This is a cross-post of a Daily Kos posting edited for this posting.

As I get busier with my job, my time to do this stuff will dwindle and I am searching for the most effective use of my time and effort in sticking with this vastly under-appreciated important issue.

I will experiment with different times and formats until I find one that "does the trick" - generate more reading of cannabis-related issues.

Today I have some news, some tunes, some cannabis reform discourse: also have some questions, some answers, some serious discussion and some frivolity for you.

And Hope™ - I think we're going to the White House! Which is awesome - we're gonna have some news for the new bosses.

NOTICE: You do NOT have to be a "pot smoker" to join in here.
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Cannabis reform is not about "pot smoking" since, obviously, we can already do that. It's entirely about righting an outrageous wrong and making much smarter decisions about "pot". This is why it is truly a Democratic issue

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Voltaire

Christopher Hitchens, alcoholic, war propagandist and Responsible Serious Douchbag, recently elected to have himself waterboarded. (Yes... I do know he is a gifted and prolific writer who should otherwise be afforded a certain level of respect, but he has blown it bigtime with this comic stunt.)

Initially all for torture, he has,since his self-inflicted traumatic experience, decided perhaps it is "torture". Doubtlessly you have heard about this by now, so I won't dwell on it more than the following excerpts for context.

The Responsible Serious Adults are forever rolling their eyes when this subject is broached, but screw them! This issue remains considerably bigger and more important that the run-of-the-mill RSA ever cares to consider, knowing everything like they do, ya know.

Well, another measure of how big cannabis relegalization is, why the Democratic Party MUST be the ones to fix this ridiculous situation (once they are done fully supporting the continuation it that is) is this "little" situation wherein Barney Frank has filed a bill to add some very limited and specific changes to medical marijuana laws and the Bush Administration felt the need to crash his press conference and alienate pretty much everybody with his bizarre reefer mad screed.

All on the flip. (RSA's click here so you don't have to hear all this terrible talk.)

This is another article in a series that has suggested itself to me.

It began with Pot is not like tobacco - Please make a not ot it. Thanks. This installment focuses on how cannabis and smoking cannabis is superior to alcohol.

I suppose a number of otherwise "liberal people" will find a number of excuses for this outrage just because "mar-ju-wanna" is involved.

Video shows cop choking marijuana suspect

The incident began with a traffic stop.

Officer Cosby said he smelled burning marijuana, ordered Anders out of the car and told him to spit out something he had in his mouth.

Cosby then put one, then both hands around Anders' neck and squeezed in attempt to keep he from swallowing drugs in a technique called "vascular restraint."

So he choked him JUST for having cannabis nearby.

Video on the flip.

[Crossposted from GreenState Project & Smirking Chimp]

Tom Harkin is a Democratic Senator from Iowa.

He's a pretty good guy with a pretty good Democratic voting history, although he did not vote for or against the recent FISA issue. His voting record indicates he really should have voted with the Dems on that, but he abstained or was not there. Otherwise he's usually a solid, consistent Democratic Senator.

But as Democratic as his voting record is, he has a glaring drug problem: he carries water for the GOP by regurgitating their propaganda for them in a letter to a constituent.

More after the jump.

Crossposted from Greenstate Project

The ACLU has decided that cannabis laws are not fair and has decided to join in the effort to fix them.

I'll try to keep it short and sweet on the flip.

As so often happens, I was getting my daily coffee and doing the blah-blah with my friendly baristas, and in the course of the conversation we discussed how the choices we make about drugs are so strange.

My basic point was that crack is a crime...while coffee is a growth industry...but fundamentally, the two are not all that different.

Then the conversation got really strange: I began to speculate what the world might look like if the reality had been reversed.

The next thing I knew, I was writing this story.
Follow along and we’ll see what happens.
And a small warning: there’s satire ahead, so be careful.

What costs more: Global Natural Disasters or America's War on Drugs?

Well...go on... take a guess.

You know the answer but it seems so absurd. It's hard to say it.

That's because it is a study in absurdity.

Ever engage in that useless fantasy of "what if I won the lottery"? or "What would you do with a million dollars"?

I usually make the wisecrack about putting most of it in safe investments but using some of it to buy a couple congress critters and some judges so I could help people.

$40 billion is, to most people, a lot of money - it's an unfathomable amount to me: I have never even made $50,000 in a year and I live pretty simply now (compared to the average consumer Americans I see).

However, $40 billion isn't very much to the US Government, largely because it is tax money - an endless stream of money they just get without actually working for it. For them it's merely numbers on papers.

And they waste it in rather amazing and cruel ways.

I came across a very good article at Cannabis Culture Magazine that lays out each of the 2008 Presidential candidate's positions on medical marijuana, cannabis reform, and/or addressing the "war on drugs".

Cannabis Culture is a Canadian magazine and website run by Marc Emery, a longtime cannabis activist, businessman, and founder of the British Columbia Marijuana Party, as well as longtime thorn in the side to American drug warriors. He is currently fighting extradition to America for engaging in conduct in Canada (like, where he is a citizen) that is illegal in America. This is how important perpetuating cannabis prohibition is to those with the power to affect it.

Fascism is nothing if not enforced stupidity.
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Doc, 2001

I watched the recent NOVA PBS special called Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, oddly enough, supported by DOW Chemical, one of the major historical players in reefer madness.

It is a meticulous reporting of events leading up to a landmark Supreme Court trial of a few school board members in a tiny midwestern town, beginning a few years ago and culminating in a very detailed presentation of the trial's "play by play".

What can this possibly have to do with cannabis prohibition?

Make the jump and I'll tell you.

[Crossposted from the Recommended List @ Daily Kos]

In this diary: the New York Times calls for the end of using federal college loans as a punishment for "smalltime drugs possession" (marijuana, of course); A study finds tobacco to be far more of a concern that cannabis smoking for teens, and Denver Colorado again says it wants its cops to not be focused on finding and arresting pot smokers. The cops and others who make a good living out of reefer madness don't like it.

Tough. Americans want reform.

Make the jump.

Aside from the cannabis prohibition issue, this is a story about a chronic pain patient who commits suicide after years of being thwarted in her efforts to manage her pain.

It IS directly related to cannabis prohibition (Reefer Madness), to America's healthcare crisis, and to the utter mean-spiritedness of the DEA and others who work to put outrageous pressure on medical doctors who try to treat people's pain without being accused of causing people to feel good or supplying drugs addicts with "drugs".

This is ugly and real liberals, progressives and aspiring Democratic leaders should be livid.

Too bad "correctness" is not a political value: we would not have to have this stupid discussion...again and again. This is written specifically for those folks who STILL believe all the government nonsense about "pot".

As I continue my efforts to damage the thick blanket of ignorance that smothers many otherwise intelligent people when it comes to the discussion of eliminating cannabis prohibition, today's article is about how cannabis simply is not a significant health risk, particularly in the face of other huge concerns.

Smoking pot is less of a health risk than simply existing in our environment or eating the modern American fast food diet. Our bodies are filling up with a very wide variety of chemicals and toxins while obesity, stemming from bad diets and no exercise, becomes epidemic. But these real risks are played down and the media fills people full of false nonsense about the cannabis plant.

And that's totally screwed-up.

More on the flip, of course.