Give the woman a break!

When I came back from Costa Rica and went to my homepage (news.google.com), I found this article and was pretty shocked...

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1117189184927_2/?hub=TopStories

Now, really, this is a bit much. Why is this such a big deal? So the woman wanted to smoke a little pot...who cares? All over the world, people get high every damn day, but they're not hurting anyone but themselves when they do it. How can the Indonesian goverment treat marijuana as a narcotic equivalent to hard drugs such as cocaine and heroine? America has a drug problem that takes the lives of many of our youth - just like the Indonesians - but even we don't get this intense. It just doesn't make sense.
What bothers me more, however, is America's drug policy towards marijuana and how damn illogical it is. Take for example, the whole idea that marijuana is illegal while moderate consumption of alcohol is not. From my perspective, it would make more sense if we switched these two around. Now just hear me out before you ostracize me as a hippie drug addict. First of all, I don't smoke pot and have never smoked pot before and I don't really intend to use it in the future unless I get glaucoma, but I really do feel that it would be to our advantage to legalize this drug. Let's say marijuana was legalized and the consumption of alcohol was made illegal. If all the regular alcoholics started getting high instead, imagine how much more chill these people would become. When people are high on pot, they just sit around and don't really do much. Sure, they might gain a little weight and break out with a couple of zits, but they're not hurting anyone by doing that. Instead, when people are drunk they actually get more energy to do crazier things. If America could chose it's addiction problem, weed would be the way to go. It's alot easier to deal with people who just stay calm and high, than a bunch of people who are drunk and rowdy...
Anyway, back to the Indonesians -they really need to get their act together. That poor Australian woman...she's only twenty-seven years old and she's going to get twenty years in prison. She has a clean background, has done nothing wrong in the past... all she wanted to do was smoke a joint on her surf vacation. But because of a little orthodoxy, she's going to lose the prime years of her life and whittle them down to penitentiary confinement and parole at best. I don't think it gets any more tragic than that.

What May Come From All This

Since I haven't actually left the U.S. yet, this preliminary entry is more of a preparation for what is to come. I guess I should start out by telling you what I would like to gain from all of this traveling...Primarily, I hope my journey will somehow shed light on this enigma of a country called America and provide some explanation for why we (as Americans, and as human beings) do things the way we do.
There seems to be a missing element in the fabric of our society today. I yearn for those post-9/11 days when American flags hung on every porch and people would say "God Bless America" with passion and gusto. There seemed to be so much comfort during that period because I knew that even though our country had just been wounded, we were all in this together. I thought that every person walking down the streets of our nation believed in the same thing that I did - that in America, freedom could not be destroyed by simply smashing our buildings and scaring us into submission. No, freedom was a belief that burned in our hearts, the blood of this country and the one thing that no one could steal from us! We were united... and the timing couldn't have been more awkward -this was right after a terrorist attack! But after all the events that unraveled following the 2004 election, our emotions have become stale and the mood has changed. At this point, I'm just too tired of watching this country atrophy economically and politically and am disturbingly happy to leave the U.S. As sad as it sounds, I'm really not all that proud to say that I am an American right now. But it’s not like I want to have this attitude! I think I need a break from this madness. That is why I am leaving the U.S. for awhile and spending time in other countries. I guess it’s sorta like a marriage - when two people get in a fight and need a cooling off period, they separate for some time until they're ready to come together and try to work things out again.
If everything goes as planned, I'll come back to the States with renewed vigor and enthusiasm for being American. But will everything go as planned??

The Start of It All (Before It Actually Starts)

This blog has been created by Yours Truly for basically two purposes: 1) to keep a log of my travels to countries outside of the United States and 2) to share my stories/thoughts with anybody who's interested. I don't know what I'll talk about and I definitely don't know what's going to happen, but I do know that I will have a lot to say.

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page”

– Augustine