The War on Drugs is a war on Marijuana

The War on Drugs is a war on Marijuana

The time has arrived people, look around and let’s weigh in on the cold hard facts about the war on drugs.  We should realize by now that the war on drugs is a full frontal assault on the American people.  What gives the government the right to continuously support synthetic pharmaceuticals at the expense of poisoning our people, land, and our environment?

This article will present the facts about the war on drugs, and encourage you to evaluate your choices.  As an American Citizen we are told we are born free.  We as people understand that we have choices in life.  The government should not have the right to tell us what we can eat, drink, or use on our own bodies.  We have freedom of choice.  The government makes possible addictive substances that are killing people in record numbers, but refuses to act responsibly when it comes to societal acceptance of a harmless herb.

The war on drugs, who is winning? The question is irrelevant because nobody is winning this war.  We are obviously failing.  We are failing as a society because of this senseless war.  The facts prove that the only people winning this war are the people with fat hands sitting at the receiving end of the money syphon.  They are laughing all the way to the banks at your expense.  These fat cats are sucking every last penny from our wallets, and still the war continues.  Clare Suddath a journalist with Time Magazine indicates that “Despite the ad campaigns, increased incarceration rates and a crackdown on smuggling, the number of illicit drug users in America has risen over the years and now sits at 19.9 million Americans. And a large portion of their supply makes its way into the country through Mexico” Time.

People will argue the fact that the war on drugs has been a good thing for our country.  However, when people review the facts and understand that the truth will be a bitter pill to swallow.  According to Associated Press “Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs” 40 Years, $1 trillion and war on drugs failed to meet any of its goals

The social side of this war is the true reveal.  Joseph Williams of Christian Associate for Prison Aftercare indicates “The city of Detroit, in which I live and work, is the poorest large city in America.  Michigan has the nation’s worst economy of any state.  Detroit has the poorest economy in Michigan.  The neighborhood in which this ministry is located is one of Detroit’s poorest.  I see first-hand every day the effects of poverty and crime.  In an environment of extreme poverty, system failures abound.  For instance, Detroit Public Schools graduate only between 25-40% of its students depending on which report you believe, low education rates, by the way, are also linked to high crime rates” Poverty and Crime.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT THE FACTS DON’T LIE: “The U.S. incarcerates nearly 2.4 million people, 13 including people held pretrial and those sentenced for an offense; if they were all in one state, it would be the 36th most populated, between New Mexico and Nevada.14 No other country in the world incarcerates as many people as the United States. China, a country of 1.3 billion people—about four times as many people as the U.S.15—is second, incarcerating 1.6 million people.16” Drug War Facts

POVERTY, CRIME, VIOLENCE AND ADDICTION: “Flint, Detroit, Pontiac and Saginaw are ranked among the top 10 most violent cities in the country according to FBI data. We all suffer the consequences” Michigan Governor speech on public safety.

FACT: “Detroit’s poverty rate was a startling 36.4 percent in 2009, and an alarming 35.0 percent of Cleveland’s residents lived below the poverty line. Buffalo’s poverty rate in 2009 was 28.8 percent” Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo poorest cities in nation, Census shows

FACT:” U.S. has 5% of the world’s population, it detains a quarter of the world’s prisoners.” Embrace Marijuana Legalization

FACT:” Marijuana arrests accounted for 47.4% of the drug abuse arrests. This allows us to estimate that about 872,720 persons were arrested for marijuana offenses. Eighty-nine percent of these arrests were for possession. The 2007 arrest data is even worse than 2006 when 829,627 people were arrested for marijuana (a Project Censored top 25 story in 2008).  In 2005 there were 786,545 marijuana arrests, meaning that the number of arrests increased by 86K in just two years.   Clearly, marijuana is an intense focus of police interest and activity; far more, apparently, than the less important crimes occurring at the same time on Wall Street” Department of Justice.

When people cannot make an honest living by minimum wage jobs, and they have no education, or no means to improve themselves they epically turn to a life of crime and violence.  The problem is “the latest Monitoring the Future study—the Nation’s largest survey of drug use among young people—showed that prescription drugs are the second most-abused category of drugs after marijuana” The White House.

Disturbing is the fact that our government continues to sabotage and insult the medicinal value and healing power of marijuana.  The fact is they continue to classify marijuana as a schedule (I) controlled substance, prosecute those who choose to medicate alternatively and continue to insult humanity by denying the truth that cannabis cures cancer.  This is a direct reflection of a failed, corrupt, greedy government.  Cigarettes can be purchased legally at the age of 18 years old but “Smoking is a leading cause of cancer and death from cancer. It causes cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx, mouth, throat, kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach, and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia” Cancer Facts.  Please be aware that the legal consumption age for alcohol is 21 years “In 2007, a total of 23,199 persons died of alcohol-induced causes in the United States, 1,126 more deaths than in 2006.” Drug War Facts.  The fact is that this speaks immeasurable volumes about the truth.

WHY IS MARIJUANA ON THIS LIST BUT TOBACCO, ALCOHOL, and PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ARE NOT?: “Schedule (I) Controlled Substances, Substances in this schedule have a high potential for abuse, have no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and there is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision, Some examples of substances listed in schedule I are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), peyote, methaqualone, and 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (“ecstasy”).”Drug Enforcement Administration

TRUTH IS: “cannabis hemp is, overall, the strongest, most-durable, longest-lasting natural soft-fiber on the planet. Its leaves and flower tops (marijuana) were, depending on the culture, the first, second or third most-important and most-used medicines for two-thirds of the world’s people for at least 3,000 years, until the turn of the 20th century” Jack Herer Book

THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW: “The ominous part is that this isn’t the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice — lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia” Marijuana Cures Cancer.

THE FDA, GOVERNMENT, AND BIG PHARMACY ARE IN IT TOGETHER: “The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes“. In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out — unsuccessfully — to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the “high.” Marijuana Cures Cancer

PHARMACEUTICALS, ALCOHOL, AND TOBACCO ARE DEADLY, and MARIJUANA IS HEALING: “A crucial first step in tackling the problem of prescription drug abuse is to raise awareness through the education of parents, youth, patients, and healthcare providers. Although there have been great strides in raising awareness about the dangers of using illegal drugs, many people are still not aware that the misuse or abuse of prescription drugs can be as dangerous as the use of illegal drugs, leading to addiction and even death” The White House.

FACT: “Amazingly, as consumers struggle, U.S. corporations are staging a nearly unprecedented comeback that’s largely escaping notice. The gargantuan, dispiriting job cuts that seem to dominate the news have also been the spur for an epic resurgence in profits. For 2009, the Fortune 500 lifted earnings 335%, to $391 billion, a $301 billion jump that’s the second largest in the list’s 56-year history, approaching the increase in the robust recovery of 2003. For last year the 500 raised their return on sales from less than 1% to 4%. That’s close to the list’s 4.7% historical average” Fortune 500: Profits bounce back

The facts do not lie.  The facts prove our government is not helping in fact they are hindering progress by arresting and criminalizing people because of a healing plant.  America is the prison capital of the world, we continue to convict and prosecute people at record numbers while the pharmaceutical companies are killing people at a staggering and alarming rate.  When are people going to wake up and check the facts?  We have already become a prison country, just wait until they pass that privatization law.  This law will privatize prisons, and make the bounty on people even higher.

TROUBLING THOUGHT:” the most worrisome aspect of prison privatization is the inevitable emergence of a private “prison lobby” concerned not with social welfare but with increasing its dividends, not with doing good, but with doing well. Sentencing guidelines, parole rules, corrections budgets, and new criminal legislation are areas in which private prison operators have a vested interest and could influence policy decisions. They could also benefit by manipulating public fear of crime. Unlike most other public policy arenas, criminal justice policy is largely determined not by the realities of crime but by its perception. That the fear of crime is exploited by politicians and “reality television” programming is a truism; but imagines a full-fledged corporate public relations campaign designed to whip up crime hysteria in order to increase profits” Covert Action Quarterly

Here is what can be done to stop this madness, first sign the petition Petition for a Moratorium on prison privatization and then share this article with everyone you know.  Do your part to educate, promote, and strengthen our community tell the government to stop keeping us down.  Rise up and unite together.

Join The Woosah Network on Facebook and help spread the words of Marijuana and Hemp Prohibition: WoosahNetwork@groups.facebook.com

Vivian I Curl, Blogger, Communication Major, Copy Writer, Health and Nutrition Research Journalist, Marketing Specialist, Poet. Vivian@qventerprises.com, also check out these health and nutrition websites:

Hemp Revolution

Healing Botanicals and Herbs

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