ABOUT THE MASSACRE AT SANDY HOOK, CT: MY OPINION

I am torn up over the senseless slaughter at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. 20 kindergarten students and 7 or more adults were shot and killed by a single assailant who it now appears suffered from an emotional/psychiatric disorder. Something snapped.

The work I do, the victims could well have been clients of mine - so imagine finding out someone, or several persons you work with often were gunned down. I've also worked, 10 years at an elementary school between 1988 - 1998. I know the kind of children that were murdered viciously. I would have been the first to throw myself at the gunman had I been working such a job now. The new school principal died doing just that; Ms. Dawn Hochsprung, who started in 2010. A Link from Today.com heard the shooting and tried unsuccessfully to jump the 20 year old assailant.

She had just implemented a whole new system for school security. The assailant, a former student by-passed that security by breaking a window, if my sources are correct. Which means he either discovered upon arrival or already knew there was a buzz-in policy.

He went to the office first, which I find odd. If he broke in, why go to the main office? But that is how I've read it happened. By coincidence morning announcements were going on, so rifle fire and screams could be heard over the loud-speakers. Somehow a lock-down order ensued, so the first classroom the shooter arrived at the door was locked, but the second classroom wasn't. Why?

It's history now. But history in the making also. As a result of the killings many people are angry, upset and demanding answers. I am too. But among the answers I'm hearing are taking all guns away from Americans - something akin to a military action. Also, anyone, with any history of a mental health disorder will not be able to possess a gun.

Think about it... Personally, you have a mother that bullies you to the point you seek psychiatric help, as she certainly won't. So you can'r possess a gun yet she can. Or, you're sexually abused and you seek treatment... again, not allowed to possess a gun.

How about we take a different look at this. I think we all know someone who would benefit from psychological help. If I can quote my mother - "Only SICK people seek help". Now my mother is in her 70's... so I don't expect she'll change her mind. But the fact is I know or have known many people like her where seeking mental health assistance is akin to admitting one is mentally ill. Not only admitting to it, but the talk is documenting such persons as such.

What we need is the exact opposite. We need to accept mental health assistance on par with regular physicals and MD visits. I've heard the number 20% tossed around as the number of Americans afflicted with a mental health disorder, and that includes me and the formerly mentioned sexual abuse victim. I hardly think that is an accurate percentage. Myself, I'd put the percentage more around 80%... as few people are actually considered to be NORMAL. Neurosis is common in America.

I've heard the argument America is unlike any other country in the world... we enjoy the 2nd Amendment, as as such the violence in America is unlike any other country. Hardly true... gun violence in the world is obvious. And it's true. But to target American's is wrong. The majority of gun owners do not go out and shoot people. A tragedy like that at Sandy Hook may imply otherwise, but it's an isolated event... one gun control is not the answer to.

There needs to be answers, like why wasn't the second classroom locked. Like why is going for therapy only "for sick people"? Why don't we use the money, resources, and law enforcement wasted on cannabis laws and secure public schools and malls instead? We target cannabis users as the pariahs of violence, yet under our noses the real violence is often a result of seemingly perfectly straight adults. We look for the Charles Manson's in violence and it's often simply not present.

President Obama/the White House e-mailed me the statement made by the President in regards to the shootings, and other shootings that seem to be becoming epidemic in the US society. I appreciate his words, grief and concern, but take offense when he say's: "We've endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years. And each time I learn the news I react not as a President, but as anybody else would -- as a parent."

I agree, too many. But the answer is not in "gun-control", as we already have gun-control. Some might say not enough, but any gun is still a gun, even if it's a black powder revolver as used in the old west. We have many methods we use to kill... many animals are being wiped to extinction because recipients believe in magical properties for elephant/rhino tusks, shark fins, tiger balls. This is the world we live in. It's violent and deadly.

And all the while that we tolerate the belief that seeking counseling in life is akin to being mentally sick, we perpetuate the problem. We live in a Hollywood, yet sterilized society - a Puritan society where violence as art is common in movies and on television, yet when a death occurs from a drunk driver we don't see the consequences. We're given a purified version of events. So on the one hand we're presented with fictional blood and gore, yet in life, we're provided a clean, violence free report of a real event. That goes for many things considered unlawful and harmful... sex, drugs, rock n' roll. Okay, maybe not unlawful all, but I hope you get my point.

I suggest we don't live reality in this country and it may be time that we do.

18 YEARS OR OLDER - FAMILY SHAME OR GUILT.

40 years or so ago I was sitting on my couch, in my first apartment - living on my own. I was around 18. I was optimistic, but scared. Scared because I hadn't really wanted to move away from home, but living with my parents wasn't working out so I did the bold thing and moved out. I'd been raised knowing the day would come anyway.

A couple of days after I moved out I was enjoying my space when the phone rang. This was around 1972 so there were no answering machines yet, or at least ones I knew about. When the phone rang, you answered it.

Who?

'Tis the Season now... and for many people the "who" is important. This is not a good time of the year for a lot of people. We hear a lot of hoop-la about how great this time of year is, but for many that simply not true. This post is maybe for you.

You might be any age over 18. But I'm thinking whatever age you are, you're still living the life you almost had between 18 and 29. Or you're in that age group and you need a little guidance.

The age 18 to say 28 is little understood. It is a critical part of our maturity. For some it begins before age 18, for others later and may last into the early 30's. But eventually our brains solidify and we become us. Complex mess when you add children and/or a lousy childhood. By your early 30's you want to be mobile, successful, enjoying life.

You don't want to be fighting with family, or in a compromised position.

When I answered the phone that day it was my mother... a day of destiny formed for which I felt I had no control over. And I didn't, back then, but in hindsight I had many easy options.

Following are three articles - difficult to find I might add, I've been searching for years and only now do i seem to have found a few. I hope that they might be of help with the choices you must make. With understanding how you feel and what choices you begin to have.

1) "Family Blues - Leaving it behind..."

2) "Shame and Guilt..." as it refers to family.

3) "Induced Relaxation Anxiety". Imagine if relaxing brought about your anxiety? It's a fact, it can.


Where I made my mistake 40 years ago was not getting mature fast enough, beyond my control, but I could have been more forthright in establishing my out perimeters. I allowed to much in...

I had 4 years of great success as a human being... perhaps 4 years that many never have, so I'm grateful. But it strikes me that my success was hinged on communication. Part of the problem with being shy is fear of communication. The trick is, is to understand communication breaks the veil of shyness rather quickly, after the awkward moments.

How did I learn this? I learned through a friendship with a college professor. I had expressed my profound frustration with being shy, and being interested in women, meeting someone special. I thought it was a game. A game only the players knew. But it wasn't. The reality was plain and simply talk. Being able to listen to the other person.

That was however contrary to the views my family had, expressly my mother. So take a cue - ignore that abusive person and walk away. Hang-up the phone. Live your life. Set your boundaries and don't allow anyone to impede, unless it's someone you trust.

Life on Earth is where heaven is... whether you find it, well, that's the question... many simply can't, or make heaven out of a firefly for ten minutes of their life.

Be aware as my mentor warned... with success comes enemies, people who resent who you are. Recognize them and keep your distance. Easy to say unless it's family. Even then, i know now I could have controlled my own life, my own world, and prevented many of the unforunate situations that I would later blame as defining my demise.

While there's life there's hope. Even I'm not too old to make a new beginning. To learn from my mystakes and those of others.

Happy Christmas... stay safe...

COMMONSENSE CANNABIS REFORM - CANNABIS 101

Wow... the overwhelming interest in my last post leaves me breathless.  Zero comments, although I get viewed by up to one thousand vistors on average for a post. So curious about that.

Well hope all having a wonderful Thanksgiving!

If you get enough of the relatives and family, there are two links here to two articles published on CNN today. If you're interested please read them.

To me, they are two distinctly diverse points of view, stemming from the same concern. The "Drug War/Problem" in America.

LINK: Kevin Sabet served as a senior drug policy adviser in the Obama administration. He is an assistant professor and director of the Drug Policy Institute at the College of Medicine, University of Florida.

LINK: Joy Strickland, founder and CEO of Mothers Against Teen Violence, is an Op-Ed Project Public Voices Fellow at Texas Woman's University.

***

My basic thoughts about the articles:

Joy Strickland is speaking from her heart, and knows the facts.

Kevin Sabet on the other hand, is still hiding behind the facade that, "marijuana is the destroyer of youth". His article fails to describe the problem or if marijuana really IS the problem? He sites lower IQ in youth, health problems from smoking, youth drug addiction and the advertizing he suggests is based on former alcohol and tobacco ads, designed to appeal to youth, but it doesn't have to be like that. Regulation can control advertising, and he fails to consider that. What's worse, is the idea that the tobacco industry is ready to "pounce" on the marijuana industry.

Sorry... Big Tobacco had it's chance during the 1970's and turned tail. I guess Richard Nixon was too scary for them.  But, fact is, cannabis is NOT tobacco. It doesn't need proprietary chemical infusements... it doesn't need to be sold in "packs", and it's not addictive like tobacco or alcohol is addictive. Big tobacco would most likely not be welcome in the cannabis culture today - they blew it in the 1980's when Reagonomics became the fashion of the day. Bluemoon friends. Yeah. No one wants to buy cannabis that's been processed by Big Tobacco.

Point is: Mr. Ex-Senior drug policy director, you seem to me to be playing the same old broken record about "Save our youth", do not say in what direction you would change the laws, keeping cannabis illegal, and ad naseum, incarcerating people for possession, growing it, using it... why didn't you do a better job when you had the chance as a policy director? Why do you feel adults should be punished for lack of realistic regulations regarding cannabis. Why do you combine youth drug abuse with the rights of adults?

Incarcerating the number of adults that we have done for the past 50 - 75 years for cannabis, isn't a solution at all. 1/4 of the world's incarcerated individuals are in the US.

And in case you simply don't know - the stronger the cannabis - it doesn't mean the more one needs/wants to use it, or make it more dangerous, what it does mean is less is possible than in the 1970's... in the 70's one may have smoked 2 joints and now they may only need three puffs.  It's not alcohol. It's not tobacco. For those who do use a lot of cannabis, it's not the "high" they're increasing, the more you use doesn't mean the higher one gets - it's not alcohol. Those people simply like to use a lot of it - but the high is the same as for that of the person who may need only three puffs.

Regarding one's IQ: Again you, Mr. Sabet, refer to youth, not adults. I gather you have proof also that cannabis use by adults causes lower IQ too? I doubt it.

This whole cliche of an idea that marijuana makes people unmotivated and stupid is so bias and  unproven. Everyday evidence if one were to look around exists to prove otherwise.

To Joy Strickland, my condolences and thank-you for a very well thought out and poignantly well written letter to President Obama.

THE END OF REEFER MADNESS - 2012

Edited Nov. 18, 2012

You'd think the sky was falling, as in "Chicken Little", the way people are talking about CO and WA legalizing cannabis/marijuana. Now LINK: Latin American countries including Mexico, are calling for a review of world policies on "drugs". Mostly cannabis. This is because cannabis is the centerpiece in the War On Drugs. In Mexico for example, and this is important to understand, out-going Pres. Calderon is questioning why over 50,000 Mexican citizens have died in a war backed by the American government, to defeat international drug trade, of which Mexico ranks high on the list of exporters?

Again, cannabis is the the highest priory in the federal war on drugs, with cocaine ranked second, along with other drugs like meth and heroin that are not of especial importance unless discovered during during the interdiction of a cannabis bust. The War began in earnest in 1971 with then US President Richard Nixon declared the famous "War on Drugs" slogan. It had been brewing for a log while, all during the 1960's and back through to the late 1800's.

I had a friend who had his house raided in 1964 and they found one marijuna cigarette - he spent a year in jail. But it wasn't really until the 1970's that things took off... WIKIPEDIA LINK: Controlled Substances Act:  "President Richard Nixon announced that the Attorney General, John N. Mitchell, was preparing a comprehensive new measure to more effectively meet the narcotic and dangerous drug problems at the federal level by combining all existing federal laws into a single new statute. The CSA did not merely combine existing federal drug laws but changed the nature of federal drug law and policy, expanded the scope of federal drug laws and expanded federal police power enormously."

 The "Perfect Storm" occurred during the 1960's, far too detailed to give any real singular examples. This "storm" caused irreparable damage to America as a whole, creative, open-minded people in particular. It was the age of the Hippies, who adopted much from the Beatnik generation, who in turn adopted from the Expatriot generation that came about during alcohol Prohibition. All of these social genre had their beginnings prior to the perfect storm brewing in the 1960-70's. It should be remembered, drugs like cocaine, opium, heroin had been unlawful without a prescription since 1904. Drugs like LSD, peyote, mescaline, amphetamines had been legal until the 1960's.  President Kennedy is said to have done LSD with Marilyn Monroe...

In a general sense, where we are today began after 1850... after the Civil War and the End of Slavery. In school we're taught the basics of this time in American history. Dig deeper and you'll find a lot of controversy, anger and rebellious thinking and actions. All of this grows during the late 1800's into the 1900's, is stoked by alcohol prohibition which actually had it's beginning in the 1830's, was nearly successful prior to the Civil War, but didn't become manifest again until 1919.

WIKIPEDIA LINK:
The Eighteenth Amendment (Amendment XVIII) of the United States Constitution established prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States. The separate Volstead Act set down methods of enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, and defined which "intoxicating liquors" were prohibited, and which were excluded from prohibition (e.g., for medical and religious purposes). The Amendment was the first to set a time delay before it would take effect following ratification, and the first to set a time limit for its ratification by the states. Its ratification was certified on January 16, 1919, with the law taking effect on January 17, 1920.
Demand for liquor continued, and the law resulted in the criminalization of producers, suppliers, transporters and consumers. The police, courts and prisons were overwhelmed with new cases; organized crime increased in power, and corruption extended among law enforcement officials. The amendment was repealed in 1933 by ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, the only instance in United States history of repeal of a constitutional amendment.


 By 1933 the Great Depression had wrought havoc within the American society. People were broke, the US Government was broke. The efforts of millions who had tried since the 1830's to "prohibit" alcohol - who believed it was a danger to society found their cause ended, forever.

Mexico was broke, and Mexican citizens flocked by the hundreds of thousands into the US looking for a better life. By 1937 America was at a breaking point. The Great Depression was in theory over, alcohol was again legal and the violence of prohibition and the gangs became history. However, not a history that many learned from. In fact the anger persisted, towards Black people, toward the unconventional, with the tilting of power, from the people to corporations. Not that corporations hadn't already controlled the masses, it simply got government involvement and dedication.

In response to the surge in Mexican immigrants southern states urged the White-House to do something! Similar to today, there wasn't a lot they could do. But strange as it sounds, the 18th amendment gave Washington new tools to work with, in increased powers, as in the first of it's kind ability of the federal government to demand a tax on the purchase of a machine gun, and thereby control the purchase, able to decline the tax/prohibiting the purchase.

Reefer Madness was born of the idea that the one thing that distinguished Mexicans from Americans was their use of what they called marijuana. In America at the time doctors regularly used cannabis as a medicine, it being listed in the medical bible of the time, the US Pharmacopedia until 1940. Americans smoked it too, especially jazz musicians and artists. They called it ganja - that was the English name used to describe the plant.

The Marihuana Tax Act (that's the official federal spelling for cannabis) was born of the idea that to stem the tide of Mexican immigrants during a time when there did not exist our current immigration laws, that arresting Mexicans with untaxed marijuana, they could be deported. The act affected far more than just Mexicans however.

The new tax act worked like this. Grow your hemp, which was assumed to be the industrial variety of cannabis, contact a federal tax agent and based on the quantity of your yield, pay for your tax stamp. Hemp, by the way was a primarily an industrial commodity, and big in medicine, but mostly used to make rope and fabrics. There were no synthetic ropes, and synthetic fabrics weren't common then either. Hemp or cotton.

But the tax went way beyond hemp. It included cannabis used by doctors and the ganja used by regular Americans. It began the war on regular people. Again, if you had ganja, it was still hemp, or what they called marihuana, so present your yield, pay the tax. The only trouble with that is you would be busted for possessing the cannabis without the stamp. Yes, you could not purchase the stamp before you grew and harvested the cannabis.

It became known as "Reefer Madness" based on widespread Yellow Journalism and what today is considered to be the hugely humorous and insane parodies of marijuana users and Black jazz musicians. Only it's not really funny because the propaganda worked!

The tax was overturned in the 1960's as Unconstitutional. However new laws were to be enacted to counter use of substances deemed a threat to public health, and public morality, and which some took to extremes, like President Richard M. Nixon when against the recommendations of his own drug policy Blue-Ribbon advisory commision,  headed by Raymond. P. Shafer, Gov'n of PA, he mandated that cannabis be secured as a Schedule One (narcotic) drug, of the Controlled Substances Act

But we went full circle. In essence resurrecting the turmoil of the Civil War, the agony of post Civil War Reconstruction, encouraging prejudice and discrimination, prohibiting a substance and justifying the predictable violence associated with prohibition of a God given substance.

And now with the legalization of cannabis in WA and CO, a profound turning point in American politics has been reached, even breached.

So yeah, the sky is falling, and it's about time.

I think to me the following article makes it clearest: "New Marijuana Laws Will Be a Public Health Experiment, Experts Say". It's like scientists are salivating waiting to research legal users of cannabis. Like, I'm sorry, but don't we have a National Institute of Health that has made it very clear, cannabis has "no value in medicine". They advise the drug czar, who manages drug policy for We the People. What I hear is that the public health problem that required and still does in many other states and around the world, is an invention, because it's coming out that the "scientifically proven dangers to society" established in the 1930's, has in fact, never really been studied, and becomes a researchers dream.

This article, for example, begins with a sane lead-in... "The Catch-22 of Legalization..." with interesting, pratical complications, the states of CO and WA will encounter now that cannabis is legal. Some of this I go into myself in a bit, but two parts of the story don't add up. "Increased violence in states that have legalized it" and it gets worst. The increased violence ironically isn't often due to users getting violent, or turning to crime to support their habit... it's criminals looking to invade homes, threaten people and steal the pot, or the feds busting legal growers and medical marijuana distribution centers and people angry about it.

The article by Fox Business provides a lot of fodder but lands square inside the right-wing, moralistic take on all of this. In fact, we can expect a lot of sharp moralistic journalist to be writing articles feigning objectivity, but with a hook or two in the coming future. Obviously after 75 years of effective anti-cannabis probaganda there are going to be the pains of reintroduction of cannabis into American society. Falsely promoting a catastrophe as a result of common sense rationality in ending a failed war 75 years old is ludicrous. It's time to become a responsible, tolerant society. One truly open to differences, freedom of expression, speech, skin color as well as "drug of choice", whether that be cannabis, alcohol, tobacco, or coffee.

Speaking of which, some genuinely interesting news like this: "Pot-Beer". As the closest relative to cannabis is hops, afterall, and hops is a main ingredient in many beers, only logical cannabis can be used to make beer.

Some legalization considerations:

In or around 1933 money in the US became federalized. Prior to that most money, paper that is, was issued by independent banks, as in National Currency, guaranteed by the city of issue. Coinage was issued and regulated by the federal government, and had been so ever since the 1880's. Prior to that money was simply a metal's actual worth in personal value with copper, silver and gold worth so much in return. Paper money was first issued to fund the Civil War, but wasn't well liked. It's worth was face-value and only as good as the business or government backing it.

We've gone a long way from the way it was then. Now the value of money is a mathematical equation, with several parties determining it's worth, like what a dollar is worth in trade.

Since the fed regulates or insures most banks across the country, it regulates how money can be transacted. And because cannabis is a Schedule One drug, federal regulations dictate how any money raised in the sale of cannabis can be transacted by a federal bank - meaning it can't be transacted except by local banks, who eventually have to deal with the  federal banks. So all the federal government needs to do is maintain the current status of cannabis prohibition, as it relates to legal trade and taxation is do nothing.

It amounts to the fed potentially, as we haven't heard their response yet to the legalization, treating states like Colorado and Washington as hostile, rogue states, much as it does the country of Iran, by issuing sanctions, to cripple development of things like nuclear weapons, or, distribution and sale of cannabis. One can easily see (not really) how cannabis and nuclear weapons might be of equal concern, and a danger to the world.

The fed really has one basic choice in the matter... it must change the Scheduled Status of cannabis which is long overdue, because it could never change federal banking regulations as easily. If it fels it can continue to treat cannabis as it has done, then it should do the same in the name of Public Safety based on the dismal harm alcohol and tobacco cause, and they cause direct use deaths, where cannabis has never ben recorded to have caused one death - that fact is listed at the CDC.
 
And as Governor Jerry Brown was recently quoted as telling the federal government to back off: "The federal gov't needs to realize states are quite capable - as capable of governing it's citizens as the federal gov't".

It's a Brave New World, one I have confidence most of us will be able to adapt to. Cannabis is an agricultural science, just like wine making and brewing the perfect beer are sciences. Maintaining the peace is a science too, and at least now there is the groundwork for a future where people are not criminals simply for going against the so-called moral fabric of society. There's a lot more humanitarian work to do, but we're making progress. If people were truly hurt as in dead, then marijuana would make sense. But people don't die using cannabis. They simply buck the system.

2012 - The Year Reefer Madness Came to An End! Didn't think I'd live to see it. Many people didn't.