Sunshine with a nice, warm breeze this Wednesday morning on California’s north coast — another wonder day, with maybe a ‘Slight Chance Rain‘ tomorrow night and into Friday, but not much expected.
Weather the day…

And of course, today is another ‘4-20’ episode, code for inhaling marijuana — as says Steve Capper, one of the original “Waldos” in famous pot origins (this morning at SFGate): ‘“It’s humorous, it’s amusing. For a large part of people, it’s just fun.”‘

Indeed, a lot of shit will be smoked today, especially in public places, illustrating by contradiction the original reason for the numbers — secrecy.
Marijuana is still classified as Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the most restrictive category, right up there with heroin — more than a generation after the ‘Waldos.’

(Illustration: ‘Cannabis and Politics,’ by Denis Marsili, found here).

As in that space of time — a sham. A political sham, reinforcing racism and pure-horrible bullshit.

A quick history of pot reality at EliteDaily, also this morning, including this horror from the 1930s via Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics:

There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers.
Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use.
This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.
Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.

Pisser.

In 1937, the Marijuana Tax Act was passed by Congress, and remained in place until 1970, when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.
Congress took up the mantle and passed the Controlled Substance Act to replace it, and listed marijuana as a schedule 1 narcotic, classifying it as a drug with zero medical benefits.

Worse maybe, closer to home — in 1994 John Ehrlichman, Dick Nixon’s chief domestic advisor and who served 18 months in prison for his central role in the Watergate scandal, let loose a truth-bomb about lying.
He’s quoted from a detailed story on the disastrous ‘war on drugs‘ at Harper’s this month:

“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect.
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people.
You understand what I’m saying?
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.
We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs?
Of course we did.”

Celebrate today every day…