What does it mean to be a criminal?

I've been doing some thinking lately. What, with the passage of HB 1284 and all the mess it will be creating, as well as the extradition order signed by Canadian Conservative politicians that will extradite Marc Emery to the United States to do a 5 year prison for committing what amounts to a misdemeanor by Canadian laws (Canada is now apparently outsourcing justice for it's citizens), it's hard not to think.

Our standards as a society are failing. We value almost all the wrong things in the new century, and I sometimes worry that there is no turning back from this mess. Allow me to paint an example: Somewhere off the shore of Louisiana tonight British Petroleum, a company not even founded or run here in the United States, is cleaning up an epic mess of oil that is destroying habitat at an alarming rate. New information is coming up every day that suggests they were not following proper procedures leading up to this tragedy, though that never seems to matter, does it?

I highly doubt that any of the multi-millionaire executives from BP will ever be charged, much less extradited, for this very serious destruction of tangible American property. Our values have gone to shit when we import a man into our prison system for selling marijuana seeds (made by God), but there isn't even so much as a mention of prosecuting men who regularly rape the resources of this country for their own selfish thirst for riches. These men should be shot by a firing squad on national television--instead, they're civic leaders in their communities--senators, judges, mayors.....

God help us now. The greed heads have given up trying to take the ship, and now they're just sinking it instead. Non-violent drug offenders are sitting in cells across this country trying to collect the pieces of their shattered lives--oil executives are at home riding out the storm while someone else cleans up their mess. If that's justice then I'm a duckbill platypus.

Welcome to the land of the disturbed, population 300 million. Colorado politicians have demonstrated recently how far the finger can fall from the pulse (I'll give you a hint, in their case the finger is lodged deep within the collective ass). They spent nearly an entire legislative session pandering over a bill to regulate medical marijuana, and the legislation that came of this pandering to each other will serve to do nothing but deregulate the market--in fact by most counts it will push as much as 80% of the market back underground, foregoing our budget strapped state of millions of tax dollars in the process.

But the idiots in our society can sleep well again now, knowing that productive, decent people are being treated like criminals. MEDICAL Marijuana Dispensaries are now more regulated than child molesters, pornography, cigarettes, alcohol, and traffic. Lawmakers are making every effort to subvert the wishes of Colorado's citizens, as per Amendment 20 to our Constitution. If that doesn't scare you then you are absolutely not thinking of the big picture.--- Shorty Smallz