FREE THE WEED

The war on drugs has been lost by the governments of the world. Reefer dealers make house calls in New York City and I've done cocaine in Thailand. Both act are criminal under the present laws, however the time has come to legalize drugs.

Not decriminalize.

Legalize as suggested in Ben Elton's HIGH SOCIETY a brilliantly funny novel about an obscure MP rocketing to fame on the back of a drug legalization campaign.

Free the weed.

A correspondent in TIME magazine suggested the same thing this week.

"A deal: give us drugs, after a certain age — say, 80 — all drugs, any drugs we want. In return, we will give you our driver's licenses."

This offer is only chipping away at laws such as New York's Rockefeller drug laws, which have packed the prisons of America to a point where 1% of our population is a guest of the state. This number translates into 25% of the world's inmates. At $30,000 per prisoner the penal budget for the USA comes to $800,000,000,000. Not all those 3 million convicts are pot smokers, but enough of them are to consider cutting them loose to hang around their houses smoking bongs.

Barack Obama was subjected to a barrage from online questioners about legalization of marijuana. Pot is the #1 cash crop in California. $14 billion last year. 20% tax = $2.8 billion. Carlos Santana, guitar god, suggested, "Legalize marijuana and take all that money and invest it in teachers and in education. You will see a transformation in America."

Right on.

Not that I smoke pot.

A lot.

But it definitely is cooler than popping Oxycontin.

The drug of choice for teenagers in America.

The controversial painkiller has killed hundreds over the years versus zero for marijuana, but no one has been kicking down the door of the manufacturer Purdue Pharma or incarcerating the executives of Phillip Morris for killing hundreds of thousands.

I'm not for Hydro-weed, but natural grass.

It's the real thing.