Friday, May 14, 2010

Cultural Warfare and Marijuana


Have you ever noticed that there is one segment of society that habitually tries to manipulate and control the others? Our money-first culture has taught people that control equates to dollars, and so control they must.

Whether it be churches, politicians, or buerocrats, there is never a shortage of people looking to use whatever power they have to create wealth. These people always use morals as a pulpit to spread misunderstanding, hate, and divisiveness--they are concerned with one thing, and whether it comes in a collection plate or a campaign contribution, they will do just about anything to get it.

Drug prohibition is officially a $1 trillion dollar industry in the United States. Think about that: one trillion dollars spent on the drug war, with little to no effect on the market at large (in fact by most counts drug use is on the rise to this day, sizures are up, but so is availability).

Many of our prisons are now privatized, and they trade their stock based on the amount of people they incarcerate--if that's not incentive to arrest marijuana users and keep marijuana illegal, I don't know what is. We've built an entire infra-structure based on targeting marijuana smokers in particular, incarcerating them, destroying their lives, stripping society of that individual's value, and splitting their family. Many of these people are among the most productive citizens we have--99% of the art and music you enjoy was most likely created by people who smoke marijuana or at least did at some point in their life--if pot is so bad, stop enjoying all the things it has inspired in this world.

Humans have been using marijuana for over 8,000 years now--it's only been prohibited for about 90-- I think that is an astoundingly clear demonstration that marijuana does not disrupt or destroy societies.

And that's really the problem: People who serve money don't like to be reminded that there are others out there with separate priorities from that--priorities like fun, fellowship, stewardship, art. And so they set out in any way they can to destroy this other segment of society. Marijuana is the biggest casualty of this concept in the 20th and now 21st century.

The very reason it was outlawed to begin with here in America was highly based on racism and misinformation--turns out white people weren't interested in having Latino immigrants in their communities in the early 20th century--Latinos brought with them their culture, and also marijuana smoking, when they arrived in America. In order to stop this "cultural invasion" marijuana prohibition was created and used as a tool to arrest these men. It was demonized and criminalized-- then the self serving elements of our society literally had to find a way to subvert the constitution of the United States to outlaw it, which has permanently altered the rights of all free people in this world.

In the 1960's prohibition of marijuana was again used as a tool to combat a perceived cultural invasion. When government discovered that there was a link between people against the Vietnam war and marijuana smoking, prohibition became the strongest tool they could find to incarcerate, separate, and conquer those who had priorities other than warfare and money.

And today we see it again here in Colorado. Law Enforcement who are protecting their prohibition funding are dead set on treating medical marijuana patients like criminals. Paranoid freaks like Chris Romer were happy to oblige them in getting their piece of this pie (no telling how much his pockets were lined and by whom, I suspect it was big name California Dispenaries and hateful conservative greed heads here in Colorado greasing his palm). What we ended up with was a bill that is another in a long line of attempts to subvert a region's Constitution (and thus the wishes of the people) by greedy shit heads who intend to make money off probhibition and control.

I am appalled by some of the statements these people make: Chris Romer openly touts that his bill is designed to kill legitimate businesses--if a politician made statements like that about banks (who are robbed at 10 times the rate of dispensaries here in Colorado) I can guarantee you the greed heads would have a barbecue using his vital organs as the main dish. This double standard for medical marijuana businesses, who are sanctioned by the state constitution, is ridiculous. Tobacco plants are grown across this country by the millions, and in plain view, despite the millions of lives they take from our society each year. How's that for consistent values and Freedom?

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