Just Say Know

The following was posted to the Mindvox Ibogaine list on Sunday by Patrick Kroupa (one of the founders of Mindvox and a very k00l d00d):

Okay, here’s what’s happening with Dana:

The prosecution is attempting to re-instate the class one felony –
money laundering — that was dropped (he is currently only being
charged with obstruction of justice). This changes the playing field
slightly, and makes Dana liable for a maximum of 36 years (instead of
6), and a minimum of 4 years (instead of 1).

Fighting the charges requires funds to pay his legal fees pertaining
to both past, present, and future litigation. The total bill which is
still due Right At This Moment is: $14K. This will increase as both
sides begin shoveling wheelbarrows filled with crap — erm, I meant to
say: important legal papers and documents — at one another.

If you are a United States citizen, you’ve already done your part, in
helping waste everybody’s time and fuck over Dana, ‘cuz your taxes are
funding “The People” vs. Dana.

If you support the massive amount of work and effort that Dana has put
into the legalization and ibogaine movement over decades of time: YOUR
HELP is urgently needed.

*** Please Help / and PLEASE *READ THIS* ***

There are 101 different “Help Dana Beal!” messages, threads, and
articles being splattered all over teH InterNeTs. While all of this
is important, what’s EVEN MORE important, is actually doing something
HELPFUL if you’re in a position to do so.

Hundreds of messages flew by in many threads, and I haven’t read most
of them, but some of what was posted is just … wrong.

Please *DO NOT* send money or checks to Dana’s lawyers. Please *DO
NOT* send email or make phone calls to Dana’s lawyers. They really
don’t wanna chat with hundreds of random people; this accomplishes
nothing much. All it does is put lawyers into a really shit mood
because they *really* DO NOT want to hear from you, or chat (unless
you write for the NY Times). They’re also not accounting firms, and
NOT in a position to accumulate a boatload of small checks and
payments, and then apply the bill to a single account. It doesn’t
work that way.

Please *DO NOT* send money to the jail… I have no idea who the fuck
came up with this, or where it came from, but … what the fuck? Dana
doesn’t smoke cigarettes, he doesn’t need hundreds or thousands of
dollars for commissary? He was in jail, not serving years in prison.
If you send money directly to the jail, what you’re basically doing is
donating your cash to their jail. That’s about it.

*** WHAT YOU CAN DO *RIGHT NOW* ***

If your life, or the lives of any of your friends or family, have been
enriched by all the tireless work and effort that Dana has put into
ibogaine, please send your money orders or checks to:

Yippie Holdings
9 Bleecker St.
NYC, NY 10012

Made payable ONLY TO: Yippie Holdings, LLC.

Do not make out checks or money orders to Dana, CNW, or whatever
random person/organization/thing, people have posted or written about
in the past.

…

MindVox will have a centralized news/events/information page online
within the next coupla days. It will contain all breaking information
in one central repository, and include further information regarding
how to donate using Paypal electronically.

Thanks for your attention to this matter, and please do what you can
to help. What’s happening right now is going entirely to funding
Dana’s defense, and doesn’t even begin to touch all the cash that was
confiscated and quite likely gone up in flames.

Further information will be posted within the next few days.

Thank you,

Patrick,

oh behalf of MindVox/CNW.

Dana Beal, best known for being the main organizer of the Million Marijuana March, was arrested a few days ago in Coles County, Illinois on charges of “alleged money laundering”. Not much information is available on the situation, unfortunately, other than that he needs to raise an additional $25,000 to make bail, which had been set at $250,000. According to an unverified source, a spokesperson for the Coles Country sheriff’s department said that Beal was found with $100,000 in cash and was “unable to verify where he obtained the money”.

A general call for help has been sent out… if anyone out there can spare a bit of cash to help out this stoned crusader, send it to:

Yippie Holdings
9 Bleecker St.
NYC, NY 10012

Made payable ONLY TO: Yippie Holdings, LLC.

Beal began his life in activism in the late 60’s with the “New York Provos”, organizing a smoke-in at Thompson Park in 1967. Also around that time, he opened a Free Store on 2nd Street between Bowery and 2nd Avenue. In 1968, Beal was forced to go underground, after jumping bail following a second drug charge (the first being an LSD sting in which he was caught in 1967). While underground, Beal met up with people involved with the Weather Underground and similar groups and wrote Right On Culture Freaks. But the Feds eventually caught up with Beal and he served one year in prison, being released in 1972.

1972 was a big year for Beal. In Miami, he helped Tom Forcade (of High Times fame) organize protests against the Republican and Democratic Conventions, along with other notable radicals such as Aron Kay (aka the “Pieman”) and Pat Small. Also in 1972, Beal started the Yipster Times, the voice of the Youth International Party. In 1973, Beal and a collection of other Yippies moved into 9 Bleecker Street, which now houses the Yippie Museum (and is a fucking rad place to visit if yer ever in Greenwich Village).

Over the years, Beal has also been a major force in organizing a series of Rock Against Racism concerts, as well as a number of AIDS benefits. Lately, in addition to running the Million Marijuana Marches, Beal has been a leading advocate for ibogaine, a psychedelic used to treat drug addictions.

I’ve met Dana a few times at different ibogaine conferences over the years, and let me tell you, the man’s a character. He looks like Mark Twain, he always seems to be a bit manic, and there’s always a faint aroma of cat piss about him (due to the herds of wild cats that seem to be the true owners of 9 Bleecker Street). He often doesn’t make a lot of sense when he rants, but his rants are always entertaining and he has undeniable charisma. He’s done a hell of a lot of good in his life. And he always has some bombin’ ass smoke.

If you wanna earn some karma points, help this living legend out.

Hello there, you great big wonderful internet. My name is j0n and I intend to provide interesting and informative articles about drugs and drug use. One of the most egregious side effects of the War on Drugs (or “War on Some Drugs” as many think is more appropriate a moniker) is the suppression of information that it entails. Not only is this a tragedy in its own right, as access to information is a vital cornerstone of democracy, but when dealing with drugs, misinformation can be deadly. Indeed, if not for this War on Drugs, many overdoses and other negative effects of drugs could be easily prevented. Sadly, it is often the case in drug-related deaths that if the individual had received accurate information about drugs, instead of the hype and propaganda dispersed by our government, he or she would still be alive today.

Though I don’t intend to fill this site soley with dry facts about pharmacology (though I do love me some pharmacology); I also intend to throw in assorted interesting things I find here and there related to drug policy, drug lore, and well, anything else that has to do with drugs.

In any case, it is in such a vein that I will begin my first article. I suspect every reader of this blog will be familiar with one Thomas B. Kin Chong, better known as Tommy Chong from “Cheech and Chong” fame. Many of you may know that in 2003, Mr Chong was sentenced to 9 months in federal prison, a fine of $20,000, forfeiture of $103,514, and the loss of all items seized during the preceding raid [1]. He received this sentence as a result of the US Department of Justice’s Operation Pipedreams, which targeted Paris (Tommy’s son) Chong’s Chong Glass/Nice Dreams, among a couple hundred other retailers of pipes and other smoking accessories (i.e., headshops).

Incidentally, Operation Pipedreams was launched on the second anniversary of September 11, 2001. It cost US taxpayers more than $12,000,000 and involved the work of about 2,000 law enforcement officers [2]. Out of this entire effort, Tommy Chong was the only person sentenced to jail time, despite the fact that he was only tangentially involved in the Chong Glass business (primarily as an advertising draw and financier) and despite the fact that he had no prior criminal record (while other people caught in Operation Pipedreams did). BTW, in case you’ve been asleep the past several years, Bin Laden’s still at large. Just sayin..

At any rate, it has been postulated that the reason Tommy was targeted so harshly, compared to the other 54 people that were tried in the operation, was to use him as an example, given his iconic stature in the world of stonerdom. This supposition is supported by the fact that, during his trial, his character in the film “Up in Smoke” was used as evidence against him. Note, not only was this presented as evidence, but it was ACCEPTED as evidence. Boggles the mind, dunnit? Comedian and political commentator Bill Maher compared this to Arnold Schwarzenegger being tried for all the cops that the Terminator killed.

Anyhoo, up to the present day, and the point of this article. A couple months ago, a documentary about this fiasco was released on DVD; a/k/a Tommy Chong, written and directed by Josh Gilbert. I’ve yet to see this film, but it looks pretty interesting (and I’d be interested to hear from anyone who’s seen it what they thought of it). But if you haven’t seen it and you want to, you better get a copy quick. On May 7th, Spectrum Labs, one of the main distributors of a/k/a Tommy Chong and maker of detoxification products*, was raided by the DEA:

…federal agents seized 8,000-10,000 copies of the movie AKA Tommy Chong. The movie is a documentary critical of Buchanan and the federal government’s persecution of Chong. Federal agents apparently think it’s drug paraphernalia.

He called the documentary a “focal point” of the raid. It was released about a month ago, and sales were slow, Mr. Chong said.

“The lawyer representing the Newport company, Spectrum Laboratories, said a competitor of her client had a facility raided the same day in Union Township, Clermont County. An FBI spokesman confirmed a Clermont County raid in connection to the Newport investigation but said he could not elaborate, because the search warrant was sealed.

“It’s selling like crazy now, thanks to Mary Beth**. She’s brought us a nice publicity gimmick.” [3]

The Feds have been unusually tight lipped about the raid, even for them:

The execution of the sealed search warrants was part of a nationwide investigation originating out of Pittsburgh, Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Rich Isaacson said. Officials declined to say what was sought in the raid.

The lawyer representing the Newport company, Spectrum Laboratories, said a competitor of her client had a facility raided the same day in Union Township, Clermont County. An FBI spokesman confirmed a Clermont County raid in connection to the Newport investigation but said he could not elaborate, because the search warrant was sealed.

“I expect the investigation to unfold over a number of months, if not years,” said Spectrum attorney Jennifer Kinsley of Cincinnati. [4]

Welp, that’s the scoop for now. If I find any more info on this current raid, I’ll pass it along.

* Regarding detoxifcation products, simply put, do not buy them. They do nothing to speed up the rate at which drugs are excreted from the body. I’ll write about this in more detail in a future article, but genuinely, honestly, and truly, they do nothing. They don’t do anything bad mind you, they just do nothing. Now, on the other hand, Spectrum labs does sell a product (or perhaps several) that would work to pass a pee test. These are synthetic types of urine. However, it should be duly noted that faking a piss test in any way is A FELONY. That is, if you get caught doin that sort of thing, you’re in for some serious shit.

** Referring to US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, who led Operation Pipedreams.

References:

[1] “Chong Actor Tommy Chong gets nine months for selling pot pipes“, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 13th September 2003.

[2] “Chong Family Values“, LA Weekly Times, 4th December 2003.

[3] Balko, R. Mary, Mary, Why You Buggin’?
Reason Magazine, May 21, 2008.

[4] Hannah, J. Feds raid Ky. business The Enquirer, May 8, 2008.