Neutral Milk Hotel

Yes, yes, I know.  I'm late to the party.  But that's besides the point.

I've just discovered the awesomeness that is Neutral Milk Hotel.  They are a great fucking band.  I'll spare you the Wikipedia copypasta, but I highly recommend you listen to some of their stuff.  Their second album, In the Aeroplane over the Sea, is particularly amazing.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

Neutral Milk Hotel - The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. I

Stoner Comics

Been busy lately; have visiting guests in town.  Here are some stoner comics to keep you at bay!
(click to enlarge)

Aaaand a classic:

Dumb Cops.

Marijuana

Like the old song goes, one of these things is not like the other...

However, remind a police officer in Corpus Christi, Texas of those famed Cookie Monster lyrics and they're likely to give you an annoyed look.

That's because a recently discovered cache of plants, initially pegged by officials speaking to local news as "one of the largest marijuana plant seizures in the police department's history," turned out to be a relatively common prairie flower of little significance.

Texas officers ultimately spent hours laboring to tag and remove up to 400 plants from a city park, discovering only after a battery of tests that they had been sweating over mere Horse Mint, a member of the mint family -- effectively turning their ambitious drug bust into mere yard work.

The plants, which bear very few aesthetic similarities to cannabis, were reported by an unnamed youth who came across them while riding a bike in the park around 8 p.m. on Thursday. Upon visual inspection, police apparently agreed that the inoffensive plants had to go.

Ultimately, officers were reduced to conducting chemical tests to learn their "weed" was really just that: an actual weed.

Horsemint

"That shows exactly the caliber of police work that is done in Corpus christi, Tx," commenter Derick Sillers opined in a local NBC affiliate's comments section.

"The resident of corpus and nueces county should seriously be concerned with how their tax dollars are spent," he continued. "[This] is the same police department that serves, protects and investigates you.... does it really take that long to find out you don't have marijuana."

"Officers did not explain how their big 'drug haul' will be disposed of, now that they've spent untold hours and plenty of taxpayer money clearing weeds of the the city park," writer Steve Elliott summarized for News Junkie Post.

The tale is, at very least, a compelling argument for accurate, non-fear-based drug education in public schools, which advocacy groups say is sorely lacking.

--------------------

Dumb Cops Eats Special Brownies Made From Confiscated Weed

How to Pass a Urine Test

Urine testing is often referred to as the gold standard of the drug-test industry, and, all bad puns aside, they're not just talking about the color of your piss. Most of the 50 million drug tests performed in this country last year were urine tests-the least expensive and most common form of testing, at once highly invasive and, by now, fully integrated into American life. 


When it comes to passing a urine test, you must put time on your side, specifically by allowing for time between your drug use and your drug test. Most banned substances pass through the body quickly (cocaine, for example, will disappear after a few days), but pesky THC abides in fat cells like a moocher crashing on your couch, remaining detectable in urine for as long as four weeks. So while a single smoke on Friday night will probably disappear by Monday, anything beyond the most casual toke needs more time. 

Fortunately, as the urine-test industry has matured, so has the urine-test-solutions industry, which now offers a variety of approaches to beating the tests. A daily detox drink will lessen the amount of THC stored in your body and thus cut the time needed to cleanse. A quick flush will greatly increase the chances of passing the test, but it's imperative that at least 48 to 72 hours pass from toxin to test. That means not smoking for several days before the big day, or the quick flush won't work. If that's not an option, then a substitution or spike is needed. A substitution is just what the name implies: clean urine substituted for its tainted counterpart. A spike, on the other hand, is a small vial of chemicals covertly added to your specimen that adulterates the results. Spikes are available from several drug-detox companies. 

Privacy is required to put a spike in play, so if someone will be hovering over the process while you pee, and you've gotten high in the last 72 hours, then your best bet is the infamous Whizzinator-a faux phallus that gives new meaning to the term "tool." It may take a steady hand and nerves of steel to whip out a prosthetic pecker as the tester observes from over your shoulder, but as Congress learned last spring, thousands have aced the Whiz Quiz with the help of this ingenious device.

Snoop Dogg's Guide to Rolling a Blunt Doggy-Style

STEP 1
First, I assemble my ingredients: a Swisher Sweet cigar and Darth Vader Hybrid/Indica Purple Kush & Afghani backcrossed on Kushmum.  I always use a Swisher Sweet.

STEP 2

Next, I split the Swisher Sweet cigar down the middle with my thumbnails.

STEP 3

Then I remove all tobacco in the cigar.

STEP 4

When the tobacco is gone, I moisten the wrap with my tongue, then flip it around and continue to moisten the same side of the wrap to ensure the blunt doesn’t crack.

STEP 5

No grinder is necessary; just break up all the buds by hand to fill the blunt.

STEP 6

Use your thumbs to hold the blunt in place and get that nice tuck.

STEP 7

Light it up, pass it and repeat.

STEP 8

Seriously, folks, smoke weed every day!

Holy Smokes? Reefer religions vs. the highest court in the land.

The recent federal raid and arrest of THC Ministry founder Roger Christie in Hawaii is the cautionary tale of a questionable business model used to fund public-interest advocacy, as well as the legal jeopardy inherent in trying to game the American criminal-justice system. Christie, a self-styled “minister” from Hawaii, founded the THC Ministry in the 1990s based on the incorrect assumption that citizens organized as a church or religious organization who employ cannabis as a sacrament are exempt from criminal prosecution under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.
          
From its inception, the THC Ministry’s prospects for legal legitimacy were small to minuscule. Since the 1970s, numerous religious-exemption cases have been litigated, but few have succeeded; the latter include a small sect of Native Americans who have traditionally used hallucinogenic peyote buttons in their religious ceremonies, as well as the occasional Rastafarian who could prove a long history of practicing the faith and used a modest amount of marijuana. Regrettably, appellate courts have consistently denied religious exemptions to members of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, so-called New Age faiths and other Christian-oriented religious sects.
          
To further complicate matters, Christie also drew negative attention from federal and state law enforcement – as well as drug-policy reform organizations and civil-rights groups like the ACLU – for actively marketing and selling his so-called “religious defense kits” (at $250 apiece!) to the naïve and uniformed, claiming that being ordained by the THC Ministry would protect anyone in the flock from arrest or prosecution. Sadly, several of these true believers are now in jail.
          
Should there be a religious exemption to cannabis-prohibition laws? Absolutely! However, the legal and/or political prospects of such a thing happening are practically zilch. Supreme Court rulings – most notably in 2006, in the case of Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente União do Vegetal, where the religious defendants used ayahuasca, a powerful South American herbal sacrament traditionally used by the Santo Daime church in Brazil – should make it fairly clear that while small, committed religious sects may be permitted to use an otherwise illegal drug as a sacrament, the high court only allows such religious exemptions under circumstances for which cannabis will never be able to qualify: i.e., the sect of people using the drug has to be very small and well defined; access to the drug has to be limited to that defined group; and the drug can’t already be in mass use (or abuse) in the general population.
          
NORML has always supported – and always will continue to support – the use of cannabis by adults for religious purposes. But cannabis consumers, reformers and religious adherents should concentrate their efforts on the much broader reforms that can be achieved by cannabis legalization. In the end, this is a faster, more effective means to achieve genuine religious freedoms, rather than hoping that the current legal system (and body politic) under cannabis prohibition will be rational enough – or fair enough – to respect diverse religious practices consistently.

'Fake Marijuana' Users Showing Up in Emergency Rooms

A form of synthetic marijuana known as "K2" is sending young people to the hospital with racing heart beats, extreme anxiety and hallucinations, toxicologists warn.

In recent months, physicians and toxicologists say more young people have been showing up in emergency rooms after smoking synthetic marijuana. Despite the side effects, K2 is legal in many states, although many state legislators are rushing to pass legislation banning it.

Since the start of 2010, the American Association of Poison Control Centers has received nearly 2,000 reports of people who became ill after smoking K2, compared to about a dozen in 2009. Poison control officials described some of the symptoms as "life-threatening."

K2 is often marketed as incense and sold in packets of herbs laced with synthetic marijuana at "head shops," gas stations, convenience stores and online for about $30 to $40 per three-gram bag. The drug also goes by other names, including Spice, Spice Gold, Spice Diamond, Yucatan Fire, Solar Flare, K2 Summit, Genie, PEP Spice, and Fire n Ice, according to the U.S. Drug Intelligence Center.

While people who smoke K2 think they're going to experience deep relaxation and euphoria, those who end up in the hospital report unpleasant experiences, said Dr. Anthony Scalzo, medical director of the Missouri Poison Center and chief of toxicology at St. Louis University.

"The classic symptoms are agitation, anxiety, racing heart beat, elevated blood pressure," Scalzo said. "And some kids are having very negative psychotropic experiences. One said, 'I felt like I went down to hell'."

In some cases, the drug also causes vomiting, tremors and seizures, according to federal drug abuse agencies.

In the United States, the Drug Enforcement Agency has listed K2 as a "drug or chemical of concern." But because it isn't officially "scheduled," it remains legal under federal law, according to published reports.

Alarmed by the rise in popularity, several states have rushed to outlaw K2. Earlier this year, Kansas became the first state to ban K2. Other states that have outlawed it include Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, Michigan and Illinois (where K2 remains legal until the end of the year). There are similar bills pending in many other states, including Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, New York, New Jersey and Louisiana.

Comics and Music Vol. 1

Humor helps ease the pain.

This song has been stuck in my head forever.  Don't revoke my hipster status please.

Lamenting the loss of Prop 19

Not yet...

It is a sad day for not just Californians, but Americans everywhere.  As you have probably heard, Prop 19, the Regulate, Control & Tax Cannabis Act, failed to pass.  56.7% voted against it and only 43.3% voted for it. 


Many are blaming not anti-pot smokers, but current participants of the illegal marijuana industry.  Marijuana growers, specifically in areas such as Humbolt County, probably voted No because they would have their local industries destroyed by the passing of this legislation.  Similarly gang members who make a living distributing the substance, probably also helped keep the proposition from passing.  Another group that opposed the bill, unsurprisingly, were parents.  It seems advocates of Prop 19 focused on how much tax it would bring in for the state and neglected to inform people that it would also improve public safety.


Whatever, the reasons it is an unfortunate loss.  
However, now Colorado has the chance to be the first state to legalize marijuana.

In other bad news, Republicans win the House by what some consider a landslide victory.

The only good news?  Prop 23 failed!

Vote Yes On Prop 19 and No on Prop 23!

It's Election day.  While everyone is free to vote for whatever they want, here are some things you may want to take into consideration.

Click here to read a very good article in Cannabis Culture which counters all the attacks on Prop 19 and gives very reasonable arguments for voting yes.

If you don't know by now, Prop 23 is the Texas Oil Companies' scheme to repeal clean energy and air pollution standards so they can make more profits.  They claim it will create more jobs, but this is just a facade to distract you from the horrors they will be doing to the environment.  Vote No!