that accounted for 26 of the 27 states -- that is, either the anti-Mexican sentiment in the Southwest and Rocky Mountain areas or fear of substitution in the Northeast."

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/whiteb1.htm