Alternet:15 Million Americans Have Been Arrested Because Pot Is Illegal – When Will Our Dumb Marijuana Prohibition Be Overturned?

Story over at Alternet by Kevin Zeese about how many American’s have been arrested due to the idiocy that is the War on Drugs. here’s some disturbing numbers for you that shows how misguided our drug policy is.

Yearly deaths attributed to Tobacco:435,000
Yearly deaths attributed to Alcohol Consumption: 85,000
Yearly deaths attributed to Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs: 32,000
Yearly deaths attributed to Cannabis Consumption: 0
Number of Americans arrested for marijuana offenses since 1970:15,000,000

Something seems very, very wrong here as always. We’re less than 2 weeks away from the vote in California on recreational usage and are in the final push. Even if you live here in our great state you can help out with the initiative by signing up to phone bank for the Just Say Now! campaign, the site is http://justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2010/10/19/just-say-now-phone-banking-people-love-being-called-for-prop-19/ . We need to end this failed prohibition before anymore “dangerous criminals” are locked up for such a victimless crime.

“In 1970, the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommended ending the illegality of marijuana in the United States. The Dutch also had a national commission that reached the same conclusion.

The difference was the Dutch listened to their experts and President Nixon and other American politicians ignored the U.S. experts. Well, the results are in – the experts were right and the politicians were wrong, even on the issue of how many people use marijuana. It turns out prohibition was less successful than decriminalization.

According to surveys conducted by both governments: in the United States 41 percent of Americans have used marijuana, compared to 22.6 percent in Holland.

In 2001, based on recommendations from a national commission, Portugal went further than Holland and abolished all criminal penalties for possession of marijuana and other drugs. The result – reduced use, reduced costs and reduced damage from marijuana to people’s lives.

Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the European Union, a mere 10 percent. Further, Portugal reports that use dropped among teens: rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1 percent to 10.6 percent; drug use in older teens also declined.

Yet, rather than listen to the experts four decades ago, President Nixon doubled down on the already failed and mistaken policy. The result was 100,000 additional arrests the year after the experts said people should no longer be treated as criminals for marijuana use.

And, since the experts said it should not be a crime nearly 15 million Americans have been arrested. Only four states have populations larger than the number of people arrested for marijuana since the experts said people should not be arrested for marijuana offenses.

Still, the status quo politicians in California – people like Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov .Arnold Schwarzenegger – continue to want to ignore the experts and, more important, they want to ignore the people.

Polls have consistently shown Proposition 19 to be 7 to 11 points ahead of those who oppose the initiative. Nationally polls show large pluralities and even a majority of Americans oppose keeping marijuana illegal.”

to read the full story on Alternet, Click on the Puff, Puff Pass at the bottom. Peace and Good Buds