Rabble Rouser

Marijuana Use Seldom Associated With Emergency Room Visits, First-Ever National Study Says
by Paul Armentano

Lifetime use of marijuana is rarely associated with emergency room visits, according to an analysis of epidemiologic survey data published online by the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Investigators at the University of Michigan reviewed the overall prevalence of drug-related emergency department (ED) visits among lifetime users of illicit substances. Researchers analyzed data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, which is a nationally representative survey of 43,093 residents age 18 or older. The study is the first to use nationally representative data to examine patterns and correlates of drug-related ED visits.

Among those surveyed, subjects that reported using cannabis were the least likely to report an ED visit (1.71 percent). Respondents who reported lifetime use of heroin, tranquilizers, and inhalants were most likely (18.5 percent, 6.3 percent, and 6.2 percent respectively) to report experiencing one or more ED visits related to their drug use…Read More

The Marijuana Conspiracy: The reason hemp is illegal
by Doug Yurchey

They say marijuana is dangerous. Pot is not harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does not pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people. The truth is, if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about the plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies.

Where did the word ‘marijuana’ come from? In the mid 1930s, the M-word was created to tarnish the good image and phenomenal history of the hemp plant – as you will read. The facts cited here, with references, are generally verifiable in the Encyclopedia Britannica which was printed on hemp paper for 150 years :

1) All schoolbooks were made from hemp or flax paper until the 1880s. (Jack Frazier. Hemp Paper Reconsidered. 1974.)

2) It was legal to pay taxes with hemp in America from 1631 until the early 1800s. (LA Times. Aug. 12, 1981.)

3) Refusing to grow hemp in America during the 17th and 18th centuries was against the law! You could be jailed in Virginia for refusing to grow hemp from 1763 to 1769 (G. M. Herdon. Hemp in Colonial Virginia).

4) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers grew hemp. (Washington and Jefferson Diaries. Jefferson smuggled hemp seeds from China to France then to America.)

5) Benjamin Franklin owned one of the first paper mills in America, and it processed hemp. Also, the War of 1812 was fought over hemp. Napoleon wanted to cut off Moscow’s export to England. (Jack Herer. Emperor Wears No Clothes.)

6)For thousands of years, 90% of all ships’ sails and rope were made from hemp. The word ‘canvas’ is Dutch for cannabis. (Webster’s New World Dictionary.)

7) 80% of all textiles, fabrics, clothes, linen, drapes, bed sheets, etc.,were made from hemp until the 1820s, with the introduction of the cotton gin.

8) The first Bibles, maps, charts, Betsy Ross’s flag, the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made from hemp. (U.S. Government Archives.)

9) The first crop grown in many states was hemp. 1850 was a peak year for Kentucky producing 40,000 tons.Hemp was the largest cash crop until the 20th century. (State Archives.)

10) Oldest known records of hemp farming go back 5000 years in China, although hemp industrialization probably goes back to ancient Egypt.

11) Rembrandt’s, Van Gogh’s, Gainsborough’s, as well as most early canvas paintings, were principally painted on hemp linen.

12) In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down. Government studies report that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees. Plans were in the works to implement such programs. (U.S. Department of Agriculture Archives.)

13) Quality paints and varnishes were made from hemp seed oil until 1937. 58,000 tons of hemp seeds were used in America for paint products in 1935. (Sherman Williams Paint Co. testimony before the U.S.Congress against the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.)

14) Henry Ford’s first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the car itself was constructed from hemp! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, ‘grown from the soil,’ had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel. (Popular Mechanics, 1941.)

15) In 1938, hemp was called ‘Billion Dollar Crop.’ It was the first time a cash crop had a business potential to exceed a billion dollars. (Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938.)

16) Mechanical Engineering Magazine (Feb. 1938) published an article entitled ‘The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that Can be Grown.’ It stated that if hemp was cultivated using 20th century technology, it would be the single largest agricultural crop in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

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Pot … Or Not?

Synthetic Compound Tempts Smokers, Confounds Experts
By Corey Hutchins

It was on the Friday that Free Times editor Dan Cook took off for a weeklong vacation in California that the rest of the paper’s editorial staff decided to call a rather unconventional cover story meeting. Upstairs, in a conference-space loft area, we kicked off the discussion by passing around an orange glass “tobacco pipe” and a yellow Bic lighter. We were on a mission: Everybody was going to get as absolutely baked-out, Bob Marley-high as humanly possible.

Whoa, whoa, chill with the blue lights and cop sirens in your head, reader; we weren’t smoking pot — well, OK, maybe we should take that back. Could be it’s all in how you define it, right? Wait, I’m kinda getting off on a tangent here, sorry. Damn … I’m, ah … yeah, I’m freakin’ high-eye-eye.

Before we go any further, let’s go back to the beginning. For the record, I don’t think I’m high anymore. I hope not anyway — I just got off the phone with a cop. Did he know? Does everybody know? Man, I should get a glass of water. OK, backing up now; where were we? Right.

For several months, an apparently new form of over-the-counter, brain-bending substance has been popping up across the country on a mind-altering mission to make it into nearly every alternative weekly paper before the year is out. It’s called “Spice” or “K2” or “Pep-pourri” — or by a dozen or so other names — but basically they’re all the same. It’s legal weed, and it pretty much does the trick: It. Gets. You. Stoned… Read More

Related:

Erowid Experience Vault — JWH-018 Reports

The growing buzz on ‘spice’ — the marijuana alternative

Marijuana is already the most studied plant on Earth, and is arguably one of the most investigated therapeutically active substances known to man. To date, there are now over 20,000 published studies or reviews in the scientific literature pertaining to marijuana and its active compounds. That total includes over 2,700 separate papers published on cannabis in 2009 and another 900 published just this year alone (according to a key word search on the search engine PubMed).

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What lawyers & judges won’t tell you about juries
By Sam Smith

The fully informed jury movement has been in the news and the subject of badly misinformed journalism. The following article, which appeared in the Progressive Review in 1990, explains this important issue:

William Penn may have thought he had settled the matter. Arrested in 1670 for preaching Quakerism, Penn was brought to trial. Despite Penn’s admitting the charge, four of the 12 jurors voted to acquit. The judge sent the four to jail “without meat, drink, fire and tobacco” for failing to find Penn guilty. On appeal, however, the jurors’ action was upheld and the right of juries to judge both the law and the facts — to nullify the law if it chose — became part of British constitutional law.

It ultimately became part of American constitutional law as well, but you’d never know it listening to jury instructions today almost anywhere in the country. With only a few exceptions, juries are explicitly or implicitly told to worry only about the facts and let the judge decide the law. The right of jury nullification has become one of the legal system’s best kept secrets.

Now a remarkable coalition has sprung up to challenge this secrecy as undemocratic, unconstitutional and dangerous. Though organized by libertarian activists, the Fully Informed Jury Amendment movement includes liberals and conservatives, Greens, drug decriminalization advocates, gun owner groups, peace activists, both sides of the abortion controversy, helmet and seatbelt activists, alternative medicine practitioners, taxpayer rights groups, environmentalists, criminal trial lawyers and law professors.

Organized by Larry Dodge and Don Doig, both of Helmville, Montana (population: 26; elevation 4300′), FIJA seeks to require that juries be informed of their nullification rights. Informed jury amendments have been filed as an initiative in seven states and legislation has been introduced in the Alaska state legislature.

Merely raising the issue of nullification can make prosecutors nervous, for it takes only one person aware of the right in order to hang a jury…Read More

What’s the Difference Between Viruses, Trojans, Worms, and Other Malware?

Lifehacker’s tech-savvy readers are the first people on speed-dial when it’s time to heal an infected PC, but how much do you really know about viruses, spyware, scareware, trojans, and worms? Here’s a helpful guide to understanding all the different types of malware.

The point of today’s lesson, of course, is to help you teach your friends and family more about the different types of malware, and debunk a few of the common myths about viruses. Who knows, maybe you’ll learn a thing or two as well.

What is Malware?

The word Malware is short for malicious software, and is a general term used to describe all of the viruses, worms, spyware, and pretty much anything that is specifically designed to cause harm to your PC or steal your information.

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Editor’s note: the following article is dated, but truth ages well.

Bad Recruiting
By Rod Powers, About.com Guide

Those who know me or who have read my articles over the past eight years won’t be surprised to hear that my top three pet peeves are (1) applicants who lie about their qualifications to get into the military, (2) recruiters who encourage them to lie and (3) recruiters who lie to applicants.

A few years ago, I extensively addressed the first two issues in my article, I Cannot Tell a Lie, in which I bespeak the consequences of false statements on enlistment documents. It’s past time I addressed my final top irritant.

Let me preface this article by saying I personally know dozens of military recruiters. The vast majority of recruiters are hard-working, honest, and trustworthy; tasked to do one of the most difficult jobs in the military. However, military recruiting is a numbers game, pure and simple. Recruiter careers are made and broken based on whether or not they can meet their monthly quotas (called “goals” in the recruiting world). Keep in mind (depending on the service branch), most recruiters are non-volunteers. They never wanted the job in the first place, but — once selected — are told that the prospect of returning to their previous jobs after three or four years of recruiting duty with an unblemished service record depends primarily upon making their goals.

This unforgiving system of numbers have caused some recruiters (in my opinion a small percentage) to lie and cheat in order to “make their nut.”

Last year, ABC News armed a group of high school students with hidden cameras and sent them into ten Army recruiting stations in in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, posing as potential applicants. Sadly, the Army failed this particular recruiting ethics test. More than half of the recruiters were caught on tape making what can only be kindly referred to as “misleading” statements. In other words, they lied.

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Related: Things the Marine Corps Forgot to Mention