Utah

[palmspringsbum]

Lake Effect - October 26, 2006

Citizen Blunt

by Ted McDonough
The Salt Lake Weekly

Davis County voters will be deprived of the political services of Mark Burnside this year. The one-time candidate for the District 15 House seat was disqualified from the November election for failing to file a financial disclosure form. Burnside, a hemp and medical marijuana advocate running with the Personal Choice Party (which features a yellow smiley face for a logo) protests he had a good excuse for missing the filing deadline. He was in what he termed the “psych ward” and was “drugged senseless for a week” on an incorrect medication.

Adding insult to injury, Burnside (aka Herb Hempstead, High Priest of the Hemp Godddess) wrote in an e-mail to City Weekly, “They came to my house on an anonymous tip and raided me for growing cannabis. … So I got to spend four days in jail with a herniated disk, no meds, no herb, disqualified from the election.”

“I even paid the fucking tax on the pot in 1997,” Burnside wrote, attaching a photocopy of the receipt he received from the state Tax Commission when he purchased drug stamps for the produce of his backyard garden.

No wonder more good men don’t run for office.

[palmspringsbum]

Dear Mr. Romney, will you arrest me?

by Mike Overson, Editor, The Eagle (College of Eastern Utah)
October 11th, 2007


Over the weekend I was watching Fox News Network when a story caught my eye. Various people were interviewing Mitt Romney, republican presidential hopeful, when one man’s question caught my attention. The man asked whether or not Romney would arrest him as well as his doctors because of medical marijuana usage.

“I don’t support medical marijuana” was Romney’s response.

Answer the question though, whether you support the states’ rights to govern themselves is not the question. Will you in your presidency, if elected, continue to crackdown on doctors that are convinced this plant is a natural beneficial way to cope with cancer and other ailments? What about those patients who do not show signs of improvement except when marijuana is used? It seems to me that as a voter and more importantly an American, I have the right to know where potential leaders stand on this and other issues. For the sake of being fair, I would implore all candidates to answer that question as well.

For too long the federal government has had free reign over the states. Medical marijuana is a huge topic of debate in this election. The time of “stupid pot-heads” is coming to an end. People are fed up with being stepped on, abused and ignored. More and more states are ratifying their own laws concerning this.

But how is it that the feds continue to abuse their limitless resources and get away with anything badges? I think it is appalling the president has to ask Congress for money to support our troops. If anyone should get what they need and not have to wait for our country’s “democratic” process to decide its fate, the military should be it. How is it that the Drug Enforcement Agency has a blank check? If you are the DEA and you need money to bust non-violent drug offenders you don’t ask, you sometimes give receipts after the fact. Only when pressured will the DEA publicize its spending. While our troops across the world need better armor they have to wait to maybe, just maybe get new equipment before their deployment ends.

But back to arresting people with legitimate licenses. As long as patients abide by laws set forth by their resident state, the federal government should step back and let the state worry about the pandemic this issue created. With all those patients using this devil substance in the privacy of their own homes, I’m waiting for these cancer ridden citizens to start pillaging different cities. Twelve medical states are bravely doing what no one else is daring to do. Sticking it to the man.

While the DEA continues to raid pharmacies in hopes of crushing what it sees as a peasant rebellion more and more people are getting these licenses and supporting the movement, which is medical marijuana.

The majority of the DEA’s endless power comes from the administration’s lack of caring. If a president doesn’t care that hundreds of thousands of people are being incarcerated for simple marijuana possession charges, then the DEA will continue to be government thugs with no fear of repercussion. My hope is this, one day the people of America will care about who leads them; who makes the laws, who enforces laws and who decides that pursuing happiness is wrong if a certain substance the government chooses is illegal is used.

So, Mr.. Romney, will you arrest that man and thousands like him? Will you condemn people to a life in prison for not obeying federal laws? Why is it that states have to bend to the power of the federal government? Shouldn’t states have rights to decide constitutional matters?

If someone disagrees with my point of view then I am happy. This country guarantees a right to say what you think. If that right is not taken advantage of then this country will soon end up like countless others around the world. Places where free speech is looked down upon almost as much as women in some religious countries. If the United States of America ever ends up like those places, the world will be hell on Earth.


Send Mike Overson a comment at m.overson@ceu.edu

[palmspringsbum]

U Police brief

The Daily Utah Chronicle
By: Ana Breton
Issue date: 1/8/08 Section: News

<span class=postbigbold>12/3</span>

A female student told police that a man had approached her in the Fine Arts building and asked her for a place to sleep. She said he was not aggressive and that his clothes were ripped and wet. They proceeded to talk for several hours, according to the police report. He handed her a bag of marijuana as appreciation for her time. She later flushed the marijuana down the toilet. She said his name was Nathaniel and that he was 27 years old, 5-foot-1, with shoulder-length hair and had a large mole on the right side of his nose.