CAN I Be your BUD?: Decriminalization examined

Alright here’s your meat, then you get your pudding.

After watching someone dance to Trash80’s ‘At teh disko’ one of two things can come to a person’s mind. The first is, “I don’t get it. It’s just a chick dancing in her dorm room.” The other is “Hey that beat isn’t too shabby, …no, wait a second that beat is pretty snappy actually and is it just me or is that a certain Ms. Welch from Florence and the Machine? Certainly looks a tad…whoa?! What was that? Did Florence just pop a move? What’s this? This gal is gettin’ it to that crazy Nintendo beat. I can’t believe it, all she is really doing is the same thing I always catch myself doing when I’m alone listening to music and cleaning the house, or in the car; a bunch of awkward jerks and yanks the beat naturally draws out of me, only I quit doing it when I realize I am doing it in case the shades aren’t drawn or in case somebody drives by and sees me bopping my head, yet this chick isn’t holding back one lick. No she seems to be embracing the beat by letting the rhythm move her bones and take each and every one of those awkward yanks and jerks and tie them seamlessly together into one continuous, watery, synchronistic, flowing movement. And will you look at that smile? That smile is just beaming from behind her flopping hair with every twist and turn like some kind of lighthouse or something. She seems so happy doing what I often shy away from and isn’t happiness the tetragramaton we are all looking for? That’s it! This is a metaphor. This is a lesson. This young lady has touched the source and is a conduit and what I am seeing now is a lesson from the cosmos and that lesson is that life has a beat that hits some high notes, hits some low notes, speeds up, slows down and sometimes we get in tune with that beat and rather than put a halt on the awkward jerks and yanks we instead allow them all to connect together if people are watching or not then we will find ourselves right in the middle of a dance that is nothing short of a gust of the divine mixed in with the frailty of the flesh into an expression which simply put means true happiness is found by no longer being concerned by the thoughts and opinions of those outside of us rather us simply being true to ourselves. Marvelous. Thank you rdhotcalipepr!”

It’s simply a matter of perspective but if you lean to the latter we all know you’re stoned. It is April 20^th after all which we all know is super secret code for cannabis consumer friendly so I thought it worthy a topic to hover over for a moment so everyone just take a deep breath and now we begin.

This is another one of those taboo topics that people don’t like to talk about in mixed company and I honestly have to tell you that I can’t figure that one out. I mean for nearly five thousand years of human history this little, green herb was a used and as common place in every culture around the world as something like baking soda today. It was no more a touchy subject as toothpicks to us and actually was a staple in nearly every area of life. Suddenly, as soon as prohibition ended and a bunch of distilleries got together and accused Mexicans and blacks of going crazy from the demonic Mary Jane and raping white women, the bunch who like to utilize the force of government to impose their will onto others were on the march and cannabis consumption in this country went the way of the unspeakables. Is there another way to look at this? Is there a clearer perspective from which we can evaluate our feelings on this matter? Well seeing as how we are committed to the principles of being sane and coherent why the heck not?

Marijuana is currently a schedule one drug according to your loving and caring federal government. That means that it is so hardcore awful for you that if you even think about it you might become addicted to it and sell your body under bridges to chicken heads just to think about it again. Doctors can’t even prescribe this seedling of Satan, that’s how dangerous they say it is. Is that true though? Have you ever known anyone who has died, become ill, become addicted or sold themselves to chicken heads under bridges for cannabis? Of course you haven’t and of course you know that there has never been a single, solitary death ever attributed to the consumption of cannabis in all of human history as well as all of human history in an infinite amount of alternate dimensions. As long as we are there we might as well throw in extra terrestrial deaths as well right along with extra terrestrial deaths from an infinite amount of alternate dimensions. It’s simply a universal thing that the only deaths even remotely involved with cannabis always seem to have the letters ATF somewhere in the headline.

As far as the addiction thing goes, let me take you back to when I was a lad. I remember sitting in high school and having a D.A.R.E officer come in and teach us all about this type of thing one week. He was making his way through all the different types of drugs and how they affect the body. When he got to marijuana he explained how it essentially stores up in your fat and trickles out of your body and even while sitting in a government education camp whilst listening to a government educator I understood what I was being told. Raising my hand to confirm this I just knew that I was going to get a gold star for picking up on this before my peers.

“You have a question, Crumpton?”

“Yes sir, uhh, correct me If I’m wrong but doesn’t that mean that this naturally growing plant somehow seems to be designed to effect the body in such a way as for it to become impossible to become addicted in the traditional sense of the word as well as nullify any withdrawal symptoms that would normally be experienced after a foreign chemical enters the body? And by the way, how many people have died from smoking a joint again? Did you say zero?”

Evidently the gold stars are kept in the principal’s office.

What really destroys me about this is that whenever these stubborn facts are ever brought up the only response thrown back is that marijuana is a gateway drug, a gateway to what you ask? Well a gateway to schedule 2 drugs which in actuality are much more harmful to a person’s body but for some strange reason can be prescribed by a doctor. Let me get this straight real quick just so we are all on the same page; the federal government has labeled marijuana a schedule 1 because of how harmful and addictive it is, then invades Afghanistan where our troops guard poppy fields so the CIA can fly it back into this country to sell it as heroin in black metropolitan neighborhoods in order to arrest young blacks they sold it to just before throwing them in a privately owned prison where their labor will be sold for pennies on the dollar. Then the troops come home with a nice dose of PTSD, ask for help and get Zoloft or whatever the latest serotonin reuptake inhibitor happens to be on the market shoved down their throats which rewires the brain into thinking that gunning down a whole village of civilians is a good thing to do next time they happen to be across the pond. Instead of identifying where the real problems are in this situation we, as a society, think it civilized to put said troops on trial and then to death as quickly and quietly as possible. All the while extremely credible and scientific data is pouring out from all over the world screaming that many of these disorders, addictions, and depressions can actually be fixed with nothing more than vitamin supplementation and of course that evil green leafy plant. There also was a very interesting University of New Mexico study that found that regardless of the addiction, from alcohol to black tar heroin, subjects put on cannabis were completely cured of their addictions with minimal withdrawal during the study. Here we have hard core information that not only is marijuana not a gateway drug, but in fact it’s an exit drug.

I don’t have to go on and on about how marijuana is also a God send when it comes to people in physical pain or suffering from cancer or any plethora of other painful physical maladies. You guys know that the few things a cancer patient needs is a good spirit, good appetite, no nausea and as little pain as possible and you know what’s gonna provide that safely and soundly. You have already done the responsible thing and compared the effects of marijuana as a painkiller rather than opiates and know for yourself that just because you can legally get it doesn’t mean it’s the best stuff.

Think about it, why is it somehow socially acceptable to drink at bars or family gatherings where more often than not one or all of the people in attendance get tossed three sheets to the wind and end up breaking things, each other and relationships by acting like complete and total imbeciles just before getting in their car and waking up a day later in their bathtub with a bowl of petunias in one hand and a little plastic whale in the other and the car wrapped around a light post outside? That’s normal but lighting up a doobie and contemplating the height, width, and depth of the universe both inside and out with friends and family while some smooth jazz or some such plays in the back ground is wicked? Makes no sense and you know it makes no sense so just let go okay, ..let go.

Is it the religious thing? Is that what has you all up in a tizzy? This is where I think decriminalization is getting the most resistance I think and once again I fail to see why. To my knowledge neither the texts of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam or any of the other major world religions condemn the consumption of cannabis for uses both medicinal or recreational yet somehow those tenacious ‘fundamentalists’ seem to think that the herb of our subject here is of the devil. I find that odd when I go back to the beginning, so to speak, and find that not only was the leaf which bears its own seed created before man or the fall, it was deemed not only good but wait for it…very good. Of course that’s only if you take the Bible literally but it doesn’t appear as if many are doing that a lot these days. Let’s not even bring up the notion that a lot of archeological and biblical scholarship would point us to said herb having been included in the ingredients of anointing oil in the old testament for the priests but since that isn’t completely confirmed I think we should weigh it but also keep it safely in the realm of speculation until further findings deem it one way or the other. At the very least though there is no place in the Bible that I am aware of that condemns the use of cannabis and the only pale example I was ever presented with was that somehow using drugs is sorcery.

If you have never heard this before let me explain the line of reasoning proponents of this might try to use. You see they point to the word sorcery in the Bible then look it up in a Hebrew or Greek lexicon and find the word which we get the English word pharmacy from. Poof, there you go! Drug use equals sorcery which is of the devil. Unfortunately this falls apart on two points; one is cannabis is not a drug it’s an herb by the Bible’s own definition and the second is you can’t get weed from a friggin CVS so what in the living hell are you talking about? Even if this flip floppy logic were somehow correct and a leafy plant with a whole lot of benefits and no disadvantages were a devious snare of that old serpent, how can a tiny group of people who call themselves constitutional conservatives that want to preserve freedom of religion in this country think that using the force of government to restrict others from exercising their spiritual or religious practices that may be different from theirs lines up with such convictions? After all, wasn’t the Constitution written on hemp?

Look if you can’t consume cannabis and be at peace with God then fine, no one is going to puff puff and pass your way so be a peach and let the rest of the world not have to run to the nearest shrink for a good and godly, legal bottle of Paxil to ease thier anxieties or perhaps a fistful of nicely shaped cocaine poppers in a tan bottle. I think it’s time that we as a society stop being pushed around on this issue by big pharmaceutical companies that rule Washington and all our state capitols with lobbyist sporting credit cards with infinity by the expiration date and look at this like adults.

In observance of April 20^th I hope that those of you reading this will begin a real open, and honest discussion with your family and friends when it comes to the taboo concerning cannabis. It’s time to expel all the lies, myths, and conditionings
both nationalistic and religious regarding such a wonderful and healing plant given to us by God. Anyone who has seen their grandmother with cancer hold a meal down and laugh, or witnessed their brother or husband finally relax for the first time since they came back from Iraq will know that the decrim movement is not just about sitting on the couch and smoking pot, rather in many cases can strike much closer to home.

I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean

Romans 14:14

D.L. Crumpton