Hoekstra: "Um, I just can't tell you. I don't know the answer to that."

At that point, Beck reports, "A man in the audience ... stood up and declared in a loud voice: 'What's your problem, Hoekstra? Why won't you answer the man's question? My brother almost died [from] prostate cancer and medical marijuana saved his life... How dare you say this is not medicine.' He refused to shut up when urged by the moderator and a melee came close to breaking out."

DAVID BORDEN REPORTS in Stop the Drug War Speakeasy that it's smart kids, not dumb kids, who use drugs as adults. Duh! Ever hearda Steve Jobs? "So much of what we've been told about drugs and drug users turns out to be the opposite of the truth," Borden says, "it's amazing that the anti-drug fanatics are able to find any audience at all anymore. 

"News like this comes as a surprise only if you understand remarkably little about what drugs actually are and why people use them."

In a recent British study cited by Borden, "Researchers discovered men with high childhood IQs were up to two times more likely to use illegal drugs than their lower-scoring counterparts. Girls with high IQs were up to three times more likely to use drugs as adults."

"It ought to be intuitive," Borden concludes, "that the curiosity which comes along with above-average intelligence would also be correlated with a heightened interest in experiencing altered states of consciousness. No doubt, a little extra brain-power also serves to inoculate against believing a lot of the BS we're fed about how certain substances will turn your brain into a turnip."

No show: At the end of my last column I mentioned that there were plans afoot to mount a 40th Anniversary Reunion of the 1971 John Sinclair Freedom Rally on December 10 at Masonic Temple. Despite our best efforts we were unable to realize our plans and the concert is not happening. Sorry! It would've been a blast!

—Amsterdam

Nov. 19-20, 2011

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