I awoke from a restless and uncomfortable slumber on my couch at 7:00AM, Thursday morning. Sleep-walking to my room as I rubbed my sleep-filled eyes and scratched myself, I couldn't help notice the Dirty Sanchez conversing with someone at the door. As I walked over and peered out to see a Chiago Police officer.... now it was all coming back. As the situation came into focus, panic shot through my body like an electronic current. Suddenly, all the contents of my living room table became very clear: pipes, papers, trees..... !!!!!!!! I not-so nonchalantly bolted to the living room like overweight tattoo riddled whitetrash who can't even run from the camera man on Cops. Stuffing everything in my pants and retreating to my room to disperse of my pocket's contents.... But, the pork was not looking for narcotics, simply to ask a few questions about noises during the night. Taking the advice from the Dirty Sanchez I peered out my window to witness a wave of Chicago PD, squad cars and other important looking people. Apparently, during the night, Juan Doe (he was Puerto Rican) was beaten in the head so severely that he died on the sidewalk across the street right in front of KFC. It is not clear if police have determined a motive. The only thing that is clear is that he did not get stabbed, or shot, he was beaten to death. This is the second anonymous murder within a 5 block radius of my apartment in the last 2 months..... I realize that Chicago was just named the murder capital per capita in the states.... and we're doing everything we can to repeat as the champions. What kind of sick depraved barbaric fuck beats someone to death? Shooting someone is an entirely different beast, it's fast, efficient and effortless with only the smell of gun powder in the air and a deafening silence (or at least I've heard). While beating someone to death is slow, messy and tiring, with only the smell of sweat and the blood that is in no doubt starting to dry on your clothes like spaghetti sauce.

Marijuana. Can you think of a more polarizing word? Say it to someone, with no further context. The listener will recoil in disgust or fear, or ( s )he'll grin. Speak more definitively about the cannabis plant, and most listeners will reveal only the most rudimentary knowledge of the world's most polarizing herb. Yet, people are all experts on "what it did to someone I know." Or it's ill-conceived effects, like prolonged masturbation and the infamous "Reefer Madness craze," which started the marijuana prohibition.

Public school teachers are permitted only to speak of the evils of cannabis, forbidden to teach its 5,000-plus years of history of service to man. Politicians spout absurdity after slander when they speak of it at all. Misinformed people are moved to anger, threaten violence, or wax childish ( "Oh, wow!" ) when the subject confronts them.

Within this melee of babble, a large and growing number of credible people are expressing doubt about the efficacy of marijuana prohibition. The politicians and their sycophants accuse us of advocating "giving drugs to babies." They say we're "supporting terrorism." They even make absurd statements like State Rep. Stan Adelstein made at a speech to the United Campus Ministries luncheon at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology on Nov. 22, 2001:

"I know the marijuana laws work, because only one of my three sons smoked marijuana. The other two didn't smoke it, because it's illegal. They told me so." In a related story, two of his three sons also assured their father they waited to have sex until they were married.

Adelstein refused to answer when asked if he thought his son who smoked marijuana should have gone to prison for it, as millions of others have.

Fact is, Adelstein's family is squarely in the mainstream. The National Institute on Drug Abuse's annual national household survey continually says that about one-third of adults in the U.S. have smoked marijuana. Yet, we continue:

- - Arresting people at the rate of one every 45 seconds for possession or sale of marijuana.

- - Confiscating folks' cars, houses, cash and children for mere suspicion of trafficking in marijuana. If they're convicted, we throw them in prison, also.

- - Paying snitches to create marijuana crimes so that law enforcement can confiscate even more property and children.

- - Allowing law enforcement agencies to keep most of the plunder they steal, thus perpetuating the vicious and counterproductive cycle.

- - Preventing legal access to marijuana for sick, disabled and dying people who currently benefit from it, albeit illegally.

Caught up in this insanity is industrial hemp, which has a potential worldwide market of $500 billion or more, but which is banned from production in the United States ( but allowed in Canada and 30 other nations ). Even more insanely and cruelly, the politicians maintain that there is no medical use for cannabis, in spite of disagreement from thousands of doctors and tens of thousands of patients.

How arrogant and stupid to make the statement that an herb has "no medical use." A fifth-grader wouldn't even make such a blanket statement about tomatoes or horseradish. Here is the simple truth. Cannabis was first taxed out of the market, then made illegal in the United States in order to benefit the stockholders in a large consortium of industries which now do not have to face competition from industrial hemp. For that purpose, the politicians are willing to imprison millions and cruelly deny medical relief to tens of thousands of sick people.

When one understands that industrial hemp can be used for any purpose served by trees, cotton or flax, and petroleum, and that hemp seed is the most nutritious single food item in the world, one begins to understand the scope of the industries served by keeping it illegal. One begins to grasp whose ox will be gored by re-establishment of industrial hemp at the forefront of American farm products.

These are some of the reasons I've staked my life, my possessions, and my honor on exposing the truth about cannabis, knowing that, like countless others, I could be stopped, "found" in possession of something illegal, and imprisoned at the whim of the politicians. It's just one more of the cruel truths of the so-called "war on drugs": that innocent people are sometimes silenced by police who frame them by "finding" drugs on them. Cops have unlimited access to drugs to use for such purposes. It's also sad that we must paint all policemen and women with the same brush, because the bad cops' and the good cops' uniforms look the same.

And it is for these reasons that SoDakNORML organized the Rapid City segment of the Million Marijuana March, an educational event being held in over 160 cities worldwide today. We're appealing to governments everywhere to stop all cannabis arrests, to stop lying about cannabis, to release cannabis as medicine to sick people, and to stop imprisoning people for simply trying to feel better.

There's more good information about cannabis on the Internet than just about any other subject. Simply inquire "hemp," "cannabis," or "marijuana" on any search engine. For a tragic laugh, see what the major disseminators of misinformation, the Office of National Drug Control Policy ( ONDCP ) and the Parents for a Drug-Free America ( whose largest funder is Anheuser-Busch ) have to say on the subject.

It's time for all good people to help end this horrible cycle. Civilian and soldier, cop and just-folks alike, we must hold our local politicians and our federal delegations accountable for the carnage and economic damage created by marijuana prohibition.

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