On Thursday, a Denver news station interviewed Chris Bartkowicz about his medical-marijuana operation in the basement of his home. Bartkowicz, confident of his compliance with state laws, boasted of its size and profitability.

“I’m definitely living the dream now,” he told 9News.

The following day, the dream was over.

Drug-enforcement agents raided his home, placed him under arrest, and carried off dozens of black bags of marijuana plants and growing lights.

The Obama administration promised in October that the federal government would respect state laws allowing the growing and selling of marijuana for medicinal use, but the Drug Enforcement Agency sent a loud message with the arrest of Bartkowicz.

Read More – Raw Story: Despite Obama admin’s promise, DEA continues raids on medical marijuana growers

(via Disinfo)

Forget 2012. As far as many Mexicans are concerned, the ancient Mayas were being generous: the sky’s actually going to fall next year. Why? Because it’s 2010, Mexico’s bicentennial, and Mexican history has an eerie way of repeating itself. Mexico’s 1910 centennial, after all, saw the start of the bloody, decade-long Mexican Revolution, which killed more than a million people. And that cataclysm was precisely a century after the start of Mexico’s bloody, decade-long War of Independence in 1810.

You get the picture. As a result, there’s been no shortage of talk lately about possible unrest, especially in the form of armed rebel groups, erupting south of the border in 2010. But is there really a basis for concern? None as apparent as the popular grievances that existed in 1809 or 1909. But this is still Mexico; and while Spanish colonizers no longer oppress the country, and dictators like Porfirio Diaz aren’t brutalizing campesinos, the country nonetheless is reeling from the worst criminal violence in its history and one of its hardest economic slumps. “We are very near a social crisis,” JosÉ Narro, the director of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City, said recently. “The conditions are there.”

Time: Bicentennial Anxiety: Why Mexicans Are Wary of 2010

(Thanks James K!)

And Washington state legislature is considering a legalization bill as well:

e hasn’t even taken office yet, but the words of Mayor-Elect Mike McGinn have already perked some citizens’ ears.

McGinn believes pot should not only be legal, but also taxed.

“We recognize that, you know, like alcohol, it’s something that should be regulated, not treated as a criminal activity. And I think that’s where the citizens of Seattle want us to go,” said McGinn on a public radio show on Friday. [...]

And the state could be one step closer to legalizing marijuana. State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, is sponsoring a bill that would do just that. [...]

Under the state bill, marijuana would be sold in state liquor stores, and the drug tax would be used for drug and alcohol abuse prevention.

KOMO News:
The ‘green’ mayor? McGinn wants to legalize pot and tax it, too

Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations’ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.

This will raise questions about crime’s influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. “In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor,” he said.

Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, he said.

Guardian: Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor

(via Global Guerrillas and Cryptogon)

Holder has formalized the policy previously mentioned of ending federal drug raids against sick people:

The Obama administration delivered new guidance on medical marijuana to federal prosecutors Monday, signaling a broad policy shift that will mean fewer crackdowns against dispensaries and the people who use them.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. instructed government lawyers that in 14 states where medical marijuana use is legal, federal prosecutors should focus only on cases involving higher level drug traffickers or people who use the state laws as a cover story.

“It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal,” Holder said. “This balanced policy formalizes a sensible approach that the Department has been following since January: effectively focus our resources on serious drug traffickers while taking into account state and local laws.”

Washington Post: Obama administration issues new policy on medical marijuana

Nearly 40 years after widespread fear over recreational abuse of LSD and other hallucinogens forced dozens of scientists to abandon their work, researchers at a handful of major institutions – including UCSF and Harvard University – are reigniting studies. Scientists started looking at less controversial drugs, like ecstasy and magic mushrooms, in the late 1990s, but LSD studies only began about a year ago and are still rare.

The study at UCSF, which is being run by a UC Berkeley graduate student, is looking into the mechanisms of LSD and how it works in the brain. The hope is that such research might support further studies into medical applications of LSD – for chronic headaches, for example – or psychiatric uses. [...]

In 1966, the federal government made LSD illegal, and by the early 1970s, research into all psychedelic drugs in humans had come to a halt, although some scientists continued to study the drugs in animals.

SF Gate: LSD’s long, strange trip back into the lab

(What a Wonderful Place to Be)

Not only have many defendants been sentenced for stuff the jury said they didn’t do (or at least wasn’t proven), but yesterday the Supreme Court refused to do anything about it. The cert denial came in the case of Mark Hurn of my hometown, Madison, Wis. Hurn ate 15 years extra years in prison for possessing crack cocaine, even though a jury acquitted him of the charge. It’s true. Though he was convicted of having powder cocaine in his house, (for which he was looking at two or three years in prison), he was sentenced to almost 18 years. Why? Because even though the jury acquitted him of the crack charge, the judge kind of figured he’d done it and therefore found, by a preponderance of the evidence that he’d done it, and sent him to prison as if the jury had actually said “Guilty” rather than “Not Guilty.”

Slate: Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Another way to do the time even if you didn’t do the crime

(via The Agitator)

10. June 19, 1972: The Occult Revival
9. April 5, 1976: The Porno Plague
8. August 6, 1984: The Population Curse
7. September 15, 1986: Drugs: The Enemy Within
6. May 7, 1990: Dirty Words
5. May 13, 1991: Crack Kids
4. July 3, 1995: Cyberporn: On a Screen Near You
3. Nov 22, 1999: Pokemon!
2. March 19, 2001: The Columbine Effect
1. June 7, 2004: Overcoming Obesity in America

Reason: The Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of The Past 40 Years

See also: Fox News Journalistic Masterpieces.

The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty.

During the 1990s the Netherlands faced a shortage of prison cells, but a decline in crime has since led to overcapacity in the prison system. The country now has capacity for 14,000 prisoners but only 12,000 detainees.

Deputy justice minister Nebahat Albayrak announced on Tuesday that eight prisons will be closed, resulting in the loss of 1,200 jobs. Natural redundancy and other measures should prevent any forced lay-offs, the minister said.

The overcapacity is a result of the declining crime rate, which the ministry’s research department expects to continue for some time.

NRC: Netherlands to close prisons for lack of criminals

(via Cryptogon)

Questions:

1. If certain politicians and pundits are to believed, The Netherlands has been experiencing a crime epidemic as the result of rampant immigration. Could it be that this was only xenophobic scare mongering?

2. What would happen in the US if prison populations were to decline? Also, since the US has been experiencing overall reductions in crime over time as well, why is our prison population not decreasing? What is the key difference between the US and the the Netherlands in this regard?

Update: I forgot to give link back to Cryptogon early. Many apologies.

Unfortunately, it’s the name he doesn’t like, not the policy. [...]

According to the Journal, “Mr. Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate—and likely more controversial—stance on the nation’s drug problems….The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.”

Where have we heard this before? From Barry McCaffrey, Bill Clinton’s drug czar.

Full Story: Hit and Run.

(via Radley Balko).

As always, I recommend you read Balko’s Overkill (available in print or free PDF), his chronicle of how Reagan turned the “War on Drugs” into an actual war by militarizing the police, and how the Clinton administration escalated it.

Unless the Obama administration is planning on de-militarizing the police and/or legalizing drugs, they are not ending the drug war.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called on Tuesday for an open debate on legalizing and taxing marijuana. A recent Field Poll showed that 56 percent of Californians support taxing and regulating marijuana as a way to address the state’s fiscal crisis. Schwarzenegger was asked at a press conference if it was finally time to legalize marijuana.

“No, I think that it’s not time for that, but I think it’s time for a debate,” he said, according to a transcript provided by Schwarzenegger’s office. “And I think that we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what affect it had on those countries, and are they happy with that decision.”

The Mexican ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, recently called for the United States to hold such a debate to address cartel-related violence. Mexico has decriminalized possession of marijuana but doesn’t tax it.

Huffington Post: Arnold: Time To Talk About Legalizing Pot

(via Richard Metzger)

Radley Balko on Obama’s drug war policies:

To give credit where it’s due, Attorney General Eric Holder did at least vow to end the DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have legalized the drug for treatment. But the DEA conducted another raid in California a week after that announcement, and it is not yet clear if the Justice Department will continue to pursue existing cases, such as the outrageous prosecution of Charlie Lynch, the owner of a California medical marijuana shop who faces a 40-year sentence on federal drug charges, even though local authorities told him he was in full compliance with state law.

Obama could distinguish himself in Mexico today by taking the thoughtful, nuanced approach to the drug issue he embraced before he started to run for president. Sadly, it is more likely that he’ll endorse the same failed policies of his predecessors, which will mean more violence and carnage for Mexico, with little if any effect on the drug supply in America.

Daily Beast: Obama’s Demented Drug Policy

Sounds like the vow to stop medical marijuana raids is yet another bait and switch, a familiar pattern to observers of the administration already.

Radley Balko writes:

Kathryn Johnston’s death is tragic. But the real tragedy here is that had the cops found a stash of marijuana in her basement that actually did belong to her–say for pain treatment or nausea–her death would have faded quickly from the national news, these tactics would have been deemed by most to be wholly legitimate, and we probably wouldn’t still be talking about her today.

These cops were evil. But they worked within an evil system that’s not only immoral on its face, but is rife with bad incentives and plays to the worst instincts in human nature.

Full Story: the Agitator

Blackwater Worldwide is still protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq, but executives at the beleaguered security firm are taking their biggest step yet to put that work and the ugly reputation it earned the company behind them.

Blackwater said Friday it will no longer operate under the name that came to be known worldwide as a caustic moniker for private security, dropping the tarnished brand for a disarming and simple identity: Xe, which is pronounced like the letter “z.”

It’s a rare surrender for a company that cherished a brand name inspired by the dark-water swamps of northeastern North Carolina, one that survived another rebranding effort about a year ago, following a deadly shooting in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. The decision to give it up underscores how badly the Moyock-based company’s brand was damaged by that incident and other security work in Iraq.

Full Story: Cryptogon

Blackwater Worldwide is still protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq, but executives at the beleaguered security firm are taking their biggest step yet to put that work and the ugly reputation it earned the company behind them.

Blackwater said Friday it will no longer operate under the name that came to be known worldwide as a caustic moniker for private security, dropping the tarnished brand for a disarming and simple identity: Xe, which is pronounced like the letter “z.”

It’s a rare surrender for a company that cherished a brand name inspired by the dark-water swamps of northeastern North Carolina, one that survived another rebranding effort about a year ago, following a deadly shooting in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. The decision to give it up underscores how badly the Moyock-based company’s brand was damaged by that incident and other security work in Iraq.

Full Story: Cryptogon

Related External Links

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Federal judges on Monday tentatively ordered California to release tens of thousands of inmates, up to a third of all prisoners, in the next three years to stop dangerous overcrowding.

As many as 57,000 could be let go if the current population were cut by the maximum percentage considered by a three-judge panel. Judges said the move could be done without threatening public safety — and might improve a public safety hazard.

The state immediately said it would appeal the final ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trend-setting California, the Golden State, has an immense prison system responsible for nearly 170,000 inmates, and their care has become a major political and budget issue as officials weigh multibillion costs of improved facilities against death and illness behind bars.

Full Story: Reuters

(via Cryptogon)

Federal judges on Monday tentatively ordered California to release tens of thousands of inmates, up to a third of all prisoners, in the next three years to stop dangerous overcrowding.

As many as 57,000 could be let go if the current population were cut by the maximum percentage considered by a three-judge panel. Judges said the move could be done without threatening public safety — and might improve a public safety hazard.

The state immediately said it would appeal the final ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trend-setting California, the Golden State, has an immense prison system responsible for nearly 170,000 inmates, and their care has become a major political and budget issue as officials weigh multibillion costs of improved facilities against death and illness behind bars.

Full Story: Reuters

(via Cryptogon)

Related External Links

• Generated by LinkCurl
• California may have to cut prison population by 40 percent – CNN …
• Jailhouselawyer's Blog: Court Orders California to Cut Prison …
• JUSTICE Will Be Served – Human Rights – HRLaws: 2NAZI GERMANY …

A Canadian college student majoring in chemistry built himself a home lab – and discovered that trying to do science in your own home quickly leads to accusations of drug-making and terrorism.

Lewis Casey, an 18-year-old in Saskatchewan, had built a small chemistry lab in his family’s garage near the university where he studies. Then two weeks ago, police arrived at his home with a search warrant and based on a quick survey of his lab determined that it was a meth lab. They pulled Casey out of the shower to interrogate him, and then arrested him.

A few days later, police admitted that Casey’s chemistry lab wasn’t a meth lab – but they kept him in jail, claiming that he had some of the materials necessary to produce explosives. Friends and neighbors wrote dozens of letters to the court, testifying that Casey was innocent and merely a student who is really enthusiastic about chemistry.

Full Story: io9

(Thanks Justin!)

Even when he was living in a teepee at the height of the hippie movement, he never cancelled his subscription to Scientific American. And even though he started using all those eastern Hindu metaphors that became so popular then, he was also seeing it all in terms of genetics and DNA, very early on. It was not that long after the discovery of DNA – less than a decade — and this really impacted on his vision of psychedelic experiences from the start in 1960. You can pretty much find him intuiting evolutionary psychology even in his earlier writings. He went on evolutionary trips, experiencing the emergence of life and its evolution toward humanity. He assumed everybody would have that trip, which is one place where he went a bit astray. [...]

The other thing you may be referring to is the conversation at the end of the book that Leary had with a hardball Swiss political operative with various intelligence connections while he was in exile from the U.S. government in Switzerland. The entry is almost painful in its sophistication and leaves the book on a solemn note — we are still all prisoners of men who lust for power, from Leary’s point of view.

Full Story: 10 Zen Monkeys

KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana. When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house.

The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster’s attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster’s secret mobile office nearby.

More info: The Agitator

KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana. When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house.

The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster’s attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster’s secret mobile office nearby.

More info: The Agitator

In 2001, the Peruvian Air Force shot down a plane flying over the Amazon after receiving information from the CIA that the plane was trafficking in narcotics. It wasn’t. It was filled with Christian missionaries. The attack resulted in the death of 35-year-old Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter Charity. The CIA was working with the government of Peru as part of a program to intercept drug planes en route”‘another part of our disastrous drug interdiction efforts in Latin America.

Seven years later, CIA Inspector General John Helgerson has issued a blistering report finding that the CIA repeatedly lied and covered up details about the intercept program, about the downing of Bowers’ plane, and about other incidents that never made the news.

Full Story: the Agitator

Parents, more reason to be afraid:

Websites are targeting your children with so-called digital drugs. These are audio files designed to induce drug-like effects.

All your child needs is a music player and headphones. [...]

There are different slang terms for digital drugs. They’re often called “idozers” or “idosers.” All rely on the concept of binaural beats. [...]

Other sites offer therapeutic binaural beats. They help you relax or meditate. Some allegedly help you overcome addiction or anxiety. Others purport to help you lose weight or eliminate gray hair.

However, most sites are more sinister. They sell audio files (“doses”) that supposedly mimic the effects of alcohol and marijuana.

But it doesn’t end there. You’ll find doses that purportedly mimic the effects of LSD, crack, heroin and other hard drugs. There are also doses of a sexual nature. I even found ones that supposedly simulate heaven and hell.

Full Story: USA Today

(Thanks Telarus!)

I can’t wait til this hits Fox News

There is no religious right in Arizona to possess marijuana, the state Court of Appeals ruled Thursday, saying freedom of religion is not the same as freedom of action.

The judges rejected arguments that the First Amendment protections of free exercise of religion entitle an Arizona resident, Daniel Hardesty, to use marijuana as a ’sacrament’ of his church.

They said the state has the power to totally ban possession of the drug because of its known harmful nature.

But the judges left the door open to considering future arguments about the religious freedom to use marijuana.

Full Story: Religion News Blog

(via OVO)

Documentary from Gnostic Media

How deep does the rabbit hole go? Gnostic Media is proud to present the official online edition of The Pharmacratic Inquisition 2007. If you enjoyed ‘Zeitgeist – The Movie’, you will love this video; the creators of this video are listed as one of the sources for the Zeitgeist Movie. The Pharmacratic Inquisition 2007 is a video version of the book, ‘Astrotheology & Shamanism’ by Jan Irvin & Andrew Rutajit. The painstakingly detailed and heavily footnoted research in the book comes to life in this video and is now available to you for FREE! For further research of the claims made in this video, please read AstroTheology & Shamanism – this book is available to order as a combo with the DVD. Thousands of years ago, in the pre monarchic era, sacred plants and other entheogenic substances where politically correct and highly respected for their ability to bring forth the divine, Yahweh, God, The Great Spirit, etc., by the many cultures who used them. Often the entire tribe or community would partake in the entheogenic rites and rituals. These rites were often used in initiation into adulthood, for healing, to help guide the community in the decision process, and to bring the direct religious experience to anyone seeking it. In the pre literate world, the knowledge of psychedelic sacraments, as well as fertility rites and astronomical knowledge surrounding the sun, stars, and zodiac, known as astrotheology, were anthropomorphized into a character or a deity; consequently, their stories and practices could easily be passed down for generations. Weather changes over millenniums caused environmental changes that altered the available foods and plant sacraments available in the local vicinity. If a tribe lost its shamanic El-der (El – God), all of the tribe’s knowledge of their plant sacraments as well as astronomical knowledge would be lost. The Church’s inquisitions extracted this sacred knowledge from the local Shamans who were then exterminated…It is time to recognize the fact that this Pharmacratic Inquisition is still intact and destroy it.

(via Dedroidify)