The Patriot's Guide to Legalization Have you ever looked at our marijuana policy? (Mother Jones)

The Patriot's Guide to Legalization
Have you ever looked at our marijuana policy? I mean, really looked at it?
—By Kevin Drum


—Illustration: Mark Matcho
July/August 2009 Issue

WHEN WE THINK of the drug war, it's the heavy-duty narcotics like heroin and cocaine that get most of the attention. And why not? That's where the action is. It's not marijuana that is sustaining the Taliban in Afghanistan, after all. When Crips and Bloods descend into gun battles in the streets of Los Angeles, they're not usually fighting over pot. The junkie who breaks into your house and steals your Blu-ray player isn't doing it so he can score a couple of spliffs.

No, the marijuana trade is more genteel than that. At least, I used to think it was. Then, like a lot of people, I started reading about the open warfare that has erupted among the narcotraffickers in Mexico and is now spilling across the American border. Stories of drugs coming north and arsenals of guns going south. Thousands of people brutally murdered. Entire towns terrorized. And this was a war not just over cocaine and meth, but marijuana as well.

And I began to wonder: Maybe the war against pot is about to get a lot uglier. After all, in the 1920s, Prohibition gave us Al Capone and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and that was over plain old whiskey and rum. Are we about to start paying the same price for marijuana?

more at:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/patriots-guide-legalization

Someday I see myself as being able to truly chill out and have stress melt away. I REALLY don't like alcohol, aftertaste, peeing,puking,headache, bed spinning, you get the idea. I would love to smoke a doob on the weekend, I used to when I was younger but my job has had random testing for years and it would be my luck to get dinged. I can't wait for the day I can light one up and not feel the least bit different than someone who cracks a beer after work.

Mother Nature will win the 'war'

But now that there's a corporatized prison system making $ on slave labor there's even a stronger impetus for the fascists to stave off legalization/decrim.

"In 1972, the report of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse urged that possession of marijuana for personal use be decriminalized. A small wave of states followed this recommendation, but most refused; in Washington, President Carter called for eliminating penalties for small-time possession, but Congress stonewalled. And that's the way things have stayed since the late '70s. Some states have decriminalized, most haven't, and possession is still a criminal offense under federal law."

One would guess pot users would make for an easier crowd to keep incarcerated. Not aggressive like alcoholics and other drug uses, so less security hardware and personnel needed. Makes for a much cheaper to keep slave workforce.

I don't think it will happen, but I'd imagine the Government could take in a pretty penny.

...or some variation of that sentiment. This is a crucial aspect behind the ideological framework re pot smokers, even though it's a country filled to the brim w/recreational users from all walks of life. That ridiculous "war on drugs" propaganda has solidified within the public mind nonetheless.