Hack Journalism and More Distortions On The Drug War

Or Why I Love The Internet Part I
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My local corporate newspaper The Lexington-Herald had a nice little article this morning on their front page about...well..basically about how wonderful that war on mari-jee-wanna is going in Kentucky. Bill Estep's article is a classic rehash of the one's you'd find circa 1980 with the old required state/federal slew of mis-information, dire warnings about the strength of todays pot, it's leading to other drugs. Estep even throws in a little item about drug money being used to buy votes, like that's a HUUUGE problem.
My feeling is that maybe someone's getting a bit uneasy about all this "prison overcrowding" talk that we've been hearing lately and decided that the sheeplepeople might start coming to some sense about that "war on drugs" stalemate that's been going on since Randolph Hearst and J.Edgar Hoover decided to criminalize one of the most harmless drugs on the planet.
Apparently the powers that be at the Herald-Leader's corporate headquarters and some government/police state/prison officials decided to nip this in the "bud" right quick. If you want to talk journalism they could have done an in-depth investigation of the insanity of the war on drugsmarijuana users. Unfortunately you're just not going to find honesty in corporate news regarding marijuana or the whole war on drugs for that matter. They might have to tell you about the CIA's envolvement in the drug trade, etc. or actually compare the real killers, or give some actual real world info regarding "the man's" approved drugs compared to unapproved, such astobacco(400,000+ deaths annually, cigarette smoking only), alcohol( 85,000, direct only). As for marijuana(zero deaths, direct), all illicit drugs(17,000, direct AND indirect). In this whole apparently government sponsored article by AgentMister Estep I found a total of three sentences by people who tried to interject some common sense into this silly and insane "lock-em-up" war on drug users that the Herald Leader is goose stepping right along with. Thanks Bill Estep you've done your job well. Good boy.
















Photo, The Enemy Within

As for J.C. Lawson, the whipping boy in Bill Estep's corporately approved marijuana hit piece. All the best J.C. I'm sure like me back in 1980 you probably thought that by now there would be some sanity in regard to pot, or as "Mister Narc" Bill Estep would call it "dope".
You're just another victim in their war J.C. Maybe someday our bought and paid for politicians and our corporate media will actually turn their eyes on the reality of this war on a percentage of their population. Maybe just maybe they'll start telling the truth and making some changes. I've been waiting since the seventies for that to happen. I'm not holding my breath now. Drug War Law enforcement is big business, prisons are big business, corporate "news" media is big business. Right Bill Estep?
Another perfect example of why I rarely read more than the cover of the H-L's front section and why these days I'm thankful EVERY day for my Internet and independent journalism.
If you're like me and haven't believed(with good reason) anything the government/police has said about marijuana since the late sixties then go here, here and here -to start- for some REAL world information. As has been said often the really dangerous thing about marijuana is that you can go to prison for it.

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