cannabisnews.com: Cops Harvest Crop of Idiots at Hempfest Cops Harvest Crop of Idiots at Hempfest Posted by CN Staff on September 26, 2005 at 13:40:22 PT By Howie Carr Source: Boston Herald Boston, MA -- I'm staring at the Boston police booking sheets with all the little darlings who got arrested at the big pot smoke-in Saturday on the Common. After a few minutes looking at these mugshots of double-chinned 19-year-olds, you start to feel like the casting director for the remake of "Wayne's World." Here's what stands out among all these pathetic losers: Tattoos. They all live at home with Mom.Overweight, most of them. Have you ever heard of 20-year-old high-school seniors? Welcome to the Hempfest. Did I mention tattoos? Do you know how difficult it is to get arrested for just smoking pot these days? I don't mean selling it, but merely consuming it. If you keep your nose clean and your head down, the legal jeopardy of doing a bone is next to nothing. Yet every year all these live-at-home stoners sashay in from the 'burbs, one toke over the line, and get themselves lugged.The poster boy for this year's Beavis & Butthead crowd is a young man from Danvers named James Lawler. He's 20 and weighs 245 pounds. He has a job: "food handler" at the Subway at the Liberty Tree Mall. Jim didn't return a call, but one can assume he's the King of the Food Court this week. "Dude, I heard you got popped at the weed fest. I bet you were wasted, man. Totally." Peter Butler is a 17-year-old Winthrop High dropout who now works as a painter. He was smoking a pipe Saturday when a cop came up behind him and grabbed it. "It was horrible," he said. "They put us in these holding cells for 10 hours. They were cold and tiny. Jail was everything my father told me it would be like." Butler had just pleaded out in court. He got a $150 fine and 20 hours community service. I told him I was writing a column about what a bunch of idiots he and his friends are."We pretty much are," he said. "I told my boss and that's exactly what he said, too, 'You guys are bleepin' dumb asses.' " I called Wellesley, the address given by a Northeastern student named Timothy Montalto. His tattoo is on his left thigh. He's a prodigy" only 26, and no doubt this close to graduating from Northeastern University. I got his mother Carolyn on the phone. "What's this all about?" she said. You mean the lad didn't tell his mother? You must be very, very proud of young, er, not so young, Timothy. By the way, ma'am, he's 26" why the heck isn't he out of college and working?"I don't wish to speak about this." Click. Don't you have to be a certain age" like, say, 18" to get a tattoo? Don't tell 17-year-old Nathan Fini of Leominster High School. According to the BPD, he's got multiple tattoos on his upper back. He's also got an arrest record. He didn't return a call.Another lad who got pinched was George Haggie, an 18-year-old construction worker from Newton. He still lives at home, of course. He was at the BMC yesterday when I called his home. His mother, Lisa, picked up the phone. "I think he's a stupid kid," she said. "I knew where he was going. I told him, don't do anything stupid. But he does it, and he gets locked up for nine hours. His friend had to call to tell me he'd been locked up." And what did you say to him when he made bail?"I said, 'Stupid kid, I told you so.' He's like, 'I know, I know, but I didn't even see the cop. He was undercover.' I said, 'What did you think he was going to do, announce it to you?' " Do you think he'll be going to the Hempfest again next year, Lisa? "I hope not," she said, "but he is a stupid kid." His tattoo, by the way, is on his left forearm. It's a cross. Source: Boston Herald (MA)Author: Howie Carr Published: September 21, 2005Copyright: 2005 The Boston Herald, IncWebsite: http://www.bostonherald.com/Contact: letterstoeditor bostonherald.comRelated Articles & Web Site:MassCannhttp://www.masscann.org/Cannabis Advocates Rally for Rightshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21123.shtmlWhy We Need a Freedom Rallyhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21115.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #43 posted by Hope on September 29, 2005 at 11:03:35 PT Thanks, Ekim, I appreciate your concern. That is one disturbing list you've posted. Very disturbing. [ Post Comment ] Comment #42 posted by ekim on September 28, 2005 at 22:03:53 PT Hope same as Fom and Kapt and everyone else The Mysteries of New Orleans Twenty-five Questions about the Murder of the Big Easy By Mike Davis and Anthony Fontenot We recently spent a week in New Orleans and Southern Louisiana interviewing relief workers, community activists, urban planners, artists, and neighborhood folks. Even as the latest flood waters from Hurricane Rita recede, the city remains submerged in anger and frustration. Indeed, the most toxic debris in New Orleans isn't the sinister gray sludge that coats the streets of the historic Creole neighborhood of Treme or the Lower Ninth Ward, but all the unanswered questions that have accumulated in the wake of so much official betrayal and hypocrisy. Where outsiders see simple "incompetence" or "failure of leadership," locals are more inclined to discern deliberate design and planned neglect -- the murder, not the accidental death, of a great city. In almost random order, here are twenty-five of the urgent questions that deeply trouble the local people we spoke with. Until a grand jury or congressional committee begins to uncover the answers, the moral (as opposed to simply physical) reconstruction of the New Orleans region will remain impossible. 1. Why did the floodwalls along the 17th Street Canal only break on the New Orleans (majority Black) side and not on the Metairie (largely white) side? Was this the result of neglect and poor maintenance by New Orleans authorities? 2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward -- the most deadly hit-and-run accident in U.S. history? 3. All of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish east of the Industrial Canal were drowned, except for the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial District along Chef Menteur Highway. Why was industrial land apparently protected by stronger levees than nearby residential neighborhoods? 4. Why did Mayor Ray Nagin, in defiance of his own official disaster plan, delay twelve to twenty-four hours in ordering a mandatory evacuation of the city? 5. Why did Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff not declare Katrina an "Incident of National Significance" until August 31 -- thus preventing the full deployment of urgently needed federal resources? 6. Why wasn't the nearby U.S.S. Bataan immediately sent to the aid of New Orleans? The huge amphibious-landing ship had a state-of-the-art, 600-bed hospital, water and power plants, helicopters, food supplies, and 1,200 sailors eager to join the rescue effort. 7. Similarly, why wasn't the Baltimore-based hospital ship USS Comfort ordered to sea until August 31, or the 82nd Airborne Division deployed in New Orleans until September 5? 8. Why does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld balk at making public his "severe weather execution order" that established the ground rules for the military response to Katrina? Did the Pentagon, as a recent report by the Congressional Research Service suggests, fail to take initiatives within already authorized powers, then attempt to transfer the blame to state and local governments? 9. Why were the more than 350 buses of the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority -- eventually flooded where they were parked -- not mobilized to evacuate infirm, poor, and car-less residents? 10. What significance attaches to the fact that the chair of the Transportation Authority, appointed by Mayor Nagin, is Jimmy Reiss, the wealthy leader of the New Orleans Business Council which has long advocated a thorough redevelopment of (and cleanup of crime in) the city? 11. Under what authority did Mayor Nagin meet confidentially in Dallas with the "forty thieves" -- white business leaders led by Reiss -- reportedly to discuss the triaging of poorer Black areas and a corporate-led master plan for rebuilding the city? 12. Everyone knows about a famous train called "the City of New Orleans." Why was there no evacuation by rail? Was Amtrak part of the disaster planning? If not, why not? 13. Why were patients at private hospitals like Tulane evacuated by helicopter while their counterparts at the Charity Hospital were left to suffer and die? 14. Was the failure to adequately stock food, water, potable toilets, cots, and medicine at the Louisiana Superdome a deliberate decision -- as many believe -- to force poorer residents to leave the city? 15. The French Quarter has one of the highest densities of restaurants in the nation. Once the acute shortages of food and water at the Superdome and the Convention Center were known, why didn't officials requisition supplies from hotels and restaurants located just a few blocks away? (As it happened, vast quantities of food were simply left to spoil.) 16. City Hall's emergency command center had to be abandoned early in the crisis because its generator supposedly ran out of diesel fuel. Likewise many critical-care patients died from heat or equipment failure after hospital backup generators failed. Why were supplies of diesel fuel so inadequate? Why were so many hospital generators located in basements that would obviously flood? 17. Why didn't the Navy or Coast Guard immediately airdrop life preservers and rubber rafts in flooded districts? Why wasn't such life-saving equipment stocked in schools and hospitals? 18. Why weren't evacuee centers established in Audubon Park and other unflooded parts of Uptown, where locals could be employed as cleanup crews? 19. Is the Justice Department investigating the Jim Crow-like response of the suburban Gretna police who turned back hundreds of desperate New Orleans citizens trying to walk across the Mississippi River bridge -- an image reminiscent of Selma in 1965? New Orleans, meanwhile, abounds in eyewitness accounts of police looting and illegal shootings: Will any of this ever be investigated? 20. Who is responsible for the suspicious fires that have swept the city? Why have so many fires occurred in blue-collar areas that have long been targets of proposed gentrification, such as the Section 8 homes on Constance Street in the Lower Garden District or the wharfs along the river in Bywater? 21. Where were FEMA's several dozen vaunted urban search-and-rescue teams? Aside from some courageous work by Coast Guard helicopter crews, the early rescue effort was largely mounted by volunteers who towed their own boats into the city after hearing an appeal on television. 22. We found a massive Red Cross presence in Baton Rouge but none in some of the smaller Louisiana towns that have mounted the most impressive relief efforts. The poor Cajun community of Ville Platte, for instance, has at one time or another fed and housed more than 5,000 evacuees; but the Red Cross, along with FEMA, has refused almost daily appeals by local volunteers to send professional personnel and aid. Why then give money to the Red Cross? 23. Why isn't FEMA scrambling to create a central registry of everyone evacuated from the greater New Orleans region? Will evacuees receive absentee ballots and be allowed to vote in the crucial February municipal elections that will partly decide the fate of the city? 24. As politicians talk about "disaster czars" and elite-appointed reconstruction commissions, and as architects and developers advance utopian designs for an ethnically cleansed "new urbanism" in New Orleans, where is any plan for the substantive participation of the city's ordinary citizens in their own future? 25. Indeed, on the fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, what has happened to democracy? Mike Davis is the author of many books including City of Quartz, Dead Cities and Other Tales, and the just published Monster at our Door, The Global Threat of Avian Flu (The New Press) as well as the forthcoming Planet of Slums (Verso). Anthony Fontenot is a New Orleans architect and community-design activist, currently working at Princeton University.Copyright 2005 Mike Davis and Anthony Fontenot http://www.minorml.org [ Post Comment ] Comment #41 posted by FoM on September 28, 2005 at 20:00:06 PT Hope I'm glad you are ok. I don't ask when someone who is a regular here doesn't post for a while because I don't know why a person isn't posting and maybe they just want to be away for sometime for whatever reason. If you need to go away if you want it would be nice if someone posted that you are ok but will be away for a while. Rest up now. [ Post Comment ] Comment #40 posted by Hope on September 28, 2005 at 19:26:26 PT Thanks, Kap and FoM. CannabisNews and my "radio silence" has been on my mind off and on all week. Next time something like this comes up and I know it'll be days before I get back on, perhaps I can get my husband or someone else to post for me and let you all know that I'm just away from the computer. We've all got enough to worry about without having to worry that one of us is in trouble or worse, so I'll try to do something to keep anyone from concern here, if any thing like that happens again.Thank you.All these accidents are making me feel a little paranoid...but it's not been deadly, and I'm very grateful for that.We've got another storm moving in right now. This time with lots of lightening and possibly large hail, as well as 65 mph winds. That storm we got from the hurricane, thankfully, had no hail and very little lightening and thundering. [ Post Comment ] Comment #39 posted by kaptinemo on September 28, 2005 at 17:20:55 PT: Good to see you back on, Hope I was wondering what had happened; 'radio silence' makes me real nervous when our regulars haven't been heard from for a while. Sorry to hear about all the med problems. [ Post Comment ] Comment #38 posted by FoM on September 28, 2005 at 17:03:47 PT Hope Sometimes I think that CNews is different then a news web site. To me it's a place where we can share difficult times and we learn from each other too. When we get something nice happening we can enjoy it but these days it has been hard because of the damage from the hurricanes. These storms will effect us no matter where we live. If only politicians really were held accountable instead of it being turned into a battle between parties then I would be happy. But the guy from Texas is already yelling they were out to get him. I have a hard time remembering his name because I find him very difficult to even look at when he is on tv. Get some rest. The Beatles are on now and then Get Up, Stand Up at 9. I love shows like these. It was a wonderful and difficult time to be alive but I wouldn't trade it for any other time. [ Post Comment ] Comment #37 posted by Hope on September 28, 2005 at 16:42:41 PT FoM You're a good friend and your concern is appreciated. Thank you.I would have liked to have seen the piece on Dylan, but I think I can watch it like on Sunday morning at three in the morning or something. I might see it yet.Tonight, I think I'll just watch Lost and then take my bedraggled self off to bed.The hurricane business is awful and it is definintely of the utmost importance. A true "Tempest". Not a "tempest in a teapot", brought on by politics. Politics is nasty stinky business. What's happening in Government is important, because it does effect us, but I want to keep government, politics, politicians, and the carrying on involved in it, out of my life as much as possible. There is enough misery without creating more, and that seems a lot like what they do most of the time. [ Post Comment ] Comment #36 posted by FoM on September 28, 2005 at 15:45:50 PT Hope Oh my you have been having a rough time but not with the hurricane. I don't want to sound like this political issue isn't important but how they deal with the results of Katrina and Rita are very important. We still are doing work around the house and we have debris from building laying around. I look at the debris I see on the tv and it overwhelms me as to how they will ever begin to pick up the pieces. PS: On PBS tonight starting at 7:30 until 11 ET they will have all kinds of good things from the 60s. Here's a link. The Bob Dylan Special was very good. He really was from the beatnik generation. It showed old footage that was really cool to see. I'm getting all my work done so I can sit and watch tv all night! LOL!PSS: It's really good to know you are ok. I can't help I worry.http://www.pbs.org/wnet/getupstandup/index.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #35 posted by Hope on September 28, 2005 at 15:33:27 PT The Hurricane It was pretty exciting when the worst of it hit, but, Thank God, it wasn't that exciting. I watched a barn roof lift into the air about three or four feet and come back down a few times. We lost lots of branches and some sheet iron, but got very little rain. All the animals made it through ok.Sorry, I worried you. I've been away from the computer. It's been all about injuries and emergency room visits around here for the last couple of weeks. My grandson got a serious burn on his arm. My mother stepped in a hole on the way to feed the horses and really tore up one ankle bad and the other a bit and her knee. My brother started having heart problems and I got in a tangle with a big weed eater that threw me to the concrete garage floor and left me with a bruised bottom and a dislocated, sprained shoulder. It could have all been a lot worse than it was. Anyway, I stayed with Mom, and she has no computer, until she got back sort on her feet some.I'm so glad the storm dissipated as much as it did. Once the wind nearly blew me down when I had to get out in it. It made me think about the power that a category five would have. Absolutely hideous.I'm looking forward to the cold front that is supposed to move in tomorrow. It's been a very hot summer. [ Post Comment ] Comment #34 posted by FoM on September 28, 2005 at 15:04:13 PT Hope It's good to see you. I was worried that the hurricane caused you problems. Almost every person I know doesn't care about politics. They all care about the victims of the hurricanes though. I just don't want this to bump the coverage of New Orleans and the other states that were hurt and how they are going to fix it. [ Post Comment ] Comment #33 posted by Hope on September 28, 2005 at 14:54:35 PT "Why is this issue important"? Tom Delay is the House Majority (Republican) Leader. He is a powerful man and he's falling from that place of power. He's already resigned as Majority Leader, as I understand it. He's been indicted on a felony charge because of illegal campaign contributions. [ Post Comment ] Comment #32 posted by FoM on September 28, 2005 at 12:44:38 PT Off Topic When I watch the news recently I really want to see the next step in re-constructing because of the damage that was done down south from the hurricanes. This political person from Texas got indicted for something. Why is this issue important that the news is talking about it? They say he did something wrong and he is getting charged. CNN is staying on the topic of re-construction much better. They seem on MSNBC to want to make this a political issue. [ Post Comment ] Comment #31 posted by FoM on September 28, 2005 at 10:29:52 PT Can I Be Wrong? For me kaptinemo I have been wrong many times in my life. I was very much a product of my fundamentalist beliefs and wasn't very understanding outside my little world. I learned I was wrong. When I started to realize that good people come from all walks of life, different races, different sexual preferences etc. I truly became free. I became free to love. [ Post Comment ] Comment #30 posted by kaptinemo on September 28, 2005 at 10:07:51 PT: FoM, it all starts with a question "Can I be wrong?"That's all. Incredibly simple, but for some people, ego countermands it. Pride obscures it. Anger at perceived wrongs suffered, real or imagined, justifies it. To admit to being wrong, to consider that another's opinion might actually be more than opinion but fact, is a basic quality for learning anything at all.The problem has always been one of ego getting in the way of learning. The cure requires that the ego take a back seat, sit down and shut up for a bit. But that cure is very painful for some. Some never are able to overcome the knowledge that they were, after all, wrong; there are apologists for slavery, for the genocide of the American First Peoples, for the Holocaust, for the massive butcheries of Fascism and Communism, etc. to this day. (I swear, I've actually heard some sorely deluded Americans say that Hitler was right after all regarding race relations; these are people whose fathers fought in WW2, some of whom liberated the death camps. With all the evidence before them, they still refuse to acknowledge the horror.)The idea that with a little more tweaking and adjustment, a murderous system could be made utopianly perfect is still with us...and let's face it, the antis are in this same grouping. Such fanaticism cannot stand the kind of introspection I am talking about. As Nietzsche put it, if you look too long into the Abyss, it stares back at you. If that Abyss is in your mind, your heart, your soul, looking there can be shattering. That's why, at the risk of being accused of generalities, our opponents, judging from my years of debating with them, lack the courage to look.They simply cannot afford the self-doubt inherent in the question, "What if I'm wrong?" because they identify themselves with their viewpoint so much, it becomes a form of ego-death that frightens them to no end.But the time may come when such a defense may no longer be societally acceptable. If only because our society, on a purely monetary, fiscal basis, can no longer support the assinine War on (Some)Drugs. What moral arguments could not accomplish, the pain of making hard decisions regarding how much a society can afford to spend on such luxuries when a government is flat broke and mortgaged to it's collective hair follicles might. [ Post Comment ] Comment #29 posted by FoM on September 28, 2005 at 08:32:52 PT kaptinemo You made me think of something. I have noticed over the years on CNews that a few people avoid certain questions and I have always wondered why. Being honest with our opinions on delicate issues should be talked about. How can we help change the thinking of people if they don't say why they feel the way they do? I believe soul searching is very hard but it is necessary for us to grow as individuals.PS: Tonight on PBS will be a special on Protest Songs. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/getupstandup/index.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #28 posted by kaptinemo on September 28, 2005 at 08:17:55 PT: To clarify one point When I speak of the 'moral hot seat', I am speaking of the duty (as ML King stated so long ago and paid the ultimate price for insisting upon) that the indivdual must look inside themselves and ask tough questions about the things they believe as opposed to the consequences of those beliefs.Many years ago, we had the likes of Joyce Nalepka visiting here, and attempting to do what she and so many other antis were habitually doing: namely, she expected to deposit her verbal manure without being challenged on it, as so often happens at their 'press conferences' that were little more than a Soviet-style policy announcement.Well, she didn't get away with it. Many regulars invited her to come back and attempt to justify her statements logically. Obviously, she couldn't do it; prohibitionists have had their way in the media for so long they've forgotten the fine art of debate. Their mental musculature has grown flabby and they simply cannot withstand the torrent of facts which we can muster to flush out their propaganda. She never came back. Their lack of conviction evinced by their failure to return and defend their positions demonstrates that they have failed to do that moral inventory that is absolutely necessary before anyone can claim to be speaking for the commonweal. Instead of looking at their preconceptions in the light of rationality and fact, they prefer to shove them further down into the darkest corners of their minds, unexamined and festering. But they demand that we, also, as citizens, subscribe to that same process by adhering to morally questionable laws.Which is why I never got an answer from any of them to this question: If a law causes more damage to society than the behavior it is supposed to curtail, when should you decide to not follow it? Those who, during the 1840's and 1850's used jury nullification *to abrogate the very Constitution itself* (in which, to our everlasting shame, slavery was included) in refusing to turn over slaves to their 'masters' were guided by that principle, not ink on parchment permitting monstrosities. Modern day prohibitionists, judging from their actions, would have monomaniacally voted in every instance of such a case to return the former slave to servitude, with all the horrors attendent to the practice. Because it was (drum roll and trumpet blare) "THE LAW!" It took hundreds of thousands of lives in a very un-civil war to end what could have been stopped with a stroke of a pen had all Americans done that soul-searching.Bad laws can infect societies in their infancy, and taint a generation unborn with a future 'illness' that often costs lives to cure. The DrugWar is perfect proof of that. [ Post Comment ] Comment #27 posted by ekim on September 28, 2005 at 07:47:23 PT thanks Kapt last fri on c-span Brian was talking about the US Constitution and asking questions of callers. he was asked if jury nullifcation was used for ending slavery and giving the vote to our Mothers he said no. i hope this issue gets more ink as you say, many articals are given life here. http://www.leap.cc/events [ Post Comment ] Comment #26 posted by kaptinemo on September 28, 2005 at 05:58:07 PT: Yes, Ekim, it's true And some of the very first and most important legal cases enshrining our rights *into case law* came from such refusals to convict. Everything from the First Amendment's application all the way up to alcohol Prohibition cases were decided by the jury refusing to convict a defendant because they believed the law demanding such a conviction to be unjust. This, and this alone, is why so many judges and prosecutors are really, truly terrified of a single juror that knows this right and is unafraid to exercise it. Real democracy is seldom tolerated in the courtroom, and that's precsiely what jury nullification represents: true 'power of the people'.A long time ago there was a movie called "12 Angry Men" in which the issue of nullification was obliquely brought up. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who wants to try to find a copy at the rental store, so I'll just say that the hold-out character who forces his fellow jurors to consider their own preconceptions and prejudices has exactly the sort effect nullification brings about. By challenging the severity of a law, the *law, itself* is challenged. And a lot of judges and prosecutors are not capable of JUSTIFYING that law, and they know it. (How can anyone justify cannabis prohibition when its' foundation is built upon the racist rhetoric of one Harry J. Anslinger with not a single shred of scientific proof?) They don't want to be put on the moral hot-seat and have their own prejudices turned inside-out for public display. For it makes them liable for two things: their own ignorance and/or complacency in the face of injustice, and the need to remedy those conditions. A very uncomfortable situation, indeed.In a very odd sense, you'd think that judges, were they more concerned with the moral rectitude of law rather than its' cold-blooded application, would welcome the 'interference' of the jury via nullification. But most judges, just as many who have been vouchsafed with like power, are reluctant to surrender it. Which makes nullification that much more important, to act against would-be tyrants in black robes and three-piece suits...as exactly what the Founders intended. [ Post Comment ] Comment #25 posted by boballen1313 on September 27, 2005 at 15:03:48 PT I Remember this episode of Dobi Gilles I think Howie is suffering the symptoms of self-righteousness. Reality will eventually bite him in the hind quarters... Its going to be great watching this airbag get deflated! [ Post Comment ] Comment #24 posted by JackBNimble on September 27, 2005 at 12:24:54 PT There's another way Howdy all,This article was insulting to all the people mentioned. I think we can agree on that much.BUT....Had the youths mentioned NOT had tattoos and NOT been easily stereotyped, would this article have had any impact (or ink for that matter) at all?Blend in folks. This is a drug "war". The less different you appear from their own relatives, the less they can stigmatize you.It's not a cop out to be a spy behind enemy lines. [ Post Comment ] Comment #23 posted by westnyc on September 27, 2005 at 09:34:07 PT Free Speech I, too, am offended by this ridiculous rant; and, I think anyone in Boston who is overweight, or a weed-smoker, or those living on the fringe - would do well by writing a response to this paper explaining their disagreement; especially, the discriminatory nature of this article.I don't like this article; but, I think it is perfectly fine to have this type of editorial if it is presented as "opinion." However, I wish that their "editorial guidelines" would also give "editorial equality" to the opposing "opinion." [ Post Comment ] Comment #22 posted by runruff on September 27, 2005 at 08:50:33 PT: Overweight stoners ? Here I gop again.....ranting. Someone please just tell me to shut up. My wife and I own and operate Club Cascade Health and Fitness Center. Our clients look like this. We have over weight people working to keep their weight down. None of them use cannabis. We have cannabis users who work out to stay in shape and they look great. Mostly women. Many have some very tastfully done tatoos. Whats the big deal about that? I don't have any tatoos. Neither does my wife. We have a very fine and fun group of people who come here. A real social mix. Once again this guy is a real idiot. How do people like him get drivel like this published? [ Post Comment ] Comment #21 posted by dongenero on September 27, 2005 at 08:49:40 PT some help for Howie Carr...... in case he finds our forum.............http://www.coping.org/anger/hatred.htm [ Post Comment ] Comment #20 posted by westnyc on September 27, 2005 at 08:15:54 PT More descrimination to the overweight! It's sad that this article refers to cannabis users as being "double-chinned" pathetic losers. Also, I watched Penn and Teller's show on HBO called B.S. They had an enlightening segment debunking the War on Drugs. I highly reccommend everyone here rent it! [ Post Comment ] Comment #19 posted by FoM on September 27, 2005 at 08:04:07 PT Truth Oh my Truth! LOL! [ Post Comment ] Comment #18 posted by Truth on September 27, 2005 at 08:02:09 PT darn.... not only do I have a tattoo but it's a cannabis leave. Guess it's jail time..... [ Post Comment ] Comment #17 posted by FoM on September 27, 2005 at 07:32:10 PT Mornin' Everyone Another day will no news. I'll keep looking though. I hope all our Texas friends are ok. I won't be happy until they comment and then I know they are doing alright. I missed Weeds last night but watched the first part of The Bob Dylan special on PBS. They haven't shipped Prairie Wind yet. It appears it is sold out. That's good for Neil Young so I'm listening to the new album on his web site. My husband's semi blew the power steering hose or something like that on his first run in a few months. Ain't life just great! LOL! I'm still having a great day listening to music. http://www.neilyoung.com/prairiewind.html Neil Young: Prairie Wind [ Post Comment ] Comment #16 posted by goneposthole on September 27, 2005 at 06:41:21 PT You will notice ... that Mr. Carr doesn't mention any overweight women. The cat needs a punch in the snoot for writing such a 'stupid' column. I would. I'd hit him hard. So there.Reefer time [ Post Comment ] Comment #15 posted by Had Enough on September 27, 2005 at 05:54:00 PT Tattoos I wonder how the natives around the Pacific Islands would respond to Mr. Carr's remarks about tattoos. Especially if it was in the 1500's. Saw a documentary on the Learning Channel or a similar station. The Natives really liked their body art. Would he have gone the way of the famous explorer Cortez?By the way Howie should know, I have no tattoos and figure I have no business to ridicule people who do. In fact I've seen some that look pretty darn good, and enjoyed looking at them. Some are truly art. [ Post Comment ] Comment #14 posted by OverwhelmSam on September 27, 2005 at 04:47:08 PT Stereotype Debunked This guy has been totally brainwashed by the government, but I bet the sobriety freaks and marijuana haters eat it up. Obviously this ignorant "columnist" is unaware of the 20, 30 and even 40 year olds still living at home who never touch weed. It would be great if his toking Editor fired him. Call it poetic justice. [ Post Comment ] Comment #13 posted by afterburner on September 26, 2005 at 21:05:42 PT Nice, ekim Massachusetts 'fires' another "shot heard 'round the world." Hooray, FREEDOM is still alive and well in the USA.Battle at Lexington Green, 1775 http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/lexington.htm The Start of the American Revolution and the "shot heard round the world." Printer Friendly Version >>>. Massachusetts Colony was a hotbed of sedition This Land is Your Land: This Land is My Land by Woody Guthrie [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by ekim on September 26, 2005 at 20:45:15 PT Montel and Dave Letterman and Jon haveon Howard Sep 27 05 Corrections Class 10:00 AM Howard Wooldridge Schenectady New York USA No need to correct Board Member Howard Wooldridge about America's war on drugs because he has it right: It is a failure! Howard will relay facts about the failures of drug prohibition to students of Professor Bob Hoff's Corrections Class at Schenectady County Community College. Howard will also talk about his cross country journey to end the failed war. Visit http://www.LEAP.cc/Howard for more info on Howard's trip. Albany, NY (LEAP) On Monday, Howard will ride through Albany to SR-5 to US-9, and then cross the Hudson River and ride South along US-9, on the East side of the river, toward New York City. •Read the Long Rider Blog >>No More Drug War"The liberal approach of drug prohibition has always been a failure and always will be. We police officers know that every drug dealer arrested, shot or killed is quickly replaced. Drugs are cheaper, more powerful and more readily available than ever before. We are truly a mosquito on the butt of an elephant. Prohibition guarantees the existence of drug dealers. Prohibition is the root problem," says Howard. We need to end drug prohibition today. • http://www.leap.cc/howard [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by ekim on September 26, 2005 at 20:28:48 PT Kapt is that true in comment at Lastone That the Salem witch trials were fought off with nullifcation. and the runaway Slave laws snuffed out also.Monday, September 26, 2005 http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/ Jury says NO http://wwww.hempology.org [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by The GCW on September 26, 2005 at 19:15:58 PT We'll probably do the same thing. When the coin gets flipped, We may be just as bad. (Damn THC deficient idiots...drive worse than drunks...)We should be able to help Howie get a grip and pull His head out of His butt. (For the glory of the Ecologician)In the mean time, here is another jab, from another rag..."When people ingest drugs or urinate or defecate in parks or public areas, it contributes to "a sense of lawlessness and lack of control." ...a needle, crack pipe or marijuana bong...CN BC: Bylaw To Ban Drug-Use Items In Parks, Other Publichttp://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1534/a13.html?397 [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by unkat27 on September 26, 2005 at 18:43:04 PT Fascism is Un-American, Dis the DEA! "The hate from Howie's article is indicative of the intolerant nature of the folks who would have us caged for using a plant."Exactly the point in my article: US DEA: TEaching Fear and Hatred of Marijuana Users Everywhere [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by mayan on September 26, 2005 at 18:21:27 PT Hate The hate from Howie's article is indicative of the intolerant nature of the folks who would have us caged for using a plant. I'd rather hang out with the fat,tatooed kids than Howie any day.THE WAY OUT IS THE WAY IN...Inside Able Danger – The Secret Birth, Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death of a U.S. Military Intelligence Program: http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=682Los Angeles Citizens' Grand Jury on 9/11 - PDF Download: http://www.911blogger.com/2005/09/los-angeles-citizens-grand-jury-on-911.html9/11 proof: http://www.911proof.com/Wass Bush Complicit With the 9/11 Attacks?http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/bush.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by MikeEEEEE on September 26, 2005 at 18:13:54 PT Mean spirited lower life forms Yes, they exist.Mean in their tone, and what's seen is the very ugly, nasty sections deep inside. This guy might be bipolar. [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by Sam Adams on September 26, 2005 at 17:53:08 PT E_J Welcome to the Boston Herald! [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on September 26, 2005 at 17:11:33 PT Verbal abuse This is sick. I've never seen something this nasty and abusive get published before. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by insaneavocado on September 26, 2005 at 17:00:25 PT: I agree Dongenero I agree that he's trying to paint a picture of all pot smokers as completely idiotic good for nothing stoners. Those were just a hand full of people. He actually proved that there are others too when he said:Do you know how difficult it is to get arrested for just smoking pot these days? I don't mean selling it, but merely consuming it. If you keep your nose clean and your head down, the legal jeopardy of doing a bone is next to nothing. Yet every year all these live-at-home stoners sashay in from the 'burbs, one toke over the line, and get themselves lugged.Of course even the seasoned smoker slips up sometimes not to mention it's not quite as hard as he made it seem to get caught. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by runruff on September 26, 2005 at 16:55:18 PT: My three cents! Sterotyping is the first tactic used by Anslinger and the rest of the prohibs. Just think because Dan Rastenkowsky[SP?] was famous for his three martini lunches dosen't mean he was a loud mouth drunken crook. He was a loud mouth drunken crook but he could have been drinking Scotch or whiskey or even wine. [ I have my tounge in my cheek here.] [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by ekim on September 26, 2005 at 14:26:06 PT lured and arrested Monday, September 26, 2005 http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/ Jury says NOI mentioned this case briefly back in July. As part of a drug sting, police in Great Barrington, MA lured and arrested 19 young people for selling drugs (most were first time offenders and many were for small amounts of marijuana -- http://www.leap.cc/howard [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by dongenero on September 26, 2005 at 14:20:17 PT NEWS FLASH There are stupid pot smoking teens and 20 somethings. Thanks for pointing that out Mr. Carr.What bothers me about Mr. Carr's article is that he is really attempting to use his article as a way to disparage marijuana use in general, by associating it with the handful of dumb kids he is profiling. This stereotyping is no more useful in describing cannabis users than it would be for me to describe all journalists as 2nd rate Rush Limbaugh wanna bees. Ooopps....Rush Limbaugh already is 2nd rate. I guess that makes Mr. Carr 3rd rate or lower.By the way, here is more info on Howie.... In this, he is blithering and stammering something about how Bush is a regular guy, a brush cutter. Isn't that who you would want as your President, a regular guy, brush cutter?http://www.nndb.com/people/122/000052963/ [ Post Comment ] Post Comment