News & Analysis
Have Elites Decided to Legalize Some US Drugs?
The war on drugs has succeeded only in putting millions of Americans in jail ... Televangelist Pat Robertson recently made a gaffe. A gaffe, as journalist Michael Kinsley defined it, occurs when a political figure accidentally tells the truth. Robertson's truth is that America's drug war has failed and that the country should legalize marijuana. This view goes against the deepest political, moral and religious positions Robertson has held for decades, so imagine the blinding evidence that he has had to confront—and that has been mounting for years—on this topic. Robertson drew attention to one of the great scandals of American life. "Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today," writes the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik. "Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America—more than 6 million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height." – Fareed Zakaria /Time
Dominant Social Theme: We need to legalize it now because we made a mistake in not legalizing it before.
Free-Market Analysis: What's going on here? The US has jailed tens of millions in the past decade over drug infractions. But now we seem to be seeing some re-thinking.
We usually speculate such campaigns are part of larger elite dominant social themes intended to manipulate public opinion. We think we detect such a pattern here.
First Pat Robertson writes about legalizing marijuana and then CNN's Fareed Zakaria writes about it as well. And that's not all.
A random search of Google shows that a bill to legalize medical marijuana is moving forward in the Tennessee House and that the Rhode Island Senate is discussing legalization as well. In Yakima, Washington, a former Seattle police chief and a former state senator will hold a public forum on the legalization of marijuana. Here's some more from the article:
Is this hyperbole? Here are the facts. The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That's not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many ... As Robertson pointed out on his TV show, The 700 Club, "We here in America make up 5% of the world's population but we make up 25% of the [world's] jailed prisoners."
There is a temptation to look at this staggering difference in numbers and chalk it up to one more aspect of American exceptionalism. America is different, so the view goes, and it has always had a Wild West culture and a tough legal system. But the facts don't support the conventional wisdom.
This wide gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world is relatively recent. In 1980 the U.S.'s prison population was about 150 per 100,000 adults. It has more than quadrupled since then. So something has happened in the past 30 years to push millions of Americans into prison.
That something, of course, is the war on drugs. Drug convictions went from 15 inmates per 100,000 adults in 1980 to 148 in 1996, an almost tenfold increase. More than half of America's federal inmates today are in prison on drug convictions.
In 2009 alone, 1.66 million Americans were arrested on drug charges, more than were arrested on assault or larceny charges. And 4 of 5 of those arrests were simply for possession. Over the past four decades, the U.S. has spent more than $1 trillion fighting the war on drugs.
Of course, at the Daily Bell we've written regularly about the US penitentiary-industrial complex. And we're not surprised that incarceration began to soar in the 1960s. This is part and parcel of what we consider to be directed history.
This is history that is organized and driven by a power elite that controls the world's central banks and is trying to create global government. This elite, especially what would seem to be its top dynastic families, apparently rule behind the scenes via what has been described as mercantilism.
These elites pass laws that benefit their interests at the expense of others. It benefits the elites in at least two ways to make drugs illegal. For one thing, the elites don't like to use their own money to pursue their goals. They use money generated via fiat central banking.
They also generate huge cash profits from the illegal smuggling that the West's top Intel agencies, including the CIA, are apparently involved in. This black cash funds black ops and increasingly private militias and policing.
It benefits the elites to have a large prison population in the US because doing so fractures families and creates societal dysfunction. The elites have seen the United States as a distinct threat to world government because of its republican culture and quasi-libertarian-mindset of millions of citizens.
The elites use dominant social themes to achieve their mercantilist aims. These memes are intended to scare Western middle classes into giving up power and wealth to internationalist facilities. One of these memes has been the "drug war" and the necessity to put drug addicts in jail to protect society. But now this meme seems to be coming under attack.
The people involved, like Robertson, may mean well but with addition of the CNN editorial (above) and various legislative moves, it would seem that something may be stirring. The mainstream media is controlled by the same elites that control central banking, in our view, and thus when something appears in aggregate on the mainstream media we tend to believe it is being presented for a purpose.
It is hard to say why the elites have decided to soften the rhetoric on the drug war at this time. One speculation would be that reducing drug usage penalties or eliminating them tends to blur the increasingly authoritarian line that Western governments are taking as regards "austerity" and other Draconian measures.
Or perhaps the inevitable sociopolitical debate over drugs will simply distract attention from other more important moves the elites are making to impose global government.
Conclusion: With many such themes, we are not entirely sure of their significance to begin with – or even if they constitute a real elite promotion. We are not sure what this seeming change in direction as regards the drug war means, either. Maybe viewers and feedbackers will have a better sense. As for us, we'll be watching.
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 03/28/12 12:22 PM
DB: "We are not sure what this seeming change in direction as regards the drug war means, either. Maybe viewers and feedbackers will have a better sense"
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Well, maybe they just need more prison space for the ones who commit REAL crimes ... like:
- not cutting the grass on a foreclosed home
Click to view link
- incomplete siding on ones house
Click to view link
- or mowing ones lawn in shorts
Click to view link
In earnest, if this is indeed an elite-meme, and it pretty much looks, walks and talks like one, it would seem to me that they intend to "licence" the cultivation of marijuana and tax it till kingdom come. You see, marijuana, in particular, is healthy, the seeds are very nutritious and it can be used (HAS been for centuries, at least) to make clothing, heat insulation, ropes, oil, and so on. It prevents some forms of cancer, eases attending ills of cancer and other diseases, it grows like rampant weeds, needs little watering, no pesticides, no chemical fertilizers, etc. etc. In fact, this plant is applicable in so many areas, one can hardly count it.
Now, why would any, um, responsible government unchain such a danger to society - if not for MORE CONTROL via legislation and taxation - in particular when national bankruptcy and revolt are looming?
However, the timing is indeed remarkable. Obama's nearing re-election seems to be crucial factor in my view.
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Hey, here's some more food for thought:
'For The Record: Rockefeller Soft Kill Depopulation Plans Exposed'
Click to view link
'Gaddafi on the Kennedy Assasination'
Click to view link
'We are all Austrians now'
Click to view link
Billy Corgan: 'The way to counter darkness is with light'
Click to view link
'Who Gets the Old Maid? - Lew Rockwell interviews Gary North' (GREAT STUFF!)
Click to view link
Love,
AA
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Posted by davidnrobyn on 03/28/12 11:32 AM
I agree with the feedbacker that this may be an attempt to salvage Obama's presidency. Roosevelt was elected in a landslide in 1932 partly because he pledged to end prohibition. Q: If the American people hated prohibition enough to elect a president who pledged to repeal it, why didn't the people just REPEAL it? I think we really are "sheeple" who need to elect a dictator from time to time to do for us what we can't do for ourselves.
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Posted by Don from the Republic of Lakotah on 03/28/12 11:28 AM
"William Hearst was an American business magnate and a leading newspaper publisher. ... "
"Andrew Mellon was an American banker, industrialist, philanthropist, art collector and Secretary of the Treasury ... "
"The Du Pont family ... used the resources of their Huguenot heritage to found one of the most prominent of American families ... "
"Legal history of cannabis in the United States ...
Several scholars argue that the goal was to destroy the hemp industry, largely as an effort of Hearst, Andrew Mellon and the Du Pont family. They argue that with the invention of the decorticator hemp became a very cheap substitute for the paper pulp that was used in the newspaper industry. They also believe that Hearst felt that this was a threat to his extensive timber holdings. Mellon was Secretary of the Treasury and the wealthiest man in America and had invested heavily in nylon, DuPont's new synthetic fiber, and considered its success to depend on its replacement of the traditional resource, hemp."
Click to view link
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Posted by EdwardUlyssesCate on 03/28/12 11:23 AM
Maybe the elites just want to cash out of their private prison accounts.
Corporate-owned prisons have probably been played to the max.
Commentary - 03/03/2008 : Crime Pays - For Some
Click to view link
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Posted by rossbcan on 03/28/12 11:06 AM
I have been poking sticks in their eyes for a very long time, and yet, I am still standing. Ponder this and ponder the meaning: Responding forcefully to peaceful dissent, tips THEIR hand and WAKES people up to their peril.
From the perspective of slavers, it is better to let a few determined fish escape the net, than to have the net (and its costs) be visible and "in the face" of the majority who can and will "blowback".
This is why they lost India to Ghandi, energized by Henry Thoreau's truths. The costs of "not losing" would have resonated throughout the entire British Empire, ending it at the time, as opposed to WWII, facing the blowback costs of the Treaty of Versailles, placing Germany in servitude post WWI, leading to Hitler and the scapegoating (of Jews and others deeemed "social undesirables" and subhuman) by law, for which Nazi judges were hung, by the same Nuremburg laws which will ultimely be re-respected, by our corrupt law, seeking to appear "of use".
The US empire is well on the same trajectory and, IS meeting the same "fate", for the same reasons.
Nobody in power will be convinced to set us free. The entire edifices of forceful social / economic control will implode due to economic unviability and loss of "consent of the governed", as in the late, not so great, "Evil Empire", USSR. I have a lot of respect for the former Soviets, admitting they were wrong and asking the west for a hand up. I have total disrespect for the west by treating this as an "opportunity to prey".
The fall of central control and tyranny will create a power vacuum which the free will occupy. Hopefully, "we won't get fooled again", but, don't hold your breath.
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Posted by Danny B on 03/28/12 11:03 AM
Follow the money. In the 30s, pot was demonized a la "Refer Madness". It was simple. You couldn't make good booze but, you could grow good pot. Booze was far easier to tax. Prohibition later raised enforcement costs and cut down on tax revenue.
Banks and drug cartels make huge bucks on drugs. Prisons make huge profits. The legal syndicate makes tons of money.
Right now, GOV is in competition with banks to attract funds for debt rollover. If GOV can cut back on enforcement costs and increase tax revenues [from drugs], it stands a better chance of surviving.
Also, GOV learned with the 55 mph speed limit that; enforcing an unpopular law that is ignored habituates people to ignore a law that they don't like. This, in turn, can push people to ignore other laws that are viewed as useless.
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Posted by Frank on 03/28/12 10:46 AM
"These elites pass laws that benefit their interests at the expense of others. It benefits the elites in at least two ways to make drugs illegal. For one thing, the elites don't like to use their own money to pursue their goals. They use money generated via fiat central banking.
"They also generate huge cash profits from the illegal smuggling... " - DB
I never really thought about the possible connection between the War on Drugs & control by the elites... but I suspect it's true. For sure, in the past it has aided them in the establishment of a Police State in the once great USA. I suspect that the failure of this "War on Drugs" has been so great, that even they cannot dismiss it any more.
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Posted by spiritsplice on 03/28/12 10:45 AM
Re: parasites... .which was my whole point. Things arent changing, they still have the control theyu aways have. There is no reality to your assertion that slavery will become too expensive and freedom will win because of some inherent attribute. This whole "people are waking up" meme is wishful thinking.
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Posted by TR4iN on 03/28/12 10:45 AM
I think you are on the money here.
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Posted by laceja on 03/28/12 10:44 AM
This was my thought, exactly! In fact, it might also be, that the elite see the need to redirect "law enforcement" toward putting away those, who seem to think we actually have rights.
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Posted by rossbcan on 03/28/12 10:32 AM
"buying the meme you are selling."
Not selling anything but what the facts state. It may appear I am giving it away for "free" (and could profit quite handsomely by "keeping it to myself", playing and winning by rules which only I fully understand), but, in a division of labor civilization, if everyone is too stupid to peacefully trade with, the survival of me and mine "is also on the line". So, YOUR fate is my fate. This is what our predators are in strategic denial of: As parasites, they will be the last to go, once the host (civilization) is sucked dry.
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Posted by earnst on 03/28/12 09:51 AM
Fundamental to power, elite authoritarianism, is the inability to admit you were wrong. Especially to oneself.
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Posted by spiritsplice on 03/28/12 09:27 AM
Meanwhile, 10,000 years later, the game is still the same, still being played and still we are victims of it. I am buying the meme you are selling.
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Posted by rossbcan on 03/28/12 09:19 AM
"these incarceration spaces are soon to be needed for a different fraction of the population"
which is the supreme risk to civilization, the "rule of man" political opinion that crime is a matter of dominent perspective (unchecked democratic excesses, such as led to Nazis) as opposed to having a REAL, "rule of law" (because mankind is incompetent to play god) definition of crime and justice, as opposed to "political pretexts to prey", the historical root cause of collapse of civilizations, as is happening to western civilization NOW:
Click to view link
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Posted by GoldmanBaggins on 03/28/12 09:17 AM
You see things getting out of control in Mexico and other parts of South Am. Asia supplies huge quantities of illegal drugs as well. The PTB wan't to regain control of their business. The cartells are for real and so are the Asians. Legalize pot and put a major dent in the profits of the wayward part of the biz. Then the PTB controlled state and fed gove can reap fnancial gain and allow for re-criminalization in the future when the rouge factions have been subdued.
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Posted by DrBryant on 03/28/12 09:14 AM
The governmental prohibition of ANY substance that is readily produced by an individual will never be successful and the entire population will suffer in the attempt, as history proves time and time again.
Few things in American history have done more to destroy Freedom than the "War on Drugs". Mandatory sentencing, privately owned prisons (re: Harvard Endowment),private property confiscation (to profit law enforcement), "no-knock" warrants, legalized money laundering by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a multitude of (other) related crimes have hurled the United States down a steep spiral which will finally result in the complete abandonment of the Bill of Rights.
"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power." Benjamin Franklin
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Posted by Rrust on 03/28/12 09:10 AM
Illegal drugs have created a demand for prison space. What better way to create those spaces, than by a program that the majority of the population supported -- drug prohibition?
Perhaps these incarceration spaces are soon to be needed for a different fraction of the population… which may have been the original intent.
--Just a passing thought.
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Posted by dave jr on 03/28/12 08:59 AM
"Legalization" is not a win for freedom. Instead of repealing laws, it creates a whole new set of regulation and tax revenue which I can only guess will be ramped up as time goes on. As regulatory democracy gets stronger, profit streams are maintained and allowed into the light of day.
The elite do not care about the well being of the public. They do care about the profitability in "caring" for society.
As States pass medical marijuana laws, local communities are hog tied from banning it in certain areas, regulating or taxing; as State law says "shall allow". Soon, Fed law will trump and all revenue flow will go to Federal agencies.
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Posted by rossbcan on 03/28/12 08:51 AM
"Money is the root of this evil"
actually, the full quote is:
"the pursuit of money is the root of all evil"
which is also false.
the TRUTH is:
"the pursiut of the unearned is the root of all evil"
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Posted by gabe on 03/28/12 08:49 AM
I have recently been listening to more podcasts. They listenership is growing rapidly for some guys like Joe Rogan and Adam Corrola. Both of these guys are professional comedians, both have several hundred thousand or even a million listeners that here each podcast. Both are pretty good at pointing out the absurdity of the drug war. The fan bases are not neccesarily as politicaly interested as people here... .it is interesting to hear how Rogan and Corrola are happy that they now have the ability to make a good living without having to worry about NBC,Fox or some big stupid network... they just do free podcasts nd then when they want to do standup gigs around the country they never have a problem selling out anymore, theu both talk about how much fun it is now to be so independent from the producers,networks and other bs.
network radio is dying just like Time and Newsweek are dying... and the new medias that are replacing them are mroe free to talk about how stupid the drug war is... the elite have to at least try to get out in front of this huge change that the under 40 crowd is bringing. We all know the common techniques for getting in front of a movement and trying to guide it.
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