Inch By Inch, Row By Row...

"My final point about alcohol, about drugs, about pornography; what business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, fuck or take into my body as long as I don't harm another human being whilst on this planet? And for those of you having a little moral dilemma on how to answer this, I'll answer for you. None of your fucking business! Take that to the bank, cash it and take it on a vacation outta my fucking life." - Bill Hicks

My feelings about this country's drug laws is no secret...

They're bat-thwacking insane.

First, to those of you who think America is a "Christian nation" (and the very group most stern about drug use) you're actually saying to everybody that God made a mistake when he created marijuana or heroin poppies.

A mistake. God. Mr. All-Perfect.

Seems to me you're gonna burn a long time for such arrogant postulating, pilgrim. It's clear the Big Kosmic Kahuna meant us to enjoy THC and alkaloids, not to mention most chemicals on Schedule's 1-4, the same way we currently and freely enjoy alcohol, nicotene and Twinkies.

Second,  how can you make laws against something that grows right out of the ground? Especially something so amazingly useful as hemp? That's a clue, by the way, that this is one of those Monsanto vs. Common Sense stories you can find more about on the net. Basically, you can copyright nylon but not hemp.

Ohhhhhhhh. Now you get it.

It's clear to anyone except those making a healthy profit from the War On Drugs that it has failed miserably. All we've managed to do is stuff our prisons to the brim with those who would have eventually died of their own excesses anyway. This has overburdened our legal systems and calloused our sense of justice.

There are those who imagine that liberalized drug laws would lead to rampant drug abuse but look around. How many drunk people do you see? Booze is legal and can picked up on almost any street corner but people have learned when and where to use it. The great majority of people in this country aren't stupid but there's a tiny percentile who will wreck their lives using any available chemical substance. These are not examples of what can happen to us all. These are the abberations.

The premise of today's Raging Pencils comic may seem a little far-fetched but just remember what happened to Sudafed. Mark my words, there will come a day when some bright spark will figure out how to run an ear of corn through a gene sequencer and output something which makes dimethylthiambutene look like Alka-Seltzer. At which point we'll all suddenly be buying our Fritos in little latex balloons fresh and warm from Mexican rectums.

So make recreational drugs, except the ones you can grow in your back yard, meet the same health standards as any other drug sold in this country. Tax it accordingly and drive the monies into public health programs but, and this is important, don't allow the producers to advertise the product.

It sounds weird but it would certainly beat the stuffings out of what we have now. And we might even accidentally get our Bill of Rights back.

=mike=

PS, one tiny little detail should you be so interested. I've never smoked, used drugs recreationally and I hate the taste of alcohol. I don't even drink coffee. But I believe, as does Mr. Hicks, that we should be free to destroy ourselves in whatever manner we choose as long as it doesn't affect anyone else.

Or, for that matter, not destroy ourselves at all.