In this stand-up clip, Dave Chappelle shares his thoughts on who he prefers to smoke marijuana with:

Via MilkandCookies.

In line with my earlier post today about cocaine sentencing disparities: AlterNet points us to the High Times legalization effort known as the 420 Campaign, and in particular, its top 10 reasons why marijuana should be legalized. Obviously you should make yourself familiar with all 10 reasons, but this one in particular is relevant to my earlier post:

9. Arrests for marijuana possession disproportionately affect blacks and Hispanics and reinforce the perception that law enforcement is biased and prejudiced against minorities. African-Americans account for approximately 13% of the population of the United States and about 13.5% of annual marijuana users, however, blacks also account for 26% of all marijuana arrests. Recent studies have demonstrated that blacks and Hispanics account for the majority of marijuana possession arrests in New York City, primarily for smoking marijuana in public view. Law enforcement has failed to demonstrate that marijuana laws can be enforced fairly without regard to race; far too often minorities are arrested for marijuana use while white/non-Hispanic Americans face a much lower risk of arrest.

A few interesting bills are pending in Congress that seek to address in various ways the disparity in sentencing between crimes involving crack cocaine and crimes involving powder cocaine. As has been noted eleventy bazillion times, the disparity essentially considers equivalent amounts of crack cocaine to be more serious crimes, which unfairly penalizes the demographic that tends toward crack cocaine. As I wrote earlier this year when a Supreme Court case was in the works on this subject:

Crack is primarily an urban drug used by minorities; consequently four fifths of crack cocaine convictions affect blacks, while only a quarter of those convicted for powder cocaine are black; however, the punishment for crack cocaine is an order of magnitude more harsh than similar punishment for power cocaine.

And as noted in an article about that case:

The issue grew out of a 1986 law that was passed in response to violent crimes committed to get money to feed crack habits. The law includes what critics have called the 100-to-1 disparity: Trafficking in 5 grams of [crack] cocaine carries a mandatory five-year prison sentence, but it takes 500 grams of cocaine powder to warrant the same sentence.

Well, at long last we have not one, but three separate bills wending their way through Congress that each attempt to sort this out. The Drug Policy Alliance does a bang-up job of analyzing each bill and making a recommendation as to which bill deserves support:

Three U.S. Senators have already introduced reform bills - Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Senator Joe Biden (D-DE). The Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), has pledged to have hearings on the issue in September. There is growing bi-partisan support for reform.

The Sessions bill (S. 1383) would reduce the crack/powder sentencing disparity to 20 to 1 by lowering penalties for crack cocaine and raising penalties for power cocaine. Since Hispanics are disproportionately prosecuted for powder cocaine offenses, the practical effect of the Sessions bill would be to reduce racial disparities for blacks, while increasing them for Hispanics. The Hatch bill (S. 1685) would reduce the disparity to 20 to 1 by lowering penalties for crack cocaine and leaving powder penalties unchanged (it is, thus, significantly better than the Sessions bill). The Biden bill (S. 1711) would completely eliminate the disparity by lowering crack penalties to equal those of powder.

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Ran across this cute little humor piece recently, in which God attempts to set the record straight about exactly how special children actually are:

God Our Father issued a strongly worded proclamation earlier today that marks a clear departure from Heaven’s former “exceptional children” policy. In his statement, He refuted the previously held belief that all kids are special.

“I’m not quite sure when all of this ‘every child is special’ crap got started,” said a visibly weary Lord Almighty. “Although if I had to guess I’d say the late ’60s. You pump enough LSD and Grateful Dead into your system, you’ll come up with some pretty gay stuff. F***ing hippies.”

Teehee.

I don't know where this picture was taken (I found it on PhotoBucket.com), but in keeping with our series on trippy eye-popping art and architecture, I give you the pirate ship mural. Anyone know where this is from? I can't quite read the street signs, but it seems northern-European to me. Any hints or guesses? Pretty cool for a building-sized piece of art...

If you're wondering what is so psychedelic about an old musical, just wait for the breathing cabbage. yeah, you heard me.

Despite all the hype in the '80s about crack babies and all the hysterical recurring news items about people giving drugs to their kids or babies being born addicted to opium or meth, the legal drug that still does the most damage to unborn babies is alcohol, as evidenced in this blurb from the UK via Daily Squib:

Official statistics show there were 1 million babies registered with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) in Britain in 2004 bringing to 16 million the number born with the neurological brain disorder in a decade.

However, campaigners warned the damage done to babies from alcohol abuse is far greater than official statistics show, claiming heavy drinking among pregnant women is also linked to learning difficulties, hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder. The number of alcohol-related deaths is rising faster in the UK than anywhere else in Europe.

Click through to the story for more scary info on how FAS affects infant development and leads to life-long brain damage. I have worked with kids who have FAS, this is a serious disorder. And believe me, if studies showed that ketamine or salvia did the same thing to babies in utero, every politician in the world would be yelling like crazy to ban the demon drug and "save the unborn babies!" However, since it is only alcohol, and we all know about FAS already, no need to worry! The beneficent alcohol industry will keep us safe from this growing danger with an edgy public information campaign, don't you worry.

Now move along now. Nothing too see here...

And now it's time for everyone's favorite game show - "Acid or Strychnine"! From the drug comedy DVD Tales From The Tripside.

We've discussed "opioid phobia" before, in reference to the burgeoning backlash against painkillers in the States due to the unfortunate rise of Oxycontin as a bad, bad influence. However, the situation is far worse elsewhere in the world, where "opioid phobia" is preventing the use of morphine in a vast array of cases, amongst dying cancer patients and injured children alike. As the NY Times reports, these people wind up suffering unduly, despite the fact that morphine is relatively cheap, primarily due to out-of-date fears about - get this - morphine's addictive properties. Hint: if the patient is dying in excruciating pain, addiction is truly not the issue.

The World Health Organization estimates that 4.8 million people a year with moderate to severe cancer pain receive no appropriate treatment. Nor do another 1.4 million with late-stage AIDS. For other causes of lingering pain — burns, car accidents, gunshots, diabetic nerve damage, sickle-cell disease and so on — it issues no estimates but believes that millions go untreated.

Figures gathered by the International Narcotics Control Board, a United Nations agency, make it clear: citizens of rich nations suffer less. Six countries — the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Britain and Australia — consume 79 percent of the world’s morphine, according to a 2005 estimate. The poor and middle-income countries where 80 percent of the world’s people live consumed only about 6 percent.

That's just the background. The practical details on the ground are a lot harder to stomach:

At pain conferences, doctors from Africa describe patients whose pain is so bad that they have chosen other remedies: hanging themselves or throwing themselves in front of trucks.

And:

Doctors in developing countries, he explained, often have beliefs about narcotics that prevailed in Western medical schools decades ago — that they are inevitably addictive, carry high risks of killing patients and must be used sparingly, even if patients suffer.

Apparently in some of these countries, the fear of drug abuse - by clinic staff, for instance, who might appropriate morphine for nefarious purposes - outweighs the palliative benefits morphine can offer. One wonders if this ultimately isn't the kind of thing that large scale philanthropy is going to have to sweep in and deal with, since the will of individual governments hardly seems up to the task.

But yeah, one more reason to thank your lucky stars if you're living in the wealthy parts of the world.

Well, if you're going to wind up stuck in prison, it may as well be this one:

A Japanese prison is scrambling to eradicate marijuana plants that keep sprouting up on its exercise ground, officials said Tuesday.

The marijuana plants started sprouting at Abashiri Prison on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido about a year ago, said prison official Takeshi Okamura. He said officials plucked out as many as 300 marijuana plants and treated the ground last year, but several more sprouted again this year....

Local botanical experts concluded the marijuana seeds were inadvertently brought in with the soil used for the exercise ground, Okamura said.

The weird thing here is that officials learned about the pot from the reports of prisoners. I'm not entirely clear on what advantage you'd gain from reporting wild marijuana plants to the people who are keeping you in prison; come to think of it, I don't really need to know...