Republicans Rediscover Their Big-Government Principles

Posted by David Boaz

Sen. Chuck Grassley, who can always be counted on to stick the federal government’s nose where it doesn’t belong, is criticizing Attorney General Eric Holder’s teeny-tiny steps toward a less oppressive enforcement of drug prohibition. Holder said on Wednesday “that federal agents will target marijuana distributors only when they violate both federal and state law. This is a departure from policy under the Bush administration, which targeted dispensaries under federal law even if they complied with the state’s law allowing sales of medical marijuana.”

Grassley says that marijuana is a “gateway” drug to the use of harder drugs and that Holder “is not doing health care reform any good.”

As Tim Lynch and I wrote in the Cato Handbook for Policymakers:

President Bush . . . has spoken of the importance of the constitutional principle of federalism. Shortly after his inauguration, Bush said, “I’m going to make respect for federalism a priority in this administration.” Unfortunately, the president’s actions have not matched his words. Federal police agents and prosecutors continue to raid medical marijuana clubs in California and Arizona.

And as Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in dissenting from the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the power of the federal government to regulate medical marijuana:

If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything

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Toxic Sunscreen

testing – Regardless of the debate on whether or not you can have too little sunshine on your skin, it is important to remember that currently there is no standard tests for monitoring toxic heavy metals contained in sunscreen creams.

Now, researchers in Greece have demonstrated that a sophisticated, but relatively straightfoward technique can be used to simultaneously determine levels of the inorganic UV filter, titanium dioxide, and several trace or toxic elements, including lead and zinc, in sunscreens and cosmetics. The results from their multi-element analysis were compared successfully with standardised data from atomic absorption spectroscopy, which suggests their approach could easily be used for quality control of these products and for regulatory testing.

Keeping an eye on anticancer drug – Chemists have devised a route to the compound, cyclopamine. This substance is found in corn lilies and causes lambs born of ewes that eat the lilies to be born with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads, a condition known as cyclopia. But, the chemists aren’t out to create a race of mutant sheep, the very same compound is known to interfere with a critical cell signalling pathway and so could be used as a novel anticancer drug.

Chicken shack solution for gun-slingers – Whatever you think of gun law, people shoot, and when they shoot they leave behind toxic lead. Japanese scientists are now using an X-ray technique to test how well soil remediation works in immobilising lead residues on gun club land. They have demonstrated that growing guinea grass and fertilising the soil with chicken guano could be the way forward. That said, it’s going to make for an awfully smelly day’s shooting.

Finally, in my SpectroscopyNOW column this week – Smoke under fire: Smoking marijuana is no less harmful than smoking tobacco, according to Canadian researchers who have looked at its toxic effects on cells. They draw their conclusion from an examination of the cytotoxicity, mutagenicity and clastogenicity of mainstream and sidestream marijuana smoke as compared to tobacco smoke. Inhalers of all kinds…beware.

Related Posts:Cannabis Cancer, Toxic Waste, AntibioticsGetting woodSunbathing, Frozen Fleas, and Heavy MetalNano SafeArsenic, Aminos, X-ray, Teasing

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The Lotus Eaters

Voyage of Recovery

The story of Odysseus is about more than just a Greek guy in a boat.

About 3000 years ago, the poet Homer told a story about a man called Odysseus and his voyage home to Greece following the Trojan Wars. Odysseus and his men met up with many exciting adventures along the way, but the most relevant to us is the story of his landing on the Island of .

The island was so beautiful that Odysseus wanted to stay there awhile and rest up. So he sent out some scouts to determine if the natives were friendly. Odysseus waited and waited, but the scouts never returned.

What had happened was this: the scouts had indeed met up with the locals, , who turned out to be very friendly. even shared their food with the scouts. But the food – the lotus – was a kind of dope, and the scouts got wasted from it and forgot all about Odysseus, their mission, getting back to Greece…everything. All they wanted to do was hang out, eat lotus, and get high.

Lucky for them, Odysseus came and dragged them kicking and screaming back to the ship. He tied them to their seats and ordered the crew to row like hell, in case anyone else might eat the lotus and forget the way home.

The story of Odysseus is about more than just a Greek guy in a boat. It’s about the journey people take through life and the obstacles they meet along the way. The story of the Lotus Eaters speaks particularly to us dopeheads. As addicts, we were stuck in a Lotus Land; we forgot our mission; we forgot the other adventures that awaited us; we forgot about going home.

Luckily, we each had within us our own Odysseus, our own Higher Power, which grabbed us by the collar and threw us back into the boat. So now we’re rowing like hell.

We may not know what’s going to come next, but we’re back on our way through life again.

From Marijuana Anonymous.

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