The DHS has reinvented itself as a secret police unit to spy on political activists.

The Department of Homeland Security feared that the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations would turn violent during their height last year, according to a leaked document obtained by Rolling Stone Magazine.

Whether you support the goals of Occupy Wall Street or not, this is yet another example of how the federal agency, which was created under the auspices of protecting the United States from terrorist attacks, is primarily concerned with keeping tabs on citizens who express their First Amendment rights.

“The five-page report – contained in 5 million newly leaked documents examined by Rolling Stone in an investigative partnership with WikiLeaks – goes on to sum up the history of Occupy Wall Street and assess its “impact” on everything from financial services to government facilities,” writes Michael Hastings.

The document also details how much of DHS’ information was obtained through monitoring Twitter feeds from OWS activists, underscoring once again the fact that the federal agency is spying on social media as part of a chilling effect on free speech, belying claims made earlier this month by DHS representatives that the agency is only concerned with messages relating to natural disasters.

Homeland Security’s fear that the demonstrations could lead to violence is summarized in the final paragraph of the document.

“The growing support for the OWS movement has expanded the protests’ impact and increased the potential for violence. While the peaceful nature of the protests has served so far to mitigate their impact, larger numbers and support from groups such as Anonymous substantially increase the risk for potential incidents and enhance the potential security risk to critical infrastructure (CI).”

Not only did Homeland Security monitor the development of Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, many of the raids on OWS camps across the country were “coordinated with help from Homeland Security,” according to a Justice Department official.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

The absurdity of America today never ceases to amaze.  In fact, it has become so elaborate that one might even suggest it has reached a kind of poetic symmetry.  When a protest group is willing to stick their necks out to expose the horror of the National Defense Authorization Act and its open door strategy for unconstitutional arrest and indefinite detainment of American citizens, I have to stand up and applaud.  This is the kind of protest we need to see all over the country.  Of course, any establishment system which is willing to dissolve the inherent liberties of its citizens certainly isn’t going to stand by quietly while they blatantly point out the injustice.  The Grand Central Terminal action featured in the video below is a perfect example of the swift and immediate stifling of peaceful dissent by an increasingly totalitarian government:

Responses to the event vary.  Most people who have actually been exposed to the facts on the NDAA have expressed utter disgust and fury.  Rightly so.  Some, however, have taken the old elitist mantra, perpetuated effectively by the Neo-Cons in their heyday, that if you are not for the system, then you are a danger to society.  Not surprisingly, there are still plenty of useful idiots out there buzzing about like parasites in search of blood.

For those who would applaud these arrests, and suggest that they are well deserved, I would have to ask very pointedly; why?

Is it right to crush free speech as long as the message is offensive to you personally?  Do peaceful protestors really present a legitimate threat to our national stability?  Are they truly more dangerous than a corrupt government hellbent on assassinating the legal protections of our natural rights which have existed for centuries?  Would any supporter of the jackboot methodology like to explain to me in a coherent manner why they believe their skewed world view should be shielded from sincere questions?  Please, I can’t wait to witness the kind of ridiculous mental gymnastics required to make such arguments palatable.  If this kind of ignorance wasn’t so destructive, it might actually be entertaining.

The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter if these activists were in Grand Central Terminal, on the streets, or busting through the doors of the Oval Office.  While New York authorities will attempt to argue property loopholes in free speech protections for Grand Central, or national security because of the vulnerability of the terminal, really, this has nothing to do with either.  This is about the removal of American voices from a room, and nothing more.   If the message is going to be suppressed by the mainstream media, and shrugged off by representatives, then protesters must go to where the people are, and make the truth heard by whatever means necessary.

Ultimately, activism is about disturbing people’s normal mundane routines and shocking them out of their pop-culture stupor, even if for a moment.  If we aren’t allowed to do that without constant police intervention, then the First Amendment is not being served, and then, my friends, we have a problem, a problem which should be forced down the throat of government with even more public action.

Source: Alt Market.

*Taken from Reason.

Just days after Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters were cleared out of New York’s privately owned Zuccotti Park, OWS protests were held across the country in a show of solidarity.

Unlike other municipal authorities who have grown tired of the Occupy movement, the Los Angeles City Council still maintains its open invitation to the protesters to occupy City Hall’s lawn.

But on November 17, OWS protesters left their lawn and took to the streets, first blocking downtown traffic during rush hour and later, when they marched to the doorsteps of Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Reason.tv was on the scene for the march to the banks and captured some of the day’s 26 arrests. Violence was minimal, as purple-shirted organizers of the march from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) worked to keep most protesters out of the street.

While most of the protesters were exercised by the economy and government bailouts, at least one participant’s main beef seemed to be with Satan, “Grey Aliens” (who are controlled by “the Reptilians”), and the Illuminati (starts at 2-minute mark).

*Taken from Reason.

Around 1 a.m. on November 15, the New York Police Department forcibly removed Occupy Wall Street protesters (OWS) from their months-long encampment in Zuccotti Park. Depending on how you feel about OWS, the clearing of the privately owned park was either long overdue or a violation of First Amendment rights. A new policy allows protesters to gather in the park, but they cannot sleep or camp there.

Reason contributor Michael Tracey captured live footage as the NYPD forced OWS participants out of the park and away from adjacent areas. This four-minute video is taken from about 35 minutes of footage and includes an interview with a protester explaining how the original clearing of the park took place. “Even like the legitimate press,” he explains, “like CNN, they [the NYPD] wouldn’t allow them in there.”

Watch also NYPD Cop Punches Protester, similarly taken from Tracey’s footage.
And check out our ongoing OWS videos and coverage here.

*Taken from NY Post.

Good riddance!

The NYPD arrested 200 protesters as they moved in on Zuccotti Park early this morning and cleared out the thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters who had taken over the space for nearly two months.

Mayor Bloomberg, who called the decision to boot the protesters “mine and mine alone,” said protesters would be allowed back into the Lower Manhattan park but not with their tents and sleeping bags.

But the city’s victory is headed to court at 11:30 a.m.: This morning the National Lawyers Guild announced it had received a restraining order against the city ordering the mobs be allowed back in along with their tents and sleeping bags.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from Schoolcraft Justice.

The Law Office of Jon L. Norinsberg and Cohen & Fitch, LLP recently filed a lawsuit against the City of New York and high ranking members of the NYPD on behalf of Police Officer Adrian Schoolcraft. This lawsuit details PO Schoolcraft’s harrowing experience at the hands of NYPD chiefs and commanders, who plotted a coordinated and concentrated scheme to silence, intimidate, threaten, and retaliate against him for his documentation and disclosure of corruption within the NYPD. Specifically, the NYPD established an illegal quota policy for the issuance of summonses and arrests and instructed police officers to lie on police reports in order to distort COMPSTAT statistics.

Like many police officers, PO Schoolcraft joined the NYPD to help people and serve communities plagued by real crime; instead he was faced with enormous pressure to harass law abiding people in order to fudge statistics. Morally opposed to these policies, PO Schoolcraft refused to follow these unlawful orders and was met with retaliation from the highest levels of the NYPD. This ultimately culminated in an attempt to forcibly silence and discredit him; on October 31, 2009, several high ranking NYPD officials illegally entered PO Schoolcraft’s home, forcibly removed him in handcuffs, seized his personal effects, including evidence he had gathered documenting NYPD corruption, and had him admitted to Jamaica Hospital Center against his will, under the false pretense that he was “emotionally disturbed.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from The Sun.

FIVE men were arrested under the Terrorism Act close to a British nuclear plant yesterday — just hours after it was announced Osama Bin Laden had been killed.

They were detained near Sellafield — which handles highly dangerous nuclear material — yesterday afternoon following a stop check on a vehicle by officers from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, who police the facility in West Cumbria.

The arrests come as the world braces itself for a bloody backlash after Bin Laden supporters vowed to avenge his death.

The public was being warned to remain extra vigilant for fear of a reprisal from groups sympathetic to al-Qaeda.

Today Cumbria Police said it had swooped on five men, all in their 20s and from London, who were arrested under the Terrorism Act.

They were held in police custody overnight before being taken to Manchester this morning.

An investigation is now under way by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit.

A statement from Cumbria Police said: “At 4.32pm yesterday, Monday 2 May, police officers from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary conducted a stop check on a vehicle close to the Sellafield site in West Cumbria.

“As a result, police officers from Cumbria Constabulary arrested five men from London, all aged in their 20s, under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act.

“They were taken to police custody in Carlisle overnight and are being transported to Manchester this morning.

“The investigation is being led by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit.

“A road closure affected the area for a short period of time.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from Yahoo News.

Gunfire reverberated Tuesday in the southern Syrian city of Daraa where the dead still lay unclaimed in the streets a day after a brutal government crackdown of the popular revolt against President Bashar Assad, residents said.

A Syrian human rights group said authorities detained dozens across the country, mainly in several Damascus suburbs and in the northern coastal city of Jableh.

The Syrian army, backed by tanks and snipers, launched a deadly raid before dawn Monday on Daraa, where the uprising in Syria started more than a month ago. At least 11 people were killed in the southern city.

A relentless crackdown since mid-March has killed more than 350 people across Syria, with 120 dead over the weekend, rights groups said. That has only emboldened protesters who started their revolt — inspired by uprisings in the Arab world — with calls for modest reforms but are now increasingly demanding Assad’s downfall.

The White House has stepped up its condemnation of Assad’s regime, but stopped well short of demanding his ouster. U.S. officials said Washington has begun drawing up targeted sanctions against him, his family and his inner circle to boost pressure on them to halt the repression. Washington also was conferring with European countries and the United Nations about options.

The United States told all its nonessential staff and the families of all its embassy workers to leave the country, but kept the facility open for limited services. It also advised all Americans to defer travel to Syria and advised those already in the country to leave.

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said he couldn’t provide a precise figure for those arrested Tuesday because it was difficult to get through to Daraa after authorities cut telephone service in the city.

A Daraa resident told The Associated Press on Tuesday “dead bodies were still in the streets because no one has been able to remove them.”

“We are being subjected to a massacre,” the man screamed over the telephone as gunfire crackled in the background. “Children are being killed. We have been without electricity for three days. We have no water.”

The man said Syrian special forces were in the streets of the impoverished city near the border with Jordan. Tanks had opened fire in the city, he added.

The witness, contacted via a Jordanian cellphone, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots since the uprising began, making it almost impossible to verify the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian, anti-Western regimes in the Arab world.

Daraa, located in a parched region of 300,000 people in the south, has seen some of the worst bloodshed in the past five weeks as the uprising gained momentum. Recently, the city has absorbed many rural migrants who can no longer farm after years of drought.

The uprising was touched off by the arrest of teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall.

The attack on Daraa was by far the biggest in scope and firepower. Video purportedly shot by activists showed tanks rolling through streets and grassy fields with soldiers on foot jogging behind them.

State-run television quoted a military source as saying army units entered the city to bring security “answering the pleas for help by residents of Daraa.”

Syria has a pivotal role in most of the flashpoint issues of the Middle East — from the Arab-Israeli peace process to Iran’s widening influence. Instability has thrown into disarray the U.S. push for engagement with Damascus, part of Washington’s hopes to peel the country away from Hamas, Hezbollah and Tehran.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

1. Introduction:

Nothing pisses me off as much as the goddamned Drug War. It is one of those issues that people seem to get super-sensative about because they don’t want their kids living a life addicted to a bunch of crap while destroying the very fabric of our society. If you believe that that is what is going on, then you are a clueless and helpless dolt that needs to kick a hole in your T.V. because you’ve listened to and accepted the bullshit hype and scare tactics that the moronic media has been shoving down your throat for years. People like you don’t have the ability to look at a problem, truly analyze it and find a reasonable solution. The solution that the masses seem to put their faith in is one that combats the problem only to magnify and fuel that very same problem. The current solution enables the problem and IS the problem, plain and fucking simple.

Stop listening to guys like O’Reilly while taking in their bullshit rhetoric as gospel. Because while you are clicking on stupid ass “Pinhead or Patriot” polls, there is a war going on that most of you don’t even understand. So with this article here, let’s talk about reality. Let’s talk about what’s real. The truth is harsh and hard for most people to swallow. If you’re a little bitch, go read something else. Maybe that copy of “Bold Fresh” you’ve been using as a paperweight is your cup of tea. Anyway, let’s move this bitch forward.

2. Prison & The Police State:

The Drug War is quite possibly the biggest waste of fucking money and resources that our government is thievishly pulling directly from our pockets. Hell, the War on Poverty is also a tyrannical project that rapes our paychecks but that topic is for another day. The War on Drugs is the fish to fry right now.

To start, our prisons are full of thousands upon thousands of small time drug offenders that did nothing but smoke a damn joint and didn’t hurt anyone else. In most cases, their actions didn’t even have a negative effect on anyone else except maybe themselves and that is debatable. Point is, prisons are overcrowded and cost a shit-fucking-load of money that comes out of our pockets. Personally, I don’t mind contributing to the prison system when it keeps a serial rapist away from society. However, I do have a serious fucking problem when I am paying for the prison sentence of some guy that was just selling a bit of weed to pay for his monstrous cost of tuition. Why should that guy be sitting in a cell with the serial rapist and be treated in the same way? Is the dude selling a few joints as evil as the guy who has forcibly raped dozens of women with a knife to their necks? The law says “yes”.

See, that is how this fucked up system works. Nixon’s bullshit War on Drugs destroys the lives of small time offenders and in some cases, the lives of their families and children as well. I am not condoning that a parent should be pushing chronic and blow but I am certainly not condoning a police state that kicks in doors, shoots the family dog and terrorizes small children all because they got a tip that the guy inside has a fucking joint. This may seem like an extreme case but it happened in Columbia, Missouri in February of 2010.

In 2008, the police of Prince George’s County, Maryland were tipped off that there was marijuana at the home of Cheye Calvo. Apparently, a box of marijuana was accidentally sent to the residence during a half-assed drug smuggling operation. The cops then raided the house, scared the hell out of his family, shot his dogs and then arrested Mr. Calvo. It wasn’t until later that they realized that they made a huge mistake and that Mr. Calvo was actually the mayor of that very same town! After the incident, Mayor Calvo had this to say:

“When this first happened, I assumed it was just a terrible, terrible mistake but the more I looked into it, the more I realized (it was) business as usual that brought the police through our front door. This is just what they do. We just don’t hear about it. The only reason people heard about my story is that I happened to be a clean-cut white mayor.”

Another example of police state terrorism created by Nixon’s War on Drugs happened in Atlanta, Georgia back in 2006. A botched drug raid resulted in the murder of an innocent 92-year-old woman. Kathryn Johnson was shot to death by narco-cops during a warrant-issued “no knock” raid on her property. It was later revealed that the raid was based off of falsified evidence that claimed that illegal drugs were in the home. There were absolutely no drugs. This resulted in the Johnson family receiving a settlement of $2.9 million as well as a complete overhaul of the Atlanta drug unit. Three officers were also sentenced to prison after being exposed conspiring to cover-up the incident.

According to Reason Magazine’s statistics, there are over one-hundred police SWAT drug raids in the United States daily. 4,000 people are arrested every day for drug crimes in America. This is more people than those arrested for assault, burglary, vandalism, rape and murder combined! How many of these are legit raids and how many of them bring about terror and harm to those involved in the incident? How many are actually effective and justified? To put things into perspective, here is a map provided by the Cato Institute that shows where there have been botched raids or raids that have turned really ugly.

3. Drug Cartels, Terrorism & Organized Crime:

Are the risks and wasted resources really worth all the trouble? Is this war a war that can even be won? The fact of the matter is, this war has been going on for over 40 years and we have made no progress whatsoever. Sure, big arrests are made, massive stashes of drugs are found and turned over to authorities and here and there a life is saved but when one looks at the bigger picture, we are worse off today than we were during the Nixon era when it comes to drug crime.

Today, Mexican drug cartels terrorize our southern border and drug production funds the Taliban/Al-Qaeda network as well as other terrorist organizations. Two of our greatest threats have been created due to the existence of the counterproductive and incredibly destructive War on Drugs. What I am implying here may come across as completely fucking ludicrous but let’s look at facts, which in this case, disproves the logic used by the pro-Drug War masses.

For a pretty solid example, one has to look no further than alcohol prohibition. When alcohol was banned in the United States from 1920-1933, drinking became incredibly romanticized. The new law created a society where many more Americans were breaking the law because fuck the man, drinking was cool! When the Beltway suits made it illegal, they made it even cooler. Now one was truly living on the edge when they disregarded the new rules and decided to sneak into their local speakeasy to down fistfuls of bootlegged hooch. No one wanted to listen to Congress because no one wanted to be told what they can and cannot put into their own bodies. People chose to be rebels and to ignore the consequences of their actions. Many people were greatly fined and even jailed over sneaking sips of whiskey. However, that wasn’t even the worst part.

The prohibition of alcohol created large organized crime families in the United States. These families knew that the people wanted the freedom to drink and they provided them with that service. It was organized crime that created the speakeasies and made the moonshine the customers desired. Hell, the mob even snuck exotic types of alcohol into the country. This was done quite easily: bribing cops and killing anyone else who stood in their way. The prohibition of alcohol created a huge business opportunity for those who don’t have any respect for the law. You see, when you make an entire industry illegal, that industry will not cease to exist. Quite the contrary, it will go underground and exist in a way that causes a hell of a lot more harm than it did when it was left alone. This is exactly the problem we have today with the Mexican drug cartels and the Taliban.

With drugs being illegal, it is the darkest elements of society that will supply the rapidly growing demand. This creates the crime because if there is some sort of dispute in the illegal drug industry, that dispute can only be solved with violence as drug cartels and drug dealers can’t turn to law enforcement to help them sort out their problems. Just like during alcohol prohibition, rival gangs kill one another and if innocent people get caught in the crossfire, too bad for them! Prohibition doesn’t kill the dangerous product, it just makes it even more dangerous.

4. The Myth of the Risks:

There are also a lot of bullshit myths surrounding drugs that are manufactured and served on a silver platter to the nonintellectual masses. Many political pundits of the left and the right eat this crap up like the all-you-can-eat soft-serve ice cream at Sweet Tomatoes. All one has to do though, is look at the facts to see the mainstream media’s bullshit agenda in helping the easily duped plebeians support the War on Drugs. They’ve got to fight the nightmare and save the children!

Well, children today aren’t in as bad of shape as fucktard foundations like Drug Free America want you to think. Isn’t it NBC that uses their TV stars to pimp that whole “The More You Know” campaign? Well, they’re right. “The more you know” the more you will be able to see through the lies and deceit and falsified information.

When looking at things statistically, there are a lot of people that try marijuana and even harder drugs that don’t get addicted. The pro-Drug War foundations will lead you to believe that nearly everyone that tries anything will pretty much be instantly hooked. The truth is, very few people who try any of these drugs actually become hooked on them. It is much more common for someone to try something and decide that it isn’t for them. I’m not saying cases of instant addiction don’t happen but they are a lot less common than they would ever want you to know.

According to the federal government’s own data, 8 million people have tried crack yet there are only about 300,000 crack users. That means that only 3.75% of the people who have tried crack in the United States are regular users. That seems like an awfully small amount doesn’t it? Well, the DEA has the number at around 17% because they have to look like they are fighting an epidemic. Weird how the government’s data isn’t consistent with one of their own agencies, albeit the primary agency that is fighting this bullshit war. Anyway, crack isn’t the only example of these kind of shenanigans. The ratio of those who have tried to those who regularly use is virtually the same across the board with all the other drugs.

Another area where there is blatant misinformation and manufactured scare tactics is in the way that every couple of years or so the government announces that there is a new drug on the streets that is much stronger and much more highly addictive than anything we have ever seen. Beware and lock up your children otherwise they will become zombies whoring themselves out to greasy old men for quick fixes of this week’s new nightmare drug. Yeah, it’s fucking hogwash.

In the 20′s it was alcohol that was the target, in the 30′s it was all about “reefer madness”, then came opium and heroin and morphine and other “nightmare” drugs that they claimed were more potent and addictive than all the ones prior. In the 80′s it was cocaine and then crack. In the 90′s it was ecstasy and other “raver” drugs. Then it was crystal meth and a slew of others. There will be more in the future, trust me. The DEA and the Drug War cronies have to pimp their agenda and the only method that works is falsifying information, scaring the shit out of people and parading around with a few stashes and guns that they confiscated through a big raid here or there.

5. My Personal Experiences:

Now I am not going to sit here and try to preach that drugs aren’t addictive and aren’t harmful and aren’t a horrible thing to get involved in. There are those who can handle them and there are those who cannot. Word to the wise, it is best not to try and find out. However to act holier-than-thou and claim I am perfect would be a grave hypocrisy and it is something I cannot do. I have had my fair share of drug experiences: good ones and completely fucking devastating ones. The reason why I am sharing this is because I want you to understand that this opinion comes from someone who has experienced all the good and bad drugs can bring into one’s life.

In high school, I didn’t do many drugs. I would party and drink like a fucking pro and I would smoke some weed every now and then but as far as the hard shit and pills, I didn’t really partake in them. Well, at least not voluntarily anyway. I did have less than a handful of experiences were I came into contact with heavier stuff and inadvertently indulged in them.

On one occasion I noticed that my weed tasted a little odd. It also smelled different but my inquiries about it were met with “don’t worry man, it is just some really good shit.” That it was, because I came to find out that it was laced with cocaine. I was tweaking like a motherfucker and I quickly found out that cocaine makes me incredibly testy, if not just blatantly angry and incredibly destructive. On the car ride home, I found out that the guy driving was the one who laced the joint. Upon discovering this, I wailed on the asshole while he was driving. We were a couple of coked up violent forces of nature beating the shit out of each other. Actually, it was quite one sided, I was just hitting him and he was frantically trying to pull over before getting into an accident. He pulled over and jumped out of the car, it took three others to hold me back from killing the idiot. I got a ride home from someone else, calmed back down and eventually went to sleep. Cocaine was definitely not my cup of tea. The kid I tried to kill came over and apologized in person the next day. I had to respect him for that.

I also had other occasions were the weed I was smoking was laced with weird shit. One time it was laced with opium, which I loved. Another time it was laced with crack, which almost ended violently like the cocaine situation. I have even had weed that was laced with Raid. Yes, the bug killer. I was young and stupid and borderline suicidal. Actually, I was more genocidal I’d have to say. Anyway, after these adventures, opium became my drug of choice, at least when I could get it.

In my early twenties, I partied harder, went to raves, popped some pills here and there and tried to fuck as many chicks as I could. Ecstasy was fun and it made sex better, which didn’t help my sex addiction issues (which I later beat without drugs, therapy or any new age bullshit). When your cute girlfriend encourages you to do it just to have awesome sex while going out to find other chicks to join in the fun, your dick makes you listen. It makes you listen hard.

I did get through that phase pretty much unscathed and without disease or children (thank fuck). However, I did have an incident after that era of my life that started to change my outlook. Essentially, I died. If it wasn’t for my girlfriend reviving me in my bed, where I wasn’t breathing and my heart wasn’t beating, I would have been dead at 23. Instead, I got up, like a second wind hit me, I told her to leave the house and I woke my mum up and had her drive me to the ER. In the hospital I flatlined and had to be revived again. This nightmarish fiasco ended with yours truly being locked up in the psych ward on the 4th floor of Naples Community Hospital for nearly two weeks. I spent the first anniversary of 9/11 sitting around the television set with a bunch of addicts eating oatmeal, quoting the Bible and telling me how to live my life. I’m assuming most of them have returned there for several visits, I however have never been back.

That was the turning point. I woke the fuck up, started giving a shit and even though I knew I would be homeless shortly after that (a situation that I talked about in the article “Free to Lose: A Personal Statement on Socialism“), I refused to have to give in and not fight for something better. I chose to no longer escape. Luckily for me, I never became addicted to the substances I was using. I just liked them and was able to easily walk away from it all. Seeing the destruction I created around me, couldn’t prepare me for the heartbreak and hell I would feel when someone I truly loved died of drugs a few years later.

Further down the timeline, I had a very close intimate friend who I planned to marry. She and I talked about it quite often and it really started out as a joke that we would get married. As the years went on, the joke became a little more serious and there were feelings developing between us that were much more than friendship. There was a point, just before her death, where we were inseparable. I knew she had gotten into drugs pretty heavily but I didn’t realize how bad until it was too late. It was something I talked to her about but couldn’t truly put my foot down because of how I was in the past and the fact that she had witnessed a lot of it. Back during my hardcore party days she was the voice of reason that I ignored. When the roles were reversed, I felt like too much of a hypocrite to really put a stop to it and realistically, she would’ve done what she wanted anyway.

She died a few days after my 27th birthday from an overdose. I was devastated and it took about 2 years before I could get my wits together and even function like a normal human being again. In my mourning, I started experimenting again because a part of me wanted to join her. Luckily, I found my way out of the abyss and became much stronger for having lived through that devastating process.

The point of all this, is that even after going through everything I have experienced with drugs, I still do not want the fucking government having that control over me or my body. I chose the path I took and so did all of the friends that I lost. We knew the risks and there was no one that could have made us stop until we were ready to stop. The law being against us just made the act of complete disobedience even more justified. We all wanted to be rebels and even though we were killing ourselves, our actions were a big “fuck you” to the system. Sure, it sounds stupid now but one doesn’t think like a 32-year-old when one is 20. Especially when one is 20 and high.

Hell, it isn’t even about just control over our bodies, the War on Drugs just doesn’t work. All it does is make drugs look cooler to the users while creating criminal empires to supply those users. With alcohol being legal, you don’t see gang wars over who is going to import the bordeaux. In Amsterdam where drugs are legal, marijuana use by teens is much smaller than it is in the United States. Why? Because the Dutch made drugs boring.

6. Conclusion:

When one truly understands the War on Drugs, common sense should take over and tell you that it is a horrible monstrosity that must be abolished at all costs. I understand the dangers of drugs but as long as those who use them don’t harm anyone else or threaten their liberty, than whose business is it? If you want to smoke a joint in your home while watching a movie, you should be able to. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t punish those who get behind the wheel of a car but we have that system in place and if someone gets pulled over for being under the influence of drugs, it should be treated exactly the same way as if they were drunk. Actually, it is treated this way already. However, even though drug addicts get high and get behind a wheel now, there would be fewer addicts driving in a society without drug prohibition. As the numbers of users would go down, so would the number of users behind the wheel. Fact is, everywhere drug prohibition has been lifted, drug use has gone down and so has drug related crime. God forbid the DEA lets that cat out of the bag.

The War on Drugs, like most aspects of life that are plagued with government intervention, needs to be reanalyzed and looked at with reason and common sense. It has been proven ineffective yet the government still pushes it on us and convinces most of us that they are getting the job done. Apart from the War on Poverty, this is the longest running war in United States history. It is time to end this war. Shit, the effects that it would have on the economy would be fucking amazing. In 40 years, the War on Drugs has cost more than one trillion dollars! It would be nice to really cut government spending by cutting this cancerous growth out of our economy. Don’t expect the fiscal conservatives to do anything about it.

In closing, drugs are definitely bad but that doesn’t mean that it is the federal government’s job to regulate and prohibit them. Prohibition has never worked. Luckily for the citizens of the United States during alcohol prohibition, the government realized the folly of their ways in just over a decade and rectified the situation before it became much worse. The government doesn’t seem to be as smart as they used to be. Really though, they know what is going on. They know it doesn’t work. They just don’t give a fuck. Their stubbornness has been responsible for the incarceration of thousand upon thousands, if not millions, of people for minor drug crimes: people who may have been caught with a couple of joints or who may have just been trying to make a quick buck off of their buddies. Prison overpopulation wouldn’t even be an issue if the government could just effectively do their job and at the end of the day, do what is right.

The War on Drugs will probably never end. For it to end, the United States government would have to admit that they were wrong. There are way too many egos in Washington for that to ever happen, let’s be real. Look how much senseless bloodshed went on for over a dozen years in Vietnam before Congress finally pulled us out against the wishes of the stubborn president, who at that time was the idiot Gerald Ford. Unlike Vietnam though, we are not pulling out due to bloodshed. Quite the contrary, we are continuing to fight as the bloodshed is sold to us an effect of the drugs themselves, when in fact it is not. What it really is, is an effect of the Drug War. The federal government is victimizing all of us by trying to prevent others from victimizing themselves. So we all have to suffer to save the few who don’t even care and who most likely don’t want our help. But hey! That’s pretty much American policy on anything.

Milton Friedman talks about drugs:

Bill Cosby talks about people on drugs:

*Taken from the Guardian.

A bin blazes behind Iranian protesters at an anti-government protest in Tehran last month. Photograph: AP