(?Late 2022?) The legalization of marijuana increasingly in more and more of the USA is proceeding smoothly, in my opinion. I believe the main reason for this success is that we have obliterated a very damaging fallacy that has always dominated the "drug war": that drugs make decisions. This fallacy is the very heart of the drug war.

Everywhere in the USA where pot was legalized, the authorities have implored everyone who uses marijuana to be careful, don't drive if impaired, and be responsible. And it seems to be working. All of those using pot know that they must stay responsible. If they screw up, they will be blamed rather than marijuana being indicted.

Legalization has returned control to the human, and taken control away from the weed itself, which, in the first place, never really made sense.

The main assumption of the drug war is that drugs are taking over our lives, and we have to blame everything on the drugs. That attitude doesn't really work very well.

Another thing is that after state legalization of pot occurs, we are seeing a gradual reduction in pot usage in legal pot states after about two years. Most people already knew that pot wasn't addicting, such as the authors of the Shafer Commission report from 1972. Also, the percentage of people who want pot to remain legal seems to increase after pot becomes legal, so there is no tendency for any states to re-criminalize marijuana.

But now the proof is in the pudding. "Take it or leave it" policy works better than prohibition.

But I also think that using pot may actually be beneficial to society, so we have to come up with ways to convince people to use pot more often, rather than not.

The passing away of Dion.

(July 4, 2023) First of all, I am not in a position to know who is actually working for the CIA, and who is not. I am not working for the C.I.A., and never have.

In late 1993, I traveled back to the Netherlands to try to make a second VHS video tape about "'legal' marijuana in Holland". I succeeded, and sold tape 2 of 'Legal' Marijuana in Holland; 'We are Not Criminals'; The Dutch Moral Majority Speak, from late 1994 until the late 1990's using a small advertisement placed in High Times, and Relix magazines. I was selling VHS tapes mail order.

In late Fall 1993 when I arrived at Amsterdam Central Train Station for, I think, the very first time on that trip, I noticed a public sign in Central Station that everybody else could also see. The sign was an advertisement to everyone about a place to visit near Central Station called, "C.I.A., Cannabis In Amsterdam".

I was very intrigued by the humorous sign, and I wrote down the address of the business for future reference. Eventually I walked over to that address to see what there was to see.

On the second floor of a building nearly right across the street from the Amsterdam Central Station was located Cannabis In Amsterdam, or "C.I.A.". The business was selling marijuana seeds, and also freely giving out information to anyone who walked in who had any questions about Dutch marijuana policy. The place was being run by three young Americans, apparently. They were Dion, Doug, and Adam. I think Adam still lives and works in Amsterdam running a company called, "Th Seeds".

NOTE: cannabis seeds (hemp seeds, or "hempseed") are fully legal in the Netherlands, Spain, and most parts of Europe.

Literally thousands of people of every nationality saw the sign and visited "C.I.A.", when they arrived at Amsterdam CS. I also received quite a few tips about stories for my 2nd video from the guys who were running C.I.A. near the Amsterdam Central Train Station. For one thing, I was introduced to American drug-war refugee James Burton by Dion, Doug, and Adam, one of the first legal medical marijuana patients in Holland. James eventually became the largest legal producer of medical marijuana in the Netherlands until he lost that contract when the government chose another company.

I was also tipped about a weed coffee shop in Utrecht run by a devout Catholic that had a shrine to Jesus Christ inside. I put that on my tape 2.

I also have recently read online that Dion Markgraff passed away in San Diego a few years ago, dying in his sleep.

I eventually met Dion on a more personal level in 1996, joining his group called, "Green Prisoner Relief Amsterdam". I joined because, as an American, there was no way to avoid his group. The group is still functioning and dominant in Amsterdam, associated with the Cannabis College there.

From having been a member of GPRA myself in 1996, I know that most of the people in GPRA are ex-US-military. In 1992, I worked alone without any help from any Americans at all in making my tape 1, "'Legal' Marijuana in Holland; We Are Not Criminals; The Dutch Moral Majority Speak". My camera operator and assistant for tape 1 had been from England.

But people who are regular citizens, and people who are regular citizens and also ex-military, are two different groups. One group was trained to take orders from third parties, one group makes their own decisions. I happen to be in the second category. I'm just a regular American citizen who found needed relief for insomnia from using weed, for many years.

No one ordered or advised me to start using weed. That was my own decision. Pot more or less cured my insomnia problem back when I had an insomnia problem.

NOTE: it is my understanding from reading articles still on the web in 2023, that Dion Markgraff never accepted fully legalizing marijuana. Like President Joe Biden, he advocated for medical marijuana. Maybe that was because he was ex-military and worked for the CIA. I don't know. But I do know that there are a lot of ex-military people with drug and alcohol problems.

But if you take responsibility for your own actions in regards to drugs and alcohol, that could help a lot. I don't see why pot can't be at least as legal as alcohol.

As it is, the "War on Drugs" continues under Congress, the Senate, the DEA, and President Joe Biden in the United States. Drugs seem to be winning as about 100,000 Americans are dying every year from accidental misuse of drugs. According to the CDC, none of those dying have died from overdose of THC or from other active ingredients of cannabis.

Illegality pushes drug use underground and out of control. There are very few deaths from hard drugs in the Netherlands, although hard drugs are decriminalized, but greatly discouraged. Hard drugs are not allowed in the pot coffee shops, nor anywhere else socially in Holland, in general. Dutch people and legal residents who are addicted to hard drugs can now obtain and use their drug legally, but fully regulated.