cannabisnews.com: From Pot to Porn to AARP 





From Pot to Porn to AARP 
Posted by CN Staff on December 29, 2004 at 12:54:24 PT
By Cliff Kincaid 
Source: Accuracy In Media
The American Association for Retired Persons now calls itself simply "AARP" because some members are offended by the term "retired" and it wants to appeal to younger Americans. But the organization is now trying to explain a far more serious and deceptive practice. It hired an admitted former drug user and dealer as an editor of its 22-million circulation magazine. He has emerged as a spokesman on the so-called "medical marijuana" issue, telling America that seniors might benefit from smoking dope.
AARP confirmed AARP magazine editor Ed Dwyer's curious background, saying that he wrote for High Times magazine and Playboy but had also done work for "quality" publications. AARP said his resumé didn't include a stint as a writer for Penthouse, but there are several references to that in the public record. What's more, AARP magazine top editor Steven Slon also worked for Penthouse. It turns out he and Dwyer are old friends. High in America, a book taking an inside look at the drug culture, reported that High Times was described by its founder, drug smuggler Tom Forcade, as being like a "sleazy carnival" with "pills in one room, grass in another, coke in another room, nitrous in the next room, glue in another room, and so on down the hall."Dwyer didn't respond to my emails and telephone calls. But emerging as a national spokesman for the magazine, Dwyer was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that "The use of medical marijuana applies to many older Americans who may benefit from cannabis." An article and poll results on the issue will appear in the March-April issue. Slon says Dwyer helped edit the marijuana article and claims that it is a balanced treatment, but he wouldn't provide an advance copy.  The poll results were released in advance, generating widespread coverage with Tonight Show comedian Jay Leno cracking, "Nearly 75 percent of elderly Americans approve of the legalization of medical marijuana. And you thought grandpa used to forget stuff before!" But it's not a laughing matter to anti-drug activists who recognize the use of marijuana cigarettes for "health" reasons as a ploy to soften opposition to the legalization of pot.Slon claims Dwyer's drug use is a thing of the past and AARP says that he worked for High Times years ago, from 1974-1978. However, he also authored a piece for the December 2004 "anniversary" edition of the magazine about how High Times "was a dope-fueled mission" for him. Dwyer didn't disavow his early drug-taking years and, in fact, speaks fondly of "the memories and opportunities." For those who have never seen a copy, High Times features centerfold pictures of illegal substances, like Playboy features women exposing their private parts. The "sex was plentiful" and the work, Dwyer wrote, was "most rewarding when we got to sample the centerfolds," naming several varieties of dope. He said that some of his best story ideas "came out of a balloonful" of nitrous oxide or laughing gas.  High Times founder Tom Forcade, he said, would "give me pounds of marijuana or hash to peddle…" but Dwyer gave most of it back because he wasn't good at dealing drugs. However, he took the job when Forcade gave him "a bag of Colombian" marijuana as an inducement. Dwyer reveals that Forcade would talk only "half-jokingly" in admiring terms about such figures as North Korea's Kim Il Sung, Hitler, and Juan Peron of Argentina. He eventually committed suicide, but Dwyer survived, bouncing from job to job until he has ended up at what is now called "AARP The Magazine." The old name, "Modern Maturity," was dropped because it was too bland. The new version is apparently modeled after ESPN The Magazine and designed to be fashionable and youth-oriented. But AARP may have become too slick for its own good by hiring veterans of the counter-culture and using seniors in a deceptive campaign to peddle dope. With the assistance of Jeanette McDougal of Drug Watch International, anti-drug activists Joyce Nalepka and Dee Rathbone uncovered the Dwyer connection when they read how AARP had "decided to study" the issue of "medical marijuana." They said, "To those of us who've known for years that High Times magazine is a virtual market place for all things pro-drug, including marijuana seeds, mushroom spores, and drug paraphernalia, we had to wonder how many grandparents who participated in this AARP poll were aware what they were voting to support. We suspect very few have any idea. Grandparents are the most anti-drug segment of our society."Perhaps this is why seniors have been targeted with a poll that is being used to push dope. Forcade, if he were alive, would be proud of AARP The Magazine.Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at:  editor aim.orgRelated Article:From Pot to Porn to AARP: How the Seniors Magazine is Aiding the Dope Lobby In a column released today, Accuracy in Media has exposed a counter-culture takeover of AARP The Magazine, the publication of the senior citizens lobby previously known by its full name, the American Association of Retired Persons. AIM editor Cliff Kincaid cites evidence that the magazine, which reaches 22 million people a month, is edited by journalists who have made their mark by writing for pornographic and pro-drug magazines. He says they are now making their mark at AARP by pushing so-called "medical marijuana" on America's elderly citizens. The column, being posted on AIM's website, www.aim.org, exposes AARP magazine editor Ed Dwyer's role in publicizing a poll on how seniors are supposedly accepting the "marijuana as medicine" argument pushed by the pro-illegal drug lobby. Dwyer, Kincaid says, is an admitted drug abuser who once wrote for and peddled drugs at High Times magazine. Dwyer's boss, Steven Slon, is an old friend of Dwyer's. They both worked for Penthouse. The founder of High Times was a drug smuggler who committed suicide after extensive drug use. High Times features centerfold pictures of dope.In the December 2004 issue of High Times, Dwyer writes an article, "My Life and High Times," glorifying his drug-taking days.Kincaid credits anti-drug activists Joyce Nalepka, Dee Rathbone and Jeanette McDougal for uncovering the High Times connection to AARP. Nalepka and Rathbone visited the AARP national headquarters in an effort to contact its CEO, Bill Novelli, to encourage AARP to educate its members about the effort to legalize marijuana by falsely classifying it as "medicine." Novelli was unavailable for comment, as was Dwyer. However, AARP confirmed Dwyer's deep involvement with High Times and defended his journalism career.Contact: Sherrie Gossett, AIM, 202-364-4401, ext. 106Note: . . . it's not a laughing matter to anti-drug activists who recognize the use of marijuana cigarettes for "health" reasons as a ploy to soften opposition to the legalization of pot. Source: Accuracy In Media (US)Author: Cliff Kincaid Published: December 29, 2004Copyright: 2004 Accuracy In MediaContact: editor aim.orgWebsite: http://www.aim.org/Related Article & Web Site:AARP Magazinehttp://www.aarpmagazine.org/Poll Examines Medical Marijuana Supporthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20041.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
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Comment #13 posted by firedog on December 31, 2004 at 17:12:49 PT
Trolls can be dangerous.
Nalepka and Rathbone visited the AARP national headquarters in an effort to contact its CEO,
 Bill Novelli, to encourage AARP to educate its members about the effort to legalize marijuana 
by falsely classifying it as "medicine."
Sounds like an attempt at intimidation to me. I wonder if they brought along some heavyset goons
to serve as extra "encouragement". I hope the AARP doesn't cave to this neocon dirty trick. Here, they're digging up dirt on people 
and constructing the flimsiest of ad-hominem attacks, using emotionally charged subjects and words
to distract people's attention from the matter at hand. Cliff Kincaid doesn't even attempt to support his opinion that medical marijuana is a sham - he states his opinion as if it were fact. He obviously doesn't think
that "Accuracy In Media" applies to him and his publication.The problem is that the neocons had some successes on this front lately, and that's only encouraged
them. Like the recent spate of complaints to the FCC about "indecency" on TV - 99.8% of which
 come from the Parents Television Council. We need to fight back, or else the AARP, CBS, and other organizations that receive similar pressure
will simply assume that Joyce Nalepka, Cliff Kincaid, the PTC, and their ilk
are truly the voice of the American people."Buy" the way - buyblue.org and choosetheblue.com!
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Comment #12 posted by freedom23 on December 31, 2004 at 14:42:58 PT
"Accuracy In Media" == First Class Trolls
Oh man, where to start. With stories like "Former Atheist Says God Exists", "How the Liberal Media Plan to Bring Down Bush", "Saddam's Secret Campaign to Stop the War", "Former Doper Just Says No" and "Murder They Wrote: Radical Islam Eludes Editorialists" it's pretty clear they are nothing more than part of the neo-pseudo-christian aka "Radical Right" agenda. If it walks like a duck, quakes like a duck, swims like a duck it ain't an eagle, it's a duck. Read what they have to say and you'll see they're just right wing trolls posing to be unbias. Their use of the phrase "Accuracy In Media" for their site is a true oxymoron.We need to start giving awards to the best antitruth sites out there. AIM is in the running. They make Fox News look good.
"Bullsh*t: Penn & Teller" vs the War on Drugs
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Comment #11 posted by Hope on December 31, 2004 at 10:11:24 PT
Cliff Kincaid
Seems to be just another heavy right wing nut pulling this plane in circles and not getting us anywhere.
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Comment #10 posted by Hope on December 31, 2004 at 10:05:42 PT
OverwhelmSam
"Ever Notice?"Hooray!!! Yes, indeed, I have noticed. It's wonderful. Somebody has been hearing all of us...and some of them realize we are the ones telling the truth.
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Comment #9 posted by afterburner on December 31, 2004 at 02:55:54 PT
An Important Distinction
In the minds of many of the older generation, cannabis is associated with other crimes (other, that is, than the prohibition of ownership, production and transfer of said herb and devices used to partake of its benefits).This is a mis-perception that must be emphatically addressed. As most CNewers know, most of the "crime" of cannabis is caused by the prohibition of cannabis itself. A legal and regulated environment, a "white market," if you will, would eliminate the house-destroying minority of grow-ops, the home invasions, the turf wars, the environmental damage, and the dangers to law enforcement by removing the black market and the criminal element. (The terms "white" and "black" referred to here indicate the difference between bringing good cannabis back into the light of legality, as opposed to hiding under the cloak of darkness of illegality. "White" and "black," as used here do NOT refer to race although the original illegality of cannabis was perpetrated by racist propaganda.)In this writer's opinion much of the "crime" involving cannabis is perpetrated by politically motivated law makers making irrational and vindictive laws and by over-zealous law enforcement officers invading homes, holding the residents hostage, destroying property and families and lives, and confiscating the real estate capital of citizens over a flower! 
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Comment #8 posted by BGreen on December 30, 2004 at 23:37:10 PT
We've heard from Cliff Kincaid before
I took the time to research the "grieving parent" Kincaid wrote about back in October and it showed them both to be frauds. Kincaid also used Joyce Nalepka as a source in that article. Now Kincaid is still trying to attack cannabis. What is he afraid of, especially if it means embracing a discredited propaganda campaign of lies while calling himself "accuracy in media?" I guess he was just looking for a nifty acronym.The Reverend Bud Green*********************************************************Protester Mugged As Press Club Honors Nutty BillionaireBy Cliff Kincaid(10/31/04)A grieving parent who lost one of his children to a drug overdose attempted to tell the National Press Club on Thursday that billionaire George Soros has to be stopped in his campaign to put John Kerry in the White House. But as he held up a photograph of his dead child and began to speak, Steve Steiner was quickly surrounded by security personnel who grabbed and muzzled him. He was roughed up and led away, suffering a dislocated shoulder, a punch to the back, threats of more physical violence, and five hours in the hospital undergoing X-rays and other tests. After the commotion, Soros gave his own speech and received a National Press Club coffee mug as a token of appreciation.
Protester Mugged As Press Club Honors Nutty Billionaire
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Comment #7 posted by kaptinemo on December 30, 2004 at 13:34:14 PT:
Propaganda versus practicality
As has been mentioned here before, the Baby Boomers (a majority of whom possess more than a distant academic knowledge of the effects of cannabis) are ageing. They know the truth about the usefulness of this herb as opposed to histrionic and hysterical lies. They, too, are becoming grandparents...and beginning to suffer from maladies that cannabis can either ameliorate or perhaps even cure. Many who haven't indulged in ages are being exposed, slowly and fitfully, to increasing reports of the medicinal efficacy of cannabis. Based on those reports, they are once again using quietly...and slowly being made aware that, to paraphrase ol' Johnny Pee, these aren't their father's drug laws. Most middle-aged people or seniors can ill afford to have their home invaded, their lives threatened, and possessions auctioned off in forfeiture proceedings. They are beginning to wake up to the reality of the monster whose breath we have been smelling in our faces for decades.The majority of this demographic group is now moving into positions of cultural leadership, taking over from the previous generation. And, in many cases, those who have been hurt by the system their predecessors controlled are in a position to reverse the damages caused by uncritical acceptance of false information...such as scrapping the laws based upon lies about cannabis.Needless to say, those lingering members of the previous generation, out of a misplaced sense of self-importance in the scheme of things because they no longer possess the power they once did, continue to try to influence matters ...with increasing ineffectiveness. They just don't want to admit it's the next generation's turn. Hence, articles like this one. But it's the equivalent of the weak flapping about of some dying creature that just hasn't tumbled to it's imminent demise.In the end, practicality (adoption of medicinal cannabis and eventual relegalization) will triumph over propaganda; as the old Rolling Stones song went, "Tiii-ii-ime is on my side!". 
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Comment #6 posted by OverwhelmSam on December 30, 2004 at 09:35:01 PT
Ever Notice?
Ever notice how the words of the anti-marijuana pundits are tending to fall on deaf ears more and more. Very few people take the government's spin the "Marijuana is Dangerous!" seriously anymore. I mean, who do they think they're fooling? Themselves maybe?
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Comment #5 posted by Matt Stover on December 30, 2004 at 08:52:40 PT:
AIM Reverts to Goebbels' False-Propaganda-Level!
For forty years, the US Government formally denied that America relied on the domestic cultivation of one million acres of "Marihuana", in order for us to have won WWII. All of Media was wholly inaccurate, until Jack Herer combed through the National Archives, to empirically prove, in 1989, that the USDA's 1942 "Hemp For Victory!" Campaign was fully authentic.Today, the Media continues to wholly omit the facts that: "Marihuana" accounted for 8,352 Plantations - each necessarily holding more than 20,000 acres, in the US Census of 1850; "Marihuana" had always been America's foremost industrial crop, since its first law, in 1619, mandated that all Jamestown Colonists must grow and use "Marihuana" for taxes and currency.Worse yet, the Media has virtually erased the historically proper name of "Hemp" for the slanderous, stigmatized word of "Marihuana/Marijuana" - ever since William Randolf Hearst initially coined the term...The only reason why the world uses trees for paper production is because hemp is illegal; Hemp is only illegal because of the gross inaccuracy of these matters, as covered in mainstream media. "Hemp For Victory!" is needed, today as much as ever before - because groups like AIM have reverted to the level of Goebbels, the Chief Nazi Propagandist, who we only triumphed over by using hemp: for sewing millions of solders' boots, shoes, backpacks, firehoses, and parachutes; lubricating engines of thousands of tanks and aircraft; manufacture of explosives, and, tackle and gear; "...and countless other uses, both on ship and shore...'Hemp For Victory'!"AIM is the ultimate antithesis of Accuracy In Media!http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=feature_films&collectionid=Hemp_for_victory_1942
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Comment #4 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on December 30, 2004 at 04:55:32 PT
Accuracy in Media??
I've never heard of "Accuracy In Media" before, but if this is an example of how accurate they are, well, cancel my subscription. This article isn't the least accurate I've ever read, but it's sure a contender for the most obviously biased...Online articles that question poll results should be required to have their own poll on the same question right next to the article.A couple weeks ago my local paper's phone-in forum page had a stupid quasi-negative comment about medical marijuana - along the lines of "Just take an aspirin and shut up about it". A week later they devoted the entire column to six different callers, all of whom basically said, "If it makes somebody feel better then let them have it." They also ran a phone poll - while it got less than a hundred calls, the outcome was still 75% pro, just like the AARP poll.
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Comment #3 posted by mayan on December 29, 2004 at 17:15:33 PT
Hey Joyce!
They (Joyce & friends) said, "To those of us who've known for years that High Times magazine is a virtual market place for all things pro-drug, including marijuana seeds, mushroom spores, and drug paraphernalia, we had to wonder how many grandparents who participated in this AARP poll were aware what they were voting to support.The grandparents were perfectly aware of what they were voting to support, Joyce. They overwhelmingly supported medical cannabis. I'm sure it bothers you that your very own peers have turned their backs on your lies, doesn't it? And does it really matter who conducted the survey as long as it was scientific? Face it, Joyce, you have lost the battle of public opinion. Years of lies tend to tarnish your credibility. Care to resond, Joyce? I know you're reading these comments as you knew this article would likely be posted here at cannabis news. You won't respond because your argument was ripped to shreds every time you ever posted your lies here. You are in the ever shrinking minority. Get used to it, Joyce.
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Comment #2 posted by dongenero on December 29, 2004 at 13:10:26 PT
aarp
Hmmm, this is the first time that AARP has ever been appealing to me. I think going a bit counter culture is a good thing for them.
Of course Mama Nalepka doesn't think so. What a control freak that woman is!  
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on December 29, 2004 at 12:55:28 PT
AARP
I thought this article might be interesting.
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