We are beginning to see the war on the War on Drugs.
That is to say, a war against the war on American citizens which has been going on even decades before the so called "War on Drugs" was officially begun in 1971, but goes back to an effort from as far back as 1914. Our more modern war on drugs is based in some very old and unfounded scientifically, beliefs.
Before I get into this, how does what I'm going to say benefit you, what does it do for you?
Here's the thing, no matter where you are living, you have to see what is best for yourself, your country and the world. Conservatives seem to see what is best for them, then justify what is best for everyone else through that filter. But what is best for all is best for the one because the one, needs to live in that world of the all. Kind of counter-intuitive (not really) which is why many conservatives have issue with it.
We need to push for what is best and not just what our governments and people have been misled toward believing is best for them, when in reality it is best for a few and a few who control things, who have power, money and influence. The masses however are the people, not the few people. It's not just quantity over quality but it's quality overall of the quantity.
So don't let people put you down, speak out, say what needs to be said. Vote accordingly and think forward. Be proactive when possible or at least, reasonable. Progressiveness should be about progressing and we have as a world been regressing now for far too long. Look at all the wondrous things going on around us, breakthroughs in science and in advances in society.
Legalizing cannabis (pot), legalizing gay marriage, cracking down on money in elections, squarely facing the responsibility humans have for advancing climate change, on and on down the line. People are starting to wake up and realize they are suffering only to prop up corporations and government, rather than government and corporations propping up human beings.
But for now I'm only focusing on the end of the nightmare that has been, the war on drugs.
I won't go into a history lesson on this, but when Nixon called for a commission on drugs and they returned to him a recommendation that we legalize them, he lost control, ignored the recommendation and took his current paranoia at the time which we all know about now, which eventually led to "Watergate" and the bled over and into the eventual and official War on Drugs.
Whenever a government starts to see its own citizens as the enemy, it has to be seen that something has gone very wrong right from right and at the top as well in this case, deep in the past.
I've been pushing for the legalization of pot for decades. Literally since I was a kid, since I was in my mid teens, anyway. We've spent over a trillion dollars on the war on drugs in this country, something that should never have been instituted. But okay, it was.
What have we learned? We have incarcerated over 37 million people and it's not yet gotten a handle on the issue while in other countries, they have. They have in ways we would never before have considered, considering.
"We've been walking into the future, backwards for too long." Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Real Time With Bill Maher..
If we have a troubled child and punish them but they don't get it together, they don't figure things out through their being mistreated, then what do we usually do? We punish harder. Where does that stop, though? When do WE wake up and realize that what we are doing is only adding to the problem? We are then at some point making things worse.
We do become the bad guy at some point.
We have to wake up to see if maybe our charge, our child, needs something we aren't offering them. Maybe it is our lifestyle that is abusing that child. Maybe it is us who needs to change.
On a side note, this is especially true of ADD and ADHD kids who go through hell because their school and family wants them to adhere to what is considered normal.
Offering borders on behavior is good, but punishment at an early stage tends to be counter-productive because it is a counter-intuitive situation. Much like our war on drugs which requires those in charge to have intelligence, to observe and update their own behaviors. Not to keep saying we have to hit them harder. Because as some point, they have become the abusers. They, have become the addicts. Social addicts, addicted to a social behavior that is failing.
Regarding the arguments about children and pot, that really isn't the argument, so stop diluting the topic.
Adults are who we are talking about using pot.
As for kids they can get it now with no legal issues stopping them, as they are going to underground dealers. If we take the market from them, well? Just as today, where it's illegal for children to buy alcohol, they will still be able to get pot, just as they can now get alcohol. But we require alcohol to be regulated and it is legal. Why would we treat pot any different? Especially when it is an entirely different animal that is far less harmful that alcohol and actually has some benefits.
To alcohol if nothing else and there isn't nothing else. It is being shown time and again that there are benefits to pot. That being said, no, of course children shouldn't be using pot and it would be best as I've read, not to use it until around twenty-five years of age. Same as with alcohol. But that's just not going to happen. So let's make the best of the situation and consider the whole and not just the most delicate of our species.
But that has absolutely nothing to do with legalizing it for adults state by state as is not happening now, or nationwide as is surely soon to come once we hit that tipping point. Hopefully our leaders and legislators won't sadly wait till all states have legalized it before they pass national legalization.
With all the new forms of pot available we need to hold adults who have it legally, to be held legally responsible for it's access, in the case of children accessing it. If you have a lollipop pot confection, you have to know to lock it up.
Only an idiot leaves it around for a kid to use it. People need to be educated. Just as if alcohol were dropped into a society when they were ignorant of it before. As humanity has done to isolated communities all through history in missionaries and sailors having discovered island societies and suddenly brought them up to the world's most modern times and technologies.
If the recriminations are made well known for children accidentally taking pot, it will get around and it will settle down. How many people do you know now who don't lock up their alcohol? Except they don't leave around a mixed sweet drink that would entice a child. It's an educational situation and we will work it out. It takes being proactive, something Americans as a nation seem to be allergic to.
That doesn't mean we should continue a war on American citizens.
It means, we need to grow up and wake up and move forward into the future. Because as we're seeing in so many other things, as in the middle east, oil and gas drilling and fraking, climate change and so on, the future is rapidly passing us by.
We can either get on the train and deal with the ride, or stand before the train and be run over.
Choose your path. Choose it now, before it's too late. Because the rest of us, are going to move on without you, if you don't.
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