2/26/2006 11:20:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|It was said during the Viet Nam war that if Nixon lost Cronkite he's lost America. Read it and weep - We've gained Cronkite:
Walter Cronkite, the man dubbed “the most trusted man in America,” sent out a passionate letter to over 100,000 people on February 23rd asking them to help end the war at home— the drug war— by supporting the non-profit organization, the Drug Policy Alliance. In his appeal, Cronkite recounted his experiences covering the Vietnam War. “I remember the lies that were told, the lives that were lost—and the shock when, twenty years after the war ended, former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara admitted he knew it was a mistake all along.” Mr. Cronkite also pointed out that in addition to the current war in Iraq, there is a devastating war right here in the United States, the US Drug War. “Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home,” Cronkite wrote. “While the war in Iraq is in the headlines, the other war is still being fought on our own streets. Its causalities are the wasted lives of our own citizens. I am speaking of the war on drugs.” Mr. Cronkite explained his reasons for opposing the current drug war policies. “And what is the impact of this policy? It surely hasn’t made our streets safer. Instead, we have locked up literally millions of people…disproportionately people of color…who have caused little or no harm to others-wasting resources that could be used for counter-terrorism, reducing violent crime, or catching white-collar criminals. “With police wielding unprecedented powers to invade privacy, tap phones and conduct searches seemingly at random, our civil liberties are in a very precarious condition,” he added. “Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on this effort-with no one held accountable for its failure.
So there.|W|P|114101424097182116|W|P|We've gained Cronkite|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/17/2006 08:14:00 AM|W|P|Doc|W|P|Pot edges cherries in value as a state agricultural product By JOHN K. WILEY | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Thursday, February 16, 2006 SPOKANE -- Law enforcement officers harvested a dubious record last year: enough marijuana plants to rank the illegal weed as Washington state's No. 8 agricultural commodity, edging sweet cherries in value. The 135,323 marijuana plants seized in 2005 were estimated to be worth $270 million -- a record amount that places the crop among the state's top 10 agricultural commodities, based on the most recent statistics available. [zombienote: Those "estimates" are always - invariably - vastly overblown so as to make it seem like law enforcement is NOT wasting it's time and your money accomplishing absolutely nothing.] And like any agricultural product, marijuana is very much a commodity, Lt. Rich Wiley, who heads the Washington State Patrol narcotics program, said Wednesday. "We're struck by the amount of work they put into it," Wiley said. "It's very labor-intensive. They often run individual drip lines to each plant and are out there fertilizing them. It takes a tremendous amount of work." But the results are worth the effort, said Wiley, who coordinates pot busts with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and local law enforcement agencies. A single plant can produce as much as a pound of processed marijuana, worth about $2,000, he said. [zombienote: I always say bad things about reefer mad cops, but really, many of them would make excellent science-fiction writers. Such imaginations.] The estimated $270 million value of the plants seized in 2005 ranked just above sweet cherries, which were valued at $242 million in 2004, and just below the $329 million the state's nurseries and greenhouses produced. Apples are the state's No. 1 agricultural commodity, bringing $962.5 million in 2004. [SNIP]|W|P|114018219237031146|W|P|The Herb is Washington State's #8 Agricultural product|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/12/2006 08:42:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|[zombienote: Here's some science fiction happy crap from the reality-averse intellectuals at the Weekly Standard... Winning The Drug War Feb. 12, 2006 | CBS
The supply of all the major drugs is down, but at the same time, drug interdiction is up. In 1989, 533,533 kilograms of the four major drugs were seized by U.S. authorities. By 2005, the total had risen to 1.3 million kilograms.
(Weekly Standard) This column was written by Jonathan V. Last.There's a wonderful scene in the movie "Traffic" in which a captured drug kingpin, played by Miguel Ferrer, is being interrogated by two federal agents. Ferrer says to them disdainfully: "You people are like those Japanese soldiers left behind on deserted islands who think that World War II is still going on. Let me be the first to tell you, your government surrendered this war a long time ago." It's a brilliant bit of filmmaking; it's also bunk. Over the last five years, while no one was paying attention, America has been winning its war on drugs. The cosmopolitan view has long been that the fight against drugs is a losing battle; that the supply of drugs pouring into America is never-ending; that drug lords are unrelenting zombie-supermen — kill one, and five more spring up. The American drug problem grew to epidemic proportions throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In 1979, agencies of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health performed a national household survey of illicit drug use; substances included marijuana, cocaine, heroin, banned hallucinogens and inhalants, and unauthorized use of sedatives, stimulants and analgesics. As of 1979, the numbers were horrifying: 31.8 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 had used drugs; 16.3 percent of them had used in the last month. Among those ages 18 to 25 it was worse: 69 percent had used at some point; 38 percent in the last month. But throughout the '80s, those numbers shrank. Sophisticates derided "Just Say No," but by 1993, only 16.4 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds had used, and only 5.7 percent had used in the last month. In the 18-to-25 age bracket, 50.2 percent had tried drugs, but only 15 percent had used in the last 30 days. It was a remarkable success. [zombienote: Translation - Reagan years good.] From 1993 to 2001, the numbers become less rosy: Among ages 12 to 17, the percentage of youths who had tried drugs increased almost twofold. In the 18-to-25 crowd, the increase was less marked, but still noticeable. [zombienote: Translation: Clinton years bad...despite 5 million arrests for marijuana touching alone.] There's a reason we pay so much attention to these two age groups. As Tom Riley, the director of public affairs at the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), explains: "If people don't start using drugs as teenagers — the mechanism of addiction clicks much more quickly in the developing brain — then they are unlikely to ever go on to serious drug abuse. If we can reduce the number of teens who use drugs, we change the shape of the problem for generations to come." After 2001, the tide turned again. Since then, teen drug use is off nearly 19 percent. Which means that 700,000 fewer teens are using drugs today than just a few years ago. [zombienote: Translation: Hail W! All hail George Bush!] What happened? For one thing: funding. Since 1998, the ONDCP's real budget has increased, from $8.2 billion to $12.4 billion. That extra money has mostly gone to law enforcement and drug treatment, attacking both the supply and the demand sides of the problem. Measures for demand are fuzzy, but the supply side of the equation — the "war" part of the war on drugs — has solid metrics. [zombienote: $12 billion a year. For propaganda, basically. We got jack shit for people abandoned in hurricanes, we don't have body armour for our troops languishing in an illegal war, but we got $12 billion dollars to spread anti-drug propaganda. I am unsure how to say it more plainly - this is a rightwing object of worship.] Each substance is its own front and has its own dynamics. Drug supply is shockingly local. Take coca, the substance from which cocaine and crack are derived. From 1998 to 2001, world coca production increased from 586,100 metric tons to 655,800 metric tons, with the lion's share grown in Columbia. Since then, the ONDCP orchestrated a campaign to spray 140,000 hectares of Colombian coca fields with glyphosate (you know it as Roundup). The result: world coca production is down 20 percent. With other substances, the news is even better. On Nov. 6, 2000, the Drug Enforcement Agency raided an abandoned missile silo in Wamego, Kan., which housed the world's leading LSD operation. By 2004, LSD availability in America was down 95 percent. The market still hasn't recovered. [zombienote: I don't do lsd but I know how these folks work - this is almost certainly a big fat lie. Or at the very least, they are fooling themselves more than us - another corner turned, ya know.] The supply of all the major drugs is down, but at the same time, drug interdiction is up. In 1989, 533,533 kilograms of the four major drugs were seized by U.S. authorities. By 2005, the total had risen to 1.3 million kilograms. [zombienote: So they are working harder and bringing in more drugs than ever before. They haven't a clue as to how much REALLY comes in, only hoiw much they actually catch. Basic statistical sleight-of-hand. The ONDCP - and Bush supporters like the Weekly Standard - love them some snakeoil mathematics.] Earlier this week, the ONDCP released a report outlining their order of battle for 2006. Director John Walters is not the type to go running for the nearest TV camera. Yet the quiet success he has overseen is a powerful reminder that the bad guys are not 10 feet tall; that failure is not inevitable; that the war on drugs is a war worth fighting; and that we're fighting it well. Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard and a weekly op-ed contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer. This essay originally appeared in the February 5, 2006 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. By Jonathan V. Last © Copyright 2006, News Corporations, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved. [zombienote: Reefer madness is a very dear and central plank in the GOP/wingnut political philosphy. It's built on lies and mean-spiritedness and one must accept and adhere to this issue tenaciously is one is to rise up in the GOP ranks. it's a cornerstone of the success of reefer madness that so many people overlook it as if it is a triviality: a $12 billion + per year triviality that arrested over 750000 Americans last year for touching marijuana alone. The right has always been screaming "it's working" mostly because they want to jack up the funding. It's the only thing they have really accomplished. They are just totally full of shit, but they are robbing YOU and me blind for it.]|W|P|113979601957776438|W|P|30 years later - War on drugs is still being Won!|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/07/2006 06:47:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|Apparently Operation Overgrow, a huge, long-standing cannabis cultivation site has been siezed and shut down by "law enforcement". They can't get Osama bin Laden or the Anthrax mailer, but cops can shut down a website. They can bust Tommy Chong and Ed Rosenthal too. And put some poor guy in jail for 55 freakin years. That's pretty impressive, though nobody's any safer from real threats. I digress. Here is a useful entry about the overgrow.com action, which seems to have been a full and complete shutting down of the site, per Rick Garcia, owner of marijuana.com. When it comes to this sort of stuff, I don't know anybody better than him. It's interesting to read, actually. I left marijuana.com because it was simply overrun with freepers and wingnuts. They all worshiped Bush and somehow expected him to help them get marijuana relegalized. Hah!
we have lost the largest ofthe Marijuana Cultivation websites on the Internet, Overgrow.Com. I hold OG in deep regard as I was a friend to one of the original creators and it’s very sad to see much of his work simply disappear from the net, probably never to be seen again. But, this is where the pattern begins to develop. You see, Overgrow ownership changed hands a few years back and the new owners were primarily, you guessed it, a Marijuana Seed distribution business. The business named Heavens Stairway located at hempqc.com on the net is now also offline along with all the other domains controlled by the owners of Hempqc.com. It has become quite evident to me that the seed distributors are in danger of arrest. We’ve seen a great deal of legal activity surrounding the seed business over the past 6 months and we have not see one cultivation community that is not owned and operated by a seed company have any problems to date. Take HempCultivation.Com for instance. HC.Com is owned and operated by Global Sativa Corporation, a U.S. based Corporation. Global Sativa Corporation earns it’s bread and butter through advertising, simply placing advertisements for others products. GSC is in no way affiliated with any seed banks, other than those that accept as advertisers. It is up to those advertisers to deal with state to state and country to county laws where their product may or may not be legal. We just place advertising, we don’t recommend products in the same way a T.V. station or magazine doesn’t recommend products – we are the messenger. HempCultivation.Com is located in the United States, protected under the U.S. Constitutions first amendment to the Bill of Rights, the Freedom of Speech.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
 Americans live and die by these words and that’s why I really am not too concerned with having similar problems to the ones described above. We are acting within our rights in a country that holds these rights above all else. I can’t say the same is true for the remaining cultivation discussion communities.
Rick's a very, very bright guy but he seems to still be clinging to the notion that the Constitution still means something to Team Bush. It's not his fault,either. A lot of people still haven't learned this important lesson. By the way...who do you think is putting so much effort into shutting down cannabis websites? Liberals?|W|P|113935662571699784|W|P|Operation Overgrow goes down.|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com