Managing Marijuana

Will you VOTE YES on Proposition 19 ?

In a few weeks (Nov 2) California voters will have the opportunity to vote to restore our God-given right (see Genesis 1) to grow and enjoy the fruits of every tree and plant that the Earth provides--in this case restoring our right to grow and utilize the plant called "marijuana". Supporters of Proposition 19 claim that its passage will ease California's budget woes by providing a brand new source of tax revenue, by reducing the police, legal and prison cost of enforcing marijuana prohibition and by generating new jobs for Californians otherwise unemployed. There is also the hope that taking the huge prohibition-generated profits out of pot by making it legal will deal a serious blow to outlaw drug cartels without firing a single shot. As a small side benefit, if Prop 19 passes, even scientists might be allowed to study this fearfully prohibited plant just as freely as we study radioactive plutonium, brain poisons and lung cancer.

Growing and using marijuana is a natural right. Like alcohol prohibition before it, marijuana prohibition has caused more serious problems than the plant itself without significantly reducing its use. Proposition 19 makes a lot of sense. Only drug dealers, moralists and spineless politicians (afraid of being perceived as "soft on drugs") are against it.

But what about the kids? Under our present system marijuana is easily available to children who buy it from criminals in an unsupervised way. Under Prop 19, it will still be illegal to sell pot to minors. Since 1976, Amsterdam has effectively decriminalized the use of marijuana by adults. I am not aware (are you?) of an epidemic of irresponsible Dutch adults selling lots of pot to Dutch teens.  Prop 19 means a return to privatization of California's marijuana use. It lets parents not the police  assume responsibility for their own and their children's attitudes towards pot.

Nick Herbert supports Proposition 19 and dedicates this parody of Joyce Kilmer's Trees to its passage:

LEGALIZE THE GREENERY

I think that I shall never see
(a-sittin' in my sauna)
A poem as lovely as, let's see,
A grove of marijuana.


Her leaves reflect a lovely green
Her blossoms give off spice
Her perfume draws the honeybee
Methinks I dwell in paradise.


Writers, poets, music crews,
Use ganga as a door to Muse
And ardent lovers spread her fame
As aid in Aphrodite's game.


Three thousand years her jagged leaves
Have helped good doctors treat disease
And holy men from every sod
Have praised her as a way to God.


Wise men from the Middle East
Considered fine hashish divine
They taught that pot restrained the beast
Beheaded fools who misused wine.


If I can sell baby-killing aspirin
Alcohol, rat poison, gasoline
Tobacco, dynamite 
and all the guns you need
Why can't I trade 
a single ounce of weed?


While stuffing pockets with our wealth
The politician schemes to stay in power
Screams: only I 
can save you from yourself
By ordering cops with guns 
to bust a flower.


Is pot really so bad for you and for me
That we have to call out 
the bloody marines
Our back yards to assault, 
our assets to seize
In prisons to lock us 
for "growin' o' the green"?


I sing the spirit inside the seed
I praise the gorgeous Goddess weed
Poems are made by fools like me--
and Dylan Thomas
But only God's the force that 
thru the green fuse drives cannabis.

Young Barack Obama enjoying a God-given right.