Quote:I think the right to "Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness" would cover drug use, if not explicitly stated.

Quote:THIS UNDERREPRESENTATION of young voters is becoming more acute: If current trends continue, the number of people 65 and older who vote in midterm elections is likely to exceed that of young adults by a 4 to 1 ratio by 2022.
These findings emerge from a study conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University, which surveyed the political beliefs and behavior of Americans of different ages and created a forecast of future elections based on population patterns and recent voting habits.
The study shows that young adults hold beliefs quite distinct from those of their parents and grandparents — more conservative in many of their views of government, more tolerant in many of their social values — and yet are not expressing them at the polls.
The net effect is an accelerating cycle of political disengagement. “If young people don’t vote, their issues don’t get addressed, which further diminishes their incentive to participate in the process and keeps the downward spiral going,” said Thomas E. Patterson, a Harvard political scientist, who studied public attitudes during the last presidential campaign. “We’ve got a real disconnect between the rational strategies for candidates to win elections and good strategies for maintaining a healthy democracy.”

Quote:Yes, it probably would, and the people of the United States have stated that drug use must be controlled in order to ensure those three rights to both the user and the people.

Quote:And please do not be so naive to say that "pursuit of happiness" actually means the pursuit to be happy.

Quote:And the author of that article doesn't seem to have a clear understanding of what type of government we have in place in the United States.

Quote:oh, and since you guys are bitching that you would like to see some of your ideas on drugs and such enacted into law, you should try voting for a change.

Quote:I'd like to see where the people of the United States stated this.

Quote:Nobody is jumping up and down to make marijuana legal.

Quote:Please outline the benefits that would be created from making weed legal. The people of the US have nothing to gain from it.

Quote:And plus, believe it or not, most people think drugs are actually BAD, and it is highly doubtful that they will support a proposal to make drugs legal.

Quote:Third, you would no longer have the illegal market and all of it's support system in place. (i.e. Drug gangs would no longer make money from the illegal sales. Thus then taking cash out of the underground economy.)

Quote:Dealers will find a way to make money illegally.

Quote:The right to privacy and one's own body is why drugs should be legalized. If a woman can abort a fetus then an adult should be able to inject Heroin into his eye.

Quote:How?

Quote:Competition is good for the consumer. It makes things better and cheaper too.

Quote:Yes, it probably would, and the people of the United States have stated that drug use must be controlled in order to ensure those three rights to both the user and the people.

Quote:that drug use in any form is not going to get someone elected in a conservative state

Quote:all this campaign is going to do is pull votes away from mccall...

Quote:all this campaign is going to do is pull votes away from mccall...

Quote:I'm voting for the Libertarian so I don't really care. I know it will be a wasted vote. But I just can't support any of these big government douche-bags.

Quote:By the beginning of the 20th century Cannabis Hemp medicines were very common. From 1842 through the 1920’s resinous hemp extracts were the second and third most used medicines for Americans, from birth through old age.[iv] Then in the 1930’s everything turned upside down.

For thirty years American business mogul and newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst had fed the public racist attacks on the Mexicans, caricaturing them as lazy “marihuana” smokers (an Americanized version of the Mexican term). This was probably because in the Spanish American war in the late 1800s, Pancho Villa and the marijuana smoking Mexican army had seized 800,000 acres of Hearst’s land.[v] Fortunately for Hearst, his newspaper empire served him with plenty of audience for his lies and propaganda. In those days there was no Internet and this served as mass communication. Hearst newspapers were a major factor in shaping public opinion.[vi]

The money William Randolph Hearst made came from more than just newspapers. His empire extended to many sectors of business and industry, including the production of paper. Alongside this a chemical company named DuPont had just developed a process for using chemicals to better manufacture paper products, and was also looking to forge a strong empire with synthetic fibers like nylon and rayon. These industries were about to be overthrown. New farming machines were going to make hemp more easily cultivated, and cannabis was about to become the number one crop in the country. The synthetic fibers DuPont patented could be easily replicated and replaced by Hemp products. DuPont and Hearst stood to lose millions of dollars. Their companies would be decimated.

For twenty years Hearst had proclaimed resinous cannabis the “killer weed” from Mexico. Now Hearst newspapers began to proclaim crazed Negroes were raping white women after getting high on “marihuana.” (Previously the press had made the same accusations and claimed it was from cocaine.) White people who smoked resinous cannabis were supposedly subject to moral lapse and would perform unspeakable and vile acts. The newspapers said that resinous cannabis led to “Voodoo-satanic” music, or “jazz,” and that the music was somehow anti-white. Hearst told the public (and was summarily believed) resinous cannabis led to “blood-lust” and violence.

Into the picture stepped Harry J. Ainslinger. The new head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (we call them the Drug Enforcement Agency now), in 1931 he began a thirty year campaign against resinous cannabis. He spent the 1930’s touring the country preaching the evils of the herb, filling Americans with blatant lies about the drug. He would often say, “if the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marihuana he would drop dead of fright.” Concerned mothers and citizens began to rally behind the anti-cannabis movement. Films like “Reefer Madness,” and “Marijuana-Assassin of Youth,” further destroyed the truth. Ainslinger lied with no abandon and the public was swayed.