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Prop 56 – Tobacco Industry Lie Machine Runs at Top Speed

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EXTRA EDITION: Saturday Laryngectomy Rant 

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association in California and American Heart Association have placed Prop 56 on the ballot increasing taxes on tobacco products and updating state law to include e-cigarettes as a taxable product.

The tobacco industry has amassed a $56 million dollar war chest to defeat Prop 56. They know arguing in favor of tobacco use won’t work, so they’ve unleashed a blizzard of bullcrap advertising seeking to confuse and obfuscate the matter.   [Read more…]

Crohn’s Disease and the Purple Party: Why They’re the S**t

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The San Diego Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

Imagine you’re a teenager. You’re in one of the stages of puberty. You’re trying to grow into yourself in so many ways. You’re going to school, making friends, finding extracurricular activities and hobbies you enjoy.

Yet, your path becomes frequently and annoyingly disrupted by severe abdominal pain and vomiting to the point where you become afraid to eat. You eventually develop a fever that lands you in the emergency room. Hours later, you’re admitted to the hospital for emergency surgery. You have ulcers along your digestive tract along with a blockage due to inflammation. Youre admitted to the hospital for an emergency surgery.

When you wake up, you’re told you have had an ileostomy – your colon and rectum have been removed and you have a stoma with an ostomy pouch attached. You’re taught how to live with this pouch, how you have to empty the pouch several times a day and change it every two to five days.

Great, you think.   [Read more…]

Five Reasons Why I Love My Life More Without Alcohol

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(Even Though I Used To Really Love Alcohol!)

My first memory of alcohol was as a little girl tasting my dad’s beer while sitting on his lap on Saturday afternoons after he mowed the lawn. I loved the taste of the “forbidden” golden, sparkly and fizzy-bitter tasting liquid that sometimes made me hiccup.

My next beer memory was at a friend’s house after school in 10th grade. Since no one was home, we downed a couple, I got my first buzz and loved it.   [Read more…]

Proposition 52 – Keep MediCal Funding Where It Belongs

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Back in the bad old days of the great recession, the California legislature diverted hundreds of millions in funding derived from a tax hospitals pay. The federal government kicks in matching funds for these taxes flowing back to the hospitals through MediCal, so it’s a sweet deal. Hospitals pay one dollar to get two back, more or less.

The recession is over, and the hospitals want their original deal back in place.

So they raised a boatload of money to put Proposition 52 before the voters. This is a “lockbox” measure, designed to give voters the opportunity to say that funds raised for or by a certain purpose must be spent in that general area as well.   [Read more…]

Dr. Bronner’s Announces Resignation from the Organic Trade Association

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Continues Focus on Minimum Wage, Cannabis Reform and Animal Welfare Ballot Measures

Dr. Bronner’s, North America’s leading natural brand of soap and organic body care products, has resigned from the Organic Trade Association (OTA), citing the association’s betrayal of the consumer-led GMO labeling movement, and general drift away from the core principles that drive the organic movement.

Following the resignation, [ Vista, California based] Dr. Bronner’s has pledged to instead use its organizational resources to help power consumer, farmer and industry organizations that more authentically and courageously represent the vision of regenerative organic agriculture, versus the disaster of soil destroying industrial agriculture.   [Read more…]

Washing Our Hands of Toxins

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By Jill Richardson / OtherWords

Some people love to hate government regulations. Many believe they’re just bureaucratic barriers that waste our time. But the Food and Drug Administration just passed a new regulation that’ll actually protect us, and may save you a few bucks and an unnecessary purchase at the store.

If you’re one of the millions of Americans who buys antibacterial soaps, you’ve been, at a minimum, duped. But more importantly, you’ve been exposed to harmful chemicals.

Antibacterial soaps sound good. After all, no one wants to imagine their hands teeming with bacteria.   [Read more…]

Vote Yes on 61 – Big Pharma is the Scum of the Earth

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Originally published with the headline: “Dispatches from the drug war: Or, why are Americans subsidizing the Europeans?” Given all the ads trying to scare voters into paying more for lifesaving drugs lately, we’ve retitled this story along with some of big pharma’s anti-Prop 61 propaganda for readers to contrast and compare.

By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos

Let’s talk about other drug war: The one being waged against the American consumer by the pharmaceutical companies who benefit from our tax dollars that fund basic scientific research and make up the difference in the tax relief they receive for their own research and development.   [Read more…]

Drugs: the Human Dilemma, Part 2

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Is there a balanced way to live so that chemicals released by the brain, which produce feelings of well being and happiness, can happen without addiction to drugs or exercise?

For some these endorphins seem to naturally produce ‘enough good feeling’ without their having to do anything more. For some the ‘happiness gene’ seems to be turned on at all times regardless of what happens in the events of their lives.

For others there is a deficiency that leads to a tendency for them to become alcoholics or drug addicts. A person’s natural energy level seems to have something to do with it. High energy people need to release that energy in non-sedentary pursuits or mitigate the effects of it like so-called ADHD with drugs.   [Read more…]

Drugs – the Human Epidemic – Part 1

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Americans are using drugs of various kinds at an increasing rate. Of course drugs have been around for a long time, since the beginning of time in fact. In 5000 BC the Sumerians used opium. The earliest record of alcohol production was in Egypt in 3500 BC. Tea in China was used in 3000 BC. Humans have used various substances to manipulate and alter their mood levels for millennia.

Food, sex, and exercise addiction are not considered to be included in drug addiction although they work in a similar way to release chemicals in the brain that then flood the body and produce pleasurable sensations. Food addiction can have the most undesirable consequences including obesity. Addiction to work, workaholism, on the other hand, can have very desirable consequences including increased financial well being although it may wreak a toll on human relationships.   [Read more…]

SeaWorld is Guilty of Disturbing the Peace

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For years the residents of the Point Loma and Ocean Beach areas have been complaining of the noise and air pollution spewed forth nightly by SeaWorld. Some people that own dogs have complained that the dogs are scared nightly by the horrendous percussion sounds while trying to hide from the shaking windows and doors. Some people that have children and babies complain that it wakes them up, usually crying, and has affected their everyday life.

Sunday night, August 15th, was one of the worst incidents of noise that I have heard in a long time. The noise reverberated for over two minutes; and as soon as one could relax another wave hit. And it wasn’t just here on the Point. Looking over the comments made on Facebook, Laura stated that she heard it in La Mesa. She said it wasn’t real loud; more like thunder but it was from Sea World.   [Read more…]

The Non-Death of the Drunken Man on the Library Plaza

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By Micaela Porte

From a true event at the Pacific Beach Library
June 27, 2015, Saturday, 11 am

The drunken man, his home under the acacia tree on the library plaza,
Last night, laid himself down to die after a few bottles.

Next morning around 11,
Al, the guard, noticed him,
And called Christina the Librarian,
Who called 911 and more,
Ran to get the defibrillator.   [Read more…]

The Abortion Fight Goes On – Right Here in San Diego

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Forced birthers intimidate and shame women at health clinic

The shouts of the “religious” zealots ring in my ears as I help escort patients from their cars to the front door of a local family planning clinic that provides abortion services one morning per week.

Armed with earplugs to hand out to patients who don’t wish to hear the abuse, I take the elevator up  to stand by the door of the clinic. Today the zealots are carrying large signs with graphic photos of bloody aborted fetuses and words claiming that Jesus saves and babies are not body parts. The good news is the “preacher” with a voice louder than the decibel limit who bellows out the scripture is not here today.
  [Read more…]

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