There are four new videos worth checking out, two provide comic relief…two provide contrasting views about cannabis prohibition.
The same day last week I caught a CNN news piece about high school science students sending and recording an egg with a smiley face launched into space, I received something way cooler:
The first earth-grown cannabis launched into space (unless the US and Russian governments have been ferrying cannabis into space all these years…).
From our friends at High Times:
*Proviso: While ‘space’ cannabis is neat, driving while consuming cannabis is an unwise safety and legal decision in all 50 states.
In what you knew would be a confrontational interview, former Congressman and SAM spokesman Patrick Kennedy bravely goes into the wheelhouse of one of America’s most ardent pro-cannabis supporters: comedian, TV host and NORML Advisory Board member Bill Maher.
The results. As expected. Kennedy came on larding his advocacy with a plethora of old and/or taken out of context ‘science’ claiming that he used to think ‘pot was not a big deal’, but now has learned otherwise. When confronted by Maher that Kennedy’s anti-cannabis advocacy is misplaced and that his rhetoric sounds like a barely warmed over “Just Say No’ rant from the 1980s, Kennedy claims newly gained insights:
Really? If this is true–Mr. Kennedy used to think cannabis no big deal and he possess new insight into why prohibition should go on another seventy five years?–the long-serving former state representative and congressman from Rhode Island, with no public or legislative record record indicating anything other than rote support for cannabis prohibition, certainly never conveyed to his constituents or media that he thought cannabis was ‘no big deal’.
And this new insight that he claims to have gained…might this have come from the ardently anti-cannabis legalization drug rehabilitation industry that Mr. Kennedy is not only had a client of because of his own alcohol and prescription drug abuse, but that he has always been closely associated with this rarely observed side of the pot prohibition perpetuation machinery in Washington, D.C.?
Currently, probably living with the real fear that the government will stop bring clients to them forced with the Hobson’s Choice of ‘rehab’ or to get criminally prosecuted, and to often have the government pick up the financial tab, one of the last (and obvious) proponents for the status quo to maintain the government’s failed cannabis prohibition are some active quarters of the ‘drug rehabilitation’ industry.
Where this newly formed SAM gets its funding (the group appears to be mainly a front group for drug rehabbers and anti-tobacco advocates) will help largely answer the questions: Who likely benefits from cannabis prohibition? Who wants to keep the prohibition policy going, when a majority of the American public no longer does?
A now nearly regular featured anti-prohibition satirist who specializes in using popular music video parodies to make fun of pot prohibition (and advance his political career in Miami Beach, Florida), Steve Berke has forwarded NORML another of his unique takes:
Also, Steve is trying to now produce a documentary movie. If you like his style and how is he is trying to shake up Miami Beach’s political scene, check out his new KickStarter campaign here.
Lastly, and appropriately, the TV originator of the “Last Word’ (a nightly segment on MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Show), gets the last word on the absurdity and inevitable collapse of cannabis prohibition in America.
Watch O’Donnell’s powerful indictment against the federal government’s continued support for the failed public policy of cannabis prohibition here.
I saw Kennedy on Maher’s show. I think I raised my middle finger at Kennedy at least 5 times during that interview. What an ignorant jerk! He’s an incredible embarrassment to the Kennedy name.
As far as Kennedy’s approach:
1) kids = should be denied cannabis, sams as they are for ALCOHOL
— also, cannabis is easier to gain for underage because it is blanketly prohibited-
so illegal to give to adults, (fuck it),
and illegal to give to kids, so they follow that to ‘fuck it’ give it to the kids
THIS WOULD BE REMEDIED (largely) BY LEGALISATION FOR ADULTS same as alcohol is
*(blanketly is my neologistic solecism)
2 – health = the health risks of law enforcement (often very dangerous)
+ the health risks of illicit transactions
(not having standards for a product)
and the EXTREME dangers of market protection
JUST LIKE THE ALCOHOL PROHIBITION which was repealed because IT WASN’T GOING AWAY
and that its market enforcement yielded such dangers as the Valentine’s Day massacre-
yet, the physiological and biological,
(not to mention societal impact) of cannabis is a wholly non-existent myth.
3 – BS = the misguided concept of therapy for liking a glass of wine, or liking a blunt, or liking chocolate and sugar in one’s coffee
is fucking pathetic. It is not so far removed from such.
+++++
the other standard concepts against legalization, which were not mentioned in that:
a – ‘gateway drug’ = bullshit
as that is not a problem with cannabis,
but with OTHER things beyond it
(besides, if you take the bottom rung off
a ladder the NEXT rung up becomes the
bottom rung) bullshit.
b – addiction = aside from heroin, and pharmacorp products, (Oxycontin, etc.) and perhaps cocaine/meth/etc. NOTHING is even close to the addictiveness of cigarettes.
NOT BECAUSE of tobacco, (how many people fiend for cigars?), but is due to the
ADDITIVES that those fucks put into the product to cause to be sought after,
ADDICTIVE ADDITIVES.
=====
Arguments for cannabis to remain illicit
lack medical, scientific, and common sense defensibility.
Get a clue. The risks are almost solely due to the fact that the people fighting for it to be illegal have, so far, won.
Legalize it, and watch the problems melt away.
(it still needs to be treated with respect,
like wine, and like fire – which are perfectly acceptable in the hands of the sane)
I saw the bill maher show and as shocked bill let him lie so much unchallenged! Cannabis hurts the brain? Let me guess your drug rehab buddies been “informing” you? Drops IQ… How can you tell if cannabis is the sole thing that caused someone’s IQ to go down… How did I smoke an once a day or more for decades to not suffer any change in my IQ test results at ages 18, 26, and 35? I smell bs!
This Kennedy is a nut case or a complete jerk. I saw him once before on Bill Maher. He said some “Words” should be illegal. This guy needs to be put in a mental asylum.
LOVE the music video btw.
I could almost swallow the protecting us from ourselves until I read the stats on alcohol related deaths and nicotine related deaths per year. Another paid shill for the alky and tobacco industry.
Like it said at the end of Steve Berke’s video, “Follow the money”.
They will start arresting more whites now, rather than legalize it.
Patrick Kennedy sounded like a spokesperson for a cult of pure bullshit. A purist that believes lies are truths and truths are lies.
Man i hate bill he is the same guy that claims guns are an addiction and then turns around and says pot should be legal. Proof the central bank runs them all. Every weed smoker i know is pro 2nd amendment because it is also logical just like the legal cultivation of all plants. Whatch out for bill hes just pulling your strings
@ali – I think you’re wrong about Kennedy being a shill for alky and tobacco. He is just a prohibitionist in the true sense of the word. He works with Kevin Sabet in the Drug Rehab industry and wants for cannabis users to go to his treatment centers instead of jail. That’s where he is trying to profit from our misery; the misery that he and others inflict… Those guys should have their heads cut off and put on a pole!
On the third try, I overcame my revulsion of the pot debate and watched the Patrick Kennedy video all the way through. His point is that Joe Camel will try to sell us weed once it is big business, and that peer pressure will create some new youthful users. However, it is rather obvious being high raises ones IQ, not lowers it. Suddenly music, art, and conversation seem accessible and valuable. In fact, that is the appeal of pot.
Kennedy’s take is exactly that of the Catholic Church’s. Brainwashed.
What is so maddening and hypocritical is that The Catholic Church proudly proclaims their “commitment to social justice” while supporting the war on pot, which is the greatest social injustice since slavery. Coincidentally (?), slavery and pot prohibition revolve around the same injustice to black people.
Haha the Children!! What a joke.. Coming from a background in Catholicism I can see what Owen is portraying. The Slimy ones always use god or children to promote their outlandish ideas.. Notice how that was the first line? How can you say that “it’s not that big of a deal to turn around and put these people in rehab? I have a friend getting off of Probation while another one has court coming up.. Long Short of it Both kids got pulled over for DUI’s but as the officers walked up guess what they smelled? Yea Bud. So now yet another statistic that shows cannabis as a bad thing when they got pulled over in the first place for drinking too much.. Follow the money on this and you’ll realize that this guy is making bank “saving the public from themselves”. What a joke I told you that this was happening and bam yet another one.. Another seat-belt idea that creates revenue..
Guy’s and girls he was a pill addict.. Enough said..
Notice emphasis on commercialism? He knows the pressure of the Large Lobbying firms would be too much for our Congress to handle..
“suffering from a conviction that they should not be suffering from” wow he just said it..
Oh, my God,memories from smoking a joint in the late 70’s?
Some good Colombian from you’re haunted past,,.You enjoyed it,and Now, you realise that you had some good nostalgic things to go along with it…and ,all the seeds to be thrown out by the hotel maid’s???