Author Topic: Why They give a fuck about marijuana  (Read 5635 times)

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Offline `

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« on: May 02, 2005, 03:24:00 AM »
from Smoke and Mirrors by Dan Baum
(pages 20-21)

Fear and anger, Gordon Brownell thought. That?s what got Richard Nixon elected and that?s what will keep him in office.

A smooth-faced, heavy-set politics junkie of twenty-four, Brownell had a dream job: administrative assistant to Nixon?s political manager, Harry S. Dent. Dent had masterminded the so-called ?southern strategy? that pried white southerners away from the Democratic Party during the last election by playing to their fear of black power and their anger at the civil rights movement. It had transformed the GOP?s image from country club golfer to defender of working whites fed up with expensive hand-wringing over Negroes and the cities. The strategy worked, but was poorly named. Nixon?s win was national, and its most visible new adherents were manifestly northern ? union-affiliated former Democrats known loosely as ?hardhats.?

The White House lived by the principles or the southern strategy, and Dent?s office had its own lingo. There were issues that mattered to ?our? people, and those that mattered to ?their? people. ?Their? people were what the White House called ?the young, the poor, and the black.? The phrase rolled off the tongue like one word: theyoungthepoorandtheblack. The young were the long-haired student antiwar types for whom the president had open and legendary contempt; the poor and the black were leftover concerns from the Great Society.

Brownell daily read a dozen newspapers from around the country and clipped stories that played on those themes. He looked for stories about badly managed social programs, watched for currents of localized resentment, combed the columns for colorful quotes and juicy anecdotes the presidential speechwriters might use. He particularly kept and eye out for drug stories. Drugs were one thing the young, the poor, and the black all seemed to have in common.

Despite Nixon?s assertion to the preelection Disneyland crowd that drugs were ?decimating a generation of Americans,? drugs were so tiny a public health problem that they were statistically insignificant: far more Americans choked to death on food or died falling down stairs as died from illegal drugs.

So Brownell was delighted that the media were inflating the story by melding the tiny ?hard drug? heroin threat with the widespread ?soft drug? marijuana craze. Marijuana, Brownell knew, was a perfect focus for the anger against the antiwar counterculture that Nixon shared with ?his people.? Brownell dug out a recent clip from Newsweek: ?Whether picketing on campus or parading barefoot in hippie regalia, the younger generation seems to be telling [the middle-class American] that his way of life is corrupt, his goals worthless and his treasured  institutions doomed. Logically enough, a good many middle-class citizens tend to resent the message.? In an article Brownell might have penned himself, Newsweek identified the targets of that middle-class resentment this way: ?The incendiary black militant and the welfare mother, the hedonistic hippie and the campus revolutionary.? The young, the poor, and the black. Nixon couldn?t make it illegal to be young, poor, or black, but he could crack down hard on the illegal drug identified with the counterculture.

Brownell loved his job and ? until he went wildly apostate and joined the opposition ? he was good at it.
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Offline `

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2005, 03:25:00 AM »
interesting how Brownell kept such close track of the mood around the country.
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Offline Anonymous

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2005, 03:40:00 AM »
The ENTIRE PLANET is against weed.There is hardly any country where weed is legal.Its not just an USA thing.
As a matter of fact,the USA is the easiest place to score some smokable real weed without a bunch of hassel.
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Offline Invertix

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2005, 03:49:00 AM »
What about BC?
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Offline Anonymous

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #5 on: May 02, 2005, 09:41:00 AM »
The Bayer corp. is about to get approval in Can. for a spray sativix (medicinal marijuana} approval is close in UK and they are trying to get the process started by FDA but we know they will never approve this they refuse to even address the issue with modern testing to remove pot from their illegal controlled substances list Most of the info on the neg effects of pot are propaganda created by the government (See documentary "grass" narrated by Woody Harelson on Sundance Channel)
 The FDA has a synthetic version of marijuana but it doesn?t work as well. It is for people with MS as well as other ailments.
By the way many parts of Can turn the other way to recreational pot smokers. Too bad Can. is so cold or I'd be there
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Offline RTP2003

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #6 on: May 02, 2005, 12:11:00 PM »
Quote
On 2005-05-02 00:40:00, Anonymous wrote:

"The ENTIRE PLANET is against weed.There is hardly any country where weed is legal.Its not just an USA thing.

As a matter of fact,the USA is the easiest place to score some smokable real weed without a bunch of hassel."


Never been to Holland, I take it?
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RTP2003 fought in defense of the Old Republic

Offline Anonymous

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #7 on: May 02, 2005, 01:46:00 PM »
Quote
On 2005-05-02 09:11:00, RTP2003 wrote:

"
Quote

On 2005-05-02 00:40:00, Anonymous wrote:


"The ENTIRE PLANET is against weed.There is hardly any country where weed is legal.Its not just an USA thing.


As a matter of fact,the USA is the easiest place to score some smokable real weed without a bunch of hassel."




Never been to Holland, I take it?
"


England's going that way, too.   Amerikkka is still in the dark ages with it's stupid anti-drug hysteria.  Fucking Xtians and their ilk.
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Offline Anonymous

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #8 on: May 03, 2005, 09:13:00 AM »
oh well i still enjoy smoking it. funny how pot is called a gateway drug for 10 yrs it is all i have done i am still alive and i havent gone downhill to coke or crack or anything else and i live an averge life with a job a family and i function normally just much more mellow and relaxed ahhhh life is good
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Offline Antigen

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #9 on: May 03, 2005, 12:24:00 PM »
I know! I know ppl who have been working on it for 30 years or more and still no progress. How damned long does that stuff take to start working :question:  :rofl:

Legalizing drugs is far from a panacea for all the distress caused by drugs, but it will eliminate most of the profit and corruption from the drug trade.

--Nobel laureate, Gary S. Becker

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Offline linchpin

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #10 on: May 03, 2005, 12:42:00 PM »
you can score anything you want if you just look..its all there
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Offline Anonymous

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #11 on: May 03, 2005, 01:42:00 PM »
Quote
On 2005-05-03 09:42:00, linchpin wrote:

"you can score anything you want if you just look..its all there
"


Oh, it's true.....the gov't. doesn't want to eliminate drugs or drug use, they want to control it, one way or the other.  Ever notice how drugs that put you to sleep are legal, while the ones that wake you up are merely available?

Plus, they make tons and tons of cash from drugs being illegal--whether it's funding CIA black ops through dealing smack or coke, or whether it's justifying increased funding for police forces, or whether it's seizing people's money and property without due process, or whether it's privatizing prisons, or "drug treatment" (read-brainwashing)centers, or even drug testing companies, or drug lawyers, there is a shitload of money changing hands every day that can be traced back to the illegal status of drugs---it's NOT because drugs are dangerous to you or even (gasp!)THE CHILDREN.  These are the same nice boys that gave black men syphilis in Tuskegee, did radiation expiraments on 'tards in the 50s, allow (and financially encourage) toxic polluters to ruin the environment, etc., etc. ad nauseum, and you think they give a flying fuck about your safety?   No, kids, this is Amerika, and it all boils down to money.  That's why legalization of Mary Warner really bothers them--it's safe, and just about anyone can grow it, so it can't be effectively regulated.  These bastards know what they're doing, and it ain't cool.  Smoke domestic weed and help win the Drug War......
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Offline Anonymous

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #12 on: May 03, 2005, 02:44:00 PM »
Quote
On 2005-05-03 10:42:00, Anonymous wrote:

"
Quote

On 2005-05-03 09:42:00, linchpin wrote:


"you can score anything you want if you just look..its all there

"




Oh, it's true.....the gov't. doesn't want to eliminate drugs or drug use, they want to control it, one way or the other.  Ever notice how drugs that put you to sleep are legal, while the ones that wake you up are merely available?



Plus, they make tons and tons of cash from drugs being illegal--whether it's funding CIA black ops through dealing smack or coke, or whether it's justifying increased funding for police forces, or whether it's seizing people's money and property without due process, or whether it's privatizing prisons, or "drug treatment" (read-brainwashing)centers, or even drug testing companies, or drug lawyers, there is a shitload of money changing hands every day that can be traced back to the illegal status of drugs---it's NOT because drugs are dangerous to you or even (gasp!)THE CHILDREN.  These are the same nice boys that gave black men syphilis in Tuskegee, did radiation expiraments on 'tards in the 50s, allow (and financially encourage) toxic polluters to ruin the environment, etc., etc. ad nauseum, and you think they give a flying fuck about your safety?   No, kids, this is Amerika, and it all boils down to money.  That's why legalization of Mary Warner really bothers them--it's safe, and just about anyone can grow it, so it can't be effectively regulated.  These bastards know what they're doing, and it ain't cool.  Smoke domestic weed and help win the Drug War......"


You are absolutely right---the Drug War is about money, not public safety.
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Offline linchpin

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #13 on: May 03, 2005, 05:59:00 PM »
theres a drug war going on? cant tell much here...
 so should we support home cooked meth too?
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Offline Antigen

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Why They give a fuck about marijuana
« Reply #14 on: May 03, 2005, 07:15:00 PM »
I think the mindfuck is the most insideous part. "Good" parents snitch on their kids and kids on their parents, brother against brother, etc. for something that's not even a crime. Add to that that we could, if we all knew it, dump wood pulp paper, fossil fuels and much of the agribusiness and pharmaceutical industries w/o virtually no down side. And more and more people are starting to get a clue about this. So we see a coward and a slave in the mirror every day we wake up knowing that, but for the pervasive lack of courage, we can't.

Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is.
--Jean Anouilh, French dramatist and playwright

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
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