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To Be A Medical Marijuana Patient Or Not To Be? That’s The Question!

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 22, 2012 Culture, Medical

Toke of the Town Northern California Correspondent Jack Rikess always tokes up before making a big decision

Or, Should Jack Renew His Medical Marijuana Card?

By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

I suffer from debilitating migraines that leave me temporarily blinded followed by a headache that feels like someone has taken a rusty blade to my brain with the full intent of whittling on it for the next couple of hours. Cannabis relieves the pain and lessens the thumping bombardments associated with the war games being played in my cerebellum.

In another lifetime, I worked in a Navajo Old Folks home in Arizona. I wrenched my back lifting an overweight person who had passed out, which snared me in a dead weight death trap. My vertebrae have never recovered.

I Know Why Mitch McConnell Lies! Or, Cannabis Is The New Black

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 19, 2012 Culture

Yikes!

By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told a constituent in favor of legalizing marijuana that he doesn’t support the idea because drugs like pot lead to death.

Mitch McConnell lies about marijuana because he forgot how to tell the truth. Working for the Tobacco Industry since you were a pup politician will do that to you.

You can tell how out of touch a person is by the archaic issues they’ve raised. Mitch feels comfortable going with the baseless lie that cannabis kills. Hey Mitch, as long as you’re living in the 1950s, why don’t you go after comic books and rock ‘n’ roll too, while you’re at it?!

A little hint: Today’s fear mongers are finding success with the more robust and contemporary propaganda themes like “Kid Brings Magic Brownies to Preschool” and “Are Stoner Drivers the Death of Us All?” to keep the Reefer Madness alive.

DOJ, DEA & ATF: Confused Bureaucracies Or Street Thieves?

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 19, 2012 Culture, Dispensaries, News

Opposing Views

Did the Feds think of the impact that their letters and raids have had on the patients who depend on places like the Berkeley Patients Group?

By Bob Starrett

He looked a bit suspicious, standing in front of the Blockbuster kiosk at the 7-11 talking on his cell phone. He wasn’t renting a movie so I asked him to move to the side. As I was perusing the latest releases, he walked into the store.

Just seconds later he was out and gone. As he streaked past me, I could hear the jingling of coins in a jar but by the time I realized what was happening he was too far gone for me to do anything about it.

An approaching woman told me that there was a car idling in the alley, apparently the getaway car. It was over so quickly. It was only then that I realized that all I would have had to do was lift up my right leg as he was accelerating by me and he would have done a faceplant onto the concrete.

A common thief. A street thief. Steal anything from anyone, without regret, without thought of consequence. He probably did not pick a particular charity jar to take. He likely took whatever was closest to the door. And then he was gone, just like that. No thought to the charity, no thought at all.

Willie Nelson Supports Oregon Cannabis Tax Act

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 16, 2012 Culture, Legislation, News

Houston Press

Country music legend Willie Nelson has endorsed the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act 2012 (OCTA 2012), which is gathering signatures to qualify for the November general election ballot. If passed by the people of Oregon, OCTA 2012 would regulate the legal sale of marijuana through state-licensed stores, allow adults to grow their own, license Oregon farmers to grow marijuana for state-licensed stores and allow unlicensed Oregon farmers to grow hemp for fuel, fiber and food.

OCTA 2012 will raise an estimated $140 million a year by taxing commercial cannabis sales to adults 21 and older, and save an additional estimated $61.5 million as law enforcement, corrections and judicial attention can focus on violent crimes and theft.

“We estimate this will amount to $200 million a year more funding for state government,” the Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp (CRRH) said. Ninety percent of those proceeds will go into the state general fund, seven percent for drug treatment programs, with one percent each going to drug education in public schools and to two new state commissions to promote hemp biofuel, hemp fiber and food.

Berkeley Patients Group Landlord Gets “The Marijuana Letter”

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 16, 2012 Culture, Dispensaries

Berkeley Patients Group

By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

That crazy cannabis carousel continues to spin as the C. Hag (as in Kali U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, who sees a working dispensary and has the irascible need to close it) sends out another letter. Berkeley Patients Group is the victim of being too close to where kids could possibly be.

This time is a double-whammy, the Center for Early Intervention on Deafness, which also houses a preschool, and Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley, a French bilingual grade school, are within the 1,000 feet no-no zone.

Berkeley Patients Group took over an old car dealership and with the wrought-iron fence and has a visible security patrolling, when I went there, it felt like an island. A huge building with very little foot traffic, very secure and seemingly alone in a converted strip-mall that many patients have pass it by thinking it was a church or some other municipal building.

Worth Repeating: Marijuana, Mysticism and Radical Freedom

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 16, 2012 Culture

Crucify The Ego

Worth Repeating

By Ron Marczyk, R.N.

Health Education Teacher (Retired)

Ever notice that when people smoke marijuana they are frequently overcome with feelings of deep introspection and metacognition which often lead to lively discussions with overt existential themes?

Cannabinoids increase introspection, metacognition, emotional sentience, and entheogenic experiences.

Perhaps these effects are responsible for the sharp decrease seen in suicide rates of young men?

Perhaps medical marijuana makes life worth living!

This curious, and well known effect of marijuana’s overall euphoria “to bear well” is apparently caused by activating emotional sentience pathways in the amygdala — and that’s a good thing!

Branson: I Asked For Weed At The White House [With Video]

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 16, 2012 Culture, News

Marijuana.com

Richard Branson: “I asked him if I could have a spliff. But they didn’t have any.”

If you were at a White House state dinner and you got some face time with President Obama, what would you ask him?

“I asked him if I could have a spliff,” Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson told a crowd at The Atlantic‘s offices on Thursday, one day after attending the dinner in honor of British Prime Minister David Cameron, reports Patrick Gavin at Politico.

“But they didn’t have any,” Branson said, recounting his effort to score weed at the White House.

Human Rights Is A Foreign Concept In The UN’s War On Drugs

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 16, 2012 Culture, Global, Legislation

Your Black Bloggers

Latin American Presidents’ Calls For Legalization Debate Go Unheeded At UN Drug Policy Meeting

The annual Drug War meeting of the United Nations is just wrapping up in Vienna, and sadly, none of the sentiments recently expressed by Latin American presidents about the need to consider legalization were raised during the sessions.

“Alarmingly, the U.S. even opposed amending one of its resolutions to include mention of the need to consider human rights when implementing drug policies,” Tom Angell, media relations director at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), told Toke of the Town on Friday morning.

Even while several Latin American presidents are calling for an outright debate on drug legalization, delegates at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting this week failed to even discuss a change in the global prohibitionist drug treaties, reports a group of judges, prosecutors and jailers who were at the meeting in Vienna to promote reform.

Grope and Pillage: $60 Billion Wasted So Far On TSA

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 16, 2012 Culture

Created by: OnlineCriminalJusticeDegree.com

It’s a safe bet that most travelers personally despise the airport body scanners used by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (and their health risks, possibly including cancer), not to mention the groping that passengers must endure if they turn down the body scan.

Meanwhile, in Europe, with more public awareness, body scanners have been banned due to health and safety concerns. A lawsuit claiming “cancer clusters” in TSA employees has been filed, which could unearth even more damning evidence against the devices.

Senator Mitch McConnell Claims Marijuana Will Kill You

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 14, 2012 Culture, News

NY Daily News

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “Because of the harm that substances like marijuana and other narcotics pose to our society, I have concerns about this legislation”

From time to time we are reminded just how much work remains when it comes to educating politicians and the public about cannabis. One of those times is now: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has warned a constituent via a letter that he doesn’t support medical marijuana legalization because, among other reasons, smoking pot can lead to death.

In a February 4 reply to his constituent, McConnell ticked off some “serious concerns” he has about legalizing weed for medicinal purposes, the topic about which the constituent had written him, reports Jennifer Bendery at the Huffington Post.

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