Whenever a war is fought certain battles,
with hindsight, take on the illustrious fame of having been "the largest,"
"the longest," "the most devastating," etc.
The Battle of the Bulge,
Pearl Harbor,
Custer's Last Stand and so many more, all are examples such sad
glories. And today, under the heading "The War on Drugs," there is a
massive battle being waged that shall, I predict, in the annuls of
history, lay claim to similarly sad fame.
This battle has been ongoing for
over 30
years. Its cost, in terms of dollars, has been astronomical. In the
billions. And it has, in the most real sense, wreaked devastation on more
lives than the composite total of all previous battles ever waged on the
face of the Earth.
In terms of jeopardizing life and liberty and
laying waste to freedom and justice, this battle has shut down
scientific research, impaled medical practice, set brother against
brother, corrupted Constitutionally guaranteed due process, and resulted
in the incarceration of millions of individuals whose only crime was
harboring a plant.
The plant, of course, is marijuana. A simple
herb, scientifically called cannabis, which has grown in the wild, pretty
much world wide, since before we civilized thinkers invented the concept
of time.
And now this battle is, by our own dear U.S.
government, being escalated, accelerated and intensified with the
objective of obliterating common sense and deriding good judgment with
convoluted disinformation with the intention of taking hostage YOUR mind.
As reported by the
Marijuana
Policy Project (MMP), the White House drug czar's office is now
running "misleading anti-marijuana ads" in 300 newspapers nationwide,
spending $150 million of taxpayer money this
year with the intention to "scare the American people" by "playing on
parents' fears" with the goal to garner unjustified support for the
continuation of promulgated marijuana prohibition.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a citizen of the
United States and taxpayer thereof, I must tell you that this
governmentally sponsored coercion is, in my humble opinion, patently
wrong.
The purpose of having elected officials is
NOT to empower them to use OUR MONEY to "proselytize" us, no matter what
the subject of discourse may be. Our elected officials are NOT our
schoolmarms or Sunday-school teachers! And even if they were, then their
responsibility would be to "educate" us with FACTUAL INFORMATION so that
"We The People" are empowered to "do" what "we" know in our hearts and
understand in our heads to be prudent and right.
"The drug czar's ads aren't about educating
teens; they're about frightening parents into keeping marijuana illegal
and avoiding the real issue. The real issue is
that marijuana is bad for kids, but marijuana prohibition is worse,"
said MPP Executive Director Robert Kampia about "the misleading and
dishonest nature of (drug czar) Walters' anti-marijuana advertising
blitz."
Ladies and
gentlemen, it is time for us to take action. Read this
INDEPENDENT
REPORT commissioned by the U.S. government (and paid for with our tax
dollars) about the ineffectiveness of the anti-drug strategy being
pursued... then WRITE A LETTER to the editor of your local newspaper. (An
excellent reference source to walk you through this process is
here.
Also, see our Arkansas
and National
news-links pages.) Call, write or email your state and federal legislators
(In Arkansas, support for your efforts may be found at
DPEG and
ARDPArk.) Sponsor a
LEGITIMATE debate in your community, perhaps with the support of the
administrators (whose salaries you pay) at your local high school.
Speak your mind... but before you do, please...
LEARN THE TRUTH. |