Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

[Sapiens]

Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana
http://www.nj.com/hudsoncountynow/in...riminaliz.html

Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana
by Associated Press
Tuesday March 25, 2008, 1:18 PM

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. - who grew up in Bayonne - is making national news after suggesting on a talk show last week that marijuana possession shouldn't be a federal crime.

Frank told the Associated Press that he plans to file a bill this week that would decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, saying the federal law unfairly targets those using medical marijuana in California.

Ok FRED , here comes one of the first steps against the war on drugs... US is broke, can't keep locking up pretty druggies.

[Jeff]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

It is widely believed that marijuana is the largest cash crop in California, that state being no slouch in agriculture. Legalize it, tax it and let the non-violent ones imprisoned for it out.

Like you can't score pot within a half hour of arrival anywhere in the country, or world for that matter.

[FRED]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana
http://www.nj.com/hudsoncountynow/in...riminaliz.html



Ok FRED , here comes one of the first steps against the war on drugs... US is broke, can't keep locking up pretty druggies.

We've forecast that decriminalization of many drugs will be one of the political changes that will occur as part of the depression process. Frank is leading the charge. He's also retiring from office.

[tree]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

Well, yes, and we also have a presidential candidate who freely admits he used. None of this "but I didn't inhale" bunk.

Marijuana must be decriminalized, freely sold and taxed.
Many of those in prison for it must be let go.

At the same time, we need realistic drug education, so people learn to use responsibly -- including and perhaps foremost alcohol and tobacco, which take the greatest tolls on health care budgets, not to mention family happiness.

But this is an old story.

As someone who discovered, during chemo, that marijuana is medicine -- and has smoked little since -- I hope I live long enough to see its decriminalization.

For a scholarly approach to this issue, visit www.ccrmg.org. If you haven't filed your taxes yet, a darn good charitable contribution can be made here, I think.

[Rajiv]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

I don't think this will happen just as yet -- too much money is being made on this for it to die -- the banks are busy laundering and people up and down the chain are making money - still!

see Why The "War On Drugs" Is A Scam For Prison Profiteers And The DEA -- starts out in Dutch -- but the video is in English (1 hour 32 min)

About this video:

The DEA basically has a license ... all to print its own money. It has nothing to do with 'fear' either. No, this was ENTIRELY the work of Ronald Reagan. He thought it would be a GREAT idea if gov't law enforcement agencies became "self-financing" - that is, they took the proceeds of their arrests and poured them back into the agency. Along with this, he gave them BROAD latitude to basically violate the Bill of Rights at will, and the courts backed him, citing the "special threat" the War on Drugs posed to the US.

So what happened was that police and the feds were arresting EVERYONE, and sorting out guilt or innocence later - AFTER their houses and cars had been sold, of course. Guilty until proven... less guilty.

These agencies have since become a government unto themselves. Any attempt to dismantle the "incentive" system has and will continue to be crushed.

As for the drugs - besides making a nice side business for any agent who wanted to take a cut of the action, the DEA and the CIA have at times been wholesale PARTNERS in drug trafficking. What better way to fund off-the books "black" projects, or finance a retirement account? This is also a verified fact, most notably regarding the Detroit crack explosion of the 1980's

[tree]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

Reagan, you say? A reliable source in L.A. once told me about being at a party where a mischievous Alfred Bloomingdale turned on a I-am-curious-green Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

[Rajiv]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

Which is why I say - as long as money is being made nothing will happen -- see also "The Chronicle on Boverton Beaver's Bakery"

The bakery employs ex-cons and teaches them the skills needed to get a job: sweeping up, slicing bread, stoking the coal oven, running a cash register, and waiting on tables in the bakery's cafe. The artisanal breads are sold to wealthy friends of the funder. The loaves come with a picture on the wrapper of an ex-con smiling ingratiatingly and holding out a loaf of white bread in his black hand. The MBA is going over what she is calling "the balanced scorecard," showing how many ex-cons get jobs, what the bakery costs, what it earns, how much profit is makes, how much money it saves in social services. She is working her way towards the line called, "Total Net Social Return on Investment," some staggeringly large number, supported by 200 pages of spreadsheets and several metaphors. The cash on cash bottom-line shows that Boverton's Foundation is making 8% ("a Program Related Investment" as the MBA explains.) The Mayor who is active promoting "three strikes and you are out" legislation, and who owns a significant interest in the local for-profit prison business is next on the agenda, to give an award to his friend, and political funder, Boverton Beaver, for service to the community.

An ungainly Stranger, in a white leisure suit, neck open to the waist, bell-bottoms swinging, rises from the back of the room to say, "You know, my Fellow Friends of Philanthropy, I notice that all the ex-cons with brooms and other signs of servitude are black or brown. Talking to a few it was mostly crack that put them behind bars, and petty crimes. Yet, I notice that you, Boverton Beaver, have a daughter in rehab. I am glad for her that her needs are met, and crimes, if any mitigated. And you, Mayor, wasn't your wife at that clinic in the Hamptons? Boverton, what is the double bottom line on those land-mines you manufactured, that now litter Afghanistan? How do you net money and mayhem? And those sweat-heart deals with your cronies in DC? What was the Social Return on that? Has anyone asked whether giving these penny-ante felons a crappy job after 20 years in the slammer, is tantamount to justice? Maybe we got the right bars and the wrong gaolers? Maybe we trade sides, Boverton, and you and our Mayor push those brooms? And the ex-cons make money, 8% cash on cash, on your back and they call it philanthropy?"

[World Traveler]

Showtime Documentary, "American Drug War"

There was a documentary (2 hours!) last night on Showtime, "American Drug War", on this very subject. I was amazed at some of the topics it covered on a fairly mainstream media source geared to the average American (the ones who can afford premium channels).

What REALLY amazed me was that it covered some of the things that brave souls like Catherine Austin Fitts and others in the alternative media have been pointing out for years.

Like the vast expansion of the American prison complex over the last 30 years, how approx 1/2 (1 million) of those prisoners are in there for non-violent drug crimes, many for simply being "users". How the for-profit prison industry has been a growth industry that feeds off the Drug War, that needs a pipeline of prisoners to prosper, and how they use those prisoners to make even more money by locating industry within the prisons and paying the prisioners practically nothing. There is a powerful constituency out there that needs the Drug War to prosper.

Then documentary got REALLY interesting. It covered Gary Webb's book "Dark Alliance", how some "operations" elements within the CIA and their Nicaraguan allies (the Iran-Contra affair) set up a vast pipeline to Los Angeles gangs in the early-mid '80's, selling them cocaine to help finance the Contras in Nicaragua. (Substatiated fact - there's a lot of documentation, court records, etc. that prove this).

Documentary also points out that the Taliban had pretty much eradicated most poppy growing in Afghanistan, but now 5 years after U.S. invasion, Afghanistan supplies 80% of the world's heroin. Who's growing and controlling it? War lords that are allied to the current U.S.-backed regime of Kazari, including the brother of President Kazari, who is one of the biggest drug kingpins there, per the documentary.

Why does U.S. officialdom look the other way in Afghanistan? in Iran-Contra? in Bolivia "cocaine country" in the early '80's? in Turkey today, the port of entry for a lot of Europe's heroin?

THAT is the $64,000 dollar question that the documentary attempts to address. That and a scond question, who's making all the money in the drug trade?

1. Foreign governments and their officials who are allies of the U.S. get a lot less scrutiny, U.S. does not see what it doesn't want to see
2. The big money is made at the top of the drug trade, and it's rare for them to go to jail, because they can buy friends in officialdom and other high places. A very small number of kingpins (Colombia, Mexico) go to jail, it gets a lot of publicity, but how many others got away? And why are illegal drugs still so cheap and available, after their incarceration?

Finally, documentary traced the history of how marijuana came to be classified as a "level 1" drug in the U.S. , same as dangerous hard-core drugs like cocaine and heroin. Documentary proposes that it doesn't belong there, it is an herbal drug long used in indigenous cultures and has no long term side effects or addiction issues.

Well worth seeing.

[Rajiv]

Re: Showtime Documentary, "American Drug War"

See also this post

Very instructive reading (all of it is worth reading)

[tree]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

One of the nation's most prestigious business magazines once asked me to write a story on how entrepreneurs could best make use of prison labor. I didn't know what to do -- I wanted the fee, but the story bothered me. I consulted a friend, another writer, who said: "I wouldn't touch that story with someone else's fingers." I turned down the story. The editor accused me of trying to hold them up for more money. No, I said, that wasn't the problem (even though the fee was small). Never got another call from that publication. :cool:

[GRG55]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

As an outsider (non-national, non-resident of USA), reading the stuff on this thread is actually quite depressing.

Makes some of the kleptocracies in the Arabian Gulf look like good social models for running a country...

[DemonD]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

Cannabis is estimated to be the #1 cash crop in the US. I've heard somewhere it's well over 20b/year.
warning: pdf.
From Marijuana Production in the United States

Marijuana is the largest cash crop in the United States, more valuable than corn and wheat
combined. Using conservative price estimates domestic marijuana production has a value of
$35.8 billion. The domestic marijuana crop consists of 56.4 million marijuana plants cultivated
outdoors worth $31.7 billion and 11.7 million plants cultivated indoors worth $4.1 billion.

Table 7. Top Cash Crops in the United States (Average Value 2003 – 2005)
Rank
Crop
Average
Production
Value ($1000s)
1 Marijuana $35,803,591
2 Corn $23,299,601
3 Soybeans $17,612,200
4 Hay $12,236,638
5 Vegetables $11,080,733
6 Wheat $7,450,907
7 Cotton-All $5,314,870
8 Grapes $2,876,547
9 Apples $1,787,532
10 Rice $1,706,665
11 Oranges $1,583,009
12 Tobacco $1,466,633
13 Sugarbeets $1,158,078
14 Sugarcane $942,176
15 Sorghum $840,923
16 Cottonseed $821,655
17 Peanuts $819,617
18 Barley $653,095
19 Peaches $474,745
20 Beans $467,236

[flintlock]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

Sure its a major cash crop now, but legalize pot and the cash value would go down . Its only that high due to the fact its illegal. Still a good idea in my opinion. But I seriously doubt we'll see it any time soon. Too much resistance from the people who derive power from it being illegal.

[Rajiv]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

You may also want to read CAF's letter to NY Times

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Thank you for Tim Egan’s article on prisons. It was an excellent summary of the growth in the US prison population over the last two decades. A welcome follow up might be an exploration on how the money works on prisons.

The federal government has promoted mandatory sentences and taken other steps that will increase the overall prison population to approximately 3 million Americans as recently legislated policies finish working their way through the sentencing system. This means that approximately 10-15 million Americans will be under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system from arrest, to indictment, to trial, to prison, to probation and parole.

The enactment of legislation ensuring the growth of prisons and prison populations has been a bipartisan effort. Republicans and Democrats alike appear to have found one area where we can build consensus for substantialgrowth in government budgets, staffing levels and media attention. Indeed, during this period, the number of federal agencies with police powers has grown to over 50, approximately 10% of the American enforcement bureaucracy. This is further encouraged by federal laws permitting confiscation of assets such as homes, cars, bank accounts, cash, businesses and personal property that can be used to fund federal, state and local enforcement budgets.

One way to look at the financial issues involved is to view them from the vantage point of the portfolio strategists of the large mutual funds. We have approximately 250-280 million people in America. The question from a portfolio strategist standpoint is what productive value will each one be creating in companies and communities and how does that translate into flow of funds that then translate into equity values and bond risk.

The prison companies are marketing one vision of America with their prison and prisoner growth rates, while the consumer companies are marketing another. The two are not compatible. CCA’s assumptions regarding the growth in arrests and incarceration can not be true if Fannie Mae’s, Freddie Mac’s and Sallie Mae’s assumptions about homeownership and college education rates are. We, the people, cannot refinance our mortgages or buy homes or raise our children and send them to college if we are in jail. Meantime, the municipal debt market is also facing conflicting positions. If prison bonds are a good investment, then some general obligation bonds may in trouble. We, the taxpayers, can not support the debt: we are no longer taxpayers. We have become prisoners. Whatever we are generating in prison labor, it is certainly not enough to pay for the $154,000 per prisoner per year costs indicated for the full system by the General Accounting Office.
.
.
.
(contd.)

[dbarberic]

Re: Barney Frank: Let's decriminalize marijuana

We've forecast that decriminalization of many drugs will be one of the political changes that will occur as part of the depression process. Frank is leading the charge. He's also retiring from office.

I don't remember iTulip making these forecasts... can you point me to the source?