Marijuana has been called many things. Pot, weed, 420, smoke, trees- it’s all the same stuff, and medicine nonetheless.
While recently perusing some political blogs and information regarding the upcoming election, I came across The 2012 National Drug Control Strategy, which is our yearly newsletter from the White House detailing (albeit briefly) the state of affairs with regards to the “War on Drugs.” In addition, we also get a glance at how much is being spent and where it’s going, check it out:
So all said and done, $25.2 Billion has been spent on these various facets of the Drug Control Strategy this year alone. With $9.4B of that being funnelled into U.S. Law Enforcement and Incarceration, you have to begin to wonder if that is a bit excessive, and where exactly are those funds being spent? How many less people could be homeless and fed right here in the US if a few billion of that federal budget was spared for humanity?
What’s even a bit scarier than the non-transparency of this budget that we, the American taxpayers, are paying for, is this little bit:
The Obama Administration’s inaugural National Drug Control Strategy, published in 2010, charted a new course in our efforts to reduce illicit drug use and its consequences in the United States—an approach that rejects the false choice between an enforcement-centric “war on drugs” and the extreme notion of drug legalization. Science has shown that drug addiction is not a moral failing but rather a disease of the brain that can be prevented and treated. Informed by this basic understanding, the 2010 and 2011 Strategies established and promoted a balance of evidence-based public health and safety initiatives focusing on key areas such as substance abuse prevention, treatment, and recovery.
So, all of the patients then, who are also taxpayers, are the ones who will (and sometimes already are) paying for these programs that are aimed at treating their “disease of the brain.”
Appalling, eh? I’ll remember these things when I vote this November, and I encourage you to do the same.
