“..a society that allows itself to be treated like an irresponsible baby and prefers the dubious security of servitude to the risks and hazards of freedom.”
– CANNABIS: MARIHUANA – HASHISH
Kleanthis Grivas
Translation: Deborah Whitehouse
Cannabis occupies fourth place amongst the licit and illicit mind-affecting substances consumed all over the world for the purpose of inducing euphoria. The first three are caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol.
“From a political point of view, the notion of `psychological dependence’ as an objective criterion for diagnosing `addiction’ is a sheer figment of imagination dreamed up by criminal lawyers and the police. It came into use in the sphere first of politics and criminal law, and then of medicine in an effort to give some `scientific’ legitimacy to extending suppression from the mind-affecting substances that lead to physical dependence (the only kind of dependence that in fact exists) to those that do not.”[ADDICTIVE – coffee, cigarettes, alcohol]
After the ban on opium-smoking (1875-1902), which served as a pretext for subjugating and manipulating the Chinese immigrants to the United States, and the Chinese immigration ban of 1902, the so-called `drug threat’ was trotted out to justify the United States’ initial sortie into the sphere of international policy (with the imposition of american control in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines after the war between america and Spain in 1898).
It was in 1898 that the United States first adduced the `necessity’ of addressing the so-called drug threat to justify indefinitely postponing recognition of the independence of Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, and the Philippines and imposing U.S. control over them (as Spanish colonies, they had rebelled and fought as U.S. allies during the American-Spanish War of 1898 in the hope of winning their independence).
The Filipinos, having fought side by side with american troops to drive out the Spanish, thought that the United States was going to free the islands and turn the government over to them. It was difficult to convince them that the Islands were not yet ready for self-government.
[my additions for emphasis/explanation/comparison]
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