The Pope Supports the Drug War Status Quo

Pope Francis S.J.'s Vatican Continuing to Encourage Drug Abuse, Alcohol & Cigarettes
http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2013/07/image-over-substance-pope-francis-sj.html

July 4 - Washington, D.C. Smoke In

Re-read-

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/06/july-4-seize-it.html

It's all relevant regardless of the year so long as prohibition continues.

http://www.smoke-in.us/?q=rally

The Rally starts at "High Noon" in Lafayette Park (North side of the White House). From 12:00-3:00pm Activist speakers from the front lines of the "War On Drugs" comment on the progress and direction of ending marijuana prohibition and other aspects of drug policy reform.

Lafayette Park has been chosen as the location for our Rally because of its use by the woman's suffrage movement in the late 1800's when women where fighting for the right to vote. During that time the park across the street from the White House became known as "People's Park". The place where ordinary people could go to voice their grievances against government policy when no elected representative would represent them on Capitol Hill or in the White House.

At the peak of the Suffrage movement, when a Bill was passed by congress and sent to the President of the United States to be signed into law. Couriers would bring a copy of the legislation to women waiting by a smoldering cauldron hanging in the park. They would then burn the copy of the bill and declare their contempt for not being included in the representative system of democracy and demand their right to vote.

http://www.smoke-in.us/?q=parade

The Parade assembles at 2:45pm at Lafayette Park. The Parade begins at 3:00pm and turns South along 17th Street NW and proceeds to Constitution Avenue NW. At this location the Parade will disband to pass through a security check point, reassemble and march West on Constitution Avenue, ending at 4 P.M. at the ball field located at 23rd and Constitution Ave. N.W. What to Bring Please bring a large peace-sign or a leaf design to hold up during the parade. Become part of the "Free DC Marching Band", bring a musical instrument such as a drum, horn, saxophone or other acoustic musical instrument. Additional props should include a hand-held sign, banner or flag representing your home state and your message, such as "The Maryland Hempsters Local 420". A day pack including plenty of water, sun protection, your own food and some to share with others, trash bags and a poncho for thunderstorms. Please pick up your trash before you leave. What Not to Bring DO NOT BRING glass containers, alcohol, weapons or large quantities of contraband. No sticks poles or closed boxes. All signs, flags and banners must be hand-held in Lafayette Park and on the March. Irresponsible behavior will not be tolerated at this demonstration. The government's strongest case against ending marijuana prohibition is their claim that marijuana consumption is not a responsible choice. It's up to all of us to prove them wrong, so be on your best behavior, especially in Lafayette

http://southmallblogger.blogspot.com/2012/07/standing-for-drug-policy-reform-at.html

Tobacco $$$ Subverts Tea Party

http://prorevnews.blogspot.com/2013/06/study-tea-party-planned-long-ago-by.htm

Study: Tea Party planned long ago by tobacco industry and Koch brothers

Huffington Post- A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene.

Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance. Many of the anti-science operatives who defended cigarettes are currently deploying their tobacco-inspired playbook internationally to evade accountability for the fossil fuel industry's role in driving climate disruption.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health, traces the roots of the Tea Party's anti-tax movement back to the early 1980s when tobacco companies began to invest in third party groups to fight excise taxes on cigarettes, as well as health studies finding a link between cancer and secondhand cigarette smoke.

DPA- Still Ignoring Opium & Coca

The Drug Policy Alliance talks about legalizing HARD rather than PLANT drugs

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-newman/drug-legalization_b_3473098.html

Tony Newman Director of Media Relations, Drug Policy Alliance

But what about the other drugs? My colleagues and I at the Drug Policy Alliance are committed to ensuring the decriminalization of all drug use becomes a political priority.

Criminalization is not only failing to effectively control drug use, it's a barrier to protecting individual and public health. As long as drug use is a crime, people are going to be afraid to get help.

Decriminalization means nobody goes to jail and nobody gets punished simply for possessing a small amount of a drug. This is a model that has proven successful, resulting in decreases in diseases and addiction, without increasing drug use. It also preserves scarce law enforcement resources that could be used to stop violent and predatory crime. And perhaps most significantly, it would reduce the arrest and incarceration of millions of people, most of whom are poor or people of color.

This is basically what Portugal has been doing since 2001, with overwhelming success. Drug use has not increased, while addiction, overdose, HIV transmission, and incarceration have declined dramatically. (For more information about Portugal and other approaches to decriminalization, see DPA's fact sheet, "Approaches to Decriminalizing Drug Use and Possession")

What this does is protects markets.

It keeps the status quo of PROHIBITION with a lessening of the penalties (and thus costs of prohibition's administration) - a status quo of HARD drugs rather than the infinitely safer and more useful PLANT drugs, such as Opium and Coca.

Illicit 'decrim' markets, meaning that dealers still get incarcerated as the drugs are still illegal and CONCENTRATED.

Why no mention of how prohibition PROMOTES drug abuse?

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

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

Why no mention of neither Coca nor Opium in this entire article and 30 minute Huffington Post drug policy experts video interview?

Part of the problem was the choice of the 'experts' how I have known from attending DPF/DPA conferences since the late 1980s.

One of which I've heard DENY the market potential of the PLANT drugs.  Words like 'Oh Coca will never be a major commodity' - as if Coffee and Tobacco were not.

And another who has expressed an unhealthy emotional disdain for cocaine "I've seen it wreck people's lives" clouding the actual maters of pharmacokinetics.    This is about perpetuating the status quo with incremental changes designed to sustain the 300 year time frame that DPA's Ira Glasser tells to a incredibly cheering audience at the 2011 DPA conference.

This just shows the entrenchment of MERCANTILISM.

It is this focus on crack and meth and needles to have us forget the PLANT drugs as Opium and Coca, that makes me suspicious about the involvement of things as the Covington & Burling pro bono program.  This program may or may not be innocent, but which appears to be not, given the lack of candor so far, from anyone involved with this pro bono relationship.

Covington & Burling, for the good work they have done for Medical Marijuana, after all is the law firm best connected with the cigarette and pharmaceutical industries, that gave us Eric Holder and which was founded by a major legislative and judicial player who helped give us prohibition in the first place.

Vin Mariani Cir 1900

From Figures Contemporaines Tires de L'Album Mariani 1902

COCA '95 DPF Panel October 21, 1995

Excerpts from the "COCA '95 A Necessary Drug Policy Alternative From Abroad" 
held in Santa Monica, California at the 9th conference of the Drug Policy Foundation
Moderated by Douglas Andrew Willinger
Featuring Dr. Jorge Hurtado, Roger Rumrill, Dr. Ronald K. Siegel and Anthony Richard Henman

Note- this version does not have Dr, Jorge Hurtado's video presentation, which will be added when I find or otherwise obtain it.

6-14-13- I have located a copy of the video of the entire panel on vhs, and shall have it uploaded to this blog within the next few weeks.

COCA '95 Panel
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/11/14-years-ago-coca-95.html

E Cigarette Concepts 101

- regulations to ensure quality control, labeling of nicotine (or other drug) and ingredients of cartridges, and guard against poor designs - cheap knockoffs, which may give burnt plastic vapor.

- regulations to minimize the landfill issue, guard against excessive production of disposables, encourage refillable-re loadable cartridge concepts

Regulations need to avoid false morality of disdain for e cigarettes over other forms of nicotine administration (patches, gums, etc) - focus should be strictly health related.  E cigarettes being vaporizers should be exempt from anti-smoking rules, and should certainly be allowed to be advertised including on TV.   Groups as Tobacco Free Kids alas, are on the wrong side of the issue on e cigarettes, just as they are with their weird opposition to having cigarette ingredients labeled.