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Offlinethekwazz
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Is society benefiting from the war on pot?
    #8894236 - 09/08/08 12:47 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

by James Foster (NORML.ORG)
20 Aug 2008


New Brunswick
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By all accounts, Mike McCormick minded his own business and never hurt another soul.

He lived off the land, hunting, digging clams and cutting his own firewood.  And he grew pot.  Lots and lots of pot.  In fact, when police stumbled across McCormick's shack in the woods behind his house, there were 243 plants growing inside it.

That's a lot of dope, yet police found none of the usual evidence that McCormick was peddling the stuff.  No baggies.  No scales.  No paper trail of transactions.  Nothing.

Police valued the pot at almost $400,000 in keeping with their usual way of calculating the value of marijuana by tallying what it would be worth should it be sold in the most expensive manner possible, by the joint or by the gram.  While that bears no relation to the actual value of the dope ( who sells $393,000 worth of pot $5 at a time? ) the courts accept this method without question, and so be it.

What does one do with $393,000 worth of pot? Why, they smoke it.  McCormick is a daily dope smoker, much like another person might get home after a hard day at the office and relax with a six pack.  His wife also uses it to ease the pain of her multiple sclerosis -- it's the only thing that works, she says.

McCormick's pre-sentence report was quite favourable, except for the fact he'd been busted for pot before, a highly aggravating factor along with, of course, the sheer volume of the stuff he got caught with, something McCormick said was because he had lost an entire previous crop and wanted to lay in ample stores to last him a long time.

Given the law and legal precedents, the judge sentenced McCormick to 15 months behind bars.

The bottom line: a victim of MS has lost her only means of support for more than a year and two kids have lost their father for that time.  Society is out close to $1 million, accounting for the full cost of the trial, legal fees, the investigation and the cost of incarcerating the man as well as that of maintaining his name on a firearms-ban database for 10 years.  We won't include the cost of putting his family on welfare because there's no indication if they've applied for it.

Now, flip this around as if Canada realized long ago that its war on pot was a waste of time, money and precious policing resources.

McCormick would be home, tending to his family.  The tax on his and his wife's daily pot intake would have added mightily to tax coffers.  Two kids and a sick wife wouldn't be missing their dad/husband until late 2009.  McCormick's jail cell would be empty and the ensuing costs would have been saved.  Canada would have one less man branded for life as an ex-con.

If we want to save society from itself, far better to throw drinkers in jail, if anyone, than pot smokers.  And to push drug abuse education on both consumers.  And to tax the heck out of both.

Anyone with a little insider knowledge can probably find enough funny mushrooms on their own front lawn to get them high for a week.  Or they can pop 'round to some of Moncton's smoke shops and ask about Salvia.  If you think pot gives your head a twirl, you ain't smoked nothing yet from what I can read about it.  And that stuff's perfectly legal.  So why pick on only the pot smokers?

Putting someone in jail for smoking pot is akin to Napalming your lawn because you saw an ant.

Meanwhile, the harvest season is upon us again in New Brunswick.

To get some sort of scope of how mainstream marijuana has become in this province, consider that potatoes are the most lucrative legal crop in New Brunswick, accounting for about one-quarter of the province's total farm receipts.

Pot is worth at least five times that, according to the police's own best guesses, and the quality of it surpasses that of the famous "BC Bud."

Some smarty pants once defined insanity as doing the same things over and over again but expecting different outcomes.

You'd think someone would take that to heart.  After almost a century of a war on pot, weed is now more accessible and lucrative than ever before in our history.

I'm not sure legal pot is a good thing.  Not a bit.  Not for a minute.

But it's got to be better than what we are doing now, hunting people down at huge human and taxpayer expense, solely because their drug of choice comes from a cigarette paper instead of a bottle, because the revenue goes elsewhere than government pockets, something that is easily fixed.

Other than lawyers, who benefits from criminalizing pot smokers?


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Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.

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OfflineCoaster
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Re: Is society benefiting from the war on pot? [Re: thekwazz]
    #8894257 - 09/08/08 12:51 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

dood fuck weed laws
they do nothing but harm


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Offlinethekwazz
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Re: Is society benefiting from the war on pot? [Re: Coaster]
    #8894329 - 09/08/08 01:11 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

It's unbelievable man. They're making space for weed offenders, non violent "criminals", by letting out people who really need to be in fucking jail.

It's getting so bad in Georgia I'm seriously considering moving in the next few years if nothing happens. I just don't want to live my life by somebody else's iron fist.


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Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.

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OfflineCoaster
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Re: Is society benefiting from the war on pot? [Re: thekwazz]
    #8894335 - 09/08/08 01:12 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

ya dood come here with me in cali its all gravy here


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Offlinethekwazz
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Re: Is society benefiting from the war on pot? [Re: Coaster]
    #8894632 - 09/08/08 02:47 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Every time I ride down the street and see someone getting drug searched I always say that.

"I'm going to California. Fuck this."

I'm still here :thumbdown:


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Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.

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Offlinetyler_0_durden
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Re: Is society benefiting from the war on pot? [Re: thekwazz]
    #8898165 - 09/08/08 07:29 PM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Damn, that fucking sucks. His wife is going to suffer for more than a year without anything that can alleviate her symptoms, and his kids will be fatherless for that period of time.

That's really traumatic, and sad. Governments, whether it be Canada, the U.S., the U.K., or whereever, obviously don't give a flying fuck about their own people.

Down with the system, imma go smoke a bowl.


--------------------
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."  --Max Planck

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OfflineIrieforester
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Re: Is society benefiting from the war on pot? [Re: tyler_0_durden]
    #8898337 - 09/08/08 07:56 PM (15 years, 6 months ago)

That's right Coaster, Cali's where it's at!
I'm never leaving.


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I am still and forever learning

Apollyphelion said:
You can learn A LOT from shitting in the right set and setting!:thumbup:

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InvisibleFurrowedBrow
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Re: Is society benefiting from the war on pot? [Re: tyler_0_durden]
    #8898341 - 09/08/08 07:58 PM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Same sad sad story.  Someone should make a book of these stories.  deliver it to washington in 300,000 volumes.


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I prefer dangerous freedom to peaceful slavery.
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Invisibleuber_aj
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Re: Is society benefiting from the war on pot? [Re: FurrowedBrow]
    #8899280 - 09/08/08 10:42 PM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

FurrowedBrow said:
Same sad sad story.  Someone should make a book of these stories.  deliver it to washington in 300,000 volumes.




QFT

Ever since I joined the Shroomery, ive read slight variations of the same terrible story just about daily here. at least nobody died in this one yet.

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Offlinethekwazz
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Registered: 09/01/08
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Re: Is society benefiting from the war on pot? [Re: uber_aj]
    #8900618 - 09/09/08 05:40 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

More people than anyone realizes die because of the stupidity involved in the war on drugs everyday. An old lady was killed in our states capitol city when the police were prying off the bars over her window in a case of mistaken address. She fired a warning shot in shock and self defense, and was shot 32 times. Police handcuffed her, left her for dead, and planted drugs in her basement. And apparently this is no new thing either.

Fucking disgusting.


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Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.

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Offlinenumonkei
Back! From thedigestive tractof dave theiguana!

Registered: 04/12/06
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Re: Is society benefiting from the war on pot? [Re: thekwazz]
    #8901498 - 09/09/08 10:56 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:


Other than lawyers, who benefits from criminalizing pot smokers?





Hmmm....

- Drug-Class operators
- Police Departments
- Politicians
- Pharmaceutical Companies
- Marijuana Distributors until/unless being caught.

Plenty benefit from the prohibition. Although the benefits to those few, asides from being skewed in any relatively valid set of morals or ethical theories, are far outweighed by the loss of life, liberty, and property to average citizenry and their families.

The tide may be turning. The progress of state governments becomming more kind to medical and small-possession cases is a very optimistic recent turn.




~Monk

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