I’m sure you’ve heard about the gang patch ban in Wanganui

Hi Mr Laws,

I was thinking about this gang patch ban and I was wondering if you
had thought about the consequences about banning the patches in
public.

You could unintentionally create a situation like with the Crips and
Bloods in Los Angeles where the gangs are signified by coloured
clothing instead. This in turn leads to innocent members of the
public being gunned down for wearing the wrong colour.

Problem is, you can’t outlaw wearing the colour red or black. So in
effect the gang patches really signify to the public who it is they
have to stay the f**k away from, protecting the public somewhat. It
will also allow the authorities to instantly identify possible
problematic people. Really the gangs wearing patches plays right into
the authorities hand allowing them to spot people by a patch rather
than by a colour – which could lead to them keeping an eye on the
wrong people.

I am worried that if the gangs eventually start taking your patch ban
seriously you could have more problems than you started out with.
Perhaps you were trying to make sure they didn’t come into public
areas because they weren’t allowed to wear their patch there? I doubt
they will stay home just so they can wear their patch.

Unless of course you have already thought about this and have some
plan to counteract it.

Regards,
Robert McLeod

EDIT: He emailed me back and basicaly what it seems like this law is for is so they can harass the gang members so much that hopefully they don’t bother coming into town. Also gang colours are banned too… on peopl with known gang affiliations. I’m not sure if I like this idea or not.

So I voted for the Aotearoa Legalize Cannabis Party.

So what? I’m not a druggie. I don’t actually want to see cannabis legalized. As Jason at work pointed out, if it was legalised then you’d see burglaries, and meth labs and stuff rise because, the same crooks who were growing weed are now out of job, and they probably won’t be wanting to get a real job, so their going to keep doing criminal acts that make them money.

But my thinking was if there was enough people voting for them (7,589 voted for them out of 373,000 dope smokers in NZ) then maybe they’d at least look at making it legal for medicinal use. And then, hopefully we could open the door to actually researching the drug.

It has so many uses. It is a wonder drug.

Here is just some of the people who can benefit from it:

• Arthritis sufferers: On the normal prescription drug for Arthritis; Non-Steroid Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs), something like 70,000 americans per year are admitted to hospital, and 7,600 die from the adverse affects.
• AIDs sufferers: Chronic Pain.
• Cancer sufferers: Chronic Pain and depression.
• Crones disease sufferers: It hurts these people to eat. And the stuff they do eat, their bodies don’t get much nutrition from it. So why not get stoned? It gives you the munchies, and soothes pain. A perfect remedy.
• Idiopathics: My mother is an idiopathic but unfortunately she is too much of a prude to try marijuana. Idiopathics suffer from a condition where their own immune system destroys the white blood cells, meaning the blood is really thin and doesn’t clot so easily so if they get cut, they don’t heal easily. Cannabis soothes the immune system which would stop the immune system culling all the white blood cells.
• Smokers: Obviously if you smoke, its your own fault, however the THC in cannabis is thought to kill aging cells before they turn cancerous, as studies have shown that there is no link between lung cancer and smoking of cannabis. Plus, people who smoke cigarettes and cannabis have shown to be less likely to get lung cancer.

So who are the authorities to tell us what we can and can’t put into our bodies? As long as it isn’t done in a public place it should be fine. Obviously its not ideal for these people to walk around all day stoned, but thats why we need to research this drug; to split up its components for the different uses available, cutting out the ‘high’ factor.

But honestly, at the end of the day, when did a bit of euphoria hurt anyone?

So good to see Obama won. Thank god/satan/joe pesci/whoever you worship. The American people made a good choice, too bad it was the lesser of two evils. It would have been great to see Ron Paul or Denis Kunicich get it, but they are way too liberal/whistleblowing to be allowed to be president.

Of course it’s all fixed anyway, *they* wanted Obama to win, so they let him. LOL.

So glad McCain didn’t get in, the world would be fucked. Why does teh American Govt (typically Republicans) feel they have to bring their brand of democracy to everyone? Fuck them.

If McCain had got in, I reckon Iran would be nuked to the ground right now. And then die of a heart attack two weeks in an Palin would be in. Good God. What a fuck up that would be. She is clueless, and worse, a religious fucking nutjob.

So America has a black president. I think it is really hypocritical to say there are no race issues and then be all “we’ve got a black president”, “all the blacks voted for obama”, etc etc. Still can’t just be viewed as another person.

I reckon he’ll be assasinated. The fact is the McCain/Palin combo would be disasterous for America yet there are people who would still vote for them just because they don’t want a black man in power. What’s he going to do?! He’s old, he’s civilized, he’s educated, whats the issue?

Now if NAS or 50 cent or someone were running for president I’d see their point, and want to assasinate them quite quickly. They would be easily controlled by the puppet masters.

Hopefully Obama can clean up the SHIT that Bush has left behind.

Kay so, I was thinking, politics everywhere is fucked up. Politicians are typically lying cheating bastards, and I think America is especially fucked up, giving donations to your Politicians campaign? WTF!? You give donation to charity. These people are so rich and on a such higher salary than you and they want YOU to pay for their campaign!? Fuck them. The decision of who gets most airtime is made by the media over there anyway and in that case, the majority of the media is owned by a right-wing nutjob.

We can donate to our politicians campaigns in NZ, however I think their campaigns are limited to $100,000, and any donations over $2,000 can’t be anonymous.

The most prolific thing is though, politicians saying they will do this and that and then they get into power and all that stuff takes a back seat.

So what I reckon they should do is have a bunch of people in Government, but, instead of voting for a person, or a party, vote for policies. Things like “Get high-speed broadband up and going” and “Give less money to the Maori’s” and “Spend petrol taxes on Roads”.

That would get rid of the selfishness these people and parties express when they’re all shouting “Pick me!! Pick me!!!” come election day.

Be much better, a government working for the people instead of themselves. This has probably already been done and has a name-ism but I haven’t heard of it yet.

So here’s a story for you.

A good friend of mine is the occasional cannabis smoker. However he is also an asthmatic. He said that if he’s had a joint recently and he goes to the doctors to get a peak flow meter reading, he gets a higher reading than if he hadn’t been smoking.

His doctor, a respected (and christian) practitioner, upon seeing the reading fluctuations asked, “Are you a cannabis smoker?”. He said “No,” and the doctor told him that the cannabis smoke actually helps the lungs expand more, and also that the resin can be coughed out. Unlike the residue from cigarettes, which the lungs absorb.

My friend went on to say that went he was busted with cannabis at school, his mum said to his laywer, “But, I didn’t think [my son] would be able to smoke cannabis because of his asthma?” to which the laywer replied “Well, actually, the cannabis can help it.”

I think this again points to the fact that cannabis needs to be researched, as it holds a lot of uses. But because it can be grown by anyone in the back yard, the pharmacuetical companies won’t produce it because of the lack of revenue when people realise they can make their own remedies with it.

Governments won’t subsidise it because they don’t want to fluctuate in their normal “dangerous drugs” scams. And what does it all come back to?

Money.

This is the perfect example, an effective, safe, natural way to treat multiple ailments, but because it cannot be easily monitarily harnessed, no one wants to invest time in it.

Cannabis is not a dangerous drug. It is simply a victim of Capitalism.