There’s a nice video, published by Business Insider UK of former undercover police officer Neil Woods (chairman of LEAP UK) talking about drug policy. Can’t embed the video, but here it is on Facebook.
Neil Woods: In the UK we used to lead the world in drug policy. It was called the British system, and it was a fairly simple premise – if someone has a problem with drugs, they get medical help.
That British system was destroyed by American moral imperialism. American foreign policy insisted that everyone follow their lead in how to deal with drugs, and that meant criminalising people.
.
.
Very good video from Neil Woods. His description of “American moral imperialism” is right on the money. But there is at least one thing I really wish Neil would help the British sort out;
Most UK cannabis ‘super strength skunk’
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43196566 (seriously BBC?)
Uh, no.
‘Skunk’ was merely a moniker applied to an early hybrid bred on the west coast of the US in the early ’70’s (yes, that particular odiferousness). Skunk #1 is arguably the most famously named of a cross supposedly between Columbian/Mexican/Afghani landrace strains (as I type this, I’m very much reminded of the sketchiness surrounding early strain descriptions and genetics, and even those of today). Skunk #1 was eventually ferreted out of the US to Holland where it became an integral part of early Dutch cannabis breeding, for better or worse depending on whom you ask. (The above description is old, stale news to many on the couch, I’m sure.)
So, the description of ‘super strength skunk’ as some uber, scary form of cannabis is just nonsense. But those crazy Brits insist on doing just that, time and time again.
All very true, Will, but I gave in years ago that it is simply how the Brits describe strong herb, much like Americans say ‘dro, top-shelf, fire, etc. The establishment is gonna establish and make things they don’t like sound scary and nasty. They can’t help themselves. Worldwide, dicks and assholes gonna be dicks and assholes.
.
.
I think there’s more going on that just coming up with a nickname for strong cannabis. By proclaiming that the majority of available cannabis in the UK is now around 14% THC, which is dubiously linked to increased psychotic episodes, prohibitionists can proclaim we have a new bogeyman to worry about. This is similar to Kevin Sabet arguing that today’s cannabis “isn’t your grandfather’s weed any more” and thusly needs to be kept illegal now more than ever.
By the way, one of the definitions of a psychotic episode is feeling paranoid. I’ve known so many people (my wife included) who’ve felt paranoid after consuming Satan’s Cabbage. This feeling is fleeting and is remedied by consuming less the next time around.
And if 14% THC cannabis is considered ‘super strength’ in the UK, they have some catching up to do (kidding!).
A former undercover police officer explains why criminalising drug users isn’t working
“Skunk” seems to be one of those words only used by lazy journalists. Everyone else in Britain refers to weed.
Good video, but not getting wide coverage here. I wonder why? American moral imperialism and the witch-hunt for drug heretics is a world wide enterprise. Seeing Reagan’s face looming up on the video just rams this home.
Is this how drug “treatment” will look in the future under Trump, maybe with help from Sheriff Arpaio?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/azerbaijan-fire-blaze-kills-26-people-drug-abuse-treatment-centre-die-baku-a8235881.html
This how drug “treatment†will look in the future under Trump
Holy shit. The president of the United States just implied very clearly in front of TV cameras that he support executing people who sell illegal drugs.
https://t.co/kNOOuLyk4S Tom Angell @tomangell
God is watching us!
https://tinyurl.com/GodInducedMistrial
They’ve swallowed the “Skunk” moniker nonsense whole. I’ve even tried talking to Peter Reynolds from the UK….he uses the term too, says it refers to cannabis which has had “all” of it’s CBD bred out. Also not remotely true. They swallowed the entire “THC causes Schizophrenia” meme too, and treat it as if it were established fact. Not true, and not helpful to give a whit’s worth of credence to. Yet they do. The Brits do tabloid prohibitionism….it’s driven by nonsense even more so than Kevvie’s brand.
who is Peter Reynolds?
.
.
Oh boy. Well, here are his own words as to ‘who’ he is;
https://peterreynolds.wordpress.com/biography/
There are numerous opinions of ‘what’ he is. Some of them are not very kind;
https://peter-reynolds-watch.com/
Relating to darkcyle’s post, as the leader of CLEAR, Peter should know full well the falseness of the UK’s obsession with ‘skunk’ cannabis. Just a little digging and knowing what terpenes are would be understood. Myrcene is the primary terpene that gives cannabis that skunky aroma (although there are always other terpenes involved). And, as darkcycle points out, it has nothing to do with THC:CBD ratios or potency either. For example, here’s a terpene and potency profile for ACDC E;
https://analytical360.com/m/flowers/anl0004102
Notice that Myrcene is more present than any other terpene, likely smelling somewhat skunky. Then notice that THC is at 0.72% and CBD is at 13.74%. That is not THC dominant ‘super strength skunk’ cannabis by any means. Obviously it’s quite the opposite (by the way, there are other ACDC profiles that are quite different, some have almost equal amounts of THC and CBD, although it is primarily known as a CBD dominant strain).
Thank you for clearing that up. He sounds like the kind of old fart who would bang on about “skunk.”
Easy, now….he is on “our” side (nominally, but much like Marky-Mark he gives too much credence to easily disproven nonsense like the “schizophrenia/THC” non-link). Mostly he’s a curmudgeonly ex-UK government minister who’s mostly on our side, but believes he alone is in possession of the important answers to the important questions.
.
.
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to suggest Mr. Reynolds has a propensity to be polarizing at times. In fact, I think he revels in it. But, darkcycle, I think you might have gotten through to him. Here’s paragraph from a fairly recent post of his on Victoria Atkins MP (https://tinyurl.com/ybxv3nxj);
And can anyone resist the title and accompanying photo of this post of his?;
How Long Until This Wicked And Deranged Woman Steps Down?
https://tinyurl.com/y6welet3
HAHAHA!
Anyway, he reminds me of a Scottish guy I used to work with. He did not suffer fools gladly (and everyone to him was a fool). After one particular meeting in which he pissed everyone off (a common occurrence), he asked me afterward, “Will, why do those idiots always get so irritated with me when all I’m trying to do is educate their stupid, feeble minds?” I laughed so hard I couldn’t even spit out an answer.
What Is ‘Skunk Weed’ and Where Did It Originate?
Skunk Cannabis: Top 10 Facts About The Drug
Despite media reports about an increase in psychosis or schizophrenia among users, scientists have found difficulty in proving a clear link between the two. Former government adviser Professor David Nutt wrote in 2009 that despite skunk being around for at least a decade, there had been no obvious rise in schizophrenia. In fact, he said, evidence shows psychosis and schizophrenia have been in decline among the British population, despite cannabis being used by a growing number of people over 30 years.
GMO Cannabis Watch
A Watchful Eye On The State Of Bio-Technology Within The Cannabis Industry.
High Times, (DEA) Operation Green Merchant & the Cannabis Cup
By the time you finish this article you may realize that Sam Selezny aka David Watson aka Skunk-man started as a DEA undercover agent, whose undercover career makes Donnie Brasco pale when compared, since he finally became a DEA licensee and â€private contractor†with the power to make the agency move against competitors and anybody in his way and to cut deals with Bayer, Monsanto, and the Dutch and English Government. Ed Rosenthal’s duped by Watson as well? Rosenthal was the cultivation expert at High Times at that time.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/president-donald-j-trump-announces-bipartisan-group-nominees-united-states-sentencing-commission/
Trump appoints the only people in the country who believe the US system isn’t punitive enough to his sentencing commission.
This via Radley Balko
Donald Trump’s current cheerleading to promote the death penalty to thwart drug trafficking is a 180-degree reversal from earlier views when Donald advocated for the legalization of drugs to end drug trafficking.
Brian Saady, author of The Drug War: A Trillion Dollar Con Game and America’s Drug War is Devastating Mexico, has this:
Trump’s advocacy for Duterte’s extrajudicial executions that target only certain Filipinos involved with drugs is more an act of collusion than hypocrisy. International tribunals dealing with Duterte and his human rights crimes need to take a really close look at Trump’s promotion of Duterte and the extrajudicial executions that might have been avoided had Trump instead voiced strong rejection of Duterte’s lethal, illegal methods.
It’s always been this way; quiet, calm fact-telling of reformers arrayed against wild-eyed, foam-flecked, snarling bellicosity of prohibitionists. And in Third World nations where the ‘rule of law’ is fragile due to the democratic experience also being historically fragile, the bellicosity becomes more than display, but bloody practice.
It’s been said here many times before that it’s not through lack of effort that reformers are not ‘reaching’ prohibitionists. If reformers suffer from any flaw in their attempts, it is simply because of this: reformers mainly being the logic-driven, compassionate bunch they are, just cannot grasp (save in an intellectual way) just how viscerally prohibitionists want people they don’t like dead.
Shorn of any (slightly) higher motivations for preserving drug prohibition (such as greed, power-lust, etc.) the vast majority of the motivations for drug prohibition are coming from that good ol’ lizard brain portion of the cortex, that needs to exert dominance over the other animals.
In nature, that is accomplished via tooth and claw; with humans, that only happens when the thin veneer of civilization is broken. If that veneer is still extant, then that urge for dominance is expressed through laws. In this case, with Draconian drug laws permitting the death penalty for their violation.
Which is why I never get tired of relating this quote from Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra”:
“But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangman and the bloodhound look out of their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be pharisees, if only they had – power.”
Look at Trump’s face when he talks about death penalties for drug dealers. Look at Duterte’s face. Look at the face of former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra, whose efforts Duturte has copied. Indeed, with very few exceptions, you can look at the faces of all prohibitionists when they are holding forth about what they would like to do to their current and future victims, and despite them wearing modern clothing you will see a bloodthirsty, animal-skin clad, lizard-brained proto-human just itching to crack your head open with an animal thigh-bone.
‘Low sort and stock’, indeed.
General Jeff’s “Old Rebel” Session Papers
(ships via good ol’ USPS)
We’re SOLD OUT of our initial stock, but have more on the way. Orders are 2 weeks back ordered.
We’ll continue taking orders and promise to make up this delay up to you.
We’re grateful for each and every one of you.
https://www.jeffsesh.com/
For the month of March, we’re donating a portion of proceeds from every order to the Drug Policy Alliance
And remember… don’t Beauregard that joint, my friends!
Pro-marijuana legalization group selling rolling papers with Sessions’s face
oh ya like this take on American drug policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Made_(film)