Steve Cohen is My New Favorite Congressmanh

Seen first on Radley Balko's The Agitator blog.



I sent a thank you message to Steve Cohen, you can do the same here. Please do this, if politicians begin to see a ton of positive responses to anything they do opposing the drug war, it'll be over a lot sooner.

Don't Stop Believing,
Reggie

The 24 Types of Pot Smokers

Finally, something funny instead of pro-legalization.

COED Magazine has just come out with a pretty funny article on 24 types of pot smokers. I found most of the descriptions, allowing for journalistic hyperbole, to be pretty accurate. My favorites were:


The ADHD Kid
Signature smoking method: Steamroller
He stopped taking his Ritalin a long time ago because it made him feel dead inside. But then he was a total spaz. So to keep himself from jumping around like a psychotic banshee, he started smoking weed. After a few hits, the smoke calms him down to a level of energy just above the average person. Which is good, because if it didn’t, he’d have no friends.

The Gen-X Parents
Signature smoking method: Brownies
Deep down, these people are cynical and pissed off. In their spare time, they do yoga and attend wellness seminars and have the worst children on the planet – I mean real sh!theads. They work at ad agencies and have time shares and generally suck to hang out with. But you know what the perfect cure for all that is, don’t you? Yep, it’s weed. High five!

Ghetto kid
Signature smoking method: Dutchie, peach/grape blunt
No matter the The Ghetto Kid’s race or where he’s from, when he gets high, nine times out of ten, he’ll throw on a beat and start freestyling for hours, until it’s so boring you can’t even have fun smoking pot anymore. And when he’s not doing that, he complains about anything that’s pissed him off within the previous 36 hours, then shrugs it off like it’s nothing. And after all that, he’s still one of the best people to smoke with, ever.

The Druggie
Signature smoking method: Anything that works
The first way to know that weed is not a real drug is by seeing someone who’s taken real drugs after a real binger. And since coming down off of drugs like heroin, meth, etc is about as fun as trying to screw a pillow case filled with broken beer bottles, the only good thing to stave off the nausea, headaches and all-around suckitude, is a few quick hits and a room without light. Now, when has anyone ever had to do that with weed?…

Check out the article for the rest. I'd like to think I'm a mix of the connoisseur, the professional, and the true stoner (there was no activist one, but to be perfectly honest, most of the activists I've met are more often 'true stoners' and rarely eloquent writers and orators, which I, of course, am.)

Stay High,
Reggie

Radley Balko Is Fucking Awesome

I've made it no secret that my favorite source of information and opinion for the War on Drugs is Radley Balko, who writes The Agitator blog. His latest post (Talking about a Cato Institute study on Portugal's Decriminalization which is on it's own an amazing read) contained three paragraphs that mirror my ideas and are written so much better than anything I could spew out, that I had to to share them.

"Generally speaking, anyone who claims to know for certain what would happen if America were to legalize drugs tomorrow is spewing nonsense. We’ve had some form of prohibition in this country for 100 years. No one knows exactly what will happen.

"That’s why I favor a federalist approach. There are sound Ninth Amendment arguments for finding an actual constitutional right to control what you put into your body. That’s never going to happen. And even if it did, I’d be afraid the change would be too sudden and drastic for much of the country. Instead, just end the drug war at the federal level. A federalist approach would let states and, preferably, localities formulate their own policies. You’d have little Amsterdams, Portugals, and Switzerlands, and you’d also have little Utahs, Louisianas, and Georgias. You’d probably have some cities that completely legalize. And you’d have places, probably entire states, that don’t change a thing.

"We’d then have lots of models to look at and analyze. And people for whom this is an important issue could then vote with their feet, and move to jurisdictions with drug laws that reflect their own values."

Stay High,
Reggie

21 Lives Potentially Ruined in Yearlong Investigation at University of Illinois

From The Chicago Tribune:

Twenty-one University of Illinois students, including some from the Chicago suburbs, were arrested this week in connection with a yearlong investigation into drug dealing on campus.

Students were arrested Wednesday and Thursday in two dorms, at three fraternities, a sorority and at several off-campus houses and apartments in Urbana and Champaign. Four non-students also were arrested by U. of I. police on drug-related charges. Those arrested were not all working together, said university police Lt. Roy Acree.

"I would hope it would send a message to students that if you are selling drugs, there is a good chance you're going to get caught," Acree said. He said officers had investigated campus drug dealing, through undercover purchases and other methods, since the fall semester.

Police seized 180 grams of marijuana, traces of cocaine, anti-anxiety pills, $3,100, two vehicles, three flat-screen televisions and two laptop computers, Acree said.

Most of the arrests were on suspicion of manufacturing and delivering marijuana, Acree said. The students could face disciplinary action, including possible expulsion from the university, said U. of I. spokeswoman Robin Kaler.

180 grams of marijuana... That's about 6 ounces... That is what a dozen decent pot smokers could put away in a week. That's about the amount of marijuana that got onto the cover page of the 4/20 Tufts Observer.

Note: This is the full version of the image on page 3, I don't have the cover on my computer.


I think cops are just trying to justify their existence. This lengthy investigation (I wonder how much that cost the school?) benefits nobody. Trust of police and administration will go significantly down amongst the pot smoking students (which is probably between a third and half of them). With this bust, new dealers will swoop in next year to fill the demand as always happens, making them criminals and potentially giving them the means to become addicts.

I hope most of these kids can get off without a criminal record. I also hope all the students who are friends with these kids, or bought weed off of them, or are just offended that the university spent a year investigating this NEVER give money to the school because that's where the schools feel it.

Anyways, I got my finals to work on. Hopefully I can get through it without dealing with bullshit like this.

Much Love,
Reggie