In
the winter of 1959, Alexander Trocchi, in the dark upside of his infinite night
crouched behind his typewriter…a chair, a
typewriter, a table, a single bed, a coal stove, a dresser, a cupboard, a man
in a little wooden shack…and bared his soul to the only art he could ever
comprehend…the black liquid ink of the words he was yet to write. A (30)
year heroin addict before his death in the spring of 1984, he left an
unimaginable trail of broken lives and shattered dreams in his wake – his own included.
As with most tragic assholes, he outlived those closest to him. His
eldest son died of cancer at (15): his youngest returned to Kensington a few
years after his father’s death and jumped from the fifth floor of the family
home to his death in the street below. Before her untimely demise, before
and after the tragic death of his first son, he had aggressively pimped his
wife for money to score junk. That’s some legacy, eh?
Critics
have said that he was little more than a “junkie with an Olivetti”. Those
who see reality from a different perspective (myself included in a previous
life) speak of him as a visionary – one of the few who were able to see the
hell in which they were drowning and capture it in words. It’s a powerful
truth when one can recognize himself silhouetted against not only society’s
obvious, but his own critical light. The phrasing he employees is as
stark and vivid as anything I’ve ever read – in some respects as striking and
essential as Hemingway. By most acceptable cultural critiques, he was the
scum of the earth and there is an obvious truth hidden in that indiscreet
assessment. He was ill-equipped from day one of his life to understand and even
less equipped to confront his own veracity.
Aldous
Huxley captured the essence of a drug in a positive light in his seminal work The Doors of Perception: Trocchi
captured the flipside in a way that only he could in Cain’s Book…he gave color to the darkness that is drug
addiction. He was aware of the empty shadow in which his existence
orbited and was acutely aware of how he was perceived by his
contemporaries. His is one of the saddest stories I’ve ever heard based
on this fact alone – the great tragedy of Alexander Trocchi’s life is that it
was all avoidable and it was all of his own doing. He sealed his own fate
the first time he injected himself with the black
liquid of his own life. He once famously acknowledged that he was on
an unavoidable collision course with his own self and that he had actively
committed suicide for the entirety of his (59) years on this earth.
In
his defining work Cain’s Book, a
semi-autobiographical novel, he writes about his perception of the U.S.
government’s inept attempt to “control” drugs (remember that this is the
1950s):
I would recommend on the grounds of
public safety that heroin (and all other known drugs) be placed with lucid literature pertaining to its use and abuse
on the counters of all chemists (to think that a man should be allowed a gun
and not a drug!) and sold openly to anyone over twenty-one. This is
the only safe method of controlling the use of drugs. At the moment we
are encouraging ignorance, legislating to keep crime in existence, and
preparing the way for one of the most heinous usurpations of power of all times
…
This
is what rehabilitation “professionals” flippantly call ‘a moment of
clarity’. Even as an occasional admirer of his work, I call it the only
cogent thought he ever corralled and put on paper. Of course, the gravity
of what he writes is diminished and is easily dismissed as little more than the wishful aspirations of a heroin
addict but if you can look past that for a minute there is an inescapable
wisdom in his thought, however ill-conceived it might have been.
One might articulate any number of hateful evaluations of this man and this statement - loser, derelict, good riddance, what a waste. I
come at this from a different perspective. He would have been a junkie
regardless of any government decree. The arc of his life would not have
been altered if his method of procurement had been. In all reality, there is nothing that could have been done to save him. I’d like to spend
some time with this line of thinking and work it to the end, so bear with me if
I ramble over the next so many lines...
I think that I agree with the legalization of all “illicit” drugs on the grounds of our nation’s economic stability and future ability to sustain itself. I say not only legalize
it, but regulate it, control it and tax
the shit out of it. And by “it”, I mean everything – all drugs. (And yes, I’m aware of the
irony of starting my argument with the words of a degenerate drug addict.)
It
seems unacceptable doesn’t it? How can the United States of America be a party
to such nefarious endeavors? The legalization of any drug is too distasteful a subject for most of us to
broach in private much less in the bright light of day, but since this is my
unedited train of thought I will continue. Hear me out.
Suspend
for a bit your obvious predilection to say that drugs are bad and therefore this conversation is over. Yes,
all the drugs that I’m referring to are bad and I agree that the people who
partake of these indulgences are idiots, but that isn’t the point I’m
making. I think we could all agree that the world would be a better place
if “recreational” drugs were not a part of it. The same could be said for
the drugs that are legal though, right?
How many cups of coffee do you have everyday? How do you feel before you have the first
one? Alcohol. Tobacco. The
price of a pack of cigarettes has skyrocketed in the last few years but it
hasn’t stopped many from smoking has it? To paraphrase my good buddy Dennis
Leary, you could paint XXX on the
pack and call them Tumors and people would be lined up around the block to buy
them! Ridiculous, I know. As a smoker I can admit that. I
still pay the price and honestly don’t even think about it. The state of
Georgia reaps the benefit of those tax dollars at my own personal financial
expense and I will certainly ultimately reap the "reward" of my
own demise as a result of my weak dependence upon said “drug” if I don’t kick. If
the U.S.
were to legalize narcotics the same would be true. Know this – we do not
live in a “Just Say No” world anymore. If you believe the Mayans, we are
in the end of days anyway so let’s make a profit on these imbeciles while we
can.
That
last part seems insensitive I know, but there are already entire industries in this
country whose core principal and unshakeable foundation is buttressed by this
very idea. Credit cards are marketed to people who can't afford the
things they have been convinced by pop culture’s stranglehold on the citizenry that
they must have. So they buy the thing
and pay an additional (25) bucks or so for every (100) they spend. How
stupid is that? Turning a profit at dim-witted humans' expense is not only an
acceptable business model in this country it is the norm. It's woven into
the very fabric of the American experience. How would this be any
different?
Speaking
of “Just Say No”, does anyone remember the last time a politician of any bent
declared a “war” on an issue that they actually won? Johnson’s war on
poverty? I still see poor people. Reagan’s war on drugs? I
still see crack heads. Bush's war on terrorism - don't even get me started. As soon as it is verbalized on a public stage it
is almost certainly doomed to failure. We should take those good intentions and turn them
into something that is actually meaningful. Drug users have been using
our tax dollars forever, I think it's time we start to use some of
theirs. I see this as an opportunity to take a negative, a blight on our humanity
and turn it into a positive. Drugs will never be eradicated in this
country - it's a sad cultural fact. The "drug war" wasn't winnable from the start and certainly wasn't in the manner it which it was waged, but that's
another conversation.
In
Atlanta, our
good mayor recently lauded the strides the state has made in regard to our
employment deficiencies. We are actually celebrating the state
unemployment rate dipping below 10%! I guess in the absence of actual
good news, any news will suffice. Think for a moment about the jobs that
could be created if we were to put my plan into play. We could take a bit
of the street out of the street, right?
I
spent a few days in Denver
recently where medicinal marijuana is legal. Driving around the city it
seemed there was a “shop” on nearly every corner, with obnoxious names like
“Over the Rainbow” and “Attitudes”. While there, I saw a documentary on
this recent phenomenon and there is apparently a huge groundswell of local
voice against this newly adopted policy. Rightfully so – nothing of this
magnitude should be undertaken without full public disclosure and debate.
The piece of the piece that I latched onto was the fact that some of the shop
owners are in fact former drug dealers. One individual spoke about how
taking his “business” off of the street and into the storefront had saved his
life. Think about that…giving the hopeless hope. It seems like an
American ideal, no? Hell that is almost the definition of the “American
Dream”! “Give me your tired, your
poor, your huddled masses...your struggling drug dealers…blah, blah, blah…”
– Emma Lazarus approved.
“But
how can we legitimize criminal activity?” you might ask. “How can we
not?” I retort. IF it’s not the foundation upon which this country was
built, it certainly is the one upon which we operate today! Who has the
power in this country? You don’t. I don’t. The assholes on
Wall Street and K Street
and Capital Hill do. Just because these tools have a white collar, does
it make their activity less criminal? I don’t think so. How can we suffer
for their decisions and not endorse similar behavior? IF we are going off
the cliff (as anyone who is paying attention sees) then let’s all get in the
same car and go off together.
I
don’t think I’m being facetious when I say Legalize
It.
It
would not be an easy process. We would finally and unequivocally have to
take and retain control of all of our borders. We are understaffed to do
so at the moment (obviously). That’s job creation. A code of
standards would have to be written and approved in the Legislative by which
these new “businesses” would not only operate but be approved upon. The
ongoing activity is that there are government employees that inspect such
facilities on the regular. That’s job creation two-fold. Business
licenses would have to be applied for and approved and paid for. That’s
job creation and tax revenue. That's just the tip of the iceberg and I could go on and on, but surely you get
the idea – its snowball economics, right? Government controlled and
monitored and heavily taxed and the populous benefits by having better schools,
safer highways, stronger police protection etc. etc ad nauseum.
Can
you see it? It’s ugly isn’t
it? I submit that we are only a shy removed from that Babylon – it’s not a stretch that we should
go there. Is it uglier than where we are now? I’m not sure.
3
September 2001:
Two
“potheads” were gunned down by federal agents on their own private property. You never heard about it
because 9/11 happened just after. Tom Crosslin and his partner Rollie Rohm were
the owners and proprietors of a pro-marijuana, libertarian campground in rural Newberg Township, Michigan.
Rainbow Farm as it came to be known was a staple on the oft-ignored
‘pro-legalization’ circuit. Tommy Chong, Merle Haggard, Big Brother and
the Holding Company are among the many “known” acts that appeared at their
annual ‘Hemp Aid’ and ‘Roach Roast’ festivals. At the end of Labor Day
weekend that year, (2) American citizens lay dead and the air was thick with
smoke from the smoldering remains of the structures on their farm. The life that they had endeavored to
create for themselves and those like-minded literally had been reduced to ashes scattered around their lifeless bodies.
All
these two wanted was to live in a country, a world free from judgment of not
only their sexual orientation but more importantly their constitutional and
God-given (in their opinion) right to smoke weed. They ran Rainbow Farm
for (5) years until the powers that be finally had enough. The rumor was spread that this, by all accounts
peaceful commune, was amassing an arsenal of automatic weaponry. One has
to wonder if the final decision to move on this didn’t have something to do
with the inhabitants’ ‘outlaw’ sensibilities and their perceived disbelief in
and defiance of what was socially acceptable. Here are (2) individuals,
though not like me and you necessarily, who were true patriots and who believed
every single word of the Declaration of Independence and The Bill of
Rights. I re-read Burning Rainbow
Farm recently and I’m convinced their intentions were nothing other than
honorable. But as happened in Waco
and Ruby Ridge, their hand was forced. That’s what drug laws and gun laws
do for us. For the record, I’m strenuously against the idea of private
gun ownership. The 2nd amendment is about arming an organized
militia against a foreign threat – not arming a bunch of blood-hungry
rednecks. But again, that is another conversation, isn’t it?
The
only reason I bring Rainbow Farm into this ramble is to illustrate our
government’s misguided enforcement of an archaic philosophical viewpoint.
Archaic in that, it is not aware of the world in which we live and in which it
is a part of. Hey, I don’t like it anymore than you do, but we can’t hide
behind our Bible and throw sand at the Devil and hope that it all just goes
quietly away. Part of surviving is adapting to your environment.
That’s a hard concept for creationists to accept but it’s true. We adapt
or we falter and fade away. A. Trocchi
couldn’t adapt. Fail. Rollie and Tom chose not to adapt.
Fail. Had the laws of this country been different I’m not sure the end
result would have been. Some people fulfill their destiny in ways
unimaginable to me, but that is part of life.
There are those among us who will meet an untimely end regardless of all
other possible factors. The point I attempt to make is that bad things
are going to happen to good and bad people regardless of the laws of the
land. Therefore, I endorse and support
an enhanced natural selection process that will at least allow our tax coffers
and payrolls to be filled again. I think we should legalize all known
drugs and as I said earlier, regulate and tax their distribution heavily.
It’s
as pragmatic a viewpoint as I have ever entertained, much less embraced and /
or advocated vocally. I’m as shocked as you are by this actually. I hate drugs, drug users, sellers, etc. But I do love a cold can of PBR and his creepy cousin Camel Lights so what does that say about me? Am I different than "they" are? Are you? Desperate times
call for desperate measures and maybe we should try to think even farther
outside the box than we are comfortable with.
I don’t entertain any illusion that this would ever happen in this good Christian nation of ours. (By the
way, many of the founding fathers were Deists, not Christians – that’s basically a Pagan belief
structure.) However, I don’t think that my proposition is outside the realm of
possibility and I don’t think my new-found philosophy is so far fetched that it
shouldn’t be considered.
I
do fear that the idea of having and / or discussing a viewpoint of any sort
outside of the 1940's pseudo -"greatest generation ever" bullshit that
we've been fed our whole lives has become taboo...out of
"respect". It’s not yesterday. We can either get with
today or dive back into our sweet played memory. Either way, we should be
talking about this and about a million other things that are more important
than. This is most likely the last you will ever hear me say on this subject
because there truly are a million or more things that are more important and command
my attention. I am always interested in a debate though and if philosophical debate is dead then what’s left of this great
Democracy?
Perhaps
the only point that I wish to make is that we should be thinking...
...all the time.
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