You can read this and say I'm just a dumb stoner and a drug addict, but to be clear I'm far from stupid and I'm not addicted to anything. I don't do drugs; I only smoke "cannabis," which isn't addictive. I've known of the cure for addiction (ibogaine) since July 4, 1998, when I first met Dana Beal of the "cures-not-wars" organization at a legalize marijuana protest in Washington D.C. I admit when I first heard Dana rail on and on about ibogaine I was skeptical. My thoughts were, if there really were a cure for addictions it would be used empathetically across America to save lives. Over the years I learned differently. [continues 927 words]
I am always puzzled by the national media's focus on trivial issues and missing the more important challenges facing society and governments. Our society is being under-minded by substance abuse and very few people are talking about it. One in five Canadians (21.6 per cent ) has a substance or alcohol abuse problem. Substance abuse costs us $40 billion per year in Canada. Eighty per cent of federal offenders have a history of substance abuse issues. Six million Canadians are in recovery. Contrary to the solutions of the NDP and Liberals to legalize marijuana, because they say it is just a soft drug, studies found that 40 per cent of people that start using marijuana move on to harder drugs. [continues 320 words]
NOW THAT THE voters have spoken, I hope New Mexico small government Republicans rethink their lockstep support for the 80-plus-year failed big government federal prohibition on the cannabis plant. In 2010, Gov. Susana Martinez campaigned vowing to repeal New Mexico's medical marijuana law, which helps New Mexicans who have chronic conditions, or who might be terminally ill with cancer. After her inauguration, Martinez relented, saying "We have bigger issues that we have to deal with." In 2014, Martinez claimed that merely reducing marijuana penalties is a "horrible, horrible idea"? [continues 186 words]
A B.C. man is one step closer to reclaiming some of the money seized from him by border officers at the Vancouver International Airport almost four years ago, following a recent decision by the Federal Court of Appeal. On Jan. 5, 2011, Robert Bo Da Huang was scheduled to fly out of Vancouver International Airport to Hong Kong. In the departures area, he was approached by a Canada Border Services Agency officer. Huang admitted to the officer that he was carrying more than $10,000 in cash and he had not reported that fact. [continues 287 words]
Raging Debate Over Marijuana Law Reform Tough for Lawmakers, Leaders to Ignore The battle lines have long been drawn. Factions from either side of the political fence waging full-scale propaganda campaigns and stockpiling ammunition for the unavoidable clash. At stake -- depending on which brand of rhetoric you subscribe to -- is an untapped bounty of tax dollars, a public health crisis-in-waiting, the sanctity of the world's longest unprotected border, the opportunity to purge a prime domain of organized crime, the welfare of the nation's youth, and the rights and freedoms of the Canadian citizen. [continues 1965 words]
Gov. Rick Scott and Charlie Crist leveled a host of negative charges against each other on Friday. But for the first time in the campaign, Crist and Scott traded their blows face-to-face, in the first of three debates in the final weeks of their high-stakes, big money contest. Before the debate, which was hosted by the Spanish-language Telemundo network and broadcast Friday evening, the candidates had spent some $55 million on more than 100,000 television spots savaging one another, with three out of four ads containing a negative message. [continues 919 words]
An Analysis of Federal Data Shows Outlay for Guns and Armored Cars - As Well As Coffee Makers and a Clown. Washington - Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles. The details are contained in thousands of annual reports dating from 2008 and submitted by local and state agencies to the Justice Department's Equitable Sharing Program, an initiative that allows local and state police to keep up to 80 percent of the assets they seize. [continues 942 words]
Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles. The details are contained in thousands of annual reports submitted by local and state agencies to the Justice Department's Equitable Sharing Program, an initiative that allows local and state police to keep up to 80 percent of the assets they seize. The Washington Post obtained 43,000 of the reports dating from 2008 through a Freedom of Information Act request. [continues 2766 words]
The Shaneen Allen case has made a lot of people look at New Jersey Gun laws, many are happy she's not going to trial. Not me. I had hoped she would have. I previously wrote I thought a jury wouldn't convict her. Instead, thanks to the scrutiny the Ray Rice case brought to her case, the Atlantic County Prosecutors office begrudgingly accepted her into the (PTI) Pre-Trial Intervention program. I don't think this a victory; a victory would have been a "not guilty" verdict. She will soon plead "guilty" and lose her right to vote and own a gun. She will now experience what millions of other citizens (especially black citizens) suffer, "second amendment-less citizenship" for trying to protect herself. [continues 617 words]
So far Tory attack ads on Justin Trudeau have not hurt the Liberal leader, but their effect may yet come Ever since Justin Trudeau won its leadership in early 2013, the Liberal party has led in the polls. The latest average of all polls shows the Liberals at 39% of popular support, the Conservatives at 32% and the NDP trailing with 19%. Canadians seem to be enamoured with Trudeau's sunny disposition, his good looks and his positive approach to politics. It's made him the No. 1 target of the Conservative attack machine. [continues 834 words]
So far Tory attack ads on Justin Trudeau have not hurt the Liberal leader, but their effect may yet come Ever since Justin Trudeau won its leadership in early 2013, the Liberal party has led in the polls. The latest average of all polls shows the Liberals at 39% of popular support, the Conservatives at 32% and the NDP trailing with 19%. Canadians seem to be enamoured with Trudeau's sunny disposition, his good looks and his positive approach to politics. It's made him the No. 1 target of the Conservative attack machine. [continues 816 words]
Let me be clear from the start. I hate drugs. I hate what drugs do to the individual and the family and I do not believe anyone should take any drug not prescribed. With that said, I firmly believe all drugs should be made legal. The illegal drug industry is a multibillion industry that fuels drug wars in Latin America and anti-American activities worldwide. Whether it is marijuana, cocaine, opium, or meth, when we buy an illegal drug we pay the terrorists. [continues 67 words]
Many Drivers Faced a Long Ordeal in Court to Try to Get Their Money Back From Police Mandrel Stuart and his girlfriend were on a date driving on Interstate 66 toward the District when a Fairfax County police cruiser pulled out of the median and raced after them. The cruiser kept pace alongside Stuart's old blue GMC Yukon for a while, then followed behind for several miles before turning on its flashing lights. The traffic stop on that balmy afternoon in August 2012 was the beginning of a dizzying encounter that would leave Stuart shaken and wondering whether he had been singled out because he was black and had a police record. [continues 3520 words]
Reports on Drivers, Training by Firm Fueled Law Enforcement Aggressiveness During the rush to improve homeland security a decade ago, an invitation went out from Congress to a newly retired California highway patrolman named Joe David. A lawmaker asked him to brief the Senate on how highway police could keep "our communities safe from terrorists and drug dealers." David had developed an uncanny talent for finding cocaine and cash in cars and trucks, beginning along the remote highways of the Mojave Desert. His reputation had spread among police officers after he started a training firm in 1989 to teach his homegrown stop-and-seizure techniques. He called it Desert Snow. [continues 5027 words]
Aggressive Police Take Hundreds of Millions of Dollars From Motorists Not Charged With Crimes After the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the government called on police to become the eyes and ears of homeland security on America's highways. Local officers, county deputies and state troopers were encouraged to act more aggressively in searching for suspicious people, drugs and other contraband. The departments of Homeland Security and Justice spent millions on police training. The effort succeeded, but it had an impact that has been largely hidden from public view: the spread of an aggressive brand of policing that has spurred the seizure of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from motorists and others not charged with crimes, a Washington Post investigation found. Thousands of people have been forced to fight legal battles that can last more than a year to get their money back. [continues 5316 words]
Terrorism is alive and well, Americans aren't feeling any more "free," and those WMDs never did turn up. But the War on Terror did accomplish one thing: After 13 years of conflict, America is closer than ever to legalized and legitimized medical MDMA. About 2.5 million sailors, soldiers, and Marines went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. As many as 20 percent of veterans suffer from PTSD, most studies show (another 48,000 are homeless; look for the telltale desert camouflage backpacks). [continues 785 words]
There is a new normal in our communities. For some children, stumbling across used, dirty needles at the park is more common than a pick-up game. Heroin addiction is a big disease with an even bigger negative impact on everyone. Kentucky has the third-highest drug overdose ranking in the United States. Of the 722 drug overdose death fatalities autopsied in 2013, 31.9 percent were attributed to heroin, compared to 19.6 percent in 2012. The estimated cost of substance abuse in Kentucky is over $6 billion. [continues 650 words]
With the country's eye on marijuana legalization activist Marc Emery's return to Canada, a recent survey shows that a majority of Canadians support his cause. However, legalizing pot isn't at the top of their justice priorities list. The poll, done by Angus Reid Global, surveyed 1510 Canadian adults. It showed that 59 per cent think the use of marijuana should be legalized, with the remaining 41 per cent feel it should remain illegal. The strongest support for legalization came from British Columbia (70%), Atlantic Canada (68%) and Manitoba/Saskatchewan (63%). Even the provinces that showed the lowest amount of support - Alberta and Quebec - still showed legalization eeking out keeping the drug illegal, with 53% of respondents from both provinces vocalizing support. [continues 200 words]
Talking about pot makes for good politics for politicians who don't want to talk things that matter. For the left, talking about weed is much more fun than talking about say, the economy or terrorism - neither of which they understand. And so they talk about legalizing marijuana, media dutifully picks it up and it's a handy distraction from all that other stuff. I don't care about marijuana. I know people who smoke it and they don't seem to care if it's legal or not. They know where to get it if they want some. [continues 586 words]