DRUG BUST ON TCU CAMPUS! If you live west of Grand Prairie, Texas this is big news. If you are any other city in America, not so much. Seventeen students were arrested this morning after a six month under cover operation conducted by Fort Worth police and TCU campus police. Four of the players arrested are starters for the Horned Frog football team. I guess I should say were starters. Pretty sure they will not be starting in the coming season.
The TCU chancellor had a press conference expressing relief that TCU was able to nip this problem in the bud. Mr. Chancellor, there have been drugs on your campus to my knowledge since the 1960s. My dealer went to school there. Where people smoke marijuana, the only drug mentioned in connection with the arrests so far, someone sells it to them. Why? Because you cannot go to the marijuana store. Why? Because this state, and most other states, would rather waste money trying to stop a practice that cannot be stopped than finally, "just say yes".
People, including teenagers, adults, professionals, rich, poor, old, young, all races, creeds and colors smoke marijuana. This has been a fact since I was in high school. I graduated in 1971. It is now 2012. I know parents who smoke with their children. I know children who procure for their parents. Not homeless bums but tax paying, productive members of society. Marijuana has been demonized since the 1920s. Musicians, BLACK musicians, used marijuana so of course that made it heathen. In the 1960s young people adopted the use of marijuana the same way their grand parents and parents drank during prohibition. The media exploded about marijuana and it's evil. Parents everywhere panicked when they found a bag of herb in their children's rooms. All these lives were going to be ruined. These brains were going to turn to mush. This evil had to be stopped.
It hasn't been. It isn't going to be. There are so many consumers of marijuana in this country it would be like trying to eliminate beer. Grow up, America. Time for law enforcement to throw their hands up in surrender and let states regulate and legislate the use of this cash crop. Not for medical purposes, for social purposes. This nation would be a friendlier place.
As a kid it used to amuse me when some one's drunk parent would lecture us on the use of marijuana. "Itwillruinyourlifeandmakeyou, burp, stupid". Or parents who needed Valium to get through life but were humiliated when their child was arrested for the awful offense of possessing a joint. "How will I be able to hold my head up at church...were are my VALIUM???".
Marijuana is a natural plant that produces a mild high. Not an incomprehensible, drunken, stupid, stumbling high, but a pleasant, "life isn't so bad", feeling. Marijuana does not leave you babbling and angry. Marijuana does not make you want to beat the crap out of someone who looked at you wrong. Marijuana is really rather benign. Marijuana is not the devil of society you have been led to believe.
Let's rethink this entire issue in America. Look around, we are broke. We need jobs, we need revenue. We have lots of farmers and land. We have the potential to introduce to the market place a product that is currently supporting criminal organizations. Our tax dollars are spent trying to stop these people from providing our citizens with a product they want. Not only are we losing out on the revenue of a cash crop, we are spending millions of dollars to save ourselves from it. We are paying to prosecute and incarcerate dealers and consumers of this product. It is a stupid cycle.
We could be creating jobs in so many areas. Agriculture, transportation, processing, package design, retail outlets, etc. A new industry creating jobs, revenue, taxed and regulated much like alcohol but with less harmful side effects. We could stop spending millions of dollars trying to put a band aid on an arterial flow. All the marijuana busts since my childhood have not stopped the practice.
America, time to wake up and smell the weed.
You're welcome,
Lillybell Blues
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