Why the Fight to Legalize Marijuana Is Part of a Much Larger Populist Struggle

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/let-thousand-flowers-bloom-populist-politics-cannabis-reform



On January 10, 1965, the beat poet Allen Ginsberg led a march for marijuana legalization outside the New York Women’s House of Detention in lower Manhattan. A dozen demonstrators waved placards and chanted slogans, resulting in one of the iconic images of the 1960s: a picture of Ginsberg, snowflakes on his beard and thinning hair, wearing a sign that said "Pot Is Fun." Another picket sign read "Pot Is a Reality Kick."

The pro-pot protest was the inaugural event of the New York chapter of the Committee to Legalize Marijuana, a group launched by Ginsberg and fellow poet Ed Sanders at a time when most pot smokers remained in the closet about their recreational substance of choice. The idea, Sanders explained, was “to get people who use marijuana to stand up and agitate for its legalization.” The protest marked the beginning of a grassroots countercultural movement that would develop years later into a widespread populist revolt against conventional medicine and extra-constitutional authority.

Ginsberg sensed that marijuana, a substance essentially banned by the US government since 1937, “was going to be an enormous political catalyst.” Though marijuana prohibition didn’t deter widespread use, the funny stuff did encourage doubts about officialdom in general. It wasn’t the chemical composition of cannabis that fostered skepticism toward authority—it was the contradiction between lived experience and the hoary propaganda of “reefer madness,” enshrined in draconian legislation mandating five years in prison for possession of a nickel bag of grass.

Marijuana’s status as a forbidden substance added to its allure in the 1960s, when cannabis first emerged as a defining force in a culture war that has yet to cease. From the outset, efforts to end pot prohibition were inextricably linked to a broader movement for social justice that encompassed many causes. Marijuana was never a single-issue obsession for Ginsberg or Sanders. Both were high-profile peace activists who protested against nuclear proliferation, racial discrimination and censorship. In October 1967, Sanders and his folk-rock ensemble, the Fugs, stood on a flatbed truck and performed “The Exorcism of the Pentagon” at a huge antiwar rally that bequeathed to the world another iconic image: the stunning picture of flowers sprouting from the rifle barrels of young soldiers guarding the high church of the military-industrial complex.

[pipoman]

1. At that time into the 1980s at least

The legalization movement was almost exclusively a liberal/Democratic movement...not so much now..even conservative non users overwhelmingly support at least decriminalization.

I believe we are moving rapidly toward a populist uprising in the US and around the world..on many issues..

[Eleanors38]

2. When a party shuns populism, it becomes blind to populist issues.

Worse, it looks down its nose, referring to them as "back burner" concerns. Those groups like the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) are on the front line of activists who know their constituencies, and act locally to develop a powerful state-by-state presence with them. The Democratic Party is singularly known for its atrophied presence in many states, preferring it seems to act in a broad national manner. And when those national Beltway actions are met with opposition, it has little to fall back on. This in part explains the strategy of the MPP: They know they are on their own with a populist issue like pot legalization.

We should take a lesson.