Quick Hits (page 2)
Pair Face New Pot Charges
By: Joe Nelson, (Source: San Bernardino County Sun)
A couple with two High Desert homes are at the center of state and federal authorities' battle over medical marijuana use.
Gary Barrett, 34, and his wife, Anna Barrett, 32, were arrested Wednesday by Drug Enforcement Administration agents on suspicion of marijuana cultivation after a federal indictment alleged they cultivated more than 700 plants at their homes in San Bernardino and San Luis Obispo counties.
The May 13 indictment against the couple, who for years have advocated the medical use of marijuana, came four days after Victorville Superior Court Judge Stephen Ashworth acquitted them on marijuana cultivation charges, ruling they were legitimate medical marijuana users according to California's Compassionate Use Act of 1996, under Proposition 215.
The seven-page federal indictment charges the couple with five counts of conspiring to cultivate and cultivating marijuana, and providing a place to cultivate the drug.
The Barretts, who could not be reached for comment Friday, were released on $20,000 bond each on Thursday, said Daniel Halpern, their attorney. He said their arraignment is expected Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
Between Sept. 6, 2001, and Feb. 14, the pair cultivated 550 marijuana plants at their home in Paso Robles, 134 plants at their Victorville home and 34 plants at their home near Helendale, the indictment alleges.
In the San Bernardino County case, Judge Ashworth's May 9 ruling vacated a previous ruling by Judge Margaret A. Powers, who ordered the couple to stand trial on the charges, said Deputy District Attorney James Hosking, who handled the couple's case.
The Barretts claim they need the marijuana to quell pain from medical problems. Anna Barrett argues she needs marijuana to boost her appetite and ease chronic pain she suffers from a five-story fall from a balcony in London, Hosking said. He said Gary Barrett argued he needs the drug for a digestive disorder called Crohn's disease, which inflames and causes ulcers in the intestines and also affects the digestive system.
Hosking said the case doesn't fall under the double-jeopardy rule, which prevents trying a defendant twice on the same charge. He cited the legal concept of separate sovereigns, which allows state and federal governments to charge and try defendants separately.
While Hosking said he did not hand the case over to the federal officials following the acquittal at the state level, Helpern said he finds it odd that the indictment came down so quickly after Ashworth's ruling.
"It's unfortunate that state law enforcement officials feel that in order to gain a conviction, they have to call in the federal government," Helpern said.
The indictment has generated an outcry from Americans for Safe Access, a nonprofit group pushing to have U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Bush administration back off from their anti-medical marijuana campaign, according to the group's Web site.
In response to the Barretts' arrest and indictment, Americans for Safe Access is encouraging medical-marijuana advocates to protest at federal buildings on Tuesday.
Americans for Safe Access spokeswoman Steph Sherer said she is unsure if a protest is planned in San Bernardino County. She said 40 people who use marijuana for medical purposes face federal prosecution in California.
"Every medical marijuana case in the state is someone who is either a high-profile activist that is working with the local governments to implement Prop. 215, or someone who had a case that didn't go the way the county wanted it and it was handed over to the DEA," Sherer said.
She said the recent conviction of a man who cultivated marijuana for ill people in Oakland left jurors frustrated when they learned it was a medical marijuana case.
"Several members of the jury said they felt used by the federal government, and said that if they knew it was a medical marijuana case, they wouldn't have convicted," Sherer said.
"The federal government is not allowing any mention of medical cannabis in their cases. The only way they can get these convictions is by keeping all the medical information away from the jury."
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Mary Jane'z Novelties
Growin' Our Own (page 2)
Honkers, Rotten Decoys and Crew Cut Doug
By: Elmore Stone
I have this cousin, Doug, and no, that is not his real name. He and I are about as different as two people can possibly be. I have long hair and beard and Doug ... well, we in the family call him Crew Cut for a reason. Yeah, he wouldn't be caught dead at a dog fight with long hair or a beard let alone both. Crew Cut is sooooo straight I think he tries to make love with his clothes on. The list of differences between he and I could go on basically forever. Oh, two other things, he has absolutely no, as in zero, sense of humor and he detests drugs. 'Pot heads ought to be hung from the highest tree'. Get the drift?
Now old Crew Cut lives in Nebraska and has quite a thriving business going repairing farm and construction heavy equipment. Don't get me wrong here, there is nothing wrong with that. Beats stealing for a living.
He also has a passion. A passion for duck and goose hunting. And the product of this passion prompted a very, very panicky phone call to me a couple of years ago. Believe me when I say this, I have never and will never let him live it down and Crew Cut knows it.
Crew Cut hunts geese in corn field stubble. He builds a blind and disguises it real good so the geese don't see him and his 12 gauge shotgun. He also lays out, in very specific patterns no less, a bunch of plastic goose decoys. Hearing him describe how he does what he does with the decoys, to me, is about as exciting as watching paint dry. But to each his own I suppose. His decoys are marked on the bottom so when he is done he knows which decoys are his - at least in theory.
Well, a couple of years ago, around mid November, in the early evening I'm in the process of playing ... er ... learning how to re-compile a kernel for my computer. I had books scattered all over the place and had just put the finishing touches on my very own custom kernel when the damned phone rings. I guess it was about 9:00 pm. I answered the phone and basically all I heard was static and mumbling. I hang up and turn back to my kernel. The phone rings again. Same shit as before. Again I hang up and am getting quite annoyed. A third time the phone rings and by this time I am pissed.
"Who the hell is this?" I scream into the phone.
"It's Doug ... mumble, static, mumble ... rotten decoys." says Crew Cut.
"Speak up Crew Cut I can barely hear you." I respond.
"Got ... mumble, static, mumble ... decoys." answers Crew Cut.
"Look Crew Cut, if you don't speak up, I'm hanging up. I don't have time for this." I said becoming angry with my baked brain cousin.
"I'VE GOT POT IN MY DECOYS, OK!" yelled Crew Cut.
After that statement there is nothing but static and utter silence on the phone I am in a complete state of shock. Stunned to the very core of my being. I mean, we are talking about Crew Cut here. The man who thought Judge 'Hang 'em High' Parker was a slacker. Pot in his decoys? It just couldn't be, wouldn't be possible. Would it? I had to ask.
"Crew Cut, what do you mean you've got pot in your rotten decoys?" I asked with baited breath.
"No, no. Not rotten decoys, I said I've got pot, you know what I mean, in my decoys." retorted Crew Cut.
I can't believe it. It's surreal. Crew Cut the pirate. A smuggler? I'm starting to love this.
"Do you mean to tell me you have marijuana in your decoys?" I just had to confirm that we were talking about the same thing.
"YES! What the hell did you think I was talking about?" snarled Crew Cut. "And you've got to help me, I don't know what to do with this stuff."
I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. Mr. Straight Laced himself, Mr. Pot Users are Filth with a garage filled with pot stuffed decoys. Poetic justice. Life is truly wonderful with its gifts sometimes and this was one of those times.
"Well Crew Cut" I asked, "what are you trading and how much for how much?"
Crew Cut went stark raving nuts. "I am not one of those vermin!" And on and on and on. So much for Crew Cut the pirate or smuggler.
Ok, if Crew Cut wasn't smuggling pot and I know he doesn't smoke it, then just how in the world did he end up with "pot in his decoys?" I asked him that simple question and he related to me how he had set his decoys in place, dug and built his blind, etc. He told me everything except answering my question. So I asked again. This time Crew Cut said that as far as he knew, he was the only person to have permission from the farmer who owned the land to hunt geese on that property. When he was done for the day he packed up his geese, decoys and gun, and went home.
"Crew Cut, call me back in an hour. I need to think this through." I told him.
Reluctantly he agreed.
I pondered everything he had said and was kicking myself for not asking him how many decoys had pot in them and how did he know it was pot. I made a mental note to ask him those very questions when he called back.
Then I started thinking about the pot in the decoys. And the more I thought about it, the better I liked it. What a brilliant idea. The decoys are plastic. The bodies are hollow and somewhat large, basically the same size as a goose, from what I'm told. Cut a percentage of them open, put a kilo inside (if a decoy will hold that much), seal them back up and place them in a field for someone else to pick up. Outstanding. That was the only one of numerous scenarios that flew through my brain which made any sort of sense. Almost foolproof. Except for Crew Cut. I started laughing again and waited for his call.
A while later the phone rings. It's Crew Cut, right on time.
"Hey dude, just how many decoys do you think have pot in them?" I asked.
"Six. They are heavier than the rest. I cut one open with my band saw to find out what was in them. They aren't marked like mine are." Crew Cut said.
"Then why did you pick them up?" I asked him.
"Hey, they were in my pattern area and as I was the only one out there I didn't even think about it." Said Crew Cut.
Actually, what he said made perfect sense to me. I would have probably done the exact same thing. Who would have thought differently? You aren't going to count the number of decoys if you are the only person who can hunt there.
I then told him what I thought had happened. He freaked. After calming him down so he understood that he was not part of a drug cartel or a dealer (he is such a typical straight) I asked him what his plan was for his ill gotten gains. Needless to say, he didn't have one and that was the reason he called me.
Now Crew Cut the straight, who hates long hairs (like me) and drugs even more, comes home with six more decoys than he started with. Each and everyone of those extra decoys has pot in it, which are now in his garage, not mine, and I'm supposed to bail his slack ass out of trouble. What a deal.
I had not even considered how to get Crew Cut out of the hot water which was of his own making. Oh well, unable to come up with a reason why I should not help him, other than the fact that he is a twenty-four karat asshole, I told him, once again, to call back in an hour and maybe I'd have something for him. I also told him not to hold his breath and did call him a twenty-four karat asshole just for good measure.
Jesus, what a mess. I'm living just north of San Francisco, Crew Cut lives is in Nebraska. He has the weed. He doesn't want the weed. Why the hell couldn't he just live down the street from me. It would have made things so much simpler. But oh no. Fucking Nebraska. Might as well have been the moon. Needless to say, I was not, under any circumstances, going to Nebraska. Ok Elmore, think. The weed is in Nebraska, Crew Cut doesn't want it. Now, who do I know that lives in Nebraska? Nobody, that's who. Typical.
Well, the only other option is that Crew Cut 'hisself' will have to dispose of the weed. He is going to love that. Hah! But how? Knowing him, he would probably burn it in his back yard and have the local sheriff on him faster than a New York second. All kidding aside, unfortunately Crew Cut is my kin, a twenty-four karat asshole kin, but kin nonetheless. So I had to attempt to bail him out.
What I said about Crew Cut having to dispose of the weed is true. I couldn't think of another way. The how, on the other hand, was just starting to ferment nicely in my brain when, you got it, the phone yet again rings.
Why, lo and behold, it is my cousin Crew Cut on the other end of the telephone. I would have never guessed. He told me he has "really been sweating it" ... being busted by the cops. How can anyone sweat in November -- in Nebraska? It's colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra back there at that time of year.
Naturally, he wanted to know what I, got that, I was going to do. I told him, quite simply, that I was going to do nothing and then waited for him to explode again.
It didn't happen. No explosion, not even a little one. Just dead silence over the phone. When he finally started talking, he sounded as though he was on the verge of tears.
"What am I going to do?" wailed a panicky Crew Cut.
"Look, I am two thousand miles west and I ain't coming to Nebraska ... period. You got the stuff, you are going to have to get rid of it. Now here are my ideas." I told him.
I then laid out four different ways he could get rid of the weed infested decoys. The first was to clean the decoys up good to make sure there were no finger prints on them and then drop them in a dumpster. The second idea was to clean them up good, no finger prints, and then plant them back in the same field, make sure to wear gloves. The third idea was to place an ad in the local newspaper where the decoys could be found - and not in his garage, either. The last idea, and simplest one, was to call the police and tell them the truth. Wow, what a concept.
Crew Cut read each idea back to me at least three or four times to make sure nothing had been lost "in the translation," to use his own words. Duh, Crew Cut, we both speak English remember?
Then a real weird thing happened. Without saying another word, he hung up. Ungrateful straight! Well at least I could get back to compiling my kernel. I did, rebooted and the damn thing didn't work. So out comes the boot disk and once up, sort of, recopied the original kernel back to its rightful place from /tmp directory where I had copied it to. I have not fiddled with a kernel since.
Christmas times rolls around and one day in my mailbox was a card from Crew Cut and family. There was a little note inside the card. It read "Thanks, it worked." Ok, I figured I had better send him a Christmas card. I wrote no note on the inside. Instead I placed inside a package of rolling papers. I do it now every year.
Told you I'd get even.
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Pipeline (page 2)
With Pot and Porn Outstripping Corn, America's Black Economy is Flying High
By: Duncan Campbell (The Guardian)
Marijuana, pornography and illegal labour have created a hidden market in the United States which now accounts for as much as 10% of the American economy, according to a study. As a cash crop, marijuana is believed to have outstripped maize, and hardcore porn revenue is equal to Hollywood's domestic box office takings.
Despite laws that punish marijuana cultivation more strictly than murder in some states, Americans spend more on illegal drugs than on cigarettes. And despite official disapproval of pornography, the US leads the world in export of explicit sex videos, according to Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labour in the American Black Market, by Eric Schlosser.
Although the official American economy has been suffering a downturn, the shadow economy is enjoying unprecedented levels of success, much in the way that the prohibition period fuelled the illegal markets in the 30s. Schlosser found that three specific industries accounted for a major portion of this boom.
No aspect of farming has grown faster in the US over the past three decades than marijuana, with one-third of the public over the age of 12 having smoked the drug.
While the nation's largest legal cash crop, maize, produces about $19bn in revenue, "plausible" estimates for the value of marijuana crops reach $25bn. Steve White, a former coordinator for the US drug enforcement administration's cannabis eradication programme, estimates that the drug is now the country's largest cash crop.
Marijuana Belt
Schlosser writes: "Although popular stereotypes depict marijuana growers as ageing hippies in northern California or Hawaii, the majority of the marijuana now cultivated domestically is being grown in the nation's mid-section - a swath running from the Appalachians west to the Great Plains. Throughout this Marijuana Belt drug fortunes are being made by farmers who often seem to have stepped from a page of the old Saturday Evening Post."
Some of the most expensive crops are grown indoors on the west coast using advanced scientific techniques but the American heartlands account for the largest volume. Some estimates suggest 3 million Americans grow marijuana, although mostly for their own or their friends' use, but between 100,000 and 200,000 are believed to do so for a living.
The laws against the drug are strict. There were 724,000 people arrested for marijuana offences in 2001 and about 50,000 are in prison. Commercial growers can serve sentences far longer than those for murder, but the high risks appear to have had little effect on production or availability: 89% of secondary school students surveyed indicated that they could easily obtain the drug.
The annual number of hardcore video rentals in the US has risen from 79m in 1985 to 759m in 2001. Hardcore pornography in the shape of videos, the internet, live sex acts and cable television is now estimated to generate around $10bn, roughly the same amount as Hollywood's US box office receipts.
Americans spend more money at strip clubs than at Broadway, regional theatres and orchestra performances combined. The industry has mushroomed since the 70s, when a federal study found that it was worth little more than $10m.
Now the US leads the world in pornography; about 211 new films are produced every week. Los Angeles area is the centre of the film boom and many of those in the trade are otherwise respectable citizens.
Nina Hartley, a porn star, told Schlosser: "You'd be surprised how many producers and manufacturers are Republicans."
The majority of women in the films earn about $400 a scene. At the moment, there is a surplus of women in California hoping to enter the industry.
The internet has provided a fresh and profitable outlet. In 1997 about 22,000 porn websites existed; the number is now closer to 300,000 and growing.
More than a million illegal farmworkers are estimated to be employed in the US, with the average worker being a 29- year-old from Mexico.
Surplus labour
The total number of illegal immigrants is estimated at about 8 million and many are being paid cash in a shadow economy.
Many live in primitive conditions: a survey in Soledad, in the heart of California's agricultural territory, found that 1,500 of them, one-eighth of the town's official population, were living in garages. There are mutual economic benefits.
"Migrant work in California has long absorbed Mexican surplus labour, while Mexico has in effect paid for the education, health care and retirement of California's farmworkers," writes Schlosser. "Maintaining the current level of poverty among migrant farmworkers saves the average American household around $50 a year."
The advantages to the employer are clear, most notably in LA county, where an estimated 28% of workers are paid in cash.
Schlosser believes that the shadow economy will continue to thrive as long as marijuana and pornography remain illicit.
"A society that can punish a marijuana offender more severely than a murderer is caught in the grip of a deep psychosis," he concludes. "Black markets will always be with us. But they will recede in importance when the public morality is consistent with our private one. The underground is a good measure of the progress and the health of nations. When much is wrong, much needs to be hidden."
Ain't it the truth!
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Dakota Joseph Arts
Marijuana Alternatives - Legal highs, pipes, drug games, hash recipes and more ...
www.nativegreens.com.