The Weed Agency
The Weed Agency

Author: Jim Geraghty

Publisher: Crown Forum

Published: 2014-06-03

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0770436528

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The spellbinding mock history of the Department of Agriculture's most secretive and vital agency. The little-known USDA Agency of Invasive Species—founded by President and humble peanut farmer Jimmy Carter—would like to reassure you that they rank among the most effective and cost-efficient offices within the sprawling federal bureaucracy. For decades, under Administrative Director Adam Humphrey and his “strategic disengagement” approach, the Agency has epitomized vigilance against the clear and present danger of noxious weeds. Humphrey’s record of triumphant inertia faces only two obstacles. The first is reality; the second is the loud critic who dares to question the magic behind the Agency’s success: Nicholas Bader. Formerly known as President Reagan’s “bloody right hand,” Bader is on an obsessive quest to trim the fat from the federal budget. Full of oddball characters who shed light on the daily operations of Beltway minions, The Weed Agency showcases a world in which federal budgets balloon every year, where a career can be built upon the skill of rationalizing astronomical expenses, and where the word "accountability" sends roars of laughter through DC office buildings. That’s life inside the federal Agency of Invasive Species… and it may sound suspiciously similar to your reality.

The Weed Agency
The Weed Agency

Author: Jim Geraghty

Publisher: Forum Books

Published: 2014-06-03

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0770436536

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The spellbinding mock history of the Department of Agriculture's most secretive and vital agency. The little-known USDA Agency of Invasive Species—founded by President and humble peanut farmer Jimmy Carter—would like to reassure you that they rank among the most effective and cost-efficient offices within the sprawling federal bureaucracy. For decades, under Administrative Director Adam Humphrey and his “strategic disengagement” approach, the Agency has epitomized vigilance against the clear and present danger of noxious weeds. Humphrey’s record of triumphant inertia faces only two obstacles. The first is reality; the second is the loud critic who dares to question the magic behind the Agency’s success: Nicholas Bader. Formerly known as President Reagan’s “bloody right hand,” Bader is on an obsessive quest to trim the fat from the federal budget. Full of oddball characters who shed light on the daily operations of Beltway minions, The Weed Agency showcases a world in which federal budgets balloon every year, where a career can be built upon the skill of rationalizing astronomical expenses, and where the word "accountability" sends roars of laughter through DC office buildings. That’s life inside the federal Agency of Invasive Species… and it may sound suspiciously similar to your reality.

Tell Your Children
Tell Your Children

Author: Alex Berenson

Publisher: Free Press

Published: 2020-02-18

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1982103671

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In “a brilliant antidote to all the…false narratives about pot” (American Thinker), an award-winning author and former New York Times reporter reveals the link between teenage marijuana use and mental illness, and a hidden epidemic of violence caused by the drug—facts the media have ignored as the United States rushes to legalize cannabis. Recreational marijuana is now legal in nine states. Advocates argue cannabis can help everyone from veterans to cancer sufferers. But legalization has been built on myths—that marijuana arrests fill prisons; that most doctors want to use cannabis as medicine; that it can somehow stem the opiate epidemic; that it is beneficial for mental health. In this meticulously reported book, Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, explodes those myths, explaining that almost no one is in prison for marijuana; a tiny fraction of doctors write most authorizations for medical marijuana, mostly for people who have already used; and marijuana use is linked to opiate and cocaine use. Most of all, THC—the chemical in marijuana responsible for the drug’s high—can cause psychotic episodes. “Alex Berenson has a reporter’s tenacity, a novelist’s imagination, and an outsider’s knack for asking intemperate questions” (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker), as he ranges from the London institute that is home to the scientists who helped prove the cannabis-psychosis link to the Colorado prison where a man now serves a thirty-year sentence after eating a THC-laced candy bar and killing his wife. He sticks to the facts, and they are devastating. With the US already gripped by one drug epidemic, Tell Your Children is a “well-written treatise” (Publishers Weekly) that “takes a sledgehammer to the promised benefits of marijuana legalization, and cannabis enthusiasts are not going to like it one bit” (Mother Jones).

Understanding Marijuana
Understanding Marijuana

Author: Mitch Earleywine

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2002-08-15

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 019988143X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Marijuana is the world's most popular illicit drug, with hundreds of millions of regular users worldwide. One in three Americans has smoked pot at least once. The Drug Enforcement Agency estimates that Americans smoke five million pounds of marijuana each year. And yet marijuana remains largely misunderstood by both its advocates and its detractors. To some, marijuana is an insidious "stepping-stone" drug, enticing the inexperienced and paving the way to the inevitable abuse of harder drugs. To others, medical marijuana is an organic means of easing the discomfort or stimulating the appetite of the gravely ill. Others still view marijuana, like alcohol, as a largely harmless indulgence, dangerous only when used immoderately. All sides of the debate have appropriated the scientific evidence on marijuana to satisfy their claims. What then are we to make of these conflicting portrayals of a drug with historical origins dating back to 8,000 B.C.? Understanding Marijuana examines the biological, psychological, and societal impact of this controversial substance. What are the effects, for mind and body, of long-term use? Are smokers of marijuana more likely than non-users to abuse cocaine and heroine? What effect has the increasing potency of marijuana in recent years had on users and on use? Does our current legal policy toward marijuana make sense? Earleywine separates science from opinion to show how marijuana defies easy dichotomies. Tracing the medical and political debates surrounding marijuana in a balanced, objective fashion, this book will be the definitive primer on our most controversial and widely used illicit substance.

Lives of Weeds
Lives of Weeds

Author: John Cardina

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2021-09-15

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1501758993

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Lives of Weeds explores the tangled history of weeds and their relationship to humans. Through eight interwoven stories, John Cardina offers a fresh perspective on how these tenacious plants came about, why they are both inevitable and essential, and how their ecological success is ensured by determined efforts to eradicate them. Linking botany, history, ecology, and evolutionary biology to the social dimensions of humanity's ancient struggle with feral flora, Cardina shows how weeds have shaped—and are shaped by—the way we live in the natural world. Weeds and attempts to control them drove nomads toward settled communities, encouraged social stratification, caused environmental disruptions, and have motivated the development of GMO crops. They have snared us in social inequality and economic instability, infested social norms of suburbia, caused rage in the American heartland, and played a part in perpetuating pesticide use worldwide. Lives of Weeds reveals how the technologies directed against weeds underlie ethical questions about agriculture and the environment, and leaves readers with a deeper understanding of how the weeds around us are entangled in our daily choices.

Beauty of Cannabis
Beauty of Cannabis

Author: Spurs Broken

Publisher: Amherst Media, Inc

Published: 2018-12-01

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1682033872

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Beauty of Cannabis is a visual journey into the spectacular marijuana strains being grown in the 21st Century. Award-winning photographer Spurs Broken takes us as deep as the lens will allow by directing light into the valleys between the leaves and through fissures full of crystal trichomes to reveal the beautiful strands, strings, and balls of earthly delight. Readers will learn to direct light inside each bud so it can reflect off the crystals to reveal beautiful colors and will discover the rewards of alternating the depth of field by a few microns to find the deep-orange pistils and the saturated brilliance that manifests from the contrast when a shot is done just right. Cannabis connoisseurs will delight in intimate views of what they’re smoking, as Spurs’ signature style of macro-photography reveals the makeup of each plant’s personality and characteristics of the individual strains in all their glory.