Man Pays Ticket with Urine-Soaked Coins
March 31st, 2009 by Silvio
After receiving a $206 traffic fine, a Washington man decided to let the state know how he feels. He collected $206 in coins, put them in a plastic bag and mailed the whole thing in a nice box to Multnomah County court. After he urinated in the bag, of course.
According to postal officials it’s not illegal to mail any bodily fluids, as long as they don’t leek and/or smell. And as county employees attested, this was not the case.
What the angry citizen didn’t take into account was, that the maximum amount of coins he can use to pay for his ticket, is limited to $20. So the spoiled money was returned, a late fee and postage added and the whole fine is now up to $271.
But at least the county doesn’t intend to pursue the matter, if everything is paid.
Peep the video from a news broadcast after the jump.
White House Press Secretary Answers More Questions
March 31st, 2009 by RickWhite House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is asked to clarify President Obama’s position on legalizing marijuana and on medical marijuana after he brought up the topic in the first Online Town Hall. Questions involving marijuana reform appeared in several categories and received far more votes than any other policy issue.
Yet again marijuana is mentioned and it leads to laughter from both the press and Press Secretary. Is this issue really that amusing or are we just ignoring the neon pink elephant in the room? It’s interesting that the following questions only pushed the issue further. The legalization of medical marijuana was brought up.
Gibbs seemed flustered and simply said it’s a Department of Justice matter. It seemed as if Gibbs was becoming frustrated and he finally set the record straight, President Obama is against the legalization of marijuana. He does not feel that is the right plan for America. Gibbs even went as far as implying that interest groups rigged the voting by having their supporters vote as many times as they could.
Really? It couldn’t be that those votes actually came from ordinary people online, across the country? What are the chances that the voters were the same people that brought Obama the presidency?
The Online Town Hall meeting was his idea, a way to reach out and entertain questions from the public. The public responded. Apparently the states responded themselves, by introducing medical marijuana and decriminalization bills. The decision for legalizing marijuana shouldn’t rest in the hands of the government anyhow, the states should be deciding on what they want to do about the issue.
Hit the Deck — It’s an Israel Bong Bust
March 31st, 2009 by Rick
Israeli police raided a factory in Hafia in northern Israel and seized 15,000 marijuana pipes (bongs) that were planned for distribution. The 60-year old owner was also arrested.
According to spokesman Micky Rosenfeld:
Pipes and other drug paraphernalia are a common sight at Israeli kiosks but these items were banned a few weeks ago and police are cracking down.
The majority of marijuana is smuggled into Israel by Bedouin across the porous border with Egypt. The rest comes from Gaza and Lebanon, though these routes are less common due to recent hostilities.
It’s hard to believe that among everything being smuggled into Israel that persists to be evasive to control, that the Israeli police are concerned with drug paraphernalia. It was a good thing that someone over there was smoking weed… now all they have to do is all come together and go Michael Phelps on it.
Former Drug Free America Director Flipped It
March 31st, 2009 by Rick
David E. Krahl, Ph.D., former Drug Free America Deputy Director, is now in support of medical marijuana.
There was a point in my professional career as Deputy Director of the Drug Free America Foundation when I supported the prohibition of marijuana as medicine. But then, I experienced a change of heart, if you will; a moment of clarity, an epiphany. After seriously investigating the issue, and getting beyond the rhetorical arguments of both sides, I began to realize that the prohibitionist viewpoint against the use of marijuana as medicine largely ignored three things, which are so embedded in the fabric of American society and reflective of our cultural values that their truth is almost self-evident.
Krahl believes that the issue of marijuana as medicine should be left up to the states.
From a purely Constitutional point of view, individual states are empowered to chart their own legislative courses, and act as autonomous, self-determining governing entities that are best suited to adopt laws regarding the health and welfare of their citizens.
Krahl brings up a good point. After all, 13 states now have already enacted medical marijuana laws either by ballot initiative or legislation. There are even more following suit and pushing medical marijuana bills through their legislation.
Krahl also believes that it’s an issue of the relationship between physician and patient and that the government has no business intruding on a patient’s prescribed or recommended course of treatment.
Based on long-standing tradition, custom, and practice, the relationship between doctor and patient is sacrosanct. Fundamentally, the treatment regimen prescribed or recommended by the physician is a private matter.
Krahl knows that the new Administration’s apparent willingness to change an outdated policy is not enough. The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) needs to reverse their 2006 position that “marijuana has no currently accepted medical use.”
In fact, not only has the FDA approved several studies that highlighted the medical efficacy of marijuana, but many other studies conducted abroad have also come to the same conclusion: marijuana, indeed, has therapeutic value.
Krahl says he hopes a new White House policy position means a new thoughtful, more deliberate, compassionate, and rational approach to the issue of medical marijuana. With more people like Krahl, now influencing a possible change in their stance and beliefs on medical marijuana, and more states defying federal law to bring the issue to legislation, it’s become necessary the White House tread lightly when dealing with the American public.
CNN’s D.L. Hughley Airs Final Show on 4/20
March 31st, 2009 by RickD.L. Hughley’s final show on CNN will air on April 20th in which he talks about the legalization of marijuana and the current state of medical marijuana in California.
Hughley himself is a medical marijuana patient, suffering from chronic back pain. The show however, has been edited by CNN and will not include Hughley purchasing medical marijuana from the Harborside Health Center, a medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland. In fact, a lot of other footage didn’t make it to the cutting room floor as CNN forced Hughley’s producers to edit it out.
Hughley sits down in an interview with a spokesperson from the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). Hughley says that marijuana has an image problem, showing movie examples like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Cheech & Chong: Nice Dreams, and the recent Pineapple Express. The MPP Spokesperson says that various politicians have smoked marijuana in the past including the last three Presidents: Clinton, Bush and Obama, as well as New York Mayor Bloomberg and California Governor, Arnold Schwarzeneggar.
The MPP spokesperson jokes:
A friend of mine recently said that marijuana seems to be a gateway drug that leads to becoming President.
Hughley visits the Harborside Health Center in Oakland. Instantly after he steps in, he’s greeted by various strains of marijuana like White Rhino, Purple Cotton Candy, O.G. Kush. The facility claims the recession hasn’t affected them yet. In fact, business is so booming, that they pay $100,000 a month to the state of California. Towards the end, Hughley interviews a few medical marijuana patients that claim that marijuana has helped them cope with their pain or sickness.
Men Posing as Police Kill Sherman Oaks Man
March 31st, 2009 by Rick
An alleged marijuana dealer, Brian Thomas Caufield, 31, of Sherman Oaks, was found shot dead in his apartment late last Thursday after 3 men, posing as police forced him to open the door and then proceeded to rob him. According to Caufield’s girlfriend, he was on the phone with his mother when the home invasion occurred.
“Mom, I think I’m going to jail,” his mother heard Caufield say.
“I’m not resisting. I’m not resisting,” his mother then heard Caufield say.
Described as a DJ and music producer, police say Caufield had previously sold marijuana to the suspects. They then showed up again at the third-floor apartment and at least two of them then identified themselves as police officers, gaining entry into his home. They handcuffed Caufield’s roommate and one of them brought Caufield to a bedroom forcing him to open his safe. A struggle ensued and Caufield was shot. The three suspects were captured on video surveillance running on foot from the complex.
Police said they served a search warrant at the residence and recovered an undisclosed amount of marijuana and cash. After paramedics were called, they declared Caufield dead of a gunshot wound at the scene.
It’s odd that the roommate wasn’t killed either, being a potential witness. Police did say that an undisclosed amount of pot and cash was found, so it makes sense that they high-tailed it out of there without taking everything.
These are the types of criminals that deserve to go to prison — the kind that prey upon others and take what is not theirs. In a perfect world, had Caufield survived the home invasion, he still would have been a victim. If he was the type of dealer that didn’t have a gun, didn’t use strong arm tactics or violence to distribute his pot and didn’t sell to minors, then in reality he was fulfilling one of the most fundamental concepts of our economy: supply and demand. Regardless of the laws, morals, ethics, or the (il)legality of it, someone somewhere is going to sell pot.
$77 Billion Generated by Legalizing Drugs
March 30th, 2009 by RickHarvard Economics Professor Jeffrey Miron was a guest on a CNN show, hosted by Rick Sanchez. Miron claims that a $77 billion revenue would be created by legalizing drugs. Miron breaks it down by saying $44 billion will be saved by not spending the money on police for arrests, judges and prosecutors for all the trials and prisons and prison guards for the incarceration. Another $33 billion would be obtained by tax revenue of legal drugs, like how cigarettes and alcohol are regulated. Miron even says that legalizing and ending the prohibition will reduce the violence crossing the boarder from Mexico.
Sanchez brings up the point that the economy depends on the prisons and the prison system. He asks what would happen to all their jobs and the DEA. Miron then says that jobs shouldn’t be created by forbidding something.
Really? That’s what you’re worried about, the jobs of prison guards and DEA agents? They work in the law enforcement field, they can create programs that transfer those people to work in other government agencies dealing with law enforcement. As far as prison guards losing their jobs, there will still be murders, robberies and all the evil that men do — so prisons will still be needed to incarcerate those individuals committing those acts.
Miron’s viewpoint centers around the fact that if drugs were made into legal goods, then that would shift their underground market appeal. The negative aspects of prohibition like organized crime that create corruption and violence would diminish like it had done when the prohibition on alcohol was lifted.
At the end, Sanchez asks what Miron’s colleagues think of his ideas and wouldn’t people think that he was a stoner. Miron goes on to say that a lot of economists see the unattended consequences of it and realize that a lot of the negative aspects of drugs have come from the drug prohibition.
I’m not sure about legalizing all drugs, but legalizing marijuana would be a step in the right direction and despite what Obama believes, it may just have a chance to ahem… “grow the economy.”
Tell Obama Legalization Is No Laughing Matter
March 30th, 2009 by Silvio
The following letter below is reaction from NORML regarding President Obama’s statement on marijuana policy during a Virtual Town Hall Meeting last week. NORML has set it up so one can use an online form to send a prepared and well-formulated letter to the President to voice disapproval about his recent statements.
Per NORML:
Speaking at an online Town Hall Meeting on Thursday, March 26, President Barack Obama pledged “to open up the White House to the American people.”
Well, to some of the American people that is.
As for those tens of millions of you who believe that cannabis should be legally regulated like alcohol — and the tens of thousands of you who voted to make this subject the most popular question in today’s online Presidential Town Hall — well, your voice doesn’t really matter.
Asked this morning whether he “would … support the bill currently going through the California legislation to legalize and tax marijuana, boosting the economy and reducing drug cartel related violence,” the President responded with derision.
“There was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation, and I don’t know what this says about the online audience,” he laughed.
“The answer is no, I don’t think that [is] a good strategy.”
Obama’s cynical rebuff was short-sighted and disrespectful to a large percentage of his supporters. After all, was it not this very same “online audience” that donated heavily to Obama’s Presidential campaign and ultimately carried him to the White House?
Please take a moment to tell the President that marijuana law reform is no laughing matter, and that the millions of Americans who support this issue deserve to be treated respectfully. For your convenience, a pre-written letter will be e-mailed to President Obama when you enter your contact information below.
Show your support! Head over to NORML and use the pre-written letter to allow your sentiments be heard.
