From:
http://truthmissile.blogspot.com/
"Up in Smoke" is a classic. When it's on Comedy Central, it's one of those movies you just have to drop everything and watch. It shows Los Angeles in a simpler time, a Roxy on the Sunset Strip well before the Hustler Store, when bands would battle for supremacy, and air conditioning systems allowed giant trucks made of marijuana to release smoke into clubs unfiltered.
There's a certain child like world that Stoners live in - it's so alluring, but also holds the distinct possibility of trapping you inside. Snacking, hanging out, playing video games, listening to music...
Cheech and Chong took that world, captured it on celluloid, and made it eternal for future generations. Since then we've had an annual Stoner movie that each generation can call it's own:
C&C's "Up in Smoke" set the stage for the stoner as ambulatory vegetable. Sean Penn in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," Keanu Reeves in "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure," Jason Mewes in "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" -- walking zucchini all.
Then there are the urban bluntmen: Snoop Dogg in "The Wash," Method Man in "How High." The doobage is almost a character itself. And the lost classic: "Half Baked," which was a critical and theatrical bomb but stars the genius Dave Chappelle. You can almost smell the fumes on those rental DVDs..."
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So when you think about the current marijuana policy of the United States, you can't help but wonder what those in power are thinking? Are they benevolent to the alcohol industry, who I imagine would suffer some sustained profit loss if the typical 20-30 something "dude" could grow his drug of choice in his backyard in the safety of his (parents) home/apartment, versus paying $10 for a drink while feeling the pasty, sweaty celulite of an overweight hag/deuchbag rub up against oneself. Hmmmm?
What about the pharmaceutical industry, that's in the business of alleviating pain? My psychiatrist friend insists that marijuana is not comparable to pharmaceuticals, but wouldn't most people just take the lesser drug they can grow in their backyard, versus the bottle they have to pay $60 for?
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"GRASS" is a funny, insightful, entertaining documentary on the history of marijuana in the United States. One point it makes over and over again, is the various attempts at scaring the public with a variety of propaganda films and sensational rhetoric. You can see through the course of this movie that millions of young minds must have seen the stark discrepancy between the fear created around marijuana versus the reality of the drug itself - which by most accounts is relatively banal. I mean, when was the last time you saw a good natured buddy flick about two cokeheads, or an Indian and a Chinese guy looking for heroin? To sum it up, after the end of alcohol prohibition, the government via a man named Harry Anslinger focused it's attention on a drug used mostly by Blacks and Hispanics - which eventually lead to international restrictions adopted by the UN.
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It was mentioned, but not thoroughly discussed that President Bush recently admitted to smoking marijuana:
Bush also criticizes then-Vice President Al Gore for admitting marijuana use and explains why he would not do the same.
"I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions," he said, according to the Times. "You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried."
So the President doesn't want kids to try what he tried? What about alcohol? What about the rumors about the President's cocaine use? Should kids try that? Should laws remain so stiff as to force people to break the law to get marijuana - a drug that Gore, Kerry, Bush II, and Clinton have admitted to using?
With the states facing huge deficits, particularly California, wouldn't government taxation and regulation of marijuana bring in a whole new area of revenue for the State? Didn't Governor Schwarzenegger himself smoke marijuana in his classic documentary "Pumping Iron:"
Schwarzenegger: "I did smoke a joint and I did inhale," he said, taking a jab at President Clinton's famous statement. "The bottom line is that's what it was in the '70s, that's what I did. I have never touched it since.
So Arnold is entitled to youthful indiscretions, but if you do it, "yo-ah goin' to the slamm-ah hipp-ee!"
They just closed a school in my California hometown, the whole staff has been laid-off - it's a direct result of the deficits that have struck at the heart of California's infrastructure.
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I was prompted to write this because of an article I read today from the Christian Science Monitor on the Marijuana industry in California:
"On the street it's called Northern Lights, Ontario Hydro, and B.C. bud. It's one of Canada's biggest agricultural exports - a potent form of marijuana cultivated in sprawling "grow houses," worth an estimated US$4 billion to $7 billion annually. Much of it is smuggled into the US...."
"...Thursday Canada buried four young Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers who were killed during a bust in rural Alberta March 3.
The Alberta grow house was just one of thousands across Canada. Here in Ontario, police say indoor pot operations have risen 250 percent in the past four years. And Vancouver is home to some 7,000 "grow ops" at any time, police say."
What if that was your brother being buried? Why did they die? Who were they protecting from what?
Until we deal with the insanity of this issue head on, we're headed for more senseless tragedy.
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Some books that changed my opinion about marijuana legalization:
Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed...
"In 2001, my book, Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed And What We Can Do About It -- A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs, was published by Temple University Press. It was the culmination of my experience as a former federal prosecutor with the United States Attorneys Office in Los Angeles, criminal defense attorney in the United States Navy JAG Corps, and trial judge in Orange County, California since 1983, experience which had long before had convinced me that our nations program of drug prohibition was not simply a failure, but a hopeless failure."
Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
by Eric Schlosser
From an article on Scholsser touring for the book:
"Marijuana was brought to this country by migrant Mexicans; hatred of them was passed on to their drug," Schlosser said, adding that black musicians, poor whites and hippies were all associated with the drug, causing the government to ban it.
From an 1994 article by Schlosser:
"...Marijuana has not been de facto legalized, and the war on drugs is not just about cocaine and heroin. In fact, today, when we don't have enough jail cells for murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals, there may be more people in federal and state prisons for marijuana offenses than at any other time in U.S. history"
To paraphrase the once great Susan Powter: "Stop the Insanity!"