180 more lines follow on DOPE... 
They found dope in a leather bag in a Scythian permafrost grave dating a 
bit over 4000 years back.  Its use continued in India and Africa, but it 
struck me odd that it disappeared from the mediterranean basin.  Then, I 
noticed that this was concurrent with the development of sailing. 
 
I realized that this new trade demanded lots of Hemp for sails and rope. 
It looks like the extensive plantings of Hemp for fiber put so much more 
pollen from that variety into the environment, that in later years, they 
forgot about smoking it, because the effect was so trivial. 
 
Well, I spose it wouldda stayed like that, but eventually, iron steamers 
came into use, and the african americans, who still remembered what else 
hemp was good for, began to grow it again as the commercial rope markets 
collapsed; nobody much cared, so long as the poor blacks showed up every 
mourning for field work, and without hangovers from more expensive booze 
drinking... they could. 
 
But, the aftermath of prohibition changed all that.  The federal police, 
now without their bootleggers to go after, had this big bureacracy, lots 
of cushy office jobs in a time of depression, and no raison d'etre. 
 
Unlike alcohol and tobacco, there was no corporate or large agribusiness 
backing behind marijuanna, which could be grown cheaply by anyone.  Feds 
easily got the backing which the southern honchos saw as yet another way 
to harrass their niggers to keep them in line.  Well, that would've been 
OK forever, if not for the freedom riders and the civil rights movement. 
 
The sixties saw lots of young educated whites going south and getting an 
introduction into the black way of life... including dope; naturally, it 
went back to the college campuses with them, and it's been there since. 
 
Many saw hypocracy in their politicians and businessmen; they identified 
with oppressed blacks, became hippies [also known as "volunteer niggers" 
among southern law enforcement personel], and tried to withdraw from our 
corrupt system of natural [and social] resource exploitation. 
 
Once questioning societal verities, they experimented with all the drugs 
they could find to alter the consciousness.  So, as each was discovered, 
in turn it was made illegal... mescaline, peyote, LSD, etc.  In the face 
of legal alcohol and tobacco, this struck many as hypocritical. 
 
BTW: 
Dope is not really five times stronger these days.  They've been growing 
it in southern Asia for millenia; if they could've improved it that much 
in thirty years, why did they wait for the modern age?  To be sure, much 
of what has been sold here was just wild ditch weed; but to everyone who 
had tried Afgan, Vietnamese, Columbian, Jamaican, etc, that stuff wasn't 
worth smoking- which was all that was available before prohibition.  The 
fivefold increase is from testing the wild crap that nobody smoked to an 
imported indica that has been cultivated by generations of herbalists. 
 
Marijuanna has been in continual use by professionals now for many years 
-without interfering with their performance or career.  I've spoken with 
dope dealers who have been in business, at the same address for decades. 
They have been able to avoid investigation because they did not deal any 
of the dangerously addictive drugs, nor deal to any of those users.  The 
explanation I've been given is that desperate users will get in trouble, 
and, during interrogation, will provide the names of all they deal with, 
and this provides a pool large enough to keep the police very busy.  The 
professional dope dealer deals discretely with professionals, whom still 
have their judgement intact, and this keeps them both out of trouble. 
 
Despite the paucity of evidence against dope, and the majority's opinion 
that it should be legal- it won't be.  Young folks are regularly stopped 
by traffic police, and the discovery of trivial amounts of dope mean the 
parent is confronted with bail, lawyer, and court fines and fees.  Rural 
areas are routinely searched, and seized, for cannibis production. 
 
Well over 90% of congressmen are lawyers that have partners in an office 
back in the home district.  His partners make a handsome living from the 
defending of relatively trivial marijuanna cases.  Legalization will dry 
up that cash cow.  Among the court costs paid by parents, is the funding 
of generous retirement plans for the judges- not too cool. 
 
The proceeds of the sheriff's auctions of seized property provides funds 
perks and equipment for law enforcement personel; as a result, they look 
for valuable property with dope on it, then ignore it when near tarpaper 
shacks and delapitated trailers. 
 
Recently, hemp fabric has become a boutique fad; but here again, there's 
an element against legalization: multinational paper corporations.  They 
have an enormous investment in monoculture pine pulp plantations that're 
replanted on a 15 year cycle.  Although 30% of the planting cost is paid 
by the US forest service, and supported thousands of American workers in 
the past, those taxpayer funds are now used to pay, and encourage, Latin 
American illegals to do the same work at the same pay in use in 1972. 
 
Should hemp culture be legal, those plantations would be left to mature, 
say for 25 years, when lumber, not pulp, would be harvested, and devalue 
the stands of old growth forest which now supply lumber.  Furthermore, a 
widespread hemp crop would put so much pollen in the air of that variety 
used for fiber, that the strength of the narcotic varieties would be, in 
a few years, seriously weakened... perhaps, as above, to uselessness. 
 
But, of course, here again, the congressmen would be heavily influenced, 
with both: under the table bribes, and over the table impact statements. 
However, since the days of the whiskey rebellion, americans have made it 
very clear that they are not about to obey every capricious law that our 
government makes, and if it takes dope to remind legislators- so be it. 
 
When I lived in New Orleans, my landlord was Joe Marcal, a lawyer that I 
knew defended a lotta dope dealers, whose methods became public in media 
reports of his disbarment.  He would get 4000 from a new client to split 
with the clerk of court who would set the trial date way up, and a judge 
who would ignore the irregularities in the schedule.  From the dealers I 
talked to that came by the building, each paid that much every month.  A 
few bragged on how many times they had been busted.  With the courts now 
so much busier than back then, the technique is even easier to use. 
 
When I asked one about the bruises on his face, he replied that "no, the 
mafia has more finesse, and drives European sports sedans, whereas these 
goons came from the 9th ward in a 4 door-plain-Jane Detroit cruiser."  A 
dealer may deserve extortion by police, but we deserve honest cops. 
 
In my neck of the woods, the growers have taken to the use of ATVs which 
can carry seed and fertilizer into the Ozark National forest.  There are 
stories about booby trapped pot patches, so if you hike, stay on trails, 
and avoid anything that looks like it was made by an ATV.  Of course, in 
our national forests, there's no property to be seized, so the local law 
enforcement authorities ignore it.  
 
In 1966 I was a yardhand in a Clearwater beach yachtyard; I soon noticed 
that there were a lotta bearded guys around, and learned that the shaved 
skin would break out in horrible rashes in the presence of the toxics in 
the paint used to prevent barnacles from growing on boat bottoms.   
 
I was renting one of two farmhouses in the middle of an old orange grove 
when the other tenant moved out; I told a friend about it, who moved in, 
and we have a double open house party a week later.  The cops showed up, 
which we assumed was due to the noise.  We obliged their strange request 
to search the premises.  Unbeknownst to us, the former tenant was a coke 
dealer, and the cops thought I was a hippie- since I had a beard; which, 
at that time, had never occurred to me. 
 
Of course, they were wrong and found nothing in my house; but they never 
did admit any error had taken place, and my name went on various lists I 
never knew existed- except that over the next 7 years, even after moving 
to another state, my home was searched five more times- similar results. 
Course, I eventually found this hollow on the back side of an Ozark hill 
beyond the power & phone lines, and county road graders; so, they've let 
me alone, having many more convenient people to harrass. 
 
In 1775, King George would have loved to have drug laws at his disposal; 
are we any less subject to arrest, search, & seizure than the colonists? 
Rationalization of drug law won't occur til we quit electing lawyers. 
 
... OFFLINE 1.50  "I usta be lusty: I forget how I became lecherous." 
--- Maximus 3.01
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