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I'm from the sixties
but no one has ever accused me of being a hippie. I never had much interest
in the Woodstock crowd, which partied to change the world, while real
people were starving to death in Africa. I never liked Peter, Paul &
Mary or The Carpenters1 and,
despite being the era of "free love", I still had to pay for it2.
Even though I never particularly liked hippies (who seemed like conformists),
I always knew it was a grave injustice to lock these kids up like violent
criminals for smoking a little weed or dropping some hallucinogens.
This is not to mention the DEA, FBI, and local police assault on Black
and Latino low-income communities for the past 15 years. By now it should
be clear, I'm talking about the Drug War.
This is what I didn't get in the sixties! |
The
American War on Drugs has locked up more people than Stalin and
killed more black men than sickle cell anemia. It's patently racist,
malicious and wasteful. If we made marijuana legal, the potential
sales tax of minor drugs and related products would be enormous.
It would also expand us culturally since, with more pot and less
beer, fewer people would be watching stupid sports like basketball
and American Gladiators. Instead they'd be passing the pipe and
enjoying the psychedelic musings of SPACE
ZOMBIE BINGO! |
The government wages
a futile war on drugs while lobotomizing commercials practically force
Budweiser down our throats. In fact, as I write this I have wild ferrets
running amuck in my skull. I have no recollection of last night and
the Tequila is fighting its way back up my throat. In addition, I've
lost my left shoe and for some mysterious reason, my butt hurts. In
the throes of a vicious soul-shattering hangover, it becomes clear to
me that I should have smoked pot. Had I done bong rips, there would
be no hangover, no blackout, and most important; I wouldn't have a purple
bite mark on my face (apparently caused by some kind of marmot). However,
in coming to terms with alcoholic excess I am not alone. According to
Health News, 22% of the male population under 30 has a drinking
problem and the numbers rise when it comes to the elderly population.
The same journal estimates that alcohol related deaths in America amount
to over 100,000. That is more than twenty times the sum of people killed
by marijuana and cocaine combined.
| In
fact, if I tally the wreckage of my 55 years on this earth, I conclude
that liquor has wrought more havoc in my life than a postal worker
in McDonalds. I have booze to thank for several social diseases
and a humiliating homosexual4
experience . Drugs on the other hand have led me to some of my greatest
accomplishments. I was stoned when I decided to produce CANNIBAL!
THE MUSICAL and lost in a mazy LSD trip when I went
to Yale and edited THE
GIRL WHO RETURNED5. |
Being a member of the Law Enforcement Community,
Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD must turn to alcohol to alter his consciousness...again,
and again and again. |
In waging the failed
drug war, The U.S. military has been the 500 lb. Joe
Fleishaker of international drug strategy. Policy towards
Columbia has mirrored that of 1980's El Salvador only this time the U.S.
bogeyman isn't Communism it's cocaine. The United States gives Columbia
$1.5 billion a year and it hasn't come any closer to making the South
American nation a happier place. Rather than creating a comprehensive
development package, the U.S. has given them more weapons than a Colorado
high school. Instead of food, the farmers got warlords. As the economy
sags under this ruinous drug policy, a farmer's best chance of making
any money is to grow Cocoa. To all you wild-eyed coke freaks out there:
don't feel bad about yourselves! You are actually creating jobs in the
Third World!
That's gonna hurt like hell in the morning |
These war
economy policies left El Salvador in shambles and they're now
doing the same to Columbia. In fact, all it's achieved is to drive
drug prices up (since they are now supposedly harder to supply),
which actually makes the dealers more money!
But that's
not all! Despite being the biggest benefactor, the U.S. military
elite, has itself been busted for corruption. The New York Times
and 60 Minutes did extensive reports on the wife of a U.S. military
Chief of War against Drugs in Columbia, who was caught smuggling
cocaine from Columbia to Queens, New York. She was caught, but
how many more are out there?
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If the drugs manage
to reach American shores to our tired, our poor, our huddled masses,
then it is to be met by the Draconian drug policies that have been in
place since Richard Nixon6.
The land of the free has more people in prison than any country on the
planet and most of them are non-violent. I won't even mention the horrors
that these people must face when they get to prison7.
A debate still rages on over the barbarity of the death penalty but
consider this: the average American college kid (locked up on a mandatory
minimum 25 year sentence) would probably live longer on death row than
in the general prison population8!
How's that for paradoxical policy?
Like prohibition
of yesteryear, making vices illegal will deliver them into the hands
of mob syndicates9. Poor
people will kill and die in order to get a piece of the forbidden pie
and government agencies (i.e., the U.S. Coast Guard, The Drug Enforcement
Agency, local Police Departments) will become even more corrupt than
they already are.
| All this
points to one blaringly obvious fact: drugs should be decriminalized
(if not legalized). Boozehounds and smokers have proven that they'll
pursue their vices even if it's got a 300% tax attached. Imagine
the potential revenue if marijuana was put on the market. Marijuana
would not simply be a product in itself, it would undoubtedly be
a tremendous benefit to the junk food industry. In an unscientific
survey it was estimated that legalizing pot would lead to the consumption
of an additional 4300 tons of raw chocolate chip cookie dough in
the United States alone! |
These Tromettes aren't actually high. They're
just really really relaxed. |
So what if people
drive a little slower, eat more and wear tie-dye again? It would be
great for employment and might even move us a little closer towards
world peace. After all, when Holland decriminalized pot they also abandoned
their evil colonial empire! Has Jamaica ever waged a war? Who has time
for bombing campaigns when you've got the munchies? Hell, when Troma's
employees are on drugs, they get along great!
They could get really
ambitious and bump the taxes up to 600%. The money could be used for
social services like schools and daycare. Marijuana could solve the
world's problems! If it doesn't, then at least I could roll a joint
and solve my own.
1:
Although, I loved Todd Haynes underground film about the Carpenters
called Superstar, with fucked up Barbie dolls.
2: Editors note: it should be mentioned that
perhaps due to alcohol abuse, much of Mr. Kaufman's recollections about
his personal life are totally untrue and were actually delusions experienced
while suffering from DT's.
3: Nancy Reagan tried to "save" America's youth
by telling them "just say no" while the elderly population has been
drinking themselves to death for years! I suppose it's a consistent
principle, however, when you consider her stance on Social Security.
4: For more on
my homosexual experiences, read my book, ALL
I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FILMMAKING I LEARNED FROM THE TOXIC AVENGER,
distributed by Penguin Putnam.
5: For details, read the book referred to in
footnote #3.
6: By all appearances George W. will be no different.
His present choices to replace Barry McCaffrey as drug Czar are Bill
McCollum or James McDonough, both classical hardliners. So paranoid
potheads won't have their nerves settled anytime soon.
7: For more on cornholing see Troma's Terror
Firmer now in Troma Studio Store.
8: If you think I'm kidding, some conservative
estimates place the prison AIDS rate at around 25%.
9: Contrary to deregulation that delivers markets
into the hands of corporate syndicates.
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