VIPblog

July 4, 2008 - Be the 100,000th Unique Visitor to www.VeryImportantPotheads.com
VeryImportantPotheads.com has nearly reached 100,000 unique visitors (by the Bravenet counter -- we're getting more, plus tons of "hits" by our new counter). If you are the 100,000th visitor, you can win the original prototype to the new Name that Pothead card game, featurig 102 famous potheads in six categories. Here's how to win:
1. Visit http://www.veryimportantpotheads.com
2. Click on "VIPs" to get to the www.veryimportantpotheads.com/main2.html page
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page to view the hit counter. If it says "100,000," print the page and send it along with your name and address to: Conscious Communications, POB 1203, Redway CA 95560. (Allow 6 weeks for delivery.)

Pothead of the Month: Rob Thomas
Rob Thomas, the singer/songwriter of the highly successful band Matchbox Twenty, was interviewed on tour in the March 6 Rolling Stone surrounded by his dogs, DVDs, scented candles, and "a blue bong he hits between sentences." Now Thomas tells CelebStoner he's a "huge" pothead and advocate for legalization.

Interestingly, Thomas's first band was called Tabitha's Secret. Perhaps he is aware of Tabitha's Weekend (6 March 1969), the episode of TV's Bewitched in which Tabitha turns herself into a cookie. In it, Endora (the grandmother witch) is offered brownies by Darrin's (straight) mother. "Those wouldn't be from a recipe by Alice B. Toklas, would they?" Endora asks. When told they were not, "Well then, never mind" is her answer.

Higher Education Chronicled
"I never would have made it this far in graduate school without the aid of marijuana," begins a July 2 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education written under the pseudonym Tom Quincey . It continues, "I think my pot smoking has helped smooth out the roughness of a Ph.D. program. And frankly, I think the disturbing issue with a younger generation of graduate students is that they don't toke up enough. Instead many indulge in things far worse, both for them physically and for the humanities..."

Noting he is not recommending daily smoking, the author writes, "But if you use the substance judiciously, marijuana can remind you that 'intellectual labor' is really a form of Play, and infinitely preferable to most of the jobs your peers are drudging through. Hence, I accept Paul Bowles's basic distinction between an alcohol-drinking culture and a cannabis-smoking culture, with the latter encouraging inwardness and creativity." The author recounts using pot to blast through writer's block in a way liquor could never do, and encourages his readers to eschew hard drugs and join NORML. "Together we'll resist the soulless forces of materialism and corporate conformity. And maybe someday I'll be able to write a column like this under my real name." Now there's an Independence Day message.

Jesse Helms Dead at 86
Ex-Senator Jesse Helms, who Helms once said his job was to derail the freight train of liberalism, is dead at 86. A champion of North Carolina tobacco growers, Helms single-handedly stopped the nomination of fellow Republican, then-Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, as ambassador to Mexico because Weld supported medical marijuana. Helms tried in 1983 to filibuster legislation to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday.

Highly Recommended: Wonderful Tonight
Wonderful Tonight, the autobiography of rock muse Pattie Boyd, for whom George Harrison wrote "Something" and Eric Clapton wrote "Wonderful Tonight" and "Layla," confirms some rock and roll drug stories and reveals others. Boyd married Harrison after meeting him on the set of "A Hard Day's Night" and was a top model who became a photographer.

After George returned from the Beatles' U.S. tour, where he told Pattie Bob Dylan turned the Fab Four onto pot, he rolled a joint and told his wife to inhale deeply. "It was quite dark in the room, we were listening to music, chatting away, until all of a sudden we were roaring with laughter and realized we were stoned," Boyd wrote. "Everything seemed hilarious."

While The Beatles were doing uppers in Hamburg to play long hours, Boyd was doing diet pills to stay Twiggy-skinny. "Drugs were part of our lives at that time and they were fun. We didn't take anything hard--none of us used heroin...but we took acid regularly." After they were first dosed with LSD, George said, "It was as if I had never tasted, talked, seen, thought, or heard properly before. For the first time in my whole life I wasn't conscious of my ego." But later, Boyd traveled to San Francisco's Haight Asbury district with George, who got turned off to the scene by what he saw. In 1967, one month after the Beatles signed on to an advertisement in the London Times calling for marijuana legalization in protest over the Rolling Stones' pot bust, they traveled to India to study with the Maharishi and vowed to give up all intoxicants.

Boyd stands up for the relative safety of marijuana over hard drugs in the book, but repeats a fiction now popular in England that today's so-called "Skunk" is much stronger and more dangerous than what her crowd smoked. "Dope in the sixties...was about peace, love, and increasing awareness. It was the basis of flower power; it was innocent. Cocaine was different and I think it froze George's emotions and hardened his heart." She recounts her painful relationship with Clapton, whose abuse of alcohol, cocaine and heroin are also documented in his recent book. The couple nearly reconciled after taking Ecstasy together, and Boyd finally found peace during an Ayahuasca journey after Harrison died and Clapton remarried.

Charles Lane Played Pothead
Charles Lane (left), the veteran character actor who died last July 9 in Los Angeles at the age of 102, was known to many as the train stationmaster on TV's Petticoat Junction. One of Lane's final performances was as the pot-smoking priest in Date with An Angel, the delightful 1987 film that starred French beauty Emmanuelle Beart as a fallen angel who brings joy and hope to the world without saying a word.

According to his NYTimes obit, Carlin "talked openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found 'far more pain in the deal than pleasure.'...In December 2004 he entered a rehabilitation center to address his addictions to Vicodin and red wine."

"Beer leads to heroin, that's a fact," Carlin joked, "In fact, mother's milk leads to everything," on Toledo Window Box, where he says he got into weed instead of alcohol in 1952-3, realizing, "Grass doesn't make you stagger, your breath don't smell, and you don't puke on your shoes." He then deconstructs our favorite nursery rhymes, like, "Mary had a little gram..."

"There's a cold front coming Canada, not to be confused with a high front from Mexico," his Hippy Dippy Weatherman joked.

According to his AP obituary, Carlin's infamous seven censored words sketch led to a Supreme Court decision on broadcasting offensive language." When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance. The words were later played on a New York radio station, resulting in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening."

Carlin produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a few TV shows and appeared in several movies. He won four Grammy Awards for best spoken comedy album and was nominated for five Emmys. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS.

Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, and grew up in Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston. "Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.

June 21 - U.S. Seeks to Imprison Pothead Hacker
UK's The Daily Mail reports that the U.S. is seeking to extradite 42-year-old British hairdresser/computer hacker Gary McKinnon who, while smoking copious amounts of pot, managed to hack into U.S. military computers. "His efforts have been described as the biggest military computer hack of all time," the article states. "Since then, the deeply embarrassed and enraged U.S. authorities have determined that their British pothead nemesis should pay a heavy price." If extradited, McKinnon faces 60 years in prison and, he fears, a stint at Guantanamo Bay.

June 20 - Rock Puffsome?
There’s a brief mention of pot, and lots of liquor, in the Doris Day/Rock Hudson romantic comedy Lover Come Back (1961), spied on (where else) TCM. The rather convoluted plot goes something like this:

Advertising executives Carol Templeton (Doris) and Jerry Webster (Rock) work for competing ad agencies. Angered by Jerry’s method of nabbing clients using alcohol and women, Carol brings his behavior up before the Advertising Council. But Jerry bribes Carol’s star witness by filming her in a TV commercial for an imaginary product named VIP. When the ads are accidentally broadcast, Jerry pays a scientist to invent something he can call VIP. Meanwhile, Carol goes after the VIP account and mistakes Jerry, whom she has never met, for the scientist. As in other Hudson/Day movies, Rock pretends to be an inexperienced and marriageable man instead of the rogue he truly is, a ruse that was a good cover for Hudson’s homosexuality.

Jerry tells Carol he will consider her for the VIP account, but says he also has loyalty to Webster (himself). When Carol shows up at Webster’s apartment she is surprised when Jerry, who she thinks is the scientist, opens the door. Jerry feigns confusion, implying he was partying with Webster the night before and his memory is fuzzy.

Carol drags Jerry to her apartment where he tells her he lacks the confidence to make love to her. She goes into the kitchen and sings, “Lover, Should I Surrender” before popping a champagne cork and nearly donning a negligee—just before discovering the ruse. Furious (yet still sweet, as only Doris Day could be) she once more brings a complaint to the Ad Council, this time involving the District Attorney as well.

Meanwhile, the true scientist has come up with a product worthy of the VIP name. He calls it “A triumph of advanced biochemistry. Looks like candy, tastes like candy, and enters the bloodstream as pure alcohol. Each one of these is the equivalent of the triple martini. I’ve given this country what it has long needed: a good 10 cent drunk.”

Jerry shows up at his hearing with a box full of VIP, which the Ad Council stuffs themselves with. Hijinks ensue and he and Carol end up in bed with a marriage certificate neither remembers signing. Still furious, Doris shouts, “No alcoholic beverage, no drug known to science could induce me to stay married to you!” and storms out (pouting prettily). Representatives of the liquor industry then show up to bribe Jerry into burning the VIP formula by giving him a chunk of their $60 million advertising budget, which he gallantly gives to Carol.

The drug-laden plot is reminiscent of Bye Bye Birdie (1963) wherein biochemist/composer Albert F. Peterson (Dick Van Dyke) tries to make good in one or the other profession in order to marry his fiancée Rosie DeLeon (Janet Leigh). Just as he gets the Elvis-like Conrad Birdie to sing “One Last Kiss” on the Ed Sullivan show to Ann Margret, he hits upon the formula for a stimulant drug that truly makes him successful.

Highly Recommended: Bongwater (1997)

The always engaging Luke Wilson stars as David, an artist/pot dealer with goofy friends and romantic troubles in Bongwater (1977), based on a novel by Michael Hornburg. With Jack Black as the quintessential hippie Devlin and Brittany Murphy as Mary, the friend who takes Davis on a mushroom hunt. With real life, intelligent characters and situations, this one is a cut above the usual stoner fare.

June 19 - Specter Would "Absolutely" Puff Legal Pot
Reporter Dan Gross of the Philadelphia Daily News asked Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, 78, who has completed eight of 12 rounds of chemotherapy for his cancer, whether he would use medical marijuana himself.

"If it were legalized in Pennsylvania and if I were in pain and my doctor prescribed it, then yes, absolutely I would," he told me, Gross wrote, adding, " When I asked if he would consider sparking up without it being legalized, I'd swear there was a brief smile before the senator said he was 'certainly not about to say I would violate the law.'" Several years ago, early in his battle with cancer, Specter told Gross that he had considered introducing legislation supporting medical marijuana.

Pot Potency/Health Link Debunked
Science Daily reports today that "Claims that a large increase in the strength of cannabis over the last decade is driving the occurrence of mental health and other problems for users are not borne out by a study of the worldwide literature, say researchers at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) and the National Drug Research Institute (NDRI), both from Australia." Cannabis samples tested in the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Italy have shown increases in potency over the last decade, but no significant growth in other European countries or in New Zealand has been found during the same period, the article states.

In their discussion of potential health risks, the authors point to studies that observe that some cannabis smokers, when faced with a 'strong' product, act rather like tobacco smokers and adjust their dose by increasing the interval between puffs, or holding smoke in their lungs for a shorter period of time. This behavior may reduce possible harms caused by increased potency. The authors also discuss the health risks of contaminants.

The authors say "Given the relatively high prevalence of cannabis use it is important we have current, accurate information to help users make informed decisions about their use, and that policy development and media debate about the health harms associated with its use are guided by research evidence rather than rumour."

June 18 - Shrinks Get Spacey
This is becoming a trend. First Bette Midler took a quick toke playing Mel Gibson's psychologist in What Women Want, then Angelica Houston shared a joint with her fellow shrink Hank Azaria on Huff, and Ben Kingsley opens The Wackness as a bong-sucking psychotherapist. Now Kevin Spacey, who played a middle-aged man who rediscovers pot in American Beauty, has signed to star in the indie drama, Shrink, from Thomas Moffett's script about a celebrity shrink in the midst of a personal crisis who turns to (you guessed it) ganja. A co-production between Ignite, Ithaka and Spacey's production house, Trigger Streethe, Shrink's cast will include Robin Williams and Gore Vidal and is scheduled to arrive in theaters later this year.

June 17 - Cyd Charisse and The Electric Prunes
As we say goodbye to the Texas girl who learned to dance to recover from polio and became Cyd Charisse, we revisit the appearance of psychedelic rockers The Electric Prunes on The Cyd Charisse show circa 1966. After introducing the band as "new and different" with a pair of puppets, Charisse donned flapper garb reminiscent of her performance in Singing in the Rain to dance in a skit for the Prune's third number. The band opened with Get Me To the World on Time ("Here I go/higher and higher") followed by their biggest hit, I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night).

Making an important distinction between hard and soft drugs, Nancy refuses to smuggle heroin. For a true-to-life story of a young Colombian woman who becomes a heroin smuggler, see Maria, Full of Grace, the 2004 film that won first-time actress Catalina Sandino Moreno a well deserved Oscar nomination.

June 16, 2008 -David Sedaris a Pothead No More
"David Sedaris is famous now, but he's spent so much time remembering the years when he was a slacker and a pothead that he's come to seem like the ordinary kid who one day discovers he has superpowers," begins a June 15 Bloomberg News article by Craig Seligman. The article goes on to say that Sedaris writes he has given up smoking both pot and cigarettes in his new book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames.

Sedaris, 51, is the humorist who contributes audio essays to NPR's This American Life. He is a best selling author of novels and essay collections like Me Talk Pretty One Day, and his essays appear regularly in Esquire and The New Yorker. One of these, "Of Wildflowers and Weed" (2007) describes an encounter with his pot dealer nine years earlier. A 2008 essay, Letting Go: Smoking and Non-Smoking says he was given a pack of cigarettes to take home after a fourth-grade school field trip in North Carolina.

As a child, Sedaris had a lisp, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette's syndrome, which he says improved after he took up smoking ("A Plague of Tics" in Naked (1997)). In Me Talk Pretty he writes, "For the first twenty years of my life I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own."

In 2001, Sedaris was named "Humorist of the Year" by Time magazine and became the third recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. He was named by Time magazine as “Humorist of the Year” in 2001. He's been nominated for two Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word Album ("Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim") and Best Comedy Album ("David Sedaris: Live at Carnegie Hall"). Not bad for a slacker/pothead.

Potheads on Parade
The Los Angeles Patient Advocacy Network's float reportedly won the top prize at the Gay Pride Parade in L.A. last weekend. Here's a picture of two happy partcipants (right).

NOW U.K. EXPERTS SAY CANNABIS SHOULD BE LEGAL
Cannabis should be legalised and taxed, an influential Scottish think tank recommended just weeks after the UK's government hardened its attitude towards the drug, reclassifying it as a class B substance. According to a June 10 article in The Scotsman, the Scottish Futures Forum has published a report on drugs and alcohol in Scotland, saying one way to tackle the problem of addiction to harder drugs was to tax and regulate cannabis.

Forum chairman Frank Pignatelli said studies of San Francisco, where cannabis is illegal, and the Netherlands, where it is decriminalised [actually, tolerated], showed that the idea is worth considering because it breaks the link with class A drugs. In the Netherlands, only 17 per cent of cannabis sellers were also selling drugs such as crack, cocaine and heroin, while in San Francisco it was more than 50 per cent.

High-Flying Broadcom Founder Indicted
Flying in his private plane from Orange County California to Las Vegas in 2001, Broadcom Corp. co-founder and billionaire Henry T. Nicholas III and his entourage "generated so much marijuana smoke that it billowed into the cockpit, requiring the pilot flying the plane to put on an oxygen mask," according to a federal grand jury indictment made public on June 5. Nicholas, who stepped down as Broadcom's chief executive in 2003, surrendered that day to the FBI.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a second indictment accused Nicholas of manipulating stock options at Broadcom, the Irvine-based maker of computer chips used in such products as mobile phones, Apple Inc.'s iPod and Nintendo Co.'s Wii consoles. In a 21-count indictment, Nicholas and William J. Ruehle, 66, Broadcom's former chief financial officer, were accused of backdating millions of stock options for five years to improperly reward employees.

A second, four-count indictment alleges Nicholas, 48, maintained homes and commercial properties in Orange County and Las Vegas for the "purpose of using and distributing controlled substances," including cocaine and methamphetamine. Among other things, Nicholas allegedly supplied Broadcom customers with prostitutes and narcotics he sometimes referred to as "party favors." He is accused of slipping MDMA (ecstasy) into some of the drinks of technology executives and representatives who worked for Broadcom's customers without their knowledge.

Nicholas also allegedly paid $1 million in June 2002 to buy the silence of another, unnamed Broadcom employee who was aware of his illegal drug activity. "In or around 2001, in the lobby of Broadcom's offices . . . Nicholas directed a Broadcom employee to provide approximately $5,000 to $10,000 in cash to a drug courier in exchange for an envelope containing controlled substances," the indictment alleges.

"Dr. Nicholas will contest these charges vigorously," his lead attorney, Brendan V. Sullivan Jr. of Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "He is confident that he will be fully vindicated." U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Nakazato ordered Nicholas freed on bail of $3.4 million and ordered that Nicholas be confined to a Malibu drug treatment facility, with electronic monitoring, and that his two private planes be disabled. He warned Nicholas that he would be arrested if he violated any terms of his release, which also stipulate random drug tests.

June 7, 2008 - Weeds to Grow Again
As if it wasn't bad enough that Showtime paired Weeds with a show called Californication last year, now the network is co-promoting it with a new series about a hooker. Both will premiere on June 16. Nancy, the non-pot-smoking pot princess of Southern California, burned down her house at the end of last season and will reportedly be traveling to Mexico and moving in with her father-in-law, played by Albert Brooks.

Last season Nancy contined to fuck her way to the top, while doing other nice things like holding a knife to her neighbor's throat. But she does worry that she's not exactly a good role model for her kids. In fact, I wonder what "technical advisor" Advanced Nutrients thought of the face she made when someone suggests her son would make a good pot farmer. But the show must be having some effect, even in Orange County: UC Irvine's drama department just presented the musical Reefer Madness.

The charm of the show, for me, is in the ancillary characters, like the brother-in-law played by the talented Justin Kirk, and SNL's Kevin Nealon, the bong-loving bad boy of Agrestic. Nealon is being shown in a goofy promotional interview on Showtime where he is asked if he favors legalization. "I think marijuana should be legal for medical purposes and for entertainment purposes, but not the other uses," he jokes.

Last season, in the biggest break-out role since Bob Saget's Entourage appearance, Mary-Kate Olsen guest starred as a Jesus freak who sewed up the Christian market for Nancy. "It's St. John's anointing oil," she correctly stated. Likewise, even the hippie hilariously played by Ashton Kutcher in Bobby noted the spiritual nature of the herb and the founders of Advanced Nutrients have been knighted by the Bulgarian Order of St. Michael. While Weeds tarts up what's sacred for entertainment value, at least they slipped in one note that's radical and true.

NAME THAT POTHEAD: What Weeds cast member won an Obie Award for his role as a blind gay man in 1997’s Love! Valor! Compassion! and appeared as the employer of a pot-puffing waitress played by Salma Hayek in Ask the Dust ( 2006)?

HINT: When he accepted his High Times Stoney award for acting in 2006, he commented in his acceptance speech that the money he made from the hit series is only a fraction of what he’s spent on weed over the years. (In 2007 he was nominated for a Golden Globe award for his role on Weeds.)

Answers to: games@veryimportantpotheads.com

Where the Joints Are
VIP Bill Maher will be the guest programmer on TCM just after the Weeds debut on June 16. One of the four films Maher picked is Where the Boys Are (1960), a film that was quite ahead of its time, addressing sexuality and following four girls through the maze of men they encounter on spring break in Ft. Lauderdale, while seemingly hinting at pot use.

Classic cowboy Chil Wills contributes a fine performance as Ft. Lauderdale's police chief, who informs his men the kids who will be invading their town to "celebrate the rites of spring...have that right." Paula Prentiss' love interest T.V. (Played by Jim Hutton) constantly listens to a police radio to "keep up with his friends." When the girls meet Frank Gorshin's character, a "purveyor of dialectic jazz" named Basil (pronounced with a long "A", like the green leafy herb), he invites them to a concert where they play a song called "A meeting between Shakespeare and Satchel Page on Hempstead Heath." Afterwards he orders a Grasshopper, saying, "No man, no--not the one that hops!"

Yvette Mimeux's dreamy character Melanie (shown above) looks a lot like the cover of the 1956 novel Reefer Girl, and she goes astray with too many college boys, while uttering lines like, "Mystic!" and "I must have been really smashed--stoned!" When the boys teach her to smoke cigarettes, she reassures her friends, "I don't inhale, though."

In the commentary to the DVD version, Connie Francis reveals that she brought her favorite songwriter Neil Sedaka to the project, and sadly the sappy theme song was picked over her preferred song. But Sedaka also penned "You've Got to Turn on the Sunshine," the song Connie uses to nab her jazz musician. Remember folks, "You don't have to be a politician, you can change it all with a sunny disposition."

June 5, 2008 - Barr's Brownies on The Colbert Report
Last night's The Colbert Report featured this interview with Libertarian Presidental Candidate Bob Barr that wrapped up with a discussion of hash brownies and the failure of the drug war:

Former Drug "Czar" Advocates Releasing Drug Prisoners

The study from the Urban Institute in Washington found that about 3 percent of arrested addicts are referred to a drug court, which offers supervised treatment to nonviolent offenders whose records are expunged if they complete the program. "Most addicts need something more than being warehoused," said Judge Charles Simmons Jr., a drug court judge in Greenville, S.C. "Drug courts are putting families back together, and they are decreasing crime at a tremendous savings to taxpayers."

Housing an inmate in prison can cost up to $40,000 a year while drug court treatment costs up to $3,500 per offender a year, Simmons said. McCaffrey said 15 years of research has yielded definitive proof that drug courts significantly reduce crime by as much as 35 percent. He said legislators and the public may get behind the system once they understand its cost savings.

Potheads Duel for Championships

Leading up to this year's NBA finals, ESPN has been runing the classic Lakers/Celtics 1984 NBA finals matchup, the year VIP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar surpassed Wilt Chamberlain to become the NBA's top all-time scorer, a record he still holds. In game 6, Kareem fouled out and his Celtics counterpart Robert Parish got a key steal before he too fouled out. The Celtics won it in overtime on their way to winning game 7 and the series.

Called "The Chief" after Ken Kesey's character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Parish was a nine-time all star and at 39 was the oldest player in the NBA when he admitted guilt in a minor marijuana possession charge in February 1993. Parish paid a $30 fine. At the time, marijuana was not tested for in the NBA.

(In looking this up, I found an earlier Charles Barkley admission from 2005. One of the commenters said Barkley said "drugs are stupid" in 1992 on the Arsenio Hall show, but here he admits he smoked it while playing for the NBA.)

June 2, 2008 - MTV Censors "Pothead" Award Presenters Seth Rogen and James Franco
But brings it to you on its blog.
Franco told AP backstage that MTV tried to pull back from the script that had he and Rogen smoking "fake" weed at the last minute. Instead the cameras pulled back when the actors went through with the segment. Robert Downey Jr., who accepted the award on behalf of his blockbuster Iron Man reportedly looked puzzled when he said, "Thanks fellas," he said, "for that intoxicating introduction."

June 1, 2008 - Scott McClellan’s Higher Loyalty Exposes Bush’s Venality on Drugs
Saying he has a “higher” loyalty to the truth and his values, former Bush loyalist and press secretary Scott McClellan’s new book What Happened lays bare the Bush administration’s inner workings, including this overheard telephone conversation on the campaign trail in 1999 involving Bush's rumored cocaine use: "'The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors,' I heard Bush say. 'You know, the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember.'"

"I remember thinking to myself, How can that be?" McClellan wrote. "How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn't make a lot of sense."

(Thanks for this tip to the eagle-eyed Dale Gieringer of California NORML, a website so hot it's censored by the Bloomberg newsroom.)

VIP of the Month: Phil Jackson
Last week, Zen master and VIP Phil Jackson coached the Los Angeles Lakers to the 2008 NBA Western Conference Championships. Jackson now has 190 playoff wins, more than any other NBA coach, and ties Red Auerbach with 11 NBA finals appearances.( VIP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, an assistant coach for the Lakers whose audiobook On the Shoulders of Giants is getting raves, was present at the victorious game.)

According to a Salon.com story, in Jackson’s 1975 memoir Maverick, he spoke frankly about marijuana use and experimentation with LSD. In his 1995 bestseller Sacred Hoops, Jackson reveals his Indian name is Swift Eagle and VIP Bill Bradley’s is Tall Elk – both names given at a 1973 naming ceremony at Pine Ridge Reservation.

With recent revelations from Josh Howard about the prevalence of marijuana use among NBA players (see below), basketball is arguably the stoner’s sport. As if on cue, Joakim Noah, the rookie guard from Jackson’s former team the Chicago Bulls, accepted a deferred prosecution agreement on May 29 after being charged with possession of marijuana and having an open container of alcohol in Gainesville, Florida a few days earlier. Noah led the University of Florida Gators to consecutive national championships before being selected ninth overall in last June's draft by the Bulls. He averaged 6.6 points and 5.6 rebounds in 74 games last year.

Sydney Pollack Honored for VIP’s Story
Director, actor and producer Sydney Pollack, who died on May 26, had a distinguished career that included Three Days of the Condor (1975) to HBO’s Recount (2008). But his biggest success came with Out of Africa (1985), which earned him his two Oscars, for Best Direction and Best Picture.

Out of Africa is based on the book by Danish author and VIP Isak Dinesen, who enjoyed hashish, opium, and kava with Denys Finch Hatton in Africa. Read more.

Flying the Friendlier Skies
A ranking Customs and Border Protection agent accepted nearly $150,000 in cash to let shipments of hashish pass through JFK Airport in New York City undetected, federal prosecutors say. Customs supervisor Walter Golembiowski, 65, was arrested along with agent John Ajello, 51, and five others in a scheme that dates back to 2003 and involved shipments of more than 600 pounds of hashish on the way from London and Morocco. Source.

And a customs officer hid $10,000 worth of marijuana in a someone's luggage and then forgot which bag contained the contraband during a practice session Sunday in Tokyo. "The officer stuffed five ounces of the drug into the side pocket of a randomly selected black suitcase coming off an overseas flight into Narita yesterday so that the dog could get some practice at detecting drugs," UK’s Times reports. The duo then lost track of the bag and the drugs. Officials are urging anyone who finds a metal box filled with weed to call the Narita airport ASAP.

Big Brown Trainer Liked Big Green
As thoroughbred Big Brown tries to overcome an injury to become history’s 12th Triple Crown winner at the Belmont Stakes on June 7, the New York Daily News reveals that Big Brown’s trainer Rick Dutrow, 48, “was suspended in Maryland in the '80s for possessing marijuana and ruled off New York tracks for testing positive for pot during that period and would have his New York license suspended briefly again in 2000 for another positive test."

"Nah. I never have thought I had an addiction where I had to have it," says Dutrow. "I never had a problem with alcohol. Mostly gambling. It could have been (a worse problem then). I don't know about that, but it could have been." Dutrow readily admits to gambling "big" today. Source.

California Assembly Protects Workers Rights
AB 2279, which protects medical marijuana users’ right to work, was passed by the California Assembly . Now is the time for Californians to take action on this bill to ensure its passage in the Senate. Medical-marijuana-using VIPs include Rodney Dangerfield, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Montel Williams and Melissa Etheridge. And of course California's Governator smoked pot in his youth, which doesn't seem to have hurt his health or ambition. If this bill doesn't pass, we'll miss many more contributions by marijuana users.

For background, see How Pot Became Demonized: The Fine Line Between Good Medicine and "Dangerous Drugs" , an excerpt from the forthcoming book Dying to Get High by Wendy Chapkis and Richard J. Webb (NYU Press, 2008).

Didn’t She See Caddyshack?
According to the Associated Press, Bill Murray’s wife Jennifer Butler Murray is suing him for divorce, alleging he is addicted to alcohol and marijuana, and he’s jetting off to places like Japan to do ecstasy with Scarlett Johansen (oops, that was just a movie.) Murray was reportedly expelled from the Pre-Med program at Regis College because of marijuana use.

Highly RecommendedTM - 20 to Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair
Most people know John Sinclair as the Michigan activist who was serving a 10-year sentence for giving two marijuana joints to an undercover policewoman when VIP John Lennon and Yoko Ono appeared at a concert on his behalf and won his release. 20 to Life (2007) tells Sinclair's story through interviews with Sinclair and his fellow Detroits Artists Workshop and White Panther Party members. Like Lennon and Ono, Sinclair believes -- and demonstrates -- that art is a transformative power, and this film does him justice.

"We hope you're the first," said Yoko in a phone conversation with Sinclair the day he got out of jail. Lennon said at the concert, "Apathy isn't it. and we have to do something." The most astute comment in the film came from the German-born associate of Sinclair, who saw his struggle as a first amendement battle. "They couldn't just put him in jail for his opinions, because in this country you have free speech," she said.

The former manager of the rock band MC5, Sinclair has become a musician himself, and his "Monk on the Mound" is a special treat, mixing styles reminiscent of VIPs Alan Ginsberg and Lord Buckley in a jazzy/hip patter. In fact, the film is dedicated to VIP Mezz Mezzrow, who brought pot to jazz. And we love his answer when Sinclair was asked at the 2003 Cannabis Cup awards in Amsterdam how he now feels about pot.(You have to buy the film to see it.)

Orlando Cepeda, the San Francisco Giants baseball great who is one of two Puerto Ricans in the baseball Hall of Fame, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge and had all other charges stemming from his traffic stop last year dismissed by outgoing Solano County Deputy District Attorney Joe Camarata, according to www.sfgate.com.

In his first season in 1958, Cepeda batted .312 with 25 home runs and 96 RBI, led the National League in doubles (38), and was named Rookie of the Year. In 1967, he was named the National League MVP by hitting .325 and having a league-leading 111 RBIs. After his retirement, Cepeda spent 10 months in federal prison for a 1975 conviction for smuggling marijuana. Since 1990, he has been a community representative for the Giants.

In an informal VIP poll, 100% of respondents asked where they could send campaign contributions to Mr. Camarata, for whatever office for which he may run.

As I write this, VIP Willie Nelson is singing a new song called "Peaceful Solution" at Farm Aid 2008. "There was a war and we're in it/and we know that we can win it...let's take back America." Sing it, Willie.

Brown Move Backfires
Just after his Home Secretary announced a crackdown on marijuana (see below), Gordon Brown's labour party saw a stuning defeat after running a "xenophobic" campaign in the UK, said conservative leader David Cameron. Quite possibly, it has to do with rampant mail voter fraud in Britain, since the US tends to lead the way on such matters. Cameron, you may recall, did the Shrub-style nondenial and called for drugs legalization.

FEMA employee arrested for marijuana
At least FEMA is doing something constructive in New Orleans. A FEMA employee was charged with trafficking marijuana after Louisiana investigators used a confidential informant to set up a buy with the suspect, identified as Justin Weysham, 30, of Bay St. Louis. Weysham showed up to the buy location in a white Chevrolet Impala on May 14. Investigators stopped him and found the half pound of marijuana. Weysham was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Weysham listed his employer as FEMA on the arrest report.

Have you seen "a/k/a Tommy Chong," telling the story of Chong's arrest and subsequent imprisonment for selling bongs on the internet? Probably not, unless you were lucky enough to see it when it got rave reviews at the Toronto and Sundance Film Fests or had a coupla noprofit showings in New York and LA. Or you saw the first half of it at the NORML conference in SF until it was halted due to folks getting into the spirit in the hotel conference room.

Now, there's less chance of you seeing this exemplary film, since last week the FBI seized 8,000-20,000 copies of "a/k/a Tommy Chong" DVDs during "Operation True Test," a round up of urine-testing-products companies lead by the Pittsburgh office of the DOJ. That office, you may remember, was responsible for prosecting Tommy Chong after an 8-month DEA entrapment operation enticed his son's company into sending a shipment of bongs to Pennsylvania, where paraphernalia is illegal. The videos were seized from Spectrum Laboratories, a urine test prevention company that has been in business for over a decade.

DOJ chief attorney Mary Beth Buchanan is in hot water over her malicious prosecution of Pittsburgh coroner Cyril Wecht for numerous counts of fraud. A jury has hung and a mistrial was called after the verdict, when Buchanan sent the FBI to interrogate the jury. Asked about the strange tactic of sending the FBI on such a task, Buchanan replied it was routine. The House Judiciary Committee asked the DOJ for files on the Wecht case last July, and the Department has not complied. Committee Chair John Conyers sent a letter on Friday to Attorney General Michael Mukasey saying that if the Department did not take notice, "we will have little choice but to consider the compulsory process."

Arguably "a/k/a/ Tommy Chong" could be a financial success, and this action is trade impedance. Stoner buddy flick "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," the sequel to the New Line franchise that was built on DVD rentals, was #2 in the box office the April weekend it opened, with a respectable $15 million in ticket sales. (The following week "Iron Man" clobbered it with $98 million.)

First-time filmmaker Josh Gilbert had generous access to vintage Cheech and Chong footage, Chong family photos, Tommy's last dance with his wife Shelby before leaving her for nine months, and his Tonight Show with Jay Leno appearance the day after he got out. ("Tommy Chong's here. (loud applause.) He took the red eye.") The story it tells is complete, cogent, engaging and entertaining. Michael Moore said of it, "The real stoners in this excellent documentary are the administration officals drunk with power and out of control, and a nation of otherwise good people who've been given the worst drug of all--fear."

Let this incident start the debate about drug testing. I picked up phones at LA NORML for two years and half of our calls were from workers or students facing drug testing. An executive who had taken a toke or two on New Years Eve called, saying he was drug tested the minute he reported for work in the New Year. He was terrfied he'd lose his job, which supported his wife and two children. Then there was the warehouse worker who was being scapegoatted for a safety violation because the union workers were immune from peeing in a cup in their union contracts. Obviously, the policy is having an opposite effect on worker safety and it's denying good people their right to work.

I would always suggest the caller seek legal counsel and consider refusing the test, but not a single person who called felt he or she was in the position to do that. They needed their jobs and few could afford a lawyer. So many probably resorted to using "clean pee" products to escape detection. But unless you're flying a jet or conducting brain surgery, a drug test is more a loyalty oath than a safety check. Have we reached that low point in our country when the word "True" is used to describe a piss test and little else?

Call your media outlets and demand to see "a/k/a Tommy Chong." For freedom. And truth.

May 10, 2008 - Brits Step Back on Cannabis Reform
One-Time Smoker Leads the Charge

Over the objections of her own Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, UK’s Home Office Secretary Jacqui Smith announced in a May 7 speech to Parliament that her government would seek to reclassify marijuana as a Class B drug, four years after Tony Blair’s government downgraded it to Class C. Parliament must approve the measure.

"I have asked the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to propose more robust enforcement measures to reflect reclassification," Smith said, adding she intended to target marijuana traffickers and "the trade in cannabis paraphernalia.” The measure would more than double the maximum sentence for marijuana possession to five years, although in practice the ACPO has said its officers issue warnings in the vast majority of cases.

Interestingly, Smith said in a television interview in July 2007 that she had tried marijuana while an undergraduate at Oxford University in the early 1980s. (She added that she had smoked it "just a few times," had "not particularly" enjoyed it and now realized it was "wrong.") The admission prompted similar ones from UK Chancellor Alistair Darling, Treasury chief secretary Andy Burnham, Transport secretary Ruth Kelly, and Business and Labor Enterprise secretary John Hutton. Several senior Tory and Labor politicians, including the former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, previously admitted to puffing pot in their day.

But apparently the Brits believe the US’s propaganda that today’s pot is too strong for their kids. Smith said the reclassification is intended to send a message against "skunk," a more potent hybrid that now accounts for 80 per cent of street cannabis seized.

NAME THAT POTHEAD: This British-born, California-residing painter took the occasion of his exhibit at London's Royal Academy of Arts in the summer of 1999 to call for the legalization of marijuana. "I remember Jack Straw [UK's home minister] in 1968 saying 'you can't legalise marijuana as we haven't got enough information.' Thirty years later, he's said exactly the same thing. I don't know what life has taught him, I've learnt quite a lot. I've smoked a lot of marijuana. It hasn't harmed me." He told the gathering he smoked a regular "joint" with a glass of whisky in the evening, but hastened to add he had never indulged in stimulants when working because "drugs and art don't mix…You have to be very clear-headed," he said. Drugs made you "too pleased with everything" and to create great work "you have to struggle."

HINT: He is the pop artist famous for his photocollages and LA poolside scenes.

Answers to: games@veryimportantpotheads.com

May 4, 2008 - Harold and Kumar #2 at the Box Office

In its opening weekend, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, the second film that follows two pot-smoking buddies through their wacky tobaccy adventures, grossed nearly $15 million dollars, making it second only to Baby Mama, which grossed $17.5 million. It’s quite a success story for the funky franchise from New Line Cinema, which got it start reviving the 1936 propaganda film Reefer Madness.

This feel-good flick is over-the-top adolescent at times, but overall it is heartwarming, clever and politically savvy, with two charming ethnic heroes negotiating post-9/11 American life, puffing all the way.

High Times magazine was invited to the set for the scene where Vanessa, played by Danneel Harris (pictured here with Kal Penn), turns the once-nerdy Kumar onto something truly mind-blowing in their campus library. Though neither lead actors partake, Harris told HT she does. Among her other roles, the 28-year-old actress has played Rachel on 42 episodes of the high school show One Tree Hill on the CW network. According to their website: "The CW Television Network was formed as a joint venture between Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corporation. The CW is America's fifth broadcast network and the only network targeting young adults 18-34."

Elsewhere in Cinemaland, The Wackness with Ben Kingsley is getting rave reviews at festivals and Pineapple Express, in which a "pothead" witnesses a murder, looks like a stereotypical Judd Apatow entry. Both are scheduled for an August release.

Maverick Outs NBA

On April 25, soft-spoken Dallas Mavericks forward Josh Howard said on a radio show that he likes marijuana and smokes it during the offseason hours before a playoff game against the New Orleans Hornets. "Most of the players in the league use marijuana and I have and do partake in smoking weed in the offseason sometimes," Howard said on The Michael Irvin Show on the ESPN Radio affiliate in Dallas, adding that ''everybody in the media world and in the sports world” knows it.

''That's my personal choice and my personal opinion,” Howard said, “I don't think that's stopping me from doing my job.'' Arguably so. Howard has averaged 15.2 points and 6.4 rebounds for his five-year NBA career and averaged 19.9 and 7.0 this past regular season. The Mavericks won Game 3 that night with Howard scoring 18 points, but the team ultimately lost the series, and Howard seemed to feel the pressure his admission brought him.

Mavericks owner and self-made billionaire Mark Cuban calmly commented, "It depends if we win or lose....If we win, 'Boy, it's amazing what guys do for motivation. It worked!" Cuban said. "If we lose, 'Oh, what a distraction."'

Howard’s admission brought one from commentator and T-Mobile spokesperson Charles Barkley, who put his use squarely in the court of his past. In 1993, the year he was voted the NBA’s most valuable player, Barkley made national news when he wrote the text for his "I am not a role model" Nike commercial.

In 2001, former NBA star Charles Oakley estimated that 60 percent of league's players used marijuana. The NBA's drug-testing policy allows for four tests per season. However, if the league has "probable cause," it can to test a player as often as it wants, including during the off-season, presuming the players' association agrees to the probable cause.

“Back in December, [Howard] scored a career-high 47 points against the Utah Jazz,” wrote Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun Times. “What if he smokes dope the way hard-charging executives chill out with a martini or two? And how many of those executives, offspring of the 1960s, now chase those martinis with a few tokes on a joint?”

“It's not right, but history shows that illegal drugs are usually the drugs that are out of favor with the ruling class,” Telander continued. “Drugs are made illegal, as long as enforcement mainly affects the poor and the underclass.” There’s an issue for the NBA.

Washington medical marijuana patient Timothy Garon died one week after he was denied a liver transplant due to his medical marijuana use. Garon, who had Hepatitis C, was in an intensive care nursing center at the Bailey-Boushay House at the time. A University Medical Center committee told him that he would need to go on a 60-day drug treatment program and take part in a class before he could even be considered to be put on the list.

The news came as researchers from the University of Ottawa, published their findings that the use of cannabinoids may be helpful in the treatment of appetite loss and nausea observed in patients with hepatitis C who undergo an anti-viral treatment. The medical records of all hepatitis C patients, who received a treatment with ribavirin and interferon between August 2003 and January 2007, were reviewed. Of the 191 patients identified, 25 received oral cannabinoid containing medications. 64 per cent of all patients who received cannabinoids experienced subjective improvement in symptoms and weight loss stabilized one month after cannabinoid initiation. (Source: Costiniuk CT, Mills E, Cooper CL. Evaluation of oral cannabinoid-containing medications for themanagement of interferon and ribavirin-induced anorexia, nausea and weight loss in patients treated for chronic hepatitis C virus. Can J. Gastroenterol 2008;22(4):376-80.)

This is not the first medical marijuana patient who died for the lack of a transplant; the first known one was Redding, CA resident Edward Plotner, who died in 1998 after he was denied a life-saving organ from the California Pacific Medical Center. Plotner began using cannabis to counter the effects of Interferon therapy for his hepatitis. According to Dr. Joanne Imperial, then head of Stanford's liver transplant progra, cannabis is not a risk factor for hepatitis, as are alcohol, intravenous drug use, and internasal cocaine use.

An April 15 article in The Globe and Mail begins, "Ice-cold beer probably won't be the only mood-altering substance on the menu in many backyards across Canada this summer. An increasing number of adults - particularly those in their 30s and 40s - are using marijuana, according to a new Ontario-wide report that reflects what experts describe as a growing cross-country trend."

That report by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health found the average age of marijuana users in Ontario was 31 in 2005, compared with 26 in 1977. Forty percent of those surveyed in 2005 who reported smoking pot in the previous year were between 30 and 49. In 1977, that number was just 15.4 per cent.

"Basically, it tells us that cannabis use has become a more and more acceptable lifestyle for adults," said Juergen Rehm, senior scientist at CAMH. "Now we see it is trickling into the lives of more and more and older and older Ontarians." Dr. Rehm said there is no real health concern among the 14 per cent of Ontarians who reported occasionally smoking marijuana on a recreational basis, about once a month or less. The problem is with the 2 per cent of Ontarians who smoke often, are intoxicated for long periods of time and are considered "hazardous" users.

Nearly one-third of those who used marijuana in the previous year had completed at least some post-secondary education, and 32 per cent earned more than $50,000 a year, the report said. The same survey found that overall rates of cigarette smoking and drinking and driving have significantly declined in Ontario over the past decade, while binge drinking remains elevated.

"We definitely are seeing an older clientele coming to the store, there's no question about that," said Robin Ellins, proprietor of the Friendly Stranger, a cannabis culture shop in Toronto. "We see everybody. I've had women that are in their late 60s coming in to buy their first pipe." Ellins said he doesn't believe rates of marijuana use have actually increased among older Canadians. Rather, the destruction of old taboos means that people are more willing to admit to toking on the weekend than they were before, he said. "The consumption was there in that group before, but they couldn't let their neighbours know and they couldn't let their boss know, but now, they're getting together on the weekend and smoking with their neighbours."

A United Nations world drug report released last year showed that 16.8 per cent of Canadians between 15 and 64 had smoked pot in the previous year, one of the highest levels in the world.

Ten seconds after Robert George Henry, 48, of Fannettsburg, PA finished testifying about his religious use of marijuana, Judge Edgar B. Bayley ruled against him.

Henry, 48, of Fannettsburg, Franklin County, tried to convince the judge that the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom protects his drug use. In a motion to the court, he compared his marijuana use to the Christian use of wine in Holy Communion. Henry testified that he joined the Hawaii Cannabis Ministry and became an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church three months after his arrest on drug possession and drunken driving charges. Under questioning by Senior Assistant District Attorney Derek Clepper, Henry admitted that he had smoked a pipe of marijuana a half-hour before the trooper pulled him over.

"The first thing I do every day is smoke a little bit of cannabis and say my daily prayers," said Henry, who said he has served five years in prison on drug and burglary convictions. "I've come to the belief that smoking cannabis helps me commune with my Lord and helps me understand what he wants me to do with my life."

When Clepper pressed him on his knowledge of the law's bar on marijuana possession, Henry replied that he and other Cannabis Ministry members "don't feel we should be persecuted for our cannabis use." When he began expounding on those beliefs, Bayley shouted "Stop! Stop! Stop!" Defense attorney George Marros said Henry has no immediate plan to appeal Bayley's decision. Henry is scheduled for trial next month. Source

Perhaps the idea was hatched when Mary-Louise Parker of Weeds beat out all four Desperate Housewives for an Emmy two years ago, or when General Hospital or Murphy Brown used it for a story line. On May 4 Lifetime re-aired Episode 3, Season 4 of Desperate Housewives ("The Game") wherein Lynette (played by Felicity Huffman, who took home the 2005 Golden Globe for her role in Transamerica) gets baked on pot brownies baked by her mom, Stella, played by Polly Bergen(!). Spongebob Squarepants epiphanies and charades follow. The show originally aired on October 14, 2007.

Jeff Bridges has been acting since he was six months old, and appears as a bad guy in Iron Man with Robert Downey Jr. USA Today (4/27) noted that Bridges is “an actor better known for his laid-back (and occasionally stoned) characters,” meaning mainly ''The Dude,'' in the Coen Brothers' 1998 comedy, The Big Lebowski.

''I was a little nervous about broadcasting that kind of behavior to the world,'' Bridges said. ''I mean, Dude was a major pothead.'' And was Bridges, the paper asked? ''Oh, yeah,'' he said. ''Big time. That part of my life was in the past.''

"I think he could be the most underrated actor working," said VIP Susan Sarandon. "His real self disappears when he's in character, which might be why he's not as high-profile as he deserves. You don't get the feeling it's important for him to be front and center." (Just like a stoner.)

The 7 th Annual Lebowski Fest will be held July 11-12 in Louisville Kentucky. The event offers unlimited bowling, trivia contests, special appearances, White Russians, Sarsparillas and Oat Sodas, a screening of the film, and “what have you.”

Ohio State's student government association passed an advisory initiative making the university's penalties for possessing marijuana on campus the same as the punishment for having alcohol.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) at Ohio State has persevered for five years to pass the initiative. The issue passed with 60.87 percent of the votes, a margin of 2,895 to 1,861 votes.

The director of communications for the university said, "The election allowed students to express their opinions on several issues, but this issue holds no particular clout. We follow the law and OSU's code of conduct."

The measure states, "This referendum shall in no way interfere with the duties of local and state law enforcement agents." The next goal for SSDP is to enact similar measures citywide, as Denver did several years ago.

Just Say Yes/No in LA Times

In an LA Times editorial page series, Reason editor Jacob Sullum (author of Just Say Yes: In Defense of Drug Use) and Charles "Cully" Stimson debated drug legalization. Under the headline “Smoking marijuana isn't a harbinger of ruin” Sullum wrote, “ According to the federal government's survey data, at least half of American adults born after Word War II have tried marijuana. Because people may not be completely candid about illegal behavior even in a confidential survey, the true percentage is probably higher. And many of those who have never smoked pot no doubt know people who did, yet somehow emerged unscathed from the experience.”

Noting that Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Al Gore, Newt Gingrich and other major political figures “managed to smoke without wrecking their lives,” Sullum wrote, “Until politicians admit that smoking marijuana is not a harbinger of ruin but a generally harmless rite of passage, they will not be able to have an honest discussion about drug policy.” Stimson, a former military prosecutor and Heritage fellow, responded with an imaginary scenario about a president who’s on heroin when the nuclear threat arrives.

More Sports News

- Kyle McAlarney, the college basketball guard who missed the 2007 Big East season when Notre Dame suspended him for possession of marijuana, helped lead the Irish to the NCAA playoffs. Last year, without McAlarney, Notre Dame lost in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

McAlarney was Notre Dame's second-leading scorer at 15.2 points per game. He was one of 11 players named to the All-Big East first team and led the Big East in 3-point shooting at 46.3 percent (63-of-134), setting a Joyce Center record. He scored 32 points against Connecticut and 30 on Villanova and Syracuse, and set a Notre Dame record when he hit 9-of-11 3-pointers against the Orange.

McAlarney has one more year of eligibility at Notre Dame, which is now ranked in the top 10 by three different online sites (ESPN, Fox Sports and Sports Illustrated). "He could have easily left and gone somewhere else," said senior captain Rob Kurz. "He stuck with it when a lot of people were asking questions about his character. . . . He's a great example for the university of what second chances are all about."

-Preston Parker, who was named Florida State's football MVP last season, was arrested on gun and drug charges in Palm Beach on April 23 after a traffic stop turned up a pill bottle for Prednisone prescribed to Parker that contained marijuana. Under the dash of the right passenger side of the vehicle, the officer found a loaded .45-caliber handgun and a baggie with 4.8 grams of marijuana. Parker 21, was charged with carrying a concealed .45-caliber handgun and possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana.

Parker emerged as FSU's top offensive threat last year and was named to the All-ACC second team. He led FSU with 1,513 all-purpose yards, including 791 receiving. FSU's substance-abuse policy states that an arrest for marijuana possession counts as one positive drug test. After two positive tests the athlete is automatically suspended and after three positives he or she is dismissed from the team. Parker has not failed any drug tests previously. Source

-Laurel Park, Maryland-based jockey Ryan Fogelsonger, 26, was suspended indefinitely by state stewards after testing positive for marijuana in a random drug test of the track's riding colony on January 5. Fogelsonger, who had no record of prior drug use, immediately had his license suspended and is denied access to the grounds by the Maryland Racing Commission.

In order to be reinstated, Fogelsonger, of Elkridge, Maryland, must enter a drug counseling program and submit to subsequent testing. When the counselor believes Fogelsonger is ready, the rider will appeal to the stewards on the jockey's behalf at a hearing before the stewards, according to state steward John Burk. Source

The Journal of Pain (4/17) reports that low-dose marijuana is as effective against neuropathic pain without "stony" side effects.

Neuropathic pain can result from spinal cord injury, diabetes-related nerve damage, multiple sclerosis, or other types of nerve injury, and is typically treated with a wide range of drugs including antidepressants, anticonvulsants, opioids, and anti-inflammatories, the study's lead author, Dr. Barth Wilsey of the University of California, Davis Medical Center, told Reuters Health.Wilsey became interested in testing marijuana for treating neuropathic pain, he said in an interview, after many of his patients told him they were already smoking pot to cope.

He and his colleagues had 38 people with neuropathic pain smoke high-dose joints containing 7% delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (9-THC), a lower dose version containing 3.5% 9-THC, or a placebo cigarette from which all 9-THC had been extracted. All study participants had abstained from smoking pot for at least 30 days beforehand, and smoking sessions were separated by at least 3 days to allow the drug to leave their systems.

The low- and high-dose marijuana cigarettes produced identical levels of pain relief and reductions in the intensity and unpleasantness of pain, the researchers found. But study participants were more likely to report feeling "high," "stoned" or "impaired" when smoking the higher-dose joint. They also had impairments in attention, learning, memory and fine-motor coordination and speed. The lower-dose cigarettes produced some impairment in learning and memory, but to a lesser degree."The lower dose did not adversely affect people's thinking," Wilsey said."There might be a therapeutic window that we could advise for using smoked cannabis in treating nerve injury pain."

Wilsey and his team are now planning studies of marijuana cigarettes containing 1.75% 9-THC to determine if an even lower dose can produce equal pain relief with fewer side effects. They also are planning to test vaporized cannabis, to avoid the health effects of smoke.Source: Reuters (Wire) Author: Anne Harding Published: April 30, 2007

Hillary's Uninspiring Drug Reform Plan
Ellen Komp, AlterNet. April 14, 2008.
We are likely to see more money spent on failed policies if Hillary moves back to the White House in 2009.

April 6, 2008 - According to The TV Addict.com, Canadian Teen TV series Degrassi: The Next Generation features a "part time lesbian, reformed mean girl, pot-head cheerleader" named Paige (played by Lauren Collins). IIn addition to CTV, the show is rebroadcast on MTV’s nighttime teen network The N (and in syndication) in the United States. The show is reportedly a top-10 favorite destination of MySpace.com users, and has quite a following among women age 25-34.

So of course I checked it out. In one episode, career-minded Paige crashes and burns at a College Fair after her bad-girl friend talks her into smoking the pot her boyfriend gave her the night before when he dumped her. There was no mercy for her, but there was some for the cancer patient/student who finds relief in pot, until he overindulges. And in the most interesting episode, teen queen Emma gets clued in that her country-club boyfriend set up his rival with a pot bust. It was reminiscent of the old Spin City episode where it's revealed the Mayor's high school buddy started his downward slide after a similar incident. Overall the young actors on Degrassi (and elsewhere) need to learn that acting stoned isn't the same as acting drunk, or stupid. Check out Meryl Streep in Adaptation if you want to see a good job of acting under the influence.

April 1, 2008 - No April Fools in NY Times
A wonderful April 1 oped by the NY Times’s Timothy Egan talks about the marijuana law reform advocacy of VIP Rick Steves. “He looks at the 800,000 Americans arrested every year on marijuana charges and wonders why the waste of time, money and lives. Year after year, nothing changes, except the faces of those in jail,” the article states. “He thinks marijuana should be decriminalized, and that drug use in general should be treated primarily as a health issue — as the Canadians, the British, the Swiss and others do.”

As for the reaction Steves’s advocacy have caused, Egan writes, “Sponsors of his television shows have hardly blinked. Cops and conservatives have told him how much they agree with him. And, less than a month ago, the Luther Institute gave Steves its annual Wittenberg Award, recognizing ‘outstanding service to church and society.’”

By contrast, Egan states, “The cheerleaders and architects of harsh drug laws — from Rush Limbaugh, who promised to take random drugs tests after admitting his addiction to pain pills, to the former drug czar Bill Bennett, who had a multimillion-dollar gambling habit — have been exposed as moral frauds.”

Egan adds, “Two of the major presidential candidates are in a unique position to pivot away from the status quo. It’s been largely forgotten, but Cindy McCain, the wife of the presumptive Republican nominee, was once so hooked on the opioid painkillers Percocet and Vicodin that she resorted to stealing from a medical charity she ran.”

According to a 1999 Salon.com story, Cindy McCain recounted for Jane Pauley (on "Dateline") and Diane Sawyer (on "Good Morning America") the tale of her onetime addiction, and the fact that she stole the drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, her own charity, and had been investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Her addiction, which came about after painful back and knee problems, was exacerbated by the stress of the Keating Five banking scandal that had ensnared her husband.

Egan also mentions Barack Obama’s admissions in his 1995 memoir of youthful alcohol and pot use, “maybe even a little blow when I could afford it.” Egan astutely adds, “He is lucky, a man told him on the campaign trail not long ago, that he didn’t end up in jail — a ruined life, one of the 2.3 million Americans locked up in the world’s largest prison system.”

March 29, 2008 - Zonkered!
According to the Wesleyan Argus of Middletown Connecticut, University officials banned Wesleyan’s traditional Zonker Harris Day because of associations between the Doonesbury character and the “drug culture.” In late February, Director of Residential Life Fran Koerting said that honoring the character, described in The New York Times as a “flaky pothead,” projected the wrong image for the University during April’s high-publicity WesFest celebration. Public Safety has reportedly been ordered to shut down the event if it is called “Zonker Harris Day” in any official document.

Organizers still plan to hold the traditional music and arts festival during WesFest weekend, under the temporary name “Honker Zarris Day,” or “He Who Must Not Be Named Day.” Barring any new developments, the festival will still happen on April 19.

March 28, 2008 - Getting Byrned
A battle is brewing in Congress over Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance (JAG) Grants, federal monies that fund drug task forces throughout the country. After abuses of the funds by Texas task forces were nationally reported, taxpayer groups successfully urged the Bush administration to zero out the grants. However, Democrats put back the pork and this year, even more monies are sought, to the tune of $906 million. The Senate, lead by the usually liberal Russ Feingold, has already passed the measure and the House will vote on it after they return from their Easter break. The National Narcotics Officers Association and state Attorneys General are lobbying in DC for the funds, and getting several news stories a day sounding the alarm that funding may be lost.

Bill Piper, Director of National Affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which has been advocating for reform of Byrne grants for four years, points out that what is seen as free money for states actually costs local jurisdictions, since bulking up law enforcement means more drug-related incarcerations for which locals must pay. Also, since task forces are funded by federal grants or asset forfeiture instead of local budgets, they aren't always responsive to local mores and policies, Piper says, making for a "rogue cop" environment. "A lot of Democrats are disturbed by the fact that 1/100 Americans are behind bars, but then they turn around and vote for programs like the Byrne grants," Piper lamented. He did point out that the money can legally be funneled into treatment programs instead, and that DPA itself got a $500,000 grant for youth methamphetamine prevention in New Mexico.

Find your local jurisdiction's 2007 funding

See more at http://www.reason.com/blog/show/125420.html http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/senate_vote_restore_byrne_jag_grant_funds http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/520/drug_task_force_federal_grant_cuts

March 26, 2008 - More Refreshing Honesty from NY Gov. Patterson
New York state thought it was cleaning up its act dumping Governor Eliot Spitzer for David Patterson, but Patterson was barely sworn in when he and his wife both admitted to marital infidelity. Now Patterson has proven refreshingly honest on the drug question as well. Here's a transcript of Gov. Paterson's interview with NY 1 anchor Dominic Carter, following a reference to a question about drug use in a debate between Gov. Spitzer and Tom Suozzi in 2006:

DC: " So now you're the governor of the state, have you ever used any illegal drugs Governor Paterson?"

DP: " Actually, Dominic, I was in the audience and was asked the same question on camera after that interview and I answered in the affirmative."

DC: "You have?"

DP: "Yes."

DC: "Marijuana?"

DP: "Yes."

DC: "Cocaine?"

DP: "Yes."

DC: "You have used cocaine governor?" DP: "I'd say I was about 22 or 23. I tried it a couple of times."

DC: "When was the last time? Is that the only time?"

DP: "Yea, it was around that time. A couple of times..and marijuana probably when I was about 20. I don't think I touched marijuana since the 70's."

DC: "Governor, we're not used to politicians being so forth right and honest. Honestly they often lie. Why are you trying this different approach and putting your cards on the table?"

DP: "I think inevitably a good ethical decision is a good political decision...a lot of people more Americans have tried a lot more during that period of time and gone on to lead responsible lives and hopefully have lived their lives to their fullest.. By the way, the answers I just gave you, are the ones I gave you the night at the debate you moderated back in July of 2006."

DC: "I think you would agree it is an entirely different ball game when you're a candidate for lieutenant governor and when you're now the governor of the state."

DP: "Are you suggesting I would change my answer because I was governor than that when I gave when I was Lieutenant Governor."

DC: "What I'm trying to say governor, no matter who is the governor and lieutenant governor, people pay a lot more attention when you're the leader of the state, the actual leader."

DP: "I'm sure there is, but there is only one truth -- and that's what I told you."

Naturally, all this was fodder for late night joksters. David Letterman replayed the interview where Patterson responded in the affirmative to the cocaine and marijuana questions, adding LSD and three-way sex. Jay Leno remarked that this is the biggest scandal about a Democrat in a week! " He’s black, he’s blind, he’s had extramarital affairs and he’s done cocaine and marijuana—are you sure he’s a governor? He sounds more like a blues musician." Leno quipped.

Reagan's Record
As Nancy Reagan endorses John McCain for President, it’s interesting to revisit her political record.

Kitty Kelley interviewed over 1000 people for Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography (Simon and Schuster, NY, 1991) and said people were more fearful of speaking publicly about Nancy Reagan than they were about Frank Sinatra. In July 1988 Kelley got a call from an FBI agent about a FOIA request she made for the book. She writes that Nancy was close to Betsy Bloomingdale and her husband Alfred, whose grandfather founded the Bloomingdale's department store chain. In 1968, while Ronald Reagan was governor of California, Nancy was telephoning Alfred daily and discussing policy matters with him, according to his former executive assistant, Sheldon Davis.

Davis told Kelley: "I remember Alfred coming into the office one Monday morning and laughing his head off about a small dinner party the Bloomingdales had given on Saturday night. The Reagans were there, the Bloomingdales, the Jack Bennys, and the George Burnses, I think; I forget who else was there. Anyway, they were all sitting around the dining room table eating Betsy's famous peach ice cream for dessert and talking about drugs and problems with the kids on campuses. Someone said, 'What's the big deal with this marijuana stuff anyway? What the hell is it?' Nobody knew anything about it, except what they had read or heard from their children. So Alfred went upstairs and got a joint that he had bought that afternoon from a hooker. He took it down to them, lit it, and passed it around so everyone could take a few toots. Within five minutes they all started giggling but claimed they didn't feel a thing and said they couldn't see what the big deal was. Alfred said it was so funny to watch Jack Benny and then the governor and his wife smoking pot. He laughed like hell every time he talked about it."

Kelley tried twenty years later to verify Davis's story. Janet DeCordova, wife of "Tonight Show" producer Fred DeCordova, said the incident did not take place at any of the dinner parties she attended at the Bloomingdales'. "Big deal, if he [Alfred] did pass a joint," she said, "but he didn't." Jimmy Stewart's wife Gloria said she'd never heard the story and Ursula Taylor Schacker said, "I wasn't there, but I wouldn't put it past the man." Bloomingdale was later accused by his longtime mistress Vicki Morgan of riding her piggyback and whipping her.

Kelley also writes that Ronald Reagan had many affairs during his lifetime, proposed to another woman before Nancy, was an undercover agent for the FBI, and was investigated by the justice department for tax fraud while a spokesman for General Electric. She writes that Nancy had a homosexual godmother, siphoned off $3.8 million from her antidrug charities into her own foundation, spied on her children and mistreated her stepchildren, and gave the best head in Hollywood (according to a book by Peter Lawford's exwife). An unnamed senior White House staffer speculates in the book that Nancy was on amphetamines to curb her appetite because she was so energetic. But apparently when Kelley's book came out, it was the charge of smoking marijuana that the Reagans found most insulting because that was the charge they answered publicily.

Kelley writes that Reagan was so clueless she initially tried to team with producer Robert Evans on her anti-drug crusade, until Evans was prosecuted for cocaine. But preciently, Nancy predicted in 1972 that legalizing marijuana would lead to reefers in vending machines.

March 24, 2008 - FIRST LEGALIZATION BILL TO BE INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS
Rep. Barney Frank announced on VIP Bill Maher's Real Time live program on Good Friday that he would "file a bill as soon as we go back to remove all penalties for small amounts of marijuana." This will be the first time in US history that a re-legalization bill will be filed in Congress.

Saying the move warmed his heart, Maher asked Frank why he was doing so at this stage. Frank frankly answered that he'd been burned early on by bills to remove penalties for gay sex, and now "I finally got to the point where I think I can get away with it." One can hope other long-term politicians, will also want to do the right thing before they retire.

The Congressman, who has served since 1981, jokingly added that he feared the bill would negatively impact public health, since it would allow medical marijuana in all states. Republican PJ O'Rourke jumped in saying he was suddenly feeling a little ill himself. Maher countered that there were pot shops on every street corner in Los Angeles, but Frank reminded him that they were still at odds with federal law.

"I now think it's time for the politicians to catch up to the public," Frank said. "The notion that you lock people up for smoking marijuana is pretty silly. I'm going to call it the Make Room for Serious Criminals bill."

Time to lobby your Congress critters, who are on Easter break and will reconvene March 31.

THE NEW RACISM: IT'S THE DRUG WAR
Lost in the flap over the anti-American tirade from Obama’s minister is a major reason why Jeremiah Wright damned our country. "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America'," Wright said in a 2003 sermon. "No, no, no, not God bless America, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human." (see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-tries-to-rid-himself-of-troublesome-firebrand-priest-797145.html )

When Wright says the government gives people drugs, he was likely referring to the work of Gary Webb, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who wrote in a 1996 San Jose Mercury News series that Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold tons of crack cocaine in Los Angeles and funneled millions of dollars in profits to the CIA-supported Nicaraguan contras during the 1980s. More compelling evidence is presented in the current not-to-be-missed Showtime program American Drug War: The Last White Hope.

Regardless, Wright has cause to be outraged over racism in the drug war. Although public health data reveals that whites use drugs at the same rate as blacks, African Americans make up almost half of those arrested and convicted for drug offenses. Between 1992 and 1996, drug sentences skyrocketed and the African American prison population doubled. Today, 1 in 3 black men are in prison, on parole or on probation and 1 in 14 black children has a parent in prison. (See Drug Policy Alliance: “The War on Drugs or The New Jim Crow?”

Did Obama address these issues in his mop-up speech? Of course not. Although he has admitted to youthful drug use, Obama and the other candidates have managed to sidestep the issue of our longest, 100-year drug war, its detrimental effects on all of society, its inhumanity, and the justified rage that it engenders.

HOLY MOSES!
An Israeli researcher who has taken 160 ayahuasca trips theorizes that Moses had the same experience

In the British journal Time and Mind, researcher Benny Shanon of Jerusalem's Hebrew University wrote that a psychoactive plant, harmal, is found in the Sinai desert and considered to have magical and healing powers. He hypothesized that the phenomena described in the Book of Exodus could have been brought on by an "altered state of awareness."

"In advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation, the seeing of light is accompanied by profound religious and spiritual feelings," Shanon wrote. "On such occasions, one often feels that in seeing the light, one is encountering the ground of all Being ... many identify this power as God."

GILLIGAN’S GIRL BUSTED FOR GANJA

Dawn Wells, the petite brunette who played Mary Ann on TV’s Gilligan’s Island, isn’t most people’s idea of a pothead. It was a surprise to many when the 69-year-old actress was caught with pot in her car last October. She was sentenced on February 29 to six months' unsupervised probation and quickly lost a speaking engagement for a Girl Scouts fundraiser.

The still-perky Wells is the founder of the Idaho Film and Television Institute and organizer of an annual family movie festival called Spud Fest. She was pulled over by an Idaho state trooper on her way home from a surprise party held in her honor, when the officer noticed the telltale smell of pot. A search found several half-smoked doobies and stash boxes. At the scene, Wells claimed she had picked up three hitchhikers who did the puffing; her lawyer later claimed another friend had left pot in her car that day.

In an interview on TV’s Entertainment Tonight, Wells claimed the pot was not hers and challenged the validity of the sobriety test she failed. She admitted she was weaving on the road, which she says was because of trying to turn on the heater in her new car, and plea bargained all charges down to reckless driving.

Driving issues aside (she had a few drinks at the party), it’s too bad Wells couldn’t admit to her likely marijuana use, as have other girl-next-doors Jennifer Aniston and Kirsten Dunst. Her arrest is one of almost 800,000 yearly pot busts in the US, and most offenders don’t get off as easily as TV stars, losing jobs, college loans, and sometimes even their children.

Ten years ago, Wells was rumored to be the person who mailed her co-star Bob Denver a package of pot to his West Virginia home. Denver, who played the title role of Gilligan, was arrested after receiving the package and also got probation. Interestingly, for all you cats and kitties who are too young to remember, Denver’s breakthrough TV role was that of Maynard G. Krebs, beatnik buddy to the title character in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" (1959-1963) and arguably the first stoner-type character on TV.

MADONNA ON MARIJUANA

Madonna, 49, grabbed headlines away from her fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees by using her acceptance speech to reveal she took Ecstasy and smoked grass on her way to the top. The admissions came on March 10 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel.

After accepting her award from Justin Timberlake, Madonna said, "The night I met Michael Rosenblatt, who signed me to Sire Records, I jammed my demo tape into his hand, we both did a tab of ecstasy and then we danced the night away." She then recalled the night she met long-term publicist Liz Rosenberg, saying: "We smoked a joint together." (See how bonding with drugs can help form productive relationships?)

Timberlake, who collaborated with Madonna on her upcoming album 'Hard Candy' and has admitted to past drug use, said Madonna gave him injections of vitamin B12 when they worked together. “That is what Madonna will always be to us. The shot in the a** when we really need it!" he said.

Others to be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year include The Dave Clark Five, Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp and The Ventures.

LIKE A ROLLING STONED
The March 6 Rolling Stone cover story on Jack Johnson contained no admissions, but elsewhere in the mag, Matchbox Twenty front man Rob Thomas, 36, was interviewed on tour surrounded by his dogs, DVDs, scented candles, and "a blue bong he hits between sentences."

Seen on The Colbert Report: during a March 18 interview with Carole King, Colbert pulled out his Tapestry album and noted it folded, briefly demonstrating how this allowed people to clean their pot on it in the 70s. Sony is re-releasing Tapestry on CD with additional material on April 22.

MISSOURI SENATOR SAYS "POTHEAD" ON SENATE FLOOR
Over two days of debate, Republican state Sen. Jason Crowell successfully scrapped a provision requiring the Missouri State High School Activities Association to perform drug tests on athletes from a bill on underage substance abuse.

"I guarantee you there's more kids smoking dope and doing marijuana than there are kids doing anabolic steroids," Crowell said in floor debate. "The athletes aren't the potheads. If this is really about the kids, the athletes are the least of your problems." Crowell pointed to his brother, who as a high-school wrestling coach and MSHSAA

representative in Southeast Missouri had never heard of athletes taking steroids. "This is patently the wrong direction to go," he said, before introducing two amendments cutting the drug-testing language from the bill.

CBS DEEP-SIXES POT SMOKING CHARACTER

In a March 9 New York Times article by Susan Stewart, Hamish Linklater, who plays Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s brother, Matthew, on the CBS show “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” said his character was conceived as a surfer, a stoner and a slacker. But, the article stated, CBS dislikes marijuana references “unless they’re very clever or very veiled.” Instead, Matthew plays a medical school dropout training to be a psychotherapist. Seems like the hard-drinking Christine could use a shrink, and a joint. Now CelebStoner.com says Chrisine smoked pot in her garage in last week's episode, Burning Down the House.

ANOTHER POTHEAD IDOL?
Radaronline.com and other sites have noticed that dreadlocked American idol contestant Jason Castro "seems kinda baked all the time." Last week's show began with a medley of Beatles songs, many of which were inspired by the weed.

NAVY VET ADVOCATES MEDICAL POT
Martin Chilcutt, a 74-year-old former intelligence officer with the U.S. Naval Air Force, has become an advocate for Michigan's proposed medical marijuana law. According to a March 8 story in the Kalamazoo Gazette, Chilcutt said pot has helped him to ease the pain and anxiety following his exposure to radiation during a 1956 U.S. government project testing nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

A retired psychotherapist, Chilcutt said he first learned of marijuana's medical benefits in the late 1970s while counseling

Vietnam War veterans in California. He now serves as executive director of Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access, a Kalamazoo-based group he founded in 2007. He has battled skin cancer three times and has been in remission for the past 10 years.

If the marijuana-use proposal is approved by state voters, Michigan would become the 15th state -- and the first in the Midwest -- with a law that permits marijuana use for seriously ill people.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Jesus Weed: The misadventures of a young man in search of the perfect high by Gerald Taylor (2005, Ebury Press, London)

Jesus Weed is a rollicking adventure that will grip you from page one. Raised Catholic with an imaginary guardian angel who tattled on him to God, Taylor recounts smoking weed for the first time while working on a New Zealand sheep farm in 1973. Soon he was dealing pot and travelling the world, to the US, Mexico, Thailand, Afghanistan, and beyond. Along the way, he got some interesting history lessons from people whose “memories were as long as the bible.” Seems Alexander the Great invaded Carthage after the Phoenicians sold him a load of hash cut with camel dung. Alexander, whose Afghani supplies had been cut off by border uprisings, also invaded Lebanon’s Bekkah Valley around this time for its Lebby Red.

You’re Gonna Miss Me

This 2005 documentary (NetFlix has it) chronicles the rise and fall of Roky Erickson and The 13th Floor Elevators, the Texas band that coined the term “psychedelic rock.” The Elevators were fronted by Erickson, who is praised in the film by Patti Smith, ZZ Top, and promoter Chet Helms (who says Roky influenced Janis Joplin’s singing). Called “a guy permanently [naturally] tripping,” “not of this world,” and “a jewel,” Erickson was overdosed on his second acid trip in 1968 and briefly institutionalized with a schizophrenia diagnosis. Under surveillance by Austin police who admittedly wanted to make an example of him, Erickson was busted for possession of matchbox full of pot in 1969. He pleaded insanity and spent three years in Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where he was reportedly given electroshock therapy and Thorazine. He tried a comeback in 1975 and after intervention from his family, recently appeared at the SWSX festival in Austin.

According to Wikipedia, the band’s name was a play on the fact that the letter “M” for marijuana is the 13th letter in the alphabet.

Also see: Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers of Psychedelic Sound by Paul Drummond and http://www.rokyerickson.net

DON’T MISS THIS
Next week’s "Root of All Evil" with VIP Lewis Black (Weds, 10:30 PM on the Comedy Channel) will see Beer face off against Weed, with judge Lewis deciding which is evil. (Last week pitted Donald Trump v. Viagra.)

February 3 - Moss Triumphs As Patriot
Randy Moss, written off my many as a shiftless pothead, appears to have been correct when he blamed the Oakland Raiders’ poor performance on bad quarterbacking. When Moss teamed up with Tom Brady of the New England Patriots this year, the result was near perfection. The Patriots ended the season with a perfect 16-0 record, after beating the NY Giants 38-35 on December 29. After missing an underthrown pass from Brady, Moss was given a second chance to make the winning touchdown, a 65-yard play that was also Brady’s 50 th touchdown pass of the season (breaking a Peyton Manning record) and Moss’s 23 rd touchdown reception of the year (breaking a record held by Jerry Rice since 1987, though Rice did it in 14 games).

The New York Times proclaimed, “The tandem of Brady and Moss has electrified the N.F.L. this season, and this touchdown will be immortalized.” The Patriots are only the 4 th team to end the season with a perfect record, and the first to win 16 games. They won a record 19 consecutive regular-season games and also set a new single-season record of points scored with 589, surpassing the 1998 Minnesota Vikings' mark of 556, Moss’s first season in the NFL when he caught 17 touchdown passes for the Vikings.

"We're grown men but we're really big kids at heart," Moss said of his enthusiasm on the play. He came to the podium in diamond earrings, sunglasses and with his tie loose and the top button of his shirt undone. On the podium, he was engaging and funny. When a Japanese reporter said his audience was closely following the team, Moss smiled and said he didn't speak that language. "Just tell them we said what's up, man," Moss said.

Brady was asked what it was like to work with Moss, who joined the Patriots at the start of this season. "It's terrible, it's awful," Brady said with a characteristic smile. "No, he's the best so it makes it easy on me."

"I don't think me breaking Jerry Rice's record is special," Moss said. "I think shutting you guys up is what made it special, all the negativity, all my critics."

Next thing you knew, public sentiment had turned against Moss again and Brady was unable to perform in the Stupor Bowl against the Giants offensive line (who looked like they were on coke, as did their coach.)

The State of Texas has taken legalized gambling to the next level by offering not only $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $25, and $30 tickets, but also now a $50 scratch-off with the top prize of $5 million. A State Senator of Texas, Eliot Shapleigh said in response, "Scratch-off tickets are to the lottery what crack is to cocaine."

In 2006, according to a University of North Texas survey commissioned by state lottery officials, the typical black player spent $70 a month on the lottery, compared with $47 for Hispanics and $20 for whites. Scratch-offs showed an even larger degree of imbalance. Players with a high school degree or less typically buy $20 a month worth of scratch-off tickets, compared with $10 for college graduates. Similarly, players with an annual income of less than $12,000 spent 33 percent more a month than those with incomes above $100,000. Source

Charges Dropped Against Denver Vet

According to the Denver Post, charges were dropped on December 14 against a Desert Storm veteran who was arrested for growing 71 marijuana plants in his basement. Kevin Dickes, who has a medical-marijuana card, said he needed the marijuana to help him with the pain he has suffered daily since a grenade landed next to him in Kuwait when he served there as a Marine in 1991. He has no feeling below his right calf and suffers from chronic vascular disease.

Police swarmed Dickes' Aurora, Colorado home on April 27 on a tip from a neighbor. SWAT officers opened his door and threw him to the ground and pointed their guns directly at him, according to Dickes.

Under Colorado's medical-marijuana law, approved by voters in 2001, patients under a doctor's care who get a medical-marijuana card, as Dickes did, can have up to 2 ounces of pot or six p

NAME THAT POTHEAD: What Weeds cast member won an Obie Award for his role as a blind gay man in 1997’s Love! Valor! Compassion! and appeared as the employer of a pot-puffing waitress played by Salma Hayek in Ask the Dust ( 2006)?

HINT: When he accepted his High Times Stoney award for acting in 2006, he commented in his acceptance speech that the money he made from the hit series is only a fraction of what he’s spent on weed over the years. (In 2007 he was nominated for a Golden Globe award for his role on Weeds.)

Answers to: games@veryimportantpotheads.com

June 5, 2008 - Barr's Brownies on The Colbert Report
Last night's The Colbert Report featured this interview with Libertarian Presidental Candidate Bob Barr that wrapped up with a discussion of hash brownies and the failure of the drug war:

Former Drug "Czar" Advocates Releasing Drug Prisoners

Potheads Duel for Championships

(In looking this up, I found an earlier Charles Barkley admission from 2005. One of the commenters said Barkley said "drugs are stupid" in 1992 on the Arsenio Hall show, but here he admits he smoked it while playing for the NBA.)

"I remember thinking to myself, How can that be?" McClellan wrote. "How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn't make a lot of sense."

(Thanks for this tip to the eagle-eyed Dale Gieringer of California NORML, a website so hot it's censored by the Bloomberg newsroom.)

For background, see How Pot Became Demonized: The Fine Line Between Good Medicine and "Dangerous Drugs" , an excerpt from the forthcoming book Dying to Get High by Wendy Chapkis and Richard J. Webb (NYU Press, 2008).

Call your media outlets and demand to see "a/k/a Tommy Chong." For freedom. And truth.

May 4, 2008 - Harold and Kumar #2 at the Box Office

More Sports News

Hillary's Uninspiring Drug Reform Plan
Ellen Komp, AlterNet. April 14, 2008.
We are likely to see more money spent on failed policies if Hillary moves back to the White House in 2009.

Seen on The Colbert Report: during a March 18 interview with Carole King, Colbert pulled out his Tapestry album and noted it folded, briefly demonstrating how this allowed people to clean their pot on it in the 70s. Sony is re-releasing Tapestry on CD with additional material on April 22.

MISSOURI SENATOR SAYS "POTHEAD" ON SENATE FLOOR
Over two days of debate, Republican state Sen. Jason Crowell successfully scrapped a provision requiring the Missouri State High School Activities Association to perform drug tests on athletes from a bill on underage substance abuse.

NAME THAT POTHEAD: What Weeds cast member won an Obie Award for his role as a blind gay man in 1997’s Love! Valor! Compassion! and appeared as the employer of a pot-puffing waitress played by Salma Hayek in Ask the Dust ( 2006)?

HINT: When he accepted his High Times Stoney award for acting in 2006, he commented in his acceptance speech that the money he made from the hit series is only a fraction of what he’s spent on weed over the years. (In 2007 he was nominated for a Golden Globe award for his role on Weeds.)

Answers to: games@veryimportantpotheads.com

June 5, 2008 - Barr's Brownies on The Colbert Report Last night's The Colbert Report featured this interview with Libertarian Presidental Candidate Bob Barr that wrapped up with a discussion of hash brownies and the failure of the drug war:

Former Drug "Czar" Advocates Releasing Drug Prisoners

Potheads Duel for Championships

(In looking this up, I found an earlier Charles Barkley admission from 2005. One of the commenters said Barkley said "drugs are stupid" in 1992 on the Arsenio Hall show, but here he admits he smoked it while playing for the NBA.)

"I remember thinking to myself, How can that be?" McClellan wrote. "How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn't make a lot of sense."

(Thanks for this tip to the eagle-eyed Dale Gieringer of California NORML, a website so hot it's censored by the Bloomberg newsroom.)

For background, see How Pot Became Demonized: The Fine Line Between Good Medicine and "Dangerous Drugs" , an excerpt from the forthcoming book Dying to Get High by Wendy Chapkis and Richard J. Webb (NYU Press, 2008).

Call your media outlets and demand to see "a/k/a Tommy Chong." For freedom. And truth.

May 4, 2008 - Harold and Kumar #2 at the Box Office

More Sports News

Hillary's Uninspiring Drug Reform Plan Ellen Komp, AlterNet. April 14, 2008. We are likely to see more money spent on failed policies if Hillary moves back to the White House in 2009.

Seen on The Colbert Report: during a March 18 interview with Carole King, Colbert pulled out his Tapestry album and noted it folded, briefly demonstrating how this allowed people to clean their pot on it in the 70s. Sony is re-releasing Tapestry on CD with additional material on April 22.

MISSOURI SENATOR SAYS "POTHEAD" ON SENATE FLOOR Over two days of debate, Republican state Sen. Jason Crowell successfully scrapped a provision requiring the Missouri State High School Activities Association to perform drug tests on athletes from a bill on underage substance abuse.

June 5, 2008 - Barr's Brownies on The Colbert Report
Last night's The Colbert Report featured this interview with Libertarian Presidental Candidate Bob Barr that wrapped up with a discussion of hash brownies and the failure of the drug war:

Hillary's Uninspiring Drug Reform Plan
Ellen Komp, AlterNet. April 14, 2008.
We are likely to see more money spent on failed policies if Hillary moves back to the White House in 2009.

MISSOURI SENATOR SAYS "POTHEAD" ON SENATE FLOOR
Over two days of debate, Republican state Sen. Jason Crowell successfully scrapped a provision requiring the Missouri State High School Activities Association to perform drug tests on athletes from a bill on underage substance abuse.