he Global Commission on Drug Policy declared this week that the international War on Drugs has been a complete failure, filling jails and costing taxpayers millions while actually increasing drug use and bolstering organized crime. The commission, made up of the former presidents of Brazil, Columbia, Mexico and Switzerland, and a guy who tried meth once at a party, reached this conclusion after months of study and forty-five seconds spent in Rio de Janeiro. The commission’s official recommendation was to end the war by decriminalizing drugs and focusing on treatment options, but many feel the damage has already been done, as indicated by the simultaneously-breaking story that drugs spokesperson Willie Nelson and his band of pro-drug commandos have taken control of the entire U.S. state of West Virginia.

"We should have never started this war," admitted national Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske. "We clearly underestimated the resourcefulness of the drug users and their tactical expertise."

When asked how to spell his last name, Kerlikowske grew sullen and withdrawn, not unlike a drug commando after surviving a harrowing battle and pulling a full tube of reefer.

"Fuuuuuuck, maaaaaan," agreed drug user Tyler Bannister, from a guerilla base camp nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, high as shit.

Nelson’s forces reportedly met little resistance in commandeering the U.S. state, which had fallen into disuse and neglect over the years due to being completely awful.

"Wait, there’s a West Virginia?" responded former Drug Czar John P. Walters when asked for his take on the matter. "Are you sure on that? They must not have a Six Flags. If a state doesn’t have a Six Flags, I don’t want to hear about it."

Nelson has been a polarizing figure on the national stage ever since the war was declared, drawing grassroots support from drug fans around the world and confusing non-country music fans who thought he sang "All My Exes Live in Texas." His drug commando boot camps have been compared to Al Qaeda training camps, only more laid-back and with a lot more weed.

The invasion of West Virginia reportedly occurred overnight Tuesday, the only reported casualties being a Rite Aid security guard who shot himself in the scrotum trying to be a hero and a Nelson lieutenant who burnt his thumb on a bong stem.

"Hey man, you gonna eat all them chips?" pro-drug rebel Max Tulley asked when presented with a question about the skirmish by a reporter holding a bag of chips.

Nelson refused to comment on the coup directly, offering this reporter only a glazed grin and a mumbled "Later, man," while wandering away, which turned out not to mean he’d give a quote later.

Some Americans have argued that the commission’s findings are obvious and long-overdue, especially those still smarting from the Bush Administration’s "Take No Prisoners" approach to the war on drugs, which resulted in many family members shooting each other during small-scale living room skirmishes. The Obama Administration’s "We’re Not the Bush Administration" approach has proved only marginally more successful.

There was no news as of press time regarding whether or not the U.S. would attempt to retake West Virginia, or if the government would instead try to trade it for forgiveness of Nelson’s legendarily unpaid back taxes.

In a side-note, The Global Commission on Drug Policy also declared that word on the street is that Ricky Martin is probably gay, not that it matters.

Bush’s MySpace Page Traffic Way Down

Plans for Tallest Ferris Wheel Scrapped; Yao-Ming Too Busy to Turn It

Entwistle Pleads Not Guilty of Murder, Last Several Who Albums

Condi Rice Hates the Way She Smiles in Pictures

Every one of you are cordially invited to attend the wedding of Rockwell T. Finger and Rutherford Ginger Baker this Sunday, at the Flatbush Mall of 'Merica. Invited, of course, as long as you actually receive one of those little cardboard notes saying you can come. They all should be in the mail by now, according to Ginger. They are handwritten, so we can save all the money for the honeymoon in Haiti. We are going there to save money for buying something we really want, like solid gold dollar-sign rims for our automobile.

If you haven't received an invitation, it probably means you're shit out of luck. We'll be sending out the shit-out-of-luck cards tomorrow, to verify to everyone. There are a lot of those. But fewer guests mean more catered food for us and our eight or nine close friends we invited.

Unfortunately, someone—I think that no-goodnik Omar Bricks, or probably one of those other many, many no-goodniks who work here, posted our wedding invitation on the commune bulletin board. Ginger doesn't believe many of them will come to the wedding anyway, since I'm generally hated here at the office, but we're serving fried baloney and hosting square dancing (with a real caller!) so you can imagine I'm fearing a rush of uninvited guests. Damn, I didn't want to have the squad dancing caller! Like putting an open bar at a wedding. But an old friend of mine from the Russian mob was available, so we decided to ask him.

It occurs to me only now I probably shouldn't have contacted the Russian mob again at all, given they have tried to kill me in the past for turning state's evidence against them. Let alone invited them to the wedding. I was so excited I didn't think clearly when I made up my list. Oh, well. Hopefully they'll be the sentimental sort and let our murky histories with each other slide. It's a joyous occasion, after all.

My betrothed and I have decided to write our own vows. We got off to a rocky start, but I think it's going exceptionally well now. At first, I admit, I sort of confused the vows with New Year's resolutions, promising her I would cut out chocolate and lose ten pounds by Christmas. But she corrected me, and didn't even use violence—what a woman!

So then I wrote the vows I'm using. I promise to take her in sickness and health, as long as the health outweighs the sickness by an 85% margin. I also promised to buy her a little red wagon for putting things in and dragging them from place to place; I wanted one so badly when I was a kid, and I swore then that no wife of mine would ever do without one when she was hauling groceries home from the store or doing other work-oriented wife things. I also promised her ten cents on the dollar, should we ever divorce, which I think is a pretty fair deal. You try reading that in a mall full of loved ones and see if there's a dry eye in the food court. I doubt you could find one.

Also, she doesn't know this, but I snuck a peek at her vows, too, even though she wanted to keep them secret. If you'll excuse a little bragging, I also edited them pretty cleverly. Hers went on a little too much, talking about searching all her life for a man who really understood her and would treat her like a princess, blah, blah, blah—stuff everyone's heard before, and pretty cliché. I cut a lot of that down, and I also snuck in some sexy rejoinders, just to keep the crowd from falling asleep. Like, "I also pledge to be your eternal love slave, you handsome beefstick. I vow to do the nasty nightly." Not that I want nightly nasty. The wedding's just a show for the audience anyway.

So once again, I hope to see each and everyone of you there, because I love you all like my family. That is, if you're one of the selected few who are related to me. The rest of you just ignore all that, and whatever you do, don't come to the wedding.

º Last Column: Abducted by Beatniks
º more columns

I've always believed that a sense of play is paramount to the health of any long-term relationship. And though some times I may have doubted it, Dan, now I finally understand that you feel exactly the same way.

I have to admit you had me going for a while there, when you "broke up" with me, quit your job and moved to Tacoma. Things got a little weird when you didn't leave a forwarding address and I started to wonder if we were doing okay. But then I remembered how you loved to play-act when we were together, going home from the bar with other girls and conveniently "forgetting" to tell me that you'd changed the all the locks to the apartment. I have to admit; you sure knew how to keep a girl coming back for more! But your little "hard to get" routine didn't fool me then and I wasn't about to let it fool me when I was put to the big test. Before you could say "disappeared in the middle of the night" I was in a Seattle-area private investigator's office, proving just what I was willing to do for your love.

Of course, I wasn't naive enough to think that would be enough: after all, most any girl with a road atlas, a lock picking kit and a flexible career path could track you down in Tacoma and surprise you in your new apartment at three in the morning.

But only the true of heart would endure the endless trips to the police station and rounds of legal maneuvering necessary to prove their conviction over the next several months.

You knew I'd come through for you, Dan, and I did. No amount of door slamming, table-lamp swinging or screaming "Back to hell with you, bitch!" could shake from my mind the love I still saw in your eyes. Lesser girls probably would have given up after being shoved off the fire escape, but then of course they wouldn't have been worthy of your love.

A restraining order can send a lot of messages, but if you really wanted me to stay away, I know you would have made sure it was for more than a mere 100 meters. That's practically a Valentine's card, an invitation to buy some high-powered binoculars and peer into your bedroom window from the parking lot of the Taco Bell down the street. You know these little lovers' games drive me wild, you tease!

After all, if you really meant what you said about the end of Fatal Attraction, why would you go to the trouble of installing those electronic sensors in my bed to monitor my masturbations? Or what about the wafer-thin cameras hidden inside the patterns in my wallpaper? That just doesn't make sense.

Everybody thought I'd for sure throw in the towel when you married Darlene, or at least when Alicia and Barnaby were born. But they just don't understand us, Dan. I'm in this for the long haul. My love only goes stronger with every additional test, and with every night spent sleeping on your rooftop, peering down through the skylight until my breath fogs the glass.

Say what you like to the papers, Dan. I know you love me.

º Last Column: Keep Your Hands Off the President's Money
º more columns