In using this as a centralized aggregate of my online identity, I'm aware I run the danger of being labeled a fairly significant pothead by people I haven't talk to for a while or are simply Googling my name. The reality is that much of the effort I exert online is related to the fight against cannabis prohibition in some form or another, though my reasons for that are probably not what you'd expect...

Just over two years ago, I started Hotbox Magazine with a few friends as an attempt to create a broader discourse around these topics and to create awareness of the much broader political, economic and social impacts of the War on Drugs. What a trip it has been! Though we haven't posted anything in what seems like centuries, our contributor base has never reached more than six people and we've made a grand total of $100 off advertising revenue the last two years, the process alone has been more than worth the journey. Initially focusing on electronic music, political discussion and photos of scantily-clad women hitting bongs (the last aspect of which left with the departure of my then-girlfriend and Photo Editor), the project has since expanded to looking at the multifarious ways in which political and economic decisions effect the people least interested in these processes — that is, those involved in alternative subcultures, whether they be musical, drug or otherwise. While we're clearly not sure at the moment what to do with the project (We may yet turn it into a psychedelic trance number composed entirely of people wearing multicoloured Morphsuits — largely kidding), the sentiment that started it hasn't changed with me: the essentially racist and moralistic War on Drugs must be ended before my generation's potential is ultimately dulled by the shortsightedness of our parents' and grandparents' elected representatives.

We live at a place in history where it is practically impossible to argue that the supposed "solutions" of the War on Drugs and mandatory minimums are acting as anything but the problem — even if you have no intent or desire to ever smoke cannabis. I've written before explaining why the War on Drugs is racist — between the fact that racial minorities are prosecuted for drug offenses with far greater frequency and severity, and that the ultimate intent of the law as framed in the mid-'30s was to control Black and Hispanic populations, I hope I don't have to explain this — and again on why it's neocolonialist. Indeed, yesterday marked the deportation of Canadian marijuana seed seller Marc Emery, which, combined with the reintroduction of Bill C-15 by the federal Conservatives (Adding mandatory minimum sentences for cannabis cultivation), makes me wonder whether I live in Canada or the U.S. That a Canadian citizen can be deported to foreign jails for what would be a minor offense in his home country should be a very chilling thought for those on both sides of the aisle.

We are bankrupting our governments by using a model that is ultimately as flawed as abstinence-only sex education. In fact, the comparison is a pretty valid one: both have been proven to ultimately have the opposite effect they intend, and neither leaves room for more realistic models that advocate harm reduction. However, the latter form of social engineering by neoconservatives doesn't have the massive fiscal pitfalls of the Drug War. The cost of trying to prevent everyone from ever chemically changing their physical and mental states is absolutely enormous, both from the costs of enforcement/interdiction and imprisonment. Think of it this way: every person in jail for drug offenses (which the majority of those imprisoned are) is now a tax-payer burden of anywhere from $20,000 to $80,000 a year, depending what country you're from. If these people were allowed to be functioning members of society, just imagine how much money would be available for pursuing real criminals, or for socially-beneficial endeavours like healthcare, education or transportation. And if you actually taxed and sold cannabis like tobacco or alcohol, the tax revenue would be in the billions. Also note: all this money is currently supporting organized crime; even if you argue that the world just doesn't need another vice, the reality is that these vices already exist, and legalization of the "tax and regulate" variety is just the most effective way — by leaps and bounds — to minimize the harm it causes.

While I'll add that cannabis causes far less social harm even as a black market commodity than either alcohol or tobacco even though those are legal and regulated, it's worth noting that the actual potential for harm or addiction caused by a particular drug is fairly irrelevant in this discussion. The fact is that the black market makes all drugs more socially harmful (if only due to the inherent lack of quality control, plus the difficulty added to educating and reducing harm caused), and black market drugs fund organized crime and terrorism. The reality is that we'll never have a drug-free world, and the best we can ever hope for is an honest, researched and open discussion about these topics.

In closing, I finished editing a large slate of articles for Treating Yourself Magazine last night and one of them included a piece by a retired cardiac surgeon who has been imprisoned by authorities in his home state of Mississippi. While living in California, the police raided his property in Mississippi and found four grams of cannabis in his brother-in-law's possession, who was maintaining the property. Growing lights and fans were found in one room, but no actual plans. The police seized the property under U.S. federal RICO laws, and the retired surgeon — then in California — turned himself in. While out on bail, he talked to his sister prior to the indictment and was then charged with witness tampering, effectively revoking his bond. He now sits in jail with hardened murders and rapists while he awaits his sentence. While the story is much more involved than I've alluded to (Read it in Treating Yourself issue 23, which, might I add, is going to be absolutely stellar; best copy I've edited for them yet), the question that ultimately must be asked is this:

Do you really want to live in a world that treats people like this?

To answer the titular question of this post, I support cannabis legalization because I don't want to live in a world where doctors are imprisoned for prescribing a plant with a known history of medicinal use to patients who cannot find relief otherwise; I don't want to live in a world where mobs of state-sanctioned police goons are able to bust down your door and trash everything you own at any moment for practicing a specific form of horticulture, and sometimes even if you don't (as the many victims of wrongful busts can attest). I don't want to live in a world where it's socially acceptable to consume one drug and become a raging asshole while consuming another drug that will ultimately tax the healthcare system and shorten one's lifespan substantially, yet to consume another that has known medical benefits and actually causes people to be contemplative is considered socially unacceptable. The unfortunate reality is that I just described life in North America and many parts of the globe, and even if I don't want to live in such a world, we all have to, just as much as those wishing to live in a drug-free world are confronted with the reality of a drug-filled world that gets more complex by the day.

IvanArt, Treating Yourself's graphic designer and artist, has done a comic every issue depicting two panels: a dark present reality and a happy, hemp-friendly future. Even if you're not with me on this whole "drug legalization" thing, at least let's talk about hemp. For one, you know how we're bankrupting the world's food supply by using so much corn for things like ethanol fuel and, well, Dorritos? Hemp would be far more effective as a biofuel — in turn, also moving us away from foreign oil — and its seed is actually very tasty, along with being an incredibly good source of fatty acids. I have a winter jacket that has survived many Canadian winters and is the warmest piece of clothing I own — and every component is made of hemp. I have a hemp t-shirt that breathes and just feels way better than cotton; I have a hemp dress shirt that is combined with recycled polyster threads and is damn near indestructable. The fabric is fantastic and it saddens me it isn't used far more. Perhaps the reason for this is because of the incredibly stringent regulation schedule for hemp — which is cannabis grown for the fiber with essentially zero psychoactive content and impossible to get high off of — such that it is illegal to grow in the U.S. and clouded in bureaucracy in Canada. Even though both of our countries have a burgeoning market for hemp clothing, food and fuel products, very little hemp is actually processed here. In this way, both Canada and the U.S. act like so-called "third world" countries as per Marxist Dependency Theory: raw materials are sent from the colonies in the developing world to the industrialized world, where these materials are transformed into goods and shipped back to be sold at value-added cost. Given that we're still so goddamned stupid that we think you can get high off the material I make fucking macrame necklaces with, our lack of ability to process hemp means we buy most finished hemp goods from Europe, where they're not so ass-backwards.

In closing, to quote legendary Reggae artist Pete Tosh: Legalize it — and I will advertise it.

-Æ.