Republican businessman funds pro-marijuana film
Link (Via Reason)"The War on Drugs has cost the American taxpayer $1 trillion since 1972," [Fleming] said. "We're paying $69 billion a year to make a health problem into a criminal one."
That's the libertarian side of him talking - he's also a board member of the Reason Foundation. But while Fleming can go on at length about drug stats from a policy standpoint, he's also got a personal stake.
His wife, a former Miss Illinois turned actress, suffers debilitating pain from post-polio syndrome. Several months ago, she obtained a prescription for medical marijuana. At night, she takes a few drops of liquid THC or snacks on a pot brownie to ease the pain.
"Here's Jeannie, well-to-do and a pillar of society, using marijuana," Fleming said.
"And I could be thrown in prison by Bush," she interjected.
That's Bush as in President George W. - the one who named her husband as a trustee for the James Madison Foundation, a group of politicians, jurists and two private citizens that hands out scholarships for teachers. Fleming has a photo of him and the president in his office.
The couple have an unusual marriage. He hangs with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. She wears a Barack Obama T-shirt. The two disagree on many political issues, but they vehemently agree about the need for drug-policy reform.
"Look, I'm an old lady, so I can say what I want to," she said. "In the '60s, I used to go to parties where cocaine was passed around and snorted. Nothing ever went up my nose, but I smoked marijuana."
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Weed is nature's miracle drug...the list of ailments it alleviates is seemingly endless. I'm a reformed A D H D underachiever who started smoking habitually in college. After years of mediocre academic performance, on weed I got straight A's. Since then, I've started several companies, achieved numerous awards for product design and business achievement. I've got a patent for gods sake...and yes - I smoke weed to mitigate my lack of focus. Unlike the stereotype of smokers who lack motivation - I become hyper-focussed, highly productive and creative under the medicinal influence of pot. Marijuana laws are insane - founded on the greed of DuPont (hemp vs. polyester), perpetuated by big tobacco, and championed by moralistic zealots. It's prohibition of the most ludicrous order.
The reasons marijuana/THC is illegal are social and economic, and are not medical. It is a shame that people who suffer from diseases like cancer, glaucoma, and many others cannot get or grow the medicine that can help them.
That said, like PeanutyGoodness, I also smoked lots of weed in college. I am also diagnosed with ADHD. Unlike PeanutyGoodness, it never helped me focus on anything other than more pot and lots of munchies. I did have a damn fine time though.
yeah, i just love how republicans oppose so many things, y'know, all the anti-abortion, anti-negotiation-with-enemies, all that god, guns and gays crap, until OOPS! there's a lesbian in cheney's family, or OOPS! my daughter got pregnant when she was raped so an abortion is good, or OOPS! my wife's pain is relieved by medical marijuana.
look, i genuinely wish jean fleming well, but what drifted through david fleming's "smoke screen" is his flaming hypocrisy.
BILLOFWRITES:
So, in your myopic world no one can ever change their position or alter their world view through education? Does it really matter HOW someone changes their stance? I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but time and time again I witness rabid ad hominems against conservatives even after time and experience has changed their stances on certain subjects. The pure hatred is stupefying.
Man, I'd hate to look at the world through your eyes. Sounds like a depressing and static one.
BILLOFWRITES:
Don't generalise republicans. Ron Paul.
I don't think BILLOFRIGHTS is so far off on their comments. In my experience, having watched the Republican's side with one another without question, turning in unison like a flock of birds. The issues in their camp never really reach any sort of depth, the decisions are really reached by deciding what's good for the party or how the family values line can best be towed. The realities of life are never that easy. We all at one time or another have to finally admit that our preconceived notions have become as flimsy as tissue in the face of a new experience. A family member comes out, a friend is found criminally guilty, a spouse is unfaithful. I think more than anybody in the public light, a deeply entrenched Republican has the farthest distance to reconcile when he or she is confronted with truths that run counter to the party line.
Why ARE the laws against marijuana so harsh?
People who smoke POT are BAD?
Let's not forget that Ron Paul has always been in support of legalization of marijuana.
I'm people are tired of all the ron paul people on the web, but let's face it we need him more now than ever!
In communist Russia, POT smokes YOU!
Sorry, my bad. Just came from /.
Why are we spending $69 billion a year? There are not just health benefits that can come from marijuana. Industrial hemp can be used for many products. Why are we wasting so much money criminalizing this plant? We throw people in jail for possessing a plant. Why??
Surely there are some pretty strong divisions right now between libertarian Republicans and Christian fundamentalist Republicans. Might it be time to consider dropping this tiresome and exploitative left wing/right wing false dichotomy and start discussing the actual issues for a change?
US marijuana laws are insane and have a trickle-down effect to other countries. I'm tired of hearing about marijuana users having their lives ruined purely for the purposes of political propaganda.
I'm also tired of the language used in the media to create an artificial division between alcohol and "drugs", which are all lumped together. People die of a "drugs overdose" - which drugs? People are arrested for "drugs" - yeah, which drugs? And talking about "drugs and alcohol" makes as much sense as saying "vehicles and cars". Nothing exposes the hypocrisy of the "war on drugs" like the laws concerning alcohol.
Oh, but it's okay, because everyone knows that alcohol isn't "drugs", right?
BILLOFWRITES is right. They don't care until it affects them.
Marijuana laws are proof positive that old people are the only ones that vote on a regular basis.
#7, because once the drug laws came into effect, no one wanted to seem for the sex and violence they supposedly caused. Therefore, every time there was a choice between being harsh or relaxing the laws, it would be political suicide to relax them. Talk about giving your opponent a loaded gun and pointing it at yourself!
The drug laws were pushed through in the first place by saying that the coloreds were getting high on cocaine and heroin and raping white women, and that the drugs would cause them to become violent and riot.
[sarcasm]Oh lawdy-lawdy whatz we poor white folks to do? Good old media spin. Woo. [/sarcasm]
The History channel has a great in depth look at the beginning of the "War on Drugs"
(my first non-anonymous post, btw)
BILLOFWRITES: Not all Republicans march in lock-step and hold the same beliefs.
Without having a record of being against something, then changing his mind/position, you really can't accuse him of changing his mind.
That you leap from medical marijuanna to gay rights, etc. betrays an irrational hatred of republicans based on (apparently) emotional issues. It would be great if you could confine yourself to the topic of Medial Marijuanna.
It is interesting that you have an example of a republican that agrees with you (a democrat?), and your immediate reaction apparently is to jump all over him for things you don't agree on... You argue like a Linux Zealot.
Shorter BILLOFWRITES:
Actual Republicans don't adhere to my crude and uninformed stereotype! They're hypocrites!
Drugs are bad. But Marijuana is not even in the same category as Meth, cocaine, and Heroine, but in America...thats EXACTLY what it is... SCHEDULE ONE!
This is because us Americans love to get lung cancer from tobacco, and DUI's and car crashes from Alcohol, but don't you dare fill up on Twinkies after a crazy night of smoking.
This is Wrong.
This is Terrorism.
Gee...I didnt know it was bush that made pot illegal.
The problem with the War on Drugs is that it is an attempt to put businessmen in jail as a proxy for shutting down their business. Well, guess what? The demand for the business remains (as it always shall), so some other businessman steps up.
qwert , December 18, 2007 10:38 AM
Gee...I didnt [sic] know it was bush that made pot illegal.
That's an unfair read of what was said. The truth is, under the Bush administration, the feds have ignored state laws that legalize marijuana and pursued people just like her. Her comment is completely fair.
Ah, the horror and the hypocrisy of the drug war. (Ever notice how everything is a war these days, btw? It's as if we think we can solve all our problems with war! The war on drugs, the war on teen sex, the war on poverty, the war, the war the war, the fucking war, war, war.)
All the murder, all the mayhem, all the shattered lives. Blood on the steets. Blood blood blood everywhere blood! The cost of fucking wars. Shattered lives. Yes blood. There has been buch blood spilled and more to be spilled. Oh, you don't see the connection? There's a connection pal the way there's connection between evil and murder, the way there's a connection between shit and stink. Blood everywere!
You are partly to blame, by the way, for not sorting out your confusion about your own rights and your own sense of what's right. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO WHAT YOU WANT TO WITH YOUR OWN BODY. That government does not own your body (excpet when you end up in prison because of marijuana). Of course they do though and you're to blame for for not throwing off this outrageous tyranny.
The purose of the drug war is to prop up a constelation of invidious moral positions formulated sometime in the 12th century.
1. Pleasure is bad
2. Pleasure is always a sign of moral
turpitudemust and therefore must
be PUNISHED with an equal or
greater measure of pain and suffering.
3. People are bad
4. The state owns your body
5. One cannot aspire to any higher pupose but
to suffer
People transgress and should be punished. Water boarded, eledtrocuted, raped, stabbed, go insane. There's an unlimited amount of money to prosecute the social agenda of punishment and we will build shiny new prisons if we need to. If crime goes down for some bizzare reason we make more things illegal so that we can keep building prisons since it is now such an important part of our economy and keeps millions of people employed.
American society is highly polarized between black and white, between rich and poor. We don't care about egalitarianism or pluralism. Our form of social welfare is prison or the military.
People don't deserve a break and we should expect nothing from our government is the twisted mentality that people go around with. Less governemnt is better! Let people rot in the streets where they will someday end up on drugs! Fuck 'em all! They're morally weak and dersere what they have coming to them. I'm getting what's mine. I'm keeping what's mine. I'm a status monkey ooooh oooh. Oooh ooooh. I colletem objects of death. This is America.
Who cares whether marijuana has a medical puposee - as if that would ever be a persuasive argument. I hat the medical marijuana advocates because they divert attention from the only argument that should matter which. It is our right. We have dominion over our bodies.
We are so fucked, so fucked. wake up wake wake up wake up hey you mother fucker wake up wake up wake up goddammit fucking wake up kids' brains are being spattered mother fucker wake up wake up lives are being shattered mother fucker wake up wake up wake the fuck up blood in the streets blood blood blood blood everywhere wake the fuck up asshole Blood everywhere!
wouldn't you know it...just when you're starting to get somewhere in life some syphltc whr comes out of the woodwork to rain on your parade!
Off the meds again, Pyros?
It's good that the Flemings have come around to the Lite Side on this issue, but hopefully that's only the first step on a journey that will lead them to real compassion for people that are suffering from things that don't affect them personally.
I don't think BILLOFWRITES is that far off, though he does unfairly lump all republicans together (and, FLOSFL, I think there are far more rabid ad-hominems spewed by conservatives at liberals than vice-versa, even up here in the so-called "liberal northeast")-- LOUISE12345 nails it though, the GOP as a whole just sticks to their talking points, which are not about the complexities of reality, but of some ethereal golden rule they wish to believe in (creationism anyone?)
It's not WRONG or even hypocritical to change ones position when the circumstances change, but unfortunately the GOP has a habit of treating it as wrong when anyone but them does it-- who's a bigger "flip-flopper": John Kerry or Mitt Romney?
Marijuana laws are probably the biggest bastion of hypocrisy: nobody has ever died from an overdose of it, and yet it's treated like Satan's own poison. Remember those ads warning us that buying pot supports terrorism?
@halloween jack
yeah, I forgot to use spell check and i feel stupid for that.
I wanted to mention that your opening statement is a perfect example of what's called begging the question which wikipedia defines thusly:
"In logic, begging the question has traditionally described a type of logical fallacy (also called petitio principii) in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises"
People nowadays use it to mean raising the question, however, and I'm just as passionate about correcting that as I about stopping the drug war carnage. Maybe even more so.
Am I off my meds? Well, I was never on any to begin with. The jeremiad about the murderous drug war was intended as a kind of coarse poem.
"I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die" Johny Cash
"I want to fuck you like an animal" T. Reznor
"I'm all out of love" Air Supply
"Captain Halloween Jack will make you high tonight" Billy Joel
etc.
Was it really so profane? I watch shows everyday that end in violent, graphic death. Prime time. Do watch these shows? Are you off of your meds, pumpkin jack? Roll on ye crimson streams!
Certainly nothing more bombastic than what we are exposed to throughout the course of an ordinary day. I exist in an un medicated reality.
So yes, TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.
(that's what's called a mashup in (today's parlance))
I just thought it would be less boring than producing dry statistics to prove that the drug war produces thousands of corpses, widows, orphans and shattered lives every year.
Pumpkin Jack, is this really something you care about or do you just like to make silly jokes about it? Can you possibly care?
You know, Pyros, sometimes problems like that are best addressed by purely mechanical strategies. For instance, if you know you're going to be off-topic, set yourself a 250-word limit (by which I mean 1,500 characters total including spaces and punctuation, regardless of how many character strings separated by spaces there are). When you reach your limit, stop, delete everything back to the end of your last complete thought, and put a quick ending on it.
(And if you have trouble remembering things, then before you do anything else, print out this comment and tape it up where you'll be able to see it when you're writing.)
Pyros again: Yes, Halloween Jack cares.
BillofWrites, and everyone else who's focusing on whether or not the Flemings are hypocrites:
One of the most effective political strategies the Right has is that they'll make common cause with anyone who agrees with them. They don't test them for perfect political purity on all other issues, and refuse to accept their help if they don't pass.
(I remember when the pornography-banning fraction of the feminist movement started tentatively making contact with right-wingers who wanted to ban pornography for completely different reasons. They had nothing in common beyond that issue, but the Right was willing to work with them as far as it went.)
When I look at the Flemings, I don't see hypocrites. I see people who can get their message across to an audience liberals can't reach. That's a good thing. Stop kvetching and take it for what it's worth.
Drugs are just chemicals, they are neither good nor bad. They just are. It is one's relationship with such things that is the problem.
America is sick. It has a dysfunctional relationship with a whole host of things: Drugs, sex, violence and on and on.
The cure for our disease is not going to be pleasant. It's going to be the same cure that every other civilization has gone through. With any luck this won't happen in my lifetime.
I was on topic. It was the post that was off topic because medical marijuana is not an issue worht discussing in light of all of the people being killed and sent to prison every year over drugs. This doesn't seem to bothe people nearly as much as being able to use marijuana for mediinal puposes. Yeah, I agree, they should, but there is something much larger here, and I kind of resent medical marijuana always stealing the spotlight when the issue of the illegality of drugs comes up. The posts were meant to highlight my extreme frustration at the complacency I see all the time and this misdirection of effort and outrage. When we speak of drugs, if we believe that marijuana should be legalized cetainly the fact that people's lives are being shattered right now because it's illegal should be more important than "medical marijuana".
In fact it is a dangerous issue because it is a kind of compromise--a back door way of easing the restrictions on marijuana. It's as if we've given up on trying to de-criminalize pot with a head on assault using a "our bodies our rights" argument that feminists and liberty-seekers used during the 60's so successfully. You will never get anything by compromising or only obliquely challenging the current power brokers. The only thing power respects is greater power. If the advocates of medical marijuana truly care about making pot available to those who want to use it for medical reasons they should adopt different tactics.
If the illegality of drugs is going to make its way in to public discourse I would propose not getting distracted with side issues. It is a fact that tens or even hundreds of thousands of people are wasting in prison, and it is a fact that thousands of people die each year because of our regressive laws and our collectively regressive mentality.
Medical marijuana is yet another way to frame away the larger issue of our civil rights in to an irrelevant discussion that we'll be wasting out time away with for years to come even while we see gallons of more blood flowing in the streets.