Thursday, November 6, 2008
Marijuana Legalization Talk Tonight at Rhodes
Posted on Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 4:00 AM
Flyer: Why do you think marijuana should be legalized?
Nelson: I want to be clear. We're not for drug use because all of us have seen how it destroys families and everything else, but we're for crime and violence reduction. We think that by legalizing we can reduce crime and violence in our country by about 80 percent because most of the crime and violence occurs in the distribution network.
If you arrest a kid who's 18 or 19-years-old and give him a prison sentence because he doesn't have the money to fight it, he’s going to have that felony record for the rest of his life. He's going to be marginalized in society. He won't be able to vote in some states and won't be able to get a decent job. So we want to deal with the crime and violence issue and deal with the drug issue separately. Drug use is a social issue, not a criminal issue.
How would you approach the drug issue?
The drug problem is best addressed with education, and when that fails, treatment. Jail is not the answer for an addict because it won't fix his problems, it will compound them.
Education is the key, and programs like D.A.R.E. don't work because police teach those programs, and they lie to the kids. The cops tell these kids, whose older brothers and sisters or even parents smoke marijuana, that if they smoke, they'll lose their mind and things of that nature. And they know it's a lie.
What do you think would be the benefits of legalization?
There would be less crime and violence, and we'd have a more humane society. And our police could get back to doing police work. I could go out on any street in Memphis on any night and bust two kids with marijuana, but what have I accomplished? I just screwed them up, but I haven't done any good for law enforcement. I took myself off the street for about 4 hours when people are really committing crimes. Our police officers need to focus on police issues. Lets focus on real crime, crime against people and property and leave people who are just hurting themselves alone.
Why do think the federal government won’t recognize that the "War on Drugs" isn't working?
They just don't have the political guts. In 1995 at the Hoover Institute, chiefs of police from all over the nation attended a seminar, and around 90 percent said the "War on Drugs" wasn't working.
Unanimously, they voted for a panel to be established to study it, but the federal government ignored all of this. I was at the National State Legislators Conference about 2 months ago, and 82 percent of the staffers, state Senators, and congressman that came by our table agreed with us.
Why do you think marijuana has not been legalized?
It's all about the money. There's a lot of money made off of the drug war. The pharmaceutical companies make money off of drug-testing kits. There is money from helicopters being made and sold to police squads. The military also uses a lot of their budget for the so-called "War on Drugs." And there are countless so-called criminals who have to pay to get themselves out of jail.
--by Shara Clark
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This guy knows what he's talking about. The war on drugs is simply ridiculous. Locally, Tennessee should take a lesson from Mississippi and decriminalize up to an oz. Police busting people for buds while the real criminals drive by with a trunk full of AK47s.
Hell yeah! I just got home and took a toke as I was I was loading the Flyer and find out this cool guy is coming to town. Unfortunately, it's tonight and now I'm too stoned to go out.
Learn why more and more cops, judges, prosecutors and others are saying we need to make our streets safer, improve our economy, and protect public health by legalizing and regulating drugs. http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com
The federal marijuana prohibition is a sick joke on the American people. As a policy, prohibition is a proven failure. How gullible are we to believe that prohibition could be a bad policy for alcohol but a good policy for marijuana. That thinking doesn't pass the most rudimentary test of logic! Prohibition is bad policy, period. It is flawed, destructive and expensive. It brings criminals into our neighborhoods filling the demand for weed that legal stores aren't allowed to sell. They make our schools and communities dangerous and make it easy for minors to buy the stuff. We need to rid ourselves of the prohibition and control marijuana with the *same laws* we use for alcohol!
Anybody with a lick of sense can look at the lack of results, and tell that the war on drugs hasn't worked since day one... but the politicians in both parties keep it going. Wonder why?
Why? He said it: too much money being made on prohibition and a complete lack of guts by politicians.
The folks at LEAP are awesome at educating the public at ineffectiveness and inhumanity of the war on drugs. I believe that the drug war causes far more damage to individuals and families than the drugs themselves. The social problems caused by drug abuse cannot be effectively handled by the criminal justice system. Drug abuse needs to be fought by healthcare professionals, educators and religious leaders. According to White House numbers there are conservatively 65,000 pot smokers inside Memphis city limits. That many people would fill the Liberty Bowl to capacity. Memphis could minimize the unintended consequences of the drug war by making marijuana offenses the lowest priority of the MPD as was recently done by the City of Fayetteville AR.
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