Pharma Market Protection- confirmed by No on 3 in Massachusetts

No on 3- an anti MJ legalization lobbyist group reveals prohibition is all about Pharmaceutical market protection- telling us that Sativex is ok while supporting maintaining the ban on natural MJ

http://mavotenoonquestion3.com/the-joke-is-on-us-or-is-it/

The first video is a throw back to major quacks as Harvey Wiley who banned the non carcinogenic Opium and Coca leaf, for the sake of protecting markets in pharmaceuticles and cigarettes. Plants as medicine are bad- nevermind the Bible's Book of Genesis. But pharmaceuticals are good- so much so that they must be protected by mis-defining people possessing or growing their own as "crime". Such is the big money reason behind such sorry excuses of politicans as Obama-Romney's contempt for public opinion and basic decency, debasing the judicary as accomplices to a costly and ongoing criminal mercantilism.

Cannabis Oil for Curing Cancer- the Medical Marijuana Next Front

Man treating his leukemia with Cannabis Oil ACQUITTED by JURY of MJ Possession Charges




http://www.koaa.com/news/marijuana-patient-uses-pounds-of-marijuana-for-ounces-of-cancer-cure-/#!prettyPhoto/0/

US Green Jill Stein- We would actually use science to determine which drugs are dangerous and which ones are not.

http://www.isidewith.com/blog/43316191-interview-with-jill-stein

Are you in favor of legalizing all drugs or just marijuana?

We would do something revolutionary. We would actually use science to determine which drugs are dangerous and which ones are not. That means right off the bat marijuana and hemp are removed from the list of dangerous substances because these are not dangerous substances in relative to other unregulated substances including nicotine and alcohol. We would start with the legalization of marijuana and transform the drug system from a criminal system to a public health system. If people have issues of dependency which would apply to legal drugs as well as illegal drugs including alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and heavier drugs they need to be treated within the public health system. These are psychological problems not criminal problems. If you don't treat the problem it only aggravates it and compounds it with issues of public safety and criminal violence that are associated with the illegal drug culture.

 

 

She needs to also talk about Opium and Coca, though such a science based approach would also legalize these as well.

Mitt Romney's Selective Compassion

 

Ted and Pat Oparowski, citing Romney's compassion of visiting their young son with cancer.

The boy died.

 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2012/08/31/vt_couple_says_romney_helped_ill_son_before_death/

MONTPELIER, Vt.—A Vermont couple says they're grateful to Mitt Romney for helping them and their terminally ill son decades ago when he was suffering from cancer.
 

Speaking Thursday at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., Ted and Pat Oparowski, of Randolph, tenderly recalled how Romney befriended their 14-year-old son David as he was dying of cancer in the late 1970s.
 

Pat Oparowski said they would "be ever grateful to Mitt for his love and concern."
 

She said Romney, who they knew through their church in Massachusetts, spent time in the hospital with their son, helped the boy write a will and bought him fireworks that were eventually set off in Maine.
 

She said Romney also gave the boy's eulogy at his funeral.

 

Here un-cited is the issue of freedom of medicine and diet.   What about Romney's stance at our freedom of medicine and diet in chosing whatever agents we can afford for treating cancer?  Whether some pharmaceuticle.  Or some plant.

 

 



Consider the use of Cannabis Oil for treating cancer as promoted in the video- Run From the Cure


   

Considering all of the Republican Party lip service to fiscal sanity, is not it strange they are so in favor of continuing the big government boondoogle of drug prohibition against people growing their own medicinal plants, for the sake of a price-market support-protection for more expensive synthetic pharmaceuticel (patentable) drugs?

Aug 27 Dana Beal Nebraska Trial Scheduled

New trial date set for Dana's bench (no jury) trial: Monday, August 27, 2012.
From the Nebraska court calender:
Beal,Irvin,D, 08/27/2012 8:30AM 01
Trial to Court State v. Irvin D Beal CR090000091

http://www.nebraska.gov/courts/calendar/index.cgi

Dana's contact info in jail as of April 20, 2012

By Nancy J. Allen in FREE DANA BEAL FREE OURSELVES (Files) · Edit Doc

Dana's trial in Nebraska for transport of medical marijuana is scheduled to begin on August 27, 2012. He needs financial support and support in the form of letters to be written to Judge Mary Gilbride and to be mailed to his attorney, Glenn Shapiro. (Do not mail them to the judge.)
Please write those letters of support for Dana ASAP. "They" are not allowing a medical marijuana defense, so those letters are extremely important! They will be used as a "proffer", i.e. evidence not permitted at trial that is entered into the record, to be used at appeal.

If the judge gets a thousand letters, "they'll" HAVE to take it seriously, one would think!
The letters should attest to the validity of medical marijuana (write about your own personal experiences or those of friends and family). Also write about Dana's history of helping suffering people.

In September, 2011, while awaiting transfer from jail to prison in Wisconsin after pleading guilty and being sentenced on a similar charge, Dana had a heart attack, which resulted in double-bypass open heart surgery. One week after returning to prison this past February, he had another heart attack and a stent had to be placed. He has other serious medical issues which are not being addressed in prison.

Irvin Dana Beal ID # 6669
Saunders County Jail
387 North Chestnut Street, Suite 4
Wahoo, NE 68066

402-443-8167 - main jail number
402-443-5660 - front desk/visitation

COURT DATES:

Monday, August 27, 2012 at 9:30 am CDT, Room 1: TRIAL in Nebraska is scheduled to begin.


From the Nebraska court calender:
Beal,Irvin,D, 08/27/2012 8:30AM 01
Trial to Court State v. Irvin D Beal CR090000091

http://www.nebraska.gov/courts/calendar/index.cgi

Dana needs people to go and support him.
Details will be posted as we get them. Stay tuned...

LETTERS OF SUPPORT:

Write the letter to:

Judge Mary Gilbride
Saunders District Court
387 North Chestnut Street
Wahoo, Nebraska 68066

Then put the date.

The salutation is "Your Honor:".

Sign it "Respectfully" or "Respectfully Yours".
Then write your signature.
Underneath your signature, print your name and address.

Mail the letter to:

Glenn Shapiro, Attorney at Law
Schaefer and Shapiro, LLP
1001 Farnam Street, Suite 300
Omaha, NE 68102

Mail it Certified, no return receipt, and track it on the USPS (United States Post Office) website. That way you know whether or not it got delivered to Mr. Shapiro. If it did not, re-send your letter, please.

If anyone has a good model letter to post, that may facilitate the writing of more letters.

MAIL:

LETTERS and MONEY may be put in the same envelope.
Be sure to write your full name and return address on the envelope.
Money must be in the form of a POSTAL MONEY ORDER.
DO NOT SEND bank money orders or cashier's checks!
Mail money "Certified", so you can track it on the computer on the USPS (United States Postal Service) website and know it got delivered. (You don't need to get a return receipt.)

BOOKS must come directly from the publisher or a bookseller. They must be new. The receipt, including all charges, must be in the package, so do not send them as a gift or the receipt will not include the price, tax, shipping and handling. Books from the Amazon.com store will include the receipt. Check with other vendors selling through Amazon before ordering. Many do not ship to prisons.

No violence, nudity, or any other subject matter you think a prison would not allow.
Keep in mind that you want him to actually receive what you're sending!

First class mail will automatically be forwarded to another jail or prison for one year. (If he's released, then he has to provide the forwarding address to them.) Magazines and books will be forwarded for 60 days.

PHONE CALLS:

Calls are limited to 15 minutes each. They are recorded.

The phones are on from 8:00 am until 10:30 pm Central Time, except during inmate counts and meals.

Securus is the phone provider.

To contribute to Dana's Securus phone account, which allows him to call any number on his call list:

Go to:
http://www.securustech.net/
--> "Inmate Debit Account"

Click on:
"Fund Your Inmate's Account Now"

Find an inmate:
Search by Inmate Name
Irvin Beal
NE (Nebraska)
Saunders County Jail; Wahoo

Select the inmate you want to fund:
Beal, Irvin Dana; #6669; Saunders County Jail; Wahoo

You may put in between $25 and $100 at any given time.
There is a $6.95 set-up fee.
Therefore, you will be charged between $31.95 and $106.95, depending on how much you put into the account.

Calls from the jail to NY cost 60 cents per minute with a $2.50 connection fee.
Therefore, one 15-minute call costs $11.50, or $46 for four 15-minute calls.

$31.95 will buy Dana two 15-minute calls to NY, leaving $2.00 in the account.
$106.95 will buy Dana eight 15-minute calls to NY plus one 9-minute call to NY.

If you wish to put money into Dana's account by phone, call customer service 24/7 at:

800-844-6591
Press 3 to fund an inmate's account. You will be placed on hold for customer service.
The customer service rep will ask the name of the jail (Saunders County Jail) and the name (Irvin Dana Beal).
Then you tell the rep how much you want to put into the account ($25 to $100) and give your credit card information.

This is also the number to call if you have any problems with putting money into Dana's account, online.

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR DANA'S LEGAL EXPENSES:

1. WISCONSIN
Bryon Walker, Attorney at Law
PO Box 10
La Farge, WI 54639

2. NEBRASKA
Glenn Shapiro, Attorney at Law
Schaefer and Shapiro, LLP
1001 Farnam Street, Suite 300
Omaha, NE 68102

Thank you very much!

Dana Beal- Setting the Record Straight

Setting the Record Straight


Posted on Facebook by Nancy J. Allen in FREE DANA BEAL FREE OURSELVES ·

First are the links to the two articles written by Paul Hammel in June, 2012 for the Omaha World-Herald regarding Dana's case in Nebraska, followed by Dana's response:

"Marijuana Advocate in a Tough Fight" - June 12, 2012
 
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120612/NEWS97/706129933/0
 
Court Rejects Medicinal Marijuana Argument" - June 20, 2012
 
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120620/NEWS/706219997/1690
 
"Setting the Record Straight" by Dana Beal - June 29, 2012

Dear Paul [Hammel]:
 
Thanks for the article, but as always, a few little inconsistencies crept into your well-intentioned coverage. Most important, our understanding with the Manhattan DA’s office does not allow for a dispensary. We meet in the apartments, which change every week, of patient “hosts.” Hosts get their medicine for free. Dennis Brennan was one such host. Given the threat of ongoing federal prohibition or outright theft, this “Tupperware Party model” is very useful for all the medical marijuana states that do not allow dispensaries but do allow patients to form support groups to grow or buy in bulk.
 
A related point is that much of the medicine in both seizures was destined for Michigan, which now has more than 100,000 registered patients, and Washington, DC, which is still working out its regulations. As I pointed out, when you take the amount seized in Ashland and divide it by the number of patients, that’s less than a gram per patient. With only twelve marijuana plants allowed per patient, there’s never enough medicine and availability is seasonal. I was bringing fresh, green medical grade marijuana weeks before harvest, and it was priced to sell at $4-6 a gram, not the $10, $15, and $20 a gram you find in most dispensaries. Also, dispensaries fall in a gray area in Michigan law and in 2009, none had been established yet. We were hoping to spread the “Tupperware Party model” to Michigan, where I grew up and where my mother, sister, and two brothers still live.
 
You also glossed over the point that marijuana is not just a painkiller, like opiates. Down regulation of glutamate makes it an anti-inflammatory, which is the reason it’s good against a host of conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. Glutamate dysfunction is involved in carcinogenesis, which is the reason cancers tend to feel hot to the touch. Painting them with pure oil of cannabis (Rick Simpson’s oil) shrinks skin cancers. Smoked or vaporized medical marijuana probably helps keep you from developing cancer to begin with. My co-defendant in Wisconsin, Lance Ramer, was a medical marijuana patient. After 90 days of confinement where he was denied his medicine, he was urinating blood from a galloping bladder cancer. Iowa County had to release him with time served because they didn’t want to pay for a second operation.
 
These effects may also be related to cannabinoid inhibition of the AIDS virus (study of SIV in chimps, June-July 2011). The first antiretroviral, AZT, was an anti-cancer drug originally shelved because of toxicity concerns. One of the reasons I am choosing a stipulated bench trial is to establish the fact that pot doesn’t just give you the munchies, it fights AIDS wasting by cutting viral load, perhaps by affecting viral replication like a protease inhibitor. This is tremendously important to countries in Africa that cannot afford the “AIDS cocktail” of meds, where “slim disease” kills millions. If we can get these very conservative governments to opt out of the US/UN drug war, everyone can afford to grow a plant in their yard. Ibogaine fits into all this because I have never gone to a medical marijuana conference that didn’t feature a patient getting up and complaining how difficult it was to get off his prescription opiates once he found out all he needed for his particular condition was medical marijuana.
 
Ibogaine eliminates medical addiction to opiates in 48 hours. We can send people abroad for ibogaine treatment because it is usually only taken once. The thing that makes changing the law so urgent regarding medical marijuana is that patients are going to need the medicine every day for the rest of their lives. Ibogaine, on the other hand, is only technically illegal, and is almost never prosecuted. In the only recent case involving one dose of ibogaine seized from Dimitri Mugianis, DEA agents apologized to him after viewing his film “I’m Dangerous With Love” and the U.S. prosecutor dropped the case upon being informed Dimitri was mounting a religious defense.
 
You also omitted mentioning the much safer, supposedly nonhallucinogenic “18 MC” (synthetic ibogaine), which in animals is especially effective for nicotine – and is completely legal.
 
The ibogaine clinic mentioned in your story is not located in NYC, but in Agua Prieta, Mexico, opposite Douglas, Arizona. We were hoping to get a dedicated wing of a new hospital under construction there with the money that was seized in Mattoon, Illinois. Agua Prieta is a relative oasis of calm for a Mexican border city. We can still do treatments there; the problem has been finding staffing while keeping the price of treatment in the $2000-3000 range. Unfortunately the price of treatment has ballooned lately at many other clinics – still a steal compared to conventional rehab, such as $1000 a day for Hazelden, which might as well be the moon for anybody but the rich. And Hazelden's treatment doesn’t work. Ibogaine works, but many people relapse and require retreatment. So having a place people can drive to from Nebraska instead of flying to Puerto Vallarta or Cancun is a boon for people who desperately need something effective for drugs, alcohol and nicotine.
 
We also have a clinic charging $2000 in Toronto, but no one with a criminal record can get into Canada - which excludes the kid I already bumped into in here who found out about ibogaine on his own and just needed referral to affordable treatment for his heroin cravings. (Have the prosecutor and the judge in this case really thought through the consequences of locking me up with hundreds of people who need ibogaine treatment? Since they contend that a law that excuses killing someone in self-defense doesn’t cover the non-violent provision of life-saving medicine to sick people, I guess not.) Your readers can locate the cheapest, safest ibogaine treatment appropriate for their particular situation by calling the Yippie! Museum café at 212-677-5918.
 
A related issue left out of your story is the utility of medical marijuana as a maintenance drug after ibogaine treatment. Among my private patients were many ibogaine-treated ex-addicts who kept on the straight and narrow with medical cannabis. They are much less likely to relapse than those who drink. Somehow, after a little too much alcohol, a bag of heroin can seem like a really great idea. We now have a study, on the other hand, showing that cannabis fights cocaine craving - and White House Drug Czar Kerlikowske is now waffling on the “Gateway Effect” of the Just Say No era. Both ibogaine and medical marijuana work much better for a number of conditions than conventional drugs that were developed for a completely different indication. Readers should go to YouTube for “Sam’s Story” about an autistic child doing much better on medical marijuana than the heavy anti-psychotic meds he was on before. It breaks my heart to think of all the autistic children who could be helped by the “safest therapeutically active substance known to man.”
 
Finally, I recommend to you the story of my friend and former journalist for the New York Post, Mark Stamey. Mark broke the story of the Central Park cave man, but working long, grueling hours for Rupert Murdoch, he fell asleep at the wheel, crashed and woke up the second time with major head trauma and a permanent seizure disorder. The heartless New York Post fired him so they wouldn’t have to pay for his medical care. None of his conventional meds stopped the grand mal seizures. His girlfriend had to drive him up from Florida so that he could get the only thing that worked. And yes, I am proud I could furnish him with adequate medical grade marijuana for $900 to $1400 a pound. Now he has relocated to California.
 
It’s unfair to admit the testimony of the original arresting officer in my case, who was fired in western Nebraska for lying to a federal judge in a cocaine seizure, when no jury will get to hear from Mark, or the lady in a wheelchair with MS, or the man with AIDS who kept himself alive for 30 years on nothing but medical marijuana – no AZT, no drug cocktail. [underline added]
 
On Sept. 27, 2011, during my first heart attack, I actually died for a couple of minutes. I feel Almighty God brought me back because He still has things for me to do. When I was 13, and JFK was running for president, I got to shake his hand. He was a medical marijuana patient – smoked it for back pain. In 1962 he removed Harry Anslinger, the man who made marijuana illegal in 1937, from direct day-to-day supervision of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, for going after Alfred Lindesmith and other “political enemies”.*
 
When I was 16, I hitchhiked to Washington and stood just next to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the “I Have a Dream” speech. So I have been blessed. We are offering ibogaine treatments for the worst addicts in Omaha, Lincoln, and Wahoo – who have failed every other treatment – as a community service alternative to confinement. But if I have to be imprisoned for following my conscience, I am there with Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. I may well die in prison of “natural causes.” But at least I don’t have to take an assassin’s bullet.
 
Yours,
 
I. Dana Beal
 
* Anslinger was kicked upstairs to the UN, where he passed the Single Convention international treaty against pot.

Dana Beal - Legal Necessity

The sheer injustice of banning safer substances for the sake of protecting more dangerous ones demands these prohibitions be nullified.  A legislative failure to respect basic liberties is no requirment upon the judiciary to follow suit, as our oath is not to the legislature but to the U.S. Constitution.

- some future judge

This was the basic defense offerered by Dana Beal's legal counsel, which was rejected by Judge Mary C. Gilbrite
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Necessity+defense

A defense asserted by a criminal or civil defendant that he or she had no choice but to break the law.


The necessity defense has long been recognized as Common Law and has also been made part of most states' statutory law. Although no federal statute acknowledges the defense, the Supreme Court has recognized it as part of the common law. The rationale behind the necessity defense is that sometimes, in a particular situation, a technical breach of the law is more advantageous to society than the consequence of strict adherence to the law. The defense is often used successfully in cases that involve a Trespass on property to save a person's life or property. It also has been used, with varying degrees of success, in cases involving more complex questions.


Almost all common-law and statutory definitions of the necessity defense include the following elements: (1) the defendant acted to avoid a significant risk of harm; (2) no adequate lawful means could have been used to escape the harm; and (3) the harm avoided was greater than that caused by breaking the law. Some jurisdictions require in addition that the harm must have been imminent and that the action taken must have been reasonably expected to avoid the imminent danger. All these elements mirror the principles on which the defense of necessity was founded: first, that the highest social value is not always achieved by blind adherence to the law; second, that it is unjust to punish those who technically violate the letter of the law when they are acting to promote or achieve a higher social value than would be served by strict adherence to the law; and third, that it is in society's best interest to promote the greatest good and to encourage people to seek to achieve the greatest good, even if doing so necessitates a technical breach of the law.


The defense of necessity is considered a justification defense, as compared with an excuse defense such as duress. An action that is harmful but praiseworthy is justified, whereas an action that is harmful but ought to be forgiven may be excused. Rather than focusing on the actor's state of mind, as would be done with an excuse defense, the court with a necessity defense focuses on the value of the act. No court has ever accepted a defense of necessity to justify killing a person to protect property.


Most states that have codified the necessity defense make it available only if the defendant's value choice has not been specifically contradicted by the state legislature. For example, in 1993 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected the necessity defense of two people who were prosecuted for operating a needle-exchange program that was intended to reduce the transmission of AIDS through the sharing of contaminated hypodermic needles (Massachusetts v. Leno, 415 Mass. 835, 616 N.E.2d 453). Their actions violated a state law prohibiting the distribution of hypodermic needles without a physician's prescription. In rejecting the defense, the court held that the situation posed no clear and imminent danger. The court reasoned that citizens who disagree with the legislature's policy are not without remedy, as they can seek to have the law changed through popular initiative.


The necessity defense has been used with sporadic and very limited success in the area of civil disobedience since the 1970s. The most common circumstances involve public protests against Abortion, Nuclear Power, and Nuclear Weapons. Virtually all abortion protesters who have tried to avail themselves of the defense have lost. The courts have reasoned that because the right to an abortion is constitutionally protected, it cannot simultaneously be a legally recognized harm justifying illegal action. In these cases the courts have also denied the defense on the basis that the criminal act of protest would not stop abortions from occurring; that the harm caused by the act was greater than the harm of abortion; and that legal means of protest, such as demonstrating outside of the clinic rather than entering the clinic or trespassing on its property, were available. Consequently, according to the courts, there was no necessity for the protesters to break the law. In the vast majority of cases in which protesters, trespassing on property, blocked the entrance to nuclear plants, the courts have denied the necessity defense on the grounds that there was no imminent danger and that the trespassing protesters could not reasonably have believed that their actions would halt the manufacture of nuclear materials (see, e.g., State v. Marley, 54 Haw. 450, 509 P.2d 1095 [Haw. 1973]). The defense has also been denied in civil disobedience cases involving protests against U.S. policy abroad, the homeless problem, lack of funding for AIDS research, harmful logging practices, prison conditions, and human and Animal Rights violations.


Necessity has been used successfully by inmates who escape from prison under certain circumstances. In Spakes v. State, 913 S.W.2d 597 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996), the highest criminal court in Texas allowed the jury to be instructed on the necessity defense before deliberating the verdict for an inmate whose three cellmates had planned an escape and threatened to slit his throat if he did not accompany them. The defendant inmate argued that because of the terribly violent crimes of which his cellmates had been convicted (one had bragged about chopping his girlfriend up with an ax), he accompanied them and escaped. Even though he made no attempt to return himself to custody when he was separated from his cellmates, the court still allowed the defense. In contrast, most jurisdictions have held that an escapee must make an attempt to surrender or report to authorities as a condition for asserting the necessity defense. These courts have reasoned that once the immediate threat is no longer present, the action of escape is no longer necessary, and consequently it should end.

----

The judge needs to look at the basic statistics concerning the substance Dana is charged with possessing with intent to distribute.:

Marijuana is what U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young declared in September 1988:

“In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating 10 raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care.

[DEA Administrative Law Judge - 1988]”  ― Francis L. Young -- In the matter of MARIJUANA RESCHEDULING PETITION, Docket No. 86-22; OPINION AND RECOMMENDED RULING, FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND DECISION

The drug laws being based not upon science, are a denial of due proces and equal protection under the law.

Romney- Criminal Mercantilism for Pharma

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

5 Drugs Protected By MJ Prohibition

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.

Covington & Burling's Continuing Involvement With Drug Policy Organizations

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

Obama Proving Himself to Be A Dick

Obama High School Graduation Handshake: 1979
Think about it, the first U.S. President born during the term of John F. Kennedy,who ends up cancelling a proposed new Moon Project as too expensive and we've already been there done that,insists upon continuing the $1/5th+ trillion a year continuing mega boondoggle of agricultural cigarette pharma mercantilism known as the 'drug war', shunning Bolivia's Morales Coca initiative, and betraying his 2008 campaign pledge to respect State and local statutes regarding regulated medicinal Marijuana.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/06/30/white-house-overrides-2009-mem
The Department of Justice sent out a memo Wednesday instructing the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration and leading officials in the U.S. Attorneys Office to treat medical marijuana shops as top priorities for prosecutors and drug investigators.

"Persons who are in the business of cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana, and those who knowingly facilitate such activities, are in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, regardless of state law," the memo reads. "Consistent with resource constraints and the discretion you may exercise in your district, such persons are subject to federal enforcement action, including potential prosecution. State laws or local ordinances are not a defense to civil or criminal enforcement of federal law with respect to such conduct, including enforcement of the CSA."

The memo, authored by Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, "clarifies" a memo released in 2009 that declared medical marijuana sales in states that have legalized it to be a low priority for law enforcement and prosecutors. The so-called "Ogden memo" first appeared to drug law reformers as evidence that President Obama was dialing back the war on drugs. The DEA and U.S. Attorneys office continued to raid and prosecute state-legal grow operations and marijuana shops after the memo was first circulated, leading reformers to conclude that Obama was lying when he said that his administration would not be doing those things.

The memo written by Cole and addressed to DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart and several members of the U.S. Attorney's office is a severe amendment to the Ogden memo. "The Department of Justice is committed to the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in all States. Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime that provides a significant source of revenue to large scale criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels," the memo reads.

The Department of Justice enables legislative crime starting with that of perjury with charges against Marijuana "is a dangerous drug", and continuing via racketeering and extortion via the prohibition statutes of the U.S. Controlled Substances Act, that rests upon a highly stretched definition of the U.S. Congress's Constitutionally assigned power to regulate interstate commerce running roughshod over 1st, 8th, 9th, 10th and 14th Amendment concerns, indeed with this ever being so challenged in totality.

Marijuana is what a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency judge in 1989 declared one of the world's safest theraupeutic agents not known to have caused any deaths (and note that the DEA is headquarted in northern Virginia, the state where 'Virginia' Bright leaf tobacco was created and developed into the last century's cigarettes- adulterated and misbranded by the standard applied to any other human consumable (except alcoholic beverages).

By so banning Marijuana, and indeed Coca leaf and Opium, the government is committing perjury in a conspiracy to maintain a criminal mercantilism scheme for the market protection of other commodities, notably 'Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco', various phramaceuticals (prescription 'patent medicines' or 'medications'), plus alcoholic beverages.

This is particularly so, regarding pharma, as that same government approves the manufacture and sale as a prescription pharma medication, of Marijuana's very essence in pill form- Sativex.

By banning a natural substance while permitting its synthesis into a pill, the government is going to end up increasing health care costs for the sake of what essentially a market protection racket.

Meanwhile, the ban on Coca and Opium shifts their ultimate use infinitely for the worse into concentrated forms and dosing increasing dangerous of snorted and especially smoked toxi-mania tending forms of 'drug use/abuse'- creating and maintaining the problem for maintaining yet more bloat of a 'drug treatment' industry.

If Obama or any other governing official so insists upon so radically driving up our health care costs (to say nothing about the enormous police-court-incarceration bloat), how the hell can anyone trust such an entity to provide a health care insurance program that's not ruinously expensive?

Government-Media Supresses Info of Cannabinoids Kill Cancer Cells

This fits with Donald Tashkin's Reversal on MJ
Forwarded to me by Barry Chamish:

Cannabinoids Kill Cancer And Our
'Government' Has Known for 36 YearsBy GSA
4-25-11

Below is a repost of an article published on Americans for Safe Access website: www.safeaccessnow.org in November of 2003. The article describes how cannabinoids, the active components of marijuana, inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animals and also kill cancer cells. Then it finishes off by saying that the US government has known for more than 35 years and that the media which would normally go crazy about a cancer cure story like this, doesn't at all and in fact seem to be burying the story rather than promote it in any way. I for one am amazed at the government's stance on marijuana and their failed war on drugs, which is more like a war on it's own country. I guess too many people get rich off of the war on drugs.

by Steve Kubby, Sierra Times
November 10th, 2003

A new study published in Nature Reviews-Cancer provides an historic and detailed explanation about how THC and natural cannabinoids counteract cancer, but preserve normal cells.

The study by Manuel Guzmán of Madrid Spain found that cannabinoids, the active components of marijuana, inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animals. They do so by modulating key cell-signalling pathways, thereby inducing direct growth arrest and death of tumor cells, as well as by inhibiting the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumor.

The Guzman study is very important according to Dr. Ethan Russo , a neurologist and world authority on medical cannabis: "Cancer occurs because cells become immortalized; they fail to heed normal signals to turn off growth. A normal function of remodelling in the body requires that cells die on cue. This is called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. That process fails to work in tumors. THC promotes its reappearance so that gliomas, leukemias, melanomas and other cell types will in fact heed the signals, stop dividing, and die."

"But, that is not all," explains Dr. Russo: "The other way that tumors grow is by ensuring that they are nourished: they send out signals to promote angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. Cannabinoids turn off these signals as well. It is truly incredible, and elegant."

In other words, this article explains several ways in which cannabinoids might be used to fight cancer, and, as the article says, "Cannabinoids are usually well tolerated, and do not produce the generalized toxic effects of conventional chemotherapies.
Usually, any story that even suggests the possibility of a new treatment for cancer is greeted with headlines about a "cancer cure" ­ however remote in the future and improbable in fact it might be. But if marijuana is involved, don't expect any coverage from mainstream media, especially since mainstream editors have been quietly killing this story for the past thirty years

That's right, news about the abilility of pot to shrink tumors first surfaced, way back in 1974. Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice - lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

The Washington Post reported on the 1974 study - in the "Local" section - on Aug. 18, 1974. Under the headline, "Cancer Curb Is Studied," it read in part: "The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered." The researchers "found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers, and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent."
"News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article," complained MarijuanaNews.com editor Richard Cowan , who said he was only able to find the article through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report Web page. "The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors," added Cowan.

On March 29, 2001, the San Antonio Current printed a carefully researched, bombshell of a story by Raymond Cushing titled, "POT SHRINKS TUMORS; GOVERNMENT KNEW IN '74." Media coverage since then has been nonexistant, except for a copy of the story on Alternet.

It is hard to believe that the knowledge that cannabis can be used to fight cancer has been suppressed for almost thirty years , yet it seems likely that it will continue to be suppressed. Why?

According to Cowan, the answer is because it is a threat to cannabis prohibition . "If this article and its predecessors from 2000 and 1974 were the only evidence of the suppression of medical cannabis, then one might perhaps be able to rationalize it in some herniated way. However, there really is massive proof that the suppression of medical cannabis represents the greatest failure of the institutions of a free society, medicine, journalism, science, and our fundamental values," Cowan notes.

Millions of people have died horrible deaths and in many cases, familes exhausted their savings on dangerous, toxic and expensive drugs. Now we are just beginning to realize that while marijuana has never killed anyone, marijuana prohibition has killed millions.

Ed Rosenthal with Dana Beal on 'Medical Terrorists'

at presentation at McFosters Resturant, Omaha, Nebraska
June 7, 2010

Ed decries 'Medical Terrorist' criminal drug war against Canmabis.

At left, Dana Beal, out on bail and facing a criminal unconstitutional prosecution by officials within Nebraska concerned not with justice but rather maintaining the criminal unconstitutional 'drug war'.

Dana Beal on Public Health Marijuana

Dana Beal

PUBLIC HEALTH MARIJUANA:

The New Direction in Harm Reduction

by Dana Beal | Cannabis Health Journal | Issue 11

When the National Institute on Drug Abuse turned its sights on the mechanism of cannabinols and their endogenous analogues such as anandamide in the brain, they were disappointed to find that the dopamine model they relied on to explain drug abuse and addiction seemed to let cannabis off the hook. The modest uptick in dopamine levels produced by pot confirmed what the old hippies saw, marijuana is pleasurable, but not particularly addictive.

More recent work tracing the pathways of another neuro-transmitter, glutamate, has further explicated the question of marijuana’s addictiveness. Familiar to aficionados of cheap Chinese food as mono-sodium glutamate (MSG), it performs multiple functions throughout the brain and the body involved in long-term learning and memory and as a kind of natural stimulant that takes the brakes off” metabolic processes, causing everything to burn hotter.

In 2001 a Swiss researcher, Francois Conquet , made an interesting discovery with “knock-out” mice who had been bio-engineered not to have a particular glutamate pathway called m (for messenger) GluR5. Mice with no mGluR5 could not be trained to self- inject cocaine. This is highly significant because elimination of dopamine transporters and receptors in other knock-outs still left them able to be addicted through cocaine’s rewarding effects on serotonin. Microdialysis recorded the same dopamine spikes in both wild mice and the mGluR5-deficient ones, but soon after the researchers substituted intravenous cocaine for food, the mGluR5 knock-outs stopped pressing the lever. Their affinities for food, water, mating were unaffected; but cocaine could no longer “fool” the knock-outs into accepting it as a replacement for food, water and mating .

Cannabis and Glutamate

In Colorado Springs, the Chairman of the University of Colorado Biology Department is Bob Melamede . Dr. Melamede teaches a whole course on medical marijuana. Central to his thesis is the finding that cannabinols and the endogenous neuro -transmitters they mimic are glutamate antagonists; but not the kind of noncompetitive antagonists , like ibogaine , that come along to “plug the hole” after inonotropic glutamate receptors have opened up to let minerals through the cell membrane. Instead, cannabinols and anandamide act to “ backsignal ” along the metabotropic glutamate pathways that work (like mGluR5) through the second messenger systems and modulate signals of other neurotransmitters.

What cannabinols do is to tell glutamate-firing cells to chill out, to stop firing so much glutamate, an effect that is necessary whenever too much glutamate causes cell processes to burn too hot. Melamede believes the original evolutionary function of anandamide was to control inflammation, and that its role in the body and nervous system grew as glutamate came to be used to do more and more things.

[Suetaznote: This is why marijuana is beneficial to those that suffer from glaucoma, asthma and many other physical problems that result from inflammation.]

Marijuana, Tobacco, Cancer

So beyond the question of cannabis addictiveness, an understanding of glutamate mechanism has important public policy implications regarding marijuana, tobacco, and carcinogenesis. The oftrepeated myth that “one joint is 3 (or 10) times more carcinogenic than a cigarette”—based on the resin content—collapses upon consideration of the role of chronic glutamate inflammation of the linings of the lungs in generating the free radicals that attack the DNA of immune cells in these linings. Like white blood cells, these immune cells are there to attack pathogens (the lungs are a big vector for infection) that come their way.

The truism that cigarettes are more addictive than heroin becomes a lot easier to understand when we remember that the mediating neurotransmitter of the nicotine high is glutamate. Once you acclimate to the nicotine, so that it no longer makes you sick, its primary “cascade” effect is a quick fix of glutamate, lasting no more than 5 or 10 minutes, which has the effect of calming the addict down while giving them a lift. Typically, because it potentiates long term memory, writers use it to finish articles.

In the lining of the lung, however, nicotine has the perverse effect of putting the damaged immune cell into kind of suspended animation, blocking apoptosis, or cell death. What happens if you keep a damaged cell alive while filling it with free radicals produced by chronic glutamate inflammation ?

Eventually you get bad genetic code, the cell goes cancerous and starts migrating all over the body spreading that bad code. Which is why smokers end up with cancer in some of the strangest places.

It has been estimated that the average New Yorker breathes in pollutants equivalent to a pack and a half of cigarettes every day. But without the key co-factor of the nicotine, they do not get lung cancer at anything like the rate of packand -a-half-a-day smokers. We all have multiple redundant natural immunities that block the sea of crap we breathe from giving us cancer. Indeed, the crowning blow to the prohibitionist argument that burn products, not nicotine, cause the cancer is the widespread incidence of cancer of the lip and gum among people who chew tobacco. There are no published reports of stomach cancer from marijuana brownies.

Beyond the reports of direct cannabis efficacy against certain kinds of tumors, the mechanism of action of cannabinols is 180 degrees opposite of nicotine: anti- glutaminergic , anti-inflammatory. That is why cannabis is prescribed for all kinds of inflammation and auto-immune disease. So regardless of the amount of tar or burn products—and meaning no disrespect to the vaporizer advocates—with cannabinols instead of nicotine in the mix there’s nothing to “turn on” the carcinogens therein.

[Suetaznote: This debunks what people have been told by the government about smoking. That because smoking causes cancer, it must be bad to smoke marijuana. Not true, according to Dana Beal. Nicotine causes cancer, marijuana does not, in any way shape or form, nor does it cause any lung damage.]

Marijuana, Alcohol, Accidents

The final bit of confusion that can be cleared up here is the widespread fallacy, based on the outdated notion marijuana works like alcohol, that pot is a major cause of accidents. Once again, mechanism of action confirms the epidemiological studies that already show people drive, if anything, more safely on cannabis.

Where cannabis has its very own receptors, alcohol works by unleashing a flood of endorphins in response to major trauma caused by ethanol stripping the myelin sheaths of the nerve cells. From there the addictive process is straightforward, with the endorphins engendering a dopamine spike, which eventually locks in the mGluR5 pathway and so on. But while the trauma is occurring, and you’re drunk, you ability to function is severely damaged in a way that just doesn’t happen with a mild glutamate antagonist working through its own specific set of receptors.

Considered from the public health standpoint, cannabis is more often than not a replacement for alcohol and other drugs. When cannabis use goes up, alcohol use goes down. And because the cannabis effect is NOT incapacitating like alcohol intoxication (every single study to date shows no significant impairment of driving, for instance) the effect of the substitution of cannabis is the saving of lives. Economists Frank Chaloupka and Adit Laixuthai , at the University of Illinois at Chicago , estimate that cannabis decriminalization would reduce youth traffic fatalities by 5.5 per cent, youth drinking rates by eight per cent and binge-drinking rates by five per cent. Other evidence suggests we would see similar declines in emergency-room drug and alcohol cases.

Tobacco, Marijuana, Harm Reduction

Harm reduction approaches to cannabis have focused heretofore on the market separation of cannabis and other illegal drugs. According to Dutch government facts-sheets, out of the total population of 727,000, Amsterdam has around 5,100 hard-drug users. The primary thrust of policy is to discourage the use of drugs, and to combat the trade in drugs. The authorities also seek to minimize the risks incurred by drug users and to reduce as far as possible the nuisance factor for the general public . In the context of use, Amsterdam ’s drug policy differentiates between hard and soft drugs, i.e.: cannabis is available, but at locations where no other illicit substances may be sold, and this “market separation” is strictly enforced.

Of some 5,100 hard-drug users, around 2000 are of Dutch origin, with some 1,350 having roots in former colony of Surinam , the Netherlands Antilles and Morocco . Around 1,750 users come from other European countries, mainly Germany and Italy . The total number of hard-drug users is steadily decreasing, while their average age is rising, from 26.8 years in 1981 to 39 years in 1999. In the same period the total number of drug users under 22 years of age dropped from 14.4 percent to 1.6%.

The singular flaw of the Dutch system from the standpoint of nicotine carcinogenesis is the almost universal practice of smoking cannabis mixed with tobacco a habit that totally undermines the health benefits of smoking pure cannabis. It will be a hard habit to break, considering the basic chemistry involved.

Combining nicotine’s glutamate agonist effect with pot’s glutamate antagonism offers the benefits of a kind of “speedball”: cutting back on the “stoned” effect of the cannabidiol without interfering with the initial THC-induced melatonin rush—the high.** But the seeds of change are contained within the almost 90% switch from hashish to hydro by Dutch consumers during the last decade. Without the need for tobacco to make a hash joint, better tasting bud—plus the ever-growing popular consciousness of tobacco’s dangers— may in the end be enough to change European tastes. This changeover can and should be augmented by all the publicity tools of a full-fledged public health campaign, with slogans like “Pure Pot Tastes Even Better!”

A better understanding of the mechanism of marijuana as a glutamate antagonist versus the licit glutamate agonists, alcohol and nicotine, raises the interesting prospect of the next logical step for our worldwide movement being not strictly medical, but public heath marijuana. In a generation or less, all carrots and sticks of public health policy may be enlisted in a conscious effort to REPLACE alcohol and cigarettes with a marijuana monoculture, and to REMOVE all cannabis opponents from any role in setting that policy. The benefits of saving up to 600,000 lives a year from cancer and auto accidents in the U.S. alone will make the switchover well worth it!

[Suetaznote: This is the best news I've read yet! This whole article proves what some of us have known all along. The truth is, no one has yet come up with any viable proof that marijuana is bad for one's health. Everything that people like John Walters and Andrea Barthwell, the ex-deputy director of the ONDCP, have said about marijuana has been thoroughly debunked.]

** I will explain the health benefits of melatonin supplements for regular cannabis users in my next article.


Dana Beal, organized the first marijuana protests during the summer of love, 1967. He was a founding member and chief theoretician of the Youth International Party, started the YIPster Times after the Miami Convention protests in 1972 and crusaded for marijuana legalization in the 70’s. He collaborated with Tom Forcade , founder of High Times, changed the name of the paper to Overthrow in 1979, started Rock Against Racism in December 1980, he initiated an Ibogaine project with Howard Lots in an effort to make this addiction interrupter available to addicts everywhere. He published the Yippie anthology, Blacklisted News in 1983, advocated medical marijuana for AIDS patients in 1986, joined ACT UP in 1988, pushed Ibogaine through ACT UP and NIDA until he was unmasked as a medical marijuana activist after a short prison stint in ‘93, co-founded Cures not Wars, started NYC Medical Marijuana Buyers’ Club with Johann Moore in 1995. Beal published the Ibogaine Story with Paul DeRienzo in January, 1997. Dana was part of the Wheelchair Walk for Medical Marijuana from Boston to D.C. in fall 1997, brought Ibogaine to U.K. in 1998, initiated the Million Marijuana March in 1999 and co-sponsored First International Ibogaine Conference at NYU in November, 99.

__________

DTN-Marijuana and the Free Radicals

Dr. Robert Melamede, noted scientist describes the true effect of marijuana on the human body. Produced by the Drug Truth Network

What Obama Really Should Do!

If Obama is real
The speech I want Obama to give

Americans I am ending a scam- something that was presented as promoting the general welfare which in fact subverts the general welfare.

I smoked pot. I also occasionally did blow. Older generations might not have, and could claim in good faith they were duped. But I smoked pot regularly, not only one twice or a few times but many times.

Should I have been arrested, prosecuted, fined and even imprisoned for possessing Marijuana, or any other drug?

Should anyone?

The government can not remain credible by not ending this travesty.

MJ prohibition was based upon lies. It was brought about through lies and yellow journalism cloaked in racism-cultural fear but resting in protecting markets in – let’s face it – rival substances, with MJ being banned shortly after alcohol's re-legalization and industrial developments favoring Hemp substitutes. Was it really a coincidence that mass produced cigarettes of highly addictive Virginia Bright Leaf skyrocket with the enactment of the initial early 20^th century drug control laws? Was it just a coincidence that while the U.S.D.A. shamefully crusaded against the natural Coca leaf out of the stated concern that it was being sold as a 'tobacco-habit cure' within the U.S. southeastern bright leaf belt, while yellow journalists raved against cocaine and African-Americans: employing racial prejudice to protect the cigarette industry?!

So is drug prohibition in general which promotes harder forms of drug taking. People in Bolivia use Coca leaves; people in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere a century ago used Coca leaf based preparations, including the original Coca Cola and the drink that indirectly inspired it a French Coca Wine known as Vin Mariani; yet how many people here freebase caffeine?

I stated my intent to end government programs that are not worthwhile.

This is definitely one.

I am hereby announcing that the Federal government recognizes this drug – indeed pharamacratic – war-inquisition as socially detrimental, unconstitutional and as history.

As of today, all federal prosecutions for drug prohibition violations shall cease and desist permanently. I am issuing a Presidential directive to this effect.

Likewise, all such state and local prosecutions shall cease and desist. Any jurisdiction which does not comply shall be subject to a suit that I am directing the U.S. Office of Attorney General for civil rights violations, depriving persons of their liberty and property for statutes that lack constitutionality under the 1^st, 8^th and 9^th amendments of the Bill of Rights, and for doing so in an on going criminal conspiracy to fix – aka control – markets in consumables, in disregard to the relative health effects of what is arbitrarily “legal” or “illegal” let alone how such laws pervert a substance’s use, most notably that of Coca to crack. This shall apply to adult use; we shall preserve the states’ powers to set age restrictions for minors with sensible rather then draconian penalties running afoul of the 8^th amendment.

I am hereby issuing full pardons to all non violent and non predatory drug prohibition violation prisoners. Their release shall not preclude their civil right s claim for unlawful arrest-prosecution-imprisonment and property forfeiture.

I am also establishing a federal commission to investigate the possibilities of police, judicial, prosecutorial and legislative conspiracy to subvert the 4^th amendment.

I hereby notify the United Nations that the United States formally denounces the UN INCB conventions.

And I will receive President of Bolivia Evo Morales at the White House to toast the end of the criminal mercantilism policies with a bottle of Vin Mariani.

Barack Obama - Hopefully

February 1, 2009

What Obama Should Say About Criminal Mercantilism

What Obama Could Do

From the comments board at Drug War Rant:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/2009/01/31.html#a3267

Obama is the ONE person who can address the issue sanely. He can say

"wait a minute that isn't science. Here is the real science... here is what every gov't commission in the last 100 years has said and recommended... here are the conditions we know cannabis works for... here are the statistics of Prohibition's failure..."

He has the ultimate bully pulpit. He has the ability to always get the last word in. Telling the truth could hardly cost any political capital... it just takes juevos. [balls] Telling the truth is the easy part.

allan • 1/31/09; 2:59:01 PM #

Obama Hedges on Medical Marijuana

What Obama Really Should Do!

Others Are Not

From the comments section at Drug War Chronicle:

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/569/obama_drug_policy_agenda

Obama's First Acts on the Marijuana Issue Reek of Betrayal Comment posted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/23/2009 - 1:43pm

Obama's First Acts on the Marijuana Issue Reek of Betrayal
=========================================

When the first www.change.gov poll was posted by the Obama Administration the most recommended change was to Re-Legalize Marijuana. But then on December 26th Obama flatly responded that he has no intention on Re-Legalizing Marijuana. Subsequently Obama took the first poll results off of the site and started a second poll. And even though Marijuana Re-Legalization remained in the top 5 requests Obama refused to utter any additional clarification as to what he would do to represent the large contingent of Americans that continue to demand an end to the War on Marijuana.

Then on Thursday (01/22/2009) Federal DEA agents raided a Medical Marijuana cultivation facility, just days after Obama was officially inaugurated:

========================
Medical Marijuana: DEA Hits California Dispensary in First Raid of Obama Administration -- New President Promised End to Raids
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/569/DEA_raid_medical_marijuana_dispe...
========================

The fact of the matter is that Obama himself has admitted to using both Marijuana and even harder drugs such as cocaine. Yet it appears that he is completely willing to allow the continued annual persecution of nearly 900.000 Marijuana users each year: a figure that has tripled since 1990. Are we seeing the beginnings of an Imperial Presidency where there is one set of standards for the elite and another for us commoners?

What we may be watching here is the "Bamboozling" of all those American voters who cast their vote for Obama believing he would stand for "change" we could all believe in. Though I still want to give him a fair chance I must say that I have been skeptical of Obama long before his election as our 44th President. I had previously reported on his close ties to Globalists such as Brzezinski in the following article that I had authored in mid-2008:

========================
Curious Obama: Globalist Traitor
http://www.newagecitizen.com/Curious_Obama_Globalist_Traitor.htm
========================

Of all the suggestions for Legalizing Marijuana the one that seems to make the most sense is the MERP model. Under this plan every adult citizen would get to grow up to 100 plants without any regulation, taxation or other interference from the federal government. By taking the profit out of growing Marijuana there would be many immediate benefits:

* Destroy the Drug Gangs and Cartels
* Stop the Criminalization of our American Citizens
* Restore Personal Liberties Lost After 911
* Destroy the Prison Industrial Complex
* Save Taxpayers 20 Billion Each Year

You can learn more about the MERP Model through the following links:

========================
Video:

Marijuana: Past, Present and Future from Bruce Cain on Vimeo.
http://www.vimeo.com/2056650

Why Lou Dobbs Should Support Marijuana Legalization
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VKf5YfQb7s&

Articles:

The MERP Project
The Marijuana Re-Legalization Policy (MRP) Project

http://www.newagecitizen.com/ReLegalization01.htm
http://www.newagecitizen.com/editorial_on_the_marijuana_re.htm

Marijuana Re-Legalization Coming in 1st in 2nd Obama Poll(12/31/2008)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Marijuana-Re-Legalization-by-Bruce-Cain...

Yes We Can -- Have Legal, Untaxed Marijuana (12/23/2008)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Yes-We-Can--Have-Legal--by-Bruce-Cain...

Audio:

Bruce W. Cain Discusses the MERP Model, for Marijuana Relegalization, with "Sense and Sensimilla"
http://senseandsensi.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=270029
========================

And despite the fact that none of the moneyed drug organizations -- such as NORML, DPA, MPP -- will support the MERP Model, there is really nothing very radical about the MERP Model. It would basically allow adult Americans to cultivate Marijuana in the same way we have always allowed the production of home brewed beer.

At any rate I support the MERP Model and I think you should too. 70 years of Marijuana Prohibition is 70 years too long. And Obama’s opposition to our request to Re-Legalize Marijuana is like getting a lump of coal for Christmas.

I believe it is time to gather each of these lumps of coal and use them to light a giant fire under Obama. It is “high time” we put his feet to the fire until the MERP Model is implemented and the War on Marijuana ends once and for ever.

You can join the movement to implement the MERP Model by getting on my mailing list at www.newagecitizen.com. Here is the link to join my mailing list:

http://www.newagecitizen.com/EmailListSignUp.asp

I also recommend becoming part of the US Marijuana Party as they were the only drug reform group that supported my write-in candidacy in 2008 and continue to support the MERP Model for Re-Legalizing Marijuana:

http://www.usmjparty.com/

Let’s make 2009 the year we insist: “Yes We Can” Have Legal Marijuana for Every Adult American and perhaps for every Adult on planet Earth. Please send and post this article as widely as possible. The time for real change begins NOW!

r