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The Center for American Progress reports
On [February 27], days after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters to expect stricter enforcement of federal pot law, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recycled discredited drug war talking points in remarks of his own.
"I believe it's an unhealthy practice, and current levels of THC in marijuana are very high compared to what they were a few years ago, and we're seeing real violence around that", Sessions said. "Experts are telling me there's more violence around marijuana than one would think and there's big money involved."
In reality, violent crime rates tend to decrease where marijuana is legalized.
Denver saw a 2.2 percent drop in violent crime rates in the year after the first legal recreational cannabis sales in Colorado. Overall property crime dropped by 8.9 percent [PDF] in the same period there, according to figures from the Drug Policy Alliance. In Washington, violent crime rates dropped by 10 percent [PDF] from 2011 to 2014. Voters legalized recreational marijuana there in 2012.
Medical marijuana laws, which have a longer track record for academics than recreational pot legalization, are also associated with stable or falling violent crime rates. In one 2014 study of the 11 states that legalized medical pot from 1990 to 2006, there was no increase in the seven major categories of violent crime and "some evidence of decreasing rates of some types of violent crime, namely homicide and assault."
[...] Elsewhere in his remarks, Sessions unwittingly made the case against treating pot activity like serious crime. "You can't sue somebody for drug debt". he said. "The only way to get your money is through strong-arm tactics, and violence tends to follow that."
Legalizing, regulating, and taxing the sale of marijuana is the surest way to remedying that exact tendency for pot commerce to trigger violent score-settling. Legalization invites pot business into the light, granting cannabusinesses at least partial access to official modes of recourse when they are defrauded.
8 states and the District of Columbia have legalised marijuana for recreational use.
Ever see anyone use cannabis and become more aggressive rather than more mellow?
Note: ThinkProgress redirects all accesses of their pages and will attach tracking numbers. I have made sure that those are not in the URLs.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday March 03 2017, @08:06PM
No, you dick. I was perfectly cognizant of the concepts you espouse here. The truth is that no 3rd party was going to win. Let's just admit that; IT WAS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
So your PROTEST vote actually takes away from Hillary's ability to win, or in other words, gives power to Trump and his ability to WIN. Which he did. The PROTEST vote this time, including the abstaining voters, only fucked us and dressed us up like the gimp waiting to be abused in the cellar.
It wasn't about politics this time, and it was far simpler than that. I DIDN'T WANT TRUMP BURNING DOWN AMERICA. Sure, I entertained it. I thought about it. I wrote about how we should just rush to fires and get it over with. In the end, I voted for a more peaceful path to the reforms we need. Didn't matter. Fire is coming anyways.
Yes, I do believe it is inevitable now. No president has ever tried to burn down America like this. Not even close. Are you an American in this country? I only ask because if you are you are blind. This country is more passionately divided and filled with hate and fear than it ever has been. That's including civil rights and the 1st civil war. There have been untold numbers of divorces and shattered families because of this. Quite a number of families I know are divided, including my own. So we are not even united anymore, not even at the family and small community level.
Moreover, the policies and direction that the Republicans are taking the country to is Armageddon as far the worker and citizen is concerned. All of the "entitlements" are going way, which are really the subsidies that the U.S government pays so that Corporate America can pay their workers less and profit more. What plans do they have? Kill entitlements, kill taxes, reduce government to nothing with zero power to regulate or control Corporate America. In other words, let Corporate America go even more evil than ever before and without our ability to even see them doing it. Yeah, things are going to turn out just peachy for the worker. Sure.
We are far more delicate and frail than we want to believe. The current Great Depression II has been going on for about 10 years now. America has not healed. Americans did not get their 401ks back. Americans had their properties stolen right out from under them. The wealth transfer to the richest Americans has weakened us *badly*. Living wage jobs have disappeared only to be replaced with wage slave jobs, or subsidy jobs which they should really be called. More frighteningly, many service jobs are set to be automated away with robots. Which means it took 100 years or so, but it happened. The American worker is going to start competing with robots. It would be pretty reasonable for anyone in the slave wage industries like fast food to be panic-stricken right now. With no subsidies on the horizon, and rents in some places being over 100% of the prevailing wage, get ready to see the homeless population explode by at least 1 million people, if not more.
Americans did not vote for this president. I don't give a fuck what anyone says about the electoral college. We're fucking pissed that ~3 million people's votes didn't matter. That's a truth that cannot be denied. Trump has no mandate, and he did not win the people. The media has created a magnifying glass over the hate and fear and made us believe that it is all of us infected with Trump's hate. It isn't. Those of us, in the majority, are more panic-stricken, and more determined than ever to resist.
Yeah, civil war is coming. It will come because it will become clear that it is the only path of resistance left, and our only hope of reclaiming America back and our lives. The path to liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness will be civil war.
Get ready.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.