Archive for NtheDrgWar

Setting the record straight about Steve Kubby

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on July 25th, 2010

by Thomas L. Knapp

Two things I learned from “Scarface,” a heckuva movie.

Lesson Number One: Don’t underestimate the other guy’s greed!

Lesson Number Two: Don’t get high on your own supply.

Steve Kubby learned Lesson Number One the hard way.

Cannabis Science apparently still hasn’t learned Lesson Number Two.

Before I go any further, disclaimer time: I did some contract writing work for Cannex Therapeutics before it entered into its ill-advised — and now canceled nunc pro tunc (remember that term, it’s important) — deal with Cannabis Science, Inc. I intend, or at least hope, to be involved in future projects with Steve Kubby. I am not a disinterested party here.

On the other side of the ledger, this post is not a sponsored post. It’s my opinion, for which I take sole responsibility, and I’m not being paid by Kubby or by anyone else to write it except to the extent that I may move some DVDs on affiliate commission or collect some advertising revenues for page views, etc. I do not own, nor have I ever owned, any shares in Cannabis Science, Inc., nor do I hold any “short positions” or other tools for profiting through manipulation of CBIS’s stock value. Nor, frankly, would I want to unless, as seems increasingly likely, CBIS stock certificates at some point become cheaper than retail-price toilet paper.

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Sixteen reasons to legalize drugs

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on July 14th, 2010

by Dan Karlan

1. Make our streets and homes safer.

Estimates vary widely for the proportion of violent and property crime that is related to drugs, but one-third is a midpoint figure. In an October 1987 survey of 739 police chiefs by Wharton Econometrics for the U. S. Customs Service, the respondents “blamed drugs for a fifth of murders and rapes, a quarter of car thefts, two-fifths of robberies and assaults, and half the nation’s burglaries and thefts.”

The link between drugs and crime is well established. Cracking down on drugs increases crime. In a 30-month study of crime in Detroit, Lester P. Silverman, former associate executive director of the National Academy of Sciences’ Assembly of Behavioral and Social Sciences, found that a 10 percent increase in the price of heroin alone “produced an increase of 3.1 percent in total property crimes in poor nonwhite neighborhoods.” The same price increase caused armed robbery to jump 6.4 percent and simple assault 5.6 percent throughout the city.

The reasons are not difficult to understand. When law enforcement restricts the supply of drugs, the price of drugs rises. In 1984, a kilogram of cocaine worth $4000 in Colombia sold for $30,000 wholesale, and $300,000 retail, in the United States. At the time a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman noted, matter-of-factly, that the wholesale price had doubled in six months “due to crackdowns on producers and smugglers in Colombia and the U. S.” There are no statistics indicating how many more people were mugged or killed thanks to the DEA’s crackdown on cocaine.

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The real drug war: Battling addiction

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on April 12th, 2010

by Max Winkler-Wang

War on Drugs

In the 4th Century BC, the Greek Armies of Pyrrhus fought the new Roman state along the Italian peninsula. They won victory after victory that were so costly, that they ultimately defeated themselves. The term “Pyrrhic victory” came from this piece of history, defining short-sighted undertakings that result in failure despite seeming success.

I work the streets of the Denver area as a Parole Officer. I deal with a variety of criminal types in a field constantly plagued by the pestilence of drugs. I often believed that what I and other law-enforcement professionals were doing, was holding the tide against a plague of criminality. Then, it began to dawn on me that we are also fueling it. We are part of the problem.

What we do is deal with “the human factors” from such a narrow position, that we miss the larger, multi-dimensional picture. Here are three (very real) examples of what I mean:

“Penny” is a middle-aged woman with a severe health problem and a dysfunctional family. Several years ago, Aurora Police Officers were treated to the ongoing spectacle of an older white woman patronizing the crack and cocaine dealers of the rough crime-ridden inner-city, not making discreet buys on the quiet tree-lined streets of white suburbia.

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Fear induced mental stall

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on March 27th, 2010

by J. Michael Jones

Recently I was in line at my favorite coffee shop. In front of me was an apparent father-son duo. I had seen the father around town but did not know him. The son, who appeared to be late teens or older, was scoping out my “cops say” button. As I sometimes do I said, “Go ahead, ask.” He did and I went into reasons why drugs should be legalized. Abruptly, his father whirled and began screaming at me, “You be quiet! You don’t talk to him! He’s mine!”

My verbal response was that the young man had asked and I was responding. The father then said he had been trying to “get him off marijuana” for two years. I centered myself and remained quiet. The man, a local realtor as it turns out, did apologize to everyone else in the shop. His son apologized to me on the way out.

The incident has been on my mind for a couple of weeks now. I understand the man’s reaction, I see it as sincere, but I also see it as the result of fear combined with a lack of perceived options, options that may be readily available and apparent to others but not to the eye of a fearful parent.

As a white-water rafting guide I had a similar experience with a father whose desire to protect his daughter overwhelmed his reason. In that instance, miles away from shelter or take out, in the section of Rio Grande known as the Middle Box, the other, senior guide and I found that we had 14 people who were ill suited for outdoor adventure, especially in a thunderstorm. The father was doing the fatherly thing by giving instructions to his daughter who was frightened by the thunder and lightning and wanted to go inside.

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Drug war mistaken

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on February 18th, 2010

by Dean Becker

In the name of all powers that be, let us reconsider our stance regarding the policy of drug prohibition. In this hundred year effort to prevent the use of certain flowers and plant extracts we have empowered criminal elements worldwide to the tune of $400 billion per year. The US has arrested 39 million non-violent drug users at a cost of more than one trillion dollars. Despite the horrors the US inflicts on its own people in the name of drug war, it is the citizens of Mexico that bear the deadliest weight of this prohibition.

Thousands of Mexicans are butchered each year in the name of fighting this first of America’s eternal wars; the pipe dream of men who have long since died and whose followers continue their efforts to destroy the law of supply and demand, to stop 100’s of millions of users, to prohibit the tens of millions of growers and millions of criminals from seeking their cut of black market profits. America is addicted to drug war.

Some say the fault lies with the American users, that if they were to quit using cocaine, heroin and marijuana that the cartels would wither away. Those who fault the users do not take into account that the US represents only 5% of the earth’s population so that even if every American quit using these drugs, the Mexican cartels would still have hundreds of millions of customers worldwide and the barbarism would continue to escalate.

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Colorado’s war on drugs a fiscal nightmare

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on October 20th, 2009

by Mike Krause

Colorado lawmakers’ long-running devotion to the War on Drugs has helped push state prison spending to unsustainable levels. In the meantime, illicit drugs remain readily available throughout the state. This year, the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) has broken down into several sub-groups including a Drug Policy Task Force, to take a hard look at the state’s drug laws and sentencing policies.

This is an excellent opportunity for fiscal conservatives to take the lead in bringing some much needed scrutiny and restraint to corrections spending in Colorado.

In 1992, Colorado lawmakers surrendered their prerogative to write the state’s criminal law and enacted the Uniform Controlled Substances Act, written by drug war bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., and designed to bring state drug laws in to conformity with federal drug laws. The act, among many other things, created numerous new drug offenses, and sentencing enhancements for those offenses.

And the result?

Over the last several decades, the percentage of inmates whose most serious sentencing offense is a drug offense has quadrupled to around 20 percent of Colorado’s prison population. Drug offenders are by far the single largest category of new admissions to Colorado prisons at around 23 percent of annual admissions.

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Can you say “Reefer Madness”? Sadly, yes.

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on August 15th, 2009

by Rusty White

How is it that Americans have become so easily manipulated?? Have we forgotten the manipulation and lies our government and MEDIA used in the propagandist film Reefer Madness? While it is truly sad to see these two young people in Texas make such a stupid mistake, it is equally as sad to see the media use it for propaganda. How is this any different than when elders give a young person a beer, or a when a person puts alcohol in a bottle to get a kid to go to sleep? All are wrong, yet you don’t hear anybody asking for the same punishment. Why?

Have our people been manipulated so badly that they actually believe these two toddlers are now addicts? How is it that no one asks the question: If the drug war is remotely working, the longest and most expensive war ever, a war against our own people, how is it we still see horror stories like these and large drug busts over and over again? How come the need for resources continues going up instead of down as common sense would dictate?

How is it we have so many claiming to be of faith, wrongfully claiming to be acting with the Almighty’s blessing to rip a family a part for abusing his gift to all mankind? Do these young people need punishment? Yes. Just like those who use this sad event to justify their self-serving agendas do! It is a sad day for freedom and a nation that claims to protect people’s right to free will, when one group of people can claim to have the right to force others to live as they see fit!

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Random thoughts

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on July 21st, 2009

by Tony Ryan

A couple of days ago I thought I had a topic for this blog article but, today, darned if I can remember what it was. Must be age - or that thing called AAADD (Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder). You know, where you start out on a personal mission (errand, household chore, whatever) and are sidetracked by something else you see, then sidetracked again by a suddenly remembered, previously forgotten item needing to be taken care of, ad infinitum? By the end of the day you’ve accomplished nothing you set out to do, but somehow you’re really tired.

Anyway, a number of things have been in the news about the War on Drugs. Two things in particular deserve special note: In March (in the UK) the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Commission of Illegal Drugs issued a public statement following a two year study decrying current drug policy, suggesting a different approach to the drug problem by concentrating on harm reduction as opposed to criminalization.

Also, in June, at their annual conference, held in LA this year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors issued a resolution calling for ending the current drug prohibition in the U.S. They called the War on Drugs a failure and - with lots of Whereas’s and Therefore, Be It Resolved’s - detailed a suggested new program for dealing with the drug problem. The mayors recommended an emphasis on - you may have guessed it by now - harm reduction.

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The government war on pleasure is dangerous to your health

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on February 11th, 2009

by Donna Mancini

“A day without wine is like a day without sunshine.”

- Anonymous

What is a drug? I often hear people use the phrase he or she is on “drugs.” Typically, they mean a “non government approved” pleasure producing, mind or body altering substance AKA illegal drug. This is supposed to mean, when read between the lines, that the person is bad, a criminal, a loser, etc.  Also, to be on illegal drugs is supposed to be a reason or an excuse for a person’s irresponsible, violent, stupid or lazy behavior!

But let’s use a little critical thinking here.  Many of the most responsible, intelligent, high achieving people we know are drug users, and many of the lazy slackers, who do incredibly stupid stuff, are not drug users.  Also, naturally grown plants, such as marijuana, has never been held responsible for even one death and has major medicinal properties. So what is this hang up about people who take “drugs?”

Back to the discussion of what is a drug.

First of all, there are many government-approved drugs that alter or nourish the mind and body.  That is basically what any substance we ingest is supposed to do. Be it complex like food, or, individual and combinations of chemicals called drugs. It is estimated by the American Medical Association that up to 100,000 people a year die from government approved drugs and procedures.

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Questions

Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on January 24th, 2009

by J. Michael Jones

Among the many things I’m learning from talking with people is how their fears affect their decisions. As a former management instructor and administrator I’ve been interested in decision-making: how it’s done, factors, pitfalls, styles, bases, etc. As an Aikido and self-defense instructor I’ve been interested in fear as a factor in conflict situations. So, I’m fairly experienced in observing fear and its effects on dynamic situations.

I bring this up because I see people accepting our position that the War on Drugs is not working but then being fearful of legalizing drugs and what that might portend. Among the more fearful are those who state their fears and concerns in terms of how they think they might be affected by drug use. These fears are expressed in terms of what would happen if they tried cocaine or meth, or in terms of what might have happened earlier in their lives.

One person I spoke with got very excited and adamant about not legalizing drugs because he felt that if they had been available in his youth he would have, “… never made it…”. He is quite successful, quite wealthy, and philanthropic but he can’t wrap his head around legalizing drugs. Over the course of our discussion he consumed several double martinis but did not see the irony.

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