Drug War Facts

 

  • Police and DEA have conducted more than 50,000 American home invasions in search of illegal substances.
  • 1.8 million, mostly non-violent individuals face arrest each year - almost 80% for simple possession.
  • The percentage of Americans addicted to heroin from 1917 through 2008 remains constant at 1.3%.
  • Over the last hundred years, Americans have surrendered most of their inalienable rights to the Federal Government. Law enforcement has escalated from a guardian into a guard.

·                    The Treasury Department's 1% tax scam on marijuana has clogged our courts and jails with pot smokers for close to 100 years.

·                    The new American Gulag – cost 69 billion tax dollars per year.

·                    Warrantless home invasions are gross violations of the Constitution but offer exciting, profitable and addicting experiences for narcotics agents.

·                    Under today’s marijuana laws, our founding fathers are guilty of the manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance – hemp.

·                    The drug war is nothing more than a disagreement over whose drug is the best. Nixon liked to puff on cigars and drink martinis as he railed against pot smokers.

·                    Drug addiction is often genetically determined.

·                    Tobacco, alcohol, weed, mushrooms, peyote, LSD, prescription medicines and party pills are all gateway drugs for certain people.

·                    Prohibitionist policies punish everyone for the poor decisions of a few. It persecutes both the innocent and the guilty and claims to save society by creating fear and violence.

·                    America is no longer the land of the free; it belongs to the DEA, which is immune from prosecution.

·                    The growing popularity of mind-altering, pleasure-inducing drugs is a normal reaction to pain and boredom. Many youngsters who try marijuana are merely curious and seek acceptance within their peer group.

·                     Richard Milhous Nixon was an intolerant fundamentalist who presented himself as a diplomat in public, but privately exhibited a paranoid, crude, and narcissistic personality.

·                    The vindictive racist, Harry Anslinger, used his bogus Marijuana Tax Act to imprison millions of non-violent Mexicans, African Americans and jazz musicians. The reason: Harry hated jazz, Mexicans, and "darkies." 

·                    The Federal Government is and always will be in the drug business.

·                    Congress should not pass unenforceable laws that create victimless crimes.

·                    Two million Americans in prison and five million on probation makes America the largest prison nation in the world

·                    The marijuana tax act is the most destructive law ever passed by Congress. The damage done by this 1% nuisance tax on the cannabis plant is far greater than that done by alcohol prohibition, which lasted a mere 13 years and required the approval of 36 out of 48 states to become a Constitutional Amendment. The prohibition against cannabis has persisted for 70 years and required nothing more than the coerced vote of a small group of ignorant lawmakers who thought they had created a tax license for farmers to grow industrial hemp.

·                    Of all our plants, cannabis has the most to offer humanity.

·                    Those who support cannabis prohibition should not smoke or drink.

·                    Those who work for the DEA should abstain from all drugs

·                    Save our trees - grow hemp

·                    Reduce crime by fifty percent- end prohibition

·                    The Government worries that ending cannabis prohibition sends a wrong message to children. But children have easier access to marijuana and other, more dangerous substances because of Prohibition.

·                    Throughout America's history, virtually all of our presidents and lawmakers have hammered out our nation's policies under the influence of dangerous, addictive, mind-altering drugs.

·                    You cannot get rid of human desire for pleasure by passing a law against it.

·                    A certain percentage of people in every generation will destroy themselves on drugs regardless of prohibition.

·                    For some people, freedom is an inalienable right, for others, it is a crime.

·                    The most difficult task for a human being is to grant to others the same freedom you would expect for yourself.

·                    A drug free America would require the surrender of all civil liberties; and that would fail, also.

·                    Zero tolerance by the government is the end of privacy and choice for the citizen.

·                    A speech by a politician that contradicts his or her privately held belief – is both hypocrisy and expected in the political arena.

·                    When it comes to pot smokers, Congress and the Supreme Court do not turn to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; instead, they look to their own political interests.

·                    Moderate enjoyment of recreational drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis by adults is not a crime. The crime is in the prohibition of these substances.

·                    To re-legalize a substance means to let the states set up guidelines for production and distribution - the states being "the laboratories of democracy."

·                    A good law is the will of the people. A bad law is the will of the Government against the people. A good law encourages honesty while bad laws encourage deception. The benefits of a law must outweigh the damage done by its enforcement.

·                    The DEA has made it clear they will resist every attempt by American farmers to resume 300 years of hemp production – instead, we must pay to import it from Canada.

·                    56% of Federal prisoners and 80% of State prisoners are victims of the Nixon/Anslinger war against people – the irresistible urge to use public money and the resources of law enforcement to attack people they despise.

·                    Teenagers find it easy to become involved in illicit drugs because they are unlicensed, unregulated, and do not require an ID to buy or sell.

·                    Persecution by the DEA frightens many doctors out of pain management, which leaves their patients to fend for themselves on the illicit market.

·                    The DEA intercepts one percent of narcotics diverted from manufacturers and retailers.

·                    Based on risk to the user, we have heroin, alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, marijuana and caffeine. Tragically, the DEA equates marijuana with heroin, which sends a message to teenagers that heroin is no more dangerous than marijuana.

·                    The DEA's policy of zero tolerance includes sick and dying patients who have doctor's prescriptions and the support of state initiatives to use cannabis. The raids prove that Federal Treasury agents, not doctors, control medicine and decide who gets what drug and how much.

·                    Unless people educate themselves, the next century of Federal drug policy is … more of the same.

·                    Under present Federal guidelines, my body doesn't belong to me; it belongs to the DEA.

·                    One hundred thousand people die from "legal" drug overdoses per year; yet no one dies from pure, smoked cannabis.

·                    Congress spends sixty nine billion per year on drug interdiction.

·                    Prohibition occurs when a government abandons control of a substance and then arrests those who manufacture it themselves. Legalization removes the substance from the unregulated market and returns it to government control.

·                    Marijuana fits perfectly into the alcohol model of licensed regulation.

·                    Smoking marijuana in the privacy of one's own home is not a crime

·                    Habitual pot smoking is a health issue.

·                    Politicians have no choice but to lie about marijuana; telling the truth is political suicide.

Marijuana prohibition is an example of manufactured consent. Campaign slogans such as "A Drug Free America," "Zero Tolerance," "Soft on Drugs" and "Tough on Crime" implies that the person you vote for is going to fix the problem. Voters believe each new candidate will get the job done. As the government continues to launch the media slogans and escalate the arrests, the war will cost more money and ruin more lives.

 

 

James Wiley

May 2009