Drug War Peace Plan
King County Bar Association in Washington is getting national attention for its plan to reform drug policy by emphasizing regulation and treatment. The coalition's 145 page report envisions allowing people to grow their own marijuana and possibly licensing local producers, suggesting that marijuana might be regulated in a similar way to alcohol. All other so called illicit drugs could be made available as pharmaceuticals are now.

 

Bonnie Colleen Minter/McCool has given talks on the libertarian or freedom philosophy to such organizations as the Lion's club, the Optimists, etc. She has been an activist for constitutional social policy and the libertarian philosophy for almost two decades, since her written work was first published in articles on the front page and as a regular guest columnist in the Sweetwater Reporter. Letters to the Editor by her have been published in the Stephenville Empire Tribune and many others Texas newspapers, as well as ones as far away as Canada, New York, Rhode Island,etc. Write your own LTE today!

"I think the money should be followed, period. That's why, in the early 1990s, I wrote extensively about the American Civil Liberties Union taking huge amounts of cash from the tobacco industry, while supporting legislation wanted by the industry and not telling its members of either activity." Veteran reporter, Morton Mintz said recently. Mintz is a senior adviser to the Nieman Watchdog Project, Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

Bill Moyers said, "that the quality of journalism and the quality of democracy are inseparable." Good journalism tries to level with the reader the best it can, allowing for the possibility of being wrong. Yet, stories that really matter to our safety, health and pocketbooks, even to the survival of our country, are consistently ignored or trivialized.

David J. Garrow's "Mental Decrepitude on the U.S. Supreme Court: The Historical Case for a 28th Amendment," suggests a constitutional amendment should be passed forcing judges to retire at 75. Most court observers now concede that Thurgood Marshall had lost much of his hearing and half his bag of marbles by his final years of service on the court. Garrow blames the Supreme Court press corps for not aggressively covering either such mental slippage or Rehnquist's "publicly visible struggle with deleterious Placidyl overmedication."

"From the mid-1960s through much of the 1980s Congress played an integral role in drug safety. Lawmakers meticulously probed the regulatory histories of dubious drugs, uncovered FDA weaknesses and ordered corrections." according to an article in The American Prospect." Then Congressional oversight of the FDA began to decline with passage of a highly dubious law allowing the industry to pay so-called user fees as a way to speed FDA approval of new drugs.

Oversight collapsed when the Republicans took control of the House and drug and tobacco industry lobbyists and campaign contributors took control of them. Speaker Newt Gingrich called the FDA the "leading job killer in America." He denounced its then-Commissioner, David Kessler, who wanted to regulate tobacco, as "a thug" and "a bully," and the consequences were catastrophic.

By the Fall of 2002, 13 dangerous drugs were pulled from the market after causing many hundreds of deaths and many thousands of injuries. Just seven of the unsafe medicines had caused more than one thousand deaths. Viox, alone, has more recently been touted as causing more deaths than the Vietnam War.

David Willman of the Los Angeles Times found that the FDA had become a partner rather than a supposed watchdog of the pharmaceutical industry in a superb investigative series that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002,. This industry has more lobbyists than Congress has members, it fills the campaign coffers of friendly lawmakers to overflowing, and dangles the prospect of high-paying jobs before Capitol Hill overseers who don't oversee.

"House leaders and committee chairs had no interest in investigating the FDA's role in approving even one of the drugs that caused needless deaths and injuries on their watch. Least of all did they and the other lawmakers who were themselves partners of the industry want to investigate why and how the FDA had become a partner of the industry," Morton Mintz pointed out..

He said, "As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Billy Tauzin had prime FDA oversight jurisdiction but didn't exercise it. Over the course of 15 years, he took $218,000 from the drug industry. In January 2005, the Louisiana Republican became president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. His annual pay package is reportedly worth at least $2 million. Tauzin's successor, Joe Barton of Texas, is cut from the same cloth."

Early last year Charles Grassley, Chairman of the Finance Committee undertook tough oversight of the FDA, including its handling of childhood antidepressants and Vioxx and related painkillers. Moreover, Grassley gave notice that he'd protect the FDA's internal whistleblowers, like medical officer David Graham, who had called Vioxx a "profound regulatory failure" by an agency "incapable of protecting America against another Vioxx."

For a full decade, the press failed to inform the public of the prolonged, corrupt pre-Grassley abdication of congressional oversight of the FDA responsible for the safety of our medicines. They were silent about the causes, consequences and implications of that abandonment. They turned a blind eye when the blood of thousands of their neighbors was being spilled. Unfortunately, much the same story can be told about other agencies and issues.

Where is a story in which Billy Tauzin, or Joe Barton, or House Speakers, or House and Senate majority leaders, were asked why no oversight investigation into any of the seven drugs that caused the deaths of a thousand Americans has been instigated? Or a story on Senator Mike Enzi asking why his Health committee hadn't done the FDA oversight done by Charles Grassley's Finance Committee.

Instead the press went crazy over Terri Schiavo. Our DEA got a little bad press for harassing the sick and dying so to balance that the Administration went to bat for Terri. Proving if you are brain dead our government will do anything for you. But if you have a brain and want to use it, that will be over their politically dead bodies.

In the aftermath of Katrina, a sea-change occurred, the mainstream press is being justly praised for asking tough questions, for speaking truth to power. Down through the years, thousands of substantive questions should have been but were not asked of presidents, lawmakers, religious leaders, etc.

"The United States and Russia together have approximately 4,800 nuclear warheads on hair-trigger alert. These weapons have a combined destructive power nearly 100,000 times that of the atomic bomb which leveled Hiroshima. Within a few minutes, a wrong call about a supposed incoming missile, or, say, a terrorist electronically hacking into a launch-control system, could start a war that would destroy humankind." Mr. Mintz warns.

Campaigning Bush said,"[F]or two nations at peace, keeping so many weapons on high alert may create unacceptable risks of accidental or unauthorized launch. ." Mr. President, what have you done to lower the risks that you cited five years ago?" Mr. Mintz asks.

Here's several questions Mr. Mintz and all of us want President Bush to answer. " Many of your appointees to Cabinet-level and other high regulatory posts had been lobbyists dedicated to weakening or killing the very regulations that on taking office they solemnly swear to enforce. What philosophy underlies such appointments? Have you been appointing foxes to guard the chicken coops?"

"Economic inequality in the United States today has for a long time been greater than in any other industrialized country. Yet the gaps in income and wealth have been steadily widening. Of 367 leading corporations today, the pay of the top boss averages 431 times that of the production worker. Are the economic inequality and the chasm in income healthy for our democracy?

"Why does the United States need nuclear weapons in numbers sufficient to destroy every major city on the planet ten times over?"

"Does every American have a right to basic health care?"

"Why aren't business executives who knowingly and willfully market products that they know will needlessly kill, injure or sicken people, or who knowingly expose their workers to preventable death, injury or disease criminally prosecuted?"

Mainstream press lets the candidates select the issues in election campaigns. This disconnect of a great many issues of highest importance from election campaign coverage is a huge failing on the media's part. Hmmm, mainstream media is owned by, controlled by large corporations, enough said.

Issues like nearly 5,000 nuclear warheads on hair-trigger alert, lobbyists becoming regulators, economic inequality are but three of a host of examples, Bush and Kerry didn't mention in the 2004; consequently, they were non-issues. for political editors, reporters and debate moderators.

Here are a few illustrations from the past to underscore the persistence of the disconnect between issues that really matter and the issues emphasized in campaigns: The four paragraphs below are from the text of a talk by Morton Mintz on Sept. 13, 2005, to the Southeastern Sussex County Democratic Club at Bethany Beach, Delaware:

In May 1988, while the presidential campaign was revving up, newspapers and television newscasters gave top billing to an alarming report by the Surgeon General of the United States. Cigarettes, warned Dr. C. Everett Koop, an appointee of President Reagan, "are addicting in the same sense as are drugs such as heroin and cocaine." (Actually tobacco is 30% addicting compared to 10% for alcohol and all other illicit drugs except marijuana which is nonaddicting, according to Consumer Report's, "Licit and Illicit Drugs")

Despite countless opportunities between the prominent news coverage and the November election, or indeed in the ensuing 17 years, to my knowledge, and despite the more than 400,000 premature deaths smoking causes every year, political reporters have not asked a presidential or congressional candidate questions such as: Do you accept Dr. Koop's evidence of the addictiveness of cigarettes? If you don't, what scientific evidence supports your position? You don't take money from the cocaine cartel, of course. But how is it moral, or right, to take money from the maker of an addictive but legal product that kills hundreds of thousands of Americans annually?

In 1996, no one asked presidential candidate Bob Dole whether he stood by a statement he'd made in 1983: "When these political action committees give money, they expect something in return other than good government."

In 2000, after a decade of unparalleled prosperity, it was somehow not a campaign issue that 13.5 million children, one out of every five, were hungry; and that three out of four of the hungry children had parents who work. Nor was welfare of $125 billion a year to politically-wired corporations and industries. Nor was the massive transfer of cash, securities and other assets to foreign tax havens. The resultant evasion of US income taxes was in an amount equivalent to, by one unofficial estimate, the sum of "every tax dollar paid by everyone in New York State and New Jersey who earns less than $200,000 a year."

Thank you, Morton Mintz for pointing these failings of the press out. We must all be better watchdogs for our liberty. Truly, our lives and those of our descendants depend on it.

You hear a lot about the law of unintended consequences but with modern statistical reporting we can see where our laws are causing more harm than good and change accordingly. Empirical statistical evidence strongly shows that more democracy leads to less internal violence and democide. Democide is a term coined by political scientist R. J. Rummel in his book, DEATH by GOVERNMENT to describe "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder".

Relevant nonpartisan journalism Speaks Truth to Power

Once Americans stood proudly for freedom from oppression. America now has the dubious honor of being number one in the world for having the most people in prison. The Land of the Used- to- be-Free has become the most incarcerated nation in history!

The,"World Prison Population List" (seventh edition), by Roy Walmsley is out with the latest available information. The US holds top ranking again at 738 poor folks imprisoned per 100,000 people. Our closest competitor Russia locks up 611 out every 100,000 of their comrades. Texas has an imprisonment rate pushing 1,000 souls caged out of every 100,000. No country, no dictatorship on this planet is as comfortable locking people up as the state of Texas. Contact TX SENATE TX HOUSE

Please note: You are reading a summary of Morton Mintz' talk with comments added by McCool (in yellow) for the full length version.

The HEA Aid Elimination Penalty senselessly hurts those students most in need. If you or anyone you know has been denied financial aid as a result of a drug conviction, please contact Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

This student organization has launched a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the HEA Aid Elimination Penalty, with pro bono legal representation from the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project. SSDP is still seeking additional plaintiffs in this class action lawsuit. Please take five minutes right now to call your two U.S. senators and one U.S. representative and urge them to repeal the harmful and unfair aid elimination penalty. To help Students for Sensible Drug Policy identify new plaintiffs, please visit the SSDP lawsuit web page.

The odd thing about the Department of Education's numbers is they do not enumerate college applicants punished for drug convictions. They count the number punished for truth telling, owning up to drug convictions. The state of Texas denied aide to 27% of its applicants for being honest. Ryan Grim, writer of a recent web article suggests students, "just check no," as many already have done, most likely.

Here's the latest outrage: Bush and his allies in Congress think that young people with drug convictions are fit to go to war for their country but aren't good enough to go to school, please help us generate a strong message to Congress: End the Drug War Draft Now!

Following the death of a student at Stephen F Austin from alcohol poisoning, SFA is being accused of being far more lenient toward alcohol-related incidents than marijuana-related ones. The Colorado-based nonprofit group SAFER criticized SFA for policies that penalize marijuana use more heavily than alcohol, despite statistics that show alcohol is related to far more deaths than marijuana.

Drinking by college students, ages 18 to 24, contributes to an estimated 1,400 student deaths, 500,000 injuries and 70,000 cases of sexual assaults or date rapes each year, according to a 2002 study commissioned by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Task Force on College Drinking.

SSDP, Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) and NORML, (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) say students should not be punished for making a safer health choice in recreational drug use. Recently 64% of University of TEXAS students urged administrators to reduce penalties for marijuana.

Florida State University recently passed their referendum by 60%. University of Maryland SAFER Initiative passed by 65%; 6000 people voted, a record. turnout to vote in the election!

A drug conviction hurts those students most in need and it is adding insult to injury to take away student aid for a safer choice.

SSDP officially took action to defend students' rights in a brief filed in the most important Supreme Court case ever to deal with student free speech about drugs and drug policy. SSDP filed an Amicus Curiae (Friend of the Court) brief in the Supreme Court case of Morse v Frederick, better known as the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case: Read the brief!

Denied financial aid as a result of a drug conviction? Contact SSDP, join a class action lawsuit!

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws

Drug Reform Coordination Network

Family Watch

Dance Safe

Students for a Sensible Drug Policy

Drug Policy Alliance

Grammas for Ganja

Business Council for Prosperity and Safety

TRANSFORM Drug Policy Foundation

ACLU Drug Law Reform Project

Cannabis Action Network

Schaffer Library of Drug Policy

SAFER Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation

DRUG TRUTH Network

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

McCool gets published and you can too!

Loyalty to Country, Always- RREPEAL PROHIBITION

Texas Artist Preaches the Freedom Philosophy

Save lives instead of ruining them.

Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Texans for Medical Marijuana

Marijuana Policy Project

The November Coalition

Educators for Sensible Drug Policy

Advocates for Self-Government

US Representative Ron Paul

MTWT Making the Walls Transparent

Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform

Americans Who Tell The Truth

TRUTH - the Anti-Drugwar

Americans for Safe Access

Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative

First I want to point out that, like Mark Twain, reports of my recent demise have been greatly over exaggerated. Perhaps you thought Uncle Sam was a benevolent spirit, well I tell it like it is! He began ravishing me early on and continues to get away with it!! Also, be aware, you may be next to get screwed by your government. Citizens deserve to live without fear of a no-knock raid, busting down the front door or, God forbid, the bedroom door.

Across America paramilitary drug raids trigger violence rather than lesson the risk.

I am afraid; murderers and other violent predators roam free, while we police nonviolent adult social, medicinal and religious drug use.

The outrageous violence and official lawlessness triggered by the drug war will end with repeal just as these policy created problems disappeared with repeal of alcohol prohibition.

When the mothers of America realized that prohibitionists were making their kids more vulnerable to booze, the Volstead Act was licked! Today minors testify, it is easier to buy pot than alcohol. Mothers of the world will again unit to stop this no less insane, out-of-control version of prohibition; triggering violence in our streets around the globe.

It will be a great blessing if this is THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR THE WAR ON DRUGS! Forget borders. Drug prohibition is a worldwide problem! The violence, official lawlessness and prison over population are a nightmare created by this out-of-control policy!

Public safety should come first. More than230 US citizens have been murdered in Mexico in the last 5 years. 60,000 people have been killed, and thousands more have simply disappeared, more than total US fatalities for the Iraq war. They live under marshal law in Juarez now.

Our Founding documents are based on great spiritual principles. We are seekers of truth and justice, as are all liberty lovers worldwide. That spirit unites us. It is the Holy Spirit and our True North. Many leaders are outright servants of tyranny; good at ignoring the rule of law, history and science while catering to the needs of special interests but awful bad at determining what is best or safer for the individual or society.

Cool beans! Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina just used his speech at the United Nations General Assembly to call for major drug policy reform. He specifically praised the citizens of Colorado and Washington for voting to legalize marijuana, and President Obama for his decision to allow the states to move forward.

Celebrate our similarities, build bridges of tolerance to differences in race, religion and lifestyle. That's how we create peace and abundance.

Prohibition has destroyed many lives and families in the US, wasting trillions in tax dollars, causing 37 million arrests for nonviolent victimless offenses.

Drug warriors can be put to better use. We need to put our enforcement resources where they are in desperate need: to prevent this kind of violence if possible and to solving murders and rapes. Do a search for the mind boggling amount of still unsolved violent crimes.

Official lawlessness rules! Prohibition fuels corruption of public officials and injustice in our courts. The statistics reveal that racism is epidemic in the drug war.

"We need to repeal the whole war on drugs," said Doctor Ron Paul.. "This is a disease, not a crime." We will do a better job preventing overdose deaths, of keeping intoxicated folks off the road and our children drug free with science based education, regulation and compassionate policy offering helpful treatment. Currently marijuana is more easily purchased by our children than regulated alcohol or cigarettes.

Considering the oppression, the bloodshed, racism and corruption triggered by the new prohibition; the worst public policy since slavery is a simmering scandal and disgrace more explosive than sex in the oval office!

If you research it you will find that there were few overdose deaths before prohibition. New Mexico recently passed legislation to protect Good Samaritan 911 Calls (for alcohol and drug overdose cases) from "drug crime"prosecution. Many European countries have had similar policy for decades.

Looking for Current Drug Policy in the Texas Legislature?

Downsize State Government! Find out just what the TX LEG is up to concerning drugs. -- TX HOUSE---TX SENATE

Our corrupt system attracts too many of those interested in milking it for all it is worth. Restore justice and attract more of those who will make the system run with the milk of human kindness.

The web is the fastest growing communications medium in the history of the world. A powerful tool, a window of opportunity, in our war of good over evil; the Internet continues to revolutionize the way we communicate and has enormous potential for reshaping the political process.

Michael Phelps has won 22 Olympic career medals and 18 were gold medals, making him the the most decorated Olympian in history! Last I checked, Phelps has broken thirty-seven world records in swimming. Neither the USA Swim team nor Kellogg's cereal and munchie company had a problem with him despite an alcohol-related arrest in 2004. Michael has nothing to apologize for but Kellogg's and the Swim Team should reconsider their decision to punish him for making a safer social and health choice to simply celebrate with friends.

It is Un-American, overkill and morally bankrupt to punish nonviolent adults for making a safer health choice, cannabis or marijuana, compared to other medicinal/social drugs.

The debate over medical marijuana or cannabis is really a scandalous controversy over whether this safe, effective, very easy-to-grow herb should be allowed to compete with dangerous, expensive pharmaceuticals and social drugs for pennies on the dollar.

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things bought and sold are legislators." -- P. J. O'Rourke. The second things bought and sold are regulators! The free market is a more powerful and efficient regulator than government. Let ethics and the free market rule!

The tobacco, alcohol and prescription drug gangs cause more death annually than all illicit drugs.

Regulation, science based education and treating abuse as a medical problem is rational; a better drug policy increasing public safety and harm reduction plus freeing up untold billions in wasted funds to use toward catching more violent and sexual predators or incarcerating more of those morally bankrupt; who sell drugs to children or drive intoxicated. Restore public safety!

Less than one percent of the population are actually addicts, drug treatment is seven times less costly than prison, change to ethical policy and show fiscal responsibility!

I've tried to be perfectly clear about how I am being ravaged by that beastly Uncle Sam, need I remind you he's my Big Brother! Throughout history, big government has caused more harm than good; often hiding tyranny under the guise of good intentions. Our founders knew big government would always mean a gang of evildoers.

Mariska Hargitay, the star actress from the TV show Law & Order – SUV was especially effective in pointing out how society places so little value on women at a House Judiciary hearing on the problem of rape kits not being opened across the USA.

"The victims (thousands of whom have written her) interpret not testing, as a sign that the police and society do not care about rape. IMHO the victims are correct." Detective/Officer Howard Wooldridge (retired) Drug Policy Specialist at COP, CitizensOpposingProhibition, blogged recently. "NOTE: while testifying, she cracked emotionally for about 10 seconds….very moving."

Sexual predator treatment squeezes state budgets as do rape kit testing.

Now is the time for American lovers to unite and insist American warriors get their adrenaline rush catching murderers and other violent predators.

American advertisers use sex to sell everything from lipstick to laptops but fear and silence around sex and sexuality also permeate our culture. American teens are paying a terrible price for this confusion in unintended pregnancy, STDs, and even HIV. And American taxpayers are paying billions to treat these entirely preventable problems. These facts are from, "Let's Talk About Sex" a 2009 earnest and engaging documentary about modern adolescent sex.

It spotlights a host of these alarming trends and truths: Yearly, the US has over 750,000 teen pregnancies (that's approximately 2,400 young girls a day), experiencing much higher pregnancy rates (1 out of 3 teens) than those in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Ten thousands US teenagers contract a sexually transmitted disease every day. That's over four times the rate of the Netherlands and over three times that of Germany and France.

"As females become sexually active at younger and younger ages, state legislatures have stupidly raised the age at which it is legal to engage in sexual activity. Today, a significant percentage of new prisoners are young men imprisoned for engaging in sexual activity with teenage girls. In the US, criminal justice (sic) has more to do with ruining people than with punishing criminals," says Paul Craig Roberts. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

In many of these cases the so-called victim did not want to prosecute; meanwhile violent sexual predators get away with murder. Once all voluntary associations were permissible in America -- economic and social.

Have you noticed opportunity may knock once, but temptation bangs on your door forever or how forbidden fruits create many jams? Sex and drugs, for both abstinence is safest but few choose it. When individuals remain in control of their own bodies (including anything ingested) society benefits.

Our children are healthy, young animals, entering their sexual primes, over 40% of whom will have had sex before they are fifteen. They should be taught every safety precaution and offered condoms. Still, that is 60% who choose abstinence and they should be free to choose to, "just say no," to Gardasil.

A 2010 report to the U.N. General Assembly about the need for better sex education was met with an outbreak of angry voices. "African nations rejected the report. Caribbean countries said they took 'umbrage' and wanted to 'put on record'their strong disapproval. The report dared to say that comprehensive sex education shouldn't merely seek to scare adolescents by emphasizing deadly or disfiguring sexually transmitted infections or lecture on family planning. Instead, it suggested attention to pleasure and enjoyment of sexuality, including as an objective of sex education 'abolishing guilt feelings about eroticism.' "

Drugs, sex and politics; leaders responsible for current quagmire will one day answer to a higher power for their crimes against humanity. It's time to end the terror by changing our intrusive, big-bully policies, both foreign and domestic. The monetary costs are staggering and the human suffering unconscionable.

 

Save the Children,- just SAY NO to Prohibition!

by Bonnie Colleen McCool

How can anyone think drug prohibition makes our children or streets safer?

A Pew Center on the States study published in 2010, "Collateral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility," revealed these sad statistics:

"2.7 million children have a parent behind bars—1 in every 28 children (3.6 percent) has a parent incarcerated, up from 1 in 125 just 25 years ago. Two-thirds of these children’s parents were incarcerated for non-violent offenses."

Stephen H. Frye M.D, retired medical school professor's book exposes facts related to our babies, teens especially, being collateral damage of this demented, violence triggering policy! "We Really Lost This War! Twenty-five Reasons to Legalize Drugs."

Don't believe the propaganda; we wage this war to protect our children! The devastating and deadly facts are our babies; especially teens have become collateral damage in this grossly failed war. The destruction of the sacred family unit is one of the worst consequences prohibition forces on children.

Brutal, bloody prohibition supports despicable people who sell drugs to children, recruit them to sell to their peers and arm them to kill the competition. Despite having six times the Netherlands adult incarceration rate, this insane policy has created an obscene teenage murder rate that's nineteen times higher than in the Netherlands, where drugs are regulated, controlled and taxed!

Only 50 percent of high school students graduate in our ten biggest cities and only 40 per cent graduate in NYC, Baltimore and Detroit. In the Netherlands 92 percent graduate; that's No Child Left Behind!

The war waged by Mexican drug cartels has resulted in 610 children deaths reports a study and 3,700 children have been left orphans as a result of the violence or execution of their parents. Many minors who are orphaned have been psychologically scarred after witnessing violent actions against their relatives.

The Mexican military reported that 420 children who had been recruited have died in the clashes between rival groups. There were many examples of adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17 dying in fierce battles with the drug traffickers or being tortured and killed as paybacks between feuding clans.

Drug testing is useless except as a money making scheme. It is another big waste of our tax dollars.

Peter Bensinger former DEA head and former drug czars, Robert L Dupont and Carlton Turner shamelessly promoted drug testing as the solution to drug problems while they held office. Bensinger, Dupont & Associates is now the world's largest drug testing company. This Association formed by these same big drug warriors is reaping a fortune on the drug testing laws they wrote.

The only beneficiaries of drug testing are the makers of the tests. Statistics reveal that random student drug testing doesn't work and can deter students from extracurricular activities; the very activities that
increase students' connection to their schools and to caring adults. What's worse, studies even show that student drug testing does not deter drug use

Read the story of how one student's life was turned upside down by drug testing and how drug testing created a devastating false sense of security for another family.

The truth about drugs will keep our children off them. Sound medical and unbiased scientific knowledge are the most effective moral persuasions.

Present policy falsehoods and scare tactics undermine our credibility.

We want to encourage drug free behavior not awaken their curiosity. Effective drug education based on medical science builds student's confidence to make informed responsible choices. Scare tactics, drug testing and fear don't work as well as truth, trust and reason.

Consider truthfully educating our young, treating our addicts and respecting the rights of adults to choose their social or medicinal intoxicant. It would free law enforcement to better protect us from violence and fraud and create room in prison for those selling drugs to children.

We just have to love our kids, teach them that their body is the temple for their soul and hope they make the right choices. You can't live their lives for them; they will not allow it. Independent individuals will eventually throw off the bonds of tyrannical parents and big government tyranny and oppression

"Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist once he grows up," said Pablo Picasso. There are all kinds of artists. Great artists paint from the heart. Some make living well an art. Life is pure creative energy; the creative force dwells in each of us. United, in just cause, we can create a better world.

 

Create Peace on Earth!

by Bonnie Colleen McCool

The only real wealth is well being and happiness. We, the nonviolent members of the pro-better-world society, far out number the violent evil doers. Get tough on violent crime! Take away violent offenders' and sexual predators' ability to reproduce. Aggressive behavior can be bred out of us as it has been done in dogs. We shall overcome the violent and inherit the earth. We shall create Peace on Earth!

Empire-building, policing the world, and casting off the Constitution's restraints solidifies tyranny at home, devastates the economy, and increases the threats to our national security. I believe in, promote and defend a safer, constitutional, non interventionist foreign policy. This is the safer policy envisioned by our founders.

I support our troops and want to bring them home safe. Secrets put our troops and all of us in more danger than transparency. Truly ethical leaders have no need for secrets, cover ups, covert operations, lies and propaganda.

Some of our leaders live in a state of denial. Others are like bad horseman; too concerned about staying in the saddle to worry about where they are headed. Many are outright servants of tyranny; good at ignoring the rule of law, history and science while catering to the needs of special interests but very bad at determining what is best or safer for the individual or society.

True patriots, lovers of liberty, insist morally bankrupt US warriors are held responsible for torture and wars abandoning our ideal of nonintervention. The world knows they violated international law. They are traitors to the republic for which we stand. We will be derelict in our duties to maintain an in fact, free republic if we don't insist on it.

Is Trump an American lover or warrior? Will he continue the warring policies and try to sell it as a changeling, Obamanation of America? But we know that is not our real true America. Our founders' vision of self-government, of an America free of big government oppression and tyranny, is the one true patriots still hold dear. The Bible says, "without a vision the people parish." We are standing on these promises. Join the Easy Revolution!

A 3rd party or real choice for real change would just complicate things for the money and power mad financiers that actually are the corrupt powers that be in ours and several other countries. For instance, Chavez rejected the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the U.S. Treasury department. He and Venezuela are financially able to do so, making him extremely unpopular with Washington and the global interests they push.

Trump doesn't want to look back because he continues the status quo with small change. Considering the shocking torture and contemptible official lawlessness exposed throughout the war on terror; it has become a horrifying shame, an atrocious dishonor, too ghastly to be ignored.

Empirical statistical evidence strongly shows that a republic leads to less internal violence and democide. Democide is a term coined by political scientist R. J. Rummel in his book, DEATH by GOVERNMENT to describe "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder."

All the unnecessary deaths triggered by our drug policies and terror policies are democide. How much more evil do we have to suffer before we abolish these insane forms to which we have become accustomed?

Our flag is a symbol of liberty, justice and freedom! It is a beacon for hope in a troubled world. Don't let its reputation be tarnished by incidents of torture. Recapture the Flag by demanding a government that respects human rights, leadership that rejects all forms of corruption, and elected officials who fiercely challenge anyone who seeks to undermine the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

We can be brave and end the terror by changing our intrusive, big-bully policies, both foreign and domestic. The monetary and environmental costs are staggering and the human suffering unconscionable. Take action now join the Campaign For Liberty!

Everyone wants to feel safe; to live without fear. Kind parents want that for their children. Most people solve their problems without violence. Ethical governments work toward that goal using arbitration and diplomacy. Most of us want to feel that we are doing good; having a positive impact. Some think of it as being on the side of right; being on God's side. Remember, "God loves everyone," but probably prefers fruits of the spirit over religious nuts!

Politicians are concerned about the next election because there are few true patriots among them. Too, many of these folks want to serve God, but only as advisors. Few are Public Servants who are concerned about the rights of the individual and working for downsizing to a more limited constitutional government. These are true patriots as defined by our founders.

The blinded by the light of billions in tax and lobby money, bleeding leaders thus corrupted are blithely unconscious of the societal harm their policies cause. (Continue)

Hemp Revolution?
Can a plant save the planet? Producer-director Anthony Clarke will make you a believer. This documentary explores the hemp plant's fascinating history and thousands of uses, as well as the economic and cultural forces behind its prohibition. Clarke argues that the hype surrounding hemp, also known as cannabis or marijuana, has overshadowed the plant's benefits as a source of paper pulp, its uses as a cotton substitute and much more. He comes down deservedly hard on chemical and drug companies as well as the U.S. government.

You can rent it. Netflix will give you a free trial!

 

Here's a real cowboy hero, riding for freedom to save justice in America. Howard Wooldridge, from Ft. Worth originally, road his horses across the US. It took them three years to cross the county as a promotional event for LEAP. He has received an award from the Long Rider's Assoc. for his effort. He shares McCool's Rebel with Just Cause Award for 2006 with Cindy Sheehan. This award honors true patriots, those who stood for freedom and those still standing. Howard is our man in Washington these days.

Read his newsletter, LEAP ON THE HILL ------------ Drug Policy Forum of Texas . Please join the discussion

The retired police officer warns, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " Drug prohibition causes more pain, suffering and death than the drugs themselves."

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Criminal Justice Professionals Speaking Out Against the “War on Drugs”
The LEAP Report ---------------------------------LEAP into Overdrive

We are rebels with just cause, when we exercise our right to nullify bad laws!

US Representatives Barney Frank and Ron Paul have introduced legislation that would end federal prohibition of marijuana and would let the states decide whether it should be legal. Just six days after HR 2306 was introduce, the Obama Administration broke an earlier promise and declared war on medical marijuana patients -- even in states where medical marijuana is legal.

Texas straight talker, Paul says we are "politicizing pain." The debate over medical marijuana or cannabis is really a scandalous controversy over whether this very safe, effective, easy-to-grow herb should be allowed to compete with expensive dangerous pharmaceuticals

Is HEMP the Tree of Life and healer of the nations in the Bible?

Harassing the sick and dying is an un-American activity.

by Ma Freedom

 

a National SHAME!

Jury nullification is a constitutional power tool we the people pack!