Biker 'Rat' Opposed Giving Tour To Media

The Hells Angel-turned police informant voted down a plan to invite members of the media for a tour of the Eastern Ave. clubhouse, now the property of the federal government after last week's massive police sweep, the downtown chapter's website claims.

"In February, the downtown Angels were entertaining a motion to invite the media into our clubhouse, show what it contained, lay our books bare and compare security with adjacent commercial buildings that made our low-tech measure laughable," reads the posting.

"The motion was defeated when one member made an impassioned plea to keep the sanctity of the club private," it continues. "He was articulate, he was passionate, he was working for the police."

That's interesting enough but it gets even better. They got raided last week and they were tipped off by a Niagara Falls police officer that there was going to be a raid on an anonymous blog post. I want to know more about that. Apparently, the police are alarmed that the Angels are internet savy. I have to admit that I spent a little bit of time trying to find the blog but to no avail. If you can find out the identity of the blogger, please link it in the comments.

Just think! We have a cop that informed the Hell's Angels about a forthcoming police raid by the same police officer that they paid to get undercover information about the Angels. The narc narced. Maybe bikers aren't as bad as we think. They may sell drugs but prohibition is to blame for the fact that they can make money peddling commonly used, though illegal, drugs. Just imagine the consequences of banning a substance as enjoyable and commonly used as sugar.

The police officer must have had pangs of conscience about ratting. Why did he have a change of heart? And why did he want to keep the media out of the clubhouse?

Thoughts about militant fringe groups

I read the following quote, that was written by a judgmental, misinformed wingnut afflicted by reefer madness, over at DrugWarRant and it got me to thinking.

"Students for Sensible Drug Policy is a militant fringe of the drug legalization movement. As parents, we would treat membership in SSDP as firmly as we would treat drug use. Stop the behavior and resign from the group or pay your own tuition."

Why do wingnuts get away with calling people militant when there is absolutely no basis for this accusation? If there were radical groups of jackbooted drug legalizers shooting up legislators with their AK-47's, you can be damned sure that we would have heard about it by now.

I already know the answer to this question. It works. Rush Limbaugh did a great thing for wingnuts when he coined the term feminazi. Calling radical feminists militant feminazis works really great at marginilizing them and their cause.

If you know of a militant man-hating group of feminists or drug legalizers, be sure to clue me in. I would love to see that story.

Militant prohibitionist thugs that bust in your door at dawn are nothing new and are not worth criticizing by the Drug Warriors. The hypocrisy is astounding.

Become a Riding Blogger

I thought this was pretty cool.

Just a reminder that tomorrow — Monday April 9 — is the round 1 deadline to apply to be a DemocraticSPACE riding blogger in then next federal election. If you are interested if writing about your riding for DemocraticSPACE just email us the following:

1. Your name
2. Your personal blog address (if you have one; no problem if you don’t)
3. Your party affiliation or non-partisan (any or none is fine)
4. What riding you would like to blog about

Feel free to pass the word along.

I applied to be a riding blogger. This could be a lot of fun and it will motivate me to be more involved in the political process. I will have to attend all-candidate forums and nomination meetings and generally keep my ear to the ground. It sounds like a lot of fun.

Health Canada can't control psychedelic herb

OTTAWA — A common garden herb that packs a powerful psychedelic punch has some federal health officials recommending strict controls.

Health Canada, however, says it cannot regulate the use of salvia divinorum until there is more evidence of its dangers.

Department documents obtained by the Canadian Press under Access to Information law say salvia is being used by adolescents and young adults for its hallucinogenic properties.

A December, 2005, report by the marketed health products directorate, an arm of Health Canada, recommends that salvia be placed under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Department spokesman Jason Bouzanis said salvia has been known to cause hallucinations, out-of-body experiences, unconsciousness and short-term memory loss. But that is not enough to declare it illegal.

“We can't make any recommendations to place salvia under the Controlled Drug and Substances Act schedules until we have sufficient scientific and empirical data that concludes it has the potential for misuse and abuse,” Mr. Bouzanis said.

Continue reading this article

Sometimes when I am reading another typical piece of drug war propaganda, I get a little pissed about all the ways that the media falls for it hook, line and sinker. First they talk about all the ways that the latest drug is harmful and dangerous. They did it with marijuana, crack cocaine and meth. This salvia divinorum reefer madness article is just another example of the media's support of prohibition. Not once is the notion that prohibiting a drug the best way to control and regulate it even questioned. Just look at the people they quoted in the article: a department spokesman for Health Canada, an RCMP sergeant, and a professor of pharmacology. All of them promoted prohibiting salvia as a way to control it and "Save the children!"

“Salvia is the world's most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen,” he said.

“You wouldn't want to be driving a car, or you wouldn't want to be on a balcony in a high building so the concern is that if individuals were to take a sufficient dose, they might get themselves or others into trouble.

“The distribution is totally unregulated so unsuspecting teens or even children younger than teenage years might chance upon it and that's a recipe for disaster.”

Obviously it would be counterproductive to mention that the prohibition of drugs has not reduced the number of kids using drugs.

Guess who they asked for a dissenting view of the prohibition of salvia. Did they ask a drug policy reformer, scientist or politician? Nope, they asked the owner of a headshop.

“Salvia is so intense, most people only try it once or twice,” said Ryan (Big P) Poelzer, who works at the Urban Shaman, a popular botanical store in downtown Vancouver.

He said the store sells at least fifty pills every week, mainly to people between the ages of 19 and 25.

Mr. Poelzer, 20, described his experiences using salvia as “mind blowing” and “out of this world.”

“You don't think you're in this world and you don't think you're coming back. It's like going into outer space. Time being ripped in half is a good way of describing it.

“It's definitely the most powerful psychedelic out there.”

Despite the blatantly biased propaganda in this piece, I did manage to find something to smile about. Take a gander at some of the quotes I found in the comments:

John E7 from Salt Spring Island, Canada writes: Jeez peanuts are more dangerous than this stuff. I'm surprised the RCMP does not go after peanuts, it actually kills. And I wonder how many times a drunken rowdy has uttered threats against an officer ;)'
utoob has some vids of kids under the influence of the stuff. Looks like fun but I'm too old for that type of entertainment.
BC bud will be a thing of the past as giant fields of salvia blossom...

Mark Orr from Toronto, Canada writes: Oh Give it up. Natives up north are sniffing gasoline, why don't they ban gasoline? And if they did, why not ban glue....then any volatile petroleum...... some people want to get high, nothing you can do to stop it. You just end up criminalizing more of the population and causing more damage.

Reg Walker from toronto, Canada writes: When Uncle Sam decides this drug of concern should be illegal the rest of the world will have to do likewise. It will not be long.

Free Your Mind from Toronto, Canada writes: No sooner does a safe (if used responsibly) entheogen drug become widely available than the killjoys in the general media start demonizing it and the anti-privacy forces in government start looking for a way to ban it. God forbid people should be able to explore their consciousness, gain insights into themselves inaccessible through everyday rat-race mentality, or just plain have fun. Oh, but *alcohol's* okay, even though it has caused far more injuries, deaths, and broken up more families, than a herb used harmlessly by Mexican aboriginals for millenia ever could. Stop the War on Drugs NOW!

Grey Rabbit from Canada writes: thanks for the info, looks like i gotta try some of this stuff

This is just a small sampling of the positive responses in that thread. Very few people seem to be falling for the pro-drug-war propaganda, despite the best efforts of the media. This post practically wrote itself.

Hometown Baghdad

Heartbreaking.

There is more at Hometown Baghdad.

The Joy of Hemp

The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

via Backseat Blogger

Lunchroom Follies

Yesterday at work, while standing in line to use the microwave, I noticed that one of my colleagues had brought her lunch to work in a recycled brown bag from the liquor board store. As a result I teased her for bringing evidence of her alcoholism to work.

HA HA HA

We both had a giggle.

She says: "Everybody knows how much I like to drink."

I say: "That's what it takes to keep going in this job. It's your reward for not strangling anybody today." Or something like that.

What I should have said: "I think I am going to start bringing my lunch to work in a brown paper bag covered with hemp leaves."

Maybe I should do an experiment and see how it turns out.

My kids' indoor grow-op

My kid is obsessed with plants and animals. She made me take her to the greenhouse yesterday. We have a dog, two cockatiels, an indian ringneck parrot and two tanks full of fish. We also have a broken-down piano that is housing my childs' indoor grow-op. I should start charging admission to my zoo. Just make sure to step over the piles of animal feces.

A fat rant

I love this youtube. Everybody should watch this.

I weigh 158 pounds at 5'7" and I have never owned a womens' winter jacket because they never make the sleeves long enough for my gorilla arms. It drives me nuts.

I'm a man

Just pop one of my posts into the Gender Genie and see for yourself. I popped in three of my blog posts and all three of them diagnosed me as male.

I found the Gender Genie as I was swimming around in the raw sewage of the Men's Rights blogosphere. I can't exactly remember where though but all the MRA sites are the same. Just a bunch of babies whining at the loss of mens' unearned privileges. WAH WAH WAH

Baking Soda Ban

The war on drugs is even stupider than you thought:

JEFFERSON CITY — First, the state said you must make a special trip to the pharmacy counter to buy certain cold medicines. That was to curb production of methamphetamine.

Now, a St. Louis legislator wants you to do the same thing to buy an even more common household item — baking soda — because it's used to make crack cocaine.

Sales of cold medications containing pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed, are strictly regulated in Missouri. Customers must show a photo ID when they buy the medicine. Pharmacists must log the names and addresses of buyers, including how much they buy. People under 18 may not buy the medicines.

The sponsor of the baking soda bill, Rep. Talibdin El-Amin, D-St. Louis, said the same approach was needed for baking soda because crack cocaine is often produced by dissolving powdered cocaine in a mixture of water and baking soda.

What can I possibly say about this? What could be more stupid than trying to ban a commonly used household substance like baking soda? These drug warriors really blow my mind sometimes.

Random Bloopers aka Link Dump

First we have a pedophiles' dream, as a group of school boys were required to strip naked for a drug test in Australia. We also have a great repudiation of the validity of drug testing at Scientific American. Apparently, drug testing is ineffective! Drug users are able to cheat and prescription drug users are wrongfully branded as drug abusers. This just in, scientists claim drug testing is BULLSHIT! Read it for yourself. Shocking, I know.

Stephen Glauser emailed me pics of my dream house. If I owned that place, I could live out my dream of prancing naked through a field (or greenhouse) full of cannabis plants. Thanks Stephen!

As I was browsing OnMarijuana I stumbled on these delightful reasons not to get high via NinjaPirate. For the record, NinjaPirate is full of it.

I was also quite amused by this story in the Denver Post about a mayor that won an election because a felon was allowed to vote. The felon turned out to be the mayor's son. Sometimes crime does pay. Mwahahahaha!!!!

Finally, we have the story of medical marijuana being signed into law in New Mexico by Bill Richardson, a long shot Democratic presidential candidate.

Montel Williams on Medical Marijuana

Thanks to Montel's support of medical marijuana, I just might consider tuning into his show, for the first time in over a decade. But first he will have to renounce that shameless scammer and snakeoil saleswoman Sylvia Browne.

Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows

I am in complete agreement with Kate of SDA, for once. What's going on? Have I completely lost my mind? Am I wrong about drug prohibition?

No, we aren't in complete agreement. All I had to do was venture into the comments for this gem:

Don't misinterpret my post. I am in no way advocating decriminalization or legalization of recreational drug use.

However, there is a legitimate market for this crop.

(The argument that legalization starves organized crime is false, and no - the prohibition example doesn't support it, or we'd have no organized crime today. These people engage in high risk, high return criminal enterprises because they're criminals, not because they secretly wish to live regular lives as used car dealers. Legalize pot and they'll simply ratchet up the volume on human smuggling, crystal meth, whatever brings in the big bucks. It's like pushing on a balloon. The fact that substance abuse is a problem without any ultimate solutions does not logically lead to removing all curbs and controls - otherwise, we might as well legalize break and enters, too.)

HA HA HA HA HA

Because passing a joint to a willing consumer is exactly the same as break and enter. Good one.

That crack about illegal drugs being subjected to "curbs and controls" was also good for a giggle.

First Michelle Malkin and now this? Who said conservatives can't be funny?

I have an analogy

Hitler is to Mein Kampf as Michelle Malkin is to the John Doe Manifesto. I am not sure what is the most disturbing aspect of her unhinged rant. Could it be her promise to prevent American schoolchildren from being indoctrinated into Sharia law? Or was it her promise to teach all Americans to fear brown people as much as she does? I really can't decide. With heavy doses of blatant racism and her promise to turn America into 1984, with children acting as junior spies against their parents and internment camps for non-conformists, the woman practically parodies herself. How could Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart make that seem any worse?

This kind of hateful rhetoric should no longer surprise me. But I am rather shocked and disturbed by how much support she gets. Why are so many people buying it? Go and read the commenters. They really believe that "Democrats" are the biggest threat to national security and are inviting terrorists to blow up America! What the hell is wrong with people? *cough* Soviet Union, East Germany, Berlin Wall *cough*

Saskboy has more.

The Reagans on Drugs

This is me doing my best impression of a Beverly Hillbilly

I was at the bike auction this weekend and strapped them to the roof of my car before tooling down the highway in my little Toy Car. Have fun pointing and laughing and making fun of my shoes.

Let's Try Anti-Smoking Tactics With Other Drugs

This is the best idea that I have seen in a long time. Let's treat illegal drugs the same way that we treat tobacco. The number of smokers has decreased dramatically over the last few decades. How did we do it? By declaring WAR ON TOBACCO? Obviously not. Read and find out!

There are too many cops

And they must have been desparate for filler, if they are calling this news. I feel so much safer, knowing that those pot-smoking teens will be deprived of their weed. It was probably shwag anyway.

Drug War RoundUp

Thehim has his Drug War Roundup up.

This is the funniest thing I have read in a long time. I am considering printing it out and leaving it in the staffroom for a giggle. BONG HITS 4 JESUS!

Alcohol toll badly underestimated, study says

Oh goody, just what we need, another study that tells us what we already know: Alcohol is the real drug problem.

OK OK it actually is an informative article. It just goes to show that drug policy reformers have to try to educate the public about drugs. I find this disturbing:

OTTAWA - Days after the federal government unveiled a budget that earmarked $64-million for a national anti-drug strategy, a new report says the social and economic costs associated with alcohol are twice as high as those racked up by illegal drug use.

The study says Canadians have an exaggerated view of the harm associated with illegal drugs, possibly fuelled by vivid media reports, and the emphasis given the subject by police organizations, political leaders and policy-makers.

The study, released yesterday by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, suggests anti-drug strategies should include alcohol as a significant part of the equation.

I blame the Reefer Madness Talking Points which are included in every account of a drug bust:

-An exaggeration of the value of the drugs seized. The value of marijuana is calculated as though the entire crop will be sold as dime bags. That means a pound of weed has to be worth $4400.

-An exaggeration of the amount of marijuana that your average pot plant produces.

-Hysteria about the "dangers" posed by grow-ops. If they are so dangerous, why are neighbours always shocked by grow-op busts? Where are all the grow-op fires caused by faulty firing?

-An insistence on covering grow-op busts. Busting a grow-op accomplishes less than nothing but its' good public relations for the police. They look like they are protecting the public during their cop photo ops but in reality all they are doing is propping up a corrupt justice system. Stop putting this garbage on the news.

I am always happy when the public has another opportunity to learn about the problems caused by the war on drugs. But I am concerned by the possible conclusions that could be drawn by these studies. The last thing we want is for drug warriors to come out in favour of prohibiting alcohol and tobacco.

This also pisses me off:

The study said 49% of murders, attempted murders and assault were attributable to drugs and/or alcohol. Five per cent were attributable to drugs only, 28% to alcohol only, and 16% were attributable to a combination of alcohol and illicit drugs.

Alcohol gets its' own special category because its' not a drug. Got that? Even though alcohol fits the definition of a drug, its' not a drug because you can buy it legally at the liquor store. Even an article that is attempting to educate the public about the drug war contains reefer madness.

Walker denied release on bail

Even though Kim Walker has gotten an unbelievable amount of sympathy for being a cold-blooded murderer, the good news is he will stay in jail until his appeal is heard. I will be able to sleep at night.

REGINA -- Convicted killer Kimberley Joseph Walker will remain in prison until his appeal is heard.

Neither Walker nor his family were present in Saskatchewan Court of Appeal chambers on Wednesday, when lawyers argued over whether he should be released on bail while awaiting his appeal on a second-degree murder conviction.

Carol Gwilt is free

Medical marijuana exemptee Carol Gwilt is free on parole starting on April 2nd after serving six months of her fifteen month sentence. Gwilt was sentenced in September of 2006 for trafficking for her role in the operation of the famous Da Kine cafe.

Da Kine Cafe was a store that opened in May 2004 and sold cannabis and hash to anyone who signed a form to join. The neighbourhood businesses claimed that they benefited from the organized and safe cannabis outlet, and customers stated that they were protected from dealing with unsavory characters in order to obtain marijuana.

Together with volunteers and activists, Carol made Da Kine a very public and reputable shop that thrived for four months with no complaint. It wasn't until Septmeber 2004 that a sudden massive raid tok place with no warning, shutting down a movie shoot (The Fantastic Four) and including helicopters, swat teams, and numerous weapons and police vehicles -- all for a cafe with unarmed patrons and volunteer staff.

The police raid was thought to be motivated by the BC Solicitor General, who was openly opposed to any cannabis or anti-prohibition demonstrations, and cracked down with a huge show of unnecessary force to please American Law Enforcement.

It's always good news when an activist gets out of jail. Congratulations!

Debunking UK reefer madness

STATS did it for me so that I don't have to. The past week in the UK has consisted of a newspaper flame war leading to more prohibitionists demonizing marijuana AKA skunk. First, we had this story in The Independent apologizing for previously calling for the decriminilization of cannabis. It was a masterpiece of reefer madness propaganda. On Monday, The Telegraph ran a story about the tragic death of a young boy caused by cannabis.

STATS is a great site, dedicated to debunking unscientific claims made by the media. For their fabulous debunking of all that reefer madness, they have earned a link on my shabby little web site.

But I will pretend that you were too lazy to click the link and visit STATS for the scoop on cannabis-induced psychosis. I will even pretend that all the claims made in The Independent and The Telegraph are true and that cannabis causes psychosis. I will even concede, just for the sake of argument, that all cases of schizophrenia are caused by the use of cannabis. Does it then logically follow, that cracking down on cannabis is the best strategy? In order for that line of thinking to make sense, we would have to believe that cracking down on cannabis would lead to a decrease in cannabis users. If it were true that the number of cannabis users was directly proportional to the legal status of the drug, then the Netherlands should be awash with drug-using teenagers. Read it and weep, drug warriors. Prohibiting drugs does not stop people from using them and it will not prevent a single case of schizophrenia.

I hate Oprah Winfrey

Why must she take advantage of all the gullible idiots in the world and peddle this mindless trash? Isn't she rich and powerful enough? One of these days I am going to leave a bag of flaming dog poo on her door step. One of these days.

In case you have been living under a rock, I am refering to The Secret. Instead of praying to the ghost of a dead jew to have your deepest desires fulfilled, now you can just wish them into existence with The Secret.

Maybe if I keep imagining Oprah Winfrey opening her door and discovering a flaming bag of dog-poo and stomping it with her bare feet it will really happen. That would surley put a smile on my face. Oh yeah.

Way to Go, Moe!

Letter Writer of the Month - February

DrugSense recognizes Moe Brondum of the Saskatchewan Marijuana Party, North Battleford, Saskatchewan for his seven letters published during February. This brings his total published letters, that we know of, to 14.

You may read his published letters at:

http://www.mapinc.org/writers/Moe+Brondum

I better get off my bum and get writing some letters.

Prison Rape and the Drug War

Stop the Drug War has an excellent feature about prison rape - a human rights' issue that is still socially acceptable to make bad jokes about. The feature tells the horrible stories of men and women who had to deal with the aftermath of prison rape.

The most interesting and gross part of this story is the way the trolls came along to infest the comment section with typical slut-blaming:

The first man, Chance Martin, claims to have been ganged raped while in a COUNTY lockup while awaiting trial. He claims he was put into a cell holding 40 other men, and that this cell was not supervised. While I can believe there were times every cell was not under the supervision of a guard, I find it this story not believable. A county jail has many small cells, and these people would have been seperated into smaller cells, not left in in one big area unsupervised.

**This article is asking me to believe that within 24 hours without freedom in a COUNTY lockup, the majority of men will turn into raping animals. Are men really like this? If so, they all need to be locked up anyway, just to keep them away from everybody else.

Is it possible there is a motive for this claim other than the stated one? Perhaps to decriminalize drugs? While I have no doubt that rape in PRISON happens, a county lockup defies belief.

The commenter thinks that a person would lie about rape in order to win sympathy towards ending the drug war. How do people this stupid remember to breathe?

Great Study, Stupid Conclusion

Once again we have another study that comes out with the astonishing revelation that marijuana is safer than alcohol. The current ranking system for drugs is flawed! But then they end it with this bit of nonsense:

While experts agreed that criminalizing alcohol and tobacco would be challenging, they said that governments should review the penalties imposed for drug abuse and try to make them more reflective of the actual risks and damages involved.

Will they ever learn?

Hey Stephen, Welcome to the Dark Side!

Stephen Glauser sent me this story today about Saskatchewan's first quasi-legal safe marijuana inhalation room. I will make sure to visit Field of Dreams the next time I am in Regina to thank Dean Foster for making a safe place for medical marijuana users to take their medicine. I was unaware of the difficulties that some people face when they want to use marijuana for medical purposes. A lot of landlords do not want people using marijuana as medicine on their property. One unfortunate woman got a visit from Child Protection Services after a nosy neighbour complained about the smell. I am lucky to be free of nosy neighbours. Most of the people on my block know I smoke up once in a while and have a good laugh about it. I just hope they don't tell the cops about my garden.

What I really liked about this story was the fact that a non-pot smoker wrote it* and sent me the link. In the drug reform movement, the overwhelming majority of activists are users of the unholy, demon weed. The users of marijuana that are growing and selling it are afraid to say anything public about drug prohibition because of the risk of arrest. In my limited experience, most non-users are rather uninterested in drug policy reform and say things like "I used to smoke pot but then I grew up" or "I have no interest in that stuff." I have often wondered about the best way to motivate people to realize that drug policy reform is important and effects everybody. I am still unsure of how to make people care about this issue. Drug users aren't cute and adorable like baby seals. You aren't going to convince gullible, attractive women to wax their private areas and parade around the neighborhood for marijuana smokers. Which is just as well because PETA sucks.

In closing, what do you think would motivate members of the public to get involved or educated about drug policy reform? Are smoke-outs and rallies going to appeal to non-users?

* Or am I being presumptuous?

UPDATE: You gotta love Adsense. Stephen's page had a link to this outstanding web page, which promises to cure me of my marijuana addiction with hypnotherapy. I can end my long term habit now! I wonder if they learned their tricks from the "ex-gay" movement.

MORE UPDATE: The author of the blog post was Stefan Schussler, not Stephen Glauser.

Why the Drug War is Doomed to Failure

via Peter and the Centre for Substance Abuse Research.

This illustrates what I like to call "the black market effect" quite nicely. Say you buy an ounce for $200 and divide it up into eighths of an ounce and sell them for $40 -$50. If you have 8 pot-smoking friends, it is pretty easy to make money or get your smoke for free. With that kind of cash incentive, who wouldn't want to sell or grow weed? When I have a bad day, the temptation to quit and become a drug-dealer is very strong. Luckily today is not such a day.

Work-Mom burn-out and a link dump

Stress is overwhelming me at the moment and I feel like taking out my rage on puppies and kittens. Luckily for the small adorable creatures, I took a couple of Torey Hayden's books out of the library and I started reading them. Hayden is a special education teacher that had some interesting adventures with her students. After reading the first few chapters of one of her books, I feel so much better about everything. Her only flaw is calling her EA an aide *wince*. At any rate, I am much too stressed out to come up with anything coherent and intelligent but the drug war news is overflowing with very linkable items.

Bong hits 4 jesus is in the US Supreme Court this week. Peter is the go-to guy for analysis on this important case.

Another story that caught my interest this week is the reefer madness in The Independant. Thehim has more on this as well as the Transform Drug Policy Foundation and Stop the Drug War. Looks like I better update my blogroll. For those of you too lazy to read all that I have a simple mathematical formula to explain the article in The Independent:

Skunk = B.C. Bud

Any questions?

New Budget, Same Old Reefer Madness

Here are the drug-war related sections of the new budget and my criticism.

National Anti-Drug Strategy

The introduction of a new National Anti-Drug Strategy is an important commitment of Canada’s New Government that is being supported in Budget 2007. This new strategy covers three priority areas, with common objectives, to combat illicit drug production, prevent illicit drug use and treat illicit drug dependency. This new approach will result in a more focused program for dealing with illicit drug use.

The investment of $63.8 million over two years will build on existing programs and initiatives ($385 million per year) that are being refocused to create a new National Anti-Drug Strategy. This new strategy places particular emphasis on additional actions to combat the illicit production and distribution of drugs, to address gaps in preventing illicit drug use, to create awareness of illicit drugs and their negative effects, particularly among youth, and to treat and rehabilitate those with drug dependencies. Together, these three initiatives form a focused approach to reducing the supply of and demand for illicit drugs, as well as addressing the crime associated with illegal drugs, leading to safer and healthier communities.
Combatting Illicit Drug Production and Distribution

In other words, let's keep pissing away money on law enforcement because Harper loves getting compliments from John Walters. They are adopting the language of drug policy reformers and twisting it around. Treat and rehabilitate sounds really great but what does this even mean, coming from The Right Honourable PMS? Will it mean an American-style system of sending people convicted of possession of drugs off to rehab whether they need it or not? What strategy are they going to employ to reduce the supply of and demand for illegal drugs? Let's read and find out.

Budget 2007 provides $21.6 million over the next two years to support law enforcement in combatting the illegal use of drugs. Canada’s New Government is working closely with the provinces, territories and law enforcement partners to ensure that officers have the tools they need to significantly reduce illegal drug production and distribution operations. Officers will also be able to tackle the organized crime elements behind them, including gangs, thereby stemming the supply of illicit drugs. Increased enforcement activities will proactively target illicit drug producers, such as marihuana grow operations and clandestine methamphetamine labs, and gangs. Funding will enhance the capacity of the criminal justice system to investigate, interdict and prosecute offenders. The Government is also committed to ensuring that strong and adequate penalties are in place for serious drug crimes.

This will lead to more cop photo-ops, complete with drug porn, stacks of currency and more drug-dealing deviants hauled off to the slammer. We already know that this will not lead to a decrease in the number of illicit drug users or a reduction in the harms caused by the illicit drug market. This is the same strategy used in the United States which has given them the dubious distinction of "Most Incarcerated in the World."

Preventing Illicit Drug Use

Budget 2007 invests $10 million over the next two years to implement a national prevention campaign aimed at youth and their parents. The objective of the campaign will be to help decrease the prevalence of drug use among youth. To do this, the campaign will raise awareness and knowledge about drugs and their negative effects. It will also give parents the tools they need to talk to their children about drug use.

What does this even mean? Are they going to start pushing anti-drug ads, like the ones that have worked so well for the US? Kids are already steeped in anti-drug propaganda in school. Are they going to take away math and gym or extend the school day a few hours so we can spend more time telling kids that drugs are bad? I wish they would be more specific so I could have more fun picking this apart, although this is already like shooting fish in a barrel.

Treating Illicit Drug Dependency

Budget 2007 provides $32.2 million over two years to support treatment services that will address substance abuse. This will include the development and implementation of innovative projects that will support programming for First Nations and Inuit populations and support provinces and territories in filling critical treatment gaps. Funding will also be used by the Department of Justice to support extra-judicial diversion and treatment programs for youth offenders with drug-related problems at the various stages of the criminal justice system. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police will implement new tools to refer youth at risk to treatment programming. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research will develop new treatment models for crystal methamphetamine use.

I wish I knew what this means. Will we have a situation where drug users need to get arrested to get into rehab while users that are arrested are getting pushed into treatment that they don't need? We will have to wait and see.

All in all, this is very disappointing but not at all surprising. The Conservatives have no interest in fixing the real cause of drug crime by legalizing and regulating the supply. They repeat meaningless rhetoric about how legalizing marijuana will mean more kids will have access to drugs, despite the fact that Canadian children are exposed to more drugs than children in the Netherlands.

The only good thing about this budget that I could see was increased funding into treatment for addiction to methamphetamines. In my budget, all the integrated drug units would be shut down and all drugs would be legal and for sale at low prices at the local pharmacy. Cops would actually have to do something worthwhile, like walk my kids home from school.

A New Sorrow for Afghanistan: AIDS Joins List

This story shocked me. I am used to reading about the fact that 90% of the worlds' opium is grown in Afghanistan and I am defintely used to hearing about how the efforts to eradicate the opium crop are driving farmers into the arms of the Taliban. Hearing about the AIDS epidemic reaching Afghanistan is just sad. The lack of medical resources for testing and treatment of AIDS means that the extent of the epidemic is unknown. Antiviral treatments are not available. In a country where homosexuality and extramarital sex are illegal, the social stigma associated with being diagnosed with AIDS is detrimental to education and treatment.

I was shocked to learn how rampant injection drug use is in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, the biggest opium- and heroin-producing country in the world, has nearly one million drug users, according to United Nations estimates. Most users still smoke the drug, but five years ago, injectable heroin hit the streets of Kabul, the capital. Now there are an estimated 19,000 intravenous drug users here, according to the World Bank. Addicts are not difficult to find, living in bombed-out buildings in the old part of the city and in Kota-e-Sangi, a neighborhood on the city’s south side.

Injection drug use, prostitution, lack of testing of the blood supply and the punishments for out-of-wedlock sex are creating a disaster in Afghanistan. Read the whole thing.

Tory tough on crime strategy

If you go to the Conservative Party's web site, you will find a link to their much-touted crime strategy at tacklingcrime.ca. Here is the link to the Prime Minister's tough-on-crime strategy.

Drug War Roundup

Thehim has his drug war roundup over at his pad. It's great reading so get busy!

Blog Talk Radio

Join me in 6 hours and 52 minutes for my second attempt to do my blog talk radio show. Despite the technical difficulties I experienced during last week's test show, I got a number of encouraging comments and emails so I am inclined to give it another shot.
First, I am going to give you the weekly drug war news, a brief overview of the drug war stories that caugt my attention. Then we are going to discuss the tough-on-crime strategy that the Conservative government is using quite succesfully to demonize the floundering Liberals.

Feel free to listen or phone in. My number is (718)-664-9582. If you are too shy to phone you can message me on MSN at Tanyatalkradio@hotmail.com

Random Hilarity

I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not a fan of Rosie O'Donnell and I never watch the View. The only reason I know about her dispute with Donald Trump is that I hear about it on the radio on my way to work. I am officially switching stations. The infatuation that some people have with the petty bickering of celebrities is such a bore. I just don't care. So allow me to be a hypocrite and show you this:

Best goth poetry ever.

the dump truck is at it again

“she’s depressed from looking in the mirror”

hurtful 2 know he doesnt find me attractive
as it has been my goal
for so long
to give a bald billionaire a boner

Why can't they kiss and make up?

Millions More for a Failed Anti-Drug Propaganda Campaign? Ridiculous!

Paul Armentano has an article at Alternet about the failure of the anti-drug advertising (*Cough* propaganda) to have an impact on drug use rates among American teens.

Indiana House Republican Mark Souder, a White House point man in Congress for its propaganda war against drugs, recently took to the airwaves to defend one of the Bush administration's sacred cows: its National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

If you've had access to a television or a newspaper over the past few years, you're probably familiar with the federal ad campaign. It's the one that's spent over $2 billion since 1998 to produce public-service announcements implying that smoking pot supports al-Qaida and may make you pregnant, among other dubious anti-drug messages. So dubious, in fact, that the campaign has flopped miserably among its target audience. Of course, this fact matters not to the White House, which recently demanded $130 million to run the ads through 2008 -- a 31 percent increase over current funding levels.

The ONDCP has so much faith in their advertising campaign that they have disabled commenting on the videos they uploaded on youtube. Luckily, users have found imaginative ways to comment on these stupid ads, sabatoging the cowardly attempts by the ONDCP to shield themselves from criticism.

The misinformation in the ads undermines the already thin credibility of the federal government and parents and teachers that buy into the reefer madness and ty to teach it to their kids.

A black market for abortion pills?

I wish I knew more about this story. It surprises me that it's possible to spike somebody's drink with an abortion pill. Where did he get the pills?

Some Really Good News, for a change

The charges of money laundering and tax evasion against medical marijuana guru Ed Rosenthal have been dismissed.

Score one more for our side.

Also via CC, I just heard the good news that Tyrone Brown is free. His case was an outrageous example of overzealous prosecution and racism. It's about damn time they let him go.

I hope Tyrone can celebrate with a nice, fat joint but it would be completely understandable if he was too scared of the fascist drug warriors. Congratulations to Tyrone Brown and his family.

I can't believe I forgot to...

Add my good friend and fellow drug policy reformer Moe Brondum to my blogroll. His blog focuses on local drug war news. Go and visit Moe.

Stellar Parenting Moment

My kid was annoying me today (when are kids not annoying?) and I snapped at them and made the following statement:

"FUCK OFF.....PLEASE."

My kids took time out from annoying me to laugh hysterically at my idiocy. Good times were had by all and my children learned a valuable lesson: Do as I say, not as I do.

"Talk about taking manners too far."

-Quoth my eldest brat.

Hey Hannah stop reading over my shoulder.

Brat.

Things that make me go EWWWW!

I realize that EWWWW has entered my vocabulary and it is a word I use on this blog at an alarming rate, second only to the phrase reefer madness. I am obsessed with reefer madness, in fact you could say that I am mad about reefer madness. The obsession that public officials have with demonizing the use of an amazing herb that is safe and effective for both recreational and medical purposes never ceases to impress me. The following story is a perfect example of the carnage and destruction that results from our needless obsession with the substances and chemicals that other people choose to use and enjoy.

I bring you a story about 'harm reduction', complete with cute quotation marks around 'harm reduction'. Despite the proven effectiveness of safe injection sites in reducing the harms caused by the use of some illegal drugs, the author feels the need to show that there is a debate about 'harm reduction'. The debate about harm reduction is on the same level as the debate about global warming or the theory of evolution.

The EWWWW factor comes in when you read the first paragraph of ADDICTS, SEX WORKERS AND ACADEMICS DISCUSS CITY 'HARM REDUCTION' POLICY.

Michelle Ball isn't clean and sober, and doesn't apologize for a second.

"I continue to be a drug user," said the local HIV educator with the AIDS Committee of Ottawa. The dirty-blonde mother of one was part of a panel discussion about the city's harm reduction policies Thursday, march 8 at Bronson Centre.

"I'm going to be completely honest here," continued the former crack user-turned social worker. "Most of my drug use was pretty damn fun . And I still enjoy drugs. I smoke drugs, and I enjoy pharmaceuticals. It's quite fun. It's like exercise for some people."

A motley collection of former sex workers, drug users and academics had gathered in the Centre's Nepean Room for a frank discussion on the City of Ottawa's harm reduction policy and how it relates to local sex workers.

Now there's a ringing endorsement of harm reduction. It helps the bottom rung of society stay high.

I know, this is the statement made by a former street worker turned social worker but it's telling that this is the first thing they put in the article. I am surprised they didn't put quotes around street worker and/or social worker.

This reminds me that somebody should write a post called I am a feminist. Why should I support drug policy reform?" for Pete's FAQ. The number one reason for a feminist to support drug law reform is that if a woman is unfortunate enough to get caught in the thralls of an addiction, she is not forced to get fucked by greasy pervs in order to get her fix. Getting a fix should be as easy as a trip to the local drug store. Drugs should be as valuable as Tylenol or beer. If and/or when she wishes to go into treatment, it should be no different than getting open heart surgery or a tubal ligation.* Patriarchy strikes again.

While I am totally in favour of any measures which help the most-despised members of society, I say screw the half-assed measures and legalize all drugs.

* I had an easy time getting a tubal ligation thanks to socialized medicine and non-Catholic healthcare. I realize how lucky I am.

How to be a Prime Minister

Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A2

Dear Mr. Harper,

I am concerned at the direction that drug policy is taking in this country. When we receive praise from the United States for our drug policy, this should be a cause for concern. As I am sure you are well aware, the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. There are two million Americans in prison in the United States. Five hundred thousand of them are in jail for non-violent drug offenses. The war on drugs has been largely responsible for these rates of incarceration. Despite the increase in prison convictions, we have not seen a reduction in the number of drug users. In fact, the number of illegal drug users has increased by almost 20%. I can speak for a large number of Canadians when I say that the praise being heaped on us by Drug Czar John Walters and his supporters makes me extremely uncomfortable.

It would be nice to see you take a principled stand and favour a sensible reform of our drug policy. If Mexican President Felipe Calderon is not afraid to oppose President Bush, than surely the Canadian public can expect better from our very own Right Honourable Prime Minister.

Sincerely,

Tanya Derbowka

Should I take a page out of Jesus Generals' book and send this? Or w00t?

British Cannabis Granny sent to the slammer

LONDON - A 68-year-old British woman faces jail after being found guilty Wednesday of growing and possessing cannabis which she said was for medicinal purposes.

A jury at Carlisle Crown Court in northwest England took just 15 minutes to return their verdict on grey-haired Patricia Tabram, who claims she uses the drug to ease her depression and aches and pains from two car crashes.

Judge Barbara Forrester postponed sentencing so psychiatric reports could be prepared on the unlikely-looking dealer, who since her first conviction has become a focus for campaigners seeking to legalise the drug.

Tabram was arrested and charged after police acting on a tip-off found four cannabis plants growing in a wardrobe at her bungalow in the town of Humshaugh in Northumberland, northeast England.

What a world we live in, when a sick granny gets sent to jail for self-medicating. Britain must be swimming in reefer madness, if they managed to find twelve people willing to convict her.

Watch the interview and take note of the cowardly disclaimer at the end. Wankers.

You have to watch this show

It's Weeds! I am watching Weeds while blogging. This show rules. It certainly has not been my experience with the cannabis culture but it's a pretty cool show.

Here's the link. Enjoy.

Principal caught naked watching porn, pointless laws ensue

It is entirely understandable that parents are concerned about the case of Principal John Acerra, who was busted for using and selling meth at school. When he was busted, he was in his office naked while watching pornography.

So what is the best way to save the children? What is the tool being pushed in American schools to keep everybody drug-free? Drug testing!

I understand that when a shocking story like this happens that people feel the need to do something about it. But we have to make sure that our actions are actually helpful. Would drug-testing have prevented this story from taking place?

It is interesting to me the way that this story is being reported. The Morning Call Online portrays him in a sympathetic light as a troubled man in need of help. This newscast from WFMZ-TV heavily emphasizes the save the children aspect of this story. Saving the children requires peeing in a cup.

I highly doubt that the invasion of privacy, the potential for lawsuits and the expense involved in implementing random drug testing could possibly be worth it.

I would also like to point out that crystal meth does not stay in the body for a long enough period of time to show up in a drug test. Drug testing is not going to be an effective deterrant for a crystal meth user.

Bud Inc: Book Review

The Sheaf, the student newspaper at the University of Saskatchewan, recently reviewed the book Bud Inc. written by Ian Mulgrew. I absolutely loved this book and I think that everybody should read it. You can read the review here, via Map Inc.

Reading this review got me to thinking. I wonder what would happen if I donated a bunch of pro-pot literature to our local school libraries. Would they accept the gifts graciously or would they ban the books from the library? I know reading Bud Inc in high school would have greatly influenced my views in a huge way. There are a number of other pro-pot books that I think everybody should read, such as The Emperor Wears no Clothes.

My Very First Show

Blog Talk Radio made me bump my start time up to 5:00 p.m. My first show will be starting in just over 15 minutes. Here is the link to my host page. Have fun pointing and laughing at me.

Reefer madness quiz

I made a quiz that tests your level of reefer madness. It is my first go at quiz making and I will admit right now that I made some errors in making my quiz and I highly doubt that you can get a very high score. If you can find the errors on my quiz I will send you a cookie. A very special cookie.

Here is the link to my reefer madness quiz.

And this is my embarassingly bad score. Apparently I am suffering from reefer madness. This is terrible!

35% reefer madness!

 

You are suffering from a mild form of reefer madness. But don't fret, you have a mild case that can easily be treated by a trip through the drug reform blogophere. Make sure to stop by my web-site to educate yourself.

www.blamethedrugwar.blogspot.com

*Yes, this is shameless linksturbation but what are you going to do?

Do you suffer from reefer madness?
Make Your Own Quiz

Racism and the Drug War

First came the poor man, barely 17 years old – too young to buy beer or vote, but an adult under the Texas penal code. He took part in a $2 stickup in which no one got hurt. He pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and was put on 10 years of probation.

He broke the rules once, by smoking marijuana. A Dallas judge responded in the harshest possible way: He replaced the original sentence with a life term in prison.

This is the United States, the land of the Supermax gulag and 25% of the world's prison population, so this shouldn't really surprise anybody. The next case was handled by the same judge.

Now the flip side of the coin, also from Judge Keith Dean's court: A well-connected man pleaded guilty to murder – for shooting an unarmed prostitute in the back – and also got 10 years of probation.

The killer proceeded to break the rules by, among other things, smoking crack cocaine. He repeatedly failed drug tests. He was arrested for cocaine possession in Waco while driving a congressman's car, but prosecutors there didn't press charges.

Judge Dean has let this man stay free and, last year, exempted him from most of the usual conditions of probation. John Alexander "Alex" Wood no longer must submit to drug tests or refrain from owning a gun or even meet with a probation officer. He's simply supposed to obey the law and mail the court a postcard once a year that gives his current address.

What is Judge Dean's justification for the difference in treatment of these two suspects?

In general, he said, he tries to evaluate "the potential danger to the community" when someone violates probation "and what, in the long run, is going to be in the best interest of the community and the person themselves."

A black pot-smoker is much more dangerous than a white murderer.

via Pam's House Blend

Blog Talk Radio

I have decided to give blog talk radio a try. My page on Blog Talk Radio can be located here. Anybody that wants to talk to me will be free to phone in tomorrow at 6:00 pm my time. Since I am pretty technologically challenged when it comes to the series of tubes, I figure that my first show will be plagued with technical difficulties and me saying, "Ummmmmmm Awwwww Yeah."

In my very first show I plan to do a round up of this week's drug war news. Filling a half hour with my bloviating opinions will not be difficult. See you then!

On Being Female

I know I am a day late and a dollar short but I have a few thoughts to share that were inspired by yesterday's well-thought posts celebrating International Women's Day. I was especially inspired by this post by George Mason about his conversion to feminism. What really got to me was the following quote:

Social prejudices are even more subtle, if you do not experience them directly. An example form personal experience is in order here. I was prompted to consider, and soon to adopt, feminism after a conversation with a female student in my first term at university. She happened to mention that she found it scary to walk the streets at night. I wasn’t sympathetic, and I told her she was being paranoid and nothing was going to happen to her.

It is crucially important that you understand that I was absolutely confident in this statement. To me, women hardly ever got harassed, to the extent that it was not something to worry about, just as you don’t need to worry about plane crashes, lightning strikes, or axe murderers. Of course, you know, and I soon found out, that this is definitely not the case.

My friend looked right at me and relayed a long list of horrifying personal experiences. Twenty-something total strangers asking her out, persistently, since she was fourteen. A man following her home, so that she had to walk around the block so he wouldn’t know where she lived. Lewd comments. Never knowing whether any of this would progress to something worse, and so always worrying that it might. And all of this happening on a roughly weekly basis.

I can honestly tell you that I have never been so shocked, before or since. Because as a male I never see this happening, let alone have I had anything remotely similar happen to me. I can barely even begin to imagine what it must feel like, and I shan’t even try to describe it here. The point is that this experience, which is to me an incontrovertible reason to be a feminist, is not available to any man, unless he is told about it.

This is the experience of every woman, all for the crime of possessing the "wrong" chromosomes. I have personally experienced rape, threats of rape, abusive relationships, name-calling on the street, pennies thrown at me, groping, carloads of entitled teenage boys driving slowly past while hooting and hollering dirty words that I didn't understand. I even got sexually harassed by a teacher in high school. When I tried to talk about it, way back in the day, kinder people would laugh at me and make bad jokes. The mean ones would accuse me of enjoying the attention, lying or blame me for "giving them the wrong idea". Ha!

These are normal experiences for women. Just because the women in your life don't mention it, doesn't mean it hasn't happened to them.

I never give this a thought, how being female means putting up with a whole lot of garbage, until I read about it on the internet. It's just a fact of life. It doesn't fill me with rage the way that it should. I simply come up with better ways of defending myself, just like every other woman. I deny the impact that this kind of crap has had on my life. When I deliver a pizza at an apartment by myself on a Saturday night, I ignore that nagging fear. Being a woman isn't just menstruation, boobs and flirting with old men for tip money. It's a complicated tangle of social prejudices and experiences.

I am not mentioning this just for the sake of having an internet pity party. I have two girls that are approaching puberty and I would love to think that there is some speech that I can give them or book that they can read that will protect them from the potential horrors of being female. I told them about the time in grade 7 when a boy stood behind me as I was rummaging through my locker and grabbed my boobs. I was outraged and elbowed him in the gut. He hit the floor and never touched me again. It's a funny story but fairly useless in the whole grand scheme of things.

The sad fact is that very few situations can be solved with an elbow to the gut. So what can I tell them? Is there any possible way that I can keep them safe? Or is this all blogular navel-gazing pissing-in-the-wind that amounts to nothing?

A powerful ally in the fight against the Pee Po-lice

San Francisco – The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), in the March 2007 issue of their journal, Pediatrics, reaffirmed and expanded their opposition to random student drug testing. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has ignored and dismissed the criticisms of AAP and other leading experts in adolescent health as they roll out their continuing series of regional summits. These summits are aimed at convincing local educators to implement across-the-board random, suspicionless student drug testing. A contingency from the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) travels to almost every summit to provide educators with the vital information missing from these one-sided presentations. The third summit of 2007 will be held on March 27 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Despite four years of ONDCP-sponsored tours around the country promoting student drug testing, the American Academy of Pediatrics emphasizes there is little peer-reviewed evidence indicating the policy is at all effective. The AAP statement notes the only peer-reviewed study supporting testing also found that, “athletes who were drug tested experienced an increase in known risk factors for drug use, including an increase in normative views of use, belief in lower risk of use, and poorer attitudes toward school.” In contrast, the largest national study conducted to date, “found no association between school-based drug testing and student’s reported drug use.”

Told you so. Told you so. Na na na na na na! Drug-testing is an expensive, pointless feel-good measure that accomplishes nothing. A false-positive test can ruin your life. The reefer madness is ridiculous.

I've got nothing today. Sometimes blogging is such a chore.

UPDATE: Forgot to link the news stories.

Another Drug Raid Gone Wrong

Basile Parasiris, his wife and two children awoke in a panic as police used a battering ram to break into their Brossard home and then started firing their guns inside during Friday's pre-dawn raid, his lawyer said yesterday.

Lawyer Frank Pappas said his client was trying to defend himself and his family when he grabbed a loaded gun and shot Laval Constable Daniel Tessier - whom Parasiris mistook for a crazed thief.

"If he would've believed it was the police, do you think he would have taken them on?" Pappas said in an interview. "They have more firepower than him."

It sucks that we are following in the footsteps of our misguided neighbours to the south. One cop is dead, another cop is injured and Brossard is facing charges for first-degree murder in the death of Tessier; attempted murder in the shooting of his partner, Constable Stephane Forbes; firing a gun with the intent to wound Forbes; and endangering Forbes's life.

Take note of the fact that no drugs were found during the raid.

Would the strongarm tactics of the police been justified if large quantities of drugs had been discovered? If this raid had been successful, the police would have done a circle-jerk on television over bags of marijuana, cocaine, illegal weapons and piles of currency, while patting each other on the bum in a completely heterosexual way for a job well done. They would once again exaggerate the value of the illegal drugs and act as though another pointless drug bust will actually make a difference in the WAR ON DRUGS. Busting a grow-op is a victory in the same way that putting Starbucks out of business would be a victory in the war on coffee.

I found this story over at Pete's pad.

VAGINA: Why? Because Saskboy said so

Vagina Vagina Vagina Vagina Vagina

Also

VAGINA!


PS: Bong hits 4 Jesus

Two Students Expelled For Allegedly Coming To Class High

SAN DIEGO -- Two Grossmont High School District students were expelled after allegedly coming to class high on marijuana.

When asked about the marijuana, the students showed their medical marijuana prescription cards.

The school district said even if the kids have a prescription, it is still illegal to come to school with any drug because federal laws that prohibit drug use govern the school.

So does that mean a child that is using Ritalin to treat ADHD would be unable to come to school? Watch the video, the reefer madness was fascinating to see.

More young people smoke pot than tobacco, survey finds

A Vancouver Coastal Health survey has found that most youth in Vancouver start smoking marijuana before their 15th birthday, not long after their first whiff of tobacco or sip of beer.

The city-wide survey of youth aged 16 to 24 shows cannabis sativa is the illicit drug of first choice for today's young people.

Almost seven out of every 10 of those surveyed (68 per cent) said they had tried marijuana at least once.

That's a lot of kids smoking marijuana. 70% of kids smoking weed is quite shocking, even for me. I never saw marijuana until I was 18. I would never have known where to get it before that.

It's a good thing it's illegal. [/sarcasm]

Drug Testing Kids a Bad Idea, Doctors Say

I hope the Pee-Police are listening.

CHICAGO - Subjecting children to drug testing is usually a bad idea for a host of reasons, including often inaccurate results and loss of the child’s trust, a leading pediatricians’ group said on Monday.

Increasingly, schools are embarking on drug testing, particularly of student-athletes, following a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared the practice legal.

It was a great article, bringing up the same points that Educators for Sensible Drug Policy bring up about drug-testing. They mentioned the false positives, the climate of distrust and the fact that drug tests miss a lot of substances. Marijuana is the only drug that can be detected many days after ingestion. There are also many ways to beat a drug test. I will forgive them for failing to mention the high cost of drug-testing. But just this once.

There is also a poll. Nobody on the series of tubes can resist a poll!

Max does CPAC

I found this cool video via Jesus General. Max Blumenthal goes to CPAC and talks to Our Lady of the Concentration Camps, Michelle Malkin as well as a very pale representative of the Black Republicans. This video contains the infamous clip of Ann Coulter refering to John Edwards as a faggot. Other much better bloggers than me have commented on the stupidity of Ann Coulter's remarks. What a sexist, homophobic society we are when we consider being gay the worst insult we can use to deride someone!

However, in my mind the most interesting part of this video came when Max Blumenthal asks Ann Coulter why she has had three broken engagements and has never been married. It is certainly a reasonable question to ask, since conservatives are so fond of telling other people how to have an acceptable marriage that will prevent the erosion of society. Ms. Coulter blames Mr. Blumenthal for being a "typical liberal". Isn't it lovely the way that conservatives are so scared of the left that they make weak and pathetic attempts to turn the word liberal into an insult? Ms. Coulter deflects Mr. Blumenthal's questions by saying, "Thank you for respecting my privacy."

I don't know if Americans lack kindergarten classes or perhaps she was asleep during the Sunday school classes that the allegedly Christian Ann Coulter is so fond of, but has she ever heard of the Golden Rule? Treat others the way that you wish to be treated. This is a basic rule to govern all human interactions and it is the first thing that young children are taught, be they Christian, Muslim or Godless Liberal.

So if Ann Coulter wishes to have her right to privacy respected, then perhaps she should be willing to respect the privacy of her fellow human beings. She should realize that an individuals' choice of marriage partner is not the business of the state or nosy conservative pundits. Nobody cares that Ann Coulter had broken engagements and has broken God's commandment to "Be fruitful and multiply." If Ms. Coulter wants her right to privacy respected, then she needs to do the same for other people. Quit trying to impose your narrow world-views on everybody else. As Shakes would say, "Stay out of our beds, our britches and our families."

The idea that our personal and private decisions should be monitored by the state is an offensive idea that lies in direct contrast to supposed traditional, small-government conservatism. This is the idea behind the War on Drugs. You can do the drugs that the state says are acceptable. Alcohol, caffeine, sugar, prescription drugs and nicotine are all available for state-approved and taxed consumption, despite their negative impact on human health. But if you want to use a drug that the man has decided is unacceptable, off to the slammer you go. We are such a bunch of children that we need the nanny state to impose its' misguided morality on the populace. Anyway, enjoy the video! I know I did.

Prohibition didn't help these kids

A couple of teenage boys coerced a couple of toddlers into smoking marijuana. The kids are now in the custody of the state. I pity their mother.

What is this?

Is this DARE or Jesus Camp? I can't really tell.

The Real Cause of Schizophrenia

via PZ I found this extremely interesting acceptance speech by Robert Sapolsky when he won the Freedom from Religion Foundations' "The Emperor Has No Clothes" award. One of the things Sapolsky discusses is the true cause of schizophrenia. Organizations such as "Not My Kid" love to go on about marijuana causing mental disorders and schizophrenia, despite the fact that the majority of marijuana users do not develop schizophrenia and a large number of non-drug-users also suffer from this disease. They are purposely oblivious to the fact that people that suffer from mental diseases are more likely to self-medicate. As any good scientist can tell you, correlation does not mean causation. Repeat this to yourself as you read this bit of reefer madness that I found on "Not my Kid's" home page. Even linking this stuff makes me feel dirty inside. EWWWW!

Anyway, to balance out the evilness of the "Marijuana causes Schizophrenia" pearl-clutchers, I am going to go ahead and quote my favorite parts of Robert Sapolsky's speech because I know you people are too lazy to read the whole thing. Here goes nothing:

One of the keys about schizophrenia is that it's a disorder with a genetic component. That doesn't mean it is genetically guaranteed. It is not genetically determined. There is a genetic risk for this disease, as is the case with most psychiatric disorders.

The minute you see there's any genetics on the scene, you've got to ask an evolutionary question, which is: "Where did these genes evolve from?" Why do we have schizophrenia in every culture on this planet? From an evolutionary perspective, schizophrenia is not a cool thing to have.

What's evolution about? Evolution is the process by which adaptive traits become more common. Schizophrenia is not an adaptive trait. You can show this formally: schizophrenics have a lower rate of leaving copies of their genes in the next generation than unaffected siblings. By the rules, by the economics of evolution, this is a maladaptive trait. Yet, it chugs along at a one to two percent rate in every culture on this planet.

So what's the adaptive advantage of schizophrenia? It has to do with a classic truism--this business that sometimes you have a genetic trait which in the full-blown version is a disaster, but the partial version is good news.

What's the example we all learned in the textbook case? Sickle-cell anemia: full-blown version, fatal hematological disorder; partial version, you don't get malaria. Tay Sachs disease: full-blown version, your nervous system is destroyed within a couple of months of life; partial version, you're resistant to tuberculosis. Cystic fibrosis: full-blown version, you're typically dead by 20; partial version, you're resistant to cholera. This turns out to be a theme with a lot of human genetics. As long as there's enough folks with the advantageous partial version, you can afford the occasional cousin with the full-blown version.

Evidence suggests this is what the genetics of schizophrenia is about. What's the partial version? It's the disease that got identified about 30 years ago. The first study that found genetic evidence for schizophrenics looked at about 20,000 people adopted in Denmark, looking at patterns of inheritability of schizophrenia; were you likely to share schizophrenic traits with your adopted parents, or your biological parents?

This was a massive multi-year study. Psychiatrists talked to more relatives of schizophrenics than any psychiatrists had ever done before in a career. What they noticed was, there's something kind of weird about relatives of schizophrenics--not every single one of them, but at higher than expected rates. This "kinda weirdness" is now called "schizotypal personality."

What is schizotypal? It's a more subtle version of schizophrenia. This is not somebody who's completely socially crippled; they're just solitary, detached: these are the lighthouse keepers, the projectionists in the movie theaters. These are not people who are thought-disordered to the point of being completely nonfunctional; these are people who just believe in kinda strange stuff. They are into their Star Trek conventions. They're into their astrology, they're into their telepathy and their paranormal beliefs, they're into--and you can see now where I'm heading [laughter]--very, very literal, concrete interpretations of religious events.

Schizophrenics have a whole lot of trouble telling the level of abstraction of a story. They're always biased in the direction of interpreting things more concretely than is actually the case. You would take a schizopohrenic and say, "Okay, what do apples, bananas and oranges have in common?" and they would say, "They all are multi-syllabic words." [laughter] You say "Well, that's true. Do they have anything else in common?" and they say, "Yes, they actually all contain letters that form closed loops." [laughter] This is not seeing the trees instead of the forest, this is seeing the bark on the trees, this very concreteness.

What you find with schizotypals is what is called metamagical thinking, a very strong interest in new-age beliefs, science fiction, fantasy, religion, but in a very concrete, literal form, a very fundamentalist style. Somebody walking on water is not a metaphor. Somebody rising from the dead is not a metaphor; this is reported, literal fact.

Now we have to ask our evolutionary question: "Who are the schizotypals throughout 99% of human history?" And in the 1930s, decades before the word "schizotypal" even existed, anthropologists already had the answer.

It's the shamans. It's the medicine men. It's the medicine women. It's the witch doctors. In the 1930s an anthropologist named Paul Radin first described it as "shamans being half mad," shamans being "healed madmen." This fits exactly. It's the shamans who are moving separate from everyone else, living alone, who talk with the dead, who speak in tongues, who go out with the full moon and turn into a hyena overnight, and that sort of stuff. It's the shamans who have all this metamagical thinking. When you look at traditional human society, they all have shamans. What's very clear, though, is they all have a limit on the number of shamans. That is this classic sort of balanced selection of evolution. There is a need for this subtype--but not too many.

Sorry it's such a long quote but I am very fascinated by genetics, evolution and everything that makes humanity such a fascinating species of mammal. I get such joy out of discovering what makes us tick and where we really come from. I sometimes think I should study science and biology if I grow up.

Naked Principal Found With Sex Toys Watching Gay Porn In Office

EWWWWWW! The headline says it all.

As authorities stormed into a middle school office to arrest an alleged meth-dealing principal inside, they found an even more surprising scene inside.

Sources said 50-year-old John Acerra, of Allentown, was naked and watching gay pornography when they arrived at Nitschmann Middle School in Bethlehem to arrest him on Tuesday.

Acerra also had sex toys, drugs, cash and a pipe in his school office when authorities stormed his office, the sources added.

I wonder if he will face the same fate as Ted Haggard. Will he go and pray away the gay?

I bet the trouble started with that first hit of a marijuana cigarette.

Seriously though, if you wanted to come up with a sordid, made-for-television, parent's-worst-nightmare scenario, could you do any better than a gay, sex-toy loving school principal dealing crystal meth out of his office? My imagination fails to come up with a more titillating scenario.

I wonder what kind of severance package he gets. I hope that my man is right when he said, "Let's hope it's at the neck."

Marijuana Mommies

* Image stolen from Slate.

Over at Chikii there is an interesting interview with some "Marijuana Mommies". It was a fairly balanced discussion about the use of marijuana and the parenting issues associated with being a parent and a marijuana user. I was pleased that the host did not fall back on making judgmental statements about the parenting abilities of mothers that choose to use marijuana. It was not a re-run of the "Mommy Wars". It is apparent to me that the public is in desperate need of knowledge about drugs, especially marijuana. I found it interesting that a marijuana user would make the statement that marijuana should not be legal because "it isn't something that people should be doing." That was odd. Even the marijuana moms seemed to be unaware that smoking marijuana is not comparable to smoking cigarettes. At least they are aware that smoking marijuana is much safer than using alcohol. I really enjoyed the discussion about the practicalities of having an illegal habit and discussing it (or not) with your children. It was great stuff! I do find it unfortunate that the women were filmed in silhouette to conceal their identities. I hope to live to see the day when people will agree to publicly identify as marijuana users and it won't be a big deal. This interview is a nice counter to reefer madness propaganda.

But then Chikii decided to interview an organization called "Not My Kid". My opinion of this organization can be summed up thusly "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." The contrast between the interview with the marijuana mommies and the members of "Not My Kid" were profound.

They repeated many of John Walter's favorite reefer madness talking points. They state that today's marijuana is not the same marijuana that was smoked in the sixties. They don't bother to discuss why the potency of marijuana has increased over the years. The drug war has made producing and selling marijuana much more difficult and dangerous. They also don't mention that even if the marijuana was 100% THC it would still be impossible to have a fatal overdose. In fact, since THC does not cause cancer, smoking more potent marijuana could be arguably safer than smoking less potent marijuana. Marijuana users smoke until they get the desired effect and then they stop. Getting too high is a waste of good weed. You are exposed to less smoke by smoking more potent marijuana. These women should be congratulating the purveyors of fine BC Bud for making the marijuana safer!

They state that there are more twenty year olds in treatment for marijuana than any other drug. But they don't bother to mention that people that are arrested for possession or trafficking of marijuana are given two options. You can either go to re-hab or you can go to jail and get a criminal record which will have an impact on your future employment options. Shockingly, the majority of people choose re-hab. Who'da thunk-it eh? The statistics about marijuana users are over-inflated and do not reflect the number of users that actually need re-hab. The pearl-clutching about BC Bud was especially hysterical. I guess they didn't hear the news that Canada is not a significant supplier of marijuana to the United States.

They also mention the dangers of marijuana laced with stronger drugs such as heroin. "A young man got hooked on heroin without knowing it! He tested positive for heroin at a drug test!" First of all, drug tests have a high rate of false positives, so unless the positive result was confirmed at a lab, I would question the validity of the test. Second, I highly doubt that very many seasoned pot-smokers would be exposed to heroin without their knowledge. Finally, even if this story is true, these ladies fail to recognize that unregulated marijuana is the cause of laced weed. The best wayto insure the safety of marijuana is to legalize it.

Sometimes I wonder if these drug prohibitionists go to a secret camp where they learn all the appropriate strategies to terrify everybody into being afraid of marijuana and its' users. They always tell some meaningless anecdote about some kid that used marijuana and then went on to use hard drugs and ruin his life. They never bother to mention the millions of marijuana users that never go on to use hard drugs. I guess they wouldn't be drug prohibitionists if they didn't push the thoroughly debunked gateway theory. But the very best bit of stupid reefer madness propaganda was the following statement:

To think there is such a thing as responsible drug use is... it's just an oxy-moron.

Huh???? What about coffee-drinkers, beer-drinkers, prescription drug-users, users of over-the-counter drugs and medical marijuana patients? I suppose these are all irresponsible drug users?

Let me close with this: THE LEGAL STATUS OF A DRUG IS UNRELATED TO ITS' POTENTIAL TO CAUSE HARM. This could arguably be the most important message that drug policy reformers need to give to the public.

UPDATE: Fixed my stupid typos.

Better Programs Out There

I just had another letter to the editor published, this time in the Nipawin Journal. I wrote my letter in response to some local controversy over the DARE program AKA the Drugs*Are*Really*Excellent program. Here is my two cents:

There are some excellent resources out there for concerned parents and teachers that wish to provide information to young people about drugs that are much more effective than "Just Say No." I highly recommend Educators for Sensible Drug Policy at www.efsdp.org. The Safety1st booklet located at www.safety1st.org contains excellent information that teachers can use to educate their students. They will send you free copies of their booklets if you ask for them.

The RCMP and the DARE program push a "Just Say No" and "All-use-is-abuse" approach to drug education that is counter-productive. The fact is the legal status of a drug is unrelated to its‚ potential to cause a user harm. While I am sure that the police officers get training, they are not qualified teachers. They did not earn a bachelor of education in their police training.

We wouldn't expect a police officer to be qualified to teach reading, writing or arithmetic, so why would we hand them the important job of teaching students about drugs? Handing this job over to the police merely reinforces the idea that drugs are cool and dangerous.

Drugs are not inherently harmful but the ways that they are used have the potential to cause harm. An adult drinking a beer or two is a responsible use of alcohol. Binge drinking and driving while impaired are harmful. Even children's Tylenol can be dangerous if it isn't used properly and that is the message that we need to give to children. We don’t ban knives because knives may hurt children; we teach them how to use a knife responsibly.

If Mr. Kiedrowski is sincere in his desire to learn more about why certain drugs are illegal, I would recommend reading the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, located at www.senatereport.ca. The history of the prohibition of marijuana is marred by propaganda and yellow journalism. It's unfortunate that this ugly period of history is not yet behind us but it is going to take a long time to undo 80-plus years of reefer madness.

Tanya Derbowka, VP, Saskatchewan
Marijuana Party, Saskatoon, Sask.

The debate about the DARE program was nice to see. Maybe we can change a few minds about the need for police to be the gate-keepers of knowledge about drugs. I am not in any way opposed to children seeing police officers as friendly and helpful but that does not mean they should be the ones to teach kids about drugs. A lot of people wrote in to the Nipawin Journal and I am really glad the editor chose to publish such a wide variety of view points.