Drug war

And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.” - Genesis 1:29

There were 847,864 cannabis (marijuana) arrests in the U.S. in 2008, almost triple the number arrested in 1991.

In the past decade, more than 6.5 million cannabis arrests have been made in the U.S. - about the equivalent of the populations of Mississippi, New Mexico and Wyoming combined. About 89 percent of those arrests were for simple possession only.

That means a cannabis smoker is arrested every 38 seconds in the U.S.

At the end of 2009, there were more than 1.6 million Americans in state or federal prison. That is a population larger than that of 12 states and the District of Columbia.

The majority were serving time for drug-related offenses.

Make no mistake: this is prohibition. The money, man power, prison cells and multiyear terms spent to enforce this prohibition grandly dwarf the alcohol prohibition of the 1920s and early 1930s, and they didn’t even bother changing the Constitution this time.

But just like that prohibition, there is money to be made in illegal drugs, and those making the most money have bank accounts and laundry lists of violent crimes that would make Al Capone look like Mother Teresa.

These people know if illegal drugs (cannabis most of all) are legalized, their fortune and power will be taken from them. So, like Capone, they have no interest in seeing their product legalized. When millions of people demand an illegal product, the person who is willing to do anything to anyone to make a dollar is who will gain the most.

As we should have learned almost 80 years ago, prohibition only creates more violent crime and empowers evil men.

Alas, they are not the only ones that stand to lose. If illegal drugs were legalized in this country, prisons would empty and the majority of police and prison guards on force would have little to nothing to do with their day.

For you see, marijuana arrests far exceed the number of arrests for manslaughter, murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault combined.

Thousands of jobs would be lost in the government as well as in the drug dealing business that supports many Americans.

Richard Nixon created the DEA in 1973 and our nation has never been the same. The American government’s war on drugs and its own people began.

Are Nixon’s ideals really those of our America today? Is the opinion of the most shamed president in our nation’s history more valuable than those of tens of millions of Americans today?

It is time we stood and let our voices be heard, America.

We are in two overseas wars that we do not want and one against our own people, because we allow men we vote for like Nixon, Bush and Obama to make our decisions for us.

And they do so on the words of the lobbyists, not the people.

This is supposed to be a government that rules for the people and by the people, not above and against the people.

It is about time that starts.