Pondering the effects of ending the preposterous War on Hemp
Puzzling a bit over an incongruity in the financial fracas going on in Congress in recent times, things still do not fit together. As in jigsaw puzzles, that indicates that there are pieces that are missing.
Well, the congressional fracas has lots of incongruities quite displayed in plain sight via the news media. Absolutely enormous incongruities in some cases, yet the American public mostly responds as if it were a movie they were watching, equally unable to affect the outcome of the movie on the screen playing away.
But this one seems to not be involved. And I wonder why. Billions of dollars and millions of American lives are involved, in this unhappy scenario.
The subject article linked with the title above, http://www.laprogressive.com/law-and-the-justice-system/black-men-prison-system/ actually points out something deeper than just the number of colored folks in prison being more than were slaves before the Civil War. It point out that the jump in imprisonings was due to the "preposterous War on Drugs" starting in the 1970's, which has led to the billion dollar prison industry, and if the "war on Drugs" were to be ended and the prisoners freed, it would cost a million jobs in the prison system.
The article didn't mention the number of "law enforcement" jobs that would be eliminated too, as a result, but no doubt lots of them.
And these are times when we do not need more unemployed folks out on the streets. And those are all pretty tough types too.
The situation resembles the formal wars ongoing too, insofar as their cost and effects. Major items, those.
Well, I dimly suspect my Asperger's naive picture of humanity is the source of my problem with all this. But I don't see it yet.
Simplifying the problem is necessary to be able to comprehend it enough to resolve a possible solution for it. Simplifying complexity such that it does not invalidate results, is a bit of an art; and can be a trial & error process until something works.
So a simplification here jumps to the scenario where people say that we cannot afford paying for the War on Drugs - or at least the War on Hemp - anymore, and declare that the agricultural product, that was a mainstay of American agriculture since before the formation of the nation and up until circa 1970, was no longer called any more illegal than it was thruout most of American history and indeed civilized history; it has always been alongside civilized man. Except the recent past few decades, not noted for their rationality or humanitarianism, either. What them?
From the referenced article, it points out that the billion dollar prison industry would take a big hit, including losing a million jobs. And there would be loosed on the streets not only those folks, but far more numbers of folks who had been imprisoned due to involvement with marijuana, which is somehow involved with hemp.
My young adult years were in the 1950's and hemp was mainly used for rope due to its extraordinary strength to weight ratio; but I never heard of anybody considering it a drug. Hemp was an important agricultural crop of one of my ancestors; and round bales of hemp were used as rolling fortifications in infantry battles during the Civil War. But all this has been talked about and not heard by stubbornly deaf ears. Something does not make sense to me.
Anyway, the fantasy scenario where America decides it can no longer afford a preposterous "War On Hemp" and thus frees the millions of associated prisoners, along with a million of those who were guarding them in prison, and countless law-enforcement folks who spent their time chasing down marijuana smokers or industrial hemp growers. And no doubt the financiers of those prisons were investors who would have to take a cut in their income, as a result.
We already have deep unemployment; don't need more. Plus, those who have been humiliated and lives ruined by imprisonment are not likely to be offered jobs they can do in peace, either; nor their imprisoners, either.
America would need to move all these folks directly to rehab situations and jobs, even make-work jobs if necessary until they all can get back into a peaceful productive mindset, so they can smoothly enter the general American workforce productively.
But politics in America is heavily influenced by folks who declare that nothing gets done in America except by private industry. Private industry that has but one motive: to make maximum profit for least effort. An enormous collective game that has no responsibility to America as a whole. Where would private industry find the reason and means to take on the job of rehab of all those former hemp-related abused-and-abusive relationships of the prison enforcement system?
Maybe we could consider it the same as war reparations. Still, it becomes a government paid-for thing; but as it is now, government pays for the prison system and law enforcement personnel devoted to hemp-blamed goofy stuff, so why not use the same funds to ease those folks into productive, pleasant lives, prisoners and imprisoners alike? At least that way, there is an end in sight to the expense, unlike the scenario today.
Well, the congressional fracas has lots of incongruities quite displayed in plain sight via the news media. Absolutely enormous incongruities in some cases, yet the American public mostly responds as if it were a movie they were watching, equally unable to affect the outcome of the movie on the screen playing away.
But this one seems to not be involved. And I wonder why. Billions of dollars and millions of American lives are involved, in this unhappy scenario.
The subject article linked with the title above, http://www.laprogressive.com/law-and-the-justice-system/black-men-prison-system/ actually points out something deeper than just the number of colored folks in prison being more than were slaves before the Civil War. It point out that the jump in imprisonings was due to the "preposterous War on Drugs" starting in the 1970's, which has led to the billion dollar prison industry, and if the "war on Drugs" were to be ended and the prisoners freed, it would cost a million jobs in the prison system.
The article didn't mention the number of "law enforcement" jobs that would be eliminated too, as a result, but no doubt lots of them.
And these are times when we do not need more unemployed folks out on the streets. And those are all pretty tough types too.
The situation resembles the formal wars ongoing too, insofar as their cost and effects. Major items, those.
Well, I dimly suspect my Asperger's naive picture of humanity is the source of my problem with all this. But I don't see it yet.
Simplifying the problem is necessary to be able to comprehend it enough to resolve a possible solution for it. Simplifying complexity such that it does not invalidate results, is a bit of an art; and can be a trial & error process until something works.
So a simplification here jumps to the scenario where people say that we cannot afford paying for the War on Drugs - or at least the War on Hemp - anymore, and declare that the agricultural product, that was a mainstay of American agriculture since before the formation of the nation and up until circa 1970, was no longer called any more illegal than it was thruout most of American history and indeed civilized history; it has always been alongside civilized man. Except the recent past few decades, not noted for their rationality or humanitarianism, either. What them?
From the referenced article, it points out that the billion dollar prison industry would take a big hit, including losing a million jobs. And there would be loosed on the streets not only those folks, but far more numbers of folks who had been imprisoned due to involvement with marijuana, which is somehow involved with hemp.
My young adult years were in the 1950's and hemp was mainly used for rope due to its extraordinary strength to weight ratio; but I never heard of anybody considering it a drug. Hemp was an important agricultural crop of one of my ancestors; and round bales of hemp were used as rolling fortifications in infantry battles during the Civil War. But all this has been talked about and not heard by stubbornly deaf ears. Something does not make sense to me.
Anyway, the fantasy scenario where America decides it can no longer afford a preposterous "War On Hemp" and thus frees the millions of associated prisoners, along with a million of those who were guarding them in prison, and countless law-enforcement folks who spent their time chasing down marijuana smokers or industrial hemp growers. And no doubt the financiers of those prisons were investors who would have to take a cut in their income, as a result.
We already have deep unemployment; don't need more. Plus, those who have been humiliated and lives ruined by imprisonment are not likely to be offered jobs they can do in peace, either; nor their imprisoners, either.
America would need to move all these folks directly to rehab situations and jobs, even make-work jobs if necessary until they all can get back into a peaceful productive mindset, so they can smoothly enter the general American workforce productively.
But politics in America is heavily influenced by folks who declare that nothing gets done in America except by private industry. Private industry that has but one motive: to make maximum profit for least effort. An enormous collective game that has no responsibility to America as a whole. Where would private industry find the reason and means to take on the job of rehab of all those former hemp-related abused-and-abusive relationships of the prison enforcement system?
Maybe we could consider it the same as war reparations. Still, it becomes a government paid-for thing; but as it is now, government pays for the prison system and law enforcement personnel devoted to hemp-blamed goofy stuff, so why not use the same funds to ease those folks into productive, pleasant lives, prisoners and imprisoners alike? At least that way, there is an end in sight to the expense, unlike the scenario today.
Labels: employment, hep, prison system, rehab, war on drugs
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