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Take heart, the American dream comes directly from God as do all dreams of freedom around the world.. The "Spirit of '76" was the Holy Spirit and is our true North!

I was recently arrested for growing 3 plants for personal use in Houston. I’ve never done anything illegal to be able to put me in jail before and have no prior incidents with the law that required me to get ticketed or mistreated. We have friends of the family who are police officers and know for the good part that they are just doing their jobs and I was doing something bad. My parents had learned that I had been smoking marijuana for about 3 years they didn’t approve because it’s illegal but even though they never acknowledged it I believe they saw it was me deal with my depression. I knew the risk when growing but too many close calls with police and once with a very understanding one that had stopped me for my head lights being off at dusk. He let me go with the message do it at home because I can’t stop you there, and the obvious greed from drug dealers stop me from buying weed since Sept. and growing seemed to be a safer and cheaper source of action. Sadly I was mistaken and watched videos about my rights and the way cops abuse theirs too late. I was good enough to hide the plants from my parents but not from Houston narcotics agents. I just bailed out and am trying to get ready for court and still I don’t fully understand how the cops were allowed to walk onto my parent’s property without any consent from us. I understand the knock method police use but what if the officer never knocked does he have the right to walk to the back of the house without any consent. Is that ever legal?

Ibogaine advocate Howard Lotsof, 66, died January 31 in Staten Island, New York. Liver cancer killed him. In 1962, Lotsof, a Bronx native, was strung out on heroin when he ingested a sample of the West African psychoactive substance ibogaine. Rocked by the hallucinatory experience, Lotsof was even more stunned when he realized that after ibogaine he no longer felt compelled to use heroin. For 20 years after that, Lotsof went about his life in the television and movie business, but when an accident cut that career short, he returned to ibogaine and began working to make it available as an addiction treatment. In 1986, he founded a company, NDA International, and began treating clients in Amsterdam. Lotsof originated numerous patents for ibogaine in treating addictions and provided data to the National Institute on Drug Abuse that laid the groundwork for still ongoing research on ibogaine and its use as an anti-addictive substance. More than 60 peer-reviewed scientific papers on ibogaine have been published so far. Thanks almost entirely to Lotsof and his supporters, including Dana Beal and Cures Not Wars, an international network of ibogaine clinics is now in place and treating addicted clients. Lotsof was not a doctor or scientist—his college degree was in film—but an outsider who still managed to bring ibogaine in from the cold and win it academic and scientific respect. He will be missed.

If you thought the cops had run out of dumb drug war ideas, you were so wrong:

BELLEVILLE -- The Belleville Police Department has a new tactic in fighting the drug trade in the city -- signs pointing out to the public houses and apartments where police say drugs are sold.

A sign placed outside an apartment building Wednesday at 322 W. H St. said in bold, red letters: "Warning! Drug House; Enter at your own risk." An arrow on the sign points to the building, and the address is attached to the bottom of the sign. [Belleville News Democrat]

Are you serious? It kinda sounds like they're saying it's ok to go in there if you're willing to accept the risk. But here's where it gets really ridiculous:

The police have only two signs, and when they use them at a location, it'll likely only be for a day, and only during daytime hours.
…
When asked whether he thinks the signs will advertise where people can buy drugs, Sax said that those buying the drugs probably already knew to get them there in the first place.

No, I don't think that's how it works. Criminals don't all automatically know each other. I might be smart enough not to go knocking on doors at designated drug houses, but I'm not addicted to crack. If there's actually someone actively selling drugs inside, you shouldn’t be advertising it, and if there isn't, you shouldn't be humiliating the families of drug offenders who've already been arrested or run out of town.

What I really don't get about any of this is why police would even consider putting up signs that make them look like incompetent idiots. Is it supposed to make anyone feel safer that the police know where the problem houses are, but can't seem to do anything about it other than put up temporary signs?

The irony here is that marking locations where drugs are sold and warning people to enter at their own risk isn't actually a bad idea at all. But if it's going to work, you have to begin by regulating these businesses.