Thanks to Marie Claire, Pot Discussed Rationally on Today Show

Marie Claire magazine's recent article, Stiletto Stoners, has touched a nerve with professional women across the country. A recent study showed an estimated 8 million American women used marijuana last year (those are the ones that admitted to it) and we're not talking about the 16 year old girl buying grass in the school parking lot after she "discovered" Janis Joplin.

These professionals are living a fast paced lifestyle - they don't have time for alcohol, for hangovers, or spending nights barhopping. All points you'll find in Marijuana is Safer: So why are we driving people to drink?

Sure, it's no surprise to most people that you can be successful and smoke marijuana. Just look at our past presidents... eh, on second though, look at Michael Phelps or Rick Steves. But Marie Claire doesn't stop there and touches on how pot prohibition has negative effects on families around the country that marijuana use alone could never have. Looking for life insurance to protect your family? Well, you'd better not test positive for even trace amounts of THC.

The Today show covered the article, bringing onto the show Dr. Julie Holland, a psychiatrist at the New York University School of Medicine and Marie Claire editor-in-chief Joanna Coles to discuss the article and the "growing trend" of professional women smoking pot. The segment is definitely pro regulation and filled with common sense and honesty about responsible marijuana use by adults. It seems the discussion has made this demographic feel good about what they're doing. Watch the video to hear Dr. Holland get the last word.

Just like he did with the Michael Phelps interview, Matt Lauer plays devils advocate, acting as if he just can't believe that women who smoke marijuana are successful and contributing members of society and not the deflated, lazy stoners we see running over children on bikes in a Wendy's drive-thru (as seen on TV of course). He makes sure to ask about the "dark side" of this story and I think it's clear that there is a very dark side; marijuana is illegal even for responsible adults to use in the privacy of their own home after a hard day at work.

Attention Fellow Undergrads: I am a Sober Virgin

Here's an example of an attempt at harm-reduction gone terribly wrong:

MADD announces an exclusive license agreement with Hill Street Marketing Inc. to produce a line of alcohol-free beverages, MADD Virgin Drinks, which will provide American consumers with a delicious and socially responsible alternative to alcoholic beverages.

Cool. I'm down with non-alcoholic beverages (although I prefer a nice, frosty, alcoholic Guinness myself). I'm definitely NOT down with drunk driving. But whatever you think about alcohol, MADD, or this campaign, you have to admit that dubbing these beverages "virgin" is just a dumb marketing move.

After all, if you're trying to get 19 year old college guys to buy your product, you're not going to have much luck asking them to carry a bottle around a party with the word "virgin" on it.

Once again, this shows that MADD is entirely out of touch with the constituency they claim to protect, and is more interested in promoting prohibitionist, puritanical "values" than actually saving lives. They've made a product that might be popular with the already-cautious "abstinence-only" crowd, but will do nothing to actually reach those who are most likely to engage in risky behavior.

Whether or not you're a virgin, SSDP strongly recommends that you stay safe and sensible by carrying around some Screw the Drug War condoms... just in case.



[Thanks, Pete]

Cops Play Wii During Drug Raid

Survillence video from a Florida home shows police playing Wii bowling during a drug raid.

As investigators searched the home for drugs, some drug task force members found other ways to occupy their time. Within 20 minutes of entering Difalco's house, some of the investigators found a Wii video bowling game and began bowling frame after frame.

To be fair - Wii is pretty addictive. So I can understand why the officers spent a good hour of the drug raid glued to the TV. Isn't it ironic?

"Well, we were really bored" explained Det. Scruff McGruff, who was present during the raid. "Drug raids can take hours, but in this case, we finished up pretty quickly and just didn't feel like going back to work. Before we found the Wii, we were planning on snorting some of meth we confiscated and playing Duck Hunt with our real guns - thank God we found the Wii."

Amendment Withdrawn!

In short - we won the battle. Rep. Mark Souder withdrew his amendment to bar financial aid from students with drug possession convictions. He said " I was probably going to lose today."

This war ain't over though. A compromise to the amendment will be made in conference committee and it is expected that students convicted of felony drug crimes will still be unable to get aid for college. Still, this is a huge victory for us and we can expect significantly less students to be forced to drop out of school because a man from Indiana thinks they should be punished twice for the same crime.

You rock SSDP. You did this. It was your calls to congress. Your grassroots action. Your dedication to this organization and its mission for a fair and sensible drug policy. Look around on your campus. How many other student groups have been able to change federal law?

If you're feeling inspired, make a donation today to help us keep this momentum going!

Tell Your Rep: "Vote No on Souder's Amendment"

That's right! We have a chance to change one of the most destructive drug policies ever created. The HEA Aid Elimination Penalty has denied financial aid for college to more than 200,000 students with drug convictions. However, the 2009 SAFRA would make it so that this law would only apply to those convicted of selling drugs. Considering that nearly 90% of marijuana arrests are for possession only - this is a huge victory! Sadly, Rep. Mark "sneaky snake" Souder (R-IN), who created the penalty in 1998, has introduced an amendment to strike out that reform. But we can stop it.

Here is what you need to do:

1) MAKE THE CALL: Dial the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Ask for your representative's office if you know his/her name. If you don't, simply give the operator your address. (Please be patient for an answer, as it sometimes takes several rings to get through. And be sure to leave a voice message if the staff is out for the day.)

2) SPEAK YOUR MIND: When the receptionist in your representative’s office answers the phone, politely say: “My name is ________ and I’d like my representative to vote against Representative Souder's Amendment to the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which denies educational opportunities to students with minor drug possession convictions. Blocking access to education causes more drug problems and hurts the economy. Thank you.”

3) SPREAD THE WORD: Forward this message to everyone you know! CLICK HERE TO SHARE ON FACEBOOK. Twitter this URL: http://ssdp.org/urgent

This is so easy folks. Anyone can do it. Don't believe me? Watch me do it!

A look inside a medical cannabis dispensary

Check out this video from our friends at Harborside Health Center:



I don't know how anyone can watch this and say that cannabis should continue to be prohibited and sold on the illicit black market.

Latin America and Reform

Check out this great piece on the move to decriminalize drugs in Latin America.

Bruno Avangera, a 40-year-old web designer from Tucumán in Argentina, pauses to relight a half-smoked joint of cannabis. Then he speaks approvingly of "progress and the right decision" by the country's seven supreme court judges, who decided last week that prosecuting people for the private consumption of small amounts of narcotics was unconstitutional.

"Last year three of my friends were caught smoking a spliff in a park and were treated like traffickers," he said. "They went to court, which took six months. One went to jail alongside murderers. The others were sent to rehab, where they were treated for an addiction they didn't have, alongside serious heroin and crack users. It was pointless and destroyed their lives."

Boy, that sure does sound familiar doesn't it? When I was working as a youth counselor that's exactly how I felt. I loved working with young people and helping them to better themselves but it was incredibly frustrating to see teenagers told they are addicts, and that they'll always be addicts, when the truth is - most were just kids experimenting with cannabis and were coerced into treatment because they got caught.

Its time for Latin America to stand up to U.S. drug war politicking. Countries are being torn apart by our demand for drugs - which will never go away. We have a clear choice: embrace harm reduction and legalization or continue to fund drug cartels and ignore real drug abuse problems in the U.S.

Former President of Brazil Calls for Global Cannabis Decrim

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil, is calling the war on drugs a failure and advocating for global cannabis decriminalization and the implementation of harm reduction policies.

"After decades of overflights, interdictions, spraying and raids on jungle drug factories, Latin America remains the world's largest exporter of cocaine and marijuana," Cardoso writes. "It is producing more and more opium and heroin. It is developing the capacity to mass produce synthetic drugs. Continuing the drugs war with more of the same is ludicrous."

Cardoso, a sociologist, said Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador had all now taken steps towards drug law liberalisation and that change was "imminent" in Brazil. The way forward worldwide would involve a "strategy of reaching out, patiently and persistently, to the users and not the continued waging of a misguided and counterproductive war that makes the users, rather than the drug lords, the primary victims," he added.

The Drug War Gets Worse

Drug cartel members burst into a Juarez drug rehabilation clinic yesterday, lining up patients and executing 17 of them. On the same day, newly appointed ( 2 weeks ago ) deputy police chief Jose Manuel Revueltas, was killed in President Calderon's home state of Michoacan in western Mexico by heavily armed men in two vehicles just a few blocks from police headquarters.

How many Saint Valentine's Day Massacres do we need to witness before we end drug prohibition? I'm not feeling like ranting so here are some current highlights from the drug war:

• 13,000 people have been killed since late 2006
• Obama plans to give $1.4 billion to aid fighting drug cartels (aka, wasting tax dollars and increasing violence)
  
• Ciudad Juarez has become the most violent city on earth.
• In 2009 there have been 4,736 murders in Mexico
• There have been 24,000 arrests in 2009 and the violence still continues
  

SSDP on the radio

UMD SSDP President Irina Alexander and I spoke on Midday with Dan Rodricks on WYPR radio (Baltimore's NPR affilliate - 88.1 FM) last Tuesday, August 25th.

The hour long segment covered the Higher Education Act Drug Penalty, zero tolerance policies, 911 Good Samaritan policies, and the Amethyst initiative.

Listen to us and let us know what you think of our performance!

As the school year begins, your local NPR stations might be interested to hear about your chapter's plans for the year. This could be a great opportunity to raise awareness and build local support for a campus change campaign or one of our national campaigns. You might also inspire sister chapters! Contact your outreach director for help on how to reach out to local media.

Josh Flynn at Towson University near Baltimore listened to us and is now starting a chapter there!

It's time for the children used to justify this Drug War speak up about its failure.