It Is Immoral to Cage Humans for Smoking Marijuana

[n2doc]

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF

Under the law in 48 states, here's what can happen when an adult is thought to possess marijuana: men with guns can go to his home, kick down his door, force him to lay face down on the floor, restrain him with handcuffs, drive him to a police station, and lock him in a cage. If he is then convicted of possessing marijuana, a judge can order that he be locked in a different cage, perhaps for years.

There are times when locking human beings in cages is morally defensible. If, for example, a person commits murder, rape, or assault, transgressing against the rights of others, forcibly removing him from society is the most just course of action. In contrast, it is immoral to lock people in cages for possessing or ingesting a plant that is smoked by millions every year with no significant harm done, especially when the vast majority of any harm actually done is born by the smoker.

That there are racial disparities in who is sent to prison on marijuana charges is an added injustice that deserves attention. But if blacks and whites were sent to prison on marijuana charges in equal proportion, jail for marijuana would still be immoral.

America has used marijuana charges to cage people for so long that it seems unremarkable. The time has come to see the status quo for what it is. A draconian punishment for a victimless crime has been institutionalized and normalized, so much so that even proponents of the policy are blind to its consequences. Commentators are criticizing marijuana policy in Washington and Colorado, where the drug was recently legalized. These commentators aren't willing to put their names on an article stating that human beings who possess or smoke marijuana should be locked in cages among child molesters, gang members, and muggers. Yet they reserve their criticism for states that don't do that.

Status quo bias has mangled their priorities.

more

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/it-is-immoral-to-cage-humans-for-smoking-marijuana/282830/

[Romulox]

1. The sad fact is, Democrats supply major support for the War on Drugs. Many DUers, too. nt

[Kelvin Mace]

2. Another reason I wish

there were a LiberalUnderground.com

[Romulox]

3. That asshole Gil Kerlikowske is Obama's chief head-cracker in the Drug War...

These are our "allies":

Kerlikowske oversaw the demonstrations marking the second anniversary of the controversial WTO conference in Seattle which had caused his predecessor, Norm Stamper, to resign. Although the event was peaceful throughout the day, 140 were arrested after police issued orders to disperse in the evening.[5] Some of those arrested were prominent labor leaders attempting to move the event to the Labor Temple and others who were caught in the arrest zone while leaving work. Some charges were later dismissed. The police department was later criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union for the handling of protests against the Iraq War and previous demonstrations in a 2003 letter to the mayor and Kerlikowske.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Kerlikowske

[fadedrose]

5. +++ & Password protected....

Or a Progressive Underground

[Kelvin Mace]

6. Both domains are squatted.

how annoying, but typical.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

12. Yes

There are people on DU how would love to make it almost impossible for me to get my much needed pain meds.

In Washington State the war on drugs is really hurting the chronically ill and it's very disturbing to me the Democrats in the state legislator did this...cheered on by many people on DU.

[woo me with science]

24. The Obama administration is aggressively growing private prisons.

The Obama administration is aggressively growing private prisons...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4034692


...that benefit from this type of exploitation. Their growth is aggressively supported by both Republicans and the corporate Third Way, for one simple reason: Imprisoning human beings is a very profitable industry. But a government's complicity in attaching a profit motive to the imprisonment of human beings is nothing short of evil.

Poor minorities are worthless to corporations on the street. In prison they can bring in $40,000/yr
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023368969

Government guarantees 90% occupancy rate in private prisons.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2569173

The Obama administration is aggressively growing private prisons
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022568681

Obama's 2013 budget: One area of marked growth, the prison industrial complex
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/1002392306

Obama selects the owner of a private prison consulting firm as the new Director of the United States Marshals Service (USMS)
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/12/mars-d03.htmlPoor Land in Jail as Companies Add Huge Fees for Probation
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014158005

Private prison corporations move up on list on federal contractors, receiving BILLIONS
http://www.nationofchange.org/president-obama-s-incarcernation-1335274655

The Caging of America - Why do we lock up so many people
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002226110

Prison Labor Booms As Unemployment Remains High; Companies Reap Benefits
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/prison-labor_n_2272036.html

Private Prison Corporation's Letters to Shareholders Reveal Industry's Tactics: Profiting from Human Incarceration
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022665091

Financial growth of private prison industry...Profiting from caging humans.

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/BshteP8i282pcaeH8pdUsA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTUyMA--/

This Is How Private Prison Companies Make Millions Even When Crime Rates Fall
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime

This Is How Private Prison Companies Make Millions Even When Crime Rates Fall

—By Andy Kroll
| Thu Sep. 19, 2013 9:43 AM PDT MotherJones

We are living in boom times for the private prison industry. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest owner of private prisons, has seen its revenue climb by more than 500 percent in the last two decades. And CCA wants to get much, much bigger: Last year, the company made an offer to 48 governors to buy and operate their state-funded prisons. But what made CCA's pitch to those governors so audacious and shocking was that it included a so-called occupancy requirement, a clause demanding the state keep those newly privatized prisons at least 90 percent full at all times, regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.

Occupancy requirements, as it turns out, are common practice within the private prison industry. A new report by In the Public Interest, an anti-privatization group, reviewed 62 contracts for private prisons operating around the country at the local and state level. In the Public Interest found that 41 of those contracts included occupancy requirements mandating that local or state government keep those facilities between 80 and 100 percent full. In other words, whether crime is rising or falling, the state must keep those beds full. (The report was funded by grants from the Open Society Institute and Public Welfare, according to a spokesman.)

All the big private prison companies—CCA, GEO Group, and the Management and Training Corporation—try to include occupancy requirements in their contracts, according to the report. States with the highest occupancy requirements include Arizona (three prison contracts with 100 percent occupancy guarantees), Oklahoma (three contracts with 98 percent occupancy guarantees), and Virginia (one contract with a 95 percent occupancy guarantee). At the same time, private prison companies have supported and helped write "three-strike" and "truth-in-sentencing" laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.

[RandiFan1290]

25. Debbie Wasserman Schultz did it this morning on a local radio show

She was on a local radio show to say something about a stupid football game and the host asked her about medical cannabis. He mentioned that parents want to give the strain called "Charlotte's Web" to their kids with seizures. She just hemmed and hawed and made a stupid comment about parents letting their little kids smoke the cannabis. I was POd but not surprised.

After she left the host said she gave him the cut sign and one of her aides quickly asked him to change the subject. DWS should have the courage to give her opinion to her constituents and let us know if we have her support in getting rid of the Federal roadblocks. What a coward.

[The Straight Story]

4. Believing pot is harmless is woo, government scientists tell us it is harmful

And science cannot be wrong on this.

[n2doc]

7. Nothing is harmless

Case in point: Dihydrogen Monoxide. http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

[The Straight Story]

8. In the case of pot, RAND has done a lot of studies on it

Which the White House links to here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/frequently-asked-questions-and-facts-about-marijuana#opposed

Legalizing it will not help any situation according to the research done. Is it woo or science telling us this? These are people who refer to themselves as researchers, put out papers for review, and are seen by our government as competent enough to base policy on their scientific research.

Q. What impact does marijuana cultivation have on the environment?

Outdoor marijuana cultivation creates a host of negative environmental effects. These grow sites affect wildlife, vegetation, water, soil, and other natural resources through the use of chemicals, fertilizers, terracing, and poaching. Marijuana cultivation results in the chemical contamination and alteration of watersheds; diversion of natural water courses; elimination of native vegetation; wildfire hazards; poaching of wildlife; and disposal of garbage, non-biodegradable materials, and human waste.

Marijuana growers apply insecticides directly to plants to protect them from insect damage. Chemical repellants and poisons are applied at the base of the marijuana plants and around the perimeter of the grow site to ward off or kill rats, deer, and other animals that could cause crop damage. Toxic chemicals are applied to irrigation hoses to prevent damage by rodents. According to the National Park Service, “degradation to the landscape includes tree and vegetation clearing, use of various chemicals and fertilizers that pollute the land and contribute to food chain contamination, and construction of ditches and crude dams to divert streams and other water sources with irrigation equipment.”

Outdoor marijuana grow site workers can also create serious wildfire hazards by clearing land for planting (which results in piles of dried vegetation) and by using campfires for cooking, heat, and sterilizing water. In August 2009, growers destroyed more than 89,000 acres in the Los Padres National Forest in Southern California. The massive La Brea wildfire began in the Los Padres National Forest within the San Rafael Wilderness area in Santa Barbara County, California, and subsequently spread to surrounding county and private lands. According to United States Forest Service (USFS) reporting, the source of the fire was an illegal cooking fire at an extensive, recurring Drug Trafficking Organization-operated outdoor grow site where more than 20,000 marijuana plants were under cultivation. According to the USFS, suppression and resource damage costs of the La Brea wildfire totaled nearly $35 million.

[Go Vols]

15. Legalizing it will

allow people to grow it out in the open and regulated like any other plant grown for consumption as opposed to having to hide in National Forest and do it however suits the grower.

[Comrade Grumpy]

16. Wow, sound like agriculture is bad news.

Using public lands to grow pot is a problem, of course, but that's a prohibition problem, not a marijuana problem.

Also, not too happy about herbicides and pesticides and all that chemical nastiness, but that's an industrial agriculture problem, not a marijuana problem.

I prefer my weed like I prefer my food: natural, organic, locally-sourced (in my own plot).

[madrchsod]

27. all of that is true...

grow your own and keep it cool.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

13. Drinking too much water can kill you.

[Schema Thing]

9. Never understood how a cop who got tipsy on Friday night...

.... could arrest, and thereby destroy the life of someone on Saturday night.


It is immoral. It's codified hypocrisy and it diminishes us all.

[Blue Owl]

10. K&R

n/t

[Iggo]

11. Yep.

[Comrade Grumpy]

14. Why stop with pot? It is immoral to cage humans for what they choose to ingest.

Absent harm to others.

[Egalitarian Thug]

18. Exactly. And that's the point they refuse to acknowledge.

This is only one of the many issues where this lack of thought pervades the American mindset.

1st and 2nd amendment issues for example.

[woo me with science]

17. kick

[Nye Bevan]

19. Yes. The Amsterdam approach of building them coffee shops for smoking marijuana

is infinitely preferable.

[Uncle Joe]

20. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, n2doc.

[woo me with science]

21. kick

[Enthusiast]

22. The racial disparities are the worst.

Systemic institutionalized racism. Horrible.

[woo me with science]

23. kick