Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
What's the Meaning of Life?
Refriedgringo, Well said! And I promise to do more farting around!!!!— August 28, 2010 1:01 p.m.
Do you think marijuana should be legal in California?
Here are findings that contradict your statement: The Journal of Clinical Investigation stated in its Oct. 13, 2005 article "Cannabinoids Promote Embryonic and Adult Hippocampus Neurogenesis and Produce Anxiolytic- and Antidepressant-like Effects", by Xia Zhang et al.: "We show that 1 month after chronic HU210 [high-potency cannabinoid] treatment, rats display increased newborn neurons [brain cell growth] in the hippocampal dentate gyrus [a portion of the brain] and significantly reduced measures of anxiety- and depression-like behavior. Thus, cannabinoids appear to be the only illicit drug whose capacity to produce increased hippocampal newborn neurons is positively correlated with its anxiolytic- [anxiety reducing] and antidepressant-like effects." And... Igor Grant, MD, Executive Vice Chairman at the University of California, San Diego Department of Psychiatry, wrote in his study published in the July issue of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, as reported in a June 27, 2003 Reuters article: "Smoking marijuana will certainly affect perception, but it does not cause permanent brain damage. 'The findings were kind of a surprise. One might have expected to see more impairment of higher mental function. Other illegal drugs, or even alcohol, can cause brain damage... If we barely find this tiny effect in long-term heavy users of cannabis, then we are unlikely to see deleterious side effects in indivduals who receive cannabis for a short time in a medical setting... If it turned out that new studies find that cannabis is helpful in treating some medical conditions, this enables us to see a marginal level of safety." My use of legal medical cannabis for years has not damaged enough brain cells to do some rudimentary research on the subject.— August 28, 2010 12:57 p.m.
I'm Not "420 Friendly," But "420 Allergic!"
Well put, Fouder. (btw. thanx 4 the tip)— August 22, 2010 1:34 p.m.
I'm Not "420 Friendly," But "420 Allergic!"
Here is another link that has data on the failed war on some drugs as well as other pertinent facts. http://cannabis.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page— August 22, 2010 11:40 a.m.
I'm Not "420 Friendly," But "420 Allergic!"
As a proud and happy socially liberal and progressive democrat, I stand by my aforementioned. (If you feel that way about the 2nd I hope you also oppose rewriting the 14th, but enough off topic; to inject a phony argument about "freedom" into the cannabis issue may be valid in some aspects, not in my argument.) I re-iterate, it is you who brought freedom and the 2nd into my opposing a failed policy. This has nothing to do with freedom, it has to do with the public's right to be informed of the truth about cannabis - rather than distorting the truth - and not the argument about freedom. To do so, cheapens the meaning of freedom. My opposition to the cannabis prohibition are based on subject related fact, not on farfetched comparison. As far as the fallacies in Mr. Johnston's essay are concerned, I am providing a URL to a word for word analysis of Prop 19. To mention just a couple of flaws in the above essay, the proposed age is 21, not 18 as stated and children are protected. Prop 19 includes the prohibition of cannabis in front or the presence of anyone under 21. While I agree that NORML has an agenda and may be biased, their article goes in depth and is worth reading. http://stash.norml.org/californias-prop-19-a-word…— August 21, 2010 5:31 p.m.
Why Anchor Babies are not Legal Citizens
Well, if anchor babies aren't really cititzens, can we please send Michell Maulkin home??? Her parents were Phillipine cititzens on an employer sponsored visa at the time of her birth. That makes one of the right wing's favorite mud slingers an ..... ANCHOR BABY!!!— August 21, 2010 4:20 p.m.
I'm Not "420 Friendly," But "420 Allergic!"
I am not against the 2nd Amendment at all. I am a gun owner and as such fully endorse back ground checks and any other requirements that may be neccessary. Consider that the Bill of Rights and with it the second amendment were ratified during a time when Flintlock pistols and rifels were the zenith of invention (March 4, 1789), adding requirements or restrictions as technology increases is only sensible. That no checks are required to purchase weapons at AZ and TX gunshows with the technology available today, both in weapons and communications for those B/G checks, has nothing to do with the basic idea of the 2nd amendment. Had our founding fathers had access to todays advanced weapons, do you really believe the wording today would be the same. To compare issues such as legalizing cannabis and the 2nd amendment on the same level is ludicrous. And I never even used the word freedom in my reply to the absurd assertions made by the author of the above essay, as my reply is about the stupidity and futility of continuing prohibition. Your comparison and assertion have no context to my reply to Mr. Johnston's essay.— August 21, 2010 3:55 p.m.
I'm Not "420 Friendly," But "420 Allergic!"
LPR (#19) The election is November 2nd, not on the 9th...— August 21, 2010 3:32 p.m.
I'm Not "420 Friendly," But "420 Allergic!"
Wow! Did I just read the script to the 1936 masterpiece of propaganda: "Reefer Madness"? I won't even debate any of the inaccuracies and outright falsehoods of your essay, suffice it to say, that cannabis prohibition will have to end, just as the ill-conceived and miserably failed alcohol prohibition did. Just as the 18th Amendment gave rise to organized crime here in the US, cannabis prohibition is directly responsible for the strength of the cartels to the South. Add to that the idiotically lax gun laws in states such as AZ and TX, most of the firepower comes directly from the US. Nothing different between Al Capone of the 30's or Pablo Escobar of the 90's. Both enriched themselves by making bank off an illegal substance. Simply enough, the solution to both is the same. LEGALIZE the substance and control it. Holland has done the smart thing, as have some of the more progressive European countries. They made cannabis boring, by turning a blind eye or outright legalizing it. Did Holland fall of into the North Sea, did Portugal float off in the Atlantic or did the Alps come crashing down on Switzerland?? No of course not. Had this country chosen the path of truthfulness about cannabis, rather than the fear mongering and lies from the temperance movement of the past, to the same propaganda shilled out today by the prison industrial complex today, we'd be decades ahead. Cannabis, a plant about as addictive as caffeine (see below url)must be legalized along the same lines alcohol and cancerettes are today. Both of these are much harder for minors to obtain than currently illegal substances or the parent's prescription pills. While Police Unions, Sheriff's Associations, CCA (Corrections Corp of America) other Corporate prison systems, Pharmaceuticals and other special interests support the war on some drugs, does by no means reflect the mood of most Americans. And lastly, why does every one get their undies in a bunch? Legalization does in no way infer that you have to use cannabis. To infer that use will go up when legalized is baseless, as many European Nations have already learned. I will vote FOR Prop 19 this fall, as well as make cannabis legalization one of the deciding factors who will or will not get my vote for office. http://www.procon.org/view.background-resource.ph… http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php— August 21, 2010 3:25 p.m.