OUTLAWS WE REMAIN

Despite Prop 19 Defeat, We've Still Come a Long Way

It was kicks to see my caricature on the cover of last week's Metro
Times, and I'd like to thank my editors for the honor as well as the
many friends who've called the cover to my attention since the issue
appeared.

Seeing the Metro Times pot issue and reading the fervent editorial by
my esteemed colleague Curt Guyette sort of took some of the sting out
of the extremely disappointing defeat of Proposition 19 in California
the night before.

Combined with the even more chilling effect of the right-wing takeover
of the House of Representatives and many of our governorships --
including the victory of the "Tough Nerd" and his slate in our own
state -- the rejection of the "Tax and Regulate Cannabis" initiative
means that we're in for at least two more years of the invasive
police-state assault on marijuana smokers that we'd hoped so fervently
would begin to come to an end last week.

There remain many positive signs that the idiocy and viciousness of
the War on Drugs with respect to marijuana users may finally be
overcome sooner rather than later. A respected poll released last week
revealed that nationwide support for legalization of recreational use
of weed has reached a new high of 46 percent.

And in California, David Borden reports in AlterNet that the list of
mainstream organizations that endorsed Proposition 19 includes
California NAACP, Latino Voters League, National Black Police
Association, National Latino Officers Association, California Young
Democrats, several trade union organizations, and a number of current
and former California politicians from the local level up through Congress.

"Win or lose this time," Borden concludes, "a page in history has
turned -- drug policy reform is an issue whose time has come, and time
is on our side."

In the meantime, however, those of us who enjoy a smoke without the
benefit of possessing a Medical Marijuana Patient ID card will
continue to be ostracized and victimized by the greedy mongers of the
War on Drugs and the morality police, suffering the consequences of
workplace drug testing and job loss, unreasonable searches and
seizures, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, impoundment of homes and
vehicles, mandatory subjection to the vast drug treatment industry,
and the entire range of humiliating and repressive treatment they have
in store for us.

"The simple truth about America's marijuana prohibition," radical
historian Harvey Wasserman points out in a recent essay, is that "any
law that allows the easy incarceration of any citizen any time those
in power want to do it is the ultimate enemy of democracy. With
800,000 annual arrests over an herb used by tens of millions of
Americans, it is the cornerstone of a police state."

It's worth following Harvey's argument further as he enumerates the
forces prosecuting the War on Drugs, starting with "the drug dealers
who profit directly, ... the prison builders and operators, plus the
lawyers, judges, guards and street cops who make their livings off the
human agony of this endless stream of meaningless arrests.

"Then come the alcohol and tobacco pushers who don't want the
competition from a recreational substance that can be raised and
controlled locally. Ditto Big Pharma, which fears marijuana as a
superior anti-depressant with healing capabilities far beyond a whole
multibillion-dollar arsenal of prescription drugs with deadly side
effects.

"Ultimately it's the politicians who cling to a prohibition that
enhances their power. One after the other, they endorse more arrests
and fiscal insanity."

Consider the economics of this pitiless drive to control our lives and
curtail our mental activity that has absolutely no chance of succeeding.

In an era when law enforcement has been forced to lay off staff,
reduce patrols and even release jail inmates, officers have found that
going after marijuana growers and smokers makes them eligible for
hefty federal anti-drug grants, Justin Scheck reports in The Wall
Street Journal.

"The U.S. Justice Department is spending nearly $3.6 billion this year
to augment budgets of state and local law-enforcement agencies,"
Phillip S. Smith reports in Drug War Chronicle at stopthedrugwar.org.
"In addition, the federal government last year set aside close to $4
billion of the economic-stimulus package for law-enforcement grants
for state and local agencies.

The White House also is spending about $239 million this year to fund
local drug-trafficking task forces, Steve Elliott adds at
newsjunkiepost.com, "which in the real world, usually means local cops
dressing up like Rambo and tramping through the woods in a wasteful,
quixotic and doomed attempt to stop the burgeoning marijuana industry."

The sickest thing about this situation is that you can stack up huge
piles of shocking facts about the evil nature and heartless tactics of
the War on Drugs, and it doesn't seem to make a whit of difference.
These mind-boggling sums are regarded as money well-spent by the
people who run our country, and the relentless persecution of
recreational drug users will continue as part of the Judeo-Christian
proscription against people getting high so long as the current laws
remain in effect.

The organizers of the California Marijuana Initiative, led by Richard
Lee of Oakland, promise to take up the cudgel again in 2012 in a
serious attempt to gain the support of another 5 percent of the voting
population to take legalization over the top. The losing side in the
46-54 decision reflects the national poll numbers cited above and
reveals just how close we are to achieving our goal.

In a fascinating aside, the California polls before the election
showed a 42-47 for-and-against split, but that was when the question
was asked by a person. The response to automated polling devices minus
the human interrogators was more like 57-43, demonstrating the
reluctance so many citizens share about identifying themselves as
smokers or even supporters of legalization.

The really ugly part of this whole equation is the pitiful percentage
of registered voters who will take themselves to the polls or fill out
an absentee ballot when it comes time to participate in a democratic
election. In Michigan, the turnout was something like 46 percent,
which is hardly an example of "hearing the American people speak" as
the right-wing demagogues would have it.

The despised Richard M. Nixon mythologized what he called "the Silent
Majority" as the bedrock of reactionary ideology and social practice,
but, in truth, the silent majority is overwhelmingly made up of more
progressive elements who -- like the House and Senate Republicans of
the past two years -- simply refuse to participate in the democratic
political process.

When great numbers of these people do turn out, as in the 2008
presidential election, the results are much more in line with the
politics of the otherwise silent majority. When they don't, the right
wing rules because their people always vote, in every election. Duh!
Even though they're a minority in terms of the electorate as a whole,
they can easily field more than half of the 46 percent of the citizens
who bother to cast a vote.

Generally speaking, my autumn visit to the United States during the
electoral season was like swimming through a toxic waste dump, and I'm
glad to be getting the hell out of here for a while. I'll be in London
when you read this, then in Amsterdam for the Cannabis Cup, and I'll
report next from over there.