Hits from the Bong: Part Two
In part one of Hits from the Bong, I covered the benefits of cannabis and the personal reasons I choose to smoke weed. Today, in part two, I’d like to shine a little spotlight on why cannabis is still illegal and what we can do to change that.
THE WAR ON DRUGS
The DEA’s intrusion into the realm of agriculture is preventing American farmers from growing a crop that has the potential to help address the global depletion of forest resources, the dependency on foreign oil, the harmful effects of petrochemicals, the use of pesticides for fiber crops and the economic depressing of farming communities.
Industrial Hemp is not a drug. Though it is of the same species as marijuana, it is a completely different variety of plant, similar to comparing a Chihuahua with a Saint Bernard.
-Ralph Nader
If cannabis were properly funded and legalized many of the economic issues we face today wouldn’t exist. Instead, the Canadian Government chooses to spend $400 million of its $500 million drug prohibition budget just on marijuana. Apparently pot smokers are way more dangerous than meth addicts and coke heads.
Think that’s bad? Our American friends spend around $7 BILLION dollars a year enforcing cannabis prohibition, and budgeted $12 million dollars specifically to catch Tommy Chong… for real. After the police threatened his family, Tommy volunteered to go to jail. For simply allowing a legitimate, tax paying, bong company to use his image, Chong was charged and sent to jail for 9 months.
There was over 20 swat team people with visors and automatic weapons, helicopters overhead, Fox News trucks outside, they had the media ready, this was a photo op for everybody. They asked if I had any drugs and I said, yeah I got pot and they wanted to know where it was so I told them. They said ‘Well, this is not really a drug bust..’ and I said ‘Then what the fuck are you doing in my house?’ Then they said it’s about bongs, they’re bringing down all the bong companies in America.” – Tommy Chong.
When asked why he thinks the DEA targeted him specifically, Tommy simply responded:
Our movies were number one rentals in America. What our movies did was really show the hypocrisy of the pot laws. In fact, when I went to jail they had it in the transcript that our movies have influenced children for 30 years and will continue to do so forever. Therefore, I should go to jail. [laughs] You have to remember that they were going into Iraq, and they needed some diversion as far as headlines go and they equated the “multibillion dollar paraphernalia business” with aiding terrorists.
That wasn’t the first time the US Government specifically targeted marijuana and related goods. Jack .A. Cole, Director of L.E.A.P and former undercover narcotics agent explains how Nixon’s war on drugs was used to suppress peaceful protesters fighting against the Vietnam war.
1970. The beginning of the war on drugs. 76 New Jersey troopers became defectives I was one of them. They designated 1/3 of us undercover I happen to fall in that 1/3, and that’s where I spent the next 14 years of my life. What we were targeted on was the pot smokers. There was a very good reason we were targeted on the pot smokers, most of them were protesting against the Vietnam war. Now, if you could arrest that whole group of people because they were smoking pot, you didn’t have to have a Vietnam war protest which Mr.Nixon thought was a pretty good idea. – Jack .A. Cole.
LEGALIZE
People say you can abuse marijuana. Well, shit! You can abuse cheeseburgers, too! You don’t go around closing Burger King because you can abuse something. I can take a fuckin’ fork and jam it in my eyeball does that mean forks should be illegal? I could jump off a bridge, should we outlaw bridges? Lets nerf the world. – Joe Rogan.
Aside from hockey, Canadians seem to be known around the world for one thing… weed.
In British Columbia, an estimated 1% of ALL dwellings contain a grow op making BC “Columbia North”, and the billions of dollars generated annually from these grow operations is mostly tax free.
However, not all the money is being hidden from the government. Canadian Politician and publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, Marc “The Prince of Pot” Emery, has been paying taxes on his legitimate seed selling businesses for years yet as we speak, he’s in a US federal prison serving a 5 year term.
Today’s DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group — is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement.
His marijuana trade and propagandist marijuana magazine have generated nearly $5 million a year in profits that bolstered his trafficking efforts, but those have gone up in smoke today.
Emery and his organization had been designated as one of the Attorney General’s most wanted international drug trafficking organizational targets — one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on. – Karen Tandy.
Marc Emery did not break the law in Canada where he and his businesses operate. So my question is, what the shit is the DEA doing in Canada? Further more, why did the Canadian government hand him over when he’s not even being charged in Canada! All of the so-called “crimes” Marc committed happened on Canadian soil and was perfectly legit according to our laws.
Marc Emery has never gone to America and sold a seed. He does it all from here [Canada] by mail order and it’s a kin to Canadians ordering a machine gun from somewhere in America. It’s against the law, and if we receive it here in Canada they come and arrest us for receiving the machine gun. They don’t go to America and say to Colt Hi we’re arresting you because you sent a machine gun to someone in Canada. – Ian Mulgrew, Author of Bud Inc.
There you have it, all the myths and lies that have been hardwired into our brains since birth, debunked. But don’t take my word for it, do your own research! Learn more about Marc Emery, watch The Union: The Business Behind Getting High (particularly the last 15 min if you’re interested in hemp as fuel), Hempsters: Plant the seed, and other cannabis documentaries. Within, you will find more jaw-dropping statistics that go far beyond the scope of this article.
More importantly read The Shafer Report. Anyone who is doubtful or thinks documentaries and articles like this are bias, The Shafer Report will make you reconsider. Remember, Nixon commissioned that report thinking it would strengthen his case against cannabis. /backfire
So, what can WE do to reform the pot laws? Write your MP’s and vote! We have the power to change this ridiculously harmful legislation by choosing politicians who support the legalization of cannabis. Otherwise, this…
