The Other War

It continues:

For the fourth year in a row, marijuana arrests in the U.S. set an all-time record in 2006, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.

Arrests totaled 829,627, an increase from 786,545 in 2005. Similar to previous years, 738,916 or 89 percent were for possession, not sale or manufacture, and marijuana possession arrests again exceeded arrests for all violent crimes combined.

Close to a million people a year being entangled in the criminal justice system for smoking something that is less harmful than alcohol: and this isn't even on the table for discussion in the election. Mercifully the crazy policy - against hemp farming as well - has some opponents speaking out. No, not hippies: farmers in North Dakota:

In one of several legal actions that cut to the core of the principle of states’ rights in challenging the federal government’s authority to prohibit states from legislating limited use of a comparatively harmless substance like marijuana and a completely harmless substance like industrial hemp, North Dakota farmers Wayne Hauge and Dave Monson filed filed a lawsuit against the DEA.

The federal agency says that it’s merely enforcing the law.

The farmers say comparing industrial hemp to marijuana is like comparing pop guns and M-16s. They’ve successfully petitioned the state legislature of which Monson is a member to authorize the farming of industrial hemp.

Vive la resistance.