If you love Joni Mitchell or Tori Amos, you will love today’s musical hit from “MUDVILLE”. The track “Stoned” is a beautiful, haunting song with a dream-like quality that will soothe you through the middle of the week. Vocalist and songwriter Marilyn Carino and producer and bassist Benny Cha Cha from New York, have been creating music for the past 12 years. This song grooves me to my soul! You will enjoy “Stoned” like only a cannabis community member can. Learn more about Marilyn and Benny and hear more of their amazing music at their website, mudvillemusic.com or visit our friends athttp://music.podshow.com.
It’s Wednesday, May 7th and it’s 4:20 somewhere in the world. I’m your host, “Radical” Russ Belville.
Don’t forget to call your Congress and tell them to support HR5842 & HR5843 to end DEA raids in medical marijuana states and to legalize personal possession of marijuana. The number is 202-224-3121.
If you have a product that you would like to market to the cannabis community, you can advertise on the Daily Audio Stash. Your ad will be focused on exactly the customer base you’re seeking out; the thousands of responsible cannabis consumers who download and listen to this show. Our listeners are educated consumers who want to support the businesses that support the growing truth about cannabis, and we deliver the advertising freedom you won’t find on radio, TV, or print ads. To advertise on the Daily Audio Stash, send us an email at stash @ norml.org.
Wednesday is Cannabis Science day on the Stash, and coming up after the news, we’re separating the stems of propaganda from the buds of truth with Dr. Mitch Earleywine. Today Dr. Mitch and I discuss yet another attempt to falsely link marijuana to aggression. Seriously, do these scaremongers even know any potheads?
Cannabis Karri brings us our musical break this hempday humpday with a New York group called Mudville and their simply-named song, “Stoned”.
And I wrap things up with another listen to the Global Marijuana March from this weekend from all around the country. Today we’re headed to Philadelphia with Ken Wolski of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana in New Jersey, Josh Schimberg down in Austin with Texas NORML, and back east to New York City with Rob Robinson of NY NORML. It really is about the grassroots, people, and your local NORML chapter is the place to start ending adult marijuana prohibition.
Speaking of local activism, I want to feature the best from the marijuana marches this weekend. So we’re starting another “Pass the Stash” contest where you could win a DVD from Suburban Noize Records’ rappers Kingspade. Stay tuned for details later in the podcast.
Welcome to the show, load up your Wesley Pipes and sit back with your favorite strain… This is your NORML Daily Audio Stash.
It was printed on a 16-foot-wide banner and strung above one of the busiest roads here, calling out to any “soldier or ex-soldier.”
“We’re offering you a good salary, food and medical care for your families,” it said in block letters.
But there was a catch: The employer was Los Zetas, a notorious Gulf cartel hit squad formed by elite Mexican army deserters. The group even included a phone number for job seekers that linked to a voice mailbox.
Outrageous as they seem, drug cartel messages such as the banner hung here late last month are becoming increasingly common along the violence-savaged U.S.-Mexico border and in other parts of the region. As soldiers wage a massive campaign against drug trafficking across Mexico, they are encountering an information war managed by criminal networks that operate with near impunity.
“The cartels are very good at this — they’ve had songs written about them, they put up these signs, they make themselves out to be Robin Hoods,” Carlos Martínez, a Nuevo Laredo elementary school principal and community activist, said in an interview.
The banners also appeal to many poorer Mexicans who respect the brashness of the cartels, which provide food, clothing and toys to win civilians’ loyalty.
Marcelino, a 74-year-old pensioner who did not provide his last name for fear of retribution, said that he had been wronged plenty of times by police but that drug traffickers had given him a sturdy mountain bike.
Marcelino said police had harassed his neighbors, trumping up phony criminal violations and extracting bribes to avoid incarceration. Previous local governments tried to throw him and other squatters off government land. Drug traffickers, however, sided with the squatters, earning their enduring gratitude by paying to build cinder-block shacks and distributing clothing.
“I trust the Zetas more than the thieving police and soldiers,” Marcelino said. “The police are rats.”
Once they join drug gangs, the deserters seem “cool” to many people, according to Martínez. Children in his neighborhood see banners advertising jobs in drug gangs and connect those images with the suddenly prosperous deserters, and other cartel recruits, they meet on the streets. With few opportunities for employment in Mexico’s weak economy, the prospect of joining a gang is appealing, he said.
And of course, what is fueling the massive profits for murderous Mexican drug cartels more than anything is the prohibition of drugs in the United States and failure to provide treatment and rehabilitation rather than arrest and incarceration for drug addicts. Without countering demand, we will never affect supply.
However, we will never eliminate demand for drugs in this country or any other; it is human nature for some to seek altered states of consciousness. Therefore, it behooves us to take the production, marketing, merchandising and distribution of drugs out of the hands of black market criminals. All we accomplish by prohibiting drugs is more violence, corrupt cops, and wealthy drug gangs.
The Associated Press: 75 students arrested in San Diego State University drug bust
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Dozens of San Diego State University students were arrested and six fraternities were suspended after a sweeping drug investigation found that some fraternity members openly dealt drugs and one even sent a mass text message advertising cocaine, authorities said Tuesday.
A five-month investigation prompted by a cocaine overdose death last year led to the arrests of 96 people, 75 of them San Diego State students. A second drug death occurred while the investigation went on.
Twenty-nine people were arrested early Tuesday in raids at nine locations including the Theta Chi fraternity, where agents found cocaine, Ecstasy and three guns. Eighteen of them were wanted on warrants for selling to undercover agents.
Two kilograms of cocaine were seized in all, along with 350 Ecstasy pills, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, hash oil, methamphetamine, illicit prescription drugs, several guns and at least $60,000 in cash, authorities said.
The district attorney’s office said search warrants were served in San Diego and suburban La Mesa, including the Theta Chi fraternity house and several apartments.
A member of Theta Chi sent out a mass text message to his “faithful customers” stating that he and his “associates” would be unable to sell cocaine while they were in Las Vegas over one weekend, according to the DEA. The text promoted a cocaine “sale” and listed the reduced prices.
San Diego State suspended Theta Chi and five other fraternities Tuesday pending a hearing on evidence gathered during the investigation. Members of at least three fraternities were arrested, according to law enforcement.
Investigators infiltrated seven fraternities in the course of the probe.
The undercover probe, dubbed Operation Sudden Fall, was sparked by the cocaine overdose death of a student in May 2007, authorities said. As the investigation continued, another student, from Mesa College, died Feb. 26 of a cocaine overdose at an SDSU fraternity house, the DEA said.
OK, first of all, anyone who would send out a mass text message advertising to sell cocaine should have his scholarships and grant money revoked and given to a student with with some sense. Advertising one’s felonies through traceable mass electronic communication doesn’t sound like the work of someone with stellar SATs.
However, are 75 arrests really required here? As we know, every one of those students, if convicted, will lose all federal student financial aid. They will have a drug conviction on their records for life as they enter the job marketplace. Surely, not all 75 of these arrests are for the kingpins of this enterprise. There was no violence involved. Isn’t this a bit of overkill?
Nobody wants college kids dying from cocaine overdoses. One of the reasons we lobby so hard for the end of adult marijuana prohibition is that it removes marijuana from the cohort of really dangerous illegal drugs and provides young people with the safest choice of recreational intoxicant. It’s sad that two kids died from cocaine, but how many students every year die from alcohol overdoses? When are the feds initiating a massive undercover probe to root out underaged drinking on campuses?
WASHINGTON – The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is conducting the latest in a series of regional summits designed to convince local educators to begin drug testing students randomly and without cause – a policy unsupported by the available science and opposed by leading experts in adolescent health, including the Academy of Pediatrics, National Education Association, the Association of Addiction Professionals and the National Association of Social Workers.
“Subjecting students to unsubstantiated searches flies in the face of the values taught in our nation’s classrooms,” said ACLU Legislative Counsel Jesselyn McCurdy. “Random drug testing is not only ineffective in preventing teen drug use, it’s counter-productive. We know that the threat of random drug testing can discourage students from participating in the very activities proven to reduce drug use, such as high school sports. It marginalizes already at-risk teens and undermines trust between students and educators.”
While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that random drug testing of students involved in extracurricular activities does not violate the Constitution, many state constitutions provide stronger privacy protections, disallowing such testing schemes. For example, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found random drug testing of students unconstitutional under state law in 2003, and the Washington Supreme Court most recently declared it unconstitutional in March of this year.
In addition to exposing schools to costly litigation, studies have found that suspicionless drug testing is ineffective in deterring student drug use. The first large-scale national study on student drug testing in 2003 found no difference in rates of student drug use between schools that have drug testing programs and those that do not. In addition, the results of a two-year trial published last November in the Journal of Adolescent Health concluded random drug testing targeting student athletes did not reliably reduce past month drug use and, in fact, produced attitudinal changes among students that indicate new risk factors for future substance use.
Money not well spent: Fraser
Sheila Fraser, the federal Auditor-General, yesterday released her latest report on Ottawa’s management of its programs and spending. As in the past, the Auditor-General found many areas in which government spending was excessive or lacked proper oversight.
The federal government is charging too much for passports, doesn’t know what to charge for medical marijuana and may not be charging enough for some other fees it collects.
Yesterday’s report indicated Ottawa collected $1.9-billion in fees on everything from issuing passports to granting licences to manufacture drugs. The money represents a small fraction of the more than $200-billion collected every year in taxes and duties.
[T]he auditors discovered Health Canada is probably undercharging Canadians who are allowed to buy marijuana for medical purposes. Health Canada charges $5 for a gram of dried marijuana or $20 for a packet of 30 marijuana seeds. Some “compassion” clubs, which try to assist those who need marijuana to ease chronic pain, charge twice as much for similar amounts.
Health Canada plans to recalculate its charge.
There’s just one problem with this analysis: the marijuana being supplied by Health Canada is of very poor quality compared to that which is sold in the compassion clubs. It is only worth half of what the quality marijuana is worth.
Health Canada maintains a monopoly supply on government medical marijuana. The herb is grown 500 feet below the earth in an abandoned zinc and copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. I’ve spoken with Philippe Lucas from the Vancouver Island Compassion Society about this issue, and he tells me that not only is the Flin Flon weed quite schwaggy, but also there are concerns about its safety after being grown where so many harsh mining chemicals had been used.
Health Canada needs to open up the production of marijuana to the many excellent independent growers in Canada. British Columbia itself could probably manufacture enough high-quality marijuana to supply the whole country.
But here is where the prohibition rub comes in. Because there is a lucrative black market both in Canada and the US for high-quality marijuana, the price of marijuana is artificially inflated by prohibition risk. BC growers want to divert their strains to the top dollar buyers, not to some government that will fix the price and create many bureaucratic headaches.
And the government must either grow poor quality weed that can remain low cost and out of competition with “BC Bud”, or raise quality and prices to match the black market. Government can’t charge less for good medicine, else people will purchase it and resell it on the black market for the margin.
Come on now. $5, $10, $15 for a gram for a weed? $20 to $50 for a packet of seeds? Can you name any other consumer agricultural product that demands such exorbitant pricing (yes: tobacco, due to high taxes and saffron, which grows in few places during a short season and must be harvested by hand by picking the individual stigma off the flower)? What do you think marijuana would cost if it were completely legal and farmers could grow acres of it outdoors?
Pass the Stash: win 311+Snoop tix; Dr. Mitch Earleywine on teens + marijuana = nature?; Paul Armentano on "whole plant" Italian medmj study; music by Dubmatix.
Massachusetts: Pot Decrim Initiative Qualifies For November Ballot Measure Would Replace Criminal Penalties With A $100 Fine; Congress Moves Forward On Cannabis 'Candy' Crackdown; Rhode Island: Governor Vetoes Bill To Study Feasibility Of State-Licensed 'Compassion Centers'; Hawaii: Governor Vetoes Medical Marijuana Task Force Measure.
US Leads The World In Illicit Drug Use; US Drug Enforcement Administration ‘Celebrates’ 35 Years Of Failure; Marijuana, Cocaine Have Contrasting Effects On Driving Performance, Study Says; Loretta Nall on AL judge's son's special treatment for felony drug charges.
Oral Pot Preparation Effective For Depression, Journal Reports; New Zealand: Most Pot Consumers Not Frequent Users; Cannabis Agonist Reduces Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Tumor Growth, Study Says; California: County Officials Finalize Mendocino Vote Count; Interview with Mason Tvert on proposal of cannabis smoking lounges in Denver airport to combat air rage incidents with alcohol.
John Wesley Hall, president-elect of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, describes the case precendent in roadside traffic stops and search and seizure.
Seattle, Washington attorney Doug Hiatt explains the latest medical use issues in Washington State, including denial of transplant organs for medmj patients.
If you love Joni Mitchell or Tori Amos, you will love today’s musical hit from “MUDVILLE”. The track “Stoned” is a beautiful, haunting song with a dream-like quality that will soothe you through the middle of the week. Vocalist and songwriter Marilyn Carino and producer and bassist Benny Cha Cha from New York, have been creating music for the past 12 years. This song grooves me to my soul! You will enjoy “Stoned” like only a cannabis community member can. Learn more about Marilyn and Benny and hear more of their amazing music at their website, mudvillemusic.com or visit our friends at http://music.podshow.com.
