A huge round of applause to SSDP activist Daniel Pacheco for his gutsy performance at the drug czar's press conference this morning. Just Say Now caught the whole thing on video.
I doubt the drug czar had any clue this was coming, although he had no trouble regurgitating the predictable prohibitionist response. Fortunately, Daniel Pacheco was prepared for it and fired back brilliantly:
PACHECO: Respectfully, I do think that you’re downplaying the importance of marijuana in the drug cartels. We have statistics that say that about 70% of the profits of drug cartels comes from marijuana and when there are thousands of victims, pouring out of Mexico and Colombia, I would have to mention the recent death of at least 30 policemen during this month. It seems that downplaying the influence that drugs have on illegal organizations, is, well, disrespectful for the victims of the war on drugs.
That's exactly what it is. There is nothing more shameful than dishonoring the memory of the dead by refusing to acknowledge and address the origins of such horrific violence. It's maddeningly absurd to watch the drug czar, of all people, attempting to pretend as though the problem with the cartels isn't drugs. How embarrassingly stupid can this debate possibly get? Drug cartels can't thrive without selling drugs any more than Burger King can thrive without selling burgers. It's such a simple truth, I can't believe thousands must die in a desperate attempt to disprove it.
Meanwhile, the drug czar's best defense against the argument that marijuana prohibition is funding these murderers is to claim that we don't have accurate data on the extent of their marijuana profits? It's just unbelievable. All of you drug war dirtbags have been saying for years that we shouldn't buy pot because it funds cartels. You can't have it both ways, buddy. It's such an impressively incoherent and contradictory disaster of an argument that you really can't blame the drug czar for trying so hard not to get dragged into any of this.
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