Michael J. Thompson's essay on the evils of illegal drug use is full of reasons to legalize the plant he demonizes in Friday's Auburn Plainsman.

He cites Ted Nugent's lifetime capability to avoid touching illegal drugs as if pointing to a successful teetotaler rock musician will somehow keep kids off drugs. Yeah sure.

So, like, if they play basketball and always, always say no to drugs, they can be Michael Jordan. Cough.

Those who are vehemently anti-drug consistently ignore that those very kids they claim to protect are being peddled caffeine and sugar to help swallow powerful amphetamines and selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors. Turning your head yet?

So what if you think you have never done a drug and will never do a drug? What if you were wrong, and decide you want to change your mind? Should you be arrested for it?

Repercussions from smoking marijuana SHOULD be a rarity, on or off the TV set, since you really could sit around, smoke, laugh and eat, and all would be merry were it not for hypocrites who make up rules that don't apply to them.

Those unconstitutional laws fuel jobs, contracts and stock options by making criminals of millions who choose to get high on something that does not cause liver damage or kill any of it's users.

Media reports suggest Rush Limbaugh will likely remain free despite his alleged abuse of felony amounts of deadly unprescribed narcotics, but Tommy Chong has been sentenced to nine months in prison for selling bongs. Freedom. Right.

It's true that the effects of marijuana on the human body are well known. They are largely beneficial, and any side effects are far less harmful than most legal drugs.

Ironically, Thompson's diatribe against marijuana use suggests that it leads to health, social, learning and behavioral problems for young people, then points at Sir Isaac Newton, and Beethoven. Both reportedly suffered from bouts of irritability and depression.

According to educational materials on the University of Florida's web site, numerous anecdotes survive "about Newton's absent-mindedness as a fledging farmer and his lackluster performance as a student." I'm guessing Adderol and Concerta were not legal to market to schoolkids back then.

So, while well funded anti-drug zealots suggest a causal correlation between pot use and illness, they pretend not to understand that people self medicate with cannabis because it ameliorates symptoms associated with many illnesses, physical and mental.

As for the claim that you can socially drink one or two beers and not get drunk, but you can't socially smoke weed and not get high, that's only true if you are intellectually bankrupt.

No less than four peer reviewed studies show not only that experienced marijuana users are far safer behind the wheel than drinkers, but also that stoners compensate for their "handicap" to the point where they score slightly higher in than sober drivers. My apologies if either puns or truths offend you.

Want to make drug war history? Admit that Jamaicans and Indian tribes were largely murdered or enslaved by white people that trafficked in alcohol and tobacco.

Note that there is ample evidence that both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington not only farmed cannabis, but that the latter experimented with increasing the yield of the flowering stage.

The fact remains that pot prohibition is a counterproductive fraud, perpetuated by hypocrites who turn a blind eye to legal poisons while profiting from those who are least likely to resist. Same as it ever was.

Most people that smoke pot eventually quit without serious permanent damage, and if we must use famous successful people to demonstrate that point, perhaps he best example is set by Sir Paul McCartney. If you are against all pot use, do you really believe that the most successful musician in the world would have been more successful had he been arrested more often, to save him from his sins?

Recently declassified historical documents reveal John F. Kennedy was high on many different drugs all the time, in order to eliminate the pain associated with his medical conditions. Yet teetotalers insist all drugs are bad unless specifically lobbied to be otherwise by some billion dollar firm.

Which gets back to why it's OK to leave Rush Limbaugh alone about drug use. If he really was using that many pills, it's probably because he was in a lot of physical and emotional pain. So why should anyone taking a toke of some Vancover BC Bud be arrested and saddled with fines, probation and a criminal record?

Each and every purported harm associated with pot use can be directly attributed to the prohibition of that particular weed, while another weed, tobacco, kills nearly 5 million people on this planet every year.

Got hypocrisy? Or is it just corruption? Have another drink, sir. Legal, indeed.

Everything thing about that article makes me cringe. Especially, comments like smoking herb led to the downfall of the American Indian. WHAT? I would argue it was greedy white moralists that brought the redman down.

And Europe is not "fading away" it is moving forward while the US clings to a prohibitionistic past.

And don't even get me started on Thomas Jefferson and liberty when you believe caging people for using a plant is a "noble choice."

Oh and finally...

acetone

\Ac"e*tone\, n. [See Acetic.] (Chem.) A volatile liquid consisting of three parts of carbon, six of hydrogen, and one of oxygen; pyroacetic spirit, -- obtained by the distillation of certain acetates, or by the destructive distillation of citric acid, starch, sugar, or gum, with quicklime.

The only thing in commmon with acetone in my weed is carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Show us list of the ingredients in your legal cigarettes.

Nugent should take a lesson from Frank Zappa who said: "shut up 'n' play yer guitar."

Nugent is a loud-mouthed, always right in his own mind buffoon, just like Rush Limbaugh.

Nugent also screwed countless women while his wife remained at home. I've been faithful to my wife for 21 years of marriage.

Nugent could learn a few things from me.

"You can socially drink one or two beers and not get drunk"

Tell this to the millions who have been arrested for DUI, for one or two beers.

Tell this to the counselors, a part of DUI classes at xxx amount of dollars per class. They have said that if you have one drink of wine with Thanksgiving dinner, you are an alcoholic.

Don't Step On The Grass SAM by John Kay 1968

Staring at the boob tube

Turning up the big nob

Trying to find life in the wasteland

Searching for a program

Gonna deal with mary jane

Ready for a trip to the head land

Obnoxious Joe comes on the screen

Along with his guest self-rightous SAM

Some old guy who doesn't count

His hair and clothes are much to out

Pushin' back his glasses

SAM says

He was elected by the masses

With that in mind

He starts to unwind

A viscous attack upon the grasses

It's mean and evil, wicked and nasty

Don't step on the grass, SAM

It will ruin our fair country

Don't be such an ass, SAM

It will hook your sons and daughters

Your so full of shit, SAM

All will pay who disagree with me

Disinformation Joe and SAM

Feedin' it to the nation

But the one that didn't count

Counted'em out

Exposing all their false quotations

Faced by an awkward situation

It's all they had to save the day

It's mean and evil, wicked and nasty

Don't step on the grass, SAM

It will ruin our fair country

Don't be such an ass, SAM

It will hook your sons and daughters

Your so full of shit, SAM

All will pay who disagree with me

Please give up you already lost the fight alright

You waste my coin, SAM all you can

To jail my fellow man

For smokin' of the noble weed

You need much more than him

Youv'e been telling lies so long

Some believe they're true

So they close there eyes to things

They have no right to do

Just as soon as you are gone

Hope will start to climb

Please don't wait around to long

Your wastin' prescious time

It's mean and evil, wicked and nasty

Don't step on the grass, SAM

It will ruin our fair country

Don't be such an ass, SAM

It will hook your sons and daughters

Your so full of shit, SAM

All will pay who disagree with me

By Michael J. Thompson, State & Local Editor

October 03, 2003

I can't deny the fact anymore. I'm a huge fan of the work of rock 'n' roll legend Ted Nugent. Ever since I heard my father turn the volume on his car stereo up to blast the tune "Cat, Scratch Fever" at a young age I have found the Motor City Madman to be brilliant. When I read his fine tome "God, Guns and Rock 'N' Roll" a few years ago, I realized there was much more to this aging rocker then loud music and the image the media wished to implant into your mind.

Yes, this guy is a conservative, a believer in the environment, animal rights, gun rights, the Constitution of the United States, but more importantly, he has never touched an illegal drug in all his life.

Interesting for a guy who was a legend in his business in the 1970s, when doing drugs was almost as ubiquitous for a rock star as wearing bell-bottoms was for your average Greg Brady wannabe.

Perhaps my favorite song Nugent has performed over the years is the beautiful love ballad "High Enough" he did with the group "Damn Yankees."

Now, when people hear the song title for the first time, immediately in are MTV-programmed minds, we associate the word 'high' with what takes place after a person has smoked the illegal drug known as Marijuana.

It's perfectly understandable for someone who has never heard this song nor versed themselves in the background of Nugent. He is vehemently anti-drug and stands as a role model for kids and adults for his noble stance against a substance that is wreaking havoc across this nation.

Sure, TV has desensitized the drug, as movies from "Half-Baked" to the incredibly woeful, but completely forgettable "How High," attempt to portray how 'cool' it is to smoke the weed.

Black hip-hop artists have made prosperous career's crooning and rapping about the joys of being high and have brought the ghetto lifestyle into the homes of Middle-America via Viacom, the parent company of MTV.

Rappers talk - sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but rap is not a form of singing, just merely talking at an accelerated rate, accompanied by generally an 80s beat - continually about the joys of cannabis. Perhaps Snoop Dogg is best example of this new phenomenon.

I stand with Ted Nugent fully on this issue, as I have never done a drug and will never do a drug. I have had the opportunity to speak as a D.A.R.E representative to school children about this issue, and it is hard to articulate to them reasons not to smoke because they're continually bombarded with images of celebrities high or singing about being in an altered state of mind.

On the popular Fox sitcom, "That 70s Show" the characters are continually shown in Eric's basement smoking weed. Kids see this, and because repercussions are a rarity to Ashton Kutchur and Co., they think nothing of it.

Instead, they believe they can sit around, smoke, laugh and eat, and all will be merry. I know this, because young kids have told me verbatim what I just said.

I'll admit the silly TV ads put together by the Anti-Drug task force of the U.S. Government are ineffective. Instead of these spots, which are an incredible waste of tax dollars, I would have Ted Nugent extol the virtues of a drug-free life. The commercials would be insightful, entertaining and eye opening.

Let's get an important point straight before we move on, one that many conservatives won't admit. The War on Drugs has been a monumental failure. When images of the supposed joys of drug use are being beamed into any home with a television in America, while the Government throws billions upon billions each year into the War, something is wrong. Terribly wrong. Also, it is illogical for a person with an IQ over 70 to believe that people will not do drugs.

Humans, being the curious, bipedal mammals that we are, will always flirt with the unknown.

Luckily for humans, the effects of Marijuana on the human body are not unknown.

According to National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, "Marijuana puts kids at risk." It is the most widely used illicit drug among youth today and is more potent than ever.

Marijuana use can lead to a host of significant health, social, learning and behavioral problems at a crucial time in a young person's development.

According to a recent study performed by Joseph Rey and Christopher Tennant of the University of Sydney, the link between regular cannabis use and later depression and schizophrenia in life has been strengthened.

That study, cited on www.Newscientist.com, states, "One of the key conclusions of the research is that people who start smoking cannabis as adolescents are at the greatest risk of later developing mental health problems. Another team calculates that eliminating cannabis use in the UK population could reduce cases of schizophrenia by 13 percent."

Stanley Zammit, of the University of Cardiff in the United Kingdom, said in that same report, "Nevertheless, our results indicate a potentially serious risk to the mental health of people who use cannabis. Such risks need to be considered in the current move to liberalize and possibly legalize the use of cannabis in the UK and other countries."

It's also interesting to note what Marijuana contains in it: acetone, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, carbon monoxide, benzene, benzopyrene, nitrosamines and many other cancer causing pollutants.

Many people make the argument that smoking is on the same level as getting intoxicated by the legal ways of drinking a copious amount of alcohol. Well, to quote a good friend, "You can socially drink one or two beers and not get drunk, but you can't socially smoke weed and not get high."

Zammit is correct though, as European nations are beginning to liberalize their laws to make room for the growing habitual users of pot. There is a massive push underway in this nation as well to legalize the substance.

I'll stand firm on this issue, just as I will others. I look around the world at nations that have historically used drugs from Jamaica to the Indian tribes that once inhabited America.

I'll always turn down the peace pipe and it is apparent to any student of history that a nation that has liberal rules on drugs won't last long. As a world power, or as a productive nation. Look at Canada...

As has been documented in many books and studies, Europe as we have traditionally known it, is fading away. It's becoming increasingly apparent that instead of attempting to prolong Western Civilization, the modern day ancestors of Julius Caesar, Isaac Newton and Beethoven would rather get high and live for the day, than ensure the survival of the past and its enduring memories, into the future.

Jacques Barzun was right when he entitled his life work on the history of Western Civilization, from 1490-1990 "From Dawn to Decadence."

Nugent is to be commended for taking such a visible stand against drugs. It is a morose thought to consider the power another celebrity could have in the Cultural War, when it comes to drugs.

Our culture is currently celebrity driven and celebrity worshipping is replacing Scientology as the newest cult in America.

I've chosen to live a life free of illegal drugs and I believe that is a just and noble choice. The Founding Fathers didn't have to deal with the problems we are facing currently, but it would be quite interesting to see how they would respond.

I have a feeling Thomas Jefferson would concur though.

And I think he might even enjoy "High Enough" and other Ted Nugent songs as well. After all, Nugent is a lover of liberty and "enduring virtue will keep alive liberty," according to Jefferson.

So here's to Nugent, and here's to a drug free life. While you're at it, turn up that "Cat, Scratch Fever."