Legitimize it, Mon! by John McCleary

If the question of legalizing marijuana were based solely on how dangerous it was, it would have been legalized long ago. With pot, there are diverse groups and divergent opinions about its status. In other words, the process is not as simple as if we were arguing the risks of poking oneself in the eye with a sharp stick.

Marijuana is illegal, not because of any medicinal or mental hazards; it is an economic dilemma, a political issue and a religious theme. The objections many people have are on moral and/or economic grounds.

All of the references to deaths created by marijuana are bogus fear tactics. Here are the most recent statistics on approximate deaths relating to drugs, each year, in America. (The News Tribune, Tacoma, WA)

Tobacco kills 435,000

Alcohol kills 85,000

Secondhand smoke from tobacco kills 50,000

Cocaine kills 3,000

Heroin kills 1,500

Aspirin kills 500

Marijuana kills 0

The Federal government has classified marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, in the same category as heroin. This insinuates that marijuana is even more dangerous than cocaine, which is classified as a Schedule 2 drug.

Sure, marijuana has its dangerous aspects; you could choke on the baggie. You could smoke so much that you might fall asleep at the wheel of your car. That is, if you could find your car.

The bottom line is that many self-indulgences can kill you or make you do stupid things. People eat themselves to death; starve themselves to death, drink to death, and jump out of airplanes with a scrap of cloth on their backs. Some folks even shoot themselves to death with their own Second Amendment rights.

All of the arguments for or against legalizing marijuana can be synthesized into a battle of conservative versus liberal ideology. Add the economic factor, and it becomes a conflict between capitalist businessmen and the working class “Joe.” Introduce religion, and it deteriorates into a debate over what morality is and who holds the patent on it.

My take on the morality issue is that it is actually just a way for some people to maintain control over other people. Economic or religious dominance and power is an aphrodisiac to some people who are insecure. Megalomania is, after all, one of the most destructive illnesses in this society.

The marijuana debate is between capitalists, Christian fundamentalists and family values people against the live-and-let-live working-class and/or liberal folks. I have no argument with family values; I just want to know whose family values we are talking about and whether or not I will be forced to change my family’s values just to live on the same planet with them.

We must remember, during all of this debate, that this country is a democracy…. No, it is actually the first real democracy, and by most accounts a wondrous creation. So, any time you are intolerant, prejudiced, or arrogant, you behavior is un-American.

And about religion…? I don’t want to get bogged down in the religious issue over marijuana because it offers no answers. The debate over self-indulgence verses self-flagellation has already been beaten to death. (Pun intended.) It is impossible to argue against a religious opinion, not because it is always right, but because it is based on faith; therefore, there is no way to prove it right or wrong.

An aspect more fiscally relevant to the legalization of marijuana, and one that is often ignored, is the basic fear held by many capitalists that marijuana will cause them to loss their passive, subservient and cheaply acquired workforce. Cannabis is a mind-expander, and we know from history that the “Fathers of Industry” don’t want their workers thinking too much.

Alcohol is a pacifier for the masses; marijuana is a liberator of the masses. During the industrial revolution, corporate bosses learned that they could tranquilize their employees by building bars and taverns outside their factories. At the end of each day, the tired and disgruntled workers leaving their assembly lines would be greeted outside the gates by a drinking establishment, often owned by their employer. They would imbibe and forget their pains and woes and trudge back to work the next day!

Marijuana, a mind-expander, makes the user think deeply about his existence and sometimes perpetrates changes in life and directions. The capitalist system does not appreciate such revolutionary thoughts and abrupt actions. It is hard to market your product to a moving target…. It is impossible to control a fertile mind.

Some of the loudest objections and biggest obstacles to marijuana legalization come from the legal, law enforcement, and penal systems. One wonders if they honestly oppose it because it would create more crime or really oppose it because it would reduce crime, thus decreasing their income or eliminating their jobs.

It is interesting to note that this subject, the legalizing of marijuana, is the one thing upon which the drug cartels and the legal system agree. They both oppose it. It would equally impact them both.

At this time, marijuana occupies the same place that alcohol did during prohibition of the 1920s. Any activity at the fringe of society will always appear immoral, sinful or unmarketable. Alcohol prohibition produced the mafia; today, marijuana and the “war on drugs” have created organized drug crime and made criminals of many otherwise ”God-fearing,” ordinary people who are just trying to make it through life.

Legitimizing something puts it in proper perspective. Then, at least we can start dealing with the good and the bad of it, and then it will not defeat us

Mankind is a strangely pragmatic creature. If we ignore something, it will not go away, it will just have more power over us because we have not acknowledged it and then dealt with it. Human beings are problem solvers; we were never meant to turn from the unknown, to ignore an issue or deny a problem.

I don’t want to appear as though I’m beating this into your consciousness, but most everyone is addicted to something, and we can’t insolate them all from their demons. Yet it is our “pleasure” and our obligation as a society to protect others from life’s dangers that, often, eventually spill over into the lives of the rest of us.

Marijuana is not even in the top 100 problems of this society. And there are those of us who think that the application of a little THC into our gray matter might just solve at least 95 of those problems.

Legalize it, mon!

By John McCleary, author of The Hippie Dictionary: A Cultural Encyclopedia of the 1960s and 1970s

Woodstock: 40 years of Peace & Music (3) (1361 words)

The Woodstock Music Festival: 3 Days of Peace & Music, held on August 15, 16 and 17, 1969, was the public, official unveiling of new ideals for a better human future. If you don’t believe that, then you haven’t been paying attention to the world around you since that weekend.

If you realize, as most intelligent people, that greed, intolerance and prejudice are the primary flaws of the human race, then you must agree that Woodstock was a glimpse back into, and a promise of, The Garden of Eden again.

Of course, The Garden of Eden is a spiritual ideal that most cultures adhere to, yet few people think is possible to achieve again. But many of us of the hippie era believe that reaching The Garden is possible with the potential intellectual capabilities mankind possesses.

Joni Mitchell wrote the song “Woodstock.”

“ I’m going to camp out on the land

I’m going to try an’ get my soul free

We are stardust

We are golden

And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the garden”

Joni wasn’t even at Woodstock. She was booked for an appearance on the Dick Cavett TV show that weekend, but she felt the energy of Woodstock. She knew the significance of the emotions that were being explored on Max Yasgur’s farm.

I, too, did not make it to Woodstock, but even though I wasn’t there, it defines me, whether I like it or not! And I don’t object because I wish I had been there, and I do believe in the ideals.

Ideals, you ask? Not music?

Yes, it was about ideals; the music was just the wrapping paper.

Although I missed Woodstock, two years earlier I had been to the Monterey Pop Festival, so I was already initiated into the culture of the “love-in.”

Yes, there is a culture of the love-in, just as there is the culture of golf, NASCAR or dog shows!

Ideals and culture are two words that many people would not associate with Woodstock, yet that event was more about social enlightenment than just a hedonistic party.

Of course, the mainstream media of that time over-emphasized the sex, drugs and rock & roll and downplayed the spiritual and political aspects of the festival. That is the problem with the media’s fixation on sensationalism and titillation; they often throw the diamonds out with the pebbles.

After Woodstock and throughout the 1960’s and 70s hippie era, the news media continued to trash the counterculture because of the sex, drugs, and rock & roll. They ignored all of the positive things that came out of the hippie mentality, such as the civil rights, anti-war, ecology, women’s and men’s lib, healthy food, exercise, and self-help movements.

Ridicule of the “Counterculture of Peace and Love” continues today, unabated by the truth of its accomplishments. Without the Woodstock Nation, 1984 would have happened, Oprah would not have her job, Obama wouldn’t be President, and we would all be fat, lazy and breathing dirty air.

Woodstock, now 40 years past, was the beginning of the end of self-imposed ignorance. Few other moments in time have publicized, legitimized and strengthened human goodwill, brotherhood and positive action more than the Woodstock Festival.

If you consider Woodstock, an event that was dedicated to sex, drugs, rock & roll, peace, art, multiculture and tolerance; and compare it to a golf tournament, an event dedicated to sex, drugs, money, fashion and exclusion; or NASCAR racing, an event dedicated to sex, drugs, money, adrenalin and automobile violence, which one of these most exemplifies positive cultural ideals? Alcohol is a drug, by the way, and if you don’t understand the sex connection, then you don’t realize that anytime men compete with guitars, clubs or cars, sex is involved.

Money does not wash away sin or buy your way to heaven; in fact, it carries germs, both biological and philosophical. The only recorded instance of Jesus getting mad was at the moneychangers, in the temple.

Competition and violence are valid only in the jungle…. Real civilized human beings negotiate peace, so that our society can remain in one piece.

I’m not trying to insinuate that counterculture activities are more moral than golf or NASCAR… or perhaps I am. But no one will be commemorating a NASCAR weekend or a golf tournament 40 years from now.

If Woodstock had been merely about sex, drugs and rock & roll, then people would not still be talking and writing about it 40 years later. If that weekend had just been a big kegger, it wouldn’t have changed people’s lives as it did. Sure, the sex changed lives. A good number of people became pregnant that weekend, but it was the enlightenment of the festival that lives on in so many people who attended and who were there in spirit.

The thing about Woodstock that makes it eternal is that it was a turning point in mankind’s evolution. Yes, I can hear the dropping of false teeth all over the world at that statement! But if you don’t think that’s true, then you’ve had your head in the sand since then.

Mankind has been playing the same games of competitive economics, war, politics, violent religion and deadly entertainment since the dawn of history. Starting around 1967, “The Summer of Love,” alternatives arose, experiments in new lifestyles appeared and softer, kinder answers were considered.

At the risk of appearing “new age,” cosmic or politically naive, I will say with conviction that peace and love are nothing to laugh at. The only thing of more serious concern to the survival of mankind is protecting our environment, another focus of the hippie movement that was brought to the attention of the world at Woodstock.

“If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliché that must have been left behind in the ‘60s, that’s his problem. Love and peace are eternal.” John Lennon

The hippie era was the world’s intellectual renaissance. A lot of people missed it, and I feel sorry for them. But those still alive may have time to plug in and help accomplish the dreams of the Woodstock Nation.

Hippies, today, are actually in jeopardy of becoming the mainstream and the dominant culture. But don’t worry, their wisdom will not allow them to cave-in to the pressures of the dark side. The counterculture is constantly moving on, re-discovering the high road, avoiding the stereotype. We move because the “deceivers” are also in motion, and we must stay ahead. To some, we are the whiners, but we are those who guard the world from complacence, from marching blindly and quietly to the slaughter.

Woodstock was not nirvana, of course; after all, it was a human event, and humans have polluted almost everything they have touched up ‘til now. We are frail because of our ego. But Woodstock was a new beginning, a glimmer of the possibilities, and we have been working on our return to the Garden of Eden ever since.

The counterculture that arose in the 1960s is still here, older and wiser, and continually committed to peace, love, tolerance and social commitment…and, yes, sex, drugs, and rock & roll! And the mainstream media, driven by advertising dollars, continues to be committed to the rejection of these ideals.

To put the festival in historic and sociologic perspective, four weeks before Woodstock, the first man, Neil Armstrong, walked on the moon. Eight days before the festival the Manson family killed Sharon Tate and six other people. Over 50,000 U.S. troops were dead in Vietnam, and the President of the United States was considering dropping nuclear weapons on North Vietnam. In that war, approximately 57,000 American troops and 1,500,000 Vietnam solders and civilians died. It was a time of incredible accomplishments of mankind and of horrible examples of man’s seemingly unshakable ugliness.

I suggest at this time of the 40^th anniversary of Woodstock that we all reflect on the things that were started that weekend and renew our efforts to reach human perfection and The Garden again. Thank your God for that event, and pray to whatever deity you believe in that the dreams of peace and love will come true.