Got your thinking caps on?

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“When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.”

- Robert Heinlein
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I have a guest blogger appearing in today's post. I met Denny Chapin over at Pete Guither's Drug WarRant. Denny is the managing editor of AllTreatment.com, a directory for drug rehab centers and substance abuse information resource. He appeared at Pete's with a guest post on Cannabis and addiction: Marijuana Addiction - guest post and a discussion.

To get the gist of all this it would help to follow through on the discussions. Those of us who follow Pete's blog and participate in discussion are no slouches when it comes to drug policy. Drug policy reform advocates have been way ahead of today's Prohibitionists on web technology and savvy since, well, forever.

All of today's Prohibition II is promulgated and funded by the government and any organizations opposed to current drug policies are marginalized and insulted. Yet the forces of prohibition have long held sway only because they held power and purse strings. The wwweb changed that.

Just as an example... in Pete's post on the current UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs 2010 that took place this past week in Vienna, he says this:

I can’t resist showing this… The NGO’s (non-governmental organizations, including Transform, Harm Reduction Association, etc. many of whom are there to try to reform) tend to get shut out of key portions. However, they were promised a location to make their materials available to delegates.

The 160 representatives from 55 NGOs were given this table.

and he offered this photo of the one table 55 Non-Governmental Organizations were supposed to share:




So follow along with these discussions and see for yourself...

After Denny's posting, Pete followed up with a response: Marijuana Addiction - a response

After a vigorous discussion, again, Denny returned with a follow up post: Marijuana Addiction, part 3. Danny Chapin responds. This resulted in 63 responses. And it was my comments to this post that brought Denny to contact me, asking for an opportunity to post here.

And with me being the accomodating fella I am... any way here's Denny Chapin:

Bio:
Denny Chapin is the managing editor of AllTreatment.com, a directory for drug rehab centers and substance abuse information resource.

Should We Decriminalize Marijuana?

From a purely utilitarian perspective, one can arguably weigh the good and bad against each other, calculate these values according to some weighting system, and know the "right" action. The reality of everyday life, however, speaks differently. While we try to use Mill's calculus to decide the truly right action, we fail, and we fail miserably. Yet, regardless, we try to measure negatives and the positives from one another, and make what we deem is the right decision.

In speaking to the following questions and statistics, I in no way mean to claim I am fulfilling the complexity of the whole of this topic, but simply hope to show the information from a perspective, and make conclusions as I deem fit. As such, I'll preface my opinions with a disclaimer that I in no way represent the opinions of any institution, in writing this brief argument. I write simply to ask questions and hopefully challenge and evoke thoughtfulness. And with that, let me detail a few positives that could occur from the decriminalization of marijuana.

Decriminalizing Marijuana: Effects in the United States

Marijuana is used by 15.2 million people, at least, in the United States[1]. Of those 15.2 million people, in 2006, 829,625 people were arrested with marijuana related charges, and 89% of them were charges of possession only, with 11% making up sale and distribution related offenses[2]. The enforcement of these charges cost the United States government between 12 and 20 billion dollars a year. The United States federal budget for education in 2011 is 160.5 billion dollars, and if marijuana was decriminalized, that money could increase our federal education budget by 7.5 to 12.5%[3]. Decriminalization will also prevent these possession offenses from being processed through our police and court systems, increasing efficiency and, hopefully effectiveness, since police will be able to focus more on truly disruptive criminal activity related to stronger, more destructive drugs like meth, cocaine, and heroin that come into the United States from Mexico.

Does Decriminalization Create More Marijuana Users?

But despite these benefits, if we don't care about prosecuting individuals who use and possess marijuana, it seems logical to assume the use of marijuana would rise, since it's "less illegal" with less punishments. Interestingly, the contrary has been the case in the United States. The states of Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon have all enacted marijuana decriminalization, where the offense of marijuana possession does not warrant jail time[4]. And these States have not seen an increase in marijuana consumption, as the Institute of Medicine's report on marijuana consumption indicates[5]. Another report from the Journal of Public Health is worth quoting:

The available evidence indicates that the decriminalization of marijuana possession had little or no impact on rates of use. Although rates of marijuana use increased in those U.S. states [that] reduced maximum penalties for possession to a fine, the prevalence of use increased at similar or higher rates in those states [that] retained more severe penalties. There were also no discernible impacts on the health care systems. On the other hand, the so-called 'decriminalization' measures did result in substantial savings in the criminal justice system.

- E. Single. 1989. The Impact of Marijuana Decriminalization: An Update. Journal of Public Health 10: 456-466.

We can see that decriminalization has proven to save American's tax money that would be wastefully spent on our criminal justice system in order to prosecute an overwhelming majority of marijuana users who possess an negligible amount of marijuana, missing the point of the actually preventing harmful drug distribution, crime, and violence.

How Should Treatment Centers Weigh In?

If decriminalization does not impact the number of people who use marijuana, marijuana treatment centers ought not to have an opinion about decriminalization as it relates to usage. And when it comes to costs, marijuana possession prosecution is simply a waste of money.

Most importantly, I think marijuana prohibition, decriminalization, legalization, etc, get a lot of buzz and force many to speak loud opinions about something most American's don't come in contact with on a very regular basis, and even rarer, to hear of someone who has a serious problem or caused themselves major harm because of marijuana. And to this degree, decriminalization is more of an afterthought in our social psyche, where the debate about medical marijuana and legalization take center stage.

So, to almost totally change subjects, I'd like to discuss what I believe is the true drug problem in America, alcohol.

The Real Problem: America's Relationship to Alcohol

In the United States, the most commonly abused substance is alcohol, a legal drug. Coinciding with this fact, treatment centers admit more patients suffering from alcohol abuse than any other drug, and of those patients, 29.9% of them admit themselves into treatment, as opposed to 14.8% of marijuana users admitting themselves into treatment[6]. Alcohol is a legal drug, yet in 2006, it caused 13,050 deaths from liver damage, and 22,073 alcohol-induced deaths, excluding deaths by drunken driving and drunken homicide[7].

Alcoholics and alcoholism is the purple elephant in the room of America's problem with substance abuse. And to this point, the fact that marijuana caused no deaths, has the fewest percentage of addicts admitting themselves to drug treatment on their own accord (along with 5.2x more people admitting themselves to treatment in sheer volume), and costs our country time, money, and energy, I believe marijuana consumption should require the least of our legislative "mindshare" when it comes to drug abuse.

Too many American have a dangerous relationship with alcohol, causing collapse in their body, their connection to their family members, and for our citizens, and scariest of all, the potential to get on the road and commit manslaughter. I feel regret that, as a blogger, the marijuana debate gets the most notice, when so many of us have been viscerally affected by an alcoholic in a truly upsetting manner. And to those of us who have not, we ought to count our blessings.

What should our government do? Make a change. But that is a whole other article ;)


Sources:
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3383
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6376&page=R2
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7370
http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/treatment-statistics/
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/quicktables/quickoptions.do
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf
http://ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2010/02/02012010.html



notes


1 http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/US07.htm

2 http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7370

3 http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/index.html

4 http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3383

5 http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6376&page=1

6 http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/quicktables/quickoptions.do

7 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm ; http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf

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Obviously Denny Chapin has done his homework. Feel free to weigh in, I'll be checking comments in the a.m. and the p.m to keep this current.

Thanks Denny!
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“I believe that people have a right to decide their own destiny; people own themselves. I also believe that, in a democracy, government exists because (and only as long as) individual citizens give it a "temporary license to exist" - in exchange for a promise that it will behave itself. In a democracy you own the government - it doesn't own you. Along with this comes a responsibility to ensure that individual actions, in the pursuit of a personal destiny, do not threaten the well-being of others while the "pursuit" is in progress.”

- Frank Zappa

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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

~~~

The BIG lie...

~~~

“A lie cannot live.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
~~~

Now surely, if a law is to have any validity at all, it must be founded in truth, yes? But what happens when a lie is a law's foundation? What happens when that lie is told and retold and retold again... well, obviously if a lie is told often enough it becomes accepted as truth.

That is exactly what has happened with the laws against cannabis (and yes, cannabis is pot, marijuana... even hemp). And this phenomenon of history is very well covered withing the drug policy reform arena. One of my favorite versions comes from my friend Pete Guither over at his blog Drug WarRant. If you are tepid in the least about your opposition to Prohibition stop by Pete's and be renewed. In fact if there is room, grab a place on Pete's couch. (inside joke there... if you've ever seen the anti-pot commercial, "Pete's couch," you'll get it...)

Pete's version of the history of pot's Prohibition is here: Why is Marijuana Illegal?

And knowing Pete won't mind, rather than write up things all over again I'm just going to borrow snippets from his work.

So come on along and relearn some history:

Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You'll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.

You'll also see that the history of marijuana's criminalization is filled with:

Racism
Fear
Protection of Corporate Profits
Yellow Journalism
Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
Personal Career Advancement and Greed

"A documented lie on the floor of the Senate"... ummm... I think some folks call that perjury.

OK... lets continue on with this fantastic journey:

America's first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law "ordering" all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other "must grow" laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp -- try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements - rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.

The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp "plantations" (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.

In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing's army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.

One of the "differences" seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them.

However, the first state law outlawing marijuana did so not because of Mexicans using the drug. Oddly enough, it was because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church was not pleased and ruled against use of the drug. Since the state of Utah automatically enshrined church doctrine into law, the first state marijuana prohibition was established in 1915. (Today, Senator Orrin Hatch serves as the prohibition arm of this heavily church-influenced state.)

Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population.

See, its getting ugly already and we he haven't gotten to the serious campaign of perjury. Lies and bigotry... a great foundation upon which to build our laws. Not...

In the eastern states, the "problem" was attributed to a combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong's "Muggles", Cab Calloway's "That Funny Reefer Man", Fats Waller's "Viper's Drag").

Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: "Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice."

So, if you are white, and your child is starting to look like a black jazz musician... check their room, they may be smoking pot!

In 1930, a new division in the Treasury Department was established -- the Federal Bureau of Narcotics -- and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This, if anything, marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana.

Harry J. Anslinger



Anslinger was an extremely ambitious man, and he recognized the Bureau of Narcotics as an amazing career opportunity -- a new government agency with the opportunity to define both the problem and the solution. He immediately realized that opiates and cocaine wouldn't be enough to help build his agency, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level.

Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from "Gore Files" -- wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and... Negroes.

Are you detecting the trend here? Well, just wait. Now comes the titillation... exciting yellow journalism from the Wm Randolph Hearst media empire (and you thought the tabloids were weird...), from the San Francisco Examiner:


"Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days -- Hashish goads users to bloodlust."

"By the tons it is coming into this country -- the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms.... Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him...."

On the farm, in the barnyard... this is what is called manure. And people bought it! They bought this outrageous pack of lies and it is a legacy that has been built on for 70 years... and they still buy it today!

But wait... where would this story be without Richard "Dick" Nixon?



(hey, and I'm sorry if this is a bit long, but it is a topic I've been studying for over a decade and it takes some time to explain)

So, how does Tricky Dick come into this farcical play of life? Remember those White House tapes? Yep...

Once-Secret "Nixon Tapes" Show Why the U.S. Outlawed Pot

[quote]

Congress, when it passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, temporarily labeled marijuana a "Schedule I substance" -- a flatly illegal drug with no approved medical purposes. But Congress acknowledged that it did not know enough about marijuana to permanently relegate it to Schedule I, and so they created a presidential commission to review the research and recommend a long-term strategy. President Nixon got to appoint the bulk of the commissioners. Not surprisingly, he loaded it with drug warriors. Nixon appointed Raymond Shafer, former Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, as Chairman. As a former prosecutor, Shafer had a "law and order," drug warrior reputation. Nixon also appointed nine Commissioners, including the dean of a law school, the head of a mental health hospital, and a retired Chicago police captain. Along with the Nixon appointees, two senators and two congressmen from each party served on the Commission.

[end quote]

It is a Presiden't perogative to make appointments as he (so far, only hims, all white, no hers) sees fit. And in this case he stacked the deck. But ya know what? the truth won out...

[quote]

The Shafer Commission -- officially known as the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse -- took its job seriously. They launched fifty research projects, polled the public and members of the criminal justice community, and took thousands of pages of testimony. Their work is still the most comprehensive review of marijuana ever conducted by the federal government.

After reviewing all the evidence, these drug warriors were forced to come to a different conclusion than they had at first expected. Rather than harshly condemning marijuana, they started talking about legalization.

What!?!?!? Law and order types? Swayed by the truth of their own research...? Wow. How times have changed...

[quote]

[...] in the end, the Shafer Commission issued a report that tried to correct the "extensive degree of misinformation," to "demythologize" and "desymbolize" marijuana. They reported finding that marijuana did not cause crime or aggression, lead to harder drug use or create significant biochemical, mental or physical abnormalities. They concluded: "Marihuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."

The most important recommendation of the Commission was the decriminalization of possession or non-profit transfer of marijuana. Decriminalization meant there would be no punishment -- criminal or civil -- under state or federal law.

Nixon reacted strongly to the report. In a recorded conversation on March 21, the day before the Commission released its report, Nixon said, "We need, and I use the word 'all out war,' on all fronts ... we have to attack on all fronts." Nixon and his advisors went on to plan a speech about why he opposed marijuana legalization, and proposed that he do "a drug thing every week" during the 1972 presidential election year. Nixon wanted a "Goddamn strong statement about marijuana ... that just tears the ass out of them."

[end quote]

Aaah... and those White House tapes...

[quote]

Nixon's private comments about marijuana showed he was the epitome of misinformation and prejudice. He believed marijuana led to hard drugs, despite the evidence to the contrary. He saw marijuana as tied to "radical demonstrators." He believed that "the Jews," especially "Jewish psychiatrists" were behind advocacy for legalization, asking advisor Bob Haldeman, "What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?" He made a bizarre distinction between marijuana and alcohol, saying people use marijuana "to get high" while "a person drinks to have fun."

He also saw marijuana as part of the culture war that was destroying the United States, and claimed that Communists were using it as a weapon. "Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general," Nixon fumed. "These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they're trying to destroy us." His approach drug education was just as simplistic: "Enforce the law. You've got to scare them."

Unfortunately, Nixon did more than just "scare them," whoever they were. His marijuana war rhetoric led to a dramatic increase in arrests. One year after his "all out war" comments, marijuana arrests jumped to 420,700 a year -- a full 128,000 more than the year before. Since then, nearly 15 million people have been arrested for marijuana offenses.

[end quote]

(btw... thanks to Kevin Zeese and Alternet for a great report)

Now... consider all that. Is that the kind of "truth" that we found our laws upon? Yep. And that is the foundation underlying my getting fired for what I do on my day off.

Nobody said life has to be fair right? Right....

There is a 3rd part to this saga. So stay tuned...

Next: Who cares if it may cure cancer?
~~~

“We accept too damned many things on the explanations of people who could have good reasons for lying”

~ Frank Herbert

~~~

OK... a line has been crossed...

~~~

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.

~ Justice William O. Douglas
~~~

I'm not a flag-waver. I don't put made in China "I support the troops" stickers on my car. But I am a veteran, a volunteer during Vietnam. Both my older brothers were volunteers as well. My dad (RIP) was a vet of WWII, fought in the Battle of the Bulge...

... and while I can't speak for any of them, I believe in the principles of liberty, freedom and equality. Each person's business is their own and unless they have breached etiquette and intruded upon another by their actions what they do is their business. And their's alone.

I've been putting this post off for quite awhile but recent events tilted my qwerty at a dangerous angle and now I am compelled to do some ranting.

(big breath... let my prana catch up to my karma... You know the song, "Goin' up the country" by Canned Heat? Next time you hear it, pay attention to the lead voice and put the image of Kermit the Frog to it)

... sigh... ok, I'm calm, for a little bit at least...

Back on the subject of my firing... Was I fired for... poor performance? No, all my performance ratings are excellent. I'm on time, helpful to my co-workers and make them laugh, appreciated by my customers... I didn't moon anybody or swear out loud in front of a pack of toddlers. None of those frequent and common atrocities in retail land.

No, I was fired for doing something on my day off that millions of people do every day in probably every country on the planet (and maybe... out there as well...).

(see, now here is where, as a writer, I havta figure out if I provide some background info or just dive into it...)

And I know some of you may be shocked, and never drop by for a donut again... but... well... I smoked a bit of pot. On my day off.



And then I went and peed in a bottle for all the good little folks deriving their income from an entire industry dedicated to violating the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.

For those who don't remember:

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.

Did I know my company had random tests? Yep. I could have passed any day along the way. Except for that week...

hmmm... what if it wasn't just the roll of the dice? What if they do really see everything we do? hear everything we say? (I'm sooo glad you can't see me with my tinfoil hat)



What? I'm 56 (soon to be 57) years old and most certainly don't need to be monitored on my day off. The funny (well... not really funny) part? If I had gone out on Friday nite and snorted up a few lines of whichever white powder was available (and white powder is always available somewhere), smoked some opium or tripped on LSD I would have peed clean. But not with pot/cannabis/mah-reee-wanna/reefer/tea/ganja/bud... it is the only one of those very few "illicit" substances that actually clings to your fat cells cells instead of being water soluble. Water soluble meaning you flush it through your system rapidly...

Now, as much as I've tried to avoid the topic, because it really is Nobody's Business what I do on my time, I've got to lay down a few lines of type here.

And its not like I was working in some high stakes national security position. I was working as a retail clerk... and a good one I was(/am) too. Aah well... this IS Oregon and even among that large voting majority of us Oregonians with common sense and a very middle class populism there are those who will swallow whatever lies the government feeds them and say "ummm, that was good. More please."

See, there is this document... I think I've mentioned it before (oh yeah, just above!) ... anyway... this document is kinda like David Letterman's Top 10 lists. But it pre-dates Letterman. Well, #4 on this list is pretty cool. But it is in not such good shape these days as the government has... altered... it just a bit. You know, deleting a few items here, changing a few words over there... even though that document is forever in the care and control of this nation's citizens. This "Top 10 list" belongs to the people. A set of rules... guidelines and principles handed to us by our nation's founders as a tool to keep the government in check. Not an instrument for the government to modify as it sees fit in order to control the populace. In fact it is so cool I think I'm going to repeat it (for those of you on drugs):

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.

Now, as many times as I've read this during my growing-ever-longer lifetime (I know I had to memorize it as a kid in school) I've never seen an "except when" in there. Do you see that anywhere in there? Now... I may be getting older (a "classic" now) and even tho' I can't see out of one eye (and I'm blind in the other) I sure as heck can't find that "except."

Like I said, I'm only going to do this once, so take notes if you have to. (Oh, and just to further impale the point I'm making, I have a whole bunch of ex-criminal justice professionals -- cops, judges,prosecutors, etc -- who agree with me.)

There are a whole lot of reasons not to like drugs (reason #1... Tweakers!). But as anybody knows that has experimented with any of the mood altering substances in the human pharmacopeia (and lord knows there are thousands of ways, many fatal, to alter consciousness) , there are reasons to like drugs. Now me personally... I've tried a few over my half century plus.. Some I liked some I didn't. Ganja is one I do like. As a creative person it works for me. It also has health benefits. With arthritis holding a prominent place in the genes on my mother's side of the family I know the good herb has helped stem a disease (arthritis) that crippled my uncle and gnarled my mother's hands. But since I haven't been consuming any pot for almost the last 12 months, my hands were starting to feel the effects again. I've already got one finger that has twisted at a weird angle with a pretty gnarly knuckle and another finger joint has been swelling and starting to do weird things over the last few months. Plenty of mornings I had to flex my hands and take an ibuprofen or two in the morning to make it through my work day.

But ibuprofen has damaging side effects if taken for too long a period of time. I'm not a big fan of pharmaceuticals (the drugs or the corporations), preferring instead to use herbs, massage, hot springs, a healthy diet and exercise. Of course I've used pharmas when they've been prescribed but I can count the number of times I've gone to the doctor in the last 30 years on one hand. And part of that comes from my dislike for western medicine in general. Throw western medicine in with western style "civilization" and you've got a dangerous brew.

Too many times in my life I've felt like I was born a few hundred years too late. To have seen this country before it was fenced and cross-fenced, strapped down by highways and byways and its forest stripped, its waters dammed, dyked and polluted...

...sigh...

Anyway... going back in the human past for far longer than we have been *cough* civilized we have been either hunting and gathering or farming, often a combination of both. And across the continents of our globe we developed differently in our diverse communities. But being human... many many truths were shared. We as a specie share common traits, biological more than cultural and social, genetically bound.

The Hopi speak of several past worlds that all ended because our behavior was not... mmm... conducive to societal success. But with the passing of each world went that contingent of humanity that survived and followed the path that led them on to the next world. And so we did it all over again. Again, a few became many. And then, again, too many.

But in spite of all this passing of humanity... shaping us, making us into who we have come to be today was the environment in which we lived. I try and share the pieces I find of that once unfenced global whole with my landscape photography. This beautiful, beautiful planet I love taking photographs of has always sustained us. Whatever our wealth, whatever our sustenance, it has always come from the earth. And there is but one... at least right now, for us.

And amidst this wealth of resource we call earth we have always had the resources to heal our hurts. For thousands and thousands of years many of the planet's plants and muds and frog juices and moth wings and fluids and substances of vast descriptions, were known for the have medicinal components they hold. And once, way back, these were the sum of our medicinal options. So we carefully remembered them, passed the knowledge on, developed preparations, learned the best and most useful parts and in which season to gather them. Caring for wounds and aches and pains came from caring for one another. Still today, in our modern technological world, we discover new medicines in remote ancient rain forests and isolated desert glades. In the fish and other ocean life forms living deep in our seas we find much more and continually are reminded how much we don't know. And seemingly what we have forgotten is the caring. Yes, many, many of us do care. I know, I know... but there is a rift, an open wound that won't heal and it continues to fester... and our propensity to do harm flares up and disturbs the balance of what should be lives full of good living. But there is no curing salve for that affliction, save our own efforts...

Among these medicines so miraculously co-existent here, with us, is a plant that has a very ancient relationship with humanity. So old is the relationship that we carry receptors for its various components within our bodies on a cellular level. This plant has fed us, it has clothed us, it has been the paper upon which great documents have ben written and it has held our ships together in the navy that first defended our shores... we have used it as a medicine as far back as any civilization's recorded history and far far beyond that. Among the most ancient medicinal traditions still being utilized today, this plant holds a place. Even here in the modern U.S, it was a part of the our pharmacopeia until the middle of the 20th century and is once again.

Now, I hope you don't mind my version of a history lesson. I mean this is it. We live it. And those years behind us are our histories. And those human histories have passed and passed and passed... and always amidst those lives and generations we have lived, aware. Human consciousness is no young thing. We have been proud, upright beasts for awhile now. Among all these passings truth has grabbed hold now and again. Things like gravity and the laws of attraction. Aah, the laws of attraction... without it we would not be here today.

I'm getting distracted... women have that effect on me. Nice days do that too...

In my roundabout manner I'm saying that our oldest traditions are nature based. Our knowledge all comes from observation of nature. Physics is our way of describing those laws, discovered through our observation. And whether its anti-gravity or UFOs or leaves changing color in the autumn... everything has its place in this ordered chaos of life. Even tho' it is kind of weird that techically speaking we really aren't cohesive material beings because matter doesn't really exist except as whirling bits of neutrons and electrons with just monumental gaps of... cosmic foam... what Malcolm calls custard... in between these electrically whirling dervishes.

Pardon another bit of digression. When I lived out in Oregon's southern desert in the Warner Lakes basin, radio reception really sucked. As in there wasn't any. Well, actually, there was... during the day we got one AM station from Klamath Falls. Country music. And 3 times a day, Paul Harvey (Hello America!). But at night? At nearly a mile high? The AM dial came alive and I discovered Art Bell. Yeah, Art Bell talked about a lot of things. Some of his guests were phonies or blowhards but many were really interesting. Some even educational. Like physicist Michio Kaku. And of course lots of UFO, crop circle, bigfoot type stories and discussions. And I must say I have some good stories from 2 out of 3 of those... but it was Michio Kaku that grabbed my attention. I've never been a higher math kind of guy. Arithmetic I have down. Too many years of selling things and doing the figuring in my head. Carpentry showed me what geometry is about. I have the Pythagorean thing down. Something about triangles and hypotenuses and two squares equals the sea squared. Its mighty handy to know.

So, as our natural selves evolved (questionable, but that is another day's blog) we utilized all that was around us. And lo and behold there, right around us all this time, is a plant that some have labeled as a camp follower. And that plant has served us well. The plant? Well, if you haven't figured it out, its cannabis. Hemp. Ganja, pot, marijuana...

So in today's world, I'm told "son, because it is so old humanity doesn't even know how old our association with cannabis is and even tho' no one has ever died from it (and never will), well... just-you-never-mind that it is proving to be an effective cancer fighter and useful in treating many conditions and ailments -- including but not limited to Multiple Sclerosis, arthritis, Alzheimer's, alleviating problems assocated with chemo-therapy, reduces stress and much more -- just ignore all that. The fact is it is illegal and you broke the letter (if not the spirit) of the law."

Well... hello? I have no qualms with that. Lets just ignore all the data and science, all the patient testimony (anecdotal.... pffft... what do the patients know about how medicine works?) that corroborates our historical association. But if we want to stand by the law...

... surely there is a reason pot was outlawed in the first place?

Well... no. The banning of pot is a fraud and it has been perpetrated upon us for over 70 years. A lie that has fueled one of the most wasteful and oppressive bureaucracies ever.

Next:

The Big Lie

~~~

“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

~~~