One thing we all share in common in this corner of the lower 48 is that at one time or another, unless you’re a Mormon, you’ve strapped on a little hellfire and barreled through the vast wasteland of the dessert for a fun-filled stay in Sin City. In a town like Las Vegas, more degradation and debauchery occur per minute than any frat boy could dream up in four years of Budweiser-induced euphoria. You can buy a Rolls-Royce if your number comes up, or a bus ticket if it doesn’t. You can stay up for 72 hours and not know it and, if the mood strikes, you can buy sex by the pound. Vegas, besides being the sleaziest city in the free world, is a low-rent, backwater, jack-nowhere piece of real estate. The only place worse in this part of the country is Barstow. And the only reason anyone goes there is to get through it.
The heart of this pit just happens to fall under the jurisdiction of the tightest Gestapo squad this side of Wonderland. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been hassled by Nevada peacekeepers. Sucks, huh? It’s called zero tolerance. It’s what Bob Dole tried to sell us (among other useless things). But, of course, that’s how the gangsters want it. When you’re drunk, you’ll throw your firstborn down on that table for one last chance to win your ass back. It’s called liquid courage, and it can work wonders. But stoners don’t gamble. Oh, sure they’ll dump some quarters in the poker machines to watch those little clowns flip up, all bright and colorful, but you can’t play blackjack stoned; you start to realize how minimal your chances of victory really are and you’re too afraid to go near the table. And if you live in the penthouse of The Golden Nugget, and you’re name is Vinnie, well, then that’s just bad for business.
Now the Nevada heat is setting its radar on California. According to an article in The Los Angeles Times, the Nevada state attorney general’s office gave their police force the green light to make felony dope arrests. Nevada’s drug laws, however, are written so that anyone with a doctor’s legal prescription for any drug is excused, according to the article.
The passage of Proposition 215 is making Puritans everywhere a bit uneasy. The opinion page of The San Diego Union-Tribune published its share of anti-marijuana tripe last Thursday. Open your ears to law enforcement officers and drug counselors, the article said. Law enforcement officers? Oh, you mean the ones who have been flushing I mean, spending those tax dollars on the ever-so-effective “War on Drugs” all these years? The U.T. claims, “The ballot measure sends a false message that marijuana is not only harmless but actually beneficial.” False message? You mean like those beer ads on television flooded with blatant sexism and snappy punch-lines? You can buy enough whiskey to make you go blind as long as it’ll fit in your truck, but you can’t twist one in your own home. There’s your false message.
Anti-215ers are flipping out over stories of brainless stoners publicly flouting their habit, proclaiming that weed is now legal. This is not, I repeat, not a result of Prop. 215 sending a bad message. It is simply a direct result of a few stoners who are too damn stupid to read the newspaper.
The editorial goes on to say that “drug experts” consider marijuana as a gateway drug, that it often leads to harder drugs. If someone is stupid enough to shoot up, then Ban roll-on is a gateway drug. The few drug addicts I know have one thing in common, and it’s not that they were weaned on reefer. They’re all alcoholics.
The United States Surgeon General’s Actuarial Information states that in 1990, 140 million Americans used alcohol and 18 million of them were alcoholics. They list 100,000 deaths due to alcohol and another 100,000 that were alcohol related. According to the Actuarial information, alcohol was responsible for 50 percent of all highway deaths and involved in 65 percent of all murders.
The same study revealed the rates for deaths caused by marijuana. Drum-roll, please … zero. Let me repeat that … nil, zip, nada. I know the data is six years old, but I have a sneaking suspicion the current numbers would still favor my argument if I could find them. But at 3 a.m. you take what you can get on the information superhighway. Statistics released by the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependency support the Surgeon General’s findings. They list the annual death toll from alcohol-related causes, including everything from falls to accidents to liver failure, as 105,000.
Any “pot epidemic” that exists in this country is just a spinoff of the big, drug-riddled picture of Americana. When millions of Americans need to bury their heads in soma every day to escape reality, I’d say someone is just not quite seeing the big picture. A law will never keep people from using a drug if they really want to use it. And keeping AIDS patients from doing it legally only shows callousness.
The article goes on to speak of the “dangerous door to increased drug use that Proposition 215 has opened.” The only door that has been opened is the one exposing the incredible futility in such paranoia. And for all of God-fearing America, inside that door is a sick beast with fangs and foul venomous breath. The truth is always ugly when it contradicts everything you’ve been programmed to think I mean, everything you’ve learned.
Greg Smith is a journalism senior and writes a biweekly column for The Daily Aztec.
