Calls for the legalization and decriminalization of marijuana grew louder this week, coming from a highly unlikely group: the police. In a 180-degree shift in position, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division agents, along with police chiefs and elected sheriffs from around the state announced their support for the legalization and taxation of marijuana.

“Weed is good.  Weed is right.  Weed works,” said Dorchester County Sheriff B.D. Squire, spokesman for the group. The change comes after calculating how much tax revenue could be produced by legalizing marijuana.

“There was a half-million dollar bust a couple weeks ago in Berkely County,” said state Agriculture Secretary Hugh Weathers, “if that pot was taxed at anything near the rate of tobacco… well that would be about $500 million straight into the state coffers. Can you imagine what kind of income we’d pull in if it was planted on proper farms and not just in little patches in the woods? We wouldn’t be having a ’stimulus’ debate because we wouldn’t need the money.”

Check out the whole story here!

The prospect of legal marijuana seems an impossible dream to millions of pot smokers across America. No matter how much evidence exists to the contrary, the drug continues to be vilified by the media, demonized by the religious right and described as a ‘gateway drug’ by politicians and law makers alike. Nobody has ever overdosed on pot, nobody has ever died from it, yet smoking a joint continues to carry the same stigma as shooting heroin and snorting coke in the eyes of the government, and often yields the same punishment.

Since the ‘legalize it’ movement has been going strong for decades with hardly any victories to speak of, whenever anyone talks about legalizing pot, the news needs to be greeted with a healthy amount of skepticism. After all, if the government won’t even acknowledge the usefulness of medical marijuana, how can anyone expect it to understand the joys of regular marijuana? (more…)

Okay, so a monk walks into a Best Buy. This isn’t a joke.

He buys three CDs, eight movies, two computer games, Adobe Illustrator CS3, the entire X-Files series, Microsoft Office Professional, and Rosetta Stone v3, so he can learn Swahili to communicate with his half-sister. The cost of all that? Easily over $2,500. Two weeks ago he bought Autodesk Maya Unlimited for his son who just got into graphic design–that was over $5,000.

Well guess what? He could have gotten all that in about two days or less for free. It’s all about the torrents–transferable pieces of data (like on Limewire, kids)  that anyone with a computer and the Internet can access, click on, and wait for a few hours (or even minutes) to download. Literally type, click, and wait. Music, games, movies, applications, books, porn–you name it, it’s there. For free.

Now. What is wrong with this picture? You tell me. Limewire’s legal. uTorrent’s legal. Azureus is legal. Think about it for a minute. I could get all those things in an hour or two while I go to the gym or go to school or sleep. When I get back: TADA! (more…)

Every once in awhile I like going out to bars, clubs, you name it. Buuuuut, I am not yet 21 and I nowhere near look like I am. Because of my short stature, people frequently ask me if I am in high school (and one time even junior high).

I know, I know: in 20 years, I’ll be begging for people to think I’m in high school. But for right now, I just wanna pass as 21 so I can go out with my friends. Which is nearly impossible. I still get funny looks from waiters when I order off the adult menu.

So, I got a fake ID. I was lucky enough to inherit an actual old ID of a friend’s after she turned 21. While my friend and I look alike, she is 25 and 5′9. And yet, her ID has worked flawlessly time and time again, even when I don’t wear my seven-inch heels.

How does it work, you ask? I follow a few basic steps: (more…)