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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”
Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?
Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.
We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.
When we show up, we win.
Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.
If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.
It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.
Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.
Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.
Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.
These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.
Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.
We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.
Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!
This blog will pay for itself.
You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?
You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.
The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.
You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.
We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.
He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!
Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.
Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.
MR Bill
What can we say but “amen”!
Rex
Let’s see….increase of 80% in 6 years. About how long ago was it when I was first instructed that I should ask my doctor about Zoloft/Xanex/Vitorin/Prilosec, etc. etc?
Rex
On television commercials, I should have clarified.
ThymeZone
It’s worthwhile to read these materials and gain an accurate of view of drug use, risks and costs in our society.
It’s one of several things we need to start getting right, by acting on facts and not on emotions.
In a time when we still — as of today — have a government elected largely by people who think the earth is 6000 years old, we have a lot of work to do.
Reforming the “war on drugs” is on the list of things we need to do, somewhere after electing the Dem nominee for president in November.
Xenos
Marijuana was outlawed in large part due to racial hysteria, since it was mainly Blacks and Mexicans who indulged in it. I remember hearing that the liquor companies lobbied hard for strict marijuana laws, too. Figures.
demimondian
Yeah, right. I’d sure want to abuse Zoloft (sertraline, an antidepressant), Xanex (Alprazolam, a mild anxiolytic), Vytorin (an anti-cholinergic combination), or Prilosec (omeprazole, a proton pump inhibitor). Uh, yeah, right.
You really ought to go read the articles in question before you decide to comment on them. The prescription meds that cause problems are the high-powered opiates and codeine derivatives, which are frequently abused and highly addictive — and are not advertised, per DEA regulations.
But don’t worry. You, too, can look like a right-wing idiot; it’s easy. Just expect me, at least, to treat you like I’d treat one of them.
nightjar
All of the legal and illegal drugs combined cannot touch the death and destruction caused by alcohol abuse and it’s long reach. Always been that way and likely to remain so.
demimondian
And those, in turn, cannot touch the pain and suffering caused by the moronic prohibitory policies we pursue against relatively low impact recreational drugs.
I would be far more comfortable legalizing marijuana if there were a reasonable bright-line test differentiating it from more directly addictive drugs like the opiates, on the one hand, and also distinguishing stimulants like cocaine from nicotine, or, alternatively, a plausible argument were made that the recreationally abused pain-killers and stimulants should be decriminalized. I confess that I find that idea troubling.
kdaug
Loved the phrase “professional prohibition profiteers”.
Throw in for-profit prison corporations (ie, CCA, GEO (Wackenhut), Cornell) to complete the circle.
I’d wager that the War On Drugs/Your Neighbor – from Pentagon-sponsered crop eradication in Columbia, Afghanistan, et. al. to taxpayer-funded incarceration of non-violent drug offenders in private prisons – is costing us in the ballpark of a trillion a year, perhaps more.
What’s the point of this again?
Just Some Fuckhead
Man, I clicked the link thinking it was gonna be about white folks living in trailers hooked on meth.
cleek
never fear, the British RAF is helping win the war on drugs. Harriers blew up 236 tons of pot…
demimondian
And here I was looking around your comment for information on how a trailer could be hooked on meth…
Mary
Hooked on meth worked for me!!
gummy smile
(Yes, that’s in bad taste.)
YellowJournalism
My husband and I were just this morning discussing how we would rather have the nice, quiet pot dealer in our complex than the parents who let their little
assholesmonstersbratsangels run wild and ruin other people’s property.If that sounds a little “You kids get off my lawn”, it’s because we spent a night listening to the neighbors teen daughters have their *ahem* friends over for a party and got up to find tons of cigarette butts in our front lawn.
Bob In Pacifica
My girl has that restless leg syndrome. The side effects for that drug include uncontrollable gambling and having sex with strangers. Really. So I don’t mind getting kicked in bed at night.
Just Some Fuckhead
It ain’t no fun for us strangers either.
GoMS
And just recently a speech by US Drug Lord Waters continued to propagate the connection between pot and hard drugs which has been proven unfounded time after time. Why can’t people sue these fuckers when they lie outright to the public? There must be some way to do it.
On the topic of hard drugs, legalizing them does more than just turn the problem over to healthcare officials, it also derails organized crime and gangs that rely on sales to support their activities. In Holland, where drugs are not legal, but they are tolerated, there is a much lower rate of abuse and a much higher rate of people who go to healthcare professionals when they can’t control the habit anymore. Of course, when you reduce the number of prisoners, you interrupt one of the fastest growing sectors of the American economy, the penal system. Building and staffing prisons is a huge industry, with huge amounts of lobby dollars! Don’t look for any change under Obama…Clinton increased the numbers of pot smokers in jail!
srv
I’m sure Obama will do something about this.
Dennis - SGMM
This is working out real well. America has the world’s highest incarceration rate (More than one out of one hundred adults in prison) and also the highest number of incarcerated. As of 2006, the last year for which figures are available, America had 2.2 million people behind bars. China is in second place with 1.5 million in jail. Okay, except for the fact that China has four times the population of the US.
Meanwhile, Mexico is smothering under tidal waves of murder and corruption as narcosyndicates fight each other and the government for control. Drug money feeds the FARC in Columbia and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Here in Southern California gangs routinely kill each other, as well as random civilians, for control of the trade.
However, the war on drugs is so successful that I, white, sixty years old, and unconnected with the underground for decades, would take at least for hours to score – two hours if I feel like driving down to El Monte.
Dennis - SGMM
Make that “Four hours.” Reads like I already hit pay dirt.
Cassidy
Possessing Mj is illegal. I have no sympathy for these “non-violent offenders” being prosecuted for the “natural herb”. I’ll Support legalization all day long, but as of now they broke the law and did it willingly. They shoulda made better choices.
WereBear
Legalizing drugs, taxing them like tobacco and alcohol, and using the money to treat people who have problems would destabilize a vast international corruption network which also supports terror.
Makes too much sense.
ntr Fausto Carmona
You would’ve been a hoot at the Selma march.
Cassidy
Hyperbole much? Despite it being this year’s fashion with the Hillary set, not everything is comparable to the Civil Rights movement. Smoking a J is not a civil right.
Dennis - SGMM
Some laws cry out to be broken. This is one of them.
demimondian
Fine. And that’s a consistent position, but it’s still a foolish one.
There’s no good reason that marijuana use, production, or distribution should be illegal is alcohol use, production, or distribution is legal. It’s clear that alcohol prohibition is not feasible, and, therefore, that marijuana prohibition should not be enforced. Period.
There should be no sympathy for those who attempt to enforce stupid laws, and there should be no lack of sympathy for those who are caught in the web of stupid laws. Thus, your position, however philosophically sound, is unwise.
demimondian
No. This law cries out to go unenforced, but not to be broken.
Just Some Fuckhead
You don’t have to have sympathy for people to realize these non-violent offenders are filling up our prisons and costing us incredible amounts of money to house. That’s money I’m not willing to spend so you can feel morally superior, Cassidy.
demimondian
Correction: in the case of pain and nausea relief, the marijuana laws do, indeed, cry out to be broken.
Notorious P.A.T.
It was after the Republicans deregulated pharmaceutical advertising on TV, if I remember rightly.
How awful for a woman to go through that! [goes to MapQuest, finds nearest pharmacy, then local water treatment plant, then nearest casino]
Cassidy
I absolutely agree. To me, though, this is no different than speeding homicide, etc. I can think of dozens of reasons that would, personally, justify committing a homicide. I can think of a dozen reasons where I would commit a homicide and feel completely justified. In the end, though, it is still against the law and I have to expect to face the consequences of my actions.
It has nothing to do with being morally superior. I guess I was just raised in the tradition of “changing from within”. I’m all for legalization. I’ll vote for pols who pursue it. I’m all for completely overhauling the idiotic war on drugs. But I’m not gonna feel sorry for some jackass who can’t manage to leave enough of his shit at the house so he isn’t popped with a felony. And as stated above, if you are willingly breaking the law, then you must at some point expect to pay for it.
Dennis - SGMM
I was thinking about the DEA raids on California medical marijuana providers when I wrote the “cry out to be broken” comment.
bootlegger
Sure it is. In fact the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the Federal government cannot dictate what people put into their bodies. The first criminalization of marijuana was the Harris Stamp Act which simply leveled a tax on marijuana such that anyone caught without the tax stamp could be prosecuted. Even later when the Narcotics Act was passed it was only defensible under the “Interstate Commerce Clause” of the constitution (talk about judicial acitivism!). As of the latest Supreme Court ruling, Gonzales v. Raich this was still the case. Even my main man C. Thomas thought the Federal government had no business telling California who could smoke dope and who couldn’t.
w vincentz
Oh come on now BJ’ers.
Afghanistan supplies 91% of the opiate crop to the planet,
to which many are addicted.
Iraq holds about a third of the available petroleum, to which the people of the planet are also addicted.
Connect the dots.
And, while you’re at it, sign your sons and daughters into the military that will “protect and defend” these interests.
Just Some Fuckhead
Yeah, as soon as I hit submit, I didn’t think that was a valid characterization. Sorry about that. I understand your concerns and they’re not my concerns. :)
cbear
Really? Well sheeit Dennis, can you help a brother out?
Cassidy
Not sure I read the part of the Constitution where it says “You have the right to partay in any way you see fit”.
Cassidy
Step 1: Drive around town until you find a bar with many choppers out front
Step 2: Go inside, order a drink and wait for some biker to ask you if you’re looking for something
Step 3: Repeat as often as your recreational jones allows.
Cassidy
It’s cool. I just beleive the law should be followed and changed from within. Flagrant disobedience only leads to anarchy and undermines the validity of the position. Whereas changing the law legitimately gives it more credibility.
cbear
With all due respect, you’re a fucking “moran”.
Ever hear of the police coming to your house? Do the words “selective prosecution” mean anything to you?
Ever take a look at incarceration rates for minorities or the poor? How ’bout the average age of those serving time for minor drug offenses?
Jeebus.
Just Some Fuckhead
I don’t see how changing “the law” and then releasing all non-violent drug offenders is “flagrant disobedience” that “only leads to anarchy….” I see it as the right thing to do and a damn fine bottom line decision. Win-win. Completely aside from this, I’m not one of those folks who worries about flagrant disobedience and anarchy. I’m about thirty years outside of that demographic. I can only try to imagine what it must be like for you.
The Moar You Know
Wish I’d read this earlier. I was for it, until a (recently former) good friend decided to acquire an OxyContin habit – and sooner or later, it is going to kill her. Either directly, via liver failure and anorexia, or indirectly, via stupidity.
Those for legalization (I no longer know where I stand on the question) argue that it’s a victimless crime, which of course isn’t always true. It can be – with marijuana it almost always is. Not so much for some others.
I have no answers or even much of an opinion at the moment, save that I wish the stupid bitch would knock it off, but she doesn’t want to and there’s nothing I can do about that.
demimondian
In that case, I agree with you — yes, those laws cry out to be broken. However, in the more general “recreational use” case, I don’t think that usage rises to the moral level of “civil disobedience”.
— demi “yeah, well, I was part of the Sanctuary Movement, too” mondian
Dennis - SGMM
One of the best ways to create new scofflaws is to keep obviously inane laws on the books and then to enforce and prosecute them selectively.
Just Some Fuckhead
Wait, “Flagrant disobedience only leads to anarchy” was a spoof clue, wasn’t it? Sheesh, you spoofers catch me seems every damned time! Anyway, I’m going to bed. Going outta town tomorrow for the day. When I get back I expect our ridiculous drug laws to be fixed and all non-violent drug offenders released stat. If you all have time left after that impeach Bush and Cheney, get the troops out of Iraq and do something about renewable energy. And if you can, at least get a start on the rebuilding our infrastructure project. You might want to start with Iowa and Wisconsin, little bit will go a long way there.
Oops, tomorrow is Sunday. Never mind, it can wait ’til Monday.
cleek
ladies and gentleman, this is the core of conservatism: obeying the law, whatever it may be, is of more importance than the justness, wisdom, or practicality of the law. fetishism of authority, order, and obedience whether applied to law, bureaucracy, or religion is the very cornerstone of the conservative mindset. ask not what your country can do for you: do what authority tells you. fear of disorder and the unknown leaves them cowering behind authority, demanding that someone protect them and keep their world static and familiar.
disobey a law? oh heavens no! we are loyal subjects of The King. rebellion is out of the question.
+5
Dennis - SGMM
Nope, it’s just plain old getting stoned.
demimondian
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t see a problem with feeling sympathy for someone who is caught up in a stupid law which shouldn’t be enforced while feeling simultaneously that once caught up, I understand that the law has consequences.
I can still feel that it makes no sense to enforce the law at all, and be aware that the law is disproportionately and unfairly enforced against people whose *real* crime is wearing too much melanin in their epidermis, too, you know. I can be aware that the benefits occasioned by enforcing the law are dwarfed by the costs accrued. I can be aware that it just isn’t *worth* it. And, as a citizen, I can say to my government that it isn’t anarchy, but good sense, to stop wasting my tax dollars on stupid “get me elected by throwing people in jail for no good reason” projects.
demimondian
Damn, Dennis, you are *no fun* to troll.
cbear
Shit, I hope not. I may be eligible for enhanced sentencing under the 3-strikes rule.
Dennis - SGMM
Heh. Had my head busted more than once by the Alameda County Sherrifs for acts of civil disobedience back in the day. Getting loaded was for afterwards.
w vincentz
Plenty silly, my friends.
A federal govt (aka-junta), lead by WAR CRIMIALS is given oversight of NON-VIOLENT drug users (abusers).
HUH?
So, authorizing the murder somehow is much less significant than someone that takes a DRUG (oh my!)
I really don’t get it, other than it’s an equal distraction as “gay marriage”, “Tim Russert” (RIP)-enough!, Terri Shaivo, limiting genetic research to limited cell lines, violations of the Constitution (and every one of the 35 articles proposed by Rep. D Kucinich).
I could go on and on…
Sorry folks.
This is only something that has been created so that the focus of the distraction is not on those that should be held accountable for THEIR crimes.
Delia
The solution is obvious. Prescription drugs must be criminalized. Three refills and you’re out.
w vincentz
Delia,
With all due repect, your words miss the point of what REALLY needs to be criminalized.
There have been very REAL crimes that have been committed,
like the killing of one million people that happened to live in a country that didn’t invade the USA, and the creation of five million refugees of the population that used to live in that same country.
Criminalize prescription drugs…INDEED!
You are totally focused on the problem.
Indeed.
JasonF
Apropos of Bob in Pacifica’s comment about Restless Leg, I know a couple of people who smoke marijuana to alleviate the spasms, or to alleviate the nausea associated with the drugs that are used to treat the spasms. And, of course, we’ve all heard about chemo patients who use marijuana to cope with the nausea that accompanies chemotherapy.
So maybe smoking a J is a civil right, at least for some people.
Dennis - SGMM
LOL! It’d almost be worth it just to see Rush Limbaugh do the perp walk.
Here’s something odd though; I tried to Google up the US consumption of Benzodiazepines (Xanax, Librium, Valium, Halcion, etc.) and no matter how I structured the search terms I couldn’t get a number. Not to go all tinfoil hat but, when I can’t find something like that it makes me wonder why.
demimondian
Yo, Dennis…kind of old (2000), but…here. Google has a lot of stuff in the index under benzodiazepine+us.
Dennis - SGMM
Thanks, demi. I was trying to find either total consumption or total prescriptions. The closest I could get to the latter was a 1999 DEA report that stated that 100,000,000 (Yes, one-hundred million) prescriptions for benzodiazepines were written that year. I can only surmise that the number is far higher now. Again, I’m not subscribing to any conspiracy theories but it’s odd that there’s no data past the beginning of the Bush administration.
Conservatively Liberal
If everyone obeyed the law because it was the law and that is what you are supposed to do as a good citizen, then there wouldn’t be a need to change it, would there? That is about as nonsensical a position as any I have ever heard.
One good thing about smoking pot is that it makes you think about things like that, and to realize how stupid someone is when they spout something as inane as the above.
“… everybody must get stoned!”
Only then will you understand, and until then your opinion means little to me. The ‘uninitiated’ are expressing an opinion that is as informed as some guy talking about the hassles a woman goes through during pregnancy.
They have absolutely no idea what they are talking about because they have never personally experienced it, so why bother to listen to their opinion?
Conservatively Liberal
Talking about smoking numbers, how about this?
Those look like some fat juicy smoking numbers that just make you feel all good inside afterward. :D
TenguPhule
It seems to work so well for Rove and Miers.
Cain
Hope you don’t get a blow job in Indiana. It’s against the law, or so I understand. I wonder how many of those laws governing sex are being followed?
cain
SGEW
What laws are these? Sodomy laws are unconstitutional, as determined by the SCOTUS in Lawrence v. Texas.
chopper
are you one of those people who believe that you don’t have a right unless it’s specified in the constiution?
LiberalTarian
yeah yeah yeah. Love those law and order people. “Law” for you, and “order” for me … I “order” you to follow the “law,” and I do whatever I damn well please. Rush Limbaugh? Professional asshole (after all, they pay him, so it is not a hobby), decries drug addicts and howls for their incarceration, but when he’s the drug addict? Well, it’s all misunderstood upstanding citizen with a need for compassionate rehabilitative drug treatment.
It’s all a scam folks. They are not so much interested in your mental health as having the monopoly on dispensing drugs.
Legalize MJ, tax it, use industrial hemp for paper and other rational uses because it is much more environmentally friendly than growing cotton or cutting down trees for cardboard. But, that would hurt big pharma, the cotton lobby, and the forest industry, eh?
As for the gateway bullshit people always proffer, if weed wasn’t out there, those same folks who went straight to hillbilly heroine would still go there. People who are the type to take hard drugs are going to take them whether they have smoked pot or not. But, our society arrests potheads, many of whom have regular jobs and pay taxes, and we put them in jail at the expense of tens of thousands of dollars per inmate and tax revenue lost. Stupid, stupid, stupid. People have always done drugs, and they are never going to stop:
Cassidy
CL, I’ve done a lot of drugs in my teen and college days. Doesn’t change the fact it was illegal. The law is the law. It’s part of what defines us a civilized society. Some of those laws are retarded, sure, but that doesn’t change their status. If you want to change the law, then do it the right way.
sleepy
cassidy said:
“The law is the law. It’s part of what defines us as a civilized society.”
you should read things that these guys wrote: gandhi, MLK, thomas jefferson.
i saw someone upthread bemoan the fact that people were trying to turn recreational marijuana use into an issue of rights. the quote was, i believe, “smoking a j is not a civil right,” and that’s true. but the FREEDOM to smoke a “j” absolutely is.
this is an issue of principle. it doesn’t matter whether or not smoking pot is an important social statement. the question is whether or not the government has any legitimate CONSTITUTIONAL authority to tell its citizens not to.
and to those who, like cassidy, have no qualms locking up entire generations for disobeying an unjust law (a law they themselves have invariably violated many times), there is very little worth saying. perhaps millions of nonviolent offenders rot away in prison, and people like you actually support this out of concern for something so inherently violable as “the law” (see iraq, et al.). yuk.
Cassidy
And once again the argument is completely negated by comparing this to a real civil rights issue. You and those who think like you cheapen the sacrifices of those movements.
sleepy
you really should read those authors. i brought those guys up to counter your assertion that, in order to be “civilized”, one has to obey an obscene law which imprisons hundreds of thousands of otherwise innocent people. you argue that unjust laws must be followed in order to preserve civilization. many great minds have written very passionately against this belief.
p.s. re: “You and those who think like you cheapen the sacrifices of those movements.”
woah! i didn’t know i could cheapen things. and just by telling you to read.
Conservatively Liberal
Well I did my time for felony possession, two counts back in the 80’s. If I get a third felony, guess what? I have been there, and you have not. If I told you how it all went down, you too would know the system is a mill that sucks citizens in and turns them into criminals. They don’t care a whit about me, all they wanted was to justify their existence and I refused to let them do that. I verbally fought with a pre-sentencing drug counselor who kept trying to tell me that drugs were ruining my life. I asked her to tell me how, and she couldn’t because every point she brought up was the law itself was ruining my life.
I pointed that out to her, repeatedly. I had three interviews with her, and I finally ended them by saying “I am not going to change my position, and I almost feel like walking out of here but you would report to the court that ‘drugs made me do it’. So I will stay here and argue with you until I am blue in the face.’
She reported to the court that I was ‘nominally addicted and not amenable to treatment’, so they just jailed my ass in work release, I paid their ‘fees’ and I was stoned every single day in jail except the weekends when I did not work.
Yeah, the system works just fine. I paid my cash, did my time and went right back to where I left off. I am very happy with my life again, no thanks to the government and the law.
You have to walk a mile in the shoes of someone who has been there before you will ever be able to judge something adequately. I am only giving you the short story. The whole story is even more ridiculous.
Drug laws DO NOT WORK.