Odds and Ends

Still in New York with the group until Tuesday, and on a very tight schedule, but having a great time.

There are some excellent discussions going on in the comments of the past few posts, so be sure to check those out.

Here are some more things to spark conversations (this is an open thread).


bullet image The Saturday interview: Richard Branson

He hopes the commission can help focus a debate on the facts, because the alternative is unsustainable, he says. “In the US, prisons are literally loaded with people who have taken drugs on a few occasions. Mainly black people. It’s very much a racist set-up when it comes to the drug issues in America. It costs society a fortune, and these people, who could be productive members of society, have their lives ruined.”

The situation isn’t much different in the UK, he says, where 80,000 people a year get sentences for drugs. “The commission believes nobody should be sent to prison for taking drugs,” he says. In other countries the state of affairs is worse, with people executed for taking a small amount of dope. Branson has been working to get two women out of jail in Thailand who have, so far, served 27 years for what in other countries would be minor drug offences. He says it’s “incredible” how little the debate has moved on since the 1960s. “It has just got worse and worse and worse.”


bullet image The mother who gave her terminally-ill daughter Ecstasy to ease her suffering

Biologist Marilyn Howell claims giving her 32-year-old daughter Mara the drug ‘took away the pain’ and was ‘the best thing that happened’ at the end of her life.’


bullet image $1 billion for anti-narco programs, and no central database to track it

The Department of State, which received more $1 billion for international counter-narcotics programs last year, doesn’t have a central database to track its anti-drug programs.

Most of State’s $1 billion supports programs in Mexico, Afghanistan, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) is responsible for programs that ran the gamut from eradication of illegal crops, drug interdiction and reducing drug demand.

Why would they bother with a central database? After all, it’s never been about creating effective programs.


bullet image The global drug war and the Nixon connection by Paul Rosenberg at Al Jazeera

On June 2, a report form the prestigious Global Commission on Drug Policy told the world what it already knew: the decades-long war on drugs has been a spectacular failure. […]

The other side begins with Richard Nixon, who ran for president on “law and order” in 1968. This was largely just code for lumping together his most voiceless political enemies – student demonstrators and “uppity” urban blacks – but it was given a rational veneer as a promise to crack down on street crime – something that presidents had virtually nothing to do with at the time.

Once elected, Nixon cast about for a way to make good on his impossible promise – or at least to look tough fighting against the odds. The war on drugs was the answer he came up with, and ever since it has survived on this strange conjunction of unacknowledged political motives on the one hand, and the impossibility of actual success on the other. Its political utility is grounded in the fact that it’s a war that can never be won. All it can do is keep piling up victims, year after year.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy calls that a “failure”. But Nixon would call it a tremendous success. And Washington is Nixon’s town, now more than ever before.

[Thanks, Tom]

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62 Responses to Odds and Ends

  1. Steve says:

    Political motives and unwinnability may be part of why the drug war goes on and on, but the root cause is that certain special interests don’t want to give up all that MONEY.

    • Scott says:

      One’s ‘forcing a square peg into a round slot’ is another one’s ’round peg nicely fitting into a round slot’.

      In other words, one’s suffering is another one’s pleasure.

      Enough individuals in society must sufficiently feel the wrongness of the prior, before they will apply enough pressure on the powerful groups firmly entrenched and enjoying the latter.

      In other words, enough people in society must find pleasure in bringing about the suffering (coming from the likely “withdrawal symptoms” due to that intervention) for those pleasured by the war on some drugs.

      The ‘suffering through pleasure’ spectrum is the fuel of reality.

  2. allan says:

    speaking of odds and ends… a self-portrait done as this artist’s way of offering a visual honoring to the ancient roots of cannabis consumption: ancient ways, sacred smoke… (as always, free use of images to NPOs w/ photo credit, others must pay!)

    Glad to hear you all are having a great time in NYC Pete… it hit 80º here yesterday so all is good on the Oregon front.

    • Æsirandhis8dwarfs says:

      and now for a jar of Suttungr’s Mead

    • DdC says:

      well almost…

      Officials To Crack Down on Marijuana Dispensaries
      Oregon — Federal and state law enforcement officials put the owners of medical marijuana dispensaries on notice today, warning them that selling marijuana for any purpose, including medical use, was against both federal and state law. “Are we supposed to believe that people go to places like “Wake N Bake” to get medicine?” said U.S. Attorney, Dwight C. Holton. “‪Oregonians, who adopted a medical ‬marijuana‪ law in good faith, deserve an answer‬—‪are these places where people go to get medicine, or are these just drug dealers hiding behind the ‬m‪edical ‬m‪arijuana law?‬”

  3. Bruce says:

    Cool art and cool comments following, Allan.
    My buddy Alan R.I.P. would have really enjoyed that too.
    He’n his ‘Hermit’ ways. Would look up from his pipe and be astonished at the levels of ever expanding wierdness this current house of mirrors false-facade carnival has reached, for sure.

  4. Duncan20903 says:

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    The Connecticut Senate approved decriminalization of petty possession of cannabis with the Lt. Governor being forced to break a tie vote.

    http://articles.courant.com/2011-06-04/news/hc-marijuana-decriminalization-0605-20110604_1_possession-of-small-amounts-gateway-drug-decriminalization

    Wouldn’t everybody agree that a url a most peculiar place to run into the gateway fallacy? Now that’s propaganda with an imagination.

  5. Duncan20903 says:

    .
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    Here’s another bust of a train carload worth of cannabis. 22,000 pounds.
    http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cu59.html

    In 1969 total siezured amounted to 57,164 pounds. This is the second 22,000 lb load seized this year.

  6. The reversal of the onus of proof in drug-possession cases is incompatible with the rule of law and is therefore unconstitutional in all jurisdictions.

    More: http://is.gd/ccxry6 .

  7. vickyvampire says:

    Saw Issue of Christianity Today on mag stands at store,thumbed through June 2011 Issue wow they had a two page article on medical marijuana?by three different authors who did not out right promote pot but did not demonize it either kind of realized folks are using it and getting legitimate relief but warned Christians to be humble and not to out spoken out about there use and be wise and not violate there conscience.

    Well anyway whats interesting I went on there web site and check back on some back issues and I do not think except for one other time have they even addressed Marijuana in there magazine in years just general drug addiction maybe but not Pot really so maybe they are seeing more folks in churches using it and not stepping back or ashamed of it.
    So its interesting to see evangelical publication do story on Cannabis at all in a little bit positive way.

    In my neck of woods here in Utah the department of Health wants to bans Hookahs so much for Freedom Oh that’s right what freedom it far and seldom for tobacco user’s these days here is Link.http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/51934485-78/health-department-hookah-comment.html.csp

    The story about Biologist Marilyn Howell who gave her daughter ecstasy to help during her terminally disease good for her I hope many read her book.

  8. Norbert Nordstrom says:

    I pledge allegiance to the corporation, to the pillage for which it stands, one dystopia divided and crumbling and to the warhawks and satanic pentagon and jesus loves my favorite sports team, amen.

  9. DdC says:

    US PRAISES THAI DRUG WAR!
    Sat Nov 29 2003 : From February of 2003, to 100 days later, June 2003, Thai police executed over 4,000 Thais, jailing 60,000, in a bid to meet targets set by the Thai Prime Minister to ‘complertely end all illegal drug use by whatever means necessary’.

    William J. Snipes, the regional director of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said the war on drugs has been effective.

    The US Drug War Creates Mass Death of the Akha (Thailand) 2006
    The US Drug War Creates Mass Death of the Akha From Disease and Starvation. Death Rate As High as 20% in Some Villages. Forced Relocations, No Land, No Food, No Jobs. Data Supported by Independent International Reports.

    Obama Should See the Human Cost of his Drug War in Asia
    Akha Dying Like Flies in Laos

    While Americans live in relatives security, with refrigerators full, individuals in the US Government set policies in motion around the world which bring about the deaths of thousands of people, their only fault being that they are not on America’s “protected specie” list.

    Iran to Hang 300 for Drug Trafficking
    Three hundred people convicted of drug trafficking offenses are on death row in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s judiciary said Monday. full story

    * On the Larry King Show in late 1989, then drug czar William Bennett, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2000, said he had no moral problems with beheading drug dealers -only legal ones.

    Free Speech TV Episode on Private Prisons. U2b

    Picture this: An indiscreet American college student returning from a vacation in Mexico is caught with two ounces of marijuana in his pocket. A judge is forced to sentence him to spend the rest of his life in federal prison. If this is his second offense, he will be executed.

    Could this really happen in America? Yes, if U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and his cronies have their way.

    A Lie College Students Might Want To Tell

    Marc Souder reported he made two trips last year — one overseas and one to Florida — that he did not pay for. The U.S.-Thailand Business Council paid the bill for a 16-day trip to Thailand last fall, and the Council for National Policy paid for Souder’s flight and overnight expenses to make a speech in Orlando in March 1996.

    • DdC says:

      “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
      – Justice Louis D. Brandeis

      CN BC: RCMP Busts Medicinal-pot Farm

      IS IT REALLY A WAR ON DRUGS?
      Experts point to several factors for explanation, but it’s clear that a large number of people are imprisoned for drug-related crimes. Officially declared the “War on Drugs” by President Richard Nixon in 1971, this has become the longest and most costly war in American history.

      US MA: Is The War On Drugs A Failure?

      More Reasons To End The Drug War
      US IA: EDU: OPED: Mon, 06 Jun 2011
      The commission found that for three categories of drugs — opiates, cocaine, and cannabis — consumption increased by 34.5 percent, 27 percent, and 8.5 percent, respectively, between 1998 and 2008. A 2010 survey conducted by Monitoring the Future noted an increase in marijuana consumption among high-school-age students. This directly contradicts the notion that making drugs illegal will make youth less likely to consume them. Despite one’s position on the criminalization of drug consumption, there is no denying that the drug war’s attempts to limit access and consumption have clearly failed,

    • DdC says:

      Ask NORML: Viability of the Religious Use Defense
      June 6th, 2011 By: Erik Altieri, NORML Communications Coordinator

      “Neither the trappings of robes, nor temples of stone, nor a fixed liturgy, nor an extensive literature or history is required to meet the test of beliefs cognizable under the Constitution as religious. So far as our law is concerned, one person’s religious beliefs held for one day are presumptively entitled to the same protection as the beliefs of millions which have been shared for thousands of years.”
      — Judge Jack Weinstein, New York State, 1977

      Blasphemy

  10. DdC says:

    The Ignoble Lie June 3, 2011 rougholboy.com
    It’s revealing that only one of the many political figures on the commission is currently in office. I think most high level politicians know the drug war is a failure. How could they not? However, they fear that voicing such a heresy will instantly brand them as “soft on crime” or “pro-drug” and potentially cost them their office. Better to wait until after retirement to speak the truth on such an emotional issue. It’s becoming more acceptable to question prohibitionist policies in Latin America, which has borne the worst of the fighting, but in the states, supporting the drug war is still the electorally safe route.

    Why the War on Drugs Must Be Ended
    On October 2, 1992, thirty officers from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and a slue of other state and federal agencies converged on the property of Don Scott. They shot him fatally. The land owned and occupied by Scott was a coveted plot. The National Park Service had tried to purchase the land from Scott but to no avail. When Gary Spencer, a deputy sheriff, became aware that Scott’s young bride had been arrested the previous year for possession of marijuana his interest was piqued. Spencer became convinced that Scott had drugs in his house or on his land, and if that were the case, the land could be forfeited to the government. After Scott was shot dead, the police proceeded to search the house and the land thoroughly. They found nothing. When the DA of Ventura County heard the news of this incident theL.A.Countysheriff’s department had something else to apologize for: Scott’s ranch was not inL.A.County, it was just across the county line inVenturaCounty.

    Tom Crosslin & Rollie Rohm Memorial Page
    Outside Walley-Mills-Zimmerman Funeral Home in Elkhart, mourners wait for the beginning of the funeral for Grover T. “Tom” Crosslin on Saturday. Crosslin and Rolland Rohm were killed during a standoff with law enforcement at Rainbow Farm Campground in Vandalia, MI.

  11. Servetus says:

    An article by John Lindsey-Poland at Truthout focuses on the drug war as a Trojan horse for continuing U.S. military exercises in Latin-American:

    http://www.truth-out.org/pentagon-using-drug-wars-excuse-build-bases-latin-america/1307294580

    • DdC says:

      The drug war as a Trojan horse
      for continuing U.S. military exercises… wherever.

      Exporting DEAmocracy

      At DEA, our mission is to fight drug trafficking in order to make drug abuse the most expensive, unpleasant, risky, and disreputable form of recreation a person could have.
      — Donnie Marshall, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

      Collaterally Damaged Guatemala
      Today’s headlines about another confrontation between Drug traffickers, DEA and Guatemalan security forces in Zacapa is just a repetition of the ongoing story of the ineffective and dangerous anti drug war implemented by the US in our territory and the region: the Merida Plan, Plan Mexico and Plan Colombia.

      Stop the War on Colombians!
      Are US Pot Laws the Root Cause of Mexican Drug Violence?
      U.S Soldiers Are Waking Up!
      The American Lunatic Asylum
      Againistan: Oil and Violence
      Drop Bongs Not Bombs
      Securityland Home
      Freak Trade * Free Raids
      Jeb Bush Fungus/Life of a Drug Lord
      Lobbyists War Over Billions in Antidrug Aid
      Vietnam All Over Again – The Colombia Drug War
      Shades of Vietnam
      Reimagining Latin American Democracy
      Into the Quagmire
      From Vietnam to Colombia
      Columbian schoolchildren sprayed from above
      “No Mas!”

      Exporting democracy… or something
      DWR: Pete Guither Sunday, August 24, 2008

      This is part of our global contribution. The drug war has become the preferred foreign policy approach toward controlling much of the world. We export our drug war, our tactics, and, most of all, our DEA.
      (Now with offices in Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Canada, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Paraguay, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles, Suriname, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Turks & Caicos Islands, Haiti, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Thailand, Mongolia, Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caldeonia, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis & Futuna, Western Samoa, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, Kiribati, Nauru, Philippines, Burma, South Korea, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Laos, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Greece, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Bahrain, Chad, Dijibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Oman, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Russia, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Western Sahara, Channel Islands, Ireland, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, Azores, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Gibraltar, Portugal, Principality of Andorra, Spain, Spanish Enclaves (Ceuta & Melilla), Algeria, France, Monaco, Morocco, Tunisia, Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Central African Republic, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Italy, Malta, Montenegro, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Slovak Republic, Ukraine.)

  12. darkcycle says:

    Oops…I meant Alternet…

  13. Duncan20903 says:

    I found an interesting link in the comments under the Guardian’s interview with Mr. Branson to a public opinion poll about attitudes towards re-legalization of various drugs of enjoyment.

    This isn’t new news so I apologize to those who were already aware of this almost 1 year old poll.

    http://www.encod.org/info/UK-POLL-SHOWS-70-FOR-CANNABIS.html

    70% support for cannabis re-legalization, but rather surprising to me, 30% in favor of heroin re-legalization, 36% for cocaine, and 39% for ecstasy. No mention of the respondents’ opinion of whether horseback riding should remain legal.
    ———————————————————–

    Say, if anyone wants to buy some pot or some guns online it seems you can do so at a website called Silk Road, which obviously has social value since it has Charles Schumer’s panties in a bunch:
    http://www.metro.us/newyork/local/article/880638–charles-schumer-shut-drug-site-down
    ———————————————————–

    Well someone has finally proven that cannabis is a gateway drug. He said he grows his pot just inside the gate to his yard.

  14. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    Sniffer dog resigns, prefers chasing deer to facilitating seizures.

    http://www.nbc29.com/story/14846041/augusta-county-deputies-search-for-lost-drug-dog

    Good dog.

  15. Cognitivemindfuck says:

    One minute it was there … Aren’t you guys really luck that I saved it for you:

    Posted: Monday, June 6, 2011 7:16 am
    Stewart Doreen
Midland Reporter-Telegram | 0 comments

    There are some movements afoot by reputable organizations that the United States should guard against. A liberal approach to drug usage is a bad path no matter what the “experts” try to tell us.

    This past week the Global Commission on Drug Policy boldly declared that the global “war on drugs” is an abysmal failure. We absolutely agree with the assessment on the basis of fact. After all, there are 250 million users of illicit drugs worldwide, with 25 million of them classified as dependent, and millions are involved in cultivation, production and distribution, according to U.N. estimates.

    Even in America, we barely have stemmed the flow of drugs across our borders. Narcotics officials tell us illegal drugs are even more readily available today on our streets than they were 20 years ago and beyond.

    We would have our head in the sand if we denied these disturbing numbers. We are not close to winning the battle of eliminating the illegal drug trade. This is one of our absolute failures in terms of the protection of world society. We continue to see our children, family members and friends struggle with the ravages of illegal drug use.
    But that is where we part ways with this commission. It seems the solution for this powerful organization is to throw up our hands and quit. The study urges “experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs,” adding: “This recommendation applies especially to cannabis, but we also encourage other experiments in decriminalization and legal regulation.”

    This is a misguided approach to drug enforcement and an invitation to openly allow drug use to go unabated. In other words, if you can’t beat it, use it. That’s a sad commentary for our world, yet this is the new tactic being sold to the world by the top international drug commission on the planet.

    We do know we have not done enough to curtail drug use with a strategy of criminalizing drugs and incarcerating drug users while battling criminal cartels that control the drug trade. The sad fact is we have never attacked the drug issue properly as a world community. That’s what it would take to take down the trade of illegal drugs.

    If you think this commission is a low-level effort for change in the way we fight drugs, just look at the full panel making the recommendations: Former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, former U.S. Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, British businessman Richard Branson, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, former Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss and former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
    This is a high-powered commission, but they are trying to lead us into a high-powered state of misery, crime and loss of human productivity. It will be a scary world out there over time if their recommendations take hold, and you can bet many countries are listening.

    http://www.mywesttexas.com/local_newsroom/article_30986686-3024-57b0-9ed7-23107267836b.html

  16. Duncan20903 says:

    .
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    There’s not a military general that’s worth his salt that doesn’t consider retreat and/or surrender as valid battle strategies. It’s absolutely stupid to continue fighting when he know that he’s been defeated.

    These assholes are gibbering idiots. It’s not like we’re demanding that they turn over all the 14 year old virgins for defloration as part of the terms of surrender. All we want is to be left alone.

  17. Tim says:

    This is just unbelievable:

    The idea behind Kofi Annan’s Global Commission on Drug Policy organization to legalize some types of narcotics could suit the interests of a drug mafia,, the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service believes.

    Are they really that dumb, or is this just a case of projecting what they really know about the status quo?

  18. Ed Dunkle says:

    MDMA is an obvious choice for hospice care. Someday when we are out of these dark ages, MDMA for the terminally ill will be routine.

  19. denmark says:

    You here my new friend?
    Shared this web site with someone in the airport smoking room in Salt Lake City, let’s see if that person makes it here.

  20. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    In the “so does that mean if I don’t enjoy cannabis for a period of time that I’ll lose tolerance and get more stoned?” category:

    Molecular imaging shows chronic marijuana smoking affects brain chemistry

    Chronic use of marijuana causes a decrease in brain receptors that bind with the psychoactive chemical in cannabis

    San Antonio, Texas (June 6, 2011)—Definitive proof of an adverse effect of chronic marijuana use revealed at SNM’s 58th Annual Meeting could lead to potential drug treatments and aid other research involved in cannabinoid receptors, a neurotransmission system receiving a lot of attention. Scientists used molecular imaging to visualize changes in the brains of heavy marijuana smokers versus non-smokers and found that abuse of the drug led to a decreased number of cannabinoid CB1 receptors, which are involved in not just pleasure, appetite and pain tolerance but a host of other psychological and physiological functions of the body.

    And they think less CB1 receptors is bad mmm-kay because… why? Had to go down to the molecular level to find something, now didn’t they. Oh well by next week this study will have proven that cannabis causes severe, irreversible brain damage. What about the children? Doesn’t anyone care about the children?

    • DdC says:

      Spreading old rehashed gossip isn’t any better than the original lies.

      Is Pot a Real Bummer? Study Doesn’t Think So
      November 18, 2005
      University at Albany psychology professor Mitchell Earleywine and Thomas F. Denson, of the University of Southern California, recently completed a study finding that people who smoke marijuana are less depressed than those who never smoke.

      Drug’s Effect on Brain Is Extensive, Study Finds
      March 05, 2001
      At least a quarter of a class of molecules that help people feel pleasure and reward were knocked out by methamphetamine, the study found… The study was led by Dr. Nora Volkow, associate director for life sciences at the Brookhaven Haven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., and appears in the March issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry…

      The Brain: The Origins of Dependence February 05, 2001
      Cannabis was not mentioned in the entire article…

      “This is your brain on drugs”: it’s not just an advertising line. Through fMRI as well as PET scans, neuroscientists are pinpointing what happens in the brain during highs and lows, why withdrawal can be unbearable and—in one of the most sobering findings—how changes caused by addictive drugs persist long after you stop using. “Imaging and other techniques are driving home what we learned from decades of animal experiments,” says Dr. Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Drugs of abuse change the brain, hijack its motivational systems and even change how its genes function.”

      Dope Wars – America’s Unwinnable Civil Conflict
      August 14, 2000

      Lynn Zimmer has tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to calculate exactly how many plastic vials of urine are airborne at any given moment en route to laboratories.

      Drug testing is a growth business in the US. According to one study, about half of all American workers under the age of 49 were tested for drug use by their employers in 1997, as companies enthusiastically joined America’s war on drugs.

      Ms Zimmer, a Queens College, New York, sociologist who has studied the drug war for the last 10 years, says many companies – including courier services, test tube makers and airlines – now have stakes in the battle to eviscerate drug use.

      Science, also, is benefiting from federal funding. Researchers are studying the impact of drug use on the human body, the characteristics of users, and medicines to free addicts from their habits.

      Many scientists believe the key to understanding drug addiction is to be found in the human brain. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, which supervises the science front of the drug war, says 25 years of research has brought the agency to the cusp of new discoveries for causes, prevention and treatment of drug addiction.

      Research has yielded an understanding of molecular details of every abused drug and the action they exert on the body. NIDA is receiving $690m in federal funding this year. It will award 12,000 research grants and fund a clinical trials network to determine which methods work best in treatment centres…

      In a NIDA brain-imaging centre in Baltimore, researchers are studying human and monkey brains to learn where drugs act, the neurotransmitter systems with which they act and the timing of the distribution of drugs in the body…

      Ms Zimmer is less than impressed with the brain research. “I don’t think it tells us much, nor is it clear what these pictures mean. They are bright and dramatic, but I don’t think they answer the question of why some people take too many drugs and why some don’t.

    • DdC says:

      This psychosis was debunked so many times its boring.
      Last time was on 02/08/11

      Study finds that Marijuana use may slow psychosis
      November 19, 2008
      Toke-A-Day May Keep Old Memory Functioning

      The more research they do, the more evidence Ohio State University scientists find that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by reducing inflammation there and possibly even stimulating the formation of new brain cells.

      or Study finds that Marijuana use may prevent psychosis.
      3/08/00
      The disclosure that marijuana’s prime active ingredients can shield human beings from brain damage was all over the media the second week in July, even though it wasn’t exactly news.

      or Study finds that Marijuana use may reverse psychosis.
      May 28, 1998
      Cannabis Blocks Irreversible Brain Damage

      From time to time, I say that the suppression of medical marijuana is murder. This is not quite correct. It is actually mass murder. It has caused the deaths of countless thousands of people. This article is another bit of evidence of the magnitude of the crime.

  21. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    That clown from the Rhode Island legislature that got caught with cannabis at a DUI check point a number of weeks ago and subsequently played the medicinal cannabis card tested positive for cocaine as well as cannabis in the urine he supplied for testing that day. A fucking scumbag indeed. We may not agree with much that the Know Nothings have to say but I’ll bet we can find some common ground here.

    http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2011/06/07/ri_lawmaker_due_back_in_conn_court_on_drug_charges/

  22. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    A 70 year old woman is on trial for cannabis growing despite the fact that it was a medicinal grow protected by the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act. The judge refused to let her attorney mention the MMMA as part of her defense.

    http://www.dailytribune.com/articles/2011/06/07/news/doc4dee1e6c3d1ff026193739.txt

    Despicable, morally bankrupt wastes of oxygen they are, no doubt, particularly the scumbag judge.

  23. Duncan20903 says:

    Our friend State Senator Toni Boucher published an ad hominem attack on Governor Malloy for supporting the decriminalization of cannabis in Connecticut.

    http://weston-ct.patch.com/articles/boucher-malloy-has-personal-interest-in-marijuana-decriminalization

    ≤sarcasm≥
    Wow, someone who had a loved one suffer because of the unjust laws of (some) drugs prohibition personalized the injustice. Go figure that one out.
    ≤/sarcasm≥

  24. vickyvampire says:

    Now drinking excessive Coffee may cause Schizophrenia,I thought they said Cannabis caused Schizophrenia or induced psychosis, and well we all know tobacco causes everything bad in society you name it.

    Yeah someday we might need a prescription to purchase a cup of coffee I know I sound silly can’t happen here, never did I think they would ban smoking in the excessive insane way they have either or,when I finally looked at at Cannabis info and tried a few years ago did not think either that any rational normal sane person or authority could not make it legal.

    Yeah my personal opinion anything can happen these days in this dangerous Politically Correct,irrational USA.

    Yeah I sound negative today don’t care the crazy parade in America marches on, the posts you guys have posted on arrests and other surrounding pot news need I say more it speaks for it self lately.

    http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/9314571-caffeine-drinking-make-you-hear-voices

  25. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    I was disappointed to see an article in Counterpunch that accepted that cannabis causes psychosis. Specifically dad writing about his so who smoked pot then became schizophrenic. What more evidence is needed? Post hoc ergo propter hoc, no doubt.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06062011.html

  26. Tim says:

    Here’s another ‘what about the children?’ screed:

    Most pro-liberalization reports, politicians and pundits don’t even mention minors. They simply say only people aged 18 and up could have access to government stores and leave it at that.

    Yet if adolescents and teenagers see adults openly consuming drugs, they’re going to want to also, more than ever. Forbidden fruit and all that.

  27. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    It’s all but official, Connecticut is a decrim State. 8 down 42 (43?) to go.
    http://www.ctmirror.org/story/12857/legislators-send-marijuana-decrim-bill-governor

    It boggles my mind how many people actually think decrim is against Federal law. Can’t we get Mr. Darwin to come out of retirement? Tell him to name his price!

  28. vickyvampire says:

    Wow Tim and Duncan meanwhile these idiots argue the finer points of decriminalizing half or one ounce of pot there kids in junior high or high school and college are sexting and hooking up on sometimes regular basis like congressmen wiener Oh is having a cell phone or computer a gateway drug to sex. HA HA. i have to laugh or else I would cry.Yeah seeing adults use computer in public a danger to kids ha ha.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      Man if my name had been Weiner at birth I’d have been filing the papers for the legal name change at 18. Had some business with the law firm of Weiner Weiner & Weiner in the late 1980s. Decided I liked them over Boring, Parrott and Pilger. Well it seems Mr. Parrott has flown the coop and it’s just Boring and Pilger nowadays.

  29. vickyvampire says:

    Yeah there worried about there kids please kids are into stuff that already that did not even cross my mind. and using a little Cannabis should be the least of there worries instead they put it at the top of list and ignore plenty more and blame it for causing it all and using it has a scapegoat so has to not look at other factors and causation children might be acting out.
    People always think out of sight out of mind sometimes,the opposite happens, Utah is very restrictive about nudity in general it shows in stats that a lot of Porn is purchased on line from this state forbidden fruit.

    They are screwed either way make pot forbidden more will and have tried it HELLO and make it no big deal rates of use will go up for a while then level off, panic is just reefer madness.

  30. malcolmkyle says:

    If you ever decide to back-flip down a stone staircase and land on your head, then Alcohol is obviously your best choice for protection.

    http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/video/sun-exclusive/3624149/Greatest-drunk-walk-ever.html

  31. darkcycle says:

    JEEZ, LOUISE! Here I thought I’s mostly retired. I guess the best of plans….
    Well, fellow ranters, it seems I been suckered. It looks as though I’m starting a business with a couple of me old pals from days gone by. So much for the idle life. Not my choice, mind you, my arm’s been twisted…
    Busy weekend and week, off to more meetings tomorrow, we’re already an LLC and the tax number is pending. Asha’s gettin’ into daycare soon so the timing of this works alright….
    Can somebody tell me please exactly why I’m doing this??

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      Well it’s obviously due to the cannabis induced brain damage. If you still had all your CB1 receptors there’s no reason why you’d have all this unneeded ambition.

      Oh wait a second, I’m confused. Pot gives people amotivational syndrome, right? OK, that means your pathological ambition causing you to come out of retirement must stem from not enjoying cannabis for a period of a couple of months at least. So just smoke two joints before you smoke two joints, and then smoke two more joints and you’ll be fine. Glad I could help.

      • darkcycle says:

        I did that already. It must mean there’s something wrong with me….I so DESPERATELTY want to sit on the couch and watch cartoons all day…*

        *sad note…I kinda did wanna have all my time to myself…I have no problem whatsoever being idle. There’s plenty to do out on my property. But I guess I’m a productive stoner, and doomed to the fate. sigh.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .
        I think it highly likely that the cannabis in your joints consisted of 1960s placebo pot that the hippies were smoking. You need some of that new fangled 1000x as potent, not your granny’s merry wanna if you are serious about mitigating this condition.

    • tintguy says:

      Good luck in you new adventure me bucko!

  32. Bruce says:

    Because as pilot-in-command everyone around you trusts you to make the right decision. Better to miss the other airliner and perhaps crash your own than to hit it and take out both aircraft.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      Don’t follow me, I’m lost. I didn’t even know there was a pilot in the house, err, aircraft.

    • darkcycle says:

      Perhaps it’s a metaphore for starting your own business. Perhaps it’s the expression of the subconcious recognition that Pete flew back from NY yesterday and failed to check in here. Perhaps it’s flashbacks.

  33. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    All right, I’m very impressed with myself at the moment and thought I’d share why. If you blow my argument out of the water, please be gentle. The question I’m answering below is why shouldn’t we expect cannabis use to skyrocket in the absence of stiff terms in prison for anyone charged with violating cannabis law. I answered that question by demanding an explanation of the reason why stiff prison terms did not stop the “summer of love” or the rest of the 1960s. 30-60 year prison term for violating the laws against cannabis found to be cruel and unusual punishment in 1975.
    ———————————————————–

    If stiff criminal penalties for petty possession stopped people from getting high, how does Ms. Boucher explain the 1960s? In every State in the Union petty possession was punished by a stiff term of incarceration. On December 1, 1975, in Downey v Perini 518 F.2d 1288 (1975) the 6th Circuit ruled that it was “cruel or unusual for Ohio to sentence someone to a term of 30-60 years for having and selling cannabis.”

    Downey v. Perini, 518 F.2d 1288, 1292 (6th Cir.), vacated and remanded, 44 U.S.L.W.
    3330 (U.S. Dec. 2, 1975).
    Believers in stiff punishment for cannabis need to explain why the 1960s happened, if penalties like the above were actually a deterrent.

    http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/518/1288/281974/
    quoted from link above: “This case concerns the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Petitioner was found guilty by a jury in the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County, Ohio of violating Ohio Revised Code (ORC) § 3719.20(A), possession of marijuana for sale, and ORC § 3719.20(B), sale of marijuana. This was petitioner’s first drug-related offense, and the amounts of marijuana involved were very small. Petitioner received indeterminate sentences which embodied the statutory minimum and maximum provided for each violation: 10 to 20 years imprisonment for possession for sale and 20 to 40 years for sale. It was ordered that the sentences run consecutively…”

    • Duncan20903 says:

      Yes, by 1975 the States had started reducing penalties for petty possession of cannabis, but before this conviction was vacated sentences like the 30 to 60 year sentence inflicted on Mr. Perini were standard issue.

      What the Know Nothing prohibitionists just don’t get is that the severity of the punishment is irrelevant. What makes prohibition a proven failure in the past and guarantees that it will always be a failure in the future is that the certainty of punishment isn’t there. I’ve been a cannabinoidian for 34 years. When should I expect my first arrest for cannabis possession? The fact of the matter is that I’m not unusual at all, at least for a person of my ethnic backgound.
      ————————————-
      http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/whiteb1.htm

      quoted from link above:
      “…in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Virginia was typical, the most heavily penalized crime in the Commonwealth was possession of marijuana, or any other drug.

      It led to a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years, no part of which you were eligible for parole or probation, and as to no part of it were you eligible for a suspended sentence.

      Just to show you where it was, in the same time period first degree murder in Virginia had a mandatory minimum sentence of fifteen years. Rape, a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years. Possession of marijuana — not to mention sales of marijuana with its mandatory minimum of forty years — mandatory minimum of twenty years.

      • darkcycle says:

        Duncan, you are of course correct. China never runs out of people to execute for drug offenses.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      The Know Nothing prohibitio­nists have had their way with cannabis policy for almost 100 years. How many more decades of total, guaranteed failure must our society endure before the Know Nothings will finally admit that they’ve failed, and failed miserably? A century of failure isn’t enough?

      In the 1930s authorities had the integrity to admit that the “noble” experiment was an utter failure of public policy and moved on to try to find something to work. Today people like Ms. Boucher simply do not have the integrity of character to admit the failure of the war on (some) drugs despite that failure being the 800 lb gorilla in the room.

      Insisting on backing a policy with almost 100 years of documented failure is the much worse thing for our society. It’s time to try to find something that will actually work, because the insanity of absolute prohibition is simply tearing our society apart. It is Ms. Boucher who is the menace to our society, not Cheech & Chong.

      We absolutely need to tell Ms. Boucher and her ilk to pound sand. These people don’t care about our society, regardless of their hysterical rhetoric claiming otherwise. The only thing these dastards are interested in is proving that they can force people to do their will. Wrong.

      We’re not going anywhere.

      We’re not going to quit enjoying cannabis. This item is not even on the table for discussion.

      There’s almost a century of evidence supporting the assertion that it’s a fool’s errand to try to stop us.

      Toodles!

      • darkcycle says:

        Let ’em have it Duncan. Both Barrels, then throw the damn gun at ’em!

      • IzwhereIwannabe says:

        We have another convert; just finished watching ‘Up in Smoke’ with my 12 yr old daughter as part of her drugs education ;>)

  34. DdC says:

    The mother who gave her terminally-ill daughter Ecstasy to ease her suffering

    Because of Joe Biden’s Lie.
    How these slimy creatures dismiss lives for legacy.

    United Nations Drug Report Disappointing
    Drug labelling error forces retraction…After RAVE Ax Passes
    A prestigious scientific journal is retracting a study about the effects of the drug Ecstasy on the brain because the animals used in the research were given a different drug.
    SECOND ECSTASY STUDY RETRACTED Mon, 15 Sep 2003
    Johns Hopkins scientists find new error involving vial mislabeled in the first experiment. Scientists at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have retracted a second study linking the drug Ecstasy to a certain type of brain damage because once again the wrong drug was given to lab animals.

    Andrew Weil on medical uses of Ecstasy, MDMA, by Dan Skeen
    “If it were legal I would certainly recommend it to a variety of patients,” Weil said from his home in Tucson, Arizona. “I’ve seen chronic pain disappear as a result of one session with Ecstasy. I’ve seen allergies disappear. It gives you a chance to experience your body without the chronic tension that we normally impose on it.

    “There is not a shred of hope from history or from cross-culture studies to suggest that human beings can live without psychoactive substances.” Bees drop to the ground after having nectar from certain orchards. Birds get drunk off berries and then fly into windows. After cats sniff certain plants they swing at imaginary objects. Certain range weeds will make cows shake, twitch, and stumble back for more. Elephants purposely get drunk on fermented fruits…”
    ~ Dr. Andrew Weil,
    the University of Arizona College of Medicine

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