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THE HIDDEN REASON FOR MARIJUANA PROHIBITION
Sam Smith, Progressive Review - One of the most important reasons for marijuana prohibition is that, without it, it would be hard to justify the drug war. Not on moral or medical grounds, but based on weight and popularity. While pot is a drug less harmful than vodka or cigarettes, it is also is the bulkiest and most used illegal substance and thus the easiest for cops to find.
We've mentioned this before, but have never run across stats as revealing as these recording the pounds of drugs seized at the border of Arizona over a five year period ending in 2007.
You could have brought in all the cocaine, heroin and meth that was seized over these five years in one 18-wheeler, assuming a capacity of 50,000 pounds. The seized marijuana would have required about eleven 18 wheelers.
Over this same period there were 785 seizures of cocaine, 63 of heroin, 372 of meth but 3,676 of marijuana. Legalize pot and the cops have little to do - or to show for their budgets.
Basically, the drug trade and the drug war are mutually dependent industries. The former provides a justification of the latter and the latter keeps prices up for the former. The easiest way out of this dysfunctional relationship is to end the latter.
We've mentioned this before, but have never run across stats as revealing as these recording the pounds of drugs seized at the border of Arizona over a five year period ending in 2007.
You could have brought in all the cocaine, heroin and meth that was seized over these five years in one 18-wheeler, assuming a capacity of 50,000 pounds. The seized marijuana would have required about eleven 18 wheelers.
Over this same period there were 785 seizures of cocaine, 63 of heroin, 372 of meth but 3,676 of marijuana. Legalize pot and the cops have little to do - or to show for their budgets.
Basically, the drug trade and the drug war are mutually dependent industries. The former provides a justification of the latter and the latter keeps prices up for the former. The easiest way out of this dysfunctional relationship is to end the latter.
6 Comments:
The commensal relationship has been known for years. Drug distributors and drug interceptors are parasites that have created their own economies feeding on the populace.
Richard Cowan has written some good stuff @ mjnews.com. Roughly quoting, one of his maxims says,"the harder the prohibition, the harder the drug", meaning harder drugs are more profitable and easier to smuggle. We can certainly see how the cocaine and crack epidemics followed Nixon's crackdown on marijuana.
http://marijuananews.com/blog/
One issue that nobody ever raises when discussing laws against marijuana is who is benefiting from keeping it illegal and why do they continue to purposely group marijuana and industrial hemp together? The list is very long of course.
Regarding hemp, an often overlooked group is the cotton and pesticide industries. Clearly hemp is easier to grow than cotton and requires far fewer agricultural inputs including little if any pesticide. It has been written that up to 30% of the pesticides produced for use in the United States are used on the cotton crop. This is a huge amount of money that would be at risk if hemp were legalized.
The main group against marijuana is probably the pharmaceutical industry as marijuana is an analgesic and has many properties that over the counter pain medicines try to replicate. Follow the money...
Other reasons for maintaining the War on Drugs
1. Keeping the Drug "illegal" makes them a far less traceable "cash only product".
2. Based on their "theaters of covert operations" and the hard evidence of its history, much of the CIA, DIA, and corresponding Military Spy Operations NSA. ONI, USAFI USMCI covert/black operations it is more than just likely that "funding" for these ops requires tons of cash, the availability of which in today's legitimate credit and paper economy is rarer than a Republican's heart.
3. It take more than "promises to pay" to keep the wheels of this credit economy moving. It requires some liquid assets; cash; the long green; moola, lots and lots of "dead presidents."
The only place where money of that required volume is in the illegal drug trade.
The US authorities have better things to do than to go after glass pipes and water pipes. Up to 60% of the Mexican drug trade is pot imagine the effect if that amount of money was suddenly taken from the drug cartels. If we want an America that we can be proud of we are going to have to help create one that makes sense.
Sunflowerpipes.com
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