Why Surging Support for Marijuana Is Hurting the Republican Party and Will For Years to Come

[unhappycamper]

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/why-surging-support-marijuana-hurting-republican-party?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark

Don't expect a major turnaround from the GOP on cannabis, just electoral pain across America.

Why Surging Support for Marijuana Is Hurting the Republican Party and Will For Years to Come
By CJ Werleman
February 17, 2014 |

As the movement to expand access to marijuana grows across the country, the Republican Party, with the exception of its kooky libertarian wing, has a bad case of reefer madness. Gov. Rick Perry, who's no stranger to moments of mental madness, equated marijuana use to murder, while Gov. Chris Christie has more or less said he’d prefer dead kids to stoned kids. During the 2012 election, Mitt Romney promised to "fight tooth and nail" against pro-marijuana legalization.

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1. Private Prison Corporations: The industrial prison complex is one of the party’s major donors. Since 2008, three major private prison corporations have spent nearly $50 million on campaign donations and lobbyists to push tough anti-drug legislation at the state and federal level. In 2011, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report revealing the political strategies of private prison corporations “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” A significant finding was that while the total prison population increased by 15 percent, the number of people held in private prisons increased by 120 since 2001.

~snip~

2. The Christian Right:The Christian Right, the most reliable and agitated voting bloc of the Republican Party, has an uncompromising and overly simplified worldview. Religious extremists see social issues solely through the prism of good versus evil. Drugs are bad! So, any attempt to legalize drugs is seen by the hyper-religious to be soft on crime (evil) and therefore constitutes a dance with the devil.

3. Military Industrial Complex:The military is to Republicans what civil rights are to Democrats, and the military industrial complex has arguably the greatest influence over Republican lawmakers. According to Open Secrets, defense contractors donated more than $27 million during the 2012 election cycle, with more than 60% of that going to Republican candidates.



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FWIW, Bernie Saunders is a BIG proponent for basing the F-35 not-ready-for-prine-time fighter in Burlington, Vt.

[Half-Century Man]

1. I think a major reason Marijuana is such a danger to Republicanism

Is, it is difficult to be stay angry, scared, money hungry while on weed. Conditions necessary to be Republican. I hear it helps some people be paranoid though.

I wonder, if the draconian legal issues were removed, would their paranoia be so sever?