Freedom of Medicine and Diet

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Rutgers - War on Drugs Call For Papers

CFP: Challenging Punishment: The War on Drugs, Race, and Public Health

http://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/cfp-challenging-punishment-the-war-on-drugs-race-and-public-health/

by ttravis

From Donna Murch, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University, and Samuel K. Roberts, PhD, Associate Professor of History (Columbia University) and Sociomedical Sciences (Mailman School of Public Health)

Historicizing the Total War

This Call for Papers invites historical essays dealing with aspects of the U.S. War on Drugs, WWII to the present. The pre-circulated papers will be presented and workshopped at a two-part symposium to be held at Rutgers (April 5-6, 2013) and Columbia (Oct. 4, 2013). Most or all of the selected essays will be published in an edited volume or journal special edition.

Please submit a detailed one to two page abstract which outlines research methods, sources, analytic framework as well as a one page bibliography to challengingpunishment [at] gmail [dot] com by SEPTEMBER 1, 2012.

Essay topics may include any of the following:

· Licit and Illicit drugs in political, social, cultural, and economic context (formal and informal economy): the production, distribution, use, and regulation of controlled substances and pharmaceuticals

· Power and inequality: race, place, class, gender, sexuality, citizenship status and indigeneity

· Public health, medicine, and the therapeutic state (mental health, harm reduction/minimization)

· Surveillance, screening, testing (in public health, police, employment, social policy, etc)

· Criminal justice (policing and criminalization, carceral state, drug courts, alternatives to incarceration and sentencing practices)

· Institutions; social policy and practices; (dis)incentives

· Social and professional movements, “community-based,” and grassroots response

· Youth culture, street organizations, “gangs,” racketeering, organized crime, and underground economies

· History and critical analysis of addiction and recovery (psychiatry, neuroscience, psychology, social epidemiology)

· Contemporary and historical pathways to recovery (maintenance programs, support groups, counseling, therapeutic communities)

· Cold War, foreign policy, drug interdiction and transnational networks

· Culture, aesthetics, media, and the politics of representation

While essays should be historical, they need not be authored by professionally trained historians. Indeed, essays from all disciplines (including history of science, Science and Technology Studies [STS], anthropology, sociology, policy analysis, political science, philosophy, medicine, public health, criminology, epidemiology, etc.) are welcome. For example, a researcher in health policy may want to submit an essay on the history of the implementation of positive incentives for drug use cessation (such as monetary payment, free treatment, etc.).

Please submit a detailed one to two page abstract which outlines research methods, sources, analytic framework as well as a one page bibliography to challengingpunishment [at] gmail [dot] com by SEPTEMBER 1, 2012.

ttravis
July 10, 2012 at 7:02 am
Tags: Addiction, drug war, Drugs, History, medicine, Policy, research
Categories: Calls for Papers
URL: http://wp.me/p1dJeQ-1JE

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Zero Hope With Obama

an excellent piece from Scott Morgan about the recent attempt to con people into again trust Obama after his numerous betrayals

http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2012/jul/02/will_obama_be_better_drug_policy

by Scott Morgan, July 02, 2012, 05:52pm

Marc Ambinder has a totally weird and distracting piece in GQ today saying that unnamed sources have told him to expect important drug policy reforms if Obama is re-elected. I think it's a bunch of crap.

According to ongoing discussions with Obama aides and associates, if the president wins a second term, he plans to tackle another American war that has so far been successful only in perpetuating more misery: the four decades of The Drug War. [GQ]

That's just the first sentence of many, but we can stop right here because I think there's been a huge misunderstanding. Marc Ambinder seems to think that Obama's people talking about reforming drug policies is a meaningful event, but alas it is anything but that.

Not so many weeks ago I watched with my own eyes as Obama's drug czar draped himself in the flag of reform at an event that was designed to placate pre-election frustration among progressives with regards to Obama's absolute failure to fix a single aspect of the massive war on drugs. The Obama Administration will tell anyone willing to listen that they are thinking creatively about solutions to our swollen criminal justice catastrophe, and it's hardly the sort of "exclusive" breaking news Ambinder breathlessly brings us.

In fact, the real story is the exact opposite of what was reported here. Obama isn't trying to win political points by pretending to support the war on drugs until after the election, at which point he will begin implementing important reforms. He's actually trying to win political points by pretending not to support the war drugs until after the election, at which point he can continue waging the drug war worse than ever.

You see, the drug war is really rather unpopular these days. You score more political points by attacking it than by propping it up, which is exactly why these "aides and associates" of Obama's have no problem telling their friends in the mainstream press about the President's bold post-election plans for fixing flaws in our drug policy. They're just saying this stuff because they know people want to hear it.

The most inaccurate statement you can make about Obama's approach to drugs is that he's trying to look tougher than he actually is. In reality, this administration speaks routinely of backing away from harsh policies, while simultaneously deploying the same drug war demolition tactics we've endured for decades.

If anyone in the press is looking for a good story about Obama's approach to drugs, I'd recommend looking into the massive facade of false promises that's already unraveling in front of us, rather than regurgitating further rumors of future reform.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Legalize Coca & Opium, Not Just Marijuana

A serious flaw of the drug policy reform movement- limiting attention to Marijuana while acting afraid of Coca-cocaine and Opiates; from a comment at Drug War Rant that quotes this article:

"When we talk about legalizing marijuana, we inevitably have to decide what other drugs should be legalized. Do we legalize cocaine, crack, ecstasy, meth, heroin? If not, why not? Shouldn’t we legalize all drugs, regulate them and tax them like alcohol?

I’m all in on legalizing marijuana. Tax it and we can retire the deficit overnight. Smoke it in bars and coffee houses and have laws governing where it can be used.

I don’t know about the other drugs, though. We can debate it, but it seems futile to try to outlaw stuff that people want no matter the cost. At least maybe we could have a sane drug policy that recognizes reality.”

Why do we continue to hear/see such nonsense. There’s NO reason not to legalize Opium and Coca, indeed no reason they go un-mentioned- the plants and products representing them in their natural potencies at a minimum. The prohibition ensures that we do not have Opium nor Coca, only instead the highly concentrated derrivitives of heroin and cocaine hci or sulfate- denying the safe while promoting the dangerous. No way is that rational- except as a criminal scam of market protection - mercantilism.

Imagine an alternative reality where we made caffeine and nicoine into white powder poisons. Drug policy reform must break away from the death grip around Ira Glasser etc, like some sort of twisted advice from some cigarette-pharma conflict of interest law firm to protect pharma and cigarettes:

July 4, 2012 Seize the Day
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/06/july-4-seize-it.html

Douglas Andrew Willinger Angelo Francois Mariani Coca Activism
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/06/douglas-andrew-willinger-angelo.html

Drug War Tobacco Pharma Agricultural Mercantilism
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/03/drug-war-tobacco-pharma-agricultural.html

Drug War Criminal Mercantilism to Protect Pharma and Cigarettes
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/it-was-criminal-mercantilism-to-protect.html

Drug 'Warriors' Neglect History of Coca - Vin Coca Mariani
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-history-of-coca.html

Drug 'Warriors' Neglect Pharmacokinetics - Promote Drug Abuse
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-pharmacokinetics.html

April 1 "interview" concerning drug policy movement - pharma cigarette law firm advise program
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/04/about-drug-policy-covington-and-burling.html

NO discussion of the drug war should overlook the reality of it as an illegal market protection scam for cigarettes- which is obvious from that p 230 chart of cigarette production with the upturns happening with the various ‘drug control’ statutes in 1906, 1914 and 1937.

Yet we continue to see all of this ‘scholarly’ work that completely neglects this.

USDA Banned Coca to Protect Tobacco - Public Health DISASTER
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html

By focusing upon MJ to the exclusion of Coca and Opium we have unwittingly extended prohibition. Why continue to do so?

Saturday, June 30, 2012

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.

Friday, June 22, 2012

July 4- Seize The Day!

43rd annual July 4th Smoke In - A Movement Stalled Since Summer 1971

EVENT WEBSITE: http://www.smoke-in.org/mj/

RALLY with SPEAKERS at NOON to 3 PM Lafayette Park north side of the White House

MARCH 3 PM to 4:20 PM to Constitution and 23rd

CONCERT with SPEAKERS at recreation field at Constitution and 23rd just to the north of the Lincoln Memorial from 4 PM to 9PM - I shall be at this entire event with other drug legalization activists

This is the annual July 4th Smoke In to Legalize Marijuana, in Washington D.C.at Lafayette Park immediately north of the White House, held every year since 1971.

Held annually on July 4th in Washington, D.C. for the past 43 years, this rally, march and concert is one of the oldest demonstrations advocating drug policy reform in the United States. The Smoke-In has undergone several changes since being created out of the BE-IN era of political movements. During it's history elected politicians in Washington DC have tended to view this annual demonstration as a youthful indiscretion at best, and arresting protesters at worst, and failing to engage in any meaningful compromise concerning marijuana prohibition. This is why our grass roots demonstration has an indelible appeal to the people who are having trouble getting a representative voice in their federal government's drug policy. Activists occupy and attend the Smoke-In year after year by unleashing the pride and empowerment of being a marijuana activist and will not cease until the politicians listen to and respond to their point of view. Currently the goal is to achieve equality and respect buy rescheduling marijuana at the federal level, please support this effort. Many thanks to the people involved in producing this demonstration year after year. Please support the activists who have donated their time & talent, they truly deserve credit for my dedication to the belief that some day marijuana prohibition shall end.

1971- 41 years ago- so many thought that legalization - ending the nightmare of prohibition -- was 'just around the corner'. Yet instead a lingering status quo, with meaningful change stymied, especially with the changes for the worse in 1978 through 1986.

1986- I say take the fight beyond Marijuana, also end the prohibitions on Coca and Opium.

1987- The Drug Policy Foundation was founded in response to the this hysteria over 'drugs' and particularly cocaine ... and after 1992 drops the ball! It makes itself more of a redundent 2nd NORML, limiting itself to Cannabis (Marijuana), plus a few "safe" things like clean needles. Its as if injection should remain any drug's main mode of use- distracting from rationally questioning whatever happened with natural plant drugs as Opium and Coca and others including Iboga - supressed under a drug war scheme that's all about protecting pharmaceuticals and cigarettes.

From Licit & Illicit Drugs, by Edward M. Brecher and Consumers Reports at page 230

showing upturns in cigarette use around the times of the 1906, 1914 and 1937 U.S. 'drug control laws'

2009 - Dealing with the situation with the 'Within The Beltway' stonewalling, with say a 300 year agenda as admitted by Ira Glasser at his keynote address at the DPA conference in November 2011, to eventually reduce such prohibitions - maintaining them as long as they can get away with to protect markets in pharma -- Dana Beal and other drug policy activists smell a rat. Hence, upon my advice, we organize the initial protest to begin seriously targeting a particular nexus of political power in Washington, D.C. long overdue in being spotlighted.

Dana Beal at 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. - see video -

the building of that powerhouse law firm Covington &Burling

Eric Holder - current U.S. Attorney General

The founders of Covington & Burling LLP foresaw the pervasive effects of the forthcoming era of federal legislation, regulation, and taxation. In 1919, they sought to create a firm in the nation's capital that could advise and represent corporations located anywhere in the nation or the world on a wide range of legal issues. Today our Washington office has over 300 lawyers representing clients according to the highest standards and fulfilling the firm's strong commitment to public service. http://www.cov.com/washington/

On January 20, 2009, President Obama was inaugurated, and we said farewell to a number of our lawyers who answered his call to service. Among them was our partner Eric Holder, who became the Attorney General of the United States almost sixty years to the day after Dean Acheson’s swearing in as Secretary of State. http://www.cov.com/about_the_firm/firm_history/

Obama delivered heated rhetoric, but his actions signaled different prioities. Had Obama wanted to strike real fear in the hearts of bankers, he might have appointed former special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald or some other fire-breatheras his attorney general. instead, he chose Eric Holder, a former Clinton Justice official who, after a career in government, joined the Washington, joined the Washington office of Covington & Burling, a top-tier law firm with an elite white collar defense unit. The move to Covington, and back to Justice, is an example of Washington's revolving door ritual, which, for Holder, has been lucretive- he pulled in $2.1 million as a Covington partner in 2008, and $2.5 million (including deferred compensation when he left the firm in 2009.)

Putting a Covington partner- he spent nearly a decade at the firm- in charge of Justice may have sent a signal to the financial community, whose marquee names are Covington clients. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Deutsche Bank are among the institutions that pay for Covington's legal advice, some of it relating to matters before the Department of Justice. But Holder's was not the only face at Justice familiar to Covington clients. Lanny Breuer, who had co-chaired the white collar defense unit at Covington with Holder, was chosen to head the criminal division at Obama's Justice. Two other Covington lawyers followed Holder into top positions, and Holder's principle deputy, James Cole, was recruited from Bryan Cave LLP, another white shoe firm with A-list finance clients.

Justice's defenders point out that prosecuting financial crime is a complicated matter requiring the highly secialized expertise found in the white-collar defense bar. But some suggest there is the potential for conflicting interest when the departments's top practices representing the very financial institutions that Justice is supposed to be investigating. "And that's where they're going back to," says Black. "Everybody knows there is a problem with that." (Two members of Holder's team have already returned to Covington.) A spokesperson for Covington was not available for comment. (Newsweek uses the firm as outside counsel.) http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/05/newsweek-on-covington-burling-eric.html

1201 Pennsylvania Avenue

Covington & Burling -- the Eric Holder law firm -- was founded by James Harry Covington

Marialuisa Gallozzi of Covington & Burling

'assigned to take primary responsibility for advising the [Drug Policy] Foundation'

2012 - the year to begin the end this mega boondoggle international estrangement from common sense- of perverting useful plants as Opium and especially Coca into white power poisons of abuse for a scheme to protect pharma and cigarettes.

Let's DO IT- End the pharma-cig mercantilism before the 100th anniversary of the Harrison 'Narcotics' Act.

Angelo Francois Mariani

Vin Mariani-

the names say it all

Elixir Mariani versus regular Vin Mariani
http://atguelph.uoguelph.ca/2011/10/food-scientists-analyze-1895-vintage-bordeaux/

A Blog to Check Now and Regularly http://southmallblogger.blogspot.com/

Douglas Andrew Willinger - Angelo Francois Mariani Coca Activism
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/06/douglas-andrew-willinger-angelo.html

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Douglas Andrew Willinger - Angelo Francois Mariani Coca Activism

Douglas Willinger and Ethan Nadelmann -
1992 DPF conference

Mid 1986 - Became extremely concerned about Ronald Wilson Reagan's insane ratcheting up the socially destructive - mega continuing boondoggle 'drug war'

April 1987 - purchased the book 'Cocaine- Its History Uses and Effects' by Richard Ashley, where I first read about Angelo Francois Mariani and his Vin Mariani created amidst the 1860s female Parisian opera performer culture, and found safe and effective in western Europe and North America.

September-October 1987 - wrote the Fitz Hugh Ludlow Library Memorial Library about Mariani - Coca and received letter informing me of Chas Vermeulen Windsant in Amsterdam who got obsessed about the Mariani story, in spring 1978, at about the 64th anniversary of Mariani's April 1, 1914 death in southern France.

1, April MCMXIV

December 1987 - wrote letter to the Westchester Gannett newspapers about the banning of Coca and its perversion into concentrated cocaine while we push tobacco cigarettes upon the world - is published January 4, 1988

July 1989 - traveled to Amsterdam and Paris to pursue the Mariani story.

November 1989 - attended my first international conference of the Drug Policy Foundation, and have attended every such annual and subsequently biennial conference since.

July 1990 - traveled to Amsterdam to pursue the Mariani story.

November 1990 - attended my 2nd DPF conference, and published in their conference paper compendium my paper- 'The Ever-changing, Ever-confused Popular Conception of Cocaine'

November 1991 - attended my 3rd DPF conference; this is the 2nd time the D.P.F. publishes a paper by me; this 1991 paper is 'Water or Gasoline- Cocaine Prohibition'; and its the first time that I apply and am approved to appear upon a D.P.F. conference panel "the Cocaine/Crack Scene" where I talked about the cocaine continuum from ultra concentrated cocaine to Coca.

November 1992 - attended my 4th DPF conference; this is the 3rd time the D.P.F. publishes a paper by me: 'Cocaine Conversion- Onwards to Coca'. And its the 2nd time I appear upon the cocaine panel "Cocaine- Trade and Policy", plus they put me upon an additional panel "The Americas- Is the U.S. Exporting Its Problems" that is moderated by Ethan Nadelman.

That's Nadelman I appear with in that newspaper photograph, doublessly seen by many people throughout the Washington, D.C. area, in an article about the drug policy reform movement and in particular the then recently held 1992 DPF conference. The picture is simply captioned 'DPF to new administration- can we talk?' My name does not appear. But I am clearly recognizable.

After this point I am never again published by the DPF and its successor organization. Asides from my successful COCA '95 panel at the October 1995 DPF conference, I am never again placed upon a panel, and the regular cocaine and crack' panel is deleted from the conference schedules, despite the DPF being established to deal with the drug war beyond Marijuana, and that it had been founded in response to the hysteria regarding 'cocaine'.

COCA '95 - October 21, 1995

Douglas Andrew Willinger proposals made after 1992 and rejected by the Drug Policy Foundation - Drug Policy Alliance include:

'Coca - Turning Over a New Leaf Towards Reducing Health Care Costs', to be moderated by Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard University

'Tinctures of Opium, Wines of Coca, etc: Popular, Pre-prohibition Uses of Natural Plants Perverted by Drug Prohibition into today's "Hard" Drug Plague'

A Douglas Willinger proposal for a 'History Panel' for 1999 was accepted, but neither Willinger nor the coca-cocaine issue were allowed. This was so even with the subsequent 'History' Panel in 2003 which had only 2 or 3 panelists, rather than the overflowing amount on the 1999 panel that featured the final DPF appearance of Dr. Rufus King, who died that December.

Mr. and Mrs. Rufus King - 1999

Mis-managed Drug Policy 'Reform' to protect existing pharma-cigarette markets
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2010/07/peter-lewis-ira-glasser-is-waste-of.html

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