War on Drugs = War on America
If there's one thing that has been beaten into our skulls throughout the course of government it's that as long as there's a demand, there will be a supply.
Initially marijuana was outlawed because it would've made a cheaper paper, and yet the paper corporations had already invested a lot into trees (and would've been run out of business by start up hemp paper companies), so to save the corporations our government outlawed marijuana. They drummed up public support by spreading countless lies about the effects of weed (i.e. if you smoke it you will be driven incuribly insane, it will cause a straight A student to drop out of school and participate in gang bangs, etc.), and, to create a resemblance of consistancy they had to ban other drugs like cocaine and heroin.
And because of this nearly every problem in our nation was created or worsened. For one, it created gangs. Gangs were initially started to sell drugs, and that was it. Drugs are relatively cheap (on an open market heroin is cheaper than sugar), and yet they produce ridiculous profit margins on the street (right now an eighth of an ounce of good marijuana goes for $60). Since this market is entirely underground, the government has no ability to regulate it, and thus the battle for market share becomes violent, and the drugs become FAR more dangerous for the user. Then from that we also get drugs funding terrorism (since they need money and have no respect for our laws), we get corruption of our police force (what person making 50 grand a year will turn down millions and millions of dollars?), and other ways we are hurt is the government loses it's ability to educate the masses about drugs due to a complete lack of credibility (because to justify keeping drugs illegal they have to blow out of proportion what weed does, and thus also blow out of proportion what all other drugs do to keep it proportionate), and we end up losing thousands and thousands of jobs because of a market in which we would have comparative advantage over almost anywhere in the world (in Wyoming it actually grows AS a weed), thus killing one of our few major cash crops.
And there's more, this is just the tip of the ice berg. You think of a problem, and at least half the time you can connect the problem to having the War on Drugs as having a major contributing role.
Yet we keep it illegal because too many people are too lazy to actually get educated, and all of the politicians don't want to look like complete asses (Um, we wasted BILLIONS of dollars and fucked up the country in unimaginable ways, sorry!), and so instead we spend time talking about whether we should make inmates share beds instead of realizing that we're imprisoning too many people, and we should address the actual causes of crime instead of treating the symptoms.
Initially marijuana was outlawed because it would've made a cheaper paper, and yet the paper corporations had already invested a lot into trees (and would've been run out of business by start up hemp paper companies), so to save the corporations our government outlawed marijuana. They drummed up public support by spreading countless lies about the effects of weed (i.e. if you smoke it you will be driven incuribly insane, it will cause a straight A student to drop out of school and participate in gang bangs, etc.), and, to create a resemblance of consistancy they had to ban other drugs like cocaine and heroin.
And because of this nearly every problem in our nation was created or worsened. For one, it created gangs. Gangs were initially started to sell drugs, and that was it. Drugs are relatively cheap (on an open market heroin is cheaper than sugar), and yet they produce ridiculous profit margins on the street (right now an eighth of an ounce of good marijuana goes for $60). Since this market is entirely underground, the government has no ability to regulate it, and thus the battle for market share becomes violent, and the drugs become FAR more dangerous for the user. Then from that we also get drugs funding terrorism (since they need money and have no respect for our laws), we get corruption of our police force (what person making 50 grand a year will turn down millions and millions of dollars?), and other ways we are hurt is the government loses it's ability to educate the masses about drugs due to a complete lack of credibility (because to justify keeping drugs illegal they have to blow out of proportion what weed does, and thus also blow out of proportion what all other drugs do to keep it proportionate), and we end up losing thousands and thousands of jobs because of a market in which we would have comparative advantage over almost anywhere in the world (in Wyoming it actually grows AS a weed), thus killing one of our few major cash crops.
And there's more, this is just the tip of the ice berg. You think of a problem, and at least half the time you can connect the problem to having the War on Drugs as having a major contributing role.
Yet we keep it illegal because too many people are too lazy to actually get educated, and all of the politicians don't want to look like complete asses (Um, we wasted BILLIONS of dollars and fucked up the country in unimaginable ways, sorry!), and so instead we spend time talking about whether we should make inmates share beds instead of realizing that we're imprisoning too many people, and we should address the actual causes of crime instead of treating the symptoms.
posted by Galen at 7:24 AM
1 Comments:
Hot button issue for me also. Good call, my man, good call.
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