NJWeedman’s Passing the Joint: New Jersey’s marijuana activist goes mainstream
So bring it on.
Of all the newspapers in New Jersey, The Trentonian has been the most receptive to my cause, and so it makes sense it would be the publication to enable me to reach out to the public like this. For that I’m grateful and yes, I lit up an “illegal” phattie and ate a THC-infused brownie banned by Governor Christie to celebrate.
Today, I want to introduce and explain myself to the readership. I want you to understand where I’m coming from and where I’ll be going with this “Cannabis Column.” I’m not only a marijuana activist — I’m a black man. I’ve dealt with the racist aspect of this government-declared war firsthand, and I speak out about it.
Background: Little has changed between what I say now and what I said back in 1999 when The Trentonian’s Jeff Edelstein first wrote about me. The government’s claims of marijuana’s harms and dangers are a clear and blatant lie. This lie has been used to imprison millions, mostly those with dark complexions. To me, the drug laws have always been racially driven and enforced no differently than the Jim Crow laws that were enacted after the Civil War. Whites who get arrested are simply collateral damage.
I consider this a righteous cause, and to borrow a quote from Malcolm X, it’s “By any means necessary.” I’ve brought discussion to this issue with my methods. Over the years I’ve initiated plenty of tactics and antics to get media attention and government reaction. Example: Smoking a joint in the State House in front of the entire State Assembly. Like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I also believe in peaceful civil disobedience. (I can’t wait to hear the feedback from the black Bible-thumpers about that comment.)
Cannabis is one of the safest therapeutic substances on the planet and our nation’s drugs laws in general — and our marijuana laws specifically — are racist and have been used to fill the prison-industrial complex with brown faces by design. It’s no mistake we’re nearly four times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana, according to an ACLU study.
To those who say, “Why don’t you just shut up and move out west? Why do you want to write and stir the pot even more? Why even be in New Jersey?” I say I did — in 2007 I moved to Los Angeles and yelled at New Jersey lawmakers from afar. But the DEA raided my legal marijuana business in December of 2011 - at the behest, I believe, of the Christie administration and the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office — putting me out of business, destroying my Hollywood life, and prompting me to come home to New Jersey and renew my fight.
Over the years I’ve confronted our racist drug war with limited resources and tried to raise awareness and support for this cause. Getting to write this column is my greatest activist accomplishment. I’m extremely happy and grateful to The Trentonian for giving me a legitimate mainstream media voice. Expect me to use this column to continue speaking out.
THIS OPINION WAS PUBLISHED BY THE TRENTONIAN -
http://www.trentonian.com/opinion/20140806/njweedmans-passing-the-joint-new-jerseys-marijuana-activist-goes-mainstream
