Prompted by “A beginner’s guide to prohibition and the war on drugs”: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/beginners-guide-prohibition-and-war-drugs
I’m playing a bit of devil’s advocacy here (shocking, I know), but that’s to help save roughly many millions of people from outrageous suffering, and putting a righteous end to the highly abusive reasoning on both sides of this key issue.
The traditional activist effort to end the ‘drug war’ is understandable on the one hand. They look at the convoluted situation, and try to apply maximum strength by lobbying the government and public in traditional fashion (naturally a lengthy process due to ‘drug war’ entrenchment and still-strong momentum). Their efforts are to be applauded in appreciation (their hard work has thankfully produced certain liberties), but there’s a heavy cost (and awesome opportunity) with that otherwise sensible approach.
“Any activity or product can in theory be prohibited by law, and drugs are no different. The current prohibition on drugs was established in international law by the 1961, 1971, and 1988 United Nations drug treaties, and has since been incorporated into the domestic laws of over 150 countries. It mandates criminal sanctions for the production, supply and possession/use of a range of psychoactive substances, although the penalties vary widely between countries.”
In other words, subjectively defined law (the true source of discrimination that my Liberty Shield campaign serves to address) runs rampant globally with an arbitrary focus on certain drugs (that focus is what my Respect Cannabis campaign serves to address).
That prohibition was actually established by our judicial branch’s ruling that the Commerce Clause offsets the need for another constitutional amendment similar to the one needed for Alcohol Prohibition. Our nation plays a strong influential role worldwide, and strongly encouraged the international community to adopt those treaties. I scanned through them once, and something key caught my eye. Each provision therein requires national constitutionality.
“The movement ultimately led to the prohibition of alcohol, which lasted from 1920 to 1932.”
The public record supplied by our judicial branch shows the Commerce Clause was redefined from “regulate commerce” to ‘regulate any activity having a substantial effect on commerce’ after 1932.
From the Wikipedia entry for the New Deal:
“The New Deal was a series of domestic programs enacted in the United States between 1933 and 1938, and a few that came later. They included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders during the first term (1933–37) of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.”
Those laws were constitutionally rejected by the judicial branch (and frustrated President Roosevelt), but a magical shift in judicial judgment due to redefining the Commerce Clause enabled those programs (and many aspects of traditional leftist regulations at the state and local levels of government).
Note the Marihuana Tax Act (effectively beginning Cannabis Prohibition) was enacted in 1937.
The fact is the war on some drugs is a terribly nasty side effect of the political leftists’ grabbing of economic control post Great Depression. Whether you agree with the need for that grab, want to spin it back to political rightists’ contribution to the Great Depression, or otherwise — you cannot honestly disagree that Certain Drug Prohibition is fundamentally a political leftist policy (even despite severe Republican hypocrisy that I firmly and continuously challenge).
The wonderful significance of this political blame is leverage. Any Republican is (in fact) a hypocrite upon upholding the ‘drug war’, so the ability to publicly persuade (or otherwise embarrass) Republicans logically forms a powerful political press to more promptly end that perpetual war.
“The unregulated, criminally controlled drugs trade has expanded to become one of the largest commodity markets on Earth, bringing with it disastrous costs.”
Actually the ‘unregulated regulations’ essentially negating the wisdom of constitutional limits on government power has expanded into aforementioned convolution, and continues wildly unabated. Just as our nation recklessly ignored the lesson of Alcohol Prohibition, our nation has similarly ignored the lesson of the American Revolution — law abuse is public enemy number one due to its mainly broad scope of destruction.
“As a result, using the term ‘prohibition’ to describe current drug policy can, as well as being technically accurate, be a useful way to highlight how and why the harms it is causing are similar to those caused by the US’s catastrophic experiment with alcohol prohibition.”
I’m not trying to be cute by calling judicial regulations “textured prohibition”, but leverage the similar advantage of that description. By public default, regulations (and laws in general) are assumed to be a necessary and effective tool for civility (despite the questionable nature of that assumption due to judicial effectiveness issues), but that obviously negates the serious risk of law abuse and clearly opposes our original national intent — form effective, unbiased, and sane leadership by a Constitution implicitly limiting government power to prevent abusive law. The Constitution exists, but the intent of that self-proclaimed “supreme law of the land” has demonstrably not yet been met.
“Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything–and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.” — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
The questionable interpretation of vague law opened the judicial floodgates, and now the rule-of-law is insanely unwieldy at all levels of government. The aforementioned disastrous subjectivity forming law has horribly diffused our national unity (we’re not a nation of constitutional laws, but a nation of judicially combative opinions disguised as such). Everyone has their own definition of civilized liberty, so the press to ban/regulate activities nationally is complex and ironically destructive (an effective civil war of ungraspable quality spanning our nation’s history). That war was ignited by hypocritical favoritism entrenched in law (favoritism is unfair, so unjust — so we don’t have an actual justice system and that’s the actual core problem here).
Thanks to the Information Age (which merely just began over a decade ago), defining risk by law (instead of the undeniable power of entertaining education) is deprecated unbeknownst to the mainstream public — something this responsible entertainer serves to help remedy for optimally civilized liberty.
Restoring the integrity of our Constitution (including necessarily repealing Certain Drug Prohibition at all levels of government inclusively by way of the supremacy clause) instantly negates national obligation towards international drug treaties, and instantly diffuses American pressure towards the global prohibition of certain drugs to expedite activism success.
You can ignore me here and feel free to continue popularly upholding the following self-defeating logic in the prompting piece that merely “feels good” (the same way prohibition merely “feels good”)…
“It is important to understand the distinction between drug prohibition, which puts an absolute ban on the production, supply and use of certain substances for non-scientific or non-medical use, and regulated drug markets, in which some activities are legal and some remain prohibited, such as sales to minors and purchases not made via licensed outlets.”
“Prohibition is an absolutist position, and its repeal opens the door for a wide variety of possible regulatory options which can be far more effective.”
Prohibition is indeed an absolutist position, but that also applies to activities that “remain prohibited” (textured prohibition). “Can be far more effective” remains questionable when teens desiring alcohol and tobacco (logically from the allure of parents saying no during the natural teen tendency to rebelliously assert independence) can fairly easily attain those items anyways among the many other dangerous items accessible without regulation (e.g. household products with serious risks against common use).
Both of my campaigns are in the initial ‘public awareness stirring’ phase, and there’s a lot to come on both fronts to strongly pressure that righteous shift in public thought and consequent action.
If you passionately care about law, then you love the idea of “scientific constitutionalism” as necessary for constitutional integrity (continuing our Founding Fathers massaging efforts similar to today’s activists). The primary “call to action” is simply reading, sharing, and discussing Liberty Shield. Public mainstream programs (light and entertaining educational pieces for Internet spread) will logically be forthcoming upon satisfying that initial action and phase.
If you passionately care about intentional perception alteration (e.g. choosing your own recreational drugs), then you love the Respect Cannabis approach to first (joining Liberty Shield to leverage scientific constitutionalism to) powerfully undermine the seriously powerful notion that constitutional law is on the side of certain members of law enforcement organizations selfishly lobbying hard to sustain prohibition (undeniably making such areas of law enforcement ironically criminals against constitutional law to their righteous discredit). Then this campaign perpetually focuses upon strongly promoting the effective educational alternative offering a highly innovative solution to drug abuse (actually all intentional perception alteration abuse — including that from technology, religion, etc.) without liberty-infringing “law”. That first approach against abusive law comes from the terrible hindrance by prohibition against that educational alternative — so focusing hard to wield all lawful means to end that obstacle makes sense. The primary “call to action” is reading, sharing, and discussing Respect Cannabis (including checking out the “Up” programs offering many fun-through-serious ways to strongly carry the campaign forward by social networking and other positive public pressures).
If both of those campaigns turn you off, please drop a comment explaining your unspun reasoning.
So what’s your action?
I am an honest freak (or reasonably responsibly balanced "misfit", if you prefer) of an artist working and resting to best carefully contribute towards helping society. Too many people abuse reasoning (e.g. 'partial truth = whole truth' scam), while I exercise reason to explore and express whole truth without any conflict-of-interest -- all within a sometimes offbeat style of psychedelic artistry.
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