The witch-hunt doctor’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as lives are flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. As God witnesses (Gen.1:12), its all good. The administration claims it wants to reduce demand for cartel product, but extraditing Marc Emery increases demand. His seeds enable American farmers to steal cartel customers with better product at lower price.

The constitutionality of the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) is derived from an interstate commerce clause. This clause is invoked to authorize funding outlaws, endangering homeland security, avoiding tax revenue, and throwing good money after bad. Official policy is to eradicate, not tax, the number-one cash crop in the land. America rejected prohibition, but its back. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment.

Nixon promised the Schafer Commission would support the criminalization of his enemies, but it didn’t. No matter, the witch-hunt was on. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA halted all research. Marijuana has no medical use, period.

The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. A specific church membership should not be prerequisite for Americans to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. Denial of entheogen sacrament to any American, for mediation of communion with his or her maker, precludes the free exercise of religious liberty.

Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Puritans came here to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.

Common-law must hold that adults own their bodies. Socrates said to know your self. Statutes should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate self-exploration for seekers. Americans’ right to the pursuit of happiness is supposed to be inalienable.

Simple majorities in each house could put repeal of the CSA on the president’s desk. The books have ample law on them without the CSA. The usual caveats remain in effect. You are liable for damages when you screw up. Strong medicine requires prescription. Employees can be fired for poor job performance. No harm, no foul; and no excuse, either. Replace the war on drugs with a frugal, constitutional, science-based drugs policy.

The War on Drugs has largely been a failure. We invaded a sovereign nation (Panama) and threw its leader in prison, and we also sent some Special Forces soldiers to help the Colombian police track down and kill Pablo Escobar. Those actions (two of our few successes, if you can even call them that) have barely made a dent in the drug trade.

Russell Crowe’s character in American Gangster (a New Jersey narcotics detective) remarked that the drug trade employs people:
“Judges, lawyers, cops, politicians. They stop bringing dope into this country, about a hundred thousand people are gonna be out of a job.”

He was wrong. The number is probably much higher.

The question is: how exactly would we prevent marijuana from being imported (especially from Canada)? The drug runners have become very efficient at their trade, as evidenced by the proliferation of drugs in this country. We’d need a truly visionary head of the DEA in order for it to work.

However, were marijuana to be legalized (decriminalization, as Kathleen said, usually makes possession of small amounts a misdemeanor) we would still need to fight “the War on Drugs” in a way: internationally. Marijuana is still illegal in many countries, and allowing unregulated black-market, crime-ridden marijuana to enter the United States legally would be a huge foreign policy issue. I do think that the “war on drugs” has been largely a failure; however, if marijuana were to be legalized, I would be in favor of a program that stepped up border and port security and really cracked down on the illegal importation of all drugs. Additionally, such a program would insure that all marijuana-related production and trade were benefiting the American economy almost exclusively.