Posted on 09/12/2005 4:36:47 PM PDT by freepatriot32
TORONTO (Reuters) - Comedian Tommy Chong has spent almost three decades wringing laughs from cigar-sized joints and smoke-filled vans but now a nine-month jail term has turned him serious and revitalized his flagging career.
Promoting his documentary "a/k/a Tommy Chong" at the Toronto International Film Festival, he hopes the film will expose what he says is the U.S. government's heavy-handed dealing with marijuana offenders in the post-September 11 era.
"The United States is under martial law, it's under dictatorship," the 67-year-old father of four said in an interview.
The film chronicles the Canadian-born comedian's 2003 arrest and imprisonment for selling drug paraphernalia online to an undercover U.S. drug enforcement agent.
The bust was part of a sting operation known as "Operation Pipe Dreams," which the film likens to a witch hunt by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft following claims that drug trafficking financed terrorist activities.
The film's producers say the federal government spent $12 million pursuing Chong and compare that to the $25 million bounty for the capture of Osama bin Laden.
Chong has been an outspoken marijuana advocate since his days in the Cheech and Chong comedy team, which rode pot culture to fame in the 1970s with films like "Up in Smoke" and "Still Smokin."
The documentary suggests the government's motive was not to rid the Internet of a mail-order pipe-and-bong business but to send a message about Chong's three decades of movies and stand-up routines celebrating marijuana use.
"DEA AFRAID"
"The DEA was afraid that 'Up in Smoke' (the 1978 movie that made Cheech and Chong a household name) was going to be around forever and ever subverting young kids," Chong said. "Now, we've got this documentary that's going to be around forever."
Faced with the prospect of seeing his wife and son -- who was running the pipe business -- being prosecuted, Chong said he made a deal to serve nine months in a minimum-security prison
"It was easier for me to go to jail and do the time than it would be to fight," he said.
Since his release in 2004, Chong has worked the ordeal into his comedy routines and has been enjoying a larger stage than in his recent past.
"Jay Leno is a good example," he said. "He had me on the 'Tonight Show' before but just for little peripheral things, never on the couch, and when this happened, now I've been on the couch twice now."
"It's like the weed culture. You just wait, it'll change. Everything changes. Bush won't be in power forever, Ashcroft is already gone. There's going to be another cycle and it's going to go the other way."
It was in BOLDED italic to indicate that it came from the post to which #100 was a response (#98). If you still don't get it, ask a grownup to explain it.
Say your prayers, don't do drugs or get drunk real regular and you will be the better for it.
Your cowardice knows no bounds.
They don't ... they embrace the freedom to commit or not commit vice as one chooses, while government limits itself to its proper sphere of defending individual liberties.
So you are saying the bold quote you posted that referred to my #100 that looked like it was a response to me was a quote in fact from yourself in #98?
Wow, that "does" get confusing, I would think you would have directed it back to #98 so we could all know what you were talking about.
Do you intend to persist in such personal attacks?
How come libertarian are so addicted to vices and not virtues? And how is being addicted to vices conservative?
Why don't you think we should shrink them by banning alcohol? (Not just DUI or public drunkenness, but a blanket ban like we have on other drugs.)
When are you "at liberty to break the law" as opposed to "not at liberty to break the law?"
Never. You might as well say "A is A". It's like listening to a 'Rat spin doctor. It sounds like they're saying something but when you parse it out it just goes in circles.
I think being drunk on a regular basis is a problem.
If it was reported that you were home drunk out of control every day by a neighbor, you might find yourself under observation in a mental ward for three days at least.
The issue then would be the question of not only are you a danger to the population, but also yourself.
You could burn yourself up smoking while passed out drunk.
Not good!
Best to join a book club rather than get into that garbage IMO.
"Never."
Thanks for the clue, but that's the same one I already had.
Typical crap, blaming Bush.
A good friend of mine was busted in 1994 for marijuana possession with intent to deliver (well, it WAS 15 pounds) and was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison (which has no parole) after he refused to roll over on HIS supplier coming up from Texas.
He just got sent to a halfway house this summer to get ready for his final release in February.
This was done under the CLINTON administration, which proves that Chong is simply a delusional Bush hater.
Personally, I think pot should be decriminalized, although not totally. But to claim that the "evil" Bush is behind all marijuana prosecutions is pure baloney.
Too bad you don't know what to do with it.
"Too bad you don't know what to do with it."
Enlighten me.
Sorry I don't have an explaination I can dumb down to the level of the punch line of a blonde joke for you.
Uh-huh.
Listen, Bill. Do us both a favor and don't ever post a message to me again. I'll do likewise. Kay?
... straight to insults, so predictable...
Got a flash for ya, studly... there were NO ILLEGAL WEAPONS OR EXPLOSIVES FOUND AT WACO. None. Not one. Nor have the BATFags ever explained how such things as the "child abuse" (a tale told after the raid went wrong and their lies fell apart) and the "drug labs" (the lie used to get TNG helo support, which was also exposed after the raid fell apart) CONCEIVABLY fall under BATFag jurisdiction. Yet these lies were handed out by both BATFag HQ and the Feebies, with a straight face no less. The whole thing was, in fact, over a tax matter of $200 or less. However, the BATFags were hunting a bigger budget and more power under the new prez who was far more sympathetic to their gun-grabbing aims than even Bush I, as bad as HE was. It was never, ever about the lies that were spread by a cooperative media and bought by the willing-to-believe morons like you.
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