The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has once again released their annual survey on "drug use and health" -- you know, the one where representatives of the federal government go door-to-door and ask Americans if they are presently breaking state and federal law by using illicit drugs. The same survey where respondents have historically under reported their usage of alcohol and tobacco -- these two legal substances -- by as much as 30 to 50 percent, and arguably under report their use of illicit substances by an even greater margin. The same survey that -- despite these inherent limitations -- "is the primary source of statistical information on the use of illegal drugs by the U.S. population." Yeah, that one.
So what does the government's latest round of 'statistical (though highly questionable) information' tell us? Nothing we didn't already know.
Despite 70+ years of criminal prohibition, marijuana still remains widely popular among Americans, with over 102 million Americans (41 percent of the U.S. population) having used it during their lifetimes, 26 million (10 percent) having used it in the past year, and over 15 million (6 percent) admitting that they use it regularly. (By contrast, fewer than 15 percent of adults have ever tried cocaine, the second most 'popular' illicit drug, and fewer than 2 percent have ever tried heroin -- so much for that supposed 'gateway effect.') Predictably, all of the 2008 marijuana use figures are higher than those that were reported for the previous year -- great work John Walters!
Equally predictably, the government's long-standing prohibition and anti-pot 'scare' campaigns have done little, if anything, to dissuade young people from trying it. According to the survey, 15 percent of those age 14 to 15 have tried pot (including 12 percent in the past year), as have 31 percent of those age 16 to 17 (a quarter of which have done so in the past year) -- percentages that make marijuana virtually as popular as alcohol among these age groups. By age 20, 45 percent of adolescents have tried pot, and nearly a third of those age 18 to 20 have done so in the past year. And by age 25, 54 percent of the population has admittedly used marijuana.
Question: Does anyone still believe that marijuana prohibition is working -- or that all of these people deserve to be behind bars?
For too long, advocates of prohibition have framed their arguments on the false assumption that the continued enforcement of said laws "protects our children." As the numbers above illustrate, this premise is nonsense. In fact, just the opposite is true.
The government's war on cannabis and cannabis consumers endangers the health and safety of our children. It enables young people to have unregulated access to marijuana -- easier access than they presently have to alcohol. It enables young people to interact and befriend pushers of other illegal, more dangerous drugs. It compels young people to dismiss the educational messages they receive pertaining to the potential health risks posed by the use of "hard drugs" and prescription pharmaceuticals, because kids say, "If they lied to me about pot, why wouldn't they be lying to me about everything else, too?"
Most importantly, the criminal laws are far more likely to result in having our children arrested, placed behind bars, and stigmatized with a lifelong criminal record than they are likely to in any way discourage them to try pot.
In short, what the results from the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health is simple and consistent; in fact, we say it all the time: "Remember prohibition? It still doesn't work!"
Harvey Wasserman: California Should Pay Its People in Pot
Various California cities, including Oakland, are already raising pot to keep prices down for the legal medical trade.
I guess even small donations could help candidates who have shown that they have the integrity to be pro-cannabis reform. Integrity and analytical thinking abilities are apparently not qualities that make it easy to get by in most political bodies, or anywhere else, for that matter.
Groupthink is and has been the order of the day since our species developed a neuron.
These articles and posts always make me have hope for us all. Thank you, Reformers.
“The due process clause of the Fifth Amendment guarantees to each citizen the equal protection of the laws and prohibits a denial thereof by any federal official.” Bolling v. Sharpe, 327 U.S. 497
So will we sit around another 70 years and let 500,000 of our citizens run through the system as if they were criminals? Will you only fights in Court when they Government unlawfully attacks you or your family? Time to fill the Highest Court in the land with a Class Action WRIT of Special Circumstances. Time to put hell back in Hell.
“To disregard such a deliberate choice of words and their natural meaning, would be a departure from the first principle of constitutional interpretation.”
AND
“Every word must have its due force and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument, that, no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added.” Chief Justice Taney in Holmes v. Jennison, 14 U.S. 540, 570-1
“ Every word appears to have been weighted with the utmost deliberation and its effect to have been fully understood.” Wright v. United States, 302 U.S. 583 (1938)
“If the legislator clearly misinterprets a constitutional provision, the frequent repetition of the wrong will not create a right.” Amos v. Mosley, 74 Fla. 555; 77 So. 619. (Congress)
“Where rights are secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them.” Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 491.
It is only upon the reasonable presentation of real scientific evidence which presents a valid social and or individual harms upon the American society does Congress have the responsibility to the nation’s health and welfare to use it’s privilege of abrogations to secure said health and welfare of the Nation. But no United States legislative body has the privilege to abrogate the natural rights secured in the United States Constitution based on fanciful distorted conjecture and misinformation. No where in the people’s founding contact with their government does it allow deception and misinformation as bases for granting the U.S. Congress with the privilege of abrogation and or the outlawing of the inalienable rights of the American people.
POWER AND CONTROL :LSD IN THE 60's
Features the CIA LSD Brothel in San Francisco (MK ULTRA), Groucho Marx's LSD Trip....Doc Ellis pitches his no-hitter while high.
Tim Leary's Miricle of Good friday Experiment is explored with one of the original PREACHERS who took part.
LSD and the Protest Movement, JFK & LSD plus more.
All posted for free at this youtube link..please share this knowledge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZdz0G4lG6k&feature=channel_page
I am 66 years old and have smoked grass since 1965 [Vietnam era]; it never made we want to try any other drug. I only regret that I had to "smoke" it.
Legalize it, regulate it; enjoy it!
Our 'Prisons for Profit' system feeds upon it. Law Enforcement's addiction to seizure and forfeiture funding skews their priorities. In practice minorities suffer disproportionately from arrest and harassment. We export terrible violence to drug producer states such as Mexico, Columbia and Afghanistan.
"Thought control" restricts scientific research on cannabis, and censors true, equal-handed debate on the subject in mainstream media.
Political prisoners abound:
Consider Canadian cannabis activist Mark Emery's who faces 5 years in US prison for legally selling cannabis seeds from Canada. Or the sad case of California medical cannabis dispensary owner Charles C. Lynch, who played by all the state rules, and was brought down by the DEA, and a local sheriff with an anti-pot agenda; convicted in Federal court, gagged from supplying evidence that it was medical cannabis, not a drug-running operation. Awaiting appeal, he's bankrupt and faces immediate foreclosure on his home.
Medical cannabis, an inexpensive people's medicine if there ever was one, one you can grow in your own backyard, is actively attacked by our own government, which hypocritcally filed for patent #6,630,507 based on the medicinal properties of cannabis and is offering it for licensing.
Actually, it should be a huge conservative priority too – talk about "big government out of control" and "irresponsible waste of resources." I shake my head in wonder.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6630507.PN.&OS=PN/6630507&RS=PN/6630507
This is disgusting.
Physicians are taught to nearly disregard completely a patients substance abuse history elicited from the first interview. It just cannot be believed but it often times surprising and revealing how honest patients will be on subsequent visits to the same practitioner. The story changes, a lot!
If these numbers are considered shady by a half, you've got 75% of Americans that have used marijuana, and more than 50% using it now.
Legalize it!