Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 11:35 am | By: Radical Russ
(New Scientist) IF THERE is one thing that politicians can and should do to limit the damage caused by illegal drugs, it is to take careful note of the evidence and develop a rational drug policy. Some politicians find it easier to ignore the evidence, and pander to public prejudice instead.
I can trace the beginning of the end of my role as chairman of the UK’s official advisory body on drugs to the moment I quoted a New Scientist editorial (14 February, p 5). Entitled, fittingly enough, “Drugs drive politicians out of their minds”, the editorial asked the reader to imagine being seated at a table with two bowls, one containing peanuts, the other the illegal drug MDMA (ecstasy). Which is safer to give to a stranger? Why, the ecstasy of course.
I quoted these words in the Eve Saville lecture at King’s College London in July. This example plus other comments I have made – such as horse riding is more harmful than ecstasy – prompted Alan Johnson, the home secretary, to say that I had crossed the line from science to policy. This, he said, is why I had to go.
But simple, accurate and understandable statements of scientific fact are precisely what the advisory council is supposed to provide. Why would any scientist take up some future offer of a government advisory post when their advice can be treated with such disdain?
The results of a government inventing its own reality and acting on it can be seen in the appalling consequences the George W. Bush presidency had for world peace, the environment and human rights. The message for the British government is a simple one: don’t exclude rational argument in order to exploit a visceral public response. Politicians have to win the hearts and minds of their electorate. If your policy is informed by an underlying moral imperative, be open about what that is, and don’t try to disguise it with a veneer of pseudo-science. We ignore scientific evidence at our peril.
David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, was chairman of the UK government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until he was dismissed last week by the UK home secretary
It’s a message President Obama needs to hear as well. He promised to return us from the George W. Bush presidency’s disdain for rational thought and scientific evidence. Obama promised to base our policies on sound science with respect to global climate change and other issues. But stubbornly, this administration’s drug czar is still out parroting the completely unscientific falsehood that “the raw cannabis plant is certainly not medicine”. Obama himself is laughing off the notion of marijuana legalization as having any economic benefit to cash-strapped states, despite the rational analysis by many prominent economists. And despite the evidence of reduced social farms in the Netherlands, Portugal, and other countries that have experimented with drug decriminalization and tolerance, Obama continues to push a federal policy that relies heavily on interdiction and incarceration.
For over a century now, every time hard scientists, social scientists, economists, and policy experts gather to take a rational and scientific look at marijuana policy, they recommend decriminalization and tolerance or they recognize medical usage of cannabis, from the 1894 British East India survey to the 1942 Laguardia Commission to the 1972 Shaffer Commission to the 1999 Institute of Medicine study. Cannabis can no longer be the exception to the “we believe in science” rule!
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 9:08 pm | By: Radical Russ
OK, before anyone slams me for context, let’s note up front that the medical marijuana ads produced by MPP were rejected for air on stations in California and New York, and the informercial named in the story below is airing on stations in the South that had nothing to do with the medical marijuana ads. So I’m painting with a broad WTF-brush on all television media here, got it?
That said, after this next story, I don’t ever want to read this lame excuse, as submitted by a Stasher from a WABC official:
As a broadcaster licensed by the government, if we accept advertising from one side of an issue, we are required to accept advertising from the opposing side, EVEN IF THAT ADVERTISING IS FALSE, HATE FILLED OR KNOWINGLY DISHONEST. We cannot refuse the ad because the law does not require it to be truthful.
The ONLY way ABC can prevent putting misleading issue oriented advertising on the air is to refuse to air any of it. Please note: In doing so, WABC loses the potential revenue from both sides of these issues, so in refusing the ads, WABC loses money. But the only option ABC has is to air all ads including the misleading and deceitful ones, or air none of them.
Got that? A TV station can’t air a 30-second medical marijuana ad because there is no way of guaranteeing the ad isn’t false, hate-filled, or knowingly dishonest. Keep that in mind as you read up on this 30-minute infomercial from the “birthers” that is airing in seven Southern states:
(TPM Muckraker) A new birther infomercial running on a CBS affiliate in Texas and elsewhere around the country tells viewers a “got a birth certificate?” bumper sticker can be theirs for the low price of $30.
For a $30 contribution, viewers also get a fax sent in their name to the 50 state attorneys general and Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that President Obama produce his real birth certificate.
[The infomercial] promises late-night viewers a “special look at where Barack Hussein Obama was really born.”"Today, you could join hundreds of thousands of other Americans and force President Obama to produce his birth certificate [*foreboding string music*].”
A logo on the screen during the infomercial features the outlines of the United States, the state of Hawaii, and the continent of Africa, with the red-white-and-blue-colored words “Where was PRESIDENT Obama BORN?”
That’s right, if you’re selling anything from the Sham-Wow to a subliminally-racist paranoid conspiracy theory that the president is a foreign-born Manchurian Candidate, there’s a half-hour worth of cheap infomercial time just waiting for you. But if you want to offer thirty seconds of people in pain asking not to be arrested for using a plant to gain relief, you can take that crazy issue-oriented advertising somewhere else!
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 3:54 pm | By: Radical Russ
“What I’m not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue, simply because I want folks to be investigating violent crimes and potential terrorism; we’ve got a lot of things for our law enforcement officers to deal with,” said presidential candidate Barack Obama in a March 2008 interview.
“Given the limited resources that we have, our focus will be on people, organizations that are growing, cultivating substantial amounts of marijuana and doing so in a way that’s inconsistent with federal and state law,” said Attorney General Eric Holder in a March 2009 statement.
(Mercury News) LOS ANGELES—Federal and local agents are raiding at least two marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles but authorities won’t say what they’re seeking. Officials say more than 20 people from various agencies served a state search warrant at around 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Organica Collective in Marina del Rey.
Los Angeles police, the FBI and DEA were still searching the distribution center three hours later.
DEA spokesman Jose Martinez says agents also served the warrant at the Overland Gardens Collective in West Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office says a residence also was named in the warrant.
Well, at least President Obama is fulfilling his other campaign promises, like getting us out of a protracted Middle Eastern war. Oh, right, Afghanistan.
But at least he’s bringing us health care reform. No, wait, better not use that one.
At least he’s holding the past administration accountable for… no, can’t go there.
Reducing the influence of lobbyists in Washington and refusing to have any lobbyists in his administration… uh, no.
Protecting the Constitution from the serious abuses of the previous administration, like warrantless wiretapping… no again.
Bringing Wall Street excesses to an end… ‘fraid not.
Ending the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for the military… uh-uh.
Wait, I know! Cash for Clunkers! There we go!
At NORML, we are a non-partisan organization, and with these new DEA raids, it makes it so much easier for me to move from my personal support of the Democratic Party to political independence. I’ve had it. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. At least with a President McCain, I would have known straight up that he hates medical marijuana and would allow DEA raids to continue instead of being sold a bill of goods about not “circumventing state laws” and then circumventing them anyway.
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 2:18 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Wall Street Journal Law Blog) Fair-use cases are often a blogger’s dream, what with their angry celebrities, well-known (or at least visible) works of art, and strident accusations of theft.
But as much fun as J.D. Salinger, Woody Allen and J.K. Rowling have provided us over the months on the fair-use front, the following just might take the cake as Best Fair-Use Smackdown Ever.
But is it “adulterated enough to comply with the fair use laws?” The standard, a copyright lawyer tells us, is whether there was a “transformative use.” And that doesn’t necessarily mean the image has to be transformed — an image can remain exactly the same and satisfy fair use if the picture is framed in a way that sends a message. In other words, its “use” is transformed. “For example, a Nancy Reagan picture on the poster would send a parodic message,” he says. “This one is a closer call.”
For their annual conference poster, they took an old photo of cool-dude college freshman Obama puffing away — on a regular cigarette, mind you — and tweaked it just ever so slightly to fit their message: “Yes We Cannabis.”
Think it might be a problem for the president (who opposes legalization)? It’s really a problem for the photographer. Lisa Jack, an Obama classmate at Occidental College, snapped the image in 1980, one in a series of photos that never saw the light of day until she debuted them in Time’s 2008 Person of the Year issue. She had no idea her photo had been appropriated by NORML until we told her Tuesday.
“They do not have my permission,” said Jack, a psychology professor in Minnesota. These photos “are absolutely not to be used in this way. … I really made a grand effort to do this properly, and I’m very irritated. If I’d wanted these to be used for political purposes, I’d have sold them to Hillary years ago.”
Jack, whose photos now have a gallery show in L.A., grudgingly admits “it’s really cool” that the images are already iconic enough to steal.
Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:
The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
The nature of the copyrighted work
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work
We are selling the poster, no doubt. But the “we” in question is a non-profit educational foundation. It is obviously a political satire meant as a criticism and comment about President Obama continuing the failed policy of cannabis prohibition. It promotes a conference presented for the education of cannabis activists and the general public.
Original Lisa Jack Photo
Besides, look at the original picture. It is obvious to anyone looking at it that Obama appears to be smoking a joint. I’ve received numerous emails from readers when I first displayed the photo asking me whether the object was in fact a joint. We felt that the original was simply begging for someone to point this out, so we did. We understand that Jack might be irritated by someone defacing her work, but that’s what “fair use” is all about.
Here we have a Photoshopped Barack Obama head, which must have come from someone’s copyrighted photo, pasted onto Steve Carrell’s body in a “40-Year-Old Virgin” movie poster that I’m pretty sure is copyrighted. But it’s obviously a political satire.
MAD Magazine Phelps satire
Here we have a shot of Michael Phelps in the pool, probably a copyrighted shot, with a joint Photoshopped in (like the NORML poster) and the service marks of High Times Magazine. Oh, and a Harold & Kumar shot as well. But it is a parody.
One big difference, though, is that MAD Magazine is not a non-profit entity.
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 9:20 am | By: Radical Russ
(Politico 44) Something to look out for in Wednesday’s health care town hall: the White House will be choosing the online questions …
… for the president, rather than letting web users vote to select them.
In March, the White House designated questions through an online voting process. When users flooded the site with support for questions about marijuana legalization, it put White House aides in an awkward position. In the end, a drug-related [question] was asked and Obama laughed it off.
Yeah, because if we’re going to talk about this nation’s health care crisis, the last thing we want to do is bring up marijuana. Thirteen states have come up with a novel method of improving their health care by allowing citizens to treat themselves with non-toxic marijuana that is safer than every other drug and more effective than most. Wouldn’t want to bring that up in light of the FDA calling for bans on Vicodin and Percocet, would we?
In this time of economic crisis where states are being forced to trim public health services, we wouldn’t want to mention that these medical marijuana programs in the thirteen states are, by-and-large, self-funded programs that don’t cost the taxpayer a cent. In the case of my home state of Oregon, our program was actually made over $1,000,000 for the taxpayers by using medical marijuana fee money to balance other health and human services budgets.
When the greatest cause of hospital deaths are bacterial infections like MRSA, which cost nearly $10 billion a year, and they are evolving to become resistant to most anti-bacterials, we wouldn’t want to bring up the fact that recent studies show cannabinoids to be a superior anti-bacterial agent against super-bugs like MRSA.
I mean, we wouldn’t want to make anyone feel awkward, would we?
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 6:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Some words of wisdom from Franklin Roosevelt, as told by Hillary Clinton to Rabbi Michael Lerner:
If there had been more space in the Politico.com I would have told the story that Hillary Clinton told me when I met with her in the White House: that when FDR met with labor leaders in 1934, after four hours of meeting, he said the following: “You’ve convinced me that you are right. Now, go out there and FORCE ME TO DO IT.” What he meant, Hillary explained to me, was that the pressures on a President to stay with the status quo and the forces of the economic and political elites of the country are enormous, so that even when a President wishes to move in a different direction, he needs to be able to point to forces from the progressive world that are equally vociferous and pushing him in the direction he wished to go.
So, those who say, “Don’t criticize Obama, because he is such a decent person, so smart, and obviously wants the right things” are missing the point: OBAMA NEEDS TO BE PUSHED FROM THE PROGRESSIVE WORLD IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO BE WHO HE WANTS TO BE. He needs our support in this way.
An object in motion tends to stay in motion; an object at rest tends to stay at rest. What is true for elementary physics is true in politics. It has to be more politically harmful to oppose legalization of marijuana than to support it before most politicians will be on our side. It is not enough for us to be right; we must be LOUD.
This is more than just calling President Obama at 202-456-1111 and demanding that he commute the sentence of Eddy Lepp (but by all means, call!)
It’s calling your two federal senators and federal representative.
It’s calling your governor, state senator, state representative, mayor, and city council.
It’s standing proud and loud as an out cannabis consumer and encouraging others to do so.
It’s finding which companies drug test and boycotting them and letting their HR departments know about it.
It’s boycotting companies like Kellogg’s when they give in to reefer madness.
It’s attending the trials of our brothers and sisters being imprisoned for what we do as well.
It’s marching in the Global Marijuana March and picketing whomever and whenever there is a cannabis related tragedy.
It’s donating money to our organizations and the politicians who are brave enough to support us.
It’s writing letters to the editor of your local paper (the most read section of the news, by the way).
It’s supporting third parties, like the Greens and Libertarians, who support our agenda, or pushing pro-cannabis platforms for the Democrats and Republicans from within the party apparatus.
It’s correcting obvious reefer madness spouted by your friends or coworkers.
It’s promoting tolerance and forgiveness as preached by your religion to the members of your faith concerning cannabis.
It’s kicking your habit to pop an acetaminophen or aspirin for every little ache and pain.
It’s protesting TV shows that portray us negatively (like that FOX new show , “Glee”, that had an ex-teacher lying to get medical marijuana, dealing it to non cardholders, another teacher being high on it during school, and the protagonist using it to extort a star jock to join the glee club.)
And, if you can afford it, it’s non-violent civil disobedience, like announcing that you and one hundred others will be on the capitol steps at noon in possession of .05g of marijuana each and forcing them to arrest you while the news cameras are running, or passing out thousands of fake joints at a public event along with a flier that reads “Congratulations! You just received one of 10,000 fake joints, absolutely free of marijuana. Or maybe you received the one real marijuana joint we added to the sack of 10,000 fake ones. If so, you could spend a year in prison and pay a $5,000 fine.”
Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 2:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in San Francisco Monday sentenced a Lake County man to 10 years in prison for growing more than 1,000 marijuana plants, saying the marijuana activist appeared to “want to be a martyr for the cause.”
The sentence for Charles “Eddy” Lepp, 56, was the mandatory minimum under federal law for growing more than 1,000 plants.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel said Lepp didn’t qualify for a so-called “safety valve” exception with a lesser sentence because he testified at his trial last fall that he was a proud leader of others who grew marijuana on his land.
Patel told Lepp, “I think Mr. Lepp is very proud of what he’s been doing. The problem is that now unfortunately, Mr. Lepp, it’s caught up with you.”
“Maybe you want to be martyr for the cause,” Patel said. “That will be your lot.”
The U.S. law doesn’t allow the safety-valve exception for people who are leaders of drug crimes.
Patel said she thought the length of the sentence was excessive, but said it would be up to Congress to change the law.
I’ve been working in marijuana law reform now for four years. Eddy Lepp is the first activist I’ve known personally to become a prisoner of drug war. I last spoke with Eddy last September at our Portland Hempstalk:
To know that this gentle man is going to prison for a decade at age 56 makes me physically ill. This religious man who so bravely helped so many sick and dying and sense-threatened Californians find relief through the medicine grown on his land is going to spend more time in prison than the average rapist, manslaughterer, and child molester because our country has not yet overcome its prudish impulse to punish people for moral reasons.
President Obama, you can commute his sentence. With the stroke of a pen, you can see that Rev. Eddy Lepp receives no more punishment for being convicted of growing plants for sick people than Scooter Libby received for felony convictions of obstruction of justice, perjury (twice), and providing false statements to federal investigators. Eddy Lepp’s felony conviction will still stand, but we will save the taxpayers the unnecessary burden of feeding, clothing, and housing a man who is no threat to society.
Or you could do the truly just thing, Mr. President, and pardon Eddy Lepp, removing all prison punishment and the felony convictions, seeing as Eddy Lepp was forbidden from entering any real sort of defense to the charges, since federal courts do not allow testimony regarding California’s medical use law.
I just cannot stomach the notion that people that ordered torture are getting away with it, people that greedily sacked Wall Street are getting away with it, and the guy that ordered 9/11 has gotten away with it, but one middle-aged Rastafarian minister who grows medical marijuana must be punished according to strict adherence to the “rule of law”. President Obama: FREE EDDY LEPP!
Call President Obama at 202-456-1111 and tell him to FREE EDDY LEPP!
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 2:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
"Rethink and Decriminalize..." Doesn't everybody want to be NORML? (credit K.B.)
This is your chance to tell the White House what you think about the Government’s long-standing refusal to acknowledge the medical benefits of cannabis and its obstruction of medical cannabis research.
The U.S Department of Health and Human Services must correct statements disseminated on federal websites and in the Federal Register that falsely declare that cannabis “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.”
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration must accept the Administrative Law Judge Bittner’s February 2007 Opinion and Recommended Ruling in the matter of Lyle E. Craker, Ph.D., Docket No. 05-16, to grant a competitive bulk-manufactures license to establish a privately-funded facility to cultivate cannabis exclusively for clinical research.
The U.S. Department of Justice must remove cannabis from the list of Schedule I controlled substances in light of a growing body of research, including four double-blind placebo controlled clinical trials, which supports the therapeutic use of cannabis and in accordance with DEA’s own 1988 Administrative Law ruling in which Judge Young opined that “the provisions of the CSA permit and require the transfer of cannabis from schedule I to schedule II.”
Tell Obama to Stand for Scientific Integrity in Medical Cannabis, Too!
“President Obama has made it clear that his administration will hold science over political ideology and value the input of people like you.
Last month, the President signed a Memorandum on Scientific Integrity affirming that policy decisions that are made are done so with facts and data, not political agendas. And now the Office of Technology and Science Policy (OTSP), the agency responsible for overseeing the scientific integrity pledge, created a way for you to provide feedback.
There is a scientific consensus that cannabis can control symptoms of serious and chronic illness. In the past decade alone, clinical research has demonstrated that cannabis and its constituents can safely and effectively treat nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, pain and spasticity. And a growing body of literature suggests that cannabis may hold the key to unlocking new treatments for HIV/AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, cancer, and many other conditions. Year after year, the research has been twisted or ignored to suit a political ideology.
The federal government is lying when it states that the therapeutic use of cannabis has no accepted medical value in treatment in the United States.”
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 11:20 am | By: Radical Russ
Ooh, 600lbs of weed, what a successful bust! And the Mexican drug lords tremble!
Say no more!
But this gives me an idea. You know how some people take an ink stamp that says “I Grew Hemp” in cartoon balloon form and stamp it next to George Washington’s picture on the dollar bill, or an ink stamp of a pot leaf on their other paper currency? It’s nothing I would recommend, since defacing federal currency is illegal, but it is an interesting protest to let people know how much buying power the cannabis community has (and to inform people about Washington’s hemp farming).
Here's a graphic that ought to fit nicely on Avery 5160 shipping labels
So how about labeling baggies of weed with a sticker that says “OBAMA 1978″? The 1978 is my guess as to the last time President Obama smoked weed, since he mentions smoking “in his teenage years”. He was 17 in 1978 and this was before he moved to Los Angeles to attend Occidental College. If you get busted with your “OBAMA 1978″ bag, just tell police you’ve been holding it for Barry for 31 years.
Imagine that bust making the evening news and some anchor explaining the meaning behind “OBAMA 1978″…
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. […]
Recently sacked UK drugs advisor: “We ignore scientific evidence at our peril.”
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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