You should care about pot, even if you don’t want to use it. When your government can make a harmless medicinal herb illegal for no moral or ethical reason (see Resources below), then proceed to jail, fine, raid, steal from, shoot and terrorize 100s of thousands of people for possessing, using and selling it, there is no bigger threat to personal liberty.

Because if your government can do that, what can’t it do?

The US Government has admitted they’ve been lying about pot for 75 years… but they continue to lie and throw non-violent citizens in jail, and to allow sick people to suffer and die because they can’t get a medicine that will at least ease their suffering, if not cure them.

Why do they continue to lie? Because governments profit from the drug war. There is a huge constituency lined up to make money from the drug war, from the CIA and DEA down to local cops. Imagine complete Cannabis legalization. What will all those employees do? Who will they arrest? Did you know the biggest contributor to keeping pot illegal is the prison guard union? They have their benefits and pensions to worry about, not your pain.

(I guess no one has suggested they make money in the Cannabis industry which is making Colorado and Washington state rich.)

Then there are political campaign contributions from all manner of corporate interests threatened by the legalization of Cannabis: alcohol, plastic, pharmaceutical, concrete, pesticide, herbicide, chemical, feed, oil, the military and medical industrial complexes, to name a few.

How do government agents get away with this? Because “pot is not important” to some voters who think Cannabis is just about getting high. They don’t realize it is about liberty and constitutional limits to government aggression.

Why is it not important to some voters? Perhaps they are afraid that if they speak up for pot, other people will think they are pot smokers. What else could explain their evangelical attachment to known lies, to government propaganda and their unwillingness to speak up for truth?

Let’s not forget about the ongoing and astronomical costs to society. Not just taxpayer dollars for prisons and supporting the caged while they are incarcerated, but mothers and fathers jailed ruining families and making them destitute. They lose their homes, their kids, can’t get jobs afterwards so remain on public assistance — a continuing cost to taxpayers.

Then there’s the fact that anyone with a felony has their 2nd amendment and voting rights shut down. The KY legislature likes nothing more than to add felony charges to all manner of drug “crimes.”

Many people believe this is how politicians take away our gun rights. Certainly a plausible conclusion. It’s also how politicians reduce the number of people who might vote against them at the polls.

Terrorizing citizens over a harmless medicinal herb is the epitome of government violence.

Pot and the TEA Party

As a member of the TEA party (co-founder of the Lexington TEA Party), I’m still waiting for the TEA Party as a whole to speak up for Cannabis legalization. Cannabis in all its forms is a TEA Party issue from both an economic and a liberty perspective, just as much as Obamacare, Common Core, and Right to Work.

Legalizing all forms of Cannabis would do more for the KY economy in a shorter time than anything else could: http://time.com/4037604/colorado-marijuana-tax-revenue/

Imagine all those non-violent offenders released from prison to become productive members of society (rather than being forced to stay on public assistance)! Fields of hemp, greenhouses of medicinal Cannabis, the production facilities that would spring up, the stores, the free market. THE FREEDOM.

Just because you don’t want to smoke it doesn’t mean it’s not a liberty issue at least as important as any other. Pot and the TEA Party go hand in hand! If you think it is dangerous or a gateway drug, you are not up on your research. Get educated before you make a decision, then choose whether or not to remain silent. You’d expect the same of me.

Resources:

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/

http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam/patient/cannabis-pdq/

US Gov holds patent on medicinal uses of Cannabis http://bit.ly/patent6630507

Article explaining more on the patent: https://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/medical-use-of-cannabis-video/the-government-holds-a-patent-for-medical-marijuana/

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs#sthash.YGIcNVNR.dpbs

On Cannabis being a gateway drug: http://www.newsweek.com/marijuana-not-gateway-drug-325358

US Gov study on the gateway drug theory: http://www.druglibrary.org/SCHAFFER/library/studies/iom/IOMReport.htm

http://norml.org/library/item/your-government-is-lying-to-you-again-about-marijuana

Sanjay Gupta’s Weed documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YIlzytEyfA and Weed 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWSPWKYiM5A