According to this documentary by the CBC, the Indios Football Club in Ciudad Juarez is one of the only breaks people there get from drug cartel violence. Violence that is being fueled by the USA’s insistence on continuing their failed experiment called drug prohibition.
And even the Indios club’s own existence is threatened by the drug cartel forces that are scaring people into their homes to try and hide from their daily existence of a city blanketed in multiple daily murders. Even their own homes don’t provide them with much needed safety as you will see in this story. When are we going to stop the insanity and reverse our failed drug policy? This is getting to be too much to stomach, one would think even for the staunchest drug prohibitionist.
Now some might say awesome – they got 600 pounds of meth of the street. Sure that’s a good thing but the reality of how futile the bust was is reflected clearly in the quoted police officer’s own comment.
Sheriff’s officials said “they had no illusions the huge bust would stem the flow of drugs from Mexico. These organizations are all over the place out there, folks,”
And that says it all.
After all these years, and all the billions of tax dollars spent, we are in the worst situation ever when it comes to the damage drugs are doing to our society. And the irony is, it isn’t the drugs doing it. It’s the negative side effects of drug prohibition that are causing gang violence, dangerous drug labs, child drug dealers, billionaire drug lords, corrupt police, enriched enemies over sea’s, and whored out drug addicts that get no treatment because of police get all the drug policy money and only crumbs being allocated to treatment and harm reduction.
And the list goes on folks.
How can we continue to claim that the current approach to drug policy is the best approach. It is clearly one of the worst ways of dealing with drug use in a society, ever.
Oh nice. The failure of the war on drugs is finally coming home to roost in the USA. Tonight CNN is reporting that drug cartels were in a gun battle with Mexican authorities just a few hundred yards from the El Paso border crossing. More violence in Juarez thanks to the inhumane and illogical continuation of drug prohibition.
Some good coverage of California’s attempt to change the USA’s stupid laws against cannabis – from Canada. I guess if you Americans are tired of listening to the spin by FoxNews this will be a breath of fresh air. Of course it has its token prohibitionist at the end of the clip, but the more mainstream cannabis becomes the more these guys look like total idiots. Legalize, regulate and tax. It’s the only thing a smart society would do – so what kind of society do we all live in right now? Obviously not a very bright one.
Gordon Campbell and his Liberal MP’s are intentionally ignoring the fact that every reason they have given to legitimize why they have legalized online gambling in the province are exactly the same arguments any intelligent person would give for legalizing the Billion dollar marijuana trade in this province.
1. Because of the large amount of illegal gambling taking place that is sending truckloads of cash to organized crime which causes other crimes and vicitmizations to occur. (hmmm, I bet there might just be even more illegal marijuana growing, selling and smoking going on in this province than online poker playing – and I know it is making criminals stinking rich)
2. Gambling needs to be regulated so that social programs benefit by moving gambling revenue into education and health care. (hmmm, I think I’ve heard the exact same argument made for decades in support of legalizing marijuana)
3. The government could better provide services to problem gamblers if they were in control of the gambling activity on the internet. (hmmm, wouldn’t it be better to do the same thing for problem pot smokers – if there is such a thing – rather than throw them in jail at $240 a day billed to the tax payer?)
When I heard Gordo say these things to justify his governments involvement in online gambling (after being steadfast against expanding gambling options in BC) I couldn’t help but think – you fucker! Everything he said are things that thousands of British Columbian’s have been saying for years in support of legalizing marijuana. And now you’re using the same arguments to justify legalizing internet gambling, while pretending it isn’t 100% hypocritical.
I even heard douche bag Kevin Krueger (BC MLA for Kamloops -South) spouting off about how online gambling and marijuana are different because marijuana is a gateway drug and dealers can lace marijuana with harder drugs. That gateway drug shit has been dis-proven over and over again yet morons like him continue to repeat it. There is actually now evidence that marijuana is an effective exit drug from hard drug use. And lacing marijuana is caused by prohibition, would the BC government lace marijuana with crystal meth if they distributed it? No, so he just made an argument for why we should legalize it. Moron.
On the other hand seeing how fucked up the launch of the new gambling site was (massive privacy breach and the site crashed) perhaps the Billion dollar marijuana industry is in better hands with organized crime running things. They at least seem to know what the fuck they are doing.
Free Marc Emery - He Only Sold Seeds To Americans Who Asked For Them
Even though Marc is still being held unjustly in an American prison for a crime (if you can call selling pot seeds a crime) that he committed in Canada, he has been let out of solitary confinement. And the board that was doling out his punishment chose not to tarnish his good behaviour record over this matter. To them it was clear that Marc unknowingly broke a prison rule, and for that he should only lose phone privileges for about a month. His good behaviour record is in tact which could result in him getting 15% of his sentence reduced per year, if it stays intact.
Not only is Marc Emery spending time in a US prison for a so called crime that we in Canada couldn’t be bothered to even charge him with – selling pot seeds – but now he is in solitary confinement for breaking a prison rule that was never explained to him. It wasn’t even in the prison rule book he was given.
Marc was having a phone conversation with his wife Jodie and she recorded the call. For some reason that is against prison rules – I’m sure the prison can record any calls it wants but I guess free Canadian citizens who aren’t even in the USA can’t. Bullshit.
Write Marc at the address here and let him know that he’s on the right side of history on this issue and that he’ll pull through. Also be sure to let him know what’s new and exciting in your neck of the woods. Let him know that he is missed and that we are looking forward to his safe and fast return to freedom.
And lets not forget what this is all about. Marc was just trying to point out the obvious to those who choose to put their head in the sand and ignore the failure of the drug war. Drug prohibition has been a colossal waste of scarce tax dollars. Prohibition is taking billions of dollars away from priorities like educating our children and providing health care to every Canadian citizen. I know for a fact that taking money away from prohibition and giving it to worthwhile programs that benefit our society will be a much better use of that money. Turn cannabis into a tax revenue generating product and apply it to health care. All the money saved from enforcing cannabis laws can be sent to education. And you can save a portion of what is made on the sale of cannabis to deal with any negative effects caused by legalizing it. Such as an increase in car crashes (if any), increased health care costs from smoking (if smoked and if proven to be carcinogenic which it hasn’t been), etc.
In the end we’ll all see that what Marc has been preaching is 100% dead on accurate. And all those who allowed Marc Emery to be sent up the river without adding their voice to the outcry will be ashamed of what they did. Or should I say didn’t.
Marc Scott Emery #40252-086 Unit DB
PO Box 13900
FDC SeaTac
Seattle, Washington
98198-1090
USA
“Today was a day of frustration for me. In Montreal useless lazy cops decided today was the day to take medicine away from sick people by raiding a series of cannabis compassion clubs. This after similar raids in Toronto a few weeks ago. I expect Vancouver compassion clubs to be next, but if they do that they better be ready for a fight. We Vancouverites do not take lightly to heavy handed law enforcement abusing sick people who are harming nobody by consuming cannabis.
And then to add some irony into the days news cycle the CBC reported how organized crime is now operating the largest, most sophisticated, hardest to find grow ops ever seen in BC. And no doubt, based on what I have smoked, they are also growing the best weed they ever have. Here’s that news story…
And in case you missed it this story pointed out the blatant futility of the law enforcement effort to stop BC Bud.
For every 1000 Grow Ops
200 get reported to police
Police have the resources to investigate 100
Only 65 proceed with a criminal charge
Only 38 cases are strong enough for the crown to proceed with charges
and 8 end up leading to jail time
It’s a fucking waste of time and money over a harmless plant!
And to piss me off even more the media does a horrible job of reporting the news in this area. It’s reported as if the solution is to have tougher laws against cannabis use and production. And of course nothing could be further from the truth. Of course our unethical cops and useless politicians would like us to believe otherwise.
For fuck sakes are all of our police and politicians retarded? It’s tougher laws that have got us to where we are now. Every step in the direction of tougher laws increases the violence in the marijuana trade, pushes the growers further into the shadows and ultimately results in a less safe society. Jesus Christ, why am I the only one who see’s this pattern?
Thankfully I know I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Every person I engage in conversation about marijuana prohibition has the same opinion as me these days. And I’m not exaggerating. 10 years ago it was harder to find someone who agreed with my point of view. Nowadays people are growing very tired of having our scarce police resources used to keep responsible adults from using cannabis products. Tons of people are now aware of the epic failure of cannabis prohibition, yet our police still close down peaceful, non organized crime associated, compassion clubs. And no doubt they will be back at the tax payers money trough asking for more money to fight the “”scourge”" of marijuana.
And nothing is ever said on the news about how raiding compassion clubs just forces people to go back to paying organized crime for a product that was definitely produced in a more dangerous way than the lab tested and professionally grown cannabis compassion clubs sell to their doctor approved members. Not to mention the indignity that sick people have to go through to source medicine from gangsters.
Isn’t it time to do the right thing and let cannabis users be? We don’t deserve the abuse we are given for using a substance scientifically proven to be safer than our legal drugs – alcohol, tobacco and caffeine.
So to all you cops out there, give us a fucking break and go fight real crime. And to our politicians – stop handing money over to gangsters and let us pay you for our cannabis instead of them.”
Animals are most dangerous when threatened and cornered. They will attack you under those circumstances. Ideologically centered governments, like Canada’s current Conservative Party debacle, react the same way. Marc Emery found that out after many years of cornering the Canadian and US Governments.
He cornered them with science, fact and public support. He cornered them by pointing out their lies about marijuana that were designed to scare and mislead the public. Marc Emery stood up for what is right and what is just – an outright end to our terribly failed marijuana laws. Today Canada’s Justice Minister lashed out at Emery from his cornered position and exercised his poor judgment and signed Marc’s extradition papers.
Write your MP a letter stating how disappointed you are at what happened in Marc’s case. Write letters to the editor. And most importantly of all, once Marc is behind bars find his address and write him. Be sure to watch my blog as I will post his mailing address in prison as soon as I know it.”
