Powerful drug cartels are increasingly using gruesome videos of executions and interrogations to intimidate their rivals, police and an already terrified public in Mexico's vicious drug war.

The drug gangs, battling for control of lucrative smuggling routes into the United States, have long attached handwritten notes to victims they dump in public as a way to scare rival gangs and pesky state officials.

reuters.com

Ah, the Tea Party: Righteous in its condemnation of government largess. Resolute in its opposition of taxes and president Obama. Representative of the silent majority. Heavily divided when it comes to ... pot smoking.

That's right: While the right-leaning Tea Party might seem unified in its rejection of centrism in the GOP and in its embrace of the rural Republican (a la Palin), the Atlantic's Chris Good argued Wednesday that marijuana is the one issue that could split this bunch.

laweekly.com

An unlikely coalition that includes student activists, police officers, and a former Reagan associate deputy attorney general has launched a national campaign to mobilize 2010 and 2012 voters in support of marijuana legalization.

The "Just Say Now" campaign -- a joint effort between the Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and the progressive blog Firedoglake -- aims to end what they describe as the federal government's failed war on marijuana.

"It's a moral issue," Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake, said in a conference call yesterday. "It's been a policy failure at every level."

firstread.msnbc.msn.com

The California Legislative Analyst's Office's recently published critique of Proposition 19, the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, provides needed clarity to the ongoing debate regarding marijuana policy and offers a swift rebuttal to the doomsday scenarios touted by many of the measure's opponents.

According to the Legislative Analyst's Office, the immediate effect of the measure would be to allow adults age 21 and older to possess and grow limited amounts of marijuana in the privacy of their own home. The agency estimates that halting the prosecution of these minor marijuana offenses would save state and local governments "several tens of millions of dollars annually," and enable law enforcement to reprioritize resources toward other criminal activities.

mercurynews.com

Unter Berücksichtigung der Zeitzonen wird sie zukünftig immer ab 16:19 MESZ (mitteleuropäische Sommerzeit) eingetrommelt und um 16:20 mit einem dafür speziell komponierten Sound untermalt. Ein oktavanaloger THC-Gong eröffnet die Ceremony und zur meditativen THC-Schwingung werden gleichzeitig Bilder unserer Lieblingspflanze gezeigt.

hempasspice.net
via

4:20 statt Spice

Über Hanf gibt es eine Menge moderner Märchen. Die beiden Hauptursachen hierfür sind wohl einerseits die weltweite Illegalität von Hanfblüten, die echte Grundlagenforschung sowie eine frei verfügbare Information schwierig bis unmöglich machen und so eine Haufen Spielraum für Spekulatives, Gerüchte und Halbwahrheiten lassen. Andererseits gehen Kiffen und ein zum Übertreiben neigender Hang zur Phantasie ab und an Hand in Hand, wodurch auch schon das ein oder andere Hirngespinst plötzlich lebendig wurde.
Greifen die Massenmedien das Thema Hanf auf, werden Halbwahrheiten fast schon mit Schallgeschwindigkeit weiterverbreitet, so dass der wahre Hintergrund meist im Verborgenen bleibt.
Man mag es kaum glauben, aber durch die Wiederholung falscher Tatsachen hat sich so manche Hanflüge auch in den Köpfen von Hanfliebhaber/innen festgestzt, oft unbewusst.

taz.de