By Cody Wayne
July 16th, 2002
For the first time since marijuana
was deemed unsafe and illegal in the United States some 65 years ago,
we have a state which is boldly going where no state has gone before:
the brave new world of decriminalized herb.
Whhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…
ahhhh. That’s some good shit.
65 years, people. It’s taken
65 years for the American Government to wake the fuck up and smell the
shit they’ve been servin’, and lemme tell ya, it’s been a royal shit
smorgasbord for at least the last 55, ever since we decided to get jiggy
with our new non-isolationist world policy, bringing malls, franchises,
and military “peace” outposts to every corner of the world, ever since
we feared the immigrant presence, ever since we decided we were in competition
with the Commies and vice-versa. When I think about that time period
(not that I actually LIVED it, by god), I can’t help but laugh at how
the whole Cold War scenario boiled down to the fact that a bunch of
competitive hot-headed white men decided to take the world, and life,
a tad too seriously, believing that someone had to be considered a leader
of the world, a supreme ruler. It would’ve been a perfect opportunity
for Truman and Stalin, Eisenhower and Khrushchev, to seal a good sportsmanship
deal over a Cognac and a doober. Shake hands, play fair, and above
all, have some respect for one another… see past the oceans of difference
between our culture and politics and just have a good time testing the
grounds of human accomplishment. There’s no war goin’ on, man!
It’s just a game, a space game between humans who are at the cusp of
huge breakthroughs in science, technology, and spirituality, man! Dude!
(What does all this have
to do with pot? Everything, man. Everything’s, like, connected, ya
know? Fuckin’ far out, man.)
Unfortunately, there was
no love, no spirit, no general good nature or good sportsmanship to
be had between us and the Commies. But hell, everyone was in bad shape.
We’d just faced almost assured world domination by the freakin’ Nazis.
Everyone was a little shaken up, wondering what was next. Who’s in
charge? Does it get better now? How much longer do I wait before I’m
in the post-war dream? How do I get in? How much will it cost? How
tall do I need to be? What’s on TV? Who’s on third? What’s for fuckin’
breakfast?!
And through it all, if we’d
only been able to relax comfortably with a mind-altering cigarette,
we may have avoided all the unnecessary haste and waste we were able
to provide ourselves with for decades to come.
But now, here it is. The
moment we’ve all been waiting for: sanity. A policy for responsible
and sane law enforcement.
Yes, sanity. A little dose
of sanity in an ever increasingly insane world is the most righteous
thing we can do for ourselves, the human race. It’s a law that makes
total perfect fucking sense, and that’s almost all that really needs
to be said about the whole deal.
Here’s
what you need to know about the proposition, labeled “Question 9”, on
the November Nevadan ballot:
1) You will still go to prison
for selling pot to a minor.
2) You will be arrested for
driving under the influence of pot. (which, for the record, does nothing
to impair your ability to operate an automobile, but it all looks good
on the ballot initiative to the stiffs, so just shut the fuck up about
it.)
3) You can’t have more than
three ounces. (a shitload of pot!!!) It’s three ounces because that’s
what’s been deemed consumable in a month’s time. It comes out to approximately
three to four doobers a day. Most righteous.
4) Pot will be made available
at shops. Taxes will be taken by the state. You will get a discounted
price for showing a medical pot card.
Yup. Makes sense. From
every mountain side, let freedom reign. Word.
Even the local police are
backing the initiative, if you can believe that. Or, at least, they
were. Apparently, when the nine heads of NCOPS, the Nevada Conference
of Police and Sheriffs, first cast their vote on the initiative, they
thought it was for medical marijuana, not the decriminalization of marijuana.
And actually, it wasn’t even an official vote. It was a phone survey
conducted by Andy Anderson, former, until the incident,
head of the NCOPS and leading advocate of the initiative. Whoops.
There’s a big difference between medical use and recreational use, apparently,
and an even bigger difference between a quick phone call and an official
meeting. A big political difference, that is. You never wanna
say that it’s alright to casually smoke a doob when holding a high political
position. Never ever ever ever.
From Anderson’s side, the
one and only issue is the time factor. He believes it’s a waste of
police officers’ time to bust someone for a few joints, and says there’s
a silent majority within the police force who believe the same thing.
Sometimes it takes up to half a shift to fully investigate and cite
a person for possession, and then most times, the case doesn’t even
go to court. After years of personal experience with law enforcement,
these well-seasoned cops are simply taking their observations from the
field and making a sane judgment call. “We feel that we've been wasting
a lot of time on these simple arrests that we could have better used.
I mean, part of our job is to protect and to serve, just like it says
on our squad cars,” says Anderson[1].
Now for the bad news, i.e.
reality. But first, let’s find out who’s spearheading this mission.
They’re a group called the NRLE,
which stands for Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement. They’re
the ones who’d originally gotten the petition signatures needed to bring
the issue to the ballot in November, actually getting twice as many
signatures needed according to state law. Apparently, our current drug
czar, John Walters, is telling the NRLE that they, the feds, will not
impose themselves on the state should the measure be passed.
“Whoa! Well, wait a minute,
Cody. How is that BAD news?” Not so fast there, green boy.
Let’s look at what they’ve been doing in California, shall we? Busting
sick people and the clinics that give ‘em pot? Hmmm… Medical marijuana
was passed in our blessed state, you fucks. It was passed through a
voting procedure. It was ok’d by the state. And do the feds give a
fuck? Uh uh. They’re over here pickin’ clinics off like pot heads
in a barrel. They’re easy meat because (now, get this. This is where
it gets a little fuckin’ nuts in the world.) federal law overrides
state laws.
“Hey, so what exactly is
the point of passing laws which may contradict the law of, shall we
say, the land?” That’s a very good question, green boy. See, what
happens with any major change in the federal law is that it must get
through by means of simple steps, baby state steps, if I may. The states
of this country should be considered as steps up some grand marble staircase
to some blinding and conclusive federal truth. First, there’s the people,
then there’s the states, and then there’s the country. So far, we’ve
got Oregan, Arizona, California, Alaska, Ohio, and now Nevada all making
their huge strides up the staircase for the sanity of America. But
it’s gonna take a while. Yes, the wind blows from west to east, but
there’s a BIG OLE mountain in the way. Some people call it the Rockies,
but for many here on the lefty westy, we call it the Mind Net. (or,
at least that’s… what… I… call it.) There’s a lot of people out there
who are firmly cast and set in their insanity and ignorance who could
never fathom the idea of attaining a true sense of personal freedom
in the world. They’ve been well-trained to latch on to whatever notion
of “freedom” the government foists upon them. They’ve been primed for
total conditioning and brainwashing their whole lives and it might just
take a bullet in the head for them to wake up. It’ll at least take
a finely tuned Chainsaw of Personal Freedom to get through to some of
these filthy American pigs, but in the end, there’ll be few casualties.
Collateral damage, right? Isn’t that what war’s about? A War on Drugs?
…on Personal Freedoms? In the end, the collateral damage is the most
intense, the most brutal, the most innocent, and the most destructive
in every possible way. It’s from the deaths of those who never “signed
on” that allow us to gage our horror. I know I never signed on. I
don’t even believe in a War on Drugs. How can you wage war against
an inanimate object? Isn’t that an innate forfeit? Perhaps we should
rephrase it to say, “War on People Who Use Drugs,” how ‘bout that?
Or better yet, “War on People Who Believe in Their Natural Born Right
to Personal Freedom.” Mmmm, nah. I can see how “War on Drugs” is better.
Perfectly simple, concise, and confusingly general, but the American
people love their apple pie in big heaping homogeneous gulps. Either
all good or all bad. Ask no questions. Just gulp.
Hell, same goes for the War
on Terror. I openly oppose most of that which our American government
represents; corruption, bureaucracy, hypocrisy, imperialism, conformity,
etc. Does that mean I could be a terrorist? …that I could conceivably
reign down TERROR on the innocent? Should I be watched? I know I share
many basic beliefs concerning the United States government with most,
if not all, practicing terrorists, but I don’t believe the way to get
a message across is through killing the people who live in said country.
Plus, I don’t have the fuckin’ balls. So, should I still be watched?
After all, I might flip out. I might smoke pot and flip out. It’s
happened before. Could it be said that we, The United States of the
American Government, will be performing acts of terror on the Iraqi
people should we decide to get Saddam? I can only imagine the reaction
of Baghdad residents as being one of terror.
We, as a whole, and I hope
I can incorporate you, the reader, as a part of this collective, are
maturing as a species. We’ve passed the point of taking orders and
simply obeying. We now see the world, and even the universe, for the
perfectly free and simple place that it is. We also see the pundits
and nay-sayers (the “parents”) for what they are; scared white guys
who let their brethren tell them what to think for the continued blind
pushing of defunct and confusing political agendas. They’re afraid
of losing control. They’re afraid of openly contradicting themselves
to the American public. But seriously, I can see why they’re having
such a problem backing down from their drug policy. Only 65 years ago,
the government went postal in its campaign to convince everyone that
marijuana was a drug that could lead someone to rape, pillage, and commit
various other heinous acts on with axes. Now, we look back on propaganda,
such as Harry Anslinger’s short 1937 film “Reefer Madness” and the Nancy
Reagan D.A.R.E. campaign, with hilarity. But, in the end, the laugh
is really on us, the free-thinking individual. The drug issue is the
government’s most blatant and consistent form of baby-sitting the American
public. It proves to me that the government truly believes that I can’t
think for myself, and that scares the fucking shit out of me. Exactly
how consistent is it that, by age 18, we’re legally allowed to fuck,
be drafted, smoke cigarettes, and most crucially, to vote, yet
we haven’t gotten to the point where the feds think they can hand over
the keys to our own bodies when it comes down to taking drugs?
Well, there’s two good reasons.
#1 - A lot of drugs actually stimulate free abstract thinking,
which is in no way good for politics or the civilized wet-dream society
they’ve got in mind for us. I’m actually still waiting to hear a president
stand up and explain what they think the long-term purpose of human
society might be. I imagine it to be the most awkward and depressing
press conference ever, but it could be just as effective as alien visitors
in uniting the world in something other than what’s been shoved down
our throats for the last couple ‘a thousand years.
#2 - Drugs are of greater
monetary benefit to the feds when they’re illicit and underground.
The more covert and unregulated it is, the greater the pay-off and the
less American media and, thusly, people will know about it. If all
drugs should magically become legal, things get regulated, the wealth
is spread out, the power is gone, the feds have to answer to more corporations,
more administrators, more unions, and, of course, who are they gonna
bust at customs… terrorists?! God forbid. At this point, no
one should need to be told about the seemingly countless occasions in
which our government has used the drug trade to finance the latent back
bone of the American economy and to keep a strangle-hold on world politics,
but let’s hash over (pun intended) a few little things just to keep
the article interesting, shall we?
Back to the new drug czar,
John Walters, we find he’s had his nose in a couple of past drug-trafficing
debacles, most notably the Noriega scam. (Ahhh… cocaine is so good.
It really is. I love it. God damn. Good good good.) Anyway, it’s
reported that Walters actually went down to Panama with a small negotiating
team in the early 80’s to get Noriega back on track with the cocaine
import business. Aparently, Noriega didn’t feel as though he was getting
enough money for allowing the storage and distribution of drugs and
weapons to filter through his meager country to our rich land of abundance.
Of course, he had every right to complain just like any underpaid employee
does. It’s just that, you know, he was employed by the CIA. So Walters
and crew were able to work things out, at least for a little while.
And why would our government, which stands so firmly in the belief that
drugs are bad, want to actually bring drugs into the country? Well,
kids, drugs sell. The reinvestment of drug money in the American market
can pay off all the concrete and abstract shit you can dream of, including
federal deficits, stock market failings, special ops in other countries
(everyone remembers Oliver North, don’t they?), and just general “here,
keep your mouth shut,” sorta stuff[2].
If drugs became legal and regulated, the money wouldn’t have to be laundered.
The money wouldn’t be hidden, mysterious, untaxed, and untraceable.
If drugs were legal, everything could be traced. It would all be in
the books. But then again, the books are being smudged by accountants,
so actually, WHO REALLY GIVES A FUCK?! It all flows into the Madness
and Bullshit Department in the end. Oh my god. We really are in hell.
But if this is hell, where’s Satan? Where’s the head? To quote the
film Cube; “There is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It’s
a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan.”
Is it me, or can every political and civilized argument be boiled down
to that basic tenet?
Go to google
and search under “cia drug traffic” and you’ll get a nice stream of
information regarding the ways in which we’ve helped import and distribute
drugs in this country even though they’re condemned to every possible
degree by our government officials. It’s really amazing that they can
keep a straight face anymore when talking about drug policy and the
War on Drugs. Let’s face it, you assholes. They’re here. They’re
not going anywhere. Thanks for trying, though. Really. It’s like
trying to listen to your girlfriend describe her fidelity while she’s
riding your good friend like a training bull.
…AND I’M FUCKING
SICK OF IT, GOD DAMN IT!!!
[1] from Buchanon and Press,
MSNBC on 8/6/02.
