President Reagan’s Sec. of State Against the Drug War
Loretta Nall

…”We need at least to consider and examine forms of controlled legalisation of drugs. I find it very difficult to say that. Sometimes at a reception or cocktail party I advance these views and people head for somebody else. They don’t even want to talk to you. I know that I’m shouting into the breeze here as far as what we’re doing now. But I feel that if somebody doesn’t get up and start talking about this now, the next time around, when we have the next iteration of these programs, it will still be true that everyone is scared to talk about it. No politician wants to say what I have just said, not for a minute.”
– former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Oct. 7, 1990, addressing an alumni gathering at the Stanford Business School
where he had returned to the faculty.

Walter Cronkite on the Drug War

Hugh Downs on the Drug War

BW: One of the arguments against even talking about decriminalizing drugs is that you’re condoning their use. If you say, for example, the war on marijuana causes more problems than it solves, it’s not uncommon for the Drug Czar to say, “Ah-hah! You’re encouraging kids to smoke marijuana!” Did you get any of that reaction?

HD: Yes, I did. I got some. And some from viewers. Although, I repeat, it wasn’t like the whole public rose up against what I had [to say]. There was a lot more sympathy out there than I expected. That didn’t mean that the powers-that-be weren’t upset by it.
Hugh Downs interview with Bill Winter
Advocates for Self-Government
Saturday, October 15, 2005

Celebrity Stoners: American High Society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium :

“In game theory, Nash equilibrium (named after John Forbes Nash, who proposed it) is a solution concept of a game involving two or more players, in which each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players, and no player has anything to gain by changing only his or her own strategy unilaterally. If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.

Stated simply, Amy and Bill are in Nash equilibrium if Amy is making the best decision she can, taking into account Bill’s decision, and Bill is making the best decision he can, taking into account Amy’s decision. Likewise, a group of players is in Nash equilibrium if each one is making the best decision that he or she can, taking into account the decisions of the others. However, Nash equilibrium does not necessarily mean the best cumulative payoff for all the players involved; in many cases all the players might improve their payoffs if they could somehow agree on strategies different from the Nash equilibrium (e.g. competing businesses forming a cartel in order to increase their profits).”

Essentially this means that while everybody knows that the current policy is sub-optimal/local maximum, they have no personal incentive to deviate from the current strategy. Part of what we’re doing, I guess, is to change the payoffs of this game.

When critical mass is reached we’ll see politicians (and the sheep) change position as if something was on fire. It’s like the quantity of what’s happing may change the quality all of a sudden, and real fast.

Looking a Gil and Barack – and a lot of other people – aren’t we really seeing very cautious hints saying “I really, really want to defect from the current strategy”? I think so. Lots of people are in the room making all sorts of subtle gestures towards the elephant: “*cough* look over there *cough* *cough* elephant *cough* *cough* if YOU go first, I’ll follow.”

i think i like it cause im atheist.