Barack Obama on Medical Marijuana

Looks like Obama will set the federal government's priorities straight on medical marijuana if elected.

Noam Chomsky on Marijuana

A brief history of marijuana and how it become illegal in the United States.

"Connoisseurs of Cannabis"

Check this great read about "cannabis connoisseurs" and all the different kinds of buds that get offered thanks to the medical marijuana system in California. The full article can be found here.

“In the Bay Area if you hand a joint to someone, they’ll say, ‘What kind is that?’ “said DeAngelo. “In Wisconsin, they’ll just say, ‘Oh, thanks …’ It is a great time to be in the cannabis business.”
As in any industry, say some insiders, some of this is hype and bluster. Dale Gieringer, California coordinator of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), says smoking various strains and being able to tell the difference is “a mystery to me.”

Barry Cooper on The Verdict

A good video from The Verdict. Barry Cooper holds himself well and presents good arguments and tells the origin of the marijuana tax acts.

These are clips from his DVD, it seems that this DVD may have some good information and insight on police encounters.

Fooling the Drug Dogs

Conceal Your Stash!

K9's False Alert

Actual Marijuana Arrest

Hidden Compartments

10 Steps to End the Drug War from DrugSense

This is a very interesting read from Mark Greer at Drug Sense.

Click the link below to read the post at the Drug WarRant
Click Here

After reading this I scrolled to the bottom to check out the comments posted. Brian Bennett, the owner of the Homepage of Truth with a slogan "It's Not About Legalizing Drugs -- It's About Correcting a Terrible Mistake", posted this very interesting and fresh take of the situation.

actually, this "plan" is useless. the crux of the matter is that our society has lost its focus on its true purpose: to protect individual liberties.

each of these steps, in and of itself, is something that could be accomplished -- but how would that impact the overall waging of the drug war?

i submit that all of these "goals" could be accomplished and not have any impact at all on the overall drug war.

working at this piecemeal has been the standard approach for 40 years. sorry -- it doesn't work. it is analogous to trying to tunnel through a mountain with a teaspoon. or, as arnold trebach puts it: this would be like improving housing conditions for slaves and offerring them a dental plan.

it is the institution of drugwar that is evil and that is what must be vanquished.

i want this bullshit to end long before i'm dead -- and this approach is not likely to accomplish anything at all.

there is only one way to truly, effectively (and quickly) win: get americans to start acting like americans.

p.s. opiates, cocaine, and amphetamines are already legally available. so why is the war against the use of (and users of) those substances still going on?

The quote that I think is the most important part of the comment is, "there is only one way to truly, effectively (and quickly) win: get americans to start acting like americans."

So true.

Legal Drugs by 2020?

Orginal Article

LEGALISING DRUGS IS AN OPTION THE WORLD IS NOW CONSIDERING
by Paul Walker, (Source:Western Mail)
25 Oct 2006

United Kingdom
-------
The other day I found myself chairing a meeting on the topic of legalising drug use.

Reading the runes, it would seem that there is an international movement growing in opposition to the current United Nations-led universal policy of prohibition and, that by the year 2020, regulated use and supply will replace prohibition in many UN member states.

But the year 2020 is a long way away.

So can we expect any change in the present policy in the nearer future?

Interestingly, the Parliamentary Science and Technology Select Committee has recently produced a report, Drug Classification: Making a Hash of it? which calls for a major overhaul of the existing system.

The way drugs are currently categorised into Class A, B and C is done on the basis of the penalties they attract under the criminal justice system rather than on the harm that they do.

Common sense suggests that the penalties should be proportional to the harm done.

The Select Committee proposes that any classification system based on harm done must include tobacco and alcohol which together cause about 40 times the total number of deaths from all illegal drugs combined.

Applying a new categorisation system based on harm done proposed by the committee, alcohol would probably be listed as a class A drug, the fifth most harmful of all, and tobacco as a class B one, the ninth most harmful.

This report shows how illogical the whole system is and how confusing to the public.

On the basis of the current system, where drugs such as ecstasy and LSD are categorised as harmful class A drugs and alcohol and tobacco are not classified at all and are freely available, the public might reach the conclusion that alcohol and tobacco are not harmful.

This, of course, is not true and the proposed new classification system would make this apparent.

It is time for a mature debate about our attitude to mind altering drugs.

Alcohol use is legal but is increasingly problematic. Drugs such as cannabis, heroin and cocaine are illegal and, while undoubtedly they can cause problems, these are on nothing like the scale of those caused by alcohol and tobacco.

So why are they illegal when by being so a huge global criminal industry is given a licence to print money?

It is worth remembering that the United States tried alcohol prohibition and lived to regret it and repealed it.

In this country the equivalent of prohibition was introduced with the enactment of the Misuse of Drugs Act in 1971.

It is time to reconsider this and see whether it is not time to go back to the pre-prohibition condition that existed in the UK before 1971.

At the very least we should initiate a mature debate on the topic and perhaps not have to wait until 2020 for a change in policy. Which is what my meeting was about.

Talking of alcohol and smoking, I was disappointed to learn at the same meeting that the biggest drinks and tobacco companies in the world are British.

It seems paradoxical that a nation that is so pre-eminent in public health research and scholarship is also pre-eminent in profiteering from harmful products like alcohol and tobacco.

And on a slightly lighter note, I also learned that the pint glass was introduced by the brewers in the 1930s to boost the sales of beer.

Apparently, until then half pint glasses were the norm.

Top 10 Pot Studies Government Wishes it Had Never Funded

I stumbled across this post the other night on a marijuana activism blog.

Check It Out

Stoned in Suburbia

If you have some time on your hands, defiently check out this video.


Video Description:

Stoned In Suburbia is a social history film, examining the change in people's opinions to cannabis over the past 50 years. Discussing the impact of the 60's sexual revolution, the Hippie movement, the emergence of the Punks right up until the modern day.

Stop Picking On Stoners

Orginal Article

STOP PICKING ON STONERS

Am I the only one not impressed by all of the marijuana seizures lately? Talk about your pre-election, vote-inciting tricks.

No matter where you stand on legalizing marijuana, you have to admit that you have never heard of a marijuana-induced shooting spree. What's the worst crime committed under the influence of pot? I don't think eating too many Cheetos is a crime, even under the Bush administration.

If the government wants to impress me, start catching more drunken drivers, and keep them in jail. How about closing down some crank houses? You know crank, right? It's the drug that actually does father many violent crimes.

I don't know whether marijuana should be legalized or not, but quit acting like you've accomplished something by taking away the peace pipes. That's right, "peace" pipes; it is no coincidence the Indians called it that.

People smoke pot for many reasons: pain control, anxiety control, nausea control and, yes, just to get stoned. Whatever their reasons, when they do smoke it, they do not get violent; they do not rob banks, rape, attack or cross the double yellow line; instead, they sit at home watching TV with a bag of chips.

Traci Piazza,

Orangevale

KRNV (6pm): Religious Leaders Support Marijuana Initiative

KTVN: Religious Leaders Support Marijuana Initiative

Polittically Incorrect with Bill Maher 2001

An old video that help ignite the medical marijuana debate

O'Reilly Vs "Real Time" Bill Maher

"It is very hard for me to imagine Jesus Christ going up to a medical marijuana suffer and taking the joint out of his mouth and saying 'Goood luck with your bone marrow'"

Fight for Legalization

Orginal Article

MARIJUANA FEST IGNITES FIGHT FOR LEGALIZATION
by Ellen Williams-Masson, Correspondent for The Capital Times, (Source:Capital Times)
09 Oct 2006

Wisconsin
-------
The skies were clear but a haze hung over hundreds of marijuana activists as they paraded up State Street to the Capitol for the 36th Annual Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival.

Some who marched advocated marijuana for medicinal purposes, while others championed hemp as an answer to the state's agricultural woes.

And more than a few undoubtedly toked up for the sheer pleasure of smoking a doobie on a sunny afternoon on State Street.

"The sky didn't fall, nothing happened, nobody got hurt, and we went all the way down the road in full public view and nothing went wrong," activist Jim Miller from New Jersey said.

"It makes no sense that if this is the way it works, why are people going to jail for doing that, when nothing happened?"

Miller is part of the "Commando Squad" that has fought for the legalization of medical marijuana and carries on the battle in memory of his wife, Cheryl.

Cheryl had lobbied for medicinal marijuana to ease her pain from multiple sclerosis before her death in 2003, and Miller played a tape of her agonized screams during physical therapy treatments without benefit of the drug.

Marijuana proponents have been fighting to legalize cannabis for decades since its criminalization in 1937, and local activist and Harvest Festival organizer Ben Masel believes they are slowly making headway.

"We've gotten a lot better, at least at the political level, at stopping new bad legislation," Masel said. "A lot of progress is happening on hemp agriculture."

Masel lost the U.S. Senate Democratic primary to incumbent Herb Kohl last month but secured more than 51,000 votes, more than half of which he attributes to marijuana supporters.

Masel also lost a Republican primary to Tommy Thompson in the 1990 governor's race when he ran on a platform advocating the use of hemp in agriculture.

Gary Storck, cofounder of the Madison branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ( NORML ), lamented the death of the medical marijuana bill during the past congressional session and pointed to the Capitol building behind him when he spoke at the rally.

"The people in this building are responsible for that bill dying in committee," he said. "It's time to turn these mothers out. We need you to vote, and we need to get your friends to vote."

Storck, Miller and other activists will be traveling throughout the state before the Nov. 7 election in an attempt to get candidates' positions on record regarding the legalization of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Storck cited a 2002 poll conducted by his activist group "Is my medicine legal yet?" ( IMMLY ) that reported over 80 percent of Wisconsin residents support legalized medical marijuana.

"No candidate should be able to run for office and get elected without stating their position on medical marijuana," Storck said. "Why won't they just do the people's will?"

Joann Price of Verona suffers from spinal muscular atrophy and also questioned why her medicine of choice isn't legal.

"I don't see why something that is a gift from God, a herb, made in the ground. . .can't be legalized," Price said from a wheelchair. "You've never heard of anybody getting into a fist fight or beating their spouse after they smoked a joint."

Proponents like Price say cannabis provides pain relief and alleviates a host of other medical conditions without the harmful side effects or high costs of many prescription drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a statement in April 2006 that the FDA, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Office of National Drug Control Policy "do not support the use of smoked marijuana for medical purposes" because of a lack of sound scientific studies required for the FDA drug approval process.

Plenty of patients continue to self-medicate with marijuana, however, often as an alternative to prescription drugs. Cassius, a 23-year-old veteran who served in the Airborne Rangers, returned home from Baghdad with bottled up rage and a hand-rolled remedy to ease the pain.

"I smoke weed, and I'm going to die smoking weed," he said, declining to give his last name. "If I want to smoke marijuana, I can be judged, but I can fight and die for the country, and see my battle buddies blown up on land mines in Fallujah."

Cassius, a Gary, Indiana native, says he never used drugs before joining the military but now smokes pot on a daily basis to "mellow out" since he came home to a life of unemployment and disillusionment.

"A lot of rich guys, Caucasians, like to pull out their scotch with two ice cubes," he said. "War gives you a gift, because when you come back, you look at things differently."

"Marijuana is not a gateway drug. It's the drug of gated communities."

A very interesting read from the LA Times.

http://www.mapinc.org/norml/v06/n1267/a07.htm

The Legal Market Vs. The Black Market

I recently stumbled upon a post at I'm not paranoid, it's true and thought it would be excellent to share.

Click here and check out videos of the legal market currently set up in other countries and then watch a few videos of the black market currently in the United States.

Time to Get High for 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!

Every one have a good day and toke up and watch things explode

I'm pleased to see that the American Flag will fly free this weekend, narrowly escaping Congress' attempt to cage it and make it subservient to their political agendas.

Take a moment to remember what July 4th is about.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence did the founders say that they were doing this in order to form a powerful and unaccountable central administration. Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence did the founders say that this was necessary to prevent the cultivation and consumption of a plant. Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence did the founders say that they were doing this in order to lock up millions of nonviolent American citizens, or to give police the power of storming into and ransacking your house in the middle of the night.

Independence Day is not a celebration of military victory. It is about deciding to be free, and declaring to the world the importance of that freedom -- freedom from tyranny. But it's a decision that must be reaffirmed constantly, or tyranny will infiltrate and proliferate.

Reaffirm now.

This excellent peice of writing from the Drug WarRant.

Moms Know Better

http://denverpost.com/search/ci_3986708
Source: Denver Post
Article Launched: 06/28/2006 01:00:00 AM MDT



One soccer mom's take on the drug war
By Jessica Peck Corry

I hope my daughter will never smoke marijuana. Regardless of whether she does one day, I know one thing for sure: Keeping it illegal can only harm her future.

Since 1998, the Office of National Drug Control Policy has spent more than $2 billion in taxpayer dollars on twin advertising campaigns seeking to discourage marijuana use. The first speaks to parents, calling them the "Anti-Drug." It fails before it begins. Good parents are going to talk to their children about drugs. All the feel-good ads in the world aren't going to get indifferent parents to engage in such an awkward but essential dialogue.

The second campaign fails as well. In these, youthful but sophisticated graphics tell kids not to use marijuana. If there is one sure way to get adolescents to smoke pot, tell them that the government and their parents don't want them to. In fact, a recently published national study indicates that after viewing commercials for this campaign, young people were more likely to exhibit positive responses about the drug.

Politicians whisper quietly behind closed doors about the insanity of the drug war. Neither party, however, has had the courage to take a stand against prohibition publicly. Just imagine if the $2 billion invested in these ads - or the billions more spent prosecuting peaceful marijuana users every year - had been diverted instead into tuition grants for needy students or back to taxpaying parents who could directly invest in college funds.

Earlier this year, many Colorado Republicans - myself included - expressed outrage against a new statewide smoking ban, saying it runs contrary to our American ethos of individual rights, private property rights, and personal responsibility. But where is the GOP's outrage now as the government spends billions to tell people they can't make the decision to use marijuana, a drug proven to be less harmful than cigarettes?

Democrats are no less guilty. They silently watch as our government's addiction to prohibition becomes a national epidemic, taking money out of the pockets of working families and sending thousands behind bars every year.

Both parties do nothing because they believe in the same urban myth. They know they must get the "soccer mom" vote if they want to win, but they are confused on how to achieve this. Their logic goes like this: Moms don't like drugs. Moms don't want their kids to use drugs. Do not advocate legalization or decriminalization if you want moms to vote for your party.

This strategy is tied to reliable studies demonstrating that women are now the decisionmakers

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in most American families. Just as mom decides which brand of toilet paper to buy for her family, she increasingly plays decisionmaker when it comes to voting. Democrats and Republicans alike believe they would gain nothing by advocating an end to prohibition, but both have failed to consider that they might just gain votes if they could learn to speak to mothers about drugs in a way that they could relate to.

Parents across America are trying to find a way to fund college. By legalizing marijuana, taxing it, and turning this revenue into college scholarships and treatment programs, the future of every child could be just a little bit brighter.

Compare this with the system we have now. Marijuana prohibition, violated by millions every year, has become the laughing stock of American public policy. Kids have seen first-hand that it's not as damaging as they've been led to believe. In the process, they begin to believe that some laws aren't meant to be obeyed. This is by far prohibition's most damaging side effect and only makes the job of being a mom that much tougher.

When I sit my daughter down to talk about marijuana, I'm not going to sugar-coat the facts. Marijuana can be addictive and destructive - just as alcohol can be - when abused. I'm going to let her know that life is exciting enough without turning to drugs for fun. She will learn that every law should be respected and that she should work to change those she believes are unjust.

At the end of the day, our government knows it cannot enforce marijuana prohibition. In the absence of being able to do so, it sends the damaging message to our young people that marijuana should be illegal simply because "I'm the government, and I said so." Moms know better - and may ultimately be the single key to bringing sanity back to American drug policy.

Jessica Peck Corry (Jessica@i2i.org) is a public policy analyst with the Independence Institute, where she specializes in civil rights, higher education, and land use policy.

Get Arrested For Having Cancer?

A big vote went down in Congress this week regarding the prosecution of Medical Marijuana patients. Millions of cancer and AIDS patients are still able to get prosecuted by federal agents. I haven't been able to post it in this blog yet though because I have had a lot going for me these past few days, but it is all cleared up now.

Anyways, instead of writing my own. Check out this excellent piece written for I'm not paranoid, it's true.

Its a great piece with a great video. Check it out and I'll make sure to keep you up to date from now on :)