MJ Prohibition is Killing People

Deaths not treated by Cannabis

by Guard1an (not verified), January 03, 2013, 09:17pm

http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2013/jan/02/who_was_killed_americas_drug_war

 

Would be nice to also perhaps try to cover people who could have been potentially treated by Cannabis, but because of Federal Law were not treated. While it would be statistically incorrect to capture all the number of deaths associated with each disease, it would be interesting to extrapolate, if only it were legal...

Marijuana Cures Cancer
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/cannabis/healthprofessional/page4

Quick facts regarding cancer: Approximately 500,000 deaths were expected for 2012. 1,638,910 new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in 2012. In 2012, cancer is expected to be the second most common cause of death in the US, exceeded only by heart disease, accounting for nearly 1 of 4 deaths.

Quick facts regarding Leukemia: An estimated combined total of 140,310 people in the US are expected to be diagnosed with leukemia, lymphona or myeloma in 2011. Approximately every 10 minutes, someone in the US dies from a blood cancer. This statistic represents nearly 145 people each day or more than six people every hour.

See USPTO patent number 6630507. "The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dimentia."

Quick facts regarding Alzheimer's disease:5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease. On in eight older Americans has Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Today, 5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease - 5.2 million aged 65 and over, and 200,000 under the age of 65.

Quick facts regarding Stroker: Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States. More than 140,000 people die each year from stroke in the United States. Stroke is the leading cause of serious, long term disability in the United States. Each year, approximately 795,000 people suffer a stroke. About 600,000 of these are first attacks and 185,000 are recurrent attacks Nearly three quarters of all strokes occur in people over the age of 65. The risk of having a stroke more than doubles each decade after the age of 55. Strokes can and do occur at ANY age. Nearly on fourth of strokes occur in people under the age of 65. Stroke death rates are higher for African Americans than for whites, even at younger ages. On average, someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds.

Quick facts regarding Parkinson's disease: Each year, approximately 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. That is 1 in 272 people ho have the disease. This number does not reflect the thousands of cases that go undetected. However, it is also estimated that 1.10% of the US population, or 1 in 90 people, have the disease and do not know it.
And that is the short list....

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Pharma Market Protection- confirmed by No on 3 in Massachusetts

No on 3- an anti MJ legalization lobbyist group reveals prohibition is all about Pharmaceutical market protection- telling us that Sativex is ok while supporting maintaining the ban on natural MJ

http://mavotenoonquestion3.com/the-joke-is-on-us-or-is-it/

The first video is a throw back to major quacks as Harvey Wiley who banned the non carcinogenic Opium and Coca leaf, for the sake of protecting markets in pharmaceuticles and cigarettes. Plants as medicine are bad- nevermind the Bible's Book of Genesis. But pharmaceuticals are good- so much so that they must be protected by mis-defining people possessing or growing their own as "crime". Such is the big money reason behind such sorry excuses of politicans as Obama-Romney's contempt for public opinion and basic decency, debasing the judicary as accomplices to a costly and ongoing criminal mercantilism.

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US Green Jill Stein- We would actually use science to determine which drugs are dangerous and which ones are not.

http://www.isidewith.com/blog/43316191-interview-with-jill-stein

Are you in favor of legalizing all drugs or just marijuana?

We would do something revolutionary. We would actually use science to determine which drugs are dangerous and which ones are not. That means right off the bat marijuana and hemp are removed from the list of dangerous substances because these are not dangerous substances in relative to other unregulated substances including nicotine and alcohol. We would start with the legalization of marijuana and transform the drug system from a criminal system to a public health system. If people have issues of dependency which would apply to legal drugs as well as illegal drugs including alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and heavier drugs they need to be treated within the public health system. These are psychological problems not criminal problems. If you don't treat the problem it only aggravates it and compounds it with issues of public safety and criminal violence that are associated with the illegal drug culture.

 

 

She needs to also talk about Opium and Coca, though such a science based approach would also legalize these as well.

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Mitt Romney's Selective Compassion

 

Ted and Pat Oparowski, citing Romney's compassion of visiting their young son with cancer.

The boy died.

 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2012/08/31/vt_couple_says_romney_helped_ill_son_before_death/

MONTPELIER, Vt.—A Vermont couple says they're grateful to Mitt Romney for helping them and their terminally ill son decades ago when he was suffering from cancer.
 

Speaking Thursday at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., Ted and Pat Oparowski, of Randolph, tenderly recalled how Romney befriended their 14-year-old son David as he was dying of cancer in the late 1970s.
 

Pat Oparowski said they would "be ever grateful to Mitt for his love and concern."
 

She said Romney, who they knew through their church in Massachusetts, spent time in the hospital with their son, helped the boy write a will and bought him fireworks that were eventually set off in Maine.
 

She said Romney also gave the boy's eulogy at his funeral.

 

Here un-cited is the issue of freedom of medicine and diet.   What about Romney's stance at our freedom of medicine and diet in chosing whatever agents we can afford for treating cancer?  Whether some pharmaceuticle.  Or some plant.

 

 



Consider the use of Cannabis Oil for treating cancer as promoted in the video- Run From the Cure


  

Considering all of the Republican Party lip service to fiscal sanity, is not it strange they are so in favor of continuing the big government boondoogle of drug prohibition against people growing their own medicinal plants, for the sake of a price-market support-protection for more expensive synthetic pharmaceuticel (patentable) drugs?

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Cannabis Oil Supressed via Pharma (cigarette) drug war

Cannabis Oil shown to Cure Cancer
Please see this link to see 'Run from the Cure' about the use of Cannabis Oil to cure Cancer
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/5169.html

Father talking about his son's suffering alievated by Cannabis Oil



Stephen DeAngelo talks about the Obama Adminstration's Eric Holder's criminal actions against Harborside Dispensary.


PROTEST the OBAMA FUNDRAISER - JULY 23, 2012
http://www.harborsidehealthcenter.com/

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Dana Beal- Setting the Record Straight

Setting the Record Straight


Posted on Facebook by Nancy J. Allen in FREE DANA BEAL FREE OURSELVES ·

First are the links to the two articles written by Paul Hammel in June, 2012 for the Omaha World-Herald regarding Dana's case in Nebraska, followed by Dana's response:

"Marijuana Advocate in a Tough Fight" - June 12, 2012
 
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120612/NEWS97/706129933/0
 
Court Rejects Medicinal Marijuana Argument" - June 20, 2012
 
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120620/NEWS/706219997/1690
 
"Setting the Record Straight" by Dana Beal - June 29, 2012

Dear Paul [Hammel]:
 
Thanks for the article, but as always, a few little inconsistencies crept into your well-intentioned coverage. Most important, our understanding with the Manhattan DA’s office does not allow for a dispensary. We meet in the apartments, which change every week, of patient “hosts.” Hosts get their medicine for free. Dennis Brennan was one such host. Given the threat of ongoing federal prohibition or outright theft, this “Tupperware Party model” is very useful for all the medical marijuana states that do not allow dispensaries but do allow patients to form support groups to grow or buy in bulk.
 
A related point is that much of the medicine in both seizures was destined for Michigan, which now has more than 100,000 registered patients, and Washington, DC, which is still working out its regulations. As I pointed out, when you take the amount seized in Ashland and divide it by the number of patients, that’s less than a gram per patient. With only twelve marijuana plants allowed per patient, there’s never enough medicine and availability is seasonal. I was bringing fresh, green medical grade marijuana weeks before harvest, and it was priced to sell at $4-6 a gram, not the $10, $15, and $20 a gram you find in most dispensaries. Also, dispensaries fall in a gray area in Michigan law and in 2009, none had been established yet. We were hoping to spread the “Tupperware Party model” to Michigan, where I grew up and where my mother, sister, and two brothers still live.
 
You also glossed over the point that marijuana is not just a painkiller, like opiates. Down regulation of glutamate makes it an anti-inflammatory, which is the reason it’s good against a host of conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. Glutamate dysfunction is involved in carcinogenesis, which is the reason cancers tend to feel hot to the touch. Painting them with pure oil of cannabis (Rick Simpson’s oil) shrinks skin cancers. Smoked or vaporized medical marijuana probably helps keep you from developing cancer to begin with. My co-defendant in Wisconsin, Lance Ramer, was a medical marijuana patient. After 90 days of confinement where he was denied his medicine, he was urinating blood from a galloping bladder cancer. Iowa County had to release him with time served because they didn’t want to pay for a second operation.
 
These effects may also be related to cannabinoid inhibition of the AIDS virus (study of SIV in chimps, June-July 2011). The first antiretroviral, AZT, was an anti-cancer drug originally shelved because of toxicity concerns. One of the reasons I am choosing a stipulated bench trial is to establish the fact that pot doesn’t just give you the munchies, it fights AIDS wasting by cutting viral load, perhaps by affecting viral replication like a protease inhibitor. This is tremendously important to countries in Africa that cannot afford the “AIDS cocktail” of meds, where “slim disease” kills millions. If we can get these very conservative governments to opt out of the US/UN drug war, everyone can afford to grow a plant in their yard. Ibogaine fits into all this because I have never gone to a medical marijuana conference that didn’t feature a patient getting up and complaining how difficult it was to get off his prescription opiates once he found out all he needed for his particular condition was medical marijuana.
 
Ibogaine eliminates medical addiction to opiates in 48 hours. We can send people abroad for ibogaine treatment because it is usually only taken once. The thing that makes changing the law so urgent regarding medical marijuana is that patients are going to need the medicine every day for the rest of their lives. Ibogaine, on the other hand, is only technically illegal, and is almost never prosecuted. In the only recent case involving one dose of ibogaine seized from Dimitri Mugianis, DEA agents apologized to him after viewing his film “I’m Dangerous With Love” and the U.S. prosecutor dropped the case upon being informed Dimitri was mounting a religious defense.
 
You also omitted mentioning the much safer, supposedly nonhallucinogenic “18 MC” (synthetic ibogaine), which in animals is especially effective for nicotine – and is completely legal.
 
The ibogaine clinic mentioned in your story is not located in NYC, but in Agua Prieta, Mexico, opposite Douglas, Arizona. We were hoping to get a dedicated wing of a new hospital under construction there with the money that was seized in Mattoon, Illinois. Agua Prieta is a relative oasis of calm for a Mexican border city. We can still do treatments there; the problem has been finding staffing while keeping the price of treatment in the $2000-3000 range. Unfortunately the price of treatment has ballooned lately at many other clinics – still a steal compared to conventional rehab, such as $1000 a day for Hazelden, which might as well be the moon for anybody but the rich. And Hazelden's treatment doesn’t work. Ibogaine works, but many people relapse and require retreatment. So having a place people can drive to from Nebraska instead of flying to Puerto Vallarta or Cancun is a boon for people who desperately need something effective for drugs, alcohol and nicotine.
 
We also have a clinic charging $2000 in Toronto, but no one with a criminal record can get into Canada - which excludes the kid I already bumped into in here who found out about ibogaine on his own and just needed referral to affordable treatment for his heroin cravings. (Have the prosecutor and the judge in this case really thought through the consequences of locking me up with hundreds of people who need ibogaine treatment? Since they contend that a law that excuses killing someone in self-defense doesn’t cover the non-violent provision of life-saving medicine to sick people, I guess not.) Your readers can locate the cheapest, safest ibogaine treatment appropriate for their particular situation by calling the Yippie! Museum café at 212-677-5918.
 
A related issue left out of your story is the utility of medical marijuana as a maintenance drug after ibogaine treatment. Among my private patients were many ibogaine-treated ex-addicts who kept on the straight and narrow with medical cannabis. They are much less likely to relapse than those who drink. Somehow, after a little too much alcohol, a bag of heroin can seem like a really great idea. We now have a study, on the other hand, showing that cannabis fights cocaine craving - and White House Drug Czar Kerlikowske is now waffling on the “Gateway Effect” of the Just Say No era. Both ibogaine and medical marijuana work much better for a number of conditions than conventional drugs that were developed for a completely different indication. Readers should go to YouTube for “Sam’s Story” about an autistic child doing much better on medical marijuana than the heavy anti-psychotic meds he was on before. It breaks my heart to think of all the autistic children who could be helped by the “safest therapeutically active substance known to man.”
 
Finally, I recommend to you the story of my friend and former journalist for the New York Post, Mark Stamey. Mark broke the story of the Central Park cave man, but working long, grueling hours for Rupert Murdoch, he fell asleep at the wheel, crashed and woke up the second time with major head trauma and a permanent seizure disorder. The heartless New York Post fired him so they wouldn’t have to pay for his medical care. None of his conventional meds stopped the grand mal seizures. His girlfriend had to drive him up from Florida so that he could get the only thing that worked. And yes, I am proud I could furnish him with adequate medical grade marijuana for $900 to $1400 a pound. Now he has relocated to California.
 
It’s unfair to admit the testimony of the original arresting officer in my case, who was fired in western Nebraska for lying to a federal judge in a cocaine seizure, when no jury will get to hear from Mark, or the lady in a wheelchair with MS, or the man with AIDS who kept himself alive for 30 years on nothing but medical marijuana – no AZT, no drug cocktail. [underline added]
 
On Sept. 27, 2011, during my first heart attack, I actually died for a couple of minutes. I feel Almighty God brought me back because He still has things for me to do. When I was 13, and JFK was running for president, I got to shake his hand. He was a medical marijuana patient – smoked it for back pain. In 1962 he removed Harry Anslinger, the man who made marijuana illegal in 1937, from direct day-to-day supervision of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, for going after Alfred Lindesmith and other “political enemies”.*
 
When I was 16, I hitchhiked to Washington and stood just next to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the “I Have a Dream” speech. So I have been blessed. We are offering ibogaine treatments for the worst addicts in Omaha, Lincoln, and Wahoo – who have failed every other treatment – as a community service alternative to confinement. But if I have to be imprisoned for following my conscience, I am there with Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. I may well die in prison of “natural causes.” But at least I don’t have to take an assassin’s bullet.
 
Yours,
 
I. Dana Beal
 
* Anslinger was kicked upstairs to the UN, where he passed the Single Convention international treaty against pot.

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Dana Beal - Legal Necessity

The sheer injustice of banning safer substances for the sake of protecting more dangerous ones demands these prohibitions be nullified.  A legislative failure to respect basic liberties is no requirment upon the judiciary to follow suit, as our oath is not to the legislature but to the U.S. Constitution.

- some future judge

This was the basic defense offerered by Dana Beal's legal counsel, which was rejected by Judge Mary C. Gilbrite
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Necessity+defense

A defense asserted by a criminal or civil defendant that he or she had no choice but to break the law.


The necessity defense has long been recognized as Common Law and has also been made part of most states' statutory law. Although no federal statute acknowledges the defense, the Supreme Court has recognized it as part of the common law. The rationale behind the necessity defense is that sometimes, in a particular situation, a technical breach of the law is more advantageous to society than the consequence of strict adherence to the law. The defense is often used successfully in cases that involve a Trespass on property to save a person's life or property. It also has been used, with varying degrees of success, in cases involving more complex questions.


Almost all common-law and statutory definitions of the necessity defense include the following elements: (1) the defendant acted to avoid a significant risk of harm; (2) no adequate lawful means could have been used to escape the harm; and (3) the harm avoided was greater than that caused by breaking the law. Some jurisdictions require in addition that the harm must have been imminent and that the action taken must have been reasonably expected to avoid the imminent danger. All these elements mirror the principles on which the defense of necessity was founded: first, that the highest social value is not always achieved by blind adherence to the law; second, that it is unjust to punish those who technically violate the letter of the law when they are acting to promote or achieve a higher social value than would be served by strict adherence to the law; and third, that it is in society's best interest to promote the greatest good and to encourage people to seek to achieve the greatest good, even if doing so necessitates a technical breach of the law.


The defense of necessity is considered a justification defense, as compared with an excuse defense such as duress. An action that is harmful but praiseworthy is justified, whereas an action that is harmful but ought to be forgiven may be excused. Rather than focusing on the actor's state of mind, as would be done with an excuse defense, the court with a necessity defense focuses on the value of the act. No court has ever accepted a defense of necessity to justify killing a person to protect property.


Most states that have codified the necessity defense make it available only if the defendant's value choice has not been specifically contradicted by the state legislature. For example, in 1993 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected the necessity defense of two people who were prosecuted for operating a needle-exchange program that was intended to reduce the transmission of AIDS through the sharing of contaminated hypodermic needles (Massachusetts v. Leno, 415 Mass. 835, 616 N.E.2d 453). Their actions violated a state law prohibiting the distribution of hypodermic needles without a physician's prescription. In rejecting the defense, the court held that the situation posed no clear and imminent danger. The court reasoned that citizens who disagree with the legislature's policy are not without remedy, as they can seek to have the law changed through popular initiative.


The necessity defense has been used with sporadic and very limited success in the area of civil disobedience since the 1970s. The most common circumstances involve public protests against Abortion, Nuclear Power, and Nuclear Weapons. Virtually all abortion protesters who have tried to avail themselves of the defense have lost. The courts have reasoned that because the right to an abortion is constitutionally protected, it cannot simultaneously be a legally recognized harm justifying illegal action. In these cases the courts have also denied the defense on the basis that the criminal act of protest would not stop abortions from occurring; that the harm caused by the act was greater than the harm of abortion; and that legal means of protest, such as demonstrating outside of the clinic rather than entering the clinic or trespassing on its property, were available. Consequently, according to the courts, there was no necessity for the protesters to break the law. In the vast majority of cases in which protesters, trespassing on property, blocked the entrance to nuclear plants, the courts have denied the necessity defense on the grounds that there was no imminent danger and that the trespassing protesters could not reasonably have believed that their actions would halt the manufacture of nuclear materials (see, e.g., State v. Marley, 54 Haw. 450, 509 P.2d 1095 [Haw. 1973]). The defense has also been denied in civil disobedience cases involving protests against U.S. policy abroad, the homeless problem, lack of funding for AIDS research, harmful logging practices, prison conditions, and human and Animal Rights violations.


Necessity has been used successfully by inmates who escape from prison under certain circumstances. In Spakes v. State, 913 S.W.2d 597 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996), the highest criminal court in Texas allowed the jury to be instructed on the necessity defense before deliberating the verdict for an inmate whose three cellmates had planned an escape and threatened to slit his throat if he did not accompany them. The defendant inmate argued that because of the terribly violent crimes of which his cellmates had been convicted (one had bragged about chopping his girlfriend up with an ax), he accompanied them and escaped. Even though he made no attempt to return himself to custody when he was separated from his cellmates, the court still allowed the defense. In contrast, most jurisdictions have held that an escapee must make an attempt to surrender or report to authorities as a condition for asserting the necessity defense. These courts have reasoned that once the immediate threat is no longer present, the action of escape is no longer necessary, and consequently it should end.

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The judge needs to look at the basic statistics concerning the substance Dana is charged with possessing with intent to distribute.:

Marijuana is what U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young declared in September 1988:

“In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating 10 raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care.

[DEA Administrative Law Judge - 1988]”  ― Francis L. Young -- In the matter of MARIJUANA RESCHEDULING PETITION, Docket No. 86-22; OPINION AND RECOMMENDED RULING, FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND DECISION

The drug laws being based not upon science, are a denial of due proces and equal protection under the law.

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July 4- Seize The Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the building of that powerhouse law firm Covington &Burling

Eric Holder - current U.S. Attorney General

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

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

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

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

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

1201 Pennsylvania Avenue



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

Covington & Burling is not just another law firm
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/10/covington-burling-is-not-just-another.html

Co Founded by James Harry Covington - a U.S. Congressman with Food and Drug Law evolution into the 1914 Harrison 'Narcotics' Act
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/08/congressman-jh-covington-name-appearing_9159.html

JH Covington Becomes Judge and UpHolds Harrison 'Narcotics' Act
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/10/jh-covington-upheld-harrison-narcotic.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/09/hw-wiley-jh-covington-subversion-of-1st.html

Covington & Burling Tobacco
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/09/tobacco-industry-httpwww.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/08/cig-ind-legal-coordination_27.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/08/1987-cig-ind-legal-coordination.html

Coca Feared by U.S.D.A. as a 'Tobacco Habit Cure'
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html

Covington & Burling - Drug Policy Reform Bottleneck or Facilitator?
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/10/bottleneck-or-facilitator.html

Covington & Burling Food & Drug Practices
http://www.cov.com/practice/food_and_drug/

Covington & Burling Pharma attorney Eric Holder's Law Firm
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/01/holder-breuer.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/01/eric-holder-covington-burling-obama.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/04/ex-covington-burling-pharma-attorney.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/05/newsweek-on-covington-burling-eric.html

DPF Covington & Burling Legal Connection
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-policy-foundation-legal-connection.html

DPF Advised by Covington & Burling Food, Drug & Insurance Attorney
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-policy-foundation-advised-by-c.html

Open Invitation to Covington & Burling attorney Marialuisa Gallozzi 'assigned to take primary responsibility for advising the [Drug Policy] Foundation', with Covington & Burling long involved with organizations as DPF-DPA and Marijuana Policy Project, to speak at the Smoke In about legal activist strategies to end the 'drug war' - re-legalize plant drugs Opium and Coca as well as Marijuana and Iboga-Ibogaine.  Though useful for treating drug addictions, Iboga root bark and the isolated ibogaine alkaloid are 'schedule 1' - of a drug war not alleviating but rather perpetuating suffering.

Expose the 'drug war' as a FRAUD- in reality a criminal mercantilist pharma-cigarette 'drug war' enacted in a twisted U.S. Congress in 1914 against Opium, Coca and in 1937, Cannabis- a legal travesty further marked by the sweetheart exemption for alcoholic beverages and Tobacco products from retail ingrediant labeling requirments.

Marialuisa Gallozzi of Covington & Burling

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

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

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

Angelo Francois Mariani

Vin Mariani-

the names say it all

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

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

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

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Romney- Criminal Mercantilism for Pharma

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot82v5Mqguw

Is OK with "synthetic" marijuana, but not the real thing- indicating that it is not MJ's properties but rather that it was something that people could grow rather than have to pay for a doctor, prescription and extra expense of a synthetic pharmaceutical preparation.

So this is what people consider as "electable"?

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2012/01/romney-crony-capitalism-on-cannabis.html

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Marijuana Keeping Youth From Alcohol & Cigarettes

Decried by Fake Christians as FOX News' Bill O'Reilly and Gretchen Carlson

Pot smoking keeps teens off more dangerous booze and cigarettes

Alternet - The National Institute of Drug Abuse released the results of its 2011 Monitoring the Future Survey of teen drug use, and guess what: Teens are using cigarettes and alcohol less, but they are smoking more marijuana. What's more, they're smoking more weed because they do not perceive it to be as harmful as did teens in the past. Teens' level of "associated risk" with marijuana use has gone done over time, and marijuana is, indeed, less harmful than alcohol and cigarettes: This could be an argument for more honest drug education in schools.

Associated risk is the danger or harm believed to be a consequence of drug use. If associated risk for a particular substance goes up, more people are reporting that they consider using that drug to be a threat. In other words, as associated risk goes down, more people are saying the drug in question is not that bad. According to the NIDA study, a decline in marijuana's associated risk contributed to teens smoking more pot, while drinking less alcohol and smoking fewer cigarrettes. Thus, many teens actually showed good judgement, by using available information to determine the danger posed by particular substances, and making smart decisions accordingly.

According to the study, about 25% of teens surveyed said they tried marijuana at least once last year, a statistically significant rise of about 4% since 2007. Additionally, 6.6% of 12th graders also admitted to smoking weed daily.

Frequent marijuana use is the highest it has been since 1981, but cigarette and alcohol use reached historic lows. 11.7 percent of U.S. teens reported having smoked a cigarette in the last 30 days, compared to 12.8 percent in 2010. According to the report, a twenty-year gradual decline in alcohol use continued into 2011, and the decrease in that year alone was also significant.:

"Over the past 20 years, from 1991 to 2011, the proportion of 8th graders reporting any use of alcohol in the prior 30 days has fallen by about half (from 25% to 13%), among 10th graders by more than one third (from 43% to 27%), and among 12th graders by about one fourth (from 54% to 40%)."

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5 Drugs Protected By MJ Prohibition

Reminders that the drug war is all about Criminal Mercantilism

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/5-popular-but-harmful-drugs-that-can-be.html?mid=54631

Activist Post

5 popular but harmful drugs that can be replaced with marijuana

This article is dedicated to anyone that struggles with prescription drugs on this list because they are afraid of consuming a plant deemed illegal by the State.

Cannabis is simply the best natural remedy
to safely treat many ailments
The notion that any authority can determine what a sovereign human being can and cannot ingest into their own body is the very essence of control. Banning any substance from responsible adult consumption no matter how harmful should simply not be permitted in a free society.

However, certain substances are deemed so harmful by "experts" that they claim to adversely affect society as a whole and thus they're banned from the population. Of course, force of laws with guns and jails have never been able to eliminate their use throughout history. So, as a practical matter, banning any substance from society always tends to do more harm than good.

The utter failure that is the war on drugs seems to have ulterior motives besides protecting society, as evidenced by the countless harmful chemicals that are legal to consume. Marijuana is the most obvious example of a substance that remains illegal not because of health threats, or because it's a danger to society, but rather because its benefits threaten entire industries, especially Big Pharma.

If you need a fix to ease pain, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and a host of other ailments, then a legal drug dealer is happy to sell you a chemical concoction with endless side effects. Recent studies show huge spikes in psychiatric drug use, as well as addiction to prescription pain pills, yet they remain legal and doctors get incentives to push them.

In nearly every case, marijuana is a safer alternative and just as effective. When eaten or vaporized, cannabis has proven entirely beneficial as a natural alternative. Here are 5 popular but dangerous drugs that could, in most cases, be replaced by cannabis.

1. Painkillers: Vicodin, Demerol, Oxycontin, or Percodan are used to treat moderate or severe pain. They're all highly addictive and come with side effects that vary widely from stomach problems, dizziness, depression, pain and spasms, to even death. Marijuana is a proven pain reliever that takes the edge off even the most severe pain. It is not physically addictive, has very few side effects by comparison, and has never caused a single death in 5000 years of recorded use.

2. Tranquilizers: Valium, Xanax, and Ambien are examples of popular anti-anxiety drugs. All Americans will likely know someone close to them who are dependent on these drugs to cope with daily life. The side effects are similar to anti-depressants and painkillers; stomach and liver problems, depression or suicidal thoughts, dizziness and confusion, etc. Marijuana is an excellent substitute for these temporary anxiety relievers, again with far fewer negative effects.

3. Alcohol: Alcohol is the most commonly used and accepted substance for self-regulated stress relief. It's used by countless Americans to take the edge off a long work day, and also by many soldiers seeking to relieve Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Alcohol is highly addictive and causes many long-term problems like high blood pressure and liver failure. Marijuana has proven to be far safer and more effective in reducing stress, especially among PTSD sufferers.

4. Anti-depressants: Prozac, Zoloft, Elavil, or Paxil are popular anti-depressants that a huge portion of the population are now dependent on. Side effects like nausea and sexual dysfunction are common, while suicidal tendencies are also increased tremendously, which seems to negate their very purpose. These selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) reduce the body's ability to produce natural serotonin and can be difficult for people to find a healthy balance once they rid the drug from their system. Marijuana, although a temporary anti-depressant, is far less dangerous and may result in instant happiness bordering on silliness.

5. Aspirin and Tylenol: These commonly-used over-the-counter drugs for minor aches and pains cause stomach problems like ulcers, liver damage, and even death. That's right, Tylenol causes about 450 deaths a year and Aspirin causes a whopping 13,000 deaths per year from sudden bleeding. Many natural alternatives can be used for the symptoms that these drugs ease, and marijuana is just one of the safer options -- with none of the damaging side effects.

As you can see, marijuana, which can be easily grown in nearly every climate, is a huge threat to these billion-dollar-a-year drugs. And this list represents a tiny fraction of the harmful pharmaceuticals that can be replaced by cannabis. To claim that cannabis is more dangerous than any of these popular legal substances is blatantly false, thus there's no reason for its prohibition other than the threat of competition to Big Pharma.

Thankfully, you're not a criminal in over a dozen states if you use marijuana in place of them. And surely, it's only a matter of time before it's obvious to everyone that marijuana users should not be labeled criminals no matter what they use it for.

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Obama Hinted At Treating MJ Like Heroin

and that he "learned not to care"...


In the book bearing his name "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," by mentioning the terms "junkie" and "pothead" in the same breath- Obama hints that he views them as the same or similarly.

http://www.mapinc.org/newsnorml/v03/n1786/a06.html

"I had learned not to care," he wrote. "I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. ..."

"Blow" is a street name for cocaine. "Smack" is slang for heroin.

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," Obama wrote. "Except the highs hadn't been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. ... You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection."

No shit that he "learned not to care". He not only speaks about heroin and Cannabis as if they were the same, he does so when stating that he did not use heroin, only cocaine on occasion, and Cannabis more frequently. How is using MJ and occasionally cocaine mean that one is destined to become a "junkie" - a term referring to heroin - unless one has "learned not to care" about truth?!

By so conflating and confusing the different drugs, "Obama" demonstrates what he here admits, that he learned "not to care".

It should be a textbook example of carefully chosen words- to suggest one thing, while really meaning something else - such as "change", suggesting that for something better, but in reality making no promise of something necessarily better.

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Covington & Burling's Continuing Involvement With Drug Policy Organizations

Longtime Tobacco-Pharmaceutical Legal Powerhouse







http://www.cov.com/washington/

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/21/marijuana-researchers-get-pro-bono-representation-in-dea-lawsuit/



(excerpt: dated Wednesday, September 21st, 2011)



"The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) has received free legal representation in a lawsuit against the DEA over a license to grow marijuana for federally regulated research.



The D.C.-based law firm Covington & Burling LLP, one of the foremost law firms representing the pharmaceutical industry, has offered pro-bono legal representation to the research group to appeal the DEA’s August 15 final order in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. MAPS estimated the law firm saved them $175,000 in legal costs.



The DEA rejected University of Massachusetts professor Lyle Craker request to obtain a license to grow marijuana to study its potential medical uses, claiming that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) can be the only one to supply marijuana for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated research."

The Drug Policy Alliance conference schedule devotes significant time to Marijuana, but with weirdly little for Coca , (even in 2011 the year Bolivia denounces the 1961 'narcotics' conference, with Covington & Burling, already known for advising the DPA predecessor DPF); doing significant work upon Marijuana, but nothing as far as I know regarding Coca, despite the tremendous potential for good.



The Covington & Burling website (Health page, early 2005) acknowledged the law firm's work with the Drug Policy Foundation and other organizations involved with drug policy reform:

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-policy-foundation-advised-by-c.html



Commonwealth v. Hutchins. We represent Mr. Hutchins and the interests of similarly situated patients for whom the medical use of marijuana is necessary, in a variety of state and national initiatives aimed at decriminalizing such use. We work closely with the Drug Policy Foundation, the Marijuana Policy Project and sympathetic members of Congress and selected state legislatures. American Civil Liberties Union - Drug Policy Litigation Project. We were asked to assist the ACLU in preparing a letter to the Drug Enforcement Agency in support of an application by a professor at the University of Massachusetts for registration to manufacture or distribute controlled substances for the purposes of a scientific study on medical marijuana. Specifically, they requested that we opine on the consistency of the application with the United States' treaty requirements pursuant to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. We have continued to provide advice on related aspects of this matter.

That the firm would use the present tense

"We work closely with the Drug Policy Foundation, the Marijuana Policy Project and ... the American Civil Liberties Union Drug Policy Litigation Project"

in 2005, five years after the Drug Policy Foundation was superseded by the Drug Policy Alliance (by merging with the Lindesmith Institute in July 2000), appears to suggest that Covington & Burling works closely with the Drug Policy Alliance.



Notably, the Drug Policy Alliance has continued the Drug Policy Foundation's post 1992 malevolent malaise towards the Coca issue, and that'elephant in the living room' continuing mega boondoggle - public health disaster of pro Tobacco anti Coca Agricultural Mercantilism, embodied in U.S. statute since the 1906 Food and Drugs Act.





http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2011/09/continuing-powerhouse-alongside-federal.html



http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2011/09/continuing-powerhouse-alongside-federal.html

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Obama Proving Himself to Be A Dick

Obama High School Graduation Handshake: 1979
Think about it, the first U.S. President born during the term of John F. Kennedy,who ends up cancelling a proposed new Moon Project as too expensive and we've already been there done that,insists upon continuing the $1/5th+ trillion a year continuing mega boondoggle of agricultural cigarette pharma mercantilism known as the 'drug war', shunning Bolivia's Morales Coca initiative, and betraying his 2008 campaign pledge to respect State and local statutes regarding regulated medicinal Marijuana.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/06/30/white-house-overrides-2009-mem
The Department of Justice sent out a memo Wednesday instructing the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration and leading officials in the U.S. Attorneys Office to treat medical marijuana shops as top priorities for prosecutors and drug investigators.

"Persons who are in the business of cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana, and those who knowingly facilitate such activities, are in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, regardless of state law," the memo reads. "Consistent with resource constraints and the discretion you may exercise in your district, such persons are subject to federal enforcement action, including potential prosecution. State laws or local ordinances are not a defense to civil or criminal enforcement of federal law with respect to such conduct, including enforcement of the CSA."

The memo, authored by Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, "clarifies" a memo released in 2009 that declared medical marijuana sales in states that have legalized it to be a low priority for law enforcement and prosecutors. The so-called "Ogden memo" first appeared to drug law reformers as evidence that President Obama was dialing back the war on drugs. The DEA and U.S. Attorneys office continued to raid and prosecute state-legal grow operations and marijuana shops after the memo was first circulated, leading reformers to conclude that Obama was lying when he said that his administration would not be doing those things.

The memo written by Cole and addressed to DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart and several members of the U.S. Attorney's office is a severe amendment to the Ogden memo. "The Department of Justice is committed to the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in all States. Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime that provides a significant source of revenue to large scale criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels," the memo reads.

The Department of Justice enables legislative crime starting with that of perjury with charges against Marijuana "is a dangerous drug", and continuing via racketeering and extortion via the prohibition statutes of the U.S. Controlled Substances Act, that rests upon a highly stretched definition of the U.S. Congress's Constitutionally assigned power to regulate interstate commerce running roughshod over 1st, 8th, 9th, 10th and 14th Amendment concerns, indeed with this ever being so challenged in totality.

Marijuana is what a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency judge in 1989 declared one of the world's safest theraupeutic agents not known to have caused any deaths (and note that the DEA is headquarted in northern Virginia, the state where 'Virginia' Bright leaf tobacco was created and developed into the last century's cigarettes- adulterated and misbranded by the standard applied to any other human consumable (except alcoholic beverages).

By so banning Marijuana, and indeed Coca leaf and Opium, the government is committing perjury in a conspiracy to maintain a criminal mercantilism scheme for the market protection of other commodities, notably 'Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco', various phramaceuticals (prescription 'patent medicines' or 'medications'), plus alcoholic beverages.

This is particularly so, regarding pharma, as that same government approves the manufacture and sale as a prescription pharma medication, of Marijuana's very essence in pill form- Sativex.

By banning a natural substance while permitting its synthesis into a pill, the government is going to end up increasing health care costs for the sake of what essentially a market protection racket.

Meanwhile, the ban on Coca and Opium shifts their ultimate use infinitely for the worse into concentrated forms and dosing increasing dangerous of snorted and especially smoked toxi-mania tending forms of 'drug use/abuse'- creating and maintaining the problem for maintaining yet more bloat of a 'drug treatment' industry.

If Obama or any other governing official so insists upon so radically driving up our health care costs (to say nothing about the enormous police-court-incarceration bloat), how the hell can anyone trust such an entity to provide a health care insurance program that's not ruinously expensive?

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Ron Paul & Barney Frank's Bill Curtailing Federal MJ Prohibition

New proposed legislation, reportedly authored by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, would curtail the federal government's role in marijuana enforcement, limiting it to cross-border or interstate smuggling, though continuing to allow states to maintain prohibition under an ancient regime preference for the 10th amendment as opposed to the 9th Amendment.

This proposed law, H.R. 2306 initial co-sponsors include Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich.; Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.; Jared Polis, D-Colo.; and Barbara Lee, D-Oakland.

H. R. 2306 A BILL

To limit the application of Federal laws to the distribution and consumption of marihuana, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011″

SEC. 2. APPLICATION OF THE CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES ACT TO MARIHUANA.

Part A of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:

SEC. 103. APPLICATION OF THIS ACT TO MARIHUANA.

a.PROHIBITION ON CERTAIN SHIPPING OR TRANSPORTATION.

-This Act shall not apply to marihuana, except that it shall be unlawful only to ship or transport, in any manner or by any means whatsoever, marihuana, from one State, Territory, or District of the United States, or place noncontiguous to but subject to the jurisdiction thereof, into any other State, Territory, or District of the United States, or place noncontiguous to but subject to the jurisdiction thereof, or from any foreign country into any State, Territory, or District of the United States, or place noncontiguous to but subject to the jurisdiction thereof, when such marihuana is intended, by any person interested therein, to be received, possessed, sold, or in any manner used, either in the original package or otherwise, in violation of any law of such State, Territory, or District of the United States, or place noncontiguous to but subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

b.PENALTY. -Whoever knowingly violates sub-section (a) shall be fined under title 18, United States 26 Code, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”

SEC. 3. DEREGULATION OF MARIHUANA.

a.REMOVED FROM SCHEDULE OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES. -Schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812(c)) is amended—

1.by striking “marihuana”; and
2.by striking “tetrahydrocannabinols”.

b.REMOVAL OF PROHIBITION ON IMPORT AND EXPORT. -Section 1010 of the Controlled Substances Importand Export Act (21 U.S.C. 960) is amended—

1.by striking subparagraph (G) of subsection(b)(1);
2.by striking subparagraph (G) of subsection(b)(2); and
3.by striking paragraph (4) of subsection (b).

SEC. 4. CONFORMING AMENDMENTS TO CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES ACT.

a.Section 102(44) of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802(44)) is amended by striking “marihuana”.
b.Part D of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 841 et seq.) is amended as follows:
1.In section 401—
A.by striking subsection (b)(1)(A)(vii);
B.by striking subsection (b)(1)(B)(vii);
C.by striking subsection (b)(1)(D); and
D.by striking subsection (b)(4).
2.In section 402(c)(2)(B), by striking “marihuana”
3.In section 403(d)(1), by striking “marihuana”
4.In section 418(a), by striking the last sentence
5.In section 419(a), by striking the last sentence
6.In section 422(d), in the matter preceding paragraph (1), by striking “marijuana”.
7.In section 422(d)(5), by striking “, such as a marihuana cigarette,”

SEC. 5. CONSTRUCTION.

No provision of this Act shall be construed to affect Federal drug testing policies, and each Federal agency shall conduct a review of its drug testing policies not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act to ensure that the language of any such policy is in accordance with this section.

As reported here, H.R. 2306 is now being blocked by Rep. Lamar Smith (R) Texas, who ironically was endorsed by H.R. 2306 co-sponsor Ron Paul.



Direct Link:
http://youtu.be/KmJqSLNy8ms

Ron Paul in italics

I just want a quick statement on why you are encouraging your supporters to support Lamar Smith, 22 year incumbent, 2 time bailout voter, voted for the war in Iraq; we are curious down here in Austin.

I have made an agreement that I will support the incumbents of Texas- Republican incumbents of Texas.
I am in the Republican Party.
I am the most independent Republican within Congress.
But there’s a limit to how much independence one can get away with within Washington, D.C.

Make of it what you will on the dynamics here, leading up to this, and that to follow.

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Oklahoma's Contempt for the U.S.C. 8th Amendment

This U.S. State, the one with the highest penalties for growing MJ of an upwards of 99 Years Imprisionment.

Brett Wilkins writes:

http://morallowground.com/2011/04/26/oklahoma-lawmakers-approve-life-imprisonment-for-making-hashish/

...the Oklahoma state legislature have approved a bill– House Bill 1798– that would make hash-making a felony and punish first-time offenders with a minimum mandatory sentence of two years in the slammer, and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Get convicted a second time, and your sentence will be doubled and you can kiss suspended sentences or parole goodbye.

Life in prison for processing a plant that has been used for medicinal purposes for nearly 5,000 years? Yup, Oklahoman lawmakers are one smart bunch. That’s why they overwhelmingly voted in favor of House Bill 1798; it passed the House by a vote of 75-18 and breezed through the Senate, 44-2. This, by the way, is the same House that voted to outlaw Shari’a law in a state where about 0.16% of the population is Muslim.

Mark Woodward, a spokesman for Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (because marijuana is soooo dangerous), told the Associated Press that the bill should “send a message” that illegal drugs won’t be tolerated in the state.

Indeed. Soooo dangerous. Such an 'offense' mandating such sentences, in comparision to those say for:

Whatever happened to the U.S.C.'s 8th Amendment?

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Government-Media Supresses Info of Cannabinoids Kill Cancer Cells

This fits with Donald Tashkin's Reversal on MJ
Forwarded to me by Barry Chamish:

Cannabinoids Kill Cancer And Our
'Government' Has Known for 36 YearsBy GSA
4-25-11

Below is a repost of an article published on Americans for Safe Access website: www.safeaccessnow.org in November of 2003. The article describes how cannabinoids, the active components of marijuana, inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animals and also kill cancer cells. Then it finishes off by saying that the US government has known for more than 35 years and that the media which would normally go crazy about a cancer cure story like this, doesn't at all and in fact seem to be burying the story rather than promote it in any way. I for one am amazed at the government's stance on marijuana and their failed war on drugs, which is more like a war on it's own country. I guess too many people get rich off of the war on drugs.

by Steve Kubby, Sierra Times
November 10th, 2003

A new study published in Nature Reviews-Cancer provides an historic and detailed explanation about how THC and natural cannabinoids counteract cancer, but preserve normal cells.

The study by Manuel Guzmán of Madrid Spain found that cannabinoids, the active components of marijuana, inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animals. They do so by modulating key cell-signalling pathways, thereby inducing direct growth arrest and death of tumor cells, as well as by inhibiting the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumor.

The Guzman study is very important according to Dr. Ethan Russo , a neurologist and world authority on medical cannabis: "Cancer occurs because cells become immortalized; they fail to heed normal signals to turn off growth. A normal function of remodelling in the body requires that cells die on cue. This is called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. That process fails to work in tumors. THC promotes its reappearance so that gliomas, leukemias, melanomas and other cell types will in fact heed the signals, stop dividing, and die."

"But, that is not all," explains Dr. Russo: "The other way that tumors grow is by ensuring that they are nourished: they send out signals to promote angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. Cannabinoids turn off these signals as well. It is truly incredible, and elegant."

In other words, this article explains several ways in which cannabinoids might be used to fight cancer, and, as the article says, "Cannabinoids are usually well tolerated, and do not produce the generalized toxic effects of conventional chemotherapies.
Usually, any story that even suggests the possibility of a new treatment for cancer is greeted with headlines about a "cancer cure" ­ however remote in the future and improbable in fact it might be. But if marijuana is involved, don't expect any coverage from mainstream media, especially since mainstream editors have been quietly killing this story for the past thirty years

That's right, news about the abilility of pot to shrink tumors first surfaced, way back in 1974. Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice - lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

The Washington Post reported on the 1974 study - in the "Local" section - on Aug. 18, 1974. Under the headline, "Cancer Curb Is Studied," it read in part: "The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered." The researchers "found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers, and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent."
"News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article," complained MarijuanaNews.com editor Richard Cowan , who said he was only able to find the article through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report Web page. "The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors," added Cowan.

On March 29, 2001, the San Antonio Current printed a carefully researched, bombshell of a story by Raymond Cushing titled, "POT SHRINKS TUMORS; GOVERNMENT KNEW IN '74." Media coverage since then has been nonexistant, except for a copy of the story on Alternet.

It is hard to believe that the knowledge that cannabis can be used to fight cancer has been suppressed for almost thirty years , yet it seems likely that it will continue to be suppressed. Why?

According to Cowan, the answer is because it is a threat to cannabis prohibition . "If this article and its predecessors from 2000 and 1974 were the only evidence of the suppression of medical cannabis, then one might perhaps be able to rationalize it in some herniated way. However, there really is massive proof that the suppression of medical cannabis represents the greatest failure of the institutions of a free society, medicine, journalism, science, and our fundamental values," Cowan notes.

Millions of people have died horrible deaths and in many cases, familes exhausted their savings on dangerous, toxic and expensive drugs. Now we are just beginning to realize that while marijuana has never killed anyone, marijuana prohibition has killed millions.

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Ben Masel Civil Rights Activist Dead of Lung Cancer

Another victim of Harvey Wiley's Tobacco-cigarette agricultural mercantilism

http://host.madison.com/news/local/article_68fbe4a4-7385-11e0-b755-001cc4c002e0.html

Ben Masel, prominent marijuana activist and professional rabble rouser, died Saturday from complications due to lung cancer. He was 56.

Diagnosed in January, Masel had recently made it through 25 radiation treatments for the disease, but was too weak to face chemotherapy. He died just before 9 a.m., surrounded by family at a nearby hospice center.

"He made a point of living at the front lines and fighting for his rights," said Semilla Anderson, Masel's daughter. "He will be remembered for that."

Masel was born in the Bronx and grew up in New Jersey. He moved to Madison in 1971 and quickly became a fixture of the counter-culture, known specifically for acts of civil disobedience in the cause of legalizing pot.

For the past 10 years he served as the vice president of the state chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Masel was the state director for six years in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

And in truth, when news broke last month that Masel had lung cancer, there were many who thought it made sense. After all, he spent a lifetime smoking cigarettes and was, by his own admission, a "heavy" marijuana smoker.

But friends and family hope that people will remember that Masel stood for a lot more than just one controversial cause.

"He wasn't just some pothead," said Sal Serio, a longtime friend. "He respected the constitution. He respected the system. And he fought to make sure others did too."

In fact, Masel made his living fighting those who tried to limit personal freedoms and rights. He was, for lack of a better term, a professional activist.

Jeff Scott Olson, Masel's attorney for the past 20 years, said his client focused mainly on challenging limitations to free speech and right to assemble. Whenever police departments or cities tried to stop him from collecting signatures or protesting, he would sue. And according to Olson, he almost always won.

Said Amy Gros-Louis, a friend of 25 years, "Ben knew the laws better than the police did."

Masel often joked that his method of making a living offered a "great hourly rate if you can wait forever to get paid." Masel joked a lot; it's one of the things people say about him most.

He was a perennial candidate for elected office. He ran for Dane County Sheriff once; governor and senator too.

And he was a protester to the end. Even in his weakened state, Masel managed to show up at the Capitol during the month-long protest in March.

But behind all of that was a funny and decent man. He may have looked like a graying lion, but friends said he was a gentleman. "He was always courteous and reasonable," Olson said. "And that was because he was always ready to give someone the chance to change his mind."

Said Serio, "He was a special person. He will be missed."

I was privilaged to have known him via attending NORML conferences since the late 1980s.

I was always amazed at the propensity of people as intelligent as Ben, taking up the Tobacco-cigarette habit, despite all that has been known and revealed about the dangers.

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