America�s War on Latin America I Mean Drugs) - By Jamie Balagia I thought it just about imposIsible for our national leaders to put a larger part of their foot in their mouths I see this article. I included it in its entirety so that you could read it and not think I was stoned when I wrote my thoughts in this piece:
of convincing a bunch of frustrated foreign leaders that the sickness and death presently surrounding them was caused by something other than the one thing that’s obviously causing it. It’s a ridiculous situation that lends itself to some really ridiculous arguments, such as Napolitano preposterously comparing Mexican Drug Kingpin Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman to Osama Bin Laden: “It took us 10 years to find (al Qaeda chief) Osama bin Laden and we found him, and you know what happened there,” Napolitano said. Yeah, but the fact that these drug lords are as slippery as Osama f#$king Bin Laden ought not to inspire confidence. Seriously, I don’t even know what her point is supposed to be, because it’s gotta be pretty damn obvious to Latin American leaders that we don’t have enough SEAL teams to track down and kill every wannabe drug boss all over the globe. Their services, unlike Bin Laden’s, are actually popular with much of the American public.
U.S. Tells South America to Shut Up About Legalizing Drugs - Scott Morgan from stopthedrugwar.org on February 28, 2012 [I endorse stopthedrugwar.org] Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has a message for everyone who thinks the drug war is bad: you’re wrong, it’s awesome. (Reuters) – Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano defended Washington’s drug war strategy on Monday despite calls by some Latin American leaders to consider decriminalizing narcotics. … “I would not agree with the premise that the drug war is a failure,” Napolitano said. “It is a continuing effort to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs.” [Reuters] Okay, but what do these two sentences have to do with one another? Yes, we know the drug war is “a continuing effort to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs [and marijuana],” but I don’t understand what that has to do with whether or not it’s been a failure. This is like saying, “I would not agree with premise that asbestos is toxic. It is a material used to insulate buildings.” So in a metaphorical sense, you could say that American drug policy is made of asbestos, and Janet Napolitano has been given the fun assignment
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Calls for legalization in Latin America are going to get louder the longer this idiocy continues, and it should surprise no one that the U.S. government’s latest attempts to suppress it are utterly and predictably devoid of substance as always. [END OF STORY]
Unbelievable is about all I can say after reading the article again. So the “War on Drugs” is not a failure according to steel boot wearing U.S.A.G. Napoitano and her life long career government employees. I was thinking perhaps if she would take the time to visit any State prison in America and start counting the young men incarcerated for drug crimes. Hopefully, she won’t overlook the abundance of minorities in the prison drug population or the overall level of poverty among drug prisoners of all races. If the WOD means we are continuing to fill our prisons (soon to be privatized in growing numbers) with young men (and increasingly with women) then she is right on. And here is a related story on that issue from Atlanta: Channel 2 investigation highlights racial discrepancies in marijuana arrests - (Atlanta) — A Channel 2 Action News investigation revealed that across the state, African-Americans are arrested on marijuana possession charges significantly more often than whites. “That is just a bad practice of applying the law unequally, that is, you are singling out a seg-
ment of the population,” said state Sen. Ed Harbison. “That’s just wrong. I don’t care how you cover it up, how you try to color it.” Channel 2 looked at the total number of arrests for possession charges and compared the racial breakdowns to census data. For metro Atlanta agencies that made over 100 arrests, Channel 2 isolated nine agencies that had the highest discrepancies between the African-American population and the number of arrests they made. The agency with the highest number was the Atlanta Police Department. Last year, 93 percent of all marijuana possession arrests in the city of Atlanta were African-Americans, and 7 percent were white. The city’s population is 54 percent African-American and 38 percent white. “This is a difficult issue that is far more complex than numbers can illustrate. I can assure you however, that the Atlanta Police Department is in no way, shape, form or fashion racially profiling,” Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos told Channel 2. Reverend C.L. White, president of the Atlanta Chapter of the NAACP, called it atrocious to have an arrest rate so high compared to the population. “That is profiling at its worst. You don’t have to have done anything, if they just suspect you might have done it as you look like someone who might do, than you are apt to be pulled over,” said White. Channel 2 spoke to a man who asked to be identified only as Greg, felt that was exactly what happened to him. Greg told Channel 2 he felt he was racially profiled in Douglas County, where 66 percent of all those arrested for possession of marijuana are AfricanAmerican. “I really felt like he saw me and just felt like, ‘Oh, here’s a criminal. Let me go get him,’” said Greg END OF STORY] If WOD means the further erosion of basic Constitutional Rights protecting us from unlawful searches and seizures then she is right on. I would never have believed that we would have drones flying over San Antonio (Google) to keep a constant recorded tag on our citizens. The Supreme Court
just ruled that the FBI had to remove 3000 tracking devices from vehicles in our country that were placed on the vehicle without a warrant. So they will be very busy getting 3000 warrants over the next short while. We also have exigent entry without warrants if a police officer thinks he smells marijuana burning inside your apartment or home. I suppose they will start approaching homes and taking a big snort of air flowing out the bottom of the doorways. It seems like the courts are bending over backwards to erode the Constitutional protections we studied in school. Then there’s the idea that individuals that are involved in the drug trade should be hunted down and shot, like OBL deservedly was, makes one think of the horror stories that used to come out of the Soviet Union gulags. Where do our politicians get the idea that they can continue to dictate foreign policy to the point that we rule the countries to the south of us. And of course the war is on drugs which includes marijuana. We know that our country has been conducting ‘Elimination Programs” in Central and South America for decades. The Mexican government is labeled corrupt by our leaders but they still allow the U.S. to run “hunt down and kill” missions against drug cartel members within its borders. I wonder how the Mexican citizens feel about that? We are all aware that if our government wanted to guarantee that the Cartels would lose 60% of their profits overnight all we have to do is decriminalize marijuana in the USA. But instead, the Obama Administration under the boot heal of Eric Holder is making federal arrests in State’s where the citizens have approved Medicinal Marijuana programs. The Feds are busting dispensaries and local “Mom and Pop” shops that are supplying much needed medicines, prescribed by licensed doctors, to patients that are now suffering. To think that our leaders promote the policies that encourage the addictive use of hard core narcotic pain medications instead of marijuana (MMJ) to our neighbors is sickening. Let’s see, do we want grandma hammering down synthetic heroin product or taking a toke or two to relieve her never ending pain. You should also take the time to Google and read about the advances that MMJ is making to delaying the effects of dementia and other memory loss diseases. The quote about our govern-
ment’s “continuing effect to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs” just about made me gag.
I know a little about drug treatment programs and nowhere in the thirty day programs is there a section on how the WOD helps someone stay sober. I say that because of the WOD we have more citizens becoming addicted to hard core drugs. I have previously written about how the current law enforcement attacks on pot smokers forces many of them to go to hard drug distributors to purchase marijuana. If you have to go to where the hard drugs are being sold to buy pot it is more likely that you are exposed to hard drugs. The more exposure to hard drugs the more likely to try hard drugs for some people. Some people that try hard drugs are more likely to become addicted to them than if there were legal sources of marijuana. This makes a lot of sense to me but perhaps you are more inclined to follow the government’s thinking - Just Say No! How’s that working for us so far? Yeah, like I said.
I keep bringing up some of these issues month after month because that is one way to get people to get involved in the issue of where our nation’s efforts should be directed. If some of you would actually write your senators and congress members it might start to chip away at the ignorance involved in the WOD policy. If those of you who support our president would call and write him and declare your anger and disgust with his lack of leadership in stopping the WOD it would make a difference. If you would call his office and remind him that he promised that the Feds would leave the State’s MMJ programs alone. President Obama and his administration has done more to damage MMJ than President “W” ever did. Most of the advances in the MMJ issue were made during Bush’s administration - how does that make you feel? Lastly, I once again ask those of you that agree with me to start talking about these issues and make them part of our political discourse. Let your neighbors, coworkers, family and friends know that you support the legalization (or at least the decriminalization) of marijuana. Tell them
you want our government to stop arresting users of marijuana. Tell them it is time to stop the War on American Citizens.
Jamie Balagia jamie@dwidude.com