Cannabis Freedom

In a true WTF moment, Kid Rock is now making propaganda films for the government. Mrs. Blue, who's had a decade-long crush on the Early Morning Stoned Pimp [Video], will be highly disappointed.

View the music video for "Warrior", by Kid Rock featuring Dale Earnhart, Jr who drives the National Guard number 88 car.


Hat tip: JJ of FreeKeene.com

This insightful and comprehensive post, A guide to debunking Drug Warrior Talking Points from The Maple ThreeCanada thoroughly disarms the drug war propagandists' major arguments for cannabis prohibition. On the "gateway drug" theory:

"...it is not marijuana’s pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana’s illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged blackmarket relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. Ironically the gateway drug theory has been turned on its head and used as reason for legalizing the drug."

Particularly fascinating is the debunking of the cannabis/schizophrenia "link."

Specifically, should there be a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia, there should be a positive correlation between marijuana consumption and schizophrenia, but such a correlation is conspicuous by its absence. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia.

In related news Paul Armento of NORML has an opportunistic but enlightening article on Ted Kennedy's Glioma cancer and cannabanoid therapy. Armento reminds us that cannabis doesn't cause cancer, it fights cancer. Youtube video here.

...cannabinoids can halt the spread of numerous cancer cells -- including prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and in one human clinical trial, brain cancer.

Turns out, not all cannabis users fit the "Stoners in the Mist" stereotype the ONDCP creates for us. It's no surprise that average middle-class individuals can enjoy cannabis and find it easy to incorporate their use into their lives. According to the press release:

A qualitative study of 41 Canadians surveyed in 2005-06 by U of A researchers showed that there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ marijuana user, but that people of all ages are selectively lighting up the drug as a way to enhance activities ranging from watching television and playing sports to having sex, painting or writing.

“For some of the participants, marijuana enhanced their ability to relax by taking their minds off daily stresses and pressures. Others found it helpful in focusing on the activity at hand,” said Geraint Osborne, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus in Camrose, and one of the study’s authors.

The study was published recently in the journal Substance Use and Misuse.

The focus was on adult users who were employed, ranging in age from 21 to 61, including 25 men and 16 women from Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and Newfoundland whose use of the drug ranged from daily to once or twice a year. They were predominantly middle class and worked in the retail and service industries, in communications, as white-collar employees, or as health-care and social workers. As well, 68 per cent of the users held post-secondary degrees, while another 11 survey participants had earned their high school diplomas.

The study also found that the participants considered themselves responsible users of the drug, defined by moderate use in an appropriate social setting and not allowing it to cause harm to others.

Government propagandists and the main stream media have been working tirelessly for the last 70 years to scare Americans into thinking that cannabis is a "demon weed" that corrupts people and drives them to lives of crime. This superstitious witch hunt has cost billions of dollars and ruined countless lives, while ignoring the fact that users are harmless, contributing members of society. The reason these propaganda campaigns fail to decrease cannabis consumption is because the claims are patently false and cannabis users know it.

Reuters - Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk: study:

"The marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week, based on self-reported drug history, the researchers said."

I'm not going to even argue the conclusions of this study because they do not apply to the vast majority of cannabis users. By my calculations, using 350 joints a week is smoking approximately a joint every 20 minutes for 18 hours a day. You would have to be smoking one while rolling your next, all day long. You couldn't hold a job that would pay for that much cannabis. because you wouldn't have time to smoke it all.

From the government's own numbers only about twelve percent of adult cannabis smokers smoke four or more cigarettes per day. Given that the distribution is skewed right, this study's population accounts for only the most chronic (heehee) users.

None of these drug warriors have ever been able to produce a single case of cannabis causing death, not even by heart attack or stroke. Yet, the government still wastes our tax dollars to spew this nonsensical bullshit as if it applied to responsible cannabis users.

cbs3.com:

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday."

While I believe that cannabis affects teens and adults differently I don't believe moderate use could actually cause depression. In fact, this study apparently does not show causality, only a "link", whatever that means.

Could it be that there is a "link" between cannabis and depression is because depressed kids tend to self-medicate with the substance that helps them the most? Legal prescription anti-depressants frequently come with FDA "black box" warnings that the use can contribute to suicidal and homicidal ideation, so those drugs aren't without risk either.

In fact, according this 2004 report, in a University of Washington study:

Medical professionals have theorized that depression is the cause of marijuana use, rather than the result. That is, people who are depressed use marijuana to relieve or “escape from” their symptoms of depression. Some studies have demonstrated that marijuana improves mood and that people who are depressed during the initial stages of an experiment are more inclined to begin, continue or increase their marijuana use by the time of follow-up.

HT: DrugRoar