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Hemp Headlines

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

1. Massachusetts Supreme Court to hear student 5th Amendment right to remain silent case
2. Maastricht bans tourists from coffee shops
3. Missoula overrides citizen initiative making marijuana the lowest enforcement priority

Daily Toker Tunes

• Roots Monday: Blind Lemon Jefferson – “Easy Rider Blues”

Government at Work

• Ed Docter from Montana Cannabis Industries Association on referendum on SB 423

Radical Rant

• Lessons we can learn from Part I of Ken Burns’ Prohibition documentary on PBS

I’m really excited to see this new documentary from Rod Pitman (Hempsters: Plant the Seed) and Adam Ross (Cash Crop).  I won’t lie… it’s because I am in it, but I’m also excited to see all my friends and colleagues in it as well.  Check out the Facebook page.

In any complex interconnected system, it only takes a few of the right connections to reach the influencers of the system.

It’s not that I’m so desperate to see myself on the big screen.  I’ve been doing TV and radio and public speaking for some time now, so the novelty of being in a film, while a step up, isn’t the most exciting part of this situation.  The exciting thing for an internet database stats geek like me is that this means I finally have an acting credit listed in The Internet Movie Database (IMDb)!

That provides an extra bit of geek cred on another site, The Oracle of Bacon.  This is a fun little site that tells you how any actor is connected to Kevin Bacon based on a chain of shared movie roles.  For example, Ronald Reagan is connected to Kevin Bacon in two steps – Reagan was in “Brother Rat and a Baby” in 1940 with Eddie Albert, who was in “The Big Picture” in 1989 with Kevin Bacon.

Now I have a “Bacon Number” of three.  My path to Kevin Bacon begins with Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek.  He was in movies with Peter Fonda, Rob Zombie, and Tony Plana that lead then to movies with Kevin Bacon.  Sure, I have to cheat by checking the “include documentaries” option in the search, but I’ll take it; it’s more legit than my friend D.J. Giles having to include TV shows (which, thanks to a failed 1992 TV pilot with Robin Givens, gives him a Bacon Number of two).  Interestingly, we are now four steps away from each other in the IMDb.

So what?  Well, silly as the Oracle of Bacon game is, it does demonstrate an important sociological phenomenon: the interconnectedness of networks.  In the entirety of the Oracle of Bacon, is it difficult to find any actor you can think of who is any more than four steps removed from Kevin Bacon.  And Kevin Bacon isn’t even the most connected actor in the database (that would be Dennis Hopper).

So think about how many people you are directly connected to in your life.  Then consider all the people they are directly connected to, and the people they are connected to, and so on.  Now imagine the ripple you can create just within your own networks by openly proclaiming your cannabis use and educating the people near you.  The fact you give to your co-worker might get re-told to his friend and re-told to his friend the city councilman.  The voice you give your medical marijuana activism may be heard by your relative who is then emboldened to speak out who is then heard by others who then pressure the governor to support medical marijuana.

It also tells you that if you want to make a difference, you need to increase your contacts.  Get out to your local NORML or other reform group meeting or event.  I’m only working for NORML and doing this show because I met someone who introduced me to someone else.  Our engineer and intern are working here because they went out to meet other cannabis reformers.  You can find your local chapter at http://norml.org/chapters and if there isn’t one, email start@norml.org to learn how you can start one.

7 p.m. Saturday, March 26 on The History Channel

In the United States and many other countries, we’ve made a plant illegal.  Not a pill.  Not some dastardly concoction cooked up from Drano and cold medicine by a hillbilly in a bathtub.  A plant.   An estimated 100 million of us have tried marijuana at least once. For many with chronic illness, pot is medicine, helping them lead better lives.  Even in the case of those who use marijuana every day, research has never supported the idea that pot has any of the violent and deadly side-effects of alcohol, which can be bought in most any street corner store.  Given all that, why is it that marijuana is still not only illegal, but ranked in law enforcement and sentencing classifications on the same level as drugs like heroin, cocaine?  The history of marijuana and its prohibition is a fascinating tale, equal parts fear, power and propaganda, with the latter spouted by everybody from First Lady Nancy Reagan to newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst.

Get some Doritos, fire up and watch.

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Brought to you by Urb Thrasher

• Rockin’ Friday: Fireball Ministry – “King”

CelebStoner.com Entertainment Report with Steve Bloom, co-author of Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life

• Willie Nelson’s Teapot Party goes viral on Facebook

Cannabis Conversations

• Rick Cusick, HIGH TIMES Associate Publisher, on “Cannabis Philosophy for Everyone: What Were We Just Talking About?“

Cannabis Community

• KY Gubernatorial Candidate Gatewood Galbraith on the documentary, “Hempsters: Plant the Seed”

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Hemp Headlines

Daily Toker Tunes

• Roots Monday: Big Swing Face – “Hit that Jive, Jack”

Cannabis Community

• London documentary filmmaker Shane Ward on “Prohibition: A Modern Addiction”

Radical Rant

• 30 Facts about Arizona’s New Medical Marijuana Law

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s not every day that main stream America has an opportunity to look inside of a thriving Medical Marijuana Dispensary in California. In fact, for most of the population, it’s a completely foreign idea. For prohibitionist reefer madness types, it’s WAR on the youth of America!

For the sick, it’s a place to obtain medicine.

This is a 2:26 documentary which takes you through a tour of a Medical Marijuana Dispensary in California. Incidentally, this facility, which was located in Sacramento, was raided and subsequently shut down.

Tonight is the premiere of the HBO Documentary Films presentation of “Ganja Queen”.  The movie tells the story of Schappelle Corby, which I’ve detailed before on the Stash and on my own blog.  Corby was landing in Bali on a flight from Australia when airport officials discovered nine pounds of marijuana in her bags.  Corby claims the marijuana was not in her bag when she left Australia.  The defense claims she was the victim of a airport smuggling ring that used unsuspecting passengers’ bags – a smuggler working in baggage at the Australian airport would put the marijuana in the bag and a smuggler working in baggage in Bali would off-load the marijuana from the bag.  There was even testimony from a Bali prisoner who claims to have overheard two other prisoners discussing how they had botched a similar smuggling assignment from Australia to Bali.

But the Indonesian courts aren’t very forgiving of drug crimes – smugglers and dealers can be given the death penalty.  Prosecutors wanted the courts to sentence Corby to life in prison.  Instead, for smuggling nine pounds of marijuana into Bali, she was sentenced to twenty years in prison, where she still sits today.

Download audio file (schappelle-corby-doc-trailer.mp3)

Just for comparison: I thought you’d also like to know that the same month Indonesian courts were sentencing Schappelle Corby to 240 months in prison for nine pounds of marijuana, they were also sentencing Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir for his role in the 2002 Bali [nightclub bombing] blasts that killed 202 people.  The Indonesian court upheld his sentence of thirty months.

Got that?  Conspire to kill hundreds, you get 2½ years; smuggle pounds of pot, you get 20 years.