Actor Woody Harrelson can’t understand why the media makes such a fuss about his love of marijuana because "we’re all drug addicts."
The star has become the Hollywood poster boy for all things hemp and high, and he even lit up a joint for a recent Playboy magazine interview at his home in Hawaii.
Harrelson just can’t understand why marijuana hasn’t been legalized and why everyone thinks he’s high all the time.
He tells the publication, "I’ve seen it printed that I’m a marijuana activist, and I understand that, but it’s really just something I enjoy.
"Folks may have a drink, … People may want to pop a pill before going to a party -= that’s not for me. Cocaine freaks me out.
"I like the mellow vibe of herb, its uninhibiting effect. For me, it’s a better drug than any of the others, and since we’re all drug addicts, I don’t think it’s a bad choice.
"Whether your drug is sugar, coffee, sex, exercise or religion – everybody has something.
"I was two years on (attention deficit disorder drug) Ritalin; my brother was eight years on it. If you didn’t have a drug addict before, you had one after. You have someone who’s forever chasing the dream.
In Cordoba, the Federal Court declared unconstitutional the section of the drugs law that punishes marijuana possession for personal use, in harmony with the Supreme Court ruling a week ago.
The Federal Court No. 2 of Cordoba, presided by Judge Alejandro Sanchez Freytes, declared unconstitutional the section of Law nº 23,737, in the case “Ledesma, Roberto Carlos”, so that it acquitted a man accused of having eight grams of marijuana.
The resolution of Sanchez Freytes, on August 31, known today is the first produced in Cordoba following the criteria of a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, in which members of the High Court declared unconstitutional the punishment of use of marijuana by adults, if it takes place in private environment and does not involve risks to others.
The defendant, represented by the official defense attorney Mercedes Crespi, was arrested on April 1st this year with four bundles of marijuana, so he was indicted of possession of drugs for personal use.
Nevada Burning Man Festival Sees Giant Aerial Marijuana Bud Banner That Protests Hydroponics Hijacking Hydroponics Company Flies Marijuana Bud Banner at Nevada Burning Man Festival
SEATTLE, Sept. 4 /PRNewswire/ — On the day that the Man burns at the legendary Nevada Burning Man event this year in the Black Rock Desert, partiers will see a giant marijuana bud banner flying overhead.
The huge banner, which has already flown over Seattle Hempfest and San Francisco, features a glistening marijuana flower, along with lettering that asks the question “Want Big, Sugary Buds?”
The controversial banner is the brainchild of Michael “Big Mike” Straumietis, co-founder of international hydroponics nutrients manufacturer Advanced Nutrients.
“We fly this banner to protest the hydroponic hijacking of our industry by a cadre of good old boys who ration information, goods and services to orchestrate a takeover of hydroponics commerce that hurts growers, retailers and vendors,” says Straumietis.
Ever since he went public with his protests, Straumietis has drawn widespread applause for his documented claim that five hydroponics companies (Hydrofarm, Sunlight Supply, General Hydroponics, Botanicare and Technaflora) have used waste and abuse to interfere with the free flow of hydroponics information, goods and services.
Straumietis notes that Americans spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year on hydroponic equipment and supplies and the majority of those materials grow medical marijuana.
“I hear serious complaints about the good old boys hydroponics hijacking,” Straumietis says. “From sick and dying medical marijuana patients discouraged from growing their own medicine because the good old boys ration and deny access to hydroponics information. From hydroponics retailers sick of the good old boys interfering with the open market. From hydroponics inventors and manufacturers indignant about the good old boys blockading access to the hydroponics marketplace.
” Unlike the Burning Man Project, in which tens of thousands of people show up to co-create a desert democracy community every year, the good old boys’ hydroponics hijacking runs the hydroponics industry like a medieval kingdom, Straumietis charges.
“These powerful hydroponics companies and distributors act like brutal dictators,” Straumietis says. “Medical marijuana is legal in 13 states, but the good old boys refuse to test or design their products for marijuana, which limits the effectiveness of marijuana medicine. They won’t let customers, hydroponics stores or hydroponics magazines discuss marijuana. They deny information and access to growers, companies and vendors.
” Straumietis notes that ever since Advanced Nutrients was founded in 2001, it has chipped away at the good old boys’ near-stranglehold on hydroponics commerce by creating a new generation of scientifically-designed nutrients and supplements that greatly improve the yield and potency of medical marijuana.
Tired of “dirty tricks” and monopoly tactics from the good old boys, Straumietis created his airborne bud banner that’s half the size of a football field. The flying sensation made its eye-popping debut over the Maximum Yield Indoor Gardening Expo in San Francisco on July 26 and it also flew over Seattle Hempfest in August. After Burning Man, the banner flies over Southern California on Labor Day weekend.
“The energy, cooperation and passion of Burning Man will flourish in the hydroponics industry when we force the good old boys to stop their hydroponic hijacking,” Straumietis says. “I issued a million dollar challenge for the good old boys to use their best nutrients against mine and see who grows the biggest, most potent buds. They’re afraid to accept my challenge. But I will not rest until the good old boys have stopped harming patients, retailers and vendors.”
* U.S. warms to Mexico’s drug decriminalization law
* Mexico says law frees it to go after crime cartels
By Robin Emmott
MONTERREY, Mexico, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Washington is closely watching Mexico’s recent decriminalization of drugs but respects its neighbor’s move as a tool in the fight against drug cartels, two senior U.S. officials said on Thursday.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon last month signed a law legalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, heroin, opium, cocaine, methamphetamine and LSD for personal use, three years after the country ditched a similar plan under pressure from the Bush administration.
More than 13,000 people have died in Mexico’s drug war since late 2006. The escalating conflict appears to have nudged the United States, now under the Obama administration, toward quiet support despite its own prohibitionist federal laws.
"We will take a watchful attitude. It is clearly in the authority of the government of Mexico to pass these laws," U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told Reuters during a visit of border governors to the northern Mexican city of Monterrey.
Mexico says the new law frees it up to go after major criminal cartels that move billions of dollars of narcotics into the United States, the world’s top illicit drug market.
Crushing the cartels, who arm themselves with weapons smuggled from the United States and kill rivals at will on busy city streets, has become a major test of Calderon’s presidency as the violence worries investors.
Hooded gunmen burst into a Mexican rehabilitation clinic near the U.S. border on Wednesday, lining up patients before killing 17 of them [ID:nN0252253].
"President Calderon has taken on (the drug cartels) … using limited law enforcement resources, including the expansion of laws to go after drug dealers, using tools that he didn’t have, and that is something that the Obama administration applauds," U.S. border czar Alan Bersin said.
DRUG TOURISM UNLIKELY
The support appears to mark a change in Washington’s approach to the drug war.
In 2006, Mexico was close to enacting reforms similar to those that took effect on Aug. 21. Pressure from U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration pushed then Mexican President Vicente Fox to veto a bill his own party had written and he had supported. [ID:nL339902]
Kerlikowske said he doubted the new law would provoke drug tourism — in which Americans would go to Mexico to get high legally — because it was still difficult and dangerous to buy narcotics from dealers on Mexican streets.
Asked if Washington could learn from Mexico and take the step to allow possession of small quantities of harder drugs like heroin, Kerlikowske said: "It is not something that has been discussed under any circumstances."
Groups lobbying for the reform of U.S. drug policies hope Mexico’s law could help ignite a change at home, where President Barack Obama has taken a less confrontational approach to the nation’s 35 million illegal drug users.
Obama, who described youthful marijuana and cocaine use in his autobiography, has told Congress to eliminate the sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine.
The FBI is no longer raiding state-approved facilities that distribute marijuana for medical purposes. (Editing by John O’Callaghan)
FREE DANA BEAL
FREE EDDY LEPP
FREE MARC EMERY
