Ma cosa succede dopo?

Le dinamiche commerciali sono simili a quelle del mercato tradizionale degli allucinogeni: si comincia con file offerti gratuitamente, per passare poi alla 'somministrazione' a pagamento, con pratiche guide all'uso, tipo "Come far funzionare una dose al 100%". A questo nuovo e inquietante fenomeno si stanno interessando, oltre alla Guardia di Finanza, alcuni ricercatori dell' Isn-Cnr di Catanzaro, che da anni studiano gli effetti del suono e le modalità con cui potenziano l'effetto di alcune droghe sintetiche. Dunque, ai giovani che rischiano di cadere nel giro delle droghe in rete, Iannone consiglia "prudenza". "Non esagerare in allarmismi, ma - avverte - neppure archiviare incautamente il fenomeno come una 'bufala'. D'altra parte, questi file esistono e la gente li vende e li compra e l'esperienza dice che un mercato non si forma se i fruitori del prodotto non hanno alcun vantaggio".

Fonte: www.papaboys.it

Those familiar with the problem of legalization of marijuana probably already know about a major reason why weed was made illegal during the 1930s. For those who don't know, here's a good starting point to read up on how the DuPont plastic industry wanted to get rid of hemp as a potential competitor in a market it eagerly sought to dominate, if not monopolize entirely. Therefore, it was reasoned it was a hemp product, marijuana had to go too. Another excellent source detailing the reasons why marijuana was made illegal is The Marijuana Conspiracy.

However, in addition to the selfish politico-economic manipulations done by DuPont and the whole propaganda apparatus that went with it , there may be another more subtle economic reason why weed is finding difficulty of being legalized world-wide.

We live in a materialistic world in which its citizens are expected to be good producers and consumers. Until at least retirement age, we are expected to work diligently for the production of material goods and the rendering of services, which, not rarely, have rather limited value in the bureaucratic society we live in. After we have survived the financial onslaught resulting from the imposition of the many forms of taxation (which sometimes in character looks more like a state authorized extortion, especially with regards to the income tax), we are expected to spend what is left of our monetary resources, on buying consumer goods which are mostly also of rather limited virtue. In the meantime tough decisions on how to run our lives are being done by our "betters" while we are expected to play with our newly bought toys like the good little "perpetual children" we are until we get fed up with them (which usually doesn't take too long) and dash out to the stores to buy ourselves some new ones. Hence the materialistic consumption cycle starts all over again, all the while never quite realizing that happiness is something that defies buying.

So that is basically what life is all about for the average Jane Soap-opera and Joe Six-pack: an endless cycle of production alternated with consumption. In such an slavish society it is to be expected that the puppet masters who set up the con-scheme of perennial exploitation, would be terribly interested in psycho-active substances that would accentuate this slavish behavior even more. Hence the advent of stimulant drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine. In the US, a sloppy one hundred years ago, cocaine was much favored by many people to relieve fatigue, depression and a host of other ailments. Cocaine use skyrocketed one time among the civil population, ever implicitly promoting the work-ethic native to the good little workerbee. In addition, amphetamine use was rampant on both sides of the WWII conflict. With war being the profitable enterprise that it is, the commercial reason for widespread use of psycho-stimulants is self-evident. Amphetamine use, most notably methamphetamine, is still very high in countries such as Thailand, and overseers tend to hand out speed-pills ("Yah-Ba") to their workers like candy. "Meth" seems to be a drug that is most compatible with the high standards of Asian work-ethics.

Contrastingly, weed generally doesn't urge you to work longer and harder, not in the least because you start to understand the banality of doing so. It doesn't take too long for stoned people to realize that they are people rather than superficial worker-bees. Likewise, if you are stoned you feel less inclination to get up and go buy the latest but redundant expensive gadgets made for only pennies in Asian sweatshops. On the same note, "stoners" produce less because they don't need the extra wages to buy the latest but useless expensive gadgets.

On the other hand you may say, that heroin also tends to make its users less productive and less able to spend money on needless little gadgets. Although that is true, from the perspective of our rulers there is a virtue attached to heroin consumption that is not seen with cannabis usage. Heroin addicts usually have to resort to criminal activity in order to support their expensive addiction. Hence they provide the authorities with ample opportunity and rationale to expand their policing apparatus and prison accommodations. And these developments cost the state more money, which of course is extracted from the public through taxation. Thus the authorities have a way of extracting more money from the civil population in another way besides regular civil consumption. It can hardly be coincidental that they themselves are also the biggest suppliers of heroin flooding the streets of the US.

Weed, however is a different story altogether and it must therefore be considered an annoying little thorn in the eye of the string-pullers as it blasphemes the two pillars of "society": production and consumption. And this seems to be an important reason why they seem to despise cannabis. Another reason may include things like the inability of the rulers to attain a market monopoly since basically any half-wit can grow a plant... In addition, it seems that mind-control stands to break down with the consumption of cannabis and with all the people subjected to covert governmental mind-control programs, the idea of a possibility of compromising programming may be a bit too much to look forward to, from the perspective of the rulers that is.

Addendum:
At the time I originally wrote the above piece it didn't quite occur to me that there may be another reason why the governments wants to keep cannabis illegal. That reason is what all illegal drugs have in common, drug users are prosecutable by law. It is easily provable that a lot of people end up in prison because of mere drug use, with marijuana being a highly represented. In other words, marijuana, while illegal, feeds the Prison Industrial Complex. As long as this is considered a virtuous thing by the powers that be - and given the stiffening of drug laws it surely seems that way - another incentive for keeping pot illegal has been revealed. As is said in the War on Drugs (The Prison Industrial Complex) (1999), "it's not a war on drugs, it's a war on poor people with drug involvement."

References:

1. Reefer Madness (anti-marijuana propaganda from 1936)

   [googlevideo=http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-6696582420128930236&hl=nl]

2. Grass, A Marijuana History - Narrated by Woody Harrelson (comes in multiple parts)

3. War on Drugs (The Prison Industrial Complex) (1999)
   [googlevideo=http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=864268000924014458&hl=nl]

It's good news because kids who smoke marijuana are more likely to do poorly in school and engage in violence. It's good news because drivers who've smoked pot are 10 times more likely to be injured, or to injure others, in car crashes. It's good news because marijuana is more carcinogenic than tobacco, and young people who smoke pot are more likely to use other illegal drugs.

Unfortunately, there is a radical effort underway to undo this progress. Question 2 on November's ballot will decriminalize marijuana use and turn possession of an ounce or less of marijuana into a fine similar to a traffic violation. For kids under 21, the penalties will be reduced well below penalties for alcohol possession.

A vote for Question 2 will begin a slippery slope resulting in several negative consequences. It will increase addiction to marijuana and other drugs, as we know that pot is a powerful gateway drug. It will result in increased related crimes, and additional taxpayer costs to combat them, as we know that drugs are the root of much of the violence that erodes communities. And it will result in increased instances of impaired driving.

This measure also will result in other unaddressed problems. For instance, there are no regulatory reviews in place to assure that these newly decriminalized drugs are safe, and we know that marijuana is now exponentially more potent than a decade ago. More disturbingly, the measure does not address the fact that if young people want to buy pot, they will still need to buy it from illegal drug dealers. We can not think of many more dangerous, combustible situations than that.

Proponents of Question 2 have two central arguments. First, that existing laws unfairly punish those caught with an ounce or less of marijuana. That is simply untrue. Current law mandates that first-time marijuana offenders receive no more than probation and have their record wiped clean if there are no further violations. In Suffolk and Middlesex counties last year, no defendants were sentenced to jail for a first-time marijuana offense alone.

Their second claim is that enforcement of marijuana laws leads to expansive police costs. That is also false. A survey of our busiest courts revealed that marijuana prosecutions account for only a tiny fraction of cases, and many of those also involved other violent crimes that so frequently accompany drug abuse. To claim that officers are out trolling the streets for marijuana users, at great cost to taxpayers, is not reality.

And despite their best efforts to paint an ounce of marijuana as innocuous, the fact is that one ounce of marijuana is worth about $600 and represents about 60 individual sales.

In communities throughout the state, law enforcement and neighborhood and faith-based organizations work together to improve public safety. Question 2 is a misguided approach that threatens to derail much of that important work.

We cannot afford to take a step back in our efforts to combat drug addiction and reduce violence in our communities. And we absolutely can not afford to send mixed messages to our kids about the seriousness and dangers of drug abuse.

Gerry Leone is the Middlesex district attorney. The Rev. Jeffrey Brown is co-founder of Boston Ten Point Coalition.

Source: Boston Globe

Complessa l’indagine dei carabinieri
Nel mirino ci sono due siti internet di Riva
Allarmante il giro d’affari
I bolzanini denunciati ordinavano abitualmente rilevanti quantità a ripetzione

BOLZANO. Sono circa 120 mila le persone individuate dal nucleo investigativo dei carabinieri di Bolzano nell’ambito delle indagini sui contatti con siti internet che offrono in vendita (ufficialmente a titolo di collezionismo) semi di marijuana o di canapa indiana. Gli acquirenti bolzanini sarebbero non più di una cinquantina ma la mole di lavoro che dovrà essere affrontata dai carabinieri bolzanini si preannuncia impressionante. Sono due i siti finiti nel mirino degli inquirenti. Sono quelli di Matteo Filla, web-master lombardo trapiantatosi a Riva del Garda.
Da qualche tempo gli investigatori ritengono allarmante il giro di affari che siti di questo genere riescono a generare. Lo dimostrano i 120 mila acquirenti di semi di marijuana registrati dai carabinieri in pochi mesi. Nella maxi inchiesta dei carabinieri di Bolzano (coordinata dal sostituto procuratore Guido Rispoli) Matteo Filla non è indagato.
L’uomo era già stato incriminato tempo fa e poi assolto dal tribunale di Rovereto dall’accusa di spaccio di sostanze in qualche modo collegate alla droga. Il punto è proprio qui. La sentenza di assoluzione di Matteo Filla si basa su una considerazione tecnica di fondo: i semini di marijuana o di canapa indiana, pur essendo potenzialmente fonte di produzione di droga, non possono essere considerati alla stregua di una sostanza proibita in quanto il seme non contiene alcun principio di sostanza attiva. E’ la successiva attività di coltivazione abusiva, messa in atto eventualmente dagli acquirenti, a permettere di far scattare l’ipotesi accusatoria. Proprio sulla base di questa logica emersa dalla sentenza assolutoria del tribunale di Rovereto (l’uomo riuscì a dimostrare che nella sua attività non vi fosse alcuna volontà di indurre le persone a fare uso di droghe), i carabinieri del nucleo investigativo di Bolzano hanno deciso di mettere sotto controllo gli acquirenti per poi dimostrare, grazie ad alcune perquisizioni, che i semini vengono sistematicamente utilizzati per coltivare in casa piante proibite. Ora in mano ai carabinieri ci sono 120 mila nomi. Non mancano come detto anche i bolzanini tra il figlio di un noto imprenditore bolzanino che si è trovato i carabinieri in casa proprio grazie alle rilevazioni telematiche disposte in gran segreto. Un ottimo lavoro svolto dal nucleo investigativo dei carabinieri che ora si dovrà tradurre in una serie di procedimenti con un obbiettivo finale: l’oscuramento anche due due siti (www.semini.it e www.marjuana.it) gestiti da Matteo Filla, laureato in fisica, esperto di elettronica e titolare di una regolare licenza per l’e-commerce, il commercio telematico. Le perquisizione scattate a Bolzano solo a carico di alcuni sono state decise dai carabinieri in accordo ovviamente con il magistrato, solo per le persone che erano soliti acquistare quantitativi di semi piuttosto rilevanti. Proprio seguendo questa logica è finito nella rete anche un rampollo dell’alta borghesia imprenditoriale bolzanina che è stato denunciato a piede libero per detenzione a scopo di spaccio di sostanze stupefacenti.

Fonte: l'espresso

Strain/Brand: White Dolphin, The Dolphins

Origin: Indica-Sativa

Impression: White crystals everywhere, light-colored hairs, light green leaves. Excellent construction, nice herbal scent as it breaks up. Aroma is refined but the after-taste is a little too sharp.

Buzz: Quite powerful but easier-on-the-throat than other varieties. A fun buzz with medium-heavy body effects - very nice blend for intense yet mellow high.

Price: 10 euros for 1 gram

Summary: If you're looking for a powerful but civilized smoke, White Dolphin will take to the peaks without completely thrashing your throat.

P.S. Try the Northern Lights from the The Dolphins if you're looking for uncontrolled power, super skunky stoney-ness, and maximum lung expansion - you'll be majorily stoned from hit one but be forewarned it's not an easy smoke by any means! (that explains why there's no photo!)

Não use drogas... hehe , ou se usar, que seja pouco

ficaadica

It's Monday and most people had to return to work today. So to unwind, spark that joint, bowl, or bong and play "Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space" by Spiritualized. The second song is "Light Song" by Cranes. Let the music take you somewhere else and forget all about this shitty Monday.

Spiritualized "Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space"

Il gioco infatti, che può essere scaricato gratuitamente sul sito ufficiale permette le seguenti azioni:

Occupa poco ed è davvero ben curato. La grafica è quella che è. Ma i dettagli del gioco sono veramente precisi e reali.

Così potrete assumere i vostri spacciatori, comprare sostanze stupefacenti (marijuana, cannabis, lsd, cocaina ed eroina), avere scagnozzi, protettori e chiedere il pizzo, avere rapporti con mafiosi e gestire bordelli. Ve lo consiglio, anche se dopo un pò stanca.

MAGNACCIO MANAGER

Och eftersom det senaste inlägget tangerar mitt senaste om Ibogain, så var jag naturligtvis tvungen att kolla upp det lite närmare, vilket även du kan göra genom att klicka på headern. :)
Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Juridik, Kontrollsamhället, Lagar, Läkemedelsverket, Narkotikabekämpning, Narkotikaklassat, Narkotikapolitik, DN, Aftonbladet

Although there is a pharmaceutical version of marijuana called Marinol that comes in pill form, it doesn't work, according to Dr. Elaine Chottiner. She serves as section head of hematology and oncology at Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, which runs the Saint Joseph Mercy Woodland Center in Genoa Township.

"If Marinol worked, nobody would care about legalizing marijuana," Chottiner said.

On Nov. 4, Michigan voters will decide the fate of the medical use of marijuana ballot question. Under Proposal 1, there would be specific guidelines to using marijuana.

A physician would need to approve marijuana use for a patient with a debilitating medical condition, and patients would receive an identification card. Patients would only have protected use in their home and could not smoke it in public places.

Chottiner said Marinol was approved because it was shown in clinical trials to alleviate vomiting and nausea caused by certain kinds of chemotherapy. It contains a synthetic form of THC, the major active substance in marijuana, which helps relieve nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy and stimulates appetite for AIDS patients.

However, Chottiner said few patients have found the pill to be effective and usually don't seek refills. She said absorption is probably one reason the drug doesn't work as well, since it takes longer to digest something than smoke it. Also, Marinol contains only one of marijuana's 66 compounds.

Chottiner said a few people have asked her about smoking marijuana to ease their symptoms, and a few patients have told her they're smoking marijuana to ease their nausea and vomiting. In general, Chottiner said only a very small percentage of patients have chronic nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy. She said most chemotherapy does not cause those symptoms. She also said there are excellent medications available — and that work — to prevent those symptoms.

Chottiner, who indicated she was neutral on the ballot question, said there are pros and cons with the proposal.

She said the most important issue is helping patients.

"We want to do everything we can for our patients and alleviate their suffering," she said. "If this is something that can be used for this purpose, it would be helpful to find a way to provide it."

However, Chottiner said she feels much more comfortable prescribing drugs that have gone through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval process. She said the FDA conducts rigorous clinical trials so doctors know what's in a drug, a proper schedule and dosage for a particular drug. She said it would be difficult to prescribe marijuana because there are no standards.

Chottiner said she doesn't prescribe herbs because "you never know what you're getting."

Source: Livingston Daily Press

Proposal 1 would legalize doctor-prescribed marijuana. The Detroit News has reported that upwards of 500,000 Michiganians with "debilitating medical conditions" -- HIV/AIDS, cancer, Hepatitis C, Crohn's disease, Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis and the like -- will qualify. It can be useful, for example, in controlling nausea during chemotherapy in cancer treatments.

Anyone found to be lying about their medical condition or distributing marijuana to friends would be barred from future participation.

The proposal contains other safeguards. If voters accept Proposal 1, the Michigan Department of Community Health would create a state medical marijuana registry, and each user will be given an identification card. Anyone without such a card, debilitating illness or not, is still subject to state law. And Michigan law is harsh on marijuana. The penalty for possession is up to one year of imprisonment and up to $2,000 in fines. Dealers risk $10 million in fines and imprisonment for up to 15 years -- and these are for first offenses. None of that would change with Proposal 1.

Proposal 1 would also protect the over-21 primary caregivers who handle marijuana for and administer marijuana to sick family or friends. Users are protected from the threat of prosecution and the possibility of losing custody of their children due to smoking medical herbs.

The law would no longer view primary caregivers administering marijuana as drug dealers. And compassionate doctors will no longer have to risk their medical licenses and livelihoods every time they prescribe marijuana to ailing patients.

There are also standards for registered users. All the normal laws apply to smoking in public. No one will be permitted to smoke in public places or near schools or prisons, and "drugged driving" will still be illegal.

Employers won't be forced to allow use of medical marijuana in the workplace. Insurance providers can decide for themselves whether to cover it.

Twelve states allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The record is that it can be properly administered as one more part of the mix of medicines available to physicians.

Proposal 1 seems to have been written to anticipate and address concerns that it is a backdoor route to full-blown legalization. The standard for obtaining a registry card is high and the penalty for misuse is steep.

Proposal 1 won't make pot any more publicly visible or available than it already is; all it will do is allow doctors, primary caregivers, and most importantly patients another option in managing serious and painful illnesses. Vote yes on Proposal 1.

Source: Detroit Free Press

Okay enough with the ego boost, so I had to write an essay today. A narrative based on some crap about Buck Fever, which would appeal to the senses. I had to write another one too, not narrative rather descriptive. That one is going to be counted into my final grade, I will post it later. Now as for this one. Well you know me when it comes to writing. I write as fast as I think, and believe you me, when St.Fallen sits down and thinks... well... things happen, and fast.
:P

So here is it. It's a narrative of my first experience with the herb (:
I'll probably expand this into a short story titled "The Trade-Off" or "Tricks of the Trade"

Hover by Imaad Majeed

Enjoy (:

Why are we asking this now?

Because a British think-tank has published a report for next year's United Nations Strategic Drug Policy Review, suggesting that a decriminalised, regulated market in cannabis would cause less harm than the prohibition of the drug currently in force across most of the world...

What exactly is the think-tank report?

It is the Global Cannabis Commission report, launched at a conference in the House of Lords and prepared for the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust "set up to promote the investigation of consciousness and its altered states from the perspectives of science, health, politics and history." The report, put together by a specially-commissioned international group of academics and experts in drug policy analysis, attempts to put the issue of cannabis in a global perspective with a comprehensive view of the evidence, so that governments can move beyond what is termed "the present stalemate in cannabis policy..."

So what are the chances that cannabis will cease to be internationally outlawed?

With the US running the show? Don't hold your breath.

Useful, informative article. Bound to be ignored by our politicians.

The new state rule, which goes into effect Nov. 2, sets the supply limit at 24 ounces of usable marijuana plus 15 plants. Those who need more marijuana to manage their pain will have to prove they need it — though how they would do that remains unclear.

While the new, 60-day-supply rule is meant to clarify the law and help police officers determine legitimate amounts, medical-marijuana advocates say the amounts are unreasonable — especially the 15-plant limit — and put patients at risk of criminal prosecution.

In King County, though, that's not going to happen, said Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, who has met with local law-enforcement officials and created an office policy that looks upon medical-marijuana cases "with a very lenient eye."

"Having this rule, having some amount ... is helpful, but it's not the end of the analysis," Satterberg said. "If you're in King County and you're dying of cancer, we're not going to prosecute you if you have 15 plants or 30. If somebody is legitimately ill, we're not going to prosecute that case, period."

In 1998, Initiative 692 legalized marijuana for medical purposes. Passed by 59 percent of Washington voters, the initiative said patients with valid certification from their doctors could possess a 60-day supply — but never said how much pot that was. The confusion and uncertainty led to conflict between police and patients.

Last year, the Legislature ordered the state Department of Health to spell out an acceptable amount. An early recommendation put the limit at 35 ounces of usable pot plus 100 square feet of growing space. That proposal was changed after Gov. Christine Gregoire's policy analysts urged the health department to get more input from law-enforcement agencies and medical experts because the amounts appeared to be on the high side.

Earlier this year, the draft rule was changed to 24 ounces of usable pot, six mature plants and 18 immature ones. The new rule finalized Thursday, however, doesn't differentiate between mature and immature plants.

The rule also drops a requirement included in the earlier draft that patients get a doctor's note if they need more marijuana than the determined 60-day supply. The department opted "for more general wording" to better reflect what is written in state law, said Health Department spokesman Tim Church.

During a public hearing in August, many patients argued that their doctors were unlikely to write them a note because of the controversy surrounding supply limits, he said.

The department didn't come up with an alternative to a doctor's note because that wasn't their task from the Legislature. While Church acknowledged that the new language muddies the waters some, he said it will now "be up to patients and the courts to determine what medical necessity is" and how to prove it.

Gregoire's spokeswoman, Laura Lockard, said Thursday the governor "wanted the department to have a solid sense of wide-ranging opinions and information to develop the best possible rule. She feels they have done that."

But doctors and patient advocates say the new 60-day limit is woefully inadequate and could have a chilling effect on physicians if they have to go to court to defend their medical opinions.

"I'm disappointed. I think it's more politically driven — they used politics rather than science" in determining amounts, said Dr. Greg Carter, a clinical professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Washington. Carter was one of the first researchers to report marijuana's effectiveness in treating the symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

"The state is really not operating in the best interest of sick people who require this medicine," Carter said.

Steve Sarich, the executive director of CannaCare, an advocacy group that provides patients with starter plants, said the health department "has set up a law you can't possibly follow." He said the rule doesn't take into account marijuana's growing cycle, which exceeds 60 days, or the fact that someone would need to plant 60 plants in the hope that 15 or 20 of them might reach maturity.

Alison Holcomb, the drug-policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said the new rule "is a step in the right direction," even though it doesn't begin to address the practical matter of accessing medical marijuana.

"Twenty-four ounces and 15 plants is a heck of a lot clearer than '60-day supply,' " she said. "It gives an average law-enforcement officer a very quick and easy way to determine if they're in compliance, move on and leave that patient in peace."

But Douglas Hiatt, an attorney who represents medical-marijuana patients, disagrees. He said he plans to file a lawsuit to have the limits thrown out.

"No one I know is in compliance with the number of plants. No one," he said. "We will drown in cases if we can't get this rule stopped and keep it out of the hands of law enforcement."

Satterberg said that, at least in King County, he's advised law-enforcement officers not to confiscate patients' pot supplies on the spot, even if they seem questionable.

Essentially, Satterberg's policy says, growers — including cooperatives — won't be prosecuted unless prosecutors believe the operation is a front for distributing marijuana to those who are not ill. He said Thursday that his office hasn't yet encountered any such illegal operation.

Satterberg said he's told local police agencies and the sheriff's office that "If there are any questions [about a patient's legitimacy], officers should take a small sample and some photos and give us a call."

Source: Seattle Times

But patient advocates criticized the limit as arbitrary and insufficient, saying it could leave sick people in danger of going to jail, and they threatened to sue to prevent the rule from taking effect.

"We looked at what appears to make sense for most of the patients in the state," said department spokesman Donn Moyer. "There will be some who don't need as much, and there may be some who need more."

Washington was among the first states to approve the medical use of marijuana to treat AIDS, cancer and other debilitating illnesses. The law, passed in 1998, allowed patients a 60-day supply of marijuana, but didn't say how much that was. Over the years, several patients with a doctor's authorization to use marijuana have been arrested by police who deemed them to have more pot than necessary.

Patients who need more marijuana than allowed by the new rule can make that argument to a judge if they're arrested.

The limit adopted Thursday takes effect Nov. 2, and nearly matches the rule used by Oregon, which allows 24 ounces plus six mature plants and 18 immature ones. Some California counties allow more marijuana, but many of the dozen states with medical marijuana laws allow much less than Washington's new rule - just an ounce or two, in some cases.

The Health Department decided against using a mature immature plant distinction largely because it didn't want police to have to determine what constituted a mature plant.

Instead, officials went with a limit of 15 plants at any stage of growth.

Law enforcement officers "really just want a line in the sand," Moyer said, and the 15-plant limit allows patients flexibility to decide how to grow them.

Patient advocates scoffed at that. Douglas Hiatt, a Seattle attorney who represents patients, noted that only female marijuana plants are usable as medicine, and about half of all plants growing from seed grow to become male. So to get to 15 usable plants, a patient or provider might have to plant 30 - in violation of the law.

"No patient I know of anywhere in the state is in compliance with that number," Hiatt said.

And, he said, the 24-ounce limit for dried bud might work for patients who smoke marijuana, but not for those who eat it. He called the limits "completely nonscientific."

"We all know this is a political decision that doesn't have anything to do with the reality of patients' lives."

The Health Department initially considered setting the limit at 35 ounces plus 100 square feet of plant canopy. But Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire found those numbers too high and urged officials to get more input from law enforcement and doctors.

The Health Department did so, and cut the numbers accordingly. Law enforcement had worried that drug dealers could use a higher limit to conceal illicit marijuana growing operations.

The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs' policy director, Joanna Arlow, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday. But she previously called the 24-ounce limit "reasonable."

Steve Sarich, a patient and advocate from Kirkland, said he would go to court to seek an injunction to prevent the rule from taking effect. He argued that it was arbitrary, and he took no comfort in knowing that patients could try to prove in court they need more than the limit - something that would likely require a doctor's testimony.

"How is the doctor going to prove you need more plants? Is the doctor going to prove you're not very good at growing," he said. "Where is the clarity this rule was supposed to provide?"

Source: Associated Press

Estrazione domestica di tutti i fitocannabinoidi (identificate oltre 400 sostanze chimiche differenti , una settantina di tali componenti attivi appartengono alla famiglia dei cannabinoidi, molti dei quali ancora poco esaminati) presenti nella Cannabis Sativa, Indica e Ruderalis, per gli usi medici dei cannabinoidi.

Le informazioni disponibili su questo testo non intendono in alcun modo istigare od indurre a comportamenti VIETATI DALLA LEGGE. L’approvvigionamento di cannabis, o suoi derivati, deve avvenire con le modalità prescritte ai sensi del DPR 309/90 e successive modificazioni.

I cannabinoidi di grande interesse sono: • il Δ9 - tetraidrocannabinolo (THC, Delta 9-THC, uno dei maggiori e più noti principi attivi della Cannabis) • il cannabidiolo (CBD) • la tetraidrocannabivarina (THCV) • il cannabinolo (CBN) • il cannabigerolo (CBG) • il cannabinidiolo (CBND) • il cannabicromene (CBC) • il cannabiciclolo (CBL) • il cannabielsoino (CBE) • il cannabitriolo (CBT) • la cannabivarina (CBV ) • la cannabicromevarina (CBCV) • la cannabidivarina (CBDV) • la cannabigerovarina (CBGV) • il cannabigerolo monoetiletere (CBGM).

I fitocannabinoidi possono esser ingeriti (sono liposolubili), vaporizzati e fumati. Per l’estrazione dei cannabinoidi, le infiorescenze di Canapa, ( Erba, Maria, Ganja, Hemp, Kif, Grass, Shit, Mary Jane, Marijuana, etc.) devono essere asciugate completamente *.

I cannabinoidi (THC,CBD, etc.) non sono idrosolubili (cioè non si sciolgono in acqua), ma lo sono nei grassi, ( Olio, burro, grassi animali e vegetali) e in alcol, etere, cloroformio, solventi derivati dal petrolio ( Esano, benzene, etere di petrolio, diclorometano, toluene, ecc... ). Questi ultimi hanno il vantaggio di essere molto più selettivi, perchè negli alcoli oltre ai cannabinoidi si disciolgono anche la clorofilla** e numerose altre sostanze. Purtroppo questi solventi sono estremamente tossici per l'organismo umano così come lo sono in genere tutti i tipi di alcol. Benché vengano fatti evaporare, i solventi lasciano sempre qualche residuo, l'unico con un grado di tossicità basso o trascurabile é l'alcol etilico.

* I fiori di canapa sono asciutti quando, avvolti nel cellofan, non fanno più condensa.

** Per eliminare la clorofilla i coltivatori libanesi lasciano le piante di canapa sul campo fino a che non sono quasi asciutte. Entro questo tempo acquistano un colore marrone - rossastro ( la clorofilla è distrutta dai Raggi UV del sole ).

Esistono vari metodi di estrazione:

1°) – Estratto solido di cannabis: Hashish. Prodotto con il polline dell’infiorescenza di canapa (tipologie di Hashish pregiato: il Charas [indiano], il Manali, il Malana, il Parvati [prodotti nella regione himalayana dell’India],il Kashmiri,il Nepal Temple Balls [nepalese], l’Afgano, il Pakistano)

– Come si prepara: A) – durante il periodo di fioritura (è il metodo più antico e non prevede il taglio delle piante), a più riprese sfregare tra il palmo delle mani, piano, le estremità fiorite della pianta, B) – raschiare dalle mani, con apposito coltellino, la resina gommosa raccolta sul palmo delle mani; C) – raccogliere la resina di canapa (polline) in un contenitore liscio; D) – impastare la resina, manualmente, in pani; E) – sigillare la resina con cellofan, panni di canapa o lino.

2°) - Estratto solido di cannabis: Hashish. Prodotto con la di resina di canapa (Cioccolato, Libanese, Libano Oro, Super Polm, Skuff, Bourbouqa, Marocco 00, Riff marocchino, il Turco, Olandese, ecc)

–Come si prepara: A) – scuotere, sbattere e/o strofinare i fiori maturi della canapa femmina su una serie di setacci; B) – raccogliere la polvere resinosa in apposito contenitore; C) – comprimere la polvere, dopo averla riscaldata per permettere che le resine si fondano ed attacchino insieme, in blocchi o pani (magari con l’ausilio di mezzi meccanici); D) – sigillare la resina con cellofan, panni di canapa o lino.

3°) - Estratto liquido di cannabis: Preparazione galenica magistrale a freddo di olio di canapa, ottenuto per mezzo di un veicolo alcolico – L'olio (3° - 4°), vaporizzato, fumato o ingerito, ha una concentrazione di cannabinoidi molto più alta del materiale di partenza ( da 5 a 10) e quindi deve essere utilizzato, in proporzione, in quantità ridotte.

L'Hash - Olio ha un'apparenza distintiva del dorato - miele e dal verde scuro a quasi nero con una consistenza abbastanza solida (viscoso, simile a catrame). A temperatura ambiente è assai appiccicoso, ma una volta riscaldato è un liquido. Come si prepara: A) – far macerare l’infiorescenza (o l’ hashish) finemente sminuzzata in una soluzione idroalcolica a 95° gradi alcolici volumetrici, in 5 - 10 volumi di alcol ed 1 volume di materiale, in un contenitore chiuso (vaso, bottiglia o un recipiente di materiale neutro), in un luogo fresco e scuro per 28 giorni, il periodo di un intero ciclo lunare. B) – Trascorso il tempo previsto filtrare la soluzione in un recipiente, con un filtro di carta, un collant, oppure con un colino a maglia fine e spremere la pianta; C) – per separare la parte liquida (alcol e sostanze disciolte) si può fare evaporare l’alcol a bagnomaria ( l'alcol etilico evapora a 78,3 °C, l'acqua a 100°C ) oppure può essere recuperato in un qualunque distillatore ( in genere di vetro ) e rimarrà, comunque, sul fondo l’estratto: L’olio.

4°) - Estratto liquido di cannabis: Preparazione galenica magistrale a caldo di olio di canapa – Come si prepara: A) – mettere in un pentola l’infiorescenza sbriciolata; B) – affogarla completamente in alcol con gradazione 40° - 50°; C) – far cuocere a basso fuoco, circa 80º; D) – filtrare la soluzione e fare evaporare l’alcol restante. In questo modo, p.es., estraggono i principi attivi della cannabis per il medicinale Sativex®. Il Sativex® è un farmaco a contenuto standardizzato di fitocannabinoidi e contiene solo due forme purificate della canapa, THC e CBD. Per produrlo ( è uno spray sublinguale), estraggono i cannabinoidi sotto vacuo in un circuito chiuso, recuperando così continuamente l'alcol, e successivamente, affinché possa essere nebulizzato, lo allungano in solventi con un rapporto circa 1:1 (etanolo, glicole propilenico). Includono anche un ingrediente supplementare, l’ olio di menta piperita, che evita al paziente il “temuto” effetto psicoattivo della cannabis (High). * Il > è un prodotto industriale e l’utilizzo del “glicole propilenico” dipende dal fatto che, 1° costa pochissimo e si nasconde molto bene negli oli essenziali, e 2°, contrasta l’effetto disseccante dell’alcool nella lozione idroalcoolica. Il “propylene glycol” non esiste in natura, è un prodotto chimico.

5°) - Olio cotto di cannabis, per uso alimentare: Come si prepara: A) – ridurre l’infiorescenza di Cannabis in piccoli frammenti e metterla nella pentola; B) – aggiungere olio (o burro) quanto basta, l’olio deve coprire bene i fiori (1:10 - 1:20 – 1:30, in base alla % di THC presente nell’infiorescenza ed alla desiderata concentrazione di principi attivi); C) – aggiungere acqua, 4 – 5 - 6 cm (tanto, la si dovrà far evaporare, lentamente, tutta…), per evitare surriscaldamenti ed allungare il tempo di cottura, per una buona estrazione; D) – mettere con coperchio su fiamma bassa e far bollire; E) – quando sta per svanire l’acqua allontanare dalla fiamma il tegame, perché l’olio surriscaldato farebbe vaporizzare i cannabinoidi, far svaporare tutta l’acqua e continuare a mantenerlo caldo (a circa 80°: non bollente, no frittura!) per almeno 5 minuti; F) – lasciare macerare per 1 giorno e filtrare;

6°) – Tintura madre e tintura classica di canapa – La tintura è una preparazione liquida ottenuta mediante l'azione estrattiva dell'alcol sulla pianta intera o su sue parti (foglie, radici, ecc.). La differenza più rilevante tra la tintura classica e la tintura madre (T.M.) é nel materiale di partenza: nella tintura classica é costituito dalla droga secca, mentre nella tintura madre é dato dalla pianta fresca. In tal modo nella tintura madre vengono preservati più principi attivi. Pro. Trattandosi di una forma di estrazione molto diffusa e tra le più utilizzate in Fitoterapia. E' un preparato che si presta bene all’automedicazione e l'efficacia, nella maggior parte dei casi, è buona. Contro. Il contenuto in alcol non è irrilevante e pertanto non è adatta a chi presenta disturbi al fegato, ai bambini e a chiunque abbia problemi con l'alcol. Come si prepara: A) – La droga, viene messa a macerare, in una bottiglia o un recipiente di materiale neutro, in una soluzione idroalcolica che va dai 45° ai 70° gradi alcolici volumetrici, in relazione alla quantità d'acqua che la pianta contiene naturalmente: è necessaria quella percentuale di alcol che permette di ottenere un rapporto droga/solvente. Nella preparazione delle tinture idroalcooliche si adotta generalmente una regola fissa: per ottenere cinque parti di tintura finale, è necessaria una parte di droga (ovvero, 20 grammi di droga per ottenere 100 ml di tintura). B) – mettere la pianta a macerare per un periodo variabile, da 25 a 40 giorni. C) – filtrare la soluzione così ottenuta e farla decantare per 48 ore. In questo modo (con alcol a 45° - 70° gradi) la T.M. di cannabis agisce prevalentemente in virtù della presenza dei 330 principi attivi, diversi dai cannabinoidi, identificati nel fiore di canapa (alcaloidi, oligoelementi, etc). Ma, per sciogliere anche i cannabinoidi basta far cuocere a circa 80º la soluzione idroalcolica con i fiori di cannabis, oppure, far macerare la pianta in una soluzione a 95° gradi alcolici e, infine, per ridurre la gradazione alcolica della T.M. ottenuta, aggiungere acqua q.b. La scadenza è di 5 anni, a confezione chiusa.

7°) – Tisana - Con l’infiorescenza si può preparare, inizialmente (prima di procedere con il 2°,4° o 5° metodo di estrazione), per combinare l’azione terapeutica di altri principi attivi presenti nell’infiorescenza di canapa, un eccellente “The di canapa”, ma ricordate che, in tutte le tisane, i Cannabinoidi sono presenti in quantità minore rispetto a quella terapeuticamente attiva (non sono idrosolubili) e si preparano prima dell'uso perché si alterano facilmente. Come si prepara: A) – far bollire l' ”erba” per almeno 20 - 30 minuti, coperta aggiungendo acqua di tanto in tanto; B) – separare con il setaccio la tisana dall’infiorescenza lasciando sul fondo del tegame i pistilli e resina non disciolta nell’acqua; C) – rimettere l’infiorescenza nella pentola e continuare l’estrazione dei cannabinoidi, indifferentemente, con il 3°, 4° o 5° metodo illustrato.

Nota1: tutti i processi di estrazione del THC e del CBD, per non buttare nulla, si devono ripetere almeno due volte.

Nota2: I recipienti usati per la conservazione di tutti gli estratti liquidi di Cannabis, devono essere di vetro scuro (o meglio, rivestiti con nastro adesivo di colore nero coprente) con chiusura ermetica, e tenuti in un luoghi freschi ed oscuri.

I farmaci, correntemente commercializzati in Italia per uso terapeutico ( Cannabis Curativa ), sono:

a) Cannabinoidi naturali, Cannabis Flos: • Bedrocan ® • Bedrobinol ® • Bediol ®

b) Estratto di Cannabis: •Sativex®

c) Cannabinoidi di sintesi: • Marinol ® (dronabinol) • Cesamet ® (nabilone) Va fatto notare che i derivati sintetici sembrano mostrare minore efficacia e maggiore incidenza di effetti collaterali rispetto ai derivati naturali, a tutt'oggi preferiti da molti pazienti.

Per informazioni dettagliate, sugli usi terapeutici della cannabis, visitate il sito dell’Associazione per la Cannabis Terapeutica [ACT]

Fonte: associazione Luca Coscioni

Sign of the Times

By Kim Sallaway

Got jobs? He may not have every qualification for working with marijuana (discretion, for one, is apparently missing) but he spelled all the words on the sign right.

=========================================================

Kim (a professional photographer who captures some amazing images) sent me this photo right after I posted the Manicurists coming to Humboldt photo.  I kept returning to it, chuckling.  Finally, I asked permission to share it with you all.

I bet some of you have some great photos of Humboldt in the Fall.  I'd love to post them if you want to share.

Meanwhile in Thailand, if it worked for Thaksin, why not for Chuwit Kamolvisit? I wish the American press was covering this race more closely because I think it's easier for Americans to pick up on bullshit populism when it comes from people who don't look exactly like most of us.

Across Bangkok, the face of Chuwit Kamolvisit -- former massage parlor king and self-confessed briber of police -- scowls from posters at the residents he hopes will vote for him in Sunday's election for governor of Thailand's largest city.

He has taken on the persona of Mr. Angry, infuriated apparently by the corruption in the city. And on Thursday, he lived up to his image in an unexpected way, punching a television interviewer who had questioned his manhood, a potentially fatal political error in a society that places a high value on emotional self-control....

Chuwit is the most colorful of the 16 candidates for the position of governor. He made his money from a string of thinly disguised brothels and once boasted of paying the police almost $3.5 million a year in bribes. But he has sold his businesses, cleaned up his image and reinvented himself as an independent politician. 

"Massage parlors are dirty, but politics are dirtier," he said. 

That and I guess he's heavy into elephant burgers. 

· · ·

Two months. That's how long you'll serve for possession of deodorant powder in Minnesota. But I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that Cadbury's melamine-tainted chocolate bars are still around, and that the latest salmonella outbreak has only claimed 32 victims in twelve states. The article mentions Minnesota, but the other eleven states were not identified so as help boost the body count (making later reports more newsworthy).

Btw, if you're healthy you'll survive a bout of salmonella without ever figuring out you had it. In fact, you probably have. Experts say that the 40,000 reported cases a year are just the tip of the iceberg. Newspapers do a so-so job on covering food poisoning. Frankly, they'd rather cover former Playmates with conspiracy-minded theories about autism, despite the lack of scientific proof (plenty of World Nut Doily proof, however). 

And melamine? Hell, melamine is good for you! or so the spin goes....

· · · 

Franken's new ads continue to garner applause from the A listers. I suspect Al's improved polling numbers, however, have less to do with the ads he's running as they do with the ads he's not running now. People are being deluged with negative ads, and I just don't think they work like they used to. 

And the bizarre notion that people would get huffy about Norm's sweetheart basement rent deal was always off-the-wall stupid. Ted Stevens has been the King of Pork for decades, and despite his ongoing corruption trial he might get re-elected. What in the hell ever made Al think that nickel and dime corruption would do in Norman Bertram Coleman?

· · ·

Michael D. at Balloon Juice reminds me of the one really funny line on SNL last night:

Tina Fey as Palin: I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers.

Huge applause. The media may be too couth to follow that story line, but I've yet to meet anyone who didn't know that Palin's daughter is knocked up and that there's a shotgun wedding in her very near future.

So what's it like to live in a place that used to have a mavericky mayor?

Wasilla itself – quite unlike its rival and contemporary in the valley, Palmer, 11 miles to the east – is a centreless, sprawling ribbon of deregulated development along a four-lane highway, backed on both sides by subdivisions occupied by trailer-homes, cabins, tract-housing and ranch-style bungalows, most built since 1990. It’s a generic Western settlement, and one sees Wasillas in every state this side of the 100th meridian: the same competing gas stations, fast-food outlets, strip malls and ‘big box’ stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Fred Meyer and Home Depot, each with a vast parking lot out front, on which human figures scuttle with their shopping trolleys like coloured ants, robbed of their proper scale....

Wasilla is what inevitably happens when there are no codes, no civic oversight, no planning, when the only governing principle in a community is a naive and superstitious trust in the benevolent authority of the free market. Palin’s view of aesthetics was nicely highlighted in 1996, a few months before she ran for mayor, when a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News happened to light on her in an excited crowd of five hundred women queuing up in the Anchorage J.C. Penney’s, waiting to snag the autograph of Ivana Trump, who was in town to hawk her eponymous line of scent. "‘We want to see Ivana,’ Palin said, who admittedly smells like a salmon for a large part of the summer, ‘because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.’" The blot on the Alaskan landscape that is Wasilla is the natural consequence of a mindset that mistakes Ivana Trump for culture.

Jonathan Raban in the London Review of Books via Sara Robinson

OK, as a farm kid from Nowhere, Iowa, I can see how some might take that Raban quote as being a bit on the snotty side. See if this is more to the point:

Wasilla remains a town with near round-the-clock bars and a serious drunken-driving problem.

The bar flap represents a pivotal interlude in the political development of Palin, who sided with local saloon keepers and cast the deciding vote against a measure to reset pub closing times to 2:30 a.m. weekdays and 3 a.m. weekends. Tavern owners then rallied around Palin's successful challenge to Wasilla's longtime mayor, with campaign records showing that two of them alone provided 15 percent of the campaign cash she took in from supporters.

Within months of taking office, Palin fired veteran Wasilla Police Chief Irl Stambaugh, the author of the bar hour reduction plan.

Palin "voted with the majority on an issue that ultimately would have negatively impacted the local economy," a representative for the vice presidential candidate said in explaining Palin's vote....

At the time, Wasilla boasted a population of 4,635, slightly smaller than south suburban Posen, which was listed in the last census as the 338th largest community in Illinois.

Yet Stambaugh argued that drunken-driving arrests were "exceptionally large" for such a small place—averaging more than one every other day in 1994. He backed up those statistics with more numbers showing half those nabbed were caught between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. and most had blood alcohol levels at least double the legal limit, which at the time was more generous than in Illinois and other states.

The chief's submission included letters from social service agencies, Straatmeyer's ministerial alliances and the local district attorney. Some argued that Wasilla had become a magnet for problem drinkers from Anchorage an hour to the south where bars closed earlier.

Chicago Tribune

The bars in Sarah Palin's hometown don't close until FIVE A.M. You'd think that would give pause to Sarah the evangelical, but I guess heavy contributions from bar owners trump religion with Gov. Mooseburger. In fact, the above article led off with a concise description of how God guided Mayor Palin when do-gooders tried to cut back bar hours.

Rev. Gene Straatmeyer vividly recalls a public run-in he once had with the now Republican vice presidential candidate over clergy support for a crackdown on bars.

It was August 1996, just weeks before Palin's election as mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska. And Straatmeyer, a local Presbyterian minister and head of two church coalitions, testified at a City Council hearing for a measure to shorten the traditional 5 a.m. last call by a few hours. The city's police chief asked for it to combat a wave of drunken driving and spousal abuse.

Palin built her subsequent political rise to Alaska governor and a spot on the national Republican ticket by actively courting the support of Christian evangelicals. But on that night, then councilwoman Palin stunned Straatmeyer by not only opposing the idea but also sternly lecturing him to butt out.

"She said, 'I go to Assembly of God Church and I am a Sunday school teacher there and I see no relationship between my Christian faith and what hours the bars close,' " recalled Straatmeyer, now living in Texas. "She felt it was out of line for me to testify on behalf of the church groups I represented."

A town of less than 5,000 with arrests for DWI every other day. Somehow I suspect they could average one or more a day if they really tried. There's something about little ugly towns with no zoning laws that leads to drunkenness. Not to mention all the home growers who don't bother to go out because they're too zonked to find the car keys.

Oh, and teen sex? Did I mention teen sex? What about Oxycontin? Dave Neiwert went to Wasilla to check it out and has this report:

I spent the earlier part of this week in the Wasilla area, and I frequently heard from people on all sides of Alaska's various political aisles that Palin, above all, is in fact a populist. I heard this from a former Republican legislator I met at a roadside stop and from a progressive Alaskan activist -- as well as from various locals I met about town. Even among the less articulate bar patrons, the refrain was consistent: "She's for the people, that's what she's about."

At the same time, it was indisputable that she has always practiced a specifically right-wing kind of populism: socially and fiscally conservative, business-friendly, and hostile to progressive causes.

Now, one of the many conceits of Jonah Goldberg's incoherent screed, Liberal Fascism, was that populism by nature was an inherently a left-wing phenomenon. As I explained at the time, populism in fact historically has seen both left- and right-wing permutations in America. Some of the more notable cases of right-wing populism range from Bacon's Rebellion to the Ku Klux Klan to the modern-day Posse Comitatus and militia/Patriot movements.

Not that Palin's populism is necessarily swimming in those same cesspools, but it is clearly the same kind of creature. It's still in the early phases of its popularity, so it's hard to tell what kind of shape it will mature into; but given the traditional, ah, flexibility with which right-wing populists apply the term "the people" (especially when it comes to economic classes), just about anything is possible. 

That may sound a bit dry coming after that 5 a.m. bar closing story, but Palin's populism is scary. That Reagan quote she through out during Thursday night's debate? Here's the context:

It’s from this LP propaganda record [Ronald Reagan speaks out against SOCIALIZED MEDICINE," part of a “campaign organized by the American Medical Association to block the passage of Medicare.”

Wonkette

Sarah Palin is no joke. She's a very scary, extremely rightwing populist who'll extend national bar hours to 24/7 (with mandatory bar closings on Christian holidays).

· · ·

In related news, American Carol sucks big time, but Rick Perlstein has an excellent example of how conservative group think works. 

See also Charlie, who has an excellent example of how sports think works.

· · ·

I watched a crappy High Times documentary on a Dutch cannabis competition last night. Some of the archival footage caught my eye as the camera wandered past an obviously stoned Paul Krassner. No wonder then that Krassner's Dying to Get High post at CounterPunch caught my eye this morning.

More horror stories about medical pot prosecutions, but laced with plenty of stories about how marijuana makes a positive difference in the lives of the extremely ill. 

Obama can play the grown up now and say no way, but after the election folks like me are going to demonstrate zero intolerance for politicians who do not proactively work to undo the damage done by our obscene drug laws.

· · ·

You knew that last month's job loss figures were the biggest in history, right?

More, and still more.

OK, just one more and a video. (It's a really good video, btw.)

· · ·

The time has come when I think it's fair to ask bloggers who eschew any comparisons involving Nazis to explain just why they think it's OK for Republicans to talk like Nazis but not get called out on it.

Urine test = http://www.drugtestfriend.com
Hair test = http://www.hairtestfriend.com
Saliva test = http://www.salivatestfriend.com

وكان حرس الحدود يقوم ظهر أمس الجمعة بمتابعة سيارة من نوع " جيب شاص " محملة بالحشيش أثناء محاولة قائدها تجاوز الشريط الحدودي في قطاع سقام قبل أن يقع تبادل لإطلاق النار مع قائدها ومرافقه ليتم السيطرة عليهما وبتفتيش السيارة عثر بداخلها على أسلحة رشاشة وذخيرة حية .

وأوضح قائد حرس الحدود بنجران اللواء محمد عبدالرحمن الزهراني بأنه تم إلقاء القبض على أحد المهربين وحاول الثاني الهرب سيراً على الأقدام إلا أن رجال حرس الحدود تمكنوا من القبض عليه بعد مطاردته في الجبال وبعد تفتيش السيارة عثر على كمية 1205 كلجم من الحشيش وأسلحة رشاشة وذخائر حية .

Om du kollar i kolumnen längst till höger, ser du att jag lagt till ytterligare en sida med titeln Narkotikabekämpning värd namnet? Den handlar om den afrikanska hallucinogena växten Ibogain, som har visat sig synnerligen verksam när det gäller att få bl a tunga narkotikamissbrukare att sluta med sin drog och så sakteliga återvända till en normal tillvaro.
Ibogainet "resettar" (nollställer) receptorer i hjärnan, så att allt sug försvinner, t o m efter alkohol, koffein, nikotin etc. Dessutom får den som behandlas med drogen en "självterapeutisk" tripp, vilket gör att han/hon efter uppvaknandet ofta helt förstår sin livs- situation och varför individen ifråga hamnat i den. Dessutom försvinner vissa rädslor, vilket kan underlätta återgången till ett mera normalt liv.
Dessvärre anser (naturligtvis, är man frestad att tilläga) det svenska läkemedelsverket att Ibogain saknar nytta för människor och är lätt att missbruka. Gjorda försök med såväl människor som djur bevisar att detta är en fullständigt felaktig föreställning.
I nuläget har man i Sverige klassat Ibogain i samma kategori som heroin, vilket medför att inga experiment eller behandlingar kan genomföras inom rikets gränser. De som vill ta sig ur sina missbruk får åka till Tjeckien, eller något annat ställe där man på allvar försöker hjälpa människor att bli fria från tunga narkotikamissbruk.
Helt horribelt, enligt min mening! Sverige borde vara ett föregångsland istället, som det en gång i tiden var när det gällde vetenskap och innovationer. Och titta på oss nu; enda landet i Europa som berömmer sig av att ha en restriktiv narkotikapolitik. Till vilket pris?
Spana gärna in sidan! Och klicka gärna på bilden överst, så kommer du till en blogg på WP.

Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Afrika, Behandling, Detox, Droger, Drogdebatten, Förbud, Hallucinogener, Ibogain, Juridik, Kontrollsamhället, Lagar, Läkemedelsverket, Narkotikabekämpning, Narkotikaklassat, Narkotikapolitik, Insikt, Självterapi

I went to college in Hays (Fort Hays State) and sometimes drove the 44 miles home on the weekends. Forty-four miles seemed much further in those days, and some of the trips back to school on a Sunday night felt long, especially in the winter. The VWs of the 60s had terrible heaters, and sometimes the car never got warmed up the entire ride, and if there was snow or sleet, it would freeze on the windshield because the defroster had so little effect. I know there were sometimes that it was so difficult to see through the windshield and through the blowing snow that it was only because the car knew its way home that we got back to Hays.

However, being light-weight and having the engine in the back, the car got really good traction. Because of that, if the streets around Hays hadn't been plowed clean, my roommates would always get me to drive. My last year at Fort Hays, we had gone back for inter-session ( a short 2-week mini-semester) early in January, but there had been such a big blizzard that they called off classes for a few days. Of course, we had to get out of the apartment anyway. We found out that the movie theater downtown was open, so we got into the VW and headed out. With the weight of four guys in the car, we moved pretty well through the snow-filled streets, but sometimes we'd run into a drift in the road and the car would just get stuck; then, the other three would jump out of the car and push it through, jump back in and off we'd go. When we finally made it downtown, there weren't many other cars out and the crowd inside the movie theater was a meager bunch of the most hardy of souls, or maybe the craziest. I guess we felt something like pioneers for being able to get ourselves through all that snow to watch a movie.

The student population at Fort Hays was very homogeneous in those days. The farm population of western Kansas was already dwindling, but not nearly as much as it has in more recent years. Most little towns still had their own high schools as consolidation had just barely started. Like me, the majority of the students came from small Kansas towns and from a more or less isolated existence. There were some out-of-state students and a few foreign students, but most of us came from the same rural background. The first black guy I met was at Fort Hays, but he too was from a small western Kansas town. (Nicodemus, Kansas was started by the exoduster, freed slaves from the South, who settled in western Kansas after the Civil War.) The people I went to school with were basically nice people, really good people, but I think most of us had grown up relatively naive to what was going on very far beyond our part of the state.

Even so, there were a few anti-war rallies on campus, but they were tame in comparison to most, and certainly there were no campus buildings damaged or destroyed by war protestors like happened at KU and some other campuses around the country.

There was a "head shop" that sold mostly black lights and black light posters, but drug use wasn't that big. Like most college towns, there were a few bars and clubs that attracted students, but aside from weekends, I didn't know that many people who drank that much. However, one of my roommate's dorm friends was a pothead of sorts. Through him, I had my first and only experience in Hays of getting high. He had this stash--and, yes, it was truly stashed. One night four of us went out to the college farm to this pasture testing area. There were some test plots, which had fences around them in order to let the native plants grow and prevent the cows--or maybe buffalo (they had some buffalo out there too)--from eating them. We drove all over the place until we located the right plot, and the guy who had the pot stashed went and dug out this big bag of pot--I mean it was about the size of a bread sack. (I wonder how much that amount might be worth today.) He got back in the car, and we drove to another place there on the college farm, which looked out over the city. (At about 15,000 it was a city to all of us from towns of 300 or so.) He rolled some, and we proceeded to smoke it, looked at the glowing city lights, peered through the swirls on glass Pepsi bottles, and laughed a lot. I don't know whether I got high from smoking the marijuana or just from the excitement of that new experience, but whatever, it all felt a bit dangerous but nonetheless fun.

My social life was typical of most of the "dormies". Most of the students at Fort Hays were either dormies, lived in a frat or sorority house, or lived at home and commuted. Of course, like my roommates and I during our final year, some of the dormies eventually moved into apartments.

Looking back, the four of us probably could have been classified as nerds, but I don't think there was such a stigma of being studious as there is today. The three of them were science majors of one kind or another and I was an English major. They studied more than I did, but we all ended up getting good grades. On the other hand, after living in the dorm for three years, we did like to have parties. About once a month, on a Saturday night, we'd throw a party, inviting everyone we knew. Of course, it was always alcohol-centered. If food was involved, there was never anything much more elaborate than some bags of chips. Sometimes, we'd have "trashcan party". We'd get some cans of Hi-C, pour it into a big plastic trash can, then everybody would add whatever booze they'd brought into the can. Sometimes, there would be 60 or 70 people inside our small two-bedroom apartment on Custer Drive, with the majority of them spilling out onto the balcony that ran all along the second floor. Well, maybe we weren't such nerds (and maybe some people did drink quite a bit) after all.

Somehow I got this girlfriend, the first semester of my senior year. I had had a few dates before then, but for the most part, I was scared of girls. Don't get me wrong; I liked girls, and always had lots of friends who were girls, starting from grade school. Dating, though, was a different matter. In college, I was pretty out-going and involved with student government and other organizations, and lots of other guys I knew were dating, and even getting married, so I guess I felt it was something I should do. I really never felt pressured to do it, for sure not from my roommates, who had less going on in that part of their social lives than I did.

Anyway, that fall, I started dating this girl, who was a year younger than I was. I guess you could say she was on the aggressive side when it came to making the moves. No doubt, she was more experienced than I was, because I had never had any kind of physical relationship with a girl up till then. She seemed to really be into me, so at the beginning I liked going out with her. She liked to come out to our apartment and get me into my shared bedroom, even with the roommates out in the living room, which sort of embarrassed me. There were two things, though, making me reluctant to go all the way: one, I just wasn't quite as interested in doing it as she was, and second, my mom had put "the fear" in me when I was back in high school about getting a girl pregnant. So while we can say there was sometimes a lot of frenzied action, "no deal was ever completed".

We soon "started going steady", exchanging high school class rings and framed photographs. Then not too far down the road, she got me even to look at some engagement rings in a downtown jewelry store. I didn't think about it at the time, but in hindsight, I realized that this girl was one of those who went to college to get an M.R.S. degree. One weekend, we drove out to meet her parents in Ulysses, where her dad was a school administrator.

Saturday of that weekend, we went around town looking at different churches because the church she and her parents attended would just not do for the wedding she was thinking about; it wasn't big enough nor nice enough. Mind you, I had not even asked her to get married, but to her it was a foregone conclusion. Sunday morning, we all went to their church, a Baptist church. (Growing up, I went to the Methodist church in Dorrance with my family, and it was pretty low key: a lot of singing of hymns, which I liked, and listening to the boring sermons, which were mostly about how to be a good person, and probably sometimes about how people needed to give more money. When I was about 13 or 14, there were three of us who took catechism classes at the church parsonage in Wilson, taught by the grizzly old preacher that we had at that time. We had to learn Bible verses and other lessons in order to become full members of the church. I really didn't like going because this old geezer thought that he really had to put the "fear of God" in us. He treated us like we were stupid and primarily terrified us. In the end, I did become a member of the church, but I never liked going after that.) I knew people who were Baptists when I was growing up, and they were no different than any of the rest of us Methodists, Lutherans, Catholics, or whatever. I guess maybe they weren't supposed to dance, but I think at that time if you were really a strict Methodist, you weren't supposed to dance either.

But this Baptist church in Ulysses was really different. The preacher was one of those "fire and brimstone" types, and he said that if you weren't a Baptist, you were going to Hell, but you couldn't be just any Baptist; if you weren't a member of that particular Baptist church there in Ulysses, you were going to Hell.

Needless to say, I was beginning to feel like a runner caught between second base and third base in a squeeze play. That drive back to Hays was one that I couldn't wait to end, and over the next few weeks, I began to distance myself. I knew I didn't want to get married to this girl, (and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that I didn't want to marry any girl), not because of what had happened during that weekend, but I knew I wasn't in love with her.

She still had one more card to play; a couple weeks later, she called up and told me that her period was late. I didn't do anything but worry for a couple of days, wondering how her being pregnant was biologically possible and what I would do if she were. Then finally convinced by a mutual friend, she told me that she had made it up. The one thing I wanted back was my class ring, so I went over to her dorm with her ring and picture. She still had a couple more scenes left in that little drama of hers; when I took her ring and picture back over to her dorm, she started screaming and threw my ring and framed picture down the stairwell at me, shattering the glass all over the place.

Sometime after I had graduated and was already in the Air Force, I heard that she was able to get that M.R.S. degree. Over the years, I've thought back on that fall of my senior year and what a miserable mistake it would have been if that relationship had gone any further.

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You may also want to read VW Bug and a Summer Job, VW Bug and a Summer Job, Chapter 2, and VW Bug and Saturday Night in a Small Town.

Helicopter from earlier this year

Four helicopters flew formation north bound today.  The black machines were typical of those used by law enforcement said several people who spotted them in the Southern Humboldt skies early Sunday.  The large number and the military formation sparked rumors of raids but, at least one person suggested that the rain had caused most growers to pull crops early for fear of mold thus foiling marijuana raids planned earlier in the year.  "They might be just heading out of the area," said one local hopefully.

VANCOUVER — There's green to be made clipping and trimming the green leaves in British Columbia's marijuana industry.

The prospect of tax-free income is driving some people into temporary work as "clippers" for indoor and outdoor grow operations.

It's not only against the law, it's also considered the most labour-intensive part of the harvesting process. But there isn't a shortage of people willing to do the work.

Pot clippers - also known as trimmers - groom marijuana plants that have been harvested from fields or indoor grow operations. The workers pare down the buds from the plants to make them presentable for sale.