Christian Science Monitor: Government isn’t lying loudly enough to young people.
Government needs to send a clear, loud message about marijuana’s dangers.
Legalizing marijuana: Police officers speak out
This has been discussed a bit in comments… fascinating column in Police One – a site not known for its tolerance for legalization.
I’ll be heading up to Chicago tomorrow to play piano for a burlesque show, and then I’ve got lots of final projects to grade this weekend.
Sometime, I’ve got to find time to do a little Christmas shopping. I was hoping to get some of this panettone as gifts, but apparently it’s only available in parts of Bolivia.
teenagers and cops thinking for themselves. the brainwash education is wearing off. could be the end of the empire. the emperor gets more naked every day.
.
.
There’s no way I can support Ron Paul for POTUS if the job requires public nudity. On the other hand, Newt doesn’t stand a chance if that’s so.
Just a few minutes ago, Me and Duncan posted simultaneously on the Christian Monitor comment thread. Here’s mine:
Why on earth is the Christian Monitor actively helping to perpetuate the longest, most costly, and most futile war in American history? The prejudices and fears exhibited in this editorial clearly bear scant relation to reality.Â
How is it even possible that you fail to understand that prohibition – just like it’s counter-part in the 1920s – has created massive amounts of destruction to all aspects of our society?
How can you not desire a saner policy, one that’s based on facts rather than reefer-madness, greed and racism? Do you honestly believe that there’s anything to to be gained by aligning yourselves with our planet’s darkest forces – such as political demagogues, corrupt government agencies, fear-mongering, soulless media moguls, illegal cartels, foreign terrorists and all other forces of hate, greed, ignorance and arrogance?
And do you honestly think that there are many of us left who are willing to further sacrifice precious hard-earned tax dollars and civil liberties? This pointless exercise of whacking ourselves with ever-bigger and more-repressive prohibition hammers, while drug use and availability keeps going up, not down, will do nothing but plunge us all even deeper into Loserville.
Prohibition has finally run it’s course; the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of Americans have been destroyed or severely disrupted; what was once a shining beacon of liberty and prosperity has become a toxic, repressive, smoldering heap of hypocrisy and a gross affront to fundamental human decency.
Prohibition is nothing but the work of the Prince of Darkness!
Kindly join us now in helping to protect our precious families and our cherished Christian values.Â
Here’s Duncan’s:
When does the editorial board of the CSM figure out that fiction isn’t going to fool the kiddies?
While I have no doubt that at least some of the people on the CSM editorial board actually believe the propaganda, ignorance of the facts simply does not diminish your culpability for the unintended harms caused by using fiction to fool the kiddies into behaving as you wish them to behave. In reality, it takes about 5 minutes inside my world to know for certain that the case against enjoying cannabis from time to time is built on a platform of nothing but bald faced lies, half truths, and hysterical rhetoric. At this point your credibility goes out the window, and youth, particularly teens think, “well they lied to me about cannabis. They’re probably lying about heroin/opioids, cocaine, methamphetimine, pharmaceuticals, drinking alcohol, Freon®…
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2011/1216/Why-teens-need-to-know-risks-of-marijuana
I don’t know how you could read either of those comments and still remain a supporter of drug prohibition.
They seem to forget the Founding Fathers not only required, by law, it’s cultivation, but also wrote extensively about ”enjoying a bowl in the veranda.”
Where was this ”moral” issue then?
.
.
If my family name was Outhouse I would either have been at the Courthouse on my 18th birthday changing my name legally, or being tried for willful & premeditated patricide because Dad didn’t have the sense to do the same.
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Licensing+open+abuse+Ottawa/5876848/story.html
It will be interesting to see their list of medical uses by the doctors in Vancouver,who have been prescribing it for a period.
You would think a medical school would at least be investigating re-introducing cannabis to new doctors so politicians wouldn’t be the deciding factor on approved medical uses of marijuana.
.
.
clay, have you ever read about how many plants that Health Canada will authorize? I know I read of at least 1 patient who got busted for exceeding his allotment. Talk about greedy, the guy was authorized for almost 300 plants. I’ve never seen an authorized HC patient that didn’t have a number that makes the US States’ limits look like pikersville.
Well if you thought the government stealing your property under civil forfeiture laws was bad, how do you feel about getting charged with a felony for creating the scenario that “forces” them to do so? I bullshit you not, “possession of property subject to forfeiture” is a felony in Montana.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/hamilton-woman-charged-with-felonies-related-to-growing-marijuana/article_caea195e-2818-11e1-84ff-0019bb2963f4.html
The Police One article was actually pretty encouraging. But I had to laugh at two of the questions the author posed to LEAP:
Translation: You’re not going to take away our drug war money, are you?! And you’re certainly not going to end the drug war completely?! We’re just going to reallocate our resources to other “fronts” in the war, right? Right?! I mean, we need that money. We’ve gotten sort of… accustomed to having it. (And naturally, this was his FIRST question.)
Classic. I know it’s bad form to quote yourself, but here’s what I said a few weeks ago about this exact type of claim:
Ok, well I was encouraged by that article. I’m a little bit less so after taking a peek at the comments section and seeing gems like this:
and
Note that Police One comments are only open to “law enforcement professionals” so… that means that “seamus” is out there on the streets with a state-issued badge and gun, “serving and protecting” us. I’m certainly going to sleep a little more soundly tonight with that knowledge.
Don’t be disheartened because a few lawdogs beat their chests and rattled their badges at us,,,some listened,,and people of good conscience agreed.
Oh I’m not really, and you’re absolutely right that some will listen. And tomorrow a few more will listen, etc. And frankly, I’m happy to have “seamus” on the other side of the table. I think he’s doing the most good right where he is.
.
.
Seamus?? Man that’s one obscure answer in the Pink Floyd edition of Trivial Pursuit. I’ll bet nobody here knew that a dog sang lead on one of their numbers.
one of the best songs ever… and it makes my daughter’s dog check the stereo speakers for wherever that hound is…
When I arrived at Takhli AFB in Thailand in March of 1973 I didn’t know anybody… and I sure as hell was gonna find some of that Thai ganja I’d heard so many of my buds praising to high heaven. So I took a walk around the hootches… and then I heard the sound that 95% guaranteed there were smot pokers in the room… Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (a new album at the time, came w/ posters AND the LP). I knocked on the door and politely asked if they were smoking herb and could I join them. They became my friends (Hi Mike and Larry!) and we actually got busted together for possession there (1 joint found in a crumpled cig pack on the floor of our shop truck) tho’ somehow all the charges went away when that night’s SP log disappeared.
Pink Floyd… good shit… really good shit.
Oh, but I did, Duncan. Meddle is one of their lesser-known albums, and one of my faves.
Maybe some of these folks should consider moving to Indonesia.
Miranda Devine of the Herald Sun seems to think they had the right approach with the “Bali Boy”–too bad he got away!
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/get-off-the-grass-kids-using-weed-is-serious/story-e6frfhqf-1226224745081
Warning: you are about to enter upside-down land when you read this story.
Miranda Devine appears to have lots of friends on Facebook
.
.
There are boatloads and boatloads of idiots in the world. What’s your point TheWitchIsBrownBread?
Even Adolf Hitler has 420 friends on Facebook:
http://tinyurl.com/adoplf-hitler-facebook
Since when did anything have to make sense?
http://www.cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk/slang/brown_bread
.
.
Ummm, it wasn’t really ‘Dolf baby’s facebook page either…
http://i.imgur.com/dJ8KS.jpg
Dinos, as large and brutal as they WERE still succombed to their extinction. They roared and bellowed til their very end. Seamus is no different. He sees his skies darkening and finds himself facing the same extinction process as many are seeing.
They like to use the word “adiction,” yet don’t understand that they, too, are adicts. Adicts to false, self-serving laws that are clearly (to many) unconstitutional. Their adiction is enhanced by their taking of monies, whether from the government or the masses. This has given them “single focus.” No longer are they capable of handling any sort of “normal” crime. They only focus on “specific” crime, that with the greater payout.
Even the piddley “traffic stop,” where a simple ticket would have been the result in ages past, includes “is there anything in the car I should know about?” A broken or burnt out taillight is no longer a “fix-it” ticket, it’s cause for a search.
So, bellow and rant, dear Seamus. The comet is inbound and it’s getting colder. And your badge won’t stop it!
.
.
I thought it was the moon that made the (larger) dinos go extinct?
The Police1 article is great. Not only encouraging to see how many support reform, but also for “opposition research.”
I really didn’t have a clue until just recently of the truthiness of the gateway theory for so many prohibitionists. You just can’t dissuade them from thinking that the fact that so many “bad people” they’ve come into contact with consumed cannabis means that using cannabis makes people bad.
Even when they say that’s not what they’re saying. Especially then.
What do you say to these people? I’m going to meet one of the county Supes after the New Year, and my suss-out indicates this is where he comes from.
—-
And check that poll! 59-41 against, grouping the categories. Not bad for LE.
And this is the best: the ad on the poll page for the PEERLESS HANDCUFF COMPANY 4 MODELS – 5 COLORS
So naughty in lime green!
.
.
It takes a genius:
“There are more people than you can imagine who refuse to smoke pot for no other reason than the fact that it’s against the law, and these gen-u-wine Americans are truly law abiding citizens. If these law abiding citizens were allowed to legally smoke pot it would lead to law breaking on an unprecedented scale because only law breakers smoke pot, and that’s a fack.”
“Paradise is encased in a miniature ticket-dispensing array of sparkling towers that rise infinitely above the earth’s curvature!”
“Not bad for LE.” Exactly. And many of them DO really believe in the drug war. If my job required me to cage people like animals for possessing a plant, I’d want very badly to believe in the wisdom of that policy. Hell, I’d NEED to believe in it to live with myself. Self interest explains a big part of law enforcement support for the drug war at the institutional level. But at the individual officer level, I think cognitive dissonance / ego protection / rationalization or whatever you want to call it is an even bigger factor.
Add not wanting to lose your job by supporting reform.
You are more right than you know, Francis. The ability to self delude is limitless, it seems. On many levels.
I’m “more right than I know” regarding the human capacity for self-delusion? … Wait a minute, what exactly are you suggesting, sir? 🙂
Ha! There’s an implication I had not intended there, sir! But…the extent to which we all self delude as human beings is remarkable, yourself not excluded..
DAMN. That nice new Dell laptop I bought three months ago crapped. Keyboard problems. TWO TO SIX WEEKS TO FIX.
NEVER BUY A DELL.
I should have said something 3 month earlier. I, too, HAD a Dell. Power Jack on MB went bad. That’ll be your next headache.
patience grasshopper,,I use dell and never a problem,,sorry you got a bad one.
I buy a new one every 2>3 years and carry the in-house maintenance,,where they come by your house and fix it,after they diagnose it online.
Best Buy. They keep exclusive service contracts on the machines they sell. Did I mention the “Geek Squad” is worthless too? Or did I neglect to mention that the guy who “helped me” knew LESS about computers than I DID??? They should have gone out of business with “Good Guys”, would have been a favour to us all.
“Teen use of pot is at its highest in 30 years….â€
Great news. If it’s accurate, we can expect to see a correlation between increased teen pot smoking and reduced alcohol consumption with reduced auto accidents and incidents of teen crime, violence and general angst. That is, unless marijuana arrests continue to be used as a shortcut to authoritarian rule, in which case a new teen revolution against the forces of old and evil will emerge. The revolution could even provoke those who are 18-and-older to vote.
a question I’ve been meaning to ask… and I think it’s important…
whatever happened to DEA law judge Francis Young?
He’s in an undisclosed location, allan.
Good question. Probably went back to deciding insignificant administrative issues, I’m guessin’. Don’t get issues that big across your bench everyday (unless you’re a Supreme).
No relation, although now that I think about it, I have never seen us together in the same room…
not that there’s any reason why I ask… it’s just that Lordy, can you imagine how many times his 1988 report is and has been used by us and never, ever a word from him? The man and his staff produced a magnificent report (for the government, go figure) that was immediately dismissed. Didn’t anybody ever talk to the man behind the judge title? Surely he had/has an opinion… and heck, did he get sent to the bowels of DEA Paper Shuffle Central?
Maybe my family’s proclivity to dementia/alzheimer’s is setting in… lord, not yet… but I’ve always had a bit o’ spidey sense and there’s something there. I’ll let ya know if I put m finger on it.
More than his getting sent to BFEgypt tho’ is why the heck didn’t anybody on our side follow up? Is his report less relevant than Tashkin’s? Me thinks not. Damn, I hate it when I give myself work… maybe one of the oldster NORML wonks has a clue…
And yes, Francis… why HAVEN’T you ever been in the same place at the same time as judge Young? hmmm… Francis? tap tap tap…
I did find this at LinkedIn:
“Francis L. Young
Title
Aircraft Maintenance Specialist at United Airlines
Demographic info
San Francisco Bay Area | Airlines/Aviation
Current:
Aircraft Maintenance Specialist at United Airlines”
Prolly a different guy.
“deceased”
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=191
There is absolutely no other information whatsoever on Judge Francis L. Young. ProCon.org lists him as deceased but nothing further, so I checked out the “Social Security Death Index” and came up with 13 matches
Anybody want to try and take it from here?
.
.
I’ll go with the guy from Potomac:
Francis L Young
Last Residence:
Potomac, MD
Death Date:
27 Dec 1992
Birth Date:
31 Jan 1928
Person Full name:
Francis L Young
.
You’ve got him, Duncan!
Francis L. Young
Chief Administrative Law Judge, Drug Enforcement Adm.
7704 Masters Dr.
Potomac, Maryland
(Montgomery Co.)
http://www.martindale.com/Francis-L-Young/636950-lawyer.htm
Death Date: 27 Dec 1992
Person Full name: Francis L Young
Last Residence: Potomac, MD
Birth Date: 31 Jan 1928
Social Security Death Index
In case anybody needs the whole document:
http://www.ccguide.org/young88.php
That’s a damn shame. He was a rare bird…honest and brave.
.
.
So the TSA is in trouble again. I know, I know, that’s a dog bites man news story on its face, but this time they’re in trouble for not confiscating pot found in a travelling rapper’s checked luggage. Forbes had an article about the incident. Somehow I expected less brain dead people in a Forbe’s story’s comments. Instead, it seems that they have some of the most “how can anybody be that stupid and still be alive???” people on the face of the planet.
A mixed sampler for your amusement:
justadude gives no indication of how a checked luggage inspector would know who’s luggage he’s screening.
freudianslip didn’t grok the fact that the TSA was 7 years old (+ or -) when Mr. Obama was sworn in.
mikemurrieta doesn’t explain why the tanning of the TSA agent’s hide is important.
nbits has no clue about the Theory of Combustion.
Didn’t TSA adopt a “hands off” policy to Medical Marijuana when enroute from a medical state to a medical state? I saw the pictures, it was clearly labled as medical cannabis, with the guy’s name right on the label.
Great, and I had to wait through a Johnny Walker Red commercial before I could even get to the site.
.
.
Forbes has a “continue to site>>” button on the upper right corner so you can skip the commercial.
I got Johnnie Walker Blue. Evidently the software is getting sophisticated enough to tell who gets an ad for the cheap stuff and who has class. Ha! As if I’d be caught dead paying $300 for a bottle of swill. Heck, I wouldn’t even pay up for Mad Dog 20/20. Ethanol is ethanol.
Snork…not so sophisticated. Somehow the Ad softeware knows I own a Jaguar, every page I pull up has an ad trying to sell me a NEW one. (HA. like I’d own a NEW one! Can you say Junk? Mine is a ’68 e-type…that’s sex on wheels) Yet I get ads for gun training (like I want THAT) and tons of ads for scooter chairs. And Target seems to want me as a customer, but not Macy’s. I’ve never been to Target…physically OR online, I’m much more likely to shop local stores. I don’t order prescriptions on line yet the scooter chair people have my number…
And the last time I bought a bottle of booze was 1989. No shit.
….and my everyday driver is a ’07 Tundra, and the two previous new vehicles I bought were both trucks (and the next one, too) as well. So, go figger.
More treatment needed! – The patient’s name is David Kerr:
http://blog.nj.com/njv_david_kerr/2011/12/what_are_our_priorities_in_the.html
Yep, and per his own statement: “Treatment does not need to be voluntary to be effective…”
.
…or profitable!
Someone is in jail in India via an extortion racket which preys on tourists. It is the scam mentioned here which occurs in other countries. (link) http://freedani.org/
.
.
Don’t forget that today is the “dialog” with the allegedly human David Evans in the New York Times. I passed on making a submission since the Times said they would give him the last word.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/opinion/sunday/sunday-dialogue-when-marijuana-is-used-as-medicine.html?scp=1&sq=%22david%20evans%22&st=cse
(Caution, Sabet got himself published.)
.
.
Only a know Nothing prohibitionist would refer to an interagency memo as a “comprehensive study.” How the heck do bald faced liars like David Evans manage to get treated as if they’re not total fucking assholes?
Too bad there’s no place to leave comments, eh?
.
.
Well there’s always LTEs.
But at least Mr. Evans didn’t let me down. It was precisely this no way to anticipate absurdity combined with his getting the last word that made me decide to not waste my time writing a submission. Mr. Evans is no idiot. He knows well and good that the idiots who he depends on to support his money making scheme will for the most part just take his word of what he’s linked. The minority who have an IQ only a few points short of the average room temp will click through and see the FDA logo and presume that all that writing underneath says what Mr. Evans claims it does. Stuff like this demands a brick wall to beat my head against until I’m as senseless as their idiotic arguments.
“”Let’s rely on science and not political agendas to decide what is good medicine.””
I love his final line.
You just might be a masochist if…
Executive Director of LEAP, Neil Franklin, his buddies, and many others, are doing an awesome job of combatting the ignorance on the PoliceOne.org comment tread:
Neil Franklin, Dec 17 01:23 PM:
“I voted yes in the poll, not because that’s where we are headed, but because it is the right thing to do. Our laws of prohibition didn’t work in the 1920s and they don’t work today, unless our goals are to drain government coffers, arrest more black and brown people due to lopsided enforcement practices, circulate bad drugs in the community due to no quality control measures or regulation, increase neighborhood violence, make drugs more available to children, fund organized crime and so on. The list is very long and believe me, I know. I spent over 30 years in the trenches of this so called “war on drugs” from UC to commander and have seen the devastation first hand, just like many of you. Shooting after shooting, murder after murder and fallen comrade after fallen comrade, and now that the evidence is in and clear, it’s time to stand for what is right. And don’t tell me about the message we will send to our children, as we currently send one that says, we prefer to arrest you for making an unwise youthful decision. Another that says, it’s OK to have policies that devastate your communities and cause 40,000 murders in Mexico within four years at the hands of the cartel. What message do you send to your children? That’s the one that counts, a parent’s message, whether it’s a message for sex, marijuana or one for alcohol.”
Here’s one from Rusty White, who’s been posting as ‘RWLEAP’
Dec 17 04:42 AM
“You hold people accountable for their actions that harm others, “NOT†attempt to force them to live by others beliefs in how one should live their lives.
“â€How about letting people grow their own poppies and make heroin. Would that fit your idea of a victimless crime too?â€â€
If they harm no others and it is for their own use, what business is it of yours or the tax payers? Better yet is their really any way to stop people from doing what they wish to their own bodies? Before the “Harrison Act†in 1914 our citizens could buy heroin products over the counter without a prescription, Guess what they didn’t harm anybody while doing so!
Are there idiots out there that abuse drugs and harm others you bet! And they need to be held responsible for doing so “without†the excuse of drugs made them do it! At the same time there a “millions†who make choice you or I wouldn’t that harm no one, FACT! To claim all users are abusers is a dishonest as claiming all who drink are drunks, IS IT NOT??”
And a big thank you to all the other officers who have made an effort to post coherent rebuttals to the spewing of ridiculous myths, utter nonsense and stupendous logical impairment on display. A few examples of the latter:
“Pointing that gun at a cop is a victimless crime unless you pull the trigger”
“Being a recovering alcoholic myself, I know the dangers of alcohol but to claim it “is worse” than MJ or any other Schedule one drug is BS.”
“Alcohol kills, so let’s get another drug for them to take, pretty soon they will want to legalize crime because we can’t stop it.”
“I am sick and tired of the lazy cops who think legalization is the answer.”
“If marijuana is legalized, it will be as easy to get as cigarretes. I’m not saying it’s not easy now, but every little bit of contol we can have helps.”
“Battling the drug trade is indeed a pain, but the battles for other things will get worse if it’s legalized.”
“I’m glad you you never fought a stoner. I have, and it would plain old pot they were using and all they had used, nothing fancy.”
“Where does it stop? Crack? Terrorism? Just because something cannot be stopped completely, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth pursuing. Quite simply a bad idea. NO to legalization.”
“I have fought numerous stoners. It would NOT disfund the cartels, rather make them legitimate in that “ONE” aspect of their business.”
“Why debate something that is not gonna happen?”
“I can only hope that if there are other cops out there who believe that it is wrong to enforce marijuana laws, that they leave the profession before their personal beliefs cause them to violate their oath.”
“See if you can find a doctor who is a board certified cardiac, respiratory or neurology specialist, willing to sign a document that states that based upon their research and expert medical opinion that smoking marijuana is safe and has no potential serious health consequences.”
“I ask you this question parents. Do you want your kids smoking pot? If the answer is no, why should we legalize it?”
“Sounds like a bunch of cops just wanting to throw in the towel.”
“Some will become so addicted they will become dysfunctional and unable to care for themselves – very much like alcohol. I anticipate those severe cases will result in an increase of needy people who families will reject caring for them, causing them to become homeless, leading to other health and safety issues, and resulting in unsightliness and a demand from the general populace that government implement intervention programs to clean it up and reduce the eye sores.”
“Could it be that the reason so many of your fatal crashes involved alcohol is because it is legal? Could it be that you have to deal with so many violent drunks because alcohol is legal? I bet if alcohol was still illegal, we would not have 15,000 US citizens killed by drunk drivers every year – or billions of dollars in medical expenses and property damage.”
sigh
Seems as though they’ve dropped some of the literacy requirements to become a cop…..seem to be a lot of predictable responses from Texas too…. thank god for the sanity from LEAP
I had a feeling that PoliceOne piece would be a live one.
I’m sending some of the local know-nothings there with links in the usual newspaper stories. Hopefully the fact that some cops see the light will move a few of ’em a couple inches.
.
.
It seems that pot will turn you queer!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/files/marijuanamakesyougay.jpg
Another good one from the Seattle Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2017033938_peirce18.html
.
.
News Flash: People bored with cocaine; Our dear friend Mr. Kerliefries takes the credit:
http://www.seattlepi.com/national/us/article/Cocaine-is-losing-its-dubious-status-as-drug-of-2410861.php
Who cares if you can plot a graph all the way back to Sigmund Freud with the popularity of stimulants ebbing and flowing in a nice regular pattern?
.
.
OK, off topic even in an open thread but for the love of god, how is it that bureaucrats think? Is that actually even the right word to describe the actions occurring in their thick skulls? Well anyway, they confiscated an autistic boy from his parents because they tethered him to a railing so he wouldn’t wander off. Fortunately he was found safe after wandering off from being “protected” and getting lost in the mountains. The boy won’t be returned to his very sensible parents; but also there’s no word if CPS will now start tethering him to make sure he doesn’t wander off.
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Autistic-boy-found-in-mountains-can-t-return-home-2173237.php
Just trying to keep the kid safe…(and cover their pathetic, incompetent asses). But I’ve got to admit…that’s a fuckup of epic proportions.
Gentlemen, the problem here is the tether. They failed to realize that government prefers cages. Violent, non-violent, not sure? Well, just cage ’em to be safe. To put the judge and law enforcement at ease with something familiar I recommend the family purchase one of those circus wagons with the built in cage. If they get in trouble, at least they can cite precedent.
Video downloads :
http://goo.gl/tjcWr