Massive Attack – Girl I Love You

West Coast – Coconut Records

“And i miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast
I wish you woulda put yourself in my suitcase
I love you
Standin all alone in a black coat”

I love you standing all alone in a black coat

This is Irony

I remember as a child waking up at three in the morning to the sound of an old cast iron Singer model sewing machine.  Short rat-tat-tat-tat-tat machine gun like bursts of sound as threaded needle pierced through fabric, guided ever so delicately by the long bony fingers of my mother’s hands.  That sound became so familiar to me as a child, so ingrained in me, that I would often hardly notice the sound through out my day. It became background noise to me as I went about my day playing or watching television, like elevator music or the sound traffic on a Monday morning commute to work.

My father met my mom in Mexico, married her, and him being a U.S. citizen brought her to the States as his wife.  Eventually I was born, and a short time later my sister.  My father left my mom soon after my sister’s birth and I never saw him again.  She had the choice at that time to go back to Mexico, be with her family, and raise my sister and me as Mexicans, but decided to stay in the U.S. and give her children the best opportunity to have a good life.

My mom was then left to raise two children, my sister and me, by herself, in a foreign country, with minimal knowledge of English, only an eight grade education, and no marketable skills to speak of.  She borrowed some money, bought an old sewing machine and began to assemble pieces of fabric from home for a company that made shirts and other clothing.  She was paid 3 cents per piece.

For the next two decades or so, my mom became a slave to that machine.  It was a rare moment that I didn’t hear that machine and see my mom hunched over sitting in front of that thing, a naked light bulb glaring over her head, straining her bifocal-led eyes to make sure the tiny needle threaded two pieces of cloth exactly to company specifications.

I hated that machine, and I hated my father for leaving my mom.  I promised myself at a very early age that if I ever was to have children of my own, I would be best father in the world….

Feliz dia de los padres Mama!

Be Here Now…

COLORADO – Addiction and Drug Statistics

• Roughly 39% of all meth users are between the ages of 21 and 30.
• 43% of all cocaine users that smoke it in crack form are between the ages of 31 and 40 while 42% of those that use the powder form in that same age group ingest it by other means (injecting, snorting, etc.)
• 29% of all heroin users are between the ages of 21 and 30.
• 41.5% of all marijuana users are between the ages of 12 and 20.
• 79% of all the individuals who abuse alcohol are male while 72% of all the ones who abuse alcohol and a secondary substance with it (cocaine, heroin, marijuana, meth, etc.) are male.
• 80% of all the inmates in the Colorado penal system currently have substance abuse related problems.
• Meth use in the state nearly tripled between 2000 and 2010.
• Every day the police will make about 60 DUI arrests and 80 drug arrests.
• Every month the state of Colorado will lose about 110 residents to alcohol related death and 20 to illegal drug overdose.

source: Therapia Addiction Healing Center

Additional Resources

Prescription Drug Abuse in Colorado – Colorado Attorney General

Colo. Drug Use Higher Than National Average, Study Shows – Huffington Post

Colorado’s Marijuana Arrests Disproportionately Impact Latinos, Blacks: MARP Report – Huffington Post

Heroin and other opiate use rising in Colorado, figures show – DenverPost.com

 

Snoop Dogg, Pat Robertson, Sarah Pailin and Morgan Freeman agree…

What do evangelical Christian Pat Robertson, progressive media maven Arianna Huffington, conservative businessman David Koch, actor Morgan Freeman and rapper Snoop Dogg have in common?

Probably only one thing: They all think our marijuana criminalization laws don’t work, cause harm and need to change.

Check out Marijuana Majority to see quotes from other influential people who are saying it is time to change our marijuana laws.

Breaking the Taboo – Everything You Need to Know About the Drug War

Breaking the Taboo (2011) – A Global Drug War Film
Narrated by Oscar winning actor Morgan Freeman, “Breaking the Taboo” takes a critical look at how after 50 years of prohibition, illicit drugs are now the third most valuable industry in the world after food and oil.

Featuring interviews with several current or former presidents from around the world, such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, the film follows The Global Commission on Drug Policy on a mission to break the political taboo over the United States led War on Drugs and expose what it calls the biggest failure of global policy in the last 40 years.

MUST SEE VIDEO!

The War on Drugs has been going on since 1971. Here’s a trailer for a new documentary called “Breaking the Taboo,” which examines the financial cost of this endless war ($2.5 trillion to fight a $320 million industry) narrated by Morgan Freeman. Remember: “You cannot make  war on drugs without making a war against people.”

PRESS “PLAY” THEN FOLLOW THE LINK ON THE UPPER LEFT CORNER OF THE TRAILER TO WATCH THE ENTIRE DOCUMENTARY FOR FREE!

The National Organization for Women Recognizes the Failure of Current Drug Policies

“The incarceration rate of women convicted of low-level drug-related offenses has increased dramatically in the past decade as a result of our nation’s relentless ‘War on Drugs’… The National Organization for Women (NOW) iterates its opposition to the ‘War on Drugs’ and in its stead supports an approach to drug use and addiction that promotes compassion, public health and human rights.”

– National Organization for Women

500,000-Member Women’s Equality Organization

Source: National Organization for Women

Texas Governor Rick Perry Supports Medical Marijuana

“[If] you want to go somewhere where you can smoke medicinal weed, then you ought to be able to do that.”

–Rick Perry Governor of Texas

Source: The Daily Show