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Pot Party
Posted by FoM on January 07, 2000 at 20:25:00 PT
By Clark Stooksbury
Source: Liberty Magazine 
I was mildly shocked by some of the responses to R.W. Bradford's article urging the Libertarian Party to use the drug issue as a wedge to gain respectable vote totals and build the organization. It would be foolish to take a viable idea like drug legalization and join it to a lost cause like the Libertarian Party.
Legalization is poised for a take-off. Two governors -- Minnesota's Jesse Ventura and New Mexico's Gary Johnson -- support it. Ventura did so before he was elected. The success of medical marijuana initiatives across the country is also a good sign, if only because it shows that people are ignoring their rulers on this issue.What the issue needs is a well-funded educational campaign to bring the outrages involved in fighting the war into the public consciousness. If George Soros were to decide that legalization is a better approach than harm-reduction, he might start a campaign that illuminated the stories in the book Shattered Lives (See "Victims All," Liberty, February 1999). This would make the drug-war atrocities public knowledge. I'm no Pollyanna, but I believe that most people would recoil at the human cost of the War on Drugs if they saw the faces of middle-aged home-owners gunned-down because somebody thought they might be growing pot, or if they knew that grandmothers are serving 30-year sentences for selling a little weed.The Libertarian Party, on the other hand, has spent a generation mired in irrelevance, trotting its nominees out quadrennially for debates with nominees from the other nut parties and collecting something less than 1% of the vote. There is no indication that its platform of near-total abolition of government will ever have more than a microscopic constituency. The anti-government program in general has floundered since the 1994 elections, while medical marijuana initiatives have succeeded, often against strong opposition from politicians like Bob Barr and Steve Forbes, who otherwise claim to oppose big government. I'm not predicting a breakthrough on the drug issue. I always bet on the forces of evil. But there is more hope for that issue than for the success of the Libertarian Party, especially if the Party is tied down by the suggestions that some Liberty correspondents make in the January issue. These readers would send the LP into political battle with empty slogans like "personal responsibility" and "getting government off our backs." Don't hold your breath for anything good to happen because somebody shouts that. Newshawk: Doc-Hawkhttp://www.waronsomedrugs.com/Pubdate: Feb 2000Copyright: 2000 Liberty FoundationContact: letterstoeditor LibertySoft.com Address: Box 1118, Port Townsend, WA 98368Note: Clark Stooksbury is an assistant editor at Liberty.News Article Courtesy Of MAPInc.http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n017/a05.html 
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Comment #2 posted by Tom Paine on January 09, 2000 at 21:56:18 PT
Liberty Mag slams Libertarian Party on drug reform
Liberty Magazine article above slams Libertarian Party as vehicle for drug reform. Drug Reform. WTO-Libertarian Party versus Green Party. Here are my opinions concerning some quotes from CLARK STOOKSBURY, the assistant editor of LIBERTY MAGAZINE, concerning the LIBERTARIAN PARTY, GEORGE SOROS, HARM REDUCTION, and DRUG REFORM. His article is in the February, 2000 issue of Liberty Magazine, and is the CannabisNews article above all these comments. Here is its URL. PASS IT ON!http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4218.shtmlCLARK STOOKSBURY OF LIBERTY MAGAZINE: "The Libertarian Party, on the other hand, has spent a generation mired in irrelevance, trotting its nominees out quadrennially for debates with nominees from the other nut parties and collecting something less than 1% of the vote. There is no indication that its platform of near-total abolition of government will ever have more than a microscopic constituency." TOM PAINE: I almost totally agree. The Libertarian Party (LP) has extraordinarily far-right, economic and environmental positions that seek the elimination worldwide of the safety net. That includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, universal healthcare, welfare, workfare, environmental regulations, work safety regulations, the minimum wage, etc.. So the LP supports many WTO (World Trade Organization) positions that Greens and Labor fought to a standstill in the recent BATTLE IN SEATTLE. On the other hand, the LP is progressive concerning civil liberties, free speech, civil rights, drug reform, medical marijuana, etc.. Or to be really cynical, the LP is about the unrestricted rights of some (not all, fortunately) rich people (and rich people wannabes) who want to exploit workers and the environment to the max, and then party on the profits - while the rest of us have the liberty to work long hours and get sick and die from inadequate care in their unsafe, polluted factories, sweatshops, and planets. CLARK STOOKSBURY: "What the issue needs is a well-funded educational campaign to bring the outrages involved in fighting the war into the public consciousness. If George Soros were to decide that legalization is a better approach than harm-reduction, he might start a campaign that illuminated the stories in the book Shattered Lives (See "Victims All," Liberty, February 1999). This would make the drug-war atrocities public knowledge." TOM PAINE: I agree about PUTTING FACES TO THE HARM AND ATROCITIES OF THE DRUG WAR, but Harm Reduction drug reform existed decades before George Soros and others got involved, and harm reduction includes the option of legalization. Any drug policy reform that lowers the harm from drugs, drug law, the drug war, etc. is covered by the BIG TENT of HARM REDUCTION. That includes a broad spectrum of drug reform that varies all the way from only slightly lowering penalties; to total legalization for the unrestricted sale of hard drugs in the candy aisles of every grocery store; to clean needle availability; to civil versus criminal penalties; to Drug Courts emphasizing treatment over prison; to Dutch "tolerance" of cannabis; to Swiss heroin maintenance; to decriminalization for soft drugs only; to limited prescription access to some drugs; to entheogenic/religious weekly permission to use some drugs (peyote, ayahuasca, Rastafarian ganja, etc.); to coffeeshop sale only of certain drugs; to limited use/amount areas for certain drugs; to limited liquor licenses; to limited tobacco smoking areas; to high school education about the differences between hard and soft drugs; etc.. Any of those HARM REDUCTION drug reforms lowers the FAR GREATER HARM CAUSED BY ALL-OUT DRUG WAR, BLACK MARKET DRUG TRADE, DRUG TRADE VIOLENCE AND CORRUPTION, IMPURE BLACK MARKET DRUG OVERDOSES, DIRTY- NEEDLE AIDS AND HEPATITIS EPIDEMICS, ASTRONOMICAL U.S. INCARCERATION RATES, PRISONS VERSUS SAFETY NETS, DRUG-WAR-INDUCED INNER-CITY FREE- FIRE ZONES, etc.. A broad spectrum of political parties and drug reform proposals is good and necessary. Even the most far out reform proposals push the envelope of acceptable drug reform. It is now acceptable in some states to at least discuss legalization of all drugs for adults. Gary Johnson, the Republican(!) governor of New Mexico, discusses what is basically a Libertarian Party idea for total legalization, and combines it with the harm reduction model of very controlled distribution. I like the Green Parties worldwide. Most have a big-tent approach, support universal healthcare and the safety net, and support harm reduction drug reform such as separating soft and hard drugs, separating natural and synthetic drugs, and applying drug policies depending on the harms, dangers, and effects of the particular drugs. Universal healthcare is often based on single-payer (government taxes) funding paying for both public and privately-run healthcare. It costs far less per person on average per capita, has far more healthcare choices (heard of Commission E in Germany?), and gets better overall national healthcare results and statistics in most of the Western world than the low-quality HMO healthcare tyranny in the USA. GO GREENS! :-) This is also posted (for a couple months until automatic deletion) at the MAP FORUM/bulletin board at the following message link. CLICK to see thread.http://www.islandnet.com/cgi-bin/postit?login=creator&topic=cmap/forum/dpr&order=thread&article=597
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Comment #1 posted by Tom Paine on January 09, 2000 at 21:52:40 PT
Many LINKS about Greens, WTO Seattle, cannabis
*12-99. 50 great WTO Seattle photos! For later near-instant launch of all photos: Whenever you return to the page use the Make Available Offline button in the Add Favorites box in MS Internet Explorer to save more and more photos! LINKS!http://pub3.ezboard.com/fdrugpolicytalkwtoseattleriots1999.showMessage?xyz=xyz&topicID=23.topicWTO, pollution, cannabis, Laissez-faire, drug war.Don't forget to check out the clickable links below. They show the WTO connections to industrial hemp and medical cannabis prohibition. They also explain WTO Laissez-faire economics, which is a key element of U.S.-style drug war. Laissez-faire economics also opposes the much-cheaper, universal-healthcare-based, public-health, harm reduction drug policies that are succeeding so well in some European regions. *WTO (World Trade Organisation), CANNABIS, JUST SAY KNOW! LABELING, and Rachel Weekly article. Showdown in Seattle. December 1, 1999.| http://www.egroups.com/group/hemp-talk/7180.html? *Rachel #679: MAKING SENSE OUT OF THE WTO. [December 10, 1999]. Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly. From the Battle in Seattle. LAISSEZ-FAIRE ECONOMICS EXPLAINED.| http://www.egroups.com/group/hemp-talk/7288.html? *Hemp-talk messages list of WTO links. From egroups.com search for "WTO" in the public archives for the popular, Washington-state-based, Hemp-Talk mailing list. Seattle is in Washington state.|http://www.egroups.com/MessagesPagemethod=performAction&listName=hemp-talk&start=7448&Button_search=Search&search=wtohttp://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n1332/a01.html?397*12-99. The Greening Of NEW ZEALAND. [Jeanette Fitzsimons's victory. "Drug abuse is a social and public health problem, not a legal one... possession and cultivation of small amounts of cannabis for personal use should be decriminalised."]|*Yahoo! Government:Politics:Elections:Electoral Systems.|http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/Politics/Elections/Electoral_Systems/=======================================================*TOM PAINE's Home Page. Drug War charts, tables, links. Focussed compilations. International. Comprehensive. Just Say Know! Old & new compilations. Best ones are at bottom of either homepage.| http://homepages.go.com/~marthag1/tompaine.htm _______ http://homepages.go.com/homepages/m/a/r/marthag1/tompaine.htm*DRUG WAR NEWS. Open mailing list, & online list archive. In the middle of this list's homepage is also found the JUDGE JUDY links list. JUDGE JUDY ON DRUG USERS: "LET 'EM DIE."| http://www.egroups.com/group/drug_war_news/fullinfo.html*CANNABIS RELATED LINKS. [& Timely, Drug War, Drug Reform News! Use table of contents, or page down, to get to the politics, medical, or research sections.]| http://www.cannabis.com/linkscgi/#political*DRUG WAR TABLES AND CHARTS. [Several INTERNATIONAL charts, too. Many links. Click table of contents (TOC) names, not TOC URLs. The 4 webpages below are approximately the same.]|http://hippy.com/mccaffreylies.htm ___________________http://members.tripod.com/~FOM2/index.htm ____________http://gnv.fdt.net/~jrdawson/charts.htm ______________http://homepages.go.com/homepages/m/a/r/marthag1/index.htmFOR ANY OR ALL OF THIS, FEEL FREE TO PASS ON, EXCERPT, POST IN LISTS, PUT IN WEBPAGES, ETC..=====================================================
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