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Cannabis Conversations
Ethan Nadelmann: Highlights of Opening Remarks at DPA Reform Conference in Albuquerque, NM.
Aaron Houston, MPP Federal Lobbyist, on Mexican drug cartel influence in small town America
Lorenzo Jones, A Better Way Foundation, on the progress of reform in Connecticut
Whitney Taylor, former campaign director, on new civil fines for “public consumption” following passage of her Massachusetts’ Question 2 decrim measure
Karen O’Keefe, MPP State Programs Director, on new medical marijuana bills that take away right to home grow or restrict qualifying conditions
Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 2:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Should marijuana be legalized? Yes.
What impact would it have on African-Americans? Well, first off, it might mean that not 1-in-3 black men would be under correctional supervision (prison, parole, probation) and there might be more young black men in college than prison.
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 11:20 am | By: Radical Russ
The Examiner family of online newspapers is now featuring the retired locksmith (and thus, drug policy expert) John English as a regular columnist. It seems his entire series of columns is dedicated to pushing reefer madness.
Effects on the fetus, though scientifically difficult to evaluate, for a variety of reasons, the detection of metabolites in meconium establishes fetal drug exposure. The effects on the babies after birth is obvious.
Judging from his various cut’n'pastes from scientific articles I doubt he understands, I think his argument is that women who smoke a lot of pot while pregnant risk harming their babies, so we should lock them up. Wait’ll he sees the statistics on fetal alcohol syndrome!
In “Who Populates the Prison System“, John claims to debunk the idea pushed by “pro-drug advocates and their financial backers (Soros, Sperling, et al.)” that the prisons are filled with non-violent marijuana possessors:
# The massive numbers of people in prison for marijuana, are / were smugglers and distributors.
# These skewed facts ignore that when a person actually is incarcerated for simple possession, invariably it’s because they’ve cooperated and been allowed to plead to a lesser charge!
John doesn’t understand, though, that a “smuggler/distributor” of marijuana can be a pot possessor who made the mistake of keeping his two separate strains in two separate baggies, or keeps Ziploc sandwich baggies in his home, or owns a postal scale, or grew more than one plant, or keeps a legal firearm. He also doesn’t realize that folks on parole or probation who get busted for possession technically go back to prison for their original crime, not the pot possession, so they don’t show up in statistics as pot prisoners. But it is refreshing to see him admit that there are “massive numbers of people in prison for marijuana” as he beats up his strawman.
The marijuana user is in a constant state of depression interspersed with “short bursts of feeling almost normal again.” The user, when he’s reached out and achieved that “high,” he has a temporary reprieve from that constant, marijuana-induced state of depression, but it returns as the “high” fades.
That’s the cause, the scenario . . . ; users seek, the non-depressed state, they perceive as a “high”. They’re wrong; it’s the state they were in before – it’s the absence of depression. Over and over, they’re drawn into the ‘fog of marijuana addiction’ which has caused them to perceive it wrongly. The user has unknowingly, only taken a step down a rung, on the ladder of normalcy!
So I’ll bet when John learns that the suicidal/homicidal Columbine shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and just about every high-profile school shooting you can name in the past twenty years involved depressed teens who were prescribed SSRI anti-depressants, he’ll be eager to pump out a few columns about how we should be locking up people in possession of Paxil, Effexor, Celexa, Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, Anafranil, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, etc.
In “Addiction to cannabis and mental disorders“, John reveals the insidious evil of marijuana – the “potheads” are seducing our youth into their debauched lifestyle (I guess we’ve been borrowing strategy from the “gay agenda”):
The most convincing reason why potheads must remain criminals, why marijuana must remain illegal, is their targeting of children. That behavior in and of itself reveals that they suffer from a deep psychological insufficiency, a need to draw children into becoming like them – whether it’s a need to justify their own beliefs or some other motivation, it doesn’t matter! They’re damaging future generations and doing so intentionally.
You know who’s targeting children, John? Pot dealers who aren’t required to check IDs, a million of whom are teenagers themselves. You know who else targeted children? Alcohol and tobacco companies with their “Budweiser Frogs” and “Joe Camel”, but since those drugs are legal, we were able to set strong advertising restrictions on those products, create effective anti-youth drinking and smoking educational campaigns, and reduced teen drinking and smoking to the lowest levels ever recorded.
In “What is wrong with smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes“, John cites a video of “Nathan Edelman” (he means Drug Policy Alliance’s Ethan Nadelmann), which is actually video of former NORML Director Richard Cowan taken way out of context to illustrate our alleged secret agenda of telling pot smokers to lie about how marijuana helps them medically so we can legalize all drugs (and, naturally, recruit the children into our debauched lifestyle).
When considering at this question, one must take into account two related issues: 1) that the whole plan to make marijuana legal was published in “High Times.” They issued a call, compelling users to come forward saying that pot helped their suffering.
And there’s another part: 2) that a survey showed that medical marijuana cardholders had been smoking pot for an average of 17 years! That in itself, brings the whole system under more suspicion – - – for what if, marijuana does cause one to think their “medicine” helps their condition when it is instead, actually causing or contributing to it?
Then, there’s two further question that needs to be asked:
1) What weed is smoked without the particulate matter, tars, and (over 400 chemical compounds in the smoke) not causing harm? The doctor’s oath is “First, do no harm.”
2) If people who were already breaking the law using an illicit drug for 17 years before the system allowed this pseudo-legal use, do they have the credibility to allow us to believe this actually helps?
If you were nauseous, in chronic pain, spastic, prone to seizures, or were losing your eyesight to glaucoma, and you smoked a joint 17 years ago and found it helped you medically, would you choose to live in misery for another 17 years until it became legal to use, just so you could have some credibility in John English’s view?
You can read more of my responses to John English in the comments sections of his articles in the hyperlinks above. Feel free to leave some of your own comments, too.
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 12:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
NEW YORK (Huffington Post via AP) — The savage drug war in Mexico. Crumbling state budgets. Weariness with current drug policy. The election of a president who said, “Yes _ I inhaled.”
These developments and others are kindling unprecedented optimism among the many Americans who want to see marijuana legalized.
Doing so, they contend to an ever-more-receptive audience, could weaken the Mexican cartels now profiting from U.S. pot sales, save billions in law enforcement costs, and generate billions more in tax revenue from one of the nation’s biggest cash crops.
Said a veteran of the movement, Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance: “This is the first time I feel like the wind is at my back and not in my face.”
“For the most part, what we’ve seen over the past 20 years has been incremental,” said Norm Stamper, a former Seattle police chief now active with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “What we’ve seen in the past six months is an explosion of activity, fresh thinking, bold statements and penetrating questions.”
“The notion that we have to keep something completely banned for adults to keep it away from kids doesn’t hold up,” said Bruce Mirken, communications director of the Marijuana Policy Project.
As for Obama, the activists don’t expect him to embrace the cause at this point.
“Obama’s got two wars, an economic disaster. We have to realize they’re not going to put this on the front burner right now,” said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML, or the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “But every measurable metric out there is swinging our way.”
On an entirely different issue, 46 percent of Americans now favor legalizing small amounts of marijuana for personal use, the most in data back to the mid-1980s and more than double its level 12 years ago. While 52 percent remain opposed, that’s down from 75 percent in the late 1990s and 78 percent in 1986.
The biggest changes in the past two decades are 29- and 27-point advances in support for legalization among Democrats and independents, to 49 and 53 percent, respectively. The slightest: a 10-point gain among Republicans, to just 28 percent support.
Also, tune in tonight to The Colbert Report on Comedy Central as Ethan Nadelmann from Drug Policy Alliance will be his guest.
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Tonight I will be a guest on Cannabis Common Sense, which you can watch live on the intertubes at UStream.tv. One hour live call-in show starts at 8pm Pacific / 11pm Eastern – phone number is 503-288-4448. If you call in, tell the phone screener (Andrew) that “Radical” Russ loves the Cheese (it’s a double inside joke – I’m a Packers fan and I love a strain he grows called “Cheese” and I didn’t even know it was called that). Or don’t, but call in anyway. It will be fun to hear from Stashers nationwide. — “R”R
Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 4:04 pm | By: Radical Russ
While the word on the street (yeah, Huggy Bear told me) is that former Minnesota Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad is going to be President-elect Barack Obama’s pick to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy (or “drug czar”), this petition to have Obama choose drug reformer and head of Drug Policy Alliance Ethan Nadelmann for the position is worth signing. For years we’ve had military generals and law enforcement types dealing with the medical issue that is drug abuse. It’s about time we had a drug law reformer who would base policy on science and medicine!
We the undersigned request the appointment of Ethan Nadelmann to direct the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (“Drug Czar”) of the United States of America.
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
RevRayGreen: maybe Oprah smokes and keeps it on the DL...
SneakerPimp: and good afternoon
mr reuben: I could do without seeing Rob K. on tv. But Bruce and Eithan get a big thumbs up from me.
SneakerPimp: waitn for NSL and congrast for spofett.
mr reuben: I don't respect her opinion bluzguy.
Missippi Hippy: Something about the last year in a contract... folks become more ballsey... and Oprah has big ones.
Adam: Oprah won't actually go off air for over a year, 2011 sometime. Maybe with here leaving the network soon, she'll be more likely to speak out about MMJ.
The Bluzguy: She promotes movies, turns books into best sellers overnight, and millions respect her opinion. Please contact her!
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. […]
Stash for Thu, Nov 12, 2009
waitn for NSL and congrast for spofett.
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