Former Baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth first ordered in 1985 all personnel, except unionized players, to submit to these urine tests. From the owners to the peanut vendors to the bat boys, it is mandatory in order to be employed. By 1990, it had been incorporated into all contracts, including ball-players.

    Now, since November 1996, a professional baseball player (or any other sports player for that matter) in California may take advantage of cannabis as medicine, and continue to play baseball professionally.

    Aside from the civil liberties questions raised, it is apparently forgotten that “Babe” Ruth would regularly invite reporters to accompany him while he drank 12 beers prior to playing a game, during alcohol Prohibition.

    Many “dry” organizations and even the league commissioner implored him to think of the children who idolized him and stop, but the “Babe” refused.

    If Peter Ueberroth or his ilk had been in charge of baseball during Prohibition, the “Sultan of Swat” would have been fired in shame and millions of children would not have proudly played in “Babe Ruth Little Leagues.”

    Lyndon LaRouche’s “War on Drugs” committee told us that, along with new marijuana laws, they expected to implement their most important goal: anyone in the future playing any disco, rock ‘n’ roll, or jazz on the radio, on television, in schools, or in concert, or who just sold rock ‘n’ roll records—or any music that wasn’t on their approved classical lists—would be jailed, including music teachers, disc jockeys, and record company executives.

    Tens of millions of average Americans choose to use cannabis as self medication or to relax during their time off the job, and therefore risk criminal penalties. Job performance should be the principle criterion for evaluation of all employees, not personal lifestyle choices.

    The Babe Ruths of sports, the Henry Fords of industry, the Pink Floyds, Beatles, Picassos, and Louis Armstrongs of the arts, and one out of ten Americans have become criminals—and thousands unemployed—for smoking cannabis, even when merely unwinding in the privacy of their own homes.

    Robert Mitchum’s film career was almost destroyed by a 1948 marijuana arrest. Federal Judge Douglas Ginsburg was on the verge of being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 when it was revealed that he had smoked grass while a university professor and his name was withdrawn from nomination. However, George Bush’s appointee Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ 1991 admission that he smoked marijuana in college was not an issue in his controversial confirmation.

the authorized on-line version of Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes”
text from “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” © Jack Herer
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