Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: toe on November 24, 2011, 03:38 am
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We shouldn't take our membership with Silk Road lightly or regard it as just a way to circumvent the system. We should regard it as a privilege--a privilege to be part of an enlightened movement of people that consider the war on drugs an absurd, catastrophic failure. In the US, 40 years after its beginning, with trillions spent, and despite overcrowding our prisons with non-violent offenders--we have not curbed usage at all--in fact, the opposite has happened.
What has happened is the war against drugs has become a device used by the power systems to imprison the poor and minorities, to turn the same victimized class against one another, and to strengthen the US police state (if you've watched any recent peaceful protests of the OWS movement being disbanded by tear gas, pepper spray, excessive force, and skull fracturing--you'll know what I mean). This messaging of the evils of drugs has created taboos suggesting an intrinsic immorality to usage; but this imposed belief system overlooks why people engage in substance use to begin with and instead helps to ruin the lives of innocent people only interested in escapism and hedonism.
Drug liberalization should be a major part of any movement that seeks to disrupt our current corporate oligarchy and curb the rise in police brutality. The top 1% control all of the wealth, the financial institutions are giving out massive bonuses despite almost wrecking the global economy by gambling on securities of peoples homes, the middle class is disintegrating as jobs are shipped overseas, children from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are condemned to fast food labor or crime, the telecom giants are seeking to create a tiered, discriminatory internet, big oil companies are reaping billions in profits and refusing to cut emissions as our most cherished environmental landmarks disappear--really reflect on all this and you understand where the need for escapism by some might come from.
You have so many groups popping up, supporting the legalization of marijuana in the US, and given the amount of support doing so has among the 18-29 demographic, it seems this will inevitably happen. But what about the other substances? A study released by the WHO in 1996 showed recreational usage of cocaine was much less harmful in the long-run than alcohol. Moreover, take a look at statistics: 16,000 die a year from illicit substances while half a million die from tobacco use. I do not think we'd see those numbers dramatically shift if we were to fully legalize all drugs--you know, let people make their own choices and control their own lives.
In fact, in Portugal, where all drugs are legal, drug use actually decreased upon full decriminalization and is still decreasing to this day. I hope more organizations publicly form to fight this ultimate stupidity, and I hope they don't limit themselves to only cowardly advocating marijuana legalization. I think Silk Road has an underlying awareness of this, and we are the vanguard of a change that will come.
In conclusion, I know what we do is small, and may seem only self-satisfactory, but our actions contribute to a much larger context--the ramblings of a real revolution and a firm commitment to the preservation of public liberty for all.
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yep, just like alcohol prohibition, this silly idea will finally collapse of it's own wasted weight. The only people totally supporting it are those who benefit financially--prison guard unions--and social conservatives, same reason they don't like anything they disapprove of.
Unfortunately,rather than aim for the honest place of legalization, the left in the USA has opted for changing the terminology from 'criminal' to 'sick' thus forcing us to play all the silly games with treatment centers and 'therapy' and 'methadone maintenance treatment'...and then when all that goes bad, they lock us up anyway, with nothing but a big new vocabulary to give us comfort.
I'm not a criminal, and I'm not 'sick.': supposedly I'm a freeborn man with choices about my own bod that have been taken away from me, beginning last century.
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I completely agree with your stance, I just wanted to clarify something.
Portugal didn't technically legalize all drugs. I have copied the following from wikipedia "Drug policy of Portugal" just to clarify
"In July 2001, Portugal a new law maintained the status of illegality for using or possessing any drug for personal use without authorization. The offense was changed from a criminal one, with prison a possible punishment, to an administrative one if the possessing was no more than up to ten days' supply of that substance.[1] This was in line with the de facto Portuguese drug policy before the reform. Drug addicts were then to be aggressively targeted with therapy or community service rather than fines or waivers.[7] Even if there are no criminal penalties, these changes did not legalize drug use in Portugal. Possession has remained prohibited by Portuguese law, and criminal penalties are still applied to drug growers, dealers and traffickers.[8][9]"
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The ware on drugs is just an utter failure, just leave us folks be so we can go about our business 8)