Dude, they ain't gonna legalize pot because of all the for profit prisons....

[WCGreen]

They have to keep those prisons filled to placate those people who run the prisons because they give a whole lot of money flowing through the state house back hallways...

[Panasonic]

1. So instead of filling it with potheads

Fill it with real criminals - i.e., fraudsters and thieves from the banking industry - it'll fill up rapidly and pay off very well.

[WCGreen]

4. Well, if the bankers haven't been sent to jail by now they ain't never gonna get to perp walk....

Seriously, I don't think there is enough real crime to fill up the jails.

I do think they could send the DUI people to these prisons for their two weeks or so.

I would rather see drunk drivers put in the slammer than pot smokers...

[datasuspect]

2. pot arrests and DUIs are many PDs bread and butter

you can't take that revenue stream away from law enforcement. no way.

[Care Acutely]

19. Legalizing wouldn't change any of that a bit.

You can't have an open container in a car. Pretty sure it would go the same way with pot.

[datasuspect]

20. the PIC needs bodies

bodies = $

plus with civil asset forfeiture, your podunk PD can get drones, ballistic armor, military uniforms, and armored humvees.

[loyalsister]

3. Not just that

The alcohol lobby won't let it happen.

[ejpoeta]

5. i couldn't help it... as i read that i heard that kid from dazed and confused...

the one with the dope that was talking about how george washington smoked pot. of course you wouldn't know what i am talking about unless you have seen that movie....

?w=300&h=160

[WCGreen]

7. Is that the movie with Dave Chappell and they smoke the pot and fly around....

I was a major toker back in the 70's and into the early 80's when I quit all mind altering stuff because my lungs couldn't take it...

I did make some brownies before I went to a concert in the early 90's and wasn't prepared for the increase in potency.

I couldn't get out of my seat. I was afraid I was going to tip over and roll all the way down to the field...

[Panasonic]

12. Hi

No, that movie was called "Half Baked".

[ejpoeta]

22. nope. the 90s. I had it. It had some big names...

Ben Afleck, Matthew McConaughey(spelling).....

[meow2u3]

6. They're corporate concentration camps. Stop calling them for-profit prisons.

You have to frame it correctly.

[WCGreen]

8. Good one...

[DonRedwood]

9. meee-ouch

That's a harsh way of putting it...and I haven't heard a better name for it.

[meow2u3]

13. I coined the term myself--and here's why

That's how corporations run the prisons--like concentration camps.

[Care Acutely]

21. I haven't seen the ovens that burn infants and children alive in our prison system.

As a Jew-by-ancestry who's father cleaned concentration camps at the end of WWII, I take comparisons such as this rather personal.

I too am disgusted by our prison system, but let's not trivialize the Holocaust by attempting this equivalence.

[meow2u3]

24. Not all concentration camps are extermination camps

But they're all houses of degradation.

Remember the Japanese-Americans during WWII who were rounded up and put in concentration camps? They weren't extermination camps.

[Egalitarian Thug]

28. Not all the Nazi camps were extermination camps. And millions of non-Jews were killed as well.

We had concentration camps here in the U.S.

[rDigital]

11. +1 you hit the nail right on the head. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

27. Very good point. I will refer to them as such from now on. n/t

[KurtNYC]

10. Mandatory sentences are getting revoked, Rockefeller drug laws are gone.

Prison profit is one factor but I think the bigger one is big pharma.

Weed is basically free. Drop some seeds and wait -- 10 weeks later: pain killer, sleep aid, anti-depressant, appetite stimulant.

[AndyTiedye]

17. I Think You are Right about Big Pharm

The whole medical pot thing is a huge threat to their monopoly on medicine.

[msongs]

14. obama knows where the bread is buttered as do governors nt

[NNN0LHI]

15. Plus Honda needs the $3 dollars a day prison labor

[spanone]

16. and the liquor lobby certainly doesn't want that to happen, along with big pharma

that's why this benign little weed is illegal all these years later

plus, that war on drugs would have to look for real criminals.....

sigh.

[Uncle Joe]

18. I believe the tide is turning and the people are taking their power back, despite the immoral,

bordering on evil for profit prison industry.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1133605

Prosecutor Defeated by Glaring Stupidity of Pot Laws

A Kansas defense attorney reports:

I had a jury trial this morning on level 3 possession with intent MJ, level 4 possession drug paraphernalia and level 10 no drug tax stamp. During voir dire, my almost all white, middle-class, middle-aged jury went into full rebellion against the prosecutor stating that they wouldn't convict even if the client's guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt -- almost all of them! They felt marijuana should be legalized, what he does with it is his own business and that the jails are already full of people for this silly charge. Then, when the potential jurors found out that the State wanted him to pay taxes on illegal drugs, they went nuts. One woman from the back said how stupid this was and why are we even here wasting our time. A "suit" from the front said this was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. The prosecutor ended up dismissing the case. Judge gave me a dismissal with prejudice. I'm still laughing my ass off over this one. I have NEVER seen a full on mutiny by an entire jury pool before. Easiest win ever!

The genie is out of the bottle in regards to the awareness/awakening of the over half century of brainwashing of the American People in regards to cannabis, thanks in large part to the Internet.

Thanks for the thread, WCGreen.

[TheKentuckian]

23. Prison labor needs to be mandated to pay prevailing wages and the money cannot be recouped

for their stay.

That or end prison labor outright, we must not maintain the perverse incentive to lock people away for profit and cheap labor.

[bhikkhu]

25. There's a legalization measure on the ballot in Oregon

...and I can say that nobody here really gives a crap about the prisons, whether its the costs of running them or the money somebody might make off of them.

Most everyone I've talked to has some opinion or other about marijuana itself - whether its dangerous and should be kept illegal, or whether its harmless.

[Peepsite]

26. Legalize, and have real criminals grow pot in the prison yard.

Win-win situation for all.

[Bozita]

29. I was behind a cop car at a red light in my hometown. The back bumper ...

... had a message that said that the vehicle was purchased with funds from the drug forfeiture laws.

Local cops don't like driving old vehicles.

[JRLeft]

30. Too much money in locking people up.

[Fly by night]

31. ... & the pharmaceutical industry & the alcohol industry & the forced treatment industry AND ...

... the trial lawyers industry.

Pot arrests keep a whole lot of corruption and corporate overlordism well greased and intact.