Tokin' for Osama

This is the dealer who sold the heroin to Mike.

This is the cop who arrested Mike for possessing the heroin.

This is the politician who voted to implement mandatory-minimum sentences.

This is the Islamic fundamentalist group based in Saudi Arabia that trains American imams to preach radical Islamic beliefs to prison inmates.

This is the imam who converted Mike to the Wahabbi sect of Islam.

And this is the building that will be destroyed when Mike is released from prison.

The war on drugs supports terrible things. If you support locking up users, you might too.

With radical Islam taking hold in prison beyond the usual angry black male population, and with most inmates serving time for a drug crime or a crime committed to support a drug habit, the connection between drugs and terrorism is clear.

Ten percent of prison inmates nationwide are Muslim, with 17 to 20 percent of NY inmates following the Holy Quran, compared to the estimated five percent of the general population. It's not just telemarketers and direct mailers who have found a valuable resource in our prisons.

The Bush Administration wants you to believe that each time a Phish fan lights up, an American gets his wings. Your stoners, your friendly neighborhood crackhead, your relative who can't get through the day without a fix -- they're helping the Osamas and Yousefs of the world destroy our precious way of life.

Some drug profits do support terrorist groups, and so do some of the profits earned by Muslim immigrants selling halal hot dogs from their "I Love Allah"-stickered carts. Buy anything imported from a Muslim country, produced by Muslims or sold by Muslims, and there's a decent chance some of that cash will find its way to Peshawar or other terrorist havens.

Never mind that women who extort their partners into buying diamond rings support amputation by rusty machete or that coffee drinkers support deforestation or that owners of gas-guzzling sports cars support totalitarian regimes. It is the pathetic junkies and low-level foot soldiers who are contributing to increasing world and domestic volatility.

They're right.

My cousin is the ultimate terrorist. He's an attractive, blue-eyed blond with a Scandinavian surname and a Jersey accent, and if he shaved the scraggly Adi Ghar mountain-man beard and ditched the skull cap, you'd never give him a second glance. Neither would airport security.

He's a heroin addict, recovering if you believe the manure he's shoveling on his current stint between arrests. After a few months in prison for his first possession charge, he came out more diseased than he was when he went in.

Now, it wasn't scoring a hit and ignoring parking tickets. It was stealing from his parents -- you know you've done a good job raising your kids when you have to write "not for sale" on your electronics -- to score a hit, and then dealing drugs to score a hit, and then mail fraud to score a hit.

But Islam saved him this time around. No alcohol, no pork, no gambling and no heroin. He prays five times a day, reads Islamic literature and hangs out at the local masjid, which receives generous donations from concerned brothers in the Middle East.

In prison, you have nothing but time. Time to think about what an unfair deal you got. Time to think about the hypocrisy in the American judicial system. Time to read. Time to be brainwashed.

People like my cousin are prime targets for religious brainwashing. They're easily influenced and have already demonstrated that they believe they have little control over the direction of their lives. They want to be acknowledged and accepted, to join the flock of blissfully ignorant bleating sheep, but someone sets up obstacles wherever they turn.

To end up at a point where you've alienated family and found yourself on an increasingly violent quest to feed an addiction, you've shown that you don't feel accepted. THEY don't want me. THEY don't understand me. THEY don't care. I don't need NOBODY.

In walks Sayed, calm and contemplative.

Sayed is the prison imam. He's been abused by the system. He's been enslaved. He's been angry. He knows where you're at and where you're heading. He was like you, once.

And then he found the way to enlightenment.

Islam is submission. It means that everything you do is for Allah, and everything that happens in life is willed by Allah. Someone who has spent much of his life placing the blame on others is naturally attracted to a religion or philosophy that supports this habit of avoiding personal responsibility.

Christianity, the former top dog for those with enough time to find God before the first parole hearing, places too much emphasis on free will, and if you've spent the better part of your youth pointing the finger at everyone else, why would you embrace a religion that largely points the finger back at you?

Islam the perfect system for someone too weak to take control of his own life. It gives you discipline, which is what most prison inmates never experienced and most corrections officers wish the inmates had, hence the lax nature in monitoring religious propaganda in prisons.

Every aspect of your life is regimented. You pray five times a day because Allah wills it. You don't eat pork because Allah wills it. You don't drink alcohol because Allah wills it. You don't use drugs because Allah wills it. You don't have to question anything because all of the questions have already been answered. Your path has been set.

With Islam, if it happens, Allah willed it. If Allah willed it, it's probably because you aren't following his rules. If you aren't following his rules, it's probably because you aren't praying hard enough for guidance, and if you aren't praying hard enough for guidance, it's probably because you're allowing in destructive outside influences, and if you're allowing in destructive outside influences, it's because Allah willed it, and if Allah willed it, it's not for you to understand why.

Keep your nose to the Quran, do what you're told, don't ask questions, and here's a pamphlet on jihad. The flight to Saudi Arabia leaves at 8:45, insh allah.

They want easy solutions. They don't want to think too much. If they did, they'd have to come to terms with the United States being far more lenient than Muslim countries in dealing with criminals. That is, them. Islamic judicial systems are not interested in giving criminals time for personal introspection or a chance, however small, to rehabilitate themselves with the help of a newly minted, idealistic MSW.

Three years behind bars in the United States might not be a stellar existence, but in Saudi Arabia, you'd be dead. Our war on drugs at least allows you the chance to live long enough to repent and find yourself burdened by that black mark on your permanent record, even at a young age.

In April 2002, 12-year-old Prince Nnaedozie Umegbolu, an American citizen returning to the country after living with his grandparents in Nigeria, was arrested for attempting to smuggle $80,000 worth of drugs by swallowing them.

After two years in Nigeria, Umegbolu decided that returning to the motherland wasn't all it was cracked up to be and wanted to go home, but his mother didn't have the money for a plane ticket. Homesick, Umegbolu used the only avenue open to him: being a drug courier.

Umegbolu claimed that he was forced to swallow 87 packets of heroin at knifepoint after Nigerian drug dealers promised him a ticket home and $1900 in cash. During transit, some of the bags burst, making Umegbolu ill, sending him to the hospital and tipping off authorities, who promptly arrested him.

After eight months in juvenile detention, Judge Fran Lubow convicted Umegbolu of juvenile narcotics possession and offered these words of wisdom: "He was a very determined and intelligent young man who wanted to come to this county and this was his means to do so," Lubow said. "Clearly Prince understood the nature of what he was becoming involved in."

Now 13, Umegbolu faces up to 18 months in juvenile detention. He's too young to sign a contract, consent to sex, smoke, drink or join the military, but when it comes to illegal drugs, he couldn't possibly have been manipulated by adult criminals taking advantage of his inexperience and immature desire to get home at all costs. Drugs are the root of evil, and if it deters even one person, detaining a teenager for two years is worth the sacrifice.

Better still if you can make an example of a man operating within the legal confines of a state that made a mockery of the federal government's anti-drug crusade.

58-year-old Ed Rosenthal, the self-described "Guru of Ganja," faces 85 years in prison for growing and maintaining a warehouse for marijuana intended for distribution under California's Proposition 215, which allows for medical marijuana. Proving that state's rights exist only as rights the feds think the states should have, the government pursued Rosenthal and other medical marijuana suppliers, and at Rosenthal's trial, ensured that he could not tell the jury that he was growing marijuana legally, per the decision of California voters.

While the 100 plants seized from Rosenthal didn't have buds, which is the only part worth having for those of us not suffering from cancer or AIDS, and the jury regretted its decision after learning of why Rosenthal possessed the plants, he likely will serve a significant amount of the 85 years he's facing.

Imagine Rosenthal's conversation upon arriving in Cellblock B and meeting his cellmate:

"What are you in for?"

"I helped run a medicinal marijuana program. You?"

"Molested a girl, raped her mother, stole their Playstation 2 and kicked their dog. I'm in for 20 years."

"Twenty years? Shit, I'm in for 60!"

It's not hard to see why someone would become disillusioned. Fine, you're indirectly harming willing people in the course of plying your trade, or in Rosenthal's case, attempting to carefully navigate around the law by putting a tragic face on the trade -- who hates sick people? -- but picking up a hitchhiker, raping her, cutting off her arms and leaving her for dead gets you less time than selling a deck in some states.

Currently, there are around 500,000 people in jail for drug offenses, of which 320,00 are serving more than a year.

More than a year to spend on your prayer rug, palms facing skyward, listening to how the United States is keeping you down, how the government doesn't represent you, how the government just wants to oppress you. Once you leave here, where will you be? Unemployed and unemployable. Have you ever been arrested or convicted of a crime? That dark cloud will follow you around for the rest of your life. No one wants a former thief. No wants a former junkie. No one but Allah does.

And Allah's got a sweet job for you.

Richard Reid, the failed shoebomber, converted to Islam in prison and changed his name to Abdul Raheem because, according to an FBI document, it was similar to the name of Rakeem, a rapper whom he liked.

His conversion, as are many prison conversions, was superficial. It was firstly a way to gain friends and support, to become part of a group, and lastly a means to the escape he was desperate to achieve, as evidenced by his drug abuse and petty criminal record.

And when he got out, it was his Muslim brothers who supported him, cared for him and nurtured his hatred. Society wasn't there for him, and why would it be? Society has no use for an ex-con, particularly a poor one with little education and few skills. What's a guy to do?

If you're a Primus fan who plans his schedule around Comedy Central's next showing of Half Baked and view Hunter S. Thompson as your guru, you might want to put some of your pot fund aside for bail money and a copy of the Quran.

Of the 1,579,566 drug arrests in 2000, 734,498 were marijuana related, with 646,042 of those being for simple possession.

People who might otherwise kick the drug habit in a cushy rehab facility or grow out of their pseudo-hippie or Ja Rule phase on their own are instead carted off to prison, where they're surrounded by real criminals just itching to get hold of the fresh meat. It makes them meaner, and it makes them do things they'd probably never conceive of doing if they'd spent a year in Happy Meadows. Spend a year or more around rapists and murderers, when all you've done is participate in a capitalist exchange, and your outlook on life changes.

And the prisons could be full soon with new converts, courtesy of Operation Pipe Dreams.

Operation Pipe Dreams, a nationwide sweep of stores, both online and brick & mortar, that sell multi-use drug paraphenalia -- no, sir, I do use it to smoke tobacco -- could provide for a maximum total sentence of three years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both, with respect to each count a person faces. The stores are being forced to turn over customer records, including credit card information, which will be used to track down those who gave their moms a gas-mask bong for Christmas. It's a novelty item, officer.

Billions of dollars spent to prop up the prison industry and ruin the lives of largely harmless people, and it should come as no surprise that terrorists follow the bitter scent emanating from prisons.

Lifting Prohibition did what the government couldn't: It took the violent criminal element out of alcohol production and distribution. The negative effects of making alcohol consumption illegal far outweighed the hoped societal benefits, and the problems the government had to fight were the ones it had created. Illegal acts attract a criminal element because it takes a certain kind of person to engage in risky behavior, and terrorists, who have nothing to lose, naturally gravitate toward an illegal market with huge profits.

What we found out is that, while no one likes a nasty drunk, people find organized crime rackets, that survive because of the illegality of their trade, even more distasteful. Unless they're led by an overweight, charismatic oaf with family and mental problems just like ours.

There's a PR move the Saudis should consider.

Providing jack-off material for white misogynists since 1997.

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