when i was younger, i have to admit, i believed that all drugs were inherently evil. but just as most people nowadays can tell you, i learned that they really weren't. and when i found out this little nugget of information, i felt lied to, cheated, misinformed. i felt dirty and angry.
as i spent more and more time reading up on my drugs of choice, learning the ins and outs of their chemistry and effects, i found my little ball of hatred increasing in size exponentially. to this day, i can't understand why people believe the lies about acid, pot, etc. when the research is right there under their noses. i'll never understand how our government can have the balls to say, "o.k., o.k. you know all that scientific mumbo-jumbo that says cannibis is fine? well, ignore it because we've got brain-dead monkeys over here to prove that 'reefer madness' will possess your soul and ruin your life."
above, freud mentions D.A.R.E.'s "call the cops if dad smokes pot" campaign. it's funny that i had all but forgotten about this up until now. i can now vividly remember the policeman with his suitcase full of drugs telling us to summon him if we see our parents using illegal substances. at the time, it seemed right. "hm. mommy's breaking the law. 9..1..1." now, it makes me sick, yes sick, to know that one day my child will one day be taught to turn me in on the basis of something he or she couldn't possibly understand. it reminds me of the twilight zone movie where everyone must think "happy thoughts" or that little bowl-haired bastard will banish you to the corn field.
sometimes, i like to think that marijuana is just a few years away from legalization. but i'm fairly resigned to the fact that it probably never will be. at least not while i'm around. there's something that everyone here seems to have forgotten.
by nature, we americans are ridiculously stubborn. and when it comes to admitting we're wrong, i think we'd rather go to war over it than say, "oops, we fucked up". let's see... right off the top of my head, i can think of three instances where i'm positive we knew we were doing the wrong thing: prohibition, slavery, and the vietnam war. the problem lies in the fact that changing your mind makes you look indecisive. indecisiveness is synonymous in politics with weakness. so what i'm basically saying is even though the government may realize at this point that the war on drugs has failed, it's gonna be a long, long time before we ever see any changes, let alone an apology for decades of oppression.