We’ve often talked here about the fact that suspicionless drug testing in most situations is wrong, and doesn’t actually work, whether it’s in high schools, for welfare recipients, or on the job. And, of course, it’s a big business.
It’s bad enough at the high school level, but college?
Here are two pieces from StopTheDrugWar.org’s Chronicle
Drug Testing
University of Alabama Subjects All Frat Members to Mandatory Drug Tests. Every fraternity member at the school was required to pass a drug test at the beginning of the academic year, and now, fraternity members are being randomly selected each week for more drug tests. If students test positive, they get several warnings before they are expelled from the fraternity and a university anti-drug program intervenes to “help students get back on track before the school doles out harsher penalties. The drug testing program has been criticized by fraternity members and others as invading the privacy of students, but no one has yet challenged it in court.
ACLU to Appeal Federal Court Ruling Allowing Drug Testing of All Students at Missouri Tech College. The ACLU of Missouri said it will appeal an 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding the suspicionless drug testing of all students at the State Technical College of Missouri. The ACLU is seeking a rehearing of the case before the same three-judge appeals court panel that ruled in the school’s favor or by the entire bench in the 8th Circuit. The ACLU had filed suit in 2011 to challenge the policy and won at the district court level, but the appeals court last year reversed the lower court decision. The federal courts have held that, with a handful of exceptions, mandatory suspicionless drug testing violates the Fourth Amendment’s proscription against warrantless searches and seizures. The ACLU said the appeals court decision is “poorly crafted and departs from the 8th Circuit and Supreme Court precedent.”
I remember when the Missouri Tech College case originally came up and thinking that it should be a slam dunk to stop that in the courts (and it was initially). But I don’t remember hearing about the appeals court. This needs to be stopped so it doesn’t give any other colleges ideas.
As far as the one at University of Alabama, I see where they’re going with it – using the idea that worked in high schools, of targeting those who participate in extra-curricular activities – in this case as a requirement to participate in frats. What a colossally stupid approach. In my experience, the biggest problem in frats is alcohol, something that will not be caught by drug testing. If anything, it’ll drive the frats to focus solely on alcohol, which is not necessarily a good thing.
When I was in college, we didn’t have frats, but we had similarly structured “social groups” (just without separate housing). The one social group least likely to put their fist through a wall, hurt someone, or cause problems on campus was the one whose drug of choice was pot rather than alcohol.
I work at Ua. It is only some of the frats and they are voluntarily participating. It still stinks to high hell. I just read the article Friday on al.com. Alcohol is the big problem along with xanax that seems to be the most popular. The greek system at ua is ridiculous. You should see the mansions being built. The good ole boy network is alive and well on campus.
Is anyone at the school looking into the financial relationship between the drug testing industry and the school/frat itself?
Justin Trudeau is setting the legal age of marijuana at 24.
Never mind that the drinking age in Canada is 18 and 19. Never mind that science has found no difference in academic performance of marijuana lovin’ college students. Never mind that there are probably some cranky senior citizens who believe that anyone under the age of 40 with vestiges of youth is still juvenile—you only reach full maturity from bad decisions when you’re in the grave.
(I guess this begs the question: When do politicians reach the age of adulthood?)
Maybe that should be the starting age for Military induction. If you can get shot at and shoot people at 18, then you should be able to smoke a joint.
Spoof
Ah, you’re right.
Sets Legal Age For Smoking Marijuana To 24 Years Old
Can’t find it at snopes…
site seems to mix news with fake news…
hotglobalnews.com
28 Newswatch
lemmetweetthatforyou.com
Justin Trudeau: “Smoking Marijuana Could Help Fight Global Warmingâ€
Justin Trudeau’s New Revised Prices of Marijuana In Canada
Back in October, as Justin Trudeau prepard to take office as the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada, he announced the prices of legal marijuana in Canada which would be the final price at sold at stores country wide. Trudeau proposed that the price of a gram would be $19.99 , an ounce for $499.99 and half an ounce for $249.99.
Justin Trudeau Reportedly Caught With Possession of Marijuana
Recently elected, 23rd Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau has recently been caught with possession of 2 grams of Marijuana in his residence at Parliament. This was caught by one of Stephen Harper’s old cabinets and reported to city officials.
Monsantijuana – FALSE
Monsanto has created the first genetically-modified strain of marijuana.
Joint Commissions – False?
No, the federal government isn’t paying study participants $3,000 a week to smoke marijuana.
False? Maybe, certainly plausible…
Feds Won’t Pay You to Smoke Marijuana?
The payment of human subjects for their participation in scientific research in the US is a common and longstanding practice that has been documented for well over 100 years.
Effects of Vaporized Marijuana on Neuropathic Pain
Ages Eligible for Study: 18 Years to 70 Years
Genders Eligible for Study: Both
Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
Or the Feds Won’t Pay You $3,000 Per Week?
5 Ways to Earn Money as a Human Guinea Pig
participants can make anywhere from $25 for trying out next year’s flu vaccine to over $5,000 for tests that involve overnight stays and additional follow up visits.
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/12/university_of_alabama_quietly.html
I could not find the link earlier.
This is insulting to the intelligence of Americans. Frank’s on point with his post that profits are likely involved. Outside of Puritan evil. Practices range from denying restitution for negative results to flat out sabotaging results. As overzealous drug worriers or greed to assure restitution. Are these officials that daft to think there are no repercussions from their foolish acts? Branded for life as a druggie. Kicked out of school. Denied tuition assistance and Pell Grants. Loss of employment and set up as prime targets for police informants. There is not one American concept in the entire drug war but testing is closer to Jewish arm bands and branding foreheads with letters. What in the hell is so hard about dealing with reality? There is no sense in testing metabolites other than a witch hunt to ID users. It has little or no causal connection to impairment or dangerous actions by users. Booze is clearly debilitating and a root cause of violence. Everyone in school should be weary of these draconian practices. Everyone in school should protest these schools. Write the BoD. Boycott games and get off your collective duffs and do something. Young conformist make me sick. You have a right to raise hell, do it!
Drug mishandling may have tainted 40,000 cases
Rackets Driven by this Drug War
POLICING FOR PROFIT
ot
Pittsburgh To Decriminalize Marijuana
Under the ordinance passed with a 7 to 2 vote, police in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s second-largest city, will begin to issue fines of $25 for possessing less than 30 grams of marijuana and $100 for smoking it in a public space instead of citing for misdemeanors, the city clerk’s office said.
Truly, I don’t understand the University of Alabama. Were they not the school that kicked Tim Leary out because he got caught in the girl’s dorm? That was after he’d been kicked out of West Point because of a hangover. There is a tradition of rebellion at U of A that needs to be defended, and reinvigorated.
The drug aficionados at the University of Alabama should take this opportunity to prove themselves to be the great rebels they were during the confederacy, and can be once again. Seize a few administration buildings. Burn litter in the foyer. Picket the porkers who stand in your way to good times. Live life like you’re surfing a wave. Live life like Tim did.
BTW, Leary’s family home in the Berkeley hills recently sold for $1,050,000. It’s where he resided when he ran Kaiser Permanente’s mental hospital in Oakland. Nice digs (note the author’s book cover in frame 13). Oakland was where Leary performed his famous experiment wherein he demonstrated that the hospital wasn’t curing anybody of anything. It’s what we face today when dealing with prohibitionists.
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I’d like to make a nomination for the funniest darn headline of 2015:
California Law Enforcement Works to Stop Marijuana From Entering State
No, it has nothing to do with quality control…that was the first thing that ran through my mind too.
A experience I had with the New Zealand Medical Association well, its no secret I suffer from opiate induced constipation, when I mentioned to the New Zealand Medical Association at one of their conferences on Constipation well when I mentioned why is the New Zealand Medical Association not endorsing Cannabis as a treatment for Constipation or Gastrointestinal Disorders, the lot of doctors attending the conference asked if I was out of my mind, just a good example on when US compared with New Zealand, New Zealand is still severely backwards
Relief of constipation was one of the original cannabis indications
cited by Shen-Nung five thousand years ago.
They must have felt existentially threatened. Liberal auto-application of cannabis as a means of relieving constipation for them might be considered fatal from their point of view, as they are (you knew this was coming, right?) so full of shite.
The Internet destroys geographical insularity, but can only wear away slowly the cultural variety. That usually requires assistance from the Grim Reaper, by actuarially cutting down those who refuse to examine the evidence that they are wrong, as their raison d’être, as well as their wallets, are jeopardized.
I saw where the DOJ is making noises about going after LE that have ticket quotas,,quotas are illegal.
How far is quotas for tickets from qualifications for grants using mainly marijuana arrests as the qualifier?
I am now suspecting that Kevin Sabet was in fact groomed by Betty and Melvin Sembler and Father Cassian Newton aka Virgil Miller Newton, Jeb Bush and Robert DuPont. Also some people have tried to put these two links from DFAF’s cached PDF which shows Kevin Sabet was outright lying about his position and the following links that were posted on Project SAM’s FB page or his twitter were removed within minutes
2007:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qmV2P12o9QAJ:dfaf.org/assets/docs/dfaf_annualreport_2007.pdf+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz&client=aff-maxthon-maxthon4
2008:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bf2R6Q5PBl0J:dfaf.org/assets/docs/dfaf_annualreport_2008.pdf+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz
Addendum to Kevin Sabet
Your claim that you worked for Betty and Melvin Sembler does not float well with me, it will be only a matter of time when people find out what you really are. Also what Kaptineo says is very true ‘You are known by the company you keep’.
The amendment, sponsored by Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Sam Farr (D-CA), was passed on a temporary basis earlier this year and was up for renewal in the 2016 budget.
12/21/2015
Federal Ban Lifted On Medical Marijuana,
Provision Lifting The Ban Quietly Placed In The Recent Spending Bill
by inquisitr
“This is a victory for so many. The first time in decades that the federal government has curtailed its oppressive prohibition of marijuanaâ€
Omnibus bill included two riders that lift federal ban on medical marijuana and loosen restrictions on needle exchange programs.
Who could have predicted that the end to the federal ban on medical cannabis would come not with a bang, but with a whisper?
Quietly, and without much fanfare, the U.S. Congress approved a spending bill including a provision which lifts the federal ban on medical marijuana.
The legislation ending the federal prohibition of medical marijuana is nestled deep in the obscure pages of a 2,000-page spending and appropriations bill passed by Congress on December 17, 2015.
12.21.15
After Decades of Failed Policies, Congress Quietly Passes Sweeping Drug Reforms
by Common Dreams
12.16.14
Congress Ends Medical Marijuana Prohibition With Spending Bill Provision
Federal drug agents will no longer be able to raid retail outlets
12.16.14
Congress quietly ends federal government’s ban on medical marijuana
Why can’t these Pissants be Impeached?
BJ’s, but not stalling legislation that could end suffering for sick people?
Judiciary Chairman: State Laws Legalizing Marijuana Are Unconstitutional
Chuck Grassley is Killing the Cannabis Rescheduling CARERS Act
Chuck Grassley Is Basically Killing The CARERS Act With Inactivity
December 14, 2015
Back in March, three United States Senators introduced a bipartisan medical marijuana bill (Cory Booker (D-NJ), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) that would dramatically change the way the federal government approaches medical marijuana (CARERS Act). The legislation would effectively leave medical marijuana policy up to the states to decide. The bill had bipartisan support at the time it was introduced, and has since added on several more sponsors to the legislation.
If they did truly lift the ban on medicinal cannabis. Removing it as a Controlled Substance. Then the Careers Act is moot. I never liked it, but nothing should be stopped by weasel tricks.
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The prohibitionist parasites have once again and seemingly with no effort, have expanded the outer limits of stupidity. I’m putting this modified gateway theory in the “life is like a box of chocolates” category:
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The good dog knows that our lives have been nothing but empty shells while he was MIA but thankfully The Professor has returned.
In almost 38 1/2 years of choosing to enjoy cannabis I can’t say that I’ve ever heard the phrase “price per hour” as a unit of measure for rating a person’s cannabis consumption.
You have to give him credit; he still strives to maintain the illusion of relevance while those he needs to influence the most neither need or want his ‘wisdom’.
While reform marches on, he hurriedly runs alongside the column, still attempting to maintain an air of Yoda-like sagacity, dispensing useless advice, while increasingly being ignored by his target audience.
Instead, they continue to march, shaking their heads, rolling eyes and sighing in exasperation, and wondering when this modern-day version of Hamlet‘s Polonius will finally ‘shut it’.
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I never extend credit to people who rewrite reality to suit themselves, at least not without substantial collateral.
It looks like he’s bargaining to me. You know….denial, anger, bargaining etc.
I was kind of surprised to see Mr. Caulkins’ name on the byline. Wasn’t it just the other day when he was heard whining about the fact that the citizenry has seen through the canard of prohibition?
Local asset forfeiture pirates just lost one of their favorite methods of ripping people off:
Law enforcement and other fascists are not happy with the decision, which was budget-based rather than justice-based:
Innocent people are now “criminals, terrorists, and criminal aliens”, no less, according to certain law enforcement groups. The specified law enforcement groups need to be investigated for their own criminal influences within the judicial system.
WaPo article here.
Now, watch them fight amongst themselves for the scraps…just as we predicted that they would when the economy got worse. And this is only the beginning.
I read at a site called ZeroHedge to get a real handle on the actual health of the economy, instead of the vapid, pointless BS posited as economic news, and the prospects don’t look any better for next year.
This is forcing the issue with regards to drug law reforms (as we had predicted it would, here, long ago). Expect to see more moves to end prohibition – sadly, as Pete pointed out, mainly due to budgetary restrictions caused by a collapsing economy instead of simple decency and justice.
But it will end…to the ever-increasing squeals of the once-fat trough-feeders forced to tighten their fiscal belts.
Music, absolute music to my ears.
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OK, I’ll bite…why the frickin’ frack does stealing money have to stop due to budgetary considerations? Can’t they just pay the fees out of the loot? “Today Attilla the Hun announced that his soldiers would no longer pillage or plunder peasants after decimating their villages due to budgetary constraints. Raping their women will continue unabated due to concerns for overall morale.”
Not that I care why they do things but this doesn’t make any sense even using prohibitionist fantasy land “reasoning.”
They said “budgetary constraints” because they didn’t want to admit their fear that the people are getting too angry over the thefts and might just actually revolt. Wish they’d do something similar about the unjustified murders of innocent, unarmed, or mentally ill people, too. I don’t give a rat’s ass the “reason” they are claiming for WHY they are stopping (slowing?) either one of those things, I just want them stopped, completely!
Research at NYU Langone Medical Center at the New York University School of Medicine, by Orrin Devinsky, Director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, has concluded showing that marijuana’s “CBD derivative reduces seizures in people with treatment-resistant epilepsy â€. Devinsky noted that CBD was shown to be “well-tolerated and safe for most children and young adults â€.
This is terrible news for Kevin Sabet. The CBD findings indicate that when treating children suffering from treatment-resistant epilepsy, gummy bears containing CBD are the way to go.
CBD currently comes in a convenient caramel candy form from marijuana dispensaries.
AAAS News Release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-12/nlmc-mdr122315.php
One would expect the next step is to try this therapy on ‘regular’ epileptics to see how its effects compare to conventional epilepsy meds, which have horrific side effects.
My husband’s niece suffers from seizures ranging from petite to grand mal, she was born with hydrocephalus, which was diagnosed when she was 8 months old. She had so many surgeries on her head I lost count long ago, and at one point developed a huge blood clot that squeezed her brain away from the skull and in toward its center, it was after that she began having seizures. She was declared to be dying at least 5 times when she was a child, she’s going to be 54 next month. Cannabis DOES help her (yes most of our family use it), but I don’t think she’s tried the CBD oil. She lives in AZ which now has MMJ, so if she has an enlightened doctor, she might be able to get a prescription. Because, she is legally disabled (most of her vision is gone and along with her random but frequent seizures she is pretty much unemployable) and lives on SSI income, also lives with her son and his family. I’m not sure how her son would feel about it, he’s a lifer in the military, for nearly 20 years now, so he may be against the use. If I were in her place I’d say to hell with how he feels about it and do it behind his back, because my health is more important than anyone’s bias. My sons, otoh, load me out from time to time and I return the favor, too.
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That was one of the GW Pharmaceuticals Phase 3 studies being conducted in the process of obtaining FDA approval for Epidiolex you know.
There’s no valid reason to believe that Charlotte’s Web and Epidiolex can’t co-exist. There’s no valid argument against the assertion that this is the correct way to structure the retail market. People with money and/or health insurance get Epidiolex. The less than wealthy and the pharmaceutical company haters go to the SB-420 style dispensary. Children in all 50 States, the Federal District, and the rest of America get needed medicine without having to convince Legislatures like the ones in Iowa, Idaho, Alabama and Georgia.
It really is starting to look like GW Pharm can be described with a metaphor which casts the company as being Charlie Brown and the FDA/DEA cabal as Lucy trying to get him to kick a football only to snatch it away at the last moment. (Lucy was previously portrayed in this metaphor by “Dr.” Andrea Barthwell.) Did you know that a company called INSYS is conducting FDA trials, has been granted orphan drug status, authorized to administer Compassionate INDs, and put on the fast track to FDA approval of synthetic cannabidiol? If you compare their research studies with synthetic CBD to GWP’s Epidiolex they’re all but identical. I can’t imagine which company will get the nod from the FDA presuming identical results. Would you care to venture a guess? I suppose it is possible that Epidiolex will be significantly better than INSYS. Now that would be a hoot. Just not bloody likely.
Is it my imagination or are you out on a very dead looking limb after trumpeting a GW Pharma milestone? Oh my, what’s that crackling noise?
Marijuana derivative reduces seizures
in people with treatment-resistant epilepsy
GW Pharmaceuticals in the U.K. supplied the cannabidiol but had no role in the study design, data analysis, data interpretation, writing of the study or publication submission. The study was also funded by the Epilepsy Therapy Project of the Epilepsy Foundation, and Finding A Cure for Epilepsy and Seizures (FACES).
Insys Therapeutics CEO Michael Babich has stepped down,
with company chairman Dr. John Kapoor taking over as CEO.
The news comes as the company reported third quarter earnings on Thursday, and shortly after CNBC released an investigative piece on Wednesday on the company, which included allegations of fraud, kickbacks, and aggressive drug marketing behavior by some Insys employees.
On August 19, 2011, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved its Dronabinol SG Capsule product, a generic equivalent to Marinol, for the treatment of chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting (CINV), and anorexia associated with weight loss in patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).
GWPH + 2.64 @ 69.74
INSY + 0.09 @ 28.45
Marijuana Stops Child’s Severe Seizures
Preferred Treatment of Racketeering Opponents
of a 4 yr old girl using cannabis for Epileptic seizures
The drug war tyranny must end, and it soon will!
robertsrevolution.net
Mandatory drugs screening is just as rediculous to furthering sobriety as integrationist bussing was to furthering racial relations.