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In the Frazier Courts housing project in Dallas, Texas, a crackdown by federal and local law enforcement led to the indictment of twenty-four gang members on narcotics and firearms charges, including using children to sell crack. Twenty-two have been convicted.

I was 16 when this happened. I saw the Feds come in and raid everything. I went to elementary school with these guys’ brothers and sisters. I knew the kids that were involved because one of my cousins started running errands for them. He sold drugs at a pretty young age, going between that and running a fundraising hustle.

His mom was an alcoholic (legal drug) in an abusive relationship, and became ill. He was a real sweet kid. He’d buy his sister shoes and clothes with the money he earned selling crack. He had an extraordinary sense of responsibility. He grew up selling drugs, running hustles, got addicted to cough syrup and did a 5 year stint in prison for robbery. Everyone’s got a story, and that includes 22 convicted crack dealers and the kids who became an after thought who have a similar story.  

dazed & confused.: I don’t think any medical marijuana activist should be an advocate for...

lem0n-haze:

I don’t think any medical marijuana activist should be an advocate for hardcore drug use. That’s just me, though. I think that people who know the health risks of using hardcore drugs should know better. I think that if you’ve had problems with friends or family using in the past who refuse to get…

Hi, I’m one of those medical cannabis activists who advocates for the legalization of all drugs. Even though my drug of choice is not a hard drug, I know that  won’t stop people from experiencing drug addiction. I believe that people have the right to put whatever they want in their bodies, even if I disagree with it. I don’t think about it as advocating for hard drug usage, I advocate for harm reduction and education. And part of that education has to be providing people with accurate information about  drugs.

One of the many ways that we can change how and why we take drugs, is to change the way we think about taking drugs. The UN says that there are 210 million drug users in the world and that about 10% of them are addicts. That means that there is a conversation to be had about how we think about substance use and that yes, even in the case of hard drugs harm reduction should be part of the conversation.

I don’t think people have to support the decision to use drugs, that’s fine. But we shouldn’t use non-support to legislate laws that rip apart communities and families through punitive drug laws that devastate people’s lives. That just gives a false sense of security to the middle class and doesn’t address the fact that the demand is also coming from the middle and upper classes in America. It’s not fair that the United States middle class punishes poor americans for supplying them (and their children) with drugs they actually want. This doesn’t even broach the topic of how plenty of middle and upper class drug dealers and distributors are never directly caught because the police spend an insane amount of time in poor neighborhoods arresting petty drug dealers.

Because the reality is that most people who make, want, and lobby for the punitive laws will never ever actually go through the system they are legislating. They have no reason to be compassionate, and without compassion, it’s all about punishment. To me it’s about more than if the drug is good for you, or whether it’s bad for you.. we have several legal drugs that have the same side effects as those that are illegal. To me it’s about the fairness of the system.

Judge orders police to return Tacoma man's marijuana

cannabis-alchemist:

Quote:

It is not up to the state to determine whether someone is a qualifying patient, he said outside court. That decision is between a person and his or her doctor, he said.

“The law is very simple, and it is very boring,” Berneburg told Emery. “If he is a lawfully appointed designated provider, he’s lawfully in possession of that marijuana. Being lawfully in possession of that marijuana, he can not be forced to forfeit that, and the state, the government, the city can not seize it.”

Emery agreed and ordered the city to relinquish Robertson’s marijuana.

Lee told Emery the city had no plans to appeal.