Stimulate & Focus

From the NJ Lawyer Daily Briefing
SENATE PASSES MEDICINAL MARIJUANA BILL
The state Senate on Monday passed a bill that would allow medicinal marijuana use by patients suffering from cancer and other chronic or terminal illnesses. The Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, S-119, passed by a mostly partisan 22-16 vote and now goes to the Assembly for consideration. If enacted, the measure would make N.J. the 14th state to allow medicinal use of the drug. It would authorize the Department of Health and Senior Services to issue photo-identification cards to qualifying patients who have been diagnosed by a physician, with whom they have an existing, bona fide relationship, to use marijuana for medical purposes. The cards would allow patients to purchase marijuana at alternative medical centers and to keep on hand up to six marijuana plants and one ounce for personal use.

So...this leaves me with the following checklist....
1. Research medical uses for marijuana.
2. Figure out which one I could actually convince a doctor I have.
3. Read the proposed law & see if it has any other hoops to jump through.
4. Figure out if any of my current docs (yes, I have a number of current docs whom I see somewhat regularly and no, I am not a hypochondric) would "diagnose" me and approve of my "medical use" of MJ
5. If not, find a doctor who would do that and start a "bona fide relationship" with him or her.
6. Make sure there are plenty of snacks in the house.

In all seriousness though -- it's about fucking time these types of laws get passed everywhere. NJ would be 14th and that is not nearly enough places. I mean, COME. ON. It makes no fucking sense whatsoever that a doctor can give me morphine for pain but not marijuana for nausea. Or barbirtuates to help me sleep, but not marijuana to restore my appetite. Everyone who has really looked into the issue knows that the only reason the ban on medical use exists is because pharma companies don't want people to be able to grow their own drugs. They want you to have to buy their chemically laden, side effect riddled drugs. Those are perfectly OK. But oh no - not marijuana. You don't need drug companies to get marijuana. And it might make you eat some more doritos. Which makes me wonder -- do you think anyone has approached Frito-Lay about backing these types of laws? Because everyone knows legalization for medical use is a first step toward eventual full legalization, or at the very least decriminalization.

Not to mention the ability of farmers to grow hemp in this country. Which isn't even a fucking drug for fucks sake. You could smoke a whole fucking field of it and all you'd do is give yourself a fucking headache and waste a very valuable crop. It is absolutely disgusting that we can import hemp products made elsewhere but aren't allowed to create those very same products here. You want a fucking economic stimulus -- legalize hemp. Watch how fast little cottage industries spring up all over this nation. We pay farmers to leave their fields fallow. If they could grow hemp, we wouldn't need to pay them anything. They could grow crop after crop after crop. We could stop chopping down trees for fucking paper and cardboard. We could have earth-friendly building materials and cloth and more products then most people even realize. But again, no......just like medical maryjane would put a dent in pharma profits, hemp would put a dent in the profits of major corporations that have grown fat and lazy and resistant to change. Well I think this country has shown it can usher in change when it focuses. So focus people focus. (and put down the J -- you know you can't focus on that shit). And let's, in the words of Peter Tosh, Legalize It!

NOTE (as a matter of fairness): There are some who think hemp & maryjane are illegal because of racism, and not because of any corporate action against it. I understand their point and will even concede that is possible racism had a hand in some parts of the anti-marijuana movement. But racism doesn't explain the non-drug hemp issue. What exactly does racism have to do with a farmer being able to grow a non-drug plant that can be used as food, or to make cloth, or even plastic (yeah, that's right, plastic!)? And more importantly, why can't the two theories survive side by side? The people who were racists back in the day were also the people who ran the corporations, right?

Giving "I'm Goin' Down" a New Meaning...

From today's NJ Lawyer Daily Briefing:

ATTORNEY GENERAL PROBING ONLINE SPRINGSTEEN TICKET SALES
New Jersey's attorney general and Division of Consumer Affairs are investigating Monday's sale of Bruce Springsteen concerts tickets based on more than 250 complaints about online purchases attempted through Ticketmaster. Fans seeking tickets to shows at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New York and Izod Center in East Rutherford said Ticketmaster's Web site redirected them to the site of its TicketsNow unit, a reseller, which offered seats at a mark-ups of hundreds of dollars for concerts not yet sold out. Springsteen issued a statement condemning the practice, and the state is looking into possible violations of the Consumer Fraud Act or ticket resale law. The Consumer Affairs Division Web site has a "Bruce Springsteen/Ticketmaster Complaints" icon that links to an online complaint form. U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-8th Dist., has asked the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Ticketmaster's relationship with TicketsNow.

Could Jersey really be the David that takes down the Goliath that is Ticketmaster? Is it actually possible that this behemoth will (FINALLY) face some repercussions for the way it does business? 'Cause lets be honest -- we all know it provides almost no service for the outrageous fees it charges (I mean really, they charge $2.50 for you to print your own fucking ticket!). And now the link with a scalper (and yes, scalping is exactly what TicketsNow fucking does -- it buys tickets at regular prices and then sells them at a ridiculouss mark up -- everyday folks who do this are called illegal scalpers, but somehow companies that do it are called "brokers"? Fuck that.) It seems everyday Ticketmaster finds another way to make itself a ton of bucks at the expense of people who just want to see some live fucking music.

Well it would seem they fucked with the wrong folks this time. You just don't get between tickets to the Boss and his Jersey fans -- you just don't. We take our homegrown heroes really fucking seriously - Bruce, BonJovi, the Queen.... We understand tickets selling out; we understand we're fucked when it comes to Ticketmaster's excessive fees. But we do not expect to be fucked with like this. At least not with the Boss. Fuck with Britney fans if you want, but not Boss fans you fucking idiots. This is fucking Jersey people. You mess with us, we take you down. Fucking Texas don't have shit on us (I mean really, our hair is often bigger than their hats.) Don't mess with Texas? Hardly. Don't mess with fucking Jersey. Because when all else fails, there are swamps right near the big concert venues and well, lets just say we all know what the fuck they're used for...
;)

I think I may be sick . . .

Last night, Hubby & I caught the flick "300" - it was pretty good. My favorite part was (spoiler alert -- did my best to color match) when Leonides' wife, aka the Queen of Sparta, stabs and kills the corrupt councilman, whose name I can't remember, after he betrays her to the council even though he said he'd help her and even though she let him fuck her so he'd help her. I especially loved that she used his own words against him -- this won't be quick, you won't like this, etc. What a tough ass bitch -- it was awesome. Anyway, after the movie, we went to meet some friends of ours for what was supposed to be a couple of drinks. Next thing I knew it was 3AM and, well, I'd had a little more than a "couple" of drinks. I can't actually tell you how many, but there were shots involved, and that is never good, especially on a school night. Needless to say, when I got up this morning to go to work, I was feeling a little under the weather. But it wasn't too bad - at least it wasn't something a McDonald's coke couldn't fix (don't ask me why, but I believe McDonald's coke is the absolute best all around hangover cure ever -- not any coke will do either, it's gotta be McDonald's). Anyway - I'm sitting at my desk, drinking my coke, and starting to feel a little more human, tired as hell, but not sick anyway. And then I get an email from a friend with the following video:

(I tried like 300 times to embed the video, but Blogger sux ass and kept giving me a bogus error message, so you'll just have to go here to see it)

And now it's like I never even had the coke to begin with. Fuck. I don't think a coke is gonna do it this time. And I was so going to have steak tonight.