The Most Absurdities per Kilo
James Bovard - on the ridiculous war on some drugs, in particular, "Operation Pipe Dreams", in which a bunch of jack-booted thugs arrested Tommy Chong for selling glass bowls. [bovard]
On February 7, 2003, as the U.S. government prepared to invade Iraq, Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge raised the terrorist alert to the orange level and declared that "specific protective measures will be taken by all federal agencies to reduce vulnerabilities." Ridge added comfortingly, "It's probably not a bad idea to sit down and just arrange some kind of a contact plan, [so] that if [a terrorist] event occurred ... the family [could] get in touch with one another." Attorney General John Ashcroft, bombasting at the same press conference, urged Americans to go about "with a heightened awareness of their environment and the activities [i.e., potential terrorist attacks] occurring around them."
Seventeen days later, on February 24, Ashcroft proudly announced the most decisive attack ever on purveyors of bongs -- pipes and bowls often used for smoking marijuana, tobacco, and whatever else a person chooses. At a time when political leaders warned that a terrorist attack on the homeland could be imminent, more than 1,200 federal law officers were involved in Operation Pipe Dreams, conducting raids in Pennsylvania, Texas, Oregon, Iowa, California, and Idaho. Fifty-five people and 10 companies were indicted in the biggest attack on glass bowls in American history.
