1. Prop 64 - legalizing marijuana
A few drug facts:
Q: How many drug-induced deaths per 1,000 stem from illegal drugs?
A: One. (for marijuana: 0) [Source: Harper's Index]
...not that we don't have a drug problem: 40% of reported accidental deaths are drug-related (source: John Bradshaw). And that's just what's reported!
Criminalizing drug use doesn't work. Countries that decriminalize drugs have excellent records based on the results. Switzerland, for one example, decriminalized even heroin. Crime diminished 85% around the drug clinics that dispensed the newly-legal, cheaper prescription heroin, diminishing support for the criminal enterprises that imported it previously. Portugal decriminalized all drugs, and immediately experienced lower health care and police costs as former addicts were reintegrated into society.
Twelve step programs will tell you that addiction is a disease, not a moral failing. Punishing addicts is as medieval as incarcerating diabetics. It's bizarre, cruel and ineffective. Actual medical addiction treatment costs one seventh as much as incarceration and has better outcomes.
Despite the Methodist's previous support for Prohibition, criminalizing drugs is one of the worst ways to discourage their use.
Oh yes, and marijuana may cause a traffic accident, but does not impair reflex times, as does alcohol... There is no recorded fatality from marijuana consumption, in contrast to alcohol (or tobacco). It's far less dangerous, and doesn't make its users as aggressive. (Blessed are the peacemakers, y'all.)
As for whether marijuana is a "gateway drug".... Tobacco consumption has a higher correlation with later use of harder drugs. Tobacco may be legal, but it's also more addictive than heroin.
You can read more at http://judgejimgray.com/. ... Gray is the Libertarian vice presidential candidate, but was previously a drug prosecutor who held the record for the biggest U.S. drug bust. Despite his Republican / conservative Orange County constituency, he's become disillusioned with the drug war, and moved to the Libertarian party as a consequence.
2. Prop 57 - Reducing incarceration
This second proposition is related to the marijuana law simply because the U.S.'s racist, ineffective incarceration binge began with the drug war. The U.S. incarcerates roughly 756 per 100,000, while the world average is 150 per 100,000. That means if the U.S. were an average nation, four out of five of the inmates in its jails and prisons would not be there. That's FOUR OUT OF FIVE!!!! (Land of the free! Home of the incarcerated!)
At 111 per 100,000, Canada incarcerates roughly one-seventh what the U.S. does. It did not undertake the drug war. But crime is lower in the U.S.... right?
Nope. With the same demographics, Canadian and U.S. crime have differed only insignificantly for the last 40 years. High incarceration rates do not correlate with lower crime.
Nevertheless, people of color are more likely to spent prison time, and more of it. Yep, this is institutional racism. Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow) writes that felons lose all the rights the civil rights laws granted people of color, and more such people are under prison supervision now than were slaves in 1850.
Naturally it doesn't work to diminish addiction, either.
So... prop 57 gets some people out of prison, and reduces determinite sentencing, allowing courts some leeway when convictions arrive.
Anyway, decriminalizing drugs (even if, as present growers complain, it empowers the big drug growers at the expense of the little guys) and reducing our prison populations are no-brainers, IMHO. I encourage a yes vote on both these initiatives.
One final note: Prop 47 (reducing some felonies to misdemeanors) also promised to get some people out of jail, freeing up money and resources for rehap and re-integration for society. Lizzie Buchen of CURB ("Citizens United for a Responsible Budget") reports that jail budgets remain pretty much unchanged, so the inertia of the present system may not deliver the promised savings / alternatives....So there may be more to do on that front. Stay tuned.
..That said, I recommend supporting the Prop 57 forces with your calling help and money. I'm not particularly happy with the alternatives offered up-ticket, but these issues still makes activism and voting worthwhile.
A few drug facts:
Q: How many drug-induced deaths per 1,000 stem from illegal drugs?
A: One. (for marijuana: 0) [Source: Harper's Index]
...not that we don't have a drug problem: 40% of reported accidental deaths are drug-related (source: John Bradshaw). And that's just what's reported!
Criminalizing drug use doesn't work. Countries that decriminalize drugs have excellent records based on the results. Switzerland, for one example, decriminalized even heroin. Crime diminished 85% around the drug clinics that dispensed the newly-legal, cheaper prescription heroin, diminishing support for the criminal enterprises that imported it previously. Portugal decriminalized all drugs, and immediately experienced lower health care and police costs as former addicts were reintegrated into society.
Twelve step programs will tell you that addiction is a disease, not a moral failing. Punishing addicts is as medieval as incarcerating diabetics. It's bizarre, cruel and ineffective. Actual medical addiction treatment costs one seventh as much as incarceration and has better outcomes.
Despite the Methodist's previous support for Prohibition, criminalizing drugs is one of the worst ways to discourage their use.
Oh yes, and marijuana may cause a traffic accident, but does not impair reflex times, as does alcohol... There is no recorded fatality from marijuana consumption, in contrast to alcohol (or tobacco). It's far less dangerous, and doesn't make its users as aggressive. (Blessed are the peacemakers, y'all.)
As for whether marijuana is a "gateway drug".... Tobacco consumption has a higher correlation with later use of harder drugs. Tobacco may be legal, but it's also more addictive than heroin.
You can read more at http://judgejimgray.com/. ... Gray is the Libertarian vice presidential candidate, but was previously a drug prosecutor who held the record for the biggest U.S. drug bust. Despite his Republican / conservative Orange County constituency, he's become disillusioned with the drug war, and moved to the Libertarian party as a consequence.
2. Prop 57 - Reducing incarceration
This second proposition is related to the marijuana law simply because the U.S.'s racist, ineffective incarceration binge began with the drug war. The U.S. incarcerates roughly 756 per 100,000, while the world average is 150 per 100,000. That means if the U.S. were an average nation, four out of five of the inmates in its jails and prisons would not be there. That's FOUR OUT OF FIVE!!!! (Land of the free! Home of the incarcerated!)
At 111 per 100,000, Canada incarcerates roughly one-seventh what the U.S. does. It did not undertake the drug war. But crime is lower in the U.S.... right?
Nope. With the same demographics, Canadian and U.S. crime have differed only insignificantly for the last 40 years. High incarceration rates do not correlate with lower crime.
Nevertheless, people of color are more likely to spent prison time, and more of it. Yep, this is institutional racism. Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow) writes that felons lose all the rights the civil rights laws granted people of color, and more such people are under prison supervision now than were slaves in 1850.
Naturally it doesn't work to diminish addiction, either.
So... prop 57 gets some people out of prison, and reduces determinite sentencing, allowing courts some leeway when convictions arrive.
Anyway, decriminalizing drugs (even if, as present growers complain, it empowers the big drug growers at the expense of the little guys) and reducing our prison populations are no-brainers, IMHO. I encourage a yes vote on both these initiatives.
One final note: Prop 47 (reducing some felonies to misdemeanors) also promised to get some people out of jail, freeing up money and resources for rehap and re-integration for society. Lizzie Buchen of CURB ("Citizens United for a Responsible Budget") reports that jail budgets remain pretty much unchanged, so the inertia of the present system may not deliver the promised savings / alternatives....So there may be more to do on that front. Stay tuned.
..That said, I recommend supporting the Prop 57 forces with your calling help and money. I'm not particularly happy with the alternatives offered up-ticket, but these issues still makes activism and voting worthwhile.
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