Milestones

I’ve been busy the past couple of weeks, and forgot about the fact that Drug WarRant just had a birthday. As of July 26, this blog is 11 years old.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long. At the time, I was just looking for an outlet outside the newspaper LTE to talk about my views on drug policy. I thought I’d post once or twice a week. 5,550 posts later…

Wonder how many more years…

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28 Responses to Milestones

  1. allan says:

    well happy birthday DWR!

    Thanks for the couch Pete.

  2. allan says:

    OT…

    Mexican cartels hiring US soldiers as hit men

    Using American servicemen could make it easier to carry out a murder in the U.S. since they can more easily move across the border. And the lure of quick money has proven tempting for theses soldiers given the dismal military pay scale.

    Apodaca’s fee for killing Galaena was nearly three times his monthly pay. A sergeant like Walker makes around $2,500 per month, and Corley $4,500. Both hoped for $50,000 each and drugs from their “Los Zetas” connection.

    Growing ties between U.S.-based gangs, which have long infiltrated the military, and the Mexican cartels could be making American soldiers even more readily available to the cartels south of the border. The FBI National Gang Intelligence Center reports its concern with gang members with military training poses a unique threat to law enforcement personnel because of their distinctive weapons and combat training skills and ability to transfer these skills to fellow gang members. As of April 2011, the NGIC has identified members of at least 53 gangs whose members have served in or are affiliated with U.S. military.

    • Windy says:

      The Framers were correct when they forbade a standing army, had this union obeyed that directive, there would be no problem with gang members infiltrating the military. But then, had the union obeyed the Constitution, there would be no drug war, and no cartels, and gangs would be only a niggling annoyance rather than the nationwide problem they currently are. If wishes were horses . . .

  3. strayan says:

    You’re going to need an understudy.

  4. allan says:

    More candles on the cake. Balko’s book gets a well produced piece on BBC:

    BBC: Radley Balko: Rise of America’s warrior cop

  5. DdC says:

    Happy B-Day DWR! Couch must be made out of Hemp to last 11 years with this crew. Dropping doobies, farting and crumbly munchies… This will be the last year of the drug war and all of the Dung Worriers will exchange places with the Political prisoners of the Ganjawar. Some brave soul will demand an investigation of the CSA and all cannabis will be removed and all else maintained in a non threatening healthy manner. Still have enough to bitch about. Sure glad hemp removes odors. Even the New Weird Ones…

    Drug War Profiteering!
    Racism! The Police State!
    ALL Go Hand In Hand
    u2b

    The drug war profiteers November 20, 2012
    THE HOUSE I Live In should cause fresh outrage at the 40-year-long war on drugs in the U.S.. Eugene Jarecki, the award-winning director of Why We Fight, has made a gut-punch of a documentary that humanizes the victims of the drug war.

    Shame on The Drug Worrier Profiteers
    Nonsensical Harbingers of Idiocracy
    Misinformation S.A.M.
    If the Roots are Poison, So be the Fruit.
    Mooching Off Medicaid
    More DEA and UN Overreaching Arguments Against Legalization
    Won’t say why?
    The U.N.’s complicity in international human rights abuses
    The Many Different Faces Of Cannabis In America
    Lobbyists Are Getting Rich Off of WoD

  6. kaptinemo says:

    Many thanks for The Couch, Pete…and many thanks for all it’s denizens, heard and unspoken, who frequent here.

    The daily information-rich content of the postings and their accompanying comments give the lie to the prohib propaganda regarding the mentally stultifying effects of psychotropics…and the true motives of those promulgating those lies. I’ve learned quite a lot from the regulars, and I thought I was fairly knowledgeable.

    The only sad part about this is that DWR is still (woefully) needed: so long as the prohibs remain pathologically mendacious (and equally pathologically vicious and violent), a major forum like this will always be in demand.

    • Howard says:

      “The only sad part about this is that DWR is still (woefully) needed: so long as the prohibs remain pathologically mendacious (and equally pathologically vicious and violent), a major forum like this will always be in demand.”

      Exactly. This battle is far from over. The prohibitionists still have the might of governments on their side. There are cracks in the armor to be sure. But the push from those who want this war to end must continue with the same — actually greater — intensity than the prohibitionists currently utilize to maintain the status quo. They are NOT going away any time soon. We shouldn’t either.

  7. claygooding says:

    Wonder how many more years…

    I have wondered how many more years since 1973 when using only a copy of the study that Nixon threw in the trash I nearly talked a jury into turning me loose on a sales to a narc charge and although I can’t be sure what his motivation was the judge refused to sign the order sending me to prison and the DA didn’t push the issue.
    I still hold on to my original goal now I had then,to end this insanity and I will be here until I don’t wake up to check for the headlines I dream of being on the front page.
    Thank you Pete for having this idea,,I doubt we will ever let you go.

  8. daniel ferstl ferreira bastos says:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/uruguays-common-sense-on-cannabis-8741815.html

    Uruguay is a small country with high level of education here in Latin America and has given us a exanple of how the State can cope with “drug’s problem”

    • claygooding says:

      “”The only way to remove the violence surrounding marijuana is to take the money out of marijuana and that cannot be accomplished by a patchwork of legal markets surrounded by illegal customers,,the money will always corrupt just as it does now.

      If our governments want to shut down the drug cartels and remove the easy money from them the only way is a concerted effort by all countries to close down the illegal markets in drugs and remove the inherent dangers of people purchasing unsafe chemical compounds produced by criminals and sold by criminals.””

      I remember a time when I didn’t even speak about other drugs,,the couch is why I have come to realize just taking marijuana away from the cartels and banks isn’t enough,,we need to take it all from them.

    • jean valjean says:

      glad the independent has finally seen sense. for a long time they were disseminators of the cannabis causes schizophrenia meme

  9. Viggo Piggsko Flatmark says:

    Thank’s for the seat on the couch Pete, and happy b-day to DWR!

  10. crut says:

    Thanks for the couch Pete, the ranting will be over soon. The power of the internet will soon be the end of the war.

  11. Howard says:

    20 years ago I was ranting and raving about the war on drugs to my girlfriend (now my wife). At one point she told me, “You need to find more people to discuss this with”. In the early 90’s that was easier said than done. Now there are terrific sites like this. Thanks Pete.

    I think there’s going to be a war on drugs in various forms for a long time. Case in point: I don’t use any illicit substances due to employment drug testing requirements. Strange thing is, I don’t handle financial transactions or operate machinery or vehicles. I do work with very valuable proprietary information but I would never sell or disclose that information to a competitor for any price or gift. Occasional cannabis use (off hours) would mitigate the stress of my occupation. But at my age I can’t risk losing my job if a random drug test was called for. So for me (and many others I’m sure), the war on ‘some’ drugs will continue as long as drug testing is in vogue.

    So, Pete, thanks again for providing excellent information and commentary. And thanks to all the commenters on this site who add more valuable information and insight. Cheers to 11 years ;).

    • Windy says:

      I’ve been ranting about how discourteous police were becoming (which discourtesy has now exploded into the militarized cops who shoot first and ask questions later, that Radley Balko writes about) and the absolute wrongness of the “drug war” since I got online in 1989. I found it to be, usually, easy to find some who agreed and others who could be persuaded with reasoned arguments. You and I and so very many of those others here on Pete’s couch were the planters of the seeds which have sprouted (finally) and grown into the force we see now, and will keep growing (exponentially, I think) until we overwhelm the prohibitionists.

  12. jean valjean says:

    congrats pete. you and dwr are a voice of sanity and truth in the madness of the drug war.
    ot but its a sad day when the fascist putin regime looks benign compared to the us as edward snowden is given asylum. no mention of course of any arrests for the many crimes revealed by snowden and bradley manning, just dems and repubs taking aim at the messengers

    • claygooding says:

      When any government prosecutes the messengers that report that governments crimes it is time to remove some of that government’s power,,our problem is that the security of our country has become too big to remove without complete restructuring of our government and a common commitment of the American people to provide security of their personal living space instead of relying on the government to provide that security for us.
      The CIA is alleged to have no jurisdiction inside the US but we know that is false because the CIA’s best drug customers are here.
      Until we get all these interstate security bureaucracies under control instead of competing against each other for more tax dollars this kind of event is inevitable.

  13. darkcycle says:

    Nice. Happy Birthday DWR.
    And Pete, thanks for leaving your door open and allowing all of us random lunatics to camp out on your virtual furniture. I like this couch. It’s a comfy place sit, and the conversation is the best.
    And I’ve made some great friends here. Thanks. Funny, I read a lot of Blogs but the folks that come here are a very cohesive group. Without the support of all my couchmates out there in the wild, wild web, I doubt I’d have kept up as long as I have.
    BTW, this has been my first stop with my coffee every morning now for at least five years, and It’s going to remain my first stop until the blog is no longer needed.

  14. thelbert says:

    thanks Pete, this couch is quite comfortable and educational.

  15. Matthew Meyer says:

    Congratulations, Pete.

    There is something about the way you do this blog that attracts quality comments and discussion.

    How ironic that treatment outfits are now trying to co-opt its value.

    Thanks to you and to everyone who makes the couch worth visiting every day.

  16. Your blog has made all the difference in the world Pete. Congratulations. You also have the most awesome contributors in the world writing here. Your blog is a brain trust extraordinaire.

  17. Freeman says:

    I gotta second all the congrats and kind words. This is by far my favorite blog for so many reasons, not the least of which are the gracious and generous host and the great group of fellow hippies camping out on the couch.

    Everything here from the relevance and timeliness of the front-page articles, to the amazingly top-notch quality of the commentary, to Pete’s alway insightful and thought-provoking words getting the conversations started, to the superior technical abilities of the software features, represents the achievement of a pinnacle of excellence that sets the bar so high that few others can ever hope to touch it with outstretched hands, much less clear it the way DWR does nearly every day.

    I can’t remember how many years I’ve been hanging out here, but it’s always my first stop in the morning and I know I’ll be stopping by for as long as this couch holds up. Thanks Pete, for everything you do in providing such a magically warm, friendly, welcoming, and comfortable atmosphere where everyone can enjoy the symbiosis of collaborative contemplation and insight on topics so many others find contentious and contraversial, an achievement so rare on the open, anonymous internet discussion-forum frontier you’ve been leading us in pioneering. I am literally in awe of what you’ve accomplished here.

  18. DonDig says:

    Late to the party making a comment here, but I too have learned a tremendous amount perusing the articles and comments, really appreciate all that you’ve done Pete, and being able to be a part of it.

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