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= Cannabis is safer = Return to top. See article: Cannabis is safer.



= USA. The state of the nation = Return to top. See:

= Vote out most Republicans = Return to top. Vote out most US Republicans and their cannabis war.

Prosperity for all is not sustainable without universal healthcare, progressive taxation, higher taxes on the rich, lower taxes on the middle class, a high minimum wage, and a sustainable population. It is not socialist. It is  Common Sense.  (search for "poor" among Thomas Paine quotes). See:  List of minimum wages by country . And: '''[http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/april/singlepayer_health_.php Medicare-for-all, like Canada, is not socialist either. ] See: [https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/16/perspectives/raise-federal-minimum-wage/index.html US federal minimum wage has 35% less buying power than in 1969. 10 years since last increase. A record.''' ]. Racist Republican state governments in 28 states passed laws to prevent cities from raising the minimum wage. Far-right talk radio helps Republicans do this. Republicans block cheap municipal broadband in 26 states. 

Money wasted on health insurance companies, drug wars, and most ground wars, helps no one.

Holy War on Drugs, Conservative-led global incarceration.

= US Republican cannabis war = Return to top. See also: Cannabis is safer.





 - Click your state to see which anti-cannabis  Republicans  to vote out.


 * 23 Feb 2019: Trump Continues to Flip-Flop on Medical Marijuana.

Trump vetoes democracy. He does so via the threat of presidential vetos requiring a 2/3rds vote of Congress to override. No European democracy has such authoritarian executive vetos. Their kings, presidents, and prime ministers were stripped of such power.



GOP Senate blocks cannabis. The Republican US Senate is a pseudo-democracy. A minority of Republicans block federal rescheduling or descheduling of cannabis. They block many bills that have majority public support. They do so via a radically expanded filibuster rule that requires 60% votes to pass anything, thus allowing a minority of 40% to rule.

See . It can bring back "50% plus 1" democracy to the US Senate. Stop the:  Still true.

= Republican mass incarceration = Return to top.


 *  The Republican-led drug war and Republican/NRA-led implementation of mandatory sentencing caused it.

OECD (developed democracies). Incarceration rates in chart below. See . And: List of countries by incarceration rate. And:  Comparison of United States incarceration rate with other countries.

'''

= We need to look at Portugal! = Return to top. See: '[http://cannabis.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Portugal._Cannabis-related_links Portugal. Cannabis-related links].' Also has links about Portugal's drug decriminalization.

 From 2016 chart in article. Also, see chart below.  [https://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-5 Chart of the day: Drug overdose deaths per million persons. Can the US learn something from Portugal? • AEI | Carpe Diem Blog » AEIdeas]. By Mark J. Perry @Mark_J_Perry - July 9, 2017. See chart:      

How Europe's heroin capital solved its overdose crisis. By Chris Brown. Apr 25, 2017. CBC.ca. "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."

= Cannabis versus cigarettes = Return to top. See: Cannabis is safer.

. For cigarettes actual daily use is measured. For marijuana it is for use on 20 or more occasions in the past 30 days. Green line is for marijuana. Dark blue/purple line is for cigarettes. Percent of 12th graders using over the years. Note the drastic and welcome drop in cigarette use. Marijuana use has stayed relatively low and steady.



= Life for Pot. Under Trump = Return to top.



= 70,200 deaths in US in 2017 = = During Trump's drug war. = Return to top. Click charts to enlarge.

There were  under the Republican-led drug war under Trump. Multiple drugs were involved in some of the deaths. See the numbers for the various drugs in the chart just below. . Among the more than 70,200 deaths in 2017, the sharpest increase occurred among deaths related to fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (synthetic opioids) with 28,466 deaths.

. Total US drug deaths by year. The 2 lines are for male and female numbers.

= Trudeau's Canada legalized = = Trudeau is not a socialist. = Return to top.


 *  Cannabis in Canada. Recreational cannabis is legal in Canada.



= Canadian healthcare myths = Return to top. See: Canadian healthcare myths.

= Single Payer costs less and = = Canada is not socialist. = Return to top.

See charts in these articles:
 * Canadian single-payer universal healthcare versus US healthcare.
 * Happy alternatives to US Republican-led poverty, mass incarceration, food insecurity, debt, ill health, intense concentration of wealth, endless wars.

= It has higher minimum wage = Return to top.

A higher minimum wage is also not socialist. Canada has a higher minimum wage than the US. See:  List of minimum wages by country.

= It has a lower murder rate, = = US; more handgun owners. = Return to top.

See  in previous section. Canada has a much lower homicide rate, and a much lower rate of handgun ownership. Even clueless Trump pinheads might figure out the connection. It is that simple.

= Portugal's drug decrim = Return to top. See: Canadian single-payer healthcare and Portuguese drug decriminalization.

We need to look at Portugal, where their overdose death rate, HIV, and hepatitis rates, were all drastically reduced after decriminalization and a public health, universal healthcare, treatment-for-all approach.

It has now been 18 years since Portuguese decriminalization in 2001.

= Healthcare for all costs less = Return to top. Share link: longcanada.

 in taxes, deductibles, copays, and premiums. This is because health insurance companies have much less to do with healthcare there. Drug prices are negotiated. And universal healthcare is about prevention and keeping people well, and not about continually "treating" them and keeping them profitably sick. See info, charts, and videos in this article:
 * Canadian single-payer universal healthcare versus US healthcare.''

= Drug company price fixing = Return to top.

12 May 2019: Sweeping lawsuit accuses top generic drug companies, executives of fixing prices. On 60 Minutes. CBS news. From article: "But 1,215 generics, many of them  ... 90 percent of all prescriptions filled in this country are filled with generic drugs."

= Huge cost of deductibles = Return to top.

2 May 2019: Trumpcare:  Los Angeles Times. 26 Mar 2018: Why thousands of Americans Are Risking It and Skipping Health Insurance. Bloomberg News.

= Medicare for all costs less = Return to top.

16 Jul 2018:  New York Times.

10 Apr 2019: . Medicare spends only 1.4% on bureaucracy: ' See '

= And is not socialist. = Return to top.



= US drug war is expensive = Return to top.



= Cash bail costs taxpayers = Return to top. - Republicans will do almost anything to maintain a high incarceration rate.

24 Jan 2017: Our Money Bail System Costs U.S. Taxpayers $38 Million A Day. On HuffPost.

= Ground wars are costly = Return to top.

 is the cost of America’s wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, etc..

= Pentagon is a money pit. = Return to top.

17 Mar 2019: The Pentagon’s Bottomless Money Pit. By Matt Taibbi. Rolling Stone. "Despite being the taxpayers’ greatest investment — more than $700 billion a year — the Department of Defense has remained an organizational black box throughout its history. It’s repelled generations of official inquiries, the latest being an audit three decades in the making, mainly by scrambling its accounting into such a mess that it may never be untangled."

= Hemp for all = Return to top.
 * Google search: The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Jack Herer. Chris Conrad.

= Children's Climate Action= Return to top.

 '''[https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=600076043758246 Facebook video with captions. A teenage climate activist (Greta Thunberg) called out world leaders in December 2018 at age 15].''' See comments and number of views by clicking on the video after it starts. Another popular version. Her videos have many tens of millions of views. See the full version on Youtube. It has a transcript in the description. There are many versions online. See  2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference. See: Thousands of UK Students Skipped Class to Protest Climate Change. Feb 15, 2019. Many photos.
 *  Greta Thunberg. And:  School strike for climate. Many events worldwide.
 * Google search: greta climate. Twitter: #FridaysForFuture #SchoolStrike4Climate #ClimateStrike.
 * . Voting age of 16 in many countries. Youth have more sense than US Republican climate change deniers.



= Green Love. Warming & = Return to top.

Democrat Congresspeople in the US support cannabis reform and the environment much more than Republican leaders. Republican misogyny as represented by Donald Trump is only matched by Republican misogyny for Mother Earth. Partly due to Trump the number of Democrat women in Congress increased in record numbers after the 2018 midterm election. The number of Republican women in Congress declined after the 2018 election. See 2018 United States elections.

          </li> </ul>

18 Dec 2018:  This was partly due to voters dumping the trump morons (Republican leaders) who opposed recreational cannabis. .

Overpopulation
Return to top.

Overpopulation is the main driver of global warming. Free birth control is part of the solution. The Little Ice Age is believed to have been partly due to the reforestation that occurred during the hundreds of years of lower human population caused by the Black Plague worldwide.

. Free birth control. July 5, 2015. New York Times.

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 * 9 June 2015: Abortion Rates Dropped Sharply. What Caused It? "According to a survey released by the Associated Press on Monday, abortions have dropped by 12 percent nationwide since 2010. ... the correlation between increased access to contraception and a decrease in unplanned pregnancy has been significantly documented over the last two decades. Teen pregnancy rates have been dropping to historic lows, a trend that has been connected to the change in social norms surrounding contraception and increased birth control availability."
 * ObamaCare Birth Control - Obamacare Facts. Free birth control.

= Green energy costs less = = Oil subsidies are socialist. = Return to top.

8 May 2019: Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending. By Tim Dickinson. Rolling Stone. From the article (emphasis added):

9 Sep 2019: EU countries still giving breaks to fossil fuel industries, new study says.

= President Eisenhower was = = A progressive Republican. = = He wasn't a socialist. His = Return to top.


 * They tried to call FDR and the New Deal 'socialist' too. Here's how he responded. By Michael Hiltzik. Feb 13, 2019. Los Angeles Times.

= 91% top marginal tax rate = Return to top. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Hires Former Marijuana Lobbyist As Senior Advisor. By Kyle Jaeger. January 7, 2019. Marijuana Moment. From the article: "Both believe that marijuana should be legalized at the federal level". .

7 Jan 2018: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is floating a 70 percent top tax rate — here’s the research that backs her up. And: Haters. And: Dancegate.

. He participated in one of the greatest eras of economic prosperity-for-more in the US in the 1950s. 

Make America Progressive and Prosperous for More Again.

 Ocasio-Cortez's "Radical" Proposal Proves Extremely Mainstream. .



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= & lower middle-class taxes = Return to top.



= Equaled prosperity for more = Return to top.

. He participated in one of the greatest eras of economic prosperity-for-more in the US in the 1950s. 


 * Viral meme says 1956 Republican platform was pretty liberal. Article by PolitiFact says it is mostly true. See  PolitiFact.

= Vs Republican Party today: =

= GOP kleptocracy, drug war, = Return to top.

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= US Republican war on poor, = Return to top. 



= Increasing income inequality, = Return to top.

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."

Rich get richer; while middle class wages are flat (inflation-adjusted), and the federal minimum wage (inflation-adjusted) has declined.

 11 Sep 2018.

= Flat inflation-adjusted wages, = Return to top. See: Under Trump, inflation-adjusted real wages are flat.

' And: '

 Bottom of chart below says: "Data for wages of production and non-supervisory employees on private non-farm payrolls."



= And lower minimum wage. = Return to top.

USA. Inflation-adjusted federal minimum wage over the years. ''' [https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/16/perspectives/raise-federal-minimum-wage/index.html US federal minimum wage has 35% less buying power than in 1969. 10 years since last increase. A record. ]. "The U.S. has one of the stingiest minimum wage policies of any wealthy nation." See: Charts. See  List of minimum wages by country.



= Massive US student debt = Return to top.

Facebook video: '''[https://www.facebook.com/senatorsanders/videos/vb.9124187907/2819889798028052/?type=2&theater $1.5 trillion in student debt. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders].''' Read the heartbreaking comments. 10 Dec 2018: People Are Living With An Incredible Amount Of Debt From Student Loans And Credit Cards. By Venessa Wong. BuzzFeed News.

= = Republican loansharking =

See  Student debt. Roughly 1 in 4 adults. No bankruptcy rights. Much higher interest rates. Lifetime debt. Modern loansharking and predatory lending, approved by Republicans.

= College at 16 is cheaper. = Return to top. See:  Age of majority. By country.

Scotland: Adult at age 16. Prolonged adolescence is a waste of time and money. Public high school in the USA costs an average of $12,509 a year per student in taxes. ''' See: [http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2009/04/02155040/1 Scotland. What can I do at my age?]''' See: Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1991. See: Education in Scotland: "In 2014, research by the Office for National Statistics found that Scotland was the most highly educated country in Europe".

= Massive US medical debt, = Return to top.

This doesn't happen in Canada, due to single-payer universal healthcare.

17 Jan 2019: '''[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/venessawong/34-heart-wrenching-stories-about-what-struggling-with US. 34 Devastating Stories About How People Are Still Crushed By Medical Debt].''' By Venessa Wong. BuzzFeed News.

= Massive US household debt, = Return to top. See  Household debt.

. Chart below from page 3 of PDF. Total household debt. 1st quarter 2003 through 2nd quarter 2019.

 Total Household Debt by Type: 

= Polls support legalization = Return to top. See: Cannabis polls.

The , but many of their leaders do not.

12 June 2019: . By Gallup Poll. 19 April 2019: CBS poll at 65% for legalization. This is after decades of activism such as cannabis marches, events, education, referendums, and more. See: cannabis polls and activism. We march until all the  are removed from office.