Helping Hands Wellness Center Dispensary in Hillcrest Raided; Cops Set Up Shop Inside

   Yesterday Last Blog on Earth ran a post about San Diego Police Detectives setting up shop behind the counter of the Hillcrest based Helping Hands Wellness Collective. (LAST BLOG ON EARTH)  Today, NBC had an article connecting the raids to two similar raids in Santa Barbara county. (NBC)

  To me, this whole medical marijuana situation is a genie being let out of the bottle type situation.  Law Enforcement is always fighting a kind of rear guard action against whatever drugs are deemed illegal, and they are not going to merely disappear because of changes in the law.  Law enforcement agencies are going to conserve their traditions, and continue to target conduct they consider criminal, whether it be under the guise of income tax evasion or prohibition style raids.

 One thing is for certain, everyone in the medical marijuana business needs to be aware of the fact that profit is toxic in this line of work.  The purchase of multi pound bundles of marijuana in the market place is sure to bring the purchaser to the attention of the existing anti-narcotic law enforcement agencies.  The exposure point is where the marijuana is being grown, and the purchase and sale of the marijuana.  At a secondary level, the enforcement of existing restrictions is significant.

  Clearly, law enforcement is drawing distinctions between every day purchasers and growers, owners,  operators of marijuana dispensaries.   You would think that working at one of these dispensaries would pretty much require you to have a criminal defense lawyer on retainer.  I mean, you could be arrested at any minute.

Rhianna, That is a Stomping Italo Disco Chorus You Have There

California DUI Arrests: A Two Month Survival Guide

California DUI Arrests: A Two Month Survival Guide (Avvo)

Collar Bomb Trial Begins, Is Awesome

     Sometimes a crime really is so extraordinary that is worth blogging about.  Such is the case with the collar bomb trial of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong.   This was a case where a pizza delivery guy robbed a bank in Pennsylvania with a bomb fastened around his neck.  Brian Douglas Wells was caught by police outside the bank and his head exploding was video taped- easily findable on you tube for those so inclined.   This happened in 2003.  It took five years to sentence the co-defendant, and now the mastermind Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong is finally on trial.  The case has been delayed because the Ms. Diehl-Armstrong was held incompetent to stand trial.  


  Here are some highlights from pre-trial motions held on Tuesday:

    Diehl-Armstrong, who has a history of outbursts, exploded in a torrent of obscenities at her defense attorney Tuesday.

She is being treated for metastasized breast cancer and was apparently upset about not getting her medication Tuesday morning. After Sughrue briefly told her how she might better raise that issue with jail officials, she blew up.

"I don't want to hear about how to talk to the prison people," she said in a rant peppered with obscenities. "I don't need Doug Sughrue, who's never been in prison a single day, telling me how to act."

She went on to berate Sughrue for losing certain pretrial arguments, saying that he has "handcuffed" her and loudly shouting that she shouldn't have even been indicted in the case.

Sughrue is the third defense attorney to represent Diehl-Armstrong. She fired the other two because she was dissatisfied with what she perceived to be a lack of competence, and even criticized how one of them dressed. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

    Awesome- sounds like a great client.

2010 CMJ Events: Flight, Woven Bones, Heavy Hawaii, Dirty Beaches ET AL

   If you happen to be in NYC for CMJ.

Believe What You Believe

Book Review

Shamans, Mystics and Doctors
by Sudhir Kakar
p. 1982, University of Chicago Press Edition 1991

   Mental illness is a subject near and dear to my heart.  I deal with mental illness at least once a month in the course of my job as a criminal defense lawyer.  Some of my clients are what they call "dual diagnosis" which typically means substance abuse + mental illness.  Of course I'm interested in different approaches to curing mental illness, from western psychiatry to eastern Shamanism.  Here is a truth about this entire area: Anything works as long as the patient and the doctor share the same believe system.   This means that the curative power, for all these practices, lies with the patient rather than the Doctor/Shaman/Wizard.

   This is the central thesis of Sudhir Kakar's illuminating Shamans, Mystics and Doctors.  Kakar is an Indian Psychotherapist who wrote a book about the curative practices of a variety of Indian traditions: Muslim and Hindu Shaman.  Shamans is divided into several chapters, each of which profile a different Guru or discipline with an approach to treating mental illness.

  Considering the depths that traditional Freud inspired Psychotherapy has reached since Kakar wrote this in the early 1980s, his medical Doctor psychiatric oriented appears almost as dated as the Muslim and Hindu shaman's who exorcise demons by name.  However, Kakar is right on when it points out that ANY approach to healing and mental health can work so long as there are a healer and a patient who believe in the SAME THING.

   Kakar also notes that the central experience held in common by all the various methods of Indian mental curing is the disassociation of the self- getting "outside" your self,  how you do it doesn't matter, but it needs to be guided by someone else, you can't do it yourself.

New Indo European Civilization Discovered by Russians in Caucauses?

     Traces of a previously unknown Bronze Age civilisation have been discovered in the peaks of Russia's Caucasus Mountains thanks to aerial photographs taken 40 years ago, researchers said Monday.

"We have discovered a civilisation dating from the 16th to the 14th centuries BC, high in the mountains south of Kislovodsk," in Russia's North Caucasus region, Andrei Belinsky, the head of a joint Russian-German expedition that has been investigating the region for five years, told AFP.

    He said researchers had discovered stone foundations, some up to a metre (3.3 feet) high, at nearly 200 sites, all "visibly constructed according to the same architectural plan, with an oval courtyard in the centre, and connected by roads."

   The sites are spread over about 100 kilometres (60 miles) between the Kuban river in the west and the city of Nalchik in the east.  (Yahoo!)


    The decorations and forms of bronze items found in the area indicate the civilisation is linked to the Kuban civilisation, which was discovered at the end of the 19th century at the foot of Mount Kazbek and is known for its artistic bronze works.  (AFP)

   This is exciting because the time period corresponds with the entrance of Indo European peoples into the Middle East. (Hittites, Hurrians)  I checked Google Books for mentions about the Kuban civilization and I found a claim that their art resembled the art of the Hittites! (THE ANIMAL STYLE IN SOUTH RUSSIA)

   If you look up the area they are talking about on the map, its on the Russian side of the Caucuses... Could this be the home of some unknown Indo European civilization?  Or a far outpost of an already known civilization?

I Find the AK 47 Cliche

   I try to stay away from the ak 47 in terms of assault rifles, unless I find myself participating in some savage third world civil conflict.  I mean sure, the ak 47 fits the classic definition of "assault rifle" but we've come so far since those days in terms of the use of light weight materials and other features that showing up at  your typical urban/western crime scene with an ak 47 marks you as an unsophisticated rube.  What are the true ballers using when they need a go-to assault rifle?  I have two suggestions.  First, the IMI Tavor TAR-21 is has been tipped to be THE new assault rifle for the Israeli military- and they can be surprisingly loose with the goods if the price is right.  You also might want to check out the Belgian designed (again, Belgians can be loose with their guns) FN F2000- sure to get people talking when you point it into their chest and make popping noises with your mouth.

On the Issue of Poor Quality Mexican Marijuana

Poor Quality Mexican Marijuana

       Mexican marijuana is of lower quality then the product sold at medical marijuana dispensaries in California.  This quality difference is related to the conditions under which Mexican Marijuana must travel to enter the United States.  Namely, it has to be smuggled, which often requires compression and long periods sitting in the hot sun.  Hardly ideal storage/shipment conditions for such a delicate product.  Because it is possible to visually distinguish Mexican Marijuana from United States grown medical marijuana, it is possible to enforce restrictions on Mexican Marijuana different then that of medically grown marijuana.  An anti-drug campaign aimed specifically at Mexican marijuana might prove more succesfuly in an era of legalizatation then the traditional "Just Say No!" campaigns.