Where No State Has Gone Before
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.
[2] Uri Dowbenko, Dirty Secret: Drug Czar Walters and the Iran-Contra Connection, http://www.conspiracydigest.com/dirtysecrets.html, 2001.
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