Music By Me

 One Under by samlees

Bill Hicks

Jay Day 2010-260 People Didn't Get Arrested.

An official estimate put the number of people attending Brighton's Jay Day protest at 262. Thats 262 people that are considered criminals by current law. Now, if 262 criminals walked down your street, you would think that more than 2 of them would be arrested, what with them all being criminals and the like. You might even say, that out of 262 self proclaimed criminals, 260 of them not getting arrested is more news worthy than the 2 that did.  The BBC clearly disagreed. The article they posted on their website, which can be found here, fails completely at giving an unbiased representation of the days events, concentrating entirely on the actions of a tiny minority and completely ignoring all issues and arguments from the day. This is typical of the mainstream press, to ignore all anti-prohibition arguments, and focus only on supporting their pre-existing agenda, and swaying public opinion in the favor of government policy. I suppose it wouldn't have helped the Labour campaign much had they reported the origins of the cannabis found in a medicinal users prescription. Or how much a prescribed user has to pay for their prescription. And they say the press are the true defenders of liberty. I wish I could have been around in those days.

So, to try and sum up the day where the BBC failed. The honest way. It pissed it down with rain. I mean, a lot of fucking rain, but the march went on regardless. Arguably a better turn out could have been achieved had the weather been on our side, but I'd like to think 260 stoners standing in the pouring rain being ignored is a pretty appropriate symbol of our struggle. Some good points were made here and there, but really the event didn't seem organized with any form of public speaking, or serious awareness raising in mind, rather than getting a rabble of stoners together, wandering through the streets having a bit of a shout, and not a very unified one at that. In conclusion, we managed to get a lot of tokers out of bed before mid day, some wild speculations were thrown around quite carelessly, some important ideas were also shared and everyone got very wet, but some seeds have been planted and hopefully we can learn from this, so that next year can be taken as seriously as it so desperately needs to be.

Peace. x

Grit

To the seasoned smokers among you, grit is a word becoming all to familiar in the world of all things cannabis.  Grit Weed has become the vernacular for a common form of contaminated cannabis that has been sprayed with an array of sand/grit type substances, which have been added to the plant preceding harvest to increase the weight of the plants yield. 


Grit weed has been in circulation since approximately 2006, when a handful of local cases were identified. Since this time, the supply of this contaminated weed has increased dramatically, infiltrating all levels of the supply chain throughout the British Isles. Some smokers are even reporting that grit weed is predominantly the only type of herbal cannabis available to them - a situation that many feel is a direct result of the police's recent wave of crackdowns on UK based cannabis growers which has had a marked effect on both the levels and quality of supply.


Currently it seems there are four main types of contaminant being added to the cannabis flooding the UK market. These are:

 - Large Glass Particle Contamination
 - Industrial Etchant Spray Contamination
 - Sugar or Sand Contamination
 - Micro Contaminants (stealth grit) 


Smokers of grit weed have complained about after effects including, but not limited to; sore mouth, mouth ulcers, chesty persistent coughs, and a tight chest lasting a few days after use.


Luckily, identifying grit weed is relatively easy. At first glance, the cannabis will often appear to be of good standard, even enticing, but will have a very weak odor. On further inspection, it may appear that the cannabis is coated with a layer f THC like crystals, however these could be any of the contaminants listed above, so a more detailed inspection is required. 


The most reliable method of testing your cannabis to determine wether or not it is contaminated, is to place a small amount in your mouth and rub it on your teeth and tongue. If you feel a gritty sand like residue when you clench your teeth together then chances are you are dealing with gritweed (probably the silica or road paint contaminant variety).  If you don't feel any grit-like substance between your teeth but the weed tastes very sweet (sugary) then chances are it has been dusted with sugar to bulk out the weight.  


Please note that the above 'grit test' will not work with the new wave of so called micro comtanimants as these are undetectable without the use of a standard microscope.  To date we are unaware of any other method to test for these new forms of micro contaminant gritweeds apart from a detailed microscopic analysis. 


Ironically, the Department of Health released a public health warning, but it has vanished from the internet at time of publishing. More information can be found here, but please be aware of the unsupported propaganda also contained in the article. 


In conclusion, grit weed is a continuing problem. The only way for smokers to eradicate this evil from the world, is to refuse it. Take pride in the herb you smoke, demand high quality product, and refuse contaminated cannabis. If your dealer slings it your way, just say no. It is worth missing one smoke to save the culture from greedy criminals who take no pride in the positive and beneficial effects of cannabis consumption. Unite. Resist. Reform. Weed before greed.


Until next time


Peace  

Prohibition

The legalizing cannabis debate is one that has been around for nearly a hundred years, yet it is one that has fallen victim to countless attacks of propaganda, slander and miss-information. The law on cannabis in the UK currently states: (sourced from: http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/drugs-laws/cannabis-reclassifications/);


As a Class B drug, penalties for cannabis are as follows:


Penalties for supply, dealing, production and trafficking :
The maximum penalty is 14 years imprisonment.


Penalties for possession
The maximum penalty increases from two years to five years imprisonment.


Adults in possession of cannabis
If caught in possession of cannabis, as well as considering arrest and confiscating the drug, police are likely to: give a cannabis warning for a first offence of possession give a Penalty Notice for Disorder - this is an on-the-spot fine of £80 for a second offence make an arrest if it is the third offence of having been caught with cannabis - this could lead to conviction and a criminal record.


Young people in possession of cannabis
A young person found to be in possession of cannabis will be arrested and taken to a police station where they can receive a reprimand, final warning or charge depending on the seriousness of the offence. Following one reprimand, any further offence will lead to a final warning or charge. Any further offence following a warning will normally result in criminal charges. After a final warning, the young offender must be referred to a Youth Offending Team to arrange a rehabilitation programme. This police enforcement is consistent with the structured framework for early juvenile offending established under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.


Those are the facts, although those among us know that it doesn't quite work that way. Ask any police officer what they find to be one of the biggest wastes of their time, and they will probably tell you that it is enforcing ridiculously far-reaching cannabis prohibition laws. As it stands, there are an estimated 160,000,000 cannabis users currently using the "drug" worldwide. "Although cannabis can have a negative impact on health, including mental health, in terms of relative harms, it is considerably less harmful than alcohol or tobacco." A conclusion reached recently by respected medical journal "The Lancet", which found nicotine and alcohol to be far more of a social issue in terms of real harms caused, than cannabis, heroin or cocaine. "The current system of cannabis regulation is not working, and ... there needs to be a serious rethink if we are to minimise the harms caused by cannabis use," which would back up former ACMD Chairman Professor Sir Michael Rawlins and the recommendations he gave at the request of the Home Secretary back in March 2008. According to a joint poll run in conjunction with the United Nations and the World Health Organisation recently, almost half the population of the United States (41%) admits experimenting with cannabis, and yet psychosis statistics in the US run close to those in the UK at around 1% of the population. which disproves the Home Office and its primary reason for upping the classification of cannabis. "Historically, there have only been two deaths worldwide attributed to cannabis (citation needed, if that tells you anything about the relevance of even that small a figure), whereas alcohol and tobacco together are responsible for an estimated 150,000 deaths per year in the UK alone," and this according to governments own figures.


So, taking into account that the Home Office's main reasons for reclassification of cannabis, and maintaining its illegality, are largely unfounded, this leads us to ask the question: Why is it still illegal? Well, many people have many different answers to this, blaming everyone from the tobacco industry, to the alcohol industry all the way to the man-made fibres industry, but from what I can surmise, the answer is much simpler. I have never heard of anyone growing their own tobacco or distilling their own alcohol. Not in this country anyway, and certainly not to the same degree that cannabis is cultivated by the home gardener, and I think that there is more to this than the substances being available in shops, rendering home manufacture pointless. After multiple Google searches, finding the materials to undertake these activities proved a lot more difficult, and costly than growing cannabis, whereas, the equipment required to grow cannabis is available at any local garden centre, and the seeds available online and in head-shops around the world from as little as £20 for 10 sensei seeds. And by this, I am not just talking about low quality product, like bush weed or whatever you would prefer to call it. I am referring to what is commonly known as skunk, which contains up to 16% THC, over 10% more than is found in resin or other variants of the herb. THC being the psychoactive chemical contained in cannabis, which gives it its potent high, or stoned feeling, whichever ever name you would prefer.


According to a report published by the TDPF (Transform Drug Policy Foundation) a legalised, regulated market could save the country around £14bn. The report considers all aspects of prohibition from the costs of policing and investigating drugs users and dealers to processing them through the courts and their eventual incarceration. Aswell as the potential savings highlighted above, also to be taken into consideration are the potential revenues avaliable through taxation in a regulated market. The report focused on four potential scenarios, ranging from no increase in drugs use to a 100% rise as they become more readily available to the public. "The conclusion is that regulating the drugs market is a dramatically more cost-effective policy than prohibition and that moving from prohibition to regulated drugs markets in England and Wales would provide a net saving to taxpayers, victims of crime, communities, the criminal justice system and drug users of somewhere within the range of, for the four scenarios, £13.9bn, £10.8bn, £7.7bn, £4.6bn." The report, titled; Comparison of the Cost-effectiveness of the Prohibition and Regulation of Drugs, uses home office and No 10 strategy unit reports and government figures on the costs of crime to assess the potential benefits and disadvantages of change. It finds: "The government specifically claims the benefits of any move away from prohibition towards legal regulation would be outweighed by the costs. No such cost-benefit analysis, or even a proper impact assessment of existing enforcement policy and legislation has ever been carried out here or anywhere else in the world."


In Amsterdam, the enforcement of drug laws presents a very interesting model, for contrary to popular belief, cannabis is still considered a controlled drug by Dutch authorities, and both possession and production for personal use are still misdemeanours, punishable by a fine. Surprisingly, Coffee shops are also illegal according to the statutes. However, a policy of non-enforcement has lead to a common reliance upon non-enforcement, and courts have ruled against the government when individual cases were prosecuted. This is thanks to a gedoogbeleid (policy of tolerance), applied by the Dutch Ministry of Justice, with regards to soft drugs: an official set of guidelines telling public prosecutors under which circumstances offenders should not be prosecuted.

The drug policy of the Netherlands is based on two principles:

1. Drug use is a public health issue, not a criminal matter.
   
2. A distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs exists.

This is a pragmatic policy: Most policymakers in the Netherlands believe that if a problem has proved to be unstoppable, it is better to try controlling it instead of continuing to enforce laws that have shown to be unable to stop the problem. Most other countries take the point of view that drugs are bad and must be outlawed, whether that course of action yields any results or not. I can imagine that any users of cannabis reading this paragraph just gasped with shock that a legal system can be so tolerant, when their own government seems so short sighted. The American sociologist Craig Reinarman once wrote: “U.S drug control ideology holds that there is no such thing as use of an illicit drug, only abuse.” But drug use patterns in the Netherlands show that for the overwhelming majority of users, cannabis is just one more type of genotsmiddelen (food, spices and intoxicants which bring pleasure to the senses) that the Dutch have been importing and culturally domesticating for centuries. New Mexico governor Gary Johnson once talked objectively about the War on Drugs, stating, “Holland is the only country in the world that has a rational drug policy. I had always heard that Holland, where marijuana is decriminalized and controlled, had out-of-control drug abuse and crime. But when I researched it, I learned that’s untrue. It’s propaganda. Holland has 60% of the drug use-both hard drugs and marijuana- the United States has. The have quarter the crime rate, quarter the homicide rate, a quarter the violent crime rate, and a tenth the incarceration rate.”

It’s going to be a long time before any such measures are even considered for implementation in the UK. With the Conservative Party’s takeover of parliament at the next general election almost inevitable, we can expect things to get worse before they get better, but the more people that are aware of the true nature of the plant, it’s effects, and it’s press, the closer we are to having a pragmatic system that truly demonstrates understanding of an ever apparent problem.

Until next time.....

Peace

Donald

Today, I went to my friends Stevie's house to discover that he has ducks! As you can see from the photos, they are amazing. It is not currently known whether they are male or female as their feathers haven't come through yet. This makes it difficult, as one can imagine, to give them appropriate names, so I have named them John and Jane Doe. Imaginative hey!
Until next time....

Peace

In defence of the 2 million

I am one of the 2.03 million registered unemployed people currently living in the UK. As a result of this I am claiming Job Seekers allowance to cover the costs of every day life. I receive about £98 per fortnight, which is almost entirely spent on rent and living costs. The little I have left over I normally spend on weed or similar activities. Now, my problem is this; I have a problem with people who have a problem with people on Job Seekers. A bit of a mouth full, granted, but not un-founded.

The latest figures published by the Treasury state that the British Defence budget (2009/10) stood at approximately £34,465,220,261. I would like to think that I shouldn't need to go into too much detail about how outrageous this is, but for those of you that aren't aware, this is spent on things such as guns that jam in the desert and nuclear weapons. Although, really, the individual items aren't really the real issue, rather than the context of use. To put it simply, it's all money spent on armaments and such that are used to fight in the various conflicts our government is directly and indirectly involved in for reasons that stretch far beyond the reasons stated in the news, largely for someones profit. So we can all agree, that this is an unhealthy amount of outgoing for such a purpose. The point I'm trying to make is this: People are complaining that the unemployed, living off benefits are the problem with this country. That we take hard working tax payers money and laze around. There is some truth to this. I don't deny that tax payers are, 9 times out of 10, reasonably hard working. What I do have a problem with, is being labeled as the downfall of society. Put it this way. I would be a hardworking tax payer. The reason I'm not, is because there are no jobs. The reason there are no jobs is because there have been massive lay offs across the board, and no one can afford to hire new staff. There have been massive lay offs and slumps in profit because we are in a recession. We are in a recession because of inflation going a wee bit crazy. Inflation went a wee bit crazy because some greedy, top of the pyramid types allowed it to do so, and in some cases maybe engineered it to do so, at the peoples expense, to satisfy their blood lust for wealth and power. Thanks to the super thinking of Milton Friedman, Regan and Thatcher, we live in a free market system which regulates itself. Only, history shows us, it only seems to regulate itself in a way that benefits the wealthy at the expense of the working class. In these broad terms, I refer to the working class to be any one who doesn't fall into the 10% of people that own 80% of the worlds wealth. A disgusting statistic, yes, but a factual statistic none the less.

The point I'm trying to make, and yes there is a point to all of this, is that it's about time someone got something back from a system that seems every day to appear less and less like it is designed to work for them, and not just take from them. I'm not trying to make any bold political statements, rather than open a forum for debate. I don't contest that Britain offers one of the best standards of living the world has to offer. What I contest is why should it have to be at the expense of the majority of the population of the world? That's probably the main point, but really, leave me alone. I'm trying to get a job. There are none. Fuck off. And in case you didn't know, I pay tax on my job seekers. Which makes about as much sense as the fall of tower 7.

Until next time....

Peace