Harper government to unveil get-tough national drug strategy

I am not in the least surprised to discover that our "Health Minister" Tony Clement has just recently promised to unleash a get-tough war-on-drugs approach to fight the problems caused by drug abuse. The Conservative government showed it's opposition to sensible drug policies when it killed the Liberals' weak and mealy-mouthed marijuana decrim bill in 2004. The decrim bill was introduced in response to the Senate Committee report from 2001 that recommended the legalization of marijuana. Legalization would mean allowing cannabis to be regulated and sold in a similar manner to alcohol and cigarettes. Conservatives howled with outrage at the idea of legalization and the Liberals came up with a decrim bill that would increase the penalties for growers while at the same time decreasing the penalties for end users.

Since Clement is a knob he has a ridiculous and easily refuted set of talking points:

"There's been a lot of mixed messages going out about illicit drugs," Mr. Clement said in an interview Saturday after a symposium designed to bring together Canada's arts and health communities to combat mental health issues.

There's also a health-care cost element to suggesting to young people that using illicit drugs is OK, the minister said.

"The fact of the matter is they're unhealthy," Mr. Clement said.

"They create poor health outcomes."

Whether illegal drugs are dangerous or not is not the issue. Every illegal drug has different health effects on the human body, ranging from relatively benign in the case of marijuana to potentially deadly, in the case of crystal meth. What is disputed is the impact of the war on drugs. Drugs are cheaper and more potent than ever, thanks to prohibition. The law supports a thriving black market economy and wastes our resources. Despite the hard work of drug policy reform groups and the ignored Senate Report, the government has not yet figured it out. Prohibition is a complete and total failure.

At any rate, talk of sensible drug policy looks to be a thing of the past. The Globe and Mail looks at both sides of the drug policy debate and this is what opponents of the tough on crime measures have to say:

Dr. Martin says he's all for increasing penalties for people who sell illegal drugs, including gangsters, but wonders why the Tories would want to target users when he says similar strategies in other countries haven't worked.

"I can't understand why the Conservatives are embracing a war-on-drugs approach that has proven to fail," he said.

"By all means, go after the pushers. By all means, absolutely go after the organized crime gangs that are the real parasites in this situation," he added.

"But for heaven's sake, treat the user as a medical problem and adopt the solutions that have proven to work in other countries."

They couldn't find a single MP to state that the war on drugs is a failure. Where are the voices of politicians that think the whole thing stinks and legalize all drugs? What a bunch of cowardly, ineffectual, brainwashed knobs.

I despair at this upcoming federal election. My choices are going to be between dumb and dumber. Should I vote NDP or Green Party? Maybe I should just start my own country.

Drug Link Round-Up

Sorry for my lack of posting. I have no brilliant excuse, I just haven't had much to say lately. Anyway, here are the stories that have been catching my eye recently:

Canada signs on to fight poppy trade. Canadian troops will be helping drug-eradication efforts in Afghanistan. It is no secret that the opium crop has been increasing over the years, thanks to the poverty and the instability in the country. Poor farmers are increasingly turning to the opium trade to feed their families. There is one thing that both drug warriors and drug policy reformers agree on:

"Breaking this linkage [between drugs production and insurgent financing] is vital to creating a stable, prosperous and democratic, Afghanistan ..." says the communique, released after the closed-door gathering.

But drug policy reformers and drug warriors will never agree on the solution to the problem. I am increasingly disgusted by the way the International community refuses to see how the drug war is helping terrorist groups and failing to see that increased enforcement will increase the harm caused by drugs. What we need to do is legalize it. If we want to help the people of Afghanistan we should be buy the opium crops and use the opium for pain-killing medicine. We should legalize all of the opium that is being grown everywhere and get away from this ridiculous domination mentality which is ruining the planet.

And more stupidity! Britain is caught in the grip of reefer madness as there are continual reports of children being trafficked into the underground cannabis trade. The New Zealand Herald refers to these kids as cannabis slaves. I haven't read such ridiculous reefer madness since Emily Murphy's The Black Candle when she stated that:

"When coming from under the influence of (marijuana), the victims present the most horrible condition imaginable. They are dispossessed of their natural and normal willpower, and their mentality is that of idiots. If this drug is indulged to any great extent, it ends in the untimely death of its addict."

These cannabis slaves are apparently being forced to tend to these cannabis poison gardens. They have to water the plants and have to deal with the electrical dangers of grow-ops. You know this article is absolutely crazy reefer madness when you get to this prize quote:

Police believe organised crime gangs, largely Vietnamese, have moved quickly to dominate Britain's cannabis market after declassification in 2004 increased the potential rewards of growing and selling the drug and decreased the risks of punishment.

There is no reason to believe that the dangerous criminal gangs benefit from decriminalization in any way, as it is still illegal to grow or sell cannabis in the UK. There are simply decreased penalties for users. In fact, the criminal gangs benefit greatly from this situation and if the government wants to seriously harm the gangs, they simply have to put cannabis in the legitimate drug market. If you can buy cannabis at the corner store, there is no reason to buy it on the black market. This would have the added benefit of saving the children from the horrors of being cannabis slaves. Look at that, I have saved the children and a whole lot of money in one fell swoop.

829,625

That is the number of marijuana arrests in America every year.

The New Prince of Pot

THE Prince of Wales will today open the only public garden in Britain to be allowed to grow cannabis.

The Prince will officially open the second phase of The Alnwick Garden, in Alnwick, Northumberland, which includes the UK's only public poison garden, growing plants such as cannabis and coca under lock and key.

I resent these jerks that are calling this a "poison" garden. In a sane world this would be the garden of wonderful, healing medicine. And it wouldn't be restricted to people better than us low-class scum royalty.

Prince Charles spent $82.4 million US (or Canadian, take that economy!) on this garden. How much do a few fluorescent lights in a closet and some 'ponics cost anyway? I could have dug that out of the back of my closet and had Charles hooked up in no time.

Here is a link to some pics of the garden. I didn't see any pot plants anywhere, so I am very disappointed.

Look at all the drugs we seized

I never get tired of reading news stories about the number of drugs/marijuana plants that have been seized and kept out of the hands of young innocents and therefore the War on Drugs is a great victory. This idea is a theme running through many if not all drug war news stories. Every drug bust gets closer to the alleged goal of the War on Drugs: complete eradication.

Here is yet another one of these stories and the lies and misinformation should be readily apparent to the reader. Alas, in a reefer madness saturated universe, the reader will be forgiven if he or she requires Tanya-the-know-it-all blogger to point out truths which will become obvious. Take this news article from the Guelph Mercury Newspaper. The headline proclaims:

Regional Pot Bust Scores 5,552 Plants

As if the eradication of 5,552 plants means anything when it comes to the War on Drugs. I wonder how much marijuana is grown, harvested and sold in a year. Does anybody know? Because it is pretty difficult to determine the availability of an illegal, black market substance. Maybe I should pull 5,552 dandelions out of my garden and write a newspaper story declaring victory in the war on garden weeds. We don't need to know the size of the market or the number of weeds in existence to know whether our efforts are having an impact!

No drug war news story would be complete without an estimation of the street value of the crop.

Sergeant Cam Croal of the RCMP drug section said the plants had a street value of between $3.5 million and $5 million.

But no mention of where that number comes from or an acknowledgment that the drug war is what makes these substances so valuable in the first place.

I do think it would be a great idea if we took the advice at the end of the article and helped the police out with some handy Crime-Stopper tips. If you know of anybody in possession of a roach clip or a roach, be sure to give Crime-Stoppers a call. They need your help!

Croal encouraged anyone with information about illegal drugs to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

Because remember kids, teens smoking pot is the greatest security risk in the universe and it must be stopped. So be sure to give them a call and tell them all about the marijuana-using terrorists.

This has been the latest edition of Recognizing Reefer Madness and Pro-Drug War Propaganda.

Uncle Tom Chris Rock

While it is true that I hate Uncle Toms like Bill Cosby and Chris Rock with an undying passion, I did enjoy this anti-drug war screed.



Just don't watch anything else that he does. It is absolutely terrible and the fact that Rock is famous makes me fear for the future of the universe. He really really hates bitches women.

Why am I watching this garbage? I was over at Drug War Rant and read about the lack of opposition to the war on drugs in the black community and I did a Chris Rock search on youtube. I will go wash myself in bleach now, thanks.

For some prize quotes about the racial basis of the drug laws, go here. This is my "favorite" quote:

"If a peaceable red man is subjected to the regular use of alcoholic beverage, he will speedily be put back to the plane of the savage. The Government long since recognized this and absolutely prohibits the introduction of alcoholic beverage into an Indian reservation. If a negro takes up a regular use of alcoholic beverage, in a short time he will degenerate to the level of the cannibal. No matter how high the stage of evolution, the result is the same."

Busting Grow-ops a Success!

If it's in the newspaper it has to be true. Surrey's recent success at eradicating grow-ops has been all the rage in the BC newspapers these days.

Surrey Expects to Be Grow-Op Free by the end of the year!

Busting Grow-Ops a Success so far!

Is the drug war actually succeeding or is this just more reefer madness propaganda? I am sorry to disappoint all the drug warriors out there, but there is no reason to believe that the city of Surrey will succeed in eradicating the grow-ops. All of us cannabis consumers can breathe a sigh of relief.

You see, they come to their erroneous conclusion that there are fewer grow-ops due to the fact that they have gone after home-owners with suspiciously high electricity consumption. The problem is that it is quite easy to bypass the electrical meter and get your electricity for free. I can thank my university prof for telling me all about it in that electrical engineering class that I failed out of. I wonder if he had a few plants in his closet. Fortunately, cannabis consumers and growers don't always live up to the dopey, stoner stereotype. They can read the newspaper and learn that grow-ops will be targeted and will take measures to protect their crops. Shocking, I know.

These stories rely on the underlying assumption that eliminating grow-ops would be a wonderful thing for all of humanity. Of course, for those of us who know about all the beneficial medical and recreational uses for marijuana, nothing can be further from the truth. I doubt that all those patients that find relief for their medical problems would be happy to know that their medicine has been eliminated from the planet.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with marijuana and there is no reason or all the hysteria surrounding the use of this plant.

If you want to get rid of dangerous grow-ops it's simple. Legalize it and let people grow it where ever they want.

Wanda Sykes on Same-Sex Marriage

I read about the Gubernator vetoing same-sex marriage over at Feministing. Of course they posted a funny video of Wanda Sykes making fun of the anti-gay people.

But this post has nothing to do with that. As I was watching this video I laughed along with her bit about banning alcohol. She makes the typical jokes about her alcoholism. This makes me think a bit. If I ever become funny enough to become a comedian, will it be acceptable for me to make wake and bake jokes? Because I don't abuse a socially acceptable substance, I can't yet go there. *sigh*

ACLU will sue to halt teacher drug testing

Good news from Hawaii. Last year, the teachers were pressured into signing a contract that made drug-testing mandatory. Now the ACLU is suing to show their opposition to the teacher drug-testing proposal. I just wish they would or could do the same for students. Why should anybody be subjected to the pee police?

Drug-testing is one of those ideas that looks great on paper but is fraught with difficulty in practice. Most people don't realize that drug-testing is expensive, inaccurate, does not test for impairment or job performance and is an invasion of privacy. Luckily, we Canadians don't yet have to worry about this issue but who knows when we will be next. I always thought we were free of nut-job pro-lifers until I read this. If Americans do it, you can guarantee we will do it eventually.

And like I always say, if the only way you can identify drug users is by subjecting their pee to analysis in a lab, how bad can their drug problem really be?

A Cure for Cancer?

AMHERST — A Maccan-area man who says marijuana cures cancer admitted Thursday he grew marijuana on his property, turned it into an oil and distributed the oil free of charge to people fighting a variety of diseases.

However, Ricky Logan Simpson, 57, told the jury hearing his Nova Scotia Supreme Court trial on three drug charges that he should not be considered a criminal because the laws forbidding the possession, growing and distribution of marijuana are unconstitutional.

Simpson goes on to makes some extraordinary but truthful claims about the pharmaceutical industry. There is no reason to believe that they are doing everything that they can to fight cancer. We still have next-to-no access to legal medical marijuana but plenty of people that are self-medicating. It is funny to me that it's quite acceptable to self-medicate with drugs like ibuprofen and Sudafed. It is very possible to damage your liver by overdosing on ibuprofen but it's legal and we even give it to our kids to treat their fevers when they are sick. If we can do that then why can't we self-medicate with a harmless weed? Because the pharmaceutical industry would lose money and they own our politicians. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence available to prove that medical marijuana can be very helpful. I have read about many cancer and AIDS patients that were helped by the use of marijuana. I have a friend that uses it to treat her epilepsy but is unable to find a doctor to sign her papers to get her license to possess approved. Only 32 people in Saskatchewan have access to legal med pot, despite the fact that I easily know over 32 people that use pot for medical purposes.

All I can say is that I wish Ricky Simpson good luck in his fight against the over-zealous prohibition warriors that charged him possessing less than 30 grams of marijuana, possessing less than three kilograms of cannabis resin for the purpose of trafficking and unlawfully producing marijuana. He is challenging the constitutionality of our drug laws.

Time for some Viral Marketing

I found this over at DrugWarRant.

The Price of Pot

Here you can see the wonderful result of pot prohibition - elevated prices for an easy to grow weed. Luckily for me, Canada has pretty cheap pot prices, at just under 10 bucks a gram. This probably won't last long, what with the government's brand new up and coming anti-drug campaign. I wish they would hurry up and get on with it so that I can get started making fun of it. Hey, why should I wait to make fun of the government? I might as well try and do it right now.

Did you know that Canada has not run a serious or significant anti-drug campaign in twenty years? It's time that we followed in the footsteps of the small, brown south and cracked down on drugs. The Americans' anti-drug campaign worked so well that they now have more drug users than ever. I will now make up statistics to prove myself right.

Actually, drug use is completely unrelated to any anti-drug campaigns and is currently fashionable right now, just like marketing strip-pole Barbie to 8 year old girls. If they really want to reduce drug use they have to make it uncool. Show pictures of little old ladies in wheelchairs using pot for their aches and pains. There is nothing cool about that. If it worked in the Netherlands, it can work here.

I would love nothing more than for teenagers to give up smoking pot because it is something that only uncool, sick old people do. That would be sweet. Ruining drugs for teenagers is my life-long ambition.

Pot Saves Troops from Death in Afghanistan

I thought the headline to this story could use a re-write. They wrote:

MARIJUANA-SMOKING TROOPS BANNED FROM AFGHANISTAN

Don't bother reading this story. It's another whine about all the bad drug users in Canada. What on earth is wrong with getting high? I just ate a bag of chips. I experienced pleasure because of complex chemical reactions in my brain, meaning I am riding away on my chip high. I just hope that my employer isn't going to start drug-testing for chip metabolites because that would really suck.

Happy 9/11

I was as pissed as anybody else when the towers were destroyed. I will never forget the day that I turned on CNN at 7:30 in the morning and saw that the first tower had been wrecked. As I watched, the second tower was struck.

What was I thinking on 9/11?

Here comes World War III.

That hasn't happened yet, but thousands of Iraqis and Americans have since been killed. So I wasn't far off.

Support the Troops

Do you support the troops?

I found this at Shakesville.

I am feeling outraged

There are just so many stupid and evil things that make me mad about 156 times a day. Firstly, I witnessed Oprah featuring strip-pole do-it-yourself sexaylishious empowerfulment crap. I just can't stop myself from feeling frequently outraged.

But this racist crap in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is too much.

Everybody recognizes that most homicides in town are black-on-black crime. But some also believe the frustrating inability to get things under control is linked to the refusal of African-American residents living in violent neighborhoods to help cops put the bad guys behind bars.

Apparently Those people are responsible for all the crime. I suppose our blatantly racist culture with its' glorification of violence and drug culture has nothing to do with it. Most of that racist rap music is bought by white people and sold by Uncle Toms.

Where is the analysis about the uneven application of the drug laws? Despite the fact that the rate of drug use does not differ based on race, people of color are over-represented in the jails. The drug laws support a corrupt system that benefits the pharmaceutical industry and the prison-industrial complex at the expense of black and poor communities.

This whole article misses the entire point and it misses out on why the "Stop Snitching" movement is so popular. The police and our criminal justice system are corrupt from top-to-bottom. Rape is under-reported and under-prosecuted and now the media is clearly on the side of rapists, thanks to the NiFong fallout of the good-ole-boys-will-be-boys case. Of course a group full of boys that pay a black prostitute to strip are completely innocent darlings. The justice system goes after drug users and potheads, not dangerous criminals. The police would way rather bust a pot grow-op than deal with the global scourge of domestic violence. They are part of the problem.

Do you think I would report a fellow pot-smoker for the crime of smoking the wrong plants? Of course not. Would I report a violent criminal? (For all the good that might do?) Yes I would.

Even those people are capable of understanding the difference between a violent crime and a harmless act that the government considers a crime. Read the rest of the article and be prepared to experience your head exploding thanks to the reckless promotion of dangerous, hackneyed stereotypes.

The Winnipeg Free Press is at it again.

More reefer madness from the Free Press.

But she said part of the problem with marijuana is a perception among young people that the drug is less harmful and addictive than cigarettes.

That perception exists because it is true. Pot is less addictive and less harmful than cigarettes. Get a copy of the Senate Report and do some learning.

We don't give our kids enough credit

The Winnipeg Free Press is at it again. They are clutching their pearls and hitting the fainting couch because kids are smart enough to prefer marijuana to tobacco and alcohol. Just have a look at these prize quotes:

Smoking Pot Is More Popular Than Puffing On Tobacco: Study

A new study that concludes Canadian teens smoke more marijuana than cigarettes doesn't surprise Manitoba addiction officials.

An increasing rate of marijuana smoking among young people is just one finding in a report about substance report released Wednesday. Researchers say the report should serve as a "call to action" to parents.

Those parents should be celebrating! Their kids are making a smart choice to stay away from cigarettes and go for "dope" instead. The only dopes are the ones that wrote this completely one-sided and biased article. I guess the authors don't realize that pot doesn't cause cancer, is less addictive than coffee and is far safer than alcohol or tobacco.

"We're not trying to say to these kids: 'don't use', because that doesn't necessarily work. What we're saying is, understand the risks associated with ( pot ) use, and hopefully that will lead to less use," he says.

This is wrong on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin. The reason pot is so popular has nothing to do with drug education at all. Pot is cool right now because drugs are like fashion - they go in and out of style all the time. Teaching kids the truth about pot is not going to discourage them from smoking it because the truth is that pot isn't very dangerous. It doesn't cause cancer, and everything causes cancer. If you want to discourage kids from smoking pot, we have to make it a lot less cool.

Legalize pot for the medical users and show mainstream pot-smokers as little old ladies in wheelchairs treating their cancer. There is nothing cool about that.

There are far more examples of stupid in the article but pointing them out would take far too long and be far too painful for me. I am going to finish the laundry instead. It's more entertaining.