If we treated drug addiction as a disease, and addicts with compassion to help them heal and get back on their feet and healthy, would we have the same problem with crime and disease?

Crime from drugs comes naturally, as the drug user is already a criminal.  But if they were instead patients… how many HIV patients steal to afford medication?

It would take a frightening cultural paradigm shift, one that I feel will never happen, but it’s fun to imagine a utopian culture.

Why can’t we celebrate research, innovation, tolerance, science, and research studies above utter nonsense?  Because of fear, and cultural inertia.  The most mobile, adaptive society is historically the most successful.  And, from the past 20 years, it is clear now that the US is not interested in innovation that doesn’t come with a big $$ attached to it.  (See: Apple, reality TV).

It has always disappointed me that the US is capable of so much!  Embrace science!  Embrace innovation!  This could be a better country, if we weren’t so scared of the future.

(As for the Clinton thing: to quote former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich: “I’ve known him since he was 22. At Oxford, as grad students, we didn’t inhale together.”)

I’m all in favor of legalizing MJ, but showing Presidents to be users is an anti-argument. Wouldn’t want the children growing up to be like them, would we? :(

Obama gets to keep his kids even though he’s an actual criminal. LAWS AREN’T FAIR, I guess. It’s America.

We need to stop this insanity NOW.  If we’re going to practice corrupt, harmful prohibition… then let’s go all the way and make alcohol illegal NOW.  Otherwise, fuck off and get the fuck out of the way of common sense and the legalization of marijuana.

>:(  Obama… you’re a fucking idiot.  Legalize this shit now, you tool.

But yes – the war on drugs is a big racket costing us billions in taxes a year.

Maraniss portrays the teenage Obama as not just a pot smoker, but a pot-smoking innovator.

“As a member of the Choom Gang,” Maraniss writes, “Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends.”

The first Obama-inspired trend: “Total Absorption” or “TA”.

“TA was the opposite of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled,” explains Maraniss. Here’s how it worked: If you exhaled prematurely when you were with the Choom Gang, “you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around.”

As one of Obama’s old high school buddies tells Maraniss: “Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated.”

Another Obama innovation: “Roof Hits.”

“When they were chooming in a car all the windows had to be rolled up so no smoke blew out and went to waste; when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.”

Maraniss also says Obama was known for his “Interceptions”: “When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted ‘Intercepted!,’ and took an extra hit.”

– abc

Wait, where will law enforcement agencies get all that extra federal (read: taxpayer) funding if not from the War on Drugs™?