"Reefer blindness"

I've been smoking pot for 40+ years now (yes, Netherlands of course :) and I can report that it does two things: It improves one's memory and ... there was this other thing ...

Awesome.
I laughed at both the article, and at the fantastic comment.
GFL... Good Luck !

Dude - I think this might be all for Bush, and it explains an awful lot....

Well Revere you occasionally step into it and this is one of them. Yes, very likely that exact many plants. The growers likely wont be caught. There has been and always likely will be the link between illicit drugs or alcohol and "criminals." Lately though, the money trail leads to kingpin underworld types (Noriega and Ortega for two) who are presidents of countries and corporations. Those drugs for instance in Central America bought guns that were funneled to the IRA for years until the Brits caught on. They sank a boat load of them off the coast of Scotland when they were fired upon when they were told they were going to be boarded.

Its the Lord of War thing. Conflict diamonds fund terrorists as does the drug trade. Now correct me if I am wrong, isnt THC the chemical that is used to strip DNA strands? Isnt that prevalent in cannabis? And isnt the weed we have now so strong that it can be picked up in your system almost three months post of using? Doesnt it really screw in higher doses with womens eggs that they carry?

Isnt it against the law? Is it a good idea to just let everyone run around stoned all the time? One guy loaded up can do a lot of damage in an intersection.

Lots of reasons not to do it and first on the list is that it is indeed against the law. In the South the Title II laws have never been changed. You can still go to jail for life for MJ. Keep it in mind.

If law enforcement decides to pull up the plants then I say thats wrong. Paraquat the things and then the heads can be warned ahead of time. Then they'll know where their cancers came from.

Uh, Mr. K you missed a couple of kingpins in that 80's trollfest: Reagan and Bush (41).

So what do you suggest Matt? I for one dont want anyon having their rights limited but I might remind you if you are in the US that the anti-drug laws relate and especially as of late because transportation workers were stoned. One was driving a locomotive, another was in charge of the Exxon Valdez, and we know that Northwest pilots know where all of the good bars are.

You also dont likely know that in each and every sweep of the airport personnel that a full 3% everytime they go out are tagged. They are terminated of course on the spot, but then another 3% come flopping through. Do, by all means tell me what your reasoning is other than someone just wants to get stoned.

I agree about R. Reagan and G Bush and the war on drugs. Me, I would have just called it what it was and hammered them into the ground. Nope, doing it there created a whole new bureacracy and in the form of the DEA were happily stomping the shit out of peoples rights. What they didnt cover the ATF does and did.

If we spotted pot being cultivated in a country and we know that it was bound for the US, I would also happily napalm it and not worry too much about the collaterals. I recall a very hairy incident in which a Cherokee Six being chased from Bogota into Miami International's airspace. Trying to avoid the Customs people he dove into Homestead AFB. He landed and ran into the swamp (dumb because of the gators) but anyway he had 1/2 million qualudes on board in hefty bags along with the 55 gallon drum of fuel. But again, I guess we should just all get stoned and find it acceptable. Mind I dont disagree that its the least pervasive, but its the addiction that leads to other addictions. How about a stoned military? You know the guy who is arming a 38 meg warhead to go out on a mission? Or an air traffic controller or a pilot?

Bbut I like to hear the other side in everything and I cant for one find anything productive in running around stoned.

Revere BTW the reason they have to account for the plants is for the indictments to read correctly. Lawyers have frequently gotten people off because the poundage wasnt right or the number of plants. Its puts the monkey back on them to prove it wasnt x numbers once its in court.

This being ScienceBlogs and all, can someone with a medical background confirm or refute the claim above that THC is used to "strip" DNA? Thanks.

Terrorism = politically, religiously, or ideologically motivated violence. Terrorism <> all crime.

True that some criminal income goes to terrorists. But it's also true that some nations' taxes, trade, and other "legitimate" income goes to terrorists. Going to whip out the hyperbole on international trade while we're at it? Unless you have a pretty good reason to think income X is going there, it irresponsible to say it is.

Opium and derivatives from the ME and Asia? Yes. Chem labs tasked to make party drugs for import? Yes. But large scale cannabis cultivation *inside* the US? PFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. No freaking way.

Might as well blame the terrorists for stealing your tv. The idea that they'd get a cell into the US, and then risk that immensely valuable resource on weed production, is just insane. Hell, if it is true it's good news, because it means the enemy are bloody morons.

Terrorists inside the US would not be there to make money through high-risk activities. They'd be there to kill people.

Errr, meant to say that Terrorism does-not-equal all crime, but I lost my less-then to Tag-land.

Then, when that national forest is "cleaned up," they can sell it to loggers.

Well, they'll have to. After all, those national forests were harboring violent criminal terrorists. They'll have to go.

We part ways here MRK. It does not lead to harder drugs.

This is utter hogwash. The brainwashing has been so exact, calculated and manipulative that it goes beyond ridiculous. Terrorists my lily white ass.
The ignorance of this "war on drugs" and how it has created sheer lies out of nothing is only proof that we dumb humans must be controlled.

Cannabis is a harmless herb, it enriches the soil and is a natural bug repellent.
Go to norml org link below and take a look at the 30 second commercial they're airing in DC. Posativa - A new TV ad from NORML.
Then fork out some money and send it their way.

http://www.norml.org/
.........

There is going to one pissed off hippy commune come harvest time. I suspect we may have a case of eco-terrorism here. These criminals are trying to rack up carbon trading credits by planting acres of hemp forest despite the US not signing up to Kyoto. A blatant effort to undermine the governments authority and so destroy democracy.

MRK, you've made some lengthy, howling posts, but you've failed to cite a single bit of evidence. Care to back up your statements with... I don't know... anything?

MRK, I've worked in a medical research lab as a lab manager....never did I see any canniboid's or their derivatives on the procurement list.

While I don't know what you mean by 'stripping' DNA, the common intercalator (and a nasty little carcinogen) used in gel visualisations was Ethidium Bromide, or SyberSafe if we could afford it. Otherwise, if you want to break DNA strands apart, the PCR machine and its heating elements will do just fine.

MRK,

Hate to dogpile ya man, but ol' Hazelwood on the Valdez poison of choice was from a still not a garden. NTSB cited (among other things) possible impairment by alcohol. . .

You also mention " I for one don't want anyone having their rights limited but..."

With that in mind how do you feel about folks who grow their own for personal consumption. . . Say 2 or 3 plants. . .

.

Okay, Okay, I knew you would ask

http://eurad.net/faq/apoptosis.htm
http://www.nature.com/bjp/journal/v140/n3/full/0705464a.html
http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/286/2/1103
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WFX-4FNTCB2-…
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/18/14/5322
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1432-1033.1990.tb153…
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/289/4/427
http://www.meriter.com/living/library/chemical/marijuana.htm

And we are moving into the position in this state in particular as I-40 is the drug lords roads (more dope picked up in Tennessee than any other) it is the informed decision bill. Informed decision is that if you are caught transporting, or using MJ, or other drugs and you are involved in an accident you will go to jail for life with forfeiture of all assets to the people you either killed or maimed.

If you are picked up for use, it is grounds for an immediate search and seizure of your home, all property in and on it. Dads and Moms, you better know what little Louie and Louise are doing, and where they are doing it.

Interesting concept and it will likely be held in the upper courts because it only expands on existing law.

Lea... If all they have available to their little stoned heads is MJ then yeah you are right. If though they are stoned and they are offered up coke or the MJ is laced with it, then it only takes about three passes and you are hooked. I dont know about Utah but its the single largest thing that is cited by the heads down here when they are picked up for possession. Kids especially.

Oh, by the way. Memphis passed 90 murders last night. We got 5 last week over a weekend and three the previous.

Gilmore. Yeah I know, but its the same thing. Doesnt matter what your poison is. If you do it outside of the privacy of your own supertanker then the effects are the same as pot, hash, coke, heroin, meth, etc. Someone besides you has to deal with it.

As for the 2 or 3 plants. Only if you were making rope out of it. I spent a lot of time in the military in interdiction and it went right up to the line for Posse Comitatus. Just before Hurricane Andrew hit there was an op and there were no shit, 200 plus planes a night coming up from the South. They landed in Bama, Texas, not so much Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.

They were slick too. There was a little field NW of Brookely in Mobile and they were on the ground with a Lear Jet for less than four minutes. The first bales of grass are always packed with the coke so that if they have to go fast with the getaway they have the payola in the first couple.

Cites are coming folks. They are always held up for review. Its not Revere's or my fault. Be patient. Smoke if you have it.

ha ha, the War on Drugs joins the War on Terror. I can just see those crazed fundamentalists dreamily stretched out on their prayer mats toking away!

There has been and always likely will be the link between illicit drugs or alcohol and "criminals."

Indeed there has - and the key word there is "illicit". The mob don't make much off alcohol since the end of prohibition...

I think we should all remember that buying drugs supports good people like the Contras, who helped us Win the Cold War.

MRK wrote: Smoke if you have it.

Don't have it and don't smoke it. . . Homey don't go there. . . Just wondering about what I saw as a contradiction about limiting ones right and freedom to practice "Bob Marley's religion". . .

Do you feel that strongly about booze and prohibition???

Just wondering. . .

.

Walters and his acolytes make me sick. Randy, you can cite all you wish; I will not be convinced. Kids are not getting measurably "more stoned" today than they were in the 60s and 70s. There was plenty of good weed then, and there is plenty of beat weed now.

As to "getting hooked" on pot laced with coke after "three tokes," you must be stoned. Honest. That just isn't a likely scenario. And cocaine and crack are two different animals. And people have smoked crack on a lark and walked away from it.

The best and most infuriating film about this lately is "In Pot We Trust," now showing on Showtime. It covers a lobbyist working to promote support the Hinchey/Rohrabacher Bill, which would have recognized states' rights to legalize medical marijuana. All the same old reefer madness promoters like Califano and Dupont claim again and again that there is no useful medical use of marijuana. Then the film shows the help that four people are indeed experiencing from medical marijuana. One of the guys is even part of the old govt. program that provides legal weed to a very very very select few. That was before George Bush the Elder (he of the family of several noted drug abusers) decided to can the program.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2007/jul/18/showtimes_in_pot_w…

The top-down resistance to pot is funding a giant money suck that we taxpayers have to support, along with that money suck over in Iraq. You bet the southern states like to take away houses, cars, cash and etc. when they find a stash. It's free revenue to all the law enforcement departments. That doesn't mean it is the right call. I guess you could declare homosexuality illegal, like has been done in the past, and take all the possessions of anyone who falls into that category, if you wanted.

Yes, there is illegal transport of pot into the country. I don't get what that has to do with growing your own for private use. I don't get what that has to do with medical marijuana. If you want to get down to it, every tank of gas we burn up is funneling money to countries which harbor plenty of terrorists, and it's quite a bit larger sum that the paltry cash that comes from pot.

I say this as someone who had extensive experience with pot back in my college years, and I graduated summa cum laude. My eggs were just fine, thanks, and I have raised two healthy young adults. My husband has had a nearly perfect work attendance for the past 30 years and that includes his return to school for an apprenticeship in the trades, for which he now holds a master license. We are not in any way special or unusual; we are like thousands of other Americans who have enjoyed relaxing with a bowl instead of one or two or seven servings of alcohol.

I think Rohrabacher is one crazy Californian, but you really think he wants to fund terrorists? Come on.

Wen... here is the part that most dont get. Its illegal. Its illegal for one, its illegal for 61. Ref to three passes wasnt for three tokes. It was for three passes of full weed and coke or three of just plain coke. Heroin is as little as one hit.

Cant pick and choose the laws we want to enforce and that applies to GWB and anyone else for that matter. No I really dont like the idea of seizures especially after the ones that were done in Florida sweeps just after WJC took office. To me they were politically motivated and the S. Court held that while legal they ran right up to the edge.

E.g. under the "quickfile" seizure laws implemented in the 80's under Reagan which were done to keep drug monkeys from pulling all their money out of accounts and wiring them to the Camans or other places, they came up with this law. It started to be abused a bit under George the first, and then really was under WJC.

Now with the Patriot Act they can look at just about anything and under the tribunal approval, go and get them. Most seizures are done by local law enforcement now and the laws are spotty. I want everyone to have the right to change the laws but dont hold your breath, Pun intended.

Randy: Maybe it shouldn't be illegal? Then there's no problem and organized crime takes a hit. Win-win.

If you outlaw pot, only outlaws will have pot.

That's the whole point. Why is it illegal in the first place? With the infrastructure we have now to interdict and keep it illegal, it is nearly impossible for any politician to push for legalization or even decrim.

Yeah, breaking laws is something I generally avoid. I don't smoke anymore, but that's more personal preference. I'll cop to driving over the speed limit. I have accepted RX drugs from family members on occasion, and given some of my own Rx's to my family. When my family has nausea, I have a bottle of reglan left over from a few years back. Will I be hauled in over that? How about if my husband takes a Tylenol 3 from on of my old prescriptions, when he has a bad headache?

I realize that there are some good reasons to not share prescription meds, but not all sharing is done with the intent to harm or recreational use. For my husband, if I can get him to the doc once every three years or so, that's a major accomplishment! If I can rummage through my aging pharmaceuticals to help my family out every once in a while, I believe I ought to have that right. Still, I am pretty sure it's against the law.

Before anybody starts to worry, I am not taking out a shingle at my address. But I got here in the first place because of bird flu, and the need for all of us to be prepared to take care of ourselves, be independent, and not caught empty-handed in an emergency. At the present time, that involves a certain amount of law-bending
or breaking.

I don't know what a reasonable compromise would be: we don't want everybody popping vancomycin every time they get the sniffles. But what if someone finds that their backyard pot helps their MS symptoms, or their chemo nausea, or that they just like to get high once in a while? How do we get that amount of free choice back into our own homes, when the minute it comes up for discussion, we are funding terrorism or not "thinking about the children?"

I'm okay with someone having their guns, as long as they aren't planning to hurt anyone with them, and they keep them safely. I'm a little less sanguine about concealed carry; that's just me. But some of these drug/gun issues revolve around that same issue of personal liberty. And at this point, there is more money and power behind the gun lobby than there is behind the "grow your own" one.

I for one wouldnt like to see it legal, but you are right Revere. If it indeed was legal then they druggies would concentrate on the next one to legalize.... cocaine? How about meth?

Wen-So far, there is as I understand it no clinical study to prove an effective fix for MS with cannabis. Epileptics, it might induce seizures (no not by Bush).

I use the link below because there is medical marijuana use in Canada and its legal. But, they are pretty tight and you have to be pretty sick to get it. This falls under the "Doctor, do no harm thing"

If the person is a terminal cancer patient I would say give them whatever they want that makes them feel as well as they can. Thats not to say give it to them and have them riding around the country. Most cancers are painful in some or fashion, at some point in time. I know my mother went with lung cancer and it spread to her brain. Even with the implant pump it was hurting pretty good as she struggled to breathe. So yeah maybe for those kinds of people. There arent that many people that are sick to require that number of plants in California. Its a stoner business and it affects everyone. Whats next, opium dens and pot houses?

Oh and by the way Wen, it indeed you give someone somethng thats Rx and they die you'll be charged with everything from Man 1 up to Murder1 if they could prove any sort of malice aforethought. I dont know a doctor anywhere that will prescribe anything over the phone for a patient they havent seen. Would you do the same for someone that you dont really know what is wrong with them?

While I'm unable to put up any statistics, I'd gamble that more than 60-70% of American's want marijuana to be legal, or at least decriminalized. Marijuana is a soft drug, and I abhor the term "drug" being applied to it.

I believe revere shared the prison statistics somewhere, here it is again.
And thank you revere for your endorsement of legalizing cannabis.

Last year 700,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges -- an 800% increase since 1980. Many of them were sentenced to mandatory prison time. Our courts and prisons are clogged with non-violent people whose only offense is smoking, buying or selling marijuana.

Someone else's words I found that beautifully tell the story:

While our nation is in a serious financial crisis, it spends literally billions of dollars annually chasing down responsible adults who are good, tax-paying citizens in all regards except for the occasional use of marijuana. Arresting people for marijuana use is laughable now in most of Europe. Canada is now following the European model. After ten years of treating marijuana as a medical issue rather than a criminal one in the Netherlands, law enforcement officials there report no increase in the use of pot.

In the name of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we will all be better off when we let our police officers, courts and prisons deal with real criminals and start taxing marijuana rather than arresting those who enjoy using it.

Lea and others, it does lead to other things. Nor do they report a drop either Lea.

http://cannabisnews.com/news/3/thread3372.shtml

And what do we do when they start enjoying cocaine on the job? Or pot for that matter? Or taking a trip to Aruba where pot is legal? Anyone seen Natalie?

Randy, I don't think that legalizing pot would need to open the floodgates to legalize drugs which are actually harmful. I guess you can offer that as an argument, but I don't see any evidence that you are correct.

As to sharing my meds causing me to go to jail, that is my point: I am using my own good judgment when I give my family members Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol, benadryl and the like. I doubt I will perform surgery on any of them, but I'd probably attempt doing an emergency tracheotomy if I thought one of them was in imminent danger of choking to death and nothing else worked.

I don't see where the Rx drugs I have mentioned present a danger in the way I have shared them. My daughter's pediatrician said (after the fact) that giving my daughter Reglan was a good choice when she couldn't stop vomiting. Even as I was breaking a law. As laws go, I wonder how often it is followed or enforced to the letter? If the govt. doesn't want me to share methadone, I can understand the reason. Should they also punish me because I share a cough medicine with codeine?

This paper on Compassionate use of Medical Marijuana is an interesting. The people interviewed were those who were able to qualify for the govt's marijuana program.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/docUploads/Chronic_Cannabis.pdf

It is of course up to you Wen if you give your child codeine. But and its a big but, its dangerous and with the way the law works nowadays you could lose your kid if it came to light. SHE' DOPING HER KIDS!!! You can see the headlines. Hell, my mom just bout got me in the 60's when she gave me 25mg hits of antihistamine (dont know what it was) for a cold and next thing I know I am looking up at the inside of a bright white room and someone says, "Okay, we have him" No one thought too much about it then, they do now.

It might have fixed it this time around, what if it doesnt next time? Its your kid and I think you ought to have the right to medicate as you see fit, but I also want someone who knows what to do and not to. You are obviously educated and can read the dosing for the stuff in a PDR, around here we are doing good if they arent feeding their kids crack. We already know they'll videotape kids getting high with the boyfriend.

> here is the part that most
> dont get. Its illegal.

Who gives a shit? When the law is an ass you treat it accordingly.

Drug policy in the United States is the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever seen. The drug war. Right. What a waste of time and money. What a terrific way to create scofflaws and cynics. What a great way to erode civil rights.

Civil forfeiture, anyone?

Is there anything under the sun to which the Interstate Commerce Clause doesn't apply?

Marijuana is illegal, and the drug war continues, because it is in the financial interests of certain constituencies. Authoritarians are their useful fools.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
The Authoritarians

There is one important thing that people seem to be missing.

All of the social problems, and by far the majority of the medical problems, associated with illegal drugs owe more to the illegality of the drugs than anything else about the drugs in question.

Many accidental overdoses are the result of lack of labelling. Most drugs wouldn't need to be taken intravenously if it weren't for the over-inflated prices. The same price inflation, coupled with an attitude that since one is already a criminal by virtue of addiction then a little stealing on top is unlikely to make things much worse, is what fuels the crime committed by addicts. Many people who develop addictions are dissuaded from seeking help at the stage where a complete recovery is not merely possible but probable by the thought that they might be asked to incriminate their friends.

Take away the illegality and the problems become manageable.

Absolutely AJS, absolutely.

MRK, did you read the link wenchacha provided? If not, please do. It was lengthy however an incredible read. There are good decent people who really do need cannabis so they can live life without suffering.

I could use it myself for medical issues. And use it responsibly to boot.
.............

There is certainly a link between drug money and terrorist finacing. Our efforts would be better spent in Afghanistan
where opium production is an order of magnitude what it was under the Taliban in 2001 and is a leading source of financing for the Taliban today. I doubt terrorists over there are reeping much profit from reefer production over here.

http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373383

I dont recommend any of you drive in downtown Memphis at night. Two-thirds of all arrests made in the city are drug related. Oh, theres always the weed, but its the crack that gets things going. They breeze through red lights like they were on the way to the Christmas parade. It impairs you regardless of what anyone says. Yes, I confess to driving under the influence of booze myself but its been many years since I have. Had to cut back because it hurt too much the next morning.

Drug related car accidents (not booze) last year in the City and County.....Only 3900 and some change. Thats the reason we have a 15 floor jail, a penal farm, and two Federal Penitentiary's inside the borders. For all of these law abiding citizens.

And if you take away the illegality, then you will have only legal drugs. But the effects will still be the same on the other guy. He will get addicted, we will have to cry and be politically correct and get them the help they need and someone else is going to pay for it.

Heres some news.... Your insurance company in the very near future is not going to insure you medically if you have ever done drugs. Nor will you get car insurance either. So next we will say we need UCI, (Universal Car Insurance). That way we spread the risk to everyone rather than taking personal responsibility. There are a lot of 50-70 year old crack and weed addicts out there. Of that number above about 1/3rd were over the age of 45....So if its not illegal and someone kills someone under the influence, that means that they are ......what?

If you buy heroin you generally are speaking of Afghanistan. Okay, so burn the crops. If you are talking about coke, its Columbia. Okay so burn the crops. If you are talking about meth, then put your helmet on and body armor so that when their little shop of horrors goes up you wont go with it. Happened here twice in the last year. Leveled two homes. But lets make all drugs legal. Lets start with weed.... Next year we can go for cocaine, then the following year heroin.

Blow your weed folks, but be prepared if you get caught. Its illegal, it will never be legal except in California and Oregon from a state charge side maybe. I hear all sorts of justification for its use. Hows this.... If they dont enforce the federal laws then under the federal law all federal funds can be witheld from a state. Its happened before. Just remember if you are wrong about it funding terrorism and someone gets whacked, its on your hands.