March Of The Clones

"March Of The Clones" Washington DC 09.24.16 from Mike Flugennock on Vimeo.

This past Saturday saw yet another smoking protest at the White House, calling on President Sparkle Pony to deschedule cannabis from the DEA's schedule of narcotics and dangerous substances. This week's protest had a Star Wars theme, "March Of The Clones", and also used the famous Han Solo Carbonite Freeze scene from Return Of The Jedi as an analogy for Obama's continued inaction on cannabis scheduling.

Police vs. Cannabis: an Infographic

Ignore the anti-legalization shrieking and propaganda, and consider this little factoid: Police have murdered 765 people in the US this year – so far. Meanwhile, absolutely 0 – count 'em, ZERO – people worldwide have died as a direct result of smoking cannabis through all of recorded history.

That's right, smoking cannabis will not kill you – unless you do it in front of a moving bus. See you in DC on September 24!

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Return Of The Choom

Inspired by a scene from Return Of The Jedi in which Han Solo is frozen in carbonite in Jabba's lair, this poster announces a new round of cannabis legalization protest in Washington, DC and the White House on September 24, and calls on the DEA to "release the #Choom" -- to deschedule cannabis and free all prisoners being held for marijuana "crimes".

Needless to say, there's a lot of discontent boiling in the cannabis activist community about the DEA dragging its feet and stringing everybody along for months before finally blowing us off and refusing to remove cannabis from its "Schedule 1" list, alongside heroin. Much of the criticism is also directed at President Sparkle Pony, who claimed he would let science dictate policy and not politics, but has consistently chosen to support the failed Drug War policies which have their roots in the Nixon Administration. (The joke going around the DCMJ office is that the DEA has Obama "frozen, like Han Solo"; the term "choom" refers to Obama's weed-smoking posse from school, nicknamed the "Choom Gang".)

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The DEA's Schedule is Nixon's Schedule

The DEA schedule of narcotics -- in which cannabis is classifed alongside heroin -- was a product of the Nixon era, when the modern War On Drugs started cranking up. Tricky Dick himself, on a leaked White House tape, was said to have called marijuana "...the drug of choice of Mexicans, hippies and niggers."

Here's former White House Domestic Affairs Advisor, the notorious John Ehrlichman, with a slightly more nuanced framing of this policy in a 1994 interview:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
--John Ehrlichman, Nixon Domestic Affairs Advisor, 1994

The DEA schedule is Nixon's schedule, part of a policy born out of deception and racism. It's time to DEschedule cannabis.

We'll be at the White House on May 20, how about yourself?

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#reschedule420

We're moving 420 to 4/2 because Obama has been a big, fat ZERO on cannabis rescheduling!

So, join us at the White House on April 2 at 2pm for an afternoon of truth, fun and protest. Get more info at dcmj.org or follow DCMJ on Twitter.

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