Pot “scares” DEA out of its wits

James L. Capra, chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), had to apologize twice for the elevated level of excitement in his testimony at a U.S. Senate hearing on the subject of legalizing marijuana.

“It scares us,” he exclaimed breathlessly.

Do you think that Mr. Capra, who makes his living from the War on Drugs, might be scared out of his wits about the possibility of legalized recreational drugs because he might lose his job as a government parasite charged with the responsibility of sucking the blood, liberty, happiness and joy out of peaceful, honest, innocent American human beings? 

I do.

Such a “bad, bad experiment” would be “highly dangerous” and cost the United States both socially and criminally, he whined. “I have to say this… going down the path to legalization in this country is reckless and irresponsible… I’m talking about the long-term impact of legalization in the United States. It scares us.”

Then he claimed that pot legalization has failed in every place it’s been tried. “There are more dispensaries in Denver than there are Starbucks,” he lamented. “The idea… that this is somehow good for us as a nation, that this is good for the next generation coming up is wrong. It’s a bad thing, and this body will get its door knocked on ten years from now and say, ‘How did we get where we got?’”

Gee, and I thought that the “experiment” he’s so afraid of has actually worked out quite well in every place it’s been tried. Am I missing something?

At an international drug conference in Moscow, he continued, foreign officials wondered why the United States was scaling back its war on drugs. “Almost everyone looked at us and said: Why are you doing this, you’re pointing a finger at us as a source state… I have no answer for them. I don’t have an answer for them.”

Well, I have an answer for them: here in America, as opposed to Russia and other statist oriented foreign states, we’re supposed to have liberty and be protected by the Bill of Rights. 

Capra actually choked up as he described how people misperceived federal drug agents as being concerned with small drug possession crimes. He claimed the agency was only concerned with drug traffickers. “I’ve never arrested an addict,” he crowed.

Yes, local, state police and federal DEA agents are some of the nicest people one would ever what to meet. They never hassle pot smokers, right?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), statist in chief of the U.S. Senate, said she agreed with Capra’s concerns because pot is a “gateway drug.”

I’m sure she means that people who become addicted the heroin and other hard narcotics always started out experimenting with pot, so pot in her reckoning causes heroin addiction. That’s the typical “gateway drug” argument that statists like to employ against protecting our liberties.

Forget about the fact that the exact same argument can be made about coffee, candy and ice-cream. I’m absolutely certain that every single heroin addict in America started out experimenting with and enjoying coffee, candy and ice cream before they ever got the inclination to use heroin.

So coffee, candy and ice-cream are gateway drugs too, I suppose. Coffee shops, candy stores and ice-cream parlors are therefore reckless, irresponsible and highly dangerous experiments impairing the greater good of the United States.

It’s scary, isn’t it?

But come to think about it, what does the good of the nation have to do with whether innocent people can enjoy coffee, candy, ice-cream, and yes, even pot? If someone enjoys ingesting a perfectly innocuous substance, that’s automatically bad for the nation? 

Are we all obligated as citizens then, to refrain from exercising our precious liberties simply because a group of committed statists believes it would be better for America?

You see, statists actually believe in their hearts and minds that citizens are supposed behave just like cattle and sheep when it comes to what they demand is best for the greater good of the nation.

That’s the twisted concept which causes all the human misery in statist oriented nations.

The possibility that we as Americans are slowly waking up to this reality regarding pot scares the DEA out of its wits.