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- Share links: drugwar, massincarceration, and majority. This article was written by Timeshifter. See charts and maps. See also: Drug War, mandatory minimum sentencing, handguns. And: Republican-led drug war.
Let us not forget about the astronomical increase in the number of correctional officers, too. 469,500 in 2012. See: Correctional Officers : Occupational Outlook Handbook : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. US incarceration peaked in 2008.
| How the war on drugs affected incarceration rates. By Lauren Carroll, July 10th, 2016. Politifact.
The war on drugs led to "a 500 percent increase in incarceration in our country, disproportionately affecting poor and disproportionately affecting minorities." — Cory Booker on Sunday, July 10, 2016 in an interview on "Meet the Press".  |
Mass imprisonment of drug users driving global epidemics of HIV, hepatitis, and tuberculosis. 14 July 2016. The Lancet. "In parts of Europe, over a third of inmates inject drugs (38%), in Australia (55%) it is more than half. This is in stark contrast with injecting drug use in the general population (0.3% in EU and 0.2% in Australia)." Many users steal in order to get money for drugs. Thus they end up in jail in high numbers, contributing to mass incarceration.
Incarceration Nation.. By Fareed Zakaria, Time magazine, April 02, 2012. "America's War on Drugs Drives High Incarceration Rates."
| Drug war + Trickle-down Reaganomics, = mass incarceration and mass control. |
| See article: Trickle-down economics plus drug war. |
| The majority of people incarcerated in prisons and jails in the USA are in due to drug-related offenses, crimes to get money for drugs, or drug-related parole or probation violations. Wikipedia: Drug-related crime. The number of inmates in the USA has increased almost 5 times over since 1980. It peaked in 2008. Obama's Democrat landslide in 2008 turned the incarceration rate around. But the USA still has the highest incarceration rate of any nation (b c). The cost of the U.S. drug war is at least 1.5 trillion dollars. Cannabis is safer! Share link. |
- See also: Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate.
489,000 in 2013 (see chart below). For drug offenses alone.
Does not count drug-related burglary, robbery, murder, etc. to get drug money, defend turf, etc..
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Obama helped turn around the Reagan-Bush War on Pot, mandatory minimums, mass incarceration. See: US incarceration peaked in 2008.
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USA: Peak of 7.3 million people in 2007 under adult correctional supervision: On probation or parole, or incarcerated in jail or prison. About 3.2% of the U.S. adult population, or 1 in every 31 adults. More info here. See template.
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In 2009 26.4% of those in federal and state prisons, or on probation or parole, were in due to drug offenses. Jail numbers are not included below.
How it happened
Chart below covers prison inmates only. See also: timeline combining prison and jail inmates.
Chart source: The Score: Why Prisons Thrive Even When Budgets Shrink. In The Nation. By Mike Konczal and Bryce Covert, September 24, 2014. Quote below from article (emphasis added):
Explosion in incarcerations since the 1980s. Under the "war on drugs," aggressive policing drove up the percentage of those in state prisons for drug offenses from 6.4 percent in 1980 to 22 percent in 1990. More minor drug charges made it easier for prosecutors to push felony charges by citing a defendant’s prior record. These convictions triggered harsh sentences under new guidelines like California’s "three strikes" law, passed during the same period. The enforcement of these punitive new laws was, and remains, racist: according to the ACLU, black people are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, though they are equally likely to use. This, in turn, makes black people vulnerable to the rest of the criminal-justice system.
See also: commons:File:U.S. incarceration rates 1925 onwards.png.
| The drug war is a big cause of the high US incarceration rate. Also, the rest of the developed world has much lower rates of handgun ownership, and much lower murder rates. They never reached the levels of violence the USA did due to handguns and drug war. So they never had the clamoring of the far-right National Rifle Association (NRA) demanding mandatory minimum sentencing. Canada and Europe have long had much lower incarceration rates, better healthcare, and far fewer and shorter sentences for marijuana offenses. |
Many innocent people in jail due to bail and bonds
- The Bail Trap. By Nick Pinto. Aug. 13, 2015. New York Times.
- See also: Drug war charts and maps. And: Brutality and the drug war.
Emphasis added to the quotes.
- Prisons & Drug Offenders | Drug War Facts.
- Drugs and Crime Facts. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics: "In 2004, 17% of state prisoners and 18% of federal inmates said they committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs. In 2002 about a quarter of convicted property and drug offenders in local jails had committed their crimes to get money for drugs, compared to 5% of violent and public order offenders. Among state prisoners in 2004 the pattern was similar, with property (30%) and drug offenders (26%) more likely to commit their crimes for drug money than violent (10%) and public-order offenders (7%). In federal prisons property offenders (11%) were less than half as likely as drug offenders (25%) to report drug money as a motive in their offenses."
U.S. statistics for drug-related homicides are very inadequate.
- Drug Related Crime [237]. March, 2000 article. Office of National Drug Control Policy. Article quote (emphasis added):
Why Statistics on Drug-Related Crime are Difficult To Interpret: Homicide as an Example. ... The FBI does not include as drug-related a murder that occurs during a robbery or a burglary committed by someone under the influence of drugs or a murder that occurs during a robbery committed to obtain money to buy drugs. In these cases, the homicide is recorded by its relationship to the most serious offense only, and robbery and burglary are more serious than drug trafficking in the FBI offense classification and in most State laws. Thus, current FBI homicide information may not categorize a large number of drug-related murders as so related.
- Drugs and Crime Facts. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Has drug-related homicide chart from 1987-2007, with rates of 3.9% to 7.4% for drug-related homicides. "The Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that in 2007, 3.9% of the 14,831 homicides in which circumstances were known were narcotics related. Murders that occurred specifically during a narcotics felony, such as drug trafficking or manufacturing, are considered drug related."
- OPED: War Won't Solve the Drug Problem. July 15, 1999. Washington Post. By Rob Stewart, of the Drug Policy Foundation. "In 1988, just over half of the murders in the city [New York City] were 'drug-related.' But once the researchers examined the circumstances of the murders, they discovered that the clear majority, 74 percent, were results of the drug trade, not drug use (14 percent) or the need to get money for drugs (4 percent)."
- The 50 Most Violent Cities In The World. (On one page). Nov. 10, 2014. By Pamela Engel and Christina Sterbenz. Business Insider. "US cities also made the list, led by Detroit at No. 24 and New Orleans at No. 26." And Baltimore at 36, St. Louis at 45.
Drugs and bail and probation violations
- Probation and Bail Violations :: Providence Probation Attorney Joseph Lamy. From the article:
| Another difficulty for defendants charged with a probation violation is that the condition “to keep the peace and be of good behavior” is ambiguous and open to interpretation. For example, you are arrested for marijuana possession and are also charged with a violation of probation. Even if the marijuana possession charges are dismissed, you may very likely be found to have violated probation. Why? Because a judge can be “reasonably satisfied” that you were not of good behavior if you were even near drugs or someone who had drugs or involved in any incident that caused the police to be called. |
Parole violations and drugs
16.1% of parole violators returned to state prisons in 1997 for drug related violations; for failing drug tests, possession of drugs, failing to report for drug testing, failing to report for alcohol or drug treatment. Info is from Table 21 (below) of the PDF for this report: Trends in State Parole, 1990-2000. NCJ 184735. October 2001. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
See image info.
Sentence length causes huge incarceration rate
| Federal mandatory minimum sentencing charts. |
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First mandatory minimums chart below is from an older FAMM report, "Correcting Course: Lessons from the 1970s Repeal of Mandatory Minimum Sentences". FAMM is Families Against Mandatory Minimums. [238]. See Wikipedia: Mandatory minimums. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 increased the amounts of crack cocaine required to trigger 5 and 10 year sentences. [239]. See revised charts since then. Share link to this page. For charts of all federal mandatory minimums (not just for drug offenses), go here. Later chart with revisions, such as the amount of crack cocaine required for various sentences: |
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American Exception. Inmate Count in US Dwarfs Other Nations'. April 22, 2008. New York Times. Page 1, section A, front page. Archive. From the article (emphasis added):
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November Coalition graph. Some Congressmen and police who prosecuted the War on Drugs now believe it caused a large increase in the United States incarceration rate. See Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and larger chart with sources. See template. Incarceration peaked in 2008. |
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- 2003. Federal Judge Quits, Calls Judicial System Unjust. Associated Press (AP) story, National Public Radio interview, and Judge John S. Martin's statement. "The result, he said, is a slew of lengthy prison sentences for low-level drug dealers 'who society failed at every step.' ... While many judges have criticized sentencing guidelines, it is unusual for a judge to publicly cite the frustrations of the job in stepping down." -June 25 2003 AP story. See also: Let Judges Do Their Jobs. By Hon. John S. Martin Jr..
- Dissenting Opinions of Judges, Federal Drug Sentencing, Mandatory Minimum Sentences. A list of many articles by judges. At November Coalition.
Mandatory Minimum sentences or truth in sentencing
| Some people don't know that the National Rifle Association had a large part in causing the huge increase in the U.S. incarceration rate. The NRA strongly lobbied state-by-state for mandatory minimum sentences (also known as "Truth in Sentencing"), and "Two and Three Strikes" laws. Mandatory-minimum sentences are the root cause of the astronomical US incarceration rate according to a New York Times article. The majority of people incarcerated in the U.S. are in prison or jail due to drug-related offenses, crimes to get money for drugs, or drug-related parole or probation violations. |
See Wikipedia: Mandatory sentencing. See also this page. Mandatory Minimum sentencing is often used for non-violent crimes such as drug possession. It is a modern-day way to create concentration camps for drug-using "undesirables." Sentences that usually do not allow parole until at least around 80% of the sentence served. Federal laws, and most states, have mandatory minimums. The majority of U.S. prisoners are in due to the drug war in some way or another.
See Wikipedia: War on Drugs, and Wikipedia: Sentencing Reform Act.
Life for pot
- See main article: USA. Life for pot. See also: Number of marijuana prisoners in the USA.
Jeff Mizanskey 2015 Sep 1
- Life in prison for selling marijuana: Meet the people new pot laws forgot. MSNBC. 8 Sep 2015. [240][241]. "At least 67 people are in prison right now, sentenced to die there for selling marijuana". And: LifeForPot.com. And: POW420.com also lists some cannabis lifers. Facebook: Life for Pot. And: Life In Prison For Pot And Other Travesties Of Marijuana Prohibition. 4 Sept. 2014. Forbes.
- Jeff Mizanskey, life without parole: Missouri man freed after spending two decades in prison for marijuana charge. 1 Sep 2015. Guardian. [242]. And: Grandpa Doing Life Without Parole. [243][244]. Nazi Republican prosecutor.
- Saudi Arabia beheads 4 for pot. [245][246][247][248]. Religious Right: Supported Life for Pot. [249][250][251]. Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich proposed a law that would execute people for 2 ounces of marijuana.
- Life for Pot Prisoner Larry Duke Released! [252][253][254][255][256][257][258][259].
Cannabis arrests
Nixon and Reagan. War on Drugs
Nancy and Ronald 6 Wilson 6 Reagan 6 riding the drug war Beast in 1986. Note Nancy's "Just Say NO" sign. Larger image.
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Republican evil, Democrat complicity, corporatist control: The Drug-War Industrial Complex.
Drug War Invented by Nixon to Extend His Power. By Fintan O'Toole. Aug. 13, 1999. Irish Times.
In June 1971 Richard Nixon declared a "War on Drugs."
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| Tricky Dick Nixon (above) has won his drug war! The Prison-Industrial Complex. Corporatist Dictatorship. A Nixonian "enemies list" that almost everyone is on at some time. |
Papa Bush's massive drug war escalation
- 2nd nationwide televised Bush speech on drugs on September 12, 1989: Quote from speech:
Some think there won't be room for them in jail. We'll make room. We're almost doubling prison space. Some think there aren't enough prosecutors. We'll hire them, with the largest increase in Federal prosecutors in history.
- Life sentence for buying weed? 25th anniversary of Papa Bush's War on Drugs escalation speech on September 5, 1989. The first prime time address of his presidency. Result: Life for pot.
Reagan, and propaganda of incarceration nations
- Reagan's war on cannabis is where the U.S. incarceration nation began. Number of marijuana prisoners in the USA: 40,000+ in 2011. All drug offenses: 489,000 in 2013.
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Propaganda of incarceration nations. Reaganism is about drug war, code-word racism, hate radio, mass incarceration, and above all, trickle-down economics (Reaganomics).
| Drug war + Trickle-down Reaganomics, = mass incarceration and mass control. |
| See article: Trickle-down economics plus drug war. |
| Nancy Reagan and Ronald Reagan of the USA. The "Just Say No" campaign. |  Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union. |  |
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See Wikimedia Commons: Category:Government propaganda. Note the "glorious mission" or "glorious war" nature of much propaganda. Like the Republican-led Holy War, the "War on Drugs". See Wikipedia: War on Drugs. It is really a war on some drug users. This particular glorious war was reinvigorated by the cult leaders, Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The B-movie actor Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6) is still worshiped like a God (or idol) by some segments of the Republican Party.
Welcome to America
| "Welcome to America, home to 5% of the world's people & 25% of the world's prisoners." NAACP, ACLU File Lawsuit Against City of Philadelphia for Rejecting Criminal Justice Reform Ad. Article by NAACP. Lawsuit filed October 19, 2011 during the period of the Occupy movement. Also see the ad banner article by Courthouse News Service. The drug war and prisons are big business, and a big part of how the 1% controls the 99%. See Facebook comments about the banner. The Republican Party leads the racist drug war.
Incarceration peaked in the USA in 2008. <<--See that article for sources, stats, and charts for the banner. Most inmates are incarcerated due to the drug war.  Image info. See billboard and stats. |
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| Chart below is from a July 2000 report: |
 From this July 2000 report: Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States. From the report: "Nearly one in four persons (23.7%) imprisoned in the United States is currently imprisoned for a drug offense. The number of persons behind bars for drug offenses (458,131) is roughly the same as the entire prison and jail population in 1980 (474,368)." |
Cannabis is safer
Return to top. See article: Cannabis is safer.
2018 Global Marijuana March and 420 event map
See: Reagan's war on cannabis. And: Holy War on Drugs, Republican-led mass incarceration.
| Ronald Reagan, 1980 campaign speech 1: "Leading medical researchers are coming to the conclusion that marijuana, pot, grass, whatever you want to call it, is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States, and we haven't begun to find out all of the ill effects, but they are permanent ill effects. The loss of memory for example." |
- See Reagan say it at 1 minute 7 seconds into this video clip narrated by Woody Harrelson.
- Obama correctly said that cannabis is safer than alcohol. See: Cannabis is safer. He also said marijuana should be treated more as a public health issue than a criminal one. And: Obama signals support for legalizing medical marijuana. [260]. See video.
- USA. 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults are alcohol-related (disease, overdose, car crashes, falls, violence, etc). 87,798 per year, 2006 to 2010. [261][262][263][264][265].
See longer article: Cannabis is safer.
- Imagine if Mitt Romney had been elected President in 2012 instead of Obama.
- Obama on marijuana legalization. [266]. "My suspicion is that you’re gonna see other states start looking at this". The Washington Post. Jan. 22, 2015.
Above quote is from Sanjay Gupta interview of Obama on April 15, 2015. Interview aired on CNN on April 19, 2015. [267][268][269].
- Obama administration asks Supreme Court to reject lawsuit filed by Republican governments in Oklahoma and Nebraska to stop legal marijuana in Colorado [270]. December 2015.
 Obama helped turn around the Reagan-Bush War on Pot, mandatory minimums, mass incarceration. See: US incarceration peaked in 2008. |
Presidents alone can not reschedule it
- See main article: Presidents alone can not reschedule marijuana.
Neither the president nor the Attorney General can reschedule marijuana by themselves. [273] [274][275]. The two of them together also can not do so. See Wikipedia: Removal of cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. See "Process" section.
Since HHS (Health and Human Services) and the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) have again declined to reschedule or deschedule cannabis, then only Congress can do so. But Congress removed help for veterans: Republicans in Congress Won’t Let Veterans Access Medical Marijuana After All. [276][277]. And Congressional Republican committee leaders refuse hearings on CARERS bill to reschedule cannabis. See: Medical Marijuana Advocates Rally to Loosen Restrictions. By Alicia Ault. 23 Mar 2016. Medscape.
- Wikipedia: Drug Enforcement Administration. See "Criticism" section.
- DEA Removes Marijuana Misinformation From Website After Months of Pressure. By Steve Elliott. Feb 13, 2017.
- DEA Pulls Back From Calling Marijuana One Of The 'Most Dangerous Drugs'. By Cody Fenwick. August 16, 2016. Patch Media
- The Science behind the DEA's Long War on Marijuana. 19 April 2016. Scientific American. Unless Congress acts, the DEA has final say on rescheduling or descheduling marijuana.
- Pot Matters: For Legalization, Set Your Sights on the Senate. 23 Mar 2016. By Jon Gettman. "it will be helpful, and indeed crucial, for advancing legalization for Democrats to take control of the Senate." Maybe in 2018?
- FDA Weighs in on Rescheduling Cannabis. By Ben Adlin. 28 Dec 2015. Leafly.
USA. Republican-led war on cannabis
Jeff Sessions and Granny [20].
The Cannabis War is over and the U.S. Republican Party has lost. They may not know it yet, so keep marching, lobbying, and voting! Please register and vote! See: Reagan's War on Cannabis. And: Drug war, control, and Republican-led income inequality. And: Alternatives to Republican-led mass incarceration.
Virginia Senate Republicans kill bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. Jan. 29, 2018. And: Maine's Republican governor vetoes voter-approved bill to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana. [278] Nov. 3, 2017. And: New Mexico's Republican governor vetoes a bill that would have allowed medical marijuana for opioid addiction. April 7, 2017. And: New Mexico's Republican governor vetoes the 911 Good Samaritan Overdose Prevention Bill. April 7, 2017. And: Idaho's Republican governor vetoes a broadly-supported asset forfeiture reform bill. April 7, 2017.
Jeff Sessions once wanted to execute pot dealers. Jan. 29, 2017.
Jeff Sessions running after cannabis users:
Drug war, mass incarceration, control
 | See: Drug war, control, and Republican-led income inequality. And: Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate. And: Drug War, mandatory minimum sentencing, handguns. And: US incarceration peaked in 2008. And: Number of marijuana prisoners in the USA. And: List of countries and U.S. states by incarceration rate.
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| The majority of people incarcerated in prisons and jails in the USA are in due to drug-related offenses, crimes to get money for drugs, or drug-related parole or probation violations. Wikipedia: Drug-related crime. The number of inmates in the USA has increased almost 5 times over since 1980. It peaked in 2008. Obama's Democrat landslide in 2008 turned the incarceration rate around. But the USA still has the highest incarceration rate of any nation (b c). The cost of the U.S. drug war is at least 1.5 trillion dollars. Cannabis is safer! Share link. |
| Jail, jail deaths (2), jail healthcare, and bail. A Lot Of People Are Dying At This Understaffed Texas Jail. And: How the Money Bail System Perpetuates America’s Mass Incarceration Problem. 2.3.4. Dumbass Republican lock-em-up types can't do math. Jail costs a lot more than unpaid fines. Use community service instead, and save tax money on jail and city janitorial work. And: Justice Department blasts ‘unconstitutional’ fixed bail schedules. Many innocent people in jail. And: Many marijuana users in jail without bail money. And: Senator Kamela Harris push for bail reform. |
| The mentally ill. Rundle Won't Charge Prison Guards Who Allegedly Boiled Schizophrenic Black Man to Death for 2 Hours in Shower. Death Ruled An Accident. Documents Show They Omitted Key Details. Florida inmate in for cocaine possession. 2.3.4.5.. Due to lack of single-payer universal healthcare the mentally ill end up incarcerated and untreated. Prison costs far more than caring for them to begin with. For their non-violent offenses three-quarters of Americans favor ‘rehabilitation’ over jail time, survey finds. Poor health care in general in prisons and jails. Inmates Pay A Small Fortune To See A Doctor. 2.3. |
Felon disenfranchisement & gerrymandering
Return to top. See: Register and vote for cannabis.
Federal judge: Florida’s felon voting restoration flawed. And: Floridians will vote this fall (2018) on restoring voting rights to 1.5 million felons.
27 percent of all the disfranchised felons in the U.S. live in Florida.
In 2014: 8 of the 10 most gerrymandered districts in the USA were drawn by Republicans.
Republican-led big spending on drug war
Return to top. See: Cost of Republican-led U.S. drug war.
Trillion-dollar Cost of Republican-led U.S. drug war. And: Its racist application. [279][280].
"After a 40 year trillion dollar war against a plant, The Plant Is Winning". Trenton, New Jersey.
GOP-led spending on endless ground wars
Return to top. See: Wars and drug wars on demand.
"$5.6 trillion" for America’s wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan that started with Bush and CIA WMD lies about Iraq. [281][282]. Interstate Highway System cost $526 billion in 2016 dollars. And: Landing a human on the moon cost $206 billion in 2016 dollars. And: Military veterans defy Jeff Sessions, fight for medical marijuana to kick opioid addiction. Of all the veterans returning from the Middle East, about 60 percent experience chronic pain.
U.S. Republican Party: Greed, Ground Wars, Drug Wars, and Mass Incarceration.
Lie After Lie: What Colin Powell Knew About Iraq 15 Years Ago and What He Told the U.N. By Jon Schwarz. Feb. 6, 2018. The Intercept. And: Lie After Lie After Lie: What Colin Powell Knew Ten Years Ago Today and What He Said. By Jonathan Schwarz. Feb. 5, 2013. Updated April 7, 2013. HuffPost.
Total US public debt as percent of GDP. Timeline . Starting in 1900. Click to enlarge.
Record US government debt today not seen since just after World War II.
See Wikipedia: History of the United States public debt.
U.S. infrastructure badly needs this money
- America's infrastructure is falling apart — here's a look at how bad things have gotten By Cadie Thompson. Feb. 12, 2018. Business Insider.
- More than 50,000 American bridges are falling apart. Jan. 29, 2018, by Conor Ferguson. NBC News.
U.S. household debt at all time high
Return to top. See: Drug war, control, and Republican-led income inequality.
U.S. household debt at all time high. Chart below from page 3 of PDF.
2003 to 2017 (4th quarter). Total Household Debt by Type:
Click to enlarge. Timeline is by quarters.
Black upward-pointing line is student debt. Cumulative percent increase over time:
See source.
Canadian middle class has surpassed USA
Canada passes US in median income and wealth.
Median after-tax income in Canada is higher than in the USA.
The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest. [283]. By David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy. April 22, 2014. New York Times.
Why? One reason is that Canadians pay so much less for far better healthcare.
Also, Canada has a higher minimum wage than the USA.
U.S. middle class wealth has collapsed
Return to top. See: Income inequality and drug war.'
U.S. middle class wealth has collapsed. [284]. And: Just 8 men own same wealth as half the world. See Wikipedia: Wealth in the United States.
Many nations surpassed US middle class
Return to top. See: Income inequality and drug war. See also: Commons:Convert tables and charts to wiki code or image files.
Median wealth chart below. Median wealth is exactly in the middle. 50% of adults have more, and 50% of adults have less. Wealth is all assets (money, stocks, property, etc.) minus all debts.
Tables - Credit Suisse. Scroll down to XLS links. Download the Complete Wealth per Adult Data by Country for 2016 and 2017 (XLS). This was used to create the table below. This is only part of the table. Note that USA is number 24 in median wealth per adult in the table below. Canada is number 13.
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USA. Richest 10% Own 84% of All Stocks
Return to top. See: Drug war, control, and Republican-led income inequality.
- The Richest 10% of Americans Now Own 84% of All Stocks. Dec. 19, 2017. Time (magazine). "The top 10% of American households, as defined by total wealth, now own 84% of all stocks in 2016, according to a recent paper by NYU economist Edward N. Wolff."
- Oxfam: 42 Billionaires Hold As Much Wealth As World’s Poorest 3.7 Billion. By Mary Papenfuss. Jan. 22, 2108. HuffPost.
Record global debt. Who will bail out USA?
Who will buy US government debt in the next global recession?
Global Debt Jumped to Record $237 Trillion Last Year. By Alexandre Tanzi. April 10, 2018. Bloomberg.
See Category: Charts and graphs.
US income inequality, and falling wages
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Workers’ wages fall after passage of Republican tax cuts. June 13, 2018. Tax cuts went mostly to the rich. Should have gone mostly to the middle class who would have had more money free to plow back into the economy. |
Republicans waste $$-trillions on health insurance companies, and ground wars ($5.6 trillion). Instead of paying higher wages, and higher minimum wages.
Increasing income inequality over time. Chart below from:
A Republican Tax Plan to Turbocharge Inequality, in 3 Charts. Dec. 17, 2017. New York Times.
Why does National Public Radio, like most media, not report much on this?
Wikipedia: List of minimum wages by country.
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United States leads in income inequality, and lack of economic mobility. Increasing income inequality on the horizontal axis. Increasing economic immobility on the vertical axis.
- Income Inequality Is At The Highest Level In American History. By Bryce Covert. July 1, 2016. ThinkProgress. "Incomes for the 99 percent have only recovered about 60 percent of what they lost. But the rich are doing great. ... They captured more than half of all the income growth in the country."
- Google News search: student debt.
Chart below: Top 10% of earners receive 50% of all income:
Chart below is from a Washington Post article on Dec. 29, 2017:
"The U.S. has one of the stingiest minimum wage policies of any wealthy nation."
Republicans refuse to raise minimum wage
Wikipedia: List of minimum wages by country.
Democrats, following Bernie Sanders lead, propose bill to raise minimum wage to $15 by 2024. Republicans oppose raising federal minimum wage. May 26, 2017. [288] [289].
Republicans in several states are lowering the minimum wage — yes, you read that right. By Matthew Sheffield. July 9, 2017. Salon. And: Missouri's Republican governor signs state law lowering St. Louis minimum wage. [290]. July 3, 2017. And: Iowa's Republican governor signs law overturning local minimum wage increases. March 30, 2017.
Green love
2018 Global Marijuana March and 420 events
The Global Marijuana March is the first Saturday in May. The first Saturday in May is also World Naked Gardening Day. Your marijuana garden needs love too 
. (see Google search for it). But, be safe!
Colorado’s Effort Against Teenage Pregnancies Is a Startling Success. Free birth control.
| Republicans think they can spend an infinite amount of money (many trillions of dollars) on private-health-insurance-company-based healthcare, and have an infinite number of babies, to feed their appetite for endless ground wars, and for more inmates for more prisons for more drug war. |
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| Wikipedia: Population milestone babies. |
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| As with cannabis legalization Colorado led the way.. More info. 2.3.. |
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Canada has universal healthcare
Canada has single payer healthcare
Canadian healthcare costs much less
Half the cost of Obama-Trumpcare
USA could save $1.6 trillion YEARLY
Canada has better health outcomes
- See: Canadian single-payer universal healthcare versus US healthcare. And: End drug war with universal healthcare. And: Canadian single-payer healthcare and Portuguese drug decriminalization.
Average per capita (per person) healthcare cost in chart below includes all costs public and private. See Wikipedia: List of countries by total health expenditure per capita.
Republicans waste $$-trillions on health insurance companies, and ground wars ($5.6 trillion).
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| Country | Life expectancy. 2015 | Under-5 mortality rate per 1000 live births. 2016. | Maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births. 2015 | Healthcare cost per person. (2). US dollars PPP | Murder rate per 100,000. 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 82.2 years. (2) | 4.9 | 7.3 | $4,753 in 2016 | 1.7 | |
| USA | 79.3 years. (2) | 6.5 | 26.4 | $9,892 in 2016 | 5.3 | |
| Charts. Murder rate in Canada is lower due to far less handguns. Republican NRA morons. Why does National Public Radio, like most media, not report most of these international comparisons? Videos. Republican myths about Canadian healthcare: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82. Nations with better and healthier quality of life: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. Why are Republicans such dumbasses at math? US spent 17.9% of GDP (national economy) on healthcare in 2016. | ||||||
Canadian Single Payer: Show health card, get health care paid for by taxes. No deductibles on basic Canadian health care, and co-pays are extremely low or non-existent. And: No bankruptcies and personal medical debt in single-payer countries.
Massive wasteful spending in US healthcare
The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest. Median after-tax income in Canada is higher than in the USA. [291]. One reason why is that Canadians pay so much less for far better healthcare. So they have more money in their pocket after paying for healthcare taxes and premiums.
US healthcare spending per person is more than double the average of other developed countries.
Per capita (per person) healthcare costs by country in chart below: [292].
For more recent data see:
Wikipedia: List of countries by total health expenditure per capita.
This massive wasteful healthcare spending in the USA (compared to other rich nations) accelerated in 1980 (see chart below). How? It happened because non-profit health insurance was taken over by for-profit health insurance companies. They get a cut of all wasteful healthcare spending. The more wasteful, the more profits. Such as exorbitant drug pricing, expensive medical devices, overuse of emergency rooms. It is similar to how for-profit prison companies have an incentive to fill more beds, rather than rehabilitate prisoners.
Non-profit health insurance, and single payer healthcare, do not have these perverse incentives. So they tend to use more early preventive care that requires far fewer expensive drugs, devices, and visits to the emergency room and urgent care. Healthcare, like roads, should be publicly financed, and privately built. Private health insurance, like private toll road companies, are a kind of middleman mafia that skims profits, and shuffles papers, but don't actually do any real work.
Medicare spends less than 2 percent on bureaucracy. 1.4% to be exact. We need Medicare for All. Nearly a third of our health care dollars go to something other than health care. And: Universal healthcare and drug war.
Related charts. Why does National Public Radio, like most media, not report much on these comparisons?
Chart below shows the percentage of the GDP (national economy) spent on all healthcare costs (public and private) by year for some countries. Note that around 1980 US healthcare costs skyrocketed compared to other rich countries (all of which have universal healthcare, unlike the USA).
Source for above chart: Are any conservatives in the US for a single payer and a universal health care system, or can they not coexist? Chart is from comment around March 11, 2017 by Dan Munro, "author of Casino Healthcare, and Forbes contributor".
Each 10 million US uninsured equals
10,000 more deaths yearly. Also:
Bernie Sanders' projection of 'thousands' of deaths from lost health coverage is well-supported. By Louis Jacobson. June 27, 2017. Politifact. See article sidebar for many sources. [293][294][295][296][297].
10,000 die waiting for disability yearly
10,000 people died waiting for a disability decision in the past year. Will he be next? By Terrence McCoy. Nov. 20, 2017. Washington Post. "10,000 people died in the past year while stuck in a backlog of judges’ disability cases. ... they can’t work while they wait if they want to be approved."
With Single-Payer Universal Healthcare people get healthcare no matter how much they work or not. And it doesn't matter if they lose their job, or change employers. People don't have to show they are totally disabled to get adequate healthcare. People can try to work now and then as much as their disability allows them, and not lose their healthcare. And they get drug treatment on demand if their pill use gets out of hand.
Portugal has universal healthcare
Portugal decriminalized all drugs
Portugal has drug treatment for all
- See: Canadian single-payer healthcare and Portuguese drug decriminalization. And: End drug war with universal healthcare. And: Canadian healthcare versus US healthcare.
Portugal's drug decriminalization. 2.3.4.5. It is based on single-payer, universal healthcare. 2. Data Shows More U.S. Imprisonment Does Not Reduce Drug Problems. And: 39% of U.S. Prisoners Should Not Be in Prison.
In Portugal few die of overdoses
- City of Vancouver calls for decriminalization of drug possession. "The city says drastic action is needed as its overdose death total continues to climb". CBC News. Mar 09, 2018. [298].
- Norway to decriminalize all drugs, likely following Portugal's model. Dec. 19, 2017.
Portugal decriminalized possession of all drugs in 2001. Like Canada it has universal healthcare. See: Portugal. Cannabis-related links. See: Wikipedia: Drug policy of Portugal and Wikipedia: Health in Portugal. Nearly all of the European Union (EU) has universal healthcare. [299][300]. See: Wikipedia: List of countries with universal health care.
Portugal decriminalised drugs 14 years ago – and now hardly anyone dies from overdosing. 2015 article by Chris Ingraham. Chart below is from the article. As is the quote below:
"The country has 3 overdose deaths per million citizens, compared to the EU average of 17.3."
In 2014 the USA had 147 overdose deaths per million people. [301] [302] [303] [304]
Overdose Deaths Involving Opioids, United States, 2000-2015. Deaths per 100,000. Multiply by 10 to get deaths per million people. Source.
In 2016 the USA had 185 overdose deaths per million people. <~~ See chart in article, and a similar chart below.
Sources: [25][26] "Goulao says 90 per cent of public money spent fighting drugs in Portugal is channeled toward those health-care goals — just 10 per cent is spent on police enforcement." [27][28][29][30].
Map source: Drug Overdose Death Data. CDC Injury Center.
Map colors and rates. Multiply by 10 to get deaths per million population.
Yearly number of overdose deaths by drug. Sources: [31][32][33].
- Overdose stats for the rest of the world.
- Wikipedia charts: Drug-related death statistics. See the upload page.
US charts:
- Overdose Death Rates. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Charts.
- These Are the Drugs That Cause the Most Overdose Deaths. Chart.
- Our nation’s drug overdose problem, in five bleak charts.
- How the opioid epidemic became America’s worst drug crisis ever, in 15 maps and charts.
Ibogaine cure:
- Wikipedia: Ibogaine.
- Facebook: Ibogaine Universe!!!!
- Ibogaine is a healer.
Vote out most Republicans in 2018
Return to top.
Will 2018 midterm elections remove Republicans? 2018 ballot issues: marijuana & minimum wage.
- See: Vote out most Republicans. See also: Republican-led Drug War. And: Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate. And: Alternatives to Republican-led mass incarceration. And: Cost of Republican-led U.S. drug war. And: Reagan's war on cannabis.And: Drug war, control, and Republican-led income inequality.
- CNN Poll: Trump approval slides to 35%, matches lowest point of presidency. Feb. 26, 2018.
- Trump approval rating hits new low (35%) in CNN poll. 32% in Associated Press–NORC poll. Lowest in history for a first-year President. Dec. 19, 2017 article.
When Active-Duty Service Members Struggle To Feed Their Families. April 19, 2017. NPR.
| A or F? How Congress scores on marijuana. 2. By Danielle Keane, NORML political director. 2016. "Of the 233 Democrats in Congress, 208 members (89.3 percent) received a passing grade of a 'C' or higher. Of the 302 Republicans in Congress, 102 members (33.8 percent) received a passing grade of a 'C' or higher." For your state see: Congressional Scorecard. NORML. Grading was based upon members' voting records. |
Independents greatly outnumber Democrats or Republicans in the USA. If anti-cannabis Republicans are to be voted out of power, then all Democrat primaries need to be opened to independents. See Wikipedia: Open primaries in the United States. And: Wikipedia: Blanket primary. And: Wikipedia: Nonpartisan blanket primary.
Will 2018 midterm elections remove Republicans? 2018 ballot issues: marijuana & minimum wage.
2018 Global Marijuana March and 420 event map.
Combined flat list of featured crowd photos over the years.
Flat list of 420 featured crowd photos over the years.
Flat list of Global Marijuana March featured crowd photos over the years.
Flat list of event graphics and crowd photos in alphabetical order by city.
| Featured GMM crowd photos over years. | ||
|---|---|---|
Global Marijuana March. And: By year. See Featured GMM crowd photos. Click images to enlarge, and for info. Share links: crowd or crowds.
Wikipedia: Cannabis by country. Flat list of Global Marijuana March featured crowd photos over the years.
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![[23]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Health_care_cost_rise.svg){kind=link}
