Did you know that Uncle Sam grows weed?
Yep!
At the University of Mississippi in Oxford MS, under armed guards, high tech digital surveillance and dozens of locked doors and gates a government funded program is set to produce 650 kilos of pot this year.
Numbers like this can mean little until put into perspective. So, if you were to put a gram of reefer into a rolling paper and twist it up, you’d have a healthy looking joint. How many of those would 650 keys make?
650,000 doobies. That’s a lot of research.
The program, under the direction of Mahmoud ElSohly, has been in operation since 1968. It is charged with growing quality controlled marijuana for ‘research purposes.’
The question is, why is OUR government spending OUR tax dollars to provide those 650,000 joints to researchers?
Franklin Roosevelt once admitted that; “the real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.”
Big Business.
Business is afraid that if weed is not prohibited it would result in Business not ‘earning’ profits on a scale that they think they should.
Does this surprise you? It shouldn’t.
Together the pharmaceutical industry reported profits of $300 billion last year.
And the health care industry, another $1.7 trillion. The end result?
Physician and medication error along with adverse effects from drugs and surgery accounts for over 200,000 deaths per year in the US. Which makes the healthcare system the third leading cause of death in the US. Only cancer and heart disease are more deadly.
What did they researched to attain those noteworthy stats?
Money has been making the world go ‘round for a long time now. It’s time for a change.
What to do about it?
Quit supporting it. And start voicing your objections.
While this was written from a North American point of view, experience in other cultures suggest that governments get by with what they do because it’s tolerated. If the majority of people want government supervision OUT of their personal lives then nonviolent civil disobedience can help make change happen.
Begin to take responsibility for yourself. Ask yourself why it is necessary that YOU become the one of every four that will die from cancer this year. Then go searching for answers. You find what you look for.
Finding the answer is only the beginning. Information must be acted upon. Even if it makes life awkward.
Life became awkward for Rosa Parks. But because she had tied feet on the day a police officer ordered her to give her bus seat to a white person, the world is now a better place.
The Gallup Poll reports that 58% of Americans favor legalizing weed. The flame of change is now in our favor and we have the opportunity to turn it into a raging wildfire. All we need do is act.
It is time to get big business out of government. And government out of our personal lives.
Where to start?
Reform. Sign every petition you can that supports legalizing weed.
The Marijuana Policy Project, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform are three groups to research and support. They need funding. Help if you can.
In 2011 a documentary film entitled “Breaking the Taboo” was released to a worldwide audience via YouTube. The focus of the film is the global effects of the war on drugs. Here are more than a few statistics, taken from the documentary, to piss you off.
Since Nixon declared war on drugs in 1971 $2.5 trillion of your tax dollars have been spent on that ‘war’. Over 44 million Americans have been arrested. And according to Human Rights Watch 60,000 persons, in Mexico alone, have died as a direct result of this ‘war’.
The US has the largest prison population in the world – 2.3 million Americans are behind bars. 500,000 for drug related crimes.
If global drug commerce where a political entity it would have one of the top 20 economies in the world with an estimated yearly net income of $320 billion. Yes that was billion.
If drugs that are now illegal were taxed at a rate similar to tobacco and alcohol they would generate an estimated $46 billion in tax dollars.
Legalizing drugs would save the US an estimated $41 billion a year in costs associated with enforcing current laws.
Are you black or hispanic? If so, you should be pissed. These 2 groups use illegal drugs at about the same percentage rate as whites but are between 2 and 5 times more likely to be arrested, convicted and imprisoned.
In a December 2012 feature article on CNN titled “War on drugs a trillion-dollar failure”, Richard Branson asked;
“How would our society, our communities and daily lives improve if we took the money we use running a police and prison state and put it into education and health? Treating drugs as a health issue could save billions, improve public health and help us better control violence and crime in our communities. Hundreds of thousands of people have died from overdoses and drug-related diseases, including HIV and hepatitis C, because they didn’t have access to cost-effective, life-saving solutions.”
(CNN)
Not to mention the hypocrisy of the US government engaging in activities that are prohibited for its citizens. For profit.
Sobering facts. And a travesty of civil and human rights.
Our interconnectedness as a society of over 7 billion people adds to the complexity of arriving at reasonable and effective solutions to this issue. Creativity and a new commitment to humanity over business is needed. And the role of government as ‘babysitter’ and ‘moral advisor’ must be rethought.
Archeologists tell us that weed (cannabis) has been used recreationally since 3000 BC. There are now over 7 billion of us. Weed is not a threat to human existence.
I urge you to live life to the best of your ability. And allow others the same right. Treat others as you yourself would like to be treated. And leave society better for your having passed this way.
Strive for the decriminalization of all adult activity that harms no other.
Starting with weed.
