NORML’s Paul Armentano wrote a nice opinion piece in the Vallejo (CA) Times-Herald. They had written about the new record 1 in 99.1 Americans in prison figure. The first reply he got back in the comments section claims to be from a narcotics officer. It provides a great illustration of someone in the deepest throes of drug war addiction:

Let me give you a an Narcotics supervisors ideas. First, No money, aid, nothing from the U.S. to countries who allow drug manufacturing. No U.S. travel for it’s citizens to these countries (no tourists). Any country who wants our money and help MUST allow our military (narcotics officers) into it’s country to stop the manufacting of drugs if they cannot do it. This also means stopping the manufacture of drugs in Afganastand unstead of allowing it because it’s the countrys main product.

Next, in the U.S. stop wasting money on telling the kidds No to Drugs as you can see IT JUST DOES NOT WORK. Next, for any tho manufactures or sells drugs first offense 10years. Second offense Life……….3rd offense Life w/o parole. Now this is for a larger quanity. Lastly, for juveniles selling we set up a School/prison where they go for high school and have no one to sell drugs to.

Next, No drugs in prison and any Guard, Attorney, ets who is caught bringing it in gets 25 years…….No time off.

Think about this! Drugs are brought into this country with no problem yet we think small weapons of mass destruction cannot come in easily. How about spending the time, money and energy to sniff out drugs that we have on stopping the terrorists.

I could go on put there are a lot of businesses in America that do not want drugs to go away because it is American big business like oil.

Bob (Logan, IL)

First of all, no aid or tourism to any country that manufactures drugs? Since marijuana grows wild everywhere, does that mean we don’t get to travel anywhere? And then you want to use our military to invade countries that can’t wipe out a weed? Do we even have that much military?

Then you want from ten years to life with no parole for drug offenses. If you think 1 in 99.1 Americans in prison was something, if this gets enacted, it would be about one in ten. Harsher penalties do not equal less drug use. It’s not like someone about to smoke a joint thinks, well, it’s OK, I’ll only go to prison for a year. What, they raised it to ten years? Well, then, no more weed for me. One year would be OK, but ten years is ridiculous!

Finally, no drugs in prison? Excuse me while I get up off the floor from laughing. That’s already the rule and lawyers, guards, etc. who get caught bringing them in already face hard time. And the idea about the prison/school for druggie juveniles - hey, what a splendid idea! Prisons have worked so well to keep adults off of drugs that we should extend that model to our children in school.

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-03-26

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Wednesday is Cannabis Science day on the Stash, and coming up after the news, we’re separating the stems of propaganda from the buds of truth with Dr. Mitch Earleywine. Today Dr. Mitch has a message to all the college students who are living it up on Spring Break this week – be safe and sensible. Learn his techniques for going “on the P.R.O.W.L.” as you party.

Then Cannabis Karri has unearthed a singer/songwriter duo called Molly and Sonny Boy from Minnesota performing their song called “Relax Your Mind” for today’s musical break

Then we wrap things up with NORML’s Deputy Director, Paul Armentano, who joins me to discuss the new push by prohibitionists to create the concept of “marijuana addiction” to support prohibition, while fully one-third of such “addicts” in treatment haven’t even used marijuana in over a month!

So welcome to the show, sit back with your favorite strain, and enjoy your NORML Daily Audio Stash.

I’m reminded of Bob Saget’s cameo in the movie Half Baked.  The recent litany of “marijuana addiction” stories always offend me as a person who has struggled with real addictions to speed and alcohol, whose father was damn near killed by addictions to speed, alcohol, and nicotine, whose grandfather was killed by addiction to alcohol, whose grandmother was killed by addictions to pharmaceuticals.  To paraphrase the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, “Mary Jane, I suffered with addiction: I knew addiction; addiction was a friend of mine. Mary Jane, you’re no addiction.”

I’m told that there are some people who do have serious dependency issues with marijuana.  But that is nowhere near the physical and psychological hell suffered by a heroin addict, alcoholic, or cigarette smoker trying to quit.  This press to label “marijuana addicts” is just the latest reefer madness salvo to keep funding the perpetual drug war prison/rehab industrial complex.  Paul Armentano, our Deputy Director, picks up on this theme as he notes that a full one-third of these “marijuana addicts” haven’t even used marijuana for over a month!  If you can find any treatment facility for alcohol, heroin, cocaine, meth, or nicotine addicts that contains even one addict who hasn’t used in a month, I’ll be amazed…

NORML Blog » Blog Archive » SAMHSA: One-Third Of Marijuana ‘Treatment’ Admissions Haven’t Used Pot!
According to a recent UPI news wire story, researchers are now proposing prescribing the psychoactive prescription drug Lithium to so-called ‘pot addicts’ to help them kick the habit. But just who are these alleged ‘addicts?’

According to the latest statistics from the US Department of Health and Human Services, a startling high number of US government-defined marijuana ‘addicts’ don’t even smoke pot! That’s right, according to a recent DHS report, more than one-third of Americans entered into drug treatment with a primary diagnosis of marijuana ‘dependency’ haven’t used pot in the month prior to their admission.

How’s this possible? It’s possible because the majority of folks admitted to ‘drug treatment’ for pot don’t need treatment at all, but were arrested and ordered by a judge to attend rehab in lieu of going to jail.

Nevertheless, the White House touts this phony ‘data’ as evidence that marijuana is allegedly more dangerous than cocaine or heroin, and NIDA touts these numbers as evidence to support multi-million dollar ‘Cannabis Addiction Centers.’

Looking for the truth about marijuana use and dependency? Look no further than my recent Alternet.org essay on the subject here, or you can ‘digg’ it here.

Calling B.S. on the Idea of ‘Marijuana Addiction’ | DrugReporter | AlterNet
The U.S. government believes that America is going to pot — literally.

Earlier this month, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse announced plans to spend $4 million to establish the nation’s first-ever “Center on Cannabis Addiction,” which will be based in La Jolla, Calif. The goal of the center, according to NIDA’s press release, is to “develop novel approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of marijuana addiction.”

And what does the science say? Well, according to the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine — which published a multiyear, million-dollar federal study assessing marijuana and health in 1999 — “millions of Americans have tried marijuana, but most are not regular users [and] few marijuana users become dependent on it.” The investigator added, “[A]though [some] marijuana users develop dependence, they appear to be less likely to do so than users of other drugs (including alcohol and nicotine), and marijuana dependence appears to be less severe than dependence on other drugs.”

Most importantly, unlike the withdrawal symptoms associated with the cessation of most other intoxicants, pot’s mild after-effects do not appear to be either severe or long-lasting enough to perpetuate marijuana use in individuals who have decided to quit. This is why most marijuana smokers report voluntarily ceasing their cannabis use by age 30 with little physical or psychological difficulty. By comparison, many cigarette smokers who pick up the habit early in life continue to smoke for the rest of their lives, despite making numerous efforts to quit.

Further, pot lacks the profound abstinence symptoms associated with most legal intoxicants, including caffeine.

As always, it’s worth clicking the link to read the full story.  You only have to follow the money to understand why there is a push for creating in the public’s mind a false stereotype about “marijuana addiction” - that creates jobs for “marijuana rehab” and “marijuana drug testing” and prescriptions for drugs like lithium to relieve the “addict’s” craving for the ganja!

Ending America’s Domestic Quagmire by Paul Armentano
A growing number of political pundits are questioning America’s military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some are beginning to draw parallels to lawmakers’ much longer domestic war effort: the so-called war on drugs. The comparison is apropos.

America now spends nearly $50 billion dollars per year targeting, prosecuting, and incarcerating illicit-drug users. As a result, the population of illicit-drug offenders now behind bars is greater than the entire U.S. prison population in 1980. Since the mid-1990s, drug offenders have accounted for nearly 50 percent of the total federal prison population growth and some 40 percent of all state prison population growth. For marijuana alone, law enforcement currently spends between $7 billion and $10 billion dollars annually targeting users – primarily low-level offenders – and taxpayers spend more than $1 billion annually to incarcerate them.

However, in contrast to politicians who call for a review of the U.S. military’s Middle East policies, few lawmakers are demanding a timetable to bring about a cease-fire to the war on drugs – or are even calling for a reduction in the number of “troops” (i.e., narcotics detectives, DEA agents, et cetera) serving on the front lines. They ought to. If American lawmakers want to take a serious look at the United States’s war strategies, let them begin by reassessing – and ending – their failed war here at home.

The problem is that the United States’ economy has been built on a foundation of war. Whether it’s war against our own citizens for taking drugs or war against another country for other reasons (some legitimate, others not-so-much), many government agencies owe their livelihood to war. It makes it very difficult, then, to call for an end to these wars without providing a vision of how we’ll repair the economy to reflect a peacetime foundation. Or as Upton Sinclair put it, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Another fantastic essay from our Deputy Director, Paul Armentano. Be sure to read the whole article at AlterNet.org.

Outrageous Anti-Pot Lies: Media Uses Disgraceful Cancer Scare Tactics | DrugReporter | AlterNet
On Tuesday, January 29 — three days prior to the publication of a forthcoming study assessing marijuana use and cancer — Reuters News Wire published a story under the headline: “Cannabis Bigger Cancer Risk Than Tobacco.” Mainstream media outlets across the globe immediately followed suit. “Smoking One Joint is Equivalent to 20 Cigarettes, Study Says,” Fox News declared, while Australia’s ABC broadcast network pronounced, “Experts Warn of Cannabis Cancer ‘Epidemic.’”

If those headlines weren’t attention-grabbing enough, one only had to scan the stories’ inflammatory copy — much of which was lifted directly from press statements provided by the study’s lead author in advance of its publication.

“While our study covers a relatively small group, it shows clearly that long-term cannabis smoking increases lung-cancer risk,” chief investigator Richard Beasley declared. Beasley went on to speculate that pot “could already be responsible for one in 20 lung cancers diagnosed in New Zealand” before warning: “In the near future we may see an ‘epidemic’ of lung cancers connected with this new carcinogen.”

The mainstream press, always on the look out for a good pot scare story, ran blindly with Beasley’s remarks. Apparently not a scribe among them felt any need to confirm whether Beasley’s study — which remained embargoed at the same time it was making worldwide headlines — actually said what was claimed.

It didn’t.

For those who actually bothered to read the study’s full text, which appeared in the European Respiratory Journal days after the global feeding frenzy had ended, they would have learned the following. Among the 79 lung cancer subjects who participated in the trial, 70 of them smoked tobacco. These individuals, not surprisingly, experienced a seven-times greater risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer compared to tobacco-free controls. As for the subjects in the study who reported having used cannabis, they — on average — experienced no statistically significant increased cancer risk compared to non-using controls.

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-02-26

Remember, the government estimates that there are millions of Americans that have smoked marijuana in the past month. Congressmen are known to change their votes when they get a few hundred calls about an issue. If Congress had to hear a million phone calls asking for an end to adult marijuana prohibition, it would be a reality. Call your Congress at 202-225-3121 – they’ll ask your zip code and put you in touch with your elected officials. It still is a government of We the People, but you have to step up and do your part.

Tuesday is Government at Work day on the podcast, and coming up after the news, we take a look at marijuana related bills from around the country. Then we talk with NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano about the recent conference on drugged driving held in Washington DC by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Next we get our groove on with a British jam band called Giles and their song, “Freedom”. Then it’s on to my interview with Fort Lauderdale criminal defense attorney Norm Kent about his recent article, “Pushing 60 with Pot”, and his thoughts on growing older in the cannabis community.

So sit back and relax with your favorite strain – this is the Daily Audio Stash.

We posted earlier our Deputy Director, Paul Armentano’s argument on how to re-legalize cannabis (and some dunderheaded excuses from a commenter on why we shouldn’t).  Pete Guither at Drug WarRant offers his analysis (mostly in agreement), and it’s worth a full read, but this section I wanted to share on the Stash because he gets to the heart of changing the minds of those who resist re-legalization:

Drug WarRant
Now, it would be nice if the people would recognize that laws against marijuana use are in contradiction to the principles of our country. But as Cliff notes in comments, the people as a whole are not, unfortunately, interested in looking after the Constitution. They want others to do it for them, and may even find the content of it a bit of an annoyance.

So where does that leave us? Self-interest.

We need to take a page from the SAFER campaign. No, I’m not suggesting a national campaign to show that marijuana is safer than alcohol.

What we need to do is show the people that legalization is safer than prohibition.

We need to convince people that marijuana prohibition is endangering their children, robbing their checkbooks, hurting their property values and causing moral decay. We need them to understand that legalizing pot will make their streets safer and eliminate poverty.

You get the idea. Self-interest.

 Download NORML Daily Audio Stash - 2008-02-14

Thursday is Cannabis & The Law day on the Stash, and coming up after the news, we’re taking questions from our loyal listeners about the law in our Ask an Attorney segment.  This week, criminal defense attorney and NORML Legal Committee member John Lucy IV addresses roadside searches, clean paraphernalia, and medical marijuana state reciprocity.  We’ve got some live music from Grammy winners Los Lonely Boys from back in the days when they were a Texas club band, with a Valentine’s appropriate song, “I Don’t Want To Lose Your Love”.  We’ve got an interview with travel writer Rick Steves on the European perception of marijuana.  And we round out the podcast today with NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano, with a look at the latest political battles over marijuana at the state level.  So Hempy Valentine’s Day… we got some “special” green chocolates for you… sit back with your favorite strain, and enjoy your NORML Daily Audio Stash.

Our Deputy Director, Paul Armentano, has written an excellent essay that I mentioned a couple of posts ago for Alternet called Making Pot Legal: We Can Do It — Here’s How.  We’ll talk with Paul on Friday about that.  But I just had to include this comment that his essay received (with boldfacing by me):

Victim baloney

Excuse me? The talk about “victims of marijuana prohibition” is baloney. The last I heard, dope smoking was illegal in the US. That means that people who choose to smoke dope, violating the law in the process, are criminals. Where does the victim stuff come from? If you want to smoke dope– go ahead and smoke it. But please– take responsibility for your actions. If you drive 90 miles an hour on the freeway and get a ticket, are you a victim of speed limits? Knock it off. I smoked plenty of dope forty years ago I stopped because it is a waste of time. Never would I have claimed to be a victim: I was a shit-for-brains dope head. If I had gotten caught I would have deserved whatever the system dished out. I wish you losers would grow up. And if all you can find to do with your time is fight for people’s freedom to screw up their brains with dope, you have too much time on your hands.

This is what we face.  Might as well face the truth - there are many people out there like commenter “PJT” who believe this very sentiment.  I couldn’t help myself, I had to reply.  This is like waving a red cape in front of a bull.

Some other “victims” for you

Not “victims of slavery”, just Africans who deserved what the colonial system dished out.  (Shouldn’t have gotten caught… it was legal, after all.)

Not “victims of racism”, just black men who chose to marry white women, violating the law in the process (- criminals!)

Not “victims of homophobia”, just gay men who refuse to take responsibility for their actions.  (If you get caught having gay sex in Texas and get arrested, are you a victim of anti-sodomy laws?)

Dr. King taught us that there are “just laws” and “unjust laws”. An “unjust law” is one that a power majority forces upon a minority that it won’t obey for itself. Prohibition of certain intoxicants is such a law: the power majority has no problem with you getting wasted, so long as it’s Budweiser and not buds. And even when the power majority disobeys that law, the effects differ: compare the case of cokehead Bush vs. any crackhead.

Just because something is illegal doesn’t make it wrong, no more than doing something legal is automatically right (i.e., waterboarding torture, warrantless wiretapping, invading the Middle East).

So, yes, there are victims of marijuana prohibition, just as women were victims pre-Roe if they obtained an abortion, gays were victims pre-Lawrence if they made love, and blacks were victims pre-Loving if they married whites.

But you did have something right. Your 11th sentence, with a change to the present tense and deletion of “dope head”.

Yeah, I know, it’s not a perfect analogy and I did get a little ad hominem, but everything you need to know about this guy is summed up when he said “…if all you can find to do with your time is fight for people’s freedom…”  Even if you believe that smoking marijuana is “screw[ing] up [your] brains with dope”, why would you oppose someone’s freedom to do with their brains as they choose?  You cannot demonstrate any societal harm from our marijuana smoking, so why do you need a law against someone else feeling good with a non-toxic herb?