In a truly bone-headed move, CU regents expected to oppose marijuana legalization measure on Colorado ballot
This is one they should stay out of, because it’s likely to backfire on them, as Mason Tvert is quick to note.
“This seems a bit hypocritical coming from a university that sees no problem with naming buildings after beer companies and sanctioning alcohol-fueled tailgate parties before football games,” Tvert said. “Nobody wants people who are underage to use marijuana, but there is absolutely no denying the fact that marijuana is far less harmful than alcohol.” […]
The Boulder campus — which is where CU’s regents met Tuesday and will reconvene Wednesday — has gained national rankings from publications such as Playboy magazine, Princeton Review and Newsweek for its “reefer madness” and being a party school.
So opposing a measure that regulates with an age limit?…
And now, for something completely different…
A feature on the still from M.A.S.H. [Thanks to Transform for the link]
I’ve always been a M.A.S.H. fan.
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Our dear friend Kieth Humphreys has no uncertainty in his mind when he predicts the future. Sinsemilla will be cheaper than peanuts post re-legalization according to him. Peanut production is regulated. It’s a crime to raise peanuts for sale without an allocation from the Feds the last time I checked.
I’ve got to admit that it’s amusing how prohibitionists are all so certain of what the world will look like post-re-legalization. I certainly don’t know what the future will look like but I am 100% certain that unfettered and unregulated isn’t what will happen.
All the dire warnings of “More potent Pot”. It still doesn’t have a lethal dose. Also the analogy rings hollow. People can pay a little more for “More potent Beer” but the cheaper less potent beers still dominate sales. It is nice to see that most of the comments are seeing right through the crap that Kieth is spewing.
The false analogy always pisses me off.
The proper rejoinder to this sophomoric reasoning is to ask them if everyone should be limited to only 3.2% alcohol beer. When they say no, ask them why. The smarter ones begin to squirm and obfuscate, diving for the (false) cover of talking points almost immediately, for at that point they’re demonstrating their hypocrisy publicly.
Alcohol: LD-50 (Oral, rat): LD50 = 7060 mg/kg;
Cannabis: 0
It can’t get any plainer than that.
This conversation reminds me of a driving study that is currently being set up:
http://tinyurl.com/964gzpb
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is teaming up with the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct the first study to analyze the effects of inhaled cannabis on driving performance.
The study is being set up in a way guaranteed to show a false picture of cannabis’ effects on driving. While listening to a GW Pharmaceutical spokesman speaking, he made an interesting point at about 15:52 into the video. “There are no two patients that will take the same dose of cannabis. Anyone setting out to do a cannabis based study on a standard dose will probably fail”
http://tinyurl.com/8oxyz33
Anyone using marijuana for either recreational use or medical use, unless they are a new user, will know the dose at which they can still operate a vehicle in a safe way. They will probably be setting a standard dose range in these driving studies. The study, even without being done yet can be guaranteed to give an erroneous result regarding driving. Another Government based study guaranteed to give a black eye to the legalization movement and a wrong result for them, so as to issue new driving standards to drive by.
I wrote the reporter for that article and she wrote back saying that her editor changed her wording (she had said “first study of its kind” because of the nature of the controlled conditions/equipment, etc. and they changed it to “first study” which is clearly not true. I also wrote one of the people involved in the study, but he has not responded.
Kudos to Mark Kleiman for actually refuting Keith Humphreys’ post in a follow-up.
Apparently, “Keith Humphreys has a thoughtful post below…” is Mark’s nice way of saying “Keith, you’re full of it.”
“I am 100% certain that unfettered and unregulated isn’t what will happen.”
It actually may turn out that way if either Romney or Obama wins in Nov, thanks to the complete financial crash that will happen soon thereafter. Which probably will bring about a situation where most of these uSofA will be as free and self-sufficient as the old west (a relatively lawless, but orderly and voluntary, society). I predict this because a financial collapse will likely also cause a collapse of government control over anything (a complete loss of confidence and trust in government people and government action will do that to a government).
Ever been around a combat still? In ’66, the signal crew on top of Hong Kong Mtn in An Khe had one brewing. Made Apple Jack that would rip your head off. I got invited to spend the night up there due to a “New opening.” After the party got started, we were infiltrated by a sapper unit. It’s a wonder none of us died. Can’t say the same for the other guys. Drunks in Combat. You had to see it. LOL
Chi Lai,,9/68,,USO show,,fight broke out over close to the stage between some admirers of the belly-dancers,,turned into a firefight between US troops real quickly because of alcohol,,all the heads were just watching the show,,one of my early experiences that turned me away from alcohol and towards pot.
Chu Lai,,,hate fat fingers
They’re Regents at a college…and they don’t understand – or are unaware of – the ebb and flow of History? And what usually happens to those on the wrong side when things change?
I keep thinking of the period between 1988 and 1991, when first the Berlin Wall fell and then, one by one, in a reverse domino effect, the revolutions began one after the other, bang, bang, bang, falling like hammer blows on the Commie leadership. Who kept bleating their slogans literally to the ‘bitter (for them) end’ until many were frog-marched out at bayonet-point to face their victims.
Drug prohibition is on its’ last legs. The long-awaited generational shift has occurred, elderly prohibs are becoming too incapacitated to (ignorantly) vote their prejudice and bigotries and/or are dying off, the country is effin’ bankrupt, we can’t afford the nonsense anymore, and just like the last time, the cold, unfeeling, uncaring force of economics is causing the world of Human affairs to once more prioritize. This is one enemy the prohibs can’t mock, obfuscate, deflect, deny, harass, beat up or shoot. And it’s bearing down on them like a steamroller.
You’d think those Regents, supposedly superbly educated people, would be able to look into the past and thus see the future in general…and theirs in particular when they go against those inexorable forces. Just goes to show, a degree doesn’t beat horse sense, or knowing not to urinate into the wind.
I suspect the regents are just being pragmatic in that the FED (POTUS) controls a large money-spigot at most major universities via contract awards.
Since this is an open thread….Hey Diva or Windy..I have six VIP Passes to the Seattle Cannabis Cup to give away. Speak up if you want a couple…
Sure, darkcycle, love to get a couple of tickets if you still have them. Need a lift?
Send me an email at divadab@rocketmail.com
Thanks!
divadab
Doubt I’m able to go but thanks for the offer. We’ve got so much going on in the next few weeks, first up is our 50th anniversary, Saturday. Our kids are throwing us a party.
When is the event?
This weekend.
Thought so, our party is Saturday @ 4PM about 35-40 guests expected, lots of food including King Salmon, if you were going to be here in town you are welcome to stop by.
Look at the picture of CU Regent Kyle Hybl… a fanatic if ever I saw one. I wonder what financial interest he has in the alcohol industry?
Proof that zombies exist? Reefer madness just keeps rising from the dead.
Sponsor ‘Regent Kyle Hybl, R-Colorado Springs’, says it all.
Colorado Springs is the epicenter of the evangelical right movement. It’s famous for the New Life megachurch once run by Ted Haggard, and the Air Force Academy, which has been under assault from rabid evangelicalism.
According to Paul Harvey:
In the 50s and 60s, fifteen-percent of the people in Colorado were members of the John Birch society. That demographic still exists in various abstractions. One abstraction is a Sabetist by the name of Rep. Kyle Hybl.
CU was once regarded as the Berkeley of Colorado. If freedom and patriotism are to mean anything, CU students need to stage a mass revolt against Herr Hybl and oust the awful jackass from the board of regents.
Any list that does not include Springfield Mo for most religious places cannot be correct. It is home to the Assemblies of God church and at one point home to more snake-handling churches than any other city.
An interesting interview/article with scholar Oliver Villar on the drug trade functioning on a global level, which ironically explains how the war on drugs has been a raging success, if you are talking about the way a global market and repressive systems have been symbiotically created: a terrifying perspective, but a very interesting read. He makes the case that the largest international trading consists of oil, arms, and drugs. Since the drug trade is illegal, it doesn’t get studied as often, yet that trade and the drug war are no less important to the economic viability of nations.
Unfortunately, it’s a perspective that makes sense, and also makes it seem much more difficult to imagine the WOD actually ending.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/jaw-dropping-explanation-how-governments-are-complicit-illegal-drug-trade
Roseanne Barr at the Huffington Post.
Sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut.
stlgonzo – Roseanne owns and operates a nut farm in Hawaii.
Saw her on Letterman recently, she has become quite an advocate for the cause. I thought this Huff Post article was awesome.
She is correct on this subject, but she is a totalitarian in the rest of her beliefs.
I’m not much of a Roseanne fan, but this line had me rolling!
While their successors keep an eye out for the elusive world’s first overdose death from marijuana, they seem to prove that pot can cause some pretty strange behavior by lots of people who don’t smoke it.
And a very good article containing an excerpt from This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America.”
From the excerpt:
As meth use rose nationwide, Clinton’s law-and-order drug czar had little interest in either the drug or the drug courts. Of more pressing concern to McCaffrey was the November 1996 passage of ballot initiative in California and Arizona to legalize medical marijuana. In typical drug-warrior style, the Clinton White House became determined to go after Americans’ changing attitudes toward drugs at the source — so much so that it had no qualms about covertly placing anti-drug messages into popular prime-time TV shows such as “Beverly Hills 90210” and “ER.”
Just after the elections in California and Arizona, McCaffrey called a meeting that included the head of the DEA and three other DEA staffers, White House advisers, and people from the FBI and the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services. The private wing of the war on drugs was represented, too, by eight senior executives from and the president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. Drug-reform organizations got word of the meeting and went to the press about it. Reporter Daniel Forbes broke the story for Salon.com.
The consensus at the meeting was that medical marijuana was a spike that could be driven into the heart of drug prohibition, and that the legalization movement knew it. “Need to frame the issue properly — expose this as legalizers using terminally ill as props” was the thinking of James Copple, then-president of the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America, according to the minutes. Maricopa County District Attorney Richard Romley, representing the Arizona delegation, suggested, “Even though California and Arizona are different props, the strategy of proponents is the same. It will expand throughout the nation if we all don’t react.” His remedy: “Need to go state by state. $ to do media.”
Two approaches were chosen to prevent the medical marijuana movement from spreading to other states: ramping up a national anti-pot public relations campaign and threatening doctors with the loss of their licenses if they recommended marijuana to patients. The latter strategy was announced in a press conference a month later and led to the lawsuit that eventually uncovered the minutes of the meeting. The doctors won, asserting a First Amendment right to recommend whatever legal remedy they believed would be effective.
Enough for me; I’m buying it. This is on the same level as Dan Baum’s seminal Smoke and Mirrors and Richard Miller’s Drug Warriors and their Prey As my friends from The Great White North put it, “Good stuff.”
Excellent article kapt. Was throwing in my 2 cents over there already on the comments.
I-502 with a commanding lead of 57-34 in latest Survey USA poll.
🙂
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I-502 with a commanding 58-21 lead in a KING 5 News Poll. Apparently this poll was done on the wishy washy side of town finding just as many undecided as in favor of maintaining the idiocy of cannabis prohibition.
Can we actually handle success? I can’t say for sure but I’d sure like to see for myself.
If you are out riding a horse and you look over and see a giraffe racing you and a lion chasing both of you,,,what do you do?
Get your drunk ass off the merry-go-round.
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If the study finds that there’s an increased risk of a particular sub-type of testicular cancer in a particular sub-type of people who choose to enjoy cannabis the headlines just don’t stop coming. We just gotta love how they never quantify these increased risk except by percentage increase. Like the Mittleman study that found a 4.8x increase in heart attack risk in obese tobacco smokers who also chose to enjoy cannabis. No mention outside of the body of the study that the increased risk was quantified as 1 in 100,000. I never could decide if Mettleman meant that it would happen to 1 in 100,000 people or if it meant someone would have to smoke 100,000 joints to be guaranteed a heart attack.
Move along people, move along. Nothing to see here:
The study on testicular was funded by NIDA and done by a health organization that reports marijuana is more dangerous than tobacco,,,straight out of the ONDCP handbook.
Actually, don’t write that study off just yet:
RESULTS:… Risk was decreased for more frequent users, nonsignificant for those who used for over ten years or continued to use, and more than doubled for those who used to smoke, but no longer do. Those who reported using marijuana less than once per week or for fewer than ten years were at more than twice the risk of those who never touched the stuff. http://m.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/study-marijuana-use-doubles-risk-of-testicular-cancer/262178/
Basically once you start, you shouldn’t stop!
It also means you should use lots. Yay!!! For once I’m on the right side.
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When we speak of the professions that would contract substantially after re-legalization we never mention the hack researchers who make a very healthy profit selling research study results on demand to the U.S. government. Why is that?
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strayan the contents of the study are irrelevant, it’s the headlines that count.
Well, I guess since Robert DuPont is having such a tough time getting his point across in the US he has taken his pleas to Norway.
http://tinyurl.com/99l2l2p
Oh fuck me:
Lying scumbag. I really hopes DuPont lives long enough to see the inside of a prison cell (one that used to house a cannabis user). One can only hope they issue him with prison and bed clothes made of coarse hemp fibre.
“You feeling it yet Robert?”
If you ever get a chance to read Dan Baum’s Smoke and Mirrors you find out how DuPont snookered the ‘Concerned Parents (a.k.a. Control Freak) Movement’ into becoming cheap, unpaid Congressional lobbyists for expanding the Federal anti-drug bureaucracy…and then dumped them like a spent rocket stage after he’d achieved fiscal security orbit.
The poor, politically naive, benighted control freaks, realizing they’d been had, decided to go into business for themselves, using the template DuPont has used on them, and thus morphed into groups like PFDFA.
They’re purely mercenary outfits, now, only in it for the bucks, for if they truly wanted to (superhero echo-chamber voice) “Saaaaave Thuh Childrennnnnnnnn!” they’d have been ‘pushing’ for a legal regulatory schema from the get-go. But as I said, they’re control freaks. Such never realize that reality doesn’t require the ignominy of their mortified ‘surrender’; they were defeated long ago by the generational shift that has brought those lovely polling results that show well over half asked want cannabis legal again.
In essence, their children are saying, very loud and very clear, that not only did the control freaks fail, their children have g-dmn HAD ENOUGH of their interference.
I said, way back in 2009, during the Mark Phelps bong-smoking pic incident (while he was being ritually castigated in the MSM, when people of his generation essentially said “So, what?”), that our time had come. It has. Just look at the incredible support Ron Paul has across the nation’s colleges. That he didn’t get much out of the process wasn’t as relevant as the near-riotous agreement of all those students when he talked about ending the DrugWar, which really means ending the CannabisWar. That was a clear refutation of the effort to turn them into Nancy (Reagan)’s JustSayNoBots. WRT illicit drugs, almost an entire generation has told the previous one to do something anatomically impossible.
And now they can vote. And they will. Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it?
hey Malcolm!
What does the election of Rutte mean for da Nederlands?
The Netherlands, due to our electoral system, is usually governed by two or more parties in a coalition.
Rutte (VVD) has taken 41 seats but they’ll have to form a coalition with the Dutch labour party (PvdA), which made massive gains—taking them to 39 seats.
* Rutte’s VVD was the party responsible for the ‘wietpas’ while the PvdA had promised full legalization.
The right-wing christian party, The Christian Democrats (CDA), which had been part of the last coalition government, and co-responsible for the ‘wietpas’, lost 8 seats taking them down to just 13.
The other main ‘wietpas’ supporter, right-wing populist Gert Wilders (PVV) lost 9 seats, knocking him back to just 15 seats.
The ‘wietpas’ was already crashing in flames—just days ago it lost the support of the mayor of Maastricht, Ono Hoes, VVD.
So all in all, it’s been a fairly good week for Dutch pragmatism.
Hickenlooper Opposes Marijuana Legalization Measure
by KREX News Room
by John Dias
http://www.krextv.com/news/around-the-region/-Hickenlooper-Opposes-Marijuana-Legalization-Measure-169600986.html
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.- After months of silence, Governor John Hickenlooper has taken a stance on marijuana legalization.
The Democrat said on Wednesday that he opposes making pot legal for recreational use.
In a prepared statement, Hickenlooper said that making marijuana legal would send the wrong message about drug use, and it’s not what Colorado should be known for.
Colorado is one of three states considering ballot measures this fall to legalize pot.””
My comment:
The governor has every right to his opinion but this is the American way of changing unjust and damaging laws when our elected politicians receive election funds too ignore reform of those laws in our state and federal legislatures,when they have ignored every petition citizens have sent them.
If the federal government ignores the citizens pleas and tries to interfere with America’s decisions,made by the citizens,,then what is the difference when we fought for freedom from England because of being taxed without representation and the abusive taxes levied on America,,,we,the people are tired of being the fodder in the drug war machine and this insanity must end
Chickenpooper lays an egg. Betcha he finds out it’s a real turkey.
And still people claim it is Republicans who are at fault for cannabis still being prohibited. I keep reminding them there are as many Democrats who oppose re-legalization as GOPers, but so many Ds are so willfully blind to that fact.
Greg Palast has a Colorado expose on voter purging that could affect the marijuana legalization vote in Colorado:
My voting experience in Colorado gave me my first eyewitness account of voting fraud. While registering at a precinct headquarters, I had to check a map which allegedly gave me the precinct I was to vote in. The precincts map was deliberately mislabeled so that new people registering for the first time would be sent to the wrong precinct on election day, and they were. Some of the new voters were inconvenienced enough not to vote.
Also, during the voter registration, a dark haired woman came in, talked to the precinct official, and as she was leaving announced to everyone waiting to register that registering now would not qualify them to vote in the coming election. She thought she was being clever, but the new voters who were there, students mostly, just stared at her like she was crazy.
The Colorado right-wingers were scared shitless about students voting for the first time. They were right to be concerned, as a number of right wing extremists lost the election.
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From the “I wish you’d do the world a favor and take 12 steps off an 11 step pier” category:
I Dream of Vapor
For some unknown reason I thought that Mr. Hagman was fan of cannabis from decades back. Seriously, wasn’t Jeanie’s bottle a bong metaphor? I’ll let you watch the video and decide for yourselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPSSF32oWK8
It sure looks like a bong to me.
I have a bottle that looks exactly like Jeannie’s bottle (without the miniature furnishings), I inherited it from my mother. I once thought about turning it into a bong, but never got a round tuit.
New Documentary Lambasts Drug War, And Obama’s Failure To Stop It
oooh… Santa Muerte
http://www.houstonpress.com/2012-09-13/news/santa-muerte/