Police in South Wales, England discovered a new kind of grow-op over the weekend. The entire Jubilee Hotel had been converted into a pot farm.

Living quarters were on the second floor of the former hotel, while the vegetation and flowering chambers each occupied their own floor. In total, over 2,300 cannabis plants were found.

A Detective Inspector named Nigel said, “It’s probably something which wasn’t designed to supply drugs locally,” he said. “We’re working with colleagues from Kent and Metropolitan police to investigate further leads around the process.”

Despite the recent downgrading of cannabis from a class B to a class C drug, Nigel said, “For us primarily it is and remains an illegal drug and to that end, the cultivation and distribution of it are serious criminal offences.”

Six men have been arrested.

From The BBC

Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry regrets smoking marijuana as a teenager, because it made her so paranoid that she couldn’t face the outside world. Berry insists she has never tried anything stronger than marijuana, and blasts celebrities who take hard drugs.

She says, “People in this business use cocaine and crack, but I never wanted to put that in my body. Why would I?

“I tried pot when I was 18 or 19. But it just made me scared to leave the house.”

Starpulse.com

Of course, Berry went on to contemplate suicide after her divorce from David Justice in 1996. In 2000, she plowed into a car while running a red light - only to take off before the cops arrived, so she might just be naturally disturbed.

Whatever the cause of her behavior, Halle Berry is hot enough to deserve some slack. Besides, if this chick is half as crazy in the sack as she is in the streets, even a dedicated marijuana enthusiast could excuse her disrespect for the International Herb.

Halle gets paranoid when she smokes…

…and she doesn’t leave the house.

No worries, Halle.

Medical Use of Marijuana Should Be Legalized

By Montel Williams

Illinois — You probably know me as a talk show host and, perhaps, as
someone who for several years has spoken out about my use of medical
marijuana for the pain caused by multiple sclerosis. That surprised a few
people, but recent research has proved that I was right: right about
marijuana’s medical benefits and right about how urgent it is for states to
change their laws so that sick people aren’t treated as criminals. The
Illinois General Assembly is considering such a change right now.

If you see me on television [10 a.m. weekdays on Channel 4 in St. Louis], I
look healthy. What you don’t see is the mind-numbing pain searing through my
legs like hot pokers.

My doctors wrote me prescriptions for some of the strongest painkillers
available. I took Percocet, Vicodin and Oxycontin on a regular basis,
knowingly risking overdose just trying to make the pain bearable. But these
powerful, expensive drugs brought me no relief. I couldn’t sleep, I was
agitated, my legs kicked involuntarily in bed and the pain was so bad I
found myself crying in the middle of the night.

All these heavy-duty narcotics made me nearly incoherent. I couldn’t take
them when I had to work, because they turned me into a zombie. Worse, these
drugs are highly addictive, and one thing I knew was that I didn’t want to
become a junkie.Advertisement

When someone suggested I try marijuana, I was skeptical. But I also was
desperate. To my amazement, it worked after the legal drugs had failed.
Three puffs and within minutes the excruciating pain in my legs subsided. I
had my first restful sleep in months.

I am not alone. A new study from the University of California, published in
February in the highly regarded medical journal Neurology, leaves no doubt
about that.

You see, people with MS suffer from a particular type of pain called
neuropathic pain: pain caused by damage to the nerves. It’s common in MS but
also in many other illnesses, including diabetes and HIV/AIDS. It’s
typically a burning or stabbing sensation, and conventional pain drugs don’t
help much, whatever the specific illness.

The new study, conducted by Dr. Donald Abrams, looked at neuropathic pain in
HIV/AIDS patients. About one-third of people with HIV eventually suffer this
kind of pain, and there are no FDA-approved treatments. For some it gets so
bad that they can’t walk.

This was what is known as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled
trial, the “gold standard” of medical research. And marijuana worked. The
very first marijuana cigarette reduced the pain by an average of 72 percent,
without serious side effects.

What makes this even more impressive is that U.S. researchers studying
marijuana are required to use marijuana supplied by the federal government,
marijuana that is famous for its poor quality and weakness. So there is
every reason to believe that studies such as this one underestimate the
potential relief that high-quality marijuana could provide.

In my case, medical marijuana has allowed me to live a productive, fruitful
life despite having multiple sclerosis. Many thousands of others all over
this country — less well-known than me but whose stories are just as real —
have experienced the same thing.

Here’s what’s shocking: The U.S. government knows marijuana works as a
medicine. Our government actually provides medical marijuana each month to
five patients in a program that started about 25 years ago but was closed to
new patients in 1992. One of the patients in that program, Florida
stockbroker Irvin Rosenfeld, was a guest on my show two years ago. If
federal officials come to town to tell you there’s no evidence marijuana is
a safe, effective medicine, know this: They’re lying, and they know it.

Still, 39 states subject patients with illnesses like MS, cancer or HIV/AIDS
to arrest and jail for using medical marijuana, even if their doctor has
recommended it. It’s long past time for that to change.

Illinois state Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago, has introduced a bill — SB
650 — to protect patients like me from arrest and jail for using medical
marijuana when it’s recommended by a physician. Similar laws are working
well in 11 states right now.

The General Assembly should pass the medical marijuana bill without delay.
Sick people shouldn’t be treated as criminals.

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)

Law enforcement officers in Tennessee make the greatest underground discovery since Tutankhamen’s tomb was unearthed in the Valley of the Kings.

Under this ordinary house is a marijuana grow-op unlike any you have ever seen. Within the caves of middle Tennessee, growers constructed a complex of offices, living quarters, restroom facilities, and a climate-controlled forest of over one thousand cannabis plants.

Behind this vault door is Wonkaland for stoners.

The vegetative and flowering chambers each contained over 500 plants on a hydroponic irrigation system.

A 150-yard tunnel leads to a concealed escape hatch below a hydraulic rock!

Three men were arrested. The mastermind behind the operation was running it from Florida.

Thanks Southeastern Outdoors Magazine!

#3: “Weed makes you paranoid”

But it’s the good kind of paranoid. It’s the kind of paranoia which there’s no actual threat.

Sober paranoia is like, “I’m in an airplane and we’re going to crash, oh no!”

Weed paranoia is like, “I’m in an airplane and we’re going to.. oh wait, that’s a squirrel.”

#3: “Everyone knows potheads are losers”

The only way to get a bad reputation from smoking is if you talk about it nonstop like you’re trying to impress people or use being high as an excuse for being stupid. I hate those people. They’ll be like, “Oh shit, I spilled your beer hehehehe I’m so high.” Don’t talk about it, do it.

The fragrance of weed reminds me of burnt pizza. Because every time I get high, I throw a pizza in the oven. And every pizza I’ve tried to bake have overbaked because I was baked. Then I’m sitting there contemplating, “Do I smell smoke? This is weird. I must be really high. How could I smell smoke when my nose is in this girl’s vagina? Is that even a vagina? It feels more like an avocado. Oh wait, it’s my pillow drool.”

#1: Shut up”

dfsdgsdgt it

#2: “Weed makes you stupid.”

Yeah. So what’s the problem? Being smart is overrated. How about I sew your face together.

#5: “Smoking is a health hazard.”People explain to me how much of a hazard weed is to their health. Yeah, it is. So are cars, knives, doors, dildos, guns, broken glass, everything is a hazard to your health. I’m wondering when people will stop being pussies and realize that life is a dangeous, hazardous, and risky place to live. If you don’t smoke weed because of it’s “health risk,” you might as well live your whole life inside a cage, get fed intervenously, and never see sunlight or come in contact with anyone or anything. And no jerking it.

Have you ever seen an obituary, “Billy died from the super danks.” No. Every time a stoner goes to the hospital, it goes like this:

“Hey Doctor, I need serious help. I think I smoked too much weed and I’m having extreme shortness of breath because my lungs are collapsing”

“Hmm.. that very well be the case, son. Or.. perhaps it’s because your mouth is full of burnt pizza.”

“Oh, I thought that was my tongue.”

So that’s one possible reason to not smoke. Because it burns pizza. And I’ll tell you how to fix that one right now:

Cook the pizza. THEN get high. There. Everyone wins.

#1: “Weed is bad because it makes you lazy.”

Everyone is lazy regardless of what the they smoke. Gimme a break. “Weed makes you lazy and unmotivated.” It motivated me enough to write this article you dumb assheads, dumbass heads. How about I punch your head in the nose. How about I kick you in the general vicinity of the teeth. How about I tear your head off and fuckstart your brain.

Thanks to NinjaPirate.com

Einstein once stated that insanity was the act of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  By his definition, the entire drug war is one giant act of insanity.

One of the legacies of the drug war is the irrational attitude towards drugs among elected police officials. It is always considered safe to grandstand on behalf of the children or against drugs. But this rhetoric has more to do with vote counts than it does with enhancing public safety. County Sheriffs may publicly play the role of cop, but more often than not they are merely politicians with guns.

Meet Sheriff Andy Hughes of the Houston County, Alabama Sheriffs Department (HCSD). Sheriff Hughes has a tough new job and he is ready to protect and serve.

On the HCSD website, Sheriff Hughes lays out the task of maintaining order.

• Law enforcement includes all road patrol, investigative and emergency response facets of the agency.
• Currently the HCSD has 53 certified officers to protect the safety of the 100,000 Citizens of Houston County.

• The Corrections function is served by our 204 bed jail facility.

But there is a problem in Houston, County. According to Sheriff Hughes, “Our day to day inmate count exceeds the rated jail capacity due to the inability of the State of Alabama to accept all inmates who have been sentenced to state prison.”

“Something many people may not know is that there are 586 square miles in Houston County and with the current manpower at the sheriff’s office, there are not enough deputies to cover that much ground.”

Sheriff Hughes says he plans to change that.

Drug enforcement is another area Hughes plans to invest a lot of resources in. According to Hughes,

“The drug war is a war we’ll never win and it’s time to attack it on a daily basis and concentrate on drugs.”

Einstein also once stated, “A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.” To which I would add, “And yet, in America, it is the insane with whom we place responsibility.”

NORML member under suspicion of marijuana use
By: Jack Willems

The standing vice-president of the UA chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws will go in front of the judicial board in two weeks for the possession of marijuana and being under the influence of it, he said.

Charles McClure is being tried by the judicial board under suspicion of possessing un-weighable amounts of marijuana and being under its influence for two separate cases, McClure said.

McClure came into his room Feb. 7 to find two police officers, his roommate and a resident assistant, he said. The police were called to search the room because the RA had received a complaint from his roommate that McClure was smoking marijuana and hiding it in a sock, according to the police call log.

“I talked to the police,” McClure said. “They told me explicitly that they had not found anything in my room and that they wanted to conduct a search,” McClure said.

Because the sock was in plain view, the police were able to inspect it while McClure was gone. Inside the sock there was a baggie containing marijuana residue, but not enough to be used, said Lt. Gary Crain, pubic information officer for UAPD. A usable amount of marijuana must be found to press charges, Crain said.

“It has to be enough to put into a pipe or make into a cigarette,” Crain said.

McClure allowed the police to search his room, which yielded no evidence of illegal activity, he said. The police made no arrests, and no charges were made, Crain said.

McClure was told during a pre-hearing interview with the UA judicial board that he was being sent to the board because a baggie containing un-weighable amounts of marijuana was found in the sock, McClure said. The baggie was discovered by police before McClure was present for the UAPD search, McClure said.

“The baggie in question has since been destroyed,” McClure said. “As far as I am concerned, the baggie never existed.”

The two police officers took nothing from the room, Crain said. Any usable amount of pot found would likely have been kept for evidence, not destroyed, Crain said.

The officers who searched McClure’s room did not refer him to the judicial board, Crain said.

The judicial board is also trying McClure for being under the influence of marijuana, McClure said. A police officer was sent to McClure’s room Feb. 17 because someone had reported the smell of marijuana, according to another police call log. McClure did not allow them to search the room, so the police officer referred him to the judicial board for the smell of marijuana coming from his room, according to the call log.

“The smell of pot is a very common occurrence at Humphreys Hall,” McClure said. “Smell does not constitute use, it constitutes smell.”

Legal standards for criminal cases do not necessarily apply to the judicial board, Crain said. The burden of proof is not the same, nor is the requirement of evidence the same, he said. Just because no criminal charges were brought against McClure, it does not mean he could not be sent to the judicial board.

“If the officers had reason to believe he was doing that but couldn’t find anything, they could recommend him to the judicial board,” Crain said.

Although a date for the hearing has not been set, McClure has been placed on academic probation, he said.

“I’m upset about being punished worse than someone who was caught drinking,” he said.

McClure was specifically told that his position with NORML had nothing to do with his being tried, he said. McClure has smoked marijuana before, and this will be his first offense, he said.

The United States is trying to remake the world. If there is one thing that the American government learned from September 11, it is that most of the world doesn’t govern properly. America tried to lead by example but the world was too dumb to follow, so the US has been forced to use “tough love” to lead the savages to civility. Our work is beginning to pay off.

One of America’s roles as the boss of the world is to combat certain drugs and plants. Our “War on Drugs” has been waged since President Nixon declared drugs “America’s public enemy number one” in 1969 and the Congress passed the Controlled Substances act shortly thereafter.

Today we spend over $60 billion every year fighting the $200 billion business that flourishes in the streets.

From 1995 to 2003, inmates incarcerated in federal prisons for drug offenses accounted for over half of the total prison population. Today a record 7 million people, one in every 32 American adults, are behind bars, on probation or on parole, according to the Justice Department. In fact, more people are behind bars in the United States than any other country; and drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available than ever before.

This strategy is now being spread across Central Asia and the Middle East. And the efforts are working. They are finally starting to look more like America.

From the BBC:

Afghan opium ‘hits record output’

Poppy production rose 25% in 2006, a figure US Assistant Secretary of State Ann Patterson described as alarming.

Four years after the US and its British allies began combating poppy production, Afghanistan still accounts for 90% of the world’s opium trade.

The US has recently given the Afghan government more than $10bn in assistance, but most of that money will be spent in security rather than encouraging alternative sources of income.

In other words, the US will spend $10 billion to jail and kill Afghanis associated with certain substances, but little of that money will be used to change the situation. That is the strategy that America has pioneered. We spread it with economic armtwisting when we can, and military might when we must. And we go nowhere.

The drug trade is about capitalism. In Afghanistan, growing poppies is good business. Expecting that they will ignore the business opportunities in opium is like expecting that the Founding Fathers of America would have given up growing tobacco and hemp on the order of King George. Capitalism can’t be contained by decree.

And therein lies the problem. The nation that was founded on commerce is fighting a war that can only be won if the principles of capitalism can be overcome. America is quite proficient at exploiting the marketplace; she has no idea how to squelch it.

Prohibition is supposed to work by increasing the cost of producing, distributing, and consuming certain substances to the extent that they are no longer worth using or selling. Punishment and fear of punishment are both critical components of any prohibition strategy.

As good as this strategy sounds to some, it just can’t work. King George could never have stopped those rebellious tobacco and hemp farmers in Virginia with tax codes, threats, or canons. And the US will not stop others from growing their cash crops with sanctions, threats, or bombs. The only payoff that can be had is that more people will be more afriad of the government that is trying to control them. In that way, even Afghanistan looks a bit like the US.

Governor Bill Richardson just signed New Mexico’s medical marijuana bill into law. New Mexico is now the 12th state with medical marijuana. And Bill Richardson is now the first Presidential candidate ever to have signed medical marijuana legislation.

There is a lot of talk about the political risk Richardson is taking with this move. Many believe that he is taking extraordinary chances with his political career by supporting such a controversial subject. This talk is pure rubbish.

The Marijuana Policy Project reports:

Widespread Support for Medical Marijuana Throughout the Country

• A November 2005 nationwide Gallup poll showed 78% of Americans “support making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering.”
• Support spans age groups as well. In a November 2004 AARP poll, 72% of Americans aged 45 and older said that “adults should be allowed to legally use marijuana for medical purposes.”
• Since 1996, a majority of voters in Alaska, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington state have voted in favor of ballot initiatives to remove criminal penalties for seriously ill people who grow or possess medical marijuana.
• State legislatures in Hawaii, Vermont, and Rhode Island have listened to their constituents and passed medical marijuana laws. Polls show that public approval of medical marijuana laws has increased since the laws went into effect.

The only reason it is considered risky to support medical marijuana is because the elites that propagate this belief are completely out of touch with the American people. Can you imagine anyone stating that it was politically risky to support the right to keep and bear arms?
Yet:

By a better than 2-to-1 margin — 68% vs. 28% — Americans believe that the Second Amendment gives individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms, rather than merely preserve the existence of “citizen militias.” However, when probed, 82% of Americans who say the amendment guarantees this right say that the government can regulate it. Only 12% of all Americans say that the Constitution gives Americans an unrestricted right to bear arms._(Based on the National Constitution Center Talk Back question “Does the Second Amendment protect the rights of individual gun owners?”)link

Supporting medical marijuana isn’t risky. It is compassionate.
In New Mexico, the state government will now license producers of medical marijuana and control where it will be dispensed. Sick people will get the medicine they need and Bill Richardson will show the elites on the East Coast just how wrong they are.

Way to go Governor Richardson!

Congratulations New Mexico!

For those in San Diego who might be thinking about a stoney trip to Amsterdam, don’t bother asking Google for help.

Click here for the full-sized map.

(Hint: You may want to laminate it before you leave.)

When asked how to get to Amsterdam, Google directs travelers across the fruited plain to the great state of Massachusetts. There, you are to take the I-90 East to the edge of America, where step #32 instructs travelers to, “Swim across the Atlantic Ocean” 3,462 miles!

I don’t want to sound like the Ugly American, but isn’t there a more comfortable way?

Go to google maps.