Odds and Ends

bullet image Study Concludes Biking While High on Marijuana Isn’t Dangerous

“Hardly any coordinative disturbances could be detected under the influence of high or very high THC concentrations,” the study, published by the International Journal of Legal Medicine this week, found.


bullet image Canada Needs Permission From International Treaties to Legalize Marijuana, Says New PM Justin Trudeau

Justin Trudeau, the Liberal prime minister who won last October’s elections in Canada against the Conservative Stephen Harper, who was seeking a third term, ran in part on a promise to legalize marijuana, and said he was going to “get started on that right away,” signaling a departure from the Harper administration’s anti-pot stance.

Now, Trudeau’s said his efforts have hit a snag—international treaties. They were, uh, there during the election campaign, even if they were left unmentioned by the candidate himself.

According to the Canadian Press:

Trudeau’s plan to legalize, regulate and restrict access to marijuana is already proving a complicated and controversial undertaking on the domestic front, in part because it requires working with the provinces.

Internationally, says a briefing note prepared for the prime minister, Canada will also have to find a way to essentially tell the world how it plans to conform to its treaty obligations.


bullet image It’s time to get rid of these fossils in politics…

Maine governor blames state’s heroin problem on racist stereotypes

“These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty… these types of guys … they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home,” LePage said. “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.”


bullet image The answer is “yes.”

Is Police Corruption Inevitable in the War on Drugs?

Last week, police in Pennsylvania pulled over a car carrying three men and apparently $2 million worth of weed. Among the 247 pounds of pot and $11,000 in cash in the vehicle, investigators also found a law enforcement badge and service weapon belonging to California Sheriff’s deputy Christopher Heath, one of the men arrested and a frequent drug investigator in Northern California. Now Heath’s bosses have to figure out if the drug cases he led on their behalf will hold up in court given that one of their investigators has been outed as a corrupt cop.

Given how much money’s at stake in the drug game, the fact that police can be swayed to join the distributors they usually bust isn’t all that surprising. Yet police corruption in the drug war is often depicted by the media as a foreign phenomenon, consigned to countries with notoriously powerful cartels such as Mexico or Colombia—despite decades of high-profile examples of US authorities breaking bad, too.


bullet image Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.

Justice IG: DEA paid Amtrak employees nearly $1 million as informants

WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration paid an Amtrak employee more than $850,000 during the past 20 years to serve as a confidential informant for the agency only to receive information that was always available to the DEA at no cost, an internal Justice Department review found.

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30 Responses to Odds and Ends

  1. darkcycle says:

    This is potentially big. Lance Gloor’s Federal marijuana trial is in it’s second day. And the entire proceeding has focused on STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS.
    I don’t understand exactly why, but it seems they want to prove he violated state stautes as well. (He did not. In his case a detective faked an ailment to receive an MMJ card, then used that fraudulantly obtained card to purchase marijuana from Gloor.)
    I’m not really clear on their strategy, but they just threw their entire policy right under the bus.
    This news came via Kirsten Flor in a facebook post. If I can find out more, I’ll post again.

  2. darkcycle says:

    Wow…back again. Lots going on today. They just recaptured El Chapo. http://nation.foxnews.com/2016/01/08/mexican-president-druglord-joaquin-chapo-guzman-recaptured

  3. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin endorses re-legalization of cannabis on his way out of the Governor’s Mansion.

    In final State of the State, Gov. Shumlin endorses legalized marijuana

    /snip/
    The governor set five conditions for his signature.

    — Set marijuana tax rates low enough to eliminate the black market
    — Reserve all new revenue for drug treatment and prevention
    — Ban the sale of edibles
    — Ensure a new regulatory system that keeps legal marijuana away from minors
    — Bolster police resources to detect impaired drivers

    It is not clear, however, if any measure has majority support in either the House and Senate this year.
    /snip/

    Vermont is a weird little State. I swear that i the last month that I’ve read that the Legislature is ready for re-legalization but it would upset law enforcement, that law enforcement is ready for re-legalization but it would upset the Governor, and now going full circle the Governor is all for it but that it would upset the members of the Legislature. I acknowledge that “passing the buck” isn’t unusual in politics but it doesn’t appear to me that it’s what’s happening in Vermont. Perhaps they’re just better at covering up in Vermont.

    • B. Snow says:

      The article also mentioned that he wants to – limit the number of opiate pills a Doctor can prescribe for “routine conditions” to 10…

      I know that they have a problem with opiates & heroin abuse – But they seem oblivious to the fact it was their own previous tightening of prescription pain meds that made them so hard to acquire even at insane black market prices.

      (Which were really more like post-apocalyptic dystopian future prices) = That got people who otherwise wouldn’t have ever considered using heroin – to go to the black market & do precisely that.

      (As an additional unforseen consequence)
      They also found out that it was much cheaper than the pills and as the pill supply dwindled away, the demand for heroin was more than able to not just meet that demand.
      It was readily able to exceed normal demand, compete for existing customers and at odd times when sales slacked, but the business had to continue at relatively stable levels, (gotta to pay the bills), so…
      They went out like any good-olde *entrepreneurs* and found new customers they never would have never likely come into contact with otherwise

      Yeah for pain-med crackdowns!

      Oh wait we observed & learned that’s probably a bad thing = the *paved road to hell* thing and *good intentions* whatnot.

      Hmmm, kinda late to reverse that now I guess, But as long as they learned from their mistake.
      Oh wait – Damn, they don’t seem to have done that either… Yikes, this could easily get even worse than it already is!

      Okay then, I’m gonna go microwave some popcorn anyone else want some??
      You know what, I’ll just make an extra bag or two = I’m absolutely cwrtain somebody will eat it eventually = Even if they don’t really like popcorn.

  4. Chris says:

    One of my first experiences with public weed use in SF was someone biking by with a big ol’ joint in their mouth.

  5. Mr_Alex says:

    Paid Informants, I wonder if Randy Philbrick earned a truckload of $$$$$$$$ from the people he dobbed in

  6. DdC says:

    I lived in Central Florida and there are no suburbs. Just towns every 15 miles or so in between the cows and orange groves. Maybe the larger cities have them. She’s playing up to the DNC Neocons along with Hilary and the Banksters. Go Bernie!

    Now Trudy had his globe stolen and can’t find Uruguay? It would be hard to even try and be that pathetic. They seem to be good at it. Almost proud of it. The definition of the 21st century politician. Hypocrisy is your friend. Lies are necessary to sway the stupid people into suffering for the greater good of the corporations.

    Biking while stoned is no problem. I think that’s one of the only ways I’d ride a bicycle. We’re eat up with them. They think their 50 pound bike can argue with a 3000 pound car? I have more of a problem with the getup they seem to feel is necessary to wear, in public. In a tourist trap with UC students and many bicycles and bike paths. This is where the DMV should test all drivers.

    Racist politicians in America, the melting pot? Shirley you jest? Don’t call me Shirley.

    Is Police Corruption Inevitable in the War on Drugs? Is this a trick question? Why else would they want a drug war? In all my days I have yet to meet a cop totally enamored with the stoner culture that it would qualify as a reason. Does anyone actually believe they care about our health? I see no other reason for the drug war other than profits. Maybe some glee in putting users in cages but not as much incentive as the confiscated cash or forfeitured retirement homes bought at auction. I think when something is so corrupted as cops lying or stealing for the message it sends the kids. The question should probably be reversed to ask, are there any Police not corrupted from dealing with the War on Drugs?

    DEA paid Amtrak snitches? Are Amtrak’s such havens for dealing drugs that they feel the need to waste tax money on them? For 20 years? One might think after the first few years of getting busted that maybe this is not such a good place to deal drugs. I can’t imagine how they would know unless they were the ones selling or buying it? Makes no sense. Do they hire snitches at Bus stations? Or Airports? This snitch is enough for a search warrant or is that considered irrelevant? Oh old Joe Snitch told us, good enough.

    I don’t think they actually captured El Chapo. I think he was tired of living off grid and hiding. When he gets pretty much what he wants behind bars. I think this is going to be an extradition ploy to get him in a US max security cage. Or do it again in 6 months when he builds another tunnel.

    El Chapo Twitter

    El Chapo was caught today.
    How soon until he escapes?

    24 Hours 9%
    48 Hours 17%
    1 Week 67%
    He’s already gone 66%

    2,573 votes
    •23 hours left

    • DdC says:

      Oops Ifu. It should be…

      24 Hours 8%
      48 Hours 10%
      1 Week 15%
      He’s already gone 67%

      2,573 votes
      •23 hours left

  7. claygooding says:

    The Canadian Prime Minister can bow out of the SCT by notifying the UN in writing that they intend to drop from the treaty,,not sure of what other treaties they have or what they will require.

    If all else they can just remove all penalties for marijuana by decriminalizing it,,as the DOJ testified,,none of the US treaties makes criminalizing cannabis a requirement.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      My, my, my, how time flies when you’re being repressed. It’s been almost half a decade since Bolivia withdrew from the SCT because they were no longer willing to continue criminalizing the country’s aborigines for coca leaf chewing.

      Bolivia Withdraws from the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
      June 30, 2011

      The Bolivian government formally notified the UN Secretary General of its withdrawal from the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (as amended by the 1972 Protocol) yesterday. The withdrawal will enter into effect on 1 January 2012. At that time, Bolivia will re-accede to the Convention with a reservation on the coca leaf and its traditional uses.

      Bolivia’s step – the first of its kind in the history of the UN drug control treaties – comes after the rejection earlier this year of its proposal to delete the Single Convention’s obligation that “coca leaf chewing must be abolished” (article 49). A number of countries, including the United States, objected.

      TNI and WOLA express their full understanding and support for the decision taken by the Morales administration, with the approval of the Bolivian legislature. After its proposed amendment was rejected, Bolivia had no other choice but to withdraw from the Convention, given the need to reconcile its international treaty obligations with the country’s new 2009 Constitution, which allows for a period of four years for the government to “denounce and, in that case, renegotiate the international treaties that may be contrary to the Constitution.”
      /snip/

      • darkcycle says:

        Exactly. Treaties are only as binding as the participant countries want them to be. Unless you’re North Korea, and have no vested trading partners to cover your butt in the UN, treaties are optional. Seriously, just one look at the U.S.history of “abiding” by treaties (even those we sponsored and wrote, expressly for our benefit) tells volumes.
        What this is is a time tested cop out.
        What happens next will tell just how serious this guy is. Is he the Canadian version of President Hopey-Changey? Or is he fer reelz? Or, who really owns this political pet?

        • DdC says:

          Or, who really owns this political pet?

          White House to Host Justin Trudeau
          of Canada for State Dinner

          Canada’s Supremes Cower Under DEAth Threats
          ☛ U.S. Warns Against Liberalizing Laws on Pot
          ☛ Canadian Pot Debate Worries U.S. Officials
          ☛ U.S. Government Threatens Canada with Trade Sanctions
          ☛ Loosen Pot Laws and Face Tighter Border U.S. Warns!
          ☛ Drug Czar Talks About Tightening at Border
          ☛ Relaxed Pot Laws May Affect Border
          ☛ Canadian Pot Legislation Could Snarl Border
          ☛ Danger On Our Northern Border
          ☛ Pot Bill Could Bog Down Border
          ☛ U.S. Warns Pot Plan To Clog Border
          ☛ A Border War Over Pot
          ☛ 140 More Agents Will Be Sent To Border
          ☛ Canada, U.S. Bolster Border Security
          ☛ Potent Marijuana, Lax Laws Frustrate U.S. Border
          ☛ Police Smoke Out Cross-Border Marijuana Trade
          ☛ U.S. Faults Canada for Letting Drugs Across Border
          ☛ Marine Anti-Drug Border Patrol Suspended
          ☛ Looking Over the Northern Border
          ☛ Opposite Side of Border, Opposite Pot Issue
          ☛ Border Crossers Fall Victim to Profit-Takers
          ☛ Fired Border Patrol Agent Blames Hemp Bar
          ☛ Italy Police Battle Reefer Madness at Swiss Border
          ☛ Unmanned Planes Tested in Border Watch
          ☛ PM Says No To Looser Drug Laws
          ☛ Canada’s Supreme Court upholds anti-pot laws

        • Frank W. says:

          The situation will get “complicated” because Canadians aren’t “dusky” like Latinos.

        • DdC says:

          Appendix A
          The Single Convention
          and Its Implications for Canadian Cannabis Policy

          A series of multilateral treaties, or Aconventions,@ has evolved during this century as part of an international co-operative response to the widespread use of certain drugs which are believed to be harmful. The most recent treaties, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 and the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971, require, among other things, that party states severely restrict the production, distribution and use of various narcotics and other psychotropes, including certain forms of cannabis. The deliberate vagueness of some critical treaty provisions and the discretion permitted each party allow for a considerable variety of cannabis control regimes. As one official of the United Nations Division of Narcotic Drugs has recently written: Athe treaties are much more subtle and flexible than sometimes interpreted.@ (Noll, 1977:44)

          United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic
          in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances 1988
          is one of three major drug control treaties currently in force. It provides additional legal mechanisms for enforcing the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. The Convention entered into force on November 11, 1990. As of June 2014, there were 189 Parties to the Convention.These include 185 out of 193 United Nations member states (not Equatorial Guinea, Kiribati, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, or Tuvalu) and the Holy See, the European Union, the Cook Islands and Niue.

          Legal cannabis by country

          Possession: Illegal
          (decriminalized for personal use in small amounts)

          Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Illegal, but mostly unenforced, Bolivia, Belize, Illegal, but mostly tolerated, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Jordan, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Peru, Puerto Rico, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, U.S. Virgin Islands, Uruguay Legal, Spain, Nepal Illegal Marijuana and its derivatives, such as Hashish, are widely available throughout Nepal.

          Bangladesh
          Consumption of both opium and cannabis are traditional in Bangladesh. There are no real local laws that relate to cannabis

          Chile
          In 2005, Law 20.000 formally decriminalised private and personal cannabis use. Cultivation of marijuana, personal or collective, is legal in Chile. The Supreme Court ruled in 2015.

          Colombia
          22 December 2015
          decree legalising the cultivation, consumption, export, and import of cannabis strictly for medical and scientific purposes. 1994, cannabis has been legalized for possession of small amounts up to 22 grams for personal consumption. It is legal to possess up to 20 plants for personal consumption. Sales, Transport: Legal for medical and scientific use only.

          Jamaica
          25 February 2015, the Jamaican House of Representatives passed a law decriminalizing possession of up to 2 ounces of cannabis. legalizing the cultivation for personal use of up to 5 plants, setting up regulations for the cultivation and distribution of cannabis for medical, religious purposes and natural growth

          When It Comes To Marijuana,
          North Korea Appears To Have Liberal Policy Of Tolerance

          Hunter Stuart huffingtonpost 10/10/2013
          According to multiple reports from defectors, visitors and experts, North Korea either has no law against the sale and consumption of weed, or it has a law that is largely unenforced…

          …The writer, Darmon Richter, who lives in Bulgaria, also described how the group’s regime-appointed “minder” smoked the marijuana with him and his fellow tourists. Ritcher told The Huffington Post the guide said weed is legal in North Korea.

          Bag of pot that journalist Darmon Richter bought at a market in Rason, North Korea, for about 80 cents.

          North Korea Smokes Weed Every Day, Explaining a Lot
          Vice: Ben Tool, Illustrations: Emily Bakes January 16, 2013
          North Korea, the most tight-lipped, conservative, and controlling country in the world is also a weed-smoker’s paradise. Despite the government’s deadly serious stance on the use and distribution of hard drugs like crystal meth (which has a notorious legacy in the country), marijuana is reportedly not considered a drug. As a result, it’s the discerning North Korean gentleman’s roll-up of choice, suggesting that, for weed smokers at least, North Korea might just be paradise after all.

          ip tambae, or “leaf tobacco.”

  8. Servetus says:

    It keeps getting worse for Maine’s governor. Now someone has investigated recent heroin trafficking arrests in Maine, and in one particularly large drug case, the suspects were predominantly white:

    Last month, police announced the arrests of 15 people for dealing an estimated $3.2 million worth of heroin in the largest drug investigation in Oxford County history. Of the 15 suspects, 12 were white males from Maine; there was also one Hispanic guy and two white women from out of state, and one white woman from Maine.

    http://www.commondreams.org/further/2016/01/08/yo-guv-we-mighta-found-smoothie-still-looking-d-money-and-shifty

  9. Mouth says:

    When I was in New Orleans, I went to the mall by the sea wall and entered into a cozy shop. In the shop, they had a picture representing the evolution of the American cop: post-colonial cop to the cop you saw in 1940’s movies to the 1990’s cop and can you guess what the last cop standing was? It was the SWAT cop who dressed just like I did when I was in Iraq. I hate to imagine what the next one will look like. Quite frankly I found this picture to be totally offensive. So, if the evolution of the cop is to be militarized, then why do we let cops keep spouses and children in their homes as Pets? Clay, Kapt, Allan and I were not allowed to keep our families with us while deployed, so why do we let cops keep spouses and children in their homes? Here is a new idea: as long as the war on drugs militarizes cops, then as long as said cop is living in America, then said cop cannot legally have a spouse or a child residing in the place he calls home or sleeps in. And maybe we could make it where they are not allowed to have any at all because spouses and children are such easy targets. Look at what happened to the Mexican cop? They are 100% corrupt because they fear for their families safety. Simply allowing cops (judges, jailors, DA etc) to keep families, just makes it easier to rape and kill them (as seen in Mexico etc). The Height of our Injustice System: Letting the cop risk the lives of their loved ones. If the cop wants to play army man, then let’s let them play by the rules: they are at war technically (Terror and Drugs).

    • Windy says:

      All too often cops are more likely to be the greatest danger to their spouses and children than any outside threat. There is a far higher incidence of domestic violence by cops than by the population at large and just as often their fellow cops won’t even respond when a cop’s wife calls 911 for help.

  10. Servetus says:

    Operation Scamtrak, the DEA’s latest means of appearing effective by paying Amtrak employees for information they have no way of legally obtaining, probably won’t get the welfare-queen treatment it deserves from Congress.

    Federal employees are often at risk of being demobilized should they fail to prove a justification for their existence. Consequently, such people become very good (or sometimes bad) at rigging the system to make it appear to the casual observer that they’re useful, or will be useful henceforth. The schemes and techniques they develop are very elaborate and sophisticated. Other agencies, notably those not so involved with law enforcement, are more forthright when it comes to their own conduct.

    The Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, as examples, conduct yearly forums where officials meet with the public to discuss any issues the public may have with regard to energy or the environment. Not so the DEA, or for that matter, the FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, and so forth. While useful public service agencies fight for their very existence, law enforcement and spies answer to no one but Congress and the President. Sometimes they answer to a shadow government with which they’re affiliated, as was the case of the CIA, the mafia, and the Vatican Bank, in Operation Gladio.

    Those whom drug reformers fight don’t approve of free speech, free thought, or democracy. For them, drugs have become one of many wedge issues for skirting freedom and eroding the Bill of Rights. Thus it is only fair and proper, that free Internet speech about drugs, free Internet thought about drugs, and the democratic union of the Internet community over drugs, should bring about the destruction of such powers of repression.

  11. Mr_Alex says:

    So over the weekend Randy Philbrick decided to make SAM Oregon’s Facebook page private when I told him that Project SAM is nothing more than a religious cult posing on the street as Prohibs recruiting their victims one by one and forcing their beliefs on their new recruits and make them repeat the same garbage

    Let’s face it Parents Opposed to Pot, Linda Taylor, Julie Schauer, Kevin Sabet, David Frum, Nora Volkow, CADCA, No2Pot, Patrick Kennedy and etc are RELIGIOUS CULTS and should be liable to public scrutiny

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      Quite frankly Mr_Alex I think that you’re being terribly short sighted. Just think about this assertion: “Oregon SAM has decided that it’s public advocacy is going to take place behind closed doors.”

      Now let’s just forget about the public service they’re doing by keeping Linda Taylor out of sight. How in the freakin’ heck does a public advocacy concern operate outside of the public eye? I’m searching in every nook and cranny of my brain but I think there’s a good chance that this is the most stupid thing ever done by a cohort of brain dead prohibitionists. It’s got to be in the top 5 at least.

      This has to be the epitome of preaching to the choir. How the heck do you get people to join your secret club when you keep the clubhouse padlocked?

  12. jean valjean says:

    Servetus said: “……. such people become very good (or sometimes bad) at rigging the system to make it appear to the casual observer that they’re useful, or will be useful henceforth.”

    Classic example of this is Michele Leonhart who rigged the system with super-snitch Andrew Chambers to line up false convictions. How else would someone as inherently stupid as Michele rise to the top of a government agency?

  13. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    There’s a brand new player on the field of regulated re-legalization in the State of Washington. This never seen before player is called “Mr. Yuk” and he’s required to be affixed to the packaging of any edibles for sale. What’s next? A skull and cross bones? Meet Mr. Yuk: http://www.wapc.org/wp-content/uploads/YukSticker.jpg

    Isn’t cannabis the least likely product in the entire friggin’ world that qualifies for that labeling? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, cannabis is the Rodney Dangerfield of the governments’ naughty lists. No respect at all.

    I suppose this is a little less stupid than convicting someone for cannabis addled driving and requiring installation of an ignition interlock (dashboard breathalyzer) in his vehicle. But only a little bit less stupid.

  14. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Does anyone genuinely want to protect the children? If you do then why aren’t you trying to make it illegal for minors to play tackle football? Death, significant actual brain damage, life changing physical injuries etc, all documented yet you still send little Timmy to see the coach in the shower. Unbelievable.

    Concussions
    Before his death, teen wanted his brain studied after years of playing football

    /snip/
    When he died two years ago, at 25, those 16 years left his brain brittle and deformed, pockmarked with the clumps of protein characteristic of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The disease, researchers reported last week, was the worst they’d ever seen in someone so young.

    “It was quite widespread,” Ann McKee, co-author on a study of Keck’s brain in the journal JAMA Neurology, told NBC News. (The study does not name Keck, but he has been identified by news outlets.)

    “I have to say, I was blown away,” McKee told the Kansas City (Mo.) Star in November, before the study was published.

    “This case still stands out to me personally. It’s a reason we do this work. A young man, in the prime of his life, newly married, had everything to look forward to. Yet this disease is destroying his brain.”

    CTE can be diagnosed only after death, so it is rare — and tragic — when scientists are able to study its effects in someone as young as Keck. He is the youngest person to be definitively diagnosed with the disease, and McKee said its presence offers insight into how.
    /snip/

    I actually attended a high school which didn’t offer a football team. Instead we learned how to play soccer. Now that’s come in handy on occasions too numerous to recall that a video taped soccer game mitigated my insomnia and did so without those pesky side effects of pharmaceutical sleep aids like sleep driving when you’re naked etc. But the really weird thing is that now there are reports saying soccer also damages the brain from players repeatedly let the ball bounce off their heads for whatever reason it is that soccer players do that.

  15. primus says:

    It has been known for years that pro football players die young and that ski jumpers suffer traumatic injuries to brain and body. Many other sports have similar negative outcomes. (Boxing wrestling and soccer for example) Compared to that damage the effects of cannabis are positively benign.

    • Servetus says:

      It all comes down to money. As radical high-schoolers, we confronted our school district’s emphasis on sports that can often result in permanent injuries, and the accompanying neglect of academic subjects and grades. The answer we received, literally, was that sporting events bring a lot of money into local school systems.

      It gets really insane. I once knew a high-school sports star. For Gerry, at Minnehaha Academy, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, sports income corrupted everything. He talked about his under-the-table income that prompted him to get into sports, as he was a big guy for his age. At one point, he earned enough dark money to buy a new Corvette. He kept the car hidden in a rented garage, until his father, one day, noticed him driving around in it.

      During that time, he was subjected to injuries in high school football games. His coach would direct him to a parked vehicle, where they both got in, and then his coach would shoot up his injured knee with pain killers and cortisone. Somehow, this sounds a lot like practicing medicine without a license. But then, if parents were to find out how their sons and daughters were exploited for money in high school sports, with no regard to potential lifelong injuries, they might just prefer soccer or badminton to something like American-style football.

      • DdC says:

        Unofficial Self-Appointed Cannabist for the SF Giants

        NFL’s Buzzkill

        The NFL Should Combat Concussions with Cannabis

        It seems marijuana could be good for your brain.
        Most “drugs of abuse” such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine and nicotine suppress growth of new brain cells. However, researchers found that cannabinoids promoted generation of new neurons.

        Marijuana Lowers the Risk of Domestic Violence
        The use of alcohol significantly increases one’s likelihood of becoming either a perpetrator or a victim of a violent act, including acts of intimate partner violence.

        NFL: 3 In 10 Ex-Players Face Alzheimer’s, Dementia
        The NFL estimates that nearly three in 10 former players will develop debilitating brain conditions, and that they will be stricken earlier and twice as often as the general population. The disclosure comes in data the league prepared for its proposed $765 million settlement of thousands of concussion lawsuits.
        * NFL: Thousands of ex-players face cognitive woes
        * Video: NFL lifts payout cap on concussion suit
        * League of Denial … – PBS
        * Ex Bears QB Jim McMahon opens up about dementia
        * Broadway Joe Namath: I have brain damage
        * Timeline: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis
        * NFL players donating their brains to science
        * Brain stimulation helps ward off dementia in seniors
        * NFL Dementia
        * NFL Concussions Mega-Lawsuit Claims League Hid Brain Injury

  16. DdC says:

    David Bowie dies of cancer at 69 – BBC News
    http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35278872

    In 1976, Cameron Crowe interviewed David Bowie for a cover story. http://rol.st/1P2gPAl

  17. InKushWeTrust says:

    Alcohol kills in many ways:

    This may sound like a joke but apparently it’s a very serious problem. At least 51 people died in Amsterdam canals over the past three years, most of them gentlemen who lost consciousness and toppled forwards while relieving themselves after a night on the town.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMPm3RnRBuk

  18. DdC says:

    I think this might have been posted earlier but I can’t find it to tack on so here it is again…

    The Results of This Marijuana Study May Leave You a Bit Grumpy
    The Results of This Motley Foolish Study May Leave You a Bit Grumpy

    Fans Too Relaxed for Fights

    Cannabis Helps Keep Fans Calm
    Police also claimed that the availability of cannabis in the Netherlands probably helped to defuse any violence. Scores of ticketless England fans gathered in coffee shops in Eindhoven, where cannabis is sold and smoked, to watch the game, greeting the defeat with mild disappointment and unusually, gentle applause. “It (cannabis) may have helped relax them,” Mr Beelan added. “Even the hooligans enjoyed the party – and they told our officers. There were lots of things for fans to do and everybody had a good time.”

    Basketball Riots in L.A., Soccer Thugs in Europe

    Euro 2000 Soccer Violence Could Vanish in a Puff

    Aggression and Violence in Sport

  19. John says:

    Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt is gathering evidence to prove “Colorado Marijuana” is wreaking havoc on his state by sending out surveys to Kansas Law Enforcement.

    http://www.westword.com/news/kansas-attempting-to-prove-colorado-marijuana-is-wreaking-havoc-on-state-7484055

    We’ve all grown accustomed to seeing scare quotes around “medical” marijuana, but this is the first time I’ve seen the scary quotes used on Colorado marijuana “legalization”.

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