Look who’s coming to dinner at John Boehner’s house… a foreigner! With waist-length dreads? SHOCK HORROR… he’s a pothead!

Lindsay Boehner, the 35-year-old daughter of the GOP Speaker of the House, is set to be married in May to Dominic Lakan, a 38-year-old Jamaican-born immigrant. Lakan was arrested in 2006 in Florida in possession of less than two grams of pot. Previously, Lakan was arrested for having an open beer in his vehicle.

The National Enquirer dug up Lakan’s arrest report—they say he resembles Bob Marley—and now the right wingers are having a field day with it.

Check out the, uh, considered reactions from the folks at Free America:

Deformed America, the new abnormal.

He looks like a total filthy uneducated bum who’s latching on to a rich white girl. Holy cow, I wouldn’t let that thing come within 50 yards of me! Let’s all chip in and buy her a case of Frontline as a wedding present…

Not only the fleas, but there’s a wife beater if ever there was one! I bet he’s mean, angry & violent when he’s on drugs or booze, as well as when he’s not high. Then he’s just surly mean! I also think he is hoping & praying to his voodoo witch doctor, that he will get some portion of inheritance from Boner!

Bet he’s an Obama voter!

She’s marrying a Rastafarian? She must REALLY hate her dad.

My Lord—If I saw something like that coming out from under the sink I’d step on it.

He looks Middle Eastern to me!

This daughter is seriously out to get her parents. The Jamaican clearly does not fit with the country club and/or congressional set. The halls of power are in need of cleaning? Or what?

he looks like death sucking a life saver…

You haven’t a ball nor a dick if you let that thing get NEAR your daughter. Dear GOD, America ... what kind of person (I CAN"T say man .. ) are we putting into positions of high power? It’s time to clean house.

One Freeper decided to look on the bright side:

Better a Rastarfarian than a muzzie. But seriously, what’s with the Dr. Seuss hat?

Surprisingly—or not so surprising—this story has thus far gotten very little play in the left-wing blogsphere, as if the information itself (HE’S JAMAICAN AND SMOKES POT!) is somehow “racist” instead of merely neutral.

I wish the couple the very best. I hope they’re laughing like hell about this. Fact is, this minor brouhaha has simply got nothing whatsoever to do with either Dominic Lakan or Lindsay Boehner and everything to do with her idiot father…

I cannot wait to see wedding photos. I wonder if the father of the bride will cry?

 
KIRO did an interesting investigative report the other day where they got three drivers—medical marijuana patients all of them—stoned to the gills and then put them behind the wheel of a car to test their driving skills vs. the legal allowable limits of THC in their bloodstreams, as measured by Colorado and Washington. And then some. Each was accompanied by drivers-ed instructor, as a police officer visually inspected their performance for signs of impairment.

Although I’m sure that there are a lot of people who would watch this and think “I can drive fine when I’m high,” that’s clearly not the case with these folks after a certain point. True, the control group does consist of just three people (with Addy appearing to be a shitty driver whether she’d be high or not). Regardless, there’s something significant (and wholly positive) about a report like this when the American people can see with their own eyes that drivers who have taken a few puffs (and even really stoned drivers) still tend to be better drivers than someone who’s liquored up.

Personally, I don’t like driving if I’m even slightly baked. I prefer to be a stoned passenger (and much to my long-suffering wife’s annoyance, I usually am). However, given the theoretical choice, I’d much rather have to deal with sharing the road with stoned drivers instead of people who are drunk or texting.
 

 
A new Gallup and USA Today poll indicates that for the first time ever there is a super-majority of Americans public who want the feds to back off and let the states decide on how to deal with marijuana themselves. Via Raw Story:

A whopping 64 percent told Gallup that the federal government should not move to intervene in Colorado and Washington’s forthcoming marijuana regulations, which voters approved by wide margins on Election Day. Just 34 percent told pollsters they think the federal government should take action.

“This isn’t the first poll that shows voters want the government to let the states move forward,” Mason Tvert, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, told Raw Story. “We’re talking about multiple polls now, and they’re making it clear that most Americans do not want the federal government interfering in the implementation of state laws making marijuana illegal for adults.”

Pollsters segregated respondents into two groups: those in favor of keeping marijuana illegal, and those opposed. In the results, there appears to be some crossover from those who favor the drug war but also favor states rights, a key moral sticking point for many conservatives.

Interestingly, of those who still support prohibition, 43 percent said that the states should be left alone. A full 87 percent of those who oppose prohibition said they would rather the feds stay out of the states’ business.

Overall, Gallup said 48 percent of Americans think marijuana should be taxed and regulated for adult use, versus 50 percent who favor prohibition. Though that number is unchanged from Gallup’s 2011 poll on the same topic, it represents a dramatic shift from just 2005, when only about 35 percent of Americans favored legalization.

It’s starting to look like it’s high time for the Obama administration and the DoJ to step off. A slew of law-abiding, tax-paying cannabis dispensaries were closed down recently in downtown Los Angeles and Eagle Rock. It’s getting ridiculous. Furthermore, it’s clearly not politically advantageous with numbers like these to side against the will of the people, so why are they bothering?

It’s worth noting that George Bush was pretty non-committal during his two terms, when the medical marijuana movement really picked up steam. Obama needs to heed these polls and simply do the same, i.e. nothing. Letting legal cannabis flourish is a revenue enhancing move; it increases the tax base and creates new jobs. It frees up police resources, there all kinds of reasons to not make this an issue.

The main one is that no one is ever going to stop smoking pot because it’s illegal in the first place. Everyone knows this! It’s so easy for them to just do nothing.

A similar poll released by the Public Policy Polling group just last week saw similar results, with 58% saying that cannabis should be taxed and regulated similar to cigarettes and alcohol.

 
I have to laugh at people who think the Obama/Kumar video is a “secret message” dog-whistle to potheads that he’s going to make reform of marijuana laws a priority during a second term. Based on what readily available evidence? A “hunch”? It can’t be about looking at what’s actually happened during his administration thus far, that’s for fucking sure.

Stick with it. The footage of the raids is breathtaking.
 

 
Thank you Michael Backes!

 
UPDATE: Pharmacy Hoax Revealed

San Diego, CA – The San Diego chapter of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the nation’s largest medical cannabis advocacy group, working with LGBT activism group Canvass for a Cause and as part of the The Yes Men’s “Yes Labs” project, released a series of satirical press releases on Tuesday which indicated that U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy would begin targeting pharmacies for closure using asset forfeiture proceedings. The purpose of the action was to draw attention to the U.S. Attorney’s harmful efforts to deny patients access to doctor-recommended medical cannabis.

“Just as the closure of retail pharmacies, like CVS or Walgreens, is poor public health policy, so is the federal government’s crackdown on medical cannabis dispensaries,” said Eugene Davidovich of San Diego ASA. “Pharmacies, like medical cannabis dispensaries, play an essential role in our communities as they help the sick and dying treat and manage various medical conditions,” continued Davidovich. “Laura Duffy and the Obama Administration have no place interfering in the implementation of state law by shutting down dispensaries that thousands of patients rely on.”

The real Laura Duffy isn’t joking. In October 2011, Duffy and her fellow U.S. Attorneys in California began an escalated attack on medical cannabis businesses. “The California marijuana industry is not about providing medicine to the sick,” said Duffy at the time. “It’s a pervasive for-profit industry that violates federal law.” Since October, Duffy has used threats of criminal prosecution and asset forfeiture to close over two hundred medical cannabis facilities in her District.

Despite claims from Attorney General Eric Holder that his Justice Department was only targeting dispensaries operating “out of conformity with state law,” Duffy and the other U.S. Attorneys have indiscriminately targeted these facilities, regardless of “conformity,” shutting down all but a few in San Diego County. Most recently Duffy attempted to shut down the only collective in her district that is operating under a permit from the Sheriff’s department.

For many patients who cannot sustain the regular consumption of pharmaceutical medication, cannabis isn’t simply an alternative; it’s their only option. From reducing nausea and increasing appetite for people living with cancer or HIV/AIDS to stabilizing chronic pain, the vast majority of California’s medical cannabis patients rely on dispensaries. Advocates argue that by closing dispensaries, Duffy and other U.S. Attorneys are pushing thousands of patients into the illicit market and complicating the job of law enforcement.

“Today’s press releases may have been a hoax, but for the thousands of patients adversely impacted by Duffy’s attacks on medical cannabis, it’s no joke. The LGBT community fought hard to legalize HIV/AIDS medicine for their family and we carry on that tradition today” said Rachel Scoma, from Canvass for a Cause. “Patients need safe and legal access to their medication, not prosecution from the federal government.”

*****

The Los Angeles Times is retracting a story that was posted on their website this morning at 8:42 am:

20 San Diego pharmacies targeted by feds in drug sales crackdown

Twenty pharmacies in San Diego suspected of unusually high rates of drug sales are being targeted for a variety of enforcement actions, U.S. attorney Laura Duffy announced Tuesday.

The pharmacies, including some owned by major chains, are in the La Jolla, Carmel Valley and Pacific Beach areas of San Diego, Duffy said.

The enforcement actions will include civil forfeiture lawsuits, warning letters to pharmacy owners and criminal charges. Some will be given 45 days to shut down or face harsher penalties, Duffy said. The specific pharmacies are expected to be announced later Tuesday.

The pharmacies “are part of a pervasive for-profit industry that facilitates the distribution of drugs for illegitimate use,” Duffy said in a prepared statement.

Other pharmacies may be included later, officials said.

Duffy said she hopes the action by her office becomes a model for other U.S. attorney offices.

“Prosecutorial discretion means I decide how and when to enforce laws,” she said.

It wasn’t just the LA Times that got hoodwinked, it was the San Diego Reader that fell hook, link and sinker for the bogus email as well.

What’s truly pathetic about this matter is that if you read the actual text of the “hoax” email, it’s clear—and I mean to say that it’s not even a little bit debatable—that it is a satirical commentary on the ridiculous crackdown on legal, state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries!

For fuck’s sake, did they even read this before they reported on it? Evidently not!

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA San Diego, California
United States Attorney Laura E. Duffy
For Further Information, Contact: Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Shiner (619) 619-302-5235

For Immediate Release
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY PUTS PHARMACY OPERATORS AND PROPERTY OWNERS ON NOTICE
Curbing illegal drug use via shutdowns will keep communities safe.

NEWS RELEASE SUMMARY – July 31, 2012 United States Attorney Laura E. Duffy today announced enforcement actions against local pharmacies for distribution of drugs for illegal purposes. Immediate enforcement will target pharmacies in the Coastal areas of La Jolla, Carmel Valley, and Pacific Beach; chosen for both the high rates of pharmaceutical drug abuse and high property values of targeted pharmacies. Affected pharmacies will have 45 days to shutdown in order to avoid harsher penalties.

The Pharmaceutical shutdown initiative is aimed at curtailing drug abuse and its associated societal problems in the Southern District of California. Enforcement is proceeding against twenty pharmacies in San Diego County and will include actions such as: Civil forfeiture lawsuits against properties involved in drug trafficking activity, which includes, in some cases, sales consistent with state or local ordinances; Letters of warning to the owners and lienholders of properties where potentially illegal sales are taking place; and Criminal cases targeting commercial pharmaceutical activities.

“These pharmacies are not only about providing medicine to the sick. They are part of a pervasive for-profit industry that facilitates the distribution of drugs for illegitimate use. Doctors are prescribing unneeded medication; kids are overdosing on aspirin; police are finding pill bottles at junior high schools. Addiction and abuse of these drugs are serious problems in our communities and parents have come to me with their concerns. These pharmacies have provided not just medication - prescription and otherwise - but all the serious repercussions that come with it, including significant public safety issues and often irreparable harm to our youth.” said Duffy.

The Southern District of California will be the first in the nation to confront the problems associated with drug abuse by targeting storefront pharmacies with asset forfeiture proceedings. The operation will also be a model of fiscal discipline as asset forfeiture may render enforcement efforts cost-neutral.

If successful in San Diego, Duffy’s office will lobby for the implementation of this policy throughout the United States.

“Prosecutorial discretion means I decide how and when to enforce laws. Although this action is unprecedented, in my judgment it’s necessary to ensure we continue making progress in the war on drugs. Economic decline, climate threats, cybercrime, illegal immigration, and a general loss of faith in the political process have colored these drastic times. Now is the time to get tough in a fiscally responsible way.” Duffy stated.

Asset forfeiture is the seizure of property found to have been used for an illegal purpose. The tactic has been used to nearly end access to medical marijuana in San Diego. In 2011, the Southern District of California seized $29.7 million in property using asset forfeiture.
Though initially only twenty pharmacies will be targeted for closure, the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of California will continue to investigate facilities which illegally provide dangerous substances to our communities.

For Press Inquiries contact: Frank Shiner, Deputy Assistant to the US Attorney, Logistics and Narcotics (619) 302-5235***

How much more obvious could this be, huh? I guess the best place to hide something is right out in the open, no one ever thinks to look there!

United States Attorney Laura E. Duffy, whose office was supposedly the source for the prank press release, said “We did not issue those press releases. We are looking into the source of those emails.”

I’m sure they will be. Don’t look for anyone to step forward to take credit for this particular prank, ‘cos this looks like it might be a federal offense. Still, it’s a sophisticated prank and well done to the perpetrator! Long may you prank!

Thank you, Morpheus!

Lady Liberty is 420-friendly

The results of a new Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 likely nationwide voters, conducted earlier this month, was released yesterday and the results show a surge of support for the legalization of cannabis. The question posed by the pollsters was “Would you favor or oppose legalizing marijuana and regulating it in the similar manner to the way alcohol and tobacco cigarettes are regulated today?”

“And the survey says…” that a solid majority support legalized nature.

Via NORML:

The poll affirms, once again, that the tide of public opinion continues to turn in our favor. Fifty-six percent of respondents stated they would support legalizing and regulating marijuana in a similar manner alcohol and tobacco. Only 36% were opposed to the concept and 8% were undecided.

You can view more information about the poll on Rasmussen Reports’ website here.

A previous poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports in April reported that 47% of adults “believe the country should legalize and tax marijuana in order to help solve the nation’s fiscal problems.” Forty-two percent of respondents disagreed, while ten percent were undecided.

In 2011, a nationwide Gallup poll reported that 50 percent of Americans support legalizing the use of cannabis for adults. Forty-six percent of respondents said they opposed the idea.

The 2011 Gallup survey results marked the first time that the polling firm, which has tracked Americans’ attitudes toward marijuana since the late 1960s, reported that more Americans support legalizing cannabis than oppose it.

Bear in mind, anything coming from Rasmussen is likely to be suspiciously—and not even that subtly—biased in favor of the GOP. Considering the source, the results of this poll showing a SOLID majority for the first time seems especially promising. That the Obama administration’s record is worse than Bush’s when it comes to prosecuting cannabis offenses, seems all the more galling in this light.

 
Excerpted from a 1988 Department of Justice/DEA brief written by Judge Francis L. Young:

“In layman terms this means that in order to induce death, a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.”

Compare and contrast the damage that just two bottles of tequila would do to the human body (Been there, done that and won the booby prize of 4-day hangover...).

And while I’m on the topic, whereas you can see that it’s impossible for a human to OD on cannabis, the plant is HIGHLY toxic to dogs. That’s right, do not let your pooch near your stash. If you make pot brownies keep them out of your dog’s reach (Chocolate is also lethal to dogs. So are grapes and onions). If your dog eats cannabis, rush it to a pet hospital without hesitation.

via reddit

 
Nut-job 700 Club host Pat Robertson, who normally prattles on about the end of the world, Obama being a Marxist and gay marriage—and who just last week insisted that people can stop hurricanes and tornadoes if they’d just pray hard enough (“Jesus stilled the storm, you can still storms” WITH YOUR MIND!)—said some words in an order that made actual sense on a March 1, 700 Club broadcast, as reported by the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition blog:

We here in America make up 5% of the world’s population, but we make up 25% of jailed prisoners… Every time the liberals pass a bill—I don’t care what it involves—they stick criminal sanctions on it. They don’t feel there is any way people are going to keep a law unless they can put them in jail.

I became sort of a hero of the hippie culture, I guess, when I said I think we ought to decriminalize the possession of marijuana. I just think it’s shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hardcore criminals because they had a possession of a very small amount of controlled substance. The whole thing is crazy.

We’ve said, “we’re ‘conservative, we’re tough on crime.” That’s baloney. It’s costing us billions and billions of dollars.

Think of California. California is spending more money on prisons than it spends on schools. There’s something wrong about that equation.

We need to scrub the federal code and the state codes and take away these criminal penalties. Putting people in jail at huge expense to the population is insanity.

Folks, we’ve gotta do something about this. We’ve just got to change the laws. We cannot allow this to continue. It is sapping our vitality. Think of this great land of freedom. We have the highest rate of incarceration of any nation on the face of the Earth. That’s a shocking statistic.

What is it we’re doing that is different? What we’re doing is turning a bunch of liberals loose writing laws—there’s this punitive spirit, they always want to punish people.  It’s time for change!

More and more prisons, more and more crime.  It’s just shocking, especially this business about drug offenses.  It’s time we stop locking up people for possession of marijuana. We just can’t do it anymore…You don’t lock ‘em up for booze unless they kill somebody on the highway.

According to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition the rant came in the context of a story about Tea partiers and the NAACP teaming up to address criminal justice reform.

This isn’t the first time that Robertson has spoken out against pot laws. In the clip below, the world’s most unlikely advocate for drug law reform let’s it rip a few days before Christmas of 2010:
 

 
Well, well, well… Look who was PRO-medical marijuana—actually went out on a limb for it—way back before he wanted to behead people and cut off their hands for possessing it…

Here’s what Newt Gingrich wrote to the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1982:

Legal Status of Marijuana

To the Editor:

The American Medical Association’s Council on Scientific Affairs should be commended for its report, “Marijuana: Its Health Hazards and Therapeutic Potential” (1981;246:1823). Not only does the report outline evidence of marijuana’s potential harms, but it distinguishes this concern from the legitimate issue of marijuana’s important medical benefits. All too often the hysteria that attends public debate over marijuana’s social abuse compromises a clear appreciation for this critical distinction.

Since 1978, 32 states have abandoned the federal prohibition to recognize legislatively marijuana’s important medical properties. Federal law, however, continues to define marijuana as a drug “with no accepted medical use,” and federal agencies continue to prohibit physician-patient access to marijuana. This outdated federal prohibition is corrupting the intent of the state laws and depriving thousands of glaucoma and cancer patients of the medical care promised them by their state legislatures.

On Sept 16, 1981, Representative Stewart McKinney and I introduced legislation designed to end bureaucratic interference in the use of marijuana as a medicant. We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. The medical prohibition does not prevent seriously ill patients from employing marijuana; it simply deprives them of medical supervision and access to a regulated medical substance. Physicians are often forced to choose between their ethical responsibilities to the patient and their legal liabilities to federal bureaucrats.

Representative McKinney and I hope the Council will take a close and careful look at this issue. Federal policies do not reflect a factual or balanced assessment of marijuana’s use as a medicant. The Council, by thoroughly investigating the available materials, might well discover that its own assessment of marijuana’s therapeutic value has, in the past, been more than slightly shaded by federal policies that are less than neutral

Newt Gingrich
House of Representatives
Washington, DC

Fourteen years later, as House Speaker, this same hypocritical piece-of-shit would introduce the Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996, which called for executing any person caught importing just an ounce or two of high-grade marijuana (“100 usual doses” is how it was written in the legislation, which obviously didn’t pass).

What’s more, when challenged about his own admitted use of marijuana in the past, Gingrich had this to say to Wall Street Journal reporter Hilary Stout:

“That was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era. See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality… That’s why you get to go to jail and I don’t.”

“Okay for thee, but not for me,” sez rich, well-fed white guy. Thanks for the succinct explanation, mean old man!

Now, if you’re looking to make sense of this stuff don’t even try. He’s a Republican, ‘nuff said.

Here’s what Gingrich said at a fundraiser for fellow Georgia GOP pol Rep. Charlie Norwood in 1995:

“If you import a commercial quantity of illegal drugs, it is because you have made the personal decision that you are prepared to get rich by destroying our children. I have made the decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you if you do this.”

“I have decided”???

Imagine this asshole being allowed to decide anything of importance!

Gingrich, unable to help himself, continued:

“The first time we execute 27 or 30 or 35 people at one time, and they go around Colombia and France and Thailand and Mexico, and they say, ‘Hi, would you like to carry some drugs into the U.S.?’ the price of carrying drugs will have gone up dramatically.”

Ethan Nadlemann, the executive director of Drug Policy Action, a bipartisan advocacy group for ending the drug war called Gingrich “basically a nightmare” when it comes to drug policy issues. “For a guy who’s supposed to be an intellectual and intelligent, the quality of the argumentation on his part is embarrassing.”

As one wag quipped on the topic of Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996 at The People’s Forum:

Fortunately didn’t pass. His other proposed acts, the Serial Adultery Death Penalty Act and the Congressional Influence Peddling Death Penalty Act, unfortunately failed as well. And he reportedly killed the Fat Loudmouth Pandering Pseudo-Intellectual Death Penalty Act before it could be introduced.

Republicans whine and Republicans bitch/Our rich are too poor and our poor are too rich.

Below, Newt Gingrich shooting his big mouth off about the drug war and how the US should emulate Singapore(!) on The O’Reilly Factor as “Papa Bear” nods with approval.
 

 
Thank you Mr. Michael Backes of Sacramento, CA!

 
Speaking as someone who would make a definitive study of one, I was pleased to read that marijuana smoking apparently does very little lung damage:

Via Vulture:

A government study, one of the most extensive examinations ever of the long-term effects of marijuana use, has found that smoking one joint a day for 7 years, or one joint a week for 49 years, does not impair lung function. In fact, “marijuana users performed slightly better on the lung function test” than people who don’t smoke anything. The study did not measure the effects of smoking a joint the size of a zucchini.

I might be able to help out there…

Marijuana Smoking Does Not Harm Lungs, Study Finds (New York Times)

 
Considering how much I love the shit out of Daevid Allen and Gong, I’ve only posted about them once before on DM??? How can that be?

Well then, here’s to making up for that grievous oversight with something so fucking good it might cause you to have an out-of-body experience: Two insanely great live Gong performances from French television in 1973 on a show called Rockenstock.

First, the band do a ripping version of “I’ve Never Been Glid” that sounds extremely close to the studio version on Angels Egg except that Daevid Allen mischievously changes the song’s last line, “That’s another story, now it’s time to go and have a cup of tea see” to “That’s another story, now it’s time to go and smoke another roach.” (“Glidding” is how the Pot Head Pixes fly the teapots, if you are confused…)

I love the way that Allen’s trippy hippy dancing seems to “conduct” the group. Dig Steve Hillage’s “lewd guitar, Pierre Moerlen’s drums (the man was a god of rhythmic pounding, up there with Jaki Liebezeit), Tim Blake’s spacey VCS3 and synth-work,  the great Mike Howlett’s booming, tight, bass-lines and Didier Malherbe’s anarchic sax riffs. This is Gong at the height of their power and they absolutely crush it..
 

 
After the jump, “space whisperer” Gilli Smyth performs a mind-melting version of “Witch’s Song/I Am Your Pussy” from Flying Teapot.

Green Cure on WeedMaps, a local non-profit medical cannabis dispensary.
 
The RAND Corp. reviewed police crime statistics for ten days before and after city officials in Los Angeles closed several cannabis dispensaries last summer when a new local ordinance went into effect. RAND researchers examined the neighborhoods of 170 businesses that remained open and another 430 which were ordered to close. That’s a pretty big sample.

Well, well, well, what do you know?  Crime increased as much as 60% in areas within three blocks of a shuttered dispensary compared to three blocks around operating dispensaries. I’m sure this isn’t what the RAND Corp; expected to find. Los Angeles City councilman Ed Reyes called the report an “eye opener.” Via the Washington Post:

“If medical marijuana dispensaries are causing crime, then there should be a drop in crime when they close,” said Mireille Jacobson, a RAND senior economist and the study’s lead author. “Individual dispensaries may attract crime or create a neighborhood nuisance, but we found no evidence that medical marijuana dispensaries in general cause crime to rise.”

Crime was among the concerns that prompted the City Council to pass the ordinance that put strict guidelines on the pot clinics and forced many of them to close. Law enforcement authorities have long argued collectives attract crime because they often handle large amounts of cash and thieves can resell marijuana. Two workers at different dispensaries were killed during robberies in June 2010.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca went one step further last September when he said nearly all dispensaries operate as criminal enterprises, a claim that infuriated medical marijuana supporters who have said law enforcement officials have resorted to scare tactics to advance their agenda.

“They have perpetuated this myth that there is more crime associated with collectives,” said James Shaw of the Union of Medical Marijuana Patients, an advocacy group for medicinal marijuana users. “This council should be emboldened to revise the ordinance so it’s not so draconian to the patients and their associations.”

Damn right they should revise it! For readers outside of Los Angeles, to give you a feel for things here: at one point the city claimed there were up to 900 medical marijuana dispensaries. Whether that’s accurate or not, I can’t say, but there were and there still are a LOT of them. More than there are McDonald’s or Starbucks by a long-shot. As in several times more and then combine that total. From my apartment, I can walk (not drive) to a dozen or more of them. Each and every one of them is a law-abiding business as far as I can tell. Not one has even the whiff of being a “criminal enterprise.” Some of them operate just like, say, a nice wine store would. Since they provide more foot traffic in the areas they operate in—and usually have security guards—maybe this is the sole reason the seem to have a dampening effect on crime?

But who cares what the reason for lower crime is? I thought lower crime was supposed to be a good thing? What is the City Council doing closing down lawfully run businesses that provide MORE jobs than McDonald’s and Starbucks combined? These dispensaries pay taxes, too.  The Los Angeles City Council needs to mind its own business and leave these businesses alone.

Photo: U-Roy and his magic chillum, mid-70s.

“William Breathes” (a pseudonym) has the best job in Denver. He’s the pot critic for the alt weekly Denver Westword. You might say he’s the Jonathan Gold of weed…

From The Daily:

There are now more medical marijuana dispensaries in Denver than there are Starbucks. Glossy guidebooks list nearly 300 locations where Colorado’s 125,000 residents who have been prescribed medical marijuana can get their “medicine.” Many offer a free joint to new customers, allowing them to sample exotic strains like Jah Kush, Golden Goat and Romulan Cotton Candy.

Local smokers even have a professional critic to help them navigate the gauntlet of bongs, pipes and vaporizers, or make that essential choice between Super Silver Haze and Purple Passion.

The critic’s pen name is William Breathes; he keeps his real identity secret to ensure he gets the same treatment as any other patient.

His weekly weed purchase is paid for by the Denver Westword, the popular alternative weekly that hired Breathes after its editors realized they were serving one of the most stoned readerships in America.

“It’s a fun new writing area,” Westword editor Patricia Calhoun told The Daily, “and if your publication prides itself on doing strong cultural coverage of art, theater and food, then why not do pot, too?”

Here’s one of his reviews. I like his style:

The Platinum Purps had an orange-rind tartness to it, which would have gone great with the sticky-sweet smell of Tangerine Haze. There was also a solid Triple-D, very floral Flo, and some well done Trainwreck renamed Charlie Sheen, appropriately enough. Other more unique strains out of Scott’s coco mix garden, including Scott’s Blue, the Tange and the Face Wreck Haze, smelled so good I wanted to make a potpourri bowl out of them for my office.

Man, he’s got my dream job. I’ll tell you what, if the LA Weekly wanted to offer me a similar column,I’d write it for free!
 

 
Via Nerdcore

 
To toke or not to toke, or rather did he toke, that is the question. That’s right, you heard me, did the Bard smoke weed?

Not to get all “Lord Buckley” on you finger-poppin’ daddys, but is it possible that Willie the Shake was a “viper”? That’s what a controversial paleontologist wants to find out.

After some two dozen pipes were found buried in Shakespeare’s garden, many containing residues of smoked cannabis, a South Africa scientist named Francis Thackeray, with help from Professor Nikolaas van der Merwe of Harvard University, obtained fragments of these pipes via the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. They handed them over to South African Police forensic scientists for lab analysis. Low levels of marijuana residue was found in the pipes.

Cannabis was known to have been cultivated at the time in England and so it is certainly plausible that Shakespeare partook of the herb superb, but it would take looking at bone samples to say for sure. (Two of the pipes also tested positive for traces of cocaine, but this is a more difficult to swallow than the idea of the Bard smoking the “noted weed,” as cocaine first gets synthesized around the time of the Civil War).

Thackery says that his team could get into Shakespeare’s final resting place—he was buried under a church in Stratford-upon-Avon—unobtrusively, because a full exhumation of the body is not required and the remains would not have to be disturbed at all. Good thing, too, because Shakespeare was notoriously wary of anyone screwing around with his skeleton. A curse is engraved on his tomb that reads:

“Good frend for Jesus sake forebeare/ To digg the dust encloased heare/ Bleste be the man that spares thes stones/ And curst be he that moves my bones.”

 
A bipartisan measure to end federal criminalization of the personal use of marijuana was introduced today in Congress for the first time since 1937.

The ‘Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011’ was co-sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank and Texas Republican Ron Paul—- along with Reps. Cohen (D-TN), Conyers (D-MI), Polis (D-CO), and Lee (D-CA)—and would stop the Feds from prosecuting adults who use or possess marijuana. The law would remove THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, as well as the planet itself, from the “schedule” of the US Controlled Substance Act of 1970.

“The Marihuana Tax Act” was passed in 1937. Language in the new bill is similar to the language of the bill that repealed prohibition in 1933 and would nullify the conflicts between state laws—like here in California, where for all intents and purposes, pot is pretty much legal—and Federal drug laws.

It’s about time. They’ve been talking about legalizing cannabis since the Jimmy Carter administration. Enough already.