Jimmy Carter & The Continuing Drug War

Jimmy Carter, born October 1, 1924, served as the 39th U.S. President (1977 - 1981).

Carter has since involved himself with philanthropy, most famously the Habitat for Humanity, and as well with something called The Carter Center, a 501(c)(3) charity

A non governmental center, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in more than 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy and human rights; preventing disease; and improving mental health care.

With regard to the area of policy reform regarding Coca, The Carter Center, in conjunction with something called the "International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance" came out with a report DRUG POLICIES IN THE ANDEES: Seeking Humane & Effective Alternatives".  Its listed authors are Socorro Ramírez and Coletta Youngers.  It's opening letter is signed by Jimmy Carter and Vidar Helgesen.

According to this report:

Jimmy Carter wrote in the New York Times:

"In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of
less than an ounce of marijuana, with a full treatment program for addicts. I also cautioned
against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by
saying: “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual
than the use of the drug itself.” These ideas were widely accepted at the time. But in the 1980s
President Reagan and Congress began to shift from balanced drug policies, including the
treatment and rehabilitation of addicts, towards futile efforts to control drug imports from foreign
97 countries."

NORML - the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws - famously claimed, such as in the following 1977 advertisement in Playboy Magazine, that Carter stated  

"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself" ...

Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use.... The National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse concluded 5 years ago that marijuana should be decriminalized, and I believe it is time to implement those basic recommendations.

"Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana."

Jimmy Carter

Message to Congress, 8-2-77

 

From the actual remarks:

 https://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/digital_library/sso/148878/35/SSO_148878_035_04.pdf

 STATEMENT RE DRUG ABUSE AUGUST 2, 1977

Today I am sending Congress a message which expresses my strong criticism about crime, sickness, and death caused by the abuse of drugs -- including barbiturates and alcohol.  The estimated cost of drug abuse in America exceeds $15 billion each year.

I am ordering the attorney general to concentrate on breaking the links between organized crime and drug traffic, to enhance cooperation among all law enforcement agencies and to ensure more certain conviction and quick punishment for those who habitually traffic in drugs. 

We will not have an effective and united federal effort against drugs unless we reorganize the current federal effort, now divided among more than 20 different, often competing agencies.  Therefore, I am directing my staff to study ways to eliminate this duplication and overlap and end the long-standing fragmentation among our international drug enforcement programs.  We must also have international cooperation to control the production and transport of dangerous drugs [and block their movement].

We are making some progress in this already, in part because of cooperation from the governments of Mexico, Burma, Columbia and Thailand.

Heroin sold on our streets is now in such short supply that it is only 4.9 percent pure -- the lowest quality detected since records have taken effect.

In our own country, I am ordering a study of how we can best control the abuse of barbiturates and other prescription drugs -- which cause many deaths -- while not interfering with their legitimate medical use.

We will make further efforts to deal with the problem on the international level. By cooperating with law enforcement officials abroad, by sharing treatment knowledge, by backing United Nations Drug Programs, by helping to find alternate crops for drug producing countries, and by supporting the ratification of the convention on psychotropic substances.

 In our own country, I am ordering a study of how we can best control the abuse of barbiturates and other prescription drugs -- which can cause many deaths - while not interfering with their legitimate use.

I support a change in law to end federal criminal penalties for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, leaving the states free to adopt whatever laws they wish concerning marijuana.

Decriminalization is not legalization.  I do not condone drug abuse, and we will do everything possible to reduce this serious threat to our society.  Federal civil penalties should be exacted as a continued deterrent to possession and use of marijuana

Drug research and treatment programs will also be improved to lessen the adverse impact of drugs on the lives of our people.

It is ultimately the strength of the American people, of our values and our society, that they will determine whether we can be successful in our fight against drug abuse."

Here is another source for Carter's August 2, 1977 remarks https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/drug-abuse-message-the-congresst.

Carter would prove himself a disappointment, by surrendering to the drug war's faux morality in response to a piece by syndicated columnist Jack Anderson, tattling upon White House drug policy advisor Peter Bourne participating in a Christmas 1977 NORML party where powdered cocaine was reportedly taken up the nose.  This report had come from remarks by NORML director Keith Stroup, who tattled upon Bourne for failing to oppose the Carter administration's efforts to poison Marijuana consumers by aerial spraying of Marijuana crops in Mexico with paraquat.

So rather than call for stopping the paraquat program, Carter makes an issue out of Bourne's purported sorting of a few bumps of cocaine recreational-socially at that Christmas party.  Carter fires Bourne, replacing him with more of a drug war toady, Peter Bessinger.  And for his remaining term, Carter reverts to being more overtly deferential to the status quo, as do others as shown with the ending of the various legislative moves in the various states to decriminalize Cannabis.

Seven states had decriminalized during the mid 1970s, but that ended with the Carter-Bourne affair.  Carter was subsequently defeated in his 1980 re-election bid by former California governor (and Chesterfield tobacco cigarette spokesperson) Ronald Wilson Reagan, who served as the 40th U.S. President.  Under Reagan, deference to the drug war was heightened.  DEA budgets shot up.  And at a 1985 CPAC - Conservative Political Action Conference -  we heard DEA administrator Jack Lawn brag about expanded powers to disregard the 8th amendment by seizing people's entire houses for the "crime" of using a house phone for a phone conversation about drug "conspiracy" - e.g. two people discussing a drug deal.  So much for Reagan's lip service to reducing the size and scope of government.

Marijuana policy reform would remain stagnate, as did that with any of the other drugs.  And worse, following the highly publicized June 1986 cocaine overdose of University of Maryland Boston Celtics draft select Len Bias, both the Republican AND Democrat parties capitulated to orchestrated mass media drug war madness by dramatically escalating cocaine related penalties, with their hyperbole over "crack" cocaine- their name for cocaine in sulfate rather than hydrochloride form.

Up to then, contraband cocaine had been available mainly in hydrochloride form for sniffing.  The sulfate form would emerge with the late 1970s fad of instead smoking cocaine which was highly intensely alluric ("addictive" in the psychological sense rather than physical sense like heroin caffeine and particularly nicotine)  Smoking the hydrochloride was inefficient, so using sulfate for smoking became popularized.  But here is the catch, taking the sulfate by sniffing - yes, sniffing the sulfate instead of the hydrochloride was an immensely LESS habituating.  With sniffing the hydrochloride people would have to re-dose every 25 minutes.  But with sniffing the sulfate, ground up into a power, the absorption was significantly improved, that is, slowed down.  SO people got a considerably more useful effect.  One can sniff powdered cocaine sulfate without any need to re-dose for over one or two hours.  Works better than drinking Coffee. But smoking the sulfate gives an immense rush, too intense for work.  And the mass media of course would report endlessly about smoking the sulfate, and sniffing the hydrochloride, while saying nothing about sniffing the sulfate.  The 1989 book Intoxication by UCLA's Robert S. Seigel made a mention of sulfate sniffing for temporary relief of arthritis with successes, yet that would be suppressed by supposed medical boards.  So rather than reporting upon a safer way of taking cocaine, the media sensationalizes and popularizes a more dangerous way.  

The next U.S. President, Herbert Walker Bush further exploits drug war hyperbole with a televised address showing off a bag of cocaine sulfate reportedly purchased from a teenager at Lafayette Park across the street from the White House, touting the usual drug war garbage.  Bush succumbs to some political chicanery with the supposed "independent" candidate H.R. Perot (also a drug war minion, who drops out of the race the day of Clinton's Democrat Party convention formal nomination, only to "re-enter" the day of Bush's Republican Party likewise nomination), who siphons enough votes to elect the next U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton.  Numerous people are thrilled about Clinton's election, since he is of a younger generation far likelier to consume legalized substances, and for being seen playing a saxophone on the Arsinio late night television show (much as the Allman Brothers seduced the many endorsing Carter in 1976.)  But as typical, Clinton likewise proved to be a tremendous disappointment.

As an example, in 1993, a report, commissioned by the U.S. government commissions a report on "Coca Reduction Strategies" - by Harvard University.  And to its credit the report suggests some legalization of Coca for a variety of medical uses, and even as a mild stimulant akin to Coffee (without any mention of Tobacco).  Nonetheless, the Democrat Administration of 42nd U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton buries the report, as it did with a 1994 United Nations World Health Organization report.  So much for all the enthusiasm we saw at the 1993 inauguration with posters and flyers of Clinton and his saxophone.

So where during all this time was Jimmy Carter?

We heard about his involvement with his favored charity Habitat For Humanity.

But what about anything towards alleviating let alone ending the drug war? 

In 2009, there appeared a bit of hope, with Carter's encounter with Bolivia's Evo Morales.

However, what about the recommendations within the above referenced 2011 report?

And what did it call for?

Did it say build upon the 1993 U.S. Congress of Technology Assessment Report Coca Reductions Strategies report, which recommended legalizing Coca leaf as well as a few Coca leaf based preparations?

NO!

It simply regurgitates the typical jesuitical glacial approach, by calling for respecting the rights of some indigenous peoples for small scale Coca cultivation for personal traditional uses - as if directed by the very same people behind the George Soros backed "Drug Policy Alliance" (founded in 2000 from the wreckage of the previous "Drug Policy Foundation" - with this D.P.A. too timid to hold any conference panels addressing the Coca issue, except for two identical panels in 2015 & 2017.

See this blog's numerous articles about the Drug Policy Foundation/Drug Policy Alliance, particularly about Ira Glasser and Ethan Nadelmann.....

Theodore Roosevelt- market supression of Coca leaf to protect Tobacco leaf CONSPIRACY?!

 

Teddy Old Virginia

Tobacco Cigarettes

introduced 1914, year of the U.S. Harrison "Narcotics" Act

(year of this particular label yet disclosed)

According to wikipedia:

Teddy was a Norwegian brand of cigarettes, owned by the multinational company British American Tobacco. Cigarettes were manufactured by the Norwegian subsidiary of BAT (formerly "Dr. J. L. Tiedemanns Tobaksfabrik").^[1]

History

Around 1905, after the establishment of the British-American Tobacco Co., (Norway) Ltd. in Oslo, the was an ongoing tobacco 'war.' The conflict was between the American tobacco trust (led by American Tobacco Company's James 'Buck' Duke) and the Norwegian manufacturers. In the United States president Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt was fighting the American trust/enterprise, and he was seen as an ally by the Norwegian manufacturers. In 1914 J. L. Tiedemanns Tobaksfabrik honored Roosevelt by launching a cigarette brand named Teddy. The trust war in Norway ended in November/December 1930 when BAT (Norway) was split between BATCO (45%), Tiedemann (45%), DnC (5%) - a bank, Andresens Bank (5%) - a bank owned by the Andresen family, the real owners of J. L. Tiedemanns Tobaksfabrik, when A/S Norsk-Engelsk Tobakkfabrikk (NETO) was established. In November 1933 NETO was completely in the hands of J. L. Tiedemanns.^[4][5]

In a commercial shown on early Norwegian TV, Teddy was presented as a cigarette for sportsmen and physically active Norwegians.

The brand was introduced in 1914 and the cigarettes use a Virginia tobacco. The brand was discontinued in 2010

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_(cigarette)

 

Accordingly, these cigarettes were a reward to Teddy Roosevelt as a reward for his work in opposing the U.S.A. Tobacco trust.  

But why no further elaboration?

Where are the books, magazine articles or even scholarly thesis papers upon any of this?

And why 1914?  Which is incidentally the year of the Harrison 'Narcotics' Act banning whole Coca leaf and cocaine entirely (outside of a NON-refillable prescription), which the United States Department of Agriculture detested as an agricultural commodity market competitor to Tobacco.  See the infamous 1910 U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletin 393, issued April 29, 1910 "HABIT-FORMING AGENTS: THEIR INDISCRIMINATE SALE AND USE A MENACE TO THE PUBLIC WELFARE" by L.F. Kebler, Chief, Division of Drugs, Bureau of Chemistry, WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1910.  Condemns ALL forms of "cocaine" regardless of how low-dilute the dose and the formulation.  And mentions Tobacco ONLY in the context of TOBACCO-HABIT CURES, at page 15.

"There are quite a number of so-called tobacco-habit cures on the market.  All of them are ineffective, and some contain cocain [sic] in one form or another.  Instead of eradicating what is commonly believed to be a comparably harmless habit [!], there is a grave danger of fastening a pernicious drug habit upon the user.  Examples of preparations of this character recently examined and found to contain cocain and cocain derivatives are Coca Bola, Tobacco Bullets, and Wonder Workers.  The Coca Bola is marketed by Dr. Charles L. Mitchell, of Philadelphia, and the Tobacco Bullets by the Victor Remedy Company, now the Blackburn Remedy Company, of Daytona, Ohio, while the Wonder Workers were promoted were promoted by George S. Beck, of Springfield, Ohio."

 

Of course with the alkaloids cocaine, nicotine and caffeine ALL serving as central nervous system stimulants, each represents its own agricultural commodity - cocaine (Erythroxlyn Coca) - caffeine (Coffee and "Tea") - nicotine (Tobacco, naturally as Rustica, but as by the early 1800s crafted as Virginia "Bright Leaf" - a considerably larger leaf resulting in reduced nicotine content per area of leaf, rendering it feasible for inhalation deep into the lungs and making it far far more habituating).  By the mid 1860s Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco (crafted there and in the Carolinas), became popular. However, such was via hand rolled cigarettes.  It was the 1881 development and patenting of the Bonsack cigarette mass production machines that tremendously facilitated far far greater levels of consumption.  Such machines were industrially adopted during the early and mid 1880s.  Yet sales growth was relatively modest until the period 1906ish-1914, with the imposition of Uncle Sam's bans upon Coca (as well as smoking Opium the importation banned by the U.S. Senate and House in 1908).

The Harrison Act was signed into statute December 17, 1914 by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.

The Opium Exclusion Act (banning the importation of Opium prepared for smoking) was enacted February 9, 1909 under U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (days before being succeeded by William Howard Taft).

The Foods and Drugs Act banning the sale of "mis-branded" and "adulterated" products sold as "foods" was signed into statute June 30, 1906 by U.S. Theodore Roosevelt.  On the surface this appeared sound.  But the devil was in the details.  Firstly, it limited its labeling requirement to its list of substances, without any consistency-e.g cocaine had to be listed, but neither caffeine or nicotine.  This was even so in products clearly containing cocaine, e.g. Coca leaf products.  But not with either Coffee, Tea nor Tobacco, thereby crafting a double standard, implying cocaine/Coca disparagingly, while granting the others a free pass.  Nevertheless, such an inclusion of cocaine in the list of substances that had to be labeled should have logically indicated that cocaine was not illegal, nor any of the other such listed substances, including opium.  Yet numerous manufacturers of beverages failed to so label the cocaine content, fearing loss of sales amidst the growing propaganda campaign by such publications of Colliers Magazine (try researching that publication), with its infamous series of articles bashing the so-called "patent" medicine industry, titled "The Great American Fraud".

Indeed, such writings, published under the name of Samuel Adams Hopkins, were crafted together with the guiding hand of L.Y. Kebler as well as Harvey Washington Wiley, the latter the chief of the U.S.D.A. Division of Chemistry.  BOTH Wiley and Kebler were American Medical Association stooges.  And their official U.S.D.A. writings all bashed Coca leaf, Opium, "cocaine" and "narcotics" while saying absolutely NOTHING concerning Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco, nor cigarettes.

But would not products labeled in accordance with this 1906 Act be permitted?  For instance, the soft drinks, made with Coca leaf extract, and containing about 1 milligram of the alkaloid cocaine per fluid ounce. (The Act was silent upon limits upon allowable amounts, such as how many milligrams per fluid ounce).

Apparently so from any rational reading of the Act, but definitely not so from the position of the U.S.D.A.'s American Medical Association stooges Kebler & Wiley.  Manufacturers of such products sold as "foods" were finding themselves being charged - regardless of the matter of "mis-labling" - with supposed "adulteration".  Under what supposed "argument"?  The supposed "argument" was that the inclusion of the alkaloid cocaine in any detectable amount constituted a supposedly dangerous and deleterious ingredient.  Yet the Act did not ban cocaine.  Nor did it even grant the U.S.D.A. the power the declare cocaine or any ingredient occurring naturally within a non illegal substance (indeed the Act nowhere even mentions Coca leaf).  The Act DID grant the U.S.D.A to declare ingredients that were ADDED.  So the U.S.D.A. was being empowered to declare *added" ingredients, but not those already occurring.  (The Act was silent upon any requirement of scientific backing, credibility nor consistency).

So, how were these U.S.D.A./American Medical Association stooges Kebler and Wiley able to bring prosecutions against Coca leaf extract beverage manufactures when Coca naturally contained the alkaloid cocaine?

Their argument was based upon a false & unsubstantiated supposition upon "injurious" regular and repeated use, hence having them more or less effectively ban the cocaine alkaloid entirely from products sold as "foods".  Products sold as "drugs" would be preserved, hence the subsequent political push to "amend" the 1906 Act, (see April 1912 joint Senate-Congress deliberations, with the participation of a certain new U.S. elective official, Congressman Harry James Covington).

But with the Act not allowing such U.S.D.A. prosecutions for substances occurring naturally within a used parent substance, but only those that were ADDED, how could such prosecutions fail to be laughed out of court?  Such after all was the distinction that caused the failure of their widely publicized and groundless suit against Coca Cola in 1911.  

So why did we not continue to have bottled naturally cocainated soft drinks under federal statute until the February 1, 1915 taking of effect of the Harrison Act?

And why would Angelo Francois Mariani, who produced Vin Mariani Coca Wine - effectively surrender within the U.S. early in 1907?  

Vin Mariani, sold in 17 fluid ounce (one pint) bottles, containing the extract of 2 ounces of a blend of several varieties, yielding a natural cocaine alkaloid of 6 or 7 milligrams per fluid ounce (others had such per fluid ounce content of perhaps 9 milligrams, while unscrupulous competitors sold so-called Coca wines made with either purely isolated cocaine or some chalk like alkaloid paste, with as much as even 30 or more milligrams cocaine per fluid ounce!).  Vin Mariani was developed circa 1863 in Paris, France.  It eventually was manufactured in other locals, including in New York City, with the same ingredients.  The American Medical Association would condemn Vin Mariani during the first year of the existence of its "Council on Pharmacy" (1905).  But that report as published to the public, contained nothing substantive, only for a supposed matter of "misbranding" for marketing implying that it was "French" product (its origin of initial formulation) when it was being compounded with the same components in New York- go figure.

What was the basis for Vin Mariani's surrender, by eliminating the cocaine alkaloid from Vin Mariani produced for U.S. markets, effective May 1907?

And what was the specific reason for Mariani & Company's Jacob Jaros attempt at a meeting with Wiley sometime in late 1908, early 1909?

That Vin Mariani so surrendered indicates that Mariani saw it as a lost cause within the U.S., as the U.S. government was so obviously and blatantly bent upon protecting its cherished agricultural commodity of Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco from the market competition of Coca (which was NOT suitable as an outdoor crop within almost everywhere within the continental United States of America due to its inability to survive frost).  After all, the Panama Canal would have undeniably significantly reduced shipping distances of fresh Coca leaves from the western coast of Peru to north Atlantic markets.  The U.S. would gain control of the canal's construction project in 1903, and be completed by 1914, the year of the passage of the Harrison Act.

So are these "Teddy" cigarettes a reward simply for supposedly reining in U.S. Tobacco interests for the sake of Tobacco interests elsewhere?  Or is it also a reward for U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's overt participation for a blatant market conspiracy for banning Coca leaf (as well as smokable Opium) so as to enable the 20th century Tobacco-cigarette explosion?

Did Angelo Francois Mariani attempt a meeting with Theodore Roosevelt, perhaps somewhere around 1904-06?

See:

https://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2017/02/defeating-drug-war-requires-better.html

 

Also:

 

https://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/05/freemason-t-roosevelt-approved-wiley.html