Some universities focus on liberal arts, others on research; based on their Dean of Students, apparently the University of Maine focuses on hypocrisy.
University of Maine Dean of Students Robert Q. Dana has an OpEd in the Bangor Daily News: Marijuana legalization: An easy way out
We need to honestly acknowledge that for every person dangerously involved with drugs, that abuse always began by experimenting with a substance thought to be less risky. It is often the case that marijuana is the gateway drug, and confronting the fact that we have a drug problem and we need to do something immediately — beyond the simple reflex of “legalizing†— is necessary if our sons and daughters are to be effectively protected.
There’s a lot of other prohibition messages, with no real facts, but a lot of telling people what we should do about cracking down harder on things like marijuana.
But the interesting thing is if you go back a little earlier in this school year, when the University of Maine decided to sell beer at home football games.
Did Dean of Students Robert Q. Dana get upset and protest the decision to make that “substance thought to be less risky” more available on a student campus? Um, no.
“We heard from any number of fans who wanted to have access to adult beverages,†said Dr. Robert Dana, UMaine’s Vice President for Student Affairs. “Used appropriately, in a reasonable environment, that’s exactly what we intend to offer.†[…]
“We’re very good at managing these things and it’ll be fun, but not problematic. I’m 100 percent sure of that,†Dana said.
So, if properly managed and used appropriately in a reasonable environment, it’s fine, but only if it’s a product mentioned in the university’s fight song (which begins “Fill the steins to dear old Maine”).
Also note that if you go to the University of Maine, you can take Brewing with Food Science class, where you learn to brew beer, plus… “Other topics will include the history of beer (from world and U.S. perspectives), styles of beer and a beer judge’s perspective of beer.”
Alcohol – monopoly on intoxication
I almost barfed when I read Mr Dana’s screed earlier. Surely there’s someone at the U of M that can call BS when they see it.
A sub mental baton twirler could argue a stronger case than this dimwit.
We need to honestly acknowledge that for every person dangerously involved with prohibition, that abuse always began by experimenting with crimes against humanity thought to be less risky. It is often the case that prohibition is the gateway to totalitarianism, and confronting the fact that we have a police state problem and we need to do something immediately — beyond the simple reflex of “prohibition†— is necessary if our sons and daughters are to be effectively protected.
The only things that should be prohibited are prohibition and prohibitionists.
Wow. This guy is a dean and former drug researcher?
We need to be vigilant of the big picture of struggling kids who seek easy meaning and simple solutions to life’s problems by abusing all kinds of substances…
…and then punish those “struggling kids” mercilessly by expelling them from school, incarcerating them and further stigmatizing them with a criminal record. Way to be supportive of your most vulnerable students dean.
Enact community standards against the abusive use of all drugs and unite to eliminate risk factors for substance abuse, including the lack of engaging and exciting alternatives to substance abuse in our towns and cities.
By “all drugs” surely you also mean alcohol too, as it is the most widely used and abused drug? The University would never encourage alcohol abuse, by say serving beer at football games?
Support an increase in police efforts to curb illegal drug sales. Instead of slashing enforcement budgets and arguing for legalization, we should dramatically increase the number of drug agents. If we say these behaviors are not tolerated, and we put our money where are mouths are, our communities will benefit. Money invested here will pay rich dividends in the future.
Yes, rich dividends for those who own stock in private prisons.
Related but OT:
Mark Kleiman on why we need to solve our alcohol problem to solve our crime problem
http://goo.gl/iQ1UO
“Drugs are an important part of the question if you include alcohol as a drug. Take any dimension of the problem you like, except for source country violence. All illegal drugs combined are to alcohol as the Mediterranean is to the Pacific. We have our whole navy in the Mediterranean. And that’s true both of the drug policy machinery and those who are fighting the drug war, and of the drug reform movement, which, it seems to me, neglects the problem with the one drug we’ve legalized. Any sentence about drug policy that doesn’t end with “raise alcohol taxes†is an incoherent sentence.”
Idiot doesn’t realize raising taxes so that things become out of financial reach of the common man brings about a black market AND also substitution, possibly with far worse substances (with far worse consequences on users health — hubby’s great uncle was a homeless alcoholic and he drank sterno when he couldn’t gather enough change to buy a bottle) which would cost financially strapped taxpayers even more they can ill afford.
And here’s another idiot:
http://goo.gl/F78hq
Congressman: Drink Alone To Prevent Domestic Violence
“We have our whole navy in the Mediterranean. And that’s true both of the drug policy machinery and those who are fighting the drug war, and of the drug reform movement, which, it seems to me, neglects the problem with the one drug we’ve legalized. “
I hadn’t done more than sat down with my morning tea and muffin, read that passage and almost sprayed said tea on the monitor.
WTF? I mean, seriously, W-T-FLIPPIN’-F does he think we have been saying about alcohol all these decades? What does he think a very large part of the Colorado initiative was about? Namely, the fact that cannabis is definitely (ahem) ‘SAFER’, for individuals and society, than alcohol?
This is what the taxpayers of Washington State are buying? This is what is going to advise them on how to construct a rational legal cannabis policy?
Clueless. I’d sooner have a celibate priest lecture me on how to have a happy sex life…and I sure as Hell wouldn’t pay him for the lecture. If I lived there, I think I’d want my money back…
I think I already do.
Ugh.
Circling back to alcohol, it’s not just DUI you’d cut down on if you restricted alcohol use. You’d cut down on battery and burglary, right?
Kleiman: If you cut down on heavy drinking you’re going to cut down on battery. That’s what you see in domestic violence cases. How much, it’s hard to tell. You could raise the tax. The tax affects heavy drinkers, and it’s heavy drinkers we’re worried about.Have I ever told you my Johnny Walker Black story? … “If the difference in price between Black and ordinary scotch matters to you, you’re drinking too much.†And I regard that as the first principle of drug policy. Price matters a lot to people who use a lot, and so it’s a very good way to regulate consumption. So here I am in Washington state, thinking about regulating cannabis, and a big question is how to keep the prices up.
We go from “Drugs are an important part of the question if you include alcohol as a drug” and an illustration of the magnitude of issues involved by comparing the Mediterranean with the Pacific, the interviewer wants to “circle back to alcohol” and Kleiman ends his response with “So here I am in Washington state, thinking about regulating cannabis, and a big question is how to keep the prices up.”
Keeping the prices of safer alternatives to alcohol prohibitively high as part of a strategy to cut down on drug-related crime is something like deliberately moving more of your Navy from the Pacific to the Mediterranean in response to an ongoing conflict in the Pacific, isn’t it?
Trying to make sense of that guy is sometimes like trying to pick up a turd by the clean end.
He drank too much of that one drink found in ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ . . . his brain is constantly being sliced by a lemon while also being wrapped around a large gold brick. We should utilize his message with all the respect it disserves: “Wear safety helmets while riding bikes.â€
That drink in question is probably the = “Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster”…
And while we’re on the Hitchhiker’s Guide – I’d like to note that – reading any of the articles/papers that some of these “professional” prohibitionists *cough*-write-*ahem* = is often worse than suffering through an equivalent amount of Vogon Poetry.
This guy is a walking, talking (steaming) ‘pile’ of equal parts Cognitive Dissonance & Confirmation Bias.
He produces ‘data’ steeped with presumptions based on his personal beliefs (severely biased)& sometimes adds a footnote citing someone else’s horribly biased study. In that WP article he doesn’t even do that he merely gives a vague reference to a researcher:
Then – he states a hypothetical assertion as if it were fact –
Then the writer tosses him a terribly obvious softball pseudo-question:
Another statement of alleged “fact” the reader is expected to believe without question.
This next Question & Answer are Horribly Offensive (IMHO) and put Kleiman’s biases/attitude/prejudices about certain “classes of people” – right out on front-street… so to speak.
I read that as thinly-veiled racism, and without a doubt ‘classicist’ = he’s talking about all the people he studies as lesser people than himself… This is the guy reinforces the stereotype of the ‘Liberal Elitist’ -in believing he’s above everyone – intellectually & (presumably) morally.
This article in particular is about one idea/argument that Kleiman is still trying to sell (It seems to be his personal mission to establish this as a “fact”…)
There it is, right there, He’s a guy whose “got his fingers in the pie” of legalizing/regulating cannabis = But he’s still pushing this idea that – it’s bad enough that alcohol is legal *God Forbid* we let ANOTHER drug be legalized…
And you can bet, this will soon be followed with a generic “think of the children!”, OR “what message does this send to our (precious little flowers aka) young people?” cliche.
As if sheltering from reality has worked out so well for the last 30+ years, and not ruined the credibility of adults warning them about truly/possibly dangerous drugs & destroying the public’s respect of/and trust in Law Enforcement Officers everywhere.
Sadly these prohib prototypes ignore the children the most. With all my studies, my travels to Mexico, Europe, Honduras, Kuwait and Iraq, I learned that the War on Drugs affects non-drug users far more often than it does drug users. These children he wants to protect could not be protected from their American nation undergoing a very long war fighting drug money in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . many of these children grew up to be 18yr old boys and girls going off to war 10yr or more after a drug money sponsored 9/11 (if it was an inside job, it was from drug money, or we’ll discover quite literally that the letters C, I, and A don’t exist in the alphabet). The leading cause of death to people living in or visiting New York City on the early mornings of September 11, 2001 was from drugs being used by people living in Europe, Africa and Asia. These prohib types are too busy looking at the effects of individual drug use on society but fail to study the impact of a 12yr long war subtly leading up to another long war in Africa with all the U.S. troops going over there. What our military does for over 12yrs at a $3trillion cost (NY Times, Brown University report on the cost of 9/11 and her War on Terror a.k.a. The War on Drugs) affects America and the World a lot more and for longer than 5% of the global population being hardcore addicted to hard drugs. I know Kleimen isn’t stupid enough to not see that nearly 100% of our enemy’s finances come from drugs because of drug prohibition. He cares more about some child living with a coked out mother than some child missing his arms because a man with drug money wields more terror, equipment and control and thus could chop off little black and brown arms. His priorities are all screwed up. I knew kids who escaped a bad drug filled childhood with strung out neglectful parents to join the Army for a fresh start and a few months of War (fighting drug money) in Iraq or Afghanistan affects them more than 18yrs of walking around mother’s needles or not drinking dad’s meth brew in the family fridge . . . war affects them more than the dozen times the cops kicked down the family’s trailer door because mommy and daddy were cooking in the home. But the War on Drugs’ crackdown on pot and cocaine created meth in the first places . . . meth became synthetic coke the way K2 or Spice became synthetic pot, except for less than a quarter of a quarter gram of meth will last the user 2-4days . . . that is what Kleiman created out of his drug prohibition ministries: tens of thousands of meth heads who would have never used meth had cocaine and pot been legal, had not drug prohibition advertised the drugs in the first place . . . no meth freak-outs had the product been made by labs and lab technicians. Thousands of children will get some form of bad cancer because of Kleiman creating meth labs in family homes because of drug prohibition. This is what Kleiman is saying to the parents in regards to their children and the War on Drugs: many of your kids will have to die or have to live very bad lives so I can afford the American Dream for my child. This is what U.S. soldiers say to little Iraqi kids when we are handing them clothing, school books, food, water and medicine: ‘sorry that the War on Drugs enables the Sunnis and Shiites to utilize a constant flow of drug money for this Sectarian Struggle we call the 2006-current Civil War in Iraq’.
That’s Kleiman’s shtick, alright. His own pet theory, ‘Prohibition Lite’, with a chaser. And he’s just been handed a Brandeisian laboratory full of high explosives to play in.
Keeping the price artificially high. Just as it is now. Under a legal rubric, of all things. The mind reels.
I daresay this is most empahtically NOT what the voters had in mind when they passed 502. The cartels can breathe a sigh of relief, now; they’re not out of business in WA after all. Not with their best buddy at the helm.
The whole idea was to gut the cartels by dropping the price, not support them – as Uncle does now – with the ‘subsidy’ of prohibition. I’d be sounding “Collsion Alarm!” and readying the lifepods; looks like 502’s heading for the rocks.
I just knew ‘the fix was in’ when I read he’d been picked for the job. An old Scottish saying goes, “Once you touch the Devil, you can never let go.” Kleiman did more than briefly brush old Nick; he ‘advised’ that den of inveterate liars and frauds, the ONDCP, fershitsake. While they were lying to and defrauding the US taxpayer.
This stinks of a set-up. Just as leopards don’t change their spots, prohibs don’t automatically jettison their manias when they’re hired on to do something they’ve made their academic and fiscal bones by opposing. (Long string of fire-dripping multilingual profanities) What were they thinking in Olympia? Were they even thinking at all?
What does Alison Holcomb have to say about Mark Kleiman’s new government job in Washington?
I thought so.
Look at what ACLU liberals like that have allowed to happen to American’s use of tobacco in recent history, and you’ll see what they will try to get away with, and more, with cannabis IF prohibition is lifted on it. First, tax it to hell so poor people can’t afford it, and over-regulate it so producers can’t provide it directly to consumers, as I-502 did.
We can NEVER trust Democrats OR Republicans, but especially Democrats. Democrats are evil and always have been. Democrats = Pro slavery. Democrats = Pro Native American genocide. Democrats = Pro oppression of women. Democrats = Pro segregation. Democrats = Pro prohibition of alcohol. Democrats = Pro drug war including flavored paper. Democrats = Pro WAR. Democrats, like Dana exhibits yet again, are EVIL and always have been! Stop voting for any of them, please, and start calling them out for the truth that they are evil.
Jeff, I look at it this way. As Mencken put it, “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
Or, as Heinlein put it:
“Political tags–such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and. so forth–are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.” (Emphasis mine -k.)
The drug laws were born from the thinly-disguised intellectual and moral conceit common to those in the Progressive Movement of the first two decades of the 20th century. Conceit..and lust for power over others; power to be exercised over their ‘beneficiaries’ cum victims ‘for their own good’, of course.
And if you consider that Communism, which slaughterd more than 80 million worldwide (when not engaged in various ‘wars of national liberation’ and thus adding to the body count), was the ultimate logical terminus of that sort of intellectual and moral conceit + powerlust, the lessons should be clear.
Given this, party affiliations are revealed to be the useless window dressings they are. Which is why I look with jaundiced eyes at any pronouncements that one party is somehow superior (or less evil) than another. Such organizations invariably become populated with intellectual and political narcissists and the results are always tragic, because they tend to want to impose their (usually violent) neuroses on those who refuse to adopt them willingly. Nietzsche had these enemies of true freedom (like drug prohibitionists) pegged perfectly.
Jeff, there is a way to maintain partisan politics without dumping them all out just yet. The good thing about parties is the party’s ability to hone in on a policy or legal desire and thus gain support via rallying around the party’s ideas . . . but this is also the worse thing about them as well. The War on Drugs cannot be stopped by politics and laws but by the people. Both parties must show support . . . Dems must support and vote for Republicans and vice-versa to close the kind of gap that creates so many differences as to retard progress . . . we must destroy the separation that partisan politics represents before we can destroy partisan politics totally. It’s illogical for a Republican to not vote Democrat if the Dem appears better to the registered GOP voter . . . this is why we should change our voting laws . . . when you don’t allow registered Dems to vote Republican in the primaries, this is a form of disenfranchisement. Oklahoma forces me to change my party every election year since Republicans like Dems are pro-drug war. We must respect and utilize partisan politics to destroy partisan politics, kind of like your auto mechanic does better on your car than he does shampooing your $5k carpet. Though not officially on the legal books, partisan politics used to be viewed as almost illegal and anti-democratic in America when many of our first leaders had no parties they belonged to. But America is entrenched in party politics and we must utilize the parties to destroy the specific dogmas each party holds that makes them different. Even Independent is a synthesis of Dems and GOP’s and thus Independent isn’t technically Independent, but merely a third party with their own unique dogma. In some states there is no real difference between Dem and GOP since both parties are strongly viewed as conservative and far from liberal . . . Dems have long been seen as Anti-Gun law/pro-2nd Amendment, pro-immigration reform and anti-Abortion, just like their GOP opposites. But Partisan politics keeps many Americans from having the right to vote for a candidate of choice and forces them to vote for a party of ideology, which can wield more power than any individual candidate could ever hope to possess, therefore when we vote for one individual, we’re in all reality voting for many . . . partisan politics allows plurality to dominate over singularity, therefore a vote for one is a vote for half of all the politicians . . . one can even accurately state that no American has ever voted for Obama (just like no Americans ever voted for Bush), but merely voted for the Dems to become president . . . we don’t vote for singular people to fill singular seats in office, but we vote for groups to fill in single seats.
O/T
Cash-strapped North Korea is accused of having its diplomats deal in methamphetamine. Ain’t prohibition grand?
Who the hell do they think they are,,,the CIA?
cook a little meth . . . get some cash and cook up a little bit of nukes with the meth money. Reminds me of Pakistan: drug money made their bomb in the late 90’s, since lack of drug money before their neighbors long war with Russia, made them lag behind India, though both nations started making their Nuke programs around the same time, but it wasn’t until the CIA came to Afghanistan in the 80’s and taught them how to dominate the heroin trade did Pakistan gain any nuclear headway when it comes to having proper funding in making their bomb.
Just don’t don’t know where to begin with this guy….he went to U of Maine as an undergrad more than 30 years ago and never left…it seems his perspective along with his career have been frozen since the Reagan years…beer good! weed bad! Baaah!
“Baaah”
As in him practically echoing Orwell’s Sheep from Animal Farm ? Faithfully spouting the ‘party line’ of drug prohibition shibboleths, no matter how far removed from the reality of the times? Certainly fitting, I’d say…
LOL
its really sad that a person of such stature and disposition in the academic world could be so horribly misinformed.
i have never enjoyed marijuana. it was a gateway to nothing for me and plenty of others. nothing against weed. this gateway theory is a joke.
The gateway theory, to me, only illustrates the level that some of these ancient prohibitionist theories are entrenched, knee deep in the social stratosphere without rhyme or reason.
Quite frankly, weed is supposed to relax folks, calm them down, maybe even make them a little hungry. I cannot honestly understand how this supposed gateway theory is supposed to work where you would go from that to, “yes, because of marijuana, I would now like to smoke some PCP.” With effects so radically different not to mention the fact that so many marijuana smokers only smoke weed and nothing else due to the stigmatization of the so called “hard drugs” and the pretty much main stream acceptance of weed as pretty much okey-dokey like alcohol.
so much misinformation floods this war on drugs and for people who’ve decided to separate fact from fiction, it’s always annoying to see this kind of talk by the dean of students. It’s just quite plainly not true.
When you task yourself with coming up with figures about drugs and you go ahead and find yourself numerous people who smoke weed or smoked weed but also do other drugs, what is the connection? Where is the connection? Just because they smoked weed, somehow that translates to weed being the catalyst for different drug use? How so? What the hell does smoking weed really have to do with using other drugs?
Is it not just supply and demand? I read a statistic that weed is the most popular drug with over 100 million projected users. Opiates being second with 50. I think people who are interested in using substances are, duh, gonna use substances. Naturally with weed being the most popular substance, it’s probably very likely going to be the first one someone is offered. But if they lived say, on the lower east side, NYC, where I am, and pretty much stayed right here and involved themselves in this community, you would be hard pressed to have weed be the first thing you’re offered (unless you cross town to the lower west side and hang out with the artsy fartsies but even then you’re just as likely to be handed a vicodin, roxi or oxy.)
No shit sherlock. It sounds like to me the only plausible idea here is like this: marijuana is far more socially acceptable for whatever reason so someone is keen to try it out. OK. Now how does that translate into the same person using crystal meth or dope or anything else? Weed is NOT dope. Weed is not MDMA. Weed is weed. How does the dialogue make sense? “I am gonna try and shoot a two bagger of this fire diesel, because I smoked weed.” Weed is not dope. What the hell does weed have to do with shooting dope? Nothing. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. I just don’t get it.
But nothing pisses me off more than some hypocritical, high strung, north eastern White Anglo Saxon Protestant who will get blush red cheeks chugging their FN cider and sit back as this crap deteriorates your liver, heart, kidneys, brain, etc. and then point your FN fingers at weed smokers, dope bangers, coke sniffers, crack basers etc. it’s like hey, wake up asshole, while you’re out there screaming yourself hoarse about quarterbacks you’ll never meet, a team that is not “yours” and then getting into a potentially fatal fist fight with someone, the rest of us are MIGHTY HAPPY, MIGHTY CONTENT and ESPECIALLY MIGHTY PEACEFUL, shaking our head at your suicidal consumption of such a toxic substance that traditionally creates tension, animosity, and general drunken confusion that is so disorienting and laughable as to make a grown man act like a FN baby.
i didnt get into squat because of weed and I can’t buy that many do. this dude probably has some financial interest in this, and i hope for his sake he does cause otherwise he’s just an FN idiot. I hope for his sake hes got some stock in private prisons, drug testing companies, blood testing companies or something like that because otherwise he’s a dean of students at a big, expensive school who has about as much common sense as a kindergarten student.
Back in the late 90’s early 2000’s the gateway drug in my area was meth since meth was associated with luxury and prosperity and not with drug use. People who were anti-drug and anti-legalization could claim to use meth without being drug users in the mindset of the status quo. Back in the late 90’s, my small rural county of 32,000 could easily have one ton of meth inside its borders on any given day. We have one of the nation’s largest rural industrial parks, so it wasn’t uncommon to hear stories about people producing large amounts of speed destined for Chicago, Miami, Dallas, L.A. or NYC in some of those factories (like Walter White did) . . . for less than a decade, Oklahoma had more meth labs than any state or country before or since ‘The Great Wal-Mart Laws’. A popular magazine in the late late 90’s (I can never remember if it was ‘News Week’ or ‘U.S. News’) had my county in the reddest of reds for manufacturing meth in Oklahoma, since all the farms and factories already contain enough chemicals to turn amateurs into large industrial scale cooks. Between the factories, farms, woodlands, lake shores and hills, we were quite literally making and housing enough powder to give Bogotá a run for their money. You cannot walk past someone who either didn’t try meth, cook meth or had a family member or close friend who didn’t cook it. The Mexicans loved my small county because they would trade kilo for kilo before they took over the meth show. Have any of you guys witnessed the Mexican Cartels in your area laundering drug money via race horses? According to Oklahoma City a few months back: the feds seized over 300 top notch expensive prize horses that the cartels use to wash their money with. You can usually tell the Cartel Mexicans in this area: the ones wearing expensive cowboy boots with the pointy long curled toes.
Drug Prohibition and the War on Drugs made it where some friendly biker types riding east from California and Oregon taught their ken folk and their ken folk’s friends in Oklahoma how to make crank. When Wal-Mart stepped in, the dope was modified so one could grow ‘ice’ in a jar (best buried in the earth). Further law changes allowed for small batches (3-4grams) to be bought with but $25, where makers mix some sort of liquids and lithium and shake the hell out of the concoction in a soda bottle without causing an explosion . . . i. The professional stuff was pure white and had a cool subtle numbing sensation when snorted . . . when crystal finally came to Oklahoma (completely different from ‘jar’ ice that looks like sea salt, and white crank that looks 100% like fantastic fluffy white and chunky coke) that kind of speed carried a very notable long lasting warm soothing body massaging like element when snorted. The pure stuff for recreational speed users would allow them to work long hours with a clear head. One of our former local community service directors used to trade hours for speed. Farmers and factory workers could do 12hr shifts just fine without any bad side affects . . . a xanex or more brought about sleep. Of course that’s the down fall of speed: it’s 100% harmless for amateurs on their first 100 spread out and conservative spins with the lines, straw and mirror (weekend tweakends; 72hr long summer days for the kids out of school) . . . it’s a few times after that when the meth makes people into zombies (maybe because of the new laws making inferior meth) . . . people high on $5-10 begin to drive 5 minutes to the small town grocery store for some beer or eggs and end up driving north to Kansas after an hour or two: completely unaware that they passed the store on the main highway 140 miles back.
WE WANT BEER!
Found out the secret to better biscuits. Buttermilk and… baking soda! Yes, crack biscuits. I wasn’t impressed w/ crack cocaine but man, those crack biscuits be good! Just one or two and you’re addicted.
when cooled,,stick a thumb in one and fill hole with blackstrap molasses,,,energy bar of the 60’s
More on Robert Q Dana’s double standards.These are his views on the 2009 ballot setback in Maine for gay marriage:
“It’s never the right time to do wrong, and wrong has been done. You have been done [wrong] to.., and here at the [UM], you are loved.., cared for.., part of this community. …There is no room here for hate. There is no room here for intolerance, and there is no room here for injustice. I am furious about this…†http://www.asmainegoes.com/content/umo-vp-student-affairs-um-doesnt-support-outcome-gay-marriage-vote-0
And yet he’s happy to see these same students facing a bucket load of intolerance and injustice if they consume drugs he doesn’t approve of. As Pete said, Dana is so good at hypocrisy he could teach a class in it.
hearing in Salem, Tues, on Oregon’s legislative legalization bill HB 3371. No public testimony. 3 proponents, 3 opponents will provide oral testimony.
The pro-legalization side – Anthony Johnson (Executive Director, National Cannabis Coalition), Shelley Fox-Loken (former corrections officer and LEAP speaker) and Dave Kopilak (an attorney that drafted the measure, based upon input from activists) . Not sure yet who the anti’s will be.
They can bring Mark up from Washington for either side since he is such a switch hitting bitch.
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I put my noodle to work last night and have come up with a fool proof way to keep the price of I-502 authorized cannabis high. It’s a 2 part, carrot and stick process. Of course Prof. Kleiman is the jackass.
Part 1 is that if any I-502 licensed producer doesn’t charge a high enough price he’ll be forced to enroll in a series of lectures given by Prof. Kleiman. No fooling around pretending to pay attention, he’ll have to pass a test at the end proving that he paid attention. If he doesn’t pass the test he’ll be required to have Prof Kleiman stay at his house as a guest for a full week.
Duncan, you should give that idea to Rob Zombie for one of his horror films. I’d much rather have an incest crazy ax murderer and his crazy sexy sex buddy of a sister mutilate me in one of his films than to undergo the horror of having Kleimen lecture and live with me. Even logic supports the kind of mutilated hell like kind of life in servitude that Dr. Satan can ‘surgically create’ for you . . . that’s more aesthetically pleasing than asking Prof Kleiman if I can refill his glass or if he could pass the potatoes at the dinner table.
Robert Q. Dana, your federal tax dollars for higher education hard at work. BARF! I wonder what his government pension will be. In Illinois, he’d get a $100,000+ pension and free healthcare for life for pushing this nonsense about prohibition and alcohol taxes so high only the rich, politically connected could afford them, fuck the poor people. That should be the new slogan of the progressives, liberals, Democrats, government university pensioner elitists like Dana – Fuck The Poor People.
Project SAM wants realistic dialogue on marijuana
man, that really makes this a big barf thread.
It’s illogical to think they can train dogs and cats how to speak English, so I’m not sure how realistic their dialogue on marijuana will end up without getting our animal friends to speak English for Project SAM.
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People have taught apes to speak in sign language. IIRC one had a vocabulary of more than 250 words. I *think* it was a Gorilla. We should figure out where it is so that it can take the other side in the dialog with the kooks from Project SAM. Never send a man to do an ape’s job, that’s my motto. Perhaps to keep it fair to the sammies we shouldn’t send the smartest ape we can find.
She is a gorilla, her name is Koko, and she’s in Pullman, WA at WSU. Awhile back she adopted a kitten and she has been, recently, telling her handlers that she wants to have a baby. She even chose how she wants to make this happen by choosing from 4 illustrated methods. Other female apes who’ve been taught sign language (or to use a computerized board to communicate) and who’ve had babies and get to keep the babies with them have taught their babies their learned method of communication.
Wouldn’t Apes be smarter than Project Sam? Kennedy’s the only one with more experience experimenting with drugs than some of the Apes they’ve tested said drugs on . . . Apes at least get to go to outer-space, learn how to tie knots, and work complex puzzles, while old Kennedy drunk crashes into cars, loses large rental fishing boats and claims to have ‘never worked a day in [his] life’. Kennedy’s cage is far messier than all the drug addicted test apes at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the Los Angeles Community College combined.
I bet ‘legalization’ is in Koko’s vocabulary.
I had the feeling I needed to use one of those eye-washing decontamination stations they have at work after reading that. Unbelieveble…but on second thought, maybe not so.
The prohibs would only come to the debate podiums when forced to. We all knew that, from past history.
Recall what happened in 2003 when then-DrugCzar ol’ Johnny Pee said he wanted a debate, and the reform organizations, notably MPP, enthusiatically took him up on his offer? Recall also how several months went by before ol’ Johnny said that he didn’t need to debate after all, as all the science supported him? The equivalent of a prohib wetting himself in fear.
The problem with just about every prohib is that their idea of a debate is the equivalent of them repeating endlessly “Why aren’t you agreeing with me yet?” This mindset of only being able to broadcast and not receive becomes evident in the tone of the article, with the implication being that there has not been a debate…with the fault being on our part.
So, why are they offering to debate now? Equal parts desperation and hubris.
Desperation in that they know they’ve made several major mistakes. The ‘DARE Generation’ they were counting on to robotically continue being their propaganda pawns and ‘marks’ in the prohibitionists’ very lucrative taxpayer-funded con game (as their elders were) have grown to adulthood and said no thanks, and that was evident in WA and CO. They’ve lost an entire generation through a combination of arrogance, heavy-handed intelligence-insulting propaganda, and simple economics.
As to the hubris, look no further than their (over)reliance on smooth-talkin’, fast-walkin’ Kevie as their spokesman. Notice something? He’s the only one out there, the only prohib mouthpiece in the news. The go-to guy for the prohib party line.
They honestly think he’ll sway that same generation that has, with cold, contemptuous silence, turned their back on all the attempts to socially engineer them into mindless anti-drug automatons. The only people ol’ Kev can reach now are those who are themselves so out of touch with what’s happening across the country that they are, themselves, increasingly irrelevant.
The prohibs think Kev can pull their propaganda chestnuts out of the fire, and save their prohibition-supported rice bowls from being smashed, when in fact those chestnuts are popping like mad all over the place. Too late for the prohibs, too late by half. But that same hubris they’ve been plagued by all along still rides their backs…and their former captive audience is patently sick of it – and them
The performance always sucked, grating on that former captive audience’s nerves, but they couldn’t make their true feelings known for fear of offical retaliation. Now that they are free, it truly is time for the rotten tomatoes to fly…
I mean really, wtf are we? We’re the consumers of this supposedly controversial substance and for them to think we won’t be deciding the policy is astonishingly arrogant. The more they spread this spew, the more they empower their opposition which is we.
And part of that arrogance is the same that has wreaked havoc all along the path – we can improve nature, which is flawed while we… we on the other hand are the pinnacle, the be all and end all of creation.
Drugs, not plants, Damitol®! Better living thru chemistry!
Cannabis; better living through biology is my preference.
“”Methamphetamine use has devastated families and communities like no other drug, Sabet said. Illegal prescription drug use has become a deadly pastime that is killing more people every year, with opiate overdoses and crime.
This has served to downplay marijuana but he said people who are predisposed to using substances tend to suffer from low-self esteem, have underlying mental health issues and will move on down a path to other drugs.””
All these years and still cannot accept that marijuana is not a gateway drug,,,how do you have “meaningful”conversation with a liar?
The real problem is that with people like Kevin – whose qualifications -which (beyond having a *doctorate in social policy*) also includes being a former “marijuana addict” (IRRC, He was an “equal opportunity addict” = so he totally believes in the ‘gateway theory’, rather than thinking he was just a MAJOR Alice in Chains-fashion “what’s my drug of choice, well what have you got?” = Junkhead.)
Now, THAT is some textbook cognitive dissonance at work right there!
If HE can’t use drugs in moderation then certainly no one else can. Or, they’ll assert that only a handful can pull-off such a “miracle” = that of personally moderating their drug use. -> Thus we are at odds with true zealotry…
[The ‘Addiction is a Disease’/’12 Stepper – “I’m powerless to exercise moderation in anything, please help me “high-power-aka-God” Crowd]
See, since HE was “saved from addiction”, debauchery, etc. – In one particular way – he’s decided/(or just been thoroughly convinced) that his logic/beliefs are infallible in regard to debating the subject.
So, anyone who opposes his argument is ‘obviously still an addict’ = Well, In HIS mind at least… Or they’re “evil drug-pushers”.
IDK about you guys but I’ve run into exactly ONE “pusher” in my life, in the mid 90’s at a bus station lay-over in Denver – some dude tried to sell me some “hash”, he had a pretty good sales pitch really… (it’s part of a long funny story – I may have mentioned before -and may share again someday but not right now) It was clever = but far from evil or even all that “pushy”, I said “no”, & then “no really, I’ve gotta get back on a bus in a bit” and that was it… (End of ‘pushing’) I continued walking thru the snow in downtown Denver, looking for “The Mall”.
*Anywho*
So, with them ‘KNOWING they’re right’ – We go from “Debating a social Issue” – straight into them trying to “Re-Educate all the Non-Believers”… Because = Kev’s got a doctorate in social policy from a university smack dab in ‘liberal’ San Francisco.
And when the President said it was “a legitimate topic for debate” – he promptly inferred – what we here already know. That by law = neither He, NOR Gil -(who by the same law, legally speaks on his behalf in regard to the subject) are allowed to consider the legalization any schedule 1 substance. And must work to prevent such a nightmare, come hell or high-water.
Forever and Ever, Amen – So sayeth, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Bennett – who is a similarly insufferable sort of person = a “reformed gambling addict”. One whom constantly spews forth about morality in general & on this subject insists its a ‘black & white issue’ with no ‘grey area’ in the middle for the rest of us to live in and to exercise freewill, personal responsibility, or what-have-you.
This leaves us with this argument of “We have to tax marijuana heavily or people will smoke themselves to death!” B.S. And even though the honest ones know that is in fact impossible, IF you can get them to admit even that much – they’ll immediately point to “stoned drivers” causing traffic deaths = although the only science on this (AFAIK=unless it really recent) showed such drivers were more much cautious than even mildly drunk drivers (aka at sub-DWI/DUI blood/alcohol levels), and probably less dangerous than tired/sleepy drivers, distracted drivers, etc. If memory serves – they were actually safer/more careful drivers than the sober control drivers – when it came to noticing & stopping at 4-way stop signs & traffic-lights.
But if/when you get them to admit there is a lack of evidence that people who use cannabis regularly & responsibly are *truly impaired* behind the wheel – even when they only have therapeutic levels of cannabis in their system, IE they’re not high!
They immediately “re-direct” the debate to *Per Se DWI/DUI* (Because there’s no *breathalyzer for cannabis* – again afaik = or it was invented yesterday?)
And they push to lead a new Crusade = criminalizing people who have therapeutic levels of any drug(s) in their system, and criminalizing the tired/sleepy drivers & the distracted drivers, etc. Ad nauseam.
AND, this is when a whole fraking marching band of BOTH conservative & liberal Nanny-Staters come out of the woodwork to support them = about ‘cracking down’ on all these other various/questionably “impaired drivers” = which technically could be someone/anyone whose merely having a ‘generic bad-day’ without any real, substantial direct cause for said “bad-day” – hence with no discernible or actionable “blame” on anyone’s part.
They seem to forget that sometimes bad things just happen and we just can’t *rightly* blame anyone!
.
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“All these years and still cannot accept that marijuana is not a gateway drug,,,how do you have “meaningful†conversation with a liar?”
Why would you presume that they don’t get it? If they admit it then they lose by default. Aside from that the so called “gateway” theory is a highly effective piece of hysterical rhetoric. Like the “we don’t have a cannabis breathalyzer or “there just haven’t been enough peer reviewed research to take a chance with re-legalization” we’ve got their entire argument in a nutshell.
It’s really pretty simple. These people judge “reasonable” by the content of their opponents’ argument with the most “reasonable” being very closely aligned if not identical to their desired facts. Very much the same reason why there just isn’t enough research. The only place cannabis research falls short is in proving what they want proved. But saying they don’t get it is predicated on them being wholly incompetent and just mistaken. IMO they know exactly what they’re doing and they’re just plain evil.
In the meantime they’re losing their grip on South America. Uruguay is again debating their President’s plan to re-legalize cannabis and: Fighting Drug Addiction With Marijuana Who’da thunk we’d ever see that coming from “official” sources? This turn of events really sucks for the prohibitionists. It really sucks for them because it really works.
Does anyone think I could talk Prof. Kleimen into trying an infused topical creme to see if we can grow hair on a cue ball? I’m telling you that if we can cure male pattern baldness we’ll own these lunatic. It is the most frequent disease found on the people on the other side of the table not to mention any stripe of elected lawmaker no matter their position relative to ours. Even better is it doesn’t get people high because the scalp is just lousy with CB-2 receptors and perhaps as few as zero CB-1 receptors.
Uh, Mordida? (Pointing at my prematurely denuded cranium) Started losing mine at 28. Am 57 now. No one can help their genes.
wondered why you always wear a cap, kapt
Mais, non, Jean! That’s only part of the reason. It’s the merde des prohibitionnistes!
They figure if they pour enough on top of your head, some will seep in. Bad habit of theirs. A helmet is better protection, but is also more uncomfortable.
Once upon a time we called these promoters of booze swilling rednecks and juicefreaks. Violence and all.
I know this is a bit OT, but I just ran across this tidbit.
The “Monsanto Protection Act” in HR 933 effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of GMO seeds no matter what health issues may arise in the future.
http://tinyurl.com/coo2wbe
GMO cannabis anyone?
I have started producing seeds and freezing them,,,I have some very nice strains saved and I know the seed companies are doing the same thing.
Well played Mr. Guither… well played.
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Presented FWIW, Prof. Kleiman off topic 10/26/12:
More Kleiman, if you all haven’t seen this yet:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/31/washingtons-pot-consultant-entirely-possible-selling-marijuana-will-not-be-profitable/
I liked reading how some ordinary joes responded to Kleiman in the comments.
Read into the comments…there’s some guy in there that thinks Kleiman is a good guy because he once saw him wear a tie died shirt. That’s the only endorsement there.
Mark Kleiman’s job is too easy. All Kleiman has to do is say something stupid online and all the right answers get thrown at him like rotten tomatoes.
According to Duncan and Windy, there is a Gorilla that can do remarkable things such as sign language. I, the ever humanitarian, believe we should love Mark Kleimen and forgive him and see if this intelligent ape can teach Mark how to speak, read and utilize skills in reasoning. Let Mother Nature teach this lost and ignorant misguide human child we call Mark Kleimen with a Gorilla who knows over 250 words (and yes, ‘Legalization’ is in Koko’s vocabulary) and is also quite capable of teaching her very own offspring human sign language. Mark could be the first one to teach the rest of the prohibs how to communicate after we send him to the zoo to be taught by these marvelous ape creatures before releasing him back into the wild where Michele Leonhart, Gil K, and Kevin roam about as well . . . if a gorilla can teach her young, then surely one of them can teach the others.
Only if the ‘others’ are as intelligent as a young gorilla. Not a given at this point.
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20130401/NEWS/130339988/gov-inslee-wants-state-liquor-board-to-stop-spread-of-pot-bars
Sorry about the long url, google’s shortener won’t produce the captcha to shorten it (damn web is getting worse, such long waits for pages to load, they say it is due to cyberwarfare slowing EVERYTHING down).
Anyway, FTA:
“Gov. Jay Inslee wants the state Liquor Control Board to figure out how to stop the spread of bars that allow patrons to use marijuana on site.
“Voters last fall legalized marijuana for adults older than 21, but Initiative 502 prohibits the public use of marijuana, which typically would include bars and restaurants.
“While most bars are steering clear of allowing pot use until officials come up with rules, a few have been testing the boundaries, The Associated Press reported last week.”
Well, IMNSHO, if drinking alcohol (which causes anti-social and even violent behavior) in bars and restaurants is allowed, then smoking pot (which causes beneficial social behaviors and laughter) should also be allowed in bars and restaurants. Especially restaurants would benefit, due to pot’s well known predilection to cause people to want to eat.
AHA!
Marijuana found at White House during Victory on Drugs presser
http://tinyurl.com/d794efp
The April showers are just arriving but some May flowers have already bloomed. Tourists discovered six marijuana plants in the Rose Garden just as President Obama announced a major victory in the so-called War on Drugs.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) marijuana experts rushed to the scene this morning and estimated that each four-foot tall cannabis plant was getting ready to yield 500 pounds of pot.
“We think it’s Sour Diesel,†said one expert who declined to be named citing the ongoing investigation.
ONDCP Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowse arrived and personally eradicated the crop with a gold-plated weedwacker that he keeps in a glass case behind his desk.
“Think of the children,†said Kelikowse, “imagine what would happen to the ice cream reserves if three thousand pounds of Sour D hit Capitol Hill.â€
500 lbs each?
But you know what will be really ironic: one day, all the mighty prohibs will have a top grade Cannabis strain named after them:
“Dude, I just got done smoking on that Green Gil Kerlikushke and I forgot that one word again.â€
“What word did you forget man?â€
“It starts with an L and reminds me of an eagle in a nation or something . . . for the life of me, I cannot seem to poses that word in my vocabulary while smoking on this Green Gil Kerlikushke and it’s always that same word -never any other words.â€
Sour Eric Don’t Holder-Pass It Diesle: “I cannot believe we sold all those guns –how high were we last night?â€
Mango Michele Leonhart Lemon Kush: “Dude, I don’t know what got into me, every time I smoke on this stuff, I just start kicking down everyone’s door.†Warning: the Mango Michele Leonhart Lemon Kush has 45%THC and 0% CBD’s and is so strong, you’ll close down your own dispensary and even raid your momma’s house.
Obama Lama Ding Dank: It’s the cheapest and most shwagish strain of weed in all of mankind and only cost but change on the dollar and awkwardly the only strain not available under the Obama Health Plan –nor carried by any dispensary for that matter.
But the men love the Purple Harry Barry Anslinger the best . . . the plant’s all natural pheromones allows human male smokers to attract women whose families are all industrial tycoons. Quite expensive I would say.
Alright, you almost had me, at about when old Gil took out the gold plated weed whacker he keeps in glass case, I looked up at the date…..LOL, pretty good, had a good laugh and really ponder on if they could find this in the Whitehouse garden, I would have a name to submit a name for this terrible crime….does “chum gang” do anything for you!
Did you submit that post to the Onion? If not, you should.
Here’s an interesting one:
The drug search warrant might just stand up in court given that the suspects were once CIA.
Since this article by Pete is about hypocrisy it might be appropriate to bring up some very real and continuing hypocrisy by the National Institutes for Health and the National Institute for Drug Abuse. According to Mike Riggs they are offering 2 million dollars to support another “study” – one that studies only the side of the issue that pays for them: The NEGATIVE impact of marijuana.
I don’t know where these agencies get off calling this a “study”. Only looking at the negative aspects of anything tells you nothing about its worth. That makes this study worthless before it even starts.
If you are going to study something I assume its to find out truth. If you study half of something I believe the result is a half truth.
Money to be spent on half truths is more than wasted money. Its the purposeful propagation of lies.
http://tinyurl.com/bm9sxju
so… what are you saying exactly? That there’s something fishy goin’ on?
We have firsthand stupidity on parade in the drug war. The DEA says show us some FDA approved study results and we’ll consider rescheduling and then when Rick Doblin and Dr Sisley in AZ, – understanding the process – went out and actually met FDA criteria for doing a study on cannabis as treatment for vets w/ PTSD. Next step is on to HHS/NIDA who says “gack! that’s not a negative study. Hell no you can’t have any of our Mizzippi dirt weed. Marijuana baaad.”
I certainly hope there is a special place in Hell reserved for these folks. Hypocrisy is an infraction compared to the felonious assault on civility the WO(s)D has wrought.
Makes ya wanna apply for that grant just to give ’em another study that “inadvertantly” points to a clear benefit. …Like maybe looking for signs it speeds the advance of M.S. or ALS. I almost wish I were still affiliated with a University.
Perhaps a study of how much we could save by shutting down the WOsD bureaucracies since they will serve no useful purpose if they aren’t needed to lie about something else.