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'A phony 'drug war' war defeats free speech'

Lately there have been reading rumbelings about how marijuana is not a political issue, and I'd like to understand why people feel that way.

If you don't think that marijuana prohibition is based in politics, please help me to understand why.

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The more I learn, the less I know. | Truth doesn't change, only our perception of it does.
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WNB

Yes, it certainly is a political issue. Conservatives use it to advance their own political careers (tough on crime, care about the children, etc., etc., ad nauseum). Plus any candidate who comes out in favor of legalization gives his opponents so much ammo to use against him that there's no way he'd ever win.

It also gives law enforcement and government media campaigns an excuse to be horribly overfunded.

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War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

smoking_joe_lee

You will not find a TRUE CONSERVATIVE using more than nominal resources to fight a war on drugs. The conservative believes in minimal law and government. When Barry M. Goldwater, the leader of the modern conservative movement was elected to the senate in 1952 he declared, "I am not going to Washington to pass laws; I am going there to repeal them."
There have been very few real conservatives lately thow. Nixon was not a conservative. No TRUE conservative would use wage and price controls? Reagan was a so so conservative. Less government, but too much spending. George the first gets a passing grade as well. Dubya, on the other hand fails. He EXPANDS government with an entirely new agency known as Homeland Security. Whats wrong with the FBI? The new medicare prescription plan (more entitlements) was introduced to get the senior citizen vote while providing plenty of cash for the drug companies.
At this point,(liberal) Kerry seems a lock to get the Dem. nomination. What's a conservative voter like myself supposed to do...
How many Nixons does it take to change a light bulb "a thousand" ...or is it a bush...

WNB

I think you're confusing conservatives and libertarians.

Modern conservatives are all for whoring themselves out to big business, and passing moralistic laws. Maybe it wasn't that way in 1952, but it sure is today.

xxdr_zombiexx

The "conservatives of Goldwaters days are mostly gone or intimidated into silent complicity with the unfolding travesties by the radical element posing as the Republican Party.

All the Ivory Tower Terms apply but Neoliberals is what they are - they just LIE and call themselves conservatives because Rush and the Wingnut Radio Network have set about to trash the term "liberal". Your special party was hijacked about the time Nixon was in office, definately by Reagans Day. (Nixon couldn't stand Reagan. I find that hysterical.)

See: The Despoiling of America: How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State.]That is very long and very well documented (lots of facts for fact-checkers, though some still wont be satisfied, I'm quite sure.) The Domionists are crazy, dangerous m*th*rf*ck*rs. The American Taliban, nothing Less.

Oh.. who cares?

How many conservatives does it take to change a light bulb?

3

One to change the bulb, and two to b*tch about how much better the old bulb was.

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Torture Good, Healthcare Bad, Marijuana Evil.

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

smoking_joe_lee

How many conservatives does it take to change a light bulb? We may never know. They will sit around in the dark complaining that it is a job best done by the private sector!

Reggie the dog

Reagan, a ture conservative???? He spent us into one hell of a debt as you acknowledged, but he also supported the millitirization of the local police so as they could fight the war on drugs, He also supported an invasion of Greneda just because the people ELECTED a president who was a member of the socialist party. That is hardly a consrvative value. If you want someone to vote for check out the LIBERTARIAN party. I used to be a member because I dont like infringments on my liberty (seat belt laws, drug laws, helmet laws, etc...but they want to privitize all schools, I think education should be for everyone, not just the rich, so the GREEN party seems better for me, but if you feel that you are a true conservative, and want a smaller government, vote LIBERTARIAN and send the republican party a message, basically let the republicans know they are not representing traditional conservative values.

xxdr_zombiexx

High Reggie!

Welcome aboard!

Reagan Was a true Conservative...... And I am Antonio Banderas!!

Plainsman1963

Aha! Now we know! It all makes sense now.

I went with sort of. It sure as heck is a political issue now, tied in with being called "soft on crime" and "against the children". Yeah, it sure is now.
But I don't believe it started out that way. I believe it was more financially based at the beginning and then of course when Big Business bought into politics...There went the ballgame.

I think with the medicinal side of the fight, the last few years they have done as good a job as they could divorcing it from "politics" per se to personal (or patients) rights.
I know there are those that don't agree marijuana is a rights issue and by itself I really wouldn't argue long and hard about it. But once we involve our health, and our privacy to do something not harmful to someone else in our own homes...The snow ball is growing.

Btw, not to be anal but could we edit the completely so it is spelled correctly?

xxdr_zombiexx

When did "big business" buy into politics?

I think at least by the 1880's if not earlier.

Marijuana prohibition was totally political in that the Big Businesses benefiting from it made the Federal Government enact the laws. Corps cant make laws; only buy influence, like they do. It's just it was before the propagand really kicked into gear.

DuPont wanted to use the "taxation power" of the federal government as a way to stifle cannabis farming. That's political. They used propaganda in the papers to make the laws pass. That's politcal.

For the umpteenth time, it allescalatd with Nixon and his culture war with the hippies. eagan further escalated it, as did King George the First.

Clinton's NOT touching the drug war - other than to escalate it by appointing McCaffery - was also political: Clinton was only sucking up to the GOP's considerable power with the "war on Drugs". So many people were arrested under Clinton the GOP should give him an award for doing their job so well.

Now with the current band of hijackers have re-escalated reefer madness yet again. Just because the Dems cant seem to find their way out of a short tunnel, doesn't mean it's not primarily the GOP's baby. Who is pressing all these anti-marijuana ads? It's not dems. Its John Walters, the Cheney Administration.

It is completely political and the GOP is the Key to ending it.

Rank and file GOP need to buck their own miserable system, they need to call for an end to this, or be tarred and trashed daily as the petty tryrants and facsists they are being.

They spent years making "liberal" an ugly word - GOP shall become an ugly word. That's politics. What has gone around shall be coming around.

There is no excuse for prohibition and no excuse for supporting it.

Let's be clear: If you support cannabis prohibition - you should not get votes. You are an ignorant failure or actively antagonsitic to my way of life. I will work against you.

I'm sorry to be so harsh, but supporting prohibition is no different than supporting slaverery, segregation, racism, or any other primitive human shortcoming.

End this. Legalize.