the return... da da da dum!

~~~

“Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.”

- Thomas Merton

~~~

Well, gosh. I've been away from blogging because technology passed me right by. The world of course hasn't gone away, I've just had to step aside for awhile so I didn't get run over on the information highway. What does Info Hwy roadkill look like? See, the questions are just boundless!

First some shout outs:

To my classmates from San Pedro HS, class of '69, I swear I'll make it for the 50th! I'm really curious... :)

To my couchmates over at Pete Guither's Drug WarRant. If you are interested in drug policy that's the place to go. If you support drugs prohibition, we'd love to have you, be it for breakfast, lunch or dinner/supper. I've been hanging out with some of these anti-prohibition scalawags for over a decade. End the drug war, Damitol!®

And a shout out to a young woman that provided inspiration to me for months while she rented a room in my house here at the farm. Courtney Appleseed is a gorgeous and talented young woman and it was truly a pleasure to have her in my home. I had no idea that muses are real, but they are! I had one and I will forever be in her debt for her friendship and her inspiring work as a model.

My first digital camera went belly up (more than less) and I had to find me a new one. Bought a Pentax K5II. Lovin' it. As always I'll be sharing images once I hit my stride on this blogging thing.

Oh and a shout out to Kevin Sabet and Calvina Fay... NANNER NANNER! It takes a real creative loser to call an ass-whupping a victory. But Prohibition IS coming to an end, again.

I'll be having a whole lot more to say on a lot of things, so please, grab your coffee, pull up your chair and share with me in hopefully providing something of value to our world.

do me a favor...

---

“Why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.”

- Will Rogers
---

---

So, anyway... we all know the drug war sucks, that it has completely and utterly failed and that the only ones in favor of the War On (some) Drugs are either the cartels raking in the profits from the international illegal drugs business (worth nearly 10% of the entire annual global marketplace) or those in the employ of the massive prohibition bureaucracy (the war profiteers). Please do me a favor and go sign this international petition calling for an end to the War On Drugs, here. Join the more than 300,000 of us from all across the planet who have signed in just a couple of days.

The petition will be accompanying a report to be released in a few days by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

A single, simple yet pointed paragraph:

To Ban Ki-moon and all Heads of State:

We call on you to end the war on drugs and the prohibition regime, and move towards a system based on decriminalisation, regulation, public health and education. This 50 year old policy has failed, fuels violent organised crime, devastates lives and is costing billions. It is time for a humane and effective approach.

Thanks y'all.

---

Not me, or...

---

“Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.”

~ Bob Marley
---

I know, I know... but I can't stay off the "drugs" topic. Actually I can but there is so much about life today that involves drugs. Legal drugs and illegal drugs.

Let me explain...

Today is April 20th. 4/20, or 420. You know, the unofficial stoner holiday. Today is also the anniversary of the Columbine mess. It's also Adolph Hitler's birthday. Now if that isn't a mix that deserves to have their strings intertwined...

Oh yeah... I'm going to throw random urinalysis into this mix. I hope nobody minds.

So... how does cannabis, Hitler, the Columbine massacre and random drug testing tie together?

For me it was a matter of watching the evening news, listening to my son talk about his day and how all that ties into my work history.

Hitler we all know. Columbine, most folks know about. Pot? Yeah, we all know at least something about that (even if if what we know is wrong). And drug testing? Hang on, I'll get there.

The Rise of Adolph Hitler

I'm not a big Hitler fan, so if you want to know more than what is common knowledge, do your research. There is a lot out there... Google shows almost 6 million hits. What we do know that I need to mention is that Hitler was a master manipulator of fact and the media. He gained his power through a tactical campaign of manipulating public opinion. A lot like the campaign against cannabis.



"OK, Allan", you say, "how does Columbine tie into this, other than it happened on April 20th?"

Oh c'mon. Give me a hard question.

We don't really know what triggered seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to commit such an horrendous act against truly innocent kids. Kind of like we're not sure what exactly triggers kids into doing drugs. But we have some ideas. Chief among them is that kids need recognition. They need to be noticed and paid attention to. They need the parents around them to take their lives seriously and work with all the hormones, growth and childhood angst that the kids are dealing with. But we adults too often don't do these things. And subsequently we miss a lot. We miss the signals that kids send.

Lord knows I do. I'm a single dad w/ two teenagers... a broke single dad with two teens. And thus I've just tied random drug testing into this. When I was fired last summer I wasn't fired for bad work habits or being inefficient. It was just the opposite. I hadn't been fired from a job for 25 years. In fact I have been fired twice in my life. The job I lost was a retail position. I worked in hardware. As a retail salesman, I shine. I'm helpful, intelligent, friendly, even indulgent when that is what is needed.

Which is easy to do... within limits. Some folks just can't be pleased, but after over 40 years of being involved with the public on a business level I have to admit 98% of us just want honest, helpful assistance when we have questions. Kind of like kids...

Now here is where drug testing comes in. I'm not just pissed about losing my job, I'm beyond incensed -- but no worries about going postal, I use cannabis and engage in stress relieving activities - like writing this blog - and working on my photography. Speaking of which... a photo break:







And I guess I've got a case of the mung sai because that firing is not right. Don't get me wrong, I'm not whining, I've learned to roll with the punches... but that failed drug test ties right into students. I think the figure is now 15% of our school kids are drug tested.

So, let me ask: do you approve of drug testing our school kids for drugs?

And let me ask that question again: do you approve of drug testing our school kids without a warrant?

See... for me the crux of the matter is what it says in the Bill of Rights

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What does that say again?

"no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"

A search without a warrant is unConstitutional. It is fairly plainly written, even a forklift driver/window cleaner can understand that. So what is the problem with the Supreme Court? They may be scholars of law but they don't know shit about common sense, apparently:

Supreme Court hears arguments in school strip-search case

Supreme Court justices on Tuesday revealed sharp differences over whether Arizona school officials acted properly in strip-searching a 13-year-old girl.

Conservative justices stressed schools' need to combat drug abuse. Other justices suggested that the specific search, involving ibuprofen, might have gone too far. The court's final answer will guide educators nationwide, as the justices determine when standard constitutional protections give way to school safety.

"Having an aspirin tablet does not present a health or safety risk," Justice David Souter said.

Justice Stephen Breyer added that the strip-search of eighth-grader Savana Redding may have been "a little extreme," and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg conveyed dismay at the search's intrusiveness.

See... no one asking "were the parents present?"

C'mon, what are we teaching our kids? Big Bro' knows best? And of course all this discussion of teens, school and drugs brings me me to this little nauseating tale:

Goose Creek Raid

I'm not even going to say much about that... I try real hard not to swear in my writing.

For me, having been fairly intensely involved in drug policy reform for over a decade now I've got my school of hard knocks degree in drug policy. And what I've learned makes me sick. Really. A lot of what I know seems like it should be common knowledge. But I watch mainstream (network) news and I know it is more a case of what we aren't told than us not wanting to know. Things that you have to dig a bit to find. Regional happenings that don't move past the national filters.

There are way too many stories to tell 'em all here, but a couple have gnawed at me and won't let go, so I will use tham as prime examples of why I fight this Prohibitionist scourge. I believe drug Prohibition to be a real debacle, man made. And man can end it. But here, meet Donald Scott:

ARMED AND DANGEROUS
Ranch-coveting officials settle for killing owner

Early on the morning of Oct. 2, 1992, 31 officers from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, Border Patrol, National Guard and Park Service came roaring down the narrow dirt road to Scott's rustic 200-acre ranch. They planned to arrest Scott, the wealthy, eccentric, hard-drinking heir to a Europe-based chemicals fortune, for allegedly running a 4,000-plant marijuana plantation. When deputies broke down the door to Scott's house, Scott's wife would later tell reporters, she screamed, "Don't shoot me. Don't kill me." That brought Scott staggering out of the bedroom, hung-over and bleary-eyed -- he'd just had a cataract operation -- holding a .38 caliber Colt snub-nosed revolver over his head. When he pointed it in the direction of the deputies, they killed him.

-snip-

Despite a subsequent search of Scott's ranch using helicopters, dogs, searchers on foot, and a high-tech Jet Propulsion Laboratory device for detecting trace amounts of sinsemilla, no marijuana --or any other illegal drug -- was ever found.

And even more than my own calamitous direct contacts with the drug war the case of Zeke Hernandez just continues to act as a catalyst to maintaining a voice on the topic of our drug policies.

CASUALTIES OF THE DRUG WAR

Zeke's story was one of the first I had heard about innocent civilians directly killed by our drug war (Prohibition 2.0). Equally as sad... Kathryn Johnston in Atlanta. Kathryn was a near 90 year old black grandmother shot by police who broke down her door on a drug raid based on a perjured warrant and rubber stumped by a judge. She had no drugs. She did have a pistol...

But she lost the gun battle, the police planted drugs and... well, here, you read it:

Kathryn Johnston: A Year Later
92-year-old woman's death has done little to curb the use of paramilitary police tactics around the country.

[...] everything about the Kathryn Johnston murder was corrupt. The initial arrest of the ex-con came via trumped-up charges. The police then invented an informant for the search warrant, and lied about overseeing a drug buy from Johnston's home.

Ms. Johnston didn't actually wound any of the officers. They were wounded by fragments of ricochet from their own storm of bullets. And there was no marijuana. Once they realized their mistake, the officers handcuffed Ms. Johnston and left her to bleed and die on the floor of her own home while they planted marijuana in her basement.

And the names of those with similar stories just gets longer and has become a litany...

Drug War Victims

It is not just what we are teaching our kids but what we are passing on to them. Do we really want to hand them a system that we've forgotten to stand up for? A system with laws based on lies? A system that says "even though you haven't done anything wrong we need to make sure, so just pee in this cup." A funny thing here is how those who have been heavily involved in setting up the system that seeks mandatory drug testing are also those who are the captains of the drug testing corporate world.

DRUG TESTING.
IS IT WORTH IT ?

Carlton Turner was once the United States' drug czar (under Reagan.) After this, he became a very rich man as an advisor for drug testing companies. His partner, Peter Bensinger is a former head of the National Institute on Drug Awareness. Another partner was Robert Dupont, also a former NIDA director. Former White House drug advisor Donald MacDonald now owns Employee Health Programs, which contracts MROs to drug testing programs.

Start a war and then sell the tools of that war. Wow, now there is a story we've never heard before...

And I could go on... about how the early "teen camps" were abusive failures that ended badly for too many and those who were profiting from those "camps" are also *cough* leaders *cough* in the anti-drug movement.

I could talk about a young missionary mother - Veronica Bowers - and her infant daughter Charity, were shot out of the skies over Peru

Or I might mention U.S. Army pilot, Captain Jennifer Odom and her crew and how they were shot down over Colombia and how her Commander, "Col. James Hiett, the top U.S. counter-narcotics official in Colombia, [...] was helping his wife launder the proceeeds of her cocaine smuggling through the U.S. embassy with the help of his chauffeur."

But I won't... I have to go wash my hands. Happy 420... sigh...

---

“I've tried everything. I can say to you with confidence, I know a fair amount about LSD. I've never been a social user of any of these things, but my curiosity has carried me into a lot of interesting areas.”

~ Dan Rather

---

... a baker's dozen... more or less...

~~~

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."

~ Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
~~~

What a beautiful fall... November so far is a mix of wet and dry, nice and not-so-nice but with snow falling in the Cascades this weekend its all pretty normal. When Halloween comes up at Jawbone Flats, odds are in favor of at least a modest dusting of snow. Some years tho'... the first snow may be a few days late, but generally... within 2 - 3 days of Halloween.




I love my Oregon...

Here at the farm the rain has turned the browned pastures back to green... trees in the copses and yards and streets have been ablaze in color for the last few weeks, the autumn sun is lowering to the south and the light and clean air make for beautiful days and give some great sunsets. Sunrises can be pretty cool too, especially when the fog lies low at dawn:



~~~

And in about 2 months and 2 weeks the US will have a new President. I'll have much more to say about Mr Obama as we get closer to coronation day. ... rrrr... I mean the inauguration. One of the strongest sets of images from the hours and days after Obama's win has been those of our nation's black citizens. There is such a visible shine of pride, of relief... at last, at last...



And while I remain a doubter, I sincerely hope that President-elect Obama is at least part that which so many hope him to be... because it was not just the blacks that celebrated what is truly, truly an historic moment in our nation's history. Obama created a voting coalition that covered the spectrum. Looking at the voter percentages it is interesting to note that all the independent candidates combined garnered only about 2% of the vote. Ross Perot, when he ran as an independent garnered what, about 15% of the popular vote? There is quite a mandate on our next President's plate. Not to mention a major quagmire (and no, not Family Guy's Glenn Quagmire) or two. A couple of wars (I can count a handful without any effort) and an economy that oughta wake everybody up... if he shows himself to be some of what many hope him to be we may find a way to solve many problems. If he conducts business like just another Party shill... I see not much good ahead in these next four years.

But for our nation to actually elect a black man as Prez... wow. I'm proud of my country. To think that it has been but a mere 2 generations since our nation's black citizens were treated like this:



And all in a struggle waged over and over and over throughout human history. But these days are different. No longer are we a world of distant and relatively isolated societies. We are truly at a critical pivoting point in mankind's time here on earth.
~~~

Because I am out of the closet -- so to speak -- about my cannabis use I thought I'd share this picture of the truck I used to drive when I worked for Bill Conde at his Redwood Lumberyard outside of Harrisburg, OR.



I put tens of thousands of miles on this truck, delivering redwood lumber throughout the western half of Oregon. And even tho' the truck is quite obviously covered in cannabis leaves I never was pulled over. In fact in all those miles I received one negative response. Driving north on I-5 one day I actually got flipped off... but that was the only time. Usually it was honks and waves, peace signs and lots of gaping. And the occasional offer to stop for a smoke (which I politely always declined). Even had folks asking to take a picture of the truck.

For such a benign and multi-faceted plant cannabis sure receives its share of grief. And of course I must note that President-elect Obama admits that when he was a young man he actually inhaled. A black man and a cannabis consumer... but ya know... he never would have gotten here if he had been arrested for possession of pot, back in da day... so, while smoking pot doesn't disqualify him for our nation's highest office it is important to make that connection that a conviction would have. And these days? We arrest almost 100 people every hour for pot here in the US. Isn't it time to drop that charade? Is it any of our business what our neighbors smoke? Pot has never killed anybody on its own while tobacco deaths (just in the US) number about 400,000 a year. Isn't that a bit incongruous? How many hours of police time do that many arrests take? How much court time? And the occasional jail time? Aren't there better allocations of our police and criminal justice system's resources?

Prohibition II will become an issue that garners this nation's attention as we look at ways and places where we can start not-spending money. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy directs most drug policy moves and comes up for reauthorization in 2010. I say axe it completely. How does a free nation -- a democratic republic -- even think that naming a bureaucrat a czar (as in Drug Czar) is acceptable? Especially when he directs and advocates policies that are repressive and grow ever more intrusive of Constitutional protections. We cannot protect our precious liberties by allowing the government to declare a "drugs exception" to the Constitution...

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) head guy Jack Cole estimates that we now spend roughly $70 billion a year on Prohibition II. Well... in 10 years we would get back the initial $700 billion we (our government) just threw at this "bailout" of our financial institutions. And that $70 billion a year is just the basics of enforcing Prohibition...

A point my friend Kirk often makes -- quite concisely -- is that it was not the efforts of G-Man Elliot Ness and his Untouchables that took away Al Capone's power in the booze trade. It was the ending of Prohibition, the re-legalizing of alcohol that in one fell swoop put booze back in the hands of legitimate tax-paying companies and their tax-paying employees... and eliminated the very rampant corruption and public violence of the syndicates who ran the booze trade.
~~~

“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”

~ Thomas Jefferson

~~~

oh yeah... that other war... "Who cares if it cures cancer?"

~~~

“Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.”

~ William F. Buckley, Jr.
~~~

I've been putting off writing this next piece. Its hard to write and say the truth of what must be said. What I've been saying in this long series of posts on the drug war -- aka Prohibition II (or in new millenium parlance: Prohibition 2.0) -- is truthfully a condemnation of my own nation. I like this place. But in the context of where and how we began as a nation I think my attitude is both justified and patriotic.

I continue to stand on the principle of founding that the Constitution is our document. It and its declaration of our right of independence as human beings was placed in our care. But we've neglected our responsibilities. We've left the chicken coop open and the foxes have taken over.

Many, many people are relatively unaware of the drug war's specifics, knowing only what glimmers they glimpse on the news or in their newspapers. Few take the time to investigate the issue and end up being spoon fed misinformation that only serves to further entrench a bureaucracy within which dogma reigns supreme and heaven help those who stand in opposition. A bureaucracy that has as among its guidelines the power to lie:

The Drug Czar is required by law to lie

Title VII Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998: H11225:


Responsibilities. --The Director-- [...]

(12) shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812) and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that--

A. is listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812); and
B. has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration;

But there is no surprise in that really. Considering the false premises (often inspired by racial bigotry) upon which this nearly century old drugs Prohibition was founded, how else to maintain the lie than to pass a law mandating use of "... such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance..." This is a terrible power to bestow upon a massive government run by human beings. There is no human being that I've met that is perfect. We all suffer the same (yet uniquely individual!) faults just not in the same measures.

Because of who I am and the way I am I've found myself on the unpopular end of a few hot button issues. I've kind of developed a thick skin about epithats flung my way, preferring instead to come to know those who fling them. I actually believe that in the 30 plus years of my politicking things have gotten much better in the US. But fighting against this new/old Prohibition (and I say it that way because Prohibition is a very specific entity and even though it's target may change, Prohibition doesn't because it operates on certain immutable fundamentals) brings up some terrible vitriol from those who are Prohibition's most ardent supporters.

These are people who take to heart the ONDCP's edict to take "such actions" as necessary to prevent legalization. Even discussion is verboten. There is no national dialogue, no debate. The folks who lead this Charge of the Dim Brigade operate free from any major scrutiny. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) head John Walters has never faced tough questions. No reporters who would ask tough questions get close enough to Walters, the "Drug Czar" (and I'm sorry but this is not Russia, we don't have czars in the US), to ask those questions. He operates from behind castle walls, insulated from those who would challenge his falsehoods and end the reign of the czars.

An example of this law-to-lie is the insidious denial of cannabis (marijuana) as a legitimate medicine. The feds firmly deny there is any medical use for pot. Yet the plant has a history as a medicine that goes as far back as recorded history, some 5,000 years ago in China:

"Marijuana has been a medicine for 5,000 years," says Donald I. Abrams, MD. "That's a lot longer than it hasn't been a medicine." Abrams, who is an oncologist and director of clinical research programs at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine in San Francisco, is one of a handful of top-flight doctors in the country researching medical marijuana. "The war on drugs is really a war on patients," he says. (from here) (emphasis mine)

And its not like one day in China there was this big "POOF!" and suddenly this plant appeared. The relationship between cannabis and humanity is so old that we don't know how old our relationship with it is...

"In Chinese medicine," Abrams says, "they prescribe whole herbs and usually combinations of herbs."

It just seems a little odd that what was medicine for millenia is all of a sudden not medicine. Odd that some bureaucrat with more than a trace of racial prejudice could override use of such an ancient, basic resource:

The use of cannabis or hemp can also be traced back to the Stone Age. The cannabis plant is native to Central Asia but had already spread across the Old World before history began. As well as having psychoactive properties the cannabis plant also provides an extremely strong fibre, which has been used from time immemorial. Nevertheless its mind-altering effects were also made use of in Neolithic times. Stone Age cultures on the steppes used it in a ritual fashion at least as far back as the third millennium BC. In a burial site in Romania belonging to the Kurgan people (identified by Gimbutas as the Proto-Indo-Europeans), archaeologists discovered a small ritual brazier which still contained the remains of charred hemp seeds. This, like the use of opium in Old Europe, seems to be a practice that is ancestral to those known from historical sources. ...

... The excavation of Scythian tombs at Pazyryk in the Altai mountains of southern Siberia (dating from the fifth century BC) revealed metal braziers, the burnt remains of cannabis seeds and even the poles used to support the tent! ... The presence of charred seeds in both the Kurgan burial and the Scythian tomb indicates that the combustible (and psychoactive) parts of the plant – namely flowers and leaves – had been consumed and the hard residue left behind.

Cannabis not only went west to Europe from its homeland on the steppes but also travelled to China. Linguistic research undertaken by the Chinese scholar Hui-Lin Li indicates that both the technological and the psychoactive uses of the plant were known to the ancient Chinese. In Chinese, hemp is referred to as ta-ma, meaning 'great fibre' (ma = fibre). Li also points out that in archaic times the character ma had two meanings. The first of these was 'chaotic or numerous', a reference to the appearance and quantity of its fibres. The other meaning was 'numbness or senselessness', a reference to its stupefying qualities, which were apparently made use of for medicinal and ritual reasons. The current state of knowledge concerning the prehistoric use of cannabis indicates that it was first cultivated in northeast Asia both for its fibre and also as a means to induce ecstasy among shamans. There are a number of references in ancient Chinese writings to the use of cannabis by magicians and Taoists, and it appears that such uses stem from their shamanistic forebears. (from here)

I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist or psychotherapist but I do know dementia when I see it (hey, I live in Eugene!) and our prohibition against cannabis (and all the other banned drugs)(its a short list, compared to the thousands of legal drugs) is highly demented.

Do you think this is a minor issue? What, with our economy in the tank and the general state of today's affairs that its really all about a buncha pot heads who just want to get high? If so then perhaps you need to reread these posts. Or in a kinder more gentle prodding... read on.

I talk about the Constitution quite a bit. There is a lot of momentum among cannabists for the belief that hemp paper was used in the original drafts of the Constitution (or the Declaration of Independence). If that little bit of history is a question of curiosity for you, here is an excellent thread on the topic: Original Declaration of Independence printed on 100% hemp paper?

Of more interest is the face of pot Prohibition today. As a student of the issue I've noticed there are a few names you'll never hear any ardent drug warrior mention:

Donald Scott, killed in a no-knock raid because police (and other agencies) wanted to seize his multi-million property in the coastal mountains of southern Cal. He was "suspected" of growing marijuana. None was found.

Peter McWilliams, died while awaiting trial in federal court on charges of manufacturing marijuana. He was. But Peter was a best-selling author (Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do who suffered from AIDS and cancer.

Patrick Dorismond

And the list is far, far longer. A list comprised of innocents who became victims not of drugs but of the drug war - Prohibition II.

Government's job is not to protect us from ourselves. Besides, pot doesn't kill people:

While there have only been two deaths worldwide attributed to cannabis, alcohol and tobacco together are responsible for an estimated 150,000 deaths per annum in the UK alone.

In the US, the number of deaths from alcohol and tobacco is over 1/2 million per year. Some might call that carnage. If it were a war. But tobacco products can be obtained virtually anywhere. Liquor is sold ubiquitously and the delerium and the social damage it causes is the stuff of legend.

So what would you think if you found out the US governement once stumbled upon a possible cure (or highly effective treatment) for cancer but kept it secret? You'd think that was pretty sick, yes? Well...

US: Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew In '74

Fortunately cancer doesn't run in my family but if it did... wow, I'd be more than a little miffed. Pissed off is what I'd be. And follow up studies have confirmed this trait of cannabis:

Studies Showing an Anti-Cancer Effect

And my my my... what about all you women? Concerned about breast cancer?

Marijuana Compound Shows Promise In Fighting Breast Cancer

“Right now we have a limited range of options in treating aggressive forms of cancer,” says Sean D. McAllister, Ph.D., a cancer researcher at CPMCRI and the lead author of the study. “Those treatments, such as chemotherapy, can be effective but they can also be extremely toxic and difficult for patients. This compound offers the hope of a non-toxic therapy that could achieve the same results without any of the painful side effects.”

It just seems to me that the shelving (burying) of that study in Virginia in 1974 probably set cancer research back 25 years.

And if this all works out the way I believe it will, that cannabis, useful in treating so many medical conditions, will eventually be recognized for multiple benefits for our health and we will have generations of folks wondering why their families were made to suffer at the hands of those who themselves suffer from a disease. A disease known as Reefer Madness...

A pox on the houses of those drug warriors who lie, who have cost us inestimable damage. Being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail would be too good for them.

To deny reality in such egregious, wholesale fashion is not just un-American it is anti-American. This "war" is not a war on drugs, it is a war on we the people, the very citizens this government was formed to serve.
~~~

“Marijuana is self-punishing. It makes you acutely sensitive, and in this world, what worse punishment could there be?”

~ P. J. O'Rourke

“I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?”

~ Willie Nelson

~~~