Buying Medical Marijuana 101

In 2001, I was diagnosed with a rare form of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  Many of the drugs used to treat the malignancy left me depleted, lifeless, and unable to enjoy food.  Enter Dr. Lemes who gave me my first medical marijuana prescription, and a script for Phenagan suppositories.  Almost immediately, I discovered that smoking marijuana was more helpful for my condition than kiestering a suppository.  I could eat like Homer Simpson again, and started to get a good night's sleep without taking Restoril.  I am not going to say that it is a miracle drug, but it is for me.  Your results may vary.  I believe sincerely that anyone who wants a medical marijuana recommendation should be allowed to get one if that person's health is improved in any way.  I personally believe that when a consenting adult or a teenager is arrested and forced to endure many hours of humiliating and useless drug counseling, jail or prison time, it negatively impacts their health.  Hence, every recommendation is legitimate in my mind.

The City of the Angels started out with just a handful of dispensaries.  Many of the early ones carried outstanding product.  There were a couple located in West Hollywood, and one in Inglewood on Market Street.  There were not too many people into this until about 2005.  In 2006, it exploded.  The cat had been let out of the bag, and over a hundred stores were soon operating.  The next year, the number of storefront dispensaries in Los Angeles trebled.  Armenian, Korean, and Russian organized criminals as well as members of long established street gangs both Black and Latino got into the act.   

The criminals on the other side, law enforcement, also got into the act and started busting stores and intimidating others into closing.  They came up with the landlord letter, threatening to seize the property of anyone who rented to a dispensary using some stupid Federal Code, though few such seizures ever took place.  The Obama Administration failed to keep its promise of non-interference in our State's Medical Marijuana Laws, and continued with Gestapo tactics in their effort to stem the evil tide of Medical Marijuana.  But it was too late, the cat was never going back into the bag.  

Many places got into growing their own weed and selling it at their dispensary because that is the most profitable way to operate one of these places.  But most of these people had no experience growing weed and are amateurs.  Keep in mind, I have seen top shelf weed my entire life.  I grew up in a very affluent area, and affluent people always had the best pot.  There have been people growing great weed in California for decades.  They know a thing or two about when to harvest, how to choose a strain, and how to cure the bud once it has been harvested.  Do you think that these Armenian cats who lease a warehouse in Pomona and have no experience growing anything can produce a quality product?  With few exceptions, the answer is most certainly not.  If you want some harsh ass shit, go to a dispensary in Hollywood or Koreatown.  These places occasionally may have something good, but it is worth your time and your money to find a place where the people buying the weed know what they are doing.  It is going to cost you a little extra, but it is better than smoking some bud that was grown with harsh fertilizers and harvested at the wrong time.  

Find a dispensary in West Hollywood, West Lost Angeles, but avoid shops where you sense an organized crime vibe, or where the prices seem too good to be true.  Look at the bud under a magnifying glass.  Know what you should be looking for (trichromes).  Be happy!

Prescription Drug Deaths Become the Leading Cause of Death Among Adults in the United States

Now that I got your attention, I have to admit that I was exaggerating.  But just a little.  In California, for instance, prescription drug deaths are more prevalent among adults than automobile related deaths.  It has become the second leading cause of death in California with only heart disease unnecessarily taking more lives.  Over the course of the year, the Los Angeles Times ran a series on the problem of prescription drugs and focused on corrupt doctors, victims, pharmacies, law enforcement, and family testimony (also victims).  I enjoyed the series, but it left out the major culprit which is clearly the pharmaceutical industry and those who invest in it.   

A few decades ago, hairy bush was the order of the day.  Disco was inescapable, and lots and lots of people took Methaqualone, or Quaaludes.  You could go to a "Stress Clinic" where the Dr. Feelgood of the day would write you a prescription for these hypnotic sedative pills so you could get your filthy seventies unprotected venereal disease sex on and do a line or two of coke afterwards.  Maybe you were listening to Steely Dan at that time.  Then, suddenly, the pills disappeared from the market after someone in the DEA realized that they were going to cause some big problems in the future like overdose, addiction, and misery.  The reality was that this substance was toxic and the pharmaceutical companies knew that they had strict liability.  So they shut the production of the precursors down, and rescheduled the drug to Schedule I.  Almost overnight, the problem evaporated.

What is stopping the DEA from going after Watson, Pfizer, and all of the other companies manufacturing and peddling death?  The astonishing amount of money that legal drug manufacturers rake in dwarfs the narcos.  With everyone getting their beak wet, these manufacturers are going to remain immune.  Far more people die from prescription drug overdoses than cocaine or heroin.  A large number should be added to those figures to include people who overdose on Tylenol which is a component in Vicodin and Percocet.  We are talking 600 or more people who overdosed on Tylenol in California last year.  That is a higher number than homicides in Los Angeles which this year are under 550 so far.  What an outrage that our government who is supposed to be regulating the pharmaceutical industry and overseeing it is instead allowing these companies to more than double their narcotics production every year since 1999.

There is a problem with all of the current addicts.  I believe sincerely that we have medicated a generation or two and we have to write a lot of those people off as chronic addicts that cannot be rehabilitated.  I do not realistically visualize the Oxycontin addict voluntarily stopping, and if they do, I expect them to encounter a lot of problems.  Instead of allowing the drug companies to further victimize these addicts and make a profit off them or off their insurance, they should be switched over to morphine sulphate and given a maximum dose of 120mg daily.  Supplied by Uncle Sam, of course.

When I look at death statistics, I see a lot more people dying because they are buying.  Buying bacon cheeseburgers, buying pills, spending hundred dollar bills.  I see death from heart disease as a result of buying shitty food.  Overdose deaths because you are buying shitty pills.  Nowhere do I see big numbers of Americans dying at the hands of Muslim terrorists.  In these statistics, depicting death in the United States by cause, I see no reason why we should be involved in the business of any other country when ours is so broken that it is going to take generations to unravel the damage done by the guy you see looking at you in the mirror.     

Fat Fucks Feed at Fronk's

Like any red blooded American, I like a good hamburger once in a while.  I possess this thing called self control (I have no self control), and so instead of eating animals in a reckless and brazen manner on a daily basis, I save my lower intestine from a whuppin' by eating red meat sparingly.  All kinds of meat for that matter.  Chicken is not diet food.

Now that I am not obese and have taken steps to remove the trash from my body, I also watch my intake of fried food.  When I get some fries, I want to fully enjoy them because I only get to eat them about once a week without causing grave harm to my body.  Same goes for the burger, so they had both better be good.

My friend Roy is an outstanding food writer, and I respect his choice of having let himself go.  He let himself go in a bad, bad, bad way.  I saw his before picture and was astonished to see a nice looking young man with defined abs taken circa 1982.  You could never recognize him today unless you personally witnessed his downhill spiral into exceedingly poor health.  Watching him eat and write about food is like watching a wino pour a gallon of ripple into his body.  Not a pretty sight.  His written descriptions of restaurants are about the best I have seen coming out of Orange County.  He has a way with words that is folksy, polite, and well informed.  So when I read his review for Fronk's Restaurant in Bellflower, it was just a matter of time before I cashed in my hamburger and fry chips for dinner at this so called holy grail of burgers.

Have you ever walked into M&M Soul Food and looked around only to realize that you were the only honky in the restaurant?  How about when you go into Yunnan Gardens and you the only round eye?  It has happened to me many times before.  This was the first place I have dined at where I looked around and realized that me and my wife were the only people in there who were not morbidly obese.  All my fellow diners tipped the scales at over two hundred pounds.

Now on to the food.  The burger had an 1/8 of an inch of char on the bottom of it.  My jalapeno bacon cheeseburger was nasty.  I could not finish my half.  It was like the beans of a clown.  Burned on the bottom and raw in the center.  Nice burger sauce.  It would have been nice if I did not see the guy sitting next to me eating this mayo based sauce with a spoon before my food arrived.  I almost vomited when I saw him do that.  I really almost did.  The bacon was burned to a crisp and just amounted to a few scattered bits on top of the tasteless lump of melted jack cheese.  The beer battered corn on the cob was something I just let my wife take care of.  The french fries were good but the 1lb portion obscene and way too large to finish.  Did someone order the bacon cheeseburger nachos?  Did someone order the stroke?

A huge platter of fried vegetables graced nearly every table.  Fred Flintstone sized racks of ribs waited to be devoured by the morbidly obese clientele.  Watching these people who already suffer from diabetes stuffing their faces with this shit is like watching a junkie shoot up.  Fronk ought to be charged a special tax and the people that eat there regularly should be mandated to visit Harbor UCLA Medical Center dialysis unit for a few hours a month.  Next time I want a burger, I am going to eat a fucking Double Double.  At least it won't cost fucking $10.95 and I don't have to look at big, fat whales eating giant plates of beer battered tilapia, raw Angus beef slathered in mayo.  This place is shameful.

Obama Speak With Forked Tongue

Obama's so called "Pivot to Asia", in a few words, cements the institution of the successive boogeyman in American Culture, having gone from the Russians to the Muslims and now focusing its  propaganda machine and its lame ass military on our newest enemy, the Chinese.  What a moronic idea, unless you are looking at it from the perspective of the military industrial complex and that sociopath posing as a weak ass, lame duck, President.   

Why, with the exception of arms sales and subcontractor boondoggles would we invite battle with China or goad Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines into doing so as a proxy?  If China gives battle, we are totally fucked.  Carrier Groups are a thing of the past, and of course after they destroy our C3, move on to the carrier groups, and soon little, including Los Angeles would not be off limits.  That is considering that it remains conventional.

Instead of looking for a fight like an aging bully at an Aerosmith concert, the Obama Administration and its group of co-conspirators should focus on the near future when marginalized, triple cheeseburger eating, WASP, Americans inevitably are going to become significantly more violent and significantly fatter.

I voted for this guy because John McCain seemed like a shittier choice at the time.  I was lured by the words of the forked tongued reptile Obama who indicated that he was inclined to end Military Industrial Adventurism.  But thank you Mr. Townsend.  Indeed the new boss was the same as the old boss and perhaps much worse.

Hey SC-Fuck You Guys

Yeah.  Fuck you guys.

Kill The King

Even the good kings were bad.  Monarchy represents the very worst of reactionary politics.  Smash them, I say.  Begin with the House of Saud.  Listen to Rainbow's Kill the King at full blast and absorb the words of Ronnie James Dio.  Happy Saturday, folks.

After Photo 11/30/13