According to ABC News web site:
"Living country music legend Willie Nelson was charged with possession of
marijuana after six ounces were discovered aboard his tour bus in
Texas, according to a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman."
First let me say as I have before, I barely take a drink anymore, my party days are long over. But I do feel a responsibility for speaking up for others and for MY America being a free and open society without the conservatives and fear-mongers pushing for hiding at home from the world and reality. That being said, do we REALLY want to bust people like Willie Nelson, a national treasure, for crap like this? You can give me all the reasons why he's not above the law...yada yada yada, but the point is, if it wasn't illegal, this wouldn't have happened.
This is ridiculous, really.
"Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West told the El Paso Times that Nelson,
77, claimed that the marijuana was his.
According to police patrolman Bill Brooks, a sheriff from Hudspeth
County was contacted and Nelson was among three people arrested at the
scene. Nelson was held briefly and paid a $2,500 bond.
"It's kind of surprising, but I mean we treat him like anybody else,"
West told the El Paso Times. "He could get 180 days in county jail,
which if he does, I'm going to make him cook and clean. He can wear the
stripy uniforms just like the other ones do."
This really is ludicrous and typical police bravado. This officer should be cooking and cleaning for Willie if you ask me, showing how much he resents being forced to enforce a law as typically wasteful as this one. But instead, he is putting forward his legal obligation to charge an elderly legend with a victimless crime.
Obviously, Officer West mustn't be a fan of his music. But he is, apparently, just another mindless drone of the Marijuana Prohibition Laws, a leftover of the Alcohol Prohibition Laws. These anti-cannabis laws have put so many people in jail over the past many decades, ruined so many lives, that really, its a shame someone in the government, cannot go to prison over it. We need to get over our fears, our prejudices and misinformed attitudes about it.
Willie has been a strong advocate of cannabis decriminalization and has had his share of drug-related brushes with the law. So the police involved are probably looking at it like he is thumbing his nose at the God almighty law, rather than that he just like to smoke pot. I'm not an anarchist, I'm a reasonable-ist and a rationalist. Pot laws aren't either.
According to ABC News:
"In Louisiana in 2006, 1.5 pounds of marijuana and three ounces of
hallucinogenic mushrooms were found on [Willie's] bus, and in 1995 he was
arrested after he was pulled over in Waco, Texas, and police officers
said they saw a joint in his car's ashtray."
I have argued for decades, that anything that can be found growing and is used naturally, and is for personal use, is only the problem of the individual involved, or any consenting adults associated with them. If you want to charge people for sales, I would even allow for that to be illegal if not purchased through channels allowing for quality and purity controls (otherwise needing to find it in a natural environment yourself, or to grow it in small quantities for personal use, much as alcohol is now allowed to be produced); but for people, intelligent adults, to decide to do something only to themselves in such an event, it is, or should be, solely up to them and not the government or other people to bother about or to be involved in regulating.
I look forward to one day, this being a free and open America, where adults are treated as intelligent, responsible adults living in a free and progressive society. That won't happen until everyone is properly educated about the truth and no secrets are being kept about what is going on. Its unbelievable to me that alcohol, with all its associated detriments and whose effects are very close to cocaine use, is allowed to be legal and privately produced, but cannabis remains illegal even though it is far less harmful in so many ways.
I just hope I don't die of old age, still wishing for a free and intelligent America to finally come to be.
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