Weekly: Blogging @ the Speakeasy

Hi crew,

so what is the answer? Maybe we all need to coem out uf the closet and simply declare victory. Can we organize, say one day every month to smoke/hemp out our local police s tation. I remember a group from Maine having a smoke in at the police station and the cops all left til they got done. Jack

It is becoming more obvious each year that the government isn't waging war on drugs.....they are waging war on us. It is not the job of any government official in the United States to wage war on the American people and doing so is a blatant act of treason. The first step in ending prohibition is for all of us to agree on this. There are laws in place today to deal with this crime.
Rusty

1. On October 3, 2007 NPR spokesvoices discussed S-Chip funding from cigaret taxes.

One suggested this is a "regressive tax" because high school drop-outs smoke more cigarets than college graduates (who have more money).

I have heard cigaret taxes defended, at tax increase time, on grounds that the higher tax will make it harder for the poor (or youngsters) to afford cigarets and will in effect protect their health by disciplining them to smoke fewer cigarets.

2. No one yesterday mentioned the possibility that the President had to veto the bill because of the Republican Party's relationship (or bondage) to the cigaret industry, which makes a point of objecting strenuously to cigaret taxes.
A Reynolds website complains (brags?) that "the smoker" is paying $36 bil./year (2006). This gives the industry colossal clout over the guv. receiving the tax revenue, and over the party in power trying to fund all those popular programs without raising the tax rate.

I went to another website (I forget which) which had a running clock showing that last week or so the guv. had spent over $30 bil. this year in drug enforcement-- most of it on those riefer arrests. Follow the money and maybe we arrive at the conclusion that the tobacco industry wants the crackdown on cannabis to continue.

3. In another posting, "A reply to Billy B. Blunt, 08/23/2007", I describe an easy way to make your own miniature toker (one-hitter, or anti-overdose smoking utensil) with a quarter-inch screened crater which can divide most commercial cigarets into 28 x 25-mg. separate servings (mini-tokes). If cannabis were legalized, cannabis utensils (i.e. anything more conservative than a hot-burning-overdose nicotine cigaret) would also become unambiguously de facto legal and the tobacco companies would be confronted with longtime pack-a-day addicts switching to single tokes, like smart cannabis users, and there goes the ol' profit margin.

4. Kathy Kelly, the anti-war-war activist, mentioned that there are over 5 million Americans who due to a past felony conviction can't vote. They are disproportionately African-American and would have voted mostly Democratic. Does this give an idea why the guv. especially Republicans like cannabis arrests? Each arrest creates another opportunity to investigate, search, interrogate in pursuit of another felony convinction and another blocked voter!!-- Tokerdesigner

In line with the above I suggest that DRCNet ought to specifically endorse and maybe set manufacturing facilities for an anti-overdose utensil which

a. Eliminates all grounds for reproach that cannabis users are careless with their own health, and

b. Permits tobacco users to divide any cigaret into up to 28 single servings, eliminating known health hazards.

I researched some web sites including Answers.com which has a short article describing the KISERU, an old style Japanese smoking pipe which has "a bowl much smaller than that of western-style pipes." This permits use of moderate quantities of herb instead of an overdose.

The MIDWAKH, made in the Middle East, has a shorter stem and somewhat wider bowl than the KISERU (see above) but conceivably some manufacturers can be induced to offer a 1/4" crater size with a Mesh #40 screen inside. If DRCNet cannot get in the business of commissioning and importing such a utensil in massive quantities to solve America's Hot Burning Overdose smoking problem, at least agitating for such to be done will get some needed attention and maybe a libertarian like G. Soros would be interested in sponsoring it.

Examples of KISERU are shown on a website, www.lsando.com/pipes/e/kiseru.htm, representing Living Shop Ando. They range in price from about $7 to over $100 as one might expect. The middle eastern manufacturers might work for less money and the U.S. has some duty to try to help them with their economic difficulties. In both cases it might also be possible to import some authentic parts and manufacture a 1/4" (6 mm.) i.d. utensil, with screen, here in the U.S.

As suggested in another article, a Congressperson or other official should be solicited to provide an authorization to possess such a utensil on the grounds that it is used for life-saving tobacco reduction or medicinal use of "herbs" which may include hops, camomile, rosebud, Salvia divinorum, etc. Perhaps DRCNet can get someone on its legal staff to design such a letter which can be made available on this site for visitors to appropriate for their own use in contacting a Representative.