WAR (ON DRUGS) IS OVER

New Column to Cover the Latest in Marijuana

Highest greetings from Amsterdam. My name is John Sinclair and I've
been a marijuana legalization activist ever since I founded Detroit
LEMAR (LEgalize MARijuana) in January 1965, following the receipt of
a LEMAR flyer sent from New York City by poets Allen Ginsberg and
Edward Sanders, the progenitors of this movement.

Between 1964 and 1968, I was harassed by the Detroit Narcotics Squad
for smoking, dispensing and advocating marijuana use. I served six
months in the Detroit House of Correction in 1966 for possession of a
half-ounce of weed, and I served 29 months of a 9-1/2-to-10-year
sentence for possession of two joints of marijuana -- a crime then
defined as a Violation of State Narcotics Laws (VSNL) -- between July
1969 and December 1971.

During this time I was held without appeal bond in maximum-security
prisons in Jackson and Marquette while my legal appeal wound its way
through the Michigan court system. In March 1972, the Michigan
Supreme Court decided that marijuana was not a narcotic. My
conviction was reversed and the marijuana laws were declared unconstitutional.

Thus there were no marijuana laws in Michigan for three weeks until
the current state legislation punishing marijuana users with a year
in prison for possession went into effect. This dreadful new law was
commemorated by the first Hash Bash gathering on the Diag at the
University of Michigan on April 1, 1972.

That was 38 years ago, before many of today's marijuana smokers were
born. The Michigan State Police, county sheriffs and municipal
authorities have ruled our world with their war on drugs ever since
- -- or at least until the 2008 elections, when 62 percent of Michigan
voters approved medical marijuana use and mandated a system of
licensing and regulation for medical marijuana patients that is
currently legal throughout the state.

The point of this initiative is that medical marijuana users in
Michigan are no longer criminals to be subjected to the misdirected
and often vicious treatment dealt out by the drug police,
prosecutors, courts, drug treatment and prison systems.

Citizens who qualify as medical marijuana users may now be licensed
by the state of Michigan, and their suppliers, or "caretakers," may
also be licensed by the state to provide patients legally with a
reliable supply of two-and-a-half ounces of marijuana at all times.

Medical marijuana is a good thing, and this is a good law. I have
always believed that marijuana is a medicine particularly well-suited
to the needs of people suffering from many maladies. Like Louis
Armstrong, I always thought of weed as more of a medicine than a
dope, and I believe, with Dennis Peron -- the activist and leading
force behind California's medical marijuana proposition more than a
decade ago -- that all marijuana use is medicinal.

(For the record, I'm involved in Trans-Love Energies Compassion
Collective in Detroit's Eastern Market, though conflict of interest
precludes me from writing about it here.)

The new marijuana laws across the country enable medicinal users to
emerge at last from under the cloak of opprobrium thrown over us and
become legal, registered, state-approved smokers of the sacred herb
that has served us so faithfully through the long and bitter years of
the war on drugs.

We urge all our fellow medicinal marijuana users to consult your
doctors, gain certification as medical marijuana patients, register
with the state of Michigan and carry your patient cards with you at
all times. Caregivers should register with the state along with your
patients, and convert your legal status from criminal drug dealer to
authorized medicine provider.

At the same time, with respect to medical marijuana patients and
their caregivers, we must point out to the state, county and
municipal police forces throughout Michigan that the war on drugs is
over, whether you want it or not. Lay down your arms, turn your
swords into plowshares, and join us in securing a sufficient supply
of medicine for our citizens who require marijuana for health.

At this historic juncture, we urge the forces of law and order to
accept, in good faith, the will of the voters, the changes in
established law and the altered legal status of registered medical
marijuana patients and their caregivers. You are no longer authorized
to arrest these people and treat them like criminals. The game is up!
The war is over, and we insist the law enforcement community
recognize and respect the rights and the dignity of these citizens
now and at all times in the future.

The police raids on compassionate care centers and other gathering
places for medical marijuana patients and their caregivers are
reprehensible and must be stopped at once. Law enforcement means
enforcing the laws on the books, and the books have now been
rewritten by the citizens of Michigan. Read them and weep. The war on
medicinal marijuana users is over. Stop the raids!

I have never understood what laws and law enforcement have to do with
what's going on inside our heads. What difference should it make to
anyone what we use to get high on? I'm not a fan nor a user of
alcohol, for example, but I wouldn't ever want to try to make someone
stop drinking it, and I really couldn't consider arresting and
jailing and imprisoning them just because they want to have a drink.
If they get drunk and do something wrong, arrest them for what they
did wrong, not for drinking.

The same goes for recreational drug users. If they do something
wrong, whatever they might be on, arrest them for that. If they
aren't doing their job, punish them for that. If they're robbing and
stealing to support their drug habits, bust them for the criminal
acts. But what's going on inside their bodies is their business and
their business only. Like the poet says, we have a right to our bad habits.

The sick thing is that the laws against recreational drug use have
been used to create a vast police-state apparatus on the backs of
people who get high. As a result of these laws, we have legions of
drug police, drug courts, drug prosecutors, drug judges, drug
probation officers, drug treatment programs, jails, prisons, parole
officers and other factotums of this vicious war on recreational drug users.

This ugly picture won't disappear as a result of the new medical
marijuana laws, but the frame will move off those of us who use
marijuana within a medicinal context for the many things that ail us.
As we have seen, the police forces will have a hard time letting go
of their long-held attitudes, beliefs and practices regarding the
ingestion of marijuana and the criminal status of its users, but once
they accept the new rules of engagement we will all have a better
world to live in.

Me, I've been criminalized by the marijuana laws all my adult life.
I've lived in constant fear of arrest, spent three years in prison on
marijuana convictions, and snuck around ever since trying to keep
them from seeing what's in my pockets.

Now I've got my medical marijuana patient card and a caregiver who's
registered with the state as my official supplier -- and that's a
great big step in the right direction. But my goal will always be the
full legalization of recreational drugs and the complete dismantling
of the machinery of the war on drugs. --Amsterdam, Sept. 17-18;
London, Sept. 21, 2010