As you travel south down the coast of Southern California, you pass through beach city after beach city, each just about as marijuana-friendly as the last. From Venice, to Long Beach, through Huntington Beach, and down to Mission and Pacific Beaches, coastal Californians love to smoke marijuana.But as you move further south, a curious thing happens; the local governments become more and more anxious.

By the time you get to San Diego, you find a city of laid-back, suntanned stoners run in the spirit of Harry Anslinger.

The District Attorney’s Office gave the finger to the sick citizens of San Diego when it decided to volunteer its agents as Washington’s cabana boys. It appears that the Union Tribune has agreed to work as their fluffer.

State board is investigating doctors who OK medical pot

The District Attorney’s Office in San Diego has abandoned any pretense of public service. Now Damon Mosler wants to show you his teeth. Damon Mosler is the chief of the narcotics division of the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. He hates marijuana.

Mosler has long been frustrated that he is powerless to prosecute doctors who might be signing off on marijuana use.

The 1996 passage of state Proposition 215, allowing the use of medical marijuana, and a subsequent federal court ruling prohibits prosecution of a doctor for recommending medical marijuana.

“I have yet to find a criminal outlet for me to prosecute them,” Mosler said. “If I could, I would.”

Mosler is fuming mad because Doctors talk to their patients about marijuana, but he doesn’t seem to understand why he can’t lock them up. The Doctors he is targeting are responding.

Jimenez vehemently denied Mosler’s allegations and said District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis is wasting taxpayer resources by pursuing medical marijuana doctors and patients.

“It’s a witch hunt,” he said. “They’re going to demonize it as much as they can.”

Mosler believes that lawyers should set medical policy. And, as a self-taught expert on chronic illness, he disagrees with Dr. Jimenez.

“If I have a chronic illness, I think I should see my doctor more often than every six months,” Mosler said.

Whatever the San Diego District Attorney’s Office decides to do, the medical marijuana community is not going to stop caring about the suffering of sick people. Mosler can stick his head in the sand if he chooses (it would not require a very large hole) but marijuana helps some suffering people. And as long as it does, some brave men and women will face Mosler’s wrath in order to heal them.

Jimenez said he has seen the benefits that medical marijuana brings to his patients, and vowed to continue despite the obstacles.

“It is something we’re very passionate about,” he said. “We’re not going to go away.”

Anxiety is defined as “an unpleasant, emotional state of high energy that involves a complex combination of emotions that include fear, apprehension, and worry.”

Mosler obviously suffers from acute anxiety. (If he can give medical advice, so can we.)

If Damon Mosler could stop raging for just a moment, he might realize that Dr. Jimenez can help him. There is a fine natural herb that has been used by countless folks to treat anxiety. By the looks of things, the whole damned Southern Coast should be smoking it.

I want to learn more about Dr. Jimenez.

Find out how to see Dr. Jimenez.

A kind selection of:

Humor
Education
Retro marijuana
Bizarre finds, and
Sounds that heal

HUMOR:
Marijuana-Logues
More Marijuana-Logues
A Vagina Monologues for marijuana enthusiasts.

EDUCATION:
The Medicinal Use of Cannabis
The secular view of medicinal cannabis.

RETRO:
Smoking Marijuana is Irresponsible and Self-Destructive

“Some facts are known. Some effects have been established. …Psychological effects: The marijuana user generally experiences an uncontrollable feeling of hilarity, quite without reason.”

Oh, yes. That should scare them.

BIZARRE:
Secret Reagan Tapes Released
If you weren’t alive to remember these folks, you might think this video has been edited. There is no way to know for sure, but it appears 100% legit.

SOUNDS:

Damian Marley may be singing from the shadow of a legend, but this Gong has a fresh and soulful sound all his own.

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Our review of Cannabis Flower Cologne:

Cannabis Flower Cologne smells unlike anything you have ever worn on purpose.
The beginning of Cannabis Flower has a stunning, vibrant feel brought on by the artificial cannabinoids and synthetic compounds. The top notes are glistening like an iced-out grill and effervescent like the most inexpensive of hotel champagnes. The crisp effect is softened a little by a warm, earthy base, which seems almost sensual at the outset, but quickly develops a slightly disagreeable odor of decomposing oils or fats. The heart develops a more interesting darker nuance with a hint of old camp fire and star anise.

The drydown is actually quite sexy in moderation. The note in Cannabis Flower has the same patchouli and mothball undertone that makes me think of vintage clothing stores in Santa Monica, California, but it is buttressed by a staunch lemon wind. With the finish of a thrusting fratboy, and almost too much staying power, a little Cannabis Flower Cologne goes a long way.

At $18.99 for 30ml, you’ll want to use it sparingly.

Available at Perpetual Kid.com

WARNING: THIS PRODUCT MAY BE ILLEGAL IN GEORGIA

From The Daily Times of Pakistan:

Switzerland’s Agriculture Ministry has called on the country’s farmers to stop feeding their cows cannabis.Several recent adverts have promoted feeding hemp to farm animals even after a March 2005 law banning its use.

The Agriculture Ministry has now warned that farmers doping their cows will be prosecuted.

Farmers consider the cheap and easy to grow plant is good for their cows.

They believe the active ingredient in cannabis, THC, makes cows happy and produce more milk, but the Agriculture Ministry say THC can get into the milk and create a health risk.

They also said that there was a risk that Swiss cheese products could be contaminated.

If this continues, and the Agriculture Ministry is right, THC milk and swiss cheese will be a big hit in Southern California.

The bong is probably the most popular and beloved smoking device in the history of human cannabis use. Some go as far as to name their bong. We collect and sometimes decorate our bongs, and we mourn our loss when they go to pieces. Yet, for something so precious, we know surprisingly little about the bong. And much of what we think we know about it is wrong, including the history of this wonderful device.

What you might have heard:
The bong is a descendent of the hookah. The word “bong” is derived from the Thai word ‘baung,’ which means ‘a cylindrical wooden tube, pipe or container cut from bamboo.’

This history was largely based on two factors. First, since cannabis is native to Central Asia, and has been used throughout history in China, it has always been assumed that the bong was invented in Asia. As the hookah uses water filtration like the modern bong, it was always assumed that the bong was developed from the hookah. [For those odd cases where this explanation didn’t work, it was assumed that straightening tobacco devices and filtering them through water led to the invention of the bong.]

Second, although early bongs have been discovered elsewhere, it has always been assumed that these bongs were introduced to the societies in which they were found by whomever introduced cannabis. Researchers had never seriously considered that the bong might have been invented outside of Asia. It was.

The bong was invented in Africa.

Previous studies of African smoking devices wrongly assumed that all smoking pipes radiated from the West Coast of Africa beginning when tobacco arrived on the continent. It was assumed that tobacco smoking spread across the savannah as a substitute stimulant for kola. Thus, whenever archaeologists found pipes in Africa, they automatically thought that the pipes were from 1600 CE or later. If this were true, it would mean that any African water pipe would be too young to have been invented before the hookah. But it was false. This theory completely missed the African cultures in the east and south that had been developing smoking devices before the arrival of tobacco.

We cannot be sure when cannabis first arrived in Africa, but archeologists believe that Africans smoked cannabis long before they ever smoked tobacco. J.C. Dombrowski found evidence of the earliest African cannabis smoking in Ethiopia. Eleven pipes were located in two caves and dated to between 1100 and 1400 CE. When researchers tested the pipes, they found ample cannabis residue. Here are the archaeologists’ drawings of the bowls they tested. Look familiar?

Yet the official story ignored this. In 1930, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago printed a series of pamphlets about tobacco that speculated that the Portuguese brought the water pipe to the Africans from Persia. The pamphlets were later frequently used as a reference by researchers. However, this distorted guess at history was based on a belief that water pipes were recent to Africa. Archaeologists have since learned that this was wrong. But, until now, the history of the bong has never been corrected.

The first African pipes were built into the ground. Lighted embers were placed in a buried bottle and hemp was placed on top of the embers. An underground duct led from the chamber to a mouth tube a short distance away. The earth pipes looked so much like the earth pipes of Central Asia, that Henry Balfour concluded that, “The resemblances are sufficiently striking and numerous to suggest that they must be explained by the assumption of a culture link between the two widely separated areas.” Of course, this meant that they were invented in Asia. He never considered an African origin.

Balfour also found a “tube pipe,” which he believed might have been the ancestor of the water pipe. Today we call it a “bat” or a “chillum.” Balfour never explained why he thought Africans would have simultaneously adopted an outdated technology if they were brought the more advanced water pipe by the Arabs.

In 1924 Alfred Dunhill published a survey of the smoking pipes of the world. The book included a chapter on the widespread use of a water pipe in eastern and southern Africa that was a distinct design that he believed was the invention of the San people. Because this did not fit with the common theory, he was ignored.

In 1945, archaeologist Mary Leakey found this water pipe in Tanzania. The bowl on top is connected to the water chamber in the bottom by means of a tube; the mouthpiece is on the curved neck of the gourd.

At the time of her discovery, experts took for granted that Arab navigators brought cannabis and cannabis pipes to Africa during the middle of the thirteenth century. They reasoned that these cannabis pipes must have descended from Asian pipes. But this version of history never made sense.

The theory ignores the fact that cannabis in Asian Islamic societies was eaten, rather than smoked, before the introduction of the water pipe in the early years of the seventeenth century.

Furthermore, all archaeological evidence indicates that Africans primarily chewed and snuffed tobacco, while they mostly smoked cannabis. The alternate theory that the tobacco pipe was adapted to cannabis by straightening it out and filtering it through water was also wrong because cannabis predates tobacco in Africa.

Simply put: Africans invented the bong to smoke cannabis.

As for the name, we are told that it comes from the Thai word ‘baung.’ But could the Thai instead have adopted that word from the Africans? In modern day Kenya, right where Mary Leakey found her water pipe, lives a rapidly disappearing tribe called the Bong’om. Their language is also called Bong’om. Across the continent we find Bong County, Liberia. It is named after Mount Bong. Did all of these Africans cling to some Thai word for a piece of cut bamboo? Or… could the early Thai stoners have named their most beloved device after the people who invented it?

Source:

African Smoking and Pipes
John Edward Philips
The Journal of African History, Vol. 24, No. 3 (1983), pp. 303-319

In Chile, the Ad agencies are gunning for the cannabis crowd. Base1 advertising wanted to associate “Cañamo” magazine with the pleasures of smoking marijuana, and putting their logo on a matchbox just wasn’t good enough. So they turned the matchbox into a stealth pipe.

Brief:

Canamo, being a magazine and not marijuana, is not be present during the consumption of cannabis, which leads to a significant loss of the key moments where the brand’s presence should generate a strong emotional relation and experience with the connoisseurs of the cannabis culture; thus incrementing the magazine’s subscriptions.

Idea:

Take over the very famous insight in this circle that are the matchboxes that transform into pipes by making a hole in them. For this purpose, we already designed a matchbox that counts with a hole already made, and an attractive and modern design for the object audience.

They will distribute these matchboxes in places where the object audience gathers: surf, rock, skate and cigarettes shops and concerts.

Agency: Base1, Chile.
Creative Director: Alejandro “Lato” La Torre / Hugo López
Art director: Carlos Saavedra
Copywriter: Alejandro “Lato” La Torre

The Cincinnati City Council has just renewed a draconian ordinance that sends people to jail for a month for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The city ordinance was set to expire but local cops pleaded to have it extended. The law allowed them to arrest more people, and they didn’t want to lose that power.

In the rest of Ohio, marijuana possession is punishable by a $100 fine and no jail.

After reading some background information, some citizens challenged police claims that crime rates had fallen since the ordinance was passed.  The citizens argued that, in fact, the opposite was true and they demanded to see crime reports from the disputed time period.    They were told that this is not public information.

The following letter was published in response:

At the Tuesday Law and Public Safety Committee meeting the police reported
on how much crime had been reduced in Cincinnati, credit for which they said
belonged to the enhanced penalties of the year-old marijuana ordinance.
Their facts and conclusion were challenged by several speakers, but in the
end the committee members (except Tarbell) used this report as a basis for
rushing the extension of the ordinance to the meeting of full council.
After the meeting I asked the clerk’s office for a copy of their report and
was told it was not available.

And I have a problem with that.  The committee based its vote, at least in
part, on a report that is not immediately available to the public.  The
clerk’s office said that I could go to the basement CityCable office and
they would make a copy on DVD of their recording of the police
presentation.  They said there should be a video recording of the screen
onto which their report was projected.  They also said that it is the common
practice for the police, when they do such a report, to bring in their
CD-ROM to make the presentation and leave with it, without giving the clerk
a copy.  So I guess I could also go to the police directly and ask for a
copy.

But why should it be so complicated?  It should be routine for such reports
to be included on-line.  I and others struggled to figure out the basis for
what the police were saying—that crime went down in the city.  I will give a
brief review of that below.  After I started writing this a friend of mine
came in with a video copy that someone had taped off of cable.

The police said Part 1 Crimes went down since the enhanced penalties went
into effect.  Part 1 crimes, per the Cincinnanti Police website,* include
murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and auto
theft.  Comparing 2005 with 2006 we see that in 2006 murders, robberies, and
burglaries went up.  Rapes, aggravated assaults, larcenies, and auto thefts
went down..

The police website also reports that in 2005 there were 291,468 calls for
service.  In 2006 there were 313,129 calls for service, a 7% increase.  (By
the way, assuming no overtime this works out to about 1.2 calls for service
per officer per day.)

The police also reported verbally, while giving their report, that the
fines levied against the offenders outweighed the city’s costs of
prosecuting them by almost 5 to 1.  This, too, was used as a justification
for making the increased penalties permanent

So it comes down to money and categories and which categories should count
in determining the effect of the increased penalties for marijuana
possession.  These should be items for serious discussion.  But instead the
Law & Public Safety Committee (except Tarbell) rushed to approve a permanent
extension of the increased penalties based on a report that disappeared with
the police.

Michael Earl Patton

Steven Steiner has the First Amendment right to act like an asshole and he is not afraid to use it. After his son overdosed on prescription medications, Steiner snapped. Broken by grief, Steiner has been waging war on medical marijuana patients as a way of dealing with his son’s death. Steiner has no medical training, but he believes that marijuana was responsible for his child taking too many prescription drugs. He has just finished an attack on the people of Connecticut, and now he wants to stop Rhode Island residents from using marijuana to stop their pain. If he has to hurt, they should too.

Rhode Island permits the use of medical marijuana, but the law that allows it is set to expire. Lawmakers are considering whether to continue to allow patients an herbal option to health care, or to listen to folks like Steiner and let them suffer.

As the first state to declare Independence from the British, and the last to ratify the Constitution, the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (the actual name of the state) has a history of independent and courageous thought. It would be a new course of action if Rhode Island were suddenly to abandon its sovereign history and be swayed by a fear monger like Steven Steiner. But weirder things have happened, so we’ll keep an eye on Little Rhody.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Medical marijuana patients urged legislators on Wednesday to permanently legalize the drug for medicinal uses in Rhode Island, saying it is one of the few things that provide relief for crippling pain often
caused by chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis and AIDS.

”Please approve this law again - this time permanently,” said multiple
sclerosis patient Rhonda O’Donnell of Warwick at a Senate hearing on a bill
that would remove the sunshine clause from the state’s medical marijuana
law, essentially legalizing medical marijuana use for good.

O’Donnell, 44, who got out of her wheelchair and leaned over a podium to
speak, said marijuana is often the only thing that can relieve burning pain
in her legs from the disease. She asked the committee to ”please show your
compassion once again.”

Rhode Island became the 11th state to legalize marijuana for medicinal
purposes in 2006. A total of 244 Rhode Islanders are now permitted to
possess small amounts of marijuana under the state’s medical marijuana
program, according to state health authorities. Eighteen applications are
pending.

If the law is not renewed by June 30 the licenses will become invalid.

The senate could consider Sen. Rhoda Perry’s bill by mid-April. The
House is also considering a proposal to permanently legalize medicinal
marijuana.

Patients seeking to use marijuana for medical purposes in Rhode Island
need documentation from a doctor saying they have one of several chronic
illnesses, such as cancer or AIDS, and that the benefits of marijuana use
outweigh the risks.

Applicants must provide certification from a doctor in the state that
says marijuana may mitigate their symptoms. They also can designate someone
to grow or buy marijuana for them, and those under 18 may use the drug if
they get permission from a parent or legal guardian.

Perry’s bill would also extend medical marijuana licenses to two years
rather than one year.

Possessing marijuana remains illegal under federal law and people who
use the substance could still be prosecuted by federal officials.

Steven Steiner, co-founder of the Americans for Drug Free Youth, urged
the committee to let the bill expire, saying the use of medical marijuana
needs further study and that marijuana acts as a gateway to other drugs.

”Let the bill die. Let science do it’s job,” he said.

But Kelly Powers, 32, a Warwick mother of two, said she was sickened by
prescription medication and found little relief for multiple sclerosis and
chronic anxiety until she used marijuana.

She told the committee that marijuana has helped reduce her use of
prescription drugs and enabled her to resume much of her life.

”To have this taken away from all the chronically ill patients would be
a crime,” she said.

Several doctors told the committee that marijuana is now recognized for
treating intractable nerve pain and helps many patients cope with an
otherwise incapacitating illness.

Dr. Margaret Son, an East Providence family physician, said the fact
that only several hundred people in Rhode Island are allowed to use medical
marijuana shows that the state has been prudent in granting licenses.

”I don’t believe that this has been abused in any fashion,” she said.

A new study finds, “alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or Ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems.”

Research recently published in the medical journal The Lancet rates the most dangerous drugs (starting with the worst) as follows:

1. Heroin
2. Cocaine
3. Barbiturates
4. Street methadone
5. Alcohol
6. Ketamine
7. Benzodiazepines
8. Amphetamine
9. Tobacco
10. Buprenorphine
11. Cannabis
12. Solvents
13. 4-MTA
14. LSD
15. Methylphenidate
16. Anabolic steroids
17. GHB
18. Ecstasy
19. Alkyl nitrates
20. Khat

This is not news to marijuana smokers. And, judging by the dismissive public reaction of the prohibitionists, it is not surprising to them either. The difference is in their responses. While most people recognize a need for drug policy change, some still cling to the old patronizing, “Yeah, yeah, yeah…we know it’s safe. It’s also illegal; deal with it.”

But how shall we deal with it?

Prohibitionists often advance the argument that society does have the right to interfere with individual liberty. Since we all enjoy the benefits of a safe and healthy society, we all have an obligation to live within the guidelines that make civilized society possible. Those guidelines are our laws. If you don’t like them, change them; but obey them in the process. That is civilized behavior.

They are right to a point. We don’t drive whatever speed we’d like because we couldn’t live with everyone else doing the same. We don’t just take things that do not belong to us because we respect the social value of private property. Yet, when the laws are seen as arbitrary and victimless, people stop respecting them. The very citizens who will surrender basic liberties in order to be civilized will risk prison to remain free. Of what value is a public health policy that is ignored by so much of the population?

Health and safety policy must be based on knowledge, not the characteristics of the current political regime. In order for the public to trust, and therefore respect, health policy, it should come from those who understand health. In the US and Britain, the relationship between knowledge, power, and public policy discounts knowledge in favor of power.

Drug laws are clearly not based on public health or safety. Drugs like insulin and Cipro are not dangerous or addictive, but are nevertheless controlled. Cannabis is labeled more dangerous than cocaine, and declared to have no medicinal value, while tobacco is no more restricted than lottery tickets. Does anyone actually believe this is proper?

Prohibitionists use public policy to punish those who choose a different lifestyle. If we want the public to respect the rule of law, then the laws must be based on the public good. We must distinguish between the actual pharmacological effects of drugs and the hysterical misinformation spread by the militant moralists.

Until we are willing to address the issue with a rational, science-based approach, our drug laws will continue to fail society and accomplish none of what they claim to pursue. If you don’t agree, consider the law and ask yourself two questions: Who has better access to alcohol and tobacco, you or your children? Who has better access to marijuana?

Alcohol, tobacco make top 10 list of risky drugs
British study rated the substances more dangerous than marijuana, Ecstasy

LONDON - New “landmark” research finds that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or Ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems, according to a new British study.

In research published Friday in The Lancet magazine, Professor David Nutt of Britain’s Bristol University and colleagues proposed a new framework for the classification of harmful substances, based on the actual risks posed to society. Their ranking listed alcohol and tobacco among the top 10 most dangerous substances.

Nutt and colleagues used three factors to determine the harm associated with any drug: the physical harm to the user, the drug’s potential for addiction and the impact on society of drug use. The researchers asked two groups of experts — psychiatrists specializing in addiction and legal or police officials with scientific or medical expertise — to assign scores to 20 different drugs, including heroin, cocaine, Ecstasy, amphetamines and LSD.

Nutt and his colleagues then calculated the drugs’ overall rankings. In the end, the experts agreed with each other — but not with the existing British classification of dangerous substances.

Heroin and cocaine were ranked most dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth-most harmful drug and tobacco the ninth most harmful. Cannabis came in 11th, and near the bottom of the list was Ecstasy.

‘Current drug system is ill thought-out’
According to existing British and U.S. drug policy, alcohol and tobacco are legal, while cannabis and Ecstasy are both illegal. Previous reports, including a study from a parliamentary committee last year, have questioned the scientific rationale for Britain’s drug classification system.

“The current drug system is ill thought-out and arbitrary,” said Nutt, referring to the United Kingdom’s practice of assigning drugs to three distinct divisions, ostensibly based on the drugs’ potential for harm. “The exclusion of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a scientific perspective, arbitrary,” write Nutt and his colleagues in The Lancet.

Tobacco causes 40 percent of all hospital illnesses, while alcohol is blamed for more than half of all visits to hospital emergency rooms. The substances also harm society in other ways, damaging families and occupying police services.

Nutt hopes that the research will provoke debate within the UK and beyond about how drugs — including socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol — should be regulated. While different countries use different markers to classify dangerous drugs, none use a system like the one proposed by Nutt’s study, which he hopes could serve as a framework for international authorities.

“This is a landmark paper,” said Dr. Leslie Iversen, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University. Iversen was not connected to the research. “It is the first real step towards an evidence-based classification of drugs.” He added that based on the paper’s results, alcohol and tobacco could not reasonably be excluded.

“The rankings also suggest the need for better regulation of the more harmful drugs that are currently legal, i.e. tobacco and alcohol,” wrote Wayne Hall, of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, in an accompanying Lancet commentary. Hall was not involved with Nutt’s paper.

While experts agreed that criminalizing alcohol and tobacco would be challenging, they said that governments should review the penalties imposed for drug abuse and try to make them more reflective of the actual risks and damages involved.

Nutt called for more education so that people were aware of the risks of various drugs. “All drugs are dangerous,” he said. “Even the ones people know and love and use every day.”

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