faces

-

Learn the sweet magic of a cheerful face.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

-

for the couch:

Pete and Allan

Allan and Jim (NCN )(had to do this one all Nor'westy like...)

_

there once was a life I sailed the wwwebly seas

on ocean often calm
but sometimes not
with a motley crew
all wisey-kind in cleverish ways
we fought, often for days
against them blarney types
or, against each other
all-friendly-like o' course
and we'd gather
from places far, far away
strangers some
but then not for long
for a brisk skirmish
made friends of those
who stand side by side

those days I sometimes miss
when asses we'd kick
when Malcolm would cry out
"heave to boys!"
and Nemo would point
"thar she blows!"
characters all
would stand as one
(well, maybe 1 1/2...)
dark and bb, ddc
hope and all
I salute yer raggedy
piratical anarchal arses

thanks for the memories
Huzzah!

-

the return... da da da dum!

~~~

“Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.”

- Thomas Merton

~~~

Well, gosh. I've been away from blogging because technology passed me right by. The world of course hasn't gone away, I've just had to step aside for awhile so I didn't get run over on the information highway. What does Info Hwy roadkill look like? See, the questions are just boundless!

First some shout outs:

To my classmates from San Pedro HS, class of '69, I swear I'll make it for the 50th! I'm really curious... :)

To my couchmates over at Pete Guither's Drug WarRant. If you are interested in drug policy that's the place to go. If you support drugs prohibition, we'd love to have you, be it for breakfast, lunch or dinner/supper. I've been hanging out with some of these anti-prohibition scalawags for over a decade. End the drug war, Damitol!®

And a shout out to a young woman that provided inspiration to me for months while she rented a room in my house here at the farm. Courtney Appleseed is a gorgeous and talented young woman and it was truly a pleasure to have her in my home. I had no idea that muses are real, but they are! I had one and I will forever be in her debt for her friendship and her inspiring work as a model.

My first digital camera went belly up (more than less) and I had to find me a new one. Bought a Pentax K5II. Lovin' it. As always I'll be sharing images once I hit my stride on this blogging thing.

Oh and a shout out to Kevin Sabet and Calvina Fay... NANNER NANNER! It takes a real creative loser to call an ass-whupping a victory. But Prohibition IS coming to an end, again.

I'll be having a whole lot more to say on a lot of things, so please, grab your coffee, pull up your chair and share with me in hopefully providing something of value to our world.

Got your thinking caps on?

---

“When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.”

- Robert Heinlein
---

I have a guest blogger appearing in today's post. I met Denny Chapin over at Pete Guither's Drug WarRant. Denny is the managing editor of AllTreatment.com, a directory for drug rehab centers and substance abuse information resource. He appeared at Pete's with a guest post on Cannabis and addiction: Marijuana Addiction - guest post and a discussion.

To get the gist of all this it would help to follow through on the discussions. Those of us who follow Pete's blog and participate in discussion are no slouches when it comes to drug policy. Drug policy reform advocates have been way ahead of today's Prohibitionists on web technology and savvy since, well, forever.

All of today's Prohibition II is promulgated and funded by the government and any organizations opposed to current drug policies are marginalized and insulted. Yet the forces of prohibition have long held sway only because they held power and purse strings. The wwweb changed that.

Just as an example... in Pete's post on the current UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs 2010 that took place this past week in Vienna, he says this:

I can’t resist showing this… The NGO’s (non-governmental organizations, including Transform, Harm Reduction Association, etc. many of whom are there to try to reform) tend to get shut out of key portions. However, they were promised a location to make their materials available to delegates.

The 160 representatives from 55 NGOs were given this table.

and he offered this photo of the one table 55 Non-Governmental Organizations were supposed to share:




So follow along with these discussions and see for yourself...

After Denny's posting, Pete followed up with a response: Marijuana Addiction - a response

After a vigorous discussion, again, Denny returned with a follow up post: Marijuana Addiction, part 3. Danny Chapin responds. This resulted in 63 responses. And it was my comments to this post that brought Denny to contact me, asking for an opportunity to post here.

And with me being the accomodating fella I am... any way here's Denny Chapin:

Bio:
Denny Chapin is the managing editor of AllTreatment.com, a directory for drug rehab centers and substance abuse information resource.

Should We Decriminalize Marijuana?

From a purely utilitarian perspective, one can arguably weigh the good and bad against each other, calculate these values according to some weighting system, and know the "right" action. The reality of everyday life, however, speaks differently. While we try to use Mill's calculus to decide the truly right action, we fail, and we fail miserably. Yet, regardless, we try to measure negatives and the positives from one another, and make what we deem is the right decision.

In speaking to the following questions and statistics, I in no way mean to claim I am fulfilling the complexity of the whole of this topic, but simply hope to show the information from a perspective, and make conclusions as I deem fit. As such, I'll preface my opinions with a disclaimer that I in no way represent the opinions of any institution, in writing this brief argument. I write simply to ask questions and hopefully challenge and evoke thoughtfulness. And with that, let me detail a few positives that could occur from the decriminalization of marijuana.

Decriminalizing Marijuana: Effects in the United States

Marijuana is used by 15.2 million people, at least, in the United States[1]. Of those 15.2 million people, in 2006, 829,625 people were arrested with marijuana related charges, and 89% of them were charges of possession only, with 11% making up sale and distribution related offenses[2]. The enforcement of these charges cost the United States government between 12 and 20 billion dollars a year. The United States federal budget for education in 2011 is 160.5 billion dollars, and if marijuana was decriminalized, that money could increase our federal education budget by 7.5 to 12.5%[3]. Decriminalization will also prevent these possession offenses from being processed through our police and court systems, increasing efficiency and, hopefully effectiveness, since police will be able to focus more on truly disruptive criminal activity related to stronger, more destructive drugs like meth, cocaine, and heroin that come into the United States from Mexico.

Does Decriminalization Create More Marijuana Users?

But despite these benefits, if we don't care about prosecuting individuals who use and possess marijuana, it seems logical to assume the use of marijuana would rise, since it's "less illegal" with less punishments. Interestingly, the contrary has been the case in the United States. The states of Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon have all enacted marijuana decriminalization, where the offense of marijuana possession does not warrant jail time[4]. And these States have not seen an increase in marijuana consumption, as the Institute of Medicine's report on marijuana consumption indicates[5]. Another report from the Journal of Public Health is worth quoting:

The available evidence indicates that the decriminalization of marijuana possession had little or no impact on rates of use. Although rates of marijuana use increased in those U.S. states [that] reduced maximum penalties for possession to a fine, the prevalence of use increased at similar or higher rates in those states [that] retained more severe penalties. There were also no discernible impacts on the health care systems. On the other hand, the so-called 'decriminalization' measures did result in substantial savings in the criminal justice system.

- E. Single. 1989. The Impact of Marijuana Decriminalization: An Update. Journal of Public Health 10: 456-466.

We can see that decriminalization has proven to save American's tax money that would be wastefully spent on our criminal justice system in order to prosecute an overwhelming majority of marijuana users who possess an negligible amount of marijuana, missing the point of the actually preventing harmful drug distribution, crime, and violence.

How Should Treatment Centers Weigh In?

If decriminalization does not impact the number of people who use marijuana, marijuana treatment centers ought not to have an opinion about decriminalization as it relates to usage. And when it comes to costs, marijuana possession prosecution is simply a waste of money.

Most importantly, I think marijuana prohibition, decriminalization, legalization, etc, get a lot of buzz and force many to speak loud opinions about something most American's don't come in contact with on a very regular basis, and even rarer, to hear of someone who has a serious problem or caused themselves major harm because of marijuana. And to this degree, decriminalization is more of an afterthought in our social psyche, where the debate about medical marijuana and legalization take center stage.

So, to almost totally change subjects, I'd like to discuss what I believe is the true drug problem in America, alcohol.

The Real Problem: America's Relationship to Alcohol

In the United States, the most commonly abused substance is alcohol, a legal drug. Coinciding with this fact, treatment centers admit more patients suffering from alcohol abuse than any other drug, and of those patients, 29.9% of them admit themselves into treatment, as opposed to 14.8% of marijuana users admitting themselves into treatment[6]. Alcohol is a legal drug, yet in 2006, it caused 13,050 deaths from liver damage, and 22,073 alcohol-induced deaths, excluding deaths by drunken driving and drunken homicide[7].

Alcoholics and alcoholism is the purple elephant in the room of America's problem with substance abuse. And to this point, the fact that marijuana caused no deaths, has the fewest percentage of addicts admitting themselves to drug treatment on their own accord (along with 5.2x more people admitting themselves to treatment in sheer volume), and costs our country time, money, and energy, I believe marijuana consumption should require the least of our legislative "mindshare" when it comes to drug abuse.

Too many American have a dangerous relationship with alcohol, causing collapse in their body, their connection to their family members, and for our citizens, and scariest of all, the potential to get on the road and commit manslaughter. I feel regret that, as a blogger, the marijuana debate gets the most notice, when so many of us have been viscerally affected by an alcoholic in a truly upsetting manner. And to those of us who have not, we ought to count our blessings.

What should our government do? Make a change. But that is a whole other article ;)


Sources:
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3383
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6376&page=R2
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7370
http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/treatment-statistics/
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/quicktables/quickoptions.do
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf
http://ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2010/02/02012010.html



notes


1 http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/US07.htm

2 http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7370

3 http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/index.html

4 http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3383

5 http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6376&page=1

6 http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/quicktables/quickoptions.do

7 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm ; http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf

---

Obviously Denny Chapin has done his homework. Feel free to weigh in, I'll be checking comments in the a.m. and the p.m to keep this current.

Thanks Denny!
---

“I believe that people have a right to decide their own destiny; people own themselves. I also believe that, in a democracy, government exists because (and only as long as) individual citizens give it a "temporary license to exist" - in exchange for a promise that it will behave itself. In a democracy you own the government - it doesn't own you. Along with this comes a responsibility to ensure that individual actions, in the pursuit of a personal destiny, do not threaten the well-being of others while the "pursuit" is in progress.”

- Frank Zappa

---

The BIG lie...

~~~

“A lie cannot live.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
~~~

Now surely, if a law is to have any validity at all, it must be founded in truth, yes? But what happens when a lie is a law's foundation? What happens when that lie is told and retold and retold again... well, obviously if a lie is told often enough it becomes accepted as truth.

That is exactly what has happened with the laws against cannabis (and yes, cannabis is pot, marijuana... even hemp). And this phenomenon of history is very well covered withing the drug policy reform arena. One of my favorite versions comes from my friend Pete Guither over at his blog Drug WarRant. If you are tepid in the least about your opposition to Prohibition stop by Pete's and be renewed. In fact if there is room, grab a place on Pete's couch. (inside joke there... if you've ever seen the anti-pot commercial, "Pete's couch," you'll get it...)

Pete's version of the history of pot's Prohibition is here: Why is Marijuana Illegal?

And knowing Pete won't mind, rather than write up things all over again I'm just going to borrow snippets from his work.

So come on along and relearn some history:

Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You'll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.

You'll also see that the history of marijuana's criminalization is filled with:

Racism
Fear
Protection of Corporate Profits
Yellow Journalism
Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
Personal Career Advancement and Greed

"A documented lie on the floor of the Senate"... ummm... I think some folks call that perjury.

OK... lets continue on with this fantastic journey:

America's first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law "ordering" all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other "must grow" laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp -- try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements - rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.

The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp "plantations" (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.

In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing's army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.

One of the "differences" seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them.

However, the first state law outlawing marijuana did so not because of Mexicans using the drug. Oddly enough, it was because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church was not pleased and ruled against use of the drug. Since the state of Utah automatically enshrined church doctrine into law, the first state marijuana prohibition was established in 1915. (Today, Senator Orrin Hatch serves as the prohibition arm of this heavily church-influenced state.)

Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population.

See, its getting ugly already and we he haven't gotten to the serious campaign of perjury. Lies and bigotry... a great foundation upon which to build our laws. Not...

In the eastern states, the "problem" was attributed to a combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong's "Muggles", Cab Calloway's "That Funny Reefer Man", Fats Waller's "Viper's Drag").

Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: "Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice."

So, if you are white, and your child is starting to look like a black jazz musician... check their room, they may be smoking pot!

In 1930, a new division in the Treasury Department was established -- the Federal Bureau of Narcotics -- and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This, if anything, marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana.

Harry J. Anslinger



Anslinger was an extremely ambitious man, and he recognized the Bureau of Narcotics as an amazing career opportunity -- a new government agency with the opportunity to define both the problem and the solution. He immediately realized that opiates and cocaine wouldn't be enough to help build his agency, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level.

Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from "Gore Files" -- wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and... Negroes.

Are you detecting the trend here? Well, just wait. Now comes the titillation... exciting yellow journalism from the Wm Randolph Hearst media empire (and you thought the tabloids were weird...), from the San Francisco Examiner:


"Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days -- Hashish goads users to bloodlust."

"By the tons it is coming into this country -- the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms.... Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him...."

On the farm, in the barnyard... this is what is called manure. And people bought it! They bought this outrageous pack of lies and it is a legacy that has been built on for 70 years... and they still buy it today!

But wait... where would this story be without Richard "Dick" Nixon?



(hey, and I'm sorry if this is a bit long, but it is a topic I've been studying for over a decade and it takes some time to explain)

So, how does Tricky Dick come into this farcical play of life? Remember those White House tapes? Yep...

Once-Secret "Nixon Tapes" Show Why the U.S. Outlawed Pot

[quote]

Congress, when it passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, temporarily labeled marijuana a "Schedule I substance" -- a flatly illegal drug with no approved medical purposes. But Congress acknowledged that it did not know enough about marijuana to permanently relegate it to Schedule I, and so they created a presidential commission to review the research and recommend a long-term strategy. President Nixon got to appoint the bulk of the commissioners. Not surprisingly, he loaded it with drug warriors. Nixon appointed Raymond Shafer, former Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, as Chairman. As a former prosecutor, Shafer had a "law and order," drug warrior reputation. Nixon also appointed nine Commissioners, including the dean of a law school, the head of a mental health hospital, and a retired Chicago police captain. Along with the Nixon appointees, two senators and two congressmen from each party served on the Commission.

[end quote]

It is a Presiden't perogative to make appointments as he (so far, only hims, all white, no hers) sees fit. And in this case he stacked the deck. But ya know what? the truth won out...

[quote]

The Shafer Commission -- officially known as the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse -- took its job seriously. They launched fifty research projects, polled the public and members of the criminal justice community, and took thousands of pages of testimony. Their work is still the most comprehensive review of marijuana ever conducted by the federal government.

After reviewing all the evidence, these drug warriors were forced to come to a different conclusion than they had at first expected. Rather than harshly condemning marijuana, they started talking about legalization.

What!?!?!? Law and order types? Swayed by the truth of their own research...? Wow. How times have changed...

[quote]

[...] in the end, the Shafer Commission issued a report that tried to correct the "extensive degree of misinformation," to "demythologize" and "desymbolize" marijuana. They reported finding that marijuana did not cause crime or aggression, lead to harder drug use or create significant biochemical, mental or physical abnormalities. They concluded: "Marihuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."

The most important recommendation of the Commission was the decriminalization of possession or non-profit transfer of marijuana. Decriminalization meant there would be no punishment -- criminal or civil -- under state or federal law.

Nixon reacted strongly to the report. In a recorded conversation on March 21, the day before the Commission released its report, Nixon said, "We need, and I use the word 'all out war,' on all fronts ... we have to attack on all fronts." Nixon and his advisors went on to plan a speech about why he opposed marijuana legalization, and proposed that he do "a drug thing every week" during the 1972 presidential election year. Nixon wanted a "Goddamn strong statement about marijuana ... that just tears the ass out of them."

[end quote]

Aaah... and those White House tapes...

[quote]

Nixon's private comments about marijuana showed he was the epitome of misinformation and prejudice. He believed marijuana led to hard drugs, despite the evidence to the contrary. He saw marijuana as tied to "radical demonstrators." He believed that "the Jews," especially "Jewish psychiatrists" were behind advocacy for legalization, asking advisor Bob Haldeman, "What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?" He made a bizarre distinction between marijuana and alcohol, saying people use marijuana "to get high" while "a person drinks to have fun."

He also saw marijuana as part of the culture war that was destroying the United States, and claimed that Communists were using it as a weapon. "Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general," Nixon fumed. "These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they're trying to destroy us." His approach drug education was just as simplistic: "Enforce the law. You've got to scare them."

Unfortunately, Nixon did more than just "scare them," whoever they were. His marijuana war rhetoric led to a dramatic increase in arrests. One year after his "all out war" comments, marijuana arrests jumped to 420,700 a year -- a full 128,000 more than the year before. Since then, nearly 15 million people have been arrested for marijuana offenses.

[end quote]

(btw... thanks to Kevin Zeese and Alternet for a great report)

Now... consider all that. Is that the kind of "truth" that we found our laws upon? Yep. And that is the foundation underlying my getting fired for what I do on my day off.

Nobody said life has to be fair right? Right....

There is a 3rd part to this saga. So stay tuned...

Next: Who cares if it may cure cancer?
~~~

“We accept too damned many things on the explanations of people who could have good reasons for lying”

~ Frank Herbert

~~~

Daughters, sons, Iraq... and more... always more...

~~~



~~~

"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men."

~ Sam Adams
~~~

Just one of those days...

We had more shoplifters at work. I was sitting in my car on my break and watched them pull into the parking lot. I was suspicious just from appearance... ratty car, two young women with bags over their shoulders, a man following them in... but I'm always willing to give folks the benefit of the doubt. But when the women came out of the store, together, their bags looking heavier than when they went in, I had my alarm going off. So, I took down their license plate number, gave them the eye as I walked by... and went and told the boss "I think we've been hit again." We checked the security cameras and sure enough...

They stole about 9 brass plumbing valves, big ones. About 40 pounds of brass. The local metal recycling center says brass is going for over $2 a pound. The retail loss to the store is over $400. But we have their images, a description of the car, a license plate number... odds are they're tweakers -- methamphetamine addicts -- who will try and sell the valves for scrap. Of course the recycling yard has a description of the items and a police report number should they try and sell them there.

I've no problem with a person choosing any substance to use, abuse, or kill themselves with. I'm a big believer in Darwin. The dumb ones we can do without. But I'm also a believer that folks should be free to snort, smoke, inject or supposit anything they want. Crime however -- theft, assault, child and spousal abuse -- sucks. The redneck part of me says they need to pay. The humane, human rights, sympathetic, empathetic part of me says they can change or need to be made to understand the need to change.

But I live in a country that suffers under the shadow of mass hysteria about drugs. Whatever someone does in their own home, is their business. If they get high and go out and drive recklessly it is the driving recklessly that is the crime. But then a government that invades a person's home because of what they are doing in the privacy of their home is also criminal. And now, here in the US, we have armed home invasions by police -- armed as heavily as any military combat squad -- as a regular occurrence. And innocent people die from these raids far, far too often. There is a young man at the Cato Institute, Radley Balko, that has investigated this travesty of injustice for the past several years and his reporting (he is also an editor at Reason Magazine) paints a dismal picture of a policy that has become routine virtually everywhere across the country. (and if you're really curious about drug policy and want to meet some of the best and brightest minds and read up to date info, vsisit my friend Pete Guither's blog, Drug WarRant)

Now... I've avoided this issue here at the Morning Donut completely. Its an issue that has been stuck in my craw (not craw, CRAW!)(for you Maxwell Smart fans) for personal reasons for over a decade and the incident of shoplifting at the store today tipped me over the edge. So there you have it... but, because I do focus on this issue in depth in other venues I won't overburden you with my pet peeve. I'd rather focus on positive things, Opal Creek and Pablo, my photography and the beauty of the natural landscape, but today, I had my chain pulled.

And not to dwell, but it is a very provable fact that the drug war is both a failure and a policy destined to destroy our Constitution. If you support the drug war I can only say, you are in error in your support. You would be hard pressed to provide any positive results from what many call Prohibition II (or in new millenium techo-talk, Prohibition version 2.0). Where at one time addiction was a minor problem that was dealt with by the addict with their physician, addiction to drugs today is a problem that has escalated into an epidemic of health (HIV and hepatitis among the needle sharing crowd and in prisons) and crime. Whereas those whose addiction is to alcohol have socially acceptable diversion choices, a drug addict must admit to illegal activity and the choices available to them are far far less than those available to the alcoholic seeking treatment.

A lot of drugs suck, they're just not fun and lead to problems. The counter to that is that most who use drugs, legal or illegal, do so responsibly, have jobs and families and don't fall prey to abuse of their substance of choice. And, like I said above, what anyone does in private is no one else's business. When someone's activities become criminal, then... Houston we have a problem. And most importantly, under a society dedicated to principles of liberty, professed defender of the democratic process, to usurp the very principles of freedom (principles that are in fact of a very universal innateness) is both hypocritical and deserving of contempt and derision.

It is that notion of human dignity and the essence of freedom that prods me to write about Tibet and indigenous people's plights. I would hope that the old saw about it always being darkest before the dawning of a new day really is true. Well friends, these are truly dark times. But we need only to shine a light to scare the cockroaches back the corners and wither the vampires and other boogeymen of the dark who drain our positive possibilities away.

Like Chief Dan George said, playing the role of Lone Watie in the 1975 Clint Eastwood movie, the Outlaw Josie Wales, "we must endeavor to persevere."


~~~

And if you were wondering what the heck my title had to do with this post...

My daughter Robin has a young male friend, Ryan, who is leaving for Iraq in a couple of weeks. If I hate the drug war because it is a fatally defective policy founded upon a stack of lies, then I have to hate the Iraq War for the same reasons. But I'm a vet, my brothers are all vets and my dad was a WWII vet who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. I'll never diss a soldier. I understand. More than I care to sometimes... so I ask, if you are the praying type, send a good word out for safety for all those young men and women in uniform. And when you are done praying, tell your elected representatives to do something positive for our nation's veterans. For a change...

No pictures today, sorry... my mental landscape is too cluttered to focus in that direction. But you know I'll be back atcha again when my mood lightens up.

May we someday know peace. In Sha ' Allah
~~~

“Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.”

~ Thomas Jefferson