The Freedom Fighter

It was very early morning in the deserted suburban Detroit parking lot. Parked about 80 feet from the row of closed shops, I was sitting behind the wheel of my car, drinking coffee, the radio playing quietly.

It's a good way to organize your thoughts, sitting in parking lots, watching the mesmerizing flow of traffic, and I do it every so often.

There was another car two rows across from mine that had been there when I drove up. A man sat inside, not drinking coffee, not looking particularly relaxed.

He's here pretty early, I thought. The shops wasn't due to open for another hour and a half and it seemed odd to think a man would wait that long to get a garden hose or paper towels that were on sale. A woman might, sure. But a man? Never.

About 10 minutes after I pulled in, a late model Chevy pulled into the lot's north entrance and drove straight to the side of his car.

The man got out and walked over to the Chevy's driver side window and bent his head down to say something to the driver. Reaching through the window opening, he shook the driver's hand, then put his hand into his pocket.

He bent down and said something else to the driver. And withdrawing his hand from his pocket, he reached in to shake the driver's hand again.

The man straightened his posture and began to walk back to his car. The car that had met him turned around and drove back toward the north exit. The man got into his car, started the engine, and drove toward the south exit.

Hmm, I thought, 30 seconds of interaction and two handshakes in the middle of an empty parking lot could only mean one thing: I had just witnessed one of the tiny battles that are waged every day in the War On Drugs.

I don't advocate drug use. I don't do them, and if asked for my advice, I would certainly caution most people against using them regularly enough to risk becoming addicted. But I certainly understand the appeal.

And I don't believe they should be illegal.

Even the really hard, nasty ones.

Our current laws are a joke and an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Arbitrarily sanctioning some substances, but criminalizing others is hypocritical. That it's occurring in a country that so loudly boasts about how free it is, makes it disgustingly so.

The War On Drugs hasn't worked. It's another wasteful government program and a way to make nanny-state-loving, middle-American busy-bodies feel like something is being done about the problem.

Until we, as citizens, start behaving like adults and look at the issue honestly, and our politicians and law enforcement agencies stop deluding themselves that the bullshit is actually working, it will continue to fail.

We allow alcohol to be freely sold, possessed, and consumed. So that means we agree that it's okay for adults to alter their reality if they so choose. Alcohol is much more detrimental to a person's health and far more addictive a substance than, say, marijuana is. So why have we decided that alcohol is okay, but pot isn't?

As an intelligent, responsible, law-abiding American citizen, it's infuriating.

So in thinking back on that quiet, early morning parking lot rebellion that I witnessed, the good guy won, as far as I'm concerned.

The freedom-hating oppressors were not able to block that citizen's chosen method of pursuing happiness and I was thrilled.

And whilst watching his tailights disappearing into the morning fog, I took a sip of my coffee, lit another cigarette, and silently wished the brave rebel soldier a good time as he went home to celebrate his victory.


The November Coalition

Stop The Drug War