The "War on Drugs" Only Benefits Our Enemies!!!

[DistressedAmerican]

The Bush Junta bitches and bitches about the flow of drug money to terrorists. There is only one way to end this process immediately, end drug prohibition. We have spent decades pouring money into the "War on Drugs" with little to show for it. The very act of outlawing the substances creates the blackmarket that allows the profits to fund terrorists, gangs, and thugs. We then have to spend millions more trying to stop their activities. Legalization would allow the government to tax and regulate these substances. The proceeds from could go to various drug treatment programs etc.

Continued efforts at prohibition will not change American or world consumption habits. It only serves to provide financing to the very folks we are fighting. Why do americans still cling to the notion that prohibition is an effective policy? It didn't work for alcohol and it won't work with other controlled substances. Demand a change!

DA
www.seedsofdoubt.com/distressedamerican/main.htm
Don't Give Them A Moment's Rest in '05!

[aquart]

1. Even my mom favors legalization. Remove the profit.

Stop making drug dealers rich. Legalize.

[DistressedAmerican]

3. That's what it all boils down to.

We create the profit motive for them to produce and import. Then we spend millions trying to outspend them on enforcement efforts. How many cops have been killed in this country trying to stop some weed from coming across a border. It is senseless.

I just do not get the logic. I assume it is the triumph of Christian morality over well thought out social policy. I guess when I can't buy beer before noon on a Sunday, I shouldn't hope for too much.

[aquart]

28. You know what? About that beer...

Chicago once elected a mayor who closed the beer halls on Sundays. Now Sunday was the only day a working man had to drink. Mayor didn't last.

If it mattered, we'd fix it. Beer mattered to them.

[AwakeAtLast]

2. I have said this for years, even before

I "figured out" I was a Democrat. I have never ingested illegal drugs in my lifetime, but I see the effect of the current system on people. Our prisons would be virtually empty without those incarcerated on drug charges. Enough! :grr:

[DistressedAmerican]

4. We can't build prisons fast enough...

The cost to society and individuals is far out of proportion with the threat presented by these substances. Frankly, it infuriates me! The short sightedness is amazing.

[Vincardog]

5. The terrorists, gangs, and thugs

are The Crooked cops, Politicians and Neocons. The CIA loves the drug trade remember Ollie North? Why do you think we really fought in Viet Nam? It was to control the Heroin supply routes. I will not buy drugs because I refuse to support Dictators and corrupt police and politicians.

[starmaker]

6. gov't doesn't want war to end

go figure

[Virginian]

7. If the Government were to undercut their profits

The illegal drug trade would die.

I this from my ex several years ago. Not everything he told me was true, so this may not be either.

He said Phillip Morris was working on getting a government contract to grow Marijuana for the government to start selling in ABC stores. The tobacco company had supposedly obtained a license to grow the herb in secure, controlled environments.

I never heard anything more about this, so I just assumed he had made up a good story to entertain his friends.

[DistressedAmerican]

9. My understanding is that there are plans on the shelf

for such a legalization response. Not something they are up to right now. But, the felt it a good idea to be prepared just in case.

I have no actual citations to provide however. Does anyone know more about this?

[DistressedAmerican]

12. Additionally, I heard some time ago

that we could buy all of the coca grown in Columbia for a fraction of the cost of our traditional interdiction efforts. Does anyone have any more information on this claim?

I'm not sure how true it is but, it sounds plausable to me. Buy it at the source before the drug lords, smugglers and street dealers add their markup and it should be plenty cheap. Anyone know of a link off hand?

[SoCalifer]

8. OMG

LMFAO.. That is F*ing hilarious. hehehe :)
v v v v

[SoCalifer]

10. Good ((Video))

Here's a good video showing why the war on drugs is a Bull S**t


ABC's John Stossel does an excellent mainstream expose on the complete failure of America's War on Drugs, and the problems that it causes both at home and in foreign countries.

ABC News War On Drugs War On Ourselves ~ http://www.pot-tv.net/ram/pottvshowse1448.ram (43min streaming video)

[DistressedAmerican]

11. Thanks for the link.

I took a look at the beginning of the video. Looks very interesting. I'll watch it all later.

Is anyone else sitting on other good links in support of legalization? I'd love to get a bunch of good sites together for my webpage's links page:

http://www.seedsofdoubt.com/distressedamerican/links.htm

What do yo know that I should know? Information is power!
DA

[formernaderite]

13. I would LOVE to see the idiotic drug laws repealed...but name...

...a politician willing to go out on a limb and propose repealing these laws. Don't think it's just a left-right thing either....I watched the dems in New Hampshire run a campaign against the sitting republican governor this election using the "he aligns himself with Libertarians, and wants to make drugs and prositution legal".

[DistressedAmerican]

14. I was (and remain) a long time Clark supporter

but when Super tuesday rolled around Kerry was a foregone conclusion. As Clark wasn't viable by that time and Kerry voted for and publicly supported the war I was looking for someone else that I could feel good about. I voted Dennis Kucinich for exactly that reason. He clearly favors decriminilizing and taxing!

He is a rare breed to publicly state on his website that he favors legalization. I saw a video clip on his site explaining his position in good detail and decided to go with him at the last minute. Check him out. May be worthy of more of your support.

[mdelaguna2000]

15. DK rocks ... so does Wes n/t

[DistressedAmerican]

16. Welcome to DU

With your first post!

Good Avatar Image!

[poe]

17. Yes and no and then yes again

the drug trade amounts to a tidy 400-700 billion dollar/year. there are extraordinary forces in the west that reap most of these profits and most of the cash will get laundered-transferred-recycled etc. adding more to the till. this trade is very good for the militarists-guns,drugs,money-round and round it goes. Dyncorp.

[DistressedAmerican]

22. I'd prefer to see that money

coming in in taxes! As others have pointed out, our government stands to loose valuable undisclosed income. Line their pockets while hundreds of thousands rot in jail for their "illness". Sickening!

[poe]

24. the US govt is largest money laundering nation in world

"they" meaning dyncorp-enron-lockheed, etc. stand to profit immensely from "illegal"
drug trade. also agribusinees and other textile manufacturers wish to keep hemp off the scene or at least keep it as a fringe player. gotta keep pushin' for legalization and pushin' for release of soooo many who are illegaly imprisoned.

[DistressedAmerican]

26. Don't forget the Duponts of the world

My understanding is that significant lobbying from the chemical industry played a large part in beginning this ill gotten policy in the first place. Hemp makes cheaper rope and textile than they were. It would have kept them out of the nylon line and parachute business. Don't know how they feel about silk competing for stocking material.

[poe]

27. excellent post thanks-hemp hats-hemp backpacks-hemp socks

got a few hemp hats made by local craftswoman-beautiful beadwork throughout.
we can make it happen.
please sign this petition in support of WALDEN BELLO at
www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=1&ItemID=7072

Went to your site-excellent images now i gotta figure out how to bring them over to a message.

[DistressedAmerican]

30. Posting images is really pretty easy

to post something from my site just type in:

http://www.seedsofdoubt,com/distressedamerican/images/grpahics/NAME OF THE IMAGE.jpg

Just add in the name where it says "Name of the image". Hope that helps. Always glad to see folks enjoying the graphics!

[SoCalifer]

18. DistressedAmerican

Here's another one of my favorite videos hosted on Pot-TV.

Penn & Teller Bullshit - http://www.pot-tv.net/ram/pottvshowse2705.ram ((30min Streaming Video))

You'll like it..

[DistressedAmerican]

21. I'll check it out in the morning

and get back with some comments. If the first video was any indicator, this will be well worth watching.

[DistressedAmerican]

33. As promised I checked this video out!

Oh my god, I didn't realize that Penn and Teller were on the war path. That video is great! I hereby commit to buying some Penn and Teller videos ASAP. They clearly deserve my money.

"When you criminalize things that aren't real crimes, you still create criminals." - So Fucking True!

I love you British Columbia!

[poe]

19. how do you cut and paste images on a mac-

[DistressedAmerican]

20. It's been years since I used one...

I really don't know for sure. Someone here can most likely tell you though. If not, I'd be happy to e-mail any of my graphics (if that's what you're looking for). Just drop me an e-mail with what you'd like at:

[e-mail]

and I'll gladly send the file directly.
DA

[American Tragedy]

23. Have there been any recent prominent politicians who've taken this stance?

I would think that the basic idea of individual freedom, cutting spending, and diminishing government influence would resonate with folks of many ideological persuasions. I wonder how it would actually play out.

[DistressedAmerican]

25. Kucinich did!

See post 14 for more details. I haven't checked out his site in months but, it is probably still there in some form or another. Its a start.

To me it is just common sense. But, a lot of Christian morality seems to outweigh that logic. Your body IS a temple after all. They couldn't possible allow us to CHOOSE to defile it could they?

[eridani]

43. Not only that--

--but he was the only candidate to use the expression "prison industrial complex" on his website.

[DistressedAmerican]

44. I never believed the guy had a chance

But, I sure was impressed with his policy positions!

[eridani]

45. If everyone who said that had voted for him--

--ah, never mind. Fuckit.

[killbotfactory]

29. The war on drugs is a sham

It's just a way to scare a majority of people into giving up powers to the government they normally wouldn't allow. Good intentions paving the road to hell. It's immoral that drug addiction is treated as a criminal affair instead of a medical one.

[CWebster]

31. War on drugs is just cover for black ops

against political systems threatening US Imperialism.

[SoCalifer]

32. True CWebster..

Yes that is absolutely true. And I have a short video I can post about that too. But also the war on drugs is also because of corporate interests here. Today that biggest lobby interests comes from the pharmaceutical companies, but before, it came from the petroleum, petrochemical and textile industries. But yes, the CIA has TOTALLY used drug trafficking to raise black money for all their black opps they've done throughout the world for the last fifty years.

And this is one of the main reasons why so many people in the world today call us imperialist. Because our multinational corporate globalist (mostly our oil industry, but not just) through the "CIA" go around the world and Fund, Train and Equip death squads to go out and depose a government and replace it with a horrible dictator one who rules over the people with brutality so that there can be no real opposition from the U.S. corporate moving in and exploiting.

And because they know that the U.S. citizens would never allow this type activity. Ergo, the war on drugs so that they can capitalize on the large profits to fund their covert operations. And I might add that these operations are obviously not covert to the people who we're killing, and they're also not covert from big states like Russia. No, they are only covert from us the U.S. citizens. And we've done this in about sixty different countries throughout the world.

Anyway, here's a little short video touching upon the CIA trafficking in drugs.

mms://windowsmedia.dvlabs.com/gnn/gnn/ctc/ctc_bb.asf << ((video link - cut & paste))

[DistressedAmerican]

34. 700,000 pot smokers arrested EVERY year!

each of those are costing up $20,000/per year for each of these folks. Thats $14,000,000,000 A year just to keep pot smokers locked up. Couldn't that money be better spent?

Here's a suggestion. How about that money going to preventing drunk driving. Drunk drivers are killing people by the thousands every year. More fatalities than we endured on 9/11! Seems to me like that is a far greater threat to society than harmless pot smokers.

[ernstbass]

35. I am really bothered that non of our elected officials

have the guts to speak openly about this. I was disappointed in Clinton for this as well as the others. We all know the war on drugs is a sham but no one will take on this issue. What do we need to do to get those we elect on board? It was rarely mentioned in the recent presidiential race.

[DistressedAmerican]

36. Dennis Kucinich got my vote (despite being a Clarkie)

Because he openly rejects prohibition. Please check his site out for more details:
http://www.kucinich.us/issues/drugwar.php

There is a great video by Eric Blumrich on his site:
http://www.kucinich.us/DP.swf

Do yourself a favor and take a look at it. Its fairly short and well worth your time!

[poe]

37. test

www.seedsofdoubt.com/distressedamerican/images/main.htm

[DistressedAmerican]

38. Ah Sorry, My post come through a little wierd.

Always truncates on here for reasons that I don't get...

you need the sting to end like this:
images/graphics/(your image).jpg

[poe]

39. i'm gonna try again having zero luck

thanks for trying ineed to really be walked through it i'll have to get someone over- i am clueless about computers. seems the emac requires a different technique?

[DistressedAmerican]

40. Hard to say.

Guess that's what you lack when you don't bow down to IBM compatability. Used to love them myself. Better luck next time.

[SoCalifer]

41. IBM

Here's a little trivia about IBM...

IBM provided to Hitler and the Nazis the computing machines necessary to process all the Jewish people the Nazis cataloged / murdered.

[DistressedAmerican]

42. A good discussion of the CIA's Roll in Coke Trafficing On AR

Alternative radio has a good talk byDr. Arthur Caplan on the CIA's roll in Getting the inner city high. Good talk!

http://www.alternativeradio.org/