wod revised
The War on Drugs
The war on drugs is an on-going war that will never be won, yet is costing our nation billions of dollars. Many people believe that it started during the Reagan administration in 1969, which is partially true. Nancy Reagan (Ronald's wife) coined the phrase "Just say no". Even though they started the war on drugs as we know it today, it has been going on in this country since the 1800's. From the 1800's to the first half of the 20th century is when the government became involved in people's personal lives with drug and alcohol use.
In the 1800's America and China made an agreement banning opium from being imported into the United States. Opiates from all countries were banned thanks to the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914.
Prohibition, as we all learned in high school was between 1920 and 1933 banning alcohol from our country. The next step was in 1937, when congress passed the marijuana tax act. Even though this is when the federal government made marijuana illegal, it had actually been illegal in several states before. In fact, California made it illegal in 1913. The Bogg’s Act of 1951 increased penalties fourfold, and in 1956, the Daniel act increased those penalties eightfold . After that, in 1966, LSD (invented by Swiss chemists Arthur Stoll, and the first man to ever try it Albert Hoffman in 1943, but made popular by Timothy Leary in the 1960's) was made illegal. There are many, many more illegal drugs that have been made illegal over the years including: Ketemine, DMT (dimethyltryptamine...which is produced naturally by the brain, and also found in hundreds of plants), Psychobilin (most commonly found in psychedelic mushrooms), methamphetamines, and the list goes on. The reason why the war on drugs was started was all based on politics.
The War on Drugs costs approximately $45.5 billion dollars a year (as of 2005). These facts and figures include the price of DEA, police protection, the costs of incarceration, and other things.
A huge cost in this “war” is due to marijuana. 44% of drug arrests are cannabis charges, and it is also ranks fourth in arrest charges. It is also the third most popular drug of choice in America (just behind alcohol and tobacco, which are both proven to cause death, and serious health effects).
Even though states (such as California) legalized it for medical purposes, it is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government, so often cannabis clubs are shut down by the DEA. What does this mean? This means that there is a huge hypocrisy in the war on drugs considering drugs such as heroin, crack/cocaine, and “meth” aren’t nearly as contained by the government as marijuana, which is a natural substance that has actually been proven to have multiple uses (such as making clothing, beauty products, also it is used in food), and health benefits (such as slowing cancer growth, and aiding chemotherapy patients in pain relief, and it also helps give them an appetite so they don’t become malnourished, as well as dozens of other things.)
America’s prison populations are between six and ten times those as westernized European countries due to our no-tolerance marijuana form. This means money out of tax payer’s pockets. If that’s not bad enough, 98% of the marijuana plants destroyed in America are hemp plants known as cannabis ruderalis (meaning they have approximately .03% THC, as opposed to cannabis sativa, and cannabis indica plants that contain 12-35% THC) on top of CAMP (campaign against marijuana planting) having 477 raids in 34 countries (which means our tax dollars are being put into other countries marijuana problems) in July-October of 2007.
The government has everything to gain, and not much to lose in this war on drugs. Considering the corruption in politics, many people are getting rich off of this, due to the fact that the U.S. gets its money from the central bank (we know it as the Federal Reserve, which is a private corporation, and makes its own policies, so it is NOT regulated by the government), which loans America money at interest. So, “every dollar that is loaned to America has an immediate debt attached to it,” which keeps us in debt, and those who head the central bank are making an enormous profit off of this war (as well as all of our wars). People like the Rothchilds, the Rockefellers (as in JD), the Morgans (as in JP), and the Warburgs. Tactics like the war on drugs is overall what is depreciating the U.S. dollar.
Legally speaking, the war on drugs is illegal. Prohibition (alcohol) was removed from our country because it required the constitution to be amended, and that is not a power granted to the federal government, prohibition of marijuana is technically unconstitutional. Also, in this fine country, “Marijuana is considered a schedule 1 narcotic (meaning it has no medicinal purpose), which is contradicted by the journal Nature Medicine.”
Another reason for this hypocrisy is level 2 narcotics are legal with a prescription, and you can only posses up to one months supply at a time. These include drugs such as Oxycotton, Ritalin, and Adderall, which more and more people are using for recreational use only.
There are many people fighting to end, or at least make sense of this war on drugs. Such people include Kris Krane, a marijuana lobbyist from Washington DC, The lead singer, and drummer of Marijuana the band, who simply goes by “Bong Rip”, among many organizations such as NORML. Even former presidents are getting in on the action. Jimmy Carter once said “Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.”
The war on drugs is a highly questionable policy, which in all of my research seems to do more damage than good. Yet somehow, it keeps going. Hopefully this war will end with a simple drug reform that will benefit both the government, and the citizens of the United States, and end what has been called a “cultural genocide”.
The war on drugs is an on-going war that will never be won, yet is costing our nation billions of dollars. Many people believe that it started during the Reagan administration in 1969, which is partially true. Nancy Reagan (Ronald's wife) coined the phrase "Just say no". Even though they started the war on drugs as we know it today, it has been going on in this country since the 1800's. From the 1800's to the first half of the 20th century is when the government became involved in people's personal lives with drug and alcohol use.
In the 1800's America and China made an agreement banning opium from being imported into the United States. Opiates from all countries were banned thanks to the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914.
Prohibition, as we all learned in high school was between 1920 and 1933 banning alcohol from our country. The next step was in 1937, when congress passed the marijuana tax act. Even though this is when the federal government made marijuana illegal, it had actually been illegal in several states before. In fact, California made it illegal in 1913. The Bogg’s Act of 1951 increased penalties fourfold, and in 1956, the Daniel act increased those penalties eightfold . After that, in 1966, LSD (invented by Swiss chemists Arthur Stoll, and the first man to ever try it Albert Hoffman in 1943, but made popular by Timothy Leary in the 1960's) was made illegal. There are many, many more illegal drugs that have been made illegal over the years including: Ketemine, DMT (dimethyltryptamine...which is produced naturally by the brain, and also found in hundreds of plants), Psychobilin (most commonly found in psychedelic mushrooms), methamphetamines, and the list goes on. The reason why the war on drugs was started was all based on politics.
The War on Drugs costs approximately $45.5 billion dollars a year (as of 2005). These facts and figures include the price of DEA, police protection, the costs of incarceration, and other things.
A huge cost in this “war” is due to marijuana. 44% of drug arrests are cannabis charges, and it is also ranks fourth in arrest charges. It is also the third most popular drug of choice in America (just behind alcohol and tobacco, which are both proven to cause death, and serious health effects).
Even though states (such as California) legalized it for medical purposes, it is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government, so often cannabis clubs are shut down by the DEA. What does this mean? This means that there is a huge hypocrisy in the war on drugs considering drugs such as heroin, crack/cocaine, and “meth” aren’t nearly as contained by the government as marijuana, which is a natural substance that has actually been proven to have multiple uses (such as making clothing, beauty products, also it is used in food), and health benefits (such as slowing cancer growth, and aiding chemotherapy patients in pain relief, and it also helps give them an appetite so they don’t become malnourished, as well as dozens of other things.)
America’s prison populations are between six and ten times those as westernized European countries due to our no-tolerance marijuana form. This means money out of tax payer’s pockets. If that’s not bad enough, 98% of the marijuana plants destroyed in America are hemp plants known as cannabis ruderalis (meaning they have approximately .03% THC, as opposed to cannabis sativa, and cannabis indica plants that contain 12-35% THC) on top of CAMP (campaign against marijuana planting) having 477 raids in 34 countries (which means our tax dollars are being put into other countries marijuana problems) in July-October of 2007.
The government has everything to gain, and not much to lose in this war on drugs. Considering the corruption in politics, many people are getting rich off of this, due to the fact that the U.S. gets its money from the central bank (we know it as the Federal Reserve, which is a private corporation, and makes its own policies, so it is NOT regulated by the government), which loans America money at interest. So, “every dollar that is loaned to America has an immediate debt attached to it,” which keeps us in debt, and those who head the central bank are making an enormous profit off of this war (as well as all of our wars). People like the Rothchilds, the Rockefellers (as in JD), the Morgans (as in JP), and the Warburgs. Tactics like the war on drugs is overall what is depreciating the U.S. dollar.
Legally speaking, the war on drugs is illegal. Prohibition (alcohol) was removed from our country because it required the constitution to be amended, and that is not a power granted to the federal government, prohibition of marijuana is technically unconstitutional. Also, in this fine country, “Marijuana is considered a schedule 1 narcotic (meaning it has no medicinal purpose), which is contradicted by the journal Nature Medicine.”
Another reason for this hypocrisy is level 2 narcotics are legal with a prescription, and you can only posses up to one months supply at a time. These include drugs such as Oxycotton, Ritalin, and Adderall, which more and more people are using for recreational use only.
There are many people fighting to end, or at least make sense of this war on drugs. Such people include Kris Krane, a marijuana lobbyist from Washington DC, The lead singer, and drummer of Marijuana the band, who simply goes by “Bong Rip”, among many organizations such as NORML. Even former presidents are getting in on the action. Jimmy Carter once said “Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.”
The war on drugs is a highly questionable policy, which in all of my research seems to do more damage than good. Yet somehow, it keeps going. Hopefully this war will end with a simple drug reform that will benefit both the government, and the citizens of the United States, and end what has been called a “cultural genocide”.