California's ticket back to fiscal responsibility?

The moral police are already stepping up their patrols, and conservatives are maintaining Code Red status, left over from their failed health care reform fight, so before you pack up your bongs and move to California, you’d better get ready for a hard blast from the Right. There is a lot of money behind maintaining the status quo, so this will be far from a slam dunk.

A poll in April of 2009 showed that 56 percent of Californians favor legalization and taxation of the sale of pot, to help bailout the fiscally deficient state. Opponents would rather continue spending resources they don’t have, throwing non-violent CINO’s (Criminals in name only) into jail.

Opponents are worried that it will add to the many vices we already have, like tobacco and liquor, “Let’s throw the pot smokers in jail,” they say, as they fight tooth and nail against any loosening of this nation’s armed war against people who essentially choose a different brand of scotch or different pharmaceutical.

The initiative, if it passed would allow possession of an ounce (28.5 grams) or less of marijuana, by anyone 21 or older, and according to Reuters, it would also “be lawful to grow limited amounts in one’s own home for personal use.”

Taking a cue from the Netherlands Coffee House laws, though the sale of marijuana is not really legal, the initiative would enable cities and counties to “pass laws permitting commercial distribution subject to local regulations and taxes. Retail sales would still be limited to an ounce for adults 21 and older.”

Is this all a pipe dream, a seventies flashback?

To read the rest of the article by W. Skordelis on Examiner.com, click here…

Medical Marijuana - Nature's Medicine

In Florida, a state with some of the harshest marijuana laws in the country, proponents of medical marijuana and decriminalization of all marijuana understand the uphill battle ahead.

After the memo was made public Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist made his usual Reefer Madness, Neanderthal, Right-Wing, so-called “tough-on-crime” comment. He pointed out that the DOJ memo only affected states that have approved medical marijuana use and added, “I think it’s good that we’re not one of those states. I don’t think that is an appropriate thing.”

For political gain and to bolster his upcoming bid for a U.S. Senate seat, Charlie Crist would rather Florida’s cancer patients go through chemotherapy without access to marijuana which is proven to fight the nausea that comes with the therapy. Charlie Crist would rather deny what 50 percent of the country’s oncologists would recommend to cancer patients if only it was legal. Charlie Crist would rather deny AIDS patients an effective appetite stimulant to help them remain strong and fight off wasting syndrome. Crist would rather see sufferers of chronic pain continue to suffer. Crist would rather see people continue to suffer from glaucoma and spasticity.

Charlie Crist knows better than all of the scientific and medical evidence of more than 200 studies, because he will soon be running for the Senate and he wants to look like a tough guy who is tough on crime.

But where is Florida on the issue? People United For Medical Marijuana-Florida, PUFMM.org is trying to get enough signatures on a petition to force a state referendum on the issue in 2010. They are facing an uphill battle comparable to scaling Mt. Everest.

The Florida Division of Elections has approved the petition that would place a constitutional amendment on the Florida ballot. The good news is that the amendment would give patients the right to grow, purchase, possess and obtain marijuana for medical treatment. According to medical reports, there are more than 1.7 million people in the state who could benefit from marijuana’s medicinal properties. The bad news is that PUFMM has only managed to get just over 28,000 signatures on a petition which requires 700,000 signatures by February 1st of 2010 if the amendment is going to get on the ballot.

If you are an advocate of medical marijuana and feel the sick and suffering people of Florida deserve the same access to medical marijuana that patients in other states have, now is the time to act. You have nothing to fear by signing this or any other petition.

Registered Florida voters should click on the link below, print out the petition, sign it, and send it to PUFMM, P.O. Box 560296, Orlando, FL 32856

Download the petition HERE

Or… paste this link into the address field of your web browser:

http://www.pufmm.org/docs/Medical%20Marijuana%20Petition%20Form.pdf

Note: The petition is two pages, and must be printed on both sides of one sheet of paper, both facing the same direction (i.e. with the top of the page the same on both sides). Any petition received with the back upside down will be rejected. You will need your voter’s registration number as well.

Reminder: It is against the law to sign and send more than one petition, so printout an extra copy for your spouse, lover, family members and friends.

This post was taken from Examiner.com

Medical marijuana

Proponents for the legalization of marijuana are touting this as a major turnaround by the federal government, the DOJ and the DEA, and the change is significant compared to the Bush Administration’s stand in relation to marijuana use. However, it is far from a victory when you consider the language of the memo.

The Department of Justice is committed to the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in all States. Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug, and the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime and provides a significant source of revenue to large-scale criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels. One timely example underscores the importance of our efforts to prosecute significant marijuana traffickers: marijuana distribution in the United States remains the single largest source of revenue for the Mexican cartels.

That paragraph illustrates the hypocrisy of the federal position on marijuana, and it all comes down to the Controlled Substances Act. Despite the fact that 14 states have approved the use of medical marijuana, based on scientific studies and medical evidence, by maintaining its position that marijuana is a Schedule I Controlled Substance, the DEA and the federal government are denying all of that evidence, and claiming the marijuana has no proven medical benefits.

The federal government today said that they will not pursue prosecution of individuals who use medical marijuana or organizations which distribute medical marijuana as long as they are 100% compliant with state laws which permit its use and distribution. But what does that really mean for the Marijuana Nation?

Click here to read the rest of the article on Examiner.com

Marijuana Activist Dana Beal -January 2009 / Photo by Wandering Courier

Police stopped the van on Highway 6 just north of Ashland Nebraska, near Interstate 80, because the vehicle was observed “driving erratically,” and the van had obstructed plates. The officer who made the stop, saw that bags of marijuana were plainly visible inside, and called for back-up. Police found the van filled with marijuana, the largest cannabis seizure in Saunders County history, according to Ashland police. The three men were charged with “possession with intent to deliver.” The bail for each of the two other men, Christopher Ryan and James Statzer was set at $100K each. The bail for Irvin Dana Beal was set at $500K.

Beal, a publicly active anti-prohibitionist has been arrested before. His latest arrest was in June of 2008, in Mattoon, Illinois when police responded to a report of two women arguing at a restaurant. Witnesses stated that they’d seen Beal place duffel bags beneath nearby vehicles. Upon further inspection, police found two duffel bags filled with $150K in cash. They reported that the money smelled of marijuana and called in drug sniffing dogs.

Beal was charged with obstruction of justice along with another man for allegedly trying to hide the money for fear the police would search their van. In a plead deal, the obstruction charges were dropped for pleading guilty to a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge, along with paying a $1,300 fine, the cash was not returned.

Put the two incidents together, $150K in cash and 150 pounds of marijuana, and it’s pretty easy to draw the conclusion that Beal was involved in distributing marijuana, and obviously made quite a bit of money doing so.

To read the rest of the article on Examiner.com click on the link.

FREE MARC Poster

Marc Emery will sit in a Vancouver jail for about one week or up to 60 days until the Canadian federal Justice Minister, Robert Nicholson signs an extradition order to turn him over to the U.S. Justice system to face the charges and punishment negotiated into Marc Emery’s plea agreement.

Fighting felony drug trafficking and money laundering charges by the DEA since 2005, Marc Emery, longtime political activist, and Canadian cannabis seed salesman extraordinaire, has made his fight against extradition to the United States equal to his fight against marijuana prohibition. Under his deal with the U.S. Prosecutors in Seattle, he agreed to plead guilty to one charge of marijuana distribution for his worldwide internet cannabis seed sales empire, for five years, but more importantly, in order to have all other charges against him dropped. Had he not signed the plea agreement Emery could have faced life imprisonment, for selling seeds; life imprisonment, for selling seeds, and paying taxes on the sale of those seeds to the government in charge.

To read the rest of the article from Examiner.com, click here.

Cannabis Cup: A thing of the past?

The ministers of justice, home affairs and health wrote a recommendation that by reducing the number of coffee shops and by keeping foreigners out, it would be easier to reduce crime and the other nuisances the coffee shop tourists are now causing.

The basis of the plan is to make the purchase of cannabis legal only to the locals, determined by providing a Dutch bank card as proof of eligibility to purchase the new reduced limit of three grams instead of five grams. This would disqualify foreigners from purchasing cannabis, and will in essence shut down the drug tourism trade in the Netherlands.

This is not a done deal, and is under debate, though the commission which was formed earlier this year is expected to release its written recommendations before the end of 2009. Dutch border towns like Roosendaal and Bergen-op-Zoom, have found the 25,000 drug tourists that come to their towns each week from France, Belgium and Germany to be a nuisance and announced in July that they are closing all of the coffee shops in those two cities. There has also been pressure from the neighboring governments to stop selling to tourists.

While it is still unclear what the final outcome of the report will be, and how it will affect the future of the Netherlands and cannabis lovers who have enjoyed the Dutch hospitality and Dutch freedom for three decades. One thing is certain, changes are coming to the Netherlands, and not because they are suddenly against cannabis, but because they are against people acting like idiots when they finally get their hands on the great taboo, cannabis.

This is clear, because they are not interested in stopping the Dutch and local residents from buying cannabis, because the Dutch, after all these years, know how to handle freedom. They expect it, they take it in stride, and in general, they enjoy it without abusing it or making a public spectacle of themselves, and they remain productive.

Once again all of the rest of us could learn a lesson from the Dutch. They could teach us all a thing or two on how to handle real freedom like civilized, responsible, 21st century adults.

DEA Assault

So even though there’s not a lot of “newsmakers” on the politics of marijuana, the war against drugs continues to ruin lives at an alarming rate and at great expense to this nation, when we’re arguing about where to get the money to provide all Americans with health care insurance, or how to make sure every child gets the best education available in the world, to fix our crumbling infrastructure, or maybe even to extend the successful economic stimulus program “Cash for Clunkers.”

According to statistics from Drug Sense.org, as of today at 12:05 p.m.:

The federal government has spent $12,187,400,000 on the failed war against drugs. That’s over $55.2 million per day.

The state governments have spent $18,707,665,000, over $84.8 million per day.

The total combined expenditure year-to-date to fight drugs in the United States is $30,895,065,000 or over $141 million per day.

That seems like a small price to pay to save Americans from the horrors of drug addiction, right? The problem is that it is not doing that. In fact it seems that all the money being spent, tens of billions of dollars per year, is actually increasing drug use among young and older Americans. We are among the countries with the highest numbers of drug use per capita in the world. Substantially higher than a country like the Netherlands which though technically still illegal in effect has legalized marijuana.

That’s merely a look at the dollars that don’t make sense. What about the social cost to Americans who get caught up in the web of America’s war on drugs?

So far in 2009, more than 1.1 million people have been arrested for drug offense crimes in the United States. This comes at a tremendous cost to U.S. taxpayers when you factor in the costs for law enforcement, the court system, and the prison system to incarcerate those convicted. Shocking as that number may sound, 47% or 531,812 of those arrests have been for marijuana. And though the government would like you to believe they only target smugglers and traffickers, the majority of the arrests are for simple possession.

While 2009 is ahead of 2007 numbers for total drug arrests, so far the percentage of marijuana arrests compared to total drug arrests is identical with 47.4% in 2007 and the same this year. So if you take the 2007 numbers for possession at 88.8% of total marijuana arrests, year-to-date we would have over 472,000 arrests for simple marijuana possession this year. (2007 numbers based on figures from (drugwarfacts.org).

Since 1995, the U.S. prison population has grown by more than 43,000 inmates per year. On average about 25% of those new inmates are for drug offenses. We continue to incarcerate as opposed to treat substance abuse individuals. We continue to treat drug addicts as criminals instead of sick individuals. Because we take this hard stance, instead of federal funding for a clean needles program, junkies share contaminated needles and that causes about 10 new preventable HIV infected individuals each day.

Why should we pay for a junkie’s needles? Junkies need medical help, not incarceration, and they need clean needles to stop the spread of AIDS. To pay for clean needles is in the long-run cheaper than to pay for medical treatment of ten new AIDS patients per day.

It’s hard to change our way of thinking, drugs = jail. But history has shown that a hard-line law enforcement prohibition strategy has failed miserably over the last few decades, and unless we can overrule the Puritan, Conservative mindset to stamp out everything we don’t agree with, through legislation, prohibition and incarceration, this expensive, ineffective crusade will continue to cost us billions of dollars per year, continue to ruin lives, and continue to be counterproductive.

This is what its all about

This year, aside from a “Happy New Year” joint and a trip to Amsterdam where I enjoyed the taste of unfettered freedom for a few days, I have smoked marijuana only once. This is not by choice, but it is just the way the cards have been dealt, and I can assure you I have never felt like robbing or murdering anyone to get my fix the entire eight months. I have lost sleep though, because for me cannabis is by far the best sleep aid on the market (legitimate and black). I’ve also suffered from back pain more than if I had it, but my doctor has prescribed pharmaceuticals for that because the line “take a couple Tylenol” just doesn’t cut the mustard. And then there’s the stress. Sometimes when I get home from work I am so wound up, the best thing that could wind my clock back down would be a sweet smelling joint, but that’s not permitted here, not in this state. Instead I’m prescribed Xanax which has a list of side-effects a mile long and I don’t find that it helps that much or if I take more it makes me too dopey. So half the time I don’t take anything, and just deal with the stress, but that makes it even harder to sleep.

I’m not complaining, just stating a fact of the twisted Puritan society we live in that demonizes the one natural remedy that works for me, and allows pharmaceutical companies to push their synthetic crap through licensed doctors.

The one other time I got to smoke this year was when a casual friend surprised me and invited me to her house to join a get-together she was having for her family and friends. There was no loud rock and roll, there were no overly intoxicated and ecstatic drug or alcohol users at that party, it was just a group of well-mannered, polite adults enjoying a day of good food, cold drinks, and good company together. And when it came time to smoke some good marijuana, it was done discreetly to protect those who may not like it, and was done as most adults do, just a circle of friends, amicably passing a joint from hand to hand, enjoying the taste and smell, and enjoying the light conversation. After that we played a friendly table game and just had fun together. Nothing you could call depraved or inappropriate whatsoever.

To many who still think I’m a bad person because I’ve smoked marijuana, you should understand that though technically we were breaking the law, we harmed nobody, offended nobody, and were involved in a crime that is only a crime because of antiquated, unconstitutional laws that were created and perpetuated based on racism and government greed. We are not criminals we are just ordinary people, and instead of spending billions a year to bust us, legalize it, tax the sale of it, and put that money towards education or even health care. That would make much more sense than flushing billions per year down the toilet to try and stop it. Actually though, I guess that’s wrong, you’re not really flushing the money down the toilet, because your war against drugs is putting billions into the pockets of greedy politicians, pharmaceutical companies, wasted law enforcement resources, the prison industry and the tobacco and liquor industry lobbyists.

Just based on the fact that I have and still do sometimes smoke marijuana, I’m sure you’d still peg me as a drug “addict”, I don’t agree but I know you’ll never be convinced otherwise because you have too much at stake. So today this drug addict will have to go without his fix, but that’s okay, I don’t think I’ll go out and rob the 7-11. Oh yeah, and to my friend, thanks, I really enjoyed it.

Pop-rock duo LOONER: Angel Roché Jr. and Zoë Roché

In May of 2009, they released their new single “I Love My Tamagotchee!” on their own recording label Avian Recording Company. “I Love My Tamagotchee!” is a fun song based on the worldwide craze over the Japanese “Tamagotchi” handheld digital pet which has sold over 70 million units.

The B-side of their new release is “Dutchie”, a “remake” of “Pass the Dutchie.” When I sat down to listen to LOONER’s “Dutchie” for the first time, I expected to hear an adult version remake of the MTV hit “Pass the Dutchie” by Musical Youth. Or I thought it might derive more of its root’s from The Mighty Diamonds ganja glorifying reggae original “Pass the Koutchie.” I got neither.

Zoë, LOONER’s lead vocalist in this song, weaves a dreamy, almost hypnotic repetition of the chorus “Pass the Dutchie on the left-hand side”, but that’s where LOONER’s version is similar and then departs from either preceding version. This is not really a remake at all. “Dutchie” is more of a sampling from the chorus, with the main body of lyrics that are rewritten by LOONER to make it truly their own song.

LOONER in living color

Using that “crazy interweb thingy” LOONER responded in writing to my written questions below.

Free420now.com: What attracted you to remake “Dutchie”?

LOONER: It literally came out of nowhere. It wasn’t planned. One day we just started singing “Pass the Dutchie” over a song that we were creating.

Free420now.com: When listening to your version of “Dutchie” I notice that you’ve kept the chorus, but completely rewritten the main body of lyrics, why?

LOONER: Well we had this song that had a haunting musical loop to it and some melodies. After discovering that “Pass the Dutchie” worked perfectly in our chorus section- we ran with it and had a friend write us some lyrics about the Dutchie.

Free420now.com: The Mighty Diamonds version leaves no doubt that it is a song about smoking marijuana, the Musical Youth version tries to deflect that image and present it as a song about poverty and hunger. In which direction do you think your lyrics point?

LOONER: Our song is about the innocent discovery of a magical summer day in which the Dutchie gets passed around. Dutchie being a good vibe, feeling, song, moment, encounter or perhaps if so inclined, a nice natural spliff.

Free420now.com: While “Dutchie” has a Reggae feel to it, it is not pure Reggae. How would you describe “Dutchie” to first time potential listeners?

LOONER: Dutchie is a little rock a little roll and a little reggae.

Free420now.com:In “Dutchie” Zoe repeats “Make sure it’s really Dutch”, what does that mean to you?

LOONER:The line is “Make sure it’s with a Dutch”. Zoë’s half-dutch.

Free420now.com: I’ve read descriptions of your performances and your duo act is described as producing a “wall of sound”. How do you do it and what are the advantages of performing as a duo?

LOONER: We use live looping and sampling of “live” beatbox, guitars and vocals to create a full sound in which we can play additional instruments on top of and along with to give the sonic illusion of many other musicians on stage when it’s really just the two of us. Sounds complicated? yes. Fun? extremely.

Some advantages:
1. Touring can happen crazy small scale i.e. SUV, trailer, dog
2. 1 hotel room, shared meals, at least fries.
3. We’re in it for life. Can produce document upon request.

Free420now.com: How was LOONER formed and where did the name come from?

LOONER: When we first got together- we scored a film called “Teenage Caveman”. In one scene, a girl frantically yelled at a monster as it tortured her boyfriend, “You’re a LOONER!” It was hilarious to us every time we saw it, oh maybe 100 times, so we decided that LOONER was a perfect name for our impending musical project.

Free420now.com: You started your own label, Avian Recording Company. What prompted you to start your own label instead of going with one of the big recording labels?

LOONER: We're in this for life.

So we decided to put out our own music as long as we can utilizing that crazy interweb thingy.

Free420now.com: In an article about Avian Recording Company it states, “With the physical aspect of distribution out of the picture, Avian’s green approach will make it possible to deliver music into the hands of virtually the same amount of consumers as ever, but in a less wasteful, more eco-friendly manner.” Does this mean your label intends to distribute its titles only via web-based methods? Can you elaborate more on the goals,methods and vision of Avian Recording Company?

LOONER: While physical copies of our music (CDs) can be purchased at our shows and a limited number available online our intention is too produce as little physical waste as possible.

In our own experience we find that we rarely buy CDs, even while preferring them sonically. We mainly download hi-quality audio files off the web and are of the feeling that more and more people do this every day. Our vision is to present the world with LOONER music as well as music from some our friends by utilizing all of the web-based methods and resources available. Our goal is to stay happy and healthy while doing it.

Free420now.com: “Dutchie” seems to be a song about smoking marijuana. Do you believe the United States laws on marijuana are fair and effective, or do you believe they should be changed, and why?

LOONER: Dutchie is a song about freedom to choose how you pass your time. In our opinion, Marijuana has suffered severely from generations of bad press which have produced unfair and equally un-effective laws and misunderstandings between people. Whether you smoke it or not, it’s hard to deny it’s versatility as a plant to produce very useful products and things that you can use, wear, write on, eat, eat on, rub on and wash with. It should be as legal as alcohol, which takes lives, families and costs millions of dollars to help people recover from, but yet legal.

Free420now.com: If you could speak with President Barack Obama about our country’s war on drugs, what would your message to him be?

LOONER: Legalize it and see how much money we make for our schools to re-educate and fight the war on ignorance and misinformation.

Free420now.com: You’re based in California, what are your feelings about Assembly Bill 390, the Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act introduced into the California Legislature?

LOONER: Let’s do this already.

Taxing Medical Marijuana on the Road to Legitimacy?

Are all these people so stoned that they don’t even understand the concept of higher taxes? Or are they more like a bunch of street pushers paying hush money to a beat-cop to take off law enforcement pressure?

Medical Marijuana Pre-1937

Each incremental step that marijuana in any form takes on the road to legitimacy will eventually scrape away at the mortar that holds together the brick wall of marijuana prohibition and the image of a bunch of wasted hippies.

This is a baby-step on that road to legitimacy that should be applauded with limp wrists wool mittens, because while it helps the medical marijuana dispensaries in Oaksterdam, it still ignores the fundamental issue at hand which is the national issue that the federal government has no right to regulate what any individual drinks, eats or smokes.

While the federal government does have the right to protect citizens from falsely advertised products such as weight loss and hair growth products that don’t do what their marketers claim, and while they can certainly require packaging warnings about products that pose serious health threats, they have no right to prohibit me from buying them. They don’t prohibit me from buying tobacco products, they don’t prohibit me from buying alcohol, and they don’t prohibit me from buying “foods” and snacks loaded with chemicals and sugar, all of which are far more damaging than marijuana which is considered a legitimate medicine in 7 countries and 13 states.

Advocates for medical marijuana should be pleased at the progress shown by Oakland’s voters to leave the days of reefer madness behind, but until the federal government gets out of peoples personal lives over issues that cause no harm to anyone else, the victory celebration should be cautious and restrained.