An open letter to President Obama on marijuana legalization

Dear Mr. President Obama,

I recently signed a petition regarding the acting DEA chief, which has since gathered over 125,000 signatures as of this writing, and have been eagarly awaiting a response from the White House. I hope your delayed response is due to deep consideration on the matter.

 I have decided to write this letter because I am not entirely satisfied with the scope and wording of the petition- I feel much was left unsaid.
Several congress members have also sent you a letter on the subject, which makes several of the important points the petition didn't address so I won't waste the words repeating theirs.

Mr. President, you have said in the past that young people should be concerned about climate change, jobs, the economy, war and peace, and that marijuana legalization should not be our highest priority. I absolutely agree those are important concerns. But someone needs to point out that the marijuana industry in Colorado has been the most successful economic and jobs booster the country has seen since the recession, and the state has profited to extremes.

 If we should be worried about climate change and the environment as you have stated, we should allow farmers to grow industrial hemp- it's a green source of biofuel, bioplastics, construction materials, paper products, clothing, food, and more. A cheap, drought resistant crop, it would stimulate our economy from farmer to consumer.

 There is no good reason this plant should be illegal. There is nothing negative about marijuana that isn't also true about alcohol or cigarettes, except its legal status, a draconian double standard. The mere fact that it is illegal creates far more problems in the world and costs the country much more money than if it were a taxable commodity. The only ones who benefit from this system are Big Money groups.

 I understand you may be concerned about the stereotypical stigma of being our first African-American president and legalizing marijuana, and the role model you present to your daughters. But the status quo is based on Victorian morality to which most of the country no longer ascribes, propaganda and corruption from Big Money, and a legacy of racism as demonstrated by the very use of the word "marijuana," as opposed to "cannabis" or "hemp."

 I have no doubt you read the recommendation to legalize from the Global Commission on Drug Policy in 2011, signed by many respected world leaders and intellectuals. They agree: it's really in the best interest of the people. But if you're unwilling to effect that, please at least overhaul the DEA so it no longer hinders progress. If the government seriously thinks that medical marijuana involves smoking the "leaves" as the acting DEA chief said, and that's what is being sent out as research grade marijuana, it's no wonder we're getting skewed results from government approved science- it's the wrong part of the plant. Research grade marijuana needs to equal the standard of medical grade marijuana buds available in dispensaries. Period.

Thank you for your time and consideration. This affects millions of Americans in our everyday lives, and we depend on you to do the right thing.

Respectfully yours,

Raven Wildchild

Response to Bill Maher, "Why do they hate us so much?"

The other day, Bill Maher asked a question regarding ISIS that stumped his panel: "Why do they hate us so much?" It's a great question, and I'm sure the Daesh have a laundry list of reasons, but those are only excuses as to why they chose to level their hate at Western society. The real question, whose answer has fueled Middle East unrest for millennia, is, "Why do people hate?" The "they" and "us" labels translate to whatever situation presents itself.

Chances are, there are things or people you hate, dear Reader. Turn on Lewis Black, and he'll have you laughing about all the things he hates. It's "cool" to hate teen pop stars if you're not a fan, and "moral" people often think they should hate wrongdoers, so as to identify oneself as "good." So hate is pretty universal, and for some reason appears easier to identify with than love.

We see it every day: acceptable, "harmless" hatred, even expected- your job, for instance. Hatred is used to influence us and to unite us. And people who hate together reinforce the rationalisation for that hatred, and what starts small escalates. The U.S. has its own history of lynch mobs and witch hunts, and even has its own religious extremists, like the ones who bomb Planned Parenthood clinics.

People turn to hate when times are tough- look at Germany between the first and second World Wars. I think there is a primal part of our brain that responds with hatred because it's easier for the primal brain to create a perceived enemy to fight than to accept the unknown in it's struggle to survive. Part of what makes us human is the ability to rise above primal instinct, so there is always hope, but rising above takes effort and people have to be motivated to do so.

 Presidential hopeful John Kasich wants to create an agency to "spread Judeo-Christian values" in the Middle East, as he believes it will promote peace and inclusiveness. Kaish is completely ignoring a number of historical events if he thinks this will actually work, like the fact that there have been Christian missionaries in the Middle East for centuries with no luck, and like the fact that Christian nations have never in practice been peaceful or inclusive (the Inquisition and the Crusades come to mind- inclusiveness is found in secular countries, like the U.S.) Any messages we try to send to the Middle East will fall upon deaf ears unless they fit into the listeners' preconceived paradigm. That is, a Muslim is going to reject Judeo-Christian messages as fervently as Christian lawmakers have rejected Wiccan prayers to be offered before meetings.

 Really, there are a lot of parallels between Islam and Christianity. Both are Abrahamic religions, broken off from Judaism, both have a messianic figure who dictates the religion's beliefs and values, both have followers who attempt to suppress alternative viewpoints and lifestyles (gay marriage, for example), and both have extremists who are willing to become violent to "defend their beliefs."

Ironically, beliefs themselves do not need defending- truth will go on being true regardless of who believes it or not, the world will go on being round whether or not the Inquisition convicts Galileo. Boys whose mother is insulted ("Your mother is a hamster, and your father smells of elderberries!") are not actually protecting their mother from whatever the other boy said when they start the fist fight. The winner of the fight will not determine whether one's mother was really a hamster or not, and no act of violence will ever prove one's religion to be true or greater than another. The idea is childish, yet we see it regularly, if in less extreme forms. People defending Christmas? From what- the right to celebrate Chanukah or Yule or Kwanzaa? It's awfully disrespectful to insist your holiday be acknowledged to the exclusion of all others. If Jesus really is the reason for the season, listen to his preaching on the Golden Rule- if you want your holiday acknowledged, do the same to others.

But there's the problem. People get so bent out of shape about who's right that they forget to follow what their divine figure taught them about peace and love. Those people have Belief, but they do not have Faith in their God's wisdom and power, which shows it's OK for people to be different, because that's how things are. If God wanted some country blasted off the face of the Earth, the Old Testament tells believers He is perfectly capable of doing so, but chooses peace. His followers are instructed to do the same. But on some level, people want to hate, and I don't understand why.

Thoughts on Kim Davis and her fight against gay marriage

In following the Kim Davis case, in which a county clerk has been denying marriage licenses to gay couples because of her religious beliefs, I've wondered a lot how many people would take her seriously if she were not Christian but of a minority religion. If this were the case of a Muslim denying women the right to go to school based on beliefs in Sharia Law, there would be outrage. In my mind, all the recent pushes for "religious freedom" are really attempts to put Christianity above the law, because none of these activists would support religious exemptions for minority religions. Otherwise, where's my right to consume psilocybin mushrooms and peyote in Shamanic journeys, as have been used for millennia? We can thank Judge Scalia for the 1990 decision that allowing religious exemptions would cause legal chaos, with people claiming sincere beliefs to get out of every crime imaginable. How long until I have to fear for my life because someone believes "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" is still valid?