Hi Lloyd,

I read your article about the chap who tried to pirate your book with interest. As someone who downloads a lot of pirated stuff, I thought I would write to you and explain why.

Like other people have said, a lot of it is about trying out new products. I’m not willing to drop £8 on a film that I’ve never seen before, nor spend £9 or up on a book that I might not like. I find ebooks very ephemeral and I just won’t buy an ebook that costs above £3 – but I’ll happily download an electronic version (or a sample chapter from Amazon) and then make my decision about whether to buy the book from there. In the last twelve months I’ve bought about 15-20 physical books and pirated about 5-10. And is there also really a massive difference between the books I download from Project Gutenberg and a sixty year old book that went out of print but which is still just about generating cash?

When it comes to TV, I had a premium account on Megaupload before it went bust. But I watch primarily American TV shows that I would have to wait up to six to nine months to air on a television I don’t own. Torrents give me instant access to entire seasons I can watch over the course of a month. Buy the DVDs? I own enough crap, why would I buy more physical objects I have to physically unpack and select from when I can just open my downloads folder? I actually sold all my TV DVDs a few years back when I realised that they were gathering dust on my shelves because I was watching stuff that was already on my computer. I contribute virtually nothing financially to the television industry because they don’t give me any viable option to. I would happily pay within reason for a legal streaming service that gave me access to the same amount of television that Megaupload and its successors give me, but where is it? Hulu is US only. There’s a massive potential market right there of people who would pay the equivalent of a TV licence a year for instant and good access to TV shows that mean we don’t have to bounce around all the TV links databases hunting down streams that haven’t been taken down in between all the fake websites trying to load our computers with viruses.

I think that ultimately people pirate because that’s the terms on which they want to use content, or because they wouldn’t shell out for stuff anyway. I used to download a lot of music, then my computer exploded and I lost everything. Instead of redownloading it, I use Youtube and Grooveshark (used to use Spotify, but they had a poor selection) entirely legally. I don’t mind sitting through adverts (that aren’t rubbish). If I had to choose between buying an album, and not having access to most of the music I listen to, I just wouldn’t bother and listen to the radio instead. I think much of the angst of the music industry about “lost revenue” is guff, they’ve got millions of people like me who are ambivalent about music still discussing their artists with other people and promoting them on their behalf.

As my approach seems to be that of my friends, and we’re all in our 20s, I think a lot of piracy is going to drop off the radar as the entertainment industry finally gets a grip on the idea that maybe they should produce products that we want to buy instead of expecting us to fit their business model. I don’t know how much you know about blogging for money, but the entire blogging business model is largely based around providing lots of great quality content for free and then leveraging the fans you obtain from that work to buy optimum stuff. People like Darren Rowse make hundreds of thousands a year.

I think publishers and media companies should realise that a lot of piracy is like a lending library – people get out your work and check it out for free, and have no intention of paying for it. Maybe they don’t like your work, and put it back. Maybe they like it enough to get their own copy. And maybe they go, “meh”, hand it back, but then tell all their friends that they read it and what they thought of it. It means that a lot of bad stuff that used to make money anyway because people had to buy to see it won’t anymore. People have to up their game, and I think ultimately that is going to be a good thing. The original copyright laws only lasted five years, after all. Then you had to go make something else. Keeps creativity going.

Anyway, just thought I would let you have a more reasoned perspective than just “I want it, and I want it free, and I don’t care”.

Sarah

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Letter to Lloyd Shepherd re pirate downloading is a post from: SarahMcCulloch.com | Activism, spirituality and opinion

The results of the Cannabis Law Reform Party Vote of Confidence are in, and Peter Reynolds gained 70% of the vote on a 42% turnout, 232 votes to 101. Seems reasonable, doesn’t it?

Well, maybe. But check out the email that was sent out:

Dear Member

I am writing to you all about the vote of confidence in Peter Reynolds and asking you to send in your vote.

You should all have received an email from Peter explaining why we are calling for this vote, we hope it will reaffirm the mandate Peter was given a year ago when he was voted as leader by the membership of the party, then called the LCA. Peter promised to lead a focused campaign, to register as a political party, to improve the website and to increase membership, he has done all this and more.

He has represented Clear at debates, on radio, locally on the cannabis truth roadshow, spoken at events and conferences, Clear also published an independent review ‘Taxing the UK Cannabis Market’ which we launched at the House of Commons last September.

He continues to complain whenever we find lies about cannabis; his views were sought by the Leveson Inquiry into the ethics of the British press.

The website is constantly being improved, we have opened a member’s forum and our membership has grown from 60 to 800, this provides much needed cash. Last year Clear spent £13,000, we began our year with £4,500 which funded the re-branding to Clear, we received £8,500 from donations & memberships and this has been spent running our focused campaign. We have had some very generous donations. Thank you all.

We have had some problems, all with people, yes, it is politics! It began with old LCA who missed the old site and old ways, but that grew into a focused campaign of harassment, which dug into anything they could find to make Peter look bad. It is a sorry saga of exaggeration and misinformation, much is online. The results are lost members, some of whom were on our admin team, some feel Peter has lost too much credibility because of the lies and misinformation; they chose to believe the people who want Clear to fail. Even with these departures Clear has continued to grow, with plenty of new members joining the party.

Peter has the support of the remaining admin team, Mark, Myself and newly appointed Dan Ford, who has been doing such good work with the comment warriors. We believe Peter has the drive and passion that are essential if we are to make a difference in the modern world of campaigning, his record is Clear, his private opinions are just that, private, they are not Clear’s. We will continue to focus on the real campaign issues, and do whatever it takes to end prohibition.

We have decided that email is the fastest most secure method to run the vote, every member has a unique email address, so one vote per member.

I want you to reply to this email at confidence@clear-uk.org with your vote, all votes must be received by midnight – April 24th

To make it easy all you have to do is hit reply and write yes or no, then send it back, your vote is important!

1) Yes I have confidence in our present leadership.

Or

2) No, I believe there should be a leadership election.

all the best

Jan – Clear Secretary
join clear
www.clear-uk.org

They started out by saying that everyone who criticised Peter is a liar and to vote for him? Hmm, that’s fair. Oh, and two days later Peter himself sent out a message asking people to vote for him:

Dear Member,

Why I Deserve Your Vote Of Confidence

If you have already voted, then thank you.

If you haven’t, then I am writing to encourage you to do so, whether or not you’re voting for me!

The party needs to speak with a CLEAR voice, so the more members who vote the better.

If you haven’t voted, you can do so by simply replying to this email. The votes don’t come to me, they go directly to Jan Wells, the party treasurer and secretary. She is checking each one for valid membership and duplication.

Naturally, I think I deserve your vote. I believe I am the right man for the job. I get results.

I invite you to compare my record with that of any other cannabis campaigner. No one works harder or achieves more in the war against prohibition. Under my leadership, CLEAR has become the largest, membership-based, drug reform group Britain has ever seen. We have put the cannabis issue back on the agenda as never before. Our campaign is professional, evidence-based and tightly focused We are being taken seriously. We are no longer regarded in the same light as the Monster Raving Loony party.

We have commisioned the most up to date, independent, expert research on cannabis in Britain. We have forced the media to stop publishing lies and misinformation about cannabis. We have taken our campaign right into the Houses of Parliament and we dominate the evidence in the HASC drugs inquiry.

I stand on my record. Inevitably, I have ruffled feathers and upset some people but I am not here to make friends. CLEAR is not a cannabis users social club. it is a serious campaign for change. If I had known the abuse and harassment I would be subject to, I would never have started along this path but now I am here I owe a duty to those who have placed their trust in me.

I really don’t know anyone else who is capable of doing the job that I do. Believe me, I’m very interested in finding the right person to succeed me. I would love to find someone to share my workload who has the ability, brains and drive to get on with it and eventually take over.

So please vote! Have your say! Speak loud, proud and CLEAR!

Yes I have confidence in our present leadership.

or

No, I believe there should be a leadership election.

Hit reply or email confidence@clear-uk.org and say “Yes” or “No” – all votes must be received by midnight – April 24th.

Thank you for reading.

Peter Reynolds

So, the person subject to the vote of no confidence was given an exclusive platform to tell everyone to vote for him? Hmm, fair.

Even setting aside that, it is evident that a lot of fully paid up Clear members never even saw those newsletters because they weren’t informed of the vote at all.

Worse, the comments in the last screenshot about voting irregularities were simply deleted:

So, yeah, Peter won 70% of the vote – but even in the face of selective notifications, two emails explicitly telling members how to vote, censorship of opposing viewpoints, and a poll run internally with no external oversight, 101 full party members still managed to write in to call for a leadership election. That’s not a few irrelevant trolls and liars, is it?

I wasn’t surprised by the outcome of this vote, but I am surprised by just how blatant the effort to bias the vote was, and I hope this continues to serve as a wake-up call to the discontented membership who have been increasingly objecting to having their comments deleted from the CLEAR website and Facebook wall. However, all is not lost – there’s some interesting new developments happening in the next month or two, so watch this space.

In the meantime, if anyone fancies trying their luck auditing the election results, Peter Reynolds did promise to any “legitimate outside organisation” access to their “robust” process.

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The Difference Between CLEAR and Zimbabwe… is a post from: SarahMcCulloch.com | Activism, spirituality and opinion

My proposed answer to this question’s title is “Always”. But my reasoning is not the same as many people who campaign against rape jokes. Many say “you shouldn’t tell rape jokes because you don’t know if you’re going to trigger an unpleasant experience for people listening who might have been raped in that past”. I understand that point of view, although I disagree with it. I would definitely not try to tell a joke in the presence of someone I knew would be traumatised by it, but I don’t think avoiding all jokes that might upset anyone at all is a good idea. Some people are absolutely terrified of dogs, does that mean I can’t tell “my dog’s got no nose!” just in case? Censorship is a poor form of tolerance.

No, my reasoning is about the underlying assumptions that lead to the creation of different categories of jokes. Dead baby jokes are some of the crassest jokes I’ve ever heard, but that’s because they’re mainly based on the assumption that dead babies aren’t really anything to laugh about. If you don’t like the thought of a dead baby, you won’t like a dead baby joke. If you’re more indifferent, however, the ick of the thought of a dead baby can be a good set-up to a punchline – you can’t create a much more serious set up to a joke than dead babies. That’s why people like telling them, and why people find them funny (when they’re actually funny and not just “uhuhuhuh, dead baby”).

However, rape jokes are usually based on the assumption that rape is somehow justified in some cases. The set up is based on the idea that rape is wrong, and the punch line is shattering that expectation… by implying that rape is ok sometimes. So no-one says, “How do you stop a baby crawling round in circles? Nail its other hand to the floor” encourages people to think that nailing babies to the floor is an ok thing to do. But “Some people don’t like rape jokes. In my experience I find it helps break the awkward tension afterwards. ” implies that the teller has committed rape, but that’s kind of ok because it’s funny, thereby devaluing the concept of rape.

Does telling a rape joke encourages rape? Does telling a murder joke cause murder? Actually, I couldn’t find a funny joke about murder while writing this. The funniest jokes that involve murder aren’t actually about murder, they’re simply a part of the set-up which actually revolves around people being stupid, court rooms, the justice system, etc. (if anyone can think of one please post it below). So, take a joke about Saddam Hussein:

“When Saddam Hussein was found guilty he was originally sentenced to be shot.

His last request was to name his own firing squad: He chose Lampard, Gerrard and Carragher from 12 yards.”

Involves the death of Saddam Hussein, actually about the footballing ability of people I’ve never heard of. What I found was that jokes that involve deliberate murder as the punch line were based on the assumption that some people deserve to die, including mothers-in-law, political figures, people from other countries and wives (note the heavy representation of women there…).

“You’re locked in a room with Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, and a lawyer. You have a gun with ONLY two bullets. What do you do?

Shoot the lawyer twice to make sure he’s dead.”

I have no idea whether listening to a joke about lawyers being murdered encourages the murder of lawyers, but there’s a reasonable argument to be made that rape jokes encourage rape. All rapists think that all men are rapists, they’re just better at covering it up. And when your culture bases a significant part of its humour on the assumption that a) people deserve to be raped sometimes and b) that the idea that rape isn’t ok is something to laugh about, who can really blame them for assuming that?

A woman is raped somewhere in the world every six minutes. There’s not a lot you can do about that. However, by laughing at a joke you don’t actually agree with the politics of, you encourage the person who told it to to tell it again. Which increases the comfort factor of all those would-be rapists out there who haven’t learned what consent means. Which makes it more likely they will rape someone. Maybe you don’t believe that, but we do know that people are more than willing to send messages threatening rape to female columnists when they think they won’t face consequences. If we as a culture encourage the idea that rape itself has no consequences, what, really, is there to deter them?

I spent a lot of time thinking about this, because I know more than one person who has been sexually assaulted/raped who still tell rape jokes/laugh at them, and more than one who can’t bear it. That’s my view for now, but I would be very interested in hearing alternative arguments in the comments, if you have any.

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When are rape jokes not funny? is a post from: SarahMcCulloch.com | Activism, spirituality and opinion

Ending the drug war: what we’ve done and what we’re doing

In January 2011, I had a dream. A dream of a national organisation for young people focussed on a control and regulation model for drug policy. As it was a quite literal dream, I sat bolt upright in bed and started scribbling down everything I could remember. What did we want to do? How would that work? How on earth were we going to find volunteers, money, advice?

One year on, and as the Re:Vision Drug Policy Network’s first birthday passed largely unnoticed last week – we were too busy campaigning – we’re still asking ourselves those questions, but we do so with a base of volunteers stretching from Edinburgh to London, and even abroad. It has been hard work, but rewarding hard work.

Read More.

Please don’t send your stoner teenager to military school!

We were contacted recently by Major Momma, who runs a blog describing how she placed her sixteen year old son in military school last September because, as far as has been implied in her posts, she caught him smoking weed and being a grumpy teenager on his summer break. I have replied to her privately, but it also seemed somewhat important to comment publicly for the benefit of parents who may be considering similar measures.

Re:Vision Drug Policy Network neither condemn nor condone the use of drugs – we recognise that some people do use drugs, and we seek to mitigate the harmful consequences that drugs and the laws which regulate them can have. We fundamentally disagree that imprisoning your children in a military academy is in any way an appropriate solution to any concerns you may have over their drug use.

Read More.

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Some pieces on drugs – March 2012 is a post from: SarahMcCulloch.com | Activism, spirituality and opinion

My leadership has come under sustained attack. There has been a vicious hate campaign of lies, abuse, forgeries and false allegations. Recently, those responsible have also turned on my colleagues, Derek Williams, Jan Wells and Mark Palmer. These brave individuals fight for truth and justice against jealous, ignoble and cowardly bullies. They are champions of the cause.

Those who waste their energy on opposing us rather than campaigning for reform have demonstrated that their real ambition is to hijack CLEAR, just as they tried to hijack our website.

Now is the time for a new leadership mandate. I am calling for a vote of confidence in me.

The vote will take place in about a fortnight’s time. It will be administered by Jan Wells, the party secretary and treasurer. Jan will devise a robust process which will be verifiable and subject to audit by any legitimate outside organisation. It will ensure that all votes are cast by members and that each member can only vote once. Further details will follow.

Fair enough then. If that happens. People are already complaining about being censored on the CLEAR Facebook page calling for both sides to be able to put their case to the membership, so we shall see what happens with this “robust”, “subject to audit” process.

But if Peter does win in a fair-handed manner, then I do think that puts paid to efforts to oust him as leader. There’s still very valid and compelling criticisms to be made, but if he manages to persuade 350 people to vote him, then fair enough, really. Folks should go elsewhere.

The Politics UK poll is at 462-41 in favour of Peter’s sacking, btw. It will be genuinely interesting to see if this is reflected in the party vote.

Now, I said before that I was closing this rolling updates, but then interesting things happened. As we now await the result of this vote, I am not expecting anything hugely exciting to happen, and I have very, very nearly finished my dissertation while all this has been going on…

Although, before everyone gets distracted by this vote, perhaps someone could ask what happened with the internet lawyers that Peter’s parents paid for so he could sue Chris Bovey?

——————————————

19:55pm: Well, I got up from a nap to discover that someone’s apparently been emailing CLEAR party members. CLEAR know exactly what to do – call the police again. It’s a good job that so many people *did* give false membership details, really isn’t it? Peter’s apparently been away:

Now, this is where it gets serious, folks. Sanj Chowdhary is currently on a suspended sentence for growing and possessing cannabis, which he did because he has an incurable medical condition – for Peter Reynolds to call the police on a medicinal cannabis user who is publicly known to use and grow cannabis, and claim to represent cannabis users, is nothing short of treason, whatever it is that you think they’ve done.

——————————————

11:42am: I have split this post into two and put the old one here.

I’m pretty sure that physicists are quite right that there are multiple dimensions, it’s the only explanation for Peter’s belief that there are not objections whatsoever to his leadership.

Yep, 445 “sabateurs“. Someone has released this artists’ impression of Peter’s withdrawn award:

——————————————

4th April 09:16am: I was on a definite roll with my dissertation last night and finished the copyedit, so forgive if me that took precedence over this rolling update.

So, stuff has happened, albeit nothing with that legal action Peter said he was going to take against Chris Bovey, or the police complaint he made about eight people. Jan Wells, Party Treasurer, posted this on her Facebook yesterday:

“I noticed leaked emails from me on Sarah M’s latest offering, there you can plainly see that Derek and myself supported Chris & Greg’s call for an vote, this democratic process was ended when Chris stopped trying to work with us in the admin group and took control of the website, then we found that Chris and some others had planned for this event by hacking into Peters password. Hardly democratic!

Fighting damages the whole campaign, it make every cannabis user look bad, when the local papers have to close their comments because of people attacking Peter, all users look bad, the only winner is prohibition.
I rarely post because it often seems to inflame rather than inform, which is my aim.

Many of the people that complain loudest have never been Clear members, so of course we dont listen to them, members complaints are listened to, hopefully we can learn from them, but you cant please everyone.
All Clear wants is to get on with the campaign, to focus on the real fight, hopefully a vote will make everything much Clearer :)

As secretary, my job is to support the members, I will be contacting them all soon with our plans. Once we get the site working properly again we can move on.”

Good to know you’re a fan, Jan.

The Politics UK poll continues to rise, currently stands at 439-37. Obviously keen-eyed stoners were waiting for the moment it hit 420:

439 people, btw, is not a tiny group of trouble-makers. If there were that many anti-Peter Reynolds Party MPs in the House of Commons, they’d have a historic majority.

But this is probably the least of CLEAR’s worries right now, as their website is apparently now under a DDoS attack (thousands of computers accessing the website a second in an attempt to knock it offline under the strain):

Oh, and sadly ignored and unloved since the PoliticsUK poll went up, the Change.org Petition for the Resignation of Peter Reynolds has now got 293 signatures. I’m assuming there’s probably some overlap between signatories, but even allowing for that, these numbers are approaching the number of actual CLEAR party members…

——————————————

13:41pm: The infamous phone call between Denzil White and Peter Reynolds was deleted by Soundcloud, and has now been moved here, apparently (I don’t have the necessary codecs to hear it).

Politics UK poll is at 402-35 in favour of Peter’s sacking. Damn, Peter would be all over that shit if it were the other way round…

——————————————

11:10am: Well, that lasted a while:

‎”There has been a concerted effort to get CLEAR members to call for a leadership election by emailing Jan Wells. As CLEAR’s Executive has a past record of ignoring what they don’t want to see, we think it is time for some external accountability. Please forward the message that you sent to Jan Wells to letsbeclear03@gmail.com with a message stating that you are a member of CLEAR. We will make a list of names to verify and if we have the required number then we will announce this and send it to the Electoral Commission.”

Any emails you send to this address will not be published.

Politics UK poll is at 390-34. The Peter Reynolds Downfall parody, btw, now has 1400 views.

——————————————

00:44am: After three days of statements, counter-statements and threats, I think I will call this blog-post to a day now!

If something dramatic happens, I will create a new post, but otherwise I have a dissertation to write. :)

——————————————

22:05pm:

This just in from someone with Unite Against Fascism pretentions:

——————————————

20:14pm: New email to Chris Bovey from Peter Reynolds has just been released:

“Dear Chris,

We have now appointed solicitors to act on our behalf.

Adam Taylor
Adlex Solicitors
UK internet and domain name lawyers
76A, Belsize Lane
London
NW3 5BJ

Telephone: 020 7317 8404

My family has provided funds in order to take whatever action is necessary to regain control of the clear-uk.org domain name and to recover damages from you.

Your hosting company has already removed your control of the domain.

“Who is” records clearly show that you changed the registration details of the domain within the last day or two. This was unauthorised and as you know has already been reported to the police as has your interception of email accounts yesterday.

The attached exhibit, Bovey1, clearly shows your dishonest intent.

The attached exhibit, Bovey2, clearly shows in your own words that “I have no claim to the domain name”

The attached regulated entity profile from the Electoral Commission shows that party officers are Janice Wells and myself. The Electoral Commission has been warned of your and your co-conspirators’ preposterous attempt to take control of the party.

It is crystal clear that your hijacking of the domain is unlawful and it must be restored to our control immediately.

The deadline is 3.00pm today. If, at that time you have not restored control of the domain name to Jan and me then we will commence legal action. At that point the costs immediately become £1800.00 incl VAT.

The longer you prolong your unlawful conduct the higher our claim for damages and costs will rise and may include the costs of re-printing all party literature, stationery and restoration of the website to its proper state, The website is already back online at an alternative domain.

Be assured that we will pursue you until judgment is obtained and all necessary enforcement measures will be taken including the appointment of sherriff’s officers to seize your assets and property by force if required.

If you restore control of the domain name before the deadline we will halt any further legal action and will be prepared to negotiate a financial settlement with you.

The complaints of criminal offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and the Interception of Communications Act 1985 will be not be withdrawn under any circumstances.

You do not need to communicate with me to restore control of the domain name, simply instruct your hosting company to transfer it.

If you do this then our solicitors will be in touch in due course to negotiate a financial settlement.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Reynolds”

I am no lawyer, but it is decidedly odd that someone with legal representation would contact the person he has instructed them against by himself. I am also no party mandarin, but I’m also pretty certain that getting your family to pay for your party’s legal actions is decidedly nepotistic (and indicative that the party is broke). And while I am no psychologist, it is decidedly interesting that Peter Reynolds wrote that Chris doesn’t actually have to talk to him to avoid legal action. Sounds rather pleading to me.

——————————————

19:08pm: Peter Reynolds sees a comment from someone with an EDL avatar calling his opposition “hippie scum” – and likes it. And then defends it to someone who says they are so disgusted they are leaving Clear. Yeah, I’m sure associating with racists who flatter you are a sure ticket to mainstream popularity.

——————————————

18:37pm: Clear-uk.com are apparently now in control of clear-uk.org. Statement from Peter Reynolds:

“I am delighted to announce that control of the CLEAR domain name has now been restored.

This has been a terrible 10 days. In fact, it’s been a pretty terrible year so far with the relentless hate campaign against me and the noisy trolling of CLEAR by a small group of people who are angry, bitter and jealous of our success. I am immensely proud of the way that, through all of this, CLEAR has continued to take the lead in the cannabis campaign. It is CLEAR that has been putting out positive campaigning effort seven days of every week, of every month.

We now have a valiant and diligent team of comment warriors who take the truth to every corner of Britain, every day. Our PCC complaints are changing the way that the press behaves. A year ago, could anyone imagine a letter like yesterday’s in the Mail on Sunday being published by a Paul Dacre newspaper? We have forced them to start publishing the truth.

I have almost finished reading the drugs inquiry evidence and around 50% of all submissions cite CLEAR evidence. This is an astonishing achievement of which we can be very proud. We have mobilised people who previously would never have considered making a submission to a parliamentary inquiry. We are making change happen!

This is why a coup was attempted. CLEAR is the most successful and effective cannabis campaign Britain has ever seen. Those who attacked me wanted to take over what we have created because they can’t do it themselves.

It will take some days yet before the website is fully restored. We will move it back to its proper domain name in the next day or so. All membership data is safe.

Thank you to all those who have stood by CLEAR, even in the face of the most disgraceful and underhand plotting, scheming and sabotage. We have lost some good people who were duped and led astray by the lies and propaganda. What we need to do now is ramp up the campaign even harder, show that we deserve their trust and welcome them back to the party.

Thank you.”

Oter news:

The Lou Collins Radio Show is now available as a podcast here.

Politics UK poll is at 365-30.

——————————————

12:19pm: The Clear Facebook has finally got around to admitting they censor the Facebook page:

That’s mostly their own members that they are dealing with “ruthlessly”, btw. Still, makes a change from when Politics UK interviewed Peter and had this exchange:

“Politics UK
There are accusations that you “censor” CLEAR members and supporter on the internet by banning or deleting the post/comments on discussion boards. How would you answer this accusation?

Peter Reynolds
Another unsubstantiated allegation. The facts are that since it started the CLEAR FB page has banned 23 people and fewer than a half a dozen in the last couple of weeks. These are very low numbers for a forum on such a contentious subject.”

At least everyone knows it’s happening now.

——————————————

12:03am: Peter Reynolds has launched a new Clear website at http://www.clear-uk.com:

——————————————

11:37am: Chris Bovey is live on the Lou Collin Radio Show, you can listen live here.

——————————————

3rd April 10:31am: It’s a slightly overcast, slightly damp looking day today in Manchester, and I am feeling the effects of the morning after the night before.

Today kicked off with a bang, it’s 10am and we’ve got a statement from Clear:

The Politics UK poll is at 325-26.

The Re:Vision Drug Policy Network blog has also published some thoughts on the Peter Reynolds situation:

“In the cannabis community, and the drug law reform community, we all know there’s a significant number of people who use the drugs that we’re campaigning to have controlled and regulated, some are medicinal users, some recreational. It’s not that surprising. Some are public about it, some aren’t. All rely on the rest of us not calling up the cops to let them know what they’ve got and where they’ve got it. I’ve always thought it something of a no-brainer that if I don’t consider something a crime, then I don’t report it. For someone to break that code, for someone to threaten people who use cannabis for severe and chronic illness with police action, and then to claim they represent three million cannabis users, is not being consistent, politically or morally.”

Read more here.

We’ve also got a new dopecast out from the Dopefiend, thanks very much to the shoutout to me and the link to this post in the links section – welcome dopefiend tribers. :)

“On this week’s epsiode of the Web’s Favourite Cannabis Podcast, the Dopefiend is enjoying the spring sunshine in Panorama Park, where he talks about the recent events in the ongoing saga of Peter Reynolds and CLEAR, and how this week saw a stand-off develop between Reynolds and CLEAR’s former executive committee. The Dopefiend talks to former CLEAR press officer Chris Bovey about how he got involved in CLEAR and his dealings with Reynolds.”

And finally, Chris Bovey is going on the Lou Collin Radio Show in about ten minutes, you can listen live here.

Bit manic for mid-morning, innit?

This blogpost covers events from the 3rd April onwards. The previous updates can be found here.

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• The Difference Between CLEAR and Zimbabwe…
• Peter Reynolds – Denzil White Transcript
• Peter Reynolds vs. Clear: Rolling updates 30th March – 2nd April
• Everyone Vs. Peter Reynolds (Lol)
• Peter Reynolds vs. Everyone (Apparently)

Peter Reynolds vs. Clear: Rolling updates is a post from: SarahMcCulloch.com | Activism, spirituality and opinion

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00:57am: Tomorrow promises to be a fun-filled day of action, my friends, I shall see you then. :)

22:36pm: On Soundcloud, Peter Reynolds has already gotten in with the threat/complain/insult cycle, on someone even he has to admit he doesn’t even know anything about:

19:56pm: Clear are adamant they are going to the High Court tomorrow:

And the Politics UK poll is at 307-25, but, really, who gives a crap about any of that, because someone just released a Downfall parody of Peter Reynolds being told he’s been sacked:

And someone called Peter Reynolds up and asked him a whole bunch of stuff about all the latest shenanigans and then published the recording. Excerpts I found interesting:

“There’s been an attempted coup by a bunch of people who’ve committed criminal offences under the Computers Misuse Act, they seized control of the domain name, they’ve been reported to the police in fact.”

Denzil: “I’m a cannabis user, so I have a vested interest.” Peter: “So am I.”

“The Executive Committee is composed of ME, I’m the party leader, and Janice Wells, who is the party treasurer, Mark Palmer. And that is the Executive Committee, the three of us.” <- Not Dan Ford and Chris Stevens then?

"It is absolutely disgraceful that people have been publishing private correspondence." Fine to publish answer-phone messages from Sanj though?

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15:38pm: Well, I’m on page 17 of my dissertation and Peter’s apparently gone to sit in the garden. He’s pretty adamant Mark’s a member of the Executive though:

More worryingly, he thinks that quite a few members of Clear aren’t:

You can’t just throw people out the party, there’s a process in the constitution. These actions will catch up with Clear if the Electoral Commission gets involved…

Oh, and the Politics UK poll is at 300-25 people telling Peter Reynolds to go away. It’s less a “band of trolls” so much as a happy, thriving village of troll families living in peace and harmony while a group of 25 trouble-makers continue to pour sand into the village well covering their ears muttering “LALALALALALA”.

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13:55pm: With the the Politics UK vote standing at 282-23, Alan Wylie has just released a statement that PoliticsUK has revoked Peter Reynolds’ Politician of the Year 2011.

Part of the statement:

“it would be remiss to downplay the role that Mr Reynolds has played in the last 12 months. He has turned the LCC into a disciplined machine. He made the notion of legalised cannabis socially acceptable for many. His slick performances impressed many in mainstream politics.

But he also caused the split, his refusal to apologise left a bad taste in people’s mouths. His treatment of Sarah McCulloch was not nice to see.

There are many great people involved in CLEAR. Des, Chris B, Sanj, Jan, Stuart, Jayelle to name a few. I believe and hope that CLEAR can regroup and become stronger.

The one message that has been sent to me constantly was the validity of PoliticsUK Politician of the year Award.

I am now aware of more facts than before. After intense talks with other PUK members, I regret to announce that we have withdrawn PoliticsUK Politician of the Year from Mr Reynolds. This is due to a contravention of PoliticsUK Terms of Use.”

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2nd April 09:46am: Good morning, it’s a beautiful sunny day in Manchester and I am copyediting my dissertation. I’m on page 10/44.

So, obviously, not a lot has happened over night because all the principal protagonists presumably had to sleep at some point. However, last night, Sanj released emails that demonstrate Mark Palmer’s resignation, and Peter’s acceptance of it. The image is quite blurry and you’ll have to click on it to take a look, but the emails say:

“Hello all,
it is with deep regret that personal issues affecting my psychological problems are forcing me to remove myself from the executive committee, and I tender my resignation forthwith. I will continue to moderate the forum, there is an ‘Administrator’ member I can use which has lesser permissions so a non executive member could use it without the access of the exec.
Yours
Mark”

“Houston, we have a problem.

I’m not going to do anything about this just ye, until at least Tuesday evening when I’ll know what it going down at work and whether or not my role in Clear is in doubt. As I told Peter, I’m afraid work comes first.

But I’m not sure where this leaves us, to be honest.

Derek”

“I’m very sorry to hear that Mark.

Derek, you must concentrate on tomorrow.

It leaves us with a diminished committee but as Mark is going to continue to administer the forum it will make no difference to the actual work and campaign effort.

Peter Reynolds”

Oh, did I link to an image that shows Peter last night implying that Mark never resigned? Yeah, I guess I did…

The Politics UK poll seems also to not be dying, but now stands as 270-22.

As a personal observation, the blocking spree on Clear’s Facebook seems to have backfired somewhat, the cannabis Facebook groups I’m in seem to have not an insignificant number of people, in some cases Clear members, complaining in surprise that they posted on the Wall of Clear and got blocked. But I couldn’t give you stats on that.

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01:37am: I am retiring to my chambers. I’ll see you tomorrow as and when.

The final tally for the last 12 hours on the Politics UK poll: 252-20.

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23:05pm: The Clear Facebook has published a statement that they are back in control of the website (they aren’t), that Chris Bovey has broken the law (he hasn’t) – it seems to be an auto-update application gone wrong.

Meanwhile on Politics UK the vote stands at 243-20 in favour of Peter resigning. That’d be 12-1 against. God, I’m so bored with reiterating this, it just doesn’t change – people think Peter Reynolds should leave, ok? Lots of them. Tons of them. It’s not a tiny conspiracy. Saying it is doesn’t mean it is.

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19:49pm: I went out and had a lovely afternoon, which is why I haven’t updated in a little while.

Being as the Electoral Commission and the courts don’t open until Monday and Chris Bovey’s hosting company told Peter to get stuffed, there’s not a lot Peter et al can do:

Peter Reynolds continues to live in a world where everything is fine:

Meanwhile on Politics UK the vote stands at 226-18 in favour of Peter resigning. So if those who oppose him are few in number, one does wonder where the rest of his lot are.

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15:16pm::

Politics UK: 127-8. Not sure which members Peter’s defending.

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14:58pm:: Lou Collins, the woman who interviewed Peter Reynolds last week on her radio show, will be interviewing Chris Bovey. Peter Reynolds thinks this is lame. Lou thinks he should step down. Peter thinks not.

Meanwhile, the Politics UK poll currently stands at 121-7 in favour of Peter Reynolds stepping down.

Chris Bovey has an update on this website business:

“I’m looking forward to the conversation I shall be having on Monday morning with the Electoral Commission, as well my interview on the Lou Collins radio show.

I have been informed that as the domain is on my server, I paid for the web site and everything, I can do what the hell I like with it; as it is a .org, it’s nothing to do with the UK authorities. The company that runs my server said they will not touch it without a court order (current price tag for a name dispute in the USA is $5000). Only if material that contained child porn or incitement to racial hatred would the server company be obliged to take it down without a court order (so that rules out publishing some of Reynolds’ more extreme screenshots).

I wonder if Reynolds will eventually get charged with wasting police time, although perhaps they consider that too minor charge and are completing the CURRENT and very REAL police investigation into Peter Reynolds for hate crime?

If Janice Wells, the only remaining member of the CLEAR exec would agree to a leadership election, they could have the site back this afternoon.”

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14:02pm:: The Politics UK poll currently stands at 66-6 in favour of Peter Reynolds stepping down. Ominous.

There’s strong discontent brewing on the Clear Facebook page, despite the vanishing threads and someone’s noticed something a little awry:

Ten minutes later:

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12:43pm:: The Clear thread accusing Chris of criminal activity has now been deleted.

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12:32pm: I’ve just flipped on the entries round so the latest news is at the top for your convenience.

Chris Bovey has published this screenshot and this message:

“Peter Reynolds has again publicly slandered me claiming I transferred the CLEAR web site to a new registrar yesterday; this is a lie, Peter Reynolds transferred the domain to me last year on 26th July 2011, as this email shows. The domain belongs to CLEAR, so if they want the domain moved to another registrar, CLEAR has to let me know where they want moved to. If they want their old web site back then they have to call fresh elections for the leadership of CLEAR, as I’m not prepared to offer free hosting and web site maintenance services to an undemocratic organisation lead by a racist homophobic bully.”

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1st April 12:13pm …so it kicked off this weekend.

New message from Clear Facebook page:

“We have now discovered that the CLEAR domain name was fraudulently transferred to a new registrar yesterday by Chris Bovey. He did this by illegal use of passwords which he was able to access as the server is under his physical control.

We have now provided the new registrar with documents from the Electoral Commission proving rightful ownership. We have also asked them to secure our data against further criminal activity by Bovey.”

Interestingly, as of right now, the majority of comments are a) negative and b) telling Peter to step down. Peter, also interestingly, has not blocked everyone but has replied:

“‎I was elected a year ago and my term runs until April 2014. I have the overwhelming support of the membership which under my leadership has grown from less than 70 to nearly 800 while our Facebook members have gone from zero to nearly 10,000. Do you expect a leadership election to be called every time a few trolls complain? What sort of way would that be to run a party?”

And Politics UK (the folks who originally awarded Peter Reynolds “Politician of the Year”) have put up a poll asking whether Peter Reynolds should step down or not. Currently it’s running at 88% in favour of Yes.

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1:30am: Right, I am going to bed now, we’ll have to see what happens this weekend…

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00:52am: Peter Reynolds has posted on the Clear Facebook page:

“I have now regained control of the CLEAR website. However, the server is under the physical control of Chris Bovey. It is possible that he may choose to repeat his offence by hijacking the site again.

Peter Reynolds, 31st March 2012″

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00:32am: http://www.clear-uk.org now redirects to http://peterreynoldsinhisownwords.tumblr.com/.

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00:22am: Apparently Peter Reynolds has taken over the Clear website again:

“The statement posted on the CLEAR website earlier tonight concerning the “sacking” of Peter Reynolds (now removed) is false and unlawful. The officers of the party as registered with the Electoral Commission are Peter Reynolds and Janice Wells. The affairs and records of CLEAR are fully compliant with its own constitution and with the Electoral Commission’s requirements.

By hijacking the CLEAR website, Chris Bovey has committed a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. He has been reported to the police and our solicitors have been instructed. We also have documentary evidence implicating Des Humphrey, Orson Boon, Sanj Chowdhary, Greg de Hoedt and Levent Akbulut in a criminal conspiracy.

This has been reported to the police under crime reference number C12D12966.

Mark Palmer, Peter Reynolds, Jan Wells
The CLEAR Executive committee, 30th March 2012

The server on which this website is based is under the physical control of Chris Bovey. It is possible that he may choose to repeat his offence by hijacking the site again.”

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23:30pm Chris just published some emails between him and Peter in the last twenty minutes:

“I advise you to pass control of the CLEAR website to me immediately.

Every minute that you prolong this compounds the multiple criminal offences that you have committed.

Peter Reynolds”

“Mark and Derek resigned from the committee

Jan is on record as to saying you should hold a leadership election. Derek said last night he would resign if you didn’t call one; I assume that’s why he resigned.

The domain name belongs to CLEAR, not you Peter. You are no longer leader of CLEAR, why don’t you just go gracefully.

I have already consulted a lawyer who advised me no criminal offence has taken place, furthermore, he also advised me the post by CLEAR stating that I have committed a criminal act is a defamation of my character. Therefore if you do not take that post down accusing me of criminal behaviour, I give you notice Peter that it is you who will be hearing from my lawyers.

Regards,

Chris Bovey.”

“Chris,

This is the biggest mistake of your life.

Obviously you’ll get bail but soon you’re going to be looking at the inside of a cell for a few hours.

I am now ceasing communication with you.

It’s April Fool’s day on Sunday and you are five very big fools.

Peter Reynolds”

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Peter Reynolds just sent this to Ed Stratton:

And this just went out on the Clear Facebook page:

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It’s getting late, so I am assuming not much more is going to happen, but I’ll update as I see it.

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Jason Reed, who resigned from the Clear Executive in November 2011, just published this statement.
“I have been asked many times to speak about CLEAR, and I have been disinclined to do so.  This is not for any other reason than I believe there’s a dignity in silence.  If this personal ethic differs from yours, then I apologise, but that’s always been my preferred method owing to my upbringing.  However:
Over the last year, the political party, CLEAR, has been in action.
I was asked to be a member of the executive committee in the early portion of CLEAR’s inception.  I then left the organisation in November due to personal reasons.
Owing to the fact CLEAR is a political party, and it involves a subject matter that I am both impassioned over, I feel I can address the party & leader without rancour and distant from personal involvement.  Just as I have views over the Liberal Democrats, Labour, or the Conservatives, I can also draw upon my democratic ideals with regards to CLEAR and address them in the spirit of politics.
For numerous reasons, I have felt unable to support CLEAR for many many months.  I feel its brief tenure in the political realm has done more harm than good.  Its current guise & output, I believe, is toxic to serious reform efforts and the wider discourse.
It’s with tremendous regret that I feel I have to state this, but it’s my hope that some semblance of progression can be made.
Whatever view of me anyone may have, I would like to think it’s known that I’m not as stupid as my ears make me look.  I have made my own mind up, using my own open senses, and without corruption from any one or any group.  As stated, my observations span many months.
I have always been very frank in that I wish for one thing and one thing only, and that’s the basic premise of reform; my personal work exists only for the betterment of this principle.  I was fervent and frank in that my judgement of CLEAR & leadership would come into play after one year of the organisation’s birth.  So, one year on, I believe CLEAR to not at all be acting in the highest standards and conduct.  I have been left open mouthed on a few too many occasions for it to be forgiveable; it has become the fabled car crash.
So in the interests of trying to put this part of my life fully behind me, and to progress in efforts of reform, I hope all can accept this statement with my regrets and humble best.”

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Peter Reynolds has now posted screenshots of a conversation between members of the Clear Exec (Chris, Greg et al), and claims that it is evidence of criminal conspiracy and listed a crime reference number. You can catch that on the Clear Facebook page here.

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* Chris, Greg, Des and Sanj just published this statement:

Following the resignation of Mark Palmer and Derek Williams, leaving only 3 members of the Exec left; Greg de Hoedt and Chris Bovey (the required quorum) took the decision to reappoint Des Humphrey and Sanj Chowdhary to the Exec and sack Peter Reynolds.
With the Exec the leadership of CLEAR in disarray, far from hijacking CLEAR, we are putting control of CLEAR back to the fee paying membership. Why does Peter Reynolds have a problem allowing the democratic process to take due course and putting the leadership of CLEAR to the membership?
In an email dated 29th March 2012, the day before resigning, Derek Williams stated in an email:
Sorry Pete, I’ve been put in the position of standing alone with you against everyone else and I just don’t want to be in this position, simple as that. We have to bring this to a head and the sooner the better. Please agree to stand for re-election, don’t force a vote of no confidence and don;t force me to leave.
In an email dated 29th March 2012, CLEAR treasurer Jan Wells wrote:
I agree with Derek  on this,  I  also believe a vote would be the best thing for clear, it would renew Peters mandate to lead and silence some of the hate campaigners. I doubt if even this will end the hate campaign but it will be the members wishes that are followed, it will end the dictator rubbish and show we are democratic.
I am not siding with anyone, I am trying to do whats best for clear,  to follow the constitution, and represent the membership.”

* Chris, Greg, Des and Sanj responded by publishing Mark’s resignation statement from five days previously in full on the website:

“Hello all,
it is with deep regret that personal issues affecting my psychological problems are forcing me to remove myself from the executive committee, and I tender my resignation forthwith. I will continue to moderate the forum, there is an ‘Administrator’ member I can use which has lesser permissions so a non executive member could use it without the access of the exec.
Yours
Mark”

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* However, Peter Reynolds remains in control of the Clear Facebook group, and promptly issued this statement:

“STATEMENT BY CANNABIS LAW REFORM (CLEAR)

The statement posted on the CLEAR website tonight is false and unlawful. The officers of the party as registered with the Electoral Commission are Peter Reynolds and Janice Wells. The affairs and records of CLEAR are fully compliant with its own constitution and with the Electoral Commission’s requirements.

By hijacking the CLEAR website, Chris Bovey has committed a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. He has been reported to the police. We also have documentary evidence implicating several other individuals. Our solicitors have been instructed.

Mark Palmer, Peter Reynolds, Jan Wells

The CLEAR Executive committee, 30th March 2012″

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* They then issued this statement:

“This is a joint statement from the CLEAR Exec who have reconvened after having been removed by the leader, Peter Reynolds, for criticising him, or having resigned because he was unable to work with them in a professional manner.

Peter Reynolds has put into the public domain certain views that can only be considered racist, homophobic and intolerant of many minority groups. He has publicly stated that he stands by every word he wrote.

Since revelations of his blog were exposed at the end of last year. Peter Reynolds has refused to listen to advice from the membership and the CLEAR Exec. He has made rude and insulting public statements either on this web site, or his blog, or by email, to many activists/ bloggers / members / medicinal users who have questioned his leadership style, such as calling a medicinal user “an obnoxious troll” or calling a 22 year old female student blogger “a genetically confused half woman half wererwolf.” He has also threatened medicinal cannabis users with High Court legal action and handing over personal details to the police.

Peter Reynolds has also alienated the support of 17 MPS, UK charities Release, Transform, Drug Equality Action and Students For Sensible Drug Policy.

In view of the conduct and behaviour of Peter Reynolds and the fact only one member of the CLEAR Exec remains, the rest having either resigned or been booted off by Reynolds, in the interests of the party, the former CLEAR executive members have unanimously voted to relinquish Peter Reynolds from his post as leader of CLEAR, with immediate effect and handing power back to the the membership by calling an election for a new exec and leader.

The CLEAR web site, which was broken for reasons unknown during the week has now been fully restored, however, Peter Reynolds changed the ownership from CLEAR to his personal details. We have asked the registrar the domain details be returned to the registered address of CLEAR.

Control of the web site will be handed over to the new Exec once it is voted on by the membership.

Des Humphrey, Greg de Hoedt, Sanj Chowdhary, Chris Bovey”

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Hi everyone,

I got back from synagogue today to discover Peter Reynolds had been deposed as leader of Clear. Wow! And then he claimed he hadn’t been, and it all got a bit weird. So, I just wanted to throw together everything that has happened so far for my benefit as much as everyone else’s:

Related Posts:

• The Difference Between CLEAR and Zimbabwe…
• Peter Reynolds – Denzil White Transcript
• Peter Reynolds vs. Clear: Rolling updates
• Everyone Vs. Peter Reynolds (Lol)
• Peter Reynolds vs. Everyone (Apparently)

Peter Reynolds vs. Clear: Rolling updates 30th March – 2nd April is a post from: SarahMcCulloch.com | Activism, spirituality and opinion

We left the saga of Peter Reynolds, dear reader, many weeks ago when Peter Reynolds was threatening to sue me for lying about him. What lies these were were never specified, but I got harrassing messages fishing for my address anyway. I asked for legal advice, got “this is total bollocks” back, and got on with, you know, that drug law reform organisation I work for, and that degree I do.

It seems that Peter Reynolds also got on with running a serious cannabis law reform campaign, uniting users and activists in a solid front against the forces of prohibition- lol, jk, he totally wrote this about me to ElectroPig™ Von FökkenGrüüven, who published this piece on my blog about his efforts to mobilise a cannabis information roadshow and presumably asked Peter Reynolds if he could do the same thing:

With respect EVF, anything written by Sarah McCulloch is toxic. She is a schemer, a liar and an enemy of the cause.

CLEAR and I would be happy to support your initiative but we wouldn’t go anywhere near anything this woman does. She is an embarrassment to everyone in Britain who shares our cause.

Kind regards,

Peter Reynolds

Nice to see that calm, professional manner that everyone so admires. I’m the embarrassment, obvs, not the guy who told a woman objecting to his posting a picture of a woman naked but for strategically placed cannabis, “Oh Rachel, or is it Anne Widdecombe! Don’t be so hard on me and then I won’t be on you. ;)”

Anyways, it seems that things came to a head when the Mail on Sunday asked Peter Reynolds to write an article on cannabis prohibition for them and what he actually did last Friday was write an article about how cannabis is bad for you and attacking UK420, the largest home-growing discussion board in the UK with over 50,000 users. And when Chris Bovey and Greg de Hoedt (Cannabis Cure UK) objected, he called them trolls, liars, lalala. So they tabled a motion of no confidence:

In view of the detrimental controversy surrounding remarks made by Peter Reynolds and his dictatorial leadership style, we feel it would be in the best interests of CLEAR for Peter Reynolds to stand down as leader. Therefore we propose a vote of no confidence in Peter Reynolds and further propose an interim leader(s) should be appointed by the Executive and ballot of the membership should be called to appoint a new Executive and leader as soon as possible.

Proposed by Chris Bovey
Seconded by Greg de Hoedt

Aha! An opportunity for Peter Reynolds to face down his critics. His trolling, tiny band of critics who were just stopping Peter Reynolds from proclaiming THE TRUTH by using as many different puns on the word “clear” as possible. Brilliant opportunity to reclaim the agenda of the cannabis movement, rally the troops behind you, and boldly strike forth against the real enemies, the prohibitionists. Or you could actually just unilaterally suspend the two motion proposers and announce that their motion against you is therefore invalid because you suspended them. That’ll work. Chris Bovey later commented:

And then, hugely but genuinely coincidentally, the Clear website broke. Someone tried to upgrade some software and it all went a bit wrong, it seems. They couldn’t fix it though, because the only person who knows what they’re doing with IT, it turns out, is Chris Bovey – whom Peter Reynolds had just fired. And so they tried to fix it some more, and now the entire website looks like this:

Several of those people have got in contact to say that they’re sorry that Peter Reynolds wrote about me the way he did, and I thank them for having the courtesy to do so. It is appreciated. I admit, though, it would’ve been nice if I had got these messages at the time that I was having to defer exams, call solicitors, and spend five hours giving statements to the police (yeah, Peter Reynolds’ blogposts about me probably didn’t disappear because he suddenly developed a sense of perspective…). And I should also point out, among the three suspensions and three voluntary resignations, that if everyone had recognised the writing on the wall in February, instead of resigning as they individually couldn’t take it any more, Peter Reynolds would no longer be leader and the Clear website would not currently have gone the way of the dodo. But these things happen.

Did I say three suspensions and three resignations? Oh yeah. Literally as I started writing this, Derek Williams, probably the only person supporting Peter Reynolds who wasn’t a sock puppet at this point, just resigned. He wrote in his resignation statement here:

My only reason for being involved in CLEAR was to support a serious cannabis law reform campaign, this has now become impossible and it is with great regret that I can no longer be involved. So I resigned today, I am no longer a member of the CLEAR exec.

This does mean now that Peter Reynolds and Jan Wells are now the only members of the Executive left. Maybe. The fact is that the constitution of Clear is legally binding, and so far as I am aware, Greg and Chris were both unconstitutionally (and therefore illegally) suspended from the Party Executive. Peter Reynolds has authority to set policy, not throw people out when it suits him, especially when they happen to be coincidentally trying to remove him as leader. But I have no standing to do anything about that.

I will be very intrigued to see what happens now, I have literally never heard of a situation where the entire ruling body of a membership-based group resigns/is expelled en masse, the website is taken down, an ever increasing number of entirely verifiable stories about the goings on of the party are published for the consumption of thousands (just check out the stats on Greg’s video)… and the leader just thumbs his nose at the situation and declares he’s the best thing that ever happened to it. Really, what? I look forward to his appearance at London 420, at any rate…

What I think is really, really important to realise about the significance about these latest resignations/firings is that they’re not about what Peter Reynolds blogged about two years ago, or his personal views on gay people/women/black people/people who aren’t Tories. It’s not about the sex profiles which he uploaded to the internet and then denied ever having done, or the fact that he apparently impersonated a psychiatrist called Carla Margam, or even the fact that he’s made up half of his CV. It was about cannabis, the reason that we’re all here talking this – Peter wrote an article that was factually incorrect and which harmed the cannabis cause, and then when people called him on it, claimed they were incompetent because they’re stoners:

How long can the leader of a cannabis party stay in power while publicly condemning cannabis users for using cannabis?

Also, sign the petition. People are signing it faster than they’re joining Clear!

Subscribe to SarahMcCulloch.com via Email! (or via RSS!)

Related Posts:

• Peter Reynolds vs. Everyone (Apparently)
• Peter Reynolds and the Rampant Sexism (Aimed at Me)
• Peter Reynolds and the MPs who Weren’t
• Peter Reynolds and the Home Affairs Inquiry that Doesn’t Exist
• Perverts in the Fashion Industry and Cannabis Law Reform

Everyone Vs. Peter Reynolds (Lol) is a post from: SarahMcCulloch.com | Activism, spirituality and opinion

Overgrow the world.

OTW was the first site to publish anything seriously about Rick’s home being “raided”, while few agreed to publish anything. I had friends in Amsterdam at the time, so I got the news within hours of Rick himself finding out about the situation back home.

One of the things that OTW was created to do was to serve as a “launchpad”, where all honest cannabis information web sites would be linked, so that if we didn’t already have the specific information needed, we would have a link to the site(s) that did, and we could send visitors wherever they needed to go.

OTW was not designed to generate revenue nor fame. Unfortunately, the vast majority of web sites out there don’t want to be linked to anyone who wants to see prohibition REPEALED. They don’t want to allow anyone else to “steal their thunder”, as their incomes and/or egos rely on “credit taking”, rather than actually achieving concrete results for the people who provide those web sites with their income streams. In effect, a situation has arisen where there are more people profiting off prohibition today than who honestly want to see it ended. This needs to be shifted back in favour of the good of The People.

Alcohol vs. cannabis

Over the last few years, I’ve been asked to attend so many events that when someone came up with the idea of buying an RV and just going to all of them, it struck me as a valid concept…if enough support can be found to get it onto the streets where it belongs. The idea sitting in your head does nobody any good.

So the idea of the Overgrow The World 2012 North American Tour is simple: To get on the roads all across North America, providing the public with honest, accurate information about why the “war on drugs” needs to end, and the benefits of simply not doing the wrong thing any longer.

Most people believe that the hemp festivals and medical expos are the only way we’re going to help educate our fellow citizens, but the problem is that most people never attend such events. Either they don’t know the event(s) exist at all, or they’re simply too far away to make the trip. The simplest answer is to put that information on the road, a mobile billboard travelling from one coast to the other, from the top of the continent to the bottom, and all points in between, helping to inform people by providing providing information and web links, including on the side of the bus, providing information everywhere it travels.

It would probably look something like this.

The “medical only” people don’t care about hemp farmers, since they don’t grow “medicinally viable varieties”, and they can’t stand the “casual crowd” since many medicinal cannabis users aren’t using cannabis “to get high”, and they take offense at those who do.

Casual users don’t care about medicinal uses, since their prevailing doctrine is “I got mine.” They also have no feeling whatsoever for the hemp market, and for the same reasons as the medicinal users: farmers don’t grow medicinally beneficial varieties.

Hemp farmers, of course, don’t want to be associated with “dumbass potheads” for the obvious stereotypical and propagandized reasons, and they also don’t want anything to do with medicinal cannabis, even though they would stand to benefit most, as under a full repeal of cannabis/hemp prohibition, farmers would then be able to grow whatever strain of cannabis they wished, making a single crop available to multiple markets. Logically, if a farmer grew medicinally beneficial varieties, they could then sell the bud for medicinal uses, the seed for food and/or fuel, and the stalks for fiber and fuel (cellulosic ethanol), and the leaves could be tilled back into their fields as free fertilizer. Three crops in one would enable them to earn a better living, while helping lower soil toxicity, reducing the amount of toxins in their soil and in subsequent crops, and helping to lower the overall pesticide levels in the food supply.

But we will not repeal prohibition fully unless and until we all understand the benefits of this plant, and this requires the education of hundreds of millions of people out there that don’t already know what we know, and understanding that we’re all fighting the same fight.

Non-hippies also welcome.

More information about the tour here.

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Related Posts:

• The Difference Between CLEAR and Zimbabwe…
• Peter Reynolds vs. Clear: Rolling updates
• Peter Reynolds vs. Clear: Rolling updates 30th March – 2nd April
• Everyone Vs. Peter Reynolds (Lol)
• Peter Reynolds vs. Everyone (Apparently)

Overgrow The World 2012 North American Tour is a post from: SarahMcCulloch.com | Activism, spirituality and opinion

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Diversity:

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Lucy Kravariti: 951

Education:

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Hafsa Mahmood: 1133

General Secretary:

Nick Pringle: 2072
Raj Basu: 1781

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UMSU Exec Election Results 2012 is a post from: SarahMcCulloch.com | Activism, spirituality and opinion

And I said, “Sounds great.” And Chris said, “Cool, let me send you want I’ve planned so far.”

So, the long and short of it, mainly the long on account of the fact that all plans written by autistic people tend to be very, very detailed, is that AUTConf, as it is now known, has a small committee and a big vision. We’re thinking workshops on autism, talks by autistic people, gaming rooms, editing parties, panel sessions, commercial exhibitors for all your autistic needs, bouncy castles, full catering and accommodation, and lots and lots of autistic people in one space talking about how great or problematic is to be one of us. Think Autscape but about seven times the size. It’s going to be amazing.

Artists' impression of what AUTConf in the spaces marked noisy.

So, we’ve done that. But in order to get the hundreds of people we would like, we need to know what would make a conference for autistic people worth visiting for you? We therefore have a questionnaire. The contents of this questionnaire will significantly shape the actual programme for the weekend, so it is important that we get as much feedback as possible.

So here it is: http://bit.ly/autconf

Artists' impression of spaces for AUTies who don't like crowds.

Please fill it out. We have lots of contingency plans for if the feedback we get doesn’t fit our current working plan, but that’s ok. But we do need to get that feedback before we can move ahead.

Please also pass on to friends, colleagues, co-workers, lovers, priests, and partners. Post on forums, email on, share on Facebook, etc. The more people we get to AUTconf, the more fun it will be! I personally cannot imagine a better way of spending my summer than dealing with hundreds of autistic people in a single space with all their attendant pickiness and clumsiness. :)

But it all starts with this questionnaire. So fill it out, and pass it on. :) http://bit.ly/autconf

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Would you like to Come to the Best Conference in the World (about Autism)? is a post from: SarahMcCulloch.com | Activism, spirituality and opinion