Showing posts with label decriminalization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label decriminalization. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Buddhist Thailand BANS cannabis

Thailand legalized non-prescription cannabis sales in 2022 but has reversed (Reuters/Jorge Silva)
BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand is further tightening control of cannabis by banning sales of the plant to those without prescriptions. Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalize cannabis in 2022, in a move that boosted Thailand’s tourism and farming, and spawned thousands of shops. But the country has faced public backlash over allegations that under-regulation has made the drug available to children and caused addiction. Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin signed an order Monday that bans shops from selling cannabis to customers without a prescription. It also seeks to reclassify cannabis buds as a controlled herb. Thailand further tightening controls on cannabis sales (AP News)

Monday, December 2, 2024

Criminal Biden, criminal Trump, Elon


Republicans outraged over Hunter Biden pardon, Trump and Elon’s Thanksgiving a wacky pick to lead FBI
(Jimmy Kimmel Live) Dec. 2, 2024: Today is Cyber Monday, one of the holiest shopping days of the year, there was a foot and a half of snow before the Bills/Niners game, a lot of people like to fry their dead turkeys and it’s very easy to mess up and cause a fryer fire, Do Jo Trump spent his holiday at Mar-a-Lago with his family and new best friend Elon Musk, Genocide Joe pardoned his son (who engaged in crimes in Ukraine) Hunter "Drug Addict" Biden and there is outrage from the GOP, Trump announced that his wacky pick to run the FBI is Indian Kash Patel, the First Lady unveiled the décor for the Biden’s last Xmas in office, and a new twist on the Elf on the Shelf that was supposed to be the hottest toy of the season until the results of the election came in. #Kimmel

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Thai High: Legal weed in Thailand (video)

NYT; ABC News In-depth, Australia, 10/6/22; Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Morphing Monasteries: Buddhism in today's Thailand (The New York Times, 12/23/12) Buddhism has been a way of life in Thailand for centuries, but inside the most popular temples is a trend that critics call "fast-food Buddhism." Article: nyti.ms/XGYUFp


Is Thailand the new weed capital of the world?
(ABC News In-depth) From zero tolerance to decriminalization, Theravada Buddhist Thailand’s recent U-turn on its cannabis laws is lighting up a billion-dollar industry.

Bhante, do you guys accept bud for dana?
Officially weed is for medicinal use only, but the legal grey area means ganja lovers are celebrating. It’s the country that gave us the words "bong" and "ganja."  In Thailand, cannabis has been used for centuries in traditional medicine.

But when the US launched its "war on drugs" in the 1970s, Thailand became a key partner, placing cannabis on its own narcotics list and toughening penalties against it. This June (summer 2022), the country took it off that list, meaning cannabis sellers and recreational users no longer risked jail for selling or possessing cannabis.

Many Westerners took up Thai Forest Tradition
In tourist hotspots, a ganja-culture is fast taking hold. In Bangkok’s Khao San Road [the backpackers' and shoestring travelers' haven] and nightspot, it seems easier to buy a joint than a Pad Thai (which cost about 10 cents for the street version of the dish).

"Now it’s legal. God gave a gift for us," says Choco Gonzales, a cannabis seller in Bangkok. And it’s party time for tourists at the famous full moon party at Koh Phangan in the country’s southeast.

What will Dhammakaya do to save Thailand?
"Wherever you go now, it’s Amsterdam again in Asia," says an Italian tourist at the party. As Australia reignites on its own debate about legalizing cannabis, Southeast Asia correspondent Mazoe Ford travels around Thailand to meet the new crop of "ganja-preneurs" cashing in on the green rush.

In Bangkok, Kitty Chopaka, a shop owner selling cannabis products and a leading advocate of decriminalization, is still pinching herself. "I never thought in my lifetime that this would actually happen…But at the same time I knew it has to be done."

On the southern island of Ko Samui, resort owner Carl Lamb reckons the liberalization of the laws is attracting overseas tourists. "You can really feel it's reinvigorated the market. There's a new energy here."

Ford also hitches a ride on the private jet of the politician behind the policy – Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul. He takes us to Thailand’s east to spruik, the medicinal cannabis industry, which the government hopes will become a billion-dollar industry.

“It turned out that majority of my voters chose to vote for my party…some people even called my party [the] ‘Cannabis Party,’” he tells Ford. But not everyone welcomes the change. More than a thousand doctors have warned that the drug was delisted before proper safeguards and regulations were in place. 

“We don't want to be the cannabis haven of the world,” say Doctor Chanchai Sittipunt from Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Medicine. But Kitty Chopaka says going back isn’t possible; the genie is out of the bottle.

“That bottle is broken. It’s gone!” More: ab.co/3ebD2pG

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Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Why the criminal system is this way (audio)

Yale Prof. James Forman, Jr. and Host Adam Conover, Factually!; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly
Factually! w/ Adam Conover (Ep. #54.5, 6/3/20) Mass Incarceration, Accountability, and The Wire

Yale Prof. of Law James Forman, Jr., author of the book Locking Up Our Own, joins Host Adam Conover to discuss the history of how mass incarceration became distorted, juvenile court, confronting problems in the criminal justice system, and more.

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
Winner of a Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction, this is one of the NY Times Book Reviews' ten best books.

"This superb, shattering book probably made a deeper impression on me than any other this year." ―Jennifer Senior, NY Times

"A beautiful [Pulitzer Prize-winning] book... gives us the origins and consequences of where we are..." ―Trevor Noah, The Daily Show

Former public defender James Forman, Jr. is a leading critic of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color.

Here he seeks to understand the war on crime that began in the 1970s and why it was supported by many African American leaders in our nation’s urban centers.

Prof. Forman shows that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent black officials, including Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder (who later became attorney general in the Obama administration), feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were being undermined by lawlessness ― so they embraced tough-on-crime measures, including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics.

In the face of skyrocketing murder rates and the proliferation of open-air drug markets, they believed they had no choice. But the policies they adopted would have devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods.

Forman tells riveting stories of politicians, community activists, police officers, defendants, and crime victims. He explains why our society became so punitive and offers important lessons about the future of race and the U.S. criminal justice system.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Drugs do NOT cause drug addiction (video)

Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; Johann Hari, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, Nermeen Shaikh (democracynow.org, Feb. 4, 2015)
Talking about liberation and enlightenment, the Buddha said an amazing thing: "Three things cannot remain hidden: the Moon, the Sun, and the Truth" (DigitalTurkey-graph/flickr.com).

My mongoose at my acid.
As Pres. Obama seeks $27.6 billion for federal police state sponsored "drug control" programs in Washington D.C.'s new budget, British journalist Johann Hari talks about amazing research and evidence.

Chasing the Scream (Johann Hari)
The century-old failed “drug war” could never have been successful -- while sucking up so much money and feeding a prison-industrial complex to no good effect -- because it was founded on a faulty assumption, lies, and motives other than drugs. 

So much of what we "know" about addiction is wrong. Over the past four years Hari has traveled from England to the United States, Mexico, Canada, Uruguay, and Portugal to research his new book, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War of Drugs.

His findings will surprise many -- with the exception of Dr. Gabor Mate, MD (“Zeitgeist”) who has been saying this for years after experience with tens of thousands of addicts in Canada -- from the U.S. government’s persecution of Billie Holiday, to Vancouver’s success in addressing its heroin epidemic, to Portugal’s experiment with full decriminalization of all drugs. More


Chasing the Scream
It is now 100 years since drugs were first banned in the United States. On the eve of this centenary, journalist Johann Hari set off on an epic three-year, 30,000-mile journey into our bogus War on Drugs.

What he found is that more and more people all over the world are beginning to recognize three startling truths:
  1. Drugs are not what we think they are.
  2. Addiction is not what we think it is.
  3. And the Drug War has very different motives than the ones we have been by on our TV screens for so long.
Money and rap music lure "enemies" for police to track, attack, and imprison in this "war."
 
In his new book Chasing the Scream, Hari reveals his discoveries entirely through the life stories of people across the world whose lives have been transformed by this bogus war.

They range from a transsexual crack dealer in Brooklyn, New York, searching for her mother, to a teenage hit-man in Mexico searching for a way out.

It begins with Hari’s discovery that at the birth of the War on Drugs, jazz legend Billie Holiday was stalked and killed by the man who launched this American police state crusade. It ends with the story of a brave medical doctor who has led his country to decriminalize every drug, from cannabis to crack, with remarkable results.
 
Chasing the Scream lays bare what we really have been chasing in our century of drug war – in our hunger for drugs, and in our attempt to destroy them. This book will challenge and change how you think about one of the most controversial – and consequential – questions of our time.

We're launching a war on your plastic baggies, and all of you are terrorists! Back up!
 
What's being said about Chasing the Scream
“Johann Hari’s book is the perfect antidote to the war on drugs, one of the most under-discussed moral injustices of our time. It combines rigorous research and deeply human story-telling. It will prompt an urgently-needed debate’
– Glenn Greenwald (The Intercept), Pulitzer Prize winner

“An absolutely stunning book. It will blow people away.”
– Elton John, iconic musician

“Superb journalism and thrilling story-telling.”
– Naomi Klein, author

“Wonderful… I couldn’t put it down.”
– Noam Chomsky

“This book is, forgive the obvious phrase, screamingly addictive. The story it tells, jaw-droppingly horrific, hilarious and incredible, is one everyone should know: that it is all true boggles the mind, fascinates and infuriates in equal measure. Johann Hari, in brilliant prose, exposes one of the greatest and most harmful scandals of the past hundred years.”
– Stephen Fry

“This book is as intoxicatingly thrilling as crack, without destroying your teeth. It will change the drug debate forever.”
– Russell Brand, comedian, truth teller
 
Police make money from the War on Drugs
“Johann Hari has written a drug policy reform book like no other. Many have studied, or conducted, the science surrounding the manifold ills of drug prohibition. But Hari puts it all into riveting story form, and humanizes it… Part Gonzo journalism, part Louis CK standup, part Mark Twain storytelling, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs is beautifully wrought: lively, humorous, and poignant. And it’s a compelling case for why the drug war must end, yesterday.”
– Norman Stamper, former police chief of Seattle

“In this energetic and thought-proving book, Hari harnesses the power of the personal narrative to reveal the true causes and consequences of the War on Drugs.”
– David Nutt, former chief scientific advisor on drugs to the British government
 
“This book is an entertainment, a great character study and page-turning storytelling all rolled into one very sophisticated and compelling cry for social justice.”
– Stephen Downing, formerly in charge of the Narcotics Division of the Los Angeles Police Department

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Nazis and our U.S. "war" on drugs (comedy)

Wisdom Quarterly (eds.); H. Neal Smith (serendipity.li); Stephen Colbert (colbertreport.com)
How does truth -- for example, as exhibited on "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" -- go unheard when presented seriously? The shows transcend politics through satire. Thomas J. Falletta takes a look at the shows' affect on news, debate, and business in Congress.
 
Hemp vs. marijuana -- not the same thing
The following is a compilation of historical facts. Randy William Davis and I had been independently asking the question: "Why is marijuana illegal?" Every time we found an answer, it led to several more questions. He had been looking into other political activities, mainly concerning the Nazis of Germany. He soon drew a connection between the general attitudes of the Nazis and members of the government and industries of the United States.

Much of politics beginning 1820 centered around oil and the great wealth available to those who transformed it into gasoline for the burgeoning automobile industry, home heating, lubrication, and the new idea of synthetics -- plastics.

Of the big oil families, the Rockefellers remain at the top of the heap. Those who supported them, specifically the Mellon banking family, also profited greatly. Andrew Mellon, who had invested a great deal of money in Rockefeller, was not going to lose the chance at becoming fabulously wealthy.

Does anyone need to tell us Nazis are bad?
Another client of Mellon's, the DuPont family, in addition to building companies like General Motors, was developing synthetic fibers and plastics from petroleum.

Law firms like Brown Brothers Harriman handled the legal work for these and others. Media giants like the Hearst family were more than happy to join the ranks of the exorbitantly rich by putting out whatever "news" was to their benefit. These people had no concern for the health and well-being of society at large.

Indeed, the less the average person knew, the better for the rich one. Strangely enough, it was many of these same people who were responsible for the criminalization of hemp and marijuana.

Hemp, the plant humans have used for several millennia, and the industry that provided the best in cloth, rope, [paper, sails,] and oil, had fallen on hard times. Hemp was growing luxuriously throughout America's farmland, but it was extremely labor-intensive.

Until the availability of the decorticator, hemp had to be harvested in large part by hand. American industry needed more than hemp could produce in this way.
 
The decorticator came on the scene in 1935, and hemp was on its way again, until the petroleum industry saw a problem: Fuel could be made from hemp that would burn cleaner, more efficiently, and with a greater supply than crude petroleum oil. Rudolph Diesel had built his famous engine intending it to burn vegetable oil, mainly hemp. 
 
Hemp was already well known for its lubricating ability, which was of importance to the young aviation industry. Hemp oil in an aircraft engine does not break apart chemically at high altitudes like petroleum did at the time....
 
Right wing hypocrisy about drugs (Tom Tomorrow/thismodernworld.com)
  
Hemp, as almost everyone knows, is in the same family as "marijuana." The flower tops and leaves of other species of Cannabis Sativa L. It was smoked freely at many fairs in its concentrated form hashish. "Hash dens" were popular in America's bigger cities. But blacks and Hispanics were known to smoke the dried flowers and leaves. Jazz musicians of the period were widely known as smokers. Big oil and its enablers found an excuse to drive hemp away:

Claim all sorts of bad things about marijuana without making a distinction between it and hemp so that the average person will not know. Then what they and their forbears had grown up could be taken away. This was done by playing up white America's racism.

The powers that be in industry and various government agencies scared everyone by claiming that marijuana would drive users insane and lead to the abuse of more insidious drugs like heroin and cocaine.
 
By 1936 "Reefer Madness" was all the rage. It served as a pretext for Congress to pass the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The ecological and drug-free hemp industry was crippled. Big oil was safe.
 
Hitler glorified in American media (TIME)
Meanwhile, Adolph Hitler was building Germany into a war machine with the same American industrialists who wanted to ban hemp. Hitler had no oil, but Rockefeller did. With the help of these Americans, Hitler got oil. The rest of the Hitler story is well known.
 
After WW II, the American intelligence community turned its attention to the Soviet Union. They sought to use former Nazi intelligence agents as well as other Nazis against the Russians.
 
By 1955 over 10,000 former Nazis, many of them war criminals who evaded any kind of prosecution, were brought into the United States of American and put into our CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).

With them they brought their hatred, inhumane experiments, and their willingness to subjugate all for the greater good of Nazism. With the help of America's right wing, they became entrenched. Their policies still rule America today.

The prohibition of hemp and marijuana was fallout -- part of a much larger attempt to control American citizens, over what we read, see, hear, eat, and smoke. The policies that led to marijuana prohibition are the same policies that have taken away rights Americans hold dearest.

This is a summarized chronology of the events of the 20th century. Because of the "War On (Some) Drugs," we now stand to lose all of our freedoms. It can be a complex concept to contemplate.

But when we look at interrelated elements in a historical context, we can begin to see how and why the government we have now is bogus.

Colbert: America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't

The following CHRONOLOGY is far from complete and may never be complete. In some instances, only those involved in the government possess the actual proof, and most of them are unlikely to share it with outsiders. In other cases, the actual proof is available, and it is used where possible. In still other instances, to quote Bob Dylan, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
 
1820-Rothschilds establish leading bank in Europe. Bankers who allied themselves with the Rothschilds and those who supported the Masonic Order find themselves well off. Those who did not have it rough.
1840-During an attempt at alcohol prohibition, then attorney Abraham Lincoln states: "Prohibition makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
1842-Cannabis makes up about half of all medicines sold in America. No one reports serious problems with use.
1850-Cannabis prescribed as the prime medicine for more than 100 separate illnesses in U.S. Pharmacopoeia.
1865-Northern industrialists win War Between the States, gain power base over agricultural South, influencing westward expansion of U.S. and location of railroads. Mary Todd Lincoln prescribed cannabis for the nervous breakdown she suffered following husband (deposed President) Lincoln's assassination.
1875-California, in a blatant act of racism, bans opium smoking by Chinese. Large, well-run opium houses ran out of business, replaced by smaller, less reputable houses. Usage increases.
1876-Turkish hashish exhibition at Philadelphia's Centennial Exhibition is most popular. Fair attendees encouraged to return again and again to "enhance" their enjoyment of the fair. 
1883-First federal law against drugs. Congress heavily taxes opium smoking. First time taxation used to legislate morality instead of raising revenue. Controlled by Treasury Department.
1884-Supreme Court decision makes corporations artificial persons, giving impersonal business entities 14th Amendment protections previously reserved for human beings.
1888-Using 1883 opium taxation law as a precedent, federal government bans certain types of opium from being imported and bans Chinese from importing opium at all. Government now surrenders revenue raising in favor of controlling "morality."
1890-Standard Oil of Ohio is refining 90% of America's oil, thanks to Rothschild financing.
1894-Indian Hemp Drugs Commission report released to British. Study done in India. Judged the physical, mental, moral effects of smoking cannabis, urges against any prohibition based on "no appreciable physical injury of any kind... no injurious effects on the mind... (and) no moral injury whatever." 
1895-Rothschilds begin to finance American business. They do so primarily through the Warburgs of Germany, who were partners of Kuhn, Loeb, and Company of New York. Both Warburgs and Kuhn/Loeb would be principals of Federal Reserve Board. Rothschilds would finance Rockefeller's Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and the Harriman Railroad system.
1896-McKinley elected U.S. president. Marcus Alonzo Hannah from Standard Oil of Ohio raises 16 million dollars for campaign, an unheard of sum at the time.
1898-Spanish-American War starts, with William Randolph Hearst's "Yellow Journalism" fueling the fire. Hearst begins long campaign of racism against Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans and their cultural activities.
1900-Mellon Bank, the sixth largest in America, finances very successful oil "gusher" in Spindletop, Texas. In a joint venture, Eli Lilly and Parke Davis develop strain of cannabis called Cannabis Americana. Strain is a very potent Cannabis Indica for use in their medicines. MORE

For instance, the full Warren Commission report into the assassination of deposed President Kennedy will not be released for 100 years. If some serious crimes were not being covered up, why the additional delay?

No one started out with the intention of rewriting history. This project was a simple time line to keep my research and the research of Davis straight because there is so much material. The timeline took on a life of its own.
 
Neo-Nazis keep racism and hatred alive.
It is a companion-piece to Davis's excellent In the Shadow of the Swastika. If anyone wishes to replicate or further investigate any of this, and I urge everyone to do so, a full bibliography is provided.

Over the past seven years, these facts have checked, cross checked, researched, and confirmed any and all sources on this information that came to hand. Some of the proof is too well protected for anyone to get at right now, but as so often happens, it will leak. Then no knee jerk defense of the powers that run our supposedly free society will be able to defend it. The fact that it remains hidden already speaks ill of our alleged freedoms.

Ironic Jon Stewart mocks explosive Alex Jones (It's true, Jon).
 

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Indian court decriminalizes gays in Delhi

(VIDEO) NEW DELHI – India's gay community celebrated a land-mark court ruling Thursday that decriminalizes homosexuality — a decision that could end widespread police harassment and be a harbinger for gradual acceptance for homosexuals across this deeply conservative country. The Delhi High Court ruled that treating consensual gay sex between adults as a crime is a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's constitution. The ruling, the first of its kind in India, is not binding outside New Delhi. More>>

Honey Khan, left, and Hillol Datta cheer and celebrate after the Delhi High Court passed a ground breaking ruling July 2, 2009. The court ruled that treating consensual gay sex as a crime is a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's constitution, a decision that could bring more freedom for gays in this deeply conservative country (AP/Saurabh Das).

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