#is pot legal in minnesota
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cannabisnewstoday · 1 year ago
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batsarebetterthanpeople · 10 months ago
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So I'm like, deeply not worried about the Minnesota elections because the local Dems continue to do based shit here. They're rolling out a program right now to make sure that communities effected by drug criminalization are the first to get licensed to sell when pot legalization happens and Fox is trying to drum up a reactionary response to that and literally nobody cares except some weed gentrifiers
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beardedmrbean · 2 years ago
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — After years of opposition to any form of marijuana legalization in Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers are now working privately to build support for a medical cannabis program that could win bipartisan backing and be enacted into law later this year, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told The Associated Press on Thursday.
For now, the group of lawmakers — whom Vos declined to name — are working only among Assembly Republicans to build enough support, and he hopes to introduce the plan this fall. Vos has long backed some form of medical marijuana program, but no bill has ever received a vote in either the GOP-controlled Assembly or Senate.
Vos said he remains steadfastly opposed to legalizing recreational marijuana and does not want to create a medical program that would be a precursor to that. Wisconsin remains an outlier nationally, with medical marijuana legal in 38 states and recreational marijuana legal in 21. The push for legalization in Wisconsin has gained momentum, as neighboring Illinois and Michigan allow recreational use while Minnesota and Iowa have legalized medical use.
“We are not Illinois. We are not California. We are not Colorado,” Vos said in an interview. “We are a state that’s at best purple. And purple is not legalization of recreational marijuana.”
Vos’s announcement that Republicans have been working on a deal he hopes can pass the Legislature comes on April 20, or “420 Day,” marijuana’s high holiday. Advocates for pot legalization planned to announce a “Grass Routes Tour” that will make four stops across the state to promote cannabis legalization.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, who is leading the fight for full legalization, cast doubt on Vos’ intentions.
“We’ve seen this story before — but actions speak louder than words,” Agard said in a statement. “Session after session, the Speaker has come forward with empty promises but no tangible steps toward any form of legal cannabis Wisconsin.”
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers proposed full legalization of marijuana in his state budget, an idea that Republicans vowed to reject. Last April 20, a Republican-authored bill creating a medical marijuana program received a public hearing, the first time any such bill made it that far in the GOP-controlled Legislature.
However, the bill died in committee.
Senate Republicans have been less open to pot legalization than those in the Assembly. But in January, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said a bill to create a medical marijuana program could pass this legislative session — as long as regulations are put forward to ensure it’s for those in serious pain.
Sixty-four percent of Wisconsinites support legalizing marijuana for any use, according to October polling by the Marquette University Law School. More than 80% of Wisconsinites supported the idea of a medical marijuana program, according to 2019 polling.
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detroitammoco · 2 years ago
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ATF: Until recreational cannabis is federally legalized, pot users cannot own guns.
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives on Tuesday released clarification for gun owners and potential gun owners with Minnesota's recreational cannabis bill officially signed into law.
According to the ATF's St. Paul Field Division, the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits anyone who is an unlawful user of any controlled substance - as defined by the later Controlled Substances Act of 1970 - from "shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition."
"Until marijuana is legalized federally, firearms owners and possessors should be mindful that it remains federally illegal to mix marijuana with firearms and ammunition," said ATF's Acting Special Agent in Charge Jeff Reed, of the St. Paul Field Division. "As regulators of the firearms industry and enforcers of firearms laws, we felt it was important to remind Minnesotans of this distinction as the marijuana laws adjust here in the State of Minnesota."
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ussjellyfish · 1 year ago
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I talk about THC under the cut.
THC drinks are legal in Minnesota and I have very limited experiences with THC. I had pot very very rarely like...15 years ago.
So now it's fun to buy things from the posh grocery store and try them.
So far I had this Paloma flavored one with 5mg THC, and that one puts me sleep. In a nice way...but sleep. Also munchies. (But that might have been me expecting munchies).
Today I have lemon lavender 2mg THC / 5 CBD and they're very tasty. Unknown what they feel like yet though.
Totally understand the fancy cocktails though. I would happily drink either of these without anything in them (THC or alcohol).
Alcohol I am very familiar with, the upside of the THC ones seem to be no hangover?
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twobigears · 1 year ago
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watching the Minnesota forums going 95% Pot Posts before & after their recent legalization is a real deja vu since we also Lived Through(tm) Colorado’s legalization
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laresearchette · 2 years ago
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Sunday, March 26, 2023 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)
WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES?: RABBIT HOLE (Paramount+) 24TH MARK TWAIN PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR (CNN) 8:00pm   RIDE (CTV Drama) 9:00pm SUCCESSION (HBO Canada) 9:00pm YELLOWJACKETS (Crave) 9:00pm SEEKING BROTHER HUSBAND (TLC Canada) 10:00pm EVA LONGORIA: SEARCHING FOR MEXICO (CNN) 10:00pm LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER (MSNBC) 10:00pm
WHAT IS NOT PREMIERING IN CANADA TONIGHT?: HOUSEBROKEN (FOX Feed) GREAT EXPECTATIONS (TBD - Disney + Star)
NEW TO AMAZON PRIME CANADA/CBC GEM/CRAVE TV/DISNEY + STAR/NETFLIX CANADA:
CRAVE TV SUCCESSION (Season 4)
LGT WORLD WOMEN’S CURLING CHAMPIONSHIP (TSN/TSN3) 4:00am: Bronze Medal Game (TSN/TSN3/TSN5) 9:00am: Final
MLB BASEBALL (SN) 1:00pm: Jays vs. Yankees
NHL HOCKEY (SN360/SNEast/SNWest) 5:00pm: Bruins vs. Hurricanes (SNOntario) 6:00pm: Leafs vs. Predators (SNPacific) 6:00pm: Canucks vs. Chicago
NBA BASKETBALL (SN1) 1:00pm: Mavericks vs. Hornets (SN1) 6:00pm: Wizards vs. Raptors (SN1/SNEast/SNWest) 8:30pm: Timberwolves vs. Warriors
NCAA WOMEN’S BASKETBALL (TSN4) 7:00pm: March Madness: Elite Eight (TSN/TSN4) 9:00pm: March Madness: Elite Eight
BEST IN MINIATURE (CBC) 7:00pm: The celebration hits an all-time high as the artists make tiny decorations and create a party atmosphere in their dining rooms.
SULLIVAN'S CROSSING (CTV) 7:00pm: Maggie sees Cal in a new light after they help an injured resident and spend time together at karaoke.
A YEAR ON PLANET EARTH (CBC) 8:00pm: The North faces the sun’s rays, the great melt begins bringing new life. For animal families in the South, conditions are worsening as days shorten.
ISOBEL CUP: MINNESOTA WHITECAPS VS. TORONTO SIX (TSN3/TSN5) 9:00pm
ESSEX COUNTY (CBC) 9:00pm: Ken doubts his ability to care for Lester, while Lester develops a new bond with Jimmy. Lou resents his loss of independence and against Anne’s wishes, ventures into town with disastrous consequences.
NITRAM (Super Channel Fuse) 9:00pm: Living a life of isolation and frustration, a young man develops an unexpected friendship with a reclusive heiress. When that relationship meets its tragic end, his loneliness and anger culminates into the most nihilistic and heinous of acts.
RENOVATION RESORT (HGTV Canada) 10:00pm: In the fourth cabin challenge, Scott and Bryan serve up a kitchen; Savannah and Kyle get things cooking while Rotem and Troy have a crisis over storage space; Jena and Sean bring the outdoors in and April and Arnold keep things dark and moody.
PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE YEAR (Makeful) 10:00pm: Bruno Tonioli, Yolanda Brown, Helen Sharman
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATES - LEGAL MARIJUANA IN AMERICA (Nat Geo Canada) 10:00pm:  The U.S. war on pot is not over, as penalties and jail time are still a threat.
THE CURSE OF OAK ISLAND: DRILLING DOWN (History Canada) 10:00pm: Matty Blake joins the Laginas and their team to get an exclusive behind the scenes look at a day of film production for "The Curse of Oak Island."
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cannabisbusinessexecutive · 6 months ago
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A year after legalization, where you can and can’t smoke pot in Minnesota is still a little hazy
Despite being legal for months, it was still kind of surreal to see people openly smoking marijuana in public recently, and smell the pungent clouds surrounding them. A small crowd of smokers at the Northern Haze Festival puffed on bongs and other glass pipes under a tent in a parking lot on a sweaty Duluth Saturday in early July. Matthew Johnson, a 26-year old retail worker from Duluth who…
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livinginhisgratefulness · 2 years ago
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Take it low and slowly: Why ER doctors are worried about the growing buzz of THC drinks
MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesotans see green. The new marijuana law has had an immediate impact on the availability and popularity of drinks containing THC. THC is the main ingredient in hemp and cannabis, which gets you high. Josh Maslowski of STIGMA Cannabis Co. in the Twin Cities told WCCO News that “we’ve seen a massive rise in popularity.” There are more THC beverages available in Minnesota than anywhere else in the country combined. And secondarily, I believe it offers a non-alcoholic option in a market which is trending in that direction. Since edibles containing hemp derived THC became legally legal on July 1, 2020, the market for THC has skyrocketed. Maslowski noted that the rules for beverages were not as clear when gummies, chocolates, and other edibles began to hit store shelves. RELATED: Minnesota hemp-derived THC business prepares for pot pivot This uncertainty was resolved this spring with the passage of the greater cannabis bill. The new law allows distributors and liquor shops to sell the product almost immediately. Dispensaries will not be introduced until the year 2025. CBS STIGMA Cannabis Co.’s latest product is a drink in the Arnold Palmer style. Maslowski also said that a Club Soda was on its way. The cans have 10mg THC in them, which is equivalent to two servings. Maslowski explained: “You can be more productive the next day, because you don’t feel hungover.” We’re focusing on beverages, while we wait for the legislation on high-dose cannabis and traditional dispensaries to be passed. The trend for drinking alcohol is one direction and the cannabis trend is the opposite. Alcohol is known for its risks both short- and long-term, as well as its impact on behavior. THC, meanwhile, is not only a newly emerging market but also a brand new experience for its users. Therein lies the danger, according to Dr. Jon Cole. He is a toxicologist, and director of Hennepin County Poison Control. Dr. Cole stated, “It’s a completely different buzz. It could be a risk for people who don’t know how cannabis works. You can’t just copy and paste what you experienced with alcohol to THC. “They are completely different drugs and medication.” Maslowski stated that STIGMA’s drinks activate the THC within 20 minutes. Dr. Cole, however, said it could take an hour or longer for the consumer to feel the full effect. Many novice users may think they can continue drinking at first. He said that they use the drug too quickly, not realizing that its effects take time to manifest. “I have seen patients stop using and then the effects increase. It’s very unpleasant. “They feel very miserable. The latest data available from Poison Control shows that between 50 and 70 patients reported overdoses every month between January and May 2023. Dr. Cole says that the most severe symptoms in adults are excessive vomiting and hallucinations. How to make hemp-derived THC edibles in Minnesota Children who have access to unsecured drinks or gummies at home are more likely to be exposed. When children consume large amounts of cannabis they can become unconscious and need ICU-level care. Dr. Cole’s message to adult THC users is: “Take it slow and low” when using THC products. This includes beverages and edibles. He said that people don’t say to a bar, “I’m going to have 2 grams alcohol.” “With cannabis it’s all about how many grams or milligrams you consume of THC. You have to start at the beginning and learn about how THC and cannabis affect you. Josh Maslowski, from STIGMA, agreed. He said, “If you are a beginner, it is important that you take some personal responsibility for your cannabis use.” Source
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cannabisnewstoday · 2 years ago
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snarltoothed · 9 months ago
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I’m looking for sources/stats on the fly here, but it’s worth noting that child marriage still has prevalence within the United States as well.
While we’re making active strides to prevent it, child marriage was legal (with parental permission) in all 50 states until 2018, and as of last month (April, 2024) only twelve states (Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Michigan, Washington, and Virginia, in chronological order) have raised the legal marriage age to 18 with no exceptions. [S1]
That leaves 38 states within the nation where child marriage is still legal with parental consent, meaning 38 states in which culturally arranged child marriages can (and do) occur. There are also undoubtedly women and girls who were married as children prior to 2018 (or 2020, or 2021, or 2022, or 2023, or 2024) in states that have now ended the practice. [S1]
While federal law prohibits adults from sex with minors aged 12-15, it has a specific exemption for adults who have first married the child. This not only endorses child rape, but incentives child marriage. The child, however, is still legally regarded as a child in many ways that prevent her from leaving an abusive or forced marriage. She cannot legally file for divorce until age 18, she also cannot seek help from domestic violence shelters until age 18, or do any of the other things children in the US cannot do without a guardian’s permission (such as obtain employment, housing, medical care, etc) without the permission of her spouse, who is considered her legal guardian until she turns 18. [S2]
Immigration law in the US also has no specified minimum age to apply for a foreign spouse/fiance to petition for and become a beneficiary of a spousal/fiance visa (colloquially known as a “green card”) which allows minor girls to be trafficked to the US for the purpose of arranged child marriage (or under the guise of marriage for even more dubious purposes). Between 2007 and 2017, the US approved roughly 9000 of these petitions involving a minor, and in 95% of those cases, the younger party was female. [S2]
Child marriage is a domestic problem for Americans as well. And, while I’m sure that (due to the melting pot nature of the country) there are child marriages that occur in line with “foreign”/“immigrant” culture and religion, those are far from the ONLY cases of child marriage within the US. This country has numberous fringe fundamentalist religious groups (also known as cults, though they’re typically offshoots of Christian religion, very often Mormonism, but not always) and they’re pretty much always into racial purity for some reason, so you can bet your ass that the people recruited and born into those cults are white as paste. And many of them practice child marriage, along with the more well-known practice of polygamy. [Source: I’ve watched a lot of documentaries about American cults and just know this]
Forced marriage, child marriage, and child sexual abuse have no color, no culture. Those things may have higher prevalence in some cultures than others, but all cultures are patriarchal and the forced marriage and sexual abuse of children (typically girls) are simply tools of oppression utilized by the patriarchy.
[will be reblogging with the sources, my ability to hyperlink and cite internally is nonexistent on mobile]
"allowing 15-17 year olds to marry is totally the same as having 7 yo girls getting raped by 40 yo moids as a cultural practice im very smart"
and no i dont think marrying 15 year olds should be allowed either but like come the fuck on those arent even remotely the same
“as a cultural practice” 😐 u know the wild thing is some of u genuinely think that children aren’t getting married off in the west and that every eastern child is getting married off. the black & white thinking just makes u look dumb. despite living in a muslim & middle eastern nation, i have not met a single person in my generation who was married off as a child to an older man. not one. bc statistically child marriage in the middle east (especially under 15 years old) does not have the rates u imagine it to have:
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but bc of where my country is geographically located, yall assume this is some common normal “cultural practice” that we are all too dumb to ever criticise ourselves. u see brown skin and assume “surely this person believes pedophilia is ok”. meanwhile statistically, while no child should go through it, it is far from being the norm and the vast majority of us are very aware it is wrong & pedophilic. statistically, most child marriages worldwide occurred when the girls were over 15 also which apparently is somehow justifiable to u, which says a lot about u here.
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but i guess it’s ok pedophilia is happening in the west bc if it’s a 12 year old being married off then it’s not as bad all of a sudden, bc u imagine child marriages everywhere else typically involve seven year olds (which even in regions where child marriage is more common like south asia, is usually not the case at all). we will have to disagree there bc i think no matter the frequency and the race and the age in which child marriage occurs, it’s not ok, but clearly ur priorities lie more with arguing white men are superior so u would rather downplay their pedophilia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/10/why-does-the-united-states-still-let-12-year-old-girls-get-married/
this is exactly what i mean when i say y’all don’t care about issues like fgm and child marriage bc u clearly don’t know shit about it, u just use it to make racist generalisations & assumptions to justify why u look down on anyone who isn’t white
so much for ur superior culture, seems ur mindset isn’t that different to other pedos.
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dertaglichedan · 2 years ago
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According to the St. Paul ATF office, because marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, people who smoke weed or take marijuana edibles are "still federally defined as an 'unlawful user' of a controlled substance," and are therefore "prohibited from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition."
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"Until marijuana is legalized federally, firearms owners and possessors should be mindful that it remains federally illegal to mix marijuana with firearms and ammunition," said ATF acting special agent in charge of the of the St. Paul field division, Jeff Reed.
That warning from the ATF is concerning for Second Amendment rights advocate Rob Doar, vice president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus. He said he's long been aware of the state-and-federal cannabis contradiction, whether it's for medical or recreational use.
Doar urges gun owners to be aware of the risks, even though under Minnesota's new law, sheriffs cannot deny someone a permit to carry solely because they are enrolled in the medical cannabis program or are an adult using marijuana. -CBS News
"I think if [the ATF agents] weren't planning on enforcing it, they may have just let it go and it would kind of be a wink-wink, nudge-nudge that yes it's illegal, but much like other federal cannabis prohibitions, we're not going to be enforcing it," said Doar, adding "The fact that they sent out the notice is cause for some raised eyebrows."
Cannabis attorney Jason Tarasek of Vincente LLP says that the federal government has typically turned a blind eye and has "left states alone" when it comes to those which have legalized marijuana, but now "It's an interesting song and dance we're going through with the federal government."
Doar and Tarasek would like clarification from the feds.
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bakeyournoodle713 · 3 years ago
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NORML ad donated by HIGH TIMES
“Don’t you think it’s time we stopped?” - Norml 
1975
#bakeyournoodle
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skaiawards · 6 months ago
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As Governor, Walz:
Codified abortion protections
Free breakfast & lunch for all students
Established a fundamental right to gender-affirming care
Expanded required background checks for gun purchases
Required paid leave & paid sick days
Increased worker protections
Advocated for funding to remove lead pipes statewide
Signed a MN Voting Rights Act
Restored voting rights to over fifty-five thousand formerly incarcerated people
Signed a clean energy bill & many green initiatives
Legalized pot — and expunged old pot convictions
Invested in affordable housing
Invested in green infrastructure
Invested in child care
Invested in public schools
(Source)
These are the priorities he lists on his own website. These are the things he's won for Minnesota and what he'll push for if we win the White House & both chambers of Congress. We are so fucking back!!
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(Source)
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gogonzojournal · 4 years ago
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Sunday Sin Day: Pot, Prop and Parlay Bets, Pooches, and Pool Cleaning
Doing #LasVegas on a budget makes you enjoy the little things like pool cleaning and watching dogs try to pry toys from under furniture. #LegalizeIt
This Sin Day, I’m in Sin City deciding whether I want to lay prop and parlay bets on the Las Vegas Aces game against the undefeated Connecticut Sun to try and cover what I’m about to pay for tickets to be there. I’ve had so little luck since getting to Sin City, I’m ready to start betting on WNBA games. I told myself I would wait until the middle of the WNBA season to start laying prop and parlay…
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theculturedmarxist · 3 years ago
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How does a 61-year-old former pot dealer named “Texas” end up filming videos in front of Z-marked tanks on the Russian side of the frontline in Donbas?
Russell “Texas” Bentley has gone viral this week with a YouTube video in which he wears a black leather jacket and a revolutionary’s army-green cap. “This is Tejas on the frontline with the De-Nazifiers and the Liberators of Ukraine,” he twangs with all the camp of a Tarantino character. “These guys are tough. These guys are ready. And there’s plenty of ‘em,” Bentley boasts of the Russian soldiers behind him, adding: “We’re gettin’ ready to bring the hammer down. These guys are going to save and liberate all the good people of Ukraine. And the bad people? BOOM! Kick their ass.”
YouTube pulled the video for violating its community guidelines but it’s still available on Twitter.
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Bentley writes that his aim — which also happens to be Vladimir Putin’s aim — is to bring “Ukraine back into the Slavic family where it belongs and has been for 1,000 years.” As for the “bad people” he hopes to see the hammer dropped on? They seem to include not only the rulers of Ukraine but the leaders of his former American homeland. On VK — the Russian alternative to Facebook — Bentley posted that he was “heading west with the Liberators of Ukraine. We may stop in Kiev, we may stop on the English Channel. We may liberate the USA.”
On Tuesday, Rolling Stone reached Bentley at a hotel in Donetsk for an hour-long phone interview. Bentley describes himself as an “information warrior” for the Russian side. He has lived in the separatist areas of Eastern Ukraine since 2014 and is now a citizen of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic as well as of Russia. “I don’t give a fuck what they think about me in the United States,” he insists. “The government — or most of the people.”
Bentley’s backstory is as wild as his present circumstance. He’s a former marijuana legalization activist who once mounted a third-party bid for the Senate in Minnesota — in the 1990 election that brought Paul Welstone to Washington — before landing in prison for felony marijuana trafficking.
He was born Russell Bonner Bentley III to a wealthy family in Texas in 1960. “I grew up in a very exclusive area of Dallas called Highland Park,” he says. “It’s basically the Beverly Hills of Dallas.” Bentley was the “black sheep” of the family as a teenager, he says, drawn to hard left causes. “I was reading Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara” he says. “I understood the Vietnamese were right to defend their land against foreign invaders, and that the United States was wrong. I understood that Fidel and Che were right to overthrow the foreign masters that had turned Cuba into a casino and bordello.” Bentley insists: “I’m anti-racist. I’m anti-imperialist. I grew up supporting people’s rights to defend themselves.” (His commitment to democracy and self-determination was less developed.)
Bentley bills himself as an “auto-didact.” He dropped out of middle school, but later got his GED and spent some time in the U.S. Army. He then waited tables and partied for years on South Padre island, on the Texas coast, playing guitar in a group called the Asbestos Band. He says his preferred genre was “cow punk” — a mix of Johnny Cash and Johnny Rotten. But when that music failed to pack in the crowds, Bentley recalls, they started covering hits from hot MTV bands like ZZ Top, the Cure, and even Bryan Adams.
Known then as “Bongo” rather than “Texas,” Bentley followed a girlfriend to Minnesota, according to profile in Texas Monthly. There, Bentley got deep into the world of marijuana legalization, running for Senate in 1990 as a member of the pro-pot Grassroots Party, whose motto was “lower taxes, higher taxpayers.” He garnered nearly two percent of the statewide vote.
In the mid-1990s, Bentley made a radicalizing trip to Cuba where his socialist leanings hardened into communism. “I went with Pastors for Peace, with Medea Benjamin from Code Pink, and a bunch of those guys,” Bentley recalls. On the island, he met a captain in the Cuban army who told him that “a communist is someone that’s willing to fight for socialism.” He vowed then: “I’m going to quit being a pussy and calling myself a socialist; I am a communist.”
In his professional life, Bentley wasn’t just promoting pot, he was dealing it — importing substantial quantities of weed from Texas to Minnesota. And by 1996, Bentley got tripped up by the DEA. He was arrested for felony trafficking and sentenced to federal prison. But only months before he was scheduled to be released in 1999, according to court documents, Bentley broke out of the minimum security facility where he was being held. “I didn’t have to dig a tunnel or take anybody hostage,” he recalls. “But I did escape from prison.”
Bentley then lived on the lam, mostly in Washington state. He took part in the anti-globalization uprising against the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle in 1999, which he says “was the last time that I was really proud to be an American.” Bentley remained a fugitive for the better part of a decade before being recaptured in 2007. “They put me in a maximum security joint till the end of my sentence.” Bentley remained under supervised release — which included a ban on intoxicants and a mandated 12-step program — until 2012.
Over the years, Bentley’s distrust of American power had been metastasizing. Today, he rattles off a list of American foreign policy sins dating from Ronald Reagan’s invasion of the island nation of Grenada and what he denounces as Bill Clinton’s “horrendous war crimes against Yugoslavia.” Growing conspiratorial, he insists that 9/11 was — at least in part — an inside job, citing his expertise in the U.S. Army as a demolition expert: “You can say what you want about building one and two, but building seven? Anyone that doesn’t understand that that was a pre-planned, pre-placed controlled demolition is either an idiot or a liar,” he claims. (Government investigators found the tower collapsed from the heat of uncontrolled fires.)
Bentley’s disgust grew through the “bogus” wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he insists the final straw was the 2011 Western military action that toppled Muammar Gadhafi in Libya. “He was one of the greatest,” Bentley says fondly of the larger-than-life dictator whom the International Criminal Court accused of war crimes. Bentley says that when “Gadhafi was brutally murdered on video, it really pissed me off.” Bentley worked out his anger by donning rock climbing gear to scale a Marines recruiting billboard in Austin, defacing it with the words “FUCK NATO” in six-foot letters.
By the time the Maidan Revolution broke out in 2014 in Ukraine — toppling the Putin-backed government in Kyiv — Bentley was primed to see the events through the looking glass. “I knew it was exactly the work of the State Department and the CIA and Soros, of course,” Bentley recalls, invoking another conspiracy theory that Hungarian billionaire George Soros pulls the strings of American foreign policy. When he saw the unrest spill over into violent clashes in Odessa, Bentley sympathized with wounded pro-Russian separatists.
Then Bentley came across video from the aftermath of an explosion in Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine, that local separatists blamed on a Ukrainian air strike. He recalls a video of a dying young woman with her legs blown off. “Her eyes looked into my soul,” he says, earnestly. “She was asking me, ‘What are you going to do about this? Are you going to go hold hands across America for peace, or sing Kumbaya?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m going to go kill some of the dudes that did this.’ And I have,” he insists.
Determined to head to the frontlines in Donbas, Bentley broke up with his yoga-instructor girlfriend, quit his job as an estimator for a tree-trimming company, and booked a flight for Rostov-on-Don, a Russian city on the Black Sea. Before he left Texas, he recorded a song about his belief that this was “armageddon” and he was choosing his side with “Novorussia.” He sang: “The U.S. is wrong, and I’ll do more to right it than just write this song.”
Bentley, then 54, was an unlikely foreign fighter. He didn’t speak Russian at the time, but made his way to the war-torn city of Donetsk where he hooked up with a fellow Russian-sympathist expat, a writer from Italy, who showed him around and helped Bentley hook up with the Vostok Battalion — a militia group linked to the Russian intelligence service.
“When I came here, I didn’t think I would live through the winter, bro,” says Bentley, who peppers his speech with surfer pronouns like dude and bro. “I didn’t hardly speak Russian. It was a major war with a full-on National Army against the people’s militia. And I was on the little guys’ side,” he says, adding he believed he was, “defending good people against abjectly evil people.”
Bentley has lived in the contested separatist regions of Donbas ever since, surrounded by a war that’s killed an estimated 14,000, with allegations of abuses and needless civilian casualties on both sides. Bentley says he’s since served as a military policeman and an “information warrior” — an English language propagandist for the Russian side, hosting a podcast called “Radio Free Donbas” and filming YouTube videos of the struggle in the region. He emphasizes he’s a volunteer for the cause: “I don’t get paid by the Donetsk People’s Republic. I don’t get paid by the Russians. I don’t get paid by anybody.”
Bentley became a citizen of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic in 2017, and became a citizen of Russia in 2020. Today, he grows belligerent when pressed on the contradictions of his decision to side with an authoritarian like Putin. ”What about Putin poisoning his political rivals?” I ask him, referring to Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader who blames the Kremlin for poisoning him with a powerful nerve agent.
Bentley shoots back: “Are you really that stupid or are you pretending to be that stupid?” He insists that it’s “a fucking question that only an idiot would fucking ask.” Bentley underscores that the alleged poisoning victims are still living. “Do you think that if Vladimir Putin, the head of the most powerful military in the world today, wanted to kill somebody that [he] would fail?” he asks. “That’s a really stupid question.”
Like Putin, Bentley decries the Ukranian military as the sum of all evil, blasting them as “genuine, mass-murdering Nazis.” Bentley embellishes that the Ukrainian ranks are also swelled by “thousands of ISIS cannibals.”
Invocations of Nazis are still politically potent in Russia, which suffered unfathomable losses at the hands of Hitler’s armies in World War II. But while Ukraine, like many nations, has extremist right-wing factions, there is no evidence its military is teeming with Nazis. To the contrary, Ukraine’s popularly elected president is Jewish, and several of his relatives were killed in the Holocaust. The United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum has denounced Putin for having “misrepresented and misappropriated Holocaust history” by “claiming falsely that democratic Ukraine needs to be ‘denazified.’” Shortly after I spoke to Bentley, news broke that Russian forces had shelled a Holocaust memorial in Kyiv.
I ask Bentley why he thinks anyone who calls themselves an “information warrior” should be trusted as an honest broker.
“In every information war, there’s two sides,” he says.
“And you see yourself as on the side of truth?” I ask.
“The evidence speaks for itself,” he insists.
In the current conflict, Bentley boasts that “Russia is liberating Ukraine from foreign occupation.” I ask why the world is not seeing Russian troops greeted as liberators, and Ukranians are instead hunkering down and with AK-47s and Molotov cocktails preparing to defend their cities. “How in the hell can you even think you’re qualified to have an opinion on that?” Bentley snaps. “I was, today, 50 kilometers inside what was, two days ago, under Ukrainian Nazi occupation and the dudes there, the women there, had tears in their eyes thanking us for coming to liberate them after eight years of terrorism and oppression. How do you dare to say that?”
With the conversation growing heated, I ask a more muted question: If Bentley knows why Russian tanks have been marked with a “Z.” He says he’s heard differing explanations, from the swashbuckling — “the mark of Zorro” — to the mundane, deriving from the Russian word for west, zapad, which indicates the direction they’re traveling. “But I have my own personal theory,” he adds, “and it is that the ‘Z’ stands for Zelensky’s zhopa. Zelensky, of course, is the puppet president of Ukraine,” he says. “And zhopa is the Russian word for ‘ass.’ So all those machines are going to Zelensky’s ass. That’s my theory.”
Carrying on a conversation with Bentley is challenging. Though we share a common language, he’s committed himself to an alternate reality. “With U.S. politicians and mainstream media, including Rolling Stone,” he tells me, “everything they say is a lie. It is 180 degrees — the opposite direction from what is true.”
What is Bentley’s version of the truth? “Believe me, bro, this is very clear cut,” he says. “This is the battle, not just of Ukraine. This is the battle between good-and-evil for the future of the world. And right now, it’s looking like the world might just have a chance because us and our friends are kicking some Nazi ass right now.”
In reality, the balky Russian blitz of Ukraine has brought terror and bloodshed to a prosperous European nation, whose only real offense has been to chart a course independent of the aims of an unstable strongman in Moscow, who yearns to recapture the glory of a Russian empire.
Before he hangs up, Bentley signs off with a chilling little prayer for the battles ahead:
“May God protect the innocent,” he says. “And may the rest of us get everything that we deserve.”
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