Obama’s staff has scheduled a Facebook Town Hall on April 20.
Certainly his staff has to know the significance of 4/20. They also know that every opportunity for public questions has resulted in drug war reform being the top question. And if that’s true elsewhere, it’s even more likely to be true on Facebook.
The media is smart enough to make the 4/20 connection.
So is Obama’s staff just stupid? Or do they really want to talk about pot?
on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “More that might be useful, Mount Sinai researchers have identified a brain pathway that is affected by addictive drugs: 18-APR-2024–…researchers,…” Apr 18, 23:11
on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “More on opiate receptors. I had a physician who recommended Salvia Divinorum. He later asked me to keep his recommendation…” Apr 17, 11:40 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “I’ve applied what little mental skills I have to the study of cannabinoid G-coupled protein receptors like CB1 and CB2…” Apr 16, 16:35 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “University of Leipzig researchers examine the molecular mechanisms of the opioid receptors and their different functions: 12-APR-2024 — Drugs that…” Apr 14, 17:36 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “Researchers at Dartmouth College reveal Cannabis receptors are among receptors implicated in the way the brain regulates emotions: 3-APR-2024 …”Our…” Apr 6, 09:59 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “Corrected links: University of Basel: Liberalization of medical marijuana and mental health in the USA Health Economics Policy and Law:…” Apr 4, 19:24 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “Swiss researchers investigated what effects if any medicinal marijuana had on mental health in the United States. Their results show…” Apr 4, 19:21 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “Interesting question. All of it played a role. I think religious differences and conflict are the main motivators behind drug…” Mar 31, 23:17
I thought it was very odd, too.
They’re very smart, but hopelessly dumb. Washington is a different world.
I figure there is a 1:420 chance that he will say anything positive about marijuana
The Topic is Job Creation.. Doubt they will take any questions off topic..
Legalizing all drugs would be a huge jobs creation machine.
Yeah nothing will come of it just another day,doubt they will refer to Cannabis on that day but you never know.
Just a little silly numbers mystical stuff, 420 add them it a six Pres. Obama happens to be life path six day he’s giving the talk.They are nurtures and magnetic and effect the room depending on their mood,Yeah don’t feel that that love love and nurture Pres. Obama his statement read today on Drudge get used to high gas prices, I wish the public would go through with it and tell these politicians who don’t end Drug War get used to getting voted out of office and it really happened.
It may have a lot to do with the election next year?…Marijuana law reform…this one topic indicates how individual governments govern, such as with compassion and good will or not.
“Dear Agent…, Please prepare all cases in your jurisdiction involving musicians in violation of the marijuana laws. We will have a great national round-up arrest of all such persons on a single day. I will let you know what day.”
~ Commissioner Harry J Anslinger, October 24, 1947
I thought Asa Hutchinson came to SF for a meeting, purposely on April 20. While he was there, the DEA raided several Apothecaries. “to send a message” no doubt, even though they denied it. Can’t find it…
4/20 @ 4:20
MEDICAL POT USER SETTLES WITH CITY
Springfield (Oregon) Agrees to Pay Him $7,500 After He Was Cited on a Possession Charge
“It was solely done to avoid litigation costs, and the city has no admission of wrongdoing,” Laudati said.
History of Marijuana as Medicine
1997 April 21 Federal DEA agents raid Flower Therapy, a medical marijuana sales operation in a converted warehouse, seizing 331 marijuana plants but leaving its supply of dried medical marijuana behind. In addition to the marijuana plants, agents take 15 ultraviolet “grow” lights, five small plastic irrigation pools, nine ventilation fans and a variety of other gear used to grow the marijuana. There were no arrests. This was the first federal action since California passed Proposition 215 in 1996.
San Francisco Chronicle, April 22, 1997 â€Federal Raid On S.F. Grower of Medical Potâ€
April 20, 2004. United States Attorney General John Ashcroft and DEA Administrator Karen Tady filed a Petition for Certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. Once the federal government filed their Petition for Certiorari the name of the case was changed from Raich v. Ashcroft to Ashcroft v. Raich. Ashcroft became the Petitioner and Raich became the Respondent.
Too much to hope for, despite how smart a political move it would be.
is it too cynical to think this is a sting operation designed to collect info on potheads?
Drug War has given us all PTSD.
.
.
Yes, it is too cynical. Data mining is useless if you set the parameters too wide. How many people do you think would get caught up in the net you propose? Would 1 million nationwide be unthinkable? Out of that 1 million, there might be what, 1000 that the Feds would be interested in?
Either stupid or it’s a jab at those pesky pot heads and their damned demands.
Hope, It’s great to see you feeling sprite and out and about! I will sure be writing to in and I have long figured the president would pull this out at last moment in order to have any chance at re-election but he is going to have to show me serious movement before the election and not just promises as he has shown me that politics supersedes ideology in this administration already! Peace, Steve
They would never recognize that 4/20 was anything other than just another date on the calendar. Really, it marks nothing more significant than a number code potheads use to refer to their particular pastime. We’re not his people, he won’t use our codes. This isn’t like the ‘dog whistle’ phrases Repugnicans use to signal their base. Obama really just wishes we would go away.
You miss the point, darkcycle. Of course, we’re not his people, but that doesn’t mean that his people can’t read. You have to be pretty unaware to miss the significance of April 20 (try googling it). And any competent political advisor will point out that April 20 is going to lead to snarky newspaper articles: “Obama side-stepped the pot issue once again – this time on the national holiday for pot smokers.” The papers will think it cute, and any discussion of job creation will be below the fold.
The point is that this is bafflingly politically tone-deaf. If he wishes us to go away, this is absolutely the most stupid way to do it.
I don’t know Pete. Job creation is another of those areas that he is being seen as weak so why not plan a distraction? It takes time away from the topic at hand. His administration (imho) seems to think the legalization issue is an easy one to shoo away with a funny soundbite. All the job creation debates I’ve paid any attention to have gone that way. Just like when MSM does a story on the growing income gap it always tries to paint the responsibility on the little people—–> “It’s a jobless recovery so all ya need to do is go out and start up your own business because that’s what responsible folks are a doin’ now.”
And now that I’m awake I have to wonder if this will be another way to make us look like assholes for bringing up our issue at a jobs discussion—Double treat for those of that stripe; a sidestep and a bitch-slap in the same event…… I’m too funny after C&C
Pete, they know the significance. They simply in no way will acknowledge it. And as far as bafflingly tone-deaf goes, where on that scale does, say,…no prosecutions for the Banksters fall, or, uh, maybe intervention in Libya or retaining Guantanamo, relative to having a conference on jobs on the pot-smoker’s national holiday?
Tone deaf is their intent, it’s their M.O. It’s S.O.P. Nobody does tone-deaf like this White House.
…or endorsing nuclear power in the MIDDLE of a Japanese reactor meltdown? Tone deaf, indeed.
word
I predict in the future 4/20 will be a MAJOR holiday, like a cannabis-themed Independence Day! We will have parades and maybe exchange gifts (of herb).
Obama’s a BIG letdown. I’d like to go a few rounds in the octagon with him AND Bush.
Can we please talk about pot, uterus’s, penis’s, and all things that feel better than a Molotov cocktail in the night?
4/20 is also Hitler’s birthday. Maybe someone can tell Obama to do something about all the neo-Nazi prohibs.
Perhaps this is a clever move by a staffer who is acting surreptitiously. Sometimes people find creative ways to express themselves when they are employed within a large, bureaucratic organization.
If it was just about “pot” that marijuana was prohibited in the first place,then congress would have legalized it when the first major study was done on it in 1972.
Every study congress has done has recommended legalization or decriminalization and congress has ignored them. That is money speaking.
But how do we show America that hemp is the real target of prohibition and not because people enjoy feeling euphoric?
We all know that the hemp plant could do more to clean up the atmosphere better than any other plant known, according to the “green” scientist trying to stop or slow down the greenhouse effect of using petroleum based fuels. So why aren’t those same scientists not standing up and screaming about the abilities of the hemp plant? That is money speaking.
Every plastic bottle,bag and packaged product you can’t
get into is made from,,,you guessed it,petroleum.
They can also make biodegradable plastic from corn stalks,,but the scientists are not even discussing that either..that is money speaking.
April 20 is the anniversary of the BP oil disaster:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill
It will not surprise me to see the mainstream media and our public servants drown out the meaning being discussed in this thread with that fact.
Mr. O knows that with the lackluster performance he’s shown so far (which is just what his CEO masters wanted) that he needs to sucker more young people into voting for him again to keep the farce of ‘democracy’ alive in the face of increasingly obvious corp-rat control of the political system.
What better way to ‘bait and switch’ than pull a stunt like this on Stoner’s Day? After all, it worked before…
Dont fall for it again stoners. No Obama in 2012…then again..it dont matter who is in the whitehouse.
I’ve been conducting an interesting experiment at supposedly ‘progressive’ Websites for some time now, and the results have been less than stellar. Those challenged have been suspiciously silent when I simply ask people to Google the following search string:
Obama Clinton June 6 2008 Chantilly Virginia
That’s all. As I point out at every opportunity, there are no emotionally loaded terms. Just names and a date, a city and a State. But the results provide plenty of explanations for why the present Administration has acted the way it has, namely, a continuation of the last one.
Particularly when you consider drug policy. Just as with all previous Administrations, those ‘special interests’ (especially banks) that don’t want competition from cannabis products have already ‘spoken to’ the latest puppet on the throne, and he’s heard the message, loud and clear.
You only have to look at what the House GOP is trying to do to realize that it does matter who sits in the White House. As disappointing as Obama seems to us in regards to cannabis, I for one would not be happy with the likes of Romney, Gingrich Palin, et al…
“So is Obama’s staff just stupid? Or do they really want to talk about pot?”
I vote “stupid”.
They poke sticks at us. they know what it means. Most likely will explain it away as a coincidence.
If they wanna talk about job creation and saving the planet/rainforests…how bout harveting hemp for its pulp and stronger than steel fibers….save the rainforest,create jobs. Win win. The bonus…biofuel….oh thats right ..to many subsidy dollars filling pockets for that to happen. Once again greedy will outweight common sense. typical for big government and their friends(lobbiests).
NMA, that is the other likely purpose. “They poke sticks at us….” You may be right.
They poke sticks at us is definitly the way to phrase it.
Then when we take the bait, I see an innocent act pop up: “Geeze, is pot all you think about when we have such serious issues to talk about, like jobs, energy, and the economy?” Of course all the while they neglect to mention how intimately entwined prohibition is with jobs, energy, and the economy.
APRIL 20TH. Also Hitler’s birthday and the Columbine school shootings…..
The Columbine tragedy happened on April 20 because it is Hitler’s birthday. That wasn’t a coincidence. From time to time I’ll use the rhetorical device, “is there really anyone in the world that wouldn’t have rather seen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold spent the day getting stoned, eating Cheetos and watching Cheech & Chong repeats on 4/20/1999?”
Rather than bemoan the negatives of the past, isn’t it an improvement for it to be cannabinoidian freedom day than to think of it as Hitler’s birthday? To me it’s just more validation that cannabis is a positive life force.
calm down everybody…. 4/20 is also an anniversary of the gulf oil disaster and most likely will be the topic of Obama speech. Don’t expect sanity from our gov’t officials. Haven’t you heard, they’re about to shut down for a while!
Hemp for victory anyone? We could potentially steam roll this town hall meeting, while supporting the legalization of cannabis, while completely avoiding the word marijuana, while suggesting a potential multi-billion dollar industry that every other first world country has, while making the government look ever more stupid then it is for ignoring this industry. I know it won’t happen, I know there will be a lot of people asking questions about recreational cannabis use but imagine how powerful it could be if we were able to completely shift the focus onto an industry we have chosen to forsake for no justifiable reason that could potentially be worth billions. They only thing they would be able to say is the same thing they always say only this time it would be live in front of everyone on facebook. “Well, we cannot grow industrial hemp in this country because we are unable to tell the difference between hemp and marijuana.” at which point facebookers decide to google the difference and find Hemp For Victory on youtube and start to get really confused and then BAM we won over another citizen to our cause! Delusional? Probably. But wouldn’t it be awesome?
I gotta an email from Mr. O yesterday asking if they could count on my vote. I wrote back, “Not only NO but, HELL NO!”
He fooled me once. That’s my fault. It WILL NOT happen a second time!!
Me too, Ez. Me too.
Me neither…taint none of them worth’voting’ for til we the people control this country …not the elitist bankers and such
Typical campaign tactics.Tell the people whatever your advisers tell you they want to hear.Then once you’re elected they just want you to set down and shut up.
From time to time I ponder 4/20 and think it rather stunning that the potheads have appropriated a day from the calendar for our very own. No, it won’t be “officially” recognized but unless something changes radically we’ll see headlines, news stories, opinion columns, etc, etc on the 20th and 21st. We’ll probably see articles anticipating 4/20 on 4/18 and 4/19. Regardless of which side of the table one sits there will be acknowledgment of the date and its meaning to the cannabinoidians. You can argue that it’s unofficial but that’s just a sniggling detail. We own that date. When was the last time a cohort of people appropriated a day from the calendar for their very own? Even the drunks had to piggyback an arcane Catholic Day of Feasting for their day. So if I haven’t missed one in between, the most recent appropriation of a day on the calendar in the face of civil authority is Christmas by the Catholics. Christ wasn’t born in December even presuming the Fairy Tale to be true. The Catholics were very much underground and their religion illegal in the first 3 or 4 centuries A.D. The pagans would celebrate the winter solstice so the Catholics had their celebration in order to not be noticed by the authorities.
Did you know that in eastern Canada there was a highway 420 that they actually officially changed the designation last year because the local potheads would use it to celebrate, 4/20 at 4:20 on 420? I think the authorities are going to be surprised when the potheads show up anyway.
Wikipedia has an entry listing routes 420 around the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highways_numbered_420
Of course California passed SB-420 which regulated medical cannabis dispensaries and required the State’s counties to issue ID cards to those claiming the protection of it and Prop 215.
The DC City Council “officially” voted in their medical cannabis law on 4/20/2010. They did claim it was just a coincidence, and indeed it is their habit to take care of such business on the 3rd Tuesday of the month.
Montana’s repeal of medical cannabis is sitting on the Governor’s desk. It wouldn’t shock me if he decided to announce his decision on the 20th. I’ve been wondering if the Montana Governor has the same power of a pocket veto that is in the POTUS bag of tricks.
Any way you slice it 4/20 is now our property, and we’re not giving it back.
Right you are, Duncan. The officialdom in this millennium will not recognize 4/20 either. Just like the Romans with the Catholics (or any other sect of the fractious Christian faith in that century)celebrations.
Don’t forget the infamous FDA pronouncement on 20 April 2006:
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/2006/ucm108643.htm
Steve Tuck. Thank you. It’s good to be “out and about”.
April 20th is also the anniversary of Veronica and Charity Bowers, deaths when their airplane was shot down over the Amazon river.
I can’t imagine why they chose that date (they have to know the significance of it), especially, for an online conference, and especially considering his past speculation about the “online” community.
We will be marching on DC that morning with Overgrow. Nothing says “No More” like camping on the lawn.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146753865351662
OT: via Radley’s place, it’s the damn dogs, again.
This time they failed every ‘alert’. Every. Single. One.
The facebook page returns:
“Event Unavailable
We’re sorry, but this Event is currently unavailable. Please try again later.”
Haha this happening for anyone else? Think they are asking facebook to censor as nearly everything was on Cannabis law reform…?
Nope. It’s still there. Are you signed into Facebook?
yeh, it came back for me too… strange though, went down for about an hour for me…? Still, is great to see that nearly every comment in on Cannabis/Hemp!!
Time to start getting on the backs of the calendar makers to include 4-20 with a day of notation. If it’s not included, don’t buy their wares!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12994692
(wish they would say prohibition-related violence instead of drug-related). Talks about alternatives at the end, but fails to mention legalisation…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12995773
Somebody will have their hand stuck up his ass making his mouth move. Anything new?
Really? I haven’t gotten any sense that what he’s been doing has been against his own free will. I don’t see any puppet strings. Sure, he’s making decisions in many cases based on influence (money, power) but that’s not the same as puppet.
I haven’t seen any Karl Roves around, have you?
Seems to me that Obama is to blame for what Obama has been doing.
Pete, Obama doesn’t need Rove; he’s been Zbigniew Brzezinski’s ‘protege’ for many years…you might try googling that search string I mentioned in the comment above and then you’ll understand why so many of us who study what is best described as ‘deep politics’ knew the ‘fix was in’.
This is partly why Obama has proven such a disappointment to the drug reform movement. It has nothing to do with the facade of conservative/liberal ideological competition. Nope. His patrons are mainly bank(st)ers who’ve enjoyed windfalls for years thanks to drug prohibition and don’t want the gravy train disrupted.
Once this piece of the puzzle is dropped into position, you see why he seemed to placate his ‘liberal’ constituency with sweet words of reason about ‘science based policy’ while a candidate and newly minted Prez, but after ‘election’ has continued to apply the benighted Federal jackboot to MMJ supplier’s throats at every opportunity.
It used to give only 420 kb space to answer?
another pun on 420? Today replies seem longer.
President Obama,
End Cannabis Prohibition for the sake of the people and the economy. Hemp can replace a lot of the reliance on foreign crude oil. Hemp is being used to help clean up Chernobyl, as well as chemical toxins on most Military bases. Cannabis could aid treating side effects of radiation. Legalizing would be a win win situation and release billions in taxes while providing a safer alternative.
Thanks
DdC
Ending Cannabis Prohibition
Yesterday 4.8.11 at 12:35pm