If you believe in balance, karma, yin-yang, that kinda stuff, then you just knew there had to be a “dark-side” counterpart to Barney Frank’s “States Rights to Medical Marijuana’ HR2087 bill.

And that is James nonSense’n’bluster’s (R-WI) HR1528, the Orwellian-named “Defending America’s Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005”.

One of its most frightening clauses is its creation of a new offense, failure to snitch. Suppose you know that your neighbor with the cute couple of kids is pot smoker. Or you see an adult pass a joint to his 20-year-old friend at a Dave Matthews concert. Or you know the guy in the next dorm room sells a dime bag now and then to his friends. You must call the cops and report these crimes within 24 hours, or you, the witness who has never used the drugs or facilitated the use of the drugs in question, face a two-year mandatory minimum sentence.

Keep in mind that if Frank’s HR2087 doesn’t pass, the feds will still not recognize any state medical marijuana laws. If your next door neighbor was a wheelchair-bound fully licensed medical marijuana patient with kids living at home, and you knew she was smoking and possessing medical herb, and you didn’t tell the feds within 24 hours, you’re vulnerable to a two-year sentence and a drug-crime criminal record.

How about the crime of tempting the fallen? If someone you know has previously completed drug addiction treatment (whether you are aware of that or not), it is a crime to merely encourage them to possess drugs, whether or not they actually get or use any drugs. “Hey, Bob, you oughtta go back to smokin’ weed, you used to be a lot less tense” — that kind of statement would be a criminal act punishable by a five-year mandatory minimum sentence.

Then there’s the bad role model sections. Commit any drug trafficking offense (and remember, passing a joint, even as a not-for-profit gift, is a trafficking offense) near a minor (<18) or minor's home, and you get a five year mandatory minimum; ten years if you are a parent, even if the kids aren't around at the time. Also remember how they define "near" a minor's home; that's 1000 feet. Where can you go in any city or town that's not within 1000′ of a kid’s house? Another bad role model provision: any adult (>21) who gives a drug to any minor (<18) gets a mandatory 10-year sentence, or life imprisonment for a second offense. College senior passes the bong to college freshman (I was 17 when I was a freshman) and kiss the next decade goodbye (and two years of your life if you saw it happen and didn’t report it!)

Hey, what’s an evil drug war bill without some racial discrimination? It expands the so-called “drug-free school zones” to include just about any place you could be in an urban environment. Suburbs and rural areas are bout the only places you could go to not be in these “zones”. Sentences for drug crimes in these urban “zones” are mandatorially harsher. Guess which races of people are more likely to live in urban areas? You get two guesses and a hint: they don’t have the word “asian” in them anywhere.

Finally, it does wonders with the whole idea of mandatory minimums, expanding them to apply to almost every federal crime, even non-drug crimes, removing any consideration of just and fair sentences from the hands of judges. It also expands the “three strikes and you’re out” sentences to even more crimes.

If you thought 2,000,000 people in prison was bad, wait and see what happens if this bill passes — we’re going to need prison space for 10-15 million people. And drug violence? How do you think drug users will react when someone accidently sees them using? The pizza guy who shows up at the pot party, the clubgoer who accidently walks in on someone snorting a line in the bathroom, the concertgoer who sees someone pass a joint near the porta-potties — they’re all facing two years if they don’t snitch, and someone’s going to make really sure the accidental witnesses don’t tell.

Uncle Sam Wants You!… to be a Drug War Snitch. This is bad law, folks, as is any law that seeks to turn neighbor against neighbor. This is the kind of legislation popular with mid-20th century Germans. They were patriotic Christians scared out of their mind by domestic terrorism who scapegoated a reviled subclass, too, if I recall correctly…