Sunday, April 29, 2012

Weed Pass U Blift (News items on Dutch miss-courage of Justice))

.....what I call the real DEA - the Dutch English American alliance between the  Royal families and the bankers; they're all inter-related to one another, when you start getting into it you find that George Bush for instance, is related to the Queen of England who's related to Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands who's related to most of the major bankers - it's all one big happy family when you get up there at the top.--Robert Anton Wilson, w/ Steven Pratt.

Video of 420 Cafe, in connection with new 'Weed Pass' Proposal.

 http://video.msnbc.msn.com/msnbc.com/47209277/

"THE Dail’s most prominent dope-loving deputy has told how a Dutch ban on tourists getting high is just POTTY.

Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan yesterday dismissed the law as “unenforceable” after it won judicial backing in the Netherlands.
The controversial measure, if approved by Dutch MPs next week, will effectively bar Amsterdam’s famous coffee houses from serving cannabis to foreigners — by making them members-only clubs.
Lawyers for 600 cannabis cafes last night vowed to continue fighting their government’s “discriminatory” drive to rid Holland of its druggie paradise image.
And the GRASS-roots revolt won early support from weed campaigner Flanagan.
The Roscommon TD, who has given up the habit to avoid breaking the law, insisted the Dutch economy would feel a massive comedown if Irish tourists were denied a toke.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/irishsun/irishsunnews/4284906/Dutch-capital-set-for-tourist-toke-ban.html

The government’s decision to restrict the use of cannabis cafes to local residents by excluding tourists is not discriminatory, a court in The Hague said on Friday.
A group of 19 café owners and other interest groups had gone to court in a last-ditch attempt to have the membership system overruled. All cannabis cafes in the south of the country are due to become members’ only clubs on May 1.
The café owners say not only is the measure discriminatory but infringes peoples’ privacy.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2012/04/rt_rules_against_cannabis_cafe.php


So, not that we condone going to the Netherlands just for the pot (The Hague is really cool guys, we promise), but if that's your plan, get your hands on a "weed pass." We're not sure what this pass will look like, but apparently it's one way, according to the AP and the BBC, to tell foreigners and Dutch residents apart. The AP writes that once the Dutch government's rules banning tourist from its legal cannabis go into effect, "It will turn coffee shops into private clubs with membership open only to Dutch residents and limited to 2,000 per shop." The BBC notes the idea of a pass is still up for debate.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/04/dutch-lawmakers-make-it-harder-tourists-smoke-pot/51648/


"Thirty-six years and many millions of joints after the Netherlands' laws on marijuana were relaxed, drug tourists from Britain and other countries are set to be weeded out when a nationwide ban on foreign dope-smokers takes effect.

Yesterday, a court in The Hague upheld a Dutch government plan to restrict sales of soft drugs to local residents in possession of an identity card, nicknamed a "wietpas", or "weedpass".

Since 1976, Dutch authorities have tolerated the sale and consumption of small quantities of soft drugs. The policy was introduced to keep users away from the hard drugs trade, controlled by organised criminals. One consequence was to attract visitors from less-tolerant countries to a land where joints could be rolled, bongs inhaled and "space-cakes" nibbled, without fear of prosecution.
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/want-to-visit-a-dutch-coffee-shop-well-youll-only-get-coffee-from-now-on-7685311.html


A controversial law that will make it harder for foreign tourists to buy cannabis at the Netherlands' famous coffee shops has been upheld by a Dutch court.
The law, which reverses 40 years of liberal drugs policy in the Netherlands, is targeted at the many foreigners who have come to see the country as a soft drugs paradise and to tackle a rise in crime related to the drug trade.
The law, which goes into force in three southern provinces on May 1st before going nationwide next year, means coffee shops can only sell cannabis to registered members.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0427/breaking41.html



Wednesday, April 25, 2012

#OpCannabis: Anonymous Hackers Take Up Marijuana Activism

From the crew that never sleeps over at alternet.

w/ extra video added by Fly.




#OpCannabis: Anonymous Hackers Take Up Marijuana Activism

Hacktivist Anonymous began the "OpCannabis" to throw the collective's weight behind drug reform.

Guy Fawkes mask, from V for Vendetta.
Photo Credit: Ben Fredericson at Flickr
 
Heroes to some and villians to others, the “Anonymous” movement has come to symbolize much more than just a group of rogue hackers. But far from breaking into computer networks run by rogue governments or multinational corporations, as they’ve come to be known for, the online hacktivists now have their sights set on a different human rights issue entirely: marijuana prohibition.
Members of the hacking collective, who were at the epicenter of planning and promoting “Occupy Wall Street” last year, announced earlier this month that April 20, 2012 would mark the beginning of an official “Anonymous” push-back against America’s drug laws.
Speaking to Raw Story this week, a person claiming to be a member of “Anonymous,” who watched an attack on Sony’s website from behind the scenes but did not participate, claimed responsibility for the group’s new “OpCannabis” campaign, explaining that the operation is determined to throw the collective’s weight behind drug reform.
After launching a pitch for “OpCannabis” over one year ago, the hacker said that their “PR text evolved into a video,” which was “translated into German by parties unknown,” but then it fizzled.
“[S]omething was missing,” the source explained. “For some reason my inbox wasn’t blowing up and only a few hundred people seemed to show interest. This may or may not have had something to do with AnonNews deciding not to carry our press release. Thankfully this has since been resolved.”
Now that the leading “Anonymous” news account has tuned into the marijuana campaign and began circulating the latest “OpCannabis” updates, it has gone global.
Members of “Anonymous” plan to get outside and be vocal on Friday during nationwide protests against America’s drug policies. Some may even be following up with more computer hacking and website defacement. And just earlier this month, “OpCannabis” got its own website and Twitter account, connecting hundreds of “Anonymous” activists who are now sharing ideas to foster the push-back against prohibition.
But “OpCannabis” isn’t designed to be a hacking spree, Raw Story’s nameless source explained. “Anyone I’ve found that is involved with marijuana activism, I’ve told that they can e-mail any and all materials to the opcannabis@gmail.com and I’ll sort through it and get it on the site.”
“We ask you to please educate yourself on its many benefits and share these benefits with your sick or injured friends,” an “OpCannabis” press release implores. “We all know somebody that has cancer or diabetes and cannabis has helped or cured both and many other disorders!

Anonymous will begin its support for the legalization of cannabis on 4/20/12. So please show your support by educating yourselves and making your profile pic or timeline banner on your social services accts green or 420 friendly.”
They’ve also asked that each chapter of the remaining “Occupy” groups around the country participate in marijuana-related events, pointing out the billions already spent just this year to incarcerate tens of thousands of marijuana prisoners around the country.
Raw Story’s source specifically pointed at the government’s hypocrisy in declaring that the plant has no medical value when pharmaceutical companies are practically begging for permits to research new marijuana-based drugs that address a whole host of ailments, including possible cures for several types of cancer.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The War on some drugs meets Virgin Google U.N and wikileaks

  The War on some drugs meets Virgin Google U.N and wikileaks

I get my pot absolutely free from the Women's Alliance for medical marijuana which doesn't charge, its a cooperative and we do what we can to keep it going, now they have been raided we're gonna have to do more, we're gonna have to decentralize even further, decentralize the production, the making of the tinctures, the cookies, the brownies and whatever forms we wanna take it in that's best for our condition, some people still smoke it, and were gonna have to decentralize the growth and production and distribution.--Robert Anton Wilson, 2002, Santa Cruz CA.


I was about to start a piece about the proposed Dutch changes in laws concerning their famous cannabis coffee shops, due to the fact that today, April 18th 2012, my employers and some representatives from other Dutch Coffee Shops lodged a court injunction against the Dutch Government and their plans to implement the ‘weed pass’ nationwide, not only in the problematic southern (boarder) states.

However, I was interrupted by discovering a short excerpt from a video interview with Wikileaks mastermind Julian Assange in which he speaks about Marijuana, the so called ‘war on drugs’ and cognitive liberty in an intelligent, witty and precise manner. The entire debate, the first of a new series developed by Google called ‘Versus War On Drugs’

It has been a part of my fantasy writings over the last three years since Wikileaks burst onto the global scene, that they might eventually highlight the crooked ‘war on drugs’ along with their long list of unfairly secretive business transactions and government/corporate corruption. After all, the ‘war on some drugs’ spans the globe, wastes Trillions of Dollars and brings terror and torture into the lives of Billions.

Although provoked by the questioner, Assange throws down his libertarian wisdom and sense of individualist anarchism, in my view, all over the ‘war on some drugs’, which leads to a much clearer view of the current Dutch coffee shop debacle, and the sense of discrimination applied further to the neurological realm.

The similarities between the fights for digital freedoms and the fights for cognitive freedoms seem to be converging at an ever increasing, exponential rate. As Douglas Rushkoff has put it ‘program or be programmed’ implying we have the means to program ourselves and our environment if we choose to engage. But engage with what?

Some brave and noble folk are perpetually fighting the digital baddies, or those government think tanks, those lawyers and those entertainment industry cry-babies, by challenging their draconian proposed measures and new laws and terror scenarios with superior information, scientific and balanced feedback, and most importantly a decentralized network philosophy. The EFF, Wikileaks, and boing boing contributors exhibit these positive attributes and almost singlehandedly threaten any proposed ‘new world order’ once again by obsoleting the opposition with superior methodology, intelligence and strategy.

We the cannabis culture, or we the collective of self-owning ones who enjoy cannabis and its many benefits (health, speech, thought, economy) welcome the intelligent decentralized strategies performed by example by these defenders of ‘equalibrium’ and ‘fairness’ with a particular fondness of going after the biggest, baddest sons of bitches out there, the so called ‘intelligence services’ and private ‘spy agencies’, the military industrial complex and surveillance industries, and of course, lets not forget the limp and mostly empty ‘mainstream media’ that apparently could not and today cannot compare with even 5 % of Wikileaks, or Boingboing for that matter, based on information content (based on predictability of story and coverage of events). Try it, go on. Go to BBC website, and then to Wikileaks, then the daily mail, and then boingboing. Now, anything surprise you? I recall the saying "an empty vessel sounds loudest'

May I attempt to further suppose that the key to keeping the ‘coffee-shop’ scene and industry (that I personally work in) alive and kicking is.... surprise or unpredictability in the face of the easily guessed at(that which is low in information) the same old game and the same old tactics which often involve bullying, meaningless statements plus the arts and crafts of ‘disinformation’. Superior experimental intelligence cuts through these centrist authoritarian/totalitarian games like a warm knife through soft hash.

After watching the full Google versus debate I feel like I have ingested a few grams of some psychedelic compound, when listening to the crazy prohibitionists and corporate military propagandists repeat their 'rhetoric' I started having hallucinations that Julian Assange was in the debate, and Russel Brand too, who for me, were the only characters who added any spice and anything approaching a representation of the 'drug culture' but no MUSIC, no ART, no LITERATURE or COMEDY was presented as evidence, no mention of Terence Mckenna, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, Sasha Shulgin, Aldous Huxley, Ken Kessey, no, not a trace.

Whereas, for me, these are the individual thinkers and writers who dedicated their lives to coming to understand the question of 'alchemically mediated consciousness' and so then, by default the major blockage and 'befuddlement' factor: the age old inquisition, the prohibition and the wars against altered states of consciousness, and it's current incarnation: the global war on SOME drugs.

And please, lets not forget the terminology used to disrupt the thinking process, once more, 'the war on drugs' actually functions as a 'war on SOME drugs' and the lack of definitions in this particular area, being that it involves complex chemical neurological and environmental factors, remains a consistant strategy employed by the prohibitionists and inquisitors world wide. Beware of the FNORDS!

"There's more of everything, the more they fight it the more drugs appear, it's like Lao Tzu said "The more laws they pass the more criminals they create and the more weapons they create the more terror stalks the land" - the more clearer the explanations the more frogs fall out of the sky.--Robert Anton Wilson, 2002, Santa Cruz CA.

Watch for yourself here:



Steven 'fly agaric 23' Pratt. 18th April 2012.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=gSrN2zIRwN8


 

Monday, April 9, 2012

Death cap mushroom may help treat cancer





Img/2012/4/3/mushi.jpg

Death cap mushroom may help treat cancer


Washington: Researchers have come up with a method for destroying cancer cells using death cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides) toxin, without harming the body.

The death cap mushroom, which resembles the common white button mushroom, contains one of the most deadly poisons found in nature, a-amanitin.

This substance kills any cell without exception, whether it be healthy or cancerous.

At the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) and the National Center for Tumor Diseases Heidelberg, immunologist Dr. Gerhard Moldenhauer, jointly with biochemist Professor Dr. Heinz Faulstich, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, has now developed a way to annihilate cancer cells using the dreaded fungal toxin without harming the body.
The trick to accomplish this is to deliver the poison directly to the right address in the body using something that virtually serves as a cab.

In this case, the cab is an antibody whose highly specific arms attach to a cancer-typical cellular surface protein called EpCAM. The fungal toxin is linked to the antibody in a stable chemical conjugation.

In the culture dish, the poison-loaded antibody arrested the growth of pancreatic, colorectal, breast and bile duct cancer cell lines.

In mice bearing transplanted human pancreatic cancer, a single antibody injection was sufficient to inhibit tumour growth.

Two injections of higher doses of the antibody even caused complete tumour regression in 90 percent of the animals. Even the higher doses did not cause any poison-related damage to the liver or other organs of the animals.

EpCAM, the protein chosen by the Heidelberg immunologists as the tumour cell recognition structure, is a characteristic membrane protein of epithelial cells.

This type of cells lines all inner and outer surfaces of the body. Most malignant tumours originate from such epithelial tissues.

Many of these, such as pancreatic cancer, breast and ovarian cancers, bile duct carcinomas and tumours of the head and neck, produce too much EpCAM – and this is frequently associated with an extremely poor prognosis of the disease.

EpCAM is therefore considered a suitable target structure for attacking tumour cells.

“Treatments with unconjugated antibodies against EpCAM have already been tested in clinical trials such as for breast cancer. They were intended to attack the cancer solely with the weapons of the immune system, but they turned out to be clinically ineffective,” said Gerhard Moldenhauer.

“However, our amanitin-conjugated antibody has a much greater potential for killing cancer cells,” Moldenhauer added.

ANI

Monday, April 2, 2012

Trying to take high out of holidays (Cannabis Refugee's)

From The International Herald Tribune:

Trying to take high out of holidays


BY DAVID JOLLY

AMSTERDAM — The scene at the 420 Cafe on a recent Friday was typical of what many travelers have come to associate with Amsterdam. Behind the bar, Janne Svensson, 34, a self-described ‘‘cannabis refugee’’ from Norway, weighed out small quantities of marijuana and hashish for her customers, many from foreign countries. They sat quietly, smoking and sipping coffee, as familiar strains of Jimi Hendrix drifted softly from the stereo and giant manta rays cavorted in a nature video on a big-screen television.

While there are many attractions that draw visitors to the Netherlands — including the friendly and straightforward people, world-class museums, charming architecture and elegant canal scenes — nearly a quarter of this city’s more than four million foreign tourists a year will visit its world-famous ‘‘coffeeshops,’’ where the sale of small quantities of cannabis, though not alcohol, is tolerated.

But Amsterdam’s days as a destination for hazy holidays may be numbered. Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s rightist coalition is pushing to restrict the operations of the coffeeshops sharply and to bar them from selling to foreigners. If the measures survive a court challenge and the opposition of local officials, the first phase would begin May 1.

‘‘I think that by the end of next year, there will be no drug tourism in the Netherlands,’’ Ard van der Steur, a member of Parliament who is a spokesman for Mr. Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, said in an interview in The Hague. ‘‘We have created an incredible criminal industry that we need to get rid of.’’

Strictly speaking, the sale of marijuana and hashish (a resin extracted from the cannabis plant) is illegal. But a longstanding policy of tolerance — essentially a set of instructions from the Justice Ministry to the police — means that licensed coffeeshop operators are not prosecuted so long as they deal in limited quantities and keep hard drugs and minors out. The Dutch are also allowed to cultivate up to five marijuana plants each for personal use.

In some respects, tolerance appears to have been successful: despite the easy availability, the Dutch are less likely than Americans or many other Europeans to smoke marijuana, U.N. data show. Alex Stevens, a drug policy expert at the University of Kent, argues that the tolerance policy has reduced the harm caused by prohibition, in part by separating the markets for hard drugs like heroin from the market for marijuana, and by getting cannabis dealers off the street and into a regulated environment.

The impetus for changing the policy originated with, of all things, a parking shortage. In Maastricht, a southern city sandwiched between the German and Belgian borders, hundreds of drug tourists drive in daily from elsewhere in Europe to purchase marijuana, creating an infuriating traffic nuisance.

Spotting an opportunity, clandestine dealers have begun offering foreign drivers the option of buying their cannabis without ever leaving their cars. Even local residents who support the coffeeshops are unhappy that drugs are back on the streets.

Mr. Rutte’s justice minister, Ivo Opstelten, has said that, as of May 1, coffeeshops in the southern provinces are to be turned into members-only clubs, limited to 2,000 Dutch clients each. They are to maintain a registry and check IDs. Coffeeshop owners who break the law will face criminal prosecution. The remainder of the coffeeshops are to follow suit on Jan. 1.

Mr. van der Steur said the main problem with the current policy was that marijuana production had led to the creation of an expansive black market. No one knows the exact value of Dutch cannabis exports, he said, but they are thought to be greater than the annual flower exports, worth $6.6 billion.

‘‘We now function as a supplier of drugs for the rest of Europe,’’ he said. ‘‘We never intended to become one of the major exporters of cannabis to the world.’’
Additionally, almost all the hashish in the coffeeshops is imported, illegally, from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon or Morocco, rankling the government.

Mr. van der Steur said the government would begin treating high-potency marijuana as a hard drug, in the same category as heroin and cocaine, prohibiting its sale in coffeeshops. Growers now cultivate marijuana that is almost three times stronger than it was a few decades ago, he said. ‘‘The product changed totally, but the policy didn’t,’’ he said.

In theory, Mr. Rutte’s coalition with the Christian Democrats and their parliamentary ally, the far-right Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, have the votes to push through the changes: 83 of the 150 seats in the lower house. But the change is not assured.

Coffeeshop owners have so far failed in court to overturn the ban on sales to foreigners, but another lawsuit is being brought by the Cannabis Retailers Association, which represents the country’s 680 coffeeshops. It should be heard within the next few weeks.

Parliament is also wary of treading on the prerogative of local officials, who worry that it will bring a return to street dealing and crime. Others argue that the Netherlands, which is struggling to reduce its budget deficit in a time of austerity, cannot afford to alienate tourists.

Eberhard van der Laan, the mayor of Amsterdam, opposes the change on safety and health grounds, even though he supports the goal of reducing soft-drug use, said Tahira Limon, a spokeswoman for the city. Ms. Limon said the mayor was talking with the national government about other approaches.

Coffeeshops are not really an issue for Amsterdam, she said. ‘‘The problems we have with substance abuse are almost always related to alcohol,’’ she said. ‘‘That concerns Dutch people as much as foreigners.’’

Michael Veling, 56, owner of the 420 Café and the spokesman for the Cannabis Retailers Association, said he was skeptical that the government would get its way. More likely, he said, the policy change will be struck down in court or the issue will be left up to municipal councils. But if the law changes, he said, he would not go along.

‘‘I’m not going to build a register,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m not going to discriminate on the basis of nationality. I’ve only ever discriminated on the basis of behavior. I’ll go back to selling alcohol and go back to selling bags of weed under the counter.’’

His customers were dubious as well. Kenny and Sean, American students on a tour of Europe while studying abroad, acknowledged that the availability of marijuana was part of the reason they decided to visit Amsterdam. (The two asked not to be further identified so as to protect their future job prospects.)

‘‘We wanted to try Amsterdam because our friends all said it was awesome,’’ Sean said.
Kenny agreed. ‘‘If you smoke weed, you have to go to Amsterdam before you die,’’ he said, adding: ‘‘This place would die if they changed the weed laws. We know that. We’re business students.’’