June 17, 2011 06:30 PM UTC

Pres. Jimmy Carter calls on end to 40 Years of Failed Drug Policy

• 1 Comments
• by: Whiskey Lima Juliet

Today marks the 40th Anniversary of the War on Drugs.  This war has cost us $1 Trillion dollars, the rise of cartels, rogue law enforcement attacks on the minority communities and millions of lives ruined.  And not one thing was gained!

Today in the NY Times, Presdient Jimmy Carter noted

But they probably won’t turn to the United States for advice. Drug policies here are more punitive and counterproductive than in other democracies, and have brought about an explosion in prison populations. At the end of 1980, just before I left office, 500,000 people were incarcerated in America; at the end of 2009 the number was nearly 2.3 million. There are 743 people in prison for every 100,000 Americans, a higher portion than in any other country and seven times as great as in Europe. Some 7.2 million people are either in prison or on probation or parole – more than 3 percent of all American adults!

America is infamous throughout the world with our focus on drugs and not on education.  We are now one of the worst educated countries on the planet, with the most people in prison!

Not only has this excessive punishment destroyed the lives of millions of young people and their families (disproportionately minorities), but it is wreaking havoc on state and local budgets. Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pointed out that, in 1980, 10 percent of his state’s budget went to higher education and 3 percent to prisons; in 2010, almost 11 percent went to prisons and only 7.5 percent to higher education.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06…

Rolling Stone Magazine Chimed in as well

Happy Birthday, Drug War! You’ve come a long way: a trillion dollars spent, millions of tokers and small-time pushers busted, countless jails built and crammed full (and then crammed full some more). And drugs? More plentiful than ever! Everybody wins! Or, to put it another way – the way a gold-plated panel of former world leaders recently put it – “the global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.” Right, then

http://www.rollingstone.com/po…

We can all disagree on MMJ or MJ.  But I have never been more convinced than what I am doing is the right thing.  It is time to legalize marijuana.  People who are believing the silliness that gets passed to us by AG Suthers and other uninformed law makers need to read up on this subject and quit acting like the world will end if we legalize a plant that has been used by people since ancient Egypt.

TIME TO GET REAL AND LOOK AT WHAT LOCKING UP PEOPLE IS COSTING US!!!!!!