...then I don't know what is.
I know this is probably a bit old, but I find myself still chuckling over it. Portland, Maine is going to vote on ending marijuana prohibition in their city and, as is their right, the anti-prohibitionists put up advertisements raising awareness of the facts and persuading people to vote in favor of legalization--and instead of just putting up their own prohibitionist ads full of lies, as has been their tradition for forty years, they tried to force the ads to be taken down.
Is that rich or what?
The fact is, the anti-legalization crowd no longer has any weapons. Their arguments were based from day one on lies and fear and ignorance, and as the population begins to lose their ignorance about drugs and therefore lose their fear, the lies no longer have any power. The pro-legalization side is getting their message out, and the pro-legalization message has the benefit of not only being new and different, but effective and based on fact and science. The pro-legalization side is not only well-informed but well-connected with one another and can easily combat lies from our opponents over our networks. Former prohibitionists like CNN's Dr. Sanjay are switching sides, adding even more credibility to those who oppose the Drug War and its many failures.
Let's face it. At this point, posting more lies we've already heard and seen debunked about the "dangers" of marijuana are not going to work anymore. And spreading lies about what various pro-legalization bills will do to hurt marijuana users and businesses (such as those that helped them win Prop 19 in California in 2010) will not work anymore either.
They have been reduced to throwing a temper tantrum and demanding that our side no longer be allowed to speak. And they got shot down, as they should have.
It is definitely a sweet thing to think about, that they have so little left with which to fight us that they must resort to trying to strongarm us into silence. It shows not only how much they are losing, but how much they actually know it. They know that in ten years' time we will all be pissing on the grave of the failed Drug War and their undeserved money train, and they can almost taste it, it's so close and so very inevitable.
I feel like Cartman at the end of "Scott Tenorman Must Die", don't you? I can't wait to taste their tears of unfathomable sadness, the tears of Drug War profiteers who now have to go out and find real jobs--in a world that will show them no sympathy for all the years they violated our flesh and terrorized our population and destroyed the futures of our children. I personally hope that every person who worked in a Drug War profiteering company is entirely unemployable when this war ends. Poetic justice.
Have I said that before on this blog, or was that in a comment on NORML? Well, I don't care. It bears repeating.
Showing posts with label Anti-legalization duplicity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti-legalization duplicity. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
Do they really think we can be so easily placated?
Is it my imagination or have the various political people and
forces that have, previously, championed the failed (and unjust) Drug
War been backpedaling rather speedily since the recent government
decision not to interfere with state legalization laws? Some days it
seems, from reading the NORML, DPA and MPP blogs, that the only thing
that seems to be happening faster than legalization measures going on
ballots (both medical and full) is various measures to loosen MMJ
restrictions, decriminalize, and/or soften draconian and racist
drug-enforcement and sentencing policies and laws—many coming from
supposedly hardline prohibitionists like Chris Christie of New York,
who once took the POV of “no way, no how, not gonna happen you
filthy stoners” to actually signing legislation to lift the
three-strain restriction on growers and even make vital medication
available to small children who need it.
Now many people on our side are still pouting about this because they realize (and correctly) that many of these don't go nearly far enough to give we, the people, what we actually want. They feel these efforts are nothing more than an attempt to create the illusion that our leaders give even half a damn about doing what the people want or doing what is right regarding the drug issue. And they are absolutely right.
But what they don't realize is that this is a good thing.
Think about it: no more than a year or two ago, prior to the historic votes in Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana, these very people laughed in the face of reforming drug laws or decriminalizing marijuana and called it a “pipe dream” (suggesting that the only reason anyone could oppose the status quo of the failed Drug War was not because of it's massive failure on both factual and moral levels but because those people were clearly “stoners” trying to “protect their illegal habit” and, by extension, trying to reinforce the myth that the Drug War was totally working and that there was no logical reason to oppose the methods of the Drug Warriors, entirely by ad hominem assault—or is it a red herring—but either way it was a logical fallacy).
Now, since the successful legalization votes in two states simultaneously, there has been serious talk about drug law reform and decriminalization being an “ideal” solution to our problems with the failed Drug War. By the Drug Warriors! Some of it has even been acted on! And especially since the historic government decision to not interfere with state legalizaiton efforts, it seems that every day I'm hearing about another area where some staunch anti-marijuana nut is green-lighting various half-measures that they thought went “too far” only years ago—like decriminalization, removing mandatory minimum sentencing, removing the huge and racist crack/cocaine disparity, and loosening many excessively tight regulations on medical marijuana access.
Why? They don't seem to be wanting to admit that marijuana is not a dangerous narcotic. They still want to maintain the fraudulent DEA drug scheduling. They still maintain all the former lies about marijuana, as well as all other illicit drugs, even as they begin to allow some grudging access to them in areas that they once considered out of the question. And it's true that even as they make these grudging half-measure concessions they are upping many of their tyrannical and unconstitutional Drug War enforcement methods—such as pushing drug testing incentives in every state that hasn't legalized in any way, and continuing their unjust raids of medical marijuana dispensaries. Why do they even bother?
Well, isn't it obvious? They know they are losing. They know that at some point in the future they will have to bite the bullet, throw in the towel, and drop their precious—and profitable—Drug War. They know they have lost the support of the public, they know the facts have finally come out about their failures and their corruptions, and that they will never again regain the glory days of Reefer Madness propaganda-fueled public ignorance and moral panic. They know there is no way back.
Yes, they are dragging their feet. But the thing is...they're still moving. The momentum of the full-legalization movement has gotten so strong and gotten so much of the population on board that they have been forced to agree to the minute half-measures we were pushing for decades ago, half-measures they had once claimed they would never, under any circumstances, consider. They are trying to negotiate with we, the people, in the hopes of preserving their unearned and undeserved profit and power by giving us some of the smaller demands we've been making since the beginning.
I do think they hope to slow us down this way. Perhaps they believe that the majority of the legalization movement will drop off once they reform a few draconian laws a bit. Perhaps they think that we will accept decriminalization as a reasonable and acceptable compromise. Perhaps they believe that most pro-legalization citizens don't really want legalization and can be bought-off by these grudging little concessions. But they cannot slow us down. They cannot cut us down. And there will be no compromise.
Perhaps they misunderstand the numbers. The numbers are not just one homogenous mass of people who generally don't support the draconian Drug War and its focus on marijuana, ranging from namby pamby “let's just reform a couple laws” and “let's just decriminalize” to the “let sick people get the medicine they need” to the full on “evil stoners” who support full-legalization. These statistics differentiate between these views. The majority isn't just for decriminalization, or for medical marijuana, with a thin stoner fringe that can be easily squashed. There is now a solid majority in most states for FULL legalization.
Or do they understand these numbers and still believe they can fight them? Their other actions suggest this, such as the ramping up of drug testing in states that are still foundering in the dark (despite a majority support for MJ legalization) like Ohio. Do they think that by stopping marijuana users from using they can somehow change those MJ users' minds about legalization and turn the clock back to Reefer Madness levels of ignorance and panic? (I wouldn't expect them to actually consider the fact that 60% to 70% of the American public—the number that support legalization—are not, in fact, stoners, because when your entire career has been built on fraud, ignorance and panic, facts are your sworn enemy.) Do they think that by making medical marijuana available to sick people they can eliminate our momentum by eliminating the most obvious of our moral arguments? After all, prior to the increasing public awareness of the myriad of medical benefits of marijuana it was the prohibitionists who had the heavy-duty emotional smokescreen argument (look at this drug user/former drug user/drug user's family/ etc, how could you not support our Drug War, by not supporting us you are turning your back on these addicts and their families and consigning millions of other people to a lifetime of addiction!), and now we have a much better one, not only emotionally gripping but supported by actual facts, unlike their claims that the Drug War is of any use in fighting addiction or helps addicts in any way rather than simply incarcerating them in private for-profit jails. Do they think that by making a few minute concessions they can distract or placate us enough to slow us down, or peel away enough of our support to perhaps pounce once we lose momentum?
I do think that part of it is that they hope to distract us. They will not distract us.
I do think that part of this is they hope to placate us. They will not placate us.
I do think that part of this is so they can slow us down. They will not slow us down.
We will not lose momentum, and the Drug Warriors big chance to pounce will never come. And I think that part of them knows this, even as they waste their time with these tiny little retreats. Those tiny little retreats will become bigger retreats, and exponentially so now, until there is no more ground they can give up and they are forced to admit their loss whether they like it or not.
So don't pout when they concede, my brothers and sisters in arms! Celebrate! Keep up the fight and don't let your guard down, but definitely celebrate because every concession is another inch of ground those Drug War bastards have been forced to give up. We are winning, and our victory is not only inevitable, is coming soon. And they can feel defeat closing on them. Their concessions are minimal and pathetic and nowhere near enough, but for the first time in forty years they are finally admitting on some level that they are being defeated, and this is evidenced by the fact that they have given any ground at all to us, that they actually are feeling forced to concede ground that was once, not too long ago, non-negotiable. We will increase our efforts and they will give more ground. They will continue to retreat until there is nowhere left to run and their precious Drug War and all its profiteering industries are dead and gone, a footnote in the history books about one of America's greatest domestic blunders.
I'm going to piss on their graves when that day comes. I hope you'll all join me.
Now many people on our side are still pouting about this because they realize (and correctly) that many of these don't go nearly far enough to give we, the people, what we actually want. They feel these efforts are nothing more than an attempt to create the illusion that our leaders give even half a damn about doing what the people want or doing what is right regarding the drug issue. And they are absolutely right.
But what they don't realize is that this is a good thing.
Think about it: no more than a year or two ago, prior to the historic votes in Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana, these very people laughed in the face of reforming drug laws or decriminalizing marijuana and called it a “pipe dream” (suggesting that the only reason anyone could oppose the status quo of the failed Drug War was not because of it's massive failure on both factual and moral levels but because those people were clearly “stoners” trying to “protect their illegal habit” and, by extension, trying to reinforce the myth that the Drug War was totally working and that there was no logical reason to oppose the methods of the Drug Warriors, entirely by ad hominem assault—or is it a red herring—but either way it was a logical fallacy).
Now, since the successful legalization votes in two states simultaneously, there has been serious talk about drug law reform and decriminalization being an “ideal” solution to our problems with the failed Drug War. By the Drug Warriors! Some of it has even been acted on! And especially since the historic government decision to not interfere with state legalizaiton efforts, it seems that every day I'm hearing about another area where some staunch anti-marijuana nut is green-lighting various half-measures that they thought went “too far” only years ago—like decriminalization, removing mandatory minimum sentencing, removing the huge and racist crack/cocaine disparity, and loosening many excessively tight regulations on medical marijuana access.
Why? They don't seem to be wanting to admit that marijuana is not a dangerous narcotic. They still want to maintain the fraudulent DEA drug scheduling. They still maintain all the former lies about marijuana, as well as all other illicit drugs, even as they begin to allow some grudging access to them in areas that they once considered out of the question. And it's true that even as they make these grudging half-measure concessions they are upping many of their tyrannical and unconstitutional Drug War enforcement methods—such as pushing drug testing incentives in every state that hasn't legalized in any way, and continuing their unjust raids of medical marijuana dispensaries. Why do they even bother?
Well, isn't it obvious? They know they are losing. They know that at some point in the future they will have to bite the bullet, throw in the towel, and drop their precious—and profitable—Drug War. They know they have lost the support of the public, they know the facts have finally come out about their failures and their corruptions, and that they will never again regain the glory days of Reefer Madness propaganda-fueled public ignorance and moral panic. They know there is no way back.
Yes, they are dragging their feet. But the thing is...they're still moving. The momentum of the full-legalization movement has gotten so strong and gotten so much of the population on board that they have been forced to agree to the minute half-measures we were pushing for decades ago, half-measures they had once claimed they would never, under any circumstances, consider. They are trying to negotiate with we, the people, in the hopes of preserving their unearned and undeserved profit and power by giving us some of the smaller demands we've been making since the beginning.
I do think they hope to slow us down this way. Perhaps they believe that the majority of the legalization movement will drop off once they reform a few draconian laws a bit. Perhaps they think that we will accept decriminalization as a reasonable and acceptable compromise. Perhaps they believe that most pro-legalization citizens don't really want legalization and can be bought-off by these grudging little concessions. But they cannot slow us down. They cannot cut us down. And there will be no compromise.
Perhaps they misunderstand the numbers. The numbers are not just one homogenous mass of people who generally don't support the draconian Drug War and its focus on marijuana, ranging from namby pamby “let's just reform a couple laws” and “let's just decriminalize” to the “let sick people get the medicine they need” to the full on “evil stoners” who support full-legalization. These statistics differentiate between these views. The majority isn't just for decriminalization, or for medical marijuana, with a thin stoner fringe that can be easily squashed. There is now a solid majority in most states for FULL legalization.
Or do they understand these numbers and still believe they can fight them? Their other actions suggest this, such as the ramping up of drug testing in states that are still foundering in the dark (despite a majority support for MJ legalization) like Ohio. Do they think that by stopping marijuana users from using they can somehow change those MJ users' minds about legalization and turn the clock back to Reefer Madness levels of ignorance and panic? (I wouldn't expect them to actually consider the fact that 60% to 70% of the American public—the number that support legalization—are not, in fact, stoners, because when your entire career has been built on fraud, ignorance and panic, facts are your sworn enemy.) Do they think that by making medical marijuana available to sick people they can eliminate our momentum by eliminating the most obvious of our moral arguments? After all, prior to the increasing public awareness of the myriad of medical benefits of marijuana it was the prohibitionists who had the heavy-duty emotional smokescreen argument (look at this drug user/former drug user/drug user's family/ etc, how could you not support our Drug War, by not supporting us you are turning your back on these addicts and their families and consigning millions of other people to a lifetime of addiction!), and now we have a much better one, not only emotionally gripping but supported by actual facts, unlike their claims that the Drug War is of any use in fighting addiction or helps addicts in any way rather than simply incarcerating them in private for-profit jails. Do they think that by making a few minute concessions they can distract or placate us enough to slow us down, or peel away enough of our support to perhaps pounce once we lose momentum?
I do think that part of it is that they hope to distract us. They will not distract us.
I do think that part of this is they hope to placate us. They will not placate us.
I do think that part of this is so they can slow us down. They will not slow us down.
We will not lose momentum, and the Drug Warriors big chance to pounce will never come. And I think that part of them knows this, even as they waste their time with these tiny little retreats. Those tiny little retreats will become bigger retreats, and exponentially so now, until there is no more ground they can give up and they are forced to admit their loss whether they like it or not.
So don't pout when they concede, my brothers and sisters in arms! Celebrate! Keep up the fight and don't let your guard down, but definitely celebrate because every concession is another inch of ground those Drug War bastards have been forced to give up. We are winning, and our victory is not only inevitable, is coming soon. And they can feel defeat closing on them. Their concessions are minimal and pathetic and nowhere near enough, but for the first time in forty years they are finally admitting on some level that they are being defeated, and this is evidenced by the fact that they have given any ground at all to us, that they actually are feeling forced to concede ground that was once, not too long ago, non-negotiable. We will increase our efforts and they will give more ground. They will continue to retreat until there is nowhere left to run and their precious Drug War and all its profiteering industries are dead and gone, a footnote in the history books about one of America's greatest domestic blunders.
I'm going to piss on their graves when that day comes. I hope you'll all join me.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Isn't it cute how hypocritical the failure Drug Warriors are?
Well, it would be if they hadn't destroyed so many lives and denied so many people vital medicine.
Politifact verified The Marijuana Policy Project's ad about marijuana being less toxic than alcohol (of course, with a dishonest little qualifier that they're "mostly" right--we've come so far, and yet some idiots still can't bring themselves to admit the pro-legalization side is right even when they're admitting that very thing, so they add little qualifiers to make it sound like it's still one of those "jury's out" deals).
And the dishonest asses at the National Institute on Drug Abuse had a little tantrum. How delightful. Go ahead and read the link. See if you can spot the Drug War hypocrisy.
Yup, the same liars who told us for THIRTY YEARS OR MORE that marijuana was "one of the most dangerous drugs in the world" and insisted over and over that it was totally worse than alcohol AND cigarettes put together....are now saying that to compare alcohol and marijuana is to compare apples to oranges. And how interesting that this little revelation has come just as a majority of people have seen through their lies and discovered the overwhelming evidence that no, marijuana is not a dangerous drug and yes, it is objectively less toxic and dangerous than alcohol. How much do you want to bet that if prohibition wasn't on the brink of collapse, marijuana and alcohol would still be totally comparable?
But yes, National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana and alcohol do have different effects on people. And the effects of marijuana have been proven by all unbiased (ie: not paid for/conducted by dishonest Drug War profiteers like you) scientific evidence to be less dangerous than alcohol by a wide margin. And this was the truth even over the last thirty years or so of this atrocity called the Drug War, while liars like you were lying about marijuana being much more dangerous than alcohol.
Keep whining, by all means. Keep lying too. You and your kind are finished and you know it. Every whining little untruth that comes out of your mouths, every prohibitionist tantrum you throw, is going to make your inevitable destruction more satisfying to those of us on the right side of morality, science, and history. So keep flapping your lips. It won't do you any good at this point.
We're going to piss on your grave with great relish--as much relish as you have had making us piss in a cup all these years. It's only too bad we can't piss on your face too.
Politifact verified The Marijuana Policy Project's ad about marijuana being less toxic than alcohol (of course, with a dishonest little qualifier that they're "mostly" right--we've come so far, and yet some idiots still can't bring themselves to admit the pro-legalization side is right even when they're admitting that very thing, so they add little qualifiers to make it sound like it's still one of those "jury's out" deals).
And the dishonest asses at the National Institute on Drug Abuse had a little tantrum. How delightful. Go ahead and read the link. See if you can spot the Drug War hypocrisy.
Yup, the same liars who told us for THIRTY YEARS OR MORE that marijuana was "one of the most dangerous drugs in the world" and insisted over and over that it was totally worse than alcohol AND cigarettes put together....are now saying that to compare alcohol and marijuana is to compare apples to oranges. And how interesting that this little revelation has come just as a majority of people have seen through their lies and discovered the overwhelming evidence that no, marijuana is not a dangerous drug and yes, it is objectively less toxic and dangerous than alcohol. How much do you want to bet that if prohibition wasn't on the brink of collapse, marijuana and alcohol would still be totally comparable?
But yes, National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana and alcohol do have different effects on people. And the effects of marijuana have been proven by all unbiased (ie: not paid for/conducted by dishonest Drug War profiteers like you) scientific evidence to be less dangerous than alcohol by a wide margin. And this was the truth even over the last thirty years or so of this atrocity called the Drug War, while liars like you were lying about marijuana being much more dangerous than alcohol.
Keep whining, by all means. Keep lying too. You and your kind are finished and you know it. Every whining little untruth that comes out of your mouths, every prohibitionist tantrum you throw, is going to make your inevitable destruction more satisfying to those of us on the right side of morality, science, and history. So keep flapping your lips. It won't do you any good at this point.
We're going to piss on your grave with great relish--as much relish as you have had making us piss in a cup all these years. It's only too bad we can't piss on your face too.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Framing the Issue
One last short post before my hiatus, on framing. The problem of drug testing has always been that the drug testing companies took advantage of a time of mass hysteria, where most people still believed the lies about drug addiction, and mass public cowardice wherein the majority was panicked enough to invite any method of control, even if it didn't work and invited massive civil rights violations. They used this atmosphere of ignorance and fear and tribal emotionalism to not only spread their lies, but to frame the issue this way:
"If you don't support drug testing, you are supporting the use of drugs. Only dangerous stoners looking to protect their habit would oppose drug testing."
They did this so that those of use pointing out the valid reasons against it would be silenced. This is a technique of witch-hunters throughout time: frame the issue so that anyone who has concerns, objections, or even questions our methods will find themselves on the rack. It's the technique of con-artists. They have ensured that you and I and all of us who know the truth of what they're pulling will not be able to speak out and raise awareness of their dishonesty, and those who only have suspicions that this is ineffective BS, in the absence of the very logical and peer-review supported opposing arguments, will leap to support drug testing for fear of being seen as being pro-drug use or even be pre-convicted as a drug user themselves. It's kept them in business since the eighties, creating an increasingly hostile environment for anyone who dares to raise awareness of the facts, to the point where some people simply refuse to even hear the facts for fear of being convinced and being accused of drug use too. To this day, there are people who are absolutely sure I'm a hopeless stoner because of my strong stance against drug testing, and they have closed their ears to the fact that I am the most homebody white-bread girl in the world who doesn't even smoke or drink, much less the fact that I actually have valid points that are backed up by independent study or that drug testing has yet to pass peer review, the gold standard of science. All they hear is "I wanna get stoned, and drug testing won't let me, wah!" The drug testing companies have programmed the American people to believe this false dichotomy.
Nothing could be further from the truth, but even now many people assume that if you don't agree with drug testing you must either be high or you just "don't understand" how serious drug addiction is, and the drug testing companies clean up on this. The fact is that those of use who oppose drug testing have a myriad of valid reasons that have never been successfully contradicted*, and we do understand drug addiction more than anyone. We understand it so well that we know that drug testing is not the way to handle it--it's ineffective, inaccurate (despite the industry's lies), unreliable, and actually exacerbates the problem (for example, by prodding harmless marijuana users into harder drugs with narrow detection times). Drug testing is a law enforcement tool, and law enforcement is 1) not the place of employers to enact on their employees private lives and bodies and 2) completely useless in fighting the problem of drug addiction.
So how do we fight drug addiction? The same way that Portugal has done it: treat it like a public health issue, decriminalize everything, and take the money out of law enforcement and pour it into free and effective rehabilitation for anyone who volunteers for it. And this method has at least halved their addiction rates in ten years, and it's still getting better! You see, one hand the Drug War stooges are emphasizing how serious, say, cocaine addiction is and how it requires medical attention to quit, and then they pretend that this same person is going to "just stop" using because their employer is doing random testing. But if you eliminate the felonies against someone with a physical addiction and then give them a legitimate road out of addiction...amazingly enough, most of them flock down that road!
So don't listen to the drug testing companies, who would have us believe that to oppose their unethical and ineffective practice is tantamount to supporting drug use. Let's start turning this around on them.
"To oppose drug testing is not equivalent to supporting drug use. To oppose drug testing is to understand how addiction actually works in real life. To oppose drug testing is to support reality and to support real solutions based on fact and evidence and to treat the drug problem as the public health issue it is."
The time is right to start turning this around. The majority of the public is turning against the failed Drug War, and this could be our chance to neutralize the drug testing industry's harmful and dishonest framing of the issue. I personally will not rest until every drug testing company is out of business forever.
Don't believe it can happen? That's what the Drug Warriors said about marijuana legalization. Remember the snide jokes about the "lost cause" of legalization proponents, all the hateful ignorant sneers and jibes for decades? Now look at the fear in their eyes and the tantrums they're throwing in the face of their inevitable loss! Marijuana accounts for 98% of all positive results, so they know they're finished once it's legalized (with all the other drugs being used in such minority and having such a narrow needle-in-a-haystack detection time, it will have to be recognized as the useless security theater blanket it is), and once we start hitting 25 medical marijuana states it's all downhill from there.
So keep your chin up, friends, and stand your ground! Face the storm of their extinction burst with pride! They're losing, and they know it. We will win!
*Not that the drug testing companies haven't tried, but the only studies supporting them are the ones they conducted or funded themselves, so their arguments have all the credibility of Marlboro's "studies" that cigarette smoke is as healthy for you as oxygen.
"If you don't support drug testing, you are supporting the use of drugs. Only dangerous stoners looking to protect their habit would oppose drug testing."
They did this so that those of use pointing out the valid reasons against it would be silenced. This is a technique of witch-hunters throughout time: frame the issue so that anyone who has concerns, objections, or even questions our methods will find themselves on the rack. It's the technique of con-artists. They have ensured that you and I and all of us who know the truth of what they're pulling will not be able to speak out and raise awareness of their dishonesty, and those who only have suspicions that this is ineffective BS, in the absence of the very logical and peer-review supported opposing arguments, will leap to support drug testing for fear of being seen as being pro-drug use or even be pre-convicted as a drug user themselves. It's kept them in business since the eighties, creating an increasingly hostile environment for anyone who dares to raise awareness of the facts, to the point where some people simply refuse to even hear the facts for fear of being convinced and being accused of drug use too. To this day, there are people who are absolutely sure I'm a hopeless stoner because of my strong stance against drug testing, and they have closed their ears to the fact that I am the most homebody white-bread girl in the world who doesn't even smoke or drink, much less the fact that I actually have valid points that are backed up by independent study or that drug testing has yet to pass peer review, the gold standard of science. All they hear is "I wanna get stoned, and drug testing won't let me, wah!" The drug testing companies have programmed the American people to believe this false dichotomy.
Nothing could be further from the truth, but even now many people assume that if you don't agree with drug testing you must either be high or you just "don't understand" how serious drug addiction is, and the drug testing companies clean up on this. The fact is that those of use who oppose drug testing have a myriad of valid reasons that have never been successfully contradicted*, and we do understand drug addiction more than anyone. We understand it so well that we know that drug testing is not the way to handle it--it's ineffective, inaccurate (despite the industry's lies), unreliable, and actually exacerbates the problem (for example, by prodding harmless marijuana users into harder drugs with narrow detection times). Drug testing is a law enforcement tool, and law enforcement is 1) not the place of employers to enact on their employees private lives and bodies and 2) completely useless in fighting the problem of drug addiction.
So how do we fight drug addiction? The same way that Portugal has done it: treat it like a public health issue, decriminalize everything, and take the money out of law enforcement and pour it into free and effective rehabilitation for anyone who volunteers for it. And this method has at least halved their addiction rates in ten years, and it's still getting better! You see, one hand the Drug War stooges are emphasizing how serious, say, cocaine addiction is and how it requires medical attention to quit, and then they pretend that this same person is going to "just stop" using because their employer is doing random testing. But if you eliminate the felonies against someone with a physical addiction and then give them a legitimate road out of addiction...amazingly enough, most of them flock down that road!
So don't listen to the drug testing companies, who would have us believe that to oppose their unethical and ineffective practice is tantamount to supporting drug use. Let's start turning this around on them.
"To oppose drug testing is not equivalent to supporting drug use. To oppose drug testing is to understand how addiction actually works in real life. To oppose drug testing is to support reality and to support real solutions based on fact and evidence and to treat the drug problem as the public health issue it is."
The time is right to start turning this around. The majority of the public is turning against the failed Drug War, and this could be our chance to neutralize the drug testing industry's harmful and dishonest framing of the issue. I personally will not rest until every drug testing company is out of business forever.
Don't believe it can happen? That's what the Drug Warriors said about marijuana legalization. Remember the snide jokes about the "lost cause" of legalization proponents, all the hateful ignorant sneers and jibes for decades? Now look at the fear in their eyes and the tantrums they're throwing in the face of their inevitable loss! Marijuana accounts for 98% of all positive results, so they know they're finished once it's legalized (with all the other drugs being used in such minority and having such a narrow needle-in-a-haystack detection time, it will have to be recognized as the useless security theater blanket it is), and once we start hitting 25 medical marijuana states it's all downhill from there.
So keep your chin up, friends, and stand your ground! Face the storm of their extinction burst with pride! They're losing, and they know it. We will win!
*Not that the drug testing companies haven't tried, but the only studies supporting them are the ones they conducted or funded themselves, so their arguments have all the credibility of Marlboro's "studies" that cigarette smoke is as healthy for you as oxygen.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
More Desperation from the Anti-Legalization Crew
Did you see this joke of a post by Donald Ramsell? http://wheaton.patch.com/groups/summer/p/medical-marijuana-bill-dangerous-to-illinois-drivers
He is seriously suggesting that marijuana legalization is a
danger to drivers. There is another such
illogical individual bleating this uninformed bull about Colorado, but I can’t
seem to find the article anymore. It was
one of the big politicians though, and I wonder how much the Drug War
profiteering companies such as drug testing companies are paying these guys to
say this crap.
The politician is whinging on about the Colorado
legalization law endangering drivers for somewhat vague and stupid reasons that
seriously sound as if he genuinely believes that outlawing marijuana has
prevented everyone from using marijuana, and that now that it’s legal it’s
going to spread like wildfire and absolutely everyone will be stoned everywhere
they go…even in their car! Oh noes!
It’s like he doesn’t seem to realize that millions of people are already smoking
marijuana and anti-marijuana legislation has been an enormous failure. It’s as if he doesn’t seem to know a damn
thing about history. I would swear this
moron really thinks that Prohibition I actually worked, and for a glorious
fourteen years or so the country was blissfully booze-free until the
degenerates managed to force through a repealing of the Volstead Act. And does he realize that even though alcohol
is legal, it doesn’t mean people go around drunk day in and day out regardless
of the circumstance or environment. If
this idiot really thinks that making an intoxicant legal is going to somehow
magically compel all people to start using it at all times, why is he not
fighting to restore the Volstead Act and the Eighteenth Amendment, since
alcohol abuse actually dwarfs the influence of all illicit drugs combined in
both workplace issues and traffic
accidents? Oh, I know—because he
probably likes alcohol, and even if he doesn’t I’ll bet the majority of voters
do, and for sure some of his corporate payouts are undoubtedly coming straight
from alcohol companies, who are prevalent in funding efforts to defeat attempts
to legalize marijuana. The more you
know, right?
Then there’s this Donald Ramsell. He starts off saying that marijuana
legalization is popular and supported by a majority of people, and maybe it’s
wrong to keep it illegal. Then he veers
off into Bizarro-world as he states that there are no effective tools or
measures to determine marijuana intoxication for the purposes of enforcing DUI
laws and no real way to create any, so we ought to reconsider legalization for
the sake of traffic safety.
WHAT?
You do realize, Donald, that we already have none of those
things despite marijuana being illegal and used by millions of citizens who may
or may not be driving under the influence?
You do realize that people are no more likely to be driving under the
influence of marijuana now than they were before? You do realize that even if we can’t develop
marijuana-specific sobriety tests that we are still no less safe than we were
before (especially since people on marijuana tend to be more relaxed and
slower, whereas drunk people tend to drive like maniacs and get much
angrier—ever hear of someone going on a “marijuana-fueled” rage or killing
spree? Me neither.), and that such an
argument is still not a reason to outlaw the use of an essentially harmless
plant and, by extension, jettison our civil rights? You do realize that your argument is a
non-argument, intended only as a desperate move to try and recapture the glory
days when you could just scare people with illogical boogey-man sound bytes and
have the vast majority of ignorant citizens ready to join you in battle and
give you whatever you want to fight your precious Drug War, including their own
civil liberties? Do you work for a drug
testing company, or are you paid by one in any way to spout this drivel? Because I don’t believe you when you say you
are happy for medical marijuana patients.
You just realize that there is a solid majority in favor of medical
marijuana and that at this point arguing against it makes you look like a
picture of Ebenezer Scrooge wearing a coat made out of Bambi’s skin and
masturbating while eating a live puppy and that tends to turn people off
whatever you’re going to say. Your words
are the marijuana legalization version of the notorious “I’m not racist, but…”
Nice try, people. I’d
tell you to try harder, but no one believes the lies in “Reefer Madness”
anymore and I don’t know that you could try hard enough to bring those days
back at this point.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Desperation from the Anti-Legalization Crew
Check this out: The liars and criminals on the anti-legalization side of this argument, the ones who wish to subvert the will of the people in order to prop up their own undeserved power and privilege—not to mention obscene profit—are trying like hell to neutralize the Colorado marijuana legalization. You should hear the flailing they’re doing. Check this out:
Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? The Republicans want to lower all those taxes so they can help legalization finish passing—or do they? Add this desire to lower the taxes to this:
Do you see what they’re trying to do there? On one hand, they’re trying to lower both the excise tax and the special sales tax on marijuana, to encourage people to vote this in AND in order to prevent an “expanded black market”. On the other hand, they are trying to create a false dichotomy between “marijuana legalization” and “OUR CHILDREN’S SCHOOLS!!!!11!!!” and convince people that to choose marijuana is to rob our children of an education.
So they know this is a battle they can’t win by public opinion anymore, at least not when it’s simply legalization at stake. They know that all their “Reefer Madness” lies and BS are no longer believed and they can no longer fear-monger people into keeping marijuana illegal because the majority of us can see right through their lies now. So they are trying to create a direct link between something that benefits children and the legalization of pot, create an either/or choice between them, and make sure that by keeping the taxes on the marijuana low enough they will be able to simply eradicate the legalization by saying “oh, sorry folks, it turns out we just can’t derive enough revenue from legalization to even fund the costs of implementing legalization, contrary to the pro-legalization claims that by regulating and taxing we could bring in a lot of revenue.” They are trying to neutralize one of the major positive points of the legalization side by pretending to go along with the pro-legalization majority, and they will use that to reverse this legalization victory and, additionally, create the illusion that taxation and regulation won't work--by making it not work, in the same way that they have self-fulfilled their claims of government incompetence by running for office and dismantling the government to the point where it can't function!
Why should any of this be surprising though? Every bit of the Drug War has been based on lies, skewed data, political posturing, fear-mongering, false dichotomies (either pro-drug testing or pro-drug use, no other possible opinion can exist, right?) and other techniques of con artists and tyrants. It is to be expected that these contemptible dishonest authoritarians would fall back on something like this when they're losing on their usual fronts--and they are losing, have no doubt of that.
And this talk about that extra 5% of tax could make people disapprove legalization: Are they serious? Do they really think that people who have fought so long and so hard to legalize are going to say “screw it, just make it illegal again” just because of a 5% difference in the taxes that would be involved—that would only affect people buying the marijuana and do not raise taxes on anything else? Are people more likely to buy black market booze and cigarettes just because of the high taxes we’ve placed on them? And the anti-legalization voters are only going to vote down a tax on marijuana if they know that it will lead to marijuana's legalization being repealed, otherwise they'd be fine with taxing the hell out of it--so you know that is making the rounds among the anti-crowd to ensure their "no" votes.
Let's face it. Making it legal at all is more likely to hurt the black market sales, not expand it, even with a high tax. I know that if I smoked pot, I’d much prefer to get it from a safe regulated source than from the guy on the street corner who might have laced it with any number of things, for example--even if that meant paying a bit more for it. I find it amazing that anyone on the legalization side would seriously think that a 15% tax, rather than a 10% tax, on the legal sale of marijuana is going to tank the law, and I know perfectly well that the Republicans don’t believe it either. They’re just trying to pave the way for the new “Make Your Choice: Marijuana or OUR CHILDREN” campaign against pot.
Seriously, the Republican Party these days is always aligned with all things anti-choice—at least, when it involves the choices of women, minorities, and anyone who isn’t fabulously wealthy. When they align themselves with the forces of actual freedom and American spirit you should take it as a huge, blazing neon sign to look closer and dig deeper because, rest assured, they have some kind of agenda in place to get you to eliminate your own victory.
The Colorado legislation would create a 15 percent excise tax and 15 percent special sales tax on marijuana. House Republicans are pushing to lower the rate on both taxes to 10 percent.
In this instance, Republicans are aligned with legalization advocates, who worry that a higher tax rate could result in an expanded black market and even rejection at the hands of tax-averse voters in November.
Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? The Republicans want to lower all those taxes so they can help legalization finish passing—or do they? Add this desire to lower the taxes to this:
That’s where the repeal discussion comes in. Diane Carlson of Smart Colorado, an anti-legalization group, argued that voters should be given the option of repealing Amendment 64 in order to avoid budget cuts to other spending priorities, such as K-12 education.
“This just gives the option for voters that if there is not the money to cover the costs, then Amendment 64 should not be implemented,” said Ms. Carlson. “Are we going to shift money from our schools to fund marijuana? That is not what we were promised in the fall.
Do you see what they’re trying to do there? On one hand, they’re trying to lower both the excise tax and the special sales tax on marijuana, to encourage people to vote this in AND in order to prevent an “expanded black market”. On the other hand, they are trying to create a false dichotomy between “marijuana legalization” and “OUR CHILDREN’S SCHOOLS!!!!11!!!” and convince people that to choose marijuana is to rob our children of an education.
So they know this is a battle they can’t win by public opinion anymore, at least not when it’s simply legalization at stake. They know that all their “Reefer Madness” lies and BS are no longer believed and they can no longer fear-monger people into keeping marijuana illegal because the majority of us can see right through their lies now. So they are trying to create a direct link between something that benefits children and the legalization of pot, create an either/or choice between them, and make sure that by keeping the taxes on the marijuana low enough they will be able to simply eradicate the legalization by saying “oh, sorry folks, it turns out we just can’t derive enough revenue from legalization to even fund the costs of implementing legalization, contrary to the pro-legalization claims that by regulating and taxing we could bring in a lot of revenue.” They are trying to neutralize one of the major positive points of the legalization side by pretending to go along with the pro-legalization majority, and they will use that to reverse this legalization victory and, additionally, create the illusion that taxation and regulation won't work--by making it not work, in the same way that they have self-fulfilled their claims of government incompetence by running for office and dismantling the government to the point where it can't function!
Why should any of this be surprising though? Every bit of the Drug War has been based on lies, skewed data, political posturing, fear-mongering, false dichotomies (either pro-drug testing or pro-drug use, no other possible opinion can exist, right?) and other techniques of con artists and tyrants. It is to be expected that these contemptible dishonest authoritarians would fall back on something like this when they're losing on their usual fronts--and they are losing, have no doubt of that.
And this talk about that extra 5% of tax could make people disapprove legalization: Are they serious? Do they really think that people who have fought so long and so hard to legalize are going to say “screw it, just make it illegal again” just because of a 5% difference in the taxes that would be involved—that would only affect people buying the marijuana and do not raise taxes on anything else? Are people more likely to buy black market booze and cigarettes just because of the high taxes we’ve placed on them? And the anti-legalization voters are only going to vote down a tax on marijuana if they know that it will lead to marijuana's legalization being repealed, otherwise they'd be fine with taxing the hell out of it--so you know that is making the rounds among the anti-crowd to ensure their "no" votes.
Let's face it. Making it legal at all is more likely to hurt the black market sales, not expand it, even with a high tax. I know that if I smoked pot, I’d much prefer to get it from a safe regulated source than from the guy on the street corner who might have laced it with any number of things, for example--even if that meant paying a bit more for it. I find it amazing that anyone on the legalization side would seriously think that a 15% tax, rather than a 10% tax, on the legal sale of marijuana is going to tank the law, and I know perfectly well that the Republicans don’t believe it either. They’re just trying to pave the way for the new “Make Your Choice: Marijuana or OUR CHILDREN” campaign against pot.
Seriously, the Republican Party these days is always aligned with all things anti-choice—at least, when it involves the choices of women, minorities, and anyone who isn’t fabulously wealthy. When they align themselves with the forces of actual freedom and American spirit you should take it as a huge, blazing neon sign to look closer and dig deeper because, rest assured, they have some kind of agenda in place to get you to eliminate your own victory.
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