TIME MARCHES BACKWARD. WELCOME TO THE 19TH CENTURY
FORWARD TO THE PAST
The marijuana industry promotors have
gone into shock since the change of administration. After all the years hoping, wishing, praying,
and civil disobedience, a sizeable section of the population celebrated because
they believed that the country had finally come to its senses. There was a convergence between the academic
world and the “real” one. Over most of
their adult lives, Viet Nam vets have lived with what they believed were insane
drug laws. Having served their country
and learned about weed in Asia, there was a sense of betrayal when they
returned to persecution and prosecution.
They knew that the drug war was bull shit, but many saw veteran benefits
and other expectations dashed because of the drug war. The freedom that they thought for was turned
into something else. It couldn’t be described, but it was definitely felt. They sat by and watched as their free world
was privatized, inflation set in, the United States went into a state of
perpetual war which they could not understand.
Prisons filled,
prosecutions increased in the face of lowering crime rates. Drug laws wrecked
citizens and polarized society.
Inflation robbed them of their savings and education was limited unless
an inordinate amount of debt was taken on.
They returned from a war in which they thought they were fighting for
freedom to an emerging police state. It
took a few decades for them to realize that they were screwed. Middle class shrunk and wealth was being
redistributed. No longer were trades
sponsoring apprentice programs. The
trade schools had been privatized.
Pensions were robbed and union funds decimated. There were no more retirement plans, no
longevity, no reward for loyalty. All this was done in light of evidence to the
contrary.
However, there was
one glimmer of hope. The thing that
started all the repression and punishment binge. Civil service ranks were thinned as
privatization took over, but then one day, a Nixon politician, released from
jail and having several decades to reflect, told the people that the whole drug
war was a scam to stop civil rights and pacifist movements. It had nothing to do with crime. It had to do with fear and political
power. But it also stirred up turmoil
and divisiveness in society. The divisiveness
was lessoning and after four decades of debate, governments were taking a look
at the repressive drug laws. Several
states legalized and the sky didn’t fall.
Those states thrived and there were no noticeable adverse effects. However, the celebration was premature.
The country hadn’t
come to its senses. The same prejudice
was there. Bigotry thrived. Reality became denied and folk wisdom and
fantasy took over. People didn’t want
facts, they wanted justification. We
became divided. Reality became irrelevant. Beliefs were important, not ideas, logic, or
facts. The public had been conditioned
to associate marijuana with evil.
Therefore, the reality didn’t matter.
If someone believed it was bad, that person was not about to be confused
with facts or reality. The world became
one of them and us. The good and the
bad. Bad had to be stopped, even if it
were good. War was peace. We elected a person to be president, not
based upon capability of position, but because he appealed to the confused,
frustrated, angry masses, who didn’t care about facts or truth. He has appointed cronies to positions of
power, chosen to please his constituency, not for capability.
All the appointments
had a worldview thing in common. They
were selfish, and believed they were good.
They were judgmental and everyone who was not in agreement with them was
bad. The world was evil, populated by
unworthy ruffians. Control over the
people was mandatory. And, since it was
mandatory, it might as well be profitable.
These people were the guardians of our society and deserved to be made
rich. The selfish rich won and the
masses were about to get screwed, with no institutions or people between them
and the predators.
To maintain control,
the predators need money to buy robo-police and public relations. The last thing they want is for the
population to wise up. Their solution
for that is privatization of schools.
And after the society is bled of all its assets, there will have to be
tight control. There is one way that
police and intelligence agencies have always obtained funding. That is through the confiscation laws These
funds are not regulated, but are the police’s private slush fund. With outside money, they can’t be
controlled. And the best source of
unaccounted money is through the confiscation of property through seizures in
drug enforcement actions. Since
marijuana is the only drug that has an odor, it is necessary to the shakedown
of the citizenry. That is why the police
state is going to fight tooth and nail against any legalization or
decriminalization. Below is an article I
wrote quite some time ago. It is still
valid.
I wrote this a few years
ago. It still applies.
Why Marijuana Won’t be Legalized.
It
is essential to the Police shake down
It
has been over four decades since I took my first graduate course in
criminology. Not much has changed since then, except that findings
accepted by social scientists have been denied by people in power who find the
science inconvenient. The biggest change is the increase the in ignorance
of the general population, followed by the corruption of the government.
Only a village idiot could have studied the drug situation and still
believed in the gateway drug theory as expounded by BNDD director, Henry J.
Anslinger, propagandist extraordinary. He maintained that because most
heroin addicts stated they smoked marijuana first, it was a gateway drug to
addiction. He persisted in his fictitious version of reefer madness into
the sixties, pushing his toxic bull shit to the newly formed Drug Enforcement
Agency, who for political rather than logical or factual reasons bought it
lock, stock and barrel. Restated, the public is conned into believing
that heroin can be controlled by arresting pot offenders.
The
theory goes something like this, and I recall from four decades ago. 95%
of all heroin addicts stated that they tried marijuana before becoming
addicted. Therefore, marijuana is the gateway drug to heroin addiction,
which causes your daughters to enter prostitution to support their habit.
One could also state that 100% of all heroin addicts breathed
before taking heroin. Or, one could say that every biker gang member
started out on bicycles. The logic is about the same. There is no
assertion of causality, but it plays well to the PTA, Lions, Legionnaires, MADD
and other cheerleaders for the lies and fear-mongering of the power structure to
subjugate the people and keep them policed.
The
gateway theory has been cited by “experts” who obviously failed logic but
passed rhetoric and are intellectually challenged. Additionally, the
demonization of the gateway product is in full force, blaming marijuana on auto
accidents, pregnancies, sterility, stupidity and all other kinds of ailments.
It has become a key ingredient in the Theocrats’ attack on science.
Image and message trumps science. Superstition, prejudice and
ignorance trumps science. Science is demonic, ungodly, heathen and bad
for the country (at least the 1 per-centers). Over the decades, theory
and study of crime causality has taken a back seat to punitive measures and
mass incarceration. The country has become statistically challenged.
When
I first studied criminology many decades ago, the concerns were organized
crime, price fixing by the big electrical companies of hydroelectric
generators, extortion, robbery, murder, predatory behavior of the con-artists
and the like. I spent hours poring over the records of the McClellan and
Kefauver committees. I studied causality of crime, not paranoid dreamt up
scenarios from someone’s imagination. Greedy corporate executives had
slightly higher status than garbage collectors and lawyers. There was a
movement to stop predatory practices of the corporations and have truth in
lending for consumers. The new Uniform Commercial Code was being adapted
and there was change in the winds. The people were not fair game for the
rich and powerful. The common person had some recourse and were protected
by the law against exploitation. Black people had a trial before they
were lynched and some even got to vote and lived to tell about it. There
was a sense of community and cohesion. Taverns and bars were looked at as
community centers where consensus and opinion were created, not dens of evil.
The corporations answered this cohesion with well-funded diversions
focusing union corruption and patriotism.
Then
came the civil unrest of the Nixon years and things changed. The saying
“give them an inch and they will take a mile” was the favorite saying of the
radical whites in the country. Civil rights were here, but the blacks
weren’t satisfied. They wanted more than rights. They wanted
equality. When it didn’t come fast enough, the blacks got restless and
rioted in some cities. Of course, the disoriented nervous whites got
anxious and even scared. The Viet Nam war gearing up, which was not too
popular. The rulers were fearful of a public they could not control or
manipulate. TV showed Buddhists monks engaging in self-emoliation and
Black Panthers brandishing assault rifles and bandoliers at the Reagan Capital
in Sacramento. Reagan walked around with a load in his pants that day. Law
and order became the mantra of the fearful and confused. This was code for
“stop the blacks.” And both races knew it. So, after a spectacular
convention in Chicago which decimated the Democrats, the Republicans elected
Richard Nixon.
The
marijuana war intensified rather than gearing down. The country became
preoccupied with drugs, causing the US to have the highest incarceration rate
in the world. Although crime rates listed by the FBI remained somewhat
static, incarcerations increased. Law enforcement was becoming the “rogue
elephant.” When Denver passed an ordinance making enforcement of Marijuana law
the lowest of police priorities, marijuana arrests almost doubled the next
year. This isn’t the result of a few rogue elephants, it is a stampede,
the result of institutionalized behavior. The same phenomenon has been
reported in New York. President Obama promised drug law reform, yet the
justice department is loudly protesting and waging fear campaigns on the
marijuana users. To the uninitiated, this seems confusing.
Why
all the enforcement activity? Doesn’t the government realize how much
money in taxes the marijuana industry generates? Why are they killing the
goose laying the golden egg? The Denver Post’s John Ingold reported $2.2
million in sales tax for marijuana tax revenue in November, 2010. This
was only for part of the year. The Attorney General of Colorado responded
that “...the new revenue stream doesn't change his opinion of dispensaries.”
(said through a spokesman) The
revenue stream from medicinal marijuana comes from fees charged dispensaries,
care givers and patients and sales tax on the substance sold in dispensaries.
The tax revenues go mainly to cities and the state to fund their
projects. The fees go to the Department of Revenue. So, with that
kind of revenue, “why are the cops whining”, ask the naive and innocent?
I
ask in return, “Didn’t you see the videos of the Occupy Wall Street protests in
New York, Las Angeles, Oakland and Berkeley? If not go look at them.
Look at the police. Look at their equipment. They are all
dressed in expensive riot gear.” That shit costs money. Compare
this with the dress of the Chicago Police at the 1968 Democratic convention.
The difference in equipment is due to the drug war. The money comes from
the drug war budget, which is bloated by confiscations and forfeitures.
With legalization, the cops are left out, and the gravy train grinds to a
halt. Instead the proceeds are going to such things as roads, schools,
health care, assistance to poor and disabled, and infra structure, things that
used to be a priority before the advent of the police state.
Additionally, the corruption J. Edgar Hoover referred to when he forbade
FBI agents to engage in drug enforcement, would cease. Cops would afford
fewer donuts, planes and condominiums.
For
years, I believed that the police were ignorant dunderheads. They
followed orders like good martinets and did not question things. They
were true believers, not confused by facts or evidence. Concepts such as
fairness, justice, due process and the Constitution were for bleeding hearts.
They would not let ideology or justice interfere with their duty.
These simple people believed they were just doing their jobs. They
would blindly follow, because they were brainwashed. Then, I conquered my
prejudice and ignorance. Cops actually were not stupid. Most
detectives had attended college. How then, could they then ignore
all the reports and recommendations of experts since the Eisenhower report in
the ‘50's? Some were unaware of existence of reports. Some didn’t care,
because they believed in what they were doing. And, some were just
sadistic bastards, drunk with power fueled by their bigotry and ignorance.
And, some were in it for the money.
I started examining
the curriculum of the courses offered police. I didn’t expect them to
have the same education as I for many reasons. However, most colleges or
universities teach the same facts, discuss the same research and theories.
Then, a friend in the political science department provided me with some
government publications regarding grants and research proposals. None of
the grants dealt with causality. They dealt with mechanics of arrest,
trial and confinement. Some dealt with procedures that streamlined the
assembly line to incarcerate more persons efficiently. Management by
objective ruled and political policies were geared toward punishment and
revenge. Police action was calculated to make the public feel good or
secure, not to be effective. Image was everything. There was always
enough fear from the police to insure generous budgets. This worked like
the mafia protection racket. Theoretical criminology was ignored.
It was inconvenient and contradicted what the politicians wanted.
The criminal justice area was almost void of any intellectual content.
If the students aren’t taught anything, they can’t be expected to act
intelligently. They also don’t rock the boat and agitate for change.
Causality didn’t matter, only public perception of protection counted.
Image was all.
There
is also a more insidious side to the drug war policy. Several would
be cops joined vice and narcotics to get rich. The opportunity for bribes
and extra money is almost boundless. Additionally, oversight was sloppy
or negligible. I was involved in several cases where the evidence
confiscated from the defendants ended back into the market place, placed there
by police or Government. Courts and prosecutors turned a blind eye to the
evidence of corruption. If that weren’t enough, the police state became
self-funding through fines and forfeitures, perpetuating corruption on a
massive scale. Crime enforcement has become the new aphrodisiac for the
perverts and bullies. Several abuse cases have been reported such as the
broom handle rape in New York, the killing of arrestees, and other atrocities
that may or may not have made the papers. Instead of constraints,
sanctions and oversight, things are concealed or covered up. Judges,
coming from the police establishment conspire with the officers and prosecutors
to encourage perjury, sadism and other misconduct, imbued with a belief that
the ends justify the means. They identify with the imaginary problems of
the police in following the rules, which might result in a less than desired
result. Judges don’t view their purpose as protecting the citizenry.
They believe they should expedite convictions to help fill the jails, and
reward their police constituency. The Constitution is no longer the law
of the land, but an impediment to efficient enforcement of assembly line
justice, where any judge can rationalize ignoring the citizens for the sake of
exigency. Get the guilty has replaced the idea of protecting the
innocent. We have a post-legal society.
Presently,
close to 75 % of drug arrests are for marijuana1. It is an
easily identifiable commodity with a distinct smell, look, and fan base.
As long as the police and public buy in to the gateway fiction, the
police can justify their budgets by claiming they are preventing heroin
addiction by enforcing the draconian marijuana laws. They are protecting
the public with the crusade against marijuana. Not so. They are
perpetuating a bureaucracy. They are protecting their status and budgets.
Drug
enforcement policy has nothing to do with protecting the public, preventing
harm to the youth, and other bullshit reasons given for the drug war by the
cynical enforcement cabal. Instead, it has everything to do with money.
Look how the additional funding for police enforcement is utilized.
It is used for surveillance and riot equipment and other means of
repression, not to solve crime. Marijuana arrests justify the drug
budget. Heroin and cocaine are hard to detect and therefore the case
numbers won’t justify the budget. But as long as we have a fearful
population and lying, corrupt police and officials, we will have marijuana
prohibition to perpetuate the fiction of good policing. The officials
know better. They aren’t stupid (no matter how hard they try to look that
way). They want to control us in order to be able to exploit us.
That is why they now are proposing domestic surveillance drones.
Fear equates to greater budgets and more toys.
It
is time for the citizenry to wake up and smell the weeds. They are in the
police agencies and greedy politicians, fed by greedy corporate predators.
They are perpetuating a fearful society. They are destroying the
societal fabric with suspicion and jealousy and no end is in sight. They
are relying on ignorance and lack of interest. They count on a docile
population, just as a King of France and his wife Marie once did. It is
time for the people to be heard. It is time for dialogue and discussion.
It is time for action. You can’t fool all the people all the time!
(Hopefully). We have to make officials and politicians know that we
want safe roads, bridges, water, hospitals, sanitation and the rest of the
infrastructure. Show them we value education over incarceration. We
want to lead the world in freedom, not in repression and incarceration.
We were a democratic republic, not a totalitarian police state.
Show them we no longer tremble in fear of your imaginary bogey man.
It is time they fear us–the people, not the press and public relations
consultants. Start writing your council, legislature, commissioner,
governor, congress, senate and president. Let them hear people rather
than money. If they don’t listen, shun them. Embarrass them, berate
them and expose their greed and ignorance to others. Stand up and be counted.
Destroy a prison, build a bridge. Be courageous. Be free.
1 Of those charged with marijuana
violations, approximately 88 percent (758,593 Americans) were charged with
possession only. The remaining 99,815 individuals were charged with
“sale/manufacture,” a category that includes virtually all cultivation
offenses. Crime in America: FBI Uniform Crime Reports 2008
(Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, 2008),
Incarceration in the United States is one of the main
forms of punishment and/or rehabilitation for the commission of felony and
other offenses. The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate
in the world. At year-end 2009 it was 743 adults incarcerated per 100,000
population
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
(BJS) 2,266,800 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and
county jails at year-end 2010 — about 7% of adults in the U.S. resident
population. [5] Additionally, 4,933,667 adults at year-end 2009 were on
probation or on parole. [4] In total, 7,225,800 adults were under correctional
supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2009 — about 3.1% of adults
in the U.S. resident population.
