20 Sep 2010 @ 10:34
Justice is subjective and the "War on Drugs" is a cultural war. Scooter Libby gets off scot-free for lying and obstructing justice. What happens to those convicted of marijuana offenses? They face life-long consequences:

* Sanctions triggered by a marijuana conviction can include loss of access to food stamps, public housing, and student financial aid, as well as driver's license suspensions, loss of or ineligibility for professional licenses, other barriers to employment or promotion, and bars to adoption, voting, and jury service. And they may remove children from the home.

* Sanctions triggered by felony marijuana convictions can be more severe than those for a violent crime — and a felony can be as little as growing one marijuana plant or possessing over 20 grams of marijuana.

Corp. U.S. prosecuted (read persecuted) approx. 20 million Americans for marijuana since 1965.

Corp. U.S. prosecuted 858,408 Americans for marijuana violations in 2009, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Uniform Crime Report, released Sept 15, 2010 - [link]. The arrest total is the second highest ever reported by the FBI, and marks a 1.3 percent increase in the number of arrests reported in 2008 (847,864).  More >

17 Sep 2010 @ 15:26

"...ANY of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

– Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II

After the minimum 20 countries became parties to the Convention, it came into force as international law on 12 January 1951. At that time however, only two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council were parties to the treaty: France and the Republic of China. Eventually the Soviet Union ratified in 1954, the United Kingdom in 1970, the People's Republic of China in 1983, and finally the United States in 1988.


All signatories are required to prevent and punish acts of genocide, both in peace and wartime, though some barriers make this enforcement impossible i.e. THE UNITED STATES SIGNED WITH THE PROVISO THAT NO CLAIM OF GENOCIDE COULD BE BROUGHT AGAINST THEM AT THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT.