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Higher Education: Public University Launches Research Institute Devoted to Marijuana

Nov. 26, 2012 4:41pm Jason Howerton

Humboldt State University Launches Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research

FILE – In this Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012 file photo, medical marijuana is packaged for sale in 1-gram packages at the Northwest Patient Resource Center medical marijuana dispensary, in Seattle. Votes this week by Colorado and Washington to allow adult marijuana possession have prompted what could be a turning point in the nation’s conflicted and confusing war on drugs. (Credit: AP)

ARCATA, Calif. (TheBlaze/AP) — A public university located in one of California’s prime pot-growing regions has formed an academic institute devoted to marijuana.

The Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research at Humboldt State University plans to sponsor scholarly lectures and coordinate research among 11 faculty members from fields such as economics, geography, politics, psychology and sociology.

The Times-Standard of Eureka reports that one professor is studying recent campaigns to legalize marijuana, while another is investigating the environmental effects of pot cultivation.

“If anyone is going to have a marijuana institute, it really should be Humboldt State,” economist Erick Eschker, the institute’s co-chair, told the newspaper. Eschker is studying the connection between marijuana production and employment in the county.

The institute is probably the first dedicated to examining marijuana through the lens of multiple disciplines, according to sociologist Josh Meisel, who is leading the enterprise with Eschker. Humboldt faculty started discussing the idea in 2010 when California was preparing to vote on a bitterly contested ballot proposition that would have treated marijuana like alcohol.

“With these public discussions, there were a lot more questions than there were answers,” Meisel said, adding that he and other faculty became interested in applying academic rigor to the economic, health and legal issues raised in eventually unsuccessful campaign.

Now that voters in Colorado and Washington have done what California would not, passing marijuana legalization measures this month, the institute has even more reason to exist. Politics professor Jason Plume is giving a lecture on the marijuana reform movement on Tuesday night, one of seven public talks the institute plans to host this year.

Featured image via AP

(H/T: Drudge)

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Comments (79)

Eastinfection
Posted on November 27, 2012 at 8:13am
In my experience, the only people who are vehemently anti-marijuana either have a law-enforcement background, have/had a loved one who abused it recklessly, or are fascists that believe everyone should be “just like them”. Rarely have i been able to convert any of these types to the viewpoint of pot being an issue of freedom.

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- edcoil
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 1:30pm
  Wow, that really shows an open mind. Who is the fascist?
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 7:02pm
  I’m a fascist for relating my personal experience? Nice try.
  
  Report this comment
universalphilos
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 11:34pm
A prophecy, May 2, 1971: “Is the smoking of marijuana harmful to the physical, mental or spiritual self? ”Would using bring about a bad karma?”

Answer: “Your karma shall be thyself. Of this physical nature, the use in excess of any [neurological, septic?] type of drugs would show great damage to the penal [pineal] area of the body, and permanent damage, therefore, over a prolonged period of time would come about. Therefore, it would be our suggestion that overindulgence in any manner would not be wise.
Can thy understand of which we speak?
Nay, not fully.
Then we should say unto thee, man and the man-animal is the most curious of all species. Therefore, if the need to experiment is greater than the margin of safety within thyself, do so.”

August 25, 1978, another asked, “Will you please give me a health reading and any advice you can give me on marijuana smoking pertaining to me.”

Answer: “First, we should answer your question in this manner. That that is done in moderation would not hurt thy body. That that is done in above moderation shall damage the brain, the circulatory system, the spleen, the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the respiratory system.”

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jessieH
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:20pm
Waste of money. What they going to teach, how to grow & harvest? It’s a weed! It will grow anywhere, morons! If you teach anything about it, teach about all the things that can be made with it. You know, like they did in the 1930s.

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- FlamingFartSyndrome
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:48pm
  You have never grown weed and have no idea what you are talking about.
  
  Report this comment
- SimpleTruths
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 7:47pm
  You are showing your ignorance. First of all most of everything we eat that is grown in the ground was a ‘weed’ at one time. Corn as we know it today is a result of decades of applied science, same for potatoes, beans, etc.
  Second things aren’t made from marijuana, you mean hemp. Hemp is closely related but doesn’t have THC, the psychoactive molecule in marijuana.
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 7:57am
  “Weed” is a slang reference to marijuana. The only difference between a plant and a weed is whether or not it’s existence and location are intentional.
  
  Report this comment
- FMJGunny
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 10:06am
  Apparently NONE OF YOU ARE AWARE.
  
  There already IS a Marijuana University in California. IN OAKLAND. It’s called… wait for it…
  
  OAKSTERDAM — GET IT? — a take off of AMSTERDAM — and they have been at it for quite some time
  
  http://www.oaksterdamuniversity.com/
  
  Oaksterdam University was founded in November 2007. Richard Lee, the founder of Oaksterdam University, placed a provocative advertisement in the East Bay Express proclaiming “Cannabis Industry Now Hiring”. Lee had wanted to open a trade school for the cannabis industry ever since visiting the cannabis college in Amsterdam. Rather than emulate the college in Amsterdam where curriculum mainly surrounds horticulture, Lee decided to expand upon the idea and create a curriculum that focuses on the entire cannabis trade. Wanting to further legitimize the cannabis industry, Lee’s school quickly gained the attention of local, national, and even international media.
  
  Oaksterdam ha’s been in business for five years. They have a satellite campus down in San Diego as well as the one in Oakland. Marijuana WILL BECOME A 10 BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY in the next five years. Get in on the ground floor and you could become a wealthy merchant and it WILL ALL BE LEGAL.
  
  Yep, we are entering a strange new world. Scary on many levels. This is but one of them and spells the end of America as it used to be.
  
  Report this comment
benrush
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:18pm
I don’t mind any university studying anything it wishes. I just wish that we had ZERO public money going into it.

Collectivism is a bad economic idea. Let’s divide the country in two. In one country, do everything with public money. In the other, do everything with individual money.

In twenty years, after the collectivist half of the country withers on its own vine for lack of innovation and efficiency, or gets bought out by the individualist side, then we’ll be back on the right track.

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Zipit
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:10pm
“HIGHER EDUCATION”. Indeed!

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- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 2:53am
  The “Devil Weed” has taken over as proven by the last elections time for some roundup.
  
  Report this comment
Secret Squirrel
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:09pm
.
“Keep ‘em stoned and stupid, and they’ll vote democrat forever.”

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- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 2:55am
  “Hear!!! Hear!!!”
  
  Report this comment
lel2007
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:55pm
Public University you say. I wonder who’s funding that ‘critical’ research.

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- Deuteronomy22
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:13pm
  Industrial hemp can be a critical part of our economy. As far as marijuana, do you have any idea how many medications are derived from plants? Recreational marijuana could be taxed and prison costs lowered. So yeah the research could be very important.
  
  Report this comment
- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 3:00am
  @ Deuteronomy22
  Do you understand the cost savings we could have if users were deported to a country where they could use it freely at their wish ? But I bet their living conditions would not be so lavish as the U.S.A.
  
  Report this comment
Advection
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:45pm
Cannabis has proven to be a cheap, natural, safe and effective treatment for breast cancer, brain cancer, colon cancer, as well as the side-effects of chemo, glaucoma, neurological pain, MS spams, altheimers, alcoholism, depression, nausea, wasting diseases, insomnia, etc. BUT NOT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

Why? The DEA says because it has no “accepted” medicinal use in the US. But the same DEA denies any research in the US that seeks to find medicinal uses for cannabis. When asked why they block research to find medicinal uses for cannabis, the DEA says because cannabis doesn’t have any medicinal uses.

SPOT THE CIRCULAR REASONING?

Finally, the DEA would cease to exist without the tens of Billions of Dollars they get each year to enforce cannabis Prohibition, which includes denying medical research, which keeps cannabis Prohibition in place.

SPOT THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST?

Thank Presidents Nixon thru Obama.

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- Deuteronomy22
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:15pm
  The pharmaceutical industry is terrified that people would self medicate effectively. The prison industrial complex would lose customers. The cotton growers would have a lot to lose as we’ll if we legalized industrial hemp which has zero mind altering properties. Money is what keeps marijuana illegal.
  
  Report this comment
- Advection
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 10:07pm
  D22, you’re correct, and the most influential of these is the prison industrial complex. We’re talking guard unions, police unions, federal employee unions, judges lawyers, paralegals, doctors, nurses, social workers, IT, and an army of support staff, then all of the physical equipment: buildings, communication gear, vehicles of all kinds, planes, copters, jets, weapons, etc., etc.
  
  The vast majority of Americans don’t know that we’ve already spent over $1 Trillion on the drug war, and the vast majority is spent on cannabis Prohibition alone.
  
  Report this comment
- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 3:03am
  Marijuana is nothing more than a mask nothing more nothing less it is not a cure !!!
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 7:59am
  SCREW…
  
  You could say the same about ACE bandages.
  
  Report this comment
- Advection
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 6:34pm
  S-W, marijuana “treats” several diseases and not just the symptoms, but even if you don’t believe that, why would anyone oppose new drugs that treat symptoms? Pharmacies are full of drugs that just treat symptoms, and many of them are expensive, dangerous and have nasty side-effects. Marijuana, on the other hand, is inexpensive, safe, and only has a few mild, temporary side-effects.
  
  Report this comment
- Advection
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 6:50pm
  By the way, the lethal dose (LD50) of marijuana is astronomical. An adult would have to quickly ingest 2-4 pounds of raw marijuana flowers to reach the lethal dose, so it’s essentially impossible.
  
  http://www.worldofmolecules.com/drugs/thc.htm
  
  Report this comment
KyleD
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:24pm
Eureka and Humbolt county in general is known to be heavily populated with potheads so I’m not surprised. What with the logging industry being pretty much gone there pot is probably the largest production going on there.

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- The-Monk
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:40pm
  @KyleD
  
  So what you are saying is that have switched the logging harvest to another product? LOL
  
  Report this comment
Tpartier3
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:23pm
Question: Guess who doesn’t want marijuana legalized??????? Anyone?? Anyone??

Answer: THE PHARMACUTICAL INDUSTRY!!!

Everyone in America knows that weed is a miracle drug. Big Pharma would loose
billions if it were legalized.

Question: What’s the largest lobby group in Washington D.C.?????

Answer: U guessed it….BIG PHARMA.

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- FlamingFartSyndrome
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:44pm
  Wait a sec… someone commenting on theblaze has a brain?????? Whats this world coming too!?!?!
  
  Report this comment
- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 3:06am
  Marijuana is nothing more than a mask nothing more nothing less it is not a cure !!!
  You can get the same effect with heroin.
  
  Report this comment
- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 4:30am
  Yeah Windows, that’s kind of what pain killers are designed to do – to mask symptoms. Doesn’t mean that painkillers are bad. If you think so then I recommend you forgo anesthesia the next time you get surgery or a root canal or something.
  
  And yes, you can get similar pain killing effects from heroin (there’s this very useful thing called morphine, as you might be aware), but the difference with cannabis is that it doesn’t carry the risk of crippling addiction. People becoming hopelessly addicted to legally prescribed pain medication is a huge problem. This is a problem that cannabis would not significantly contribute to. In fact, it could lessen the overall problem by keeping people off of harder pain killers like oxycontin, vicodin, and morphine, all of which are highly addictive and harmful to the body.
  
  Report this comment
The-Monk
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:16pm
“If anyone is going to have a marijuana institute, it really should be Humboldt State,” economist Erick Eschker, the institute’s co-chair, told the newspaper.”

Is that because they have the “highest” number of stoned Professors?

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- schroeder123
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:27pm
  Yes … and I think that is good. Most communist professors are delusional.
  At least pot will make them think more logical. Or…just make them Think. That would be nice.
  
  Report this comment
- soybomb315_II
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:52pm
  Unstoned professors are dangerous to the country. Stoned professors are almost harmless
  
  Report this comment
schroeder123
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:15pm
Sorry for those against Pot. BUT, Pot does not increase crime nor cause people to go wacko and kill someone. Pot relaxes and make you a couch potato and a consumer of fine quality chips n pizza.
That’s it. Stop your inaccurate verbal junk. Get your facts straight.
Crack and other drugs are a totally different story. They are Bad.
But, Pot Common… you know I’m right.

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- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:53pm
  Horse crap pot head. Be a man and get high on life. And if your life is that bad… give it back. Only losers need to intoxicate themselves. Get your @ss up and off the couch. Get some pep in your step. Go out and do something instead of the BS excuse the need to relax and eating crap that will clog your arteries and make you a lard@ss…
  
  Freakin’ pot heads.
  
  Report this comment
- soybomb315_II
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:05pm
  yes, only losers resort to drugs. And by drugs, we include alcohol and tobacco. Also include the vast array of pills you take on a daily basis at the behest of your AMA-controlled doctor. Yes, only losers resort to drugs
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:26pm
  More horsecrap arguments. Yes, let’s make society worse… and let’s use bad behavior for the basis of more bad behavior. Unbelievable.
  
  Report this comment
- FlamingFartSyndrome
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:41pm
  Sounds like time_to_end_paul should change his name to time_to_end_freedom
  
  Report this comment
- soybomb315_II
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:57pm
  Whats that time2? You think the federal government should be allowed to be deciding which drugs you are allowed to take? You think it is OK for our laws to be made by society based on hypocrisy? If you are against drugs – at least be a man and stand against ALL drugs
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 7:02pm
  FLAMER. End freedoms my @ss. Trying to save you from yourselves. What freedoms do you have after using any intoxicant (mind altering substace)… whether it be drugs or alcohol? It takes away your freedom to make rational decisions and puts others in danger. Once you interfere with MY freedoms and put MY safety at risk because you’re weak and want to get high… then we have a problem.
  
  Why would anyoe want to Put a thief in our mouth steals your brains.
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 7:24pm
  I stand against the abuse of ALL drugs SOY. That’s a circle-jerk argument used by anyone who wants to rationalize the use of mind altering substances like weed. Last time I checked… a 7 day Z-Pac for Bronchitis didn’t put the public in danger because of lack of good sound judgement and lead children to run to Penicillen to get a bigger high…
  
  Report this comment
- soybomb315_II
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 8:17pm
  OK Time2, then i should see you going around this site calling for the prohibition of alcohol and tobacco as well. See you on the other side moral crusader
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 8:20pm
  I have denounced alcohol on here many times SOY… and tobacco? If you want to kill yourself fine, but don’t let me inhale or I’ll smack ye in the chops (you know, that second hand smoke thing). Lol.
  
  Report this comment
- soybomb315_II
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 8:20pm
  alcohol destroyed my mother’s side of the family. But marijuana hasnt hurt anyone in our family. Therefore, your entire social/moral argument is BS
  
  Report this comment
- DadRocked
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 9:50pm
  WHOA THERE, TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Listen to yourself – “FLAMER. End freedoms my @ss. Trying to save you from yourselves.”
  “What freedoms do you have after using any intoxicant (mind altering substace)… whether it be drugs or alcohol?”
  “It takes away your freedom to make rational decisions and puts others in danger.”
  
  Then you say, ” Once you interfere with MY freedoms and put MY safety at risk because you’re weak and want to get high… then we have a problem.”
  
  You’re trying to save someone from themself but saying MY freedom and MY safety?
  
  Flame and the others will take care of themselves on their own… If they are of legal age than it is their call… Good or as Bad as the results may be.
  BUT isn’t what you just said what we as Americans are ticked off about in these days?
  
  If we don’t like the government telling us what to do and not do, what’s good/bad for us as individuals, there where do you get off doing the same?
  
  Think about it, speak from your head not your emotions.
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 10:08pm
  Strawman argument… SOY.
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 10:19pm
  DAD. You use the screen name DAD. Are you paternal?? If you are… then you get my drift. If you aren’t DAD…. then you’re just some guy making excuses for bad behavior.
  
  Report this comment
- Kupo
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 10:21pm
  “End freedoms my @ss. Trying to save you from yourselves.”
  
  Exactly the kind of nanny state mentality that conservatives should be opposed to.
  
  Report this comment
- DadRocked
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 11:39pm
  TIME_2_END – “If you are… then you get my drift.”
  I get your drift…and oh yes I am.
  My pseudonym honors my father. I learned a lot from being around an USMC family. I broke 107yrs of USMC to go USAF ’72-’78. Dad was 2nd Battalion 5th Marines Inchon’s 2nd wave and 1st to take KIMPO Airfield…
  
  As taught to me, the family wanted me to go USMC… Dad too, but he said that nobody but myself had to make that decision. Good or bad as the results would be, I should make it myself.
  
  So when I hear anyone, from a Citizen down to the government tells another citizen (non-family) what is best for the purpose of “Trying to save you from yourselves” in a demanding demeanor… well…
  
  It’s the emotion of the moment and we have to pause and speak logically, not emotionally.
  
  You are good and fair man, I’ve read your posts before but logic would be more effective.
  
  On a humorous note, Dad did, in his way, expressed to me that I was NEVER to say that I was in the military. Marines and Army are in the Military… Me… I was in the service.
  Almost 38yrs have passed since I enlisted, NOT ONCE have I ever said that I was in the Military.
  
  Semper Fidelis
  
  Report this comment
- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 3:13am
  If you want to do drugs sign a waiver
  No revival or treatment at the hospital when you O.D.
  No unemployment or welfare when you lose your job.
  No freebies when you have no motivation to get off the couch.
  Will you sign such a waiver ?
  
  Report this comment
- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 4:36am
  Windows
  
  1. At no point in the history of the entire world has anybody overdosed on marijuana. It is physically impossible.
  
  2. How is cannabis use going to cause someone to lose their job if it’s a legal substance?
  
  3. Unfair and inaccurate stereotype. I was at my most productive back when I was smoking weed regularly. Active duty military, good evaluations, damn good at my job, and later on straight-A college student.
  
  So no, I’m not going to sign a damn waiver, just like I’m not going to sign a waiver if I want to cozy up with a beer in the evening.
  
  Report this comment
- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 4:46am
  Windows, how about we also require waivers before someone can eat a Big Mac. In signing the waiver you agree to no resuscitation when you get a heart attack. Dumb idea, right? So why is your nanny-stating acceptable but mine isn’t?
  
  Report this comment
- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 5:18am
  @ Kupo
  By your post you are one of the lost souls I’m sure Obama loves you everyone pays for your ignorance and you are to blind to see your past drug use is still clouding your vision and you are not able to see what you are or could be.
  
  Report this comment
- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 5:25am
  Why don’t you try to address my points instead of tossing around wild conjecture? Oh, that’s right, because your flaccid arguments are unable to withstand basic logic.
  
  Report this comment
- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 5:29am
  @ Kupo
  Do you not get fired for being drunk on the job ? Then you will get fired for being stoned on the job you are a liability and a risk for all around you. And don’t compare the effects of pot to alcohol on the brains thought as the pot effect on your brain thought that last for years.
  
  Report this comment
- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 5:32am
  @ Kupo
  I cannot argue nor make a point to someone who is blind nor coherent so until you are sober it ends.
  
  Report this comment
- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 5:48am
  Hahahahaha!! Wow. You are a truly stupid person. Of course being drunk or stoned on the job is liable to get you fired, but the vast majority of people fired for cannabis are fired because they failed a drug test that yields a positive result if any has been consumed at any point during the last 3 or 4 weeks, regardless of whether or not it was done safely in the privacy of one’s own home. Also, I love how you bring alcohol into it. By your logic someone should have to sign a waiver before drinking a beer so that they are ineligible for unemployment after they inevitably get fired for drinking on the job.
  
  “And don’t compare the effects of pot to alcohol on the brains thought as the pot effect on your brain thought that last for years.”
  
  I think that your brain is the one having issues here. This sentence that I quoted is borderline incomprehensible. It’s also wrong. Regardless, even if marijuana use does have a long term negative effect on cognitive capabilities (there is no credible evidence that this is the case, FYI), that is not a legitimate reason for it to be illegal.
  
  Oh by the way, I’m perfectly sober, unfortunately for you. There is no way you’ll ever be able to win a debate against me on this subject unless I happened to be blackout drunk.
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 5:52am
  For leftists, drug use is a personal lifestyle choice, the condemnation of which would be the unpardonable sin of judgmentalism, while legalizers on the Right fringe frame the issue around personal responsibility, suggesting it’s paternalistic for government to keep people from putting harmful things in their systems.
  
  Well, yes, that would be paternalistic…if that were society’s only beef with mind altering narcotics. But drugs aren’t like Big Macs or cigarettes. It’s one thing to clog your arteries or ravage your lungs… it’s quite another to consume substances that warp your mind or dull your senses to the point where you become a threat to the rights of others. And despite what the legalizers try to push, drug use certainly isn’t victimless… not even when it comes to marijuana, allegedly the safest of the bunch.
  
  If government is essentially the collective exercise of the individual right to self-defense, then of course people are within their rights to protect themselves from drug-related crimes and accidents by prohibiting the source. Conservatives in particular should know better than to fall for Libertarians’ and others superficially appealing arguments about the “right” to do drugs… John Locke himself argued that man’s power over his own body was not absolute, that liberty didn’t cover the right to enslave or destroy one’s self.
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 5:55am
  […] a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases. No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it […] But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself […]
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 6:10am
  Just a mild mannered pot head relaxing on his couch eating cheetos…
  
  “John Patrick Bedell, a 36-year-old marijuana addict, had used “medical marijuana” cards to get legal dope in California, before he drove to Washington, D.C. in March of 2010 to murder people at the Pentagon. Bedell, who injured two security guards before getting killed in the crossfire, was a Libertarian who thought the government was out to get him. He was devoted to legal marijuana, believed in the 9/11 “inside job” theory, and accused the U.S. Government of murdering a Marine Corps colonel, James Sabow, in California in 1991.”
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 6:21am
  Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn tried to accomplish the same crap in ’60′s that the “supposed” freedom movement is trying to accomplish today to some extent. Disillusioned young people, brainwashed with illegal mind-altering drugs and armed with weapons in the name of “liberty,” are being taught to hate their government and the police. They believed Ron Paul was their savior.
  
  Remember that Communist terrorist Dohrn had said, “We fight in many ways. Dope is one of our weapons. The laws against marijuana mean that millions of us are outlaws long before we actually split. Guns and grass are united in the youth underground.”
  
  The same attitude is apparent in some of the Libertarian-anarchist groups backing in New Hampshire as an example. Check out PorcFest…
  
  If anyone thinks it’s just about legalizing a harmless weed to these “liberty” folks… then you are as naive as Forrest Gump…
  
  Report this comment
- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 6:24am
  Correlation does not equal causation. Just because some ass who liked smoking marijuana committed a crime doesn’t mean that marijuana was what caused the crime.
  
  Report this comment
- TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 6:45am
  Stupid is as stupid does KUPO. I haven’t read anything on here from you that bolsters your argument for legalizing marijuana. You are out of your league and I’m out of time… duty calls.
  
  Report this comment
- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 8:23am
  Yeah whatever Time. You can make baseless claims about how you need to defend yourself from some guy toking up in his basement down the street and quote John Locke out of context all you like. It doesn’t change the facts. Nor does it change the reality that your kind is a dying breed as evidenced by Washington and Colorado.
  
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- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 8:29am
  I also love how that article managed to completely ignore the fact that Pat was severely bipolar. Gee, I don’t suppose that could have had anything to do with his decision to start shooting people!
  
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- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 8:37am
  John Patrick, I mean.
  
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drenfroe
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:15pm
You can’t smoke a cigarette but you can study pot, LSD, and chocolate mesculin. Only in CA.

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M13
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:12pm
Cough,cough,cough, what were we talking about?

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FlamingFartSyndrome
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 4:58pm
Cannabis should be researched; it’s help with chemo patients has worked wonders as well as those who suffer from chronic pain.

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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:14pm
  I was listening to one particular research physician discuss this topic with others a couple of months ago. Their research has revealed that extracts from the plant in pill form work the best for relief for pain, and especially with cancer patients along with glaucoma. But, for a single dose almost a pound of the raw plant would be needed. Yeah, people can get stoned smoking it, but it works in a far superior way in pill form. I see nothing at all wrong with that research, but these medical pot stores are the farce that even Cheech and Chong have joked about.
  
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- 70S_KIDS_FIGHTING_SOCIALISM
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:17pm
  I have chronic pain from spine injury and pot is not going to help. Pot will cause lung cancer and brain damage. Try taking pot when you have your leg broken in half. The BS is that those of us with extreme real chronic pain are left to using tramadol as most doctors are no longer using vicodin etc.. for chronic pain. Usually they are only prescribed after operations. It hacks me off all this medical pot for drug addicts while many chronic pain sufferers live in a hell of pain with little relief.
  
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- soybomb315_II
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 5:54pm
  whether it is safe or not should not be a question. If cigarettes and alcohol are legal and regulated – i see no reason why the federal government should make it illegal….Dont get me started on hemp
  
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- FlamingFartSyndrome
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 6:38pm
  @ 70S
  
  You dont have to smoke it, there are edible forms of cannabis. And i myself am a cannabis patient with chronic back pain and it works wonders for me, sorry you did not have the same experience but whos opinion really matters when it comes to my health? I thought conservatives wanted individuals to have preference over the federal government when it comes to health issues.
  
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- Kupo
  Posted on November 26, 2012 at 10:24pm
  70S
  
  You don’t have to smoke it. You can eat it, make a tincture, vaporize it, etc.
  
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- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 3:22am
  @ FlamingFartSyndrome
  When idiots misuse a product it impacts us all. If you find toad licking to be your preference of drugs does it not effect the toad or the toad keeper ?
  
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- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 4:40am
  What a stupid analogy, Windows. But I’ll bite. Who cares if it affects the toad? Do you spend sleepless nights concerned about the steak you ate earlier in the day? And as for the toad keeper (are there such things?), he would benefit by providing his toads in exchange for cash. Everybody wins. The toad licker gets what he wants, the toad keeper gets what he wants, and the economy benefits accordingly.
  
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- Kupo
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 4:57am
  FlamingFartSyndrome
  
  Actually, many conservatives don’t give a crap about you being free from government oversight unless what you want to do fits within their extremely myopic worldview. This is why they hate libertarians such as myself. I want people to be able to do what they please so long as they don’t infringe upon the rights of others. They want people to do what they please so long as it doesn’t offend them. Unfortunately, they are offended by far too many things (case in point: innocuous cannabis consumption). This is why Republicans and Democrats are often two sides of the same Progressive coin.
  
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- Eastinfection
  Posted on November 27, 2012 at 8:07am
  Hi RJJ….
  
  “but it works in a far superior way in pill form”
  
  I respectfully disagree. It’s difficult to ingest pills when you are nauseous from chemo and radiation.
  
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Chromo200
Posted on November 26, 2012 at 4:50pm
The waiting list for Humbolt will be a long one. I wonder if Obama will be contributing to the Institute.

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