The American Constitution - Second Amendment....

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Azred: This is the 21st century; there are no more "oppressed people" within the confines of the United States, with the possible exceptions of the elderly, veterans, and the homeless.

Don't forget the pot smokers. 10 million+ jailed since 1965, if that ain't oppression, I dunno what is.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Chewbacca: quote: Originally posted by Azred: This is the 21st century; there are no more "oppressed people" within the confines of the United States, with the possible exceptions of the elderly, veterans, and the homeless.

Don't forget the pot smokers. 10 million+ jailed since 1965, if that ain't oppression, I dunno what is. [/QUOTE]My wife prosecutes misdemeanors, and I gotta tell you in this city your sentence is "TCS" or "Time Considered Served," which means the night you spent in jail is the only sentence you get. Not even community service or probation. Plus, expungement is easy to get.

Of course, the only ones who have this problems are those idiots who won't
JUST.... QUIT.... SMOKING..... IN THE.... PARK.

How hard is that?? [img]graemlins/bonghit.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/doh.gif[/img]

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Sir Taliesin: You all need to close this topic and start another one, cause this thread has nothing to do with the topic that was posted.

Why? I started both threads, and I took this one off topic. Part of the initial attraction of the blue board for me was the way human conversation flowed in and out of topics. I've never been a fan of "seperate threads for seperate topics". Let it flow. If this thread gets closed I'd be extremeley upset.

Anyhow, this very discussion takes the thread OT.

I have to wonder Chewie just how many pot smokers are actually serving time in jail...who aren't there for concurrent more serious offenses...like distribution or or sale or possession of some other form of proscribed chemicals.

In an effort to become a pure PITA I thought I would post this:

Amendment II.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,

the right of the people

to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.


Mysticelt gave me a pocket sized book of the Declaration of Independance and the Constitution and the amendments. [img]smile.gif[/img] It is some times necessary to reexamine the exact phraseology and punctuation used by the founders [img]smile.gif[/img]
I find the use of capital letters kind of curious....they seem to have put them in some odd places.

[Chewbacca]

Hey MagiK-

The NORML website is chocked full of arrest data, Here is a news commentary piece with figures included. I put some interesting figures in bold:

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4363October 22, 2001 - Washington, DC, USA

Police arrested an estimated 734,498 persons for marijuana violations in 2000, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The total is the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprises just under half of all drug arrests in the United States. "Today's war on drugs is really little more than a war on marijuana smokers," charges NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St Pierre. "Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers approximately $10 billion per year. This is a tremendous waste of national and state criminal justice resources, which should be focused on combating serious and violent crime, including terrorism." Of those charged with marijuana violations, almost 88 percent - some 646,042 Americans - were charged with possession only. The remaining 88,456 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses - even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeds the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Since 1990, nearly 5.9 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, a greater number than the entire populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming combined. "It's time we stopped arresting adults who use marijuana responsibly," says St. Pierre. For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of The NORML Foundation at (202) 483-8751.

I won't even go into how the international influence of American Drug policy over the last 30+ years is clearly evidence of an "Empires" influence on the smaller nations amongst it.

If it weren't for the U.S. Drug War, the rest of the world probably wouldn't have gone down the liberty denying path of prohibition.

Arrest figures yes...but I missed reference to jail times in there.....Ill try scanning it closer tongiht.

[Azred]

Chewbacca, since marijuana is still illegal in many places, I don't consider a pot smoker to be an "oppressed person", simply a criminal (as defined by the law). Whether or not smoking marijuana is or is not proper or should be legal would, of course, be a great topic for a differnt thread....

You know...no one forces anyone to check those boxes in the "ethnic origin" section of those forms. Or you could always just lie on them...I have. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

[Yorick]

I was talking with my brother about this tonight.

There is no way any "ally" of the Empire of America could change their drug policy. Huge recriminations would result. Wasn't Noriega, the soveriegn leader of an independent nation, arrested, in his own nation, while sitting in power?? Because of drugs?

It's my belief that all drugs. hard and soft, should be made 100% legal. The drug war has been lost. Remove the money from the underworld and all the crime with it. As it was with prohibilition.

Remove the mystique. Treat adults as humans with a choice. Increase education and increase purity of the substances, and get it all out into the open.

However if I became leader of Mali, and wanted to enact such laws, could I do so? Not unless American drug policy changed.

New South Wales is only now allowing Marijuana for medicinal purposes, despite it being decriminalised years, and this proposal being around for years also. I distincctly remember pressure exerted on the government from America, when they last put this proposal in the air.

[Djinn Raffo]

Originally posted by Yorick: I was talking with my brother about this tonight. There is no way any "ally" of the Empire of America could change their drug policy. Huge recriminations would result. Wasn't Noriega, the soveriegn leader of an independent nation, arrested, in his own nation, while sitting in power?? Because of drugs? It's my belief that all drugs. hard and soft, should be made 100% legal. The drug war has been lost. Remove the money from the underworld and all the crime with it. As it was with prohibilition. Remove the mystique. Treat adults as humans with a choice. Increase education and increase purity of the substances, and get it all out into the open. However if I became leader of Mali, and wanted to enact such laws, could I do so? Not unless American drug policy changed. New South Wales is only now allowing Marijuana for medicinal purposes, despite it being decriminalised years, and this proposal being around for years also. I distincctly remember pressure exerted on the government from America, when they last put this proposal in the air.

Actually Yorick there is a way an 'ally' of the Empire of America would change its drug policies because Canada, right now, is decriminalizing marijuana and Washington is not to happy about it. Vancouver also has its first fully legal shoot up clinic being built as well and it may be complete already.

I agree with you one hundred percent on the legalization. The bud trade in my province is a six to eight billion dollar industry. At the moment that is all black market 'criminal' activity. IMHO that trade should be legalized and that six to eight billion dollars should be taxed.