Friday, January 10th, 2014
ERIC W. DOLAN, - The Raw Story
Stephan: The hysteria over drugs that change our state of consciousness, not just our moods, has blocked all manner of possible medical research, causing untold suffering. Here is an example of what I mean.
A study of more than 25,000 people under community corrections supervision suggests the use of psychedelic drugs like LSD can keep people out of prison.
The research is the first in 40 years to examine whether drugs like LSD and ‘magic” mushrooms can help reform criminals.
‘Our results provide a notable exception to the robust positive link between substance use and criminal behavior,” the researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine wrote in their study, which was published in the January issue of the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
‘They add to both the older and emerging body of data indicating beneficial effects of hallucinogen interventions, and run counter to the legal classification as well as popular perception of hallucinogens as categorically harmful substances with no therapeutic potential.”
Psychedelic substances piqued the interest of researchers beginning in the 1950s. Studies indicated that the drugs could be combined with psychotherapy to treat a number of conditions, including alcoholism and drug addiction.
But scientific investigations into the therapeutic potential of LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and other psychedelic drugs ground to a halt in the 1970s, when they were outlawed by the federal Controlled Substances Act.
‘Offenders may be especially likely to benefit from […]
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Friday, January 10th, 2014
DAVID WALDMAN, - Daily Kos
Stephan: This is a snap shot of what America's gun psychosis produces. I heard Bill O'Reilly say the other night that smoking grass was like putting a gun to your head, Russian Roulette. He says so many stupid things, I always find it amazing that anyone watches his show, but millions do, which tells you something about portions of the U.S. population. But this one really caught my attention for its unintended irony. Thousands die each year from gun shots; over a century of statistics there is not a single provable death resulting from overuse of Marijuana.
We have an extraordinarily long list this time around, and it took extra time to compile it and sort through it, which accounts for its late publication. New Year’s Eve, like July 4th, is like Black Friday for GunFAIL. Brand-new guns are given as gifts for Christmas (at least one of which went off and shot the gift giver this week), a little extra drinking is going on, the kids are home from school for days or even weeks at a stretch, hunting season is in full swing, and of course, there’s the “traditional” New Year’s celebratory gunfire. (Respect the culture, please.) As a result, we saw a whopping 23 kids accidentally shot last week, including eight preteens. Just two of them were hit by New Year’s Eve random gunfire, however. It was a busy week for the kids, even without that.
New Year’s Eve, of course, is in a class all by itself. As near as I could tell from available reports, five people were shot by random, celebratory gunfire in Los Angeles, CA; San Antonio, TX; Hebbronville, TX; Newport News, VA; and Gadsden, AL. New Year’s Eve revelers also blasted into at least 15 homes this week and […]
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Friday, January 10th, 2014
TIMOTHY JOHNSON, - Media Matter for America
Stephan: I grew up at a time when the NRA was just a group of adults who cared about gun safety. I learned shooting from a Boy Scout leader who was also an NRA instructor. Now it is something quite different, a lobbying organization promoting unregulated gun ownership and use and, I think, an evil entity. Here is an example of why I think this
NRA News host Cam Edwards attacked laws to prevent children from accessing guns by positing that there should be no criminal penalty even when an admittedly careless adult allows a child access to a gun that the child then uses to kill themselves.
On the January 6 edition of NRA News program Cam & Company, Edwards attacked Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America founder Shannon Watts for advocating for state laws that create a criminal penalty for adults that negligently allow children access to firearms. In an interview with USA Today, Watts cited the fact that only 15 states have child access prevention laws and contended, “This idea that a shooting that involves a toddler is accidental is asinine. If I was drinking and driving and hit my son, I would immediately go to jail. But if I left my firearm on the top of the refrigerator and he found it and shot himself, everyone says, what a horrible accident.”
Edwards responded to Watts’ USA Today interview by suggesting that if “you are careless with a firearm and one of your own children accidentally kills themself” that the “horror” of the incident alone would be sufficient punishment for the adult. […]
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Thursday, January 9th, 2014
Stephan: It is amazing to me that everyone did not see this banking issue coming. It was perfectly obvious. Banks are not going to deal with Marijuana dispensaries until it is Federally legal, or they are required to do so. The issue should have been anticipated and dealt with. Hopefully Washington State will see this, and make adjustments.
Last week, Colorado became the first place in the world to legally sell regulated and taxed marijuana for adult recreational use. Despite the winter weather, long lines and heavy demand led some stores to jack up their prices or even sell out of product. The early success has elevated expectations for a new ‘green” economy, with a projected market value of $10.2 billion by 2018, according to Arcview Market Research.
But one crucial detail threatens to hold the industry back.
Because the federal government still classifies pot as a dangerous drug, corner cannabis stores and cultivators cannot secure access to traditional banking services, and do a shocking amount of their business in cash. Banks are reluctant to work with pot-related businesses, out of fear that the government will prosecute them for laundering illegally obtained money. This heightens the potential for crime at pot shops, imposes heavy costs on businesses seeking legitimacy, and could cripple the industry just as it gets started.
‘I run a state-approved business, and I don’t have the ability to walk into a bank and open a bank account,” business owner Alex Cooley told Salon. Cooley’s Solstice Grown is the first legally permitted cannabis production facility in Washington state, and […]
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Thursday, January 9th, 2014
ZOE SCHLANGER, - Talking Points Memo
Stephan: This story is absolutely appalling. It is bad on so many levels. Many of these arrests are for marijuana possession. There is an arrest for this every 48 seconds in America, grossly disproportionately Black young men. One of the consequences of ending Marijuana Prohibition is that this will end.
It will be bitterly opposed, however. Private prisons corporations, prison guard associations and unions, court systems whose budget is tied to criminal trials, prison clothing providers, small towns near prisons where the prison is the big employer, and anybody else who lives on the incarceration and warehousing of human beings en mass will resist the end of racist prohibition.
A new analysis of survey data finds that nearly half of black men report an arrest by the time they turn 23, according to a study released Monday in the journal Crime & Delinquency.
The study (subscription required) drew its data from the federal government’s National Longitudinal Survey of Youth conducted between 1997 and 2008. The researchers found that by age 18, 30% of black males report having been arrested, compared with 26% of Hispanic males and 22% of white males.
By age 23, 49% of black males, 44% of Hispanic males and 38% of white males report having been arrested.
These stark racial differences were far more muted among women; by age 18, 12% of white women, 11.8% of Hispanic women and 11.9% of black women report one or more arrests. By age 23, reported arrest rates were 20% for white women, 18% for Hispanic women, and 16% for black women.
Robert Brame, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina and the lead author on the study, noted the disruptive impact of arrests can make the lives of young people.
“Criminal records that show up in searches can impede employment, reduce access to housing, thwart admission to and financing for higher […]
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