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Of Doobies and Dubya

Earlier in the week, The Fixer over at Alternate Brain alerted us to the new study entitled The War on Marijuana: The Transformation of the War on Drugs in the 1990s, which warns that low-level pot busts have increased from 28% to 45% of the total drug arrests from 1992 to 2002. Gord then pointed to the obvious catastrophic impact this could have on the US economy as companies like Sara Lee and Frito Lay find their customer base vastly depleted.

I thought the White House would dismiss the hefty price tag ($4 billion a year) as Paul Bremmer pocket change and chalk up the overweening racial bias (blacks make up only 14 % of the population, but they account for 30% of arrests even though 74% of regular marijuana users are white) to a good start on Jeb 2008, and otherwise ignore the whole thing. But somebody thought it would be a good idea to be pro-active and unleash the Director of White House Office of Drug Control Policy John P. Waters on the media, clenching a copy of a study which claims marijuana use causes debilitating mental health problems later in life. You know, to justify the effort.

Did somebody forget to inform the irony-challenged Director Waters that his boss, the leader of the free world, the man with his finger on the bomb is a big fat fucking former dope fiend of the "Dude Where's My Car" variety who was probably high for most of the 80s? Uncharitable wonks might wonder of Director Waters if perchance President Horse Cranker must also be the victim of this inevitable brain damage, too.

While I've seen Director Waters many times this week on television touting the study, I never saw this most obvious of questions make it to the airwaves. But the irony does not seem to have escaped those retired agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration who run a site called DEAwatch:

Our esteemed ONDCP director is hitting the public circuit today with news and info that using dangerous drugs causes severe mental handicaps later in life. However, when asked to explain why George W. Bush, having habitually abused marijuana, cocaine and alcohol continues to be the mental giant he is, Waters claims that Mr. Bush used a type of weed and coke of an earlier year which posed no serious threat to one's mental stability.

Yeah... right!!!

This isn't exactly George Carlin here -- these are former DEA agents with a musical shrine to H.R. Haldeman who are not buying into this line of bullshit.

But to counter the question that Mr. Bush, being a mortal just like everyone else, could not possibly escape the brain damage and deterioration Waters claims the rest of humankind is susceptible to by dangerous drug use... Waters claims that Mr. Bush used illegal drugs at a much older age, 35,... thereby escaping the damaging effects of repeated marijuana and cocaine use his scientific data confirms people under 35 (will) suffer from.

When asked if other adults who use illegal drugs can also, like Mr. Bush, be worry-free of dangerous side-effects and diminished mental capacity, Mr. Waters replied, "No."... because George Bush was personally selected by The One True God to be our world's savior, only George W. Bush, alone, has been rendered immune to all of the psychological and neurological dangers we mere mortals succumb to from illegal drug use.

Our thanks go out to Dir. Waters for relieving our minds of any worry that the war in Iraq, social problems, economic misery, needless deaths and hopelessness caused since Mr. Bush was (s)elected are solely the fault of other drug users whose diminished mental capacities have caused them to disagree with God's appointed, George Bush.

Whew. Well, I know I'm certainly relieved. And the moral of the story? If you're over 35, and have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal savior, fire 'em up! Oh and for the record, Bill "Spaceman" Lee claims to have smoked a fattie with Fearless Leader in 1973, which would have made him 26 at the time. That probably explains "strategery."

(photo courtesy Stock.xchng)

(thanks to Ben Maisel)

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 5/07/2005 05:05:00 PM