History Channel Special on Drug War Hits Home. A Must See for Squares!

In America, more than half a million people a year are arrested for some form of marijuana possession. Half of the people currently in the federal prison system are there for some form of drug possession. This striking trend, a trend whose origins we can attribute to President Nixon’s overzealous war on drugs campaign, has slowly began to gain recognition as an economically draining and futile effort.

With eleven states having passed some form of legislation to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, it is now up to the federal government to recognize this plentiful natural resource’s multitude of societal applications. The idea of marijuana being more dangerous than alcohol is a complete farce. Alcohol being legal while marijuana is illegal is pure hypocrisy. Much of marijuana’s mystique can be attributed to the movie Reefer Madness and a murderer named Victor Licata. Victor, while supposedly stoned, dismembered his entire family with an ax as they slept. Exactly the first activity that comes to mind when I have my morning bake.

This event occurred in 1933 and the first Commissioner of the Narcotics Bureau, Harry Jacob Anslinger, used the story as a springboard for his personal assault on recreational drugs. Victor Licata had reported having a terrible dream in which people were trying to “hack off” his arms. It would later be discovered that Victor was schizophrenic and that marijuana had no contribution to his acts. Anslinger failed to report this to Congress however. Imagine that.

This information is available all over the internet and more people, non-smokers especially, need to be informed. Our tax-dollars are being wasted against more than one fictitious threat. Billions of dollars a year could be saved simply by decriminalizing marijuana. Legalize it, tax it if you have to, but just quit demonizing its use. Fundamental America is drowning in its own ignorance and it wont be long before they too can make this realization: Pot-heads don’t belong in prison while child-molesters and rapists run rampant. The fact that people who commit sex-crimes are required by law to register is a testament to their inhumanity, yet we turn them away from prisons due to overcrowding, sentencing them to probation instead.

By exonerating stoners and decriminalizing marijuana, America would be simultaneously opening the possibility to make money off of an already well established consumer base, while removing a huge tax burden from both federal and state governments, and freeing space our prison system desperately needs to lock away those who truly are a threat to society’s innocents. I don’t know about you, but I’m more worried about my son being snatched from his bus stop than being offered a joint.

Tagged as: America, Drug War