From: [a--y--s] at [anonymous.org] (Anonymous User) politicians can't be expected to bring up an issue that the average brainwashed dope is opposed to. Next question: how do we influence the media? I'd expect that sending in several stat sheets a FAQs might get a few thinking, I'm investing time and money in spreading the word. The power of the press in an important force to harness. Tim Allen of Home Improvement says he will fight the WOD after his TV show goes off the air, he served three years in jail for selling cocaine. Does anyone know other media types who are strongly opposed to prohibition? Here's a piece from Dennis Miller's HBO show that aired live on Friday. It's a decent show, a rarity for the medium. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From "Dennis Miller Live" on HBO, Friday, Nov. 11, 1994, 10:00 pm [ After joking about recent DC Mayoral elect Marion Barry] "Maybe he deserves a second chance, I mean who did he really hurt besides himself? Maybe it's time that we as a nation start staying out of people's personal problems and vices. What are we doing spending billions of dollars trying to keep people's private lives in order? And I'm talking about legal age consenting adults here, not kids, we obviously have to take special precautions to protect kids. But what is this Orwellian hang-up of ours of sticking our nose into other grown-up's affairs? What concern is it of ours if some mindless stoner wants to spend his his life hooked up to a Turkish skull bong? Now, I'm not pro-drug, they obviously cause a lot of damage, but I am pro-logic and you're never going to stop the human need for release through altered consciousness. The government can take away all the drugs in the world and people will just spin around on their lawn until they fell down and saw God. "Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but it seems to really enrage the vast cheese dog and beer quaffing nation out there when someone decides to waste his own life chasing down chemical euphoria and I'm not sure why. Our displeasure with someone hell-bent on self-ruination through drug use seems really disproportionate to its direct impact on us. And as a matter of fact, I believe we amplify that impact when we attempt to enforce unenforceable laws. It not only costs us billions of dollars, but it puts us in harms way as addicts are driven to crime as a means to an end. Why do we chase druggies down like villagers after Karlov? Let them legally have what they already have and defuse the bomb. You know, I think the hysteria about drugs is often times baseless. And this comes from me, a man who has never done cocaine in his life, although I did smoke dope upon occasion during my stint as a student at Oxford in the late 60s. And you know, the war on drugs is more often than not fruitless and patently hypocritical, be honest with yourselves now. What drugs are the most dangerous to the most Americans? Its a no brainer: cigarettes and alcohol. Those are the statistical champions by hundreds of thousands of deaths. And wouldn't you rather shoot a game of pool with a guy smoking a joint than a guy drinking whisky and beer? Someone smoking a joint doesn't all of the sudden rear back and stab his partner in the eye socket with a cue stick, ok? He's too busy laughing at the balls. "And you know as far as harder drugs go, if somebody wants to shoot up and die right in front of you, more power to him, you know? It's his call. And you know the herd always has a way of thinning itself out. We aren't stupid people here in America, no more than anyone else in the world, so why are we obsessing on habits that harm no one but the habitual, while we let real problems slip ever further out of reach. We seem to be willfully turning away from reality, and from logic might I add, to punish people, who in many instances are doing an extremely fine job of punishing themselves, thank you. And in some cases they're not even punishing themselves, but rather just following age old spawning instincts that are as woven as deeply into their brain as their need to watch Home Improvement. "Is their anything more fruitless than trying to legislate sexual behavior? You know according to the law, you can't even get a blow job in Georgia? No wonder Sherman hustled through there. And really if you stop to think about it, who is hurt by the time honored unavoidable trade of prostitution? Only the guys who pay extra to be hurt. There is no sane reason to cling to this archaic legal attempt to curtail an activity that will be around until the end of time. You know, you could come back to this planet ten thousand years from now and man could have evolved to the point where he doesn't even take in nutrition from a hole in head anymore, but I guarantee you that he'll still be cruising ninth avenue trying to get a knob-shine from somebody named Desiree. "What sort of perfect harried experiment society are we striving for folks? One where you will be forced by the puritanical mentality of your pin-headed Gladys Kravitz neighbors into a tightly constricted, over-regimented existence? A life safe from the temptations and rewards of the flesh? If that's your kink - go for it. But for the rest of us, let's save the money we're wasting trying to regulate other people's private lives. If an individual wants to smoke a joint, or shoot up, or munch blotter like tic-tacs and drop out, let them. All right? Let's put the billions we're wasting on a drug war, fought by fitness fanatics on steroids and three-martini senators rolling in pork, let's put it back in the educational system. Let's free the courts and jails of lonely men and broken women who feel the need to buy and sell sex. Let's let hookers and their johns have a safe building somewhere off the streets, inspected medically and taxed up the wazoo. Let's go on from there to tax liquor and cigarettes so that those industries can pay for safe one-lane drunk-proof highways and air purification systems. Most importantly, let's stop pretending that people are going to lead the lives that we tell them to lead. Let's stop pretending that a few simple prohibitions on substances and activities will yield up a nation of Beaver Cleavers: polite, clean, sexless, and ready to serve their fellow man, no questions asked. People are people. They're going to with their lives what they want to do, whether you like it or not. There is nothing you can do about them that won't break the bank, overcrowd the prisons, or corrode an already oxidized judicial system. People are perennially going to get fucked up and fucked, and we will continue to get fucked over if we don't concede the fact that there is absolutely fuck-all we can do about it. "Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong." --- * Origin: COBRUS - Usenet-to-Fidonet Distribution System (1:2613/335.0)