The Big Lie

[Stress_test]

somehow if we could all get together and raid the DEA

Where the fuck do we sign up?

Also I think we should raid the bastards WITHOUT any kind of weapon. Beat em to within an inch of life in a traditional marijuana "non-violent" sort of way: We could all follow Clinton's example and use tazer guns instead of inhaling?

Naw, not really. Cause, ya see even discussing such a thing as a public gathering of like minded citizens constitutes terrorism now-a-days.

The funny thing is that we are the deviants and outlaws cause they government knew years ago that all you have to do in order to create public support is demonize the issue: Communism, homosexuality, Asians, Indians, Iraqis, Iranians, potheads, druggies, terrorists, etc. etc.
Throughout history governments and organized religion have used brainwashing to sway popular public opinion in order to persecute a group of humanity. Hell the witch hunts of long ago continue in modern society.

And the world thought Hitler was bad? How many more lives have been taken and destroyed by the U.S. Government's vilification of marijuana?

Don't even breath the thought of revolution cause some folks might take it serious and you'll have a gang of armed thugs kickin' your door down and stompin' on your wife's neck tryin' to change your mind.

 

[Rouge]

Originally Posted by TruthOrLie View Post
somehow if we could all get together and raid the DEA

No, but how about doing something much much worse than just a one time raid. Namely 24X7 picketing 365 days a year. Just a few dozen people picketing the DEA headquarters and compelling their news media buddies to focus the Public's attention on their diminishing of the Constitution, whose reson de etre is from the Declaration of Independence. Namely, we hold these truths to be self evident ............ that all men are created equal ........... that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights ............. That among these rights are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Lincoln took care of the first truth, who's going to ensure the last one?

 

[FreedomFightr]

The greatest American Revolution would be for all of us to stand together in a NON VIOLENT protest. If no one went to work for 1 day in America they would have to stop, look and listen to what we want. PERIOD.

 

[vta]

Author: Clarence Walker
Note: Clarence Walker is a veteran Houston-based journalist who
writes on criminal justice issues.

FEDS PUSH BANKS TO SPY ON LEGAL MARIJUANA DEALERS

Federal regulators ignited a firestorm of controversy recently when they ordered banks located in the North Coast area of California to spy on transactions of customers who are suspected of making money in the marijuana business. In a bid to crack down on California's marijuana industry, regulators have ordered banks to look out for suspicious activity by those running such operations, but that is leaving legal -- under state, but not federal law -- medical marijuana businesses out in the cold.

Although DEA and FBI officials are not specifically targeting medical marijuana, they say they are looking for drug traffickers and money launderers, and they regard any marijuana-related banking activities with suspicion. The banks are not being ordered to not do business with dispensaries, but are instead closing accounts rather than put up with the hassles of investigating and reporting those transactions.

Banks in the North Coast region, including Savings Bank, Wells Fargo, the Exchange Bank, and Ukiah Bank, as well as other financial institutions in the Sacramento and San Joaquin areas are scrambling to comply with the government's order as the feds continue their onslaught against the legal marijuana trade.

The enforcement action is the result of the North Coast's widespread reputation for marijuana production and also includes the arrest of citizens in the area operating legal medical marijuana businesses under California state law. California voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996, legalizing the medical use of marijuana for patients whose doctors have recommended they use it.

According to the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, the policy took effect last month when the largest bank in Mendocino County informed shareholders that federal banking regulators would now require the North Coast banks to scrutinize deposit accounts because the area had been designated a high-risk area for money laundering, particularly from those in the medical marijuana business.

"This area in general has been targeted by Washington because the amount of cash that comes out of here," said Charles Mannon, chief executive of the Ukiah Bank.

Mike Johnson, an entrepreneur in the marijuana industry who requested that this article not identify the name of his business, felt the squeeze from the federal regulators when Wells Fargo and the Umpqua Bank closed his accounts last year. "They think we're all drug dealers," Johnson said.

Those in the trade familiar with the feds' regulation policy complain of how the government has forced banks and financial institutions to enlist as foot soldiers in the war on drugs. The new requirements force banks to expend unnecessary time and money probing clients' accounts for evidence of illegal activity associated with the marijuana business, they say.

To bypass the stringent rules, several banks closed the accounts of medical marijuana dispensaries. Bank officers said that since medical marijuana is a violation of federal law, they are required under the Bank Secrecy Act to report on businesses involved in the state authorized medical marijuana industry.

Last year, Exchange Bank issued a policy which prohibits medical marijuana businesses from opening up accounts because of the time-consuming scrutiny they would have to undergo and because of the expense of having to purchase pricey monitoring systems.

"State and federal law are in conflict with each other," said Bill Schrader, president of Exchange Bank. "If there are suspicious activities under federal law, we have to report it."

The extensive monitoring of bank accounts works this way: If a bank agent or its anti-laundering system detects suspicious activity, the feds have required banks and credit unions to file a report with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ( FINCEN ), which operate massive databases available to the FBI and DEA.

Currently there are 14 states including the District of Columbia allowed to sell medical marijuana legally under state law, but under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, marijuana is classified as an illegal Schedule 1 drug.

The federal government cannot force states to comply with federal law or require states to enforce federal law, but the US Department of Justice has the authority to prosecute offenders and organizations in violation of federal law against sales or possession of marijuana. This law effectively blocks banks from dealing with those in the legal marijuana business who must operate business accounts to accept credit and debit cards for their services.

"Our organization is regularly contacted by cannabis businesses that can't make daily deposits or have credit card processing," Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML, told the Chronicle. "The inability of cannabusinesses to gain access to regular banking and financial services continues to hamper the expansion of medical cannabis dispensaries."

St. Pierre took a shot at the Department of Justice. "Despite the 2009 'Ogden' memo from the Obama administration's attempt to allow greater autonomy for states to regulate medical cannabis, the memo didn't address the legal concerns expressed by banks and financial services who fear they are violating federal laws if they do business with cannabis businesses."

In May 2010, following several attempts to pass legislation to eliminate federal penalties for medical marijuana, 15 members of Congress, led by Rep. Barney Frank ( D-MA ) issued a letter written by Rep. Jared Polis ( D-CO ) to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

"Legitimate state-legal businesses are being denied access to banking services, which does not serve the public interest," the letter said. The letter also requested "formal written guidance" to assure banks would not be federally targeted for conducting business with medical marijuana dispensaries.

"They were trying to ensure that medical marijuana dispensaries could have banking services provided to them because there's so much capital involved," said Mike Meno, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project.

It's not just Northern California. Sue Harank is the co-owner of Alpine Herbal Wellness in Denver Colorado. This medical marijuana dispensary has been operating less than a year. Within this time, Harank has been forced to switch banks four times after the institutions closed her accounts without prior warning.

Harank called situation as "one heck of a nightmare." According to Banktime.com, Harank now does business with Colorado State Bank, the only bank in the state allowing people in the legal marijuana trade to hold business accounts.

Don Duncan feels the adverse treatment as well, when dealing with financial institutions. Duncan, the California director of the pro-medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, had his bank accounts shut down without notice. "Banks can't figure out if it's okay to do business with medical cannabis organizations," he said.

US Attorney General Eric Holder issued a memo in October, 2009, expressing administration policy of not utilizing federal resources to pursue "individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana." Despite Holder's direct orders the federal troops still pursue those legally operating marijuana businesses.

"It doesn't make sense. It is an un-American thing for the feds to do," said Mike Johnson. "Every major bank in California has been told not to handle marijuana accounts."

Legal conflicts surrounding the bank's secrecy laws forcing banks to report customers making suspicious deposits has created a "boom" in business for lesser known financial services. According to Banktime.com, Marijuanapos.com is one of the few institutions to offer banking services, including credit and debit card processing, for legal marijuana businesses.

Jesse Cretaro, the marketing director of Marijuanapos.com, said they work with banks that deal with high-risk clients. Another financial service, Direct Bancard of Livonia, Michigan, offers medical marijuana providers a prime-time Cadillac service. Executive Vice President Martin Khemmoro explained that Direct Bancard often uses merchant services located overseas to bypass legal conflicts.

Guardian Data Systems offer similar services but deals only with medical marijuana dispensaries legal under California state law. Lance Ott, Guardian's chief executive officer said he's been trying for years "to offer honest and secure services to an emerging industry."

Meanwhile dedicated advocates for the medical marijuana industry insist that all they want is for those in the industry to have access to safe and transparent banking services, like other professional entrepreneurs.

"All medical marijuana merchants wants to do is obey the law and do what's normal," said Duncan.

But that's unlikely to happen as long as federal marijuana prohibition remains intact. While the federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries have decreased -- if not ended completely -- the feds have demonstrated that they are determined to use all the weapons in their arsenal to continue to go after what they consider to be a criminal industry.

 

[vta]

Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Author: Martin Beckford, Health Correspondent



WAR ON DRUGS HAS FAILED, SAY FORMER HEADS OF MI5, CPS AND BBC

The "war on drugs" has failed and should be abandoned in favour of evidence-based policies that treat addiction as a health problem, according to prominent public figures including former heads of MI5 and the Crown Prosecution Service.

Leading peers - including prominent Tories - say that despite governments worldwide drawing up tough laws against dealers and users over the past 50 years, illegal drugs have become more accessible.

Vast amounts of money have been wasted on unsuccessful crackdowns, while criminals have made fortunes importing drugs into this country.

The increasing use of the most harmful drugs such as heroin has also led to "enormous health problems", according to the group.

The MPs and members of the House of Lords, who have formed a new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform, are calling for new policies to be drawn up on the basis of scientific evidence.

It could lead to calls for the British government to decriminalise drugs, or at least for the police and Crown Prosecution Service not to jail people for possession of small amounts of banned substances.

Their intervention could receive a sympathetic audience in Whitehall, where ministers and civil servants are trying to cut the numbers and cost of the prison population. The Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, has already announced plans to help offenders kick drug habits rather than keeping them behind bars.

The former Labour government changed its mind repeatedly on the risks posed by cannabis use and was criticised for sacking its chief drug adviser, Prof David Nutt, when he claimed that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.

The chairman of the new group, Baroness Meacher - who is also chairman of an NHS trust - told The Daily Telegraph: "Criminalising drug users has been an expensive catastrophe for individuals and communities.

"In the UK the time has come for a review of our 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. I call on our Government to heed the advice of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime that drug addiction should be recognised as a health problem and not punished.

"We have the example of other countries to follow. The best is Portugal which has decriminalised drug use for 10 years. Portugal still has one of the lowest drug addiction rates in Europe, the trend of Young people's drug addiction is falling in Portugal against an upward trend in the surrounding countries, and the Portuguese prison population has fallen over time."

Lord Lawson, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1983 and 1989, said: "I have no doubt that the present policy is a disaster.

"This is an important issue, which I have thought about for many years. But I still don't know what the right answer is - I have joined the APPG in the hope that it may help us to find the right answer."

Other high-profile figures in the group include Baroness Manningham-Buller, who served as Director General of MI5, the security service, between 2002 and 2007; Lord Birt, the former Director-General of the BBC who went on to become a "blue-sky thinker" for Tony Blair; Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, until recently the Director of Public Prosecutions; and Lord Walton of Detchant, a former president of the British Medical Association and the General Medical Council.

Current MPs on the group include Peter Bottomley, who served as a junior minister under Margaret Thatcher; Mike Weatherley, the newly elected Tory MP for Hove and Portslade; and Julian Huppert, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge.

The group's formation coincides with the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which paved the way for a war on drugs by describing addiction as a "serious evil", attempting to limit production for medicinal and scientific uses only, and coordinating international action against traffickers.

The peers and MPs say that despite governments "pouring vast resources" into the attempt to control drug markets, availability and use has increased, with up to 250 million people worldwide using narcotics such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin in 2008.

They believe the trade in illegal drugs makes more than UKP200 billion a year for criminals and terrorists, as well as destabilising entire nations such as Afghanistan and Mexico.

As a result, the all-party group is working with the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust, to review current policies and scientific evidence in order to draw up proposed new ways to deal with the problem.

 

[vta]

Author: Dana M. Nichols


TRYING TO CONNECT WITH POT'S CANCER-FIGHTING PROPERTIES

SAN ANDREAS - Two of the major compounds in marijuana - THC and CBD - have cancer-fighting properties, according to scientists researching them.

While THC and the biological mechanisms it uses are well documented, there are still mysteries surrounding the lesser-known chemical CBD.

Clinical trials prove that it eases pain and inflammation. Sean McAllister, a scientist at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco, and his research associates have used the compound to shrink tumors.

But it does not fit well in the already discovered human receptors that fit THC, and scientists have not yet traced the mechanisms that allow it to modulate some of the same systems, McAllister said.

"There is not a lot of data on it," McAllister said.

Right now, McAllister is looking at how CBD attacks a gene called Id-1 that is key to the functioning of cancerous cells.

"If cancer cells adopt this protein, it allows them to metastasize," McAllister said. "The hypothesis would be that if you can knock this gene down or inhibit it, then the cancer won't metastasize."

One big advantage to both chemicals is that they are virtually non-toxic, unlike many cancer drugs.

"There is no way to actually kill yourself with the natural compounds," McAllister said. Overdoses of the kind that kill opiate users are impossible with cannabis because they interact with different receptors.

"There are no cannabinoid receptors on the brain stem which controls breathing," McAllister said. "It is quite a safe compound actually."

 

[187020]

vta homie !!

vta homie !!

allow me to boost your thread with some sour...lest we forget, this shits worth fighting for !!

 

[vta]

Retired Police Chief and Member of LEAP...

Retired Police Chief and Member of LEAP...

Source: Huffington Post (US Web)
Author: Norm Stamper LEAP



MARIJUANA AND THE DEMOCRACY DISCONNECT

There is always a gap between what a political system stands for and the reality of everyday life under that system. Ours is government that ostensibly stands for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A government of, by, and for the people. Yet, when it comes to marijuana, democratic principles take a back seat to fear, ignorance, and political expediency.

Look at New York, Montana, and the federal government for recent examples of how governments ignore or actively subvert the will of the people.

In his first run for elected office, Mayor Michael Bloomberg admitted to smoking and enjoying marijuana. His exercise of liberty, his pursuit of happiness obviously did nothing to damage his chances for election--any more than it hurt the presidential candidacies of Bill Clinton ( and running mate, Al Gore ), George Bush, or Barack Obama.

Yet now in his third term Mayor Bloomberg has presided over an astonishing 350,000 low-level marijuana arrests--more than the combined total of such arrests under the Koch, Dinkins, and Giuliani administrations--at an estimated cost of $350 million to $700 million. The human and social costs are incalculable. Almost 87 percent of arrestees are African Americans and Latinos, most are young, and most, we can extrapolate, are not wealthy.

This, despite the fact that the New York Marijuana Reform Act of 1977 decriminalized low-level possession cases.

In Montana, Missoula police chief Mark Muir is supporting a bill that would repeal that state's Medical Marijuana Act. Nothing wrong with a police chief taking a stand on laws that would, in his view, add to or subtract from public safety. No matter how irrational.

But there's something terribly wrong with a chief who informs the Montana Senate Judiciary Committee that, "The idea of dispensaries in the state of Montana has got to be something we wash out of our minds."

If Montana is experiencing problems with a delivery system that provides patients with much-needed medicine, it ought to create a sound regulatory system. But "wash [the idea] out of our minds"?

Speaking of brainwashing, Gil Kerlikowske, my successor as police chief in Seattle, now the nation's Drug Czar, called me to task in a recent Seattle visit for my suggestion that the Office of National Drug Control Policy is as zealously committed to prosecuting the War on Drugs as the Bush administration was. Kerlikowske took pains to remind me that he ended the drug war two years ago.

Say what?

Since Kerlikowske "ended" the drug war law enforcement agencies continue to pile up record or near-record numbers of marijuana arrests.

As we, the people, make increasingly clear our intention to see marijuana legalized and regulated along the lines of alcohol, law enforcement comes down harder and harder on nonviolent, low-level offenders.

There is hope.

Seattle, whose voters in 2003 made minor marijuana possession cases the city's lowest enforcement priority, is one jurisdiction that gets it. The law is being respected by the local police. Seattle's city attorney, Pete Holmes, won't prosecute such cases. The chair of the city council's public safety committee, Tim Burgess ( a former Seattle police officer ), joined Holmes and former U. S. Attorney John McCay in Olympia this week to argue for marijuana legalization and regulation.

And in a completely unexpected editorial, the Seattle Times which until very recently had argued consistently against marijuana legalization, came out in support of it.

The people of New York and Montana, and every other city and state in the union, who believe marijuana prohibition should be replaced with regulation must rise up and say no to those mayors, police chiefs, and other officials who insist on undermining the will of the people.

Oh, and someone needs to tell the drug czar the war ain't over just because he says it is.

 

[BongRipkenJR.]

Does anybody have Melinda Haggs email? I cant find it anywhere! I would really like to give her my 2 cents on the situation.

 

[Hydrosun]

They believe the trade in illegal drugs makes more than UKP200 billion a year for criminals and terrorists, as well as destabilising entire nations such as Afghanistan and Mexico.

These must be some of the biggest pussy terrorists in the world. $200B UK pounds a year, you would think a lot of bad stuff would be going on, but these terrorists must really be bankers and consumers because no political targets have been touched in YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!



PS. Calling Afganastan a nation instead of a tribal region is laughable. That place has never been a nation despite British attempts at map drawing.

 

[vta]

Author: Sanho Tree, Tree Directs the Drug Policy project at the
Institute for Policy Studies. www.ips-dc.org

COLOMBIA IS NO MODEL FOR MEXICO'S DRUG WAR

When Washington ramped up its anti-drug efforts through Plan Colombia, more than 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States came through Colombia. A decade later, we get about 97 percent of our cocaine via Colombia.

Amazingly, officials are hailing the program's "success" and want Mexico to learn from Colombia's experience. While Plan Colombia may have helped make that country safer from guerrilla attacks, it has failed as a drug-control strategy. Adapting that program in Mexico won't staunch that country's bloodbath and isn't likely to produce better results.

Washington's response to Mexico's increasingly violent drug trafficking problem has emphasized disrupting criminal organizations by breaking them up into smaller fragments. Yet there's no evidence that this strategy of "fracturing" the traffickers ever worked in Colombia, where we've already tried it for two decades.

Sure, we helped break up the vicious Medellin Cartel and its successor, the Cali Cartel. But the law of unintended consequences had the last word. Far from ending Colombia's cocaine trade, we merely removed the two big monopolies and "democratized" that lucrative economic space for hundreds of smaller micro-cartels. We can't even count these new organizations, much less infiltrate and disrupt them. These crackdowns may please politicians in the short term, but they're counterproductive in the long run.

In Mexico, President Felipe Calderon launched his ill-conceived, all-out drug war in late 2006. Since he considered the police forces too corrupt, he fought the traffickers with the army. Its attacks prevented the traffickers from settling turf wars, creating a perpetual imbalance. By weakening one group, the Mexican army created a vacuum that rival traffickers fought to take over.

This process of "rinse, lather, repeat" has cost some 35,000 Mexican lives. And it isn't working.

Cocaine seizures have plummeted ( Mexican authorities stopped 9.4 tons in 2010, compared to 48 tons in 2007 ). Only in Charlie Sheen's mind could this be considered "winning."

Left alone, Mexico's rival drug kingpins would likely settle their turf war much sooner and return to a "Pax Narcotica," where the half-dozen criminal gangs could get back to business. Their fight would be violent, but much shorter than the current endless quagmire. Then they would carve out their respective trafficking routes and go back to making huge amounts of money.

Fighting drug traffickers isn't the same as fighting guerrilla insurgencies. Fracturing guerrilla groups can help break morale and encourage individual fighters to desert or surrender. Fracturing trafficking groups merely creates job opportunities for aspiring drug dealers who continue their bloody turf war indefinitely.

Moreover, the process of breaking down the large traffickers merely lowers the barriers to entry for new criminal entities seeking to expand their market share. Far from breaking morale, the tactic of taking out the heads of trafficking groups gives junior thugs a shot at becoming the kingpin-if only briefly. Unfortunately, there seems to be an inexhaustible reservoir of Mexican criminals who prefer a short life as a king to longevity as a peasant.

Our practice of repeatedly beating the hornet's nest ensures that the hornets will never settle down. Our politicians see Mexico in flames, and their knee-jerk response is to throw water on the fire by increasing military aid.

But the Mexican fire more resembles a grease fire, because it is driven by the economics of drug prohibition. The criminals are fighting over the right to traffic what are essentially minimally processed agricultural commodities ( marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc. ) that should cost pennies per dose. Prohibition gives these substances an unintended, astronomical price support. Throwing conventional "water" on this "grease fire" is disastrous. We have tactics without a strategy because there's no endgame in this unwinnable war.

President Barack Obama recently admitted that drug legalization was a valid subject for debate even though he didn't support it himself.

If he's serious, we should stoke this debate before another 35,000 lives are needlessly lost. There are many alternatives in the spectrum between prohibition and total free market legalization. We need to stop talking in terms of black and white.

 

[Hydrosun]

Author: Sanho Tree, Tree Directs the Drug Policy project at the
Institute for Policy Studies. www.ips-dc.org

Cocaine seizures have plummeted ( Mexican authorities stopped 9.4 tons in 2010, compared to 48 tons in 2007 ). Only in Charlie Sheen's mind could this be considered "winning."

Moreover, the process of breaking down the large traffickers merely lowers the barriers to entry for new criminal entities seeking to expand their market share. Far from breaking morale, the tactic of taking out the heads of trafficking groups gives junior thugs a shot at becoming the kingpin-if only briefly. Unfortunately, there seems to be an inexhaustible reservoir of Mexican criminals who prefer a short life as a king to longevity as a peasant.

President Barack Obama recently admitted that drug legalization was a valid subject for debate even though he didn't support it himself.

If he's serious, .

The fact that the MX authorities only destroy 9.4 tons now instead of 48 tons in the past, means that the MX government is now trafficking 40 MORE tons per year. I bet the generals sharing the proceeds feel like Charlie Sheen.

Crazy, why would Mexicans want to be boss? Shouldn't they know their place? American gangsters would never choose violence and power over longevity. The author should rephrase and state that a vacuum will always be filled and Mexicans are no different than anyone else, they will cease an opportunity when they see it.

I now feel sorry for the author, he believes that there is a chance that Obama is serious about discussing legalization.

 

[vta]

On marijuana legalization, Drug Czar Kerlikowske buffaloes America in Buffalo

By "Radical" Russ Belville

Alcohol and Prescription Drugs are real bad, so marijuana shouldn't be legal. Huh?

Buffalonews.com As director of the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy, Kerlikowske made his position clear Monday during a Buffalo visit. He spoke about the issue at a meeting with the Editorial Board of The Buffalo News.

He noted that, while alcohol use is legal in the United States, “hundreds of thousands of people” are arrested each year for driving while intoxicated, illegally selling beer to underage drinkers and other offenses.

Yes, hundreds of thousands of people who break the laws regulating the sales of alcohol and the commission of vehicular crimes are arrested. However, tens of millions of people who drink alcohol responsibly are not arrested or harassed at all.

What kind of stupid argument is that, Gateway Gil? If we legalized marijuana we’d just have to arrest people for driving stoned and selling to minors, so we should just arrest everyone who uses it? Could your arguments be any more nonsense?

And while prescription painkiller drugs also are legal, Kerlikowske said, abuse of those drugs is skyrocketing throughout the nation, causing a major public health problem.

“Prescription drug use is legal . . . and we can’t control it,” Kerlikowske said during the hourlong session.

I guess yes, they could be more nonsense. Prescription drugs are legal and we can’t control them so we should continue to arrest everyone who uses cannabis? One critical difference you fail to acknowledge is that alcohol and prescription medications are toxic, side-effect laden, and addictive! If cannabis were legal, many of those people who become addicted to opiate painkillers would never have had to take the opiates in the first place and those who require opiates for medical purposes can take fewer of them for the medicinal effect.

He has found no easy answers but said he strongly feels that drug treatment is just as important as arresting drug dealers.

“You can’t arrest your way out of this problem,” he said during a wide-ranging discussion of drug issues.

Not that we’re going to stop arresting people, mind you; we’re just acknowledging that it’s ineffective.

Gateway Gil even re-used his weak one-liner that he ended the War on Drugs two years ago (or as we think of it, 1.7 million marijuana arrests ago). He then invoked the people in the “inner city” who think that a phrase like “War on Drugs” feels like a war on them, that you can say it’s a war on a substance but that’s not the way it’s taken. He also said “War on Drugs” implies that there is some sort of final goal, some surrender that could eventually be achieved, and the battle against drugs will be forever ongoing.

So we retired the phrase “War on Drugs”. You know, like how Vietnam became a “police action”. We didn’t change the policy, we just slapped a new coat of paint on the old warship.

 

[Stress_test]

I thought that most governments and international law enforcement agencies in the world had already surrendered?

It's the same old political BS. Today they retreat and skulk around like snakes looking for a good example/excuse to explain why innocent people are abused, imprisoned, and tortured so that more government/control can be justified.

 

[vta]

Author: Buddy Peeler


HOW WEED WORKS

THC Medicates-but CBD, the New Big Hubbub Among Cannabis Scientists, Might Save Your Life

Samantha Miller is the kind of scientist that looks like one even without a lab coat. The president of Pure Analytics, a Sonoma County-based cannabis potency and safety screening company, Miller recently addressed some serious local growers at El Camino Wellness Center about recent breakthroughs and techniques for cannabis cultivators and medical users.

Miller is all about dosages, something I rarely think about. For example: Did you know that when you ingest cannabis on an empty stomach, it becomes 10 times more powerful than if smoked? Instead of a gentle buzz, you may end up on a vision quest.

But the most interesting aspect of Miller's presentation was the promising research being done on cannabidiol, or CBD.

Here's how weed works: Cannabinoids are found in the trichome ( resin glands ) of a marijuana plant. Their purpose is to repel critters and protect the plant from ultraviolet light. It is also what gives marijuana its medicinal properties. There are three major types of cannabinoids: tetrahydrocannabinol, known to most people as THC, the stuff that gets you high when you smoke marijuana; Cannabinol, a.k.a. CBN, the byproduct of decaying THC, which is nasty stuff that should be avoided; and lastly cannabidiol, a.k.a. CBD, currently the big hubbub among growers and marijuana scientists.

Dr. Sean McAllister and his research team at the California Pacific Medical Center has been studying cannabidiol with interesting results. When CBD is injected into rats with cancer, for instance, the tumors disappear. CBD could be the cure for cancer? The challenge that research team faces is getting the dosage perfect, as too much CBD makes the tumors bigger.

If it ain't one thing, it's another with those scientists.

CBD is also proving to be the key for the therapeutic properties of cannabis. Higher levels of CBD in strains-such as Harlequin, Sour Tsunami and Purple Dragon-lessen anxiety, ease nausea and inflammation while prolonging the effects of THC. If you are in pain and use marijuana to control it, the CBD level is what you want to look at when purchasing medicine. With a lower level of THC to keep the noggin on straight and a higher level of CBD, you can have longer-lasting medicinal effects. Because CBD inhibits enzymes that break down THC, the buzz of the THC will last longer, hence the lower dosage of THC.

I guess to really have the bomb, you could have equally high levels of THC and CBD and take a trip without leaving the farm.

All jokes aside, some cannabis may actually be the cure for cancer. Maybe that is why the pharmaceutical companies want to keep it illegal?

Ask your local budtender which strain has the highest CBD content. Buddy Peeler is a medical-cannabis patient writing for SN&R under a pseudonym. Want SN&R to review your club's medical cannabis? Send suggestions to bestbuds@newsreview.com. Reviewers write under pseudonyms to protect anonymity as patients.

 

[vta]

Author: John Sinclair



LENNON SMOKED TOO

Imagine: What If They Had a War on Drugs and Nobody Came?

The War on Drugs was still just a twinkle in Richard M. Nixon's evil eye when the great John Lennon released his classic recording called "Imagine." That was in 1971, and Nixon launched his horribly misconceived attack on recreational drug users the following year as part of the re-election campaign headed by the aptly named Committee to Re-Elect the President ( CREEP ).

My fantasy of late has been to imagine an America without a War on Drugs - a place where the cynical, old, rich, white men who dominated the United States Senate, and their feral sidekicks in the House of Representatives, had never succeeded in hoodwinking the public into welcoming their rhetoric about the dangers of getting high and the sick, draconian measures they enacted to interdict and punish the millions of recreational drug users among our citizenry.

Forty unrelenting years of this inhuman campaign founded in a passel of lies, untruths and severe misrepresentations has transformed our country from a flawed but still idealistic democracy to an ever-burgeoning police state with a gigantic, self-perpetuating, taxpayer-funded apparatus of persecution and doom directed at everyone who refuses to accept the vicious anti-drug mythology that's been enacted into law.

Let's imagine that the White House and the federal legislative bodies had simply rejected the specious argument advanced by empire-building bureaucrats like Harry J. Anslinger that marijuana was a narcotic with no conceivable medical application and its users presented a clear and present danger to the social order.

What if, instead, they had conducted an unfettered scientific investigation into the actual properties, patterns and methods of usage, physical and mental effects, documented medicinal uses, economic potential, and overall impact of marijuana on the fabric of American society, resulting in the reasonable conclusion that cannabis causes virtually no harm to its users nor to society in general.

With respect to other recreational drugs with certain detrimental effects on their users, the relatively enlightened lawmakers might well have concluded that the resultant problems were likely medical and/or psychological in nature and demanded treatment of some sort to reduce the potentially negative impact on the drug users and, by extension, on the social order itself.

Nowhere would such an informed approach dictate legal sanctions against recreational drug users of any sort. If their behavior were to cause problems in the workplace or in social settings, the usual remedies - demotion, firing, suspension from duties and the like - would be applied to resolve any discrepancies. If laws were broken as a result of their drug use, the mandated responses - arrest, prosecution, conviction, punishment - would be effected as for all similar violators.

The idea of segregating recreational drug users from their fellow citizens as a class unto themselves and punishing them for getting high in their chosen ways would be seen as indefensibly stupid and entirely without basis under our system of jurisprudence and its guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - like arresting and jailing persons for smoking a cigarette or drinking a bottle ( or even an entire case ) of beer.

Not only could there be no finding suggesting that recreational drug users constitute a criminal class to be treated in the same manner as armed robbers, arsonists, rapists and murderers, stripped of their lives and livelihoods and sentenced to long terms in prison, but it is indeed likely that testimony solicited during the course of such scientific investigations would indicate that there are many positive effects from getting high on drugs and that drug users have made many valuable contributions in the areas of medicine, psychology, philosophy, poetry, literature, painting, cinema and music of many descriptions.

A short list of such exemplars crucial to the development of "America's only original art form" would include Louis Armstrong, the pioneer of jazz improvisation, Lester Young, the president of the tenor saxophone, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, originators of modern jazz, and Miles Davis, perhaps its greatest avatar, as well as sonic explorers like Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders and Marion Brown.

With respect to the giants of jazz, the record indicates that a wildly disproportionate number of musical creators were forced to serve lengthy prison terms as a consequence of their arrest for use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other illegalized substances - a list that includes Mezz Mezzrow, Prez, Dexter Gordon, Hampton Hawes, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and the great tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons, who served a seven-year stretch in the Illinois penitentiary for being a heroin addict.

More familiarly, the popular music of the past 50 years now known as "classic rock" was created and advanced by people deeply steeped in marijuana smoke, LSD and other chemicals, including such originators as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and many others who succumbed to the fatal effects of their habitual drugs of choice.

Further, with regard to popular culture, it's hard to imagine any film or television production that has been realized without the participation of writers, directors, actors, producers and crewmembers under the influence of illegal drugs of some sort. The ranks of record producers, entertainment executives, concert promoters, artists' managers, booking agents and other industry operatives are rife with drug users of every description, yet the show goes on and the profits roll in to the coffers of the corporations who utilize their drug-addled services.

But we're only making little scratches on the surface of the fabric of modern American society. The fact is that millions of people use illegal drugs on a regular, daily basis and suffer primarily from the efforts of the insanely dedicated minions of law and order who are bent on enforcing the letter of the law that proscribes getting high without a prescription and mandates elaborate punishment schemes for those unlucky enough to be apprehended.

Imagine that it's OK to get high and that you could acquire your drug or drugs of choice across the counter at a reasonable cost from a licensed dispensary. Imagine that the police and legal authorities had no stake in what might be going on in your head as long as you weren't hurting anyone or breaking the established codes of social conduct. Imagine that the people who grow, manufacture and supply your drug needs are treated like producers of other essential goods and services, allowed to make a reasonable profit and pay the appropriate taxes into the public treasury.

Imagine that the police had absolutely no power of arrest with respect to recreational drug users unless we were to commit some sort of actual crime. Imagine that they weren't allowed to tear your car or your home apart looking for drugs or the attendant paraphernalia. Imagine the vast number of closed police stations, courtrooms, jails and prisons, the shuttered probation and parole offices and drug treatment centers. Imagine that those police forces that remained were directed toward detecting and confiscating unregistered or illegal weapons of human destruction.

Then imagine the resultant savings in tax dollars and the massive redirection of tax revenues to underwrite music and arts programs in schools, free health care for the sick and damaged among us, expanded human services of every kind instead of money wasted on the idiotic War on Drugs. Imagine a society where you can get high and go about your business without fear of persecution, arrest or punishment of any kind except that which you may inflict upon yourself in the course of your experimentation and habitual use of your drugs of choice.

In the immortal words of the bard ( who, by the way, smoked the stuff ):

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

 

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Click here

 

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74% support medical marijuana and even 48% strongly support medical marijuana... so why don't politicians?

 

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UK Daily Mail: Cannabis ‘kills 30,000 a year’

By "Radical" Russ Belville



Just when I get all riled up about our domestic reefer madness at the Partnership (to Protect Big Pharma) at DrugFree.org, our NORML Network UK host, Cannabis Cure UK, forwards me this ominous headline from the UK Daily Mail:

Cannabis ‘kills 30,000 a year’

Oh, dear. From zero deaths* in 5,000 years of human use to ’30,000 a year’. That sounds serious. Let’s read on…

More than 30,000 cannabis smokers could die every year, doctors warn today.

Wait, “could die”? We’ve gone from the active headline verb “kills” to the lede adverb “could”? Usually you bury that wiggle room somewhere in paragraph umpteen. Continue…

Professor John Henry, a leading authority on the drug, said the change – due to take place this summer – had undermined doctors’ efforts to highlight the risks.

He said: “Cannabis is as dangerous as cigarette smoking – in fact, it may be even worse – and downgrading its legal status has simply confused people.”

“May be” worse? Where are the wards full of cannabis smokers? Britain actually has some level of health care worthy of a civilized (civilised) people. You’d think the National Health Service would bring these figures up. It sounds like quite a cost to the government.

Here in America 15 million adults are smoking pot monthly and 1.1 million are daily tokers. 56 million adults are smoking cigarettes at least once a month and 35 million are daily smokers. There are 276,000 new cases of respiratory or oral cancers diagnosed annually. Cigarettes are proven to cause 435,000 deaths a year. Cannabis-only smoking has been shown to reduce the incidence of head, neck and lung cancer. So again, where are the wards full of cannabis smokers?

Researchers calculate that if 120,000 deaths are caused among 13 million smokers, the corresponding figure among 3.2 million cannabis smokers would be 30,000.

I calculate that if my wife drops a dollar on the lottery and correctly picks six random unique integers between and including 1 and 59 we’ll be rich and the corresponding donation to NORML would be substantial. I mean, if we’re going to be throwing in meaningless calculations, why not have some fun with it? Where are these 120,000 deaths among 13 million smokers you begin with? Is that an American estimate? Because we don’t have 120,000 deaths over here and you don’t have 30,000 deaths over there.

The drug can cause cancer, lung disease and abnormalities associated with serious mental illness.

Users are up to six times more likely to develop schizophrenia.

The British Lung Foundation says smoking three joints a day can cause the same damage to the airways as a pack of 20 cigarettes.

Few people are smoking three joints a day and even those who do aren’t developing schizophrenia, psychoses, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Even if they were, is a prison cell the best way to help them? You’d need 36 grams to roll three joints a day at the DEA’s skinny 0.4g joint standard, and that will get you jail time in most states.

As for the schizophrenia, a ten-year study of mental hospitals in the UK found psychoses and schizophrenia rates remained steady even as cannabis use increased.

Dr William Oldfield, from St Mary’s Hospital and one of the authors of the article, said: “Cannabis and nicotine cigarettes have a different mode of inhalation. The puff taken by cannabis smokers is two-thirds larger, they inhale a third more and hold down the smoke four times longer.

And when that joint is done (usually half-done), the toker doesn’t toke again for hours or days or weeks, unlike the tobacco smoker who’s lighting up another cigarette within the hour.

“All these factors could contribute to illnesses of the heart and respiratory system, particularly as the chemicals in cannabis smoke are retained in the body to a much higher degree.”

“Could” again? If this is such a danger, show us the bodies!

And what are these “chemicals… retained in the body”? The chemicals in marijuana smoke that he’s criticizing as being like cigarette smoke dissipate from the body at the same rates. The only chemicals he could be referring to are the inert metabolites of cannabinoids that are fat-soluble and stored in the body for days or weeks, and those aren’t harmful to the body in any degree.

He said the cannabis used today – especially that bought in the Netherlands – was up to 40 times stronger than that used by Flower Power hippies in the 1960s.

The level of active ingredient in cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) has increased from around 0.5 per cent 20 years ago to almost five per cent today.

The United Nations declares that industrial hemp is cannabis with <1% THC. So all those “Flower Power hippies” were smoking hemp, huh? No, wait, twenty years ago is 1991! All those Seattle grunge rockers were smoking hemp! Who knew?

*Dr. Mitch Earleywine, on our 4/6/11 show said that now it has been reported there is one death from acute marijuana use; a man with a history of heart problems who succumbed to the tachycardia side effect of smoking pot, had a heart attack, and died. Sorry, I’m not convinced; if that’s the way they want to play, we’re going to have to make fast food a Schedule I drug (or Class C, for the British readers) as its side effects are killing more Americans and Britons than cannabis ever will. Legalize (legalise) it and go ahead and slap a “do not use if you have a history of heart problems or arrhythmia” label on it.

 

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Source: New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)
Author: Gwynne Dyer



MEXICO, JUST SAY NO TO AMERICA'S WAR ON DRUGS

Something remarkable happened in Mexico last week. Tens of thousands of Mexicans gathered in the main squares of cities across the country to demand an end to the "war on drugs".

In the Zocalo, in the heart of Mexico City, they chanted "no more blood" and many called for the resignation of President Felipe Calderon, who began the war by using the army against the drug cartels in late 2006.

Some 35,000 people in Mexico have been killed in drug-related violence since then. Even as the crowds chanted, news came in of another 59 bodies discovered in mass graves in Tamaulipas state.

In the words of poet-journalist Javier Sicilia, who inspired the demonstrations after his own son was killed last week, the war is "tearing apart the fabric of the nation".

But what does he know? In fact, the United States and Mexico are on the brink of winning the war on drugs.

We know that because Michele Leonhart, head of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, said so on the same day, at an international conference in Cancun.

"It may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs," she said.

She presumably means that all the Mexican drug-traffickers will be dead soon and that nobody else will be tempted by the easy money to take the place of those who are killed.

Americans will then stop using drugs because they simply aren't available, or at worst they will be so scarce and expensive that only the very rich can afford them. And we'll all live happily ever after ( except the very rich, of course ).

True, drugs in the United States have become cheaper, stronger and more easily available over the past 40 years, despite annual claims by the DEA that victory is at hand. To go on doing the same thing every year for 40 years, while expecting that next time will have a different outcome, is sometimes seen as evidence of insanity, but we shouldn't be judgmental.

We could, however, try to be rational. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox has been doing well on the rationality front recently.

Last August he wrote in his blog: "We should consider legalising the production, sale and distribution of drugs. Legalisation does not mean that drugs are good. But we have to see it as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system that allows cartels to make huge profits, which in turn increases their power and capacity to corrupt."

This would mean that Mexican drug-users could get any drugs they want, of course. Just like now.

The only differences would be that the drugs, being state-regulated and taxed, might cost slightly more and there would be fewer deaths from impurities and overdoses. But it wouldn't actually break the power of the cartels as long as drugs remain illegal in the huge American market.

Former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria addressed this issue head-on in a recent interview with Time magazine: "US drug policy has failed. So please, change it. Don't force us to sacrifice thousands of lives for a strategy that doesn't work simply because American politicians lack the courage to change course."

Well said - but why did these men not act when they had the power? Because they were afraid of the American reaction.

The United States has repeatedly made it clear that it will inflict grievous economic pain on any Latin American country that defects from its war against drugs. That is becoming an empty threat, however, for US economic power is nothing like it used to be, even in Latin America.

That's partly because of the recent near-collapse of the US economy, but it's also the result of the rapid growth of the Latin American countries. Mexico, for example, is a rising industrial power with tens of millions of educated middle-class people and an economy that's growing at 7 per cent a year.

It can now say no to Washington without being crushed. It is the American refusal to allow its consumers legal access to the drugs they want that creates the demand and American weapons that arm the Mexican gangs that compete for that market.

Since no American politician will commit political suicide by advocating gun control or the legalisation of drugs, Mexico can only escape its agony by refusing any further co-operation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Ending the war on drugs in Mexico would not instantly stop the killing, most of which is between cartels competing for control of the routes by which drugs transit Mexico on their way to the United States.

But just ending the army's involvement would greatly lower the level of violence and legalising drugs in Mexico would diminish the epidemic of corruption too. You don't need to bribe officials if the drug trade is legal.

The current wave of demonstrations against the drug war is only a start. The policy won't change as long as Calderon is president as too many people have been killed for him to repudiate it now.

But by the end of next year he will be gone and his successor, from whichever party, will be free to change the policy. One of these days, Mexico will just say "no".