As a Senior Citizen ( notice the caps ), I fully endorse making your golden years your stoned years. Why not?

(Martin A. Lee, Alternet, August 10, 2012)
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Obama Administration sacrifices medical marijuana patients to political expediency.

Team Obama’s decision to crack down on the medical marijuana industry wasn’t motivated by public health concerns. The Justice Department green-lit a scorched earth campaign against medicinal cannabis in order to placate law enforcement and control the damage from the Fast and Furious scandal by deflecting attention to other matters.

Eric Holder, Obama’s embattled attorney general, was under mounting pressure from Congress to explain the botched “Fast and Furious” sting operation, in which 2,000 assault rifles and other firearms were sold to suspected traffickers for the Mexican drug cartels. It was intended as an intelligence-gathering ploy, but U.S. agents lost track of most of these weapons. . . . By early October 2011, there were calls for a special prosecutor to investigate whether Holder had perjured himself during testimony before Congress. Right-wing pundits described the scandal as “Obama’s Watergate.” The ATF announced a major shake-up at the top of the bureau. A chorus of disgruntled sheriffs and other G-men clamored for Holder’s resignation. The attorney general was losing support among law enforcement rank-and-file. . . . But Holder had an ace up his sleeve, and he played it at a crucial moment. . . . Ever since California voters approved Proposition 215, which legalized marijuana for medical use in 1996, law enforcement lobbyists had been urging the federal government to enforce prohibition and choke off the burgeoning industry. . . . On October 7, the same day Holder wrote a detailed letter to Rep. Issa, defending his handling of the Fast and Furious affair, four federal prosecutors in California held a hastily organized press conference in which they threw down the gauntlet and announced the start of a far-ranging crackdown that would nearly decimate the Golden State’s medical marijuana industry. . . . Within 10 months, close to half of California’s 1,400 dispensaries would shut down as the DEA waged an all-out vendetta against what Proposition 215 had unloosed. The drug police weren’t just going after the bad apples; they were going after every apple in the barrel. Cannabis dispensaries abiding by state law were raided by federal agents. Federal prosecutors threatened to seize property from landlords who rented to medical marijuana facilities. The feds also threatened municipal officials who sought to implement state medical marijuana regulations. Federally insured banks and credit card companies refused to service marijuana-related enterprises. . . . Medical marijuana proponents were stunned by the ferocity of the Obama administration’s assault on the industry in California and elsewhere. . . . It’s not as though Americans were dropping like flies because of medical marijuana abuse. More than a million Californians had gotten a doctor’s recommendation to use cannabis, and no fatalities or problematic health patterns attributable to the herb had emerged since the passage of Proposition 215. . . . Team Obama’s decision to crack down on the medical marijuana industry wasn’t motivated by public health concerns. The Justice Department green-lit a scorched earth campaign against medicinal cannabis in order to placate law enforcement and control the damage from the Fast and Furious scandal by deflecting attention to other matters. . . . Medical marijuana facilities were red meat for cops and an easy payday for narcs who were aching to take down pot-selling storefronts throughout the Golden State and beyond. Desperate to shore up support among law enforcement, Holder, a longtime marijuana foe, threw the drug war dogs the perfect bone on October 7, 2011. It was a politically expedient decision designed to protect the attorney general’s bureaucratic position. . . . Marijuana’s illegality has long been a useful vehicle for Machiavellian public officials.

If Obama had been caught with the marijuana that he says he uses, and ‘maybe a little blow’… if he had been busted under his laws, he would have done hard f*cking time. And if he had done time in prison, time in federal prison, time for his ‘weed’ and ‘a little blow,’ he would not be President of the United States of America. He would not have gone to his fancy-a** college, he would not have sold books that sold millions and millions of copies and made millions and millions of dollars, he would not have a beautiful, smart wife, he would not have a great job. He would have been in f*cking prison, and it’s not a god damn joke. People who smoke marijuana must be set free. It is insane to lock people up.

(Eric W. Dolan, RawStory.com, May 1, 2012)
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Daniel Chong, a 24-year old student at UC San Diego, was taken into custody during a drug raid and abandoned in a holding cell for five days without food or water, according to NBC San Diego. . . . “They never came back, ignored all my cries and I still don’t know what happened,” he said. “I’m not sure how they could forget me.” . . . On April 21, Drug Enforcement Agents raided an apartment where Chong and his friends were smoking marijuana. Nine people were arrested and the agents reportedly seized ecstasy pills, marijuana, prescription medication, psychedelic mushrooms and weapons, according to CBS 8 News. Seven of those arrested were taken to jail and one was released. . . . Chong, however, was left handcuffed in a 5 ft. by 10 ft. holding cell. . . . Chong said he screamed and kicked the door, but to no avail. Eventually, he began hallucinating and drank his own urine in hopes of staying hydrated. After days without any human contact, he tried to kill himself by breaking his glasses with his teeth, and using the glass to cut himself. . . . Surprisingly, Chong allegedly found a bag of methamphetamine in the holding cell, which he used to stay awake. . . . After five days, a DEA worker heard noises coming from the holding cell and discovered him. Chong was taken to the hospital, where he spent three days in the intensive care unit. . . . The DEA has not apologized to Chong. He has not been charged with any crime.

Stephen C. Webster, RawStory.com, April 25, 2012()
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[COMMENT by Lorenzo: As you already know, Mr. Obama told bald faced lies about his intention to leave medical marijuana patients alone. He has been even worse than Little Bush in attacking dispensaries and patients. But look who he has for a "Drug Czar". The man (and his boss) are completely ignorant about cannabis and hemp. . . . The only person running for President who understands this issue is Ron Paul.]

In a recent response to a White House petition, President Barack Obama’s drug czar warned of danger in the domestic production of industrial hemp, drawing a stunned reaction from the petition’s author, who told Raw Story on Wednesday that it was “like getting hit in the head with a hammer.” . . . The claim by former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, his second response to a marijuana-related White House petition, is not surprising as it reflects current U.S. policy toward marijuana. It is, however, simply not true that THC in hemp poses any sort of potential for abuse, as it is impossible to become “high” from ingesting the plant. . . . Tom Murphy, author of the White House petition and national outreach coordinator for advocacy group Vote Hemp, told Raw Story that he was stunned by Kerlikowske’s response, which he said came only after he’d repeatedly followed-up with them for months. . . . “I’m really at a loss as to why they sat on this for seven months before releasing a one paragraph response,” Murphy said, noting that he’d even previously met with administration officials to brief them what hemp is. ”It’s really quite stunning. It’s stunning like getting hit in the head with a hammer.” . . . hemp food products are legal in the U.S. today. After President George W. Bush’s Drug Enforcent Agency (DEA) issued a blanket order in 2001 banning all foods with even trace amounts of THC, Vote Hemp fought back and won before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a unanimous ruling (PDF) that recognized the distinct differences between marijuana and hemp. Unfortunately for reform advocates, that same level of nuance was completely absent from Kerlikowske’s petition response. . . . “They didn’t even respond to our petition,” Eric Steenstra, president of Vote Hemp, told Raw Story. “Their response was about marijuana. They’d already responded to other petitions about marijuana. We aren’t asking them to allow anybody to grow marijuana. It’s insulting and ridiculous they’re not even willing to acknowledge the fact that hemp is not marijuana.” . . . He added that “it’s really frustrating” to have published a successful petition on the site, only to get a response that was “a joke.”

(David Edwards, RawStory.com, September 29th, 2011)
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A new study suggests that a single dose of psilocybin — the active ingredient in “Magic Mushrooms” — can result in improved personality traits over the long term. . . . Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found that individuals who received the drug once in a clinical setting reported a greater sense of “openness” that often lasted 14 months or longer, according to study published this week in theJournal of Psychopharmacology. . . . The study defined openness as a personality trait that “encompasses aesthetic appreciation and sensitivity, imagination and fantasy, and broad-minded tolerance of others’ viewpoints and values.” It is one of five main personality traits that are shared among all cultures worldwide. . . . ”The mystical experience has certain qualities,” lead author Katherine MacLean said. “The primary one is that you feel a certain kind of connectedness and unity with everything and everyone.” . . . Because personality traits are generally considered to remain stable throughout a persons lifetime, researchers are excited about therapeutic implications of the study. . . . “[T]his study shows that psilocybin actually changes one domain of personality that is strongly related to traits such as imagination, feeling, abstract ideas and aesthetics, and is considered a core construct underlying creativity in general,” study author Roland R. Griffiths told USA Today. “And the changes we see appear to be long-term.” . . . In a smaller study published earlier this year, Johns Hopkins scientists determined the the proper dose levels needed to create positive changes in attitudes, mood, life satisfaction, and behavior.