Good to see the ACLU taking this on.
Veteran, ACLU Challenge Florida Welfare Drug Test Law [FEATURE]
The lawsuit, Lebron v. Wilkins, names a Central Florida man, Luis Lebron, as the lead plaintiff. Lebron, a Navy veteran, single father, and University of Central Florida student who is looking for work, was denied TANF benefits after refusing to submit to a drug test. Lebron, who also cares for his disabled mother, did accounting and payroll work in the Navy and in the private sector before returning to college. He is expected to graduate with an accounting degree in December.
“Florida’s new law assumes everyone who seeks public assistance has a drug problem,” said Lebron. “They don’t know that I’m in school right now so I can get a good job to provide for my son and mother, and it feels like they don’t care. I have to prove to them that I’m not breaking the law. It makes me sick and angry that for no reason at all and no suspicion, I have to prove I’m not using drugs. The Fourth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, and it says no searches without probable cause.”
The pivotal question, Lebron said, is whether the searches are reasonable. “Searches must be based on individualized suspicion,” he noted. “In the Navy, I swore an oath to defend the Constitution. Now, I’m asking for the Constitution to defend me.”
That’s it, exactly.
Unfortunately, government no longer cares about the constitution. Government only quotes the constitution when it suits them and benefits thier position, then ignores it when it dont.Government is lawless, it believes the law only applies to the people. If it dont, they will make laws that will.
Corruption: A disease that spares no one.
We are allowing our politicians to law us right out of the very freedoms we hold dear.
that’s why we have to take our freedoms without asking permission
It must be take.
Ask for freedom, change, whatever…
Thats all your doing is asking.
Throw these bums out. End their sacred cows.
We will never arrest our way to a ‘drug free’ country.
We will never spend our way out of debt.
we will never have a lawful government by fostering corruption.
We will never have peace by making continuous war.
Hitler made the statement : ” The state doesnt command us, we command the state.”
The state being the people, how close are we to this idealology?
They take our money, make laws (for us) without our approval, and terrorize the world with thier laws.
Am I off base here? Or close to reality?
When Lebron’s children ask of him: “daddy, what did you do during the war?”
He will be able to proudly assert that he defended the constitution and refused to submit.
How would Gov. Rick Scott reply to the same question?
What would Scott say?
“Well, your daddy fought with big business. The almighty dollar. On the backs of the poor and struggling.”
Rick Scott.jpg
— who invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 75 times during a 2000 civil suit brought against him and Columbia/HCA, the troubled company he led — has shown no misgivings about treating poor Floridians like criminals.
We can live without measures like this because all other molecules such as meth toot or wine wash out from the system in hours. This republic has existed for over 200 years without Tidy-bowl justice!
I must say, that’s a quaint belief. That the constitution protects you.
say…that’s a nifty button down there at the bottom of the post thingie…what happens if I like something? Does a Pez pop out of the poster’s computer as a reward or something? Wouldn’t that be cool?
Sorry, that’s the Sour Diesel talkin’ there…
OOOH! It changes into a check-mark thingie! PMM…did you enjoy your Pez?
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I’m not sure if the “thumbs up” thingy is going to be anything more than a self congratulatory circle jerk on this particular blog.
(At this point readers are wondering where is the doggone “thumbs down” thingy…)
Possibly. I wasn’t sure, but thought it might be a way for people to point out that a particular comment was worth checking out (although all comments by our group are, of course, worth checking out).
There is a dislike button as well, that I could turn on, and it would be a thumbs up/thumbs down option with the number of upvotes cancelled by downvotes. If people are interested, we could try that too. I just wasn’t sure if that would promote negativity.
Thoughts?
I’ll say it seems sort of redundant in this forum, since we all pertty much agree. I don’t think this crowd much cares who likes what how many times. Out in the big, wide facebook world of millions of users it’s a bit different. Our little corner of the internet isn’t really a wide enough audience for anybody to take “likes” as a statistical sample. We really are like a bunch of stoners sitting around on a couch. The other visitors here are just stopping by to score.
This site is unusual in that most single issue blogs dealing with a controversial topic (for instance sites like Republic, anti-monarchy in Britain, or Engage, pro-Israel) have a core of supporters of the cause arguing against a number of opposing commentators. No one from the probitionist cause ever seems to show up here to try to argue their case, which may be indicative of the lack of any argument, or may be a deliberate strategy to ignore the issue in the hope that the general public doesn’t notice it. For that reason I think the thumbs up feature is irrelevant here…. as I see it this site works best as a means of distribution of information not widely covered by the mainstream media, for which, thank you Pete.
Yeah, I don’t think the “thumbs up” feature adds much in this case. I’ve only found it to be helpful / interesting as a filter on sites where individual stories get literally thousands of comments–most of which are completely worthless (think yahoo.com). The couch is waaaay more “quality over quantity” so I think it’s unnecessary. Also, if you think a comment is particularly noteworthy, you can always devote a new post to whatever issue it raises.
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And if anyone agrees with me, you should give this comment a “thumbs up”!
I like the thumbs up – and why not add the thumbs down also – punish the trolls!
I mean, if any show up……
Ehh.. give the thumbs down a try. Maybe it will draw the opposistion in for debate.
OK, we’ll give the full treatment a shot for a bit, just for fun, and then I’ll decide whether to scrap it all or keep it.
Dang, can you make it work like the “Gong Show”?
ACLU Files Suit in Federal Court
Challenging Mandatory Drug Testing of Temporary Assistance Applicants
SUSPICIONLESS, INVASIVE DRUG TESTING VIOLATES FOURTH AMENDMENT PROTECTION AGAINST UNREASONABLE SEARCHES
September 7, 2011 CONTACT: ACLU of Florida Media Office,
(786) 363-2737 or media@aclufl.org
Editor’s Note: The suit filed yesterday was assigned to Judge Mary S. Scriven: The complaint is available here: aclufl.org/pdfs/ACLUTANFComplaint.pdf
The Motion for Preliminary Injunction is available here: aclufl.org/pdfs/ACLUTANFMotion.pdf
A copy of the 2000 federal court ruling from Michigan declaring a similar law unconstitutional is here: aclufl.org/pdfs/Marchwinski.pdf
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida
Drug Policy Reform Work
I get how someone could advocate just about anything if it served a worthy purpose. But how in the hell can so many others follow their delusions blindly without question? Protesting against Civil Liberties? Bashing Civil Libertarians as Buzzwords. They’re Commies one size fits all that’s it John Birch has spoken? How is this Hobgoblinry any different than the Religionists?
STOP the A.C.L.U.com
stoptheaclu.com/
Beating Them With Their Own Sickle And Hammer
NOTICE: stoptheaclu.org expired on 08/29/2011 and is pending renewal or deletion. This web page is parked FREE, courtesy of GoDaddy.com
Same McCarthyism terrorizing Americans.
Warning! Civil Liberties May Be Habit Forming!
We Must Protect the Children.
Won’t someone please STOP the A.C.L.U. from Helping this American Veteran?
ACLU History
In the years following World War I, America was gripped by the fear that the Communist Revolution that had taken place in Russia would spread to the United States. As is often the case when fear outweighs rational debate, civil liberties paid the price. In November 1919 and January 1920, in what notoriously became known as the “Palmer Raids,†Attorney General Mitchell Palmer began rounding up and deporting so-called radicals. Thousands of people were arrested without warrants and without regard to constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure. Those arrested were brutally treated and held in horrible conditions. In the face of these egregious civil liberties abuses, a small group of people decided to take a stand, and thus was born the American Civil Liberties Union. continued…
Well , looks like the DEA and ONDCP finally caught up to my town. You can no longer get synthetic cannabiods in liquor stores and such now. Well, guess its back to the street dealers.
Got news for ya DEA and ONDCP. You will never stop the production sale and use of marijuana. You’ll never stop the production sale and use of synthetic cannabinoids either….if that is really your intention.
Got something for you boys, right here in my pocket. Let me get it.
OHHH looky! Its a big middle finger !!!
Enjoy.
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All they were waiting for was someone with standing willing to stand as lead plaintiff. This one’s already been adjudicated and unless the SCOTUS is willing to reverse Florida’s new law will be struck down directly.
It’s one thing for lawmakers to pass a law that might be unconstitutional and have it struck down. For lawmakers willing to pass a law that is clearly unconstitutional on it’s face is abhorrent, and these creeps should be taken out to the woodshed and given stiff lesson in civil liberty.
Oh, did anyone notice that Governor Scott, err I mean Mrs. Scott has a very large investment in a chain of “walk-in” clinics which provide urinalysis for employees, among others?
http://saintpetersblog.com/2011/03/rick-scott%E2%80%99s-new-gift-to-solantic-drug-testing-state-employees/
Mmm-hmm, Governor Scott cares!
PS Solantic states that they won’t bid for these contracts:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_local_namesblog/2011/04/solantic-ceo-we-wont-take-money-from-rick-scotts-drug-testing-plan.html
Some things said here need to be disliked,but it is not an every day occurrence,,,sometimes not even a weekly thing.
Toke of the Town has some nice stories on SAMSHA/ONDCP
number juggle,,MPP narrating.
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/09/drug_czar_sends_mixed_messages_on_marijuana_policy.php#more
And another good oped from LEAP:
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/09/drug_cartels_rapidly_gaining_ground_in_us_justice.php
I thought Florida was full of nice retired liberal elderly folks,boy was I wrong its full of angry conservative Cubans and a bunch of conservatives who have moved their in recent years fleeing higher taxes, that have brought their Anti-Drug Bullshit with them.
Bravo I hope the ACLU prevails in their Lawsuit,now if they could just remind Rush Limbaugh,hey you ingrate remember we helped when your were in trouble with your Narcotic addiction could you just STFU about and stop making fun of folks who use Marijuana for two seconds. Good Grief.
WTF is up with Governor Brown turning into a drug warrior,oh my if this keeps up people maybe missing the good old days with Arnie at least he did not sign a ban on electronic cigs, I smoke and enjoy them. I have a hunch Gov.Brown is probably anti-tobacco to,at least Arnie signed the marijuana infraction law before leaving office.
Jesus Fuck I’m glad I’m a libertarian these days.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/california-pot-shop-laws-_n_944187.html
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I recall a post I made about daylight savings time a few years back in a different venue. I didn’t go back to read the comments for perhaps as much as 2 weeks because the entire post was just an exercise in stupidity, and because the main page listed the popularity as +1. To my great surprise someone commented on how that particular post was polarizing and contentious among the regulars, so I looked at that thread and found that that +1 was actually 23 up and 22 down. Some days I think I will never be able to understand other human beings. C’mon, how can people be against forcing the government to pay interest on the hour that they borrow from us in the spring and return in the fall? Move to Arizona if I don’t like it indeed.
Oh wow, I found that post though it’s been archived and stripped of its vote. My AKA on that forum was indeed WalStMonky. If anyone cares:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/search/results.php?type=forums&query=daylight+savings+time&sort=&match=titleop&forum=all&active=archived&postedby=WalStMonky
I use that anecdote because had there only been thumbs up my post would have looked like it was extremely popular with 23 thumbs up. While I’m not particularly for or against that feature on this comments column. I do believe if we’re going to have it, then it should be up or down. I’ll go along with the consensus as I really don’t give a John Walters one way or the other.
I really am a very peculiar fellow. How many people would choose a pen name on a financially oriented website but then go out and post about the war on (some) drugs using my own? I was going to just use my full name but decided that I wanted to limit that revelation to intelligent people.
I use darkcycle and my “nom du net” for all my internet related activities. Due to my …ahem…background, and my family, I am very circumspect about using my real name for activities that may be construed as ‘political’. The people I worked with in Central America are like the mob…you’re never really “out”. If you google my real name you get transcripts of presentations I gave at really really dry, boring conferences. And some references to a cousin of mine with the same name who was wayyyy to successful for his own good. I have a literary award and a public service award that bear my name (well, his name…) So I maintain a sanitary net presence. Funny though, only people who have been clued to my real name besides close friends are here at the rant. Pete, you Duncan, Malcolm and Windy are the only ones out there with that information.
And I’ll never tell. ;^D
Btw, gonna call you tomorrow.
Sorry I didn’t get to call you, had to take my baby in to the vet and when I got home there was a last minute decision to go tubing with my two sons and their kids. We got a late start (hit the river at 1:30) and made too many stops on the river, so the last hour was mostly shady because the sun went behind the trees and then the hills; I was shivering the last ten minutes in the river and waiting for our vehicles to return, but otherwise a great float. Anyway, got home at 6:30, showered, made a dinner of smoked salmon and cheese, smoked a bowl, flopped on the couch and passed out until 11:30. So I’ll be calling you tomorrow (a day late), instead.
ditto re: nom du net. Still hanging out at Woods, Darkcycle? I’d be happy to buy you a beverage….
Divadab, any old time! I’m available weekends mostly, also been known to waste time at the Fairhaven Tobacco Shop and the Black Cat. Din’t know you were here in Kulshan’s shadow too! Hamsters unite!
Talk to ya tomorrow, Windy.
Labron v. Wilkins could end up in the United States Supremacist Court. What then?
Will the schismatic Pope Scalia I give us the right to piss in peace? Nope. Popes almost never empower. Allegedly infallible in their moral judgments, they tend to subjugate and oppress.
How about that Clarence Thomas? Justice Thomas could go either way. He’s argued that constitutional law protects the porn industry. It was one of the few original arguments he’s made on his own. He favored the literal reading of the commerce clause as well. Clarence obviously has a better grip on the privacy issue than some of the other justices. He might favor the plaintiff. Although, because it’s drugs, it might be hands off this time around.
Then there’s Justice Kennedy, a man who turns red in the face whenever someone mentions legalizing drugs. Urine plus drugs will be a double whammy to a redneck like Kennedy. Too many anatomy or biology topics will paralyze the synapses of most conservatives.
Roberts, bought and paid for. The piss testing industry will buy him just like it bought the Florida pols who spent millions of tax dollars on crude urine test kits to test welfare recipients.
Alito. What a joke. Between Scalia and Alito, it’s a one-dollar bet between the two of them as to who completely sells out the middle class first.
That’s the majority. And there you have it. The best the United States judicial system has to offer. Truly sad. And not a good sign for reformers. But then, hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
i think we should remember that alcohol is the default drug for america. it’s definitely the default drug of the leaders of the homeland. it may be influencing the decisions they have been making lately. it would also explain why biden and boehner are such good pals.
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Servetus don’t you recall that Justice Scalia voted in favor of declaring unconstitutional for police to use heat sensors without a warrant to locate pot-growing operations in the Kyllo v United Staytes of America, 533 U.S. 27 (2001)? Don’t you recall that it was a 5-4 decision, and had Justice Scalia voted otherwise police would be driving up and down the roads of suburbia with FLIR devices and searching people’s homes for cannabis grows willy-nilly?
Someday can at least those that are intelligent enough to acknowledge that the war on (some) drugs is an act of idiocy drop this nonsense attitude that this particular subject simply is not a conservative/liberal schism? It’s annoying enough when the Know Nothing prohibitionistss spout their mindless dogma that only liberals sit on our side of the table. That’s hardly surprising from a group of people sporting an average I.Q. lower than the average room temperature but extremely annoying to hear from people that have the native intelligence to look at the facts and to be able to differentiate dogma from factual evidence. The people on our side of the table shouldn’t have any trouble acknowledging that there are significant percentages of those who identify as “conservative” and “liberal” on both sides of this particular coin. The mandatory village idiot excepted, of course.
Indeed. From the Conservative perspective it’s an issue of personal freedom and civil liberty. From the Liberal perspective it’s a social justice issue. From my perspective (looking over a loaded bong) it’s time for another hit.
Scalia’s decision regarding heat sensors turned on a question he asked regarding whether the sensors could be improved to produce a lifelike picture of the inside of a building and its occupants. The answer from the lawyer before the bench was affirmative. Which is correct. There is a way to do that with heat imaging.
It was at that point that Scalia condemned the use of what would eventually become a very invasive tool for police, and a problem if the technology fell into the hands of the wrong kind of tyrant. That was a sensible move. Scalia himself is now protected from the prying eyes of potential detractors while residing in his home. He ruled in a way that was of benefit to him, and only coincidently to everyone else.
Same situation when Scalia ruled in a case against arbitrary car searches without a warrant. Without a proper warrant process, any cop can plant a drug on anyone (including one of Scalia’s grandchildren) while claiming the drug was found inside an automobile. If the cops never have legal access to the automobile’s interior, they are in less of a position to accuse someone of possessing drugs, otherwise where would the drugs have originated?
Also, I don’t see Scalia and his so-called ‘originalism’ as being conservative in any sense of the term. Scalia would use the black box he calls originalism to change nearly everything about the United States and its legal system. If he could impose his quasi-canonic laws and pseudo-histories upon the country, he would be a happy jurist. That is not conservatism. It’s extremism.
I worry about Scalia’s interpretations of laws bringing about the end separation of church and state. He’s been accused of being more pope than the pope. In the case of drugs, the Vatican views chemical substances as a spiritual competitor, if not a constant reminder that the idea of mind-body duality is a fiction. Barring some religious cataclysm, I don’t expect Scalia or the Vatican to change their ideas about recreational drugs.
That’s a great and highly usable (couch pun intended) quote:
My anonymity on the wwweb disappeared about 149 PubLTEs ago… not that I care much now that my kids are both 18. I don’t have to tell them to turn around when I smoke herb anymore (the point being they could always say, w/o lying, “he never smoked pot in front of us”).
as you know, i’m right there with you allan.
i use my real name in everything i do simply because i believe enough in what i am doing to stand behind my words and refuse to accept anything less than the full equality and liberty i spent my entire life defending.
people need to man up and stop hiding behind excuses for why they can’t risk truly fighting for their liberty.
sorry folks, whatever excuse you think “justifies” hiding in the shadows is just making it that much more difficult to achieve success.
so grow some stones already. fer chrissakes, if “they” aren’t coming after me after all the stuff i’ve done, you can’t think you have all that much to risk.
ultimately though, if you don’t value liberty enough to stand up for it, then you probably don’t really deserve it in the first place.
Actually, Windy is not my given name, but it is the nickname given to me by my grandfather when I was still an infant, and all my rl friends and family know that. It is also part of my email addy, so I’m not truly hiding by using it. I do have a nom de net I use on some sites, more to avoid unwanted attention from the other people who visit those sites than to hide from Big Brother. So if any of you see a comment somewhere on the net by Moonrider, it is probably me.
J.D.G.I.
You sound very boring Brian. One track mind?
I try to be provocative. Stir conversation. Piss people off until the truth slips out over the pomp, cya and circumstance. Match things that don’t come to mind. Of the hundreds of Central Valley Californians who know me, know I’ve been a cannabis caregiver since the 90’s. They know they will not have a conversation without Hemp and Ganja being included. Doctors and Nurses especially. Cops and Medical Examiners all have a conversation about the drug war if I’m included. But that’s not the internet where you can’t see the eyes of your opponent. If I only wrote about Ganja and Hemp I would have no problem identifying myself. As I do sending info to real people. But the Ganjawar is not about Ganja, it’s about making money. Same with religion, politics, racism, classism, shaming, blaming, shunning, snubbing, backstabbing and corporate laws infringing on citizens rights and livelihoods. Cheap labor is profit on top. OpRsQ Pro Anti Civil Liberties abort more babies than RvW spraying the cotton crop. Hemp’s organic. Do that one at the Freeper board… bring some popcorn called “ma” in chinese theaters. Made of roasted hemp seed. Foreign Oil Wars and Broken Farmers. Starving Babies and Illegal Food. NRA bought M&M’s and now please bargains profit Califony ReHabilitation + Piss Quizzes @ $50 bucks for the pecker checker.
Talk about the cellophane veggie carbohydrate plastic grown by family farmers keeping jobs here manufacturing products. Instead of the imported OPEC Gulf War Fossil fool crude oil hydrocarbon plastic. Most in garments and garbage, maybe that’s redundant. Only carbo’s decompose while hydrocarbons fuck up the fish. They burn toxic waste in our traffic jams invented by Big Oil to make the trip longer as well as the engine sucking down $4/gal much quicker filler-ups. Rockyfella KO’s Farmers with the 19th Amendment taking their “Ethyl” distilled from crop remnants for the tractors and cooking. Henry’s Biomass Furd Built From the Ground Up. But the Hearst Propaganda Machine made sure we remember the carnage and drama, in daily doses. Capon and the Untouchables washed away memories. Until gas and diesel were able to fill up the cars, trucks and tractors. Then the 21st Amended the story tellers violence. Capon was caged dying of Syphilis. Worked so well Nexxon tried it and succeeded in lumping Rx and Hemp into the C.S.A. mix as schedule#1 Narcotics. While we all watched the suspense and scapegoating of a two bit burglary with as much import as a two bit blowjob in the oval office. All coincidence dismissed by the cowards with conspiracy buzzwords the same as dung worriers. Do Y’all say W’all? We all say we are individuals with choice and braggarts tend to ruffle my feathers a tad and I don’t think I really appreciate the attitude of those committing such acts of Pomposity.
Net forums can bring out the diehards and wingnuts for the vested ignorant that I don’t want in my face if I’m with a patient or another innocent bystander. Common sense. If you want a title as Grand Poona Pot Man. Allan has no reason to fear anyone because he doesn’t invoke people or piss them off. I see no similarity between a talented Calendar Photog and a self-aggrandizing “super advocate” wanting status above the lowly lazy stoners like us. As far as I’ve seen most here are just good people playing the game by the rules. If I followed the rules patients would have suffered. If growers followed them this forum becomes moot. So be brave dude, fight the good fight and keep them charts to show the Fascists what they do for a living. So we can send delegates to barter for freedom because after all. we’re right. Every finger points to the fact that we are right. For almost 100 years. Big fucking deal. We’re right. Ganja is a safe FARMaceutical, and Hemp can bring us cheap Food, Fuel, and Fiber. Just show them more fact’s and tell the wingnuts where you live Bravehart.
Indeed. When others stand to suffer from revelatory information, it demands circumspection. In addition, nobody is served by martyrdom, A prison term is too high a cost to ask, and many who attend this forum have levels of risk exposure that go beyond simply being identified with a political movement. Sorry Brian. I’ll fight to change things, but things are what they are. And nobody should be ashamed of anything they do to contribute to this movement. We face unique challenges that movements like civil rights and labor never had. Civil Rights were never illegal, nor was labor. It was never illegal to oppose war, or to oppose nuclear power. People did suffer in those societal conflicts, but involvement with them was never cause for routine criminal sanctions. Criticizing others in this movement for the way they choose to contribute will only serve to alienate potential allies and deprive us of their unique individual talents. Give it a break, won’t you, Brian?
@ddc — sorry dude but you sound like a lunatic.
@darkcycle — fuck no i won’t give it a “break.”
brain bennett
September 11, 2011 at 6:58 pm
@ddc — sorry dude but you sound like a lunatic.
Oh what a surprise. I knew it was over your head when I wrote it celebman. You just gots nothing to say. Again pretty typical of the self appointed experts. No different than the self appointed moralists preaching against drugs. Just hurl insults, That explains why you’re so sheltered from fame. I do understand your dilemma. All Hat, No Cowboy. Don’t understand something, just ask, asshole.
@darkcycle — fuck no i won’t give it a “break.â€
It’s a life’s dream and top priority for Brainman to be a famous legalizer. Just one small point and he grips it like a thirsty man in the desert. Too bad for us lesser advocates. All this time and all we had to do was give them our names. Who’d a thunk it?
I agree Brian but, Sometimes its better to shoot from the shadows so your can shoot another day.
So what I meant was urine screening is functionally bankrupt as well as un-constitutional.
I use my name so if old friends,,,or enemies are looking for me,,they can find me.
I am presently watching,for the first time,Weeds,,from Shotime,,on Netflix.
Just finished Season 1,and it is one of the best public relations show’s for marijuana use I have ever seen,,,showing both the dangers of and profits available
to anyone willing to grab the ring….
It really got interesting now,cause she just did the DEA agent!!!!!!
They are all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same!
I’ve only ever seen 10 mins of one episode. But on your recommendation, Clay, I’ll surely give it another try.
Cant wait for Sept 25th:
http://www.hbo.com/boardwalk-empire/index.html
Guess I’m going to have to buy the BluRay version of Weeds on your recommendation, I’ve got 3 seasons of True Blood and after tomorrow will have 3 seasons of Sons of Anarchy (have 2 now, promised the 3rd to hubby for his b’day). We don’t subscribe to HBO so I cannot watch True Blood on TV, and hubby got into SoA late (mid-season 2) and wanted to see it from the beginning, so . . . we take them and movies we haven’t watched yet along when we go tripping in our motorhome as we often are not camping where cable is available so it provides us some entertainment after we are tired of the campfire but not yet ready for bed. I’ve read all the released books on which the True Blood series is (loosely) based, waiting with bated breath for the next one — the novels are better but the series is pretty good.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2363
I love this comic.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2362#comic
In the rolling fields of Oxfordshire, UK, at this time of year, you will probably see wheat or barley ripening for the harvest. But dry springs and warm summers have enabled local farmers to plant a very different type of crop – opium poppies.
They are under contract to a pharmaceutical company that turns the opium into morphine and codeine in order to plug a shortfall in strong painkillers in the National Health Service. In fact, there is a global shortage of drugs made from poppies.
The opium grown in Britain will be put to good use, but thousands of miles away, NATO troops are wiping out existing Afghan poppies with bombing, burning and spraying.
“The main question is why are we destroying the Afghan crop and then having to grown poppies in fields in Oxfordshire? It’s been used by the American and British governments repeatedly, one of the so called soft arguments that they put, one of the liberal arguments that they put, is that they’re fighting a war on drugs. This is complete hypocrisy, it’s not true, it’s not what the war is about, and we should own up to that,†says Lindsey German from the Stop the War Coalition.
http://rt.com/news/uk-afghanistan-poppies-shortage-243/
Then why is my county flooded with top grade heroin from Afghanistan? Who’s bringing it in? Are we re-living Vietnam with military transports bringing heroin body bags home?
divadab: the supplies are likely running through the Russian Federation, thence to Europe and the U.S. CIA and State departments are probably complicit in the smuggling of Heroin into the R.F. How much further down the supply line they are involved is anybody’s guess, but if history is any indicator, they are in the distribution right down to the street corner.
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Because the dealers pay more than the pharmas. I recall back in the late 1980s there was a serious shortage of medicinal cocaine while there certainly was no shortage of cocaine to smoke.
The question is”why didn’t we purchase the last three crops and napalm them there”””,,,stopping 90% of the black market heroin?
why didn’t we purchase the last three crops and napalm them there
Napalm is made from fossil fools, too much pollution. And burned babies. Think someone would have passed that on. Still doesn’t set will with the Vietnamese. Who are now trying to please Big Brother by becoming just like him…
Vietnam Using Drug Takers as Slave Labor
Vietnamese drug users detained by the police are held for years without due process, subjected to torture and physical violence, and forced to work as low- or no-wage labor in camps that are supposed to be drug treatment centers, according to an explosive new report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch, which called for the camps to be closed and the prisoners released.
stopping 90% of the black market heroin?
Pick a number, any number…? One might think that frequenting the couch so much would put away their foolish TVland Dung Worrier notions. It’s nobody’s business if you do Heroin anymore than Ganja. Most of the US heroin doesn’t come from Afghanistan. The danger in doing heroin is the same as doing anything under prohibition. Napalm? Geesh. I highly suspect a different response from those on the ground than from those dropping it at 30,000 feet never seeing the damage.
Heroin Prices
World failing to dent heroin trade, U.N. warns
Europe and Russia together consume just under half of the heroin coming out of Afghanistan, the United Nations concluded, and Iran is by far the single largest consumer of Afghan opium.
Transforming Opium Poppies Into Heroin | FRONTLINE
By an age-old rule of thumb, every 10 tons of raw opium reduces to one ton of heroin. In other words, the worldwide opium output in 1996 translates into 430 tons of heroin. About half of that is destined for the United States.
Drug Trafficking in the United States
South American Heroin
The availability of South American (SA) heroin, produced in Colombia, has increased dramatically in the United States since 1993. SA heroin is available in the metropolitan areas of the Northeast and along the East Coast.
Mexican Heroin
Mexican heroin has been a threat to the United States for decades. It is produced, smuggled, and distributed by polydrug trafficking groups, many of which have been in operation for more than 20 years. Nearly all of the heroin produced in Mexico is destined for distribution in the United States.
Southeast Asian Heroin
SEA heroin shipments destined for U.S. markets may transit through China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, or South Korea. Largely independent U.S.-based ethnic Chinese traffickers control distribution within the United States, principally in the Northeast and along the East Coast.
High-purity Southeast Asian (SEA) heroin dominated the market in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Over the past few years, however, all indicators point to a decrease in SEA heroin available domestically.
For the last several years, West African traffickers, based in Bangkok who normally deal in SEA heroin, have been sending couriers to Pakistan to buy the cheaper Afghanistan-produced SWA heroin. Heroin in Pakistan is about half the price of SEA heroin in Bangkok where the West Africans pay between $13,000 and $16,000 for a kilogram.
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I must correct my submission above that the issue has been to the SCOTUS, I can’t find any evidence that ] Marchwinski v. Howard, 113 F. Supp. 2d 1134, 1142 (E.D. Mich. 2000), aff’d, 2003 WL 1870916 (6th Cir. Apr. 7, 2003) was ever appealed to the SCOTUS. That seems rather peculiar to me since the 6th Circuit “upheld” the lower Court’s decision that urine testing public assistance recipients was unconstitutional because they voted 6 to 6. With that new bit of information it sure seems that the issue is nowhere near as cut and dried as it seemed to me previously.
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Well this is intriguing, particularly since I’ve never heard this piece of information before, but I would think it belongs in the headlines if not shouted from every window of ever home in the US.
Seventy fucking seven thousand dollars per positive. That means that it would cost just more than $1 million to “catch” 13 “drug” users with it being likely that 11 or 12 were positives for THC-cooh. Oh let’s not bother the drunken stumblebums, they’re not breaking the law and this entire pile of nonsense is about forcing people to knuckle under and to do as they’re told.
Oh, BTW that was $77,000 in 1992 dollars. I wouldn’t be surprised if that tab would be over $100k per positive in 2011 dollars. Isn’t the entire argument of the Know Nothings that we can’t afford to pay for a safety net for the poor if they refuse to follow orders and only use drinking alcohol and/or sniff model airplane glue to get high? How much does TANF cost annually?
Also interesting that 10 years later it only cost ~$20,000 per positive test for private sector testing. Just a little more supporting evidence for the assertion that the government is wholly clueless in matters of fiscal responsibility.
Christ my brain hurts. I need relief. Where the heck did I leave my .357?
QUICK, Duncan, more effective yet than the .357, and far more pleasant…Try this big Bonger of my Afgooey with this honey oil topper. Everything will be soft and fuzzy, with little orange highlights. And the elves will talk to you then, too. They’ll explain how fiscal responsibility and deficits don’t matter. They explained it to Dick Cheney once.
🙂
I was thinking of a yearly event,,,burn it with grain alcohol,,,can you see the travel agencies lining up the hotel rooms and bus lines for transport to and from the burn?
I got you Clay. But Napalm has such a bad connotation. Here’s a totally way too stoned idea: Much better they buy up the years production and instead of Napalm, it could be stuffed, raw, onto the world’s largest hookah, then fired by guys standing around the rim of the giant bowl with flame throwers. And hoses could be run like telephone lines, so anytime you were feeling sore and achy, you could just plug your own, personal mouthpiece in where ever you found a receptacle. Reclining couches would be strategically placed within stumbling distance of every receptacle. Now there’s a public works project I could get behind.
One problem. Michele Leonhart will never go for it. We need to get Obama on board. So here’s what we do. SOMEBODY sold Barry that weed and coke back then. We should all ask our connections to ask their connections, to ask THEIR connections who sold him that contraband. Somebody was the big O’s connect. We need to find that guy (or girl). Then we’ll have the dirty down low on Barry and we can make him work the opium trade our way.
Guys, this is how cartels are built. This will be the best idea I ever had until the Sour Diesel wears off!
hmmm… my similar recent private musings along the lines of we need to find young, soon-to-be-President, Obama’s connection IS indeed a meme. Cool.
When I worked for Conde we smoked all the time, Bill and his buddies (jack, et al) would smoke in the office, but we peons puffed outside. I drove a truck all around Oregon with giant pot leaves painted all over it (w/ the msg: yes, trees are renewable but Hemp is sustainable). for 6 years or so and never a ticket, not even pulled over. A drug test was some multiple choice and true/false questions with an essay question at the end. He provided a toilet for our urine, appropiately enough.
What really tweaked the powers was Bill’s 60′ electronic message board facing I-5 and the tens of thousands of cars and trucks driving by every day… toys like that in the hands of legalizers make certain people very nervous.
When I begin hiring my employee’s (assuming this business actually ever gets off the ground), my drug test will be multiple choice. I don’t like reading essays, and I can never make out the handwriting. I will require an agreement not to use alcohol on company time, but ample smoke breaks will be a perk.