Search Results: alcohol/ (9)


As summer break winds to an end, and another school year begins, many unsuspecting 5th graders and junior high students across the country will get their first introduction to drugs. No, it won’t be on the playground or the back of the bus, but as a part of their classroom curriculum, as the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program (DARE) kicks off its 31st year in existence.
Over three decades of War on Drugs propaganda comes at a cost, however. “Just Say No” coloring books and foil badge stickers ain’t free you know! With schools in disrepair, teachers being laid off, and art, music, and extra-curricular activities being defunded, many schools are deciding that their books may be more easily balanced without DARE in the budget.

Missouri Rep. Chris Kelly has filed language that would legalize medical and recreational cannabis in Missouri, using language that closely follows another proposed ballot initiative.
In addition to legalizing taxed and regulated sales of ganja, House Bill 1659 would regulate recreational cannabis like alcohol, with a 21-and-up age limit. Missourians would be able to cultivate up to eight plants in their home and keep up to 16 ounces of herb, 16 ounces of edibles and 72 ounces of tinctures and other liquid-infused cannabis products.

President Barack Obama made waves in an interview with the New Yorker magazine a couple weeks ago, in which he finally stated the plain and simple truth that no American president up until now has had the guts to tell, that marijuana use is no more dangerous than alcohol use. Pro-cannabis advocates took the statement as a cautious grain of optimism, while the DEA and sheriffs across the country crapped their cages.
The question though, whether or not marijuana is just as safe as alcohol, is an important one, as it casts a very real shadow of doubt over the retention of cannabis on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. In a House Oversight Committee hearing yesterday on Capitol Hill, the White House’s Deputy Drug Czar was grilled on this very same topic, and like the president, he finally gave in to reality.

WhiteHouse.gov
Deputy Drug Czar Michael Botticelli

Kush Clothing

​Alcohol causes far more damage to users and to society than does the use of marijuana, according to a new study published online in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, the journal of the British Association of Psychopharmacology.

Researchers at the Imperial College of London looked at “the relative physical, psychological, and social harms of cannabis and alcohol,” reports Paul Armentano at AlterNet. They determined that marijuana smoking, particularly longterm, does some harm to the lungs and circulatory system, and increases certain mental-health risks (which is debatable).


Sign These 11 White House Petitions Today!

Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.

Worth Repeating

By Ron Marczyk, R.N.
Health Education Teacher (Retired)

(Editor’s note: Major props to Morgan Fox over at Marijuana Policy Project, who, as I was preparing Ron Marczyk’s post, published MPP’s list of petitions to sign, here.)

That’s right, from the comfort of your living room, you can have green petition party, punctuated with bong rips if you so desire.
If this community can get all 11 of these petitions maxed out with signatures, it’ll help put medical cannabis issues on the table for the 2012 Presidential race.
Click on the name of each petition to go to the White House page where you can vote for it.

Graphic: BudFacts.com
Cannabis may help combat the effects of aging on the brain, and may even help ward off Alzheimer’s disease.

​​Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.


Worth Repeating
By Ron Marczyk, R.N.

Health Education Teacher (Retired)

Can THC along with whole family of other phytochemical cannabinoids found in marijuana prevent and treat Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative brain diseases, including the effects of aging?
Could cannabinoids be as important to neuro-brain health as we age as other foods, supplements such as omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, and aerobic exercise are?
In the near future will at-risk populations be encouraged to consume an RDA  for cannabinoids?
Will blood levels of cannabinoids correlate with protection against brain inflammation, similar to taking an aspirin a day to prevent cardiovascular disease?

Photo: Jesse Kasten/The Lumberjack
Flagstaff, Arizona’s Cheba Hut is a friendly haven for the high and hungry. But plans to located a medical marijuana dispensary next door have been derailed by city officials.

​Aw, man. It would have been so perfect.

Locating a medical marijuana dispensary next to a sandwich shop known for its stoner-friendly atmosphere and its subs named after strains of cannabis? Genius idea, and good for both businesses.
Several ganjapreneurs evidently had the same idea, even going to far as to secure a letter of intent from the landlord to rent them the commercial space next to the Cheba Hut in Flagstaff, Arizona. Cheba Hut markets to stoners, winkingly putting in quotes “Toasted” Subs and featuring “palm trees” in its logo that look quite a bit like cannabis leaves. Oh, and check out alllll that smoke pouring out the chimney.

Photo: Discovery Health
What the hell is that bud doing at the base of those leaf blades?

​Ever since I started writing about marijuana, every time I look for related images online I keep running across a pot leaf photo that just doesn’t make sense.

Unfortunately, it seems to be one of the most popular “marijuana” photos on the web, and, in fact, is the top result for a Google image search on the term “marijuana.” Annoyingly, it’s also the top image result for “marijuana leaf.”
But there’s something just wrong looking about that leaf, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why.
This photo — which Discovery Health says it sourced from Marijuana.com — seems to show what looks like a female cannabis flower coming out the base of a marijuana leaf, where the leaf blades meet the leaf stem.
Now, I know Marijuana.com isn’t known as the best place for accurate weed info. In fact, it’s covered with those maddening “fake marijuana” ads for “legal buds.” But are they really the source of this photo? I’ve not been able to find it on the site.

Graphic: NORML

​Careful who you trust to interpret poll results. You may have seen the poll that was trumpeted just in time for 4/20, supposedly showing that “55 percent of Americans oppose legalizing marijuana.”

The headlines about the April 20 Associated Press/CNBC poll (PDF) on marijuana legalization read “Most In U.S. Against Legalizing Pot,” but Huffington Post reporter Ryan Grim dug down into the results and found that one of the poll’s questions actually appears to show majority support for legalizing and regulating marijuana like alcohol.
“[W]hen pot is compared to alcohol, support for reforming the laws surges,” Grim writes. “Forty-four percent of respondents said that ‘the regulations on marijuana [should]be the same as those for alcohol.’ Another 12 percent said they should be ‘less strict,’ meaning that a full 56 percent support the policy change — perhaps the highest number ever recorded in favor of legalization. (Alcohol is, after all, legal.)”
Kind of odd, wouldn’t you say? The results of a nationwide poll show that a substantial majority — 56 percent of Americans — support either the same restrictions or looser restrictions on marijuana than on alcohol, which is already legal. But somehow, that gets reported in the national press as “Most In U.S. Against Legalizing Pot”?