Newsweek:Pot and the GOP-Is the party of ‘Just Say No’ morphing into the party of ‘Just Say Grow’?

Article by Eve Conant over at newsweek.com about the increasing amounts of Conservatives who are coming out in favor of Cannabis Law Reform. People seem to think of this as a Red/Blue issue when it’s in actuality an issue that affects all Americans across party lines,whichever side you personally are on. Let’s not let the prejudices of the past and bad blood between the parties stop something that Americans could truly get behind together. Let’s work together with our brothers and sisters of the Left, Right and in between and end this failed war on our own people. The video links on pages 1, 2 and 5 are excellent sources of information as well and highly suggested viewing. Yes, We Cannabis!

“The cofounder of the National Tea Party Federation, Mark Skoda, doubts that many in his group are pro-pot, saying, “Legalization as a question isn’t what animates or motivates Tea Partiers.” Still, it’s becoming increasingly hard for conservative candidates and lawmakers to square libertarian Tea Party catchphrases like “fiscal responsibility” and “limited government” with the government’s war on drugs, especially when their constituents might prefer to see a war on joblessness. Marijuana arrests accounted for more than half of all drug arrests in the United States, with an American nabbed on marijuana charges every 37 seconds, as indicated by the FBI’s 2009 Uniform Crime Report. Yet 88 percent of the arrests were for possession, not sale or manufacture, which means that many more recreational users are getting snared than growers or dealers.

At the same time, the war on drugs has grown increasingly bloody, with more than 28,000 people killed in Mexico since President Felipe Calderón began his crackdown on the drug cartels. Calderón, who opposes Prop 19, has had his victories: last week, Mexican officials in Baja California made the biggest drug bust in the nation’s history, seizing 134 tons of pot (the equivalent of about 334 million joints) after a shootout with traffickers. Nonetheless, many believe a lot less blood would be shed if America were to legalize pot, which according to some estimates accounts for 60 percent of Mexico’s drug trade with the U.S., in much the same way that ending Prohibition in 1933 cut short the careers of tommy-gun-wielding gangsters. As Pat Buchanan, adviser to presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, wrote in a column last year: “How does one win a drug war when millions of Americans who use recreational drugs are financing the cartels bribing, murdering, and beheading to win the war and keep self-indulgent Americans supplied with drugs?” Buchanan tells NEWSWEEK that he doesn’t support legalization, but he mused in his column, “There are two sure ways to end this war swiftly. Milton’s way and Mao’s way. Mao Zedong’s communists killed users and suppliers alike, as social parasites. Milton Friedman’s way is to decriminalize drugs and call off the war.” Of course, plenty of conservatives think Friedman was smoking something.

Karl Rove says the vast majority of Republicans rightly stand against full legalization of marijuana. “I believe that the social cost to the United States of legalization of drugs would be enormous, and would be something that would deeply harm our society, particularly those least equipped to deal with the ravages of drug dependency,” he says. “We’re not talking about the marijuana of the ’60s. We’re talking today about a marijuana that in many instances is far more potent, far more addictive, and—as a gateway drug—far more pernicious than it was in the ’60s.” And then there’s the issue of where legalization stops. At cocaine? At meth? At heroin? William Bennett, who was drug czar under George H.W. Bush and now hosts a conservative talk show, says, “When I give commencement addresses, I tell the students, ‘Don’t keep your mind so open your brains fall out.’ You’ve got to understand how much harm these drugs cause.” Ann Coulter says pot is a “gateway to being a complete loser,” and “the only possible argument for conservatives is that maybe more liberals will get stoned and forget to vote.” Yet despite their opposition, conservatives who are anti-pot just don’t seem to be getting as fired up about it as they used to. During an unlikely interview with Coulter and Cheech and Chong last November, Geraldo Rivera expressed surprise that he gets no hate mail on legalization but is bombarded when it’s any other social issue, like gay rights. “Why aren’t conservatives angry about this?” he asked Coulter. “Are they secretly potheads?” ”

Newsweek also has an entire section with information , dubbed “Potopia”, which can be viewed by clicking here

to read the entire story and see the embedded videos, click on the “Puff, puff pass” Peace and Good Buds