ASU Marijuana Debate

I found a great professional debate on marijuana legalization and by professional I mean a debate you won't find on FOX or MSNBC where the person who yells the loudest wins. Each person is given a time to present their opinions without interruption and in a civil manner.I must warn you it is a rather long video but it is definitely worth watching. As always feel free to leave comments. Enjoy!

Marijuana Can’t Even be Kept Out of Our Prisons!

If any of you have ever watched an episode of “Locked Up” on MSNBC then you have probably seen how prisoners are often able to obtain some sort of drug even though they are confined in top security prisons. For those of you who haven’t seen it “Locked Up” is a show that reveals the daily lives of prisoners in the country’s most infamous prisons. In a lot of these episodes prisoners are interviewed about their experience with drugs in prison. Whether it’s homemade alcohol, marijuana, or heroin these inmates in every prison are able to acquire some sort of illegal intoxicant. How can anyone claim that we are making any significant progress in the drug war when our most secure correctional institutions, which are locked down 24/7 by law enforcement professionals, can’t even keep drugs out of the facility? If an environment such as this is porous enough to allow drugs and money to flow in and out regularly, then how do we expect to keep it out of the country entirely? This should be a major indicator that our current strategy is fleeting.

                No amount of law enforcement personnel and resources will ever be enough to stop the illegal drug trade. All the money that we pour into the drug war each year isn’t even enough to slow it down any significant amount. The proof of this is seen in the ever escalating violence south of the border. Many prohibition supporters argue that if we built a fence covering the entire length of the boarder and line the fence with National Guard and border patrol agents that this would be enough to stop the drug trade along with illegal immigration. First of all this idea is unrealistic, but for the sake of the argument let’s assume that this could be possible. This would slow down the amount of traffic that attempts to cross holes along the physical border such as people climbing over fences and cutting holes in the chain link; however, this would not stop the tunnels that are built under the fence nor would it stop drug traffic that travels by water. The cartels possess simple yet sophisticated semi submersible water vessels and submarines, and with so much man power focused on the border we would be left vulnerable to sea trafficking. This wouldn’t hinder the drug traffic that travels through the air in small aircraft either. Building a fence and lining it with troops does close a door but it also inadvertently opens many others for exploitation.

                We don’t have to build a large fence spanning the border or throw more money into the war on drugs every year to realize that more law enforcement is not a viable solution to illegal drug trafficking. We can see the ineffectiveness of this approach when we look at our prisons. These institutions which are locked down by guards, bars, locks, fences, security cameras, and razor wire do a good job of keeping inmates inside its walls but still cannot keep drugs from entering inside them. The best solution is not more guns and guards but more rights!          

What Convinced Me to End Marijuana Prohibition?

There is a more complex answer that addresses this question but I’ll delve into that deeper in another post, but I would like to reveal an important turning point in my journey to end prohibition. The video that I have included in this post was a major junction in my ideological development. The video takes a look at an organization known as L.E.A.P. (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition). This organization is made of active and retired law enforcement members who have fought on the front lines of the war on drugs only to discover that it is a loosing battle. Now they travel to schools and hold seminars that promote ending prohibition based on their personal experiences. I highly recommend listening to what these people have to say since they understand the drug war from a viewpoint many of us do not possess. What I hope this video highlights for you is that people who support ending prohibition come from many different backgrounds and differ greatly from the common stereotypical perception of an anti-prohibitionist (the common degenerate pothead). I felt that it was the right time to showcase this video since my last post addressed the topic of our law enforcement in relation to the drug war. Now you get to experience this same topic through the eyes of these very same individuals. Like I mentioned before this was a video that really resonated with me and contributed a great deal toward my activist ambitions. Enjoy the video and feel free to leave comments on it.        

Will Marijuana Legalization Belittle Our Law Enforcement?

This issue has to be addressed since it is often an argument politicians use to gain sympathy for our law enforcement agencies by means of victimization. Subsequently many people have accepted this argument as a legitimate reason to keep marijuana prohibition alive. It’s not unheard of for a person to argue that “legalizing marijuana will undo everything our federal and local police entities have sacrificed and worked so hard to achieve. How can you possibly want to make it legal?” This argument can be hard to combat since the individual making the comment has been convinced that ending marijuana prohibition is not a political idea, but another deviant strategy that criminals are utilizing to target our law enforcement members. How does an individual come to believe this fallacious argument? It comes with decades of conditioning. The government has demonized marijuana to the point that anyone who has a favorable opinion of it is labeled a criminal. If you buy weed you are breaking the law therefore you are a criminal! Since you bought it you are now in possession of a controlled substance which is illegal therefore you are a criminal! If you sell some to your friend you are a drug dealer therefore you are a criminal! If you smoke it you are breaking the law therefore you are a criminal! If you support it becoming legal you are either selling it, buying it, possessing it, smoking it, or all of the above therefore you are a criminal! As funny as this may seem it is true that many people have acquired this thought process. How can we change this perception and how can we make people realize that ending marijuana prohibition is not intended to harm our law enforcement officials?

                It all starts with debunking commonly held myths, something that I always try to accomplish through this blog. In this case prohibition supporters are victimizing law enforcement officials instead of the usual targets like the helpless addict or the child killed in the middle of a drug deal gone wrong. This victimization causes guilt and an otherwise intelligent individual is overcome by emotion instead of utilizing reason. “How could I possibly support legalization? Our poor police officer puts his life on the line to keep these drugs off the streets. I’m such a fool!” Thus the argument becomes “marijuana needs to be kept illegal because it’s illegal!” But wait, are these people really saying that? Yes they most defiantly are! Yet the individual does not notice that he or she is making this erroneous argument because it is cleverly disguised as a sympathetic appeal towards the poor cop walking his beat.

                Does marijuana legalization really belittle our law enforcement officials? The answer is a resounding NO! If it does anything it helps them by removing them from a failed drug policy that has lasted decades. If marijuana was legalized 10 years ago we would have fewer dead cops and failed operations like “Fast and Furious” would never have taken place. Violence in Mexico would have declined and our prisons would not be overflowing with petty drug offenders. To say that legalizing cannabis hurts our officers more than to continuingly throw them into dangerous drug busting operations is insensitive and offensive. Our law enforcement has done the best they can but the drug war failure does not fall on their shoulders, it falls on the shoulders of our lawmakers. And to create the illusion that our law enforcement agencies haven’t “quite done enough” is sickening.          

Drug Crazy

If you haven’t read this book yet I highly recommended you pick it up as soon as possible. The book is entitled “Drug Crazy How We Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out” by Mike Gray. This book discusses all the arguments for prohibition and dispels them. Many of the issues addressed in this book are the same issues I have discussed on my blog. This book can be very eye opening whether you are new to the anti prohibition movement or a seasoned veteran. Everyone who reads this book will benefit from it. Keep educating yourselves on the subject and don’t allow years of propaganda blind you from the facts.     

I Told You So

Crime is on the increase and gangs are growing stronger. How are they making their money? The drug trade of course! I have said it a hundred times, crime will go down if we take away the revenue gangs acquire from drugs like marijuana. Here is a link to the story below.


http://news.yahoo.com/feds-gang-membership-crime-alliances-grow-180417395.html

The ATF's Fast and Furious Blunder

If we needed any more evidence that the war on drugs is a losing war, the ATF has alleviated any doubt we might have had resting in the back of our minds. If you are unfamiliar with what took place just Google “ATF fast and furious” and I challenge you not to become absolutely disgusted.  Where do I start with this one? Should I begin with how we are fighting the cartels the wrong way, treating them more like a gang when they behave more like a small army? Or should it be that we are targeting their weapons instead of their money or product which they use to fund the purchase these arms? Anyway you look at it you can’t deny that if we keep fighting the war on drugs the same way we have been for the past thirty years, then we aren’t going to make any progress. It’s time for a new strategy, one that gives more rights to the citizens of the United States while more effectively combats the cartels.

                This type of operation is not uncommon for the ATF or any other government or local law enforcement agency. There are many examples of how this strategy has worked to combat gangs in America. There is just one problem when using this strategy to combat the cartels. The cartels are not gangs they are small armies. Make no mistake about it these cartels behave more like an oppressive army than a gang. Just think about it for a minute, what gang do you know of carries out professional hits on government officials? What gang is responsible for so many mass graves like the ones found in Mexico? What gang uses grenades and other explosives in military style ambushes? This is unlike any gang in America which law enforcement is so used to combating. How can we expect our law enforcement to fight something that they have never seen the likes of before? The truth of the matter is we can’t, so we need to find a different and more effective way to address this problem.

We need to change our strategy when it comes to fighting the Mexican cartels. One of the simplest things we can do is to get marijuana legal. If marijuana was completely taken away from the cartels then that would have a significant impact on their operations. All at once they would have less money to work with and would become weaker than any gun or drug bust could ever leave them. Instead of focusing on guns we would focus on taking away their money. Money that, let’s face it, they can use to buy guns anywhere. We would focus on the root of the problem instead of the surface which is the violence that we are so used to seeing on the news. The cartels cannot function without money like any other organization so let’s hit them where it hurts most.

 We could fight the cartels’ gun trade forever if we wanted to. As long as they continue to sell drugs and make money they will always be able to buy more guns. No gun bust however big will ever be enough to effectively end the cartels’ operations, but if we go after their product and take it away from them then we have a chance. There is no simpler or more effective way to accomplish this than to decriminalize marijuana.