Its okay, this is a safe place, you're amongst friends...

I'm not some tragically burnt Phish food addict blindly dedicated to a prolonged derangement of the senses in the vague hope that drugs may actually transform the music into something worth listening to. Adversely, I roundly reject, nay, blatantly condemn this outlandish waste of time and resources so perfidiously dubbed the "War on Drugs". Since the inception of said war, every last one of these grossly wasteful law makers has cast a lifetime of stones at the demonized "drug crazed" children of America. And for all the bruises that had been inflicted, we still stand, ragged crazed and dangerously aware of the hands then held us down. However grimly disguised as upright citizens, the denizens of the drug culture have proven one thing beyond all else. Drugs don't make you a monster, political discourse takes care of that transformation.

It's terror, really, that keeps us subdued. Not ours but theirs. The powers that be keep it all out of reach for fear that one day, one of their own young wet behind the brain children might roll up a joint at the dinner table, crank the Zeppelin on the family Victrola, and in one massive coffin sealing outburst, reveal once and for all before the gathered generations of old white money that "Yes Mom and Dad, I've met someone. His name is Terry, he is beautiful, and by the way, I voted democrat." ....The horror the horror...
    

 This, according to my watch, is about the time that the average reader will open the mental trash shoot and dump me in with the rest of the "Legalize it" crowd. Don't mistake me for a flower strewn lay-about hugging trees and haplessly hacky sacking his way across the quad bound for ultimate frisbee tournament glory with joint in hand and I won"t go mistaking any of you for the "average" reader. You know as well as I do that if you wanted some hack to feed you garbled lies you could easily tune in to fox or cnn or the weather channel. But you're here with me now which sets you apart from the shaved apes in suits. You desire a different brand of news. The sort not often practiced these days. The accurate portrayal of life outside the prison walls.

Which brings us round to the point... which is usually not my way...filling rants with gibberish is one thing, but factual statistics to support outlandish ideas, well shit, that just not the way we operate around here...but here it is from the folks who brought you the Zapruder film, the 911 commission, illegal wire taps and police issued sunglasses...

...Inside actual prison walls exists an enormous population of ( 25% of American prisoners or 500,000 to be exact) non-violent offenders incarcerated on marijuana related charges. One could argue that a country wallowing in deep recession could benefit from the conversion of these charges to time served thus freeing up the annually dispersed 2 billion plus dollars spent on housing said inmates. True there are no web pages dedicated to the locating and tracking of "pot heads" which will make it more difficult to protect your precious Doritos from these glassy eyed undesirables, but opening up all those misappropriated jail cells would make room for the sex offenders, murderers and other violent recidivists our justice system feels slated to let off with what many agree to be far from adequate sentences.

What the square community is running from in advocating harsher penalties for any drug related offense is the basic fear pounded into them by main stream medias ignorance of the drugs themselves. For decades anti-drug/pro-fear propaganda has steadily circulated through society in an unyielding attempt to terrify the law abiding into "just saying no". However, these same scared citizens have either ignored or just plain weren't told, that the dangers associated with these drugs have been egregiously exaggerated. Now don't get the wrong idea, there are a slew of dangerously addictive life stunting drugs out there, and your doctor can prescribe you all of them.
 
Point of fact, marijuana isn't one of those drugs. You will not go half mad with rage or break into your granny's house in search of silver heirlooms. You most certainly will not throw yourself from a moving vehicle under its influence, unless of course a hostess truck is heading in the opposite direction. At best, you chance getting bored of conventional wisdom moving to India and finding inner peace through transcendental meditation. More than likely you'll stay home on the couch laughing at Scooby Doo reruns and eating Funions.