"SpongeBob Square Pants is Just SomeGuys' Acid Trip"

"SpongeBob Square Pants is Just SomeGuys' Acid Trip", said my misguided co-worker. "That's why my husband won't let my kids watch SpongeBob."

"WHAT? That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. SpongeBob is the nicest, friendliest and most polite cartoon character EVER. He is the best role model a kid could ever have. If it wasn't for drugs, there wouldn't be any good cartoons."

This earned me a few raised eyebrows and shocked looks. Good, I say. When reefer madness prevents a parent from watching SpongeBob, then you know the world has gone crazy. What is there not to love about SpongeBob? If only everybody could be as nice as SpongeBob and as happy to do well in a low-paying job. He skips happily, he never swears and he always holds Patricks' hands. He could definitely teach me a few things.

Drugs and Alcohol

What a stupid and obnoxious waste of a phrase. Alcohol is a drug, putting it into its' own category does not change that fact. I wish I could say drugs and everybody would know that I was including alcohol. That would be the smart and sensible thing. But since we live in a flawed and biased world, where drug prohibition is justified by the existence of drug addicts, it won't happen anytime soon.

No Child Left Untested

A very interesting look at drug testing in American schools. MSNBC features the views from the pro-drug-testing and the anti-drug testing sides of the debate. There are concerns about privacy:

Dr. Bertha Madras: Under ideal conditions the testing is random, which is critical. If it's a urine test, the child is asked to come down to the nurse's office. They walk in solo, they deposit a sample as they would in any doctor's office, they give the sample to the nurse who puts a little dip stick in, and the dip stick will say positive or negative.

Jennifer Kern: They are removed from their classrooms and are escorted to take a drug test, and if they end up with a positive test result they are removed from their extracurricular activity. And because this is a very public removal from the classroom and often a public removal from the extracurricular activity, the testing is not as confidential as promised.

Is there a risk that kids who test positive for drugs will be stigmatized?

Madras: The thing that I have heard is that everyone knows who's using drugs; there are no surprises amongst the kids. Kids know who are the users, their friends know, so when a kid is not engaged in sports for one game, nobody is surprised. I've been a parent all my life, and I knew which one of the kids I didn't want my kids near. I think the far greater risk is using the drug that can have adverse consequences on brain, body and behavior.

Translation: We already know who the drug users are and their feelings don't matter so it's no big deal if they get singled out.

Kern: What is the point of removing the kids from extracurricular activities when they are most in need of that support and there is the question of confidentiality and those students being labeled as the 'bad kid' and how that effects them?

Why didn't MSNBC ask about the costs of drug testing? These programs are expensive and are not proven to reduce student drug use. Why didn't they bother to bring that up? Read the whole thing. I especially like how the prohibitionist used the "successes" of drug testing in the military to justify intrusive drug testing of adolescents in a high school setting. Nice.

The Best Test for "Booze Clues"

In fact it works so well that if your kid uses the following common household items, they could test positive for alcohol:

--Hand Sanitizer (62 percent alcohol)
--Cough Medicine (10 percent alcohol)
--Mouthwash (27 percent alcohol)
--Vanilla Extract (35 percent alcohol)
--Disinfectant spray (at least 79 percent alcohol)

It's only going to cost the Pequannock Towship $120,000 of federal money to impliment the program. It's nice to know that the quality of American education is so wonderful and top-notch that they have the luxury of wasting $120,000 on ineffective testing. Every American kid has a band instrument, adequate support, tutoring and a lunch, right?

Wingnut Victories

Did you know that when Mexico extradites 11 narco-terrorists to the United States it's a victory for the war on drugs? Because apparently, they are the only 11 people in all of Mexico that are capable of running the vast murderous Tijuana drug cartel. Thus the war on drugs is over, at least if you are gullible enough to take wingunts at their word. For some amusing, "analysis" of this victory all you have to do is head on over to my second favorite wingnut site, (next to Wingnut Daily), Human Events.

How the War on Drugs Affects Pregnant Women

A really interesting article from feministing about how pregnant women lose their rights.

In case you’re wondering, being addicted to drugs is not a crime, only the stuff you do is a crime, not who or what you are at a given point in time. So-

Being an addict: not a crime
Possessing drugs with the intent to take them, give them away or sell them: all crimes.

Being an alcoholic: not a crime
Driving while intoxicated: a crime

Despite this fact, all over the country, women are being prosecuted for “crimes” based only on their (1) being pregnant and (2) testing positive for drugs. No one else can be tested and prosecuted just for having drugs in his or her system. To get around what they obviously see as a shortcoming in the law, prosecutors charge pregnant women with “delivery of drugs to a minor” and “child endangerment” even though the laws clearly were not meant to be used in these cases.

This violates pregnant women’s constitutional rights, since (1) the laws are applied differently to them than anyone else, (2) they have no reason to know that these laws apply to what they are doing, (3) women have pled guilty to crimes that aren’t really crimes, and (4) the Supreme Court has held that punishing someone for being addicted to drugs or alcohol is both cruel and unusual punishment, since addiction is an illness. Not only is it unconstitutional, it doesn’t do a thing to help babies or their mothers. Threats of prosecution just scare women away from drug treatment and prenatal care.

Prisons are full of drugs, so the idea that jailing women will help their fetuses is a moot point. Pregnancy can be a rather dehumanizing experience, especially when everybody obsesses about the contents of your belly and seem to forget about the flesh surrounding the uterus, known as "woman".

Needle pickup costs concern city councillor

Saskatoon city councillors sure like to complain.

The City of Saskatoon shouldn't pay to pick up discarded needles that originate from the Saskatoon Health Region's needle exchange program, according to Coun. Myles Heidt.

The needle exchange program is necessary and does excellent work, Heidt said, but he wonders if the health region should be doing more to help with cleanup.

"I don't think it's fair. Not handing needles out is not an option, so what do we do? The communities shouldn't be footing the bill (for needle pickups)," Heidt said.

Waaaah! Maybe they should complain about having to shovel snow too. I would think that the cost of picking up needles would be minor compared to the risk of a child getting poked by a dirty needle. As it turns out, Heidt is complaining about nothing.

Assistant fire chief Bob Fawcett said the only cost to the city is the fuel used by fire trucks picking up the needles.

While it may seem excessive to send a large fire truck to pick up one tiny needle, Fawcett said the dangers of dirty needles outweigh concerns of wasteful spending.

"We don't find needle pick-up tedious. This is in the interest of community safety of children. We would rather go out and pick them up rather then children poking themselves," he said.

Maybe they could find a smaller vehicle that is used specifically for needle pick-up if they are so worried about fuel. Otherwise it seems like a pretty good idea having firefighters pick up needles, after all, what do firefighters do when they aren't fighting fires anyway?

If city councillors are wringing their hands about the cost of picking up needles, imagine the fuss if anybody suggested a safe injection site in Saskatoon.

In Defense of the Drug War

I was in shock on New Years' day when I read an article on Human Events, a wingnut site, that calls for an end to the war on drugs. Luckily for us, the wingnuts came to their senses and offer us some mindless dreck, full of strawmen entitled "In Defense of the Drug War". The wingnut compares the war on drugs to the war on murder or rape. I have not the words.

Luckily for me, Pete did a fine job of smacking them down and will save me the trouble of doing it myself. Thus I will have more time to enjoy my tasty hazelnut coffee. Mmmmmmm, coffee.

Op-Ed in the LA Times

Let them have their pot - sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

Walker Family Site

I understand their plight a little better and I certainly do feel sympathetic. Our system is pretty messed up and they are victims of it. However, my feeling that it was a crime has not changed. It feels like bad taste to comment further on their situation. So I am done with this for now.

Link

Link Time

I got nothing today. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Ryan Grim over at The Politico reports on the vandalism committed against the Wikipedia entry for the National Institutes of Drug Abuse. You would think that having lies and bullshit propaganda on web sites paid for and maintained by the US taxpayer would be enough. But no, they must spread their bias to an online user-created encyclopedia.

From Grits for Breakfast I read a headline I thought I would never see, GOP Doctor Files Needle Exchange Bill in Senate. This is from the same state that banned dildos. Incidentally, why are there so many great bloggers in Austin? It must be something in the water.

Last but not least, we have state-sponsored kidnapping happening in Alberta. The children were saved and we can all sleep better. It is much better to kidnap children than to deal with the cause of grow-ops. You know, the fact that growing weed is an easy way to make money due to the black market. I know if I was on welfare the temptation of easy bucks from running a grow-op would be hard to resist.

This headline sucks

Maybe if we helped the most vulnerable and devalued members of society overcome drug addiction through harm reduction measures then perhaps deranged unnameable whackjobs would not be able to slaughter 49 women with impunity. Then the Canadian public would not have to be assaulted with the worst headline ever:

Murder allegations 'hogwash,' Pickton told Mountie

A note to all headline writers everywhere. Pay attention! Do not put a pun in a headline that is covering the trial of a scumbag that allegedly slaughtered 49 women.

I really wish that the politicians would let science and medicine prevail instead of political ideology. The senseless opposition to making drug users lives easier and safer makes no sense. They have this unshakeable dogma that sounds like this: "Drugs are bad, m'kay, you shouldn't do drugs." The conservatives will make no exceptions and don't seem to be willing to look outside of their narrow-minded little "Drugs are bad" box.

Conservatives are supposed to be in favor of small government and fiscal conservatism aren't they? Do the not consider the economic costs of having homeless, sick, drug-addicted people contracting bloodborne illnesses? The economic impact of treating one AIDS patient has to be less than the cost of handing out clean needles to addicts or providing needle-free maintenance drug therapy. The sooner we vote these bums out of office, the better.

More thoughts on the Yorkton Case

*Warning: The following blog post is long and full of potty no-no words and introspection. This may be more relevant as a diary entry to be forgotten in the hard drive files on my computer, in the same section that houses my recipes that I have never used and the fuzzy photographs of my naked children that may one day get me in trouble for harboring child pr0n. Reading this post will cure your insomnia, trust me.

Saskboy posted about this case over at his blog and the discussion that got going in the comments was excellent. This case brings up a lot of issues like drug law reform, legalization of marijuana, mandatory minimum sentencing, prison reform, vigilante justice, the lengths that a parent will go to protect their offspring, and even some deeply disturbing issues related to the infamous Robert Latimer case. I even grocked the nature of my somewhat confrontational style of internet arguing that was finely honed on internet forums plagued with nerds with skin problems. I have to admit that I had difficulty sleeping last night because of all the disturbing ideas that have been running around in my brain. One day they will have to pry my glowing laptop from my fingers before hauling me off to the loony bin. No wonder I don’t have any friends. ;)

I object to vigilante justice for some very obvious reasons. Letting armed thugs unload their weapons on unsuspecting people is wrong under any circumstances. I objected to Saddam's execution for the same reasons. His hanging was surreal, like an episode of South Park. We had school yard bullies taunting the doomed Saddam and shaky footage from a cell-phone that ends up plastered all over the internet despite promises that Saddam's execution would be a private affair. I kept expecting a horned Satan creature to show up and praise the fact that he will be reunited with his lover in hell. And performing it during Eid! If their intention was to turn the Butcher of Baghdad into a martyr, then mission accomplished. Let's get all the Iraqi people to rally around their dead hero who died very bravely, holding up signs and chanting HAIL IRAQ DEATH TO AMERICA! While burning George Bush in effigy. No wonder the world hates America. I had to take a cultural awareness class before I was allowed to work with children and yet you can run a country while having absolutely no respect for a foreign culture. Words can not express my disgust with the entire affair.

I felt this way about a murderous, dirty rotten bastard. So that I would be horrified at the vilification of young James Hayward in the media should surprise nobody who reads my blog or has the privilege of knowing the real me. I was especially disgusted by the way that John Gormley became completely unhinged on the air and referred to Hayward as scum, among many other things. I was so offended I had to shut the radio off. The fact that so many people refuse to see this from the victims' point of view makes me fear for the future of humanity.

But I am certainly not innocent. I had some less than charitable thoughts about Kim Walker. "If I ever get the chance to see that asshole I would beat the fucking crap out of him and spit on him." "I hope Big Bubba stretches out his asshole in jail." "That fucking bastard John Gormley sucks ass. Die in a fire, you fucktarded halfwit!" When it comes to having evil thoughts about my fellow human beings, I am very talented. The internet taught me all about flaming. But here I am bitching about vigilante justice and the insults thrown around about James Hayward, and who am I to judge? What business do I have being judgmental about John Gormley when I am guilty of harboring these thoughts? If I was a Christian I might say that Jesus said "Let the one without sin cast the first stone." But even though I am a dyed in the wool atheist, I can see that the concept of forgiveness is extremely important. Unless humanity can get over this concept that revenge is an appropriate reaction to being hurt or wronged, we are doomed. Doomed I say!

My capacity for violence frightens me sometimes. I am a nice person! I look after children all day long. But yet there was a time when I fantasized about stabbing my ex in the neck while he slept. I was in a stereotypically bad relationship that was worse than jail and with no end in sight. The desire to retaliate against all the pain and hurt was a normal reaction and perfectly understandable. But that certainly didn’t make it acceptable.

I understand exactly how Kim Walker must have felt. He was angry at the system, angry at the Gods that allowed his daughter to become addicted to morphine, angry at James Hayward and angry at the world. Who hasn’t felt that anger?

Yesterday I posted in various places about the message it would send if we gave Kim Walker a light sentence. What I should have realized is this: What message does it send when I use the obnoxious phrase “What message does it send?” Prohibitionists are always talking about the message we would give to children if we legalized drugs. Oh please think of the children, the messages they get are much more important than their health, happiness and safety. Despite the fact that many things far more dangerous than drugs are exposed to children, we must think of the message we send! Then it dawns on me.

Why all this talk of messages? The message that really concerns me is this: James Hayward is a human being. But should punishing Kim Walker really be our highest priority?

I highly disapprove of sending any human being to jail. Jail is full of drugs, disease, slave labor, anal rape, abuse and lessons on how to be a better criminal. Criminals feel angry, resentful and full of revenge during their incarceration. Surely if we want a safe and healthy society, we should start by reforming our unjust and immoral prison system. The only useful function that jails serve is to protect the public, at least until the prisoner is released. The attempts to reform prisoners are laughably inept. When I feel this way about our criminal justice system, why am I so worried about the message being sent by a light sentence for Kim Walker? Am I so blinded by my anger at the denial of James Hayward’s humanity that I have temporarily forgotten what my own values are?

I am very guilty of a contradiction. Here I am advocating for Kim Walker to be locked up in jail for a very long time and I highly disapprove of our corrupt prison gulags. Our natural human desire to punish the wicked keeps people from seeing that the way we treat prisoners impacts our entire society and way of life. Condoning violence in any situation is completely unacceptable. Until we can all overcome our desire to punish people that have wronged us, and who among us hasn’t been wronged, humanity is doomed to war, violence and perpetual strife.

Why I am pro-choice.

I am pro-choice for the same reason that I support an end to the drug war. Abortion bans and drug prohibition are both examples of the tyranny of the majority against a minority group. Opposing abortion rights has profound repercussions for a minority group – women that have abortions. It seems easy for a majority group to impose restrictions to minority groups because of the perception that “it doesn’t affect me”. When Canada first banned marijuana, there were next to no marijuana smokers and we relied on imported reefer madness propaganda from the States, dispensed by Emily Murphy, to push for a ban on marijuana. There was no way of knowing at that time what the consequences were going to be in terms of wasted public resources and needless deaths. Abortion rights are seen in the same way; a lot of men have the audacity to oppose abortion rights, despite the fact that they will never be pregnant.

The pro-life side loves to wax poetical about saving babies, saving women from the harms caused by abortion and preaching at women about ”post-abortion syndrome” (they made it up.) They love to go on about the 47 million babies slaughtered since Roe v. Wade. They act as if abortions did not exist before 1973. Unfortunately they did. Just like banning drugs has not stopped people from using drugs, banning abortion did not stop abortions. Illegal abortions lead to horribly painful deaths for many women. *This link is very disturbing, read at your own risk. Opposing abortion is not pro-life.

I am glad that I live in Canada, where abortion is completely unregulated thanks to the activism of Henry Morgentaler.

This is my favorite pro-choice post that I have ever read and it illustrates the hypocrisy of the pro-life stance.

Yorkton murder victim didn't deserve fate

The overwhelming support for Mr. Walker, a murderous scumbag, is wrong and the victims' side of the story is not being told. The following article is from the Globe and Mail:

Yorkton murder victim didn't deserve fate: sisters

YORKTON (CP) - The following statement was read Friday by Alana Getty of Calgary, 29, and Kendra Getty of Vancouver, 27, on the steps of the courthouse in Yorkton where Kim Walker was on trial for the killing of James Hayward.

“We are James’s stepsisters and the following statements are our thoughts and feelings about the facts and surrounding circumstances of this case.

“We are looking forward to finally seeing justice served for our family. We would like to be sure everyone knows that ALL of the delays in the last four years were requested by the defense. The defense continues to dwell on how hard it has been for the Walker family to lead a normal life during the time, but at least they have had the opportunity. No one can understand what it is like to suddenly have a son, brother or friend eliminated from your life, especially under these violent and public circumstances. Mr. Walker’s family will be able to say goodbye to him before he goes to jail, and they’ll be able to visit him there, but our family was never given the chance to say goodbye to James.

“Mr. Walker is often described as a father, a welder and a bagpiper, but not as a gun club member with a large collection of firearms, one of which he used to shoot James to death. Mr. Walker went to James’s house with the loaded gun in its holster and two extra magazines full of bullets. Mr. Walker has never expressed any regret or remorse for killing James.

“The Walkers are not the only loving and caring family members awaiting a verdict. A lot of people loved James and he had many great qualities regardless of the way he earned money. James was a caring, funny, supportive and compassionate person. Please remember that he is not here to defend himself against any accusations.

“James bodybuilding picture is from two years before he was killed. A more recent picture has not been provided by our family because we were betrayed by the media right after James’s death. It is not an accurate picture of the person Mr. Walker encountered at the door on March 17, 2003. The pathologist testified that James only weighed 160 pounds at death. Other witnesses testified that, in the months before he was shot, James was losing weight and deteriorating; he needed help, just as Jadah needed help.

“The defense has said that, by killing James, Mr. Walker rescued his daughter from a drug addict’s death. No evidence was presented to show that she was about to die from the drug use, only that she needed help. Doctors just released Jadah that Monday morning to the care of her parents. No one knows what might have happened if James had not been killed. Perhaps they BOTH could have been saved, but no one was given the opportunity to save James. Instead, Mr. Walker decided that he was already out of options and chose to kill James. How many options were truly exhausted at that point? Drug addiction is a serious and difficult problem to resolve. They had just begun to work on Jadah’s rehabilitation when Mr. Walker took this extreme action.

“James’s mother doesn’t live in Yorkton, and although she thought he was selling marijuana and didn’t approve of that, she did not know that he started taking morphine. James did NOT sell morphine and was not taking it before he knew Jadah. James was not killing people; he did not force people to do drugs or try to get them hooked. Drug dealers do not need to advertise and the people James knew would have bought marijuana elsewhere, just as they did after he was killed. Jadah CHOSE to do drugs, CHOSE to return to James’s house the day he was killed, and CHOSE not to leave with her father. Mr. Walker CHOSE to end James’s life and he deserves punishment for that.

“We will never know whether or not Mr. Walker was waiting for an excuse to carry out his desire to kill James. If he had gone to the house only intending to get Jadah out, why didn’t he try to use the gun to PERSUADE James and Jadah? Multiple witnesses testified that he pulled the gun and immediately started shooting. Mr. Walker has received tremendous support from mush of the Yorkton community and has publicly thanked them for it….

“We can’t help but wonder how public perception may have been different if this had happened in a community where James and our family were well known, and where Mr. Walker was a stranger with a gun.

“We believe that NOT convicting Mr. Walker of murder would send the message that we don’t need to care about everyone in our communities. If we don’t respect someone’s lifestyle, or if they are breaking laws, then we cannot take their life and expect that the law won’t apply to us. Parents do NOT have the right to murder anyone their child chooses to date under ANY circumstances.

Smoking In The City

On the contrary, Amsterdam is a boring, almost grossly civilized city. Living there, smoking pot became stigmatic, as one only wants what they can' t have.

Amsterdamers do not smoke pot at the same ratio as tourists. Most of my Dutch friends do not smoke, and Holland has comparable drug use statistics among youth to Canada, America and the UK. Moreover, smoking outside is still illegal and highly disrespectful in Amsterdam, and as a result of outside influence, I have only smoked a few times since moving, mainly with North American friends who have come to visit, or fellow Canadians who live there. Marijuana is a minor cultural contributor to locals, as boozing is much more popular. Pot remains an elixir for tourists to get off on, rather than locals. Therefore, living in Amsterdam has nothing to do with pot, and Dutch culture, consequentially, became the conduit for helping to curb my habit. While smoking a joint was much more of an event in Canada, at home in Amsterdam, the desire to get high is much less potent. Sure, pot is as widely available at Tim Hortons and biking to school or work, I pass by dozens of coffee shops, each one specializing in decor, blend of coffee, board game of choice or drug-filled baked good. Yet, since moving, I have visited two coffee shops, each twice, even though there are over 100 in the city centre alone. I do not stroll in for a double double every time I pass a Tim's either, and my desire for crappy coffee is more potent than the Dutch's predilection to tune in, turn on and drop out. So there you have it, a simplistic, explanation that hopefully clears the misconception. Quitting was simple, because the temptation never emerged and without the cultural context, I would have ignorantly presumed.

When marijuana is freely and widely available, using it becomes boring and common place. Smoking marijuana isn't as cool and badass in a legal environment. It's too bad that prohibitionists can not understand common sense.

Manslaughter or murder

A Yorkton man unleashed a rifle full of vigilante justice on his daughters' drug-dealing boyfriend and a jury decided his fate today.

"Our daughter is alive," said Walker, a welder and father of three, who has no criminal record.

"She's worth everything we've been through," added Walker's wife, Elizabeth.

The parents had a crystal ball with which to gaze into the future and they knew that their daughter would have died if Mr. Walker had not taken action. Maybe they should sell lottery ticket numbers too. The sympathy expressed for Mr. Walker is sickening. Did he bother to apologize to the family of the man that he murdered? I guess we all know that drug dealers aren't people with problems of their own. I have not yet heard anybody express sympathy for the victims' drug problem. Just read this bullshit from a Star Phoenix editorial.

Under normal circumstances, Canadians would consider a person who takes a gun from a locked enclosure, loads it, drives to another house and shoots someone as having committed the most egregious of crimes. It's reflected in Canadian criminal law that provides a minimum sentence of 25 years for people convicted of first degree murder.

They don't bother to mention that the daughter willingly went to see the boyfriend. She was not forced or kidnapped. Bringing a gun to get his daughter was a huge mistake and I have a hard time believing that he had no intention of using it.

I would also like to point out that this case illustrates everything that is wrong with the war on drugs. Drug dealing is extremely profitable and legalizing drugs would take away the incentive of drug-addled boyfriends to recruit new users. Make drugs available at the pharmacy and drug dealers will disappear. In the same way that ending prohibition put an end to stills, an end to the war on drugs will put an end to grow-ops and drug dealers. It's obvious that to continue to rely on law enforcement to deal with the drug problem is failing miserably.

Marijuana and Driving

Pete of Drug War Rant offers a glorious smackdown of the widely publicized study of the effects of marijuana on driving ability.

DEA Raids Eleven Compassion Clubs In Los Angeles

via CC

LOS ANGELES - Federal drug agents raided nearly a dozen medical marijuana clinics in California, seizing several thousand pounds of processed marijuana, along with weapons and money, authorities said.

Several people were detained, although no arrests were made after five dispensaries in West Hollywood and six others in Venice, Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley were searched Wednesday, said Sarah Pullen, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The raids highlighted a conflict between a California state law and the federal drug agency.

California voters in 1996 approved the Compassionate Use Act, which makes marijuana available by prescription for medicinal uses. The DEA, which does not recognize California laws legalizing medical marijuana use, has recently increased its enforcement.

Pullen declined to provide details of the latest investigation, saying the search warrants remained under seal.

More Bad News for Marc Emery

Looks like Marc is going to end up with an even more rightwing Godbag as a prosecutor when he faces his extradition trial for being a marijuana kingpin. Really shitty.

For the whole story head on over to Reload