He did, he did, he did, and what impresses me the most is he didn't just say he'd commit to ending the war on a plant if made President, no, he went to his day job and drafted legislation to prove he's committed to keeping his word!
Why that's important to me under the fold.
Let me be very frank, I'm a dedicated stoner! I'm the author of a published novel, father of four successful, adult children, I speak two languages, am a qualified heavy diesel technician, an ordained pagan priest and play the guitar fairly well...
But underlying all of that I'm a stoner. It's how the world at large views me, it's pretty accurate.
What isn't accurate is the connotations purposely appended to that word and others like "Pothead" "Addict", "Dope"...
Pick one, throw some in there I may not have mentioned.
See, I was born into the drug war. Oh, they didn't call it the drug war until Nixon got into power, but they started demonizing people like me as early as 1920 if not earlier.
Having been born into the growing police state that a Sisyphean undertaking like the drug war must engender, I was eight years old when I smoked my first joint in Rockford Illinois. That was 1972 and by 1975 I was purchasing my weed regularly on the way home from middle school. I bought it from a cop who lived a block away from the police station- all we had to do was knock, he'd let us in, tell us "Now, if I bust you with it tonight, I'll confiscate it and you'll get a record, so keep it cool!"
So much for the vaunted police powers needed, we have been told until we are sick of it, to prosecute the war on... a plant.
The war on people. Our people.
Now I'm fifty one, I can't get a decent job unless I throw away my freedom and self respect as a free American, bend my neck and let a stranger search my urine, my hair, my blood.
Is there a more intimate search?
That didn't exist back then, urinalysis, and Americans probably would never have put up with it without the years of incessant propaganda, which we, collectively, swallowed, that we all needed to be sheep to stop the evils of drug use!
Why, I had to chuckle when I was living in Germany. It seems one of the German business news organizations had interviewed an American company that was moving large into Europe. Somehow they came onto the subject of urinalysis testing and the Reporter asked if they planned to introduce pre-employment drug testing in Europe, since it was a prerequisite to employment in America.
I will NEVER forget their blunt answer. "No, the Europeans would never put up with that, we'd never get any employees!"
You know, as a proud American, that kicked me in the teeth.
Land of the free, yes?
I have to tell you, I am passionate about this issue for it is, to me, an issue of honor.
I am not a criminal, I am not ANY of those things they have said I am for too many years!
And you cannot prove that in the face of propaganda. People stop hearing, people stop looking at you and assign one of those names to you. It happens.
I was so passionate about it that I did what I could, I had the discussions, wrote letters to the editor and made the argument on www.marijuana.com, back when it first opened. I have to say, what a brave thing it was for rick (He always lowercased his name so I do it out of respect to the man I admire) to do back in those days- he was putting himself out there as a stoner, and the police did NOT allow anyone to get away with that back then.
So, yes, it's a huge thing for me, I think the drug war has made us soften our fight for our own rights, I'm not sure it was meant to, I do know it has happened!
I think ANYTHING that jails as many people as marijuana prohibition has is a civil rights problem. If that false criminality that ruined so many lives were as blatant and easy to see as death, it would be termed genocide. But while it is all pervasive, who really tells people they did time for...weed? And we let it all happen.
It is, for me, the largest, easily fixed problem we have, and not fixing it just proves that stupidity exists.
Then, whether he meant to or not, Mr. Obama, an admitted former stoner, gave me hope.
And he's done some things to help, admittedly! I'm writing this as I smoke legal weed from a storefront in nearby Portland and it feels GOOD! His administration didn't take this to the Supremes, and thank you- but there is nothing stopping the next one from doing it. The holy grail is federal legalization and everyone knows it.
And that hope was dashed. I try to remind myself that he never said he would, so it's on me, and still, he made me vow to my Gods that I would NEVER vote for a prohibitionist again.
Now, here comes Bernie Sanders saying so many, many things that I am in accord with, and I saw him look at this problem some time back, later I heard him say he'd try to fix it if he became President.
Then he went that one step further that will guarantee that I vote in the primary and again in the General election for him.
He introduced legislation that would ensure...
I am not a criminal.
Whether it passes or not, thank you Mr. Sanders.