Drug WarRant

Thanks to Jay for alerting me to the fact that Tommy Chong has a blog!
And in this blog, he has announced his candidacy for the position of Drug Czar

Tonight is a special night because I am announcing (to
my friends) that I am running for the office of Drug
Czar of America. Now i realize that the office of the
Drug Czar is an appointed one by the winning party in
the White House but because my chances of being
appointed are very slim and almost non-existant I am
actually going to campaign like every other politician
and ask for your votes.

Sounds like a great plan. And I can guarantee that Tommy Chong would do a better job of serving the American people and the United States Constitution than John Walters. In fact, I could guarantee that he’d do a better job than any previous drug czar. Of course, for that matter, an igneous rock would do a better job of that than any drug czar we’ve had.
So when they distribute the ballots (or whatever they use), vote Chong for Czar.

There was a nice little moment during the Academy Awards last night. Host Ellen Degeneres was doing a little comedy bit involving vacuuming the carpet in front of the audience (and making the celebrities lift their feet and dresses) when she “happened upon” an object on the floor. (I’m paraphrasing from memory here)

What’s this? Rolling papers?
Wonder who these belong to?
Ahh — must be the band.

And she tossed them down into the orchestra pit.
The bit got a nice comfortable laugh from the audience. It was a simple throw-away moment that said “It’s funny, but it’s no big deal — and of course, the band would be smoking pot. Who wouldn’t find that… normal?”
So why am I blogging this? Because it’s one little piece of tangible evidence that the constant propaganda attempts by the ONDCP to demonize marijuana and marijuana users are simply not working. People know. It’s no big deal. (And Ellen’s bit was on one of the most widely watched television shows in the world.)
Now the drug czar would probably point to this as proof that Hollywood glamorizes drug use, but that’s not it. It’s simply that Hollywood, along with much of America, is not buying the all the propaganda.
And remember Tucker Carlson’s recent take-down of Souder?

Carlson: Yeah. OK. I’m not endorsing drugs, but I know a lot of casual marijuana users, so, that’s wrong.

There are too many of us telling the truth out there. Propaganda will sway some, and that’s unfortunate, but most of America does not believe that a pack of rolling papers endangers civilization.

You’re reading a post written on my new MacBook Pro laptop. Thanks so much to everyone who contributed to the laptop fund. Your support covered a significant portion of the cost, and really helped me out.
This thing is a real beauty. Since I can’t invite you all over to see it, I thought I’d at least share a photo with you.

There seems to be a (hopefully temporary) problem with comments. Some are missing. Some generate error messages, and most have the poster’s name, but no text. I’ve contacted the tech staff for Radio Userland and hope they’ll have a fix soon.
In the meantime, if you’ve got comments to make, feel free to stop by the messageboard, which is working fine.
Update: I’ve been informed that the problem has been fixed. It appears that the missing comments have been restored, but since they had to go to a backup, we lost the few comments that were added tonight during the problem. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Feel free to comment away again.

Tanya has already done a good job on this one, but it so annoyed me that I just can’t resist.
Check out this ridiculous story — and be sure to watch the video. Basically, you’ve got an truth-challenged researcher who has co-opted the staff of a TV station who appear to have the combined IQ of a turnip. This addiction specialist, who must have studied ethics under Andrea Barthwell, is looking for subjects for a bizarre research plan, and the TV station is more than happy to cooperate because it allows them to show stock video of grandma smoking pot. The journalistic errors in this piece are too numerous to count, including referring to some student they interviewed on the street as an expert, and once misquoting “cannabis dependence” as “cannabis independence.”

There are many Americans who smoke marijuana, a shredded mixture of green-brown flowers, stems and leaves of the hemp plant. […]
Many people don’t know that it’s also addictive.

So yes, they turned to the “scientist” who was using them — Barbara J. Mason, professor at Scripps Research Institute and co-director of Pearson Center for Alcoholism and Addiction Research

Addiction expert Dr. Barbara Mason of Scripps Research Institute said, “People have become dependent on cannabis.”

Well, that clears that up. Why haven’t we heard about it?

“One of the reasons we don’t hear much about it is because there are no treatments specifically for cannabis dependence.”

Ah, yes, if only there was a treatment for cannabis dependence. Then we’d finally be able to see that it exists.
I turned to my friend George, who has often helped me in the past, and he said:

There’s really no mystery about it. The existence of cannabis dependence is well established, as well as chocolate dependence, coffee dependence, etc., etc. The reason you don’t hear much about it is that it just isn’t that big a problem. The Institute of Medicine found that the percentage of those who showed any dependence for marijuana was dramatically lower than dependency for tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs, and that for those who are dependent, the withdrawal symptoms are “mild and subtle.”

So I asked George if he could describe marijuana dependency. He agreed and relayed a conversation between he and his roommate Tom that summed up marijuana dependency perfectly:

George: “I could really go for a bowl right now.”
Tom: “Me, too. But we’re all out.”
[pause]
George: “Bummer”

Wow, this cannabis dependency truly is a horrible problem. Maybe we should have a hempfest or a telethon to raise money to help these poor people who are dependent.

Thank God, addiction specialist Barbara Mason is on the case. She’s come up with a solution.
Take a pill.
She’s putting together a study using paid volunteers to take Gabapentin to ease the symptoms of their marijuana dependency.
That means that they’re looking to see if Gabapentin could make the marijuana withdrawal symptoms mild and suble.
But…
…
You know, I could really go for a Gabapentin right now.
Update: Turns out Gabapentin has a history of controversy. Back in 2002, a whistle-blower blew the case wide open in the New York Times — seems the drug companies were using all sorts of techniques to get Gabapentin (Neurontin) prescribed for dozens of off-label medical conditions — with no evidence that there was any value (and some suggestion that there could be harm).
Any way you look at it, the idea of taking a pill to deal with the relatively harmless effects of marijuana is simply insane. And as TomK notes in comments, if the person using marijuana is self-medicating for a psychological condition, switching to Gabapentin could conceivably be a dangerous idea, since there is some question as to Gabapentin’s connection to suicide risk.
More here, including the fact that Pfizer was forced to pay a record $240 million fine for fraud (plus more to settle a criminal case) for misbranding this drug.

Link

The assassins struck as lunchtime traffic congealed.
Running up alongside the car, they blasted through the windows of the white Mazda. Trapped in traffic, trapped in their car, the passengers never had a chance.
Only after the shooting was over did the gunmen realize their intended targets were in another white sedan stuck in the same traffic jam.
Footage from a traffic camera shows them run forward and fire through the windows of the Honda. Darting away through the stationary cars, the hit men run to a waiting motorcycle and escape.

The gunmen were members of the infamous Absolut family — a Cali-based vodka smuggling ring. The target was the head of a rival cartel — a shadowy figure known only as the Grey Goose. This is part of a continuing escalation of violence as the two groups fight over control of the market….
Oh… wait… my bad. Turns out it wasn’t alcohol smugglers after all, but drug cartels. Hmmm…. I wonder why there aren’t any Absolut/Grey Goose shoot-outs? After all, they’re both heavily competing for the same lucrative market for premium vodkas.
Oh, yeah. Because alcohol is legal.
So the competing vodkas still fight each other, but the weapons they use are glossy advertisements in magazines, and clever graphic design.

And, frankly, if you’re stuck in traffic in a white sedan, odds are you have no need to worry about assassination by a glossy advert.
So, to recap the difference between prohibition and not-prohibition as a means of achieving market dominance:

• Prohibition: Innocent bystanders getting shot to death in their car in a traffic jam
• Not-prohibition: Cute graphics.

Ethan Nadelmann has a great article in Huffington Post: Walters’ Sugarcoating to Canadians Can’t Hide US’s Miserable Record on Drug Policy

The U.S. drug czar, John Walters, went to Ottawa yesterday, trying his best to put a positive spin on one of the greatest disasters in U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Part of his agenda is to persuade Canada to follow in U.S. footsteps, which can only happen if Canadians ignore science, compassion, health and human rights.

On the money.
If you’d like to hear what Walters said in Ottawa, you can tune in to the ONDCP’s Podcast (mp3)
Or if you’d rather, check out the YouTube videos of the Drug Policy Reform press conference in Ottawa that was arranged to coincide with Walters’ visit

• Part 1 – Eugene Oscapella & Ethan Nadelmann
• Part 2 – Eugene Oscapella & Senator Larry Campbell
• Part 3 – Eugene Oscapella & Line Beauchesne
• Part 4: Eugene Oscapella & Dr. David Marsh
• Part 5: Q&A from reporters
• Part 6: Q&A continued

(If nothing else, be sure to watch Ethan’s presentation in the second half of the first video. Powerful stuff.)

Cut off the limb of a starfish and you may end up with two whole starfish.
Read the post at Drug Law Blog.
Update: Link fixed.

“bullet” Drug Sense Weekly
“bullet”

It’s good to hear old friend John Holowach’s voice again. John is creator and director of the documentary High: The True Tale of American Marijuana, which I reviewed here.
He has taken on a new project and tied it in to his documentary — video commentary on the Drug Czar’s YouTube advertisements. Since the Drug Czar doesn’t allow comments or even ratings on their YouTube videos (no surprise there), John is taking the YouTube philosophy to heart and commenting in a much more interesting way.
Here’s the first one in the series:

… and another interesting video at Dare Generation Diary.