The Emperor Wears No Clothes
by Jack Herer
What is the Law?
“All laws which can be violated without doing anyone any injury are laughed at.” – Spinoza, (c. 1660.)
To control marijuana is to give up our freedoms, for ourselves, our kids, and our kid’s kids, forever.
And that, my friends, is called fascism; and simply put, if the laws on cannabis are not over-turned, and if present Earth-destructive practices, such as strip mining, oil drilling, clear-cutting of trees, industrial pollution of waters, and use of pesticides and herbicides are not discontinued, our planet will soon die at the hands of these ignorant (not-knowing and/or evil) politicians who think they have a right to pass more and more draconian laws to fill more and bigger prisons and jails with some of our most decent citizens. These same politicians portray themselves as being motivated purely out of concern for children. Meanwhile, they promote the massive ongoing environmental poisoning of these same children every day! But to truly understand why tens of millions of Americans are scared silly of pot after 70 years of disinformation that continues to this day, consider the mentality and character of former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates (1978–1992), who has admitted to helping direct a program of squashing accurate hemp information and ordering the arrest and harassment of California Marijuana Initiative workers for acting upon their civic and Constitutional right to collect petition signatures.
In September 1983, on television and through a police spokesman, Gates called hemp reform advocates “well-intentioned but terribly naïve regarding marijuana and [they] really don’t know much about it.”
In January 1984, Gates was asked by a parent at a San Fernando Valley, CA, public school, “What can I do if I find out my child has used marijuana?” He replied, “It’s too late. Once they’ve smoked one marijuana cigarette, they are lost to us forever!”*
*These exact words were also used by L.A. County D.A Ira Reiner in his 1990 campaign for State Attorney General. He lost.
A few months later, then–California Attorney General, John Van de Kamp, suppressed the August 17, 1990 report by his own advisory panel that called for hemp re-legalization. Gates testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on September 5, 1990 that “casual drug users should be taken out and shot.” He held to this position for almost a week, until public outcry for his dismissal* forced him to modify his comment to a call for stricter penalties. Former Drug Czar William Bennett said, “I have no moral problem with beheading marijuana users, arms, feet and legs (seriously!). In July of 1998, Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, on
On March 3, 1991, the world was shocked to learn that Gates’ officers were indeed capable of such brutal and heinous behavior when the video “The murder rate in Holland [where “soft” drugs of Los Angeles police officers savagely beating a defenseless Rodney King (accused of speeding and evading capture) was revealed to the world. A urine test later revealed traces of THC. Gates continued to back his officers in the beating, through the time of the riots.
*Reiner was almost the only official to publicly support Gates.
In July of 1998, Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, on a fact-finding mission to Europe, added insult to ignorance by proclaiming to a Stockholm audience, “The murder rate in Holland [where “soft” drugs are treated as a legal product] is double that in the United States…That’s drugs.” Actually, the Dutch murder rate is 1.7 per 100,000, less than one-fourth that of the U.S.
This was only the latest in McCaffrey’s continuing stream of ludicrous misinformation. In December 1996, for example, he had been quoted in the media as saying, “There’s not one shred of evidence that marijuana has medicinal value…”