Thrasher
Wheeee!
Yep. I just think a lot of laws that protect people from their own stupid behavior or someone else's ideas of immoral behavior (but hurt noone directly but themselves) should be removed from the books and the people freed.
Yep. I just think a lot of laws that protect people from their own stupid behavior or someone else's ideas of immoral behavior (but hurt noone directly but themselves) should be removed from the books and the people freed.
many of the inmates are there just for possession
The current drug laws were started by Nixon in his paranoia about his own protection of power, and had little to do with protecting people.
Here's the timeline, which starts with the 1880's Opium War.The drug policy of the United States is currently well represented by the declaration of a War on Drugs by President Richard Nixon in June 1971. The "war" has been continued by every one of his successors to date. Indeed, drug policy has changed little in this time. President Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1973 to focus the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act (passed by congress in 1971).
Once-Secret "Nixon Tapes" Show Why the U.S. Outlawed Pot
By Kevin Zeese, AlterNet. Posted March 21, 2002.
Lumping marijuana, homosexuality, Jews and Commies into one grand conspiracy, a paranoid Richard Nixon launched America's "war on pot" 30 years ago. Here are the tapes to prove it.
Nixon's private comments about marijuana showed he was the epitome of misinformation and prejudice. He believed marijuana led to hard drugs, despite the evidence to the contrary. He saw marijuana as tied to "radical demonstrators." He believed that "the Jews," especially "Jewish psychiatrists" were behind advocacy for legalization, asking advisor Bob Haldeman, "What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?" He made a bizarre distinction between marijuana and alcohol, saying people use marijuana "to get high" while "a person drinks to have fun."
He also saw marijuana as part of the culture war that was destroying the United States, and claimed that Communists were using it as a weapon. "Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general," Nixon fumed. "These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they're trying to destroy us." His approach drug education was just as simplistic: "Enforce the law. You've got to scare them."
Unfortunately, Nixon did more than just "scare them," whoever they were. His marijuana war rhetoric led to a dramatic increase in arrests. One year after his "all out war" comments, marijuana arrests jumped to 420,700 a year -- a full 128,000 more than the year before. Since then, nearly 15 million people have been arrested for marijuana offenses.
For thirty years, the United States has taken the path of Nixon's prejudice and ignored the experts. We now have the largest prison population in world history
It's a commonly held idea that Nixon was paranoid about drugs, after digestion of the tapes. In particular, cosolidation and strengthening of the Federal role. Prior to this the enforcement and penalities were weaker. The "progress" made during this era has been argued to be the strongest cause of prison overcrowding.
Check out this article:
http://www.alternet.org/story/12666/?page=entire
So Nixon's politicking is to be condemned, but is everyone else's excusable? Any president or congress could have moved to overturn them at any time. They haven't. At some point it doesn't it become the fault of those who run the government? It's pretty easy to blame someone forty years ago, but if they don't do anything to intervene or change said policy, they're just as much to blame - along with the majority of the population who supports these drug laws.It's politically intractable to back off on the drug laws. Since Nixon ramped it up more than anyone else, he was responsible more than anyone else for the current situation.