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Legalize It All

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Re: Legalize It All

#11

Post by ska »

fweespee_ch wrote: post #5
krylon wrote: post #3

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course…

> The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? > That sums it up pretty well. It never was about fighting drug use or preventing the harm it can do. Can we now, please, get that behind us and move on? If we only spent 10% of what we now spent on prosecuting drug use on prevention and rehabilitation, that would be…

I think focusing on Nixon on at this point is actively problematic.

Literally every administration since then has been complicit in this, and made it worse.

Re: Legalize It All

#12

Post by joantune »

I'm not sure about legalizing it all, but me and the world is pretty sure about decriminalizing it, just watch what happened here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbWpXYOg4OQ

TL;DR: Highly successful strategy of not marginalizing (both socially and legally) and actually helping addicts: cuts costs, cuts problems, decreases addicts.

Re: Legalize It All

#13

Post by hjhgjtyhgdfi »

Delmania wrote: post #10
krylon wrote: post #3

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course…

> Can we now, please, get that behind us and move on? What, and disrupt the massively profitable prison industry?

The largest private for-profit prison (CCA) has $1.7 billion in revenue. Apple makes $233 billion in revenue. Exxon has $268 billion in revenue. Walmart makes $482 billion in revenue.

Re: Legalize It All

#15

Post by fweespee_ch »

ska wrote: post #11
fweespee_ch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? > That sums it up pretty well. It never was about fighting drug use or preventing the harm it can do. Can we now, please, get that behind us and move on? If we only spent 10% of what we now spent on prosecuting drug use on prevention and rehabilitation, that would be…

I think focusing on Nixon on at this point is actively problematic. Literally every administration since then has been complicit in this, and made it worse.

Sure, future administrations are complicit, but people didn't really "believe" the way Nixon believed until he brought the full power of the Federal government and an extensive political organization to spread fear in the general populace.

Up until that point, enough people didn't believe in his course of action that his own people wouldn't give him the answers he wanted.

Re: Legalize It All

#16

Post by knodi123 »

hjhgjtyhgdfi wrote: post #13
Delmania wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we now, please, get that behind us and move on? What, and disrupt the massively profitable prison industry?

The largest private for-profit prison (CCA) has $1.7 billion in revenue. Apple makes $233 billion in revenue. Exxon has $268 billion in revenue. Walmart makes $482 billion in revenue.

So it makes as much money as Uber instead of Walmart? Just because it's not the biggest doesn't mean it's not big.

Re: Legalize It All

#17

Post by dangerlibrary »

hjhgjtyhgdfi wrote: post #13
Delmania wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we now, please, get that behind us and move on? What, and disrupt the massively profitable prison industry?

The largest private for-profit prison (CCA) has $1.7 billion in revenue. Apple makes $233 billion in revenue. Exxon has $268 billion in revenue. Walmart makes $482 billion in revenue.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00002194...

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000021754&c...

Their revenue is less than 1% of Apple's, but their lobbying budget is 25%-75% of Apple's year to year.

Re: Legalize It All

#18

Post by Delmania »

hjhgjtyhgdfi wrote: post #13
Delmania wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we now, please, get that behind us and move on? What, and disrupt the massively profitable prison industry?

The largest private for-profit prison (CCA) has $1.7 billion in revenue. Apple makes $233 billion in revenue. Exxon has $268 billion in revenue. Walmart makes $482 billion in revenue.

The industry made 3.3 billion, of which the vast majority is controlled by 2 groups. That's enough to form a lobby.

Re: Legalize It All

#19

Post by jessaustin »

ska wrote: post #11
fweespee_ch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? > That sums it up pretty well. It never was about fighting drug use or preventing the harm it can do. Can we now, please, get that behind us and move on? If we only spent 10% of what we now spent on prosecuting drug use on prevention and rehabilitation, that would be…

I think focusing on Nixon on at this point is actively problematic. Literally every administration since then has been complicit in this, and made it worse.

I think it's rhetorically effective, in that shallow thinkers have been trained for years to reflexively revile Nixon. If we argued merely on the merits, they might worry about LEO jobs or housewives hooked on patent medicines (i.e., stupid arguments we've seen before). It's best to short-circuit all that detailed disputation with a simple "Drug War = Nixon = Bad". Very few thinking people without a personal economic interest support the drug war [EDIT, quite right Josh:] with respect to marijuana at this late hour, so we really do have to worry most about the shallow thinkers for whom this sort of argument is compelling.

Re: Legalize It All

#20

Post by SwellJoe »

hjhgjtyhgdfi wrote: post #13
Delmania wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we now, please, get that behind us and move on? What, and disrupt the massively profitable prison industry?

The largest private for-profit prison (CCA) has $1.7 billion in revenue. Apple makes $233 billion in revenue. Exxon has $268 billion in revenue. Walmart makes $482 billion in revenue.

Look at how much money CCA spends on lobbying and supporting candidates that are friendly to their business. It is vastly larger per dollar of revenue than Apple (or Walmart). So much so, that it's one of the things people talk about when taking about whether Hillary Clinton (for example) is influenced by the money coming from the prison industrial complex. Nobody is accusing Hillary of being bought by Apple. Though there are concerns about Walmart, due to Hillary's long history with that company, but not because of exorbitant expenditures on lobbying and legalized bribery.

One (of many) articles about how CCA spends money to get the results that suit its bottom line. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/23/251363/cca-geogr...

It's downright evil, frankly.

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