Let’s start with the fact that he doesn’t screen his tenants. There hasn’t been a single tenant in this building who wasn’t some kind of asshole. You’d probably respond to that with, “Everyone’s got a little asshole in them.” and you’d be right. Hell, I’ve got a lot of asshole in me. I ain’t too proud to admit that. But the people who have lived here really take the cake.

Don’t believe me?

Assholes #1: These two were relatively quiet when they lived in the downstairs rear apartment, aside from the occasional kerfuffle and rare car wash days (when he cranked his POS stereo), but we’ve all got those days. Imagine our surprise when they moved into the apartment beneath ours and almost rattled the pictures off our walls by body-slamming each other around the house every three days like clockwork. Then we discovered he was a crack dealer and she was a conniving cunt who blamed all her bullshit drama on everyone else. They moved out on their own after an argument with the landlord over how our parking lot was plowed.

Asshole #2: This lady really wasn’t so bad. The only really annoying things about her were that she is a complete feminazi, a little racist and didn’t take care of her cat in what I would consider the best way an animal should be cared for. But those things can be mostly overlooked. She moved on her own when she realized the landlord was never going to do anything about the cookouts A#3 were throwing in our parking lot. Which were never anything more than a normal cookout: a bunch of people hanging out, playing cards, tossing back a few beers and talking.

Assholes #3: This couple was nice most of the time. But Jesus, would they turn on you on a dime. They got money off the rent for taking care of the grounds, but they’d complain because no one else took the garbage out to the road. And every Saturday and Sunday morning the radio would start blaring at 8am. Around noon it would go off. They moved on their own because he had to have hip surgery and couldn’t do stairs for a while. For about five minutes, this place was quiet.

Assholes #4: The Crackhead and her crew. There were drug dealers and johns (who were often the same people) running in and out of our shared hallway which was our only exit. And if it weren’t for the guy who walked around our building with a sledgehammer screaming about smashing all the windows in the place, or the one who was constantly leering at me and making disgusting comments as if I were one of The Crackhead’s other crackwhore friends, or her creepy stalker who almost got into a knife fight with A#3, I probably wouldn’t have cared. Eventually they’ll kill themselves and the world will go on a better place without them. But it became painfully obvious that having them here put us in danger when they started having knife fights in the hallway. Course, the landlord only evicted them because she was late on the rent.

Asshole #5: An older gentleman, probably in his forties or fifties, moved in with a sob story about hard times in his marriage and his wife living in Syracuse. It wasn’t long before it became obvious that the reality was he was a crackhead, fresh from some program, trying to show his wife he could stay sober. Then he met The Crackhead. He moved out on his own when he realized how far down he’d fallen. The last time I saw him, he’d been gone a month. He was back here trying to score some crack.

Assholes #6: A girl in her late teens, early twenties moved into the apartment we live in now with her boyfriend. She was pregnant, overdue and had an inducement scheduled for a couple weeks after she moved in. Two days before she went in to have the baby, she was in The Crackhead’s apartment. Naturally, when she took the mandatory drug test the state gives every mother about to give birth, she failed and lost the baby. Once the baby was gone, the party started. Then the boyfriend left, and the party went somewhere else. While a 200lb pitbull was locked in the kitchen. Sometimes for weeks at a time. Guess who cleaned up that mess? Once again, the landlord only kicked them out because they didn’t pay the rent.

Assholes #7: These folks were a couple young guys. I’m not really sure if they were lovers or friends. There’s a girl living there now with the one who’s been evicted but has yet to move out. The front window’s broken because they got into a fight and he put her head through the window. The landlord hasn’t fixed it. It’s been at least two weeks. The sheriff has yet to come to follow through on the eviction. It’s been at least a month since the landlord started the process. So he’s not getting paid, and he’s not really making any effort to get rid of the guy, either.

Assholes #8: A girl and a guy. I think. As far as I know the rest of the people who’ve been there are just visitors. But, dude, seriously? Who the fuck goes to someone’s house and helps them fuck with someone they’ve never even seen, so much as met, and can’t possibly have an issue with them?

The first time they were too loud we thought, “No big deal. It happens.” But then they got increasingly worse. Apparently, not calling them on their bullshit was an invitation to be assholes. So finally, after spending a night listening to their insane antics that swing sharply from one extreme to the next, we called the landlord and complained. Two weeks later, they got (what we thought was) out of control, only this time, they paced the house screaming “I don’t give a fuck who has a problem with my music this loud. I’m gonna listen to it how I want.” for an hour or so. Later, they were yelling about how they were going to blow the building up and kill everyone in it.

The landlord’s response? “Call the police. They’ll do something.”

Well, we called. The first night we called less than ten minutes after we made the call, they turned the music off. The second night we called, the same thing happened.

Last night, they didn’t turn their music on. Not once. Instead, they literally bounced off the walls and the floor all night long. So hard that the ceiling showered us with plaster powder and our pictures (including the sand painting M brought home from Africa when he was thirteen) rattled so hard I thought a frame cracked. Around 4:30 this morning, his company left and we thought we’d finally be able to go to sleep. But our bedroom door makes noise when you open and close it. And every time he heard the door open, he’d jump from one end of the apartment to the other for twenty minutes. He finally stopped around 6am.

There is no doubt in my mind that he is intentionally torturing us.

This morning, after hearing him talking to more company (that was here pounding on the back door so loud it was rattling our windows at around 10am) and telling them he’d intentionally kept us up all night, M called the police. Who said there is nothing they can (or will) do. They won’t even give the guy a ticket for violating the noise ordinance. They called it a “quality of life” issue and said it’s far too low a priority to send an officer to address the situation. “But file a report, and get it on file. That way if something happens we know who to look at.”

Gee. Thanks. So if the guy kills us, you’ll have a suspect, and our deaths might be avenged. That’s a huge load off my mind. I’m so glad we called you.

On Tuesday, I’m calling every housing authority I can find a number for. Tenants Rights, NYS Housing Authority, Code Enforcement … whoever I can find. If the police won’t do anything, and the landlord won’t kick him out, maybe we have some civil recourse against the landlord. We could own this building! But you best believe we’ll be selling it if the judgment does come out in our favor.

But I really wish there was something that could be done about the police’s picking and choosing of which laws to enforce. I mean, I get it. With an average of one teenager being shot a week, someone being loud really isn’t that big of a deal. But the problem is that at this point it’s not just someone being loud. In any other situation this would be considered an attack. The more we complain, the worse they get, and the more threats we hear them screaming over the music.

It’s an attack on our sanity, if not our physical well-being. Though many more sleepless nights and it’ll be an attack on our physical well-being as well.

And this is how violence in the ghetto starts. Person A harasses Person B for some perceived offense that may or may not be real. Person B tries to get law enforcement to do something about Person A but law enforcement refuses. Then finally, at his wits’ end, Person B loses control and does something to Person A. And the cops blame it on the neighborhood, or the drugs, or poverty when the reality is they refuse to step in until the situation has erupted into violence, and someone’s hurt or dead.

The more they do, the more confused I get about their choice of occupation. I mean, why would you be a cabby in the ghetto if you hate black people? What could possibly make you consider a profession that forces you to spend a good amount of time in a rolling box with the very people you hate? In some cases, it’s gotta be that they really just can’t do anything else. Because Jesus, these people are stupid.

For example, did you know all the violent criminals in the US, and especially in Schenectady, are either drug dealers or drug addicts? No one has ever been arrested for beating, raping, stabbing, shooting, mutilating, or killing another human being who wasn’t involved with drugs in some way. And the second they arrest one young blood drug dealer (who’s black, by the way), another one takes his place, and starts hurting people again.

Yeah… that’s what yesterday’s cabby said in response to my comment on New York’s police force seeming to be more interested in drug busts than murders and assaults. “That’s because the murderers and assaulters are all drug dealers and drug addicts. It’s all over money and drugs.”

o.O

But Rayne! My cousin’s sister’s aunt’s best friend’s uncle tried meth just one time, and he was hooked, and started stealing and stuff to get money for it. And someone caught him stealing their stuff, and he went nuts, and killed them.

I hear ya! Drugs do bad things to good people, and some violent criminals were on drugs when they were picked up. But “some” is not “all”, and just as many armed robberies are about the person being flat broke and having to feed their family as they are about drug money. Desperate times, and all that.

For that matter, I’d venture to say that your cousin’s sister’s aunt’s best friend’s uncle is more to blame than the meth. Being a former addict, I can tell you there’s a moment where you go, “Hmm… I wonder if I’m just a little too into this. Maybe I should quit.” I don’t know that I met any addicts at rehab who didn’t say they had similar thoughts. Many say they make a conscious decision not to care before spiraling out of control. I mean, no one really thinks it can happen to them, you know?

“Oh, whatever. I can stop whenever I want. It’ll take a lot more than a couple lines here, a few more there, to get me addicted.”

Not to mention the conscious decision the addict makes to try the drug in the first place. There are very few people who aren’t subjected to some form of drug abuse prevention therapy at some age in these great United States.

The thing about a drug dealer is, usually, the hustler on the street, or behind the door at the knock spot, is just a cog in the wheel. The cashier at the grocery store. A dude trying to make a buck to feed himself and his family. Half of them only own weapons because of who they have to deal with, and the dangers surrounding being a drug dealer, not because they actively seek to use it. The vast majority of the ones I’ve known intentionally keep their weapons in a place only they know, out of reach, and never look at it again unless they’re cleaning it, or find themselves in a position where they have to use it.

I’ve known a couple who had never been in a fight. I’ve known a couple who only fight in defense of themselves or those around them. I’ve known a couple who found themselves in a position to defend a stranger on the street in a situation they knew nothing about, or just walk on by, and they stopped and saved the stranger.

And I’ve known a couple who would just as soon kill you as look at you. But they are in the minority, by far, and usually didn’t come up right to begin with, so they were gonna go bad whether they got involved with drugs or not.

And, naturally, you’ve got the psychotic, power hungry thug often portrayed on television, or the big screen. They’re even fewer and farther between, and they’re easily deflated. Just plop someone in front of them who is completely unfazed by their abuse, and isn’t really afraid to die. They become completely confused, retreat to a dark room to try and figure out how to hurt the person, and finally just wither and die.

Okay, maybe that last is wishful thinking. The psychotic thugs seem to have nine lives. So maybe use nine people who are unfazed?

Let’s say there’s no need to point out that some drug dealers are the equivalent of a WalMart cashier. Let’s, instead, point out to these ignoramuses the fact that most serial killers are white males, and plenty of white people have been arrested for and convicted of armed robbery, assault, possession of drugs with intent to sell. Hell, the chief of police up here was arrested for heading a drug ring, and he’s white!

While the cabby is correct in his belief that in order to do away with the drug-related violence, we have to go after the people involved, he’s completely wrong about which people we should be going after.

We shouldn’t be arresting the weed dealer on the street because the crack dealer behind the window killed a crackhead for looking at him funny. We shouldn’t be putting nonviolent criminals behind bars for the majority of their lives because other people who choose their illegal line of work think they have the right to go around hurting people who piss them off. That’s like hating all bus drivers because one of them intentionally splashed water out of the gutter on your brand new thousand dollar suit. Or deciding to put down all the pit bulls in the world because a few that weren’t properly cared for hurt children. Or executing all the AIDS patients because a few assholes are going around intentionally infecting people.

I’d love to see stories in the news about the dealers I knew who were constantly trying to find and hold down a legitimate job, and barely covering their bills with the money they made selling drugs. I’d love to see an exposé on the ones who try really hard to hold their families together, and don’t go to work till their kids are in bed, and make sure to be there when they wake up, and keep it completely separate from their families. Or even the ones who are heavily involved in the community, and not the way the mafia was–or is, depending on who you ask.

But you might not even see that if pot is legalized. I think even if that happens, it’ll be demonized. Just like alcohol, and cigarettes, and now carbs, and trans fat, and gluten, and high fructose corn syrup.

Anyway… That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

From: Seattle Hempfest

I told myself I wasn’t going to talk about this.  I told myself I’d leave all the drug talk to the boys.  Besides, of course, the story about the boy whose (step? foster?) father, high on PCP, ate his eyeballs (I’m gagging just writing this, by the way.).  But that’s more of a human interest story than a drug story, which puts it right up my alley.

But here’s the thing:

I’ve seen, first hand, the difference marijuana makes when treating cancer patients.  Granted, neither patient nor caregiver went about it the right way (One of the PCAs was buying street marijuana for one of the patients and bringing it into the building.), and both could have ended up in jail.  But that marijuana helped the patient is undeniable.  Which is just one of the many reasons I stand behind medical marijuana (and just the legalization of marijuana altogether) one-hundred percent.

Three or four years ago, I took my first paying gig at an assisted living facility.  I’d worked in places like these before, but only on the voluntary level.   I’ve worked in places like these on the voluntary level since I was about six, when my mother worked as a bookkeeper in a nursing home.

We had three cancer patients.  One had always been a functional drug addict and actually preferred any manner of street drugs to prescribed pain meds.  They found the vast majority of his pain medication from the last month or so before he died in a cup in his drawer.

The second, I believe, was in the U.S. Marine Corp. and had served in ‘Nam.  He was a patriot.  A soldier through and through.  He didn’t believe in breaking the law.  He stood firm on defending oneself and one’s country.  And he didn’t even like taking the pain meds he was prescribed.  Would only do it when the pain became unbearable.  He said they made him slow and stupid and he wasn’t going out like that.  That he may have been old, but he wasn’t weak, and he wasn’t going to let some pill from some “VA quack” make him weak.

The last was in the U.S. Army for the better part of his life and had served in Vietnam as well.  The only street drug he’d ever tried was marijuana.  He smoked it in ‘Nam, on occasion, to dull the harsh reality of what he was doing there, and once in a while when he got home, but until he was diagnosed with cancer, he was never what I would call a “regular” user.  

He always told us the weed they got over there was much better than any of the shit we have over here.  Somewhere on the web, I’m sure I read that was a myth.  And maybe E was just pulling our chain.  But if there was something he, without a doubt, did not joke about, it was how much better pot soothed his symptoms, and the side effects of chemo, than any of the drugs the doctor had prescribed him in the past.  This from a man who was on the highest dose of the morphine patch a human can endure without keeling over and dying.

He said weed made the cancer bearable.  He said it made knowing he was gonna die (his cancer eventually exacerbated and became incurable) so much easier to accept.  He said when he started smoking marijuana regularly, he stopped throwing up, got less headaches, actually had an appetite.

E would occasionally turn his morphine patches down when he had weed in his room.  He said they didn’t do a whole lot for him anyway, but make him sicker.  And when he did take them, he’d immediately make his way outside and spark a doobie to fend off the impending nausea.  The staff and other residents had long since started looking the other way.  E appeared to be at least feeling much better since he’d found someone to “go shopping” for him.  And his mood had definitely improved.

People will say that’s false improvement.  That the weed was just masking his symptoms.  But even if that’s the case, who cares? I mean, seriously. If you asked E how he felt about the subject, he would tell you he’d much rather wear the mask than try to live one day without it.  It made life experienceable, even for a terminally ill patient.  It made staying alive, even though he knew a painful end was near, all the more worth it.

I would never begrudge anyone that.  Least of all a terminal patient.

So why am I moved to talk about medical marijuana? States are legalizing it all over the place.  It seems an end to the war is in sight.  So why do I feel the need to add my voice?

Because the government is still discouraging the research and development of medical marijuana.  Because organizations directly involved in our ability to research and develop medical marijuana are refusing the funds and licensing necessary to get the job done.  Because people like my dad are still standing firm against even the medicinal uses of marijuana though they hear stories like mine and ones that come directly from the patients’ mouths.

But don’t take my word for it.  Head on over to ProCon.org and decide for yourself.

Child Protective Services says that they cannot discuss an open investigation but were willing to explain to reporters cases in which they would not be allowed to act.

I understand where they’re coming from. I do. Sometimes the charges are unclear. Sometimes the law makes it difficult to maneuver. Sometimes you can’t act on things you’d like to without causing more harm than good. And sometimes you just plain don’t know.

But he’d pleaded no contest to charges of child cruelty three years ago. Why was this child in his care?

I really don’t understand why people use that drug. Every dust head you hear about goes absolutely insane. And it’s never clear if they’re one-time or occasional users or if they’ve been doing this stuff all the time for as long as anyone can remember.

But really? Most addicts you talk to use either to have fun or to drown their sorrows, same as alcoholics. I can’t see dust doing either.

It’s like, “Yeah! Let’s get really fucked up on PCP, rob the local liquor store naked with a pipe shoved up our asses, steal a car and shoot at the cop we drive by who hasn’t even heard about our shenanigans yet. And while we’re at it, why don’t we stab ourselves in the knees and eat each other’s fingers! Doesn’t that sound like so much fun??”

NO! It sounds fucking crazy, dude. What the fuck are you on?

Oh yeah. PCP.