DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU

In a column in the April 17 issue ("The war on music"), Boulder Weekly
warned readers of the impending passage of the Illicit Drug
Anti-Proliferation Act -- a tweaked version of the RAVE Act that was
piggybacked onto the AMBER Alert legislation by spineless legislators in
Congress.

Musicians, promoters, venue owners and civil-rights advocates spoke out
against the revised RAVE Act because it threatened venue owners with fines
and jail time if drugs were found on third parties on their
premises-regardless of the owner's knowledge of the drugs. Many feared that
the act put too much subjective power in the hands of the federal
government, and experience has taught that this unchecked authority is
never used properly.

It didn't take long for the government to prove critics of the legislation
correct.

On May 30, a DEA agent in Billings, Mont., used the act to intimidate the
owners of the Eagle Lodge into canceling a benefit for drug law reform that
was to take place that day involving the Nation Organization for the Reform
of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP).

This is the worst-case scenario come to fruition. The DEA wasn't targeting
drug dealers or drug users -- they were shutting down a political rally
supporting a viewpoint different from their own. This isn't even about
drugs. This is about the freedom of speech.

If you want to let the federal drug pigs know that we're not going to stand
by as the federal government wages an unjust war on its own people, visit
the Drug Policy Alliance (www.drugpolicyalliance.org), and fax a letter of
protest (cost free) to the DEA's head pig, William Simpkins.