Sorry about neglecting to pass on the programming note regarding the CNBC documentary that was on tonight called “Marijuana USA.”
Here’s the CNBC page on the show.
There are also showings at midnight and 1 am ET (may be more later).
Let us know if you saw it and what you thought.
Site note: I’ve been getting a huge spike in comment spam this week, so I’m afraid I’m just deleting the entire batch each time without actually looking through 45 pages of them. Sorry if one of your comments got stuck in there.
Excellent show,watching for second time later.
Especially liked it when the eradication officer claimed success but admitted it would never end. Duhh
Clay, it’s a never ending success.
Here in Australia we have similar absurdity:
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/1060511/going-to-pot
Watch through to the part where they fly around in helicopters (god the amount of money wasted beggars belief) tearing out cannabis plants.
One of the highly paid weeders says, “hopefully if we disrupt it enough people will stop using it, well… they will never stop using it.”
What a Burke.
I watched it and I really enjoyed seeing all of the people for the legalization of Marijuana. I think it should be like tobacco and beer/wine/liquor. I’d much rather smoke a bowl than drink alcohol. I think the big beer companies know that a lot of Americans would rather smoke Cannabis than drink alcohol and I think they are some of the pushers not to have it legalized. But what they don’t understand is that no matter what, people like myself are going to do what they want to do. It’s illegal and I still use it. I think it’s my right to put what I want to in my body whether or not anyone else agrees with it or not. It’s illegal and I still consume it. So instead of me having to go to a stranger and get it that way, why can’t I pay taxes on it and help create new jobs in grow houses, dispensaries, trimmers, bud tenders etc… I have smoked for years and I will continue to smoke. People are going to do what they want to do. It doesn’t matter what Big Brother says, it’s my choice and I choose Cannabis. It helps with my anxiety and pain and it makes me lead a happier life. It’s natural and I support it.
Your comment spam is probably because you’re doing so well getting DWR to come up on Google News searches. I just popped back in because this page came up when I searched the news for ‘marijuana’.
What I thought was pretty entertaining was the portion of the show where she was sitting down with the director of Portugal’s drug policy. She was comparing eating too many cupcakes to shooting up with heroin; which made me think. Although marijuana and heroin are illicit drugs, aren’t they both choices made by the individual? Drug awareness isn’t an unfamiliar topic for the majority of Americans first-time users often know the dangers of these drugs but still insist on using them to cope, for a release, or for whatever reason they choose. Isn’t the person with diabetes, who over indulges on cupcakes making the same conscious decision? They know very well the consequences of doing so; they may not have ever be diagnosed with diabetes, but other health issues (which are the focus of concern) may be of an issue. This is also making many assumptions about the person and their life.
my boyfriend is on that erad team asshole. they are very successful with the detail…..(hint: the cnbc special.lol) speeding is also against the law but ppl will continue to do it until they are caught.
money wasted for the helicopters?……taxes well spent!!!!!! its a better investment than paying your government funded insurance, food stamps, and the 17 kids you probably have scattered around.
Yvonne,and your boyfriends paycheck depends on marijuana
prohibition to keep doing his job,instead of looking for meth labs,murderers and thieves.
A good suggestion would be for him to start brushing up on “real” police work because we will legalize marijuana.
I saw the episode last night as well and agree with the interviewed couple that the wave is so large right now that at some point there will have to be some compromises on the side of not only the fed gov’t, but also with the states that have not yet eased up on their cannabis laws.
With regard to the eradication team in KY – If the only thing they do is go out and “search” for mj all day, then I would say that should be a job for a bunch of hikers, etc. Not really “law enforcement” if you don’t catch and prosecute anyone…they showed a ton of plants being cut down and only one guy being arrested for what looked like very little to nothing…I’m not saying they aren’t productive, just maybe not the best use of resources IMO.
uh yvonne, you do realize that speeding can cause harm to others. i know you don’t know it, but the stuff that us welfare bums are growing cures cancer. you know the kind of cancer that killed ted kennedy and liz edwards. i think Erad Team Asshole (strange name for a nark outfit) should be trying to eradicate cancer and overpopulation, not stomping on the constitution.
after thinking about it for thirty seconds i think Erad Team Asshole is the perfect name for any nark formation.
About that eradication cop, he sure looked like he’s good at eradicating donuts. If he actually had to HIKE in there to get those plants (instead of a cushy tax-payer funded helecopter ride), you know, like the grower who humped them in there?,…we’d be paying for another ride, you know…. an ambulance ride. Like, to the cardiac ward…
I like their name though…”Eradication Team Asshole” I didn’t catch that but it fits (snark).
It was marginally better than Marijuana, inc. But I miss the unbelieveable hyperbole of John Walters…
You can watch it on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJKJqejDMms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIO9GTmeMGQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eipHn20mBOI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LYdyzs7_Iw
these pork bellies ain’t made for walkin’
Fearless plant killers. Hell’s Gardeners. The Pollen Police. The Special Vegetable Assault Team (S.V.A.T). Phyto-Phyters.
Plant-Punishes.
I could think of a dozen more and they’d all be better than “Eradication Team Asshole”.
Yvonne, your boyfriend will likely have to go back to work hunting real criminals. But I gotta admit, the plants are a bunch easier and safer. I mean it’s not like poison Ivy, eradicating that the wrong way can actually be dangerous.
All this show made me realize is how IGNORANT the government is. It angered me when the narcotics officer complained about our tax money being spent on fighting what I KNOW is an unnecassary war on marijuana. As if it were our fault. Maybe if his team spent their time fighting something that were actually harming his state, or the nation for that matter, he wouldn’t BITCH about our tax money being spent poorly.
(Sorry for the poor choice of words.)
But I wasn’t quite in favor of Potugual’s drug policy. Any man made substance for the purpose of any kind of high should be considered an actual drug and made illegal.
Also, I admire what Colorado has done with medical marijuana. The governor balanced their budget with taxes from medical marijuana! But, it was VERY regulated and kept under control. I think that is what should be done across the nation.
NOTE: I am 17.
Aurora, you sound like a sensible person, intelligently weighing the relative potential for harm in these various drugs, and making an informed decision for yourself. Kudo’s.
Just think of how much easier that job would have been for you, had your Government, educators, and yes, potentially your parents, given you accurate information on which to base your conclusion. Instead of lying to you, hiding from you and deceiving you at every turn in the process? The point of the use of drug policy in Portugal as a model in the documentary is that they have LOWER rates of use, across the board of these drugs. Especially, as was pointed out well, in the youth demographic, your demographic…
It is a gesture of respect to give the youth the information and encourage an educated choice. It says we respect your intelligence, we respect your ability to make an informed decision, and moreover it says we respect your decision, regardless of how it is made. We will not denigrate you, nor imprison you if you turn out to have the disease of addiction. We don’t know what causes it, nor can we prevent it even with draconian laws, so we will do what needs to be done to treat you, and with dignity.
That is respect. That is how you empower people, and that is what a civilised society does when faced with this problem.
Prohibitionists hate nothing more than your dignity, and they don’t want you to make these choices for yourself, they don’t trust you.
Thanks Clay for those links!
Here’s part 5 in case anybody can’t find it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To0ofMTIO2g
“money wasted for the helicopters?……taxes well spent!!!!!! its a better investment than paying your government funded insurance, food stamps, and the 17 kids you probably have scattered around.”
Well of course you think it’s its a good use of money, you are your boyfriend are directly benefitting from him being an erad team asshole. Hardly an unbiased opinion though. If I were you I also wouldn’t be too hard on food stamps, because you may need them when the useless erad team assholes are cut from the budget. Time is running out. Well maybe he can find seasonal work as a christmas tree cutter, as thats the only other place his skill set would be of any use.
P.S.- Insurance, food stamps, and 17 kids running around have nothing to do with marijuana prohibition. Why would you even bring those up?
Aurora, for age 17 you have a remarkably good understanding of the situation. However, I’d ask you to reexamine your belief that absolute prohibition is an effective public policy for any substance or activity that people crave.
If you do decide to rethink this please remember the choice isn’t binary. Between absolute prohibition and absolute unfettered access is a wide range of possible options. It is not required that we allow the sales reps from the heroin factory to set up tables in the lobby of the local elementary school to hand out free samples to 3rd graders in order to cultivate future customers. We don’t need to allow commercial advertising, we don’t need to allow sales at the local 7-11.
You might be interested to know that in 2008 the Swiss voted by better than 2-1 to keep giving their heroin addicts free, pharmaceutical grade heroin. There’s no sales, no businesses involved, the heroin is only available to the hardcore junkies. But the Swiss have approached the problem with an attitude of finding something that is a benefit to their society. Also, unlike U.S. voters approaching 100% of the Swiss show up at the polls to vote, so there’s no way to claim their people don’t support the vote. Just the opposite of Prop 19 which failed with about 4.5 million votes against, and about 19 million eligible voters that were either in favor of passage or just didn’t give a shit one way or the other. Indeed, a little over 15 million eligible voters in California didn’t even bother to vote last month.
The point is the Swiss have ‘legal’ heroin in a very restricted version of ‘legalization. Something the drug warriors just don’t seem to have the capacity to understand is that extremism rarely works when you have to battle human nature. That’s just a fight you can’t win. You end up with morons flying around in helicopters getting paid to pull up plants here and there and still have record availability despite their “eradication” efforts. It’s just a total waste of public resources.
If people weren’t interested you wouldn’t need a law. There’s no law against producing or distributing deadly nightshade, castor beans, or azaleas. If you’re interested, here’s a list of some very toxic plants which are very legal to produce and possess:
http://www.denverplants.com/foliage/html/Poisonous_Plants.htm
Sebastopol OKs Medical Pot Gardens
100 square feet of leaf canopy
two gardens in town
750 feet of leaf canopy
gardens must be inside a house or outbuilding or in a yard with solid or opaque walls six feet high and with a locked gate.
It also provides that police will investigate home medical marijauna gardens only upon complaints about such things as odor or public safety issues.
two additional gardens of the same size by collectives of patients and caregivers for their own use, not for sale.
The ordinance was read for the second time and approved in a 5-0 vote. It takes effect in early January.
Pot Poll & Legislature Could Pave The Way for MMJ
Iowa — A new Hawkeye Poll shows the majority of Iowans are in favor of medical marijuana, and proposed legislation could make that a possibility. The poll — administered by UI professors and students — found 62 percent of Iowans are in favor of legalizing medical marijuana, which is in line with the results from other states.
Arizona Preps for Pot Shop Green Rush
New Jersey Closer To Sales of Medical Marijuana
Homegrown is the best Grow Op flick I’ve seen. Outside of home movies by actual Growers. Now when will the Ganja Gourmets be coming to the Food Channel?
Watch Homegrown Online Free
Cooking With … Marijuana?
Cookbook A Sign of Changing Attitudes
Like so many other cookbook authors, Sandy Moriarty included recipes for a variety of foods, including desserts, appetizers and entrees. But Moriarty’s recipes include what she calls a special “magic ingredient.”
I found it humorous that the state police officer on marijuana patrol couldn’t even do the interview with trish without having tobacco in his mouth. Tobacco as we all know (or all should know) is a PSYCHOACTIVE similar to marijuana and is much more dangerous. A state police officer using a psychoactive while in uniform on camera while talking about his job fighting an alternative psychoactive. WTF? It’s ok to do an interview while using tobacco, on the job no less, but using marijuana during an interview or on the job would freak people out….wtf? The war on marijuana is stupid and pointless and does nothing but waste tax dollars and drive transactions into tax free, unregulated black markets. People will use marijuana regardless.
read up on psychoactives…tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, pain pills, anti-depressants…they’re all in there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive
Can there be any question that we live in a Bizarro world in an alternate universe when a story like this is flippin’ international news?
It’s not like it’s uncommon for potheads to use pot plants in place of pine trees. Just take a look at my avatar for an example of this widespread practice. Even Charlie Brown does it for the love of Santa.
The cartels and illegal marijuana distributors need marijuana to stay illegal to secure their source of revenue and inflate prices.
The DEA needs marijuana to stay illegal to fund their organization and so they have jobs.
The medical marijuana businesses need marijuana to remain illegal so the supply can be controlled, and marijuana prices inflated.
The close-minded moralists of america need marijuana to stay illegal because they fear their mind would melt if people were allowed to exercise free will.
The tokers of america need marijuana to be legal to reduce prices, set quality standards, and ensure safe access.
The sane citizens of america need marijuana to be legal to reduce government spending and increase tax revenues. — Legalizing marijuana will reduce government spending on “war on drugs” programs that target marijuana use and cut down on prosecution and prison costs by reducing the prisoner population since non-violent marijuana users/distributors are labeled as criminals. Legalizing marijuana will virtually end tax free black market marijuana, moving the industry into legitimate businesses that pay taxes, increasing tax revenue for public programs.
This is basic economics: supply and demand….there are two options…
Option 1 – destroy the supply. this increases the demand and allows the price to be inflated. prices are largely controlled by those that control the supply. very little competition among distributors allowing the prices to skyrocket. the war on drugs actually fuels the illegal drug market, inflating prices and increasing revenue.
Option 2 – increase the supply and flood the market. this decreases the demand and results in lower prices. competition between distributors increases and high risk distribution becomes unprofitable since the supply is more than adequate. legalization would virtually destroy black market marijuana distribution. as a result, all marijuana trade would be less profitable by weight unless the demand increased (need more tokers). this is why prop 19 failed in california. marijuana entrepreneurs knew that legalization would increase the supply and feared the demand would not increase enough to compensate. it is easy to get a medical marijuana license in california and entrepreneurs feared that they had already maximized the demand for their product. increasing the supply could potentially decrease profits for existing medical marijuana entrepreneurs with the added competition unless laws were added restricting who could sell marijuana, ie, existing medical marijuana centers, and not your average retail store.
All in all, not a bad show. Rather than the typical sensationalist stuff the media likes to show when it comes to cannabis, this was mostly about it becoming mainstream and the business aspects. They even covered the situation in Portugal and how successful their 10-year old decriminalization policy is. Aside from the Drug Czar and some cop in Kentucky, the rest of the people interviewed actually made sense and seemed reasonable.
Unfortunately, I think the couple they interviewed extensively, Scott Durrah and Wanda James, are going to be getting a visit from the DEA real soon. Anybody want to start a pool? I’ll take next Tuesday.
Aurora, Crimes have victims, produced without their permission, Vices may do harm but its caused by the victim. Prohibition lumps them all together to create more victims. Plus huge profits maintaining this dysfunctional Ganjawar.
“One may well ask: How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Vices Are Not Crimes by Lysander Spooner, 1875
I. A Vindication Of Moral Liberty
Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.
Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.
Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.
In vices, the very essence of crime — that is, the design to injure the person or property of another — is wanting.
It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practises a vice with any such criminal intent. He practises his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others.
Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
continued…
“The Emperor Wears No Clothes†by Jack Herer
The prohibition itself causes the harm in drugs. Same drugs given safely to millions without sharing needles, adulterations or inconsistent dosages. Vices are not crimes but public liars should be. Lets have some Justice.
DdC: You HAVE to check out “Humboldt County” No big names, just a Cameo by Fairuza Balk, but with out a doubt the best grower film of all time. Magnolia released it.
Seroiusly, it puts that Billy-Bob Thornton/John Lithgow film to shame.
PSYCHOACTIVE…
“I should mention that DMT is an endogenous neurotransmitter. Yes, DMT, the most powerful of the hallucinogens occurs in the human brain as a normal part of metabolism. It also is a Schedule I drug, so you’re all holding and this might be the basis for some kind of case. To just show what absolute poppycock all this nonsense is: People Have Been Made Illegal!”
~Terence Mckenna’s
Non-Ordinary States Through Vision Plants
Why is DMT illegal if it occurs naturally in everyones brain U2b
Food of the Gods (1992)
Why, as a species, are humans so fascinated by altered states of consciousness?
DMT is a pseudo-neurotransmitter that when ingested and allowed to come to rest in the synapses of the brain, allows one to see sound, so that one can use the voice to produce not musical compositions, but pictoral and visual compositions. This, to my mind, indicates that we’re on the cusp of some kind of evolutionary transition in the language-forming area, so that we are going to go from a language that is heard to a language that is seen, through a shift in interior processing. The language will still be made of sound but it will be processed as the carrier of the visual impression. This is actually being done by shamans in the Amazon. The songs they sing sound as they do in order to look a certain way. They are not musical compositions as we’re used to thinking of them. They are pictoral art that is caused by audio signals.
The Stargate Conundrum
“Psilocybin and DMT were made Schedule 1 without any scientific evidence at all being presented for or against their use.†Schedule 1 is the most restrictive category, resulting in the fact that even medical research was virtually impossible, as Rick Strassman had discovered. Rather than over-reacting, the government had made sure all possible usage of DMT was strictly controlled – and withheld from the American population. In short, the US government tried to outlaw a drug that is present in almost every fabric of our reality. It is a psychic drug. Not the only one, but the most potent one, and the one native to all of us…
Why did the US legislation go overboard on this drug? Why make it a top-grade drug? Was it because they wanted it all to themselves? After all, if, as argued, DMT potentially allows limitless knowledge, do we want everyone to access that knowledge archive? Or do we want to seriously limit access to it? In the latter scenario, grading it a Schedule 1 drug, would be a most logical scenario. And do we need to see the actions of the US Government in its treatment of DMT as a stand-alone event, or do we need to see it in light of the Remote Viewing project and other drug projects, such as MK-ULTRA?
DdC: You HAVE to check out “Humboldt Countyâ€
darkcycle
Homegrown was a tad holywoodish or even corny in parts. It was good for its fresh look and at the time was a rarity. Saving Grace is another feel good about Ganja flick that won’t win any awards but have found a spot in my Library. Now, is “Humboldt County†worth the $25? It seems to be online if you rent it for $3 or buy it online for $15. I’ve never downloaded flicks so I don’t know if this old Mac dial up will work. Oh well, Amazon and one click gets me in trouble again… I’ll let ya know…
HUMBOLDT COUNTY, a Magnolia Pictures (2008)
DVD 24.49
Rental rights 2.99
Purchase rights 14.99
Buy This DVD and Watch it Instantly
Watch the Video On Demand version on your PC, Mac, compatible TV or compatible device at no charge when you buy this DVD from Amazon.com. The Video On Demand version will be available in Your Video Library and is provided as a gift with disc purchase. Available to US customers only.
STASH
Thanks for the YouTube links Clay. I’ve only now been able find the time to watch.
Sure,those whom have smoked marijuana for years are now being argued with by those whom are try’n to make a buck.
None of the medical marijuana I have purchased and have
legal writ to hold in California of value and those whom claim it is are as worthless as weed they claim is marijuana.The cross strain crap is good for a headache and thats all its good for.The dispensaries are stocked with the worthless SH*T and those whom have need for it go without.
Biggest joke ever given an audience.
Until the people fight for the constitution laws. the federals will rules just like king george…..crime is on the feds side and has always been
since they defeat the country fighting for the constitution laws of America in the 1800’s…Marijuana used to be legal before those who oppose it, like the Kenndys alcohol firms,Tobbacco Industries, and cotton trade…..in the 1930’s….We will never be a free people as long as the federals rule us…..The Constitutional party is a morale party and the Republicans and Democrats of the federal party are not ….our forefathers would not allow the feds to rule if they were still alive…………………