Watch as a killjoy cop puts a damper on the celebration of 4/20 on the campus of UC Santa Cruz, where a member of the student body attempted to smoke a the world’s largest joint, packed with 2.5 pounds of weed. No word on what the police force will do with the it, or whether there is any possibility of its retrieval. (The best part may be the doobie’s owner screaming at the officer, calling him a liar and threatening that he can’t wait to sue him in court.)
Every now and again you have moments in your life where profound realizations sort of creep up on you out of nowhere. I think it was because of a music nerd Facebook (friend me) discussion I became engaged with about guitar players years back that it hit me. Out of nowhere, I quite suddenly became acutely aware of the fact that right off the top of my head I could drop like 30 of my biggest guitar heroes and only one would be a heroine. That can’t be right, can it? I had to go through it about a 100 more fucking times because I couldn’t believe it. I had, Melynda Jackson from Subarachnoid Space, and errr…errr…umm…errr…no one. I mean, obviously Nancy Wilson, but as much as I like some Heart, I’ve never really ranked her as an influence on what I do specifically.
What a paternal head fuck our culture is.… Read the rest
To celebrate 4-20, A bi-partisan panel of politicians somehow come to a unanimous agreement that The War on Drugs is totally effed up. Guest Starring Kevin Smith & Jason Mewes:
Lyrics below:
We need to repeal the whole war on drugs
It isn’t working
We don’t have to have more courts and more prisons
This has to change…
via chycho
April is indeed one of the most exciting months of the year. On April 19 we have the pleasure of celebrating Bicycle Day, and on April 20 we follow it up with 420.
April 20 has been designated as global cannabis appreciation day. It is a day to let the world know that this beautiful plant genus is part of our society and one of the most important bounties of nature. As our civilization expands and evolves, it has become essential for us to recognize and celebrate this day and share the wealth and knowledge that comes from harvesting and consuming what we have so generously been provided.
As for how this day came to be chosen as an official holiday for the 420 community, in the following 2002 interview, Steven Hager, at the time the editor-in-chief of High Times magazine, explains its origins.
“The earliest use of the term began among a group of teenagers in San Rafael, California in 1971, calling themselves the Waldos, because ‘their chosen hang-out spot was a wall outside the school’.
The New Inquiry, sociologist Harry Levine explains the terrible mechanics propelling apartheid-style law enforcement in America:
Police arrest mostly young and low-income men for marijuana possession, disproportionately blacks and Latinos. In the last 15 years, police and sheriff ’s departments in every major U.S. city and county have made over 10 million of these possession arrests. Most people arrested were not smoking. They were carrying tiny amounts.
Police make so many because they are relatively safe and easy arrests. All police have arrest quotas and often they can earn overtime pay by making a marijuana arrest toward the end of a shift. The arrests show productivity. Making many low-level arrests of all kinds is very good for training rookie police who gain experience doing many stops and searches of teenagers.
There is also a push nationally, to states, counties, and city police departments, to get as many new people as possible into the criminal databases.
There’s no end of delicious schadenfreude in this story: Cop eats entire cake for breakfast. What a pig! Then it turns out to be a marijuana edible. There’s nothing funny about dosing someone with drugs…except when it is. Says Laurelville, Ohio Police Chief Mike Berkemeier:
”I got up in the morning and ate it — the entire thing,” he said.
I feel safer now, don’t you?
A police officer in the suburban Dallas community of Richardson, Texas, shot and killed a woman with outstanding drug arrest warrants as she fled from an attempted traffic stop Monday morning. Emily Krumrei, 32, becomes the 9th person to die in US domestic drug law enforcement operations so far this year.
Emily Josephine Krumrei (Smith County SO)According to the Dallas Morning News, citing Richardson police spokesperson Sgt. Kevin Perlich, an officer “was attempting to get a violator to pull over in a parking lot” for reasons that are yet unclear, but Krumrei fled in her Lexus. Shortly thereafter, an officer in a squad car saw her and attempted to stop her, but she refused to pull over.
Krumrei turned onto the southbound frontage road to the North Central Expressway. There, Perlich said, “a third officer near the frontage road was working a traffic accident.
Who are they? Insectile hive mind derivative entities? Beings from the Sirius conglomerate of planetary intelligence systems? Holy Guardian Angels? Unholy Protector Daemons? They can be all of these things, and for the second time since I’ve been writing for Disinfo they reached into my psychic life, compelling me to blog about a specific subject matter. The problem is that unlike the last time, I honestly couldn’t understand the message entirely as it wasn’t as neatly succinct. Okay, it’s not like I didn’t understand the message, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around it for means of convenient articulation.
In fact, I’m honestly just managing to put it all together, sort of. For a while, I’d been contemplating creating what in magick circles is referred to as a servitor. The basic idea behind this concept is that it’s sort of like a software program you install into the interlocking grid of human consciousness.… Read the rest
Has marijuana been legalized in name only, if you cannot open pizzeria-slash-pot-smoking-hangout without it being crushed by the oppressive boot of the state? The dream of every stoner child of the nineties remains unfulfilled for the time being:
America’s longest war? The war on drugs. And many contend that it’s the most unsuccessful war as well. For the past 40 years, the war on drugs has resulted in more than 45 million arrests, $1 trillion in government spending, and America’s role as the world’s largest jailer. Yet for all that, drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available than ever.
From director Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight) comes an unflinching look at how the War on Drugs has disproportionately disenfranchised, incarcerated, and impoverished African Americans. Trailer below – the film debuts on PBS on April 8th.
For some more clips, visit the Independent Lens site.
