Prompted by “President Obama to Commute Some Non-Violent Drug Sentences”: http://www.hightimes.com/read/president-obama-commute-some-non-violent-drug-sentences
“According to the Drug Policy Alliance, the number of people behind bars for non-violent drug offenses rose from 50,000 in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997.”
When I say millions of people are suffering, I mean whatever number of non-violent people currently residing behind bars, the number of them otherwise impacted by relevant arrests (FBI reported around 800,000 of those arrests last year, memory serving) including employment and formal education obstacles from those arrests, the loved ones of those people suffering behind a metaphorical version of those bars, and the many such people on deck to become the next generations of this hideous profit-incentivized process in the “land of the free”.
“Democrats and Republicans seem to agree that mandatory sentencing of non-violent drug users went too far, and now the exorbitant prison population and red tape involved in clemency and enacting reasonable drug policies is a bureaucratic mess.”
The fact is a horrible mistake has been nationally made (nonetheless internationally pressed and spread) for decades with minimal friction towards a proper remedy. That mistake is not limited to mandatory sentencing, but the failure to take the lesson learned from Alcohol Prohibition to heart. The war on some drugs (the outright demonstrably insane Certain Drug Prohibition) is an unmitigated disaster, factually speaking.
Own up, not cover up.
“We the people” elected representatives who supported the “tough on crime” mantra (or those apathetic towards this issue), while isolating certain drug use based essentially on suggestive science at best — and junk science at worst, at least when reporting cannabis’ psychological impact (e.g. failure to scientifically/precisely factor in strain distinction, intake method, and intake amount — all of which substantially, if not dramatically, affect results).
You want the government to legislate public safety by prohibition (or textured prohibition — a.k.a. judicial regulations), instead of honoring an unalienable right to liberty that would have prevented this horror upon wise judicial acceptance (actually upheld public safety), well there you go. Law abuse has deeply serious consequences (and is always high risk due to the widespread power involved), as I repeatedly say to outright public ignoring.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” — Gandhi
I remain in the “First they ignore you…” phase.
Some people reactively agree with my reasoning involving psychedelics, but not with my similarly meticulously thought out reasoning involving law (the abuse of which negates lawfully following through on the healthy and prior reasoning — i.e. Psychedelic Prohibition).
If “We the people” cannot care about the blatantly illegal redefining of the Commerce Clause and obviously outrageous disarming of the ninth constitutional amendment judicially securing our fundamental rights (obviously necessary to properly uphold the “unalienable” and “self-evident” properties of those rights) — both of those judicial actions illegally sustaining the ‘drug war’ (tough on crime gets my ironic vote here towards holding traitors — confessing such illegality in the public record — accountable) — then who are we as a nation? What exactly is liberty in the United States? What exactly is responsibility here? When will we realize that subjectively defined law is unjust law inevitably due to being defined by favoritism (so unfairness and therefore injustice)?
While merely affecting the overwhelming minority of people (despite popular sensationalism to the contrary), drug abuse (not use) is worth addressing (including the arbitrarily legal drug — from aforementioned favoritism — alcohol). Pathetically pretending to address drug abuse by outrageously destructive law abuse cannot be reasonably described as anything but abhorrent, and any of you (or your loved ones) may be next in line for the blatantly unethical prosecution nightmare (as too many people, including those in cushy neighborhoods, shockingly find out the terribly hard way).
Prohibition (textured or not) is an ironic (and actually illegal) addiction that, unlike drug addiction, does factually negatively impact the overwhelming majority of people.
Frustrated, but defeatism is never a valid option in the “home of the brave”. Millions of non-violent people are counting on the righteously brave to end this demonstrated horror. Are you in?
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.
Spirit Wave Journal 
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