Search Results: hoax (11)

Pristoop.

We all know cops aren’t the brightest bulbs on the shelf (after all, if they were smarter they wouldn’t be cops). But in case you needed a reminder of the mental heavyweights we are dealing with, Annapolis Police Chief Michael Pristoop had to publicly apologize yesterday for passing on a satirical, hoax news story claiming 37 marijuana deaths the day Colorado legalized pot sales.
Even better: Pristoop admits that he believed the information was completely accurate, and even though none of it is true he still is sticking by his wrongheaded position.

Wikimedia commons/Mats Holmström
Beatrice Ask.

Apparently it’s somewhat well known political satire isn’t huge in Sweden. That was made painfully clear this week when Beatrice Ask, Sweden’s Justice Minister, posted a link to a satirical article claiming that 37 people had overdosed and died on the day Colorado legalized adult sales of cannabis.
“Stupid and sad,” she wrote after posting the article on line via Facebook. “My first bill in the youth wing was called Outfight the Drugs! In this matter I haven’t changed opinion at all.”

AAHA Trends Today

It was a hoax — but it was hoax to make a point.
The San Diego chapter of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a nationwide cannabis advocacy group, working with LGBT activism group Canvass for a Cause and as part of the The Yes Men’s “Yes Labs” project, released a series of satirical press releases on Tuesday which indicated that U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy would begin targeting pharmacies for closure using asset forfeiture proceedings.
The purpose of the action was to draw attention to the U.S. Attorney’s harmful efforts to deny patients access to doctor-recommended medical cannabis.
“Just as the closure of retail pharmacies, like CVS or Walgreens, is poor public health policy, so is the federal government’s crackdown on medical cannabis dispensaries,” said Eugene Davidovich of San Diego ASA. “Pharmacies, like medical cannabis dispensaries, play an essential role in our communities as they help the sick and dying treat and manage various medical conditions.”

FAC
U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy has made it her personal mission to shut down safe access to medical marijuana in Southern California

The “Cease and Desist” orders and “official” press release announcing the federal closure of pharmacies in San Diego — purportedly originating from the office of U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy — are indeed fake.
“This hoax was conducted in retaliation against U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy for her insubordination against the Obama Administration and Government of the United States of America,” said Dexter Haight of the Federal Accountability Coalition (FAC), which took responsibility for the hoax.
According to the FAC, Duffy’s superiors, President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, have both pledged that Federal resources would not be used to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries operating in compliance with state law. Despite this pledge to the American public, U.S. Attorney Duffy has used Federal power to target medical marijuana dispensaries with asset forfeiture.

420 Studios
U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy’s pharmacy crackdown? Dueling press releases Friday morning

It was apparently an entirely new tactic representing an interesting change of pace from her usual war on medical marijuana dispensaries. United States Attorney Laura E. Duffy on Tuesday announced — or seemed to announce — enforcement actions against pharmacies in Southern California. The stores were targeted, Duffy said in a press release, because of “distribution of drugs for illegal purposes.”
According to the press release, which says it is from “Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Shiner” at (619) 302-5235, “immediate enforcement” will target pharmacies in the Coastal areas of La Jolla, Carmel Valley, and Pacific Beach; chosen for both the high rates of pharmaceutical drug abuse and high property values of targeted pharmacies. Affected pharmacies will have 45 days to shutdown in order to avoid harsher penalties.
“The Pharmaceutical shutdown initiative is aimed at curtailing drug abuse and its associated societal problems in the Southern District of California,” Duffy’s office seemed to announce Tuesday morning.
But another, conflicting release sent just an hour later from Press Secretary Steven T. Frederickson at (619) 306-2854, claims that “unknown individuals have forged documents claiming that this office has initiated a shut down pharmacies [sic]in the coastal areas of San Diego County.
“Many in the community have expressed outrage over the perceived imposition of our department in the rights of San Diego patients to receive their medication,” the second release reads, in what — if it’s real — must be one of the most richly ironic statements in history.

Zazzle

​A story which went viral on the Web today — indicating that Sweden had bravely forged ahead of its Scandinavian neighbors and legalized cannabis — appears to be a hoax.

One story on JustPaste.It, headlined “Sweden legalizes and regulates cannabis,” created a bit of a stir (and a storm of page hits) on social media networks.
However, the story, which linked to no confirming sources and listed as its source “420 Dagbladet, Stockholm, December 19, 2011,” could not be confirmed anywhere else and seems to have no validity.
“420 Dagbladet,” which would mean “420 Daily Newspaper,” doesn’t even appear to exist, either as a website or as a print publication.


Dope! That’s what comic books are! Dope! And those dirty books should be scrubbed, put through the wringer and have the dirt squeezed from them!
At least, that’s the gist of this December 30, 1948 column in the Steamboat (Colorado) Pilot by George Bowra, an (at the time) relatively well-known figure in the American West. The tone of the article is over the top, bordering on satire — which might make sense considering Bowra’s history as a colorful character. But we’re not so sure he was joking.

A screen capture of a billboard from KHOU.


It appears as though a Mexican drug cartel has incorporated outdoor advertising in its arsenal of intimidation tactics in an attempt to further infiltrate the black market drug trade in the United States. Earlier last week, as motorists in El Paso, Texas began their morning commute, many got to see a series of billboards which had gone up up overnight displaying threatening messages accented with a couple of well-dressed mannequins swinging from a noose.

The New York General Assembly yesterday approved a bill allowing medical marijuana use in the Empire State.
Assembly Bill 6357 was voted in with a 95-38 vote. The discussion now moves over to the state Senate in the next few weeks, which takes up the nearly identical Senate Bill 4406. If approved, the bill would allow for qualifying patients to receive a doctor’s recommendation to use cannabis. Patients would be allowed to possess up to 2.5 ounces purchased at one of several state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries.

~ alapoet ~
Toke of the Town editor Steve Elliott celebrating three years of high points and big hits

Three years ago today — actually, three years ago tonight, at 7:08 p.m. Pacific time — my THC-stained fingers hit the “Post” button for the first-ever story on Toke of the Town.

“The good thing about a free marketplace of ideas is,” I wrote, in the first sentence ever to appear on this site, “despite the best efforts of prohibitionists and their fear-mongering propaganda, the truth eventually prevails.”
More than 3,600 stories later — and with hundreds of joints, medibles, and bongloads littering my path — I’m still loving this gig, and judging by pageviews, so are close to half a million of you every month.
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