anarcho-queer:

The Top Five Special Interest Groups Lobbying To Keep Marijuana Illegal

Last year, over 850,000 people in America were arrested for marijuana-related crimes. Despite public opinion, the medical community, and human rights experts all moving in favor of relaxing marijuana prohibition laws, little has changed in terms of policy.

There have been many great books and articles detailing the history of the drug war. Part of America’s fixation with keeping the leafy green plant illegal is rooted in cultural and political clashes from the past.

However, we at Republic Report think it’s worth showing that there are entrenched interest groups that are spending large sums of money to keep our broken drug laws on the books:

1.) Police Unions: Police departments across the country have become dependent on federal drug war grants to finance their budget. In March, we published a story revealing that a police union lobbyist in California coordinated the effort to defeat Prop 19, a ballot measure in 2010 to legalize marijuana, while helping his police department clients collect tens of millions in federal marijuana-eradication grants. And it’s not just in California. Federal lobbying disclosures show that other police union lobbyists have pushed for stiffer penalties for marijuana-related crimes nationwide.

2.) Private Prisons Corporations: Private prison corporations make millions by incarcerating people who have been imprisoned for drug crimes, including marijuana. As Republic Report’s Matt Stoller noted last year, Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit prison companies, revealed in a regulatory filing that continuing the drug war is part in parcel to their business strategy. Prison companies have spent millions bankrolling pro-drug war politicians and have used secretive front groups, like the American Legislative Exchange Council, to pass harsh sentencing requirements for drug crimes.

3.) Alcohol and Beer Companies: Fearing competition for the dollars Americans spend on leisure, alcohol and tobacco interests have lobbied to keep marijuana out of reach. For instance, the California Beer & Beverage Distributors contributed campaign contributions to a committee set up to prevent marijuana from being legalized and taxed.

4.) Pharmaceutical Corporations: Like the sin industries listed above, pharmaceutical interests would like to keep marijuana illegal so American don’t have the option of cheap medical alternatives to their products. Howard Wooldridge, a retired police officer who now lobbies the government to relax marijuana prohibition laws, told Republic Report that next to police unions, the “second biggest opponent on Capitol Hill is big PhRMA” because marijuana can replace “everything from Advil to Vicodin and other expensive pills.”

5.) Prison Guard Unions: Prison guard unions have a vested interest in keeping people behind bars just like for-profit prison companies. In 2008, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association spent a whopping $1 million to defeat a measure that would have “reduced sentences and parole times for nonviolent drug offenders while emphasizing drug treatment over prison.”

RELATED: Why Can’t You Smoke Pot? Because Lobbyists Are Getting Rich Off of the War on Drugs

(via The best ever description of what being high is like. I saw this on a comment by a redditor a long time ago, and thought it deserved a repost. - Imgur)

occupyallstreets:

Richard Haste, an NYPD officer, killed an unarmed black teen (Ramarley Graham) in front of his grandmother and 6-year-old brother at point blank range over marijuana. The landlady, Paulet Minzie, 55, ran out the shower with only a towel after hearing the gunshots. Officers then put a gun to her head and told her to put her hands up. It wasn’t until she told them that there were cameras surveilling them, that they put their guns down.

Court papers say “[He\] immediately lowered his weapon. His demeanor completely changed, and he alerted his colleague that they may be on camera,”. The footage later revealed that Graham walked calmly to his apartment followed by police barging in without a warrant, contradicting the officers original claim that the teenager was running away from him. (Source)

Haste was freed on $50,000 bail yesterday after pleading not guilty. Police cheered for him as the parents of Graham wept in the court room.

(via anarcho-queer)

Above the Influence? Or under the influence of a failed prohibition that does not let us do real research on the positive medicinal effects of a God given plant?

asiansnotstudying:

University of California student Daniel Chong, who was forgotten in a tiny holding cell without food, water or a toilet for four days, has filed a $20 million claim against the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Source: (CBS)

Marijuana use attributes to zero deaths, compared to those to alcohol and cigarettes. Most hard drugs such as cocaine, meth, MDMA, and heroin only stay in your body for a few days while marijuana stays in your body for a month on average. This war on drugs is only a war reaping profit while NAFTA puts more people in Central American states out of work and into this endless war, tearing up families and making mothers weep for their children. 

End this war now.

(via laorish)

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(via missfluffykitty)

(via good-morning--starshine)

They’re all related one way or another