STILL MORE COFFEE THAN WEED

In line with the unnatural addiction to the growth of grey hairs I have
developed over the years since learning that stupidity tends to summon
them from my skull, I continually wake up in the mornings and start my day
by asking, "Could today provide me with stupidity more painful than
yesterdays?"

This addiction of mine to such repulsive material is surely a product of
habit and without the assured instant gratification from information
dispensed by groups such as The Office of National Drug Control Policy, I
could never have aged so suddenly to look so wise.

Here's one for the grey growing on my eyebrows: SF Gate relayed Tuesday
morning a recent half-ass attempt to demonize California's Medical
Marijuana program by an Office of National Drug Control Policy puppet blog
that accuses California's implementation of this program to be breeding,
"confusion, abuse and violence in neighborhoods and communities."

"In downtown San Francisco alone, there are 71 marijuana dispensaries,
compared to 66 Starbucks Coffee shops," Tuesday morning's post had been
edited to state on the Drug Czar allied blog site, Pushingback.com-self
proclaimed allies in "making the drug problem smaller."

Despite the average Drug War Solder's impeccable reputation for truth, the
SF Gate team decided to investigate the facts-just in case a mistake had
been made and this claim of 71 dispensaries over 66 Starbucks coffee shops
is complete and utter bullshit- and lo and behold, it is nothing but.

Their investigation was of Pushingback.com's initial accusation that SF
had 98 dispensaries vs. 71 Starbucks coffee shops. The authors of the post
must not have been informed by their federal counterparts in the
Intelligence community that despite the countless woes in the industry,
reporters at the Chronicle still possess the ability to make phone calls.

This is the part that catalyzes my grey hair growth process: the actual
truth.

The Chronicle discovered that San Francisco's Department of Public Health
lists 24 pot clubs in the city and Spokespersons from Starbucks Coffee
said they have 71 in San Francisco.

This is the part that gives my grey hair that natural healthy glow: the
face-palm moment.

Pushback.com had part of their facts right at first-kind of-but in the
mysterious genius of the assault team in the War on Drugs, they even
managed to lie/confuse/make up (you figure it out) new data and obliterate
what shred of accuracy they could have possibly cited as some sort of
defense against complete incompetence. Their new tally is the current 71
vs. 66 that they still stand strongly by.

Ok, to give them a little credit, the Starbucks Spokesperson told the
Chronicle that their site only lists 66 coffee shops in the city-so
apparently someone must have been asked to do a little fact checking- not
too much though.

The article revealed the comic attempts by the Fed to defend such a
ridiculous claim and exposed the method of exaggeration found to prop it
up, including double counting and what appeared to be pure assumption or
what we call in the industry, "bullshit".

However the Feds told the Chronicle that the, "information includes
dispensaries that are unregulated yet easily findable through a Google
search."

By this point of the article I slapped myself for being partially
responsible as a tax-payer inadvertently and unwillingly funding such
social retardation: the dissemination of complete and utter bullshit as
fact.

For the life of me I cannot figure out how this sort of degenerate
behavior is funded by the general public. The real issues within the gray
areas that need to be highlighted and addressed will not and cannot be in
this environment of deceit.

There are legitimate legal questions surrounding the implementation of
Medical Marijuana programs and our State Attorney General has issued
guidelines to address many of them and surly will address more in time.

Ridiculous claims like this are counterproductive to this process and do
not "make the drug problem smaller."

With the number of Americans still demonized for their stance on
marijuana, I am going to go out on a federal limb here and assume that
much of our country's population has at least one person they know that
they would want to protect from the current consequences and/or burdens
that accompany drug law violations-especially marijuana's.

While I am on this "assumption" role (by borrowing apparently freely
available federal immunity) I am going to also guess that the American
people would rather make their decisions on how to go about this
"marijuana problem" by analyzing the facts; especially if the effort is
supposed to be done in the public's behalf.

However I could be wrong and because of that I try not to assume but
rather look for the facts and my gut is not alone here, I have 51% of the
voters from some 13 states officially behind me when I say "let's cut the
crap" and get to some serious discussion. Please, before I begin to
resemble Anderson Cooper.