Marijuana Haters Say the Darnedest Things

E.J. Montana, opinion columnist for the Arizona Republic, noted:

   "Opponents (of Marijuana legalization in Arizona) already have demonstrated a strategy of scare tactics based on questionable information, something they should know better than to do, since several of the bigwigs in the campaign are prosecuting attorneys.
   "That will be the irony of this campaign.
   "While the people promoting legalization deal with facts, opponents will try to alter voters’ sense of reality." (*1)

Indeed, with many of their anti-marijuana quotes, one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Some of their taradiddles are farcical on their surface; others require a rhetorical question to clear the haze.

Test Cops for Steroids! /UPDATED w Petition Information

Officer Casebolt's excuse for his horrible behavior at the pool party incident in McKinney, Tx was that he had faced a great deal of stress on two previous calls regarding suicides.

(Click Here to Read the News Story)

Although such a situation would be stressful, that story doesn't make much sense.

Exactly what is it about trying to convince someone that life is worth living that would cause someone to soon pull a gun on unarmed teenagers?

As he was putting his knee on the back of a teenage girl's head, did he think to himself, "I just had a very stressful time trying to convince someone that life is precious, so I'm going to grind your face into the dirt?"

Who does that?

Do people who answer suicide prevention lines relieve their stress in such a manner?...Ever??

The stress involved in trying to prevent a suicide would be that of anxiety, not aggression!  Suicide prevention would include trying to create a calm situation; not one of anger and aggression.

So what is it that might have caused such a seemingly unnatural aggressive reaction?

Drug War Cost Could Go a Shockingly Long Way if Spent on Education

Sometimes it's difficult to picture the huge amount of money we are spending on the failed war on drugs.  This article takes just one line item from the cost of the drug war and shows how shockingly far that money would go if it were spent on education instead...

In a June 2010 report entitled "The High Cost Of Incarceration," (the link to this PDF is below,) the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) found that there are 561,526 NON-VIOLENT drug users incarcerated in the U.S.  The cost to tax payers is $26,000 a year (or $2166.67 a month) per inmate.  This means that we are spending $1.2+ billion ($1,216,639,666.67) every month to incarcerate non-violent drug users.  Of course, this is just the cost of incarceration alone.  It does not include the costs incurred by law enforcement or the courts to convict these people.

Now let's take a look at the population of school children in America.  According to childstats.gov, (whose link is also included here,) there are approximately 50 million school-aged children (age 6-17) in 2013...

SO WHAT ELSE COULD BE DONE WITH THIS MONEY?

* After only 5.75 months, we could buy a $140 computer tablet for every schoolchild age 6-17!!!