Information from Jack Herer

[DrLongbottom]

..........

 

[DJ_highst_]

great info thanks for posting it.

Maybe if all these other countries start to promote Hemp more and America realizes it is getting left in the dust, maybe EVENTUALLY they might get their collective heads out of each other's asses and change our laws in the US.

PS I have Jack's "Emperor..." book and he signed it with a crayon, what a stoner.

Peace_highst

 

[DrLongbottom]

Cannabis Drug may Help Fight Obesity

Cannabis Drug may Help Fight Obesity

By Amie Ferris-Rotman
Reuters

LONDON (Jan. 30) - Human trials of an experimental treatment for obesity derived from cannabis, which is commonly associated with stimulating hunger, are scheduled to begin in the second half of this year, Britain's GW Pharmaceuticals Plc announced Tuesday.

A British pharmaceutical company says it has derived a treatment from cannabis that could help fight obesity. The company has already developed a treatment derived from cannabis for multiple sclerosis.

Several other companies, such as Sanofi-Aventis, which is investigating Acomplia, are working on new drugs that will switch off the brain circuits that make people hungry when they smoke cannabis.

GW Pharma, however, says it has derived a treatment from cannabis that could help suppress hunger. "The cannabis plant has 70 different cannabinoids in it and each has a different affect on the body," GW Managing Director Justin Gover told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"Some can stimulate your appetite, and some in the same plant can suppress your appetite. It is amazing both scientifically and commercially," he said.

Drugs have to pass three stages of tests in humans before being eligible for approval by regulators in a process that takes many years.

Sanofi-Aventis' Acomplia, which it believes can achieve $3 billion in annual sales, is already on sale in Europe and it is waiting for a U.S. regulatory decision in April.

Several other big drug companies also already have similar products to Acomplia in clinical trials.

GW is best known for developing Sativex, a treatment derived from cannabis that fights spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients. Sativex, an under-the-tongue spray, has been approved in Canada, but has hit delays with regulators in Britain.

GW submitted Sativex for assessment by several European regulators in September, and hopes to secure approval for the UK, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands in the second half of this year at the earliest, the company said on Tuesday.

GW's marijuana plants are grown indoors in a secret location in Southern England.

DLB

 

[DrLongbottom]

Big, Big Government

Big, Big Government

Big, Big Government
Body: by John Stossel

Posted Jan 31, 2007

Two weeks ago, U.S. drug agents launched raids on 11 medical-marijuana centers in Los Angeles County. The U.S. attorney's office says they violated the laws against cultivation and distribution of marijuana.

Whatever happened to America's federal system, which recognized the states as "laboratories of democracy"?

According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, 11 states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) have eliminated the penalties for physician-approved possession of marijuana by seriously ill patients. In those states people with AIDS and other catastrophic diseases may either grow their own marijuana or get it from registered dispensaries.

But the U.S. government says its drug laws trump the states' laws, and in 2005, the Supreme Court agreed.

This is not the way it was supposed to work. The constitutional plan presented in the Federalist Papers delegated only a few powers to the federal government, with the rest reserved to the states. The system was hailed for its genius. Instead of having decisions made in the center -- where errors would harm the entire country -- most policies would be determined in a decentralized environment. A mistake in California would affect only Californians. New Yorkers, Ohioans, and others could try something else. Everyone would learn and benefit from the various experiments.

It made a lot of sense. It still does. Too bad the idea is being tossed on the trash heap by big-government Republicans and their DEA goons.

Drug prohibition -- like alcohol prohibition -- is a silly idea, as the late free-market economist Milton Friedman often pointed out. Something doesn't go away just because the government decrees it illegal. It simply goes underground. Then a black market creates worse problems. Since sellers cannot rely on police to protect their property, they arm themselves, form gangs, charge monopoly prices, and kill their competitors. Buyers steal to pay the high prices.

Alcohol prohibition in the 1920s gave America Al Capone and organized crime. Drug prohibition has given us South American and Asian cartels that finance terrorism. Even the government admits that the heroin trade bankrolls terrorists. Prohibition's exorbitant black-market prices make that possible. In the United States, drug prohibition spawns gangs that are sometimes better armed than the police. Drug prohibition does more harm than drugs.

The war on drugs hasn't even accomplished what it promised to do. Drugs are abundant and cheaper than ever. "ABC News" reported last month, "marijuana is the U.S.'s most valuable crop. The report, 'Marijuana Production in the United States,' by marijuana policy researcher Jon Gettman, concludes that despite massive eradication efforts at the hands of the federal government, 'marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of the national economy.'"

The destructive failure of the drug war is why it makes so much sense to let states experiment, which 11 of them have done with medical marijuana.

Legalizing only medical marijuana brings its own problems. For one thing, it invites state authorities to monitor the practice of medicine to make sure doctors don't prescribe pot promiscuously.

But government officials shouldn't be the judges of what is and isn't medicine. That should be left to medical researchers, doctors, and patients. The effectiveness of medicine is too dependent on individual circumstances and biochemistry. One size does not fit all, so politicians and bureaucrats should butt out.

More fundamentally, why should only people whom the state defines as sick be able to use marijuana? This is supposed to be a free country, and in a free country adults should have the right to ingest whatever they want. A drug user who harms someone else should be punished, but a peaceful user should be left alone.

Despite my reservations about medical marijuana, the states' experimentation is still better than a brutal federal one-size-fits-all crackdown. There is no role here for the federal government. If the people of a state want to experiment by loosening drug prohibition, that should be their right. Washington should mind its own business. The feds and rest of us should watch. We might learn something.
DLB

 

[Guest]

 

[DrLongbottom]

Global Marijuana March - May 4th, 5th, 6th - Everywhere!

 

[DrLongbottom]

DENVER ISAACS
Namibian - Windhoek,Namibia

RASTAFARIANS lobbying for the legalisation of dagga - 'holy smoke' to them - received a fair bit of opposition yesterday from church groups - an 'unholy practice' to them - on the second day of a public hearing on the Combating of the Abuse of Drugs Bill in Windhoek.

The hearing also heard a new argument - that the popular image of dagga as a dangerous substance was nothing more than western propaganda 'because it was an enemy of capitalism'.

Overall, day two of the proceedings, which coincidentally took place on the birthday of late Rasta legend Bob Marley, attracted a lot more attention from members of the public than the opening session.

The Ombudsman, Nascam, the Council of Churches in Namibia (CCN), the Universal Church and the Seventh Day Adventist Church all contributed to discussions around the bill yesterday, while civilians once again came out in full support of cannabis - urging lawmakers to drop the plant from the list of banned substances in Namibian society.

The CCN generally agreed with the proposed law, but said Government needed to include "stiff punishment" for minors who make themselves guilty of drug and alcohol abuse.

"The position of the Church in Namibia concerning alcohol and drug use and abuse is quite well known," CCN General Secretary Reverend Phillip Strydom said.

"Our nation today shows clear symptoms of alcohol and drug abuse, and the nation is at the point of being destroyed by alcohol and drug abuse," he said.

The Universal Church, on the other hand, while supporting the aims of the bill, urged Government to make sure whether the suggested minimum sentences of 20 years' imprisonment for first-time offenders, and 30 years' imprisonment for subsequent arrests (regardless of quantity and type of drug involved) were the correct way to go.

"We understand that it is not in the interest of any person to send a human being to jail for 20 to 30 or even more years.

It is expensive for Government.

It deprives the inmates of their liberty, families, friends, jobs and communities.

It reduces their subsequent income and employability and can destroy their families' financial and social stability."

Still, if this was considered the way to go, the church said Government should accompany this with an awareness campaign to keep citizens out of prison.

"If a person who uses drugs only a few times because of his curiosity only finds out in court that he will stay in jail for 20 years, this severe punishment will not bring about the desired effect," the church stated.

The Universal Church further proposed that sentences should vary depending on the type of drug a suspect is caught with, making a distinction between drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines (speed), and dagga.

Ombudsman John Walters criticised a number of things either proposed or absent from the bill.

The lack of any provision for treating drug addicts was a loophole that could be exploited by suspects, Walters suggested.

"The courts will face these problems.

Someone will say, 'yes, I'm guilty, but I did it because I'm addicted to cocaine'.

Will that be considered compelling evidence to let the suspect go free? That won't serve the interest of the public.

The court, under this proposed legislation, has no power to send someone for treatment while being held," Walters said.

He further agreed with others who felt that a sentence of 20 years' imprisonment for a first-time offender was unrealistic.

"I believe children experiment, whether with sex, cigarettes or liquor.

We all at times experiment with immoral things.

The main thing should be to rehabilitate those abusing it," he said.

Walters further criticised a clause in the bill (Section 24, subsection 6) which will allow Police to install monitoring devices, equipment or software on premises, telephones, or computer systems of suspicious people without the permission of a judge.

"I cannot agree with this.

What circumstances will prevent an officer from approaching a judge to say they need permission to monitor a suspect? Police should under all circumstances get permission from a judge.

If necessary a Police officer can approach a judge at 12 o'clock at night.

This section should not be enacted into law," the Ombudsman cautioned.

DAGGA - ENEMY OF CAPITALISM? In a presentation that drew applause from the public, Norelle Louw argued that the popular image of dagga as a dangerous substance was nothing more than western propaganda.

"Before 1910 cannabis were not illegal anywhere in the world.

It was only when America started getting this whole capitalism thing going," she argued.

She said that hemp (fibre of the cannabis plant) was originally used to make rope and strong fabrics.

"Hemp practically carried the (American) civil war as farmers were pushed to produce it so soldiers would have enough clothing.

"But cannabis was no good for a capitalist society," she said to applause from public benches.

"While hemp gets stronger with age, capitalism needs people to buy continually.

So therefore they introduced cotton, which wears out quickly, and to stop people from using cannabis they had to get something on it.

That's when all the propaganda started and it had to be removed from society," she said.

Louw, like a multitude of others before and after her, urged Government to decriminalise dagga.

"Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest to the youth," she said in conclusion, arguing that in Holland where dagga is tolerated, fewer young people are believed to smoke it than in America where it is illegal.

 

[DrLongbottom]

North Dakota issues first hemp licenses

North Dakota issues first hemp licenses

By BLAKE NICHOLSON
Associated Press writer

BISMARCK, N.D. -- North Dakota issued the nation's first licenses to grow industrial hemp Tuesday to two farmers who still must meet federal requirements before they can plant the crop.

The farmers must get approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which treats hemp much the way it does marijuana and has not allowed commercial hemp production but has said it would consider applications to grow it.

Hemp is a cousin of marijuana that contains trace amounts of the chemical that causes a marijuana high, though hemp does not produce the same effects. The sturdy, fibrous plant is used to make an assortment of products including paper, rope, clothing and cosmetics.

Industrial hemp cultivation is legal in Canada and other countries but is banned in the United States. Law enforcement officials worry that industrial hemp can shield the growing of marijuana, although hemp supporters say that fear is unfounded.

The North Dakota Agriculture Department approved rules late last year for hemp production with the DEA's concerns in mind, State Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson has said.

The state issued permits Tuesday to Wayne Hauge and Dave Monson, who is also a legislator. The state Agriculture Department is processing 16 other hemp applications, Johnson said.

"It's taken us a lot longer than (expected) to get here, and I'm thinking we still have a ways to go," said Monson, the House assistant Republican majority leader.

Joseph Rannazzisi, an administrator with the DEA, said federal law does not allow the agency to delegate its ability to regulate hemp to state officials. Although the DEA may waive registration requirements, it has done so only for law enforcement officers and other officials, he said.

Johnson asked the DEA in December to waive its $2,293 registration fee, but federal officials rejected that request. Johnson said he will hand-deliver Hauge's and Monson's applications when he meets with DEA officials in Washington early next week to try again to persuade them to relax the annual fee requirement.

North Dakota is one of seven states that have authorized industrial hemp farming. The others are Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana and West Virginia, according to Vote Hemp, an industrial hemp advocacy organization based in Bedford, Mass.

 

[DrLongbottom]

 

[DrLongbottom]

A Change in the Weather (You'll be glad you read this!)

A Change in the Weather (You'll be glad you read this!)

Date: Feb 7, 2007 11:25 PM
Subject A Change in the Weather (You'll be glad you read this!)
Body: Progressive Dennis Kucinich takes over a new House subcommittee, signaling changes in national drug policy

~ By DEAN KUIPERS ~

~ The drug hawk?s worst nightmare: Kucinich?s hearings will raise a ruckus ~

he Democratic sweep in the 2006 mid-term elections has done more than finally install a woman as speaker of the House. It has also put one of the most vocal critics of the ill-starred ?War on Drugs? in a position to affect federal drug policy. On January 18, Ohio Congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, one of the most progressive Democratic voices in the House, was appointed as chair of the new House Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee on domestic policy, causing drug reform organizations coast-to-coast to rejoice in hopes that a moment for significant change may have finally come.

This subcommittee replaces the now-defunct Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources subcommittee, which was headed up by staunch drug warrior, Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN). Kucinich will assume many of his oversight duties, including policy oversight of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and appointed Drug Czar John Walters. One commentator on Stopthedrugwar.org crowed that ?the responsibility of overseeing the ONDCP has effectively been transferred from Congress?s most reckless drug warrior to its most outspoken drug policy reformer? [his emphasis].

?He is certainly the polar opposite of his predecessor, Mark Souder,? says Allen St. Pierre, spokesman for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML. ?Since the time the [ONDCP] was created in 1988, there have always been friendly people in that subcommittee and the ONDCP has always been able to get what they want under the guise of protecting children and saving America from drugs. But Kucinich doesn?t believe any of that. Any of it!?

For instance, St. Pierre notes, Kucinich is a supporter of industrial hemp, the non-psychoactive product of the cannabis sativa plant. He is also a supporter of medical marijuana and of the federal rescheduling of marijuana, where it is currently illegal as a Schedule I drug, classified as having ?no medical value.? This classification clashes with states such as California, which have legalized medical use of marijuana, and leads directly to the current rash of raids on medical marijuana dispensaries by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. Kucinich is expected, St. Pierre says, to be a sponsor of a new bill to be introduced in March that would decriminalize pot.

Washington insiders, however, are not holding their breath for great upheaval in federal drug policy overall. Sources close to the appointment, who asked not to be named, say that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the Democratic leadership have effectively embargoed major crime or drug policy legislation for the next two years, to avoid looking soft on crime in the 2008 election.

Kucinich, however, is promising a couple years of entertaining and edifying hearings.

?We?re going to open up the discussion to new hearings,? says Kucinich, interviewed Sunday in Culver City, where he presented his bill for Universal Health Care, which is co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). ?We want to explore the federal government?s policies and the Department of Justice?s policies on medical marijuana, for example. We need to also look at the drug laws that have brought about mandatory minimum sentences that have put people in jail for long periods of time. I think it?s an appropriate time to look at the proliferation of drugs in America, and how that fits in with our health care crisis, and how that fits in with law enforcement.?

The ONDCP did not reply to several requests for comment. That office, however, which is a function of the executive branch, has been deeply involved in pushing heavy sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and resisting medical marijuana, buying big-money ad campaigns attacking marijuana in states trying to legalize at the state level. Controlling that ad money could be a key to reform. When asked if his subcommittee has any budget oversight or other muscle, Kucinich shook his head and added, ?No, this committee does not have control of the budgets, but it does have control of the policy, and it can ask questions and get documents that others couldn?t get.?

That can make a difference, says Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, one of the nation?s biggest drug policy reform organizations. His group plans to push for incremental slices of legislation that can move a progressive agenda while not upsetting Democratic unity, adding that Kucinich can ?hold hearings on some of the subjects that haven?t been addressed in, you know, decades. Like a hearing on America having the highest incarceration rate in the world. Or maybe a hearing on why the DEA has jurisdiction over medical issues.

?One can obviously empathize with the democratic leadership?s desire to be cautious when it comes to supporting drug policy reforms and other sentencing reforms,? he adds. ?But when you have a growing number of Republicans supporting sentencing reform, this might be a good time for the Democrats to show a little leadership.?

In fact, several activists point out, the new Congress may be the most sympathetic to drug-law reform that America has ever seen. Progressives like Senator Richard Durbin and Reps. Pelosi, George Miller, Conyers, Barney Frank, Henry Waxman, Kucinich, and Bobby Scott have all turned up in leadership positions.

?If we had to pick out our 40 best friends in Congress, they?d be disproportionately in leadership positions,? says Nadelmann. He includes Sen. Patrick Leahy on that list, but cautions: ?Mind you, seven years ago, Leahy said that sentencing reform was one of the top priorities, but now it?s not even a top-10 priority. Part of that?s because there?s so much other stuff to deal with.?

Still, action on several fronts is expected. Sentencing reform should get some attention, with an aim of reducing the number of non-violent drug offenders currently getting long prison sentences, which has given the U.S. the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world. One such change would be to make sentences involving crack cocaine equal to those given for powdered cocaine, as community activists have long contended these simply punish the black and poor who are more likely to use the drug in the form of crack. Hearings might also bring new media scrutiny to decades-long marijuana rescheduling motions and several Data Quality Act petitions, which force bodies like the Food and Drug Administration to make decisions based on science rather than ideology, and which have been roundly ignored by the Bush administration.

St. Pierre points out another potential point of influence: High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, or HIDTAs. Congress funnels millions of dollars to local law enforcement for use in these areas, and activists have long argued they are wrongly prioritized.

?That?s a very obscure acronym, but when it comes down to the billions of dollars that get channeled out to local governments and their law enforcement, HIDTA is the battleground. That?s where Dennis can come in and say, ?Mr. Walters, we the Congress, and, clearly, your own constituents want methamphetamines as the number one priority, not marijuana, and certainly not in the states that have medical marijuana laws.? A couple of weeks ago, Walters was out in Fresno giving awards away for busting buyers? clubs. Dennis can clip those wings. It all depends on how he?s going to want to pull the trigger.?

 

[dwtc]

great read


i can only hope i see the day that mj is legalized. hopefully the time has come sooner than later.

RANT: it's a plant, how can a plant be illegal? god made it. it is my right as a humanbeing to medicate myself the way i see fit, not the way the government see's fit. off RANT




stay safe,,,,,,,,,,dwtc

 

[DrLongbottom]

SANTA FE (AP) - The New Mexico Senate has passed a proposal to allow certain patients to legally use marijuana under a state-run program.

The Senate voted 34-7 Wednesday in favor of the proposal, which heads to the House.

Governor Richardson says he would support a bill that includes proper safeguards to prevent abuse.

The bill creates a program run by the state Department of Health in which patients with cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and other conditions could participate. They would need certification from their physicians.

Supporters say the drug combats nausea and relieves other symptoms of cancer and other debilitating diseases.

But opponents say marijuana remains illegal under federal law, subjecting patients who use it to possible prosecution.

 

[DrLongbottom]

by Michael Levine, ex-DEA agent

"Gentlemen, in this business, you're only as good as your rats." --
Lecture on the Handling of Criminal Informants (CIs) from U.S. Treasury
Law Enforcement Academy, August, 1965

"I'm looking for Mike Levine, ex-DEA," said the man's voice.

"How'd you get this number?" I said. It was close to midnight and my
wife and I were in a San Francisco hotel on business.

"Man, you don't know what I went through to find you."

The voice belonged to a well known California defense attorney who said
that he'd tracked me through my publisher.

"I'm in the middle of trying a case," he said. "I need you to testify as
an expert witness. The judge gave me over the weekend to find you and
bring you here."

"Whoa! Whoa!" I said. "Back up. I'm not a legal consultant "

"But you're a court qualified expert. I checked you out. I read your
books."

"You read them?"

"Well, I just got them. . . "

"When you get around to reading them, you'll know I don't work for
dopers. Nothing personal counselor."

"Don't give me that," he said. "I read some interview you did. Didn't
you call the drug war a fraud?"

"A huge fraud," I said. "But because I talk about thieves, crooks and
dopers inside the government doesn't mean I'm gonna work for them on the
outside."

Days before this phone call I had turned down a six figure offer to work
as a consultant for a Bolivian drug king pin whom I'd spent half my life
trying to put in jail. I was a firm believer in if you can't do jail,
don't do the sale.

"Look, I'm defending the guy for expenses," snapped the attorney,
annoyed. "The guy's been working sixty hours a week for the last three
years parking cars does that sound like a Class One, fucking cocaine
dealer to you?"

Class One was DEA's top rating for drug dealers. You had to be the head
of a criminal organization and dealing with tens of millions of dollars
in drugs each month to qualify as a Class One Pablo Escobar and the
fabled Roberto Suarez were Ones.

He had my curiosity.

"You can prove your guy's a parking lot attendant?"

"I'll Fedex you his time sheets. Better yet, I'll send you everything
undercover video-tapes and DEA's own reports. You tell me if the guy's a
Class one."

"Why me?" I asked.

"DEA couldn't get any dope from Miguel (not his true name) not even a
sample. So they charge the poor bastard with a no-dope Conspiracy did
you ever hear of anything like that? A parking lot attendant on a no-
dope Conspiracy? Then they bring in a DEA expert from Washington to
testify that a true Class One doper doesn't give samples. You and I both
know that's bullshit, don't we?"

His words flashed me back to an incident I described in The Big White
Lie. It was July 4, 1980, and I was in a suite at the Buenos Aires
Sheraton, sitting across a table from one of the biggest dopers alive,
Hugo Hurtado Candia, as he handed me a one ounce sample of his
merchandise ninety-nine percent pure cocaine as a prelude to a huge
cocaine deal. The man was part of a cartel that was two weeks away from
taking over his whole country.

The lawyer was right: it was pure bullshit, but it was the kind of
bullshit I had always been aware of. There's enormous career pressure on
street agents to make as many Class One cases as they can, for a simple
reason: Federal agencies justify their budgets with statistical reports
to Congress and Congress loves to see Class Ones. The agents with the
highest percentage of Class Ones are the guys who get money awards and
promotions. And over the years the professional rats, who originate more
than 95 percent of all drug cases, had learned that selling a Class One
to the government was worth a much bigger "reward" payment. A lot of
them knew the DEA Agents Manual criteria for a One better than a lot of
the agents.

Unfortunately in DEA and other Federal agencies where agents are trained
to be duplicitous to begin with and then exposed to deceitful, lying,
scumbag politicians and bureaucrats who want results that make them look
good and don't give a damn how you get them as long as you don't
embarrass them by getting caught there were agents who would bend the
facts in their own favor. They'd write up a mid-level doper, or
sometimes a street dealer as a Class One based on "evidence supplied by
a previously reliable informant," without corroborating the rat's
information. If it got by the reviewing process the worst that happened
was that some mid or low level doper was called a Class One.

To me that kind of bullshit was no different than all the Federal
prosecutors with an eye on public office who exaggerated the importance
of their cases to a media that will swallow just about anything, as long
as it sold papers and got ratings, and downright harmless compared to
some drug czar facing 20 million Americans on Larry King Live and saying
"We've turned the corner on the drug war," to further his political
career. If you put all the dopers whom the press had reported as "linked
to the Medellin or Cali Cartels" hand-in-hand, they'd circle the fucking
earth.

But DEA flying an expert witness across country to make a parking lot
attendant look like a Class One coke dealer in a Federal trial, was
something I'd never heard of unless things had changed drastically and I
had good reason to suspect they had. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

"You didn't answer me. What do you think I can do for you?"

"When I cross-examined the DEA expert he named your book Deep Cover as
one of the books he read to qualify as am expert. Now I want you to
testify that he's full of shit."

"There's gotta be something your not telling me."

"If I'm telling you the truth, will you be here on Monday?"

Just the thought of me going head-to-head against a small elite agency
that I'd been a part of for almost a quarter of a century put knots in
my stomach. Outsiders only hear about the blue of wall silence, but no
description I've ever heard ever really did it justice. To most guys in
narcotic enforcement the scummy bottom of life's barrel is the CI, the
criminal informant the rat. There's only one thing lower: a cop who
turns rat on his own. And to me, going to work for a doper was exactly
that.

"How did the thing get started?" I asked.

"A CI approaches DEA with a deal. He's wanted in Argentina and Bolivia.
He says, 'If I get you a Class One arrest here, will you get the charges
dropped against me over there?'"

"How much did they pay him?"

"Over thirty thousand, fucking dollars. And they admitted that he's
gonna get more when the trial is over."

Thirty thousand was not all that much for a Class One, but I wasn't
going to say anything to him.

"And Mr. Car-parker, what kind of rap sheet does he have?"

"Nothing!" shouted the attorney. I held the phone away from my ear.
"This is his first, fucking arrest."

"What kind of rap sheet does the rat have?"

He laughed. "This guy's been busted all over South America for every
kind of con job in the book. He even tried to sell his wife's vital
organs while she was in a coma dying."

"Come on, counselor," I said.

"If I'm telling the truth, will you be here Monday?"

"I listened this far," I said. "If you want to send me your stuff, I'll
look at it."

The telephone woke me early the next morning. It was a retired DEA agent
with whom I'd worked the street for two different Federal agencies.

"People called me, Mike" he said. "And I said, 'No way, not Mike
Levine.' You ain't gonna testify for some fucking dirtbag."

"I'm not doing anything yet" I said, marvelling at the speed of the
Federal grapevine. "I just agreed to look at the case file."

"The guy's a scumbag, piece-of-shit, dope lawyer. He's like all these
guys every time his mouth moves he's lying. The case was righteous,
Mike. Don't fall for it not you. "

When I hung up my sweet wife and partner, Laura, was studying me.
"You're as pale as a ghost."

"He's someone I really respected. Did I sound as mealy-mouthed as I
think?"

"No, just really shaken."

The Fedex package was delivered to my room on Saturday morning. I opened
it to find a stack of reports, including "Miguel's" work records, the
transcripts of audio-tapes, the rat's file (much of it blacked out, as I
expected) and a video-casette DEA's whole case.

The work records were straight forward. Miguel worked for a large
parking lot chain punching a time clock for an average of sixty-plus
hours a week for the past three years, at minimum wage. He also had a
little side business of delivering lunches to workers in the area. And,
as the attorney had claimed, he had no prior criminal record.

The CI, whom I'll call "Cariculo Snakeface" on the other hand was wanted
in both Bolivia and Argentina for bad checks, petty theft and every kind
of con job in the book. He had a total of seventeen charges outstanding
against him. His favorite scam was selling cars he didn't own. His other
part-time source of income during the last four years, was selling drug
cases to DEA.

Snakeface first comes to Washington,D.C. from Bolivia, bringing with him
a wife and a couple of kids whom he promptly abandons and returns to
South America. Things don't go too well and in a short time he's back in
the U.S. on the lam from police and scam victims in two countries.
Miguel, a family friend and fellow Bolivian, tries to help out by giving
Snakeface part of his lunch delivery business.

In the meantime, Snakeface's wife suffers a cerebral hemorrhage and
falls into a coma. While she lays dying her "grieving" husband just as
the attorney said tries to sell her vital organs. When the sale of his
dying wife's heart, lungs and kidneys doesn't work out, Snakeface
decides to sell Miguel, organs and all, to DEA, as a Class One cocaine
dealer.

Snakeface's first move showed me that he was no novice in playing the
Federal rat system. Instead of calling the local Washington, D.C. office
of DEA or the FBI where he and Miguel lived he called DEA in California.
He described Miguel to the California DEA agents as someone called
"Chama," the "east coast distributor for a huge South American cartel
dealing in shipments of thousands of kilos of cocaine into the U.S." and
"the head of his own criminal organization" a description that just
happened to fit the criteria for a DEA Class One violator.

The reason Snakeface approached a DEA office in Southern California, as
far away from Washington, D.C. as he could get, is a thing of sheer
conman beauty. His experience as professional Federal rat had taught him
about the insane competition for headlines, budget and glory between the
myriad of American Federal enforcement, spy and military agencies 53 at
last count involved in some form of narcotic enforcement or another. He
knew that the California agents, afraid that the East Coast agents or
some other agency would steal their case, would keep Chama King of
Cocaine a secret.

California DEA reacted exactly as Snakeface had predicted. Instead of
calling the Washington, D.C. office and asking them to check out the
information, they sent Snakeface airline tickets and money to fly to
California from where they could get their first "evidence" a recorded
telephone conversation locking the case in as a "California case."

Next Snakeface tells Miguel, "Look, I've got this American Mafiosi in
California who is dumber than a guava. The guy's so dumb he's even sent
me airplane tickets to fly out there and set up a cocaine deal. I'll
tell him you're the capo de tutti frutti of all Bolivian drug dealers.
You tell this boludo that you can deliver all the cocaine he wants.
He'll give you a couple of hundred thousand dollars out front. Then you
and me take off back to Bolivia rich men and open up a chain of drive-in
theaters."

So Miguel-the-Car-Parker went along with the deal. He had failed the
U.S. government financed test of his honesty, a test that, according to
my training, was called Entrapment.

Now we cut to Snakeface in Southern California making his first phone
call to "Chama King of Cocaine" with DEA agents listening in and tape-
recording the call. He makes the call to the parking lot where Miguel
works and is supposed to be waiting, prepared to play the role of Chama
King of Cocaine for some capo di tutti dummo who he knows will be
listening in, only Miguel isn't there.

"He's home sick," says the woman who answers the parking lot phone.

Do the DEA agents stop here and say, What the hell is the east coast
distributor of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cocaine, and the
head of his own criminal organization doing parking cars all day long?
No. They call his house and tape-record the call.

Miguel answers. He's in a bad way. He apologizes to Snakeface explaining
that he's home with a terrible hangover. Then he tells this long,
confused story about some friend of his getting drunk in his room,
stealing his pants and then wrecking his car.

"Shit," says Chama King of Cocaine, "in the morning I come out and I
didn't see my car. Man!. 'That son-of-a-bitch' I said. 'Shit! Where's my
car?' Shit! I was sad. . . .Shit! It's like the only one I have to go to
work."

Snakeface, with some effort and doing all the talking finally steered
the conversation into some garbled code-talk, that sounded more like
Roberto Duran trying to explain the Monroe Doctorine to Mario Cuomo than
a drug deal:

Snakeface: "Yeah, what I'm trying to is, since it's a matter which is
quite serious, big, and from the other things that I've seen like this,
when we can't be playing with, with unclear words and. . .that's why
what I, what you did, and I asked you if you'd spoken with him, because
I know that he has the financial capacity and after all he's, he's a
partner of, of, of, [name of major drug cartel leader] and, and in the
end anything will yield a profit if we're hanging on to a big stick
that's on a big branch and, and we won't have any problems. right?"

Chama King of Cocaine: "Of course."

That was about as clear as it ever got. If it was a dope conversation,
the fact that he was talking across three thousand miles of telephone
wires from his home telephone something a high-school crack dealer
wouldn't do didn't seem to bother Chama or the agents in the least.

At the end of this conversation, did these experienced, highly trained
agents say: "Hey this guy doesn't even sound smart enough to be a
Washington Heights steerer?, or, "Hey let's pull the autopsy report on
the rat's wife?" Nope! They opened a Class One investigation targeting
Miguel the parking lot attendant, and paid the rat his first thousand
dollars. And there was plenty more to follow.

The packet of reports indicated that the "investigation" lasted about
eight months during which time Snakeface successfully pimped the DEA
agents about "Chama King of Cocaine" and at the same time pimped Miguel
about "Tony," (a DEA undercover agent), whom he described as the Dumb-
and-Dumber of the Mafia. During that time California DEA did no
investigation of Miguel whatsoever.

The record showed: No telephone investigation to ascertain whether
Miguel was making telephone calls to any real drug dealers, no financial
investigation to see what he was doing with his drug millions, no
surveillance that would have revealed that Chama King of Coke was a
working stiff who lived in a one-room apartment. They did nothing but
write down whatever their rat told them as "fact."

For eight months Snakeface stalled the California agents reporting that
Chama was in the process of putting together a major shipment of
cocaine, and the agents continued to pay him. In all,he received another
$29,000 in "rat fees" plus expenses, which included periodic trips back
to California from Washington to be "debriefed" on his "progress." For
eight months the agents nagged Snakeface into trying to get Miguel to
deliver a sample of cocaine, any amount. Just something to prove that he
was really in the business.

The sample never came. Miguel surprizing for any Bolivian didn't know
anyone in the business to even buy a small amount. And even if he did,
he didn't have the money. And Snakeface was afraid that if he paid for
the sample even these California agents might get wise to him, so he
came up with a clever solution: he told the agents, Hey, Class One
dealers don't give samples, only small dealers give samples. When, to
his astonishment, they believed him, he took it one step further:
Miguel, he said, was not going to do the deal unless the agents put part
of the money out front $300,000 another sign that he was a "true Class
One dealer."

Snakeface had enough experience selling cases to the Feds to know that
they would never front that kind of money. He also knew that the Fed's
indecision and the slow moving bureaucracy, plus agents who didn't
really know what they were doing, could give him quite a few months on
salary which is exactly what happened.

After eight months, the California agents finally decided that, since
"Chama" wouldn't deliver drugs to them without front money, they 'd get
him on video-tape promising them cocaine and accepting the money all
they'd need to prove him guilty of Conspiracy to possess and distribute
cocaine and bust his ass. Miguel would face enough charges to make him a
guest of the American taxpayers for more years than he had left on this
earth. The no-dope conspiracy arrest would also give them the agents
their Class One stat and maybe a headline from the ever gullible press.

By this time Snakeface had not only received $30,000 in "Informant Fees"
but all charges against him in South America had been "disappeared."

What a country!

Now Snakeface had two final duties to perform for his masters: bring
Miguel to California for his arrest and then testify in court. More
money was even promised after his conviction. How much? We'll never
know.

Now the stage was set for the final act the video-taping of the "crime."
Only there was still one remaining snag. Miguel didn't have the money to
come to California for his own arrest. In a final irony, the California
DEA agents had to pay for his trip.

Finally, dressed up in his best Sears casuals and prepared to play the
role of a Class One cocaine dealer for a live audience of Mafia retards.
Miguel was on his way to California like a big Bolivian turkey on his
way to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.

It was close to midnight when I keyed the video-tape of the climactic
undercover meeting between Chama King of Cocaine and "Tony" capo of the
Three Stooges Mafia family.

The screen flickered to life.

A hotel had been rigged with hidden video cameras. Center screen was
"Chama" and "Tony" facing each other across a table. Between them was a
piece of hand luggage containing $300,000 in hundreds and fifties.

There were several problems that were immediately apparent. First, they
hardly shared a language in common. Tony's Spanish was rudimentary at
best and Miguel spoke only a few words of English. Tony for example kept
referring over and over to the "Percento" until Miguel finally figured
out he was trying to say "purity" a word anyone who did drug deals in
Spanish should have known in his sleep.

Second, neither man knew his role. It was like Peewee Herman and Gnewt
Gingrich playing dress-up and pretending to do a drug deal. "Chama" was
dressed like the hotel maintenance man, and "Tony" was dressed like an
Elvis impersonator.

Neither knew the mechanics of a real Class One drug deal, or any real
drug deal for that matter. There was no discussion of specific amounts,
prices, weights, meeting places, delivery dates, provisions for testing
the merchandise before delivery , methods of delivery or prearranged
trouble signals. Nothing happened that even resembled a real drug deal,
which is typically paranoid event that is all about specifics. What the
agents had on video wasn't authentic enough for a Stallone movie.

The only thing clear was that "Tony" was asking Miguel to promise him
that, if he was allowed to leave the room with the $300,000 he would,
within 20 to 30 days, deliver an unspecific amount of cocaine, to an
unspecified location pretty good for a parking lot attendant.

Miguel eagerly assured his new benefactor that he would make said
delivery. He was then allowed to examine the money, which he eagerly
did, after which the undercover DEA agent asked him if he was "happy,"
with what he saw. Miguel, thinking that America truly was a land of gold
paved streets guarded by idiots and that his friend Snakeface was a
genius to be compared with Einstein, or at least Howard Stern, assured
"Tony" that he was very happy.

With all the elements to the crime of Conspiracy recorded on video-tape
Tony concluded by saying "...Whew! Thank you very much and I'll wait for
your call."

"O.K.," said Miguel, his eyes bugged out with disbelief as he got to his
feet holding the money.

"Hey! Dude," said Tony, "I'll be here a little while. I have to make a
few calls. Bye."

Miguel's look as he started to leave with the money only lacked the
line: Feet, don't fail me now. His feet didn't have far to go only about
a half dozen steps before he was arrested.

I clicked off the video. If DEA stood for the Dumb Enforcement
Administration, then Miguel undoubtedly was a Class One violator but a
drug dealer he was definitely not.

Had the agents responsible for this case been working for me during the
seventeen years I was a supervisory agent, I would have jerked them into
my office for a private conference. "There are a million fucking real
drug dealers in this country," I would have told them. "There's probably
a couple of hundred working within a square mile of the office. If
you've gotta go 3,000 miles to D.C. and spend a quarter of a million in
taxpayer bucks to turn a fucking parking lot attendant into a Class One
doper, you oughta be working for the CIA, or Congress, or wherever else
you can convert bullshit to money."

I would have put them on probation and moved to fire them if they
couldn't do the job. I had done it before. It wouldn't have been
anything new to me. But was that any of my business now that I was
retired? If Miguel wasn't a doper he was certainly a thief, wasn't he?

"What are you going to do?" asked Laura.

"I wish I knew," I said. "It's pure entrapment, but the idiot did his
best to sound like a doper. If I'm gonna go against DEA, I don't want to
lose."

But there were things happening to me and in the news, that had been on
my mind during the days leading up to this phone call that would keep me
up for the rest of the night.

The first was the shooting of the wife and son of Randy Weaver by FBI
agents during a raid at Ruby Ridge. The guy was supposed to be a white
supremacist and I'm a Jew, but we both had something powerful in common
the unbelievable pain of having our children murdered

What had my head spinning in disbelief was that the case against Weaver
that provoked the raid in the first place possession of a sawed-off
shotgun had been set up by a professional rat like Snakeface and that
Weaver had been found innocent by reason of entrapment.

I kept flashing back to an incident that had happened at the beginning
of my career while I was serving with BATF, enforcing the Federal gun
laws.

The rat's name was Ray. He had a glass eye, no front teeth and a rap
sheet as long as a cheap roll of toilet paper. He was my first CI and
would be the prototype for many hundreds to follow.

"I met this guy who wantsa sell a sawed-off shotgun for sixty bucks,"
said Ray flashing me his goal post smile. "His name is Angel. He's a
black Porto-Rican. One a them Young Lords," he added, naming the Mao-
spouting Latino organization that was so popular to arrest.

"How do you know it's a violation?" I asked. A shotgun had to have a
barrel length of less than 18 inches to be a violation of the National
Firearms Act the law we enforced.

Ray winked his good eye at me. He knew the law as well as any agent. He
made a living selling drug and gun cases to the government.

"When the dude left the room to go to the john, I measured it. How much
is it worth if I duke you into the guy?"

I explained that if Angel delivered the gun in a car, we would seize it
and the "informant fee" would be raised according to the value of the
car. Or if Angel was somebody "news worthy" it would be worth a couple
of hundred. But Angel Nobody with one gun was only worth a hundred
bucks, then twice the average weekly income in the U.S.

Ray already knew all this. Like all professional stools he just wanted
the arrangement spelled out beforehand. If I didn't take the case,or he
didn't like the deal, he knew he might still be able to sell it to the
FBI or another ATF agent.

"But the dude is a Young Lord, that got to be worth something extra."

"People can say they're anything. We'll see who he is after I bust him."

Following my instructions, Ray set up a buy/bust meet. Later that night,
covered by a team of about a half dozen undercover agents, I met Angel,
a nervous eighteen year old, on Bruckner Boulevard in the South Bronx.
The kid had the gun in a paper bag just the way Ray said he would. I
handed him the sixty bucks, took the gun and busted him.

On the way back to headquarters in lower Manhattan, something happened
that Ray didn't count on. When I told Angel that possession and sale of
a sawed-off shotgun carried a sentence of 25 years in Federal prison he
blinked a few times and turned rat himself.

Angel claimed that he had a "partner" on the deal a guy named Ray he'd
met on an unemployment line a few days earlier.

"The guy tol' me he knew a sucker who'd pay sixty bucks for an old
shotgun that he could get for ten in the pawn shop. Alls we got to do is
cut the barrel. He say if I cut it and make the delivery, he puts up the
ten for the gun and we split the profit. He was right there when I cut
it. He even marked it."

What Angel had described, without realizing it, was a crime that never
would have happened if it hadn't been provoked by a paid government rat
entrapment. In those years the rule was that simple: if the crime
wouldn't have happened without a CI or an undercover agent planting the
idea, there was no crime. The Justice Department wouldn't prosecute it.
In fact, an agent could get himself into serious trouble bringing an
entrapment case to the U.S. Attorneys office.

How things have changed.

It took me two days to corroborate Angel's version of events and get all
charges dropped against the kid. The Federal prosecutor thanked me and
told me that I had just learned the most important lesson I would ever
learn as a Fed: "Never trust a criminal informant, Mike," he said. Over
the next twenty-five years I would hear those words repeated thousands
of times, by agents, cops, training instructors and prosecutors, yet I
never heard a prosecutor say them to a jury.

Everyone who's ever carried a Federal badge knew how easy it was to
convict someone who'd been entrapped on little more than an informant's
testimony, as long as the informant was clever enough to hide his
tracks, the victim gullible enough to fall for the trap and the agents
and prosecutors ambitious and immoral enough to go for the headlines,
statistics and win at any price.

Until recent years I had believed that most of us in Federal law
enforcement were people whose pride and consciences would not allow that
to happen.

I was no longer so sure.

After the Ray-Angel case, I continued on with BATF for three more years
before transferring into narcotic enforcement. During those years I
never saw another sawed-off shotgun case involving a CI, accepted for
prosecution by the two Federal courts in New York City. There was just
too much possibility of Informant Entrapment.

Yet, in the Randy Weaver case, the question, How the hell was a CI
entrapment, sawed-off shotgun case ever allowed to become a military
invasion of an American citizen's home? was not even being asked either
by our political leaders or the media. The question in my mind was, What
happened to the people of conscience in the Weaver case? You can't just
blame it on the rat a professional rat can't entrap anyone unless a
government rat with more ambition than conscience is willing to look the
other way.

The other thing going on in my life that would affect my decision was
that as a result of my books I'd been receiving letters from Federal
prisoners who claimed that they had been "set up" by lying criminal
informants working for the various, competing Federal agencies enforcing
the drug and money laundering statutes. Guys like Lon Lundy, a once
successful businessman, husband and father from Mobile Alabama, a man
with no criminal record who was set up by a CI in a no-dope Conspiracy
case and received a Life-with-no-parole sentence, or Harry Kauffman from
Cleveland, a once successful used car dealer, husband and father, who
was conned by a CI into accepting cash, alleged to be drug money, for
some cars and charged with Money Laundering, and many others. And many
others.

They were men of every race, religion and national origin in the Federal
prison system. Most had no previous criminal records, most had had their
homes, businesses and financial assets seized by the Federal government
leaving their families destitute, all had received more than twenty year
prison sentences. In many cases the rats ended up with a percentage of
the assets seized as a "reward" for their "work." These were men whose
lives and families had been destroyed. Their letters to me were
desperate cries, that affected me deeply,

My twenty-five years in the justice system had taught me that there were
plenty of bureaucrats and politicians whom, if they didn't like the way
you exercised your rights as a citizen, or if they thought they could
make headlines, political hay or a promotion by your arrest and
prosecution, would not think twice about targeting you with the
government's legions of paid belly-crawlers. Few people have the money
of a John DeLorean to adequately defend themselves against a slick rat.

The only thing, in my experience, that stopped these rats with badges
and rats in public office, were people of conscience in positions of
authority and a knowledgeable and watchful media. For several years I
had been seeing no evidence of either. And as publicly outspoken as I
had been about the phony drug war bureaucrats and politicians, I found
this all personally threatening.

Finally, the most painful issue of all was the murder of my son Keith by
a man who had two prior murder convictions in New York State; a man who
was on the street according to our political leaders because there is
just not enough money to put everyone in jail that belonged there, yet I
was looking at a file in front of me that spoke of Federal law
enforcement spending many hundreds of thousands of dollars to arrest and
convict a parking lot attendant as a Class One drug dealer.

"I'll do it," I heard myself say the next morning. "I went over all your
stuff. You've got a better entrapment defense here than John DeLorean
had."

There was a long silence on the phone. "I didn't claim entrapment as my
defense theory," said the attorney.

I started to ask him why and stopped myself. It no longer mattered. The
attorney's opening statement claimed Miguel was innocent of all charges
not that he had been entraped by a government rat working on commission,
into committing the crime. Miguel, on camera, had done his best to play
the role of Chama King of Cocaine; he had promised to deliver drugs and
accepted money on camera all the government needed to prove Conspiracy.
If a judge didn't explain to a jury what entrapment was, not even
Johnnie Cochran could get him off. And once the trial had begun no judge
would allow a change in the defense theory it was a simple matter of
law.

But Miguel's guilt or innocence no longer mattered to me. I had somehow
committed myself mentally and emotionally to go to war. I wanted to try
and make the growing power of rats those with and without badges as
public as I could. They weren't only hurting people who had failed an
honesty test they were spending billions in taxpayer dollars for nothing
but phony show trials, and filling the jails with people who were, at
worst, non-violent dupes, while our nation's streets ran with the blood
of innocents.

My testimony as a defense expert witness, lasted all day Monday and into
Tuesday morning. A couple of guys whom I used to work with sat with the
prosecution watching me with looks of disbelief. During a break one of
them came up to me, stared at me for a long moment and said: "It's a
shame you had to go that way."

I said nothing. There was nothing I could say. I had known the guy for
more than twenty-five years. We had served together in two Federal
agencies. He, I was sure, was not capable of bringing a mess like Miguel
Car-parker into Federal court, but he would not violate the blue wall of
silence, he felt the need to protect people whom I thought didn't
deserve it. When you become a Fed you take two oaths, one to protect the
bureaucracy and the other to protect the Constitution and the people who
pay your salaries. No Federal agent can live up to both.

We would never speak again.

During my testimony I pointed out the dozens of places in the tapes that
both Miguel and Tony spoke and acted in ways that indicated that neither
knew what a real drug deal was like, and that in my opinion the crime
never would have happened if it were not for the CI's actions and the
agents' failure to control him and properly investigate his allegations.
I even got to testify to my opinion that "if the Federal government is
going to use suitcases full of taxpayer dollars to test the honesty of
American citizens, instead of working the parking lots of America, they
ought to be running their tests in the halls of Congress where it might
do us some good."

As soon as I got off the witness stand I headed back to New York. The
whole thing had been a traumatic, shitty experience for me. The attorney
said he'd call to let me know the verdict. The judge had refused to
instruct the jury that they could find the defendant innocent by reason
of entrapment, but the attorney was still hopeful.

In New York a message was waiting for me from another California
attorney that would quickly take my mind off, what I had begun calling
"The Beavis and Butthead case."

The attorney represented a forty-five year old executive for a Fortune
500 computer company named Donald Carlson. A Federal task force of
Customs, DEA, BATF and Border Patrol agents, just graduated from a
paramilitary assault school the week before, wearing black ninja
outfits, helmets and flack vests, using flash-bang grenades and
automatic weapons had invaded Mr. Carlson's upscale, suburban, San Diego
home, shooting the corporate executive three times and leaving him in
critical condition. They were executing a search warrant based on the
uncorroborated, uninvestigated word of a professional rat.

Miraculously, despite the best efforts of the this newly formed,
suburban assault squad one of the invading feds did a Rambo-roll, firing
fifteen rounds from his submachine-gun hitting everything in Mr.
Carlson's foyer, but Mr. Carlson Mr. Carlson was going to survive and
wanted to sue the government.

"We'd like to retain you as our consultant," said the attorney, a soft-
spoken, thoughtful man with an impeccable reputation for integrity.

"How did this happen?" I said.

"That's what we'd like you to tell us. It seems that this task force had
a search warrant seeking for 5000 pounds of cocaine and four armed and
dangerous Colombians in Mr. Carlson's garage. The warrant was apparently
based on the word of a criminal informant."

I immediately started pouring over the reports and statements. Dawn had
begun to light the sky before I realized that I had read the whole night
through. It was one of the most frightening examples of an out-of-
control, almost comically inept Federal law enforcement that I had ever
seen or heard of in my twenty-five year career if it weren't for the
fact that these guys carried real guns and badges.

In short, a low-level professional rat/petty thief/druggie who'd been
selling street-level dope cases to a local south Florida police
department, convinced a team of California Federal agents representing
four Federal agencies, that he had become a trusted member of a major
South American drug cartel.

They overlooked the fact that the rat spoke no Spanish and seemed to
have a hard time putting together an intelligible sentence in English;
that most of the people he was implicating as "members" of this
Colombian drug ring weren't even Spanish speakers; that the rat's credit
was so bad that the phone company refused to furnish him with a
telephone (the agents had to give him a cellular phone, which they took
back when he started making unauthorized phone calls); that a local cop
had called the rat a liar. Even the rat's story, that he was doing
pushups in a California park when he was first approached by a stranger
to join one of the notoriously paranoid, Colombian Cartels, would have
been dissed at a UFO abduction convention.

But none of this bothered these feds.

For three months the agents put the CI on the payroll, accepted
everything he said as "fact," implicated dozens of innocent people in
government files and computers as "drug traffickers," belonging to a
drug trafficking organization that didn't even exist, and even obtained
four search warrants including the Carlson warrant on nothing more than
the rat's uncorroborated words. And then, ignoring the words of a San
diego cop who called the rat a liar, they "Ramboed" the suburban home of
a computer company executive like it was Desert Storm, only to find that
the Colombian Cartel didn't even exist.

Holy shit! I thought. What is going on here?

The Federal grapevine must have been buzzing. I was contacted by cops
and agents who wanted to see some of these guys go to jail. A San Diego
cop who had taken part in the investigation but not the raid was quoted
as saying that the feds shouldn't be carrying guns and badges. A lot of
feds felt the same way, but they weren't going to break the blue wall of
silence. One did, however, send me a copy of Congressional Report of
hearings chaired by Congressman John Conyers Jr. that he thought "might
be helpful."

The title of the report tells its story: Serious Mismanagement and
Misconduct in the Treasury Department, Customs Service and Other Federal
Agencies and the Adequacy of Efforts to Hold Agency Officials
Accountable.

The hearings not only found evidence of all of the above, they also
found there was "a perception of cover-up" in these Federal agencies for
all their misdeeds. In spite of this report being issued within months
of the Carlson shooting, the killings at Ruby Ridge and the massacre at
Waco, Texas, it went virtually ignored by the media.

I had served part of my career as an Operations Inspector and began
doing what I used to do for the government documenting violations of
rules, regulations and Federal law on the part of agents. I began what
would become two reports (160,000 words) noting hundreds of instances
where these feds violated their own rules, dozens of indications of
federal felonies false statements, perjury, illegal tampering with
evidence and coercion of witnesses and violations of the U.S.
Constitution. I also found and noted in my reports just as Congressman
Conyer's report noted powerful indications of cover-up going right to
top level management of DEA, Customs and the Justice Department.
Powerful people wanted the Carlson incident to "disappear." I was not
going to let that happen.

Or so I thought.

A couple of days into my work on the Carlson case I got a call from
Miguel's attorney. The jury had found him guilty of "attempted
possession of cocaine." The charge carried a mandatory minimum of twenty
years in Federal prison.

"The jury said they weren't very impressed with either your testimony or
the government's" he said. "They voted on what they thought was the law.
Miguel promised he'd deliver the coke for the money, so he's guilty."

The attorney said he was appealing the conviction. The CI, in the
meantime, was paid whatever he'd been promised and was probably off
selling more cases. I mean, even I had to admit, it was a good living. I
hung up feeling like shit.

Weeks later, after I had submitted the Carlson shooting report,
recommending that the agents and prosecutors involved in the case be
fired and prosecuted. I was full of hope. A rat cannot be king unless
the people who are supposed to control him become as immoral and corrupt
as he is and I was going for their throats. The Carlson case would be
the example that all Americans should see of what was going wrong all
across this country.

I looked forward to the civil trial and testifying publicly to my
reports. It wouldn't be a congressional hearing, where facts the facts
testified to are usually the ones the politicians want to hear, so that
they could comfortably reach the "conclusion" they'd already agreed upon
long before the hearings began. I was even going to call Court T.V.

I was at war.

Miguel's attorney called me again. "The judge reversed himself. He's
granted a new trial on the basis that Miguel should have had an
entrapment defense. Will you be available to testify?"

"Sure," I said."I'd love to."

It would be months before I learned that the attorney and the Federal
prosecutor had worked out a plea bargaining deal. I'm not sure what
Miguel pled guilty to, but he ended up with a ten year prison sentence.
I suppose it could have been a lot worse.

It would be more than a year before I would learn that the U.S.
government in the person of San Diego U.S. Attorney Allan Bersin, had
decided to settle with Mr. Carlson, avoiding a trial and the public
revelations of my reports. Mr. Carlson's attorney made a public
statement that by settling without a trial the misdeeds of the
government were being covered up. The government paid Mr. Carlson 2.75
million. Part of the final agreement was that the government's reports
of its own actions, be classified.

The U.S. Attorney of San Diego, made a public statement exonerating the
agents and prosecutors of all wrongdoing. He said that "the system"
failed Mr. Carlson, but that the agents and prosecutors were to be
commended for having done their jobs.

Within weeks the government would also settle with Randy Weaver, paying
him $3.1 million. Once again the legality and morality of the
government's actions in entraping Weaver in the first place were never
even questioned.

This was also the year that Quibillah Shabazz, Malcolm X's daughter
would be charged with conspiracy to murder Louis Farrakhan, the man who
was alleged to be behind the murder of her father. The young woman,
according to the press, had been set up by her fiance, who also happened
to be a long time professional rat for the FBI and who was reportedly
paid $25,000 for his "services."

It seems though that once the prosecutor and the FBI got their headlines
they lost all stomach for their case against Ms Shabazz and agreed to a
plea bargaining deal that freed her. My long experience told me that
allowing a woman whom they had publicly charged, with great media
fanfare, with conspiracy to murder and spent an enormous amount of
taxpayer dollars to bring to "justice," to simply go free without a
trial was not out of any pity for her they were protecting their own
butts and covering up perhaps one of the ugliest cases of rat entrapment
on record.

I flashed on another professional rat I knew in DEA who had turned every
friend and relative he'd ever had into government cash as if they were
deposit bottles. One day he came crying to me, actually bawling big wet
tears, that he'd met a woman and for the first time in his life was in
love. She lived in California and he was broke. He needed enough money
to get him there. "I'm a piece of shit he said. Please don't deny me a
chance to turn my life around, Levine." I bought him a one-way ticket.
He was there a week when I got a call from a Los Angeles DEA agent
checking on the guy's record. The rat was trying to broker a deal on his
fiance.

I watched the Senate hearings into the Federal government's actions in
both Waco and Ruby Ridge and heard, for the first time in my life,
liberal Democrats and the liberal press, who for decades were
criticizing the tactics of Federal law enforcement suddenly referring to
them, as "our Federal agents," and defending their actions. It was clear
that their real interest was to protect the President and Attorney
General for their actions in two of the worst screw-ups in law
enforcement history. At the same time the conservatives and Republicans,
who for decades had defended Federal law enforcement, no matter what
they did, were now attacking the Feds as racists and "jackbooted
stormtroopers."

And somewhere in the middle of this political shit-storm the truth was
lost and, as usual, all the rats those with badges, those in appointed
and political office came out smelling like roses, while the walking
around, taxpaying, hard-working American and his Constitution took it up
the ass.

The other day I read an interview of Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, who, in
payment for turning rat against his lifelong partners in crime, was
"forgiven" for the murders of nineteen human beings (that we know about)
and an uncountable number of felonies. He was allowed to keep the
millions he had earned as a murdering thug plus a pile of taxpayer
dollars for "expenses," and received a taxpayer-paid ride in the Federal
Witness Protection program for life. Gravano, speaking from what he
described as a "nice little apartment complex" said he was enjoying his
new life as a bachelor millionaire.

"There's a pool, racquetball courts, gym, tennis courts and a lot of
single women who don't have the slightest idea who I am," he said. "It's
nice. I sit down and relax under some trees."

God bless America, I thought. The land where the rat is king.

-----
Brought to you by - THE 'LECTRIC LAW LIBRARY
The Net's Finest Legal Resource For Legal Pros & Laypeople Alike.
http://www.lectlaw.com

 

[DrLongbottom]

Date: Feb 9, 2007 3:59 PM
Subject Our Challenge to the World: Try to Prove Us Wrong!
Body: If all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as trees for paper and construction were banned in order to save the planet, reverse the Greenhouse Effect and stop deforestation; then there is only one known annual renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the overall majority of the world's paper and textiles; meeting all of the world's transportation, industrial and home energy needs; simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil, and cleaning the atmosphere all at the same time...

And that substance is - the same one that did it all before -

Cannabis Hemp...Marijuana!

Biomass Energy

In the early 1900s, Henry Ford and other futuristic, organic, engineering geniuses recognized (as their intellectual, scientific heirs still do today) an important point - that up to 90% of all fossil fuel used in the world today (coal, oil, natural gas, etc.) should long ago have been replaced with biomass such as: cornstalks, cannabis, waste paper and the like.

Biomass can be converted to methane, methanol or gasoline at a fraction of the current cost of oil, coal, or nuclear energy - especially when environmental costs are factored in - and its mandated use would end acid rain, end sulfur-based smog, and reverse the Greenhouse Effect on our planet - right now!*

*Government and oil and coal companies, etc., will insist that burning biomass fuels is no better than using up our fossil fuel reserves, as far as pollution goes; but this is patently untrue.

Why? Because, unlike fossil fuels, biomass comes from living (not extinct) plants that continue to remove carbon dioxide pollution from our atmosphere as they grow, through photosynthesis. Furthermore, biomass fuels do not contain sulfur.

This can be accomplished if hemp is grown for biomass and then converted through pyrolysis (charcoalizing) or biochemical composting into fuels to replace fossil fuel energy products.*

*Remarkably, when considered on a planet-wide, climate-wide, soil-wide basis, cannabis is at least four and possibly many more times richer in sustainable, renewable biomass/cellulose potential than its nearest rivals on the planet - cornstalks, sugarcane, kenaf trees, etc. (Solar Gas, 1980; Omni, 1983; Cornell University; Science Digest, 1983; etc.). And it is the only one that makes the soil healthier and healthier.

One product of pyrolysis, methanol, is used today by most race cars and was used by American farmers and auto drivers routinely with petroleum/methanol options starting in the 1920s, through the 1930s, and even into the mid-1940s to run tens of thousands of auto, farm and military vehicles until the end of World War II.

Methanol can even be converted to a high-octane lead-free gasoline using a catalytic process developed by Georgia Tech University in conjunction with Mobil Oil Corporation.

www.jackherer.com

 

[DrLongbottom]

Date: Feb 10, 2007 12:29 PM
Subject Why Not Use Hemp to Reverse the Greenhouse Effect?
Body: In early, 1989, Jack Herer and Maria Farrow put this question to Steve Rawlings, the highest ranking officer in the U.S. Department of Agruculture (who was in charge of reversing the Greenhouse Effect), at the USDA world research facility in Beltsville, Maryland.

First, we introduced ourselves and told him we were writing for Green political party newspapers. Then we asked Rawlings, "If you could have any choice, what would be the ideal way to stop or reverse the Greenhouse Effect?"

He said, "Stop cutting down trees and stop using fossil fuels."

"Well, why don't we?"

"There's no viable substitute for wood for paper, or for fossil fuels."

"Why don't we use an annual plant for paper and for fossil fuels?"

"Well, that would be ideal," he agreed. "Unfortunately, there is nothing you can use that could produce enough materials."

"Well, what would you say if there was such a plant that could substitute for all wood pulp paper, all fossil fuels, would make most of our fibers naturally, make everything from dynamite to plastic, grows in all 50 states and that one acre of it would replace 4.1 acres of trees, and that if you used about 6 percent of the U.S. land to raise it as an energy crop - even on our marginal lands, this plant would produce all 75 quadrillion billion BTUs needed to run America each year? Would that help save the planet?"

"That would be ideal. But there is no such plant."

"We think there is."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Hemp."

"Hemp!" he mused for a moment. "I never would have thought of it. . . You know, I think you're right. Hemp could be the plant that could do it. Wow! That's a great idea!"

We were excited as we outlined this information and delineated the potential of hemp for paper, fiber, fuel, food, paint, etc., and how it could be applied to balance the world's ecosystems and restore the atomosphere's oxygen balance with almost no disruption of the standard of living to which most Americans have become accustomed.

In essence, Rawlings agreed that our information was probably correct and could very well work.

He said, "It's a wonderful idea, and I think it might work. But, of course, you can't use it."

"You're kidding!" we responded. "Why not?"

"Well, Mr. Herer, did you know that hemp is also marijuana?"

"Yes, of course I know, I've been writing about it for about 40 hours a week for the past 17 years."

"Well, you know marijuana's illegal, don't you? You can't use it."

"Not even to save the world?"

"No. It's illegal", he sternly informed me. "You cannot use something illegal."

"Not even to save the world?" we asked, stunned.

"No, not even to save the world. It's illegal. You can't use it. Period."

"Don't get me wrong. It's a great idea," he went on, "but they'll never let you do it."

"Why don't you go ahead and tell the Secretary of Agriculture that a crazy man from California gave you documentation that showed hemp might be able to save the planet and that your first reaction is that he might be right and it needs some serious study. What would he say?"

"Well, I don't think I'd be here very long after I did that. After all, I'm an officer of the government."

"Well, why not call up the information on your computer at your own USDA library. That's where we got the information in the first place."

He said, "I can't sign out that information."

"Well, why not? We did."

"Mr. Herer, you're a citizen. You can sign out for anything you want. But I am an officer of the Department of Agriculture. Someone's going to want to know why I want all this information. And then I'll be gone."

Finally, we agreed to send him all the information we got from the USDA library, if he would just look at it.

He said he would, but when we called back a month later, he said that he still had not opened the box that we sent him and that he would be sending it back to us unopened because he did not want to be responsible for the information, now that the Bush Administration was replacing him with its own man.

We asked him if he would pass on the information to his successor, and he replied, "Absolutely not."

In May, 1989, we had virtually the same conversation and result with his cohort, Dr. Gary Evans of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Science, the man in charge of stopping the global warming trend.

In the end, he said, "If you really want to save the planet with hemp, then you [hemp/marijuana activists] would find a way to grow it without the narcotic (sic) top - and then you can use it."

This is the kind of frightened (and frightening) irresponsibility we're up against in our government.

www.jackherer.com

 

[DrLongbottom]

Valentine's Day - San Francisco - Where is the Love?
Body: Medical Cannabis Advocates to Decry Increase in State's MMJ Patient Cards

Valentine's Day "Where is the Love?" Protest Against State MMJ ID Card Fee Hike

Axis of Love San Francisco is calling for medical marijuana patients, disability activists, HIV/AIDS activists, and other allies to protest the huge increase in the fees for state medical marijuana cards. The protest will take place at 12pm on Wednesday, February 14th at San Francisco General Hospital's "Love Statue." Organizers say, "Let the Love Children of San Francisco rise again! Let the ghosts of the AIDS activists who died while working on prop 215 walk among us, whispering-'Have some freakin heart.'"

California's ID card program works to provide protection from unnecessary detention, arrest or seizure of medical marijuana from qualified patients, since the card means that law enforcement officers don't have to verify patient documentation (doctors' recommendations and state id's). The state is increasing the fee that it charges to agencies that issue cards by more than $125, starting on March 1st. In San Francisco, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi is attempting to reinstate the city card program that would bring the cost back down to $25-50 (with the new fees, the card would cost at least $142 per patient). Opponents to the fee increase point out that many medical cannabis patients live below the poverty level and will not be able to afford both a doctor's visit and a state card-- and that as a consequence, poor people who need medical cannabis will be criminalized.

Americans for Safe Access is calling for people to tell Governor Schwarzenegger and CDHS Director Sandra Shewry how outraged they are about the proposed fee increase for Californians' access to their medicine. Some 24 of the state's 58 counties are offering the id cards to their residents, but the vast majority of California's counties do not yet issue state id cards. Some California medical cannabis dispensaries already require that patients present a state card in order to enter.

 

[DrLongbottom]

Feb 12, 2007 4:45 PM
Subject NEW: Smoking marijuana reduces intense pain in HIV patients
Body: By Rebecca Vesely, STAFF WRITER

Inside Bay Area

HIV patients who smoked three joints of marijuana per day for five days experienced relief from chronic foot pain associated with the disease, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco reported Monday in a rare U.S. study on medical marijuana.

"These results provide evidence that there is a measurable medical benefit to smoking cannabis for these patients," said study lead author Dr. Donald Abrams, UCSF professor of clinical medicine.

The study involved 50 HIV patients with sensory neuropathy, a peripheral nerve disorder that causes intense, sharp pain, numbness and tingling in the hands and feet. The condition affects about one in three HIV patients.

Patients assigned to smoke cannabis experienced a 34 percent reduction in intense foot pain -- twice the rate experienced by patients who smoked a placebo.

The first cannabis cigarette patients smoked reduced chronic pain by a median of 72 percent compared to 15 percent for patients who smoked the placebo, according to the study, published in the journal Neurology.

Half the patients were assigned randomly to smoke cannabis while the remaining 25 patients smoked an identical-looking placebo that lacked the drug's active ingredient. They had to be off any medication to treat neuropathy, including private-use marijuana. The patients were required to have some prior experience smoking the drug but could not have substance abuse problems.

The patients were sequestered at San Francisco General Hospital for seven days, where they underwent frequent testing. Over five consecutive days, they smoked cannabis or a placebo three times per day in rolled cigarettes. The National Institute on Drug Abuse provided the identical machine-rolled marijuana cigarettes.

Diana Dodson, 50, of Santa Cruz was among the 25 patients who received cannabis. She contracted HIV after receiving tainted blood product in 1985 and has been living with AIDS for 10 years.

Dodson, who smokes marijuana on her own to control her pain and nausea associated with AIDS, said the drug has been a lifesaver. "I really attribute cannabis to why I am still alive today," she said.

Her neuropathy symptoms include an extreme burning on the soles of her feet. "It's like an electrical poker going through me," she said. "I'll scream in the kitchen. Sometimes it's like a jabbing ice-pick pain."

Just a few puffs gives her relief for two hours without the grogginess associated with taking opiates such as morphine, she said.

The UCSF study indicated that pain relief from cannabis was on par with that from morphine.

The quality of the marijuana used in the trial wasn't as good as what Dobson gets on her own, she said, but she still felt relief from pain.

"It gives me a quality of life I wouldn't otherwise have," she said.

By contrast, previous studies of marinol -- the FDA-approved drug containing a synthetic version of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis -- showed little promise in relief for HIV-associated neuropathy.

"There are other compounds in smoked marijuana besides THC," said UCSF study co-author Dr. Cheryl A. Jay, a professor of clinical neurology. "That's one of several explanations why our study had a positive result while previous marinol studies did not."

David Murray, chief scientist at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said people who smoke marijuana are subject to bacterial infections. He added that the study, considering its small size is "not a convincing demonstration."

Treatment for HIV-related neuropathy includes antidepressants and seizure drugs, but these medications don't always work and some patients cannot tolerate them. Opiates such as morphine are also sometimes used. There are no drugs approved by the FDA specifically for the condition.

The study is the first of several clinical trials of medical cannabis being conducted through the University of California's Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, based at UC San Diego.

Dr. Igor Grant, director of the cannabis research center at UCSD, said the findings in this study suggest that cannabis "may be useful" in treating HIV-associated neuropathy. He noted that it has been many years since clinical trials of cannabis have been conducted in the United States.

"As a result, there has been insufficient light shed on the possible therapeutic value of cannabis," Grant said.

A 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine reviewed the scientific literature on medical marijuana and found that though it is a powerful drug, it is safe and should not be excluded from some medical uses.

Studies have indicated that cannabiniod drugs could help with pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting and appetite stimulation, according to the IOM report.

Americans for Safe Access and the National Association of People with AIDS on Tuesday plan to call for congressional hearings to implement the IOM report findings, which include further scientific studies of cannabis.

"Bolstered by the preliminary findings in the Abrams (UCSF) study, we will go to Congress and familiarize them with the IOM report so we can move forward with the research," said Dr. Barbara T. Roberts, director of medical and scientific affairs at Americans for Safe Access.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

[DrLongbottom]

Date: Feb 12, 2007 6:04 PM
Subject Mexico wants to partially decriminalize drugs
Body: Mexican President Felipe Calderon's government wants to decriminalize first-time possession of small amounts of drugs in a move likely to draw criticism from U.S. anti-narcotics officials.

Under the proposed legislation, users found for the first time with 2 grams (0.07 ounces) or less of marijuana and small amounts of other drugs ranging from cocaine to methamphetamine would not be prosecuted.

The bill passing through Mexico's Senate on its way to Congress is a toned down version of legislation Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, pushed through last year but later vetoed after angry objections from Washington.

While the legally punishable amounts of drugs found on a first-time user are smaller than under last year's bill, the legislation appears to contrast with the tough stance Calderon has taken against drug-trafficking.

Since taking office on December 1, he has sent thousands of troops to smuggling and production areas wracked by violence that killed 2,000 people last year and has extradited top drug lords to the United States for trial.

Ruling National Action Party Sen. Alejandro Gonzaalez, who heads the Senate's justice commission and supports the bill, said on Monday that decriminalizing possession of small quantities of drugs and taking some pressure off addicts would free up resources needed to pursue dealers.

"This isn't legalization," he said. "We're going to go much harder against drug dealers."

Gonzalez said the Senate could vote on the bill next week. The proposal would then pass onto the lower house of Congress.

Mexico is under intense pressure from Washington to crack down on Mexican cartels, which ship heroin, South American cocaine and locally produced methamphetamine over the border.

But authorities are also struggling to control a growing problem within Mexico's borders as more drugs are consumed in cities and villages across the country.

Gonzalez said part of the bill would facilitate the fight against illegal drugs by giving state governments more power to pursue dealers and by increasing prison sentences. All drug trafficking is currently the responsibility of federal police.

Repeat offenders proven to be addicts would face no charges for small-time possession, under the bill.

Gonzalez said last year's legislation was blocked primarily because the quantities outlined were too large.

 

[dwtc]

great stuff DR. LB

these are deff steps in the right direction.


stay safe,,,,,,,,dwtc

 

[DrLongbottom]

Date: Feb 13, 2007 12:44 PM
Subject Judge: Medical researchers need more pot
Body: By Michael Doyle
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Medical researchers need more marijuana because government supplies aren't meeting scientific demand, a federal judge has ruled.

In an emphatic but non-binding opinion, the Drug Enforcement Administration's own judge is recommending that a University of Massachusetts professor be allowed to grow his own legal pot crop. The real winners could be those suffering from painful diseases, proponents believe.

"The existing supply of marijuana is not adequate," Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner ruled.

The federal government's sole marijuana farm at the University of Mississippi produces neither the quantity nor the quality of marijuana that scientists need, researchers contend. While Bittner did not embrace those criticisms, she agreed the current system for producing and distributing research marijuana is flawed.

"Competition in the manufacture of marijuana for research purposes is inadequate," Bittner determined.

The DEA is not required to follow Judge Bittner's 88-page opinion, and the Bush administration's anti-drug stance may make it unlikely that the grass-growing rules will loosen. Both sides will now get a chance to file comments on the opinion before DEA administrators make their ruling.

"We could still be months away from a final decision," DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney said Tuesday afternoon, adding that "obviously, we're going to take the judge's opinion into consideration."

Still, the ruling issued late Monday and made public Tuesday is resonating in both labs and the worlds of civil libertarians.

"(The) ruling is an important step toward allowing medical marijuana patients to get their medicine from a pharmacy just like everyone else," said Allen Hopper, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Based in the California seaside town of Santa Cruz, the ACLU's Drug Law Reform Project has been representing University of Massachusetts scientist Lyle Craker in the marijuana case. Since 2001, Craker has been confronting numerous bureaucratic and legal obstacles in his request for permission to grow research-grade marijuana.

"This ruling is a victory for science, medicine and the public good," Craker stated. "I hope that the DEA abides by the decision and grants me the opportunity to do my job unimpeded by drug war politics."

An agronomist with a doctorate from the University of Minnesota, Craker had been asked to grow bulk marijuana by a small group called the Multidisciplinary Approach for Psychedelic Studies. The latter group wants to conduct research in areas like developing vaporizers that can efficiently deliver pot smoke.

The latest research made public this week, quickly disputed by the White House, indicated that marijuana provided more pain relief than prescriptions drugs for AIDS patients.

"People have a right to know more about what might help them in their suffering and pain or illness, whatever it might be," former California legislator John Vasconcellos testified, in words repeated within Bittner's opinion. "The more research, the better."

The University of Mississippi has had a 12-acre outdoor plot and a monopoly on growing government-grade marijuana since 1968. The university sub-contracts with North Carolina's Research Triangle Institute, which runs a machine that can roll up to 1,000 finished marijuana cigarettes in an hour.

The government-grown pot is too "harsh," filled with stems and seeds and low in potency, some researchers testified.

"The material was of such poor quality, we did not deem it to be representative of medical cannibas," researcher Dr. Ethan Russo asserted.