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Say what you will about him, Rep. Barney Frank has got some serious moxie:
Right on, Congressman Frank. Our country wastes such an enormous amount of money and human lives in the idiotic, puritanical war on personal marijuana possession. It’s about time this debate started getting some serious airtime.[Massachusetts Congressman Barney] Frank has filed a bill that would eliminate federal penalties for personal possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana.
It would also make the penalty for using marijuana in public just $100.
“I think John Stuart Mill had it right in the 1850s,” said Congressman Frank, “when he argued that individuals should have the right to do what they want in private, so long as they don’t hurt anyone else. It’s a matter of personal liberty. Moreover, our courts are already stressed and our prisons are over-crowded. We don’t need to spend our scarce resources prosecuting people who are doing no harm to others.”
Frank filed a similar bill last year, but it failed.
The law passed in Massachusetts last November.
h/t Nicole Belle
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DOWN THE VINE
Syndication
The War on Drugs has been a larger failure than Probation. The problem with the War on Drugs is not only has it built a large wealthy well armed criminal cartel but it has also built a large bureaucratic government machine that feeds of the victims of drug use. This bureaucratic government machine is encouraged and feed by the power groups that want to control what any one citizen wants to do. In many ways my idea is colder, hard drugs kill. Legalize everything, in ten years all the hard drug users will be dead. If you are not rebelling by using drugs, not breaking any laws, then the idealized draw is removed. With out the necessity of supporting this huge bureaucratic machine we could easily find the moneys for health care, and rebuilding of our economy with the regulations in place to stop the greedy from toppling it yet again.
amen. the war on drugs is about as big of a failure as the war on prostitution. we need to get past our puritanical roots and realize that not everything that's frowned upon needs to be illegal.
Barney has all my support, he should also bring the argument that marijuana was made illegal largely for racist reasons. Also should talk about how much money this will save. I really hope it doesnt fail this time, theres a better wave of support than last time.
i can't find the source right now but i think the common number cited in terms of just government savings from decriminalizing personal possession is around $18 billion. in terms of tax revenue, i've heard ranges from $10 billion to $50 billion.