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Pot laws need to sing different tune
La cucaracha, la cucaracha. Ya no puede caminar. Porque no tiene, porque le falta. Marijuana que fumar.
10-21-06|The Ely Times - elynews.com|KENT HARPER
“La Cucaracha” means the cockroach.

What a lovely musical icon to represent an entire country and culture.

There are more lyrics and versions to the Mexican folk song than anyone can count. But the first stanza listed above is the most common, modern beginning of the at-times revolutionary anthem.

While the song is frequently associated with Pancho Villa, Pancho didn't have exclusive rights to the diddy.

The passing mention of marijuana allegedly refers to Mexican president Victoriano Huerta (1913-1914). Huerta was known as an alcoholic and dope fiend, supposedly chain smoking marijuana before, during and after his 16-month stay in the presidential palace.

The lyrics are predominately nonsensical: The cockroach, the cockroach, now he can't go traveling, because he doesn't have, because he lacks, marijuana to smoke.

There is some cultural truth embedded in the lyrics: Mexicans liked to take their marijuana with then when they traveled.

That's why marijuana became illegal in the U.S.A. And maybe it's time we take another look at our marijuana laws and Mexico and how the laws may have become a greater threat to our society than the drug itself.

Marijuana, or more accurately, cannabis sativa, was grown as a commercial crop in the United States during the colonial period and early years of the nation. Stalwarts such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew it on their plantations, and it was the South's primary agricultural product until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793.

Don't worry! This doesn't mean the Founding Fathers sat around their verandas smoking pot. Marijuana was grown back then, not for the psycho-active effects derived from smoking or ingesting the flowering tops of the female of the species, but for the fibers in the stalks of the tall, spindly male plants.

Those fibers are hemp. And American hemp fibers made the best rope in the world. When shipping depended upon sails and riggings, rope was a necessary and valuable commodity in constant demand.

But technology moves on. Steam power replaced wind power on the seas during the next hundred years. Hemp still was grown for its fiber... still is... but crops were reduced as demand diminished.

Marijuana had been used by African slaves and many of their descendants continued its use. But it wasn't considered part of the nation's growing drug problem.

And as the 19th Century gave way to the 20th, America faced serious drug problems.

Morphine and other opiates were the primary problem.

Many wounded veterans of the wars of the 19th Century suffered from the “soldier's disease” -- addiction to “modern” pain-killers such as morphine and later heroin. But the problem wasn't limited to veterans. Thousands of women in rural America also were addicted to opiates and cocaine that were ingredients in the patent medicines they bought from traveling vendors.

Such drugs were readily available with few controls until the federal Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906. But marijuana wasn't included and hardly drew the notice of mainstream Americans -- at least not until that Mexican revolution that brought Huerta to power.

Mexicans flooded the U.S. Southwest, fleeing the unrest in their homeland and seeking work here. They brought marijuana with them.

Many couldn't find work and turned to other methods of seeking a living, not always legal.

Police along the U.S.-Mexican border noticed the increase in crime and how many of the criminals smoked pot.

The first anti-marijuana law in America was passed by the El Paso City Council in 1914. The El Paso police and local officials from the U.S. Departments of Customs and Agriculture also lobbied for state and federal control of the “killer weed.”

At the request of the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Treasury modified the Food and Drug Act in 1915 to prohibit the importation of cannabis for anything except medical purposes -- the beginning of the federal attempt to control marijuana use.

California had amended its state pharmacy rules in 1913 adding “hashish” -- a stronger derivative of marijuana -- to its list of drugs requiring prescriptions. But the first state to pass an actual marijuana ban was Utah.

Apparently when Utah outlawed polygamy in 1910, a large number of Mormons fled to Mexico. Most discovered that our Catholic Church-dominated southern neighbor wasn't at all hospitable to their marriage preferences and many returned to the Beehive State.

Some had begun to use marijuana in Mexico and brought the drug back with them. Utah outlawed marijuana in 1914 with other states following.

Nevada passed its first marijuana law in 1923.

By 1930, 30 states had passed marijuana laws.

The federal government got on board with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. While not a criminal statute (our society still rejected the federal government's incursion into criminal law back then), the act levied a ridiculously high tax on marijuana that no one could pay. Violators were not charged with marijuana possession; they were charged with tax evasion -- no violation of the Constitution.

The state laws banning marijuana, at least in the West, were simply Mexican bashing.

Professor Charles White-bread of the USC Law School has researched how various states came up with their marijuana laws.

He quoted one Texas lawmaker as saying on the floor of the state senate: "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff (referring to marijuana) is what makes them crazy."

The professor also sites a proponent of Montana's first marijuana law as saying, “"Give one of these Mexican beet-field workers a couple of puffs on a marijuana cigarette and he thinks he is in the bullring at Barcelona."

Nice.

How well our marijuana laws have served us, despite the racist motivation behind their initial passage, also is open to a difference of opinion.

In recent years, our society has recognized that criminalizing marijuana use has destroyed certainly as many lives as actual use of the drug. Possession of small quantities of marijuana is now a misdemeanor in many states, and a handful now authorize marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Nevada is breaking new ground.

Question 7 would allow, not only possession of less than an ounce of marijuana by individuals, it's the first attempt to allow a state to regulate and tax pot. Unfortunately, federal law will always supersede any state law.

But the issue of marijuana has passed well beyond all the threadbare issues of health, sanctity of the law and individual rights. It's now become one of national security.

A congressional report released this week says the U.S. Border Patrol and other law agencies along the U.S.-Mexican border are outgunned by the well-armed Mexican drug cartels.

The cartels, funded by America's taste for marijuana and other drugs, are awash with money and able to purchase military quality weapons and equipment.

The report says the extremely violent cartels are able to break the encryption systems used in police and border patrol radios and avoid capture.

They also are forming partnerships with criminal gangs in this country.

There's legitimate concern that the cartels, which also have branched into illegal immigrant smuggling, may support terrorism.

"As if narco-terrorist violence were not enough, extensions of Middle East terrorism have crept into the United States," the report stated. "Islamic radical groups that support Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamiya Al Gamat are all active in Latin America."

Mexico has been destabilized by the cartels. Some have the support of the Mexican army. The border region is totally lawless, so don't expect Mexico to be able to straighten out this mess (and the rest of its messes). There's too much illegal money involved.

The solution is to dry up the cartels' income.

I see two ways: (1.) Persuade U.S. pot-users to stop smoking, or (2.) Legalize marijuana and tax it; take the profits away from foreign, illegal marijuana producers and distributors and use the taxes for drug-rehab centers and counseling.

But either solution, I'm afraid, is just a pipe dream.

 

Buzzby

Proofreading?

__________________

Lit_Match

apologies..

wondrous

Professor Charles White-bread??? Is this a joke?

walstmonky