End Nixon’s War on Us: Marijuana Speech #26

26th speech in this series to the Josephine County Commissioners, 4-13-2011 

I recently received new petition sheets for the Cannabis Tax Act 2012; I will be petitioning for this as well as All-Non-Partisan Elections in Oregon at my weekly protest on Saturdays between noon and 2 PM at 6^th and G in Grants Pass, and before that at the Growers’ Market entrance between 10:00 and 11:30.

But we are in a deep budget hole, and I ask this Board and others to ask our state representatives to pass this measure now because we need it now, to end the violence and corruption of the marijuana black market and stop spending our money on unnecessary, counterproductive evil.

Speaking of counterproductive evil, I’d like to remind my tea party compatriots that the War on Drugs was named such by Richard Nixon, following Johnson’s War on Poverty, around the time he instituted wage and price controls against the inflation he’d unleashed by expansion of the Vietnam War.  He created the Drug Enforcement Administration and turned it into a cabinet-level department, just as he did the Department of Education.  At the point when states were starting to de-emphasize drug-law enforcement because it filled prisons with low-level offenders and got in the way of stopping real crime, he got Congress to give the states money for his war on us and our habits.

People in Mexico are protesting Mexico’s intensified war on drugs, which is tearing their country apart and making it particularly dangerous to work for the Mexican government, as well as to visit or live there.  They should legalize marijuana, license the manufacture of other U.S.-controlled substances, and let US deal with the consequences of our own black market while they profit off it.

Oregon should do a little of the same, by passing the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, and letting the rest of the nation deal with their black markets in pot while we eliminate ours.  Our state can stop spending money enforcing stupid laws and concentrate on real crimes like theft.  Our people can stop spending so much on a weed that we can grow ourselves, and have more money for other products and services.

Now, when newly elected tea-party congressmen are looking for portions of the federal budget to cut, we should remind them that there are whole Cabinet-level departments, like the DEA, committed to unnecessary evil that should never have been created and would not be missed by most of us if they were eliminated.  Frankly, if they can’t get rid of the DEA and the Department of Education, they won’t get far with balancing our budget.

(You may contact your Congressman by calling 202-224-3121; you don’t even have to know his name.  Put this number in your cell phone for easy use; it’s rather satisfying to call and leave a message for your public servant.)

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener         541-955-9040         rycke@gardener.com