Heading for New York for a week. Will check in often.
If you’re concerned about the lack of posts, take a look at the comments, where you’ll find the other folks who hang out on Pete’s couch – and a whole lot of great content and activity.
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on Anti-marijuana quack Dave Weldon to take over CDC: “Insights are achieved in treating behavioral disorders by focusing on the tetrapartite synapse of the brain: 17-Dec-2024 — …neuroscientist Dr.…” Dec 22, 12:56
on Anti-marijuana quack Dave Weldon to take over CDC: “I strongly disagree with Servetus’ statement about Dave Weldon. His views on marijuana are not only outdated but also harmful…” Dec 17, 07:40
on Anti-marijuana quack Dave Weldon to take over CDC: “If you thought Bondi and Weldon are bad, I know plenty of Louisiana politicians in both parties who are even…” Dec 6, 11:26
Have fun Pete… don’t work too hard!
Western banks ‘reaping billions from Colombian cocaine trade’
And this from the WeedBlog folks on my favorite Vice-Prez candidate, Jim Gray:
No Gray Area On Drug War For VP Candidate James Gray
One is the Federal Debt graph. The other is combined State and Federal incarceration rate. Is it my imagination, or are there some similarities here?
http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Trends_in_Corrections_Fact_sheet.pdf
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s%5B1%5D%5Bid%5D=GFDEBTN
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It’s called inverse correlation. Of course irresponsible spending by innumerate, profligate authorities leads to an increase in debt. Whenever I read people arguing about all the money that authorities are “making” with their profligate public policies I want to throw up. Our government is not profitable and it’s simply not possible anyway. People never seem to ask, can we afford to pay for this. Just, “what kind of message does it send if we don’t? Just borrow some more money. 43 cents out of every dollar spent by our innumerate politicians is borrowed. Ah well I should forget about it. It’s the great-great-great grand kids problem now.
News from Sweden, Prohibitionist Paradise
Medical marijuana in the form of a throat spray is now available in Sweden:
http://www.thelocal.se/39060/20120212/
Swedish man too incompetent to grow marijuana, gets out of jail sentence.
http://www.thelocal.se/37574/20111125/
A look into the production of Sativex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvVYdqyZFHQ
My comment on Sativex:
After 40 years of trying to produce a medicine with the properties of cannabis using synthetic chemicals the pharmaceutical industry has given up and started producing an organic hemp oil tincture from the plant.
It is the same medicine described in 4000 year old Chinese medical scrolls and handed down through history from cultures all over the world,now being sold in dispensaries in states where medical marijuana laws allow it.
The extraction technique may be more advanced but the resulting product is the same.
Also of interest:
Here’s GW Pharma’s David Potter’s PHD on growing cannabis for medicine: http://www.gwpharm.com/uploads/phd_david_potter_jp.pdf
It’s not hemp oil, please don’t call it that. Here is a statement by the HIA on the subject.
Strayan, thanks! This guy David Pot-ter really does think a lot of his weed. From the photo it is heavily Sativa. But where are the TRICHOMES? It looks positively bald! Oh dear. They got the job done, but that bud would NEVER meet dc’s standards. It’s cosmetics are a “B” at best! They should have tapped a PhD who actually knows how to breed and grow real high-grade. I’m sure there’s one out there somewhere…. 😉
Anyway, thanks. I’m gonna read the whole thing now and see if there’s anything this upstart may be able to teach me. I’ve already had a couple of chuckles in the first two pages.
Okay, I’m through with section one, taxonomy. Can I take a moment to bitch? That was a very complete and accurate section. Well cited. Nothing at all wrong with it…EXCEPT: It must be absurdly easy to do a PhD Thesis when other people (who write anonymously and for the illicit market, and aren’t affiliated with major drug companies and Universities, and therefore are not CITED) have already done it FOR you. That taxonomy section could have been lifted whole from Greg Green’s Cannabis Grow Bible.
When I did MY thesis, I used my own research, and produced an ORIGINAL piece. I then had to withstand the challenge of a hostile professor on my review panel, who did not believe my research WAS original, and in fact did everything but accuse me of outright plagiarism. Man, would it have been easy to read a few grow books, grow a few plants and just transcribe the best grow book I could find with variant wording.
Not to dismiss this work too lightly, but a quick read indicates that “buds with lots of crystals are more stony” and “it’s the crystals that get you high.”
Earthshaking.
Actually, a real innovation may be their methods of mounting capitate stalked trichomes in oil and other liquids in order to more clearly photograph their interiors.
I love it when the host rubs hash oil on his fingers to investigate its viscosity…prolly took a while to get off and got him off a little…
Overzealous policing may make us very angry but ultimately it promotes change. Of course that’s IMHO.
Of course, Cuomo is still addicted to the ‘hard’ stuff (punishment) when it comes to something vastly less destructive, than, oh, say, banksters trashing the world economy.
‘Decrim’. More half-assed measures when only full bore will do. More band-aids on sucking chest wounds. Can’t come out and say, “Make it legal (again)”. Nope, still gotta have the Sword of Damoclese hanging over every NY State cannabists’s head. Still gotta punish, punish, punish.
Can’t unload all that ire for the people who’ve been responsible for who-knows-how-many deaths on this planet, thanks to the fiscal Three Card Monte game they pulled on the rest of us; nooooo, we still have to waste valuable tax dollars chasing cannabists, instead.
This country still hasn’t learned what’s important and what’s not, and probably won’t until it does…in the very hardest way of all. And then the lesson will be lost in the chaos that people will be trying to survive. So dumb.
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Taylor puts marijuana back on the table at city council
by Mona Mattei
June 3 2012
A challenge to step up leadership was given to Grand Forks city council when mayor Brian Taylor asked them to join the campaign to end the prohibition of marijuana in Canada.
Taylor wants council to join in with the other B.C. municipalities, now over 13 of a possible 160 and growing, in the Stop the Violence campaign. The campaign asks provincial party leaders to pressure the Canadian government for a shift in attitude in drug policy. The provincial and federal governments need to realize that prohibition has been a costly failure and they need to find some other way to manage marijuana, Taylor said in comments to council.
“Politicians are afraid to discuss their opinions on it (marijuana) for fear that they will be labelled as pro-marijuana and lose political support,†Taylor added. “I think that’s one of the reasons …that is holding it (change) back… People didn’t elect me just to run the council meeting and democratic process, they elected me to be a leader and this is the kind of thing that mayors should step forward and take a leadership role in.â€
/snip/
On April 24th my son died….He was a good boy/young man of almost 25years. His name was Jesse, he was my heart. The reason that I’m writing is that Jesse was a recovering alcoholic like me, and we had found a much safer choice with cannabis and had shared it often with each other for years. But about five weeks before his death he started drinking again…just a few beers…but the alcohol monkey jumped on his back so quick that life became unraveled quickly…until he found himself on the top of a slippery mountain with his beer, and slipped ~30 stories to his death on hard rock. As you can imagine I have been through every emotion, I have dwelt in the darkness…but here is my point I guess…that if there are any breeders out there reading this that wish to make a strain called Jesse’s safer choice…we would sincerely appreciate it….thank you
Sorry to hear of your huge loss!
Alcoholism can indeed be mitigated with marijuana; I seldom drink more than one bottle of Trappist beer a day. But when I want to go to bed stone cold sober, all I have to do is smoke a very thin doobie, at about 9 PM, just as the craving for that amazing bottle of ‘Rochefort 10’ begins to become irresistible.
Prohibitionist parasites are stone cold killers!
I’m truly sorry for your loss. I lost an old friend of more than thirty years when he returned to drinking after 15 years of abstinence. You are certainly not alone.
There never is any right thing to say about that, other than I’m sorry for your loss. My Irish-American Uncles all had battles with the bottle, and most of them WW2 Navy combat veterans (North Pacific campaign and the kamikazes attacking their ships) with the usual scars, the ones that you can’t see, in body and mind. Watching them get plastered and start raving was partly why I only tried drinking once, and that was warning enough for me.
And to think that American doctors in the 19th century used to prescribe cannabis…for weaning people off alcohol. The one proven, safe effective means is illegal, while poisons are prescribed.
What planet is this, again? Must be Earth; crazy people run it.
“Weed is much more environmentally friendly than beer.
It can be grown for free, outdoors, with virtually no need for any chemicals or shit like that. You can get great results even in the UK!
Once grown and dried (carbon neutral) it is very light. A pocketful will keep a whole party going all night.
Contrast with the billions of bottles and millions and millions of litres of heavy beer that need to freighted about by vast fleets of trucks that consume lakes of diesel per mile.
Drugs are much more environmentally friendly than alcohol and the proper use of them would reduce our carbon footprint massively.
If you are afraid of CO2 then you must be pro-legalisation.”
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Once again a Doug Stanhope quote sums it all up perfectly:
“If you’re gonna have a pro-drug argument, start the argument where it starts: I have the right to do what ever the hell I want to my own body, if it kills me slowly, happy for me, fuck you”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2012/jun/04/should-marijuana-be-decriminalised-poll
here’s a good one:http://www.theagitator.com/2012/06/04/the-new-professionalism-19/#comments. i wonder if the criminal justice instructors at the community colleges bear some responsibility for the police state mind-set that has taken over police forces all over the homeland. it’s as if alien ideologies have turned the police into fascists.
Haha, Kerli hasn’t got shread of integrity.
Did you miss this one?
http://www.theagitator.com/2012/06/03/the-costs-of-police-dishonesty/
There are always great comments on Radley’s Agitator site, and the comments on this article are no exception.
It’s nice to see cannabis on the front page of the Gray Lady. Maybe now the stop-and-frisk arrest numbers will actually decline.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/nyregion/mayor-supports-plan-to-change-marijuana-arrest-policy.html?_r=1&hp
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winner of the 2012 Worst Disguised Spam Award.
It sure doesn’t seem to be turning into a fantastic year for prohibitionists and spammers.
The Chicago Tribune published some junk about the continuing crime wave in Chicago over the weekend. Its amazing they will publish material with such extreme “solutions”.
Put American troops in the streets of Chicago to fight the gangs by going door to door sweeping out neighborhoods, ban all guns, and then have Gang Tribunals swiftly punish anyone they say is guilty. I kid you not.
Gerald D. Skoning penned opinion piece, “Chicago more dangerous than Baghdad?”
As we begin to draw down our troop levels in Afghanistan, a brigade or two might be redeployed to violence-prone neighborhoods. Their mission would be not unlike the one they pursued in Iraq: to clear and secure neighborhoods, to protect the local population, and to augment police in counteracting the tidal wave of violence.
Charles M. Madigan then takes a stab with his opinion, “Set up a Gang Crimes Tribunal”.
What we need here is a Gang Crimes Tribunal, a Chicago variant on the way the international community confronts war crimes and other violations of human rights.
This will “promote the general welfare” so it must be Constitutional, right?
The Democratic left thinks we can just ban guns out existence. The Republican right thinks we can ban abortions out of existence. They both think we can ban drugs out of existence. They both could care less about our Constitution or our individual rights.
We the people are failing to grasp the concept of freedom and liberty that made this country great at one time. Even worse, most of the Rs and Ds and their sheep voters completely reject the concept of freedom and liberty every time they go to the polls. Just plain stupid or just plain evil, take your pick.
The belief and faith that government is the new infallible God to be worshipped, obeyed, and never questioned is quickly dooming this country and all of humankind’s future.
You jarred loose a memory. If this isn’t relative, I don’t know what is:
The Military Coup of 2012: MELANCHOLY REUNION: A REPORT FROM THE FUTURE ON THE COLLAPSE OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
written by Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., INSS Occasional Paper, 11October 1996, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, US Air Force Academy, Colorado
It goes into that stupid, purblind, idiotically naive mindset as represented by Mr. Skoning and rips it to pieces. And keep in mind; this is a career military man who wrote this. It was posited as ‘science fiction’…but SF all too often turns out to become our reality, and usually in a very dystopian fashion…
A law in Illinois can put a person in jail for up to 15 years for recording the remarks of a police officer in public. Gets struck down.
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13526
Illinois sucks, I know. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled that Illinois law is unconstitutional. They are the last step before the Supreme Court, if Lisa Madigan wants to continue defending that law. Three or four courts in Illinois have ruled it unconstitutional recently, but the legislature hasn’t changed the law.
There was legislation this session to change that law, but it was hijacked (some stupid seniority sponsorship rules) in the Senate by Michael Noland (D-Elgin) and he killed the bill trying to protect “police interests” even though it has been ruled unconstitutional.
The state is $9 billion behind paying its bills. More than $1,000 per taxpayer. We’re screwed in more ways than one when they would need $1,000+ from every taxpayer just to balance LAST years’ budget.
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There’s lots of bad cops, no doubt. It’s what you get when you hire too many. I’m sure many of us recall back in the 1990s when Mr. Clinton had a hard on for adding 100k new cops “on the street” in the middle 1990s? You simply can’t swear in every Tom, Dick and Harry without suffering from too many dicks. Regardless, they aren’t all bad:
Not a very earthshaking story at all. It must have been a very slow news day in Bangor, no doubt. Also a very misleading headline. The driver got a civil summons as this was Maine. What I find remarkable is what Officer Greely didn’t do. He didn’t charge Mr. Lipski with impaired driving, and he also didn’t charge him with destruction of evidence/obstruction of justice or something like that. Interesting discussion below the article, with lots of hysterical rhetoric about impaired driving from people who failed to notice that Officer Greely didn’t feel obligated to arrest Mr. Lipski for that offense.
Duncan…it has been my observation that cops here in Maine have thus far taken a fairly pragmatic approach to marijuana. We have had a dispensary system in place for sometime now without all the crap and hullaballo that I read about in other places…so, once again (hopefully), as Maine goes, so goes the nation…
I’ve given serious thought to moving to Maine. Up to 99 plants is a misdemeanor. Then I read news articles about some Maine police directing Federal raids against residents with a lesser plant count. Also, I can’t eat lobster and worry about all the illegal aliens that are pouring over the border.
Hey everyone, Oregon’s IP-24 campaign (the constitutional amendment which would legalize adult marijuana possession) is in serious need of donations.
They are very close to meeting the signature requirement but may have to cease operations as early as next week if funding doesn’t come through.
If you can kick in $20, $50, $100, it would be a big help. Donations can be made here: https://www.c-esystems.com/ompi/donation.aspx
For all of you who think you want Gary Johnson over Ron Paul, please read this article:
http://www.examiner.com/article/gary-johnson-disappoints-lp-candidate-doesn-t-understand-libertarianism
And if you live in CA and will be voting in tomorrow’s primary, please vote for Ron Paul over Gary Johnson for a far, far better chance at ending the drug wars.
In CA, voting for Paul tomorrow is more wise. A vote for Johnson tomorrow has no impact on his getting the LP nomination, unlike Ron Paul, who’s not quitting until the fat lady sings at the GOP convention in August.
The comments in that article were intelligent and thoughtful. The good is not necessarily the enemy of the near perfect. Gary Johnson is not an enemy. I think Ron Paul is wrong that the 14th Amendement does not provide equal protection for same sex marriage, as one of several “impure” things about him, just as Johnson surely has about him.
As far as the chance at ending the drug wars, that will change one way or another at the GOP convention. Gary Johnson may have a better chance of getting elected this November at that point. We all would have a far, far better chance at ending the drug wars if both Paul and Johnson supporters could work together on this election day and then on those to come.
If Ron Paul is not a choice this November and Gary Johnson is a choice, I can see a lot of good coming from the 10+% Ron Paul GOP Primary voters and supporters casting their ballot for Johnson/Gray. More so than leaving it blank, IMHO. In my state, a 62 to 37 result doesn’t say nearly as much as 52 – 27 – 20 would say.
Beyond the choice for this November, Ron Paul looks to be in a much better position to influence drug laws past that election. If elected, I think both Paul and Johnson would do everything they could to end the drug war.
I’m sad that Rand Paul lifted his hold on legislation than expands the war to the spice and bath salt type shit, but appreciate that he did something. I don’t know what Ron Paul has in store after this election, but if Johnson or Paul don’t win, it might be advantageous for Johnson’s supporters to join whatever Paul has in mind next.
The problem is that the fat lady is done singing, in the dressing room removing her makeup, and eating bon-bons provided by her adoring fans.
Interesting finding: Baby wash products linked to false positive screening results for marijuana exposure in the womb (MedicalXpress.com)
(Sorry for bringing up meconium; fathers know what I’m talking about.)
So, are they taking babies away from mothers over these tests? The article doesn’t say what is being done with the results.
Off topic, but for some reason it’s [descriptor] to see that cannabis isn’t the only thing that the moronic enemies of freedom equate to murder, robbery, spousal abuse, etc:
Yeah, Duncan, I think an important shift happens from “policy is about ensuring individual rights are respected” to “policy is about protecting the social fabric.”
Individual rights are much clearer than the warp and weft of this “social fabric,” which ends up being a way of coercing individuals into giving up their rights.
There is little you cannot justify by saying it’s for the good of the whole, as Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar recognized in _Drug Control in a Free Society_. Indeed, a lot of the moral landscape of drug prohibition involves opposing private pleasures and collective goods, it’s an old canard.
A federal judge is Sioux City, Iowa, is overriding the Supreme Court decision United States v. Jones involving warrantless GPS tracking based on the ‘good-faith-exception’ in evidence gathering.
“The Supreme Court justices ruled earlier this year in January that GPS tracking of a suspect’s vehicle qualified as a search under the U.S. Constitution, but stopped short of ruling that authorities needed to obtain a warrant every time they used a tracker.â€
C’mon, let’s keep our side free of hysterical rhetoric. The Justice did not “override” the SCOTUS ruling and it’s wholly inappropriate description of the ruling.
My bad. “Overriding†should have been ‘Drive[s] Truck Through Loophole in Supreme Court GPS Ruling’.
A lot of this may be academic, since GPS trackers are available for modest sums online. Fortunately, so are tracker jammers.
The trackers may end up being used anyway, but surreptitiously, regarding both the person being tracked and the criminal courts later on. Same thing for infrared detectors, except more costly and available from Canada for about $3K.
New up on Alternet, “Color of Change” Launches a new campaign:
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/938490/%27my_baby_was_taken_away_because_of_an_illegal_pot_arrest%27%3A_video_series_kicks-off_to_support_new_law_to_end_nyc%27s_bogus_pot_arrests/#paragraph2
This Just In;
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/146/2891325/White-House-Show-us-the-money
“The White House wants agency budgets to be based on evidence showing programs actually work.
That means agencies will have to show a return on the investment on their programs, with more successful programs being more likely to receive funding. ”
Can you say “DEA”? They don’t stand a chance, or at least they shouldn’t.
Good times.
They’ll probably create a ‘drug war exception’ to that rule as well.
Coming this summer to a city near you:
The Movement for Peace and Justice in Mexico
FYI, Gary Johnson is going to be on the Daily Show tonight.
Rhode Island Legislature passes decrim by veto resistant margin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRv9b7S6Hm8&feature=relmfu
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Sniggling detail: the RI House & Senate passed different albeit identical bills so either bill needs the approval of the other Chamber before going to the Governor. Government! Any chance of double decrim?
Yaaaay! Chip, chip, chip!
Report: Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Not Linked to Neighborhood Crime http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/06/06/report-medical-marijuana-dispensaries-not-linked-to-neighborhood-crime
This just in: Tufts study hints teen pot use may affect offspring
If one bothers to read on, it becomes apparent that no cannabis or cannabis constituents were involved. The actual chemical injected into “teenage” rats is not mentioned in the article.
Dibs on the band name!
Further googling reveals that the rats received a cannabinoid receptor agonist called WIN-55, 212-2.
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Wow, I can just imagine the blow back if we tried to use research from a veterinary school. But what about the embryos? Doesn’t anyone care about the embryos?
Article below found on mothering.com, the mother of all mothering websites!
Sheesh, a 4 1/2 page article with half of it devoted to footnotes. Talk about anal retentive!
Jeez such an outrageous pot bias. Heroin is a lot better and better for u. Not kidding. Just the outrageous pot bias pisses me off so I had to say something
Bias on who’s part? The researchers’?
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No, ours. When was the last time we posted a link debunking the myths of heroin use? When was the last time we posted a link to a news article that spewed lies about heroin suggesting that we object in the comments section below the article? Heck, people here have even gone as far as suggesting that cannabis is an effective way to mitigate the deleterious effects of heroin use and withdrawal! Gosh, how many times have I trumpeted the fact that the number of Californians in “treatment” for opioids addiction has fallen 49.143% since they passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996 through 2011, as if that were a good thing? Gosh, I feel so dirty. 🙁
Well wait a second, all that stuff is Cj’s job. I’ve got such a lack of interest in opioids politics that I should be the poster child for who the fuck cares? No disrespect intended Cj. There’s probably several million more things which hold no interest to me than do. If you’ve got a case present it, see if you can convince me. If your evidence can’t convince me that they’re lying about it there probably isn’t anyone that you can convince outside of your world.
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Oh my, I’ve got an albino squirrel in my yard! Well I admit I’m presuming it’s an albino gray squirrel and not a stray Arctic squirrel. Did you know that the Arctic squirrel is the only mammal which can survive a body temp less than freezing? That veterinary school above should research that rodent, and help figure out how to put people into suspended animation instead of promoting bullshit propaganda.
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TEN-HUT!
PTSD, medical marijuana and the confines of the VA
As you were.
CJ, that is objectively not true. Sorry, but I do understand your frustration that your DoC seems to be getting short shrift. Rest assured, that everyone on the couch believes you should have safe access and a freedom from criminal stigma.
But you cannot claim that heroin is “better for you”. That’s really not true, moreover if you trot that out in a forum discussion outside of this here couch, you make all drug reform advocates look looney. Jus’ sayin’.
Hey all you political junkies, the California primary results are in. Unfortunately, Dianne Feinstein is pretty well guaranteed another six years in the US Senate, barring her death or a sex scandal. There as however, at least one prohibitionist US Representative who might be facing a real challenge in November:
Joe Baca (D-35) only got 43.7% in a 3-way primary against a fellow Dem, Gloria McLeod, and a Green Party candidate. I don’t know what McLeod’s views on legalization are, but
she’s voted the right way on the drug policy legislation that’s come her way so far: http://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/16492/gloria-negrete-mcleod/25/drug-issues
I would imagine most Green Party voters are pro-legalization. If she can scoop up them up, Baca will be out of a job.
Voters in CA are seriously self-destructive (or brainwashed) when they return people like Feinstein and that bit__ uh, sorry, the old one who was Speaker of the House; you know, the one who has had so many face lifts her eyes are nearly above her ears and which makes her face look constantly surprised.