Drug WarRant

Despite what you may believe from watching Jurassic Park or Dr. Who, the dinosaurs are extinct, and so shall be Representatives like Doug Cox (R-OK).

Don’t let Oklahoma go to pot

As the chairman of the subcommittee on appropriations for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health, I have had the opportunity to visit many of the state’s drug treatment and rehabilitation facilities. In this position, as well as my work as a physician, I have met many people who have addiction problems with methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and, more recently, K-2. Without exception, every one of these addicts told me their entry level drug was marijuana. In addition, a large number of prescription drug abusers also smoke pot. […]

Regular users tend to develop “amotivational syndrome,” a condition where they lose interest in everything except making sure they have the next joint to smoke.[…]

Potheads are more likely to be high school dropouts, unemployed, on disability, or dependent on the government dole for support. They are just downright lazy. […]

Most of us will live long enough to see the pendulum swing back the other way toward tougher penalties for pot use.

This kind of nonsense may well still be believable to a small minority of idiots in Oklahoma, but most folks today actually know people who have smoked pot, and realize just how ridiculous it is.

Just in case you thought he might have changed since we last saw him, uh no.

Sheriff opposes legalized pot

Pueblo County Sheriff Kirk Taylor says voters have been “put to sleep” on the issue of marijuana but he, along with the County Sheriffs of Colorado, is strongly opposed to Amendment 64 on the November ballot, which would essentially legalize and regulate marijuana similar to alcohol and drinking.

Taylor told The Pueblo Chieftain editorial board Friday that allowing people to legally buy and use even small amounts of marijuana would worsen all of the societal problems that are associated with other drugs, including alcohol.

There’s something insanely wrong with a world where this kind of creativity exists, but LSD is illegal.

More artwork from Yayoi Kusama here.

This cracked me up.

Opponents of Massachusetts Marijuana Initiative Accidentally Advertise a Spoof of Themselves (Jacob Sullum at Hit and Run)

The official voters’ guide that was mailed to every household in Massachusetts beginning last week includes a Web address for the No on Question 3 committee, which is urging voters to reject a ballot initiative that would legalize the medical use of marijuana and authorize dispensaries where patients can obtain it.

The address, logically enough, is votenoonquestion3.org, but the committee settled on that name without bothering to register it. Whoops.

On Tuesday a savvy satirist registered the URL, where you can now find Onion-esque items with headlines such as “FACT: Marijuana Is the Gateway Drug to Twinkies,” “FACT: No Marijuana User Has Ever Been Successful” (above a collage of famous pot smokers’ photos), and “Elementary School Counselor Speaks Out Against Medical Marijuana” (quoting Mr. Mackey, the guidance counselor on South Park).

No on Question 3 spokesman (and former ONDCP official) Kevin Sabet told The Boston Globe, “It’s funny and upsetting, I guess, at the same time.” No, it’s just funny.

Yeah, Jacob’s right. It’s just funny.

According to the Boston.com article, they even first blamed medical marijuana supporters for their mistake:

The group sent out a press release saying proponents of medical marijuana were tampering with the democratic process through “underhanded efforts.” But, Sabet said, the committee made a mistake.

Go check out the spoof website. It’s a real blast!

[Note: I really didn’t plan on even mentioning Kevin’s name for awhile, but he just keeps popping up everywhere as the voice of prohibition.]

Vancouver’s Downtown EastSide (DTES) area has long been a place of death, largely from AIDS and drug overdoses, but in recent years, the Insite facility (which allows for a safe, controlled environment for drug use has been making a difference. One of the differences is that people are living longer.

This should be no surprise. The studies in Switzerland of programs where the government supplied heroin to addicts found a huge increase in lifespan.

Life-expectancy jump astounds

At the height of the AIDS epidemic in 1996, life expectancy in the DTES was more than nine years lower than the B.C. average.

By 2006, DTES life expectancy rose to just 5.3 years below the provincial average.

Now, unpublished Vancouver Coastal Health research from 2011 shows DTES life expectancy has jumped to 79.5 years, about two years below the average.

It’s rare to see such a shift in a population’s life expectancy, said medical health officer Dr. John Carsley.

He and his colleagues are trying to judge how much of the change can be attributed to gentrification and how much is due to improved health treatment, nutrition, housing and education.

“I think we all agree that it is some healthier people moving to the DTES, and there has been a substantial decrease in overdose deaths and HIV deaths,” Carsley said Thursday.

Carsley said he believes the new data supports arguments that harm-reduction services offered in Vancouver’s controversial supervised injection site – which was allowed to stay open with a 2011 Supreme Court ruling that said it has “been proven to save lives with no discernible negative impact” – will be extended to other locations.

The more you bring drug use out of the shadows, with education, clean needles, controlled doses, increased safety, and access to other services, the more you save lives.

Prohibition, on the other hand, merely drives people into the shadows, and is a leading cause of drug death.

Alison Pill: I Want Marijuana for My Birthday

“The best birthday in the world is to have, at most, five people over for a barbeque and to make tofu because it’s my birthday and they have to like it.” Leaning toward The Cut’s audio recorder she elaborated, “I want a birthday that involves me and the movie Oliver and Company and some Champagne and some marijuana— and I’m speaking into the microphone because it should be legal.”

Her birthday, she said, is on November 27. If you’d like to send her a care package, “that would be awesome!” Her voice rising to a shout, she concluded, “Yeah, put this shit in the magazine! Give me the best birthday ev-ah!”

Alison’s a great actress – I’ve seen her in a couple of plays in New York, and now she’s on “Newsroom.”

I think I might even put up wtih the tofu.

In a truly bone-headed move, CU regents expected to oppose marijuana legalization measure on Colorado ballot

This is one they should stay out of, because it’s likely to backfire on them, as Mason Tvert is quick to note.

“This seems a bit hypocritical coming from a university that sees no problem with naming buildings after beer companies and sanctioning alcohol-fueled tailgate parties before football games,” Tvert said. “Nobody wants people who are underage to use marijuana, but there is absolutely no denying the fact that marijuana is far less harmful than alcohol.” […]

The Boulder campus — which is where CU’s regents met Tuesday and will reconvene Wednesday — has gained national rankings from publications such as Playboy magazine, Princeton Review and Newsweek for its “reefer madness” and being a party school.

So opposing a measure that regulates with an age limit?…

And now, for something completely different…

A feature on the still from M.A.S.H. [Thanks to Transform for the link]

I’ve always been a M.A.S.H. fan.

[Note: This post isn’t strictly drug policy, but I posted it elsewhere and thought I would share it with you as well.]

Today is a day I remember extraordinary sacrifice and also remember the truly amazing spirit that existed around the world in those immediate days following the tragedy. There was nothing we couldn’t do to rebuild and regroup, because we had the spirit of America and the entire world supported us. The French newspaper of record, Le Monde, ran a front-page headline reading “Nous sommes tous Américains”, or “We are all Americans.”

I flew to Seattle on the first day that flights were allowed again. We didn’t need no stinkin’ TSA — the elderly couple in bermuda shorts in line ahead of me would have taken on any terrorists who showed up on our plane (and they said so). Nobody on that day was going to let the terrorists defeat our spirit.

9/11, unfortunately, is also a time when I curse the political leaders who, in the years following, turned us into a nation of sniveling cowards, eager to give away essential liberties for imagined security. Political leaders who turned America into a nation that arrests people without charges, without trial, without proper representation, and then leaves them to rot in prison until they die. Political leaders who turned America into a nation that drops bombs on innocent people around the world and imagines that there will be no consequences; who use the tactics of terror in a fight against what will now be a never-ending battle against terror. Political leaders who spy on Americans without judicial oversight and use national security as a means of avoiding accountability, punishing those who shine a light on government abuses while refusing to hold accountable those who tortured in our name. Political leaders who changed America from being a leader in human rights into a hypocritical bully. Political leaders who exploit the insecurities of people, intentionally diminishing the power of America in order to profit from its fears.

It’s time for America to truly remember 9/11 and say “We will not be cowed by the threat of terror, nor will we let our political leaders do the work of terrorists and take away our liberty, our soul, and our pride.”

Mayor and police at odds over cannabis approach

Frank Jensen, Mayor of Copenhagen, wants cannabis legalized, but he’s getting no help from Parliament, or the police who continue to arrest people for possession of small quantities.

Jensen gives one of the more astute comments I’ve ever heard from a mayor. It’s nice to see this kind of intelligence in public roles (even if the rest of the bureaucracy is thick as a brick).

“As long as parliament continues to abandon the cannabis market to the gangs, there is not much more that police can do other than push the problem around and make confiscations. But this hasn’t reduced the quantity that comes in to Denmark,” he said. “As long as there is a market, there will always be someone to satisfy that market.”

An outstanding piece in the New York Times… human and honest.

How Pot Helps Parenting by Mark Wolfe.

But the best part is an amazing off-label benefit I call Parental Attention Surplus Syndrome. […]

I swear I am a more loving, attentive and patient father when I take my medication as prescribed. Perhaps this isn’t surprising. As anyone who inhaled during college can attest, cannabis enhances the ability to perceive beauty, complexity and novelty in otherwise mundane things (grout patterns in your bathroom floor, the Grateful Dead, Doritos), while simultaneously locking you into a prolonged state of rapt attention. You not only notice the subtle color variations in your cat’s fur, you stare at them in loving awe for 20 solid minutes.

I submit that this can be enormously salutary to the parent-toddler relationship. Beyond food, shelter and clothing, what do small children need most from their parents? Sustained, loving, participatory attention. Thank you, Doctor.

The family that giggles together, loves together.