I would appreciate it if college students would quit coming into my neighborhood to buy their weed. In fact, I would appreciate it if college students would quit buying weed at all, until it is legal. Even if it is delivered to your dorm room for you, somewhere down the line, it affects a neighborhood like mine. And I'm sick of it. I'm sick of VW's and SUV's pulling up to the neighbor's house and honking until someone delivers a baggy to the car. I'm sick of skinny white girls in designer jeans and their khaki-clad boyfriends looking around wide-eyed like they're on some kind of exotic safari to the 'hood for the minute they spend here to make their purchase. Yes, I live in a "bad" neighborhood. I will thank you very much to stay out of it, because you are making it worse.
I used to feel that a little weed was no big deal. I smoked a couple of times in college, and I had some pretty memorable nights (one of them spent atop the arch of the Robert Street Bridge in St. Paul, which was beautiful, but really, really stupid, as it is at least 100 feet above the Mississippi River). And really, as a drug, it isn't a big deal. It is less dangerous than alcohol, in and of itself (unless it inspires you to climb tall bridges).
The difference is, alcohol can be purchased legally at the liquor store down the street. Weed must be secretly grown, processed, packed, smuggled, and sold--usually from a person's home. There are criminals involved in every step of this process. People with guns and loose morals. Have you seen the Showtime series "Weeds?" The people selling are seldom confident, middle-class women with a college education and the brains to out maneuver the cartel. That show is not a realistic representation of a marijuana dealer. I'll give you realistic.
The neighbors across the street from me live in Section 8 housing. It is run by a slum lord who does not care what condition the house is in or what the people who live there do. The family (yes, it is a family) consists of a crack-addicted grandmother, her daughter, her grandson, his girlfriend, and their two small children. When they first moved in, I thought, "Great! A cute young family! Yay!" And they were really good neighbors for a few months. Then the granddaughter couldn't get her job back after maternity leave, the money ran out, and they started dealing.
I don't know how they got into it, but soon, there was a constant stream of vehicles pulling up out front, honking, making the exchange, and leaving. Constant cars, parked for under two minutes. Business was so good last summer that the grandson just stayed out on the porch. It wasn't worth it to go inside, because there would be another customer any minute. One of his friends waited at the bus stop out on Lake Street with a walkie, to alert him to the cops. Walkie beeps, grandson goes in. Beeps again, comes back out.
All of this was annoying, but not really a huge problem. It became a problem when the men with guns started showing up. Nearly all drug activity is gang-related. Gangs have ranks. We could see the progression of the grandson up the ranks. He started wearing a "uniform." All his buddies dressed alike. The men with guns were higher up, though. They looked like Heavy D and didn't wear colors. The handguns in their waistbands were their prominent feature. They showed up regularly to collect money and give pep talks to the distribution force. They talked about how much "property" they have in the neighborhood, and how to use it to the best sales advantage. They talked about expansion into other neighborhoods, and how to move into areas with more money, like college campuses. (Just like in Weeds). Soon after, the VW's started coming round.
They dealt and partied all summer with their toddlers running around the yard, only loosely supervised. The kids saw guns, drugs, prostitution (a whole 'nother blog), alcohol abuse, and domestic violence daily.
They did all this on the porch, while consuming copious amounts of malt liquor. I think the idea was to intimidate the neighbors who may be considering calling the authorities. They made no effort to hide who they were or that they were gang members. We called the cops anyway. A lot. We called so often that the 911 operators addressed us by our first names the moment our number showed up on their screen.
Eventually, the higher ups in the gang pulled the plug on them. Our constant 911 calls finally got results. The frequent police presence chased some buyers away. The cops arrested one of the leaders at the house, and the gang members left. The house became a liability to them. The grandson stopped waving colors. The car traffic is gone. Every now and then, a white boy with perfect hair and an expensive car will pull up and lay on the horn. No one comes out. He'll honk for two minutes or so and leave. Some of the less resourceful buyers come back a few times before they give up, but it does no good. Their source has dried up.
Summer is coming, though. I hope they won't start up again with the nicer weather. It would really help if their customers would stay on campus or in the suburbs and find a different recreational outlet. If no one is buying, the "business" closes, and my neighborhood remains the quiet enclave of low-income families it wants to be. Our parks stay free of condoms and drug debris. Our children are hit with fewer stray bullets. Our walls are not marked up by gangs. If you want to come enjoy the many ethnic markets and festivals we have here, please do! Those are legal and perfectly safe. If you are coming to my neighborhood to engage in a criminal activity, even if it's just a little weed, you have no right to be here, and no right to pass judgment on the street I call home.
... awesome blog.
Thank you.
I am so tired of people defending illegal drugs. If it's illegal; don't do it. Don't encourage others to do it. You can talk maturely about why you want it to be legalized, petition, whatever. But do not blatantly disobey the law or encourage others to do so, especially young people on websites like ProgressiveU. I see blogs on a regular basis with this attitude of, "Rebel because the government is just trying to control us" and they frankly insult the intelligence of every one who reads them.
The truth is that drugs destroy your brain. The entire point of drugs is that they alter your consciousness; otherwise people wouldn't use them. That's why so many people (more than 2/3) who are in jail enter addicted to one illegal drug or another. Because drugs contributed to their delinquent lifestyle. It's the cold, hard, honest truth.
Anybody who says that illegal drugs don't destroy lives is a fool.
Thank you. And I agree (obviously). My blog turned into a bit of a rant, but I went into it with the intention of exposing the butterfly effect of "just a little weed." I don't think I got that across, but maybe I at least hinted at it?
The purchase of "just a little weed" will directly affect those toddlers. It directly affects my quality of life. It directly affects the grandmother's access to crack. It indirectly affects everyone in my neighborhood, even if they don't live near a drug house, because our entire neighborhood gets a bad reputation because of those drug sales, making the neighborhood unappealing to responsible home owners. This affects the achievement gap, because it perpetuates the concentration of poverty in our neighborhood, and therefore, the schools. This, in turn affects the reputation that low-SES students, who happen to be largely students of color, can't have academic success, which affects the students' self-concept and expectations, which leads them to continue failing, which leads them to seek unlawful means of supporting themselves.
It's not ALL caused by one sale of a little weed, but it sure is encouraged by it.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Well said.
I hope your blog will help more to understand how these sales perpetuate the cycle.
Suburban drug life is so much different. It's usually individuals who get their weed from other individuals who grow it in their house. Dealing in my neighborhood is more of an entrepreneurial enterprise than a corporation.
We usually don't buy from the inner cities because the weed sucks.
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
This all fits in with my "buy locally" ethic.
Where do you get your prostitutes, though? A different issue, yes, but related (at least in my neighborhood). It will be the subject of another blog in the future--and THAT'S a good story!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
It's suburbia. We don't need prostitutes because of all the sluts.
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
You crack me up!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
If only I were kidding...
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
I completly understand how, yes, if there wern't people buying the drugs then they wouldn't be coming into your neighborhood but at the same time they did not put the drug dealer in your neighborhood. The drug dealer made the first move and of course people are going to follow. I would be more upset at the dealers and the gangs for turning your town into that kind of setting even if it was progressed by the buyers. Both the buyers and the sellers are at fault, not just the buyers. its a cycle.
That's why we call the cops on the dealers. We also give the license plate numbers of the buyers, but they are on the move and harder to catch. But according to the laws of supply and demand, if the demand goes away, the interest in producing and selling the product dries up. Eventually.
The whole situation is frustrating, but what is most frustrating is when people talk about how unsafe my neighborhood is, but still buy weed from neighborhoods like mine.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
The cops just move the drugs, they don't stop the dealing.
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
Your blogs are always so good! I don't know how you have time to keep up with this, your job, and your studies. You must be quite the time-manager.
I never even thought about the affects of illegal drug use that way (at least not so in depth). I don't think that most college students buying the weed are aware of the consequences of their actions, especially on campus when people tend to get it from a campus dealer and never have any part of the original transaction.
You bring a whole new perspective to illegal drugs. I wonder if legalizing marijuana would eliminate this aspect of the problem, but whether it would also create new problems as well. I'm no expert about the issue - not into that stuff myself - but I'd be interested to hear the argument for legalization framed by the poverty and gang problems associated with inner city dealing.
A^2
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/redwhitebluegreen
just move. weed is not going anywhere.
That doesn't help the situation.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
What an enlightening comment.
the house. In my city if you call a dealy that's called "CRIME STOPPERS" you get a reward AND they arrest them. You can look in your local phonebook for something similar to that. And, hey, if you get a reward, you're getting money. You can give your name and ask to be kept anonymous so they can give you your reward. You never know, some times the rewards are like 100 dollars and I don't know about you, but I could always use and extra hundred bucks.
There is a large section of the blog dedicated to the amount of time we spend calling 911. It's tough to catch a drug dealer, though. The cop has to see the goods or has to be undercover and involved in the transaction. We're going at it as a "problem property," but that is an incredibly long process, which I will someday document in a blog about Section 8 housing.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Summer is coming, though. I hope they won't start up again with the nicer weather. It would really help if their customers would stay on campus or in the suburbs and find a different recreational outlet. If no one is buying, the "business" closes, and my neighborhood remains the quiet enclave of low-income families it wants to be. Our parks stay free of condoms and drug debris. Our children are hit with fewer stray bullets. Our walls are not marked up by gangs. If you want to come enjoy the many ethnic markets and festivals we have here, please do! Those are legal and perfectly safe. If you are coming to my neighborhood to engage in a criminal activity, even if it's just a little weed, you have no right to be here, and no right to pass judgment on the street I call home.
Why are you hating on them? I mean you gotta' do what you gotta do to survive. Sure you can say, 'go get a real job'. But why should they? I mean the bulk of todays rappers--some kids idols--all sold drugs and slanged on the block. It's just the way it is. And if you don't like living in a gang neighborhood, then why don't you get a better job and move out? If you don't like the drugs, why don't you leave? Better yet, why not slang to get out of the hood. It seems like that's what your neighbors were trying to do. After not being able to get a job after maternity leave.
+mspin
Wow. This comment was really ignorant -- that's not what her blog was about at all. She wasn't "hating on them" for selling drugs, and she recognized that they were just trying to get by. But she was pointing out that it is the people who buy the drugs who are perpetuating the problem by allowing drug dealing to be a way to get by. Just because "it's the way it is" doesn't mean that it's right or that someone doesn't have the right to envision her neighborhood to be a safer, healthier community.
Also, by encouraging people to just leave when their neighborhood gets rough actually perpetuates the problem. Poverty and crime are cyclical - in the ghetto, people isolate themselves more as crime increases, therefore there is less community, poverty intensifies, crime rates increase, and all of the people who have the ability to support the community in a positive way continue to move away, leaving only the most impoverished and most desperate people.
She has all the right to try and think positively and act progressively to improve her community, instead of running away from the problems.
Again I ask - why do people find the need to defend the use and/or sale of illegal drugs?
because they believe people should be allowed to live freely.
“I hope the departure is joyful and I hope never to return.” - Frida Kahlo
Pubic hair is natural
Which is fine - if they are not encouraging others to do something that a) will end them in jail or b) will destroy their lives.
I have no problem with people petitioning, or maturely arguing for legalization. What I have a problem with is those who encourage others to destroy their lives.
encouraging people to "destroy their lives" is part of that freedom. Encouraging people is not forcing them.
“I hope the departure is joyful and I hope never to return.” - Frida Kahlo
Pubic hair is natural
"Which is fine - if they are not encouraging others to do something that a) will end them in jail"
I see nothing wrong with encouraging somebody to think for themselves and into making a decision for themselves based on the weighing up of the pros and cons of a particular drug, illegal or not, as the case may be.
The reason why some people, presumably a majority, can't understand that, is usually because they know very little about drug use and often have little to no first hand experience with the subject. They are usually blissfully unaware of their ignorance though, they believe that the fact that something is illegal or listed on a piece of anti-drug propaganda, that it is bad and that is all they believe they need to know.
They don't read into the subject from both sides of the equation like a skeptic, they just read from the side that already supports their existing and often foundationally lacking belief regarding a certain drug or more often their blanket attitude to all drugs. Such information is usually written by people who, much like their audience, are at a deficit when it comes to researching beyond rumour, urban myth, scandalous anomoly and statistical distortion. Not to mention that such anti-drug propaganda is usually rife with questionable research results which have a nasty habit of being proven false under scientific scrutiny after it's been peddled as fact.
These disproven chunks of misinformation will no doubt continue to be regurgitated into the future, disingenuously, although often just ignorantly, as fact, thus feeding the viscious cycle of misinformation (disinformation in many cases). Examples of this can be well illustrated to highlight this kind of thing if we look at the fact that claims were made for decades that Cannabis had no medicinal value by the anti-drug movement; Cannabis was said to induce phycopathic madness instantly which made people prone to murder and rape; 'Gateway' drug theory has been totally relegated by the scientific community, yet it is still touted by anti-druggers.
I would encourage people to make educated decisions for themselves regarding recreational drug use, rather than just conforming blindly to peer pressure; be that from ill-educated drug abusers or ill-educated anti-druggers. most drug users don't end up in jail for it, only the unlucky and stupid.
"b) will destroy their lives."
Such absolutism. First the absolute assumption that choosing to use recreational drugs will automatically land you in jail, now this whole 'destroyed life' guarantee. Most drug users don't actually end up with their lives destroyed by drug use, those people are in a minority, a very media friendly minority; if it bleeds it leads. You aren't likely to read any shocking headlines about the vast numbers of recreational drug users living perfectly content lives working as accountants, programmers, lawyers, or whatever; it doesn't play enough toward masaging the sensibilities of the ignorant masses.
Media just feeds the lowest common denominator what it wants so it'll sit it's collective ass down and soak up the advestising arranged around whatever self gratifying ignorance they are being fed. Truth is not a tasty dish to those raised on a diet of junk information by a media that is interested in ratings over education.
Billions of people embide alchohol, statistically very few go on to be alchoholics or subsequently go on to destroy their lives through alchohol use. Alchohol is considerably more addictive and potentially destructive than many illicit drugs as established scientifically in the eminent British medical jornal, The Lancet, last year.
Blind conformity is not to be applauded, which is what is exhibited by people who form opinions regarding the nature of a drug based upon whether or not it is illegal; legality in most cases is not based on science and fact, it is based on appeasing the whim of an ignorant voting majority. Any scientifically based drug law reform runs the risk of alienating a vast number of voters who've been fed lies for so long, they are convinced in their ignorance as a result of cynical politicians and media channels humouring their moral outrage for decades.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
I don't believe the drugs themselves destroy lives... especially not necessarily marijuana. Alcohol and tobacco and significantly worse statistically speaking in deaths as well as causing college drop-outs.
I only argue that you should not encourage others to immerse themselves in a negative culture; and you really can't say that those who enjoy "recreational drugs" are not going to become involved with the people who grow, transport, distribute, ect. the drugs. It is well known that these are dangerous things, per the nature of illegality they have to be, and it is in my opinion wrong to encourage young people to become involved in something that can get them killed or put in jail (destroy their lives).
I do, however, have no problem with someone intelligently arguing for the legality of drugs through mature routes such as blogging intelligently about the subject (and backing it up with facts), petitioning, talking about it with friends, ect. I just feel that it's not necessary to say, "Hey these drugs are great - you don't need to wait until they are legal" because it promotes something that's dangerous and foolish at this current juncture in American history.
I completely agree with you. The majority of people who argue against the use of marijuana have little "real" knowledge about the drug. They dont take the time to look up the facts. They are just blind sheep following the "anti-drug" parade. A prime example of this is the movie "Reefer Madness". It came out in the thirties and the basic storyline is that a few kids smoke marijuana and then become psychotic killers. The movie wasn't made to be a comedy. In fact, it was used to show high-school kids and their parents the "dangerous" effects of the drug. However, if you have ever seen this movie, you can uderstand just how ridiculous that is. The real comical part is that in the '70's the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws dug the movie up, and used to promote their message.
Again I ask - why do people defend the rights of illegal aliens?
Try finding a job with limited education experience in America you can't. You're not catching what I'm throwing. I'm saying they are just utilizing a means to survive. Just like anyone else. I agree drugs are "bad", I've blogged about it numerous times/ But hey when people are subjected to seeing idols that now are making millions of dollars, well, that's America for ya'. To say that my is 'ignorant' , is to be someone who lives well off. If you have ever lived in the ghetto you would know what I'm talking about. People need to eat. Infact, you're ignorant for calling me that.
So, I guess the only right question to ask is:
Where did you grow up?
PS.:
Which is fine - if they are not encouraging others to do something that a) will end them in jail or b) will destroy their lives.
I have no problem with people petitioning, or maturely arguing for legalization. What I have a problem with is those who encourage others to destroy their lives.
When did I say I am encouraging it??? Please tell me. I'm just making a rational acceptation. It's just a means of survival.
+mspin
Where you grew up does not limit your ability to get a job.
It is greed that causes people to deal drugs... not "survival."
I'm from New York... I know what drugs are all about. I've lived Upstate where they grow it, and I know all about being offered $5,000 to transport it to the city. I've also lived in Albany, where there is an abundance of this stuff. I also lived in NYC, and in Saint Louis. Yes, we know all about drugs and their effect on people here in NY.
My parents are first generation college students. My father grew up in Rutherford, NJ surrounded by drug dealers. My mother grew up on a dairy farm in upstate surrounded by weed growers. If they could work hard, and get out, then anyone can. And, *eh-hem*, my mother went to Cornell right out of high school, where you get almost no scholarships because it's Ivy League, so she actually did work her way through college. I grew up in a house they fixed up after buying it from a bunch of distributors, because that's all they could afford. Give me a fucking break.
Don't spout the bullshit that it isn't possible, because it damn well is, and anybody who says they can't do it is either lazy or hasn't been educated on the opportunities available to them. I'm here to educate you: the opportunities are endless, and the only thing limiting you from getting out is yourself.
Just because I can spell, have a good grasp of the English language, and I do not wear my hat backwards does not mean I have no knowledge of what "life is really like." You have no idea who I am; so don't make assumptions about me and I will not make them about you.
Don't spout the bullshit that it isn't possible, because it damn well is, and anybody who says they can't do it is either lazy or hasn't been educated on the opportunities available to them. I'm here to educate you: the opportunities are endless, and the only thing limiting you from getting out is yourself.
Just because I can spell, have a good grasp of the English language, and I do not wear my hat backwards does not mean I have no knowledge of what "life is really like." You have no idea who I am; so don't make assumptions about me and I will not make them about you.
There you go again. Missing my point. I'm not saying they can't do it. They're just in a position not to. Look at you spouting out swears left and right. You're so big and tough. It really enhances the debate :). If you actually try to understand what I'm saying instead of attacking me then maybe we would get somewhere....
Let me stress this again, I'm not saying THEY CAN'T DO IT. What I'm saying is it's not in their best interest to. I mean seriously why should they do all this extra work when they can just slang trees and make a living at it. That's their motivation. With your ivyleague parents, I guess you're blinded by it. I'm here to educate you: WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO CHOOSE A HARD ROAD TO MAKE THE SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY (maybe even less), WHEN THEY ARE PERFECTLY WELL OFF TO BEGIN WITH?
Why fix something that isn't broken.
Just because I can spell, have a good grasp of the English language, and I do not wear my hat backwards does not mean I have no knowledge of what "life is really like." You have no idea who I am; so don't make assumptions about me and I will not make them about you.
Nice personal attack. I didn't know I couldn't spell. You obviously are a perpetrator of your own slandering. Just because I don't have a pink unicorn as my avatar to hide my face behind a computer screen does not mean that you know what you're talking about. You say I have no idea who you are, and you wont make assumptions about you. Yet you just made a plethora of assumptions about me. Thanks for being hypocritical, the country needs more of them.
Perhaps you should read my blog entry about the depreciation of morals.
Have a great day riding your pink unicorn in your magic wonderland where there are no drugs :D,
+mspin
Clearly you have no problems spelling.
I see your point with the easy road. I think it's sad, but I see where you are getting at.
Which is why I think marijuana should be legalized, but not some other drugs. However, until that time, we should not be creating new buyers through encouraging young people, and perpetuating the cycle of more people who choose the "easy" illegal way to make money that is harmful, dangerous, and unhealthy.
Wow. This a a sad, yet touching story.
How do you know this about your neighbors besides all of the honking?
That the lady lost her job etc?
most of it's observed behavior, like the guns sticking out of the waistband of pants, and hearing the motivational sales speeches through the open windows. The job part was from talking to them.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Whoa. O.O
I must say, that is NOTHING like the drug dealing around here.
If, say, I wanted some weed, I could do a number of things. I could go ask my apartment-mates if they had any. I could go downstairs and ask the several dealers who live in the lower rooms. I could take a short walk to oh... about ten other dealers. There are probably over 100 dealers within a one-mile radius of me. If not far, far more.
Drug dealers here are just normal kids. They buy a large amount of weed and then they sell it and that's really... all there is to it. Most of thjem don't do or sell harder drugs. They don't care much about competition - if one of them is out and someone is looking for weed, he/she (though actually I only know one female dealer) will recommend a few other people. The dealers I know are all sweet, friendly, peaceful, and discreet people.
I'm sorry your neighborhood is suffering so badly because of your idiot dealers, but not all are like that.
It does not matter how sweet, well-intentioned, neighborly or discreet a drug dealer is. The reality with illegal substances is that there is no regulation as to their manufacture, supply or distribution. Even the kindest of growers did not purchase the seeds for their plant at the local garden store. My point is that no matter how harmless marijuana or the majority of people who deal it seem, somewhere up the line, a gun may have been drawn in front of a child in order to get them their supply. If this had been a post about crack, meth or heroin, there would be no discussion about "normal kids" versus "idiot dealers". I'm not passing judgment on the drug itself, but I am saying that the nature of circulating an illegal substance does not become less dangerous or harmful with the type of drug being circulated. The scenario described in the post above is the dirty reality of this trade.
Who ARE you? i like your comments, but I see no blogs. Ahem.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
I completley agree. Illegal drug dealing is just that, illegal and wrong no matter what the drug is.
This comment is a champion example of the encyclopaedic ignorance regarding drugs and drug-related crime endemic is such a vast proportion of the voting population. Which is in itself the root cause of the the bulk of the drug related violent crime in the US as it makes it impossible for intelligent and progressive politicians to make any ground in implimenting reason and science based drug law reform, without losing votes and possibly their career.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
"Even the kindest of growers did not purchase the seeds for their plant at the local garden store."
Well, actually they pretty much do in most cases, well maybe not local ones, but perfectly legitimate legal vendors of Cannabis seed operating in countries like Holland and Canada, whose revenue is taxed, as is the revenue of the agents who vend their seeds in countries like the US. That is if we are talking about 'the kindest growers'. Ingenuous growers who care about their weed strive to buy the best strains and seed stock they can; you do not get this from criminals and gang members, you get it from seed banks. Gangsters don't tend to make good botanists.
Ridiculous drug law in the US which makes seeds illegal, something unheard of in the rest of the West, actually creates a market for mass amounts of cheap and often low grade seed at an artificially inflated price to mass producers, who are often violent criminals who happen to grow weed, as opposed to supporting the fallacious belief that all illict weed production is automatically connected to violent drug related criminal organizations.
In fact legalisation of private cultivation is the ultimate source for a solution to the problem of violent drug cartels profitting from illicit Cannabis sales.
"a gun may have been drawn in front of a child in order to get them their supply."
You can say the same thing when you buy a can of Coke. Workers in a Coca Cola factory in South America were shot by the factory's administrators. This principal can be applied across the board; you never know what any large company has done to get their supply, whether it's reeking economic ruin on communities, to endorsing sweatshop labour, to poisoning the environment.
Yet we don't see enough material educating consumers about the shameful activities of the suppliers of some of our favourite brands. But we are inundated with this kind of emotional blackmail regarding illicit drugs, when in fact, it is actually the fault of those who support the war on drugs and who disseminate said emotional blackmail by way of propaganda, that "a gun may have been drawn in front of a child in order to get them their supply". A gun shouldn't have to be drawn in front of a child to facilitate the growth and distribution of Marijuana, we need scientifically determined drug laws, not laws based in puritanical unreason and fallacious "moral" concerns of an ignorant mass.
"The scenario described in the post above is the dirty reality of this trade."
No it's not, it's the dirty reality of a portion of the marijuana trade, a portion which could be remedied through legalization if people just embraced reason over blind dogma.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
^word.
Marijuana and shrooms are simply VERY different from drugs like crack and heroin. The manufacturing is different, the dealing is different, etc. And just because a neighborhood has drug dealers doesn't mean it can't also be an awesome place to live.
Your ability to spew rhetoric is astounding. Unfortunately, pointing fingers at large companies does not change the reality of illegal drug trade in America. Like I said, I am not passing judgment on the drug itself. If you put a petition in front of me asking to legalize and regulate marijuana in the US I would sign it 100 times. However, there are some of us who strive to be ethical in every aspect of our consumerism which, in this case, means fighting against the inevitable immoralities that stem from the trade of illegal substances.
"You never know what any large company has done to get their supply, whether it's reeking economic ruin on communities, to endorsing sweatshop labour, to poisoning the environment". In what way does this excuse drug dealers from creating these problems as well? Just because advocating soft substances feels like rebellion doesn't mean you're not making the same excuses CEOs of large corporations do when people question their ethics as well.
In your words: "A gun shouldn't have to be drawn in front of a child to facilitate the growth and distribution of [m]arijuana". You are absolutely right. But guess what? That is part of the reality of illegal drug trade in the United States. And until there are regulations in place, it will continue to be unethical to support the growth and distribution of these substances.
"That is part of the reality of illegal drug trade in the United States."
That is a part of the reality of a part of the illegal drug trade in the United States, as opposed to an inescapable part of the trade as a whole. Plenty of Marijuana is grown small scale by non-violent, otherwise law abiding citizens, who purchase their lighting and grow equipment from legitimate sources, and the same goes for their seed stock.
I do however understand what you are saying. But Cannabis users are not to blame, The perverted legal status of Cannabis in the US and those who maintain it are. Accusing users of supporting violent criminal enterprise through their purchase of Cannabis is emotional blackmail leveled at the user by the very people who are actually responsible for creating a legal environment which necessitates the purchase of weed as an illicit drug from an illicit source.
The powers that be, in their moral outrage, don't want to accept any reponsibility for the fact that their war on drugs is a costly failure and one that actually channels cash into the coffers of a violent criminal elite, aswell as into the hands of terrorist organisations. Like I heard a stand-up say one time: if you're concerned about my dope money going to violent criminals and terrorists, then just legalize it and my cash will go to healthcare and education.
Users are not to blame, legislators and an ignorant and regressive voting majority are, and I'm pissed off that they have the audacity to attempt to pass the buck.
"And until there are regulations in place, it will continue to be unethical to support the growth and distribution of these substances."
Not necessarily. There are other more ethical avenues open to people, chiefly, grow-your-own. Something which is becoming ever more popular. The other option is to buy from people you know who grow, or people who know people and so on. However, draconian laws regarding 'production', make such private growing even more risky than purchasing weed from violent criminals, further highlighting the idiocy of current Cannabis legislation. The morally outraged would rather that users revenue go to terrorists and drug cartels than into the pocket of a hobby grower with no violent tendancies or criminal enterprise stretching beyond illicit horticulture.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
I have to disagree... I don't think you realize it's not only about the violence.
Buyers who are supporting otherwise law-abiding citizens also contribute to other social flaws in the American system. For example, there are many families here in Upstate NY who are supported mainly through marijuana production and distribution. Are the figureheads violent? Not generally.
However, what happens when they get caught by the government, and end up in jail? I can tell you, it's not fun. So the buyers who encourage the producers to pursue an illegal trade, rather than a legitimate drug, ultimately contribute to the tearing apart of families. I have seen it.
I'm not saying that one should not lobby for the legalization of marijuana; all the statistics point to the fact that this is the right thing to do. What I am saying is that the statistics also say, and the reality of the situation is, that while the government is arresting people and the culture of drugs remains violent and/or uncertain, buyers are contributing to negative occurrences. Believing otherwise is foolish.
"So the buyers who encourage the producers to pursue an illegal trade, rather than a legitimate drug, ultimately contribute to the tearing apart of families. I have seen it."
The tearing apart of families by who exactly? Not one buyer or grower believes that it is acceptable to tear a family apart by throwing members in to prison because of weed. Those who support the War on Drugs do. They are merciless on the issue; zero tolerance. So please refrain from attempting to assign blame to people who are persecuted by unreasonable and unjustified laws.
Nobody should be going to jail for weed, unless they beat somebody to death with a pound of it or something. To expect people with the capacity for critical thought, a shred of dignity and even the vaguest interest in freedom to sit idley by, obeying laws which are maintained to sate the whim of the ignorant and authoritarian, is asking a bit much. We are not talking about naughty children in elementary school here, we are talking about adults, many of whom are perfectly intelligent and well educated.
If a law can not demonstrate itself to be reasonable and fails to demonstrate it's efficacy in contributing to the greater good, while actively demonstrating it's regressive effect on society through the subject of this blog entry or the families being torn apart, which you mentioned, then it is perfectly reasonable to ignore such a law. Yes, there are bullying consequences to such actions, but some people just won't allow themselves to be bullied into blind confomity, especially when such conformity defies reason. It is the ignorant and unreasonably authoritarian who turn law abiding citizens into criminals, but there is in fact no crime being committed beyond the invented and unjustified one invented and inflicted upon others by the morally retarded.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
... you are not reading what I'm writing.
I agree with you that these laws are stupid; but my point is while they exist here in the US they should be obeyed. I personally have seen the results of those who disobey the laws as a buyer or a seller. That's my point. Your spouting endless rhetoric does not change fact or the reality of the situation. In a perfect world, you would get your way. But the world is not perfect.
"I personally have seen the results of those who disobey the laws as a buyer or a seller."
And you think I haven't? Beyond personal experience, history is littered with people who chose to stand-up against tyranny and who were martyred for it. Maybe when the prisons are finally bursting at the seams with innocent people, the government will wake up and sort out some drug law reform. It's a shame that so many eggs will have to be broken to make that omlette, but obeying such unjust laws will only convince those responsible for maintaining them that they work.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
I do not condone disobeying laws when it creates violence or hurtful atmospheres.
Try again, only this time with more appropriate methods.
"I do not condone disobeying laws when it creates violence or hurtful atmospheres."
That may be so, but that really doesn't make any ends in the reality of the situation. I'm not suggesting that people go out and get themselves arrested deliberately, I'm suggesting that they should ignore the law. They are anyway, they doesn't need prompting.
The sad fact is that the only way that law reform will take place will be centred on the moment those responsible for prohibition wake up and realise they don't have the cash or resources to lock up everybody. Then maybe they'll get the message that the law is actually demented and that is not working for the good of society, but quite the opposite.
Unfortunately that will most likely be what it will take for the ignorant to even consider legalisation. It is not the fault of marijuana smokers that their habit causes so much social harm at the moment, such harm is the result of prohibition.
"Try again, only this time with more appropriate methods."
It's not a method asuch, it's simply what is going on at the moment. I am merely stating that I would encourage the continued disobeying of the law regarding cannabis, and a suggestion that legal obedience will advance the cause in some way is madness. Tackling it politically is well and good, but for it to be successful, they need to be able to provide evidence to demonstrate the failures of prohibition. Unfortunately, those who need to be shown evidence, need for it to be on a national disaster scale before they will admit that they screwed up. The will need to be presented as bulging prisons and an even more collosal bill for the War on Drugs, complimented by a list of figures for lost revenue through illicit drug dealing that is so economically intolerable, that they might consider some reform.
Let's not forget however, prohibitionists have been spreading a lot of lies about Cannabis for a very long time. They've been peddling those lies as fact too. There is a lot of outlandish propaganda, the effects of which will have to be reversed. It's a messy affair. Obeying the law is out of the question though, the law in question does not warrant any respect, it's beneath us in it's unreason.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
Plenty of them grow their own pot and get their seeds from friends. The nice thing about pot is that it's legal in many places and it's a PLANT. It's not that hard to get and it's not manufactured by people, it's manufactured by nature.
Also, the post was about drug dealers in a neighborhood, not about whether or not circulating an illegal substance is harmful. My point was, not all neighborhoods with drug dealers are like the one ediblewoman lives in, some are quite nice.
It does not matter how sweet, well-intentioned, neighborly or discreet a drug dealer is. The reality with illegal substances is that there is no regulation as to their manufacture, supply or distribution. Even the kindest of growers did not purchase the seeds for their plant at the local garden store. My point is that no matter how harmless marijuana or the majority of people who deal it seem, somewhere up the line, a gun may have been drawn in front of a child in order to get them their supply. If this had been a post about crack, meth or heroin, there would be no discussion about "normal kids" versus "idiot dealers". I'm not passing judgment on the drug itself, but I am saying that the nature of circulating an illegal substance does not become less dangerous or harmful with the type of drug being circulated. The scenario described in the post above is the dirty reality of this trade.
It's not a matter of, "how sweet, well-intentioned, neighborly or discreet a drug dealer it." It's a matter of survival. I ask you the same question I did earlier, "Where did you grow up?" If you ever lived in a ghetto you would know what it's like. I'm sick of people getting on their pedestal about how drugs are bad. I agree they're bad but hey, don't blame the dealer, blame the buyer. If it wasn't for the buyer, there would be no drug dealer. You don't go blaming cigarette companies for the smokers? You blame the people that smoke. Then you always bring up the children in the line of fire. That is a totally different topic. It's not the dealers fault, it's the parents. If they weren't drug addicts then maybe they would be safe from the ills of the world. Seriously... Maybe addicts shouldn't have children in the first place.
+mspin
I took flack for that too. And I did grow up in the ghetto. With drug dealers around. This is not a new phenomenon to me. I know many many people from the 'hood who have made a life for themselves, both inside and outside the ghetto, without selling illegal substances. Criminality is not the way out of poverty.
And it IS illegal. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is. So there's no excuse for buying or selling it.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
... If they can't find jobs then so be it. Let them deal. As long as rappers are peoples idols, drugs will still be an imminent part of society. What you fail to see is the fact that people see these idols making tons of money and what's the content of their music? Drugs. The problem is not the people on the street. It's America, and voting won't fix it. (See the electoral college)
+mspin
That is a subject for another blog, though. I like to focus my argument a little at a time. It is a multi-faceted problem, to be sure.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Okay.
So don't go condemning drug dealing then. You're glossing over the important points. That make up the problem. You have to see the full picture and its full effects.
+mspin
I can understand the motivation for an action and still condemn its illegality. I mean, I understand that most pedophiles were sexually abused as children and that their illegal acts are a compulsion, but that still doesn't make perpetrating okay. The circumstances don't excuse the crime in this case, either.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Pedophilia is a totally different blog entry. I'm not saying the actions of the dealers are okay but in this world of capitalism and free market it creates the motivation to make money. You're right drug dealing is wrong morally and for the population. But I'm not condemning the drug dealers because everyone has to eat, right? You can call them lazy but I don't see why they would switch occupations when they're doing fine already.
Why fix something that's not broken?
+mspin
Actually, most child molesters are NOT pedophiles. Only about 2-10% of them are. And most were NOT sexually abused, though physical/emotional abuse is common.
It was really just an analogy.
There may be other studies out there, but a 2005 study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that 60% of pedophiles self-reported sexual abuse as children. And I know (well, knew) a pedophile. It was true in his case, as well. And he reported that it was a compulsion. It still doesn't excuse his actions.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
The thing is, pedophile does not mean child abuser. It means an adult who's sexually/romantically attracted to children. The AMA journal was probably looking at "convicted pedophiles" aka convicted child molesters... and personally I would seriously doubt a child molester's self-report, he or she was probably just trying to garner sympathy.
It's true that self-reports are always a bit skewed, but the AMA designates child molesters as pedophiliac-type and non-pedophiliac-type.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
The problem we are discussing is much bigger than living in the ghetto, the trouble with immigrants, weed, or even gangs. I think the only way we are going to see solutions at this point is if it comes from the top down, as well as the bottom up. What I mean is, the system needs to change. In your blog, you said the daughter couldn't get her job back after her maternity leave - isn't that illegal under the Family Rights Act?? Women (and fathers, I believe) are entitled to a certain amount of leave from their jobs after having a baby without losing their job. The system failed them, and like what's-his-face-with-the-sideways-hat was saying, they needed to survive. They just made a quick-fix, bad choice on how to survive. Weed is illegal for a reason, but then, alcohol was illegal for a reason at one point, also. It's like saying, "Go bridge jumping, but not cliff jumping." ??? I realize how hard it is to find a job, especially if you rely on public transportation. It's a rough world out there. Living in the city doesn't mean there are job opportunities. It just means you live in the city. Anyway, my point is, the system is flawed, so in addition to the points made already about not failing your community by just leaving when it gets hard (a bottom-up solution), the local, state, and federal governments need to really start creating solutions to these problems that ultimately affect everyone, even them (top-down).
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kariskoett
My partner and I always ponder what will happen if they get thrown out of the house eventually. Yes, our street will be quieter and safer (and I won't feel bad about that), but they'll go somewhere, and they'll still have a crack-addicted grandmother and two toddlers, and they're likely going to keep selling. Moving the problem doesn't solve the problem, but I don't know what else to do.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
You're exactly right. It's the system. The system is capitalism and our government having a hidden agenda. Drug dealing is just another way to control the population.
+mspin
Dealers are facilitated by draconian prohibition laws. If you want college kids to stop buying drugs in your neighbourhood, then you should be encouraging people to get proactive in supporting drug-law reform. It will get you a lot closer to your goal than asking students to simply cease their purchase of drugs from your neighbourhood.
Not to be too much of a smart ass or anything, but your blog entry actually suggests to college student readers that going to rough areas to buy drugs isn't as dangerous as some believe; thus it could well serve the counter-productive purpose of encouraging some students to venture down to the dealers themselves rather than buying their drugs at inflated prices from those students who already do.
Legalization of soft drugs would vastly reduce whole cross-sections of illegal activity, especially in low-income areas, while providing tax revenue and huge reclamation of unnecessarily lost police work-hours and resources. Subsequently tax revenue from presently illicit soft-drugs could be put to use providing coping strategies and resources for dealing with serious hard drug use, violent crime and urban decay.
Those who fight to maintain the existing near to zero-tolerance strategies, and in some cases actual zero-tolerance policies, are the ones responsible for the infestation of low-income urban neighbourhoods with drug dealers and violent drug related crime; eg gangs. It's well established that the drug-war has facilitated all manner of terrorist and criminal organisation by creating the ultimate environment for multimonopolous and unregulated tax free enterprise. For people who unskilled and have little opportunity for decent formal education, making large amounts of tax free cash in exchange for comparitively little work, is a pretty tempting opportunity.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned something about the multimonopolous environment of the illicit drug trade above, and as mentioned in your blog when you mentioned the cartels, solo operation has it's limits. Hence, dealers will quickly affiliate with larger enterprises for connections and protection; this brings in the gang members to houses like the one you discuss in your blog entry.
The outlaw environment of the drug trade is propagated and sustained through the lack of scientific drug-law reform being instigated at present. In such an environment violent outlaw business practice dominates, like Wall Street if the assholes there just decided to bring guns to work, a cut-throat business man who would sell his own mother and who actually cuts throats is the product of this business enviroment. This makes violence and agression a necessity and unfortuantely a very effective tool to aid expansion. Which is what ultimately makes houses like the one you lament escalate from a mere nuisance, to a potentially lethal addition to the community as a result of the presence of firearms, violent outlaws and no doubt heavy drug use.
Wealthy college students may act like financiers to such organisations, but they are symptoms of the problem created by the War on Drugs, not the cause. As pointed out by another blogger: "weed is not going anywhere", which is correct and unfortunately with the way things are at the moment legally, the unnecesaary social prolems it generates through it's illegality is not going anywhere either.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
My intention in comparing weed and alcohol was to point out that weed should be legal, as it is less dangerous than alcohol, but because it isn't, everyone involved in its production or sale is engaged in an illegal activity.
I know it's pretty harmless, but it is still illegal. The fact that it is harmless and that people think it should be legal doesn't override the laws, however draconian they are. Encouraging people to use in spite of the laws in place does not lend credence to your position. Getting a medical or biochemistry degree and proving your points to someone who will listen does.
Another thing that makes people suspicious of your intentions is your photo. Do you also believe that spray painting another's property should be legal?
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
"Encouraging people to use in spite of the laws in place does not lend credence to your position. Getting a medical or biochemistry degree and proving your points to someone who will listen does."
To somebody who'll listen? Yeah, but unfortunately the only people who will listen are the enlightened and everybody knows that it's the ignorant who hold the voting clout. The British medical journal, The Lancet, presented an extensive study of drugs and their actual harm to the Bristish government. The intention of the scientific and medical teams involved was to encourage the government to adopt drug law reform based upon science as opposed to the existing un-scientific measure they employ. Their proposal was politely rejected.
These weren't some group of hippies and pill-heads, these were some of the British medical elite, and they were ignored because the government is more concerned with the opinion of the ignorant voting population than they are with the actual scientific facts of the matter.
So in light of such stubborn authoritarianism, and blatant disregard for the findings of those who could be deemed experts in the field, I couldn't give a rats as about actively encouraging illegal drug activity. If those who support prohibition won't listen to esteemed medical and scientific communities, what credence can the average user possibly glean by abstaining from breaking laws which are a direct, intrusive and unjustified attack on their personal freedom? The ill-informed prohibitionists will fight legalization all the way, if we were to refrain from smoking weed until it was legal, then we may never get to smoke again, and why? because some bunch of strangers can't mind their own business.
Strength in numbers, if enough people ignore cannabis laws, similiar to the way they did during alchohol prohibition, we will get it legalized faster. In the meantime, if criminal drug cartels get bigger, stronger and more deadly, that is the fault of the prohibitionist, not the user. The user would happily pick up his stash legally at the local green grocers if he was able, and many thousands of would-be growers would happily pay taxes on what they sell if they were allowed.
To be honest, at this point I'm pretty apathetic regarding the hopes of legalization being achieved in my lifetime. But I'll be damned if I'm going to allow some bunch of know-nothings dictate to me what I can and can't do if their laws defy reason. I've been made a criminal by idiots, I would have no self-respect left if I humoured them. I know there are plenty of people on this site who are fans of blindly conforming to the laws of the land regardless of whether they agree with them or not, but I was never a fan of being told what to do by stupid and regressive people.
"Another thing that makes people suspicious of your intentions is your photo."
It only makes a certain kind of people suspicious of my intentions.
"Do you also believe that spray painting another's property should be legal?"
That depends. I'm not a fan of people who deface perfectly sound buildings, in fact it saddens me when I see a nice stone building defaced by some mindless vandal, but if it's a skillfully executed piece of art placed on a derelict building, then yes I believe that it should be legal. I'd rather see the city dotted with murials painted by local street artists, than I would a city dotted with billboards and advertising material, anyday. In short i support genuine artistic endevour, I do not support mindless vandalism. Just because both artists and vandals both happen to have a penchant for spray paint, that doesn't make them one and the same.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
It was the ski mask that had me wondering.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
just think of it as my secular hajib.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
:)X
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
It still amazes me that there is such intelligent sounding defense for the legalization of marijuana. You are trying to make a valid case, and educated argument for making the buying, selling, and consuming of a drug legal. And I'll grant you, it sounds great. However... Don't we already have enough problems with alcohol and tobacco?? I'm not saying we can turn back and make those two things illegal, but we are seriously thinking of creating for our country another health issue, another reason for people to poor brain-cell-killing and lung-destroying elements into their body. Why? So you can have a good high?? I'm not ignorant, I know that there are good ways to trade the stuff, albeit illegal, and I'm not even saying I don't drink. But I've also seen what happens when people are high, or when people are drunk for that matter. The drug trade in my village (a small damp village in bush Alaska) - I actually have no idea where it comes from. People passing through, they probably get a bunch in Anchorage and Nome. It's too small of a community for that not to hit the high school kids, middle school kids, every kid. Parents are alcoholics and drug users. Literally - I've seen it. Kids miss school because they are taking care of their siblings, or they are up all night with drunk and high people in and out of their [tiny] houses. I could go on. It's a sick reality for these kids. I get that it's going to happen anyway, just like speeding happens anyway. But to legalize it?? I just think that's treading on dangerous ground. It's not just the trade aspect we need to look at here - it's the using. I just can't justify it. There is something wrong if the most enjoyment you get out of life is escaping from consciousness.
Anyway, in terms of trade, I agree - attacking the trade of marijuana (albeit illegal, and even though I entirely agree - and how can we fix the problems internationally if we cannot fix them at home?) needs to be countered with the sweat shops that Nike uses, along with most other large corporations. Buy only US made products, or make damn well sure it's fair trade - not that that's an easy endeavor. I'm still trying to figure that one out without, you know, emptying my bank account.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kariskoett
"Don't we already have enough problems with alcohol and tobacco??"
Yeah, and do you recall how much prohibition sorted that out? You are aware of the fact that alchohol prohibition actually added a heap of social problems upon the existing health issues alchohol already represented, without solving a single one of them.
People will grow, sell and consume Marijuana regardless of it's legal status, the evidence is everywhere. All the present laws facilitate is the creation of a needless class of criminal, many of whom commit no other crime, and the creation of a dream economic environment for organized crime cartels. Milton Friedman, former economic advisor to the Regan administration and a non-drug user, has openly condemned Cannabis laws as enonomically idiotic, but he actually stated that the moral bankruptcy of such laws actually repulsed him more than the economic short-comings.
If anything, the revenue gleaned from legalization, would actually go a long way to providing the resources needed to cope with health issues far more adequately than at present.
"another reason for people to poor brain-cell-killing and lung-destroying elements into their body. "
Actually, the Cannabinoids found in Marijuana, represent one of the few componds in nature that actually stimulates the generation of new neurons. Brain cell killing is merely the automatic assumption of people who treat all drugs as if the are identical.
Secondly, research has shown that the Cannabinoids found in Marijuana actually inhibit the growth of lung tumors by upto 60%. Just because something contains a higher level of carcinogens, that doesn't actually mean that those carcinogens are active upon the human system when they are accompanied by a host of other chemicals upon ingestion. Some chemicals will increase the activity of carcinogens upon human tissue, others will inhibit.
Researchers who watched the explosive growth in Marijuana smoking in the 60s were waiting to see a long term peak in lung cancer amongst pot-smokers. That peak never came, which is what prompted this much delayed research. Research which was delayed thanks to regressive, ignorant and self-serving attitudes to Cannabis. Attitudes which maintained, falsely and disengenuously, that Cannabis had no medicinal value, which represents a piece of deliberate disinformation which it's propagators hoped to sustain in the popular mind as fact through the stemming of all research on the matter.
There is a vast amount of scientific and medical research on Marijuana regarding it's benfits, which has been hindered and held back for decades by the moral authoritarianism of the ignorant and corupt. Even today, when they state in popular media that Marijuana has more carcinogens in it than tobacco, they fail to explain to the public, deliberately no doubt, how carcinogens work. There is a trend toward deliberate economy with the facts.
Another example can be found in a popular scare-headline that appeared again enmass a few months ago: Smoking Cannabis can raise your risk of experiencing psychosis by 60%. What they neglected to educate the reader about was the fact that the average chance of a human being experiencing psychosis is something like 2%. So that's an increase of 60% of 2%. Such articles also failed to adequately (or at all) explain what psycosis is and to educate the public on details regarding similiar legal substances or lifestyle choices and the likelihood of them inducing psychosis. Work related stress springs to mind, maybe we should ban working more than is absolutely necessary to maintain perfect mental health?
"But I've also seen what happens when people are high, or when people are drunk for that matter."
Let's not confuse things here. There is a difference between drinking alcohol and getting drunk. The same way there is a difference between enjoying marijuana and getting so stoned you can't even talk. I could land you into a room full of people who had smoked marijuana and if I administered them eye-drops, you wouldn't even know they'd smoked anything.
We humans are very visual creatures, our eyes are of particular communicative importance, hence we have very defined pupils and irises, something not found in our simian cousins. Blood shot eyes instigate an initial cognitive response from us that automatically assumes intoxication or ill-health. You'll find that when you remove red-eye from the average smoker, by that I don't mean the cartoon stoner most people think of as average, you will find people hard-pressed to identify the fact that they are stoned. I'ven been accused of being stoned and acting stoned, when in fact I wasn't, my eyes were just red from wind or because I'd just had a shower. When I use eye-drops while smoking, nobody even notices.
What you've seen behaviour-wise from drunk or high people is not a rule, it is merely the vocal exception. Just like the car-wreck on the highway, you are forgetting the many thousands of vehicles that passed that spot unhindered.
"it's the using. I just can't justify it."
Can you justify a citizen who has never broken the law, who works dilligently in his chosen profession and who loves and supports his family, being imprisoned alongside violent and agressive criminals, simply for using marijuana? Which do you think is more justifiable: the fact that a perfectly intelligent educated and otherwise law abiding adult citizen wants to smoke Cannabis at the end of a day's work, in the privacy of his own home, or the fact that that man can legally be imprisoned as a criminal, stripped of his family and job simply for smoking a few joints?
Does it not bother you that I could sit in the house nextdoor to yours with an array of high-power firearms and a host of personal issues regarding your family, and be considered legally unthreatening, yet if I have no guns, but a few grams of weed I am suddenly a big enough threat to be arrested? Since we're talking about justification here....
"There is something wrong if the most enjoyment you get out of life is escaping from consciousness."
This is what you don't understand: it's not simply about escaping from consciousness, it's about altering it. With many drugs, it's about expanding it. It comes down to the user. I work in the arts. I find that Cannabis expands my consciousness and encourages a more uninhibited train of thought, not the cessation of it. If some people seek oblivion from drugs, well, they'll achieve it with something whether it's legal or not; some people are just more prone to that kind of behaviour than others; they'll sniff paint thinner if every drug is eradicated tomorrow morning.
Some people will abuse cars, they will drive wrecklessly and will ruin lives through the consequences of their driving. We do not ban cars however. Nor do we accept that the sole purpose of the car is to drive wrecklessly; the car has many other uses.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
The difference between prohibition and marijuana being illegal is stark - alcohol had already been legal. So there really is no need to compare the two.
"There is a vast amount of scientific and medical research on Marijuana regarding it's benfits..."
Alright, so perhaps you can would like to be the one to tell my student users the health benefits of smoking? I'm trying to put all the pieces here together.
"Does it not bother you that I could sit in the house nextdoor to yours with an array of high-power firearms and a host of personal issues regarding your family, and be considered legally unthreatening, yet if I have no guns, but a few grams of weed I am suddenly a big enough threat to be arrested?"
Absolutely not. I am not judging all weed smokers, saying that all of them overdose - it would be like comparing my community to a standard suburbia; it just doesn't work. However, doing just that while knowing that it's illegal, especially if that smoker has a family, IS stupid. To risk all of that because it makes you feel better is stupid. Have a drink. There are health benefits to that, too. I also need a drink at the end of the day. But I know I won't be arrested for that. I understand what you are saying, and to an extent I even agree with you. However, it is still an illegal substance - there has be a better way to make it legal, without creating martyrs. Believe that it should be legal, fine. But honestly, it isn't a matter of whether or not I think you should be able to do it or not, whether or not I care if you do it or not. Do what you want to your body. I don't give a rat's ass. But if it's illegal, and you get caught, am I supposed to feel bad for you?? You made a choice knowing the consequences, you got caught, the end. Sorry??
Anyway, I think I am frightened of its legalization because I am seeing the abuse of it. I suppose people abuse alcohol, too, and that is a hard enough thing to end. It probably never will end. It is frustrating as a teacher in a community with so much substance abuse to validate the legalization of yet another harmful substance - something to keep my kids up all night, or away from school, or distracted from their education, or to keep them in this cycle of poverty and closed-ness. Their futures are already beginning to be set: using and drinking, abusing it, failure to graduate, they never leave the village, they are exactly the way their parents are, they raise their kids the same way, and their kids grow up with the same damn situation, and it begins all over again.
So you want to travel to communities and be a spokesperson about the abuse of substances and the health benefits of marijuana and alcohol? Be my guest. Go ahead - give them advice on the proper ways to drink and smoke. Do it. I'm sure they'd love to hear about it. But like you said, it's not like it's advertised. So can you really be so angry with people for being misinformed? Be angry with the system. Then do something about it. Anyway, I am still very wary of this whole legalization thing. I tend to take things with a grain of salt, so forgive me if I don't take all your words as absolute truth. I have a hard time making something legal that I've seen hurt so many people.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kariskoett
"alcohol had already been legal. So there really is no need to compare the two."
So you're telling me that you believe that Marijuana was illegal in the US since the inception of the United States? For the record Cannabis was only outlawed for the first time in the US in 1910, in Utah, by the Mormons of all people. The decision was not scientific in origin. So there is a very real need to compare the two, they have every relevance, both were collosal fuckups and one remains to this day, despite the available example of what prohibition resulted in with alcohol and how legalization was a far better route to take. Cannabis laws are rooted in dogmatic and unreasonable religious zeal, and anti-mexican sentiment.
"Alright, so perhaps you can would like to be the one to tell my student users the health benefits of smoking? I'm trying to put all the pieces here together."
I doubt very much that the students you are reffering to are smoking Cannabis for it's health benefits. They, like me, are probably more interested in it's recreational and cotemplative effects. If you are interested in the health benefits check these sites out:
http://www.medmjscience.org/
http://cannabis.net/health/index.html
http://www.wamm.org/medicinalbenefits.htm
"there has be a better way to make it legal, without creating martyrs."
We are dealing with the influenece of the religious right here, martyrs are all they understand. The law regarding Cannabis is a demonstrated failure, something which becomes all the more pronounced when people ignore the law. Abiding by it only strengthens the opinion of those responsible for sustaining the law that it is effective. Martyrs bring attention to the injustice of such laws, they bring home the harsh reality of the fallacious nature of them, proving that tearing a family apart does far more damage to that family and society as a whole than a father smoking a joint after work. Not to mention the fact that imprisoning innocent people does far more damage to those individuals and society than just allowing them use the freedopm their meant to have to smoke a joint if they want.
"But if it's illegal, and you get caught, am I supposed to feel bad for you??"
That depends on how much you bow to authoritarianism. Don't suppose you have much sympathy for Nelson Mandela then? He broke the law knowingly, do you reckon he got what was coming to him, end of? Do you wreckon he was stupid? You might consider this an extreme analogy, but freedom is freedom and injustice is injustice. I am not trying to equate his struggle with that of the average pot-smoker, but I am drawing attention to the fact that people break the law and take a stand for things they believe in, that is what brings about change, not sitting about obeying.
"I tend to take things with a grain of salt, so forgive me if I don't take all your words as absolute truth."
Please don't. I actively encourage people to verify my words themselves, cross check anything anybody tells you, question everything. I'm confident in my message, it's the prohibitionists who need to worry about their foundation of lies. Read what they have to say, then read what the anti-prohibitionists have to say and draw your own conclusion. If everybody did that before picking their corner, I'd be happy as.
"I have a hard time making something legal that I've seen hurt so many people."
You don't think that the imprisonng of otherwise law abiding citizens for smoking pot causes hurt? If someone has an alcohol addiction, do you think the best place to send them is prison, or rehab?
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
"I doubt very much that the students you are reffering to are smoking Cannabis for it's health benefits. They, like me, are probably more interested in it's recreational and cotemplative effects."
Exactly. You've just admitted it. There may be health benefits to weed, but it's difficult to use that as an argument when you yourself aren't even using that as a reason to smoke. And anyway, regardless of the health benefits, you can always have too much of a good thing. You can overdose on Vitamin A, or any vitamin or mineral for that matter. So until marijuana, Cannabis, or whatever other name there is for it becomes a part of the nutrition chart, something that is necessary for our body to function, I still don't see a need for it. I'll stick to my social drinking, which doesn't promote the buying and selling of anything illegal or even suggests something gang related, and it won't cause me to lose my job. Maybe I do bow to authority to some extent. To some extent. But there is a difference, a huge, uncomparable difference between Nelson Mandela or Alice Paul or even Rosa Parks and you. You want the right to smoke weed. Mandela wanted the right to equal treatment for his people, etc. Honestly, I think we are spending so much energy talking about drug use. Where is the big discussion about education and how we are failing our future? Where is the argument and the passion for slave labor and human trafficing? I don't smoke weed because I don't need to, just like I don't own a microwave because I don't need one. Why add extra complications to life? I have a hard enough time juggling 7 different classes and 62 high school students for 2 different content areas. Weed won't make me feel better - it will empty my bank account and cost me valuable time. I'd rather spend my time and money on things that promote the future of humanity, such as education and social justice and modeling simple living.
I think I am tired of this conversation now. I know you'll have something to say back, but I don't relaly care. I'm going home.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kariskoett
Agreed. And well-said.
I do not smoke for the same reasons. Also because I am not a sheep who bows to peer pressure, like what I am seeing in the comments of this blog. Rebel and smoke weed! - Give me a break.
You made me laugh out loud. :)
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kariskoett
I would just like to point out that some people DO smoke for the health benefits. I, for instance, smoke marijuana NOT because it makes me "high" (it doesn't really - I tend to be more focused, more awake, happier, and more productive. The best paper I wrote this year, the paper that got me into a prestigious college program usually reserved for much older people, was written entirely while I smoked marijuana), but because I suffer from several ailments it helps me with. Namely, stomach problems (no appetite and nausea), that so far doctors and anti-nausea pills have failed to help, and sleeping problems (primarly nightmare disorder resulting from PTSD) that so far medication and counseling has not been able to help. I'm working on getting a perscription for it (I haven't so far because getting the perscription can be expensive, and it can be cheaper and more convinient to get it illegally). I also know numerous people (mostly college students, and a few adults, including a really smart sociology professor) who smoke pot because they feel it helps them in their life - either with a physical or mental ailment, or to relax and unwind after a hard day, or to simulate their appetite if they are ill due to stress, or to feel more creative and motivated towards writing a paper.
Yes, there are many people who smoke pot "just to get high", but there are also many who smoke it because it actually helps them in their life.
"Exactly. You've just admitted it. There may be health benefits to weed, but it's difficult to use that as an argument when you yourself aren't even using that as a reason to smoke."
Only if you're interested in ad hominem stabs during a debate. That's like saying somebody can't argue about the health benefits of eating a high-fibre diet if they don't infact eat one themselves. Come on now.
I am ingenuous enough to highlight the fact that i smoke weed because I like the psychotropic effects, that in no way invalidates me in regard to arguing it's health benefits. If anything it is a nod to my honesty which overshadows your shameful and surrepticious attempt at an ad hominem attack on me as the source of the argument, as opposed to dealing with the argument itself. Are you going to tell me that the fact that I smoke weed recreationally also invalidates me from cataloguing the advantages of hemp in industry too?
"So until marijuana, Cannabis, or whatever other name there is for it becomes a part of the nutrition chart, something that is necessary for our body to function, I still don't see a need for it."
There are many things that don't appear on 'the nutrition chart', are you suggesting we ban all of those too?
"I'll stick to my social drinking, which doesn't promote the buying and selling of anything illegal or even suggests something gang related, and it won't cause me to lose my job."
Stick to a highly addictive drug, both psychologically and chemically, which is responsible for more anti-social and agressive behaviour than all of the other illicit drugs combined, bravo. That's not to delve too deeply into the plethora of illnesses, both physical and mental alcohol is responsible for, or number of medications alcohol contraindicts with. You can experience fatal overdose with alcohol, you cannot with THC. For the record, when alcohol was prohibited people were forced to buy it of gangs and criminals too, and could well have led to them losing their job.
That is precisely the position prohibitionists who consume alcohol place cannabis users today. It's selfish and hypocritical. That fact that people have no problem with a teacher of young kids indulging in a an potentially addictive and destructive drug like alcohol, but would not tolerate a teacher who occasionally smoked cannabis, speaks volumes about the level of unreason still saturating the majority.
"But there is a difference, a huge, uncomparable difference between Nelson Mandela or Alice Paul or even Rosa Parks and you. You want the right to smoke weed. Mandela wanted the right to equal treatment for his people, etc."
The only reason you claim they are incomparable is because you doen't want to face up to the similarities in the basic mechanics of the comparison. It's about justice. You may not think so, because you have obviously not thought about the issue deeply enough from all sides of the equation. It is a huge miscarrigae of justice that thousands of innocent people are locked up in prison for the non-crime of taking a plant and smoking it. Why is that so hard for you to see the same principle with Madela being locked up in prison for the non-crimes he committed?
You don't smoke, so you don't care. Just like many white people in South Africa weren't Black, so they didn't care. As far as both of your groups were concerned the law made sense and anybody who defied it deserved what they got.
"Where is the big discussion about education and how we are failing our future?"
Maybe we could kick it off by pointing the finger at teachers who advise their children to bow down to authority at all costs, tell them to question nothing, reassuring them that if it's not on an official government sanctioned chart, then it is wrong.
"I don't smoke weed because I don't need to, just like I don't own a microwave because I don't need one. "
I don't take morphine, because I don't need to, just like I don't consume Cannabis for it's health benefits, because I don't need to. But Cancer patients and other sufferers of chronic, terminal and painful illnesses do. The fact that me and people like me smoke weed to get high, should be insignificant. And it would be insignificant, if any amount of reason or logic was being applied to drug law reform.
You act as if the legalization issue begins and ends with people getting high, you stated youself that you felt it unworthy of lengthy discussion. From the social problems generated from it's illegal status, to the economic ones, the medicinal concerns and the abuse of the legal system to enforce unjustified laws that ruin innocent lives. This is a big issue that stretches beyond whether or not you like the idea of people getting stoned.
"Weed won't make me feel better - it will empty my bank account and cost me valuable time."
Selfish, selfish, selfish. Not the kind of attitude i thought a teacher would endorse. Not a second spared for anybody's needs or rights but you own. That's the problem with a vast swathe of society today, it is devoid of empathy.
Legalization doesn't mean that you or anybody else has to smoke Marijuana. It simply means that you have the right, as an adult, to choose to do so without being made a criminal and running the risk of being imprisoned. So your bank account will be safe from the grip of whatever uncontrollable spend thrift you think you might go on. You didn't even stop to think that with legality comes your right to grow your own, making your cannabis free and far from financially crippling.
"I'd rather spend my time and money on things that promote the future of humanity, such as education and social justice and modeling simple living."
Future of humanity, education and social justice; are you trying to make me laugh? Do the people you extend you interest in social justice to have to be suitabley ethnic, exotic, or agreeable to your sensibilities before they matter? Because you don't seem to hold much interest in social justice for the whole of society, only those whose plight piques your selective sympathy. As far as education, put you money where your mouth is: at least educate yourself at sites like these before you take such a solid stance on a subject.
www.drugpolicy.org
www.druglibrary.org
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR200708...
If your not interested in taking the time to study what those who disagree with prohibition have to say, then don't bother pretending you care about the downfall of educational standards. If teachers can't be bothered to read both sides of the argument ingenuously, then how and what are they going to teach children?
"I don't relaly care"
And that's what's wrong with education.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
I think we are largely misunderstanding each other. That's the unfortunate thing about blogs.
Talk about personal attacks - holy cow. Now you've insulted me as a teacher, while you have not spent one day inside of my classroom. But whatever. I'm not entirely as ignorant as you would like to think that I am. Cancer patients who benefit from weed, the health benefits, I get it. And I hear what you are saying. I understand the injustices of it all. Honestly. (And talk about lectures... I thought I was long-winded...) But please don't accuse me of being selfish because I would rather spend my money on school supplies and groceries rather than marijuana, and my time fundraising with my students and going to community events rather than smoking. And don't assume that I'm not aware of the risks and fallbacks of alcohol. And don't assume what I teach and don't teach to my students. You have no idea what you are talking about in that respect. And so, it is fair, I can understand, for you to see how I might have no idea what I'm talking about. I will concede to the fact that you are more educated in the study of marijuana. But don't assume that you know what I am sympathetic about and about which social justices I am more inclined towards. Your passion is drug law reform. Mine is education reform. In this, I will consent to end my conversation about what you know more about, though respectfully, it will take a while before I, if ever, entirely change my mind on the subject, which I'm sure you can understand. Likewise, I would appreciate your refraining from accusing the education which I spend 95 hours plus a week attempting to rectify. I don't spare a second for anyone else's needs? I apologize for not making the time to protest drug law reform... I must have been busy listening to students who gets zero support from home because their parents drink and smoke all night. What a waste of time. Don't assume I don't know what alcohol does to people, and that it isn't on my mind every day of my life. Selective sympathy? I think that's an over-generalization. But anyway. I am hearing you. Really - I am. I'm still not able to put you and Alice Paul in the same vision of mind, however - sorry. Maybe one day this will not be so big of a deal.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kariskoett
"But please don't accuse me of being selfish"
I only called you selfish, because you stated that you had no interest in Marijuana, therefore you didn't care about whether or not it got legalized. Which amounts to the same thing as me saying I couldn't care less if women's rights are revoked, I'm not a woman.
"And don't assume what I teach and don't teach to my students."
I was speculating, not assuming. You seem to be a fan of blind obedience and I've already spent 12 years of my life struggling against the assembly line conformity favoured by a host of teachers in the schools I attended. I had to wait until university
before I could finally find educators who were actually interested in students who thought for themselves, and who were interested in encouraging skeptical thought. Do you tell your kids to question everything? If you do, then education has some hope.
"I will concede to the fact that you are more educated in the study of marijuana."
That's more than anybody I have argued with who is anti-marijuana has ever done before. So in light of that, a logical deduction might be that I actually have some valid points regarding the pros of legalization. I have weighed up alot of information in reaching my stance. I was not always pro legalisation, I actually used to think it was just something stoners wanted so they could get high. I secretly believed that it would do more harm than good.
Then I educated myself on the issue. What I discovered is that many people who are pro-legalization, are pro for reasons that are just as shallow as those of people who are anti. What I also discovered though, is that those who are genuinely learned about the issue, have far greater, more righteous and reasonable reasons for demanding legalization. The rank and file idiot who smokes marijuana is just that: an idiot. They would be idiots whether they smoked marijuana or not. The same way plenty of idiots are anti-marijuana.Iit's not the lack or presence of marijuana in their lives that dictates their idiocy, it's usually genetic or educational in origin.
A major difference between intelligent people who are pro or anti-legalisation lies in knowledge of the subject. Anti-legalization candidates generally tend to be at a defecit informationally. It's not that they are stupid, it's just that often their freedom of thought is constricted by allegiance to religious or political organisations that encourage them to think as a unit, not an individual.
They don't expose themselves to both sides of the argument ingenuously, they approach it with an extreme bias: ie: I'm a Conservative, the party line is generally anti-legalization, therefore I must be anti-legalisation, therefore I will ignore any argument to the contrary. They often demonstrate an unblinking faith in things, whether it's the metaphysical nuances of a religion or the benevolance of authority. They tend to be believers, not skeptics. There is a difference between believing that prohibition is a good idea and knowing it is. The facts highlight that the greater a person's knowledge of them, the only reasonable conclusion for them to draw is that law reform is needed. Anything else defies reason.
"But don't assume that you know what I am sympathetic about and about which social justices I am more inclined towards."
I apologize. I have a lot of teacher friends. They nearly all share the same sympathies toward exotic causes; child soldiers, starving children in India, injustices in Asia or Africa etc. But they don't seem too concerned about less media friendly and less exciting concerns closer to home. I always recall an incident where a Somalian friend of ours was telling us about how he was caught in Kenya with a bag of weed and how the cops mercilessly beat him, before they locked him up, where he suffered serious abuse for an extended period, in a prison that he described in hellish terms. The three teachers who were with us were all teary eyed by the end of it. But I guarantee if I had told them the exact same story about a guy from their neighbourhood, they would have had no sympathy. They would have adopted the 'he's just a stoner. He broke the law, what did he expect' attitude.
"it will take a while before I, if ever, entirely change my mind on the subject, which I'm sure you can understand."
You seem to me to be a lot more reasonable than I had given you credit for. If you read from the sites I listed to you, without prejudice, I believe it will be a very short amount of time before you reconsider your stance. If you allow intelligent people to present you the facts and their argument, instead of the more idiotic elements of the pro-legalization movement, you will find for yourself that legalization makes sense. All I would ask is that you hear both sides before you make your mind up. Anti-legalization advocates never suggest that you read the othersides' literature, I would encourage you to read both sides and cross reference them. I am confident in the validity of my position, I don't want to simply convince you, I want you to educate yourself on the matter and decide, in a balanced fashion, for yourself.
"Don't assume I don't know what alcohol does to people"
I was actually banking on you being more than aware of what it does to people. That way, you can realise that you deem yourself, as do the majority of people who drink alcohol, responsible enough to enjoy a social drink, without getting roaring drunk or descending into alcoholism. You as an adult enjoy the use, as opposed to abuse, of a highly addictive and destructive drug, responsibly. Yet many responsible consumers of alchohol find it impossible to imagine that Marijuana could be used in a responsible fashion by the majority of users.
Most responsible alcohol users would lose their mind altogether if I told them that I believed them too irresponsible to drink alcohol and made it illegal for them to do so. They would be outraged if I told them that they were alcoholics, as I'm sure you would be in I accused you of such a thing, when all you enjoy is the occasional sociable drink. Yet that is precisely what the entire Marijuana using community faces as a constant; being accused of having severe drug problems, when most of us are responsible users. To add insult to injury, we are also made criminals by the law of the land. Are you a criminal alcoholic simply because you enjoy a social drink? Would you think it just if tomorrow morning a bill passed that said you were, and took your job away from you?
"I'm still not able to put you and Alice Paul in the same vision of mind, however - sorry."
Maybe not me, but what about Marvin Chavez who was sentenced to 6 years in prison for posting marijuana to a cancer patient. He got stung by two undercover cops posing as cancer patients who pleaded with him to supply them. Does the injustice not bother you?
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
The main reason why kids get distracted from their education is because in most cases it does not bring them what they need. Education has become more of a lecture in which one is being thought how stay in line with authority within this crazy hypocritical world that has been created around their lives.
Youngsters are far from dumb but they should be receiving an education that reflects “real” reality, instead they are being pushed and educated in a way they have to give up the little personal freedom they enjoy because older generations messed things up BIG TIME!
Older generations are trying to hide what they have become and created, making them to believe even their own lies, instead of opening discussion around their experiences they rather try to cover up realities, shamelessly acting like if nothing was.
Education is not a job that juggles it’s way around one’s banc account, it’s a devotion that should involve a passionate desire to transfer valuable information upon those in line to take YOUR place, education allows to create platforms of benefit, without pupils having to go trough the full experience and struggle while acquiring knowledge.
For now, we are far from social justice because some individuals want everyone to step inside that BOX they have created to do, see, feel, act, desire, eat, smoke, drink, sex, talk, behave and dream like Mr. Right in the sky!
To promote the future of humanity, is to promote but your own and leave freedom of choice, to be the future you stand for!
Other than that, enjoy and mind the GAP!
"The main reason why kids get distracted from their education is because in most cases it does not bring them what they need."
Spot on. I'd like to add, that even in cases where they are being brought what they need, it is brought to them in such an uninspired fashion, that it alienates them from the joy of education. Teaching should be one of the most highly paid professions in my opinion, because low wages allow big business to poach some of the brightest minds teaching should have been blessed with. It is an undervalued profession, the undervalue of which represents an undeniable pointer as to what is wrong with the world. If the entire world poured it's resources into education, instead of weapons, we might wake up and realise that we wouldn't need so many weapons if everybody was properly educated.
As for the rest of the comment, it's one of the best I've read in a long time.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
I learn and learn a lot reading input on this platform, your input make’s stillness to enter together with the last sentence of what you brought inside, Bull’s eye, over and over again.
"Instead of weapons"
To bring change upon view’s and realities instantly within the moment, amazing!
Thank you,
Wow, there is a lot of hatred in these comments. Wow.
I wanted to write and say how dissapointed I was because of this post. You inspired me a lot with your post about your nanny charge. But, this did not, not because I don't agree. I do, in fact, hate drug use. It's bad and should NOT happen. But, then again, I think people should be able to do what they want as long as it doesn't really hurt other people. Anyway, what offended me was the colelge student bit. I mean, lots of other people do drugs. College students are definitely NOT the only people who do drugs, in fact, recreational drug use is not as common as you think. At lest not everywhere. There are plenty of college students who choose to follow the law.
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. ~Voltaire
Did you ever hear anyone say, "That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?" ~Joseph Henry Jackson
LizzieD
(Not that she's not totally capable...)
But I think she never meant to suggest that only college students are perpetuating the problem here, but that many of the people in her neighborhood that she has observed are college students. And because that particular group of people are supposed to be heading towards our workforce, and what we like to call "the real world," should they not then be held to a higher standard? If the only people that are called on for using are adults who have already gone through the system, educated or not-educated, then we have waited too long. We need to stop the problem at the root. Although college students are not the root, they are a huge chunk of buyers. If all college students stepped up to the plate and met those higher standards we should be expecting from them and stopped buying marijuana, there would be a significant deficit in demand. She isn't attacking college students, anyway - it was just an example. Read between the lines... try to focus on the bigger picture here...
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kariskoett
That was exactly what I was saying. College students are the audience I have here. The average buyer walking down my street to make the exchange does not usually have internet access, except at the library, and is unlikely to be reading this post. I'm guessing the drivers of the VW's do.
When I was a volunteer coordinator of a mentorship program that worked in this neighborhood, college students would routinely complain about it being an unsafe place to go to pick up their buddy. Part of my point is that a college student's purchase of weed is a contributing factor to that perception.
I was not saying that only college students buy drugs, or that all college students buy drugs, but what does everyone say about their experience with marijuana? "Oh yeah, I used to smoke, back in college." So I couched my argument in that literary conceit.
I don't think I said anything hateful, either. Considering there have been many acts of violence, theft, prostitution, and mugging related to that family and that house, I think I was pretty gracious in my recounting of their situation.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
By the way, are you sure the dealers next store are in fact dealing pot... and if they are, that selling pot is their main thing? With that many people coming by, rich people in particular, it sounds like there's something more - since the grandmother is addicted to crack, I'd assume it's coke or crack.
Nearly every single person I know on campus uses marijuana at least on occasion, and that includes the professors (including professors who are amazingly brilliantly smart and focused). Offhand I know at least ten people who deal pot. I'd estimate that about 70%-90% of the people who smoke on campus have sold pot at least once and know at least three dealers. So I know a lot of dealers personally. And they aren't involved in major crime, gangs, trafficking, etc. They're normal college kids. Several of them grow pot in their homes and sell it (or they buy it from a friend who grows it in their home). They get the seeds either from Europe (legally or semi-legally) or from someone else who's growing. Some of them have friends who go to Europe and buy it and smuggle it back - no trafficking, they just hide it.
I don't deny that there's a lot of shit with drug dealing but I really doubt marijuana's a big part of it...
"If the only people that are called on for using are adults who have already gone through the system, educated or not-educated, then we have waited too long. We need to stop the problem at the root."
I finished top of my year in my chosen subjects right through college, and it amuses me that so many people who I went to college with, who failed to achive my level of productivity, dedication or success, insisted on condescending me about a subject they, in fact, knew very little about: namely my drug use and the drugs involved.
I find it remarkable that people with demonstatively little experience with drugs or even the various drug subcultures, seem to think that they are authorities on the subject.
I've debated with countless condescending anti-druggers and you kow what, they don't exactly inspire confidence in their views through their limited frame of reference or competency when it comes to backing up their views and opinions with anything beyond disingenuous twisting of statistics. I've listened to plenty make grand statements about what I should and shouldn't be doing according to their whim, yet when challenged on such statements, there is usually a marked defecit in the understanding of the issue and a notable tendency to spout out-dated anti-drug propaganda from the 1950s and debunked urban myths peppered with shock anomaly and sweeping generalisation.
"Read between the lines... try to focus on the bigger picture here..."
Good advice: maybe you should visit
www.erowid.org
www.drugsense.org
www.drugpolicy.org
Since this kind of information isn't even to be found between the lines of most mainstream literature. These sites offer the side of the argument that the drug users you seem to think need help are aware of. We are not stupid, many of us know something you don't.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
"Wow, there is a lot of hatred in these comments. Wow."
"I do, in fact, hate drug use."
Hmm....Irony anybody?
"It's bad and should NOT happen."
I am assuming that these are the words of a child, because if these are even the words of a teenager, then i need to weep for the level of intellectual depth evident in such a gob-smackingly simplistic and breath-takingly sweeping statement. Granted the next bit you typed redeems such foolishness somewhat, since you freely admit that your personal opinion should not be inflicted upon others as law. But still, wow.
"There are plenty of college students who choose to follow the law."
I can't believe that you seemingly salute students who choose to conform blindly to authority, yet, you then overlook the glaring irony of such a sentiment when juxtaposed with this lofty quote you have tagged to your response:
"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. ~Voltaire"
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
Some laws exist for a reason.
There is nothing wrong with following the law for the greater good of society. Anarchy clearly doesn't work; people are too stupid to adhere to personal responsibility.
"There is nothing wrong with following the law for the greater good of society."
Therein lies the issue: Cannabis laws are demonstratively not for the good of society. They are merely there to appease the sensibilities of an ignorant and prejudice voting population. Prohibition has done far more harm to society and generated far greater social problems than any it has solved, if it has indeed solved any.
So I agree with you assertion, but there is plenty wrong with following a law that is unjustified and not serving the greater good of society. Blindly conforming to something, simply because it is 'the law' is not to be applauded. Many laws have been changed because they have proven to be detrimental to society and it's progression out of barbarism, precisely through the fact that people faught those laws, fought for reform; as opposed to shrugging their shoulders and bowing to master. The problem with democracy is that, when the majority is ignorant, it makes it difficult to enact enlightened reform on backward and counter-productive legislation.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™