Since I am a regular reader of the Lew Rockwell blog, and an admirer of the man who supports the Ron Paul Revolution, I was extremely disappointed to read a post in which Rockwell says that, while he is firmly opposed to the "war on drugs," he will not endorse the Free Marijuana Church set up by Bernard Von Nothaus. Is this not contradictory, overly conservative, and hypocritical?
How will there ever be a Revolution if we don't endorse marijuana?
I endorse ganja wholeheartedly. It should not be called "the weed." Rather, it should be The Crop – the greatest cash crop for our poor farmers.
Perhaps Rockwell's antipathy towards ganja has to do with white culture, which is entirely centred around alcohol.
In India, we do not have a word for "cheers" in any major language. But we have a thousand salutations to the Lord Shiva when lighting a chillum. Our culture is about ganja, not alcohol. Read this old article of mine from the ToI archives which points out, through a travelogue, how in the "holy cities" of India, like Haridwar and Rishikesh, you are perfectly free to smoke ganja and charas, but alcohol is taboo.
In India, cannabis must be legalized. On this, I am happy to entirely disagree with Lew Rockwell. As Peter Tosh sang, "Legalize It, I'll Advertise It."
And Boom Shankar to all my readers.
Rockwell was not saying that at all.
ReplyDeleteHe was saying that he didn't endorse Bernard Von Nothaus' new enterprise.
Anyone who is a regular reader of lewrockwell.com knows that he is a proponent of marijuana. Just search the LRC archives for articles by NORML's Paul Armentano and you'll see that he often appears on Lew's front page.
Perhaps it's not the marijuana that Rockwell is aiming at but the idea of church???
ReplyDelete