The Canna Embassy organic homegrowers thread

[Fingaz2]

Hi there GA, saw the programme on the BEEB, last night. Well if cannabis makes you mad, then the people researching it, are completely Bonkers. One guy was giving rats cannabis, then heroin, then more & more heroin, to see if cannabis led rats on to harder drugs. Another woman was making mice swim round & round nearly drowning the poor little creatures, to see if cannabis mice would drown faster than straight mice. They also discoverd cannabis affects the brain, well yeah. Found some canna addict who only lived for the next joint. GET A JOB mate. Oh well, it seems after 5000 years of ingesting marijuana, they still cant find too much wrong with it, but to be on the safe side, just made it a class B. Interesting stuff about cannaboid receptors in the brain, & the beneficial results of certain cannaboids. Also its pretty common sense that you wouldnt want children starting on it, or drink or...........
cheers.

 

[kallenavndk]

Heyho Ga
I hate to just lurk so peace
Paddi damn it ,i my self cant wait either for mai sweet sweet mai ...

 

[G.A.]

Hell all,

Longing for spring... yeah...
Today sun is shining.
Our minister of finance is goïng to talk with the banks, because banks wanted to dump the accounts of coffeeshops.
The minister doesn't like it and is afraid it will create more undergound banking.
But!! (as always in politics) banks can refuse new customers.
It's time for this world to wake up from this insane war on drugs.

NORML ( http://www.norml.org/ ) has a nice ad contest.
I came across this nice link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0mEDE_w1xo

Keep on growing, take care and stay safe folks, wherever you are...


Peace, G.A.

 

[whazzup]

Interesting! Wonder what he will say indeed.

Anyway.. just came in to officially anounce spring

I just put my seeds for outdoor 2009 in Rootrainers. Following selection:

• Anesthesia F2 v1 (Positronics Skunk/Afghani x Herijuana)
• Motarebel Knights Templar (C99 x Herijuana)
• Motarebel Killer Queen F5 (C99 x G13)
• Sans KO Kush (Killa Kush x Herijuana)
• Eskobar NYCD F2

Never use Rootrainers, so consider this a test. Here they are, this is the small set with the box, very handy. The cover can be used for watering too.

 

[homusubi]

Hi Darpan, how is it going there?

Im happy days are becoming better, give me a PM wen you are online.

Saludos!

 

[G.A.]

Hi Homusubi, Whazzup.... :smile:

Just sended a pm to you my friend.

Looks like some things change (a little).

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/02/11/czar_struck_obama_s_brillia

Peace, G.A.

 

[elmanito]

The Drug War Wall Begins to Fall
From Washington, Vienna, Rio de Janeiro, Seattle and South Carolina, a Convergence into a Mighty River of Reform


By Al Giordano
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
February 11, 2009

Twenty years ago, President George H.W. Bush named a blustering self-proclaimed moralist named Bill Bennett as drug czar. During the press conference to nominate him, an intrepid reporter asked the new czar how he could possibly lead the country away from dependence on addictive substances when he, as a cigarette smoker, was also an addict. The president and his czar huddled away from the microphone, whispering to each other, then stepped back up to the podium to announce that for the duration of his tenure Czar Bennett would refrain from smoking tobacco.


Nine months later, cartoonist Garry Trudeau, through his Doonesbury panels, “outed” Bennett as continuing his addiction through use of a relatively new product: Nicotine chewing gum, at the time available only through a doctor’s prescription. It took the so-called traditional media various weeks before the Washington Post confirmed the cartoonist’s scoop. And even then the story came and went in the flash of a single day’s news cycle.

I wrote about it then in a January 1990 cover story for the Washington Journalism Review (now, American Journalism Review): The War on Drugs: Who Drafted the Press? The media, then as now, day in, day out, reinforced the false narratives of the drug war as it blamed the problems prohibition creates – crime, corruption, illness and violent chaos everywhere – on the drugs and their users. And for most of these years, you could count the number of political leaders willing to question it on one, maybe two, hands: US Rep. Barney Frank, then-mayor of Baltimore Kurt Schmoke, then-attorney general of Colombia Gustavo de Greiff… profiles in courage, all.

Over the past week a number of news stories have surfaced in different corners of the globe that are flowing like tributaries into a mighty river of reform:

In Washington, the White House announced that DEA raids in medical marijuana states will end.

In Vienna, as Narco News copublisher Nora Callahan reports today, the US delegation to United Nations drug policy talks broke with Bush administration blocks placed on key reforms to the international drug war: the lifting of the 1988 ban on needle exchange programs in the United States requires a change in UN policy under treaties already signed. “The US will support and endorse needle exchange programs” for addicts to reduce the spread of AIDS and other communicable diseases, reports BBC radio.

In Rio de Janeiro, former presidents César Gaviria of Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Fernando Enrique Cardoso of Brazil – all heads of state that had presided over prohibitionist policies in their lands – issued a joint report together with various Latin American intellectuals: Drugs and Democracy: Toward a Paradigm Shift.

Calling current drug policies “a failed war,” the former presidents concluded:


“…it is imperative to rectify the “war on drugs” strategy pursued in the region over the past 30 years.

“Prohibitionist policies based on the eradication of production and on the disruption of drug flows as well as on the criminalization of consumption have not yielded the expected results…

“Current drug repression policies are firmly rooted in prejudices, fears and ideological visions. The whole issue has become taboo which inhibits public debate. The association of drugs with crime blocks the circulation of information and segregates drug users in closed circles where they become even more exposed to organized crime.

“Hence, breaking the taboo and acknowledging the failure of current policies and their consequences is the inescapable prerequisite for opening up the discussion about a new paradigm leading to safer, more efficient and humane drug policies…”


Their recommendations:


1. Change the status of addicts from drug buyers in the illegal market to that of patients cared for in the public health system

2. Evaluate from a public health standpoint and on the basis of the most advanced medical science the convenience of decriminalizing the possession of cannabis for personal use

3. Reduce consumption through campaigns of information and prevention that can be understood and accepted by young people, who account for the largest contingent of users.

4. Redirect repressive strategies to the unrelenting fight against organized crime

5. Reframe the strategies of repression against the cultivation of illicit drugs



(On the fifth point, they note: “Such initiatives must also take into account the legal uses of plants, such as the coca leaf, in countries with a long-standing tradition of ancestral use previous to the phenomenon of their exploitation as an input for drug production. Accordingly measures must be taken to strictly adjust production to this kind of ancestral use.”)

As we noted nine years ago in the Opening Statement of this publication we titled Narco News, the winds of change are coming from this region and blowing northward.

The former presidents recommend:


“Latin America’s active participation in the global debate would mark its transition from a problem-region to a pioneering-region in the implementation of innovative solutions for the drug problem.”

For nine years we have reported as scores of Latin American leaders and organizations broke the imposed silence to criticize the prohibitionist model. They were met, each time, with smack downs and every kind of policy and personal blackmail imaginable from the Clinton and Bush administrations who preached “democracy” while meddling in the sovereign democratic affairs of Latin American nations. Today, still, the multi-billion dollar ravages of US-sponsored Plan Colombia, the repression and herbicides it has dumped upon that land, continue. And a copycat maneuver known as Plan Mexico (“The Mérida Initiative”) gears up to wreak the same kind of havoc much closer to the United States, all purportedly to fight the very problems caused by prohibitionist drug policy as the same policy worsens those very harms.

The statement by the three former presidents today – by calling on Latin American nations to make themselves laboratories in alternative drug policies (similar to how European nations have led successful innovations in “harm reduction” policies) – throws the gauntlet down to Washington and provides a golden opportunity for the nascent Obama presidency to walk its talk and cease the bullying US drug war intimidations of the past decades.

The aforementioned news out of Vienna – that the US will now cease to block some harm reduction policies through the UN treaties that bind member countries – offers the best indication that Washington, too, has come to admit some of the failures of its repressive approach.

There are two more news stories today, domestic to the United States, that have cracked the Drug War Wall a little bit more.

From Seattle come reports that the next US “drug czar” may be police chief Gil Kerlikowske. The Seattle Times reports:


Kerlikowske’s possible role in shaping drug policy for the Obama administration was applauded Tuesday by local medical-marijuana advocates.

In 2003, Kerlikowske opposed a city ballot measure, approved by voters, to make marijuana possession the lowest law-enforcement priority, saying it would create confusion. But in doing so, he noted that arresting people for possessing marijuana for personal use was already not a priority.

“Oh God bless us,” said Joanna McKee, co-founder and director of Green Cross Patient Co-Op, a medical-marijuana patient-advocacy group. “What a blessing…”

McKee said Kerlikowske knows the difference between cracking down on the illegal abuse of drugs and allowing the responsible use of marijuana.

Douglas Hiatt, a Seattle attorney and advocate for medical-marijuana patients, said his first preference would be for a physician to oversee national drug policy.

But Kerlikowske would be a vast improvement over past drug czars, who have used the office to carry out the so-called “war on drugs,” Hiatt said.


Kerlikowske comes out of a state that has pioneered drug policy reforms to the maximum extent tolerated by the previous US administrations. This, from the Drug Policy Alliance:


Washington allows patients to use medical marijuana if they have terminal or debilitating illnesses and documentation from a physician. This law was enacted in November of 1998 after voters passed Measure 692…

The State of Washington rivals New Mexico in its drug policy reform pace, enacting several reforms since 1996, ranging from legalizing medical marijuana to decriminalizing the sale and possession of syringes…

In 2002, the legislature passed legislation cutting the sentences for various non-violent drug offenses and using the savings (estimated to be $50 million over the next six years) to fund drug treatment programs. The legislation also implements a new sentencing grid in 2004 that will give judges more sentencing discretion. Supporters included (then-)Gov. Locke and Republican King County (Seattle) prosecutor Norm Maleng.


These are the waters in which Chief Kerlikowske has swum and has adapted splendidly according to all sides. His reported soon-to-be promotion to national drug czar would signal that what is present policy for the state of Washington could become the not-too-distant future policy for the entire nation. At minimum, Kerlikowske occupying the post from where Bill Bennett and General Barry McCaffrey waved their scolding fingers to demonize vast swathes of the population signals a ratcheting down of the scapegoating rhetoric that has been emblematic of US drug policy.

One more story floating over the airwaves is the 800-pound gorilla in the room: In South Carolina, a spokesman for the Richland County Sheriff tells reporters that Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps “could be facing a drug charge” because of media-published photographs of the 23-year-old athlete smoking marijuana at a party in that jurisdiction. The sheriff has already rounded up eight friends of the swimmer for their alleged participation in his crime.

Not since the olden days in Nottingham has a sheriff been on the verge of sparking an incident that would have such mega-consequences for a population. Can you imagine, kind reader, the firestorm if the drug war – so accustomed to singling out the poor, the minority, the ill and the invisible – suddenly targets America’s Darling and makes Michael Phelps the most recognizable face of peaceful illegal drug use on the planet? It would be akin to throwing a lit match into the basement full of gasoline that underlies current prohibitionist drug policies. Phelps is healthy, soft-spoken, polite, of good humor, skilled on television (as his hosting of Saturday Night Live revealed)… Grandmothers everywhere, when they see his face, don’t want to send him to prison: They want to pinch his cheek.

The media circus that would ensue would bring the hypocrisy of the drug war into every living room and stir a nationwide debate around every kitchen table over how thoroughly senseless the US war on drugs has become. In the context of the step-by-step and incremental policy changes underway, the making of Michael Phelps into martyr and poster boy would serve, much like that first hammer in Berlin, to inspire a thousand more blows against the Drug War Wall, turning its evident cracks into gaping holes and its cement to rubble.

Source

 

[G.A.]

Hi Elmanito....

Step by step....

Yesterday I wanted to buy some smoke at the neighbourhood coffeeshop when the doorbell ringed...
My buddy Steven came up the stairs with a nice surprise the postman left..
Some nice Purple Princess.
Take care and stay safe folks...

Cheers, to your health!, G.A.

 

[elmanito]

Thats a really nice surprise from the Danish friends.You´re having a good smoke this weekend G.A. cheers mate

Namaste

 

[Bedouin]

Still checking this thread cause it is interesting for me i hope you don't mind - shaman bud from out'08

Greetings from Poland

 

[whazzup]

Hi Elmanito....
My buddy Steven came up the stairs with a nice surprise the postman left..
Some nice Purple Princess.

Now that's a great Friday 13th surprise Darpan

It's good to have pot pals...

 

[G.A.]

Hello world, Whazzup :smile:

"Time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like bananas"
Today we went to "Hillywood" for the recording of the new version "Zeg eens A" (Say "A", Dutch well popular soap opera, about a doctor's family..). An old schoolfriend is playing the role of the doctor.
I needed more eyes and ears.. many, many takes...
We had fun. Smoked a nice Morrocan joint before the show :smile:

Looking forward to my first meeting with our friend Homusubi tomorrow....

Sweet (purple) dreams world...

Peace, G.A.

 

[G.A.]

Hello world,


Lot is moving in Cannabis country.
Slowly start to feel spring in the air....
April is getting close :smile:

Homusubi, it was realy nice to meet you.
Actualy one day is not enough to share all of The Hague.
Like I said: "Time flies"..

Homusubi and I went to "Happy Smile".
It is realy a nice coffeeshop on a 40 meter long boat, I call it a "coffeeship".
Service with a happy smile.
At the moment they are building a party space at the back of the boat.
Love the feeling of floating on the water, a relaxing effect.

I hope you folks are all fine...
Keep on growing, take care and stay safe folks, wherever you are..

Peace, G.A.

 

[hanfiking]

cool man, I'm back for the spring and growing. what does the coffeeship look like from the outside?

 

[pipeline]

Happy Smile looks like a cozy little place.... Bet it gets rolling in there sometimes.... Would be a great place for a party...

Finally got the smoke reports about finished up for the season... I'm glad I took my time to let them cure before test smoking and writing the reports... Curing is a step that cannot be left out... It seems to bring out the true spirit of the cannabis. I needed some time to get to know them anyway...

You start to see a few days of milder weather, and then bam it gets cold again... Spring is on the horizon... I can start to feel it...

A friend of mine who is a sculpture graduate from a local art school had an installation recently... Here's a few views....

 

[G.A.]

Hanfiking this is how the boat looks like from the outside...

Pipeline, good to see you.
Yeah.. the frost is over at night overhere and day temperatures of 6 degrees, slowly, slowly..
Nice art!

Can't hardly wait to put the seeds in the soil again..

Check out next link.

Let's raise our voice and write a email to Antonio Costa..

http://daretoact.net/

Peace, G.A.

 

[AGG]

Hello Darpan & all CannaEmbassy friends

Nice boats

Really busy times for me now

The summer is really dry & hot, only one duck foot is in my terrace this year

really nice scuptures pipeline

peace

AGG

 

[G.A.]

Hi AGG,

Duck food loves that weather... :smile:.
Here the sun came out today...
It's still pretty cold, specialy when the wind is blowing.
One more month... sigh....

The price winners of NORML's add comtest are anounced.
Some nice adds among them.

http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7810

Peace, G.A.

 

[G.A.]

Hello all,

Last week Chakib Al-Khayari has been arrested in Morroco.
He is a member of the Human Rights organisation in the RIF.
We wanted to make a doumentary on the Moroccan situation and Chakib wanted to participate in the documentary.
At the moment he stays in custody in Cassablanca.
They didn't give any reason for his arrest.
Amnesty International asked for his release and Encod made a letter to the King of Morroco.


LETTER TO THE KING OF MOROCCO ON CHAKIB AL KHAYARI

published Monday 23 February 2009 10:27, by encod . update Monday 23 February 2009 16:06
All the versions of this article: [Deutsch] [English] [Español] [français]

His Majesty King Mohammed VI

Sire,

Herewith we would like to express our deep concern with the fate of Chakib El-Khayari, who has been held in custody of the National Bureau of the Judicial Police of Casablanca since 17 February 2009.

Mr.El-Khayari is a well-known and respected human rights defender in the province of Nador and internationally. He has founded the Association of Human Rights in the Rif in 2005 which addresses a number of issues such as the treatment of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa in Morocco and violence against women. Chekib El-Khiari is also known for his support of the cultural rights of the Amazigh in Morocco. In December 2008, he appeared on national Moroccan television discussing his views and opinions on a number of issues related to drug-trafficking in the region, the involvement and corruption of some public officials, and the need for non-repressive strategies to reduce the harms of illicit cannabis cultivation in the region.

In the coming weeks Mr. El Khayari is supposed to visit Europe, invited by the European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies, a platform of 170 civil society organisations from the whole of Europe. On March 4, Mr. El Khayari will participate in a Conference in the European Parliament, where European Union policies towards cultivation of illicit plants will be discussed. On March 11 and 12, he is supposed to take part in the High Level Segment of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, as a member of an international delegation of NGO’s that will bring forward evidence that policies aimed at erradicating illicit plants in producer countries have caused more harms than solutions to the affected regions.

We fear that Chakib El-Khayari is being targeted due to his outspokenness on human rights issues and his anti-corruption activities in the region of Nador. We consider his arrest as a serious violation of the freedom of expression, a human right that should be guaranteed in every democracy. The fact that he has been arrested just prior to his participation in international events seems to indicate that the Moroccan government doesn’t want the world to hear the views of a population that is directly affected by harmful policies carried out in the name of the war on drugs.

In order to establish effective sustainable policies towards cannabis cultivation and drug trafficking in Morocco, it is crucial that views like those of Mr. El Khayari and other legimitate representatives of affected populations are heard. Solutions to the problems related to cannabis cultivation in Morocco can only be found through a free and open exchange of ideas and opinions, not through repression.

We call on you to protect the physical integrity of Mr. El Khayari and to ensure his immediate and unconditional release.

Waiting for your response, Your Majesty, we remain,

Sincerely yours.

On behalf of ENCOD,

André Fürst, Switzerland
Jan Ludewig, Germany
Virginia Montañes, Spain
Joep Oomen, Belgium
Freek Polak, Netherlands
Alessandra Viazzi, Italy

(members of the Steering Committee)

For more information see also:

http://translate.google.co.ma/translate?u=http://www.freechakib.com/&sl=ar&tl=en&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8

Peace, G.A.

 

[homusubi]

Hi cannafriends!!!

Hey Darpan, thanks for that 5 stars grand tour, it was a nice day

Just arrive from the south, what a crazy world... this time i did load the battery LOL

Saludos!!