VIERA (Florida Today) — A Brevard County jury today convicted a 53-year-old man, who said he uses marijuana for religious and health purposes, of illegally harvesting more than 100 of the plants in his Palm Bay home.

It took a jury 14 minutes to convict self-proclaimed minister Steven Swallick following a two-day trial.

Swallick faces up to 10 years in prison following a conviction on one count each of possession and manufacturing of marijuana. He also was convicted on one misdemeanor count of larceny with relation to a utility fixture for tampering with electrical wiring in his home.

Circuit Judge Jim Earp wouldn’t let him testify about his use of marijuana for religious purposes.

But as part of a motion asking the judge to allow the evidence, Swallick testified outside of the jury’s presence that he is affiliated with the Hawaiian Cannabis Ministries, which mandates use of the drug.

This Hawaiian Cannabis Ministry will sell to you and anyone who logs on a “Sanctuary Kit” for just $250.  This kit allegedly “provides you with proof of your legitimacy as a religious practitioner of Cannabis Sacrament.”  They claim it provides a “successful religious defense to prosecution”.

Looks like it didn’t work for Rev. Swallick.  Even if Judge Earp did allow Swallick’s religious testimony, if wouldn’t work and hasn’t worked for plenty who have tried.  I wonder how much of Swallick’s and others’ $250 donations to the ministry will come back in the form of legal defense funds for an appeal?

I am all for religious use of cannabis and I believe many people’s sincerity when they call it a sacrament.  I don’t think anyone should be arrested or locked up for any use of cannabis, whether you think it’s holy or whether you just think it’s gnarly, dude.  But all the “it’s my religion” claim is ever going to get you in an American court is a nice quiet cell and plenty of time to read your holy book.  I’m not saying that’s right, I’m just saying that’s the facts.  Point to precedents over ayahuasca and peyote all you like, but no court is going to allow cannabis as sacrament because doing so undermines government’s compelling duty to protect the citizenry from the “evils” of legal weed.

Only full legalization for all people, even healthy atheists, is going to provide patients and practitioners their right to access legal medicine and sacrament.

Wherever adults are growing pot, Police Women are there!

I’d embed the video, but there don’t seem to be any embed codes at http://tlc.discovery.com/videos/police-women-take-down-of-the-week-thats-a-lot-of-grass.html. I’ll just add my commentary:

1. If you are growing weed at home, PLEASE make your teenage son watch Busted: The Citizen’s Guide to Police Encounters.
2. Yeah, you sure taught him a lesson, lady – whatever you do, don’t grow at home, just continue to support dealers on the black market.
3. Marijuana plants get far more attention and care than a goldfish.
4. Ha ha, you’re cooperative, you got away with it for 35 years, time card was pulled, ha ha, that’s why we’re not treating you like a criminal… well, except for the frisking and the cuffing and the booking and the bonding and the lifelong felony criminal record… but otherwise you seem like a nice guy.
5. Angie Dickinson’s* attitude here matches so many cops’ attitudes: well, it’s against the law, so don’t do it.  Adults can’t make their own decisions, they must accept “because I said so” as a rationale.  We all understand why there are laws to protect society and preserve order, but when an adult citizen’s personal private actions harm absolutely nobody, free rational people can’t accept “because I said so” as a justification for destroying our property and subverting our liberty.
6. Dude, you’re not an “addict”.  You’re a hard working man who made the smart health choice of marijuana over alcohol and made the smart economic and ethical choice of not supporting a black market.  Your only dumb move was not training your teenage son to say NO to police searches without a warrant.

Overall, though, I’m actually quite pleased with the video.  How many people are going to watch this and have sympathy for the grower, especially as he explains how he doesn’t drink and doesn’t sell and the home otherwise looks like a nice, well-kept suburban domicile?  How many are going to question why we’re wasting police time pulling plants out of a guy’s closet?

By the way, courtesy of MrSpof, the clearance rate for Murder, Rape, Robbery, Aggravated Assault, Burglary, Larceny, and Motor Vehicle Theft in Broward County is 19.4%.  While Pepper Anderson’s* crew is busy harassing the father of a teenager for his indoor gardening, four out of five actual crimes are going unsolved.

*Ooh, really dating myself with a Police Woman reference, aren’t I?

The Supervillains from Orlando, FL

So I was partying at the University of Central Florida chapter leader’s home (motto: Fo’ Shizzle, Welcome to Our Hizzle) when a future senator and first Puerto Rican president (long story) named Oscar asked me if I’d ever heard of the Supervillains.

“You mean like Lex Luthor and Dr. Doom?” I responded.  No, he meant a certain pop-ska band from the Orlando area.  No, I’d never heard of them, which caused Oscar and his buddy to begin crooning “Resin… you stick to my fingers…”.  Soon they were hooking up an iPod to some speakers and playing for me the Supervillains.

I liked it!  Oscar put a couple of their albums on a NORML thumbdrive for me and I promised I would play them on the Stash.  You can find out more about them at http://myspace.com/therealsupervillains.

Enjoy my new favorite band from Orlando (OK, the only band I know from Orlando), the Supervillains with “Resin”.

Download audio file (The%20Supervillains%20-%20Resin.mp3)

(Miami Herald) BRADENTON, Fla. — Authorities say a Bradenton man died after being stunned by a Taser as he attempted to flee arrest.

Police say an officer tried to pull over 38-year-old Derrick Humbert in a residential area just after midnight Monday, but Humbert jumped out of his vehicle and started to run away through the yards. An officer chased Humbert and stunned him with a Taser.

Officials say paramedics took Humbert to a nearby hospital, where he died.

Humbert was wanted on a warrant for possession of marijuana.

I can just hear the law and order crowd saying, “Well, if he hadn’t have run, he never would have been tasered!”  Sure, because we can’t have someone wanted on a marijuana possession warrant eluding police.  Think of the danger he presents to the community!  Had he escaped from police, he might have, uh, smoked a bowl?

What motivated him to run from a mere possession charge?  In one of the thirteen decrim states, he would have only faced a ticket for his marijuana possession, something he probably wouldn’t have tried to run away from, but in Florida, he could face a year in prison for a joint and a felony conviction and five years for three-quarters of an ounce.  Even the federal government won’t give you a felony for possession unless it is your third strike.

Even then, what is the justification for electrocuting a guy over a little weed?  (Let’s not mince words: tasering is electrocution.)  Remember when tasers were introduced and we were told they would be a non-lethal way of subduing a dangerous criminal and protecting police lives?  We were told that tasers would reduce the number of shootings of suspects because police could use the non-lethal taser instead?

Amnesty International remembers that, too:

Because Tasers are often seen as completely safe and non-lethal, they are often used as a weapon of first rather than last resort. They have become less an alternative to deadly force than an alternative to less-intensive policing techniques. In the more than 351 cases Amnesty International has tracked where individuals died after being shocked, in only a small fraction –about 10 percent — of the incidents was the individual carrying any kind of weapon.

In Houston, for example, department policy has allowed for Tasers to be used when an officer feels he or she is going to be physically threatened — but without an imminent danger. Houston officers have shocked more than 1400 individuals since 2004. Hundreds of those individuals were not charged with a crime. An audit found that police shootings of suspects had not decreased after the introduction of Tasers in the city — which had been one of the primary stated goals of using the weapons.

My friend Pam Spaulding at Pam’s House Blend has been following these cases for years and there is also the excellent blog Electrocuted While Black that chronicles this horrendous abuse of police power.  This injudicious use of tasers must end!  The use of a taser should have to meet the same prerequisites as the use of a handgun in policing.  Police should not be allowed to use tasers on citizens merely because they are being argumentative, uncooperative, or fleeing, unless the citizen is armed or presents an imminent danger to the community.

Surely a guy wanted for smoking a little weed doesn’t fit those prerequisites.

New security camera video shows police officers in Florida bowling on a Nintendo Wii for hours during a drug raid at a suspect’s home. 

This is your hard earned tax money being put to work for your safety and well being.

Tampa Bay Online has details:

With guns drawn and flashlights cutting through darkened rooms, Polk County undercover drug investigators stormed the home of convicted drug dealer Michael Difalco near Lakeland in March.

As investigators searched the home for drugs, some drug task force members found other ways to occupy their time. Within 20 minutes of entering Difalco’s house, some of the investigators found a Wii video bowling game and began bowling frame after frame. 

(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!

Because… uh… we want to protect the children?

The not famous Dr. Drew, Drew Edwards, the executive director of the Ennoble Foundation, has an opinion piece up at Jacksonville.com.  Unsurprisingly, the man who makes a living off of the court-enforced mandatory rehab of minor marijuana offenders believes marijuana smoking makes you a loser.

A study published in 2007 by the medical journal Addiction confirms what many of us have observed for years. People who regularly smoke marijuana grossly underachieve in life.

No link for the study of course.  I looked on the Addiction Journal website through all their 2007 press releases and didn’t find the study.  However, let’s assume the study is legit.  What’s the conclusion, that people smoking marijuana in their early teens have lower employment and educational achievement?  OK, doc, then why do you support a prohibition that allows 84% of high school seniors to say it is “easy” or “fairly easy” to get marijuana?  I think if you were concerned about teens smoking pot, you’d make it as hard to get as cigarettes and liquor, wouldn’t you?

This breakthrough research studied the progress of approximately 1,900 teens for 10 years, and found that regular marijuana users were three times more likely to be unemployed or drop out of school than nonusers.

You wouldn’t suppose that marijuana tests keeping pot-smoking teens out of extra-curricular activities, suspensions and expulsions for marijuana use, and marijuana tests for entry-level jobs lead to underachievement, too, would you?  Or that teens living in circumstances that would lead one to try to self-medicate with pot, like divorces, poverty, poor schools, urban violence, and lack of health care coverage might lead to underachievement whether they smoked pot or not?

According to the government’s own figures at the Substance Abuse Mental Health Data Archive, 54% of adults who didn’t smoke pot this year are employed full-time.  By comparison, 58% of adults who smoked pot more than 100 times this year are employed full-time.

The evidence of marijuana’s negative effect on young people is so overwhelming that the scientist who conducted the research pronounced that marijuana is “the drug for life’s future losers.”

You know, like Michael Phelps, Carl Sagan, George Washington, Sir Richard Branson, Sir Paul McCartney, Barack Obama, Willie Nelson, Sarah Silverman, Bill Maher, and the rest of those “losers”.

Young people who have the intelligence and motivation to go to college or technical school and begin smoking marijuana almost always abandon these aspirations for something less rigorous.

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, quite famously admits to his pot and LSD use and tells of other Silicon Valley pioneers who basically invented personal computing and the internet based on insights from the herb.

The research is clear regarding marijuana’s effect on the brain and behavior. Cannabis impairs memory, motivation and something called executive functioning, which involves the ability to organize tasks, control impulses and set priorities.

In other words, most marijuana users adjust their life’s goals and priorities downward to accommodate their impaired condition.

It’s hard to smoke weed three to four times per week and remain disciplined enough to get up early, think clearly enough and work hard enough to attain the grades and skill necessary to succeed in something difficult.

I smoke weed every day, usually multiple times per day.  I produce 55 minutes of recorded podcast content every weekday, requiring the skills of reading, concentration, analysis, memory, writing, editing, HTML coding, PHP coding, web management, sound engineering, sound editing, technical engineering, graphic design, and video production.  In addition to that, I am the outreach coordinator for a national non-profit, requiring the skills of organizing, data entry, political lobbying, legal analysis, SQL database management, document production, and interpersonal communications.  In my spare time, I appear at rallies and festivals, requiring the skills of speech writing, public speaking, travel arrangement, organizing tasks, and public relations.  I’ll admit that I dropped out of college (way before I ever tried pot; alcohol is what killed my college degree), so I am completely self-taught at all these skills, which I learned while I was smoking pot.  I do all these things simultaneously, requiring setting priorities, multi-tasking, and perseverance.  I am at my desk working by 7am every day and I rarely leave the desk (aside from meal breaks and dog walks) until 9pm at night.

Thank god I adjusted my goals and priorities downward!  I surely wouldn’t have the discipline necessary to succeed at something difficult.

Marijuana users are frequently unemployed or underemployed in vocations that are less challenging.

You mean like making a living sitting on a couch from 9 to 5 telling court-ordered marijuana rehabbers they are losers?

Additionally, because the genetically engineered cannabis is so potent, its use is now associated with early-onset psychosis, and is now a risk factor for schizophrenia, depression and anxiety disorders.

You know what else is a risk factor for schizophrenia?  Being left-handed.

This is irrefutable in the current medical literature. The cost to an individual and our collective economic productivity as a result of marijuana’s debilitating physical and mental effects are devastating.

The bottom line is that decriminalizing marijuana will result in more mental illness, more addiction and more uneducated and unemployable persons. We simply cannot afford this.

Actually, all this reefer madness is quite refutable.  For example, the recent British meta-analysis of cannabis use and schizophrenia over the period 1996-2005, the time when the new alleged super pot showed up, showed no increase in schizophrenia even as frequency of use increased and potency increased.

The bottom line is that the states that have decriminalized marijuana in the US have shown no increases in mental illness, addiction, and uneducated and unemployable persons, and that decriminalization in the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal have failed to show any of these predictions coming true.

(TIME Magazine) California may be the center of the marijuana trade and the controversies over its legalization. But Florida has surpassed it in one important category: the Sunshine State is now the country’s leader in indoor marijuana cultivation. It is a potent distinction because most of the marijuana grown this way is cultured hydroponically — that is, mostly without soil and with a carefully calibrated cocktail of chemicals and lighting — to create some of the highest level of highs on the market.

In 2006, Florida law enforcement here discovered 480 homes growing marijuana indoors. Last year, 1,022 grow houses were busted. “This isn’t your grandma’s marijuana,” quipped a Miami-Dade narcotics officer at one bust as he tossed garbage bags stuffed with confiscated marijuana into an unmarked police truck. Levels of THC — the agent in marijuana that produces feelings of euphoria, and in some users mild hallucinations and paranoia — have risen dramatically because of indoor techniques. Thirty years ago, most marijuana contained about 7% THC. Today, indoor growers boast THC levels of 25% or higher thanks to the additional care that indoor plants receive.

Ah, yes, “Pot 2.0: Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed!” raises its ugly head.  Except the weed from 30 years ago was supposed to be only 2% THC… at least according to the TIME Magazine story in 2004 about the previous super-pot hot-spot, Vancouver, British Columbia:

(TIME Magazine 2004) Although the actual potency of BC Bud varies from batch to batch, depending on how it’s grown, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says that as much as 25% of BC Bud is made of the psychoactive drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In contrast, the pot that the hippie generation smoked in the 1970s had only 2% THC content, and most pot consumed in the U.S. today averages about 7% THC.

So five years ago TIME warned the smokers of 7% weed about the 25% BC Bud that wasn’t like the 2% weed of the 1970s, and today TIME warns the smokers about Florida’s 25% hydro-bud that’s not like the 7% weed of the 1970s that we were apparently smoking all the way up to 2004.  Let’s look back farther, to a 2000 TIME story on Marc Emery:

(TIME Magazine 2000) Known as “B.C. Bud,” this pot is finding a lucrative market among U.S. users of recreational drugs. A pound of dried B.C. Bud–whose active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, accounts for up to 30% of its weight–sells for about $8,000 in New York City. The more common marijuana from Mexico, with a THC content of about 5%, sells for as little as $300 per lb.

Ah, so nine years ago, the BC Bud was 30% THC and most folks were smoking the regular 5% THC Mexican varieties.  So, then, did the 7% weed of the ’70s drop 2 points, or did the 2% weed of the ’70s raise 3 points?  I’m confused and I’m not even high.  Let’s look back to the actual time period in question, the 1970s:

(TIME Magazine 1978) Equally adept at agronomy and foiling the police, Oregon’s pot farmers turned home-grown weed into a profitable racket by developing their unique sinsemillas hybrid. The robust, waste-free strain attracts buyers willing to pay $1,600 a pound, the yield from just one well-cultivated plant. Studies show that sinsemillas weed contains five times more tetrahydrocannabinol (pot’s narcotic ingredient) than the common Mexican variety. Even federal drug experts are impressed. “A good deal of expertise goes into producing that kind of plant,” notes Dr. Carlton Turner, director of marijuana research for the National Institute of Drug Abuse at the University of Mississippi.

So if 1978 sinemilla was 5x more potent than the average weed, and that was at 2% (TIME 2004) or 5% (TIME 2000) or 7% (TIME 2009), then fine Oregon bud was already at 10% to 35% thirty-one years ago!  Except back then, the pound of “super-pot” went for $1,600 and today it fetches $8,000.

The 2009 TIME article goes on to scare us about the hydroponic growers illegally tapping into the electrical grid, maintaining high-voltage lighting systems and chemical irrigation systems, sometimes protecting themselves with weapons, and sometimes living in the homes with (gasp!) children!  It highlights how the rest of the Florida economy is suffering so much the housing market is full of foreclosures, which the sellers of $8,000/lb. super-pot are buying up left and right.  So be afraid, be very afraid, of the new Florida Super-Pot!  It’s just as strong as the 2004 BC Bud and the 1978 Oregon Sinsemilla!

For the record:

• Marijuana potency, on average has increased over the past forty years, from about 4% to about 8% on average.
• High potency strains have always been available.
• The government approves Marinol, a 100% potent THC pill, as a Schedule III medicine.
• Increased potency is a direct result of prohibition, as buyers paying cognac-prices for plant matter tend to want the most bang for their $300-$420 bucks per ounce.
• Smugglers and sellers of marijuana in a black market are under pressure to maintain secrecy so they’d rather use their valuable storage/smuggling space for the best-earning product, just as bootleggers during prohibition favored smaller crates of whiskey bottles over larger barrels of beer and wine.
• In surveys of cannabis users in pseudo-legal Amsterdam, they prefer the milder varieties of pot, just as alcohol drinkers after prohibition preferred beer and wine to hard liquor.
• Finally, THC is non-toxic, so potency does not matter.  People using marijuana use enough to get high.  If it’s Mexican schwag, they smoke a joint and get high.  If it’s Florida/BC/Oregon bud, they smoke a puff and get high.  It’s not like if you smoke a 7% joint you get high, but if you smoke a 25% joint you murder your sister with an axe.

Now as for the grow houses, the illegal electricity taps, the armed growhouse owners, the housing market manipulation, the chemically fertilized high-voltage light hydroponic operations, and so forth, I’d ask just one question: how many Florida homes have been converted to clandestine indoor tobacco farms or large-scale home breweries lately?

(Jacksonville.com) A proposed Jacksonville Beach amendment is taking aim at the current marijuana laws, with hopes to make part of them vanish into a puff of smoke.

The nation’s largest marijuana advocacy group is pushing a plan to make possession of less than 20 grams a civil infraction instead of a criminal misdemeanor. If the group’s petition receives 1,442 signatures from registered Jacksonville Beach voters, a decriminalization amendment would be added to the ballot in the November 2010 general election.

If it passes, it would be the first of its kind in Northeast Florida, and organizers say they would push it in the other Beaches communities and Jacksonville. Nationally, similar amendments have passed in several other cities, including Denver, and a handful of states.

“It’s the will of the people and a product of our grandparents,” said Ford Banister, chapter president of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, who’s spearheading the proposition. “It’s a political hot potato, and nobody wants to touch it. We’re out to change that.”

The proposed amendment would call for a civil fine of $100 for the possession of 20 grams or less –– enough for about 10-15 joints. The marijuana would also be confiscated. State law calls for up to a year behind bars and $1,000 in fines. Jacksonville Beach police would have the option to enforce either law.

The Jacksonville Beach police would likely enforce the state law and the city decrim ordinance would be symbolic.  However, if the city and state are in enough financial trouble, maybe they would opt for not spending the money on the trials and jails and just making the $100 on the civil fine.  Regardless, passing these sort of municipal ordinances is exactly the sort of thing NORML Chapters around the country have been doing for decades now.  It was passage of many of these symbolic ordinances all throughout Massachusetts, for example, that laid the groundwork for passing decriminalization statewide.

My Neighbor Hates Pot

One of the biggest hurdles we face is something I call “My Neighbor Hates Pot” Paradox.  When you ask Americans their opinions on decrim or medical marijuana, by about 3-to-1 they are on our side.  Then when you ask them whether their neighbor supports decrim or medical marijuana, by about 3-to-1 people think their neighbor is not on our side.  That means the government’s successful propaganda campaign has made the reefer madness lies three times more powerful than the truth.  The two out of three pot-supporting neighbors believe the one guy who hates pot is actually three guys.

This is only possible when your neighbors – and you – are closeted marijuana smokers.

We provide a lot of independence for our NORML Chapters. Personally, I don’t know that I’d want to hold my NORML meeting at a Hooters restaurant because of the whole “boobies and beer” atmosphere, which can be distracting for your male (and some female) attendees and offensive to some female (and a few male) attendees, but it’s a legitimate restaurant, it’s a free country, and NORML’s not officially pro- or anti-boobie (for the record, I am personally very pro-boobie).  To be fair, it looks like JAX NORML originally hosted their meetings at the WingHouse, where, presumably, the servers wear more cloth than the tables, and had to scramble at the last minute for a new location.

That said, I think Hooters management is throwing stones from a glass house if they want to kick out a NORML meeting for reasons of morality and decorum.  Not to mention the fiscal suicide of offending a whole segment of society very fond of tasty chicken wings.

First and foremost, our apologies for the confusion and inconvenience surrounding the meeting tonight. The WingHouse where we had the last two meetings closed without notice to us. We were able to relocate to the Hooter’s on Southside. They were all about us having a meeting there and let us get setup, order food and drinks… Then a few servers came over to ask what our sign meant followed by a manager who told us we could not have the NORML sign up or the sugn in sheet and literature lest “the powers that be” in his corporation have some problem with it. Apparently Mr. Frank Baldivino has a pretty low opinion of his corporation’s tolerance for free speech and a pronounced ignorance of the fact that almost half of Americans support total legalization and a grand majority support decriminalization. We cancelled our orders and left, quickly going down the list to call everyone who had traveled from around the county. We will be writing a very strongly worded letter to the Hooter’s, Until and if we get an apology, we urge our members NOT TO PATRONIZE ANY HOOTER’S LOCATION. And if this really bothers you, give Mr. Baldivino a call at 904-807-9544 and let him know that stoner’s do not support businesses that TRY to censor our views. And who is so dumb as to make lots of smiling, happy, good natured and HUNGRY people mad?!