cannabisnews.com: Rehashing Pot Pointless!





Rehashing Pot Pointless!
Posted by FoM on August 19, 1999 at 13:16:22 PT
By Burt Constable
Source: Daily Herald
It's time to declare a cease-fire in the unwinnable marijuana conflict that has become the Vietnam of our national War on Drugs.
Our government wastes taxpayers' money and limited police and court resources going after Americans whose only crime is smoking pot."I don't see why they don't decriminalize it," concurs Wheaton lawyer Jeffrey B. Fawell, a member of the legal committee for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).Fawell, 47, says he doesn't use pot but was drawn to the cause in the course of defending folks he doesn't consider criminals."I think there's a huge closet group out there of marijuana smokers," Fawell says, adding, many are "productive people."NORML needs those responsible adult users of marijuana to come out of that closet and force our government to grant pot-smokers the same freedoms given Americans who choose to use deadly tobacco or drink mind-numbing alcohol.(NOTE: I think NORML would be taken more seriously with a new acronym. The current one gives the impression some stoner printed up all the stationery before anyone noticed, "Oh, wow, man, we forgot the A, man. Bummer.")The pro-pot group kicked off a new campaign in San Francisco this week with billboards reading "Honk if You Inhale" and "A Pot Smoker is Busted Every 45 Seconds - and You Wonder Why We're Paranoid."An estimated 70 million Americans have tried pot, including as many as 12 million otherwise law-abiding adults who currently smoke pot and still manage to hold down jobs, pay taxes and rear families.Al Gore has admitted smoking pot - Al Gore.Pot remains the third most popular recreational drug in the nation (behind tobacco and alcohol) despite the billions and billions of dollars taxpayers and private organizations have spent fighting marijuana."Marijuana is much more akin to beer than cocaine or heroin," Fawell says.Marijuana is subject to some of the same problems caused by alcohol and tobacco. Smoking anything can't be good for you and pot can make people do things they wouldn't normally do, impair judgment and mental abilities, even ruin lives.But Fawell argues many pot-smokers are hard-working, peaceful, bright professionals who sometimes sit on the couch to watch a ball game with a joint instead of a beer. These users aren't a public risk or a drain on society, but "the trend in the last few years has been to punish the user," Fawell notes.Under Bill Clinton, a one-time pot-smoker wannabe who claims to have been unable to master the physics of a bong, the FBI has waged a costly battle to arrest a record number of Americans on marijuana charges. Of the 695,200 people arrested on pot charges in 1997, 604,824 were for possession,What some states consider a minor pot offense merits prison in others. Mandatory sentencing laws and property seizures add to the dubious legal nightmares.Legalizing marijuana would end that losing battle while doing away with criminals who now make money off pot just as Al Capone once got rich and powerful off beer, Fawell says.NORML argues legalizing pot would create a hemp fabric industry and also cut through the medical haze in which patients in pain get morphine while being denied pot.But the marijuana revolution will never succeed as long as the vast majority of pot smokers refuse to go public. Allen St. Pierre, 34, executive director of NORML, which is based in Washington, D.C., likens the effort to our forefathers fighting for independence by sending King George letters from "anonymous in Philadelphia."Decriminalize pot, regulate it and we end all this silliness.Normally, I don't get this riled up on behalf of a drug I've never tried. Perhaps, it's the caffeine in my thermos of coffee talking. Thursday August 19, 1999Pot Advocates Push Legalization - 8/18/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2546.shtml
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