Reading my Facebook feed this morning, I saw a number of references to John Legend’s acceptance speech at the Oscars last night: Oscars 2015: John Legend Makes Slavery Comparison in Acceptance Speech
“We live in the most incarcerated country in the world,” Legend said. “There are more black men under correctional control today than there were under slavery in 1850.”
And PolitiFact was on Twitter, verifying that it was, in fact, true.
And there was a part of me inside screaming, “Yes! Those of us in drug policy reform have been trying to tell you things like this for years! Haven’t you been listening?”
It was a similar internal reaction to when there was massive public response to the police shooting (and subsequent police overreaction) in Ferguson, Missouri.
But I think it’s important to understand that moving a public discussion in a population of hundreds of millions with entrenched views and self-interests is like placing pebbles in the path of a glacier. It can be a painfully slow process at times, but it is essential to get that process started.
Sometimes it can seem like you’re making no progress at all. Yet those of us who have been working on it for years can see the dramatic difference if we step back and view the entire picture — how significantly our overall mass trajectory has been altered.
And that makes it worthwhile (while also pointing out that we cannot stop our efforts).
Stop? Who said anything about stopping. And where did that glacier come from? Dammit, nobody said that would be there, I thought that wall opened up into a grand world of personal responsability and freedom. Where did all that ice come from?
I thought global warming melted the glaciers. But I’m on the sunny left coast while the east is a big pile of snow. If logic dictated the drug war. We Won. It’s over. Y’all can go home now. Yea for our side!
Marijuana may be even safer than previously thought, researchers say http://wpo.st/yMS50
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-jsInrCQAAV6CZ.png
Now there is absolutely no reason to continue this costly hidious war on plant users…
Here is an example of glacial. This article, then another today in the same paper, the WP.
http://tinyurl.com/nvcr9fy
Further down it the article they ask “What is Molly, and why is it so dangerous?” If this writer read his own paper he would realize its not “so dangerous” in the bigger picture that you reference DdC.
ODing on drugs of unknown content is the result of having a drug war and continuing prohibition. This stuff probably was not even what they thought it was. If this author read his own paper he might not ask such redundant and foolish questions that waste everyone’s time.-And students’ lives. They would be placing blame where it belongs. This is just lazy. Or too dumb to connect the dots.
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
— Frederick Nietsche
Joe Biden sabotaged MDMA (molly) the pure unadulterated version of XTC. I tried MDA in the 70’s and found the contact high just as good. They called it the “Love Drug” because it made everyone peaceful. I knew a Deadhead that would take it to sell more of it. After Biden tacked it onto the Amber Alert to pass his RAVE Ax that failed on its own 3 times. Using DEA same old shit trickery, substituting meth for X, twice. Ooops. Too late, So far it has stopped a couple NORML rallies and mostly has killed kids banning test kits Dance Safe was providing. I think it also banned bottled water and glow sticks. Heat exhaustion and stroke is better for statistics to show how dangerous it is. Same sabotage with any drug, none more lied about than cannabis. It’s as clear as your nose on your face who has always “pushed” prohibition are the very same receiving government grants or corporate sponsorship. Always vested ignorance from bloated cop budgets, forfeitures and overtime on easy busts to the private for profit Kochroach hotels and all of the paraphernalia companies with not a god damned thing to do with smoking a doobie. Especially lumping in Hemp. With NIDA furnishing gutter science to back up the draconian idiots like Grassley.
United Nations Drug Report Disappointing XTC v Meth!
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/408
“Find out just what the people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
— Frederick Douglas (1857)
More reality most of the sheep will miss or avoid…
☛ Marijuana Vs Sugar –
Which Drug Is Most Dangerous? Russell Brand The Trews (E260)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rofj9M5owGI&feature=youtu.be
☛ CANNABIS AS A PREVENTATIVE
http://t.co/5jFC0lVQT4
☛ FDA Reverses Its Position on Daily Aspirin ecp
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/961
* Aspirin generated $1.27 billion in sales for Bayer last year,
* Evidence in support of using aspirin preventatively has gone from weak to weaker to nonexistent.
* Roughly 800,000 Americans die from cardiovascular disease annually, which includes heart attacks and stroke.
* The number of non-fatal events may be reduced, but the number of sudden deaths is actually increased, because what most physicians don’t realize is that surprisingly aspirin can mask a cardiac event in progress.
* Each year, 15,000 people die and 100,000 people are hospitalized as the result of aspirin and other NSAIDs—and these are probably conservative estimates. But aspirin may be one of the oldest killer drugs! Strong historical evidence points to aspirin overdose as a major contributor to high death tolls during the 1918 influenza pandemic.
☛ Science Says: Lungs Love Weed
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/960
☛ NHTSA study: No evidence marijuana leads to higher crash risk
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/956
* Feds: No Link Between Pot and Car Crashes
* Landmark Study Finds Marijuana Is Not Linked to Car Crashes
USA Today nevertheless perceives a “new driving threat from dopers.”
* Consuming Alcohol Poses a Much Larger Risk for Driving Accidents Than Cannabis
* STUDY: Stoned Drivers At Far Lower Risk Of Crash Than Drunken Drivers
A government study on impaired driving released last week found that drivers who had used marijuana were at a far lower risk of getting into a car accident than drivers who had used alcohol.
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IIRC I’ve heard that those glaciers have really picked up their pace in the last few decades.
Wait…duh…I get it. The drug war is the metaphorical wall, Mass incarceration is the Glacier. We’re supposed to take the metaphorical pebbles off the wall, and stack them right there in front of that glacier? Why didn’t you SAY so? Easy-squeezy. Sorry, Pete, I can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. Where’s my hammer?
Yikes, judging by those comments there’s still quite a few pebbles to move.
Mongo, two comments is a pretty tiny sample size.
Just FYI, darkcycle is a committed cannabis and anti-drug war advocate with a history on this site of intelligent and cogent discourse.
Stick around and join our efforts to make social change.
Nor Cal, I think he is referring to the comments at the NBC news site. Intelligent and cogent discourse? I’m flattered…confused, but flattered.
Sorry for the confusion.
This is the kind of shit that happens when a commenter (me) abandons and immediately leaves ANY and ALL websites where I get hit with “automatic” video or audio.
My unwillingness to stick around for the comments section cost me context.
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NorCal, go download AdBlockPlus at https://adblockplus.org/
You’ll have to proactively block the content you dislike since they’re not actually ads. But that really doesn’t take long. Anyway, it’s what I’ve done and it’s free.
I meant the comments on the NBC article, sorry for the confusion.
it’s the smoke in our eyes…
Better living through chemistry..lets dump salt on the ice by having an economical crash unlike anything in recorded history.
All 16 US intelligence agencies are reporting an economical collapse within 6 months followed by a 25 year depression,,we should have never come off the gold standard!
http://tinyurl.com/oquzls3
Should the rise of conflicts across the Middle East and Ukraine serve as a warning sign that something much more dangerous is approaching?
According to Jim Rickards, the CIA’s Asymmetric Warfare Advisor, the answer is yes.
In a startling interview he reveals that all 16 U.S. Intelligence Agencies have begun to prepare for World War III.
Making matters worse, his colleagues believe it could begin within the next 6 months. “Snip”
Since few of us are able to protect our incomes or live off the stock market by buying the stocks they are recommending I suggest you grow marijuana for bartering.
And it is time to start preparing your ground.
Ok… so, we’re up shit creek without a paddle. What else is new?
Gardening in the suburbs won’t work for me until the anarchy is rather widespread. Let’s just hope the 6-month timeframe is inaccurate…
When the intelligence agencies aren’t dealing crack in South Central LA, or helping Canadian mining companies steal land from indigenous peoples in Guatemala and Mexico, they’re making plans for the next big war, just in case it happens. In their spare time, the CIA has probably concocted plans for invading Puerto Rico.
What the intelligence agencies have done in Cuba is a concrete example of a massive human rights crime. I would not trust the intentions of any CIA connected source, especially one predicting a financial apocalypse.
I like to think that if my criticisms have any effect on combatting prohibition, with each posted critique I’ve perhaps moved the agenda ahead a millionth of an inch. I can’t see it, but I like to think it’s there, acting like some hairline fracture in an overstressed cog, minutely expanding with each mouse-click.
That doesn’t mean anyone should limit themselves to this single approach. Gradualism is essential to success, but as the great Italian anarchist E. Malatesta noted:
Not all of us involved, when standing back to take the macro view, see much improvement. I’m not saying progress cannot be identified, it can. But it has been glacially slow (to use Pete’s analogy), hampered mostly by the prohibitionists and, to a (significantly) lesser extent, reformers themselves.
Despite all the rhetoric (and limited progress), we continue, on a daily basis, to alter if not ruin the lives of countless individuals. Homosexual activity, arguably more distasteful to political leaders than drug use, has made more progress than drug policy reformers. As I’ve said here on one or more occasions, we should all be gay for a day and learn from the progress they’ve made.
OK, let the hate begin.
Nobody hatin’ Dan. But progress has been made, most notably when you look at the landscape now VS Twenty or even ten years ago.
Admit it, we have made it unfashionable to like the drug war.
I dunno, darkcycle. Drug war stills gets lots of Valentines…
I don’t know nothin about no revolutions but this just showed up on the 11 AM news:
https://www.oregonmjsurvey.com/
The group says it’s sponsored by a certain LOLO LLC based in Eugene. Is Allen still hibernating or can he give us some info?
first I’d heard of it but I’ve sent out a query to the locals. There is this:
Oregon Marijuana Survey Project
Dennis Lewis, Public Relations
dennis@oregonmjsurvey.com
(541) 632-6630
of course it could be Dennis Lewis, the former Sheriff of Humboldt Co., doubtful tho’…
will let you know what I find
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No surprise to us, but Fla. cop: fake evidence, lying ‘part of the game’
*sigh*
I want to hope that this bad apple is exaggerating (due to his supposed anonymity), but truly, how brazen and untouchable do you have to think you are to have this written down?
Top indicative quote for me:
Innocent until proven guilty, huh?
…so how does that make evidence tampering and perjury ok? Oh, it doesn’t?
Marijuana is safer than all recreational drugs, new study finds
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311234/
http://tinyurl.com/q5y2vba
http://tinyurl.com/pvuvv2x
http://tinyurl.com/nopmvxp
The pebble method works. So does blowing them out of the water with their own lies and manipulations. Times are changing Daniel. Faster than you think.
Not if it is smoked.
can you (or has anybody ever) suffer(ed) a fatal overdose from smoking cannabis? Yes, even smoking it is safer than other substances.
Allan, you might want to do a bit of research on the old chestnut of “fatal” (particularly) heroin overdose. It has been shown to be a myth for the last forty years at least. You are free to smoke as much as you like, but the fact remains that it has horrendous consequences for the body. No amount of denial will change that. Isnt it ironic that some illicit drug users will turn to false propaganda used to demonise drugs like morphine in order to protect their ego ideals. Neither of these drugs should be illicit, so I think it is a bit poor to turn to and perpetuate propaganda that helps to oppress people like yourself, who suffer under the current regulatory regime. Cannabis users have the numbers, but they are not the only ones suffering oppression.
I’m 63, been smoking cannabis for 45 years… methinks I have yet to suffer any “horrendous” health effects. Have YOU read Tashkin’s UCLA work on cannabis smoking?
And it’s Prohibition that is illicit, not cannabis, not heroin, not coca, not sillycybin…
Pray tell Matt, what exactly are these “horrendous” health effects of smoking ganja?
Allan, I have no problem with you smoking cannabis, tobacco or any other substance. You have the right to do to your body whatever you choose. The three areas of serious health effects from smoking are cancer (google bronchiogenic carcinoma), cardiovascular and pulmonary (lung) disorders. I work in a hospital and have heard a vascular surgeon say smoking “ages” your vessels twice as fast. No doubt I will now probably be savaged with comments like cannabis smoke has none of the harmfull elements of tobacco smoke. Well that’s just not true. The fume of any plant matter has a plethora of harmful substances. Again, I am not arguing with your right to put into your body whatever you choose, I am just saying denial doesn’t make for a very rational conversation. Anyway, as far as the “War on Drugs”, cannabis is not scheduled because of any harm it might have for people. It is scheduled to fuel a black market, for political advantage, so that it’s users may be put in jail and otherwise oppressed and to facilitate billions in corporate welfare (DEA jobs etc.) among other things.
Denial? You have 2nd hand SPECULATION (about TOBACCO smoking!), yet you spout off as if it is definitive proof of the harms of cannabis. Also, working in a hospital increases your bias from seeing a higher percentage of the ill effects of any/all medical issues caused by who knows what.
Look, we KNOW that smoking is arguably the most harmful way of ingesting cannabis. But we also know, and have recent studies that back this up, that smoking cannabis is far less harmful to our cardiovascular and overall health than smoking cigarettes. You can’t conflate the effects of one substance with another and expect us to believe you know what you are talking about. Did you see the recent WSJ article about Ultra-marathon runners and cannabis?
I’m just saying, making stuff up doesn’t make for a very rational conversation.
Crut, you are apparently a committed smoker and will defend this method of ingestion with vigorous enthusiasm. That’s fine. I’m not talking about the “harms of cannabis”, I am talking about the harms of “smoking” plant matter. What you are saying: “smoking cannabis is far less harmful to our cardiovascular and overall health than smoking cigarettes” is not supported by any evidence. It takes about five minutes reading the CARDIA study to see it is not worth the paper it is written on. Read on.
The CARDIA study:
Marijuana smoke contains many of the same constituents as tobacco smoke, but whether it has similar adverse effects on pulmonary function is unclear.
Marijuana exposure was nearly as common as tobacco exposure but was mostly light (median, 2-3 episodes per month).
It is more difficult to estimate the potential effects of regular heavy use, because this pattern of use is relatively rare in our study sample; however, our findings do suggest an accelerated decline in pulmonary function with heavy use and a resulting need for caution and moderation when marijuana use is considered.
Marijuana smoke contains many of the same constituents as tobacco smoke, but it is unclear whether smoking marijuana causes pulmonary damage similar to that caused by tobacco. Prior studies of marijuana smokers have demonstrated consistent evidence of airway mucosal injury and inflammation as well as increased respiratory symptoms such as cough, phlegm production, and wheeze, similar to that seen in tobacco smokers.
Our study has limitations. Although CARDIA offers longitudinal spirometry measurements, it lacked body plethysmographic measurements of static lung volumes (total lung capacity and residual volume) and measures of diffusing capacity and radiographic emphysema.
Hey Doormat. Your oppressive tactics are only forcing people to stop. Like pushing down a spring, it leaves potential energy to release elsewhere. Most, it’s drinking more or eating more. The crime is that you still haven’t dealt with the actual problem. The adulterants added to tobacco you dismiss in all of the government corporate studies with an agenda. To find desired results is not exploratory Science. Until the poisons are removed then cigarettes will be hazardous. Still no comparison to Ganja or organic tobacco smoking. Plus the prohibition negatives already stated. None of the CARDIA studies compare Ganja or use organic tobacco and they even state the results are also dependent on environment, race, gender and education. Living near a paper mill or drinking water Koch dumped dioxins into. Every symptom used to threaten smokers is countered with Ganja properties, never included. Inflammation, expectorant or obesity and its related problems are all curtailed with Ganja. Same with hundreds of cultures using tobacco for centuries with no problems. Turkish tobacco, Sir Walter in England, China, India and Russia all used tobacco. Without the “poisons for pleasure” as when Reagans sold them in the 40’s. To just dismiss igniting flame retardants, burn enhancers, gun powder or curing preservatives and pesticides is not science. Its what the DEA and NIDA do, Fear mongering. Sell your vapes, I have no problem with them if people want them. Just stop the hobgoblins until you find a real victim. Until then, subsidize organic tobacco and the lower incomes won’t be buying generic with more additions.
CIGARETTE ADDITIVES
This list of all 599 cigarette additives has been submitted by the tobacco companies to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Which Country Makes the World’s Deadliest Cigarettes?
According to a recent study, U.S. made cigarettes tend to contain more cancer-causing chemicals than cigarette brands made elsewhere around the world. In particular, U.S. cigarettes have more TSNAs, or tobacco-specific nitrosamines, than foreign made cigarettes. TSNAs are the major cancer-causing substance in tobacco.
Ganja safer than not toking
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1495/
Outrageous Anti-Pot Lies: Media Uses Disgraceful Cancer Scare Tactics
For those who actually bothered to read the study’s full text, which appeared in the European Respiratory Journal days after the global feeding frenzy had ended, they would have learned the following. Among the 79 lung cancer subjects who participated in the trial, 70 of them smoked tobacco. These individuals, not surprisingly, experienced a seven-times greater risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer compared to tobacco-free controls. As for the subjects in the study who reported having used cannabis, they — on average — experienced no statistically significant increased cancer risk compared to non-using controls.
Smoking’s Many Myths Examined
Surprisingly, fewer than 10 percent of lifelong smokers will get lung cancer. Fewer yet will contract the long list of other cancers, such as throat or mouth cancers. In the game of risk, you’re more likely to have a condom break than to get cancer from smoking.
Matt, the evidence is out there (Thanks DdC). It’s your choice not to embrace it.
Did you even read the ongoing study you copy/pasted there? Everything was “unclear” and “difficult to estimate”. It’s the very definition of open for interpretation!
You believe that you are talking about “smoking plant matter”, as if “plant matter” is a universal unassailable construct. The actual type of plant matter makes a huge difference in the effects. Why is that difficult for you to grasp?
Not to mention the fact that the VERY first thing in your reply was to make a (false!) assumption about me as a “committed smoker”, as if to label me as a close-minded zealot. If you can’t attack the facts, attack the messenger, right?
As long as you keep spouting your nonsense, you will be disputed.
More gutter science? Are you a Door Matt? Or does reality have a hard time finding your address? Thousand years of organic tobacco and no victims. Ten thousand years of cannabis smoking and no victims. 100,000 years of campfires. Hundreds more with fire places and coal burning brown lung and black lung. Fossil fools emissions from trucks, buses and cars. Same shuck and jive act dancing the hobgoblins out on parade. Always hiding the actual harm caused by the human adulterants added by corporate policy to enhance the pleasure. None of which are in organic tobacco or Ganja Doormatt. Gp pedal your new prohibuttion to DARE class.
You’re already causing a multi billion dollar underground. Already burning more houses down hiding inside with freaky paranoids afraid the cig’s gonna reach them next door. Already evicting tenants from corporate housing. Already making lower incomes sicker buying less expensive generic brands with even more chemical poisons added to reduce processing costs. Meaning more taxes spent in ER’s instead of truth. You persist in lies. Typical doormat troll.
Science Says: Lungs Love Weed
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/960
A new study, published in this month’s Journal of the American Medical Association, tested the lung function of over 5,000 young adults between 18 and 30 to determine marijuana’s effect on lungs. After 20 years of testing, researchers found some buzzworthy results: regular marijuana smokers (defined by up to a joint a day for seven years) had no discernable impairment in lung activity from non-smokers.
Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the human lungs of smog, dust, and the phlegm associated with tobacco use.
Organic Cannabis/Tobacco vs Chemical Cigarettes
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/444
Marijuana and Asthma: What Do Studies Say? via @LeafSci
Marijuana has long been reported to relieve symptoms of asthma. Now, research explains why marijuana’s main ingredient might help patients breathe easier.
Therapeutic Use of Cannabis
More than 15 million Americans are affected by asthma. Smoking cannabis (the “raw drug†as the AMA called it) would be beneficial for 80% of them and add 30-60 million person-years in the aggregate of extended life to current asthmatics over presently legal toxic medicines such as Theophylline prescribed to children.
“Taking a hit of marijuana has been known to stop a full blown asthma attack.†(Personal communication with Dr. Donald Tashkin, December 12, 1989, and December 1, 1997.) The use of cannabis for asthmatics goes back thousands of years in literature. American doctors of the last century wrote in medical papers that asthma sufferers of the world would “bless†Indian Hemp (cannabis) all their lives.
Today, of the 16 million American asthma sufferers, only Californians, with a doctor’s recommendation, can legally grow and use cannabis medicines, even though it is generally the most effective treatment for asthma.
(Tashkin, Dr. Donald, UCLA Pulmonary Studies (for smoked marijuana), 1969-92; Ibid., asthma studies, 1969-1976; Cohen, Sidney, & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, 1976; Life Insurance Actuarial rates; Life shortening effects of childhood asthma, 1983.)
Asthmatic Cigarettes:
Because of our present day disgust for the tobacco industry, one is tempted to dismiss the idea of a medical (life saving) cigarette altogether. But that would be a mistake: Cannabis, in its smokable form, has been known to quickly stop full-scale asthma attacks. A medical fact that, while only scientifically proven in the late 20th Century, did not go unnoticed by 19th Century medical practitioners
“Marijuana has long been reported to relieve symptoms of asthma.”
I can attest to this firsthand — well, actually secondhand. My wife has suffered from asthma since she was a child, severe enough at times to send her to the emergency room because of an inability to breathe. While the use of inhalers and certain drugs helped keep severe attacks largely at bay, they have never been completely effective. Couple this condition with her allergies to mold and some pollens, the simple act of breathing has never been as easy for her as it is for most people.
After reading personal accounts of individuals who found relief from asthma symptoms after a just a few hits of cannabis from a vaporizer, we obtained a vaporizer for my wife to try. The result? My wife has not resorted to using her inhaler or taken prescribed asthma medications for the past three years. These items are on hand just in case, but cannabis has rendered them unnecessary. And the best part? A few hits from a vaporizer relieves her asthma symptoms at a minimum for a few days and often for over a week or longer. Her inhalers and medications generally had to be used/taken much more frequently with less effectiveness.
I, on the other hand, only occasionally used cannabis because of job related drug testing requirements. And I recently stopped all together because of the “threat” of being tested again soon. Even though I don’t have breathing problems, even I noticed clearer, more “open” lungs, after taking just a few hits from my wife’s vaporizer.
Ddc, I found what appears to be Tashkin’s study on Schaffer Library of Drug Policy and have the following for your consideration:
“Although these findings appear to support the benefit ascribed to the use of cannabis in the last century for the treatment of bronchial asthma (4), they do not provide any direct evidence for a bronchodilator effect of marijuana during an acute asthmatic attack. In the present study, the effects of smoked marijuana on bronchomotor tone were evaluated in asthmatic subjects after acute bronchospasm was induced either by inhalation of methacholine or ! by exercise.”
I think it is quite irresponsible to suggest that smoking cannabis would be an appropriate action for anyone that suffers from asthma. Asthma can kill really quickly and there are modern medicines that treat it. Inhaling the fume of heated plant matter is not the way to go.
Way to cherry-pick something that barely even hints at supporting your hypothesis.
What would “responsible” use of Cannabis look like to you? Packaged in a pill or spray and marketed to make millions for some no-name in a suit? Your opinions are especially offensive when berating personal choices as irresponsible based on your biased interpretations.
Crut,
1. I DID NOT berate personal choice. If someone wants to smoke cannabis to medicate an asthma attack, that is their choice. All I did was to say that promoting the smoking of cannabis for such a purpose is perhaps not the best thing to do. I could offer evidence for this, but I know it will be aggressively dismissed. So at this point I won’t bother.
2. “Way to cherry-pick something that barely even hints at supporting your hypothesis.”?? I quoted the fundamental underlying disclaimer to Tashkin’s research.
3. Ever since I had to temerity to offer the truth on a couple of subjects in this forum, I have been metaphorically stoned to death by a certain cohort of regular contributors. The aggression and vitriol has been quite pronounced. Not what I expected, but this perhaps proves my naivety on this front.
4. “Responsible use”?? I never said anything about responsibility of use. I merely suggested that smoking is not the healthiest of options. Not ground breaking stuff I admit, but a relevant personal opinion nonetheless. I spent my twenties witnessing hacking “bong” coughs in others, so I think I have some relevant personal experience.
That is precisely why you are a doormatt. Your denialism and ignorance is no different from none of the Med Schools learning the endoCannabinoid system. You state clearly you would let someone die before saving their lives with cannabis. I have no further use of you. You are a doormatt.
“We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that. I didn’t look hard enough, until now. I didn’t look far enough. … I was too dismissive of the loud chorus of legitimate patients whose symptoms improved on cannabis. Tolerance is a real problem in existing medications: People are likely to overdose from a prescription drug every 19 minutes, but I couldn’t come across one case of a marijuana overdose. I mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement Agency listed marijuana as a schedule 1 substance [a category of dangerous drugs] because of sound scientific proof. They didn’t have the science to support that claim, and I now know that when it comes to marijuana neither of those things are true,â€
~ Sanjay Gupta
http://tinyurl.com/8xa6s88
http://tinyurl.com/97drpkg
http://youtu.be/GJmQ16cGBHU
As Max Planck observed long ago, it usually takes the passing of a significant number of those who believed in an old scientific paradigm before a newer one could be accepted.
WRT drug prohibition, that is exactly what has happened. “We’ll legalize when Grandma dies” used to be a sardonic joke, 30 years ago. The joke has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The generational glacier that froze progress in drug law reform for so long is itself melting away, leaving behind hard, tough pebbles not easily deterred…and they will change the entire social and political landscape with their motion.
And first and foremost in that change is translating the popular support for cannabis law reform into political action. It’s already happening, with positive results for our side. More shall follow, for, as a favorite character from a very prescient 1990’s TV series put it, “When the avalanche begins, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.”
We have already voted. We set ourselves in motion, all around the planet. And like an avalanche, we will not be denied.
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Ex-DEA chiefs side with Nebraska and Oklahoma in pot lawsuit vs. Colorado
2/19/2014
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Would somebody please tell those clowns that they need to get a room? Amicus my eye!
More like caput mortuum
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No, no, this isn’t caput mortuum, but it is turning into stunning piece of creative genius. I’ve written a rough outline together for a new “reality” television program. It’s the same general set up that was used in “The Real World” but with a more specific theme. In the new show we follow the unscripted, wacky antics of 9 Federal Drugs Czars emeriti who, having lost the war on merrywanna in addition to losing their income from the urine thereof, have rented a very large house so they can work as a cohesive unit to get their gravy train back on the rails.
We’re in negotiations for the rights to the Brady Bunch theme song and have tentatively named the show “The Brain Dead Bunch.”
I’m pretty sure that by now everyone is wondering, “weren’t there enough lawsuits over my first stab at the “reality” genre titled “There’s More Than One Way To Skin A Cat!” after it was a certified, total flop? Who in the the heck knew that there are actually living, breathing human beings who like cats? Did they forget that pit bulls need to eat too?
(Shrieking hysterically, eyes wide and hands shaking in air) But what about The Dobermans? Won’t somebody think about The Dobermans? (as opposed to the faceless monolithic bloc called ‘The Children’) Pit bulls aren’t the only ones hungry, ya know!
A touching story of cops and others rallying round to help a mother celebrate the birthday of a 6 year old with autism after none of the invited kids turned up. Shame they then have to fuck it up with this though:
“Later in the week, sheriff’s deputies stopped by again with squad cars, motorcycles, and a SWAT vehicle for Glenn to check out……”
Obviously the opportunity to associate the violence of SWAT raids with a warm fuzzy story was just too good an opportunity for the sheriff’s dept to pass by.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/20/sheriff-save-autistic-boys-birthday-party-friends_n_6722290.html?cps=gravity_2246_-4916420114605152694
Im writing this here because I wasnt really sure where else to say this and it’s related in the sense of pop culture and drug reform. So I was recently lucky enough to see an old friend and hang out a little bit with them at which point we spent a few hours a few days messing with the PS3 and this new video game called Dragon Age Inquisition. So I did some digging and I do believe many many years ago before things became how they were I believe I played some of their games like Mass Effect [the company that makes this other game Im talking about.] So they want to be a bold company and apparently romantic relationships and sex figure into their games big time. These are what you would call “role playing games” so like you dont go around shooting bad guys and raking in points what you do is you have these complex conversations all the time done with voice acting and you actually have to craft a characters personality and make decisions and its truly an incredible evolution of fantasy. Now in this game they are very bold. Listen there are so many bisexual and homosexual sexual encounters and relationships you can have, infact, i think theres more bisexual and gay sex and romance than hetereo sexual and infact, the hetero options are very limited. Hey, that’s fine, I, like many others, have long compared drug reform to the Gay/AIDS movement. But now check this out, and I do hope this makes sense. So in this game which is like you know, dragon slaying, elves, dwarves type thing, now if you are a person in this game who can do magic, you are born that way, and you are hunted down and pretty much made a prisoner to keep in check your “dangerous” natural abilities. The police if you will that run the places that keep the mages in check have to use this magical natural substance called Lyrium because these police use magic negating magic to control the natural born magicians. Now the way this lyrium substance is described is just like a drug infact it is quite like heroin to be honest. You find this stuff growing throughout the world. And these police that use it are often blatantly “Addicted” to it. The results are predictable. The stuff can kill them or make them insane – thats how it was written. Now what really REALLY upset me is this. Please, I know this may be silly to you but indulge me because this game has become apparently one of the biggest in the world, its a brand new game and millions of young people love it. So check this out:
You hire this mercenary group okay and in the group is possibly the first mainstream transgender video game character, a character called Krem. You can talk to this Krem whenever you want. It was born a woman but believes its a man. Krems boss is one of your player characters close friends and companions, a 7 foot muscle man monster man beast. So at some point you get together for drinks with Krem, the man beast and the whole group of mercenaries. At this point you can actually talk to Krem about being transgender. His man beast boss is very very very “Krem is a man.” hes not pretending to be. He is born this way, its not weird or abnormal etc that a person is born the wrong gender. The game, the company, its very very clear they are ultra protective and ultra righteous about transgender rights. OK got that?
Now a few minutes after that whole thing me and my friend wander around our castle and run into one of the important side characters, one of your top commanders, a guy named Cullen. Cullen used to be one of those mage police people. Now check this out. We have this scene where Cullen has a box open, it looks like a work box (heroin terms for a junkies stash where he keeps all of his cooking materials and tools) and lo and behold when you see whats in it, it is what i imagine a 17th or 18th century work box would look like. 1800s style spoon, that is clearly burnt, syringe, etc. So the character shamefully talks about using the substance but, just like a lame righteous drug hater, and honestly a VERY DUMB misinformed drug USER, he is stopping cold turkey. He tells you that this may kill him or at the least make him go insane. He has asked a fellow colleague to exile him if his withdrawal symptoms get out of control. So you have 4 choices on how to respond, 3 of the 4 are basically different ways of encouraging him to not use the substance. Can you tell him hes being an idiot? No. Can you nicely encourage him not to stop, at the very least because the way hes going about stopping is stupid? No. All you can say is, I dont approve. Furthermore, saying that is considered sort of evil in the game. Like I said you have to craft your character and you have to make him either a good chivalrous heroic guy, a sarcastic comedian or an evil, bad ass short tempered bastard. There is no way to encourage this guy to keep doing he stuff without being an evil bastard. You have to want him to be drug free to be a good person.
I dont know if you guys will care, will think its worthwhile or if you get it cause i know its a bit nerdy, silly etc. but it pissed me off to no end. In fact, I am still very upset about it and I found out, listen to this, from an INFORMED heroin users perspective, this company is based out of, of all places VANCOUVER and their name is BIOWARE. I found out, well, of course all these unorthodox sexual choices make sense because, well, OMG, the lead writer? he’s gay. Well no kidding. Heh. I will just be clear that I love gays, I have no problem with gays, transgender, I myself am hetero but, I have said it before, I have indeed compromised my sexual preferences on the street for survival reasons (i will not get more specific then that because, duh, i am ashamed and insecure.) so please do NOT take it the wrong way. I just think its very unfair and offensive what this company, who has such influence especially with young people, what they did to us. Thanks for reading what Ive said.
I want to thank you Mr.Guither for linking to my website: http://endthedrugwaractioncenter.com/ in your organizations column!! It has already 4x-ed my visitors and is lifting my spirits. Thank you very much.
I implore your viewers to visit my site and help me to develop it with their comments, ideas, insights and actions to help end the destructive and insane drug war.
I openly invite people to co-author and help me build the site. I want it to be a worldwide metropolis of action and activity.