Pubdate: Thu, 28 Feb 2002
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2002 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Paul Dougan
Note: Paul Dougan teaches writing at the University of Colorado in Colorado 
Springs and is writing a book titled "Ethnic Hippies: Common Sense about 
Today's Counterculture."
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm (Hemp)

WAR ON PONY TAILS

The Drug War Is A War Against Counter Culture

Apparently, it's OK to have more arsenic in water than it is to have hemp 
in cereal," comments U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., about a new Drug 
Enforcement Agency ban. The ban, which prohibits hemp food products 
containing even trace elements of THC, took effect on Feb. 6.

The crackdown on hemp foods is, according to the Washington Post, the 
result of lobbying by the religious right's Family Research Council, which 
believes "hemp has become a stalking horse for the drug legalization 
movement." The ban, then, is part of a political agenda.

What is that agenda, and why such a fuss over hemp in food? For that 
matter, why such a to-do over industrial hemp and medicinal marijuana? More 
"stalking horses" for the legalization of pot? Maybe, but why is pot illegal?

Pot is not physically addictive. "Marijuana addiction" refers only to 
psychological addiction, and research shows even this is suspect. It 
assumes pot smokers have a problem, and then when study participants 
display difficulty removing pot from their lives, it argues this is proof 
of addiction, much like assuming sex is bad, then when people have trouble 
abstaining, arguing this is proof of sexual addiction. Circular logic.

Nor does pot necessarily lead to truly dangerous drugs; the argument that 
marijuana is a gateway drug is pathetic. First, it's a cause- effect 
fallacy, confusing chronology with causality. Probably most whiskey abusers 
at one time drank beer; does that mean beer is responsible for whiskey abuse?

Second, the gateway argument defies common sense. If pot leads to harder 
drugs, particularly heroin, then because America has seen a dramatic 
increase in pot smoking since the '60s, there should be a corresponding 
jump in heroin addiction. But as reporter Daniel Baum notes in Smoke and 
Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, heroin addiction 
today is no greater than it was in 1970. Third, pot prohibitionists 
contradict themselves. The gateway argument says pot users become "bored" 
with a marijuana high; how can something be both boring and 
"psychologically addictive"?

Fourth, to the extent the gateway argument is true, it's a self- fulfilling 
prophecy. Baum quotes a University of Kentucky researcher: "By throwing 
subjects into a subculture that elicits heroin use, even moderate marijuana 
use can weld the first link of a casual chain leading to heroin." So, 
illegality is the problem, not marijuana.

A quarter of all federal prisoners, some serving life without parole, are 
in for marijuana. Neither the health claims nor gateway argument come even 
close to explaining why. What's really going on?

Pot prohibition is about repression. According to John Helmer in Drugs and 
Minority Oppression, America's first anti-drug laws were anti- opium laws, 
passed at the height of an anti-Chinese campaign and used to persecute 
"coolies." The original target of anti-pot laws were Hispanics; thus, an 
Alamosa newspaper editor's comments were read as testimony to Congress in 
1937: "I wish I could show you what a small marijuana cigarette can do to 
one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents." American drug laws have 
historical roots in the cesspool of racism and ethnic intolerance.

A primary target of today's repression is hippies. Oh, we say, "But hippies 
were a thing of the '60s and no longer exist"-a cliche we recite sheeplike. 
But anyone with eyes can see hippie-types everyday, and what we really mean 
is, "Hippies are no longer supposed to exist." Pot remains illegal because 
hippies use it, and the powers that be see the non-conformist, 
authority-defying values of America's counterculture as subversive. Thus, 
ever since the '60s, national policy has been to harass, persecute, and 
hopefully eliminate the counterculture. Did you know that in many 
jurisdictions, having Grateful Dead stickers on your vehicle is "due cause" 
for the police to pull you over? A lot like "driving while black." Did you 
know that at one time Norway had hippie soldiers-men in combat gear with 
ponytails and beard nets? Washington soon insisted the Norwegian units 
de-hippify if they wanted to participate in NATO drills. And so it goes.

This unstated but very real policy of "cleansing" America and the world of 
hippie culture is the ugly truth we tap dance around. We can't legalize 
marijuana or hemp in any form because to do so would be to legitimize 
hippie culture. No, anti-pot policies aren't just bad health-care policy; 
they're repression-a form of ethnic cleansing, I believe-disguised as bad 
health-care policy. That's exactly what the war on marijuana, hemp food and 
hippies is about: prejudice, bigotry, and intolerance.
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MAP posted-by: Beth