Pubdate: Fri, 2 Sep 2005
Source: DrugSense Weekly (DSW)
Website: http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm
Author: Stephen Young
Note: Stephen Young is an editor with DrugSense Weekly.

NEW CANDY LAWS PLAY RESIDENTS FOR SUCKERS

I missed my opportunity. I should have gone to my local mall to buy 
"pot suckers" before the city council banned them. The ban, which 
follows one in Chicago, made the news in the Chicago Tribune this 
week - see http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05.n1411.a07.html

Let me make it perfectly clear: I haven't tried one of these 
so-called treats. But the more the politicians demonize the 
lollipops, the more irresistible they become.  I know NORML head 
Allen St. Pierre says the taste is rather, well, unpleasant ("foul" 
and "nasty" are the specific ways he describes it in the Tribune story).

I know there are no intoxicants involved (the "controversial" 
ingredient, hemp oil, is available in lots of other food, despite 
federal attempts to ban it a few years ago). But surely if the 
government wants to protect me and my kids from this so desperately, 
the product must have some appealing quality.

I don't want to get too specific about when I may try it - I don't 
need trouble from the local cops for smuggling contraband back into 
the city.  But, it's going to happen - and I'm going to raise my fist 
in a people power salute when the first rank taste touches my 
tongue.  I will beat the system, and, as Homer Simpson says, stick it 
to the man.

Maybe then I will understand what the fuss is all about. Of course, 
having followed the drug war for several years, I do sort of 
understand what's going on, but with the recognition that these 
things don't follow conventional logic.

As far as I can tell from the news coverage, there haven't been 
actual complaints about the hemp candy, not from parents, not from 
kids (even those shocked by the pungent flavor). No one says the 
product is unsafe.  It presents no threat at all - except a symbolic one.

If there's one thing drug warriors can't stand, it's a symbol that 
challenge their own symbols.  The drug war is primarily about 
symbols; illegal drugs are representations of evil that must be 
eradicated.  Illegal drugs can never be good in the ideology of the 
drug war.  That's why drug warriors still call medical marijuana a 
"hoax," and that's why political drug warriors in my state are 
stunned that anyone would be immoral enough to mix hemp oil with 
sugar and then dare to market it in niche that has essentially been 
created by the drug war.

Think about it: without the drug war, no one would care about this 
product - the press, the politicians or even the entrepreneurs. 
Prohibitionists have given life to this, but the only reaction they 
can imagine is to try and crush it.

They argue candy employing marijuana prohibition imagery sends the 
wrong message; that it's designed to get kids to try marijuana. But 
they miss the point there too: the candy is designed to take 
advantage of the "forbidden fruit" reactions that naturally occur 
when something with desirable qualities is outlawed.

If hemp candy really is some kind of monster, it's one of the 
prohibitionists' own creations. As such, it's no surprise that these 
suckers are tinged with bitterness.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake