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The White House Responds To We the People Petition
First time accepted submitter Nysul writes "The White House, aiming to gather the opinion (or marketing data) of the internet nation, asked for our thoughts by creating the We the People site and now it has responded to some of the more popular petitions, such as marijuana reform and separation of church and state. You probably won't be surprised at the answers."
If marijuana is half as bad as they claim, shouldn't Barack Obama, former marijuana and cocaine user, resign immediately and be placed in a maximum security prison?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The translation for most of these is really simple: The obvious political calculations don't support the petitions. The vast majority of people who support the decriminalization of pot are people who would vote for Obama anyways. (There might be some libertarians in the Tea Party but even bringing up legalization at their rallies had lead to booing. See e.g. http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Pot-Legalization-Brings-Boos-at-Tea-Party-Rally.). The only one that's even more blatant than that is the petition answer about removing "under God" from the pledge of allegiance. The people who care about that definitely aren't going to vote for anyone other than Obama (well, if Huntsman won the Republican primary then maybe, but right now he's polling at 2% among registered Republicans...). That petition response is even more noteworthy for having a nice mix of trying to claim that non-believers make up an important part of the US even as Obama endorses the claim that God is important to nation. The worst part of all this is that his political calculation is correct: Next election I'm probably going to be voting for him. Because the other option will be a lot worse.
...the first amendment says that the government won't do anything to RESPECT an establishment of religion. Of course the government shouldn't establish an official religion, but they are twisting it to mean something else so that they can pass it off. What worthless losers. They can't even FREAKIN' READ! Since they are not supposed to RESPECT any establishment of religion, then YES, the "under god" crap should come out of the stupid pledge, the "in god we trust" should come out of money... but no, the government is supported by corporations and special interest groups... namely a LOT of money from religious groups as well. That's why they aren't being logical. You know they could afford someone that actually took a critical thinking class to read FOR them.. they choose to interpret it differently to suit their needs. I'm sick of their crap.
Of course it is. There isn't even a question about it. The correct question to ask is "is it more addictive, or is addiction to it more harmful to the victim or others, than other legal substances?" For example, alcohol. Or for that matter, video games or gambling, both of which can be addictive.
That's where the answer is no, it's no more dangerous than alcohol, and may well be less. At the very least I see fewer violent responses to it. Definitely not worth the cost we spend to police it, when treating it as a health problem would be cheaper. But if you really think it's not addictive you need to get your head out of your ass, look at the medical literature. Or just look at how many people continue to smoke pot as they throw their lives away.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Right. Those who smoke marijuana all know that they can stop any time they want!
Everything on the Marijuana is bad list is probably doubly applicable to alcohol. Cigarettes, aside from the cognitive impairment, are infinitely worse than smoking pot is for you.
Regulate and tax it like cigarettes and booze. It's really not that complicated.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
POTUS has failed on so many bold promises already, why should I care how he responds to petitions? Sort of worry about whether the fertilizer a serial killer is using in his garden is organic or not.
Gitmo is still open.
The Patriot Act is just about as strong as ever.
Wars are multiplying, though he does get credit for winding down Iraq (way too slowly) and Libya (bonus credit for keeping boots off the ground, but loses them for getting us involved in the first place).
The economy is still a wreck, and his limp wristed efforts have done nothing but embolden his detractors and sully the chances of trying a truly bold stimulus plan.
So yeah, I got about what I expected from a bozo who has long ago lost my vote. Not that I voted for him the first time, as I saw through his grandiose speeches by looking up his voting record on things I cared about.
Actually, the correct question would be "has marijuana been shown to be addictive?". That which has not been shown is assumed not to be.
From the article:
"According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health- the world's largest source of drug abuse research - marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease, and cognitive impairment "
Well, if that's your standard for keeping marijuana illegal, may I suggest adding:
Tobacco: Also associated with nicotine addiction, respiratory disease and cancer
Alcohol: Also associated with addiction, liver disease and cognitive impairment
Oh wait, those have huge lobbists behind them. Nevermind.
Anything that can be psychologically addictive.. ANY substance. The problem is that the white house was vague about whether they were referring to psychological or _physical_ addiction. The latter meaning that when you quit your body shows sign of extreme withdraw. I guess you could also question the ambiguity of 'extreme' too tho
Theyre not on a mission from God.. theyre on a mission from Pfizer.
Unless they do, then the really can. The problem is the overlap between pot smokers and slackers.
Its easier to quit smoking pot than it is to stop drinking soda.
So... you're saying that caffeine is not addictive as well?
I'm sorry, but "slightly addictive" is still addictive. That doesn't make it a valid reason to make it illegal though, nicotine is easily more addictive, and it's still legal, so "marijuana is addictive" shouldn't be a valid argument that you even allow. You actually give them credence by arguing against it.
Lie or truth, the statement "marijuana is addictive" is not a sufficient reason to make it illegal.
It's like, red cars are illegal, and the government puts out a claim that "red cars are less visible". You don't argue against this claim with "but red cars are more visible!" Because then you just get into a shouting match of "nu-huh!" "ya-huh!" "nu-huh!" "ya-huh!" ... No, rather you argue with "black cars are easily known to be less visible than red cars, yet black cars are not illegal, therefore regardless of if your statement is true or false, this is not a valid premise for the illegality of red cars." That way they have nothing to come back against your argument with. By using this disarming tactic, they can argue that "red cars are less visible" until they're blue in the face, but it doesn't matter, because you've correctly pointed out: THAT DOESN'T MATTER.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
It's mentally addicting in that it becomes a habit. It's not physically addictive in that you get the DTs and hallucinate for a week if you stop. If you know the difference through first hand experience you'll get this. You may be able to get the difference from a clinical understanding. Given neither, you have no idea.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Strictly speaking, it's not a lie.
There's two different kinds of addiction: physiological addiction, and psychological addiction. Physical addiction is the bad shit; it means that if you take this substance, your body will eventually come to depend on it - and if you stop taking the substance, your body will be exceptionally unhappy with you.
One extremely common example of a physically addictive drug is Citalopram, one of those drugs they prescribe for anxiety and depression; if you want to stop taking it and quit cold turkey, you're going to have massive headaches for a couple of weeks. There's also, of course, the common trifecta of alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, all of which are truly physically addictive.
The thing is, though, when people say "it's addictive", they're almost never clear on whether they mean physically addicting or psychologically addicting. The problem with that is, well, anything can be psychologically addicting - all it really means is that you really like doing something, and so change your behavior in order to do it more, potentially to the detriment of other aspects of your life. Sure, you can get addicted to, say, World of Warcraft - but if you quit, you're not going to get blazing headaches or anything like that (except maybe from being out in the sun more).
So, it is true that marijuana can be addicting, in the same way that a good book or an exciting game or an interesting TV show is addicting. It's not true that marijuana is addicting in the same way as tobacco or alcohol or caffeine.
What I found hilarious, though, is that you could use his argument against legalizing marijuana as an argument for the prohibition of basically any currently-legal drug. Maybe we should start up a new proposal to get those banned, since after all the White House is now on record as saying that they don't fit the criteria for legalization?
Bank bailouts, nobody charged, never mind convicted, in the biggest financial swindle in history, but instead rewarded.
Do you believe that most of the 99% *wanted* that? Given a choice, the majority would rather back OWS.
How about legalizing it so we can stop spending billions of dollars on cannabis enforcement, generate millions (possibly billions) in taxes on its sales, and at the same time cut off American gangs and Central and South American drug cartels at the knees by taking away control of one of their biggest products?
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
You can tell how condescending this site is because their response is written by a former "police chief" the demographic probably most likely to condemn all drugs. I think back to the convention scenes in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".
Is alcohol addictive and does it cause severe cognitive impairment when abusedâ¦. yesâ¦totally. OK so that means you are also in favor of reinstituting prohibition just so you are consistent on the issueâ¦. didn't think so.
@de_machina
It's not really about the medical issues, it's about freedom and choice. Society has had to learn to live with the costs of tobacco and alcohol - which are higher - because people get really tetchy if you make those against the law; they start breaking that law right and left and giving money to murderous gangsters. (Yes it happened with tobacco, too - when Canada jacked up the taxes until it was worth breaking the law to smuggle smokes in from the states. In no time, there was gunplay between those doing the smuggling over stealing each other's loads, and the usual turf rights. We had to ratchet down the taxes again.)
It's not about "wanting to get high" - people who don't touch the stuff support legalization. Some, from a more abstract reverence for individual freedom. Others, because of the high costs: It's about 20 million arrests. It's about $16 billion per year. (That's at all three gov't levels). It's enough to pay for 25,000 of those "lavish" teacher retirement funds. Every year.
The waste of $16B may sound small these days as the USA tosses hundreds of billions at banks and more at defense expenditures. But it works out to $150/household/year in the US - and since only half pay taxes, it costs $300 per tax-paying household. To put people in jail that, if they grew and sold tobacco, would be called "upstanding taxpaying citizens". Still think that's "nonsense"?
Your logic, as is current drug policy, is foolishness. Your contention is this substance is harmful, therefore it should be illegal. Your contention is people should be arrested, processed through our courts, and jailed and/or imprisoned. Over a plant. What makes this foolish, is your assumption that making something illegal makes it unavailable. In fact, the opposite is true. The only thing prohibition policy does is creates a black market. That's it. Black market profiteers don't fear getting their 7-11 shut down, so they have no incentive to follow the prohibition law. You can only control availability when it is legal, but regulated. Like tobacco. Prohibition, making something illegal, merely determines who profits from the substance.
But what's worse, is your ignorance behind the statement this issue is not worthy of the President's time. Make no mistake, drug prohibition is one of the most significant social justice issues of our generation. Over 50,000 Mexican citizens have been murdered in the last 5 years. We only lost 3,000 on 9/11 in America. Over 750,000 Americans are arrested every year for possession of a plant. Over $1 Trillion dollars has been wasted over the last 40 years on the failed war on drugs, which is really a war on its own citizens.
Just because a substance is not healthy, does not mean it should be criminalized. In fact, as we learned in the 20's, the consequences of prohibition are far more disastrous.
Bottom line, the CSA (Controlled Substances Act), or at least the criminalizing prohibition pieces, must be repealed, just as the 18th Amendment was repealed.
“Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.”
— Abraham Lincoln
People who willingly break the law are the problem. Especially when they do it for petty selfish reasons.
People who blindly accept that legal/illegal and right/wrong are isometric, that there is no unjust law, and that the argument is settled because the government said so are a far larger problem. Especially when they do it for petty, selfish reasons.
Lets be clear about what addiction means by balancing the level of addiction in marijuana against other substances. Reality is marijuana is substantially less addictive and creates far less harm than alcohol, in fact there is no comparison at all between the level of addiction and harm between marijuana and alcohol, alcohol being orders of magnitude more addictive and harmful.
Then you also have nicotine, again the levels of addictions and harm are orders of magnitude worse for nicotine compared to marijuana. Even caffeine is more addictive and more harmful than marijuana.
So the real addiction is that of a corrupt government to keeping marijuana illegal. Addiction to campaign contributions from pharmaceuticals that want to patent the health benefits of the substances in marijuana and charge 1,000 even 10,000 percent profits on them. Addiction to profits of the alcohol who want to keep a safer cheaper competitor out of the market. Addiction to profits of the wood pulp and chemical required to turn it into paper. Addiction to profits to the privatised prisons corporations obtained from locking away drug users with extended sentences. Addiction to keeping other countries destabilised in drug wars forced on them by the United States. Addiction to off balance funds for the CIA as the one of the world leading drug dealers. Addiction to campaign contributions from drug dealers, those that profit most be illegal drugs.
Worst of all they are addicted to lies, to deceiving the public to feed their own addiction to power. They are scum sucking, filthy, degenerate, whores to the psychopaths that pay them of in campaign contributions and bribes hidden away in off shore tax havens. Remember those lies lies destroy tens even hundreds of thousands of peoples lives, sending them to prison for causing no harm to others, creating the financing for crime organisations that ravage communities, corrupting policing and turning it into law enforcement hostile to the citizens it is meant to serve.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
With all this marijuana / church crap (add guns ownership, gay mariage and other distractions) your lovely government is trying to keep your attention as far as possible from important things. See, they're making so much noise about this crappy site, yet thousands and thousands of people occupying centers of so many cities, trying to bring attention to THE real issue are completely ignored (and sometimes tear-gased and flash-banged) by the same government, and shamelessly ridiculed / silenced by your corporate media.
Since 2008 crash not a single fraudster who caused this fiasco was sentenced (and don't bring in Madoff - he was jailed because he tried also stealing from other fraudsters, not only from ordinary people). Instead of resolving this issue, government is actively covering up all these crimes and handsomely paying for all bad bets of said fraudsters from your taxes, your future and your children future. There is a lot of budget deficit noise lately but if you look at it closer, you'll see that it will only harm ordinary people and science budgets. Lucrative corporate contracts, army contracts will remain intact (and grow over time). Banksters will surely go back for another round of bailouts (it's easy money after all) and they'll get what they want. Government officials will cover up all corporate wrongdoings in hope to end up on in some well paid corporate job. This vicious circle is called regulatory capture and there is propably nothing left to deal with it - except for (non-violent !!!) civil disobedience.
I'm a foreigner from post-communist country who was growing up in crappy communist system, it strikes me that communism was very similiar to contemporary corporate state (no wonder China succeeds). There are actually two sides of the same coin - both on state level (de-facto central planning in US and EU, lobbied by corporate sponsors) and inside corporations themselves (levels of sillyness and ineffeciencies are comparable, if not greater to those in state-owned enterprises in post-communist countries). There are differences of course - technology went forward a lot, corporate state has way better PR and allows for private enterprises (more and more limited by thousands of corporate-sponsored regulations). Actually, communist China mastered this by keeping their core communist system intact (chinese exporter still needs to give away all his earned dollars in exchange for freshly printed CNYs) and allowing for limited private enterprises (oh, irony - less limited than in the West!). Let me stress this again: communism and corporate state are the two sides of the same coin !
While I'm watching what OWS folks do, I see so many similiarities with what my father in Solidarity movement was doing 30 years ago in Poland. Once again that's striking to me - you're basically at the same point of this process we've been in early 80's. Just don't get distracted by "Hope & Change" crapola, "Republicans vs Democrats" fraud. Don't get distracted by "We The People Petition" - government-sponsored PR scams aren't worth wasting your time. Don't get co-opted by some political party and don't get divided between (fraudulent) political lines (your lovely corporate media will try their best to do this). And don't let violence to outbreak - white shirts from police will be more than happy seeing this. They know how to deal with violence but have no idea how to deal with peaceful protests. That's why see things like Antony Bologna fiasco and I admire how OWS folks dealt with this - it was briliant. And finally, don't let your government to incite next great war (every f*ng estabullshitment tries this when it runs out of options). I wish you good lock goig forward with this.
You can tell how condescending this site is because their response is written by a former "police chief" the demographic probably most likely to condemn all drugs.
Yeah, and Josh fucking DuBois responding to the requests to remove god junk from the pledge and currency. Of course his response was a firm no, pointing out religion's important role in America. What other kind of response were we to expect from the Pentacostalist head of faith based iinitiatives? DuBois' office is a glaring example of the intrusion of religion in to government, yet he's the one chosen to respond. So much hand waving and bullshit.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
1) person found with pot
2) cop beats shit out of said person
3) person lands in emergency room
yes, lots of pot-related emergency room treatments.
(rolls eyes)
there are lies, damned lies, and then there are made up bullshit lies that the gov uses to justify its already-decided mindset.
don't piss in my mouth and say its milk. stupid government motherfuckers.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
In the latter half of the 18th Century, only about 33% of the Colonial population supported overthrowing the chains of British rule. As a rule of thumb, 1/3 were happy, 1/3 were mad, 1/3 didn't give a shit.
You don't need a plurality of motivated people to have a successful revolution.