Site Finds Time for Questions About Dancing, Late-Night Snacks and Playing Tennis
WASHINGTON, DC -- Today YouTube ignored a question advocating marijuana legalization from a retired LAPD deputy chief of police that won twice as many votes as any other video question in the White House's "Your Interview with the President" competition on the Google-owned site. They did, however, find the time to get the president on record about late night snacking, singing and dancing, celebrating wedding anniversaries and playing tennis.
Stephen Downing, the retired LAPD police officer and a board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), had this to say about the site ignoring his question: "It's worse than silly that YouTube and Google would waste the time of the president and of the American people discussing things like midnight snacks and playing tennis when there is a much more pressing question on the minds of the people who took the time to participate in voting on submissions. A majority of Americans now support legalizing marijuana to de-fund cartels and gangs, lower incarceration and arrest rates and save scarce public resources, all while generating new much-needed tax revenue. The time to discuss this issue is now. We're tired of this serious public policy crisis being pushed aside or laughed off."
The top-voted video question from Downing is as follows: "Mr. President, my name is Stephen Downing, and I'm a retired deputy chief of police from the Los Angeles Police Department. From my 20 years of experience I have come to see our country’s drug policies as a failure and a complete waste of criminal justice resources. According to the Gallup Poll, the number of Americans who support legalizing and regulating marijuana now outnumbers those who support continuing prohibition. What do you say to this growing voter constituency that wants more changes to drug policy than you have delivered in your first term?" The question can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0IpiATxdR4.
Downing's question came in first place for video questions and ranked second out of all questions (with the overall top spot going to a text question about copyright infringement). Many of the other top-ranking questions were about marijuana policy or the failed "war on drugs," as has been the case every other time the White House has invited citizens to submit and vote on questions via the web.
Voting in the YouTube contest wrapped up Saturday at midnight EST. In addition to the top-voted marijuana and drug policy questions mentioned above, there were a number of other similar questions that received thousands of votes but were mysteriously deleted after being marked "inappropriate."
More information about the contest and the top-voted questions can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/whitehouse. The Gallup poll referenced in Downing's winning question can be found online at http://www.gallup.com/poll/150149/Record-High-Americans-Favor-Legalizing-Marijuana.aspx.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) represents police, prosecutors, judges, FBI/DEA agents and others who want to legalize and regulate drugs after fighting on the front lines of the war on drugs and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence. More info at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 30, 2012
CONTACT: Tom Angell - (202) 557-4979 or media@leap.cc
Our past three presidents have admitted to using marijuana. (Our past two have even admitted to using cocaine.) Can you imagine how different Barack Obama's life would have been had he been busted for marijuana (or even worse - cocaine)? Would he be Barry the ex-con working at McDonalds? I certainly don't think he would have had near the opportunities he has had if he had been arrested for possession. Based on personal experience, he surely realizes that marijuana use is not harmful or destructive and that prohibition disproportionally affects minorities and can severely harm someone's future. However, he metaphorically sticks his fingers in his ears and continues the same failed drug policies that have ruined the lives of so many American youth. It is absurd.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling this is why the Republican king-maker-types are working hard to promote their “I didn’t use marijuana” candidates. Ironically, of course, is that Ron Paul hasn’t used cannabis, but they hate him more than Obama it seems.
DeleteNo doubt the Pharisaical DrugFree blasphemers have had a fit these past umpteen years over the fact Presidents of both parties have been admitted drug users.
I wonder if the White House got to "veto" questions it didn't want to deal with.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that was a pre-requisite. And more cynically, I bet YouTube offered that up as something they would do, pre-screen the questions, as well as giving the old POTUS rights to see the list of questions and people days beforehand so they could be screened via Top Secret America. FRONTLINE & WashingtonPost
DeleteWhat a crock of shit. People are dying everyday because these assholes won't allow them to have access to medical marijuana, and the shitballs won't even acknowledge his question. I hate this country more everyday. Our government is so corrupt, it's time the people took back our country from these money hungry turds. They don't care about the people, it's all about $$$$
ReplyDeleteMedical marijuana doesn't save lives; it increases quality of life.
DeleteErynn, may I suggest you google 'Run From The Cure' and then get back to us!
DeleteI think he should leave this issue until after the election. It's just too hot and could jeopardize his re-election chances. I bet 10-1 after he gets his second term, he'll handle it since then he won't have to worry about re-elect ability.
ReplyDeleteI thought Google’s motto (Google now owns YouTube) was “Don’t be evil.”
ReplyDeleteHow does that not also include, “don’t collude with evil policies?”
Some simple facts:
ReplyDelete* A rather large majority of people will always feel the need to use drugs, such as heroin, opium, nicotine, amphetamines, alcohol, sugar, or caffeine.
* Just as it was impossible to prevent alcohol from being produced and used in the U.S. in the 1920s, so too, it is equally impossible to prevent any of the aforementioned drugs from being produced and widely used by those who desire to do so.
* Due to Prohibition (historically proven to be an utter failure at every level), the availability of most of these mood-altering drugs has become so universal and unfettered that in any city of the civilized world, any one of us would be able to procure practically any drug we wish within an hour.
* The massive majority of people who use drugs do so recreationally - getting high at the weekend then up for work on a Monday morning.
* A small minority of people will always experience drug use as problematic.
* Throughout history, the prohibition of any mind-altering substance has always exploded usage rates, overcrowded jails, fueled organized crime, created rampant corruption of law-enforcement - even whole governments, while inducing an incalculable amount of suffering and death.
* The involvement of the CIA in running Heroin from Vietnam, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan and Cocaine from Central America has been well documented by the 1989 Kerry Committee report, academic researchers Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott, and the late journalist Gary Webb.
* It's not even possible to keep drugs out of prisons, but prohibitionists wish to waste hundreds of billions of our money in an utterly futile attempt to keep them off our streets.
* Prohibition kills more people and ruins more lives than the prohibited drugs have ever done.
* The United States jails a larger percentage of it's own citizens than any other country in the world, including those run by the worst totalitarian regimes, yet it has far higher use/addiction rates than most other countries.
* The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it.
- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American editor, essayist and philologist.
* 2010 Reported Corporate Revenues:
Johnson & Johnson = $61.90 billion
Pfizer= $50.01 billion
GlaxoSmithKline = $45.83 billion
Novartis = $44.27
Sanofi-Aventis = $41.99 billion
AstraZeneca = $32.81 billion
Merck & Co. = $27.43 billion
Eli Lilly = $21.84 billion
Anheuser-Busch InBev (2007) = $16.70 billion
MillerCoors = $3.03 billion
Pabst = $0.50 billion
* As with torture, prohibition is a grievous crime against humanity. If you support it, or even simply tolerate it by looking the other way while others commit it, you are an accessory to a very serious moral transgression against humanity.
* The United States re-legalized certain drug use in 1933. The drug was alcohol, and the 21st amendment re-legalized its production, distribution and sale. Both alcohol consumption and violent crime dropped immediately as a result, and very soon after, the American economy climbed out of that same prohibition engendered abyss into which it had foolishly fallen.
Malcom, another excellent write up. I especially like the use of bullet points, If you use this again I have a few suggestions.
Delete* Put #4 & #5 right after #1.
* In #7, you might also mention CIA Station Chief John Stockwell, whom I’ve seen on video say the CIA smuggles drugs. It’s in the first part of this video “segment 2,” transcript online, see bottom of page: What I've Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy.
Take care, Drew.