The simple truth about America's marijuana prohibition: any law that
allows the easy incarceration of any citizen any time those in power
want to do it is the ultimate enemy of democracy. With 800,000 annual
arrests over an herb used by tens of millions of Americans, it is the
cornerstone of a police state.
The newly energized movement to
end prohibition in California---home to more than 10% of the nation---is
one of the most few decent developments in this otherwise horrific
election.
(To help pass Proposition 19, go to here and sign up to make phone calls in these last crucial hours.)
Part
of the battle has already been won. By all accounts the California
campaign has thrust the issue to a new level. The terms of repeal are
not perfect. But the acceptance of marijuana use has taken a giant leap
forward. When joints are openly lit and smoked on national television, it's clear that sooner rather than later, this travesty will fall.
The
California campaign has drawn the sides clearly. Demanding continued
prohibition first and foremost are the drug dealers who profit directly.
As Dan Okrent has shown in Last Call: The Rise & Fall of Prohibition, organized crime booms around such bans.
With them
are the prison builders and operators, plus the lawyers, judges, guards
and street cops who make their livings off the human agony of this
endless stream of meaningless arrests. To their credit, some of
these--especially cops who actually care about controlling actual
crime--have come out for legalization.
Then come the alcohol and
tobacco pushers who don't want the competition from a recreational
substance that--like renewable energy--be raised and controlled
locally. Ditto Big Pharma, which fears marijuana as a superior
anti-depressant with healing capabilities far beyond a whole
multi-billlion-dollar arsenal of prescription drugs with deadly side
effects. They fear the day when ads for medical marijuana whose warning
labels will be limited to statements like: "Caution--use of this
healing herb may lead to excessive desire for chocolate cup cakes."
But
most of all it's the politicians who cling to a prohibition that
enhances their power. One after the other they endorse more arrests and
fiscal insanity.
Never mind that virtually every farmer in
Revolutionary America--including Washington, Jefferson and
Madison--raised marijuana's kissing cousin, hemp, and profited
handsomely from it. Never mind that Ben Franklin made his best paper
from hemp. Forget that the last three presidents of the United States
and the current governor of California (among so many others} have
smoked marijuana, and may still do so.
Never mind that hemp looms
behind marijuana as a far greater cash crop, with huge profits to be
made from ecologically superior
paper, clothing, shoes, textiles, rope, sails, food, fuel and more. A
core agricultural mainstay throughout human history, hemp requires no
chemical pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. A nitrogen-fixing weed,
it replenishes the soil in which it grows. As the stock for cellulosic
ethanol, fuel pellets and seed-based diesel oil, it is the key to a
green revolution in sustainable bio-fuels. As such, hemp is legal in
virtually every country on Earth except the United States.
Many
believe the decentralizing economic power of hemp is the real reason its
corporate industrial competitors want marijuana to stay illegal. The
literature on both is deep and wide.
This ghastly 2010 mid-term
election is like a horrendous death spasm for a dying empire. The
cancerous flood of corporate money pouring through the process has taken
the corruption of what's left of our democratic process to new
post-imperial depths.
But nature always provides an healing herb
that grows near a poisonous one. We work and hope for repeal in
California. But we know the issue has already gone to a new level. The
accelerated corporate rape and pillage of what's left of our nation is
all too evident.
Sending this tool of official repression up in
smoke will help mitigate the disaster. Vote YES on California's Prop.
19, and make sure to call those you know who might.