"…to live outside the law, you must be honest."
- Bob Dylan: Absolutely Sweet Marie -

    I consider myself a responsible and caring parent who believes in discipline, respect, and good manners. So when I take a controversial stand, I do it with forethought and with seriousness. I'm not frivolous, whacked, spacey, or fried, and I'm nothing like Sean Penn's stoner character in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. If anything I am strict, orderly, abstemious, and very much in control. I like things to be in their right place. 
    I'm not a liberal Democrat; I have voted Republican or Independent all my life. I'm a Marine who graduated from the Naval Academy and worked in sensitive, classified jobs on everything from aircraft carriers to submarines. I'm a motivational speaker who has talked to well over three million school children about making the right choices when it comes to drugs. I've done public service anti-drug announcements for the White House. I'm a syndicated television talk show host who has managed to stay on the air for thirteen years. I'm a person who cares about crime, addiction, child abuse, medical care and the high cost of insurance. I'm also a person in constant pain and I don't want to become a prescription drug addict. 
    So I use cannabis. I inhale it through a vaporizer. I bake it into cookies. I condense it into jams. When I can't wait for it to digest as food, I smoke it.
    Even though I don't get high from what I put into my body, that still makes me, in the eyes of the law, a criminal.
    I think that's wrong.  There is something very archaic about the law that labels those of us who have chronic pain criminals for trying to subdue that pain and remain active and productive.
    Federal law classifies drugs according to schedules, from I to V. Schedule V drugs like the cough syrup Robitussin A-C and the diarrhea- stopping Lomotil are considered to have the lowest potential for abuse. Schedule IV drugs like Xanax, Valium, Ambien, and Halcion also have a low potential for abuse. Abuse of either schedule V or IV drugs "may lead to limited physical dependence or psychological dependence." Schedule III drugs, like the pure THC Marinol, anabolic steroids, barbiturates, and Phenobarbital have a "moderate" potential for abuse. Schedule II-amphetamines, cocaine, codeine, methadone, morphine, and opium-have a high potential for abuse which may lead to "severe psychological or physical dependence."  The U.S. allows some medicinal use of schedule II drugs, but with a heavy restrictions. Then there is Schedule I.  These drugs are banned, considered unsafe to use even under medical supervision, with a high potential for abuse. PCP, LSD, heroin and Quaaludes are classified Schedule I. And so is marijuana.
    This has got to change. Would I legalize heroin in America? No. Would I legalize Ecstasy? No. Would I encourage children under voting age to use any kind of drug? Absolutely not. Are there certain drugs I would legalize for medicinal purposes, which would then generate revenue for this country to deal with addiction?  Yes!  I think it's feasible and I think it would be smart. 
    This is something the leaders of this country don't want to hear.  They will talk about how they are against drugs and in favor of protecting our children, yet they will allow the highly addictive substance called alcohol to pervade every aspect of a child's life.  Every time our children turn on the television to watch a sporting event they see beer commercials. Picnics, celebrations, BBQ's, ballparks-we're teaching them that wherever there is "fun" and "good times" there's alcohol.  In magazines, on radio and television, we are inundated ten times an hour by ads for drugs: if you don't feel great take an antidepressant or an ibuprofen or an over-the-counter medicine that might damage your liver. It's shoved down our throats and then we wonder why this nation has an addiction problem. But we won't talk about that. 
    We don't need any more studies to know the effects of too much alcohol in our systems. We don't need further tests showing that taking more than three aspirin at a time can cause serious damage to your stomach, and taking a handful is a suicide attempt. And by now we really don't need to test marijuana to know that it can get you high, or give you the munchies. 
Well, we also know it relieves pain, and it isn't addictive.  Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant. 
    Way back in 1938, New York's Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia appointed a committee to study marijuana. The committee consisted of the commissioners of Corrections, Health, and Hospitals, the director of the Division of Psychiatry of the Department of Hospitals, two pharmacologists, two internists, and three psychiatrists. It took them six years to present their findings: marijuana didn't cause aggressive or antisocial behavior; it wasn't sexually overstimulating; it didn't change personalities; it didn't cause major crimes.  All those myths which had created the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 were dispelled, but the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was not going to take these findings to heart. Even though LaGuardia remained New York's mayor until 1945, the study was largely ignored. 
    Forty-four  years later, in 1988, the Drug Enforcement Administration's administrative law judge, Francis L. Young, presided over public hearings that lasted two years to consider reclassifying marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II. Judge Young concluded that marijuana's classification should be changed, saying, "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man…One must reasonably conclude that there is accepted safety for use of marijuana under medical supervision. To conclude otherwise, on the record, would be unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious." Yet the DEA ignored Young's conclusions and refused to reclassify marijuana. 
    In 1999, the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, released a two-year study of the marijuana plant identifying more than sixty kinds of cannabinoids and their specific actions on the brain and the body. They recommended that the government pay for research that would speed up the development of more cannabinoid drugs. This was the study that showed marijuana was effective in combating the muscle spasms associated with MS. 
    That same year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government has yet to identify any interest it may have in blocking the distribution of marijuana to those with medical need.  It found that legal alternatives to marijuana don't work or cause intolerable side effects. 
    And yet, in 2002, a DEA spokesman reacting to the passing of California's Proposition 215 to allow patients to use marijuana to alleviate pain, nausea, and lack of appetite, said: "There is no such thing as medical marijuana. We are Americans first, Californians second."
    Americans first? What does that mean? Am I un-American because I would rather use pot than OxyContin; natural weed rather than synthetic Marinol?  How hypocritical can these government officials get?
    I've been to congressional events and dinners where all the congressmen are sitting around with drinks in their hands pontificating about how smoking a joint is a crime and a sin.  It's ridiculous.  Like other controversial issues, there are people who will never back down on marijuana. Yet these same people think nothing of attending a rally to fight against it with a beer in their hands.  God knows we promote every other drug under the sun, making sure that no matter what your problem is you take something for it--as long as whatever you take is going to have the greatest profit margin for the pharmaceutical companies, who contribute heavily to both political parties.  It's no secret that these companies stand to lose billions of dollars annually if marijuana were legal in the U.S. and cultivated and sold by the government. Or simply grown in one's garden next to the rose bush and the cacti.
    To convince the federal government of the benefits of marijuana as medicine requires clinical trials; but the government insists that clinical trials are unwarranted because no solid evidence exists of pot's medical value. Hello? Has anybody ever heard of Catch-22?  The government controls the marijuana that they would accept for testing, but they won't grant approval for any tests. Scientists can obtain pot only from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which gets it from a government-approved farm in Mississippi. NIDA insists that researchers who apply for the plant must have their studies approved by the National Institute of Health. The National Institutes of Health checks with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) which insists that no American independent research or federal health program should be allowed to investigate natural cannabis derivatives for medicine. They just make you go around in circles until finally you stop trying. Scientists like Paul Consroe, a professor at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, feel frustrated by the Kafkaesque bureaucratic maze the government has created to keep acceptable studies of marijuana from being done or, if done, from being publicized. "Marijuana has been studied to death," Consroe says. "It's not a question of science; it's a political drug."

Order Climbing Higher here.

Read more about the drug war here.

...or so we've heard. We've never actually SEEN such a thing, but if we do, we'll let you know.

How do I pick what I pick? Did that actress direct her porn film? What wife of what governor caught him in bed with another guy. Who was the other guy? Was it the guy in the porn film with the actress? When does a rumor become a fact? What have I got to say about that thing you heard? Imagine if a billion rumors came your way every day. Which ones are true? It's all up to you. Absolutely everything falls into the category of "Things that Might be True." The final journalistic equation is absolute: the extent to which somebody wants the story buried is equal to the extent to which the story may be believed. 

That would have to be mmmnnnppph, what's happening to me? My fingers have turned into cream cheese. Look the other way, quick, look the other way. You don't want to see this.

     Hey, man, like I'm doing all this for YOU, man, all for YOU, and it really hurts, I mean it really really hurts because pain is painful but it's okay, don't worry about it because I'm doing it for YOU, man, only for YOU, suffering for YOU, so you better be grateful you wretched bastards because if you're not, if I went through all this for nothing, then I'm coming to get you. The next time you look under the bed, I'll be there, bleeding on the carpet. I gotta get at least a whiff of gratitude for going through all this blood and humiliation and pain and torture and death, so I'm going to make you WATCH all my blood and humiliation and pain and torture and death.
    Did I mention the pain? It was tremendous, really tremendous, and I did it all for YOU, so you better APPRECIATE it, that's all I can say. Appreciate what I went through in your behalf, because if they hadn't been coming after me, they'd have been coming after you.

   Good. Now that's settled. All you have to do to prove yourself worthy of flying on angel wings to a cloudy powderpuff tomorrow instead of plummeting to the fiery depths of really bad things that you won't like forever and ever is to wear a replica of some artifact of my execution around your neck, a really nice one, not some hand carved chunk of wood but a finely crafted and dainty medallion of gold or silver, fashioned after the spikes they hammered into my hands. This will prove to the world that you are not a puppet.

    There's a special this week on replicas of the cross. A bit more expensive but actually keeps away vampires. 

- Jesus Christ: critic/savior/spokesman/masochist -

Orwell Rolls in His Grave looks really good.

1. I Remember George (gripping account of one man's service in the Alabama National guard alongside George W. Bush) 
2. Good-bye, Bessie (tragic story of small, family farm lost due to estate tax) 
3. Yes, We Are Hiring (inspiring tale of small businessman able to hire due to tax cuts) 
4. Praise Jesus, We Learnin' Now (How the No Child Left Behind Bill helped one poor student get a great education) 
5. On the Run (Fanatical Pakistani terrorist is so demoralized by America's triumph in Iraq, he founds Islamabad chapter of Young Republicans) 

Freedom rang in Haiti
So where was Warren Beatty?
Freedom rang inertia
But it won't reimburse ya
Freedom rang all over
a clover on the Dover
Let Freedom Ring
Let Freedom Ring

Freedom wasn't ready
to actually go steady
Freedom wanted freedom
to completely supersede 'em
Freedom was complicit
Freedom wants to kiss it
Let Freedom Ring
Let Freedom Ring

Don't look at me, please don't look at me.

With Print-on-Demand technology, bookmobiles, or mobile libraries, no longer have to drag around stacks of books, they can simply instantly print out any book from the Internet that any reader desires. AnywhereBooks is doing it in Uganda, but this is an idea that should spread everywhere that literacy is a problem.

"Jews ask Patriot Act to Arrest Mel Gibson."

"Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation."
- Mark Twain -

"Jesus is coming. Look busy."
- Tattoo on the Archbishop of Canterbury's ass in Johnny English -

    "Q: So back in 1989 Denmark started recognizing same-sex partnerships and has been expanding the benefits over time; in this country, people say that to do this would bring about the destruction of society so I was just curious to see if society in Denmark had been destroyed.
   A: not yet ;)"
- My Short Interview with a Dane -

"I don't think that anyone is worried that a gay married couple is going to fly an airplane into downtown L.A."
- Allan Hoffenblum -

"I asked the receptionist for the bathroom, and he pointed me down a long, dark corridor. Halfway there, I noticed a door was ajar and poked my head in. What I saw gave me a jolt. Dozens of Real Dolls were hanging from the walls by metal hooks in the back of their necks. They stared blankly at each other and at me, their mouths agape. It looked like a mass lynching at the Playboy Mansion. Aaron left the room while I put on a condom and got between her legs. The initial pleasure of Karen's tightness was tempered by the feeling that I was humping a cadaver and was about to experience my first morgueasm."
- Grant Stoddard: Sex Doll, I did it for science -

"It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends."
- Samuel Johnson -

"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
- Frederick Douglass: African-American abolitionist -

"What civilization is, I suppose, is the things you find to worry about after your belly's full."
- Harry Turtledove: Prince of the North -

"Sure Kerry can bring out Green Berets he saved in Nam but you never hear about the several times Bush took the wheel when his guardsmen buddies were too hammered to drive."
- Barry Crimmins -

"Watch Money. Money is a barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that our society is doomed."
- Ayn Rand -

"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."
- Carl Sandburg -

"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular."
- Adlai Stevenson -

"He who fights against monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process."
- Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil -

"I'm sorry, it's the Woody Allen clause. She's not his daughter, Woody's right. You can adopt a girl, and when she turns 16, fuck her." 
- Rosie O'Donnel -

"You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything."
- Ike Turner -

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad."
- Aldous Huxley -

"You mean my whole fallacy's wrong?"
- Marshall McLuhan -

"Be as if."
- Andrew Boyd -

There's a fine line between simply breaking the law and committing legitimate civil disobedience. Here's a guide.

Before doing battle, you should check out this Guide to Donald Rumsfeld's fighting technique.

media venture collective is all about media revolution. media venture collective is all about disruptive media technologies. media venture collective is all about doing to monopoly media what Linux does to Microsoft.

I, Satan, command you to listen to Stairway to Heaven backwards.

I suppose you've always wondered what Raging Bull would have been like if it had been starring Fred Flintstone. Now you can find out.

• Why I'm Not a Terrorist
• My Candidate: John Buchanan: Bush's GOP Challenger Detained by US Secret Service
• Republican Zen Bastard: Meet the Republican who will Challenge Bush by Paul Krassner
• Zen Bastard: Predictions for 2004 by Paul Krassner
• Making the Yoke Obsolete
• Good News/Bad News about Saddam's Capture
• Zen Bastard: Blowjobs, Ballet, Baggies - the parts left out of the Reagan movie by Paul Krassner
• Tips on Junk Calls by Ken Rubin
• The Worst Commercial on Television
• Marketing Ploys from Hell
• Zen Bastard: Threats Against the President by Paul Krassner
• The Bush/Nazi Connection: Journalist John Buchanan gets targeted
• Why Schwarzenegger Gropes
• Issue #1 of the Hollywood Free Press
• Me and Monty Python
• Special 9/11 "Don't Take My Word for It"
• Zen Bastard: Who's Need to Know? by Paul Krassner
• Equal Time with Bob Boudelang, Angry American Patriot (An Other Triumph For George W. And You Cannot Prove Those Are My Baboon Noses So Stop Saying That!!)
• Mordechai Vanunu: The Prisoner of Zion by Mary La Rosa
• Equal Time with Bob Boudelang, Angry American Patriot (I Am Not Fair and Balanced and I Am Not A Sissy For Having A George W. Bush Doll So Stop Saying That!!)
• Bob Hope's Last Monologue from Heaven by Lynette Sheffield
• Inside/Outside #1: The Riddicks vs. Judge Burrell by Billy Hayes
• The California Choice
• Why I'm Against Gay Marriage
• Creation Science Fair Proves God Exists by Tom Norris
• What Would Jesus Do About Cramps? by Nancy Cain
• Summer Reading or Harry Potter vs. What's-His-Face
• Scumbags of the Week - Letter to the RIAA
• Hello Mullah, Hello Fatwah
• The Israeli Wall
• Dream Job or How Disinfotainment Today Almost Came Out in Print
• Celebrities vs. the United States Government
• Test of the National Homeland Reconciliation and Healing System
• The Still Missing Artifacts
• Why Bush is Nothing Like Hitler
• Tim Robbins' Speech to theNational Press Club
• Randy Newman's "Follow the Flag"
• How I would Re-Write the Bill of Rights by Satan
• I Didn't See the News Today, Oh Boy
• Global Voice by Jim Channon
• Daniel Ellsberg's Review of the Made-for-TV Movie The Pentagon Papers
• The Lemon Pledge of Allegiance
• U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
• Message from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
• Obfuscation of the Week: Who grows the most opium? We do.
• Urgent Plea for Assistance from George W. Bush
• How I Got the Rights to Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction
• Please Help the FBI Find These People
• The Adventures of Xarvon: Alien Investigator
• The Under-Reported Story of the Year - Margie Schoedinger vs. George W. Bush
• Why I'm Optimistic About the Future by Paul Krassner
• Booze (A movie I'd like to see)
• Hope (after the election)
• The Empty Boat by Chuang Tzu
• Special Halloween/Election Issue
• What's Wrong with Leonard Maltin?
• Forwarded E-mail from Satan
• A Letter from Tom Robbins
• Good Thing/Bad Thing - American Foreign Policy
• The Ultimate Politically Correct Flag and Pledge of Allegiance
• A Letter from Paul Krassner
• The History of Denials

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