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Pot icon Tommy Chong makes movie of his imprisonment
reuters.com ^ | 9 10 05 | Cameron French

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."


TOPICS: TV/Movies
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To: A CA Guy
or they do what they do now, which is to reinterpret.

When they do that, you end up with terrible things such as the Campaign Finance Reform bill. I honestly think this will lead to Free Republic being regulated to some extent in years to come.

281 posted on 09/14/2005 12:17:37 PM PDT by jmc813 ("Small-government conservative" is a redundancy, and "compassionate conservative" is an oxymoron.)
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To: A CA Guy
the third falsely assumes --> the fourth falsely assumes
282 posted on 09/14/2005 12:17:44 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Know your rights
Again, start your alcohol thread.

Sounds like you are much more on the ball on that issue than your drugs.

It could be that there needs to be further restrictions regarding those that ABUSE alcohol.

You're making good sense and should get completely off the drug issue and onto your alcohol band wagon IMO.
283 posted on 09/14/2005 12:17:53 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy

Got quiet again.


284 posted on 09/14/2005 12:18:38 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: A CA Guy
You dodged these points: "And the third and fifth are problems WE cause by voting for government health care and welfare ... while the fourth falsely assumes that someone has a "right" to a pool of productive employees."
285 posted on 09/14/2005 12:23:34 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: A CA Guy
Here's what your LBJ Great Society constitutionalism has brought us.

"In the fifties, although blacks were still struggling for equal opportunities and were on the low end of the economic ladder, the black family was for the most part strong and stable. Two parent families were the rule, not the exception. They attended church together, had strong moral values, and did not comprise a majority of the prison population. Compare that to the present state of the black community after 40 years of Liberal Socialism. Our prisons are disproportionably black, unwed mothers and single parent families are the rule, black youths without a strong male role model other than rap stars and basketball players, roam the streets and are drawn into a culture of drugs and crime."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1483206/posts

Thank you, and your Liberal Socialst bedmates.

286 posted on 09/14/2005 12:24:22 PM PDT by Ken H
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To: Know your rights
#3 and #4 bears out with basic logic.

You think those on drugs haven't been while drugged up a liability?
Operating machinery on recreational drugs, are you alright or impaired?

Doesn't all these mistakes and accidents on the workplace with inferior work cost a business money and perhaps hasn't some been caused to probably close like many of the auto manufacturers? Their abuse of recreational drugs while working on the production lines are of legend in books and newspaper articles.

If you get more and more addicted and useless people, you don't think you will be using our emergency wards and welfare system to access ou treasury?

You have to have a lapse in logic to exclude my points #3 &4.

If I wanted to, I could grow that list beyond that quite a bit.
287 posted on 09/14/2005 12:25:07 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy
Still waiting for your reply:

maybe banning or limiting certain other sales in various places should be considered

That's not the general ban I was discussing. Do you support a general ban, since alcohol is currently causing all the problems you complain about with other drugs?

Just like illegal drugs are abusive from the first use

What is your proof for this claim, and how is alcohol use not "abusive from the first use"?

288 posted on 09/14/2005 12:26:04 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: A CA Guy
Doesn't all these mistakes and accidents on the workplace with inferior work cost a business money

So does alcoholism and lack of sleep; do you support a general ban on alcohol, and government-mandated bedtimes?

You have to have a lapse in logic to exclude my points #3 &4.

I didn't exclude them ... you dodged my response.

If I wanted to, I could grow that list beyond that quite a bit.

Feel free. Until then, you can't win a debate with arguments you haven't made.

289 posted on 09/14/2005 12:30:18 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Ken H
I don't think we should have had trillions in great society spending, I think from the poverty it caused you got a lot of the recreational drug users as a matter of fact.

I think we make people too comfortable who are on our system's services and if it were up to me they'd be living in an uncomfortable tent city with little privacy until they went out and afforded their own life. (Severely handicapped or elderly excluded of course)

I further think the unions have a monopoly in government in the government employment, docks and with teachers.
IMO they should be made to be paid no more than what is found on average in the private sector for wages or benefits. (Which would be a probably 40% cut in their salaries and pensions at least) Again, fire, police and military excluded since there is no equivalent in the private sector to do them justice.
What they have now is a taxpayer financed government lottery winner's ticket for life. That doesn't work either.
290 posted on 09/14/2005 12:31:38 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: Know your rights

Again, I agree that you make good points against losers who ABUSE alcohol and I am waiting for your thread about reviewing it.

Of course it has nothing to do with recreational drugs which is ABUSE the moment it is used.


291 posted on 09/14/2005 12:34:52 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy
[alcohol] has nothing to do with recreational drugs which is ABUSE the moment it is used.

You have yet to offer proof for either half of your claim. Until you do, it's just hot air.

292 posted on 09/14/2005 12:36:43 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Know your rights

There are only a few ABUSING it and I do favor big penalties and jail for them, just as I do all Recreational Drug Users who have in possession large amounts or that deal or distribute.

The druggies smoking a little pot only get a little ticket. (which is reasonable IMO).


293 posted on 09/14/2005 12:38:09 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy

Great example of the pot calling the kettle black.


294 posted on 09/14/2005 12:38:47 PM PDT by PaxMacian
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To: Know your rights

You split up what I said to make your own point.

Regular use of alcohol is beneficial and people don't get intoxicated. The alcohol is a blood thinner and purifies the food for people.

ABUSE of alcohol is the different issue.
The ABUSE of alcohol by the few is the same as ALL recreational use of drugs.


295 posted on 09/14/2005 12:40:37 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: PaxMacian

Why, you have a view that if you were sticking a needle in your arm taking illegal drugs that Christ would be giving you a blessing (making the Sign of the Cross) over that behavior?

I DON'T THINK SO!


296 posted on 09/14/2005 12:42:32 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy
There are only a few ABUSING it and I do favor big penalties and jail for them

So a guy who goes home and drinks a 12-pack every night should go to jail? And you STILL haven't answered the question: "Do you support a general ban"?

297 posted on 09/14/2005 12:43:20 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: freepatriot32

Baliff whack his pee pee.


298 posted on 09/14/2005 12:44:51 PM PDT by AxelPaulsenJr (Pray Daily For Our Troops and President Bush and the Gulf Coast.)
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To: jmc813
I agree with you that the reinterpretation stuff can be bad.

Also watering down the Constitution with 35,000 amendments so it becomes only a nice historic memory is also a problem.

It become a case of one or the other and neither makes me that thrilled at all.
299 posted on 09/14/2005 12:45:07 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy
Regular use of alcohol is beneficial

Government can completely ban anything that has no beneficial use? Tobacco?

and people don't get intoxicated.

Depends on the dosage, as for every drug; smoke a small amount of pot and you don't get intoxicated.

300 posted on 09/14/2005 12:46:00 PM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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