John Sinclair: Panics, then & now

[marmar]

from the Detroit Metro Times:



Panics, then & now

By John Sinclair
Published: September 28, 2011


I'd like to start by saying what a pleasure and a privilege it is to have been alternating in this space for almost a full year with one of my favorite writers, Larry Gabriel, whose column last week was particularly informative and told me everything I wanted to know about what's been happening in Michigan since the shit hit the medical marijuana fan last month.

The August events that rattled the cannabis community certainly seem to have been designed to throw a massive scare into smokers and suppliers, leaving patients and their caregivers trembling in fear of arrest or serious disruption of their medicine delivery systems.

In a way, the latest panic took me back almost 45 years to January of 1967, when the Detroit Narcotics Department staged a mammoth invasion of the local bohemian community centered on the Detroit Artists Workshop and the neighborhood around Wayne State University. A total of 56 citizens were arrested in a "lightning campus dope raid" that cast a serious chill on the entire scene that was beginning to cohere around the Grande Ballroom and the burgeoning local rock 'n' roll movement that was showcased there every week.

The 56 arrestees in 1967 ended up being subjected to little in the way of legal prosecution. Most were released without drug charges of any kind, suffering only for their presence in one of the places where 11 felony warrants were being served on persons who had been identified by the narcotics police as users or possessors of small amounts of marijuana. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/mmj/panics-then-now-1.1209877

[ananda]

1. Back then I don't think very many people had access to...

... all the anti-panic meds available now.