sound money

Czech pharmacies begin selling medical marijuana

"Medical marijuana legally went on sale Tuesday in pharmacies across the Czech Republic for patients suffering from cancer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis or psoriasis. The new law does not foresee health insurance coverage for marijuana, touted by some as a medical miracle drug. The prescription-only drug formally became legal on Monday, but was virtually unavailable as most pharmacies across the ex-communist European Union state of 10.5 million were closed over to the Easter long weekend. An EU member since in 2004, the Czech Republic provides some of the most liberal access to soft drugs in Europe." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCzech pharmacies begin selling medical marijuana

Public Schools Give Kids Attention Deficit Disorder.

"The CDC has diagnosed this at attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as 'I’d rather not be here' disorder. It is higher in states where boys can go hunting instead of sitting in school. In South Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas, the squirming is intense: 23%. The solution is drugs. Legal ones. The ones supplied by the pushers: public schools. These drugs keep people from squirming. When you are listening to some tax-funded, tenured drone, and you would rather be hunting, pills help. Medicaid covers the cost of the drugs for poor families. The children in these families have one-third more instances of the disease." Continue reading →

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Odorless ‘weed candies’ in high schools worry Oregon authorities

"Small hard candy infused with marijuana has popped up in high schools in northwestern Oregon, authorities have warned. The sugary green candy is frequently shaped as a skull, Gresham police officer Rick Blake told local news station KGW. 'They just sit and suck on it,' Blake added. 'And, the biggest thing is its odorless, and having no odor, they can sit in class and have this thing and by the end of class, they’re high.' The drug-infused treat is reportedly being sold to high school students for $1 to $5 a piece. Blake told the Portland Tribune the 'weed candy' was relatively easy to make, requiring only marijuana and a few common household ingredients." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingOdorless ‘weed candies’ in high schools worry Oregon authorities

Possessing a little marijuana no longer criminal in Rhode Island

"A law decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana went into effect in Rhode Island on Monday after the state last year became the 15th in the United States to enact such legislation. Governor Lincoln Chafee signed the legislation into law in June but it did not take effect until Monday, a move intended to allow time for officials to work out procedures, said state Representative John Edwards, a co-sponsor of the measure. Possession of one ounce (28 grams) or less of marijuana in Rhode Island now constitutes a civil offense punishable by a $150 fine and forfeiture of the drug, though three offenses in an 18-month period amount to a misdemeanor." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPossessing a little marijuana no longer criminal in Rhode Island

71st Anniversary: Roosevelt’s Concentration Camps

"The U.S. government had several governments in South America round up Japanese residents, who were then shipped to the U.S. The government put them in concentration camps. These camps received no publicity. One of them was in Crystal City, Texas. This was kidnapping, pure and simple. This story is so horrifying that the history textbooks never mention it. You will see no show about it on the History Channel. You can read about it here. These people were sent to Japan after the war." Continue reading →

Continue Reading71st Anniversary: Roosevelt’s Concentration Camps

The Story of Kidnapped Costa Rican Internees in One of America’s World War II Concentration Camps

"We last year attended a reunion of the camp members at the facility here in Texas, and I was amazed to hear stories of some whose families had been US citizens for their entire lives, yet were swept up in the hysteria, stripped of their US assets and put into the camp. Most I spoke to were, like my wife, US citizens, most born to their now-American parents, but thrown into the camp regardless. One interesting fact to me was that in order to deport all of the folks they did following the War, they officially charged all of the detainees, people who had been kidnapped at the point of a gun, with 'unlawfully entering' the nation they were kidnapped TO against their wishes." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Story of Kidnapped Costa Rican Internees in One of America’s World War II Concentration Camps

The GOP’s Drug-Testing Dragnet

"The annual Drug & Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA) conference, held in 2012 in San Antonio, Texas, looks like any other industry gathering. The 600 or so attendees sip their complimentary Starbucks coffee, munch on small plates of muffins and fresh fruit, and backslap old acquaintances as they file into a sprawling Marriott hotel conference hall. They will hear a keynote address by Robert DuPont, who served as drug policy director under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Nothing odd about any of this until you consider that the main subject of the conference is urine." Continue reading →

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Military’s ‘war on drugs’ back as U.S. Navy looks to net big catches in the Pacific

"Operation Martillo and other military assistance to Central American nations represent one of the most ambitious US efforts against drug cartels since World War II. The United States has trained security forces across the region, deployed 200 Marines in Guatemala and built forward operating bases in Honduras and shared radar intelligence with Honduran authorities. But top US generals warned last month that the effort could be greatly undermined by budget cuts. The cost of international operations and support to nations worldwide to fight drugs went from $2.7 billion in 2001 to $5.7 billion last year." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMilitary’s ‘war on drugs’ back as U.S. Navy looks to net big catches in the Pacific

David Galland: Big Brother’s Beginnings

"For me, then, the real message of 1984 is that once governments are allowed to get too firm a grip on the reins of power – including the judicial, the constabulary, the military, the media – they are not just imminently corruptible but super-hardened to any real change. I, Pencil, Leonard Read's 1958 essay, a video version of which you can watch here, explains how the free market works using the simple example of how the lowly pencil is produced and brought to market. I'll try to use the same sort of simplistic example – replacing the pencil with the coca leaf – to expose the genesis of Big Brother's steady assent to unassailable power." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDavid Galland: Big Brother’s Beginnings

Guatemala’s president: ‘My country bears the scars from the war on drugs’

"This is often the problem with the war on drugs: shifting the problem from one region to another. The transit nations are now recognised as a distinct set of countries caught in the war on drugs. As they produce and consume few drugs they are among the more innocent victims. But now they have a bullish and vociferous spokesperson in Guatemala’s president, Otto Pérez Molina. A previously hardline director of military intelligence, Pérez Molina became president a year ago. He surprised many when, within weeks, he declared that the war on drugs had failed and that the international community needed to end the 'taboo' of debating decriminalisation." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGuatemala’s president: ‘My country bears the scars from the war on drugs’