Marijuana: Legalization vs. Decriminalization

Bernardo Ruiz’s movie, Kingdom of Shadows, placed me squarely in the center of the debate on drugs. I found myself sitting on stages, in front of crowds, like some wild indigenous specimen: see there are white people who do this shit.

I was uneasy.

I was uneasy throughout filming.

I did not know what Bernardo was after. I was sick of retelling tired stories. I’d been out of the business a quarter century. I read the same shit you do. And the same shit lazy, fearful reporters read and regurgitate.

I’m screaming, I am not qualified, all the while, telling them what I think I know.

And then I sit on a stage like a wooden Indian.

Afterwards: reporters.

I am about as close as they’ll get to interviewing a real smuggler. Those guys are dangerous.

I feel like a fake.

I saw this one long-haired Mexican man in the crowd after a San Antonio screening. Quanah Parker. He looked at me. I looked at him. Fake people all around and here’s this Shaman and I got to talk to reporters.

Since, I took a look around. Talked to the people.

I am now, once again, an expert. I am not in the business.

I did what reporters are supposed to. Listened to those that know, without threat or coercion.

What I know is fresh and real and I know more than the cops. They don’t believe this, but I do.

You lost the war, motherfuckers.

You have no idea how bad you lost this war.

I am going to stop asking for legalization of marijuana.

Legalization sounds like some gift you have to offer. You were wrong to establish this law in the first place and it remains wrong today.

Marijuana is a medicinal herb placed on this planet by your creator.

Its’ uses are so wide and varied, remain so un-explored, that I envision entirely new fields of medical research that will arise once explored.

Truth is, it’s the spiritual applications that scare white Europeans. (if you’re white, you’re probably European [non-Native American]).

Jamaican Rastafarians, Mexican Shaman, Colombian healers.

Supernatural feats.

Oh….

Feel that hair start to rise, feel that flesh crawl?

What was that?

Now we’re getting down to the real shit.

Life after Kingdom of Shadows

I watched last night as Kingdom of Shadows aired nationwide on PBS stations. I said something at the end of the film I now regret. It was true and it was sincere at the time, but I see things differently today.

I see a sick man in that film. Tired. Weak. Hanging on to sobriety like it’s the last sacrament on earth. I see a man beat down by the laws of our society.

Life has kicked my ass since.

At one point I suffered what I thought was a heart attack and was hospitalized only to learn that nothing was wrong with my heart; I was stressed to the point of breaking and my body shut down.

I left that hospital, after two days without a single prescription or treatment. Later, a local doctor issued me a prescription for Zanex.

I don’t take that shit.

So it went into the cabinet. I’d had dizzy spells, warning signs, preceding the event for several weeks. The signs returned.

I tried half a low-dose Zanex. First and last time. It does not work for me. I don’t like the way it makes me feel.

Shortly after New Year’s Day, 2016, while everyone else was swearing off drugs and habits, I smoked a joint. 29 years without a drink or a puff.

Since, I have tried a sip of whiskey.

They work and that’s why people use them. Both present harmful side effects, especially in an industrial environment.

I also got off my ass and went back to working hard, physically.

I feel better.

It’s not drugs I hate, it’s the goddamned business.

I am sick of the way we as a society treat drug users.

I am sick of cops and judges and lawyers and probation officers and prisons. I am sick of slimy fucks preying on immigrants, addicts. I am sick of cartels. 

I am sick of apathetic people that allow this evil to persist among us.

The war on drugs is a war on ourselves.

End it.

Now.