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Phil Smith Debates Kevin Sabet on "The Fix" Today

Our own Drug War Chronicle editor Phillip Smith debates former ONDCP senior adviser Kevin Sabet on the addiction and recovery web site The Fix today:

Should Marijuana Be Legal?
Tomorrow, three states will vote on the most profound change in US drug laws since the repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933. The Fix offers two powerful opposing views on whether legalizing weed is the right thing to do.
 

By the way, Phil is on the way to Denver right now, where he will be reporting live on Amendment 64. He will then be attending the National Marijuana Business Conference, also in Denver.

Permission to Reprint: This article is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license.
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DdC's picture

Go to Hell Dung Worrier Sabet, You'll be among lots of friends.

Sabrat, when are you going to stop lying for a lousy dung worrier paycheck? Hasn't your gossip done enough harm to the most vulnerable? How many more young lives will your hate filled words destroy? Enough of this stupidity. Time to charge these treasonous dogs with criminal intent to undermine Americans and the Free Trade Market. Every so often another test is done on the properties of Ganja, since the 1894 Indian Hemp Commission. Every time real Science says it is safe, with no reason to be a schedule#1 narcotic. Other than political means of keeping Big Ag/Big Pharma, and fossil fool competition off the market. While feeding the prison industrial complex. The majority of prohibitionists profit on the drug war,... and that is their only motive. sir Hilary had it right... There is just too much money in it, Go to Hell Sabet!

Drug War Bailing Out Banksters

QUESTION: In Mexico, there are those who propose not keeping going with this battle and legalize drug trafficking and consumption. What is your opinion?
SECRETARY CLINTON: I don’t think that will work. I mean, I hear the same debate. I hear it in my country. It is not likely to work. There is just too much money in it,

POLICING FOR PROFIT
DEAth Merchants

Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894:
"The commission has come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp drugs is practically attended by no evil results at all. ... ...moderate use of hemp... appears to cause no appreciable physical injury of any kind,...no injurious effects on the mind... [and] no moral injury whatever."

Lobbyists War Over Billions in Antidrug Aid

Panama Canal Zone Report, 1925
"There is no evidence... that any deleterious influence on the individual using [cannabis]"

The 'Virtues' of Ganja
AMA Calls For Ending Nixon's Lie

LaGuardia Commission Report, 1944
"Cannabis smoking] does not lead directly to mental or physical deterioration... Those who have consumed marijuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical deterioration which may be attributed to the drug."

Koch Roaches A.L.E.C. Drug Detention Centers
Drugwar Lies Linked to Schizophrenia

Dr J. H. Jaffe,
The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics.
L.Goodman and A Gillman, 3rd edn. 1965.

"There are no long lasting ill-effects from the acute use of marijuana and no fatalities have ever been recorded ... there seems to be growing agreement within the medical community, at least, that marijuana does not directly cause criminal behaviour, juvenile delinquency, sexual excitement, or addiction."

Why the Federal Government Will Not Reschedule Marijuana
Trillion spent is a Trillion earned

1968 UK ROYAL COMMISSION, THE WOOTTON REPORT:
"Having reviewed all the material available to us we find ourselves in agreement with the conclusion reached by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission appointed by the Government of India (1893-94) and the New York Mayor's Committee (1944 - LaGuardia) that the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no harmful effects" "the long-asserted dangers of cannabis are exaggerated and that the related law is socially damaging, if not unworkable"

Using the drug war to keep blacks from voting

US Jamaican Study 1974
"... as a multipurpose plant, ganja is used medicinally, even by non-smokers. ....There were no indications of organic brain damage or chromosome damage among smokers and no significant clinical psychiatric, psychological or medical) differences between smokers and controls." "No impairment of physiological, sensory and perceptual performance, tests of concept formation, abstracting ability, and cognitive style, and tests of memory"

GOP Mogul Behind Drug Rehab 'Torture' Centers

Testimony of Professor Lester Grinspoon, M.D.
, Associate Professor of Psychiatry,
Harvard Medical School, before the
Crime Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee,
U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., October 1, 1997:

"Cannabis is remarkably safe. Although not harmless, it is surely less toxic than most of the conventional medicines it could replace if it were legally available. Despite its use by millions of people over thousands of years, cannabis has never caused an overdose death."

Ganja safer than not toking.

The Lancet, vol 352, number 9140, November 14 1998:
"We.. say that on the medical evidence available, moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill-effect on health, and that decisions to ban or legalise cannabis should be based on other considerations."

Rick Steves: Smoking Pot is "My Civil Liberty" 2012
Rick Steves On Why He is Co-Sponsoring 502



At DEA, our mission is to fight drug trafficking in order to make drug abuse the most expensive, unpleasant, risky, and disreputable form of recreation a person could have.
-- Donnie Marshall,
Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)


Exporting DEAmocracy

This is part of our global contribution. The drug war has become the preferred foreign policy approach toward controlling much of the world. We export our drug war, our tactics, and, most of all, our DEA.
Exporting democracy... or something by Pete Guither dwr
Sunday, August 24, 2008


(Now with offices in Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Canada, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Paraguay, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles, Suriname, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Turks & Caicos Islands, Haiti, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Thailand, Mongolia, Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caldeonia, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis & Futuna, Western Samoa, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, Kiribati, Nauru, Philippines, Burma, South Korea, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Laos, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Greece, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Bahrain, Chad, Dijibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Oman, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Russia, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Western Sahara, Channel Islands, Ireland, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, Azores, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Gibraltar, Portugal, Principality of Andorra, Spain, Spanish Enclaves (Ceuta & Melilla), Algeria, France, Monaco, Morocco, Tunisia, Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Central African Republic, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Italy, Malta, Montenegro, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Slovak Republic, Ukraine.)

With that kind of presence, we insure that the rest of the world follows our lead. And if they don't toe the line in the way we want to fight the drug war, we threaten to cut foreign aid, or in the case of Venezuela, which kicked out the DEA for spying, we accuse them of allowing drug trafficking.

Most countries are hesitant to buck the system, and would rather appear eager to participate

Phnom Penh: The National Authority for Combating Drugs has asked the US Embassy to create an office for the enforcement of the anti-drug law in Cambodia, in order to train the Cambodian anti-drugs authorities in different skills, and in order to help them to combat drugs worldwide.

Why can't we go back to exporting Big Macs and "Baywatch"? Sure, they may not have been very fulfilling, but at least they generally didn't kill you in the middle of the night.

The United States can't be so fixed on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans . . . .
-- Bill Clinton, March 1, 1993,
during a press conference in Piscataway, N.J.
(Boston Globe, 3/2/93, page 3; and USA Today, 3/11/93


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