Teatime – Impulse I’m not particularly interested in drugs. I mean, drugs are cool and all, and I’m told their actions are really fascinating from a biochemical standpoint. Their history certainly is colorful and illuminating; and sure, the social issues surrounding drugs and drug policy are important and thought-provoking. When it comes right down to [...]

Important stuff.

According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll: Eight in 10 Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use and nearly half favor decriminalizing the drug more generally, both far higher than a decade ago. If that many people really want medical marijuana, and half as many really want decriminalization (or legalizing) why do so few politicians [...]

Homeless people can’t pay fines. What to do about panhandling? San Antonio has a solution: You see them everywhere….panhandlers…often holding crude cardboard signs, begging for cash at busy intersections. Efforts to wipe out panhandling by outlawing the practice have been ineffective, largely because panhandlers don’t have the money to pay fines, taxpayers are not excited [...]

Just to put things into perspective: the world doesn’t stop being shitty just because it’s the holidays.  A couple of local things and one from afar. Jerry Oliver, founder of Mercy Ministries in Augusta dies. He was tough as nails.  Watching him recover from the stroke he had last year was inspiring.  He will certainly [...]

Weed Culture is Boob Culture: Why aren’t there more female marijuana activists, Marijuana Policy Project employee Laura Greenback asks in High Times. Ooh! Pick me! I know the answer! It’s not that women don’t like smoking weed. We do. And it’s not that we don’t care about the ass-backwards war on drugs—despite Greenback’s fears, half [...]

Today’s OED Word of the Day: narcocracy, n. 1. A body of people responsible for the implementation of drug laws. rare. 1983 National Rev. (Nexis) 29 Apr. 492 The National Research Council report of June 21, 1982..was promptly suppressed by the narcocracy because it questions the efficacy of marijuana prohibition and advocates complete decriminalization and [...]

The Rise and Rise of Legal Highs: Head shops had found their breakthrough product, and quickly lost it. Could I still buy some? “The company that made Spice tried changing the brand and logo a few times, and eventually sold off the recipe,” said the salesman. “They still make it in the Dominican Republic, I [...]

It’s Time to Legalize Drugs Legalization would not create a drug free-for-all. In fact, regulation reins in the mess we already have. If prohibition decreased drug use and drug arrests acted as a deterrent, America would not lead the world in illegal drug use and incarceration for drug crimes. Drug manufacturing and distribution is too [...]

Get Smarter: Seventy-four thousand years ago, humanity nearly went extinct. A super-volcano at what’s now Lake Toba, in Sumatra, erupted with a strength more than a thousand times that of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Some 800 cubic kilometers of ash filled the skies of the Northern Hemisphere, lowering global temperatures and pushing a climate [...]