Tom Angell and the Marijuana Moment continue to keep on top of everything marijuana-related, including the ridiculous antics of Kevin Sabet and S.A.M.
In this latest post, Anti-Marijuana Site Features Pro-Legalization Politician (For Some Reason), Tom details a number of the past big efforts by Kevin and SAM that never amounted to anything. Worth checking out (and also worth supporting Tom’s efforts).
I’m not sure how much faith one can put in Jeremy Corbyn as a legalizer. He seems to have avoided committing himself one way or another in best politician manner.
“Last year, the Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said he was in favour of decriminalising cannabis for medicinal use.
But Labour remains opposed to legalisation.
A spokesperson told us, “We do not support the legalisation of cannabis. Our goal is to see fewer people start using drugs, more people helped by treatment towards a drug-free life, and a reduction in the damage which problem drug users can cause to communities.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/59932bc9-7c7a-4e6a-95d4-31751419aaf8
Prohibitionist organization SAM Action launched a billboard
thanking Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX)
https://t.co/TxiK7MAsZN
http://files.constantcontact.com/d75ceb5f201/9dceaed5-60c4-4b09-a52b-5ece8a4cced7.jpg?a=1129299632500
“The marijuana industry, egged on by a politician from Portland, Oregon who is bankrolled by the pot lobby, has decided to target Congressman Sessions for championing his constituents health and safety,” said Kevin A. Sabet, President of SAM Action. “The pot lobby can’t stand having someone standing up to their addiction-for-profit tactics. But his constituents know better, and our billboard reflects their gratitude.”
September 7, 2017
House Rules Committee Blocks Marijuana Amendments
Late Wednesday night, the House Rules Committee led by prohibitionist Representative Pete Sessions (R-TX) blocked multiple amendments related to marijuana from receiving consideration by the full House, thus ending their consideration and silencing the ability for the lower chamber to offer protections from Attorney General Jeff Sessions when it comes to cannabis.
The new KKK,
SAM’s Kevin Kills Kids is the next billboard
Teen Boy Explains How Cannabis Saved His Life
Kevin Abraham Sabet-Sharghi has a contemporary in 19th century European history, Napoleon III. As the French said of the failed French colonizer of Mexico after he lost the Battle of Puebla on May 5 (Cinco de Mayo), 1862, to the Mexican Army: “all hat and no headâ€. Et tu Kevin.
Unfortunately, all Sabet needs to do is find another lonely rich stupid widow and con her into donating a million-or-two to SAM and he’s set for five more years of professional pot trolling.
Kevin needs to relax.
https://youtu.be/HrTcwOJpRk4
It isn’t even my Birthday…
Kevin Sabet (@KevinSabet) on Twitter
You are blocked from following
@KevinSabet and viewing @KevinSabet’s Tweets.
Aw Gheepers, was it something I said? ♪♫♬â˜
I sure hope it was something I said.
I feel like whistling ♪♫♬â˜.
Kevin Abraham Sabet-Sharghi Burning Pot Plants.
Just like
ISILISISIS?USA! Qaeda TerroristsMarijuana Won Tuesday’s Election
http://cannabisnews.com/news/29/thread29185.shtml
Oregon-based Briteside has launched with an astute pharma ad parody.
https://youtu.be/HrTcwOJpRk4
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I’ve updated my report on the number of the numbers of DUI arrests in Colorado according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Its obvious that Francis is still vigorously enforcing his law.It’s time for prohibition to go the way of the Norwegian Blue and I don’t mean just pining for the fjords.
In 2016: A barrel of oil sold for $54.90
Colorado’s population was approximately 5,540,545
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) says that there were 21,745 arrests for DUI in Colorado.
In 2012: the Colorado voters approved Amendment 64 which decriminalized petty possession, petty cultivation and allows limited retail sales. Also in 2012:
A barrel of oil sold for $111.47.
Colorado’s population was approximately 5,189,458.
The CBI says that there were 23,323 arrests for DUI in Colorado in 2012.
In 2008: A barrel of oil sold for $151.72.
Colorado’s population was approximately 4,935,213.
The CBI says that there were 29,022 arrests for DUI in Colorado in 2008.
In Y2K Colorado voters approved The Colorado Medical Use of Marijuana Act. Also in Y2K:
A barrel of oil sold for $45.78.
Colorado’s population was exactly 4,301,261
The CBI says that there were 36,135 arrests for DUI in Colorado in Y2K.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation provided the number of arrests, the US Census provided the body counts and the Chicago Board Options Exchange provided the historical prices for a barrel of oil.
I picked 2008 because the prohibitionist LEO’s seem to get cranky when we don’t include an acknowledgement that the Colorado Legislature authorized medicinal cannabis dispensaries in 2010. Colorado’s medicinal cannabis patient protection was approved by Colorado voters on Election Day 2000.
The price of a barrel of oil is inversely proportional to the number of miles people are willing to drive and is especially true for discretionary driving.
Honestly, it’s pretty much self-enforcing. I mostly just cash the royalty checks.
Sharing is caring, Francis. LOL. Nice to see you’re still lurking out there, old pal!
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This will surely tweak dear Kevin;
https://youtu.be/HrTcwOJpRk4
LMFAO!!! Oh, jeez, that was brilliant, down to the stereotypical professionally-intoned narrative, exactly like some Big Pharma commercial.
This will really have Kevvie’s panties in a wad. I can just imagine: his currently corpulent self hysterically gesticulating at the screen, shrieking “See, see!? This is exactly what I was warning about! It’s (screaming dopplering down to heaving sobs) BIG MARIJUANA-AH-AH-AH!”
(Ruefully shaking head) All the prohibs ever had was histrionics. This will push these inveterate drama queens over the edge.
Researchers led by Dr Will Lawn, University College of London, has completed an extensive survey on the use of ayahuasca in the treatment of alcoholism:
In a free and open society, science researchers would not be forced to endure research restrictions involving federally funded studies of illicit drugs. In the US, they do. As a result, US pharmaceutical industries lose to England, Spain, Israel and any other countries that initiate drug research that ultimately benefits foreign pharmaceutical businesses and startups.
The problem requires overcoming people’s superstitious fears involving the psychedelic experience. A better outcome might be achieved if the US declared war on superstitions instead of drugs. As Voltaire wrote of people such as Kevin Sabet: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.â€
I added this to the thread.
Uncle SAM says…
If it isn’t punishment,
its an alternative pill or both.
Reality is a terrible thing to waste.
☛ Ayahuasca
✦ Overcoming Addiction with Ayahuasca
✦ Tourism in South America
✦ Shock the Junkie: ibogaine
✦ Ayahuasca Links
✦ Ayahuasca in the Treatment of Alcoholism
☛ Cannabis Substitution:
Marijuana Maintenance as a Treatment for Alcohol Dependence
The Research of Tod Mikuriya, MD
☛ Alcoholism
~ Cannabinoid Therapies for the Treatment of Alcohol Dependence
~ Study: Cannabidiol (CBD) May Help Prevent Alcohol-Induced Liver Damage
~ Study: CBD-Based Topicals May Aid In Alcoholism Treatment
☛ Legalizing Marijuana Decreases Fatal Opiate Overdoses, Study Shows
Predatory policing–an enduring problem within drug enforcement–is taking a more direct route in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma’s Sheriffs’ Association is accused of racketeering in a legal system promoting debtors’ imprisonment:
If you thought that the election which brought you Donald Trump as President was a dog and pony show, wait til you see whats being dreamed up next:
Ellen Says She or Oprah Will Be Biden’s Running Mate in 2020
https://tinyurl.com/y9j8sjum
Its gotta be something good to distract from the likes of Bernie Sanders in 2020.
Biden has been the antithesis of everything we stand for here at drug war rant.
This is like adding some honey to your spoonful of asenic – to sweeten up the bitter medicine that you are about to swallow.
It’ll be more like a Dog & Poodle Show.
https://tinyurl.com/GoFurrit
Biden or more Trump… what a choice.
✦ FDA is Open to Medical Marijuana for Vets,
but Other Agencies Stand in the Way
✦ Legal Marijuana May Carry Tax of at Least $1 Per Gram
✦ Parts Of Colorado Approve New Marijuana Taxes
✦ Just Say No 2.0?
(How Americans Suffer Under Trump’s Throwback Drug Policies)
✦ Lawsuit: Kane sergeant called asset forfeiture ‘tax-liberating gold mine
More on the OxyContin Clan:
‘Even as the scope and scale of the opioid epidemic unfolds, the fortune OxyContin built continues to grow. In the case of OxyContin heir Jonathan Sackler, part of that fortune is being devoted to expanding charter schools and weakening protections for teachers in traditional public schools. Patrick Keefe’s New Yorker feature ends with a stunning statistic: “An addicted baby is now born every half hour.†He asks whether such devastation should give pause to organizations that benefit from the Sacklers’ extensive philanthropy. In the case of the charter schools and education reform advocacy groups that Jonathan Sackler funds, the answer to that question should be obvious.’
https://www.alternet.org/education/notorious-family-contributing-opioid-crisis-and-funding-charter-schools
Jonathan Sackler embodies in one person a fifth column attack on democracy. The school voucher movement he promotes with OxyContin sales is as insidious as the drug war itself. It was public choice economics that Chile’s dictator Pinochet used to rip apart the social fabric of the country and impose policies designed to expand social and economic inequality. Nancy MacLean, in her book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (2017) describes the horrific impact private charter schools had in Chile:
If these (not to mention all) drugs were legal and available without prescription, would the Sackler’s still be vilified? I don’t recall much outrage when Sears, Roebuck sold heroin, for years, from their mail-order catalog.
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There’s a substantial difference between a retailer selling opium based medications in the early 1900’s, before problems with those substances were clearly established and documented, and a family associated with a modern day company that manufactures a product to which they have intentionally misled regarding problematic issues related to that product’s use. Among other ridiculous claims, the Sacklers, through Purdue Pharma, have actually blamed recreational drug users for the problems associated with OxyContin. Surely you can see the difference.
Will: I dunno. Opium’s addictive properties were well known before the 1900s, and our Civil War established that morphine (considered by battlefield doctors a godsend to wounded soldiers) was highly addictive. So the evidence is there. Evidence also suggests that the overwhelming majority of folks using opioids, as prescribed, usually for short durations, do not become addicted.
As an old guy, I know plenty of people that have had surgery, followed by a few days of bliss via a morphine drip, and all with few if any difficulties after the fact. I’m no shill for the Sackler’s, but their contention that, when used properly, opioids have a low risk of addiction, seems valid. And the crackdown on prescribing pharmaceutical opiates has led directly to an increase in dirtier and more dangerous substances, which, in the main, bears responsibility for the current increase in accidental overdoses. Surely you can see that.
Servetus: About the only thing the FDA ever did right was forcing patent medicine makers to disclose ingredients. When early Americans learned that many contained opium (and even more contained cannabis, but that’s another story), sales dropped significantly, causing many manufacturers to go out of business. That was candid information, used intelligently. (The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 wasn’t.) And as far as Sackler and his minions making a killing on the middle class and poor, they’re mere pikers when compared to the drug cartels.
jean valjean: I’m not so sure the Sackler’s would object, at least loudly, if they could sell their products without prescription. They’d make less per unit, but would make it up, or most of it, with volume. Not to mention saving many hundreds of millions fighting court battles and paying outrageous fines, all at the behest of virtue-signaling politicians that couldn’t care less about users. When people wise up to that, the objects of vilification will change.
Daniel: It’s prohibition that maintains the Sackler’s partial monopoly on opiate drugs and ensures the profits keep rolling in. Hence the need to hire DEA goons to help circumvent prohibition while preserving it at the same time for everyone else. They’re streets ahead of the “Cartels.” Maybe the Guerrero boys should donate an opera house to someone…
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“I dunno. Opium’s addictive properties were well known before the 1900s, and our Civil War established that morphine (considered by battlefield doctors a godsend to wounded soldiers) was highly addictive. So the evidence is there. Evidence also suggests that the overwhelming majority of folks using opioids, as prescribed, usually for short durations, do not become addicted.”
Daniel, you’re just whistling past the point of my comment. Of course there was ‘evidence’ that opium based medications were addictive many years ago. But that’s miles away from the level of understanding we have today. Understanding that the Sacklers have purposefully tried to distance themselves from regarding the products they manufacture. But hey, lets throw shade at a retailer from well over a hundred years ago. We all know that’s where the problems really lie…
The German company Bayer invented and marketed both aspirin and heroin. Somewhere in my drug literature is an illustration of a Bayer company advertisement promoting aspirin and heroin on the same poster as if there were no differences between the two. There were no warnings accompanying either drug. Candid information might have changed everything.
In places such as Mexico, Thailand and a number of European locations access to pharmaceuticals is much easier than in the US. Yet those countries don’t have drug meltdowns anything like the current opioid situation in the states. It takes someone such as Sackler and his proto-fascist associates to make a killing on the middle class and poor.
“If these (not to mention all) drugs were legal and available without prescription, would the Sackler’s still be vilified?”
The point is that they are NOT available without prescription. Sackler and his revolving-door “ex-” DEA agents see to that. It’s the corruption, not the principle, that stinks around Sackler and, as people wise up, will lead to ever greater vilification.
Charges against Purdue Pharma involve bribery. Special perks to doctors and a misleading ad campaign touting OxiContin as safe led to overprescribing the medication starting in the 90s:
Note that Insys is facing similar charges of bribery, a company that spent half a million dollars in Arizona to prevent the passage of laws allowing for medical marijuana, a drug that competes with fentanyl as a safer pain remedy.
OT
I’m in Eugene, Oregon and I’m meeting longtime couchmate Alan Erickson for lunch. Alan’s cannabis photography (and nudes) really classed up my old place before burning down and I’m gonna see if I can replace most of it.
Bought my first legal recreational weed in Oregon, but finding a place where I can smoke is a bitch. Surprised by bud size. Every strain’s buds were marble-sized or smaller. Prices much cheaper than California though.
darkcycle used his WA contacts and scored me a two-bedroom apt., in Everett WA, that’s waiting on me and most important, the landlord is pot-friendly.
and a good lunch it was! smoked a fine doobie first of course…
OMG. Too funny. I brought this here to the people who will most appreciate the irony. Cops posing as drug dealers try to arrest some OTHER cops posing as drug buyers, chaos ensues: https://reason.com/blog/2017/11/13/detroit-cops-posing-as-drug-dealers-braw
Thanks for the giggle!
Surprised they didn’t follow the drug war routine: shoot first/ ask questions later.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies to the House Judiciary Committee:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
That mean old Tom Angel is picking on me. Can you folks get him to back off? I’m on your side, really.
A research study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, partly funded by the NIDA, investigated increases of marijuana consumption in states having medical marijuana laws:
The researchers’ definition of marijuana use disorder–continuing use despite significant behavioral or psychological changes–is overly broad. There is nothing in the definition that recognizes desirable behavioral or psychological changes brought about by cannabinoids, such as those acquired with a reduction in stress and thereby a reduction in blood cortisol levels. Stress research is solidifying marijuana’s role as a valuable therapeutic. Despite the health benefits, however, the stigmatic image of the laid-back cannabis consumer remains an anti-working-class hippie villain for the NIDA and Wall Street types who still cling to marijuana consumer stereotypes.
A study concluded that “drivers under the influence of alcohol are 17.8 times…more likely to be responsible for a fatal accident, and the proportion of fatal accidents which would be prevented if no drivers ever exceeded the legal limit for alcohol is estimated at 27.7%,” whereas “drivers under the influence of cannabis multiply their risk of being responsible for causing a fatal accident by 1.65…and the proportion of fatal accidents which would be prevented if no drivers ever drove under the influence of cannabis is estimated at 4.2%.”
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187320
A study of opioid patients who use medical marijuana found there were “no significant differences were detected on pain-related variables, depression, or anxiety between those who endorsed medical cannabis use and those who did not” but that “medical cannabis users had higher scores of risk for prescription opioid misuse, rates of hazardous alcohol use, and rates of nicotine use.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0163834317303249
Prohibitionists claim that harm reduction is a scam promoted by drug legalizers. Syringe exchanges and testing of MDMA sample purities at raves are seen as a support of drug use instead of a safety valve for inevitable drug use.
Fortunately, sadomoralizers such as Kevin Sabet haven’t stopped science researchers from pursuing harm reduction solutions to certain types of problematic drug use. Two recent research examples show great promise for alcohol and methamphetamine, but only if the public is made widely aware of the results, something unlikely to happen in an anti-harm-reduction society:
And for methamphetamine disorders:
this one’s for the couch:
http://morningdonut.blogspot.com/2017/11/faces.html
the post is photos of Pete’s present to me on my birthday and NCN and I on my front porch, from yesterday
Nice!! NCN will be up this way (well…Everett, almost Bellingham) tomorrow. I’ll get a chance to head down there over the weekend. Looking forward visiting with him.
Interesting developement:
Rep. Steve Cohen introduces articles of impeachment against Trump https://tinyurl.com/y7dbhogf
Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN) tweeted a video of himself grilling U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his remark that “good people don’t smoke marijuana.”
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/930515196510060544
In the Mexican state of Guerrero all the morgue workers have quit because “the stench of hundreds of decomposing bodies has become unbearable.â€
https://tinyurl.com/StinkyDrugWar
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If cannabis law reform was a football game then would this be a “hail mary”? This one gets filed in the “by hook or by crook using every dirty trick in the book” category:
‘And, Hoyte told Colorado’s 9News, “We extensively ruled out almost every other cause that we can think of,†apart from exposure to cannabis.’
So there you are then. Case proven: death by cannabis!
Myocarditis, also known as inflammatory cardiomyopathy, is inflammation of the heart muscle. Now can someone tell me how a drug noted as an excellent anti-inflammatory can cause inflammation? Not even a good guess.
✦ The truth behind the ‘first marijuana overdose death’
“We are absolutely not saying that marijuana killed that child,†said Thomas Nappe, an author of the report who is now the director of medical toxicology at St. Luke’s University Health Network in Bethlehem, Pa. Nappe, who co-authored the report with Christopher Hoyte, explained that the doctors simply observed this unusual sequence of events, documented it and alerted the medical community that it is worth studying a possible relationship between cannabis and the child’s cause of death, myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle.
Nappe emphasized that the word “associated†should not be interpreted as indicating a cause and effect.
Drug policy and health experts also warned against making too much of the report.
“You just can’t make those statements because then what happens is lay people say, ‘Oh my God, did you hear a kid died from marijuana poisoning?’ and it can be sensationalized,†said Noah Kaufman, a Northern Colorado emergency room physician.
“It’s not based on reality. It’s based on somebody kind of jumping the gun and making a conclusion, and scientifically you can’t do that.â€
Millions of Americans use marijuana regularly, according to the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and addiction treatment researcher Keith Humphreys said cannabis consumption has “virtually no risk.â€
✦ Tom Angell ‘s op-ed in the Los Angeles Times calling on California’s congressional delegation — especially Democratic U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein — to do a better job defending the state’s marijuana laws from federal interference. Legal cannabis did, after all, get nearly half a million more votes than Harris did last year.
✦ California Rolled Out 278 Pages of Marijuana Rules. Here Are Highlights.
✦ Couple sues after police mistake hibiscus for marijuana
Who said drugs are bad for you? Kevin Sabet?
Researchers at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois have gored the Kevin-types by discovering what explorers Vasco de Gama and Juan Ponce de Leon failed to discover in Florida—a fountain of youth.
Not only does a drug exist that allows mice to live four times longer, it works if you’re Amish. That’s because certain lucky Amish individuals in the US inherited a gene from their antecedents in Berne, Switzerland (via Berne, Indiana) that confers a 13% increase in average life span—from 75 to 85. The chemical produced by the gene, “PAI-1 (plasminogen activator inhibitor) [is] a protein that comprises part of a “molecular fingerprint” related to aging or senescence of cells.†The discovery is a milestone in senescence research:
The best way for the government to get people to take the new fountain-of-youth drug will be to prohibit it. The same popularizing effect of prohibition worked well enough for marijuana whose cannabinoids are cited for potentially protecting the brain from the effects of aging, as well as for killing cancer cells.
“Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one’s neighbor are a laughing-stock; and such laws, instead of restraining the appetites and lusts of mankind, serve rather to heighten them. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negate †[we always resist prohibitions, and yearn for what is denied us]. — Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)