Hempen Pimpin’
Decriminalization as a lever for strategic change.
by Shelton Hull
For me, covering the Hempfest has been a yearly tradition since this column began in 1999– back when decriminalization of marijuana was still just an enticing novelty, rather than the pressing national security issue it has become in the wake of subsequent events. The case has been made that monies expended on interdiction efforts vis a vis reefer are better-spent in any number of areas; but less widely-noted is how this particular aspect of the Drug War undermines our government’s prosecution of the War on Terror. I am the only writer so far to make this point explicitly, but I expect others to follow, soon.
The Seawalk Pavilion at Jacksonville Beach has hosted most of the seven annual Hempfests held to date; one was held at Hemming Plaza, another at Metropolitan Park. For some reason the organizers have kept their activities more or less away from the City, probably because the Beach scene is viewed as a ready-made audience for their agenda. I think a more central location (like, say, Riverside Park) might draw more people, but it may be unfeasible logistically. Officials have typically made the Cannabis Action Network jump through hoops many and sundry to obtain what appears to be second-class status, if the stark absence of food and drink at any Hempfest is any indication.
All the same, they are always interesting. Beautiful women (of whom there are at least 1,000 in NE Florida) and presentable men, all very mellow and friendly. As always, there were zero political candidates in attendance, which is just stupid unless one is a front-runner. With months to go before the election, not even Greens or Libertarians had their candidates out, though both parties had ample propaganda on hand.
The complete absence of any Democratic representation at all– not even flacks for Kerry, Kucinich or Lyndon LaRouche– underscored that party’s troubles reaching out to those who haven’t yet been swayed to any electoral strategy beyond the old standby, “Anybody But Bush.” Even that may not be enough to energize those for whom legalization, for example, is the primary issue. Such people will have a hard time choosing between Bush and “Kerry,” two Bonesmen working a big-money feud.
“The differences are extremely miniscule,” says local Libertarian leader Doug Klippel of the two presumptive major-party nominees. “Both stand for increased government size and cost, and increased government control over your life. They may differ a little bit in terms of nuance, but in virtually any area that you look at, Kerry and Bush are in one quadrant and the Libertarian Party is in another.”
Klippel’s case is bolstered by recent bipartisan moves toward a return to the draft, an effort whose roots are in the office of Democrat Charles Rangel of New York. “Frankly, [Kerry’s] website actually had ‘mandatory voluntary service,’ and [we] started to crow about that, and the next day the ‘mandatory’ was taken off,” he says. “Our opinion is that if this country were ever genuinely threatened, you would have people volunteering left and right to defend this nation. Slaves are poor defenders of freedom.”
The Libertarian Party of Florida ran 73 candidates for the state house in 2002, more than the Democrats. “We are going to have a similarly strong showing this time around. We have candidates running for federal, state and local offices.” Focusing on NE Florida, Klippel points to Jerry Cameron, who is trying to win the District 20 seat being vacated by Doug Wiles due to term limits. Cameron, a retired police chief and former Republican whom Klippel describes as “a former Drug Warrior,” only joined the Libertarians about 18 months ago, which may be a positive sign of more such unlikely alliances to be formed in the near future. Florida has become an almost exclusively Republican-controlled state, and any possibility of change will require new coalitions to be formed from the remnants of various minority parties.
Stacey Swimme, 23, was running a table on behalf of Americans for Safe Access. Sweat beaded around the birth-control patch on the inside of her right arm as she spoke about how the drug war undermines family values. “As daughters, as sisters, as wives, as mothers, having a part of our family ripped away from us is not only painful, but often detrimental to our families. If the father of our children is taken away, our kids suffer for that. If we are taken away, our kids suffer.”
Swimme’s priorities are straight, though. Any suggestion of pushing the Dems to adopt the reform agenda by refusing support for look-alike, sound-alike, act-alike candidates who have (to take the case of Clinton) accelerated the Drug War even faster than some Republicans is quickly and decisively dismissed. “I think both men and women are equally affected by a woman’s right to choose abortion or pregnancy, just as much as both genders are affected by the drug war,” Swimme says. “As a woman, I have to say that losing the right to choose is more detrimental right now than a few more years of the drug war, because right now we’re already winning. We already have the right to choose, and if we lose it we’d be taking a step backwards. Drug law reform is only moving forward. We need to protect our right to choose now and keep it there, so that we can continue the work that we’re doing with drug-law reform.”
A man who’d been interdicted last year (while I was onstage speaking) spoke this year, shortly after a young man of unknown ethnicity had been tackled while trying to evade the undercover cop he’d just sold a nickel-bag to. Having witnessed both arrests, I find it interesting that the same kind of takedown (reach from behind, around the neck and shoulders, then yoke) was used on both people by officers of similar size, even though this year’s perp weighed no more than 120 pounds, roughly 60% the body mass of last year’s. It didn’t help that the man inveighed against the wrong police department (JSO, instead of Jax Bch. PD) and then launched into a rant composed of “Bush, Dick, Colin” jokes and Illuminati references.
That kind of talk might prove prejudicial to the few moderates in attendance, especially the cops who, around the country, are growing increasingly skeptical about the viability of the Drug War as currently defined. Drugs can be just awful on the body, mind and soul when abused, but the lives of addicts exercising their free will are not worth those of police officers who expose themselves to great risk for little societal reward.
Among the speakers, R. Keith Stroup, a co-founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), stood out for his smooth delivery and solid grasp of the relevant data– and why not? He has, after all, been doing this for over 30 years, much of which time has been spent in courtrooms across the country. “I think decriminalizing marijuana is a common-sense first step, but I’ll be honest– I don’t think it near goes far enough. It leaves in place the black market. The tens of millions of Americans who smoke marijuana are going to be left buying it on the black market, and anytime you have a black market, you have a lot of crime and violence and corruption, a lot of corruption in the police force, etc. What really needs to be done is to legalize marijuana, [because] it will give the government back some credibility.”
“When I first experimented with cocaine, 20 or 25 years ago, I was partly led to it because I was buying my marijuana on the black market. The guy who takes a felony risk to sell you the marijuana may well have other, more dangerous drugs to sell you. And I had read what the government had said about marijuana, and it was clearly a lie, so I kind of presumed that what they said about cocaine was a lie. I came to believe that the government had some truth there– that cocaine’s not as bad as they admit, but it’s not a very helpful drug, and it’s a terribly difficult drug to use in moderation. Most people who use it, abuse it. There’s actually a very good warning that the government should be giving people about drugs, but most people don’t listen to them because they know they’ve lied to them for 75 years about marijuana.”
NORML has over 10,000 dues-paying members, and 45,000 registered for their e-zine. Over the course of 30 years, they have become one of the leading organizations driving for drug law reform, as evidenced by 24% name recognition among the American public (half of whom are opposed to their agenda), according to Stroup. In recent years, however, such grass-roots efforts have been overshadowed by the massive influence of hedge-fund scion George Soros, whose name and face have become increasingly visible in this campaign year. Soros has pledged to spend “whatever it takes” to defeat George W. Bush in 2004, and it can be said that his work (along with the Abu Ghraib scandal) has gone a long way toward derailing Bush’s reelection bid.
“I’ve only met George Soros once or twice,” says Stroup. “I think it’s been a positive development that he brought several billions of dollars into the drug law reform movement, especially [that] he was largely responsible for funding most of the early medical use state initiatives– California, Arizona, Washington, Alaska, Maine. All of those early ones were funded primarily by George Soros. In California, for example, it took $4 or $5 million to qualify for the ballot and run that campaign. Without an extremely rich supporter, you couldn’t have done that. And, in fact, those state initiatives kind of turned the momentum against the government.”
However, with great power comes great responsibility (as the movies make clear), and it’s heartening that Stroup, as a major figure in the legalization movement, is at least conscious of Soros’ role and how that affects the wider perception of legalization advocates in this highly divisive year. “It’s never possible for those of us who are a step or two away to be certain of someone’s motives, but he has spent billions advancing what he calls the ‘Open Society.’ He was largely responsible for getting early computers and e-mail and faxes into Eastern Europe, so I think he really cares a lot about personal freedom and a free society,” he says, “and I think that has led him to understand that drug prohibition doesn’t work. Also, I guess, he probably smoked marijuana in his life– in fact, I think I’ve read him where he’s acknowledged that he’s smoked marijuana–but I don’t think he’s a regular smoker, and I certainly don’t think that explains his interest in the issue. He sees drug prohibition as being one of the ways that governments tend to oppress people, so I think it’s honest.”
Of course, drug policy touches on issues of class. It has been long-held by opponents of the Drug War that prohibition adversely affects lower-income people, to the general exclusion of the wealthy, who have evolved systems to conceal their drug use or, at least, the criminal aspects thereof. “It’s nice that there’s more money in the movement, but it’s kind of unnerving when two extremely rich people can have an enormous influence over the direction and strategy of the reform movement, which is made up of millions of people all around the country who contribute a little bit, in their own way. I would rather see the large numbers of marijuana smokers retain control over the strategy,” says Stroup. Thus, the involvement of billionaires like Soros and Peter Lewis (who allegedly spends much time smoking pot in international waters) may be irritating to ’60s-era radicals whose internalized skepticism of the rich could lead to fissures as their collective efforts move closer to fruition. “[Wealth] may mean they’re wise, but it may mean they’re lucky. It makes me nervous when too few people control the purse-strings of a reform movement, and right now that is the case.”
The case for decriminalization of marijuana as a budget-cutting measure is a compelling one that will hopefully receive wider exposure, but single-minded boutique politics is a losing cause for anyone who tries it right now. Victories can be more easily spun into the electoral realm if more progressives join forces around the interests they share, instead of worrying about the issues that divide them. Those battles are there to be fought later, when all competitors can operate from a position of relative strength. If you look to Europe, Israel, Japan and the Arab leaders, you see that coalition governments are all the rage now. In a crisis situation societies should try to have their best people in positions where they can affect the outcome for the better; the differences between them shake out through the process, and the final judgment is left for the next generation.
Every politician with an eye toward preserving the strength and sovereignty of the United States as we move through the immediate future should raise their voices in favor of easing criminal prohibition of industrial hemp right now, and open honest discussions on the Congressional level as to whether medical marijuana has any positive attributes, given the well-known issues related to the pharmaceutical industry. (If the time ever comes to really put the screws to the drug lobby, this could be the vehicle.) Failure to do so has already seriously undermined the economic and strategic advantages of this nation, and the situation will not improve at the rate we’re going.
