FREE THE WEED
Let’s Make it Legal
As I read through these posts I see more than a few ideas that center on
lessening the criminal penalties for the possession, distribution, production and
use of Cannabis. While it’s nice to see young people considering various ways to
bring the review of Cannabis laws into the forefront, I am afraid in many ways you
are failing to learn from history.
For the readers that may be a bit younger than my self let me share a bit of
ancient history with you. Viet Nam. Now I’m sure everyone out there has been
told at least a small part of the story; the part I want to share is how we stopped
the war. Yes there were rallies, yes there were innumerable combat veterans who
came home and told terrible stories of what they had done. Yes politicians ran
political campaigns for and against the war but it the end it was money that
stopped the war.
How? you ask. Someone calculated how much of your tax dollar was being
spent to wage this war and somehow that number made it’s way into editorials
and social commentaries. At that time it was calculated to be between 45 to 60
cents out of every dollar. Call it half your taxes being spent bombing and killing
people in a foreign land.
What happened then was someone had the bright idea of withholding that
amount from their payment to the IRS that year. The idea spread, and very
quickly tens of hundreds of thousands of Americans were withholding 40 to 60
percent of their tax bill from their April 15th check. If you owed a thousand dollars
you sent them five hundred and a letter explaining that you would not provide
financial support for a conflict you did not agree with. Some people put the money
in a savings account, some people bought bonds, some people just partied with
the cash.
As the cost of keeping a person in minimum security confinement ( prison)
was, on average, ten times more than the tax withheld and the cost of
prosecuting them was another five time the average amount withheld the cost of
prosecuting and imprisoning all these people was a financially crippling amount
and the Federal government chose to make peace with Ho Che Minh, rather than
imprison a huge portion of it’s own population.
Now with the (anti) Patriot Act the prosecution end of the equation is a little
more cost effective but the cost of confinement has gone up to about $35,000
/per person/ per year for minimum security. If enough people stopped allowing the
Federal Government to withhold their taxes from each paycheck, and started
paying quarterly; the tax protesters would have the option to withhold the
percentage of taxes they felt the government was wasting on this foolish war on
drugs.
What we need now is some bright young person to beat their way through
the federal budget documents and calculate just how much money goes to
programs like the DEA, or Coca control in Columbia, or Heroin destruction efforts
in Afghanistan. Border control efforts along the Mexican border, cannabis
destruction efforts in Mexico and Nebraska. Undercover operations with local law
enforcement, as well as the propaganda produced for the D.A.R.E. and related
programs. With that number is just a matter of simple division to figure out how
much of the Federal budget is wasted every year on programs we neither
approve of nor support. Now we would know how much to withhold from our
annual taxes.
There is little question that some of us will go to jail for refusing to pay,
after all that’s what they got Al Capone for, but eventually a choice will have to be
made to imprison either tax protesters or violent criminals; and I assure you there
are a lot more tax protesters than you can imagine. Do a web search or two, and
look at the sheer numbers of sites devoted to denying the Federal Government
the right to tax us in any way.
So if you want to see it legalized hit them where it hurts, in the pocket
book. There are a limited number of federal dollars available to fight the drug war
and the more we deprive them of and the more we divide that pie into smaller and
smaller pieces the sooner the attitude will change. Some sacrifices will have to be
made but it’s time for the next generation, my children’s generation, to carry the
banner to the top of the next hill. At great personal sacrifice my generation got
medical marijuana to be accepted as an honest medicine, now it is time for the
next step. Now we need to convince the legislators that private use is not a crime,
but a health issue. Yes, I know I speak eloquently about our herb, but at my age I
really can’t take another stint in prison. I’m trying not to be selfish, but I want to
see my grandchildren grow up and I can’t do that from a prison cell or a coffin.
What I am asking for is a commitment, a commitment from the generation
that will benefit the most from a lessening in penalties. A commitment to make the
effort to put down the joint for a bit and take the time to join the fight. Yes, the 420
smoke in’s get some attention, but mostly in the alternative press. We need to
make FOX News and ABC pay attention to our viewpoint. We need to get more
people like Bill Mahr talking openly and honestly about what cannabis does and
does not do. Yes there are young sports and entertainment stars who have
sacrificed their careers to speak out, we need to support them. If we can get
honest numbers, the real cost of the “war on drugs” out there, if we can get
people talking about the hundreds of billions of dollars we are wasting to keep
smugglers and politicians rich we can change the focus of the fight. After all
seventy six million Americans ADMIT to having tried marijuana, and they haven’t
all turned into junkies. And that’s just the sample that ADMITTED to smoking, I
can imagine another seventy million that wouldn’t admit it.
It’s up to you, you and your friends and the people you smoke and talk
with. My generation is happy to help, to give you the benefit of our experience, of
what works and what doesn’t, but to change the way the money is spent it’s going
to take a lot of effort. It’s not hopeless, that I promise you. It’s just damn slow, but
it can be done. The pendulum of history swings in twenty year cycles and we
should be about the height of the conservative end, a more liberal society is
possible if, and only if, we work for it.
As I always tell you
REGISTER, PARTICIPATE, VOTE
Doctor G
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