Freedom of Medicine and Diet

Drug Policy FOUNDATION

2012-01-31T12:00:00.004-05:00

1988 & 1989 Biennial Report PREFACE

“The Drug Policy Foundation was created by people who were convinced that the excesses of the massive worldwide war on drugs were an evil that had to be openly opposed by good men and women everywhere. While the founders of the organization were Americans, they had sympathetic colleagues in many countries who urged them on and joined them in this effort. These citizens and officials constitute what may be termed the loyal opposition to the war on drugs. They support the worldwide effort to control drug-related crime and corruption, to combat predatory criminal syndicate, to ameliorate the tragedies of drug abuse, and to improve public health. But they oppose many of the extremist tactics and counterproductive strategies now used in this effort.

The Foundation believes that peaceful methods offer the best hope for curbing drug abuse while preserving the constitutional rights of all. Through research, education, legal action, and public information programs the Drug Policy Foundation hopes to delineate rational models of effective drug policy reform for the nations of the world. The first step is to convince the public and policy makers that opposition to the drug war is decent and humane….

Contrary to claims made by drug warriors, we in the reformist movement are not “pro-drug”. We are concerned about the negative health effect. We are concerned about the negative health effects of drugs, but we see the problem aggravated by a prohibitionists policy. Drug prohibition provides criminals a thriving black market that generates obscene profits. These criminals use their money to buy guns and bribe police. Overworked police fight a losing battle with the drug gangs.

We in the movement are alarmed at the harsh, mandatory penalties for drugs. In some places, a rock or two of crack will land a user in prison for at least 10 years. As a result, prison overcrowding has reached crisis proportions, and the United States has the largest prison population in the Western world.

The avid enforcement of drug laws has the perverse effect of increasing drug abuse. Not only do we see our neighborhoods getting more dangerous, but we see increasingly potent drugs and the rapid spread of AIDS.

The Foundation is an education, research and legal center. It publishes books, articles and newsletters; rewards peoples for outstanding achievement in the field off drug policy; responds to media and scholarly information requests; presents regular forums and an annual international conference; and represents in court those wronged by the drug war.

The foundation is a charitable corporation under the laws of the District of Columbia and section 501 ©(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Thus all contributions to the foundation are tax deductible. To maintain its independence, the Drug Policy Foundation neither seeks nor will it accept government funding. The Foundation is supported through the contributions of hundreds of private citizens and organizations.

The Drug Policy Foundation extends thanks to those persons and organizations who provided vital support during 1988-89. Special thanks go to our thee largest contributors: the Chicago Resource Center and its president, Richard Dennis, and executive director Mary Ann Snyder; the Linnell Foundation in Boston, Mass., and the late Robert Linnell; and Anne “Petey” Cerf of Lawrence, Kan. Their support was and continues to be invaluable to the work of the Foundation.

While the Drug Policy Foundation has outstanding counsel in Kevin Zeese, the leading Washington law firm Covington and Burling accepted the Foundation as a pro bono publico [for the public good] client in regard to corporate and tax matters in 1988. We have received valuable advice from Marialuisa Gallozzi, the Covington and Burling associate assigned to take primary responsibility for advising the Foundation. Having Covington and Burling in our corner is a source of great comfort.”

With the assistance of good people everywhere, we look forward to the challenges facing us in the 1990s. We will continue to build an enduring institution for rational drug policy reform.”

Arnold S. Trebach and Kevin B. Zeese
Washington, D.C.
March 1990

FOX Monsanto Cover Up

2012-01-26T19:39:00.001-05:00

http://wwwfreespeechbeneathushs.blogspot.com/2012/01/fox-monsanto-cover-up.html

Research Campaign Financing

2012-01-26T13:47:00.002-05:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/RENAMED_Concerned_Parent/newt-gingrich-marijuana_b_1126122_121333527.html

Google a politician's state name and the term, "campaign finance"

Then search the campaign finance site for his/her name.

Then search his/her info for the terms, beer, beverage, spirits, liquor, wine, hospitality.

Then get mad.

Then search his/her info for the term, "corrections" , just to see if they're getting paid by the private prison industry.

Then you'll know something about their position on marijuana.

Tell your friends.

Santrum's Fumbles Public Health

2012-01-26T01:37:00.002-05:00

http://youtu.be/8i2w_34qITI

Keep certain drugs unavailable (so they are available only in perverted concentrated forms such as with opiates and cocaine)

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/criminal-mercantilism-public-health.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/01/drug-statutes-infinitely-worse-than.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-war-promotes-drug-abuse-over-drug.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-pharmacokinetics.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-narcs-created-crack-richard-cowan.html

Romney- Criminal Mercantilism for Pharma

2012-01-22T23:29:00.005-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot82v5Mqguw

Is OK with "synthetic" marijuana, but not the real thing- indicating that it is not MJ's properties but rather that it was something that people could grow rather than have to pay for a doctor, prescription and extra expense of a synthetic pharmaceutical preparation.

So this is what people consider as "electable"?

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2012/01/romney-crony-capitalism-on-cannabis.html

MPP- Grading the Repubican Presidential Candidates

2012-01-09T15:44:00.002-05:00

Excellent short video from the Marijuana Policy Project.

Gingrich, Romney and Santorum all shown as the complete losers on the issue.

Still, we need to also talk about Coca and Opium.

Romney Ignoramus About Industrial Hemp

2012-01-07T22:26:00.002-05:00

Asked about 'industrialized Hemp' Romney expresses ignorance and no curiosity- NOT good!

This piece of plastic has no business running for U.S. President, yet sadly substantial number of idiots exist to support him as a 'front runner'.

Newt Gingrich LIES About Washington & Jefferson

2012-01-05T14:01:00.003-05:00

He claims:

“I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana and their techniques with dealing with it would have been rather more violent than our current government,”

Gingrich needs to read this blog thoroughly:

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html

excerpt

Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potatoe as an article of food. Government is just as infallible too when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere: the government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. This error however at length prevailed, the earth became a globe, and Descartes declared it was whirled round its axis by a vortex. The government in which he lived was wise enough to see that this was no question of civil jurisdiction, or we should all have been involved by authority in vortices. In fact, the vortices have been exploded, and the Newtonian principle of gravitation is now more firmly established, on the basis of reason, than it would be were the government to step in, and to make it an article of necessary faith. Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.- Thomas Jefferson

Marijuana Keeping Youth From Alcohol & Cigarettes

2011-12-31T18:33:00.002-05:00

Decried by Fake Christians as FOX News' Bill O'Reilly and Gretchen Carlson

Pot smoking keeps teens off more dangerous booze and cigarettes
Alternet - The National Institute of Drug Abuse released the results of its 2011 Monitoring the Future Survey of teen drug use, and guess what: Teens are using cigarettes and alcohol less, but they are smoking more marijuana. What's more, they're smoking more weed because they do not perceive it to be as harmful as did teens in the past. Teens' level of "associated risk" with marijuana use has gone done over time, and marijuana is, indeed, less harmful than alcohol and cigarettes: This could be an argument for more honest drug education in schools.

Associated risk is the danger or harm believed to be a consequence of drug use. If associated risk for a particular substance goes up, more people are reporting that they consider using that drug to be a threat. In other words, as associated risk goes down, more people are saying the drug in question is not that bad. According to the NIDA study, a decline in marijuana's associated risk contributed to teens smoking more pot, while drinking less alcohol and smoking fewer cigarrettes. Thus, many teens actually showed good judgement, by using available information to determine the danger posed by particular substances, and making smart decisions accordingly.

According to the study, about 25% of teens surveyed said they tried marijuana at least once last year, a statistically significant rise of about 4% since 2007. Additionally, 6.6% of 12th graders also admitted to smoking weed daily.

Frequent marijuana use is the highest it has been since 1981, but cigarette and alcohol use reached historic lows. 11.7 percent of U.S. teens reported having smoked a cigarette in the last 30 days, compared to 12.8 percent in 2010. According to the report, a twenty-year gradual decline in alcohol use continued into 2011, and the decrease in that year alone was also significant.:

"Over the past 20 years, from 1991 to 2011, the proportion of 8th graders reporting any use of alcohol in the prior 30 days has fallen by about half (from 25% to 13%), among 10th graders by more than one third (from 43% to 27%), and among 12th graders by about one fourth (from 54% to 40%)."

DPA Conference November 3-5, 2011 LA CA BonAdventure Hotel

2011-12-27T00:34:00.026-05:00

Douglas A. Willinger Review

It was my 16th of these international conferences on drug policy reform- having attended these since the days of the Drug Policy Foundation; the DPF was founded in 1987, holding these conferences annually through 1997 and 1999-2001, and every other year since merging with the Soros funded Lindesmith Institute (itself founded in 1993) and becoming the DPA.

The founding of the DPF by American University professor Arnold S. Trebach, with Kevin Zeese of NORML had been spurred by the 1986 media generated hysteria over illegal drugs – primarily cocaine. Hence by its very timing and naming, the DPF was to address the prohibited drugs and not merely Marijuana (which already had NORML). Zeese and Trebach respectively left in 1994 and 1997, yet the DPF-DPA has had its continuing figures since the early 1990s or late 1980s of Ira Glasser of the American Civil Liberty Union on its Board of Directors, and Ethan Nadlemann, former professor at Princeton University, as featured DPF conference speakers -- including chairing a 1992 panel Is America Exporting Its Problems which he placed me upon - who created the Lindsmith Institute with Soros. Hence these foundations, of which the Alliance is as much as the Foundation, continue along under largely the same leadership for about two decades.

The preface letter in the DPF’s Biennial Report: 1988-1989 dated March 1990 by Trebach and Zeese stated:

excerpt at page 4

“The Drug Policy Foundation was created by people who were convinced that the excesses of the massive worldwide war on drugs were an evil that had to be openly opposed by good men and women everywhere. While the founders of the organization were Americans, they had sympathetic colleagues in many countries who urged them on and joined them in this effort. These citizens and officials constitute what may be termed the loyal opposition to the war on drugs. They support the worldwide effort to control drug-related crime and corruption, to combat predatory criminal syndicate, to ameliorate the tragedies of drug abuse, and to improve public health. But they oppose many of the extremist tactics and counterproductive strategies now used in this effort.

The Foundation believes that peaceful methods offer the best hope for curbing drug abuse while preserving the constitutional rights of all. Through research, education, legal action, and public information programs the Drug Policy Foundation hopes to delineate rational models of effective drug policy reform for the nations of the world. The first step is to convince the public and policy makers that opposition to the drug war is decent and humane….

The Foundation is an education, research and legal center. It publishes books, articles and newsletters; rewards peoples for outstanding achievement in the field of drug policy; responds to media and scholarly information requests; presents regular forums and an annual international conference; and represents in court those wronged by the drug war.

The foundation is a charitable corporation under the laws of the District of Columbia and section 501 ©(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Thus all contributions to the foundation are tax deductible…”

The early DPF conferences offered such hope, offering hope for such with a broad focus. In 1989, the panels were:

The Impact of Repeal: The Overall Picture; The Politics of Repeal: Obstacles and Possibilities; New Treatment Options After Repeal; Safer Streets After Repeal; Rights and Privacy After Repeal; The Impact of Legalization Upon Producer Countries; Therapeutic Potential of Schedule 1 Drugs; Models for Regulation; Preventing AIDS in a Legalized Society; The Workplace After Prohibition; The Economic and political Impact of Legalization on Consumer Countries; The Impact of Repeal on the Use of Crack and Cocaine; What are the real lessons of alcohol prohibition? Ending Marijuana Prohibition : A Place to Start; Repeal No, the British System Yes; Enforcing Regulation After Repeal; Treatment of Organic Diseases and Pain in a Post Repeal Society; Effective Taxation in a Legalized World Prohibitions Secret: Controlled Drug Use; Lessons from Today’s Legal Drugs; The Effect of Repeal on the Administration of Criminal Justice Education After Repeal; Overcoming International Obstacles to Repeal; Harm Reduction After Repeal

In 1992:

International Currents: Is the Tide Changing?; Drug Users Promoting Risk-Reduction Among Their Own; How to Build a Community Based Drug Policy Action Group; Implications of the Drug War for Legal Principles; The Marijuana User and Grower in Perspective; Cocaine: Trade and Policy; Medicalization: Is it Really Preferable to Criminalization? Attacks on Criminal Defense Lawyers; Drug Education and Youth; Politics of the Disease Concept; Effective Media Strategies and Tactics; The Methadone Option; Alcohol a& Alcoholism: Characteristics of Treatment; Marijuana & Toxicity; Sentencing Consideration; Harm Reduction and Public Health; Victims, Scapegoats and Heroes: The Drug War and the Media; Public Perceptions of the Disease Model; Pharmacology Frontiers; Is the Drug War Aborting Women’s Rights; Ethical Issues in Defense; Protecting Your Clients from the Results of Unreasonable searches; Drug Testing; Meet and Critique the Authors; Needle Exchange: Programs and Politics; Influence State and Local Governments; The Americas: Is the U.S. Exporting Its Problems?; The Topology of a Battle Site: The Emergency Room; Methadone, Heroin and the Community; Revolution on the Bench; Prosecutions of Doctors for Their Presenting Practices; American Cities at War; Addicts Past and Present: How do Current Laws Impact Their Lives?; Drug Prohibition and Legalization: The Economic Perspective; Medical Marijuana: The 20 Years War; assessing Treatment Effectiveness; Therapeutic Potentials for Psychoactive Drugs; Handling Complex Cases; The Thought Police; The Rhetoric of the Drug War; Crisis at Home: The Victimization of Users, Addicts and Their Families; Drug War Profiteering; Doctoring in the Drug War; Legal Seminar Keynote Speeches;

The early DPF conferences were excellent opportunities for introducing new realizations of the broader insanity of the drug war, potentially invaluable for epiphanies of its underappreciated costs, as well as meeting other scholars. I met the author of the book Mamacoca, Anthony Richard Henman at the 1989 conference, with the inclusion of his paper Coca: an Alternative to Cocaine? in the conference paper compendium Drug Policy 1989-90 A Reformer's Catalog. That would help inspire me to make my submissions which the DPF subsequently published in 1990, 1991, and 1992, respectively The Ever Changing Ever Confused Popular Conception of Cocaine; Cocaine Prohibition Water or Gasoline ..., and Cocaine Conversion Onwards To Coca, placing me upon their cocaine panels in 1991 and 1992, and also in 1992, upon Ethan Nadelman’s panel “Is America Exporting Its Problems?”

The papers respectively addressed the confusion about cocaine’s reputation related to its various modes of use/abuse; the effects of prohibition in shifting markets in worse directions; the economic backdrop and its consequences; and of course how to straighten things out. Via these venue I got out my idea of the drug war, based upon sensationalistic hysteria – was done so for economic (mercantilist) reasons rather than that of racism, creating its problems. With cocaine, the “drug war” insanely perverts Coca into problematic concentrated forms of cocaine, while denying the benefits of Coca, for the sake of protecting its competitor plant stimulant of Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco, as belied by the USDA-AMA published “concerns” and the sales graph of such Tobacco cigarettes. With Coca we have the safest of natural stimulants known to kill no one – being suppressed and perverted for the sake of protecting the most dangerous – Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco that the U.N. WHO estimates shortened some 100 million lives during the last century. With the whole 1906 US Food and Drugs Act to Harrison Narcotics Tax Act legislative evolutionary process we have the cigarette-pharma racketeering agricultural mercantilism policies set into place during the time the U.S. was constructing the Panama Canal that would have facilitated Coca leaf’s trade to North Atlantic markets. This would be a far cry from Dr. Arnold Trebach’s Heroin Solution favorable look at the Harrison Narcotics Act, which somehow never address the entire USDA-AMA-APhA conspiracy to lock down drug markets. These early DPF conferences, paper compendiums and panels – with a cocaine panel an integral component, were great opportunities to spotlight this agricultural-pharma mercantilism.

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/11/17-years-ago-just-say-whoa.html
Illustration: Me with Ethan Nadlemann at the 1992 DPF conference in photo published in an article Just Say Whoa in the December 18, 1996 Washington, D.C. City Paper.

“Okay Ethan when are the two of us going to the White House to brief the President on the hidden cost savings of legalizing Coca leaf.”

1993 started with tremendous drug policy reformist optimism, under the conception that the incoming U.S. President Bill Clinton would somehow be better than his Republican predecessor because Clinton was of a younger generation way more familiar with Marijuana (flawed for assuming that knowledge ruled rather than the good old boys’ clubs of an ancient regime); the DPF’s Trebach would write a letter stating that the DPF was going to expand its efforts. Yet despite being a “Drug” rather than a “Marijuana & Concentrated Drugs” Policy Foundation, the DPF would narrow the window of its mission of public education subsequently- essentially narrowing its focus mainly to the available contraband substances. Hence this would include coverage of Marijuana and of the various concentrated drugs taken in concentrated doses, framed within some concept other than the basic drug, aka a mode of administration or geographic region. But this meant ignoring the basic drug (and drug taking- modes of administration, forms etc- all really crucial to any legitimate discussion about drug use and abuse), along with the broader contexts- e.g. comparative policies. (e.g imagine applying a methadone model to nicotine maintenance- as a medical job creation program). Hence, despite the increasing amount of lip service to the idea of “harm reduction” – of which a switch from concentrated modes of cocaine to coca products would definitely include – and even despite the fact that hysteria regarding cocaine spurred its creation, the DPF began turning away from discussing cocaine directly, including by deleting the regularly held cocaine panel.

1993:

Smart Drugs: Fact or Fiction?; Free Market vs. The Public Health Model; Strategies for Drug Harm Reduction; Disease in the Addict Community; Practicalities of Pre-trial Release; How Should Marijuana Be Made Available as Medicine?; Community Policing: Tool of the War on Drugs?; Substance Abusing Women: An International Perspective; Methadone Maintenance in an Age of HIV and Tuberculosis; Ethical Issues in Drug Cases; Rhetoric of the Drug War; Addictophobia: Impediment to Drug Policy Reform; Latin American Perspective; AIDS and Needle Exchange; Federal Sentencing; Drug Policy, Human Rights and Democracy; Syringe Exchange: What Does Power Have to DO With It?; Meet the Author: A Discussion With Lester Grinspoon, M.D.; Matching in Psychotherapy: Optimizing Treatment Approach and Therapist Mix; Forfeiture; Plenary Can Clinton Make A Difference?; Plenary Women Caught in the Crossfire; Taking A Measure of Drug Policy Reform; Conflicting Visions of Drug Policy Reform; Positive Perspectives on Marijuana; Perinatal Addiction: Not an Issue for Virgins; Investing in Children and Youth: Reconstructing our Inner Cities; Dutch Drug Policy: Past, Present, and Future; From Drug Policy to Pharmaceutical Development: Schedule I Controlled Substances for Therapeutic Application; Adolescent Treatment; Perinatal Addiction: Not an Issue for Virgins;

The DPF held a cocaine panel in 1994 – WHO report --- and held my COCA 95- A Necessary Drug Policy Alternative From Abroad. And it has occasionally infrequently spotlighted other highly useful plant commodities long ago steamrolled over into ‘schedule 1 controlled substances with no accepted safety nor efficacy’- sanitizing bullshit as “law”- namely Ibogaine.

Yet it has since declined holding any more coca panels*. (*a sole exception was the year 2000 of what would be the final student paper presentation- handwritten at last moment into the conference schedule), nor any cocaine panels. It would likewise decline holding such proposed panels as (1994) Coca Turning Over A New Leaf For Reducing Health Care Costs (that had the support of its moderator Dr. Lester Grinspoon) and (1997) Tinctures of Opium, Wines of Coca, etc: Popular, Pre-prohibition Uses of Natural Plants Perverted by Drug Prohibition into today's "Hard" Drug Plague.

Alas, someone somewhere within the DFP-DPA has made a decision to ignore the idea of harm reduction to shifting markets from concentrated drugs back to the parent plants, reserving that term far more narrowly upon the substances as now know. So we get stuff as clean needles, safer crack pipes. The stuff now at the margins of society. But nothing about Opium or Coca products, regardless of their safety and efficacy, for we cannot hear about these side by side with ‘licit’ pharmaceuticals and agricultural. Topics as these, along with that of Mercantilism (Market Protectionism) is banned, hidden behind platitudes about racism sexism, and sugarcoated with such regarding human rights and democracy, along with Arnold Trebach’s intellectual sophistry of the 1914 HNC as “progressive”. Though we are discussing basically agricultural commodities – aka Cannabis, Coca, Opium, Coffee, tea and Tobacco, we must continue to speak of these in their respective existing categories – aka Coca is the source of illicit cocaine, while Coffee tea and tobacco are supermarket products containing minute amounts of caffeine or nicotine.

Likewise , we must thus ignore Opium and Coca, as well as ignore Ibogaine as much as we can get away with while maintaining the semblance of credibility of drug policy reform at the cutting edge rather than as a seriously paced agenda.

Indeed, for we are talking about multi trillion $ agricultural and pharmaceutical markets.

Numerous changes in the DPF conference focus since 1993, such as eliminating the regularly held cocaine panel and folding it as a sub topic within a ‘Latin America’ or ‘stimulants’ or ‘hard drugs taking’ panel, suggest this reinforce the idea of these drugs being so dangerous with proclamations of ‘safe injection rooms’ for the sake of something with a definite fear of educating people about the generally forgotten and infinitely safer parent plant substances, as such would threaten significant portions of existing markets in agriculture and pharma, with a hand upon the throttle of DPF-DPA policies. So, regardless of the political crackpot sloganeering of “change”, such is meant to be as incremental and limited as possible, including with drug policy reform organizations- particularly within the Beltway.

This year’s conference followed this overly restrictive approach – one effectively extending the battle against the drug war from something of a few years to a few decades or centuries, even as events overseas ran ahead- particularly this very year’s historic denunciation of the UN Single Narcotic control convention of 1961 by Bolivia under Evo Morales- with not even a single workshop on Coca?

I arrived at the conference on its opening night, during the Wednesday evening reception being held on the 2nd floor of the Bonaventure- a futuristic set of cylindrical glass towers joined together that opened in 1976 with sets of glass elevators akin to those seen in the movie the Towering Inferno that ascend-descend on the outside; indeed a horse was driven into one of these in a scene in the 1996 movie True Lies and is so noted by a plaque. …

The reception, held in the California Room, was packed with people, and lined along its edges with various exhibits by organizations routinely seen at these conference notably Students for sensible drug policy and Law enforcement against prohibition, plus others. Two booths that sick out in my memory are one featuring numerous posters with interesting quotes; the other the presentation of a book – title -- where I met its author who signed me a copy which he there sold me- “World War D”- The Case Against Prohibition; A roadmap to legalization by Jeffrey Dhywood”.

The Thursday morning plenary featured a speech by Ethan Nadelmann.

That was followed by several sets of smaller breakout panels, about 5 or 6 held simultaneously- and hence impossible to all attend. My initial comfort at the idea of simply viewing perhaps purchasing audio or video tapes of the breakout panels, was quickly dispelled by the lack of any visible videoing of these panels (and presumably no audio equipment) , to record these, beyond any that may have occurred amongst the audiences. This was a disturbing trend at these conferences which in years past had been audiotaped if not videotaped either by the DPF-DPA or an independent service such as Jim Turney’s Liberty Audio that did these during the 1990s and earlier, for both the plenaries and the breakouts (only the plenaries were videotaped for 2011). If it had been a budgetary issue, why was their no private service or at least a call by the DPA requesting volunteers amongst the conference goers- a number I spoke with would have been more than happy to have done so? Sad, considering the public education mission that so much would go unrecorded- as if that only the few hundred conference attendees should be able to see/hear these numerous workshops.

LINK- 2011 Conference Panels

The various presentations that I attended left me with these highlights:

… profits were bad … hmm what about coffee tobacco …
… calling them out that will piss them off to delay things another 5 years out of spite….

At a plenary we saw girl translator with a male speaker, telling us:

- get rid of the guns, as if operation fast and furious meant we should get rid of the 2nd amendment.

Perhaps the most useful panel was that on Psychedelics.

Colletta Youngers was there for her generally regularly held ‘Latin America’ related panel, and asked a few questions concerning Coca toward the end. Stuff as ‘Pushing the Envelope: Supervised Injection Facilities and Other Good Ideas’ simply reinforce the popular conception of cocaine as something to suppress (and ensure as a concentrated drug only) rather than a successful alternative to caffeine and nicotine- hence slowing AND limiting drug policy reform by preserving fear of such drugs all to the benefit of the status quo. The mass media has done that for decades for the general public- in the tradition of William Randolph Hearst. But how best to present such an idea not to the general public, but to drug policy reformists?

Showcasing such, came via the plenary speech by Ira Glasser.

.. liken our battle as one taking perhaps 300 years...

And the audience gave him a standing ovation!

Sigh!

---

LINKS:
DPF Conferences
DPF Biennial Report 1988-89
Underselling "Harm Reduction"
Ignoring Agricultural Mercantilism

Siobhon Reynolds RIP

2011-12-26T20:49:00.003-05:00

Killed in plane crash

excerpt-

She was tireless. I often thought she was a bit too idealistic, or at least that she set her goals to high. She told me once that she wouldn’t consider her work done until the Supreme Court declared the Controlled Substances Act unconstitutional. She often frustrated efforts to build a coalition on the issue because she’d grown weary of medical organizations and academics who, while concerned about the issue, she thought were too cowardly to take a more aggressive stand.

http://www.theagitator.com/2011/12/26/siobhan-reynolds-rip/

Founded the Pain Relief Network.

By spotlighting the criminal prosecution of pain management physicians, she incurred the wrath of a criminal government.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2010/12/the_worst_kind_of_ham_sandwich.single.html

Evil 'Christian Scientist' Monitor and Papist FOX UpSet at Shift Towards Safer Substance

2011-12-18T00:04:00.003-05:00

belying the evil nature of organized religions

The use of alcohol and other potentially fatally toxic substances amongst high schol students and their increasing preference for Cannabis is being decried by such questionable entities as the 'Christian Scientist' Monitor and the notoriously pro Vatican FOX news network.

Born 173 Years Ago- Angelo Francois Mariani- Creator of Vin Mariani

2011-12-17T18:33:00.002-05:00

Born December 17, 1838; Died April 1, 1914

Coca Come Back
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/09/washington-dcs-supreme-bridge-builder.html

FMD- Vin Mariani
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/09/washington-dcs-supreme-bridge-builder.html

5 Drugs Protected By MJ Prohibition

2011-12-04T23:46:00.005-05:00

Reminders that the drug war is all about Criminal Mercantilism

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/5-popular-but-harmful-drugs-that-can-be.html?mid=54631

Activist Post

5 popular but harmful drugs that can be replaced with marijuana

This article is dedicated to anyone that struggles with prescription drugs on this list because they are afraid of consuming a plant deemed illegal by the State.

Cannabis is simply the best natural remedy
to safely treat many ailments
The notion that any authority can determine what a sovereign human being can and cannot ingest into their own body is the very essence of control. Banning any substance from responsible adult consumption no matter how harmful should simply not be permitted in a free society.

However, certain substances are deemed so harmful by "experts" that they claim to adversely affect society as a whole and thus they're banned from the population. Of course, force of laws with guns and jails have never been able to eliminate their use throughout history. So, as a practical matter, banning any substance from society always tends to do more harm than good.

The utter failure that is the war on drugs seems to have ulterior motives besides protecting society, as evidenced by the countless harmful chemicals that are legal to consume. Marijuana is the most obvious example of a substance that remains illegal not because of health threats, or because it's a danger to society, but rather because its benefits threaten entire industries, especially Big Pharma.

If you need a fix to ease pain, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and a host of other ailments, then a legal drug dealer is happy to sell you a chemical concoction with endless side effects. Recent studies show huge spikes in psychiatric drug use, as well as addiction to prescription pain pills, yet they remain legal and doctors get incentives to push them.

In nearly every case, marijuana is a safer alternative and just as effective. When eaten or vaporized, cannabis has proven entirely beneficial as a natural alternative. Here are 5 popular but dangerous drugs that could, in most cases, be replaced by cannabis.

1. Painkillers: Vicodin, Demerol, Oxycontin, or Percodan are used to treat moderate or severe pain. They're all highly addictive and come with side effects that vary widely from stomach problems, dizziness, depression, pain and spasms, to even death. Marijuana is a proven pain reliever that takes the edge off even the most severe pain. It is not physically addictive, has very few side effects by comparison, and has never caused a single death in 5000 years of recorded use.

2. Tranquilizers: Valium, Xanax, and Ambien are examples of popular anti-anxiety drugs. All Americans will likely know someone close to them who are dependent on these drugs to cope with daily life. The side effects are similar to anti-depressants and painkillers; stomach and liver problems, depression or suicidal thoughts, dizziness and confusion, etc. Marijuana is an excellent substitute for these temporary anxiety relievers, again with far fewer negative effects.

3. Alcohol: Alcohol is the most commonly used and accepted substance for self-regulated stress relief. It's used by countless Americans to take the edge off a long work day, and also by many soldiers seeking to relieve Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Alcohol is highly addictive and causes many long-term problems like high blood pressure and liver failure. Marijuana has proven to be far safer and more effective in reducing stress, especially among PTSD sufferers.

4. Anti-depressants: Prozac, Zoloft, Elavil, or Paxil are popular anti-depressants that a huge portion of the population are now dependent on. Side effects like nausea and sexual dysfunction are common, while suicidal tendencies are also increased tremendously, which seems to negate their very purpose. These selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) reduce the body's ability to produce natural serotonin and can be difficult for people to find a healthy balance once they rid the drug from their system. Marijuana, although a temporary anti-depressant, is far less dangerous and may result in instant happiness bordering on silliness.

5. Aspirin and Tylenol: These commonly-used over-the-counter drugs for minor aches and pains cause stomach problems like ulcers, liver damage, and even death. That's right, Tylenol causes about 450 deaths a year and Aspirin causes a whopping 13,000 deaths per year from sudden bleeding. Many natural alternatives can be used for the symptoms that these drugs ease, and marijuana is just one of the safer options -- with none of the damaging side effects.

As you can see, marijuana, which can be easily grown in nearly every climate, is a huge threat to these billion-dollar-a-year drugs. And this list represents a tiny fraction of the harmful pharmaceuticals that can be replaced by cannabis. To claim that cannabis is more dangerous than any of these popular legal substances is blatantly false, thus there's no reason for its prohibition other than the threat of competition to Big Pharma.

Thankfully, you're not a criminal in over a dozen states if you use marijuana in place of them. And surely, it's only a matter of time before it's obvious to everyone that marijuana users should not be labeled criminals no matter what they use it for.

Ira Glasser Sells 300 Year Agenda

2011-11-05T17:05:00.002-04:00

At the DPA conference in LA, CA, in a speech given yesterday.

Got the audience to give him a standing ovation to his speech telling us that the task will take perhaps 300 years as did the campaign to end slavery- successfully conning audience from the fact that alcohol prohibition took only 13 or so years.

Such can be expected from a man taking Tobacco industry funds and slowing the pace of drug policy- particularly by neglecting the Coca issue ...

2011-11-03T12:00:00.002-04:00

END THE DRUG WAR!!!

Do we want to end the drug war? Gather the best resources...

Advise to ...

- DENOUNCE the 1961 U.N. 'narcotics' treaty for banning Coca internationally.
- REPEAL the Controlled Substances Act
- AUDIT comprehensive analysis of costs of last century of pro-Tobacco anti Coca Mercantilism

- Have the Drug Policy Alliance substantially increase effort towards ending the criminal prohibition and suppression of NATURAL PLANT DRUGS, NOT JUST CANNABIS. BUT ALSO OPIUM, COCA, IBOGA....

A "Drug Policy" entity should not be wastefully redundant to the efforts of the 'MARIJUANA' specific organizations as NORML and MPP, and particularly neglectful to the very issue that spurred the predecessor Drug Policy Foundation in 1987- the hysteria regarding "cocaine" ( following the June 1986 fatal overdose of U of Maryland Boston Celtic's pick Len Bias, and the 'laws' prompted by the subsequent media hysteria).

A Better Way- My Suggestion For Covington & Burling
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/10/better-way-my-suggestion-for-c.html

DPA Conference Starts Tonight

2011-11-02T12:10:00.000-04:00

The Drug Policy Alliance Conference starts tonight with its opening reception today, Wednesday, November 2, 2011.

This is the second such DPA conference located in California- that in 2005, following that held by the DPA's previous incarnation, the Drug Policy Foundation, held in 1995*.

(* which included their last Coca specific panel "COCA 95- A Necessary Drug Policy Alternative From Abroad"- which they have since declined holding.)

Wiley Helped Exclude Whisky & Brandy from Pharmacopeia

2011-10-30T12:00:00.004-04:00

WHISKY AND BRANDY EXCLUDED FROM THE PHARMACOPEIA

Too late for editorial comment in this number of Clinical Medicine comes the news that the Committee of Revision of the United States Pharmacopeia has decided, by a vote of 26 to 24, to exclude whisky and brandy from the new edition of the Pharmacopeia, now nearly complete. It is said that this action is due largely to the work of Dr. Harvey W. Wiley.

We have very little respect for alcohol as a medicine, used in any form; we know there are better stimulants, and better sedatives. But—isn't it a "drug," after all? Isn't it used habitually as a "medicine" by thousands of clean, skilful, able physicians? If so, should it not be recognized as a drug, and proper standards of strength and purity, and suitable directions regarding adulterants be provided for the protection of the physician, the guidance of the pharmacist, and the welfare of the patient?

Just what the status of whisky and brandy will be, legally, especially as regards sales by the pharmacist, we are not yet prepared to say. There will be many expressions of opinion on this subject during the next few months, and they will be given a hearing later, in these pages. Perhaps this decision on the part of the Committee of Revision may help to drive home another nail in the coffin of old Ring Alcohol. Let us hope so.

http://books.google.com/books?id=4qFEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA782&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2MP8qhR6S_CzQo6JBf-lZtqfiHyw&ci=118%2C610%2C421%2C748&edge=0

Alcohol Killed Winehouse

2011-10-30T11:00:00.001-04:00

So where's the great media outcry that happened after Len Bias' fatal cocaine overdose?

HEALTH BENEFITS FOUND IN COCA

2011-10-29T12:00:00.002-04:00

25+ years ago

to suppress Diabetes

By Charles Burrows San Francisco Chronicle October 19, 1983

One of the world’s foremost authorities on the coca plant, the source of cocaine, unveiled findings yesterday that chewing the leaves may not damage health after all, and in fact probably helps prevent crippling diseases like diabetes.

The findings, made public during a lecture at the University of California at Berkeley, grew out of more than 14 years of research among Indians of the Andes in Peru, Bolivia and other South American nations.

The researcher, Canadian anthropologist Roderick Burchard, said Coca may be the key ingredient that protects many Andean Indians from bad health associated with their heavy diet of potatoes and other carbohydrates.

He said the findings raise the possibility that cocaine could sometimes be good for health but that his study wasn’t designed to examine abuse of this plant in its various forms. Cocaine is one of the most potent of 14 alkaloids in the Coca plant.

In his continuing studies with rats, he noted, those on a high-carbohydrate diet that did receive the drug cocaine experienced a metabolism shift that left them leaner and healthier.

He warned that current efforts to eradicate coca growing could “bring on one of the major health crisis in the entire world.”

Burchard, a University of Manitoba professor on sabbatical at UC, said extensive medical tests on the Andean natives – the first such exams – showed that Coca slowed the transfer of carbohydrates into blood sugar and helped stabilize insulin flow.

Many Andean natives he said showed initial insulin responses that would indicate the presence of diabetes but were free of the disease because of the “buffering effect” of Coca.

“There’s no question that Coca regulates energy metabolism and glucose response and insulin response,” he said.

The research refutes assumptions cited as early as Sigmund Freud’s time that Coca chewers are malnourished mountain dwellers who use the plant as energy to compensate for lack of food, Burchard said.

“It’s commonly thought that Coca is only used at the high altitudes of he Andes, but that is not true. It’s used at all altitudes.”

Moreover, he said, Coca chewers, on the average, eat at least as well, if not better than non-chewers. He showed a photo of one 80 year old male Coca chewer who had a full head of black hair and skin and muscle tone akin to a 30 year old.

Men chewers also showed slightly less body fat and lipida, but women chewers showed more fat, he said.

Nearly 90 percent of Indians in Peru and Bolivia depend upon Coca as part of their diet, chewing an average of 35 to 40 grams a day. He said that amount would contain about a fifth to two fifths of a gram of cocaine, which is a considered a high dose for cocaine abusers by drug officials.

But a wad of Coca leaves in the mouth – called a Coca quid” is the prototype of an implanted time-release device,” Burchard said. He likened it to experimental drug implants designed to release small amounts over a long period.

Burchard said he completed his field tests in 1979 but was delayed in reaching his findings, partially because it took two years to get permission to import Coca leaves to Canada.

He’s now finishing a book tentatively titled “Coca As a Gift From God. It’s Our Medicine.” Burchard said the title came from the answer one Indian gave him when asked why he used Coca.”

Burchard said his field studies included the only comprehensive medical examinations and diet histories of Indian Coca chewers but were not received without risk.

Taking blood samples, for example, “almost got him and his colleagues all killed,” he said. “Our lives were within five minutes of being taken” by the Indians, who did not understand what was happening.

Obama Hinted At Treating MJ Like Heroin

2011-10-28T16:20:00.005-04:00

and that he "learned not to care"...

In the book bearing his name "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," by mentioning the terms "junkie" and "pothead" in the same breath- Obama hints that he views them as the same or similarly.

http://www.mapinc.org/newsnorml/v03/n1786/a06.html

"I had learned not to care," he wrote. "I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. ..."

"Blow" is a street name for cocaine. "Smack" is slang for heroin.

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," Obama wrote. "Except the highs hadn't been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. ... You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection."

No shit that he "learned not to care". He not only speaks about heroin and Cannabis as if they were the same, he does so when stating that he did not use heroin, only cocaine on occasion, and Cannabis more frequently. How is using MJ and occasionally cocaine mean that one is destined to become a "junkie" - a term referring to heroin - unless one has "learned not to care" about truth?!

By so conflating and confusing the different drugs, "Obama" demonstrates what he here admits, that he learned "not to care".

It should be a textbook example of carefully chosen words- to suggest one thing, while really meaning something else - such as "change", suggesting that for something better, but in reality making no promise of something necessarily better.

Dana Beal Protests Covington & Burling

2011-10-28T16:10:00.003-04:00

The law firm where Eric Holder worked just prior to becoming Obama Administration U.S. Attorney General

This protest was held in early 2009 . One can see the protesters marching to the Covington & Burling building at 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, from Freedom Plaza (now the site of Occupy D.C.).

A Better Way- My Suggestion for C&B

2011-10-28T11:00:00.002-04:00

Covington and Burling was founded in 1919, just a scant half decade after the enactment of the U.S. Harrison Narcotics Act effectively banning Opium and Coca.

I say let’s have a Covington and Burling do something here truly beneficial, starting with a suit to repeal the 1961-1988 United Nations international ‘Narcotics’ Control conventions.

Do it as - ahem - repentance for your decades of shielding the cigarette industry with its sweetheart exemption of labeling requirements.

Do its as excellent public policy, and for people’s health, ridding the ‘legal’ prosecutorial mafia cigarette protectionist scheme, given Virginia Bright Leaf’s deleterious effects versus the safest being Coca leaf, getting rid of this market protection for the substance that killed 100 million in the 1900s and 1 billion in the 2000s, against the safer substances. Insurance companies should logically see their self interest here for their benefit and everyone else- but those insisting upon this continuing drug protectionism.

Do it pro bono, advising the governments of Bolivia and Peru, and/or various unions of Coca growers plus any public health related organizations, for public relations to counter their longstanding involvement with the cigarette industry with its reckless misuse of Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco laced with numerous additives to promote consumption, which cause their own health problems, yet go unlabeled as part of the sweetheart deal exempting only cigarettes, alcoholic beverages and cosmetics from otherwise routine retail ingredient labeling. Remember that Coca was targeted by the USDA dedicated to protecting domestic agriculture.

Have Covington and Burling, initiate a suit against the United Nations International ‘Narcotics Control Board.

This requires an attorney with polished speaking skills. As apparent from the numerous legal events featuring her as a speaker, Covington and Burling has this with its insurance-food-pharmaceutical industry specialist attorney "assigned primary responsibility for advising the [drug policy] foundation".

I say send her before the U.N. INCB to speak eloquently against the current prohibitive status of Marijuana, Coca, Opium, Ibogaine and other substances, as a basic denial of human rights and public health as a perverse market protection benefiting the intrinsically most dangerous substance – Virginia Bright Leaf cigarettes, particularly those with the unlabeled burn accelerant additives – while perverting the infinitely safer Coca into the infinitely more dangerous concentrated forms of cocaine.

A Suggested Better Use for Our Covington and Burling Connection:

DPF Covington & Burling Legal Connection
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-policy-foundation-legal-connection.html

DPF Advised by C&B Food & Drug & Insurance Attorney
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-policy-foundation-advised-by-c.html

Covington & Burling Food & Drug Practices
http://www.cov.com/practice/food_and_drug/

Coca Come Back
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/02/coca-come-back.html

USAG Holder’s Criminal Mercantilism Against MJ as an ex partner at C&B?

2011-10-27T12:00:00.009-04:00

USAG Holder presides over a continuing and renewed inquisition against MJ, particularly within the State of California.

This serves not only entities as prison guard unions seeking even more overtime, but Big Pharm with its investments in such including pharmaceutical MJ derived products, such as GW Searle Pharmaceuticals, which has had legal representation with Washington D.C.’s best established corporate law firm- Covington & Burling, which is where Holder represented pharmaceutical interests as a partner just before his appointment as US AG by President Obama in 2009.

What inquiry has been done?

Could Holder be continually pushing the anti MJ inquisition due to a tendency of persons of his class to protect the interests of their clients?

Could he? We’ll accordingly to the book“The Super-Lawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firm” by Joseph C. Goulden Prologue; pp 13-14

“America’s governmental system is so constituted that some Washington Lawyers constantly violate the public interest, without violating public statutes. These lawyers pervert the Federal government for the financial benefit of private corporate clients. Through legalistic maneuvering, they helped their clients keep on the marketplace a host of consumer products- ranging from pharmaceuticals to pesticides and automobiles- which are gravely dangerous to the American citizen. Through what is euphemistically called “effective representation,” some of them wheedle billions of dollars of tax breaks and public subsidies from a pliant Congress and Federal bureaucracy.” When criticized for emasculating laws designed to protect the public, they lapse into well-rehearsed speeches about “everyone has a right to a lawyer, whether he’s a corporation or an indigent criminal defendant.” Agreed. But some Washington Layers frequently go beyond the advocate’s role in representing industries and become an extension of management. An example: Covington and Burling is among the more self-consciously dignified firms in town, one prideful of its sweet sense of probity. And two of its senior partners- H. Thomas Austern and Stanley Temko- are the legal technicians who have helped manufacturers keep on the market a vast variety of pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs for years after the food and Drug Administration challenged their value (See chapter 1, “Covington and Burling: The Pinnacle of Power.”) There are dropouts. Robert Wald, formerly Washington Lawyer for the Lorillard cigarette interests, quit in 1971 because of personal misgivings about the industry he represented. Wald told The Wall Street Journel’s Jonathon Kwitny: “I haven’t the slightest doubt that cigarettes cause lung cancer. I had to come home every night and face my kids saying, “Daddy, why do you work for a cigarette company?’”

Holder Law Firm Big With Big Tobacco

Holder Law Firm Advised the Drug Policy Foundation

Holder Law Firm Long Involved With Drug Policy

Holder Law Firm's Continuing Involvement With Drug Policy

Holder’s Law Firm Founder’s Romish-Masonic Fraternal Connection

Pro Bono Programs: Seen as Total Bullshit and/or Public Relations

2011-10-26T19:00:00.001-04:00

From “The Super-Lawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firm”
by Joseph C. Goulden; chapter 10 “The New Washington Lawyers: Balancing the Scales”

Pp 356-361

When the big-firm recruiters toured the name law schools beginning in the late 1960s, they encountered a recurrent phenomenon. Ho-hum indifference. No one wanted to listen to them. “Interviews” turned into angry confrontations, with students haranguing dignified lawyers on “responsibilities to society” and “whorish corporate attorneys.” Who wants you money? The students asked. I want to do something more important in life them work for General Motors or United States Steel.

The recruiters were philosophical, if stunned. “We had no trouble in finding enough good people to fill the slots we had vacant,” a Covington and Burling partner told me. He paused. “But I must admit we did miss getting some people we wanted. You’d find someone with good grades and an outstanding law review record, but his attitude would be so fouled up you could get nowhere with him.” One result of this experience was a decision by the major Washington firms to expand and (in some cases) to publicize their pro bono programs. (Not every firm believes in pro bono work, by that or any other names. I asked a man formerly with Corcoran, Foley, Rowe and Youngman what public interest work this firm did when he was there. He thought a moment and replied, “Tommy Corcoran used to be nice to Lyndon Johnson.”)

Pushed by activist young associates, Arnold and Porter’s management committee decreed that as a matter of formal policy the firm would devote fifteen percent of its time to pro bono work. Arnold and Porter assigned a partner as full-time supervisor of the program, with authority to draw upon the full resources of the firm. One figure I saw listed Arnold and Porter’s pro bono outlay, in manpower and non-reimbursed expenses, at $500,000 for 1970. Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering computes that thirteen percent of the firm time went for public-interest/pro bono work during 1970. Mortimer Caplin, of Caplin and Drysdale, says his firm invested a “couple of thousand hours” for nonpaying or low-paying clients during writing of the Tax Reform Act of 1969.

Most of this work is done in the name of individual lawyers, not of the firm. There is a reason. “Any time an office has more than one lawyer in it, you have two opinions on a subject,” states a partner of Hogan and Hartson. A background sheet on Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering’s pro-bono program explains:

The firm’s 57 lawyers have individual and sometimes differencing views on public questions. It is our shared belief that individual lawyers with the form should be free, consistent with the Code of Professional Responsibility, to pursue their own independent and professional goals. Rather than attempting to achieve a unified “position” on any particular matter, the members of this firm encourage each individual to take whatever public position on issues of public concern he feels appropriate.

A sampling of Wilmer, Culer and Pickering cases: Contesting unreasonably high utility charges to the poor, especially in the South and Appalachia. Helping organize a nonprofit corporation to build low-income housing in Mississippi. Challenging early voter registration cutoff dates before Texas primary elections. Assisting the G.I. Office a center for servicemen complaining of military abuses, and the Vietnam Moratorium Committee and the New Mobilizations to End the War in Vietnam, the anti-war groups. Combating freeways planned to cut through a scenic park in Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans’s Vieux Carres. The firm can also mobilize manpower for an emergency: in April and May 1968, ninety percent of the lawyers in the firm helped represent persons arrested during the riots following the murder of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King; later, a partner chaired a D.C. committee that revised police court, and jail procedure during situations that result in mass arrests. And Culter has been a guiding force in the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, virtually the only surviving white-dominated group pressing for desegregation.

Law activists deride the pro bono programs. One morning while awaiting an appointment at the George Washington Law School I talked with two guys at the coffee machine, and we got onto pro-bono. “Pure bullshit,” one of them said. “Public relations,” said the other. “You ever hear of them going after anybody with money, the big corporations?” Yes, as a matter of fact. Arnold and Porter is helping Nader in a suit to require General Motors to recall trucks whose wheels allegedly have the disquietening habit of breaking apart. Some Arnold and Porter clients protested vigorously that the firm would help the demon Nader do anything whatsoever, but the firm persevered. And Benny Kass, who practices all alone, without foundation money or visible sympathy for Washington Lawyers, told me “Unhappily, a measure of sincerity in 1970 is how much money you are paying for something. Covington and Burling had paid $100,000 on the Culebra case the last time I checked. Now that means something.”

But the pro bono programs have inherent defects. The large firms are limited in the type of actions they can bring, lest they are caught in a conflict-of-interest problems with existing clients. For instance, airline business is spread evenly across Washington Law. A Benny Kass was required to sue American Airlines for allegedly deceptive advertising. When student activists wanted to sue District of Columbia banks for alleged violations of usury laws, the big firms politely told them to go away; any firm with a D.C. bank for a client- or possibly any bank- would have a conflict of interest. There are anomalies. Louis Oberdorfer was national co-chairperson of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law at the same time that his firm Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, represented Crown-Zelerbach, which was being sued for employment discrimination under the Civil Rights Act. (The case ended with Crown-Zellerbach signing a consent decree.)

Even more serious a threat to pro bono work are the internal pressures from within a firm. When Richard Copaken began representing residents of Culebra he asked other public-interest lawyers for advice. “Get all the publicity you can,” he was told. One lawyer suggested that he demand equal TV time to counter Navy recruiting advertising- for each “John the Navy and see the world” spot, he should demand one saying, “Join the Navy and bomb the people of Culebra.” The lawyer told Copaken publicly was always vital on a public policy case being fought in the political forum of Congress. Copakan liked the idea, but told the other lawyer a few days later” “the firm wouldn’t let me do it. We represent a network, and such a suit might embarrass it.” Again, a Covington and Burling partner who formally held a high Department of Defense position subtly suggested that Copaken go easy on the suit. Copaken refused.”

Lawyers reflexive clubbiness is another inhibiting factor in pro bono work. In December 1971 the directors of the Washington branch of the American Civil Liberties Union were debating how much, if any, assistance the ACLU should give to attorney Phillip Hirschkop, who had been cited for contempt of court for his conduct of the defense of anti-war activists. The District of Columbia Bar Association, through its grievance committee, concurrently was initiating its own disciplinary proceedings. Hirschkop’s attorney, Monroe Freedman, wanted ACLU support in a court action enjoining the bar committee from acting. But two lawyers on the ACLU board argued against involving the ACLU in the case. One of them- David B. Isbell, of Covington and Burling- noted that Edmund L. Jones, a leading partner in Hogan and Hartson, another big firm, was chairman of the Grievance committee, and that any suit wold have to name him as a defendant. According to two persons at the meeting, Isbell noted that Hogan and Hartson handles fifteen to twenty cases a year for the ACLU, and that a suit against Jones could so “embarrass” the firm it would withdraw from further pro bono work. Isbel was outvoted. The ACLU decided to aid Hirschkop.

Covington & Burling – Drug Policy Foundation PRO BONO connection
Link FMD 3-31-08

Covington & Burling’s Unique International Practice: as “a prime mover in shaping foreign policy” 1947

2011-10-26T18:00:00.001-04:00

From “The Super-Lawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firm”
by Joseph C. Goulden; chapter 1: “Covington & Burling: Pinnacle of Power” pp 42- 49

Illustrations: C&B and Iran

How this reportedly started:

One morning in 1947 the Iranian Ambassador to the United States telephoned John G. Laylin, a senior partner at Covington and Burling, and asked him to come to the embassy immediately. The matter was urgent, the Ambassador said, and he would be appreciative if Laylin would hurry. The firm had already done no work for Iran previously; curious about the summons, Laylin dropped whatever work he was doing and caught a cab. “When I got there and sat down, the Ambassador asked what I liked to drink,” Laylin recollects. “I told him that I was a Scotch man, but that I normally didn’t drink anything that early. After all, it was only ten in the morning. “The Ambassador smiled, “Mr. Laylin’ he said, ‘after what I am going to tell you, I think you are going to need a drink. I have just been authorized to hire you to get the Russians out of my country.” “’Mr. Ambassador,’ I said, ‘I think I would like to have a Scotch.’” And thus began a period of cold war diplomacy which variably made Covington and Burling an arm of the United States Department of State, orchestrating activities of friendly allied governments so they do not conflict with Washington’s foreign policy goals.

Covington and Burling’s international practice is unique in several respects. As do a score of other New York and Washington firms, it advises foreign governments and companies in routine commercial matters. But unlike the others, it is also a prime mover in shaping foreign policy- both of the United States and of its clients and Washington overlap.

In the case of Iran, Laylin says, “the Russians had overstayed their welcome” after the Second World War ended, and both the Iranians and Washington wanted them out. A formal treaty obligated the Soviets to withdraw by March 2, 1946, but they stalled, pressing for Iranian recognition of a pro-Soviet autonomous regime created in Azerbaijan, and for a joint Soviet-Iranian company to exploit oil resources in the north of the country. Because of a strong pro-Soviet element in its Parliament, the Iranian government did not have complete freedom of action, and Ambassador Hussein Ala maneuvered to persuade the United States to take the matter to the Security Council on its own initiative. Secretary of State James Byrnes was sympathetic, but replied Iran would be better received if it acted on its own. The visit to Laylin followed.

Laylin helped the Ambassador draft Iran’s case for presentation o the United Nations Security Council; after some months of haggling, the Soviets appeared to have won their two points and withdraw the troops. Whereupon the Iranian parliament repudiated the oil consortium agreement and sent troops into Azerbaijan to reestablish authority in the breakaway region. Summarizing his efforts, Laylin says, “This was the only time in the postwar period the Soviets were bargained out of anything.”

Dean Acheson had left Covington and Burling in 1941 to reenter government; from August 1945 to June 1947, when the firm was rebuilding its international practice, he served as Under Secretary of State, the department’s number-two position. Laylin, however, insists that Acheson “had absolutely nothing to do” with Covington and Burling representing Iran and Greece, two nations with whose affairs Acheson dealt intimately in his official capacity. “The Iran case came about this way,” he said. “Immediately after the war I handled a routine case for Saudi Arabia. An Arabist in the State Department apparently was impressed. Anyway, shortly thereafter, when Iran asked this man to recommend a United States lawyer for the Soviet problem, he listed three firms- Covington and Burling was among them- and told what I had done for Saudi Arabia. That’s why the [Iranian] Ambassador called me in. Right after we won the Iranian case in the United Nations, the Greek Ambassador said to me, “Congratulations! You ran the Russians out of Iran. Now you are going to run them out of Greece.’”

The Greek case, considerably more complicated, involved much closer liaison with former partner Acheson, and it is also a nigh-classic case of the overlaps between government and the quasi-public world of the Washington lawyer. Greece was near collapse in the winter of 1946-47 because of guerrilla activity, economic turmoil and inept government; Acheson writes in his memoirs that the situation there “deteriorated rapidly during January and February 1947” and that by late February “all signs pointed to an impending move by the Communists to take over the Country.”

On February 15, 1947, Covington and Burling formally consummated its agreement with the Greek government. P. Economous-Gouras, charge d’ affaires of the Greek embassy in Washington, spelled out the terms in a letter to Laylin and John Lord O’Brien, another senior partner in the international field:

You are to act as our sole legal advisors in the United States in all matters brought by Greece to the attention of the Security Council of the United Nations and all questions involved in the application of Greece for loans from the Export-Import Bank, and from the International Bank for Reconstructing and Development [the World Bank].

It is understood that you are not to be asked to undertake any work that may conflict in any way with the foreign policy of your government, and that you may reserve the right to withdraw at any time as our advisors if in your opinion any proposed course of conduct will conflict with the policy of your government.

You have stated it will not be satisfactory to answer isolated questions but that within the scope of your work you must be kept fully informed and consulted on all developments. Te embassy and our country will, of course, be free to follow your advice or not as we think best promotes the interests of Greece, but we fully understand and will respect your desire to withdraw as counsel in the event that your advice is not followed on any matter of importance.

Economou-Gouras agreed to pay Covington and Burling “in accordance with your customary scale of charges on a time basis,” and enclosed a $5,000 retainer. But the amount actually received by Covington and Burling for the case indicates Greece was not a normal commercial client. The fees for three years totaled only $52,263, a pittance for the amount of work done by the firm. The Iranians paid less than $50,000. Laylin, however, denies Covington and Burling got into the case on behalf of the State Department or any other Federal agency.

Three days later, on February 21, Secretary of State George C. Marshall directed Dean Acheson “to prepare the necessary steps for sending economic and military aid” to Greece; shortly thereafter, economically strapped Britain formally announced her intention to cease aid to Greece and Turkey within six weeks, and the chain of events which led to the establishment of the Marshall Plan was underway. Financially, Covington and Burling worked with state Department officials to lobby $400 million in economic and military aid through Congress, paying particular attention to Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg. Diplomatically, Laylin and O’Brien wrote speeches for the Greeks to present both in the Security Council and in the General Assembly. The issue there, was support of guerrillas in Greece by Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria. “I never spoke for Greece in the debates, but I sat in the audience or right behind the delegates, and I offered my thoughts,” Laylin says. “It was ninety-nine percent legal work.” A Soviet veto killed a U.S. resolution in the Security Council asking for cessation of external aid to the guerrillas, but with Laylin’s guidance Greece managed to push the same document through the General Assembly.

According to the record of U.N. debates, the U.S. and Greek position were indistinguishable during the entire episode. Yet Laylin attempts to draw a clear distinction during the entire episode. Yet Laylin attempts to draw a clear distinction between representing a foreign government – “which we never do” – and advising a foreign government. “I would not go to the State Department and say I am speaking for the government of Greece,” Laylin says. “I say I am advising the Greeks, and that the Prime Minister, or Foreign Minister has asked me to say “this is the position of Greece.” When working for a foreign client, Laylin says, “I make clear that I am American, and I am not going to do anything against the high policy of my government; if it ever gets to the point, I’ll withdraw. But that does not mean I am reluctant about telling people in the State Department that something I am advocating is a good thing for my client and the United States, too.”

The distinction carries with it an independence that Laylin says he would not have if he acted as an agent of a foreign client. “If a lawyer is acting as the representative of a foreign government and instructions come from the home office—the foreign ministry, or the chief executive officer- he has to follow them. This holds also for the Ambassador. But I come back to them and say, ‘I don’t think this is so good, and I don’t think you should do it.’

‘Let me give you an example, concerning a country I’ll have to leave nameless. This country was a beneficiary of a considerable amount of United States financial aid. It fell down in a deal involving a shipment of grain and was sued for certain demurrage charges for the shipping, something relatively simple relating to slowness of the paperwork. The case was pretty clear-cut against the country. The foreign ministry wanted to plead sovereign immunity and get out of the suit. It was silly. At most, the country would save $300,000 or so. But in doing so it would jeopardize literally tens of millions of future aid, because the United States government would be most upset.

“The Ambassador did not have guts enough to tell the foreign minister he was doing a stupid thing. We can speak candidly, for the worst thing they can do, if the foreign minister is offended, is to fire us. We are not dependent upon any one client- but the Ambassador is.” The country followed Laylin’s advice and paid the claim.

Laylin and other firm partners frequently- but non-specifically- speak of Dean Acheson’s “attractiveness” in obtaining new clients. Acheson rejoined the firm on January 21, 1953, the day after leaving the office of Secretary of State. He registered as an agent of a foreign government in only one instance: in August 1959, to aid the Venezuelan government in its successful attempt to extradite the ousted dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez for trial for fiscal corruption. But as a private citizen, Acheson spoke with the authority of a former Secretary of State on issues involving foreign governments which Covington and Burling had represented. He argued to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 1970 against commercial strictures against South Africa, and he had friendly words for the junta government of Greece. And Acheson also did favors for Presidents. The public awareness of which is not harmful to a Washington Lawyer. President Kennedy used Acheson to pass word to the West German government he wanted a different German Ambassador in Washington, and the sooner the better, and to help through the NATO crisis precipitated by Charles de Gaulle’s withdrawal of France. President Johnson first utilized Acheson as an advisor on civil rights matters, and found him a faithful follower of his Vietnam policy. And President Nixon brought Acheson out of retirement in 1971 to help beat down an attempt by Senator Mike Mansfield to cut U.S. troop commitments to NATO.

Laylin is the Covington and Burling partner responsible for training new associates who intend to work in the international field. He looks for men with a background parallel to his own: an emphasis on political science, history, and government in undergraduate school, then a heavy load of international law courses. After his own graduation from Harvard Law, in 1928, Laylin interviewed at Sullivan and Cromwell, the big New York law firm. This was an era when one could make a serious case for the position that Sullivan and Cromwell outranked the State Department in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Both John Foster and Allen Dulles came through that law firm, and Laylin says John Foster Dulles “arranged for an appointment for me to work with Dwight Murrow, who was then our Ambassador in Mexico City. I learned much there about how business is done with foreign nations. It was invaluable.” (Covington and Burling which avoids hiring lawyers from the government actually scouts the Foreign Service for bright people). After two years with Marrow, Laylin returned to Sullivan and Cromwell; although he yearned for an independent practice, some homework was in order. “Talk all you want to about being an ‘international lawyer,’ Laylin says, “first you’ve got to learn to be a good lawyer. I handled all sorts of small cases; the principles are pretty much the same- how to develop a factual situation; what is important to your case; where to draw the issue; how to argue it.”

Notably while stating that Covington & Burling had its start as an arm of the U.S. State Department owing to its hiring by the government of Iran, his book states on p 50 that:

“But Covington and Burling’s longest time client has been Pakistan, for which it has served as permanent solicitor around the world. “We have advised them from the beginning, when they first came into existence in 1947.” The first case involved a dispute with India over water rights in the Indus River basin. Laylin prepared a World Court brief, but India refused to accept the court’s jurisdiction,. And what followed is why Laylin thinks international law is a fascinating way to make a living. “In international law,” he told me, “you about have to create your own forum. If you have a really hot dispute, they certainly are not going to arbitrate.” So Laylin began searching for someone to whom he could argue Pakistan’s cause. He learned that India had asked the World Bank for financing of a dam on its side of the Indes- one which would enable it to halt the flow of water to Pakistan. “I persuaded the World Bank and its directors to adopt a policy under which they would not lend money for structures on international rivers before the parties had agreed on an equitable distribution of water,” Laylin said. India protested the regulation, for she knew exactly why it was being proposed, and by what lawyer. But India also needed the dam, so she agreed to negotiate the settlement of the Indus issue with Pakistan. To tighten the lid on his victory, Laylin also succeeded in persuading the International Law Commission, a UN group, to pass a declaration on the rights of riparian states to waters from international waters.

Laylin worked fourteen years on the Indus River, and very profitably. Pakistan paid legal fees ranging from as high as $125,000 per year during the period, according to foreign agent registration statements filed by Covington and Burling with the Justice Department. Also remunerative is a commercial and political intelligence operation Covington and Burling runs for the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. The firm periodically reports on “proposed legislation introduced in Congress and on matters raised with the Tariff Commission and with other agencies concerning imports in which the members of the Chamber and/or Federation [of Industries] may be interested.” In 1968 alone, Covington and Burling received $33,450 for its reports on tariff matters. But foreign representations carry with them the potential for nickel and dime cases a firm as august as Covington and Burling would normally shun- for instance, a lease dispute between Guinea and the New York World Fair Corporation, and a row between client Canada and Ghana over who was responsible for repairs to a nine-inch-tall brick fence and retaining wall separating their respective embassies.

And on p 53 it states:

“Actually, Laylin continued, Covington and Burling once had an even more intense internal dispute over representation of a nation at the other end of the political spectrum. “We were attorneys for Poland before it went Communist. On that occasion, we resigned at the insistence of one or two partners- not including Mr. Acheson, I might add. I was dead set against resigning. We were helping them prepare paperwork for an Export-Import Bank loan for construction of coal cars that would service all of Europe. The coal was badly needed, for this was the period of great economic stress, the years right after the war. The State Department was most upset by our decision, for Americans in Poland were having trouble obtaining counsel. I argued, but I lost, and we had to drop Poland.

Laylin was silent for a moment. “You know,” he finally continued, “some of these younger people don’t seem to understand the proper role of a lawyer. We are not here to save the worked, or to force our own ideas on someone else, but to represent clients.”

Poland went communist in 1947.

Not For All

2011-10-26T17:00:00.002-04:00

From “The Super-Lawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firm”
by Joseph C. Goulden; chapter 1: “Covington & Burling: Pinnacle of Power” pp 60-62

Not all men who come to Covington and Burling are willing to do what is necessary to be invited to “Jack Valenti’s theater downstairs” to accept a partnership. A young lawyer who was most unhappy when he resigned from Covington and Burling after a year’s work there, bit into his veal cutlet in a small Italian restaurant north of K Street and chewed reflectively a minute before giving me an opinion of his old firm. “Covington and Burling is the top law firm in the country in terms of legal expertise, no doubt about that,” he finally said. “You pay top dollar, but you get top work.

“Why is it good? Because it has made money, lots of it, by representing the big corporations, and therefore afford to hire the best legal minds available. It’s a tradition- don’t hire anyone who isn’t top notch. When you get people who know they can be very rich in a few year’s time, you don’t have to give even lip service to pro bono work, or the public interest. Money. If you don’t want to be rich, you can get out.”

This young lawyer was not naïve about Washington Law. He worked and lived in Europe before graduation, and he had spent time in Washington. He had heard all the law school stories about Covington and Burling being a corporate firm; he knew what it did, and for whom. Why, then, did he go into the firm?

“Fifteen thousand dollars a year is one reason,” he said. “But I had to see for myself whether it was as bad as I had ever heard. It was, even worse. The moral blindness. The idea that the only way to do business was to gut the regulatory agencies. The complete disdain for any interest other than that of the corporation clients. Look at Tommy Austern. Nine years he managed to keep the Geritol case going. [See chapter 5, “Ruling the Regulators: Just Who’s Doing What to Whom?”] Could anyone be proud of a stunt like that?”

Covington and Burling does not like to hear such comments from former Bright Young Men, even secondhand. “We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time during our job interview explaining that corporations have a right to legal representation,” a senior partner says. “I’m always getting questions like, Will I have to represent corporations? Or anything else who comes along?” One year the question was, “What, for example would Covington and Burling do if asked to represent Eichmann?” Covington and Burling now has the answers (although, for the record, no one asked the question was hired): A young associate took a court appointment to defend a member of the American Nazi Party in a criminal action. “The lawyer was Jewish too, and I think maybe he went out of his way to prove something to himself.” Another partner quotes with distaste Robert F. Kennedy’s angry private remark that Edward Bennett Williams, the noted Washington criminal attorney, should be disbarred because he let his client Jimmy Hoffa take the Fifth Amendment more then one hundred times before the Senate rackets committee. The Bill of Rights, this man says, is a very encompassing guarantee, and it protects corporations and individuals alike, and once you start waiving it for one party, you eventually waive it for all. “The public interest- what is it? Who can define it?” asks John Sapienza. He defines “public policy” as an act of Congress that has been upheld by the courts. “I don’t recognize the omnipotence of a Federal official, and I have no qualms whatsoever about challenging a new law in the courts. That is a part of our system.” And Sapienza went into a litany of corporate faith which I heard repeated so many times in Washington law offices that I could mouth he words along with the speakers: If the “public interest” suffers because of one-sided legal representation, the persons concerned with the public interest should find some lawyers of their own, either through the government or through private groups. Covington and Burling isn’t obligated to pull its punches just because it is facing push-over opposition. Don’t gripe at us if we win a drug case at the FDA- gripe at the FDA for not hiring better attorneys. Or at Congress for not providing enough money to hire them. Or at yourself for not being willing to pay the taxes to provide the money to hire the better attorneys. And so forth.

When public interest law became fashionable in Washington in the late 1960s, many firms rather ostentatiously announced formal programs of free or low fee work (See chapter 10), “The New Washington Lawyers, Balancing the Scales.”) Arnold and Porter, for instance, adopted a policy of committing ten percent of the firm’s time to notable causes. Covington and Burling said nothing, but watched with a good deal of detached amusement. “We have been doing this sort of thing in our own unorganized, un-obstructured, un-public way,” a senior partner states, “long before it became “the right thing to do” in Washington Law.” Two outsiders agree. Professor Monroe Freedman, of the George Washington University law facility, and a keen critical observer of Washington firms, states, “C&B has long done this kind of work and shunned the credit.” And the American Civil Liberties Union, which uses Covington and Burling as an informal legal labor pool, gave the firm a twenty five year award for meritorious service a few years back.

Covington partners stress that the firm does not demand public interest work on a collective basis, but simply lets a new man know he can do as much or as little as he wishes, so long as he earns his keep in office. “I’d never tell a kid what to do,” states Thomas Austern. “It’s not our business whether he plays a piano in a whorehouse or in a church.” Some examples: Early partner George Rublee bargained desperately with Joseph Goebbels in the late 1930s to ransom Jews from Nazi Germany. His then assistant, Austern remarks, “I couldn’t even begin to tell you the number of weeks Rublee worked on this deal, because we don’t count things that way.” I could not even begin to tell you the number of weeks that Rublee worked on this deal, because we don’t count things that way.” Charles Horsky, as a member of the Maryland board of education, played a quiet but dominant role in desegregation of public schools in suburban Montgomery County. The fight against the Three Sisters Bridge which would destroy [?] a scenic Potomac landmark [which would have pointed at Jesuit Georgetown University]. A ruling that District of Columbia Courts would consider alcoholism a disease, not a crime. A $100,000, eighteen month fight to stop the U.S. Navy from selling the offshore Puerto Rican island of Culebra. “conscience work,” says one outside critic, “giving society a few cents change from all of the profits it makes.” Perhaps- perhaps not. “It’s a sad commentary on our society,” notes public interest lawyer Benny Kass, “but we judge a person’s sincerity today by how much money he is willing to give to a cause. On that criterion, Covington and Burling is damned sincere.”

Covington and Burling makes no pretense at rapport with all of its clients, and their policies. “Sometimes you really have to grit your teeth,” one man told me in a moment of rare candor about client-firm relations. I saw things I find personally repugnant. But I don’t suppose I’d tell all my clients if I practiced criminal law, or real estate law.” Saplenza insists that Covington and Burling does draw a line. “If a corporation is polluting a river, for instance, we’ll advise of its rights under the law, and how to go about complying with the law. But if some corporation cam in here and said outright, “To hell with the law, we’re not going to follow it, and we want you to fight the government as long as it takes we can,” we wouldn’t represent him.” Sapienza and his colleagues are really somewhat testy about what they feel are suggestions they really don’t give a damn what happens to the country. A broader view- that is what is needed, they say. A firm that pollutes might employ three hundred men whose families are dependent upon staying in business; the practices probably were legal when the factory began operation; management is sincere about obeying the statutes. The lawyer’s task is to find a mode of compliance that does not put the company out of business. And if doing so means haggling with the Federal government, and tough bargaining, so be it- that’s how Covington and Burling lawyers earn their living. “You’ve got to remember,” remarks partner Ernest Jennes, “that we are human beings and children as well as lawyers. Our wives and our children breathe the air, and so do we.”

Okay, Covington & Burling. How about a re-assigning of legal resources as already suggested here.

Covington & Burling is not just another law office

2011-10-26T15:00:00.002-04:00

From “The Super-Lawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firm”
by Joseph C. Goulden; chapter 1: “Covington & Burling: Pinnacle of Power” pp 21-22

“… Covington and Burling is not just another law office. It is, in fact, Washington’s oldest, largest and probably best national law firm. At one time or another, it has performed legal services for most blue-chip corporations in America. Unlike many forms, Covington and Burling doesn’t list representative clients in Martindale and Hubbell, the quasi-official legal directory. But, estimates one partner, “We’ve done things for, I’d say, twenty percent of the companies on Fortune’s list of the five hundred top corporations.” GM, AT&T, DuPont, CBS, American Airlines- you get the idea. Because of he diversity of talent afforded by the sheer size, Covington and Burling is perhaps the only law firm in Washington that can assign a specialist to handle any problem a client has before the Federal government, from defending a criminal antitrust case to obtaining an arms export license or convincing the Food and Drug Administration of the safety of a patent medicine or fancy new combination drug. Covington and Burling lawyers possess that special confidence that comes from expertise and power, and think in commensurately grand terms.”

“John G. Laylin, a senior partner who specializes in international work matter-of-factly illustrated this point to me one morning during a casual conversation. First, Laylin showed me a glass bowel, half filled with rocks the size of golf balls and covered with water. “This is something I am spending half my time on, right now” Laylin said. “These nodules are rich in cobalt, nickel and copper. A client of mine found them in fifteen thousand feet of water, in the middle of the ocean. Now the law on mining of deep sea resources is very vague. These nodules are found in high concentrations in a certain area; in other areas, nearby, they are nonexistent. My client has spent millions of dollars locating them.”

Laylin handed me a photograph album with pictures of the nodules littering the ocean floor, taken with deep-sea exploration equipment. “What we want is exclusivity,” he said

For a law firm powerful enough to cajole the United States into drafting an international treaty, requesting legislation from Congress is a routine exercise, even if a time-consuming one. Under a bill drafted by Laylin in 1971, any person subject to a United States jurisdiction would be required to obtain a Federal license before doing any undersea mining work. Reciprocal protection would be given other nations passing similar legislation.” In other words, no claim-jumping. “No state can by itself establish a rule or principle of international law,” Laylin wrote in a draft paper on sea-bed law, “but any state can sow seeds which can grow into a ‘general practice accepted as law.’”

And this is what Laylin is doing- on behalf of a fee paying Covington and Burling client, but in an undertaking bearing the imprimatur of both the United States government (which is to say, all of us) and the American Bar Association. Such is the stuff of big time Washington Law.

C&B- Bottleneck or Facilitator?
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/10/bottleneck-or-facilitator.html

Covington & Burling & Big Tobacco

2011-10-26T14:00:00.003-04:00

Tobacco industry

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Covington_%26_Burling

Covington & Burling also served as "corporate affairs consultants" to the Philip Morris group of companies, according to a 1993 internal budget review document which indicated the firm was paid $280,000 to "serve as general counsel thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifo the Consumer Products Company Tort Coalition, agree the legal objectives with member company litigators, draft legislation and amendments, prepare lobby papers and testimony for legislative committees and administer the coalition's budget". [6]

Covington & Burling was involved in organizing Philip Morris' Whitecoat Project, designed to help obscure the health effects of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.

During the $280 billion U.S. federal lawsuit against Big Tobacco, Covington & Burling partner John Rupp, a former lawyer with the industry-funded Tobacco Institute, testified that "the industry sought out scientists and paid them to make an 'objective appraisal' of whether secondhand smoke was harmful to non-smokers, a move they hoped would dispel the 'extreme views' of some anti-smoking activists." He said "the scientists, who came from prestigious institutions such as Georgetown University and the University of Massachusetts, did not consider themselves to be working 'on behalf' of cigarette makers even though they were being paid by the industry." Rupp said, "We were paying them to share their views in forums where they would be usefully presented," according to Reuters. [7]

Partners in Covington & Burling include, but are not limited to, Keith Teel, Allan Topol and John Rupp, who have knowledge of lobbying tactics employed in Texas by the tobacco industry. The "push poll" conducted January 20-25, 1996, regarding Attorney General Dan Morales, was commissioned by Covington & Burling, and funded by Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Teel was a member of the tobacco industry delegation who met with Attorney General Dan Morales in February, 1996 in an attempt to prevent the filing of the state's lawsuit against the tobacco industry to recoup Medicaid costs for treating sick smokers. Teel has knowledge of the tobacco industry's tactics employed in Texas, including the use of "push polls" to intimidate or control public officials' actions.

Allan Topol of C&B attended a meeting of the Research Directors of Brown & Williamson, Philip Morris, and Liggett & Myers at Liggett & Myers Operations Center in Durham, NC on May 24, 1968. The objective of the meeting was to determine the variation and the amounts of Federal Trace Commission (FTC)-determined tar exposure which various groups of the population encounter when smoking various cigarettes. He attended the December 7, 1967, meeting at the Research Triangle Institute regarding individual's smoke exposure. He has knowledge of smokers' "compensation" techniques and the inaccuracies of the FTC method for measuring tar/nicotine exposure to smokers. Mr. Topol has knowledge regarding nicotine addiction, nicotine manipulation and disease/cancer causation. Covington & Burling were Counsel to the Tobacco Institute and Lorillard Counsel for Tobacco Sales. (PMI's Introduction to Privileged Log and Glossary of Names, Estate of Burl Butler v. PMI, et al, April 19, 1996)

Covington & Burling & Big Tobacco - 1964

Covington & Burling & Big Tobacco - 1987

Bottleneck or Facilitator?

2011-10-26T12:00:00.004-04:00

I have to ask this, because of political dynamics expressed by the Drug Policy Foundation/Drug Policy Alliance's short-selling of 'Harm Reduction' and its lack of coverage of the Coca issue, and the larger issue of the right to plants.

What about Covington & Burling, with its bro bono program assigning an attorney listed as a food and drug specialist "primary responsibility for advising the [Drug Policy] Foundation"- when we see there IS the potential, yet it is not being realised?

Covington & Burling's Continuing Involvement with Drug Policy
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/09/covington-burlings-continuing.html

Dana Beal Letter to DEA's Leonhart About Ibogaine

2011-10-25T17:44:00.001-04:00

https://www.facebook.com/notes/dana-beal/new-version-letter-to-michele-leonhart/309370972412958

To DEA Director Leonhart,

This is to let you know of public and Congressional interest in expanded research into ibogaine and its analogs, not only for treatment of addiction but for its broad spectrum antibiotic, antiviral, anti-tumor effects.

The placement of ibogaine in Schedule I discourages research, not just because of the stigma, but because of the immense practical roadblocks it puts in the way of researchers. Right now a research group at New York University that is investigating the synthetic ibogaine analog 18-MC will probably break off their work when the time comes to investigate the parent compound. It took Rockefeller University nine months just to obtain less than a gram of ibogaine.

Couldn’t you find a Schedule for ibogaine a little less restrictive than Schedule I?

Ibogaine has no abuse potential, and great potential for treatment of a number of indications that we have no good medicines for right now, including multiple scherosis, chemo-resistant cancer, parkinsons, and bipolar/binge behaviors. Clinics using ibogaine are springing up all over the world because it works so much better for abolition of narcotic withdrawal as well as craving for psycho-stimulants.

In 2005–6 ibogaine was found to express a growth factor—glia-derived-neurotropic-factor (GDNF)—that not only regenerates dopamine neurons suppressed by drugs of abuse, but back-signals to the cell nuclei to express more GDNF, establishing a benign, self-sustaining loop that obviates the need for artificial elevation of dopamine levels and persists without administration of additional ibogaine. This explains reported ibogaine efficacy against meth-amphetamine and crack cocaine — drugs against which we have no effective pharmaco-therapies right now.

Very simply, ibogaine doesn’t fall under the plain definition of Schedule I —“no accepted medical value, high potential for abuse, no safe use in treatment.” Because of aversive side-effects, it cannot be abused.

First, animals can not be trained to self-administer Ibogaine. Second, it has Sigma-two effects like thorazine or prolyxin; no one is diverting their anti-psychotic drugs to the black market. Third, if you escalate dosages (as someone binging on cocaine would) you get semi-paralysis, nausea and vomiting. Finally, if you try to do small doses daily, after about 14 days you have to quit due to insomnia and lack of concentration.

What is the statutory basis for scheduling Ibogaine in the absence of “high potential for abuse?”

Before we hold hearings, we need the outcome of more clinical research. You can help by taking the initiative and lifting the roadblock imposed by the Schedule I status of ibogaine.

All we are asking for here is some fairness, so the American people don’t have to wait another 20 years for effective treatment for addiction.

Beware The Schedule 2 Trap

2011-10-25T12:00:00.002-04:00

to make Cannabis as 'legal' as cocaine hci

have been talking about this for sometime now. Watch, read, be ready to act. This is deliberate and well orchestrated.

Everything will hinge on state and Federal drug scheduling. Currently, cannabis is listed as a Schedule I drug in every state but Oregon, where it is a Schedule 2. Colorado relies on Federal Scheduling (Schedule 1). That's right, even states with a medical cannabis program list cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug (no medical value)

Expect that the Federal Government will re-Schedule cannabis nationally to a Schedule 2 before the elections in November 2012. DO NOT BE DECEIVED. THIS IS NOT A VICTORY. IT'S A SNARE to formally hand cannabis into the hands of the pharmaceutical companies and formally shut out access to the natural plant.

Cannabis users and patients will ONLY be free from arrest if cannabis is removed ENTIRELY from EVERY state Drug Schedule. Plan your legislative attempts and protests accordingly.

see: http://www.medicalcannabisjournal.net/submissions/archive/2010/irs-ruling-against-harborside-no-surprise-by-mark-pedersen-on-thursday-october-6-2011-at-1221pm

Legalize Coca Leaf U.S. White House Petition

2011-10-24T22:52:00.000-04:00

Created October 24, 2011

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/legalize-coca-leaf-teas-and-beverages-opposed-continually-ensuring-its-perversion-concentrated/85CFl1Zy

Legalize Coca Leaf, teas and beverages, as opposed to continually ensuring its perversion into concentrated cocaine

End the post 1906-1914 disparate treatment for Coca and dilute cocaine that ensures its perversion into problematic concentrated forms of cocaine, while denying the many benefits of Coca Leaf.

Created: Oct 24, 2011
Issues: Agriculture, Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement, Trade

Prohibitionist Chickenshits

2011-10-24T16:20:00.000-04:00

From Time 4 Hemp's Capser Leitch:

I have tried to get opponents of re-legalizing Marijuana ....as well as other opponents of re-legalizing marijuana. The most recent was an invitation to Judy Cushing, who was speaking on the local news about how awful marijuana is. She stated it was bad for the brain; destructive to health; and was the root cause of crime. She is the president and CEO of http://www.orpartnership.org and seemed to be dedicated to outlawing marijua - and since she was seeking the attention of the media, the below exchange occurred between her people and me (no, she wouldn't even take the time to address my request herself - lol)...please feel free to share this with everyone you feel would enjoy it!

ATTN: Judy Cushing, please be a guest on my LIVE radio show, it's called 'Time 4 Hemp - LIVE' and it airs every M-F from 10-11a.m. on http://www.AmericanFreedomRadio.com and has a listening audience of over a million people around the world. Past guests include Congressman Barney Frank; Sen. Mike Gravel; Gov. Gary Johnson; Ethan Nadelmann (founder of the Drug Policy Alliance); Keith Stroup (founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws); and David Boaz (founder of the CATO Institute).

After seeing you on the local news (I live in Portland) I thought it would be of benefit to my audience to hear why it is you and your organization feel that marijuana is destructive to the community and to the individual who uses it.

You struck me as an excellent voice of opposition to address this issue and help to give a balance viewpoint of this topic on the show.

If you or someone from http://www.orpartnership.org were to agree to be a guest on the show, I would want to have Paul Stanford as a co-host on that segment to allow for a well-rounded discussion. Paul also lives in Portland.

To learn more about me you can Google my name or the name of the series as well as visit my website http://www.Time4Hemp.com and to learn more about Paul Stanford, you can visit http://www.HEMP.org or Google his name.

If, for some reason, you would rather have a different co-host for this segment, I can arrange to have Ethan Nadelmann or Keith Stroup as the co-host instead.

I look forward to your reply and hope you find joy in your day.

Sincerely,

Casper Leitch
Host/Creator: Time 4 Hemp

Dear Mr. Leitch,

Thank you for inviting Judy Cushing to appear on your program. However Oregon Partnership is declining your invitation.

Sincerely

Tom Parker
Communications Director
Oregon Partnership
5100 SW Macadam Avenue Suite 400
Portland, OR 97239-3854

Main: 503.244.5211
Direct 971.244.1375
Cell: 503.890.7473

www.orpartnership.org

"Oregon Partnership - Preventing substance abuse and suicide."

Military Helpline: 1-888-457-4838 www.MilitaryHelpline.org

Dear Tom Parker;

OK - I'm not surprised since it is impossible to defend your position and to attempt to do so would only make you look foolish. The message you bring to the public is one that can only be presented WITH OUT an opposing viewpoint. With that said, I will be airing sound bites from past remarks you've made on radio and television and quoting statements you've posted on your website to allow my guests to discuss the messages you are bringing to the public. Do keep in mind that I did offer you the chance to appear in person on my program to represent yourselves and the inept propaganda that you attempt to present as facts.

It the 20-years that I've done this series, no one has ever come on to the show to dispute what I present which is: Prohibition is a failure. Medical Marijuana needs to be available to those who need it. The 50,000 different products that can be made from this plant would create jobs and generate a strong tax base. We can free ourselves from being dependent on foreign oil by growing hemp for fuel. It's silly to arrest people for touching a plant. Instead of making taxpayers cover the cost of arresting and jailing people for touching a plant, we need to regulate the plant and let it produce a tax revenue for this country to pay it's debts.

I've invited the Attorney General of the United States, of the state of Washington, the state of Oregon and the state of California to be a guest on the show - and they don't have the courage to be a guest - I really didn't think anyone in your organization truly had the backbone to come on the show either....but, I did want to give you the chance to be on the show before I and my guests began to dispel the false information you continue to present as facts.

Should you be able to find anyone who can defend you point of view on this topic and wish to have them on my show, keep in mind that I'm on the air 5-days a week and I will definitely be able to find a spot for them.

My invitation will be extended to you publicly today on my show, and - every now and then, my guests and I will take a quote from your site or one of your members who have recently spoken AT the press and discuss it. (Notice I said, "...spoken AT the press..." - that's because you refuse to DISCUSS with the press you point of view. You are only willing to have a sit-down interview with people who just say "YES - that's wonderful" to everything you say....but then again, your point of view on this topic has no true grounding in facts.)

Most sincerely,

Casper Leitch

Spin

2011-10-23T12:00:00.001-04:00

Psychedelics opposed by the church of Christ?

Psychedelics opposed by Protestants

Psychedelics supported by Catholic Bishops

Such was what I hears from a speaker at the Horizons Psychedelics Conference held last weekend in Manhattan, N.Y., N.Y. at the Judson Church.

From such one would understandably overlook the Vatican as a source of problems.

DPA Behind the Curve

2011-10-22T12:00:00.001-04:00

DPA table at last weekend's Horizon's Psychedelics Conference at the Judson Church in N.Y. N.Y.

Notably the DPA promotes Methadone, see the blue pamphlet, yet strangely has no such publications for Coca leaf nor Iboga- that latter a particularly odd exclusion for a psychedelics conference.

Ethan Nadelmann needs to disregard the bullshit advice he has been given, perhaps from a source as this, and create and distribute such pamphlets for Coca, Iboga and even Opium, as alternatives to Methadone.

Dana Beal Letter October 21, 2011

2011-10-21T17:55:00.001-04:00

The Banned Dana Beal Stamp
Dana Beal

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Free-Dana-Beal-Release-Ibogaine-in-the-Midwest/120917661262232

A strange thing happened to me right when they were taking me to prison... They had to let me go cause I up and died on them (heart attack.) I have zero memory of what happened. I think the attack was triggered by a panic which caused shortness of breath because they never tell you they're moving you (security). I had already been in the hole twice for saving food; twice for religious dispute over the Koran. Suddenly I'm on the floor and one of the same guys who put in last time is giving me cpr. They transferred me to the hospital in Dodgeville, which was inadequate, so I ended up waking up in St. Marys in Madison, under guard of a Sheriff's deputy.. St Marys does hearts, and after about a week the DA and Sheriff let me bail out, cause Iowa county couldn't afford to keep a deputy in Madison.... A few days later I'm doing a double bypass. After a week they kicked me out...

The thing is, I kind of warned the Judge about my bad health. Both my dad and my mother's dad died of stroke at 65. (I forgot the grand dad also died of a heart attack.) So instead of going to prison for 20 more months, it all became probation. I'm still facing Nebraska charges, and there's no guarantee they're giving me credit for the 9 mos I spent on hold in Wisconsin on their charges. They gave a co-defendant 17 mos. and he didn't even exercise his right to put on a medical necessity defense. I may have to do the same sentencing hearing all over again, with some what different witnesses.

People can send money to my lawyers, Bryon Walker and Glen Shapiro. Aron Kay is coordinating, somewhat. 347-962-5024.

Ethan Nadelmann: Why Some Drugs Are Illegal

2011-10-21T12:30:00.007-04:00

http://youtu.be/-9Fa5VD4VQk
Cites racism, it was about who was using a given drug and who was perceived as using it, but no mention of the underlying economic reasonsUSDA-AMA-APhA Agricultural-Pharma Mercantilism.

Ethan surely knows about this, after all he not only attended my 1995 COCA '95 panel at the Drug Policy Foundation conference held in Santa Monica California, but also placed me upon his 1992 panel "The America's- Is the U.S. Exporting its Problems" where I was a panelist, along with the panel "Cocaine- Trade and Policy" at the 1992 D.P.F. conference.

Douglas Willinger, Ethan Nadelmann- 1992 DPF Conference

Dana Beal Stamp BLOCKED

2011-10-21T00:33:00.000-04:00

For these reasons, we were unable to process your original order:
Title: Dana Beal 2010, Dana Beal
Product Link: 172764768653079754

Result: Not Approved

Content Issues:
--- Design incorporates material the primary purpose of which is to advocate or protest any particular religious, social, political, legal or moral agenda of any person or entity
--- Design incorporates the name or likeness of a current or former world leader, politician, a local, regional, national or international leader and/or religious figurehead
--- Design incorporates material that is primarily partisan or political in nature

Because Zazzle Custom Stamps are real postage, they are subject to special Appropriate Use Guidelines, detailed at http://zazzle.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/135. One of these restrictions prohibits the printing of any postage that incorporates a celebrity or other famous person's name or likeness.

In this instance, your custom stamp design(s) contained an image of political activist Dana Beal, so we were unable to fulfill your order.

Mary C. Mcbride Jesuitical Justice

2011-10-20T12:00:00.006-04:00

This is the Nebraska Judge Sanctioning Ripping Off of Dana Beal and Others- for the sake of a deceitful ideology

Nebraska Judge Mary C. Mcbride
This is the judge who disregards the U.S. Constitution to uphold illegal searches and seizures of Cannabis in eastern Nebraska, such as that victimizing Dana Beal and his companions in the fall of 2009. A group of us, including those from a local law school, saw her at the suppression hearing in early 2010, where we heard about:

- a 'drug' dog without certification
- a police officer - Engel - who is revealed by Dana's attorney to be a perjurer (liar) in past cases
- a command from the police that 'you are free to go' which the police than ignore and tackle the victims stealing them of liberty and property.
- the fear of the prosecution of inquiry into such behavior as a part of police training (as a response to all of those 'how to deal with the police' video)

Mary Mcbride's unconstitutional decision upholding this search and seizure was only issued later, resting upon testimony that there were multiple cell phones in the vehicle, more than the number of people in the vehicle, hence somehow establishing 'probable cause'. The stop itself, with its multiple interviews (questionings of the vehicle occupants) was predicated upon the driver (Chris) exceeding the speed limit by one mph before slowing to a few mph under and a partially obscured license plate, upon a two lane road paralleling I-80.

Mary Mcbride's decisions appear to be motivated by her personal opposition to Medical Cannabis.

Mary Mcbride committed perjury and conspiracy to commit such against Dana's companion Chris, sentencing him to 1 year in prison for refusing to state that Cannabis is not medicine. She is delusional, if not consciously dishonest, insisting that Cannabis is not medicine, and commits perjury by so insisting that in court, and in insisting that those before her conform to her perjury, even confusing per se bad acts (such as theft and murder) with those that are simply somehow illegal (substance possession and/or commerce).

Mcbride began her legal career in 1982, as a law clerk to Justice Boslaugh of the Nebraska Supreme Court. In 1984, she became corporate counsel to Peter Kiewit Sons', Inc, until being appointed County Court Judge (5th District) in 1992, and in 1998, promoted to the position of District Court Judge in 1998.

Mcbride got her formal legal eduction from Creighton Law School- a JESUIT ORDER institution which is supremely influential though the U.S. via such JESUIT institutions as Fordham and especially Georgetown University.

About Creighton:

Located in Omaha, Nebraska in view of the Missouri River and the Loess Hills, Creighton University School of Law is a Jesuit Catholic institution educating aspiring attorneys in the theory, practice and ethics of lawyering for over 100 years. Consistent with its mission, the Law School's motto is "educating for service and justice" and its goal is to produce attorneys who not only meticulously care for their clients' needs, but also recognize their own over-arching duty to the profession and society at large.

Creighton's Institutional History: 100 Years of Educating for Service & Justice

In 1903, Creighton's president, Rev. Michael Dowling, S.J., began formulating plans for a Department of Law. He sought advice from the local Bar and the University’s major benefactor and namesake, Count John Creighton. The Count is reported to have said: "Why should I lend my support to such a project when it is common knowledge that all lawyers are scoundrels?" Father Dowling responded, "that is one of the best reasons why Creighton University should undertake the education of your men for the legal profession." The support was forthcoming and on October 3, 1904, twenty-three law students were welcomed as the first class. This first group of students was welcomed by a dean, an associate dean, and 31 practicing attorneys who donated their time to teach.

Much has changed in the past century, yet much has remained the same. Coursework for first-year law students at Creighton in 1904 included constitutional law, torts, property, contracts, criminal law, and moot court. That same curriculum is reflected in law schools across the country today with the exception of criminal law, the inclusion of civil procedure, and the addition of a moot court component of the legal writing class. In 1904, the faculty consisted of a dean, associate dean and 31 practicing attorneys who donated their time to teach. Today, 30 full-time professors who are experts and published authors in their fields and who are dedicated to training Creighton's 480 students.

These 480 students are among the best in the nation. Drawn from over 40 states, 7 foreign countries and 165 undergraduate institutions, they move into judicial clerkships and jobs at top law firms in Omaha, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Kansas City and beyond. With three fully functioning courtrooms and a state-of-the-art wireless technology Law Library, students leave Creighton prepared to enter practice and succeed. Anchored in its humble beginnings a century ago, Creighton has emerged as a leader in Catholic legal education and is moving forward boldly into the 21st Century. In 2009, the law school again hosted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as he taught a supreme court seminar to second and third-year students, celebrated third-year student Joseph Larson as one of 15 students nationwide selected for a Burton Award for Excellence in legal writing, and sent a student from the Milton R. Abrahams Legal Clinic to argue in front of the Nebraska Court of Appeals.

Creighton's Jesuit Roots

Creighton is one of fourteen Jesuit Catholic law schools in the U.S. One out of every ten American law students is enrolled in a Jesuit law school. Situated primarily in urban centers, these schools were traditionally among the first to provide women and minorities access to high-quality legal education. With a reputation for rigorous study, Jesuit law schools value the pursuit of academic excellence and preparation for public service. ...

Ironically, this Jesuit law school opened the very same year that such "knights having shown great prowess" as Harvey Washington Wiley began the crusade for the pharmacratic inquisition cigarette racketeering scheme later known as the 'drug war'. It is a scheme that has cost over 100 million lives via protecting cigarette markets protecting the most dangerous from the safest -- Tobacco from Coca, far worse than commonly seen than simply prohibition's iron law of shifting markets towards more concentrated forms of the banned drugs, yet one which has been deceitfully presented as somehow protecting people's health.

That's some public service.

James Harry Covington- Fraternal Bio

2011-10-19T12:00:00.002-04:00

Upheld U.S. Harrison Act TD 2309
Founded the food, pharma and cigarette industry powerhouse law firm that advises the drug policy reform organizations: Covington & Burling

http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA239&dq=Rep.+James+Harry+Covington&id=VwETAAAAIAAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false

JAMES HARRY COVINGTON

James Harry Covington, the retiring editor of The Caducei's, was born in Baltimore, May 3, 1870. His parents removed to Easton, Md., a short time afterward, and his preparatorv education was secured at private schools and at the well-known Easton High School. In 1885 he entered the Maryland Military Academy, remaining there two years. In 1887 he concluded to take up a mercantile career, and went into the service of such an establishment, but at the end of two years he found that his tastes were for study, and entered the law office of U. S. Senator Charles H. Gibson, at Easton, pursuing the study of the law and keeping up his general studies under the tutelage of a junior member of Senator Gibson's law firm. In 1891 he entered the law department of the University of Pennsylvania, and was graduated in 1894. After his admission to the bar, he returned to his home in Easton and began the practice of his profession. He is the author of a legal monograph, "The Sale of Liquors by Social Clubs," which is recognized as an authori tative treatment of the relation of club membership to excise laws; and he has built up a substantial law practice.

For ten years he has been active in Democratic politics in Maryland, appearing frequently on the stump in every campaign from 1895 to the present time. In 1899 he was the candidate of his party for state senator, and conducted a long fight in the courts which ended in a decision that there was no senatorial vacancy in his district. In 1901, without his solicitation and against his wish, he was unanimouslv nominated to represent the district composed of Talbot county, as state senator, for a full term of four years. After a fierce campaign, in which his Republican opponent was Robert B. Dixon, one of the wealthiest bankers in the state, he was defeated by thirty-eight majority. In 1903 he was elected State's Attorney for Talbot county, Maryland, for a term of four years, receiving the largest majority of any candidate on the Democratic ticket.

He was a charter member of the old Delta Chapter of Kappa Sigma, at the Maryland Military Academy, and later he becameone of the founders of Alpha-Epsilon, at the University of Pennsylvania. From his initiation he took an active interest in the Fraternity, and his evident fitness for positions of responsibility led to his election as W. G. P. in 1892, which was followed by election as W. G. M. in 1894. Upon the retirement of Editor Warner in 1895, he was made editor-in-chief of The Caduceus, and served continuously from that time until Jan. 1, 1905, being four times unanimously reelected. He was chairman of the committee to draft the present Constitution of the Fraternity, adopted by the Richmond Conclave, 1894, and that instrument is practically his work. Its fitness and completeness is shown bv the fact that for ten years it has served as the supreme law of the Fraternity, receiving in all that time but a few amendments in details.

Brother Covington took charge of The Caduceus at a time when the Fraternity stood greatly in need of his services, and upon the shortest of notice. During the nine and one-half years of his incumbency the character and tone of the magazine have steadily improved, and it has for years been frequently mentioned with approval by other fraternity editors, as approaching their ideal of that which a fraternity magazine should be. Covington's editorials, thoughtful but not ponderous, sensible but not too unworldly in their wisdom, have probably been copied more widely than those of any other writer for the fraternity press. This is due to the fact that while always dignified in tone and pure in English, they have continually been addressed to the need of the hour in Greek affairs, being void, withal, of narrowness and bitterness. He has known how to take up the cudgels on occasion, however, and has never been uncertain in his support of the just claims of the Fraternity in any matter. Genial and jovial in intercourse with his fellows, a mighty hunter, a master of argument and a good judge of a good story, Brother Covington is as well known to the Fraternity at large as any man in it.

College Fraternities as Satanic Romish-Masonry (the behind the scenes Ancient Regime)
http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2008/08/college-frats-as-satanic-romish-masonry.html

Dana Beal Update

2011-10-18T16:20:00.001-04:00

from his October 18, 2011 radio appearance at Hemp Rock Radio

Dana Beal 2010
via Facebook FREE DANA BEAL FREE OURSELVES

Nancy J. Allen:

Dana sounded great. He said he's being discharged today,Tuesday, Oct. 18th, but didn't know where he'd be staying.

His lawyer's filed an appeal to have the prison sentence rescinded. [AJ Weberman reported that he is to be freed]

Dana was very clear and concise. Mainly, he talked about ibogaine and methcathinone, which comes from the African plant Khat, and makes you waste away.

He said that ibogaine stimulates production of GDNF (Glial Cell-Derived Neurotrophic Factor). (Glial cells provide protection for nerve cells in the brain. GDNF promotes the survival and growth of certain nerve cells in the brain.)

He said there are legal ibogaine treatment centers in Mexico and they're trying to establish one in Toronto. I got a LOT of good info in the 20 minutes he was on.

He said he'd suffered from shortness of breath prior to the heart attack, but thought it was due to the hernias. He mentioned a guy he knew who suffered a stroke and died after hernia surgery, which is why he thought the shortness of breath might be related to the hernias. He was wrong, obviously.

He needs money. We're working on finding out if donations can be sent to his lawyer. Stay tuned...

JH Covington UPHELD Harrison 'Narcotic' Act

2011-10-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

http://books.google.com/books?id=yqHOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA244&lpg=PA244&dq=Covington+Harrison+narcotics+act+vote&source=bl&ots=SAPtMsXT59&sig=CrtCjWEnJojwweGmMd5rXJokQUw&hl=en&ei=0KiUTp__B6fv0gH1uIWyBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

T. D. 2309 SUSTAINED

Chief Justice Covington of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia last Saturday overruled the demurrer of the relator to the answer of the respondents in the case of United States ex rel George B. Ashley, relator, vs. William H. Osborn and W. G. McAdoo, respondents. This means that the court did not sustain the contentions of Mr. Ashley on the questions of law placed in issue. Counsel for Mr. Ashley thereupon noted their intention to plead over, which will raise questions of fact and permit testimony to be adduced in support thereof.

This is the case testing the right of the Secretary of the Treasury and Commissioner of Internal Revenue through Treasury Decision No. 2309 to prohibit the refilling of a prescription calling for a preparation containing a narcotic drug in a proportion exempted by section 6 of the Harrison act when mixed with ingredients of medicinal virtue and used in good faith for medicinal purposes. The opinion of the court will not be analyzed, or commented on in detail at this time. It follows:

This is a petition for a writ of mandamus, directed to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, commanding them to abrogate and cancel Treasury Decision No. 2309 and all other decisions or regulations in conflict with and in derogation of the act of congress of December 17, 1914, commonly called and known as the "Harrison Narcotic Law," and commanding them also to make hereafter only such needful rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry the provisions of that act into effect. A rule to show cause was issued and the respondents have answered the rule. To this answer the relator has demurred. The petition, answer, and demurrer, have brought the proceeding to such issue that the question whether or not the relator is entitled to the mandamus as prayed for in the petition is squarely before the court for decision.

The petition states in substance that the relator, suffering from a serious cough, consulted professionally a regular practicing physician in the District of Columbia, who prescribed for him certain drugs to be used to alleviate the cough, and wrote the same out on one of his regular prescription blanks. That prescription was as follows:

"Ammonium chloride, 1 dram; morphine sulphate, one-fourth grain; syrup of scillae, one-half ounce; and syrup .of pruni, virg., one and one-half ounces; dose, one teaspoonful every two hours."

The relator, it is alleged, then had the prescription filled at the store of a registered druggist of the District of Columbia, and thereafter took the medicine in the doses prescribed by the physician until the quantity prescribed for him was exhausted. He then went to the drug store from which he had purchased the original quantity of medicine prescribed for him by the physician, and asked the druggist to refill the prescription. This the druggist declined to do, stating that he could not legally refill it because of the operation of Treasury Decision No. 2309, relating to the "Harrison Narcotic Law." Section 6 of the "Harrison Narcotic Law" provides:

"That the provisions of this Act shall not be construed to apply to the sale, distribution, giving away, dispensing, or possession of preparations and remedies which do not contain more than two grains of opium, or more than one-fourth of a grain of morphine, or more than one-eighth of a grain of heroine, or more than one grain of codeine, or any salt or derivative of any of them in one fluid ounce, or, if a solid or semi-solid preparation, in one avoirdupois ounce; or to liniments, ointments, and other preparations which do not contain cocaine or any of its salts or alpha- or beta-eucaine or any of their salts or any synthetic substitute for them: Provided, That such remedies and preparations are sold, distributed, given away, dispensed, or possessed as medicine and not for the purpose of evading the intentions and provisions of this Act. The provisions of this Act shall not r.pply to decocainized coca leaves, or preparations made therefrom, or to other preparations of coca leaves which do not contain cocaine."

Section 1 of that law provides, among other things: "That the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall make all needful rules and regulations for carrying the provisions of this Act" into effect."

In pursuance of section 1 of the law, as just quoted, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, issued on March ll, 1916, Treasury Decision No. 2309, which is as follows:

"Section 6 of the Act of Congress approved December l7, 1914, does not apply to extemporaneous prescriptions unless written for preparation or remedy as hereinafter defined. The exemptions in that section apply exclusively to ready-made preparations and remedies prepared in accordance with the United States Pharmacopoeia, National Formulary, or other recognized or established formula. . . . Preparations and remedies within the intent of Section 6 are hereby defined to be readymade compound mixtures prepared in accordance with a recognized or established formula as indicated above, which contain not more than one of the enumerated drugs in a quantity not greater than that specified, together with other active medicinal drugs in sufficient proportions to confer upon such preparations or remedies valuable medicinal qualities other than possessed by the narcotic drugs if dispensed alone."

This decision, the relator alleges in his petition, has been issued by the respondents in contravention of law, in that it is not a regulation in harmony with, and merely for the purpose of carrying into effect, the provisions of the law, but is in fact a regulation clearly beyond the scope, power, and intent of the law. And the relator then alleges in his petition that by section 6 of the "Harrison Narcotic Law" he was entitled to have refilled as many times as might be necessary for medicinal purposes the doctor's prescription which was given to him as recited in the petition. And the relator then alleges that, as the refusal to refill the same by the druggist to whom he applied was based upon the Treasury Decision No. 2309, and that decision having been promulgated by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Secretary of the Treasury contrary to the provisions of the "Harrison Narcotic Law," and being an arbitrary abuse of the authority vested in them, the relator is entitled to have a writ of mandamus issue out of this court commanding the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Secretary of the Treasury to abrogate Treasury Decision No. 2309 and hereafter to make only such needful regulations as may be necessary to carry the "Harrison Narcotic Law" into effect.

Before considering at all the validity of Treasury Decision No. .2309 in connection with section 6 of the "Harrison Narcotic Law," it is of first importance to determine whether or not the relator has actually such a private legal interest in the proper enforcement of the law as to give him the right to institute proceedings to secure such enforcement by the writ of mandamus.

A general duty to the public is not a special duty to the relator, or a duty which he can require the performance of through resort to the courts. Every citizen and every taxpayer is interested in the enforcement of law, in the proper administration of law, but the general interest is not a private interest, and is not sufficient to authorize private citizens to institute mandamus proceedings to secure from the appropriate officials the legal administration of such law. The mere fact, therefore, that the relator desired to become a purchaser of a combination of a narcotic drug with other drugs, and was refused them by a druggist because of the operation of Treasury Decision No. 2309, would, of itself, give the relator no sufficient private interest to proceed by way of mandamus to compel the officials charged with the enforcement of the "Harrison Narcotic Law" to abrogate existing regulations preventing such sale and purchase, even if those regulations are so arbitrary and so in contravention of the law as to constitute an abuse of official authority.

But the relator contends that the "prescription," given to him by a regular practicing physician for a combination of a narcotic drug with other drugs in proportions permitted in "preparations and remedies" as specified in section 6 of the law, operated to put him in possession of something in the nature of a property right, the interference with which gives him a peculiar and private interest in the proper enforcement of the law and enables him properly to institute these mandamus proceedings. But is his possession of a so-called "prescription" a property right? If so, it must be because the "prescription" is the formula of a "preparation or remedy" which does not contain more than the prohibited quantity of opium or other narcotic to the ounce of the preparation, within the meaning of section 6 of the narcotic law. His contention, therefore, resolves itself into the proposition that each time a physician, using his professional knowledge, evolves in his mind a particular combination of drugs that will benefit an immediate ailment of the patient, he creates a "preparation or remedy" within the ordinary acceptation of those terms in the drug trade. It seems to the court that such a contention is erroneous and would overturn the entire theory of the practice of medicine. The relator consulted a physician, and presumably gave him a history of his case. The physician diagnosed his case, and determined that the particular patient, the relator, with certain existing symptoms, needed in a certain quantity and for certain dosages a combination of drugs which included a narcotic drug. The physician might have given his directions for the medicine for his patient, the relator, directly to the druggist verbally if he chose to. The patient, the relator, acquired no property in the thing called the "prescription," and when he went a second time to the druggist to purchase the combination of drugs, including the narcotic drug, which the physician at a particular time prescribed for him to take in a given quantity, he was not in any different position from any one of the public who might have gone to the druggist to make the same sort of a purchase. The relator, therefore, has no private right involved with which the court can undertake to interfere.

However, apart from the right of the relator to institute the present mandamus proceedings, it seems clear that the duty imposed upon the respondents in relation to the "Harrison Narcotic Law" to "make all needful rules and regulations for carrying the provisions of this Act into effect," required in its performance the exercise of a high degree of judgment and discretion.

It is quite true that the law cannot be amended by a regulation issued by the respondents in virtue of the power conferred upon them under section l of the law. The regulations must be in harmony with the law and in an appropriate proceeding a mere arbitrary and unwarranted exercise of power by the respondents might be held invalid by the court .

In this case, however, the respondents have acted. They have exercised their judgment and discretion, and they have acted under the power given them to provide the appropriate administrative details for enforcing the "Harrison Narcotic Law," including, of course, section 6 of that law. The exercise of such a power certainly cannot be said to be ministerial. In Field vs. Clark, 143 U. S. 694, the court said: "The Legislature cannot delegate its power to make a law but it can make a law to delegate a power to determine some fact or state of things upon which the law makes, or intends to make, its own action depend. To deny this would be to stop the wheels of government. There are many things upon which wise and useful legislation must depend which cannot be known to the law-making powers, and must, therefore, be a subject of inquiry and determination outside of the halls of legislation."

If the existing regulations were abrogated by judicial order, and new ones, proper in the judgment and discretion of the officials, were promulgated, and they did not suit the petitioner, he would be again before the court for another writ of mandamus to compel the respondents to abrogate the new regulations and to promulgate still others. The mere statement of that proposition shows that the relator seeks the review of an act of official discretion by the prerogative writ of mandamus.

In the case of United States vs. Black, 128 U. S., 40, it was said by the court, speaking through Justice Bradley: "The court will not interfere by mandamus with the executive officers of the Government in the exercise of their ordinary official duties, even where those duties require an interpretation of the law."

In the case of Louisiana vs. McAdoo, 234 U. S. 627, the court said: "There is a class of cases which hold that if a public officer be required by law to do a particular thing, not involving the exercise of either judgment or discretion, he may be required to do that thing upon application of one having a distinct legal interest in a doing of the act. Such an act would be ministerial only. But if the matter in respect to which the action of the official is sought is one in which the exercise of either judgment or discretion is required, the courts will refuse to substitute their judgment or discretion for that of the official entrusted by law with its execution. Interference in such a case would be to interfere with the ordinary functions of Government."

It is possible that in a case where Treasury Decision No. 2309 as a regulation in relation to section 6 of the "Harrison Narcotic Law" is to be construed by a court, the regulation may be found to be contrary to the law (although it is fair to say that it seems to this court to be in harmony with the law), but a proceeding to secure a writ of mandamus is certainly not the proper remedy. The court might compel the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Secretary of the Treasury to make regulations and enforce the act, if they had not acted, and if such were needed, but it cannot command them to exercise their discretion in formulating those regulations in a particular manner.

The writ being refused for the reasons given, it is unnecessary to discuss the other contentions of the relator made at the oral argument and presented in his brief.

The demurrer is overruled.

[Signed] J. Harry Covington,
Chief Justice.

AMA 1915- Tighten Harrison Act to Ban Dilute Drug Forms

2011-10-16T16:00:00.000-04:00

The Harrison Act strictly banned the non-non-refillable prescription sale of products containing any amount of cocaine, but exempted those containing small amounts of opiates- which this 1915 JAMA editorial insisted should not.

http://books.google.com/books?id=yFQcAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA2070&lpg=PA2070&dq=harrison+narcotics+act+who+wrote+drafted+it&source=bl&ots=6HY53eZhNd&sig=08WmFtQEk9LGSKo9t2e4zgwouXc&hl=en&ei=7m6YTv3cLYL50gGM4e3IAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

INTERPRETATIONS UNDER THE HARRISON NARCOTIC LAW

Treasury decision 2213, issued June 7 by the commissioner of internal revenue, establishes a new ruling on Section 6 of the Harrison Narcotic Law, the section exempting certain proprietary preparations from the operations of the law. The section provides that preparations and remedies which do not contain more than 2 grains of opium or more than one-fourth grain of morphin or more than one-eighth grain of heroin or more than one-eighth grain of codein, etc., shall be exempt from the provisions of the act. The decision discusses the question as to whether or not "prescriptions" come within the definition of "preparations" or "remedies" as given in the act. The commissioner says:

The word "preparation" as generally used and understood means ready-made or prepared medicines, and the word "remedies" means that which cures or is efficacious in a specific disease or diseases under all conditions, while the term "prescription" is the written directions or recipe of a physician for the compounding or preparing of a medicine and directions for its use to meet the existing conditions in the case of a particular patient.

Under this interpretation, the commissioner holds that the exemptions in Section 6 do not apply to prescriptions written by registered physicians unless such a prescription is written for a preparation or remedy prepared in accordance with the U. S. Pharmacopeia, National Formulary or other formula, or for a "remedy or preparation" prepared under private or proprietary formula, carried in stock by a dealer, which may be dispensed without a "prescription." Accordingly, the commissioner directs that every prescription containing a narcotic drug in any quantity, unless it is for a preparation prepared in accordance with the U. S. P. or National Formulary, must have indicated on the prescription the name and address of the client, the date, the name and address of the physician and his registry number. Such prescriptions cannot be refilled, and must be kept on file by the druggist filling them for a period of two years.

This ruling draws exactly the same line in medicinal preparations that exists between ready-made clothing and clothes made to order. A preparation which is put up in accordance with a distinct formula and which is recognized as a definite preparation is exempt, provided it contains less than the minimum quantity of drugs. A physician's prescription, being written to order for an individual patient for a specific purpose, is not exempt, no matter how small an amount of the prescribed drugs it may contain. The practical effect of this decision is, that under it, physicians must include, in all prescriptions containing any opium or cocain or any of their derivatives, the name and address of the patient, the date, and the name, address and registry number of the physician.

At first glance, this decision will doubtless impress physicians as being a discrimination against them and in favor of proprietary preparations. This is true, but it is because the law, as it passed Congress, discriminated against physicians and in favor of "patent medicine." Section 6 of the Harrison law represents the political influence of the "patent medicine" manufacturer in Congress. It should never have been included in the law. Its insertion weakened the law and was due solely to the inability of the members of Congress to resist the pressure from "patent medicine" interests. This section must be repealed; so long as it stands, the Treasury Department has no choice but to enforce it. To use an exemption clause drafted at the dictation of the "patent medicine" interests to exempt physicians' legitimate prescriptions would be an absurdity. There should be no exemptions of any kind under this law. Every preparation of any kind, containing any amount of opium or cocain or any of their derivatives, should be subject to the operation of the law. Physicians have never asked that their prescriptions should be exempt. The demand for such exemption comes solely from the proprietary and "patent medicine"' interests; to satisfy these interests, the special exemption was made.

It has often been said that the best way to repeal unwise laws is to enforce them, rigidly and impartially. Section 6 of the Harrison law should be repealed at the earliest opportunity. Until this is done, it should be enforced. Physicians certainly do not wish to have their prescriptions put in the same category as "patent medicine" fakes and frauds. Let the dope-containing "patent medicine" stand on its own merits, if it has any, and let it be distinctly separated from the prescriptions of reputable physicians. With this understanding of the recent decision, the position of the Treasury Department should receive the approval of all physicians.

Another Treasury Decision (T. D. 2414, June 10, 1915), giving the interpretation of the Internal Revenue Bureau on another portion of the Harrison law, has just been made public. This decision has reference to the limitation on the professional prescription and distribution of narcotics by persons whether registered or not. The decision states that registration is limited to certain named persons, and that persons not legitimately engaged in the exercise of their trade or profession cannot legally register under the terms of the act, and has special reference to the prescription and distribution of narcotics on mail orders.

According to the decision, a party must be a legitimate producer, importer, manufacturer, seller or distributor of the mentioned drugs; likewise, a physician, dentist or veterinary surgeon can register under the act and dispense these drugs "in the course of his professional practice only." Such physician, dentist or veterinary surgeon can prescribe these drugs "when he has been employed to prescribe for the particular patient receiving such drugs" and on whom "he shall personally attend in his professional practice only," and then only "when employed to prescribe for the particular person receiving such drugs."

The decision further states that it has special application to those persons not registered as physicians who prescribe or distribute narcotic drugs or preparations on mail orders received from so-called patients or who, under the laws of the state or municipal regulations, are not permitted to practice medicine. This and the decision first referred to constitute two of the most important and far-reaching regulations in regard to the curbing of the indiscriminate sale and use of "patent" or proprietary medicines containing narcotics or habit-forming drugs. The extent of the so-called mail-order prescription cannot be estimated, but this recent treasury decision will undoubtedly have a tremendous effect on lessening this growing evil.

1906- Times a Changing

2011-10-16T14:00:00.000-04:00

http://books.google.com/books?id=jLzmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA250&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U3a2s4Sod4WEUlegNPDRPHP90jHaw&ci=66%2C1180%2C298%2C155&edge=0

AN OPEN LETTER.

Thomas D. McElhenie, pharmacist, DeKalb avenue and Ryerson street, Brooklyn, sends the following "open letter" to the Era for publication:

Brooklyn, N. Y., March 7, 1906.

To the National Formulary Committee of the American Pharmaceutical Association:

As our association is moving bravely on In the matter of anti-narcotic legislation, to he consistent and worthy, the National Formulary should drop morphia from the formula for compound syrup of white [line.

As an old member and a member of N. A. R. b. Council, I ask that this be done. Very truly,

Thos. D. Mcelhenie.

CIGAR SALES DECLINING.

Editor The Pharmaceutical Era:

I hear that sales of cigars by druggists have been falling off lately on account of the United Cigar Stores Company's competition. • According to cigar salesmen the retail druggists have experienced a material loss of trade In this section. What Is the difference of druggists in other sections of the country? Chicago, March 10. H. A.

PATENT MEDICINE ATTACKS.

Editor The Pharmaceutical Era:

Having read your editorial on "The attacks on Patent Medicines" It occurs to me that possibly the consideration of the matter by the Connecticut Legislature of 1905 would be Interesting to your readers. The bill was before the committee on "Public Health and Safety" requi»ing formula? to be printed on the wrappers and labels of all patent medicines. The writer suggested to the chairman of this committee, Senator EH Whitney of New Haven, a substitute which he favored to such an extent that he asked him to present this suggestion to the committee in the form of a letter, as, In case it might be found necessary to enact any legislation at all, It might be useful. As a matter of fact the legislature did not adopt any such legislation but as It is likely to come up again and is likely to come up continually I take the liberty of appending herewith a copy of the letter which Is as follows:

(Copy of Letter to Chairman of Committee on Public Health and Safety of the Conn. Legislature of 1905.)

"After careful consideration of the bill requiring labels indicating contents, to be placed on patent medicines, It has occurred to me that a good substitute would be a law requiring a state chemist or experimental station to analyze any secret medicinal preparation, upon the request of any three reputable citizens and publish and record the results of such analysis. These records to become public property and a copy lodged on file with the town clerk of each town. The medicine to be analyzed to be purchased

time analyses of all the prominent proprietary, medicines would be a matter of public record and as soon as any new one came Into prominence the Medical Society or the temperance ■ society would have a legal means of placing that also on record. No one would then be of necessity Hrnorant of the contents of any proprietary medicine he might be using, and we would obviate the manifest injustice to hundreds of druggists which the present proposed bill contemplates.

"All of these druggists have stocks of patent medicines bought in good faith, some of which may not be sold for several years, which they could not label according to law, and which consequently mii6t become a dead loss to them."

Thanking you for your attention In the matter and hoping the suggestion may be of Interest, I remain, yours respectfully, Charles W. Whittlesey.

"STARTED BY DOCTORS."

Editor The Pharmaceutical Era:

The Sentinel of this city contains the following item which I hope you will reprint as It has' a bearing on your editorial on "Attacks on Proprietary Medicines":

"A local druggUt, speaking of the bill now before the legislature, providing that all so-called proprietary or patent medicines be labeled to show how much alcohol or drugs Is contained therein, characterized the bill as nothing less than a

bit of attempted class legislation. It is a bill, he said, in favor of the doctors and against the druggists. It was started by the doctors, has been shoved along by them and has their full support.

"The passage of such a bill would drive everyone to a doctor Just as soon as they felt a bit ill, and consequently would Increase their trade greatly at the expense of the druggists.

"Supporting his statements further, the Sentinel's Informant said that many of the printed stories of deaths due to use of patent medicines were frauds. One paper gave a list of 35 such cases. Upon Investigation It was found that the names and addresses of 17 of them were false and that no such persons ever lived, to say nothing of having died."

Those are my sentiments.

. PUABM

Harvey Wiley Early U.S. Drug War Bibliography

2011-10-16T12:00:00.000-04:00

These are the documents containing the charges against coca and cocaine; please read and review each and the type of 'science' used.

1905 AMA Council on Pharmacy condemns Vin Mariani

1906 Pure Foods & Drugs Act- Tobacco-cigarette protection act- Key Points about the post 1906 demise of Coca
shamelessly promoted by yellow journalism, and USDA prosecutions.

1908 Homes Commission- Tobacco mercantilism against foreign Coca

Habit Forming Agents Their Indiscriminate Sale and Use a Menace to the Public Welfare,
especially when regarding Tobacco.

Note their occurrence against the timeline of the U.S. taking control of the Panama construction project, which ended and opened in 1914- the same year of the U.S. Harrison Narcotics Act banning Coca- the canal's opening drastically shortening the shipping of Coca leaves from Peru's Pacific coast to North Atlantic markets.

Also note such timeline regarding the 2nd time the Vatican summoned Vin Mariani creator Angelo Francois Mariani to be awarded a golden Papal medal as a benefactor of humanity for making Coca available to the world

What the DPA Should Cover

2011-10-15T12:00:00.005-04:00

STOP confining HARM REDUCTION

Switchover to safer forms and modes of drugs- Coca for concentrated cocaine; Opium for concentrated opiates. Iboga and Ibogaine for therapeutic uses from low dose stimulant to high dose addiction and or psycho-spiritual treatment

Switchover to safer modes of currently licit drugs, particularly Tobacco- such as 25 mg "one-hitter" pipes as a substitute for cigarettes.

Elimination of the Sweatheart No Labeling of ingredients break for Tobacco products and alcoholic beverages- ALL consumables should be labeled to added ingredients at the point of retail transaction - aka on each can and bottle of liquids, and upon each pack of cigarettes -- or are otherwise adulterated and misbranded.

Consistency of Labeling of main active psychoactive ingredients- cocaine content of Coca, caffeine content of Coffee, etc, nicotine content of Tobacco etc., per semi dried material or fluid ounce, and not simply by some 'FTC' method of an artificial replication that may be widely variable.

Full right of untaxed home cultivation and consumption, with normal sales tax upon full commercial operations.

Development of policy based upon actual impairment or enhancement regardless of the substance with rebut-table rather than per se standards.

Dana Beal to Be Freed

2011-10-14T18:51:00.008-04:00

Dana Beal 2010
Reportedly due to him having a heart attack (October 7 AJ Weberman comment), with the State of Wisconsin not wanting to have to pay for his heart bypass surgery.

Dig this. Dana is a free man. He is going to be re-sentenced because of the heart attack and he is out on 5K bail. I don't think the Wisconsin prison system wants to pay for his double bypass and hernia operation. Next comes Nebraska.

Dana is said to be tired and resting - hopefully he had some interesting dreams, as I have long felt he shall live to see the end of this post 1905 criminal mercantilism of the "drug war".

Dana's heart attack on September 27 occurred 7 days after his September 20 sentencing.

Lamar Smith Racketeering For Big Pharm

2011-10-14T15:11:00.021-04:00

Legislative Criminal Lamar Smith (R) Texas who blocks consideration of Ron Paul's HR 2306 MJ legalization bill, gets to pass "Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011" to effectively extend U.S. legislative crime internationally

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/rondonit/us-drug-policy-war-congress_n_998993_112167359.html

I believe this law could also be applied to any person seeking Medical (Pharmacuetical) Treatments outside this country that are unavailable here. Seems like a Big Pharma / AMA Monopoly Grant. We can't allow a person to buy his prescription outside this country when they're able to buy it here "Sanctioned" at ten times the price. For the same drug, produced on the same assembly line, in the same strength and packaging, We and our Insurance Industry gets to buy it at the American Premium. Who Controls the House writing this bill? It sure isn't the voters or even a minority of them.

Indeed, "...to engage in conduct ..." Lamar Smith would extend the U.S. criminal racketeering regarding suppression of freedom of medicine and diet, internationally, by criminalizing "conspiracy" to engage in conduct that would be "illegal" within the U.S., even if legal where it would take place, such as receiving an IBOGAINE treatment in Mexico.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h112-313

HR 313 "Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011"

112th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 313

To amend the Controlled Substances Act to clarify that persons who enter into a conspiracy within the United States to possess or traffic illegal controlled substances outside the United States, or engage in conduct within the United States to aid or abet drug trafficking outside the United States, may be criminally prosecuted in the United States, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 18, 2011

Mr. SMITH of Texas (for himself and Mr. SCHIFF) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To amend the Controlled Substances Act to clarify that persons who enter into a conspiracy within the United States to possess or traffic illegal controlled substances outside the United States, or engage in conduct within the United States to aid or abet drug trafficking outside the United States, may be criminally prosecuted in the United States, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011’.

SEC. 2. AMENDMENTS TO THE CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES ACT TO CLARIFY CONSPIRACIES CONDUCTED WITHIN THE UNITED STATES MAY BE CRIMINALLY PROSECUTED IN THE UNITED STATES.

Section 406 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 846) is amended by--

(1) inserting ‘(a)’ before ‘Any’; and

(2) inserting at the end the following:

‘(b) Whoever, within the United States, conspires with one or more persons, or aids or abets one or more persons, regardless of where such other persons are located, to engage in conduct at any place outside the United States that would constitute a violation of this title if committed within the United States, shall be subject to the same penalties that would apply to such conduct if it were to occur within the United States.’.

This legislative crime was approved by a Judiciary Committee Chairman vote of 20 to 7. Accordingly:

So who voted for this sweeping new assertion of power to regulate the personal behavior of Americans? All fifteen Republicans on the Judiciary Committee present voted for the bill, including such supposed champions of individual liberty as Ted Poe and Mike Pence. Back on March 10, 2010, for example, Poe was ranting that the “American people don’t desire more oppressive, intrusive government” and they want “to control their own lives.” And back on July 2, 2010 Pence was effusing that Americans, “live and breathe the cause of liberty. Freedom is the very core of an American spirit that is alive and well today.” But that was then and this is now.

The other seven Republicans on the committee didn’t bother to show up for the vote, including none other than Louis Gohmert. Perhaps he was off on crusade in the Middle East. All but two of the sixteen Democrats on the committee managed to put in an appearance, with five of them actually voting FOR passage. A minority of Democrats can often be found to support any bad idea embraced by all Republicans.

IMHO an overlooked matter explaining the political dynamics, asides from the openly listed political donations from pharma interests, are these elected officials' fraternal order memberships- as they are clearly beholden to something other than popular opinion, and need.

For this action certainly goes beyond the stated impetus of a case (where the U.S. government prosecution lost a potential conviction of cocaine smugglers from South America to Canada where the cocaine never entered the U.S. - with cocaine being illegal in Canada), simply by limiting the statute change to activities illegal where committed.

It is not about stopping persons within the U.S. smuggling certain drugs into places where already illegal, rather it is about extending and expanding the U.S. backed Pharmacratic Inquisition worldwide.

http://www.theweedblog.com/lamar-smiths-bill-to-extend-us-drug-laws-overseas-making-progress-passes-committee/

"... as Bill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance noted, the bill is written so broadly that it could criminalize any violation of US drug laws if that violation is planned in the US. For instance, heroin maintenance therapy is illegal under US drug laws. As the law is written, a US health care professional who made plans to work with colleagues doing heroin maintenance in a country where it is legal could potentially face prosecution".

Or an Ibogaine treatment.

Or drinking Coca in Bolivia.

Obama Racketeering For Big Pharma
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/10/obama-racketeering-for-big-pharm.html

DPA Conference Appears to Again Confine Harm Reduction

2011-10-14T13:47:00.006-04:00

& Downplay PLANT MEDICINE by ignoring almost any plant other than Cannabis (Marijuana)

A look at the Drug Policy Alliance program for their upcoming conference this November 2-5 shows a continuing indifference to concepts of 'Harm Reduction' beyond narrow confines.

Harm Reduction
Spotlight Session:
Innovative Policy Responses to Overdose

The number of overdoses has climbed dramatically in the last decade, mostly because of prescription drugs. Drug overdose is now the second leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. Significant federal funding is directed toward preventing HIV/AIDS and homicide, but virtually no federal dollars are designated for overdose prevention – even though overdose kills more people than murder or HIV/AIDS. What effective policy responses are available to stem this easily preventable epidemic?

Other Sessions
• Drug Sellers as Harm Reduction Allies
• Nightlife Harm Reduction: the Next Harm Reduction Frontier?
• Crack Pipes, Cow Wormer, and Controversy: Stimulants and Harm Reduction
• Too High a Cost: HIV and Drug Policy Reform
• Drugs, Criminalization, and Public Health: Social Justice as Harm Reduction
• Supervised Injection Facilities and Other Good Ideas

...

• Bad Trips: How to Respond to Unwanted or Dangerous Side Effects of Opiates, Psychedelics and Stimulants
Other Sessions

• Innovations in Drug Policies and Strategies in Latin America
• European Roundtable, Special Focus: Portuguese Decriminalization
• Global Roundtable

The remainder of this conference is devoted to Cannabis, and to matters of dealing with the existing prohibition- e.g. How to Deal With Police to Avoid Arrest - and the safeguarding of Rights beyond 4th Amendment (USC freedom from arbitrary searches), such as discrimination matters.

Marijuana
Spotlight Session:
State of the Movement: What’s It Going to Take to Make Marijuana Legal?

Marijuana legalization is the leading edge of drug policy reform in the U.S. mainstream today. So how’re we doing in the fight to end this obstinate and failed prohibition? What can we expect to see on the ballot in 2012 and beyond? Prominent national political consultants help sort out prospects for victory at the state and national level, including insights from the most extensive marijuana reform public opinion research ever conducted.

Other Sessions
span style="font-weight: bold;">State of the Movement: Is Medical Marijuana Still Relevant?

• How Does Money Shape Marijuana Reform?
• Innovative Approaches to Medical Marijuana Distribution and Services
• Marijuana Policing Targets Urban Youth
• Medical Marijuana Science: Latest Advances
• The New, Improved Marijuana Reform Coalition
• How Are We Ever Going to Clarify Medical Marijuana in California?
• Marijuana Reform Hotspots: Colorado and Washington

Criminal Justice
Spotlight Session:
Surveillance vs Incarceration: Reducing Prison Population Isn’t the End

Prison reformers, largely based on a cost savings argument, are turning the tide on prison expansion. However, states are now looking for cheaper ways to exact punishment and to monitor those suspected or convicted of breaking the law. As prison populations shrink, is the expanded criminal justice surveillance of (more) Americans inevitable? And what does this mean for a criminal justice system that is marked by extraordinary, institutionalized racial bias?

Other Sessions

• Making Sense of Drug Testing
• Drug Treatment and the Criminal Justice System: What Should It Look Like?
• Reducing Drug Arrests and Convictions: Strategies to Shift Law Enforcement Funds, Practices and Priorities
• Stigma and Exclusion: How Can We Overcome Consequences of Convictions and Suspicion of Drug Use?
• Sentencing and Prison Reform Is Real: Lessons and Warnings from Recent Successes

To its credit, the DPA program includes psychedelics.

Psychedelics

Spotlight Session: Psychedelic Research: What Does the Future Hold?
We are now in the midst of a psychedelic renaissance, with clinical research studies under way at top medical schools and research institutes world-wide. What new directions will the
future hold?
• Psychedelic Science: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives
• Psychedelic Healing: Can Psychedelics Reinvent Medicine... and Society?
• Psychedelics, Religion and Cultural Translation
• Salvia, Synthetic Marijuana, and Emerging Drug Criminalization Trends

As well meaning as this may be- much of it is all a set of band aids upon a much larger problem of a 'drug war' that is a racket to protect certain drugs from others (and not, as DPF co-founder Arnold S. Trebach would represent it as a well intended 'progressive' or 'moral' crusade).

This reality of the drug war is indelibly marked by Licit & Illicit Drugs p 230 graph of cigarette production, with each major spike occurring with each successive wave of repressive legislative crime with the 1906 U.S. Food and Drugs Act, the 1914 Harrison Act and the 1937 'Marihuana' Tax Act, and to this very day by the exemption of such cigarettes and of alcoholic beverages from the basic legal requirement of listing a retail products ingredients known for all other consumables.

The 'band-aid' approach increasingly touted by Ethan Nadelmann (who a few years ago mentioned Coca more frequently), along with the behavior of Ira Glasser (stone faced silence at the 1997 DPF conference "Cocaine Roundtable" to hearing my answer of 'Coca' to his question 'how do we address people's fears over cocaine', contrasted with his interest he showed in 1993 upon hearing of Coca's utility at reducing incidences of prolonged labor producing brain damage, (plus his known dalliances with cigarette industry monies and influence), ALL suggest a heavyweight yet hidden hand over drug policy, ensuring that progress is glacial, for the sake of protecting Tobacco and Pharmaceutical markets.

2000 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-12T23:50:00.000-04:00

Held in Washington, D.C., May 16-20, 2000

1999 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-12T23:30:00.000-04:00

Am in need of a 1999 DPF conference schedule to scan.

This conference was held in Bethesda, Maryland, May 12-15, 1999.

It was the final conference to include Rufus King, who died in December 1999.

1997 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-12T23:00:00.000-04:00

Held in New Orleans.

I am in need of a 1997 Drug Policy Foundation (DPF) conference schedule to scan.

The 1997 conference was the last of the continuous annual DPF conferences held since 1987, skipping 1998, then annually in 1999, 2000 and 2001- that last year as the merged Lindesmith Institute-Drug Policy Foundation. The Lindesmith Institute had been created in 1994 by Ethan Nadelmann with the financial backing of George Soros.

Since this merger, these conferences have been held once every two years as the 'Drug Policy Alliance' in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011.

Rejected by the Drug Policy Foundation- 1997:
PLENARY PANEL/WORKSHOP PROPOSAL Tinctures of Opium, Wines of Coca, etc: Popular, Pre-prohibition Uses of Natural Plants Perverted by Drug Prohibition into today's "Hard" Drug Plague
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/harvey-wiley-father-of-drug-problem.html

1996 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-12T16:00:00.001-04:00

Held in Washington, D.C., November 6-9, 1996

Hurtado, the one presenter of Coca, did not appear, as the DPF would not pay his air fare.

1995 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-12T13:00:00.002-04:00

Held in Santa Monica, California, October 18-21, 1995

This is a conference program summary- I need a full schedule to scan and here add.

“COCA '95: A Necessary Drug Policy Alternative from Abroad”
The Drug Policy Foundation's 1st and only Coca specific panel
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/11/14-years-ago-coca-95.html

1994 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-12T00:00:00.000-04:00

Held in Washington, D.C. November 16-19, 1994

Denied by the DPF- 1994: “Coca: Turning Over a New Leaf Towards Reducing Health Care Costs.”
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/harvey-wiley-father-of-our-exploding.html

1993 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-11T12:00:00.027-04:00

Held in Washington, D.C., November 17-20, 1993

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Obama Racketeering For Big Pharm

2011-10-10T00:41:00.013-04:00

Dana Beal 2009 Protest at AG Holder's Covington & Burling at 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW- from ANTIGONE

U.S. President Obama, and his U.S. 'Justice' Department headed by AG Eric Holder continuing to work against herbal Cannabis to protect potential markets in the Pharmaceutical alternative of Sativex.

They are bringing prosecutorial pressure upon businesses in States that have legalized some medicinal uses of Cannabis.

As Dr. Lester Grinspoon noted, maintaining the ban on herbal Cannabis (Marijuana) is critical for protecting markets in Sativex.

From Drug War Rant:

Some coverage of the recent federal crackdown

Federal crackdown on medical pot sales reflects a shift in policy (LA Times)

“They’re wasting money they don’t have,” [Sen. Mark] Leno said. “This is not the issue of the day. This doesn’t create jobs. This does not keep the security of the nation intact. It doesn’t clean the environment.”

U.S. targets pot suppliers who profit in state (SFGate)

Prosecutors target California’s marijuana trade

Kevin Sabet, former senior adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said that marijuana legalization advocates had “misread the tea leaves” when they predicted that Obama would be friendly to their policies.

US: California pot crackdown targets large dispensaries (MSNBC)

As for using marijuana as medicine, Sabet said the proper path should be one where components of marijuana are studied and possibly approved by the Food & Drug Administration for use in pharmaceuticals.

Judge rules for pot dispensaries as feds threaten major crackdown

“This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The administration is simply making good on multiple threats issued since President Obama took office,” said Kevin Sabet, a former adviser to the president’s drug czar.

What about the possible elephant in the living room that may be found with an inquiry within the powerhouse Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, D.C. law firm where Holder served as a pharmaceutical industry legal representative, Covington & Burling?

Holder - Breuer Law Firm Long Involved With Drug Policy
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/01/holder-breuer.html

Covington & Burling's Continuing Involvement With Drug Policy Organizations
Longtime Tobacco-Pharmaceutical Legal Powerhouse
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/09/covington-burlings-continuing.html

1992 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-09T12:00:00.002-04:00

Held in Washington, D.C., November 11-14, 1992

1991 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-08T12:00:00.016-04:00

Held in Washington, D.C., November 13-16, 1991

1990 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-07T12:00:00.001-04:00

Held in Washington, D.C., October 31-November 4, 1990

1989 Drug Policy Foundation Conference

2011-10-06T12:00:00.001-04:00

Held in Washington, D.C., November 2-5, 1989

My first DPF Conference

What About Ibogaine- Dana Beal

2011-10-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

Found at Salon;
neglected by Covington & Burling;
censored at the Huffington Post

http://letters.salon.com/books/feature/2010/06/28/cocaine_nation_interview_ext2010/view/index8.html?show=all

What about ibogaine?

It's hard not to be frustrated by the circularity of the arguments in this thread when you happen to have a key chip of information that would change the whole equation. Several people opined that there's no scientific answer for cocaine addiction. But that's only because, like most people in the United States, they do not know that a broad spectrum addiction interrupter, Ibogaine, is being withheld from the American people by their government, which has classified it as a Schedule I drug. Ibogaine is not a maintenance drug. A single dose or short course of treatments alleviates both withdrawal from and cravings for opiates, cocaine, meth-amphetamine, alcohol and cigarettes--but not cannabis (neural pathways are too similar). So it is perfect for polydrug dependency. Short term effects similar to a mix of wellbutrin, ketamine and salvia divinorum DISSOLVE the drug habit. In the medium term ibogaine, which sequestered in body fat, turns into a metabolite which is a powerful anti-depressant. But its permanent effects result from the expression of a growth factor, GDNF (glia-derived neurotropic factor) that not only re-sprouts dopamine neurons, but back-signals to the cell nucleii telling them to keep making GDNF so that the regeneration process continues even after ibogaine is eliminated by the body.

The only reason why ibogaine is illegal is that in 1967 the feds decided it was too similar to LSD. That was before we knew that it is not a hallucingen at all, but a true oneiric--a REM-ogen.

Understand that if ibogaine were legal, far more people would do it for alcohol and cigarettes than all the illegal drugs combined. But it makes no sense for a medical cure for cocaine and meth to be more illegal than the drugs you're talking about legalizing. It is also frustrating that I can't ask Thomas Feiling about ibogaine. But maybe he'll read this. Then again, maybe your moderator will decide this is off-topic, and delete it like the Huff Post.
—danabeal Read danabeal's other letters
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COCAINE NATION

2011-10-03T12:00:00.000-04:00

Cocaine Nation p 21

"The first scare stories about cocaine in American newspapers focused upon those thought least able to handle it. This was the era of the first segregationist laws and the high point of the lynchings of black men in the Southern United States. Much of the cocaine in the United States arrived on ships sailing north from the Pacific coast of Latin America, through the Panama Canal and north to New Orleans, where it seems to have found favour with the city's dock-workers, as it helped them to work long hours with little sustenance, a habit their employers were keen to foster. In 1912, Dr. Charles B. Towns opined that "When an overseer in the South will deliberately put cocaine into the rations of his Negro labourers in order to get more work out of them to meet a sudden emergency, it is time to have some policy of accounting for the sale of a drug like cocaine. 21 Nothing struck panic into Southern White Americans quite like the threat of Black violence. Since cocaine use also lead to binges and brawls, Southern voters were soon calling for cocaine to be banned outright. Dr. Christopher Koch of the State Pharmacy Board of Pennsylvania testified before Congress that "most of the attacks upon white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain". America's first drug Tsar, Dr. Hamilton Wright, alleged that drugs made black men uncontrollable, and that they encouraged them to rebel against authority of White people.23

The United State Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 required that the inclusion of certain drugs in patent medicines be clearly indicated on the label, so that consumers would know what they were taking Manufacturers had extensive ranges of products that they could not afford to see compromised by negative publicity over cocaine. consumers could still buy pure cocaine, but most consumers of mild coca and cocaine infused preparations simply stopped buying then, or switched to decocainated version if Vin Mariani and Coca cola, unfortunately the authorities made little distinction between coca and cocaine, or between problematic and unproblematic drug use. as a result, legitimate concerns over public health and misleading advertising were highjacked by imaginary fears and generalizations. "

The Panama Canal was first opened to traffic on August 15, 1914. Yet Cocaine Nation has it serving the cocaine trade previously?

Rick Doblin October 1, 2011 Boston U SSDP

2011-10-03T00:40:00.005-04:00

Blogger is being strangely slow (2 hours and its still not done!) in uploading this video that I took of Rick Doblin's presentation at Boston University 2 days ago.

HW Wiley JH Covington Subversion of 1st Amendment on Foods & Drugs

2011-09-30T01:44:00.003-04:00

USDA-AMA-APhA Racketeering

James Harry Covington founded the law firm Covington & Burling

"The proof of intention in the criminal law," he said "does not mean the metaphysical reading of a man's mind. Specific proof of intent is not necessary; it may be established by evidence of attending facts and circumstances, and therefore the Government can easily show that a false statement on a label regarding a drug is one from which fraudulent intent may be implied. Conviction in all proper cases will be consequently comparatively sure."------ James Harry Covington

http://www.quackwatch.com/13Hx/MM/03.html

excerpt

The misbranding section of the law did not explicitly refer to curative promises. A food or drug article was misbranded, the law stated, "the package or label of which shall bear any statement, design, or device regarding such article, or the ingredients or substances contained therein which shall be false or misleading in any particular." Wiley and Kebler, in their initial regulations, had aimed this general clause directly at unwarranted assertions that promised relief or cure. At the time questions were raised about the Bureau's interpretation. In view of the differences of opinion prevailing over matters therapeutical, a drug editor suggested, "it will be interesting to know who is to be judge of the truth or falsity of the therapeutical claims which may be made." [16] Certainly among medical practitioners an ancient therapeutic debate had reached a new and bitter stage. In the American Medical Association's effort to improve standards, Association spokesmen were condemning the healing practices of various sects and cults [17]. These groups fought back with vigor, defending their therapies and opposing the AMA's effort to enforce therapeutic monopoly. While such a debate was going on, could Wiley and Kebler, perusing nostrum labels, find firm scientific grounds on which to approve or reject? They themselves took this for granted and, during the first years of the law, so did the trade. Many manufacturers toned down their therapeutic claims. Others did not, but when hauled into court admitted Wiley's view of the law's applicability by pleading guilty [18].

Out in Kansas City an eclectic physician named Johnson decided on a different legal course. He had been vending an assortment of tablets and liquids as "Dr. Johnson's Mild Combination Treatment for Cancer." For this purpose, of course, the concoctions were worthless. Johnson fulfilled the law's requirements as to the accurate labeling of his ingredients. It was solely against his false curative promises that the government brought its suit. The medicine man's lawyers moved to quash the indictment, pleading that Congress had not intended the law to forbid such practices. When the case had run its course, the Supreme Court had agreed. Oliver Wendell Holmes delivered the decision, a tortuous exploration of grammatical construction that could find no proper link between the prohibition of false labeling and assertions of healing potency. Congress was not apt to legislate, Holmes argued, in the debatable realm of what could cure and what could not. This would "distort the uses of its constitutional power to establishing criteria in regions where opinions are far apart." [19]

Charles Evans Hughes wrote a vigorous dissent. His study of the grammar of the law revealed the connection Holmes could not see. He cited the act's legislative history to show that Congress had indeed intended a prohibition of therapeutic nonsense on nostrum labels. Even the makers of medicines had generally assumed the law to be so written, Hughes pointed out, since so many had promptly entered pleas of guilt. Holmes had "impressively described," the dissenting justice said, the conflict that did indeed exist between schools of medicine and the difficulty of legislating in such an uncertain area. "But granting the wide domain of opinion," he added, "and allowing the broadest range to the conflict of medical views, there still remains a field in which statements as to the curative properties are downright falsehoods and in no sense expressions of judgment. This field I believe this statute covers." This type of downright falsehood was what Johnson had placed on the labels of his cancer cure.

But Holmes had the majority with him. The decision, wrote an incensed George Creel, was "first aid to fraud and murder," leaving the nostrum provisions of the law with "as much bite as a canton flannel dog." Wiley was angry. Maybe Holmes understood his opinion, the chief chemist said. I don't. All I can make out is that it gives anyone the right to lie about drugs whenever he feels like it." Wiley preferred to stand with Hughes. "He disagreed," the chemist added bitterly, "probably, because he had not been on the bench long enough to know better." [20]

The decision in the Johnson case, said President Taft, meant that over 150 cases of the same type pending in the courts, "involving some of the rankest frauds by which the American people were ever deceived," would have to be dismissed. He urged the Congress promptly to pass a law to plug the hole. Holmes had made clear—and Hughes had agreed—that "any attempt to legislate against mere expressions of opinion would be abortive." Thus the new law should proscribe only "knowingly false misstatements of fact as to the effect of the preparations." Such a measure, the President was persuaded, would control "the greater part of the evil." [21]

Congressman Swagar Sherley of Kentucky introduced a bill, and it was passed by Congress "without any blare of trumpets." The amendment to the food and drug law declared an article misbranded "if its package or label shall bear or contain any statement, design, or device regarding the curative or therapeutic effect of such article or any of the ingredients or substances contained therein, which is false and fraudulent." [22]

In view of the Johnson decision, "false and fraudulent" was as strong a phrase as Congress could very well enact. But would proving fraud be such an impossible task as to offer quackery an open road? Congressman Sherley acknowledged this hazard: "very frequently," he said, the government would have difficulty "in convicting the guilty man." A fellow Congressman, James Covington of Maryland, foresaw no untoward danger. "The proof of intention in the criminal law," he said "does not mean the metaphysical reading of a man's mind. Specific proof of intent is not necessary; it may be established by evidence of attending facts and circumstances, and therefore the Government can easily show that a false statement on a label regarding a drug is one from which fraudulent intent may be implied. Conviction in all proper cases will be consequently comparatively sure." [23]

Wiley was less cheerful. The dangers Congressman Sherley saw as likely, Wiley viewed as certain. The word "fraudulent" in the amendment, he said, was a "joker" which would nullify the law's intent. Congress had "given the manufacturers of fake cure-alls another lease on life and enabled the roots of fraud and corruption to sink deeper into the soil of protective legislation-protective to vested interests, not to public welfare." But enforcing the Sherley Amendment was not to be Harvey Washington Wiley's responsibility. Five months before Taft signed the law, Wiley had resigned his post as chief of the Bureau of Chemistry. The decision had been, perhaps, impending since 1906. The talents required for crusading in behalf of a law are not the same talents required for enforcing it. The measure was a pioneering one, and weaknesses in drafting became apparent, especially a lack of clarity as to enforcement responsibilities. Wiley's categorical stand against food preservatives antagonized industries with great political power, and this power they brought to bear. President Roosevelt, becoming unsure of Wiley's science, created checks upon his single-banded action within the Bureau which hamstrung the chief chemist. Bitter internecine warfare developed which, in Taft's administration, led to a charge of malfeasance against Wiley. Although he was vindicated by the President, Wiley felt that Taft should then have proceeded to oust his enemies and restore his authority. This the President did not do. Embittered, tired of fruitless fighting, and anxious to increase his income because of his recent marriage, Wiley quit [24].

In the whole protracted struggle, patent medicines played almost no part at all. One of Wiley's opponents within the Department of Agriculture had chided the chemist for working up weak food cases when so many strong cases might be developed against vicious nostrums sold within "the shadow of the National Capitol." Granted that the complaint possessed some merit, it has all the earmarks of a blow aimed at embarrassing Wiley in the continuing battle. At any rate, the Johnson case had already been decided against the government in the District Court [25]

Dana Beal Heart Attack- Sept 27, 2011

2011-09-27T22:11:00.008-04:00

Incarcerated activist Dana Beal has suffered a heart attack, 7 days after being sentenced, and was in critical condition, the morning of Sept 27, 2011. According to to AJ Weber:

he was in a holding cell awaiting transfer when he had an arrest. They defibed him brought him to local hosp the madison. He is in cold room in coma. more in next 48 hrs

According to CelebStoner "He's currently in ICU at St. Mary's Hospital in Madison."

There ought to be efforts to free him, perhaps a petition to the President, and how about some pro bono legal work from Covington & Burling?

Sign Petition to FREE Dana Beal:
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/release-irvin-dana-beal-prison-recently-sentenced-and-suffered-heart-attack-dana-coma-release-dana/5L6LNXfT

Covington & Burling's Continuing Involvement With Drug Policy Organizations

2011-09-27T00:14:00.001-04:00

Longtime Tobacco-Pharmaceutical Legal Powerhouse

http://www.cov.com/washington/

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/21/marijuana-researchers-get-pro-bono-representation-in-dea-lawsuit/

(excerpt: dated Wednesday, September 21st, 2011)

"The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) has received free legal representation in a lawsuit against the DEA over a license to grow marijuana for federally regulated research.

The D.C.-based law firm Covington & Burling LLP, one of the foremost law firms representing the pharmaceutical industry, has offered pro-bono legal representation to the research group to appeal the DEA’s August 15 final order in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. MAPS estimated the law firm saved them $175,000 in legal costs.

The DEA rejected University of Massachusetts professor Lyle Craker request to obtain a license to grow marijuana to study its potential medical uses, claiming that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) can be the only one to supply marijuana for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated research."

The Drug Policy Alliance conference schedule devotes significant time to Marijuana, but with weirdly little for Coca , (even in 2011 the year Bolivia denounces the 1961 'narcotics' conference, with Covington & Burling, already known for advising the DPA predecessor DPF); doing significant work upon Marijuana, but nothing as far as I know regarding Coca, despite the tremendous potential for good.

The Covington & Burling website (Health page, early 2005) acknowledged the law firm's work with the Drug Policy Foundation and other organizations involved with drug policy reform:

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-policy-foundation-advised-by-c.html

Commonwealth v. Hutchins. We represent Mr. Hutchins and the interests of similarly situated patients for whom the medical use of marijuana is necessary, in a variety of state and national initiatives aimed at decriminalizing such use. We work closely with the Drug Policy Foundation, the Marijuana Policy Project and sympathetic members of Congress and selected state legislatures. American Civil Liberties Union - Drug Policy Litigation Project. We were asked to assist the ACLU in preparing a letter to the Drug Enforcement Agency in support of an application by a professor at the University of Massachusetts for registration to manufacture or distribute controlled substances for the purposes of a scientific study on medical marijuana. Specifically, they requested that we opine on the consistency of the application with the United States' treaty requirements pursuant to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. We have continued to provide advice on related aspects of this matter.

That the firm would use the present tense

"We work closely with the Drug Policy Foundation, the Marijuana Policy Project and ... the American Civil Liberties Union Drug Policy Litigation Project"

in 2005, five years after the Drug Policy Foundation was superseded by the Drug Policy Alliance (by merging with the Lindesmith Institute in July 2000), appears to suggest that Covington & Burling works closely with the Drug Policy Alliance.

Notably, the Drug Policy Alliance has continued the Drug Policy Foundation's post 1992 malevolent malaise towards the Coca issue, and that'elephant in the living room' continuing mega boondoggle - public health disaster of pro Tobacco anti Coca Agricultural Mercantilism, embodied in U.S. statute since the 1906 Food and Drugs Act.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2011/09/continuing-powerhouse-alongside-federal.html

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2011/09/continuing-powerhouse-alongside-federal.html

Evo Morales Accuses US of Chocking Bolivia's Economy

2011-09-26T16:37:00.001-04:00

CNN gets some of the story:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/09/21/world/americas/bolivia-morales/

New York (CNN) -- The United States metes out certifications to other countries for their cooperation on drug trafficking, but as the nation with the biggest demand for illegal drugs, who evaluates the United States? Bolivian President Evo Morales posed that question in an interview with CNN en Español, reiterating a recent comment that drew attention.

Relations between Bolivia and the United States are at a low point as the Morales government accuses the United States of trying to destabilize it, while the United States counters that Bolivia is dropping the ball in the fight against drugs.

Since coming into office, Morales has expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. ambassador.

"Since we don't have an ambassador here, since we don't have DEA, and no dead and injured and no military bases from the U.S. here, they decertify us," Morales said Monday in the interview, which came during his visit to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

Morales accused the DEA and the U.S. State Department of using their agents in other countries for political purposes.

"The origins of drug trafficking are in the demand, not the supply," he said. "So I'd like for some international organism to certify or decertify the United States for their responsibility on the issue of drug trafficking."

The Bolivian president vowed to take his idea to regional bodies in Latin America to see if other countries agree.

Morales, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, accused the United States of trying to taint all "anti-imperialist" countries with the drug-trafficking label.

The comment was related to the arrest this year of retired Bolivian Gen. Rene Sanabria, a former anti-drug czar who was arrested in Panama and extradited to the United States to face drug trafficking charges. At the time of his arrest, Sanabria was working as an aide to a minister close to Morales.

Morales alleged that the arrested general and the United States were working together on a plan to smear his country's reputation.

"We have information that he is negotiating his years in prison in exchange for something," Morales said.

His anti-American rhetoric comes at a time when Morales is facing domestic pressures.

Indigenous communities are protesting the proposed construction of a highway through a national park where they live. The indigenous groups have also called for an end to hydrocarbon extraction from the area.

Morales called the demands unrealistic, noting that 90% of Bolivia's natural gas flows through that area.

"To cease means to leave the Bolivian people without resources," he said, adding that the government remains open to dialogue with the protesters.

Last month, he also blamed the United States for stoking protest marches against the highway.

---

Alas, the mainstream media seems uninterested in any deeper analysis; consider:

"Morales, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, accused the United States of trying to taint all "anti-imperialist" countries with the drug-trafficking label."

"Ani-imperialist"- ah yes a useful slogan that implies (but alas does not really mean) opposition to an ancient regime: a slogan that obscures the belying political dynamics. Consider as a start how Evo Morales is presented in the garb of communism, with his political party the "Movement Towards Socialism". Consider the times that Evo has been photographed with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez- each the proverbial "anti-imperialist".

If these men were truly "anti-imperialist" what can be said about any possible efforts by Evo Morales to persuade either Cuba nor Venezuela to re-legalized Coca Leaf? If either Castro nor Chavez were such 'anti-imperialists" do they allow the sale of coca teas and other beverages, nor require tobacco products to NOT be exempt from retail labeling of ingredients?

Indeed, among the so-called left wing 'progressive' 'environmentalist' swaths of intelligentsia one will see infinitely more upon that single highway project in Bolivia, than upon the whole issue of, ahem, imperial MERCANTILISM, banning Coca perverting it into concentrated cocaine for the sake of protecting cigarettes.

That the word "mercantilism" is so rarely heard, in contrast to the fallacy of anti-capitalism, speaks volumes about the jesuitical rot of academia.

Freemason FD Roosevelt Approved MJ Prohibition

2011-09-25T19:00:00.002-04:00

Freemasonic U.S. Presidents betrayed Freedom of Medicine and Diet with the 1906 Food and Drug Act and 1937 Cannabis Prohibition- providing an entity to be sued for Prohibition's Damages

Signed the Marijuana Tax Act- August 2, 1937

http://www.pagrandlodge.org/mlam/presidents/froosevelt.html

MASONIC RECORD

Initiated: October 11, 1911, Holland Lodge No. 8, New York City. Brother Roosevelt participated in the Raising of his son Elliott (1910-1990) on February 17, 1933, in Architect's Lodge No. 519, also in New York City. He was present, but did not participate in the Degrees when two other sons, James (1907-1991) and Franklin D., Jr. (1914-1988) became Members of their brother Elliott's Lodge, on November 7, 1935. Brother and President Roosevelt was made the first Honorary Grand Master of the Order of DeMolay on April 13, 1934 at the White House.

Governor of New York, 1929-1933.

Freemason Theodore Roosevelt Gave Us the 1906 Food and Drug [cigarette market protection] Act
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/05/freemason-t-roosevelt-approved-wiley.html

Tobacco State North Carolina U.S. Congressman Introduced 1937 MJ Prohibition

2011-09-25T12:00:00.001-04:00

North Carolina, one of the biggest traditional locations for growing the infamous 'Virginia Bright Leaf' type of Tobacco- bred to promote consumption/addiction

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6859422

Birth: Nov. 7, 1863
Laurel Springs
Alleghany County
North Carolina, USA
Death: Oct. 1, 1954
Laurel Springs
Alleghany County
North Carolina, USA

U.S. Congressman. Elected to represent North Carolina's 8th and 9th Districts in the United States House of representatives, serving from 1911 to 1953. Also served as a member of North Carolina State Senate in 1908.

Family links:
Children:
James Horton Doughton (1899 - 1962)*

Spouse:
Lillie Stricker Hix Doughton (1870 - 1946)*

*Point here for explanation

Search Amazon for Robert Lee Doughton

Burial:
Laurel Springs Baptist Church Cemetery
Laurel Springs
Alleghany County
North Carolina, USA

Maintained by: Find A Grave
Record added: Oct 17, 2002
Find A Grave Memorial# 6859422

Dana Beal September 20, 2011

2011-09-24T17:00:00.000-04:00

http://youtu.be/xKgOh_VSQe0

On The Pharmaceuticalization of Marijuana- Lester Grinspoon

2011-09-24T14:00:00.002-04:00

http://www.rxmarijuana.com/Pharmaceuticalization.htm

excerpt

There is little doubt that pharmaceutical companies will develop some cannabinoid products which will be at least as useful as marijuana, and some will be uniquely so. Also, some may be expected to be free or nearly so of psychoactivity; this will allow them to be placed outside of the constraints of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Act classification, or at most assignment to Categories IV or V. They will require prescription and they will be expensive, but there will be a market. What is uncertain, and of course critical to a decision to develop new cannabinoid products, is the anticipated size of the market. The "pharmaceuticalization" of marijuana will only succeed if the pharmaceutical products displace marijuana as a medicine. This seems unlikely in view of the latter's limited toxicity, easy availability, low cost relative to pharmaceuticals, ease with which it can be self-titrated, growing access to vaporization devices, and its remarkable medical versatility. And if the legal costs of using marijuana are presently not so high that most people choose marijuana over dronabinol, it is difficult to imagine a level of enforcement which would eliminate use of the plant material.

The Absurdity of Simply Defining 'Cocaine' as a drug of addiction

2011-09-23T12:00:00.011-04:00

Even more intriguing to Freud were a series of clinical papers published in George Parke’s house organ, the Therapeutic Gazette. In 1878, an American physician named W.H. Bentley described successfully treating a patient addicted to the “opium habit” with coca. Two years later, in 1880, Bentley reported his success in treating both opium and alcohol abusers with cocaine. With the twenty-twenty vision of historical hindsight, it is easy to shake one’s head at such a harebrained theory. Substituting one addictive drug for another was a common medical means of treating substance abuse in the late nineteenth century and I fact, remains so to this day. It is impossible to give an accurate number of how many morphine addicts were unwittingly turned into cocaine addicts by well-intentioned physicians during this area; similarly, alcoholics were often prescribed morphine to the point of addiction, and later, cocaine and even nicotine to help them kick their drinking habits. At the dawn of doctors’ recognition of addiction as a disease, what all these games of medical musical chairs most reliably did was to create “new and improved addicts” – p76 An Anatomy of Addiction- Howard Markel

This quote is my nomination for most arrogant, deliberate mis-direct, representing the absurdity of viewing or defining a particular drug as primarily a drug of addiction, as done by the title of this book.

The term here is a negative spin confusing a phenomenon of physical withdrawal with another of toxic-mania, and mistakenly applied to the drug in general. We are to forget the real benefits of coca, by confusing Coca with cocaine either dilute or at any level of infinitely higher concentration. Cocaine is more correctly a drug of either great benefit as a superior alternative to caffeine and nicotine, or one of great detriment of toxic-mania- all depending upon the context, particularly of form.

Isolated cocaine was not even commercially available in 1880.

Yet – makes this deliberate misstatement of fact – Bentley used Coca leaf extract, diluted , not isolated cocaine concentrated.

An infinitely better account appears within the book by Joseph Kennedy, Coca Exotica:

In July of 1878, Bentley was called to a house somewhere in the hills of Kentucky; when he arrived there, he was astonished to find a tenth of an acre in opium poppies (Papaver somniferium). The lady of the house, a forty year old widow, confessed to the doctor that she had been an opium eater for quite some time, consuming about a half pound of the drug a year. Bentley says: “I persuaded here to give up the habit. She declared that she could not. She agreed, however, to try, so I sent her one pound of the fluid extract of coca to begin with. When used up, she sent for half the quantity, stating that she thought it would complete the cure. I sent her one half pound. She sent me her opium crop that winter, with the message that the medicine had cured her.

The medicine Bentley prescribed for her was the fluid extract of coca manufacture red by Parke Davis and Company in Detroit, Michigan. The preparation they offered was standardized in the United States Pharmacopoeia, 6th to 8th editions (1880—90), and contained 0.5 grams of coca alkaloids per one hundred cubic centimeters of solution. Of course, cocaine was one of those alkaloids contained in the fluid extract, but according to Bentley’s recommended dose (1 drachm of fluid extract when the desire for whiskey or opium is quite urgent), a patient would only consume .0185 grams (slightly more then 1/200 of a gram) of cocaine per dose, and even then it would automatically be taken in conjunction with coca’s natural complement of other alkaloids; because it was prescribed to be drunk, this solution would necessarily have to pass through the liver and kidneys. In these two important respects the use of the fluid extract closely resembled the Indian method of taking the drug, a procedure proven harmless by centuries of use. It is also interesting to note that one would have to take 13.5 one drachm doses of Parke Davis fluid extract just to get the amount of cocaine alkaloid consumed daily by an average Peruvian Indian. This is based upon Hanna’s study that estimates the average Indian digests approximately 0.25 grams of cocaine a day by normal coca use.

---

Bentley’s idea of curing these addicts with coca caught on immediately and was put into practice throughout the country. Reports of its effectiveness began to appear as a regular feature in the Therapeutic Gazette as well as the Philadelphia Medical Times, New Remedies, Medical and Surgical Report, and the New York Medical Review.

http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA14http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif8&dq=coca%20bentley&ei=n_FJTvriOcTx0gGhsfnqBw&ct=result&id=PioCAAAAYAAJ&output=text

As a valuable antidote to the opium habit, it is spoken highly of by Dr. W. H. Bentley, of Kentucky; Dr. G. Leforge, of Illinois; Dr. H. F. Stimmell, of Tennessee, and many others. Dr. R. P. Henderson states in the Louisville Medical Neii's that one patient who took as much as a pint of tincture of opium in a week, was cured by taking the coca in drachm doses as often as he felt that he could no longer do without the laudanum. He used it frequently for two or three days, gradually lessening the dose until cured. Dr. C. H. Poizat, of Eaton, Philadelphia, mentions in the Medical and Surgical Reporter two cases of asthma, in which coca afforded decided relief.

http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA457&dq=coca%20bentley%20opium&ei=efxJTpylKsbd0QGwnsjrBw&ct=book-preview-link&sqi=2&id=spgCAAAAYAAJ&output=text

Erythoxylon Coca on the Opium and Alcohol Habits

Dr. Bentley, in Therapeutic Gazette, reports the following cases:

Miss M., a sprightly, intelligent blonde, aet. 30. I had been acquainted with her for 15 years, and for several years of our early acquaintance, when the family lived near me, was her father's family physician. In June, 1878, I accidentally met her on a train. Eight years previous she had a protracted attack of pneumonia, during which she contracted the habit of using morphine, which she still retained. These facts were well known to me, so I took occasion to ask her if she had left it off. She replied in the negative, and told me that she then required 10 grs. twice a day. She had tried nostrums and had visited some advertising quack in another State, to no purpose. I then suggested the erythoxylon, fully explaining its action. The result was I prescribed a pound for her. I received a note from her when she had used this. She was much encouraged, and had ordered two pounds more. This quantity completed the cure. I saw her recently, when she assured me that she had no desire for morphine.

Case 2. July, 1878, was called to a case some 15 miles distant, and nearly all the way "in the hills." I was quite astonished to find about •one-tenth of an acre in poppies. On inquiry, the lady of the house, a widow, about 40, told me that she was an "opium eater," to use her expression, and that she used her own opium. From what I could learn, she used about half a pound of the drug a year. 1 persuaded her to give up the habit. She declared that she could not. She agreed, however, to try, so I sent her ? lb. fluid. extract coca to begin with. When used, she sent for half the quantity, stating that she thought it would complete the cure. I sent her a half pound. She sent me her opium crop that winter, with the message that the medicine had cured her.

Case 3. An aged lady, set. 72. She had been addicted to the habit for 35 years. I persuaded her to try the coca. She was then taking 2 drachm doses of opium three times a day. She said she felt sure she would be unable to leave off the opium, but as she was wealthy and extravagant, she readily consented to try the coca. She procured two pounds on my prescription, and began its use. The progress of the case is rather amusing. She uses one for a time, and then resorts to the other. Sometimes she does not taste opium for a fortnight, using the coca during the time, then she returns to her opium, and thus she alternates. Her doses of opium have been reduced, to as little, I think, as 10 grs., and her general health has greatly improved. Before using the coca, she was a great sufferer from duodenal dyspepsia. She has so far improved, in this respect, that she rarely suffers in this particular, and it is a wonder, too, for she is a ravenous feeder, and as fond of "cake and pastry" as a child, and, withal, uses a great deal -of wine.

Case 4. An unmarried man, aet. 27. Contracted the "opium habit" five years previous to using the coca. Had become a great slave to morphine. June, 1879, I put him upon coca. He ordered three pounds at the beginning. In October following, I met him, and he assured me that he was entirely relieved of the habit, and had one pound of his medicine left.

http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA143&dq=coca%20bentley%201880&ei=I_pJTr3QBMHW0QHvz5XrBw&ct=result&id=_g0CAAAAYAAJ&output=text

Medical summary, Volume 2
ERYTHOXYLON COCA.
BY W. H. BENTLEY, M. D., LL. D., VALLEY OAK, KY.
"NEW PREPARATIONS," JULY, 1878.

A FEW years since I procured six or eight pounds of the saturated tincture of erythoxylon coca from a druggist of Philadelphia, with a view of testing the virtues of the plant, therapeutically. I used all with the exception of a single bottle, within the course of about fifteen months. All the cases, but one, in which I prescribed it, were those of a chronic character affecting the lungs, and simulating phthisis.^ The excepted case was one of "nervous dyspepsia" complicated with uterine troubles and hysteria. The patient was married, the mother of two children, the youngest six months old, while the mother was herself 23 years of age. She was greatly emaciated, was very despondent, and was, withal, addicted to the opium habit. It was as a substitute for her accustomed morphine, the use of which I absolutely forbade, that I directed the coca, in drachm doses, three times a day. It answered the purpose admirably.

In short, the coca gave me entire satisfaction in all the cases in which I used it, acting promptly as a nervous stimulant, allaying irritation, reviving the despondent without depressing reaction, and all without producing febrile or other unpleasant symptoms. My only objection was the high price, which was such as to prevent the druggists from ordering it, unless I would guarantee its sale. I still had one pint on hand; which I used myself recently, and the good results were so remarkable, and I noted its action so carefully, that I think a detail of the case may be both of interest and utility to your readers.

My age is 43, height 5 feet 7 inches, weight 125 pounds, complexion rather dark, hair thin, fine, and dark; eyes dark, but neither hair or eyes black; the nervous temperament largely prevails; easily and unpleasantly affected by most stimulants and narcotics, and cannot bear opiates, even in medicinal doses, March 5th, 1878, had a most severe and prostrating attack of continued fever, which came very near a fatal termination. The fever, entirely subsided on the tenth day, leaving me greatly emaciated in body, and completely prostrated in strength. Convalescence was extremely tardy. My appetite returned slowly and digestion was quite good, yet there was not a corresponding return of strength. Alcoholic stimulants were used in moderation, and tonics, including both the mineral and vegetable, very freely. All seemed to be of little service, for, at the end of three weeks, I had made but little progress in the accumulation of either flesh or strength. At this juncture, I resolved to try the erythoxylon tincture. I accordingly began with teaspoonful doses three times a day, taken with an ounce of water before meals. The salutary effects were perceptible with the second dose. My appetite rapidly increased, and, although in a few days I grew to partaking too heartiest meals of flesh, vegetables, and at dinner, desert in variety, I would suffer from violent hunger, long before the hour for the next regular meal. My digestion, which as a rule, is feeble, became, under the use of the drug, perfect, while assimilation was likewise complete, and return of strength rapid.

To determine whether all was due to the medicine, I occasionally left it off a few days, when I soon could perceive that both appetite and digestion began to fail. Both always returned as above stated, with the resumption of the medicine.

On a few occasions, I experimented with large doses, or the ordinary doses repeated at short intervals, neither of which plans agreed with me. In either instance, if I pushed the drug, I became weak and tremulous, and several hours were required to wear off the unpleasant feelings.

A drachm dose, taken at any time, was followed immediately by feeling of agreeable warmth in the stomach, which was soon succeeded by moderate stimulation, exhilarating mental activity, and filling me with the most pleasant emotions. These effects would last from three to four hours, and were never succeeded by depression or other ill consequences. If I took a dose an hour after meals, I was never hungry until three hours after. Taken when quite hungry, the appetite was appeased for about the same period. Taken without the water, its effects were not so rapid, nor at any time so well pronounced.

After using all, I experienced considerable desire for the medicine for three or four days, which occurred two or three times subsequently at intervals of some days.
At no time did I ever detect any change in the numbers either of my pulse or respirations. I shall hereafter give Erythoxylon Coca a thorough trial in "wasting diseases," tardy convalescence from acute maladies, and certain forms of dyspepsia, and carefully test it in the "opium habit."

The Therapeutic gazette, Volume 1

http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA351&dq=coca%20bentley%201880&ei=I_pJTr3QBMHW0QHvz5XrBw&ct=result&id=liziAAAAMAAJ&output=text

[Written for the Therapeutic Gazette.]
Erythroxylon Coca.
By W. H. Bentley, M. D. I_L. D., Valley Oal', Ky.

THE first time I heard of Erythroxylon Coca, was in 1869, when I received a pamphlet with the request to take, on agency, certain proprietary medicines therein described, and which were prepared by an advertising physician, now deceased, but then living in one of the eastern states. Among them was a very highly recommended cough mixture, certified to be very efficacious in all chronic diseases of the lungs and of the air passages. The medicines were not nostrums as all the formulae were given, or, at least, purported to be given. Among the ingredients one with the title "Ninga," was mentioned. A very long and minute description of this plant ensued. Highly stimulant, tonic and nutritive properties were claimed for this plant, which the writer claimed to have discovered from information received from the natives, and especially the Indians, during his South American travels, extending over a period of several years. Among other things, it was claimed that the Indians would perform long journeys with no other food than a few "Ninga" leaves.

I found that the writer possessed much learning, a good deal of genius and superior shrewdness. I wrote to him declining the sale of his medicines, but asking a confidential, yet candid, statement in regard to the wonderful plant, and asking for a sample at even an unreasonable price. I received a reply in due course of mail informing me that the statements in the pamphlet were true, entirely declining to furnish me any of the plant, but stating that " Ninga" was one of the local Indian names, and that the botanical name was Erythroxylon Coca.

At that time I had a lay friend residing in South America with headquarters in Lima, though his business required much travel, and, in this way, he visited Paraguay, Bolivia, Equador, etc. I knew, too, that he was perfectly reliable, for we had been room-mates during two years in college, graduating in the same class. After this he went to the law, I to medicine. He soon abandoned his profession for trade, and went to reside in South America as above stated. To this friend I wrote, requesting all the information he could conveniently obtain from South American physicians respecting the Erythroxylon, (provided it was not a myth,) together with a small supply of the plant.

In about nine months I received his reply, with some seventy-three pages of manuscript, containing statements from thirty-three different physicians together with about one pound of the Erythroxylon leaves made up in different parcels, as my friend could purchase.

The samples were mostly different in appearance, and as I found, different also in active properties. I went to work making tinctures, being guided in their use by the manuscript statements of the South American doctors, cautiously feeling my way, so to speak, for there was great diversity in the statements both as to the diseases in which it was indicated, and as to its physiological effects.

I prescribed it in chronic diseases of the lungs and bronchi, leucorrhoea, spermatorrhoea, etc., and, when the article was good, always, or nearly so, with gratifying results; but, as my supply was small and much of it nearly or quite worthless, I did not reach any very definite conclusions. My first practice with the Coca was in the year 187o-71. In 1872 I saw the saturated tincture, also the Cocoain advertised by an eastern house. I immediately ordered a dozen pints of tincture and one-fourth dozen bottles of the Coca---. I used all of this except a single pint of the tincture within about one year—this pint I took myself in a case of convalescence from an attack of fever, in the spring of 1878. Some of this was used successfully in combating the opium-habit as indicated in an. article which I furnished New Preparations, and which was published in that journal July, 1878. I then promised a more extended research into the properties of the Erythroxylon Coca, which I have made under more favorable circumstances, for I have used the fluid extract as prepared by Messrs. Parke, Davis & Co., and since the date of my communication to New Preparations, I have purchased on an average one pound of their fluid extract Erythroxylon Coca a month, testing it in every variety of cases (except paralysis) that I considered dependent upon defective innervation.

My theory of tubercular consumption, for instance, is, that it is nervous disease, so, I think are dyspepsia and numerous other chronic diseases. Take consumption for an illustration: I think the brain and nerves become enervated from various causes, and from whatever cause, digestion and assimilation become impaired; next the blood, by losing some of its healthy constituents, becomes too thin and watery, and the circulation thereby languid and sluggish. Then, as it passes through the lungs, a spongy tissue, it parts with a portion of its fibrine, which, being semi-vitalized, organizes in the form of tubercle.

The opium and alcoholic habits, I conceive are formed thus: Both opium and alcohol are stimulants, and, if pushed, become narcotics. When taken into the stomach both alike produce, at first, an agreeable feeling of stimulation. Both soon pass away and leave the system more or less depressed. This condition calls for more stimulation, oft repeated the nervous system is more or less broken down, and a real disease is found, weakening the will-power—so much as to bring about a complete surrender of humanhood to the new master.

Now to cure any of these, we want, not only a stimulant, but a new tonic, something that will produce the stimulus of opium or alcohol, as the case may be, and leave the nervous system braced, so as not to be followed by any depression. My long experience with Erythroxylon Coca, and my close observation of its action in both disease and health, I believe that in this valuable agent we possess the very desirable drug—the desideratum.

In the country producing it, the natives eat it, and become as much its slave as De Quincy ever was to opium, or Beau Brummel ever was to wine, yet it produces no bad results. It promotes not only longevity but vital energy, enterprise and a desire for labor. Those addicted to the Coca habit are, at least in some places, called coqueros, and according to Dr. Quisina, one of the physicians reporting in my manuscript, live to an indefinite age. He reports an old man, a half-breed, 17o years old, and numbers of others over 1oo years of age, but states that the coqueros loose all their virile powers. Dr. Q, is a Bolivian physican, then (Jan. 187o) 58 years old. He and several others stated that it would, if used to excess, entirely destroy the sexual desire. My experience, however, is the reverse of this as far as it goes, but, I have made no "coqueros" in my practice. In two cases of impotency, treated with Coca alone, the desired effect has been produced, after the strychnia, savin, Ignatius bean and phosphorus treatment had utterly failed.

Mr. G. A., bachelor, about 47, residing on a farm with his servants only, came to me October 1879. He was greatly distressed in mind and utterly depressed in spirit. He had been a "great rake," and had, consequently, indulged to extreme excess his sexual passions, or, as Mrs. Elmira Slenker would put it, had been guilty, of great "sexual intemperance." He had lost all sexual power; had a serious gleet; was much reduced in flesh; was sullen and morose, sitting for hours silently gazing at vacuity, and then talking with great volubility of his affections as long as he could retain an auditor.

At first I gave him iron, quinine and strychnia in combination. He took this for six months. His appetite and digestion returned. He also regained his color and flesh, but his craziness remained because there was no amelioration of his impotency I then put him upon phosphorus with no better result after thirty days' use. At this juncture I prescribed for him two pounds fluid extract Coca| to be taken in teaspoonful doses four times a day, namely, before meals and at bed time. "It acted like a charm," and he was perfectly well of all his diseases before he had used all his medicine, and remains so at this writing, November, 188o.

---

Such is the intrinsic problem of any academic work that insists upon defining a particular drug was an object of “abuse”. Though it may certainly be, it may hardly necessarily be. --- would have done better to target not “cocaine” but instead “isolated cocaine in concentrated doses” or simply “concentrated cocaine”.

The purpose is to confuse. To confuse the acute and chronic effects of high doses of concentrated cocaine with the effects of low dose dilute cocaine. It is the sort of nonsense we can expect from an 'academia' utterly rotted out by 'good old boys' fraternal-ism, as is our government.

The dangers of alcoholism would be avoided if no other stimulant was taken...than...Vin Mariani
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/dangers-of-alcoholism-would-be-avoided.html

Coca as Tobacco Habit Cure
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html

Soros Bought into Glacial Paced Drug Policy Reform

2011-09-22T12:00:00.005-04:00

"... pretending that MJ is the only illicit substance with therapeutic benefit, while maintaining the fear of the other drugs. Thereby, it serves to slow drug policy reform to a speed of progress best described as glacial."

http://www.aim.org/special-report/the-hidden-soros-agenda-drugs-money-the-media-and-political-power/

He is laying the groundwork for the creation of a system under which government and corporations would legalize, dispense and advertise hard drugs, much like tobacco or alcohol, and supply addicts with needles and drug paraphernalia. In effect, Soros appears to be financing drug legalization for the purpose of creating a new market for federal payments to underwrite drug purchases for addicts. Soros appears to favor an indoor version of “Needle Park,” where addicts come to government offices to inject or smoke their drugs at taxpayer expense.

His position is also reflected in his funding of the ACLU, which itself favors the legalization of all drugs?even heroin and crack cocaine?and opposes virtually all measures taken to curtail drug use. In another example of its extremist approach, the group has rejected funds from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, and participation in the Combined Federal Campaign, because acceptance of the money would require adopting measures to make sure it does not employ terrorists or support terrorist activity.

Indeed. Talk about hard drugs as a given. But don't even mention the forms that such drugs would be otherwise be generally used if not for prohibition. Assume that cocaine will remain a concentrated white powder drug, but don't dare discuss Coca. Keep Vin Mariani generally forgotten, let alone Coca's use at substituting for caffeine, nor Tobacco. For such is what we are being dished out by the DPA's meagerly advocacy of 'Harm Reduction".