HOME
T-SHIRTS
UPDATES
COLD BEER
MESSAGE TO BOOMERS
E-MAIL
LINKS
WHY NOW? DECRIMINALIZE NOT LEGALIZE?
WHY NOW? DECRIMINALIZE NOT LEGALIZE?
Decriminalize means that the use, possession ,or cultivation of marijuana would no longer be subject to criminal prosecution. It does not mean that pot would 0be available at the local supermarket.Legalization would, we believe, lead to corporate dominance and thereby invite government regulation. Hence, we prefer decriminalization.
WHY DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA? The reasoning usually follows these premises: (1) Marijuana is not physically or mentally harmful, therefore people have the right to use it as much as they have the right to use garlic. (2) The prohibition of marijuana results in the cruel and unjust imprisonment of citizens, subverts American liberty, and wastes taxpayer money. Therefore, such prohibition is corrupt and must end. There are many very well done academic studies which support these premises. However, at this site we will not attempt to write any lengthy dissertation on the scientific research of marijuana. The data is plentiful and widely available. (The links below have that type of info). Furthermore, its not news to millions of Americans that marijuana is not the "evil weed" that was so laughingly portrayed in the propaganda film REEFER MADNESS. Likewise, please remember that President Richard Nixon�s own Commission on Marijuana recommended legalization in the early 1970s. Using Marijuana is not bad in itself (malum in se), but only bad by legal decree (malum prohibitum). Only archaic, ignorant law makes marijuana use dangerous. It is dangerous to smoke pot only because the police might kill you or imprison you if you do. Its a legal situation as grotesque as anything that the worst tyrants of history have designed. WHY NOW? After decades of research marijuana has never been demonstrated to be harmful to the individual or to society. There is simply no good reason or compelling state interest in continuing its prohibition. Indeed, the injustice and oppression consorting with the prohibition is deeply onerous to a free nation and contrary to the will of the People. Clearly, the persecution of pot smokers by the governments of the United States constitutes a mass violation of basic human rights. FBI statistics indicate that every 45 seconds a resident of this land of "liberty" is arrested for a marijuana violation. The scale of this oppression exceeds that of the 19th century slave trade. This situation is antagonistic to the modern American spirit and creates such a revulsion in our hearts that We The People must now revolt. STATEMENT OF INTENT Duty compels us to action. We believe that as citizens of the United States of America that we are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. Marijuana users are American citizens! For decades now the state and national governments have imprisoned our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, cousins and friends for using the herb marijuana. Science plainly proves that marijuana is not now, nor has it ever been, a dangerous drug. Hence, the nation�s prohibition policy is untenable and illegitimate. In the meantime many marijuana smokers have been patiently pursuing justice and liberty. We have altered the laws in several states and we have generally hoped that the several states and the national government would over time become sensible regarding marijuana and would realize that the pot prohibition is the antithesis of a civilized democratic republic. Marijuana smokers, otherwise law-abiding people, believed in American democracy and expected to see the state and national governments adopt rational-empirical policies. Our patience has run out. Since gourmets of grass are usually peaceful, we had previously been content to hope for the best. But now when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce the people under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government. We too, are Americans of every class and pursuit, and we are incensed and insulted that American political and government entities continue to persecute citizens for the simple act of indulging in the private use of a reasonably harmless substance. It defies reason and science! It defies civilized sensibilities! It defies the very essence of liberty! To imprison anyone for the use of marijuana is not only barbaric, inhumane, unjust and cruel, it is an odious insult to, and treasonous betrayal of, the basic American political philosophy of liberty proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence and secured by the Bill of Rights. This is NOT Communist China! Such vicious oppression will no longer be tolerated. We are nauseated by the vile maltreatment of our fellows, friends, and family. Our souls and our consciences require us to fight against such enslavement. We pledge our very lives to the cause of decriminalizing marijuana, and thus we will revive the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and so extend justice and liberty to all American marijuana users. LIVE FREE OR DIE! GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!
J.A.M - Copyright Raskolnikov 1999 - All rights reserved.
LAST UPDATE ON JUNE 25, 1999