In den USA wurden 2005 gemäss neuesten FBI-Zahlen fast 800’000 Bürger wegen Cannabis verzeigt, eine neue Rekordzahl selbst für amerikanische Verhältnisse. Das sind 42.6 Prozent aller Drogenfälle. Jeder achte Gefängnis-Insasse sitzt wegen Hanf.
Im Kontrast dazu geben 40% der US-Bürger an, mindestens einmal in ihrem Leben Cannabis konsumiert zu haben. Der „Krieg gegen die Drogen“ ist offenbar ein ideales Mittel, um grosse Teile der Bevölkerung in Angst und Schrecken zu halten.
Zur Erinnerung: es gibt keine Cannabis-Toten. Hingegen sterben 4.5 Millionen Menschen jährlich an den Folgen des Zigaretten-Konsums, an Alkohol etwa 1.5 Millionen.
Quelle: alternet.org
Dort war folgender Kommentar zu lesen:
Ending Cannabis prohibition is the most proximate and fundamental challenge facing our world. Nothing mankind is doing compares in effectiveness for rebalancing the Earth’s environment, global economics, and human social evolution. Discarding counter-productive statutes that impose essential resource scarcity would end the black market, realize a truly free market, quickly shifting values from chemicals to organic agriculture.
A critically determinate agricultural resource, Cannabis is mankind’s best bet for avoiding synergistic collapse of complex, integrated systems, based on immutable laws, relevant to Earth’s ecosystem. We call this the Natural Order, but as a species, we consistently disrespect its laws.
If we did, we would not drain the petroleum from under our feet, nor produce radioactive waste, when we could be farming our energy, improving the soil, and securing the world’s most nutritious seed. Cannabis is the only common seed with three essential fatty acids in proper proportion for long-term consumption. It’s also the world’s best available source of organic vegetable protein.
The greatest harms of prohibition have to do with the global food insecurity, malnutrition, and illness that are resulting from seventy years of imposed Cannabis scarcity. Until the true value of Cannabis is recognized, respected, appreciated, and celebrated, our species will not have a snowball’s chance in hell of achieving sustainability on this planet.
Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. I invite meaningful alliance from anyone who is serious about healing these imposed imbalances in the shortest amount of time.
for peace,
Paul J. von Hartmann
ecologist, photojournalist, biodynamic agriculturist, Cannabis scholar and minister
Project P.E.A.C.E.
Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics
http://www.webspawner.com/users/projectpeace
http://fundamentalcoot.blogspot.com/
Und ein weiterer Kommentar auf derselben Seite:
We have to go back and look at the history of Prohibition in all its forms to understand the current stituation. The rise of Standard Oil and other industrial concerns at the turn of the 20th century led to many things – including a prohibitive and controlling cultural norm that was best described by George Orwell – the power would rest in the hands of the few, and whether they were the captains of industry on Wall Street or the chairmen of the Central Soviet Committee made little difference to those who lived under their thumb.
Consider for a second that here in the US, the ‚beacon of liberty‘, we have a greater percentage of our population in prison than anywhere else on earth – and that’s largely due to the „War on Drugs“ initiated by Nixon and carried ot by Reagan and Bush. It has helped spawn the surveillance society – the Drug Enforcement Agency and state and local police operate massive undercover programs in which they are free to spy on people, infiltrate people’s lives, and monitor every aspect of a person’s financial life – and all they have to do is state that they suspect that ‚drugs are involved‘ to be allowed to do this. The political abuses are legion.
The explanation given is ‚to keep the people safe from drugs‘ but at the VERY SAME TIME, the pharmaceutical industry provides more drugs to people than you can imagine – the pilots who killed the British convoy in Iraq were on amphetamines, according to one news report: Old technology, poor training and drug use raise concerns February 7, 2007
Children and adults are fed amphetamines as well, under the guise of ADHD treatment (Ritalin, Adderall), and then there are all the pain pills, from morphine to oxycontin. Meanwhile, the the war in Afghanistan has led to a new flood of Afghani heroin into California. Who is behind that? Where is our new Gary Webb?
Then you have the legal drugs – alcohol and tobacco – which kill thousands every year from cancer, heart, lung and liver diseases – all perfectly legal.
Personally, I find that smoking pot slows my mental functions down and I generally avoid it (coffee, on the other hand, is a vice I seem unable to set aside – oh well…), but no more than I avoid alcohol – special occasions only. The fact that people are locked up for something so innocuous, while the pharma business goes around unmolested pushing meth on children, is one of the most ridiculous and insane situations that exists in US society.
Of course, what really freaks the power structure out is the use of pyschoactive hallucinogens – certainly not recreational drugs, but effective at de-brainwashing the subject… they recognized this of course, and even wrote a little book on it: „LSD: Some Un-Psychedelic Implications“ – a product of the CIA interrogation program…related to the Frank Olsen story – an Army biowarfare scientist who was slipped LSD in 1953 by Sidney Gottlieb and suddenly realized he had picked a very bad career path…