By Johnny Liberty
The “war on drugs” was and still is actually a “war on civil liberties, sovereign and human rights”. According to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics police nationwide made a total of 12,196,959 arrests for all offenses in 2012. Of the total nationwide arrests, 1,552, 432 were for drug-related crimes or which 48.3% were marijuana offenses. There was one pot-related arrest every 42 seconds.
“There were an estimated 1,552,432 arrests for drug-related crimes in 2012 — a slight uptick from the 1,531,251 drug arrests in 2011. Marijuana offenses accounted for 48.3 percent of all drug arrests, a slight reduction from 49.5 percent in 2011, which itself was the highest rate since before 1995. Most marijuana-related arrests were for possession of the drug.”
Wrongful Death of Donald Scott Shot
Donald Scott, a nearly blind rancher was shot and killed by a multi-agency drug task force of over two dozen heavily armed California and federal agents including the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Border Patrol, National Guard and Park Service in Malibu, CA. This consortium of forces mounted a military-type assault under the pretenses of a drug raid (February 2, 1992).
Further examination by the District Attorney proved the Sheriff department’s intent for the raid was the seizure of Scott’s land under drug forfeiture laws.
Anti-Drug Legislation Fuels Growth of Criminal Justice System
The Controlled Substances Act of 1972 and subsequent legislation such as the National Drug and Crime Emergency Act (H.R. 4079), and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, threw our statutory civil rights and due process out the window.
This “war on drugs” justified all kinds of unconstitutional and unconscionable police activities for the last four decades, including illegal search, improper seizure and the forfeiture of property without a trial. May we never forget violations of 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment rights pursuant to the U.S. Constitution.
Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court declared property forfeitures and illegal seizures unconstitutional, again. Yet still, these violations continue to happen everyday.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 1989 that state and federal agents could confiscate the assets and property of a person who possessed illegal drugs, or who committed a crime, even though charges had not been filed, and there had not been a trial. In December 1993, five of the nine justices held that there must first be a hearing before the property was seized.
This “war on drugs” was hugely hypocritical considering that the most dangerous drugs were and are legal pharmaceuticals approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and marketed by doctors posing as legal drug dealers, backed with huge advertising budgets. Dealing pharmaceuticals was and is by far the most profitable business on the planet.
The “war on drugs” was preposterous. High-level government officials and the CIA have been involved in the importation of massive amounts of illegal, dangerous drugs over the last four decades to fund their political aspirations and to amass prodigious wealth for corrupt government officials.
Disinformation Drove Drug Prohibition
According to Allen St. Pierre, Deputy Director of National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), “Beginning in 1988, federal spending on anti drug programs increased more than 300 percent, yet according to government statistics, illicit drug use remained virtually unchanged among adults and actually increased among adolescents.”
Despite the “war on drugs” heroine, cocaine, meth and opiates grew cheaper and more widely available than ever before, even in prisons — the one place you might imagine that the government could have accomplished drug prohibition. Drug prohibition was a failed experiment like alcohol prohibition, so it was doomed to be repealed or legalized.
Opponents of drug prohibition agreed that the first step toward a solution was to get the federal U.S. government out of the business of prohibiting or regulating it. Instead of solving the problem of drug abuse, state and federal governments decided to partially legalize, license and regulate drugs such as marijuana due to the massive license fees they could derive from the activity much like they did for alcohol.
The federal U.S. government has too much to gain being engaged in a perpetual drug war, namely power. Like any other war it gains more and more police enforcement power while various enforcement agencies are raking in huge revenues through asset forfeiture laws. There is no incentive for them to legalize or decriminalize drugs.
The U.S. government’s suppression of illegal drugs drove the market underground and raised the street value because of the risks involved in drug dealing. Supply and demand determined the street price while DEA confiscations reduced supply and street prices rose.
Decisions about drug use should be up to the individual. If drugs must be regulated it should be on a local or state level, because the smaller a bureaucracy, the more receptive and innovative it can be. Advocates of drug decriminalization leaned toward treating excessive drug abuse as a public health problem, with people locally coming to a decision about what constitutes abuse. Many jurisdictions limited the advertising of drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Many also included legal pharmaceutical drugs as candidates for abuse until Big Pharma successfully lobbied for unlimited advertising to promote their products.
The federal U.S. government has misapplied hundreds of billions of dollars in its totally ineffective drug war matched by a basic lack of understanding by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) about drug use and abuse. This DEA was politically motivated to expand their power and annual budgets, doing whatever it took to justify an increase each year. The Partnership for Responsible Drug Information refuted the twenty-two (22) major claims made in support of drug prohibition.
Marijuana Prohibition Ineffective
Paul Armentano, publications director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), writes, “Contrary to popular myths, marijuana smokers are no different from their non-smoking peers except for their cannabis use… Like most everyone else, these folks are responsible citizens who work hard, raise families, contribute to their communities and want crime-free neighborhoods to live in.”
Mr. Armentano argued that arresting and jailing otherwise law-abiding people was a travesty of justice. NORML estimated that 100 million Americans, more than 41% of the U.S. population, had smoked marijuana at some time in their lives.
Despite its sometimes adverse, long-term affects, many successful business and political leaders admitted to using marijuana. The vast majority of users did not become dependent, and they did not go on to use other illegal drugs. Alcohol and tobacco are just as much “gateway” drugs as marijuana to a small percentage bent on self-destruction.
Marijuana was legal in this country until the early 1900s. The Founders likely smoked it recreationally. Prior to its prohibition, the united states of America was never known as the landof “potheads”. In other words, smoking marijuana was not necessarily a huge problem.
That marijuana use is on the rise, in the wake of stepped up enforcement of existing laws, shows that drug prohibition is a total failure in discouraging use. It was difficult to predict how or if usage would change with lesser penalties or legalization. Insight could be gained, however, from studying the results of decriminalization laws adopted by 11 American states during the 1970s.
Each state imposed a modest civil fine for minor marijuana offenses. In none of these states did lax laws cause any increase in marijuana use. Usage rates and related attitudes about the drug’s use remained the same in those states as in those that arrested users.
Mr. Armentano argued that, “By continuing to classify all cannabis use as criminal, including adults smoking in the privacy of their homes, we trample the constitutional liberties our nation was founded on; waste police and prosecutorial resources; clog the court system; fill costly and scarce jail and prison space; and needlessly destroy the lives and careers of genuinely good citizens.”
Hawai’i(an) Hemp Activists Suing Prosecutors
Hawai’ian hemp activists Robert Christie and Aaron Anderson sued Hawaii prosecutors Jay Kimura and Kay Iopa for $3 million in civil court. The plaintiffs were busted for possessing hemp seeds they say were sterile. Their complaint is based on being unfairly singled out by the government because of their outspoken views about marijuana.
The suit alleges the prosecutors violated constitutional rights to “freely speak, petition the government and be free from unjust government repression.” The suit further accuses Kay Iopa of lying about results of tests about the viability of the hemp seeds and of singling out the plaintiffs when similar seeds are commonly sold in stores around Hawai’i.
Industrial Hemp Movement Grows
Of course hemp and marijuana are not the same “weed”. Marijuana can get you high, but hemp does not. Hemp is used industrially to make rope, food, building materials, etc. Hemp advocates such as Carolyn Moran, owner of Living Tree Paper Company in Eugene, OR, show how growing hemp can alleviate worldwide deforestation.
Moran’s magazine Talking Leaves was printed on 100% tree-free hemp content paper — Tradition Bond — consisting of 10 percent hemp, 10 percent esparto grass, 60 percent agricultural by-products (like cotton and flax) and 20 percent post-consumer recycled fibers. In the 1990s, Moran foresaw growing of hemp as eventually going mainstream.
Moran said, “We need to put pressure on the industry to create more plant-based paper…Consumers need to put their money where their conscience is.”
The federal U.S. government did not at first seem to grasp that industrial hemp is a different plant than marijuana raised for mind-altering purposes. They forgot the industrial value of hemp grown widely in early colonial America prior to prohibition. The political fact is that certain industries such as oil, cotton, lobbied effectively to make hemp and marijuana illegal so that their industries would flourish instead of the widely available and easy to grow industrial hemp.
Mari Kane, publisher of Hemp Pages. The International Hemp Journal said, “Hemp provides alternative sources for fabrics, paper, health and beauty aids; building materials, food products and car fuel. It’s a plant that can provide alternatives to almost anything synthetic.”
First steps toward legalization began in Colorado when the state introduced the Hemp Production Act in 1995 and 1996. The bills were defeated both times, but they did receive endorsements from the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and many other respected groups. The bills main opposition was from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
Later on, a protest was sounded by the White House National Drug Council when footwear giant Adidas marketed hemp shoes.
Adidas defended their product, stating that hemp is a versatile and durable fabric with a proven track record, and that hemp may be the answer to the world’s fiber shortage.
The Agricultural Act of 2014 had permitted the growing and cultivation of industrial hemp for research purposes only. Industrial hemp production remained illegal in this country until the Agricultural Act of 2018 removed hemp from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). In 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the legislation into law to make industrial hemp legal again.
References:
- U.S. News and World Report | Police made one marijuana arrest every 42 seconds in 2012; Drug Policy Facts; Nine Million Arrests, NORML; Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1988) from Pandora’s Box by Alexander Christopher p.525.
- Wikipedia | Wrongful Death of Donald Scott; Wikipedia | Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF or ATF).
- Conservapedia | Controlled Substances Act of 1972; Wikipedia | Removal of Cannabis from Schedule I.
- Supreme Court Kills Drug Tax, Associated Press (drug possession taxes were barred); High Quality Textiles and Paper by John Stahl, Perceptions Magazine, Summer 1994, p.26 (on the commercial applications of hemp); Only A Matter of Time: Legal Medical Marijuana by Robert D. Kampia, Perceptions, Spring 1994, p.26 (medical applications of hemp); Good publications include HempLine Journal, Drug Policy Review, F.E.A.R. Chronicles.
- U.S. Government Drug Involvement by William Cooper, Behold A Pale Horse, p.473.
- Wikipedia | NORML www.norml.org
- Partnership for Responsible Drug Information www.prdi.org; AntiShyster (Volume 6, No.2, p.49 and Volume 6, No. 2, p34); Free American (September 1996, p.22); Perceptions Magazine (August/September, 1996, p.84); Reviewed by Estar Holmes. Contact: 14 W. 68th St., New York, NY 10023. (212) 362-1964.
- Sourced from NORML.
- Statistics from NORML; Wikipedia | National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
- Stop the War on Marijuana Smokers by Paul Armentano, Perceptions Magazine (October/November 1996). Reviewed by Shay McNamara.
- Perceptions Magazine (March/April ’96).
- Liberty International and The Hill | Trump officially legalizes industrial hemp.
- Carolyn Moran, Talking Leaves.
- Ibid.
- Mari Kane, Hemp Pages, The International Hemp Journal; Rethinking Hemp by Anne W. Wilke, E Magazine, July/August 1996; Reviewed by Shay McNamara.
Source: Sovereign’s Handbook by Johnny Liberty (30th Anniversary Edition), Volume 1 of 3, p.236 – 240
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