From the January 1, 2010 issue of Humor Times.
Reported by Kate Morrison
Trench coat sales are down, street corners are emptying and drug dealers are applying for unemployment benefits in record number as a result of the emerging legal medical marijuana business.
"It's like Wal-Mart moved in" said one homey known as "da Man" in Detroit, Michigan. Although he was unable to estimate a percentage, he said his business was "way bad" since the enactment of legalization legislation. "If I'd a voted, I'd a voted against it" he said.
Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington have all legalized the use and sale of medical cannabis and allow dispensaries to sell marijuana to people with a medical card.
12 of the 13 states have reported a dramatic increase in unemployment benefit applications from the unemployed drug dealers.
Alaska is the only exception, where Sarah Palin’s son Toke supplies the majority of the street vendors. He says his business is still booming. “My mom helps a lot by using her political clout to keep the dispensaries out” said the young Palin. “You Betcha” said Mama Palin at a recent book signing when asked about it. “I fully support Toke’s business with our Mexican neighbors to the north.”
A single mom in Denver, Colorado says the boutique style dispensaries that are popping up everywhere have severely affected her lifestyle and that of her children. “I ran a small business supplying all the housewives in the area,” said the 38 year old, but now they’re all “Boutiquing.” “They want the card in case their husbands or children catch them” she says.
The effects are more far reaching than first thought and even high school dealers are hurting. A California family said their teenage son is constantly asking them for cash now. Although he is still sullen, he is not solvent. “It’s really created a strain on the family finances” said the boy’s father.
“This is a perfect example of what happens when ill-thought legislation is put into place,” says an analyst for the Washington Post. “It’s hard to understand the implications to an industry we have ignored.”
Several states are considering relief and retraining programs for those displaced by the new dispensaries. Initial career placement tests indicate the ex-dealers are most qualified for jobs that require a high tolerance for drugs and alcohol and doing very little. Their skill sets, income requirements and moral conduct matched best with stockbrokers, bankers and US Senators.
There are international implications as well to the legalization of medical marijuana in the United States. Mexico, our neighbor to the south, is calling for an open request for bids stating that their country has “the best shit” and should be allowed to compete with US suppliers. They also report many of the unemployed dealers are returning across the border as a result of the collapsing marijuana trafficking businesses in the United States. “We’ll close the border if we have to” said one Mexican Official, “Our infrastructure is not prepared to handle this many people.”
With the popularity and demand for medical marijuana on the rise, and more states considering this type of legislation, this is bound to be a growing problem for the US.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Balloon Boy Hoax Found to Be Hoax
This faux news piece appeared (with a cool flying saucer picture) in the December 2009 issue of Humor Times. If I could make my scanner work, I'd a scanned it in with the picture and my first ever by line!
Balloon Boy Hoax Found to Be Hoax
Reported By Kate Morrison
FORT COLLINS, CO - Police in Fort Collins, Colorado today have announced that the Balloon Boy Hoax involving the Heene family, their son Falcon and a homemade balloon, was not a publicity stunt but a cover up for the boy’s attempt to release his parents in the balloon.
After hours of intense interrogation by police puppeteers, Balloon Boy Falcon Heene confessed that he wanted to get rid of his parents for cutting off his Club Penguin account. According to experts this isn’t the only incident involving conflicts between children and parents over Disney’s mega on-line game site that encourages social networking over actual play and rabid consumerism in children. Club Penguin administrators confirmed that the Heene’s Club Penguin account had been canceled just two days before the balloon incident.
According the Falcon Heene’s confession, he was going to crawl into the balloon and when his parents followed him in, he would jump out and release the balloon. “This is what started the confusion over who was in the balloon” said Fort Collins Police Chief.
Falcon reportedly showed police, using puppets that represented his parents, how they were always making him log off his Club Penguin account. “Log off NOW”” the boy made the mommy puppet say. Even more disturbing, using the daddy puppet, the boy showed police a violent re-enactment of his father ripping the wires from the back of the computer shouting “Enough of that damn thing -we’re leaving to look for UFOs!”
Evidence collected during the search of the Heene’s home included several cartoon like pictures believed to be drawn by Falcon. Police are working to verify that the crayons found in Falcon’s room match the ones used in the pictures. One frightening drawing shows the boy’s parents as stick figures floating off in a balloon into the clouds with large speech bubble saying “Help, Falcon, we wanna come home, we won’t boss you anymore!”
Falcon later told police his older brother had helped him with the spelling in his cartoon and in designing the plan to get rid of their parents via balloon. In a separate interview with police the older Heene boy confirmed his role, saying he wanted the mom back that they had in Wife Swap. “She was way hot” said the 12 year old.
Official charges against both boys are expected to be filed later today in Poudre Valley Juvenile Court.
Balloon Boy Hoax Found to Be Hoax
Reported By Kate Morrison
FORT COLLINS, CO - Police in Fort Collins, Colorado today have announced that the Balloon Boy Hoax involving the Heene family, their son Falcon and a homemade balloon, was not a publicity stunt but a cover up for the boy’s attempt to release his parents in the balloon.
After hours of intense interrogation by police puppeteers, Balloon Boy Falcon Heene confessed that he wanted to get rid of his parents for cutting off his Club Penguin account. According to experts this isn’t the only incident involving conflicts between children and parents over Disney’s mega on-line game site that encourages social networking over actual play and rabid consumerism in children. Club Penguin administrators confirmed that the Heene’s Club Penguin account had been canceled just two days before the balloon incident.
According the Falcon Heene’s confession, he was going to crawl into the balloon and when his parents followed him in, he would jump out and release the balloon. “This is what started the confusion over who was in the balloon” said Fort Collins Police Chief.
Falcon reportedly showed police, using puppets that represented his parents, how they were always making him log off his Club Penguin account. “Log off NOW”” the boy made the mommy puppet say. Even more disturbing, using the daddy puppet, the boy showed police a violent re-enactment of his father ripping the wires from the back of the computer shouting “Enough of that damn thing -we’re leaving to look for UFOs!”
Evidence collected during the search of the Heene’s home included several cartoon like pictures believed to be drawn by Falcon. Police are working to verify that the crayons found in Falcon’s room match the ones used in the pictures. One frightening drawing shows the boy’s parents as stick figures floating off in a balloon into the clouds with large speech bubble saying “Help, Falcon, we wanna come home, we won’t boss you anymore!”
Falcon later told police his older brother had helped him with the spelling in his cartoon and in designing the plan to get rid of their parents via balloon. In a separate interview with police the older Heene boy confirmed his role, saying he wanted the mom back that they had in Wife Swap. “She was way hot” said the 12 year old.
Official charges against both boys are expected to be filed later today in Poudre Valley Juvenile Court.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Trouble With Antibiotics
‘Tis the season – H1N1 season that is, and I have a sick child. We’ll call him Sick Boy so as not to be confused with Obnoxious Boy or Oblivious Boy, the alternating personalities of his brother. I reluctantly take Sick Boy to see the doctor. I say reluctantly because we are compelled to visit the doctor for fear that we may have H1N1; yet we are loathe to go to the doctor’s office for fear we might get H1N1 there, assuming it’s not what we already have.
I pay my co-pay and growl at my children like a pit bull on a bone if they look like they might touch something. After what feels like hours, we are called from the germ cesspool into the small claustrophobic room where they close the door. Now we wait with the cat posters, mid-evil like equipment that looks painful and a cacophony of sounds coming from outside the door that make you want to run for your life.
Finally, bronchitis is diagnosed, antibiotics procured, and we head home ready to attempt the impossible: dispensing antibiotics per the directions.
I glance at the 32 pages of accompanying literature and find little relating to the illness I am treating or the medicine I’m dispensing. There are several honey comb diagrams, discussions of various medical studies and lastly the warnings. With a high powered magnified glass I am able to read: do not take this when pregnant (neither my child nor I are pregnant, he is an eight year old boy and I know better). Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and rashes. I am nauseous, have diarrhea and a rash from caring for Sick Boy and his brother, too many dirty dishes, too much dirty laundry, not enough sleep and not enough help. I toss the literature into the recycle bin and move on the bottle.
The bottle says one teaspoon three times a day for 10 days. Hmmm. I decide to start with the old trick my mother taught me and immediately double up the first dose. Let me say here, that following my mother’s medical advice can be dangerous. When we were growing up she refused to acknowledge any type of sickness and made us ring the doorbell if we were bleeding. “No sense in tracking blood in.” My siblings and I called her “Nurse Ratchet.”
One more teaspoon for Sick Boy before bed and day one is dispensed as directed…well, sort of; except for doubling that initial dose, which I do think it said somewhere in all that literature specifically NOT to do.
Day two and three I administer the medicine with precision. I mark each teaspoon dispensed on the bottle with a small line so as to keep proper track. I give the bottle front- row, top shelf space in the refrigerator so it is always visible. I tape a note on the kitchen windowsill that says “MEDS.”
Sick Boy seems to be on the mend. But then something always happens on the fourth day. An entire gallon of milk spills geyser style inside the refrigerator, I realize we are supposed to be two places at once, or the internet goes down and requires a full day of downloading and rebooting maneuvers; and I forget the medicine entirely. Well, I remember after Sick Boy is already sleeping and follow more of Nurse Ratchet’s advice: Do NOT wake a sleeping child. I vow to be vigilant tomorrow.
The next morning, day five, I’m back on duty with a little extra punch. Sick Boy gets two teaspoons in the morning and two at night. Four is better than three and how much it could it really matter when they are dispensed as long as they are spread out a little bit? No need to tick these doses off on the bottle as the counting systems is useless now. .
Day six and seven we manage one or two of the three teaspoons required but by day eight the bottle has lost its front row status in the refrigerator and is lurking somewhere near the back by the light. This goes unnoticed for about a week until Sick Boy starts coughing again.
We are now fourteen days into the ten-day prescription and I am starting over again. Roughly half the bottle remains. Round two goes very much along the same lines as round one. Sick Boy eventually recovers or is upstaged by more pressing event (I am Nurse Ratchet’s Daughter after all).
The entire process usually takes about a month and ends with me tossing the dregs into the sink and neatly recycling the container. I do realize I’m doing my part toward creating another antibiotic-resistant bacterium, but what more can I do? Perhaps my next bottle of antibiotics will come with a special dispenser – one who also cooks and does laundry!
I pay my co-pay and growl at my children like a pit bull on a bone if they look like they might touch something. After what feels like hours, we are called from the germ cesspool into the small claustrophobic room where they close the door. Now we wait with the cat posters, mid-evil like equipment that looks painful and a cacophony of sounds coming from outside the door that make you want to run for your life.
Finally, bronchitis is diagnosed, antibiotics procured, and we head home ready to attempt the impossible: dispensing antibiotics per the directions.
I glance at the 32 pages of accompanying literature and find little relating to the illness I am treating or the medicine I’m dispensing. There are several honey comb diagrams, discussions of various medical studies and lastly the warnings. With a high powered magnified glass I am able to read: do not take this when pregnant (neither my child nor I are pregnant, he is an eight year old boy and I know better). Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and rashes. I am nauseous, have diarrhea and a rash from caring for Sick Boy and his brother, too many dirty dishes, too much dirty laundry, not enough sleep and not enough help. I toss the literature into the recycle bin and move on the bottle.
The bottle says one teaspoon three times a day for 10 days. Hmmm. I decide to start with the old trick my mother taught me and immediately double up the first dose. Let me say here, that following my mother’s medical advice can be dangerous. When we were growing up she refused to acknowledge any type of sickness and made us ring the doorbell if we were bleeding. “No sense in tracking blood in.” My siblings and I called her “Nurse Ratchet.”
One more teaspoon for Sick Boy before bed and day one is dispensed as directed…well, sort of; except for doubling that initial dose, which I do think it said somewhere in all that literature specifically NOT to do.
Day two and three I administer the medicine with precision. I mark each teaspoon dispensed on the bottle with a small line so as to keep proper track. I give the bottle front- row, top shelf space in the refrigerator so it is always visible. I tape a note on the kitchen windowsill that says “MEDS.”
Sick Boy seems to be on the mend. But then something always happens on the fourth day. An entire gallon of milk spills geyser style inside the refrigerator, I realize we are supposed to be two places at once, or the internet goes down and requires a full day of downloading and rebooting maneuvers; and I forget the medicine entirely. Well, I remember after Sick Boy is already sleeping and follow more of Nurse Ratchet’s advice: Do NOT wake a sleeping child. I vow to be vigilant tomorrow.
The next morning, day five, I’m back on duty with a little extra punch. Sick Boy gets two teaspoons in the morning and two at night. Four is better than three and how much it could it really matter when they are dispensed as long as they are spread out a little bit? No need to tick these doses off on the bottle as the counting systems is useless now. .
Day six and seven we manage one or two of the three teaspoons required but by day eight the bottle has lost its front row status in the refrigerator and is lurking somewhere near the back by the light. This goes unnoticed for about a week until Sick Boy starts coughing again.
We are now fourteen days into the ten-day prescription and I am starting over again. Roughly half the bottle remains. Round two goes very much along the same lines as round one. Sick Boy eventually recovers or is upstaged by more pressing event (I am Nurse Ratchet’s Daughter after all).
The entire process usually takes about a month and ends with me tossing the dregs into the sink and neatly recycling the container. I do realize I’m doing my part toward creating another antibiotic-resistant bacterium, but what more can I do? Perhaps my next bottle of antibiotics will come with a special dispenser – one who also cooks and does laundry!
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