Jonty Skrufff's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘drugs’

Free Patrick Malluzzo (click on the picture for Facebook)

Indian authorities at the High Court of Rajasthan this week rejected the appeal of framed British traveller Patrick Maluzzo, who was locked up in 2004 and sentenced to 10 years in 2006, over spurious cannabis charges.

The former London banker was arrested at Mumbai airport after a bag he’d left with a friend was discovered on a train alongside another bag containing cannabis. He was later tortured and beaten by cops and for the last six years has been detained in horrific conditions, catching numerous diseases.

“Patrick has been through a horrendous ordeal since his arrest in 2004 and was convicted after a grossly unfair trial,” said Jago Russell, Chief Executive of Fair Trials International.

“We are hugely disappointed that, after forcing Patrick to wait years for an appeal, the Indian courts have failed to take the opportunity to right this miscarriage of justice,” he added.

A spokesman from the British High Commission said Patrick now has ‘no prospect of release’ from the rest of his ten year sentence. His parents said they were ‘devastated’.
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Click on the picture for a classic news report on Czech drug 'cake'

Click here for a classic example of drug scares in the UK.

ChakraView Festival flyer

Indian officials have cancelled this weekend’s Chakraview festival just hours before the massive three day ‘Ecological Festival’ was due to start near Agonda village in Goa (on February 5)

Local politician Deepak Desai told reporters he removed the license from the professionally organized psy-trance party after becoming concerned about potential drug use, following sudden widespread negative coverage in Indian media.

The media reports began just three days before Chakraview was due to start when the Goa Herald reporting that the festival was under the police scanner’. The India Times also weighed in, revealing that Canacona councilor Vijay Pai Khot had previously been unaware of the event though was now officially concerned.

“I do not know about it,: Councillor Khot told IANS, “ Festivals like this should not be allowed here’.

Goa police chief Yadav was similarly suddenly alarmed and vowed to investigate.

“I have asked them (subordinates) to check whether there are any illegalities,” he told the Times Of India, “If we find any illegality, we will stop the party.”

Scores of local and international DJs from Israel, Russia, Italy and beyond including Atomic Pulse, Z-Machine, Yeti and Arjuna were listed on the festival’s website and facebook page though details were removed from the main site one day before. The site otherwise made no reference to the cancellation and instead continued presenting itself as  ‘the first ecologic music festival in the most beautiful jungle of Agonda’.

Promising ‘3 days of life in the most basic form of earth . . . by the stream, with treehouses, organic farm, birds, flowers, fruits and all nature:  truely a haven!!  (sic)” the site also stressed that admission would be strictly controlled.

“The venue details will be restricted to the invitees of the festival,” the site message promised, “In order to guard the privacy and exclusivity of the festival by filtering the right people and energy.”

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Swedish flash mob performing Thriller (new clip) click on the picture)

Promoters in Australia have warned that revellers using Facebook and Twitter to co-ordinate simultaneous mass gate-crashing attempts are threatening the future of the festivals.

Future Entertainments chief Jason Ayoubi told the Herald Sun the problem is the ‘worst it’s ever been’ while Stereosonic Festival chief Richie McNeill described how hundreds of youths started ‘howling like wolves’  and throwing bottles in December when security successfully prevented them from breaking in.

“These kids are coming military style, with overalls, caps and backpacks, with bolt-cutters and tools,” Mr McNeill told the Herald Sun, “They’re going out like SAS overnight fence-cutting Green Berets. I haven’t seen this level of organisation before,” he added.
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Zammo just saying no in 1986 (classic Youtube video) click on the picture

Cameron Reagan, 31, was this week languishing in a Southern Californian jail on charges of resisting arrest after cops who responded to a panic button call at his parents house found him ‘drunk and very uncooperative’ outside the Van Nuys mansion.

The grandson of America’s notoriously fanatical anti-drug president Ronald Reagan was previously ordered into drug rehab in 2001 after being caught with marijuana and spent time living on the streets destitute, the LA Times reported.

Press reports said that Reagan’s wife Nancy refused to comment on Cameron’s latest bust, despite the former first Lady being the architect of America’s infamous Just Say No campaign of the 80s.

At the height of the campaign in 1986 when there were 12,000 ‘Just Say No’ clubs in US schools, Ronald Reagan inaugurated the first official ”Just Say No to Drugs Week”, prompting a triumphant statement from Nancy.

“Someone asked me if I wanted to make a New Year’s wish, and I said yes- and it was that I’d like to see every young person in the world join the ’Just Say No’ to drugs club,” she declared. “Well, just the fact that Congress has proclaimed “Just Say No Week’ and in light of all the activities taking place, it seems that my wish is well on its way to coming true.” (ReaganFoundation) http://tinyurl.com/ydbuovc

In the same year, child stars from British TV show Grange Hill enjoyed a top 5 hit with a track of the same name, earning themselves a trip to the White House to meet Nancy and launch their single in the States. However, the Sunday Mirror later revealed that the teenagers were ‘stoned on cannabis and cocaine when they met her, smoked spliffs at the White House ‘and ‘smuggled cannabis and cocaine into America by wearing their Just Say No T-shirts to walk through Customs.’

“The Just Say No campaign was the biggest load of bollocks ever,” actor Erkan Mustafa, aka Roland, told the tabloid (speaking in 1998), “It should have been Just Say Yes. There were loads of drugs around and some of cast, including me, took them.”
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James Palumbo (click on the picture to access the Tomas website)

“There are two sorts of men, my friend: those who seek riches and glory, and the others. The former will, no doubt, find what they seek, in varying degrees. So? They die. What imprint do they leave? Nothing. Only echoes. The others seek a higher purpose: to make a difference to those around them: to change, shape or improve things, if only to a small extent’.

Though Ministry of Sound chief James Palumbo is the first to admit his novel Tomas, like all debut novels, is partially autobiographical, it’s through side character Napoleon that the book delivers his best lines.

“The risk taker is defined by one idea only, burned into his soul: a willingness to fail,” the French Emperor tells Tomas as he outlines his roadmap to becoming a ‘great man’. “That’s why wealth and glory seekers can’t qualify,” Napoleon continues. “They may take risks but only up to a point. And they would never endanger their spoils or glory.”
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