This week, there's been a lot of talk about lowering the drinking age to 18. Well, what about lowering it even further? Not legally, but within the confines of the home? The food and wine writer Gretchen Roberts argues in this Babble essay about her decision to let her young children taste wine from an early age. Here's her reasoning:

Our country has a stormy history with alcoholic beverages, from the saloons of the Wild West to the bootlegging of Prohibition. Even now, the tenuous post-Prohibition ceasefire still harbors a deep-seated horror of alcohol in general (witness the absurd blue laws), and a special fear of exposing our children to alcohol. This self-righteous attitude is a touchy trigger for adolescent binge-drinking.

Seven states are considering lowering the drinking age to 18, reports Fox News. (Some states are proposing this just for the military, others for all.) The federal government is likely to put financial pressure on states not to do this, and for good reason.

What's the advantage to lowering the drinking age? "Demystifying drinking" doesn't seem like a strong enough reason to us.

And there definitely doesn't seem to be any advantage to just lowering the age in a few states, as it will just lead teenagers in surrounding states to hang out in the states with this new law.

We certainly would not like to be on those interstate highways at two in the morning when bar hoppin' teens are on their way home across state lines.

BoingBoing just posted an item about a new book that reassures the children of pot smokers that it's "just a plant." The page at right reads, "One night, Jackie woke up past her bedtime. She smelled something funny in the air, so she walked down the hall to her parents' bedroom."

Last week, Strollerderby ran a post on a new kids' guide to cosmetic surgery. It's called "My Beautiful Mommy," and it explains mommy's smaller nose and flatter stomach to junior.

We're all for making kids feel less anxiety about their unique family situation, and so we hope someone's also at work on "Mommy and Daddy's Community Service Sentence" and "T is for 'Trophy Wife.'"

In this surreal video now up on Huffington Post, Pat Robertson says his producer confessed to consuming vast quantities of cocoa (and "Not cocoa like hot chocolate, but cocoa like cocaine!").

Then he chuckles and says that explains why the guy was a bit wacky. (Robertson does not, however, say why it's okay for a cokehead to work in Christian television.)

The woman on air with him tries to play it off, but then Robertson takes it to the next level and really has a good laugh.

Watch the video here.

Update, 12:46: Apparently, Robertson's producer wasn't talking about himself, but about Hugo Chavez. That's not clear from the clip, but people who saw the show say it was clear in context.

Well, making fun of Chavez's cocaine use does make more sense, but we still say the way Robertson describes drug use is funny.

Need some legal pot in a hurry? We just spotted this medical marijuana vending machine on BoingBoing. They quote Thrillist on the details:

After cinching up your doctor's consultation, hit an AVM location to get your prescription approved, fingerprint taken, and a prepaid credit card loaded with your profile: dosage (3.5 or 7 grams, up to 1oz a week) and strain preference (choice of five, including OG Cush and Granddaddy Purple, the mildly hallucinogenic forebear to Prince). Then day or night, all you do is hit a machine and walk away with enough vacuum-sealed, plastic-encapsulated cheeba to adequately treat your illness.

They're thinking about adding Vicodin and other medications to the machine. May we suggest dry martinis and dark chocolate? Unfortunately, our drugs of choice are unlikely to be available from the Herbal Nutrition Center, the organization that stocks the machine's pot - and which, by the way, has the smoooothest background track of any medical website ever.

*Update: Jan 21nd.The hearing has been postponed until feb 6th.

Just like the American War on Terror, the American War on Drugs is a global war that reaches far beyond the borders. We Canadians have felt the effect in a very sad way, Canadian marijuana icon, activist and hero has been the center of a long running controversy with the American DEA, I've posted about this issue many times before and now I can tell you the Extradition hearing is going to begin on January 21st.

Here is the latest from the CBC National, aired January 15th. (Watch just to see Terry Milewski reporting from a bong shop.)

I understand this issue is getting no media time in the United States, putting people in jail for smoking a harmless weed is nothing new for you guys, right?

US Marijuana Arrests by Year
2004: 771,608
2003: 755,187
2002: 697,082
2001: 723,627
2000: 734,498
1999: 704,812
1998: 682,885
1997: 695,200
1996: 641,642
1995: 588,963
1994: 499,122
1993: 380,689

Marc Emery is getting lots of press up here in Canada, not to mention lots of positive editorials, like this sampling from todays The London Free Press, you can find many more articles about this case on Google News. When looking for background on this I recommend watching the documentaries by CBC and 60 Minutes.

Marc and his wife Jodie uploaded a message about the latest extradition news and it's posted below, if you want to find out ways to support the Emery's and their cause visit the noextradition.net.

I recently moved my computer, and suddenly I can get 30+ TV channels through my computer, I try not to watch TV but for example right now in a little mini window I am watching the Canada-US game on TSN. Out of curiosity, last night I was watching the Iowa circus coverage on CBS and could not help to notice every commercial during the hour period I watched, was about pharmaceutical products, except for the odd windex commercial.

I realize the CBS evening news markets to the older baby boomer generation, are these old people sick or what. How many pills does the average 60 year old take these days? Bill Maher was on Letterman the last night and he went on a very good rant about pharmaceuticals, I suggest checking it out. Otherwise, I came across this not so surprising article today.

OTTAWA - Drug companies spend almost twice as much on marketing and promoting their products than on research and development, says a new study.

In their analysis of data from two market research companies, Marc-Andre Gagnon and Joel Lexchin of Toronto's York University found that American drug companies spent US$57.5 billion on promotional activities in 2004.

By comparison, spending on industrial pharmaceutical research and development in the United States was $31.5 billion in the same year, according to a report by the National Science Foundation, which included public funding for industrial research...Read More Canadian Press...

via videosift.com

"I think it's clear by now that the federal government needs to reclassify marijuana. People who need it should be able to get it – safely and easily," says The Price Is Right and Power of 10 host Drew Carey in a new Reason.tv video examining medical marijuana and the war on drugs...Read More on Reason TV...

I hope one day something as reasonable as Medical Marijuana can become accepted in American society, as there are living people out there who depend on marijuana to get through the day. All too often they are thrown into jail for trying to remain healthy.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Colombian drug lords have been secretly building submarines capable of traveling hundreds of miles and carrying up to five tons of cocaine.

More than a dozen such ships have been seized in the last two years. At first we were sort of impressed that druggies could be so industrious. Then we read the rest of the article, which made us not so much impressed as terrified.

I blogged earlier about Canadian Marc Emery and his arrest by the DEA which will send him to America to possibly spend the rest of his life life in prison for selling Marijuana seeds over the internet. In the previous post I mentioned an upcoming documentary, which has now been aired in Canada and is posted below for your observations.

The way that U.S. federal charges for drug offenses are contsructed means that Emery could face up to 2000 life sentences for his heinous crime of selling marijuana seeds. The DEA also lists Marc Emery as one of the top drug traffickers in the world, above groups like the Hell's Angels and the Triads. At this point in North American society marijuana is still considered as dangerous as heroin and cocaine. On this point, the DEA and the RCMP are in agreement that "there is no such thing as a hard and soft drug." That's a bunch of malarkey.

Type "Marijuana seeds" into the Google and you will find options to buy seeds online from Canada, America and all over the world. The DEA wanted Emery because he funds marijuana legalization groups. Could be he, perhaps, be a political prisoner?

Either way, this case is a major issue in Canada in regards to our own sovereignty. When Marc goes to prison in America we will never see him again and many are asking to see the bodies that justify 2000 life sentences. Here is a preview clip before you commit to the whole documentary (which appears on the flip side of this post.)

The Marc Emery extradition case may not be important news in the USA, here in Canada it's a become a hot topic centered around us maintaining our sovereignty. In July 2005 the long arm of the DEA reached up into Canada to pluck out three BC natives and is threatening to put them into prison for life for doing something that would get them no more then a ticket up here: selling marijuana seeds.

Alternet used the DEA cheif's words to explain the arrest.

In her bizarre press release of July 29, DEA chief Karen Tandy left little doubt as to why they singled out Emery's operation. "Today's DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group -- is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also the marijuana legalization movement," it begins, adding: "Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery's illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on."

Jodie Emery (Marc's wife) often uploads videos to YouTube that detail what Marc has been going through the last two years (the case is still stuck in limbo until Jan '08.) The video today is an interview with documentary filmmaker Nick Wilson who just completed a documentary about Marc Emery that will air on the CBC later this month. Note that Marc and Jodie are constantly taking bong hits while Nick seriously attempts to explain the importance of the film to the YouTube audience. To me, this adds a comical effect to the video.

Why are we obsessed with Prince Harry? Is it because in our mind he represents all the loutish men we could have married but thankfully didn't? Because he's a prince and yet behaves like a total low life? Because he's becoming the British Britney?

We don't know, but this is the craziest little-prince story yet: a video was shot of him partying in Namibia (check out stills on NewsoftheWorld.com). The site states:

Mitt Romney was asked a difficult question from medical marijuana user Clayton Holton while on the campaign trail. Below is video of the incident as presented by CNN.

"I have the support of five of my doctors saying I am living proof that medical marijuana works," Holton told Romney.

The signs of a Conservative government in Canada can be seen in the news this week as the Tories will soon unveil a $64 Million drug plan that is expected to include stiffer penalties for drug offenders. Below is a quick news snippet that includes an interview with Canada's "Prince of Pot."

While googling this topic I came across this Alternet article about the American War on Drugs, which starts with these mind blowing statistics.

What would cops do without weed? For one thing, they'd sure spend a lot less time arresting and processing petty pot violators. How much time? For starters, however long it took to bust the estimated 739,000 Americans arrested for minor pot possession in 2006.
That's according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, which reported last week that a record 829,625 Americans were arrested for violating marijuana laws last year. Of those arrested, 89 percent of those were charged with simple pot possession -- the highest annual total ever recorded and nearly three times the number of citizens busted 15 years ago.

So it sounds like the Harper government is trying to bring a USA-style "War on Drugs" to Canada. I ask the Americans here on AOL:

Mindblowing article from NORML.org

Washington, DC: Police arrested a record 829,625 persons for marijuana violations in 2006, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. This is the largest total number of annual arrests for pot ever recorded by the FBI. Marijuana arrests now comprise nearly 44 percent of all drug arrests in the United States.

What's most interesting is that 89% of those arrests were for possession. It's easy to forget about the "War on Drugs" when you are in the middle of a "War on Terror." - If only there was a way to combine the two...hmmmm... Whenever I find an interesting Marijuana article I like to show this video from the "Marijuanalogues." Enjoy.