that's the latest stats available. It's probably higher than that. Meanwhile, according to the CDC, over 23,000 died due to alcohol use in the last year stats were available.
The number of people who have died of marijuana abuse, on the other hand, still stands at an astoundingly huge number: zero. You'd have to smoke your weight in marijuana in the course of an hour to OD on THC, and even Willie Nelson has never managed that.
Yet oxycontin and alcohol are legal (albeit regulated), while marijuana is completely illegal under Federal law. So, uhm... WHY?
-- Badtux the Baffled Penguin
I lean towards the theory posted here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.globalhemp.com/2001/01/hemp-history.html
That hemp products were a threat to the oil and timber industries, so: outlaw hemp but make it look as if what you're really outlawing is that evil weed marijuana. And this 'obscure the true motivation with scary lies' tactic has worked so well for politicians and big business, so often, it's really not too much of a jump to believe the same thing happened here.
And now, of course, even if the original reasoning is lost, the government and big business has so much invested in the enforcement of drug laws they just really don't want to give it all up. The shiny offices, the big budgets, the private prisons that need a constant flow of livestock, oops, I mean prisoners, to make them profitable.
On a more cynical note: marijuana (or marihuana, as the Feds like to spell it) is promoted and used by the DFH crowd, which does not support the Establishment. Seagrams, Pfizer, and the rest of their ilk DO support the status quo.
ReplyDeleteBig business = good; little guy = bad.
SSDD.
Money, it's all about the money. Yea they could tax and regulate pot but too many little people still can grow their own. The profit angle for big business is just wrong, that is why it's still outlawed.
ReplyDeletew3ski
money and addiction the DEA is addicted to marijuana so is law enforcement in general the war on drugs is highly profitable to the corrupt assholes who run this country it is the perfect storm a war that never ends and bottomless pockets from which they can extract endless lucre. This issue is small potatoes when compared to the other problems this country faces yet it speaks volumes to the real reason this country is so fucked up. Our inability to ever do the right thing is the paramount issue Fuck Nancy Reagan and her Just Say No campaign thirty plus years and counting this war is simply a gift that keeps on giving and one a warmongering nation like the U.S. will forever embrace Fuck the DEA.
ReplyDeleteDude -- while I agree with what you say (I think, inasmuch as I can comprehend the sentence structure) would it hurt to use some punctuation and capital letters and shit? Becauserunonsentencesandjumbledverbiageareasincomprehensibleasthis
Delete1) BigPharma lobbyists (weed will grow anywhere)
ReplyDelete2) Law Enforcement Union lobbyists (incl prison guards)
3) Bank lobbyists (laundering illegal profits)
4) $ in private prisons
We know this shit, I dont need to go on, I know the question was rhetorical.