The most “celebrated” distinction in philosophy is the distinction between “appearance” and “Reality”. Most professional philosophers believe that the outside world that we perceive with our senses is just an appearance contributed to by our own minds so that we could make sense of, and be oriented in, our everyday surroundings. Underlying the world of “appearances” is the world of “Reality” that is not directly perceived by our five senses, nor can it be, because what we perceive is just the incomplete and ever-changing “fragments” of what different philosophers called the “world of forms”, the “material world”, or the “world of becoming”. The less “complete” anything is, the more isolated it is from the Universe as a Whole, the less “Real” we can assume it to be, so the only “true Reality” is the one that includes everything in it, or what Georg Hegel called the “Absolute”. So, even though we can never truly “know” the “Absolute” or the complete “Reality” that such knowledge would entail, we are still justified in insisting that the more “complete”, that is the more “inclusive” any entity is, the more “Real” it should become.

How would Cannabis Legalization Movement fit into this “monistic” philosophical framework? When I first joined the Movement, I joined it as a passionate supporter of Medicinal Cannabis. At that time it “appeared” to me that the Legalization of Cannabis for medicinal use only was that which was necessary, or even desirable, as the final objective. This belief of mine was quickly shattered by the subsequent events, such as the Oregon Supreme Court decision in April 2010 denying job security protection for a cancer patient, Joseph Casias, who had been fired by WalMart for testing “positive” for his medicine that had been legally prescribed to him under the State law. Continuing DEA raids against Medicinal Cannabis facilities, as well as non-stop criminal prosecutions of Medicinal Cannabis patients all over the country quickly served to disillusion me even further as to the ultimate “finality” of the “Cause” to Legalize only the Medicinal Cannabis.

What is wrong with certain people’s (including some CA Medicinal Cannabis patients) position to keep only Medicinal Cannabis “legal” and to reject Proposition 19 calling for the Legalization of Cannabis for recreational use by responsible adults? The problem with this position is that it embraces “appearances” at the expense of Reality. Certain segments of the Medicinal Cannabis community in California, misled by the anti-Proposition 19 rhetoric of “activists” like Dragonfly de la Luz, simply refuse to see the “big picture” and are satisfied with “I-got-mine-and the-hell-with-the-rest-of-you” mentality! Little do they realize that their sense of “safety” with regard to their Medicinal Cannabis is illusory in that it is incomplete, isolated and, therefore, “unreal”.

For as long as the prohibitionists’ myth equating Cannabis with the truly dangerous substances such as hard drugs is allowed to survive, there simply cannot be any true “safety” for any Medicinal Cannabis community, not just in California, but anywhere in the World! Would it surprise us then that virtually ALL prominent Cannabis Freedom activists inside and outside of California, who do see the “big picture”, support Proposition 19?? Liberation Movements of the past also dealt with similar issues. It may have seemed “easier” for the Eastern-European anti-Communist Resistance at one time to accept the “half-measures” aimed at some “liberalization” of Communist regimes in that one could say or write “this”, but not “that”, or travel “here”, but not “there”. “NO”, said the Human Rights leaders of the time, “We want the complete freedom, and not the “fragments” of it. The Wall must come down altogether!” And so, it finally did! The same difficult decisions were faced by the Black and Gay Civil Rights Movements in this country, as both of those Movements also rejected half-measures and have continued the Struggle that is not complete even today, although huge amount of progress has been made. And the progress that is being made is firmly rooted in the principle that for as long as even one person is not entirely “free”, none of us is truly “free”!

We, in the Cannabis Liberation Movement, should learn to see the “big picture” as well. We should adopt the attitude that when any Medicinal Cannabis patient or “provider” is arrested anywhere, it is as if all and every one of us were arrested! The very same attitude is appropriate with regard to recreational use of Cannabis by responsible adults. The latest scientific research has established that our bodies and brains are densely populated with Cannabinoid receptors, that are like a “lock” into which Cannabis fits like a “key”. The evidence is accumulating that Cannabis use may not only treat, but also help prevent certain conditions, ranging from cancer to Alzheimer’s disease! The list of conditions helped by Cannabis is much wider than any prohibitionist would care to admit. So then, where does the “medical” use of Cannabis ends, and the “recreational” one begins? These lines are much more “blurred” than we may have been conditioned to believe.

Just as the other Liberation Movements have said “NO” to half-measures as incomplete and, therefore “unreal”, so should we continue our struggle until such day when an “illusion” of Cannabis as a “dangerous drug” (and so dangerous, in fact, that it should remain illegal) is utterly destroyed in our common consciousness, and the saner World of Cannabis Freedom is allowed to become our all-embracing Reality!

On August 3, 2010 Federal Judge Vaughn Walker declared Proposition 8 banning Gay marriage which was narrowly approved by California voters in 2008, “unconstitutional“. This was a great victory for the Gay and Lesbian Community, a major stepping-stone to full equality under the law, an event that was a result of decades-long struggle full of courage, resolve, bitterness, disappointment, hope and triumph. The most important reason for this decision was a clear recognition of the fact that “sexual orientation” is not some kind of a “choice”, and especially a “moral choice”, but an innate characteristic of a person, an integral part of a person’s “inner essence”. This being so, a clear conclusion follows: Gay people fall under the protection of an “Equal Protection Clause”, and to deny them a right to marry is to deny them an equal protection under the law, to somehow “enshrine” a notion that the same-sex couples are “inferior” to their “straight” counterparts.

What is even more remarkable is that both the California Governor and the State’s Attorney General applauded the Judge’s decision and now support the effort to allow Gay couples to start receiving their “marriage licenses” immediately. As exhilarating as these events are, it is useful to remember that only a short time ago (in a historical sense), some 30-40 years back, the situation was entirely different. In 1979 Jerry Falwell screamed on the steps of the Capitol (no less), that “homosexuality is not acceptable”, and his so-called Moral Majority was created with the sole explicit purpose of resisting any efforts at gay equality. In 1984 the Mayor of Columbus, Ohio actually set up a phone line for the citizens to express their opinion on whether or not the teachers found out to be gay, should be immediately fired by the City. The AIDS epidemic was pronounced by some (actually, many) to be the God’s “punishment” for homosexuality.There was absolutely no official talk at that time of “gay equality”, “gay pride”, “gay adoption” or, especially, “gay marriage”. I just can imagine what kind of frenzy a mere suggestion of “gay marriage” would have caused at that time. During the period that I referred to, it was a very “big deal” for a gay person to “come out of the closet”. Now this appears to most of us kind of funny, What closet?-we may ask, and really, the whole concept of “coming out of the closet” seems sort of obsolete now, as it is less “politically correct” now to be “in the closet” than to be “out of the closet” or, heavens forbid, to remain “in the “closet” for fear of a loss of employment. But as recently as 30 years ago most of the “powers that be” of the time made no secret of their support of the notion of “closet” and of a “social imperative” that gay people (if they were so recklessly “immoral” as to actually make this “choice”) should, at the very least, remain “in the closet” or risk losing everything.

The anti-gay and anti-gay marriage “argument” that, though fading, survives to this day is the old, stale “what will happen with our children” kind of stuff, “what will happen with our children if God forbid, they start believing that it is OK to be Gay??” “What will happen with our children” is an old scare-tactic, it is used again and again in different situations and contexts, and it is proven baseless again and again, only to reappear in a new context a few years later. “Coming out of the closet” process actually helped the Gay Liberation Movement quite a bit because, as reputable, talented, well-respected people started “coming out of the closet”, the foundations of an anti-Gay sentiment began to falter, the whole idea of tying homosexuality with “moral choices” began to crumble, and the whole notion of gay “inferiority” began to be seriously undermined.

As the “prohibition” of Gay Identity is clearly seeing its last days, another prohibition, no less irrational, no less vicious, no less fundamentally flawed, is still very much in place. This prohibition is not even about “the laws of Nature” or “moral choices”, it is about…a plant, a flower, a natural gift of Mother Earth to her sons and daughters. And the most sinister feature of the history of this prohibition is its anti-scientific and racist origins, a crazy notion advanced by its creator, Harry Anslinger, that the Cannabis plant somehow intimately contributed to Blacks being “disrespectful”, or even violent, or (God forbid), sexually inclined towards Whites. Harry Anslinger, a top “narcotics officer” and an author of Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, hated Jazz and Jazz musicians, who were mostly Black, and who naturally liked Cannabis, so he connected “the devil’s own plant” and the “demonic music” of Jazz, and made it a basis for outlawing that which had been utilized for the benefit of humanity as a medicinal and recreational substance for thousands of years.

In 1970, terrified about many of our soldiers returning from Vietnam being addicted to heroin, President Nixon declared the “war on drugs”. Cannabis prohibitionists convinced the President and the Congress that it was none other than Cannabis that was a “gateway drug” to heroin addiction, and so, without a shred of scientific evidence of this “gateway drug theory”, Cannabis plant was further demonized, declared a Schedule I substance (dangerous drug with no accepted medical use) by the DEA, and severely and ruthlessly criminalized. President Nixon’s hatred for “hippie counterculture” also played a big role, as hippies were big on “peace and love” substance of the Cannabis plant. So, what lessons can Cannabis Liberation Movement of today learn from the Liberation Movements of the past? One thing is clear: it is even more difficult for Cannabis consumer to come out of the “closet” now than it was for a Gay person 30 years ago.

After all, there was no Federal law making Gay Identity a crime, but there is a Federal law making Cannabis consumption a crime. Unconstitutional Federal law, mind you, because that was why they came up with Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, to get around the US Constitution to begin with, but the Federal law nonetheless. Otherwise, it would be extremely useful for the Movement if respectable Cannabis users started coming out of the “closet”, each one saying in effect, I am a responsible Cannabis consumer! But there is another aspect of our current Movement: there are more Cannabis consumers (and, especially, potential Cannabis consumers) than there are Gay people. And with the list of medical conditions helped by Cannabis plant becoming longer on almost a daily basis, the number of the potential users (for medical or recreational purposes, or both) is in the tens of millions.

Why wouldn’t the Federal Government just abolish the Cannabis prohibition? After all, the substance is nearly harmless, the “gateway drug theory” has been proven wrong, and medicinal benefits of the plant are overwhelming. Cannabis is also much safer than alcohol and many prescription drugs, not to mention “hard drugs” like heroin and cocaine. One reason is the old scare-tactic that is used again and again, the one that was so “effective” in Gay oppression for so many years, the famous “What will happen with our children” argument. Every time I hear this nonsense, I want to scream, Nothing will happen with your children! Absolutely nothing! Just like nothing happened with your children when the witch-hunt against the gay teachers finally stopped, and lo and behold, there are not more Gay people in the country now because of that! “But what if our children think that Cannabis use is OK”, wail the opponents of Legalization. To which I want to respond, So what? Just as being Gay is OK, just as consuming alcohol in strict moderation is OK, the very same way a moderate Cannabis use by responsible adults is OK! Just as sex education was proven to affect the ability to make safer choices in sexual behavior, the substance use education will prove useful in affecting the young people’s choices with respect to recreational substances. At least there will be an “alternative” to alcohol as a recreational substance, as there should be!

Another reason for the Feds’ stubbornness on the issue of Cannabis Legalization is the difficulty they have with admitting of how the prohibition came about. Can you imagine the admission of all the lies and distortions, and the racist rhetoric of Harry Anslinger, and tens of thousands of lives destroyed unnecessarily? Ay!! So, it is easier for the Feds to keep the lie alive than to admit to its origins and consequences. All I have to say is Get over it! The sooner this is done, the better it is for all of us, not that the people cannot access this information anyway! In the meantime, it is not surprising at all that the “powers that be” are perversely united in their opposition to legalizing Cannabis. I would be much more surprised it they immediately embraced it. After all, Cannabis Legalization is a concept calling for a radical departure from the “status quo”, and it cannot hope for an immediate assent of those who are committed to the defense of the “status quo”, and especially of the mighty Prison-Industrial Complex whose deadly grip on power depends to a large extent on continuing Cannabis prohibition.

One thing is abundantly clear: the official “opposition” to California Proposition 19 seeking to Legalize Cannabis for recreational use by responsible adults means absolutely nothing. It means no more than the official opposition to Gay Rights 40 years ago, or the official opposition to Black or Women Rights in the days past, now swept away by the relentless “duration” of existence. When former Alabama Governor George Wallace said in 1963, “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”, it would have been very difficult for anyone to admit, say, to an interracial gay relationship (can you even imagine??), but history, in its wisdom, has proven these concepts to be totally wrong in just under 50 years. Just the same, the people of the future will look at us in total astonishment: “You mean to tell me that they were actually imprisoning people 50 years ago for cultivating a medicinal flower?? Were they totally nuts?” Not all of us, historians of the future, not all of us…