Arkansas Blog

While on the subject of health I just read the current Times article "Hit the little guy -- Mild but Feared marijuana...
Undoubtedely and non-argumentively America's costless/ longest/useless war! The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly.

Here's a few more tidbits....

It's not widely publicized by the U.S. Agriculture Department but marijuana is america's largest cash crop--topping the value of corn and wheat combined.

Argument Against Marijuana Prohibitions
(From Lowdown)

If the government trusts society to use alcohol responsibly, it is idiotic to assume citizens are somehow incapable of responsible use of cannabis.

Few Facts......
.It diverts hundreds of thousands of police agents...
.The $ outlay from taxpayers tops $10 billion a year....
.Police agents at all levels trample our Bill of Rights in over-eagerness to nab pot users...
.People who are merely suspected of marijuana violation (no filed charges) have their cars, money, computers etc., confiscated....
.People convicted of possessing 1 oz can face 1 yer in jail....
.41,000 Americans are in state/fed prisons on minor marijana charges (not counting city/county jails.....
.Police arrests someone every 36 seconds on marijuana charges...
.872,720 arrests were made in 2007 (more than all violent crimes combined and 7 million arrested since 1995....

It's time that politicians catch up to the public.

U.S. eases stance on marijuana
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. directed federal prosecutors to back away from pursuing cases against medical marijuana patients, signaling a broad policy shift that drug reform advocates interpret as the first step toward legalization. (Eric Risberg - AP)
Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
By Fred Gardner, O'Shaughnessy's
Posted on August 28, 2009, Printed on August 29, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/142271/

The GOPer bill is hundreds of days late... does a horrible job on every measure unless costing more and providing care for
less people gets your jollies all stirred up.

It's another insult from the insult and injury party.

That said, the Dem bill which will likely pass should fail too. It's a disaster.. Though they will never claim to like it.. it's a Blue Dog Conservadem insurance boondoggle bill. If the House Progressive caucus votes for this sham, we are all screwed.

Kill all the bills. Start over.

Pretty much right on, ES. At 1900 pages, with another 111 new agencies, there is no way this boondgoggle can work. It's Frankenstein legislation that will still elave at least 26 million out of the health market. Sop much for its efficacy.

The GOP would have been much better off concentrating on bringing up the disaster of this bill, rather than throwing in some weak and disingenuous wad of phlegm.

It has so many pages because of all the crap the Republicans and blue dogs wanted to put in. All that should be cut out and make it much smaller.

But, if universality can be achieved, so EVERYONE is in on it, then something will be done because everyone will have a stake in it. Everyone will gang up on the health insurance companies, which will lessen their power.

There ya go rablib, grab that lance and go after after your dragons. Consequences don't matter asyou FEEL something good will happen. All those pages, with 111 new agencies, new beaurocracies to torment the citizenry. Soon, seeing a doctor will be just like the IRS or DMV.

Yup, that would be SUCH a victory. Tilting at your windmills, just to stick it to the insurance companies. Meanwhile, nothing has changed, the reform will come to naught, and all the real problems will continue to be ignored. Better to do nothing, than to do something monumentally disasterous.