Okay folks.
First off, let me apologize for my absence over the last month or so. I have been busy working a lot lately, and after all askapothead.com isn’t paying the bills…. yet.
Yes, that’s right - as some of you well know, there IS such a thing as a responsible pothead. Despite what the United States government would have you believe with its stand on marijuana, and its “War on Marijuana”, there are actually many functioning, working, bill paying, home owning, tax paying and OTHERWISE law abiding citizens. Which is why I have forced myself to take time out of earning money to feed myself and pay the electric bill and my taxes, to drop some knowledge, and pitch a seriously important bitch.
If you have not already, check out The Wise Old Stoner section… Uncle Lung Hacker has a nice post and a link to the story of the DEA’s arrest and extradition of Canadian Mark Emery, the self proclaimed “Prince of Pot”, and also “one of the attorney general’s most wanted international drug trafficking targets,” and a “drug kingpin” according to American laws. All this just for distributing seeds of a plant. Read the linked story and check out pot.tv for more on Marc Emery.
But here is my beef. What can we do? What can we do, seriously, in a “supposed” republic (and don’t even get me started on how we are not a democracy) where the majority votes based upon misinformation and fear campaigns. People who know about weed don’t fear it. They don’t fear their kids getting hooked on it and finding a gate way to cocaine or heroin. People who know about weed only fear the “man”; the police, the government, the establishment that is here to tell us that they will put us in JAIL for possessing, or growing a plant.
That is it right there.
WE FEAR.
How can a group of people launch a national advertisement campaign to inform and educate the public, when those very people are hunted by the government for those very beliefs? When they FEAR the government arresting them for that? How the fuck does this work? And why does that not sound like America to me?
Here we have a guy IN CANADA… another damn country, and this guy is selling seed. SEEDS! And he is brought to stand trial in the US like a terrorist.
How are we supposed to attack this? It is wrong, it is an infringement upon our personal rights, but what do you do when you live in fear?
And you know it is what they want. According to the DEA, “a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade but also to the marijuana legalization movement.”
Well there you go.
California has and is trying. They legalized medical marijuana. The state even brought in legendary Hightimes growing guru Ed Rosenthal to run a state indoor medical marijuana farm. What did the DEA do? Well they went in and arrested him and extradited him out of … out of California?? Out of the US…?
They put Ed on Trial and he was convicted. Funny thing was that the federal judge did not allow the jury to be told that Mr. Rosenthal was a state employee and was growing this “illegal plant” at the request of the state of California. In fact, when the jury found this out after the conviction of Mr. Rosenthal, most of them agreed had they known this, they never would have found him guilty.
How do you fight for change in a “free country” where government is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, and for the people” and the Fed’s won’t play by the rules.
Is it the cigarette company lobbies? The alcohol industry? Who exactly is it that is fighting this misinformation propaganda war against marijuana?
And what the fuck are we functioning, working, bill paying, home owning, tax paying and OTHERWISE law abiding citizens, supposed to do to teach the rest of this Bush electing country that weed is not the enemy, nor will it kill your children, nor does it fund terrorism, nor is it a “gateway drug”.
I think talk radio host Art Bell said it best, and I am paraphrasing here, but he said,
“I think when you tell kids that marijuana is this terrible evil drug that will hurt them, and the try it, and it doesn’t do anything they were told to be afraid of, they learn that authority lies. This is the true ‘Gateway’ to other drugs, because now you have lost the trust of your kids.”
Too fucking true.
So what are we going to do people?
What are we going to do?
I know one thing,
first, I’m gonna go load another bowl….
For Marc,
and Ed,
and all the others who have fallen
and been taken prisoner
in the terrorist attacks
committed on American soil
by Americans
against American
who just happen to like to smoke a little weed every now and then…..
And then I am going to re-read my copy of “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do : The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country,” by Peter McWilliams.
You should run out to amazon.com and buy yourself a copy.
Here:
Buy it!
Buy it. Read it. Get high.
And somebody tell me when you figure out how to change this bull shit fear we live under.
Written by Hashmander
Politics | No Comments »
