I suppose I’m not the best person to say anything about what some people call the “recreational drugs". After all, I’ve never popped, toked, snorted, shot up, freebased, or secondhanded. And I don’t even imbibe much.

Teetotal was not exactly the straight path to social acceptance, for one that was coming of age in the sixties and learning how to go around in academic circles during the seventies. After all, we were the generation that made a religion of sitting cross-legged on the floor, passing a joint and laughing hysterically at the absurdities of Reefer Madness. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that being part of the grass circle had the same positive impact on personal income that social drinking is reported to have.

Hell, I remember one time, when a couple that I counted friends of mine thought that the best graduation present I could possibly have was a hit of cocaine. I didn’t. And it’s been decades since I’ve heard anything from or about them. Yep, I know how to pick ‘em.

We were the ones with Steppenwolf in our headphones, buying in to the distinction between the dealer in maryjane, which we were all doing, and the pusher of “the hard stuff", which only idiots did. Indeed, that was a mantra of the movement. Hey, Man. You wish to address the problem of the drug culture, stop picking on the user – that is, get your filthy fuzz mitts off us. Go after the guy selling the stuff if you wish to exercise your badges.

It’s now almost 40 years since The Pusher. And on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition today, there’s a story on the social and environmental impacts of pot growing in the National Parks of these United States.

John Walters is quoted as saying that a million Cannabis sativa (hey, I’m a scientist, you knew you were going to get the scientific name of weed thrown at you sooner or later) plants were destroyed by drug agents in just the state and national parks of California during 2005.

A speaker for the Sierra Club pointed out that, also during 2005, maryjane officially destroyed in King’s Canyon National Park, all by itself, carried a street value of US$160 million. The total operating budget for the park? US$12 million.

Ya know what? Them “dealers" with their fences and attack dogs and AK-47s aren’t raking in all that cash selling nickel bags to each other.

Guess this tells us what we really value. Eh, Pogo?

   - O Ceallaigh

Copyright © 2006 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.

All opinions are mine as a private citizen.