“Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care … The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.”
— DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young, September 6, 1988

Ooops, kinda sucks when your own judge holds extensive hearings and concludes that the whole mission of your organization is bogus. AWWWWKWARRRD!!!! Luckily the DEA just ignored him, which spawned a hilarious lawsuit questioning the DEA’s right to put it’s hands over it’s ears and shout “NHAHAHAHHA I CAN”T HEAR YOU.” In a staggering opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit actually ruled that was chill from a legal perspective.

Moral of the story: Carry a camera with you, always record police activity. Haven’t decided yet if it’s better to do it secretly. Pro: less likely to have police attack you out of rabid spite. Con: Open filming probably prevents brutality.

Also, holy shit, that was a great piece of journalism. It had an expert, a police response that didn’t seem totally insane, video documentation and a followup. Good work Nine News!!!

:: via IndyBay.org ::

A lot of people probably don’t support these kinds of direct actions by activists but the situation is a little more complicated than it may initially appear. Rational environmental policy would make a hummer so expensive that it wasn’t worth driving. Instead, our government gives hummer tax credits. Since our original framework for justice is so skewed it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to judge someone inside the context of that system. Sure, lighting some shitty suv’s on fire may be unethical, but selling them is certainly more unethical. A government that stands hopelessly intransigent in the face of global temperature catastrophe stands as the worst ethical violation of all.

:: Via Vice Magazine ::

This video is really worth watching, ESPECIALLY the last 5 seconds. But really the best part is what happened to him afterwards.

:: Article via ABC ::

I’d like to start by giving the Associate Press the Shitty Journalism award for failing to mention how long this guy was suspended for. This is buttressed by describing the situation as “berating” a 14 year old. What about ranting wildly? or flying off the handle? could we please get an accurate descriptor here?

It’s too bad the video had to go to youtube instead of directly to the police station. Whenever possible I think police officers should be videotaped. My experience is that about half of them behave like this guy. Also, cell phones should be able to automatically upload video to youtube.

The comments on youtube are also fascinating

I’m not really clear on why people think that police officers automatically ought to be treated with the utmost deference. It’s probably a good idea since they have guns and are generally incompetent, angry and stupid. That just means you should avoid them at all costs and massage their egos when you do come into contact with them.

The cop didn’t say that he was going to confiscate the skateboard, he just walked up and assaulted the kid. Resistance would be based on the kid knowing what the cop wanted to do by perhaps reading his mind or something and then trying to avoid it.

Anyway, this is insane and I’m really glad that the cop got suspended. Record cops whenever possible and upload it to youtube.

Reading an article in Rollingstone and these lines really caught my attention

…

:: How America Lost the War on Drugs, an Anatomy of a Failure ::

culled from POE-NEWS

a man has to pay 4700 dollars after he is wrongly accused of an embarrassing crime

then what happened…oh, i dunno.

The details in brief: Aaron was a smart kid, a star student in high school. After high school, he was diagnosed as delusional. He did poorly in university, and was sort of off again, on again. He bought a gun a few months ago. Then last Monday, he bought a tuxedo and went to the capitol building. He was not holding the gun, but he did not hide it. He claimed to be the emperor. A security guard warned him that he needed to stop advancing. Poor Aaron didn’t listen, and received three fatal gunshot wounds. A story about Aaron by the Denver Post can be found here.

What I find interesting, and perhaps somewhat disturbing, is that the only ensuing debate in the aftermath of this incident is whether or not there should be metal detectors in the capitol.

Uh, hello? A security guard shot and killed a man that wasn’t shooting, nor even holding a gun? Does anyone else think this is just a teensy bit…Oh, I dunno, excessive?

The security guard, Jay Hemphill, has been lauded as a fucking hero! The Rocky Mountain News posted this article about him:

Btw, that part about refusing to put the gun down is a total lie. Several articles already said that Snyder hadn’t even pulled his gun out. Link

I’ve been thinking a lot about this for the past week. Ostensibly, one of the things that cops are supposed to do is to protect the public. They are also expected to put their life on the line, in order to protect the public. Yet, when no one’s life is on the line (as in the case at the Colorado state capitol), they still have the right to fatally wound someone? One could argue that this was self defense, but I disagree. No gun shots were fired, nor was the victim even holding his gun. Additionally, I would argue that cops should not fire their weapons until they are attacked first. It is really the only morally correct option; otherwise, they simply look like assholes for shooting people that may not pose a big threat.

For the moment, I may be in the minority with this opinion, especially in this particular case. But who is some cop to judge when someone dies, simply because he feels “threatened”? Fuck off. If your job is to preserve the peace, and our lives, then maybe you shouldn’t kill people. Additionally, you should be ready to sacrifice your life in return for someone else’s. It would have been equally tragic had the security guard in this particular scenario had been killed, but he’s the one who chose to engage in a dangerous job where he may possibly be killed. I would expect someone with a gun not to scare easily, and get all trigger happy, simply because someone was walking towards him.

This is a great article but this kind of bullshit happens all the time and there usually aren’t judges around that are sympathetic to defendants.

This part of the article has spawned a new category, Shitty Journalism Award.

WHAT THE FUCK?!??! Shooting eachother while murdering someones great grandmother raises “serious questions” about following the proper fucking procedure?? Is there something in the goddamn manual about protocol for planting drugs?

Shitty Journalism Award just doesn’t do this justice, anyone out there have some ideas?

::: Better Article via Marijuana Policy Project :::