PRIOR RESTRAINT

= Just in over the transom ...

Actually I saw this on the MMMA website. Goes close to heart of an issue vexing me for some years. The least sign of Interest or even Comprehension can elicit an endless stream of McLuhanesque 'probes' which I'm sure annoy all but those who hear them as some sort of Celestial Music. This is a Big Fuckin Deal for me ~ has been for many, many years. I Am Not Alone in this i hope

Here's the nibs : In the United States there is a Prior Restraint on scientific research involving cannabis imposed by self-interested federal agencies, principally NIDA and the DEA. That Prior Restraint means many basic questions about cannabinoids can not be asked. DEA and NIDA both must approve research protocols or just forget about ever securing any research cannabis from any source. It's policy right out of the Middle Ages, and the Media has yet to note the reason behind the paucity of usable data. We have lost decades of social progress and medical research to the Great Pirates and their Charlatan camp-followers.

*** Neither NIDA nor the DEA, btw, produces anything but their own beanpiles. Both could be gone in a flash and we'd never miss either. Anyone who cares to make The Case for either agency is welcome to step forth and get shredded. ***

Here's the heart of the matter ~ we do not know the true chemical composition of the sundry cannabis strains. How, exactly, do Blueberry strains differ from, say, White Widow. Until we have reliable 'chemical signatures' we can not begin to match reports of effectiveness from patients with the chemical signatures associated with that relief. That's Usable information for producers, patients, farmacies, evaluators, regulators, breeders, scientists, the Public ... what more could we want?

Within the concentric little rings elicited from my pinging & probing ... I've been promoting the notion that a protocol to assay selected strains in situ in California is legal, doable, and necessary; I've been told that collectives in the Bay have been applying more resources than I have as yet garnered to questions larger than mine, and I'm trying to catch up with them.

So this may be the Season's gift to me ~ it fell under my nose literally moments after sending the Fellow a note about sending him some historical material for his back-fill. This is precisely what we were talking about. Chemical signatures for cannabis Strains ~ what a concept. Once you know what a strain really Is, chemically-speaking, one may start pegging patient effectiveness reports to the chemical indicators within each particular strains. NIDA / RIPS could have been doing this for us for thirty years, had they any concept of real Public Purpose.

# # # VIVA CANNABISTAS ! # # #

Heroes in Service to America = Harborside Health Center on the Embarcadero in Oakland CA. Look at what these people are doing !!

Am so damn happy... doing imaginative cartwheels.



= 26 Dec 08

BEYOND THE SOLSTICE

= Loudest xmas in years.

* * * Very peaceful tho * * * Nothing quite like it since leaving NYC many moons ago * * * My Kitchen Sisters had their youngest daughters together with them for first time since they did this here a year ago ~ they're all hived up in the main room, clustered around a laptop and Skyping with Rels halfway around the world. Loudly. Not a quiet bunch to begin with and they're doing some serious hootin, laughin like sailors on leave. Some of the younguns Over There are talking online for the first time ~ Erlinda hasn't been home in six years ... Global Village indeed. Got one cooking right here in front of the fire * * * Way too much food is, apparently, a Pinay tradition of the season. * * * Put on R&R sound all day long ~ Monterey Pop! ~ but have now turned to Herbie Hancock's "Possibilities" ~ been wearing that disk out for months *** Rained sideways for maybe a minute this afternoon, a real California rarity (under 15" annual here) ~ first such pour I've seen, but it lacked Thunders. Hear there are Thundersnows nearing Meesheegan. * * * At-hand is 4-pack of Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout from North Coast Brewing in Ft. Bragg CA, wherever that may be. I'm partial to darks, and this has a sweet cling I don't often find ~ really like this stuff ... "Its got a beat and you can dance to it" * * * Little Kobe has an attention deficit, but he's just a little-bitty. Not like a Lab or a Rott rocketing thru the living room like an F-16, but this dog is Undisciplined and needs to learn a few simple rules starting with 'four feet on the floor.' Think I'll invest in a squirt gun. * * * Online 'card' from the Estonian Roadwraith ~ she's in Costa Rica amongst Mayan potters, probably disappearing for another month or two ... talk about long, strange trips = Genuinely Interesting Blog..
~
Had to make grocery run this afternoon for two of life's Necessities ~ toilet paper and firelogs. Snagged last box of latter and thought I had it made when Fate intervened in form of a Really Fat Woman blasting her cart thru any empty space she had half a chance at, just like Fridays on the Five. I bailed out of her way but wrenched a knee and by 2 PM was gimping, god fucking dammit ... two solid months without incident or significant Pain and I'm dusted by a shopping cart. Only in America ... Back around Labor Day I had a similar incident with a non-Union cowboy on a front-loader. How I managed to roll away from that unscathed & nonplussed is another tale, but this is so fucking stoopid. The pain isn't that bad and I've taken care of it with a Saigon bud I've been working on for six hours ~ maybe .3g total and half gone. ["This'll take you right back" said the countewrman, an earnest 20-something. "Better not! We're all in BFT when that happens ... ]

Keith Richards just turned 65, so I figure I have half a chance to get my knees that far, too.

That's what Surgeon said we're shooting for, and I'd be happy to make it. Wish me luck.
~
Have been 'talking' to The Fellow online about matters ethnobotanic & biochemical ... he's got a 2 year-old with almost same name as my 93 year-old, same birthday ... yeah we're on the same beam about the deficient nature of cannabinoid research and the Ways & Means by which it may be corrected. He's got an nDn pal, an 'apothecary' down in southwestern Michigan, maybe a Bodwadmi, at least likely Anishinaabeg ... if this guy (the nDn) is Authentic, somebody else is getting an xmas present. What an gift, someone to lift the Veil and take you through ...



= 25 Dec 08

RED SKY AT MORNING

= G-13 in the evening !

Got up around two to write (not unusual) and broke around six to get the paper. Reaching for it, butt raised to the east when it registered ~ what a powerful orange glow infused everything! I turned my head to the sunrise and took off sprinting for the back of the house and my camera. Hadn't moved that fast all year, and got back out in time to get off a dozen or so shots before it faded.
~
Navy Wife arrived this morning, altho her dog - a pug/beagle concoction named Kobe after the Famous-Rapist Laker - did not. He sat in a cage at Dulles all night, got to LAX early this afternoon, and arrived here a couple hours after dark freaked out and wearing a plastic collar so he can't lick where his balls used to be. This dog has had a rough week, but we'll try to accommodate. Pinays are all about to head off for yet-another Midnight Mass and the beginning of official 'rounds' ~ gonna be a lot of eating going on tomorrow, I'm afraid. I'm puppy-sitting, and writing a Bud Review.
~
Farmacy visits are almost as much fun as a good afternoon in a used book emporium ~ I really like bookstores, I do ... Planned to head down to Green Angel of Malibu for clones & hash this afternoon. Very high quality shop, broad-ranging menu with better than average staff, well run. Selection is among best in area, and while it isn't cheap, prices aren't unreasonable. This is a Best Practices outfit = Recommended. Sacred Mountain (Santa Barbara) is more oriented toward my community & its Localized economy. I know these folks better and personally like them; some of them are Friends, so Sacred Mountain is my default farmacy. Selection is limited compared to some outlets, prices reasonable, and they'll discount larger purchases. Staff are well-informed, willing to engage patients about appropriate strains, and demonstrates a remarkably patient-oriented work-culture, a reflection of the Values brought by these people to their tasks. Another Best Practices shop = Recommended.

On off chance Sacred Mountain was open, called there ~ they were, and I did head up there. Wasn't a lot in stock - DEA visited earlier in week and they've reduced their Risk ... but o boy ob did they have a couple winners for me ~ a bargain outdoor OG, an interesting southeastern Asian "Saigon" which will "bring me back" I'm told by an earnest 20-something. Heaven forbid it does that, altho the prospect of anything redolent of Thai Stick is a welcome prospect ~ anyone out there willing to teach me how to tie one off properly, btw ?

But the real reward for the trip was the first G-13 I've ever seen ! This isn't the G-13, of course, but a downstream "Mr. Nice" strain which rates a double Hot-damn on several counts. G-13 is a 'Strain with a Story' to begin with, whatever it turns out to be ... the story I got today was that it was diverted from a "government" breed program, which meant the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. It's a miserable four-acre patch surrounded by barbed wire, guard towers, kleig lights and the monopoly on federal pot production ~ it is the sole-source provider, on apparently perpetual contract from the early '70's. Cast in the best possible light it is a total fucking waste of tax resources.

Mahmoud A. ElSohly showed up in the NYT this week. He's a NIDA-owned pharmacist who operates the fed pot franchise at RIPS and he was crowing some about their 'breeding' program which I suspect to be pure PR shill, probably spur of moment. I love the NYT but they understand Sufi politics better than the domestic cannabis industry. This was a lame interview, but the separation between medical quality cannabis Grown American compared to their ditchweed is -- help me, Mikey -- Chateau Beapdecoop to Mike's Hard Lemonade. I think he was embarrassed and was winging it when asked about genetically modified cannabis:

"That actually has been the trend over the years in the cultivation in the illicit market, and also in the legal market, where we are doing genetic selection, where we select specific materials that have the genes that produce higher levels of THC or some of the other ingredients."

They may select from random outcomes, but I've FOIA'd these guys bigtime and don't see them as being anywhere near able to do any controlled genetic breeding. Hell, they have trouble coming up with 3% pot. They're good at converting their crop to tars with which rhesus monkeys may be tortured for NIDA's amusement. These guys can pick daisies ~ they can't breed pot.

May just have to drop another FOIA bomb on this boondoggle just to see what's tucked in their filing cabinets. Always fun to establish the Truth of a Matter, and last time was such grand good fun ... rolled down the PCH with prospect of once again hanging the RIPS-NIDA Gang up with its own rope danced thru my head, an 8th of Carlton Turner's ex-pat finest ~ the D B Cooper of Fed-Pot ~ packed into the cooler in the trunk. G-13 ... I can hardly wait to try this on.

Fuckin A. I'm laughin' my ass off all the way home.

@ Hey, Carlton, remember me ? I'm baaaaccccckkkkk !!!! @

24 Dec 08

MY SON THE TEAMSTER

=| We all worry about our kids.

If you don't, I'm worried about YOU.

~

That's mine, right, with a slip of the dog that is now Regal Cerberus of Fairview, Mofo or somesuch, about 110# of the smoothest moving Rottie you'll ever see ~ wind over the wheat, he is. And such a serious young dog ...

Not that I have much to worry about anymore - the 'kid' is near 40 and been on his own since he escaped the educational system which truncated every opportunity he had with just one Magic Word ~ dyslexia! Handicaps are indeed externally-imposed, and dyslexia is Exhibit A. It is a Teaching Disorder, not one of Learning except insofar as public institutions seem incapable of Learning that dyslexia is not related to one's so-called Intelligence. Dyslexics are not Disabled except to the extent the Systems they find themselves within are Unable.

He ran a 'Party Store' as they're invariably called in Michigan, selling alcohol to the swills near the Enormous State University ~ say there, young Master Criminals reading this, forget about doing a Bank - the Real Money is in liquor stores.

[Shhh - don't tell 'em every liquor store clerk in America is packing and would love to blast some punk though the potato chip rack]

Got out of there on to UPS docks before he drilled anybody - the 9mm. on his fannypacker was a poor substitute for a real security system, but served in a pinch. Did five full years there to get in line to bid a truck route, which he got and has held for another dozen or so years. "Never called from jail, have a Real Job ~ what more can you possible want?" he asks.

Got a point there.

Teamster is not a small person. Close to 6'6, maybe 220, strong as two ox with a cho dan in a particularly efficient Korean karate, he's not to be trifled with. Also has a mean streak, like he needs one. When you say you don't want to "cross him" you better be thinking in terms of picket lines too. He hadn't been driving long when Teamsters went out on strike. Concerned about job security if replacements were called in, he went around to all the part-timers on the docks who would be offered those jobs as strikebreakers. "You cross my line, I break your ..." 'Pencils.' Let's call 'em pencils. He was gonna break their pencils (plural). On his locker today is a picture of him with his arm around Hoffa Junior, his International Prez, both beaming.

This of course he told me some time thereafter, thank the gods. He has an official "Don't Ask / Won't Tell" policy about his wayward past, whatever there is of it, and I'm greatly relieved. I don't want him asking me too many questions either. Looks like he turned out okay. These days he's got a live-in, a bubbly PhD candidate ... The Doctor & the Truckdriver. They're landscaping the yard, raising 'Gus' (as i insist on calling my grandpuppy) and apparently enjoy each other's company a great deal. I'm happy for him. He's a Good Kid.

Wanted to give him something Significant to mark this year in his mind ~ both of us going through some Changes, and I think I'm on pretty rocky ground with him. I think I was a Good Enough parent, albeit not by a lot ~ his standards are apparently higher. We don't do xmas, generally just exchange simple gifts, but this year I decided to give Art. Soon as I saw this piece I knew it was something that would hang well on him. Seemed a little pricey at first but I'm regular customer and purchase is generally just the act of handing Vendor the piece, sometimes months after conversation first began of it. I'm happy with the price on the tag ~ and he never fails to take a pretty good chunk off after I've bought the piece. No quibbling ~ I prefer to reach Understandings. This was pretty painless. Pendant is about 4" silver w/ mark, shaped around an 'antique' walrus ivory harvested by Inuit, a controlled trade. Piece is hand-carved stack of four Wolf Heads by an aging Cherokee/Choctaw who has somehow found his way to this form. Have to find out who he is, and more about him. Saw a similar stack of Bears by same hand ...

Teamster will have to find out for himself what the the Pack can teach him.



= 23 Dec 08

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

=|

Weather & Events still conspire to keep me In California. I shouldn't complain ~ it IS California, after all, where I am safe, warm, legal, relatively pain-free, surrounded by Good & Interesting People ["the only kind worth knowing," if anybody asks] ... what am I bitching about ?!

My birthday is the Winter Solstice, and every year I have a wonderful artist-friend who is just as godless as me and thus does not celebrate xmas ... but he does send a Solstice card, always the hit of the season, always a Keeper. He just went in for a surgery back in Michigan not terribly unlike those that I face and he's right near the top of my visitation list, if I ever get outta here ...

~

Erlinda's daughter is still in Virginia, her flight socked in and pushed back. She's the Navy Wife (age 22!), and hubby Mark is no longer on the deck USS Theodore Roosevelt [CVN-71] in Dubai. Again (age 23). He's down below now, in Aircraft Launch & Recovery reloading the cable that catches those little bugs when they bounce on the deck overhead, keeps 'em from running right off the other end. Talk about Heavy Equipment Operator ... yipes. One of the most dangerous jobs on that ship.

Thanks Mr. Bush ~ how many more daze ? You take care, Mark ...

~

I've got a mid-80's Benz up Goleta waiting for part, that Pacific storm socking the Northwest so hard looks like its gonna dump a foot in the high country of Colorado, and the goddam DEA is "walking thru" my farmacy this afternoon, peremptory to their so-called "compliance" visit at the end of the month ... want to know why ? Real simple bottom line, and it's clearly stated right here ~ there are still cretins out here masquarading as police / public servants who just Do Not Get the concept of 'Rule of Law.' Was going to be up there today but called Owner-Ops to wish them best for what follows this Solstice (they don't do xmas either) ... they were home in bed, feeling poorly, altho not about the DEA nuisance, however much a threat it is to their livelihood, and their own medical needs. The DEA is chock full of Numbnuts, but my Farmacists have Brass Balls.

My communicating with them has long since been via other media. I'm not a 'phone" guy in the first place, and to all the people who tell me I 'need' a cellphone all I can say is that I don't need a trail of gumdrops trailing me wherever I am ... yes everyone assumes the Farmacy is wired, now that DEA has been through a dozen times. They don't wear "cop shoes" all the time anymore, but they're really not nearly so clever as they think.

~

'So, Girls, I was feeling just SO really down, I went & did what most 'Merikans think they're spozed to do at Xmas ~ i shopped and am gonna drop! Drove down the PCH into LA County and loaded up with a nice load of hash, 1.5 oz of mixed 1/8ths, and a box of the sweetest little Cheese clones.

Got a camera just coming off the charger, pix to follow and maybe even a Bud Review.

I mean, if I'm Californicated, may as well lay back and enjoy it, eh ?



ah-oooommmmmmmm .........



= 21 Dec 08