Category Archives: FREE ADVICE

Free Advice about Life, Universe and Other Stuff from Lawrence R. Spencer

...and other stuff, BULLSHIT, FREE ADVICE

WHY WEED WON’T BE LEGAL IN THE U.S.

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“Reality” is regulated by vested interests who seek personal gain to the detriment of the greater good.

Definition: Vested Interest — 1/ a survival or non-survival plan or agenda which has been “clothed” to make it seem like something other than what it actually is; 2/ any person, group or entity which prevents or controls communication to serve their own purposes.”  — THE OZ FACTORS, by Lawrence R. Spencer

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I don’t smoke weed, but it seems like almost everyone uses something to ease the mental and/or physical pains of living.   However, for the same reasons that Free Energy, a technology developed by Nikola Tesla more than 100 years ago,  Marijuana — an obviously superior alternative to pills and booze — will never become a legalized form of pain relief in the United States.  This reason is very simple:  MONEY.

DRUG, BEER, WINE AND DISTILLED SPIRITS COMPANIES MAKE REALLY BIG MONEY.

THESE VESTED INTEREST HIRE LOBBYISTS TO BUY OFF POLITICIANS.

POLITICIANS PASS LAWS TO FILL THEIR PERSONAL CHECKING ACCOUNTS.

COPS AND PRISONS MAKE BIG BUCKS ENFORCING THE PROHIBITION LAWS AGAINST COMPETITORS: STREET DRUGS

The TOP 5 ANTI-Weed Lobby Groups in the U.S. —

1.) Police Unions: Police departments across the country have become dependent on federal drug war grants to finance their budget. In March, a police union lobbyist in California coordinated the effort to defeat Prop 19, a ballot measure in 2010 to legalize marijuana, while helping his police department clients collect tens of millions in federal marijuana-eradication grants. And it’s not just in California. Federal lobbying disclosures show that other police union lobbyists have pushed for stiffer penalties for marijuana-related crimes nationwide.

2.) Private Prisons Corporations: Private prison corporations make millions by incarcerating people who have been imprisoned for drug crimes, including marijuana. As Republic Report’s Matt Stoller noted last year, Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit prison companies, revealed in a regulatory filing that continuing the drug war is part in parcel to their business strategy. Prison companies have spent millions bankrolling pro-drug war politicians and have used secretive front groups, like the American Legislative Exchange Council, to pass harsh sentencing requirements for drug crimes.

3.) Alcohol and Beer Companies: Fearing competition for the dollars Americans spend on leisure, alcohol and tobacco interests have lobbied to keep marijuana out of reach. For instance, the California Beer & Beverage Distributors contributed campaign contributions to a committee set up to prevent marijuana from being legalized and taxed.

4.) Pharmaceutical Corporations: Like the sin industries listed above, pharmaceutical interests would like to keep marijuana illegal so American don’t have the option of cheap medical alternatives to their products. Howard Wooldridge, a retired police officer who now lobbies the government to relax marijuana prohibition laws, told Republic Report that next to police unions, the “second biggest opponent on Capitol Hill is big PhRMA” because marijuana can replace “everything from Advil to Vicodin and other expensive pills.”

5.) Prison Guard Unions: Prison guard unions have a vested interest in keeping people behind bars just like for-profit prison companies. In 2008, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association spent a whopping $1 million to defeat a measure that would have “reduced sentences and parole times for nonviolent drug offenders while emphasizing drug treatment over prison.”

WHO IS MAKING THE BIG BUCKS?

Global pharmaceutical sales are expected to grow by 5% to 7% in 2011 to around $880 billion, compared with a rise of 4% to 5% this year, thanks to robust growth in emerging markets, especially China, as well as new innovative treatments, according to IMS Health. The US prescription pharmaceutical sales were valued at 279 billion USD in 2009, with an annual growth rate of 5.5 % between 2008 and 2009.

TAXES:  The beverage alcohol industry contributed over $21 billion directly to state and local revenues during 2009. Of that amount, distilled spirits accounted for over $8.5 billion or 41% of this direct revenue.  In 2009, beverage alcohol’s total contribution to state and local revenues was over $40 billion. Of that amount, $19.7 billion came from indirect revenues such as corporate, personal income, property and other taxes generated by the beverage alcohol industry.

Total revenues from distilled spirits (direct and indirect) were $15.1 billion in 2009, or 37% of total beverage alcohol revenue.

A Heavy Tax Burden:  Distilled spirits are one of the highest taxed consumer products in the United States.

Total U.S. beer sales rose two percent in 2011, to $98.94 billion, largely on strength in demand for craft, imported and premium beer, according to statistics from the Beer Institute.

Estimated retail value of WINE SALES was $30 billion, up 4% from 2009. Wines from California accounted for a 61% volume share of the U.S. wine market, with sales of nearly 200 million cases, up 1% from the previous year.

WEED REVENUE:

By comparison, the U.S. medical marijuana market will reach $1.7 billion in sales this year, according to a report by See Change Strategy LLC.

Compared to drugs, alcohol, beer and wine sales revenue, prisons and police budgets and state and federal tax collections this is Peanuts! Chicken feed. Chump change.  The fact is that marijuana marketers in the US just can’t afford to compete in the “Free Market Economy” of the United States. 

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GODISM TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

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I recently read two books by Robert Heinlein: “The Cat Who Walked Through Walls”, which is the sequel to an earlier book, “The Moon is A Harsh Mistress“.   His books are full of witty wisdom, revolutionary revelation and practical philosophy.  Many of the ideas of the so-called “New Age” movement were written by Heinlein, who was, ironically, a military and scientific man, as well as a scholar and fiction writer.  Here are two of my favorite statements from these books….

“The Almighty-God idea came under attack because it explained nothing; it simply pushed all explanations one stage farther away. In the nineteenth century atheistic positivism started displacing the Almighty-God notion in that minority of the population that bathed regularly. Atheism had a limited run, as it, too, explains nothing, being merely ‘Godism’ turned upside down.”

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godism upsidedown

“The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it — once you can honestly say, “I don’t know”, then it becomes possible to get at the truth.”  

–– Robert Heinlein, from the book THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS

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OBSERVE YOUR SELF

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HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

An Overview of Krishnamurti’s Life and Work

“Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on 11 May 1895 in Madanapalle, a small town in south India. He and his brother were adopted in their youth by Dr Annie Besant, then president of the Theosophical Society. Dr Besant and others proclaimed that Krishnamurti was to be a world teacher whose coming the Theosophists had predicted. To prepare the world for this coming, a world-wide organization called the Order of the Star in the East was formed and the young Krishnamurti was made its head.

In 1929, however, Krishnamurti renounced the role that he was expected to play, dissolved the Order with its huge following, and returned all the money and property that had been donated for this work.  From then, for nearly sixty years until his death on 17 February 1986, he travelled throughout the world talking to large audiences and to individuals about the need for a radical change in mankind.

Krishnamurti is regarded globally as one of the greatest thinkers and religious teachers of all time. He did not expound any philosophy or religion, but rather talked of the things that concern all of us in our everyday lives, of the problems of living in modern society with its violence and corruption, of the individual’s search for security and happiness, and the need for mankind to free itself from inner burdens of fear, anger, hurt, and sorrow. He explained with great precision the subtle workings of the human mind, and pointed to the need for bringing to our daily life a deeply meditative and spiritual quality.

Krishnamurti belonged to no religious organization, sect or country, nor did he subscribe to any school of political or ideological thought. On the contrary, he maintained that these are the very factors that divide human beings and bring about conflict and war. He reminded his listeners again and again that we are all human beings first and not Hindus, Muslims or Christians, that we are like the rest of humanity and are not different from one another. He asked that we tread lightly on this earth without destroying ourselves or the environment. He communicated to his listeners a deep sense of respect for nature. His teachings transcend man-made belief systems, nationalistic sentiment and sectarianism. At the same time, they give new meaning and direction to mankind’s search for truth. His teaching, besides being relevant to the modern age, is timeless and universal.

Krishnamurti spoke not as a guru but as a friend, and his talks and discussions are based not on tradition-based knowledge but on his own insights into the human mind and his vision of the sacred, so he always communicates a sense of freshness and directness although the essence of his message remained unchanged over the years.”    Visit the Krishnamurti Official Website at http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/