February 18, 2004

• Courtney Love is the poster-child of all that is scary. Speaking of the war on drugs, there's a MeFi thread about this little gem of an article: "The Drug Enforcement Administration is working to make one of the most widely prescribed medications more difficult for patients to obtain as part of its stepped-up offensive against the diversion and abuse of prescription painkillers... Pain specialists and pharmacy representatives say the new restrictions would be a burden on the millions of Americans who need the drug to treat serious pain from arthritis, AIDS, cancer and chronic injuries, and that many sufferers are likely to be prescribed other, less effective drugs as a result." (Here's the MeFi thread.)
• The war has failed just as alcohol prohibition did before it, and now the drug warriors are taking out their frustrations on pain doctors and their patients. Here's a good website on the subject.
• "The War on Poverty." "The War on Drugs." "The War on Terrorism." Yes, we like our objectives large and fuzzy enough so that we can never make any measurable progress, but then can't really clearly fail either. Most cultures have had some way for people to alter their reality, whether through alcohol, cannabis, peyote, coca, what have you. Our resources would be much better spent studying with the physical and psychological causes of addiction and helping people struggling with addiction rather than sending a non-violent person to prison for 40 years because the Feds busted him with too many pot plants in his basement. (folds up soapbox, goes back to work.)
• I wonder if I could accuse my dealer of traitorous activities if he overcharges. After all, there is a war on.
• Waiiiiiiiiiitaminnut ambrosia! The war on poverty worked! There are no more poor people anywhere, especially not in the U.S.! The war on drugs worked too, I can't think of a single person I know who has ever used aspirin, let alone acid! And terror? Ha! Nobody is scared anymore, especially not of endless american imperial wars. In all seriousness, the two best (most realistic) anti-drug commercials I have ever seen: The first: (Two guys sitting in the corner of an empty room, smokin out) #1 Yeah, its just a lie, man pot doesnt do anything to you. Its totally cool. #2 Yeah, i smoke it all the time nothing happens because of it. (camera slowly pulls back) Womans voice: Son, are you in there? Did you get a job today? #1 No, mom, i couldnt find one... Voice Over: If you smoke pot, nothing will happen to you, too. The second: (A group of junior highschool aged kids sitting on the bleachers. One pulls out a joint and lights it. Camera focuses on the kid next to him. Cue internal monologue.) "Oh no! The're smoking pot! I have never done it before, whats going to happen, these are the cool kids and [26 seconds more fretting]" (Cool kid passes the joint to fretter) Fretting Kid: No thanks. (Cool Kid shrugs) Cool Kid: OK, Cool. [end] Those are the only two that even get close to a real situation. Though I have known quite a few productive smokers who dont live in their moms empty basement. Then again, I was always on the Bill Hicks side of things.
• jim_t: Rather than trying to warn kids how drugs are bad (Drugs are bad, mmmmkay.) This needs to stop as well. Drugs aren't bad. _A_ drug(coke,heroin) may be bad in a certain way. The only thing recreational "drugs" have in common is they're illegal, socially taboo and are psychoactive in their unique ways peculiar to each drug.
• But Gyan, all drugs are the same! Are you _trying_ to help Osama Hussien and his ilk?
• Thats right! Bruce Lee died of a marijuana overdose! Its true!
• [rustles through bookshelves] Ah-ha! "The Complete Yes Prime Minister" [Leaves through pages]

  Dorothy seemed almost sorry for him. She tried to explain. 'Humphrey, government departments are tombstones. The Department of Industry marks the grave of industry. The Department of if Employment marks the grave of Employment. The Department of ther Environment marks the grave of the environment. And the Department of Education matrks where the corpse of British education is buried.'

  If I were feeling less lazy, I'm sure this would be trivial to rewrite about all those Wars y'all are so fond of.
• rodgerd, ah my favorite Beeb shows... Some of the ever-applicable dialogues.
• What about the recent ad where the kid drowns in the swimming pool because the babysitter is stoned? Well, it doesn't show all of that, but that's what it implies. I saw this at a theater recently and several of us just burst out laughing. It's so damn ludicrous. Sure, it's irresponsible to be drunk, stoned, tired, distracted, etc. when you have responsibilities, but that's hardly a case for _never_ smoking marijuana.
• I'm skinning one up now.
• Oh No!!Someone better warn Wolof's neighbors. Reefer Madness is about to be unleashed!!!
• I disagree. Courtney makes a great role model for the kids. NSFW
• We're winning the war on drugs, Winning the war on drugs, Praise the Lord and pass the bong, We're winning the war on drugs
• Meanwhile, Broadway Joe gets smashed in public and hits on a sideline reporter and alcohol sales remain brisk. Pot: the illegal choice, because...?
• Broadway Joe has Joementum. If it works for Lieberman it works for all Joes.
• The Utah Supreme Court ruled that members of an American Indian church, whatever their race, can continue to use peyote as part of their religious ceremonies.
• read this: about the 2000 election and then think about what the majority of felony convictions involve these days.... so it seems the War on Drugs is certainly working for some people. Who ever came up with this ridiculous idea of felons losing the right to vote? You pay your debt to society, why should you be stripped of your most basic right as a citizen for life??
• Ok, I'm going to try to make this brief. The War on Drugs is evil, destructive, and unwinnable. Gyan is quite correct. Every culture except the white europeans had some kind of mind-altering substance that they "grew up with" as a culture. It is considered sacred and no one abuses it. The only thing the white man had was alcohol. So, when we encounter other physcoactive substances, we have one of two reactions: 1) Fear, suspiction, and condemnation. 2) Embrasure and abuse with no understanding of what it is. Alcohol, on the other hand, is something we "grew up with," and so is just fine, despite the fact that it is as destructive as anything. Many people, including Police, think we should stop spending so much money uselessly. Other countries have begun to realize this. The last thing I want to say is this: Anyone who allows a drug, any drug, to destroy thier lives is both WEAK and STUPID. I am niether. please forgive my bad spelling and sweeping generalizations. i am very tired and very angry.
• *hands Weezel a fat blunt*
• Weezel, of course you're not either.
• This Is Kerry On Drugs
• Why the Drug War Isn't an Election Issue – But Should Be
• This is your convention on drugs.
• ...ostensibly countercultural Rolling Stone... Funniest line I've read this week.
• What Did You Do In the War Daddy?
• Is Your Bong Breeding Terrorists?
• Frosty = Cocaine. All the kids want one!
• Schoogirl sorted for whizz courtesy of Lincs plod
• What the 'l'? Arse
• psst, abie_c, wanna score some "l"?
• A team of Australian drug sniffer dogs has been sent back for retraining, after it was found they could only track talcum powder, not cocaine.
• Walter Cronkite: Telling the Truth About the War on Drugs
• Thanks for posting that, homonculus. I always did like that guy.
• Bill O'Reilly doesn't, it seems.
• Bill, you ignorant slut.
• The Drug War Targets the Math Club
• Using the Drug "War" to Expand Government Power
• Drug War Roundup
• 1 in 136 U.S. Residents Behind Bars
• Drug Warriors Push Eye-Eating Fungus
• Knock knock. Who's there? A boot. A boot who? A boot stamping on your face - forever. LOL!
• Yyyyyyyyup. *unintelligible german ranting*
• Scholar Cited by Scalia in Hudson Not So Thrilled to Have Been Cited by Scalia
• Walker adds, "Scalia turned my research completely on its head. My point was that these reforms came about because the courts, specifically the Warren Court, forced the police to institute better procedures with judicial oversight. Scalia now wants to take that oversight away." War is peace, dawg. Werd.
• Supreme Court Ruling on Police Raids Endangers Citizens What was that I mentioned about boots? Oh well, at least there will be music.
• War on drugs, eh? How'd that go?
• We won!!
• Drug-danger 'league table' revealed
• Nevada Conservatives Against the War on Drugs
• The guy at Drug WarRant has been attending the DEA's traveling museum exhibit on drugs and terrorism.
• *skins up*
• I need to do a bit of a rant here, sorry. My nephew got into drugs as an early teenager. I'm not sure what he started with, but he went through a phase when he was on PCP (KJ) in the 1980s. He assaulted my mother (his grandmother) twice during that time. Even though her memory is beginning to fail, since she's now 89, she does remember that she thought he was going to kill her. He began to steal from my parents soon after. So, let's flash forward to the last 8 years. When I moved here to take care of my patents in 1999, he was way into meth, and living in a house just in back of ours, which my parents were letting him live in, rent free, with his wife and 4 children,. My parents eventually gave the house to him and his family, since they were convinced that he needed help in the long term, though I'm not sure they could relate to what kind of help he needed. Not long after I moved, he decided that the DARE program, where policemen were sent to schools to talk to kids about the dangers of drugs, was directed aimed at making his children report on him, personally. He had bought a gun, and threatened them with it, then beat up his son, and kicked him out of the house, telling him he could never come back. When his wife got home from work and found out what he had done, she threw a potted pland at him, so he kicked her in the face and broke her cheek bone. His wife and family left him, after that, and there was a lot more drama that I won't bore you with, but I will say that he assaulted me twice in the next couple of years - tried to drown me once. When their house was sold, he went through his portion of the proceeds in a couple of months, and it was a lot of money. So, to get to the point. There doesn't seem to be any War on Drugs where I live, and I really wish there were. He's been arrested at least 10 or 15 times for being under the influence, but has always plead out while taking bigger charges stemming from his habit, so the drug arrests haven't gotten anyone's attention. I wish they would send him to prison for years because he comes here every day and scares us. We've done restraining orders in the past, but they've only picked him up and promptly released him when we've called. And the fact is that his brain is so fried that we have no hope that he'll change.
• I wish they would send him to prison for years because he comes here every day and scares us. So do I. Or commit him. Either way, he should be removed from your lives. That's absolutely terrible. It's unconcienable that the police allow this to continue. I know I post a lot of links which are critical of the "drug war" (because I think it's ultimately part of the problem) but I do agree that many drugs can destroy people and/or make them dangerous. I had two friends who lost their minds to drugs, primarily LSD, developing symptoms which looked to me like paranoid schizophrenia. One was living as a borderline vagabond, last I heard, and the other committed suicide. Maybe that would have happened anyway without the drugs, I don't know (I've known others who did just as much acid, if not more, who were fine.) But neither were ever a threat to others, as far as I know.
• Sorry to hear that path - I hope you can get some peace soon. FWIW, I think the most telling things in that short post was the line "letting him live in, rent free" and "gave the house to him". I don't know what anybody else's story is like, but it's my experience that situations like that need the "tough love" crap (which I typically would be very against). If you missed it, there was an interesting link via Les Bleu the other week about Jay from "Jay & Silent Bob" and the particular path his addiction took. There's a relevant section near the end about letting him live rent free etc. And also there's always hope too, so there's that. :)
• I'm starting to wonder if every family has a member like that - I know mine does. It's heartbreaking. And although it's clear to see the enabling role that some members of the family have taken in his addiction (including favors from family friends in law enforcement), I've just never been able to see a way of doing anything about it.
• Our next-door neighbour doesn't have a drug problem (that I know of, anyway) but his parents tried the "tough love" treatment on him after he burgled most of the neighbourhood homes and stabbed his younger brother with a fork (!). Their main tactic was setting a curfew after which he was locked out and had to sleep in the garage. Unfortunately that just meant he'd come home at 4am and pound on all the doors and windows and scream at the world until someone called the police. The police didn't support the boy's parents and told them they had to let him in. The tough love didn't work. Now he's in a work-rehab program which seems to have settled him down -- mainly because he's working during the times he'd normally be breaking and entering.
• The tough love didn't work. Yeah, there's the rub.
• Hello? Natural selection anyone? Let the coyotes/whales have at 'em.
• Geez, path, that's just awful and incredibly difficult to deal with. I realize it's just the paranoid in me but I am of the firm belief that the "drug war" is just a front for the governments' own black market. But that's just me. The War on Drugs has never worked. All it did was make some drugs (weed) harder to get so other drugs took over. Unfortunately, those other drugs probably would not have shown their faces to the degree that they now do if it wasn't for this so called "War". I just moved back from a beautiful little town in Oregon that is almost overrun with the meth problem. You see it virtually everywhere. I never expected it to be so in-your-face like it was. The schools and daycares in this town are in pretty poor shape because so many of the children come from VERY broken homes. They have virtually no guidance, their dirty, wear dirty, shabby clothes, they barely eat and they run around town all night long. I won't even bother with the crime aspect that creates. It's apalling how many children, of all ages, have been put in foster homes. We, as American citizens, have a very, very serious problem ahead of us and it hasn't even begun to roar it's ugly head. I blame the "War On Drugs".
• Natural selection is fine. Until it hits close to home. In the end, though, that is what it comes down to. You just have to hope that others don't go down with them.....like their children.
• Appeals Court: Driving With Money is Evidence of a Crime
• I'm sorry, Mr. Smith. I know you and your wife of seventy years are on a road trip to see the Largest Ball of Twine, but I'm afraid I'm required to seize your cache of traveller's cheques.
• Seig!
• Teen Gets ‘Two Years for One Joint’
• American taxpayers are now spending more than a billion dollars per year to incarcerate its citizens for pot.
• The House of Death
• The Guardian article is a damned fine read. Thanks for the link homunculus! I will never look at carne asada the same again.
• Re: the "excellent comment" in the Update in homunculus' link. ...the law currently embodies a set of moralistic biases that have little to do with actual logic. In. A. Nutshell.
• In a mind-boggling act of sadistic legal legal buck-passing (I can't bring myself to glorify it with the word "reasoning"), the Florida District Court of Appeals upheld a 25 year mandatory minimum sentence for a Florida man convicted of "drug trafficking" for possessing his own pain medication.
• . This thread just keeps getting better. *Sigh*
• This shit has to stop.
• Look for Danger When Good Guys Act Like Bad Guys
• "Illogical" is pretty much the key word. Seriously, it seems time and time again that our justice system has no room for common sense. Good times.
• The (Luis) Padilla case is beyond deranged; more here. So, to recap -- Homeland Security agents at ICE were so obsessed with building a case for drug trafficking that they knowingly stood by and continued to work with and pay a murderous psychopath who brutally murdered innocent people (Mexicans, that is) while being recorded by Homeland Security agents.
• Politics keep a lifesaver from heroin users, families
• Retired narcotics officer tells public how to hoodwink drugs police
• What is the best way to hide your stash of marijuana when the police come knocking? How do you avoid positive tests for drugs? And what can you do to hoodwink narcotics-trained sniffer dogs? All these questions and many more will be answered by a DVD called Never Get Busted Again, about to go on sale on the internet. I am guessing this will never be torrented.
• Another Damned Drug War Death
• Dopey, Boozy, Smoky -- and Stupid
• from H-Dawg's most recent link: Bong Hits 4 Jesus.
• The Drug War as a Military Recruitment Tool
• Why I am No Longer a Republican (and never was a Democrat)
• An important link, all should read. Thanks, H.
• Justices hear "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case
• Prison Rape and the War on Drugs
• The war on drugs' war on minorities
• Drugs are bad. Terrorism, not so much.
• A War on Drugs Story
• “I Don’t Care What the Judge Said!”
• Drugs Are Bad, M’kay?
• Incarcerex: It's Time for a New Bottom Line
• Nice. And FPP-worthy, methinks.
• Just as the lawmakers seem to think that marijuana and heroin are comparable substances When I started doing drugs in 1980, we were still hearing the panic stricken words warning us of the cocaine/heroin dangers that were resulting from the rampant 70's virtual debauchery. These dire warnings rapidly embraced all drugs. The whole "just say NO" campaign had not even begun. When I smoked pot for the first time a whole new world opened up to me. The more I did it, the more I began to think outside the box. I started questioning everything, I started to think for myself, and question all authority. I tried cocaine, enjoyed it but it was what it was and I was more attracted to the intellectual aspects that could be drawn out via drug-use. Then I tried acid. That's when I truly realized that what was being pounded into kids' heads via the "this is your brain on drugs" commercial was about as dangerous a tool as you could have to entice young people into trying drugs. Why? Because they are NOT all the same. To lump them togethor as they did was to assume that everyone would believe that if it is said it must be true, and that the fear factor would rule. Well, those fighting in the War on Drugs don't understand kids do they? Kids are all about experiencing, questioning, finding out for themselves. As soon as they realize that smoking pot won't kill you as all the psa's were telling us, you've lost the battle then and there. Forever. They will assume that it was all smoke and they'll more often than not, go for broke. It occurred to me that if you really wanted to stop the drug use, the best way to fight that battle was to pull togethor those who had taken that ride for all it was worth. Tap into those with the actual knowledge. What would have stopped me? Actual and real information may have made a difference. As a mom, I will do my utmost to protect and inform my children about these things. I will do my best to hold off their own curiosity until their brains are fully developed. I will pray to the Gods that they remain safe in their own experimentation in life. I will continue to hope that my own experiences have opened up my eyes and given me the words to help guide them through those murky waters..... I will NEVER give that role over to the government. Idiots.
• Also, that last link was nice, homunculus. Good work, as usual. where do you find the time????
• In a bottle.
• The nation's top anti-drug official said people need to overcome their "reefer blindness" and see that illicit marijuana gardens are a terrorist threat to the public's health and safety, as well as to the environment.
• Lawsuits I'd Like to See Part One: Sue the DEA to Prove Nicotine Is Not a Drug
• Judge rules Canada's pot possession laws unconstitutional
• Rove and Co. Send Drug Warriors to Battle Democrats in "God Awful Places"
• DEA May Start a Blog
• That will be great. I love their Friendster page.
• I love how they're calling those grow operations "gardens." I don't agree with the anti-druggies on much, but I do agree that that's a pretty serious spin on what's really going on in them thar hills.
• Dirty Little Fingers, In Everybody's Pie
• The Bank Secrecy Act is (or should be) known to every single employee of every financial company. Hell, I have to be certified in it every single year, and I have nothing to do with customers directly. The article implies that it's something shady, and that banks are spying on every transaction you make and reporting them to the government. Actually it only applies to large dollar transactions, so you're not in effect "paying your bank to spy on you", unless you regularly make $10,000 or more transactions. It's unfortunate that American Express customers will have to suffer for the incompetency of, apparently, American Express employees and those who are meant to train them, but they can always choose to find another company to deal with. Nobody loses in the end but Amex.
• Drug War Draft
• How America Lost the War on Drugs. After Thirty-Five Years and $500 Billion, Drugs Are as Cheap and Plentiful as Ever: An Anatomy of a Failure.
• Supreme Court Okays Departures in Drug Cases
• Cleveland DEA Informant Scandal Unravels
• Killing in the name of public health
• How Americans learned to stop worrying and love workplace drug testing
• The Wire's War on the Drug War
• Guilty Before Proven Innocent: How police harassment, jailhouse snitches, and a runaway war on drugs imprisoned an innocent family
• Hey homunculus, did you notice the google ads that come with the Reason article above? Selling urinalysis to businesses. Google ads are evil.
• How to stop the drug wars: Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution