HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/drugs/persecution

Text File | 1996-05-06 | 8KB | 137 lines

Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs
From: [e-mail] ("Jamie G.")
Subject: Re: Why We Should Stop Trying to Legalize Psychedelic Drugs
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 10:24:04 GMT

   While "Why We Should Stop Trying to Legalize Psychedelic
Drugs" may make some valid points, all of those points can be
addressed by other means rather than allowing drug prohibition.
The obsession over the legal aspects of prohibition to the
detriment of discussing the psychedelic experience itself could
be dealt with through deliberately focusing a conference on
that. This may be hard since the persecution of millions of
people for thoughtcrime may overshadow any discussion on the
topic. Likewise it is hard to discuss Hitler and the Nazis
without mentioning the Holocaust- one can't separate the
topics. Furthermore, I have seen the paranoia of prosecution
ruin many trips in one way or another.
   As for the threat of licensing psychedelics or some other
form of control, this may be yet another battle for Captain
Libertarian to fight. We shall always be fighting for our
rights- any amendment, law or change in law that protects
liberty will never really guarantee liberty permanently, but
they are one of the best means of expanding our painfully gained sphere of
autonomy against social control, formal and informal. An even
better way is the political empowerment of the drug culture,
but that is easier said than done. We will eventually have to
build a political force that can back up our demands with some
juice. Not having our rights to vote taken away by felony
convictions would really help this. Sometimes I wonder if the
only way we can guarantee our freedom is to secede from this
country and form our own nation, like Israel, that can defend
itself against the "Straight People" and act as a harbor for
refugees from drug persecutions from around the world. Even
tolerant nations such as the Netherlands cannot be completely
trusted as sanctuaries. The Netherlands, for example, is not
overly enthusiastic to accept immigrants, especially those with
felony convictions and could always, with a change of
government, potentially become less tolerant of drug use. In an
extreme crisis, such as the mass internment of anyone suspected
of drug use or even the genocide of all drug users (if say Ross
Perot or Darryl Gates, respectively, took power in this
country), foreign nations may cold-heartedly turn us away. The
British Navy's forcibly turning back ships, filled with Jews
fleeing Europe for Israel, when the British government was
perfectly aware that the Final Solution was already underway
comes to mind. This may all seem very pessimistic and paranoid,
but sometimes you are not paranoid, you're RIGHT. The legal
position of Drug Users in this country is spookily comparable
to the situation of Jews in Nazi Germany in the late thirties-
we are marked, tracked, documented, banned from many
professions, subject to property confiscation, imprisoned,
etc.. I suggest Richard Rubenstein's The Cunning of History for
anyone who wants a reason really to worry.
   Excuse my digression. As for instilling anti-social ideas,
the absurdity of drug prohibition does help as I must admit it
did with me. However, I think that probably no society will
ever be so completely free of hypocrisy that one will not be
able to find a reason to be anti-social. If there ever is such
a society, well, why be anti-social? My experience with drugs
and drug prohibition has led me to realize the hypocrisy is
widespread throughout our society and may even be inherent, but
this very widespread nature of the horror within the political
system could be revealed many ways. One may be a soldier in a
pointless vicious war, be beaten by a cop, etc..The main point
is that while the Drug War may show the foul heart of darkness
at the core of mass organizations, it is precisely such
atrocities as the Drug Witchhunt that cause the suffering which
causes the phenomenon to be considered horrible. Vietnam may
have shed light on hypocrisy in American foreign policy, but it
was such things that made that foreign policy condemnable.
Granted a lot of folks in the late Sixties may have gotten to
see the ugly side of their government through Vietnam, but was
worth the napalming of babies and the mass bombing of cities to
give a lesson in human nature.
   The fact is that the Drug War creates suffering, certainly not
as much as the Holocaust or Vietnam did but real suffering
nevertheless, and it is just not worth it at all. This does not
make me any sort of hero or martyr or anything, but I served 343
days in a federal prison of a thirteen month sentence for two
goddamn doses of LSD- five dollars worth, for chrissakes- first
offense! This time last year I was just a little over halfway
through my time and counting every second. Anybody who has
done time can tell you that the time drags on longer than you
could conceivably imagine. Furthermore, I was doing one of the
shortest sentences in that place- guys my age were serving
three, five, ten, twenty, thirty-some year sentences, no parole, for
non-violent drug sentences. It's absolutely insane! Every day
that they serve in prison is intolerable and an atrocity. We
acnnot allow them to suffer. I am still under "supervised
release"- urine tests, random searches, constant monitoring,
etc. for the next two and a half years, and I am a felon with
no right to vote or to arm myself. Yeah, I guess this has all
made me "anti-social"- my home was seized by the Feds, all of
my fraternity brothers were kicked out and made homeless, I've
seen friends of mine betray me to the thoughtpolice, I've been
railroaded through the court system- I've become so anti-social
that I still have nightmares about the raid, I feel close to
vomiting everytime I see a police
officer, and I feel trapped, unable to emigrate from a nation ruled
by a government I absolutely hate with every iota of my being.
Anti-social?! Yeah, I guess I'm anti-social! Not to mention
paranoid, cynical, nihilistic, hate-filled, walking around
feeling like I am going to burst. The Drug War and its personal
consequences for me have taught me that humans are fundamentally
crazy, evil, and vicious, and I just want to go somewhere where I
far away from the rest of humanity and be left alone. Some
great little lesson in human nature, eh? Some little
experiment.
   I not only think that it is absolutely mandatory that we
legalize drugs immediately and guarantee our freedom over our
minds and body by all means necessary- Constitutional
amendments, whatever it takes, but I wonder what should we do
with the war criminals responsible for this outrage. The drug law
enforcement bureaucracy has been responsible for the trashing
of our Constitution, breaking every oath they made to protect
it and they should be held accountable for their crimes against
humanity. They willfully and knowingly execute laws that are
obviously at odds with our self-evident, inalienable rights,
and if the Nazis could excuse themselves by claiming they were
just following orders or carrying out the laws of the Nazi
regime at the time, I see no reason why DEA agents should be at
least called to account for their personal involvement in
fascist persecution. We may never really address this guilt-
the Nazi War Crime trials were a historical anomaly as the vast
majority of official terror in the world is never punished- but
I personally hold agents of this intolerable persecution of my
culture and people morally responsible for the suffering
caused. If there were any justice, the Drug Culture would not
only be freed from oppression but even fully compensated for every
dollar seized and every day served.
   I may be obsessed by the issue of legalization to the
detriment of other psychedelic issues, but the suffering of
millions demands immediate action.