Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 3:21 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Salem Statesman Journal) A 21-year-old Salem man reportedly called 9-1-1 that his marijuana was missing, but when deputies arrived, he was booked on drunk driving charges instead, officials said.
It began early Tuesday at 12:52 as a report of a vehicle break-in at the Freeloader Tavern at 501 Lancaster Drive SE, sheriff’s spokeswoman Lt. Sheila Lorance said.
A man told dispatchers that while he was inside the bar, someone broke into his truck, stole $400 cash, a jacket and about 3/4 of an ounce of marijuana, valued at about $180.
Deputy Ryan Clarke went to the scene, but when he was arrived, was unable to find the driver.
About an hour later, the driver called 9-1-1, angry that deputies had not arrived, and was driving.
Lorance said the dispatcher had difficulty understanding the caller because the driver was stopping several times to vomit.
Deputies eventually found the driver at 49th Avenue and Fontana Court SE where the man had parked. The driver, who was found about 100 feet from his truck, told deputies he was looking for the people who stole his “weed.”
Clarke determined that the driver was drunk.
Calvin Hoover, 21, of Salem, was arrested on charges of driving under the influence of intoxicants.
I’m not so certain that this should be classified as a Stupid Stoner Story since he exhibited this stupid behavior while drunk. In fact, if you’re so drunk that you’re puking while driving, we don’t really want your kind. But if this helps stop the next non-medical marijuana user from calling police to report stolen weed, then it was worth posting.
And for the record, isn’t it nice to once again be reminded of the parking lots at taverns that are so well guarded and patrolled that there can be a vehicle break-in that goes unnoticed and a puking drunk that’s allowed to just drive away?
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 2:29 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Change.org Criminal Justice) Advocates for marijuana reform frequently argue that the drug should be legalized because it’s safe. This is generally true, and I support legalization for this and many other reasons. But when it comes to driving and safety, legalization advocates often go a step too far — claiming that driving under the influence of marijuana is not dangerous and that marijuana causes zero deaths each year. These misleading arguments are harming the reform movement.
In the next couple of paragraphs the author calls out the authors of “Marijuana is Safer”, so I’ll leave that to Paul Armentano to cover. I’ve never claimed that driving under the influence of marijuana is not dangerous, though I have pointed out how it is safer than driving under the influence of alcohol or driving while text-messaging.
I also am increasingly perturbed by a society that thinks nothing of parking lots at bars and .08 BAC laws having zero tolerance for the notion of cannabis-using drivers. The fact that we have a per se standard of .08 BAC for alcohol-using drivers means that at below .08 BAC, the state has to prove you were actually too impaired to drive, not simply that you’d been drinking. We tolerate the idea that a big guy like me (6′0″ 260lbs.) might be able to drink one beer and be OK to drive, but the notion of driving after one puff off a joint is unthinkable? We tolerate people driving their cars to bars for the express purpose of becoming impaired knowing full well that not 100% of them have designated drivers, but were supposed to worry that legalizing pot will lead to blood on the highways?
So, I want to say to the commenters who frequently write here and elsewhere that driving under the influence of marijuana is not risky: you’re wrong. Not only are you wrong, but you’re spreading a dangerous myth that could cause deadly accidents and will hurt the chances for marijuana reform in the United States. To those who cite that stat that alcohol causes 75,000 deaths each year in the U.S. and marijuana causes zero: you’re wrong, too. Marijuana causes far, far fewer deaths than alcohol (maybe 0.1%) , but the number is not zero. Fatal accidents like this one and this one confirm that.
It’s always funny to me how one or two stories of people being helped by medical marijuana are just anecdotes that don’t scientifically prove anything, but one or two stories of a person pleading guilty to a fatal marijuana DUI wreck proves how dangerous marijuana and driving are.
The author, I believe, is purposefully excluding the context under which most of us say “marijuana never killed anyone”. I am always referring to marijuana being non-toxic and incapable of overdose. I try to be careful and only cite the 35,000 alcohol deaths from chronic conditions like the 18,000 whose livers fail or the 4,500 who suffer strokes and heart attacks or the 2,200 who get cancer. I try not to include the 40,000 whose alcohol use causes acute conditions like the 14,000 who wreck their car, boat, or plane or the 19,000 who fall, commit suicide, or are murdered, or the 2,200 who freeze, burn, or drown.
If we want to include all of the ways in which marijuana might lead to death of its users, then, indeed, it is false to say nobody ever died from marijuana. First we’d have to add in all the people who’ve been shot by police, murdered by dealers, or died choking on their own vomit due to lack of medical marijuana in a prison cell. We’d have to include people like the two drivers in the examples above, plus all the people who fell off a cliff because they tripped while stoned and the people who die of a heart attack from the obesity they got from the munchies. As you admit, that number is still probably 0.1% the deaths compared to alcohol under all conditions, which is why we are also careful to say marijuana is not harmless, but it is far less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. (Even that percentage is high, I think, as that would be 75 pot-related deaths per year.)
To show that we’re serious about responsible reform, marijuana reformers need to take a stand against driving under the influence of pot. Each of us can do our part.
Fine, I’ll take that stand: if your consumption of marijuana has led you to be as impaired as someone with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 or above, do not drive a car. If you’re at a public event, wait to drive for as long as they force the beer drinkers to wait before you get behind the wheel.
Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 3:36 pm | By: Radical Russ
SAN DIEGO, Sept. 3 /PRNewswire/ — San Diego DUI lawyer Lawrence Taylor claims that California DUI laws should not be applied to marijuana usage. Unlike alcohol and many drugs, he says, marijuana probably does not impair driving.
On the one hand, the California Department of Justice has found that marijuana impairs psychomotor abilities that are functionally related to driving, particularly at high-dose levels or among inexperienced users. (”Marijuana and Alcohol: A Driver Performance Study,” California Office of Traffic Safety Project No. 087902)
However, the San Diego DUI defense attorney points out, two federal studies contradict this.
In one, the U.S. Department of Transportation conducted DUI research with a fully interactive simulator on the effects of alcohol and marijuana, alone and in combination, on driver-controlled behavior and performance. Although alcohol was found consistently and significantly to cause impairment, marijuana had only an occasional effect.
Accidents and speeding tickets reliably increased with alcohol, but no marijuana or combined alcohol-marijuana influence was noted. (”The Effects of Alcohol on Driver-Controlled Behavior in a Driving Simulator, Phase I”(DOT-HS-806-414).)
Taylor, who heads a large firm of DUI attorneys with offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Riverside and San Francisco, points to another more recent report. Entitled “Marijuana and Actual Performance” (DOT-HS-808-078), it also found that “THC is not a profoundly impairing drug….It apparently affects controlled information processing in a variety of laboratory tests, but not to the extent which is beyond the individual’s ability to control when he is motivated and permitted to do so in driving.”
The researchers found that it “appears not possible to conclude anything about a driver’s impairment on the basis of his/her plasma concentrations of THC and THC-COOH determined in a single sample.”
Sounds like a “whoo-hoo!” moment, huh? Well, not so fast. NORML’s Principles of Responsible Use states “The responsible cannabis consumer does not operate a motor vehicle or other dangerous machinery while impaired by cannabis.”
The $64,000 question*, then, is “what defines impaired?” I can tell you that one puff off a vape bag full of Oregon’s finest will severely impair your average Kansas ditchweed smoker, while that same puff for a 5g/day Oregon patient won’t even break his concentration from completing the New York Times crossword.
The same phenomenon exists for alcohol; the alcoholic can seem perfectly capable with as many drinks under his belt as would knock out your average sorority sister. But as a society, we decided that there should be an absolute measurable physical limit – .08 blood alcohol content – that defines impairment per se, that is, if you’re over .08 you’re too impaired even if you’re not really too impaired.
As always when there is a story about cannabis drug testing and driving, I called on NORML’s Deputy Director, Paul Armentano. Here’s what he had to say:
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 4:08 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Tampa Bay Online) The sheriff’s office this morning released 11 memoranda regarding employees who had recently been fired or suspended.
Deputy James Campbell was suspended for 40 hours following a May 30 charge of drunken driving. According to a sheriff’s memorandum, breath tests put his blood-alcohol levels at .309 and .307 – more than three times .08, the threshold at which a driver in Florida is presumed intoxicated. Campbell’s case is still winding through the judicial system.
Michael Celi, a registered nurse at the Pinellas County Jail, was suspended for 56 hours after deputies got a tip he had marijuana at his home while he was off duty. He eventually pleaded no contest to marijuana possession and possession of drug paraphernalia.
A deputy driving drunk – no, hammered – gets 40 hours, a nurse smoking a bong at home gets 56 hours.
A man allowed to carry and shoot a gun is driving around with blood alcohol levels like a batting average, so we have to suspend him five days. But the nurse at the jail smokes pot at home! Not at work, not accused of bringing it to work and giving it to prisoners. He unwinds from a long day treating prisoners by puffing on a smoldering weed in the privacy of his own home, and would never have even been known to smoke marijuana but for an “anonymous tip” to his employer, the sheriff. That pot smoking guy who doesn’t carry a gun and works only with the incarcerated in a very secure facility, that guy we have to suspend for an extra two days!
Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 8:20 am | By: Radical Russ
The former head of a drug unit accused of possessing marijuana, drunken driving, resisting arrest and endangering children in February will resume working for the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday, but he’ll lose his rank as a lieutenant.
Lt. Joseph Guzdziol, 44, was sentenced on June 1 to two days in jail and nine months of probation on reduced charges as part of a plea agreement in 75th District Court in Bay City.
Since police pulled him over in Monitor Township, Guzdziol has been on leave without pay as head of the drug unit at the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Mark Hackel said Guzdziol will return to work on Saturday as a corrections officer, an entry level position that pays about $30,000 a year, compared to his former $80,000-plus salary.
“It’s a very substantial demotion in this department, one that has never been seen before,” Hackel said today. “He no longer has rank.”
So instead of busting pot smokers as a pot smoker himself, he now gets to guard pot smokers in jail? Are you completely guano loco?
Court records show that Guzdziol was pulled over by state troopers for suspicions of drunken driving while his three children — ages 3, 6 and 8 — were with him. When troopers tried to arrest him, he repeated he was a cop before refusing to be apprehended, according to court records. During the scuffle, troopers said Guzdziol broke a mirror off a police car.
A search of his truck revealed a pipe with marijuana residue, troopers said.
Show of hands – how many people here get to go back to their jobs after their boss learns they were drunk driving with their three young children and fighting cops during his arrest? Anyone ? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? How many think you only get two days in jail? He should be driven from the shire by angry peasants with pitchforks and torches simply for the sheer hypocrisy of being the head of the drug unit busted drunk driving and the idiocy of having a used pipe in the car while doing it! Man, that’s one hell of a police union there in Macomb County, ain’t it?
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 5:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Holy shnikes! I think my next road trip home to visit the folks just got a whole lot more fun!*
(AP) In Idaho, you can drive high as long as you can drive straight.
Marijuana users can drive legally in the state as long as their driving isn’t erratic and they can pass a field sobriety test, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that while it is illegal to drive under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, Idaho law doesn’t list marijuana as a narcotic.
The ruling overturned an impaired driving conviction against Matthew Patzer, 21, who was stopped for a broken tailgate light in 1998 and admitted to police he’d smoked marijuana at a party. The appeals court said Patzer could not automatically be presumed impaired; he wasn’t driving erratically and passed two field sobriety tests.
“Given the distinction drawn by the statute, there is no basis to conclude that impairment may be presumed upon admission of use of a non-narcotic drug,” the appeals court wrote.
Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 8:14 pm | By: Radical Russ
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah lawmakers on Thursday approved the most sweeping changes to the state’s liquor laws in 40 years in an effort to boost tourism and make the state appear a little less odd.
The Legislature eliminated the state’s private club system, which requires customers to fill out an application and pay a fee for the right to enter a bar. Bartenders in restaurants also will be allowed to serve cocktails directly over bar counters instead of walking around them.
Utah is the only state in the country with either law. Gov. Jon Huntsman has said he’ll sign the bill into law, and once that happens, bars can open their doors to the public on July 1.
In exchange for loosening the liquor laws, the state’s DUI laws will become more strict. People who appear younger than 35 will have their driver’s licenses scanned before entering a bar to make sure they’re 21 or older and their ID is real.
Information obtained through the scan will be kept at bars for seven days and law enforcement can inspect it in the event of a DUI or accident.
The Utah Hospitality Association, which represents the state’s bar industry, reluctantly agreed to the use of the ID scanners, which will cost bars about $800. The association had been prepared to take the measure to a vote through an initiative if lawmakers didn’t come to an agreement.
Boost tourism so the state can make more money by eliminating illogical and ineffective laws restricting the rights of adults to consume an intoxicant, while increasing the penalties for abuse of that intoxicant leading to harm of others. What a fantastic idea! Recognize that most people who enjoy that intoxicant do so responsibly and to institute onerous regulation on that substance based not on rational understanding and study of the use of that substance, but on religious belief and cultural mores, leads to lost economic opportunity and no less use of the substance or problems related to it. Brilliant!
(Brilliantly logical idea applies only to addictive toxic dangerous liquid drugs. Safer euphoria-producing plants need not apply.)
Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 11:42 am | By: Radical Russ
Subject: Last Chance To Oppose Zero Tolerance Marijuana Measure
Kentucky legislators are trying to misuse the state’s traffic safety laws to target and prosecute adults who use marijuana responsibly in the privacy of their own home. It’s up to you to stop them.
Senate Bill 5, an act to criminalize anyone who operates a motor vehicle with any detectable level of marijuana in their blood, was recently approved by the state Senate and is now before the House of Representatives. It is imperative that you contact your elected officials today and urge them to stop this misguided campaign against responsible cannabis consumers.
If passed, Senate Bill 5 would mandate criminal penalties for any person who operates a motor vehicle with any measurable level of THC in their blood. This proposal would improperly impact cannabis consumers because THC can remain detectable at low levels in the blood of daily marijuana users for up to 1 or 2 days after past use. In the case of chronic smokers, THC may be detectable in the blood for even longer periods of time. (More information on this subject is available from NORML here.)
Someone who smokes marijuana is impaired as a driver — at most — for a few hours, not days. To treat marijuana smokers as if they are impaired, even when the drug’s effects have long worn off, is illogical and unfair.
In addition, Kentucky already has laws on the books targeting and prosecuting drivers who operate a motor vehicle “under the influence” of illicit drugs. Senate Bill 5 creates a separate crime of “drugged driving” that is, potentially, divorced from impairment and that could jail motorists for simply having consumed an illicit substance at some prior, unspecified date.
Please take a moment today to contact your representative and urge them to oppose Senate Bill 5. If your representative sits on the House Judiciary Committee then it is especially important that he or she hears from you. For your convenience, a pre-written letter will be e-mailed to your state representatives when you go here.
Thank you for supporting NORML’s marijuana law reform efforts in Kentucky.
Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 9:45 am | By: Radical Russ
(AP) Olympic gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps was sentenced to 18 months probation Wednesday after pleading guilty to drunken driving.
“I recognize the seriousness of this mistake. I’ve learned from this mistake and will continue learning from this mistake for the rest of my life,” Phelps told the judge as more than 100 spectators packed the courtroom, mostly to see the famed Olympic champion.
“It’s not out of line with other first-time offenders who blow .08 in Wicomico County,” State’s Attorney Davis Ruark said of Phelps’ sentence. Prosecutors said Phelps had a .08 blood alcohol content — the legal limit in Maryland.
Phelps was stopped by a state trooper on Nov. 4 for running a stop sign near Salisbury University, about 85 miles southeast of Baltimore.
Phelps, [age 19,] who won eight medals at the Athens Olympics, was charged with driving under the influence, driving while impaired, violation of a license restriction and failure to obey a stop sign. Maryland’s drinking age is 21.
Michael Phelps was convicted of illegally using a hard drug (alcohol is a hard, though legal, drug and Phelps was 19, not legal age to use it) when caught driving a car, running a stop sign, and pushing the legal limit for intoxication. Michael Phelps could’ve caused a serious accident and injured or killed himself and others. Kellogg’s didn’t seem to have a problem with that being “not consistent with the image of Kellogg”.
Michael Phelps was photographed using an illegal soft drug in the privacy of someone’s dorm room. This action would cause zero harm to others and only temporary, negligible harm to himself (”harm” being “getting high”), and, ironically enough, give Phelps the kind of munchies that are best cured with a Kellogg product. That’s a big enough issue for Kellogg to drop Phelps for being “not consistent with the image of Kellogg”.
Let’s review: according to Kellogg’s, public drunk driving: OK, private pot smoking: unacceptable.
[UPDATE: Yes, I know that Michael Phelps didn't sign with Kellogg's until 2008. The point is that Kellogg's didn't seem to think a conviction of drunk driving, an act that can harm others, should prevent Kellogg's from signing Phelps.]
From this moment forward, I purchase and eat no Kellogg’s products. That includes the brands Kellogg’s®, Keebler®, Pop-Tarts®, Eggo®, Cheez-It®, Club®, Nutri-Grain®, Rice Krispies®, All-Bran®, Special K®, Mini-Wheats®, Chips Deluxe®, Sandies®, Morningstar Farms®, Famous Amos®, and Murray®. (Cheez-Its?!? NO!!!) I encourage you to do the same.
Kellogg Company contacts:
Consumer complaints: http://www2.kelloggs.com/ContactUs.aspx
Media Relations: media.hotline@kellogg.com
Kellogg Company
P.O. Box CAMB
Battle Creek, Michigan 49016.
Consumer inquiries should contact our Consumer Affairs Department at 800-962-1413
Also, take a minute to let USA Swimming know how you feel:
RevRayGreen: MASS TWEET THIS -@ChuckGrassley Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer sadness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
RevRayGreen: @ChuckGrassley http://bit.ly/55Ejsi Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer madness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
SneakerPimp: one last thing Puff puff pass to any one who wants it
SneakerPimp: i wanna here about the imminent MiniSpof sounds like time for some
SneakerPimp: im estatic and excited for NSL today.
SneakerPimp: mountain time wake n bake
SneakerPimp: oh yea also wake n bake
SneakerPimp: its central im high as a kite everybody
SneakerPimp: ill grab that WUD
WakeUpDead: @Russ, I dont think that wireless is going to work out for the show, it was choppy and studdered just like last week. Hardline may be the only way. Puff [...]
WakeUpDead: A MINI Spof, Lock up your Weed, in 18 years that is. Really Man congrats! Greatest days of my life when my kids were born, hell yeh, great news [...]
BenJaMin: Late night Stash!!!
SneakerPimp: heres a bong rip for spof
RevRayGreen: errr test over....
RevRayGreen: on hold..
RevRayGreen: @RR I'll try and lob a call to you.....
SneakerPimp: where is the first field of cannabis gonna be?
SneakerPimp: !
Radical Russ: Breaking News: MrSpof's wife's water just broke! A MiniSpof is imminent!
SneakerPimp: oh russ its not my fault that i dont understand choppy word:stoned:
SneakerPimp: @Mrspof congratulations tell us all about it tommrow
Radical Russ: OK, test over. Sorry. Only needed a half hour. Be back tomorrow afternoon.
slash5city: don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west
thaistik: Local Crime Stoppers notice.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Pot shop burglars sought
Crime Stoppers is looking for information on the suspects who police say burglarized a medical marijuana dispensary and stole cash, drugs [...]
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. […]
Puking drunk driver calls 911 to report stolen marijuana
sounds like time for some 
mountain time wake n bake 
don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west 
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