I think we need to piss off the republicans about state rights at the same time you piss off the democrats  about social freedom when a democrat is president
Social freedom, which is the mask of democrats often advocates freedom for drug usage or sensible policy -- and would at least help fight for marijuana legalization, and than if the states wanted more power over the federal government (which, a lot of the conservative ones in the nation do want more power) they would vote for a law to increase state rights powers.. So there might be a way to make the war on drugs a state by state issue, instead of a federal government issue --- that would be great.
Because if that happens you've essentially got it so the war on drugs has to be fought by the state, which since it is a losing battle to begin with -- it will cost them to much money and they will want reform, and probably lessen a lot of the things -- some states may make it worse, but it will require increased taxes, and who in the hell is going to vote for that? No one votes for more taxes, its political suicide anyways for the politicians of the bills pass... and nobody wants their own money taken away to fight something they are against in the first place, is a personal matter, or doesn't concern them.

What really got the drug war going was when the feds created the ability for local pd's to garnish and sell posessions from drug bust.  If someone would challenge that in Supreme court and win you'd see a big slow down in enforcement.

salat

http://www.11alive.com/rss/rss_story.aspx?storyid=144542  Video


I some times forget what we're up against.... The yields!  The mechanism!  Oh my!

Haha, It all makes sense now!  Here I though cutting myself off from any mainstream stimulus had no drawbacks; how wrong I was.

I think creating a very localized movement that can get started would be really effective. Every week go down to the police station, getting the records of all the people who were arrested for drug use, and drug related things and contacting them, their friends and family, etc and write articles about each one, and why it is a horrible thing for them, the tax payer, and other issues.
This would need to be a city by city thing, which could expand, by having subdomains of the city, the state, and than the main url - like this:
www.mycity.mystate.drugfreedom.org

Once you got it going in a fairly large/medium sized city, you could move it to the neighboring city and just work on getting all the big cities in one state, than make another sector being like www.yourcity.neighboringstate.drugfreedom.org. You could get people in charge of a section of that site - one city blog administrator per city, so the content would essentially generate itself, you'd just have to admin it all very well and make sure it was good content for each city, in each state.

This would bring it to a very local level, putting faces on the victims, and even work on publishing letters to the editor in the newspapers of the areas...

Than you would, naturally, have a bunch of strong well thought out arguments for ending the war on drugs in the main section of the site, like www.drugfreedom.org/main -- talking about how it regulates chemicals for colleges, high schools, and has ruined the educations of the youth, etc. Have both sides arguing for it - people like Ron Paul, Milton Friedman, Penn & Teller etc being advocates from the right, as well as the people from the left such as George soros, and really anyone who thinks pot should be decriminalized, etc -- and than I still think trying to make it so drug laws are a state issue vs a federal issue is the way to go.. since it is more easily manipulated than is the federal government, and it makes it agreeable to both the liberals and the conservatives.





 

its the whole "what about the childeren!!?" arguement.
any member of a legislative body could raise the issue of "childeren" and provoke a very convincing response.
for example when they started dealing heroin to rich kids in this area it garnered a lot of publicity and they went after those "creeps"
probably whoever they could pin it on.
who were alledgely dealing that poison to those precious kids, some of whom died.
see my point?
"and the bible says" holds a lot of weight so we need someone who appears religious and can twist the bible around to our point of view to win the war.
a sort of bible dude who can cite chapter and verse for example "man shall not live by bread alone" then insert marijauna in the next sentence.
or tell the story of "cocaineth and fable" very convincingly; they'd eat  it up.

Drugs are a threat to religion because they open your eyes to the stupidity that is dished up as spirituality.  Organized religion doesn't want you to have religious experiences because then you wouldn't be showing up at their megacommunity/country club centers and making big donations.  I suppose they could make it so only religions could control it and you pay your church to get high Imagine what fun they'd have with your pocketbook after a communion of MDMA!! 

You'd have to get them on drugs to see Jon's point of view.    Scary thought!! 

Salat

@jon:  maybe i could build a compound and get my followers to render all thier properties unto me for the lord's sake and give them drugs and have orgies and declare myself to be god and if they don't do these things they don't love me (God).
 
Just skip the kool aid this time.

Salat

what's interesting is that in the bible when jesus was on the cross they raised a stick with a vessel containing vinegar and gall.
now gall is opium so they mixed it with vinegar to solvate the good stuff.
a lot of people think this was done to taunt jesus but in reality it was to relieve his pain.
but according to the bible he tasted this and spat it out.
the bible gives reference to gall or opium, it says i'm paraphrasing that to give it to the dying so thye won't remember thier pain and suffering so i believe if there is a god he made opium as a mercy drug.
the doctors during the civil war coined it g.o.m. or god's own medicine.
and today the dea are meddling with the suffering those in pain by frightening doctors into not prescribing these medicines to those in need.
the problem being society does'nt care unless it touches them directly.
which is among the reasons i prefer to research ways to make pain relieving drugs more practical to synthesize anyhow i'm ranting back to my books.

Thanks
Appreciated - I need to read all this thread over again.

I'm considering becoming part of SSDP fairly soon.