NOT YOUR DAD'S BUG

Ran into Andy last evening in his brand new VW Touareg. He took me for a ride around the block. This is one fancy set of wheels. Porsche engine, tiptronic transmission (it's just as cool as it sounds), a refrigerated glove compartment, some kind of memory function in the gas pedal and enough lights and settings to make you feel like you were flying an commercial airliner. The heated seats with personalized lumbar support were particularly nice. I hated to get out. It was a cold night.

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SHOW TIME

Two exciting games in the Fenway for the home team this week. Tonight will be the big one. I'm feeling pretty good at this point. For one thing, I think my Red Sox theory is finally taking hold. As the fans stop believing in the curse, it loses it's power. For another, we now have the ultimate good luck charm currently presiding over the City crowd. Little Buddy Big League, the creepiest Doll in the World, seems to be working his mojo so far. Buddy jiggles his hips, turns his head and looks at you with these incredibly disturbing eyes and sings. He is very creepy but I have to admit, he has a really cute little plastic butt.

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VOICE VOTE

Drug Policy Alliance reports from inside the Beltway on the results of the H 2086, the drug czar's failed programs funding bill. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-35th/CA), was the only member of the House courageous enough to oppose the Act on the floor. She said the war on drugs “is a joke” and she stood “in strong opposition both to the process that has brought this bill to the floor under suspension of the rules and to the substance of the underlying bill.” You rock Maxine. Thanks for showing the rest of the apparently spineless Congress-creatures how's it done.

The vote of course passed, however it was not a total loss. DP Alliance did a magnificent job of moblizing the voting public on this and managed to wrest one small but important victory.

The votes were not recorded so we can’t tell you how your Representative voted on HR 2086, but we do know that House Democrats helped us win a victory by pressuring Republicans to overturn a ban on using High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) funding for drug prevention – rather than law enforcement. The Drug Policy Alliance has pushed for this change because it is the first step to shifting millions of dollars from away from arresting non-violent drug offenders and into prevention.

I happened to catch part of the debate on CSPAN. Chances are your representatives weren't on the floor. There weren't more than a dozen people in the room. Write to your legislators and tell them you're disappointed they were not there demanding a roll call vote. There should have been much more public debate on this issue. You can find out who your Congressperson is here at the DP Alliance Action Center

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DRUG THUG

Speaking of our beloved drug czar, Drug Sense Weekly is running this challenge to John Walters. Robert Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, asks Is the Drug Czar Afraid to Debate?

He opens with: I was pleased to hear that in your Sept. 10 news conference in Seattle, you said, "The real issue is, should we legalize marijuana? Let's have a national debate about that."

You were absolutely correct when you told your Seattle audience that marijuana policy has never been properly and thoroughly debated in this country. It's time to have that debate, so I am pleased to accept your invitation.

Rob also offers up some telling statistics on the abject failure of the Aga John's pet programs:

It is time for the drug czar to explain why he wants to continue present policies when all signs point to their utter failure. Consider the results from the just-released national PRIDE Survey of U.S. teenagers, one of two surveys designated by Congress as official measures of the drug czar's success. Walters carpet-bombed the airwaves with scary commercials telling teens that if they light up a joint they're likely to commit date rape and shoot their friends, and what happened?

a.. The proportion of eighth graders using marijuana in the past month ( "current use" in research parlance ) rocketed from 7.2 percent to 10.2 percent - a 43 percent increase.

b.. Among sixth graders, current marijuana use doubled, from 1.7 percent to 3.4 percent.

c.. Current use of cocaine rose among all age groups over the last year, nearly doubling among sixth and ninth graders.

d.. Current heroin use among junior high students increased 60 percent. No sane person can look at these numbers without being alarmed. All of us owe the public an informed, fact-based debate on whether our country should be considering alternatives to marijuana prohibition. The lives of our nation's young people are at stake.

Does this sound like a policy that is working? As Rob says, We are ready, Mr. Walters. Are you?

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MILESTONES

Finally for you history buffs out there, LSD was made illegal 27 years ago today. Erowid, who hosts a great compendium of information on the substance on their site also passed along a link to Dale Gowin's tragic tale of being set-up by the feds. Dale's annontated article also offers an excellent synopsis of how the drug market has been co-opted by the same government that now cages him like some dangerous animal while truly dangerous criminals are released because our prisons are bursting with non-violent consumers incarcerated under mandatory minimum sentences. There's something desperately wrong with a system that issues longer sentences to citizen's trying to expand their consiousness than to does to those who rape women and molest our children.

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TIMOTHY LEARY'S DEAD

In honor of the occassion, last word goes to Leary, probably the most famous LSD consumer on the planet, who was still seeking the outside edge of the mind right up to his last breath:

Even as he is dying though, he is still Timothy Leary, and he still has something to say.

Around 6:30 in the evening he wakes, blinks, wincing momentarily in pain. He looks around him, seeing familiar people, including his Stepson Zachary Leary, and his former wife Rosemary, who once helped him to escape from a California state prison and flee the United States. He winks at Rosemary, then looks around him and says, "Why?" He smiles, tilts his head, then says, "Why not?"

Rest in Peace Tim.

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SAY IT AGAIN SAM

"Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty."
-- Samuel Adams (1722-1893), American revolutionary

I was glad to get a call from John Leonard, another friend from the Merida conference. He's back in Beantown and lending an hand at Mass Cann. It appears your favorite drug czar and mine is slipping into town with his hound and nag show to try to subvert H.2965 in the Mass legistature.

There will be a demonstration at the Sam Adams statue in front of Fanuiel Hall on Wednesday. Hope to see some of you there. If you can't make it, then please contact your reps and tell them to support H.2965. While you're at it, you might as well contact your Congressfolks about state's rights to make these decisions. Thanks.

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ROLLING DOWN A RIVER

There's a lot going on in the Happy Valley these days. I was sorry to miss Dr. Ethan Russo's lecture at UMASS last week. I'm glad the university hosted him however. He's published some compelling evidence in validation of the medicinal use of cannabis.

I like the energy I'm feeling on campus there these days. There seems to be a resurgence of political activism. I met Aaron and Deepak last week, the student organizers at the ACLU event. If they are any indication of the level of involvement today's students are willing to undertake, I think there's hope for this planet yet. I have a feeling I may be crossing over the Coolidge Bridge again soon.

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Photo courtesy Berkshire Eagle
MOVING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

Sad news from the Berkshires today. Thomas Overbaugh, owner of Taconic Valley Trucking in Pittsfield and alleged kingpin of a drug organization, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute and the distribution of marijuana, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering.

His long term partner also pled to criminal charges. This investigation, targeting suppliers of only marijuana. has been ongoing for many years and involved wire taps and 24 hour video surveillance. The feds have been involved since 2001. A lot of people went down on this one.

The local State Police Lt. Joseph McDyer, who began investigating Overbaugh in the early 1990s, tries to justify this colossal expenditure of your tax dollars by portraying these unfortunate people as school yard purveyors of hard drugs. Absurd. Western Mass is rife with middle aged, otherwise respectable cannabis consumers who do not do other drugs.

One cannot fail to notice that the state police now end up with millions of dollars worth of a US citizen's hard earned assets and dozens of productive lives have been ruined in the process, because 60 years ago, the government decided to make a common plant illegal. Marijuana smokers contribute to the community in many ways. It violates every premise of a civilized society to incarcerate a human being for possessing or even distributing what the universe gave to humanity. If God didn't want us to use it, he wouldn't have made it so easy to grow.

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LAST WORD

Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit... unnatural?

- Bill Hicks

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EVERYDAY HEROS

It's cold and dreary in the Happy Valley this week. I hate when you have to close all the windows and turn on the heat. There was one warm moment though, I did get to meet my long time counter-culture hero, Barry Crimmins, on Tuesday night at the ACLU event. We hung out after the show and had a great chat. He's way cool and it turns out we have quite a few friends in common. I love when my heros live up to my expectations in real life.

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SHOW ME THE MONEY

It's been a busy week and my in-box is overflowing with unread drug war news. We'll be catching up on the highlights in the next couple of days but for this morning I leave you with this story on another waste of your tax dollars. Brattleboro Vermont has received almost $100,000 from a federal Drug-Free Communities grant to 'educate' parents on how to talk to their kids about drugs. Apparently, they're having a hard time getting the parents to participate. They have to pay them to sit through the propaganda.

Sue Dennison, coordinator for the Brattleboro Area Prevention Coalition, reports that as part of the program, parents will be provided an incentive of $10 for each class they attend. Parents who attend all five of the weekly classes will receive a final bonus of $15, and those who take part in a three-month follow-up will receive an additional $10.

I'll put up a Ben Franklin right now that says when they report the attendance figures on this project to tout the success of the program, there will be no mention of their having to bribe the attendees.

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ANOTHER STORMY MONDAY

An arctic trough raked its fingers through the Happy Valley today. The weather changed every 40 minutes or so as cold winds aloft hustled the thin lines of scudding clouds through. We had a thunderstorm at 4:30; at 5:15 we had a three minute rainbow. Karen and I watched it. Her balloon flight was cancelled again today. I thought the rainbow was kind of the universe's compensation for the delay.

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RED ALERT

In yet another brilliant display of underhanded political machinations, your favorite drug czar's minions are sneakily putting forward a bill tomorrow in the House that would re-authorize funding for failed 'drug war' programs. They want to authorize one billion of your hard earned tax dollars for those absurdly ineffective anti-drug ads alone. You remember that amendment we already defeated in committee. They tacked it on again and are sleazing the bill onto the agenda under a process known as "suspension of the rules" which limits debate to less than an hour and prohibits Representatives from offering amendments to improve the bill.

Please call your Congressman on Tuesday (9/30), and stop this corruption of the democratic process. If only 146 (out of 435) Representatives vote against the bill the House Republican leadership will be forced to bring the bill up under a more democratic process that will allow amendments to improve it. Ask your congress critter to vote against the drug war bill (HR 2086).

You can call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard for free at 1-800-839-5276.Tell the receptionist, "I'm calling to urge my Representative to vote against HR 2086 when it comes up under suspension of the rules. You can find out who your representative is here.

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WANT TO KNOW A SECRET?

SSSH. Don't tell my sister but she's becoming a newshawk. She broke two stories in my inbox today. A pilot was shot down in Colombia outside his regular campaign route as anti-drug forces try to eradicate fields of coca in mountains.

According to the article:

Operations between the ground forces and the spray planes are normally coordinated, so the low-flying crop dusters don't wander over areas rife with guerrillas. But the Colombian commanders said in interviews Wednesday that in the new offensive - now called Operation Catatumbo after previously being dubbed Operation Holocaust - standard practices seem to have been ditched as ground troops move more slowly over the steep mountainsides, which are often covered in clouds.

The second story was about an ASU professor who considers his time spent in prison an asset to his profession.

Daniel S. Murphy's credentials to teach criminology at Appalachian State University include a nearly finished doctorate, teaching awards, published articles - and five years in federal prison on a conviction of growing marijuana.

'I can address issues on both sides of the razor wire,' Murphy said. He says he began writing down his observations of prison life while still inside and that he was once sent to solitary confinement for doing so.

'We're the antithesis of a rebel-rousing protest group,' he said recently in his small office on campus. 'We're trying to do positive change through existing, legitimate channels.'

Frankly, I find his acceptance of his punishment a little disturbing but I appreciate his view and his need to make a living.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

Thanks to Preston Peet for passing this quote on:

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government & the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.
- - Albert Einstein ( "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921)

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THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY

There was something in the air here last night, the energy was just crackling in the streets. I stopped by City for my daily dose of humans. I was later than usual for a Saturday night, my regular buddies were already gone. I found myself sitting next to Jeremy. He's been showing up across the bar in the after-work crowd just recently. I've been curious about him. He always has a stack of papers with him.

We had a great conversation and I was happy to find one other person besides Roger who I'll be able to discuss politics with. Turns out he is a teacher who is also working on a documentary for the Media Education Foundation. This project is based right in lovely downtown Northampton, a few blocks from me. They're doing good work over there and I've been meaning to get in contact with them for a while. Glad they finally found me.

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Jeremy left and I was immediately joined by a new companion - Ed. I found it somewhat cosmic that Ed works for the local Coca-Cola plant. I had just posted a long screed on the corporate environment in response to Bob Armstrong, earlier in the day. Here was chance to test my theory. Unfortunately, I was all too right.

Ed was stone cold sober when he sat down. He looked to be about mid-30s, shaved head, clean and dressed conservatively. He used to drive a truck. He loved the job but he hated the hours. He had no life outside of the road. So he joined corporate Amerika.

He was pretty proud of his job. He works in the lab at the bottling plant. He described himself as a blue collar worker and thought he had a pretty good deal working for $17 an hour since he was only a high school graduate. He spouted a lot of corporate slogans. He felt secure in his job. He didn't know anyone in corporate headquarters. He doesn't even know anyone in the local HQ. Then I asked him what it was like to live under the corporate rules of employment.

He morphed into a whole different personality. He was wired for sound and he got louder and louder. He had finished half his beer. He started to scare me. This was the effect of seven years of having been treated like a statistic instead of a human being. I shrugged my shoulders at Roger in silent apology and booked out of there. I don't always like being right.

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I ran into Al of the Drunkstuntmen at the convenience store an hour later. He was on his way to Harry's to do an acoustic set with fellow bandmate Steve. I caught the end of the set. These boys are some of the most versatile players in this town and I've seen them in a lot of different combinations, but the duo really works. Al's guitar sounds better everytime I see him, he doesn't get to show his licks in the full band, and Steve lyrics as always sear the brain even as his voice soothes the soul. The hot gossip straight from the stage though is that Bow Bow is leaving the group and they are looking for a new bass player. Hard to imagine the band without him.

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CARD CARRYING MEMBER

The ACLU College Freedom Tour is coming to Amherst on Tuesday and much to my delight Barry Crimmins will be exercising his First Amendment rights as the evening's host. I love his wit and since I am half of the WMASS Regional office of the ACLUM, it appears I'll have an opportunity to meet one of my counter-culture heros. The event starts at 7:00 and is free to the public. There will be talking, music and a short film. Come on down to Bowker Auditorium at UMASS and get your awareness radically raised.

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DISCUSSION

The debate on corporate complicity continues unabated. Bob Armstrong did indeed answer the next day and in the interests of free expression, I post his response with my replies. This is my last attempt to convince him that the Libertarians need to change their view on this point, before they get my vote.

This is really long so I'm going to post it in installments. I know it seems like a stretch to relate this to the WODSU, but it's part of the problem. The power of the corporate influence is greater than governments and they are behind the policies that keep only certain drugs illegal. Think about this, the combined net worth of the Walton family (66bil) - they own WalMart - is significantly greater than the GNP of either Iraq(58bil) or Afganistan(19bil), the last two countries we invaded.

With that in mind, I give Part I of the Great Libby-terian Debate. Bob's remarks will be in bold:

The defense is of the principle of non initiation of aggression . Which implies no preemptive interference by a third party with rights of individuals to "make business" , to use Yasir Arafat's phrase , with counterparties of their choice . We fail to see a distinction between a snack shop owner offering a meal to a homeless person for wearing a sandwich board for forty minutes and the heads of the enormous coordinated teams it take to create much of flows of products necessary for modern existence .


There's a huge difference. The sandwich guy is a community based business providing a tangible good and personal service. He probably knows a lot of his
patrons by name. If he's rude or his food is bad, his patrons will go to Jack's Joint down the street. I doubt his business plan includes trying to eliminate Jack's and the other four snack shops in his neighborhood with a hostile takeover. He's following your model by trying to provide a better product.

He also provides a social service by employing the homeless guy and I bet he knows his name also. The guy leaves with a full belly and his dignity for having been afforded a chance to earn his meal with honest labor instead of having to commit some petty crime for his sustenance.

In contrast, the heads of, as you say, these enormous teams required to coordinate the flow of products, are actually producing nothing. They are shuffling paper and planning preemptive attacks on under-exploited markets. It's all about the velocity of money - they don't give a damn about the quality of their product, they care about the quantity of their profit.

These guys don't know one patron's name, hell they don't know their employee's names. I feel very certain they not only don't know the homeless guy's name but would drive right by him on the street and not even really see him.

Their business plan is to eliminate choices, not participate in or facilitate free, much less fair trade. They undermine the local guy with the force of their buying power which occurred because they were allowed to grow so large as to swallow the competition whole.

The only force that a "corporation" of any size can use is to supply some good or service that many individuals choose as a better value proposition than any of their alternatives. For instance, you have to operate a damned unique hardware store offering some distinct advantage to some niche of customers if you don't want to become a department head in hardware in the local Home Depot . People will vote with their dollars (or rather with the dollars they save) for the operation with the greater efficiencies and correspondingly lower costs.


The consumers don't have a choice. They have to choose between saving money and paying for their prescription drugs. Using your hardware store analogy, when these big box retailers come in and drive the little guy out of business, they put his employees out of work. Sure they can now get a job there but it's to the detriment of their well-being.

Mr. Big Box CEO doesn't care if his kids are sick or his truck died on the way to work. He is not treated like a human being, he is a statistic, subject to a set of inflexible rules whose sole criteria is profit. They probably only gave him a part-time position and they schedule to the max of the limits before they have to offer him benefits. Those cost money too you know.

So yeah, he's going to buy his stuff there to save 10 bucks over what it would cost to buy the same thing at the last remaining independent merchant in town. He doesn't really have a choice. He still has to feed his family.

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Quote of the Day

Last word goes to Barry Crimmins, who has this to say on corporate ownership of our government:

All money reflects is the ownership of the candidate. If Bush were a racing car he'd have more corporate logos on him than the rest of his competitors combined. He'd also wear other logos that represent authoritarianism, environmental destruction, religious zealotry, bigotry, unbridled greed and imperialism.

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WORD GAMES

There's this bit going around the lists right now about this little quirk of the human brain. I've seen it a couple of times, but I'm posting it in case any of you missed it. It is kind of fun.

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the
frist> and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but
the wrod as a wlohe.

Ptrety amzanig, dno't you tnhik?

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WILD ABOUT HARRY

I ran into Harry McColgan four times this week. That hasn't happened since that summer of fun, three years ago now. I met him on the Deck at the Union Station. We were introduced by a mutual friend. I thought they told me he was the farmer from Hatfield who used to own the little airstrip there, turned out he owns Harry's Bar - companion business to City Cafe.

Harry and I became really close that year. A lot of people thought we were having an affair. Truth is, we were never lovers but we shared a lot and became fast friends. We spent 9/11 together. I've come to love him and his crowd dearly, but then I've always been drawn to the Irish. It was good to see him and Sully as well, although I'm glad I escaped when I did. Word has it they closed the bar that night.

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CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

Drug War Rant posted an excellent piece on a disturbing development in this inhumane WOSDU. the prosecution of doctors for prescribing humane dosages of legal prescriptions to relieve severe pain in their patients. The prohibition warriors apparently not being satisfied with telling the judiciary how to do their job, now want to dictate how a physician practices medicine. If you haven't found a good reason to depose the Bush thugdom, read this post. I'm convinced.

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SENSIBLE SOLUTIONS

This has been lurking in my inbox for a month, but it still makes sense to me and it fits tonight's theme. Scientific studies stay fresh a long time.

Ethan Russo, MD published an edited composite of a Policy Paper on Cannabis in Pain Treatment presented to the American Academy of Pain Management detailing the value of cannabis for pain relief. This is a comprehensive compliation of a much longer study. If you're interested in the medicinal history of our plant, check out that link.

Last word goes to Ethan:

Effective treatment of acute, chronic and intractable pain is a critically important public health concern in the world today. Despite a vast array of analgesic medicines including anti-inflammatory and opioid analgesics, countless patients continue to suffer the burden of unrelieved pain. Opiate addiction, and the recent OxyContin controversy underline the importance of newer effective and safe alternatives.

For over a century, international commissions have studied the issue of cannabis, and virtually uniformly recommended its decriminalization and provision for medical applications, specifically including the treatment of pain.

Cannabis has been employed as an analgesic for thousands of years, and was utilized in this country as well, particularly for neuropathic pain, prior to its effective removal from the American market 65 years ago. Historical cannabis supporters have included such physicians and scientists as Galen, Dioscorides, Parkinson, Linnaeus, Gowers, Weir Mitchell, Osler, Solomon Snyder, and many others. Cannabis remains a frequently employed ethno-botanical agent in pain management among indigenous peoples of the world.

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BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID


Don't be fooled into thinking you are safe now that our Beltway Boys cut the funding for the TIA Act. I think the only reason the neo-cons let it go was they set up this little private company to do the the same thing.

Jim Krane reports from the AP:

While privacy worries are frustrating the Pentagon's plans for a far-reaching database to combat terrorism, a similar project is quietly taking shape with the participation of more than a dozen states -- and $12 million in federal funds. The database project, created so states and local authorities can track would-be terrorists as well as criminal fugitives, is being built and housed in the offices of a private company but will be open to some federal law enforcers and perhaps even US intelligence agencies.

Dubbed Matrix, the database has been in use for a year and a half in Florida, where police praise the crime-fighting tool as nimble and exhaustive. It cross-references the state's driving records and restricted police files with billions of pieces of public and private data, including credit and property records.

This is the real Matrix kids, this is not a game. For those of you who only come here for the gossip, this is the one time I urge you to click on the link. Anyone could be on this list, it's a back door into the TIA without any government/citizen oversight because it's a private business and since the technology is so new, it's probably completely unregulated.

It's been a long time since I read the book, but it sure sounds like 1984 to me. Take note of the closing paragraphs. This is the last word today.

Aspects of the project appear designed to steer around federal laws that bar the US government from collecting routine data on Americans. For instance, the project is billed as a tool for state and local police, but organizers are considering giving access to the Central Intelligence Agency, said Phil Ramer, special agent in charge of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's intelligence office.

In the 1970s, Congress barred the CIA from scanning files on average Americans, after the agency was cited for spying on civil rights leaders. Florida officials have acknowledged that users of Matrix, which stands for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, can "monitor innocent citizens."

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IT'S IN THE STARS

I no sooner finished complaining to my dear friend and co-worker Karen that my horoscope never comes true when it says something good is going to happen when something finally did. It had been saying for three days that I would see an old friend that has been missing for a long time. Well, 1 minute and 45 seconds later, I ran into one of my favorite people in the world, Dave Shapiro, best stand up bass jazz player on the eastern seaboard. Dave is the only person who ever asked me to drive around the world. You could really almost do it. We figured out the route on my map, taking into account of course, the Mercator Projection factor. It was good to see you Dave. Hope you're really reading this as you promised....

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GOT MY MOJO WORKING

I'm glad I got safely home last night because there was mayhem on the streets of the Commonwealth. The Sox clinched the wild card slot. I'm a lifelong Mets fan but three seasons ago, my dear friend Jamie Snyder pointed out that I could cheer for both teams since they were in different leagues. Accepting the logic, I became a Red Sox fan as well. That's when I found out about the curse.

I love the underdog, it's how I became a Mets fan. When I started cheering for them, the Yankees' fans used to sneer at the name. Come to think of it, they still do and it turns out they also sneer at the Sox so there's a connection of sorts. In any event, I'm ridiculously superstitous about baseball - I have more rituals than Nomar - and I came to realize I could only give my mojo to one team at a time. I developed the Red Sox Theory and decided to promote it for three seasons.

It has to do with the synergy of group belief. They were losing because everyone believed in the curse. I promoted the theory that if you didn't believe in the curse, it would lose it's power. I've been talking this up from the Fenway to the Berkshires for these three years. I saw the Mets through two victories in my lifetime. When they beat the Sox in 88, it was on the slogan - You Gotta Believe - and that's really all it takes. These guys thrive on the energy of the fans.

I hope the theory is taking hold, because I heard a sportscaster call my boys in New York the losingest team in the history of baseball. I think I need to swing my mojo back to my home boys next season.

I think it might all work out though. Smart money was saying the Sox would be too hung over to play well today. I'm the only one at City that thought they would take it tonight.

It's top of the seventh, 1 out, and it 6-2 Boston. I hope they can hold it the lead and I'm going to believe they can.

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REMOTE CONTROL

My clicker died last week. I finally bought new one today. It’s a little fancier than the old one, DVD ready - as if I am, I haven’t managed to watch a DVD yet. Nonetheless, its way cool to be able to switch stations without having to click a button on the console ten times. I don’t actually watch TV much, I turn on for the ambient sound mostly, but I found I missed that little hand-held electronic unit more than I expected.

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MISSING BOBBY KENNEDY

I’ve been thinking of the Camelot years a lot lately. RFK was a good and just US Attorney General, particularly in comparison with the Authoritarian Geek currently in charge of our national judiciary. I’d bet the old-timers on the federal bench agree with me today, as evidenced by this piece in today New York Times, New Plea Bargain Limits Could Swamp Courts.

The Aga John has really overstepped his boundaries this time. I think John Walters should investigate whether or not he is on some new drug that completely destroys common sense. What he is proposing would surely bring the already sluggish wheel of justice to a grinding halt.

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JUST WAITING ON A FRIEND

The anti-prohibition warriors at Drugsense.org and their invaluable Media Awareness Project, are on the forefront of this battle to restore sanity to civilized society. Their sponsor has issued a challenge to the 20,000 people who visit the site to send in voluntary contributions to underwrite some of this important work. If you have a few bucks to spare, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is. Details are available here.

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WE ARE THE WORLD

Meanwhile, across the big pond, Marco Cappato and The International AntiProhibitionist League are still shaking the roots of the establishment in Italy and the rest of that hemisphere. I love their newsletter. It’s barely in English and not all that visually attractive but very spirited in its content. I recommend subscribing if you care about the international political puzzle. My really long time readers will remember when I was pushing their UN petition. It didn’t sway the UN but the project is still ongoing, they’re verifying the current roster and are still collecting signatures. I signed months ago, but you haven’t yet added your voice to this chorus, click here.

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SAY IT AGAIN SAM

Thanks to M. Arthur Hahn for the last word and quote of the day.

"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce and brave man, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
Mark Twain

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WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Drying out here in lovely downtown Noho this morning after a tremendous rainstorm yesterday afternoon. I was on the street when it hit. It was absolutely psychedelic. It poured buckets for about 20 minutes, gales of wind driving it in sheets down the pavement. By the time I walked half a block there was a two foot deep flood under the railroad trestle and the cross street at the top of the hill was about four inches deep.

The umbrella was totally ineffective. I was soaked to the skin from the waist down in seconds. I came back to the office and literally had to wring out my slacks.

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SWEET LIBERTY

There's a new guy posting on the drugwar.com discussion list these days, Bob Armstrong, a staunch Libertarian. We've been having an ongoing debate for the last few weeks on corporate complicity in the sorry state of the world economy.

There's a lot I admire about the Party's political stance, but I have real problem with their insistence on blaming everything solely on the so called 'nanny government'. This is my last post on the subject:

And here's where the Libertians lose me. There's a lot I like about the model, but I'm confounded by this blind and at times almost belligerent defense of the so called free market system as forced on the economy by the multinational corporations at the expense of the lower economic classes.

It's so easy to say that opportunities exist but what bothers me, is the vehement supporters of that line within the LP are people who enjoyed the advantages of
at least a comfortable middle class upbringing.

Let me ask, and I mean this in the kindest way possible, did you grow up in the ghetto Bob? Did you fight your way off the streets to get your education? Was there one day in your childhood when you were hungry and your mom had nothing to feed you? Did you have to wonder who your dad was? These are the people who are working on the production lines of US multicorporates, only here they unionized for better conditions. So now they are outsourcing the labor.

An ugly scenario that plays out at ten times the intensity on the level of the exploitation of the third world poor by the multinationals who bring their production facilities into these countries to avoid the profit eating environmental, safety and labor
regulations in the US.

And don't tell me that competition solves this problem. The oil industry bands together into associations that pay the rents inside the beltway on K street and pay the tabs for the August legislative jaunts. And so do the pharmas and the insurance industry and the industrial prison complex......

Bush didn't blow a 6.8 surplus into a 4.3 deficit on government programs. The people did not get that money. Halliburton, WorldCom, ClearChannel, and Bush cronies ad infinitum are spending our tax dollars right now and the truly evil aspect is they are using that money to advance an inhumane agenda that views human beings of a certain socio-economic class as expendable because there are so many of them. There is nothing in your free market model that would enable this class to compete against that kind of corporate force.

Wake up and smell the herbicide. It's clearing the way for the petrol pipeline in a Latin American country near you. And it's not likely to benefit your local indigineous peasant but you can be certain that someone in corporate America will be driving a new Jag on the profits.

Bob's usually pretty quick on the trigger with a response, but there's been none forthcoming on this post. Methinks he has no defense to that point.

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OFF WITH THEIR HEADS

John Ashcroft is still working hard to shackle the judiciary. In his latest move to jam the wheels of justice and fill the prison industrial complex with warm bodies, he issued a new directive instructing prosecutors to seek the highest penalities possible, including upward departures in all federal cases before the courts. Oddly, I heard this quote last night on Law and Order where they were discussing plea bargains. The head DA said:

The negotiated agreement between two opposing attorneys is the greatest tool invented to promote justice, since the guillotine.

Someone should let John know he is supposed to protect the system, not reinvent it to reflect his own image. Pete Guither at Drug War Rant, has a a great analysis of this addle-brained policy along with links to the pertinent coverage.

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CAUSE AND EFFECT

The United Nations released a report this week stating the Global Use Of Ecstasy Is Soaring.

The report, presented at a news conference in Rome, estimated that global use of Ecstasy rose by 70 percent between 1995-1997 and 2000-2001, while use of amphetamines rose by 40 percent over the same period.

More than 40 million people worldwide, or 1 percent of all people 15 years or older, used amphetamine-type stimulants, known as ATS, in 2000-2001.

Am I the only that sees the correlation between the rise in use of these drugs and the alleged success of cocaine and heroin eradication? The bottom line folks is that people are going to take drugs. Take away one drug and they find another. The meth is being largely manufactured right here in the US and you're in more danger with a meth lab in your neighborhood than you are from an heroin user nodding off in your local alley.

From what I've heard, anybody with a bathtub can make the stuff with legally procured items and the profit margin is apparently tempting.

Let me say it again. The only solution to addiction is legalization and regulation.

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NEWS OF THE NORTH

I know I've been focusing on the bad side of the war for quite a while now. I wish there was more good news to tell but the outrages keep pouring into my inbox every day. The the only light in this bleak landscape I can offer today is this link to Cultural Baggage's interview with my Canadian hero, Marc Emery.

Dean Becker has dozens of interviews with drug reform minded doctors, scientists, judges, congressmen, Nobel prize winners and more available online at the site. He also airs 3 minute reports on national and international drug war news on the 4:20 Reports, 7 days per week, available for download at the site. Check it out.

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LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

I spent two hours on the highways outside of the Happy Valley today. There was a lot of bad driving going on out there. There's no longer any concept of why the left lane exists in southern New England. Call me crazy, but you would think the car going 55mph would notice that there was 20 cars stacked up behind him and maybe pull into the other two slow lanes. But no. This is why road rage happens.

This is not to mention the gigantic brand new sparkling white Mac truck that almost ran me off the road. I'm half-way through passing on the left and the guy starts drifting into my lane right at the one place on the highway where there is two inches of median between the shoulder and the center guardrail. Of course I couldn't find the horn. I drive the car so infrequently, it took me two tries to get on the right side of the gas pump before I left town - I took the inch and an half and gunned it through the shoulder. He saw me in time. I wonder what kind of adrenalin rush he got from that?

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The coverage on the Freedom Rally was mixed. The Globe got it right, the Herald. as one might have predicted for a rag that would have to step up to get to the credibility level of the National Enquirer, got it wrong. Please check out the Media Awareness Project's alert on the press and drop a line to the editors.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

Thanks to Sabbah on the GNN forums for this gem from my favorite patriot, Thomas Jefferson:

"The end of democracy, and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations."

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LINK TO ME, LIKE BLOGGERS DO

I didn't make it to Boston for the Mass Cann rally today. Once again, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. The stupid rotator cuff thing flared up on Tuesday night and even though I took Wednesday and Friday off, I woke up in no condition to drive for four hours. It's uncanny. Same thing happened when I tried to get the Hip Hop rally in New York a couple of months ago. It appears the universe thinks I'm getting too old to attend these gatherings.

I was sorry to miss the event, but I consoled myself by catching up on the websites I've been neglecting in the last couple of weeks. Pete Guither is rolling right along at Drug War Rant and I was flattered to see he's added me to his side-bar as a daily read. Thanks Pete. You inspired me to update my own template. You can now access Pete's Rant directly from the links on this page.

My faithful readers will notice that I finally added some other new links to my cohorts from the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism as well. Charles Hardy's Cowboy in Caracas and Vheadline are both great sources for breaking news and analysis from Venezuela. Jules Siegel offers up an insider's look at Cancun and astute observations on the follibles of civilized society.

I also discovered that the Lefty Directory has added Last One Speaks to their roster of liberal voices. Brian Linse is providing a great service over there for those interested in alternative views. The link is newly installed on the sidebar. Check it out and thanks for the listing Brian.

My long term readers may have also noticed I finally figured out why I had that extra red dot on the links list. HTML is a funny language; it's pretty to easy to learn but one little typo can wreak havoc. Turned out I hadn't closed the tag on the previous link. Glad to have finally solved that little glitch. It was really offending my sense of order.

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SAVE THE CHILDREN

Carola Mittrany, another J-School alum, is reporting for the newly formed Children and Youth in Organized Violence, a site that chronicles the effects of political unrest and criminal activity on young folks all over the third world countries. If you think American kids in the ghetto have it tough, you should check out what these young people are going through. (Link is now installed on the sidebar).

This excerpt is from one of Carola's recent pieces:

Youth killed in Guatemala after trying to leave gangs
Carola Mittrany


September 12, 2003 – Seventy-nine youth have died after trying to leave gangs said Emilio Goubaud, director of the Alliance for Crime Prevention (APREDE in Spanish). APREDE runs a rehabilitation programme for gang members, known locally as ‘maras.’ "The kids had left crime and were undergoing job and educational training," said Goubaud to local newspaper Prensa Libre.

The APREDE director says that drug traffickers may have killed the ex-gang members in retaliation for their refusal to allow drugs into their neighbourhoods and to take part in organised crime.

*****
It is also suspected that death squads operating within the state security apparatus killed the youths. Goubaud said that the police illegally persecuted the majority of the victims.

You can sign up for their newsletter at the site and get weekly digests of their fine work in English.

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BAD MEDICINE

In yet another affront against the health and welfare of the most vulnerable citizens of the planet, the Guardian reports 50,000 children are taking antidepressants under a doctor's prescription. It seems when your pharmacorp-owned researchers are not too busy trying to prove that marijuana use causes schizophrenia, they are suppressing results that show legal drugs being prescribed to children actually encourages suicidal tendencies.

The article states:

Efexor, made by the drug company Wyeth, is being taken by at least 3,000 children in the UK, it was revealed yesterday, even though guidance to doctors states that it should not be given to under 18s. It is the second antidepressant to be specifically banned from use in children in four months.

There are around 50,000 children, some as young as six, on antidepressants in the UK, the Guardian has learned. Last year, doctors wrote 170,000 prescriptions of the drugs for children under 18, even though many experts say counselling and talking therapies work better.

The article goes on to say:

Data which suggests the drugs could be causing children to feel murderous and suicidal has been in drug company hands for several years. The studies in these two drugs and others were carried out in the mid to late-1990s, after the Food and Drug Administration in the United States asked for efficacy and safety data be cause of the rapidly increasing number of children being prescribed antidepressants.

Wyeth's response to this derelection of duty was hardly encouraging:

One of Wyeth's four studies in depressed and anxious children was published in 1997. Yesterday a spokesman for the company refused to give the dates of the other unpublished trials. Everything that it was necessary for the public to know was in the public domain, he said. "I'm not going to give additional information to you."

And they claim to be waging this WODSU to protect kids. How are they going to believe illegal drugs are bad for them when their doctors are pushing legal pharmaceutical poisons? Disgusting.

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MAD SCIENCE

The fallout over John Hopkins' bogus ecstacy study continues. John French in an open letter to Alan Leshner at Science magazine, gets the last word of the day remarking on this collossal screw-up:

What is the AAAS policy on publishing Referee's Reports on unbelievably botched work published in Science, specifically the research about MDMA published in September 2002?

Not only were findings based on doses recognized at the time to be completely inappropriate, but it was later discovered that the wrong drug had been obtained through NIDA. Further, the baseless findings were deliberately grossly exaggerated in press releases.

Given your involvement at the time of the funding as Director of NIDA, and subsequent leadership as CEO of American Association for the Advancement of Science, it is icumbent on you to lead a thorough investigation, especially since the publication of the original paper undoubtedly had an impact on the passage of highly controversial anti-rave drug legislation.

I look forward to your demonstration that the AAAS is more interested in science than in politics, by taking the investigation beyond publication of referee's reports, to iclude the internal workings of NIDA and the failure of its scientists to monitor such crucial work.

Sincerely,
John French

E-mailed at the AAAS feedback page at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/feedback

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EYE OF A HURRICANE

Today the warm rain falls, but it was hard to tell there was a raging storm only 500 miles away from here yesterday afternoon, it turned out to be another beautiful day in lovely downtown Noho. I forgot there even was a tropical storm until I ran into my old pinball buddy, Steve Jasinski. Hurricane was the name of the machine we used to play. It had a carnival theme.

If I didn't get the weather channel, I would have missed all of the fun. I love meterologists during a major storm. My favorite was always Hilton Kaderly out of Hartford but they were still enthusiastic on this station. I watched some great footage and the familiar drone of the local forecast muzak feels like comfort food to my ears, after all these weeks of ceaseless CSPAN.

I've loved the weather all my life, it's always seemed such a mysterious force in the universe. There's always that potential for some quirky phenomenon to remind us we are not the boss of the planet.

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PAYING THE COST

Photo D.R. Victor Ruíz/Por Esto!
{via narconews.com}

Isabel pales in the ferocity of the political gales of change that just swept through Cancun during the WTO conference last weekend. In a move presaged by Latin American solidarity at the recent OAS meetings involving Venzuela, the third world nations present at the WTO trade conference stood up to the US power bloc and walked out, refusing to play the so-called 'free trade' game with a stacked deck.

Perhaps they were emboldened by the Korean farmer who paid the ultimate price -with his life- to draw attention to the plight of the indigineous people of under-developed countries who suffer under the current multi-national corporate driven trade agenda of the WTO.

The Third World countries have found their power at last. They do after all represent the greater population of the world, the people who have become the exploited work-force of the multi-nationals. They will not be so easily intimidated again. This bodes well for the War on Drugs also. President Lula da Silva of Brasil, who has long been vocal about failed prohibitionist drug policies, led the group exodus in Cancun - striking a victory for democracy that was either ignored or misinterpreted in the main-stream press.

My buddy Al Giordano has the definitive analysis on this new trend of 'globalized resistance' being fostered in Mexico in this piece, Cancún Trade Battle also Turns the Tables on the Drug War. (It's long, but click on it Michael. You'll learn something).

Al notes:

The precedent set in Cancún – of economically weaker nations banding together to resist the impositions of economically stronger nations (a trend noticed by leading U.S. drug policy reformer Ethan Nadelmann in his recent Foreign Policy magazine analysis ) – is precisely the prescription that can finally turn the tables on the US-imposed “war on drugs.”

Sounds like just what the doctor ordered to me.

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OH THE TANGLED WEBS THEY WEAVE...

PINR Dispatch has an interesting look at the parallels of the war on drugs and "free-trade" deceits in this report, Counternarcotics, the 'War on Terror,' and South America''. The report details the real reasons behind these 'wars':

The year of 2003, then, will be seen as a year when the United States increased its already significant military funding and assistance to Colombia. Earlier this year following a bizarre series of small plane crashes in guerrilla held areas by drug reconnaissance flights, including the death of an American working as a government contractor, U.S. special forces were dispatched to help Colombian forces search for survivors and hostages; the number of U.S. civil personnel also increased.

The reasons for Washington's extreme interest in Colombia has always been explained by its desire to fight the flow of cocaine into the United States, but Colombia has geopolitical and strategic significance that make it a keystone state in the Americas.

It well worth subscribing to the PINR Dispatch. They're putting out some of the most comprehensive and least biased analyses on the net.

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THE AYES HAVE IT

Meanwhile in Seattle, the people raised their voice in support of reasonable domestic drug policy and passed a citizen's initiative by a 58% margin, making marijuana possession the lowest law enforcement priority. While likely to have little practical effect on the police activity in the city where some 400 possession arrests are made every year, City Attorney Tom Carr predicts defense attorneys will now challenge simple possession cases as running contrary to will of the public. Here's hoping they set some precedents out there.

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Last word and quote of the day goes to President Lula da Silva, who made this remark during a speech at the end of the WTO trade conference:

“I learned that nobody respects someone who negotiates with his head bowed. Nobody respects anyone who negotiates as a lackey. With our heads lifted, defending our self-interest, we shall be able to grow and open extraordinary spaces…”

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