Medicinal use: Pot educator wages war on war on drugs
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photo by Meg Runion
Mary Lynn Mathre is a former nurse who wants patients to have access to a controversial medicine: pot.
From an early age, the Minnesota native was interested in practicing medicine. She enrolled in the Navy to finish her undergraduate degree in nursing and after being discharged, she pursued a graduate degree.
In the 1980s, as a medical experiment, the federal government began supplying a small number of people with medical cannabis for various problems, says Mathre. She witnessed the benefits to these patients and has been outraged ever since by Uncle Sam’s refusal to acknowledge marijuana as a legitimate form of medicine.
While in grad school, Mathre discovered a connection between cannabis and the body's endocannabinoid system, which is responsible for regulating bodily functions. She believes using cannabis as medicine can improve the system’s functioning.
“It literally governs everything you do,” Mathre says. “It helps you eat, sleep, relax, protect, and forget. On the molecular level, it does everything for us, it keeps us in balance.”
The Howardsville resident is the founder and president of Patients Out of Time, an “educational charity” aimed toward helping people in need of medical cannabis. Their main objective is to educate healthcare and political figures through their biennial conference series that brings together healthcare professionals to discuss breakthroughs in medicinal cannabis research. In addition to their conferences, the group promotes books and movies about how the cannabis plant is a safe and effective treatment for chronic pain, glaucoma, seizures, multiple sclerosis, and other illnesses and symptoms. They also rely on the endorsement of various medical groups across the country and abroad.
Virginia has one of the earliest— and most ineffectual— medical marijuana laws that dates back to the 1970s and applies to patients suffering from cancer or glaucoma, but Mathre says the legislation is essentially a "dead-law" due to the discontinuation of access to a legal medicinal cannabis farm formerly run (and eventually shut down) by the federal government in Mississippi.
Mathre, 60, is confident from her research that cannabis as medicine is more beneficial than harmful to all patients who need it. She's contributed to multiple books promoting the legalization of medicinal cannabis, as well as a few independently produced, award-winning short films.
“She’s very passionate about what she’s doing, very smart very intelligent, and compassionate for people,” says Marion Kyner, a close friend and former colleague of Mathre on the addictions consultation team at UVA Medical Center. “She really wants to target people who make a difference.”
Her next project is promoting the use of cannabis to help U.S. Army veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and she believes those stalling the legalization of medicinal cannabis are directly harming those vets.
“The war on drugs is more of a war on people, it always has been,” she says.
103 comments
Virginia will legalize pot about 50 years after the rest of the country does so.
Start with well regulated medicinal use and cut out welfare for anyone that uses it recreationally.If they can afford pot they can afford food.
What an ignorant statement Bill.
Hey! Here's and idea! Why not let the ABC handle -
Oh. Never mind.
Chris in WI .. not that ignorant... Marijuana has obvious medicinal uses the same as may other things do.. even liquor. I believe that it should absolutely be used medicisnly and /i don't even have a problem with responsible recreational use, but the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of pot smokers who are wrthless in life and they cannot handle it the same as some can't handle liquor. So it does need to be regualted as we have quite enough bums in this country.
and since we have enough bums in the country then it is time to cut out benefits to those who use drugs. To not is simply fostering a generation of peolpe who spend their entire lives hanging out, getting high and eating government supplied food while others toil away to provide it. If you don't think that exists just go into any ghetto in any urban city in america.
If we did as I suggested you might just get enough votes to get it decriminalized without waiting 50 years.
I tend to agree with the drift of Bill's argument. There is a lot of welfare abuse.Whole generations of families dependent on it
Not just drugs per se. You have people working and getting paid substantial cash under the table, paying no taxes, and getting food stamps, using their money for drugs, booze,cigarettes and fun in general.
Perhaps public works projects for those capable of working, pay them a salary which they can live on as they choose, no handouts. If they blow their money on beer or whatever instead of groceries, their tough luck. Live with bad decisions. Root hog or die would do some of them good.
Two points:
1) The world contains some freeloaders, true. But if you figure out the real monetary "cost" in government taxation/spending it doesn't really register much. Most state assistance actually does go to people normally defined as "worthy" - there are the "working poor" (almost never recognized by those who complain about welfare), the elderly, children, vets, etc. By the time you eliminate the "legitimates" there simply aren't that many "freeloaders" left. A lot of people have the impression that this is a huge thing, but it's not. Taking major issue with it is much more about MORALity than REALity.
2) Pot smoking has about zero to do with the above, and thus about zero to do with this article. Bill is on a moral point rather than a practical one.
Lost my brother to the culture that pot introduced him to. It destroyed my family. People are fighting for the "right" and the "freedom" to smoke pot. It's a lie that destroys, that's all.
It's all about me. Me me me me me me!
Lets hear more about this dope smoking culture that kills people. What's all that about?
I lost a family member to the military culture. Let's ban that instead.
I get massively irritated when I hear the zipperheads spew the "weed is dangerous" line. No one has ever died from a THC overdose. They might have gotten scared and then gotten the munchies, but THC isn't toxic.
What's dangerous is allowing large industrial and financial interests to dictate how we engage in agriculture. Illegal hemp represents the triumph of Capital over Agriculture and anyone that supports keeping hemp illegal is carrying water for the interests that are destroying America, whether they know it or not.
And I guess no one needs to bring up the corporate welfare suckers and how their well documented alcohol and prescription drug problems are OK even those are subsidized by taxpayers as well?
Every day I'm curious if the 'Bill Marshall' here is the same Bill Marshall who practices law downtown. Can you elaborate, Bill?
Some people can't handle the reefer nowadays that joint is all chronic and such. All things in moderation. Anything can destroy you if you let it. I had some OG Kush awhile back that was like super heady I had to put it down cause I was consuming munchies at a unsustainable rate. No food for the wifey and babies cause daddy was so high I even touch the sky above the falling rain. Yo
Bill, your idea is fine about testing government-assisted people for drugs.... the only problem is that drug tests are only designed to detect pot, as any other drug (especially alcohol) is easy to hide, or goes out of your system within 3 days. you could smoke a month ago, and still not pass a drug test. So, how do you plan on fixing that problem?
I have arthritis. REALLY BAD arthritis. They (Dr.'s) want to give me Vicodin, Ibuprofen, Soma, STERIODS, Percocet, .... really? really I should take this crap, poison, herion based, stomach bleeding CRAP? Go ahead, take my pot. Go ahead,... just try.
Bill- you're debating a point that has nothing to do with this article. It's about medicinal use, prescribed for a substantiated reason. You're using that as a springboard to vent your frustration/position on the welfare system. These are not related.
Susan- I'm afraid you're a bit outta your mind. Read up on drug screening and you'll quickly find that most screens (as in vast majority) are looking for not only THC metabolites (can't detect it directly) and do in fact, as a matter of routine, detect other illicit substances. Your timeline on detection is equally erroneous.
I'm all for total legalization for over 18 year olds, but hear me out: I've passed out many, many times from smoking weed. Straight up passed out, and when I came to I didn't know who, what or where I was for a few seconds. If I were to have hit my head on say, an iron wood stove in the wrong angle, , or fallen on a sharp object such as say, a pair of hedge clippers, I'd be straight up DEAD. And that doesn't even take into account car accidents and getting beaten to death for being a stupid pothead. Yeah, it can happen.
Dear Mr./Mrs. Weed Overdoses Can Indeed Cause Death, It seems you have bad genes. In all my years of travel around this world in the company of heavy, not so heavy, and occasional users your is the only reaction of that sort I've heard of to date. Your genes obviously aren't bad enough that nature has purged you from it's rolls yet, but it is your duty to help strengthen the species by not reproducing. That should put an end to the so called dope passing out problem, since you seem to be the only one with that genetic malfunction.
Surviving late stage stomach cancer for four years now. Cannabis is medicine . It's the only medication that has made me feel both physically and mentally better. I really wish people who know very little about cannabis would just do some research before spewing rhetoric. The continual demonization of cannabis is one of the causes of prescription drug addition IMO.
Cannabis is medicine. All should be entitled to it.
It should be freely growing in everyone's back yard. As nature intended.
Even people on welfare or unemployment deserve medicine. Everyone deserves good health, and thats exactly what cannabis offers.
peace and pot
to: wholiesmoke's
go spread your propaganda elsewhere.
Its already been proven. Its impossible to overdose or die from cannabis.
It is a magical healing plant that promotes peace. You are severely biased.
peace and pot
Bill Marshall - It has been proven that drug testing those who use social service programs is a huge expense and the percent of those on those programs who do indeed use illegal drugs is less than the general population. Plus, it was proven that those who legislated such laws (in FL for example) it benefited their college's businesses of drug testing organizations. What a tangled web we weave?
Alcohol has killed more and is illegal - both in drunk driving, domestic fights and eventually alcohol abuse can kill you. Over use of anything could. This is about the medicinal benefits, which there are many.
No way would I like to see alcohol or other drugs available to anyone under age but I think this war on drugs has been a waste of time, money, resources and it is a war on people.
*oops alcohol is legal ...
Dear Mr. Mrs ARKing, What, are you stoned dude/dudette? Maybe you just can't read? If you took the time to read and then maybe think you would have known that I was responding to someone who claimed to have a terrible reaction to marijuana by suggesting that he/she alone has that problem. Get your head out of your bong hole before you respond to comments from other people.
To all personnel...Personally believe pot has it's values, and each individual should make his/her on decisions IF THEY ARE OF LEGAL AGE AND SOUND MIND. As to the comment about testing all welfare persons being a waste of money, lets talk about the waste of billions of dollars testing honest hard workers who pass the drug/alcohol tests for years and still get tested.. over and over and over. I am all for equality, and if I have to be tested to get my paycheck...
I guess you've never tried the Super Skunk 5
C-ville native and others...
1) I said it nees to be legalized but regulated.
2) That does not mean across the board bloated government drug testing programs like Florida (whos numbers were skewed because they claimed to only "catch" a few abusers when the reality was many people refused the test and gave up the benefits rather than get caught.. but thats another story)
3) my point is if they CATCH people on welfare using then drop them.. the same goes for alochol or even smoking.. if you can afford pot booze or cigarettes you can afford food. If you are spending your kids food stamp money of those items you are a neglectful parent. and deserve scrutiny.
4) Ask any serious musician how many great musicians they know who missed many opportuinties because they chose to get high instead of rehearse.
5) There are potheads just like there are alcoholics and not everyone gets "mellow"
6) If you want to go for legalization then don't be afraid to settle for the medicinal use to prove that society is ready for its responsible use. in other areas.
7) Those that are fighting for all or nothing will get nothing and THEY are the ones responsible of all the pain that these people Mary Lynn is fighting for have suffered because of thier refusal to compromise.
Its politics... learn to deal in the marketplace you have not the one you wish you had....
Bill, 75% of all serious musicians I ever knew smokes or smoked weed. I'm a serious musician that you may have heard of as is the name of the musician I posted.
Quit taking the side of the government and take the side of the people for once.
All the states that now have legal med. marijuana dispensaries and decriminalized pot will become the sources of the science that refutes the safety that we take for granted, ( almost.)
Too much bud.
Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of chronic pain patients smoking super-high THC bud, when, if their prescribers gave a damn, they'd facilitate consumption of mostly "low-grade" leaf.
States like Colorado are killing rational medical marijuana for the rest of us.
@Louis Armstrong, great to see you commenting here, btw. ;-)
Bill Marshall just loves to make up stories about the world to fit his own narrow-minded ideological / quasi-religious beliefs about how the world "should" be. His stories are sometimes loosely based in reality - but only very loosely. But he tells themselves and others these stories so that he can believe that is religeological beliefs are just plain "common sense."
WTH, no.. not religious at all but I am not so cheech and chonged out that I don't understand pragmatisim...
Do you think gays would have been able to get marriage bill passed any legislature 20 years ago?
If they wanted to give away laptop computers to welfare famililies and the history showed 20 hours a day porn use and not one google for how to write a resume I would want them to lose the priviledge too.
If you want pot legalized for recreational use then stop lobbying for that with the BS defense that it is harmless. It is not harmless, some people cannot handle it and become pretty much useless. Just because they don't turn into crack addicts and steal their grandmothers jewelery doesn't mean they are not late for their job, lose it and consequentially all kinds of other things like their wife and kids.
Lobby for medical use and once that is established and it is proven that people with medical marjuina function normally you will have what you need to decriminalize it and recreational use can be made legal. BUT even if that happens people on the government dole should not be given cash for food or rent so they can spend "their" money on pot.
Louis Armstrong, the reason people heard of you is because you used it responsbily, I would bet there are guys out there with just as much talent as you still living in their moms basement busting on how unfair life is that you got fame and they didn't. (as they try and mop up the bong water from the carpet. )
Bill, "religion" comes in all shapes and sizes. Yours is classical Liberalism - and I do mean in the CLASSICAL sense, not in the current, stupid, impoverished, meaningless sense handed down to us from the Reagan years. They should have just stuck with "permissive." I'd use another word but it summarizes it best - the notion that everything that happens in the world and to people in it is simply a matter of what each individual decides to do. Thus, things you don't like about the world and about some of the people in it could be simply solved by "personal responsibility." It's one of those very loosely based on reality things.
And there you go - making up weird things about "what ifs..." on gay marriage and welfare, laptops, and porn? WTH? It's got nothing to do with anything in the same way that pot doesn't have anything to do with welfare, and in the same way that the size of the welfare rolls has almost nothing to do with personal individual laziness or whatever.
I never lobbied for anything here with regards to pot legalization so I can only assume those comments were meant for someone else. All I said, way back up there in comments is that bringing welfare into this is irrelevant. It is based on completely false assumptions, both about use of social welfare programs and about any connection with pot smoking.
Bill, I did smoke Mary Warner responsibly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
wth... if you don't think there is a correlation between welfare costs to the taxpayers and pot you don't live in the real world. Pot consumption in poor neighborhoods is rampant and they are paying for it with cash. If they have cash for pot then they don't need ours,. Also pot makes you lazy when smoked too much. No different than drinking too much or taking too many valium. If they catch abusesrs cut em off. (they can use the money to dispense medical marijuana to veterans)
My point remains the same though. Pot will never be legalized n Virginia for recreational use until it os proven to not be a big mistake. So if people want pot legalized for recreational use then they need to lobby for medicial use first, regulated recreational use second and then unregulated recreational use third. If you go for the whole shebang at once it will never fly.
So the people that want to cry like babies for recreational use are simply being selfish and saying to people who need it for,pain "you can't have it unless I get it too" .
Learn to negotiate and in time it is achievable.
and your ignorance of welfare abuse defies logic...
Let's all just toke on the pipe of life.... ;)
Bill, you're still just making crap up. Pot has ZERO to do with keeping people on welfare. It also does not make people lazy. It is you who are not living in reality. I do not smoke pot. But I know plenty of people who do. Most of those are hard working type-A's and many of those white collar professionals.
But you also keep ignoring the point I made way way above - which is that, while the world contains the "welfare queens" and "kings" that you target, they are basically inconsequential in practical terms. You could get rid of all of them tomorrow and it isn't going to change very much at all. You could also get rid of all pot tomorrow and it would change even less.
Oh, right, so I meant to add...your ignorance of the real size and extent of welfare abuse defies empirical reality.
WTH, Do you really think that there are zero people sitting on a couch doing blunts when they should be out looking for a job? Do you really think that doing blunts doesn't make them "mellow" and not stressed about not looking for a job? Do you really think that if all welfare ended tomorrow that millions of people would just starve but keep smoking pot?
Welfare abuse is more than just wefare queens it is an entire mindset that is becoming pervasive thruout the United States that anyone who falls on hard times deserves foor shelter and healthcare regardless of thier own personal failings. Well there is niot enough resources to go around and it is my opinion that we are coddling too many and cheating to many who really deserve the help.
My argument makes sense. Once Obamacare kicks in and medicinal pot is made legal then all the cretins will have to do is get obamacare which will come with free pot and painkillers, free food stamps and then find a place to crash until there are simply too many to support. If you want to see it in action go to New York or San Francisco.
Welfare "abuse" is about the lack of personal responsibility and Society condoning it at the expense of the truly needy. Why are our Veterans waitng two years for prostetic legs while some fat cow dumps another child on the system that she "created" after smoking pot in her free house?
The welfare abuse is there it is real and it is at the expense of the truly needy.
I know plenty of folks who receive SNAP and/or disability and spend enormous amounts of money on marijuana. I do my best not to judge these people as it is not my place, I admit I am offended by it, and yet I have reaped indirect benefits from their decisions and their qualifications, justified or unjustified. These people are my friends. I have been living in poverty my entire adult life, I am thirty four years of age, and while I have received substantial help from my family I have never applied for SNAP. I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia over ten years ago, I do not know whether the diagnosis is accurate or not, I do not believe all diagnoses are correct. I have never applied for disability either, I have smoked marijuana consistently for fifteen years, the only times I have been institutionalized (five times) were when I did not have access to marijuana. I don't approve of people receiving food stamps and spending money on marijuana, I don't think all people on disability are truly disabled, but what I believe, what I approve of only counts as one man's judgement, and that is next to nothing.
For what it's worth I am attending a weekly addiction recovery group and I'm doing my best to recover from marijuana addiction and the most difficult part at this moment is getting through marijuana detox while this society and the entire world seems to be going to Hell, myself included.
"Enrolled" in the Navy? English as a second language?
To wholiessmoke: you said you can overdose and die from weed.. (totally false)
True fact: you can't die even if you tried your best to. It simply takes wayyy too much to the point where its impossible.
Cannabis heals!
sheethead, I already knew this, but it helps to be reminded, especially by folks who don't just talk the talk but walk the walk. So, thank you.
Bill,
Can't you read? I never denied that welfare abuse doesn't exist. In fact, I very clearly said - yes, those slackers that you disdain so deeply are out there. I granted that point from the word go. But what I went on to say is that, of those who fall on assistance at some point in time, your lazy-slacker-blunt smoking bum represents such a tiny fraction of that population that it is not among our pressing social issues. It simply is not a significant portion of social spending. To try to maintain otherwise can only come from either ignorance or dishonesty born of holding ideology ahead of reason. To go after it is to go after something that is only of moral but not practical significance. It will NOT make even a wrinkle in out monetary problems.
Your thing about this "mindset" - a pervasive culture of dependency - is one of the oldest myths going. It is a story that has been told over and over again by people who are angry and looking for a scapegoat for the world's problems. It is always there but also intensifies during periods of economic strain and instability.
Going on to your ACA drug-doling dystopian scenario of a society full of druggies stoned on government provided drugs is another piece of made-up crap. It just shows the how deeply your mind is clouded by political relideology rather than Reason.
WTH I can read.... I also understand your very shallow point that if you eliminated the "cost" of those "abusers" it is a small amount of the budget. Todays cost is not the issue, it is the legacy cost over time as all of these cretins make babies who end up on the welfare rolls and become a burden to society.
We spend over 200k to send a kid to school. If we provide that child with food stamps its entire life (1800 ayear x 70 years) thats another 126k, If we also provide Obamacare for life thats another 420 THOUSAND dollars (6k x 70 years) We arre over half a million bucks and we nave not even put a roof over the kids head yet. Meanwhile the deographics of the US are undeniable, the lower end of the sociioeconomic ladder are making babies while the Grad Students are having less. So if we don't arrest this problem soon we will be in a finacial hardship that we may never recover from. Drug use along with alcohol use aggravates this and pot regulation should be a part of the conversation when talking about legalizing it. The reason these people sit on the couch and do blunts instead of finding some work to do is the same reason a dog licks its privates...becausae it can and nobody expects otherwise. If you can afford pot you can afford food rent or your own phone. There are a lot of working folk who use their paycheck to buy food shelter and healthcare who gave up pot because they could not afford it. Why should thier tax money subsidize a lifestyle of getting high and making babaies that will turn out the same way?
I can hear people coming back with the argument that not all ghetto kids go on welfare, but the numbers do not lie. When you examine generational welfare less than 25% make it off the welfare rolls despite our best efforts. The only way to improve those numbers is to increase expectations and stop subsidizing irresponsible behavior. Just because you can afford the water bill when the faucet is dripping doesn't mean you can afford the bill when they are all dripping and the water heater bursts...
Sigh. Bill, the only thing that is shallow is your understanding poverty and public assistance. And it gets even more shallow if we go back to the article topic - which is your understanding of pot and its links to poverty and public assistance. All you do is hold a thinly veiled NeoDarwinian picture of the world around which you wrap crap that you make up, like your decontextualized mythical math exercise above, and especially this obviously false bit about people making it off of welfare. If, btw, you mean TANF the "T" is for "temporary" and that's how it goes. There are work requirements and a 5 year limit. Even before that, when it was still AFDC MOST recipients did not remain on it for long and MOST report not wanting to be on it at all. If you mean something like SNAP or Medicaid, perhaps you should start with the fact that huge numbers of recipients of this kind of aid actually DO WORK and don't want to have to take public assistance. You just have a habit of demonizing the weak and vulnerable. You're a misinformed bully Bill, and that's about it.
ARKing, this conversation (most conversations?) is far above your head. You frankly are an idiot and should stick to discussions among your own type (not that there aren't a few others of your fellows piping up here). Like I wrote last time, take you head out of your bonghole and read the comment above my first comment and then mine which directly addresses that poster. That's all the handholding I can do for you, but maybe it can act as an introduction to reading comprehension for you. I fear you are a hopeless case though...
WTH The numbers don't lie. Public assistance limits were circumvented so that instead of sending out checks they give out food stamps, rental assistance medicaid, prenatal post natal, etc so your there is nothing "temporary" about it.
I realize you lack the intellect to understand but I am trying to defend the weak and vunerable by trying to convince people to get the moochers off the dole which will free up money to help the TRULY needy.
Don't bother arguing with WTH, Bill. The government doesn't want people on welfare, it wants people on it. That includes the large percentage of drug abusers on it. Government operatives routinely post comments on this site. Completely transparently, I might add.
The government doesn't want people off of welfare. Typo.
Government operatives run this propaganda outlet. Please don't anyone tell me they didn't know this from day one.
Bill, I realize that you don't have the intellect to understand it, but you are absolutely not defending the weak and vulnerable because all you do is perpetuate public myths about those who receive public assistance. Your hateful, stereotyping tripe about a world full of moochers and cultures of dependency is completely inaccurate and makes up exactly the kind of attitude that gets in the way of actually assisting the vulnerable. And by the vulnerable, by the way, I don't mean some "them" out there - it is an any of US at any given moment if and when life takes a wrong turn.
Signed, your covert government operative trying desperately to keep drug abusing moochers on the dole. (In other words, Reert, if it appeared that you could string two sensible words together, I might actually address your babble).
I've reached that age where its more exciting to look at my savings and know I've put $130,000 in savings since 1995 instead of spending any money on pot and booze. Call me boring but my next goal is $200K. I don't see how I would have done it without pot or drink.
WTH I notice you do not dispute the numbers or explain a way that society can ever support this growing group of people. Your problem is that youi only are interested in relieving the pain instead of resolving the problem. People like you are willing to tax others because you are too weak to make choices about who is "deserving" of the fruits of anothers labor and who is not. So you do like the Democrats in Detroit did for the last 5 decades and keep spending into oblivion. If this trend continues it will all colapse and in the end many many more will suffer.
Public assistance abuse isn't a myth. It is however a point for debate. For instance there are plenty of people out there who believe that just being an "American" entitles you to food, shelter and healthcare. It does not and should not. You should only be guaranteed those things if you do not have the ability to get them on your own.
If we got rid of the freeloaders we would have plenty of money to take care of the truly needy. We would also make those freeloaders think twice before they make babies that will be a burden instead of a path to subsidized housing. If we refused to give welfare assistance to anyone that drops out of school more people would stay in school and if we reinstated chain gangs there would be a lot less people so willing to risk going back to prison. In fact we ahould have prisioners build transition shelters for the temporarily homeless.
This whole thread started because I said that we need to get medciinal marjuana to those who need it but not allow its legalization to be abused by people on welfare.
Its okay for you to be a liberal hack with a weak stomach but do it ith your own money. Let the bums sleep on your couch, eat your food, use your charge card for the Doctor so they can use their money to buy pot. Leave the rest of us out iof your little rescue project. We will be happy to take care of those who truly need the help.
Its funny how day laborers will hang out at every home depot in the country because they are inelgible for welfare but there is never a group outside of any subsidized housing project trying to find work. Why are the illegals not starving?
The fact that everyone I know who recieves public benefits is a drug user means nothing. Even if WTH is a public benefit recipient and/or knows plenty of folks who are who do not abuse illegal drugs, this means nothing. Even the statistics mean nothing because these statistics gauge the behavior of not only honest recipients, but those who have to be skilled (or not even that skilled) liars to get what they think they need to survive. If those people will lie to the state to keep their fix they will lie to the statistician as well.
Truth be told I have applied for financial assistance from "the state", when UVA sent me a thousand-plus dollar bill for the service of slandering, libeling, involuntarily detaining, perjuring against, and forcibly drugging me. They were so adamant that I pay they said the just-over two thousand dollars I had diligently saved up in my bank account over the period of two years disqualified me and even had the gall to ask for my grocery store receipts retroactively over those two years. I didn't have them and so instead I just raised Hell and they gave up on it and waived the debt.
Bill, seriously? You want me to actually give your made up examples seriously enough to "dispute" them?
Here are some very simple numbers - of federal "entitlement" dollars spent over 90% goes right to the elderly, disabled, and households where at least one person works. (You have heard of the working poor have you not, Bill?) If you want to go after this huge flowing tide of moochers wasting all of your hard earned tax dollars really earmarked for someone else, then you have to head for the last little bit of under 10%.
Now, once you dig into the 10% you'll find what reasonable people expect - mostly a whole bunch of folks down on their luck and in life transitions whether by some screw up of their own or by structural changes in the economy. Somewhere buried deep in that 10% you'll find your "moochers" and the 1/2 or 1/4 cent of your tax dollar. I don't care how you figure it, you'll spend a lot more $$ trying to enforce your point of morality, whether through program revisions and/or investigation/enforcement, than you will save. You pride yourself on being the practical math-y one - so be it.
I have said this from the beginning: being obsessed with this "moocher" population - which I have NOT denied exists - is a point that comes from MORALit rather than REALity. And, as I have said before, you live in a picture of the world that largely exists in your own head. This goes even more so for the point where this whole discussion started - that recreational pot use expands this population and actually strains and already strained moocher-feeding system. I'm sorry Bill. Your understanding of both pot smoking and US social spending are laughable.
I am not going to write up the dissertation for you that clears up all of your confusions and questions about social spending in the US. Here are a couple of links with basic descriptions:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3677
http://fondlingthetruth.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/no-most-people-on-entit...
But those are not there because they are "special" or because they are where I have gotten my notions. You can find entire social science texts dedicated to the study of social stratification in the United States. You know - peer reviewed research stuff. They are carefully researched and quite in depth. You won't find any of them "discovering" some mass culture of dependency and a swelling population of moochers - because we don't have either of these things.
You have to admit, Bill. Deep down inside you live social welfare spending and the moochers. It provides you with a way to regularly proclaim your own self-righteousness to the world.
WTH So what your saying is that with the changing demographics, lowered standards for elgibility for food stamps and healthcare higher birth rates of the lower socioeconomic class we will always be able to afford to keep these folks on the rolls?
Well it hasn't worked so far.
It is simple, when Obamacare kicks in and anyone out there can get free healthcare, free food stamps and crash at on a friends couch there is no incentive to work because their benefits will be reduced by the pay and they will essentailly be working for lterally peanuts.
It has destroyed the economies on DC Detroit and San Francisco and is overburdening Charlottesville as we speak. You don't need peer reviewed data to see a cretin in a lexus using her snap card at Kroger. You don't need empirical evidence and government studies to see the clothes that folks are wearing and the tennis shoes and jackets they have as they enter and leave thier subsidized housing. If you want to do one perhaps just look at pictures of the parking lots at these places and see how many people have new cars while they are suckling the government teat.
Now you think they should be able to sit in that taxpayer funded home eating taxpayer supplied for food and smoke pot for recreation instead of looking for work. Like I said before condoning this behavior breeds this behavior and the path is unsustainable.
It is also consuming precious resources that could be used to help people who truly need it.
It is also a lot higher than 10% by any measure and these people are setting disastoruous examples for their children who will never even be expected to get off the dole.
With every "right" comes "responsibility"
Bill, what I am telling you is that by pinning our public $$ problems on moochers you are holding to a highly inaccurate picture of the reality of social spending. It is simply false that we are being sicked down the tubes because of a bunch of lazy, pot-smoking, moochers "suckling the government teat." Furthermore, I am saying that you persist in doing that because you would rather cling a highly right-wing, NeoDarwinist version of classical Liberalism as an ideology. What you do is leave your ideology at the forefront and then use that to produce a distorted empirical picture of the world complete with highly selective observation and overgeneralization.
"If we got rid of the freeloaders we would have plenty of money to take care of the truly needy." This is the logical fallacy of Bill M's argument. Like many fallacious arguments it is not provable, and this one happens to also be a red herring. The fact is, we already have more than enough money to take care of the needy, we just don't apportion it that way. The total amount of money we spend on social welfare is a little drop next to the oceans of money we spend subsidizing supply-side capitalism and our military industrial complex. We spend as much as the next 20 (or more) highest spending nations COMBINED on our military. Its mostly not to make us safe, its mostly to continue to globally enforce the doctrine of supply side capitalism and thereby make multi-national corporations, some of which are nominally "American," money.
Many people believe fallacious arguments, because they are often quite sophisticated, and they often support an honorable moral code (e.g. lazy moochers should not be rewarded). That does not make the people who believe them stupid or evil, that makes them like most people on the planet.
Legalize it and we can grow our own. No need to spend any money on it.
hey stew .. how is it not provable? Are you saying there is no one in C-ville housing who is a freeloader and no one on the waiting list who is truly needy?
The military complex argument doesn't work because we need to get rid of that waste fraud and abuse too.
We are borrowing money to buy food for people today who are makng babies that will never work and will never be able to pay back the money we already borrowed because we will have to borrow money to feed them and their offspring. The "study" has been done... simply look at the cities budget expenditures and the multi generational welfare recipients since the 1970s.
and I am not blaming the problem on the moochers for taking free stuff, I am blamng people like WTH who think you have a right to give away my money to moochers and who lack the common sense to understand that when you give away something of value for "free" you will get more people consuming it not less. If you throw out more bird seed you will get more birds, if you throw out enough you will get rats.
Bill, my apologies for trying to confuse you with the facts. If you would like to persist in the belief that your impressions of social welfare in the US are correct, then I don't want to persist in producing all of that cognitive dissonance for you. I'll probably end up having to have my taxpayer dollars subsidize the psychotropic drugs you'll require to restore balance to your upset brain.
Really:
"Virginia has one of the earliest— and most ineffectual— medical marijuana laws that dates back to the 1970s and applies to patients suffering from cancer or glaucoma, but Mathre says the legislation is essentially a "dead-law" due to the discontinuation of access to a legal medicinal cannabis farm formerly run (and eventually shut down) by the federal government in Mississippi."
Seriously, anyone even read the listings of archaeologist? Marijuana, Kush and Hash have been around from the beginning of human existence. Do you not understand? Why do you think in the Bible Story it speaks of the "Burning Bush", its importance chronologically to the "Seeing of GOD".
Pot and edibles out here in California and Oregon are just now being perfected where as in the 60's to now it is not just hand me down directions from the 1800's as to bake bread and sauces with the herb.
Jefferson and Washington both planted and cultivated the plant and not to be used as rope. The plant is closely related to plants used in beer fermentation like hops. The plant has for centuries, and millennium had influence on a wide array of human medical and spiritual needs.
This so called government or welfare argument is a crock. Heck, you buy milk? You'd be shocked at all of the Government assistance you who complain are getting. In Virginia of all places to make issue with a plant that can be grown in your soil. But, it's ok for the Tobacco, right? It's indigenous right? Marijuana seeds were imported , right?
Heck no! The mammoths, the birds, buffalo and many other animals and insects allowed North American pot to flourish, before the Kush was introduced. Get real,there are so many in Virginia that would oppose you, but they are chilling. They are not trying to divide and argue.
Go smoke your tobacco or allow people to smoke in buildings and establishments. See, pot can be cooked, it can be refined so that there is no spillage or second hand deliveries. But you wouldn't want to hear about that. Or how you don't need to be a cancer patient. Many people after surgeries, amputations, transplants and heavy trauma need to eat. They need the body to heal. Marijuana increases the appetite and allows for proper digestion.
What is this deal about moohers and taking free stuff? Damn the stuff grows like weeds! Don't you get it.
Remember this?: Money don't grow on trees! Well with all of the money being taken out of the country I can tell you this. We perfect our plants to grow like trees and the money will in effect be growing on trees.
Health care people, and I am one will tell you, if they are in a place that is not like RUSSIA! That marijuana is a fantastic aid. Out here, Surgions write scripts. If you are receiving help many times the only thing payed for a 30 day supply is a 20% co-pay. That is about $20 a week for what the Mexican and organized money laundering cartels are getting $100 to $200 for.
Keep the money here. No laundering, no terrorist using our weaknesses. Open your eyes! If you don't know someone that has had Chemo, Trauma or amputation then you really should go grab a cigarette, a bottle of liquor and comment on A-ROD!
Nice article, but a bit loose.
First, you're too kind to the feds.
The so-called Compassionate Investigational New Drug program was not a scientific experiment initiated by the US Federal government, it was the result of lawsuits by people who discovered that cannabis prohibition was keeping life-saving therapy from them.
In the case of Robert Randall, he would have gone blind without it, and the courts ruled that no sane person should be expected to follow a law that leads to his or her blindness.
As for the Mississippi pot farm, it still exists, as far as I can tell.
Now how's about the Hook investigates the research, done at U Va in the 1970s, showing that cannabis kills cancer? Pot advocates claim the evidence was quashed by the feds. Why don't you do some digging and find us the truth?
Let's ask the Governor: Donor Jonnie Williams, Star Scientific are cooperating in probe of Gov. Robert McDonnell
By: Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind S. Helderman, Published: August 3 E-mail the writers....
if the Gov is so brilliant about big pharma; he might have insight into the above compassionate use program...just my opinion;
Regarding the federal Securities probe into the Governor's donations - "...the federal probe is ongoing, as is an investigation by a state prosecutor in Richmond into whether the governor followed Virginia’s gift disclosure laws. Star Scientific has also told investors that it faces a securities probe.
Rich Galen, a spokesman for McDonnell, declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office and an attorney for Williams.
Legal experts said that if federal prosecutors pursue corruption charges against the Virginia governor, they will probably do so under the Hobbs Act, which prohibits elected officials from taking money or other items of value in exchange for the performance of official duties. To prove a violation of the law, they would have to show that McDonnell agreed to perform official acts for Williams."
If the Gov were so confident, why is he returning all these donations? WHY?
Maybe because he's a Republican who's finally realized it's not wise to take money from Democratic front groups
If you are really passionate about this subject, you should come to the next Jefferson Area NORML meeting. We meet the first tuesday of everymonth at Boylan Heights on the Corner. There will also be a statewide conference here in Charlottesville, in October. Feel free to send me a message on the facebook page.
WTH, here is some your (our) taxpayer dollars at work...
They are convincing me all right...
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1f8_1375594134
Bill M. what is your mission. To stereo type, label, get your jollies off on being superior to people? What the heck does section 8 have to do with pot?
You know, we know you have a right to free speech. That has been fought for with TAX Payer money in the Courts. There is much that you bath in that come from MY TAX payer money.
The article is about cannabis. Were you ever educated in any public school? Have you always attended private schools and insisted while at the store to pay for Milk and other goods without the discounts.
Do the you eat food grown by farmer's? What percentage of the American public do you think smoke pot? What do you think the average age, income and just for you - RACE is for pot use?
Do you not read? Man, you are the best example so many of us have and to get let you spew your tired RACIST crap!. So just keep tagging Medical articles with your sick view of the world.
You know, medical marijuana may not cure your mental medical issues on display here, but I for one hope the Government finds a cure for your sickness!
Michael, I believe it was you who injected race into this discussion and not Bill. I think Bill's just sick of buying pot for other people under the guise of food and housing. Perhaps he grows his own damn weed to treat that sickness. How's about you?
Where are the HOOK articles regarding the Gov's corruption charges! Why is the Hook hiding coverage about a very important issue? Possibly, McDonnell has gone into a 2 week rehab like the Mayor of San Diego? Why is this issue about corruption NOT being covered. Who owns this paper? Who runs the Hook?
Why is the Hook avoiding coverage of a corrupt Governor?
Where can I find current Hook coverage of the Federal investigation of Governor McDonnell? and his corruption "potential" charges?
Follow the money? Maybe the Governor has ties to the Hook and its' publication? Just a thought....
Maybe y'all need to either stay on topic or go burn one. Follow the Hoes and you'll find the source of the problem!
Not that I didn't recently offer my car up for one myself, to no avail :o(
You've been warned
michael sutton, I started out with two simple premises and got attacked, they were
1) If you want recreational marijuina then you need to support only medicinal marajaina to get the law passed, which will in turn will provide documented proof that it is not harmful,and can be used recreationally. (If people hold out for all or nothing they will get nothing.. that is just a political reality) and secondly...
2) If people are on welfare and get busted for pot they should lose their benefits because if they can afford pot they can afford food.
Neither of those seemed that contraversial to me but it started a debate about welfare abuse and whether pot plays a role "WTH" thinks not and I think so... he argues that it is a drop in the bucket and I think it is a cancer that will spread and the numbers don't lie.
I am not sure where the racisim comes in there are more whites on welfare than blacks and a moocher is a moocher.
and I went to C-ville city schools with a lot of people whos families were on public assistance and who are still on it 30 years later (but it is never there fault)
It seems odd, to me, that there should really be any debate over the question of MJ being harmful or safe. Booze, pot and even food can be helpful, harmful or innocuous depending upon the specific character of the substance, the make-up of the individual, how and under what circumstances the ingestion occurs. We certainly CAN say that nearly anything can be harmful, and the problem lies not so much with the substance as with the use of it. With respect to drugs and alcohol, this called "substance abuse."
My experience with pot was that it made me paranoid and gave me panic attacks. Thus it is unlikely that I shall abuse that particular substance. My experience with booze is that it raises my IQ, allows me to turn invisible, enables me to dance well, impresses the pretty girls and makes me feel good all over. With that, it is all a question of fine tuning. No abuse problem, there, right?
As to food, I am addicted to the stuff, love to cook it and eat it, and must be ever vigilant to avoid consuming too much. That stuff can really make you sick.
Whether any of the above is legal, or not, the propensity for abuse of any widely available substance is probably the same. It is simply a matter of the law catching up to the current reality. Does it really make any sense to criminalize anything which is simply a reflection of human appetite? It is, in Virginia, a class 4 misdemeanor for any unmarried person to have intercourse with another person (look it up). The law, passed in 1950 and updated as recently as 1975, is one which is probably violated more than any "pot law." Yet it is one which doesn't seem to attract too much attention from enforcement. The law, itself, doesn't make sense in the current day.
The notion that people on assistance should be cut off because they use pot is almost as nonsensical as the law about sex. The writer assumes the pot was acquired in exchange for cash, which could have been used to buy food (setting aside food stamps, for the moment). But perhaps the same should apply to anything at all which is not required for sustenance; maybe a new TV set or a pair of fuzzy dice to hang from the rear view mirror. It makes no sense to me to threaten starvation as a means to enforce any law; the fact that such an idea has currency with anyone perhaps reflect the greatest abuse of them all: the abuse of people.
JSGeare, Well, fuzzy dice does not set as bad of an example for a child as a parent who freely takes money from the government and spend cash on pot . The same would hold true for a paent who buys steak with a snap card and then gets in their lexus to go to the county office buliding to protest thier rent increase from 50 to 75 dollars.
There is nothing wrong with the taxpayers expecting the same accountability from the people on welfare as they do for people applying for government backed student loans , small business loans, mortgages or government contracts.
also "It makes no sense to me to threaten starvation as a means to enforce any law;"
1)There isn't anyone starving in the US except neglected people who cannot get help signing up for assistance programs. and they will never be forced to starve unless we do nothing about the moochers and there is just not enough to go around.
2) Anyone too lazy too help themselves deserves a gowling stomach. That is natures way of telling you to do like the rest of the animal kingdom and earn your food. If their kids stomachs are growling than that is because that parent has less scruples than a dying wolf who will hunt to its last breath to feed its pups.
"WTH, here is some your (our) taxpayer dollars at work...
They are convincing me all right...
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1f8_1375594134"
Bill, from one of my earlier posts, go look up "selective observation" and "overgeneralization" in any science methods text. Sooner or later you just have to come to terms with the fact that you are all ideology and no substance.
Better to abuse ideology as a substance than drugs. Even if it makes one's self sick without any cure other than to give up.
Bill: I have no problem with accountability; I just would be a bit nervous if your standards were the gauge by which it is measured.
Your statement about non human members of the animal kingdom "earning" their next meal portrays a distorted view of reality. The animals don't clock in and clock out for wages of food. They just eat what they hunt, what they find, or what is given to them.
WTH it is obvious that you are just a typical liberal "all welfare people are victims"
You obviously believe that some fat leech sitting on a couch all day smoking blunts is going to produce a well adjusted child (or 5) that will not only never go on welfare but will be productive enough to pay back all the money we are borrowing from china to feed them for 18 years plus moma or daddy (or both) forever.
It cannot be done and there is no math you can point to that will show wefare expenditures decreasing due to the "success" of "saving" all the victims.
It is not about the cheaters of today anymore than it is about the first flea on the dog. Give it some time unchecked and the whole house is infested.
Once again examine Charlottesvilles expenditures and the corresponding results. It is a dismal failure and will quickly (a decade) become an unsustainable burden on the taxpayers if people adopt your point of view.
It may be true that current public assistance programs don't achieve the results we want. But this is not to say that withdrawal of support because of smoking pot or anything else is to be preferred. The reality is that in most modern societies, there is a portion of the population which lives in poverty. The issue is therefore developing and funding social policy to address the matter, and/or to support other institutions who make it their work to provide relief and an opportunity to live more productively, and/or personal involvement.
Because of long-standing adaptations among the dispossessed (they've learned how to "use" the system) it is unlikely that such simplistic measures as withdrawing support because of a drug habit, or any other personal preference, will interrupt the dependency. There may be a budgetary motive for such withdrawal, but even that would be short sighted. Those who are deprived because of a failure to meet some test of accountability will simply find other avenues to get what they want - be it pot or food. Cutting off legitimate sources leaves only the option of improvised methods and among these, crime appears a likely approach. If so, then dollars saved on distribution of food and other basic necessities will be redirected toward enforcement, apprehension and incarceration all of which may be more costly then simply giving someone a meal.
Bill, I am a "typical" nothing. I have already shown you that 90% of federal social spending goes to the elderly, disabled, and the WORKING poor. If you go delve into it you'll also find that among the WORKING poor, the majority do not remain on benefits indefinitely. You may continue to ignore that or brush it off, but it is what it is. I don't know if any of that makes anyone a "victim." It seems to me that you are the one conjuring that image rather than me. You remain a shallow and uninformed bully and that is all.
JSGeare and WTH, It is not about "today" it is about tomorrow. It is indefnesible to say that the entitlement mentalty as not increased dramatiacally and has gotten to a point where people are better off on the public dole rather than working a lower paying job.
We do not need to reward people for being poor. We need to offer better "job" training instead of mickey mouse college grants. We need tax incentives for employers to do on the job training. instead of giving the money to the working poor. Wal mart is happy to hire people to work cheap and let the government provide the healthcare and food for them. The problem is that if you raise minimum wage for the working poor than you also raise it for the piece of crap with two felonies, no GED and a bad attitude. There are fixes that work. Lowering the bar for welfare monies is not one of them. Allowing people to game the system is not one either.
There will always be a subset of people who will not work no matter what and will turn to crime if they don't get beenifts. ( can you say "black mailers?) Well it takes energy to commit crimes so I say build the jail cells and get them off the street. By the time you add in the cost of prosecution . crime prevention and their illegitamate offspring it would be cheaper to lock em up. (and peole would sleep better.
With every "right" comes a "responsbility" and the right to live in America comes with the responsiibility to carry at least your own weight whenever possible.
What you are "ignoring" and "brushing off" is that the problem is growing and expanding and the demographics are pointing towards a tsunami of babies born to people without the resources to take care of them while those who have the resources are downsizing their families. All the while we are borrowing money to give to people who will never become a postive contributor and whos offspring will simply follow the same path.
It does not matter of they are 10% or 90% of those currently on welfare that number of people are setting up the pathway to destruction.
Just wait for 6 months when in many states single 18 year old men will be eligible for free healthcare, free cell phone, and free food stamps... they will crash in their parents basement and swap the free pain pills for pot until mj is legalized for medicinal use and then they will get that for free. This is not fiction. It will happen in DC and maryland and has already started. They also will be eligible for free bus passes, pool passes etc etc and since there is no debtors prison and they are not receiving "cash" they will never have to pay child support for their irresponsible offspring.
Do you really think with the entitlment climate that exists today these young people are not going to just chill and live off the rest of us?
Bill, you're still just making crap up. Why don't you show me the evidence that we are being overrun by an entitlement mentality and that people can be better off on the public dole than in a job? And by evidence I don't mean anecdotes.
Its not true not and it never was. This is what I have been trying to tell you. We are NOT drowning in a sea of freeloaders. It just ain't true now and never was.
So stop just making crap up out of your own ideology-colored selective impressions.
This is why I can't give up even though I'm a piece of crap. Have you ever lived in poverty, Bill? For how long? Yeah, they shouldn't use drugs, they should strive towards perfection, but there is such a thing as addiction which is indeed a sickness. You will never win a valid argument by presenting an invalid perspective. Take it from me, I'm a total loser who still sometimes wins a game or even a set, in the process of losing the match. One day...
Bill, there is no question in mind that you are utterly convinced of your own logic. The problem, here, is that you are a vast audience of just one person who subscribes to it. That doesn't make your argument wrong; what makes it questionable is the alternative views which make more sense. So much for logic, and now on to facts. Your logic may be the result of a creative process; your facts, however, must be supported by data - you don't get to make it up as you go along.
How about this: "the demographics are pointing towards a tsunami of babies born to people without the resources to take care of them while those who have the resources are downsizing their families." Now, support that statement with data.
This is a debate between senseless skepticism and illogical common sense. There are no facts to be determined here but those in the eye of the beholder. Agree to disagree? Just a suggestion.
@ Bill:
You wrote this and it utter bull crap! Stop changing words:
"With every "right" comes a "responsbility" and the right to live in America comes with the responsiibility to carry at least your own weight whenever possible"
A right is a right! Nothing needed in return. Read! Your wrapped brain must have been thinking about a privilege. It is privilege to operate a car. The arguments you present have been tried before.
Try 1930's Europe.
And this bull from you:
"two simple premises and got attacked".
You started out with two stupid attacks and got schooled!
We know your code words, and winks to the others. I am white, I know the words and the under-speak that such raciest people share when they think I am of like mind because I slip in to my Southern Accent while traveling. Almost all of have had those experiences. When a owner of an establishment condones that speak, I and my Company will boycott it.
But what you are doing is so much worse. Most every one on here acknowledges you have a RIGHT to type your words. Just prove it, there is nothing in your typed words that could qualify as you meeting a responsibility.
Now what would be nice would be if you would feel so inclined to hear our res-ponces and stop the back-peddling.
To read your "We need to offer better "job" training instead of mickey mouse college grants." Just what pray tell, are these jobs.
Then why don't you educate us on how us typical liberals think. You think that there are not millions of people that vow publicly to your view, but as "typical" Republicans and Conservatives hypocritical get caught with the pants down, money scandals and a very high rate of addictions.
I only wrote this to show you how you look to us. There are fine Republicans, very good conservatives that are realist and are not RACIEST! Grouping people together to try cover your statements is just wrong. AND you know it!
I am a liberal, not typical. I have never and will never believe that Capitol Punishment is correct! I as a man, do not have any business telling a woman what in the heck she can do with her body, EVER! I have been in the past a member of the NRA, but now it is not what it once was. There is no need for assault weapons. There is a NEED for licensing weapons.
So, like a said earlier the article is about Medical Cannabis. I have experienced over a year of surgeries with amputation as the 99 percent certainty. I just lost my mother to a rare form of leukemia. She fought it for 7 years. She was a registered nurse for 40 years and she believed in medical cannabis.
I My friends as they get older seem to be where all types of medical issues are among them. Bill, I don't wish any bad health for you or your family. But, if the time comes, you hopefully will be educated that your current stand is cruel and inhuman. And has never a perceived right to leave the less fortunate to just die and their children to repeat.
A young girl at church asked. Why do so many of these apparent religious people want to stop a woman's right to choose. But when the babies are born they don't even want to feed them. See, from the mouth of babes. She heard the talk about school lunches, food stamps and other things you point to.
She is not the product of two parents that were on assistance. They both died, she goes looking for food and answers.
I've been thrown to the ground, had my pants pulled off, and had torturous poison renamed medicine forcibly injected into my body by folks who use the "a woman's body, a woman's choice" argument to rationalize legal abortion. But then again, I'm a man. And I'm pro-life. I have yet to see the mass movement by so-called pro-choicers against medicaton without consent in this country. There are a few, but too few to put a stop to it now, and I mean now.
I'm anxiously waiting for the happy day when the previous poster is once again back on the medication he so obviously needs. If force is what it takes then I'd gladly tip those doing the deed for their extra work. Throw in a sterilization and I'll take up a collection.
That can only happen through the use of water and the Holy Spirit, not of poison. I trust that it will.
It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!
JSGeare read it and weep...
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/09/obama-to-spend-103-tril...
Michael Sutton If you truly believe that a right comes with no responsibility than it is obvious that you are the problem.
I am fine with medicianal mariijuina, I merely pionted out that if you want it in Virgina you won't get it if you go for the whole legalization route. Its called being pragmatic.
As for you being a typical liberal your calling me a racist is what all lberals do when they have nothing real to say in the debate.
As to what you should say to your little friend about Conservatives hating abortions but wanting to deny food to the unaborted tell her that what some conservatives fele is this...
1) with every right comes a responsibility and because some women don't believe this and have no qualms about gutting their vagina like a fish because they had a night of drunken sex with some guy they didn't know, legislators elected by both men and women lobby for laws to make abortion inconvienient enough that perhaps they will think twice before making a mistake.
2) We do feed and provide assistance to ALL children in abject poverty, but ever since we made it too easy a lot of irresponsible people just kept making babies BECAUSE there was no negative consequences for their actions.
Liberals want to ease todays pain and true conservatives want to solve the actual problem. It is easy to point to all of the failed conservatives with their flaws but that does not mean their aspirations are wrong. They simply failed. (kind of like Weiner, spitzer, clinton and the mayor of san diego)
The poor in america have better access to food ,healthcare, education, and transportation than most middle class americans had in 1970. There are many on the dole who admit that they would be crazy to go back to work because they will lose their benefits. It may be "anecdotal" to you but when it goes on in every city in america it is reality.
The working poor are the ones who should be the most angry. They get up and go to work while the person in the next apartment sits at home with benefits. At the end of the week they both have about ten dollars left over for toilet paper and soap but one of them spent 40 hours getting abused at a low end job.
The rich benefitted because the welfare money from the government flows into their pockets through stock in grocery stores and real estate trusts and that offsets their tax bill.
The cycle of poverty is caused by generous bloatedgovernment programs that consumes resources that are indebting our grandchildren and the numbers are unsustainable.
Maybe you should ask that little girl how she feels about giving the money she earned weeding the garden to her girlfriend because her girlfriend wanted to stay in the A/C and play video games.
I did the read the Heritage Foundation Report, a 53 page "Special Report" which makes the case for welfare reform. It summarizes and refers to government and other data, but provides little of the actual data, itself. In a nutshell, the report says that:
1. welfare costs a lot of money, and
2. it shouldn't cost as much
The "bigness" of the problem is expressed in terms of charts showing billions spent, comparisons with the cost of recent wars (the wars were a bargain, evidently) and a disorganized approach to benefit administration, spread among various government agencies.
So, what does "means tested" welfare cost?
"By 2008, means-tested welfare had risen to 5.0 percent of GDP." p. 10
"In FY 2006 (the most recent year for which full data are available), about one dollar in seven (14.6 percent) of total federal, state, and local government spending was devoted to some form of means-tested government aid." p. 11
Is that a lot of money? I don't know. The people at Heritage think so. And they offer 9 steps to resolve the issue, including several which were quite comprehensible in concept, but terribly vague in details of execution such as:
Avoid unnecessary expansion of the welfare state,
Reduce low skill immigration
Strengthen marriage.
Remarkably, the report issued a stunning statement about the (successful) Clinton era requirement that aid be distributed only to those who were working, or looking for work:
"Regrettably, due to technicalities in the crafting of the law, these standards lost force over time. Liberals in Congress and outside pressure groups blocked their restoration. In the absence of federal pressure, most state bureaucracies abandoned the challenge of requiring work and reverted to old-style check-writing operations."
The authors offered no documentation to support that statement.
But what was MISSING entirely from the report was Bill's statement, above: "the demographics are pointing towards a tsunami of babies born to people without the resources to take care of them while those who have the resources are downsizing their families." And not only were those words missing; there was nothing else I could find from which one might infer the same. Yet Bill had supplied the link to the report to prove his point.
Nor could I find any suggestion that people who smoke pot should be deprived of welfare benefits.
I asked for beef, Bill. Not baloney.
People who have money for any sort of expensive "recreation" should be "deprived" (wrong word since that implies that they are entitled to it in the first place) of the fruits of anothers labor. Why should person in apartment "A" pay 75 dollars a month in rent and smoke 500 bucks worth of weed a month and person in apartment "B" pay 1000 in rent and have nothing left over for their :recreational" use?
JSGeare here is some "beef" (even though common senses should suffice)
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-07-25/low-US-birth...
This article shows that birth rates dropped among the working poor in the downturn, showing that the inablity to pay for a child makes one more careful, thus the inverse is also true, freebies make you consume more or make more babies. The facts are clear. Poor people reproduce. They have a very low success rate to getting people out of poverty and these numbers are growing. There are more people on public assistance than ever. If you can at least agree that their numbers are growing by any measure than the issue becomes whether we can afford it or not. My assertion is that the formula is unsutainable and is hurting the entire economy no different than running up food charges on your credit card can affect your ability to get your car fixed to get to work.
If you simply look at the 14 million ilegals they are trying to give amnesty to who will be added to the system, who will also use the courts to take jobs away from the working poor since they will instantly become elgible for civil service job traditionally held by blacks, add in the 10,000 baby boomers a day who are retiring, many without nest eggs who will be instantly elgible for food stamps and free cell phones, factor in the relaxed ability to become certified as disabled, toss in the demand for increased minimum wage which will cause inflation and the welfare benefits to raise accordingly (all on borrowed money) and pretty soon we have a real problem. If you do not think so then simply look at how Charlottesvile is struggling to take care of its one little city. We are taxing old people more per month for their house than they paid in mortgages and taxes when they originally bought it. Look at the lifers at Westhaven... multi generational families all growing.
You don't need an empirical study to prove that that is a cowpie in the pasture. the 50 head of cattle eating grass should be enough for you to go on.
The government has an obligation to get the moochers off the couch. Once they do that then we can have a rational discussion about how to take care of the truly needy and I am happy to pay my fair share in that endeavor.
Moochers breed other moochers and discourage people who are not moochers because they feel cheated when a moocher lives better than them but stays home and plays all day.
Wake the hell up America, the rich and powerful get far more welfare than the poor shmucks! do the freaking math.
Ha ha! Go back to your pit, you salt head loser.