Rob

Discussing War On Drugs with Marijuana Policy Project

Video by Reason Foundation
(January 13, 2010) in Society / Drug Law

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down with Rob Kampia, the founder and head of the Marijuana Policy Project to discuss the drug war's long past and (hopefully) short future.

Celebrating its 15-year anniversay, MPP has been a leader in the fight against mindless and destructive prohibitionist policies.

Approximately 8.40 minutes. Shot and edited by Meredith Bragg.

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  • Fujimoto420
    Rob is awesome

    I have to say that Rob is an awesome guy and I have a lot of respect for him.

    I highly recommend everyone at least visit their web page at http://www.mpp.org and check out the victims stories. Sign up. Donate. Contact your representatives in Congress. Speak out against this senseless war on drugs .

    LEGALIZE. REGULATE. MEDICATE. EDUCATE.

    - Fujimoto420US January 13, 2010 8:53PM

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  • Clay
    Fo;;ow the money

    Excerpt from a Reuters article posted 01/16/10

    When it comes to collecting the profits and getting them back to Mexico in large wads of cash, however, cartel relatives and direct employees are on hand.
    Gangs and distributors take the proceeds from drug sales to networks of cartel cash collectors in U.S. cities who in turn use corrupt currency exchange businesses to swap small bank notes into $100 bills.
    Trusted with up to $20 million hidden in a single vehicle, traffickers use spotters at the border crossings into Mexico to alert them by text messages when they think it is safe to get through. U.S. customs only sporadically check vehicles heading south due to a lack of manpower, although the U.S. government has pledged to step up its south-bound inspections.
    Once in Mexico, the smugglers head to safe houses where, watched over at gunpoint, groups of mostly women and girls count the money by hand. The cartels wash their dirty money through businesses that can produce bogus receipts such as hotels and apartment buildings. The profits are kept in bank accounts in Mexico and abroad in places such as Panama, drug trade analysts say.

    Despite the global economic slowdown, business is booming.
    "Sometimes the cash is coming in so fast we can hardly deal with it," said a trafficker handling drug profits in a car junk yard in Tijuana. "We have hours and hours and sometimes days and days just counting money," he added.

    Using the conservative estimate of 40 billion dollars going to the cartels,how many trucks would it take carrying 20 million dollars each to move that 40 billion? And not 1 has been caught?
    As the UN drug czar has stated that the only reason most of the major banks in the world did not fail in this financial upheaval
    we are experiencing,I believe this story was bought by the banks,to draw the attention away from their laundering and transferring the cartels cash.
    Using the same 40 billion dollar estimate and the estimate by the DEA that 70% of the cartels cash flow is for marijuana ,what would 28 billion untaxed dollars not leaving our country,but being spent for washing machines,tv's,and cars instead of marijuana,do for our stressed economy,if we were allowed to grow our own?
    Using the governments estimate of 2,000,000 marijuana users in America,how much would each toker spend to achieve 28 billion
    dollars of marijuana money?
    Using an estimate of $3000 per year per toker,how many actual tokers are there in America spending that 28 billlion?(I used my estimated cost ,per year as an average,some spend more,some spend less)
    Crunch the numbers people. The ONDCP,as required by congressional mandate ,is lieing about the number of marijuana
    users in America,as he has lied about nearly everything else about marijuana.

    - ClayUS January 16, 2010 7:19AM

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