The businesses in Union Township and Newport specialize in detox products to help customers pass pre-employment drug tests.
Spectrum Labs is in the middle of the business district in Newport. On Wednesday morning, neighboring businesses couldn’t help but notice police and federal agents arriving at the 818 Monmouth Street.
“First we saw three Newport cops come up and the DEA and the FBI and they all ran in with their guns held up and then they came out and took off their vests,” said Natasha Luster, a witness.
A rental truck arrived a short time later and agents began removing dozens of boxes of files.
The FBI and DEA are not commenting on the specifics of their investigation. They would only say they were executing search warrants that are currently sealed.
No one has been arrested or charged.
The part of the story they aren’t telling you is that Spectrum Labs is the company that also is funding and distributing the documentary (”a/k/a/ Tommy Chong”) about Tommy Chong’s ordeal in the prosecution culminating in his imprisonment for nine months for selling bongs on the internet.
The force behind that prosecution was the United States Attorney appointed by George W. Bush to the Western District of Pennsylvania, Mary Beth Buchanan.
So, care to guess which US Attorney is behind this raid of Spectrum Labs and the seizure of the movie that paints Mary Beth Buchanan in an unflattering light?
TODAY May 7, 2008: District Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan continues targeting Tommy Chong (”Cheech & Chong”), raiding his Spectrum Labs warehouse and confiscating DVDs.
Moments ago, Buchanan’s task force raided a warehouse where Chong was storing DVD copies of his documentary A/K/A TOMMY CHONG, a film chronicling Chong’s 2005 arrest by Buchanan for selling bongs over state lines. D.A. Buchanan has a reputation for chasing national headlines instead of criminals and has received much media attention for her prosecution of Tommy Chong.
In a hastily-written description of the raid, the director of the documentary, Josh Gilbert, told NORML in an email:
newsflash: 30 fully armed swat team commandos raided cincinnati office and held 5 overweight, middle aged women hostage while they emptied out their warehouse of piss testing agents; fake penises (the whizzinator); fake pee and a dvd about the feds busting tommy chong of cheech and chong…for selling bongs over the internet. all starring the same justice serving federal prosecutor, mary beth buchanan!
Be sure to download the Friday Stash for our interview with Tommy Chong about this breaking news story.
Just catching up on some of the reports from the March this weekend:
Close to 500 protesters took to the streets [of Calgary, Alberta, Canada] Saturday in favour of marijuana’s medicinal use and making it more accessible to those suffering debilitating pain.
Amid the incense aromas and reggae beats, several hundred Austinites rallied at the Capitol on Saturday for the legalization of marijuana for personal and medical use.
“These guys are easy compared to the anarchists,” said Sgt. Voepel of the Portland Police Department, “they’re on time, and they’re orderly.”
According to the Sarge, the only rabble rousers during the march were two drunkards who were pestering people but were unconnected to the peaceful pro-pot gatherers. No pot smokers were spotted.
Hollywood gets political with its stoner movies
Pot, stalk and smoking pipe barrels. Devil weed. Mary Jane. Playing twister. Reefer. No matter what you call it, cannabis continues to spark debate in popular culture. More than 70 years into the drug’s prohibition at the hands of U.S. lawmakers, it seems Hollywood is ready to blow smoke in the face of current policy.
The proof can be seen in a new crop of films that don’t just depict glassy-eyed potheads giggling at moronic gags in the tradition of Cheech and Chong, but go much further, suggesting pot as the symbolic cure for personal and cultural oppression.
Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke (1978) was the first film to show rampant pot use without exacting a moral price for all that fun, offering an emotional and cultural antidote to overt anti-drug films such as Reefer Madness.
Around the same time Cheech and Chong started their big screen puffing, the American government banned the word “hemp” from all school text books, insisting any mention of the once powerful hemp industry (predicted to be the No. 1 crop in the U.S. by Popular Mechanics in 1938) would only confuse youngsters who didn’t understand the difference between useful hemp fibre and the combustible of choice among teens.
Who do you think is the Greatest Movie Stoner? Vote for your favorite out at MSNBC! (I think the answer is obviously Cheech & Chong - they were the first, after all.)
NORML Founder Keith Stroup was a guest on my XM Satellite radio show today, at exactly 4:20pm Eastern. You can listen to our interview using the little audio player on my site - but the post won’t be available until Sunday evening, since we must wait until the audio has played on our rebroadcasts on terrestrial stations (if you’re in the Portland area, you can catch the show from 8am-10am on AM 620 KPOJ or listen to their live stream on your computer.
The gist of our conversation revolved around the mainstreaming of the “420″ holiday, as reported on MSNBC:
Capitalist buzz surrounds stoner ‘holiday’ - Life- msnbc.com
A once clandestine counterculture pot-smoking “holiday” observed each April 20 has crossed into the mainstream this year with public gatherings that will attract thousands of participants and marketing campaigns that tout a trio of marijuana-themed movies.
As anti-drug activists chafe, the so-called “420” pronounced “four-twenty” celebrations “are taking on a life of their own,” said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, who has been working on marijuana issues for 17 years.
Don’t forget about NORML’s 420 MoneyBomb, happening tomorrow. You can join NORML for the reduced price of $4.20. It costs money for public-relations campaigns; do something tangible to help end adult marijuana prohibition.
NORML’s Freedom of Information Act request on the “Stoners in the Mist” video I blogged about on Friday. Let’s just find out how much taxpayer money our government used to insult and stereotype you.
REQUEST FOR DOCUMENTS PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT
Dear Action Officer:
This is a request for records from your agency under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. Sect. 552, as amended and as implemented by your office.
Materials Requested
1) Contracts and total expenditures to create, host and maintain the online video “Stoners of the Mist” found at ONDCP’s “Above The Influence” webpage:
2) All letters, emails or Freedom of Information Act requests from the public to ONDCP regarding “Stoners in the Mist”
3) All media news releases or press material published or broadcast to promote “Stoners in the Mist”
4) The name of the ONDCP employee(s) who approved the video for its public health and scientific content
5) All future expenses or anticipated costs associated with ONDCP broadcasting “Stoners in the Mist” video (i.e., a third party under contract to maintain the webpage or anti-cannabis promotion beyond the launch date)
As you might guess, I do a lot of web surfing putting together these podcasts. Sometimes I find things that just won’t work in audio. Here’s one, a cartoon from Dustin out at Dustinland, who is just as sick of the ONDCP’s anti-drug commercials as we are. Click the thumbnail to see the full-size version.
James and Pam Fleming of Fort Collins are opening EnerChi Healing Center, 1502 S. College Ave., on Monday. The center will have 20 practitioners who offer acupuncture, reflexology, yoga, meditation and other holistic treatments.
James Fleming wants to offer the services below market value, and he will supplement their costs with the medical marijuana revenue.
Colorado voters legalized medical marijuana through Amendment 20 in 2000, which authorized using the drug to treat debilitating medical conditions such as cancer, glaucoma or AIDS.
Authorized users must have a doctor’s recommendation and obtain a registry card issued by the state health agency.
Marijuana users at EnerChi need to list the clinic as their caregiver on the registry card, James Fleming said.
EnerChi’s marijuana is supplied by a coop of growers. Buyers can purchase it at the clinic, but they can only “medicate in private setting that is most comfortable to them,” not in the clinic, he said.
My sources in Colorado tell me this is not the only coop that is operating in Colorado, but that most of them like to keep a pretty low profile. It remains to be seen how the feds will respond to this very public intention to sell medical marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law, and, to the best of my understanding, questionable under Colorado’s Amendment 20 that regulated medical marijuana. There is a statute that reads:
Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions, no person, including a patient or primary care-giver, shall be entitled to the protection of this section for his or her acquisition, possession, manufacture, production, use, sale, distribution, dispensing, or transportation of marijuana for any use other than medical use.
So does that mean Colorado residents who are patients or caregivers are protected in the sales of marijuana for medical use? It’s an interesting question, and one that I will be following-up on with one of our NORML Legal Committee attorneys from Colorado on tomorrow’s Stash.
Mary Irene Cooper: Inside The Real Drug War - Entertainment on The Huffington Post
When Spike TV begins airing their first ever original series, DEA, on April 2, viewers will see for themselves the shocking reality of the drug trade. This series is far more than just another cop show. This series puts the “real” in reality TV. There’s nothing scripted or predictable about this show. It shows the gritty reality of drug enforcement and the violent drug underworld: real DEA Special Agents, real cold-blooded criminals, real drug raids, and the very real dangers we face with every deal.
Never before has DEA let cameras this deep into the drug trade. Viewers live the DEA creed to expect the unexpected. As much as we prepare, plan, and train, we can’t control everything on a drug raid or undercover deal. All the planning could change the minute the reality of the street hits. You never know what’s on the other side of the door until you go through it, and as we say, anytime dope and money come together, there’s a good chance of violence.
You may ask DEA agents why we chose this career — one of the world’s most dangerous: why would anyone put themselves in a risky situation like buying dope from volatile dealers, or crashing through doors of stash houses not knowing what we’ll find on the other side. The humble answers you get will include “Because it’s fun,” or “I didn’t want a desk job.” But the real reason we do it is because we believe in our mission. We believe it’s a calling to do this job. We believe that we are the only line of defense standing between law-abiding citizens who deserve to live in drug-free neighborhoods and bad guys driven by greed to line their pockets with the blood-soaked riches of a destructive trade.
What you won’t be seeing on the new DEA series? Body-armored agents with automatic weapons drawn, bursting into a legal medical marijuana dispensary or garden in California, forcing disabled people to the ground with guns at their temples, handcuffing terminally ill patients in wheelchairs, all for abiding by the will of the voters in their state and the opinion of their doctor that marijuana can help relieve the symptoms of their debilitating condition.
Rather than being the line of defense protecting Americans from the “bad guys driven by greed”, the DEA is actually the line of offense in the prohibition that causes all of the “blood-soaked riches” and “violent drug underworld”. They are the decendants of Eliot Ness and the Untouchables who policed alcohol prohibition in the 1920’s - a time of a bootlegging underworld where bad guys driven by greed used violence to secure their blood-soaked riches. We learned then that eliminating the prohibition eliminated the violence - why can’t we re-learn that lesson yet regarding drugs?
newsreview.info - Serving Roseburg & Douglas County, Oregon - News
WILBUR — Employers and workers who intervene in a co-worker’s substance abuse are the only ones who will stem the rising rate of workplace drug and alcohol abuse, said Dan Harmon, chairman of the Drugfree Workplace Legislative Work Group.
Annually, substance abuse costs Oregon $5.9 billion.Included in that figure are health care costs and spending on programs related to substance abuse, on which Oregon spends $813 million annually.And then there’s the loss of productivity in the state, amounting to $4.15 billion in lost earnings.
The costs Harmon cited came from an ECONorthwest study.
Citing figures from the U.S. Department of Labor, Harmon said the American economy loses $81 billion in productivity annually because of substance abuse.
Which gets no link from the newspaper article, whose title is never named in the article, and couldn’t be found after I tried a few extensive searches out at the ECONorthwest website. I always like to read these studies when I see scary numbers coming from supporters of urine testing.
Most of the time when opponents are citing these “substance abuse costs” and “loss of productivity”, they are really ginning up the numbers by conflating the abuse of drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine, which do create huge costs, with the popularity of marijuana, which creates the large numbers of “drug abusers” needed to scare the public.
Be sure to tune in to The Colbert Report tomorrow night to see Drug Policy Alliance executive director Ethan Nadelmann spar with Stephen Colbert. The Comedy Central funnyman recently visited DPA’s New York City office to shoot a segment of “Better Know a Lobbyist” for The Colbert Report. It airs Tuesday at 11:30 p.m. EDT.
In one of the great stoner comedies of all time, our heroes Harold & Kumar travel around the country trying to find a White Castle burger to satisfy the munchies. In the forthcoming sequel, the boys attempt to smuggle a bong back from a trip to Amsterdam, it’s confused with a bomb, and the stoners get sent to the American gulag and torture facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Then hilarity ensues (except for the unfunny part about there being such a thing as an “American gulag and torture facility”) as the boys attempt their escape.
Keith Stroup on MA marijuana conviction; Charles Thomas on Interfaith efforts to pass MN MedMJ; GOP reaction to Obama MedMJ comments; music by Mikey Dread.
Pot’s Effects On Driving Performance Contrast Alcohol’s, Study Says; Survey: One In Seven Public School Districts Drug Test Students; Hawaii: Legislature Approves Medical Marijuana Task Force Measure; Dale Geiringer on CA bills; Jesse Stout on RI bill.
UK Parliament to vote on stiffer pot penalties; Inhaled cannabis reduces neuropathic pain; Keith Stroup goes to trial Monday, will argue constitutionality of Mass. pot laws; interview with Douglas Hiatt, attorney for Tim Garon.
Hepatitis C Patient Denied Transplant Based on State and Doctor Approved Medi-Pot Use; New Study Indicates Cannabis-Associated Psychosis Risk Is Minimal; More Than 230 Cities, 35 Countries To Hold Marijuana Rallies This Weekend
Part 1 of Marijuana Law Reform 2007: State Legislative Reforms and Future Efforts panel at the NORML 2007 Conference. Panelists: Mikki Norris, Joshua Schimburg, Alison Holcomb, Esq., Keith Stroup, Esq., Jesse Stout, Ray Warren, Ethan Nadelmann, Ph.D. Panel chair: Paul Armentano
