Pubdate: Thu, 16 Dec 2004
Source: Free Press, The (Houston, TX)
Copyright: 2004 The Free Press, Houston
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/3222
Author: Dean Becker
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Note: This newspaper does not have a website.

GOD MODE

Ever play those video games where you can earn points to achieve
enhanced states, with infinite ammunition or improved health for your
pixilated warrior?  Some games allow you to enter a code or password
to reach a "God Mode" status wherein you never run out of bullets, you
never get hurt and you can never die.

The US government is in God Mode.  They have the weapons; they have
the money, the power and the "moral" obligation, a veritable "mandate
from God", for their eternal wars of "liberation."  This "mandate"
holds true for the proclaimed eternal war of terror as well as for the
interminable, now 90 year old war of drugs.

"Drugs enslave people" has been the mantra over the decades of drug
war.  (If we can just separate the user from the supply then we have
done "God's work".)  Never mind that our policy has destroyed the
lives of tens of millions of individuals and their family structures.
Pay no attention to the news that tobacco kills more than 400,000 US
citizens each year, that alcohol kills more than 100,00 annually and
that doctors and pharmacists screw up to the tune of 120,000 needless
deaths each year in writing and filling prescriptions "under the law."
  Pay no attention to the glaring truth that deaths caused by use of
all illegal drugs like heroin, cocaine, speed and inhalants are
significantly less than deaths caused by the use of Tylenol and
aspirin.  Never mind that these black market drugs are made by
untrained "chemists" in substandard labs and are then diluted,
polluted and "cut" with various agents at each link of the sales chain
by the sellers, to make a greater profit.

"Collateral damage", the magic bugaboo that allows agents of the US to
escape from a dilemma, especially when the damage done can be
described as being done in the name of the "war on drugs" or the "war
of terror".  Missionaries can be blasted from the sky, children
murdered in their beds, old folks terrorized by flash grenades and
machine guns.  It all right if 3.500 peasants are butchered each year
in Colombia over drug profits.  It's perfectly fine if we arrest
755.000 US citizens each year for little baggies of cannabis.  It is
God's will if each year we destroy a total of 1.6 million American's
chances of a better life by arresting them for drugs, surely God is
well pleased.

Without one shred of valid, scientific evidence, despite the lack of
moral clarity or constitutional authority, the drug warriors that
inhabit most every public office, the majority of those in law
enforcement positions of authority, those that are in positions of
power within the medical community and those lazy, mainstream
reporters who obediently pass along the government propaganda about
the drug war without doing a fact check are the true "snake oil
salesmen".  These charlatans and whores real obedience is to the
bankers, pharmaceutical houses, the alcohol and tobacco vendors who
profit from eternal drug war.

With literally tens of billions of dollars at their disposal each
year, these drug warriors have been, for decades, the "monsters of the
midway", yet now we find resistance to their tactics and lies growing
as never before.  When 75% of Texan's are now for medical marijuana,
why does this jihad continue?  When confidential polls indicate
perhaps 80% of working policemen are for ending the drug war, by what
right or mechanism does this war continue?

FEAR! When 3 out of 4 people you meet are for making a change and yet
they are unwilling to discuss said change, we can only chalk this up
to one thing, fear of societal demonization, (promulgated and
amplified on the airwaves of America each day by hundreds of millions
of tax dollars thrown into the bottomless pit of drug
prohibition.)

Before the drug laws were institutionalized and federalized in the
early 20th century, the only people using what are now "hard drugs"
were a few Civil War veterans and a few hypochondriac housewives.
Back when heroin sold on the same shelf and at the same price as
aspirin, children did not use "illegal" drugs and there were no
violent drug gangs, overdose deaths or a black market.

Unless and until we dare to speak the truth, the drug war will remain
a success only for those utilizing the "God Mode".

A new, "silent majority" of Americans know a change is needed. What
the hell are YOU afraid of?  Speak up!  Stand up!
- ---
MAP posted-by: Derek