"But under the stress of war, our government did suffer a moment of clarity...and honesty. Did you ever see the USDA's film Hemp for Victory?"

I said, "No. I've seen Reefer Madness a few times."

He shook his head. "This one isn't bullshit. They told how hemp had served mankind for thousands of years. How our cherished Old Ironsides used sixty tons of hemp. How a modern battleship needs seven miles of hemp rope.... But Philippine and East Indian sources of hemp were in Japanese hands, and jute shipments from India were nearly cut off. We had to have American hemp for victory. The government said 'Grow It!' Patriotic farmers planted almost fifty thousand acres of seed hemp in 1942...even more in '43. Kids in 4-H clubs were urged to grow what just four years earlier had been outlawed as the 'Assassin of Youth.' The government forced farmers to see Hemp for Victory, sign that they'd seen it, and read a booklet on hemp cultivation. From '42 through '45, farmers who grew hemp were waived from military service. So were their sons. Then we won the war and hemp was marijuana again, an evil to be eradicated no matter what.

"So there was a four-year cease-fire in the hemp war, but Hearst had the big war to help him sell papers. Besides, he'd all but won the hemp war anyway, owing so much to his general, Anslinger. And if you think yellow journalism isn't powerful, look at attitudes toward marijuana today. Zero-tolerance police state. Does marijuana get such lopsided attention because it's the gateway drug, or do you think there's another reason? Drug education literature urges kids to help their drug-using friends and family by becoming a police informant. Healthy for society don't you think, filling kids with snitch mentality. And when Bush took over the War On Drugs, while Reagan was congratulating himself for having won the war, Bush pledged to double the prison population that Reagan had already doubled. Maybe they think putting people in prison is the best way to protect them. We have a higher percentage of citizens in prison than any other country--now that's something to be proud of...!"

Filling cups went fast. We kept filling and emptying the bin and trays of cups were stacking up all over. Whizzer continued:

"So it's over fifty years after the conviction of marijuana was sleazed through. Consider the modern forces determined to keep it totally illegal no matter what." I looked up at him and he asked, "Do you think the energy companies are powerful?"

"Big Oil?"

He nodded. "Big Oil. Shit, they're into petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, finance, tobacco and liquor...newspapers, politicians, the CIA. They're running the country. Energy means power. They are the power companies, and profit is everything. There's nothing they wouldn't sell out or ruin to protect their profits. Nothing. Imagine how lucky they must feel. The world's premier renewable resource is also the source of marijuana. Can you imagine their gratitude for Hearst, and Anslinger? With marijuana they can suppress truth and freedom, and keep hemp from spreading their vast profits into the hands of farmers and entrepreneurs and small businesses. Into the hands of The People. Having a clean resource they don't control prove it can replace petroleum in the most important applications--that's their worst nightmare. If enough motivated people realize that fossil energy pollution can be relieved by hemp...and that natural hemp products can replace scores of products we get through petrochemical alchemy...there's profit trouble. Nature's most efficient fixer of sunlight is their enemy. Truth is their enemy. Let forests be forests and use hemp for paper pulp and building materials--Ouch! More profit trouble. The very finest fiber and food and natural medicines come from hemp. Hemp could curb the depletion of topsoil, even rebuild the soil--but OUCH! Hemp needs no petrochemical pesticides or fertilizers! Big profit trouble! Imagine their gratitude for marijuana."

"But the government is our beacon of morality, shining to protect The People. Government's fundamental concern is the welfare of the citizenry." I delivered it so well he wondered if I was serious...and gave me a funny look, like he might toss a cup of dirt in my face.

"That must be why in '83 the Reagan administration tried to have all the cannabis research records at American universities destroyed. Or do you suppose it was because out of the thousands of studies only a few showed any negative results, and those were questionable?"

"Sounds like Orwell's memory hole," I said. "You sure it wasn't in '84?"

He shrugged. "Ask Reed.... But you know, you've got the memory hole bit right. A lot of records have disappeared, including the original copy of Hemp for Victory. All mention of the film was struck from the record clear back to the '50s. Lots of other material is gone. They had no qualms about ripping stuff out of our national archives, as long as it was to protect The People."

"I don't feel protected."

Whizzer whistled part of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" before asking: "Did you ever wonder...why Dan Quayle? I mean with all the choices Bush had, why Danny?"

"Looks," I said. "He's good TV, especially if you mute him."

Whizzer shook his head. "Quayle's family controls Eli Lily, the drug company. They made Bush director of Lilly before he went into the vice president biz. And you know, as Reagan's vice president he lobbied his butt off so drug companies could dump domestically-banned substances on hapless Third World countries. And he lobbied for tax breaks for companies manufacturing those substances in Puerto Rico. The Supreme Court finally ordered him to stop, but the tax breaks are there. Third World poisoning goes on.... I guess the government is equally concerned with the welfare of all people regardless of disadvantage, ignorance, citizenship, or upward mobility."

"Of course."

"Ever heard of Carlton Turner?"

"Sounds like a cigarette."

Whizzer chuckled. "Just as healthful. He was a good right winger, all swollen with a desire to protect people. He's a pharmaceutical whore. Bush talked Reagan into making the guy Drug Czar in '81. Well in '83, when the DEA was using planes to spray paraquat on hemp in Kentucky and a few other states, Turner said on national television that if any kid died from smoking paraquat pot it would be a lesson he deserved.... But that wasn't his first paraquat party. Back in the seventies when we were spraying Mexican fields, he tried his best to get into the mail fraud business. Alas, nobody would advertise his phony paraquat tester. His chance to get rich duping and possibly helping to kill pot-smoking kids was lost. And so was his czardom when he publicly declared in '86 that marijuana smoking causes homosexuality, and AIDS. But don't despair, after his hushed resignation he teamed with one of the du Ponts and got rich cornering the urine-testing market. Now there's a happy ending!"

"Kinda restores my faith in free enterprise."

Whizzer walked toward the sinks. I was bent over the mixing bin. He shouted:

"Republicans are back! The old Hood Robbins, snatching crumbs from poor kids to give to the rich. Tear down the Endangered Species Act. Tear down environmental regulations. Mow down the forests to make 'em healthier and reduce fire danger. Taxpayers compensate landowners if any regulations limit them from totally exploiting every square inch of their property. Down with social welfare, up with corporate welfare. National debt is approaching a googolplex--time for tax cuts! We aren't even paying our own way now and they're talking tax cuts!" I walked up to my sink. He took a deep breath, gazing into my eyes. "You said this society is going nuts. Well things might be even crazier than you think, and getting crazier fast." He dried his hands with a towel, and bent down to take a stack of empty trays from a cabinet. Soon we were both back at the bin.

He asked, "You notice those yellow jackets most o' the kids around here wear?"

"Like those girlies across the street?"

"Yeah, know what they are?"

"Does it have anything to do with yellow journalism?"

He snickered.... "Never thought of it like that, but that's a good point." He gave me a mischievous look. "They're Genital Joe jackets."

"Who's that?"

"Scrotum Face!"

I had no idea what he was talking about.

"'Old Joe,'" he said. "R.J. Reynolds' front camel in the addict-recruiting war. Shit, he's the most recognized ad icon in the country among preschoolers. I read about a study where half the three-year-olds matched a flash card of Genital Joe with a hand holding a cigarette. There were also pictures of pizza, cars, a bowl of cereal...but those tots know what Mr. Smooth stands for. And ninety percent of the six-year-olds linked him with smokes. Tobacco companies know how to recruit. Get the kids. They need over a thousand new addicts a day just to maintain their user base in the U.S., tobacco killing half a million Americans every year and all. If one death from marijuana could be proven can you imagine the press it'd get? Hearst would spin in his grave. In his early marijuana-war days, when the evil weed was as legal as alcohol, a marijuana-related car accident made headlines for weeks. Alcohol-related accidents were a thousand times more frequent, and were all but ignored...."

"Tobacco was king in early America," I said. "Pretty much got the country going."

"And now it's a subsidized crop. Soil depleting heavy user of petrochemicals. Export darling. They're spending seven million bucks a day advertising tobacco's coolness--and on top of that they've got all these walking billboards. They can make even misery and death cool...or smooth. So you're not familiar with Genital Joe huh?"

"Oh sure," I said. "I've seen him around...quite a bit. Never knew what he was called."

"Be hard to miss wouldn't he? Think about it! Old Scrotum Face is everywhere. Ashtrays outside stores. Stores' open/closed signs. Hand baskets. He's plastered above, in front of, and alongside checkout counters. He cools from window decals and window dressings. His little accessories are the sharpest hooks in any impulse tunnel."

"Where?"

"That's where you slither through in the checkout line. You know, tabloids and hot-rod beefsticks. Chips, gum, beef jerky masquerading as snuff...and Genital Joe. He's on billboards and race cars. Magazines, stadiums and arenas.... And there's Camel Cash. They're called C-Notes. I suppose the C is for cancer. You get one with every pack. There's catalogs full of goods you can buy only with C-Notes. Goods that let you join the Genital Joe advertising machine. There are robes, sweatshirts, pants, watches, tote bags, steins and mugs, all styles of jackets that're further cooled with Harleys. There are caps, SMOOTH-1 license plates, postcards...collector's tins that each come with--get this--a 'thousand points of light.'"

"A George Bush speech?"

He shook his head. "Fifty books of matches. You know, I wonder how many C-Notes it takes for a lung transplant, or heart transplant. Or a new throat. Never saw them listed in the catalogs. Guess they're in the ones for veterans, and I only saw a catalog for kids.... By the way, those stemmers' yellow jackets. They're free with a three-pack of packs. The base model. Good for a certain cool glow the girlies love to suck pacifiers by...or condoms."

"Quite a few girlies do that now."

"It's hot," he said. "We should start seeing Genital Joe pacifiers any time--in bright yellow of course."

"What's the point?"

"Of sucking pacifiers and condoms?"

"Yeah."

He shrugged. "Flaunting their stems I guess."

"Or caps?"

"Mostly stem.... Oh, you know I read where Genital Joe is in trouble. Seems some womens' league thinks his face resembles a sex unit. Doesn't seem to bother them that Genital Joe's coolness rating approaches absolute zero and he's luring kids into a killer addiction. They just don't like the sexual aspect. Maybe they think his fleshy nose should be circumcised or something...or he should wear a cup over his face like baseball catchers wear over their units."

"Fits a society founded on hypocrisy."

"Sure it does," he said. "Just like the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. Guess where over half their funding comes from."

"Oh...is R.J. Reynolds in there?"

"Near the top, along with Anheuser-Busch, several pharmaceutical companies.... You said our society is going nuts. It is nuts. Killers are freed early to make room for drug users. Billions are spent every year lockin' 'em up, instead of educating and treating them. Drugs are a health problem, not a criminal problem. The big-billions War On Drugs just subsidizes organized crime and gangs and perpetuates the problem. But we can't spend those billions on education and treatment because there's that profit thing again, and jobs.... Now the government's hot cash cow is gambling. Sweet cow. New games galore! Gambling addiction is okay! Look at poor Cro. He spends hundreds a week on tickets and it embarrasses him but he can't help it. He's read so much about winners he's just gotta be a winner too. However, the real problem in government-pushed gambling isn't all the suckers like Cro drooling over copies of Winning Beat magazine. The real problem is the mind-set that's created. The get-rich-for-nothing idea. The idea that winning the lottery is the ultimate good--that's an evil philosophy to cultivate. It's pure character pollution. Want a nation of grasping dummies full of anomie? Gambling's the ticket. You get an environment where Boy Scouts can become heroes by jerking no-high."

"Ditchweed?"

"That's right," he said.

"God, I hadn't thought about ditchweed for.... Remember that summer Artie Sullivan brought home a packful from Nebraska?"

"Dynamite shit wasn't it."

"I don't think there's any THC in it."

"Oh there is," he said. "It's just that you'd have to smoke a pound of the stuff to get a buzz...and the headache and puking would kinda take the joy out of it."

"So is there a big eradication campaign going on in Nebraska?"

"It's nothing new. They've sprayed millions worth of paraquat fighting the menace. Ditchweed's all over that region. Paraquat peddlers are making a killing. But we might as well try stamping out dandelions."

"Aren't the Boy Scouts making any progress?"

"Oh sure. Last summer I read where one was going for his Eagle by jerking forty thousand plants. Of course a bunch of adults joined in the farce, and police supervised the whole thing, including entombment of the evil in a landfill. Narcos estimated the street value at over fifteen million."

"Dollars...or headaches?" I heard footsteps.

"Retches." He chuckled. "Of the millions of people who read about that kid's ascendance to Eagle Scouthood, how many do you suppose said, 'Wait a minute, the street value of that shit is the same as its ditch value. Zero!'"

I shrugged, watching Gaea come through the door.

"Actually, the stuff had plenty of value if they'd left it alone. Migrating birds favor hemp seed above all other foods. So those misguided zealots worked their asses off all day just to rob a bunch of birds of an important meal."