Counterinsurgency/421offensive

Three years ago, the Texas Legislature passed, and Governor Good-Hair signed into law, a measure that allowed cops to treat Marajuana Possession as a Class C Misdemeanor....on par with running a red light. No longer did getting caught with a quarter bag mean, of necessity, Jail.
This was mentioned, in passing, below the fold, in the major Texas Papers, and ignored by local TV News.
There was, as well, a caveat....it was left up to individual Jurisdictions,... Counties, and the like...to decide if they would apply this new, more sane, way of dealing with the Noble Weed.
To date, only Travis County (Austin) has applied it.
...With zero Fanfare.
Republican Politicians can, with some regularity, and in all seriousness, advocate the End of Social Security, Medicare and the First and Fourteenth Amendments (among others)....but Politicians, of any stripe, can't touch the real Third Rail in America; The Failed and Unamerican War on Drugs....which translates into the War on Weed.
The Fear and Misinformation, the Blatant Lies and Stereotypes, have made it impossible to even discuss the problem, and everyone has a dog in the fight...
Cops make too much money from Asset Forfeiture, and Federal Grants...the former, from among the Poorest among us.With this cash, they can purchase Cop Toys, the better to spy on you with.
Not mentioned.
Big Pharma lobbies, with millions of dollars, to keep things just as they are...they don't wanna compete with something that folks can grow in their garden, and administer themselves..much better to force people to buy overexpensive, side-effect-ridden Pharmaceuticals...
This goes unmentioned, too.
Liquor Lobby, the same.A Government sanctioned Monopoly on Intoxication....the effects of which are violence and death, as opposed to Peace and Chillin'.
The Drug "Treatment" Industry doesn't want the Status Quo to end, either. All those State and Federal Dollars...
And let's not forget the Private Prison Industry.
The Drug War is a boon to them...in fact without the Drug War, and the immortal Immigration Fiasco, there wouldn't be that much need for Private Prisons...
Science is abused to foment this nonsense.
When Science determines that some plank in the Dogma is false, even if our own NIH conducts the study, it is buried, ignored...in favour of Hyperbole and Innuendo and Hysteria.
Aspirin, indeed meteors, are more dangerous than Pot.
But you'd never know it from the rhetoric.
A majority of Americans know all this, or at least suspect it...
But nothing can, it seems, be done.
We must remain stuck on the Insane Hamster Wheel of Stupidity.
We must continue to spend millions of dollars a year eradicating Ditch Weed....wild Hemp, left over from WW2 when the FedGov encouraged farmers to grow it (!)...and which has zero THC. (smoking a long ton of it won't get ya high).
We must continue to enforce our insane drug laws...thus driving up the price of Pot, and other drugs...so that Mexican and Columbian Drug Cartels can continue to reap Profits....and turn the Southern Border into a War Zone.(Much like Al Capone, et alia, were created by Prohibition.)
We must continue, and accelerate, the Militarisation of Cops...like little po-dunk towns "Need" a Swat Team.
The Militarised Cops must continue to bust down doors...on anonymous "tips"...shoot people, often at the wrong address, and force folks to Rat out their friends.
The East German Stasi were rank amateurs!
Leave it to America to show the world how to build and maintain a Police State.
We are forced to submit to drug tests, none of which are immune from failure, false positives...in order to keep a job at Wal Mart and Wendy's.(I can understand for Bus drivers, and the like...)
Our First Amendment Rights to Free Speech are routinely abridged, proactively by ourselves....if I were to get this little diatribe published in the Mason County News, I would become even more of a Person of Interest...subject to increased scrutiny by Law Enforcement....wear a T-shirt advocating an end to Prohibition, get extra attention.
Our Fourth Amendment has been gutted...so many exceptions have been attached, without an Amendment to the Amendment...that it is, essentially, meaningless.
Fifth Amendment? Forget it. Ya get caught with Weed, you are encouraged to "Inform" on your buddies, with the possibility of a "lighter sentance"....you are Forced, thereby, to work for the Police State....become a Traitor to your friends and family, an unpaid servant of an Immoral Machine.
All the remainder of the Bill of Rights, with the possible exception of the Gun Amendment(2nd), have been eviscerated and made irrelevant.
Jury Nullification, one of Jefferson's favorite Ideas, whereby a Jury can Judge the Law, itself...has been scuttled. Jurors are told, in effect, to be docile lackeys of the Judge...that Nullification is a Myth.
Indeed, the easiest way to get excused from Jury Duty is to say the word "Nullification."
The saddest, most maddening, part of this, to me...is the persistance of the Mythology of Weed, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Cops, and even EMT's and ER Doctors (who should know better), continue to insist that Weed = Heroin=PCP. That they are equally dangerous, and Always Bad.
It doesn't matter that Weed is, arguably, the safest drug known to man...that no one has ever died directly from it's use...that the Gateway Theory has been repeatedly Disproven...That D.A.R.E. is counterproductive...That the movie "Reefer Madness" is high comedy,rather than an accurate depiction of reality....that Pot has many medical uses.
The cry is heard, whenever Medical Pot comes up, "There are no studies that show medical benefit, or essential benignity"....
One, there are Numerous studies giving the lie to all of this...conveniently Ignored by the government and Corporate Media...
Two, in order to study Pot, a researcher must get approval from the DEA...which is rarely given....and who looks over the shoulder of said researcher, and vetoes any findings contrary to the Dogma. Then one must procure Pot. This can only be done, legally, by purchasing it(at a considerable markup) from one, single, Government-Run Farm in Georgia.
It is unknown how closely this Government Weed resembles the stuff out in the World...

In the 40, or so, years since Tricky Dick declared the WOD, We the People have spent Trillions of Dollars...
How many teachers could have been hired? How much Healthcare, provided?
Nixon, in his own words, knew that Weed wan't a Danger...he Demonised it in order to have something to use against his opposition on the Left...at the Time, the Hippies protesting the War...
The War on Drugs was, and is, a Political Weapon....and this is it's most essential use...never spoken of.
It is a continuation of the Cold War, the Red Scare, and, now...the Global War on Terror...in which Terrists are hiding under the bed, ready to eat up all the apple pie, or something.
Another tool in the box of repression.
Weed is a Mind Expander...potheads tend to think outside the box.
Can't have that! Someone,perhaps even a Critical Mass, might realise how the Machine is fucking us!
...and that Door can never be opened, lest the Machine loose Power.

The beginnings of the War on Weed were blatantly Racist...in the 20's and 30's, in the South, to facilitate running Mexicans out of town....
Then Black Jazz Musicians were added to the list of Undesirables who smoked Pot...then Commies.
The first Marijuana Tax Act (they had to do it this way to get around that pesky Constitution...remember, they had to Amend it to outlaw Booze...)...was implemented in 1936. It was set up as a catch-22;One had to have a Tax Stamp on one's Weed, which could only be gotten if one was already in violation.
Weed went underground, till the 60's...when Anti-Commie Hysteria started to lose it's effectiveness on America's Youth.
They were out in the streets, protesting the War, demanding Civil Rights for Coloreds,for Women...an end to the Establishment.
And many of these Malcontents were Potheads!
Now, 40 years and Trillions of dollars later, Weed is still associated in the "Conventional Wisdom" with Scary Hippies, Scary Commies, Scary Black People...all of whom Hate America, and want to see it become a Soviet Communist Worker's Paradise complete with Jack Boots and Death Squads...(!?!?)
Kind of silly, when one thinks about it...considering that America has become a Police State as a result of all this anti-Pot, anti Union, anti Democratic Hysterical Hyperbole....a Right Wing, Fascist Paradise.
Curious.
I am weary of being compelled to hide my Pot Use.
How can something so Stupid and Unamerican continue for so long?
All, every one, of the "Reasons" for prohibiting Marijuana have been knocked down, disproven....and still we continue to allow otherwise innocent folks, Americans, to be imprisoned, branded as Criminals, forced to hide in the shadows, and be suspicious of their friends.
The Machine has the War on Terror, now...with which to scare us, to justify it's criminal behaviour...
While we're in Fear of Terrists behind every tree,with Loose Nukes, can we not, at least, smoke a Joint?
If they Hate Us for Our Freedom,by all means,let us give them a little more Freedom to Hate.
Legalise It!