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."
The folks in New Orleans refusing to participate in the gun confiscations are perfectly at liberty to do so. Don't you agree?
Why is limited government appropriate to savage territory but not tamed territory? If anything, it seems it would be the opposite.
Oh, jeez. I haven't read this whole thread yet. At which post does he do this?
I suppose I can assume that you do not believe that the 2nd Amendment is an absolute right then? If I recall, you did support Arnie the gun-grabber in '03.
Cool, man.
Add me to your list, BTW...
My understanding of the basic libertarian position, which I support, is this:
Freedom should include the exercise of all rights that do not tend to infringe the freedom of others.
IMO, that is not the "conservative" position, as it does not address family values. Anyway, my point is that in some "tamed" territory, specifically the urban environment, where people are crowded together, one's freedom is inherently limited by the close proximity of one's neighbors - your actions are much more likely to infringe the freedom of your neighbor than in unsettled or rural environments.
I think that is one good reason why city folk love ordinances so well, and why they are more inclined to look up to authority and vote for the party of authority, the Democrat Party. Not that the Republican Party is far behind in this respect.
Getting back for a moment to "family values," they are, IMO, within the province of families, not the province of government, as both national parties seem to imagine.
But government is still limited to defending freedoms ... whereas A CA Guy wants to prohibit restaurant owners from allowing smoking, although nobody has a "right" to go to any given restaurant, much less have it be smoke-free.
Yep, the only true function of government is the preservation of liberty. "... that to secure those rights, governments are instituted among men...
Fixed that for you, you're welcome.And I notice you didn't give the basis for your assertion that:"Chong would probably died already without law enforcement intervention. " In other words, you do follow the standard drug warrior tactic of "argument by making crap up." And you didn't respond to the question of exactly what Tommy Chong did that he should have gone to Federal prison for. And, if you pretend to be a conservative, do you believe that the Federal government should be limited in its authority and powers to those enumerated in the Constitution? If so, please point out the article giving the Federal government the power to fight a "War on Drugs," and arrest people for possessing and selling drugs and "paraphernalia?" If the government has no such Constitutionally authorized power, doesn't that make the DEA and other "drug warriors" equivalent to any other criminal gang, and shouldn't they be the ones arrested and imprisoned?
84 posted on 09/12/2005 5:58:53 PM PDT by MRMEAN
Nice take on the issue!
Thannks!
Agreed. It's a position I hold as well!
Who really wants a world where we would find that out?
Better to do the conservative things and avoid drugs, do something noble and contribute in this world rather than self medicating.
"By 1900, about one American in 200 was either a cocaine or opium addict." [that's 0.5%, for those in Rio Linda, CA]
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/demand/speakout/06so.htm
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For 2000:
"There were an estimated 980,000 hardcore heroin addicts in the United States in 1999, 50 percent more than the estimated 630,000 hardcore addicts in 1992."
--www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm
"The demand for both powdered and crack cocaine in the United States is high. Among those using cocaine in the United States during 2000, 3.6 million were hardcore users who spent more than $36 billion on the drug in that year."
--http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/cocaine.htm
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Using the figures from the USDOJ, and a population of 280,000,000, the rate of addiction to either cocaine or heroin in 2000 was about 1.6%, or just over 3X the 0.5% rate cited for 1900.
The black market is doing well too:
"UN Report Puts World's Illicit Drug Trade At Estimated $321 Billion"
That would be up to states and localities ... presumably around the same age as for alcohol purchase.
and how often would drugs be used
As Ken H poiints out above, drug use is higher now than when those drugs were legal.
"do something noble and contribute in this world rather than self medicating"
"A wise man ought to realize that health is the most valuable possession and learn how to treat his illnesses by his own judgement.
Hippocrates - A regimen for Health circa 500 B.C.
If by 'noble' you mean possessing superiority of character or of ideals or morals than I believe the contributions of the drug war to the world fall far short of such description. Moreover, no greater nobility exists than self sacrifice in defense of vulnerable innocence. A war is being waged by the greatest nation on earth againt an herb gifted by God to man and beast alike at the very beginning of time. This gifted herb's protectors, possessors and propagators are the casualties and victims of an unjust and unconstitutional war waged by the federal government upon its own citizenry. A war which has its origin in corporate manipulation of markets through government power wages on today because the most powerful of lobbies standing against this herb remains in power, OIL. There is no nobility to be found in treasonous acts perpetrated by black masked and black armored DEAmen busting down doors in the middle of the night and dragging off citizens to the largest prison population in the world for possession of a gift from God in a free country. One may not choose what herb to consume yet children are sacrificed by the thousands daily in this country in the name of privacy and choice regarding one's own body. Others fight and die to spread this type of 'freedom' and we wonder why the enemy says it is all about oil.
Furthermore, if you think it is noble to sacrifice your own personal sovereignty to the oligarchy of doctors than do so. But, attempting to force any other to do so in this nation should be treason. This is one reason socialized medicine is such a dangerous prospect.
You never answered me as to if you think the Second Amendment should be interpereted literally or if that has also become outdated.
All true of alcohol, but you hypocritically do not support a general ban on that deadly addictive drug. And by the way, the only violence associated with marijuana is due to its illegality, so if you were really worried about violence you'd be pro-legalization.
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