Paragraphs are your friend Skyblue...
To reply to your post bmxxx, I can't see legalization happening without some significant sea change in our culture. That is, drugs and drug use getting reframed into something that is realistic and sane. Our drug policy, one rooted in bigotry and myth, is perpetuated as the status-qua (and our present culture) by misunderstanding, fear and good intentions. Most people seem to still think drugs are bad across the board, some perhaps with a few exceptions. At present drug policy has little to do with reality.
Co-opting the culture supporting the prohibitionist status qua would then require grounding it in the reality of drugs and drug use. Who is more acquainted with the realities of drug use than those who use them? Of course drug users are just as vulnerable to drug war mythologies or the if well intentioned narrow mindedness of the abstinence rooted treatment industry and criminal justice system when it comes to even their own drug use, but that's besides the point.
Consider that people with either a direct relationship to drug use or just a common sense that hasn't been corrupted by the present prohibitionist mythos come from all walks of life. The more these people find ways to influence the status qua, or root the way our culture understands drugs in whole of reality (as opposed to just one narrow kernel of truth), the more a sane policy towards them will gain momentum.
In the sense that needle exchanges, for instance, keep drug users alive and (as) healthy (as possible - as it's also up to the user of course at some level), the more they can affect the way our culture regards drugs. Of course, I'm not such a determinist to believe it's so cut and dry, or simplistic, or abstracted. As I said earlier, speaking up is key to any such effort. But so too, perhaps not more so but at least as much so, is the actions we've taken once we've spoken up.
I was thinking the other day that, when it comes to drug law enforcement speaking up and out against their nefarious policies and practices, in a real way they're like whistle blower, informing the public that something fucked up and horribly wrong whereas the public's interests are concerned. A movie about a big tobacco whistle blower was what started this thought. This is truly a heroic act, and I never meant to ignore or downplay it at all. But, as with the whistle blower, a lot more is necessary than just making information available. That's absolutely key and still very essential (as there is so much ignorance and misguided shit and prohibitionist propaganda out there about the reality of drug use of course), but alone it just isn't enough.
I would list some super concrete actions (any)one (...almost anyone at least) could take that would promote legalization, directly and indirectly, but (I'd hope) at least for those posting on BL we should all be able to come up with some even without much creativity. It's a rather personal thing now that I think more about it, as we all can do something, but what is most important for each of us to do depends on with our own situations and place in our prohibitionist society. What did someone once say, The Personal is Political
[EDIT: And we're talking about Legalization, not just legalization in the sense people referred to it in Colorado and Washington, meaning only the legalization of cannabis, right? My posts were based on the assumption we were talking about it in the universal sense, not just as it pertains to one drug/plant/medicine.]
Maybe it's just a rant!
