Peter McWilliams (1950-2000)
http://www.petermcwilliams.org/video/McWilliamsDSL.ramMedical marijuana prohibition is an outrage within an outrage within an outrage. The first outrage, of course, is the War on Drugs itself. Prohibition does not work, has not worked, cannot work, and anyone who says it can is either deeply delusional or is making money on the Drug War.
The next layer of outrage is marijuana prohibition. Marijuana 61 years ago was unjustly criminalized based upon lies by the self-serving drug czar of his day to a Congress who lapped it up like milk because it happened in the summer and it was hot and they wanted to go home. And so they voted in the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 after ninety seconds of debate. The prohibition has been unrelenting. More than 12 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana since that time. This is a plant that has never hurt anyone in 5000 years in a country where 400,000 people die prematurely of cigarettes and 100,000 people die prematurely from alcohol. That this herb, this plant, this weed should be so illegal in this country that since the 1995 Omnibus Crime Bill, if you possess enough of it, our government will put you to death. Meanwhile we have a speaker of the house and a president and a vice-president who have all admitted to smoking marijuana.
These are pothead baby boomers and it's outrageous that they should put their fellows in prison.
Finally, the outrage within the outrage within the outrage is medical marijuana. In the War on Drugs, unlike any war in American history, unlike any modern civilized war of the past two centuries. In this War on Drugs they are not stopping the battle and allowing the Red Cross on the field. In fact, they are shooting directly at the sick and at those who are trying to help them. And they are shooting to kill. A friend of mine named Todd McCormick was arrested for growing marijuana in his own home after Proposition 215 passed in California that allowed for cultivation. He was treated for cancer nine times before he was 10. The DEA came in, destroyed his plants, and wants to put him in prison for a ten-year mandatory minimum, possibly life, plus a $4 million fine. That's shooting to kill. It's been going on for 11 months now.