Open Thread

Heading out early tomorrow morning for New York – this annual community trip I’m hosting 95 travelers for a week of Broadway shows and walking tours. Should be fun. And busy.

I’ll stop in when I can. Keep checking the comments for the best news and discussion on drug policy.

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109 Responses to Open Thread

  1. Freeman says:

    Fantasy fun time: Pete takes his group of 95 to 325 5th Ave Apt 8B and visits a rousing go-to-hellegram upon the inhabitant there.

  2. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    From the “life, liberty and the pursuit of trivia” category:

    Analysis: On Marijuana Legalization, Many Mass. Officials May Be On Wrong Side Of Public Opinion
    March 28, 2016

    In the last 16 years, there have been 85 ballot questions in Massachusetts dealing with marijuana. All 85 passed. All but two of these were non-binding public policy questions, in which voters instruct their legislators how to vote on an issue, or to introduce legislation producing the desired result. These advisory questions have no legal impact, but are often used to test the waters for potential binding ballot questions, which come later.
    /snip/

    Color me impressed. I knew that Bay State cannabis law reform advocates had an impressive record at the ballot box but I didn’t have a clue that it was 85 of 85.

  3. DublinGangWars says:

    Rattigan henchman’s killing may re-ignite bloody gangland war

    “Information that came to light last night also suggests that Fitzgerald recently had a drugs dispute with a Crumlin cocaine dealer who is considered a key member of the Christy Kinahan cartel and a close ally of ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson since the genesis of the Crumlin-Drimnagh feud.

    There have already been more gun killings in 2016 than there were in all of 2015. A total of eight people were shot dead last year, but 10 people have been gunned down in 2016.

    http://tinyurl.com/oldscoressettled

  4. Irie says:

    Something I uncovered posted by Rick Simpson, I just put it here for you all to enjoy and I bet you will agree with Ellen Burkstel and the Criminals! http://ellenbukstel.com/
    Go on her webpage and under music, listen to “Who is the Pusher now” great song, love the lyrics, and the lady can really belt it out!!

  5. Servetus says:

    CBS Interviewer Scott Pelley talks to DEA Director Michael Botticelli on 60-Minutes about legalizing marijuana. Excerpt:

    Scott Pelley: You’re not a fan?

    Michael Botticelli: I’m not a fan. What we’ve seen quite honestly is a dramatic decrease in the perception of risk among youth around occasional marijuana use. And they are getting the message that because it’s legal, that it is, there’s no harm associated with it. So, we know that about one in nine people who use marijuana become addicted to marijuana. It’s been associated with poor academic performance, in exacerbating mental health conditions linked to lower IQ.[…]

    In the 90s tobacco companies appealed to kids with flavored cigarettes and Joe Camel. Today, the nearly $3 billion marijuana industry promotes sweetened edibles and “buddie,” a mascot for legalization.

    Scott Pelley: You are never gonna be able to talk all the states out of the tax revenue that will come from a burgeoning marijuana industry. It will just be too seductive.

    Michael Boticelli: You know, that’s quite honestly my fear. Is that states are going to become dependent on the revenue.

    Scott Pelley: It becomes a co-dependency?

    Michael Botticelli: It becomes an addiction to, unfortunately, a tax revenue that’s often based on bad public health policy.

    Botticelli speaks of addiction as if he understands it from the point of view of a biochemist or geneticist; a scientist he definitely is not.

    Until an addiction biomarker is discovered for marijuana, it’s not possible to talk about an alleged marijuana addiction in the same terms as say morphine. Even chocolate has an addiction biomarker. I don’t see Mr. Botticelli trying to save the souls of chocoholics.

    What Michael Botticelli clearly demonstrates is that a person is far more likely to exhibit a lowered I.Q. if they become DEA Director than if they smoke marijuana as an adolescent.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      What Michael Botticelli clearly demonstrates is that a person is far more likely to exhibit a lowered I.Q. if they become DEA Director than if they smoke marijuana as an adolescent.

      I just can’t stop laughing Servetus, thank you! You have snatched the pebble from the Master’s hand. I’m proud of you boy.

      Just a reminder that the junk science that claimed an average loss of 8 IQ points used the Dunedin cohort data. It’s the same cohort used by the people who within the last few days published research found that the only physical liabilities of cannabis consumption is a higher rate of gum disease. Blind men describing an elephant, no doubt.

    • “Botticelli speaks of addiction as if he understands it from the point of view of a biochemist or geneticist”

      There is harm in marijuana. No warnings to the adolescents about gum disease? That seems to be the biggest real problem he fails to warn America’s youth of.

      The DEA in the meantime is providing incentive to increase the production of opiates by cartels via raising its (opiates) classification.

      Diane Feinstein and Chuck Grassley want to make it harder to produce (fentanyl?) by making it harder to get precursor chemicals.

      That’s not going to work when the DEA has opened the market incentives for them to sell heroin and fentanyl by the ton. Its no wonder Botticelli sounds glib and confused and not at all like a biochemist or geneticist.

      This “drug war” is a loser all the way around. Reefer Madness is not working so well anymore.

      • “Feds’ Pill Crackdown Drives Pain Patients to Heroin”
        http://tinyurl.com/zjpeug9

        • B. Snow says:

          Yep, looks like it may be time for a collaborative group of chronic pain patients & heroin users to come up with some sort of ‘DIY Guide to Medicinal Heroin Use’ = if only as a form of harm reduction to minimize the most common mistakes & hazards.

          I may look into the plausibility of designing and patenting a Home Euthanasia Kit with an “iKevorkian”-like App?

          You might have to sell it from somewhere in Europe where voluntary euthanasia is legal…
          God only knows how long it will take for these idiots to realize they’re making it worse!

    • Will says:

      Minor correction Servetus, Botticelli is the director of the ONDCP.

      I remember this segment when it aired several months ago. Scott Pelley did a lousy job. There were so many relevant drug war questions he could/should have asked, but a puff piece about Botticelli was the main focus. What a joke.

    • DC Reade says:

      1) The “perception by teens that marijuana use carries relatively little risk” is basically accurate. It’s supported by good science and empirical fact. So why is Botticelli complaining about American youth (and the American public) agreeing with science over superstition?

      2) Botticelli’s statement that they’re arriving at this conclusion primarily as a result of recent legalization policies is an unsupported conjecture, not a statement of fact. Furthermore, it’s a conjecture contradicted by the ONDCP’s own findings, which have documented that the perception of grave harm from marijuana use has been declining for decades.

      3) The “perception of low risk from marijuana use” has not been associated with a surge in pot use by minors. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/25/teen-adolescent-marijuana-weed-pot-use-abuse-decline

      http://www.thecannabist.co/2015/12/18/fed-study-on-monthly-youth-pot-use-shows-colorado-now-leads-nation/45373/

      The Federal government’s own statistics show that teen marijuana use has yet to return to the level found in the mid-1990s, an era before a single state had even legalized the use of medical marijuana- let alone to the historic peak of teen pot use in the 1970s. http://archive.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2k11Results/NSDUHresults2011.htm#Fig8-4

      I don’t understand how anyone who considers themselves a professional journalist would not have apprised themselves of these facts and brought them to Botticelli’s attention in response to his concern trolling.

    • DC Reade says:

      1) The “perception by teens that marijuana use carries relatively little risk” is basically accurate. It’s supported by good science and empirical fact. So why is Botticelli complaining about American youth (and the American public) agreeing with science over superstition?

      2) Botticelli’s statement that they’re arriving at this conclusion primarily as a result of recent legalization policies is an unsupported conjecture, not a statement of fact. Furthermore, it’s a conjecture contradicted by the ONDCP’s own findings, which have documented that the perception of grave harm from marijuana use has been declining for decades.

      3) The “perception of low risk from marijuana use” has not been associated with a surge in pot use by minors. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/25/teen-adolescent-marijuana-weed-pot-use-abuse-decline

      http://www.thecannabist.co/2015/12/18/fed-study-on-monthly-youth-pot-use-shows-colorado-now-leads-nation/45373/

      The Federal government’s own statistics show that teen marijuana use has yet to reach the level found in the mid-1990s, an era before a single state had even legalized the use of medical marijuana- let alone to the historic peak of teen pot use in the 1970s. http://archive.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2k11Results/NSDUHresults2011.htm#Fig8-4

      I don’t understand how anyone who considers themselves a professional journalist would not have apprised themselves of these facts and brought them to Botticelli’s attention in response to his concern trolling.

      Really- doesn’t it make more logical sense to claim that Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana because a majority of the American public has concluded (correctly) that marijuana is relatively harmless, than it does to imagine that it’s been working the other way around?

    • claygooding says:

      “” Michael Botticelli: It becomes an addiction to, unfortunately, a tax revenue that’s often based on bad public health policy.””

      Could a budget of over 400 billion a year become addictive because of bad public policy?

  6. strayan says:

    Nora Volkow’s new article on opioid ‘abuse’ is an exercise in contradictions:

    http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1507771#t=article

    For example:

    the demonstrated effectiveness of opioid analgesics for the management of acute pain, and the limited therapeutic alternatives for chronic pain have combined to produce an overreliance on opioid medications in the United States, with… alarming increases in… addiction.

    then later:

    addiction is not a predictable result of opioid prescribing. Addiction occurs in only a small percentage of persons who are exposed to opioids — even among those with preexisting vulnerabilities

    then later:

    The associated risks of opioid… addiction demand change.

    Here’s another example:

    Physicians have attempted to identify dissembling or addicted patients through screening instruments or through detection of so-called aberrant behaviors that are thought to be indicative of addiction.77 However, the most recent review of patient screening efforts showed no evidence that any scale or procedure was effective

    Then later:

    Emerging signs of addiction can be identified and managed through regular monitoring, including urine drug testing before every prescription is written

    What in the actual hell? How does this escape peer review?

    • “including urine drug testing before every prescription is written”

      New CDC guidelines urge doctors to stop marijuana drug testing http://tinyurl.com/zpa3yaw

      “CDC’s new guidelines reason that pain management doctors shouldn’t be testing patients for substances that “would not affect pain management or for which implications for patient management are unclear,” such as marijuana and THC.”

    • DdC says:

      It doesn’t escape peer review, it just skips Science, Ethics, Scruples, Morals and Logic, All of her peers paychecks depend on good reviews of doom and gloom. She’s a leech punishing and persecuting her enemies, all while draining their blood. On tax dollars. Americans have become oblivious of the obvious. In what strange land is pain ever a lower priority than buzzwords like addiction? Anyone with a minuscule amount of integrity would resign and hope for a light sentence. No civilized person could commit such evil deeds she proudly prostitutes herself over to bilk billions in fixit scams. But its a big fat secret so the Neocongress hasn’t been briefed. The blight of NIDA and igNORAnce. Selling fake piss exams to stop kids from tuition assistance and their parents from jobs. Now suffering patients? Pain will always rule over rules.

      Oh Momma can this really be the end,
      to be stuck inside of Mobile
      with the Memphis blues again…

      Maia Szalavitz vice
      https://www.vice.com/author/maia-szalavitz

      • claygooding says:

        If any NIDA science is peer reviewed it is done in-house or by contract researchers already vested in govt research.

    • DdC says:

      A new investigation shows Oxycontin
      doesn’t last nearly as long as advertised for many patients.

      The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Addiction to Painkillers
      By Maia Szalavitz May 16, 2016
      Unfortunately, according to the LA Times, Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of Oxycontin, has known from the start that for many people, the drug doesn’t last nearly that long. The paper described what happened to one Oxycontin patient, a 42-year-old plant scientist named Elizabeth Kipp who had back pain beginning when she was thrown from a horse at age 14. She would suffer in agony for hours between Oxy doses, but her doctor insisted she stay on the 12-hour regimen.

      “You want a description of hell?” the patient recalled. “I can give it to you.”

    • Jean Valjean says:

      “How does this escape peer review?”
      Simple…. she gets other drug warriors and fellow government teat artists like Bertha Madras to cover for her.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/04/29/5-reasons-marijuana-is-not-medicine/

  7. Mr_Alex says:

    I finally got a copy of Maia Szalavitz’s book Help at any cost which talks about the Troubled Teen Industry in depth, interesting she writes that Synanon and its founder Charles E. Dederich was the person that actually founded or even started the Troubled Teen Industry, also included that Straight Inc founded by Betty and Melvin Sembler and the Seed founded by Art Barker as being mentioned as following or even copying the same techniques Synanon used. Also this book gives a preview on why the Prohibitionists endorse abuse on other people.

    Book recommendation 9 out of 10

    Also AARC in Canada is a direct copy of Straight Inc as well

  8. SouthAfrica says:

    “The Central Drug Authority has taken a definitive position on the use of dagga, and has called for it to be decriminalised.

    CDA Head researcher Professor Dan Stein says their opinion is based on evidence studied over time in different countries.

    Stein explains that the CDA’s stance falls between commercialisation and staunch criminalisation.”

    http://tinyurl.com/daggaDecrim

  9. Will says:

    .
    .
    Here’s a recent interview with Kevin Sabet at a site called WeedWeek (never heard of that one). The interview is toward the bottom;

    http://tinyurl.com/jcmd8px

    It’s the usual Kevin Sabet/SAM drivel. But there’s one thing I wish these damn interviewers would question Sabet on, at least once. In the interview, when describing SAM supporters, Sabet claims;

    “They’re concerned about car crashes and about the massive marketing campaigns to kids, especially of edibles”.

    —————–

    Has anyone, in any of the states where cannabis is legal — either for medical or recreational — ever witnessed “massive marketing to kids”? Ever?

    • Uncle Albert's Nephew says:

      In the “minds” of prohibitionists all marketing is “marketing to kids”.

      • Radical Rant: Marijuana—The Worst Drug Ever!
        http://tinyurl.com/z3q3o6j

        “This latest move by the FDA to approve amphetamines in gummy candy form for kids may have driven the stake through your most effective fright: “But what about the children?!?”

        So, I guess as long as pharmaceutical interests are involved this is ok?

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
          .

          The statistics on pediatric poisonings in the US says that the #3 substance is children’s vitamins. I haven’t seen the statistics for how many of those are from Flintstones’ Vitamins, whether the classic or the Flintstones Gummies.

          Oh my, I never before realized that the Flintstones Vitamins are produced by Bayer. What a surprise…not.

    • B. Snow says:

      What Kev-Kev won’t admit & the general public, (with the possible exception of worry-wart parents) is that 99% of the time = Drugs Sell Themselves!

      Especially marijuana – There could be an argument that people market various new/unique/handcrafted paraphernalia or vaporizers maybe but that’s mostly “Boutique” type sales not mass-marketed products from assembly lines.

      I guess there could be anecdotal examples at sone point = Whoever ends up making the ‘Bic Lighter’ of vape pens – reliable and reasonably long lasting, and some others will be sold like the Criket or no name POS’s cheapies at the convenience store counter – that you can ‘adjust’ up to small flamethrower level…

      They start to leak the day they’re made, and omly last a for a small fraction of the time a slightly more expensive ‘BIC’ brand will.

      None of this will be sold to people under 18 or maybe 21 depending on how “Nanny” your State is… Very few people would ever try to matket or sell marijuana to kidsn older teens will *maybe* try it e just like nearly all teens do with something they’re not supposed to have, there’s nothing adults (even Kev-Kev) can do about that EXCEPT remove the illicit “mystique” around it.

      Or maybe Brewster’s Millions them with a fat sack of nasty, stemy/seedy, brick-packedn badly cured – dirtweed…

      And then you’d have a chance to steer them clear of it until they’re legally old enough to use it recreationally (likely in college or their senior year of High School maybe.)
      I think people are going to be sick and tired of Kev-Kev before too long.

  10. MexicanCrimesAgainstHumanity says:

    “We have concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe there are both state and non-state actors who have committed crimes against humanity in Mexico,” the report said.

    The report criticised Mexico’s weak justice system, and Mr Witte said if atrocities continued without measures being taken to end impunity, the International Criminal Court could step in.

    “Unfortunately, Mexico might be one atrocity away from an international commission becoming politically viable,” he said.

    http://tinyurl.com/MexicoHumanRightsAtrocities

  11. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Well this one is shockingly good news…you might want to hold onto your hats:

    ‘Jack’s Law’: Medical Marijuana In Schools Bill Signed By Governor

    DENVER (CBS4)– Schools in Colorado will be required to allow medical marijuana after Gov. John Hickenlooper signed “Jack’s Law” on Monday.

    The law allows marijuana in schools for medical use with strict conditions.

    Jack Splitt loves school so when his school confiscated the only medicine that treats his debilitating muscle spasms by stating “cannabis is a controlled substance,” Jack and his mom Stacey Linn took their fight to the state Capitol.
    /snip/

    Make sure to look at a picture of Jack, just as a point of reference of just how cruel and inhuman that the sycophants of prohibition are. They not only do not have the moral high ground, there isn’t anyplace lower.

  12. Windy says:

    One thing voters should keep in mind is that the Green Party has never gotten on enough ballots to win the general election and is not likely to make it on all 50 this time, either; whereas the LP will definitely be on all 50 State ballots, so the best choice for those who view ending prohibition as the most important issue is clearly Gary Johnson.
    https://www.mpp.org/news/press/marijuana-policy-project-updates-guide-presidential-candidates-adds-third-parties/

    Marijuana Policy Project Launches Updated Presidential Candidate Voter Guide for the General Election, Adds Third-party Candidates

    Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who was nominated Sunday by the Libertarian Party, and physician Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party nominee, both received ‘A+’ grades, rounding out the ‘most marijuana-friendly field of presidential candidates in history’

    • darkcycle says:

      Green Party will be on ballots in all 50 States this election, Windy.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .

        Somebody better tell Gary Johnson.

        GJ has been acting flaky. I doubt I can vote for him this time around.

  13. Will says:

    .
    .
    Looks like journalistic “integrity” really does have a price after all;

    Nevada Paper Reverses Marijuana Stance After Adelson Purchase

    http://tinyurl.com/h7hez7j

    • Servetus says:

      Sheldon Adelson is a former Democrat turned Republican, due largely to his continuing efforts to block labor unions from his casinos, since Republicans are the anti-union party. Of cannabis, Wiki has this to say of Mr. Adelson’s weed phobia:

      Fighting the “mainstreaming” of cannabis legalization is a personal passion of Adelson, whose son Mitchell died of a drug overdose.[42] Mitchell was said to have used cocaine and heroin from an early age.[43]

      Adelson believes cannabis is a gateway drug.[44] Andy Abboud, vice president of Las Vegas Sands, has stated that “Pro marijuana folks have awoken a sleeping giant in Sheldon and Miriam Adelson”.[42]

      Once again marijuana is scapegoated by some idiot sleazebags with too much money, people who understand nothing of the dynamics of drug consumption in the U.S.

      153-million+ people (or 49%) have smoked marijuana in the U.S. at some point in their lives, some say the number is rising, and the addiction rate for opiates is currently at about 2.5 million. If the addiction rate includes alcohol, the number rises to 23.4 million. According to Nora Volkow, “More than half of new illicit drug users begin with marijuana. Next most common are prescription pain relievers, followed by inhalants.”

      Scientists tend to call these disparate ranges in the numbers a discrepancy. Philosophers tend to call the bureaucratically sanctioned split between licit and illicit drugs hypocrisy. If marijuana were truly a gateway drug, it would behoove Mr. Adelson to promote its legalization to eliminate cannabis as a link in the chain to addiction of illegal drugs, as the Dutch said they did for that reason.

  14. Servetus says:

    Notwithstanding Trump or the Clintons, we still get Hillary’s War that pours kerosene onto the fire in Mexico:

    Mexico, John M. Ackerman wrote recently for Foreign Policy, “is not a functional democracy.” Instead, it’s a “repressive and corrupt” oligarchy propped up by a “blank check” from Washington.

    Since 2008, that blank check has come to over $2.5 billion appropriated in security aid through the Mérida Initiative, a drug war security assistance program funded by Washington. Negotiated behind closed doors in the last years of the Bush administration, the plan was originally proposed as a three-year program. Yet Hillary Clinton’s State Department pushed aggressively to extend it, overseeing a drastic increase of the initiative that continues today.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/03/a-dark-legacy-hillarys-clintons-role-in-the-mexican-drug-war/

  15. DdC says:

    It ain’t over til the fat lady learns how to sing!
    http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/1096

  16. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Oh my word…”scientists” have proven that people who choose to enjoy cannabis do enjoy cannabis!

    Wow, who’da thunk it?

  17. Enjoy Wonderful Cannabis Today! says:

    If I use cannabis just to get high where is the abuse or misuse?
    I am using it for its intended purpose.
    But to be fair I also use it for insomnia, anxiety and to treat extreme migraines from a traumatic brain injury.
    A little Sativa in the morning for energy and to help get the day going.
    A little Indica at night for couchlock and to cure insomnia.

  18. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Ohio is officially #25 with a comprehensive medicinal cannabis patient protection law. I am shocked that Gov. Kasich signed the bill into law. I’m even more surprised that the law is so inclusive. No, not perfect but it’s much, much better than the last three, Minnnesota, New York and Pennsylvania. The Ohio law says smoking is illegal like the previous 3, but doesn’t prohibit the selling of smokeable cannabis. MN NY and PA are micromanaging people’s lives, Ohio is preserving probable cause for a search.
    —————————
    Can anyone say “President Trump” without retching? What’s your secret?

    • Servetus says:

      The secret is we would still have some options left. Impeachment, coup, or revolution. Revolution might be useful. A lot of things can be accomplished in a revolution.

      Which is probably why I feel this political era is more like 1916 than 2016. Or whatever I thought 2016 should feel like.

  19. Will says:

    .
    .
    From Insane Nutjob Land (really, there is such a place);

    Oklahoma Cops Find A New Way To Take People’s Money, Even If They Don’t Have Cash
    A device that can access funds linked to prepaid debit cards is sparking new concerns about civil asset forfeiture.

    http://tinyurl.com/hqvqgfx

    You win Oklahoma, no state is more fucked up (but, not to worry, Texas is still vying for the #1 spot).

    • Jean Valjean says:

      “Each ERAD reader is costing the state about $5,000, plus about $1,500 for training. The state has agreed to pay the manufacturer, ERAD Group, 7.7 percent of all funds forfeited with the readers.”

      Yet another industry finds a way to make a profit off the drug war.

      • Frank W. says:

        If the Erad Group can make that stuff it shouldn’t be too hard to reproduce…not that I’m advocating anything, it’s just SCIENCE!

    • Servetus says:

      No doubt some Oklahoma politician or bureaucrat collected a nice fat kickback from ERAD for getting the device approved for use by Oklahoma’s predatory police.

      People driving through Oklahoma with out-of-state license plates are frequently tailed by cops for miles, relief coming only when the pursued pulls into a food or rest stop. One cop tailed a friend of mine who was moving with his belongings from New York to California, until he pulled into a roadside diner. The highway-robber-cop actually stopped and waited for his quarry to hit the road again, but then grew impatient when it was obvious no one was going to budge with him lurking in plain view. The frustrated cop eventually left to find some other New York motorist to roust.

  20. strayan says:

    Anyone heard from kaptinemo?

    • darkcycle says:

      No, Strayan, Nemo is MIA. Hopefully he’s merely lurking.

    • qolfySkyfucker says:

      I’m worried

      • kaptinemo says:

        You need not be worried. I’m still alive, and still full of equal parts of piss, vinegar and bile.

        Sorry for having been incommunicado for so long, but I’ve been involved in a major job-search since moving to my new residence. In truth I haven’t been lurking; it’s only today that I recalled that I’ve been so wrapped up in things that I haven’t been ‘on’, ‘here’. When I saw that I’d been missed, I figured an appearance was in order. My apologies to all and sundry for any concerns.

        I’d like to devote more time ‘here’, but it seems unlikely until I can reach higher fiscal ground. But my absence was not important; it seems that there are new faces, and blood to match, and that’s always good.

        The movement advances, inexorably, despite all the roadblocks and speed-bumps the prohibs throw in our way, and as you can now see, a major stumbling block (Ohio) has ceased to be one. I recall all the problems reformers had in that State last decade, and now look; we’re at the halfway mark.

        Given that the major political parties are beginning to realize their future is in jeopardy by clinging to policies whose supporters are literally dying off, and faced with the need to accommodate a better-educated (and motivated) electorate, combined with a worsening economy, our chances are better than ever that prohibition will end before the decade does. Because of the efforts of people like those at Pete’s Couch. Because of you all. Keep it up!

        • DdC says:

          👍. Welcome Home

        • strayan says:

          Shove over darkcycle and make some room on the couch for the ol’ seamaster!

        • Hope says:

          It’s so good to see you old friend. We’ve missed you terribly.

        • NorCalNative says:

          Thanks for letting us know you’re okay. Good vibes on your new place and job search.

        • Servetus says:

          You were right about the drug war getting crazier. Since your previous posting, it’s become exponential.

        • kaptinemo says:

          Many thanks to all. It’s gratifying that I was missed, but like I said, the movement advances. I only produce an infinitesimally small impetus in that advance, and if it’s noticeable at all I’m surprised.

          As to things getting crazier, we all knew that as the prohibs got backed into a corner, like rodents, they’d fight even harder. They’ve lost the battle in the public arena (partly through sheer attrition amongst prohibition’s reflexive supporters), and are instead preaching to the institutional prohibitionist choir in hopes of negating – and ignoring – democratic, grass-roots organizations. It ain’t-a gonna work. Little more than whistling past the political graveyard, for that is where prohibition will inevitably be interred.

          I’ve said it before, ad nauseum that the economic system cannot shoulder the burden of prohibition any longer. Notice the news about such things as the recent EBT crisis? The job creation numbers suck big time (being on the dirty end of that stick I know from personal experience). Tax revenues are down, due to unemployment. Gub’mint is making noises about ‘helicopter money’; look up ‘Weimar Germany hyperinflation’ or just watch news from Venezuela to see where that will lead. This country has long tried to ‘burn the candle at both ends’, economically, and now it will have to face a choice as to just what it can afford.

          This country cannot afford to cut off scores of millions of societal ‘life support’ program recipients while at the same time maintaining the ruinously expensive DrugWar. A point which must be reiterated again and again. It’s a wonder that there haven’t been riots in the streets, as was tacitly promised back in 2013 the last time that this happened. It’s long been an observation amongst most who have been following things economically since 2008 that ‘something’s gotta give’. Tell people that it is a choice between DrugWar funding or food stamp funding, and it becomes a political no-brainer.

          It was predicted, here, on Pete’s Couch waaaay back in 2009 that our time has come. A perfect storm has arisen. Demographic shifts, economic woes, rising activism, too many more factors to name have all come together from many different directions into one stream, which is becoming a river. The prohibs can easily be challenged on purely economic grounds, and lose. Add the other factors, and that river is washing them away. And you are the water that the river springs from.

        • Good to hear from you Kapt!

  21. Servetus says:

    Progress has been made in understanding the molecular level of cocaine addiction by Dr. Jie Shi, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at Peking University in China. The findings are published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.

    Philadelphia, PA, June 9, 2016 – …glia, the non-neuronal supporting cells of the brain, have now been implicated in the consolidation of cocaine-related memories. […]

    Glia play a number of roles that support nerve cells. For example, they take up energy substrates, like glucose and acetate, and metabolize these chemicals into lactate, which they then release. Nerve cells absorb this lactate and use it to fuel many cellular functions.

    In their new paper, Shi and colleagues report that reactivation of cocaine memories in rats alters the expression of a protein that releases lactate from glia and enables nerve cells to take up lactate. The authors found that if they blocked lactate release by glia or uptake by nerve cells, they produced a long-lasting prevention of cocaine relapse in rodents.

    AAAS Press Release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/e-nrf060916.php

    ‘Biological’ psychiatry and ‘molecular’ psychiatry sound so much more scientific than the quack psychiatry practiced by prohibitionists such as Dr. Robert L. DuPont, along with his grad student, Kevin Sabet. Tossing in some evolutionary psychology, one has a nice mix of data and scientific facts guaranteed to send the DuPont-types fleeing the country for the safety of Paraguay.

  22. Servetus says:

    Research done at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health indicated a “national sample of 10,000 teens showed [that] exposure to abuse and domestic violence in particular increased chances of drug use.”

    If that’s the case, even for a segment of the drug consuming population, it means the legal system is punishing people for their drug-taking response due to some kind of abuse they may have witnessed or received at the hands of authority figures in the past. Further abuse by violent authority figures, such as prohibitionists, in which an arrest, detainment, or sadistic rehab program becomes the chosen solution, is therefore unlikely to remedy anyone’s situation, or change their feelings about illicit drug use. It’s more likely to solidify drug taking behavior. In that case, it would be another example of how prohibition creates what it claims to prevent.

    AAAS Press Release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/cums-tic060816.php

  23. qolfySkyfucker says:

    As a result, there is concern that illegal organizations around the world may be able to use Colorado’s marijuana banking system to launder their money to facilitate the trafficking of people, weapons and harder drugs.

    http://tinyurl.com/JustMakeShitUp

  24. BennyRungebottom says:

    “Meanwhile, the committee was informed that the Israel Anti-Drug Authority CEO, Yair Geller, has resigned last May, about a year and a half after being suspended for his role in the bribery scandal involving Yisrael Beiteinu, and eight months after police recommended his indictment for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.”

    http://tinyurl.com/KnessetGoingsOn

    • DdC says:

      Ganja reduces the size of the brains fear center. Cults exist on fear mongering. Profits also only exist if they sell their protection racket. Not if people catch on. Regardless, they have no business making policy and the cultists in government practicing such unAmerican acts should be impeached. Think of the brain washed children these sicko’s have done harm too. Off with their heads.

      Scientologists Hate Weed, and They Want Everybody to Hate It Too

      “L. Ron Hubbard was given Vistaril® by Dr. Gene Denk in his final days, by intramuscular injection in the right buttocks. Vistaril® is a psychiatric drug, used to calm frantic or overly anxious patients. He died on January 24th, 1986, eight days after the fatal stroke…. reminiscent of the final days of Howard Hughes Hubbard’s fingernails and toenails were long and unkempt. His hair was long, thin and receding on his forehead”

      Scientology Exposed! L. Ron Hubbard on Drugs

      In light of Tiny Tom Cruise’s rantings in the media about the benefits and wonders of Scientology, we decided it was a good time to re-release the antidote to Scientology ‘L. Ron Hubbard on Drugs’

      Scientology Defends Its Anti-Weed Hokum

      L.R. Hubbard was taking a powerful psychopharmaceutical drug when he died. But according to the Scientology® “scriptures,” that he composed evil space aliens control and manipulate Earth’s psychiatrists via mental telepathy, and “psych drugs” are used by these space aliens to control and enslave humanity.

      Celebrity Scientologists and Stars Who’ve Left the Church
      Thanks to Leah Remini’s shocking tell-all, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, the Church of Scientology and its famous members such as Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Kirstie Alley, are once again in the news. King of Queens star Remini joins a boldfaced group of celebrities who have left the faith — including Cruise’s ex-wives Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes.

      20 reasons the Church of Scientology is a cult and a fraud

      Although he liked to claim it was from a vision inspired from a near death expereince It may have been L. Ron’s strange relationship with drugs that initiated his first Sci-fi fantasy, a book which he believes laid the ground for his later philosophical achievments….

      “Hubbard had experienced a peculiar hallucination in 1938, while under nitrous oxide during a dental operation. He believed that he had died during the operation and while dead been shown a great wealth of knowledge.”
      – Tony McClelland, “The Total Freedom Trap”

      Going Clear
      Winner of three Emmy Awards including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, Going Clear takes a look at eight former members of the Church of Scientology, and shines a light on how the church cultivates true believers.

      • Servetus says:

        In Cults of Unreason, a book by Dr. Christopher Evans, an early critic of Hubbard and Scientology, Evans wrote that one of Hubbard’s estranged and disaffected sons publicly accused L. Ron of supplementing his income by being a drug smuggler at a time when Hubbard was a struggling and inconsequential sci-fi writer. According to his son, both L. Ron and he transported drug contraband across the Mexican border. Hubbard’s response to the scandal was to go all-out prohibitch and suck up to the government’s anti-drug hysteria.

        Other cults and sects besides Scientology suck up to prohibs, especially when it involves legally enforcing the church’s own peculiar health code. Mainstream religious participants include the Catholic Church, Southern Baptists, Southern Methodists, and other religions which historically have favored slavery. Drug enforcement has consistently been a jobs resource for religious extremists who reject ingesting certain chemicals for religious reasons. Mormonism is a prime example, as is Baha’i and its star devotee, Kevin Sabet. The CIA recruits a lot of Mormons, as does the FBI.

        Priests and theology students have consistently been the preferred human resources sought by DEA recruiters, as it’s believed such people are likely to be more honest—another false stereotype that needs smashing. By legally enforcing a particular religion’s health code, the religion and its adherents gain an advantage over non-religious groups, and any competing religions and cultures not-so-inclined toward drug hysteria. Consequently, the government’s anti-drug program becomes a violation of the First Amendment, which prohibits establishments of religion.

  25. It'sGameOn,Folks! says:

    Drug lords in the Philippines have offered a $1 million “bounty” for the assassination of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte.

    http://gulftoday.ae/portal/07608a5d-d5d6-4582-b768-7572974cffb1.aspx

  26. DonDig says:

    .
    .
    Jesse Ventura posted an article on CNBC that hawks his book (“Jesse Ventura’s Marijuana Manifesto”) and makes as much sense as anything I’ve seen. While the concepts are obviously not new to anyone here, it’s certainly nice to see a concise rundown from someone who I wasn’t aware of carrying a banner for our cause.

    http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/09/if-pot-is-legal-we-dont-need-these-absurd-restrictions-commentary.html

  27. Servetus says:

    PROPAGANDA ALERT: Do you like the sight of pot more than you like the sight of a fruit or a pencil? Then according to what’s known as the black-and-white fallacy, or the Sorites sophism or paradox, you may be a marijuana addict:

    https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/scientists-found-something-strange-looked-163400372.html

    • Jean Valjean says:

      According to this report the definition of problematic use of cannabis is daily use, nothing more. Nobody would say that about alcohol. Problematic use of a drug means it negatively affects other areas of that person’s life: days off work, security of supply, often by criminal means like theft, behavioral changes, relationship problems etc. Daily use is not a problem in itself as millions of regular alcohol consumers prove every day.

    • darkcycle says:

      Holy crap.
      Do you LOVE puppies? If you have a positive response to puppies, your brain responds in exactly the same way. Your dopamine centers light right up when you see an adorable puppy. Interesting aside, if you’re Cynophobic (Cynophobia= fear of dogs) the response is different (surprise, surprise) as is the chemical response. In place of dopamine, you’ll dump buckets of adrenalin (or Epinepherine).
      The same response occurs with the presentation of any enjoyable association. It’s your brain’s way of reminding you “Oh yeah, you like that”. People who do not respond with that sort of joyful recognition are said to have a flat affect, and it’s a sign of depression (also sometimes erroneously called a Serotonin deficiency), and a very serious indicator of psychiatric trouble.

  28. thelbert says:

    “The Texas Supreme Court today ruled that law enforcement can seize assets even when police officers violated the law and conducted an illegal search.” http://tinyurl.com/zlkv9t3

    • Jean Valjean says:

      “In the case, police found drugs as a result of an illegal search…”
      What was found? A roach in the ashtray or half a ton of heroin in the trunk? The principle is the same for both but the seizure of a Lincoln is an absurdly high penalty to pay for the former. Policing for profit is drug war corruption eating away at society from the inside.

  29. Frank W. says:

    “Shops may have had pot ingredient, sheriff says”
    That’s the Yahoo clickbait headline, now here’s Glen Appleton’s comment for this Ohio rag:

    “Quote: [Samples were sent to a state certified lab for confirmation. No charges have been filed pending the lab results.]

    So, if the lab results have not yet been verified, how is this a story again? Oh yeah, that’s right…. It’s not about getting using information and facts to the American electorate any longer, it’s about being first and writing the scariest headlines to attract readers.

    So, when the lab test results come back negative, will you write a retraction and edit this story to point to the corrected information? Call me crazy, but I’m not going to hold my breath on that one.”

    I’ll take it as a message to not click on these anymore, and I hope others do the same, even though I’m a scary attractive reader.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      If the lab tests come back negative it becomes a case of fraud. Why in the world would anyone apologize to a grifter?

  30. Servetus says:

    Facing the likelihood of a future Clintonian administration, a status quo police state (some parts of the U.S. will still cage people for their proximity to a weed), those wandering into this jungle of injustice must arm themselves with any information which could be used against them. One such bit of information involves the occasion when information gained from MK-Ultra was paired with torture in the CIA’s interrogation program:

    In his book A Question of Torture, Alfred McCoy discussed several CIA funded MK-Ultra social science research projects producing knowledge to be quietly harvested by CIA personnel who were designing scientific means of conducting interrogations and torture[…]. According to McCoy, by using results from MK-Ultra’s research programs, “the CIA distilled its findings in its seminal Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation handbook. For the next forty years [from 1963], the Kubark manual would define the agency’s interrogation methods and training program throughout the third world. Synthesizing the behavioral research done by contract academics, the manual spelled out a revolutionary two-phase form of torture that relied on sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain for an effect that, for the first time in the two millennia of their cruel science, was more psychological than physical.” – excerpt from David H. Price, Cold War Anthropology: The CIA, the Pentagon, and the Growth of Dual Use Anthropology, p. 196.

    The Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation manual is declassified and available as a pdf here.

    • Jean Valjean says:

      Here’s how that Clintonian future might look:

      “The “Urban Areas Security Initiative” appears to be a slush fund for surveillance of activists and police militarization…”

      ‘In reality, the program funds initiatives that contribute to blatant law enforcement overreach, including a police militarization and weapons expo known as Urban Shield and the training of SWAT teams across the country. According to the War Resisters League (WRL), which contributed research to this report, UASI effectively “strengthens and unifies state repression…”’

      “In fact, Urban Shield brings together international SWAT teams, weapons manufacturers and police agencies to Alameda County, California for a war games and arms sales extravaganza that human rights campaigners say illustrates the epitome of state violence. The event has met such stiff resistance from local residents and activists that in 2014 its weapons expo was kicked out of Oakland, California.”

      http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/how-hillary-clinton-and-chuck-schumer-are-teaming-nypd-push-police-militarization

    • DdC says:

      The Counterculture Colonel
      http://cannabisnews.com/news/24/thread24068.shtml
      more linkages
      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1624
      Dr. James S. Ketchum, a retired U.S. Army colonel, was into weapons of mass elation, not weapons of mass destruction. He oversaw a secret research program that tested an array of mind-bending drugs on American GIs, including an exceptionally potent form of synthetic marijuana. (Most of these drugs had no medical names, just numbers supplied by the Army.) “Paradoxical as it may seem,” Ketchum asserted, “one can use chemical weapons to spare lives, rather than extinguish them.”

      “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
      ― Frank Zappa

      For this prohibition to have lasted 45 years. It seems a whole lot of people would rather pretend the illusion of freedom was real, rather than believe the reality of the brick wall at the back of the theater.

  31. Will says:

    .
    .
    Yes, the family dog was killed;

    The siege downstairs

    http://specials.mystatesman.com/no-knock-warrants/

    And, in the end, the massive operation yielded minimal reward: Officers recovered 1.2 ounces of marijuana.

    “It could have been handled very differently without our house being destroyed,” said Peter Harrell, a retired state employee, whose son, Tyler, was the 18-year-old suspected drug dealer. “Why all of this?”

  32. ExpectRecordHighs says:

    Imagine what will happen once Morocco realizes they’ve been sitting on a golden egg that’s nearly the size of the moon?

    The Secretary General of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), one of Morocco’s opposition parties, said that ” the majority of the rural population, especially the area of Chefchaouen, is living directly or indirectly from cannabis,” stressing that he would not let all these people “live in inequality.”

    In an interview with the magazine Telquel, El Omari said that he would like to make it possible for the youth of the region “to be able to open cafes where they can legally sell cannabis to consumers in reasonable and specific amounts on a weekly basis.”

    http://tinyurl.com/doubletripplezero

    • darkcycle says:

      Realfarmacy.com is a clickbait site. Nothing there should be taken seriously.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .

        I didn’t get past the part where the doctor had been supplying CBD for its medicinal utility for over 2 decades before I declared it malarkey. I mean, c’mon now, it was Election Day 1996 when California voters approved Prop 215 which codified the Compassionate Use Act.

        But the problem is that because the taste of my foot is nasty I endeavor to avoid opening my mouth unless I’ve documented that my certainty isn’t misplaced. It sure looks like he’s real and really is the person described in the article. You don’t need to take my word for it. Here it is straight from the horse’s mouth:

        September 3, 2015: Dr Andrew Katelaris in Nimbin, The Medical Cannabis Workshop part 1

        September 30, 2015:Dr Andrew Katelaris claims medical marijuana is a lifesaving treatment

        I thought that the 2 part video was well worth the hour and 45 minutes it took to watch it after getting past the confusion that the good doctor’s name isn’t Bruce. But you should keep in mind that I’ve got a very peculiar sense of entertainment value.

    • Kindly stay away! says:

      A small group of morally-challenged individuals have discovered that there is a great deal of money to be made by publishing fake news articles. These rags publish ridiculous headlines like “Custard is Killing Your Children”, “Ukrainians Worship turds”, and “Hillary Clinton’s Secret Affair with Benny Hill”

      Yep, like DC just said, realpharmacy.com is on the naughty list:

      http://www.fortliberty.org/hoax-sites.html

      • Jean Valjean says:

        They’re just surrealists doing their thing….I think it’s true about Benny Hill though 🙂

      • this isn't fakebook and I am not your friend says:

        Thanks for the tip comrade. That was found at a news aggregator site I was looking at from behind proxy.
        How do these clickbaters make money?
        P.S.-If you want people to stay away lobby the blog admin to make it invite only.

      • Kindly Go Fuck Yourself says:

        Hey Slick no one made you the arbiter of what is or isn’t “clickbait” and your hoax fort liberty page doesn’t have any left leaning or mainstream media pages.
        Why is that?

        • darkcycle says:

          I’m the one who called that Realfarmacy link clickbait, not Malc.
          It’s a garbage site where nothing is to be believed. Kindly stop wasting our time. If you actually believe anything you find there, you failed the IQ test. Go back to commenting at USA Today.

        • Get Some Go Again says:

          If I need your opinion inferior devotee I’ll go take a shit.
          Newsflash-This page is shown on an open internet and anyone can visit.
          Go back to your safespace if you don’t like it.

  33. primus says:

    I came across this TED talk. Powerful stuff. Urge everyone to view it, and refer all your doubting friends to it also. I cried at the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N8QMeIsX2c

  34. Nevada County, CA says:

    “Moreover, the pro-regulation camps have undoubtedly benefited in spectacular ways that will catapult us into the next fight, whatever that may be. The greatest of these benefits is in the recent announcement that Nevada County now has more registered Democrats that Republicans! I’m sure the sheriff had no idea that his pet project would motivate the most vibrant “Get Out the Vote” campaign ever seen in Nevada County, causing our historically red county to turn blue. Not only did the new Democratic majority affect the two supervisorial races also at issue last week, it undoubtedly will have drastic impacts for generations to come.”

    http://tinyurl.com/NewlyUnitedFront

  35. DdC says:

    Another American Christian Terrorist Act

    Dead & Company slam hatred at Bonnaroo with euphoric, marathon set

    The band had been quiet hosts throughout the evening, but Weir manned his mic after “Grey” wrapped. “As we know, there was a massacre in Florida, not far from here,” he began. “I’d like to point out that last week, a distinguished representative from the State of Georgia went on the floor of the House of Representatives of our country and started quoting bible verses in which he basically promoted, or at least rationalized, death to gay people as a reward for the way they were born.” The crowd signaled their support with a hearty boos.

    “This morning, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas said that, ‘Well, they’re reaping what they’ve sown,” Weir, palpably frustrated, continued. He echoed his speech earlier in the day accepting his Les Paul Spirit Award BBQ. “Now, I wanna ask a question: how different are these peoples’ world views from the world views of the people with ISIS? It’s the same hatred. They pull those hatreds out of different books.”

    GOP Leaders Celebrate Stochastic Terrorism
    http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/1098

    Scientologists Hate Weed
    http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com

    Arpaio: Why are GOP hero’s such slimeballs?
    http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/2065

    • DdC says:

      Feinstein is trying to once again use this as a way to invoke more laws against individuals. With a FBI ban list of suspected terrorists who would be prohibited from buying guns. Glad the black market doesn’t sell them. I think another attempt to restrict guns with laws is another attempt to control people without reason.

      I think the hate is the culprit and I am totally against censorship. I do think these right wing GOP hate mongers should be called out and ridiculed with logic and reality based information. They should receive no federal grants or tax exemptions if they are recorded spewing such hate against any group. First Amendment rights end with wingnuts screaming fire in crowded theaters or preachers spewing hate from the pulpit or politicians from Congress to the State positions need to be held accountable for their actions.

      I don’t see any reasoning behind exempting gun manufacturers from identifying their products as we do with anything we sell. Or holding owners responsible for their guns stolen. A gun lojak device could track stolen weapons getting into the hands of wingnuts and terrorists.

      I don’t have a problem with people having guns but I do have a problem with citizens having access to military grade weapons. Or any military equipment, including the police. Hate is an individuals right I guess, but they shouldn’t be able to teach it in public.

      Again, any group that spews hate is responsible for these acts of violence. The right wingnut Christians spew as much as the Islamics except they have millions of viewers getting the message from authoritarian TV pendants, as if it was an order to carry out.

      The gun is only the vehicle used to get there and these senseless acts are also used by politicians to pass bogus laws as a response. The same politicians trying to pass censorship laws and continue passing bogus restrictions using the drug war.

      I wouldn’t trust Fenistein as far as I could hurl her. Its obvious the GOP want to use this as a precursor to invade more Islamic countries. Or maybe just off white citizens since they are pushing to invade Mexico and Korea too.

      Imagine there’s no heaven
      It’s easy if you try
      No hell below us
      Above us only sky
      Imagine all the people
      Living for today… Aha-ah…

      Imagine there’s no countries
      It isn’t hard to do
      Nothing to kill or die for
      And no religion too
      Imagine all the people
      Living life in peace..

    • DdC says:

      June 13, 2016 | Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
      What can we learn from the mass shooting in Orlando? Whatever it is, you can count on our elected officials to ignore it.

      Westboro Baptist Church Celebrates Pulse Nightclub Shooting In Orlando:
      ‘God Sent The Shooter’

      Westboro Baptist trolls LGBT people after Orlando attack
      Westboro Baptist Church continued their despicable tradition of exploiting every tragedy to spread their message of hate yesterday when they took to twitter to celebrate the terrorist attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando that left 50 dead and dozens wounded. Since the tragedy began, the hate group has been using their social media platforms to preach their vile theology and responding back to terrified and heartbroken LGBT people.

      Franklin Graham Issues BRUTAL Call to Obama After Orlando Massacre… “It’s Time”

      “I appreciate President Barack Obama speaking to the nation yesterday in the wake of the Orlando massacre. He was right in saying that this tragic shooting was an act of terror and hate.”

      “But why didn’t he say it was an act of radical Islamic terrorism?”

      It’s time we were rebuilding our military force worldwide to take on this enemy. It’s time we tighten America’s borders until we can clearly vet those we’re letting into the country.”

      MASS MURDERER worked for HOMELAND SECURITY
      Orlando mass murderer Omar Mateen had as recently as 2013 received special clearances from one to the companies that works for Homeland Security

      PEOPLE DIED because of the COWARDICE of the ORLANDO Police Department

      • Matthias Frankfurter says:

        Worked for Das Homeland Security?! We need some new gun control laws that would cancel his state of Florida issued gun permit.
        If guns are banned will limousine elites who prattle on about inequality while wearing $12,000 designer jackets give up their armed security details?

  36. CJ says:

    Hello everybody. I wanted to share something with you guys, a side of this drug war, drug prohibition that you don’t really see or hear about but that is irrevocable proof of the horrible damage it has done and continues to do, to human beings, families, relationships, etc. Things HAVE to change, I’m nobody special but my story is NOT that unique. This drug prohibition has gone way way beyond permeating the flesh and seeping into the blood that is “common knowledge” (though its WRONG) relations, ideas, etc. and it is all false and it all HAS to stop and HAS to change.

    OK. So, last night I hit something bad, an educated friend thinks it was a capulary. I’ll never forget years ago, 7-8 years ago, the very first time I ever hit an arterie. This is something you never forget. It is, the first time especially, one of the most insanely painful and frightening things ever. When you IV, you have youre routine, nothing is more sweet than plugging a vein and checking to make sure, and seeing the blood filter in the syringe to be your green light. That feeling is awesome. Hitting an arterie, the blood is a little lighter but it takes experience to learn these things. And at first its like a normal shot but by the time you realize its usually too late. What happens is INSTANTLY i swear its IMMEDIATE youre ENTIRE ENTIRE ENTIRE arm LITERALLY feels like it has just been set on fire the most insane burning pain and all moisture stripped from the tips of your fingers to the elbow, while burning like the flames of hell and as soon as that burning starts to subside or while its still going you watch in horror as your hand begins to swell to CARTOON like proportions. SERIOUSLY it is like the old looney tunes cartoons when wile E coyote or daffy duck or some villain swings a huge hammer at a nail only to hit their own hand and the hand expands to three or four times the size of the cartoon characters head. Its JUST like that.

    The first time you experience that is frightening, you think something is F’ed up you dont know what but you think youre about to die. For some it takes a few hours, for me it takes over a day for the swelling to go down and things to get normal again. It was many years after that first experience that it had happened again. My arms, legs, feet and hands are basically useless at this point. It is like digging for gold or looking for a needle in a haystack for me now with IVing, literally sitting there for an hour sometimes even 2 just trying to find something… it results in alot of missing, skin popping etc. its painful and it sucks. DRUG PROHIBITION is to blame for this as much as myself, but because I know that SAFE INJECTION SITES exist, but that drug war BS and peoples BS and the FEAR BS is what is preventing safe injection sites from being brought here i am going to blame prohibition more.

    As everything dried up on my body I came to find “spots” (to use/hit) in the wrist areas of my arms. This is like a mind field,my friends. Because the arteries there in the wrist areas arent like some in that you can use a spot 3 or 4 times, thinking youve found a vein, only to find out, because of the SLIGHTEST movement on time #5 that it had been a F’N artery all along and the burning and swelling etc.

    I even came to learn to my dread horror and pain that these things exist EVEN in the feet, because I found a sweet spot near the ankle, a little above, again, thinking it was a vein only to experience all that pain burning and swelling but this time in the FOOT

    so that brings me to last night. 10 oclock, tired, looking forward to watching black and white old school awesome japanese samurai movies (a bloody spear on mt. fuji, tale of genji, oharu, etc.) or WWE network. I get together my night time shot, and lo, of course, the sweet spot I had lately been using had decided to dry up and be useless. Have to find a new spot.

    Friends it is a VERY VERY frustrating thing. You get so fed up sometimes you just say F it. Well, look at your wrist, at our human wrist look to the pinky now look down from the pinky to the wrist and you see that ball at the top of the wrist, under the pinky? Well im kind of skinny and so my wrist that ball area is especially pronounced.. There is a vein that runs towards it on my arms, on both sides. Last night, trying the left, I went in, it registered, 80% of the shot went through but then I started feeling the sting of missing, knew I had to pull out. I did. I looked, and it looked slightly swollen… But thats not THAT unusual for most other spots, so it didnt burn like an artery shot or anything, thought I was fine.

    Well not even 2 minutes later, went to use the restroom and looked down and I am telling you guys it was swollen like nothing I have ever seen swollen in my life. I thought it was going to explode. My entire wrist, completely freaking swollen and just getting bigger and bigger and bigger, the slightest touch might decrease the swelling or increase it, the wrong angle to hold it too, it was in a nutshell insane and I immediately felt I should go to the hospital.

    Heres where the sadness and horror of the drug war comes in. I dont know what happened, I wasnt sure what was GOING to happen, I THOUGHT i was in some danger… now, in this situation, I felt I needed to get to the hospital. It is a DECENT walk and for lesser things Ive walked it, due to the sheer size of this swelling and the fear I felt I believed I NEEDED IMMEDIATE attention. I did not think I’d have time to walk there. I only know one person near enough to me that has a car….

    my father.

    but because of the war on drugs, because of all the misinformation, in this case, more specifically, because my father was born in 1948 and grew up in a world where drug prohibition was at its peak in its prime and his own bad experiences with what hes seen, him being in AA for 30 + years and that program with all its bias and bigotry and BS and misinformation, I had a choice and I knew there was NO WAY i could call my father, though I did know for sure in a n emergency, just as I would for him if the roles were reversed, no matter what the case, if I could get him to an ER or help him, I would, and though I knew he would too, because of this war on drugs, because of the drug situation, I could not count on my father, I could not call him. There was no way I could risk letting him know this, and it COULD have cost me my life.

    I did get to the ER, at Columbia on 168th st. by then the swelling had gone down considerably. I am typing this so obviously I am ok. I did do a wake up and of course that was also a miserable struggle to register but whatever. The war on drugs man, this is what it does.

    Sorry for the tl;dr but i just wanted to share that thanks for reading and if anybody got anything from that then id be really grateful about it… thanks for reading.

    • Bereaved says:

      Thanks for sharing that, CJ! You write very well; I had no problem reading it at all.
      I lost my oldest daughter (and the mother of my 3 grandchildren) to the drug war, not so long back. I begged her to drop the prozac and try cannabis, but she was too indoctrinated and thus also scared of the legal implications. She jumped from the 6th floor.

  37. Servetus says:

    PROPAGANDA ALERT: Amidst the multinational effort to forever preserve stoner stereotypes, the RAND Corporation’s latest attempt is a long term study dividing its participants into ethnic groups based on their marijuana and alcohol use verses their academic achievements and “mental health”:

    14-JUN-2016 — Adolescents who use both marijuana and alcohol during middle school and high school are more likely to have poor academic performance and mental health during high school, according to a new study by the nonprofit RAND Corporation that followed a group of students over a seven-year period.

    However, the study found marijuana use was predictive of poorer functioning across more areas, including lower academic functioning, being less prepared for school, more delinquent behavior and poorer mental health. The results are published online in the journal Addiction.[…]

    Among those using alcohol and marijuana at the same level, Asian, black and Hispanic youth reported being less prepared academically than white youth and Hispanic and multiethnic youth reported lower academic performance than white youth.[…]

    Many youth tend to think that alcohol use has more consequences than marijuana use and therefore view marijuana use as safer than drinking,” D’Amico said. “However, youth need to better understand the harms of marijuana use, such as the potential effect on their developing brain and how it can affect performance in both adolescence and adulthood.”

    Although white youth appear to experience less negative effects from alcohol and marijuana use, the survey responses indicate that white youth are at a higher risk for alcohol and marijuana use during middle school and high school.

    Researchers note there are other preexisting factors that are not included in the current study that could have potentially contributed to either alcohol or marijuana use or the level of functioning during the period studied. Those factors include racial discrimination, parental involvement or neighborhood quality.

    Many journalists and most prohibitionists won’t bother to pay attention to the last paragraph of RAND’s prohib news release.

    That the white students came out ahead in the study should be enough to raise suspicions. Also, little consideration is given by RAND researchers to the possibility that marijuana and/or alcohol use may be the mental health destressors desperately needed by some young consumers to remain functionally sane in the insane and demoralizing environment of Los Angeles and its public school system.

    AAAS Press Release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/rc-aaa061316.php

    Publication Source: Alcohol and marijuana use trajectories in a diverse longitudinal sample of adolescents: examining use patterns from age 11 to 17 years

    • Servetus says:

      This may be what the RAND researchers above are encountering:

      3-JUN-2016 — New research suggests that early severe social deprivation may impact DNA modifications that affect the expression of stress-related genes. These nongenetic (or epigenetic) modifications occur when molecules called methyl groups are added to components of DNA.

      For the study, investigators analyzed the genes of 208 children who were 12 years old. Some children were raised in institutional settings, others were transferred to foster care, and others had no history of institutionalized caregiving. The researchers found that more time spent in institutional care was associated with lower DNA methylation at specific sites within stress-related genes.

      AAAS Press Release: Social adversity early in life may affect the expression of stress-related genes

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