Growing Marijuana In My Yard

I attended the annual NORML conference in San Francisco in April 2002. I was sitting in my hotel room, deeply inspired from all of the presentations I'd heard, and asking myself, "What can I do to help?" Then, I remembered the little chorus I used to sing to myself when I was growing my own in Saipan, and these lyrics came out.

Although the song is intended to be funny, the underlying theme is not at all funny. Over 700,000 Americans are arrested for marijuana every year, although no one has ever died or even been seriously or permanently harmed from the plant itself. This song is about equal rights: beer drinkers and tobacco users have more rights than a pot smoker, and that's not fair. Alcohol and tobacco kill people and pot does not. Responsible adults should be allowed to choose to use marijuana, and should be able to buy it in stores, just like alcohol and tobacco users can buy their poisons just about anywhere.

As a parent, I am distraught that our government lies to our children about marijuana. When the White House declares that marijuana is the most dangerous drug in America, and more addictive than "alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and all other illegal drugs combined," it destroys any credibility it may have once had regarding truly dangerous drugs. Being a parent is hard enough without having to protect your children from the government itself.

More importantly, no one, especially law enforcement, should come between a doctor and her/his patient. Marijuana has been found by the DEA's own administrative judge to be one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man, yet it remains listed as a Schedule I drug - considered too dangerous to be of any medical use - more dangerous than cocaine or heroin - despite the fact that it has never killed anyone. Ever. Aspirin is more dangerous than marijuana, yet our federal government refuses to allow sick and dying patients access to this medicine that has been recommended by their doctors. What are they so scared of? That maybe people could grow their own medicine instead of having to rely on the corporate pharmaceutical companies' over-priced products?

The prohibition of pot causes far more harm than pot itself every could, and it's high time to end the hypocrisy.

OVERGROW THE GOVERNMENT!

Read the lyrics.

Go back to Ben Scales's music page.