Drug War Facts

 

  • Police and DEA have conducted more than 50,000 American home invasions in search of illegal substances.
  • 1.8 million, mostly non-violent individuals face arrest each year - almost 80% for simple possession.
  • The percentage of Americans addicted to heroin from 1917 through 2008 remains constant at 1.3%.
  • Over the last hundred years, Americans have surrendered most of their inalienable rights to the Federal Government. Law enforcement has escalated its role from a guardian into a guard.

·                    The Treasury Department's phony marijuana license and tax scam has clogged our courts and jails with pot smokers for close to 100 years.

·                    The new American Gulag – cost 69 billion tax dollars per year.

·                    Warrantless home invasions are gross violations of the Constitution and provide exciting, profitable and addicting experiences for narcotics agents.

·                    Under today’s marijuana laws, our founding fathers would be found guilty of the manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance – hemp.

·                    The drug war is nothing more than a battle over whose drug is the best. Nixon liked to rail against pot smokers as he puffed on cigars and drank martinis with his friends.

·                    Drug addiction is often genetically determined.

·                    Tobacco, alcohol, weed, mushrooms, peyote, LSD, prescription medicines and party pills are all gateway drugs.

·                    Prohibitionist policies punish everyone for the bad choices of a few. It persecutes both the innocent and the guilty and claims to save society by creating an environment of fear, corruption and violence.

·                    America is no longer the land of freedom and privacy; it belongs to the DEA, which is immune from prosecution.

·                    The growing popularity of mind-altering, pleasure-inducing drugs is a reaction to stress and boredom. Many youngsters who experiment with marijuana do so out of curiosity and to gain acceptance within their peer group.

·                     Richard Milhous Nixon was an intolerant fundamentalist Christian who presented himself as a diplomat in public, but privately exhibited a paranoid, crude, and narcissistic personality.

·                    The vindictive racist, Harry J. Anslinger, who ran the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), used his bogus Marijuana Tax Act to imprison millions of non-violent Mexicans, African Americans and jazz musicians. The reason: Harry hated jazz, Mexicans, and "darkies." 

·                    The Federal Government is and always will be in the drug business.

·                    Congress should not pass unenforceable laws that create victimless crimes.

·                    Two million Americans in prison and five million on probation makes America the largest prison nation in the world

·                    The marijuana tax act is the most destructive law ever passed by Congress. The damage done by this non licensed 1% nuisance tax on the cannabis plant is far greater than that done by alcohol prohibition, which lasted a mere 13 years and required the approval of 36 out of 48 states to become a Constitutional Amendment. The prohibition against cannabis has persisted for 70 years and required nothing more than the coerced vote of a small group of ignorant lawmakers who thought they had created a tax license for farmers to grow industrial hemp.

·                    Of all our plants, cannabis has the most to offer humanity.

·                    Those who support the drug war should not smoke or drink.

·                    Those who work for the DEA should abstain from all drugs

·                    Save our trees - grow hemp

·                    Reduce crime by fifty percent- end prohibition

·                    The Government worries that ending cannabis prohibition sends a wrong message to children. But liquor and tobacco laws have successfully discouraged use among children without turning their parents into criminals.

·                    Throughout America's history, virtually all of our presidents and lawmakers have forged our nation's policies under the influence of dangerous, addictive, mind-altering drugs.

·                    You cannot get rid of human desire to seek pleasure and reduce stress by passing a law against it.

·                    A small percentage of people in every generation will destroy themselves on drugs regardless of the law.

·                    For some people, the freedom to make poor choices is an inalienable right, for others, it is a crime.

·                    The most difficult task for a human being is to grant to others the same freedom you would expect for yourself.

·                    A drug-free America is not possible, even with the surrender of all civil liberties.

·                    Zero tolerance by the government is the end of personal privacy and choice.

·                    A speech by a politician that contradicts privately held belief – is both hypocritical and expected.

·                    When it comes to pot smokers, Congress and the Supreme Court do not turn to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; instead, they look to their own political interests.

·                    Moderate enjoyment of recreational drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis by adults is not a crime. The crime is in the prohibition of these substances.

·                    To re-legalize a substance means to allow the states set up guidelines for its production and distribution - the states being "the laboratories of democracy."

·                    A good law is the will of the people. A bad law is the will of the Government against the people. The benefits of a good law must outweigh the damage done by its enforcement.

·                    Top officials in the Drug Enforcement Administration have made it clear they will resist every attempt by American farmers to resume 300 years of hemp production – instead, we must pay to import it from Canada.

·                    56% of Federal prisoners and 80% of State prisoners are victims of the Nixon/Anslinger drug policy that uses public money and the resources of law enforcement to arrest people they despise.

·                    Teenagers find it easy to become involved in illicit drugs because the drugs are untaxed, unlicensed, unregulated, and do not require an ID to buy or sell.

·                    Persecution by the DEA frightens many doctors out of pain management, which leaves their desperate patients to fend for themselves on the illicit market.

·                    The DEA intercepts one percent of narcotics diverted from manufacturers and retailers.

·                    Based on risk to the user, heroin, alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, marijuana and caffeine in that order, are dangerous. Tragically, the DEA equates marijuana with heroin, which sends a message to teenagers that heroin is no more dangerous than marijuana.

·                    The DEA's policy of zero tolerance includes sick and dying patients who have doctor's prescriptions and the support of state initiatives to use cannabis.  The raids prove that Federal Treasury agents, not doctors, control medicine and decide who gets what drug and how much.

·                    Unless people educate themselves, the next century of Federal drug policy is … more of the same.

·                    Under present Federal guidelines, my body doesn't belong to me; it belongs to the DEA.

·                    One hundred thousand people die from "legal" drug overdoses per year; yet no one dies from pure, smoked cannabis.

·                    Congress spends sixty nine billion per year on drug interdiction.

·                    Prohibition occurs when a government abandons control of a substance and then arrests those who manufacture it themselves. Legalization removes the substance from the unregulated market and returns it to government control.

·                    Marijuana fits perfectly into the alcohol model of licensed regulation.

·                    Smoking marijuana in the privacy of one's own home is not a crime

·                    Habitual pot smoking is not a healthy lifestyle.

·                    Politicians have no choice but to lie about marijuana; telling the truth is political suicide.

The drug war is an example of manufactured consent. Campaign slogans such as "A Drug Free America," "Zero Tolerance," "Soft on Drugs" and "Tough on Crime" implies that the person you vote for is going to “fix the problem”. Voters believe each new candidate who promises to “get the job done” will succeed. As the government continues to run media slogans and escalate arrests, the war costs more money and ruins more lives with no end in sight.

 

 

James Wiley

May 2009

Updated May 2011