San Antonio “tactical unit” using routine traffic stops in high-crime areas as an impetus for drugs and weapons searches. Probably won’t surprise you to learn that (a) there have been complaints, (b) they’re much more likely to use force against brown-skinned people than white-skinned people. But hey, they’ve seized more than $1 million!
Yer’ typical alarmist article about all the money flowing into the presidential election. My typical response: So long as the office of president grows increasingly powerful and influential, people will be willing to pay more and more money to (a) make sure their candidate wins, or (b) make sure whoever wins knows who they are.
Anyone else wanna’ call bullshit on this article?
The latest from Chesapeake. I’m not sure this tells us much of anything right now. But note it. Might become relevant later. It’s also interesting (and encouraging) just how skeptical the comments threads at the V-P site have become of the police department’s story.
World’s oldest audio recording.
Oliver Stone, call your agent! Forensics experts say someone other than Sirhan Sirhan killed Bobby Kennedy.
California tax collectors are stuck between collecting taxes on medical marijuana sales and the DEA’s continuing crackdown on the drug.
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on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 1:58 pm by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
Regarding the Daily Mail article on skunk, I tend to see articles like that as an argument in support of the drug war.
I fundamentally disagree that the risk someone subjects themselves to by engaging in a particular activity should have any bearing on whether that activity should be outlawed. So any story that uses the devastating nature of a popular drug does little to move me to favor drugs laws.
I also question that the objectivity of the report as well as the idea that the effects of a drug on one person can be translated into a statement about its effects in the population in general.
I attempted the same ‘experiment’ in college, not for a BBC documentary mind you, for private research. My results were shockingly different. I found the cannabis helped relieve my anxiety and focus my attention, coding in C++ seemed MUCH more interesting, and I was less likely to get distracted. I found I was able to go out in public without getting sick (fun with social anxiety disorder) and helped with dating, employment, etc.
Let’s see how Mrs. Taylor performs with a cup of hard liquor every day for a month. I’m sure there would be detrimental effects to her daily tasks doing that as when compared to smoking cannibus.
Or is she saying that cannibus can be bad for you? Err… Duh?
“…and is believed to be behind a string of violent murders.”
reefer madness anyone?
It’s also believed that those involved in the string of violent murders smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol.
Where the hell is Morgan Spurlock when you need him?
Well, she does sound like on of the lucky ones to one have to take 2-3 puffs a day, we should all be so lucky.
That said, unless you’re a total pothead, who is smoking mass quanties every day? I smoke 2-4 times a week, usually on the weekend and my tolerance is very low(a blessing) so I don’t need much. (duh, self control). I suggest the paranoia and other adverse she is suffering are self induced. If you are having a bad day, it might now go well, if you are feeling giddy, you’ll bounce off the walls. So, weed isn’t for her, bummer. Maybe a glass or two of wine 2-4 times a week will work out for her better. To each their own.
I could name half a dozen very successful, very bright people who have performed this marijuana experiment dozens of time, often consecutively, for years.
There are people who should not use this stuff because they simply are not psychically built for it. Anyone who knows the world at all will also realize that this is also true of alcohol.
One obvious problem with prohibition is that it leaves no room for people who know what they’re doing.
Is it just me or did the RFK “experts” sound like the scientifically ignorant conspiracy theory nuts?
Concerning the article that is most definitely bullshit:
Why don’t we just have someone who hasn’t drank in 20 years drink a 5th of Jack Daniels every day and use that as an argument against moderate social drinking? Of course, since marijuana is currently demonized by the public, most people won’t make that connection. What a shame.
Well, the effect of pot she describes are the same it has on me, hence why I stopped smoking it.
However, I have about 10 friends who smoke daily, and function better than most people. Hence, the dangers of extrapolating one specific case and applying it to a whole population.
Seems like the Daily Mail need sto take a few lessons about cause and effect.
Well I’d call bullshit on it purely because it’s from the Daily Mail, but I’ve seen enough pot smokers (especially inexperienced ones, but not only) come over with extreme paranoid reactions to pot. If one was in a state of high anxiety about smoking in the first place (as the person obviously was) it would most likely redouble that reaction. I don’t see anything that unusual about that particular reaction at all.
That said, it’s an atypical reaction. But people have atypical reactions to all sorts of drugs, foods or other substances…
As for the other claims, any sensible person would have realized on the first day that they were smoking too much, and cut down. Any psychosis that was resulting would almost certainly have resulted from her subjecting herself to this bizarre experiment, rather than from the consumption of cannabis itself. In fact, I’d venture to suggest that someone who would subject themselves to this kind of “experiment” with their mental and physical health and persist with it, sounds at least on the border of psychosis already.
Off-topic, but I found via Fark this rant from a Texas prosecutor on The Wire creator’s op-ed on jury nullification.
I think the woman had more problems than smoking pot. Everyone I’ve ever known who smoked it (and I’ve been around a LOT of potheads in 40 years) usually just sat around giggling, contemplating their navels, and chowing down a lot of junk food. I wouldn’t call her reactions typical at all.
This is the part of the skunk article that I thought was kind of significant:
“Controversially, she also allowed herself to be injected with pure THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient in cannabis”
So…how many pot smokers also decide to inject pure THC? I’ve never tried weed myself (too scared of the DEA…I’ve seen what they do to people via Radley’s work) but injecting pure THC seems a little bit…extreme.
I know people who are allergic to certain foods, and if they eat those foods all kinds of really horrible things can happen to them (and in certain cases, it can even kill them). Does this mean that the general public shouldn’t eat these items? We all know the answer.
I agree with most of you…the article was bullshit.
If pot is supposed a strongly addictive gateway drug, why was she able to quit after a solid month? Shouldn’t she be filming a 30-day documentary on heroin by now?
I noticed on the pot article that she didn’t seem to have any psychological testing when she wasn’t high (probably because it wouldn’t have shown an elevated level of psychosis).
Plus, I bought pot and smoked it at a resort in Jamaica (where the guards pointed me to a dealer and looked the other way during the transaction) and the paranoid feeling I always had in the States never happened. Using one person’s experience to extrapolate to the general, I believe the paranoia comes solely from prohibition – making it legal would remove the paranoia (but I went to college, so I know that’s not true).
So…how many pot smokers also decide to inject pure THC? I’ve never tried weed myself (too scared of the DEA…I’ve seen what they do to people via Radley’s work) but injecting pure THC seems a little bit…extreme.
Pure THC is very difficult to get your hands on. As I understand it, for THC to do it’s job, it must be heated to ~300*f anyway. Injecting ‘hash oil’ (the essential oil from pot plants) would be terrible for your body, I would have to think. You might as well inject 3-in-1 oil.
The beauty of pot is it’s not physically addictive, so even if you develop reactions long after you start using regularly, you can stop. I can think of three people off the top of my head who decided, after a decade plus of daily use, that they didn’t like the slight paranoia that it gave them (or they developed worse paranoia from it) and they stopped. Cold turkey. No methadone, no rehab, just “No thanks, man, I’m all set on that.”
Back in the ’70s I ran a blue collar bar. I knew that I had a lot of pothead customers and didn’t mind a bit. They didn’t spend as much money as the drunks but I much preferred their business. They were generally more polite, friendly and except for making sure they didn’t smoke on the premises were no trouble. Whenever there was trouble it was always the heavy drinkers that didn’t smoke involved. I’ll take the potheads over the drunks any day.
Nicky Taylor actually did do the same with drinking, in a similarly ridiculous way: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=372102&in_page_id=1770
JSB & Ben, i think when they are talking about injecting ‘pure THC’ they are probably talking about the synthetic THC equivalent called dronabinol (marinol). They aren’t talking about injecting hash oil.
It seems clear that the Marinol injections (the “pure THC” referenced blind in the article) were what put her over the top. It is VERY hard to titrate Marinol dosage, and if you’re smoking high-grade bud on top of it, that’s a sure formula for “The Fear.”