What I need from a marijuana magazine is a place where I feel supported and not attacked.

Dana obviously has a lot of anger that he feels and he seems to need to express it against all Americans at once, he wants to invoke collective responsibility, which is a philosophy I am against in any case.

Everywhere in America, marijuana users are under attack, and I really want a magazine to read where I don't have yet another experience of feeling attacked.

High Times sucks but at least it's a break from the sense of being attacked.

Of course I did not intend to attack the noble activists in the US who are trying valiantly to end the war while in the belly of the beast. I am sad that my words were so misunderstood.

I oppose the drug-war policies of the US government. I have high respect for those who have devoted their lives to ending the US drug war.

In response to a letter in CC#39 I wrote the following:

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When we criticize the actions of the US this should not be taken as a blanket condemnation of the American people. In fact, the American people are one of the greatest victims of their government's drug war! Many of my greatest heroes are Americans, who have the courage to stand up to their government when it does wrong.
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Perhaps the sentence in question would have been more accurate as follows:

If the American government want their country to truly possess the moral superiority they claim over other nations, they must first end their entrenched War on Drugs.


-- finally, I don't think that Canada has much moral superiority over the US. Our drug war is a little less intense but we're not much better.

I thought I might as well reproduce my entire comments from Pought Thots issue #39, as they seem relevant here:

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I see a great irony when I am told we should be grateful for the freedoms we have and not complain too loudly about injustice. Yet freedoms mean nothing if not used, and if we still have the freedom to complain then we should use that freedom before it is also lost.

Many Americans seem to believe that theirs is the most free nation on earth. Yet although the US might compare well next to some of the world's dictatorships and warlords, America also imprisons far more of its own population than any other country, and by most indeces its citizens enjoy less personal freedom than most western democracies.

It is true that valiant freedom-fighters have managed to get ballot-based medical marijuana laws passed in a handful of US states. Yet state governments have opposed these successful citizen initiatives, and the federal government has refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of these state laws, stepping up its persecution of even the sickest med-pot users.

When we criticize the actions of the US this should not be taken as a blanket condemnation of the American people. In fact, the American people are one of the greatest victims of their government's drug war! Many of my greatest heroes are Americans, who have the courage to stand up to their government when it does wrong.

The governments of Canada, most European nations and the rest of the world are also happy to persecute their own citizens for their use of banned plants, for which they are rightly criticized in our magazine. But the heart of the world's drug war is Washington DC, as America is by far the greatest pusher of drug war policies in its own nation and around the world.

As to the exportation of "hard drugs," keep in mind that far more Colombians die each year from US tobacco products than Americans die from Colombian coca products. Yet the US engages in harsh trade sanctions against nations which refuse its tobacco, while murdering civilians in other countries who grow coca.

It's true that America has also had many positive influences upon the world. Yet I agree with the sentiments of Charles Dickens, in his 1842 book American Notes: "I believe that the heaviest blow ever dealt at liberty's head will be dealt by this nation, in the ultimate failure of its example to the earth."

here here

So the two versions are:

"If Americans want..."
and:
"If the American Government wants...."

So this brings up the question - Does the US government
really represent the will of the people (as it was designed to do)
or, if not, then whose will does it represent?
Or is it just a great engine run amock?

I think the sheer scope of the US government is one thing
that puts it beyond the understanding of your average person. If they're fooling with every nation on Earth then
who can keep up with it all?

I'm just happy that Dana used the word "taint".

it represents the will of big business, lobbyists run the country for the most part.
big business kills, rapes and steals while fully protected by the people who were elected to protect our interests, its like cops being in cohoots with organized crime while giving the illusion
that they are against them.

Well what a bunch of rascals.
'bouttime - you'll like this. I had already posted it
somewhere else, but it bears repeating.

Hocus Pocus - Kurt Vonnegut 1990

Lyle's despairing last words as he was led out
of the bell tower to be executed in front of Samoza Hall:

"OK, I admit it. It really was a whorehouse."

Lyle Hooper's last words might serve as an apt
epitaph for a plurality of working adults in industrialized
nations during the 20th Century.

How could they help themselves, when so many of the jobs
they or their mates could get had to do with large-scale
deceptions, legal thefts from public treasuries,
or the wrecking of the food chain, the topsoil, the water
or the atmosphere?

"OK, I admit it. It really was a whorehouse."

that's right on.

there's plenty of evidence of what big business does and how things really work and
literature exposing that evidence, but it just doesn't seem enough to get the avg joe's
attention. i don't know the answer, if you explain clamly, no one listens, if you shout it, your
called a fringe lunatic radical.

the unibomber is called crazy and is sought with great resorces and jailed for life but the
head of firestone(just to name one) gets a magazine cover.
who is responsible for more deaths?