unreasonable.org

In case you haven't heard about it yet, this Washington Post op-ed, by Vera Leone of the Drug Policy Alliance, lays out the story of Cheye Calvo. He's mayor of Berwyn Heights (where, BTW, I lived in 1989 when I was a student at UMCP ). A UPS package full of cannabis (part of a smuggling scheme that targets innocent customers) came to his door; when he brought it inside, SWAT thugs broke in, shot his dogs, held him in handcuffs for hours. Apologies from the county stormtroopers responsible? None.

Of course, the only reason this gets attention is because it was a white middle-class suburban guy with connections; if you're poor and black or brown, this is standard operating procedure in the "War on Drugs".

Reason magazine and StopTheDrugWar.org detail the sad story of Barack Obama's cowardice on the issue of marijuana decriminalization.

The Washington Times broke the story, reporting that in his 2004 Senate campaign Obama supported eliminating criminal penalties for cannabis use or possession. When the Times brought this up, the Obama campaign first stood by those remarks - then, within 24 hours, changed its story and declared that Obama does not support eliminating criminal penalties for cannabis.

If you thought Barack Obama was a man of courage, think again.

The following tale of civil forfeiture woes was sent in by an anonymous correspondent. (Well, I guess someone who leaves a phone number isn't really anonymous...) I've cleaned up typos but otherwise this is as received. If anyone has leads please contact the querent. (I've already suggested contacting FEAR.)

On 12/04/06 I was served a forfeiture summons. I responded back to it on 12/14/06. IC 34-24-1-3.states that the state has 90 days from that date to file with the courts. They filed with the courts on 4/10/07. Do the math, that's 117 days from receiving my response to file. That is a state law in Indiana. How come the state can break these laws and take our hard working money? They forfeited my money yesterday. On 7/09/07. What can I do the system is failing me. I have not been convicted of any crime. How can they DO THIS..........CAN ANYONE HELP ME. The ICLU won't, who will? I need help. You can contact me if you have any advice at (317)246-7059. Please...I have all the paper work on this in my possession.

As those who know me know, I have nothing against the appropriate use of "psychedelic" or "entheogenic" substances. Far from it. But I have to shake my head when someone starts taking their own feedback-saturated perceptions too seriously, as seen in this Rolling Stone profile of Daniel Pinchbeck:

This was all before Pinchbeck himself started making some very unusual claims. After separating from the heiress in 2003, he made a trip to Hawaii and the Amazon with an incredibly hot abstract painter and Santo Daime priestess, sunbathing nude with her by the Hawaiian cliffs. In the Amazon, he received a transmission from God, in the form of Quetzalcoatl, a mystical bird-serpent in Mayan myths. Quetzalcoatl told Pinchbeck that he is a prophet -- all those times in his life when he thought he was a loser, because his birthdate happens to be in June 1966 (666), and his surname happens to be a fancy word for "false gold," were signs that one day he'd be chosen to transmit some very special, intradimensional knowledge to the planet. Here it is: The world as we know it is about to end -- on December 21st, 2012, the last day of time in the Mayan calendar.

The Baltimore Sun reports that a grand jury convened to "address the lack of confidence that exists between many members of the public and law enforcement", has decried a tremendous number of arrests made by city police without merit.

Just within the African-American population, over 21,000 arrests without charges being filed were made between April 2004 and April 2005.

The grand jury also handed down indictments of three cops: one accused of raping a woman brought to the station house in handcuffs, the other two accused of doing nothing to stop it.

Cops gone wild. Welcome to the police state, brought to you by the War on (Some) Drugs.

Even more interesting than the results of this study on glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis pain is the spin on the reporting. Here are the numbers:

Sixty percent who took the dummy medication had reduced pain compared with 64 percent who took glucosamine, 65 percent who took chondroitin and 67 percent who took the combo pills...

The drug Celebrex did reduce pain - 70 percent reported improvement - affirming the study's validity...

Of the 354 people with moderate to severe pain, 79 percent who took both supplements reported relief compared with 54 percent who took the dummy pills and 69 percent who took Celebrex.

A few interesting bits about the brain that I've seen the past few weeks...

First, contrary to long-held popular belief, adult brain cells do keep growing. So you can teach an old brain new tricks. Furthermore, it seems that a marijuana-like drug can accelerate neurogenesis, and may have anti-anxiety and anti-depressive effects. (Despite what the SSRI-pushers claim, the anti-depressant effects of drugs like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil apparently have more to do with neurogenesis than with correcting some "chemical imbalance".)

Secondly, new brain cells follow the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). This should be very interesting to people who practice craniosacral therapy.

Happy birthday!

His "problem child", lysergic acid diethylamide-25, will be 68 this year; it was first synthesized in 1938, but its remarkable effects were not discovered until Hofmann accidently absorbed some through his fingertips five years later.

Letter to the Editor, Baltimore Sun:

I'm somewhat mystified by Evan P. Schultz's labeling of the Commerce Clause and the Tenth and Eleventh Amendments of the Constitution as "archaic". ("Blame the Constitution", September 15, 2005). If last part of the Bill of Rights, and an Amendment passed after it, are "archaic", what are we to make of the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments? If the Commerce Clause is "archaic", what is to be done about the rest of Article I, Section 8, which lays out the powers of Congress? Is the federal authority to issue currency "archaic"?

The Baltimore City Paper printed my letter, along with a response from Brian Morton where he defends his old boss Barry McCaffrey as a kinder, gentler sort of prohibitionist. (I originally posted the letter here.)