:: Track Zero ::

:: Wednesday, January 08, 2003 ::

:: 9:05 PM :: 0 comments ::

stop terrorism...buy american weed...

so i don't know if you've seen 'em or not, but there's a bunch of new commercials about drugs and terrorism starring nick and norm. i'm pretty sure nick is the drug user, and norm is the voice of logic and reason. not necessarily valid logic or reason, but whatever. anyway, these commericals basically make the statement that every time you do drugs, a terrorist can afford to buy another bullet, which they will undoubtably use to kill a child. in the latest one, they talk about the "moral loophole" in the word "might." nick says, "might. the money might go to a terrorist." then norm guy says, "so you're saying your money just might go to allowing a terrorist to slay a child" or something like that. then nick feels like a jackass, because norm is totally harshing his buzz, man, and stoners can be emotionally vulnerable too.

disclaimer break...first off, i'm not making light of terrorism. second, i'm not using any drugs except prescription allergy meds. i'll even pee in a cup to prove it, but it'll cost you $12,000. protecting myself from potential falsification of dna evidence, you understand. third, my point here is more to knock these dumbass commercials than make a valid argument for the legalization of drugs, but what the hell, side-effects are side-effects. personally, i preferred the "this is your brain on drugs" stuff from the 80's...make it about risks and damage you're doing to your own body, don't make it guilt-ridden propoganda...

and by the way, if this is my future child reading this, all drugs are bad, and if your tracking chip shows that you've even been thinking about using them i'll kick your ass, i don't care if you are bigger than i am i'm still your father and i brought you into this world i can damn sure take you out of it.

anyway. i think pot, for example, has legitimate clinical uses. it helps with glaucoma, and it helps ease certain psychological disorders. and there are certain social benefits, too...just ask the retired guy that gave us a tour of Richmond, VA...we asked him about the reputation Richmond had of being such a violent, murder-ridden city. he said, "oh, yeah...that's from the days when everybody was on heroine. they get all hopped up and go crazy, shooting at each other. but now they're all smoking the marijuana, so they're more mellow and there's not all the crime."

MDMA, or Ecstasy, is another one that needs some additional consideration. it was actually used by psychologists until some bonehead in dallas got the idea that it would be cool to sell at dance clubs, ruining MDMA's reputation and earning it an FDA ban before clinical studies could be completed showing the benefits.

which brings me to my next point (did I have a first point? i don't know)...i mentioned clinical use of pot & mdma...some studies show that one drink of wine or beer or something a night might actually have some health benefits....but your doctor isn't going to be prescribing a Guinness any time too soon...alcohol remains primarily a recreational consumable...legalizing things for clinical purposes will still leave a wide-open black market...it's the recreational outlets that create the demand.

so back to nick and norm. buying drugs funds terrorism. but i think they might be having the conversation in a bar. why is that? why doesn't buying scotch, or wine, or beer, or cigarettes fund terrorism? consumption of those legal items seems to have just as bad of an effect on one's mood, reaction time, health, danger to society, etcetera...yet no one ever says that drinking zima causes a zifferent kind of terror...because terrorists aren't interested in selling liquor. you know why? no one would buy liquor from terrorists, because they can get liquor from wal-mart. not worth the risk, buyin' it from a terrorist, when you can pick it up from a store. plus, you know you can rely on the quality and contents of Jack Daniels...but what kind of camel piss might you find in a vintage bottle of Usama's Bin 550 Scudfunder Whisky? so there's no market. because there's a legal outlet for a known quality.

remember prohibition? sorry, for most of my readers (self included), remember reading about prohibition? it didn't work because people wanted to drink. so the mafia provided. organized crime to the rescue...but these were the days of cute and cuddly organized crime, with guys like "baby face" nelson, weapons like the tommy gun, and those kick-ass hats and rockin' classic cars. and americans embraced the illegal alcohol, because it made them feel good and damnit, we're in a depression, we deserve to spend our last few hard-earned dollars drinking away our concern for money and even though the government says we shouldn't be drinking we're gonna, so there. well, this is the same damn thing. but the terrorists aren't as cute and cuddly as the good 'ol american mafia. hell, even the good 'ol american mafia doesn't want to tangle with 'em, sticking instead to offshore gambling and other "loophole" activities.

so back to nick and norm. how can nick still toke up without giving norm another reason to throw some assinine argument with faulty logic in his face? the answer is simple...home-grown weed. sold over-the-counter. regulated, of course, the same way that alcohol is. still don't want minors gettin' hooked on it...and by all means, tax the hell out of it. but as long as it remains illegal but in demand, people are going to buy it, and all the bad arguments from all the norms in the world won't stop that. at least if it were regulated, norm could say, "you know what you're doing every time to take a hit from that American Flag commemorative edition hookah?" nick would say, "sure do norm. i'm gettin' myself a righteous buzz." and norm would say, "no, you jackass. every time you take a hit, you're helping put some underprivileged kid through college. you're helping repair our nation's roads. and 50% of every purchase goes straight back into the public school system, so that the teachers that previously made such paltry salaries that they couldn't qualify for a mortgate loan in the pre-legalization era can finally get paid something closer to what they deserve. you, nick, are a Good American. God bless you." and nick would say, "and it leaves me much less depressed than thowing all my money away on Powerball tickets, because every ticket that lost only furthered my feeling that i was nothing but a big loser." and then norm would take a hit, and then they'd both go to some all-night pizza place, which until recently closed at 11PM, but now stays open all night to handle all those folks with the munchies, so the pizza boy who wasn't previously making enough money to pay his rent is able to work overtime, which allows him to finish paying his way through college, where he realizes he's really good at chemistry and biology so he enters the medical industry and cures cancer.

yes, that's right. by legalizing some drugs, we could stabilize the economy and cure cancer. and then nick can finally kick norm in the face for being such a pompous jackass for all those years.

-J

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