Here are some drug war items I’ve wanted to write full posts about but haven’t had the time:
– Anthony Citrano writes about the latest wave of medical marijuana raids in Los Angeles. According to Attorney General Holder’s previous statements, federal authorities wouldn’t be targeting any establishments that are complying with state law. Unfortunately, many of these raids are happening without any disclosure of what state law the establishments are being accused of violating. For Obama’s policy to provide any real protection for legal dispensaries, there needs to be that level of transparency to ensure that the DEA isn’t violating it.
– The saddest part of the attempts to raid medical marijuana dispensaries is the fact that California is desperately trying to figure out how to fix the problem of its overcrowded prisons. Even worse, Governor Schwarzenegger is still trying to increase funding to anti-drug units. I just remember back in 2003, when I was in Belgium and I told a group of people I was having drinks with that Arnold Schwarzenegger might be the next governor of California, and they were all shocked. At the time, I wasn’t as alarmed as they were that a brain-dead action movie star would be running the largest state in the country. Maybe I should have been.
– I was never much of a Michael Jackson fan, so I didn’t pay much attention to the news surrounding his death, but the fact that they may charge one of his doctors with manslaughter certainly has my attention now. How doctors treat people with chemical dependencies or how they subscribe potentially addictive opioid medications is a very touchy subject where prosecutors and judges often decide that they have better judgment than a physician. It’s still way too early to know what the doctor in this case was doing, but I have trouble believing that he could have been doing anything that warrants a manslaughter charge.
– This week’s drug war outrage comes from Florida, where a man named Donald May spent three months in jail for being in possession of breath mints. The arresting officer claimed the breath mints were crack-cocaine. The officer involved also lied in his report, claiming that the man admitted to buying crack. In the three months he was in jail, they auctioned off his car. He’s now suing. [h/t to the Crackpiper]
– Toby Nixon and Jeanne Kohl-Welles write in the Seattle Times in support the State Senate bill to decriminalize marijuana.
– In Bolivia, where President Evo Morales kicked out the DEA but still claims to oppose cocaine trafficking, there’s a new bar gaining some worldwide notoriety.
More awful news for Obama…Idiot-in-Chief!!
Adm. Mike Mullen expresses concern about falling public support for the war which President Obama has called one of “necessity.”
FOXNews.com
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Obama’s weakness & pandering to terrorists around the world are responsible for this continuing disaster.
The world looks at Obama as a pussy!!
People are dying because Obama hates America and Americans…and more will die due to his chickenshittedness!! (new word for O-blah-blah)
While Obama is wasting time & money admiring his speeches and beating a dead Government Option Health Care Plan Horse…the rest of the world is becoming much more aggressive.
Obama==downfall of America.
[Deleted —see HA Comment Policy and this may help]
@2
Are you going to do this all the way until 2016? Because it really doesn’t matter how unpopular Obama gets if the Republican Party remains too big of a joke to beat him in 2012.
@1: Seriously? Afghanistan is in the state it’s in right now because Bush decided to wander over to Iraq and blast it into smithereens instead of nation-building in Afghanistan. If anything, Bush diving us into two wars that have both been going on for longer than World War II has done a great job of making the American people sick of our overseas entanglements.
And in terms of the world looking at Obama as a “pussy”, I’m kinda laughing at that one. The world looked at the Bush Administration as being dangerous, incompetent warmongers even in the best of times. Furthermore, you haven’t provided any hint as to how a McCain/Palin Administration (or hell, a Romney/Huckabee Administration or Giuliani/Tancredo Administration for that matter) would have done better with this.
The only difference right now is that you’d be sucking a Republican president’s cock for ANOTHER four years.
@4
He’s almost stupid enough to blame it on Clinton too.
Despite being a Republican, Toby Nixon has always seemed like a sensible guy.
@2: This is pointless. Obama is blowing his political capital in much the same way as Clinton did in 1993, meaning that his approval ratings are going down quickly because he’s tackling nasty issues that need to be dealt with. Republicans are stepping up to take in their shots to get back momentum… they don’t really give a crap what’s in this proposal, just that it’s being proposed by a Democratic president by a Democratic Congress and it presents a great way to score political points.
But then again, what was Bush doing at this point in his administration? He had sent folks an advance on their tax rebates, he had to deal with a minor diplomatic incident with China, he passed No Child Left Behind (with bipartisan support), he passed stem cell legislation (a relatively small issue), and he was trying to push through missile defense (again, a relatively small issue). A cakewalk. He was treading water and not making any hard decisions until he was pretty much forced to do something.
(And hey… I’m glad that Bush didn’t use his political capital, but seems like a waste if you have it and you don’t use it.)
@8
Remember what he tried to spend his political capital on in his second term? Social Security “privatization” or “lets give all of the payroll tax to Wall Street”. Yep touching the third rail went well for him.
@1 Obama is president and McCain isn’t, neener neener!
Heterosexuals are murderers, rapists and thieves. Sinful assholes who are ruining this world. There will be nothing left, a bunch of religious freaks who look in the mirror and see themselves as god….you wasteful pieces of shit.
Now that is a wierd post!
IF, the rumors are true, this doc administered a very dangerous drug under circumstances where it certainloy could kill. Certainly someone gave Jackson the drug.
I know Lee has extreme ideas about legalization of drugs but the thought that this sort of thing would be condoned by society is truly scary.
There is a simple, though ironic solution to the dilemma created by medical marijuana. THC can be administered in forms that should reproduce any benefit of inhaling smoke. THC is readily available NOW as a prescription, but the form is not absorbed fast enough to keep potheads happy. Based on what is known, it should not be difficult to find more effecgive ways of ingesting THC and such are now being tested.
Of course this leaves folks with a passion for sticking small burning tubes in their mouths and sucking on them. I suspect for many that itself is as important as the THC.
Personally, I see no reason not to just treat MJ like tobacco, if you want to inhale something that dangerous, go ahead. Just do not do so where I need to breath your polluted air. I also feel the MJ crowd really ought not to allow children into Hempfest.
How would anyone here feel if the Limbaugh crowd held a cigar festival and invited children to walk around in the miasma of the adult’s recreational inhalation?
[Deleted —see HA Comment Policy and this may help]
Obama Fatigue!!
America is disillusioned by this over-promising KLOWN.
Let’s talk about stealth rethug candidate Sally Bagshaw, and how she is eclipsing David Bloom as the elected council person.
I haven’t heard anything since the primary about her depravity.
Any ideas?
Top three sources of illegal drugs into the USA are USA allies Mexico, Colombia and Peru. (Not Ecuador, Bolivia or Venezuela) DEA, along with NED and USAid have been actively engaged in promoting both the Right-wing fascistas and the break-up of both Bolivia and Venezuela.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Down from +32 (SAME POLL!) post-inauguration.
Excelllent job of uniting America!!
@12
IF, the rumors are true, this doc administered a very dangerous drug under circumstances where it certainloy could kill.
But doctors administer dangerous drugs in hospital settings all the time. And even if they make a mistake and a patient dies, they normally don’t get charged with manslaughter, do they? If it turns out that Murray did something wrong, he should certainly be liable in a civil suit, but I don’t understand putting him on trial on criminal charges.
@18 OH MY GOD! At this right Obama might end up as unpopular as your last President! The HORROR! Wait? Didn’t Republicans point out ENDLESSLY why:
a) Polls don’t matter
b) Bush was too ‘strong’ to live by polls and just did what was ‘right’ and would let history judge him.
c) Polls were all liberal media conspiracy.
NOW they matter all of the sudden, and Republicans watch polls to show the “truth” of what the public thinks? That’s new! ROTFLMAO.
Back to the point. I can go out the door today and come home with this the following in my car legally:
1) 16 bottles of Vodka
2) 7 cartons of cigarettes (no filter)
3) 2 cases of Merlot from Silver Lake Winery
4) 1 keg of Miller
5) couple 4 packs of Colt 45 Malt Liquor.
All legal. What’s not legal?
1) One joint of marijuana.
If someone can ACTUALLY explain the logic and reason (scientifically) behind that, be my guest! I can legally buy one whole bottle of Tylenol, which will KILL me if I take it all…but I can’t buy once ounce of marijuana because it supposedly COULD lead to me doing something worse, like some drug that could kill me. Of course the same argument can be made for cigarettes and alcohol, they’ll both ‘lead in’ drugs that are both used ‘first’ by folks that eventually use ‘hard drugs’. You’ll almost never find a heroine addict that doesn’t drink or smoke, yet we don’t blame alcohol or Camel for ‘leading to’ heroine.
I’m pulling rank here. Deleting comments in an Open Thread is against HA policy. If it happens again, you will have to answer to Goldy or myself.
@21
Don’t forget the Mini-14.
@12 Now You See it
I have never met anyone with a rational arguement for the way we now treat mj.
There are many uncontrolled drugs that are freely promoted. Examples;
caffeine .. no limits
antihistamine .. these also put you to sleep, no limits
I think the problem for rational folks now is that such a huge mess has been created that politically it is difficult to unravel the mess.
For example, under the last admin a lot of utterly bogus stuff was presented as science vs. THC. Now, the uptight right would diss science if the consensus were simply out out.
This is why it seems logical to me to build on the cigarette story. Since almost everyone now agrees that inhaling tobacco is a terrible thing, the gov could just legalize THC! This would open the market for lots of products and the issue over smoking the stuff would diminish.
One example that bewilders me is the current FDA effort vs the “electronic” cigs. I can see no reason that these would be harmful as long as the contents are supervised .. pretty much the same story as chewing gum.
Hell there is really not a lot of reason folks ought not to smoke nicotine if they can get it w/o carcinogens.
@19 Lee
Just as a cop can be tried for manslaughter for misusing her gun, so can a doc be tried for misusing a drug.
Having an MD ought not to be license to kill.
My own guess is that Dr. Murray iwas doing this job because he liked the money. Certainly some other docs took money for procedures on Jackson that many would see as unethical. So, I would guess the legal issues will revolve around Murrays’s competence and intent?
The best case seems to be that Jackson paid this guy a lot of money to over medicate the singer. As I understand it, the problems of poly-pharmacy are challenging even to the best experts. I have tried to help with detox of friends with too much money on too many drugs and listened to their psychiatrists despair about how to accomplish that end.
To give you a hint of what can be involved, there is a system, largely in your liver, that evolved to detoxify a range of molecules by oxidization (called the “xenobiotic oxidatiohn system”). This system is very complex and is induced depending on what drugs you take. Worse, some drugs are activated by the XOS, while others are deactivated. Worse, there is genetic diversity in the enzymes induced in different people (one reason alcoholism is a big issue in native america).
Treating a patient who is on many drugs (not just psychoactives) can be very difficult.
Murray, from what has been published,is not an expert in polypharamacy. Use of this drug is way off the scale of anything ethical so the question may be why did Murray use it?
Whose idea was it? Given the huge money resources Jackson had, why didn’t Murray hire an anesthesiologist? Was there intent to kill?
@1: Did you catch the media spin on Obama’s National Lampoon Vacation at Martha’s Vinyard? First they brought on “historian” Richard Norton Smith to tell us that Obama will be working, working hard during his time off, because a president’s work is never done.
Now they tell us. Back in the day, when W went to Crawford or Reagan went to the ranch, those slacker presidents were just shirking.
But that’s Big Media business as usual, shoving a double standard at us and telling us that if we don’t like it we’re unhinged birfers. What’s new is this: NPR wondered if Oprah or Tiger or Chelsea would show up at Obama’s place to pump up the party. Not a word about party crasher Cindy Sheehan.
Sheehan plans to add her 15 minutes to hard-working Obama’s week of merriment. Martha’s Vinyard is big enough for Camp Casey, but it’s not big enough for media attention to Camp Casey. Which is a double standard. Very different from the obsessed media wall-to-wall when Sheehan camped at Crawford.
And isn’t it interesting that Obama’s no-win war in Afghanistan almost never gets past the media brownshirts who have a vested interest in protecting the new president they paid for. Media attention to Obama’s Afghanistan? Less in a year than Michael Jackson got in a week.
And here’s another double standard: Obama has “a deep-seated hatred for white people.” That’s from Glenn Beck, and Big Media has gone batshit about it. Never mind its similarity to Kanye West’s statement that W. Bush hated black people, a statement that Big Media accepted as self-evident. There are Obama attitudes (his stupid profiling of the Cambridge police; his “typically white” grandmother; his 20-year attendance in a church infused with racism) that make you wonder.
But here’s what makes me wonder about liberals and their captive media: Where was the outrage about vicious leftist attacks on Clarence Thomas, Ken Blackwell, and Ken Hutcherson? Big Media or puny media (Horsesass and The Stranger) were quick to pile on the Hutch. Nobody called Dan Savage a skank racist and nobody pulled dollars away from the liberal media and their liberal goons. Somebody should have.
Hannity-Hutchison 2012.
Air America & Palast Call Obama a “Fascist Liar”
Lee and Darryl and WhackMaster Goldy give liberal fascism a bad name, but that will change. When Palast calls Obama a liberal fascist, liberal fascism is being rebranded as the new cool.
mangledtruth asks why we don’t discuss Stalin, the planet’s second-worst psychokiller. Hitler was a far-back third. Discussed the Stalin/Hitler/Krupp connection yesterday, but the HA fascists whacked it. They’re still trying after all these years to protect a monster. The HA axis of evil apparently prefers to shield Stalin as one of their own, a liberal in a hurry.
Stalin whacked 40 million, give or take. HA whacks me. Connect the dots.
SeattleJew, maybe Michael had a high tolerance to other drugs and he needed a stronger cocktail as the years went by? Puddy remembers this article from Fox News when Michael was questioned about his drug use…
Why would Dr Murray kill the hand that fed him well?
neener neener, rabbit explained.
Here is the link to Michael Goodwin’s article challenging Obama on his “uniting” skills!
http://www.realclearpolitics.c.....19789.html
Lee was a little fragile so decided to delete the 4 short paragraphs.
Read not only the cover short article…but the full article.
Incredibly insightful and right-on!
Darryl Lee Goldstein,
The press gives a pass to any libtardo black who calls a conservative whitey a racist. West is just an entertainer. But if a conservative whitey calls a libtardo black a racist it seems Mount Everest has just fallen into the Mariana Trench. Oh wait… Beck is just an entertainer.
And you expect HA leftist libtardos to act any different?
Remember when Jesse called the three Duke boys all kinds of racial names? The press ate it up. Yet where was Jesse when the three Duke boys were exonerated by the evidence alone? Why didn’t the press press Jesse for a response?
Double standards always abound when you are a libtardo.
“What’s truly striking in Greenberg’s poll is the degree to which the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have fallen off the progressive radar. I attended the first YearlyKos convention, in 2006, and have kept up with later ones, and it’s safe to say that while people who attended those gatherings couldn’t stand George W. Bush in general, their feelings were particularly intense when it came to opposing the war in Iraq. It animated their activism; they hated the war, and they hated Bush for starting it. They weren’t that fond of the fighting in Afghanistan, either.”
“Tied for eighth place, named by just eight percent of respondents, was “working to end our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.””
“In 11th place — at the very bottom of the list — was “working to end our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Just one percent of Netroots Nations attendees listed that as their most important personal priority.”
Puddy-
Guess we’ll never understand 100%
THE ANGRY WHITE LIBERAL
But it sure is fun tryin’!!
http://www.weeklystandard.com/.....x.asp?pg=1
1. who knows what sort of intrigue went on in that house? If Murray did kill MJ, the next issue will have to be intent.
2. if Murray killed MJ by an overdose, then he is still as responsible for manslaughter as a cop who fie his weapon into a crowd.
The key thing, I think, in Lee’s post is that whatever happened here, the need for government in controlling drugs is very real.
BTW, I suspect there is a huge le vel of abuse not just amongst physicians hired for that purpose but in the “naturopthy” community that pitches some plants as being OK because they are “natural.”
Puddy–
I think heretofore, we ought to demand the Angry White Male Liberals start each of their comments with–
As an Angry White Male Liberal
After all, Lesbians often start comments with:
As a Lesbian..or as a Gay Person.
Or..as a Jew
I mean, WTF!
Actually, Angry White Male Liberals are even mad that they are Male..and especially that they are white!
C’mon Lee Darryl & Goldy..
@31 Puddy
What the fuck are you saying? If Beck is just an entertainer then who is responsible for newsreporting on Faux? O’Reilly?, Megan Kelley?
You analogy ot Jackson, is also way off the mark. You know that I am anything but a fan of Jesse’s. I will never forgive him for the (chicken) blood stained shirt. But he is a political activist, not a news man and no network uses him that way.
Fox putting Beck on as a newsman is akin to:
MSNBC running Farakhan as a news caster.
Pat Robertson’s news casts.
How would you feel about letting Ahmadinejad have a news show? or David Duke?
How about giving the Discovery Institute an hour ot do science news?
How is Beck any different from Father Coughlin? from the grand Mufti of Jerusalem in 48?, from Goebells before 33?
Beck is NOT an entertainer.
Haynes, Klehr, Vassiliev; Spies; 2009; page 30:
OK, but what about unreasonable persons such as Katrina and Navasky at The Nation and Rabbit at HA? They’re impervious to evidence. Case closed.
Nixon and Chambers were right. Hiss was a spy. The Nation and The New York Times and The Rabbit were wrong and are wrong.
So was HNMT when he/she/it wrote here that I.F. Stone was not a spy. Spies makes it clear that Stone spied for the KGB and took their money.
So did Duggan, Harry Dexter White, Lauchlin Currie, and much more of the New Deal and Fair Deal. So did a big part of the Manhattan Project.
Oppenheimer lied in 1954 about his early (not too early … lasted until 1942) membership in the Communist Party. His security clearance was pulled because he lied, but not because he spied. He didn’t.
@25
Just as a cop can be tried for manslaughter for misusing her gun, so can a doc be tried for misusing a drug
Right, but I don’t think a cop should be tried for manslaughter unless they were being malicious. If they were only using poor judgment, I tend to think the better remedy is to remove them from the force (and hold the department liable for civil penalties). If Murray was acting maliciously, try him for murder, but if he was being stupid, take away his medical license and hold him liable for civil damages. I probably should have been clearer about this distinction in the original post.
Big Jon told us last week about Democratfuckers. Hope you didn’t take it personally, Lee.
Oh SeattleJew, there is so much to discuss…
Sorry SeattleJew to disappoint you and disagree but Jesse is used as a point man for many activities. You mean you forgot the “The Jesse Jackson Show” on CNN from 1990 to 1991 and”Both Sides with Jesse Jackson on CNN” in 1992? You mean you forgot when he was on Fox he wanted to “cut his [the messiah’s] nuts out” You mean you forgot when he accused “the messiah” of “talking down to black folks”?
SeattleJew…
O’Reilly is a commentator not a news reporter. He challenges people on their positions. Megyn reports news and adds her own comments just like the fools do on CNN. Can you say Jack Cafferty? Ever seen Rick Sanchez in action SeattleJew?
SeattleJew: Per your definition of Glenn Beck MSNBC already has “comparable ASSholes” such as Chris, Rachel, Ed, and Keith. Except it takes all four to get close to the Glenn Beck ratings number. Are these four fools newscasters or entertainers SeattleJew?
What is funny to Puddy is the use of Van “I’m a Commie” Jones to attack Beck’s advertisers.
@41 BS
I am not a fan of hyperbole, but the MSNBC ideologues never engage in the hate mongering and intentional distortion Beck goes for.
The closest of Faux to any of these talking heads is O’Reilly. He, at keast tries to plow rarional turf. Hannity, Beck have no interest in truth. They lie over and over agin .. right out of Goebel’s.
Rather than making an equation based on fluff, why don’t we play a game. I’will listen to Beck some night and list out and out lies. You do the same for whichever of the MSNBC niks you want .. I suggest Ed, he comes closest.
The we can keep score.
Puddy is silly
Really? That is why he calls himself an investigatove reporter and clims to have found facts on Rev W, ACORN, etc?
BS. He yells over his guests.
BS, Megyn (who may have a brain behind the lipstick) was chosen as eye candy and dresses the part.
Sure, so?????
@39 Sure, Jesse Jackson appears on TV in much the same way as Mr and Mrs Carville, Sarah Palin, Chaney, Rove, etc.
That is not at all the same thing as being portrayed as a journalist.
@37 Lee
Funny but I am probably more radical than you are on this one. I believe a cop who irresponsibly uses a gun should be tried just as we would try any one else. Whenever I hear that a cop has roughed someone up, misusing his badge and muscle, I feel the penalties should be more severe than they would be for some civilian without the badge.
I feel the same about a doc. If Murray merely used bad judgment, with no intent, I would agree with you. He should have his liscence removed. But, if he knowingly risked Mr. Jackson’s life for money, even if Jackson was paying him to do so, I think that is or ought to be a serious crime.
In any case, assuming the facts are as rumored, the coroner will make the civil finding that Murray’s actions resulted in Jackson’s death. The prosecutor will then need to determine whether or not this was something that should be tried as a crime and Jackson’s family will likeley file a wrongful death suit.
Again it is odd for me to be more radical then you, but in this case that is how it is.
@45
Again it is odd for me to be more radical then you
Not really, but it’s odd for you to actually figure it out.
SeattleJew@42, what a bunch of crap. Fox News calls their programs commentary. Puddy remembers this recently…The comments are Too Damn Funny.
If Fox is so bad why are they winning the ratings war? Is it because the leftists are watching nightly no-brain TV and they already know the schtick from CNN and MSNBC and they consider it “boring”? Or is it because they know they’ll hear the Presidential Daily Briefing repeated ad nauseum the rest of the evening?
Puddy wrote:
These people claim to report news yet it’s sooooooo biased every night.
1. Fox does not label its programs commentary, ti claims that it is a news channel.
2. As I said Puddy, put some meat on these ribs you keep gnawing at.
Here is a contest. For every outrageous, mis statement on nFox, you find one as bad on MSNBC. If you you can keep up with me, I will give you a humilation dollar .. opne signed, in humiliation. Same bet on your side.
The rules will be simple, we limit ourselves to statemnents of fact. If you want to prove or disprove something or I do, we need facts ..
Here is a simple start on my part:
Tonite on Hannity, he supported a guest wyho claimed that Obama’s policies are those of the Nazis.
OK, to keep even with me, you need to find an equal cite from MSNBC or prove me wrong.
Good luck .. or chicken out.
@46 … Lee
Gosh, I am flattered. moi? A radical!
Anyhow, as you probably heard, the coroner has stated that Jackson’s death was a homicide. Afain IF we have been hearing facts, then it osund as if Dr. Murray will be charged and we should then learn the truth.
Some years ago a friend of mine with a possibly treatable brain tumor was, in effect, incarcerated by her church (Christian Scientist). Despite our urging and urging by her children, the effin Church guys would not allow her to see a doctor .. if by “allow” we include the right of religious authorities to tell someone their Deity’s wishes.
The lady died a hard death. This might have been inevitable but since then I wonder what it would take to indict her church.
Unfortunately for Dr. Murray, his actions will (I assume) be held to a more concrete standard.