YOU CAN KEEP YOUR SHOES ON

Life was a lot simpler when I didn't listen to CSPAN. The US Border Patrol is justifying their budget as I write this. I'm beginning to remember why I stopped being a political activist. I used to attend the sessions at the Statehouse in Hartford when I lived there in the late 60s. Nothing has changed. The hypocrisy so infuriates me. As if they really care about what happens to the desperate aliens trying to get into this country. When I turned it on, a border guard was talking about how many drugs they intercept along with the aliens. Not one speaker has referred to these desperate souls as people - you know - as in human beings. They care about nothing but their funding inside the Beltway. This is the most people I seen in that chamber in a week. They only show up for the votes that were decided in the back rooms and on the lobbyist's tabs. It's no way to run a government.

No matter, that fight is too big for me, John Gilmore is on that job as Reason Magazine Online reports. I still haven't found a picture of the actual button involved in the BA brouhaha, but thanks John, for fighting against the small and ridiculous infringements of our civil liberties before they become too big to stop.

I can not afford such large statements. My act of rebellion today was to buy a pair of Harley Davidson slides to wear at work. Sidewalk sales. They were right outside the street door to my office at the tattoo place. That motorcycle has played a big part in my life in small ways and I have never owned any black leather with the symbol. These were surprisingly low heeled but they do have a little riveted tag that says HD. I bought the shoes in the end because they reminded me of my brother.

***************************

SMALL STEP FORWARD

On the anti-prohibition front, my favorite story of the day is about an insurance claim paid on stolen herb in a Hawaiian granny's garden (excerpt):

By Hunter Bishop/ Tribune-Herald


A Hilo grandmother whose medical marijuana plants were stolen received $2,000 from her insurance company for loss of four plants.

Tammy VanBuskirk, 57, who smokes marijuana to treat glaucoma, has a Hawaii state permit to grow a limited amount of marijuana at her Sunrise Ridge home, and to use it with a doctor's approval.

VanBuskirk said the plants were stolen from her yard on May 5.

"They jumped my fence and grabbed what they could," she said.


*********

SMALL STEP BACK

Meanhile, DEA Deputy Andrea Barthwell published an outrageous indictment of medicinal marijuana. I sent this letter to two newspapers today:

Please consider this letter for publishing:

Andrea Barthwell, deputy director at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, offers some hazy logic in justifying the continued federal prohibition of medical marijuana. She absurdly suggests that it has no medicinal value because it is an intoxicating substance and patients ingest the plant for relief of symptoms rather than for curative value.

These are terminal patients with incurable diseases. Morphine, a toxic chemical with numerous unpleasant side effects, is routinely administered to dying cancer patients, not as a cure but to relieve pain. One easily develops a tolerance to it that exceeds the toxicity level in a short time, rendering it useless in the long term.

She sneers at those who prefer natural remedies to pharmaceutical poisons and disparages herbal remedies as dangerous or substandard. She then admits that even our most commonly used legal drug, aspirin, was derived from the knowledge gained through the folk medicine of our ancestors. As Congressman Ron Paul, who is also a physician, pointed out at the recent amendment hearings, more people die every day from the use of legal drugs, than from illegal ones. There has never been one reported case of a marijuana overdose.

Ms. Barthwell, wake up. Marijuana has been used since the beginning of civilized society as a medicinal herb and the public is beginning to understand that sometimes the old ways are best.

***************

I'm going to say that again tonight and give myself the quote of the day.

Marijuana has been used since the beginning of civilized society as a medicinal herb and the public is beginning to understand that sometimes the old ways are best.