The spirit of Alaska is truly inspiring. I felt it from everyone I met there (except for the nutty prohibitionists). All the fine people like "Big Dan" Chapman (my nomination for Counterculture Hero of the Year), who state troopers call "the most dangerous man in the territory," activists like Gary Pearson and Aaron Belzer, Tommy "The Hooch Man" Tundra, Bridgit and Kristin, Terry from Budget Records and and Tapes, Bret and Alex, and the people at the Black Market, seemed concerned about protecting their rights.
I stand up and applaud Steven Hager's letter to William Bennett in the December '89 issue. It was everything an honest pot-smokin' Joe wishes he could say to his government. I can't. It would ruin my business and my career. But I want to use this letter to let you know I'm behind your words 100 percent.
"The DEA has decided to attack the nation’s drug problem by arresting sellers of indoor gardening equipment, which could be used for growing orchids, African violets, tomatoes or marijuana....
Gatewood Galbraith is seeking the governorship of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the 1991 election. Running in the Democratic primary, he's striving to improve the economic, industrial and environmental living conditions for the people of Kentucky.
Last October 26, the Drug Enforcement Administration concluded Phase I of Operation Green Merchant--an operation aimed at crippling the indoor marijuana cultivation industry--when agents served Federal and state search and seizure warrants on 46 stores and warehouses specializing in indoor gardening supplies.
Despite the proven effectiveness of needle exchange and bleach in decreasing the spread of AIDS in intravenous drug users, Jesse Helms, the conservative Republican senator from North Carolina, was able to convince Congress to deny Federal funding for needle exchange programs in an amendment tagged onto the Education Appropriations bill in November.
In the small town of Camp Verde, Arizona, just 60 miles north of Phoenix, Linda Parker, a middle-aged, terminally-ill woman and her 18-year-old daughter were quietly sleeping in their mobile home when they were abruptly awakened by the sound of several officers from the Narcotics Task Force kicking in their front door.
Only dedicated, ambitious journalists take pleasure trips into war zones. In November, Todd Smith went to Peru for vacation. But rather than take in the ruins at Machu Picchu, he headed for Peru’s heart of darkness--the Upper Huallaga Valley.
From November 3-5, the Drug Policy Foundation held its annual conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. This year’s theme was, "Beyond Prohibition--Practical Alternatives to the War on Drugs." The events began promptly at 9 AM on Friday with comments by the DPF’s president Arnold Trebach.
While Ohio legislators held statewide hearings regarding their anti-drug/pot recrim bill, the NORML/HEMP caravan rolled into Athens in Southern Ohio for the "Just Say Know Full Moon Peace Conference" on November 12. Four days earlier, several members of Ohio’s Senate Judiciary Committee stopped in Athens, where they were informed about hemp, among other things.
"Smoke pot, smoke pot, everybody smoke pot." --the Beatles, "I Am The Walrus" Paul McCartney had just answered a question about the time the Beatles met Elvis Presley back in 1965. "People like to say he was all drugged out and we were and it was crazy," Paul recalled.
The hippest discs and heppest books for your listening and reading pleasure...
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JM
The Big Problem -- Crispin Hellion Glover (Restless Records) Anyone who has seen River’s Edge will find it impossible to erase Crispin Glover’s incredibly maniacal performance from their memory. His stunning portrayal of teen hearthrob Michael J. Fox’s dad in Back To The Future yanked that extremely mediocre film out of the totally dull category, and in Friday the 13th--Part 5, Crispin ends up whining and whimpering his way through most of his much-too-small part.
The First 200 Years of Monty Python -- Kim "Howard" Johnson (St. Martin’s Press, $14.95) This large-format paperback offers a straightforward, three-part look into the workings and history of the six not-too-straightforward comedians (actually eight, if you count Python’s "Number One Ingenue," Carol Cleveland, and ex-Bonzo Dog Neil Innes) who gave the world Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
The ominous arm of the law has been oppressing us peace-loving hippie-types since the beginning of so-called civilization. Fifteen years ago HIGH TIMES featured a column called "Law." Chronicling the exploits and hijinx of the justice system, "Law" highlighted various injustices committed towards our drug-taking brethren.
The first column of this series (Sept. ’88 HIGH TIMES) described the US as a world outlaw. Ronald Reagan cultivated the cowboy image by shooting down a Libyan jet, blasting Beirut, invading Grenada and supporting terrorists in several countries.
Next month’s landmark issue of HIGH TIMES presents startling facts from the 1990 edition of The Emperor Wears No Clothes establishing that growing marijuana is the sanest, safest way to deal with the planet’s increasing environmental crisis.
Last summer, I faced off with Charles Rangel on a radio talk show. Rep. Rangel (D-NY), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Narcotics, is one of the most powerful and outspoken politicians in favor of the War on Drugs. Rangel said: "Don, even if I agreed with you, which I don’t, I couldn’t vote for legalizing marijuana because my constituents would never let me hear the end of it.
Post-spill repercussions continue to emanate from Prince William Sound, Alaska, long after the reef-wrecked Exxon Valdez covered the place with 11 million gallons of oil last March 24 (see October '89 column). Exxon yanked their clean-up crew in mid-September, claiming winter conditions were making it impossible for them to work.
GOOD NEWS FOR RADIATION-SENSITIVE DENVER RESIDENTS:
AND IN A LAST BIT OF CHEERY NEWS:
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In July, all Sound-scrubbing employees--most of whom were fishermen and cannery workers idled by the spill in the first place--were suddenly ordered to take drug tests. This, remember, is in the only state where small amounts of marijuana for personal in-home use is legal (see "Alaska: Still the State of ‘Legal’ Pot?" on page 36).
THMQ is intended solely for informational purposes. Please note: THMQ is NOT a mail-order service. Don’t bother trying to order items which appear in THMQ from the HIGH TIMES offices. All entries should be typed or neatly handwritten. If you are unable to compose a legible entry after testing your samples, please wait until you regain control of your penmanship before sending us your information.
"We’re in a war we shouldn’t be in and can’t win. The police are victims of this war just as soldiers were the victims in Vietnam." --Wesley A. Pomeroy, a lifelong police officer who served as assistant director to the White House’s Office of Drug Abuse Policy under President Carter.
Because the Alaskan Constitution protects the right of privacy, citizens of the Last Frontier have enjoyed marijuana decriminalization for 15 years. Can a group of determined prohibitionists successfully dismantle Alaska's constitutional rights by forcing recriminalization?
THE GROWING MATANUSKA VALLEY
VOICES FOR PROHIBITION
THE SURVEYS SAY...
DEDICATED TO THE CHILDREN OF ALASKA
ECONOMIC AND ECOLOGICAL DISASTER
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN THE TERRITORY
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John Holmstrom
I came to Alaska hoping to smoke some Matanuska Thunderfuck, see some live moose, caribou, or wooly mammoth, check out a grow igloo or two, and find some crazed hippie degenerates beating the system by living off the land in America’s wilderness.
It began as a dream and ended as a legend. One morning in the late spring of 1966 I dreamt that I was flying around the world. When I looked down, I saw people reading a newspaper with rainbows printed on it--in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, in Moscow at Red Square, on Broadway in New York, at the Great Wall of China, everywhere--a rainbow newspaper.
An earthquake woke me and rolled me off the mattress onto the floor. It was nothing too unusual considering the San Andreas fault. All the buildings along Page Street were crooked from past tremors. This one was 4.6 on the Richter scale and struck at the uncivilized hour of 10 a.m.
Though not quite the second coming of the Anti-Christ, the appearance of a new book by infamous Swiss surrealist Hans Rudi Giger is a pretty big deal anyway. This one’s called H.R. Giger’s Biomechanics, and like its predecessors--Giger’s Alien, Necronomicons I and II, N.Y. City--it’s a knock-out, both physically (beautifully printed on 96 thick-&-slick tombstone-sized pages) and mentally (Giger’s up there with Egon Schiele and Edvard Munch as a prime mojo-navigator of the psychic darkness).
I sprouted some Durban seeds the second week of May ’89. The last ones were harvested Labor Day. They all flowered very early and one in particular was well into its floral stage on the longest days of summer, and was harvested August 19. The plants were grown organically with bird and bat guano in the tops of some really dense trees and were trained by crimping them to lay flat with the tree tops.
Now, with the backing of a majority of the American people, President Bush and "Drug Czar" William Bennett are urging all 50 states to pass even more stringent legislation: stiffer, mandatory fines and sentences for possession, cultivation and sale (even for first offenses); restrictions on bail for suspected drug dealers; suspension or loss of driving and professional licenses; revocation of government loans for those convicted of drug "crimes"; expanded urine testing and mandatory drug free workplaces for those with government contracts; increased militarization of the borders.
If the grower is not providing CO2 enrichment to his plants, heat build-up problems can usually be handled by leaving the exhaust fan running while the lights are on. This will remove the air that is heated by the lights before the temperature has a chance to rise.
Change yellow light to white without changing ballasts.
THE CLEANEST AIR!
ALL-NATURAL ALERTNESS...
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Change 400W high pressure sodium systems to halide light without changing ballasts! White-Lux bulbs let you enjoy the best of both worlds while retaining the highest possible HPS lumen output! This and hundreds of other fine products can be found at New Earth, Inc. Order toll free 1-800-462-5953 or call locally 1-502-543-5933.
For years, information about how pot can be used as fiber for food, fuel, and fabric has been spreading throughout the marijuana movement like wildfire. The question everyone has been asking is: Who’s going to market the first hemp products, and when?
Comics’ve got this annoying habit of disappearing from the racks months/ days/minutes after they’ve gone on sale, resurfacing only in the savagely overpriced back-issue bin, bagged and ready for hands-off/appraising-eyes-only collector consumption.