Open Thread

Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days.

I’ve been a judge at the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival in Palatine, Illinois. It wraps up today, and this afternoon I’ll be presenting the awards along with the other two judges.

It’s been an excellent Festival with a great selection of independent films this year.

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46 Responses to Open Thread

  1. Matthew Meyer says:

    Films and whiskey…sounds right up your alley, Pete!

  2. divadab says:

    Anyone following the Washington State Medicinal dispensary raids? What’s going on?

    • Howard says:

      Well, one thing that’s going on is that the DEA continues to hone its renegade pedigree. They enter legitimate businesses, trash the place, steal assets, and terrorize business owners and employees. And we (meaning the huddled tax paying masses) fund the whole thing. Isn’t that just great? I’ve been curious about probable cause with respect to these raids. I found this quote from DEA spokeswoman Sarah Pullen in an article from four years ago about raids in California;

      “I can’t get into details as to the probable cause behind the warrants except for the fact that they’re dealing with marijuana, which is illegal under federal law.”

      See that neat, snide little trick? She doesn’t really have to show any probable cause because in the last part of the quote she reveals all the probable cause that is needed — “marijuana”.

      Since this is an open thread, I have a question. How many states will have to decriminalize/legalize cannabis before the Feds back down from enforcing cannabis prohibition? I’ve read wildly disparate answers to this question. I realize until it actually happens, it’s all speculative. Just wonder what the commenters on this site think.

      • claygooding says:

        I think it is more about hung juries than states,,population wise over 1/2 the citizens have access to medical marijuana or live in a state next to one that does,,and the sky hasn’t fallen yet.
        During alcohol prohibition it was the failure to get convictions that finally forced the feds to back down.

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
          .

          I thought it was because at least a dozen States repealed on Election Day 1932. That followed Massachusetts repealing by ballot initiative on Election Day 1930. Combine that with the fact that better than 70% of the people were in favor of repeal and the Federal law against commerce in drinking alcohol was just plain unenforceable.

          I’m very eagerly looking forward to Election Day 2014. I know that lots of cannabis reform advocates want to wait until Election Day 2016 but I don’t think this is something that can be put on the back burner for another 2 years.

        • Windy says:

          “I don’t think this is something that can be put on the back burner for another 2 years.”

          I am in complete agreement with that statement!

      • Jean Valjean says:

        Sara Pullen has form as a drug war PR specialist. Here’s some of her handy work from 2007 in presenting the “threat” of mmj, complete with pictures. Meanwhile her boss Ralph W. Partridge, DEA Acting Special Agent in Charge (of raiding dispensaries), stated “Today’s enforcement operations show that these establishments are nothing more than drug trafficking organizations bringing criminal activities to our neighborhoods and drugs near our children and schools.”

        What do the pictures reveal about these “drug trafficking organisations?” They show exactly what one might expect to see in a business, ie product and money (in a till!). Sneak a gun into the picture and spread the bullets out in the foreground for maximum effect,and then follow this up with a shot of untidy weed smoking and 2+2 equals so much more than 4. Nice work Sara but what will you do when this gig finishes?
        http://tinyurl.com/mrjvm4b
        oh and don’t miss the shot of the “eatables” ie candy and chocolate bars…that so infers “hooking the kids…” doesn’t it.

    • scott says:

      Best post I could find on the WA Medical Dispenseries bust is Feds Raid WA Medical Pot Dispenceries

    • DdC says:

      Anyone following the Washington State Medicinal dispensary raids? What’s going on?

      Gullible Americans…

      We don’t have to wonder very far about why prohibition has lasted since 1937. We have on one side, dung worriers ignorance perpetuating the war for the prisons and Wall St. and we have ignorance perpetuating the war for Ganja profits.

      Right cheer in river city…

      Think about segregation as a states right. Are you really saying state law should trump the Feds or in this case the SCotUS? State MMJ laws are bogus profiteers and politicians greed works, grabbing what they can get for themselves and the rest be damned and the consequences be damned. Only CA Compassionate Use Law was written to keep people out of jail. Especially sick people no one thought they would bust, until they did. That was before Raich went to the Supreme Court and they decided anything over a reasonable amount was commerce and that anything sold or given away was commerce. Keep this fucking ignorance up. I’ll be here to shoot it down. Don worry, be happy… You want to make it legal commerce you have to remove it as a scheduled drug. Since Wall St runs the Ganjawar and Liberterrorists are as greedy as republicans I don’t see anything changing soon. In that case I’ll stick with my legal homegrown and let the profiteers take their chances. At least in CA we have no worries over state leo’s as the MMJ weirdo laws permit. Do those pushing states rights over feds really believe if 40 states wanted to bring back slavery the feds would have no say in the matter? This crooked Ganjawar is the problem, why perpetuate it tossing vulnerable sick people into the cages for having more than the appeasers gave them limiting amounts and conditions to use? Ignorance that is almost exercised to keep it smelly and fresh. Especially from the silent exploits, exerts, self proclaimed experts. Bullshit. Stop feeding the red herrings after midnight. You know how they get! instead of crawling back into the comfort of denial wearing blinders of obedience insulting me and others with silent rejection but never ever never a counterpoint or evidence. Just say NO and wonder around aimlessly another 75 years knowing a few will be wealthy over it while thousands will still be in jeopardy. At least the dung worriers get paid for their ignorance. Why do appeasers volunteer? Hey lets toss around some more buzzwords like liberty and rights and pretend we live in a free country. Its a country of laws, Ignorance provides us with a citizenry who hasn’t the ability to distinguish between right and wrong so they live on what is legal and illegal to determine it. Moneysluts write the laws. Is that really that hard or just too painful for the flag jerkers to believe?

      Thou Dost Protest Too Much, Methinks
      http://i50.tinypic.com/2822gif.jpg

      Follow CA or Bust’ get over it!

      • Howard says:

        DcD, One major factor that continues to concern me about the somewhat loosening of cannabis laws is this: Too much is being given away for the right to the grow/posses/give away/use cannabis. Look how the bureaucrats have rushed in, drooling at the thought of how draconian they can make the rules. And look at how agreeable too many in the cannabis community have been as these rules and regulations have been drawn up. It’s almost like, “Give us back the plant, then beat us all you want. Tax the hell out of us. Restrict us in any way possible, in ways that make no sense. Thank you for the daily 40 lashes I will receive now that cannabis is back in my possession”. We get “experts” like Mark Kleiman and his haughty finger waving. We get Maggie Hassan refusing to sign NH’s med cannabis bill unless the home growing provision is removed. Colorado Springs says, “No cannabis here, screw you voters”. For this we are to be ‘thankful’? Again, too much is being given away for a right that should have never been tampered with in the first place. These folks have the right idea;

        http://americansforcannabis.com/

        • Howard says:

          I meant DdC not DcD, sorry ;).

        • DdC says:

          Sorry Howie, I don’t usually waste my time on people who can’t copy 3 simple initials. Although you do seem to have a grasp of what I had been posting so I’ll make an exception. State MMJ initiativess are written by politicians to sabotage the rights of the citizens over the profits of their campaign financiers. Keeping renewable resources out of the profits of the status weird Wall St multi national corporations with no sovereignty or even allegiance to Americans. Those desparate for medicine or those desparate for profits are selling out everyone as you said. It makes no sense because it is not supposed to make sense. It is supposed to make dollars. Simply put until the CSA is over turned freeing all 50 states and territories. No state law will have teeth to sell any amount of Ganja. States rule individuals so only CA has no limits or conditions the politically written MMJ laws have. Placing the user in a catch 22. Since no one can grow such small amounts they are forced to break federal law and buy it. Or break state law possessing more than permitted. Big Pharma is set to eliminate the “reason” for dispensaries with their sublingual spray. Either with US schwag or as they use English Ganja for their Canadian market I believe. Either way it keeps it illegal for us to sell and it keeps hemp classed as a schedule#1 narcotic. Yes Virginia, there is Fascism and that Walmart flag people are jerking is made in China from Iraqi crude oil. Buying bullets to shoot at American kid soldiers who only signed up because they couldn’t find a job due to them being outsourced. Hemp could replace the fossil fools jobs and create an alternative market for food, fuel, fiber and FARMaceuticals. But not as long as the people chase red herrings and Wall St is pulling the strings of DC.

        • Howard says:

          Sorry DdC, but I don’t usually waste my time on people who intentionally misspell my name — it’s Howard, not Howie.

          Regarding your money angle, are there those in the cannabis reform community starting to eat their own?;

          http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/07/28/Big-Marijuana-lobbys-against-full-pot-legalization/UPI-69901375042275/?spt=hs&or=tn

          If that link is so long it doesn’t load properly, search ‘Big Marijuana’ lobbys against full pot legalization. Maybe not as insidious as your examples, but not a positive development.

        • War Vet says:

          DdC –repeal the CSA. Simple if you believe in this theory that I’ve been typing about for years and even writing about in short stories. The CSA is as follows: The CSA created illegal drugs by creating the prohibitions of said illegal drugs. Illegal drugs are sold illegally . . . selling creates money: illegal money called drug money . . . illegal drug money finances crime, war, terrorism etc . . . the CSA law automatically creates the black market and funding for terrorism/crime, therefore the CSA is the physical embodiment of the Black Market and the funding of terrorism/crime and thus the CSA is an illegal law needing to be taken away since it forces police officers to be Muslim Terrorist Sympathizers (don’t veer off –it’s logical). (if you helped a Nazi during War, would you not be labeled a sympathizer?). The CSA law is treason and cops get paid to commit treason . . . the CSA law hurts the Military’s hemp usage, therefore cops get paid to be saboteurs

          The War on Drugs is why 9/11 and our War on Terror happened (is a terrorist with no money a terrorist?) and therefore it requires all federal and state and local LE to be Muslim Terrorist Sympathizers because of the CSA’s defaulted program to fund terrorism . . . therefore the CSA laws enables terrorists and influences other nations to keep their own version of the CSA laws and the U.N. Single Laws. Because Benghazi, U.S.S. Cole, Kenya/Tanzania Embassy Bombings, Iraq and Afghanistan etc etc are mostly or was mostly financed by drug money . . . LE knows the CSA creates drug money and they know drug money finances gangs and terrorists and cops/Feds obey the CSA laws, therefore cops/Feds get paid to create crime/terrorism/war by cause and effect . . . since they know this, we have physical evidence (based on 1993 WTC bombing etc etc) that American police officers collaborated with Osama Bin Laden via the consequences of the CSA’s effects (hence the popular phrase: Hey Hey DEA, how many U.S. troops did you kill today . . . or No greater Ally to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 hijackers than the NYPD).

          Treason during War is illegal and therefore being a DEA agent or a police officer is illegal according to Federal Law. Do you think treason is illegal?

          Federal Law allows the DEA to globetrot, therefore Federal Law requires (based on DEA precedents) all CSA obeying Law Enforcement agencies to be deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. If a cop gets paid money and he’s not been deployed to Bagram or Fallujah as a cop, he has committed fraud for purposely taking money for incomplete work . . . do we not expect our cops to go after drug money and crime? Isn’t a drug money financed terrorist groups or insurgencies a part of criminal activity? Then why are we not demanding cops be deployed to fight terrorism if terrorists are using the black market and selling drugs and receiving illicit funds?

          Do you have any ideas on how to remove the CSA? Should we not remove it on multiple grounds? I have physical proof that U.S. soldiers are in Afghanistan or were in Iraq fighting drug money, therefore any law creating drug money is a law followed by Muslim Terrorist Sympathizers by consequence only . . . but since cops know Al Qaeda and the Taliban etc sell drugs because drugs are illegal by the laws cops enforce, cops intended on 9/11 to happen and the physical evidence proving their intentions is the fact drug money destroyed people and objects before 9/11 and continues to destroy after 9/11, thus intended results based on knowledge of the consequences, while continuing down that path. Do you have physical evidence proving America is at War and is it true Afghanistan is a real country loaded with opium? I’ve written to news papers and politicians allover the U.S. and Canada telling them about the Law’s effects on terrorism and how the CSA law is an obvious Federal Violation because the Law was intended to fund crime, terrorism and murder –all of which are illegal under Federal Law . . . it’s illegal DdC to fly a plane into a NYC building on purpose . . . it’s illegal to help terrorists in America and outside of America. How many cops want to know that they are the reason why U.S. Vets are in wheelchairs with no arms and no legs . . . how many judges want to know that they are the main reason why airplanes crashed? How many politicians like to know that they are the reason why the War on Drugs cost well over $3 trillion dollars in one decade alone (the Cost of the War on Terror is the exact same thing as the Cost of the War on Drugs because the name of the war game is: fight drug money . . . fix drug money destruction and drug money corruption etc).

          Are you one of those Americans who are in denial of the logical consequences of the CSA law being a Muslim Terrorist Sympathizer ploy (based on known consequences and going ahead with the law: hence ploy based on willingness to go ahead with the CSA law regardless of the known effects)? I don’t think you are in denial. If I threw someone off a cliff thinking they would fall to their death, is that not intentional on my behalf . . . If I did it again and again, would it not be a ploy to somehow get people to that dreaded cliff? Hence cops intend on terrorism financing. And if it was angry Canadians who did 9/11, I’d obviously call the Cops: Canadian Terrorist Sympathizers. The CSA laws are illegal DdC because it forces cops and Feds alike (and all judges, attorneys, politicians who don’t strike the CSA down or whom obey the CSA) to work on behalf of Al Qaeda etc based on the consequences of the law and the known effects.

          To remove the CSA law is to remove the drug black market (or at least the vast majority –hence there is still moonshine, but it ain’t significant when it comes to funding gangs and war lords . . . shine ain’t cost America trillions of dollars to go after modern day Kentucky moonshiners). Even the NY Times and Brown University admit that the War on Drugs has cost America well over $2-3 trillion dollars in just one decade alone (can you prove the War on Terror cost America money? Is not fighting drug money in Iraq the same exact thing as the War on Drugs . . . do we not call the carnage in Mexico or Columbia the War on Drugs as well?). To invent the CSA is to invent the drug black market, hence the CSA is the physical embodiment of the drug black market/terrorism funding and Federal Law prohibits making laws that create black markets and funding for America’s enemies . . . yes, the prohibition of theft does fund crime via stolen goods sold on the street, but hardly anyone pays to be robbed or raped or murdered . . . people pay money for drugs –not to be robbed, molested and beaten to death, hence those crimes obviously need to be prohibited because they create victims and thus are logical laws. Cops got paid to make sure bombs in Boston blew up . . . it’s illegal to pay for murder or to pay someone money so they can help murder.

        • Windy says:

          To sign the petition, the app wants access to my FB account friends and places list, and I refuse to give that permission, so my signature will not be counted.

      • Tony Aroma says:

        Slavery or segregation are not the same thing at all. A state can grant additional rights not granted by the Constitution, but they cannot take away rights protected by the Constitution. So it would seem to me that mj legalization would be consistent with the former rather than the latter.

        • DdC says:

          Tony, NO state law can trump the Constitutional authority of the Federal laws no matter how bogus they are. Not slavery, segregation or growing pot. What is not granted to the Feds is given to the states. Period, that’s it. Feds have been granted jurisdiction over commerce, including Ganja. Why is that so difficult? Right or wrong have no connection to legal and illegal.

          ☛Slavery or segregation are not the same thing at all.

          No one said it was. What the MMJ sellers are trying to do is disregard the Civil Rights Act and implement their own segregation or slavery as their right. Its still state vs feds and the constitution only grants feds authority for specific laws due to their potential of becoming a dictatorship was the original thought I believe. But laws granted to the Feds are equally protected by the Constitution against states oppression, such as segregation or selling illicit substances. So your statement would be right if the Feds came in to protect growers from state oppression. But not as it stands. The states can not change Supreme Court decisions or tweak them for some states and not all. Obama can remove cannabis as a schedule#1 narcotic along with Hemp, but not just for a few states. Until that is pressed we will continue perpetuating the war and both sides fighting it will get paid. By us in the middle.

          ☛A state can grant additional rights not granted by the Constitution, but they cannot take away rights protected by the Constitution.

          Say what? Do you have an amendment with that or is it just conversation with no bearing on reality like it sounds?

          ☛So it would seem to me that mj legalization would be consistent with the former rather than the latter.

          It seems on paper bumble bees can’t fly, so what? What it seems is moot since segregation and slavery are both not only atrocious acts, but federally illegal. If a state tried to implement them then the Feds would be on it as they should be. Same with moonshiners. I’m sure many states would like to legalize it but then they would jeopardize giving the farmers back what rockefeller stole with the booze prohibition. Their ability to distill their own tractor fuel, as ethanol, with crop remnants. Fat chance.

          Al Capone and Watergate

    • Windy says:

      I think someone posted the link to this article on the previous thread, I think that is where I got the link, anyway, I posted it to FB, Digg and Twitter:
      New Report Finds Obama Spends $180K Per Day Undermining State Medical Marijuana Laws
      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steph-sherer/obama-medical-marijuana-cost_b_3443095.html?

  3. divadab says:

    Prohibitionist screed from Canada – using Mark Kleiman’s fuzzy logic and misrepresentations as “evidence”. Good comments on a bad article from an out-of-touch prohibitionist.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/whats-justin-trudeau-been-smoking/article13464869/comments/#dashboard/follows/

  4. claygooding says:

    I am sure dark is up to date but the last I heard they are seizing money and pot but not arresting anyone. More legal armed robbery sounds like to me. I would have to empty my cash register every hour to keep as much as I could for my re-coup after the feds leave.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      Well they did the same in Montana 2011 but not very many months ago indicted and convicted those people. The people involved in that bullshit action had a damn good case for an entrapment by estoppel defense but to the best of my recollection only 1 guy mentioned that in Court. The current victims of the Feds don’t have even that argument.

      Can I simultaneously admire the people who are putting their necks on the line to provide medicine for the sick and also believe that they’re dumber than a sack of rocks for doing so? You’d better believe it.

  5. Pete bulkner says:

    Y’all b bitches , I’m NSA Feds favorite snitch, drop the ball in front of y’all .wishing for ya druggie to fall. Fuck cannibis y’all. . Fagggots

    • thelbert says:

      anger and hate is not the way to make friends. we share the spliff down to the ends. the vapors make our brains stronger: we’ll not take your bullshit any longer.

    • allan says:

      and more from the elite of the prohibitionist intelligentsia.

      Really PeteB? C’mon admit it, you’re really 7, right? No adult, grown up, m-a-n could be such a public ninny.

      Ya gonna throw a tantrum next? Need your blankie and a nap?

      You’re outta your league Bulkner, go play tee-ball with the other kids.

    • Matthew Meyer says:

      I miss you wiggles.

  6. Cmurua says:

    Interesting video of an informant blatantly planting drugs in a business owners shop.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQwZYYUsVJI&feature=youtu.be

  7. claygooding says:

    Calvina’s effort to have the marijuana ad pulled has backfired on her,,more people are seeing it now than would have seen it had they let it run. MPP gets their funding back and got at least triple the coverage expected,,,ain’t that a win?

  8. Goblet (helion) says:

    Alan, here:
    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/28/marijuana-ad-pulled-from-jumbotron-at-nascar-brickyard-400/

    so it looks like Grazie Media takes moral advice from alleged child abusers (DFAF/Straight Inc.)…

  9. DdC says:

    Who Orchestrated the Prohibition of Marijuana?
    By Fred Gardner / AlterNet July 25, 2013 excerpt

    West posits a leadership role for Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the secretary of the treasury under Roosevelt from 1934 to 1945. (After FDR died, Harry Truman replaced Morgenthau with the above-mentioned Fred Vinson.) Morgenthau was well aware of the Nazi threat and the strong isolationist sentiment that could keep the administration from intervening on behalf of European Jews. He was tracking the expanding network of Nazi front groups in this country, and the German-American Bund. There were German-American hemp farmers in contact with Henry Ford, a leading anti-Semite. Morgenthau must have suspected they were associated with the Bund and wanted to keep tabs on them. As secretary of the treasury, Morgenthau was in charge of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which had law-enforcement and domestic-surveillance capabilities. Its commissioner, Harry Anslinger, was an ambitious bureaucrat out to maximize his agency’s power. West’s theory is that Morgenthau orchestrated the federal prohibition and that Anslinger’s railing against marijuana was part of the play.

    Al Capone and Watergate

    Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes”

    Why Do You Think They Call it DOPE?
    * Cannabis Hemp: The Invisible Prohibition Revealed
    * The Elkhorn Manifesto
    * Marijuana and Hemp: The Untold Story
    * The Nation of Apathetic Puppets By John Pilger
    * Maintaining Dysfunction

  10. allan says:

    too long for me on my dial-up modem, but gets 2 thumbs up from Jack Cole, Norm Stamper (LEAP) on the Alex Jones Show:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSmxyDu5tlQ

    • darkcycle says:

      It’s entirely possible, but looks like much conjecture is involved. I think Jack’s version of events is safe, since he tried to avoid the same conjectures and focused instead on provable facts. It’s an interesting take though.

  11. Eye/candy/on/location says:

    ♥ Welcome to The Marijuana Models™ ♥ We are a community of female Medical Marijuana users and we’re here to spread awareness about the positive nature of medical marijuana and show the beauty of the women who use it. ♥ PEACE, LOVE, 420 ♥

    http://themarijuanamodels.com/

  12. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    I’ve been thinking that we should remember what is in Title 21, Chapter 13, Subchapter 1, Part E – Administrative and Enforcement Provisions, Section 885(D) of the Federal Controlled Substances Act. (for crying out loud do these people get paid by the flippin’ word and a fat bonus for subsections, parts and chapter?)

    (d) Immunity of Federal, State, local and other officials

    Except as provided in section 2234 and 2235 of title 18, no civil or criminal liability shall be imposed by virtue of this subchapter upon any duly authorized Federal officer lawfully engaged in the enforcement of this subchapter, or upon any duly authorized officer of any State, territory, political subdivision thereof, the District of Columbia, or any possession of the United States, who shall be lawfully engaged in the enforcement of any law or municipal ordinance relating to controlled substances.

    linky

    There are far too many people who don’t understand that it isn’t illegal for State or local employees to engage in the mundane bureaucratic duties required to implement and administer their State’s laws.

    • claygooding says:

      I suppose all any state law officer has to worry about is if enough citizens bitch enough to get them fired.

  13. John says:

    DEA Helicopter crashes in Kentucky while looking for marijuana.

    http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/Helicopter-crash-in-Breathitt-County-217394171.html

    • Windy says:

      I will probably be vilified by many for this opinion but I don’t care; IMO, it is too bad that the passenger and pilot survived that crash, we could do with a whole lot fewer fed and State enforcers of unconstitutional fed “laws”, and I’m glad the chopper was a total loss.

      • thelbert says:

        it’s sad that some in law enforcement are enemies of the constitution. is it something in the coffee that makes them hate “we the people”?

  14. Servetus says:

    Car & Driver magazine notes that Ohio has been added to the list of states that make it a felony to have hidden storage compartments in automobiles. Pennsylvania, California, Georgia, Illinois, and Utah have similar secret compartment laws. C&D notes that Chrysler leads other car manufacturers in default storage spaces that can be used for concealment.

    An ACLU representative suggests that the real goal behind the law is to give prosecutors an additional charge to throw at defendants, thus boosting the government’s bargaining power when negotiating pleas.

    http://tinyurl.com/ouckj8v

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      If someone gets pulled over after making a delivery and the dog sniff finds the secret compartment in the now “clean” car they don’t have to let the person go on the sniggling technicality of being not guilty at the time of the search.

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