Weed the People

New York Daily News editorial today: End the war on pot: We welcome the push to legalize and regulate marijuana

After many decades of treating as a crime the personal possession and use of a drug that is a negligible threat to public safety, New York is awakening to the folly of — and racial disparities widened by — its approach.

We are part of this awakening, which is why we welcome the push to legalize and regulate marijuana. By every honest measure, the substance has more in common with alcohol and tobacco than it does harder drugs that are rightly illegal.

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139 Responses to Weed the People

  1. Daniel Williams says:

    He’s baaack!

  2. sixtyfps says:

    Whoops, “rightly illegal?”

  3. Baruch Chukmybooty says:

    We also welcome nude dancers in gold stilettos, randomly awarded Austin Martins, bags of cocaine, and even more naked women simulating fellatio.

    https://tinyurl.com/ItWasAllThere

  4. Mike says:

    speaking of awakening

    Dr Gupta weeds #4 27 min mark

  5. Jon says:

    “Rightly illegal”.. such ignorance. That quote sums up the biggest disappointment of this whole thing. Nobody has realized prohibition is a failed policy. They don’t want pot legal because of coming to recognize that prohibition increases the harms a substances causes. No, it’s all just because pot is less dangerous than alcohol.
    The opiate crisis puts things into sharp perspective as people once again call on more laws, more police crackdowns, longer sentences for stronger forms, and now a brand new one, torturing innocent people who need pain meds with a course of action largely responsible for the OD spike (which continues to rise as prescriptions fall, a fact entirely ignored by the media).

  6. WalStMonky says:

    .
    .

    The sycophants of prohibition are frantic to the point of panic and appear to be losing their grip on reality. Here’s an example from Michigan: The Committee to Keep Pot out of Neighborhoods and Schools has endorsed regulated re-legalization. No, not the ballot initiative kind but Legislative type.

    This anti-marijuana group wants Michigan to legalize weed

    /snip/
    The Committee to Keep Pot out of Neighborhoods and Schools — a political action committee formed to fight a ballot proposal to legalize marijuana — is now urging the Legislature to take up the initiative, amend it and pass a full legalization of pot for adult recreational use. The committee hopes that if the Legislature acts, recreational use will be regulated as stringently as the medical marijuana industry.

    But if the Legislature declines to take it up and the measure goes on the Nov. 6 statewide ballot, the group will revert to opposing the legalization of marijuana again.

    “This committee was initially formed to defeat the recreational ballot proposal, but now we believe that the Legislature should amend and adopt the initiative before it’s too late,” said Mark Fisk, a spokesman for the committee. Marijuana legalization “will be a reality in Michigan. Initiatives have been approved in 29 states and polling has been very strong.

    “Regardless of our feelings on the issue, the question now is how to regulate and control recreational marijuana.”

  7. Servetus says:

    A plan to give amnesty to drug criminals in Mexico is being developed and floated by a leading presidential candidate, López Obrador:

    With over 29,000 murders, 2017 was the deadliest year in Mexico since modern record-keeping began. Nearly two-thirds of Mexicans say crime and violence are the biggest problems facing their country.

    A main cause of the bloodshed, studies show, is the Mexican government’s violent crackdown on drug trafficking. Launched in 2006 under President Felipe Calderón, this military assault on cartels has left 234,966 people dead in 11 years.

    While numerous drug kingpins have been jailed, cartels fractured under law enforcement pressure, compete for territory and diversify their businesses. Kidnapping and extortion have surged. Mexico is now one of the world’s most violent places.

    Now one presidential candidate in Mexico is hoping to win over voters with a novel response to the country’s security crisis: amnesty for criminals. […]

    The opportunity would be time-limited. Criminals would lose their immunity after a specific date if they have not met certain conditions – though these conditions remain undefined. It would also exclude serious crimes such as torture, rape or homicide. […]

    Journalist and historian Héctor Aguilar Camín has described voters’ current mood as “melancholic.” Rampant corruption, government repression and bloody violence have made them skeptical of politics. But, as Aguilar Camín says, people also need desperately to believe that change is possible.

    This discontent has given López Obrador a virtually unbeatable lead in the lead-up to the July election.

    To paraphrase the prominent Mexican-American Univision reporter Jorge Ramos, all Mexicans want from their next president is to keep them from being killed. So they’re open to unusual ideas. […]

    Source: https://theconversation.com/amnesty-for-drug-traffickers-thats-one-mexican-presidential-candidates-pitch-to-voters-96063

    Also see: https://theconversation.com/a-decade-of-murder-and-grief-mexicos-drug-war-turns-ten-70036

    https://theconversation.com/is-mexico-actually-the-worlds-second-most-murderous-nation-77897

    • Snarky Snarkface says:

      This comment is disrespectful to U.S. arms manufacturers and their families.

      • PulllllLever says:

        And Eric is dead.

      • Servetus says:

        Arms manufacturers can always find a new war to provoke if their precious Mexican drug war vaporizes.

        • Snarky Snarkface says:

          Which reminds me why I hate the fact that “Religion feeds a willingness to war.”

          There’s always a warmonger itch to scratch somewhere with God on Our Side. Boeing stock has doubled since the Orange one has been farting on White House cushions.

        • Servetus says:

          Religion also feeds a willingness to prejudge:

          If we try to trace the history of this prejudice, it is easy to see its origins lie in churches and religions. The secret societies of the sorcerers, rain-makers, shamans, later the Assyrian and Egyptian priests, and later still, the Christian priests, have always sought to persuade men that the whole world is steeped in sin; that only the benevolent intervention of the shaman, sorcerer, saint or priest prevents the power of evil from seizing man; that they alone can get a spiteful divinity not to engulf man by all sorts of evil, to punish him for his sins. – Peter Kropotkin (1842 – 1921), Modern Science and Anarchy, ed. Iain McKay, (AK Press, Chico), 2018, p. 120.

  8. Abe McConkie says:

    Government [Irish] looking at how to best source ‘quality’ medical cannabis for new access programme

    HEALTH MINISTER SIMON Harris today updated Cabinet on the progress being made in establishing a medicinal cannabis access programme for Ireland.

    Last year, the minister announced that he was setting up the access programme and said prescribers, patients and pharmacists would be consulted in drawing up guidelines for the safe use of cannabis-based treatments for qualifying patients.

    The programme, which is in the process of being developed, aims to allow access to cannabis-based therapies for the treatment of patients with multiple sclerosis, those experiencing nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy, and those with severe, refractory and treatment-resistant epilepsy.

    http://www.thejournal.ie/medicinal-cannabis-2-4028573-May2018/

  9. Servetus says:

    Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society, devoted its May 21st cover to marijuana and includes in Volume 96, Issue 21, a detailed and useful article on the ways cannabis growers can benefit from increased communication and scientific research about the plant and its cultivation:

    Nurturing cannabis: Business is booming, but the industry is handicapped by shifting rules and major research gaps, by Melody M. Bomgardner

  10. NorCalNative says:

    Servetus, your link to Chemical and Engineering News is an awesome read for cultivation fans. This part caught my eye.

    …controlling environmental conditions can alter the amount and ratio of desirable plant chemicals including THCA and CBDA which are responsible for the plant’s physiologic effects…”We’re not trying to duplicate nature but to do even better than nature.

    We want to push the plants to their maximum capacity for stress before that stress becomes negative. The plants produce CBDA, THCA, and a range of flavor and fragrance compounds called terpenes in response to stresses such as insects, sunburn, drought, or nutrient deficiencies.”

    Perhaps if plant “torture” is key we could hit up the new CIA director for some tips. But seriously, the world needs cultivators who can produce the kind. THC is a tricky and often boring Diva without an entourage of odiferous terps.

    • darkcycle says:

      Not torture, more like plant tickling, or making them itch a little so they have to scratch. This doesn’t mean harming them , it just means makin’ ’em work. One way this is already being done is by spraying with proteins or enzymes that trigger a systemic response (like an immune response, but plants don’t have an “immune system” comparable to ours). One such protein is Harpin protein. It causes a plant to react as if it was being attacked by a pest, it causes more growth as the plant tries to “out run” the pest, and favors early maturation and flowering. Used properly, it’s REEEELY good stuff.

      • NCN says:

        Good to know. Not familiar with Harpin protein. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the tip.

        • darkcycle says:

          Another compound that causes a systemic response is Chitinase. It is the nasty smelling stuff that happens when you have five day old crab or shrimp remains in the garbage. It’s the stuff that breaks down Chitin…that’s the stuff insect and other invertebrate shells are made of. Chitinase can make the plant more resistant to insect and mite damage. That’s the stuff they put into Dark Energy, a hydro product that smells awful. It works, but only as long as it stinks! (I don’t use it! lol)

  11. kaptinemo says:

    As the great Richard Cowan once put it so succinctly, a major reason for the continuance of cannabis prohibition can be summed up in 2 words: “bad journalism”. And the legacy media once more proves him right.

    This part is especially irksome:

    Legalization can coexist with stigmatization, especially for young people, for whom drug use and abuse is disastrous.

    The legacy media has consistently, throughout the entirety of cannabis prohibition, carried the water for prohibitionists. I am reminded of the unctuously slavish and deferential behavior of the late Abe Rosenthal of the New York Times toward then head of the ONDCP, Barry McCaffrey. Rosenthal apparently did not know until much later that McCaffrey surreptitiously recorded all phone calls.

    http://cannabisnews.com/news/7/thread7417.shtml

    The New York Daily News, like nearly all legacy media, still thinks it can play at being tepidly progressive in support of re-legalization while still paying lip service to prohibitionists. Unfortunately for that legacy media, it is demographically demonstrable that sitting on a fence on this issue is no longer tenable, as prohibition is giving way to re-legalization. It’s time to either climb down from the fence on the right side of history, or face receiving a (much deserved) roundhouse kick to hasten the process.

    • Abe McConkie says:

      I much prefer to use a jaw-breaking REVERSE roundhouse. One where the offender has to suck humble pie soup through a straw for two months.

      https://youtu.be/txUDLtrzRDM

    • NCN says:

      Great analysis as usual.

      Would legacy, so-called journalism be allowed to peddle fantasy if more physicians and medical schools spoke out on the benefits of cannabis? I don’t think so.

      I noticed one of my favorite cannabis scientists, Dr. Ethan Russo, commented on your linked article from 2000. Ethan Rocks!

      Doctors should be the ones delivering roundhouse kicks to media. Apparently, the first-do-no-harm crowd could give a shit if it affects their possible bottomline. If most docs weren’t political tools and zombies we wouldn’t need to worry about the paid-off scribes.

      • kaptinemo says:

        The politicization of the medical profession was a classic textbook case of Trojan Horse tactics. The early allopathic physicians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries did – and today’s allopaths still do – everything they could to squeeze out any competition (naturopaths, chiropractics, etc) , and used the legal system and political machinery to accomplish that early last century. In direct opposition to that were such men as the great ‘Mark Twain’, arguing for ‘freedom of medicine’ and against the curtailment of that freedom: http://www.twainquotes.com/19010228.html

        The allopaths won out, but the allopath’s triumph over their competition was short-lived. The regulatory system which excluded and eventually destroyed their competition was soon applied to them.

        Anyone who examines the history of drug prohibition in America soon finds that every few years the media becomes rife with reports of one drug ‘epidemic’ or another, with concomitant demands for legislative bodies to ‘do something’ about the latest ‘menace’. (Never mind that the latest ‘menace’ is usually a reincarnation of the exact same one experienced decades before.)

        Such was the case in the early years of the last century. The country was in a state of religious, social and political ferment, and anything that smacked of decadence was to be rooted out mercilessly. Drug addiction was considered symptomatic of that decadence, and was treated accordingly.

        Since most addictions back then were caused by doctor-prescribed opiates, the Harrison Narcotics Act to control the prescription of such medicines was proposed and passed.

        Needless to say, the first victims of this legislation were doctors who had previously enjoyed a great deal of latitude in dealing with their patient’s addictions. No more humane treatment of addicts as a medical matter; instead, enforcement of the HNA was applied via the legal version of fire and sword. And woe betide the doctor who tried to buck the system, as they were handy scapegoats useful as ‘examples’.

        This explanation is but a crude encapsulation of what happened so long ago that only crusty old ersatz historians like me bothered to research, and this early, seminal phase of the DrugWar alone deserves a volume or two. The medical profession has been hag-ridden by law enforcement ever since; it is why you have DEA agents effectively practicing medicine without a license by telling doctors what medicines they may prescribe.

        The doctors back then who tried to use government to remove their competition wound up being controlled by that same government. As the old saying goes, ‘the worm will turn’. The unspoken implication is that it will also bite. As doctors today are still finding out from being bitten by the laws their predecessors helped craft and support.

        • NorCalNative says:

          The founding document for what you describe was 1910’s Flexner Report. It reduced competition by eliminating any medical practice of the day (e.g. herbal medicine) that was unable to produce evidence to support their claims.

          It was also a racist document as the Harvard Medical School class went from 40 black students to 3 following implementation of the Report. White doctors could treat black patients but black doctors were not allowed to treat whites.

          One of the key words you use is “allopathic.” That means “evidence-based.” That’s my bitch with the current crop of doctors. You simply can’t be evidence-based without knowing about the endocannabinoid system.

          Thousands of doctors went to jail for trying to do the right thing for addicts as you describe. That didn’t sit well with future docs and most were rightfully intimidated into considerations of politics rather than practicing good medicine.

          I’d recommend people read the Flexner Report. The oozing racism will make you want to puke. It’s also how we ended up with congress gifting Big Pharma with the keys to the public treasury.

          One of the primary goals of the Flexner Report was to modernize medicine and get rid of the quacks and quackery. Noble intentions. UCSF was considered the best U.S. medical school in 1910 and Stanford’s medical school was considered a “backwater.”

          I’m kind of a junkie for medical history and most people are probably aware of the oath that physician’s take when they become licensed docs. Take a look at the oath that osteopath’s take and you’ll see elements of them just barely making the “evidence-based” cut imposed by the Flexner Report. It’s like “thank you, thank you, thank you, we promise we’ll be good.”

          In 1910, herbal medicine was also called “Injun Medicine.” Not a chance in hell that Injun medicine was going to pass the evidence-based test of the day.

          Western medicine aka allopathic medicine is about single-molecules (e.g, THC, CBD, etc.,) a silver bullet. Herbal medicine is dirty and complex but it mitigates side effects of different components and it can create synergies that don’t exist in the Big Pharma world. Congress has made pharmaceutical synergy a sin to the medical industrial complex.

          Single molecules put money in the bank. Herbal synergy takes that money and leaves it in peoples pockets. Grow you own medicine at home on the cheap, or get the single molecules and go broke.

          Quit paying RENT to Big Pharma by replacing your meds with cannabis. It’s not only political, it’s an evidence-based risk-vs-benefit analysis. And, Cannabis wins that game. Defund the people paying off congress to keep us sick. Or, join with the assholes and invest in their schemes. A lot of wealth is extracted through our for-profit (how high can we stack the bodies) health care. It’s a scam and too many of us are victims.

          I get it why physicians wouldn’t be willing to risk careers in order to speak out. But calling things by their names is important. What we now have is a country full of DATED doctors who are failing at “evidence-based” practices and calling themselves “evidence-based.” It’s total bullshit and “Fighting Words,” for me.

    • claygooding says:

      You can write good info about the benefits of cannabis but it must include a qualifier for harming children
      Even though children worked the fields,ate the harvest,wore the fibers and drank teas and ate the flowers as medicine for over 9000 years(EST) and only been denied it for 80 years.

  12. claygooding says:

    I have been atempting to get all cannabis advocates to quit arguing about safety,utility,efficacy or dangers on social media. It just gives prohibitches more fodder to try and divided us with.
    One of my latest is “Hemp is marijuana! It’s just lousy marijuana.
    Somehow we must quit throwing each other under the bus.

  13. DdC says:

    Is this the Beginning of the End of Dispensaries?

    NASDAQ: GWPH
    161.10 USD +1.14 (0.71%)

    GW Pharma wins unanimous recommendation from FDA advisory committee for cannabis-derived drug. … FDA advisory committee votes unanimously in support of GW Pharma’s epidiolex. … GW Pharma shares surge on FDA briefing document that hints at approval of cannabis-derived drug.

    Is The DEA Legalizing THC?
    http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1680

    The FDA Prepares to Approve a Marijuana-Based Epilepsy Medication http://fortune.com/2018/04/17/marijuana-and-epilepsy-fda/

    • NorCalNative says:

      Interesting question.

      It’s likely there will be noises from the usual idiots that once we have FDA-approved merrywanna we won’t need dispensaries.

      Anyone who has shopped at a well-stocked dispensary or looked at their online menu knows that there are hundreds of cannabis choices for consumers. Flowers, oils, edibles, topicals, patches, gel caps and more.

      What I suspect may be in store is GWP asking gubmint to have dispensaries remove products that mimic their product line. Care By Design of Santa Rosa, CA makes several different ratios of whole-plant hash oil, two of which mimic GWP products (20:1, and 1:1 ratio sublingual oils).

      I’ve developed a fondness for the 1:1 ratio and have incorporated it into my cannabis use. It helped my father during his last couple years of life, and it’s really good medicine. I will be pissed if I can’t access this in the future without a prescription.

      Once an outlaw, always an outlaw? This industry and many of the players started as black-market players. We’ve come to far and gained too much to accept the loss of the status quo.

      Unless you track down every seed and clone, this shite ain’t going away any time soon regardless of what may happen with any FDA-approved cannabinoid-based drugs.

      What are your thoughts on this DdC?

      States with medical and legal cannabis have lowered death rates and use of prescription opiates. Why? Access to Dispensaries. Access to dispensaries is much different than access to the pharmacy for one or two FDA-approved cannabinoid-based meds.

      There is no such thing as One-Size-Fits-All in cannabis therapeutics so it seems unlikely that GWP will end of the dispensary model.

      • DdC says:

        Hey NCN,

        I know I’ll never buy it. I’ve been concerned with the idiology of prohibitionists on this since the 09 article. They haven’t given a rats ass about patients care for 48 years. So the efficiency and quality of dispensaries doesn’t seem to be something they would concern themselves with.

        I kept a patient from torture with CBD when they DC’d his seizures meds as a hospice patient. No noticeable withdrawal after 50 years of Phenobarbital. Not a seizure either. This was from what I previously considered the most compassionate of the medical professionals. Following orders.

        So to limit the strains and potency doesn’t seem like something they would worry about. I’m not trying to sabotage or speak out of turn or do I prefer big pharma over Ganja. Just all this is happening and millions can attest to Dispensaries being beyond the imagination. Yet the powers that be don’t care, and competition eliminated is more profits.

        As I’ve harped on more than most want to hear. States do not have the 10th amendment protection since Raich. That’s just a fact and regardless of how well things are going. Now there will be a legal alternative.

        Its past time to remove Ganja from the CSA and Fed control. Let big pharma do what it will but make Ganja a bonafide alternative to those choosing a “imo”, better less expensive method as nature gave us.

        The Justice Act seems to be addressing the issue more than more incrementalism state by state and I hope it gets more sponsors and a vote. 48 years of bipartisan Denialism has caused more Harm to Americans than anything that comes to mind and its time to get real and let the Dispensaries continue with a standard set of regulations not designed to thwart growers or patients needs and wants or get politicians a tax base to squander.

        I’ve been sending CBD info to clinics for 5 years or so since the 5 brothers came out with Charlottes Web. I’ve had a recommendation by an Orthopedic Specialist for inflammation used externally. So I’m already sold and will continue having it delivered. Problem with Prop 64 is it taxes medicinal use where they paid it previously. I was stoked with Prop 215 and it could have been adapted to so called recreational users.

        I’ve also had peculiar thoughts that Cannabis saturates the ECS and the “high” is a residual effect to assure saturation when measuring is impossible like some drugs or filling a barrel full of water and the overflow would be the residual. So we should probably stop toking when it occurs. While society has only booze and drugs to compare it and to most the “high” is the starting point of inebriation they can understand. I don’t think the ECS can be saturated quickly so newbies will get high but it doesn’t mean the body is good to go. That takes time, and steady usage. mho

        This is the part I just can’t shrug off…

        So, in other words, if a pharmaceutical product contains THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would be a legal commodity. But if you or I possessed THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would remain an illegal commodity.

        Wait, it gets even more absurd.

        Since the cannabis plant itself will remain illegal under federal law, then from whom precisely could Big Pharma legally obtain their soon-to-be legal THC extracts? There’s only one answer: The federal government’s lone legally licensed marijuana cultivator, The University of Mississippi at Oxford, which already has the licensing agreements with the pharmaceutical industry in hand.

        Although I understand they let GW import their own stash to test with. The rest seems at least probable. The DEA continues to list CBD as sched#1 because all whole plant extracts contain THC. Be Well NCN.

  14. Mike says:

    Dr Gupta has said nothing else has been identified

    has been identified”’ what is that

    if in fact nothing else will do and its natural

    id say that one was felt

  15. Tony Aroma says:

    If the FDA approves Epidiolex, what’s to stop the DEA from interfering? As long as THC and CBD are schedule 1 controlled substances, it’s the DEA’s job to keep them off the streets. There’s nothing in the Controlled Substances Act about exceptions for FDA-approved drugs. If it’s schedule 1, it’s totally illegal.

    That means, not only does the FDA have to approve of a cannabis-based drug, but that drug also has to be removed from schedule 1 in order for it to be legally sold. So how exactly are they going to change Epidiolex’s schedule without changing the schedule of any and all other cannabis-based drugs? Even if they only reschedule the purified CBD oil made by GW Pharmaceuticals, something virtually identical can still be produced by just about anybody. So how are the DEA going to make pharmaceutical cannabis-based drugs available without opening the floodgates?

    • darkcycle says:

      By allowing the patenting of GW’s extraction methods and compounding rubric, and then changing the schedule to allow only medicines extracted with those methods and in those ratios. That was the plan, I believe.
      The wrenches in the plan were the medical States and now those with legalization. In nineteen and eighty-five, that plan would have worked. Just roll those in the Federal “investigational drug” program right over to big pharma. But they were too slow, and we demanded and got the medical acts in the States. This is greatly simplified, but that was the basic outline of their plan.

    • strayan says:

      They had no problem doing it for GHB.

  16. Stoned says:

    Thousands of Albanian opposition supporters rallied in the capital Tirana on Saturday calling for the resignation of interior minister Fatmir Xhafaj, whose brother has been convicted of drug trafficking.

    The centre-right opposition accuses the minister of protecting his brother Agron Xhafaj, whom it alleges is still involved in the drug trade.
    After rallying in front of the government headquarters, where they also called for the resignation of socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama, the protesters moved on to the interior ministry.

    There, they threw smoke bombs, as well as eggs and stones, AFP witnessed.

    https://tinyurl.com/stonedAsGoats

  17. Servetus says:

    No greater indication of marijuana’s status as an ongoing to-be-legalized commodity exists than that of the Sharks in Suits lining up to sue the cannabis industry.

    A telephonic seminar is being hosted Thursday, June 21, 2018, from high noon to 1:30 PM (Eastern Time), by arch prohibitionist lawyer David Evans. Evans is also the go-to lawyer for the drug testing industry, likely making him Robert J. DuPont’s BFF. The seminar is being made available at the new discounted cost of $129, a savings of $50, according to Evans, et al.

    Suing the cannabis industry is one means of driving out small-scale grow operations and distributors, the very heart of the industry at the moment. It’s thus become necessary to understand the oppositions’ legal tactics to counter what some states, counties, or municipalities might employ as a type of SLAPP, a lawsuit against public participation normally intended to censor, intimidate, or silence people by burdening them with legal costs they can ill afford.

    A good counter offensive against the David Evans’s of the world is to sue government entities first to deregulate the use of elixirs, for example, or deregulate something else if necessary, thus preventing the prohibitionists from muddling up the rules or making regulations in ways that cause the cannabis industry to be vulnerable to prohibitionist legal attacks.

    Webinar: http://www.mcssl.com/store/legalresourcesinc/catalog/product/60b35bbfb10d43fa9a1802885a9bd4d1

  18. Contract says:

    Complete impunity. Why Malta? Who’s next?

    https://youtu.be/IHFuOFdZ790

    • Servetus says:

      As of this date, few citizens in any country in the world are happy with their government.

      The present situation is similar to the French government’s political base in the lead-up to WWII, except now it’s worldwide.

      Prior to 1941, the French government was overtaken by politicians who were there only for themselves, and not necessarily for their country. These were the same French politicians who stood down while Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland, their ineptitude blowing Winston Churchill’s mind, and making WWII inevitable. Granted, the French were suffering from WWI fatigue, but it’s still not an excuse for enabling a stupid war that killed 55 million people.

      Much of this political rot is destined to be self-annihilating. That which isn’t, is likely to be annihilated.

  19. Servetus says:

    By speeding up photorespiration, scientists at the University of Essex in partnership with the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, are able to boost growth in crops by 27 to 47 percent.

    The demo was a tobacco plant, considered the “lab rat of plant biology because it is easy to genetically engineer and can be quickly grown and tested in outdoor field trials”. The technique can be extended to soybeans and other food crops, and cannabis:

    31-MAY-2018… In this study, the team engineered a model crop to overexpress a native protein that is involved in the recycling process called photorespiration. Over two years of field trials, they found that increasing the H-protein in the plants’ leaves increases production 27 to 47 percent. However, increasing this protein throughout the plant stunts growth and metabolism, resulting in four-week-old plants that are half the size of their unaltered counterparts.

    “Plant scientists have traditionally used promoters that express proteins at high levels throughout the plant, and there are many examples where this has worked really well,” said the lead author Patricia Lopez-Calcagno, a senior research officer at Essex. “But for the H-protein, we showed that more is not always better demonstrating that when we translate this method to other crop plants, we will need to tune the changes in protein to the right levels in the right tissues.” […]

    “The reality is that as growing season temperatures continue to increase, the yield hit caused by photorespiration will also increase,” said co-author Paul South, a USDA-ARS postdoctoral researcher…. “If we can translate this discovery to food crops, we can equip farmers with resilient plants capable of producing more food despite increasing temperature stress.”

    Next, the team plans to increase the levels of this naturally occurring protein in soybeans, cowpeas (black-eyed peas), and cassava, a tropical root crop that is a staple for more than a billion people around the world. Their goal is to increase the yields and opportunities for farmers worldwide, particularly smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

    To further increase yields, the team plans to combine this trait with others developed by the RIPE project, including a method reported in Science that boosted production by 20 percent by helping plants adapt to fluctuating light levels more quickly. […]

    The paper “Overexpressing the H-protein of the glycine cleavage system increases biomass yield in glasshouse and field grown transgenic tobacco plants” is available by request. Co-authors also include Stuart Fisk, University of Essex; Kenny Brown, University of Essex; and Simon Bull, Institute of Agricultural Sciences.

    AAAS Public Release + video: Scientists boost crop production by 47 percent by speeding up photorespiration

  20. Servetus says:

    A Canadian plant genomics company called Epimeron has developed a way to make opioids from sugar rather than opium poppies.

    On May 30 Epimeron Inc. announced it has identified…

    a novel gene from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). The gene encodes the enzyme thebaine synthase, which had previously been hypothesized, but never found, until now. Thebaine is the essential starting point in the synthesis of widely-prescribed pharmaceuticals, including the analgesics oxycodone and hydrocodone and the addiction treatments buprenorphine and naltrexone. […]

    Microbial production of active pharmaceutical ingredients from sugar as source material promises to replace current opioid manufacturing methods that rely on opium poppies for raw ingredients. Current regulatory requirements and commercial practices require the importation of crushed poppy straw from producer countries such as India and Turkey. The imported ingredients are then processed locally to the final pharmaceutical products. Legal opium poppy farming in producer countries is plagued by diversion of legitimately made controlled substances into the illicit drug trade.

    Local biosynthetic manufacturing directly from sugar will eliminate the need for opium poppy raw materials and thus decrease, or eliminate, diversion as a source of illicit ingredients. Moving away from outmoded plant ingredient purification techniques also enables improved quality and consistency, simplified logistics compared to moving narcotic raw materials around the world and avoids using fertile land that could better be employed for food production. […]

    The article is available at:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-018-0059-7

    AAAS Public Release: Breaking good — Key discovery made for battling opioid epidemic: Door opens for synthetic opioids with less addictive qualities

  21. Servetus says:

    Geneticists and biological psychiatrists are moving closer to the day when cocaine addiction can be treated with a pill—minus the persecution of jails, rehab facilities, or the therapeutic state:

    31-MAY-2018 — Previous studies have been limited, focusing either on specific genes, a particular brain region, or one aspect of cocaine addiction. But molecular studies aimed at improving addiction treatment have been complicated by alterations in genes that differ throughout the brain–increasing in some regions and decreasing in others. […]

    The analysis revealed changes in many transcripts involved in key biological processes, providing clues into the brain functions that might lead to cocaine addiction. Many changes were in the same direction (increased or decreased) throughout the reward circuitry, suggesting they may be good targets for new treatments. Interestingly, the size of the changes depended on the condition–where the mice were in the life-cycle of cocaine self-administration–highlighting unique gene changes associated with the different stages of drug taking. The study also identified several molecules responsible for regulating the expression of the genes associated with addiction-like behavior. […]

    AAAS Public Release: Cocaine use alters gene expression in brain reward circuits: A study in Biological Psychiatry investigates transcriptome-wide alterations in response to cocaine self-administration in mice

    The article is Cocaine self-administration alters transcriptome-wide responses in the brain’s reward circuitry, by Deena M. Walker, Hannah M. Cates, Yong-Hwee E. Loh, Immanuel Purushothaman, Aarthi Ramakrishnan, Kelly M. Cahill, Casey K. Lardner, Arthur Godino, Hope G. Kronman, Jacqui Rabkin, Zachary S. Lorsch, Philipp Mews, Marie A. Doyle, Jian Feng, Benoit Labonté, Ja Wook Koo, Rosemary C. Bagot, Ryan W. Logan, Marianne L. Seney, Erin S. Calipari, Li Shen, and Eric J. Nestler ( https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.04.009 ). It appears in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier.

    • WalStMonky says:

      .
      .

      In the meantime Insys Therapeutics is doing clinical studies of synthetic cannabidiol as a treatment for cocaine addiction.

      • NCN says:

        I looked at a Phase II study out of Canada. The dose used is 800 mg of single-molecule CBD, or 400 mg if the larger dose isn’t tolerated.

        That’s a shitload of CBD. It costs around $40 to $45, depending on where you buy it, for a 15 ml bottle of CBD oil from a dispensary. A 15 ml bottle equals 16 mg/ml which is 480 mg of CBD.

        If you don’t have good insurance? You probably won’t be treating your cocaine addiction with lab-produced CBD.

        Hate to sound like a broken record but whole-plant is cheaper and superior to single molecule CBD. Whole-plant mitigates side effects, increases the therapeutic window and is cheaper.

        Here’s an example of whole-plant versus single molecule CBD for epilepsy. Doses of 50 mg/kg are used in single molecule CBD studies. Bonnie Goldstein, a physician who recommends cannabis, finds a dose range of CBD whole-plant extract at 2.5 mg/kg up to 5 mg/kg works for her patients. Significant difference between a single molecule and whole plant preparations.

        MS patients using a 1:1 THC/CBD ratio oil (Sativex) average a dose of approximately 15 mg each of THC and CBD.

        I’d love to run into some cocaine again. Target practice for pissing contests. A drug that never satisfies is a trap. More, more, more, is never enough. My bladder is ready.

  22. Contract says:

    Legalising cannabis ‘could earn Treasury £3.5bn’
    Report suggests change to law would generate revenue and cut costs across justice system

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/02/legalise-cannabis-treasury-3bn-drugs

  23. SaveMeJesus says:

    MormonLeaks leaked a doc showing the LDS church owns nearly a billion in big pharma stocks. (the church actually owns a total of 32 billion worth of stocks) Is this why they came out HARD against Utah’s medical marijuana initiative?

    CELG – 347 million in shares,

    JNJ – 490 million in shares.

    ABT – 242 million in shares

    GILD – 101 million in shares

    PFE – 73 million in shares

    ABBV – 39 million in shares

    MRK – 19 million in shares

    https://tinyurl.com/BillionHypocrisy

    • Servetus says:

      The Church is not a financial institution or a commercial corporation. It has no other objective than preaching the gospel and inviting all to come unto Christ.

      Once again the LDS Church, or its spokesperson, lies about their faith.

      Some Mormons willingly admit their institution is both a church and a business. A 1985 book by Heinerman and Shupe called the Mormon Corporate Empire exposes how the church has other objectives besides gospel slinging:

      …the Mormon Church, the authors contend, is a “rising, authoritarian, powerful group,” with some five million members worldwide [as of 1985], whose little-understood purpose is to supersede other religions and take “political and economic control” of the U.S. in preparation for the Second Coming. Heinerman and Shupe detail the church’s diverse financial holdings (including broadcasting resources that “dwarf” those of electronic evangelists like Jerry Falwell); its “extraordinary” influence in government and military circles (the FBI and CIA recruit heavily among Mormons), where “para-patriotic” followers often feel an ultimate allegiance to the church. Chiding the media for accepting the church’s carefully cultivated “benign” image, the authors argue that this crusading group, seeking to bring about a theocracy in the U.S., demands close scrutiny. […]

      Individual Mormons, such as the Cathy family who own the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain, illustrate the use of Mormon corporatism to further their church’s political agenda:

      “President and COO Dan Cathy, the man who made the remarks slamming gay marriage, is the son of Chick-fil-A’s founder and patriarch, 91-year-old S. Truett Cathy. The Cathys are the reason that Chick-fil-A has its reputation as a values-based company with strong Christian ideals.–Jul 23, 2012 wiki

      Likely of more importance than Big Pharma stock—which the church can always dump if there appears to be an oncoming drop in its value—is the social power the LDS Church maintains by villainizing, persecuting and prosecuting non-Mormons who consume cannabis and other illicit drugs. Authoritarian Mormons who abstain from sinful marijuana, et al., go on to portray themselves as morally superior, and thus more qualified to fill jobs in the government and in business. Besides the FBI and CIA, Mormons are rumored to have a strong presence in the DEA, NSA, and the prison industrial complex.

      The best defense against Mormon schemes is a good BDS offense (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions), a means of protest currently being used against Israel for its human rights crimes committed against Palestinians in Gaza.

  24. Zach says:

    I live in Alabama. I know all about how the Baptists want to control everything. Fortunately, their influence is weakening.

  25. Servetus says:

    The California Psilocybin Mushroom Decriminalization Initiative didn’t make it onto the ballot this year. Despite this setback, the psychedelic experience is proving increasingly beneficial to individuals with every study that examines it:

    5-JUN-2018 – In a new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, researchers from UBC’s Okanagan campus have discovered that men who have used psychedelic drugs in the past have a lower likelihood of engaging in violence against their intimate partners.

    “Although use of certain drugs like alcohol, methamphetamine or cocaine is associated with increased aggression and partner violence, use of psychedelics appears to have the opposite effect,” says clinical psychology graduate student and study lead author Michelle Thiessen. “We found that among men who have used psychedelics one or more times, the odds of engaging in partner violence was reduced by roughly half. That’s significant.” […]

    AAAS Public Release: Psychedelic drug use associated with reduced partner violence in men: Psychedelics may help improve emotion regulation and keep violent tendencies at bay

    Continuing reactionary opposition to legalizing magic mushrooms or psilocybin can be expected from the populist radical right.

    Authoritarians will be confronting a new type of drug warfare, a warfare aimed at authoritarianism. An ability more potent than the stake through the heart of the vampire, more devastating than the silver bullet for werewolves, psilocybin may possess the power to decrease authoritarianism.

    Abstract:

    Rationale:

    Previous research suggests that classical psychedelic compounds can induce lasting changes in personality traits, attitudes and beliefs in both healthy subjects and patient populations.

    Aim:

    Here we sought to investigate the effects of psilocybin on nature relatedness and libertarian–authoritarian political perspective in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD).

    Methods:

    This open-label pilot study with a mixed-model design studied the effects of psilocybin on measures of nature relatedness and libertarian–authoritarian political perspective in patients with moderate to severe TRD (n=7) versus age-matched non-treated healthy control subjects (n=7). Psilocybin was administered in two oral dosing sessions (10 mg and 25 mg) 1 week apart. Main outcome measures were collected 1 week and 7–12 months after the second dosing session. Nature relatedness and libertarian–authoritarian political perspective were assessed using the Nature Relatedness Scale (NR-6) and Political Perspective Questionnaire (PPQ-5), respectively.

    Results:

    Nature relatedness significantly increased (t(6)=−4.242, p=0.003) and authoritarianism significantly decreased (t(6)=2.120, p=0.039) for the patients 1 week after the dosing sessions. At 7–12 months post-dosing, nature relatedness remained significantly increased (t(5)=−2.707, p=0.021) and authoritarianism remained decreased at trend level (t(5)=−1.811, p=0.065). No differences were found on either measure for the non-treated healthy control subjects.

    Conclusions:

    This pilot study suggests that psilocybin with psychological support might produce lasting changes in attitudes and beliefs. Although it would be premature to infer causality from this small study, the possibility of drug-induced changes in belief systems seems sufficiently intriguing and timely to deserve further investigation.

    Source: Journal of Psychopharmacology, Increased nature relatedness and decreased authoritarian political views after psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, Taylor Lyons, Robin L Carhart-Harris, First Published January 17, 2018.

  26. DdC says:

    Marijuana Use Is More Moral Than Porn, Death Penalty and Cloning, Americans Say –
    https://t.co/w6jYyMQShn

    Psychedelic drug use associated with reduced partner violence in men
    https://t.co/PGvOXIlm3w

    Tomorrow’s California Primaries and Ballot Measures: How Will They Impact Cannabis?
    https://t.co/HamyH1kHGo

    The politics of pot : marijuana use and the potential for collective action.
    https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/baylor-ir/handle/2104/10357
    I find marijuana users are more likely to publicly protest as well as attend political rallies than those who abstain from using.

  27. How the Government is Making the Opioid Crisis Worse
    https://youtu.be/jdINgFoVmfc

    Canada’s largest cannabis co. donates $2.5M to create UBC professorship to research pot’s potential to treat opioid addiction
    https://t.co/apoWagSKLW

  28. WalStMonky says:

    .
    .

    The Canadian Senate has approved C-45 with amendments by a vote of 56-30. Now it goes back to the House of Commons to work out the differences but it appears that the most controversial is allowing the Provinces/Territories to ban home cultivation.

  29. DdC says:

    Cannabidiol reduces attentional bias to cigarette cues in nicotine addicts, study finds
    https://www.google.com/search?q=CBD+May+Help+Smokers+Quit+Cigarettes%2C+Finds+New+Study

  30. Não adianta brigarmos por liberação ou proibição.Todos os esforços e todas decisões tomadas , são para favorecer o sistema.

    Não importa se faz bem ou mal, importa se o sistema vai ser favorecido. O resto é balela.

  31. O papel da igreja na sociedade não é mais o mesmo. Ela deixou de se preocupar com as questões espirituais para se preocupar com questões naturais. ( a nossa luta não é contra carne e sangue) ou seja, não são questões naturais e sim espirituais. Será porque as questões naturais rendem dividendos?
    Liberação ou não liberação não deve nos importar, mas sim o espírito que opera por trás de tudo isto, isto sim nos importa e deve ser a nossa luta.

  32. DdC says:

    O resto is a Middle Eastern-style bean salad or balloon?

    O sistema não parou ninguém por 50 anos. Ganja não sabe melhor se é legal. Foda-se o sistema!

  33. Os fabricantes de armas americanos estão sempre procurando uma nova guerra para escoarem suas armas. seja no México ou fora do México.

  34. Ryan Brinkman says:

    As a New York resident, I guess I appreciate the endorsement, but what a gut punch of an opening paragraph when they say, “By every honest measure, the substance [marijuana] has more in common with alcohol and tobacco than it does harder drugs that are rightly illegal.”

    This is very wrong. Of course marijuana does not kill anyone. It is safe and essentially non-addictive. In this way, it’s impct on society and the individual is more akin to LSD or psilocybin (which are completely safe, completely non-addictive, and outrageously illegal). Alcohol and tobacco are the biggest killers that should have the comparisons to the “hard drugs”, a category in which psychedelics clearly do not belong.

    And whereas alcohol can be used safely in moderate doses, it is dangerous and deadly at high doses, unlike marijuana, LSD, and psilocybin, which have only theoretical LD50s because amidst hundreds of millions and billions of doses, they have collectively never killed anyone.

  35. My Dingaling says:

    Cynthia Nixon shaking up the Dem establishment in NY. Cuomo dragged kicking and screaming towards drug reform:

    ‘A discernible pattern has emerged – dubbed the “Cynthia effect” by pundits – whereby she proposes a new leftist policy one day and Cuomo responds with his own version of it the next.
    ‘You see that with marijuana, where the sitting governor resolutely opposed legalisation until Nixon launched her campaign and then within weeks switched to supporting it. He passively accommodated the bizarre situation whereby seven Democratic state senators side with the Republicans, maintaining a conservative grip on state government, until Nixon declared her run – and then he moved swiftly to reunite the party. He opposed giving the right to vote to 40,000 people with criminal convictions, then did a U-turn once Nixon was in the race.”‘

    False flag, right wing “Democrats” like Cuomo are the problem.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/08/cynthia-nixon-new-york-governor

  36. Servetus says:

    Dogs continue to prove themselves people’s best friends, but not if prohibs can stop this insidious blessing upon humankind.

    It appears some douchebilly Illinois county official’s only solution to retiring police dogs trained to sniff out marijuana is euthanasia.

    …An Illinois county official told a local paper that if the state legalizes marijuana, it may lead to the euthanasia of K-9s trained at seeking out the drug.

    Chad Larner, who heads training at the K-9 Training Academy in Macon, reportedly made the comments to the Bloomington Pantagraph.

    Larner reportedly told the paper that retraining the dogs would likely lead to “extreme abuse.” […]

    Source: https://nypost.com/2018/05/09/police-dogs-could-be-euthanized-if-weed-is-legalized-official-says/

    Chad Larner’s antipathy toward canines has been observed before among prohibs who kick down doors and shoot the poor creatures. Achtung prohibidiots!—they never get out of the habit—there’s an alternative. Dogs can be trained or retrained to sniff out agricultural diseases:

    8-JUN-2018–A study out of Florida International University evaluates the use of scent-discriminating canines for the detection of laurel wilt-affected wood from avocado trees. Julian Mendel, Kenneth G. Furton, and DeEtta Mills have ferreted out a possible solution to a serious issue in one corner of the horticultural industry, and then ascertained the extent to which this solution is effective.

    The results of this study are presented in their article “An Evaluation of Scent-discriminating Canines for Rapid Response to Agricultural Diseases” published in the latest issue of HortTechnology. […]

    During the course of the study, 229 trials were performed, and only 12 of those yielded false alerts. It was observed that dogs are indeed capable of high levels of relevant performance, even in harsh weather conditions such as high heat and humidity. The study provided proof that dogs can detect agricultural diseases such as laurel wilt and can be a powerful management tool if the disease is caught in its earliest stages.

    About the valuable service provided by these dogs, Mills adds, “It is the best ‘technology’ so far that can detect a diseased tree before external symptoms are visible. The old saying that ‘dogs are man’s best friend’ reaches far beyond a personal bond with their handler and trainer. It is depicted in their excitement every day as they deploy to the groves. Man’s best friend may even help save an industry.”

    AAAS Public Release: Dogs can detect agricultural diseases early: Study shows dogs can sniff out laurel wilt-infected avocado trees well in advance

    The avocado or pot industry a dog saves may be your own.

  37. My Dingaling says:

    Reminds me of dog-killer in chief at the DEA Michele Leonhart’s desperate plea that legalizing cannabis will “kill puppies…”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR250HvgLHQ

  38. Servetus says:

    Canada is poised to legalize marijuana before the end of the year. One particular bank in Canada is taking the lead on being on the right side of history:

    6-10-2018 — Canaccord Genuity, a mid-sized Canadian investment bank that’s been around since 1950, is quietly dominating the emerging marijuana sector.

    Since 2016, Canaccord has outpaced the competition in both advising and underwriting cannabis companies, acting as the sole or joint bookrunner on more than $1.5 billion of financings and advising on more than 50 transactions, according to the firm.

    The firm’s most recent deals include co-leading $143 million in financing for MedMen, the ‘Apple store’ of weed, and acting as an advisor on the $2.3 billion stock deal between Aurora Cannabis and Medreleaf — the largest merger in the cannabis sector yet. […]

    Pharma and alcohol on the radar

    Canaccord is keeping a close eye on large alcohol companies, who, according to Saunders, are starting to “sniff around” the cannabis industry as alcohol consumption declines in places where cannabis is legal.

    In states that have legalized cannabis, binge-drinking rates have fallen 9% below the national average, and 11% below states that don’t allow the sale of recreational marijuana, according to a note from Cowen. CIBC, one of Canada’s largest banks, predicts that marijuana will be a $6.5 billion industry by 2020 in Canada, eclipsing liquor sales.

    Constellation Brands, the third-largest beer company in the US, paid $191 million for a 9.9% stake in Canopy Growth, one of the largest Canadian marijuana producers in October of last year.

    “We are in active discussions with a number of large beverage companies that…are at a minimum taking a look or studying sector,” Saunders said, though he declined to name specific companies.

    The other big trend, according to Saunders, is on the pharmaceutical side of the cannabis sector, as biotech and pharma companies spend more money researching the plant — and start to go on acquisition sprees.

    “There’s just a lot of science that needs to be done to figure out what sort of products are going to come out from this,” Saunders said. “So it’s pretty exciting to me.”

    It’s already happening. Sandoz Canada recently partnered with Tilray, a cultivator in British Columbia, to distribute “non-combustible” (that is, pills and sprays) medicinal cannabis products to Canada’s major hospitals and pharmacy chains. […]

    Source, MSN Money: This investment bank is quietly dominating the booming marijuana industry — but big banks are starting to muscle their way in

    Marijuana producers and distributors in the U.S. might want to avail themselves of Canadian banking services while waiting for Washington, DC, to get its act together on U.S. banking reforms.

  39. “It’s another sign of the coming left-right convergence on marijuana legalization. Let states decide for themselves (and don’t stop with pot)! ” https://t.co/fgGVXZZTH1

    I have never been a big John Boehner fan, but I like his new attitude: “Boehner says government should ‘get out of the way’ of marijuana” https://t.co/EOJr5IV1Ts

  40. DdC says:

    Scientists are currently in the midst of exploring uncharted territory: The cannabis genome.
    https://t.co/th79JiSjuv

    Unlike with other plants, researchers don’t have a long history of closely analyzing the genetic makeup of the plant. But for the past seven years – as more and more states legalize medical and recreational pot – researchers have been working on producing a high-quality marijuana genome. Everyone from low-level researchers to larger companies are part of this effort, and they say mapping the cannabis genome could be highly beneficial to people who grow or use cannabis.

    “No one has any idea what they’re smoking. Everything is name draw, so consumers and patients don’t know what they’re getting,” says Mowgli Holmes, co-founder and CEO of Phylos Bioscience, which has been working on its cannabis genome for over two years. “DNA sequencing uniquely identifies a plant, which allows growers to really tell their customers what plant they’re actually getting.”

    Then Monsanto’s Frankenganja coming to a dispensary near you.

    • Will says:

      .
      .
      Based on the research by Robert C. Clarke and Mark D. Merlin (authors, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany), cannabis plants have been described incorrectly for so long that it’s likely cannabis culture vernacular will persist long after science has made corrections. For example, according to Clarke and Merlin, Cannabis sativa is strictly a fiber plant with a very narrow distribution. Cannabis indica comprises the ‘drug’ plants and is divided into broad leaf drug (BLD) and narrow leaf drug (NLD) plants. (There are also broad leaf hemp (BLH) and narrow leaf hemp (NLH) plants.) The entire sativa versus indica debate is really meaningless. This comports with analysis done by researchers from the University of British Columbia and Dalhousie University when they looked into the genetic makeup of Lamb’s Bread, a well known, highly regarded supposed 100% sativa hailing from Jamaica. The researchers found more genetic similarities with Lamb’s Bread and indicas from Afghanistan than with other so-called sativas.

      Another misnaming that will likely persist well into the future is the use of the word ‘strain’ to describe different cannabis plants. Technically the word ‘strain’ is more appropriately used to describe various forms of viruses, bacteria, and fungi (and in some cases rodents) — not plants. Cultivar is the more proper term for plants of the same genus and species but with varying characteristics. Just like when you buy tomato plants that produce different fruit characteristics, you’re buying tomato cultivars, not tomato strains.

      Anyway, once terms are applied for many years they are ingrained and are sometimes difficult to dislodge. No doubt we’ll be talking about salivas versus indicas and cannabis strains for a long time to come.

  41. WalStMonky says:

    .
    .

    Hasn’t everyone heard that Monsanto has ceased to exist? Twitter took its place in the S&P 500 just last week.

    The 22nd Century Group (NYSE:XXII) is working on genetically engineering the THC out of hemp and the nicotine out of smoking tobacco.

  42. darkcycle says:

    Oh good lord…here’s a screed: https://thetablet.org/marijuana-is-very-dangerous/

    • DdC says:

      Another religionist scumbucket

      Poetic injustice: Bishop shielded by a statute of limitations http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/poetic-injustice-bishop-shielded-statute-limitations-article-1.2663530
      Regardless, this fan of restrictive sex-offense statutes of limitations has nothing to worry about in terms of a law enforcement investigation.

    • Servetus says:

      Bishop Dimazio doth bear false witness. Claiming scientific backing minus any references to distant or recent scientific research, his dire warnings about cannabis look as if the alleged arch sinner DiMazio sourced them from some psychopathic Catholic agent at the DEA who provided the material to the Bishop for dissemination. Otherwise an internet search would mandate cherry picking research studies to the extreme, thereby making Bishop DiMazio a SINNER.

      There’s something missing from the list, and that’s marijuana suicides. No kidding. I had no idea the daft claim about cannabis and suicide existed until this news release today from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, which refuted it, using real science:

      13-JUN-2018—McMaster University researchers have found there is no significant association between cannabis use and suicidal behavior in people with psychiatric disorders.

      The study findings contrast with pre-existing data that shows the drug is linked to an increased chance of suicidal behavior in the general population.

      However, based on a small subset of participants, researchers did note the heaviness of cannabis use increased risk of suicidal behavior in men, suggesting a closer follow-up by medical professionals of those patients.

      The study was published online this week in the journal Biology of Sex Differences.

      “In what we believe to be a first, this study seeks to understand how cannabis use impacts suicide attempts in men and women with psychiatric disorders who are already at a heightened risk of attempting suicide,” said Zainab Samaan, lead author and an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster.

      “We know there is a high rate of cannabis use among this population and wanted to better understand any potential correlation to suicidal behavior.”

      Cannabis is the most commonly-used illicit substance worldwide, and its consumption is expected to increase as more jurisdictions, including Canada, legalize its recreational use. […]

      AAAS Public Release: Cannabis does not increase suicidal behavior in psychiatric patients

      • Servetus says:

        The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

        ― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

    • Tony Aroma says:

      Most of those horrible effects he mentioned were for teenagers and adolescents using marijuana. Sounds like he’s making a pretty good argument for legalization and regulation.

  43. Servetus says:

    Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans warns bone fracture patients of potentially serious complications should they use opioids for their pain. Although it’s not mentioned, cannabinoids for pain relief are looking better all the time:

    15-JUN-2018 –New Orleans, LA – Dr. Robert Zura, Professor and Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, was part of a research team reporting that not only may opioid use increase the risk of bone fractures, but opioids may also impair healing. The authors also question their effectiveness in controlling pain. Dr. Zura is a coauthor of the “Article in Press” available online in the journal, Injury. […]

    The team studied 309,330 of the 18 most common bone fractures, as well as medication use, including antibiotics, anticoagulants, diabetes medications, osteoporosis medications, cardiac medications, diuretics, immunosuppressants, steroids, anticonvulsants, and non-opioid analgesics in addition to opioid analgesics. They found that opioid medications as a class significantly increased the risk of fracture nonunion following both acute and chronic administration.

    “Chronic opioid use roughly doubled the risk of nonunion among all patients, and this effect was fairly consistent across all ages and both genders,” noted Dr. Zura.

    The researchers report that Schedule II opioids, as a group, create a greater nonunion risk than non-opioid analgesics. Certain of these medications produce a significant risk, including acetaminophen/oxycodone, hydromorphone, acetaminophen/hydrocodone, oxycodone and meperidine. Of the Schedule III-V opioids, tramadol and naloxone/pentazocine were also associated with increased risk. Acetaminophen/codeine and buprenorphine were not associated with increased risk of nonunion. Prescription NSAID use also increased the risk of nonunion among chronic users. […]

    AAAS Public Release: Study with implications for opioid crisis finds opioids raise risk of fracture nonunion

    • Hope says:

      After knee surgery a friend of mine, (not a smoker) was told (aside) by the surgeon to basically smoke it if he had it, because it would help him heal better. The doctor had to tell him if he told people what he said he would have to deny it. (Still illegal in my state) My friend secretly secured and smoked… and told me, (no denials necessary)… and healed beautifully and quickly.

      • Servetus says:

        One more example of progress. If the physicians lead, the douchebillies will follow. My left clavicle healed beautifully as well.

        • DdC says:

          One step Progress
          2 steps Congress

          If you thought Jeff Sessions had too much power already, you should see the new drug war bill Congress is about to pass.

          The SITSA Act would turn the attorney general into the chief arbiter of what substances Americans can buy, sell, and put in their bodies.
          https://t.co/8mfEz2H896

          The House of Representatives voted on Friday to create a new schedule of banned drugs under the Controlled Substances Act, called “Schedule A,” and to give Attorney General Jeff Sessions broad new powers to criminalize the manufacturing, importation, and sale of substances that are currently unregulated, but not illegal. The bill is now headed to the Senate, where co-sponsors Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R–Iowa) will likely have little problem whipping votes.

          What next after cannabis oil?
          Banned substances that have medicinal uses
          https://t.co/h0bQaGG2Z1

          Don’t Bet On Federal Marijuana Legalization Just Yet
          https://t.co/1P4LPOR2La

          FDA-approved epilepsy drug
          has medical marijuana patients concerned

          https://t.co/pZ1NrdbM3e

          Canadian Military Will Be Allowed to Smoke Marijuana
          Cannabis will be treated like alcohol when it comes to military use
          https://t.co/LpbnlgS14e

  44. Servetus says:

    Suicides in the U.S. are spiking. The numbers have been on the rise for years, especially in states or counties that lack easy access to cannabinoids for medical or recreational purposes.

    Monica H. Swan, professor of epidemiology and public health at Georgia State University, speaks to an unspeakable subject for many people, as well as for totalitarian governments:

    Suicide rates in the U.S. have increased nearly 30 percent in less than 20 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported June 7. […]

    It is not clear what exactly drives the demand for the psychoactive substances and what has driven the increase in suicides. But I think it’s worth speculating whether a perceived low quality of life for many Americans, marked by high stress and low levels of happiness, is contributing.

    Americans stand out from people in other countries with respect to their focus on individualism. Americans believe that success is determined by our own control and that it is very important to work hard to get ahead in life. Perhaps it is this focus on our own achievements, successes and work culture that have created an environment that is no longer sustainable – it has become too stressful.

    What other options do we have in a culture where we are also expected to solve our own problems? I believe that for many, the use of substances and suicides may tragically be the only available coping mechanism.

    Source: https://theconversation.com/suicide-nation-whats-behind-the-need-to-numb-and-to-seek-a-final-escape-98137

  45. Servetus says:

    Reactionary marijuana opponents continue to work against implementation of California’s legalization of cannabis. For some in the backward locales of the Golden State, the weed war isn’t over yet.

    …after a majority of Californians voted for Prop 64, which called for the adult use of cannabis, the California cannabis world is still in upheaval and there’s no stability in sight. In many parts of the Golden State, there’s a backlash against marijuana, though cities, towns and counties are also imposing taxes on cannabis businesses. […]

    Matt Hummel, the chair of the Cannabis Regulatory Commission in Oakland…explained to a group of citizen lobbyists that the marijuana black market was thriving in Oakland in large part because the real estate market had made it all but impossible for many wanna-be dispensaries to enter the legitimate cannabis business.

    “It’s a struggle to get a permit,” Hummel said. He added, “At the same time, big money for the cannabis industry has flooded Oakland.”

    One long-time Sonoma cannabis cultivator called himself “disgruntled,” and added that he wasn’t going to apply for a permit from the county.

    “I’m going to continue to do the outlaw thing,” he said.

    Others expect to undo the legal knots currently tying up those struggling to get medicine and joy to the people:

    Veteran cannabis advocate, Jewel Mathieson, attended the California Citizen Lobby Day and spoke out about SB 829 and AB 1793. […]

    As a breast cancer survivor and a dispensary operator for eleven years, I feel that my voice has both weight and wisdom,” she said. “I want to be an example to my daughter and all women to challenge the status quo, to speak out and make our voices and hearts heard…. The war on drugs is and has always been essentially a war against the poor, blacks and Latinos. Passage of AB 1793 won’t end racism, but it will mean that many Californians will be able to come home from the Drug War and reclaim their lives. Hallelujah! Let’s have a well overdue jubilee.[…]

    Source: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/15/cannabis-in-california-a-report-from-sacramento/

  46. CJ says:

    Hello everyone. Old friends. Pete. This is CJ. I am still alive though after yesterday I honestly wish I wasn’t. I just had a conversation with someone though and there’s a complicated situation going on and after this conversation I had I knew there was no better place and no better group of people to reach out to than my friends here. I need you guys help. Unfortunately I’m writing this on my phone which is not compatible here for some reason so that I can’t actually see what I’m writing now only the first paragraph was visible. I’m hoping this will not be riddled with spelling errors at this point. When I get home I will come right here to write in full this nightmare situation. But many of you know me and my story so let me dispel one thing right now. This is NOT ABOUT MONEY I would never ever ever go there. I have been off every day heroin use for 3 months now. It’s mostly because of my health and I will explain that too. Mostly I use 1x a week I swear on my grandfather’s soul it’s true. I would never do that. If anything is money related it’s me who will spend every single penny I have for help. And I have quite a few pennies now because I won my 3 year court case vs NYC. So friends please don’t think that. I will explain my financial good fortune when I write later too. But this is about life. A life I value far more than my own. Id give every cent and more so I’d give my life I swear id give my very life for this person and for help with this nightmare. I had no hope after yesterday but I read some things and someone just told me a nearly unbelievable story and I fully believe it and I believe my friends here will be able to tell me more. I am so sorry for the dramatics truly but I feel like an empty vessel right now I hope u can pardon my dramatics and understand. I promise to elaborate as soon as I get home. Thank you all

  47. WalStMonky says:

    .
    .

    Canada is a done deal. C-45 now moves into the implementation phase. Now remember that we’re going to be forced to endure the incessant whining of the sycophants of prohibition. But there’s nothing to be done about that except to let the cry babies cry themselves to sleep and the situation will resolve itself. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s small price to pay?

    • Tony Aroma says:

      “Canada is a done deal.”

      Is it really? Does this mean they’ve stopped arresting people for simple possession? Or will arrests continue until all the details are worked out and commercial sales begin? Seems like they really would like to continue making arrests as long as possible.

  48. Servetus says:

    We always knew the DEA was crazy, but how crazy is it?

    Justin Rohrlich’s exclusive at Daily Beast reveals a new drug money hysteria gripping the agency:

    6-17-2018 — The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is so concerned that drug-laced cash seized in narcotics busts could seriously injure—even kill—its agents, it has begun reaching out to potential industry partners about decontaminating confiscated currency. […]

    “Some of the substances on the currency may be extremely harmful to human health and potentially result in death,” says a DEA solicitation posted late last week on a U.S. government procurement portal.

    “It is expected that most of the substances on the contaminated currency will be controlled substances including, but not limited to, narcotics (fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, heroin), cannabinoids (marijuana, THC, JWH compounds), stimulants (amphetamines, cathinones), hallucinogens (LSD, PCP, NBOMes), depressants (benzodiazepines, barbiturates),” the solicitation continues. “Precursor chemicals used to make these substances and other unknown harmful chemicals may also be present on the currency.”

    The nascent currency decontamination initiative has not been previously reported, and DEA is looking for a vendor who can service … all of its 222 domestic offices. […]

    If the program becomes operational it would be an apparent first in American policing…the DEA seems to be spooked enough about the idea of toxic money that it “will not count the contaminated currency (due to inherent safety issues) prior to packaging the contaminated currency, but will have a general indication of the amount that has been packaged for the vendor,” last week’s solicitation reads. […]

    Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-dea-is-worried-sick-about-touching-contaminated-dr ug-money?ref=home

    Now that the DEA is implementing its tax-funded money laundering operation, any remaining questions of DEA vacuousness about drugs, their chemistry, or the significance of trace chemical analyses, have been answered. According to the prohibidiots, single molecules can kill.

  49. Umpa Lumpa says:

    Kirstjen Nielsen. Whoring for Trump:

    “It is a policy being enforced by a white woman and justified by a chorus of white women, all of whom provide a soft cover, like a velvet glove on the iron fist of fascism.”

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-daniels-kirstjen-neilsen-family-separation_us_5b2a5774e4b05d6c16c983a4

  50. One step forward, two back:

    “If you thought Jeff Sessions had too much power already, you should see the new drug war bill Congress is about to pass” https://t.co/k5VTsX9juq

    Drug war redux. This is sickening.

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