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Oh, please. If you really think that fear of non-whites is the core of what it means to not agree with Democrats on who should hold office and why,

I'm "locked up" on a "plantation?" Are you deliberately trying to validate what I'm saying? Or are you just so triggered you can't restrain yourself and have to let all that racist agita out somehow to relieve the stress?

I am a former republican, and I have never voted for a democrat in my life. And as it happens I spent 10 years living in Dallas and have family in that liberal bastion of Tyler (Louie Gohmert's district). So don't spazz out about me being brainwashed. I escaped the bubble that you so obviously embrace while denying it exists.

White identity has been the single most important plank of the GOP for the last 40 years. Trump just says outloud what y'all been saying in whispers, subtext and dog whistles.

Southern strategy
War on drugs
Build the wall
Welfare queens
Birtherism
Willie Horton
Every attempt to make English the official language
The Southern Baptist Convention - by far the single largest group of evangelicals - was created because real evangelicals made them choose between slavery and Christianity
Bob Jones University banned interracial dating as recently as 2000 and Pat Roberston still supports it today
Reactionary colorblindess and the hijacking of Dr King's message
Jeff Sessions was rejected by a bipartisan congress for a judgeship for being too racist in 1986 and now he's the freaking AG with unaniumous GOP approval
California Prop 187 in 1994 the passage of which was the beginning of the end for the GOP in that state
The list of example is basically endless
Also... Half of everything YOU post, you think you are clever but you aren't you are transparent AF.

> RACE ONLY MATTERS AS MUCH AS YOU LET IT MATTER.

Jim Crow
Jim Crow 2.0
Red-lining
Red-lining 2.0
Sundown Towns
Tuskegee Experiment
School Segregation
School Segregation 2.0
The War on Drugs specifically targeted blacks
Driving While Black
Walking While Black
Debtor's Prison 2.0

Not to diminish the importance of blocking memory formation (nice research), but most people do not care about those who suffer from PTSD.

We have a known cure for PTSD, combination MDMA psychotherapy, but it's currently illegal in most of the world because both the US FDA and DEA political hacks claim that no medical uses exist for the chemical (despite the DEA Court finding otherwise).

It's a clear case of government vs. science and the loser in the battle is the vulnerable population of patients with PTSD (and the rest of society by extension). Sadly, most of society supports those politicians over both science and the needs of the afflicted.

The full NSA data is available to any agency since Obama signed this executive order https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...

DEA using it for drug busts http://www.drugpolicy.org/news...

Actually, the whole thing started with Nixon. http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-...

you don't need to cite commonly known facts of a topic. if you are unaware of how common extreme punishment for minor drug crimes is, you're only announcing how out of touch you are on the subject

google "years in jail marijuana possession"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/2...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

http://www.rense.com/general61...

https://www.aclu.org/marijuana...

american drug laws are stupid, pointless, and insane, and have achieved zero effect. it's easy as ever to get pot

a society that prescribes brutal punishment for various minor crimes does nothing but announce its brutality. it has no effect on the crime in question

http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug...

it is important to cite interesting and novel facts. it is not important to cite commonly understood and well-established facts. the stupidity and insanity of american drug laws is well-established. we're just waiting for enough nancy reagan era morons to die the fuck off so we can build a sensible drug policy: legalization of non-addictive drugs, treatment for addicts, inducements for dealers of addictive drugs to come clean. destroy the mafias by draining their income. drain their income by incentivizing healthcare for addicts and legalizing nonaddictive substances

look to portugal

You're cherry-picking information to attack libertarians, and your argument is flawed. Perhaps you forgot about the Japanese during WWII, or maybe the fact that state nullification of Federal laws was first used to protect people being pursued under the Fugitive Slave Act.

Or maybe the racist federal war on drugs: "Since the 1980s, federal penalties for crack were 100 times harsher than those for powder cocaine, with African Americans disproportionately sentenced to much lengthier terms.".

So if it were determined that one racial group is disproportionately affected by laws against violent crime and/or murder, then we could conclude that laws against violent crime are racist and should not be instituted?

Let's explore this, because I think an example like this underscores the way racism can be hidden but still used. So, in a scenario where a law "against violent crime", which mentions no racial bias, effects racially biased punishment, there's a few possibilities:

1. The over-represented population is predisposed to violent crime.
2. Enforcement is selective.
3. Other conditions promote violent crime in the over-represented population.

If we can't agree that the first hypothesis is racist, you can stop reading here and we can stop wasting our time. Likewise the second. In the third case, while it may be that the law itself has a valid goal, clearly there's a broader racial problem that needs to be addressed; it might not be the scope of that law to address it, depends on the law. If the law's purpose is valid and addressing the racial bias is outside the scope of that law, then racism lies at a different level, but there's still racism.

Since you completely side-stepped the question of drug laws, however, I will bring it back into the discussion. Crack cocaine sentencing is much more severe than powder cocaine sentencing.

Simple possession of 28 grams of crack cocaine yields a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for a first offense; it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine to prompt the same sentence. (Source)

This quite obviously doesn't specify race, but the fact is that crack use is more likely among blacks than whites, and vice verse for powder. Do you think the authors of the laws didn't know that? The effect, of course, has been predictable: substantial over-representation of black people in prison for drug offenses. The law is racist in its effects; its authors are either dangerously stupid or racist (or both).

you are not contributing to intelligent discourse on this subject

It's possible to disagree and engage in intelligent discourse.

Accusing people of racism where there is none

Your position has shifted from "I don't know" to a definite negative? I think you're further revealing your biases on the subject.

and behaving paternalistically toward minorities is not productive.

I am honestly baffled. What is paternalistic about identifying innuendo? If it were explicit rather than code, would it still be paternalistic to call out? Your reasoning is simply unsound.

That the law of the land should be color blind

So should society. Until we can have both, we can have neither. Choosing to ignore racism isn't color-blindness it's willful blindness.

and that social critiques such as the OP made should also be color blind as much as possible, and just leave race out of the discussion.

Finally, you're being more forthcoming with your motivation. Your problem isn't that an accusation of racism was (you think) misplaced, your problem is that race is even a topic in the discussion in the first place. Well, it's relevant. Racism is alive and well, and one of the major forces in our culture's evolution. Like I said, you can't just choose not to see it and expect it to go away. The consequence of promoting this kind of ignorance is that racism will have a calmer sea in which to swim. And, I have bad news: as that sea becomes more inviting, you can bet your ass the topic will be a lot more prominent.

We all know that inhaling burning plant material creates by-products such as: tar, ash, CO2, carbon monoxide and other gases & carcinogenic elements, because so much time and money has been spent on proving this with tobacco. Nobody ever talks about the strain legalizing it would put on the health care system. Clearly it would contribute to some people getting cancer

clearly what?

and don't give me that bullshit you read on the inside of the Cypress Hill CD that there has never been a documented death from smoking marijuana.

So you have a citation, then?

I do realize that a casual marijuana smoker does smoke far less often than even a light cigarette smoker, but how many strait up potheads are there to the casual 1 gram or less a day smokers? 100 to 1?

Logical fallacy: misdirection. This is irrelevant.

Your guess is as good as mine, I just think if we are going to be realistic about this issue we should also be genuine with our intent to improve our quality of life.

Which is why you've chosen to spread FUD when in fact people have talked and are talking about the potential impact on the health system and finding that it would be positive. There can only be one reason why you would ignore the health benefits in the context of a conversation which is supposedly about the impact (or in your words, "strain") that it might put on the health care system, and that is that you are pushing an anti-cannabis agenda.

I live in a reality based on historical fact, not on wish-thinking and jingoism. So I imagine that's quite disconnected from your reality.

Here's an argument for your belief system that is reasonably rounded, but wrong. Here's why:

To be sure, the US now has more power resources relative to other countries than Britain had at its imperial peak. But the US has less power - in the sense of control over other countries' internal behavior - than Britain did when it ruled a quarter of the globe.

For example, British officials controlled Kenya's schools, taxes, laws and elections - not to mention its external relations. America has no such control today. In 2003, the US could not even get Mexico and Chile to vote to support a second resolution on Iraq in the UN Security Council...

In fact, the problem of creating an American empire might better be termed imperial underreach . Neither the US public nor Congress has proven willing to invest seriously in the instruments of nation building and governance as opposed to military force.

At the time this was written by the former Assistant Secretary of Defense, the United States was the de facto ruler of Iraq and Afghanistan, which it had invaded only a few years earlier. It had supported, and nearly pulled off a coup in Venezuela in 2002. In the aftermath of 9/11, it was using secret military agents to kidnap terrorism suspects, dropping them off for torture at secret prisons around the world, and while declaring "war" on terrorism, it used some pathetic legalistic wringing of hands to ignore even it's own standards of detainee treatment in the US Army Field manual.

Even turning to the two examples he provided - Mexico and Chile - is even more illustrative of his ignorance, feigned or not.

Possession of small amounts of drugs including heroin, cocaine and marijuana is now decriminalized in Mexico... A similar decriminalization bill passed Mexico’s Congress in 2006 but the Fox administration decided not to sign it, reportedly because of opposition in the United States.
http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/pressroom/pressrelease/pr082109a.cfm

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." — Henry Kissinger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Chile

Fixed fines where income is variable is like sentencing one person to 10 years when another gets a month for the same offense.

Or, in some cases, carry an even less fair disparity, in practical terms.

Even if most people support marijuana law reform, they aren't actually proponents, just not opponents. In both the Obama survey and the Facebook survey, results that seem to show that marijuana law reform has a lot of proponents are skewed because the style of survey trends towards over-representing the young and the vocal. It still remains that most Americans just don't care enough for anything to come of it.

..marijuana really isn't illegal at the federal level, they just have a so much an ounce tax on it

False. Marijuana is classified as Schedule I, which means that the federal government claims that it has no medicinal value, in spite of the fact that they are still providing medical marijuana to a patient or three for their ongoing care. That means that any unauthorized possession, use, or sale is illegal, and authorization is nearly impossible to get. Only a handful of psychologists or psychiatrists or whoever the hell they are are allowed to perform experiments or treatment with LSD or MDMA for the same reason, even though it has repeatedly been argued that they have benefits for psychological treatment and no study has ever been conducted which shows that they do not.

The federal government (we the people) would do good to just eliminate several agencies as doing more harm than good, to the economy, to society, etc, those guys in the DEA (the war on some drugs is an abject complete failure),

It's not a failure, it makes a lot of money... for a few people, for whom the government actually works. You know, the people who can afford lobbyists.

Anyway, you didn't even mention the IRS, which could be entirely eliminated if we instituted a flat tax.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/library%5Ctlcnr.cfm

Switzerland's Heroin Experiment
Nadelmann, Ethan, "Switzerland's Heroin Experiment." National Review. July 10, 1995: pp. 46-47.

The Swiss government is selling heroin to hard-core drug users. But in doing so the government isn't offhandedly facilitating drug abuse: it's conducting a national scientific experiment to determine whether prescribing heroin, morphine, and injectable methadone will save Switzerland both money and misery by reducing crime, disease, and death.

The Swiss deal with drug users much as the U.S. and other countries do--prisons, drug-free residential treatment programs, oral methadone, etc.--but they also know that these approaches are not enough. They first tried establishing a "Needle Park" in Zurich, an open drug scene where people could use drugs without being arrested. Most Zurichers, including the police, initially regarded the congregation of illicit drug injectors in one place as preferable to scattering them throughout the city. But the scene grew unmanageable, and city officials closed it down in February 1992. A second attempt faced similar problems and was shut down in March 1995.

So Needle Park wasn't the solution, but the heroin-prescription program might be. In it, 340 addicts receive a legal supply of heroin each day from one of the nine prescribing programs in eight different cities. In addition, 11 receive morphine, and 33 receive injectable methadone. The programs accept only "hard-core" junkies--people who have been injecting for years and who have attempted and failed to quit. Participants are not allowed to take the drug home with them. They have to inject on site and pay 15 francs at approximately $13 per day for their dose.

The idea of prescribing heroin to junkies in hopes of reducing both their criminal activity and their risk of spreading AIDS and other diseases took off in 1991. Expert scientific and ethical advisory bodies were established to consider the range of issues. The International Narcotics Control Board--a United Nations organization that oversees international antidrug treaties--had to be convinced that the Swiss innovation was an experiment, which is permitted under the treaty, rather than an official shift in policy. In Basel, opponents of the initiative demanded a city-wide referendum--in which 65 per cent of the electorate approved a local heroin-prescription program. The argument that swayed most people was remarkably straightforward: only a controlled scientific experiment could determine whether prescribing heroin to addicts is feasible and beneficial.

The experiment started in January 1994. The various programs differ in some respects, although most provide supplemental doses of oral methadone, psychological counseling, and other assistance. Some are located in cities like Zurich, others in towns like Thun, which sits at the foot of the Bernese Alps. Some provide just one drug, while others offer a choice. Some allow clients to vary their dose each day, while others work with clients to establish a stable dosage level. One of the programs in Zurich is primarily for women. The other Zurich program permits addicts to take home heroin-injected cigarettes known as reefers, or "sugarettes," (since heroin is called "sugar" by Swiss junkies). It also conducted a parallel experiment in which 12 clients were prescribed cocaine reefers for up to 12 weeks. The results were mixed, with many of the participants finding the reefers unsatisfying. However, since more than two-thirds of Swiss junkies use cocaine as well as heroin, the Swiss hope to refine the cocaine experiment in the future.

The national experiment is designed to answer a host of questions that also bubble up in debates over drug policy in the United States, but that our drug-war blinders force us to ignore. Can junkies stabilize their drug use if they are assured of a legal, safe, and stable source of heroin? Can they hold down

http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/tlcnr.cfm

Thats the best writeup I have found at the moment. Interestingly, while it mentions crime participation as one of the questions that the study was looking to answer, it doesn't address the findings on that point.

-Steve

I find it disgusting that the author of the NYT piece lumped cannabils legalisation together with UFO and the Obama birth-certificate conspiracy.

Whether or not you feel that marijuana should be legalized, the subject is a legitimate subject for political discourse, and there's overwhelming evidence that:

• Marijuana is significantly less harmful than the two legal recreational drugs (alcohol and tobacco) .
• Marijuana has many potential medical applications, including promoting neuron growth, preventing alzheimers, diabetes, treating cancer and HIV, and of course multiple scleroris.
• Like alcohol prohibition, cannabis prohibition is harmful to society.

I personally hold that the evidence overwhelmingly supports decriminalizing Cannabis, implementing a system something like in the Netherlands, but I can understand that less informed, more indoctrinated souls might not be convinced. However no sane, rational, honest person can look at the evidence and claim that this is not a subject which needs to be considered.

Lumping cannabis legalisation together with UFO conspiracies and the Obama birth conspiracy shows that the author is either: ignorant and misinformed, dissembling for a perceived career boost, or simply irrational. My guess is he's a victim of the years of propaganda and lies dissembled by the Nancy Reagan and her spiritual children, but it's equally likely that he's pandering to socially-conservative reader base or editor.

As a resident of the evergreen state, I'm stoked to see another one our intelligent, liberal, tech-friendly public servants appointed to a federal position:

(from the WP article in parent)

Locke would be the third resident of the Evergreen State named to the Obama administration, following deputy HUD secretary-nominee Ron Sims and Seattle City Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske who reportedly has been tapped to serve as "drug czar."

Locke is thoughtful, and having him in charge of the US's interest in IANA sounds like a good idea.

Kerlikowske has the potential to take some interesting decisions regarding marijuana prosecution as well.

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/viewresource.asp?resourceID=141

You included the cons from a Pros and Cons page but did not include the pros. However I'll address some of those cons.

"Smoked marijuana damages the brain, heart, lungs, and immune system."
"Heavy Marijuana Use Doesn't Damage Brain"
"Does marijuana damage the heart?"
"Marijuana is More Damaging to the Lungs Than Tobacco"
"4. Marijuana suppresses the immune system"

"3-4 Cannabis cigarettes a day are associated with the same evidence of acute and chronic bronchitis and the same degree of damage to the bronchial mucosa as 20 or more tobacco cigarettes a day."
"No drug is always safe for everybody, but after 150 years of scientific study, the only proven health problem from cannabis is that its smoke can be linked to bronchitis"

""The most compelling concerns regarding marijuana smoking in HIV/AIDS patients are the possible effects of marijuana on immunity."
Actually cannabis has been shown to be helpful:
"The effectiveness of cannabis for treating symptoms related to HIV/AIDS is widely recognized."

Falcon

Drug testing very much has to do with legality. Drug testing only got started when Reagan started pushing for drug testing as part of his War on Drugs.

Falcon

Your supposition is erroneous. There is no evidence that marijuana use causes mental disorders, but there is a lot of evidence that people who have mental disorders are more likely to use drugs. In other words, the pot didn't make them crazy - they were already crazy and smoked pot in an attempt to self-medicate the problem. Numerous studies have shown that marijuana can mitigate the effects of a variety of mental disorders, so the pot probably kept them out of the nuthouse longer than they would have without it. http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/

Also consider that Obama's Vice President was the primary sponsor of the Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act:

http://www.drugpolicy.org/communities/raveact/

Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) forced the controversial legislation commonly known as the "RAVE" Act through both houses of Congress as an attachment to an unrelated child abduction bill. The "RAVE" Act, also referred to as the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act of 2003, was introduced as an addition to the Child Abduction Protect Act of 2003, widely recognized as the AMBER Alert bill (S151). The "RAVE" Act had not passed a single committee before being attached to the AMBER Alert bill. In addition, it was so controversial when it was introduced during the 107th Congress that two Senators withdrew their sponsorship.

The "RAVE" Act makes it easier for the federal government to prosecute innocent business owners for the drug offenses of their customers - even if they take steps to stop such activity. This is a threat to free speech and musical expression while placing at risk any hotel/motel owner, concert promoter, event organizer, nightclub owner or arena/stadium owner for the drug violations of third parties - real or alleged - regardless of whether or not the promoter and/or property owner made a good-faith effort to keep their event drug-free. It applies not only to electronic music parties, but any type of public gathering: theatrical productions, rock concerts, DJ nights at your local club or tavern, and political rallies. Moreover, it gives heightened powers and discretion to prosecutors who may use it to target events they personally donâ(TM)t like, such as Hip-Hop events and gay and lesbian fundraisers.

The "RAVE" Act was passed despite the fact it did not have a public hearing, debate or vote in Congress. It is important to note that because of overwhelming opposition to the "RAVE" Act, legislators were forced to remove some of the most egregious language before it passed. For example, the word "rave" was removed from the version of the bill attached to the AMBER Alert. Eliminating such blatant discrimination is a victory for our continued freedom of speech. Also, the original bill suggested that prosecutors should view the sale of water and the presence of glowsticks or massage oil as evidence of drug use. These ludicrous "findings" were completely removed due in large part to activists who sent nearly 30,000 faxes in 2003 alone to their Senators urging them not to support the dangerous legislation.

They don't exactly shine as examples of why drug use should be extended. You can argue personal choice, but those who do not wish to live in an anarchic system and instead maintain social structure and cohesion...

But illegal drugs are worse for the social structure, because you get a whole bunch of ancillary crime that's not caused by the drugs themselves, but merely the fact that they're illegal. If you could buy pot at the 7-11, then you'd put not only the local dealer, but the whole smuggling infrastructure up to and including Columbian drug lords, out of business. Street gangs would no longer have a means to raise money to buy guns. The prisons would stop being overcrowded because we'd no longer be stuffing them full of non-violent, petty drug offenders. Taxes would go down because we'd be spending much less money on enforcement, and revenue would go up because we'd tax the drugs!

One other issue is that with free supply it's likely that drug production would push out food production in many areas where that would cause a calamity. Again you might argue that the increased income from selling drugs would pay for food - but those [in the developing world] that produce the drugs at the moment get a very small cut and with the price pushed down ...

You say the drug farmers are getting a very small cut, but I guarantee that's still more profit than they'd make growing food instead. Why? By the simple fact that if food were more profitable then they'd grow it instead of the drugs! That's Economics 101. And by the same argument, the illegality of drugs drives the price of them up (because the dealers demand more profit to compensate for the legal risk). If they were legalized, then prices would drop and the developing-world farmers would be more likely to grow food (because the drugs wouldn't be as profitable anymore).

Imagine if school children were getting addicted to opiates, as they mature think how that is going to impact society as a whole.

Sorry, irrational appeals to emotion ("OMG, think of the children!!") don't fly with me. If you want to make a well-reasoned argument

1. that children, on a large scale, actually would get addicted to opiates, and
2. why, specifically, that would be bad,

then I look forward to reading it.

However, I'm going to go ahead with my rebuttal: think of Europe. If I recall, alcohol is generally not age-restricted there. Are European school children alcoholics? No? Then why would opiates be any different?

Besides, responsible parenting would solve that problem anyway, and the law is not and should not be a substitute for responsible parenting, for that way lies totalitarianism!

Free [libre] availability of drugs arguably destroyed Chinese society in the late 19th Century.

[Citation needed]

Drugs (whether legal or not) tend to bring moral decay if you think society can cope with a large degree of moral decay I guess is the question.

Do they? Are you sure? I ask because, if you look at history, "moral decay" was almost always a euphemism for "we need an excuse to oppress minorities."

It wasn't his home. Vigilante justice as a solution to crime is the non-thinking mans solution. Incarceration is only a step above and it aint' working out too well for you folks. It seems like Texas simply will not accept treatment as a solution and prefers to shoots guns, lock up black people and execute innocent people. I am glad I live in a state that does not spend 100's of millions of dollars on a death penalty system that seems to be more about vengeance than justice.

As if we needed another example of the War on (Some) Drugs causing more problems than it solves.

Is it UpAgainstTheWallMotherfuckers Day yet?

Besides my personal experience there is: this. I'll grant that it is anecdotal however and is thus not to be taken as fact. Regardless I didn't make anything up. Unless you're referring to marijuana addiction. If that's the case I'll refer you to Here and Here and Here

I respectfully disagree with your assertion that drug prohibition is a form of thought control. We only need to look at the history of drug prohibition -- taking cocaine as an example -- to see that it was fueled by a racist, fear-induced, politically-charged agenda.

Here are some links relating to drug prohibition:

http://www.drugpolicy.org/communities/race/historyofpro
http://thedea.org/prohibhistory.html

They didn't have to amend the constitution because they did an end-run around that with the controlled substances act, which basically gives Congress carte blanche when banning substances they deem undesirable politically. It was originally racially motivated (PDF link).

Oops, here's comes somebody babbling about "the right to jury nullification". Doesn't exist, except in the overactive imaginations of people who also believe in the "civil flag".

The right of juries to judge questions of both fact and of law is not just a legal precedent stretching back to colonial times and acknowledged in many court decisions, it is written into the state constitutions of Maryland and Indiana..

Claiming that a principal written into decisions written by folks like John Jay and Oliver Wendel Holmes as well as state constitutions "doesn't exist", shows either your ignorance or your determination to ignore fact in pursuit of some poltical end.

You might think we'd be better off without it, you might think it's fine that jurors aren't told about it, and be within the bounds of legitimately debatable opinion. But when you insist that it "doesn't exist", you are simply in factual error.

(As for flags, I think you mean the "admiralty flag" bit, which is of course paranoid nonsense. It's not as if politicians willing to disregard the Consitution (who certainly do exist) are going to feel obligated to play some bizarre game about accessorizing the flag.)

I'm pretty sure it's unfair to both, and worse for blacks. That is: black and poor is worse than black is worse than white and poor is worse than white in terms of how likely you are to be pursued, caught, tried, and convicted for a given crime.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/index.htm#TopO fPage
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/may2000/bias-m16 .shtml
http://www.drugpolicy.org/communities/race/crimina ljust/
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/toc_5.html

I would recommend against even trying to completely block it for employees. Having a policy to deal with major offenders is better than creating such a restrictive environment.

Firstly, the virus/adware problem the employer is worried about would be better solved by making sure the machines have up-to-date virus definitions, that the browser is configured properly: disabled Active-X, blocking popups, to not be Internet Explorer... the usual suggestions. Make sure their IT people are keeping the machines in order, and that the employees can't disable or otherwise futz up the antivirus software. And secondly:--

You can block the 19 or 20 Class C Address Blocks that MySpace has, but then you get into problems of sites like "MySpace Bypass" and other such sites that allow you to bypass most of the filtering that's done.

This makes me think of what happens when a government tries to outlaw something they know that people want: all it ends up doing is creating a new black market and more crime; beyond the tautology of new law = new lawbreakers, you end up with people doing all sorts of bad things they otherwise wouldn't have to do, just in order to get around a law that shouldn't've been passed in the first place. You start out by outlawing something you think people ought not have, and pretty soon you find yourself spending $40 billion a year with no end in sight, just to use one example.

So right now they've employees wasting a little time each day on MySpace. Do you want to create a situation where instead some of these employees waste an hour or two trying to come up with creative ways to evade proxies and firewalls? Or where an employee ends up infecting his computer with all sorts of malware because of some shady site he came across while trying to find, say, open proxy lists? Or he ends up accidentally divulging a whole bunch of private data by setting his browser to use an open proxy, not realizing all his HTTP traffic is now being routed through who-knows-what in Russia? And how much productivity will be lost when some employee gets fired over 15min of slacking off and it takes the company two weeks to find a replacement candidate?

And consider the morale impact -- and thus productivity impact -- when you start getting employees grumbling about being treated like prisoners at their workplace.

I'd recommend that the employer A) not worry about the employees who spend a few minutes a day browsing MySpace, and B) only come down on the people having major productivity issues because they're spending half their day slacking off, or the people who've caused severe security problems by getting their computers breached by malware.

I think you need a reality check, we are talking about a simple herb here, a plant.

It's prima facie ridiculous to even talk about whether a plant should be legal or illegal.

You didn't respond to my most important point, that the drug war has basically obliterated any semblance we had of a limited federal government.

I don't buy your claim that it's a "moral crusade" - more likely that angle is being used to persuade people to support the agenda (which is still wrong, IMO) but I don't at all buy your theory that this is the real reason why some drugs are illegal.

I don't think it takes much persuasion. There are a large number of young women that believe in prohibition. A recent survey showed that 57% 18-29 year olds think we should start a tobacco prohibition too. Women were twice as likely to support it than men. These people are completely out of touch with reality in their moral crusading. This strongly reflects the alcohol prohibition movement, which was also driven by ignorant young women. An observant person will note that alcohol prohibition started not long after women's suffrage was granted. After women realized how huge a mistake such an idealistic policy was, women's groups actually worked to repeal prohibition.

Now on to why men, who have always run this country, might actually let women pass such a stupid measure. There's a lot of money in the drug war. A huge pool of slave labor is available in the prison population. Prison construction, maintenence, and staffing is a huge business too. It's not persuasion as much as quid pro quo. Enhance the opportunities for the government to spend tons of money (and pay back those campaign donations, give your brother in law a fat contract, etc), while giving women voters something they think they want.

This message may sound misogynist, but think of it more as a sociological observation. The role of women in prohibition is well documented, I'm not the first one to observe it.

That wouldn't be a concern then, except for the fact that the trend is currently to make as many citizens into criminals as possible. We do have hundreds of people who's full time job it is to make new federal laws for all of us to break:

US Prison, Parole and Probation Population Skyrockets; 1 in 32 Adults Incarcerated or Court Supervised, Department of Justice Report Shows

http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/pressroom/pressrele ase/pr113006doj.cfm

All news reports, witnesses, and involved police agencies indicated it was peaceful. The justification for the raid was drug use. Here is some further information.

Hmmm, maybe smokin' that stuff's not only good for glaucoma patients' eyesight...

Open your mind, most junkies are just normal people who made some bad choices. Given that we can't stop them from using, we may as well try to minimize the damage those choices inflict.

Opiates to build tolerance on their own, so said legal junky will still need more and more.

People on heroin maintenance programs tend to acclimate to a dosing schedule that keeps them functional. They're so tolerant that they literally can't get enough to get high, so it's barely worth considering them intoxicated.

Sure, like alcoholics aren't? Good example there, alcohol = legal drug, and a large portion of the population is directly harmed by it. Be it through drunk drivers, domestic abuse, or just the general unpleasantness that exists in being around them

So your solution is to prohibit alcohol? Look how well that worked... Besides, the comparison between alcohol and heroin is very tenuous. The violence caused by alcohol is pharmacological, the violence caused by heroin is sociological.

Ignoring a fact that they are incapible of actually living a normal life.

That's just ignorant prejudice. Heroin maintenance works.

If you hate heroin addicts so much, why not advocate legalization so it will be easier for the bastards to get what's coming to them?

game set match. i guess you could walk across America without being tracked -- if you disable the gps in your cell phone.

thats a big fat false. your cell phone is always "pinging" any cell station in its vicinity so it knows where to jump next. generally your phone trys to stay aware of 2-3 cell stations at any given time due to the nature of the protocol. the base stations can and probably do record this information. this is why police can zero in on a cell phone even if gps is turned off and is on Analog Only mode.

i think gps is just a clever psuedo-title for cell phone providers to legally store the information without violating your privacy contract (any cell phone developers or insiders wishing to correct me, please feel free).

your best bet is to get a disposable cell phone (prepaid) and dump it after a few minutes of use (not long enough to record a trail to determine the direction you are moving). of course if you don't give any kind of identifying information on the call, you could probably hold onto the phone and save it for future use. be wary because the person you are calling or is calling you, could be traced back to you through his or her past.

as long as you fit in with the local towns you cross, you should feel pretty safe from random id checks. it's sad to realize that Minority Report style evasion tactics are being learned and mastered now to truely create an underground population similiar to those in Demolition Man. at the rate this is going, i wouldn't be surprised if the US had very strict law enforcement policy in 100 years. law abiding citizens would be happy. those who like to indulge in safe yet illegal activities will have to find a way to dodge the strict american regime. i think this is a computer game in the making....

You might think legalization of drugs would prevent many of the ills associated with them. I had wondered that myself. So did the government of Switzerland. So they basically tried it, legalizing most things related to drugs in Needle Park.

It failed. Badly.

Treating drug addiction like a disease, with hardcore users given their drugs under medical supervision seems to be more helpful for society and for the users themselves.

The libertarian notion of "less laws means better living!" is very appealing. It's also very naive.

Because the United States and China are so similar when it comes to oppressing free speech and jailing political dissidents.

You're reading into his statement more than was said. China and the U.S. need not be similar in the degree to which they oppress free speech for someone in the U.S. to have legitimate need for

If anyone can give actual provable examples of the US government abridging Constitutionally protected free speech, I'd love to hear it.

Geez. Those who are ignorant of history...

Try the Alien and Sedition of 1798 and the Sedition Act of 1918 for starters. Also the Espionage Act which was used to send labor leader and presidential candidate Eugene Debs to jail for a decade.

We can dance around semantics as to whether HUAC's actions during the 1950s constituted "censorship", but certainly it was government action in supression of certain viewpoints.

More recently the Istook Amendment attempted to deny federal transportation funds to localities that accept advertisements critical of federal drug policy.

"Despite the fact that drug use is more or less consistent across racial lines ... African Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses causing critics to call the war on drugs the 'New Jim Crow.'" -- http://www.drugpolicy.org/communities/race/

It's also a good way to keep minorities from getting an education.

Seeing how well Rep. Sensenbrenner's RealID law went over, here comes another one: H.R. 1528 entitled "Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005".

http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/051105sensenalert.c fm
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill= h109-1528

They want to increase penalties for every drug offense. They want a mandatory 2-year prison term for anyone who knows someone is selling marijuana on a college campus and fails to report it to the police within 24 hours. They want a mandatory 5-year prison term for someone at a party who passes a marijuana joint to someone who has been enrolled in drug treatment at some point in their life. They want to expand the federal "three strikes and you're out" law to include new offenses, including mandating life imprisonment (with no possibility of parole) for anyone convicted a third time under the RAVE Act.

And if all that sounds good to you, just wait, they'll probably come up with mandatory minimum for traffic violations, or looking at the wrong porn, or something else you do. See you in the prison labor camp comrade...

Ready for another one? Seen Sensenbrenner's HR 1528?

http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/051105sensenalert.c fm

They want to increase penalties for every drug offense. They want a mandatory 2-year prison term for anyone who knows someone is selling marijuana on a college campus and fails to report it to the police within 24 hours. They want a mandatory 5-year prison term for someone at a party who passes a marijuana joint to someone who has been enrolled in drug treatment at some point in their life. They want to expand the federal "three strikes and you're out" law to include new offenses, including mandating life imprisonment (with no possibility of parole) for anyone convicted a third time under the RAVE Act.

I do hope that less than 1/3 of the population uses marijuana, as it's illegal.

Yes, because everyone who has half a brain and can think critically knows how dangerous marijuana can be, and that the government would never make illegal something that wasn't dangerous. They're fully acquainted with what should be illegal and what shouldn't.

Is it me, or is HTML like the PERFECT language of sarcasm?? :)

Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.

There's no credible organization stepping forward to say that there is no link between illegal drugs and terrorism...

So what? I see no such requirement in the policy CBS puts forward in defense of this onerous decision.

You're grasping at straws.

And who says that the ACLU and the Drug Policy Alliance aren't credible?

And even if that were the case, why do you suppose that would be? Because so many in the media refuse to run advocacy ads disputing the connection between drugs and terrorism?

Just because your OK with goosestepping into a future of shit doesn't mean the rest of us have to be.

As prohibition is enforced, drug prices increase. The more they increase the more prohibitionist related violence occurs. Remember "the greater the risk, the greater reward". Some addicts would sell out their own mother to get the money to get high. No law against and no price too high it will turn the tide. Prohibition has never worked and never will.

An experiment in Bern, Switzerland a few years ago showed something very interesting. The Govt sold pharmaceutical grade heroin to addicts for ~$5USD. They received counseling and a clean needle before they injected. What happenned? Property crimes dropped by 80%. Violent thefts also dropped by over 50%. Decrease the price and remove the criminal supply chain gets you great results.

As for the marijuana claims, think about this: how many people do you know that went nuts from consuming cannabis, became violent from consuming cannabis or "moved on" to hard drugs solely because of it? I'm guessing the number is zero. Marijuana doesn't kill but marijuana prohibition does.

I've sung this song too many times before. Read this. In the end you've been sold on the idea prohibition works by those who most profit from it, the Govt and LEOs. I'm sorry, but you are flat out wrong. I think you weren't trolling but truly believe what you said, which makes it all the sadder. Might I suggest reading Reason's view on drugs?

Get the facts about marijuana and the true cost of prohibition.

Wiretaps for that year cost taxpayers $69.5 million, and approximately 80 per cent were related to drug investigations.

I'm not saying legalize everything, just treat addiction to hard drugs as a medical issue and let medical doctors prescribe for maintance while helping their patients. Marijuana (something much safer than alcohol) needs to be legalized and taxed.

Get the facts about marijuana. End the drug war now.

Some people are also making this observation about our current federal sentencing guidelines for drug posession. Taking a ride in a car that contains some substance could give you the same trip to jail this spammer is looking at.

I'm opposed to the waste of money and loss of Freedom that has been the hopeless "War on Drugs". If you are too, have a look at the above website.

In my opinon, a political lobbying group like the Drug Policy Alliance are more likely to actually fix the broken Drug prohibtion laws than any other mechanism (hey -- it is the USA, after all, and Lobbyist organizations really do set the rules, kids!)

How can a person be held accountable for the actions of others, especially when there is no proof of who did what?

I'm not sure. Perhaps you should ask the people that crafted the RAVE Act.

Georgy, evidence actually shows that if children use marijuana once a month from the age of 13, they will NEVER achieve their potential. How can you justify your stance on weed given this FACT ?

The current war on marijuana costs the US over 9 billion USD per year plus another 1+ billion in lost tax revenue if it was legal and taxed. Legalizing marijuana would open up over 130,000 prison spaces allowing more room for real criminals. The facts are that marijuana is much less harmful than alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and acetaminophen (Tylenol).

A great example of the failure on the war on marijuana is 19 year old Webster Alexander. A undercover cop asked him for some pot, Alexander gave him some. The cop asked again and this time offerred him money in exchange. After four "deals" Alexander was arrest, never given a competent lawyer, tried, convicted and sentenced to 26 years in jail for a total of $250 worth of sales. This is more time than a 2nd degree murder, 1st degree manslaughter or a molestation conviction gets you.

Please stop spreading FUD about marijuana because someone just might believe you.

Facts and Myths about Marijuana
"Marijuana Prohibition Costs Over $7 Billion Annually"
26 years for $250 worth of marijuana.
"Teenager Dies from Acetaminophen Overdose"