Cannabis Freedom

A Grandfather Looks Back on 40 Years of Happy Pot Smoking:

"Father's Day 2008 My Dear Ones,

Marijuana has been proven one of the safest therapeutically active drugs known to mankind. I have used it with little or no harm for 40 years. My mind still finds cannabis fun and enlightening after decades of inter-cranial adventures, and, as an adult, should you choose to employ a drug for such purposes, marijuana is the only drug I would recommend. For me, pot is fun and is very easy to walk away from, if need be. Also, cannabis possesses healing properties I'd ever dreamed or suspected possible. And as I continue to age, and I require more healing from my sports and work-related injuries, trusty cannabis helps me maintain my quality and love of life.

Much Love,

Dad (and now Grandpa)

Here's Memphis own Frayser Boy, from the Academy Award winning group Three 6 Mafia, from his latest album Da Key with Hood Thang.


Al Kapone, featuring Three 6 Mafia and Young AJ with We on Deck from True Underdog album to be released later this year.


I was going to feature a pretty hot rapper out of Texas, I even had a cool post title already picked out, but Universal Music Group seems to have disallowed embedding their YouTube videos. Sucks to be them because it prevents me from promoting their goods. Hey, UMG, you're hurting artists punishing your customers and their fans!

I've discontinued the use of "Funky Friday" for the cannabis related alliteration "Four 20 Friday". Like always, I'll usually post it in time for 4:20 on Friday afternoon and tag it "music" so you can search later. Formerly I tried to post my music recommendations at 4:20, but that really doesn't give you any time to queue up the track and roll one. As a courtesy to the artist and my readers, I'm featuring I've now added a Amazon store link to buy the album containing my featured track, when available.

Psychwatch, the psychology watchdog blog, writes about "add on" drugs which are slightly different, to retain patent protection, but no more effective than the original drugs. By slightly changing the chemical makeup of the drug pharmaceutical companies can manipulate doctors in to prescribing the "new and improved" version instead of an old formulation which would be filled with a generic. By using technicalities written into the patent law Big Pharma is bilking the patients and insurance companies out of millions in generic drug savings.

Patent law's intent is to protect the little guy from the competition stealing his/her idea. Now the US Patent and Trade Office serves to protect the revenue streams of the largest corporate patent holders. If we're going to have patent law at all it should be written to encourage innovation, not prevent it.

I blame modern medicine, specifically pharmaceuticals, for creating superbugs like MSRA, which incidentally kills more people than AIDS. MSRA is is a form of staph bacteria that is resistant to most common antibiotics. Not only are most antibiotics ineffective at treating MSRA they are unnecessary to treat most skin infections. An MSRA skin infection and is killed within days with a Tea Tree Oil based salve available at Wild Oats/Whole Foods for about $15. That's less than my office visit copay.

Slate.com has a piece on the overuse of antibiotics, specifically pressure felt by the doctor from patients who believe antibiotics are necessary to cure common ailments. Now, a placebo is being marketed to parents to fool their children into thinking that they need a pill to feel better. Do we really want to foster drug dependency in our children? The ONDCP believes that now America's pill popping is becoming a problem, but the government's management of the pharmaceutical industry, and western medicine's disdain for anything alternative, natural, homeopathic, or herbal that exacerbates the problem. The answer is to deregulate the medical industry, both conventional and alternative medicine, and let patients and doctors, rather than legal standards, decide the best and most effective course of treatment.

Pill popping is extremely dangerous and the risks are well documented but rarely taken into consideration by doctors looking to satisfy patient demand. In comparison alternative herbal remedies like medical marijuana are extremely safe and non-toxic to the human body. Of course what makes cannabis unsafe is the threat of government breaking down your door at night.

Hat tip to the Drug Roar blog.

I've always thought that the cheesy, I ♥ My Wife, Promise Keepers' bumper sticker was a freaking lame attempt at convincing oneself that their love life doesn't suck. What changes between the time a couple is having mad, passionate, freaky dorm room college sex, and married "I look like hell because I've been at work all day and my job sucks and if I don't get laid this week I'm going to go postal" sex? Sure, circumstances change and most of the time those circumstances change us so much that we can completely lose focus of each other and our once passionate romance.This leaves a couple held together by only superficial business arrangements, like debt repayment and housing arrangements.

I don't want to live my life like that and I don't understand why anyone else would want to either. Perhaps that's why men cheat. Men are animals when it comes to sex, so the biological element of reproductive desire is a relevant motive. But, there is also a need among men to be the rock on which a woman depends, and the object of her desire. Most ordinary men don't really want to be playboys. The just have a genuine psychological need to have one woman that will swoon at their touch or hold on tight after sex.

Some women may have cliché, "white knight" fantasies about men. Male fantasies aren't much different, only more explicit, more animal. There may be more subtext apparent in romance novels than Letters to Penthouse, but I think that's because men are prone to pragmatism. Women want to know why the cowboy has the milkmaid in the woodshed. Men just want to be the cowboy. The desire is reciprocal, and if shared, mutually beneficial.

So, if our deepest desires are evident on the pages of mainstream romance novels and role-playing porn, why is it so damn hard to bring that romance into a marriage? I don't understand. At what point did we lose sight of that goal of a romantic relationship? Our fantasies don't change, so why then do they cease being a priority? Our lives have become so cluttered with selfishness and consumerism, bad habits and vices that we start to ignore the things that could bring true fulfillment to our lives.

Fear, is another emotion that destroys our ability to romanticize our relationships. Fear, specifically a fear of failure, sensationalizes risk. By closing ourselves off, making ourselves less vulnerable, being dishonest with ourselves and our mates about what are true desires are, we mitigate that risk. We keep ourselves safe from the pain of rejection and humiliation that comes with being sexually shut down. I will admit, it is immensely more devastating for me to get shut down by the woman I love than it was to get rejected a stranger in public when I was single.

Some people will say that they just want to love and be loved. I want to desire and be desired. I want to romance and be romanced. I love my wife, but I know she needs more than that. We can be better together, I'm certain of it. The desire is part of us and so we shouldn't ignore it, repress it, or sabotage it. We should do things to explore our desire for one another, and in doing so become closer to each other.

I want to be her white knight. That doesn't work when I'm so caught up in my own distresses, because I'm not available to rescue (for lack of a better term) her from hers. I think the goal need to be moved from mere marriage (arrangement) survival to a goal of romance and unbridled passion and romance. This means, of course, that I'll have to stop playing it safe or being self absorbed, and start learning how to be the object of my woman's desire.

FYI: The title comes from the txt slang: I<3U

As promised, here's a fresh track out of the M-Town: Whatever I Want to Do, from MJG's independent "mixtape" Pimp Tight. Here MJG, takes liberty with one of the more eclectic hits of the 80's and/or 90's, Susanne Vega's Tom's Diner.

After checking out the history of Tom's Diner, a.k.a. Monk's from Seinfeld, I realized MJG's version is just another iteration of the life of this song. I think artists that stifle derivatives of their work with the intention of protecting their intellectual property are probably doing themselves a disservice and decreasing their mainstream longevity.

I think Andy Warhol was extremely optimistic when he predicted that in the future people would only be famous for 15 minutes. This is evident by the 10 minute limit placed on Youtube videos. But of course the longevity of moments of fame can be exponentially increased in duration and significance through derivative works.

And now for something completely different... but relevant to the conversation, I give you Weezer's Pork and Beans:

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.

I keep finding more and more stories about responsible adults that find it beneficial to incorporate cannabis use into their dangerous routine. Middle-class suburban moms are no different. I could think of no better way to relax after chasing rugrats around all day than with a cup of tea and a smoke.

SheKnows Daily Dish - A survey by ChiKii.com ... found that a lot of women, mostly moms, between the ages of 30-49 smoked pot at least on occasion. I had a chance to interview several of these women. Take a look. You might be surprised. I was surprised that several of my very good friends smoke on a regular basis and all of them are accomplished and outstanding moms. You know the kind of moms that often make you feel like an inadequate mother. :) Watch Marijuana Mommies below. [A commercial will appear before the interview segment]

In related news, the season 4 premiere of Showtime's Weeds, a drama about a cannabis dealing mom, debuts on June 16. I plan on covering the premiere in depth closer to that date.