Cannabis Freedom

I wanted to remind everyone that tomorrow, September 13, is the big Southern Heritage Classic game at the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. The tailgate parties have already started, and from what I hear, it's the biggest party in Memphis.

The annual Cooper-Young Festival is also tomorrow . Over 300 artisans are displaying their works and over 80,000 people are expected to pass through.

Update: Citizens To Preserve Overton Park will be at the C-Y Festival at booth D31 in the First Congregational Church parking lot. CPOP will have organic cotton Save the Old Forest t-shirts for a $10 donation.

If going out isn't your thing and you have Comcast cable, you can always stay in and watch the University of Memphis Tigers play the the Thundering Herd of Marshal on CSS tomorrow at 6 pm. The Tigers are looking for their first win this season, and if we can't do it against Marshal then God help us.

Redwood National Forest has become the latest battleground in the War on Drugs. The ancient forest is now the home to guerrilla growers who plant their clandestine farms in the dense old-growth in order to hide their crop from law enforcement and rival gangs.

Five-Acre Marijuana Farm Found in Redwood National Park - FoxNewsAuthorities have discovered thousands of marijuana plants growing in Redwood National Park.
...
While marijuana has been found growing on public lands for years, officials say they're finding larger, more damaging operations — many of them connected to gangs with ties to Mexico.

I've written before on the environmental destruction caused by the drug war. Not only does this deadly war threaten the environment, but also the lives of every tourist, camper, and hiker that visit the forest every summer. If marijuana crops were legal crops could be planted in private farms and the environmental and public threat would be eliminated.

The photo above is in the public domain: Coastal Redwood

Roane County (TN) School District is drug testing student athletes in violation of state law.

Alert - American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee: "The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN)
today sent a letter to the Roane County school district demanding a stop to the random drug testing of student athletes which is in clear violation of state law. In addition to being illegal, random drug testing of students is proven to be ineffective in deterring drug use and is opposed by leading experts in adolescent health, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Education Association, the Association of Addiction Professionals and the National Association of Social Workers.

“Random drug testing is not only patently illegal under state law, but demonstrably ineffective and frequently counterproductive,” said Hedy Weinberg, Executive Director of the ACLU of Tennessee. “These unsubstantiated searches make a mockery of the civics lessons taught in our classrooms, and should be roundly and readily rejected by parents and school officials alike.”"

Not only is this behavior illegal, random drug testing has been proven to be ineffective as a deterrent. It simply does not prevent students from using drugs. In fact, when children are tested for a safe and non-toxic substance like marijuana, students then have an incentive to instead use deadly drugs like inhalants. I believe the only effective and ethical way of preventing adolescent drug abuse, without violating individual rights is to foster a healthy relationship between the parent and child. School policy and the drug war instead foster mistrust, a snitch culture, and pit children against parents by creating adversarial relationships.

For more information read my post on fooling urine drug tests.

Read the full alert from the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.
Associated Press article here: ACLU Demands Tennessee School Stop Drug Testing Student Athletes.

Ron White asserts that he is a medical marijuana user, this comes after his arrest for simple possession of 3 grams of cannabis and a glass pipe. An anonymous tipster narced out The Tater and police sprang into action. This is freaking ridiculous and completely conflicts with Drug Czar John Walters assertion that people don't go to jail for simple possession. Ron White had 3 grams of marijuana, that's about 1/10th of an ounce or less than $100 worth of high quality, medical marijuana. He was arrested, booked and release with a $1000 bond. I guess the streets are safe now. Great police work. How many personnel hours do you think that law enforcement is wasting on the investigation, processing, prosecution, and incarceration of a non-violent medical marijuana user? Ron was flying to Florida for a sold-out show. Over 1000 people were inconvenienced when the show started an hour late.

The Memphis Flyer is giving away free tickets to see Widespread Panic in Memphis. There are 5 drawings over the next five weeks. You have to turn off any ad blocking software you have running in order to see the link. Good luck.

The Cato Institute is having a forum on so-called "No-Knock" raids. Details below. Sorry, the stream is only available in RealMedia format, gross.

Cato Institute: Should No-Knock Police Raids be Rare-or Routine? (Policy Forum): "Should No-Knock Police Raids be Rare-or Routine?

POLICY FORUM
Thursday, September 11, 2008
4:00 PM (Reception To Follow)

Featuring Cheye Calvo, Mayor, Berwyn Heights, Maryland, Radley Balko, Senior Writer, Reason and author of Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America, Peter Christ, Co-founder, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Moderated by Tim Lynch, Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute.

The Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Watch the Event Live in RealVideo
Listen to the Event in RealAudio (Audio Only)

The Prince George’s County police department is under fire for a recent drug raid on the home of Berwyn Heights mayor Cheye Calvo. Unbeknownst to Calvo, a box containing marijuana was delivered to his home. Shortly thereafter, police officers kicked in the front door and shot both of Calvo’s pet Labrador retrievers. The police have subsequently cleared Calvo of any wrongdoing but are unapologetic about their raid tactics. Are no-knock, paramilitary raids an appropriate tactic for drug investigations? Or do sudden, unannounced entries bring unnecessary violence to police investigations? Join us for a discussion of the Prince George’s incident and, more broadly, the militarization of police work in America."

*Update: I fixed the links to the media streams.

The University of Memphis is off to a rough start this season. Keep your head up Tigers. I was watching a National Geographic special entitled "Tigers of the Swamp" about tigers that live in the Bay of Bengal. Due to the flooding rivers descending from the Himalayas bodies of flood victims get washed into the swamp. As a result, some of these tigers have a taste for human blood. That's f-ing hardcore! Ok, I'm motivated again. Go Tigers! Watch the full documentary below.



*The image above is in the public domain, Panthera Tigris, Tigris.