|
How Marijuana Changed My Life
From Straight Lace CIA Candidate to
Radical Hippy Freak Protester
By Wild Bill Big Ox Johnson
How did I become Protester? At first I
easily could have become a candidate for a job with the Secret Service or
Central Intelligence Agency.
While growing
up, I often played James Bond prototypes and I often envisioned becoming a
spy for the United States of America. I even had a patriotic edge getting
involved in politics during my young teenage years, campaigning for the
likes of Hubert Humphrey for President and helping to get elected the first
black state representative, educator Linton Malry, in the New Mexico House.
And as a
competitive swimmer, I could have pushed myself to take a lane next to the
greatest like the Michael Phelps of today. I could have been a cog in the
wheels of establishment and made out like a bandit, smoked Cuban cigars,
drank the best brandy and screwed the likes of Paris Hilton.
But marijuana
would change my life and steer me onto a path I never anticipated while
dreaming about the delusional glamour and glitter of a fast action life
while being the perfect war machine robot. And perhaps the substance of
prohibition and vile unjust punitive measures for those who risk using it
even saved my life, and more than once.
So just how
did a straight-lace athletic jock with above average intelligence instead
become the guy in front of a camera exposing the indecencies and obscenities
of corporate fraudsters and corrupt government officials? I could have
chosen to walk among the rich and famous on easy street, but instead I chose
the thorny path and thus bore the consequences for defying The Man, the
puppet of the elite and oligarchy that imposes and enforces inane, insane
laws that bare no victims. Neither individuals nor the state can lay claim
to damages that pot may have caused them because marijuana is merely an herb
that was written into the script of Genesis as not only being among God’s
creation, but as being “good.”
So,
Protester, the channel for which I operate on both the YouTube and
MicroCandy DOTCOMS of the internet, is who I became even though while
studying journalism three decades ago my grandparents expressed they hoped I
would NOT become one of those muckrakers. But that’s exactly what I did
become in my reporting days for newspaper, radio and electronic media. I
would constantly swim upstream in difficult waters trying to fish out the
garbage that has been polluting our government and business climate.
Police, sheriffs, judges, politicians, elected officials and the rich and
famous would always be a target of my scorn and exposure. While they secure
their cushy comfort zones locking out the mainstream folks who put them
there, I will be there screaming at them for their sins against mankind. And
one of the biggest mistakes of The Man was to defy God’s creation and cast
marijuana into a negative light as did newspaper tycoon William Randolph
Hearst in protecting his own greedy interests, as did Dupont, pharmaceutical
companies and all of the other obstructionists of nature and progress when
they managed to lobby successfully for marijuana’s criminalization. And
here is the crux of my story.
I owe my debt
of gratitude to the very substance that made me an outcast of mainstream
society – marijuana – and perhaps by choice. But really and truly, it is
prohibition itself that is responsible for knocking me off my ambitious
career path and casting me into a world of radical bliss.
But it wasn’t
that way at first, choice that is. I would be targeted as one of the
political outcasts of the early 1970s, the day when protest was a daily part
of American life, considering the demands of the unpopular Vietnam
Conflict. It may sound complicated, but it really is not when considering
the fact that I was a virgin and had never used pot when my swim coach of
several years decided NOT to interrogate me, for interrogation would have
resulted in truth telling and a much more desirable and favorable outcome
for me.
For the truth
is I never had used pot or even considered it as I was a jock swimmer and a
so-called newborn Christian who hung out with the evolving Christian youth
movement, rather than meddle with the regular Protestant Sunday church
goers. I guess they called us Jesus Freaks at the time and that was fine
with me. But sometimes the connotation of freak itself was likened to the
Hippy movement of the mantra of peace, love and dope. So somehow my beliefs
and lifestyle got caught up in the crossfire of confusion.
Swimming on
the Heights YMCA team in Albuquerque in the 1960s was just like being a
member of the church, except the demands of the sport were much greater than
what one could expect at Sunday school. Michael Phelps will tell any
Olympiad hopeful that it was his hard work and dedication, even his love for
the sport of swimming that earned him eight gold medals.
For me,
swimming competitively in the 1960s was like a religious order that required
one hundred percent of my time, energy and focus. For the swimmers who
aspired to be the best, swimming was god, and Gold Medalists Don Scholander
and Mark Spitz were our idols of the day. We lived it, we breathed it, we
dreamt it day and night. We all wanted Olympic Gold and knew we had to work
hard for it.
So, for most
of us who swam for greatness, marijuana was absent from our lives, most of
us had never even seen it before, and that was me. Of course, Michael Phelps
is the exception and his public display of smoking pot after his
eight-gold-medal win last year only confirmed for me and the rest of society
that marijuana is NOT dangerous – in fact, marijuana is our friend (but I’ll
get to that subject later).
But somewhere
along the gutters of the pool I found a void and tripped over into
unchartered, unexpected waters. I first found sanctuary in Young Life, a
Christian youth group. Eventually I would find a niche in a church that
catered mostly to the young believer.
The Answer,
located just a block north of the town’s tallest building at the time, the
First National Bank of Albuquerque, became my spiritual home, so to speak. I
spent many hours there after school and during weekends, even as the busy
swim season was in progress. Rockers were the musicians at The Answer, and
they sang Christian Rock, if there was such a genre. The Answer also manned
a 24-hour phone line for people in distress one way or the other, either
from drug overdose, addiction or suicidal thoughts. I became a volunteer for
a short time and manned the phone a few occasions, becoming a phone pal with
suicidal maniacs.
Apparently
the Establishment did not like that The Answer was becoming more and more
popular and drawing youths from their traditional congregations. Even
television news was zooming inside the doors of The Answer. Somehow the
rumor got out that marijuana was being used in The Answer facility.
I faintly
recall the structure – it was wide and open and probably had very few secret
compartments except perhaps for the restrooms. And the prayer room upstairs
was just as large and open. I simply never recall any incident in which
marijuana had been used inside The Answer while I was there but I never got
to explain my story or my side to my swim coach.
After one
particular winter evening swim practice, Bill Spahn gave me the ultimatum
that I either quit swimming or quit my church because he had heard about pot
being used there. I froze in shock, I became speechless for just a moment,
and then I stated, “I quit swimming!” I couldn’t believe it, I just quit
the sport I love and never loathed. I was to become among the greats of the
day and suddenly it looked as though that opportunity shut its doors on my
face. BANG! You’re dead from the swim world, good riddance Billy Boy!
This never
should have been an option of the Young Men’s Christian Association to give
young men like me, then only 16 years old, the option to quit swimming or
quit my religion. It did not click in my head immediately that a First
Amendment infringement crossed my path, but I would never pursue civil
action against Coach Spahn or the YMCA.
This lesson
as such helped me to eventually see the light of day and clear through the
hypocrisy. At the time, Coach Spahn meant everything to me, he was a father
figure for a team player whose parents had divorced, a boy seeking a role
model, a hero to emulate. And he would betray me over a stinking rotten
rumor, a lie, a deceit, because the Establishment would drop dead over the
idea of a successful “Hippy” church evolving in their conservative,
authoritative town.
As such, I
would be branded among the pot users of the day although up that point in my
life I never even so much as seen it in my presence, never mind inhale it my
lungs.
Only a couple
of months after high school graduation and immediately after attending the
Young Life summer camp in Silverton, Colorado, for which I had been saving
all summer long doing odd jobs, a couple of friends showed up at my house
for a barbecue dinner. My mother was out of town and my brothers weren’t
home at the time. Together we cooked up tasty steaks and then a batch of
Alice B. Toklas brownies, first frying the ground-up pot in butter before
tossing it in the mix.
I got stoned
out of my mind with my few friends while listening to Led Zeppelin and other
rock heavies, perhaps even Black Sabbath, which tended to make me feel a bit
paranoid. It was the first and only time I experienced pot and vowed never
to do it again, afraid as hell that it could ruin my ambitions in life. But
I would later learn for myself the paranoia is merely a product of
prohibition, not of the substance itself.
And here is
where all of my troubles, actually blessings but I would not know this then,
began…
I had signed
up for enlistment in the US Navy in June after my high school graduation in
1972. I had thought during my spiritual development that perhaps I was a
conscientious objector, believing that I could never serve in the military
because I thought wars were stupid and killing was inconsistent with the
laws of the Creator. And I still do think that. But I decided to enlist
anyway because my mother would never be able to afford to send me to college
while taking care of my paraplegic brother, who was crippled in a car
accident in 1971. And on the plus side the military service then offered GI
Bill benefits, including for education.
At first I
wanted to become a Navy Seal, but during Boot Camp my feet and legs became
infected through blisters, tight Navy-issued boots and black-dyed socks. I
easily passed the swimming and physical agility tests, including 10
chin-ups, but when it came to the mile run, well, I asked the examiner
whether I could run barefoot because my boots were still a problem for my
healing feet. “No,” he said, I had to run with my shoes on and it ended a
quarter mile into the run. So instead I was to become a Russian language
communications tech requiring top security clearance.
I was already
seven months into the yearlong Russian course at the Defense Language
Institute in Monterey, California, when my security clearance was denied,
based on an interview that I had with a National Security Agency (NSA)
officer. So, I would NOT become a Seal, I would not become a Communications
Tech. Instead I would become a Navy hospital man, otherwise known as
Corpsman, following both the footsteps of my oldest brother Greg and
comedian Bill Cosby.
Before
skimming over the radicalization of my life during my naval hospital stint,
I simply cannot continue this story without first explaining the reasons my
security clearance was denied. It was NOT because I had done marijuana one
time in my life. Many people with whom I was training said they too had done
pot one or more times and had confessed to military authorities. No, the
reason my security clearance was denied was because I refused to tell them
who my friends were that got me high.
The inquiry
got too damned personal for me and it struck at my comfort zone like
electric shock therapy. I asked the NSA dude, “Do I have to tell you who my
friends were that got me stoned on pot?” His reply: “No. End of interview.
You’ll be hearing from us soon.”
Well, the
truth is, I did have to tell him everything, especially who the friends were
that got me stoned, if I wanted to continue to become the Russian
communications tech the Navy was training me at American taxpayers’
expense. The reason then for the denial of my security clearance was not
because I did pot, but because I refused to cooperate. And for that I am
extremely grateful to this day that I never told them who my friends are
because that, to me, simply would have been UN-American, unpatriotic, to rat
on my friends. They committed no crimes and neither did I. I am the one who
chose to eat the brownies laced with pot. America, the land of the free and
the brave…
So, I finally
became what others would brand and define me falsely in my early walk of
life, a pot smoking hippy radical freak. But I didn’t know it… yet, anyway.
I would find out through the rest of my Navy life of four years that people
who serve have a propensity for vice and a majority of the people I knew
turned onto pot to escape the realities of military life, the Vietnam
Conflict and domestic strife that surrounded the anti-war sentiment. Thus
the marijuana leaf and peace sign became the icons of the hippy movement and
even soldiers kept their posters locked away during room inspections.
I would
eventually find through years of partying with other potheads that marijuana
itself never posed a danger to anyone or society. And the health risks also
appear miniscule when comparing marijuana to something really poisonous like
alcohol or tobacco. I never understood the tenets of just why it was
illegalized until Jack Herer made the issues of criminalization clear in his
book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes. And so it is by no mistake that
eventually I would have to come to the conclusion that the only thing
dangerous about marijuana is prohibition itself. It is dangerous to the
individual user only when one gets caught and charged with an unjust
criminal indictment, facing imprisonment. And to society, prohibition is
dangerous because it has created a lucrative black market and criminal drug
cartels that have resorted to murder and terror.
Marijuana
can’t be blamed here. It is the victim. The victim of a horrible propaganda
war paid at innocent taxpayers’ expense. For if the truth were to
proliferate beyond the eyes of the people and interject into the minds of
Congress, marijuana would not only be decriminalized and legalized, it would
become the focal renewable resource for new and existing hemp industries –
as well as medical and recreational marijuana standards - to evolve.
And as for
me, I believe that marijuana saved me from the fate of becoming a fat lazy
spy for the CIA and never knowing the exciting life of discovering the truth
through a successful journalism career, which would not have been remotely
possible had I become a pigeon for navy intelligence. And even though I
never have been arrested on any marijuana charge during my 35 years of
usage, prohibition and nothing but prohibition caused my whole ordeal: first
with my swim coach Bill Spahn’s ultimatum that I quit the team or quit the
church where he needlessly suspected prohibited substances - especially
marijuana -were being used; and secondly with the National Security Agency
interview at which I failed to cooperate but without the understanding what
consequences my failure would have on my career choices or on the rest of my
life.
Depending on
how one looks at it, my ordeal with marijuana could be considered either a
curse or a blessing for my destiny. I choose to look at my life’s
experiences surrounding the debate of marijuana prohibition versus
legalization to be the missing link. In one respect, innocent people are
caught in the crossfire of the debate and some, like me, are damaged in
their reputations not because marijuana is evil or bad - truly it is
beneficial in many respects medically, industrially and economically - but
because prohibition itself falsely and deceitfully brands it as being bad or
evil when there are truly dangerous substances such as tobacco and alcohol
that people without shame and unnecessary risk and exposure indulge in while
damaging their lungs and livers. Marijuana does no damage unless you look at
suspicious government research where lab techs poisoned their rats with gas
masks and excessive non-stop smoke inhalation. Even a pot smoker comes up
for air.
END
NOTE ABOUT THIS ARTICLE AND ITS OMISSIONS –
I still don’t rat on my friends and so I have omitted much of the
story about how I began to indulge in partying with pot during my navy
stint, and continued to do so throughout my college education and journalism
career, and how I used it medicinally to get through the worst depressions
during my Hepatitis C medical treatment of peg-interferon. Again, I believe
marijuana helped to save my life and prevented unnecessary pain and
suffering. As such, I’m a true advocate for legalization. Arguments against
it, such as “gateway drug” to harder substances just are NOT true. It is
prohibition that allows the gateway to more illicit drugs because
prohibition empowers drug dealers to offer a wide variety of kicks.
Therefore some marijuana users needlessly may be exposed to things like
methamphetamine, cocaine or Ecstacy during their hunt in the black market.
More easy, free and legal access to marijuana would automatically erase most
exposure to other drugs.
This article is expected to be published in the first edition of the Medical
Cannibas Journal, coming soon.
|
