In 2007, there were 168,900 deaths in Florida. 2,328 of these deaths were caused by pain killers (Vicodine, Oxycontin, etc.), 743 deaths were due to benzodiazepines (Xanax, Valium, etc.) and alcohol was judged to have been the killer 466 times (it was in the bodies of 4,179 people that died).

The deaths from all illegal drugs (cocaine, heroine, ecstasy, etc.) came in at 989. The real kicker here, numbers of deaths from marijuana: 0. Yup, none, not a single person in the state of Florida died from the use of marijuana in 2007.

And yet marijuana is not only illegal in the United States, but people get arrested and get caught up in the system over a joint. I’m not saying that the USA should legalize marijuana, but at least decriminalize it, this was a big issue for former Senator Mike Gravel who was thrown out of the democratic presidential debates. And of course the rest of the democrats completely ignored the serious issue of a rising prison population due to bullshit.

In the Netherlands, soft drug use is viewed as a health issue, not a criminal issue. Nobody gets arrested for smoking a joint. If a police officer sees someone smoking a joint in a public place where they obviously should not be smoking (ie. not a designated coffee shop or desolate area in the park), that person will get chewed out and told to put it out, they will not go to jail over crap.

Of course, decriminalizing marijuana would eat into the profits of drugs companies, whose drugs kill more people than all street drugs combined.

photo credit: personal collection

Post from: Sirened

Obama currently sits at 1,882 delegates, just 143 delegates short of the 2,025 needed to win. Of course, the Clinton campaign argues that he needs 2,209 delegates to win because of Florida and Michigan.

The Clinton campaign keeps stressing that even though Florida voters knew their votes wouldn’t count, the state democratic party had a record turnout. That’s an incredible overstatement and I haven’t heard or read the mainstream media calling them out on it-and they damn well should!

The reason turnout was so high in Florida was because of a statewide property tax amendment to cut homeowners taxes (at the expense of schools, fire departments, county jobs, etc.) This was a big issue in Florida and Gov. Charlie Crist was a big advocate of the tax cut, even appearing on billboards stating vote yes on the tax cut.

The amendment needed 60% to pass and it got it. Since then, the state universities have been scrambling to cut their budgets while at the same time raising tuition for students; fire stations have closed and state employees have been laid off. This was a tough issue and opponents of the tax cut (like myself) were against it because of the negative impact to the community.

Along with the property tax amendment there was something else on the ballot for Florida voters to decide on January 29th-the democratic and republican primaries. Since Florida is a closed primary, independent ballots only had the property tax amendment on them.

Sure, some people showed up mostly to vote for the candidates, but to say the record democratic turnout in Florida was because of them is a complete lie-but it’s the Clinton’s so could we possibly expect more?

photo credit: personal collection

Post from: Sirened

Hey, remember that fiasco that happened back in 2000, when we elected Al Gore as president but got George “pretend cowboy” Bush instead. Well, now you can relive that moment on May 25th with the HBO film Recount starring Kevin Spacey, Dennis Leary, Laura Dern and Tom Wilkinson. What a great cast! I can’t wait to see how they’ve portrayed my home state at the moment we fucked up the world.

I don’t just blame other Floridians either as I had a stake in the mistake too. In 2000, as a protest vote I decided to vote for Ralph Nader (obviously having no clue it would be so close), then I watched the election coverage and rooted for Al Gore. My best friend still likes to remind me how I helped fuck everything up. Thanks Brian!

Post from: Sirened