“WASHINGTON — Federal agents will no longer be carrying pocketknives with a specially engraved training slogan that enraged some gun and property rights activists.

U.S. Rep. Bill Sali, R-Idaho, said Friday that his complaints about the slogan — “Always Think Forfeiture” — persuaded the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to end its use on the Leatherman tools handed out to participants in a training program. McClatchy, in full

Unfortunetly this has about as much chance of being realized as the rest of my fantasies but still it’s fun to dream.

Loyd, coming into this discussion and asserting the naivete of the participants (and by implication your superior wisdom and experience) is not going to get you a friendly or critical hearing.

I volunteer! (giggle….)

When I was a teenage hippie in New York circa 1968, the NYPD Central Park precinct house was always surrounded. ‘Johnny Pot-seeding’ is an ongoing project… NAY! Avocation, for lottsa potsters.

James M: “Alluding to Peggy’s earlier comments: My sister, PhD pharmacology, once asked why there was such a movement for medicinal pot in California given the existence of marijuana-derived pharmaceuticals like Marinol. The answer is, of course, because you can’t grow Marinol for free in your backyard.”

There are other reasons… The fellow I did live audio work with here in California was a participant in the Stanford ‘Pot Tests’. He said the pills they dispensed made him (a working electrical engineer) ‘sluggish and stupid’, and what little they smoked during the tests was ‘Standardized’ in the apothecary sense of the word. Sticks, stems, seeds, ‘vegetal matter’ all ground together. As was done for the 12 (count ‘em twelve) Glaucoma research participants whom the feds studied for a while.

For Glaucoma (site-specific blood pressure control… ‘vision viagra’), as an analgesic… for physical pain relief, the ‘breakdown products’ of the pot plant as it cures/ages, CBD, CBD… ‘cannabinoids’… are the desired product.

For instance, hashish has almost NO THC and is pretty much all cannabinoid from the ‘manufacturing process’.

Cannabinoids affect the body and make you ‘sluggish & stupid’, as my friend put it. I suspect that would be the full focus of any Federal attempt to study Marijuana. Blood pressure regulation, pain relief, and narcotic effects.

OTOH, what most of the people I know use Marijuana for, the therapeutic psychological effects, is in the THC, and I don’t think the US government and pharmacological-industrial complex are interested in that type of research.

Hence, I’m a California smoker who would not only NOT benefit from pharma-complex pills, but wouldn’t even benefit from their ‘vegetal matter’.

Besides, as James M implied at the top, growing pot is a GREAT stress-reduction tool… In and of itself benficial to the patient… When you don’t have to worry about getting busted.

For that to actualize, the elimination of fear-of-arrest, what with “Total Deployment” of all available National Guard resources used to persecute pot growers to the Middle East et al, legalization at state level is sufficient for anyone growing less than acres of it.

Concentration (distillation) in alcoholic beverages gets us from mildly intoxicating country wines and beers — eventually — to Everclear and neat vodka, of which it’s possible to drink enough to kill yourself pretty darned quick… again, “efficiency” — you get really drunk on a small amount of the stuff, “bigger bang for the buck.” Optimisation?

I tend to think of this issue, rather than being one of bodily sovereignty (i.e. “I should be able to ingest whatever substance I choose,”) as being more about “plant sovereignty” or “vegetable rights” or something along those lines. Because I’m not so sure I agree that there should be an individual right to ingest crystal meth, crack, or heroin for example — drugs whose negative ripples outward to society are pretty obvious by now.

It’s interesting, though, that the plants from which even these harder substances are derived are generally more or less safe and beneficial in their natural states. I know of few psychoactive plants (correct me if I’m wrong,) other than things like belladonna (a.k.a. nightshade,) which are truly dangerous right out of the ground. It’s only this more-is-better, concentrated power, going-to-extremes mentality — the same one that promotes things like Hummers, cosmetic breast augmentation, and gonzo porn — that, applied to these plants, has made them dangerous.

Unrefined coca leaves are chewed habitually without noticeable harm by South Americans; opium poppies by themselves have only mild effects; even Salvia Divinorum, which was referenced by Mike earlier and which I used to think was only for the foolhardiest of psychedelic-enthusiasts (e.g., an acquaintance of mine once had to be restrained from ramming his head through a glass coffee table under its influence,) has been used by Mazatec Indians safely and with no reported ill effects for who knows how long. Their method involves a ritual setting where the plant is chewed, delivering a mild and quite agreeable experience. The method of choice for the “developed world,” however, is to buy concentrated extracts from companies whose websites promote “5x” and “10x” varieties, the numbers being the factors by which potency has been increased. The plant is then smoked and a complete dissociative stupor is achieved; videos of such effects posted on YouTube are what’s behind the latest push to criminalize it.

As for pot — good lord! Concentrate it all you want, and the worst effect will be a long nap. And people who perpetuate this stereotype about “idiotic stoners” make me wonder, have they never been in a room full of drunk idiots? Both alcohol and pot cause mental impairment, but one of them can tend to cause impairment plus increased aggression, while the other causes impairment plus increased passivity. Which would you rather be legal?

I’ve been more or less a straight-edger for the better part of a decade — as the cliche goes, regular meditation seems to produce enough of the happy head chemicals I require. But I’m very happy I live in a state where penalties are relaxed-to-nonexistent for pot use, because you never know when that versatile plant will come in handy for something. And I’m also very glad it’s an issue that’s being taken seriously here on FS, because plenty of people’s lives literally depend on it.