Through another persons eyes.

It's always interesting to watch the stage crowd behind Trump during his rallies (or any politician really). It's hard not to overlay a narrative. Who are *you* person on that stage? What is your story? Where do you come from? I genuinely want to know.

This is your life?

Despite what I try not to assume about you I also know your story has truth to it. There is a reason you're up there. That you lean this way or that. What winds blew you here?

Latest event. Where this time I do not recall. The footage flies by so fast, the words blend into one long preamble for the future. There's a young man on stage up there next to what appears to be an older male relative. Or not, maybe they just met. Chatted a bit, Hi, how are you? Exciting isn't it?

Trump mentions that if Hillary is in China, in Tienanmen Square (of all places...) and collapses, they'll just leave her there. Those Chinese. Those tough people. He says in genuine admiration.

Good Samaritans, one and all.

The crowd jeers, cheers and laughs at his wonderful statement. This magical thought. This shared image in their minds of another human being down and out. She deserves it.

Of course not *really* a human though, right? She's just a concept, a figurehead, a politician, America. It really is a brilliantly populist piece of speech, as these things tend to go.

Rally and inspire.

Yet the image in the shared collective imagination is of someone specific struggling on the ground, older, weak, sick or unconscious, needing help, people walking about, ignoring them, maybe even walking over them or more.

Let your imagination run a bit as to what that scene might look like to some in that crowd. What they are cheering for in their minds eye.

On stage, the older man nudges the young man with his elbow, laughing heartily. The teen gives the man a sideways look we've all done. Part "yes, i got the dad joke, dad" and part something else. The teen looks quickly around the room, he's not laughing. Eyes a little wider, brow a little more furrowed, lips a bit tighter.

Just for a second it's the open expression of someone seeing something for the first time.

Hypersurface Observations

Maybe taking it all in.

Maybe he gets that what just happened isn't really all that funny. Isn't just a dad joke. Isn't quite the world he wants to build a future in.

But then again I could just be putting up a story. Out of context and out of mind. Just words. 

So many words.

Kindness is just another word.

Yup the drug war is all about harm reduction. /sarcasm

The media seems to be a little confused. In fact, the media is down right flaccid in it's attempts to clarify their confusion. It seems to have forgotten that some terms can be fed to them from the bursting tit of a succulent propaganda machine.

I'll try to clear things up for them.

'K2', 'Spice', "Fire and Ice', 'What the hell they are calling it now in the papers' is not marijuana. It's not "synthetic" marijuana. It has nothing to DO with marijuana other then one similar mode of consumption. Smoking.  Oh and there are some dried plants of some kind involved. Maybe.

"You expect us journalists to actually follow up and find out what we are writing about? We don't get paid enough for that shit."

You know, calling this stuff synthetic marijuana is a bit like saying moonshine is synthetic water, or synthetic wine. Or hell, wine is synthetic grape juice. Or the other way around? Whatever.

The substances that are grouped under the misnomer of "synthetic marijuana" are a combination of unknown, varied, and unregulated drugs, herbs, and other ingredients. It's a bit like the wild west. In fact this situation reminds me of what the snake oil and traveling "medicine men" of old used to do and how they went about making their buck. And THAT reminds me of something important. And it's something that often gets lost in the noise of Drug War battles. It's the role of the FDA in this whole mess.

The FDA was created for real and beneficial reasons.While the FDA has many detractors these days it once had a job to do but now it has been hijacked

The FDA should go back to doing its job instead of towing the line of the absurd and society warping Drug War policies. The job is (was) to regulate the production of food and drug items with the safety of the consumer in mind. One of the aims was to provide the consumer with true information about products by way of testing, labeling, and standards. I think that information is one of the most important keys to harm reduction and consumer protection. We should be able to read helpful and lucid facts on a product, like, for example:

"K2 has X, Y, Z ingredients in N amounts. The possible effects are A, B, and C. Users with the following L, M, N, conditions and taking the following O, P medications shouldn't use it. It also tastes like puppies."

Why is this so difficult? Is it cost? Frankly it doesn't matter if it is. The FDA itself needs to be overhauled. I'll repeat myself, the FDA has been hijacked by political and social agendas. And also by corporate interests, but that's another post but they are not so separate of subjects.

Ask yourself, what is really beneficial to consumers? Information or fear and panic stories like the one I've linked to? Regulation or an ever expanding illicit black market soup? Why is true harm reduction and consumer protection such foreign concepts in the US? Why is it that when harm reduction is brought up it's coated in lip-service platitudes and insulting "won't somebody think of the children!?" triteness, instead of real action that would in fact reduce harm? Why does it always have to be the same pitchfork villager chant of "Ban Ban Ban!"

.... Is it because it's all worked so well, so far?

Carpets of grass

Today's quick lesson in economics and home ownership.

It is not OK to have nicely arranged planters growing food. You will be accused of bringing property values down. It also might get you some jail time.

It is OK to have chemically sustained lawns cut by teams of migrant workers. This will bring property values up and will probably win you some sort of "Best Yard of the Month" award. Yay!

Don't bring a nine iron to a gun fight.

The Daily Drug War in a nutshell. A half-awake man in a t-shirt wielding a golf club against a platoon of armed and armored warriors.

In war, the point of any battle is to kill the enemy. Every power has figured this out, it's too troublesome to take prisoners. Prisoners only work when you need cheap labor, pun fully intended.

Despite what the media and politicians still try to proclaim, the enemy in this war isn’t gangsters, Mexican mafias, or vile kingpins. The enemy isn’t even evil, despite misleading, cruel and ironic "Save The Children!" rhetoric. The enemy in this war is millions upon millions of regular people. And yes they are regular people, despite the strong and shrill objections of some of The Serious People. Oh, bless those poor serious people. They who resent being lumped in with "scum." They who sincerely sermonize about how we all just need to grow up and Obey. Don't we know the world isn't lollipops and gumdrops, what's with our pie in the sky hopes and ideals?

So, who are they? These millions? Some have addictions; horrible, life devastating problems with drugs. And I mean real problems, not court ordered, choice of rehab or jail time type problems. While others consume, like fine wine with dinner. Some sell, grow, own land, own nothing, manufacture, ship, house, travel, stay put, learn, or teach. Some are lovers, wives, or husbands. Some are roommates, children, patients. Some own businesses, some just work, and some hold no job. Most, if not all, just want to be left alone.

But, how can you be left alone when the act of inhaling, the act of possessing, the act of distributing carries the consequences of this video? Drugs and the black market forces provide an economic incentive for these consequences. The economic incentive is not limited to drug lords. It is also reveled in by the anti-drug lords. The black market controls and warps economic opportunities, and therefore the social world. While black markets always exist, prohibition allows for this one to thrive, unregulated, not policed, dangerous. Deadly and highly profitable for the power players on both sides. Without obscene blanket prohibition where would we be? It might be bold but I truly believe that no one at all has been saved by prohibition.

Nastier and dirtier drugs have been created because of it. Nastier and dirtier people as well. Nastier and dirtier institutions thrive upon it and are growing ever larger.

So, once again, since this is a war the battles are not for the betterment of society. The battles are to eradicate the enemy. And conveniently for our moral warriors, the definition of enemy is constantly expanding. One day, even you will most likely be one. That, or you will know someone close and dear to you who is. As in every other war collateral damage means little if compared to the glory of winning and claiming the spoils.

And in this war there's a hell of a lot of pillage still left up for grabs.

The Flower

So much packed into such a small package.