Chapter 14
More Than Sixty Years of Suppression &
Repression
1937: Hemp banned. An estimated 60,000 Americans smoke
"marijuana," but virtually everyone in the country has heard
of it, thanks to Hearst and Anslinger's disinformation campaign.
1945: Newsweek reports that more than 100,000 persons now
smoke marijuana.
1967: Millions of Americans regularly and openly smoke hemp
leaves and flowers.
1977: Tens of millions smoke cannabis regularly, with many
persons growing their own.
1998: One in three Americans, approximately 90 million
citizens, have now tried it at least once, and some 10-20% (25 to 50
million Americans) still choose to buy and smoke it regularly, despite
urine tests and tougher laws.
Throughout history, Americans have held the legal tradition that
one could not give up one's Constitutional rights and if someone was
stripped of these protections, then he or she was being victimized.
However by 1989, if you signed up for an extracurricular activity in
school or applied for a minimum wage job, you could be asked to forego
your right to privacy, protection from self-incrimination,
Constitutional requirements of reasonable grounds for search and
seizure, presumed innocence until found guilty by your peers, and that
most fundamental right of all: personal responsibility for your own
life and consciousness.
By 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that these intrusions into
your privacy were constitutional!
In November 1996, as earlier stated, California passed a statewide
people's initiative that legalized medical marijuana within the state.
Also in November 1996, Arizona passed a statewide initiative (by 65%
of the vote) that included medical marijuana but, unlike California
law, Arizona's legislature and the governor (now impeached) can and
have since rejected the people's law. This was the first rejection by
the legislature and the governor of any Arizona state initiative in 90
years!
The Armed Forces and Industry
The Armed Forces, as well as many civilian factories, will boot you
out if you smoke marijuana; even if you smoke it 30 days before
testing and while off duty. These tests are done at random and often
do not include liquor, tranquilizer, or other speed/downer type drugs.
However, according to OSHA and insurance actuarial findings, plus the
AFL-CIO, it is alcohol(!) that is involved in 90-95% of drug related
factory accidents.
In fact, numerous U.S. Army test of the effects of cannabis on
soldiers (through the 1950s and '60s) at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland,
and elsewhere, show no loss of motivation or performance after two
years of heavy (military sponsored) smoking of marijuana.
This study was repeated six more times by the military and dozens
of times by universities with the same or similar results. (Also,
British Indian Hemp Report; Panama/Siler study; Jamaican study, et
al.)
South African gold and diamond mines allowed and encouraged Blacks
to use cannabis/Dagga in order to work harder.
(U.S. Government Reports, 1956-58-61-63-68-69-70-76.)
Privacy is a Right
Groups like NORML, HEMP, ACLU, BACH, and the Libertarian Party (for
example) feel that as long as military personnel (unless on alert) or
factory workers do not smoke cannabis while on duty or during the
period four to six hours before duty, it's their own business. This is
consistent with the conclusions of the U.S. government's own Siler
Commission (1933) and Shafer Commission (1972) reports, as well as the
LaGuardia report (1944), the Canadian Government Study (1972), Alaska
State Commission (1989), and the California Research Advisory Panel
(1989), all of which held that no criminal penalties are in order for
its use.
Inaccurate Urine Testing
Military/factory worker marijuana urine tests are only partially
accurate and do not indicate the extent of your intoxication. They
indicate only whether you have smoked or been in the presence of
cannabis smoke or have eaten hempseed oil or any hempseed ffod product
in the last 30 days. Whether you smoked or ate it an hour ago or 30
days ago and sometimes if you haven't smoked it at all the test
results are the same: Positive.
John P. Morgan, M.D., stated in High Times February 1989 (and in
1999 he still says), "The tests are far from reliable. Tampering
and high rates of false-positives, false-negatives, etc. are common,
and further these testing companies are held to no standards but their
own."
At 20-50 nanograms (billionths of a gram) per milliliter of THC
Carboxy Acid (a metabolite) these tests can be read as positive or
negative yet results derived from this part of the scale are known to
be meaningless. To the untrained eye, any positive indication sends up
a red flag. And most testers are untrained and uncertified. Still, the
decision to hire, fire, detain, re-test, or begin drug abuse treatment
is made for you on the spot.
"I believe the tendency to read the EMIT [the urine test for
THC metabolites] test below the detection limit is one of the
important reasons why the test was not often confirmed in published
reports," Dr. Morgan said.
In 1985, for the first time, Milton, Wisconsin, high school kids
were ordered to have urine tests weekly to see if they smoked pot.
Local "Families Against Marijuana" type organizations were
demanding this testing, but not for liquor, downers, or other
hazardous drugs.
Hundreds of communities and high schools throughout the country
were awaiting the outcome of constitutional challenges in Milton in
1988 before implementing similar testing programs in their own school
districts. Because of this ruling in Milton's favor, testing for high
school students participating in extra-curricular activities has since
been widely adopted and continues across the United States in 1998.
For instance, in Oregon the testing of high-school athletes has
spread by court order to any and all extra-curricular activity. Band
members and majorettes even debate team members, some debating on the
marijuana issue can now be tested at will in all states except
California, where even a high school student can, since 1996, legally
have a doctor's recommendation or acknowledgement for the medical use
of marijuana.
(NORML reports, High Times, ABC, NBC & CBS News, and LA
Times, 1981-1998, Oregonian, October 23, 1989.)
Baseball and the Babe
Former Baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth first ordered in
1985 all personnel, except unionized players, to submit to these urine
tests. From the owners to the peanut vendors to the bat boys, it is
mandatory in order to be employed. By 1990, it had been incorporated
into all contracts, including ball-players.
Now, since November 1996, a professional baseball player (or any
other sports player for that matter) in California may take advantage
of cannabis as medicine, and continue to play baseball professionally.
Aside from the civil liberties questions raised, it is apparently
forgotten that "Babe" Ruth would regularly invite reporters
to accompany him while he drank 12 beers prior to playing a game,
during alcohol Prohibition.
Many "dry" organizations and even the league commissioner
implored him to think of the children who idolized him and stop, but
the "Babe" refused.
If Peter Ueberroth or his ilk had been in charge of baseball during
Prohibition, the "Sultan of Swat" would have been fired in
shame and millions of children would not have proudly played in
"Babe Ruth Little Leagues." Lyndon LaRouche's "War on
Drugs" committee told us that, along with new marijuana laws,
they expected to implement their most important goal: anyone in the
future playing any disco, rock 'n' roll, or jazz on the radio, on
television, in schools, or in concert, or who just sold rock 'n' roll
records or any music that wasn't on their approved classical lists
would be jailed, including music teachers, disc jockeys, and record
company executives.
Tens of millions of average Americans choose to use cannabis as
self medication or to relax during their time off the job, and
therefore risk criminal penalties. Job performance should be the
principle criterion for evaluation of all employees, not personal
lifestyle choices.
The Babe Ruths of sports, the Henry Fords of industry, the Pink
Floyds, Beatles, Picassos, and Louis Armstrongs of the arts, and one
out of ten Americans have become criminals and thousands unemployed
for smoking cannabis, even when merely unwinding in the privacy of
their own homes.
Robert Mitchum's film career was almost destroyed by a 1948
marijuana arrest. Federal Judge Douglas Ginsburg was on the verge of
being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 when it was revealed
that he had smoked grass while a university professor and his name was
withdrawn from nomination. However, George Bush's appointee Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas' 1991 admission that he smoked marijuana
in college was not an issue in his controversial confirmation.
Dividing Communities and Splitting Up Families
"Help a friend, send him to jail," says a billboard in
Ventura, California. This is an example of the "zero
tolerance" campaign's inform-on-your-neighbor tactics being used
to enforce the laws against the victimless crime of cannabis smoking.
Here's another example from TV: "If you have knowledge of a
felony you can earn up to one thousand dollars. Your name will not be
used and you will not be required to appear in court."* One man
received a postcard in jail saying, "Our informant received $600
for turning you in. Crimestoppers."
*(Crimestoppers, Ventura, California, October, 1989.)
Surveillance and Seizures
In rural California, where cannabis growing has supported whole
communities, the well-armed CAMP forces go into a thick forest
discovering 15-foot tall, lush, hearty eight-month-old plants. These
are hacked down, piled up, and smothered with gasoline and rubber
tires. Uncured, they burn slowly.
Elsewhere, a helicopter pilot circles over a neighborhood, peering
into a heat sensitive camera pointed at a house. "We're looking
for the indoor sun," he explains matter-of-factly.
"We only pursue specific objectives," houses where grow
lights have been bought or some other tangible basis exists to suspect
"manufacturing a controlled substance": a felony.
"Look, there's the light from the house." His
thermal-sensitive screen shows heat leaking out from under the eaves
of the house. Site confirmed.
Next they obtain a search warrant, raid the property, seize the
house under civil proceedings, and prosecute its inhabitants under
criminal law.
(48 Hrs., CBS television, "Marijuana Growing in
California," October 12, 1989.)
UnAmerican Policies & Political Extortion
Richard Nixon ordered the FBI to illegally monitor John Lennon
24-hours a day for six solid months in 1971 because Lennon had given a
concert in Michigan to free a student (John Sinclair) from five years
in jail for possession of two joints.
(L.A. Times, August, 1983.)
The drug, oil, paper, and liquor companies want pot illegal
forever, no matter whose rights they suppress or how many years we
have to spend in prison to assure their profits.
Politicians who are liberal are investigated and, we believe, are
blackmailed to keep their mouths shut on this subject and others, or
risk being exposed for some past indiscretion by themselves or members
of their families possibly sexual or drug-related.
Police, Secrets & Blackmail
A few years ago, then Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates
(1978-1992) ordered surveillance of City Councilman Zev Yarslovsky,
City Attorney John Van DeKamp, and Mayor Tom Bradley, among others. He
monitored their private sex lives for more than a year.
(Los Angeles Times, August, 1983.)
J. Edgar Hoover, as Director of the FBI, did this for five years to
Martin Luther King Jr. and, in the most "sick" situation,
deliberately drove actress Jean Seburg to suicide with terrible
ongoing federal letters and information fed to tabloids exposing her
pregnancies and private dates with blacks. In fact, using the FBI,
Hoover harassed selected targets, for as long as 20 years because of
their civil rights stands.
The former director of the FBI and also direct overseer of the DEA,
William Webster, answered questions about the squandering of 50% ($500
million) of federal drug enforcement money on cannabis enforcement
this way: "Oh, marijuana is an extremely dangerous drug and the
proof [referring to totally discredited brain and metabolite studies
by Heath, Nahas] is now coming in."
Webster then asked for more money and more unrestrained powers to
stop pot. (Nightwatch, CBS, January 1, 1985.)
(1998 footnote: The DEA's budget for marijuana information alone
figures out to 10 times the cost of 1985's budget and 100 times the
cost of its 1981 budget.)
Public Humiliation
Entertainers caught with cannabis have had to do a
"Galileo" type recanting to stay out of jail or to retain
their television, endorsement, or nightclub contracts, etc. Some have
had to go on television and denounce marijuana to stay out of jail
(e.g., Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, David Crosby, and actress
Linda Carter). Our courts and legislators have sold our American
"guaranteed" Bill of Rights, written on cannabis, to secure
a cannabis-free world.
"Don't suspect your neighbor, turn him in." Any hear say
is to be reported. That which revolted us as children the spectre of
Nazis and Commies asking everyone to spy and inform on one another;
Stalin's secret police taking persons from their homes at night to
administer stupefying drugs and extort information; a government
spreading lies and creating a police state has now become our everyday
Amierkan reality.
And those who dare to stand against the tide of oppression face the
prospect of financial ruin.
Seizure: Feudal Law & Order
When the federal government seizes cars, boats, money, real estate,
and other personal property, proceeding are set into motion based on
laws that originated with medieval superstition.
English common law of the Middle Ages provided for forfeiture of
any object causing a man's death. Known as a "deodand," the
object, such as a weapon or run-away ox cart, was personified and
declared tainted or evil, and forfeited to the king.
Today's in rem (against things rather than against persons)
forfeiture proceedings are civil suits against the property itself.
Relying on analogy to the deodand, a legal "personification
fiction," declares the property to be the defendant. It is held
guilty and condemned, as though it were a personality and the guilt or
innocence of the owner is irrelevant.
By applying this civil label to forfeiture proceedings, the
government sidesteps almost all the protections offered by the
Constitution to individuals. There is no Sixth Amendment guarantee of
right to counsel. Innocent until proven guilty is reversed. Each
violation of a constitutional right is then used as the basis for the
destruction of another.
The violation of the Fifth Amendment's "innocent until proven
guilty" due process standard is used to destroy the prohibition
of double jeopardy. Even acquittal of the criminal charges the
forfeiture is based upon does not prevent re-trying the same facts,
because, even through the government couldn't prove a crime was
committed, at the second trial the defendant must provide proof of
innocence.
The Supreme Court holds that it is constitutional to forfeit
property in rem from a person who is completely innocent and
non-negligent in his use of the property. Lower courts accept
prosecutors' arguments that if it is permissible to forfeit property
from completely innocent persons, then constitutional protections
could not possibly apply to anyone who is guilty of even a minor drug
offense.
Unlike civil suits between individuals, the government is immune to
counter-suit. The government can use its unlimited resources to
repeatedly press a suit in the mere hope of convincing one juror the
defendant did not provide a preponderance of evidence.
Forfeitures imposed by the English Crown led our nation's founders
to prohibit bills of attainder (forfeiture consequent to conviction)
in the first article of the American Constitution. The main body of
the Constitution also forbids forfeiture of estate for treason. The
first Congress passed the statue, still law today, stating that
"No conviction or judgement shall work corruption of blood or any
forfeiture of estate." However, early Americans did incorporate
in rem (proceeding against a thing) procedures under Admiralty and
Maritime law, to seize enemy ships at sea and to enforce payment of
customs duties.
It was not until the outbreak of the Civil War that these Customs
procedures were radically changed. The Confiscation Act of July 17,
1862, declared all property belonging to Confederate officers or those
who aided the rebels to be forfeitable in rem. The U.S. Supreme Court
held that if the Act was an exercise of the war powers of the
government and was applied only to enemies, then it was
Constitutionally allowable in order to ensure a speedy termination of
the war.
Today, the passions of the "War on Drugs" have caused
Congress to once again use in rem proceedings to inflict punishment
without the nuisance of the protections provided by the Constitution
and Bill of Rights. "We have to save our Constitution," says
Vickie Linker, whose husband served two years in prison for a cannabis
offense. "We have the truth."
Entrapment, Intolerance and Ignorance
When not enough persons seem to be committing crimes, the DEA and
police departments often resort to entrapment to make criminals out of
unsuspecting and otherwise non-criminal persons. Government agents
have been caught time after time provoking and participating in drug
smuggling and sales.*
* High Witness News department, High Times magazine; "Inside
the DEA," Dale Geiringer, Reason Magazine, December, 1986;
Christic Institute "La Penca" lawsuit; DeLorean cocaine
trial testimony and verdict of innocence; Playboy magazine, etc.
This constant fanning of public fears of marijuana turns into
demands for more money for a "War on Drugs" (a euphemism for
war on certain people who freely choose to use selected substances)
and political pressure for the permission to use unconstitutional
means to enforce the constantly harsher laws.
In an October, 1989, Louisville, KY, address to the Police Chiefs
of that state, then Drug Czar and social-drinking, nicotine-addict
William Bennett* announced that marijuana smoking makes people stupid.
* This is the same man who helped engineer a $2.9 million grant for
the Texas National Guard to dress its agents up as cactus to patrol
the Mexican border. This was the National Guard unit that later shot
and killed a young American-born Mexican sheep herder assuming him to
be an illegal immigrant.
He offered no proof, and although crack was not a major issue in
Kentucky, proclaimed that more money was necessary for the war on
drugs because of this new found marijuana-induced danger stupidity!
(Which, as far as we know, is still not a crime.)
Bennett was seen to brace himself with a late-morning gin and tonic
in December, 1989, as he tried to pitch a similar anti-marijuana
message to representatives of the broadcast and film industries in
Beverly Hills, CA.
(High Times, February, 1990. See "Booze Brunch" in
appendix of the paper version of this book.)
Have your balloons and bumper stickers ready; Bennett is running
for president in 2000!
PDFA: Slickly Packaged Lies
Another recent development has been the formation of the PDFA
(Partnership for a Drug Free America) in the media. PDFA, with
primarily in-kind funding from ad agencies and media groups, makes
available (free of charge to all broadcast and print media) slick
public service ads directed primarily against marijuana.
In addition to releasing such meaningless drivel as an ad which
shows a skillet ("This is drugs.") on which an egg is frying
("This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"), PDFA is not
above lying outright in their ads.
In one ad, the wreckage of a train is shown. Now, everyone will
agree that no one should attempt to drive a train while high on
marijuana. But a man's voice says that anyone who tells you that
"marijuana is harmless" is lying, because his wife was
killed in a train accident caused by marijuana. This contradicts the
direct sworn testimony of the engineer responsible for that disaster;
that "this accident was not caused by marijuana." And it
deliberately ignores his admissions of drinking alcohol, snacking,
watching TV, generally failing to pay adequate attention to his job,
and deliberately jamming the train's safety equipment prior to the
accident. Yet, for years the PDFA has described the train accident as
being marijuana-caused, even though the engineer was legally drunk and
had lost his automobile driver's license six times, including
permaently, for drunken driving in the previous three years.
In another ad, a sad looking couple is told that they cannot have
children because the husband used to smoke pot. This is a direct
contradiction both of the clinical evidence developed in nearly a
century of cannabis studies and of the personal experiences of
millions of Americans who have smoked cannabis and borne perfectly
healthy children.
And in yet another ad, the group was so arrogant in putting out
lies that it finally got into trouble. The ad showed two brain wave
charts which it said showed the brain waves of a 14-year-old "on
marijuana."
Outraged, researcher Dr. Donald Blum from the UCLA Neurological
Studies Center told KABC-TV (Los Angeles) News November 2, 1989, that
the chart said to show the effects of marijuana actually shows the
brain waves of someone in a deep sleep or in a coma.
He said that he and other researchers had previously complained to
the PDFA, and added that cannabis user's brain wave charts are much
different and have a well-known signature, due to years of research on
the effects of cannabis on the brain.
Even after this public refutation, it took the station KABC-TV and
PDFA weeks to pull the spot, and no apology or retraction had yet been
offered for the deceit. Despite being ordered by the courts to stop,
the PDFA has shown that ad continuously on hundreds of TV channels
throughout the United States for the last decade.*
* Groups including the American Hemp Council, the Family Council
on Drug Awareness, and Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) have
decided to step up their pressure to expose PDFA lies and get their
distortions banned from the airwaves or, better yet, replaced with
accurate information on the medical, social, and commercial uses of
hemp.
Perhaps a more valid ad for the PDFA to produce and the networks to
run would show a skillet ("This is the PDFA.") and an egg
frying ("These are the facts.").
DARE: Police Propaganda
The DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, a national
program that was initiated in 1983 by then Los Angeles Police Chief
Daryl Gates, has become yet another tool disinforming the public on
hemp.
Typically, a police department spokesperson will conduct a 17-week
course at a local elementary school to promote personal responsible
behavior by young persons while irresponsibly giving them distorted
information and outright lies about cannabis.
Most of the course does not deal with drugs as such, but rather
with making choices about how to act when there are opportunities or
pressures to drink, smoke, steal, lie, break laws, etc. However, the
program's truly useful support for good behavior is undermined by an
undercurrent of lies and innuendo about marijuana's effects and
users.*
* In an interview, L.A.'s main DARE instructor, Sgt. Domagalski,
gave information on the program and made such unsubstantiated and
untrue statements as marijuana leads to heroin, "The guy across
the street or next door has been smoking marijuana for years and there
doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him. There is something wrong,
but it may not be obvious." And, "People in the Sixties
smoked marijuana and thought there was nothing wrong with it. Now it's
watered and sprayed and pampered and they're not concerned what they
spray it with, either. But parents don't know this. They got all their
information in the Sixties, and they're not interested in this new
information."(Downtown News, July 10, 1989. Also see letters
section, July 31, 1989 for BACH's reply.) See chapter 15,
"Debunking" for the facts on his "new
information."
In 1999, DARE still consciously teaches these same lies to our
children and threatens any community that dares to tell DARE to stop
or cease in their school disrict. However, in 1997 the city of
Oakland, California, withdrew from the DARE program and has so far
suffered no consequences. What makes the DARE program uniquely
dangerous is that it provides some accurate information, but
undermines itself and the public record by using lies and innuendo
about marijuana.
For example, according to teachers who sit in on the sessions,* the
police officer will remark, "I can't tell you that smoking pot
causes brain damage, because you all know people who smoke pot and
they seem pretty normal. But that's what it does. You just can't tell
ß yet."
* Some of the teachers we talked to find themselves in the
uncomfortable position of knowing the real studies, or have used
cannabis themselves and know its effects, but cannot openly present
their case for fear of being urine tested or dismissed.
No supporting evidence is then offered, and the literature that
goes home with the child (and is potentially seen by marijuana-savvy
parents) tends to appear more balanced, although it refers to
mysterious "new studies" showing the dangers of marijuana.
But throughout the entire course, the police officer refers to lung
damage, brain damage, sterility, and other unfounded claims of health
damage and death being caused by marijuana.
Or they report on studies detailing the cardio-pulmonary risks of
using cocaine, then mention marijuana smoke unrelated except by
context. Or the "well-intentioned" officer tells anecdotes
about persons he claims to know who "started" with marijuana
and ultimately destroyed their lives with hard drugs, crime, and
depravity; then lumps marijuana in with genuinely dangerous drugs and
describes how youngsters or fellow police officers were killed by
these desperate, drug crazed criminals.
Then the officer encourages the students to "help" their
drug-using friends and family by becoming a police informant. These
kinds of indirect lies through innuendo and implication are given in
an off-hand manner calculated to leave a strong, permanent impression
on the sub-conscious mind, without basing it on any research or other
sources that can be objectively studies or directly challenged just a
lasting, indistinct mental image.
What makes the DARE program uniquely dangerous is that it provides
some accurate information and has genuine value for young people, but
undermines itself and the public record by using these irresponsible,
underhanded tactics.
If DARE officials want responsible behavior from students, they
must also act responsibly. If they have information about marijuana
that is hidden from the rest of us, let's see it. But, so far as we
know, no DARE organization has yet dared to debate any marijuana
legalization advocacy group* or include their literature in its
program.
* Since 1989, Help Eliminate Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) and
the Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp (BACH) have issued ongoing
standing challenges to publicly debate any DARE representatives in the
Los Angeles area, which has yet to be taken up. These groups have also
offered to provide free and accurate literature on cannabis for DARE's
use, but as of July 1998, have received no response.
The Media in a Stupor
Despite a strong injection of reason and fact into the cannabis
debate by the media in the late 1960s and 1970s, the national media
has largely failed to distinguish marijuana prohibition from the
broader "drug war" hysteria, which "sold more
copy" in the 1980s.
Hemp activists have been ignored, their events censored and
excluded from calendar listings even paid advertisements about events
or legal, non-smoking hemp products are refused by news sources. What
ever happened to fact checking?
Instead of serving as the probing watchdogs of government and
keepers of the public trust, corporate news groups regard themselves
as the profit-making tool for forging "consensus" on
national policy. "Penalties against possession of a drug should
not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug
itself." President Jimmy Carter August 2, 1977
According to groups like Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
and researchers like Ben Bakdikian and Michael Parenti, these
corporations define and protect the "national interest"Often
meaning their own vested financial interests and political agendas. It
must be remembered that many of the largest publishers have direct
holdings in timberland for paper development, and the pharmaceutical
drug, petrochemical companies, etc. are among the media's major
advertisers.
In an article published in the L.A. Times Magazine May 7, 1989,
entitled "Nothing Works," (and since mimicked in hundreds of
magazines, including Time and Newsweek), Stanley Meiseler laments the
problem facing schools in drug education programs and inadvertently
reveals the news media's own assumptions and bias:
"Critics believe that some education programs have been
crippled by exaggerating the dangers of drugs. Principles and
teachers, watched closely by city officials, feel pressured not to
teach pupils that marijuana, although harmful,* is less addicting than
cigarettes.Ú Failure to acknowledge such information means school
programs can lose credibility. But more honest programs could be even
more harmful." (Emphasis added.)
The harm Meisler predicts is an expected increase in consumption
when people learn the health benefits and lack of physical or
psychological risks involved with cannabis consumption. Many persons
decide that they prefer pot (which apparently does not need to
advertise) to alcohol and tobacco, for which so many advertising
dollars are spent.
* No specific studies showing the alleged harmful effects were
cited in the article. In fact, cannabis was barely mentioned except
for this reference and a note that detoxification businesses report
some success in "breaking a mild dependence on marijuana and
alcohol."
Ongoing Justice
President Jimmy Carter addressed Congress on another kind of harm
done by prohibition and the drug issue August 2, 1977, saying that
"penalties against possession of a drug should not be more
damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.
"Therefore, I support legislation amending federal law to
eliminate all federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to
one ounce of marijuana."
However, his efforts to apply even this bit of reason to America's
marijuana laws 21 years ago were derailed by a Congress determined to
show that it is tough on crime, no matter whether an action is
criminal or poses any real threat to society, no matter how many
persons are hurt in the process.
And this attitude of intolerance and oppression has escalated in
the post-Carter years.
By 1990, some 30 states had established "Special Alternative
Incarceration" (SAI) camps (called "boot camps") where
non-violent, first time drug offenders are incarcerated in a boot
camp-like institution, verbally abused, and psychologically worn down
to break them of their dissident attitude towards drug use. Now, in
1999, there are 42 states with special alternative incarceration camps
implementing similar programs.
The inmates are handled with robotic precision, and those who don't
conform are subject to incarceration in the state penitentiary. Most
of these offenders are in for marijuana. Even more states are
considering implementing similar programs.*
* In These Times, "Gulag for drug users," December 20,
1989, pg. 4.
What pretext has been used to rationalize this anti-American
policy? A handful of official government reports and studies that are
touted by the DEA, politicians, and the media to show that marijuana
really is "damaging to an individual."
LaRouche Declares War on Rock 'N Roll
If you thought Anslinger's music craziness was over after he went
after jazz in the 1930s and 40s, then consider this:
One of the chief organizations among the 4,000 or so "Families
Against Marijuana" type groups today is Lyndon LaRouche's
"War on Drugs" committee, supported by Nancy Reagan, TV
evangelists Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, and other
right-wing activists.
In January, 1981, this author and five members of the California
Marijuana Initiative (CMI) secretly, by pretending to be pro-LaRouche,
attended the West Coast convention of this organization, whose guest
speaker was Ed Davis, former Los Angeles Police Chief, who was at that
time a freshman state senator from Chatsworth, California.
As we each walked in separately, we were asked to sign a petition
endorsing a Detroit reporter who had written an open letter to the new
President, Ronald Reagan, asking him to give immediate presidential
clemency and make a national hero of Mark Chapman, who had murdered
John Lennon of the Beatles six weeks earlier.
The letter stated that John Lennon had been the most evil man on
the planet because he almost single-handedly "turned on" the
planet to "illicit drugs". The evils of rock 'n' roll are a
constant theme of the "War on Drugs" publications.
To keep up with the part we were playing, we signed the petition.
(John, forgive us we were playing a clandestine role: under-cover CMI
anti-narc. We remember you for "Give Peace a Chance,"
"Imagine," and all the rest.)
After we signed the petition, their leaders took us to the back of
the room to show us some of the goals that would be achieved when they
would come to full power over the next decade.
On five or so long tables set up in the back of the Los Angeles
Marriott LAX meeting room were hundreds of recordings of Bach,
Beethoven, Wagner, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and others, and dozens
of pro-nuclear power publications.
They told us that along with new marijuana laws, they expected to
implement their most important goal: anyone in the future who played
disco, rock 'n' roll, or jazz on the radio, on television, in schools,
or in concert, or just sold rock 'n' roll records or any other music
that wasn't from their approved classical lists, would be jailed,
including music teachers, disc jockeys, and record company executives.
School teachers, if they allowed such music by students, would be
fired. (LA Times; KNBC-TV.)
They were dead serious.
Their magazine "War on Drugs" has always spent more space
denouncing music with the "evil marijuana beat" than on
heroin, cocaine, and PCP combined!
Ed Davis was genuinely shocked and embarrassed about this out-front
aspect of their anti-music dogma and said, "Well, I don't believe
we could ever get legislation at this time outlawing these other types
of music or their lyrics. Ú But I do believe with the new Reagan
Law-and-Order Administration, we are going to be able to pass some new
and stronger anti-marijuana paraphernalia laws, even recriminalizing
marijuana altogether in the states that have decriminalization laws
now . . .That's the start."
I called his office a few days later and was told by an assistant
that Davis had no advance idea of this group's musical fixation and
that he had accepted the invitation based solely on the name "War
on Drugs". Most of what Davis predicted that day has come about.
Those visionaries of a new society, one free from the influence of pot
and any mention of it had their way in the 1980s. Remember James Watt
and the Beach Boys in 1986?
Since 1981, TV programs have been censored, cut, and pulled from
the air for having a pro-marijuana connotation or even making jokes
about it.
In an episode of "Barney Miller", Detective Fish (Abe
Vigoda) was told that some brownies he'd been eating all day were
laced with pot. He looked forlorn for a moment, then said with a sigh,
"Wouldn't you know it, this is the best I ever felt in my life
and it's illegal." This episode has been pulled from
distribution.
The late "screaming comic", Sam Kinison, stood on the
stage of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" in 1986 and bellowed
"Go ahead, you can have the cocaine! Just let us smoke our
pot!" The line has been deleted from audio portion in subsequent
re-runs.
The Reagan/Bush drug czar, Carlton Turner, from his position as the
White House Chief Drug Advisor in the mid 1980s quoted to the press
passages of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and told police and
interviewers that jazz musicians and rock singers were destroying the
America he loved with their marijuana drug-beat music.
In 1997, in an episode of the TV series "Murphy Brown",
starring Candice Bergen, Murphy undergoes cancer treatment from which
she is vomitting constantly and has lost her appetite. Finally she is
told by her doctor to illegally use marijuana for nausea and appetite
stimulation. Murphy smokes pot and she is saved by doing so.
The Partnership For a Drug Free America and DARE tried
unsuccessfully to stop this episode from airing as it "Sent the
wrong message to our children" What wrong message!?That marijuana
is the best anti-nausea and the best appetite-stimulant on our planet
and can save millions of lives?
Paul McCartney & His Band on the Run
Timothy White interviewed Paul McCartney, formerly of the Beatles,
for a book and developed it into a radio program called
"McCartney: The First 20 Years". He asked the songwriter to
explain his song "Band on the Run", on the album of the same
name.
"Well, at the time, bands like us and the Eagles were feeling
like and being treated like, outlaws and desperadoes, you know,"
replied McCartney.
"I mean, people were getting busted for pot, that is. And
that's about all they were getting popped for. Never anything serious.
"
And our argument was that we didn't want to be outlaws. We just
wanted to be part of the regular scene, you know, and make our music
and live in peace. We didn't see why we should be treated like
criminals when all we wanted to do was smoke pot instead of hitting
the booze.
"And that's what the song was about; it was my reaction to
that whole scene. . ."
"And the county judge / who held a grudge / will search
forever more / for the band on the run."
From "The First 20 Years", broadcast on KLSX 97.1 FM
(Los Angeles) and other stations of the Westwood One radio network
January 29, 1990.
McCartney also wrote the famous line that got the song "A Day
in the Life" banned from British radio: "Had a smoke.
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream." A vocal supporter of
marijuana legalization, McCartney has repeatedly been arrested and was
imprisoned for 10 days during a concert tour of Japan. The Japanese
government canceled his tour and banned him from playing in that
country, costing him millions of dollars. To his credit, he has
continued to speak out for pot smokers.
The Ultimate Hypocrasy
While waging its self-styled "War on Drugs" against Third
World peasants and American civilians, the
Reagan/Bush/Quayle/Clinton/Gore administrations (1981-1999) have
encouraged and covered up drug smuggling and distribution by high
ranking officials of the U.S. government.
On one hand, Bush violated international law by invading Panama to
bring reputed drug smuggler and long-time Bush/CIA employee Manuel
Noriega to the U.S. to stand trial.
On the other hand, he refused to extradite Oliver North, John Hull,
Admiral Poindexter, General Secord, Lewis Tambs, and other Americans
to Costa Rica, where they are under indictment by that government for
operating a drug smuggling operation there.
(The Guardian, British newspaper, "Cocaine shipped by
contra network", July 22, 1989.)
Federal hearings conducted by U.S. Senator John Kerry's (MA)
Subcommittee on Terrorism and Narcotics in 1988 and 1989 documented
widespread acts by the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) to block
investigations by the Customs Department and FBI into cocaine
smuggling by "intelligence operatives" under the guise of
national security. No indictments were ever handed down, and witnesses
testified under grants of immunity with little media attention.
Special Iran-Contra investigators failed to act on this information
or evidence developed by the Christic Institute implicating government
complicity in narco-terrorism. And when General Secord was convicted
in January 1990 for crimes related to the Iran Contra drugs-for-arms
scandal, he was given a fine of $50 and a brief probation when a
federal judge decided that the poor fellow had already "suffered
enough".
This from an administration that promotes the death penalty even
beheading For marijuana dealers.*
* On the Larry King Show in late 1989, then drug czar William
Bennett, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2000, said he
had no moral problems with beheading drug dealers -only legal ones.
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