War On Drugs Clock Shows All The Resources We Really Use

So I was skimming the interwebs and I came across this website, the war on drugs clock.  Basically it breaks down just how much money our government is spending to put away non-violent offenders, and just how many of them are in jail, arrested, and a bunch of other pretty staggering numbers.

Now look at these numbers, and tell me why we are in a massive economic crisis. 17 Billion Dollars?!?!? Are you fucking kidding me? That number is absolutely unreal to me, and that is only on a Federal level.  States have spent over 27 Billion on the drug war, do they realize it’s easier than ever to walk out one’s front door and have a bag in your hand within 10 minutes?  Do they realize that this will NEVER change?  Some states have, 13 at last count, with Michigan and Massachusetts on the way.  We are slowly catching on, but it certainly isn’t fast enough.

Am I asking to completely decriminalize the plant and put it in the hands of anyone and everyone?  No, absolutely not, it could easily be regulated at least as much as alcohol is to keep it out of the hands of the younger generation before they have developed to a point where they can responsibly use the drug.  But isn’t throwing almost 40 billion dollars a year at a losing battle absolutely gut wrenching?  I’d say so, especially for the number 2 cash crop in our nation.  Marijuana and hemp could easily be MAKING us billions of dollars in taxes, and stimulating our floundering economy.  Instead we choose to sit back and be robbed blind by our governments; state and federal, on a war that is more hopeless than Iraq and Afghanistan could ever imagine to be.

With the nation’s economy falling apart at the seams and no end in sight, there is no better time to address this issue.  We need to stop spending our money putting non-violent drug offenders behind bars and take the drug trade out of the hands of the gangs and criminals.  It’s up to us, the taxpayers to lead the charge in this battle.  More and more taxpayers are starting to realize this and are voting to legalize medical marijuana, or decriminalize smaller amounts of marijuana (Michigan and Massachusets being the most recent to change their stances in the recent election).

If you break it down to dollars and cents, the decision has already been made for you, you just don’t realize it yet.  Write your senators and congressmen and spread the word to your friends and family to do the same… If nothing else the sick people of our country who rely on marijuana to ease their pain for a vast variety of diseases should not have to be going to gangs and other violent criminals in order to get the only medicine that really makes them feel better.

We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our loved ones, and we owe it to our checkbooks.