Criminal Tenaha Texas Stealing from Motorists

Another example of police sociopaths, here justifying their crimes to pay for expanding their forces to steal again and again under 'civil' forfeiture (in the name of the substance criminalization scheme for cigarette and alcohol market protection).

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6252365.html

So what shall Obama say about this?

Obama Hopefully On Police Reckless Endangerment

What Obama Needs to Say About Drug Prohibition Raids
What he could say
to harness police state reckless endangerment

Ladies and Gentleman

Last week a young man Ryan Frederick was convicted of voluntary manslaughter of a drug policeman who was breaking through Frederick’s front door in conducting a battering ram style police raid generally done to prevent suspects from flushing contraband down toilets; in this instance, the amount of contraband was maybe $25 worth of dried Marijuana, and an alleged 2-5 plants being grown in his garage (which were not there).

Never mind that flushing something down a toilet is basically getting a suspect to destroy his own contraband, and of course preserving the scales and drug tinged items in the house which can’t be so flushed, what is the point of breaking down the front door of a man’s house to prevent him from flushing a grow operation, particularly one in a detached garage?

What is the point of all of this particularly in semi dense suburban and denser urban areas where stray bullets are more likely to cause added harms as injuries and deaths?

What particularly is the point of such militarization as giving military assault vehicles (tanks) with 50 mm projectile cannons to shoot through buildings and bodies in such residential neighborhoods, as so commanded by a sheriff in South Carolina so obsessed with enforcing the criminal mercantilism for Virginia bright leaf cigarette market protection that he now grandstands against America’s hero who won 14 gold medals at the last Olympics standing proudly against false stereotypes pushed by venal economic interests via shabby yellow journalism that provide the jobs for enforcing these cruel, subversive and unconstitutional ‘laws.’

I am hereby issuing a Presidential directive abolishing such police military style raids outside of serious circumstances such as terrorists sitting upon a nuclear or biochemical weapon trigger.

Also, I am ordering a program of psychiatric evaluation for such law enforcement's personally responsible for such polices, particularly those in the bright leaf tobacco producing areas, for their protection as well as that of the general public.

Hopefully Changed

Barack Obama

What Obama Could Say About Criminal Mercantilism

Obama’s Reckoning
What he could say
About the ‘drug war ‘ as criminal mercantilism

I smoked marijuana many times and did blow on occasion. I also smoked cigarettes. I quit marijuana and cocaine. But I can’t quit cigarettes.

Marijuana takes about 0 lives, the concentrated forms of cocaine and other widely available contraband drugs take 5,000-8,000 annually, and cigarettes 6 million annually worldwide.

And they pass this off as moral? Or sane?!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I asked for your votes by promising to review and discontinue government programs that are unworthy.

Such is what our selective drug laws are: a means to protect markets in certain favored agricultural commodities from the competition.

It’s a favoritism cast in stone- literally at the top of the columns of the very U.S. Capitol building where these laws were passed through of cornstalks and tobacco leaves.

Cigarettes were the beneficiary of last century’s criminal mercantilism laws – against opium coca and their derivatives, and later marijuana; their sales took off after the 1906 Pure Foods and Drugs Act and the 1914 Harrison ‘Narcotics’ Act.

It was coca’s sale and use as a tobacco habit cure that especially incensed the USDA cir 1910.

It was criminal mercantilism to protect cigarettes, pacing our populace at risk to the deadliest most dangerous substance in its near natural form, while making the competition into something more dangerous via prohibition’s iron law of promoting more concentrated forms of drugs.

This market shift has cost us uncounted billions, and we have barely scratched the surface in prosecuting those entities culpable.

It is what it is: a scam of epidemic proportions: a criminal conspiracy to fix drug markets.

Hence I am announcing that the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder shall be instituting a lawsuit against the perpetrators of this criminal mercantilism, that will be a sharp break from the past with my predecessor’s administration’s intervention via Skull & Bones Yale gang member Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum, in the U.S. DOJ suit against the cigarette industry reducing the sought damages compensation from $130 billion to $10 billion: a scandal of favoritism that .led to the resignation of the prosecution team leader Sharon Eubanks, who denounced what Bush Administration officials were doing. I am offering Ms. Eubanks her job back with extra pay and an expanded role over this new law suit. It shall involve:

(a) criminal racketeering for cigarette market protection. Conspiracy to enact selective prohibition laws to protect the trade in cigarettes that would be considered adulterated, misbranded schedule 1 ‘controlled substances’, starting with early 1900s efforts to consolidate markets

(b) criminal subversion of civil rights, to wit kidnappings and extortions Conspiracy to enact criminal retribution laws for prohibition violators to deprive people of their liberty and property

(c) a special aggravated class of violation combining criminal racketeering for substance market protection combined with systematic judicial conspiracy to subvert various constitutional rights protections, notably the 1^st and 4^th amendment.

Action would be for the so called drug war, namely its prohibitions of coca, opium and cannabis (marijuana).

Action would be for loses to liberty or property as a result of the enforcement of these unconstitutional laws, as well as to health from the abuse of the protected/promoted substances.

Action would go against those entities conspiring and undertaking this criminal enterprise.

Lead defendant would be that enumerated here, and here.

Hopefully Changed

Barack Obama

What Pete Guither Writes About Cannabis

From DRUG War Rant:

An excellent "Cannabis 101" by Pete Guither

---

Why is Marijuana Illegal?

Shortcut Address:
http://marijuana.drugwarrant.com

A brief history of the criminalization of cannabis

Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug. The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You'll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate. You'll also see that the history of marijuana's criminalization is filled with: Racism Fear Protection of Corporate Profits Yellow Journalism Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators Personal Career Advancement and Greed These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal. Background For most of human history, marijuana has been completely legal. It's not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long-standing law. Marijuana has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that it's been in use. Its known uses go back further than 7,000 B.C. and it was legal as recently as when Ronald Reagan was a boy. The marijuana (hemp) plant, of course, has an incredible number of uses. The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, and over the centuries the plant was used for food, incense, cloth, rope, and much more. This adds to some of the confusion over its introduction in the United States, as the plant was well known from the early 1600's, but did not reach public awareness as a recreational drug until the early 1900's. America's first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law "ordering" all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other "must grow" laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp -- try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements - rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth. The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp "plantations" (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton. The Mexican Connection In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing's army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce. One of the "differences" seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing "preparations of hemp, or loco weed." However, one of the first state laws outlawing marijuana may have been influenced, not just by Mexicans using the drug, but, oddly enough, because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church's reaction to this may have contributed to the state's marijuana law. (Note: the source for this speculation is from articles by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law at USC Law School in a paper for the Virginia Law Review, and a speech to the California Judges Association (sourced below). Mormon blogger Ardis Parshall disputes this.) Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population. When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator's comment: "When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff... he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies." In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy." Jazz and Assassins In the eastern states, the "problem" was attributed to a combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong's "Muggles", Cab Calloway's "That Funny Reefer Man", Fats Waller's "Viper's Drag"). Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: "Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice." Two other fear-tactic rumors started to spread: one, that Mexicans, Blacks and other foreigners were snaring white children with marijuana; and two, the story of the "assassins." Early stories of Marco Polo had told of "hasheesh-eaters" or hashashin, from which derived the term "assassin." In the original stories, these professional killers were given large doses of hashish and brought to the ruler's garden (to give them a glimpse of the paradise that awaited them upon successful completion of their mission). Then, after the effects of the drug disappeared, the assassin would fulfill his ruler's wishes with cool, calculating loyalty. By the 1930s, the story had changed. Dr. A. E. Fossier wrote in the 1931 New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal: "Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp." Within a very short time, marijuana started being linked to violent behavior. Alcohol Prohibition and Federal Approaches to Drug Prohibition During this time, the United States was also dealing with alcohol prohibition, which lasted from 1919 to 1933. Alcohol prohibition was extremely visible and debated at all levels, while drug laws were passed without the general public's knowledge. National alcohol prohibition happened through the mechanism of an amendment to the constitution. Earlier (1914), the Harrison Act was passed, which provided federal tax penalties for opiates and cocaine. The federal approach is important. It was considered at the time that the federal government did not have the constitutional power to outlaw alcohol or drugs. It is because of this that alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment. At that time in our country's history, the judiciary regularly placed the tenth amendment in the path of congressional regulation of "local" affairs, and direct regulation of medical practice was considered beyond congressional power under the commerce clause (since then, both provisions have been weakened so far as to have almost no meaning). Since drugs could not be outlawed at the federal level, the decision was made to use federal taxes as a way around the restriction. In the Harrison Act, legal uses of opiates and cocaine were taxed (supposedly as a revenue need by the federal government, which is the only way it would hold up in the courts), and those who didn't follow the law found themselves in trouble with the treasury department. In 1930, a new division in the Treasury Department was established -- the Federal Bureau of Narcotics -- and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This, if anything, marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana. Harry J. Anslinger Anslinger was an extremely ambitious man, and he recognized the Bureau of Narcotics as an amazing career opportunity -- a new government agency with the opportunity to define both the problem and the solution. He immediately realized that opiates and cocaine wouldn't be enough to help build his agency, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level. Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from "Gore Files" -- wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and... Negroes. Here are some quotes that have been widely attributed to Anslinger and his Gore Files: "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others." "...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races." "Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death." "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men." "Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing" "You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother." "Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind." And he loved to pull out his own version of the "assassin" definition: "In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason: the members were confirmed users of hashish, or marihuana, and it is from the Arabs' 'hashashin' that we have the English word 'assassin.'" Yellow Journalism Harry Anslinger got some additional help from William Randolf Hearst, owner of a huge chain of newspapers. Hearst had lots of reasons to help. First, he hated Mexicans. Second, he had invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain and didn't want to see the development of hemp paper in competition. Third, he had lost 800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa, so he hated Mexicans. Fourth, telling lurid lies about Mexicans (and the devil marijuana weed causing violence) sold newspapers, making him rich. Some samples from the San Francisco Examiner: "Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days -- Hashish goads users to bloodlust." "By the tons it is coming into this country -- the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms.... Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him...." And other nationwide columns... "Users of marijuana become STIMULATED as they inhale the drug and are LIKELY TO DO ANYTHING. Most crimes of violence in this section, especially in country districts are laid to users of that drug." "Was it marijuana, the new Mexican drug, that nerved the murderous arm of Clara Phillips when she hammered out her victim's life in Los Angeles?... THREE-FOURTHS OF THE CRIMES of violence in this country today are committed by DOPE SLAVES -- that is a matter of cold record." Hearst and Anslinger were then supported by Dupont chemical company and various pharmaceutical companies in the effort to outlaw cannabis. Dupont had patented nylon, and wanted hemp removed as competition. The pharmaceutical companies could neither identify nor standardize cannabis dosages, and besides, with cannabis, folks could grow their own medicine and not have to purchase it from large companies. This all set the stage for... The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. After two years of secret planning, Anslinger brought his plan to Congress -- complete with a scrapbook full of sensational Hearst editorials, stories of ax murderers who had supposedly smoked marijuana, and racial slurs. It was a remarkably short set of hearings. The one fly in Anslinger's ointment was the appearance by Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Council of the American Medical Association. Woodward started by slamming Harry Anslinger and the Bureau of Narcotics for distorting earlier AMA statements that had nothing to do with marijuana and making them appear to be AMA endorsement for Anslinger's view. He also reproached the legislature and the Bureau for using the term marijuana in the legislation and not publicizing it as a bill about cannabis or hemp. At this point, marijuana (or marihuana) was a sensationalist word used to refer to Mexicans smoking a drug and had not been connected in most people's minds to the existing cannabis/hemp plant. Thus, many who had legitimate reasons to oppose the bill weren't even aware of it. Woodward went on to state that the AMA was opposed to the legislation and further questioned the approach of the hearings, coming close to outright accusation of misconduct by Anslinger and the committee: "That there is a certain amount of narcotic addiction of an objectionable character no one will deny. The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for [their] statements [even Woodward was partially taken in by Hearst's propaganda]. It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marihuana addiction. We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime. But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit. An informed inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point. You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children's Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit, among children. Inquiry of the Children's Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it. Inquiry of the Office of Education--- and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the country, if there is a prevalent habit--- indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it. Moreover, there is in the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service, with its Division of Mental Hygiene. The Division of Mental Hygiene was, in the first place, the Division of Narcotics. It was converted into the Division of Mental Hygiene, I think, about 1930. That particular Bureau has control at the present time of the narcotics farms that were created about 1929 or 1930 and came into operation a few years later. No one has been summoned from that Bureau to give evidence on that point. Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have had no record of any marihuana of Cannabis addicts who have ever been committed to those farms. The bureau of Public Health Service has also a division of pharmacology. If you desire evidence as to the pharmacology of Cannabis, that obviously is the place where you can get direct and primary evidence, rather than the indirect hearsay evidence." Committee members then proceeded to attack Dr. Woodward, questioning his motives in opposing the legislation. Even the Chairman joined in: The Chairman: If you want to advise us on legislation, you ought to come here with some constructive proposals, rather than criticism, rather than trying to throw obstacles in the way of something that the Federal Government is trying to do. It has not only an unselfish motive in this, but they have a serious responsibility. Dr. Woodward: We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for 2 years without any intimation, even, to the profession, that it was being prepared. After some further bantering... The Chairman: I would like to read a quotation from a recent editorial in the Washington Times: The marihuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities. The Nation is almost defenseless against it, having no Federal laws to cope with it and virtually no organized campaign for combating it. The result is tragic. School children are the prey of peddlers who infest school neighborhoods. High school boys and girls buy the destructive weed without knowledge of its capacity of harm, and conscienceless dealers sell it with impunity. This is a national problem, and it must have national attention. The fatal marihuana cigarette must be recognized as a deadly drug, and American children must be protected against it. That is a pretty severe indictment. They say it is a national question and that it requires effective legislation. Of course, in a general way, you have responded to all of these statements; but that indicates very clearly that it is an evil of such magnitude that it is recognized by the press of the country as such. And that was basically it. Yellow journalism won over medical science. The committee passed the legislation on. And on the floor of the house, the entire discussion was: Member from upstate New York: "Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?" Speaker Rayburn: "I don't know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it's a narcotic of some kind." "Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?" Member on the committee jumps up and says: "Their Doctor Wentworth[sic] came down here. They support this bill 100 percent." And on the basis of that lie, on August 2, 1937, marijuana became illegal at the federal level. The entire coverage in the New York Times: "President Roosevelt signed today a bill to curb traffic in the narcotic, marihuana, through heavy taxes on transactions." Anslinger as precursor to the Drug Czars Anslinger was essentially the first Drug Czar. Even though the term didn't exist until William Bennett's position as director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy, Anslinger acted in a similar fashion. In fact, there are some amazing parallels between Anslinger and the current Drug Czar John Walters. Both had kind of a carte blanche to go around demonizing drugs and drug users. Both had resources and a large public podium for their voice to be heard and to promote their personal agenda. Both lied constantly, often when it was unnecessary. Both were racists. Both had the ear of lawmakers, and both realized that they could persuade legislators and others based on lies, particularly if they could co-opt the media into squelching or downplaying any opposition views. Anslinger even had the ability to circumvent the First Amendment. He banned the Canadian movie "Drug Addict," a 1946 documentary that realistically depicted the drug addicts and law enforcement efforts. He even tried to get Canada to ban the movie in their own country, or failing that, to prevent U.S. citizens from seeing the movie in Canada. Canada refused. (Today, Drug Czar John Walters is trying to bully Canada into keeping harsh marijuana laws.) Anslinger had 37 years to solidify the propaganda and stifle opposition. The lies continued the entire time (although the stories would adjust -- the 21 year old Florida boy who killed his family of five got younger each time he told it). In 1961, he looked back at his efforts: "Much of the most irrational juvenile violence and that has written a new chapter of shame and tragedy is traceable directly to this hemp intoxication. A gang of boys tear the clothes from two school girls and rape the screaming girls, one boy after the other. A sixteen-year-old kills his entire family of five in Florida, a man in Minnesota puts a bullet through the head of a stranger on the road; in Colorado husband tries to shoot his wife, kills her grandmother instead and then kills himself. Every one of these crimes had been proceeded [sic] by the smoking of one or more marijuana "reefers." As the marijuana situation grew worse, I knew action had to be taken to get the proper legislation passed. By 1937 under my direction, the Bureau launched two important steps First, a legislative plan to seek from Congress a new law that would place marijuana and its distribution directly under federal control. Second, on radio and at major forums, such that presented annually by the New York Herald Tribune, I told the story of this evil weed of the fields and river beds and roadsides. I wrote articles for magazines; our agents gave hundreds of lectures to parents, educators, social and civic leaders. In network broadcasts I reported on the growing list of crimes, including murder and rape. I described the nature of marijuana and its close kinship to hashish. I continued to hammer at the facts. I believe we did a thorough job, for the public was alerted and the laws to protect them were passed, both nationally and at the state level. We also brought under control the wild growing marijuana in this country. Working with local authorities, we cleaned up hundreds of acres of marijuana and we uprooted plants sprouting along the roadsides." After Anslinger On a break from college in the 70s, I was visiting a church in rural Illinois. There in the literature racks in the back of the church was a lurid pamphlet about the evils of marijuana -- all the old reefer madness propaganda about how it caused insanity and murder. I approached the minister and said "You can't have this in your church. It's all lies, and the church shouldn't be about promoting lies." Fortunately, my dad believed me, and he had the material removed. He didn't even know how it got there. But without me speaking up, neither he nor the other members of the church had any reason NOT to believe what the pamphlet said. The propaganda machine had been that effective. The narrative since then has been a continual litany of: Politicians wanting to appear tough on crime and passing tougher penalties Constant increases in spending on law enforcement and prisons Racist application of drug laws Taxpayer funded propaganda Stifling of opposition speech Political contributions from corporations that profit from marijuana being illegal (pharmaceuticals, alcohol, etc.) ... but that's another whole story. Interlude... This account only scratches the surface of the story. If you want to know more about the history of marijuana, Harry Anslinger, and the saga of criminalization in the United States and elsewhere, visit some of the excellent links below. (All data and quotes for this piece came from these sources as well). The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School. A Speech to the California Judges Association 1995 annual conference. THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE LEGAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN MARIJUANA PROHIBITION by Richard J. Bonnie & Charles H. Whitebread, II. VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW. VOLUME 56 OCTOBER 1970 NUMBER 6 The Consumers Union Report - Licit and Illicit Drugs by Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine The History of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 By David F. Musto, M.D., New Haven, Conn. Originally published in Arch. Gen. Psychiat. Volume 26, February, 1972 The Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse I. Control of Marihuana, Alcohol and Tobacco. History of Marihuana Legislation The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The history of how the Marihuana Tax Act came to be the law of the land. Marijuana - The First Twelve Thousand Years by Ernest L. Abel, 1980 [Porqué la marihuana es ilegal]

What Phelps Really Ought to Say!

Mere hours after I post
What Obama Really Should Do!,
Radley Balko of the Agitator posts the following piece
(and NORML comes up with the following graphic)

http://stash.norml.org/michael-phelps-pot-smoking-athlete/

It is good to see such mind-synchronization

I have reproduced it below with an edit that replaces the word "dope" in reference to a particular plant -- with the word Cannabis, as the term dope here is really only applicable to this immoral pharmacratic inquisition' s average supporters.

A Letter I’d Like To See (But Won’t)

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little Cannabis to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little Cannabis and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities.

So go ahead. Ban me from the next Olympics. Yank my endorsement deals. Stick your collective noses in the air and get all indignant on me. While you’re at it, keep arresting cancer and AIDS patients who dare to smoke the stuff because it deadens their pain, or enables them to eat. Keep sending in goon squads to kick down doors and shoot little old ladies, maim innocent toddlers, handcuff elderly post-polio patients to their beds at gunpoint, and slaughter the family pet.

Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll apologize for smoking pot when every politician who ever did drugs and then voted to uphold or strengthen the drug laws marches his ass off to the nearest federal prison to serve out the sentence he wants to impose on everyone else for committing the same crimes he committed. I’ll apologize when the sons, daughters, and nephews of powerful politicians who get caught possessing or dealing drugs in the frat house or prep school get the same treatment as the no-name, probably black kid caught on the corner or the front stoop doing the same thing.

Until then, I for one will have none of it. I smoked pot. I liked it. I’ll probably do it again. I refuse to apologize for it, because by apologizing I help perpetuate this stupid lie, this idea that what someone puts into his own body on his own time is any of the government’s damned business. Or any of yours. I’m not going to bend over and allow myself to be propaganda for this wasteful, ridiculous, immoral war.

Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let’s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial how the greatest motherfucking swimmer the world has ever seen . . . is also a proud pot smoker.

Yours,

Michael Phelps

What Obama Really Should Do!

If Obama is real
The speech I want Obama to give

Americans I am ending a scam- something that was presented as promoting the general welfare which in fact subverts the general welfare.

I smoked pot. I also occasionally did blow. Older generations might not have, and could claim in good faith they were duped. But I smoked pot regularly, not only one twice or a few times but many times.

Should I have been arrested, prosecuted, fined and even imprisoned for possessing Marijuana, or any other drug?

Should anyone?

The government can not remain credible by not ending this travesty.

MJ prohibition was based upon lies. It was brought about through lies and yellow journalism cloaked in racism-cultural fear but resting in protecting markets in – let’s face it – rival substances, with MJ being banned shortly after alcohol's re-legalization and industrial developments favoring Hemp substitutes. Was it really a coincidence that mass produced cigarettes of highly addictive Virginia Bright Leaf skyrocket with the enactment of the initial early 20^th century drug control laws? Was it just a coincidence that while the U.S.D.A. shamefully crusaded against the natural Coca leaf out of the stated concern that it was being sold as a 'tobacco-habit cure' within the U.S. southeastern bright leaf belt, while yellow journalists raved against cocaine and African-Americans: employing racial prejudice to protect the cigarette industry?!

So is drug prohibition in general which promotes harder forms of drug taking. People in Bolivia use Coca leaves; people in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere a century ago used Coca leaf based preparations, including the original Coca Cola and the drink that indirectly inspired it a French Coca Wine known as Vin Mariani; yet how many people here freebase caffeine?

I stated my intent to end government programs that are not worthwhile.

This is definitely one.

I am hereby announcing that the Federal government recognizes this drug – indeed pharamacratic – war-inquisition as socially detrimental, unconstitutional and as history.

As of today, all federal prosecutions for drug prohibition violations shall cease and desist permanently. I am issuing a Presidential directive to this effect.

Likewise, all such state and local prosecutions shall cease and desist. Any jurisdiction which does not comply shall be subject to a suit that I am directing the U.S. Office of Attorney General for civil rights violations, depriving persons of their liberty and property for statutes that lack constitutionality under the 1^st, 8^th and 9^th amendments of the Bill of Rights, and for doing so in an on going criminal conspiracy to fix – aka control – markets in consumables, in disregard to the relative health effects of what is arbitrarily “legal” or “illegal” let alone how such laws pervert a substance’s use, most notably that of Coca to crack. This shall apply to adult use; we shall preserve the states’ powers to set age restrictions for minors with sensible rather then draconian penalties running afoul of the 8^th amendment.

I am hereby issuing full pardons to all non violent and non predatory drug prohibition violation prisoners. Their release shall not preclude their civil right s claim for unlawful arrest-prosecution-imprisonment and property forfeiture.

I am also establishing a federal commission to investigate the possibilities of police, judicial, prosecutorial and legislative conspiracy to subvert the 4^th amendment.

I hereby notify the United Nations that the United States formally denounces the UN INCB conventions.

And I will receive President of Bolivia Evo Morales at the White House to toast the end of the criminal mercantilism policies with a bottle of Vin Mariani.

Barack Obama - Hopefully

February 1, 2009

What Obama Should Say About Criminal Mercantilism

What Obama Could Do

From the comments board at Drug War Rant:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/2009/01/31.html#a3267

Obama is the ONE person who can address the issue sanely. He can say

"wait a minute that isn't science. Here is the real science... here is what every gov't commission in the last 100 years has said and recommended... here are the conditions we know cannabis works for... here are the statistics of Prohibition's failure..."

He has the ultimate bully pulpit. He has the ability to always get the last word in. Telling the truth could hardly cost any political capital... it just takes juevos. [balls] Telling the truth is the easy part.

allan • 1/31/09; 2:59:01 PM #

Obama Hedges on Medical Marijuana

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