End the War on Freedom - Drugs

The Folly of Locking Up Non-Violent Offenders

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:24:33 +0000

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars - commentary on Missouri Chief Justice William Ray Price, Jr.'s annual State of the Judiciary address.

I commented:

Quote:

As I've been harping for 10 years now, drug criminalization and regulation is a crime. People have the absolute right to ingest anything they want. Nobody has the authority to say anything whatsoever about it. Nor to tax it. No matter how many people are convinced to vote for regulation. If modifying your consciousness with chemicals causes you to commit an actual crime, harming another person or their property, you are responsible, but as long as you don't, it ain't nobody's business how high you choose to get, or how.

As Vin Suprynowicz so aptly put it, "This does not mean that 'Marijuana should be available by prescription.' It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion."

And cannabis should be available in bulk at the health food store, again for a couple of bucks an ounce, or less. And my 13-year-old daughter should be able to buy as much of it as she wants.

Drug Czar of My Dreams

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:25:44 +0000

Mattew Elrod has created a web site promoting Dr. Ethan A. Nadelmann for Obama's drug czar. He invites you to sign a petition. I did. From the About Dr. Nadelmann page:

Quote:

In 1994, Nadelmann founded the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy institute created with the philanthropic support of George Soros. In 2000, the growing Center merged with another organization to form the Drug Policy Alliance and Drug Policy Alliance Network, which advocate for drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. Described by Rolling Stone as "the point man" for drug policy reform efforts, Ethan Nadelmann is widely regarded as the most prominent proponent of drug policy reform.

This Is Your Country, Fighting the War on Drugs

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:51:41 +0000

I thought up an addition to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America's This is Your Brain on Drugs commercial.

Holding up an egg: "This is your brain."
Pointing at a frying pan: "This is drugs."
Frying the egg in the frying pan: "This is your brain on drugs."

With the narrator from above looking out the door of a house: "This is your country."
Viewing an attack helicopter: "This is the war on drugs."
Showing a missile fired from the attack helicopter into the house, and the house exploding in flames: "This is your country, fighting the war on drugs."

"Any questions?"

So What If Pot Can Cure Cancer; That’s No Reason For You To Use It

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:37:27 +0000

Paul Armentano at LewRockwell.com - Dr. Wai Man Liu has discovered that an ingredient of marijuana "slows tumour growth and prevents the reproduction of cancer cells", but he thinks that "smoking ganja" would cause "more harm than good." Bull. [lew]

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Having recently lost friends and family members to cancer, including one to leukemia, I can inform Dr. Liu that such a diagnosis – even when treated with standard radiation and chemotherapy – is a death sentence. For Dr. Liu to advise, with a straight face no less, that these patients would do “more harm than good” by smoking cannabis is a disgrace. Not only can cannabis alleviate cancer patients’ nausea and pain, elevate their mood, and increase their appetite, but also – as Dr. Liu’s own data demonstrates – it may help to alleviate the very disease that’s ravaging their bodies. Nevertheless, I suppose that Dr. Liu would rather have these patients shut up and die than expose the political hypocrisy surrounding criminalizing a plant.

Legalization in disguise

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 08:45:26 +0000

Margaret Wente at The Globe and Mail - fourth in a series of articles deriding harm reduction, and proposing treatment-or-jail programs for drug addicts. The four articles are:

I sent the following letter to the editor, and posted it as a comment to the final article: [drugsense]

Quote:

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 04:30:33 -0400
From: "Bill St. Clair" <billstclair@gmail.com>
To: letters@globeandmail.ca
Subject: Letter to the editor

The real question about drugs, weed or cocaine or heroin, is not how harmful they are, but who owns our bodies. If each one of us owns his or her own body, then if we choose to live in a drug-induced stupor, it ain't nobody's business. All drugs must be legalized. If the state owns us, well then, it can do what it will with its slaves, so there's nothing to discuss. The natural consequences of drug abuse are more harsh and more fair than anything any legislator can dream up. You can't help somebody who doesn't want to be helped. Give it up.

Bill St. Clair

Successful Medical Necessity Defense in Texas Marijuana Case

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:58:22 +0000

Jacob Sullum at Reason - a Texas jury recently acquitted Tim Stevens for possessing marijuana which he used to relieve the cyclical vomiting syndrome associated with HIV infection. His expert witness convinced the jury that enforcing the "law" was worse than allowing Mr. Stevens to have his medicine, so they nullified. Bravo! [tmm]

Quote:

Stevens, whose vomiting has been so severe that he was hospitalized and received blood transfusions, was arrested last October after an anonymous tipster saw him sharing a joint on a friend's porch in Amarillo and called the police. He had about a twelfth of an ounce of marijuana, resulting in a Class B misdemeanor charge that carries a penalty of up to six months in jail and a $2,000 fine. He probably could have gotten off with a fine or a year's probation, Blackburn says, "but he didn't want to; he wanted to take a stand." The trial lasted about 10 hours on Tuesday, and the jury came back after 11 minutes with a "not guilty" verdict.

Blackburn says the expert testimony of Steve Jenison, medical director of the Infectious Diseases Bureau in New Mexico's Department of Health, helped establish that marijuana is demonstrably effective at treating nausea and superior in some ways to the legal alternatives. (For one thing, unlike the synthetic THC capsule Marinol, it does not have to be swallowed and kept down, a feat for someone suffering from severe nausea.) Blackburn, who was not at all confident about the prospects for Stevens' unusual defense in a "very, very conservative area," also credits "a streak of independence" and a "distaste for government" that he says is common in West Texas. "I think these jurors like the idea that they get to make a decision about what the law means, about when it applies," he says, "and I don't think they were shy at all about deciding how valuable the law proscribing marijuana use really is."

Civil injustice strikes Ohio

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 08:12:37 +0000

Bob Ewing at The Cleveland Plain Dealer - asset forfeiture isn't in the news much these days. But it's still big business for the crooks who run local, state, and federal government theft rings. They stole Meredith and Luther Ricks' life savings, $400,000, when they found the cannabis Mr. Ricks' used to ease his painful arthritis, hip replacement and shingles, while investigating his self-defense shooting of a home intruder. That ain't right. Every cop and prosecutor involved should go to prison for a long time, and never again be allowed to darken the doors of any public office. Asset forfeiture is theft, plain and simple. But then, so is taxation.

Quote:

Shortly afterward, the FBI got involved - not to help the stricken family, but to claim the money for the federal government.

Such is the result of civil forfeiture laws, which represent one of the most profound assaults on our rights today.

Civil forfeiture can apply to virtually any property: cars, houses, boats and, as the Rickses' case demonstrates, even money. The property can be seized merely on suspicion that it was used in connection with a crime or resulted from criminal activity.

The police did not charge Luther for the shooting - he acted in self-defense - or for the small quantity of marijuana he used as medicine. Under civil forfeiture, the government can confiscate money or property without proving that a person is guilty of criminal misconduct.

Righteous Molecular Voodoo of The Very Best Sort...

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 18:26:57 +0000

GeekWithA.45 says that Chantix worked for him to stop smoking when nothing else had a chance. I quit because my lungs started complaining, and then my heart started telling me it might up and quit if I kept it up. But I never smoked much, seven Sobrani Black Russians a day in my last druggie year of 1982. [geekwitha.45]

Quote:

Once the nic fit drive is eliminated, it revealed that the remaining cigs are all driven by other things, such as the post conference call decompression smoke, the pause for inspiration while writing smoke, the kids are driving me crazy and I need an excuses to hide on the porch alone for a few minutes smoke, and so on, all of which remained mine to sort out. In fact, that became the shorthand way I'd described it a few times to people who asked. "Chantix makes the chemical dependency simply go away. After that, whatever's left is your own shit to sort out."

Hybrid Marijuana Plant Found in Mexico

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 03:31:12 +0000

Mark Stevenson at Associated Press - there's a new strain of Cannabis hemp being cultivated in Mexico. It's herbicide resistant, and perennial. Hemp has always been annual before, meaning you need to grow it from seeds. Now it will grow back from the roots if you cut it off at ground level. Yay! May hemp cover the earth. [clairefiles]

Munchies, Brownies, Eyedrop Shelf Talkers Support Marijuana

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 11:41:22 +0000

AdRants - images of grocery shelf advertisements from NORML placed next to brownies, eyedrops, and Cheetos. Talk about ad placement! Hehe. Click here for the images. [clairefiles]

The online cannabis community

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 11:43:27 +0000

Claire Wolfe is encouraged with the power of the truth being broadcast by the online cannabis community. "Freedom has won," says she. [claire]

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Still ... a few mentions of cannabis here on the blog brought me a couple of intriguing URLs. A nice guy from rollitup.org asked for a link exchange. And when I ran that site past a cannabis connoisseur, he mentioned that he used to hang out at YaHooka.com (a name that makes me laugh every time I think of it). (P.S. Sorry, I had this link wrong earlier!)

A major activity at both these sites is talking about growing cannabis. Where to purchase seeds. What types of lights to use. How to hide a crop. How to prune a plant. How to start plants from cuttings. How to grow hydroponically or organically.

My first response upon exploring rollitup.org and YaHooka.com was to smile a wickedly satisfied smile.

I, too, got a link request from rollitup.org. I visited there, and didn't see much in the way of posting activity, but apparently you have to register to see lots of it.

From rollitup's member page. What D.A.R.E. should be teaching our kids, if education were really their goal:

Johnny smoked a rock of crack
And almost had a heart attack!
Billy smoked a bunch of pot.
A little hungry is all he got.

Remember kids...
Pot is safer than crack

A coffee a day?

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:16:02 +0000

Marie McCullough at The Philadelphia Enquirer - coffee, in moderation, may actually be beneficial to your health. It contains antioxidants, and may help diabetes, Cirrhosis and liver cancer, Suicide and Parkinson's disease.

Quote:

Frei and colleagues at the Pauling Institute reviewed the vast, ever-growing coffee research and concluded that people who have high blood pressure, insomnia, or other sensible reasons to eschew brew should do so.

But for most adults, "there is little evidence of health risk and some evidence of health benefits" for up to four cups a day.

Pipe dreams shattered

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 21:33:46 +0000

Jessie McQuillan at The Missoula Independent - David Sil, who operated a store known as "The Vault" in Missoula, Montana, for nearly a decade until the fedgoons shut him down in May of 2005, was convicted Tuesday on federal charges of selling drug paraphernalia. The maximum sentence is three years in prison and a $250,000 fine! For selling politically incorrect pipes. There is Claire Files discussion on FIJA handouts before the trial. [clairefiles]

You Put Your Weed in It

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 03:41:57 +0000

Chumba at phishbook - photos of an extensive grow operation under a house in Tennessee. Kule. [root]

LSD and Aldous Huxley’s Island: Setting Sail for a Better Country

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 02:52:51 +0000

Bruce Eisner - long. I only skimmed a little of it. [grabbe]

Quote:

Albert Hofmann, the man who discovered the effects of LSD, has said that he hopes that what he has called his "problem child" will someday become a "wonder" child. I believe Hofmann will have his wish. In the history books of the next century, the discovery of LSD will find its rightful place as one of our most significant achievements, in the same league as the discovery of fire, the wheel, written language, and relativity. In this essay I will reflect on the history of LSD's impact on society and culture as problem child and look forward to how the conversion to wonder child might occur.