Jim Ramstad: Obamas Possible Choice for Drug Czar

I doubt if there will be much change. The US cannot decriminalize MJ as hundreds of thousands of people are in prison in the US because of MJ. While most countries use prisons to keep dangerous people off the street, in the US prisons are a business, pure and simple. The war on Drugs was never about stopping drug use but about boosting the prison industry, which it has done all too well. There are many people doing hard time in the US that would not have even been charged in more civilized countries. The US incarceration rate is 8 to 12 times that of western european nations and is the US safer for it? Not from what I can see. Billions of the taxpayers money is going to companies like Haliburton who build and run prisons. On the plus side it keeps a lot of bullies, sadists and sociopaths off the street and gives them meaningful, well-paid employment as LEOs and prison guards.

 

It's not like those people are going to get compensation for their time served. These people could be released from our overpopulated prison systems.

 

Dante Blaze - It won't happen. The police and prison guards unions are very strong and prison companies have great influence. Prisons are big business and longer sentences always get the support of America's Taliban (the Christian Right).

 

I don't think they can keep marijuana criminalized for too much longer.

 

I think that'd be the one he talked about in front of the college kids in 2004.

 

I think so too BUT it remains to be seen if he is a pushover or not like Carter was. I do not see this at the top of his agenda but once we get the economy back on track, Iraq and Afghanistan figured out and there are no international crises then hopefully he'll address it. I think it'll be decriminalized in my lifetime but not until my generation takes over.

 

What if marijuana decriminalization onward to full out legalization were to bring benefit to the economy? Like a whole new billion dollar industry.