cannabisnews.com: How The Drug War Commercial Should Read 










  How The Drug War Commercial Should Read 

Posted by CN Staff on January 12, 2003 at 11:43:56 PT
By J. J. Johnson  
Source: SierraTimes.com  

With the onslaught of television commercials now running on the airwaves staring "Nick and Norm" at the dinner table, I wonder why no one has really challenged the notion that the "war on drugs" causes terrorism. Yet it continues unchallenged. A script written to counter it might sound something like this: Two men are sitting at a table in a restaurant, both nicely dressed. Nick, the younger one, begins the dialog.
"So, let me get this straight: The drug war supports terrorism. And I should just believe that??"Norm: "yes""Why?""Because it's true""It's true??""Yes, it's true.""Fine, let's say - hypothetically - I pay taxes""Let's say.""Hypothetically mind you""Let's say.""OK, I pay taxes - not by choice, but I pay them. And you're telling me my taxes pay for the drug war?""Yes, and these stupid anti-drug commercials.""So what? I pay taxes, and it pays for the drug war (and a few commercials). What's my contribution? A couple of bucks! What' the big deal?"Norm stops eating: "So you think it's OK to pay for a prohibition policy worse than the one that didn't work in the 1920's? You think it's OK to pay for covert operations to install U.S. puppet governments in South America? You think it's OK for Americans to have mandatory minimum guideline for jail sentences for drugs but someone can get off with 2 years for murder? And you think it's OK to pay for blatant propaganda that only causes more terrorism?""Oh. I guess it IS a big deal, huh?"Yes, it IS a big deal, Norm says.The dinner continues for a few minutes without further conversation. Then, it's almost as if a light bulb flashes on over Nick's head. "I got it!", he says."Got what?""The moral loophole.""The moral loophole, Nick?""Yes. Here's the moral loophole: If I support the drug war, I MIGHT be supporting terrorism.""Then what you're saying is that you MIGHT be supporting Americans getting their property confiscated. You MIGHT be supporting Americans having no privacy. You MIGHT be supporting the largest prison population in the world in jail for "crimes" with no victim. You MIGHT be supporting a growing police state.""Oh, I guess there really isn't a morale loophole. But maybe I need help understanding.""Understanding what?""You know, the big picture. It's all too... well, complicated"Norm lets out a sigh, then lays it all out."Nick, why do you think they are spending all that money to run those stupid commercials? They want to be sure that everyone buys into the idea that terrorism is being financed by illegal drugs. Lots of people are starting to question the validity of the drug war based on all the old reasons, so they needed a new one. "But Norm, how does the war on drugs relate to the war on terrorists? That's kind of a big jump, isn't it?""If there is no drug war, the price goes down. With no "illegal" drug market, there would be no illegal prosecutions or overfilled (very profitable) prisons, and no reason to confiscate everything in sight. Without the war on drugs, the government can't manufacture this mandate to attack sovereign nations because they are supposedly financing terrorism with drug money. Is that too complicated for you?"Nick: "So, if it's a war on both drugs and terrorists, they can use the military for stateside ops too. Heck, the cops look and act too much like soldiers already. And then they can call the guy down the street growing buds or smoking a joint a TERRORIST." "I guess it is not that complicated after all.""Now you're getting it, Nick." Complete Title: Nick and Norm: How The Drug War Commercial Should Read Source: SierraTimes.com (NV)Author: J. J. Johnson Published: January 12, 2003Copyright: 2003 SierraTimes.com Contact: opeds sierratimes.com Website: http://www.sierratimes.com/Related Articles:Non-Sensical Syllogismshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13299.shtmlFeds' Anti-Drug Ads Cost Almost $2 Billion http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13260.shtml

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Comment #9 posted by FoM on January 12, 2003 at 20:31:46 PT
Hi AlvinCool
By posting it like you just did works for me. I just don't know any other way since my email had to be stopped for CNews because of so many problems. That way even if I don't post it people can read the article and that is good for getting the information out. Hope that helps. Maybe someday I'll be able to figure out how to get just submissions but for now I don't have any idea. 
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Comment #8 posted by AlvinCool on January 12, 2003 at 20:10:25 PT
Ritalin
While this doesn't really pertain to cannabis, it does directly relate to drugs prescribed to chidren. I find it horrid that children are given ritalin, but a new study says there is no link to later drug use. I say, WHAT? Oh it's a drug company drug, ok sorry I bothered it must be good.BTW how do we submit posts now?
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/parenting/01/06/adhd.stimulants.reut/index.html
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on January 12, 2003 at 18:53:42 PT
p4me
Keep up the good work and research you do. I appreciate it.
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Comment #6 posted by p4me on January 12, 2003 at 18:30:58 PT
I was not being terse
I just wanted to present a paragraph that I thought interesting regarding the bigger picture. Of course I recognize your favorite subject and area of interest are cannabis. The issue of freedom and also of corruption is should be of interest to us all. There is an intersection between cannabis and the concepts of freedom and the fight against corruption of both government and media.So if your book's title is cannabis it still has to have a chapter on corruption, just like it has to talk about the media and the pill companies and so on with the financially interested parties that Jack Herer had to point out in his book.But in the book on corruption that should appeal to everyone because of their duty to eliminate it, it has to include the WOD and I would think that since cannabis is the center pole that lets the circus go on, it would be addressed.A line is just a collection of points and I thought that one paragraph desrved a point on the cannabis story line as it intersects your area of speciality.
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on January 12, 2003 at 17:55:35 PT
p4me
I understand what you mean. I think it's important for people to learn about what interests them. That's why it is great to have such varied web sites with information where we can learn something different or something new if we want too.
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Comment #4 posted by p4me on January 12, 2003 at 17:39:14 PT
Another paragraph
FoM, Cannabis might be the the name of the chapter, but the name of the book is corruption. There was an article that touches on the issue at CounterPunch with the following paragraph- http://www.counterpunch.org/estabrook01112003.html"The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance," wrote Alex Carey, "the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on January 12, 2003 at 15:13:08 PT
p4me
I can't speak for NORML or MPP but it doesn't appear to be about Cannabis. It's about the CIA. That's probably why. I know I try hard to keep my focus on Cannabis and that's what they might be doing too. I'm just guessing but that's my best guess.
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on January 12, 2003 at 15:08:14 PT
p4me
I did a quick search and found the web site on Yahoo. Just thought you would want to know.http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=serendipity
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Comment #1 posted by p4me on January 12, 2003 at 15:02:52 PT
The Webpage That Yahoo Refuses To List
That's the heading at http://serendipity.magnet.ch/cia.html The corruption of our govenment is the big story in all of this and I applaud the author for at least mentioning it. Why NORML and MPP don't draw the American people's attention to it is beyond me. Anyway Serendipity has a big section on the CIA in a piece of work titled "The CIA America's Premier International Terrorist Organization." All that follows is part of the content from the link above. CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. 
So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator's security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists" [or these days "terrorists"] but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow. — Steve Kangas: Timeline of CIA Atrocities--------------------------------------------------------------------------------The CIA's Drug-Trafficking Activities
ClA-supported Mujahedeen rebels [who in 2001 were part of the "Northern Alliance" fighting the Taleban which became the core of the new Afghani government following the U.S. attack on Afghanistan in late 2001] engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society. The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and a leading heroin refiner. CIA-supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan/Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. U.S. officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operation because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies. — The Real Drug Lords
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, as is by now well-known by anyone who has cared to be informed, has long been deeply involved in the international trafficking of the addictive drugs heroin and (since the early 1980s, if not earlier) cocaine, the enormous profits from which have financed, and continue to finance, both U.S. covert operations and the U.S. military (via payments to Pentagon contractors).The main reason why this is not more widely known is that the main players in the U.S. media have always worked to protect the Agency and to keep the American public in the dark as to the nature of its activities (as documented in great detail in Carl Bernstein's article in the October 20, 1977, issue of Rolling Stone: "The CIA and the Media: How America's Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up"). The information you will find on this web page, and the web pages it links to, is not considered by the editors of the New York Times and other mainstream U.S. "news" media as proper for the public to know.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------By the end of the 1980's it was calculated that the illegal use of drugs in the United States now netted its controllers over $110 billion a year. — Modern Times, p.782.Covert government by defense contractor means corrupt wars of conquest, government by dope dealer. When the world's traditional inebriative herbs become illegal commodities, they become worth as much as precious metal, precious metal that can be farmed. ... Illegal drugs, solely because of the artificial value given them by Prohibition, have become the basis of military power anywhere they can be grown and delivered in quantity. ... To this day American defense contractors are the biggest drug-money launderers in the world.— Drug War: Covert Money, Power and Policy, p.318.
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