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While British teenagers rejoice as we inch closer to a dope free-for-all, Yanks are being sent down for even a sly puff. With millions of stoners getting a criminal record, America has gone reefer mad!
Unless you count a chirpy musicla and an appaling terrorist bombing, Oklahoma is remarkable for literally nothing. But now it has a new, even more dubious claim to fame: Oklahoma is a really bad place to be caught with marijuana. A state where possession of the slightest amount of weed can bring the heftiest of punishments - life in prison without the possibility of parole. Take Larry Jackson, for example. In June 1992, the small-time crook with a smidgen of non-violent offences was arrested in Tulsa. As he was being hauled off, an eagle-eyed officer spotted a tiny amount of marijuana by Jackson's foot. Althought the bud weighted only 0.16 grams (just over a 10% of a tenners bag or 4% of an 1/8), Jackson was charged with felony possession and sentenced to life in prision.
And then there's Jim Montgomery. A paraplegic, Jim smoked a bit of weed to relieve painful muscle spasms. When the feds in Sayre, Oklahoma found two ounces of weed in the rear pouch of his wheelchair, they charged him with possession with intent to deal. After being found guilty at rial, a jury sentenced him to life plus 16 years - a sentence even the horrified judge and prosecutor found hard to believe. Although Jim's sentence was later reduced on medical grounds (and shit loads of campaigning by yanky stoners), Oklahoma is still churning out rediculous sentences at a ferocious rate. It is even possible to recieve a life sentence for just one used roach according to Eric Schlosser in his new book Reefer Madness And Other Tales From The Underground.
Weed has long been the most popular illegal drug in the USA. It's used more frequently than all the other illegal drugs combined. One-third of the population over the age of 12 admits to smoking the stuff at least once. Around 20 million people admit to smoking it every year and an estimated 2 million red-eyed folk take a toke everyday. As many as 3 million grow their own, and the country's annual marijuana crop is reportedly worth up to $25 billion. In 2001, the value of the country's largest legal cash crop, corn, was $19 billion.
Here in Britain, it's estimated that up to 3 million people use cannabis regularly. By July 2004, it will probably have been re-classified as a Class C drug and police will be discouraged from arresting people for possession of small amounts. While the UK, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Holland, Switzerland and Canada have chilled out in their attitude to de 'erb, the land of the free continues to crack down. If anything it's getting worse. In 2001, about 724,000 people were arrested for their love of weed. Most recently the US government launched Operation Pipe Dreams and Operation Headhunter to close down shops selling bongs, papers and other ganja smoking paraphernalia.
Ganja smoking in the USA pre-dates the country itself. It wasn't just legal in the colonial days - back in 1619 it was declared against the law not to grow it. Founding fathers - and first and third presidents - George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew it in the white house and smoked a bit themselves. Cannabis was outlawed nationally in 1937 but, just a few years later, the government pleaded with farmers in the Midwest to plant 300,000 acres as part of a disastrous "Hemp For Victory" campaign (the plant has many industry uses) which left weed growing wild across swathes of American heartland. It's here that the bulk of the US's domestic crop is grown, in a nine state area including Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.
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