Pubdate: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 Source: DrugSense Weekly (DSW) Website: http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm Author: Stephen Young Note: Stephen Young is an editor with DrugSense Weekly. NEW CANDY LAWS PLAY RESIDENTS FOR SUCKERS I missed my opportunity. I should have gone to my local mall to buy "pot suckers" before the city council banned them. The ban, which follows one in Chicago, made the news in the Chicago Tribune this week - see http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05.n1411.a07.html Let me make it perfectly clear: I haven't tried one of these so-called treats. But the more the politicians demonize the lollipops, the more irresistible they become. I know NORML head Allen St. Pierre says the taste is rather, well, unpleasant ("foul" and "nasty" are the specific ways he describes it in the Tribune story). I know there are no intoxicants involved (the "controversial" ingredient, hemp oil, is available in lots of other food, despite federal attempts to ban it a few years ago). But surely if the government wants to protect me and my kids from this so desperately, the product must have some appealing quality. I don't want to get too specific about when I may try it - I don't need trouble from the local cops for smuggling contraband back into the city. But, it's going to happen - and I'm going to raise my fist in a people power salute when the first rank taste touches my tongue. I will beat the system, and, as Homer Simpson says, stick it to the man. Maybe then I will understand what the fuss is all about. Of course, having followed the drug war for several years, I do sort of understand what's going on, but with the recognition that these things don't follow conventional logic. As far as I can tell from the news coverage, there haven't been actual complaints about the hemp candy, not from parents, not from kids (even those shocked by the pungent flavor). No one says the product is unsafe. It presents no threat at all - except a symbolic one. If there's one thing drug warriors can't stand, it's a symbol that challenge their own symbols. The drug war is primarily about symbols; illegal drugs are representations of evil that must be eradicated. Illegal drugs can never be good in the ideology of the drug war. That's why drug warriors still call medical marijuana a "hoax," and that's why political drug warriors in my state are stunned that anyone would be immoral enough to mix hemp oil with sugar and then dare to market it in niche that has essentially been created by the drug war. Think about it: without the drug war, no one would care about this product - the press, the politicians or even the entrepreneurs. Prohibitionists have given life to this, but the only reaction they can imagine is to try and crush it. They argue candy employing marijuana prohibition imagery sends the wrong message; that it's designed to get kids to try marijuana. But they miss the point there too: the candy is designed to take advantage of the "forbidden fruit" reactions that naturally occur when something with desirable qualities is outlawed. If hemp candy really is some kind of monster, it's one of the prohibitionists' own creations. As such, it's no surprise that these suckers are tinged with bitterness. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake