Tom Keane in the Boston Globe: Right wing takes lead on reforming crime policy
DRUGS ARE BAD for you, no question. But wars on drugs are worse — at least the way we’ve been waging this battle. But change may be coming, and from the least likely source: the right wing. Just as it took Richard Nixon to reopen ties with China (a Democrat would have been pilloried as a commie sympathizer), so it may take conservatives to reform our nation’s drug and sentencing laws.
Uh, OK, I appreciate the overall article – some good stuff there, but let’s go back to that first sentence.
DRUGS ARE BAD for you, no question.
Nope. Sorry. I have a question.
What the hell are you talking about?
Last I checked, our bodies are constantly manufacturing drugs that keep us alive. I’m currently taking blood pressure drugs that are also helping insure that I live a longer life. There are millions of people who would be dead right now if it wasn’t for drugs. And countless others whose quality of life has been improved by drugs — of all kinds, both licit and illicit (the differences there being more political than scientific).
The fact is — drugs, when used appropriately, are GOOD FOR YOU.
Caveat required for any drug legalization article,,that is what made the NYTimes article so huge,,no caveats.
Cultural inertia: We’re past the point where the public is aware of the medicinal utility of cannabis, but the ‘reality gate-keepers’, who stand watch with all the implements of destruction used to enforce their view of reality, are still in a position to wreak havoc on those who dare challenge their orthodoxy. Hence the author’s bowing in obeisance to said orthodoxy while at the same time timidly questioning it.
Those current ‘reality gate-keepers’ must be deposed and replaced eventually, and they will be, but not until after some serious public outcry is made against their fraudulent power base…and rationalizations for keeping it funded.
Any article that begins “DRUGS ARE BAD for you, no question” isn’t worth the effort to read. Pure crap. Completely ludicrous premise makes the whole thing worthless. It’s aimed at continuing the simplistic ignorance of the low-information readers of the Globe.
Did this guy Keane advance beyond 6th grade? Or is it just that those who didn’t are his target audience?
What a maroon.
OT, but this is for Duncan and the rest who enjoyed Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch 22’ novel:
http://www.tastefullyoffensive.com/2014/03/thug-notes-catch-22-by-joseph-heller.html
.
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The NY Times is still at it. This one is from the “resistance is not futile, it’s mandatory” category:
I think what we got here is a gen-ewe-whine honest to god Man Behind the Curtain pulling strings to do his part toward the goal of re-legalization. In the last two weeks there have been at least 783 facts published in the NYT. Facts which I can’t ever recall being acknowledged by any stripe of prohibitionist or published in a top tier MSM outlet. Seeing all of them appear in such a short period of time?. They’re at least consulting with someone who does actually know the facts.
Here’s another guy who thought he couldn’t be beaten by his rag tag, poorly equipped with inferior technology enemies:
I am Locutus of Borg
I’ve got to confess that I think Patrick Stewart has nailed the typical prohibitionist parasite in the video linked above.
As I read the article I could hear voices from the couch,,as kap said about the possibility of a lurker being a reporter,,all they had to do was read Pete’s blog or participate,,for me it held no surprise and only a few disappointments,,on the racial application of marijuana prohibition they should have exposed that it was enacted when appx half of Congress(mostly the southern states)belonged to the KKK and the tapes when Nixon declared the war on drugs proved that it has served as the Jim Crow law since and still is.
If anybody needs a good laugh this morning, check out Duncan’s reply to my “Duck and Cover” comments from yesterday.
It’s the last comment on the post.
I’ll be smiling all day. Too funny. Robin Williams is that you?
OT
Some revealing info about an American Icon.
Back in the early 90’s I had an interesting postal delivery.
Charles Shultz, the creator of Peanuts lived nearby and a piece of mail to him was delivered to my home by accident.
The contents of the mail was a single card with a handwritten note. A woman from the S.F. Bay area who had attended a party at the Shultz residence was trying to contact Schultz and his wife.
The card itself was interesting due to the sexual nature. It was a very tastefully done photo of an attractive couple having sex on the beach with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.
Was the creator of Peanuts into some kinky shit? It’s difficult for me to come to another conclusion. I would have kept the card but it got damaged by spilled coffee.
From the Tom Keane article:
“Irascible Newt Gingrich wrote in 2011 about the “huge costs in dollars and lost human potential†of excessive imprisonment.”
Er, could this be the same Newt Gingrich who called for the execution of drug dealers as recently as 2011 when running for the Republican nomination? Perhaps he thought he could save some of those “huge costs” with a simple bullet to the head, a la China, where they make the relatives pay 50 cents for the cost of that bullet.
Check out the most recent reefer madness campaign in my home state. I’ve been a regular cannabis consumer since the age of 13…I’ll be finishing up a doctoral degree in Bioengineering next fall….enigma? I think not. I would love to see this campaign picked apart, piece by piece.
http://dontbealabrat.com
Their gossip only kills Americans, especially young kids dying from seizures or choosing the fake pot that does kill. Thousands of years of use and still no victims, just gossip queens paid by tax dollars. Drug worriers are the Scum of the Earth.
Drugwar Lies Linked to Schizophrenia
http://tinyurl.com/DrugWorrierLies-Schizophrenia
Cannabis Shrinks Tumors: Government Knew in 74
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/588
The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes.” http://www.jackherer.com/
In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out — unsuccessfully — to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the “high.”
The NFL Thinks Smoking Weed Is Eight Times Worse
Than Beating a Woman Unconscious
http://mic.com/articles/94946/the-nfl-thinks-smoking-weed-is-eight-times-worse-than-beating-a-woman-unconscious
Not just Americans DdC. This cannabis reefer madness also keeps it illegal, where many more people die in places like Mexico and Afghanistan from the sell of marijuana/hash . . . Hash from Lebanon has been linked to ISIS and Al Qaeda, which have killed thousands in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria and the prohibition of pot finances Hamas, which is why Israel is retaliating and have killed nearly 2000 Palestinians. We often forget the non-Marijuana side of marijuana prohibition. Not just some child with a tumor or seizures gets killed, but a child in Iraq gets killed and pot prohibition forces 7 and 8 yr old girls to marry 30-40 yr old men due to the power drug money offers to a conflict and her victors. Keeping marijuana illegal reinforces the notions that little girls are only good for sex, house work and breeding children when they turn into teens. Granted we cannot stop all of it, but we have the ability to stop the drug money financial aspects of it.
In our fight for equality, we must never forget the non-drug related victims that are created by our War on Drug policy.
We must play devil’s advocate with these bastards and request that we only pay police officers minimum wage with no benefits as an ability to afford and thus hire millions of American cops to go worldwide to combat drugs, drug use and drug money for the sake of combating global terrorism and organized crime. I blame my local cop if someone is smoking hash or opium in Cairo or Milan . . . that is a fact, not an opinion. Chicago PD are directly responsible for crack cocaine in S. Africa because of our policy influencing global policy. Small town cops in Alabama are directly to blame for cocaine being used in Singapore. Proof: they don’t do anything to combat global drug use and sales.
Police officers undergoing the War on Drugs are nothing short of work horses and should be flogged, beaten and killed to get the job done. If a cop has to get killed in Karbala as a way of combating drug money, then so be it. A real police officer doesn’t minds getting their legs blown off for a pot seed, let alone for a million in coke and that is the Devil’s Advocate side. Send cops through the shredder and meat grinder for the war on drugs, not the innocent killed by drug money. If only our cops could be so lucky as to be massacred in doing their jobs, like the cops in Mexico, Iraq or Central America, they may then push for legalization. Remember, every cop’s life is worth losing over a marijuana pipe, let alone an opium field or city filled with terrorists and insurgents high off drug money’s power and affects. That is a fact and not an opinion: To Serve and Protect means dying for the stupidest of reasons when said reason is created by the job and the law one enforces.
Hash from Lebanon has been linked to ISIS? and ISIS has been funded by John McCain and our tax dollars, the same as the world signing on to America’s drug war. Mexico has been supplying Americans cannabis since Acapulco Gold. Now that the US funds the Mexican Military, the Mexicans defend themselves and are pegged as terrorists? The only terrorists are the Neocorporatists. Like scumball Souder funding Thailand so now they have a slave labor market just like ours. Can’t point fingers to those getting hand outs from the US, without pointing them to those giving the hand outs. We create these monsters and then blame them when they try to harm us?
Like the tiger in the lake letting a rattlesnake ride on its back to shore. The snake bit the tiger and they both drowned. The tiger ask before submerging, why, I saved your ass? Snake said I’m a snake and that is what we do.
As long as we create monsters, they will attack innocents and not always the ones we direct them towards. The drug war gets us an invitation but its tax that pays for it. Making it the responsibility of the tax payers.
The public servants getting reefer for American users were not terrorists. To blame everything unsafe on the underground growers or sellers is hypocritical. They are not the enemy now nor were they before the unconnected discovered we weren’t lying about the benefits. Oh but they were too law abiding to buy it as we have the past 5 decades. They need fucked up incremental laws that have no weight. Now those without half-assed state sanctions are the criminal cartels? Patooyee on that. I still buy from the underground and have no use for impotent laws or gutless leaders afraid of the truth. Dispensaries are doing a good job for those without connections but their price is beyond most range on the street. Until the feds rightfully remove it as a scheduled narcotic there will be war. Fuck the Neocons, their appeasers and the Ganjawar they rode in on!
Here’s A Picture Of John McCain Hanging Out With ISIS Freedom Fighters In 2013
So here’s a heck of a thing: Back in May 2013, Forever Warmonger John McCain was really excited about the prospects of arming the Syrian moderates who were fighting to free that country from the iron grip of Bashar al-Assad. He even sneaked into the country to meet with the head of the Free Syrian Army, Gen. Salim Idris, the fellow in the striped shirt there (Idris was ousted in February of this year).
Only one small problem with the little photo-op: In addition to Idris, some of the other guys in the pic are apparently members of a slightly less “moderate†group: ISIS, the guys who are currently bringing down Iraq, and the photo is reportedly being circulated by ISIS as proof of their legitimacy. Oops….
‘Thank God for the Saudis’: ISIS, Iraq, and the Lessons of Blowback
U.S lawmakers encouraged officials in Riyadh to arm Syrian rebels. Now that strategy may have created a monster in the Middle East.
“Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar,†John McCain told CNN’s Candy Crowley in January 2014.
McCain was praising Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services and a former ambassador to the United States, for supporting forces fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham had previously met with Bandar to encourage the Saudis to arm Syrian rebel forces.
ISIS Thanks John McCain for Making their Rise to Power Possible
The Islamic terrorist group known as the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria†(ISIS) … just released an online magazine called “Dabiq†for its English readership for Ramadan. In the magazine … ISIS goes after only one American politician—Senator John McCain (R-AZ), for a June 12 floor speech of he delivered about ISIS:
“…the crusader John McCain came to the Senate floor to rant irritably about the victories the Islamic State was achieving in Iraq. He forgot that he himself participated in the invasion of Iraq that led to the blessed events unfolding today by Allah’s bounty and justice.â€
ISIS brags about links to US Senator John McCain
The Unite states is manufacturing it’s own enemies. ISIS fighters are bragging on the internet about having their photo with US Senator John McCain.
The international media is also reporting that the United States gave anti-tank missiles to Turkey to distribute to Jihadists groups. The entire mission was green lighted by US Senator John McCain.
Neocons
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?
You doubt Lebanese hash funds Isis? When was the last time you snitched on yourself and your friends and told the Feds how much you and your friends used/bought/sold? The black market keeps most of her secrets and inside war, those secretes are harder to find. If you yourself or anyone on the couch refuses to snitch on themselves and others–telling the complete truth about how much they’ve bought and from who, or how much they sold etc, then rest assure, we won’t have access to most of the secretes, until we all snitch and tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, thus giving up said secretes. To not claim that Hash funds Isis is like saying Lebanon is closer to Chicago than they are to any areas occupied by Isis. It’s just logical. Like if one doesn’t believe that Hitler or Pol Pot didn’t utilize drug money to fund agendas and murder, then one cannot believe Snickers uses chocolate, let alone believe the CIA and crooked cops had their hands in dope. It behooves those needing money to get money. Do you throw away every dollar or penny you find or do you keep it and use it later on? Any idea how many people I killed with my drug money? None, so yes, drug dealers who use their money to fund violence are terrorists since they have a choice, but human nature proves they won’t stop and that is why we must legalize it all. Some growers grow for the purpose of funding militaries/policies and they are a part of the problem as well.
War Vet says: You doubt Lebanese hash funds Isis?
When was the last time you snitched on yourself and your friends and told the Feds how much you and your friends used/bought/sold?
The black market keeps most of her secrets and inside war, those secretes are harder to find. If you yourself or anyone on the couch refuses to snitch on themselves and others–telling the complete truth about how much they’ve bought and from who, or how much they sold etc, then rest assure, we won’t have access to most of the secretes, until we all snitch and tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, thus giving up said secretes.
To not claim that Hash funds Isis is like saying Lebanon is closer to Chicago than they are to any areas occupied by Isis.
It’s just logical. Like if one doesn’t believe that Hitler or Pol Pot didn’t utilize drug money to fund agendas and murder, then one cannot believe Snickers uses chocolate, let alone believe the CIA and crooked cops had their hands in dope.
It behooves those needing money to get money. Do you throw away every dollar or penny you find or do you keep it and use it later on? Any idea how many people I killed with my drug money? None, so yes, drug dealers who use their money to fund violence are terrorists since they have a choice, but human nature proves they won’t stop and that is why we must legalize it all.
Some growers grow for the purpose of funding militaries/policies and they are a part of the problem as well.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 told them…
A Rebellious Son
If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.†Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
“In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out — unsuccessfully — to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the “high.—
Maybe he should have performed a little bit more research, and he may have found that the so-called “high” is part of the medical benefits.
I can never understand how “feeling good” has become a stigma.
“I can never understand how ‘feeling good’ has become a stigma.”
It comes from the puritanical roots of religion in America, where it is sinful to enjoy this life, joy must be saved for the afterlife. Twisted thought!
Cannabis Blocks Irreversible Brain Damage
The NFL Should Combat Concussions with Cannabis
http://goodshittoo.phlap.net/the-nfl-should-combat-concussions-with-cannabis/
Preeminent Harvard psychiatrist Lester Grinspoon smoked pot with Carl Sagan (a lot ), which prompted him to write two books about cannabis, Marihuana Reconsidered (1971) and Marijuana, the Forbidden Medicine (1993). Dr. Grinspoon asked us to consider running an open letter he’d written to the commissioner of the National Football League, Roger S. Goodell, imploring him to actively support research into using cannabis to treat long term head trauma, and we felt his thoughts are worth sharing.
Using Pot To Save Brains!
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/601
Marijuana May Live Up To Be The Elixir of Life By Ravi Chopra
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread21194.shtml
Source: Earthtimes.org October 15, 2005
A study by University of Saskatchewan researchers suggests beneficial aspects of smoking marijuana appear to have sprouted new brain cells. Benefiting from reduced depression and anxiety.
It seems marijuana could be good for your brain.
http://cannabisnews.com/news/21/thread21191.shtml
Most “drugs of abuse” such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine and nicotine suppress growth of new brain cells. However, researchers found that cannabinoids promoted generation of new neurons.
The USA Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy 1987
“Cannabis can be used on an episodic but continual basis without evidence of social or psychic dysfunction. In many users the term dependence with its obvious connotations, probably is mis-applied… The chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political, and not toxicologic, foundation”.
A Day in the Life of A Dementia Sufferer
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1741
☛Marijuana Protects Your Brain
☛Cannabis Prevents Brain Damage
☛Brain Responds To Pain With MJ – Like Substance
☛Cannabis May Offer Protection Against Tumors
☛Cannabis Blocks Irreversible Brain Damage
☛High Times for Alzheimers
☛Pot Joins The Fight Against Alzheimer’s, Memory Loss
☛MARIJUANA SLOWS ALZHEIMER’S DECLINE
☛Marijuana may block Alzheimer’s
☛Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease Pathology by Cannabinoids
☛Marijuana’s Active Ingredient Shown to Inhibit Primary Marker of Alzheimer’s Disease
☛Ganja May Live Up To Be The Elixir of Life
OT: It seems every week the prohibs sink to a new low and I proclaim this to be the current low from the anti-marijuana group Vote no on 2.
https://www.facebook.com/noonamendment2/photos/pb.620487628043861.-2207520000.1407726731./671692392923384/?type=1&theater
Laughable but at the same time disrespectful of actual rape victims.
Wow
Desperation. Pitiful.
Would someone please allow us to put this sick animal out of it’s misery?
The only way that is possible is if they Jim Morrison(ed) on hash, but even then, I doubt the affects would make one so sleepy that they’d be a victim. I want to know where their date rape ad was when Oxy, Ambien and Zo came out? Even if such a thing is possible, we need to educate the kids about this so they can make informed decisions if they so decide to disobey the law (like they do with alcohol and tobacco). What would happen if you gave a teenage girl 3000-7000mg of cannabis edibles? Edibles and other meds and or booze? Under their hysteria, dating a strong popular high school wrestler could be a gateway to date rape with all the pinning maneuvers and the ability to make someone pass out, so all girls should avoid dating someone who plays contact sports. Huffing could do the same thing.
Ban Fossil Fools for the Sake of the Children huffing it! – 11/30/10
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1635
OT: it’s a video with a short written introduction. http://themindunleashed.org/2014/04/molecular-biologist-explains-thc-completely-kills-cancer.html
Okay, now I have a question. When did the word “mush” become a valid medical term?
Will Regular Marijuana Use Turn Teen Brains To Mush? Yes, Say Psychologists
http://tinyurl.com/kovcyrn
———————
Maybe we can look forward to psychologists being diagnosed with serious cases of “shit-for-brains” (according to several esteemed medical journals that’s worse than “mush”).
Therefore, to save you from yourself, we must throw you in a cage which of course is psychologically beneficial to the teen brain!
Not to mention the fact that IQ tests in and of themselves aren’t exactly an accurate assessment of intelligence… Whoops, am I supposed to know that?
Crut, I have other questions. Based on this “teen brains turn to mush” stuff, does that mean THC is a neurotoxin until someone turns 21? Then magically it becomes a neuroprotectant, anti-inflammatory, and facilitator of neurogenesis after someone turns 21?
I have so many questions my brain feels a bit mushy.
The age is actually variable depending on the person, but otherwise the “Magic” as you so call it is verifiable science.
It’s the moment in a person’s brain that he or she realizes that the government is not serving his or her best interest. This realization causes the creation or activation of the BS gland which slowly re-wires the Authoritarian pathways that were implanted early on in the person’s childhood. These pathways tricked the person into believing THC as the toxin that it isn’t and therefore solidified their resolve to avoiding it. Simple really!
Supporters Light Up as Vancouver’s ‘Prince of Pot’ Returns to Canada After U.S. Sentence http://www.cannabisculture.com/node/46600
Marc Emery’s Reefer Revenge Just Might Work http://www.cannabisculture.com/node/46579
Obviously he means to imply “recreational” drugs. Nevertheless, it is still incorrect. Many recreational drugs are quite safe, often much safer than many prescription drugs.
Marijuana, most psychedelics, and opiates for instance, are all harmless, (although it is possible to overdose on opiates, especially when potentiated with alcohol). The majority of problems experienced by users are attributable to prohibition, rather than the effects of the drug itself.
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