Dominic Holden

The Drug Czar’s office hasn’t historically bothered to respond to criticisms from drug-law reform groups. So maybe they’re hopped up on that extra-potent superbud going around and it’s making them chatty, or maybe drug reformers have developed a following on the blogosphere and the drug czar’s feeling threatened. But now the office is fighting fire by blowing smoke on their own blog to counter criticisms on the Huffington Post.

Paul Armentano, the deputy director of NORML (I’m on the board), refuted a government-funded study that found marijuana is more potent and thus super dangerous to kids. This is a perennial story engineered to scare parents that gets sucked up and regurgitated by the press. The argument doesn’t hold water: people smoke less pot when it’s high quality just like people drink less whisky than beer. And, um, pot can’t kill you like liquor can. But even the argument that pot is more potent is bogus, says Armentano.

“…even by the University of Mississippi’s own admission, the average THC in domestically grown marijuana — which comprises the bulk of the US market — is less than five percent, a figure that’s remained unchanged for nearly a decade.”

That bunched some panties at the drug czar’s office and they’ve written a response on their blog.

The “domestic” samples analyzed in the University of Mississippi’s report do not represent what’s found in the U.S. market. “Domestic” samples refer to marijuana plants that were found in the process of being grown and were then eradicated by law enforcement in the U.S. The potency of these “domestic” specimens is far lower because those specimens are most often taken from immature plants that never reached full cultivation (maturity) for distribution and consumption in the illegal market.

To which NORML responds here:

Oh, you’re counting domestic as stuff grown in the US before it’s harvested? Well, excuse us. Our mistake. If we knew that was how you were defining “domestic”, then we would have pointed out that 98% of your “domestic” seizures are feral hemp (”ditchweed”). You claim that these “domestic” seizures are averaging 5% THC content, but you define “ditchweed” as having virtually no levels of detectable THC.

We have no way of knowing how much of your “domestic” seizures were, in fact, ditchweed. But I’d venture to guess you’re not including ditchweed, because you’re wanting to make a point about consumer marijuana, and nobody is smoking ditchweed. Fair enough… but then you need to explain why you’ve spent $175 million taxpayer dollars since 1984 to eradicate something you don’t count as part of the consumer marijuana “problem”.

Writes Armentano:

As Gandhi once said, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” Well, I guess it’s safe to say we’re at the stage where they finally fight!

1) A convenience store with people smoking crack under the awning and in the doorway.

2) A convenience store with people smoking crack under the awning and one doorway boarded up.

I came home last week to find that the convenience store owners, in an effort to stop people from hanging out in one of the unused doorways, had boarded that area up.

Boarding things up is saying you lost. Like, we’ve given up on the neighborhood and no longer want to have neighbors keep an eye out. We’ll just barricade ourselves in our businesses and homes. Of course, I understand that the store owners are sick of poeple drinking and pissing in the doorway. But what are you even trying to protect if the neighborhood is just boards…? Number two is the worse of two evils.

Holy shit. I went to the Oasis cafe for lunch last week and ordered the teriyaki combo—which included a salad and few other perks—to go. After about 10 minutes, a woman stepped out from the back carrying all this.

All this Styrofoam is gonna double the size of the garbage patch and it’s all my fault. It’s a good thing I elected to have the miso soup while I waited or the lady would have brought me a fifth Styrofoam container.

I’d bet things around the Gillis household were rocky for a few days after this article came out…

Undercover officers make hundreds of raids each year — and they will say that nothing is routine.

That was never more clear than on the night of April 30, when a narcotics team moved in on a suspected drug house on East Rich Street, NBC 4’s Marcus Thorpe reported.

The raid ended in gunfire and two officers being injured. Two suspects were taken into custody.

Those detectives are now out of the hospital and spoke to NBC 4 on Wednesday.

John Gillis and Anthony Garrison are no rookies. In fact, they’ve logged more than 20 years on the force — 14 of which they spent working side-by-side on local roads.

But for the first time in their careers, gunshots connected with them on April 30. Harrison was shot in the arm and hip and Gillis was struck in the leg.

Both officers spent significant time in the hospital, undergoing surgeries. During the weeks of recovery, the officers said the concern and well-wishes are bringing them back.

“I think I thought about it when I looked at my wife’s face. It’s kind of upsetting for me,” Gillis said.

Of course, he meant that he hadn’t accepted the severity of the trauma until he saw someone he loved and realized he could have lost that person. But what he said was looking at his wife’s face made think about getting shot in the leg, and that his wife’s face is “kind of upsetting.”

When the Olympic Sculpture Park opened, it displayed the oversized typewriter eraser. That’s neat because typewriter erasers are extinct, and blowing up one super big makes you really appreciated that you don’t have to use one on your word processor.

But now there are two more exhibits based on the same idea of rendering small things really big. First, big post-it notes and push pins.

Then, these enormous traffic cones all over the park.

They’re both cool ideas. But, seriously, there’s nothing to think about them but, “Wow, those things are like gigantic.” I’m over it.

This was out front the fire station on 13th and Pike.

Two comments: 1) I like that these wormhole openings are unscheduled, because that means wormhole openings somewhere else are scheduled. I really gotta get in one of those schedules.

TWO—That really is the correct spelling of “continuum.” It’s like “vacuum,” which always looks wrong but never is.

At least the lung cancer is predictable.

Daniel Williams decided he’d listen to his girlfriend and his 8-year-old son and finally quit smoking, with the help of a new prescription drug called Chantix.

He started taking the medication, and a couple of nights later, as he was driving his pickup truck on a country road in Louisiana, Williams suddenly swerved left.

His girlfriend, Melinda Lofton, who was with him, later told him that his eyes had rolled back in his head and that it had seemed as if he was frozen at the wheel, accelerating.

Moments later, they were in a bayou, struggling to escape the murky water, Williams said.

“Since I was a kid, never had anything like this ever happened before,” he said. “It never happened before, and it hasn’t happened since. And all the tests I’ve taken say I have nothing wrong with me at all.”

The nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices last week linked Chantix to more than two dozen highway accidents reported to the Food and Drug Administration, saying the mishaps may have resulted from such drug side effects as seizures.

The FDA had earlier issued a warning about suicidal thoughts and suicides among patients taking Chantix and is now evaluating whether it needs to expand and strengthen that precaution.

Pfizer, the drug’s manufacturer, said that as early as May of last year, it had added a warning to the prescribing literature for Chantix that patients should exercise caution when driving or operating machinery until they know how the medication affects them.

Of course, I’ll stick with not smoking anything at all. Not to beat a dead horse, but marijuana—which can get you really fucked up—doesn’t have any of these affects and it’s still illegal. But drug manufacturers can crank this stuff out by the ton, and not only to they not go to jail, they get rich.

I’m still eating the leftovers from my dinner a few nights ago. I barbecued pork chops rubbed with pepper, garlic and a bit of balsamic vinegar. Served it up with a drizzle of a beef reduction with mustard, and a side of applesauce topped with shredded mint from the garden, and potato wedges.

The garnish was a joke. They’re yummy chive blossoms, true, but I’m not such a pretentious fuckwit that I serve myself a side of flowers. A friend of Kyle’s ut them on the plate.

The highlight was that drink on the right. Hansa, who you can see being his gorgeous self here, brought it to Seattle when he returned from Peru a couple years ago, but I hadn’t touched the bottle until Sunday. It was Pisco, and it was delish.

I’ve been absent around here lately… while I toiling in the vineyards of ink. I started working full-time as a reporter for The Stranger.

This means I spent the last week dog paddling to keep up with frenetic pace of the newspaper. However, this also means I’m no longer serving discount hamburgers at the DeLuxe.

A moment, if I may, to take a cathartic glimpse in the rear view mirror.

The DeLuxe is best known for its hamburgers. (It’s hard to fuck up a burger.) Hundreds of discount-hounds pack the place every Wednesday, when the burgers are only $4.99*. Getting a table can take an hour or more, so people jam together in the narrow bar waiting for up to 90 minutes to save $3. I asked a server Mary once, rhetorically, “Do you know who these people are? These are the cheapest fags on Capitol Hill.” Once a group of four God-fearing ‘mos were holding hands for grace, bowing their heads, and whispering a prayer over their cheeseburgers… Uh, God bless this discount beef?

There were the vegetarians who would order a Gardenburger (TM). Sometimes they would be only merciful diner sharing the table with their animal-murdering friends. Hey, you smug fuck, do you know how many gardens had to die for that burger?

Okay. I’m think it’s all worked out of my system now.

So, looking forward to full menu of possibilities ahead, please enjoy these non-burger pictures I took last week. First, a head of red-leaf lettuce from our garden.

Ah, red heads.

The next picture is of scones. What sort of scones? Hard to say—the sign at Katy’s only said they were “experimental.” Nick made them — he’s the super-cute and super-smart barista — and maybe I should’ve, but I didn’t get one. They look good.

*With purchase of a beverage

I couldn’t stand that big meat plate at the top of the page. So, in it’s place, here’s a picture of a sign at the Canterbury—thematic Old English dive bar—that has time traveled to the modern day.

So, is the router, like, in the armor?

This is the second post in a series about things I cook as the lone carnivore in my house. Don’t get me wrong, I love animals, too, I just love to eat them.

Sirloin medallions were in the freezer. So after defrosting, I rubbed them with garlic and seared them brown. I set the meat aside. Then I used the browned oil in the pan and a bit of olive oil to brown flour for a veloute sauce; for the liquid I used sherry and some half and half, and then spiced it up with a bunch of coarsely ground black pepper. I poured the sherry cream sauce over the steak, and on the side a pile of brocolli steamed with fresh lemon juice, and beside that some long grian rice cooked with red pepper, butter, and cilatro. Fine fuckin’ food.

“Excellence is a hallmark of many aspects of The Seattle Times.” That’s what you say, Seattle Times, but there’s an exception to excellence whenever the subject is DEA drug busts, like today’s article by Mike Carter. Is it a news report or a press release?

Federal drug agents seized more than 36 pounds of cocaine and $203,000 in cash during overnight raids in Burien on Thursday, ending a 10-month investigation into a Burien-based cocaine ring with ties to Mexico.

The Drug Enforcement Administration and the King County Sheriff’s Office used wiretaps and surveillance to dismantle the organization. In all, 17 people were arrested and 16 have been indicted in U.S. District Court, including 10 people arrested last month. Agents seized an additional 2 kilograms of cocaine, three guns, cars and $40,000 in cash during the March arrests, according to court documents and the U.S. attorney’s office.

“The organization was large, well-established and was distributing over 30 kilograms of cocaine per month in the Greater Seattle Area,” DEA Special Agent in Charge Arnold Moorin said Friday.

The drug ring centered on the El Flamingo Restaurant in Burien. The alleged ringleader, Domingo Bailon-Yanez, 30, is related to the restaurant owner and was indicted, according to court documents. Restaurant manager Rigoberto Sabalsa-Lozano, 43, of SeaTac, and bartender Carla Rodriguez-Romero, 26, of Kent, also were indicted.

In addition to cocaine, the DEA alleges the ring also sold kilogram-quantities of heroin and methamphetamine.

Bailon-Yanez, Sabalsa-Lozano and Rodriguez-Romero and seven others are charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and heroin. Six others are indicted with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine.

Given the quantities of drugs, the conspiracy charges carry mandatory prison sentences of 10 years to life.

A juvenile allegedly involved in the conspiracy was arrested but later released. In a news release, the U.S. attorney’s office said enhanced prison sentences could apply because a juvenile was allegedly a participant.

The DEA dubbed the investigation Operation Pink Tiger, a reference to the nickname of one of the defendants and the fact that the cocaine came wrapped in bright-pink cellophane.

Of course the DEA alleges things happened a certain way. So perhaps you’d like to do some reporting to find out—in the name of excellence—like you do for any other issue when one side makes an unverified claim. What did people who aren’t law enforcement have to say? Carter didn’t even try to ask obvious questions about the bust that the DEA doesn’t want to answer: Did agents catch the right people? How much did the busts cost? What’s the penalty for all these dealers, and do decades in prison fit the crime? And most important, since this is done in the name of stopping drugs, how effective was this bust at reducing the availability of cocaine?

The Seattle Times promises “outstanding reporting,” “quality journalism” and “comprehensive local coverage.” But are you, Mike Carter, providing what your newspaper promises when you regurgitate everything the DEA says? You don’t have give special one-sided coverage to drug issues, Mike Carter—being objective actually means you don’t give softball coverage to the government—so you can stop being a lapdog for the DEA.

This is Nova. She is nine weeks old today, and she weighs 13 pounds.

My huge ol’ noggin is bigger than an entire dog!

By the time Nova—adopted last week by my friends Nika and Jeff—becomes a full-grown Rotweiler, she’ll hang at a tough 95 pounds of adorlable snuggler. A super-Nova, if you will.

When I opened the New York Times in the coffee shop this morning, a circulation sheet for all the newspapers delivered in my neighborhood slipped out. We can see what folks around 21st and Union read with coffee.

I was surprised to see that the PI subscriptions were almost on par with the Times. Given the Blethen family whining about keeping the Hearst paper on life support, I assumed the PI would have half the readers of the Times. And perhaps it does—just not in the pinko Central District.

Then there are the nationals, I think. “WSJ” is the Wall Street Journal. “NYT” is a stand-alone acronym that requires no extrapolation. But what’s “BD,” I wondered aloud as I sipped my Americano. “The Bremerton Dispatch?” a man in a Hawaiian shirt suggested. “Nobody reads the Bremerton Dispatch,” I said. “You’re right,” he replied, pointing at the zero, “nobody does.”

Of course, there is no such publication as the Bremerton Dispatch. But I couldn’t figure out which newspaper “BD” would stand for. Am I an idiot—does everyone know about the BD but me?

The military has quietly canceled the assignment of General Hood, a 33-year Army veteran who was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The decision to withdraw General Hood’s assignment has not been announced, but it appears to reflect the widening shadow that the military prison at Guantánamo is casting over American foreign policy. While the United States considers Pakistan a close ally in its counterterrorism efforts, the accounts by Pakistanis who have returned to Pakistan after being held at Guantánamo Bay have added to anti-American sentiment in the country.

But he also had to deal with the fallout of a report in Newsweek asserting that a military inquiry was expected to find that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet at the detention center. The magazine later retracted the article, but the military inquiry concluded that a soldier had inadvertently splashed urine on a Koran. The magazine’s original assertion led to riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan that left at least 17 people dead.

Remind me again what Kansas Congressman Jim Ryan said about Guantanamo… Ah, yes: “I was most impressed with the professionalism of our soldiers stationed there, and I am now more confident than ever that that the operations at Guantanamo are being conducted in a humane and necessary manner.”