NEW CANDY LAWS PLAY RESIDENTS FOR SUCKERS

I missed my opportunity. I should have gone to my local mall to buy
"pot suckers" before the city council banned them. The ban, which
follows one in Chicago, made the news in the Chicago Tribune this
week - see http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05.n1411.a07.html

Let me make it perfectly clear: I haven't tried one of these
so-called treats. But the more the politicians demonize the
lollipops, the more irresistible they become. I know NORML head
Allen St. Pierre says the taste is rather, well, unpleasant ("foul"
and "nasty" are the specific ways he describes it in the Tribune story).

I know there are no intoxicants involved (the "controversial"
ingredient, hemp oil, is available in lots of other food, despite
federal attempts to ban it a few years ago). But surely if the
government wants to protect me and my kids from this so desperately,
the product must have some appealing quality.

I don't want to get too specific about when I may try it - I don't
need trouble from the local cops for smuggling contraband back into
the city. But, it's going to happen - and I'm going to raise my fist
in a people power salute when the first rank taste touches my
tongue. I will beat the system, and, as Homer Simpson says, stick it
to the man.

Maybe then I will understand what the fuss is all about. Of course,
having followed the drug war for several years, I do sort of
understand what's going on, but with the recognition that these
things don't follow conventional logic.

As far as I can tell from the news coverage, there haven't been
actual complaints about the hemp candy, not from parents, not from
kids (even those shocked by the pungent flavor). No one says the
product is unsafe. It presents no threat at all - except a symbolic one.

If there's one thing drug warriors can't stand, it's a symbol that
challenge their own symbols. The drug war is primarily about
symbols; illegal drugs are representations of evil that must be
eradicated. Illegal drugs can never be good in the ideology of the
drug war. That's why drug warriors still call medical marijuana a
"hoax," and that's why political drug warriors in my state are
stunned that anyone would be immoral enough to mix hemp oil with
sugar and then dare to market it in niche that has essentially been
created by the drug war.

Think about it: without the drug war, no one would care about this
product - the press, the politicians or even the entrepreneurs.
Prohibitionists have given life to this, but the only reaction they
can imagine is to try and crush it.

They argue candy employing marijuana prohibition imagery sends the
wrong message; that it's designed to get kids to try marijuana. But
they miss the point there too: the candy is designed to take
advantage of the "forbidden fruit" reactions that naturally occur
when something with desirable qualities is outlawed.

If hemp candy really is some kind of monster, it's one of the
prohibitionists' own creations. As such, it's no surprise that these
suckers are tinged with bitterness.