The War on Drugs is Just Plain Crazy – Roseanne Barr writes for the Huffington Post
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The War on Drugs is Just Plain Crazy – Huffington Post
By Roseanne Barr – Presidential Candidate
The War on Drugs: Now, after all these years, it even sounds dumb and tiresome. Here we are on our third president who we all know engaged in some illicit recreational substance use and who went on to being, well, president! That’s twenty years of presidents who got high! That’s why it’s so hard to watch President Obama and Eric Holder backstroking onto the National stage wearing their “Tough On Crime” faces and harassing California medical marijuana dispensaries. They should allow Medical Marijuana to be the unthreatening foot in the door that it is, and open the door wider. People know that medicinal weed is not turning patients with various legitimate ailments into raving maniacs, any more than it’s creating mobs overcome by Reefer Madness outside dispensaries. That’s because reefer madness was basically an invention of some ill-informed control freaks. While their successors keep an eye out for the elusive world’s first overdose death from marijuana, they seem to prove that pot can cause some pretty strange behavior by lots of people who don’t smoke it.
Words can barely describe how tragic, futile and destructive the War on Drugs has been for our country and for the nation of Mexico. How many times must we point to the fact that the last time we tried prohibition it resulted in a massive black market with violent, heavily-armed gangs and bloody turf wars? The War on Booze corrupted law enforcement officials and wasted an obscene fortune in public funds and manpower. In the end, we realized that people are going to get what they want: a manageable “buzz,” a short break from the pressures and disappointments of life, an altered state from the one they generally trudge along in. Damn it, if we’re going to brag about how free we’re all supposed to be, we should have the right to the pursuit of happiness, no matter how temporary, whether it comes from a couple of cocktails, a puff on a cigarette that isn’t supplied by Big Tobacco, or the popping of a pill. If you overdo it and become a nuisance, well, that’s what public intoxication laws are for.
Speaking of popping a pill, Americans are roughly five percent of the world’s people, but they consume two thirds of the world’s anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication. We don’t really have a war on drugs, we have a war on drugs that don’t make money for big pharmaceutical companies. Or, as I’ve been putting it, for years, “The War on Drugs is a war on poor people on street drugs waged by rich people on prescription drugs.” Seriously, who are we kidding?
Speaking of pills, a bitter one to swallow is the sad fact that we’re still fighting this battle against such entrenched opposition. There are some real die-hard attitudes out there. I’d like to ask a few pointed questions of those who still think they’re fighting the good fight by continuing to support this disastrous so-called war on so many peoples’ private habits and behavior. My first question is: Shouldn’t it bother you, in the least, to look around and see that the world’s greediest, most remorseless drug lords are on your side and are even more committed than you are to the policies you support? When conservative, church-going moralizers find themselves marching under the same banner as murderous drug cartel kingpins, shouldn’t they at least consider that they may be saluting the wrong flag?
Now, let’s get a little more dollars-and-sense about this drug business, and I do mean drug BUSINESS. Does anybody doubt that controlling and taxing pot would bring billions and billions of dollars endlessly streaming into our national wallet? As things stand now, two things are happening: 1. Tens of millions of Americans buy marijuana, and 2. many essential social and educational programs are on life-support if not dead already, for lack of funding. Hello? The Marijuana market is not going away, so why not turn this to our advantage and steer the steady revenue into places that would help make life better for most Americans?
As a last resort, now that all else has failed, couldn’t we at least try using some common sense? With almost one in every eight inmates in our overcrowded prisons locked up for marijuana-related convictions, doesn’t it seem unjust that there are huge industries built upon legally manufacturing and selling substances that are proven, statistically, to be more addicting and harmful than pot? When we remember that it costs more to maintain a prison inmate than it does to put someone through college, and that America locks up more of its people than any other country, it’s not hard to see why more people want to be in the prison business. When you factor in the slave labor aspect of what I call the Prison Industrial Complex, what’s revealed is profitable corporate socialism for prison owners. And, how can we overlook the fact that there are individuals in our prisons who can and do obtain drugs behind bars? This brings us to the obvious question: If we can’t thoroughly drug-proof our prisons, how can we convince ourselves that we’ll drug-proof our whole society?
It really comes down to a case of our government bowing to pressures from the mega-wealthy special interests I’ve mentioned. The paramilitary drug cartels and the big growers in both North and South America stand shoulder-to-shoulder with corporate giants who push pills and liquor on TV, Big Tobacco, and the aforementioned Prison Industrial Complex leading the race to the bottom. They bring the lobbying and marketing money that keeps selling the whole fishy business to the brainwashed moralists whose grandparents may have railed against “Demon Rum” the last time we enabled this insane prohibition racket. We’ve all heard that it’s just plain crazy to keep trying the same ineffective methods and expecting different results. We’re criminalizing our own nation and sacrificing our freedoms and privacy. But, as soon as we end the war on drugs, we win. Let’s do it!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roseanne-barr/war-on-drugs_b_1865123.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
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This is a great article! I love how Roseanne is as always non apologetic, harsh and abraisive, and painfully truth-telling! I think the war on drigs is a farce, in which our government uses as a vehicle of opression. Medical Marijuana in particular is an issue that needs to be more honestly approached…most likely this will never happen because the drug companies and the insurance companies have all the money in the whole wide world, and they’ll never give up all the money they make from sick people , specifically Cancer patients. I am all for chyange, but I am realistic is seeing that change will not happen as long as the boogey men (wall st – drug co’s – the insurance racket)are running things.
This article has confirmed a belief that I have long held about our Criminal Justice system, which makes us ALL out to be ‘potential offenders’ and ‘dangerous maniacs’. That belief is once you’ve made an infraction, it stays on your record forever.
So my whole life has been built around an astute understanding (if not fear) we are to be extremly careful what we do & with whom. Because in a Justice System when you are branded a criminal your whole life it retricts what you can and cannot do, where you work or live and the stigma from ‘breaking the law’ (drug possession, like my cousin) can cause you to loose family or friends.
My stance is that politicians know this system creates criminals out of innocent people to futher the means of segregation, economic instability amoung the poorer classes. IF the poor are locked up & unable to rise above a few bad mistakes from their past- they can NEVER stand up against you or elect a canidate bringing new ideas into the political spectrum like Roseanne Barr is doing. I am so proud she decided to run for President, am voting for her absentee ballot style. Go Roseanne…..Keep speaking the truth……Garner as many votes as possible & stick it to this whole collaspsing system!
Operation Gunrunner (Fast and Furious) – the current regime armed their own side.
Marijuana Crack-down began only after the Medical Industry determined that Cannabis cures Cancer.
First and foremost- I want to preface this WHOLE “shebang” with a big THANK YOU to Roseanne Barr. It sickens me to think that this is falling on deaf eyes and blind ears (because that’s how backasswards the whole government and the society it watchs over is). People hear the name Roseanne Barr when brought up in politics and easily dismiss her. It would be much easier for them to try to sweep some truth-speaker (or in this case, yeller) like Roseanne under the carpet than to listen to the logics this woman speaks. But, have you seen Roseanne? Good luck with that. Even if they did manage to sweep her under the rug, you’d hear her ever time you stepped on her.
But I greatly digress- there is SUCH an eloquence behind Roseanne’s brash truth. It sickens me to think that America would vote for a fifty year old man that still says “Gee golly” or “golly gosh” (let’s face it, it was only cute when Beaver Cleaver did it. On Romney, it’s old-manchild. CREEPY!) over the current president now simply based on race. On top of that- they wouldn’t even bat an eye at Roseanne because she’s a comedian and was on tv (ahem-Reagen)- greatly overlooking the WONDERFUL platform she represents.But then I get even more nautious when I see a woman driving her car with a Romney/Ryan sticker next to her breast cancer Pink Ribbon. The war on drugs is about as shameless as Cher at her 100th Return tour. In a nutshell- they are winning like Charlie Sheen (the poster child of the war on drugs).
With so many very serious issues with seemingly easy solutions, we have to ask ourselves- what’s more important? Cutting education to fund a war on drugs and build a new baseball field or turn it all around, and start having what they consider “the evil” working for society. Alcohol is accepted about as many places as American Express. The kiddie leauge baseball field in my neighborhood always has cars parked the “legal distance” away from it so they can still drink and watch their kids play.
Oops, I digressed again- the point is making marijuana legal will more than likely reign in more money for our country than alcohol (I know a lot of people are like me- they’d rather enjoy da kine then to drink the vine). Alcohol is so dangerous and has very different effects on people than da kine does. Unless something in your life is SERIOUSLY messed up, weed cures all that ails you (from a headache to just a foul mood).
Bob Marley said it best- in an interview, he was recorded to say “They don’t want to legalize it because they say it will make people rebel. Rebel against what?” I feel it’d bring us closer. They portray marijuana as this evil zombie-making sin when, in reality, it makes you feel good and care about things you normally wouldn’t give two squats about. To say it opens what would be considered your “third eye” would be close to the core. We need to lose this stigma of pot being “the devil’s grass” and look at it for what it is. The universe put it here in it’s pure form- you don’t need anything to go with it and can do SO MUCH MORE than just get high. There are very few things that are just plain, 100% naturally good- and marijuana is one.
I love your beautiful mind Roseanne, and I feel that together-
YES WE CANNABIS! Lol! This is my first time voting, and I’m glad it’s for a person I feel can actually MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN!
Legalization should be instituted for all Drugs, (although I do not consider marijuana necessarily a drug). The DEA is estimated to cost the consumer billions..what a waste! If all drugs were legalized, it would not take long before people with addiction would have a better chance to get the help they need, because they would be exposed without the need to hide, and thus more caring people would be willing to point out their destruction. This would absolutely have an impact on street gangs and violent abusive drug dealers. I know a few people who have been helped by the usage of medical marijuana, and it is a shame we can not legally find alternatives to the destructive and addictive pharmaceuticals that are legal. People are finally beginning to realize how insurance and pharmaceutical companies are dictating the way we live. Rosanne, I love it that you are not afraid to speak your mind, you are a true patriot!