Illegal Blog

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2006-12-31T21:59:00.000-08:00

To Supporters

2006-12-31T21:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Folks,

I'm writing from the future of blogdom, at midnight on New Years Eve, 2006. For those of you planning parties, be aware that Aud Lang Syne falls on Sunday next year. Hooligan revelry may be overshadowed by penance and punishment, especially in America, where puritan values run deep and pious worshippers belt out Sabbath praises.

I've been grinding 80-90 hours a week, trying to get out the word on JUNK, a prohibition satire about a war on junk food. Throughout the writing process I've fought to keep the novel independent, deliberately eschewing corporate support (and control), and maintaining artistic autonomy. This critical choice means I'm dependent on grassroots efforts (this means you) to help this book fly. There's only so much an author and small publisher can do. They may produce a great novel, but the public must still ensure its dissemination.

JUNK is a covert to convert gig, a robust and intoxicating belch in the face of self-righteousness. The characters are absurd archetypes representing the skewed perspectives and moralistic attitudes associated with prohibition policies. JUNK is also a nonpartisan mockery of commonly held assumptions. It appeals to the collective unconscious - after all, everybody eats.

Assuming nothing and making no pretense, I humbly ask... Will you help me prove there really are viable alternatives to corporate publishing houses? Stimulate vigorous political debate about international drug policies. Think outside the confines of the cage. Share some gut-churning laughs. Divest a dime from the drug warriors and mobsters, and drop it in the patched pocket of a renegade writer who in 15 years went from being a teenage runaway, sleeping under bridges and dodging the police to being internationally published and having his first book suppressed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the media who refused to cover the federal marijuana program, and the bureaucrats who ran Uncle Sam's Marijuana Garden but didn't want people to know about it (see previous posts for further explanation and exploration).

Please post a blog blurb or review the novel, share it with your friends (and enemies), pass it around like a peace pipe. Become an affiliate with my publisher ENC Press, and earn residual income on every book ordered through your site. If you're an independent artist, I'll be happy to swap links, play cerebral ping-pong, whatever. Just let me know.

You won't find JUNK in your McBookstore for a while, so don't bother looking. The first edition is available at select independent outlets, and online directly from ENC Press, a company that understands the fine art of tipping sacred cows while dodging the patties.

The vast majority of books published in 2004 sold less than 1000 copies, and many authors who don't appeal to the broadest audience (or pander to the lowest common denominator) simply can't afford to keep writing. This dynamic confines and drains the marketplace of ideas, centralizing political control over what you read (and think). At a time when libraries battle federal officials to protect your civil liberties, DEA officials covertly influence literature (see blog below), and mainstream media pundits are more beholden than ever to a synergistic conglomeration of government and corporate interests, your support is critical.

I hope you enjoy JUNK in good health - or else...

Happy New Year,

Chris Largen

JUNK Reviews - Backlog

2006-12-31T06:29:00.000-08:00

For those of you who haven't yet visited the website for JUNK, here's a cluster of reviews for your perusal...

“JUNK is a hit. I loved every second. I started reading it and didn’t stop until I was done. When I took a break and went into the kitchen for a snack, a chill went down my spine. I could never live in a world like JUNK; just the thought of it was quite terrifying. The book is great, and the thought of this marvel on film.... Oooo, I can’t wait! Bottom line — the characters were original, the story was entertaining, frightening, realistic and at times quite heart-wrenching. It blended together so well. JUNK is a bloody hit, man! Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to have myself a Charlotte Russe.” — Graham Armstrong, college freshman

“JUNK is a profound and absurd tragicomedy, an engaging page-turner that reads like a film. Largen devours tough issues like morality, appetite, bigotry and bureaucracy with biting irreverence, and yet it is his characters who shine brightest. JUNK will entertain, intrigue and provoke, inspiring debate and exploration as humanity wrestles to define the relationship between health and public policy.” — Joe Camp, writer, producer, and director of the Benji films.

“A book specifically meant to be libertarian while taking an unorthodox tack is JUNK, by Christopher Largen. The book is interesting in its literary technique and in its approach. Largen takes the reader through fragmented, seemingly independent story lines and vignettes, tying them together as the book moves along. What makes this more interesting is that Largen writes very well, and very humorously. What makes it most interesting is that the stories all are fictionalized versions of actual events in the war on drugs in the US, though they are portrayed in the book as part of a fictional government war on junk food. JUNK is valuable to our choir because it can be used to persuade those who aren’t yet convinced. Largen covers his bases carefully – his characters use the same arguments, both moral and scientific, used today by supporters of the drug war. Read this book yourself because it’s fun and interesting, but to make it truly useful, be sure to give it to someone who’s sitting on the fence with regard to the drug war. It’s all fiction, but very convincing. It is a moral good to convince fence sitters that the drug war is evil.” — Brad Edmonds, author of There’s a Government in Your Soup

“JUNK is a must-read for every starry-eyed activist. I couldn’t put it down! I was hooked from the first page, and I fear I may suffer withdrawal now that I've reached the end. It’s as compelling as Richard Bach’s Illusions, and as ominously foreboding as George Orwell's 1984.” — Erin Hildebrandt, Executive Director, Parents Ending Prohibition.

“JUNK is an engrossing page-turner which had me hooked from beginning to end. Its narrative consists of three distinct storylines of a junk abuse counselor, a junk dealer and a police officer converges with the cathartic emotional intensity of a kick in the gut. These are not mere stereotypical cardboard cutouts, but three-dimensional characters trying to live life in a prohibitionist police state run amok: Where the price for security against one’s own bodily desires is the curtailment of civil liberties and where personal responsibility regarding decisions about how to live one’s own life is seen as dangerous. It’s satire which packs a ferocious punch, as it shows the deadly follies of the United States’ ‘War on SOME Drugs & SOME Terror’ and the therapeutic state, not only through the narratives, but also through the inclusion of letters and newspapers lifted from its own world, and just as great satirical social commentary should, mirrors our own with devastating accuracy. After all, after the ‘War on SOME Drugs & SOME Terror’ is ‘won’, what’s next?” — dr.bomb, Ph.D., editor of The ARID Site

“JUNK is tragicomedy for thinking people. No partisan camp is immune from Largen’s wit and wisdom, and he takes no prisoners. It was only after pulmonary exhaustion quieted my laughter that I could discern the web of political, moral and personal issues that unite modern archetypes into a cohesive and frighteningly believable plot, set in a not too distant future.” — Dr. James Quinn, Professor of Addictions and Criminology, University of North Texas

“Brilliant! JUNK is satire at its best!” — Michael Constantine McConnell, author of Detroit Stories

“JUNK is a classic comedy about America’s longest war in the style of Mark Twain or Will Rogers.” — Jack A. Cole, executive director, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

“I loved this book so much that I will read it again! JUNK is a hilarious, horrifying, thought-provoking ride… So simple, yet so eloquent! Read JUNK at your first opportunity, but eat a snack first. It might be the last treat you’re ever allowed to swallow!” — George McMahon, co-author of Prescription Pot

“A brilliant mockumentary with frighteningly Orwellian dynamics… Packed with insight, irony, and no small dose of hilarity, JUNK seethes like a District Attorney who just lost a case on a technicality… Pick up a copy of JUNK to get a taste of Largen’s tongue-in-cheek but serious take on the nation’s war on drugs.” – Renee Vaughn Hayes, formerly editor of Venues Magazine

“Portraying the worst and best in my profession, JUNK demonstrates real possibilities for America. It is a wake up call to lovers of liberty.” — Officer Howard J. Wooldridge (retired), Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

“JUNK is laugh out loud funny! The novel covers every angle of the drug war with insight and humor.” — Suzanne Wills, Drug Policy Forum of Texas

“I laughed and I cried! JUNK is beautiful! Mr. Largen possesses a talent to touch people in a way they can’t forget.” — Rhonda Cheatham, Florida Cannabis Action Network

“JUNK is priceless... a wonderful character driven satire, simple and straightforward, a searing indictment of prohibition policies.” — Al Byrne, Patients Out of Time

“JUNK is a hoot! Largen exposes the frailties and failings of the drug war with humor and glaring insights into the heart of prohibition. After reading this book, sweets will taste a little sweeter.” — Dean Becker, talk radio host, Cultural Baggage

“JUNK is Vonnegut styled, ironical witty satire that laughs out loud at misguided causes… I cared about the characters… There’s not enough of this kind of clean, neat prose anymore. The message rang loud and clear but never screamed at me. Carry on, Mr. Largen!” — Leslie Miller, Books to Enjoy

“JUNK is hilarious and tragic! I ate 2 bags of extra butter flavored popcorn by page 100! The editing is fantastic!” — Mike Smithson, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

“JUNK leads you down a familiar path and then BOOM — natural thought patterns are jolted into the unfamiliar... JUNK is a mind-boggling realization, a very imaginative approach toward a very real issue.” — Dr. Juliet Getty, Professor of Nutrition, University of North Texas

"Fast-paced... a scathing look at prohibition policies... covers the spectrum. The men and women in JUNK are recognizable yet compelling... a powerful message...entertaining... worth picking up... a fun, light read... hilarious." - Leah Anderson, The Gateway, Canada

Five Cops Taped Torturing Drug Suspect LISTEN TO FBI TAPE NOW!

2006-04-28T18:43:00.002-07:00

http://wms.scripps.com/knoxville/siler/siler.mp3

When Tennessee law enforcement officials (including a local DARE officer) showed up at the home of Lester Siler, a convicted drug dealer on supervised release, they asked his wife and 8 year-old son to leave. They didn't know that Lester's wife had turned on a tape recorder in the kitchen. When Lester exercised his constitutional right not to sign a consent to search his house, these officers spent the next two hours torturing him. They beat him with bats and guns, held loaded guns to his head, threatened to shoot him, dunked his head in the toilet, burned him with lighters, attached his testicles to a battery charger, threatened to cut off his fingers, and threatened to "go get"his wife and take their child away from them. Then the cops arrested Siler for "evading arrest". It wasn't until his wife's tape made it to the FBI that all hell broke loose. And go figure, even though these officers have since been convicted in federal court, not ONE national media outlet gave this story the coverage it deserved. But that's okay. While these "civil servants" were being tried for torturing civilians, our media moguls were busy decrying the immorality of Janet Jackson's Superbowl nipple! These are the same "journalists" who refused to cover the United States Government's secretive medical marijuana program.

I'm warning you now, this is the most disturbing recording I've ever heard in my life. But EVERYONE needs to know about this. Our war on drugs is a complete failure, and the national media is following a code of silence on related humans rights abuses.

The link at the top of this letter will open the actual audio recording of the torture. And a Yahoo! search on "Lester Siler" will give you access to Tennessee media coverage of the story. PLEASE FORWARD THIS OUT!

Open Letter to Bill O'Reilly

2006-03-24T01:53:00.000-08:00

Mr. O'Reilly,

I applaud your recent coverage of judges who sentence child rapists to minimal or no prison time for their crimes. However, you have thus far only selected liberal judges to profile. This is in spite of the fact that I repeatedly informed you of the situation in Denton County, TX (where I reside). Denton County is currently home to nearly 70 convicted child predators who were sentenced to no jail time. Every judge in Denton County happens to be Republican.

The murder and rape of children is not a partisan issue. As an outspoken advocate for children and survivor of child pornography, I believe that nobody should use the horrific trauma of these children and families to further a partisan political agenda.

Rather than prioritize the protection of children, you have targeted a select few liberal judges. You have not informed your viewers that this deplorable dynamic of releasing child rapists is occurring all over the nation, due to the unacceptable sentences of judges from both major parties. Your coverage has thus far obfuscated the real issue behind a sordid veil of partisan rhetoric.

You are not helping kids by using this issue to divide people who should be coming together for the protection of children. And when you target judges from only one party, you appear to be using the rape and murder of children for political advantage. I pray that you will search your heart, change your stance, and give this issue the broad, accurate coverage it deserves. Until you do, I'm asking every person who reads this letter to pass it on to their friends, feature it on their websites, and help spread the truth.

Your Iconoclast,

Chris Largen
Founder of Building BLOCK (Better Lives for Our Communities and Kids)
www.building-block.org

Federal Air Marshals Caught Smuggling Cocaine

2006-02-21T07:32:00.000-08:00

This should come as no surprise...

Drug sting led to arrest here of two federal air marshals
By HARVEY RICE
Copyright 2006
Houston Chronicle

Air marshal Shawn Ray Nguyen was consorting with the dark side of the law long before he and another federal air marshal were arrested on drug charges, according to a criminal complaint made public Monday.

Nguyen, 38, of Houston, began hanging out with a person he knew associated with a drug trafficker and had been involved in credit card fraud, twice giving the person thousands of dollars to invest in drug trafficking, the complaint says.

His confidence turned out to be misplaced. The person, identified only as a cooperating witness, or "CW," in the complaint, recorded Nguyen's conversations and helped set up a fake cocaine deal that ended in the arrest of Nguyen and air marshal Burlie L. Sholar III, 32, of Houston, last week.

"I ain't greedy, I've done this ... before," he said at one point in a taped conversation with the informant, the complaint says.

As he and Sholar were preparing to transport 15 kilograms, or 33 pounds, of cocaine, "Nguyen told Sholar that he has done this many times and there are things that need to be done," the complaint says.

Nguyen also suggested that Sholar might have been involved in other questionable dealings in his official capacity, saying in a recorded conversation that Sholar was involved in a Hawaii money laundering transaction, the complaint says.

Federal officials said this is the first time an air marshal has been accused of using his official capacity to smuggle drugs.

Hearing set for Thursday

Nguyen and Sholar made an initial appearance Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith on drug conspiracy charges. Smith scheduled a arraignment and detention hearing for Thursday.

Nguyen's attorney, Kent Schaffer, said, "It's premature to be slamming the prison door shut." He said new information would shed "a whole different light on what is being portrayed today."
Sholar appeared without an attorney.

A federal official said both had been suspended without pay.

Little information was available about Sholar's background, but the complaint said Nguyen was an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration from 1997 to 2002.

They are accused of conspiring to smuggle 15 kilograms of cocaine supplied by federal investigators for $4,500 per kilogram.

Harris County Sheriff's deputies arrested Nguyen and Sholar on Thursday shortly after they left Nguyen's Houston home, where the informant had delivered the cocaine in two black pieces of carry-on luggage with $15,000 in "up front" money, according to the complaint.
Probe started in November

The complaint says deputies found $5,000 in marked bills on Sholar and a firearm and methamphetamine in his pickup. The cocaine and $9,342 were found at Nguyen's residence.
Nguyen and Sholar are charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life in prison and a maximum fine of $4 million.

The complaint says the two air marshals had agreed with the informant to bypass airport security at Bush Intercontinental Airport to smuggle the cocaine on board a flight bound for Las Vegas, Nev.

The Office of Inspector General for the Homeland Security Department and the FBI began an investigation in November after learning that Nguyen had been involved in narcotics sales, the complaint said.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle declined to discuss how officials first became suspicious of Nguyen.

The complaint said that after twice giving the informant cash to invest in drug trafficking, Nguyen told the informant he wanted to help smuggle drugs.

Before the sting operation that led to his arrest, Nguyen smuggled cash from drug sales and forged documents through airport security and on another occasion smuggled 2 kilograms, 4.4 pounds, of cocaine, according to the complaint.

Nguyen is accused of accepting $10,000 in cash Dec. 21 to bypass airport security with a package containing $25,000 in drug proceeds and fraudulent government documents.
On his second effort, he bypassed security with 2 kilograms of cocaine supplied to the informant by law enforcement.

Later Nguyen discussed smuggling larger loads of cocaine with the informant and the need to bring in others to assist, according to the criminal complaint. Sholar, whom Nguyen referred to in recordings as "my boy," is accused of joining in the plan to smuggle the 15 kilograms of cocaine, making hotel and airline reservations for himself and Nguyen.

harvey.rice@chron.com

Reject the War on Drugs

2006-02-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n201/a02.html
Pubdate: Wed, 15 Feb 2006
Source: Baltimore Chronicle (MD)
Contact: editor@baltimorechronicle.com
Copyright: 2006 The Baltimore Chronicle and the SentinelWebsite:

REJECT THE WAR ON DRUGS

Both conservatives and liberals have waged their war on drugs for decades, and they have reaped nothing but drug gangs, drug lords, robberies, thefts, muggings, murders, dirty needles, overcrowded prisons, decimated families..... Conservatives never cease to fascinate me, given their professed devotion to "freedom, free enterprise, and limited government" and their ardent support of policies that violate that principle. One of the most prominent examples is the drug war. In fact, if you're ever wondering whether a person is a conservative or a libertarian, a good litmus-test question is, How do you feel about the war on drugs? The conservative will respond, "Even though I believe in freedom, free enterprise, and limited government, we've got to continue waging the war on drugs." The libertarian will respond, "End it. It is an immoral and destructive violation of the principles of freedom, free enterprise, and limited government."

The most recent example of conservative drug-war nonsense is an article entitled "Winning the Drug War," by Jonathan V. Last in the current issue of The Weekly Standard, one of the premier conservative publications in the country. In his article, Last cites statistics showing that drug usage among certain groups of Americans has diminished and that supplies of certain drugs have decreased. He says that all this is evidence that the war on drugs is finally succeeding and that we just need to keep waging it for some indeterminate time into the future, when presumably U.S. officials will finally be able to declare "victory."

What conservatives never tell us is how final "victory" in the "war on drugs" will ultimately be measured. Of course, we've heard this type of "positive" drug-war nonsense for the past several decades, at least since Richard Nixon declared war on drugs back in the 1970s. What conservatives never tell us is how final "victory" will ultimately be measured. Like all other drug warriors for the past several decades, Last doesn't say, "The statistics are so good that the drug war has now been won and therefore we can now end it," but rather, "Victory is right around the corner. The statistics are getting better. Let's keep going."

Last failed to mention what is happening to the people of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where drug lords compete violently to export illegal drugs into the United States to reap the financial benefits of exorbitant black-market prices and profits that the drug war has produced. Recently drug gangs fired high-powered weapons and a grenade into the newsroom of La Manana, killing Jaime Orozco Tey, a 40-year-old father of three. Several other journalists have been killed in retaliation for their stories on the drug war, and newspapers are now self-censoring in fear of the drug lords. There are also political killings in Nuevo Laredo arising out of the drug war, including the city's mayor after he had served the grand total of nine hours in office. According to the New York Times, "In Nuevo Laredo, the federal police say average citizens live in terror of drug dealers. Drug-related killings have become commonplace." The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says that the U.S.-Mexico border region is now one of the world's most dangerous places for reporters. Not surprisingly, Last did not mention these statistics in his "We're winning the drug war" article.

During Prohibition, there were undoubtedly people such as Last claiming, "Booze consumption is down. We're winning the war on booze. Al Capone is in jail. We've got to keep on waging the war on booze until we can declare final victory." Fortunately, Americans living at that time finally saw through such nonsense, especially given the massive Prohibition-related violent crime that the war on booze had spawned. They were right to finally legalize the manufacture and sale of alcohol and treat alcohol consumption as a social issue, not a criminal-justice problem.

Both conservatives and liberals have waged their war on drugs for decades, and they have reaped nothing but drug gangs, drug lords, robberies, thefts, muggings, murders, dirty needles, overcrowded prisons, decimated families, record drug busts, government corruption, infringements on civil liberties, violations of financial privacy, massive federal spending, and, of course, ever-glowing statistics reflecting drug-war "progress." Americans would be wise to reject, once and for all, the war on drugs, and cast drug prohibition, like booze prohibition, into the ashcan of history.

Marijuana Study Dispels Link To Depression

2006-02-12T09:07:00.000-08:00

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n183/a05.html
Pubdate: Thu, 09 Feb 2006
Source: Daily Trojan (U of Southern CA Edu)
Copyright: 2006 Daily Trojan
Contact: dtrojan@usc.edu
Website: http://www.dailytrojan.com/

MARIJUANA STUDY DISPELS DRUG'S LINK TO DEPRESSION
The study's results show marijuana users are less depressed than non-users.

A recent study co-authored by a USC College researcher has discovered that there is no real link between regular use marijuana and symptoms of depression, dispelling a widely held assumption regarding the drug's use. Tom Denson, a USC doctoral candidate in psychology worked with Mitch Earleywine, an associate professor at the State University of New York, Albany, in conducting the study and writing the report. To Denson's surprise, the study found marijuana smokers to be less depressed than their non-smoking counterparts. The study was reported in the scientific medical journal "Addictive Behaviors" in June 2005. Earleywine was previously an associate professor at USC and the author of "Understanding Marijuana."

In addition to the report he co-authored with Denson, Earleywine has recently conducted and published three other studies on marijuana. In running the study, Denson and Earleywine contacted frequent users of marijuana and a smaller control group of non-users through the Internet. The test subjects completed Web-based surveys to gauge the level of marijuana use and researchers gauged depression levels using a scale developed by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies. Participants were categorized into those who consumed marijuana daily, once a week or less, or never in their lives. The survey also grouped subjects into various degrees of symptomatic depression ranging from none to severe.

Through the Internet, researchers were able to reach even those who might have been reluctant to be quizzed in person or on the phone. "We had nearly 4,500 respondents - the largest study of its kind," Denson said. The findings concluded that those who used marijuana had a less depressed mood, more positive effect and fewer somatic complaints than non-users, according to the report.

Overall, recreational and medicinal marijuana users were less depressed than non-smokers, but in a separate analysis, medicinal users reported more depressed mood and more somatic complaints than recreational users. Denson cited ambiguity in the scientific literature as to whether marijuana was associated with increased risk of depression as the initial motivation for conducting the study. "Numerous studies had found no link ( between marijuana use and depression ) while other studies found weak relationships between use of the drug and depression. We had initially suspected that these weak relationships may be due to the inclusion of medical users who may be rightfully depressed about their illness," Denson said.

Denson added that on another level, the researchers wanted to test whether marijuana users were really afflicted with "amotivational syndrome," as government-sponsored public service announcements frequently claim. "There is a tendency to associate the drug with an 'amotivational syndrome' in which marijuana users are presumed to be made apathetic and lazy due to the drug's effects," Denson said. "Our data and other research do not support that notion." Denson said college students who smoke marijuana receive comparable grades to those who abstain. Although the statistics for USC is unavailable, a study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that 15.7 percent of American college students had smoked marijuana in the past month. The study's findings on marijuana and its effects on depression contradict statements made recently by government officials.

In a May 3, 2005 release from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, director John Walters wrote, "Marijuana use, particularly during the teen years, can lead to depression, thoughts of suicide and schizophrenia." In response to the statements made by Walters, Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., argued that "science should be used to inform policy, not manipulated to scare the public," according to the group's Web site, www.mpp.org.

When asked what the controversial results of the study meant for college students and current users, Denson's answer was straightforward. "It's probably not a good idea to start smoking marijuana if you never have. However, if you do smoke marijuana, even every day, you are not putting yourself at any additional risk for depression," he said.

Kurt Vonnegut: A Requiem for the USA

2006-02-05T11:08:00.000-08:00

To readers and reviewers who have compared JUNK with Vonnegut, I admit claiming him as one of my favorite authors. And when I was 11 years old, I performed in a Texas Christian University production of Vonnegut's only stage play, "Happy Birthday Wanda June", playing the role of Paul. The script was full of sublime profanity, and I was overjoyed to see the mortified looks on my grandparents faces as they sat in the raucous audience of college students and wondered how in the hell their grandson had become involved with what they could only consider a lurid display of excess.

'All the other species are dying and so will we. I’m whistling as I walk past the graveyard... whistling as beautifully as I can'

Kurt Vonnegut is dwelling on the apocalypse. It’s not that his omelette isn’t good. It’s not that his mood is downcast, but for the third time over lunch in Manhattan, America’s funniest and most pessimistic novelist is explaining why he will welcome the end of the world. “I don’t like life very much for what it does to other people,” he says. This is by no means the most depressing statement he makes between starter and main course, but somehow, by the time we leave the restaurant I feel inspired and full of hope.

Taken at face value, Vonnegut’s worldview is appallingly bleak. He tells me that “all the other species are dying and so will we”. He argues that almost everybody is “humiliated, frustrated, terribly disappointed”, and compares life to an enforced spell in the army lasting 80 years instead of three. An hour in the company of such an acutely-aware Eeyore could be dispiriting, were it not for his belief in the redemptive power of creativity and his endless capacity for jokes. “I’m whistling as I walk past the graveyard,” he admits, “and I’m whistling as beautifully as I can.”

A Man Without A Country has been presented as Vonnegut’s final testament, eight years after he announced that he would never publish again. It contains many familiar themes, some old gags, and several passages lifted verbatim from previous essays and speeches, most of which first appeared in the left-wing magazine In These Times. He credits his publisher, Daniel Simon, with “doing for me what Jesus did for Lazarus”.

“I was so dead I stank,” he continues, “I’m as surprised as anyone to be back at the age of 83 and I’m embarrassed to have lived so long. I was in a house-fire some years ago and it would have been much more tasteful to have died back then.”

For all the references to his advanced years, and his continued loyalty to unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes, Vonnegut is in remarkably good health. His wheezing laugh, the tar-pit depths of his baritone and the occasional coughing fit testify to 70 years of smoking, but he doesn’t light up. In New York, even literary icons must keep their habit at home. A glass of wine is declined because “it hits me too hard these days”.

It has often been remarked that as he grows older, Vonnegut increasingly resembles Mark Twain, one of his heroes. The curls are tighter and darker, the moustache less pronounced, and despite his frailty he looks younger than Twain in his declining years, even though Huckleberry Finn’s creator never saw 75. The picture on the front cover of the new book, taken by his second wife, the renowned photographer, Jill Krementz, is a good one. “It’s a good face, fer chrissakes,” cackles Vonnegut.

Manners are important to him, and he regrets their passing. He is unfailingly courteous, and once wrote that if he dined with Richard Nixon’s defence secretary, he would discuss global annihilation with a smile. If promoting a new book is a chore, it never shows. He tells the waitress: “This place is great … I eat less than this on Thanksgiving.”

And so on.

Born in Indianapolis in 1922, Kurt Vonnegut Jr was encouraged to believe that once the Great Depression was over, technological advances would ensure prosperity for all. His father, an architect, insisted that he should become a scientist like his brother. “What actually happened,” he recalls in his collected speeches, “was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima. We killed everybody there.”

As he had recently experienced his mother’s suicide, fought in the second world war and witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden as a captive of the German army, he decided, not unreasonably, that there was no longer much cause for optimism. “I predicted that everything would become worse,” he says, “and everything has become worse.”

In 1958, Vonnegut’s sister Alice died of cancer the day after her husband John was killed in a train crash. Vonnegut and his first wife adopted their three children. They already had three of their own.

“I try to be truthful,” he continues, “My God, after the Holocaust isn’t it time we gave up as a species? After the first world war wasn’t it time we gave up? We’re perfectly awful animals and we’re intelligent enough to know about it.”

This dim view of humanity permeates Vonnegut’s fiction, without ever becoming corrosive, thanks to an endless parade of wild ideas, elegantly constructed comic set-pieces and cheap one-liners. Slaughterhouse Five, widely regarded as his definitive statement, views the horrors of Dresden through the eyes of a man who has become unstuck in time. Billy Pilgrim leaps from 1950s America to the planet Tralfamadore and back to Dresden again, a device Vonnegut describes as “the equivalent of [Shakespeare] bringing on the clowns every so often to lighten things up”.

Writing it was a painful experience lasting more than 20 years, and by the end all he felt able to conclude was: “I’ve finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun. This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.”

The novel has been a staple of US high school reading lists for three decades now, but Vonnegut’s work remains under- appreciated next to his avant-garde peers Thomas Pynchon, John Barth and William Gaddis. For too long, critics and academics stacked all science-fiction with the trash, assuming that books thousands of teenagers were enjoying on their own time did not merit serious consideration.

That stigma has faded, but there is still a sense that Vonnegut is both too whimsical and too accessible for America’s literary custodians, an issue he has himself addressed, writing that “clarity looks a lot like laziness and ignorance and childishness and cheapness to them. Any idea which can be grasped immediately is for them, by definition, something they knew all the time”.

In A Man Without A Country, Vonnegut plays with this notion that he has been cheated of due recognition, claiming that he hasn’t been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature because he once ran a Saab dealership that went bust and consequently bad-mouthed the Swedes. “I think it was great that Pinter won,” he says “and it was a fine speech. Perhaps as a result of this book they’ll give me one too. I just need to make it to October and I get a million dollars.” He’s kidding, although his publisher points out that his work is always translated into Swedish, just to make sure it doesn’t slip past the Nobel committee.

If there is a lingering hunger for acceptance, Vonnegut hides it well. “I’m just the asshole who broke the bank at Monte Carlo,” he says, and if it’s a well-worn line, he seems ready enough to believe it. “Listen, I have no idea how it happens,” he continues. “There are plenty of artists that have no idea how they did it. I don’t think any of us know what we are. I seem to have had a destiny, so I did it.

“Beethoven died shaking his fist at God because all this music was still pouring out of him. I don’t know how the hell I did it. What people say is they’re possessed, and I suspect that we’re more possessible than we realise. Something just takes over.”

Vonnegut has threatened to quit several times. Long before he formally declared that Timequake would be his last book, in 1997, he was fond of reminding people that of all the great writers only Tolstoy produced his best work after 45. Is there not some slim chance that he will be possessed again?

“I don’t care,” he answers, “I don’t think it would be particularly good news. I feel like I’ve fulfilled my destiny. I’m completely in print. I’ve been allowed to say everything I’ve wanted to say. I’ve said that this country needs another novel the way the world needs another Sistine Chapel or another Beethoven’s Ninth.”

As to what the country does need, Vonnegut is less sure. His last book, if it is his last, is an excoriating attack on modern American society in all its greed and stupidity, but there is no pay-off or conclusion. It ends not with a revolution but with a requiem.

Vonnegut’s contempt for George Bush and his government is expressed with great force and clarity in A Man Without A Country, but his feelings of alienation from his homeland are nothing new. In 1972 he covered the Republican Convention for Harper’s Magazine, describing Nixon as “the first president to hate American people and all they stand for”. It was there he concluded that the USA’s two party system is one of winners and losers, rather than Democrats and Republicans, and the winners win no matter who gets into office. This being so, surely there is some consolation in the fact that the current president is such a ripe satirical target?

“I suppose so,” he acknowledges, “but the country is terribly at risk, because his stupidities have terrible consequences, leading to deaths of many people, rotten schools, rotten healthcare. He should be protecting us not only from insurgents or terrorists but from disease and ignorance, and he’s not about to do either.

“Still, there’s not much difference. [Democratic candidate, John] Kerry said out of the side of his mouth at one point that he’s not for re-distributing wealth. He and George Bush belong to the same social class, went to the same university, belong to the same gentleman’s club. Can you believe that, in a country of 300 million people, we have to choose between two members of Skull & Bones [a secret society] at Yale?”

Vonnegut votes Democrat, but describes himself as socialist, in the tradition of Carl Sandburg, Eugene Victor Debs and Powers Hapgood. Does he find it troubling that there is no socialist party of note in the US, that historians of the right can claim that the left has demonstrably failed?

“They have socialised medicine in Sweden and Canada, I wish to God we had it,” he answers, “there are socialist experiments going on everywhere. In the Communist Manifesto, what they demanded was free education and free healthcare. One of the most beneficial social experiments in this country was the GI Bill Of Rights – when we came home we could all go to college for free.”

Last week, George Bush used his annual State Of The Union address to declare that his government is meeting its responsibility to provide healthcare for the poor and the elderly and spearheading a global quest for peace. Vonnegut’s stump speech states the opposite. In the land of his internal exile, corporate profiteers rule unchecked, extended families have been split into desperately vulnerable nuclear groups, “lethal injection and warfare are forms of entertainment” and Americans are “as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis once were”.

When challenged about this last statement, Vonnegut repeats that US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and vice- president Dick Cheney are “jut-jawed, like Nazis” and argues that the main difference is that the Germans were justly feared for their military prowess.

“We have no army,” he says, “What makes us the most powerful nation on Earth is our willingness to kill people in their thousands with remote-controlled missiles, the fact that we’re prepared to set off nuclear explosions in the middle of unarmed people – men, women and children.

“Only one country has been crazy enough to set off a nuke in the middle of a civilian population. Did it twice, and that’s when members of my generation, soldiers, could see that ‘we’re not the good guys any more’. We were very careful not to hurt civilians.”

In his rage and despair he invokes the true guardians of America’s soul, quoting from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and Christ’s Sermon On The Mount. For a confirmed humanist, he mentions the Beatitudes surprisingly often, arguing that the President’s fundamentalist friends have forgotten the meek, the merciful, and the peacemakers.

Vonnegut once observed that he was at his funniest two days after Martin Luther King Jr was shot, because he was speaking to an audience “full of pain that they couldn’t do anything about … there was an enormous need to either laugh or cry”.

The punchline count is high in A Man Without A Country, as it has been in every one of his novels. On the first page he explains that, as the youngest child in a family of five, making jokes was the only way to get noticed in adult conversation. Reporting on the fall of Biafra in 1970, he noticed he still cracked wise as the Nigerian army approached, writing that “joking was my response to misery I couldn’t do anything about”.

Crucially, it has not been his only reflex. What elevates his work above gallows humour and exposes him as an idealist in pessimist’s clothing is his palpable compassion and the way in which he appeals to his readers’ better natures. “Practising any art is a way to make your soul grow,” he writes, and it is clear that this has been his own salvation. As we speak, he raises a glass : “To the arts.”

Later, when the food arrives, Vonnegut talks about the teacher who inspired him, James C Bean, reminding me that “the Great Depression was going on, and there were no good jobs, so it was a wonderful break to get to be a teacher or a mailman. Some of the best and smartest people in Indianapolis were teaching in school.

“All it takes is one great teacher,” he continues, and though he would never be so conceited as to admit it, he has evidently been that teacher, for his seven children, for students at various American universities, and for three generations of science-fiction fans.

What he has consistently taught is that art alone can rescue his homeland, through a series of personal revolutions. This belief in the transformative power of creativity is expressed beautifully in the preface to Wampeters, Foma, & Granfalloons (Opinions). “I now believe,” he writes, “that the only way in which Americans can rise above their ordinariness, can mature sufficiently to rescue themselves and to help rescue the planet, is through enthusiastic intimacy with works of their own imaginations.

“I am not especially satisfied with my own imaginative works, my fiction. I am simply impressed by the unexpected insights which shower down on me when my job is to imagine, as contrasted with the woodenly familiar ideas which clutter my desk when my job is to tell the truth.”

At 83, Vonnegut has been convinced by a publisher from his children’s generation that his last task is to tell the truth. He has decided that the proximity of environmental catastrophe will probably make him unfunny for the rest of his life. He is unrepentant in his pessimism, and he wishes he wasn’t a writer. He wishes, as he has always wished, that he was a musician.

“Music gives pleasure as we never can,” he reasons. “I’ve said that the purpose of the arts is to make people like life more than they had done before, and people ask me if I’ve seen this done and I say, ‘Yes, the Beatles did it’ – it was an amazing event.”

In Breakfast Of Champions, Vonnegut’s satirical take on the madness of consumer society, science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout longs to be seen as “a representative of all the thousands of artists who devoted their entire lives to a search for truth and beauty – and didn’t find doodley-squat”. It is his master’s voice. Vonnegut’s lifetime of searching has left him weary, and he is reluctant to claim much credit for the wonders he has unlocked for millions of readers.

After lunch, as he climbs into the back of a waiting car, he offers this parting shot: “Remember, I don’t know how I did it.”

05 February 2006
© 2006 newsquest (sunday herald) limited

A Bomb For You...

2006-02-04T11:36:00.000-08:00

For those of you who retain any last shred of faith in our justice system, it may come as a shock to learn that Denton is home to dozens of people convicted of sex crimes against children 13 and younger, all the way down to an appalling age 4, who never served a single day in jail. You may be more shocked to discover that some of these predators have been convicted of multiple offenses against multiple children. You may be even more shocked to realize this same injustice is occurring all across our nation. If someone rapes a child in America, he or she might not serve any jail time.

Sit with that a moment… The same system of “justice” that sentences vandals, petty thieves and marijuana users to jail, might release a child rapist back into your neighborhood. As if personal property and morality were more important than public safety, and pot smokers and pilferers were more threatening than perverted predators.

This disparity is not for lack of resources. After all, the United States leads the world in incarceration rates, largely due to Draconian drug policies implemented in the name of “protecting the children”. Our judges lock up a higher percentage of our population than Iraq, China, Iran, and North Korea, yet many of these judges fail to even temporarily incarcerate child predators. And American children are being abducted, raped, videotaped for the perverse pleasure of monsters, tortured, and murdered. In at least one case last year, a beautiful little girl named Jessica Lunsford was murdered by a previously convicted molester who was set free to enter her bedroom window, abduct her, rape her repeatedly for two days, and bury her alive in her neighbor’s yard.

This is inexcusable. It should make us sick at heart, angry in spirit, and most importantly, active. A national judicial scandal of this magnitude should cause massive political reverberations, as people elect to replace the legislators, district attorneys and judges who lack the insight or the concern to prioritize the protection of children, families, and communities.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the national media to cover this issue. Pundits have repeatedly reported that Vermont Judge Cashman sentenced an admitted child rapist (the girl was six years old, with assaults occurring over a four-year period) to a pathetic 60 days in jail. However, these reporters spun the story as an isolated incident involving a single renegade judge who needs to be removed, and they failed to cover the broader issue.

None dare call it corruption, but information regarding probated sentences for child rapists is easily available online at sex offender registry sites. At the very least, media moguls have been negligent. Are they hoping people will simply raise an outcry against one judge, engage in primal scream therapy, and then move on to the next flavor of the month, without changing the system itself?

I was determined to find out, so I contacted representatives at CNN, FOX, and MSNBC, and they didn’t even want to talk about it. They didn’t return my calls or my emails. I’ve contacted the Denton Record-Chronicle over several months, to no avail. Finally, while waiting for police to arrive at my home so I could report a toy bullet that was suspiciously left in the back of my car on Martin Luther King Day, I called our local child advocacy center about the possibility of joining forces. I was told they didn’t want to get involved in political issues that might upset the system of cooperation between law enforcement officials, district attorneys, and therapists. The one group that remained unmentioned was the children themselves.

The truth is painful, but we have to face the fact that our society is failing our kids. We teach them to obey adults, to respect their elders, to stay quiet, to not resist. Our school districts are often less secure than our shopping malls, lacking sufficient security to prevent violent individuals (including predators, terrorists, or mentally unstable students) from harming children, yet we expend resources to teach these kids the ultimate lesson in acquiescence, forcing them to drop their pants and urinate on command, when being “drug free” (excluding “good” prescription drugs like amphetamines and anti-depressents, which render children easier to control) takes precedence over freedom from violence. Then we fail to provide them with information about their bodies and their rights. Having rendered them psychologically helpless to defend themselves, we then release convicted child predators into their neighborhoods. And when children who are raped grow up to develop drug dependencies (as many do, trying to self-medicate symptoms associated with depression, anxiety, and PTSD) or to become prostitutes (again, trying to self-medicate), we’ll throw those crime victims in jail for their involvement with prohibited drugs and prostitution, while child rapists walk the street to create more victims (and therefore more drug abuse and prostitution). To add insult to injury, our federal government will deny the drug-using rape victims financial aid for college (thanks to a controversial anti-drug clause contained in the Higher Education Act of 1998), while their rapists attend universities with our tax dollars. That's right. Our federal legislators don't want tax dollars to support the illegal drug use, but they will buy the knife, duct tape, pharmaceutical drugs and videocamera the child pornographers will use on their next victims.

As a survivor of sexual abuse and child pornography who gave personal testimony to a Texas committee hearing on child advocacy, my blood is boiling. As a father of two beautiful children I delivered with my own trembling hands, I am afraid for them. More importantly, I am bound and determined to do anything in my legal power to change this deplorable injustice.

You can join me and other survivors, parents, and advocacy groups, who are creating a new organization called Building BLOCK - Better Lives for Our Communities and Kids, which will expose this nightmare, along with the authorities who perpetuate the perpetration. Building BLOCK will offer an interactive U.S. map that will provide county by county contact information, case profiles, broad data, and photos of these renegade judges, district attorneys, police chiefs, and school officials, who refuse to prioritize public safety over private morality and health.

Incompetent and corrupt officials take note. The people have grown weary of the ineptitude and apathy that allows fundamental liberties to deteriorate while violence devastates our communities. If you do not prioritize public safety over personal morality, we will ensure you are deprioritized at the ballet box, and shamed in the public eye. If you have kids, hug them tight when you tuck them in tonight. They deserve your protection. And if you aren’t enraged yet, you must be dead or asleep. Here’s to waking up and breaking the silence.

Committee wages fight against junk food

2006-02-04T11:31:00.001-08:00

Just what we need, another war. Who says JUNK isn't prophetic?

Nutritionist leads charge in Idaho schools

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Stephanie Rose walked into the lunchroom of the Idaho Falls High School with a homemade chart and tallied what she found: Canisters of potato chips. Heaps of candy. Cellophane-wrapped cakes. High-caffeine sports drinks.

Twelve percent of the foods offered by the district a la carte program were granola or cereal bars, fruits, vegetables, or low-fat chips or pretzels. The other 88 percent included nachos, corn dogs, chips and cookies.

"For 25 cents you can buy 310 calories," said Rose, a nurse and diabetes educator who attended Idaho Falls High in the 1980s, when she had to take a helping of beans on her plate whether she wanted them or not.

These days, the school promotes "Corn dogs: two for a dollar," she says. "Good Lord, what are you trying to do here?"

Rose studied the food offerings for a school wellness committee, and she's campaigning to get rid of junk food. But she's facing opposition from some parents and school officials who say that if they ban school snacks, the kids will just buy them somewhere else. It will also cut off money that pays for equipment and programs.

It's a sticky question that many schools face these days.

Balancing health, choices

Idaho Falls High School Principal Randy Hurley says he wants the kids to eat well, but his main concern is keeping the school clean.

"If we become more restrictive here, within half a block the kids can go purchase what they're interested in," Hurley said. "One of our greatest concerns is they'll bring in the big beverage cups. You spill a 44-ounce drink and you have half a gallon of liquid to clean up."
Tracie Miller, a mother and school board member who is on the wellness committee, hears that argument a lot. It doesn't sway her.

"A lot of them leave campus and buy cigarettes. Should we sell cigarettes to make money?" Miller said.

Then there's the question of choice.

"If you just take everything away from them and say it's all bad, you're not teaching them to make a decision," said Cindy Ozaki, head of the Parent Teacher Organization for Longfellow Elementary. "We are telling parents, we're going to tell you how you should raise your children and what you should be buying."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture allows school districts to sell "competitive" food such as candy and cookies alongside the regular lunch. Ozaki's PTO and other school groups also make money selling cookie dough, cheesecakes, candy and other items -- money that goes for school equipment and programs.

Laws try to curb obesity

As in the rest of the country, Idaho residents are getting fatter. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2003 that nearly 60 percent of adults in Idaho were considered overweight or obese. Rose said one-third of the patients she sees who are at risk for diabetes are under the age of 18.

The Idaho Falls district wellness committee is the result of a federal law that directs all school districts to have a policy in place by the end of June. But the law has no teeth in it; nothing happens if districts don't come up with a plan.

For now, the Idaho Falls committee is proposing minor changes -- banning sales of candy in the lunchroom and limiting the size of sodas sold in vending machines. Miller and Rose want to get rid of all school junk food.

Miller questions the whole premise of school snack sales, noting that the companies providing the products make a profit. She suggests that asking people to give money directly to the school makes more sense than selling a tub of cookie dough for $12 and splitting the profit with the vendor.

Then, she and Rose will take aim at the rest of what's offered -- like lunch plates piled with pizza and French fries slathered with ranch dressing.

Rose believes she and Miller will find support in Idaho Falls, a town of about 50,000. The federal law is prompting everyone to take a look at school food, she said.

"It's going to sort out the school districts who care about their kids from the ones who don't," she said.

Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/02/03/diet.school.food.ap/index.html

Editorial: Bush's War on T-Shirts

2006-02-03T07:08:00.000-08:00

Let me get this straight. Capitol security forces twice diverted resources away from protecting the building from terroristic attacks during the State of the Union Address, in order to crack down on two menacing t-shirts? Sounds like a serious misprioritization, not to mention a violation of fundamental constitutional principles. Check this out...

Published on Thursday, February 2, 2006 by the Madison Capital-Times (Wisconsin)

Minutes before the U.S. president would tell Congress how much he appreciates "responsible criticism and counsel," the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq was dragged from a gallery overlooking the House chamber, handcuffed and arrested for the "crime" of wearing a T-shirt that read: "2,245 dead. How many more?"

Cindy Sheehan, who had been invited to attend George Bush's State of the Union address by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, the California Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, did not put the "dangerous" shirt on for the event. The woman whose protest last summer outside the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, drew international attention to the anti-war movement had been wearing it at events earlier in the day.

Indeed, as Sheehan, who had passed through Capitol security monitors without incident, noted, "I knew that I couldn't disrupt the address because Lynn had given me the ticket and I didn't want to be disruptive out of respect for her."

No one has suggested that Sheehan was in any way disruptive. So why was she arrested?

Because, as Sheehan recounts, she was identified as a dissident.

Before the arrest, media reports buzzed about official concern over Sheehan's presence. And, as she was being dragged from a room where Bush would shortly extol the virtues of freedom and liberty, police explicitly told Sheehan that she was being removed "because you were protesting."

Capitol Police and other security officials, whose rough treatment of Sheehan was witnessed by dozens of people who attended Bush's speech, said she was arrested for "unlawful conduct." Conveniently, she was held until after the president finished speaking. The next day. the charges were dropped.

Is there really a law against wearing a political T-shirt to the State of the Union address? No.
The Capitol Police do have protocols that are followed in order to avoid "incidents" during major events. But their own actions Tuesday night confirm that Sheehan was singled out for rough justice.

Beverly Young, the wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, showed up for the State of the Union address sporting a T-shirt that read, "Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom." When Capitol Police asked her to leave the gallery because she was wearing clothing that featured a political message, Young says, she argued loudly with officers and called one of them "an idiot."

But Young was not handcuffed. She was not dragged from the Capitol. She was not arrested. She was not jailed.

Sheehan, who caused no ruckus, was arrested not because she engaged in "unlawful conduct." Rather, by all accounts, she was arrested because of what her T-shirt said and, by extension, because of what she believes.

That makes this a most serious matter. Rep. Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is one of the senior members of the House, is right when he said that Sheehan's arrest by officers he refers to as "the president's Gestapo" tells us a lot more about George Bush and the sorry state of our basic liberties in the midst of the president's open-ended "war on terror" than anything that was said in the State of the Union address. "It shows he still has a thin skin," Stark said.
It also shows that the father of the Constitution, James Madison, was right when he warned that, in times of war, the greatest danger to America would not be foreign foes but presidents and their minions, who would abuse the powers of the executive branch with the purpose of "subduing the force of the people."

This one incident involving one T-shirt is a minor matter. But, seen in the context of the mounting evidence of constraints on legitimate protest, warrant-less wiretaps and the abuses of the Patriot Act, it reminds us of the truth of Madison's warning that "no nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

© 2006 The Capital Times

Police Apologize for First Amendment Violation

2006-02-01T17:31:00.000-08:00

A victory for Americans who believe that free speech and expression is more important than dress codes...

Police Apologize, Drop Charge Vs. Sheehan
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press

Capitol Police dropped a charge of unlawful conduct against anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on Wednesday and apologized for ejecting her and a congressman's wife from President Bush's State of the Union address for wearing T-shirts with war messages.

"The officers made a good faith, but mistaken effort to enforce an old unwritten interpretation of the prohibitions about demonstrating in the Capitol," Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer said in a statement late Wednesday.

"The policy and procedures were too vague," he added. "The failure to adequately prepare the officers is mine."

The extraordinary statement came a day after police removed Sheehan and Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, R-Fla., from the visitors gallery Tuesday night. Sheehan was taken away in handcuffs before Bush's arrival at the Capitol and charged with a misdemeanor, while Young left the gallery and therefore was not arrested, Gainer said.

"Neither guest should have been confronted about the expressive T-shirts," Gainer's statement said.

Gainer added that he was asking the U.S. attorney's office to drop the charge against Sheehan. The statement also said he apologized to the Youngs and "share the department's plans for avoiding this in the future."

"A similar message has been left with Mrs. Sheehan," Gainer said.

For his part, Bill Young said he was not necessarily satisfied.

"My wife was humiliated," he told reporters. He suggested that "sensitivity training" may be in order for Capitol Police.

A foreign-born American citizen who was the guest of Rep. Alcee Hastings (news, bio, voting record), D-Fla., also was taken by police from the gallery just above the House floor, Hastings said Wednesday.

The congressman met with Gainer and said he also requested a meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., about the incident.

"I'd like to find out more information," Hastings said in an interview, identifying the man only as being from Broward County in Florida. "He is a constituent of mine. I invited him proudly."

Sheehan's T-shirt alluded to the number of soldiers killed in Iraq: "2245 Dead. How many more?" Capitol Police charged her with a misdemeanor for violating the District of Columbia's code against unlawful or disruptive conduct on any part of the Capitol grounds, a law enforcement official said. She was released from custody and flew home Wednesday to Los Angeles.

Young's shirt had just the opposite message: "Support the Troops — Defending Our Freedom."

The two women appeared to have offended tradition if not the law, according to several law enforcement and congressional officials. By custom, the annual address is to be a dignified affair in which the president reports on the state of the nation. Guests in the gallery who wear shirts deemed political in nature have, in past years, been asked to change or cover them up.
Rules dealing mainly with what people can bring and telling them to refrain from reading, writing, smoking, eating, drinking, applauding or taking photographs are outlined on the back of gallery passes given to tourists every day.

However, State of the Union guests don't receive any guidelines, Hanley said. "You would assume that if you were coming to an event like the State of the Union address you would be dressed in appropriate attire," she said.
___
Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti contributed to this report.

Rant N' Roll

2006-01-30T05:29:00.000-08:00

America holds tremendous value for the world, particularly through the ideals which are espoused through the smudged print of its brittle constitution. But I feel great sorrow and anger when I consider that principles such as personal liberty and responsibility are treated as antiquated relics or impediments to "getting the job done", and are harnessed as sound-bite opportunities for political gain in a tainted system. Many of our so-called representatives have sold the interests and civil liberties of the people down the river, as if they were livestock to be traded.

Some fear-mongering politicians claim we must choose between liberty and security. They advocate warrantless wiretapping, specious wars (on drugs, Iraq, obesity - pick your flavor), and torture. Though they know our courts are imperfect (innocent people are often convicted), they support the death penalty (none dare call it murder), even for nonviolent (though ethically repugnant) crimes such as drug smuggling. They have built the world's largest prison system, incarcerating a higher percentage of the population than any nation on earth, in the name of a war on drugs to "protect the children", while simultaneously releasing thousands of child predators, rapists and killers onto our streets. These corrupt officials act like latent pedophiles, treating their constituents like children and then looking for any excuse to put their hands all over them, even inside them, "for our own good". They have attempted to mechanize humanity. And this is happening right here, in the "land of the free". We don't even own our own bodies anymore. It seems that slavery was not abolished after all, it merely became more covert.

The chickens have finally come home to roost, and the wolves are in our hen house. The pigs may be eating from gold-encrusted plates, but they can't hide their stench. Though America is the world's longest existing democratic republic, the citizenry must remain vigilant against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The founding forefathers did not include constitutional protections to protect us from foreign invaders, but from tyrants that might ascend within our own government. Now those protections are methodically being rendered impotent, one by one, by pigs who've seized the palace.

Wake up, people! Our nation is in crisis! Sound the alarms! Bury your remote controls! Forget the Superbowl and "reality" shows! Put down your booze, your tabloids, and your toilet seats! Call your senators! If you must gripe, do it to the right people! Who cares if the Liberty Bell is cracked? I bet the sucker still rings! Congress needs an enema! Take to the streets, raise your voices, and use your votes this November to flush these corrupt officials like royal turds!

The Mad Scientists – GEOPARISITISM

2006-01-27T15:52:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the dark underbelly of experimental psychedelic jazz funk, where conspiracies have global relevance and humanity (to quote brilliant comedian Bill Hicks), is “a virus with shoes”. The Mad Scientists descend into their laboratory to blaze musical trails like hallucinogenic tracers, mocking and deconstructing the capitalism, competition, greed, selfishness, waste, and spiritual disconnection that lead our human race to the precipice of self-annihilation. Geoparisitism will challenge listeners musically and socio-politically. A few of the songs function as fine singles, but this eclectic fusion is rich with sonic layers and overarching lyrical themes, and so deserves to be experienced in full, with a macrocosmically enlightened ear.

Steve Kubby Sick in Jail After Arrest at SF Airport

2006-01-27T05:47:00.000-08:00

In a prohibition-free nation, law enforcement and judicial resources could be divested and focused on taking (and keeping) violent criminals off the street. But the public (and public safety) is simply not served by medical marijuana patient Steve Kubby's imprisonment. The District Attorney might claim this is simply enforcement of the law, but if that's true, then the law needs changing. Besides, the DA chose to prioritize this case. Does he care more about power than people?

I wonder how many child molesters, rapists, armed robbers, spouse batterers, murderers and terrorists will be free in Placer County for the next six months, while Steve Kubby sits in jail, denied his medicine, getting sicker and sicker.

CALIFORNIA NORML RELEASE - JAN 26, 10:30 PM PST

Steve Kubby was arrested by a dozen police immediately upon landing at the San Francisco airport and has been whisked off to the Redwood City jail. A welcoming party of supporters and media were disappointed to discover that he had been spirited away out of sight through a back entrance.

"I'm really sick already," Kubby said from jail two hours afterwards, "I'm gonna start puking my brains out." He says his guards laughed at him when he requested Marinol. Kubby says he hasn't had marijuana for half a day and has begun to experience all of the symptoms of his life-threatening disease - nausea, headaches, swollen kidneys. He has chills and has not been able to get a blanket from the guards. "They don't understand that they're dealing with someone with cancer," he says.

Kubby is upset that he was arrested immediately off the plane, when he had offered to turn himself in voluntarily in Placer County on Tuesday. San Francisco airport police said that they had arrested him at the request of Placer County authorities. They said Kubby will be arraigned in court tomorrow morning, though it wasn't clear where - in Redwood City, where he is being detained, or in Placer County. Kubby did not even know where he was being detained when he called California NORML.

Aside from his inhumane medical treatment, Kubby says police have treated him politely. He embarked on his trip in good spirits in the hopes of finally resolving his fight with the law.

PROTEST INHUMANE TREATMENT OF STEVE KUBBY!

Kubby's attorney, Bill McPike, urges supporters to call on the Placer County authorities to release Kubby immediately.

Please contact: Bradford R. Fenocchio
Placer County District Attorney
(530) 889-7000(530) 889-7129 fax
bfenocch@placer.ca.gov
to voice your disapproval over Steve Kubby's inhumane treatment.

- D. Gieringer
California NORML
(415) 563-5858
canorml@igc.org
2215-R Market St. #278
San Francisco CA 94114

JUNK Review - David Brensilver

2006-01-22T16:43:00.000-08:00

"Christopher Largen's use of a War on Junk as an allegory for the War on Drugs is particularly successful at reminding us that what might seem, on its face, absurd, is no more absurd than the reality of certain blemishes on the face of American society. We know the idea that chocolate causes acne is a myth, just as we know that chocolate is not a gateway to more dangerous foods, such as the combination of ingredients that was my artery-clogging breakfast this morning. If marijuana is a so-called gateway, it is only a gateway to the foods made illegal in Junk. However, marijuana is illegal. The gateway to that dangerous bag of Cool Ranch Doritos in your pantry is closed, while alcohol, tobacco and firearms remain as legal as a tossed-salad, regulated for your safety. After all, we know that, individually and certainly in combination, alcohol, tobacco and firearms couldn't possibly be the gateway to anything dangerous. Largen's Junk is a must read for anyone not already a member of the choir. So, have a bacon cheeseburger and dive into Largen's satire. Or, try to convince yourself that the right gateways are secured for your own safety."

David A. Brensilver
Author of ExecTV, published in 2005 by ENC Press

Open Letter to Ohio Senator Jim Jordan

2006-01-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

I sent the following letter throughout the Ohio legislature...

Senator Jordan,

I'm an internationally-published writer, book author, and public speaker. My best friend and co-author, George McMahon, is one of seven patients who receive legal medical marijuana from the United States Government's Investigational New Drug program, administered by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. George smokes the federal marijuana to treat symptoms of pain, spasms and nausea related to surgical maltreatment, multiple accidents and injuries, and a rare genetic disorder called Nail Patella Syndrome. Prior to being accepted to the government program, George underwent 19 major surgeries, was declared clinically dead on several occasions, was taking 17 different pharmaceutical substances on a daily basis (including 400 morphine tablets per month), and used a wheelchair. Since being accepted to the federal marijuana program 16 years ago, George has had NO surgeries or hospitalizations, he no longer takes pharmaceutical substances (aside from the occasional antibiotic), and he swims, rides his bike, and travels the country to educate legislators about the medical value of cannabis. He even ran for Vice-President of the United States in the 90s, and is a recipient of the National Certificate of Heroism.

The other federal patients receive marijuana to treat symptoms associated with bone tumors, Multiple Sclerosis, and glaucoma. All of the federal patients, their doctors, and expert researchers report marked symptomatic improvement in these patients, with fewer side effects than pharmaceutical alternatives.

You were recently quoted in the Columbus Dispatch as saying, "Every place they try to do this, they say it's for medicinal purpose... I'm just totally opposed to that concept, which is why I'm not excited about having a hearing and will probably wait as long as possible to schedule one." I hope your comments merely reflect your lack of knowledge regarding the subject, rather than a bitter spirit bloated with power. Throwing sick and dying people in jail for using cannabis to treat their symptoms is morally repugnant and politically risky. A majority of your constituents support legalization and regulation of medical marijuana. It is your constitutional duty to represent them, not to threaten their sick loved ones with prison, or block legitimate attempts at receiving a fair and balanced hearing. Though you are ineligible to run for another four-year term, you must live by your conscience and your honor. The people you represent deserve better than misrepresentations, distortions, and obstruction of justice.

If your mother was undergoing cancer chemotherapy and could benefit from cannabis, would you really handcuff her to a wheelchair? Are you truly a conservative who supports smaller government and more liberty? Then take the time to educate yourself about valid scientific research from the international community. Search deep inside your heart, and then do the right thing.

Your Classic Iconoclast,

Christopher Largen
Author of Prescription Pot (New Horizon Press, 2003)
and JUNK (ENC Press, 2005)

DEA Agents: Thug-Smuggling

2006-01-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

DEA agents involved in drug smuggling, kidnappings, and murder? I wouldn't put it past some of them. And I wouldn't trust internal investigations within the Department of Justice, especially under the Bush administration.

US TN: Wiretap Whistleblower Or DEA Dupe?
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n082.a06.html
Pubdate: Thu, 19 Jan 2006
Source: Nashville Scene (TN)
Copyright: 2006 Nashville Scene
Contact: editor@nashvillescene.com
Website: http://www.nashscene.com/
Author: John Spargens

WIRETAP WHISTLEBLOWER OR DEA DUPE?

Local Assistant U.S. Attorney's Explosive Justice Department Allegations Make National Waves

The seven-page document reads like the screenplay for Scarface, had it been written by a Justice Department attorney instead of Oliver Stone. U.S. Drug Enforcement agents in Bogota, Colombia, help local drug lords traffic narcotics. When a confidential informant tips off DEA agents in Florida about the illegal actions of their Bogota counterparts, a Florida agent alerts DEA higher-ups and is put on administrative leave. Meanwhile, DEA agents in Bogota summon an informant to a meeting; as he leaves, he is murdered.

It's not Scarface. It's a December 2004 memo written by Thomas M. Kent, a lawyer then working in the Justice Department's Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section ( NDDS ) who is now an assistant U.S. attorney in the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the middle district of Tennessee. It was first reported this week by The Narco News Bulletin, an online newsletter that publishes Latin American and U.S. news about the war on drugs. Kent, whom present and former colleagues praise as smart and honest, sent the whistleblower memo to NDDS Chief Jodi Avergun and deputy chief Michael Walther with the subject line, "Operation Snowplow-Dissemination of information on corruption within the DEA and the mishandling of related investigations by OPR to the Public Integrity Section." The memo, which is stamped "Confidential," contains explosive allegations.

Corrupt DEA agents stationed in Bogota allow U.S.-friendly informants to be locked up, kidnapped and killed because they're disrupting the narco-trade that lines the agents' pockets. These same rogue federal law enforcers leak damaging details about informants to people who want them dead. A Bogota informant makes jailhouse contact-in one case, videotaped-with a member of an armed Colombian insurgent group who wants to obtain illegal communication equipment. Eventually, the informant tells Miami DEA agents that there is weapons-grade nuclear material for sale in Spain.

Time and time again, Bogota-based DEA agents shut down the investigation against colleagues' wishes. Eventually, they claim that the informant is a pedophile, although a Bogota agent "could not provide any evidence to support it," Kent wrote. Just as important as Kent's allegations of corruption in Colombia, though, is his contention that the Justice Department covered it up. "The first allegation was brought to OPR," he wrote, referring to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility. "

By all accounts OPR did nothing about it. When confronted with the allegations, the investigators at OPR treated the reporting agents as if they had a disease and did not want anything to do with them or the evidence they amassed." Kent wrote that one agent was fired and another was retaliated against after blowing the whistle on corruption; he also claimed that OPR failed to transmit damning documents to the Inspector General's office. Furthermore, he wrote, an informant with incriminating information against Bogota DEA agents passed a polygraph test, but the examiner was "instructed by OPR not to report on the test. He was instructed that the test never took place."

Sounds pretty Orwellian. But is it true? In response to media requests, a branch of the Justice Department is looking into it. "DEA takes very seriously any allegations of misconduct, abuse of position or criminal action," says agency spokesman Garrison K. Courtney, in a statement provided to the Scene. "The allegations that are reported in the Narco News Bulletin are extremely serious. DEA's Office of Professional Responsibility is reviewing the allegations that have been made." Courtney says the Justice Department's Inspector General is in charge of any investigation that may or may not be conducted in response to the memo's disclosure. One insider says that an investigation was done by the Inspector General's office in 2002, and Kent's charges all proved false.

"It's absolute B.S.," says a Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's been completely investigated, and it's totally baseless. Tom is a smart young lawyer, and he was, I believe, taken in by a couple of disgruntled DEA agents who had an axe to grind at the agency, and were part of a rivalry between DEA Florida and DEA Bogota." According to this official, confidential informants are the lifeblood of DEA investigations, and Kent stepped right into a turf war without knowing it. His four-alarm memo was well intended, then, but false, the source says.

Kent, who now works on wiretapping for Nashville-related federal drug investigations, didn't return calls for this story. His current boss, U.S. Attorney Jim Vines, says he's an outstanding attorney and a great asset to the department. "He does a great job, he's a very experienced prosecutor, very knowledge about T3s," says Vines, referring to the complex federal statutory scheme for wiretaps-the kind for which you still need court approval. "It's a very tricky area, and you can get in trouble when you don't do it correctly.... To have him assigned here has been a godsend to us."

Before he moved to the Justice Department, Kent worked for the New York attorney general in a special narcotics office in Manhattan. He eventually moved to the federal Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, where he wrote the memo, before taking the job in the local U.S. Attorney's office. Vines tells the Scene that he didn't know about Kent's memo until recently, although one source says the Nashville U.S. Attorney's Office knew about it before Kent was hired approximately one year ago. Regardless, his supervisors and colleagues say he has their full confidence-and more importantly, he's very good at what he does. But he's either one of the biggest whistleblowers in DEA history or a super-sized sucker who put his career on the line for a few washed-up law enforcement jerks.

According to the Justice Department source, the investigation prompted by Kent's 2004 memo didn't lead to any disciplinary measures against agents in Bogota or Miami, nor did it hurt Kent's career. "[T]he cracks in the lid DEA and OPR has [sic] attempted to place on this problem are getting bigger. It is only a matter of time before this thing explodes," Kent wrote 13 months ago. "If we are unable to arrange for a sit down between the reporting agents and those attorneys within the Department of Justice who are tasked with ensuring that corrupted agents and officials are held accountable, then I firmly believe that we will watch from the sidelines as the allegations play out in a courtroom, on the news, and/or on Capital [sic] Hill." Did Kent get taken advantage of by disgruntled DEA agents, or was he silenced by his Justice Department superiors? Only a handful of people can answer that question, and so far, Kent's not talking.

Questioning US Arrest Statistics

2006-01-18T14:19:00.000-08:00

Who would you rather have living next door to you, a pot smoker or a pedophile? The following article raises serious issues for police, judges, criminologists, and citizens...

Pubdate: Wed, 18 Jan 2006
Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Copyright: 2006 The Christian Science Publishing Society
Contact: http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/contactus.pl
Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/
Author: Scott Christianson
Note: Author is a former NY state criminal justice official, is the author of several books about crime and punishment.

QUESTIONING US ARREST STATISTICS

SAND LAKE, N.Y. -- Policing in the United States has changed a lot during the past 50 years. Higher education and training requirements have led to greater police professionalism, and most departments' ranks have benefited from huge increases of personnel, stunning technological advancements, forensics breakthroughs, and affirmative action policies that presumably have led to a more representative workforce sensitive to civil rights. Policing's academic side has also prospered from decades of ample government research grants. Many observers credit the police because reported crime in the nation has generally been going down for nearly a decade. Reported homicides in New York City and other jurisdictions recently hit their lowest level in more than 40 years.

But discussions of police performance often fail to note another important but overlooked trend, apparently unrelated to the falling crime rate: Federal statistics reveal that the nation's "clearance rate" - the percentage of cases for which police arrest or identify a suspect - has fallen dramatically. And this shift is fraught with implications. The arrest clearance rate for reported homicides recently dropped to about 60 percent compared with about 90 percent 50 years ago. This means that a murderer today has about a 40 percent chance of avoiding arrest compared with less than 10 percent in 1950.

The record for other FBI Index Crimes is even more dismal: The clearance rates have sunk to 42 percent for forcible rape, 26 percent for robbery, and 13 percent for burglary and motor vehicle theft, all way down from earlier eras. In Boston, the homicide clearance rate plummeted to only 28 percent in 2004 - a shocking development for a city that gained lavish praise for crime reductions in the 1990s.

Judging a police department or the criminal justice system as a whole based simply on arrest statistics wouldn't be wise, for the police can and do fulfill many crucial functions in our society, such as maintaining public order and helping to protect citizens from terrorist attack. But ignoring measures of how the police deal with reported serious crime isn't smart either.

It's not that America's cops haven't been making arrests - in fact, their total annual arrests jumped from 3.3 million in the nation in 1960 to 14 million in 2004, a staggering number that helps to explain why the United States imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world. So, if reported crime has been going down and arrests have gone up, what accounts for the plummeting arrest clearance rates for murder, robbery, rape, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft?

Part of the answer must involve drug law enforcement - victimless offenses that aren't reported to the police or included as FBI Index Crimes. Instead of arresting suspects for burglaries and other serious reported crimes, cops today spend much of their energy going after illegal drugs. Their arrest rate for drug possession ( especially marijuana ) has shot up more than 500 times from what it was in 1965.

And what are some possible implications of this shift? For one thing, it may give criminals the impression they can get away with nondrug related crimes. For another, it may lessen public support for the police. Polls show those who live in "high crime" neighborhoods are generally the most dissatisfied with the police. Maybe this is because they have reported to the police that they have been victimized by robbery and other serious crimes, then witnessed that the police are not arresting anyone for it but are instead aggressively waging a "war on drugs" in the community.

Nevertheless, the matter of falling arrest clearance rates hasn't received much scrutiny from the police or the public. Asked why the arrest clearance rate has dropped so much, one leading police scholar, Professor David Bayley of the State University of New York at Albany, said, "I haven't a clue. I've been involved in the field for 40 years and best as I can tell, nobody has even raised this stuff. Hearing about it now is like being hit by a bus."

One interpretation might be that the changing statistics actually indicate that today's police are acting more judiciously, for as one former New York Police Department homicide detective, now a private investigator, put it, "Just because cops were more likely to arrest somebody in the old days than they are today doesn't mean they didn't make a lot of mistakes back then, by beating false confessions out of innocent people and such." Whatever the reasons, this significant trend in the police response to reported crime should prompt some serious discussion about contemporary law enforcement's priorities and effectiveness.

I Found A Bullet In My Car

2006-01-18T11:20:00.000-08:00

I never imagined that a stray bullet would show up in the back seat, especially on Martin Luther King Day. When I bought my car ten months ago, it was totally clean, to my knowledge. I do not own a gun, so the ammunition had to come from somewhere else.

This bullet has worried me. I used to protest Ku Klux Klan rallies across Texas. My writings have attacked certain government officials, drug kingpins, and child molesters. I have counted some very nasty people among my political opponents. So if the ammo was purposefully left in my car as a veiled attempt at a threat, it could have come from anywhere.

I've dealt with threats before. My car has been vandalized repeatedly, and I receive my share of hate mail. But I can't let angry individuals intimidate me into silence. I value my words too much to render them impotent because of the reactionaries in our midst.

I will be filing a report with the City of Denton Police Department today, in the event this bullet was more than an idle threat. And I promise to keep my readers posted on any further developments. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

Cracked Cop Needs Refresher Course on First Amendment

2006-01-17T06:28:00.000-08:00

Didn't this officer have more important things (like child molesters and murderers) to worry about than a citizen merely exercising free expression? You be the judge...

US CO: Driver: Pro-Pot Sticker Led to Ticket From Offended Cop
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n073/a04.html
Pubdate: Sat, 14 Jan 2006
Source: Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
Copyright: 2006, Denver Publishing Co.
Contact:letters@rockymountainnews.com
Website: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/371
Author: Javier Erik Olvera, Rocky Mountain News

DRIVER: PRO-POT STICKER LED TO TICKET FROM OFFENDED COP

AURORA - The rear window of Paul Wansing's Ford pickup truck is decorated with an array of political stickers, including one with the message: "Legalize Marijuana - Just say know more." Wansing claims that's the reason he was pulled over by an Aurora police officer who he says told him he was "offended" by the sticker then cited him for a cracked windshield.

On Friday, two days after the traffic stop, Wansing stood with members of the pro-pot group SAFER outside Aurora's municipal building. "In my eyes, this is a violation of freedom of speech," said the 26-year-old Aurora chef. "My mission is to let people know that rights are being violated by certain members of law enforcement."

Mason Tvert, a founder of SAFER, which persuaded Denver voters in November to legalize possession by adults of small amounts of marijuana, said "anti-marijuana madness has got to end." "The demonization of marijuana in this country is apparently so out of hand that police officers feel it appropriate to pull someone over for simply suggesting that marijuana should be legal," he said.

Attorney General John Ashcroft Breaks Bread...and Wind

2006-01-16T12:43:00.000-08:00

Here's an oldie but a moldy... Former Fascist-in-Chief John Ashcroft professes to belief in Jeezus H. Christ, but he lacks faith in our civil liberties. Is Ashcroft's anthropomorphic god not strong enough to prevent citizens from discussing terrorism, illegal wars, the Bill of Rights, drug policy reform, and Paris Hilton, assuming that's what his supremely-supreme deity truly desires? It appears that modern pharisees simply annoint themselves with Vaseline and hock crucifixes like salvations on sticks, defecating on the Constitution, wiping their pimply buttocks with a flag in front of money-clad gherkin-jerkin' CEOs who come to buy Caesar, not to praise him.

Ashcroft composed "Let the Eagle Soar", which he sang at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in February 2002. He wrote and sang many other songs and created compilation tapes, including In the Spirit of Life and Liberty and Gospel (Music) According to John.
He teamed up with Senators Trent Lott, Larry Craig, and James Jeffords, to form a barbershop quartet named The Singing Senators. Sometime in the 1970s, Ashcroft recorded a gospel record entitled TRUTH: Volume One, Edition One with Max Bacon.

Ashcroft's singing? It's nothing like a chorus of angels, but if your taste includes overwrought patriotic anthems with bland Muzac-styled backing, his voice is actually tolerable. Personally, my favorite line in this little ditty is "Only God, no other kings". If Ashcroft really means that, then why is he using the power of his political position to proselytize? Does he secretly believe the government is God? Is he a fundamentalistic nationalist?

Let the mighty eagle sooooooar...over the Justice Department to excrete a speckled bomb (Bush cronies and NSA agents take note, the bomb refers to a mere bird-turd, not an explosive device), plopping it right on Ashcroft's flag-waving lapel pin. Now wouldn't that make great copy?!

Got your ears plugged, folks? Good. You have been warned. Here's your tax dollars at work...

Letter to Eagle-Tribune

2006-01-13T22:14:00.000-08:00

Regarding "Pot Bill Still Needs Careful Review"...

Eagle-Tribune editors claim that federal law outlaws the use of marijuana "for any purpose". However, the Controlled Substances Act contains an exemption for federal research, and for the past three decades the National Institute on Drug Abuse has cultivated and distributed therapeutic cannabis to patients with widely varying symptoms, including bone tumors, pain, spasms, nausea, and ocular pressure. Private research on these federal patients has demonstrated that smoked marijuana can provide significant symptomatic relief, without the strong toxic side effects associated with pharmaceutical alternatives.

District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett expresses concern that marijuana is a "gateway drug". However, marijuana is not scientifically classified as a drug, but a flowering herb. And the federally-commissioned Institute of Medicine study effectively debunked the gateway theory, indicating the only gateway was socioeconomic, not physiological. In other words, because marijuana consumers purchase their goods on the black market, through unregulated street dealers who are often pushing more dangerous and addictive substances, the gateway is an unintentional by-product of the prohibition policies themselves. It appears that fighting fire with gasoline is a lost cause.

There will undoubtedly be reationary resistance to therapeutic cannabis use in Massachusetts, largely based on ignorance of scientific facts. But ask yourself two questions... If someone you care about gets sick and could benefit from cannabis, would you rather they obtain it through a doctor's recommendation or through a mobster's network? Would you really want your loved one thrown in jail?

Your Iconoclast,

Christopher Largen

Netherlands: Scientific Conference Hears Of Tumor Reducing Effects of Marijuana

2006-01-11T04:55:00.000-08:00

Yet more evidence that cannabis has medicinal value, information many U.S. officials and news outlets are willfully ignoring, at the expense of American lives, to please corporate sponsors in the pharmaceutical industry, which currently cannot patent cannabis under strict "anti-drug" policies.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n000/a431.html
Pubdate: Thu, 01 Dec 2005
Source: Oaksterdam News (CA)
Copyright: 2005 Oaksterdam News
Contact: https://oaksterdamnews.com/component/option,com_contact/Itemid,3
Website: https://oaksterdamnews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4014
Author: Chris Conrad

SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE HEARS OF TUMOR REDUCING EFFECT FROM CANNABINOIDS

A prestigious gathering of scientists and researchers met in September in Leiden, The Netherlands, where the International Association for Cannabis as Medicine biennial conference heard first-hand reports of tumor reducing effects and other benefits of marijuana and cannabinoids. Cannabinoids are compounds found in the cannabis plant. Endocannabinoids are naturally occuring compounds in the human body that are similar in structure and effect to those in cannabis.

Much of the funding for the research projects was funded by government agencies such as NIDA and were designed to look for harmful effects rather than health benefits, which skewed the information somewhat. Nonetheless, significant benefits and relatively few harms were revealed. In fact, the marijuana smokers in general appeared pretty normal when compared to the rest of society, based on the reports that were given.

Not all research presented was government approved. Mark Gibson reported on his work with Canna-Biz Chocolate, which he and his wife produce and provide to a number of multiple sclerosis sufferers in the UK. They monitor their patients and saw significant alleviation of symptoms. Shortly thereafter, police came in and arrested them, shut the service down, took away their medicine and charged the couple with trafficking. Mark faces prison for his work. A court trial is planned for next year.

Jorg Fachner compared topographic EEG brain mapping changes of cannabis induced and sound-trance induced altered state of consciousness. Tumors reduced by cannabinoid Research on the tumor reducing effects of cannabinoids were one of the most exciting pieces of new information brought forth. The research, backed up with photos and measurements, showed that rats with large, induced tumors clearly benefited from application of cannabis derivatives, and not merely as an adjunct to chemotherapy. Researchers from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, including Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, credited as the discoverer of the THC molecule, led an international team investigating the use of cannabinoids to treat cancer. Dubbed HU-331, cannabidiol-hydroxyquinone was produced from cannabidiol and used to treat tumors in vitro and in vivo, meaning both in petri dishes and also on living mice. "HU-331 shows very high effectivity against human cancer cell lines in-vitro and also against in-vivo tumor grafts in nude mice. At 35 days after cancer cell injection, the tumors in the treated group were half the size of the tumors in the controls," they reported. HU-331 inhibited T-cell lymphoma cell growth more than known anticancer drugs, including doxorubicin, mitoxantrone and etoposide. HU-331 proved much less toxic than doxorubicin, mitoxantrone and etoposide.

Promising review of Sativex Researchers from GW Pharmaceuticals reported on the company's work with natural, broad spectrum inhaled cannabis extract. The medication, already available in Canada, utilizes patented technology to ingest and regulate the dose without smoking by using a device similar to the asthma inhaler. Their research concluded that the plant-based medicinal extract Sativex produced significant improvements in a subjective measure of spasticity which were maintained on long-term treatment with no evidence of tolerance.

California research Dr. Jeffrey Hergenrather presented a paper developed with fellow California physicians Tod Mikuriya and David Bearman on the "Clinical improvement and reduction of immunosuppressive drug therapy in cannabis treated patients with Crohn's disease." They reported that "The Crohn's patients encountered by these physicians have been treated with a variety of conventional pharmacological therapies including steroids, other immunomodulators and a number of biologic therapies, including anti tumor necrosis factor." Smoked cannabis was found to be more effective in relieving symptoms than were the pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Donald Abrams reported favorably on smoked cannabis therapy for hiv-related painful peripheral neuropathy: results of a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Dale Gieringer, PhD, gave an update on the growth of cannabis medicine in the US: practice and usage in a semi-legal regime. Field trip to official gardens Marco van de Velde discussed "Two years of experience with legal production and distribution of medicinal cannabis in the Netherlands," and participants had an opportunity to take a field trip to the official, government licensed cannabis nursery of Bedrocan.

Prohibition Hurts Police Morale and Public's Respect

2006-01-11T04:45:00.000-08:00

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n000/a432.html
Pubdate: Thu, 01 Dec 2005
Source: Oaksterdam News (CA)
Copyright: 2005 Oaksterdam News
Contact: https://oaksterdamnews.com/component/option,com_contact/Itemid,3
Website: https://oaksterdamnews.com/Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4014
Author: Chris Conrad
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm

PROHIBITION HURTS POLICE MORALE AND PUBLIC'S RESPECT FOR LAW

Norm Stamper, former chief of the Seattle Police Department, is the author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing and an opinion piece in the Oct. 16, 2005 Los Angeles Times.

Stamper said he wants to set the record straight. "Yes, I was a cop for 34 years, the last six of which I spent as chief of Seattle's police department. But no, I don't favor decriminalization. I favor legalization, and not just of pot but of all drugs".

These days it's not renegade cops who favor legalization but a swelling tide of mainstream police and retired officers who disavow the Drug War. In fact, at least two political organizations comprised of current and retired law enforcement officers have been working quietly behind the scene to educate and recruit others to publicly join the call for reform if not outright repeal of drug laws. It should be no surprise to learn that Stamper is affiliated with one such group. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition ( LEAP ) takes the position espoused by Stamper, namely legalizing all drugs to lower the incidents of death, disease, and addiction in the United States by ending drug prohibition.

Founding member and executive director of the international organization Jack Cole hales from across the country in Massachusetts but came to the same conclusions as Stamper. After serving in the United States Marine Corps, Cole became a policeman in 1964 and began the long odyssey to being a drug policy reformer. Like many, he waited until after retirement to voice his opposition to drug prohibition.

Boardmember Peter Christ is a retired New York police captain. During his 20-year career enforcing drug laws, he said he became convinced that "the drug war can never be won, and is doing more harm than good." After retiring from the force in 1989, Christ began speaking out publicly against the Drug War and has not stopped talking about it ever since.

Such was not the case for advisory board member of LEAP Judge Robert W. Sweet, a sitting federal court judge who found himself in the center of a firestorm as a result of speaking to his wife's club on effect of the drug laws in December, 1989. "In that speech I expressed my view that the use of the criminal law to deal with the drug problem was expensive, ineffective and harmful, both in human terms and societal values," the now-retired Sweet recalled. The speech catapulted him to national celebrity status. Some 15 years later, his opinions remain unchanged. "All drugs should be appropriately labeled; the criminal proscription on drug use should be ended; and drugs should be sold only to adults and only through licensed pharmacies to persons properly identified. The crime attending the current distribution of drugs would cease; $150 billion dollars would be restored to the economy; responsibility for drug use would be pinpointed and assumed by the user; the beneficial effects of medical drugs -- marijuana, for example -- would be achieved, and a reliable body of statistics would be available."

Advisory board member Eric Sterling, also president of The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, was Counsel to the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary from 1979 until 1989. It was seeing the laws that were coming from Congress that convinced Sterling to publicly come out against the Drug War. "Police officers have observed that the last 20 years of current drug policy has neither brought an end or reduction in demand for illegal drugs in our country," says Dan Solano, retired Detroit police officer and founder of Police Officers for Drug Law Reform. PODLR is an organization of both active and non-active policemen who make a more limited call for legalizing and regulating marijuana. "It's time to think beyond drug prohibition and adopt a more logical and sustainable drug policy-one that is less reliant on police and imprisonment-a policy with greater emphasis on regulation, prevention and treatment."

Many police admit that they have lost their appetite for busting pot smokers. Whole cities, like Seattle and Oakland, are opting out of making marijuana arrests. So when respected former police chiefs like Seattle's Stamper and San Jose's Joseph McNamara take up the theme of drug policy reform, it begins to weaken the grip of the so-called Drug War lobby. The bastions of resistance remain the police and prison guard unions and sheriff, district attorney and narcotics officers associations. While politicians may face off even the pharmaceutical, alcohol and tobacco lobbies, all our men in blue need do is lock arms together to stop any reform. Now those special interest groups face defections and an outbreak of common sense within their ranks.

To book a LEAP speaker contact, Mike Smithson, Coordinator of Speakers Bureau ( speakers@leap.cc ) at 315-243-5844 or fax: 315-488-3630.

To order a copy of Norm Stamper's book or other fine books on drugs and drug policy, contact Quick Distribution 510-527-7036.

When Police Won't Play 'Knock Knock'

2006-01-10T15:17:00.000-08:00

In order to protect citizens and officers, no-knock police raids should be utilized in specific cases (like hostage situations), where doing so could prevent violence, but indiscriminate military-style operations often provoke aggression. Kudos to the Las Vegas Review-Journal for getting it right...

US NV: Editorial: When Police Won't Play 'Knock, Knock'
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n039.a08.html
Pubdate: Tue, 10 Jan 2006Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2006 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact: letters@reviewjournal.com
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233

Supreme Court Again Examines Fourth Amendment Issue

A little more than two years ago, in a case out of North Las Vegas, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was OK for police to wait as little as 20 seconds between the time they knocked on a door to announce themselves and the time their battering ram took down the door. Lashawn Banks of North Las Vegas was taking a shower on July 15, 1998, when masked and heavily armed officers used a battering ram to break into his apartment to look for drugs. Officers found 11 ounces of crack cocaine and three firearms during their search.

In March 2002, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the drugs found in Banks' home should not have been used as evidence because police did not wait "a reasonable time" for Banks to respond to police demands for entrance. The 9th Circuit relied on high court rulings as recent as 1997 that held police must knock and announce themselves unless they have reason to believe a suspect presents a danger or might destroy evidence. But in 2003 -- continuing the erosion of the Fourth Amendment's protections under the rubric of the "War on Drugs" -- the high court opted to overrule the 9th Circuit in the Banks case, holding a 20-second delay was ample because more time might give drug suspects time to flush evidence down the toilet. Now, the court is being asked to allow police to wait no time at all.

Also back in 1998, Detroit police did not bother knocking on Booker Hudson's door when they arrived with a warrant to search for drugs. Police say they shouted that they had a warrant and broke in 3 to 5 seconds later. Police found crack cocaine In this new case addressing the same question, the Supreme Court debated Monday whether those drugs can be used as evidence against Hudson because officers were wrong in giving Hudson no time to come to the door. Retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who may or may not vote in the final decision, seemed ready to rule against police, pointing out that the Detroit officer testified he routinely went into houses without knocking. She predicted that policy would be adopted by "every police officer in America" if the court levied no penalty. It's commonly argued that only the guilty need more time to answer the door; the innocent have "nothing to fear." But the court already allows police to explain to a judge the "special circumstances" that require a ( presumably rare ) "no-knock" warrant.

The question here is whether police should, in effect, be allowed to turn the service of every warrant into a three-step process in which they break down the door unannounced, race into the house and hold all occupants at gunpoint, and then shout, "Police! Warrant!" The "normalization" of that procedure certainly could hurt the innocent. Upon opening the door and being given a chance to peruse a warrant, an innocent person might, at least in theory, have a chance to point out the address on the warrant does not match these premises. There are numerous jurisdictions in this country (simply Google "home invaders impersonating police") where outlaw home invaders have taken to yelling, "Police! Warrant!" in hopes of freezing their victims into inactivity long enough to disarm them. Rape and robbery can then proceed with less risk to the perpetrators. There are thus places in this country where it is not an irrational response for the head of the household to grab his firearm when armed strangers dressed in black break down his door unannounced in the middle of the night. Unnecessary deaths have been known to result.

These are the murky waters into which the high court will lower us, should the justices hold that breaking down doors without giving the occupants a chance to peacefully respond should now become "standard operating procedure." No, officers should not be required to stand around watching the minute hands of their watches if they hear the screams of hostages being executed behind a closed door. But in most cases, the time to plead special circumstances is when the search warrant is being requested.

Man Who Raped, Stabbed Daughter Sentenced to Two Life Prison Terms

2006-01-10T12:50:00.000-08:00

Two life sentences. See? American judges really CAN lock away child predators - when they want to. But why was this monster of a man let out of prison in the first place? Was it because they needed more jail space for all the nonviolent drug "offenders"? Hope you haven't just finished eating, folks...

WALLACE, Idaho (AP) — A man who raped and stabbed his 12-year-old daughter and left her for dead has been sentenced to two life prison terms without chance of parole after she read an angry statement to him in court.

John Rollins Tuggle pleaded guilty to rape and kidnapping with a deadly weapon, taking responsibility and sparing the victim from the ordeal of a trial, First District Judge Fred Gibler said at Monday's sentencing.

"Other than those two things, its hard to find anything positive to state about Mr. Tuggle," Gibler said.

Tuggle's daughter, who has changed her last name, looked directly at him as she read a letter to him in court, saying she was determined to overcome the loss of her innocence.

"You left me to die and for that you do not deserve life," she said. "I will remove your actions from my mind, as I've already removed you from my heart."

The attack happened last July when Tuggle, 37, was visiting his former wife and children in Athol after completing a nine-year prison term for the rape of his ex-wife's 13-year-old sister, who became pregnant.

Tuggle, who had pleaded with his ex-wife for reconciliation, was allowed to spend time alone with their daughter, Shoshone County Prosecuting Attorney Michael F. Peacock said.

Tuggle took the girl into a wooded area July 20, tied her up under the pretext of showing her how to play a prank on her brother, then raped her at knifepoint, Peacock said.

He stabbed her in the throat, breast and abdomen, then cut the ropes from her hands and sat and smoked two cigarettes while the girl lay bleeding.

Campers later heard the girl crying for help. Tuggle was arrested a week later when he wandered out of the woods looking for food.

The girl was released from the hospital July 30.

A Few Questions For Child Molesters

2006-01-08T23:19:00.000-08:00

Do you think about the lives of the children you've used to satisfy your psychosexual need for power, domination and control? Do you wonder if they cry when you haunt the memories you forced upon them? Do your victims ever visit your nightmares?

Do you feel like you are the victim because you are judged by society, or are you accountable for your devastating choices? Do you minimize or rationalize the damage you cause?

If you were convicted by law, do you resent having to register as a sex offender?

Do you support the National American Man/Boy Love Association, believing it to be your legal right to exploit and traumatize children?

If you are hiding, do you ever grow weary of it? Do you ever get tired of acting like a coward?

Do you know that being abused as a child is no justification for perpetuating the cycle?

Do you have a conscience? Have you ever known love?

When you face the end of your life, will you regret the choices you've made?

Will you get help, or will you continue hurting people weaker than you are?

Meeting Chuck Berry

2006-01-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

I met rock and roll legend Chuck Berry twice in my life. The first time was in the early 1980s, in St. Louis, at a restaurant called Blueberry Hill. I was a young kid standing in awe, among a huge throng of admirers.

Six years later, I saw him at a bar in the Plaza hotel in Fort Worth, TX. There was an exceptionally beautiful woman in his arms (no, it wasn't Paris Hilton), as he sat in a booth with a cluster of friends and associates. I walked past his table and said, "Hey Chuck, Blueberry Hill?" I was thinking of the restaurant.

Chuck Berry glanced at me, grinned politely, and nodded his head. But something in his face said, "Doesn't this dumb white boy know that Blueberry Hill is not my song?"

I slithered away, embarassed, with no particular place to go, reeling and rocking.

Majority of Republicans Support Warrantless Wiretaps

2006-01-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

A new Associated Press poll indicates that two-thirds of Republicans and one-fourth of Democrats want the President to be able to wiretap private conversations on American phones without probable cause or judicial oversight. President Bush wholeheartedly agrees. So much for that pesky little oath to defend the U.S. Constitution against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic.

The next time you make an overseas call or send an international E-mail, you might consider taking a moment to greet any federal agents who might be monitoring your private communications. After all, those agents are people too, and it must be an arduous job to monitor all your innocuous conversations. Just to be extra safe, you might throw out a "God bless America". Otherwise those agents might suspect you of being a terrorist, or worse yet, a marijuana smoker, even a supporter of Greenpeace, heaven forbid! Remember, don't use the words "Jihad" or "Osama", especially in conjunction with "Paris Hilton", which may be accidentally interpreted by Orwell's rooting swine as a codified message to potential hostiles.

Letter to Editor - Kingpins and Body Bags

2006-01-08T13:01:00.000-08:00

In her New York Times column, "Reform the Reforms", Leslie Crocker states, "Sentences for kingpins shouldn't be reduced except in rare instances." This makes sense on the surface; many kingpins are ruthless individuals who fund terrorists and are willing to murder to maintain their black market profits. But those immense profits, not the drugs, are the driving force behind the majority of purportedly "drug-related" violence.

Consider this... It costs the United States Government approximately 90 cents per ounce to produce medical marijuana for NIDA's Investigational New Drug program (http://www.drugabuse.gov/about/organization/nacda/marijuanastatement.html), including administrative and security costs. That same ounce could easily sell on the streets for $300. Most kingpins (and the terrorists they support) would prefer to receive 90% of $300 (the other 10% seized by government officials), rather than receive 100% of a mere 90 cents (which would likely be the per ounce wholesale value of cannabis, plus tax, were it allowed in a regulated marketplace).

In other words, the kingpins don't care if our agents catch 10% of their shipments, so long as our drug policies are making the other 90% of their product worth more than its weight in gold, tax free. As long as our policies fight this fire with gasoline, the kingpins and body bags will multiply.

Your Iconoclast,

Christopher Largen

P.S. Though most readers would likely consider a federal medical marijuana program newsworthy, particularly in light of recent Supreme Court rulings, the New York Times has never covered the federal medical marijuana program in all of it's 28 years of existence. Is there a legitimate reason why this is so?

Judge Sentences Child Rapist to 60 Days in Jail

2006-01-06T22:16:00.000-08:00

A 34 year-old predator named Mark Hulett, who admitted to repeatedly raping and severely traumatizing a 10 year-old girl over several years will spend a mere TWO MONTHS behind bars. At the time he pled guilty to two counts of aggravated sexual assault and one charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, Hulett was facing a maximum life sentence, but the state Corrections Department claimed that Hulett was a low risk. Judge Edward Cashman defended the puny sentence, saying it was the only way that Hulett would receive counseling. The victim's family said the sentence is a slap on the wrist.

"The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul," said Judge Cashman speaking to a packed Burlington courtroom (most of the on-lookers were related to the young rape victim). "I discovered it accomplishes nothing of value; it doesn't make anything better; it costs us a lot of money; we create a lot of expectation, and we feed on anger."

I believe in forgiveness, but I also believe in public safety. I want child predators to go to jail for a long time, not because I want revenge on them, but because I don't want more kids being hurt. Does that make sense, Judge Cashman? Can you say "predator"? I knew that you could. And by the way, Judge... A child's safety, sanity and innocence are worth a HELL of a lot more than 2 months.

This is the kind of courtroom travesty that really warms my heart. I'm beginning to suspect that some of these lax judges may be pedophiles themselves. After all, American prisons are filled with nonviolent drug offenders rather than child rapists (who OFTEN receive NO jail time)! Remember the overplayed drug warrior mantra? How did that go, anyway? Oh yes... "We HAVE to protect the children!"

Protect them from what? Not from child rapists, of course, but marijuana smokers. If Mark Hulett had been caught growing marijuana rather than raping children, the courts would have likely sent him to prison for years, if not decades. Am I the only one out there who finds this disparity repugnant and sickening? This is not justice OR public safety.

Here's fifteen minutes of fame for Mark Hulett...

AND Judge Cashman. Don't they make a cute couple? Perhaps they could do sixty-days in jail TOGETHER. It could be the beginning of a beautiful, forgiving relationship. Who knows? They might even keep each other cozy!

Medical Research Community Argues For Medical Marijuana

2006-01-05T11:19:00.000-08:00

The Journal of the American Medical Association, one of the top publications in the medical research community published an article by Lawrence O. Gostin, JD, LLD, an attorney from the Georgetown Law center, in their current issue. The article attacks the current federal drug laws as interference in the practice of medicine.

Gostin examines the case of Gonzalez v. Raich in which the federal government re-affirmed its right to prosecute medical marijuana patients. He explains that the case raises questions about the degree to which the federal government has the power to regulate medical substances and proposes that drugs with potential medical benefits should be regulated by specialized health agencies, not the Controlled Substances Act.

Gostin argues that our unique system of American Federalism is being weakened by the federal government’s interference in the practice of medicine. To access the entire article, visit http://safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=2956

Sativex Marijuana Mist Approved for Clinical Trials in The U.S.

2006-01-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

GW Pharmaceutical announced that the FDA has approved its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for Sativex to treat cancer pain that hasn’t been relieved by other medications. Sativex is an oral spray composed primarily of THC and CBD, the active compound and a non-psychoactive compound found in marijuana.

After reviewing the European data on the safety and quality of Sativex, the FDA has agreed to allow Sativex to proceed to Phase III clinical trials in the U.S., which will involve 250 patients in a controlled study to evaluate the effects of Sativex on cancer pain.

One of the positive aspects of Sativex is that it allows patients with severe pain to reduce their dependency on opioid drugs, which often do not provide sufficient relief and can affect a person's ability to function on a daily basis. Phase III trials are expected to begin sometime late this year, and within 2-3 years the company can be expected to file a regulatory submission, officially making Sativex available in the US.

For more information on Sativex and U.S. clinical trials visit: http://www.gwpharm.com/

But Who Will Tap Bush's Phone?

2006-01-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

Though it might seem impossible to laugh about America's current political situation, many online artists and ranters have pointed to links between George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden. It's all over the web! Somebody call the NSA!

I think these satirical photos are interesting whether you are a conspiracy buff or a conservative ideologue.

Clueless Police Fail to Save Child Hostage

2006-01-04T06:42:00.000-08:00

WARNING: The following blog entry contains photos that are disturbing and graphic. These images are not included for the purpose of sensationalism or gratuitous revelry. But awareness can empower, and I believe that turning away from the harsh reality is dishonoring to the child victim.

Here's another example of "collateral damage" incurred from the so-called war on drugs, a war that fails to protect society, least of all the children.

These terrifying photos from a bus station in Manila are the types of images that some people would prefer to be swept under the rug. However, this brutal event may have never occurred were it not for prohibition, if drug treatment centers were as readily available as prisons, if addicts were not pushed underground by fear of being criminalized, if police officers had as much training in handling hostage situations as they do in searching for illegal drugs, if more revenue was expended on securing the public transportation depots, rather than monitoring and sanctioning consensual behavior. Police observed this unstable man as he stabbed his child hostage at least 13 times. Then the cops shot both the psychopathic kidnapper and his 4 year-old hostage, right in front of the child's mother.

Protecting the Children - Part 2

2006-01-04T05:51:00.000-08:00

When Janet Horwitz, Senior Program Analyst at the Department of Justice and DEA liaison received my friendly E-mail about JUNK, she was evidently not amused, and emailed me this terse response:

I don't know who gave you my email address, but please do not send me any more emails.

I thought, "Gee whiz! Her E-mail address was featured prominently on the official DEA website. Doesn't that imply she wants people to actually use it?"

So I promptly wrote her back:

I won't E-mail you again, but I received your address from the Drug Enforcement Administration website. I assumed that since you are listed as a public servant with the Department of Justice, you might be open to sharing a laugh and having a brief E-mail dialogue with an author and citizen who counts himself among the very few to simultaneously debate John Walters, Karen Tandy and William Bennett in print. You might want to run a search on your name in a few weeks, because I will likely blog about my exchange with you.

Drug warriors often speak of "protecting the children"...

When my two kids (who I delivered with my own trembling hands) can obtain potentially deadly drugs like crack, meth and heroin more easily than regulated drugs like alcohol or tobacco, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children.

When drug cartels are getting rich selling a completely unregulated product, turning our streets into war zones, and divesting money to terrorists, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children. The violent thugs who head the drug cartels don't care if our officials catch 10% of their shipments, so long as our policies make the other 90% of their product worth its weight in gold. Incidentally, it costs the United States Government a mere 30 cents per ounce to cultivate therapeutic cannabis for it's Investigational New Drug program. That same ounce could be sold for $300 on the streets of our drug-war torn country. Prohibition has increased the value of the product 1000 times! Regardless of altruistic intent, a prohibitionist is a mobster's (and a terrorist's) best friend.

When drug addicts invade the homes of families and commit violent crimes to pay the inflated prices imposed by black market producers, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children.

When police can't keep even drugs out of our schools, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children. There is some evidence indicating that illegal drugs are more commonly found in schools than tobacco and alcohol, even though illegal drugs are penalized far more harshly than booze and cigarettes. Reckon there is a connection?

When violent predators receive lighter sentences than drug offenders, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children. In my hometown of Denton TX, children share the city streets with 27 criminals convicted of sex crimes against kids 13 and younger, who never received a single day in jail for their crimes. This same dynamic is occurring in counties throughout the nation. Just how does a person sexually assault a four year-old girl and not serve any jail time? It's not for lack of resources - after all, we're sending many marijuana growers to jail for years, decades, or life. This dynamic will soon be exposed in a feature-length documentary entitled Broken Silence.

When children are placed in neglectful and abusive government group "homes" because their parents were given unnecessarily harsh prison sentences for using prohibited substances, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children.

When drug offenders are denied financial aid for college while child murderers and rapists receive Pell Grants, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children.

When the father of a eight-year old boy is brutally tortured with a battery charger clamped to his testicles by Tennessee Sheriff's deputies who are angered when he merely exercises his Fourth Amendment right to not give consent to a search of his family's home, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children.

When a DEA officer literally shoots himself in the foot while giving a drug and gun safety lecture at a public school (in front of a diverse crowd that included young kids), and then immediately horrifies the audience by pulling out yet another gun, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children.

When teenagers die from heroin overdoses because their "friends" won't take them to the hospital for fear of arrest, abandoning them to an early grave, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children.

When our nation doesn't properly fund schools, yet has more prisoners per capita than any nation on earth, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children.

When officers storm a high school with barking dogs, pointing loaded guns in the terrified faces of innocent students, handcuffing them and forcing them to lie on the ground, the drug war is FAILING to protect the children.

When prohibition laws engender general disrespect for the law among our nation's youth, encouraging criminal behavior and devastating penalties for minors, the drug war is FAILING to protect our children.

Sorry you didn't enjoy the JUNK satire, Janet. Fortunately, it's not yet against the law for citizens to advocate reform, or for artists to mock inaptitude and corruption in action.

Hope you sleep well tonight. If you have children, hug them close. They deserve your protection.

Your Iconoclast,

Christopher Largen

Rhode Island Becomes 11th Medical Marijuana State

2006-01-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

First Medical Marijuana Bill Since Supreme Court Ruling Passes Via Historic Veto Override

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND -- The Rhode Island House of Representatives voted to override Gov. Donald Carcieri's veto of the Marijuana Policy Project's medical marijuana bill today, making Rhode Island the 11th state to make medical marijuana legal and the first to enact a medical marijuana law since the Supreme Court's June decision in Gonzales v. Raich. Rhode Island's medical marijuana law is the third to be enacted by a state legislature, and the first passed by overriding a governor's veto. (The other eight states' medical marijuana laws were enacted via ballot initiatives.)

A coalition of Rhode Island patients, medical experts and health advocates built support for the bill. Organizations working to pass the bill included the Rhode Island Medical Society, the Rhode Island Nurses Association, and AIDS Project Rhode Island, and the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition.

Medical marijuana legislation continues to receive support in state legislatures around the country. Medical marijuana bills were introduced recently in Michigan and Wisconsin. Similar legislation is poised to pass in New Mexico.

Pastor Robert Tilton Has The Power

2006-01-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

And to think that all this time, I assumed Tilton was a mere huckster, a pharasiacal swiller of Satan's semen who enlisted the name of God to dupe naive and desperate followers out of their Social Security checks. That last part kind of sounds like George Dubya Bush, no?

After seeing this photographic evidence, however, I'm a true believer...

Drug Lords Corrupting Mexican Military

2006-01-02T20:26:00.000-08:00

Reckon the kingpins have corrupted the U.S. Government as well?

Mexico: Cartel Wooing Mexico's Military
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n006/a03.html
Pubdate: Tue, 27 Dec 2005
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2005 San Jose Mercury News
Contact: male2('letters','mercurynews.com'); letters@mercurynews.com
Website: http://www.mercurynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Alfredo Corchado,Dallas Morning News

CARTEL WOOING MEXICO'S MILITARY - Analysts Finding Signs Of Corruption

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials and analysts say there are new signs that drug corruption is spreading within the Mexican military, an institution long regarded as more professional and less prone to criminality than the country's law enforcement agencies. In interviews, four senior U.S. officials, a senior Mexican intelligence official and three independent analysts all expressed concern about the expanding role of the Mexican military in the drug war. Some pointed to low pay among the middle and lower ranks as making military personnel vulnerable to offers from cartel leaders who may double or triple their pay. "Corruption is more serious in the Mexican military than just about any other Latin American military," said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The reason is not that the Mexicans are any more venal; it's that we're talking about huge amounts of money . . . and that makes them more vulnerable."

Questions Deflected

Spokesmen for the Mexican Embassy in Washington and for Los Pinos, the presidential residence, declined to comment, referring questions to the military. Military officials requested questions in writing but said there would be no reply for now. The concerns were underscored in a video sent to the Dallas Morning News in October and made public earlier this month. The video shows four men, bound and bloodied and prodded by an unseen interrogator, talking about their work for a drug cartel. Two of the four identified themselves as former military men and said that their job was to recruit for the cartel from Mexico's special forces. The emergence of two new paramilitary groups, Los Negros and Los Numeros, which may seek to bolster their forces with military personnel and federal agents, has added to the concern, U.S. officials said. The groups are said to work for the Sinaloa cartel, purportedly headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. They were recruited to battle the rival Gulf cartel and its enforcement arm, the Zetas, and to spread the Sinaloa cartel's dominance along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, the officials said.

Military's Key Role

The Mexican government's central role in fighting drug trafficking is a relatively recent development. In 1996, during the administration of President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, the U.S. government encouraged the Mexican government to give the military a central role in anti-narcotics efforts -- in part because the military was viewed as uncorrupted, analysts said.

"We're the ones who pushed the Mexican military into fighting narcotics," said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, head of the Mexico Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "We've pushed them into narco corruption."

In the past five years, President Vicente Fox has dramatically increased the military's participation in anti-narcotics efforts by including military personnel on the attorney general's payroll. Since 1996, the U.S. government has spent at least $225 million in training and other military assistance for anti-drug aid programs, according to a report by the Washington Office of Latin America, a non-governmental organization that monitors military cooperation between Mexico and the United States.

This Message May Be Monitored By Bush

2005-12-31T15:44:00.000-08:00

When an American president admits to violating fundamental constitutional priniciples and usurping judicial authority by ordering wiretaps without warrants or oversight, it is the duty of the citizenry, regardless of partisan affiliation, to express ther grievances.

If you think illegal wiretapping and E-mail monitoring without judicial oversight is a crying shame in the U.S., then copy and forward this message widely. Show the administration what you think of police state politics by proliferating this string of keywords that could potentially be flagged by the National Security Administration. If enough people participate in this renegade effort, it could send out a collective shout loud enough to deafen Big Brother's eavesdropping ears. Have fun and add your own words!

Happy New Year from WaronJunk.com

Terrorist
Terrorism
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Taliban
Jihad
Islam
Muslim
Narcotics
Weapons
Bomb
CIA
Assassinate
Covert
Drugs
Cells
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Torture
White House
Marijuana
Afghanistan
Hijack
Iraq
Saddam Hussein
PLO
Guantanamo
Suicide Bomber
Dirty Bomb
Pipe Bomb
Nuclear Bomb
Insurgents
Uranium
Infiltrate
Rebellion
Revolution
Chavez
Greenpeace
PETA
Homosexual
Drug Policy Reform
Liberal
Civil Liberties
Democracy
Paris Hilton
Sponge Bob

Open Letter to Denver Post

2005-12-29T11:53:00.000-08:00

Regarding the editorial, "Marijuana Push is for All the Wrong Reasons"...

Denver Post editors refer derisively to the majority of voters in the city as "the group that passed Denver's pot initiative last month". The editors dismiss the "phony" public safety arguments of Initiative 100 backers. Are they unaware that our nation has tens of thousands of convicted child molesters and rapists who received either no jail time for their violent crimes, or lighter sentences than marijuana "offenders"?

Denver Post editors claim they would place credence in studies conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. However, since 1978, NIDA has cultivated and distributed marijuana to several patients with conditions including Multiple Sclerosis, Nail Patella Syndrome, bone tumors, and glaucoma (http://www.drugabuse.gov/about/organization/nacda/marijuanastatement.html). Yet in 28 years of the program's existence, NIDA has not performed a single clinical or empirical research study on the patients receiving the federal marijuana. This is in spite of the fact that all of the federal patients' doctors have repeatedly noted a significant relief of symptoms with few side effects when compared with pharmaceutical alternatives. NIDA refuses to approve any study designed to determine benefits from marijuana, only funding studies intended to find harm (see my book written with one of the federal patients, Prescription Pot). Since NIDA has repeatedly politicized science, why would Denver Post editors expect accurate information from them?

Perhaps the editors should rely less on the government prohibitionists for their "facts". Maybe they would be interested to know that in 2004, in Lisbon, Portugal, home of the Euro Soccer Tournament between the UK and France, the city police allowed marijuana to be possessed and used in the arena, while posting alcohol breathalyzers at the front gates, to turn away drunks (http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n880/a08.html?262823). For the first time ever, there was not a single fight or arrest at this event. The city of Lisbon, however, made hundreds of arrests during the tournament, all down in the bar districts where the rejected drunks went to watch the game. Additionally, most police officers on the street will attest that the majority of assaults, sexual, domestic and otherwise, involve alcohol, not marijuana.

Of course this is anecdotal evidence of marijuana's calming effects as opposed to alcohol's tendency to make people violent. But this anecdote is backed up with science. Studies have repeatedly shown that marijuana does not stimulate the aggression centers of the brain (alcohol does).

The majority of Denver voters who supported Initiative 100 deserve respect and fair coverage, not insults and condescension.

Please Search Me, Officer

2005-12-27T09:25:00.000-08:00

As an author and speaker, I travel several times a year. Security is important to me when I fly, so I never bothered to feel too upset on those occassions when my luggage was rummaged by Transportation Security Administration. Besides, I found it entertaining. Perhaps Big Brother had run his fingers across my underwear, or snagged a quick splash of my cologne for his date at the end of his shift. Maybe he was perplexed by my eye-catching marijuana-themed t-shirts. Regardless, I could always count on him to deposit a friendly little slip of paper notifying me of his search, tucked between my stage props and issues of Cannabis Culture Magazine.

So I got to thinkin'... With all the greed, corruption and dirty war money currently corroding the American system, wouldn't it be possible for just one turncoat TSA official to secretly plant a kilo of cocaine in my suitcase, in order to "discover" it, so officials could haul me off to the slammer to serve a mandatory minimum sentence that dwarfs those meted out to some murderers? Granted, I suspect the vast majority of TSA employees are probably decent citizens who would never do such a thing. But what if I happened to get real unlucky? All it takes is one bad apple.

My solution to this potential snag is simple... When I travel by plane in the future, I will insist that TSA officials search my luggage, right in front of me, before I leave my bags in their tender loving care. If the officials ever appear perplexed by my requests, I will tell them I just want to be safe. After all, I trust Big Brother's hands in my Fruit of the Looms about as much as I trust a pervert with his paws down my pants.

Drug Cartels Hiring Hit Men in U.S.

2005-12-22T07:18:00.000-08:00

Regarding E. Eduardo Castillo's recent alarming article "Drug Cartels Recruiting Hit Men in U.S."...

The cartel thugs don't mind if our officials catch 10-15% of their drug shipments, so long as our policies make the other 90% of their product worth it's weight in gold. Consider that it costs the U.S. Government 30 cents per ounce to cultivate marijuana for NIDA's Investigational New Drug program, which supplies seven patients with medical cannabis. On the street that same ounce could fetch $100-500, depending on the strain of cannabis and the region in which it was sold. Therefore, prohibition has helped create a system by which a criminal could invest $5,000 and become a millionaire. Is it any wonder that violence is spreading over our borders?

Our current drug policies enrich violent mobsters who divest financial resources to terrorists and turn our streets into battlefields. In the end our children are the real losers, as they inherit an internationally-based drug economy with no age restrictions that can be placed on distribution (black market dealers don't ask for ID like alcohol and tobacco sellers). Our kids have quick and easy access to illegal products with no quality or purity control, in the world's leading incarceration nation, where pedophiles serve lighter sentences than drug offenders. So much for that purportedly laudable goal of the DEA, "protecting the children".

A "drug-free" America would be nice. So would a stairway to heaven, yet we don't see our representatives funding that boondoggle. Perhaps they will finally learn from the brutal lessons of alcohol prohibition, and follow the lead of progressive nations that support rational policies designed to decrease violence and provide actual control over the product.

DEA Agent Shoots Self In Foot During Safety Lecture

2005-12-01T05:50:00.000-08:00

This is old news, but I've included it because it's an excellent metaphorical example of the drug war. Fight drugs with guns. Shoot self in foot. Place foot in mouth. Any questions?

Take a moment to check out the video of this appalling incident. The audience seems stunned and frightened. Notice the young child being escorted from the facility after the agent, having shot himself in the foot, proceeds to pull out another gun. As if bullets were less deadly than a marijuana cigarette.

Propaganda is a Gateway Drug

2005-11-24T06:59:00.000-08:00

Could marijuana be used to ease withdrawal symptoms associated with cocaine, meth, heroin, and those highly-addictive FDA-approved drugs? You bet!!

Son of Hate Mail

2005-11-21T21:55:00.000-08:00

As Bill Hicks once said, "Who'da thunk it?" I come home from a busy day and get this little whipper-snapper messin' up my inbox...

as usual more leftist rhetoric, go back to your bong hippie

I think, Who in the hell did I piss off now? Sounds like somebody who thinks they know me but doesn't. After all, I'm no leftist, and I'm more of a Yippie then a hippie. Whoever it is, they're insinuating that I'm committing a crime. And they never even said hello.

I click on the link of the sender, and sure enough, there's a photo of Bubba, a whopping man dressed in hunter camouflage, squatting on an overstuffed sofa while a brown lab paws at his crotch. He's lookin' like a lard turd up a whale's ass, in a living room with retro decor that reminds me of my grandmother's old house at 1733 Vinewood St in Ft. Worth, Texas. Seems Bubba has rustled him uppa website called Good American, a blog purportedly about "truth, justice and the American way". Bubba evidently worships at the bloody shrine of Tom Delay, and spits chaw juice in my guestbook.

I promise to go back to my bong, Bubba. Just as soon as you lock up your fridge, your flag and your white sheet. Mess with this bull, you'll get the horns. And to show I'm a fair sport, here's fifteen minutes of fame for you...

DEA Targets the Candy Man

2005-11-20T12:06:00.000-08:00

Between Operation Sweet Tooth and Operation Candy Box, looks like these agents are sugar gluttons - not to mention tax dollar addicts. Somewhere out there in the vast black market, a drug kingpin is surely thankful for these seizures, as it increases the value of the other 90% of his shipments that didn't get caught.

I don't mind the cutesy names of these sugary covert-ops, so long as enforcement officials make sure their own teeth don't rot away from the saccharine they are swishing. But even if they do develop cavities, I have someone I can send them to...

JUNK Review - NuPenz Book Review

2005-11-18T17:21:00.000-08:00

It seems until recently, unhealthy eating has been almost encouraged in American Society, but films such as "Super Size Me" with Morgan Spurlock or the book "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser, as well as Junk by Christopher Largen has helped to heightened awareness of the true ramifications of an unhealthy diet. Collectively, Americans have blown themselves to proportions that baffle the rest of the world.

In Junk the people of The United States are forcefully brought to their senses through the prohibition of junk food. In the book, the junk prohibition brings all the calm reassuring moral fibre that the alcohol prohibition brought in the 1920s. ( I'm being facetious, of course, if Largen can be funny so can I.) The idea that the US Government could conceivably step in to save us from ourselves is not as far fetched as we might like to think, especially with the cautiousness of the post- 9-11 policies, the focus of Homeland Security and The Patriot Act. More and more of the freedoms Americans take for granted are eroding away.

The question, "How safe are our personal freedoms?" is definitely one of the underlying themes in the book, but there is more to Largen's agenda than that. In addition to Junk, Largen is also co-author of Prescription Pot (New Horizon Press) along with George McMahon, one of seven people in the United States allowed to legally smoke marijuana in the United States for medical purposes. He parallels this situation in Junk with a character, George Mabry, one of seven diabetics who can legally inject insulin. Personally, I felt that particular situation was a bit over the top, but isn't that what political satire is supposed to do?

I'm not sure I agree with everything, but Largen's Junk is in the company of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal ," Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and George Orwell's 1984. It raises questions in an intelligent, humorous way that have the potential to affect real change. All in all would I recommend Junk? I'd say yes, but take it with a grain of salt, and be careful of who's watching.

"Protecting" the Children: Part 1

2005-11-18T15:27:00.000-08:00

Riddle me this...

If our legislators really want to keep dangerous drugs out of the hands of children, why are they pursuing policies that make it much easier for children to obtain these drugs?

Example... A fifteen year-old boy goes into a convenience store to buy beer and cigarettes, but the clerk won't sell to him because he lacks a legitimate ID (as is required in a regulated market). That boy leaves the store and walks across the parking lot, money in hand. The teen is immediately approached by a local drug dealer, who is more than happy to sell him all the marijuana, cocaine and heroin he wants. No ID? No problem. After all, anything goes in a black market.

In the meantime, our leaders (who are addicted to power and money) continue to support destructive prohibition policies, all in the name of "protecting" our children.

JUNK Review - Bobby Travis

2005-11-13T07:30:00.000-08:00

Mr. Travis is a freethinker and writer living in my hometown. I was thrilled to learn how much he enjoyed my novel...

"Absolutely phenomenal, Junk! The first book ever, that I could refer to as "junk", and be incredibly happy about it. Laughing out loud is simply not avoidable when reading this novel. Once I started on Junk, I could not put it down... When I finished I decided immediately that I would have to have junk everyday. Well, maybe only on the weekends. This book is a must read, and man, everybody's doing it."

-Bobby

Pippi Longstocking

2005-11-05T11:28:00.000-08:00

Or was that Hippy Bongstocking?

Opposing Viewpoints: Marijuana

2005-11-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

Good news! I just learned that one of my essays is featured in the book Opposing Viewpoints: Marijuana, part of the esteemed series that presents multiple sides of controversial issues. The book is available in libraries and bookstores across the nation. I'm honored to be featured with Dr. Ethan Russo, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Ethan Nadelmann, Keith Stroup, and Dan Savage! Opposing me in the book are morality monarch William Bennett, Drug Czar John Walters and DEA Administrator Karen Tandy. I share my account of being the youngest therapeutic user of cannabis on record in this nation, and I explore the federal marijuana program, which Walters and Tandy don't discuss publicly, as it contradicts the simplistic party line of their respective agencies. And in case you haven't noticed, the CORPGOV media outlets aren't covering the program either.

Had Walters and Tandy known of my first cannabis use at the age of two, would they have thrown me in jail? Nah. They probably would have imprisoned my parents for giving it to me, then tossed my brother and I into the brutal state foster care system, where we could be "cared for" by unqualified burger-flippers paid $5.50 an hour to give us "good" FDA-approved amphetamines and antidepressants, place us in restraints, abuse us, and keep us under control until we were old enough to ship off to jail for using illegal substances (where many foster kids wind up as adults, go figure). All in the name of "protecting the children". Reminds me of George Orwell's sheep. "Legal drugs good, illegal drugs baaaaaaaaaaad!"

In this book, Drug Czar Walters claims, "smoked marijuana has no medical value", and yet the U.S. Government's very own DEA-approved medical cannabis program requires their patients to smoke raw cannabis, and only from a paper tube (for lay persons, a joint). All of the federal patients have received medical benefit from this plant, as their doctors have attested time and time again in their medical reviews, but the government has never performed or published a single study on these individuals receiving the government marijuana. If have a feeling Walters knows this, but isn't talking. He's got pleanty of lies and ad hominum attacks to fall back on though.

Don't sweat too hard, Czar Walters. There will still be a revenue trough once drug prohibition is repealed. Just think, won't it be wonderful?! You will have fewer enemies (at home and abroad). You won't have to worry about the D.A.R.E. program - doctors, family members and recovering addicts are better equipped than cops to give children accurate information about drugs. Your job will get easier. There will be no more cartellions to fight, less bloodshed. No more Kiki Camarenas. Your DEA officials will finally be able to focus resources on regulating production, reducing diversion, enforcing fees and taxes, and preventing distribution of drugs to minors. But if you can't even regulate the product, why incarcerate people for using it? After all, prohibition can't even keep illegal drugs out of the federal prisons. Even with all the security you provide, there will still be staff willing to make a quick buck on the side. It's the capitalist ethos in action. Oh yeah, Czar Walters, one more thing for the record. I don't get a check from George Soros (or Lewis, Sperling, Kampia and company)- and never will, so long as there are strings attached to the cash. Believe it or not, I have too much self-respect to let somebody else call my political shots.

Oh well... At least I know Czar Walters has a sense of humor. Can't you tell by this joyful photo, folks? Gosh, it must feel great to be so moral(istic)!

JUNK Review - Gatewood Galbraith

2005-11-03T10:05:00.000-08:00

Here is a review from a man I respect immensely, who authored one of my favorite books ever, The Last Free Man in America Meets the Synthetic Subversion, an entertaining and informative biography that stands as a classic example of what one man can accomplish in defense of a beloved constitution.

"It took me a while to read JUNK because, on every page, I cried until I laughed and found reason after reason to do it again. This is word-smithing of high caliber in a language created by the New World Order and hi-jacked and homespun by Mr. Largen into a masterpiece of irony and wit. It ought to be required reading for every high school freshman." - Gatewood Galbraith, author, attorney, revolutionary, and independent candidate

JUNK Review - The Capital Times

2005-11-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

Friday, October 28, 2005
By Mary Bergin The Capital Times
Madison, WI

You likely have met the food police and -- Good God! -- may even be one of them. This is all about them, and you.

As the Halloween candy groveling begins, and sugar levels spike, it seems fitting to introduce the odd, entertaining and cloying presence of "Junk" by Christopher Largen ($17.95, ENC Press). It's a sugar high in words.

The author -- whose writing credits include the Village Voice, High Times and the Nashville Scene -- spins out a gluttonous assortment of short stories that all deal with attempts to control or eliminate our intake of junk food.

We read of junk food locker searches, junk food dealers, junk food urine tests and legislation to make the food pyramid a mandatory diet. Largen conjures up a new type of prohibition that turns chocolate pudding, Girl Scout cookies and Twinkie wrappers into contraband with extremely sobering consequences.

DEA Hijacks Red Ribbon Week

2005-10-31T06:27:00.000-08:00

It's time to paint the town blood red...again.

Red Ribbon Week began in the mid-80s, at the height of Reagan's presidency, amidst the cynical fear-mongering of Just Say No to Commies, AIDS and CIA Crack, with the goal of sending a message (especially to children) that "drugs are bad" (excluding alcohol, tobacco, and a host of pharmaceuticals, of course).

I believe children should be educated about drugs, with a solid context of science and health (D.A.R.E. taught by doctors and former addicts, rather than just police), I'm appalled by Chief DEA prohibitionist Karen Tandy's video clips. She does her best to appear earnest, referring to her agency as a "family" that cares about "children", but she looks like she's trying way too hard. Every facial movement, each inflection of sincerity, seems utterly choreographed. She's looks nervous, like she really doesn't want to be there. Like just maybe she knows what she is doing is somehow absurd, but doesn't know how to stop.

Whether or not she knows, it is absurd to overlook the fact that DEA agent Kiki Camarena (a loving husband and father who truly believed in the cause) did not just "give his life", but was brutally tortured to death and buried in the desert by money-worshipping mobsters who profit immensely from America's drug war. Were it not for prohibition, those mobsters would not have possessed a motive to kill him. In fact, the drug cartellians would not even exist. Some of them may have become legitimate businessmen instead - dealing in strictly regulated products, paying taxes, operating above the radar, no violence involved. But under the shadow of prohibition, the mob thrives and their products are distributed with no regulation for quality control or dosage consistency, and no age restrictions.

The mob bosses (and the terrorists they support) don't care if law enforcement officials catch 10% of their shipments (that's about what they catch), so long as the legislators keep making the other 90% worth its weight in gold. The cartellians will laugh all the way to the bank, while the police are sitting ducks - like Kiki Camarena was.

This was the brutal lesson of alcohol prohibition. Because alcohol was dangerous, it was better to successfully regulate 99% of it, rather than only seizing a small portion while simultaneously transforming the streets into war zones and ensuring mob profits and underage use of unregulated product. I won't quote Santayana, but history is redundant when fools take the helm.

If we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars and yet can't even keep illegal drugs out of the prisons (which have grown considerably, thanks to the drug war), then is it likely we could eliminate illegal drugs by spending trillions to convert America into a big prison? A "drug-free" America would be nice - so would a stairway to heaven, and I don't see our born-again legislators pouring billions into that pet project.

It is absurd to dishonor the memory of fallen agents and officers by holding up sanitized versions of their deaths and using their grieving family members as political shields. In reality, if our federal government had learned from alcohol prohibition (regulate for safety and health, don't prohibit in moral judgment), Kiki Camarena would still be alive today, along with hundreds of other police officials, not to mention innocent bystanders, suffering patients, targeted journalists, assassinated officials and untreated addicts, who have shed enough collective blood in this 100-year failed war to dye a million ribbons red.

Guess it just goes to show, they can wrap garbage in a flag, but it still smells like a big-ole hunka junk.

My Mantra

2005-10-31T05:55:00.000-08:00

FLOWERS GROW FROM DIRT, AND SOMETIMES IT TAKES A LOT OF CRAP TO MAKE GOOD FERTILIZER.

Perverted-Justice.com

2005-10-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

Instead of passin' da tax buck and expecting Big Brother to protect children, we need to get involved as individual citizens. The folks at Perverted-Justice.com are fine examples of proactive surfers, working to take predators out of the equation BEFORE they kidnap, rape or murder a child.

This group has been covered extensively in the mainstream CORPGOV news, and has occassionally been called a vigilante organization. However, Perverted-Justice does not break the law to uphold it. They cover their legal bases, in order to the preserve evidentiary value of their data. They do not entrap, but expose. They also work with law enforcement, when appropriate.

While some visitors to their site may take issue with their tone and tactics, Perverted Justice is essential in a nation where priorities are skewed and a large share of criminal justice resources are divested to control the personal, consensual choices of adults who are otherwise law-abiding. For example, we have a war on drugs, but not a war on child abuse. We have child predators receiving lighter sentences then marijuana-growers. We have a Drug Czar, but not a Perv Czar (though some might claim the Drug Czar is perverted). We have the ineffective DARE program to teach kids about drugs (in the midst of a 30-year "drug war" that has deregulated the production and distribution of the substances, making them easily available to children), but we have no national program to teach children about their rights over their own bodies.

Our educational system, from family to church and school, teaches kids to venerate authority, to comply with adults, to obey the law, to do as they are told. But then we fail to arm children with information about their legal rights, leaving them utterly defenseless (physically and mentally) against predators. Many children being sexually abused do not even know the abuse is illegal, and some are not even old enough to understand what sex is. Nevertheless, the abuse will imprint itself and can have long-lasting effects on the victim, including disabling conditions like PTSD, substance-dependency, anxiety-related disorders, and major depression with suicidal ideations.

In the meantime, the predators thrive on the ignorance of children and the silence and inaction of complacent adults. This means you and me. It's time to wake up and get busy.

Perverted Justice is the honored recipient of my highly esteemed and coveted Badasses Without Badges Award. Love them or hate them, they are helping to attract national attention to the issue of child protection, and they are filling a gap historically neglected by Big Brother.

Tom Delay's Mugshot

2005-10-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

He's grinning like a Cheshire, so it's hard to tell this is a mugshot. Nevertheless, this picture is priceless.

Why are their no black lines to mark his height? Don't we need to know how tall he is, just in case he goes on a rampage or absconds before his court date?

I actually wrote Tom Delay several years ago, in reference to a comment he made regarding low-income welfare recipients, something to the effect of, "What are they doing with all that money, anyway?" I reminded him that it wasn't just poor people who received government handouts. In fact, the vast majority of subsidies go to the wealthy. Most people on poverty welfare are working for companies that simply don't pay enough to survive on.

Now the justice system wants to know what Mr. Delay did with all that money. Kharmic justice? Perhaps. To quote Malcolm X, maybe it's just "chickens coming home to roost". I'll reserve my judgment until the facts are in.

Whether you think Delay is innocent or guilty, this photo is definitely one for the vaults. Say cheese, Tom...

Snickergate

2005-10-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

More food-related crime... When sheriff's deputies are busted stealing candy from inmates, it gives a whole new meaning to "junk food junkie". Couldn't they wait for their payday? Sure makes me want to snicker.

Clowns Rob Donut Shop

2005-10-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

There's no accounting for taste. These Bozos were only out for cash - they left the donuts behind. Still, using the logic of the mainstream press, we might call this a "food-related" crime. And I'm not clowning around.

Scary Halloween For Child Molesters

2005-10-26T05:23:00.000-07:00

The State of New Jersey is imposing innovative restrictions on child molesters this Halloween, to prevent unsupervised contact between pedophiles and trick-or-treaters.

I believe these regulations may lull parents into a false sense of security - after all, the best way to protect your children is to actually BE THERE with them when they go door to door (novel concept). Big Brother doesn't come close to catching every know who every child abuser is (the government doesn't even catch all the child murderers). The vast majority of child abusers escape conviction, and some who are convicted are actually innocent - though it may act like God at times, the state isn't perfect. Many predators work their dirty deeds beneath the radar. Parents cannot rely on government officials to protect their kids. Not in a hurricane, and not on Halloween.

You can bet your kernel-corn candy that I would be standing right next to my munchkins on October 31st, even if it meant I had to throw on my faux prison gear and my Dunkin Donuts shirt and pretend to be a junk food junkie.

To sexual abusers of children bemoaning the loss of their Halloween rights, let me make this perfectly clear. You used children to gratify your selfish needs for power and sex. The trick is on you, and you get no treat. You should be grateful to still be alive with your freedom. Stop complaining, before I unleash Christopher Lee's Dracula on you.

I'm the Youngest Marijuana User on Record in the U.S.

2005-10-25T18:40:00.000-07:00

The nightmare is always the same. I see the Attorney General of the United States standing behind a tall podium, hovering over me as his voice booms with the authority of a man with a satellite linkup to God.

“In response to an obesity epidemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans annually, our newly formed Food Enforcement Administration has outlawed junk food. Local police will conduct searches of residential refrigerators. Candy wrappers and barbeque grills are now considered paraphernalia. To dissuade the lucrative black-market activities of street gangs like the Ice Cream Crew and the Praline Posse, neighborhood weight-watch signs will be erected in your area. Pre-employment urine screenings will test for traces of illicit food substances. Fast food felons will no longer be allowed to vote, carry a handgun, or receive a Pell Grant. Our military forces will be dispatched to destroy African cocoa fields used in chocolate production. Police smuggling donuts will face corruption charges. And insulin-dependent diabetics will just have to suffer and die, because we don’t want to send the wrong message to children about sugar abuse. Can you pinch more than an inch? If so, you aren’t simply unhealthy, you’re a criminal. So just say NO to Cracker Jacks!”

I wake up sweating, but then I take a deep breath, still happy to be walking down the green path. Come walk a mile in my shoes…

I am the youngest therapeutic cannabis user on record in the United States. I smoked my first joint in 1971, when I was two years old.

I was deprived of oxygen during birth, and my mother and I both nearly died. I grew into a severely hyperactive toddler (even then, I was a hellion). I was constantly screaming and crying, destroying property, and aggressing toward other people. When I bit my preschool teacher on the leg and smashed my fist through the living room window, my parents became desperate.

Few people understood medical marijuana (or hyperactivity, for that matter) back then, but my parents had smoked cannabis for years. In fact, my father had graduated Magna Cum Laude from TCU, smoking every day, and was a communications professor at Drake in Iowa – again, smoking daily. My parents were Southerners. They knew about folk remedies, like rubbing sweet rum on the swollen gums of teething babies. They thought cannabis wouldn’t harm me, and they suspected it might relax me. They held the joint to my lips, telling me to suck it like a straw.

I'm sure that at the age of two, I was unable to get a full inhalation, but it was enough to work. Mom and Dad were amazed by the results. The marijuana curbed my aggression, reduced my tantrums, elevated my mood, increased my appetite, and helped me sleep.

My parents provided marijuana to me for the next three years, until I entered kindergarten. Once President Nixon stepped up the "war on drugs", my parents became afraid of the legal ramifications, so they stopped giving it to me. My behaviors went through the roof, so I graduated to a harder drug, Ritalin, which was considered a cutting-edge amphetamine at the time, with serious side effects (including addiction, heart palpitations, and nervous tics, to name just a few). Ten years later, Ritalin would become one of the most over-prescribed substances in the nation. Parents enjoyed the sanitized convenience of behavior intervention in a pill, while their children often sold the pills in the school playground.

My parents kept my childhood marijuana use a secret from me until 29 years later, when I was writing about the federal marijuana program.

In 1990, I had no idea I would become a professional writer. I was sweating my way through college. My mind was full, if not my stomach. I dined cerebrally, devouring books and vegetarian gruel. Still, someone had to bring home the tofu.

I accepted a job as personal attendant for a quadriplegic veteran whose pain specialist secretly recommended marijuana for his agonizing and debilitating spasms. The unfortunate price of his relief was the terror of being thrown in jail. Every time he used medical marijuana, he went through an elaborate ritual of pulling the blinds, spraying air freshener, and dropping a towel under his door.

One night after smoking his medicine he asked me, “Do you really think they would take care of a guy like me if I was behind bars? Give me physical therapy? Wipe my ass? Would they know how to change out my catheter? I wouldn't even be able to defendmyself. I could die in there.”

While the veteran lived in fear, other patients were legally smoking marijuana grown and supplied by Uncle Sam. I met the fifth federal patient, George McMahon, when he first spoke at UNT in 1998. George receives 300 pre-rolled joints each month, to treat severe symptoms of pain, spasms, and nausea related to years of surgical and pharmaceutical maltreatment, repeated injuries, and a rare genetic condition called Nail Patella Syndrome, which can cause bone deformities, kidney failure, and immune system dysfunction. George and his wife Margaret were traveling the world speaking to legislators, police officials, educators, health care professionals, and patients about the medical value of cannabis.

Prior to being accepted to the government program, George had survived 19 major surgeries, took 17 pharmaceutical drugs daily, and depended on a wheelchair. For the past fifteen years, George has smoked ten government joints each day. During this time, George hasn’t had a single surgery or hospitalization, he no longer takes pharmaceuticals (aside from the occasional antibiotic), and he rides a bike. He is living proof that marijuana is medicine.

George was an inspiration. He could easily have been complacent, enjoying the benefits of consistent access to his medicine. Instead he was fighting for other patients. George told me that helping others gave him courage and strength to get up every morning. He struck me as a humble man with a strength that belied his illness.

I paused to consider the potential ramifications of writing a book with a federal marijuana patient. I already had firsthand knowledge of the dangerous and unintended repercussions of speaking out. People had tried to hurt me on numerous occasions. I had once been physically assaulted by skinheads while protesting a Ku Klux Klan rally on the steps of the State Capitol in Austin, on Martin Luther “Coon” day (as the KKK called it). My car had been repeatedly vandalized, once by fire. In response to my writings on drug policy reform, I’d received veiled, threatening letters from disturbed strangers. I knew how difficult it could be to have a rational dialogue with hysterical people, especially when the First Amendment is often treated like toilet paper. But I couldn't turn away from the opportunity.

We began with George pouring out a lifetime of memories into an old-school Dictaphone. Before we finished, the project blossomed into a major road trip documented on video, including stops at the State Capitol of Arkansas, Elvis Presley’s Graceland, and the federal cannabis garden at Ole Miss.

Over the past four years, I’ve had the honor of serving as George’s co-author, caregiver, biographer, historian, devil’s advocate, and publicity consultant. We’ve traveled through 11 states together, speaking at law schools, junior colleges, legislative gatherings, and music festivals. We’ve occasionally been followed, videotaped, and harassed by misguided police officers and attorney generals. But we’ve also been welcomed by legislators, church librarians, and DEA agents. And we’ve generated news articles in five countries with an aggregate circulation of approximately 20 million readers. Not bad for a couple of guys with no degrees, a couple of antiquated home computers, several kamikaze editors, and a stubborn desire to dig ditches and help change the laws.

The federal marijuana program lies at the heart of a conundrum that demands resolution. If the DEA is correct in claiming that marijuana is a dangerously addictive drug with no medical benefit, then why has the government been giving it to sick and dying people for the last 23 years? On the other hand, if marijuana has medical applications, why is the federal government criminalizing patients, closing clinics, and denying states the legal autonomy to resolve the issue independently? Until these questions are answered, George’s story needs to be told, again and again.

Politics are intensely personal. Making no distinction between individual circumstances of use, the war on drugs has become a war on suffering people. Legislators aren’t health care professionals, and patients aren’t criminals. Yet health and law become entwined in a cruel and sometimes deadly dance.

After thirty years of perpetually escalating sentences and draconian prohibition policies, we've lost more of our citizens (and more of our civil liberties) than we did on September 11th. Despite this devastating human carnage, illegal drugs are still readily available on any given street corner in America. This is the terrible result of attempting to treat a public health problem as a criminal justice issue. It’s like trying to outlaw junk food. It will never work. It will only exacerbate the health problem while compounding it with a host of legal, economic, and public safety issues.

How long will it take before our legislators implement drug policies that heal people rather than destroying lives? I’m no soothsayer, but I think we hold the answer in the voices we raise and the ballots we cast. Something tells me our journey down the green path has not yet ended.

Oh, yeah…and to all you fired-up activists, I’d like to offer some unsolicited knowledge (at the risk of sounding like Margaret Mead). Never let yourself believe you can’t make a difference. Indeed, you are the only one who can. And you don’t have to be absorbed in some homogenized collective “movement” to change things, either. An organization is only as strong as its weakest link, but you are a majority of one. Act like it. Enough said.

JUNK Review - Andrew Thomas Breslin

2005-10-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

Andrew Thomas Breslin, health food afficianado and author of the rich and creamy Mother's Milk, had this to say...

"Junk is gold! Funny, thought provoking, well paced, well written. I read it the way one eats potato chips and was done before I knew it (though without the accompanying indigestion). I found the use of various food-related songs especially amusing, (Fat Bottomed Girls, The Candy Man, etc) as well as the parodies of organizations (National Organization for the Reform of Muffin Laws was the best).

"There is a scene in this alternate-universe version of a head shop that any of my fellow 420 enthusiasts could not help but enjoy, especially if they are chowing down on doritos in a post-smoke munch-out. I love the way the scruffy tie-dyed thespians in those shops will show you a 4-foot grafix bong and with a straight face insist that it's for tobacco and legal herbs only. Extended brocolli tongs. Heh heh. Yeah right, junkie.

"I'm actually a bit of a health-food enthusiast, and I liked the way the book gave more than a nod to the fact that junk of all kinds (food, drugs, etc) can be very bad and we shouldn't ignore that, but that prohibitionist approaches are doomed to abysmal failure.

"That's all for now. My Grafix legal herb smoking device calls."

Center for Disease Control Alert

2005-10-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

I just received this report from an elusive and shadowy E-contact who would only refer to himself as "Deep Shit"...

The Center for Disease Control has issued a warning about a new virulent strain of Sexually Transmitted Disease. This disease is contracted through dangerous and high risk behavior. The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim (pronounced "gonna re-elect him").

Many victims contracted it in 2004, after having been screwed for the past 4 years, in spite of having taken measures to protect themselves from this especially troublesome problem. Cognitive sequelae of individuals infected with Gonorrhea Lectim include, but are not limited to: anti-social personality disorder traits; delusions of grandeur with a distinct messianic flavor; chronic mangling of the English language; extreme cognitive dissonance; inability to incorporate new information; pronounced xenophobia; inability to accept responsibility for actions; exceptional cowardice masked by acts of misplaced bravado; uncontrolled facial smirking; ignorance of geography and history; tendencies toward creating evangelical theocracies; and a strong propensity for categorical, all-or-nothing behavior. The disease is sweeping Washington.

Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed and baffled that this malignant disease originated only a few years ago from a bush in Texas.

Home Alone With The Rain

2005-10-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

The day has finally arrived. Texas has taken its begrudging turn for the cold in the fourth week of October. The sky is dark and rain drizzles down, and I'm alone in my house with the clicking of my keyboard and the laboring hum of a fridge.

The IOOF Cemetery (International Order of Oddfellows) is located across the street from my home. I look through my patio door a flash of lightening diffuses over a tombstone, shaped like a scaled-down Washington monument, that reads: BONER.

What a last name. "That's Mister Boner to you."

I feel ill at ease today, as if I'd just heard a prolonged choral scream from the future that was so agonized it reverberated into the past. There are days when I feel regret and fear for the human race. Those days pass quickly, as I begin to chide myself for being so damned melodramatic, for taking the whole experience of life much too seriously. If we are to be destroyed (by ourselves, no less), then let us at least go down with a good gut laugh.

Question of the day... If a martyr was suffering on a cross in front of you, would you hold a marijuana cigarette to his lips to help him ease his pain? Or would you act like the hypocrites who care more for the letter of the law than the spirit on which its based? Or like the mobsters, who care more for money? I bet some of you fascists wish it weren't quite so difficult to handcuff a crucified man.

Here's a nostalgic image for the terrorists, mafia kingpins, corrupt politicians and narcocops who profit from the international drug war. Think about this picture the next time you get soused on booze. Remember, it wasn't the drunks who repealed prohibition. It was police officers, community leaders, parents, and children.

Is Ronald McDonald a Transgender Hussie?

2005-10-22T16:54:00.000-07:00

We should have known. Any man who prances around in makeup, fixated on greasy beef and special sauce, must be hiding a deep dark secret. Well now the awful truth is out. Ronald McDonald is sleeping around, having wanton relationships with women, men, and God forbid, Big Macs. It required some deeply-layered empirical research, but I finally tracked it down. Here's the awful evidence. Notice how Ronald goes from happily relaxing with his clown wife to becoming a full-fledged porn addict. My childhood dreams are shattered...

I located my headmaster...

2005-10-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

...from 20 years ago, when I attended Professional Youth Conservatory (PYC), a performing arts highschool located in the attic of a church on the campus of Texas Wesleyan College (now Texas Wesleyan University) in Ft. Worth. The school had less than 50 enrolled students when I attended. One of my classmates was world-renowned gospel singer Kirk Franklin, and I studied under David Yeakle, a master of physical comedy. We spent half the day on academics, and another half on dance, music, mime, drama, etc. Needless to say, PYC was an exception among Texas schools that focused on "scorin' touchdowns for Jeezus". It was no parochial school, but I think many of the students worshipped (in a broad sense) through the creative process itself. We were all a part of a great experiment that has yet to be repeated in Texas, that I'm aware of.

Those two years were among the best and most tumultuous in my life. If any of my fellow students from days past happens to read this, please drop me a line. I don't bite anymore. Usually.

And now, I'd like to introduce you to a magician of sorts, a man who believed in his students and has spent his life pouring energy into creative experiments. I owe him one for not expelling me when I broke the piano bench in the sanctuary of the church PYC was housed in, where I was trying to imitate Jerry Lee Lewis' vigorous antics while banging out a pigeon-peck version of "Great Balls of Fire". He aged gracefully and is now a woodcarver, but so much more. His wood portraits reflect a peace and clarity of spirit, and I'm proud of him. He's my former headmaster, Dr. Steve Schoolar.

On Writing

2005-10-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

I'm often asked how I go about writing a novel. I have no rigid strategy, but there are some steps that proved effective during the writing of JUNK...

First, I try to love life deeply. This is dangerous, because the suffering of loss is an ultimate (and undeniable) condition of loving. True love does not hide from a painful awareness of absurdity, often manifested through physical and emotional naturalistic details. Love necessitates embracing the void (perhaps laughing while doing so). I accomplish this through writing. Hence my motivation.

When I begin to write, I turn off my internal editor. I create a mental space where logic and reason cannot judge, where my intuition is safe to play. This allows ideas to flow out, tinged with an element of mystery bestowed by the subconscious.

Once I've written, I leave the text alone for a period. I try to trust the passage of time, and keep my itchy brain off the ideas for several weeks.

When I return to the text, I come armed with logic and reason. I narrow my vision to become microcosmic (some might say anal retentive), and address elements of style, continuity, character, theme, technique, motif, etc. I muster tenacity and repeat this process until I work myself into an obsessive frenzy, along with my publisher, who snatches the text from my hands and dashes to the printer before I can grab it back.

I have little advice to offer. I learned long ago that an ivory tower would not teach me to trust my voice (or discover I had many voices). Although I'd been offered an English scholarship, I chose not to pursue a formal degree. This decision was not made in arrogance, but it did contain an element of humility. If I could not be taught to write, then I sure as hell couldn't teach anyone else.

Follow your own heartbeat. I've found it's the only way to the fiery, raw and honest words that set a keyboard ablaze.

Pedophiles Not Potheads

2005-10-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

While traveling the U.S. with a federally legal marijuana patient, speaking about therapeutic cannabis use and broader drug policies, I've met people from all walks of life who use marijuana: cerebral professors, astute attorneys, responsible administrators, Native American tribal leaders, loving parents, struggling patients, a few legislators, police officers and soldiers, and thousands of ditch-diggers. And I won't lie to you - I've met a few mellow-yellow, hippy-dippy Cheech and Chong "stoners" too (the ones we typically see in the CORPGOV media). And no, I'm not naming any names.

The vast majority of these cannabis users work hard, value their educations, pay their taxes, love their children, and contribute to their communities. Most of them don't use pot all day, everyday. They do not jeapordize public safety through their use (they don’t drive while impaired, they don't force anyone else to use it, and they don’t provide the herb to minors without a doctor’s authorization – similar to our social and legal perimeters for alcohol). They are mostly nonviolent and law-abiding (aside from their cannabis use).

During the past three decades of our nation's drug war, we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars to arrest and incarcerate millions of American marijuana consumers, and yet the resilient cannabis plant shows no sign of being driven to earthly extinction anytime in the near future. To use a metaphor that a child could understand, the herb is kind of like the Incredible Hulk. Hulk not mean. Hulk green. Hulk want be left lone. But Big Brother want kill Hulk. More him fire big gun, bigger get Hulk.

But seriously, here’s something to stuff in your pipe and burn… Right now our nation is home to thousands of child abusers who’ve been found guilty of predatory (not statutory) sex crimes against kids 13 and younger (all the way down to toddlers), who were given probation. That’s right, no jail sentence. Zero time. Nada. Zip.
Breathe deep. Let that sink in a moment...

I suspect some of you are reading this and thinking: That's terrible, Largen. Truly sickening. But what in the world do pedophiles have to do with pot? Couldn't mixing these issues hurt the causes of both marijuana policy reform and child advocacy?

The two issues are already interrelated.

We know that sexual abuse often devastates the lives of survivors, contributing to high rates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), along with a host of related psychosocial symptoms including depression, anxiety, insomnia, identity confusion, alientation from self and society, nightmares, cognitive impairments, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, unemployment, self-mutilation, and suicide attempts.

According to analytical research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, PTSD is directly related with much higher rates of substance abuse, as survivors attempt to self-medicate their painful and debilitating symptoms. It’s a cruel irony that a survivor of sexual abuse might receive more jail time (for using illegal drugs to self-medicate) than would the predator who brutalized her. Additionally, the drug charge would make the abuse survivor ineligible for federal financial aid for college, while her abuser would have no problem receiving the same aid, and so our system compounds the injury of rape with the injustice of unequal access to education.

While we're on the subject, we might ask: If our legislators care about children, why do we have federal mandatory minimum sentencing for cannabis offenses, but have no minimums for pedophiles? Since children from broken homes are more frequent targets of predators, why does our government break apart families to incarcerate parents for cannabis offenses? And if our officials are truly concerned about keeping marijuana out of the hands of minors, then why are they pursuing policies that actually make it easier for kids to obtain marijuana than alcohol or tobacco (remember, black marketeers are not regulated by age restrictions)? Have our officials been so focused on eradicating a plant, largely in the name of "protecting the children", that they have neglected to actually protect them?

For the sake of our nation's youth, our priorities must change. While our children are being brutally raped (as in the case of resilient and courageous Shasta Groene) and literally buried alive (beautiful Jessica Lunsford in Florida) like sacrificial lambs, we have no excuse for wasting enforcement and judicial resources on nonviolent, responsible marijuana users. Every law enforcement official who is stuck processing paperwork and making court appearances to prosecute marijuana offenses is one less officer patrolling our streets to make sure a madman isn't abducting, sodomizing, and murdering our children. Every dollar spent to criminalize cannabis could be better spent to strengthen families, build communities, and increase public safety. It’s time our policies were reformed to instruct our police officers, judges and prosecuting attorneys to focus their full attention on their most important missions: keeping the peace, serving our communities, and protecting the children - not controlling private consensual choices and incarcerating Willie Nelson while predators roam our streets.

We must insist our policies evolve so that America is no longer a ...

Halloween Chick Lit

2005-10-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

It's almost Halloween, so get those cats fattened for the sacrifice, and break out some blood red sidewalk chalk to draw pentagrams for the devil. Make sure you've got plenty of razor blades for those Snickers bars - the kids will eat them up! Didn't you know? Halloween isn't just about dressing up and having a few laughs. It's a diabolical plot by Satan to control the innocent minds of children!!!

Don't believe me? Just ask the number one authorities, those historically hysterical reactionaries at Chick Bible Tracts.

Go ahead, check it out. It's the scariest Halloween "literature" since "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". And in honor of JUNK, it even features dangerous drugs put into candy bars...

Boo? Boo-hoo. Chick lit ain't just for chicks anymore.

JUNK Review - Indiana Daily Student

2005-10-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

I liked this review so much, I think I'll have a root beer float...

Witty story much more than 'junk'
By Rebecca Hosier
Published Friday, October 14, 2005

At first glance, Christopher Largen's narrative titled "Junk" seems to be just that: junk. It's an array of articles, dialogue, fiction narratives, song lyrics, commercialized advertisements and newspaper clippings scattered throughout the book with enticing titles such as "Want to Micromanage your Employees' Pee-Pee? Urine the Right Place!"

But let's not make conclusions based on visual epistemology. From the opening lines of the narrative, "Junk" envelops the reader in an explosive prologue which precedes an equally suspenseful and gripping first chapter in the book. In the prologue, one character is kidnapped out of her room in the middle of the night with only the thought that "War. Is. Hell." The reader is left in awe of the action that has just transpired and curious about what war must be taking place in which casualties and hostages are being claimed, even kidnapped, out of their homes during the night.

The answer: The United States government has officially declared a war on junk food in an over-zealous attempt to stop the rising percentage of obese American citizens. The police are cracking down on all forms of junk food, making them worse than drugs and starting a program called "SCARE" (Substance Consumption Abuse Resistance Education) to replace the good old "DARE" courses (Drug Abuse Resistance Education).

Largen's text is filled with witty ploys on real-life people, places and organizations. He hosts characters such as Chastity Speers and Fernando Rivero (parodies of Britney Spears and Geraldo Rivera). With these correlations between real life and the world of the government gone mad, and with the inclusion of articles about managing employees' urine (among other things), the humor is endless. Yet through the combination of narratives and "Channel 8" interviews, along with various newspaper article clippings, the reader gains a sense of real-life, everyday government and political criticism. The text seems to ask just how far the United States government is willing to go in order to enact violent retribution for violations of trivial regulations. And with the war on junk paralleling the raging wars on drugs and terrorism, the juxtaposition of these political wars no longer seems far-fetched.

Largen makes a concise criticism of the war on junk when he writes that the government had to release many murderers, rapists and other hard-core criminals in order to make room for junk food offenders. The government even goes so far as to give murderers, rapists and drug abuse offenders shorter sentences than those citizens who are caught eating, creating or distributing any kind of junk food.

The use of newspaper articles with humorous names but strictly serious styles of writing also enforce Largen's criticism of prior and current government involvement in any sort of war in which there are casualties. And the war on junk definitely suffers casualties, whether from police brutality, obesity or even one instance of a death by Twinkie. Many people suffer their lives in the path of the government's attempt at making a better, slimmer America.

Christopher Largen's writing style emanates precision and conciseness in his clever debut of the world gone awry. For not only is America involved in the war on junk, but around-the-world bans on nonhealthy foods are being enforced. The involvement of other countries opens the narrative to the introduction of the Mafia-like Candy Man, the head of a large junk food distribution ring which revolves around all of the main characters in the narrative.

Largen weaves a careful and endearing tale about the struggle of several main characters to stay above the temptation of a chocolate craving or the "deadly" doughnut craving, bringing all their lives crashing into each other in a surprisingly thought-provoking ending.Whether you are political or not, democrat, republican, independent or otherwise, and whether or not you crave white chocolate or dark chocolate or must have that morning donut, Christopher Largen's novel is one to be enjoyed by everyone.

Junk Food Blog

2005-10-18T15:34:00.000-07:00

Here is a website the Candy Man (that shadowy Godfadda of JUNK) would love...

Want to know about McDonald's new Shrimp Burger (available only in Japan)? Or a chocolate science kit? Pomegranate ice cream (yes, it really exists)? How about a 62-pound hamburger (world's record setter)? Did you know that Hustler Magazine has a new restaurant chain? Ever heard of Root Beer BBQ Sauce (there's no accounting for taste, but it sounds yummy to me)? Tobacco flavored bon-bons? Etch-A-Sketch Lollipops? Edible Easter grass? Corn-flavored ice cream? Adjustable hot sauce?

They still haven't come out with Crack Rock Candy.

Check out Junk Food Blog, a marvelous site reminiscent of Willy Wonka's land of pure imagination, dedicated to the exhaustive spectrum of foods that taste great while inducing addiction, indigestion, mad cow disease, and heart burn!

Laura Bush Forgets the Name of Hurricane Katrina

2005-10-17T19:50:00.000-07:00

Isn't it sad when the First Lady of the United States can't even remember the name of the storm that killed hundreds of her fellow Americans? Maybe she caught a nasty case of Alzheimer's from Ronald Reagan. Or perhaps it was short-term memory loss related to exogenous cannabinoids (marijuana smoke), from the federal government's herb-garden at Ole Miss. Oh well. She doesn't have to worry too much. That grand old White House sure is warm and dry. Nobody's looting there. Except perhaps the tenants.

As Mrs. Bush proselytizes parents displaced by Katrina (that's right, Laura, Ka-Tri-Na), false empathy oozes from her photo-op antics. With a Big Momma like this one, who needs a Big Brother? See the painful video footage HERE.

Thou Shalt Not Utter "Political Correctness"

2005-10-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

Some readers have accused me of not being PC enough. They say I rock the boat too much. They claim I use words like weapons, that I have little sense of decorum, that my lips are flapping in the wind. These horribly offended folks represent a diverse spectrum of political and sexual orientations, ethnicities, nationalities, and shoe sizes.

Let's get this straight... There are plenty of things to be legitimately offended about in this world - like lying politicians, corrupt officials, totalitarian oppression, bigotry (in all its forms), social and economic injustice, child rape, terrorism, genocide, the potentially imminent destruction of our planet, Paris Hilton, etc. But words are words. Nothing more. They only have the power that people give them.

I think censors are so busy trying to tape my mouth shut, they don't notice the blindfolds that prevent them from seeing THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES IN THE WORLD THAN WORDS! And I say this as a writer who loves words (and the freedom to use them as I please). While we're at it, folks, GENOCIDE AND TORTURE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN JANET JACKSON'S SUPERBOWL NIPPLE. PASS IT ON TO THE U.S. CORPGOV MEDIA MOGULS.

Example of faith in action... I used to protest the KKK and NeoNazi groups across Texas. After a few years, I stopped doing so, because protests inadvertently draw media attention to the hate-groups and their cause, and many of the Klan protesters were only there for primal scream therapy. Most recently, I protested "Reverend" Fred Phelps, of the Westboro Baptist Church, when he came all the way down from Kansas to Denton, TX, to demonstrate at two of the local churches my friends attend. These moralistic morons waved signs that read GOD HATES FAGS and FAG CHURCH, and they instructed their children to grind an American flag into the mud with their feet. I felt sorry for these brainwashed kids, so I approached them and asked, "How are you guys doing today?" An obese and bitter woman in a faded flower dress stepped forward and belched, "Don't talk to it, kids. I don't know if it's a boy or a girl. It has long hair!" I turned and snapped, "Lady, tell it to Jesus!"

Over the years, I've endured plenty of venomous polemic from those hate-mongering "Christian" supremacists. But I wouldn't duct-tape their nasty mouths shut. Why would I want to suffocate their invective? I'd rather watch them hide under their hearts of stone in a desperate attempt to deflect the counter-lashings of a forked tongue.

Please understand, if you're an advocate of state-mandated political correctness, I try to treat everyone exactly the same, with kindness and dignity. I would never say anything to be gratuitous or offend you. I have nothing personal against you. So if you want to shut me up, go jump in the mudpit with Pol Pot, Joey Stalin, and Uncle Adolph. Okay? Got it? Good. And I'll just keep on ruffling more feathers than a fox in a hen house.

State Sponsored Phone Sex

2005-10-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

"Hello? Thank you for calling the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles. For license renewal, press 1. For blowjobs, press two. For handicap stickers, press 3. For bondage and domination, press 4. If you are using a rotary phone, please hold for further mastubatory instructions."

This story represents government ineptitude at it's most perverse and hysterical...

N.J. License Plate Callers Get Sex Line

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey motorists calling a toll-free number seeking handicapped or animal-friendly license plates are getting a little more action than they expected. Instead of getting the state Motor Vehicle Commission, callers reached a phone sex operation.

The mix-up happened because the MVC has the newer 888 toll-free area code, but its number was mistakenly listed with the traditional 800 code on the Web site and printed material distributed by the state Division of Disability Services. The Web site has been corrected, but thousands have received the printed material, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Thursday.

The wrong area code was on several hundred cards promoting the animal-friendly plates that were left on countertops by state Department of Health and Senior Services. Those cards were also in a newsletter that the Associated Humane Societies sent last month to 65,000 people.

State officials told the newspaper that they are attempting to contact those who got the printed material and make stickers with the right number to place over the wrong number in brochures.

92% of Souls in Hell There on Drug Charges

2005-10-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

Drugs are a gateway to Hades! Don't believe me? Check out this report from The Onion...

HELL -- A report released Monday by the Afterlife Civil Liberties Union indicates that nine out of 10 souls currently serving in Hell were condemned on drug-related sins. "Hell was created to keep dangerous sinners off the gold-paved streets of Heaven," ACLU spokesman Barry Horowitz said. "But lately, it's become a clearing-house for the non-evil souls that Heaven doesn't know how to deal with."

The disproportionate number of drug offenders in Hell is a result of God's "get tough" drug policy of the 80s A.D., imposed after Roman emperor Domitian Flavius introduced opium to his people. God's detractors say His reactionary "one sin and you're out" rule places too harsh a penalty on venial drug users.

According to God's law, souls who possess four ounces of illegal drugs at any point during their mortal lives face a mandatory minimum sentence of eternity. High-ranking seraphim in the Eternal Justice Department defended God's law. "It's all about accountability," the angel Nathanael said. "The rule of the Lord affords the complementary blessings of freedom and responsibility, and provides the governing framework under which man is punished or rewarded according to his deeds. The rules are very simple: You do the crime, you do the time. Eternity, in this case."

The ACLU report included profiles of hundreds of offenders condemned to eternal perdition under God's law. Among them is Pvt. Robert "Bobby Joe" Hetfield, a World War I fighter and amputee who became addicted to morphine during his last 72 hours of life on a French battlefield in 1918. As punishment, Hetfield has spent nearly a century cleaning Beelzebub's dope house every morning by consuming the urine, excrement, and vomit left by Satan and his revelers. Another offender listed in the ACLU report is Huachuri, an Incan peasant who used a coca-leaf-based marital aid in 1311. As punishment, he is sodomized continually by a winged, razor-penised goat.

Defenders of God's law argue that eternal punishments like these are the only way to deter other drug users, and preserve order in God's kingdom. "This is not about revolving-door justice," St. Peter said. "While the word of God will keep some on the straight and narrow, Heavenly studies show that eternal damnation is the only deterrent that really works." Horowitz said that while drug offenders are literally rotting away in Hell, serial killers and other dangerous sinners are receiving "mere Purgatorial sentences, thanks to the asking-for-forgiveness loophole." Purgatory is a minimum-security state of limbo that affords its occupants the opportunity to repent their sins and eventually gain admittance to Heaven on good behavior.

"Drug offenders, many of whom have committed no prior mortal sin, rack up infinite consecutive life sentences," Horowitz said. "Meanwhile, rapists say they're sorry, recite a few Hail Marys, and wind up basking in God's divine radiance within 10 years." Among those who oppose God's laws are the stewards of Hell, who argue that his harsh anti-drug penalties have taxed the capacities of the underworld.

"I have one ravenous and overworked hellhound assigned to terrorize 12 methamphetamine users," the demon Abracax said. "After 14 hours in the dog's digestive tract, they are excreted and revived, at which point, I give them another shot of methamphetamine. The dog's exhausted--he was originally intended to be responsible for two users at most."

According to Horowitz, even leaving aside questions of civil liberties in the afterlife, God's drug laws are problematic. "These laws, simply put, don't work," Horowitz said. "What the Heavenly hosts need to consider is some sort of angelic early-intervention program at the pre-death level, or at the very least, some form of afterlife rehab."

JUNK Review - Toxic Universe

2005-10-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

Ask Not for Whom the Cookie Crumbles
A Review by Kim Lumpkin 10/12/2005

It's all too easy to dismiss those whose sociopolitical views fall outside of the mainstream of American society as “radical;” one mark of effective satire is when it can convince the audience that what they consider normal today could easily become the new taboo in society tomorrow.

In JUNK, Christopher Largen takes on the entire war on drugs simply by turning it into a war on junk food, a prospect that does not seem quite as far-fetched as one might think considering recent lawsuits against fast food companies, national concern over the obesity epidemic, and the general trend toward legislating personal responsibility rather than teaching it. JUNK takes fighting fat to the logical extreme, and the result is both funny and a little unsettling.

The most remarkable thing about JUNK is the amount of research and detail Largen uses to tell his tale. Besides straight narration, he uses news articles, personal letters, and other documents all based on real ones. Virtually no aspect of the war on drugs/junk food is left unnoticed, from PSAs to head shops to the different ways nations handle the “war.” This allows Largen to examine the war on drugs itself from every angle, with good guys and bad guys on both sides, and the match is so perfect it's almost scary.

As in most satires, the characters are more representative types than fully realized individuals, but some, like Reverend Moe Goodman, a priest who is also a “junk food counselor” for inner city youth, still manage to leave a lasting impression.

As you can imagine, there is plenty of humor in this ludicrous premise, as in one scene where Reverend Goodman, is challenged by one of the kids:

“But I know you ain't even gonna try and tell me you never licked rock, back in the day. Huh, Rev?”

Moe raised his eyebrows as if he was surprised to be asked. “Rock?” He considered his response because he wanted to be a good role model. “You mean candy…or salt?”

Some of the transpositions strain even a generous suspension of disbelief, such as using insulin as a stand in for medicinal marijuana, but the point – that it is downright unethical for the government to tell doctors what they can and cannot prescribe to their patients – still stands.

Perhaps the hardest point to swallow is how the major food corporations so willingly give in and stop producing their highly profitable wares. It's probably the only serious obstacle to such a scenario occurring in real life…who'd have thought corporate greed might be a good thing?

JUNK may be funny, but it shows how dangerous it is to take the small as well as the large liberties for granted. In a time when personal freedoms are at risk like never before “for the public good, Largen is a welcome voice of both playful and serious resistance.

© Copyright ToxicUniverse.com
10/12/2005

Study Shows Marijuana May Be Useful in Treating Anxiety, Depression

2005-10-14T07:35:00.000-07:00

Marijuana Might Cause New Cell Growth In The Brain
Source: New Scientist (UK)
Author: Kurt Kleiner

MARIJUANA MIGHT CAUSE NEW CELL GROWTH IN THE BRAIN

A synthetic chemical similar to the active ingredient in marijuana makes new cells grow in rat brains. What is more, in rats this cell growth appears to be linked with reducing anxiety and depression. The results suggest that marijuana, or its derivatives, could actually be good for the brain.

In mammals, new nerve cells are constantly being produced in a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is associated with learning, memory, anxiety and depression. Other recreational drugs, such as alcohol, nicotine and cocaine, have been shown to suppress this new growth.

Xia Zhang of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and colleagues decided to see what effects a synthetic cannabinoid called HU210 had on rats' brains. They found that giving rats high doses of HU210 twice a day for 10 days increased the rate of nerve cell formation, or neurogenesis, in the hippocampus by about 40%.

Just like Prozac? A previous study showed that the antidepressant fluoxetine ( Prozac ) also increases new cell growth, and the results indicated that it was this cell growth that caused Prozac’s anti-anxiety effect. Zhang wondered whether this was also the case for the cannabinoid, and so he tested the rats for behavioural changes. When the rats who had received the cannabinoid were placed under stress, they showed fewer signs of anxiety and depression than rats who had not had the treatment. When neurogenesis was halted in these rats using X-rays, this effect disappeared, indicating that the new cell growth might be responsible for the behavioural changes.

In another study, Barry Jacobs, a neuroscientist at Princeton University, gave mice the natural cannabinoid found in marijuana, THC ( D9-tetrahydrocannabinol ) ). But he says he detected no neurogenesis, no matter what dose he gave or the length of time he gave it for. He will present his results at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington DC in November. Jacobs says it could be that HU210 and THC do not have the same effect on cell growth. It could also be the case that cannabinoids behave differently in different rodent species - which leaves open the question of how they behave in humans. Zhang says more research is needed before it is clear whether cannabinoids could some day be used to treat depression in humans.

KKK Story - Part 1

2005-10-13T15:01:00.000-07:00

In the early 90s, I spent a couple of years protesting the Ku Klux Klan. During this time my car was vandalized, I was physically assaulted, and I was threatened more than once. But I accumulated some wild and hilarious experiences along the way.

I remember how a self-proclaimed "minister of the lord" approached me at a rally in the city square of Tyler, Texas, where I was the sole Klan protester. The preacher wore a conservative business suit and tie, a button with the Aryan Cross printed on it, and the smile of a used car salesman. He looked at me with reasonable, pleading eyes and said, "Please understand our message, son. We're not saying God hates black people. We're just saying that God doesn't love black people."

Oh no, I thought, another one of those "Jeezus was a skinhead" wackos. I grinned and said, "That's an important distinction. I guess that makes you a moderate then, huh?"

The minister stopped smiling and said, "You better watch yourself, boy. Somebody's liable to grab that megaphone hangin' 'round your neck and smash it."

I turned to a police officer in a cowboy hat, who stood about four feet from us, and asked, "Did you hear him threaten me?"

The officer looked at me with steely eyes. There was a pregnant pause. Then the officer slowly shook his head and said, "I didn't hear a thing."

I knew the officer was lying to my face, and it gave me a chill. It sure felt reassuring to have dependable police protection while I was surrounded by Nazis, Skinheads, and thugs in white sheets. I turned and walked back to my car, parked three blocks away, and the officer followed me every step. As I got into my car, he tipped his hat and said, "Have a nice day."

Once I got out of there, I sure enough did. A real fine day, in fact.

Portugal Cops Encourage Marijuana at Sports Event

2005-10-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

The Portugese police know how to keep their crowds happy and peaceful. No moronic, drunken brawls at this event. Cannabis and junk food work wonders in situations of potential violence. Attendees at this Euro soccer tournament were more interested in hot dog vendors than throwing fists because their team lost.

The U.S. media overlooked this gem of a story. Go figure...

JUNK Review - Flirty Kitty

2005-10-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

Blogger Flirty Kitty (meow) read JUNK recently, and had this to say...

"I just finished reading JUNK by Christopher Largen, because I listened to his interview about his book on The Writing Show. Being a junk food addict myself, I totally felt the need to start stock piling my cookies, snack cakes and raw sugar while I read this book. It was wonderfully funny, and the character's conflicts were compelling. The visual imagery in this book will stick with you for a long time. I will definitely read it again."

Politics of Pizza

2005-10-09T19:08:00.000-07:00

This is a must see. Very funny...

HUNGRY FOR SOME JUNK FOOD? TRY A SLICE OF DOUBLE CHEESE, BUT HOLD THE FASCISM. CLICK HERE FOR SPEEDY DELIVERY AND RAPID VIOLATION OF YOUR PRIVACY!

Kissing Stephen King

2005-10-09T13:52:00.000-07:00

When I was thirteen (all the way back in 1982), I attended a science fiction convention called Archon, in St. Louis's ornate and majestic Chase Park Plaza. The guest of honor that year was Stephen King, the prose-master of all things wicked and wonderful. Even then I was a voracious reader, so I stood in awe before him.

After the main speeches and banquets, there was an informal celebration in the hotel lobby. Stephen King had set up a kissing booth to raise money for some charity whose name I can't place. My mom thought it would be a thrill, so she plopped down her bucks and pecked him on the cheek. As she turned to leave, King grabbed my mother and planted a full open mouth kiss on her lips.

King's wife Tabitha shoudn't have been worried - it was all for a good cause. But I stood there in horror. I mean, what could possibly be creepier than having the King of Terror drool on your momma?

I think the incident set me up for a belated Oedipus/Dracula complex. I've often considered suing for emotional trauma. It haunts my dreams to this day. King hovers over me, in Warholish black and white. He purses his lips, bares his fangs, and whispers, "Give us a kiss, give us a kiss!"

Jaxfest: Hunted in Florida

2005-10-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

Two reviewers recently questioned whether the stories in JUNK were truly adapted from actual events. I suppose the idea of a war on junk food sounded so absurd to them, it was difficult for them to believe the plot had basis in reality.

The stories in JUNK are based on six years of independent academic and media archive research, and a lifetime of personal experience with drug policy. A few of those personal experiences become archived reports themselves, in fact. "Jaxfest" was among them, a nightmarish account that originally appeared in the internationally distributed magazine, Cannabis Culture, in 2004. A fictionalized version of this segment appears in JUNK. Here's the real deal. Enjoy...

Jaxfest: Hunted in Florida by Christopher Largen

I sit on a beachside bench next to my friend George McMahon, one of five US citizens granted the right to smoke federal marijuana. He uses it to provide relief from pain, spasms, and nausea. McMahon and I have just driven from Texas to Jacksonville, Florida. We've passed through plains and swamps, but we haven't left Bush country.

We're attending the Sixth Annual Jacksonville Hempfest at the Seawalk Pavilion in Jacksonville Beach. We're scheduled to speak along with Fat Freddy, Kevin Aplin and Jodi James of the Florida Cannabis Action Network (CAN), Heath Wintz of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Doug Klippel of the Libertarian Party, Ken Hurley of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and The Reverend Roland A Duby. Organizers expect a crowd of 10,000.

Fat Freddy sits across from us. He has turned himself into the living embodiment of the famous Freak Brother cartoon. Freddy claims to take marching orders directly from God. I believe he means it.The Reverend Roland A Duby (a comedian and Libertarian sheriff candidate) sits in a booth near us. The Reverend is shiny bald. A gentle giant with a razor intellect, his huge belly is matched only by the size of his heart. He's been trucking with Freddy for months.

It feels good to be with friends. We have unique paths, but the same goal to educate and liberate. Gentle winds temper the sun, a perfect day for teaching.

A young well-dressed lady asks if I can obtain LSD. She claims she's been homeless for three weeks, but her hair, fingernails and clothes are perfectly clean. I tell her I'm traveling with a federal marijuana patient, so I can't help her. She moves on, disappointed but not deterred.

* * *

Sometimes when things go wrong you never see it coming. A bald man with earrings and a Tasmanian devil tattoo approaches Roland A Duby's booth and points at him several times. A few moments later a male and female uniformed officer approach Duby, who sits behind a table.

The female cop asks what he's holding.

Duby says it's a tobacco box.

She asks to look inside.

Duby states that he won't consent to searches without a warrant.

The male officer claims they don't need one.

The female officer threatens to arrest Duby if he won't open the tin.

Duby asks to think about it for a moment.

The male officer reaches for his cuffs.

Duby is trembling and sweating profusely as he rocks back and forth. He looks into my eyes, and I see his mind working. Then he stands up and throws his box in a nearby trash can.

All hell breaks loose.

The officers move in on Duby without stating he's under arrest. Duby backs up slowly but the cops tackle him with a chokehold. He sputters and tries to restore his airflow. He is thrown to the ground and screams, "Oh my God! You've broken my leg!"

The tattooed bald man steps forward and reaches to Duby's face, holding a device that looks like a digital camera. The device makes a hissing noise as mace is sprayed at Duby's face. Duby's glasses block the first shot, but then the cop lifts them and directly blasts his eyes with mace.

A patient named Patty who survived six stomach surgeries stands behind Duby and receives chemical burns on her arms. She doesn't cry out. Pain is already an intimate part of her life.

A young girl watches transfixed as Duby shrieks. I'm grateful my children aren't witnessing this.
Random citizens in the crowd call for help. Randy Cheatham of Florida CAN approaches the tattooed man, taps him and pleads, "What are you doing? Who are you? Leave him alone."

The man responds like a Sumo wrestler on amphetamines. He spins around and yells, "I'M A COP!"

Randy says, "I don't see a badge."

The man frantically whips out a badge from his shirt and spits in Randy's face, screaming "GET BACK! I'M A COP!"

I scoot around to find Duby grimacing, his face inflamed, covered with tears and mucous. He cries out, "I want my mommy!"

I feel like sobbing and vomiting simultaneously.

A guy behind me barks, "Move!"I snap, "I'm not moving. He's my friend!" Then I turn to see the guy is clutching a camera. Right now this man is probably one of Duby's best friends. I pull away quickly.

I squat down to ask Duby the obvious. "Are you okay?"

True to his comedic instinct, he states, "No, I'm not. My eyes are burning and snot is running down my nose."

I look directly at the bald undercover officer and yell, "He's not an animal! He's a human being!"

The female officer tilts her head, shrugs her arms, and says, "Why do you think we've activated a medical response team?"

I know why. They are activating a medical response team because a police officer sprayed chemicals on an unarmed, nonviolent performer at a permit-approved public festival, in full view of beachgoers, tourists, attorneys, politicians, journalists, artists, authors, and patients.

Scott Bledsoe, chief organizer of the Jacksonville Hemp Festival, ascends the stage and announces the arrest. Agitated patrons move toward Duby's tent. The crowd swells. Random shouts fill the hot, humid air.

I try to hold my tongue. I don't want a riot – I've seen enough violence. Traveling with George McMahon, I've learned to stay calm in desperate situations, but I can't remain silent in the face of barbarism. Like McMahon always says, one breath – one choice.

My lips tremble as I rise and shout, "This is America? Congratulations! You just made the press!"

I move through the crowd, weaving like a snake. I can't distinguish my voice from others in the throng. "Go after the terrorists! This was a peaceful event! We just went from cannabis to pepper spray? I feel safer already!"

I approach the female officer and say, "Did you know a federally-authorized marijuana patient was scheduled to speak?"

The officer's face turns white as she points at Duby and asks, "Is that him?"

I say, "Did you bother to ask him his medical status before swarming him? We've got sick and disabled citizens here today. If they smoke a hand-rolled cigarette, will you target and tackle them? What if a diabetic needs to inject insulin? Should patients be afraid to attend this festival?"

The emergency medical team pushes a stretcher to the booth, and I head for the stage. I'm supposed to speak in a few minutes, if I can pull my heavy heart together.

* * *

Fat Freddy stands poised on stage grasping a microphone. He shakes his finger and spits as he denounces the injustice. He counts down to 4:20, then lights up in disrespect of the officers who brutalized his friend and ignored his human rights.

I walk onstage and grab the mike. In spite of my shock and rage, I keep my cool.

"Aside from the pepper spray, it sure looks beautiful out there... but seriously, war is hell. Our casualty list is diverse. We are dying patients denied access to medical cannabis. We are children caught in the crossfire of mobsters and police. We are innocent citizens shot in our own homes during botched drug raids. We are police officers tortured and murdered over illegal drug profits. We are Christian missionaries shot down from the sky in 'suspected' drug planes. We are addicts who die incarcerated because our government spends more on prison than treatment. After 30 years of escalating penalties, we've lost more of our citizens (and civil liberties) than we did in Iraq. Despite this carnage, illegal drugs are readily available. When will our government implement policies that heal rather than destroying lives? We hold the answer in our voices and ballots."

I walk offstage to cheers.

A uniformed officer moves forward, looks me in the eye, nods his head, shakes my hand, and walks away without a single word. I think I just converted a cop. I can't stop grinning.

* * *

I stroll to the beach to meditate and notice two officers following 30 feet behind me. I stop walking to watch the seagulls. The cops stop and gaze at me. I turn from the sand and walk back to the festival. The officers march right behind me like baby ducks.

I'm slightly worried. I know innocence won't protect me from harassment, assault, or arrest. Do these officers just intend to track me... or set me up?

I walk around the perimeter of the festival, the officers almost stepping on my heels. I stop – they stop. I walk – they walk. I consider asking them to dance the congo. My adrenaline is rising. A few minutes later, the cops are gone. Like they were never there.

* * *

McMahon and I enter our motel room. McMahon immediately lights a joint and says, "Those officers were looking for trouble. I sat in pain for six hours. I feared smoking my legal medicine. My health is fragile. One good push could kill me – let alone a police assault. The other patients couldn't take their medicine, so I wasn't alone."

We hear a knock. McMahon opens the door. It's the "homeless" lady from the beach. I never told her where we were staying, but she found us.

She says, "You couldn't get acid, but how about some pot?"I wasn't sure before. Now I'm fairly certain this lady is a cop.

"This motel doesn't allow visitors."

She says, "I wasn't trying to get you in trouble."

I think, "Yes you were. I just wouldn't let you." I close the door and try to rest without further harassment.

* * *

McMahon and I pull over at a Florida rest stop, almost out of the woods. As we return from the restroom we notice a man step out of a sedan. We both recognize him from Jaxfest. He pulls out a camera and videotapes us driving off. Let him. McMahon lights a joint as we cross the state line, and I inhale a deep breath of sweet-scented air.

JUNK Review - The Arkansas Traveler

2005-10-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

As an author, I've come across all types of critics. Though most reviewers are legitimate, some are charlatans who profit from reselling books they requested but never had any intention of reviewing. Some write reviews of books they have not even read. Some are intellectual elitists who feel power by writing unnecessarily harsh critiques. However, many reviewers step forward with feedback that is truly insightful, acknowledging nuances of subtext, character and metaphor.

This JUNK review excerpt is from Rebecca Perlow, contributing writer to The Arkansas Traveler...

"An inventive parody...The slant of the book is not against healthy choices, but rather the elimination of choice. Largen displays a keen awareness of the media, how it shapes culture and it's relationship with government agenda. The book could have its own soundtrack album... The excesses of authorities on both sides of the social and political fence are explored and satirized...it maintains its humorous edge...consistently entertaining."

Glad you enjoyed it, Rebecca. Thanks for your insights.

Revolution Rant

2005-10-08T17:13:00.000-07:00

Remember that overplayed pop/country ditty?

"I'm proud to be an American, where officials chant "drug-free",
Where goose-steppin', gut-retchin' steel-toed thugs stomp all over me.
When I try to stand UP, they knock me down and torch Lady Liberty,
Cause they believe In God We Trust, and not humanity!"

I think I might be remembering the words wrong. Can you think of a verse? Do share.

Okay... Before anybody accuses me of being a "bleedin' heart lib'ral" (like the reactionary hothead a few weeks back), I'll state (yet again) that I'm not a partisan. I toe no line, other than the one my conscience provides. I don't know about you, but my conscience tells me that when your leaders claim to get their killin' orders from God, when they've declared a "culture war" against "evildoers", when power addicts (both Republican and Democrat) subvert the principles of a democratic republic to line their pockets, when violent child predators roam the streets and nonviolent marijuana users languish in prison, when police officers clamp battery wires to the testicles of your fellow citizens (true story, keep reading this blog), when officials place hurricane survivors in a massive, violent toilet called the Superdome (aka Superdumb), when when you don't know what you can do about it, sometimes it feels good to just laugh your ass off. Laughter is a much more empowering reaction to injustice than the depression, despair, and detached apathy engendered by mainstream media moguls. Don't you think?

That being said, I'm truly a sensitive, empathetic man. So if I've offended you with my First Amendment antics, I'm thrilled! Just follow orders, turn on your CORPGOV TV and jerk your gherkin in mom's famous cherry pie like it's junk food. Thank you, and have a nice day!

God bless the writers who make us laugh at ourselves, like Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Hunter S. Thompson. Or comedian Bill Hicks, who once boasted that he was "proud to be an American" because his parents happened to have sex there.

Sometimes the only way to deal with a tyrant is to resist peacefully if possible, and revolt if necessary. Some of you will undoubtedly claim I'm an extremist, but the right to rebel was basic and vital to our nation's founding. It is a fundamental (not fundamentalistic) part of our history and heritage. For the record, I abhor violence. But I also recognize that we passed the point of peace a long time ago. Too many people have already died in the streets of our nation (and others), due to misguided policies that have exacerbated and compounded the aggregate suffering of the world citizenry, and reduced our constitution to an antiquated relic.

Artists are (once again) turning to creative expression as a nonviolent means of protesting policies they feel are destructive. Many have compared Bush to Adolph Hitler (in fairness, there are both critical differences and alarming similarities between the two). I ask you, is this extreme? Or is it just the unbearable likeness of being?

U.S. Condones Legal Cocaine and Methamphetamine

2005-10-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

Did you know that coke and meth are legal in the United States? That's right. Both are classified by the Drug Enforcement Administration as Schedule II Substances, which allows them to be used medically. Pharmaceutical cocaine has proven valuable as a cardiac stimulant and nasal cavity anaesthetic. Prescription meth (marketed under the brand name Desoxyn) is used to treat hyperactivity. Doctors, patients, pharmacists, and corporate drug execs (don't forget the cartellians) have access to these two substances, the rest of us will just have to "keep our gunpowder dry", as we say in Texas, to defend our homes against addicts looking for quick dough to pay the inflated mob prices.

Legislators and pundits often claim we can't allow medical marijuana because it sends the wrong message to children about recreational marijuana. "It will confuse those poor youngsters, and WE HAVE TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN!" They argue cannabis is a "gateway drug" to more dangerous substances (like cocaine and methamphetamine), and therefore cannot be used medically. Strangely enough, those legislators never use the "consistent message" plea when it comes to coke and meth.

Or perhaps it isn't strange at all. The pharmaceutical lobbyists who fund political campaigns know that meth and coke are synthetic and derivative, and can be patented. So the American "free market" allows big-pharma bribery of politicians, who will gladly enact laws turning their fellow sick and dying Americans into criminals for using cannabis, while allowing corporations to continue pushing highly-addictive and toxic chemicals down our throats.

So much for "protecting the children"...

Inquiring Minds Ask: What's Paris Really Hiding in That Purse?

2005-10-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong. I can't relate to the diversionary bullshit obsession with Hollywood celebrity gossip, but an E-chum named Flirty Kitty called my attention to a bizarre cultural development, propogated by Paris Hilton and emulated by sassy women across the globe - the phenomenon of pup-in-purse. It got me thinking (a definite danger signal), so please bear with my crass, masculine perspective...

It occurs to me that most of the women I've met treat their purses like their vaginas. Now just hear me out. If a man should ever dare to reach out and violate the sanctity of the space inhabited by the opening (labia) of the purse (vagina) without asking first, the opening will snap shut so tightly, even Aladdin won't crack that sesame! Additionally, women are generally protective of their purses. They are particular about what goes in and what comes out of their leather sanctuaries. The purses will start out clean, then build up waste over time, until they are purged and cleansed - only to begin the cycle again.

No, I am not a misogynist. But I am a writer, adept with symbols, and I know a valid vaginal metaphor when I see one.

The dog in the purse is such a Paris Hilton thang. The implicit message is that of the classic media motif (penis in vagina), but with a deeper (no pun intended) subtext - some men (by all means, not me) transform into quivering Tinkerbell weiners, totally engulfed by vagina, when Paris struts her stuff. They become no less than Toy Chihuahuas.

Vulgar? You bet. And it's all over the airwaves. God, I love America!

Namedropping with Willie Nelson

2005-10-07T18:03:00.000-07:00

There's some good readin' comin' outta them thar hills-a-Texas! Check out the free online book, Name-Dropping with Willie Nelson, authored by David Dogma, the illustrious hellraiser behind the seminal work, "My First Love Was A Whore". Dogma credits Hunter S. Thompson as a literary mentor. Perhaps a bit of Charles Bukowski thrown in, for good measure?

Bayer Provides Marijuana Medicine to Canadians

2005-10-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

A joint creation of GW Pharmaceuticals and Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Sativex is a mouth spray for Multiple Sclerosis sufferers, who can use it to alleviate neuropathic pain and spasticity. Sativex is made by blending pure extracts of cannabis plants, in a manner not unlike blending burgundies or whiskeys. Sativex is formulated to contain two of the main active ingredients of cannabis--tetrahydrocannabinol(THC) and cannabidiol (CBD)--in a 1.08:1 ratio, but it also contains everything else that is in the aerial parts (i.e., all but the roots) of the plant. Approved by Health Canada for prescription use in April 2005, Sativex is North America's first prescription version of cannabis. Compare Marinol, a synthetic version of THC.

In other words, certain United States Government officials are lying, using junk science to propagandize the population. They would rather throw your sick and dying friends and family members in jail rather than allow American patients to use a non-synthetic product.

Mother Ignites Daughter's Rapist

2005-10-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

I don't support this type of fiery vigilatism, in theory. That being said, I can't predict what I might do if my child had been sexually brutalized. Can this anguished mother reasonably be held accountable for her actions?

Mother sets fire to her daughter's gloating rapist
By Peter Upton in Alicante(Filed: 26/06/2005)

A Spanish mother has taken revenge on the man who raped her 13-year-old daughter at knifepoint by dousing him in petrol and setting him alight. He died of his injuries in hospital on Friday.

Antonio Cosme Velasco Soriano, 69, had been sent to jail for nine years in 1998, but was let out on a three-day pass and returned to his home town of Benejúzar, 30 miles south of Alicante, on the Costa Blanca. While there, he passed his victim's mother in the street and allegedly tauntedher about the attack. He is said to have called out "How's your daughter?", before heading into a crowded bar.

Shortly after, the woman walked into the bar, poured a bottle of petrol over Soriano and lit a match. She watched as the flames engulfed him, before walking out. The woman fled to Alicante, where she was arrested the same evening. When she appeared in court the next day in the town of Orihuela, she was cheered and clapped by a crowd, who shouted "Bravo!" and "Well done!" A judge ordered her to be held in prison and undergo psychiatric tests, provoking anger from friends and neighbours, who have set up a petition calling for her release.

Soriano suffered 60 per cent burns in the attack on June 13 and was airlifted to a specialist unit. He survived for 11 days before succumbing to his injuries. It is understood that the woman, who cannot be named because of laws safeguarding the identity of rape victims, claims to have no recollection of the attack which took place in the Bar Mary, just 300 yards from the family home.

As decorators painted over the blackened walls of his bar last week, Antonio Ferrendez Lopez told how Soriano had walked in at lunchtime."The place was packed with people eating. I was sitting at a table and Soriano was standing at the bar very close to me when the woman walked in," he said."She didn't acknowledge anyone but walked up to Soriano, who was drinking a coffee, put her hand on his shoulder and turned him round to face her. "Then she pulled the bottle she was carrying from under her arm and began to tip it over him. At first I didn't realise what was happening, but then I smelt the petrol. I jumped up and tried to grab her, but when she struck a match I got clear. The petrol was in a pool around Soriano, and she threw the match into it. It ignited with a whoosh, and he screamed and staggered about covered in flames. Aspeople rushed outside to escape the flames, she just looked at him, then turned and walked away."

Customers helped Mr Lopez put out the fire with extinguishers and doused Soriano with water until paramedics arrived. Soriano's attack on the woman's teenage daughter took place in 1998. The girl was going to buy a loaf of bread when Soriano snatched her from the street, threatened her with a knife and raped her. Her mother is said to have suffered mental illness ever since. Soriano was convicted of the rape and ordered to serve 13 years in jail. The sentence was later reduced to nine years on appeal.

The woman's lawyer, Joaquín Galant, told The Sunday Telegraph last night: "The family has suffered a double tragedy. First the attack on their daughter and now this. Both the father and his daughter would like to express their sadness at the death of Soriano." Earlier, Mr Galant said that the woman did not deserve to be kept in prison. "For seven years she has been deeply affected by what was done to her daughter," he said. "This man, fresh from prison and asking how her daughter was, might be considered to have provoked her."

Television, the Drug of the Nation

2005-10-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

DARE to keep kids off television! These biting lyrics are junk food for thought, courtesy of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy...

One nation under God has turned into one nation under the influence of one drug.
Television, the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation.

T.V. satellite links our United States of Unconsciousness
Apathetic, therapeutic and extremely addictive.
The methadone metronome, pumping out 150 channels 24 hours a day.
You can flip through all of them and still there's nothing worth watching.
T.V. is the reason why less than 10 per cent of our nation reads books daily,
Why most people think Central America means Kansas,
Socialism means unamerican, and Apartheid is a new headache remedy.
Absorbed in it's world, it's so hard to find us. It shapes our mind the most.
Maybe the mother of our nation should remind us that we're sitting too close to the
Television, the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation.

T.V. is the stomping ground for political candidates,
Where bears in the woods are chased by Grecian formula bald eagles.
T.V. is mechanized politics, remote control over the masses,
Co-sponsored by environmentally safe gases. Watch for the PBS special.
It's the perpetuation of the two party system, where image takes precedence over wisdom, Where sound bite politics are served to the fastfood culture,
Where straight teeth in your mouth are more important than the words that come out of it.
Race baiting is the way to get selected, Willie Horton or will he not get elected on
Television, the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation.

T.V., is it the reflector or the director ? Does it imitate us or do we imitate it?
Because a child watches 1500 murders before he's twelve years old,
And we wonder why we've created a Jason generation
That learns to laugh, rather than to abhor the horror.
T.V. is the place where armchair generals and quarterbacks can experience firsthand,
The excitement of video warfare, as a theme song is sung in the background.
Sugar sweet sitcoms that leave us with a bad actor-taste,
While pop stars metamorphosize into soda pop stars.
You saw the video, you heard the soundtrack, now go buy the soft drink.
The only cola that I support would be a union C.O.L.A. (Cost Of Living Allowance).
Television, the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation.

Back again, "new and improved", we return to our irregularly programmed schedule,
Hidden cleverly between heavy breasted beer and car commercials.
CNN, ESPN, ABC, TNT but mostly BS,
Where oxymoronic language like "virtually spotless",
"Fresh frozen", "light yet filling", and "military intelligence" have become standard
T.V. is the place where phrases are redefined, like "recession" to "necessary downturn"
"Crude oil" on a beach to "mousse", "civilian death" to "collateral damages",
And being killed by your own Army is now called "friendly fire".
T.V. is the place where the pursuit of happiness has become the pursuit of trivia,
Where toothpaste and cars have become sex objects,
Where imagination is sucked out of children by a cathode ray nipple.
T.V. is the only wet nurse that would create a cripple.
Television, the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation.

JUNK Review - Creative Loafing

2005-10-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

I just got word that my novel JUNK has been reviewed in Creative Loafing, an alternative newsweekly based in Atlanta, Georgia. Thomas Bell pimp-slaps drug-warriors with a doughnut. Enjoy...

Krispy Kreme Contraband
By Thomas Bell
Published October 5, 2005

Shit! It's an FEA raid! Quick, flush the cotton candy down the toilet and stuff that Snickers bar up your butt! And cover that damn pimple with some Clearasil, man! They'll know you've been using! Oh, man ... NOBODY MOVE! Step away from the éclair and put your hands in the air, you junk food junkie!

Someone's heading to the fat farm.

Like the film Traffic on sugar and triglycerides, Christopher Largen's novel Junk takes us on a tour of a near future "war" on junk food, complete with a food czar, a Food Enforcement Agency, and mandatory sentences for possession of hamburgers, doughnuts and milk shakes.

We meet: Justin Bailey, a squeaky clean cop (he won't even let his wife call him "honey"), who is conflicted about the draconian food laws he upholds; Moe Goodman, a celebrity preacher who counsels junk food addicts but questions the efficacy of the ongoing "war"; and Billy Sweet, a master doughnut baker who takes his business underground after Congress, responding to an "epic of obesity," passes the "Dangerous Products Act." (We also meet his fat and flatulent Doberman, Sugar.) And pulling the strings behind it all, the shadowy "Candy Man," notorious supplier of marked-up sugar and other junk food raw materials.

At first taste, even in the era of Super Size Me, the book's premise seems absurd, perhaps just a stand-in conceit for marijuana. Largen has written extensively elsewhere in favor of the legalization of pot, and he certainly isn't subtle about the parallels between the drug war and his junk war.

But then came the Cookie Monster, who in Junk has been evicted from "Sesame Street." That hasn't happened yet, but I hear he's been forced to push healthy snacks. So who knows...

In any case, the larger message of Junk is not so much "up with sweets and red meats" as "liberty and personal responsibility for all." Despite the occasional bit of ham- (er, I meant tofu-) handed satire, Largen is actually quite balanced in what he writes about junk food, acknowledging the costs - both personal and public - of our horrid eating habits. He just rejects the idea that personal liberty is a fair price to pay for a less corpulent, more productive populace. Whether we're talking pot or pastries, that principle remains the same.

Junk by Christopher Largen. $17.95. ENC Press. 214 pages. www.waronjunk.com.

Constipation Cops

2005-10-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

When federal agents force U.S. citizens to ingest laxatives and submit to strip searches, x-rays, and anal/vaginal cavity searches, without any cause other than suspicion of drug activity, they need to be sued. Federal agents have no right to root around in your feces, without probable cause or consent. The poor old lady in this appalling case won $450,000 (in my opinion, this paltry amount falls way short of justice).

If this type of invasive assault happened to one of my family members, I would feel like throttling the people who performed the procedure. This incident amounts to nothing more than state-sanctioned rape.

Yesterday's papers? Sure. But it's news you likely never heard. This story was conveniently junked by the national media. Guess the mainstream press shys away from discussing bowel movements. Or perhaps it couldn't make it past the CORP-GOV censors. Surprise, surprise.

One thing is certain. The next time I'm feeling, you know, irregular, I'm calling the Roto-Rooters at U.S. Customs...

JUNK Review - North Texas Daily

2005-10-05T04:39:00.000-07:00

This one's from my hometown of Denton, TX...

Author replaces drug war with food
Zachary AustrewDesign Editor
October 06, 2005

Hide your Snickers.

In a not-so-future Denton, moral and civic authorities set aim on a new advisory to societal good: candy.

“Junk” (Emperor’s New Clothes Press, 2005, 214 pages) by Christopher Largen, a current NT student from Denton, is a fictional account of the American government’s crack down on obesity through a War on Junk Food.

The plot is quickly revealed as puns are layered endlessly thick.

“Wake-and-bake” refers to slurping coffee and munching donuts, Police warn youngsters of toxic chemicals “junk-dealers” mix in black-market cake batter and concerned parents circulate petitions to destroy halfway houses erected near the middle schools.

Gangs cynically named the “Praline Posse” and the “Meatloaf Mafia” rage in rich turf battles while government–sponsored billboards read, “Be a patriot – eat more Tofu!”

In this world, fatty foods are illegal, immoral and dangerous.

Yet, behind each faux moment of “sweet crime and punishment” is Largen’s pro-activist soul. Being a co-author of “Prescription Pot” (New Horizon Press, 2003), a non-fiction biography of a federal marijuana patient. “Junk” is a tongue-in-cheek examination of the individuals swept up in America’s real War on Drugs.

Replace drugs with sugar. Erase the crack epidemic and insert obese brownie fiends searching for sweet smack.

“Junk” is timely. With the success of the 2004 film “Super Size Me” and a growing concern for escalating obesity rates, food and fat are high on American radars.

Largen is cautiously astute of the current fears. “I went with food as the symbolic substitute because everybody eats,” Largen said.

He is also fully aware of “the real dangers of poor diets and obesity” which he says is “responsible for more deaths in our nation than drug abuse.”

Scattered throughout “Junk” are faux newspaper clippings, 911 operator transcripts, chart-topping rap lyrics, and interviews with government officials.

The novel’s use of humor serves to disarm the reader to the audacious scenario, also acting to reveal the vulnerability of all the war’s actors. The junkie, the thief, the cop, the pain, the judge, the witness, the sentence, the minister, the affirmation, the death. No one is safe from the wrath of this war on drugs. Wait, I mean this war on junk food.

Largen says the novel is not that far from the truth. Every character, happenstance and event comes from the past six years of his fight to reform marijuana regulations. And Junk exposes pitfalls of total prohibition as opposed to strict regulation. “Prohibition provides the government no regulation, which compounds and exacerbates the health and safety problems associated with it.” Largen said.

Junk recently earned the premier Parents Ending Prohibition book of the month award. PEP is a non-profit, pro-legalization of marijuana, organization whose mission is to reveal what they believe to be the harms of America’s War on Drugs.

This wonderfully written, fast-paced tale exposes the dark underbelly of American drug policies. The sweet substitute provides insight to the gray, unwritten dirty side while questioning its toll on the everyday person.

Largen says it is all a health issue, not a criminal one. “If someone is robbing my house for a Twinkie, that is a criminal issue. But if someone is eating a Twinkie, that is a health issue.” Largen said. And “if you take a health issue and turn it into a criminal matter, you make the health issue worse.”

Pediatric Pot

2005-10-04T16:43:00.000-07:00

I delivered both my children with my own trembling hands (and a little help from my wife). I consider myself to be a good father, all things considered.

During the writing of Prescription Pot, our family spent a great deal of time at George McMahon’s home. George receives legal marijuana, cultivated and distributed by the United States Government. The federal research protocol requires him to smoke 10 cannabis cigarettes each day, to treat symptoms of pain, spasms and nausea. That’s quite a bit of smoke floating in the air, so I had questions regarding possible effects on children in the immediate environment.

I consulted with a pediatrician (who shall remain anonymous). I told her about George and the federal program, and asked her if I should be concerned as a parent. She shut the door to her office, turned to me and said, “Look… I used to smoke marijuana, all the way through medical school, in fact. I think the government is blowing the whole issue way out of proportion.”

I sat there stunned.

She continued, “So does George smoke tobacco cigarettes?”

I nodded.

“Inside his home?”

I nodded again.

“Now that I would be concerned with. Make sure your children get plenty of fresh air. Keep the air circulated. And try to give your kids some outside time while you’re at George’s house.”

My children have since spent many weekends at George’s house, and not once have they shown any effect from the smoke. No coughing or sneezing. No euphoria, or disorientation. No munchies.

No problem.

Hmmm... That's strange. The effects were nothing like the government-sponsored "educational material" from the mid-1900's. You reckon Uncle Sam could be - lying to the people about this herb?

Politics are Personal

2005-10-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

The dead speak to me in a language only I can decipher. Sometimes, they even tell me what to do. Perhaps that sounds like morbid psychosis (or goth melodrama). But read on, and you'll understand...

My beloved grandfather passed away from lung and brain cancer six months ago. He was a strong and and gentle man, a World War II veteran, father of four, and a lifelong fire captain with the city of Fort Worth. He respected the law. He wasn’t the type of guy who would turn his own kids into the police when they started smoking cannabis in the 60's, but he never used it himself, because it was illegal.

After my grandfather learned he had cancer, he chose not to fight it with chemotherapy. Our family respected his wishes, struggled against our own grief, and tried to support him through the difficult process of dying. During his final week on earth, he was unable to eat and suffered from intense nausea, vomiting, cramping, and diarrhea. He was also in pain, and under the heavily sedating and addictive narcotic influence of morphine. When he was not knocked out from the physician-prescribed opiates, he was on the toilet, coping with his symptoms.

Finally, with the blessing of the family who loved him, my grandfather tried something he had never tried before – cannabis. The herb allowed him to eat his final meal, and he was able to take less morphine for a while. He was able to spend valuable quality time with his loved ones. It was a gift to us all.

My only regret is that cannabis wasn't legally available for him to use earlier in his symptomatic progression. There is absolutely no reason why the law should have treated my grandfather as a criminal in his last hours of life. It enrages me to think that if the Bush’s (so much for compassionate conservatism) and Clinton’s (so much for bleeding hearts) had their way, my grandfather would have spent his final moments wasting in a jail cell, separated from his family and his medicine, scared and in pain, while our tax dollars were wasted to torment a dying man (and his family) who was a good citizen, a patriotic proletariat who cared deeply about his community.

It makes me feel like walking up to the White House and screaming…

YOU SWORE TO DEFEND THE CONSITUTION. YOU CLAIM TO SPEAK FOR THE PEOPLE WITH AUTHORITY GIVEN BY GOD. HOW DARE YOU DEFILE WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL AND NOBLE? HOW DARE YOU LIE TO THE CITIZENS YOU REPRESENT, IN ORDER TO LUBRICATE YOUR CORPORATE LOBBYISTS WITH SPECIAL INTEREST FAVORS AND PAYOLA? HOW DARE YOU TRAMPLE ON FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTIES THAT WERE NOT GRANTED BY YOU, BUT BY THE CREATIVE FORCE OF LIFE YOU CLAIM TO SERVE! YOU ACT LIKE LATENT MOLESTERS, TREATING THE PEOPLE LIKE CHILDREN AND THEN LOOKING FOR A REASON TO PUT YOUR HANDS ALL OVER THEM! TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF US, YOU TWISTED POWER JUNKIES!!

Okay, I'm back now...

To the “conservative” lurker who recently wrote me, quoting the Bible, advocating the incarceration of sick and dying people for using cannabis to ease their symptoms… Hate to disappoint you, but it's too late for you to arrest my grandpa. I hope you develop enough mercy for your fellow human beings to cease placing the letter of the law above its spirit. Otherwise, your hypocrisy may separate you from the source of light and love within you.

Nobody messes with my family. As some rednecks say in rural Texas, I'll open a can of whoop-ass if they do.

Okay, G-Daddy. Mission accomplished. Hope I did you justice...

Inspired Artist or Workaholic?

2005-10-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

Here's my 160 Proof workweek, on the rocks...

I'm enrolled in 12 hours of (mostly) senior-level classes at University of North Texas, with 24 allocated hours of homework. I also work at the university's Office of Disability Accomodation, where I'm assigned to take class notes for disabled clients, 30 hours per week.

That's a total of 66 hours, and that's before I add in time for promoting JUNK, co-authoring a screenplay for the novel, blogging, contract writing/editing, public speaking, and (most importantly) being a father and husband.

In other words, life sometimes passes by me with the momentous speed of a freight train. I work every day, hoping to be self-sufficient. But the pace is taking it's toll, in back pains and migraines. And my momma complains cause I don't call home enough.

I know why I'm obsessed with work - letting go is difficult for me. My publisher (Olga Gardner Galvin) has an amazing, unrelenting eye for detail, and even she had to wrench my fingers from the text of the novel, telling me, "You have to stop touching it. There is not more time. It's a very good novel. There is no more you can do at this point, except mess it up."

Well, JUNK is finally released. I'm exhausted but elated. And still, I keep working, to get the novel into the hands of the right people (this means you).

For the record, I'm not complaining. But I wish I could relieve stress before the migraine hits. Hmmm...