Who are currently standing in the way of national cannabis legalization?
While we can see that the US’ political environment is quite divisive, there is one thing that regardless of your political affiliation, most Americans are on board with – Legalizing Cannabis.
That’s right, out of the past two presidential elections, cannabis has far been the most popular topic on the ballots. People are sick and tired of prohibition and seeing that it has nothing to show for it, except suppress minorities, grow the prison population and cost tax payers billions of dollars…people have had enough!
Within a real democracy, this would be more than enough to provoke a national vote on the issue and in turn the legalization of cannabis would be solidified. However, the United States is not a democracy but a republic, where the political class in cahoots with certain key industries, dictate what you can and cannot put into your bodies.
Today we’ll be taking a look at the key players that stand between you and the full legalization of cannabis in the modern age.
Since the list is long…let’s jump right into it.
Big Alcohol
While Big Booze certainly isn’t the biggest opponent to legalization, they have donated some 19 million dollars to re-elect anti-cannabis politicians. While there is no significant evidence that cannabis legalization reduces the consumption of alcohol, these big companies are scared that it will.
Of course, there has been a slight decrease in alcohol consumption within legalized cannabis states, however the number is quite insignificant. This doesn’t mean that Big Booze is going to be sitting in the corner with their arms crossed. Some (not all) companies actively work on keeping cannabis illegal for this specific reason.
Civil Asset Forfeiture is the key word here. Localized law enforcement is quite dependent on the federal handouts to combat “Drugs”. Civil Asset Forfeiture, which was first introduced in 1984 under a bill that allowed local police departments to keep 80% of property seized in suspected drug activities.
It’s important to note that the key word in that last sentence is “suspected”, your assets can be seized without any actual proof. Roughly 80% of those who had their property stolen from the cops, were never charged with a crime.
Along with this element of police involvement in sustaining the War on Drugs, we also have drug testing labs, prosecutors, drug court lawyers, rehab centers and so forth all depend on the War on Drugs to actually be lucrative.
It is then not difficult to see why the cops are so keen on keeping the status quo.
Prison Industrial Complex
Cannabis users have long been the scape goats for justifying the actual purpose of law enforcement. Cannabis users are being arrested at a higher rate than all violent crimes put together. With every non-violent user behind bars, law enforcement justifies that they are “actually doing something”.
The truth is, it’s much easier to arrest and prosecute someone for committing a non-crime, like consuming cannabis, than actually going after real crime.
Furthermore, the Prison Industrial Complex utilizes these non-violent offenders to generate revenue. The biggest ‘clients’ of the prison industrial complex is the Federal government and the Military, that uses ‘slave labor’ (prison labor) to produce goods which is in turn exclusively sold to them.
This all at the expense of the Tax Payer. It’s a closed-loop system that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
It’s no surprise that Big Pharma is on this list. Not only does cannabis pose a significant risk to their profit margins, there is no way to stop people from using the raw plant as their medicinal fix. Within the pharmaceutical business model, they are responsible for processing medicine and then can sell it to you at whatever price they wish.
Under a legalized cannabis scheme, people would have the right to grow their own cannabis, process it themselves and have medicine essentially for free. More importantly, cannabis can substitute a number of pharma drugs and in many cases performs better than the pharmaceutical alternative.
Big Pharma would lose out on billions of dollars each year if cannabis was legalized, they are already seeing a reduction in profits under a pseudo-legal system…can you imagine if it goes national?
Big Government
There’s a bunch of agencies that depend on drug prohibition to justify their existence. Whether we’re talking about the DEA, Federal Prison Employees or even organizations like the CIA and the NSA; cannabis prohibition is the smokescreen to justify their actions.
Additionally, they have a big chunk of the Federal budget each year to continue their war on a concept. The CIA and the NSA utilizes the War on Drugs to violate national and international policy without resistance. They sell guns to criminal organizations, launder money from cartels and can only continue to do so if the current position on drugs remains intact.
These are essentially the key players in the sustaining of a policy that is proven to be ineffective. It’s important for us to realize that ending prohibition will have a significant impact on the world as we know it. These key players will continue to do everything in their power to hold onto the policy that is essentially the only reason they exist. What we can do, is become aware of it…and target those key players to remove their grip over the US and the world.
OTHER STORIES YOU MAY ENJOY...
BIG PHARMA ON CANNABIS, READ THIS, CLICK HERE.
OR..
WHY BIG ALCOHOL DOESN'T WANT CANNABIS, CLICK HERE.
