Filmmaker Kevin Booth’s New Documentary:
How Weed Won the West

I always support Kevin Booth’s efforts to raise awareness and exposing the ridiculous and dangerous draconian drug laws in the USA. I first learned about Kevin Booth many years ago, by being a huge fan of the late great comedian/satirist Bill Hicks. Kevin and Bill had been childhood friends. I feel that part of Bill’s long-silenced voice is still heard through he works of his friends such as Kevin Booth.

Free Preview Screening
Venice Beach, Feb. 13

On Saturday February 13th at 8:00PM, the new feature length documentary from Sacred Cow Productions, ???How Weed Won the West??? will be screened at the Organica dispensary in Venice Beach (13456 Washington Blvd.), the site of the LAPD raid from last year as shown in the film.

“How Weed Won the West??? is the story of the people who probably would not die if you took their weed away. People who feel it is their right to smoke a dried flower instead of ingesting dangerous pharmaceuticals for medicine, or alcohol and cigarettes to simply catch a buzz.

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I received a message from the Drug Policy Alliance with a request that I compose and send a note to President-elect Barak Obama to help guide him in who he will choose to be his drug czar.

Based on suggestions provided by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), I wrote the following letter to Obama. Feel free to copy it, change it, enhance or use it in some way to create a custom letter of your own to the new President of the United States. Once you compose your message you can send it to Barak Obama via his new website: www.change.gov. The process is quick and simple. And well worth the small effort.

Don’t be fooled. You make a difference. You make an impact. The more proactive you are, the larger your impact. It only takes a moment to compose and send a letter like the one I wrote below:

Drug Reform Message to Barak Obama

Dear President-elect Obama,

Please choose a drug czar who will champion drug policy reform in the USA. This is a very important step in delivering the change you and I and a majority of our great nation and the world so obviously desire… and need!

It’s easy to understand why you are considering to nominate Republican Congressman James Ramstad to be your “drug czar”. Rep. Ramstad is in recovery from alcohol abuse and has a track record in support of increasing access to drug treatment. However, Ramstad is still mostly married to the failed punitive drug war policies of the last 30 thirty years. This is a no-brainer: These policies don’t work. Never have. Never will.

These failed policies need to change. More importantly, we need to do something different. Just as you had so boldly stated: “Doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity”, WE MUST do things differently in drug reform in order for profound change to occur. I figure that you already know this somewhere deep inside your obviously good heart. Please step into it, and we will support you.

Ramstad has voted against medical marijuana five times. He has voted against making sterile syringes more available to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS three times. Even though his colleagues are increasingly supporting sentencing reform, including eliminating the crack/powder sentencing disparity, he hasn’t stood up on the issue. Perhaps Ramstad is not the right choice.

Our nation’s next drug czar should be chosen based on the following criteria:

1. Are they committed to enacting and supporting evidence-based policies? ONDCP should make decisions based on science, not politics or ideology.
2. Are they committed to reducing the harms associated with both drugs and punitive drug laws? We need a new bottom line for U.S. drug policy.
3. Do they think drug use should be treated as a health issue not a criminal justice issue? To paraphrase former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, we need a surgeon general not a military general or police officer.
4. Do they welcome and encourage debate and research? We need a drug czar who is open-minded and willing to consider every alternative.
5. Are they committed to reducing the number of nonviolent offenders behind bars? Our country’s next drug czar should be fully committed to major sentencing reform.

President-elect Obama, who you choose as your drug czar will affect everyone. Please nominate a drug czar who supports marijuana law reform, syringe availability and treatment instead of incarceration.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Best regards and best of luck,

Your Name

Where to Send Your Drug Reform Letter

Once your message is ready don’t forget to send it to www.change.gov.

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Sacred Cow Productions Presents

American Drug War -The Last White Hope

Friday November 9th, 2007
9:00 pm
Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood

America’s War on Drugs gives a radical new perspective to the Drug War by putting a human face on the War’s casualties, while enlisting help from some unlikely sources. A Republican Governor? A right-wing Judge? The Last White Hope has made ending the drug war a mainstream issue… Read more at the Sacred Cow Web site.

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In early April 2007, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Pakistan to show their opposition to radical fundamentalism and terrorism. And yet, not a peep about it in the U.S. Media.

It seems like this is good information and it lets the rest of the world see that there is the tiniest minority of ill-intentioned, misguided evil jackasses that want to cause major problems. The rest of us just want to live productive peaceful lives.

But if you were a megalomaniac who was desirous of attaining absolute control and who had a hidden agenda, and to achieve the objectives of that agenda required you to keep the fear levels in the population at a fevered pitch, while simultaneously keeping the masses ignorant and misinformed, this is the kind of information that you would NOT want to share with the masses. Control of the public mind becomes key.

Therefore, it is my duty to share with you this information.

Thanx to ‘ddp’ for posting it to his LoftBlog v2.0.

Says the culturally experienced, globe-trotting ddp:

Seems the citizens of Pakistan and Turkey are fed up with creeping Talibanization of their respective countries???

Sadly, there???s been little coverage of these massive rallies in the US media because it doesn???t further the radical right???s agenda to show that there???s even a moderate side to Islam.

Derrell Piper

If this topic interests you, please check his original posting for additional information.

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(Update: You can now view a 5 minute video of John Perry Barlow’s “interview” on the Steven Colbert show.)

I just got notice that a fine freakish friend of mine will be on the dumb television tonight. Fellow Burner John Perry Barlow has worn many hats. Most likely best known as one of the chief songwriters for the Grateful Dead for over two decades, he’s also one of the founders of the vital, important, and necessary EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is effectively a watchdog against government incursions into the internet in regards to censorship, privacy, and 1st Ammendment issues. Rather than explain, just visit the EFF website…. and donate money! I do as much and as often as I can (being an internet addict and all…)

Here’s a picture of Barlow and I in July 2006 at a Barlowfrendzie in Malibu, photgraphed by the lovely and talented Shiho, baby!:

Tonight, as is detailed below, Barlow will be on the Colbert Report facing off with Steven Colbert. This should prove to be a bit of fun.

TWO WHITE GUYS SITTING AROUND TALKIN’

JP Barlow wrote:

Since I don’t watch television – not even the “good” stuff – I’d never heard of Steven Colbert until he soared into my consciousness with what I think was the bravest act of humor since Jonathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal.” (In this essay, Swift, a compassionate Englishman, suggested that the Irish might address this famine bother they were experiencing by eating a few of their own children, of which most of them had in rather greater abundance than potatoes.)

I refer to Mr. Colbert’s astonishing address to the White House Press Corps (most of them too scared to laugh) during their annual dinner last April 29. If Congress conferred medals for courage in the service of dark laughter – which, although it’s a good idea, the current Democrat-controlled Congress is even *less* likely to do – they’d have no choice but to give Steven Colbert the Congressional Medal of Humor with oak leaves and clusters.

I mean this guy eats dinner seated between George and Laura Bush and then gets up to the podium and compares the Bush administration to the Hindenberg! (If you haven’t seen it before, I strongly recommend that you watch this video. If you do, observe the weird displacement of The Decider’s head in relation to his body over the course of the address. I didn’t know cervical vertebrae could do that.)

Anyway, this speech made me a devout Steven Colbert fan. He didn’t convince me to start watching television, but he did convince me that if I were to watch television, it would be mostly so I could watch him and his kind (if he has one).

Turns out my next opportunity to watch him will be at close range. He is interviewing me on his show tonight.

I think it will air at around 11:30 pm in a lot of places, but I really have no idea when it might be on in your area. Those of you who still navigate The Vast Wasteland probably know how to find it. If you don’t watch enough television to have developed such tracking skills, don’t start now on my account. It’s not worth the risk. You can maybe catch it later on YouTube.

With any luck, it will be worth catching. I don’t know what he wants to talk with me about. (Though I kind of doubt that he wants to talk about EFF’s recent legal intervention when The Colbert Report was trying to get a MoveOn parody of the show stricken from YouTube.)

When I asked about the topic, the staffer said, “everything.” Ah, television. An environment where they think you can cover EVERYTHING inside of six minutes. Describe the Universe. Give two examples. Break for a commercial.

We won’t accomplish such a feat as that, but it could be pretty good anyway. For one thing, you ironists ought to enjoy the sight of someone who looks, talks, and behaves like a Republican, but isn’t, interviewing someone who fits none of the contemporary Republican stereotypes, but is.

I tried being a Democrat for a year. Hated it. I traded my sense of humor for sanctimony and gutless indignation. I was nearly overcome with impulses to save people from themselves, using force if necessary. I found myself becoming hysterical, brittle, and cowardly.

I am not a comfortable Republican – and I’m no Republican at all if George W. Bush is to be the measure of the GOP’s beliefs from this point forward, but I do have balls. So I ended up switching back. I may be the last Republican who believes that the party stands for limited government, personal freedom, prudent fiscal policies, genuinely free markets, and a deep wariness of foreign military adventures. Just as I didn’t flee my country when I saw it being taken over by religious zealots, plutocrats, fratboy incompetents and make-believe soldiers, I won’t flee my party on the same grounds either. (Though I’m starting to think that there is a grand new party waiting to be born in the space vacated by these latter-day Republicans.)

I strongly suspect that when Mr. Colbert is just kicking around the house, his ideology and cultural style differs from what his persona projects on-screen. Nevertheless, I have decided to take him at face value and contest him as I would his “mentor” Bill O’Reilly. In fact, I will take him on as the very sort of pious, closeted gay fascist who decided to become active in the GOP when he learned that poor people and weirdos could actually vote and that the Episcopalian church didn’t field political candidates. I have even prepared a defense of wild, marauding bears. So it should be fun.

Anyway, I probably won’t see you tonight, but you stand a good chance of seeing me.

Yippie-ti-yo,

Barlow

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The White House .org

presents a

George W. Bush and Scooter Libby Production

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Treating Stimulant Addiction in Canada

When will the good old USA finally begin to adopt proven, sensible, and compassionate policies regarding drug use and abuse? When is enough enough? I’m all for the ideas such as the one in Rio regarding the legalization of drugs as a means to fight crime. Also, I’m absolutely in favor of programs such as the new pilot program in Vancouver, BC, Canada, which seeks to treat those unfortunate souls who have become addicted to stimulants.

Read more here:

Treating Stimulant Addiction With Prescription Drugs

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Legalized Drugs in Rio?

Governor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, calls for Legalizing Drugs to Fight Crime from Drug Trade

Rio???s Governor Joins Latin American Leaders in Call for International Dialog on the Harms of Drugs and Drug Prohibition

Contact: Tony Papa (646) 420-7290

Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral on Friday called for legalizing drugs as a strategy to fight the ongoing drug-related gang violence that is devastating his state. He expressed hopes that this would reduce the violent crime caused primarily by drug prohibition. Rio de Janeiro has one of the highest murder rates in Latin America, due primarily to outbreaks of violence among different gangs, and between gangs and the police in the slums of Brazil???s favelas, where urban drug lords rule.

???The governor is merely saying out loud what so many more think but fear to say.. Rio today is like Chicago under Al Capone ??? times ten. Reforming drug prohibition won???t be as quick and easy as repealing alcohol Prohibition was, but there???s no hope for breaking the drug-crime nexus unless many more elected officials heed Governor Cabral???s call.???

Ethan Nadelmann:
executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance

Governor Cabral???s comments add to a growing list of Latin American leaders who are questioning drug prohibition and calling for new strategies, including legalization, to address the violence created by the illegality of drugs. Former Central and South American presidents, including Mexico???s Vicente Fox and Uruguay???s Jorge Batlle, among others, have called for an international dialog on how best to deal with the disastrous prohibitionist policies that are costly, futile and counter-productive.

Governor Sergio Cabral, who took office two months ago, promised that a priority of his administration would be to combat the crime stemming from these drug gangs. Several months ago, one of the governor???s first acts was to ask the federal government to send a special security force to Rio following the eruption of gang violence that caused civilian and police deaths.

Cabral questions current U.S. drug policy. When he asked, ???Is the United States correct in its conservative policy on drugs???? he responded, ???In my view???absolutely incorrect.???

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