Where do 53% of your Tax dollars go?

I don’t usually get into politics; however this presentation really sums up an important issue that is causing great harm to many human beings around the world, crippling the US economy, robbing families quality of life and our reputation as a global citizen. Whoever you vote for, I would like to ask you greatly consider their position on the wars and spending most of our collective treasure on so called “defense”. The world is no safer from these psychopathic economic priorities & policies. Please make this an important issue in your decision, try not to get caught up only in the topics the candidates wish to discuss. At the bottom is a clip from my new favorite series, I typically do not watch TV but really enjoy The Newsroom: The Complete First Season. Thanks for your attention! ~EROCx1

From: Tragedy & Hope

U.S. Arms Sales Tripled In 2011 To $66.3 Billion
From: The Huffington Post
Date: 08/27/2012

Worldwide weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service.

U.S. arms sales to both developed and developing nations reached $66.3 billion last year, up from $21.4 billion in 2010, the report found. Russia, the nation with the second highest weapon sales, sold $4.8 billion worth of arms. Meanwhile, total worldwide weapon sales nearly doubled to $85.3 billion, making the U.S. responsible for more than three-quarters of the global total.

Some of the biggest purchasers of U.S. weapons were Middle Eastern nations, including Saudi Arabia, whose purchase of 84 advanced F-15 fighters in part accounted for a $30 billion bill. The U.S. also sold around $2 billion worth of antimissile batteries to Taiwan, a deal that stoked the ire of China and caused tension during a diplomatic Chinese military visit last July.

For its part, Russia has also faced criticism for its weapons dealings with Syria, which remains embroiled in a civil war since March 2011.

The United Nations failed to reach a consensus last month on a treaty to increase regulation of the arms industry, but further talks are expected leading up to a possible vote by the end of the year. 

If your curious, I’m considering Gary Johnson for President

September 11, 2001

Today is the anniversary of the most horrific attack against American civilians in the history of our country. My heart hurts when I think of all the victims and their families.

This song brought me to tears this morning as it played on the radio during my drive to have surgery, it really struck me how much pain children must are endure when their parents are murdered and I thought if something went wrong in the operating room, my children would be in the same situation adding extra fear and anxiety during this difficult time. Fortunately for me, everything went well and I can continue being a father unlike many others who were not as fortunate. This attack has really caused a great deal of misery and suffering. Not only for the American victims, but also for all those who’s homes have turned into war zones thanks to the now eleven year “War on Terror”. This is the greatest tragedy of our generation and unless the evidence is heavily examined,questioned and awareness is raised it will continue indefinitely as there is no clear objective or enemy,

To those who think these “wars” are justified and and believe in “Somebody is going to pay." ~George W. Bush, Sept 11th, 2001 mentality. Please take notice that the collapse of our economy coincidently matches these military actions, making politicians and the military industrial complex more wealthy then ever. Most of Americas “collective treasure” is spent killing civilians, a few “bad guys” and policing the Middle East. So far 48,430 US military personal are dead or wounded, currently about the same as American Revolutionary War. There are millions of dead & brutally wounded Iraqi and Afghanistan people, many innocent civilians, women and children whose families are all suffering. So while we spend today in memorial of these human beings whose lives have or are being destroyed. I ask that you spend 5 minutes to listen to our friend James Corbett's presentation on 911. If any of this makes an impression on you, please share it, do your own investigating and make it clear to friends, neighbors and politicians that you want this “war” to end. Lets spend Americas resources on making the world a better place, not perpetuating war zones. I thank you for your time and consideration. Peace & Love ~EROCx1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Everything you ever wanted to know about the 9/11 conspiracy theory in under 5 minutes.

(French, German, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese translations of this video.)

TRANSCRIPT: On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men armed with boxcutters directed by a man on dialysis in a cave fortress halfway around the world using a satellite phone and a laptop directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world, overpowering the passengers and the military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft before flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour without being molested by a single fighter interceptor.

These 19 hijackers, devout religious fundamentalists who liked to drink alcohol, snort cocaine, and live with pink-haired strippers, managed to knock down 3 buildings with 2 planes in New York, while in Washington a pilot who couldn’t handle a single engine Cessna was able to fly a 757 in an 8,000 foot descending 270 degree corkscrew turn to come exactly level with the ground, hitting the Pentagon in the budget analyst office where DoD staffers were working on the mystery of the 2.3 trillion dollars that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced “missing” from the Pentagon’s coffers in a press conference the day before, on September 10, 2001.

Luckily, the news anchors knew who did it within minutes, the pundits knew within hours, the Administration knew within the day, and the evidence literally fell into the FBI’s lap. But for some reason a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists demanded an investigation into the greatest attack on American soil in history.

The investigation was delayed, underfunded, set up to fail, a conflict of interest and a cover up from start to finish. It was based on testimony extracted through torture, the records of which were destroyed. It failed to mention the existence of WTC7, Able Danger, Ptech, Sibel Edmonds, OBL and the CIA, and the drills of hijacked aircraft being flown into buildings that were being simulated at the precise same time that those events were actually happening. It was lied to by the Pentagon, the CIA, the Bush Administration and as for Bush and Cheney…well, no one knows what they told it because they testifiedin secret, off the record, not under oath and behind closed doors. It didn’t bother to look at who funded the attacks because that question is of “little practical significance“. Still, the 9/11 Commission did brilliantly, answering all of the questions the public had (except most of the victims’ family members’ questions) and pinned blame on all the people responsible (although no one so much as lost their job), determining the attacks were “a failure of imagination” because “I don’t think anyone could envision flying airplanes into buildings ” except the Pentagon and FEMA and NORAD and the NRO.

The DIA destroyed 2.5 TB of data on Able Danger, but that’s OK because it probably wasn’t important.

The SEC destroyed their records on the investigation into the insider trading before the attacks, but that’s OK because destroying the records of the largest investigation in SEC history is just part of routine record keeping.

NIST has classified the data that they used for their model of WTC7′s collapse, but that’s OK because knowing how they made their model of that collapse would “jeopardize public safety“.

The FBI has argued that all material related to their investigation of 9/11 should be kept secret from the public, but that’s OK because the FBI probably has nothing to hide.

This man never existed, nor is anything he had to say worthy of your attention, and if you say otherwise you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist and deserve to be shunned by all of humanity. Likewise him, him, him, and her. (and her and her and him).

Osama Bin Laden lived in a cave fortress in the hills of Afghanistan, but somehow got away. Then he was hiding out in Tora Bora but somehow got away. Then he lived in Abottabad for years, taunting the most comprehensive intelligence dragnet employing the most sophisticated technology in the history of the world for 10 years, releasing video after video with complete impunity (and getting younger and younger as he did so), before finally being found in a daring SEAL team raid which wasn’t recorded on video, in which he didn’t resist or use his wife as a human shield, and in which these crack special forces operatives panicked and killed this unarmed man, supposedly the best source of intelligence about those dastardly terrorists on the planet. Then they dumped his body in the ocean before telling anyone about it. Then a couple dozen of that team’s members died in a helicopter crashing Afghanistan.

This is the story of 9/11, brought to you by the media which told you the hard truths about JFK and incubator babies and mobile production facilities and the rescue of Jessica Lynch.

If you have any questions about this story…you are a batshit, paranoid, tinfoil, dog-abusing baby-hater and will be reviled by everyone. If you love your country and/or freedom, happiness, rainbows, rock and roll, puppy dogs, apple pie and your grandma, you will never ever express doubts about any part of this story to anyone. Ever.

This has been a public service announcement by: the Friends of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, SEC, MSM, White House, NIST, and the 9/11 Commission. Because Ignorance is Strength.

I also recommend reading: Eleven Years Later, We Are Still at War

Hurricane Irene Could Sprout Magic Mushrooms

Hurricane Irene Could Sprout Bumper Crop Of Magic Mushrooms
From: www.huffingtonpost.com
By: David Moye

Everyone knows the potential destructive power of hurricanes, but few people are aware that storms like Hurricane Irene encourage growth of psychedelic mushrooms.

Yes, it sounds trippy, but one of the strange aftermaths of a hurricane is an increased amount of mushrooms popping up -- especially the psilocybin -- or "magic" kind -- the ones that cause hallucinations.

According to Dr. Casey Simon, an addiction expert based in Orange County, Calif., hurricanes create the perfect climactic conditions for the mushrooms to grow.

"Mushrooms are spores and they multiply in moisture and are spread by wind," he told HuffPost Weird News.

Dr. Suneil Jain, a naturopathic physician in Scottsdale, Ariz., goes even further.

"The moisture, humidity, the wind and the temperature during hurricanes is the perfect climate for mushrooms," he told HuffPost Weird News. "Also, both hurricanes and mushroom growth are associated with new or full moons, so there may be a lunar element as well."

Jain says, generally, psychedelic mushrooms are noted by their bluish-gray stems, but stresses that many mushrooms can be toxic and ones picked in the wild should not be consumed unless they've been examined by an expert.

However, despite the hallucinogenic effects, he says that magic mushrooms are relatively safe.

"These substances have been used for centuries, with just a handful of cases of addiction, or long-term problems," he said. "Generally, they are fairly benign."

Recent studies by Johns Hopkins University suggest psilocybin mushrooms may have medical benefits, and Jain is one of those who believes the findings could have a positive impact on humanity.

"There is evidence that it can help in treating OCD, body dismorphia issues and even marital problems," he said.

Simon says the real danger of the mushrooms isn't the psilocybin.

"Some mushrooms can attract a fungus that makes them more toxic," he said. "It looks like a gray mold on the under side. Just a few differences in temperature can make a difference."

Jain says that's why experienced mushroom experts pick mushrooms when they are as fresh as possible.

"The optimal time to pick is right after the storm before the other elements can affect them," he said.

Still, the news that the whole East Coast of the U.S. could soon be awash in 'shrooms is bound to get every hippie worth his hemp sandals and hacky sack on the hunt for a new high.

Mushrooms are likely to pop up in locations where bark is used for decorative landscaping, like industrial parks and government offices, according to ethnobotanist Clark Heinrich

It's important to emphasize that wild mushrooms -- both mind-altering or not -- should not be consumed willy nilly, but Jain hopes to use the fact that so many potentially medicinal mushrooms will soon be popping up all over the East Coast as a way to raise a discussion about an aspect of the medical-pharmaceutical industry he doesn't like.

"There are a lot of medicinal plants that [have health benefits]," he said. "For instance, the main ingredient in statin drugs comes from red yeast rice. But instead of focusing on the plants that can heal, medical science tries to find the active ingredient, change it slightly and then market that so they can charge a lot."

"Besides that, singling out one ingredient in the plant, like psilocybin, doesn't take into account that everything in the plant, and that they all work together."

God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible?

God's wife, Asherah, was a powerful fertility goddess, according to a theologian.

By Jennifer Viegas
Fri Mar 18, 2011

God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar.

In 1967, Raphael Patai was the first historian to mention that the ancient Israelites worshiped both Yahweh and Asherah. The theory has gained new prominence due to the research of Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who began her work at Oxford and is now a senior lecturer in the department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter.

Information presented in Stavrakopoulou's books, lectures and journal papers has become the basis of a three-part documentary series, now airing in Europe, where she discusses the Yahweh-Asherah connection.

"You might know him as Yahweh, Allah or God. But on this fact, Jews, Muslims and Christians, the people of the great Abrahamic religions, are agreed: There is only one of Him," writes Stavrakopoulou in a statement released to the British media. "He is a solitary figure, a single, universal creator, not one God among many ... or so we like to believe."

NEWS: Jesus' Great-Grandmother Identified

"After years of research specializing in the history and religion of Israel, however, I have come to a colorful and what could seem, to some, uncomfortable conclusion that God had a wife," she added.

Stavrakopoulou bases her theory on ancient texts, amulets and figurines unearthed primarily in the ancient Canaanite coastal city called Ugarit, now modern-day Syria. All of these artifacts reveal that Asherah was a powerful fertility goddess.

Asherah's connection to Yahweh, according to Stavrakopoulou, is spelled out in both the Bible and an 8th century B.C. inscription on pottery found in the Sinai desert at a site called Kuntillet Ajrud.

"The inscription is a petition for a blessing," she shares. "Crucially, the inscription asks for a blessing from 'Yahweh and his Asherah.' Here was evidence that presented Yahweh and Asherah as a divine pair. And now a handful of similar inscriptions have since been found, all of which help to strengthen the case that the God of the Bible once had a wife."

NEWS: Why Are Religious People Happier?

Also significant, Stavrakopoulou believes, "is the Bible's admission that the goddess Asherah was worshiped in Yahweh's Temple in Jerusalem. In the Book of Kings, we're told that a statue of Asherah was housed in the temple and that female temple personnel wove ritual textiles for her."

J. Edward Wright, president of both The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies and The Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, told Discovery News that he agrees several Hebrew inscriptions mention "Yahweh and his Asherah."

"Asherah was not entirely edited out of the Bible by its male editors," he added. "Traces of her remain, and based on those traces, archaeological evidence and references to her in texts from nations bordering Israel and Judah, we can reconstruct her role in the religions of the Southern Levant."

BLOG: Atheists Best Informed About Religion

Asherah -- known across the ancient Near East by various other names, such as Astarte and Istar -- was "an important deity, one who was both mighty and nurturing," Wright continued.

"Many English translations prefer to translate 'Asherah' as 'Sacred Tree,'" Wright said. "This seems to be in part driven by a modern desire, clearly inspired by the Biblical narratives, to hide Asherah behind a veil once again."

"Mentions of the goddess Asherah in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) are rare and have been heavily edited by the ancient authors who gathered the texts together," Aaron Brody, director of the Bade Museum and an associate professor of Bible and archaeology at the Pacific School of Religion, said.

Asherah as a tree symbol was even said to have been "chopped down and burned outside the Temple in acts of certain rulers who were trying to 'purify' the cult, and focus on the worship of a single male god, Yahweh," he added.

SLIDE SHOW: Sacred Techs: Religion and Spirituality 2.0

The ancient Israelites were polytheists, Brody told Discovery News, "with only a small minority worshiping Yahweh alone before the historic events of 586 B.C." In that year, an elite community within Judea was exiled to Babylon and the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. This, Brody said, led to "a more universal vision of strict monotheism: one god not only for Judah, but for all of the nations."

Owsley "Bear" Stanley has joined the ancestors

(Reuters) - Owsley "Bear" Stanley, a 1960s counterculture figure who flooded the flower power scene with LSD and was an early benefactor of the Grateful Dead, died in a car crash in his adopted home country of Australia on Sunday, his family said. He was 76.

The renegade grandson of a former governor of Kentucky, Stanley helped lay the foundation for the psychedelic era by producing more than a million doses of LSD at his labs in San Francisco's Bay Area.

"He made acid so pure and wonderful that people like Jimi Hendrix wrote hit songs about it and others named their band in its honor," former rock 'n' roll tour manager Sam Cutler wrote in his 2008 memoirs "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Hendrix's song "Purple Haze" was reputedly inspired by a batch of Stanley's product, though the guitarist denied any drug link. The ear-splitting psychedelic-blues combo Blue Cheer took its named from another batch.

Stanley briefly managed the Grateful Dead, and oversaw every aspect of their live sound at a time when little thought was given to amplification in public venues. His tape recordings of Dead concerts were turned into live albums, providing him with a healthy income in later life.

"When it came to technology, the Bear was one of the most far-out and interesting guys on the planet," Cutler wrote. "The first FM live simulcast could be, in part, attributed to his vision, as could the first quadraphonic simulcast on radio."

The Dead, a fabled rock band formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1965 known for its improvisational live concerts, wrote about him in their song "Alice D. Millionaire" after a 1967 arrest prompted a newspaper to describe Stanley as an "LSD millionaire."

Steely Dan's 1976 single "Kid Charlemagne" was loosely inspired by Stanley's exploits.

'COMMUNITY SERVICE'

According to a 2007 profile in the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanley started cooking LSD after discovering the recipe in a chemistry journal at the University of California, Berkeley.

The police raided his first lab in 1966, but Stanley successfully sued for the return of his equipment. After a marijuana bust in 1970, he went to prison for two years.

"I wound up doing time for something I should have been rewarded for," he told the Chronicle's Joel Selvin.

"What I did was a community service, the way I look at it. I was punished for political reasons. Absolutely meaningless. Was I a criminal? No. I was a good member of society. Only my society and the one making the laws are different."

He emigrated to the tropical Australian state of Queensland in the early 1980s, apparently fearful of a new ice age, and sold enamel sculptures on the Internet. He lost one of his vocal cords to cancer.

Stanley was born Augustus Owsley Stanley III in Kentucky, a state governed by his namesake grandfather from 1915 to 1919. He served in the U.S. Air Force for 18 months, studied ballet in Los Angeles and then enrolled at UC Berkeley. In addition to producing and advocating LSD, he adhered to an all-meat diet.

Cutler, speaking on behalf of the family, said in an interview that Stanley and his wife, Sheila, were driving to their home near the city of Cairns along a dangerous stretch of highway when he evidently lost control during a storm. He died instantly; his wife broke her collar bone.

Stanley is also survived by four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

By: Dean Goodman, Peter Bohan and Todd Eastham

Also See: Bruce Eisner’s Interview with an Alchemist

NASA Finds Earth-Size Planet Candidates In Habitable Zone

Feb. 02, 2011

NASA Finds Earth-size Planet Candidates in the Habitable Zone

 WASHINGTON -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun.

Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets. Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system.

"In one generation we have gone from extraterrestrial planets being a mainstay of science fiction, to the present, where Kepler has helped turn science fiction into today's reality," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "These discoveries underscore the importance of NASA's science missions, which consistently increase understanding of our place in the cosmos."

The discoveries are part of several hundred new planet candidates identified in new Kepler mission science data, released on Tuesday, Feb. 1. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size; 288 are super-Earth-size; 662 are Neptune-size; 165 are the size of Jupiter and 19 are larger than Jupiter.

Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from super-Earth size -- up to twice the size of Earth -- to larger than Jupiter.

The findings are based on the results of observations conducted May 12 to Sept. 17, 2009, of more than 156,000 stars in Kepler's field of view, which covers approximately 1/400 of the sky.

"The fact that we've found so many planet candidates in such a tiny fraction of the sky suggests there are countless planets orbiting sun-like stars in our galaxy," said William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., the mission's science principal investigator. "We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone, some of which could have moons with liquid water."

Among the stars with planetary candidates, 170 show evidence of multiple planetary candidates. Kepler-11, located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth, is the most tightly packed planetary system yet discovered. All six of its confirmed planets have orbits smaller than Venus, and five of the six have orbits smaller than Mercury's. The only other star with more than one confirmed transiting planet is Kepler-9, which has three. The Kepler-11 findings will be published in the Feb. 3 issue of the journal Nature.

"Kepler-11 is a remarkable system whose architecture and dynamics provide clues about its formation," said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist and Kepler science team member at Ames. "These six planets are mixtures of rock and gases, possibly including water. The rocky material accounts for most of the planets' mass, while the gas takes up most of their volume. By measuring the sizes and masses of the five inner planets, we determined they are among the lowest mass confirmed planets beyond our solar system."

All of the planets orbiting Kepler-11 are larger than Earth, with the largest ones being comparable in size to Uranus and Neptune. The innermost planet, Kepler-11b, is ten times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. Moving outward, the other planets are Kepler-11c, Kepler-11d, Kepler-11e, Kepler-11f, and the outermost planet, Kepler-11g, which is half as far from its star as Earth is from the sun.

The planets Kepler-11d, Kepler-11e and Kepler-11f have a significant amount of light gas, which indicates that they formed within a few million years of the system's formation.

"The historic milestones Kepler makes with each new discovery will determine the course of every exoplanet mission to follow," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Kepler, a space telescope, looks for planet signatures by measuring tiny decreases in the brightness of stars caused by planets crossing in front of them. This is known as a transit.

Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is expected to take three years to locate and verify Earth-size planets orbiting sun-like stars.

The Kepler science team uses ground-based telescopes and the Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on planetary candidates and other objects of interest the spacecraft finds.

The star field that Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra can only be seen from ground-based observatories in spring through early fall. The data from these other observations help determine which candidates can be validated as planets.


For more information about the Kepler mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

Mp3 Tribute to Hunter Thompson

The Elastic Retreat
with DJ Deadtotheworld
Episode Four: Tribute to Hunter S.Thompson
Download: FREE MP3 [right click, save target as]

Take a journey through incarnations of Thompson's work mixed with psychedelic sound collage. Rare recordings like the original tapes from the famous road trip which became Hunter's most well known work: "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" are featured in this weeks installment. Also featured will be excerpts of H.S.T. lectures, and passages from his books. Even if your only image of Thompson is the one of Johnny Depp, you will be in for a treat in this special two hour episode of The Elastic Retreat. In the words of Thompson himself, in order to truly enjoy this show, "The mind & body must be subjected to extreme stimulus, by means of drugs and music."

Intro -
1. Alias & Tarsier -  Luck and Fear
2. Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
3. Anoushka Shankar - Naked
4. Neil Young - Western Hero
5. Bob Dylan - Memphis Blues
6. Dredg - Pariah
7. Les Claypool - Booneville Stomp
8. Acoustic Tribute to Tool - Eulogy
9. Boards of Canada - Tears From the Compound Eye
10. Dosh - Keep up Appearance
11. Ween - The Mollusk
12. Jerry Garcia and David Grissman - Panama Red
13. Subtle - Hollow Hollered
14. Why - The Hollows
15. Faith No More - Ashes to Ashes
16. Black Mountain - Wucan
17. Queens of the Stone Age - Song for the Deaf
18. Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts IV
19. Bob Dylan - Mr. Tamborine Man

Links:
The Elastic Retreat
EROCx1 Blog

Harvard economist: Prohibition creates violence, legalize all drugs!

Harvard economist: Prohibition creates violence, legalize all drugs!
Filed by David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
From: The Raw Story

Because of his title as a Harvard economist, people tend to listen to Jeffrey Miron. And, if the old principle holds true and controversy always creates interest, expect a lot of people to be talking about Miron's latest volley into the mainstream media.

"Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground," he wrote in an essay published by CNN on Tuesday. "This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.

"Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after."

Miron's proposed solution to ending the cartel war along the US-Mexico border is both simple and enormously complex.

"Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it's permitted," he wrote. "Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.

"The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs."

In 2005, Miron published a study titled, "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition" (PDF link), funded by the Marijuana Policy Project. Over 500 professional economists, including Milton Friedman, signed on to the report, which was sent to then-President George W. Bush.

Miron's report found that "marijuana legalization would save $7.7 billion per year in state and federal expenditures on prohibition enforcement and produce tax revenues of at least $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like most consumer goods."

He also discovered a potential for $6.2 billion or more, were marijuana taxed similarly to alcohol and tobacco.

However, during a CNN appearance on Tuesday, he took the anti-prohibition sentiment of his prior study on marijuana and applied it universally, telling anchor Kiran Chetry, "A lot of the violence we're seeing and a lot of the underground market is not related to marijuana but related to the other drugs.

"If we only did marijuana we would only have a small impact on the violence and corruption and disruption of other countries that is caused by U.S. prohibition of drugs and the U.S. forcing prohibition of drugs on other countries."

This video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast Mar. 24, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

Drugs can Kill!!

Drugs can Kill! or make that Cops looking for drugs can kill.

Sorry for the cheesy headline. But I thought that title may grasp a few readers attention given that most people visiting my blog will be against the war on drugs. This is a very disheartening story, however these incidents can not continue and public outrage will be the only path to putting an end to Police Raid violence.

from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #577, 3/20/09

Grand Valley State University film student Derek Copp is an avowed marijuana aficionado, reform activist, and a "a left-wing hippie peace-keeping liberal," according to his Facebook page. As of last week, he is also a victim of the drug war, or, more precisely, of police heavy-handedness in enforcing what appears to be a petty violation of the marijuana laws. Copp was shot and seriously wounded March 11 by a police officer who was part of a task force raiding his residence with a search warrant.

According to a compilation of local media accounts of the shooting, an Ottawa County deputy coming through the apartment's back door shined a flashlight in Copp's face, causing him to raise his right hand to cover his eyes. The officer then fired one round, striking the student in the chest. Copp said he had no idea the man who shot him was a law enforcement officer.

"He never even had a chance to even see who was coming at him, with a bright flashlight in his face," said his mother, Sheryl Copp. "He had no clue. He heard someone knock on his door, and he had no clue."

According to the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office, Copp was shot in the chest by a sheriff's deputy acting as a member of the West Michigan Enforcement Team, which consists of Ottawa County deputies and members of the Michigan State Police. Police have not identified the deputy, nor is it known whether he has been suspended. Investigators said Copp, 20, did not threaten or confront police when they entered his home. Nor have they revealed the search warrant, what they were looking for, or what they found.

But an attorney hired by Copp's family after the shooting said it was all over a very small amount of marijuana. In a Tuesday statement, attorney Frederick Dilley said: "I have been asked what drugs may have been seized by those executing the search warrant at Derek Copp's apartment. To my knowledge, the raid resulted in the seizure of a few tablespoonfuls of marijuana, and nothing more," Dilley continues, "The primary concern remains the manner in which this raid was carried out. And the apparent lack of any justification whatsoever for the use of force... much less deadly force in executing a search warrant."

Dilley is not alone in his concerns. The Grand Valley State University Student Senate issued a statement the same day wishing "Derek a full and complete recovery" and questioning police conduct. "Even though this incident took place off-campus," the statement said, "Student Senate is greatly concerned with the actions of the law enforcement team. Student Senate will await a full and complete explanation from the Michigan State Police. Like all students, we want to know why the West Michigan Drug Enforcement Team entered Derek Copp's apartment and why a firearm was used."

Even the university president demanded to know what had happened to one of his students. In a Monday e-mail to the university community, President Thomas Haas wrote: "The fact that this incident took place off-campus diminishes neither my interest nor my concern. The university's campus security staff was not involved. Like many of you, I await a full and complete explanation from law enforcement, and I have made a formal request for such information. I want to know what brought the Enforcement Team to Derek's apartment and why a firearm was discharged."

The shooting has also led to at least two protest demonstrations by students demanding answers. "Justify This Shooting!" demanded one sign held by a demonstrator. "We want answers!" read another. "Marijuana or not, unjust shot!" and "Our campus is not a war zone!", students chanted at a campus demo on Friday.

The Michigan State Patrol is investigating the shooting. That means the state police are investigating themselves, since the Western Michigan Enforcement Team consists of state police and Ottawa County sheriff's deputies.

Excellent News Article on Salvia divinorum

This is an outstanding news article about the current legal situation facing Salvia divinorum. I wish more members of the media actually reported on the facts like Christopher Patton has done instead of regurgitating fear based stereotypes that are most commonly conveyed in the news and pontificated by the authorities. The world would be a far better & more human place. Stop criminalizing nature and the prohibition of cognitive liberty. Stop incarcerating good people over victimless "crimes". Salvia divinorum should remain legal as there is NO scientific evidence that it poses any threat to public safety. The ancient and still practicing religion of Shamanism is a guaranteed right under the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Why is this unalienable right not honored by our current government? Thank you Christopher & The Daily Iowan for having the courage to not only speak, but to publish the truth.

Best regards to you,
EROCx1

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The Daily Iowan: Keep Salvia legal
BY CHRISTOPHER PATTON MARCH 6, 2009

When smoked, Salvia divinorum can yank out the rational mind, throw it to the ground, stamp on it and finally rub one’s nose in the resulting mess.

I recommend giving it a try — especially because the experience only lasts a few minutes.

But adventurous Iowan psychonauts who are interested in exploring the mysterious realms that consuming this potent hallucinogenic plant can open up may want to do so soon. The Iowa Legislature is considering a bill criminalizing the sale and possession of the unique herb.

According to Dale Woolery, the associate director of the Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy, the state must ban Salvia in order to preclude the possibility of it ever harming anyone.

However, the state’s own Legislative Services Agency notes in a document explaining the background behind the proposal to criminalize Salvia that the Iowa Department of Public Health’s Substance Abuse and Prevention Division has not received a single report of Salvia divinorum abuse in Iowa — ever. The document also highlights that throughout fiscal 2008, there was not even one prison admission for the hallucinogenic drugs that are illegal.

“This is more about prevention than it is punishment,” Woolery said. “We’re not hearing anything about a widespread epidemic or widespread use like the prevalence of marijuana or meth.”

However, he said, his office is beginning to get more information about Salvia from the law-enforcement and drug-treatment communities.

“There’s probably more of it out there than we hear about,” he said. “Right now, our research has turned up impairment issues, and we’d hate for anyone to become injured or worse as a result of this.”

Those who have experienced a Salvia trip firsthand are fully aware of the “impairment issues” to which Woolery so ominously alludes. But those effects are precisely what drives inquisitive minds to experiment with this substance.

Anthony Fippinger, 24, who graduated in 2007 from the UI with a double major in art and English, currently lives in Mingo, Iowa. Having tried Salvia, he refers to it as an enigmatic substance.

“The time it takes to articulate its effects on you usually lasts longer than the high itself,” he said. “Yet, while under its spell many describe a world devoid of time and infinitely spacious, me included — I liken the experience to one of those acid-dipped music videos with an endless number of replicated shapes perpetually coming at you.”

Another Salvia user is Tanner Faaborg, a 25-year-old Iowa City resident who has a degree in political science and is currently taking English courses. He described his first Salvia experience as shocking.

“When it hit me, and it hit hard, the effects were … fast as hell and targeting every sense I had,” Faaborg said. “I leaned over to express the sensation to my buddies to discover they weren’t there.”

Like Fippinger, Faaborg also perceived the passage of time in a distorted fashion.

“Time cannot exist in a place like that; time can only exist in preconceived concepts of order,” he said. “With Salvia there is no order, it simply is, and you simply are.”

Because of the extent to which tripping on Salvia temporarily annihilates one’s ability to interact with the world in an ordinary way, those who are experienced with the plant suggest it should only be used in a safe and carefully monitored environment.

Smoking Salvia to aid him in meditation and stress relief, Ori Fienberg, a 25-year-old Iowa City resident who in 2008 graduated from the UI with an M.F.A. in nonfiction writing, said he thinks health and safety concerns dictate that the potent herb be properly studied and regulated.

“I think Salvia divinorum is a useful natural aid to self-exploration,” he said. “However, choosing to ban it rather than studying it and making appropriate laws will create an unregulated black market and ultimately increase the number of people who will abuse it by not giving it the respect it deserves as a powerful empathogen.”

Feinberg is right. Despite the value some find in Salvia’s intriguing mind-altering effects, its astounding potency demands respect. Thus, the government should regulate it in such a way as to protect public safety.

But when asked about the possibility of slowing down the legislative process and allowing a more thorough investigation into how Iowa could best regulate Salvia, Woolery remained firm in his prohibitionist stance.

“I don’t think I need scientific research to convince me, based on what I’ve seen, that Salvia should be banned,” he said.

If you haven't already done so, please read my case in defense of Salvia divinorum and continue to fight the injustice of prohibition.