Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 1:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
In a two-part article called, “Why I Give My 9-Year-Old Pot”, writer and parent Marie Myung-Ok Lee talks about using cannabis as a therapy to treat her nine-year-old son’s pain, irritable bowel, and other effects from his autism. You should really read Part One and Part Two in full, but I will just give you some snippets of the positive responses this little boy named “J.” has experienced from medical marijuana:
My son J has autism. He’s also had two serious surgeries for a spinal cord tumor and has an inflammatory bowel condition, all of which may be causing him pain, if he could tell us.
We made the cookies with the marijuana olive oil, starting J off with half a small cookie, eaten after dinner. J normally goes to bed around 7:30 p.m.; by 6:30 he declared he was tired and conked out. We checked on him hourly. As we anxiously peeked in, half-expecting some red-eyed ogre from Reefer Madness to come leaping out at us, we saw instead that he was sleeping peacefully. Usually, his sleep is shallow and restless. J also woke up happy.
[S]ince we started him on his “special tea,” J’s little face, which is sometimes a mask of pain, has softened. He smiles more.
[My mother] remarked that J seems calmer. As we were preparing for a trip to the park, J disappeared, and we wondered if he was going to throw one of his tantrums. Instead, he returned with Grandma’s shoes, laying them in front of her, even carefully adjusting them so that they were parallel and easy to step into. He looked into her face, and smiled.
Pre-pot, J. ate things that weren’t food. There’s a name for this: pica. … His pica become so uncontrollable we couldn’t let him sleep with a pajama top (it would be gone by morning) or a pillow (ditto the case and the stuffing)…. The worst part was watching him scream in pain on the toilet, when what went in had to come out. I had nightmares about long threads knotting in digestive organs. (TMI? Welcome to our life!)
Almost immediately after we started the cannabis, the pica stopped. Just stopped. J. now sleeps with his organic wool-and-cotton, hypoallergenic, temptingly chewable comforter. He pulls it up to his chin at night and declares, “I’m cozy!”
Next, we started seeing changes in J.’s school reports. … At one parent meeting in August (J. is on an extended school year), his teacher excitedly presented his June-July “aggression” chart. An aggression is defined as any attempt or instance of hitting, kicking, biting, or pinching another person. For the past year, he’d consistently had 30 to 50 aggressions in a school day, with a one-time high of 300. The charts for June through July, by contrast, showed he was actually having days—sometimes one after another—with zero aggressions.
When J. was in his dark phase, we spent our time out of sight, out of mind, inside our house with a screeching, violent, food-and-dish-flinging J. The sounds were contained by double-paned windows (when they weren’t broken). Now, within our family, we’ve reached a lovely homeostasis: household goods unbroken, our arms and J.’s face unscratched.
Fortunately for Marie, she lives in Rhode Island, one of the thirteen states that allow parents to use this non-toxic therapeutically active herb for their severely ill child. Marie also tells of her life with J. prior to cannabis and how doctors were quick to prescribe Risperdal (”Thorazine for kids”, she calls it,) a drug that has never been studied for long-term safety in children and has a list of nasty side effects. Almost a quarter million children under age 12 were prescribed Risperdal last year and from 2000-2004, 45 children died from it and five other popular “atypical antipsychotics”. Fortunately for J., his mother and his doctor chose a much safer and more effective alternative in cannabis.
Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 3:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Maybe somebody can help me understand the American concept of “justice”. In this first story, a mother is convicted of not preventing an act of child abuse against her seven-year-old:
NBC NEWS – Prosecutors in Caddo County say this video shot last year shows a woman blowing marijuana smoke into the mouth of a 7-year-old boy, who has Downs syndrome.
Investigators say the mother, Caroline Beavers, sat watching nearby.
Workers at an electronics store notified police last April after finding this video on a computer that had been repossessed.
Beavers was arrested and charged with one felony count of enabling child abuse.
(The Express-Star) District Judge Richard Van Dyck has sentenced a Caddo County woman to 10 years after she entered a blind plea to allowing a co-defendant to blow marijuana smoke into the mouth of her seven-year-old handicapped son.
Van Dyck ordered that Caroline Marie Beavers of Anadarko be incarcerated for three years, followed by seven years probation.
So, in summary: parent lets another person blow pot smoke in kid’s face and video tapes it, which is accidentally discovered by a repairman = three years incarceration.
Now, in our second story out of Virginia, a father is convicted of actual child abuse in failing to prevent his wife from unlawfully wounding and abusing their child:
(Fredricksburg.com) Brandi L. Blanken Wallace, 28, was given a total of 7 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of child abuse and unlawful wounding.
Joshua Scott Wallace, 33, was convicted of child abuse and got a recommended sentence of two years and six months.
The minimum sentence for child abuse is two years. Judge Charles Sharp will formally sentence both Wallaces on July 27.
The child, also named Joshua Wallace, was 10 weeks old on Dec. 30, 2005, when he was flown to MCV Medical Center in Richmond with skull fractures, a broken clavicle and severe retinal hemorrhaging.
The child nearly died and has permanent brain damage, according to the evidence presented during the three-day trial. He eats through a feeding tube and cannot walk.
The parents claimed that Brandi Wallace dropped the baby onto the floor during an epileptic seizure.
Two doctors testified in detail that the extensive injuries suffered by the child could not have occurred during such a fall.
Prosecutor Eric Olsen argued to the jurors that Brandi Wallace hurt the child and her husband tried to cover it up. He called the parents’ explanation for the injuries “ridiculous.”
Joshua Wallace was the only defendant to testify. He said that as far as he knew, the baby was fine until he was dropped.
So, in summary, a parent lets another person fracture a baby’s skull and clavicle, threaten its eyesight, enable permanent brain damage and inability to walk, and require a feeding tube for life, and then tries to cover it up = 2.5 years of incarceration.
I’m not trying to defend the blowing of pot smoke into a kid’s face at a pot party. It’s certainly not good parenting – every parent should prevent their children from being exposed to smoke blown in their face. But what is the rationale for such harsh punishment when failing to prevent a child from suffering extensive permanent physical damage gets you six months fewer in prison? Would the mother in the first story get three years prison and seven years probation if her friend blew tobacco smoke in the kid’s face, which is demonstrably more harmful than cannabis smoke? All I’m asking is, with a child of child abuse, don’t you have to at least prove some harm befell the child?
Week after week I peruse stories like this where parents are given draconian sentences when their kids come in contact with marijuana. Each week there are also stories I read where physical and sexual abuse of kids gets a lesser punishment. We have truly gone Reefer Mad when parents get punished more for exposing kids to pot plants than a punch in the face or a pedophile.
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 2:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Gainesville Sun) Witnesses told deputies that during the summer of 2008, [Robert Wayne Thomas, 42] would throw parties at his home, hosting up to 20 children at a time between the ages of 11 and 15. Thomas reportedly gave the children alcohol and then had them play games like “Truth or Dare.”
During the games, witnesses said Thomas dared the children to do things. Those who refused were criticized by Thomas and the other children. During the games Thomas allegedly poured an alcoholic beverage onto a 13-year-old girl’s stomach and then lapped it up off her skin.
At one point Thomas apparently permitted several children to sleep in his bed. Investigators said that when they questioned Thomas, he told them he fantasized about having sex with one child. He also told investigators that he touched one of the children inappropriately.
Thomas was released from the Levy County Jail after posting a $25,000 bond on Friday and agreeing to have no contact with children.
But at least Thomas didn’t have any marijuana or prescription drugs in his home, like our previous story of David Janson below. Mr. Janson is still in jail for possession of marijuana, cocaine, and prescription drugs because he wouldn’t shut up to police and can’t come up with $40,000 bond. Yes, that’s right, the 42-year-old Kinko the Kid-Loving Clown throwing booze-fueled “Truth or Dare” parties is out on $25,000 and a promise, but our constitutional-rights-ignorant drug-using 23-year-old student is somehow $15,000 more dangerous to society.
Two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor are the crimes Thomas is charged with. Under Florida sentencing guidelines, that’s a “Level 5″ 3rd degree felony. Giving marijuana to a minor, that’s a “Level 5″ 2nd degree felony. How can we respect any criminal justice system that declares touching children sexually to be a lesser crime than giving them marijuana? I’m not suggesting that getting kids stoned is a good thing, but it’s not going to kill them and it’s not going to mess up their minds like sexual abuse can.
Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 3:20 pm | By: Dudemaster
Two pupils, aged 10 and 11, have been caught dealing marijuana at school. They were arrested after police said they were caught conducting a marijuana deal at school. The incident happened at Brookview Elementary in Warren, Indiana. A school spokesman said a student told school officials he saw a classmate sell a “marijuana-like substance” to another student.
“We are getting to a state of emergency,” said the Rev. Byron Alston, director of Save the Youth, an Eastside social services program.
“When you have elementary students selling dope in the school, we’ve got a serious problem.”
Police said 1.88 grams of marijuana was recovered, enough for one or two joints.
Both boys were suspended from school pending an investigation. They were taken to a juvenile detention center.
There is nothing funny about young children in possession with any substance whether it be alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana. It is with the most sincere intentions in mind when we tell our community leaders and politicians, “Tax and Regulate Marijuana Now!”
I asked my 15yr old, who is attending high school near our home in Texas, to share a list of items she can obtain within 24 hrs notice at her school (actually purchase inside her school) and here is what she wrote down off the top of her head:
Marijuana (indoor Chronic of any flavor), LSD, Magic Mushrooms, Mescaline, Cocaine (in any form), Meth, Ice, and Heroin (in any form)
Hot Wheels Eliminator
What the list doesn’t contain is Cigarettes or Alcohol. When asked about the availability of those, she stated, “They are harder to get because you have to go to a store, present an I.D., and undergo a certain amount of scrutiny.” You see, in the State of Texas, if the clerk behind the counter knowingly sells a minor something they shouldn’t, they will be charged with a crime.
Just imagine if Marijuana were behind a counter and completely removed from the criminal element. I think those kids who were caught selling pot might be trading hot wheels instead. That is the kind of world I would prefer to live in.
Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 11:59 am | By: Radical Russ
“You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”
Today our nation honors what would’ve been this week the eightieth birthday of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., on the eve of the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of these United States. I was sixty-four days old when an assassin’s bullet cut down Dr. King in the prime of his life. Today I am six-hundred forty days older than Dr. King when he was killed. Tomorrow I will see something few people my age and older thought we’d ever see, yet something Dr. King had dreamed from the start.
There remains a grave injustice to be battled, the most unjust of laws to be disobeyed, a law that by its definition is not rooted in eternal law and natural law: the man made code that declares nature itself to be illegal, the prohibition on cannabis. Yet when I mention marijuana law reform in the context of the great civil rights struggles in America, so many are quick to dismiss me with snickers of derision. ”You just want pot legal so you can get high!” is a common refrain.
One of two men videotaped last year giving pot to young children accepted a plea deal Tuesday and was sentenced to seven years in prison – saving himself from a possible life sentence.
Vanswan Polty, 20, of Fort Worth pleaded guilty to two counts of injury to a child causing bodily harm and three counts of burglary of a habitation.
He was to face two charges of injury to a child – for giving a marijuana cigar to 2- and 4-year-old brothers – at a later time, prosecutors said.
Investigators said Mr. Polty was a teen in early 2007 when he and a friend, Demetris McCoy, urged the youngsters to smoke marijuana at Mr. McCoy’s Watauga home. Mr. Polty and Mr. McCoy, the boys’ uncle, came to the attention of police who were investigating a string of residential burglaries in Watauga, Fort Worth and Blue Mound.
The videotape was uncovered during that investigation. In addition to prompting the boys to smoke the drug-laden cigar, Mr. Polty and Mr. McCoy could also be seen and heard on the tape laughing and calling the tots “potheads.”
At the time of the incident, the boys’ mother, Shatorria Russell, was asleep in a nearby room. Ms. Russell has since tested positive for drugs and relinquished custody of her boys, a CPS official said. The children are in foster care and will be placed for adoption.
It is reprehensible that anyone would force a 2- and a 4-year-old to smoke anything. That said, those kids suffered far less damage from those few puffs off a blunt than if they had been raised by a tobacco smoker who smokes indoors. And yet, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a case where someone was charged with “injury to a child causing bodily harm” for their secondhand tobacco smoke (though my Googling did find child custody cases where a judge considered tobacco smoking as a factor). YouTube videos of cute youngsters running about the living room while the parent smokes a cigarette never become viral hits.
RevRayGreen: I'll post a pic of me and my son....gimme a minute
Missippi Hippy: Guess what... I'm gonna be a new... ummmmm well, my pet piggie Ganja is in labor and they ain't mine in the same sense. See what your wife [...]
RevRayGreen: days they didn't talk back..or act disrespectful..
RevRayGreen: feel so lucky my son is 18 going 19 and my daughter 16 going on 17..relish the days that can't talk back
Urb Age: Congrats Spof thats awesome. My little Clara is about to hit 20 months. Im not the activist I used to be, but its made me a better man.
Urb Age: Heck I was gonna go up there, but just not feeling well this weekend..Dang it, I hate it when that happens..
RevRayGreen: wishing I was hanging at NORML cafe...
JohnH: Just a quick comment about tokin' and sperm motility....been tokin since age 14 and have 8 kids ranging in age from 30 to 9...(what can I say, I found 2 [...]
slash5city: really ..oprah 35 yr or more in the closet toker ...outed ....o my god !!
SneakerPimp: that would be huge news just imagen the headline
Marijuana-Related Health Costs Minimal Compared To Those Of Alcohol, Tobacco; California Medical Association Says Pot Prohibition Is A "Failed Public Health Policy"; Oregon: State NORML Affiliate Opens First 'Cannabis Café'. […]
American Medical Association Calls For Scientific Review Of Marijuana's Prohibitive Status; Dutch Marijuana Use Lower Than European Average, Study Says […]
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
Some of the nation’s top athletes discuss why today's pros are turning to cannabis — and away from alcohol and painkillers — off the field, and question why pro sports leagues are continuing to sanction those who do. Moderator: Steve Bloom, Author, Pot Culture; editor, celebstoner.com * Toby Grear, MMA fighter * Sean Neumann, Documentary Filmm […]
Cannabis Law Reform's Missing Link: Law Enforcement Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper; LEAP and NORML Advisory Board; Author of Breaking Rank Putting the Mexican Cartels Out of Business Mexican drug cartels now employ over 100,000 soldiers and are responsible for nearly ten thousand deaths per year. Their largest source of income is marijuana. […]
Why I Give My 9-Year-Old Medical Marijuana for Autism
In a two-part article called, “Why I Give My 9-Year-Old Pot”, writer and parent Marie Myung-Ok Lee talks about using cannabis as a therapy to treat her nine-year-old son’s pain, irritable bowel, and other effects from his autism. You should really read Part One and Part Two in full, but I will just give you some snippets of the positive responses this little boy named “J.” has experienced from medical marijuana:
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