Tom Toles for November 12, 2012

Ever notice when they burn the stash the cops are all downwind?

Huzzah, good sir!

The war on drugs won’t go away until use-it-or-lose-it police pork is cut off.

One of your best.

The war on drugs would also go away if wealthy white people went to jail for it at the rate the low-income minorities do! (And no, it has nothing to do with usage rates. It has to do with connections, and where the police pay their attention.)

Interesting that Colo and Washington are portrayed as sensible, responsible white folk – a far cry from Cheech and Chong stoners from a generation or two ago. MJ’s prohibition is going to end, just as gay rights are almost here. Eventually people will get tired of the hypocrisy and the expense of enforcement.

Phhwwwiiiett!

Let’s take a moment to thank all the soldiers who died for our right to get high.

I don’t take any kind of “entertainment” drugs (save caffeine) myself — I learned long ago that people on weed became bad conversationalists, which meant I had no use for them — but the absurdity of throwing users of a mild euphoriant into jail for life has finally become obvious to at least a few people. Marijuana is not good for you — it irritates the lungs as badly as regular cigarettes — but unless we ban alcohol (again) and tobacco, it doesn’t make sense to have this sort of two-tier system of justice. There have been a number of surprisingly successful experiments in decriminalization (check out Portugal). Don’t drive stoned, don’t drive drunk, don’t smoke in public — and what you do in the privacy of your own home is none of my damn business, nor that of the government.

It would be hysterically funny if so many lives weren’t being ruined. Check out the current case in Montana.

Before Thatcher’s Americanization policies (armed police, war on drugs, etc.), addicts could get drugs on prescription from their National Health Service doctors. The underworld had to depend on other means (such as prostitution, smuggling, and theft) for their income. Addicts could carry on a relatively normal life on a maintenance dose and some 5% would voluntarily quit each year. With no one pushing the drugs, addiction was slowly dropping. Of course, with Maggie, Ronnie, and Mo’ronnie, drugs flourished while democracy was reduced in the English-speaking world..I don’t believe in free distribution of penicillin either, but there have been times when I was glad it wasn’t outlawed. Valuable medicines should be reserved for medical use. Otherwise staf-resistant bacteria (or some other unforeseen side effect) will emerge. But don’t outlaw valuable medicine just because some idiot might abuse it.

I do hope and pray that this is not another passing hallucination— even reality can be a fleeting moment.

I am all in favor of the passage of these propositions in Washington, and Colorado, and no, I don’t use any drugs recreationally (not even caffeine). Having said that, I’m going to be very interested in how the Feds operate in these two states. If it’s anything like what they’ve done in states with medical MJ laws, we’re going to see a possible states rights issue developing.

Just as is the case with the TSA, Obamacare’s continued underwriting of private insurance companies and perhaps most especially our bloated military, the “War on Drugs” is a HUGE jobs program with a very substantial and well funded and connected constituency. JOBS, man! Legalizing and rationally regulating “recreational” drugs would put hundreds of thousands of police, prosecutors, rehabers, prison guards and all of their administrative and support staffs and vendors, not to mention the real criminals in the current distribution system, out of work. And since so many of the “offenders” that are the feedstock of the system are minorities, and most all of the money is tax money…Idiotic and disgusting.

war on drugs started in the early 70s, and total costs since then is about a trillion dollars. needless to say, it hasn’t worked. btw, in the netherlands, where pot is legal, there is a smaller proportion of users than in the us.

The “war” on marijuana is as ludicrous, and expensive as our war on Islam (excuse me, “terror”). Both are misplaced. HARD NARCOTICS, and dangerous drugs like meth, opiates, and black market pharmaceuticals, IS worth fighting, and logical, but still, treatment is a better weapon than incarceration for addicts. (and no, marijuana is NOT physically addictive (narcotic), but can be psychologically addictive, yes, just like other “mood altering” drugs, like Limbaugh, but doesn’t bring about the violence and hatred.)

Legalize and regulate pot, like alcohol, and focus in on the DEALERS of real narcotics, including those in “big pharma” profiting from the “trade”.

Simply put, regulating, and decriminalizing pot would get the growers off our public lands, clear out many of our jails of users, and save trillions of dollars in the next decade.

A final point, I have a number of friends who use “medical marijuana”, and find it far more effective than expensive “big pharma” alternatives, with NO side effects, and absolutely NO CHANCE of overdosing! Yes, overdoing the doobies IS as bad for the lungs as cigarettes, so well, big, “whoopie” on that one as well.

the “war on drugs” has been one of those mis-begotten ideas that would have been better for everyone if it had been much narrower. Marijuana is better than alcohol. it doesn’t make people violent and dangerous. When the feds give it up and tax it, will be for the best.the people who don’t want it to change are the crooks who make such big profits by keeping it illegal.THese could include prisons, for profit prisons, the legal system, the money launderers, the big badness rich corporations and drug kings,

Plan on Car accidents going up 15%. Heard it on NPR.

‘Once a nation is under tyranny, the people must be drugged to keep them from revolting.’Religion is your opiate.

omQR, religion is NOT an opiate!! It’s much more like PCP, and especially when those “three majors” of “the book” are considered.

Sorry, I didn’t make it clear that I do NOT believe in banning alcohol, tobacco, OR marijuana — that was my too-subtle reference to banning alcohol again. Because we know how well THAT worked. And it is freaking impossible to ban a WEED that grows all over North America with little or no cultivation!

Did I sneeze?