Pubdate: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 Source: Marijuananews Website: http://www.marijuananews.com/ Note: From MAP's Sr. Editor: It is a pleasure to make an exception to our 'no web published only items' standard for this message from Richard Cowen. For readers who may not know, Richard's website is one of a number supported by MAP/DrugSense on it's servers. Note: In the spirit of the holidays, we are sending you a message of hope and compassion for our future. Best wishes for a very liberating New Year! THE YEAR ZERO -- Analysis By Richard Cowan The coming year will hold the imagination in many ways, but there are several points which are real and not symbolic. 2000 will see the first DEAland Presidential election in which the Internet plays an important part, and the last Presidential election in which the Internet is not the decisive medium. One of the purposes of elections is to raise issues, and this will be the first DEAland Presidential election in which medical marijuana is an issue. It will be unavoidable for the candidates and the media, and the Internet will be the dominant medium for this debate. This will require that the candidates actually inform themselves and take and maintain coherent and consistent positions. The old mass media will use the Internet as reference sources for the issue. We must use this leverage to force them to start using the term "marijuana prohibition" and call it what it is. Mapinc ( www.mapinc.org ) will increasingly be recognized as being more than just "anti-prohibitionist" and will be seen as a model for future social change in the Internet age. It and other anti-prohibitionist sites will also be seen as models for ways to disseminate news about -- and without -- the conventional media. The Hatch-Feinstein Internet censorship bill will help bring attention to the marijuana issue, and it will also bring the Internet industries and communities into the struggle for freedom. Cyber-fascism demands cyber-disobedience. The prohibitionist establishment will be increasingly desperate and vicious in its assaults on individual freedom and will also redouble its efforts as reflected in the Hatch-Feinstein bill. Prohibition in general will come under increasing attacks as a "failure" which will draw in critics who cannot for whatever reason bring themselves to deal with the specifics of the fraud of marijuana prohibition. This will be of great help, in that the anti-prohibitionist movement still has such limited resources. But it will have other dangers. Already the prohibitionist establishment is trying to co-opt this movement and convert it into a drive for the therapeutic state. Even the Drug Czar is saying things like "We canšt arrest our way out of this." He is also advocating an increase in "treatment." The "moderates" will advocate very limited access to medical marijuana to buy off the middle-class, and will advocate "decriminalizing" personal marijuana possession under conditions that will allow for the "re-education and treatment" of marijuana users. This may be accompanied by an increase in enforcement against the booming marijuana growing industry. However, it is already much too large to be suppressed. Similarly, the DEA will completely abandon its efforts to suppress hemp cultivation. The only question is how long they will try to stall, thereby alienating more and more farmers. We will also see the increasing anti-Canadian propaganda converted into actions along the Canadian border, justified by genuine concerns about terrorism. Primarily, this will be implemented in such a way as to focus on marijuana smuggling, which will divert resources away from dealing with terrorism. There has always been a symbiotic relationship between anarchic terrorists - -- under whatever banner -- and state terrorists, who use the former as an excuse for more power. Anarchic terrorists then use the state-terror as an excuse for more violence. We will have the task of making sure that the people understand that resources spent on suppressing marijuana would be much better spent on going after killers. Bombs or bongs, which is the greater threat? It will also force a debate in Canada on the marijuana issues. It will further identify marijuana prohibition with DEAland narco-imperialism. At some point the Canadian politicians will have to start paying more attention to the people of Canada, and less to DEAland and its agents in the Canadian police. Canada will face the choice of sovereignty and freedom or subservience to DEAland prohibitionism. I have no doubt about the outcome. From Australia and New Zealand to Europe, more and more countries are trying to find their way out of this morass, so Canada will not be alone. The marijuana resistance movement will continue to grow, supported by the anger of the people as the deceit and brutality of marijuana prohibition becomes better understood. The greatest problem that the prohibitionists have is that anyone who pays attention for very long discovers that marijuana prohibition is built on lies. After the initial shock of this discovery wears off, people are empowered to act by the Internet the medium through which most have discovered the fraud in the first place. That is the big difference between the Internet and other media. In the past, learning the truth from a book or a program still left the citizen without a way to act. That is no longer the case. The marijuana resistance movement exists both in cyberspace and in the real world. The San Francisco Bay Area is already moving away from marijuana prohibition. The Feds simply do not have the resources for low-level enforcement and have already admitted as much. George W. Bush's endorsement of a states' rights approach to medical marijuana, will also be applied de facto to personal non-medical use in areas where the local authorities choose to "de-emphasize" marijuana enforcement. A commitment to non-violence does not mean passivity in the face of violence. To witness a crime in silence is to commit it, and in the age of the Internet silence is all the more inexcusable. The email that I get reflects a sense of outrage that cannot be appeased by cosmetic changes. On the campuses, organizing the most wired population in the world will be the next test of the Internet as a tool for social change and activism. The only question is when and how, not whether. All of this will be played out against the symbolically loaded backdrop of millenarianism, in several senses of the word. It is a time that is more than ripe for change. It is a time that identifies itself with change. We must take advantage of this unique ethos in the first decade and to use it to advance the cause of freedom. It is inevitable that marijuana prohibition will end, just as Communism collapsed of its own weight and excesses. However, our task remains to be sure that this happens sooner rather than later, so as to minimize the number of extra victims it can take before it ends. Marijuananews http://www.marijuananews.com will be both a chronicler of and catalyst to this process. My objective in the coming year is for it to be a better tool for you to use. Best wishes for the holidays and a very liberating New Year! - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake