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| Graphic: Enlightened Redneck |
| I nominate young Kevin Von Clifton of Rome, Georgia for the Krystal Lovers Hall of Fame. Do I hear a second? |
Kevin Von Clifton, 19, of Rome, Ga., is charged with felony first-degree criminal damage to property and misdemeanor possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, and obstruction of law enforcement officers, according to Floyd County Jail records, reports Ellison Langford of the Rome News-Tribune.
Clifton reportedly locked himself in the burger joint's bathroom at 1 a.m. Thursday morning at the Turner McCall Boulevard Krystal location in Rome, and tried to quickly get rid of his stash.
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| Graphic: Just Say Now |
| Here is one of the pro-legalization ads (including a marijuana leaf!) that Google has agreed to run. |
Google agreed on Wednesday to run the ads, very similar to the ones nixed by Facebook, and which also contain images of marijuana leaves.
The advertisements are for Just Say Now, the pro-legalization group launched this month by Firedoglake blogger Jane Hamsher along with Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP).
Marijuana activists were outraged at Facebook this week when the social networking site, which had already been running ads from the group, told the organization that it would no longer run them because they contained images of cannabis leaves, reports Chris Good at The Atlantic.
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| Photo: Loopy Lettuce |
| Former narcotics officer Barry Cooper got tired of the Drug War and switched teams. Now he advises marijuana users on how to avoid getting arrested. |
Cooper, well known for his Never Get Busted DVDs, set up a fake marijuana grow house in Odessa, wired it for sound and video, and then used an anonymous letter to lure police into a December 2008 raid, reports Stephen C. Webster at The Raw Story.
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| Photo: The Straits Times |
| Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske has joined with the past five Drug Czars under Bush and Clinton administrations to fight against marijuana legalization under Prop 19 in California. |
It was probably inevitable, but that doesn't make it any less deplorable. Obama Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske has joined forces with five past directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, including czars who served under Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush, against California's marijuana legalization voter initiative, Proposition 19.
You would think that six so-called "drug experts" working together could come up with better-reasoned arguments against Prop 19 than these tired old talking points by tired old bureaucrats.
Not that anybody's surprised that Kerlikowske, and by extension, the Obama Administration, opposes pot legalization. Gil's already helpfully let us know that legalization isn't in his vocabulary.
"No country in the world has legalized marijuana to the extent envisioned by Proposition 19, so it is impossible to predict precisely the consequences of wholesale legalization," write Kerlikowske, John Walters, Barry McCaffrey, Lee Brown, Bob Martinez and William Bennett in an August 25 Los Angeles Times op-ed piece.
Of course, "no country in the world" had tried representative democracy "to the extent envisioned" by our Founding Fathers, either, but we didn't let that stop us, did we?
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| Graphic: Firedoglake |
"In a nutshell, they allowed us to serve our ads for 10 days (38 million impressions), then suddenly reversed their approval and told us we could no longer show the image of a marijuana leaf," said Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and the Just Say Now advisory board.
"They said they decided to reclassify it as similar to tobacco, but we said we weren't trying to encourage people to smoke marijuana, we were supporting a change in U.S. drug policy," Hamsher said, reports Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing.
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| Photo: Steve Elliott/Reality Catcher |
| Seattle Hempfest 2010 Hemposium participants, from left: Rob Kampia, MPP; Doug McVay, Berkeley Patients Group; Alison Holcomb, ACLU of Washington; and David Nott, Reason Foundation |
Among the highlights of the event -- you know, other than the obvious ones, like 4:20 at the Seeley Stage -- were the Hemposium discussion panels including marijuana policy experts from across the country.
For policy wonks and committed marijuana activists, some very exciting quotes came out of those sessions.
Here are five of the best.
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| Photo: Douglas County Sheriff's Office |
| Matthew Palazzolo, 25, of Sacramento, Calif., has some homework. He is being forced to write a report for a yokel Nevada judge telling "how stupid" California's medical marijuana law. |
Matthew Palazzolo was ordered to write a report parroting the right-wing views of District Judge Dave Gamble on what the judge called the "nonsensical character" of California's medical marijuana law, reports Sheila Gardner of the Gardnerville Record-Courier.
The judge gave Palazzolo 90 days to complete the paper discussing his "self-admitted realization" that marijuana was a "gateway drug" that "led him to use more powerful narcotics" -- never mind the scientific studies disproving the gateway theory.
"Here's a young man with a bachelor's degree and a rosy future and now is a potential felon," Judge Gamble said during last Tuesday's sentencing in Gardnerville, Nev., south of Carson City.
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| Photo: hopeful420 |
| The magic moment, 4:20 p.m., at Hempfest, August 21, 2010 |
By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ in
Culture, Legislation
Friday, Aug. 20 2010 @ 11:59AM
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| Photo: Owl Jester/Seattle Hempfest |
| "There's no place more perfect to announce our plans for 2011's campaign than at the world's premier marijuana reform festival." ~ Douglas Hiatt, Sensible Washington |
If at first you don't succeed, try again!
Sensible Washington, sponsor of this year's Washington legalization initiative I-1068, has announced that it will launch its 2011 marijuana legalization campaign at this year's Seattle Hempfest.
"There's no place more perfect to announce our plans for 2011's campaign than at the world's premier marijuana reform festival," said Douglas Hiatt, chair of Sensible Washington and main author of I-1068, which failed to gain enough signatures to qualify for this year's general election.
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| Photo: CNBC |
| Seattle welcomes Hempfest every year... but pot busts have gone UP after voters told police to make marijuana their lowest enforcement priority -- even though the city attorney won't prosecute pot cases! |
Please welcome well-known pot blogger and YouTube personality Primo to Toke of the Town. He's got a few things he wants to say about Hempfest and Seattle! ~ Steve Elliott, Editor
By Primo
The Emerald City is all abuzz about Hempfest this weekend, August 21 and 22.
The forecast is classic Seattle weather, overcast and 65 degrees, ideal for outdoors.
In the meantime, many of us Seattleites are wondering why so many tokers are being busted on our streets. The current arrest rate of almost 29 per month is almost triple the arrest rate of last year and almost four times the rate in 2004.
