Tarzan

Although Clinton is the first president to have admittedly smoked pot, his administration is also reputed as spending more and arresting more people for marijuana than any other administration. What do you all think was on his mind when he instituted his drug policies? Do you think he really believes in the establishment line on marijuana, or was it just spineless political expediency? Was he personally influenced to a large extent by his kid brother's bad experiences with drugs? Also, are the stats that show him as being tougher than any other president on drug enforcement misleading? Perhaps they don't take into account the larger population demographics, etc., or that they reflect a general increase in illegal drug use under his admin.? Your thoughts?

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"On second thought, lets not go to Camelot. It is a silly place..."
-Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Stoned Philosopher

Well Clinton was a hypocrate for one, he was for decriminalization.
Well it seems that during the early years of Clintons term in office the DEA was almost non existant,there was talk of it being shut down. Then the elections of 1996 somehow got tons of republicans in who wanted clintons head on a platter, that and him emitted smoking weed then things pretty much went downhill from there. Also another note: Clinton and his associates where active in the drug trade (does Mena Arkansas and Barry Seal ring a bell?). Even though compared to the Bush family the Clintons dealing in drugs was rather insignificant ,it could had a big part in the toughing up of drug laws in the us besides the pressure from the GOP.

The Stoned Philosopher

Tarzan

So then perhaps they influenced him to get tough on drugs so their trade would be more profitable?

The Stoned Philosopher

probally, it was one of the motives behind the restart of the WoD during the Reagan administration and is one of the main reasons why the WoD is still going on now. Even though some drug warriors are ignorant lunatics some actually know all the facts but choose to ignore them for thier personal benefit.

The Stoned Philosopher

Lawnmower

There's also a big economic side to it too. Since the early nineties, a lot of small towns which had lost steel-mills and other traditional industries started to build prisons as an alternative. They make much of their money by taking federal prisoners, for which they are paid by the federal prison system. To cut a long story short, this has led to an explosion in the number of prison spaces in the US, and once you've got the spaces you've got to fill them in order to stay in business. Also, the prisons have started to allow manufacturing companies to exploit cheap prison labour. Lee jeans and Boeing, for example, use prison labour to make their products. The prisoners are paid peanuts, and everyone else gets rich out of it.

Essentially, there is an emerging "Prison-industrial complex", rather like the "Military-industrial complex" which has been around for years. In other words, it has become a self-fuelling industry - there is so much pressure to fill these prisons that politicians order "crackdowns", supposedly to solve the drugs problem.

This may not account for the whole thing, but I think it certainly plays a large role in the way the Clinton administration operated. I don't know if you've heard the statistic, but the US now has 1/4 of the entire world prison population - despite having only 1/25th of the overall population.

That's pretty scary.

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Lawnmower

The Stoned Philosopher

Yeah,prision labor is true capitalism, the workers are enslaved and the rich get richer and more powerful. Another group of people who benefit off this is the "drug abuse treatment" industry. They deleberatly overprice their services that most the time for hard addicts dont have a lasting effect.
Its pretty much now a self fueling industry as you said, the goverment helps smuggle the drugs in,you buy them and they arrest you, you either pay fines or go to jail, when you pay the fine you usually go to "treatment" and pay tons of money for that or you go to jail and become a slave and someones *****.
And all this time they are pushing legal drugs that make heroin look like asprin (oxycotin) and already have drugs that are more potent than cociane (ritalin)

The Stoned Philosopher

Lawnmower

Damn right, and even to "treat" addiction, they prescribe methadone, which is more addictive, harder to give up, and more detrimental to health than even heroin.

Even if marijuana were legalised tomorrow, there'd still be a long way to go before we'd be able to say we lived in a sane society.

Still, gotta keep on tryin'

Panama

Can we please keep the topic on marijuana.

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"This fight against the War on Drugs is not a war in the classic sense of the word, so it's virtually impossible to point to one instance and say, 'That was the battle that stemmed the tide in our favor'. We have had many small victories that have led us to where we are and each day we continue to communicate and educate brings us that much closer to our ultimate goal: The end of marijuana prohibition." -Richard "Panama" Red-
Marijuana.Com Posting Guideline

Lawnmower

OK, sorry Pan, went a bit off the rails there alright... ooops.