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Posted by FoM on April 10, 2002 at 07:38:17 PT By Ellis Henican Source: Newsday 
So we have this cool new mayor, right? Well, you should have heard all the nickel-bag grief he was getting yesterday. It wasn't just the marijuana activists, slapping his grinning face on a pro-legalization ad campaign. That's fair-game guerrilla politics, clever and cheap.But here, in the big marble lobby of City Hall, was a bunch of goofy-looking people - reporters, City Council aides, even a couple of folks on the Bloomberg administration payroll, current and former potheads among them, I'm sure - tossing off the stoner puns like so many dying roaches at the end of a very long night. "Mayor Pol Pot," someone offered. "You know those famous fish tanks of his? Industrial-size bongs." "I have it," someone else announced. "Maybe we should change the name of the city back to New Amsterdam," a tribute to the hash-filled "coffee shops" and relaxed marijuana laws of our old Dutch namesake. Ah, New York! Or as some of these exhaling citizens were no doubt saying yesterday, after news of the mayor's giddy past had wafted across the boroughs: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, New York! Were these people stoned? Had they spent too much time on tour with Snoop Dogg? How else to explain the kilos of lame druggie jokes? All because, during last year's mayoral race, Michael Bloomberg was asked the marijuana question, and he decided to answer it straight. "Have you ever" - blah, blah, blah, blah? "You bet I did," Bloomberg told the reporter from New York magazine. "And I enjoyed it." Mike Bloomberg might be a politician now. But he hasn't lost all his frankness yet. He was asked a question. He answered it. And he didn't weasel the way most politicians still do. He didn't swear he never inhaled, like Bill Clinton did. He didn't pretend it was only "once or twice" and that he had spent the rest of his life regretting those tiny, little tokes. That's Al Gore's line. He didn't come up with a convoluted story like George Pataki. Pataki says that a law-school pal cooked the marijuana into a pot of baked beans - baked beans! - and only later did innocent George get around to smoking the conventional way. And of course it "had no real appeal" for him, so he stopped immediately. It's hard to know which of these stories is most preposterous. But could anyone doubt Bloomberg? That's what people like about this guy. He speaks with a shrug and comes off real. Leave it to the George W. Bushes of the world to bob and weave around the drug-use questions. "I was young and irresponsible" - wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Bloomberg answers the way that normal people do: Yeah - and so what? At this point, I think there are only two people left in public life who haven't more or less admitted to smoking marijuana. They are Rudy Giuliani and John Ashcroft, and that should tell you something right there. One of them spent his formative years in the Reagan Justice Department. The other, now the U.S. attorney general, spent the 60s attending Pentecostal prayer meetings and speaking in tongues. I say give us old pot smokers any day. Now let's see if we can deliver Mike Bloomberg from the personal to the political. How can we channel that lovely candor of his into a city pot policy that makes some actual sense? What's good enough for Bloomberg - "you bet I did, and I enjoyed it!" - should be good enough for the rest of us. Right, dude? There is still huge hypocrisy in the New York drug laws. It's spread a whole lot broader than the ridiculous sentences in the Rockefeller laws. Mere pot possessors, caught with tiny amounts for personal use, are still being sent to jail by the thousands in New York. Taking police away from more important duties. Turning otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals. Fifty thousand people were arrested by the NYPD for small marijuana possession in the year 2000, up from 2,000 in 1992. And so far at least, Bloomberg has shown no inclination to reverse Giuliani's harsh approach. These are people who did what the new mayor did - and enjoyed it. Questioned at City Hall yesterday, Bloomberg said he was still opposed to decriminalization. "I'm very much in favor of enforcing laws on the books," he said, responding to the new ad campaign for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. But he added: "If we don't want to enforce laws on the books we should remove them from the books." Was it a hint? A smoke signal of some kind? Maybe not. But here at last, amid the smoke and the humor, was one perfectly sober idea. Source: Newsday (NY) Related Articles & Web Sites: NORML Ad - Pictures & Articles A Potshot at Mayor - NYDN Marijuana Lobby Picks Bloomberg New York Mayor Featured in Pro-Marijuana Ad Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #5 posted by Hope on April 11, 2002 at 11:25:22 PT |
| I don't think decriminalization is "good idea" either. It's still leaving too much in the dark of criminality. I do think legalization is a good idea. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #4 posted by paul peterson on April 11, 2002 at 10:19:08 PT:
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| Oh, this is getting fun-The guy was very honest, to a tee, NORML can't resist OUTING HIM to the media, we've gotten to the point where even though the media didn't dare even use the word MARIJUANA, for fear of the STORM TROOPERS quaking their floors as they march in unison to the tune of some Beethoven rapsody or other, now we have these antilegalization people falling all over themselves usng colloqualisms and loose associations usually relegated to the guys that wear their hair like OTTO on the Simpsons, you know, the place where HOMER just announced to the world that he was HOOKED ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA in a tattered suit that looks strangely like the last suit I can still call a suit. Whew, good runon sentence, or what? So let me get this straight-The mayor of New York City (say it like those guys say it on that commercial for some kinda piconti sauce made in El Paso), that is a town in Texas, the state where our new PREZIDENTE goes home to, where he had the Prime Minister of BRITAIN, that place that is racing towards legalization, who told him that George was on the wrong side of history, etc., this guy in New York City again, says if we aren't gonna bust people we otta take the laws off the books? Genius, I say it is, its just like that FRENCH candidate that used some doublespeak to say pot aint as bad as drinking while driving (good line, if I quoted it right, oh well?). The mayorness, pulled a good one. Nobody can say that he is pushing for legalization (unless the polsters tell him he otta), the WOL's (I like that term-who made it up?) can't charge him with surrender yet (once again, until the polls tell him he might just wanna go there and pronto!), but he is holding out that olive branch, and good timing, really it is! I don't blame roach clip or nothin either-remember where he was in time, a few years ago and all- The Republicans had the first ALL DUI TICKET, Bush tacitly admitted using ILLEGAL DRUGS-I think he asked "how long does the White House background check go back?" (Just long enough for the stuff to leave your urine, stupid), now just about everybody admits that they "tried it in college" and just about everybody admits that they could grow up to be president too-even though they might have some urine hidden in the closet), except Ashcroft, of course (I'm still not sure about Asa-he seems to have this "outburst" problem, brobably a flashback thingy in my opinion-Like when he mighta broke federal law by threatening those state legislators in MARYLAND with federal busts, even if the citizens using MEDICAL MARIJUANA have valid state authorization-Asa seems to think this COMMERCE CLAUSE thingy gives him the right to bust purely INTRASTATE MM use, and he is wrong (but of course, I am no longer a lawyer because of my beliefs, etc.). So let me get this straight. Three judges in California get to set the stage for a FIRST AMENDMENT FREEDOM OF SPEECH revival, Colorado says you can't force a bookstore to tell the cops who bought a FIRST AMENDMENT BOOK, a jury in California NULLIFIED a big pot bust, even a DC judge says DC can judge for themselves whether they want MM, and we're waiting for HAWAII to sanctify the sacrament of marijuana (HAWAII HAS A REALLY GOOD CONSTITUTION AND THAT JUDGE WILL SET A BIIIIIIG PRECEDENT, AND SOON-STAY TUNED). Right about that time, snce I started getting testy in Illinois, with my own web site and all, and BAM-they sweep my web site away just like with Drano or something. Who did it, you pick the agency! I can guess a few. I'm asking the FBI to investigate this thing-what are my chances? About the same for that Mayor of New York to deny that he liked pot, thats what. So if you missed my site, I'm thinking you missed my site. That's all, and thanks for listening, really. PAUL PETERSON, alone in the LAND OF LINCOLN. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by Hope on April 11, 2002 at 00:59:32 PT |
| "If we don't want to enforce laws on the books we should remove them from the books." This quote wasn't included in any of the other articles I've read about this. Unless, somehow, I missed it. This is a great piece. I hope allot of people read it and agree with it. We need to see that this writer is encouraged! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by E_Johnson on April 10, 2002 at 11:50:10 PT |
| "I'm very much in favor of enforcing laws on the books," At what cost? You're not exactly swimming in money, dude. Well you are but your city budget is not. Why is a plea bargain supposed to be a good thing? It helps the prosecutor's office save money so that they can afford to prosecute larger numbers of marijuana users. It's like some slave in the Old South agreeing not to run away so his master can save money on chains. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on April 10, 2002 at 11:39:06 PT |
| He didn't pretend it was only "once or twice" and that he had spent the rest of his life regretting those tiny, little tokes. That's Al Gore's line. Only a toke or two. Right, that's why his nickname in his old neighborhood was "Roach Clip". The next-door neighbor who sold him his weed says he smoked it every day for eight years, right up until the day he decided to run for the Senate. [ Post Comment ] |
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