Shock Wave
by Doc Zombie
reposted with permission at DrugWar.com Dec. 22, 2002
(originally published at Marijuana.com Dec.
21, 2002
http://my.marijuana.com/article.php?sid=5262&mode=thread&order=0)
This stuff [Whiteshark Hydro in this case]
is still illegal?
As nations around the world distance themselves
from cannabis prohibition, enact progressive cannabis reforms,
and turn their attention to more pressing social and economic
matters, America grows ever more isolated.
When it dawns on the hitherto deluded American
Public what a massive fraud their reefer madness has been all
these years - and this is only a matter of time - the backlash
will be seismic, and the fallout will last for decades.
A Campaign of Lies
The Bush Administration is greatly escalating
the campaign of lies about marijuana exactly when other countries
are recognizing the illegitimacy and pervasive, monolithic fraud
of cannabis prohibition, and are pursuing research and development
of the plant's kaliedescopic potentials: probably specifically
because of this exodus.
In Cannabis
is Forever I argue that pot smoking in and of itself is not
the reason for cannabis prohibition, and that it is a trade war
waged to suppress the development of industrial hemp technology
and the potentially vast biofuels industry that would depose oil
as the central means of production in modern consumer society.
Cannabis Prohibition has been achieved in
large part by manipulation of information available in the commercial
media - supressing cannabis information, slanting what news is
reported, lying about the Netherlands, and blacking out coverage
altogether, a vast conspiracy of lies. Whole nations have been
indoctrinated with the false belief that all cannabis is good
for is creating ax murderers, heroin addicts and now, terrorists.
It's called Reefer Madness and it is the
most timeless example of "propaganda".
Propaganda is defined on Encarta
as :
1. committee of cardinals: a committee of Roman Catholic cardinals,
the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, in charge of
supervising foreign missions and educating priests to serve in
them.
[The ONDCP and the DEA]
2. publicity to promote something: information
or publicity put out by an organization or government to spread
and promote a policy, idea, doctrine, or cause
3. misleading publicity: deceptive or distorted
information that is systematically spread.
The ONDCP has created advertisements linking
marijuana smokers and drug users to terrorism by way of funding,
a popular theme of modern law enforcement. Blaming marijuana for
the effects of marijuana prohibition is another.
[See: Terrible
Things]
The US spends - depending on ones style of
accounting (yet another problem bigger than "marijuana"
but one would never know given the absence of news coverage) -
between $20 - and $40 billion dollars each year now to spread
these lies.
Lies? What Lies?
Imagine Tom Brokaw sitting on the edge of
his swank NBC newsdesk, looking somberly into the camera, and
reporting to us, for example, that Nixon's "Blue Ribbon Panel"
- The
Shaffer Commision - was assembled to comprise an "expert
opinion" essentially to back up Harry Anslingers lies about
marijuana.
The commission found no evidence to support
them and recommended ending marijuana prohibition, the very same
conclusion of the 2002
CANADIAN REPORT. Nixon moved to have it suppressed. Recently
declassified audio tapes show Nixon saw it as a culture war issue:
he hated hippies and refused to "give in to them". He
accused Jews of being behind marijuana legalization. Nixon had
specifically chided Shaffer to change his findings, threatening
him with public ruination if he dared disagree. Anslinger tracked
down as many of the offensive reports as he could and destroyed
them. (He would have hated the internet.)
Over on ABC, Peter Jennings is reporting
on the evening news that way back in 1988, Francis Young, an administrative
law judge for the DEA, Nixon's assault on marijuana culture from
beyond the grave, ruled that marijuana was safer than most foods
we eat and it's illegality was capricious at best. The DEA reports
he reached the wrong conclusion. End of that "safer than
food" noise from the Honorable Judge Young. THC is to stand
for "three-headed children"....it's Federal Policy.
And FOX news is finally providing fair and
balanced reporting that in the 1990's, under Bill Clinton, the
infamous "liberal", over 5 million people were arrested
just for marijuana-touching. Barry McCaffery was the "Drug
Czar" (Chief Liar) then. He focused on lying about the Netherlands,
Medical Marijuana - Prop 215 happened under his watch - and conspired
with advertising agencies and TV producers to produce "public
service announcements" and alter TV scripts to fit the anti-marijuana
agenda. That's suspiciously ultra-conservative for an allegedly
"liberal" Administration.
[See: Barry McCaffery's Lying
about marijuana issues as Drug Czar and this
transcript of a 1996 conversation with a prominent journalist
about manipulating the news regarding medical marijuana.]
All of this information is open source, meaning
you can find it on the internet, in newspapers and magazines.
But because of the way the media is controlled,
and the supremacy of televison's impact on the creation of beliefs,
Dan Rather has yet to come out with a 48 Hours Special Report
leveling with us about this nefarious, behind the scenes manipulation
of "science in the public interest" and other goings-on
at the highest levels of the US Government.
Control what's on TV and you control what
people think, simply because that is their source of information.
In America, if it's not on TV then it's not real.
New World Order
Here in the New Millenium, we have a grand
return to the reefer madness of yesteryear.
The Bush Administration has John Walters
touring North America, reanimating tired old lies and test driving
some amazing new lies - in an blatant attempt to scare people
about marijuana and prevent any sort of rational public discussion
- anywhere. That is the job of a Drug Czar.
"It's not your Father's marijuana"
he hisses at news conferences....
It may not be our father's marijuana, but
it is definately our grandfathers' reefer madness. Flaming propaganda
and "Big Lies" are the order of the day now.
[See: Smoke
Pot and Kill the Environment for a breath-taking example.]
"Reefer Mania" rides as high as
ever, buzzing with new-found patriotism, drunk with power, stuffed
with money, and euphoric with having influenced 3 of 5 important
marijuana reform referendums in November elections.
These rare victories were accomplished partly
with a tidal surge of reefer madness articles placed in the papers
of the the states that had referendums - Ohio, Arizona, and Nevada
- and partly due - maybe - to some "extra-curricular"
campaigning by the Drug Czar, as well as to some specious wording
on some of the ballots. He is a Federal Government employee and
used federal monies to spend time and effort to work against legal
State reform efforts. Groups are now working for his removal from
office for this violation.
[See: Weed
Watch and The
Governor's Sub-rosa Plot to Subvert an Election in Ohio]
Now, marijuana is equated with terrorism
and must be eliminated more than ever, you see. Billions of dollars
in public monies foot the bill for ads to spread this propaganda
at the Superbowl, in magazines, newspapers, on TV and billboards
across the nation.
Government propaganda websites are tagged
to popular search engines. So paranoid they are that even the
word "weed" draws an ONDCP sponsored link asking me
if I think I know everything about "weed" or telling
me I gotta meet some high school kids at some dorky place called
"Freevibe". Again, your tax money hard at work polluting
and distorting the internet, accomplishing nothing socially constructive.
[See: Google
Search: Weed]
This massive fraud reached a new milestone
in irresponsible claims recently with Walters calling Canada a
"dangerous
nation", specifically and only because they are proceeding
with meaningful cannabis reforms and they recognize medical marijuana's
legitimacy. He threatens border clogging and, essentially, trade
war... because they no longer support the lies the US Government
wants them to keep telling.
Yet, America appears as the bully of the
world, threatening wars with overwhelming force - attacking Iraq
in a move to consolidate geopolitical control of it's massive
oil fields.
Oil is running out. Peak production is now
an historical fact. Even if we successfully take over Iraq, we
cannot make any more oil. Cannabis biodiesel can run all of america's
diesel anything, with some hose replacements. All the over the
road trucks, all the railroad engines. We don't need Iraq's oil.
We certainy don't need to kill people for oil.
But, apparently, people - soldiers and civilians
- have to be killed to maintain our current - unsustainable -
staus quo.
[See: The
End of Oil]
A War on the Innocent
Again, the only thing that justifies and
explains the vast resource expenditure of cannabis prohibition,
I argue, is suppression of the cannabis plant's abilty to make
as many different things as oil does, short of gasoline and jet
fuel.
It's not at all about "getting high",
except to the extent that many people have been convinced pot
smoking is somehow "immoral" and they have been enlisted
to help the government fight those who do, keeping the attention
off non-drug applications of the plant, and keeping a nation divided.
These people are often referred to as "prohibitionists"
because they blindly support the continuation of marijuana's inappropriate
illegality, yet are completely clueless about the realities of
marijuana. They have no idea they are really supporting mind-boggling
profits and power of a few - not a clue. They are delusional and
act on thier delusions: thus they are technically insane.
[See: Stone
Ignorant for an example of the prohibitionist mindset.]
Here in the Land of the not Free for much
longer, Marijuana Culture has been made the "Jew" of
the American Police State, the official minority group to be demonized
and scapegoated for the "social ill du jour".
Responsible for anything you can conjour
up, from murderous insanity, to communism, to amotivational hippism,
a gateway to heroin addiction, and now terrorism, marijuana can
do anything, as long as it is bad, it seems: an evil means of
production. A reflection of those who would suppress it?
Countless people have been killed by police,
DEA, FBI, sheriffs, local cops, and other deluded citizenry specifically
because of this stigmatic demonization of marijuana culture, the
glorification of police crucades against "drugs", and
forfieture profiteering.
Reefer madness lies have fueled endless escalations
in punitive legislation, forfieture laws, arrests, harrassments,
and wholesale liquidation of constitutional safeguards that historically
set America apart from police states and Dictatorships. It has
fueled a "prison industrial complex" as a spin-off from
the "military industrial complex", as well as a full
program of notorius urban assualt-style "drug raids".
[See: Common
Ground Part II and A
Dirty Sweep]
More people are arrested for marijuana touching
than for all other crimes combined. 750,000 people are arrested
for marijuana-touching each year now - almost 1800 people each
and every day! - the message is repeated "marijuana is bad
and marijuana smokers are bad". That is one way law enforcement
is used as propaganda, or , if you like, social
engineering.
[See: Marijuana
Arrests For Year 2001.]
So, for each real crime arrest there is something
over 1.01 marijuana arrests. Think about that.
When marijuana is legally available and no
longer any sort of arrestable, prosecutable, jailable, or forfeitable
"offense", the police will simply be arresting less
than half the people they do currently. Given that their budgets
would be unlikely to change, this would be similar to a 50% increase
in 'available resources".
Decriminalization will probably not achieve
this. People are free to go ahead and try - anything that ends
hunting season on marijuana smokers is welcome. "Decrim"
is a great Orwellianism given that it maintains a state in which
associating with marijuana will continue to have adverse legal
consequences. It will have it's own inadequacies and abuses and
will continue the central problem : criminalization.
Reefer madness contributed largely to the
lack of national security by keeping LEO's more focused on marijuana
and drugs than on real threats, and it rose up and bit us really
hard. They still have not acknowledged this, but they cannot make
it untrue.
How do you think these facts are going to
settle with people, who have been so comfortable with reefer madness,
once they hit home?
Reefergate©
When people ask questions and are fed propaganda
and accept it, lies are reinforced, and the status quo is maintained.
Lies backed up by lies, backed up by even
more older lies is not a very good foundation to stand on.
When the lying stops, what happens? Do we
not feel "lied to?" Betrayed?
"We knew they were lying all along"
won't scratch the surface of how deep the impact of this will
be.
Consider this scenario:
---
You are a dedicated officer of Law Enforcement.
You do a good job, you identify with public service as a calling
higher than just earning money. You give Law Enforcement a very
good name.
You either hold no opinion about marijuana
in general or range from supportive of cannabis being illegal
to being a fairly aggressive advocate of war on weed because of
your belief that the government could not possibly have been lying
about marijuana all these years.
Then the day comes, for whatever reason,
and the truth about cannabis prohibition begins to come out and
reality starts to change for a whole lot of people.
This is different than when different studies
engaged in tugs-of-war about whether pot smoking was bad for us
or not. Really different. Such things suddenly seems profanely
trivial in this new light.
Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw are on television
reporting government press releases admitting that information
about marijuana and that much of what people have been instructed
to believe is now officially wrong. Dan Rather stays up for 48
hours reporting on it. NBC changes its "peacock" logo
to an 11 finger rainbow potleaf. (Well, maybe not...)
By Presidential Order, effective immediately,
all law enforcement is ordered to stand down on and cease marijuana
arrests. People currently incarcerated for simple marijuana possession
- which is only 1 or 2 according to John Walters - are to be reviewed
and released.
Unfolding over the ensuing days and weeks,
as giant scandals do, it's All Reefergate, All the Time. Everywhere
you go, it's the buzz.
There will soon be a commission appointed
to begin pardoning people arrested for possession alone, as well
as a review and purge of criminal records on more than 10 million
people.
A task force has been put in place under
the ATF to devise production and distribution protocols.
Public service announcements begin running
focusing on harm reduction.
The "Drug Czar" will be unavailable
for comment.
Mexico files a formal grievance against the
US for all the havoc created in their country and years of demonizing
them for marijuana production.
Stammering or speechless, politicians are
running for cover to figure out how best to cope with it. Damage
control is shoved on overdrive. The ones who have been historically
supporting cannabis reforms will be the only winners when this
works out, though a lot of politicans will score points by venting
their disgust, claiming their ignorance - which we shall not dispute
- and appointing inquisitions to figure out where to saddle the
blame. The hearings become America's new 24 hour TV.
The media - a full partner in the charade
- is similarly grasping at what to do and what to say and they
turn to ask people in the street.
----
Remember, there is vastly more at stake here
than "smoking pot".
There will probably be protests calling for
the removal of various public officials in various places, and
doubtlessly some street parties demanding the same thing in a
bit more jubilant manner. I can see the banners now: "We
told you so!"
Riots? I don't know - I doubt it and I'd
hope not. I'm not sure it's that kind of issue, and it wouldn't
accomplish anything. But, a lot of people have been very very
damaged by all this so anger is going to be a factor to consider.
I think the main result, overall, will be
a sustained wave of legal inquisitions, government office purges
far and wide, lawsuits, and decades of trials great and small.
Marijuana laws are based on perjury, and as slack as the government
is, once it is out in the open steps will be taken to deal with
it.
Reefergate will last for years.
Impact
The overall impact will be deep, because
admission from the government will be about more than just having
exxagerated and/or perjured information about marijuana.
It will be that they did this and manipulated
nations with threats of imprisonment and social demonization,
purposefully and needlessly ruining millions and millions of people's
lives - their whole existence on this Earth twisted and wasted
because of the lies of a powerful few.
They didn't just allow it to happen, they
pursued it aggressively and every couple of years they ratcheted
it up. Various agencies of the US Government - most notably the
CIA and DEA - have used illegal drug sales to create and finance
clandestine activities by directly involving themselves in trafficking.
Above the law.
The War against Marijuana has been a war
against primarily and otherwise innocent people. The law was based
on lies so all the violence in it's name has been wicked and immoral,
to speak in a language the ultra-conservative can understand.
No law against marijuana touching, no crime. Make law, make crime.
It's quite simple.
Eliminating whatever competition cannabis
would eventually bring to the marketplace means the "free
maket" is not free when it comes to petroleum-based products.
What happens when various cannabis industries develop to challenge
oil?
While there are countless related isses consider
this: How many farms would be in business now if "hemp"
had remained legal?
The answer is simply "more". Reefer
madness has gleefully participated in the demise of the family
farm, historical symbol of American independence and industiousness
by demonizing hemp and by expunging it from the public record.
All to benefit a tiny few: People just don't know how badly they
have been screwed. Even Anslinger had intended that industrial
hemp production continue.
The amount of cannabis required to feed all
aspects of an unmolested hemp industry - and not even considering
the pharmaceutical potential or personal use supplies - would
be massive. Lots of income-producing opportunity for those with
a green thumb and a few acres. All nice and legal.
Farmers are already filing suits against
the DEA to force the issue and there have been several bills in
various farming states. These people aren't interested in gettin'
stoned - they are interested in business - the lifeblood of an
economy. (Any Harvard MBA knows that.) How will these farmers
feel when their government, which has fought them tooth and nail,
admits there was never a need for it and it was all a fraud. Again,
its not about pot smoking. At all.
Just doing thier job
The hypothetical LEO described above has
few options outside of feeling betrayed, if not betrayed beyond
belief. I chose to focus on the LEO perspective because they are
the "thin blue line" and are central to helping correct
this giant mess. And because law enforcement has been so particularly
damaged by reefer madness.
Because LEO's have been systematically mislead
by thier superiors and our government for decades:
They have arrested and participated in the
ruination of millions of otherwise innocent people for touching
a weed because it was the law and it was considered right at the
time. They trusted their superiors and OUR Government to work
as tirelessly as they do to uphold the law and protect the public
good, and all those noble ideals painted all over the War on Drugs.
But this all turns out to be vicious lies. No National Security
trump card. Just greed and carpriciousness. The War on Drugs is
exposed as one of the biggest scams of human history - right up
there with Soviet Communism, NAZI-ism, or myths of racial superiority.
[See: The
Terror War on drugs.]
They put up with drug testing and said it
was "ok" because " we had nothing to hide".
They went along with this anti-constitutional ploy. The war on
marijuana isn't just "un-constitutional", it is anti-constitutional:
It has moved aggressively to eliminate or suspend protections
ordinary people used to have under the United States Constitution.
LEO's have earnestly helped facilitate this long before the War
on Terror.
[See: Police
face random drug testing.]
Many may be aware of officers who have framed
or killed people over marijuana - or real drugs - to get at their
money or their property. They may have even gone out celebrating
afterwards, a good day at the Crucades.
[See: 2 stories about the killing of Mr.
Clayton Helriggle. ( 1
| 2).]
Police are also a hardworking taxpayers,
watching thier tax money being either squandered or used to support
an agenda that, had they known it's reality, they would have never
supported. They are most likely going to be outraged. Hundreds
of billions of our dollars blown out the window, funneled into
the pockets of interrelated private companies with so much power
they influence governments all over the world. In the meantime
our America has pathetic schools, a small nation of homeless people,
many in need of medical care, another small nation of working
poor who bear much of the tax burdern with which this war against
them is waged.
But now it's clear that it was all based
on deciet and the most vicious of lies, a grand scam to prop up
wealthy industrials and oil barons, to control and manipulate
the human population, harness it to work and to siphon off the
profits. As a LEO they participated without question - they were
just doing their job.
How do you think these people are going to
feel?
Angry, I say. Righteous indignation. Police
are among the biggest victims of the war on marijuana and this
fact will come to light. People are not going to be happy.
The police have gotten it coming and going
so to speak. The people fear them, and rightly so, yet they have
been lied to, tricked, used to perpetuate the scam by the people
they trust. We really should have nothing to fear from the police.
We certainly should not hate them - they are essential public
servants. Blame it on Reefer Madness - the police and citizerny
have been divided and scammed blind.
The Police have been charged to uphold emotionalized
but completely false ideals while being subjected to the tremendously
coercive and corrupting influences of prohibition dynamics. All
that profit that John Walters alleges goes directly into Bin Laden's
personal account exerts a powerful warping influence on law enforcement
judgement and values, before it ever leaves the USA... if it actually
leaves. They tell so many lies.
A Nation Betrayed
Reefer Madness - anti-marijuana propaganda
- acts sort of like a dam or retaining wall holding back the potentials
of the cannabis plant: it's foundation is lies. It's strength
is lies and it reinforces its lies repeatedly to back itself up
whenever something happens that attracts public scrutiny:
Each time the lies are repeated and the average
person breathes a sigh of relief, re-contented that the Government
is good and fair and effective while dissenters - "legalizers"
- are nothing but Cheech and Chong loonies that don't want to
work and smoke pot all day.
Each time they read that an army of SWAT
soldiers burst into the wrong home killing some person and that
they were looking for some weed seller, the people need to be
assured that marijuana is indeed so bad this butchery is justified.
Each time they read that the war on marijuana
will cost over $20 billion dollars, they want to feel that this
expenditure of money is warranted. The budget of the war on marijuana
could do amazing things for the US School system if it's relative
waste, corruption and inefficiency could be addressed. Propaganda
makes marijuana so evil that educational quality is just one more
thing to be sacrificed in pursuit of the marijuana-free america.
The Feds even play the National Security card.
Each time they read that DEA agents spend
a lot of their time and money to harrass medical marijuana activists
and clinics, to bust sick and terminally ill people, to blow up
clinic doors on establishments run with the blessings of City
Leaders, lies have to be told to placate the herd, to keep the
bleating from getting out of hand. When dozens of legal marijuana
activists are arrested and only one miserable "terrorist",
people have to be re-assured that it is all for the good of the
country, not just the pharmaceutical industry.
Then when people learn that indeed each and
every time he or she was contented with what turns out to be a
plain old lie, they will at least feel betrayed and used. Why
should they not feel outraged? Why should they not sue? We'll
sue for nothing in America - you can be assured this could be
one mother of a class action suit.
Years of Fallout
Law Enforcement officers of every rank and
file, elected and appointed City, County, and State leaders in
many places are just a sampling of those who are going to feel
professionally betrayed: ripped off and taken for a ride because
they trusted the people who worked for the Federal Government.
They - the masses - find out what cannabis culture has told them
for years - the Federal Government has no concept of "good
faith" when it comes to marijuana - there is too much at
stake. Some of them will surely sue, possibly sponsor all sorts
of new legislation.
They will be joined by the millions of families
who have been directly or peripherally damaged by the war on marijuana.
Given the level of responsibilty, the government's policy of lying
about marijuana eclipses the legendary lying of the Tobacco companies,
though, in all fairness, it hasn't killed quite as many people
... directly.
As I mentioned earlier, I don't know if there
would be significant rioting - a la the OJ decision. I would truly
hope not - talk about an inappropriate waste of energy. I am anti-riot,
though, so I am biased. March in the street, protest, raise a
noise, Party, celebrate, put lawyers to work, but please, don't
riot.
I would also hope that certain groups of
people - those who have fostered tremendous resentment of the
Police in particular - would not take this as a reason to hurt
LEO's. When the dam breaks, we will all need the police to do
their jobs. I seriously doubt the public order will decay, but
it's prudent to plan for a variety of possible issues. It would
also be desirable to convince the many decent police not quit
out of their righteous disgust. That we don't need.
Bad cops - the Rampart sorts -along with
the reeferly mad public officials great and small - can most likely
expect to find themselves named in suit after suit of wrongful
arrest, wrongful imprisonment, and wrongful death...maybe even
RICO proceedings, such is the vastness of the fraud of the war
on marijuana. You probably know who you are - I'd advise finding
a good lawyer now, to avoid the rush.
I would hope it would cause more social pulling
together, given that everybody will have something new in common:
victimization by thier own government.
A lot of social work will be required, a
whole specific industry will develop around helping people adjust
as the "public perception of reality" changes about
marijuana and it sinks in just how much thier government has lied
to them thier whole life.
Support groups, workshops, individual and
family counseling, community encounter groups - all this will
be essential to helping people express thier feelings and work
to move past the betrayal they will feel when the lying stops
and the shockwave hits.
