Sexual Assault and Institutional Barriers

Steubenville, Wesleyan, North Carolina University, and Notre Dame are institutions that approached sexual assault cases incorrectly or didn't approach them at all even though they were well-aware of the sexual assaults on their campuses that have taken place. Across America, there is outrage towards the self-interest these schools have leaned on in order to avoid the publicity and confrontation of sexual assault cases. Admirable schools take the moral high-ground and report the cases, investigate, then utilize consequences against the perpetrators to reinforce safety on their campuses. However, there are many institutions, such as Notre Dame, that act as institutional barriers themselves, preventing the invesitgation and publicity of rape.

American Civil Liberties Union Agrees to Dismiss Case Challenging Kansas Abortion Law

A Kansas law passed in 2011 restricts private health insurance coverage for abortions. Abortions aren't covered under general plans unless the woman's life is in danger, requiring women to buy supplemental policies known as riders that cover abortion. "We are disappointed that the court's decision will stand, despite the fact that the American public believes that politicians have no place interfering with a woman's personal and private medical decisions," ACLU attorney Brigitte Amri said. The clear anti-abortion law was among several major anti-abortion initiatives approved by Kansas legislators and signed into law by Republican Governor Sam Brownback.

Abortion is a basic medical need around the world. Women shouldn't be forced to pay out-of-pocket or pay for supplemental policies in order to get abortions. Private insurers should cover abortion in general plans due to the categorization of abortion as a medical treatment. Women's lives shouldn't have to be in danger for abortions to be covered by health insurance providers. Abortions are significant to women and families, adding the burden of having to afford expensive abortion procedures (The cost for an abortion at a clinic ranges from $450 to $1,675, and hospital abortions can cost upwards of $10,000) only makes matters worse for women and their families. 

"Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution" Blog Post Five

Before Doug Fine sent his final manuscript to his editor on November 15, 2011, DrugSense's Drug War Clock read $35,695,718,424 spent for the year (state and federal). The economic effect alone cannabis has on the U.S. economy is so significant that anything less than legalization is a let-down to the American people. After legalization, Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Miron predicts the tax benefit at $46.7 billion annually, with $41.3 billion additionally let loose into the economy in saved enforcement and incarceration costs. That's nearly a $100,000,000 dollar swing each year. Theoretically, cannabis and the "new green economic revolution" can help push the U.S. federal deficit out of the red and into the black in a respectable number of years, unless of course the U.S. federal government continues to ignore facts and deny cannabis research.

In January 2012, U.S. Attorney Haag's office directly threatened the Mendocino County government with lawsuits and officials with racketeering charges if local legislators didn't kill the Zip-Tie program immediately. This is just another example of the feds threatening another reliable revenue stream that reached an annual 2011 total revenue of over $600,000. Supervisor Hamburg told Willits News, "I am way too knowledgeable about the budgetary situation of our county to think we can carry a lawsuit against the federal government." On January 24, the County Board of Supervisors voted four to one to eliminate the permitting part of the 9.31 program; the part of the program that helped build the local county economy the most was put to death by our federal government. As the Drug War continues, it is fair to predict the road to cannabis legalization will be a bumpy ride as it has been since Reagan's administration.

"Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution" Blog Post Four

Hemp serves many purposes beyond its psychoactive qualities. The 181 current signatories of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that have banned production and supply of cannabis are denying humans a vital natural resource that is used around the world and has been used for 10,000 years. The Columbia History of the World says the earliest known fabric was hemp cloth from China, composed 10,000 years ago. Hemp serves as a useful, strong fiber that cultures from Mongolia to Peru have used as food, shelter, clothing, medicine, etc. since the beginning of the Common Era. The oldest surviving paper is cannabis-derived; It's from second century BCE. There is even a famous Chinese medical manual which includes treatments made from cannabis, published a few centuries after the oldest surviving paper. A vast resource such as hemp, capable of growing pretty much anywhere on Earth (except for Antarctica), is deserving of an international-legalized status so that it can be traded and utilized around the world. Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence was drafted on Schedule I, felonious paper, that's tree-free paper for those of you (environmentalists) who wish to save the rain forests.

"Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution" Blog Post Three

If you don't want your tax dollars to go to waste, don't support the Drug War. Doug Fine writes, "American taxpayers shell out five hundred dollars per second to fight the Drug War." Barack Obama said in 2004, "The War on Drugs has been an utter failure." The most recent available statistics show cannabis arrests are at an historic high (never mind the pun). According to the FBI, 853,838 marijuana arrests in 2010 accounted for more than half of the total drug arrests nationwide. And let's not forget law enforcement profiling...New York City and Chicago recently changed their marijuana possession laws so that minorities aren't persecuted for, well, being themselves. These steps taken by local jurisdictions are signs of hope in ending the national Drug War.

The federal government, by "fighting the Drug War," is helping to keep black market prices high, prisons filled, and cartels' pockets full and vastly expanding. I suggest we change our drug policies in order to benefit from billions in taxable legal revenue. California alone spends nine billion dollars a year locking people up. This number would be drastically affected if cannabis wasn't a Schedule I drug. Doug Fine explains why government is resisting drug policy changes, "Follow the money. Federal asset forfeiture alone was worth more than a billion dollars in 2009, according to the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, and the state of California took in $28,789,945 in seized property in 2009, according to a state attorney general's report."