APATHY, AMERICA'S GREATEST VICE

Marijuana has become more to me than a healthier and more pleasant
alternative to alcohol and other drugs.

Marijuana has become the symbol of oppression in our country and across the
globe.

It is the catalyst that has created the healthy skepticism I have
concerning our federal government, replacing the blind faith of ignorance.

It truly amazes me how so many Americans are content with their government.
We Americans have so much money that we don't mind our elected officials
wasting millions after millions of our hard earned tax dollars in their own
petty partisan quarrels.

We don't mind when they spend millions more covering-up their lies and
misinformation which were the foundation upon which the war on drugs was
created.

The problem is that we Americans are inherently selfish to the bone. Why
should we care that 2.1 million other Americans were arrested for marijuana
under President Clinton's administration alone?! Why should we care that
millions of other Americans are suffering from cancer, AIDS and the like
and are denied access to the most responsive therapy?! Why should we care
that federal agencies are busting-down doors to other Americans' homes and
businesses on a daily basis and seizing everything they own and keeping it
even after they are proven innocent.?! It didn't happen to us--that's their
dumb luck!!

I have been involved in the defense of your freedom against the war on
drugs for almost four years now. I started in California getting signatures
for the petition that birthed Proposition 215 which legalized marijuana for
medical use for the state of California. As you should know by now, Prop.
215 pioneered the successful legislation to legalize and decriminalize
marijuana that is now sweeping the nation.

As it now stands, five states have legalized marijuana for medical use and
eleven states have decriminalized possession of marijuana for personal use.
This is all fine and dandy except that the federal government is not
recognizing these states' sovereignty and has been opposing the will of the
people who put them in office and pay their salaries.

As an insider I'd like to reveal a little known fact about the now historic
Prop. 215. It came very close to never making it past the petition stage.
We were at the proverbial brink of failure as the financial support
required for such an effort was close to running out halfway into the
campaign. For a period of two weeks or so the petition drive came to a halt
as we sat on the sidelines anxiously awaiting our fate. Just as we were
resigning ourselves to failure, it happened.

Someone very rich and powerful in the state got busted buying marijuana for
a sick family member.

We were never told who it was, but we knew it was somebody big as the money
started rolling in better than anticipated and the rest, as they say, is
history. And now, as president of NORML Arkansas, I see the same selfish
apathy that is the true enemy of freedom.

You would be amazed, if not appalled, by how many pot smokers I've talked
to about getting involved with the fight for their freedom only to hear the
same selfish apathy.

The most response I've seen has been from people who are those other
Americans -- those citizens whom have personally felt the crushing fist of
oppression which is the war on drugs. You would think that we Americans
would have learned by now that prevention is half the cure. Has the AIDS
epidemic taught us anything?! It will be a little too late to fight for
your own freedom from an out-of-touch, self-serving federal government when
you have a row of bars between you and the rest of the world.

Every 49 seconds an American is arrested for marijuana (according to FBI
statistics). Each and every one of you that smoke pot are in extreme
jeopardy of being the next casualty of the war on drugs. None of you are
safe -- none of you are truly free (unless, of course, your father is the
governor).

The following is an excerpt from "STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS:
Marijuana Prohibition, 1937- 1997; A Report Issued by NORML on the Occasion
of the 60th Anniversary of Marijuana Prohibition."

"The 'war on drugs' is not really about drugs; if it were, tobacco and
alcohol would be the primary targets.

They are the most commonly used and abused drugs in America and
unquestionably cause far more harm to the user and to society than does
marijuana.

Yet neither is illegal. "America tried to prohibit alcohol, but soon
discovered that the crime and violence associated with prohibition was more
damaging than the evil sought to be prohibited. With tobacco, America has
learned over the past two decades that education is the most effective way
to discourage use. Americans smoke far fewer cigarettes today than in the
past without having the criminal justice system issue a single arrest,
administer one drug test, seize any property, or sentence anyone to jail.
Yet, the federal government fails to apply these lessons toward a rational
and effective marijuana policy.

Instead, politicians continue to support and enforce a failed, 60-year old
public policy at the expense of rational discourse, billions in
misappropriated funds and resources, and many of the founding principles
and freedoms that America was built upon. The 'war on drugs' has become
largely a war on marijuana smokers, and the casualties of this war are the
wrecked lives and the destroyed families of the half a million otherwise
law-abiding citizens who are arrested each year on marijuana charges."