Response to "Wars and Drugs Don't Mix"

This is my response to a fellow classmate's post about the war on drugs.

You can read the original post by Michael Martinez here: Wars and Drugs Don't Mix

My response: "While I feel like Michael makes some valid points, after reading this post I feel like I'm left with more questions than answers. Mostly, I needed more specifics on the drugs that we're talking about here. If we're speaking only about a soft drugs like marijuana then I absolutely agree in legalization efforts for this drug. Personally, I don't understand why it was ever made illegal. I tend to think it was all to do with early pharmaceuticals and trying to find a way to dominate an industry. That's not the point I'm trying to make, however. While marijuana is a mostly harmless drug that has many beneficial health benefits, I don't believe in legalizing harder things like cocaine, heroin, DMT (or other hallucinogens), etc etc. These drugs are illegal for good reason- they're incredibly harmful! Legalizing these drugs will NOT make our crime rates go down or whatever. It would give people easier access to awful drugs that result in horrible behavior and severe deterioration of health. There's no way to argue for the safe or beneficial use of these drugs. They aren't something that should ever be used recreationally no matter how well-educated you are about them, there is no safe way to take them. Things like cocaine and heroin are extremely addictive- and heroin in particular is incredibly lethal. The thing about these drugs is that it's not the purity that drives further addiction, it's the drug itself. An addicted user will always want more and more. Say that we live in a parallel universe where the highly addictive and harmful drugs are legal. One day a user goes to their 100% legal distributor and the distributor says "No, I'm sorry but you've reached your legal amount for the month. I can't give you anymore." Where is this highly addicted person going to turn? Right back to the streets. When it comes to highly addictive drugs, there will always be people who want more and more. There is no legal precedence for considering this in a real life situation. The fact of the matter is that, with few exceptions, there's a good reason that most illegal drugs are illegal. Like I said, the only illegal drug that should be legalized is marijuana. Recent research has definitely shown some awesome benefits, so how could you not support medicinal marijuana?"

Cheers To You, Indiana, For Setting Our Political System Back A Hundred Years!

If you assumed that my title to this post was dripping with sarcasm, you would be 100% correct. The second thing you might be thinking is, "Okay, Lisa, but did it really set us back a hundred years?" Yes, but actually it set us back even further. Would you like to know why? It's a little thing in the Establishment Clause of our Constitution which basically outlines the Separation of Church and State. Interesting. It's like our founding fathers knew it would be a horrible idea to let religion dictate matters of the State. Indiana was like, "Oh that silly thing in our constitution? It's outdated. Our bigoted views on homosexuality though is so this century." If you're clueless as to what I'm talking about I'll give you a short overview. Recently, Indiana passed SA101- otherwise known as the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The funny thing is that we already have a Free Exercise Clause in our constitution that protects religious freedom. So what's the point of SA101?

Basically, Indiana wanted to find that law that would make homophobia and discrimination legal on the basis that such things infringe upon the individual's religious beliefs. At this point you have to be thinking, "Alright Lisa, stop pulling my leg. This is awful and it can't be true." Sadly, it is true. We officially live in a country where someone can openly discriminate against other people based upon their beliefs and can't be touched in court because of this law. I want to see this as a positive thing that can further protect the rights of the individual, but all I can focus on is how this law will be used to harm. The first case that this law was implemented on ruled that it was legal for a pizza parlor to refuse to cater a gay wedding because it went against their religious beliefs. Where does it end? Since we have to recognize the person's religion what happens when religion becomes an excuse for assault or murder? Where's the line? You can't say "It's okay to discriminate openly, but assault is too far." What if the defendant uses religious freedom as their excuse? Laws like these are harming our already shaky political system. If we continue to allow harmful laws like these to be implemented, we'll in turn harm more citizens. When does this ridiculousness end? We should be a nation of tolerance and not use our beliefs as a weapon against people we might not agree with. 

Policing The Police

This past weekend national news exploded with a not-so-unfamiliar story involving a white police officer shooting an unarmed black man. During a routine traffic stop in North Charleston, N.C. Walter L. Scott attempted to run away from officer Michael Slager, but after failing to tase Scott the officer pulled out his gun and shot at the fleeing man eight times. Slager ended up shooting Scott five times. Is this the story that officer Slager told his police department? No. He claimed that Scott struggled with him to take his taser and so he had to use deadly force. You might be wondering how I'm so certain that my facts are correct- well several days ago a bystander came forward with a video recording that he had taken of the incident. It clearly shows Scott running away from Slager and instead of giving chase, he pulls out his taser and then his gun.

This week I came across an awesome Washington Post editorial titled, "What if every police encounter were recorded?" by the Editorial Board. This editorial uses the Walter Scott murder as an example of why we need body cameras on all police officers. All too often police brutality is going unchecked and we're leaving the job up to bystanders to provide evidence in critical cases. The Editorial Board goes on to comment on how body cams would keep police in check and hold them to a better standard. Another example that I can recall happened a few months ago in Austin when two officers had forgotten they had left their dash cam on and they were making rape jokes about a woman walking in front of them. I was horrified. Luckily, they were dumb enough to leave their camera on and were promptly suspended. My point is- these are the people who are supposed to be protecting us and they're honestly becoming more terrifying than actual criminals because they're more likely to get away with it. I agreed with so many of the things that were pointed out in this editorial and I absolutely agree that we need to keep our police in check. The abuse and mistreatment of minorities by the police is disgraceful and we cannot allow for innocent people to be murdered by the police who have sworn to protect us. The good news for Walter L. Scott's family is that thanks to the video turned in by a bystander, Michael Slager was fired from his police department and sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder. Sometimes justice comes through, but we can't leave it up to chance or luck. Let's make body cameras for police a new policy.