When Will The Weed Be Freed?

REEFER SADNESS

With the ongoing legalization of medical marijuana across the country, coupled with a continued effort to secure decriminalization, and even legalization, for recreational use in a handful of states, this year’s 4/20 celebration is widely anticipated to be the largest ever seen. Colorado and Washington successfully enacted laws to tax and regulate the burgeoning recreational application. Meanwhile Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia are enacting laws to make possession of small amounts legal. But the growing trend of recreational legalization by the states exists in a state of legal limbo, perched precariously between the issue of States’ Rights, and the US Constitution’s “Supremacy Clause.” The Supremacy clause states that federal law always takes precedence when state and federal statutes are in conflict, and this is exactly what states like Nebraska and Oklahoma are citing amid their attempts to quash Colorado’s growing recreational pot industry before the US Supreme Court.

The issue of whether individual states have the legal precedent to set their own drug policies as opposed to the apparent higher authority of federal restrictions becomes even more clouded in Washington DC, where voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative to allow the legal possession of up to two ounces within the city, and for residents to grow up to six plants in their homes. In an attempt to block the democratically approved measure, congress continues to work tirelessly to deny Americans their human right to alter their own consciousness and medicate responsibly. Attached within an unrelated Trillion-dollar federal appropriation bill, congress hastily attempted to prohibit the municipality of Washington DC from ever legalizing cannabis; the attached provision would not allow funding to be allocated from the budget to ‘enact’ the legalization referendum that voters passed. In fact, the future of DC’s pot legalization will be determined by the court’s interpretation of that very word: “enact.” However, since the DC pot legalization already took effect by the time this bill was passed, and since the legalization initiative did not set up any regulation or taxation programs, there is literally nothing to “enact.” Nevertheless, congressmen opposed to cannabis legalization are working hard to twist the loopholes within the legalese to retroactively squash the voice of the voters. But if anyone in DC government discuss the details of taxing or regulating the marijuana industry while they’re on the clock at work, they could actually face jail time since such discussions would technically violate the congressional marijuana order.

Adding fuel to the fire is an ongoing protest taking currently place around the clock in Washington DC, where a group of protesters have chained themselves to a 42-foot tall “liberty pole” on the capital mall. The protest, culminating at 4:20 PM on April 20th, was initiated at 4:20 AM on April 15th, tax day, explicitly to call attention to the fact that DC residents are being subjected to what they consider an instance of taxation without representation. That ancient rallying cry from the good old days of the American Revolution is such an important part of the Washington DC identity that the slogan “No Taxation Without Representation” actually appears on DC vehicle license plates. But the liberty pole protesters are eager to point out that despite their cooperation with federal taxes, they do not have voting representatives either in the House nor the Senate. Their heavy invocation of the 4/20 movement in their protest implies that congress’s attempts to snuff the DC pot law is an unfair and uninvited federal overreach into the lives of everyday citizens.

While Colorado and Washington state have introduced, taxed, and regulated cannabis for recreational purposes, Alaska and Oregon are the latest states to be found waiting in the wings. Both states are in the process of passing voter-referendums similar to that of Washington DC allowing citizens to possess and grow cannabis for personal use, but still forbidding its sale and public consumption.

Interestingly, since these laws explicitly allow donations of marijuana – not the sale of it – DC was host last month to the largest weed seed give-away in history. People lined up for blocks for a chance to receive free packets of their very own marijuana seeds given away at a local DC bar and restaurant. Since the sale or purchase of pot or seeds is still illegal in DC, it was the only chance most citizens had to obtain the seeds needed to start their own legal home-based gardens. Because of the immense turnout at the give-away, it is broadly believed that a great deal of the recipients were not actually DC residents, but had come from nearby Virginia and Maryland, where pot is still unequivocally illegal. As an unintended side-effect of congress’s attempted restrictions, DC police were legally forbidden from tracking or even monitoring the recipients of the free weed seed extravaganza in any way.

In a city where DEA and secret service agents are at the center of controversy for multiple drunk-driving and prostitution scandals, congress has unwittingly passed a law that provides a smoke-screen for a burgeoning gray-market of marijuana trade and barter in the greater DC area.


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BRINGING IT HOME

So now that we’re aware of the situation in Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia, we turn our attention inward. Where does Montana stand on legal cannabis reform? In Montana, possession a single joint can still land you in jail for six months; possession of two ounces can result in a sentence of up to five years. Montana voters, however, successfully pushed the legalization of medical marijuana in 2004. Despite our intrepid legislators meeting five times since 2004 to discuss this issue, they have continuously failed to enact a workable regulatory system. Then in 2011 the legislature attempted to such down all cannabis businesses with their “repeal in disguise,” alongside coordinated paramilitary raids on marijuana facilities in 13 cities across the state in March of the same year.

Cannabis persecution presents an easy answer for law enforcement officers seeking to make themselves look good to their superiors. Montana chalked up more than 1,500 arrests and citations for marijuana-related offenses in 2012, 95% of which were for possession. At the same time, our law enforcement agencies were unable to solve 91% of all burglaries, including home invasions. Also at the same time, our law enforcement agencies failed to solve more than 85% of all motor vehicle thefts.

Our law enforcement agencies could choose to focus on actual crimes – that is, cases that involve an injured party – but instead arrest thousands of adults for possession of a substance unanimously recognized as being safer than alcohol. They couldn’t close the books on most burglaries, but somehow endeavour to protect us from ourselves, denying our human right to alter our own consciousness – to imbibe a medicine as prolific as it is beautiful – a medicine that is older than human civilization.

Meanwhile, our marijuana DUI law remains in effect. According to the Marijuana Policy Project:

“Montana’s unscientific DUI law remains in effect, which makes it a crime for a driver to have five or more nanograms per milliliter of THC (ng/mL) in his or her bloodstream, whether or not the person is actually impaired. Without a doubt, people should not drive while impaired. However, medical marijuana patients may have that level of THC in their blood long after any impairment has worn off. This law is bad for medical marijuana patients because it does not reflect on their ability to drive safely.”

Why is this collective cultural psychosis allowed to continue? Why do we tell ourselves there’s nothing we can do about this aside from electing the right representative? Why do most Americans continue following stupid orders and unjust laws in the lunacy of the modern American police state? How does America conserve her whimsical assumption that it’s not a drug if it was prescribed by a doctor? How have we allowed the madness of the Nixon administration to reverberate into the present moment? Why do we fear what will happen if our children – God forbid – experience beautiful adventures in consciousness, or live their own lives responsibly? Why must we feel so obligated to protect our children from exhilaration? Why must we protect our children from euphoria? -from growing up? -from being capable of living their lives when they grow up? How does the crazy myth of the gateway theory continue perpetuate? Why do we forever maintain the folly that misery and suffering are not only normal, but desirable? Why must we continue to demonize anything that feels good, embracing all that makes us feel miserable? Why must we prevent our neighbours from benefiting from a world that expresses love and empathy instead of fear and malice? Why does America preserve the mentality that euphoria is, in fact, a negative side effect? How is what you do with your mind any of my business? How is what I do with my mind any of your business? Why do we prolong invasive probation and parole racketeering schemes for the sake of state profits? How can law enforcement possibly justify throwing innocent souls into corrals in the name of protecting communities that they, the enforcers, are completely disconnected from? Why have we begun to label drug offenders as terrorists? Why does it seem that many politicians simply won’t rest until all of our sons and daughters thoroughly understand the hammer blows of totalitarianism? Why can’t so many citizens acknowledge that breaking stupid laws is why we revere revolutionaries of yesteryear? Why do we collectively exalt those who enforce these stupid laws as benevolent heroes? Why is America building up her police forces into domestic para-military Gestapo armies? What does a police force need a tank for? Why must the accused prove their innocence without any assets to pay for their defense in rigged court rooms? Why does the government commemorate itself as the victim in these victim-less cases that bear no injured party whatsoever? And above all else, why does America seem so hell-bent on preventing the common people from thinking, pondering, or ever even questioning this insanity that we have codified as the established tradition of the ‘sane society?’
PrisonDrugProfitsWe know these policies are absurd. We know these laws are ridiculous. The police know it too. So why is it allowed to continue? Because every year thousands of medical doctors alongside members of the Anti-Smoking Inquisition spend billions of dollars perpetuating what has unquestionably become the most misleading though successful social engineering scam in history. With the encouragement of most western governments, corporate lobbyists pursue smokers with a fanatical zeal that completely overshadows America’s ridiculous alcohol prohibition. 
And much of the mainstream media toes that corporate line, spewing fear-mongering and sensationalism. Not long ago our media was boldly claiming that cannabis use permanently lowered IQ, a finding that marijuana prohibitionists and anti-drug bureaucrats were happy to repeat ad nauseam.

Because drug offenders become labourers in our prisons. Because marijuana reform threatens the monolith of the pharmaceutical industry. Because cannabis legalization threatens the job security of police unions. Because the drug war justifies the inhuman violence that takes place each day in this country. Because the drug war provides the perfect opportunity to rationalize state-sponsored terror.

NoDrug


GET REAL

As larger and larger waves of Americans awaken from the lies of the D.A.R.E. program, Nancy Regan’s “just say no” campaign, and vociferous slough of absurdest public service announcements intended to justify the continued persecution of individuals who imbibe cannabis, an increasing number of public figures are beginning to realize they’re getting left behind.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the mainstream media’s go-to medical correspondent, was himself ardently opposed to marijuana use until he actually got around to researching it and then changed his tune dramatically, hosting three hour-long documentaries and calling for a “weed revolution.” It’s unclear whether his 180 is a result of actually conducting the research, or if he simply realized that if he didn’t admit to what the rest of the country already knows, no one would take him seriously ever again.

But it is nevertheless profound what happens when we base our decisions on facts and information as apportioned from research, instead of blindly acquiescing to scare tactics, propaganda and lies. Such endeavours seem to have a tendency of leading us toward the truth.

CannablissThis post was composed by Outer Limits gumshoe Myron Gagarin and producer Gabrielle Lafayette
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Altering Your Consciousness Is A Human Right

War_on_medical_marijuana_by_Latuff2

How Can You Have a Crime Without a Victim?

Every year, countless doctors in addition to other members of the “Anti-Smoking Inquisition” spend billions perpetuating what has unquestionably become the most misleading and simultaneously successful social engineering scam in recorded Human history. As Orwellian dominators encourage Governments to egg on Nixon’s drug war indefinitely, Corporate lobbyists pursue non-violent users of marijuana (and other s0-called “illegal” medicines) with the fanatical zeal that somehow completely overshadows the ridiculous American alcohol prohibition debacle.

According to Paul Armentano of Alternet:

“The mainstream media launched into a reefer mad frenzy this week after researchers from Harvard University in Boston and Northwestern University in Chicago published the results of a neuroimaging study assessing the brains of a small cohort of regular marijuana smokers and non-users. The brain scans identified various differences between the two groups in three aspects of brain morphometry: gray matter density, volume, and shape. These differences triggered dozens of high-profile media outlets to lose their collective minds.  The sharks quickly gathered around to toe the establishment narrative. CNN reported: Casual marijuana use may damage your brain; Science Daily reported, More joints equal more damage; Financial Post reported Study proves occasional marijuana use is mind altering; Time magazine reported Recreational pot use harmful to young people’s brains. Another headline reads: Smoking cannabis will change you That’s not a risk, its a certainty.

“Just imagine how the media would have responded if the study in question had included more than 20 actual cases — or if the authors had actually bothered to assess its subjects for demonstrable deficits in cognitive performance. Yes, that’s right. Despite the sky-is-falling rhetoric and the shock claims of permanent brain damage, a careful review of the study and its findings reveals little, if any, cause for alarm.

So what did the study actually find? In truth, not a whole lot. 

Using high–resolution MRI imaging, scientists identified specific changes in particular regions of the brain that they inferred were likely due to marijuana exposure. Since researchers only performed a single MRI session, they could not say definitively whether these changes were, in fact, caused by cannabis or whether they existed prior to subjects’ use of the plant. Notably, however, these changes did not appear to be associated with any adverse effects in subjects’ actual cognition or behavior. Separate studies assessing youth use of legal intoxicants, such as nicotine and alcohol,have also been associated with documented changes in brain structure. Ditto for caffeine intake in preclinical models.”

can-we-just-get-a-bong

These findings have received far less media attention than the fear mongering that we see even in Saturday’s issue of the Missoulian.

Charles Johnson reports:

“A Billings businessman has proposed an initiative for the November 2014 ballot that effectively would ban the possession, use, cultivation, trafficking and transportation of marijuana in Montana. Steve Zabawa submitted the measure this week to Secretary of State Linda McCulloch’s office. If approved, it would change state law to say that any drug listed on Schedule I of the Federal Controlled Substances Act “may not be legally possessed, received, transferred, manufactured, cultivated, trafficked, transported, or used in Montana… The initiative would eliminate the current disparity between Federal Law and State Law with respect to the legal status of the possession and use of marijuana,” the proposed ballot measure said.”

VelociCannabis

In 2004 Montanans unanimously stood up as one consciousness and demanded legalization, but State officials continue to piss right in our faces. And somehow, marijuana is still to this very day, insanely listed as a Schedule I Controlled Substance; that is an illegal substance with ‘no known medical benefit.’ The Scheduling of substances is nothing more than an outright lie to perpetuate Big Pharma’s monopoly on the drug trade, and their stranglehold on real medicine.

Armentano Continues:

“Both the cases (20 marijuana users) and controls (20 nonusers) in the study were recruited from local universities, undermining the notion that the alleged ‘brain damaged potheads’ were any more academically challenged than their non-using peers. Further, as summarized by HealthDay:

“Psychiatric interviews revealed that the pot smokers did not meet criteria for drug dependence. For example, marijuana use did not interfere with their studies, work or other activities, and they had not needed to increase the amount they used to get the same high.”
 
In other words, case subjects and controls appeared to function similarly in their professional and academic endeavors. 
 
A separate review of nearly a dozen studies (involving a total of 623 cannabis users and 409 non- or minimal users) published in the Journal of the International Psychological Society similarly reported, “The results of our meta-analytic study failed to reveal a substantial, systematic effect of long-term, regular cannabis consumption on the neurocognitive functioning of users who were not acutely intoxicated.”
 
Moreover, other studies, though admittedly comprised of small sample sizes, have indicated that in some instances cannabis may actually protect the brain, particularly against the potentially damaging effects of alcohol.

“Such fear-mongering and sensationalism by the mainstream media in regards to the supposed harms of pot upon the brain are nothing new. It wasn’t long ago that the mainstream media was boldly claiming that cannabis use permanently lowered IQ, a finding that marijuana prohibitionists and anti-drug bureaucrats were happy to repeat ad-nauseam.”

cagedjoint

This latest round of mainstream propaganda exemplifies the modern religious dogmatism of the scientific study. Like a fancy statistically based bible, if a scientific study said it, then it must be true, but who funds these studies controls the statistics, and if you know how to read statistics, you’ll inevitably find flaws. Due in part for of this latest round of Harvard-backed disinformation, I’m lead to never take another so-called scientific study as fact ever again. I know what’s true and I know what’s real, and so does every other thinking, feeling human being on the planet. This Harvard study and the mainstream media fall out also reaffirms that the masters of the prison-industrial complex will sustain their blatant campaign of lies to protect their sacred profit margins at all cost. That’s all this is. Prisons employ slave labor, which few industries can compete with. This isn’t about marijuana. It isn’t about drugs. It isn’t about people who use drugs. It’s about throwing people into penitentiaries for the sake of making money off of their backs. The prison industry is the fastest growing industry in America, and if we allow this continue, it will soon become the only industry America has.

PrisonDrugProfits

It cannot be emphasized enough how important this is. This is one of the most fundamentally important issues for our society This is the crux for our generation; this the most important dialogue we can engage in for the opening chapter in the Age of Aquarius. Hear me now. This drug war has to stop, and it has to stop NOW. Not tomorrow, not after dinner, NOW. It must stop. This isn’t a whimsical pipe dream. We can have peace on this Earth, and the light workers know this to be possible, but the revolution must start in the mind and in the heart. It’s not impossible to put an end to this war, and make no mistake: this IS war. Its a war that is waged every day on American streets, in American cities, in American homes, on Americans in America. We’ve waged so much war the world over, that now we’re waging war on each other. Our society has become so insanely consumed by collective hatred that all we can imagine is violence. We have not frame of reference to understand peace because we’ve never had peace.

Every aspect of our mind environment is saturated by violence, from television shows to films and video games, and that informs our view of the world. And the drug war justifies the inhuman violence that takes place each day in this country. More than half of the people we’ve locked up are in prison for the victimless act of possessing substances demonized by the state. For those of us who joined the military with a death wish and the desire to inflict harm upon others, the drug war provides the perfect opportunity for us to rationalize state-sponsored terror. Every aspect of our culture is rooted in waging war, and we’ve been at war for so long that we can’t imagine anything else. We have no frame of reference to even imagine peace because we’ve never known the meaning of the word. And this drug war is the corrosive carcinogen eating away at little is left of our society from the inside out. We have criminalized the behavior of free Human Beings to throw them in cages and throw AWAY the keys. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? People don’t deserve to have their lives taken away, their relatives incarcerated, or their possessions confiscated. Why are we doing this? Why?

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Because we’ve got to continue our collective cultural psychosis, don’t we? We’ve got to continue telling ourselves there is nothing we can do about these problems. We’ve got to continue to worry about worrying about number one. We’ve got to continue asking the question; how am I going to get mine?

We’ve got to keep following stupid orders and unjust laws in the lunacy of the modern American police state. We’ve got to continue prescribing SSRI antidepressants to maintain big pharma’s ever increasing record profits. We must conserve our society’s whimsical assumption that we can pop a pill and make our problems flutter away, unless the state has deemed the substance illegal. We’ve got to perpetuate the madness of this drug war initiated by the Nixon Administration. We must carry on the lie that Tylenol, Ibuprofen, coffee, soda, tea, chocolate, cigarettes and pharmaceuticals are not drugs at all. We must pound into people’s heads that drugs are bad, mmKAY? We’ve got to continue outlawing anyone from ever changing their own individual perception, because people obviously can’t be trusted to think, now can they? We the people must continue consuming this line of spoon-fed idiocy by the establishment’s corporate controlled media outlets without a shred of discernment or critical thinking on our own behalf. We’ve got to continue repeating the same ridiculous pre-pacakged responses to fact-based arguments.  We’ve got to continue fearing what will happen if our children – God forbid – experience beautiful adventures in consciousness. We must protect our children from exhilaration. We must prolong the crazy myth of the gateway theory.  We must forever deprive humanity of euphoria, and instead maintain the folly that misery and suffering are not only normal, but to be desired. We must sustain the demonization of anything that feels good, and embrace situations which makes us miserable, don’t we? We must prevent at all cost, the people from benefiting the world around them by exerting love and pleasure into their surrounding atmosphere.  We must completely eliminate the human emotions of empathy. We must preserve the mentality that euphoria is a negative side effect, and someday we can accomplish our dream of outlawing all euphoria-based activities including sex, for the good of the State. We’ve got to continue shoving our noses where they don’t belong.  We must prolong invasive probation and parole racketeering for the sake of state profits. The law enforcement community must continue to throw innocent souls into corrals in the name of protecting communities that they are completely disconnected from.

Indeed, we must continue to label drug offenders as terrorists. We have to continue to justify throwing non-violent people into cages. We cannot rest until every one of our sons and daughters thoroughly understand the hammer blows of draconian enforcement.  We must carry on the ontological guilt of breaking stupid laws, and label the good people who violate these stupid laws not only as worthless criminals, but as the scum of the Earth. We must keep exalting those who enforce these stupid laws as benevolent heroes. We must continue to accrue enemies, and build up our police forces into domestic para-military Gestapo armies. We must exalt intelligence agencies like the CIA and the NSA as God incarnate. We must immortalize the American Gulag Archipelago to statures the former Soviet Union could only dream about. We must continue seizing the assets of those who dare to step outside of the line. We must punish the poor for not having money. We must eternalize the guilty plea, with perhaps no opportunity for the accused to prove their innocence without any assets to pay for their defense in rigged court rooms. We must extend the mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines which tie judges hands and force the innocent into labor camps despite the circumstances of any one individual case. We must commemorate the government as the victim in these victimless crimes which bear no injured party whatsoever. We must institutionalize slavery as an accepted norm of western colonial culture. And above all else, we must prevent the people from thinking, pondering, or ever even questioning this insanity that we have codified as the established tradition of the “sane society.”

legalize

Shame on those who advocate this point of view, and Damn those who enforce it. War is not the answer, and for those who got it wrong on purpose, good luck digesting that Karma later on.  I suppose it depends what side of history you want to be on. None of us are getting out of this alive, so the question is: How do you want to be remembered? As an  ignorant and perhaps even intentionally evil coward, or a Human Being. When injustice becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

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Gabrielle Lafayette is a journalist, writer, and executive producer for the Outer Limits Radio Show.
Check out the more frequently updated tumblr page at outerlimitsradioshow.tumblr.com
Contact the research team at outerlimitsradioshow@fastmail.fm