Aug 03 2011
Cross-posted from Main Street Insider
The United States is by far the world leader in a dubious category: incarceration of its citizens. As the result of a dramatic rise since 1980, over 1% of the adult population is now behind bars, and the federal “war on drugs” is at least partially to blame. This week, we examine an aggressive proposal by Reps. Barney Frank and Ron Paul that allows states to set their own marijuana policies by ending federal prohibition of the drug.
Nov 22 2010
So many of our causes, passions, and movements could be characterized in terms of David versus Goliath, requiring superhuman strength to set right. At the outset, the odds are stacked against us. Business corruption must not be allowed to metastasize, lest the country be utterly eviscerated by it. Environmental pollutants must not destroy our fragile ecosystem. The military must have its spending curtailed in order to prevent massive waste and a swelling national debt, a belief held even by those who do not object to the very existence of a military. The prison-industrial complex must not be allowed to grow ever larger, while it incarcerates men of color at rapidly growing rates. It’s easy to get burned out, knowing the vast size and sweep of these problems, and easier still to believe that no amount of effort expended for any length of time will make one iota’s worth of difference either way.
Jul 19 2010
In response to our nation's vast economic and ecological problems, Green Change has launched a campaign for a Green New Deal.
The Green New Deal is an ambitious program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.
We are building a coalition of candidates, individuals and organizations to support the Green New Deal – starting today.
Join the Green New Deal Coalition now.
Here are the ten policies you endorse by joining the Green New Deal Coalition:
1) Cut military spending at least 70%;
2) Create millions of green union jobs through massive public investment in renewable energy, mass transit and conservation;
3) Set ambitious, science-based greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and enact a revenue-neutral carbon tax to meet them;
4) Establish single-payer “Medicare for all” health care;
5) Provide tuition-free public higher education;
6) Change trade agreements to improve labor, environmental, consumer, health and safety standards;
7) End counterproductive prohibition policies and legalize marijuana;
8) Enact tough limits on credit interest and lending rates, progressive tax reform and strict financial regulation;
9) Amend the U.S. Constitution to abolish corporate personhood; and
10) Pass sweeping electoral, campaign finance and anti-corruption reforms.
Will you help us turn these ideas into reality?
Sign up for the Green New Deal Coalition now.
The first step is to agree on these ten priorities. The next step is to push for specific policies to make them happen.
We need your help. Share your ideas about a Green New Deal on the Green Change network.
May 17 2010
cross-posted from Sum of Change
On Friday, May 14th 2010, I got the chance to sit down with Neill Franklin, the Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).
Neill Franklin, LEAP’s incoming executive director, is a 32-year law enforcement veteran who spent more than two decades with the Maryland State Police (leading the drug division’s education and training) and then moved to Baltimore PD. Like a character from HBO’s “The Wire,” Neill could tell you stories of colleagues being gunned down in the line of fire, as he did in this Washington Post op-ed.
Full, Unedited Interview (highlight clips below the fold)
Apr 20 2010
For decades, the U.S. government has spent tens of billions of dollars, sent thousands of nonviolent offenders to prison, and propped up a black market that fuels violent organized crime at home and abroad.
All this for the sake of marijuana prohibition.
It’s time for a new, more sensible approach.
Tell your Governor and state legislators: it’s time to legalize and regulate marijuana.
We know how prohibition works from history class: alcohol prohibition in the 1930s didn’t reduce alcohol abuse, but it did turn a regulated industry into an illegal black market that enriched violent gangsters like Al Capone.
The harm done by prohibition goes beyond gang violence. Thousands of Americans have been imprisoned for no other offense than carrying a small amount of marijuana.
Invasive search procedures and racial profiling have become commonplace, creating mistrust between law enforcement agents and the communities they serve.
Billions of tax dollars are wasted on an ineffective policy that solves nothing.
Legalizing marijuana will cut down on violent crime, reduce unjust imprisonment, repair civil liberties, restore trust between civilians and police, and replace wasteful government spending with new tax revenues.
It will also help American farmers, who will be able to cultivate marijuana as well as the versatile and environmentally friendly hemp crop.
It’s time for a marijuana policy that makes sense.
Tell your Governor and state legislators to sponsor legislation to legalize and regulate marijuana today.
Nov 12 2009
(Not quite live from the Albuquerque Convention Center, I’ll be updating through the weekend.)
Opening plenary
El Paso City Councilman Beno O’Rourke:
With a District bordering Ciudad Juarez which had been rocked with 1600 “cartel” murders in the previous year, the City Council took up a resolution deploring the deaths.
He moved an amendment, calling for the US and Mexican governments to begin an open and honest debate on ending Prohibition to stop the violence. To his surprise, the amendment carried unanimously.
Congressman Reyes, who represents the El Paso, then called all the City Council members, threatening to cut off funding to the City. In a subsequent vote, the Council retreated.
Nov 03 2008
Note: These are exciting times. Daniel and I voted on Friday. It was a thrill watching him cast his first vote under such historic circumstances. It took 3.5 grueling hours but was so worth it. What a great feeling. Change is coming.
This has nothing to do with the election. Please pardon the diversion, but if you could use one…
This is the latest installment in an autobiographical series I’ve been working on. This episode takes place in Colombia.
Oct 15 2008
Note: I know, I know. I haven’t published Part III yet and here comes Part IV. Well what can I say? I have an unruly mind and it won’t always go where I tell it to – sometimes it just goes where it will. In this case it skipped straight to Part IV. I’ll go back and do Part III later. Probably.
“The mind is a monkey.” ~ Old Chinese saying
Mar 18 2008
America’s most valuable blogger (which I’ve been saying for a while, but it is great to see much bigger bloggers than I agree), has a must-read post countering some of the worst anti-drug legalizations arguments out there.
It wrongly assumes that the all of the problems we associate with drugs–the bloody turf wars, the presence of particularly potent drugs like meth, the lengths to which dealers will go to get their premium, etc.–are the product of the drugs themselves, and not the product of them being prohibited. This chart helps slay that argument. When was the last time you heard about a Michelob deal gone bad?
Read the whole thing.
Mar 14 2008
In 1917, the legal prostitution district of New Orleans, the infamous “Storyville“, was shut down over the strong objections of the city by the Federal government. In response, New Orleans Mayor Martin Behrman said “You can make [prostitution] illegal, but you can’t make it unpopular.”
The Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, recently demonstrated that ninety years of nearly universal prohibition of prostitution in this country has done nothing to make Behrman’s prophecy untrue.