Pubdate: Wed, 01 Mar 2006
Source: Berkshire Eagle, The (Pittsfield, MA)
Copyright: 2006 New England Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.berkshireeagle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/897
Author: Peter Martin, is a marketing  consultant.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Sawin  (Great Barrington 
marijuana sting operation)

PROHIBITION'S LESSON

OUR MARIJUANA wars and the staggering sums of money wasted on 
stake-outs, busts and prosecutions have never been my "bag," but kids 
who live in our neighborhoods are about to stand criminal trials for 
selling and using very  small amounts of marijuana ostensibly within 
1,000 feet of a school.

Given  location and circumstance, this is a shaky argument in the 
name of "justice."  Going forward to trial on criminal charges is a 
horrific and massive miscarriage  of what justice is all about. 
First, full disclosure: I do not know our district attorney or any of 
the families or kids involved in the Great Barrington marijuana sting 
operation.

The relentless pursuit of these tenuous cases has the smack of 
posturing for political gain and, intended or otherwise, seems to be 
using tough "justice" as a device for personal aggrandizement. I 
should also note that I voted for Mr. Capeless for D.A. and have no 
ax to grind regarding his political future. Like  the silent majority 
in our communities, I believe that further pursuit of these  kids is 
wrong morally and on all other counts, mainly to curry fear in our communities.

Throughout American history fear has been a potent weapon for 
politicians to use to get elected, reelected and discredit incumbents 
to satisfy a vociferous  and well-financed minority.

All too often fear is grounded in outrageous distortions of "fact." 
Take for instance the fight in the early part of the last century to 
ban alcohol. As you review the fight to criminalize booze, think of 
the overblown condemnation of marijuana (which I believe should be 
decriminalized to de-emphasize this ancient drug and rid it of 
profits and hence crime and  eventually, such widespread use). The 
campaigns against booze included alcohol sold in saloons.

Numerous anti-saloon publications denounced saloons for "annually 
sending thousands of  our youths to destruction, for corrupting 
politics, dissipating workmen's wages, leading astray 60,000 girls 
each year into lives of immorality and banishing children from 
school...Liquor is responsible for 19 percent of the divorces, 25 
percent of the poverty, 25 percent of the insanity, 37 percent of the 
pauperism  and 50 percent of the crime in this country." League 
posters appeared everywhere  depicting the saloon-keeper as a 
profiteer who feasted on death and enslavement. Oct. 28, 1919, was 
when Congress enacted the National Prohibition Act - known as the 
Volstead Act, which took effect on Jan. 17, 1920. The Prohibition era 
gave the government a taste of what was to come and reflects upon the 
war on marijuana, certainly more benign a drug than booze. In the 
three months before the Act became effective, liquor worth half a 
million dollars was stolen from government warehouses. By midsummer, 
federal courts in Chicago were overwhelmed with 600 liquor violation trials.

In three years, 30 prohibition agents were killed. Other statistics 
demonstrated increasing bootleg trade and consumption. In 1921, 
95,933 illicit distilleries, stills, still works and fermentors were 
seized. In 1925, the total jumped to 172,537 and up to 282,122 in 
1930. A total of 34,175 persons were arrested in 1921; by 1925, the 
number had risen to 62,747  and to a high in 1928 of 75,307 (Internal 
Revenue Service). Convictions for  liquor offenses in federal courts 
rose from 35,000 in 1923 to 61,383 in 1932;  and the courts convicted 
about seven percent of those charged with liquor violations. Gang and 
individual crime was rampant. What does the Prohibition Era have to 
do with marijuana?

I have worked in Jamaica, West Indies since the early 1970s. At that 
time marijuana grew abundantly along roadsides, in the bush and in fields.

Rastafarians use it  freely as a religious sacrament; it was smoked 
openly and no one bothered the  smoker or the dealer.

Crime was low. Then the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) came to Jamaica 
with its helicopters and plant poisons and forced the Jamaican 
government to crack down on users and  sellers.

Unanticipated consequences included the trans-shipment of cocaine on 
the back of the marijuana trade; crime skyrocketed and high inner 
city murder  rates prevail.

To this day. But Jamaicans with wealth and wealthy Americans hire 
high-powered law firms to "beat the rap" for their kids; the poor and 
middle class with less discretionary income like the Barrington kids, 
are far more likely to be  convicted. And first-time offenders, their 
reputations tarnished, having been  sent to prison, are more likely 
to enter a life of crime.

So what's to be done? Mr. Capeless, certainly you are trying to do 
what is right under the law so I do not impugn your motives.

But I am hoping that you can learn from history. I  am hopeful that 
you will reflect on the sayings of Mahatma Gandhi, one of the  great 
leaders of the last century and pursue misdemeanor charges instead of 
felonies and punishment of community service instead of prison time: 
"Power is  of two kinds.

One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of 
love... Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and 
permanent  then the one derived from fear of punishment... The weak 
can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." 
These lads have learned much already and you have made your point.

As Maya Angelou, American poet, writer and actress once said, 
"There's a world of difference between truth and facts.

Facts can obscure truth." Surely, Sir, enough is enough.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom