“I’ve had all I can stand, and I can’t stand no more!” — Popeye

This quote does not refer to my well-known inability to stand up after having too many edibles, but my frustration with the current state of politics as it concerns cannabis users.

We are treated as a laughingstock, even by a president that publicly claimed to be one of us.

We are sought out, profiled, and arrested.

We are imprisoned.

We are called drug addicts and losers by our own government.

Even the most unfortunate among us — who have cancer, AIDS, MS, depression, and intractable pain of all kinds — are treated in much the same manner, sometimes even judicially murdered.

Would the American public put up with this treatment if it was happening to gay and lesbian people? To Jews? To Muslims? Certainly not!

Each of those minorities have suffered persecution in the past, gotten organized, and either aroused public sensibilities about their treatment to the point where it was made socially unacceptable, or gotten laws passed or changed to insure that it wouldn’t happen again.

But we have something special that these minorities don’t have.

We outnumber them all put together.

That’s right. There are 30 million people who regularly smoke marijuana in the United States. That’s about 10% of the population.

About 5% of Americans are gay or lesbian (so 15 million in round numbers), around 5 million are Jewish, 7 million are Muslim. We could easily throw other often oppressed minorities in here, such as the Sikhs, without changing the equation.

So why do we stand for it, when the American people wouldn’t stand for such unfair treatment of any other minority?

We have the organizations — NORML, ASA, MPP, and others. Let’s all take the time to help them help us.

And for heaven’s sake, vote.

“They got the guns, but we got the numbers.” — Jim Morrison

P.S. This posting does not intend to minimize the oppression that these and all other minorities (including women and all dark-skinned people) have suffered in the past and present in this country and elsewhere. But my point is that the oppression of marijuana users is official government policy to this very day, and we must not be satisfied until it ends forever.