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a/k/a Tommy Chong

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.” “...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.” - Harry J. Anslinger, first director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotic

I want to get this straight. The federal government spent $12 million to jail Tommy Chong? That dirty looking comedian from the 70s with the big Rip Van Winkle beard, long hair, and bloodshot eyes? In the middle of our war on terror, we organizated SWAT teams to raid the home of Leo from That 70s Show? Instead of focusing our efforts on Osama Bin Laden our Justice Department targeted the guy from Cheech and Chong? What did he do, have weapons of mass destruction in his couch cushions? He sold glass bongs with his likeness on them through the mail? Twelve million dollars to protect society from Papa Roach Clip? We spent massive amounts of money and sent the dude from Up In Smoke to the big house, the pen, jail, because some stoners wanted to gaze at his face while inhaling the silly smoke? What the hell?

As a kid, I tended to ask questions that I probably should not have. Looking back, I should kept my 5th grade mouth shut. She was probably just a really nice, overweight, middle-aged lady who had accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and wanted to scare some little kids so they did not do drugs. As she stood in front of the class, she pulled out a bag of phony marijuana, the gateway drug, and for the next 20 minutes she lectured us on its evils. Finally, she finished and asked if anyone had any questions. My hand shot up. I was a simple question. “Has anyone ever overdosed smoking pot like alcoholics who drink themselves to death?” She talked about how we did not want people driving automobiles around high. I responded, “We could pass laws like we do with alcohol. My question is, “Has anyone ever died because they OD’ed on wacky weed?” More talk about how it is a gateway drug and how research was still out. I didn’t buy the whole gateway garbage, but got out my final question before I felt my teacher’s hands on my shoulders. “So, alcohol which we know kills people is legal, but pot which seems a whole lot safer is illegal? Why is that?” I never got an answer until I was an adult.

The answer is racism. Until the 1960s the white middle class drug of choice was alcohol. Hispanics, blacks, and “communists” danced with Mary Jane. During the 20s when we tried to stamp out the evils of Bacchus, thousands of middle class kids, who were otherwise law abiding, found themselves in jail cells and organized crime sprung up to meet the demand. A few years back, American historians voted prohibition the dumbest idea of the 20th century. No one cared if minority kids clogged up the justice system for a little sticky icky for nearly a century. Then the same kids who stole rock-n-roll discovered that blacks and Hispanics had something else to offer, ganja, chronic, bud, grass, Elmer’s, hydro, sensi, funk, blunt, maui wowwee, cannabis, hemp, black Buddha, doobie. Call it what you like, those people who are now just starting to spend their winters in Arizona and Florida knew what they liked when they smoked it. By the mid-70s, as Jimmy Carter was coming into the White House, it looked like America was on the verge of legalizing it. But almost 60 years of demonization was too much to overcome and we are where we are at today... the last two occupants of the Oval Office, dope smokers, billions of dollars in debt, and we entrapped and imprisoned a 65-year-old non-violent stoner.

A/K/A Tommy Chong examines John Ashcroft’s Justice Department’s Operation Pipe Dream which targeted Tommy Chong while crews were still cleaning up the remains of the World Trade Center. One of Tommy’s sons, Paris, operated a glass blowing shop and designed pipes. In order to help his son, Tommy had financed the operation and allowed his likeness to be used to sell these high end pipes that were almost pieces of art, but the elderly comedian had almost nothing to do with the daily operations. Using the Internet, Chong Glass sold these objects through the mail to all but two states, Iowa and Pennsylvania, in which it was illegal to sell such drug paraphernalia. Even though the law was not enforced, Chong Glass had a policy not to send their products to these states. Law enforcement officials pretending to be customers enthusiastically requested that pipes be sent to them in Pennsylvania and were repeatedly turned down by Chong Glass over 20 times. Finally, they personally visited the shop, paid in advance for a mammoth order for products that were out-of-stock, and promised to return in a few days to pick up the material. Instead, they returned to Pennsylvania and nagged the company for eight months until a new employee at Chong Glass agreed to ship the offending pipes, mainly because it was taking up half of the company’s storage space. (Strangely, the new employee quit a few days later and cannot be found. A fed plant?) Can we say entrapment? This resulted in a 6 o’clock in the morning SWAT team lewd and helicopter aided raid on Tommy Chong’s house. In order to ensure that his wife and son did no jail time, after consulting with lawyers, Tommy agreed to 9 months of prison time.

This is a celebrity-filled documentary, including the likes of Jay Leno, Bill Maher, Eric Schlosser, and Cheech Marin, that humorously examines one of the most ridiculous elements of our current war on drugs, the far right’s efforts to get the hippie Tommy Chong. No matter where you stand on our drug policy, spending $12 million to target a non-violent AARP pothead is government waste at its best. The rational? Tommy Chong makes drug usage glamorous for children. Let me repeat that, our government spent $12 million because Tommy Chong makes 420ing glamorous. What Pat Boone listening, magic underwear wearing, Republican cult really believes this? If I was making a poster against drug use, Tommy Chong would be my poster boy. Do kids even know who Cheech and Chong are anymore?

I believe the seeds of the legalization of marijuana will be found in the Bush administration’s efforts to take this nation to the edge of bankruptcy. When the dust settles, the government is going to have to prioritize its spending and look for new sources of revenue. An extremely conservative estimate is that our war on pot costs about $7.7 billion a year and if we legalized and taxed it like cigarettes and boozes we could take in another $2.4 to $6.6 billion a year depending on the tax rate. That is a lot of money. It is why over 500 top economists, including Milton Friedman, have called for its legalization. It is time to admit that this prohibition is a bad idea. Free Tommy Chong. What, he is already out of jail? Well, free Tommy Chong to smoke what he wants.

Verdict: A Great Documentary