read, im stonedf

By Cletus Nelson



The tactics used by activists to voice their dissent against the prohibition of marijuana have changed very little since the 1960s.

Despite the fact that the drive to legalize cannabis began in an environment that spawned such violent, armed groups as the Weather

Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), today's hemp advocates are firm adherents to the peaceful protest.



Each year a myriad of non-threatening marches, candle-light vigils, demonstrations, and sit-ins are held in the hope of ending the herb's illegal status. Although the tireless efforts of these many tie-dyed

warriors are to be commended, the war against America's pot smokers keeps escalating.



Casualties of war



The government's own statistics betray this fact. Consider the FBI's 1995 Uniform Crime Report, which shows a record 600,000 Americans

arrested on marijuana charges. Of these, 86 percent were charged with

the simple possession of a substance that has caused far fewer

fatalities--zero, to be exact--than alcohol, tobacco, prescription

medications, or aspirin.



Will Foster is a living example of a victim of the hysterical anti-pot

crusade popular among politicians. The father of three and successful

owner of his own software company sits in an Oklahoma prison after being

handed a 93-year sentence for the "crime" of growing a few plants to

help assuage his painful arthritic condition. High Times magazine

reports that over 25 percent of the 1,630,000 prisoners in America's

prisons and jails are doing time for drug crimes, with the majority of

these non-violent offenders serving sentences for growing or possessing

marijuana.



"In 1994, at least 25 marijuana users were killed by police officers or

died while in custody," hemp activist Ed Rosenthal notes in "Why

Marijuana Should be Legal." This statistic alone gives evidence that

these laws which were originally intended to protect the health of the

public have long since strayed from their dubious goal. As the criminal

prohibition of a herb that has yet to be linked to a single death

continues, those who aren't arrested (or dead) often live in constant

fear of anonymous tips, urine tests, asset forfeiture, and other

components of the "zero tolerance" juggernaut that continues to

victimize law-abiding citizens.



Fighting the police state



Today, many a casual smoker must fearfully wonder if a paramilitary team

of black clad "no-knock ninjas" brandishing semi-automatic weapons will

break down their door in a dramatic pre-dawn raid. Out of this miasma of

fear, oppression, and intolerance emerge the Green Panthers.



Shifting their focus from protest to resistance, the Panthers--referred

to as the "fanged mouthpiece" of the hemp movement--are adjusting their

tactics to a drug policy they predict will one day devolve into outright

bloodshed on the cannabis using community. They openly reject the

posture of non-violence and pacifism adopted by their ideological peers

and have given up trying to "change the system." This loosely based

cadre of activists is boldly choosing to move in a different direction.



When a militia ... isn't a militia



Fiercely asserting their Second Amendment right to bear arms, the

Panthers represent an interesting social phenomenon: They are the first

marijuana group preparing to openly espouse armed rebellion against

federal drug policy. Their strong defensive position is not unlike

today's burgeoning patriot movement. Although the two may share a common

mistrust of the federal government and a firm belief in the right to own

and bear arms, Terry Mitchell, one of the founding members of the

Panthers, finds the comparison inaccurate.



"We found with very few exceptions--[members of] the militia movement

think the drug war is a good idea," he scoffs. The WACO siege, a

rallying cry for militia groups, registers little with these new-model

pot heads who have a strident dislike of drug war supporters. "As a

group the Panthers have very little sympathy for them [Branch Davidians]

because they were anti-druggies--Heaven's Gate, too," Mitchell says.

Opinions such as these have not endeared him to local patriot groups and

he says they have threatened his life on four different occasions.



However, they aren't dealing with your typical bong-toking peacenik. "I

can shoot the asshole out of a rat at a thousand yards," snaps the

native Texan.



Pipe bombers?



Headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, these hard-liners are mainly recognized

by drug policy activists for their incendiary publication Revolutionary

Times. However, if events occur as they predict, they may be the forward

guard in a revolution among the nation's tokers. The Panthers foresee a

time when stoners will be forced to take up arms for their right to use

what they call the holy herb.



"The actual dynamics of an armed struggle haven't formed up yet," says

the 47-year-old activist. Articulate, well-read, and politically astute,

Mitchell is emblematic of a growing segment of society who at one time

"played by the rules," but now view the Washington establishment as

corrupt, and any attempts to change the system futile. Far from a

backwoods political neophyte, the ex-'60s radical carries extensive

experience as National Director of the Libertarian Party and in 1988

served as Assistant Director for the Washington, D.C. office of the

National Organization for the Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML).



Armed pot-riots



The Panther finds no ethical dilemma in activists arming themselves. "We

think an armed society is a polite society," he says in his rich Texas

twang which crackles over the phone like machine-gun fire. Mitchell

believes the virulent anti-gun stance found among the modern left is

unrealistic in the post-WACO 1990s.



"That actually is some hangover politics from the '60s," he observes.

Above all, Mitchell says the Panthers hope to sound a much needed

wake-up call to those who still believe these pernicious laws can be

reformed.



"What we're trying to convey to the pot movement is that the system

isn't the one we grew up with. ..the Tenth Amendment is a myth," he says

bitterly.



Birth of a movement



The genesis of the Panther weltanschaung began ironically in the

backyard of the nation's most powerful drug war hawks. Some eight years

ago, a small core of firebrands gathered in Washington, D.C., hoping to

provide a "new wrinkle" to end the senseless criminalization and

harassment of America's estimated 10,000,000 pot smokers.



Seeking to provide tools, strategy and political focus to other groups

across the nation, they began to study the tactics used by fellow

dissidents with other agendas.



"We had to get out the narrow focus of the pot movement," Mitchell says.

Analyzing the methods of such successful political factions as Aids

Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP), Queer Nation, and Earth First!,

Panther experts came to an interesting conclusion: The entrenched powers

had quickly learned how to nullify these confrontational tactics, which

the Panthers are convinced have become obsolete.



"Our enemies learn real fast--you try these methods of direct action now

and you'll get zilch," he says heatedly.



Birth of a nation?



Their continued studies led the Panthers to come upon what Mitchell

calls an "endgame strategy": secession. "Once the US starts to rumble

like the old Soviet Union did, that is when our people have the biggest

opportunity in our cultural history," Mitchell says enthusiastically.



He envisions a day when a repressive federal government will declare

martial law, and the nation will be plunged into civil war--not unlike

the post-Cold War conflicts that arose in many nations, such as the

former Yugoslavia. When this time comes, the Panthers plan to be

prepared.



The armed pot smokers and their supporters hope to stake out a coastal

strip of land 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean beginning due north of San

Francisco and extending 10 miles south of Portland. If they succeed,

they will create what they call the first "Stoner Homeland."



The nation will be based on libertarian values, community-based

government and the Gross National Product will be high quality

marijuana, and the many other products which can be produced with the

versatile Cannabis sativa plant. Mitchell is a fatalist who is convinced

this is the only choice left for the pot community.



"If we don't win, nothing is lost. We were marked for extermination

anyway," he says.



A trend toward secession



Today's post-modern mindset may find such an idea laughable, but a

number of similar movements already dot the national landscape. The

Nation of Islam, the Aryan Nations, and the well-publicized Republic of

Texas are the most visible examples of the many divergent factions who

view secession within America's borders as the only antidote to an

oppressive federal government.



The national Libertarian Party has noted this growing trend; their 1998

platform includes a plank calling for the "right to political

secession--by political entities, private groups, or individuals."



The Panther's designated homeland was chosen for a number of reasons

other than the high-quality buds indigenous to the region. Mitchell's

previous experience with NORML and the Libertarian party gave him

insight into the marijuana-sympathetic demographics of the Pacific

Northwest. While examining databases for both organizations, he found

that the majority of the nation's libertarians and card-carrying members

of the pot legalization lobby reside in this small section of the

country.



There is already a steady flow of bud smokers who have been relocating

to the Pacific Northwest since the 1960s to escape draconian marijuana

laws in their respective states. Terry believes the recent increase in

arrests has exacerbated this trend.



"According to our sources in the areas, the migration has sped up

considerably over the past five years due to the Drug War-- with

property seizures being the way they are, they have fewer things to move

anyway," he comments.



The new prospective country already has its own set of by-laws based on

the U.S. Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, and other landmark

documents.



"Some of the best forward thinking minds came up with the by-laws," he

says.



Will the armed Panthers expect resistance from the government when they

declare their sovereignty? Mitchell doesn't expect it to be an obstacle.



"When our roadblocks go up on the highways and our voices start coming

over the radios and televisions ... we expect most of the cops and

National Guard will have left their non-paying jobs and there won't be

much trouble with them," he says optimistically. Those who choose to

remain and possibly obstruct the new homeland will be promptly asked to

leave.



"This will probably not be pretty," Mitchell says. "But it is a

political imperative. This calls for leadership that has nerves of steel

and an iron determination not to be stopped," he adds.



Maintaining the network



Currently, the Panthers believe the first step in achieving their

homeland is providing vital intelligence to other dissident groups who

stand opposed to the War on Pot. Their efforts include their unique

"diagram of the war on drugs."



Posted on their website, the chart tracks major anti-drug policy from

the United Nations Office of Drug Control Policy in Vienna, Austria all

the way down to what they term "snitch groups," like the Girl Scouts of

America and Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) Mitchell says the

schematic that alleges the United Nation micro-manages US anti-narcotic

policy was originally met with skepticism by the reform community.



However, Terry points out that Global Days, a series of demonstrations

held worldwide in June to protest the UN's role in drug prohibition, was

directly influenced by their efforts. "



"A lot of people thought we had made it up--now we're starting to see a

real focus," he says.



The information war



Gleaning information from teachers, scientists, police officers,

military veterans, prisoners, and others, the Panthers publish

Revolutionary Times (formerly the Revolutionary Toker), providing

excellent coverage of the drug war. The small periodical scooped Time

magazine and their non-mainstream competition last year when it

reported on experiments conducted on behalf of law enforcement in the

use of allegedly "non lethal" weapons, such as infra-sound technology.



Their publishing house, Panther Press, sells important survival

materials for the '90s pot smoker. Like a pot-focused Paladin Press, the

Panthers distribute publications on building resistance groups,

surviving police encounters, "guerrilla growing," cold weather survival,

and other vital resources for renegade bud smokers. They also furnish

free legal referrals for busted potheads, and their POW support project

raises the awareness of the prison population by sending free copies of

Revolutionary Times to inmates.



On toward a "Stoner Homeland"



These many activities lend credibility to a group of activists who

appear to take themselves and their mission seriously. Could we one day

see a stoner homeland enriched by hemp-related commerce flying their own

flag--a white field bearing a large green pot leaf?



Mitchell hopes that if enough people get involved, America's "last

outcasts" will join them in fighting for their "light at the end of the

tunnel."



"I believe that the odds for the pot culture are better now than they

ever have been for the formation of an independent Homeland," he says.

Mitchell grimly foretells a day when many will be faced with the choice

of joining the Panthers or death.



"It's either gonna be a Stoner Homeland or a stoners last stand," he

warns.



(Note: This article has been printed in several magazines and the

newspapers of large cities.)