Smoking weed makes me a feminist!

It's true because Feministing says so.

Seriously, I think that everything that we do to fight patriarchy, whether it's volunteering for clinic defense or trying to end the drug war is a feminist act. But picking up the bong? I don't know about that. The real question is this: Is the drug policy reform movement feminist?

Why of course it's feminist! Just take a look at the latest issue of High Times. That's almost as feminist as pole dancing.

I saw the article in The Stranger and I was going to ignore it simply because the pointless stereotypes about pot-users seemed to stupid to argue against. Male users are cuddly and adorable, just like that miserable tool from Knocked Up. Female users don't want to be stigmatized as lazy. I've seen it all before. All I know is that women in pot culture are just like women everywhere. We are there to be seen and not heard.

How the War on Drugs Affects Pregnant Women

A really interesting article from feministing about how pregnant women lose their rights.

In case you’re wondering, being addicted to drugs is not a crime, only the stuff you do is a crime, not who or what you are at a given point in time. So-

Being an addict: not a crime
Possessing drugs with the intent to take them, give them away or sell them: all crimes.

Being an alcoholic: not a crime
Driving while intoxicated: a crime

Despite this fact, all over the country, women are being prosecuted for “crimes” based only on their (1) being pregnant and (2) testing positive for drugs. No one else can be tested and prosecuted just for having drugs in his or her system. To get around what they obviously see as a shortcoming in the law, prosecutors charge pregnant women with “delivery of drugs to a minor” and “child endangerment” even though the laws clearly were not meant to be used in these cases.

This violates pregnant women’s constitutional rights, since (1) the laws are applied differently to them than anyone else, (2) they have no reason to know that these laws apply to what they are doing, (3) women have pled guilty to crimes that aren’t really crimes, and (4) the Supreme Court has held that punishing someone for being addicted to drugs or alcohol is both cruel and unusual punishment, since addiction is an illness. Not only is it unconstitutional, it doesn’t do a thing to help babies or their mothers. Threats of prosecution just scare women away from drug treatment and prenatal care.

Prisons are full of drugs, so the idea that jailing women will help their fetuses is a moot point. Pregnancy can be a rather dehumanizing experience, especially when everybody obsesses about the contents of your belly and seem to forget about the flesh surrounding the uterus, known as "woman".

This headline sucks

Maybe if we helped the most vulnerable and devalued members of society overcome drug addiction through harm reduction measures then perhaps deranged unnameable whackjobs would not be able to slaughter 49 women with impunity. Then the Canadian public would not have to be assaulted with the worst headline ever:

Murder allegations 'hogwash,' Pickton told Mountie

A note to all headline writers everywhere. Pay attention! Do not put a pun in a headline that is covering the trial of a scumbag that allegedly slaughtered 49 women.

I really wish that the politicians would let science and medicine prevail instead of political ideology. The senseless opposition to making drug users lives easier and safer makes no sense. They have this unshakeable dogma that sounds like this: "Drugs are bad, m'kay, you shouldn't do drugs." The conservatives will make no exceptions and don't seem to be willing to look outside of their narrow-minded little "Drugs are bad" box.

Conservatives are supposed to be in favor of small government and fiscal conservatism aren't they? Do the not consider the economic costs of having homeless, sick, drug-addicted people contracting bloodborne illnesses? The economic impact of treating one AIDS patient has to be less than the cost of handing out clean needles to addicts or providing needle-free maintenance drug therapy. The sooner we vote these bums out of office, the better.

16-year-old mother charged after murder after tests reveal drug overdose killed baby

A 16-year-old gives birth to a dead baby because of her drug use. She is threatened with life in prison. There are a few questions that I wish I knew the answer to:

What kind of prenatal care did this woman have access to? Was she treated for drug addiction? Where is the father of her baby and what role does he play? Did she know that an unborn child may die from her drug use? And most important of all:

If a "woman" of 16 years old can be charged for the accidental death of her unborn child, what does this have to say about a woman's right to choose?

Beauty pageant for cocaine mules in Peru prison

Beauty pageant for cocaine mules in Peru prison. When I first saw the title of this story I thought they were talking about a horse-donkey hybrid. I never would have guessed they are talking about human beings from the headline.

The gist of the story is just as stupid as the title suggests. Fallen women get to show the world that they are still human by participating in a “beauty” pageant. I personally do not see what is so beautiful about glorifying fake femininity.

This story sickens me on so many levels that I don't know where to begin. Here are more examples of people that are caught by the War on Some Drugs. First the government invents a crime. Banning opium and marijuana was implemented by the government in an attempt to control the activities of Latinos and Asians. What better way to find an excuse to lock people up than to persecute them for the use of drugs not condoned by the dominant culture? Do you really believe it is a coincidence that tobacco and alcohol are legal for consumption and those are the two drugs traditionally favoured by white Europeans? People of color are overrepresented in the prison system and the War on Some Drugs is the reason why.

For another thing, I wonder how long these women are going to have to wait until they have a chance to defend themselves in a court of law. Three-quarters of them are still waiting for a trial. The police love to persecute small-time drug offenders like these women because they are too inept to find the men that actually run these drug-peddling organizations. The police get to pat themselves on the ass and feel like they have accomplished something. They know that these women are easily replaceable by their boyfriends and husbands. Nobody really cares that they will waste a lot of time in prison and it will have no impact the flow of drugs. Is the public really made safer by jailing these women?

Then to add insult to injury they doll them all up and parade them around for the benefit of pathetic wankers. Glorifying consumer-augmented, Cover Girl femininity is never a good thing. In this case, it should be criminal.

via Feministing