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Round Pegs In Round Holes
Suppose you have a machine that depends for its proper operation on wooden pegs in wooden holes. Say that it has been traditional, if wooden pegs were not available, that brass pegs were an accepted substitute. Now suppose the government outlawed the use of brass pegs and decreed that if you didn't have wooden pegs only gold pegs were acceptable. Would that be right?
Blogging is More Addictive Than Marijuana
A commenter on my last post has conducted some amateur research and has troubling news for us about marijuana addiction:Dude, something is wrong with you. You say that is isn't addictive, but it is. I know someone who smoked. They couldn't do their school work, they didn't care about anything and all they wanted to do is smoke. At fist it was a couple times a week, then 6 months later it was 3 times a day. If that isn't addictive then i would like to know what is.Well, I'll tell you: blogging.When I first started blogging and reading blogs, it was just a casual thing. Maybe I'd read DrugWarRant or The Agitator during lunch. I'd do a 4th Amendment post from time to time on the Flex Your Rights blog. The next thing I knew, I was posting every night. I helped launch The Speakeasy and became its editor, just so I could blog more. I was scanning 6-10 other blogs a day for ideas. My craving for new material was so insatiable I set up Google News alerts to get the jump on the latest drug war atrocities and blog them. Then came the traffic. It began with a trickle, but as more readers started to arrive, I was overcome with a voracious compulsion to spread my infectious bloglust to the masses. Now it takes a massive Digg hit to get me off.I could go on like this, but anyone who doesn't yet get my point probably never will. I am so very tired of hearing that marijuana must be addictive because some people really like it. The only difference between marijuana use and scores of other activities is that the government will mess up your life for doing it and then claim they were helping you avoid having your life messed up. And as for the blogging, I can quit anytime I want. I just choose to continue.
This Man Receives 300 Marijuana Joints a Month From the Federal Government
Everyone knows the U.S. government hates medical marijuana. Still, most people understand that, illegal or not, marijuana is a very beneficial treatment for patients with certain conditions. But few people are aware that the federal government actually supplies marijuana to a small group of patients, while still claiming that it isn't medicine. These patients receive 300 joints every 25 days and cannot be arrested for possession anywhere in the country. This video from last week's NORML Conference features Irv Rosenfeld explaining why the government grows marijuana for him:Needless to say, words can scarcely describe the hypocrisy of growing marijuana for a select few, while arresting patients and caregivers for the same behavior. I've explained previously how the government knows perfectly well that marijuana is medicine, but if there's one single argument that illustrates this fact, it is that the government actually grows and distributes medical marijuana. And while we're on this topic, it might interest some folks to know that the government's marijuana is terribly bad. Contrary to the popular urban myth, government pot has very low potency and it's full of seeds and stems. So don't be jealous of Irv Rosenfeld. He may receive huge amounts of free government-grown marijuana that he can smoke wherever he wants. But he also has painful bone tumors, and his free weed sucks.
Drug Czar Opposes Effort to Reduce Drug Overdoses
The Office of National Drug Control Policy hates harm reduction. It's strange because they're supposed to be helping people with drug problems and yet all they ever do is defend the government's authority to punish and injure these very people. Not only that, but they actually go out of their way to oppose programs that prioritize saving lives over making drug arrests.Predictably, therefore, ONDCP was quick to attack an effort to reduce drug overdoses in San Francisco by opening a safe injection site. As usual, their arguments aren't even related to the topic at hand:Proposed "Safe-Injection" Site in San Francisco Ignores Proven Solutions to Treating Drug AddictsDrug treatment works. How do we know? Today, there are millions of millions of Americans successfully recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. These courageous Americans are living proof that effective drug treatment can save lives and reduce our national drug problem.That's why it's so troubling to see thisâ¦It shouldn't even be necessary to point out that the effectiveness of drug treatment has nothing to do with safe injection. The idea here is to keep at-risk users alive long enough to get them into treatment. These programs create a vital point of contact for connecting users to medical professionals and treatment options. ONDCP's childish protestations simply overflow with unintended irony:Indeed, no one proposes aiding and sustaining an alcoholic by providing a supervised site for alcohol use.Um, what? These supervised sites are called "bars," and no one ever gets alcohol poisoning at them. Alcohol poisoning is the hallmark of unsupervised parties where inexperienced underage drinkers consume surreptitiously. The circumstances under which drugs â be they alcohol or heroin â are consumed has everything to do with the relative safety of the user. What a simple concept that is.But, as is often the case in the debate with ONDCP, the question is not what they understand, but rather what they really care about. To the Drug Czar, harm reduction is an "approach that accepts defeat." ONDCP only cares about reducing drug use. If drugs are used, then they feel "defeated," regardless of whether lives are saved. For everyone else, "defeat" isn't defined solely by the frequency with which hits of dope are jacked into the veins of some bright-eyed youngster. Defeat is when that person's life is turned upside down, when they get sick, when they share a needle, when their lifeless body is found crumpled and cold on a park bench.Preventing these things is the goal of the harm reduction community. It is an achievable goal, and those who stand in the way become apologists for disease, decay, and death.
Jerry Brown: Look at what you said, and what you have done
Jerry Brown once said in a radio show: http://www.sonic.net/~doretk/Issues/97-04%20APR/jbdrugwar.html The war on drugs is really no war at all-it's a business! It's a practice of the government, of the institutions that have grown up around it. I'm talking about the hardware-the helicopters, the weapons, the radar, the surveillance...
DEA Director Resigns, Says She Had an Awesome Time
DEA Administrator Karen Tandy announced her resignation today, marking her 4-year tenure with another trademark Tandyism:"It just doesn't get any better than this," Tandy said in a statement about her time at DEA. [Washington Post]Well, at least somebody had a good time. Now Tandy is moving into the telecom industry:Tandy told employees she was leaving to take a job as a senior vice president of Motorola, DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney said. Motorola is a leading sponsor of a DEA traveling museum exhibit about global drug trafficking and terrorismâ¦Did you guys hear that? Motorola is a major private funder of insidious drug war propaganda and decorates its highest offices with exhausted anti-drug soldiers. Let's all make a mental note of how socially conscious this company is.In the meantime, I would encourage the Bush administration to takes its sweet time finding exactly the right replacement for her. Formerly a DOJ prosecutor, Tandy rose to fame by successfully taking down menace-to-society Tommy Chong for selling water bongs. She was appointed to DEA's top office forthwith.In light of the Bush administration's already notorious difficulties filling the vacant directorships of various federal agencies, let me offer a couple possible replacements:Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan is a hardcore drug war legal genius who fought for 5 years to get Ed Rosenthal a one-day sentence for supplying marijuana to sick people. Bevan is so aggressive that U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer had to throw out some charges and accuse him of malicious prosecution.Better yet, former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty prosecuted the totally-innocent pain management doctor William Hurwitz and was subsequently forced to resign in the U.S. Attorney firings scandal. If you need the law mutilated for political ends, this guy is a total pro. Ultimately, finding qualified applicants to head the DEA shouldn't be too hard considering how famously delightful it is to work there.
DEA Chief Resigns After Years Of Failure- Start the Motorola Boycott
Fellow Texas Tech alum Karen Tandy has resigned from the DEA after 4 years of complete and utter failure. She will join Motorola as their public policy vice president. Amazing coincidence!Motorola is also the chief sponsor of the DEA museum. I will never buy another Motorola product.
Vancouver Province newspaper posts editorial asking for ;"locking up chronic drug offenders and forcing them into treatment or indefinite jail time.
An editorial writer in Vancouvers second most read newspaper wrote suggesting that chronic drug offenders steal something like,750,000 dollars daily.They must have big shopping carts.The writer goes o
New Study: Marijuana Might Cure Brain Tumors
One of the great ironies in the debate over marijuana's medical applications is that the drug may prove to be vastly more useful than many marijuana activists even realize. As the U.S. government continues to block medical marijuana research, scientists around the world are discovering new and exciting possibilities:Investigators at Bar-Ilan University in Israel report that the administration of THC significantly affects the viability of GBM cells. Glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive form of glioma (brain cancer), strikes some 7,000 Americans annually, and generally results in death within one to two years following diagnosis."THC [is] an essential mediator of cannabinoid antitumoral action," investigators concluded. [NORML]Or, in layman's terms, THC might stop tumors from killing people. Isn't that great? Now all we have to do is legalize it so people can cure their brains without fear of being raided by the DEA.As evidence of marijuana's potential value in treating various cancers continues to grow, it becomes increasingly vital that we silence marijuana opponents who seek to prevent such discoveries from being made. The more helpful the drug turns out to be, the more deadly and foolish becomes the conspiracy to destroy its reputation and punish its users.Is it really so difficult to conceive of the possibility that this plant, like so many others, exists for a good reason?
Someone Tell the Drug Czar That Hemp Isn't a Drug
The brave drug warriors at ONDCP need so much help. They are just as confused as can be about so many things, but they wear industrial strength earplugs and never go on the internet except to periodically blog about how confused they are. It would be funny if they weren't destroying America.So anyone who still thinks these people are serious should visit the Drug Czar's blog right away and read his recent post, "Terminated! Gov. Schwarzenegger Vetoes Pro-Drug Hemp Bill." It is downright delusional; a perfect encapsulation of the thinly-veiled psychosis that festers beneath the skin of the powerful Drug War Experts in Washington D.C.While drug legalization groups extol hemp as some kind of miracle-plant, many Americans arenât getting the full story. Industrial hemp and marijuana are not just "related" â they come from the same cannabis sativa plant.The real agenda of hemp enthusiasts is to legalize smoked marijuana and it is no coincidence that legalizing hemp would complicate efforts to curb the production and use of smoked marijuana by young people.Now, I could explain that hemp actually is a useful plant. I could propose that a hemp bill can't be "pro-drug" because hemp isn't a drug. I could point out that the farmers who want to grow it don't care about marijuana legalization. I could argue that Americans already know it's a type of marijuana. And I could even prove that you can't grow commercial marijuana anywhere near it due to cross-pollination.But that would be pointless, because the Drug Czar doesn't care about these things. All he cares about is that marijuana legalization advocates sometimes participate in criticizing U.S. hemp policy, and if those people want hemp, he will burn to the ground every damned stalk until they pry the flamethrower from his shriveled dead hands.In fact, as a marijuana legalization advocate, I should maybe shut up about this, lest I fuel the Drug Czar's deranged fantasy that people who want to make pants and granola bars are actually part of a diabolical conspiracy to turn California into the world's biggest rehab clinic.
A LITTLE MUSIC, MAESTRO!
YOU Nâ ME Fill the kidsâ heads full of factoids Fill the kidsâ heads full of pills Keep âem moving, keep âem busy Never give âem time to breathe Teach obedience from the get-go Wonder why they go insane
THE NOOSE TIGHTENS
If one example epitomizes creeping fascism in America, it is the recent Florida incident in which John Kerry did nothing while police tasered and arrested a student who asked him a rambling question about why Kerry had not contested the 2004 election and why nobody had moved to impeach Bush. Did Kafka write the script for this? Andrew Meyer had a non-soundbite question. He was trying to lay out enough background so that his question made sense, and had in fact gotten to his point, when University of Florida police moved in, manhandled him to the back of the room, put him on the floor and tasered him, while Kerry droned on, making jokes about the incident( âIâm afraid heâs not able to come up here and swear me in as President.â) and everybody in the room just sat and watched. Later, Kerry claimed he was not aware that Meyer was being tasered. Hey, the guy was screaming âDonât taser me!â I guess this kind of answered his question about why Kerry didnât contest the election. All thatâs necessary for evil to triumph, they say, is for good people to do nothing.
Two Tiered Medicine
I discuss the two tiered medical system we have in the USA. The well off get Drs. Prescriptions. The poor go to jail. Class War and Treatment vs Recreation
Digg and Reddit Users Want to Legalize Marijuana
The rise of news aggregator websites like Digg and Reddit has become a surprisingly helpful asset to online activism for drug policy reform. These sites allow participants to submit links with their own description, at which point other users vote to determine which stories make it to the coveted main page. Digg, for example, directs so much traffic from its front page that users have coined the term "digg effect" to describe the inevitable server crash that occurs when Digg links a site with insufficient bandwidth.StoptheDrugWar.org first experienced "the digg effect" in August with the "Marijuana Dealers Offer Schwarzenegger One Billion Dollars" story. Once linked at Digg, the blog post and accompanying press release generated over 100,000 hits, crashing our server repeatedly for over 12 straight hours. It was a bittersweet triumph since few visitors were actually able to view the content due to website malfunctions (and we couldn't receive donations!). Nonetheless, the message about marijuana policy reform was clearly resonating with a massive new audience.Between Digg and Reddit, we've now had several stories take off, pulling in unusually high traffic and pushing the drug policy debate beyond the self-selected audience of seasoned reform activists. The rising tide has lifted other boats as well, generating massive attention to Pete Guither's "Why is Marijuana Illegal?" and SSDP's "End the Drug War Draft!" Just last week, a front page Digg hit left Mitt Romney's presidential campaign reeling when video of his rude treatment of a medical marijuana patient went viral.Perhaps it's not so surprising that the new era of user-generated content and internet video would favor ideas that have for too long been relegated to the fringe by the mainstream press. We're witnessing the burial of the antiquated notion that only anti-drug scare stories will sell, and it's long overdue to say the least. The stigma of the "legalization" label, along with the brute force of the law itself, has silenced so many would-be drug war critics, yet the anonymous and democratized realm of online political debate now rages without regard to the philosophical prejudices of the past.Of course, winning the vote in an artificial internet democracy isn't going to end the war on drugs. But it certainly proves the demand for balance in the drug war debate. As the mainstream media continues to struggle with even the most basic realities about drugs and the terrible war on their users, the truth has to find a home somewhere. Update: To my great surprise, this post has made it to the front page of Digg. Imagine that. You can vote for it here. What fun.Update II: There's 300+ comments on this post over at Digg. I haven't finished reading them, but here's my favorite so far:Look, from someone who has never smoked anything in their life, I'm fine with legalization, but please don't act like assholes with it like everyone in my damn school does. All they do is brag about it, and its funny because I tell my friends I'd do it if it was legal and they say they would stop doing it if it was. The "stoner" stereotype is a complete product of the drug's illegality, it's true. If we're sick of rebellious potheads, let us take the wind out of their sails by changing the one law they have the nerve to break, thereby turning them into law-abiding dorks.
U.S. Government Encourages Drug Offenders to Choose the Army Instead of College
We can now add to our long and growing list of drug war grievances that this terrible crusade has become a fully functional army recruitment tool. The U.S. Military has changed its rules to make it easier for drug offenders to enlist. Meanwhile, the aid elimination penalty of the Higher Education Act denies federal financial aid to students with drug convictions. That's right, folks. The federal government thinks drug users don't belong in college, but has no problem sending them to die in Iraq.Our friends at Students for Sensible Drug Policy have a great new video explaining the absurdity of all this:Of course, we support the U.S. Military's new hiring policy. Past drug use should never be a factor in assessing a person's qualifications. But making it harder for drug offenders to go to school, while making it easier for them to join the army, is shockingly barbaric and hypocritical. One can only hope that this bizarre situation may expose the fraudulent logic by which drug offenders are denied college aid to begin with. After all, military service is widely considered an honorable profession; one which requires great courage, character, and intelligence. The very notion that past drug users can serve their country in combat destroys the myth that these Americans are somehow handicapped because they took drugs. Now that the U.S. government has acknowledged this principle in one self-serving context, it bears a powerful moral obligation to examine and abolish other forms of discrimination against drug users. Freedom, however one may choose to define it, cannot be defended so long as we arbitrarily injure and obstruct our fellow citizens over such petty indiscretions.
Garrett's Law needs revised
I don't completely disagree with this new law. But it does need to be revised. The testing should be done at different intervals in the pregnancy, not after the baby is born. What good does that do, the damage is already done by then. My baby was taken from me 24 hours after she was born. She was perfect, not addicted to anything, a good healthy weight, and no problems. Yet I was still robbed of hospital photo's, the braclet, all the certificates, and everthing that should go into her baby book, all because I smoked a little pot while I was pregnant. So now I will have to explain to her why her picture doesn't match the rest of the kids' and why she has blank pages in her book. I still don't have custody of her even though she is in my care, partially, I'm not allowed to be left alone with her. I have never done anything to hurt any of my children, and I've had 3 others, not to mention the ones that I misscarried, or buried.
Tired of the run around I get from Drs.
Hi I'm Jon and I have had 2 hip replacements and have been suffering from fibromyalgia for about 4 years now. I was DX 6mo. ago and haven't been able to get the relief from pain I have the right to. Tramadol is all I can get for now and it don't do sh** for my pain so I suffer in vain.
The Drug Czar's Blog Accidentally Admits That Drug Laws Ruin Lives
Yesterday, in a post titled "Random Drug Testing Can Save Lives," the Drug Czar once again blogged himself into a corner. The piece quotes extensively from a Kentucky newspaper article, which argues that random drug testing will save students from getting arrested:"There was a tragedy in Scott County last week. A young man's future was ruined, and the events that took place will likely haunt him for the rest of his life.Unless you've been on vacation, you've probably already heard that a superstar athlete on the Scott County basketball team was arrested on felony drug charges, which could result in him going to prison for as long as 10 years. [Georgetown News]That's awful. But what does this have to do with random drug testing?...Whether we realize it or not, the real tragedy is this young man wasn't caught sooner, through a less punitive program intended to help youthful offenders, not send them to prison. The greater tragedy, to my way of thinking, is that we, as a community and a school system, haven't seen fit to acknowledge reality and implement a random drug testing program in our high school, and perhaps our middle schools.So what exactly did this young man do that could get him locked away for 10 years? He was arrested for 1.6 grams of crack on school grounds. Crack/powder sentencing disparity + school zone = 10 years for a one-day supply of drugs.By conceding that this young man's life has been ruined, the Drug Czar does far more to indict our brutally unfair sentencing laws than to promote random drug testing. He is literally telling us that we should let him collect urine from our children, otherwise his drug soldiers will put them in jail for a decade.And if that doesn't make your head spin, consider that cocaine leaves your system in 1-2 days and will rarely come up in a drug screen anyway. You can smoke crack all night on Friday and pass a drug test on Monday, so none of this whole insane conversation about saving people from crack laws with drug testing even makes sense to begin with.
The Truth About Why Republican Candidates Oppose Medical Marijuana
McCain, Giuliani, and Romney have all attracted unwanted attention this week with their pledge to continue the federal government's unpopular war on medical marijuana patients and providers. The question is "why?" Everyone knows mainstream republican politicians are often a tough sell when it comes to drug policy reform, but given massive public support for medical marijuana, their callous position appears politically unwise and thus more difficult to explain. First, it helps to clarify how narrow and simplistic their argument really is. The McCain/Giuliani/Romney consensus on medical marijuana is grounded in the claim that "other medications" are available and should be used instead. This one argument virtually encompasses the totality of their opposition to medical marijuana. It is their only talking point, which is why they move on quickly to the next topic after saying it.Still, I don't believe this argument actually tells us very much about their true motivations. When Mitt Romney recommends "synthetic marijuana" to a wheelchair-bound patient, it becomes clear that he understands the medical efficacy of the drug. Indeed, these "other medications" are often derived from synthetic cannabinoids, so the debate is clearly not over whether marijuana has medical properties. We've moved beyond that, thankfully.At this point, it becomes a question of how patients should be acquiring and administering their medicine. Giuliani and Romney both faltered when the patients they encountered explained that they were allergic to pharmaceutical alternatives to marijuana. If they take these patients at their word, they must then confront the insufficiency of these drugs and recognize the unique predicament in which certain patients find themselves. Perhaps this new information will sink in, but that is all beside the point.Ultimately, McCain, Giuliani, and Romney have access to all the same facts about medical marijuana as everyone else. Their problem is not a misunderstanding of the issue. They've met and spoken with the patients. They know doctors are recommending it. Their real concerns have nothing whatsoever to do with the medical efficacy of marijuana. They are worried about something else entirely:"But having legalized marijuana is in my view an effort by a very committed few to try to get marijuana out in the public and to ultimately legalize marijuana. It's the wrong way to go." â Mitt Romney"I believe the effort to try and make marijuana available for medical uses is really a way to legalize it. There's no reason for it." â Rudy GiulianiThis tells us everything there is to know about opposition to medical marijuana from republican presidential candidates, and for that matter, the Drug Czar himself. The whole anti-medical marijuana machine is merely a conspiracy to prevent the outright legalization of marijuana. Its adherents are fearful that telling the truth about the drug's medical value will pave the way for a shift in public attitudes about marijuana in general. They dread the "marijuana lobby" and will concede nothing to it, even if doing so forces them to take unpopular and transparently flawed positions on medical use.Cynically, they focus on the role of marijuana legalization advocates in promoting medical access, while ignoring the much larger constituency of medical marijuana supporters who donât advocate recreational legalization. That is why support for medical marijuana from mainstream organizations such as the American Nurses Association and the American Public Health Association is ignored, while the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project's position is cited routinely. Of course, when the truth about medical marijuana becomes a political hostage in the broader legalization debate, it is legitimate patients rather than marijuana activists who suffer the consequences. Fortunately, the rise of internet video has given voters a front row seat in this enduring and increasingly ugly debate. The next victims in the war on medical marijuana may be those candidates who would sacrifice the seriously ill to drug war politics.
When The Drug Czar Says We're Winning The Drug War, It Means Nothing
The insufferable Robert Caldwell at Human Events writes love letters to the drug war. His latest masterpiece begs presidential hopefuls to entice him by sharing their most hardcore drug war fantasies. Oddly, Caldwell tries to explain the urgency of the matter by claiming that everything's going phenomenally well. His entire argument consists of a tiresome series of Drug Czar quotes. "John Waltersâ¦begs to differ", "Walters offered a slew of statistics", "Walters argued, persuasively", "Walters rightly cites", "Walters notes," and on it goes. The whole thing might as well have been signed by John Walters under the title, "My Awesome Drug War."Yet, as Pete Guither notes in a helpful new page, it is literally the job of the Drug Czar's office to distort facts in support of the drug war. The GAO even admits it:Given this role, we do not see a need to examine the accuracy of the Deputy Director's individual statements in detail.So we really can dispense with the notion that the Drug Czar is available to give us unvarnished assessments of drug war progress. It is, in fact, illegal for him to do that. Asking the Drug Czar how the drug war is going is like asking Colonel Sanders if his chicken is any good.