Sagepaper

Here's a post I made on an AOL board as I was trying to get caught-up on news and issues. I must admit, it makes me nervous to write something like this online, where I have no expectation of privacy or anonymity. I feel like a chicken for feeling nervous about it, too. Here's what I wrote in response to a post saying all marijuana users were druggie losers destroying their bodies and their lives:

Not all proponents of changes to marijuana laws are "druggies," as you define them. I smoked marijuana as a teenager, and stopped when I married. That has been more than 15 years ago. I am certainly not weak. Marijuana did not prevent me from entering college at the age of fifteen, and succeeding. I am like the vast majority of people with whom I enjoyed copious quantities of marijuana. I am not a felon. We pretty much all quit when the War on Drugs resulted in the reclassification of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a felony.

The fact that I don't use any illegal drugs does not mean I have "recovered" from something horrible. I simply made a decision about what kind of citizen I wanted to be. I decided I would follow Abe Lincoln's path of abiding by the law, while working to change it.

Unfortunately, unconstitutional powers were given to the "Drug Czar." I do not feel safe exercising my first amendment rights for the cause of decriminalizing marijuana. I think the polls clearly show that I am not the only advocate for changing the laws regarding marijuana who has been silenced by the threat of severe, violent, property-depriving reprisals for simply expressing a pro-marijuana opinion. If more than 70% of Americans want a change to the marijuana laws, where are the letter drives? the marches? the get-out-the-vote drives? Where are the questions for the candidate debates? Why is no one even willing to run for office, anywhere, on a pro-marijuana platform?

America does not need a "Czar" of any kind. It is completely antithetical to who and what we are.