Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-01-05

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-01-05.mp3)

Wow, we made it to 2009.  Seems like only yesterday I was a tie-wearing geek sitting in a seminar about the upcoming information technological dangers coming from the dreaded Y2K bug.  1999 was ten years ago, man!  Remember how we all used to listen to that Prince song over and over and how the UN was talking about eradicating all drugs by now?  Yeah, good times.

For today’s Stash we pick up with musician Nice Peter down in LA.  He’s donated some of his music to the Stash and now he’s looking to make it big in Southern California.  We’ll see if we can get Tere Joyce to catch up with him for a report sometime.

Also we’re reviewing the official Top Ten Events in Cannabis from NORML – our final Top Ten list of the year.

Here they all are in one post for your New Years Eve party pleasure.  Use the links below to get caught up on the candidates for the Inaugural 2008 Stashie Awards, which will be awarded to your top vote getters in the following categories: 

• Top Reefer Madness Story
• Top Stupid Stoner Story
• Top Stoner Movie
• Top Stash Podsafe Music (listen below)

The ballots are after the break.  For those of you who voted early, before I standardized the “pick the top five out of ten” format, uh, sorry.  If you’re really concerned about it, log on to the Stash from another computer or find an eleven-year-old to delete our cookie from your system.  Voting ends January 31, 2009 (my birthday!)
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Here they are, culled from all the crazy, misinformed, and outright lies spouted by media and government regarding cannabis, our Top Ten Reefer Madness Stories of 2008!  It was tough to cut it down to only ten, so I concentrated on presenting the craziest story in each subject (for example, only one “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” story out of dozens.)  Again, like Dave Letterman, it makes more sense to read from bottom to top.

1. “Stoners in the Mist” – More prejudiced propaganda from ONDCP:  While it didn’t debut in 2008, I first discovered it and covered it in 2008, and it’s my list.  This is more shocking waste of taxpayer dollars and a grossly disturbing, deeply offensive bit of drug czar propaganda that casts “stoners” as wild game to be tracked in their habitat by a pith-helmet-wearing Marlin Perkins wannabe and a tracking-collar wielding assistant.  Various segments spread lies and distortions about cannabis users while continually degrading us as filthy, dangerous, inhuman beasts that should be rounded up like vermin and subject to experiments.  A new low, even by Reefer Madness standards.
2. Black girls using marijuana prone to riskier sex, higher STD rate:  See, for white girls, it’s wine coolers and a Girls Gone Wild cameraman.  This study found that young African-American women who take the risk of using marijuana also seem to take the risk of having sex.  They make no effort to address other factors than might lead to higher STD rates, like less health insurance or health care access or health education.  They also find no difference in condom usage, so it seems obvious something else is at play here.
3. Senator Tom Harkin: Marijuana Makes People Sell Their Children:  A NORML member wrote to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and asked about marijuana legalization.  Harkin’s reply included such laughers as:  ”Marijuana is often the drug singled out for legalization. However, marijuana is not the recreational drug that many believe it to be…. The victims of the drug war are many – the small child whose parents are so addicted to illegal drugs that they sell everything including perhaps their own children to obtain a fix…”
4. Oral sex and marijuana use linked to throat cancer:  Where does one sign up for these kinds of studies?  This was a study that explored the human papilloma virus (HPV), and found that those who used more marijuana and had more oral sex partners had more cases of HPV.  This may explain why President Bill Clinton never inhaled.  I guess the moral to this story is that if you’re going to smoke a lot, stick to one or the other.
5. Florida Rep. proposes “bong tax”:  Rep. Rouson of Florida just slipped in yesterday to nab the #5 spot with his ridiculous idea to add a “sin tax” to “drug paraphernalia”, which Florida law defines so loosely as to not only include bongs and pipes, but alligator clips, two-liter soda bottles, and duct tape.  Rouson then gets loonier by suggesting he’d amend the bill to only tax “drug uses” of duct tape, not legitimate handiworkers… how, exactly?  By length of hair?
6. Marijuana in Molalla: Return of the ‘Gateway Drug’:  A billboard paid for by your tax dollars just outside of Portland, Oregon:
   
7. Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain parts:  Like I said at NORML CON, at least it doesn’t shrink any other parts!  Again those Australians, this time they found that fifteen blokes who smoked five or more joints a day for twenty years had slightly smaller amygdala and hippocampus volume in the brain than non-smokers.  They never consider that perhaps 15 blokes who had smaller brain parts were self-medicating to deal with this deficit, which they claimed leads to poor memory, mild psychosis, and paranoia
8. Cannabis drove UK mother insane and to suicide!:  The actual headline is “Cannabis-smoking mum stabbed herself to death”, and it’s about a psychotic woman who’s been actively suicidal since age 14 and hears the voice of her dog commanding her.  The weeks before she stabbed herself repeatedly in the chest with a 5″ knife she had slashed her wrists and hung a noose in the attic.  What you don’t learn until you read deeper into the article is that the woman was also a daily speed freak.
9. Lithium may help kick marijuana habit:  Australian researchers noted that giving “pot addicts” the heavy psychotropic drug lithium, usually used for severe bi-polar disorder.  I noted that when the lithium gives you the side effects of nausea, vomiting, trembling, twitching, loss of appetite, or headache, at least you could treat that with medical marijuana.
10. Cannabis on sale in Ireland now eight times stronger:  One of many of the “Pot 2.0″ / “skunk” scare stories out there, which have estimated the THC potency of cannabis to be anywhere from eight to 400 times more potent than the “grass” of the sixties.  Even the European governments say potency has remained stable at about 6%-8%, and their US counterparts say it’s doubled from about 4.5% to 9.6%.  Nobody ever seems to address why 100% potent sythetic THC pills are legal, though.

Here is my compilation of the Top Ten Stupid Stoner Stories of 2008.  Remember, these stories aren’t meant to denigrate the users of cannabis, they are meant to be teachable moments to the community on what not to do.  (Like the David Letterman Top Ten, you should read these in reverse order.) [UPDATE: Bumped for New Years Eve and poll edited to allow Top 5 voting -- "R"R]

1. Miss Teen Louisiana loses crown over pot:  This entry takes #1 not just for the stupidity of the actions but the high profile of the stupidity.  The blonde beauty queen is already a stereotype for dumb, but this young woman made the list by skipping out on a $46 lunch tab with three friends.  She left behind her purse, which contained some cannabis, and when she returned to retrieve it, the police were waiting to arrest her for cannabis and for dine-n-dash!
2. Betting with Weed:  …and that would be a casino.  Click the link and you can see the security footage of a man in California throwing a bag of cannabis on the blackjack table as his bet.  Then, when the dealer gives him the WTF look, he takes back the bag and just dumps out a couple of buds.  I guess he figures he was at a 2-gram betting limit table.
3. Kansas man sentenced for throwing marijuana into jail:  Now we’re getting close to the stupidest thing I can imagine.  This man was trying to get cannabis into the jail for his friend by throwing it over the jail fence.  Because, you know, there’d never be a camera watching the jail fence.  I can only think of one place more heavily watched than a jail…
4. Pot deal text message sent accidentally to cop leads to arrests:  There is a whole class of Stupid Stoner Stories that involve people forgetting that cell phones, text messaging, email, and regular mail can often be intercepted, accidentally or on purpose, by the authorities.
5. Man mooned crowd only minutes after being released on marijuana charge:  It’s a bit unfair to call this a Stupid Stoner Story, because the man admits to a drinking problem and claims to have been drunk, but I just couldn’t resist a story where a guy is released on bail for possession of cannabis and then ten minutes later is baring his ass in the public square.
6. Man returned burgers, marijuana to Dairy Queen:  And this example is the opposite of the previous one, where a cannabis consumer buys some fast food, throws his cannabis in the bag with the burgers to make it all easier to carry, but then realizes he got the wrong burger order and takes it back to the restaurant, forgetting his cannabis was still in the bag.
7. Taco customer finds marijuana in takeout bag:  Another example of the entrepreneurial weed dealer who decides to combine their drive-through fast-food job with cannabis distribution.  Unfortunately this dealer placed the delivery in the wrong customer’s bag and got arrested when the customer called the cops.
8. NH mom calls cops on son, ends up under arrest:  This is a variation on the previous theme, where people allow police to search without a warrant, knowing they have contraband on the premises.  This woman in New Hampshire calls the cops to bust her son for drugs when she allows them to search the home and they find cannabis in her bedroom.
9. Easy to spot pot nets charges in Sheboygan robbery:  This is a consistent theme in these Stupid Stoner Stories – police arresting someone because the cannabis or the bong is right out in the open where they don’t need a warrant to see it.  This guy calls the cops because his apartment was robbed but he forgot to put away the pot!
10. Marijuana bales fall out of semi truck:  Poor guy.  This wasn’t so much stupid as it was unlucky.  He’s hauling bales of cannabis in a “belly dumper”, those angled-bottom type of truck the usually haul gravel.  The belly doors opened for an unknown reason and dumped a couple of bales onto the parking lot of the truck stop.

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-12-30

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-12-30.mp3)

Today’s Stash features the Top Ten Stash Podsafe Music Songs of 2008, as determined by me because I really really liked ‘em.  You can voice your opinion below: