Five Years From Now, By Alexandra Datig: January 2014

Thursday, January 30, 2014

He Went Into a Brothel Posing As a Customer, and Came Out Changed Forever. His Story is Unforgettable.

Love146 History from Love146 on Vimeo.

Every Minute, 2 Children Are Sold Into Sex Trafficking.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Kitten & The Hip: "Don't You Worry" Song About a Chick Trying to Score Some Weed, Ends Up In Jail

Don't You Worry by Kitten and The Hip.

I got no papers, got no smoke  

Damn this night wont let me toke  

Wanna get hooked up with Mary Jane

 She ain’t got none, missed the train

 Pushy pusher, got no friends  

Until she’s got her s**t in again  

Got no crystals gleaming bright

 I just wanna get high tonight

 Feel that green go to my head  

Wanna get blazed fore I go to bed

Tried old Jonny down the road  

Says the feds just nicked his load

 He told me that there’s none about

 Damn I’m clucking fuck this drought

 Looking for another clue  

Got the name of some dodgy dude  

Meet him at Builder’s Arms

 Not that dodgy, full of charm  

He’s too spangled, in the zone  

Gonna have to grow my own

Bought some seeds from the internet  

2 working days and I’ll be set  

Light my lamps and sow my seeds

 Snip and trim that sticky cheese

 People told me watch your back  

Peel an eye for the boys in black

 Police come knocking at the door

 I’m out sparko on the floor

 My mates ran out leaving me  

Now I’m in jail with nobody

Sunday, January 26, 2014

AP: Marlboro Man Eric Lawson Dies From Smoking Related Disease At Age 72

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eric Lawson, a working actor who portrayed the Marlboro Man in cigarette ads during the late 1970s, has died. He was 72.

 Lawson’s wife, Susan Lawson, said Sunday that her husband died Jan. 10 at his California home. The cause was respiratory failure due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.

 The ruggedly handsome Lawson portrayed the smoking cowboy in Marlboro print ads from 1978 to 1981. He also had bit parts in such TV shows as “Baretta” and “Charlie’s Angels” before injuries sustained on the set of a Western film ended his acting career.

A smoker since age 14, Lawson later appeared in an anti-smoking commercial that parodied the Marlboro Man and an “Entertainment Tonight” segment to discuss the negative effects of smoking.

He is also survived by six children.

Friday, January 24, 2014

If You Like Your Drug Policy, You Can Keep That Too!

By Alexandra D. Datig

Remember how the President promised if Americans like his or her health insurance plan, they can keep it under Obamacare? Then it turned out millions of Americans were denied coverage from their own plan providers? Only months after the President’s statement turned out to be false he does it again with a statement so shockingly against his own policy, it can only lead us to conclude that if Americans like his and her drug policy, they can keep that too!

Make no mistake, President Obama’s recent statement in the New Yorker regarding drug legalization was a calculated attempt at persuading Americans to favor legalizing of drugs without coming right out and saying it, in conflict with his own policies as well as the Controlled Substances Act. That is why he took the closet-legalizer approach by being careful to say to the New Yorker “if someone says” this or that, meaning he didn’t say it, yet he encourages drug legalization advocates to go-ahead and say it,… you know, wink-wink, sort of… LOL.

Take for example his comments “if we can come up with a negotiated dose of cocaine.” I am sober more than 15 years thank God, and just like the President who admitted to cocaine use in his book “Dreams From My Father” (1995), I too have used cocaine. Knowing this, the President also knows that any cocaine user is aware, there is no such thing as a “negotiated dose of cocaine,” because to even a first-time user cocaine creates a fiendish craving for more. A lot more. Therefore, to suggest there is an acceptable dose of cocaine to a cocaine user is like saying there is an acceptable amount of gas to drive 1500 miles even though your gas tank that only holds 18 gallons. It has also been scientifically documented that cocaine can create permanent unhealthy changes in the brain, even for first-time users. The same goes for marijuana and many other drugs.

Here’s where the calculation starts. After making these remarks Americans should theoretically be thinking cocaine may be harmful, but wouldn’t it be safer if it were legal? Would that make it “better” for cocaine addicts? No one is talking about how we should curb use except drug prevention organizations who are seemingly falling on deaf ears. To the President, however, that is not the point. After all, Americans have a right to do what they want with his or her body, wink-wink... LOL. Caveats of cocaine addiction and death should not be mentioned by the President of the United States? Really folks, this is what it has come to.

The President also said, “if marijuana is fully legalized.” With that statement he showed zero confidence in his own drug control strategy that speaks against the legalization of marijuana by which he is expected to lead the country! What Americans should be asking is, if President Obama is no longer president, will marijuana be given the same nonchalant and casual leeway? My immediate guess is, no, it will not, regardless of whether a Republican or a Democrat is occupying the White House.

To his comments about marijuana not being as bad as alcohol? Bad? Is that the best he can do? For a Harvard Law School graduate to use the word 'not as “bad”' seems plebian. How about marijuana is not as impairing and intoxicating as alcohol, though it does impair the user’s ability to reason at times. As a former member of the Choom Gang, the President also knows what it means to be an experienced marijuana user. He likely knows how to self-dose and drive stoned. He probably knows the difference between Indica and Sativa and likely has had his fair share of Maui-wowie when he lived in Hawaii. Does that make his closer-legalizer approach more persuasive?

Sadly, the entire recreational marijuana movement is built on the premise of alcohol prohibition. Instead of making a reasonable consumer-based argument, drug legalization advocates have taken a model of radicalized rebellion and personal right because, to quote the President, “marijuana is not as bad as alcohol.” Like alcohol, marijuana is slowly being made legal by dividing communities with radicalized pro-drug propaganda and with his recent statements President Obama has shown he is in lock-step with the hoodwinking pro-drug lobby.

If there ever is a negotiated amount of legal meth as the President suggests in his interview with the New Yorker, he should be the first to try some right before he gives a State of the Union Address. Maybe then Americans can decide if they think it is bad or "ok" or not. At the end of the day, we do need to figure out how to take the black market away from ruthless drug cartels. By dividing Americans with conflicting drug laws and an outdated radicalized alcohol prohibition model to aim at legalization, the President is only doing what he knows how to do best. Divide America by sounding like a crackpot.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Reflection

Monday, January 20, 2014

President Obama’s Passive-Agressive Approach To Drug Policy Is Destroying America

By Alexandra D. Datig

The National Drug Control Strategy of 2010, signed by the President of the United States, clearly states that the President of the Unite States, Barack Obama was firmly opposed to the legalization of marijuana for recreational use. But look what a second term as President can bring. Silence to get more votes in Colorado and Washington State? Muzzling of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein who was once clearly publicly outspoken against the legalization of marijuana? Statements like “we need to learn more about medical marijuana” while at the same time shutting down countless marijuana dispensaries all across the nation? An Attorney General who can’t make up his mind on mandatory minimum sentencing for what he calls “non-violent” drug offenders? A passive-agressive approach to drug policy perhaps?

Recently, President of the United States Barack Obama made the following statement. "If marijuana is fully legalized and at some point folks say, well, ‘We can come up with a negotiated dose of cocaine that we can show is not any more harmful than vodka,’ are we open to that?" Obama wondered. "If somebody says, ‘We've got a finely calibrated dose of meth, it isn't going to kill you or rot your teeth,’ are we O.K. with that?" Maybe we should begin by asking the various nations the United States has signed drug treaties with? Does the President even realize that the U.S. is now in violation of several international treaties due to drug decriminalization in various states? The zero-tolerance approach to drugs in the U.S. has certainly taken its toll on the prohibition of drugs, especially marijuana. When searching a little deeper, legalization of marijuana would also cost police department’s vast amounts of money because legalization would also change and void asset forfeiture laws. But then again, we already know the President plans to make up the difference by taxing the rich and aiming for single-payer universal healthcare with Obamacare.

Off in the distance, somewhere in Northern California, members of a Mexican drug cartel have set up shop on public land to grow marijuana. Destroying the eco-systems by creating dams to divert water for their crops, they use toxic and dangerous pesticides in the form of “edible” pellets that kill birds and they shoot the deer that like the taste of marijuana leaves. Even bears are attracted to the site from the scent of food in the grower camp and when they come near, are shot dead. To pass the time, dead bears and deer become trophies and the growers like taking pictures next to their kill, posing as if he just won a giant stuffed animal at a family carnival.

They have guns and knives and have no hesitation using them when they spot other drug gangs or cops in the area. Gunfire from black market growers has sparked many spot and even wildfires. When a rival cartel is spotted, drug gangs have also been known to detonate small bombs to smoke each other out.

Depending on light and growing conditions they stay at the site about 100 days. That is usually the turn around period it takes for a crop to reach harvest and acceptable drying conditions. When they are finished, they leave trash and toxic waste behind and the eco-system to fend for itself. All they care about now is turning the marijuana into fast cash to anyone willing to pay the asking price on the street. Legalization of marijuana has made things easier for Cartels that have also been caught working with marijuana doctors.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, the City is fighting to shut down over one thousand marijuana dispensaries because people are abusing medical marijuana laws. Instead of buying from the cartels and drug gangs, patrons seeking recreational marijuana in California, find him and herself claiming false illness to obtain a doctor’s recommendation to legally obtain marijuana under state but not federal law. These recreational users would rather lie than buy marijuana from a drug gang and many believe by doing so they are engaging in a noble cause by choosing to buy pot from a regulated lawful source. The question is, can we truly call these people criminals and lawbreakers knowing the alternative of how drug cartels operate to get drugs onto America’s streets?

Americans have chosen to use marijuana long before the question of drug legalization became a daily topic in the news. Politically, legalization for recreational use has been before voters for more than 41 years.

According to the latest Gallup poll, 58% of Americans now believe marijuana should be legalized. Evaluating the risks of introducing marijuana as a recreational drug into the legal market has proven roads would be more dangerous, on-the-job accidents more prevalent and has shown that teenage use dramatically increases. Do these factors prevent us from stopping drug cartels and drug gangs who push marijuana on citizens that have no clue where the pot he or she is buying came from, or what is in it?

Let’s face it, there are those among us who have decided that at one time or another marijuana will become a recreational habit. One we can take or leave alone. I have yet to see a pro-drug group outspoken about drug addiction so that we can curb drug abuse. That is simply not the intention of the drug lobby and apparently it is also not the intention of President Obama.

Being sober more than 15 years I can say I have already had my fair share and in my case, it didn’t increase the quality of my life. Therefore, I don’t use pot or anything else unless I am so ordered by my physician and even then I may not use what is prescribed. Yet I also know that I am not like everyone else and that people have a right to choose what to put in his or her body. People have a civil right to want their own experience with marijuana whether it benefits the quality of life or not and they are exercising that right whether we like it or not. As it stands, the only thing can prevent these choices is the law, which condemns and outcasts drug users, taking away quality of life and liberty.

It is pretty likely that within the next two years more than half the country will have states with medical marijuana laws. In other words folks, the train has left the station and there is no point in chasing the train down the tracks trying to reverse the irreversible. That means the national poll numbers are likely to increase, especially when looking at polling trends of favoritism toward the decriminalization of marijuana in the last ten years. A tragedy? Yes, because the movement, like President Obama, is aimless and wants not just to legalize drugs but also to liberalize them.

Therefore, the question we should be asking is no longer if pot should be legal. But rather, are we going about legalization in the right way? Are drug policy advocates selling a reckless agenda and succeeding just to get their foot in their door? Is America going to keep falling for the same arguments of back-door marijuana legalization by getting states to jump on the bandwagon with medical marijuana laws? Or are we going to get smart about this issue and figure out a way to get control of it?

Starting at the top with the President of the United States, we are increasingly no longer a nation that wants to get tough on drugs or drug users. If legalization methods and polling trends continue, it is quite possible that marijuana and even other drugs will be legal for recreational use within the next five to ten years. Without clarity and leadership from the Commander in Chief, the chaos with conflicting drug laws in America’s communities is only going to continue. We either find a way to create clear drug policy and create a safe and regulated market or we make the on-going free-fall liberalization of drugs worse.