4-20

In the state of Indiana a person convicted of armed robbery will serve about five years in prison; someone convicted of rape will serve about twelve; and a convicted murderer can expect to spend twenty years behind bars. These figures are actually higher than the figures nationwide: eight years and eight months in prison is the average punishment for an American found guilty of murder. The prison terms given by Indiana judges tend to be long, but with good behavior an inmate will serve no more than half the nominal sentence. Those facts are worth keeping in mind when considering the case of Mark Young. At the age of thirty-eight Young was arrested at his Indianapolis home for brokering the sale of 700 pounds of marijuana grown on a farm in nearby Morgan County. Young was tried and convicted under federal law. He had never before been charged with drug trafficking. He had no history of violent crime. Young's role in the illegal transaction had been that of a middleman—he never distributed the drugs; he simply introduced two people hoping to sell a large amount of marijuana to three people wishing to buy it. The offense occurred a year and a half prior to his arrest. No confiscated marijuana, money, or physical evidence of any kind linked Young to the crime. He was convicted solely on the testimony of co-conspirators who were now cooperating with the government. On February 8, 1992, Mark Young was sentenced by Judge Sarah Evans Barker to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.


There was so much talk in the 1970s about the decriminalization of marijuana, and the smoking of marijuana is so casually taken for granted in much of our culture, that many people assume that a marijuana offense these days will rarely lead to a prison term. But in fact there may be more people in prison today for violating marijuana laws than at any other time in the nation's history.

This is a MUST READ article.

I Passed 30,000 Hits!

Pretty decent milestone for this simple blog! Of course, it would be THIS post that hit the 30,000 mark! Puff, puff!

4-20

Hope 4-20, especially 4:20 p.m (or a.m.) was celebrated accordingly!

Good Grief, More Meddling By Feinstein

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic former mayor of San Francisco, will co-chair the campaign to defeat Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization initiative on the ballot in November, according to a press release today.

How does this woman get off calling herself a Democrat? She's a complete disgrace to the State of California.

It's 2010 for Christ's sake, woman! This is what happens when we keep electing STUPID FUCKING PEOPLE. Hell, this is what we get because we have stupid people fucking!

Smoke It All

Theme for tonight. We should smoke it all!

Thai Stick

I've got to learn that program divShare.

This from DJ Rix's page tonight, spotlighting Booker T & and MG's.



Thai Stick (grins, uh, we smoked 'em).

4/20 - 4:20

"An estimated 12,000 to 15,000 people all exhale marijuana smoke as the clock hit 4:20pm during the 4/20 event on Norlin Quad at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado April 20, 2010."

I have smoked weed for 30 years, and only this year actually quit it on a permanent basis. Mostly because if you drink AND smoke pot, you are really wasting money, cuz you can only have one of the highs, not both!

Every now and then I quit everything just to prove to myself that I am in control of what I do. The last time I stopped drinking and smoking pot, when I wanted to "start" again, I felt I really didn't need the pot anymore. Don't get me wrong, I still am all for legalization of it. But, it just didn't have a place in my life at my age anymore, and I really did like the "taste" of my rum, more than I enjoyed the cost of the smoke.

You definitely know I am out of the loop when I miss 4/20! LOL!!!!

Oh Chronic Tree (Wink, Wink)

Courtesy of skippy, who always gives me a shout out!

2,700 Year Old Pot Stash Found!

OTTAWA – Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.

The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

(inhale) So, it's not just the damn teenagers from the 1960's that (exhale) cultivated pot for recreational use! 2,700 year old pot. Man ...

Police issue zero tickets during annual marijuana celebration

I think it's funny that being a pot-head for more than 30 years, I never gave much significance to 4:20. I won't bother to go into the "legend" of 4:20, but this weekend was, of course, 4/20, and apparently every year there are gatherings (some who even wait until 4:20 p.m. -- not a.m.) that light up in public and get high.

"Nine, eight, seven ..."

A crowd of about 10,000 people collectively began counting down on the University of Colorado's Norlin Quadrangle just before 4:20 p.m. Sunday.

Yet the massive puff of pot smoke that hovers over CU's Boulder campus every April 20 -- the date of an annual, internationally recognized celebration of marijuana -- began rising over the sea of heads earlier than normal this year.

Just Fucking Legalize It, Already

A large and respected association of physicians is calling on the federal government to ease its strict ban on marijuana as medicine and hasten research into the drug's therapeutic uses.

The American College of Physicians, the nation's largest organization of doctors of internal medicine, with 124,000 members, contends that the long and rancorous debate over marijuana legalization has obscured good science that has demonstrated the benefits and medicinal promise of cannabis.

Is It Science Or Is It Memorex?

Wikipedia has come of age. The online user-created encyclopedia is now influential enough that the federal government feels the need to doctor it up.

In late August, someone with an IP address that originated from the National Institutes of Health drastically edited the Wikipedia entry for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which operates within NIH. Wikipedia determined the edit to be vandalism and automatically changed the definition back to the original. On Sept. 18, the NIH vandal returned, according to a history of the site's edits posted by Wikipedia. This time, the definition was gradually changed, presumably to avoid the vandalism detector.

NIDA spokeswoman Dorie Hightower confirmed that her agency was behind the editing. She said in an e-mail that the definition was changed "to reflect the science."

A little more than science-reflecting was done to the site. Gone first was the "Controversial research" section that included comments critical of NIDA. Next went the section on the NIDA- sponsored program that grows marijuana for research and medical purposes. The next slice of the federal editor's knife left all outside references on the cutting-room floor, replaced with links to government Web sites.

Then the battle began. Over the next few weeks, Wikipedia users challenged the site's neutrality and took out the more egregious propaganda. Each time, the NIH editor would return. The fight left the article in tatters. Folks wondering what NIDA does now get four basic, non-controversial sentences followed by 10 links to federal Web sites. And at the bottom of the page is a plea from Wikipedia: "This article about a medical organization or association is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it."

I've always known the Wikipedia site was edited by "users," and as such, took their information with a grain of salt. But this is just ridiculous! More evidence of this administration's constant rewriting and watering down of science. Shaking my head.

Just Legalize It, You Know You Want To!

SACRAMENTO — For years, activists in the marijuana legalization movement have claimed that cannabis is America's biggest cash crop. Now they're citing government statistics to prove it.

A report released today by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion — far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and hay, which are the top three legal cash crops.

As a consumer for over 25 years, and a dealer for more than half of that time, I can tell you for a fact this is not going away. Pot, unlike tobacco, won't kill you, and unlike liquor, won't destroy your liver. It's time we get with the program, and legalize the damn drug.

A Little Mary Jane Helps The Brain

Puff Puff 

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) -- Good news for aging hippies: Smoking pot may stave off Alzheimer's disease.

New research shows that the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that marijuana's active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, can prevent the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from breaking down more effectively than commercially marketed drugs.

THC is also more effective at blocking clumps of protein that can inhibit memory and cognition in Alzheimer's patients, the researchers reported in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

It is funny how more reasearch into marijuana use, more beneficial properties keep being discovered. And, what is even more astounding is that such discoveries point to the fact that brain cells do not die, but, in fact, regenerate and/or help brain functioning!

Time to roll my morning doobie and get my cup of java. Puff, puff.

"Bizarre Public Discussion" Over Marijuana

... "no sound scientific studies" supported the medical use of marijuana ...

As a toker for over 25 years, and as a valid member of the legal profession, I really get ticked when having to deal with this government's unrealistic stance on marijuana.

Congressional opponents and supporters of medical marijuana use have each tried to enlist the F.D.A. to support their views. Representative Mark Souder, Republican of Indiana and a fierce opponent of medical marijuana initiatives, proposed legislation two years ago that would have required the food and drug agency to issue an opinion on the medicinal properties of marijuana.

Mr. Souder believes that efforts to legalize medicinal uses of marijuana are a front for efforts to legalize all uses of it, said Martin Green, a spokesman for Mr. Souder.

Tom Riley, a spokesman for Mr. Walters, hailed the food and drug agency's statement, saying it would put to rest what he called "the bizarre public discussion" that has led to some legalization of medical marijuana.

Bizarre public discussion?

So, discussing whether pot should be legal or not is categorized as bizarre? That's a good one. Dipshits.

The Food and Drug Administration statement directly contradicts a 1999 review by the Institute of Medicine, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific advisory agency. That review found marijuana to be "moderately well suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS wasting."

Dr. John Benson, co-chairman of the Institute of Medicine committee that examined the research into marijuana's effects, said in an interview that the statement on Thursday and the combined review by other agencies were wrong.

The federal government "loves to ignore our report," said Dr. Benson, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. "They would rather it never happened."

Of all the bizarre ideology that comes from the goverment, this is the most bizarre. This is not a Bush thing, either, for the government since the inception of the drug rating system impelmented by Nixon, has always disavowed any legitimate purpose for pot. And the government has refused and refused and refused over the past 30 years to allow any sort of controlled growth and study of pot. The reason that it is so hard to get any professional reports from long term studies is because the goverment refuses to grant use of the only goverment grown pot for such a study, and if you use your own grown pot, the study will not count. Therefore, for the last 30 years, the goverment has effectively muzzled any real studies that deal with any benefit whatsoever of pot.

Pardon me while I fire up a joint and take a sip of my coffee. Ah, what a way to start out my day!