Green Party Candidate for Criminal Mercantilism

Natasha Pettigrew is a 30 year old law student, seeking the nomination of the Maryland Green Party for U.S. Senate

Douglas,

Thanks for your email; first, my statement was to convey that corporate criminals must be punished for their behaviors just like the person who gets time for possession and while drugs can harm, the only crime here is intent (to distribute). Why should those who knowingly created a scheme that they knew would fail and who the people ultimately bailed out go unpunished?

With regards to your question, do I support the War on Drugs? This is a war that society has been battling for at least 70 years. Who even remembers the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, and has it been effective? We can ask those who were at Woodstock! What is the process for collecting this tax and how successful have we been? Where is the money and what is being used for? Fourteen years later the Boggs Act established mandatory minimum federal sentences followed in 1952 by the War on Drugs. The Mexican Border was closed to combat drug traffic, and drug abuse became "Public Enemy Number One!"

The DEA are the foot soldiers in the great war and then there was "Just Say No!" Let's not forget Senator Joe Bidden's 1994 provision that allowed for federal execution of drug kingpins because the problem was just that bad!! To be honest, I am 1000% in favor of every effort lodged against illegal/illict drugs but the war on drugs is a marketing campaign slogan much like "two all beef patties on a sesame seed bun!"

Seventy years, the DEA and many campaigns later in a very small community where I spent my summers they are plagued with HS dropouts, drugs and now, gangs and graffitti. The drug lords are mostly all HS dropouts who cannot read or write if given several hundreds of thousands of dollars would not be able to find Mexico, Jamaica, etc on the map. How can they facilitate moving large quantities of drugs by plane or other means of transportation?

I believe that people must realize that the folks at the top control drugs and determine with what speed, if any, this "war" will be fought. I believe that easy access to drugs in certain communities is planned and intentional. In this small county above I could erase and remove all drug elements so why can't the highly skilled and trained DEA?

Further, even the most recent drug czar from President Obama's administration has called for an end to the war on drugs' phraseology recognizing the need to rebrand. As he rebrands, I hope he gets serious about this major problem and declares victory in a time much shorter than the past seventy years.

Hope this gives you some insight into my perspectives on the major problem with drugs.

Natasha P

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Douglas Willinger <dougwill2001@yahoo.com> wrote:

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Douglas Willinger <dougwill2001@yahoo.com>
To: TPGreens@yahoogroups.com; village-green@mdgreens.org; Montgomery County <mgp-mmtg@yahoogroups.com>; cc@mdgreens.org
Sent: Sat, May 8, 2010 12:40:50 PM
Subject: Re: [TPGreens] Fw: [Village Green] Natasha Pettigrew (in her own words) [1 Attachment]

"Corporate Criminal Crimes must be punishable by law just like the teen who robbed an ATM of $2 thousand and went to jail or being caught with drugs with the intent to distribute comes with jail time and while it is wrong fewer people are impacted so perhaps jail time until the economy rebounds and everyone is working."
So is this saying that we ought to continue with the criminal mercantilism drug statutes that protect the trade in adulterated, mis-branded cigarettes while perverting coca leaves to crack?

Please see the tags regarding coca, tobacco and criminal mercantilism at my blog "Freedom of Medicine and Diet".

In particular, please examine the archives from March and April 2008, and April 2010.

Douglas A. Willinger
Freedom of Medicine and Diet

Green Party candidate assumes that substances are bad because they are illegal and says NOTHING about the basic human liberty of the right to choose one's diet and medicine.

She also appears to show zero interest in thinking out of the box, e.g. learning about Cannabis, Coca and Opium, and how the drug war is essentially agricultural food and drug mercantilism..

I recommend NOT wasting votes upon the 'Green' Party and sticking for the most part with Libertarians.