Susan Brassfield Cogan's Open Salon Blog

The Drug War Must Advertise

Sat, 26 May 2012 14:05:55 -0400

Recently, I saw a film version of Murder must Advertise, In the course of the story there are four or five murders for our sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, to solve. Set in England in 1933, at the heart of the story is the illegal drug trade. In this instance it's a bunch of dark villains selling cocaine.

Cocaine use is depicted as causing unauthorized laughter. People who take cocaine laugh too hard and too loud. Cocaine users wear funny costumes and dance on tables. There is a suggestion that the women are loose. Though the “dope users” are living wild and crazy, not one single person dies of using cocaine. All of the people who are killed during the course of the story, die because cocaine was illegal.

People do die of cocaine use. It constricts the blood vessels and if you have an underlying heart condition cocaine can trigger a heart attack. It's much worse if you combine cocaine and alcohol. But death by cocaine or even a combination of cocaine and alcohol is actually quite rare.

The exact lethal dose of cocaine is known. Somewhere in the bowels of the CDC archives you can find a document which will tell you how many grams of cocaine per kilogram of body weight you have to ingest to keel over dead. (It's about 1.5 grams for an ordinary sized person)

What is the lethal dose of pot? (grams of marijuana or THC per kilogram of body weight)

There is NO KNOWN LETHAL DOSE OF MARIJUANA. There are no deaths which have been attributed to marijuana. None. Websites that list the bad effects of marijuana are pathetic. They are larded with weasel words like “associated with” and “studies suggest that.” They mention that smoking pot will make you cough. “It is suggested” (by whom?) that marijuana “may” cause memory loss. It may slightly lower your IQ. May. Might. The more honest sources admit that bad effects are only seen with heavy use—excuse me, there is no “use” of marijuana. No matter how rarely it is ingested, is only abused.

So why is it illegal?

Is it because it causes unauthorized giggling? Giggling you don't have coming to you?

I didn't count the number of alcoholic beverages Lord Peter Wimsey consumes in the course of Murder Must Advertise. More than a dozen, I would guess. “Care for a spot of brandy, eh wot, Old Chap?” The movie is soaked in booze.

How many people die of alcohol every year? More than 75,000 in the US. How many people die as a result of the manufacture and sale of this perfectly legal substance?

ZERO.

The makers of Budweiser and Coors do not have gangs roaming the streets cutting each others throats to gain turf. They do not try to sneak their products into high schools. Their employees do not carry machine guns. They do not bump each other off or rub each other out. No drone strikes are contemplated on the Coors brewery in Boulder, Colorado.

The parking lot of the Budweiser brewery in St. Louis, Missouri does not look like this:

Those people represented by the chalk outlines did not die from the harmful toxicity of marijuana or even cocaine. They died because of the cruel, meaningless and barbaric “war” on drugs.

Here are the short term bad effects of marijuana according to the DEA:
“The short term effects of marijuana use include: memory loss, distorted perception, trouble with thinking and problem solving, loss of motor skills, decrease in muscle strength, increased heart rate, and anxiety.”

These “bad effects” sound like two Benadryl washed down with a cup of coffee.

Here are the short term consequences of the drug “war” (click on this link only if you have a strong stomach)

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/05/mexicos-drug-war-50-000-dead-in-6-years/100299/

Neo-Puritanism vs. The Meat Dress

Sat, 19 May 2012 12:05:36 -0400

We have a streak of Puritanism in this country that’s never gone away. I’m sure you are surprised I would say that in view of the most recent Time Magazine cover, the one with the woman with her blouse pulled down and the kid, um, nursing. Therefore you may wonder what I mean when I say “Puritanism.”

Surely you’ve seen pictures of Lady Gaga in her dress made out of raw meat. Puritanism made us care about it. There were two things Ms. Gaga knew about that dress. (1) it was bad and (2) there wasn’t enough of it.

The dress didn’t leave much to the imagination. Not enough meat covered not enough meat.

As a side note (or maybe this leads to my next point): To keep that couture from rotting, it would have to be refrigerated, which means it would have been friggin cold. Or they warmed it before she put it on which means it smelled like dead meat. Either way I have a feeling it didn’t hang on her body much longer than the photo op.

The meat dress was supposed to offend two different kinds of puritans. The first is obvious. The sex puritans. There are still a few of them out there who hyperventilate in horror at a young girl who shows too much skin.

The other kind of puritan would be the meat-is-murder folks.

Only people of questionable moral character eat meat. It is much more virtuous to be vegetarian.

No, wait! Vegetarianism is immoral! You must be vegan!

No! Licentious libertine! You must be vegan and organic!

No, you rapacious and wasteful, monster, you must be vegan, organic and local!

And, of course you are a lazy slob if you aren’t vegan, organic, local and grow your own…out of non-GMO seeds. Saved from corn eat by the original Native Americans who lived on this sacred land before you.

I’m 1/32 Cherokee. I just thought it needed to be said.

I know this will shock you, but I have a friend who smokes. She’s very good about it and always goes outside.

She works in a government building and at one time they had a specially ventilated (according to federal regulations) break room where people could smoke without subjecting coworkers to the filthy habit.

Then they passed a law/regulation/rule that there could be no smoking anywhere in the building. So my friend was forced into the outside designated smoking areas and, when those were banned, into the parking lot. But eventually the neo-puritans noticed that some molecule of immoral smoke might brush against a passer-by and therefore all smoking as been completely banned on government property (as of July 2012).

My friend works in a government building, so naturally it’s in a bad part of town. Therefore she will be forced to smoke across the street with the drug dealers and the hos. Compared with the standard group of neo-puritans, this may be a step up.

Puritanism was ugly when they were hanging witches and it has not become more attractive as we turn our attention to other vices like tobacco, tofu made from non-GMO soy beans and drugs that make you giggle.

More on immoral, unauthorized giggling next week.

Pot as Porn

Thu, 17 May 2012 19:05:40 -0400

In the 19th Century pot was legal and showing your knees was not. Right now I’m sitting in a crowded restaurant and its a fairly cool day outside. I can see two pairs of naked knees from where I sit. How many have marijuana concealed somewhere in a purse or pocket? Today, it’s probably more than those who are wearing jogging shorts.

There are about 100 people in this room. The number of people who have exposed their knees in public is probably pretty close to 100%. The number of these people on average who have smoked pot at sometime in their lives is around 41%. The percentage goes to 54% if you exclude the elderly.

I have no idea how they capture these numbers. Who is going to confess to a Federal crime over the phone to a pollster?

The last person to be arrested in the US for exposing their knees to public view probably died a half century ago. In 2010, 750,591 people were arrested for mere possession of marijuana. In spite of the most horrific and destructive campaign to eradicate drug use; in spite of unbelievably cruel and lengthy punishments, that number has more than doubled since 1980. Pot is not getting less popular. It is getting MORE popular.

In spite of its popularity, it’s still uncouth to discuss it in polite society. If someone advocates for the legalization of marijuana, people cast their gaze in another direction. They blush and snicker. Anyone who wants to legalize pot obviously just wants to get high. They are dopers, bums, slackers, disgusting, without ambition, are of weak moral character and can be dismissed out of hand. All they want out of life is a case of Ramen noodles and to continue living in their mothers’ basements—and of, of course, they are automatically criminals.

The people who smoke pot or advocate for its legality are libertines, roues, soiled doves, people of low moral character, given to telling coarse jokes and dousing themselves in cheap perfume. Pot smokers are not received in polite society. One does not advocate it in front of the ladies. Unless you condemn it emphatically, you will not speak of it. No, wait. That’s how they viewed sexuality in the 19th century. Today we view the exposure of skin like this, while this is how marijuana use and legalization is viewed.

So only potheads, libertarians and other lowlifes advocate for legalization. It has nothing to do with this:

Kathryn Johnston, an 88-year-old living in Atlanta, Georgia, was shot by plainclothes police as they entered her home with a no-knock warrant after cutting the security bars. This warrant was obtained using fraudulent information as the basis for the narcotics raid. Ms. Johnston fired a warning shot, fearing a home invasion, and was shot multiple times in response.

Or this:

http://youtu.be/V--tz3IMCY4?t=48s

Why is Marijuana Illegal?

Sat, 5 May 2012 12:05:14 -0400

This is the first of a series on marijuana prohibition.

I don’t use any recreational drug nor do I ever intend to. My ideas are fairly radical in that I think all recreational drugs should be legal. I think the highly addictive drugs should be restricted to behind the counter at the pharmacy and perhaps an upper limit imposed on how much you can buy per month. I think compounds and substances that can credibly be classified as poisons (arsenic, strychnine, etc.) should be illegal to buy or possess without filling out some paperwork.

Since I am a devotee of scientific evidence, all of the above opinions can be changed and have changed over the years.

All that said, I am going to narrowly focus on marijuana. Marijuana prohibition has become a cancer on our society that only continues to metastasize year after year, destroying more and more people for no good reason. The reason I am horrified by the criminalization of marijuana is precisely because I am devoted to evidence. There is very little evidence that marijuana is harmful to either individuals or to society. There is a huge amount of evidence that criminalization is causing widespread death and devastation.

Whatever the reason it was classified along with heroine, it is not because it is a dangerous drug. It is not because it is addictive. It is not because it is poisonous and will kill you—there is no known lethal dose. It will not make you violent. It makes you relaxed and friendly much like the early stages of alcohol use.

A glass of wine will warm and cheer you. A bottle of beer can enhance enjoyment of many activities, but everyone knows drinking to excess can lead to addiction, physical damage, violence and crime, even death from alcohol poisoning. Yet a drug called alcohol can be purchased at any grocery store. So can cigarettes, which cause physical damage leading to death and are highly addictive.

None of that is the case with marijuana. So what makes marijuana so special? Why is it illegal to the extent that it is classified with ecstasy, which has a well-documented lethal dose?

Marijuana is not physically addicting. It is sometimes psychologically addicting to the point that if the user is deprived, they will be unhappy. Its loss will be a psychological wrench. This author feels exactly the same way about coffee. If I were suddenly deprived of it, I would be miserable. However, there won’t be any life-threatening convulsions (as with withdrawal from heroine) or any other symptoms of physical addiction other than a manageable headache.

With marijuana withdrawal, there isn’t even the headache.

So why is marijuana illegal?

Marijuana first started to get government attention in the 1930s. Frustrated by the inability to keep alcohol illegal (alcohol was criminalized between 1919 and 1933) perhaps the guardians of moral purity cast around for other mind-altering substances that didn’t have wealthy and politically powerful defenders.

Marijuana was cheaper than alcohol because it literally grows anywhere like, well, a weed. It was very popular among Mexican immigrants and African-Americans. In the 1930s there could not possibly be two less powerful groups of people.

In the 1950s marijuana, in some states, was heavily targeted for prohibition and law enforcement. Possession and sale could bring stiff mandatory minimum prison sentences.

Then came the counterculture of the 1960s. Marijuana was still popular with Blacks and Mexicans but it also became popular with young white people. In the 1960s Blacks and Mexicans were invisible. Society, for the most part, considered them beneath notice. The white hippies were not. Now there were three groups using marijuana who were not wealthy and had no political power. In 1973 Richard Nixon reorganized a handful of federal agencies and created the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In 1975 the Supreme Court ruled that it was not cruel and unusual punishment to sentence someone to 20 years in prison for sale and possession of marijuana. They were wrong. While it may not have been unusual, it was blindingly, mountainously and viciously cruel.

Trayvon Martin's 46 Days

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:04:00 -0400

Trayvon Martin was dead for 46 days before the man who shot him stood in front of a judge. It was 46 days too long.

George Zimmerman may get off. He may actually be innocent—well, of premeditated murder, anyway.

To my unsophisticated, untrained ears, the 911 call shows clear premeditation. Zimmerman was determined to kill a bad guy and it’s obvious to any casual observer that a black man in a hoodie is a bad guy—especially after dark.

But that’s just me. I could be reading in motivations and ideas that are not actually there. I’m not alone in doing that. It seems like nearly everyone has done it. Everyone has looked at this case and seen their own fears and suspicions. It’s how all of us look at everything in life. We bring our history and our story-making tendencies to every set of facts. Most of the time it works pretty well. After all, there are toy robots on Mars and human footprints on the moon—not to mention the high-tech instrument upon which you are reading these words.

We can be tricked and fooled by what we see, want to see, don’t want to see … we live in samsara after all, the world of suffering and illusion.

I recently saw a photo of Zimmerman’s bloody head. The photo was allegedly taken by a witness who arrived after the shooting but before the police arrived. The blood trickles downward and isn’t smeared as you would think it would be if Zimmerman had been smashed against concrete. But I’m not a forensics expert. There was no bloody bruise on the back of Zimmerman’s head a while later at the police station, not even a band-aid. Are there police photos that show the same injuries? We need to know that before we take this seriously.

But we can’t litigate this case based on fears, suspicions and unfounded speculation. That’s not how justice gets done, if there is to be justice.

Forty-six days. That’s how long justice was delayed. Zimmerman may be innocent—I don’t think so, but I haven't seen all the evidence. The fact remains that for 46 days all the evidence didn’t matter. One teenager was dead and the man who pulled the trigger was simply released with barely any questioning.

Bill Maher quipped that in Florida they arrest people in alphabetical order. Yeah, LOL, etc. If there hadn’t been a nationwide protest, if this had never made it onto CNN or into the New York Times, Zimmerman would have walked away anonymously without any further comment. Someone might have been laughing, but the rest of us would never know. It would have been buried in silence and lost forever.

***

The photo is a famous illusion. Seen one way it’s a beautiful woman looking away from the viewer. Without changing a single line one can also see an old woman looking to the viewer’s left.