[JDeere]

Originally Posted by cathexis

Both Nancy and Ronny ruined a lot of lives. The whole Drug Tzar thing and that high mandatory sentencing for even the smallest amounts. When I owned a townhouse outside of FLL in Pembroke Lakes, my neighbor was smoking a joint on his front porch, a cop came by and arrested him. He was cruising the streets, and this was a two-rance community that was pretty much tucked away. My spouse then could very well have been out there with him. They were good friends. They busted his son, too, but he got out. We were very tight-lipped about the whole thing. She was paranoid about everything after that. I can't blame her.

This guy got 10-20 years in prison for a small amount of weed for personal use. I know for a fact that the weed was all he had. They almost lost their home. The wife and son worked hard to make ends meet. He built up his landscaping business, and she went to work doing some difficult job that made her come home dead tired. When I lost my townhouse in the Great Recession, he still had not come home, which was over ten years. I got acid from another neighbor.

The AIDS Crisis was horrible back then. They needed research money badly. It caused the largest LGBT march in DC. I was in that action and the die-in in front of the SCOTUS. I worked medical for the die-in in case the DC police injured one of the participants. Cops weren't about to touch anyone who had AIDS. Organizers put all the medical staff in isolation gowns, gloves, and goggles if they caused significant injury with bleeding.

That was after the march itself, where the Leather Contingent were sharp. There were Leathermen in chaps, codpiece, shined boots, and a vest. That's it for the bottoms. The Tops wore head-to-toe shined leather. They put the Leatherdykes up front with our biker jackets with chains on our applets. T, The men put those of us sporting floggers and whips in front by the banner that read "Leather Contingent." When we started, all you could hear was the thuddy sound of leather slapping leather and the swinging of chains in unison. Have no photos of that, but the Leather Archives in Chgo has many. I think it's on Clark or used to be, near Women and Children First Books around Foster. A few of us watched the entire march from beginning to end. It was impressive; we returned to the starting point and watched the groups come through. The crowd estimate was 250,000.

It was also the last time the entire NAMES Quilt was displayed, taking up nearly the whole Ellipse. It took about four hours for me to walk it, tears the entire time. Think I did that before the march; we were there four or five days. A good friend, Drusilla (scene name), booked a two-bedroom suite at the Watergate. She is/was a psychiatrist, so she had a little money. She took one-bedroom, I the other. We had a bunch of women staying in the suite's main room on the floor, one of whom brought me my morning coffee...good times from a negative.

The whole point of the march and the SCOTUS action was LGBT rights and money for AIDS research. In the 1980s-90s, I got news of more friend's deaths every week, some by suicide, to avoid the horrible AIDS-related cancers, toxoplasmosis, and PCP. I still see my Leather brothers, who were taken by senseless ignorance. The first time I heard about these new once-a-day wonder pills that make HIV undetectable by lab tests and make it not passed any longer by sex, I wept. How many people could that have saved? Good friends who were lost too young. The Leather community collapsed on itself. My friends and I shuttled condoms from AIDS awareness charities to the Leather bars like The Eagle and bathhouses. The fishbowls were always empty before we could get more.

I was still a young kid in the 80s but I remember the Reagans war on drugs, I didnt understand it much till I got older and got into drugs, weed is not a drug, its a plant that cures diseases and help people with chronic pain.. haha chronic.. sorry had a lil giggle. I still see people being jailed over weed more than meth, cocaine, heroin, pills, etc....yet we all know big pharma is behind the pills. I recall my first time of having a friend with AIDS, he was an older gay guy I met at drug rehab, we spoke on many occasions about his life, how he thinks he got AIDS and he educated me on things I never knew, because schools don't educate properly..imo...He told me he got aids from sharing a needle with an infected person, IV drug used, not cleaning a needle, constant sharing and numerous partners. Not long after we both completed our stint in rehab, this was my 2nd, he passed away, like 4 months after, I found out through a NA group we used to attend together. I was hurt, because if those medical drugs were available at the time it is now, he would still be here!

HE is the one who taught me to be transparent with telling my partners everything from my drug past, shared needles, always get hiv and aids tests, I still do even after being clean for 20 plus years. I miss him, very much, if he was around and telling his stories maybe we wouldn't have the epidemic we have now.