Classic Iconocl
04-09-2005, 02:32 PM
My dream is always the same. The Attorney General of the United States hovers over me.
“I have an important announcement. The government has now declared martial law. But don’t worry. Uncle Scam has things under control!
“Our nation is facing an epidemic of obesity. Hundreds of thousands of junk-
food junkies are dropping dead every year from heart disease, cancer, and strokes. Worse yet, our corporations are losing millions of dollars in productivity as a result of diet-related illness. Something must be done!
“To remedy this hideous plague that threatens to destroy the delicate fabric of the FREE WORLD, the newly formed Food Enforcement Administration will implement radical policies affecting every American citizen. State and local authorities will conduct extensive searches of residential refrigerators. Snickers wrappers, barbeque grills, and fondue forks are now considered paraphernalia. Prior to employment, urine samples will be collected to test for traces of illicit food substances. Anyone conspiring to sell more than one pound of Twinkies or two sacks of Doritos will be subject to a mandatory ten-year federal prison sentence. Fast-food-felons will no longer be able to vote, carry a weapon, or receive a Pell Grant. Police officers will be charged with corruption for donut possession. Insulin-dependent diabetics will have to suffer without their medicine or buy it on the black market, because we don’t want to send the wrong message to children about sugar use. Military forces will be dispatched to Africa to those cocoa fields that produce raw materials for chocolate. To dissuade the lucrative activities of black market gangs like the Ice Cream Crew, the Praline Posse, the Hotdog Homeboys and the Feastie Boys, officials will soon be posting Neighborhood Weight-Watch signs in your area.
“Liposuction and stomach stapling will be mandated by law. If somebody you know appears to be gaining a few extra pounds, you can simply phone the confidential government hotline and turn them in. Sure, the mafia will make millions, and we’ll probably be forced to give early prison releases to pedophiles and murderers to make room for junk-food criminals. But these sacrifices must be made to protect the children. After all, we’re cracking down on everything from gateway sweets to hard meats! Cookie Monster MUST eat tofu!
“Can you pinch more than an inch? If so, you aren’t simply unhealthy, you’re a criminal, even a terrorist! So just say NO to Cracker Jacks!”
I wake up to realize it’s just another day of our nation’s war on drugs. Or should I say, our nation’s war on people who use certain drugs and plants. This is a real war with casualties we don’t always hear about in the press.
Our nation spends nearly 50 billion dollars annually to fight this war. And what have we accomplished? Recent polls indicate that minors can obtain illegal drugs more easily than alcohol or tobacco, because most black-market dealers don’t card their customers. Our government can’t even keep illegal drugs out of the prisons, much less the schools. This is the terrible result of attempting to treat a public health problem as a criminal justice issue.
If you depend on mainstream media for your news, you might not have heard about what happened in Lisbon Portugal several months ago. Lisbon is home of the Euro Soccer Tournament between England and France, where massive riots occur annually. But not in 2004! The police decided they’d had enough of the violence, so they called a press conference and announced they would allow the possession and use of cannabis at the event. Perhaps they suspected that people under the influence of marijuana would be so interested in the hot dog vendors, they wouldn’t be likely to throw down because their team lost. Well, the experiment worked. Peace reigned. No riots, and not a single arrest.
I’m personal friends with many law enforcement officials who really DO want to protect and serve the people in their communities. They know the difference between people who are a threat to society and people who make personal choices about their own bodies. They don’t share the priorities of our moralistic legislators, and they don’t like being sent to war against the citizens they were supposed to protect. When a war fails to win the hearts and minds of it’s own soldiers, it’s only a matter of time before the divided house collapses on itself.
My friend and former patrol officer Howard Wooldridge is riding his horse from coast to coast, stopping in small towns and big cities wearing a T-Shirt that reads COPS SAY LEGALIZE DRUGS. Sometimes he takes heat from fellow officers who disagree with his perspective. But he knows the drug war has enriched the mafia, made it easier for children to get drugs, wasted our tax dollars, eroded our civil liberties, endangered our law-abiding police officers, corrupted other officers, and made our streets more violent.
For example… Right now the streets of our nation are filled with thousands of convicted child predators who didn’t serve a single day in prison. You can verify that fact online. But our nation has been arresting more than 800,000 marijuana smokers annually. In many counties, someone who grows marijuana in their closet is likely to do more jail time than a freak who gets off on sexually dominating children. In other words, our officials are prioritizing potheads over pedophiles, all in the name of “protecting the children”. Of course, I don’t want to see children misusing substances, but I think it’s more important to ensure they aren’t brutally raped or murdered (or buried alive).
Did you know that in America, if you get caught with even a single marijuana cigarette, you will be denied financial aid for college? And yet, you can commit any other crime – you can even murder children – and still receive federal aid for school! I had a delightful discussion with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s educational assistant the other day, regarding this very issue. He said, “Well, we don’t want federal tax dollars going to purchase drugs.” And I said, “But your laws allow federal tax dollars to be used for purchasing the rope, duct tape and knife used by the predator on his next victim? It sure doesn’t sound like equal justice under the law to me.”
So before the government clamps down altogether and suspends every last right we have over our own bodies, we better wake up and get busy exercising the freedoms we still have: the freedom to speak, the freedom to peacefully demonstrate, and the freedom to JUST SAY NO to legislators who act like latent molesters, treating us like spoon-fed children and putting their hands all over us, even inside us, to make sure we aren’t doing something harmful to ourselves. We must exercise our free will to vote these power-addicts out of office.
“I have an important announcement. The government has now declared martial law. But don’t worry. Uncle Scam has things under control!
“Our nation is facing an epidemic of obesity. Hundreds of thousands of junk-
food junkies are dropping dead every year from heart disease, cancer, and strokes. Worse yet, our corporations are losing millions of dollars in productivity as a result of diet-related illness. Something must be done!
“To remedy this hideous plague that threatens to destroy the delicate fabric of the FREE WORLD, the newly formed Food Enforcement Administration will implement radical policies affecting every American citizen. State and local authorities will conduct extensive searches of residential refrigerators. Snickers wrappers, barbeque grills, and fondue forks are now considered paraphernalia. Prior to employment, urine samples will be collected to test for traces of illicit food substances. Anyone conspiring to sell more than one pound of Twinkies or two sacks of Doritos will be subject to a mandatory ten-year federal prison sentence. Fast-food-felons will no longer be able to vote, carry a weapon, or receive a Pell Grant. Police officers will be charged with corruption for donut possession. Insulin-dependent diabetics will have to suffer without their medicine or buy it on the black market, because we don’t want to send the wrong message to children about sugar use. Military forces will be dispatched to Africa to those cocoa fields that produce raw materials for chocolate. To dissuade the lucrative activities of black market gangs like the Ice Cream Crew, the Praline Posse, the Hotdog Homeboys and the Feastie Boys, officials will soon be posting Neighborhood Weight-Watch signs in your area.
“Liposuction and stomach stapling will be mandated by law. If somebody you know appears to be gaining a few extra pounds, you can simply phone the confidential government hotline and turn them in. Sure, the mafia will make millions, and we’ll probably be forced to give early prison releases to pedophiles and murderers to make room for junk-food criminals. But these sacrifices must be made to protect the children. After all, we’re cracking down on everything from gateway sweets to hard meats! Cookie Monster MUST eat tofu!
“Can you pinch more than an inch? If so, you aren’t simply unhealthy, you’re a criminal, even a terrorist! So just say NO to Cracker Jacks!”
I wake up to realize it’s just another day of our nation’s war on drugs. Or should I say, our nation’s war on people who use certain drugs and plants. This is a real war with casualties we don’t always hear about in the press.
Our nation spends nearly 50 billion dollars annually to fight this war. And what have we accomplished? Recent polls indicate that minors can obtain illegal drugs more easily than alcohol or tobacco, because most black-market dealers don’t card their customers. Our government can’t even keep illegal drugs out of the prisons, much less the schools. This is the terrible result of attempting to treat a public health problem as a criminal justice issue.
If you depend on mainstream media for your news, you might not have heard about what happened in Lisbon Portugal several months ago. Lisbon is home of the Euro Soccer Tournament between England and France, where massive riots occur annually. But not in 2004! The police decided they’d had enough of the violence, so they called a press conference and announced they would allow the possession and use of cannabis at the event. Perhaps they suspected that people under the influence of marijuana would be so interested in the hot dog vendors, they wouldn’t be likely to throw down because their team lost. Well, the experiment worked. Peace reigned. No riots, and not a single arrest.
I’m personal friends with many law enforcement officials who really DO want to protect and serve the people in their communities. They know the difference between people who are a threat to society and people who make personal choices about their own bodies. They don’t share the priorities of our moralistic legislators, and they don’t like being sent to war against the citizens they were supposed to protect. When a war fails to win the hearts and minds of it’s own soldiers, it’s only a matter of time before the divided house collapses on itself.
My friend and former patrol officer Howard Wooldridge is riding his horse from coast to coast, stopping in small towns and big cities wearing a T-Shirt that reads COPS SAY LEGALIZE DRUGS. Sometimes he takes heat from fellow officers who disagree with his perspective. But he knows the drug war has enriched the mafia, made it easier for children to get drugs, wasted our tax dollars, eroded our civil liberties, endangered our law-abiding police officers, corrupted other officers, and made our streets more violent.
For example… Right now the streets of our nation are filled with thousands of convicted child predators who didn’t serve a single day in prison. You can verify that fact online. But our nation has been arresting more than 800,000 marijuana smokers annually. In many counties, someone who grows marijuana in their closet is likely to do more jail time than a freak who gets off on sexually dominating children. In other words, our officials are prioritizing potheads over pedophiles, all in the name of “protecting the children”. Of course, I don’t want to see children misusing substances, but I think it’s more important to ensure they aren’t brutally raped or murdered (or buried alive).
Did you know that in America, if you get caught with even a single marijuana cigarette, you will be denied financial aid for college? And yet, you can commit any other crime – you can even murder children – and still receive federal aid for school! I had a delightful discussion with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s educational assistant the other day, regarding this very issue. He said, “Well, we don’t want federal tax dollars going to purchase drugs.” And I said, “But your laws allow federal tax dollars to be used for purchasing the rope, duct tape and knife used by the predator on his next victim? It sure doesn’t sound like equal justice under the law to me.”
So before the government clamps down altogether and suspends every last right we have over our own bodies, we better wake up and get busy exercising the freedoms we still have: the freedom to speak, the freedom to peacefully demonstrate, and the freedom to JUST SAY NO to legislators who act like latent molesters, treating us like spoon-fed children and putting their hands all over us, even inside us, to make sure we aren’t doing something harmful to ourselves. We must exercise our free will to vote these power-addicts out of office.