Wall Street Journal Ed. Breaks Rank
February 24th, 2006 -
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/424/wsj.shtml
When will Prohibitionists come to their senses? Well, yet another former one seems to have realized that the “Waaaar On Druuuuugs” is not the solution, and is itself a root cause of social malaise.
Did you know that the first federal law that had anything to do with marijuana was the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, HR 6385? That’s right, it was proposed as a $100/ounce transfer tax, cast in the same mold as the 1934 Federal Firearms Act, which was deemed by the Supremes not to violate the Second Amendment because the $200 tax levied on various firearms was justified as a revenue measure. Referring to the Marijuana Tax Act, Clinton Hester, Treasury Dept. Assistant General Goon and first-ever Drug-Czar, said the following in testimony before the United States Congress: “Although the $100 Transfer Tax in this bill is intended to be prohibitive, as is the $200 Transfer Tax in the National Firearms Act, it is submitted that it is Constitutional as a revenue measure”.
Congress
was not immediately convinced by Herr Hester’s testimony. I neglected to record in my notes the name of the “Member” who queried Hester further, I can only assure you that the question was twenty minutes in the asking, but Hester assured Congressman Fatbottom that “… the rule is if on the face of the bill it appears to be a revenue bill, the Courts will not inquire into any other motives that the Congress may have had in enacting this legislation.” (Hester used awkward sentence construction throughout his testimony).
Hello, is this thing on?? Historical perspective: Alcohol Prohibition was ruled Unconstitutional by the Supremes a few years before. The Prohibitionists predicted rampant alcoholism and moral decay. Next decade, America went on to win World War II. Today’s most risible “Druuuug Warriorrr” Prohibitionists might claim that our victory was made possible in part because of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act’s salutory effect on society, if they were aware that that law existed in the first place, but history obviously isn’t their strong suit. For giggles, though, let’s consider that position just long enough to dismiss it: In testimony before Congress regarding the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, Harry Anslinger, Commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics, declared that “Last year [1936] there were some 338 seizures of marijuana in some 38 states”. There you go, Druuuug Warriors, you’re “winning the War on Drugs”. There were that many arrests in Nashville last month, I’m sure! According to the DEA’s website 1211 metric tons of marijuana were seized in 2001. Too bad you didn’t listen to Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Counsel to the AMA. He told Congress that the Marijuana Tax Act was “utterly unsusceptible of execution”. He was correct then, but today’s technology lets Big Brother look straight up your tailpipe at will. Yes, yours too, then you can tell me how it’s for your own good, or to forestall some gaseous “Harm to Society”. Which will it be, freedom and responsibility or Big Brother?
The only way to win the “Waaaar on Druuugs” is to empower the DEA to fully “Enforce” the law- that means they’ll search your body cavities too, O Druuuug Warriors, your sock drawers, basements, attics, trunks and wheel wells; you too will have to Submit* to periodic blood and urine tests, and if you resist you will be called Unpatriotic, as I am by some fools today. Don’t think for a second that there will be one word of apology from the Druuug Warriors when History repeats itself, prohibition laws are repealed, and the world doesn’t come to a Fiery End of Divine Retribution for our having shamelessly engaged in… responsible… Recreation**.
Again I invite Prohibitionists to consider that God may have had more in mind than giving Prohibitionists something else to tell the rest of us not to do, when He Created Marijuana, and Coca, and Poppies, and all the other psychoactive things He Created… or do you Druuuug Warriors entertain the notion that the Gateway Drug was Created by the Soviets? Maybe Tim Leary and Alan Ginzburg concocted it in an Upstate New York basement in the late ’50’s?? No?? God Created these things?? Then who the Fuck*** are you Druuuug Warriors to tell anyone what to do?
We’ve tried things your way, Drug Warriors, with disastrous Alcohol Prohibition and with naturally unsuccessful, deleterious prohibitions of other drugs throughout the Twentieth Century. It is now “High” time to give substance and meaning to the often-mouthed, seldom-meant phrase, “Personal Responsibility”. That does not mean “responsibility to do as we are told”, O Drug Warriors, it means the following: I say I would cause NO “Harm to Society” by cultivating a couple of marijuana plants in my back yard. I have no opportunity to prove it because you Prohibitionists would love nothing better than to seize my property and throw me and all dissenters in prison for life. If you succeed, have a nice life in your Free-From-Harm Society. When you Drug Warriors fail, and Americans prove ourselves to be Personally Responsible despite the direst predictions of all ONDCP Sycophants, I wonder how many “Pundits” will publicly acknowledge their mistake and the Harm it has caused to Society. Blow-Reilly? Oh’ Really! He said, “Drug use induces violence”. Direct quote. Lie. Liddiot? He still excuses his own subversion of the 1972 Presidential Election. He bragged on national radio about spawning a bastard child, called it “little tyke”. Michael Sewage? The Brown-Diaper Brownshirt would drown himself in vodka before he’d ever admit he was wrong. Same’s true of just about all the other hypocrite prohibitionist blowhards on the air today, as well as all the Bobblehead Babblehead Bubblehead Bibleheads who always agree with their Patron Prohibitionists, “110%, in every way, shape, form, and fashion”.
Hey Drug Warriors:
God’s the reason drugs are here in the first place.
Hey Drug Warriors:
To “recreate” is not necessarily to “sin”, and millions demonstrate regularly the ability to recreate responsibly; if you choose not to participate, fine, have a nice life and Hereafter too.
Hey Drug Warriors:
Your Prohibition Laws are the reason there is a “Black Market”. People intentionally carry large sums of cash to places where they hope the police are not.
Hey Drug Warriors:
Your puerile, manipulative laws, and your bovine docility posing as patriotism, are much of what’s wrong with society today.
* Interesting word for that in Arabic: ISLAM
** “Pursuit of Happiness”
*** The F-bomb is pretty much ‘thermonuclear’ coming from me, as people who know me know I seldom use such language. Conciliatory language is not working.