The Evil Prohibition to Promote Cigarettes

let's call it what it really is - an outdated agricultural mercantilism
The 'Drug War' - Banning the safest stimulant (Coca) for the sake of protecting and promoting the most dangerous (Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco)

The last U.S. Bottle of Vin Mariani?

the 1906+ restrictions and ban of Opium and Coca and the protected market growth of Virginia Bright Leaf Cigarettes- against the 'Tobacco Habit Cure' of Coca

It's a pity that a man as Ronald Wilson Reagan ignored the utter inconsistencies of his political sloganeering about excessive and fiscaly unwise government, particularly concerning such governments' choice of agricultural commodities we are offered for our daily stimulation and relaxation, cir:1884-1906

- machines for the mass production of cigarettes are 1st deployed; previously they had to be hand rolled.  Nonetheless sales of such cigarettes grew reletively slowly until 1906.

- isolated cocaine is introduced commercially. Introduced in a variety of forms, with the more potent concentrated forms remaining a minor niche item, and most use the dilute useful Coca products, until 1906.  Until the USDA was able to step in with its goal of protecting U.S. domestic agriculture.

U.S. Cigarette production spiked with drug prohibition: 1906, 1914,1937;

coinciding with the crackdowns on Opium, Coca and Cannabis

(p230 Licit & Illicit Drugs Breecher)

1906 U.S. Food and Drugs Act - key points - selective listing of ingrediants - alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any derivative or preparation of any such substances contained therein, but not caffeine or nicotine - granted dictatorial power to the USDA Bureau of Chemistry to ban whatever it determined as 'dangerous or detrimental to health ingrediants, while excluding Tobacco from this USD of Agriculture regulatory authority for being de-listed from the U.S. Pharmacopeia which this Act defined the sope of the regulatory authority to those substances (drugs) contained within.  The Act was used by USDA Bureau of Chemistry Chief (1883-1912) Harvey Wiley, paradox - also of the AMA-APhA Council on Pharmacology, who developed a strong thrust to inveigh against 'cocaine' regardless of dosage or form in 1904, including via a media campaign designed to confuse the public about the dangers of concentrate cocaine in some vaguely defined way to imply dangers nonexistent with dilute cocaine.   Dilute cocaine/Coca products dissapear from retail and altogther, while concentrated cocaine - infinitly the most dangerous for of the drug become's its sole available form.

Harvey Washington Wiley

Lyman Frederick Kebler

Of particular 'concern' to the USDA, 'cocaine' or more accurately dilute cocaine in products either or by the isolated alkloid or the more or less whole leaf extract, used as a substitute for Tobacco.  According to the overtly mercantilist propaganda piece April 20, 1910 USDA. Farmer's Journal article "Habit-Forming Agents: Their Indiscriminate Sale and Use A Menace to the Public Welfare" by L.F. Kebler:

There are quite a number of so-called tobacco habit cures on the market.

The USDA here wrote "so-called tobacco habit cures.." in refusing to acknowledge the utility it was here condemning, continuing:

All of them are ineffective, and some contain cocain in one form or another, which at once indicates the purpose of the promoter of the remedy. Instead of eradicating what is commonly believed to be a comparatively harmless habit, there is grave danger of fastening a pernicious drug habit upon the user. Examples of preparations of this character recently examined and found to contain cocain and caffein derivatives are Coca-Bola, Tobacco Bullets, and Wonder Workers. The Coca Bola is marketed by Dr. Charles L. Mitchell, of "Philadelphia, and the Tobacco Bullets by the Victor Remedy Company, now the Blackburn Remedy Company, of Dayton, Ohio, while the Wonder Workers were produced by George S. Beck, of Springfield, Ohio.

That followed a January 1, 1910 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 'Pharmacology' review (at pp 63-64 of Volume LIV, Number 1), “Coca Bola and Oxy-Tonic: Two Nostrums Exposed by the Chemists of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station” by E.F. Ladd, a chemist at the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station

"We have recently had occasion to examine a sample of Coca Bola, a product labeled as having been produced by Charles L. Mitchell, M.D., Philadelphia, and the face label bears the following statement:

Each ounce contains 0.71 grams of cocain. A chewing paste of leaves of the cocoa [sic] plant, combined with other valuable tonics. The directions for use say coca-bola is made in the form of flat cakes or plugs divided into squares and should be used by chewing one of the small squares marked on the plug and swallowing the saliva.

They further say it should be used at occasional intervals as needed throughout the day. To get its full effect it will be necessary to use several squares. They further say:

"Although a powerful muscular or nervous tonic, coca-bola has no evil after-effects, and hence is far superior to any other stimulant in the material medica"

Now this information given out in the advertising which accompanies each package is, it would seem, intended to give the impression that this product is an entirely harmless one; in other words, that a preparation containing cocain as an active constituent, is to be generally recommended for use without any caution as to the harm that may come from forming a habit for cocain. They further say:

"A small portion chewed occasionally acts as a powerful tonic to the muscular and nervous system, enabling the chewer to perform additional labor, and also relieves fatigue and exhaustion without evil after effects. It contains no injurious ingredients and is perfectly harmless."

So we might quote from the circular which is sent out by a man who claims to be a physician, urging, as it were, on the people the use of a product of this kind, which, as has clearly been shown, must in the end result in the formation of the cocain habit, if not in the complete demoralization and degradation of the individual himself.

The laws of North Dakota prohibit the sale of any compound or product in the state which contains cocaine in any form. It further prohibits the refilling of a physician’s prescription that contains cocain, and yet a product of this kind, it would seem from information that has been gathered, is sold directly to the customer, although it is true that the proprietor of the product maintains that it is now sold only to physicians.

The JAMA article echos the assumptions of "Habit-Forming Agents: Their Indiscriminate Sale and Use A Menace to the Public Welfare"

During the last twenty years a large number of soft drinks containing caffein and smaller or greater quantities of coca leaf and kola nut products have been placed upon the market. Preparations of this class, on account of insufficient information, were formally looked upon as harmless, but they are now known to be an impending evil.

Centuries before cocain was introduced as a remedial agent, wonderful accounts of the energy-creating properties of coca leaves were chronicled. The phenomenal endurance attributed to the Peruvians and others was often ascribed to the stimulating effects produced by the chewing of coca leaves, and this idea has been widely exploited. It is believed to some extent at present that the use of cocain taken internally produces a sense of exhilaration, and the amount of muscular and mental power appears to be temporarily increased. Impetus was given to this belief by the enthusiastic reports of this drug, published not only in medical literature but in the secular press as well.

Cocain is one of the most insidious and dangerous habit-forming drugs at present known. Many lives have been wrecked and many crimes have been committed as a result of its use, and strenuous efforts are being made to curtail its employment. The amount present in certain soft drinks is small, to be sure, but such an insidious, habit-forming drug certainly has no place whatsoever in these products. The presence of tropococain, an ally of cocain, has also been established.

Not only is it pernicious to add cocain to soft drinks in any quantity (usually in the form of coca leaf extract), but even the use of coca leaf extract so manipulated as to reduce the amount of cocain, or eliminate it altogether, must be looked upon as a questionable practice, because any product or name which would suggest the presence of cocain or its allies, by taste or otherwise, must have a baneful influence. It is known that the very small amounts of morphine or cocain, or even the suggestion of their presence, will tend to destroy the equilibrium of reformed addicts and bring back the former craving.

The virtues of coca leaves and kola nuts have been exploited together, and it is only natural that they should be combined in preparations which would represent the purported virtues of both. Such combinations were made with the result that quite a number of so-called soft drinks now on the market contain both of the habit-forming agents, cocaine and caffeine. It was not uncommon to find persons addicted to the use of medicated soft-drinks. It is well-known fact that many factory employees, stenographers, typewriters, and others subjected to mental or nervous strain spend a large part of their earnings for drinks of this character.

In passing, it may be of interest to note that life insurance companies are considering the status of soft-drink habitués as future risks.

Various arguments have been advanced in justification of the use of caffeine and the extract of coca leaves, treated or otherwise, in soft drinks. It is a well known that parents, as a rule, withhold tea and coffee from their children, but having no knowledge of the presence of cocain, caffeine or other deleterious agents in soft drinks, they unwittingly permit their children to be harmed by their use. Manufacturers of drinks of this class, containing cocain, have been successfully prosecuted, for example, Koca Nola, Celery Cola, Wiseola, Pillsbury's Koke, Kola-Ade, Kos-Kola, Cafe-Coca, and Koke.

Absent was any demonstration, only baseless presumption, that use of products as Coca-Bola resulted in a 'cocaine habit' of any greater legitimate public health concern than a 'caffeine habit' or a 'nicotine habit'.  Indeed at the COMMlTTEE ON lNTERSTATE AND FORElGN COMMERCE hearing on the Food and Drug Act, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, April 3, 1912, L.F. Kebler testified about Tobacco products:

http://books.google.com/books?output=text&id=dgE9AAAAYAAJ&dq=food+drugs+act&jtp=1 

Dr. Kebler. Yes; and investigation has shown that tobacco and preparations of tobacco contain arsenic and lead, due to the fact that there has been used in the growing of tobacco lead arsenate, a chemical to deter or kill certain pests. As a matter of fact, some tobacco contains a goodly quantity of arsenic.... We have not been able to go into that as fully as we would like. We know that tobacco is adulterated, but how generally it is adulterated we do not know.

Mr. Hamilton. I suppose you would be able to cite certain brands that are dangerous to health, would you not?

Dr. Kebler. I suppose most of them would be dangerous to health.

Get that.  Kebler knew Tobacco products contaned lead and arsenic from their methods of commercial agriculture, yet his "Habit-Forming Agents: Their Indiscriminate Sale and Use A Menace to the Public Welfare" concern about this Tobacco, was it being displaced by Coca - of course as the U.S.D.A.'s very mission from its onset was promoting domestic agriculture.

Likewise, Wiley knew Tobacco as harmful.  Writing for an article published in 1922:

What does tobacco do to us? There is in it a poison called nicotine so deadly that one full drop of it would kill an adult. A smaller portion of it taken for the first time by a boy makes him deathly sick. That gives warning of its poisonous character, but doesn't usually wean him from the folly. It did not in my case, for I speak as an ex-smoker. I quit at the end of my first week, after.

I had got over the nausea and had begun to enjoy "a good cigar." But I had already discovered that tobacco would hobble my brain and lead others to follow my bad example. Tobacco of any kind puts a soft-pedal on efficiency of mind and body. It puts us in a state of narcosis. We are half chloroformed.  The Literary Digest of April 15, 1922, records a test of the effects of tobacco on efficiency at Stanford University. Telegraph operators of three kinds were selected for the test. None of them smoked on duty. Those who smoked much when off duty were regarded as "heavy smokers." Their percentage of efficiency was 38. Those who smoked two pipes a day or one cigar, or two or three cigarettes before and after work and at noon, were regarded as "light smokers." Their efficiency was 40.1. The women operators, non-smokers, though of the "weaker sex," excelled both the other groups with an efficiency record of 46.6. The nicotine not only dulls our nerve cells, but kills some of them. If you have brains to burn, a tobacco bonfire is a good way to get rid of the surplus. One criminal lawyer argued jocosely to me that it was better for the world that he should smoke as he could in that case do less harm in his profession. I seriously agreed that was one of the many cases where "truth had been spoken in jest." If your work for the world is a curse, the more you dull your powers and shorten your life through "Lady Nicotine," the better.
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/protect-growing-youth-against-habit.html

1916: We begin speaking out against the dangers of smoking and the effect advertising has in recruiting new smokers. "Unfortunately, there are many subtle ways of encouraging young men to smoke," writes Dr. Wiley. "Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent every year in telling the readers of periodicals of the merits of this, that, and the other brand of tobacco."

1921: Dr. Wiley links tobacco use to heart disease, noting that men smoke more and so suffer more heart disease than women. Seven years later, he warns women that use of tobacco is a cause of mouth, tongue, and throat cancer, more than 30 years before the U.S. Surgeon General officially acknowledges the connection. http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/product-testing/history/good-housekeeping-research-institute-timeline

Absent was any demonstration from Wiley/Kebler's AMA-APha of any dangers with dilute cocaine in products as Vin Mariani (the 1905 Council of Pharmacy condemnation focused upon its labeling as foreign, when in fact its foreign formulation was replicated in Mariani & Co.'s New York facility for North American sales with the identical formula and ingrediants).   Although Wiley was famous for his USDA 'Poison squad' volunteer tests of foods laced with varius additives, he apparantly never had such a demonstration even attempted for coca or cocaine.  This was even as he persued numerous prosecutions of Coca or otherwise dilute cocaine food products for "adulteration" - for containing a dangerous substance to wit cocaine.  Usually such prosecutions were coupled with those for "mislabeling" for not stating cocaine on the label; however, as his famous prosecution against Coca-Cola demonstrated, Wiley did not see himself needing a charge of "mislabeling" required for one of "adulteration" which he brought against Coca-Cola for containing the 'dangerous' substance of caffeine.

      http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/post-1906-demise-of-us-coca.html

      http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-dark-ages-usda-crusade-against-coca.html
      http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/wiley-cocaine-policy.html
      http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/harvey-washington-wiley-paradox.html
      http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/wileys-usurpation-of-power-over.html

      http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/wileys-subversion-of-our-freedom-of.html
      http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/harvey-wiley-resume-1915.html
      http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/wileys-great-american-fraud-of.html

What is a drug habit? .... The habit-forming drugs which are most extensively used are alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. If we class as drug addicts those who have acquired the habit for one or more of these drugs the number of them in the United States would be very close to half or two-thirds of the population. When we speak of drug addicts, however, we usually have in mind a more restricted sense and refer rather to those who are slaves to opium or the coca leaf and their derivatives. ... I would not favor of any restrictive legislation respecting tobacco and tea and coffee, except in so far as children are concerned. [box 201 - Harvey Wiley papers]

In the sudden light which the Pure Food law throws into certain dark corners, that widely-bruited pick-me-up for lassitudinous ladies, Vin Mariani, takes on a changed aspect. From the enthusiastic encomiums, given out for advertising purposes by sundry actresses, one might suppose that the so-called French preparation was at once the most bracing and the most harmless of concoctions. Across its label, however, the pure food law has recorded the warning fact: "Each ounce represents one-tenth of one grain of cocain." This shuts it out of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, all cities and towns in Massachusetts, and many other places. As the average American woman can read and is not a fool. I fancy that even in those localities where cocain can be sold only in patent medicine form without a prescription (as has been the case until recently in the District of Columbia, thanks to Senator and ex-Doctor Gallinger's efforts on behalf of the nostrum people), the Vin Mariani trade will rapidly decline.

Next to cocain nostrums, the most dangerous class of patent medicines is that containing narcotics, such as opium, morphin and cannabis indica. Various are the evasions and contortions resorted to by these dopes in their efforts to make the best of the new law. [*JAMA 'The Nostrum Evil']

This 1904+ campaign against 'cocaine' (to confuse the public about the vast difference between dilute and ultraconcentrated drug-dosing- try sniffing Blast caffeine instead of drinking Coffee) centered around the Harvey Wiley AMA-APhA campaign against the substances 'habit-forming' as what people choose to consume regularly and hence the greatest market threats to their alliance of synthetic pharamceuticles and Tobacco cigarettes- an alliance marked by several decades of medical journals featuring cigarettes advertisements with doctors implying the 'healthiness' of cigarettes. 

This campaign included the AMA-APhA 'model legislation' campaign in the various State legislatives to enact prohibitions upon foods containing any amount of cocaine, and to require a non refillable prescription for any such drug products. 

On the federal level this included the efforts within the U.S. Congress to 'amend' the 1906 Act, leading to what became the Harrison Act, signed into 'law' December 17, 1914. 

Internationally it included U.S. State Department participation in this agricultural racketerring via the 'Opium Convention' scheme, with the ultimate goal of getting other nations to ban low dose dilute cocaine, as well as decieving the Emperor of China.

This all came upon the heels of the USDA's experimentation in assessing the commercial potential of Coca and other drug crops as domestic U.S. agriculture, likely confirming U.S. domestic Coca's requirement of greehouses- making it costlier then say Tobacco.

It is my opinion that the Coca plant is adapted for culture in many countries where it is now unknown. Among the countries where it would be well to experiment with it are Guatemala, Mexico, the East and West Indies, India, Southern China, potions of Africa, and possibly India. It is doubtful if it would grow in any portion of the United States. Requiring an average temperature of at least 70o, the only districts at all suited would be Florida and Southern Texas [this was written before the 1898 U.S. acquisition of the Kingdom of Hawaii]; and it is highly probable that proximity to the sea-coast at so low an altitude would prove fatal. Nor would irrigation prove adequate in those countries possessing a long dry season. The plants must not only have an abundant supply of water at the roots; they must be bathed in a humid atmosphere for the greater portion of the year. But from what I have read of some of the countries above named, I am confident that the plant would there find a congenial home. Jamaica offers especially hopeful conditions. U.S. William Martindate, p 37 1892 book Coca and Cocaine: [see: Journal of a Voyage on the Amazon and Rio Negro, Hooker's Journal Of Botany, vol. 1853, p. 212; Therapeutic Gazette, January 1886, p. 14 Pharmacy Journal 1886, p.705]

January 10, 1904 issue of The Boston Sunday Globe ‘Uncle Sam’s poison Farm.’

‘Government Conducts a Novel Industry on the Potomac Flats- plants which yield the most powerful and valuable drugs known to science- will start growing opium growing, too, in Texas’.

This experiment ended at roughly the time that the U.S.D.A. adopted its stance against Coca in food and drug products, which was mere months after the U.S.A. aquired control over the construction of the Panama Canal, which would have drastically shortened the shipping routes of Coca from the Peruvian coast to North Atlantic markets, and which was completed and opened for traffic in 1914- the year of the Harrison 'Narcotics' Act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal

  

Standard histories often fail to get beyond the sensationalist newspaper claims regarding the use of 'cocaine' by Blacks.

Overlooking the Pharma-Tobacco Connection

For Coca was already being seen as a market alternative to other stimulants, such as Coffee/caffeine, and particularly to Tobacco, at least since sometime after the initial apparance of Vin Mariani.

Initially sold as an energizer for overworked, overstressed Parisian opera performers, and inspiring other such Coca leaf derived herbal products as other Coca beverages, lozenges, Vin Mariani was found to have numerious therapeutic virtues:

“I have also employed it in cases, happily rare in our army, of chronic alcoholism resulting from the abuse of brandy, absinthe or strong liquors. The produced all the excitement sought by drinkers, but had at the same time a sedative influence on their nervous systems. I have frequently seen hardened drinkers renounce their fatal habit and return to a healthy condition." "I have also used to save smokers of exaggerated habits, from nicotinism. A few glasses of taken in small doses, either pure or mixed with water, acted as a substitute for pipes and cigars, because the smokers found in it the cerebral excitement which they sought in tobacco, wholly preserving their intellectual faculties." -- Dr. Liberman and Villeneuve

And also with smoking Coca leaves.

According to an article by Dr. F.E. Stewart in the September 19, 1885 Philadelphia Medical Times, about a newer form of Coca leaf products introduced by the 1880s- Coca leaf smokables- cigars, cheroots and even cigarettes.

"Coca has been used with great success in the treatment of the opium habit, it is also an excellent substitute for Tobacco [emphasis added]. It has been successfully used in dyspepsia, flatulency, colic, gastralgia, enteralgia, hysteria, hypochondria, spinal irritation, idiopathic convulsions , nervous erethism, and in the debility following severe acute affections. As it is a valuable restorative agent, checking tissue-waste, it is also a useful remedy in consumption [?] and wasting diseases generally. It is also of value in the nervous forms of sick-headache, migraine. It is also said to be an aphrodisiac." -- Dr. F.E. Stewart appearing in the September 19, 1885 Philadelphia Medical Times

Reporting on several cases of experiences with smoking Coca, Stewart found that most found them useful, with a high percentage finding Coca cigars as useful for stemming depression -- the "blues" -- and as a mild stimulant. Citing one example of a leading Wilmington, Delaware physician:

"After dinner, he smoked a couple of the cigars, with the effect that the blues were expelled and he felt the exhilarating effect of the drug in the same manner as after a dose of the wine. It is his opinion that the effect of the cigars is milder than that of the wine, but he is satisfied that he experienced the peculiar power of the coca by smoking it."

 Citing others, a man suffering dyspepsia -- a digestive disorder -- and its attendant depression:

"smoked the cigars...the result being to dispel the depressed feeling and remove the fullness experienced after each meal. Repeated experiments confirm this. As coca is said to stimulate the gastric nerves and greatly facilitate digestion, the above experiment seems to prove that the cigar has a similar effect."

These experiments included Dr. Stewart's own use. Writing upon his personal discovery of Coca leaf smoking as a treatment for hay fever:

Personally, I have found the effect of smoking coca leaves to bear out the statement that the drug produces a general excitation of the circulatory and nervous systems. Smoking and inhaling the smoke of one or two cigars will increase my own pulse rate some eight or ten beats to the minute.

It certainly relieves the scene of fatigue. Smoked at night, in my own case and in the cases of several of my patients, it produces wakefulness similar to strong coffee. The exaltation produced by it does not seem to be followed by any feeling of languor or depression. I find it a relief after a full meal, like a good tobacco cigar. It seems to impart increased vigor to the muscular system as well to the intellect, with an indescribable feeling of satisfaction. I have never experienced any intoxicating effects from smoking it.

Dr. Bartholow says that coca, as in the case with tea and coffee, acts as an indirect nutrient by checking waste, and hence a less amount of food is necessary to maintain the bodily functions; and as I have just learned, in a letter from Messrs. Parke, Davis and Company, that "a Mr. Stevens, a citizen of Abilene, Kansas, who was afflicted with hay fever, and was about to go to the mountains, has concluded to remain at home, having obtained relief from the use of cigarettes of coca. Every morning he uses a cigarette and perfect relief. He uses three per day.

And with Coca chewing gum, such as Coca-Bola.

After many trials I succeeded in having the coca put up as a masticatory in the form of plugs like tobacco. These were made at my suggestion by C.L. Mitchell, M.D. & Co., Pharmaceutical Chemists, of Ninth and Race Streets, Philadelphia. I have given this preparation the name of “Coca-Bola” from coca and bolus, a mass. Each plug is about the size of an ordinary plug of chewing tobacco, and contains about 200 grains (nearly half its weight) of coca leaves, besides a small quantity each of tea, coffee and coinchona bark. Each plug is marked off for convenience into squares, each square containing about 16 grains of coca leaves; this quantity is about sufficient for a single dose or chew and even a smaller portion my suffice. It is to be thoroughly masticated in the same manner when chewing tobacco, the saliva being swallowed, not ejected as in tobacco chewing. After the mass has been masticated for some time and the virtues of the coca leaf pretty well extracted, the residue is to be ejected. A chew of the “Coca-bola” take in this manner occasionally throughout the day will generally completely satisfy the craving for stimulants, and at the same time remove any feeling of depression or fatigue. The addition of the tea and coffee seem to assist considerably the sustaining and stimulating effect of the coca leaves without producing any injurious after effects.

The advantages of this method of administering were found to be many and removed completely all the difficulties previously referred to. It contained no alcohol, did not require the use of the objectionable bottle and spoon, was exceeding convenient, and as it so closely resembled tobacco, its continued use excited no remark. Besides it could be easily carried in the vest pocket and was always at hand when needed.

By the use of the “Coca-bola,” in the treatment of the class of cases previously referred to , we substitute for the objectionable habit of drinking liquor the harmless use of coca. So free is it from all injurious effects that I can say that in my opinion no greater boon could be conferred on humanity that in the conversion of all alcohol drinkers into coca chewers. At my request, Dr. Mitchell has now prepared the “Coca-bola” for sale and will shortly place it on the market, when I would ask its careful trial by such of my professional brethren as are interested in the treatment of this class of cases.

Coca-Bola will also be found to be a very valuable substitute for tobacco, especially in the treatment of those who are suffering from the pernicious effects of its excessive use in the habit of chewing. It is a well known fact in the treatment of the cases that the greatest obstacle, and the one which meets the physician at the very outset, is the difficulty experienced in providing a suitable substitute for the offending “quid.” The chewing of tobacco, soon leads almost unconsciously to the formation of a habit of chewing, and when the mouth becomes accustomed to the frequent regularity of the movements of mastication, and the continued presence of a foreign body, the action becomes in a certain sense an involuntary one, and any interruption or break in its regular performance adds a disturbing element which greatly enhances the depression naturally resulting from the withdrawal of the physiological stimulus of the tobacco. A habit soon becomes a second nature, and a habitual chewer of tobacco derives as much satisfaction, and from the “company” of the “chew”, to which he had accustomed himself, as he does from the drug itself.

The use of tobacco in chewing or smoking, as well as the frequent drinking of liquor, produces a catarrhal condition of the mouth which also adds to the desire for the presence of the quid. The oral mucosa are in a state of sub-acute congestion, and while the first result of the habit is to stimulate their secretions, this is soon followed by catarrhal changes, whereby the saliva and other juices become greatly diminished in quantity. An uncomfortable feeling of dryness and heat in the mouth soon results, only alleviated by the employment of the alcohol, or the tobacco. To relieve this condition of affairs in many different "tobacco substitutes" have been recommended, but with very little success. They are generally compounds containing large quantities of licorice-root, and while they partly satisfy the taste, they do not supply any stimulus or sustaining agent to take the place of the refreshing and almost nourishing tobacco, neither do they allay the congestion of the mouth.

Coca leaves should, theoretically, be an excellent substitute for tobacco.

They have an agreeable, bitter aromatic taste when chewed in the mouth; they greatly diminish the blood supply in the superficial capillaries of the mucous membrane, and should thus relieve the congestion of the oral mucosa; and the general tonic, stimulating and sustaining powers of the drug should render it a suitable and innocent substitute to take the place of tobacco. Moreover, it leaves behind it no injurious after effects, and its use can be at any time suspended after the patient has lost his desire for the former drug. When, therefore, the coca leaves can be presented in the form of a masticatory, and satisfy both the physiological requirements of the case and the "habit" of the chewer, it would seem as if every condition for a perfect substitute for chewing tobacco had been fulfilled. – C.L. Mitchell, M.D. in "Clinical Notes".http://books.google.com/books?id=vzj0SGBjK_4C&pg=PA36-IA4&lpg=PA36-IA4&dq=coca+substitution+for+tobacco&source=bl&ots=TV6P-OVKGV&sig=phe_-y4Ai7oex5X14nmFWgFOWPE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D1APUJ2KJIa36wGR2oDwBw&ved=0CFMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=coca%20substitution%20for%20tobacco&f=false

     http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/coca-to-combat-opiate-alcohol-and.html
     http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html
     http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/criminal-mercantilism-public-health.html

Meanwhile attempts were made to hide Tobacco addiction with claims that Tobacco cigarettes were being laced with Opium in order to make them more habituating, as if the more physically addictive substance, Tobacco needed such.  Or if this was even ethical, given what was already known on the very floor of the U.S. Congress as it debated the 1914 Harrison 'Narcotics' Act.

 

      ... there are tens of thousands of people in the United States who die every year from the excessive use of cigarettes;    and yet I find Senators still pulling away at the cigarette as though t were a perfectly harmless thing. I believe the Senator will agree with me that there are many thousands of people who die from what is called tobacco cancer, a cancerous growth affecting the throat from overuse of cigars; and we find perhaps 60 percent of the Senators pulling away at the cigar as unconcerned as though no one were dying as a result of these cigars...
U.S. Congress, Senator Porter James McCumber (R) North Dakota, August 15, 1914

With Tobacco so protected by the 1906 Food and Drug, and the 1914 Harrison Acts, cigarette manufacturers were not only free of the market competition of herbal Opium and Coca leaf products, they were additionally free to be exempt from the basic requiring of labeling of the ingrediants of their cigarettes, required for anything else except alcoholic beverages.

Powder cocaine and heroin could become the new scapegoat used to 'justify' this repression, forgetting the numerous benifits and safety of Opium and Coca as plant drugs compared to the refined ultraconcentrates favored by prohibition, along with with the officially protected cigarettes.

In each major category of intoxicant used by our species, there appear to be one or two drug plants that researchers have noted, are more controllable, hence safer, than all the other plants or synthetics in that category. Coca leaf stands out among all the stimulants, licit and illicit, as the easiest to control and the one least likely to produce toxicity or dependency.  http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/coca-leaf-stands-out-among-all.html

And this is what the USDA was able to ban, for the sake of protecting the most dangerous option of Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco, particularly as cigarettes, more physically addictive then heroin, and way more intrinsically harmful -- imagine taking nicotine as heroin is customerily under prohibition -- taking nearly half a million lives annually within just the U.S.A.

Protecting Cigarette Ingrediant Secrecy

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-preceeding-post-was-previously.html

 

Adulterated, Mis-Branded Cigarettes
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/04/adulterated-tobacco-cigarettes.html
 

Criminal Virginia Bright Leaf Addiction Racketteering

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/04/criminal-virginia-bright-leaf.html

And that, along with alcoholic beverages are the only two class of consumables exempt from retail product labeling requirements- you can't even find labling informing if your beverage is sweetened with regular sugar or HFCS.

Yet we have this empire of a 'drug war' to deny us Opium and Coca, perverting them into concentrated heroin and cocaine, for the sake of protecting all of that space behind cash register counters everywhere for cigarettes.

That's some drug war.

Missing the Opportunity
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/08/missing-opportunity.html

Drug Policy Reform Subverted by Cigarette Industry Influence?
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2010/07/peter-lewis-ira-glasser-is-waste-of.html
 

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Drug War Cigarette Mercantilism

http://southmallblogger.blogspot.com/2012/08/drug-war-cigarette-mercantilism.html

 

 

 

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Missing the Opportunity

O'Reilly makes a valuable mis-step/half-truth, which Nadelmann neglects to answer

"cocaine and meth incapacitate" (3:23)

Nadelmann could have at least mentioned the interply of pharmakokenetics and prohibition's iron law regarding Opiates and Cocaine in shifting markets to infinitely more concentrated forms of drugs and more problematic modes of drug taking.   For instance cocaine is a stimulant alkaloid found in small amounts in Coca leaves, as are caffeine and nicotine respectively in Coffee/other beverages and Tobacco.  But how much of the later two are consumed in white powder form, essentially unmeasured, of unstandardized potency, and in modes of taking that invite overdosing leading to the very incapacitation O'Reilly cites.   Do a tiny line of cocaine hci or chrystal meth and perhaps one is still within a range of enhancement -- aka a milder effect not interfering with life but rather the role of a gentle uplift.  But do a slightly larger amount, and they do interfere, like with cocaine crossing the threashold to where one does not want to hear music, and prefer to be alone or silent.   And they are easy to over-do in these concentrated forms.   So why Mr. Reilly do you insist upon a scheme that makes Opiates and cocaine only available in their dangerous forms, and which only really bans the safe forms?  

Imagine replacing Coffee with white powder caffeine.   Imagine replacing Coffee drinking with caffeine powder sniffing - or smoking or shooting.   Look at the caffeine overdose stories of those that have killd themselves with recklessly large doses of white powder caffeine, akin to BLAST.

http://www.possessedbycaffeine.com/2011/07/blast-caffeine-powder.html

 

Why is it ok to make cocaine powder and crack highly proftable and inefficent uses of police resources, while really banning only the safe and effective products such as VIN MARIANI?

Why is it ok to ban Coca/VIN MARIANI?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/12/us-drugs-un-bolivia-idUSBRE82B0QH20120312

 

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/19/us-bolivia-coca-idUSTRE70I0G920110119

 

Yet it is ok to permit the mass sales of cigarettes and other Tobacco products.  Nevermind that they are more physically addictive than heroin, and are most chronically deleterious, taking nearly half a million lives every year in the U.S., and over 6 million annually word-wide.

Especially so.  Why are these Tobacco products and alcohol the two classes of substances EXEMPTED from ingrediant retail labeling?   The initial 1906 U.S. Food and Drugs Act was predicated upon labeling some drugs, such as opiates and cocaine - but not others such as caffeine and nicotine.  Indeed it exempted Tobacco from its regulatory jurisdiction, by limiting such to substances listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia which de-listed Tobacco in 1905, nevermind that this regulatory authority was vested with the U.S. Department of AGRICULTURE.   Wow!  the USDA gets to ban anything it declares as deleterious to health, yet could not regulate Tobacco- and apparantly was never challenged in a suit over this denial of equal protection under the law.  

Coca is the safest stimulant.

Tobacco is the most dangerous.

Why the hell is Coca illegal and Tobacco legal?  

Who decided that we had to ban Coca so that people could not go to the trouble of chemically processing it into concentrated cocaine, so that they no long had the option of Coca products, but only concentrated cocaine and Tobacco products?

What was the social costs of the 20th century ban on Coca and this protection of Tobacco and cigarettes?  Given their overlapping uses, the fact that the U.S.D.A. was exploring the feasibility of growing Coca in the U.S., that the U.S. had taken control of the Panama Canal project in 1903 to be completed in 1914 that would have significently shortened Coca supply lines from Peru to North Atlantic markets, and the U.S.D.A.'s stated concern specifically over the use of coca as a 'Tobacco Habit Cure', the drug war was anything other than about protecting the public's health.

That's a crime that's got to end.

Sadly, drug policy reform organizations as the Drug Policy Foundation now Drug Policy Alliance act fearful of addressing this point.

They act in defference to protecting existing markets, as part of Ira Glasser's 300 Year time frame to go as slow as possible, such as down-selling "harm reduction" as clean needles and safer crack pipes, bit don't talk about the parent plant drugs of Opium and Coca- nevermind their listing in the 1914 U.S. Harrison Narcotics Tax Act.  It is as if they were being yoked, perhaps in part by being feed some exceptionally questionable advice.

Drug War Cigarette Mercantilism
http://southmallblogger.blogspot.com/2012/08/drug-war-cigarette-mercantilism.html

 

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Open Letter to David Boaz- CATO

Licit & Illicit Drugs, by Edward M. Brecher and Consumers Reports at page 230 showing upturns in cigarette use following the times of the 1906, 1914 and 1937 U.S. 'drug control laws'

David-

Is CATO willing to demonstrate its independence by addressing certain issues, such as the Tobacco Mercantilistic nature of the drug war?

Drug War - Tobacco - Pharma Mercantilism
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/03/drug-war-tobacco-pharma-agricultural.html

1906 Tobacco - Pharma Mercantilism Act
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/harvey-wileys-1906-us-food-drugs-act.html

Pre-1906 Coca Products as Vin Mariani
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-history-of-coca.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/it-was-criminal-mercantilism-to-protect.html

Drug War Criminal Mercantilism Public Health Subversion
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/criminal-mercantilism-public-health.html

Drug War Infinitely Worse Than Acknowledged
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/01/drug-statutes-infinitely-worse-than.html

USDA Feared Coca as a Tobacco Habit Cure
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html

Tobacco-Alcohol Sweat-heart Exemption From Labeling the Ingredients
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/04/criminal-virginia-bright-leaf.html

Does CATO support the sweat-heart exemption of Tobacco products and alcoholic beverages from retail product labeling laws?

Shall CATO continue to effectively sanctify the drug war by continually neglecting the issue of anti Coca, pro Tobacco Mercantilism, as does the Drug Policy Alliance?

Let's not forget that opposition to the drug war should NOT be limited to Marijuana, and must include the drug that was used as the hysteria-excuse during the 1980s -- cocaine -- which the drug warriors made into a drug problem (imagine snorting or smoking NoDoz instead of drinking Coffee or Tea), and which the failure to address by groups as CATO and the Drug Policy Foundation/Drug Policy Alliance, conveys the false message that cocaine must remain illegal.

Sincerely

Douglas Willinger
Freedom of Medicine and Diet

DPF COCA '95 Panel October 1995, moderated by Douglas Willinger
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/11/14-years-ago-coca-95.html

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Radley Balko on CATO & REASON

Via Facebook:

Radley Balko You're onto them, Douglas. Obviously, the most pressing issue with current drug war is who is responsible for for its inception at the beginning of the 20th century. And Reason and Cato have ignored this because are firmly ensconced in the pockets of the 1906 tobacco companies. And they would've gotten away with it if it weren't for your detective skills!

Thursday at 8:15pm · · 14

Alas they are STILL getting away with it- at least as I am the ONLY person writing about it...

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Obama Racketeering For Big Pharm

Dana Beal 2009 Protest at AG Holder's Covington & Burling at 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW- from ANTIGONE

U.S. President Obama, and his U.S. 'Justice' Department headed by AG Eric Holder continuing to work against herbal Cannabis to protect potential markets in the Pharmaceutical alternative of Sativex.

They are bringing prosecutorial pressure upon businesses in States that have legalized some medicinal uses of Cannabis.

As Dr. Lester Grinspoon noted, maintaining the ban on herbal Cannabis (Marijuana) is critical for protecting markets in Sativex.

From Drug War Rant:

Some coverage of the recent federal crackdown

Federal crackdown on medical pot sales reflects a shift in policy (LA Times)

“They’re wasting money they don’t have,” [Sen. Mark] Leno said. “This is not the issue of the day. This doesn’t create jobs. This does not keep the security of the nation intact. It doesn’t clean the environment.”

U.S. targets pot suppliers who profit in state (SFGate)

Prosecutors target California’s marijuana trade

Kevin Sabet, former senior adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said that marijuana legalization advocates had “misread the tea leaves” when they predicted that Obama would be friendly to their policies.

US: California pot crackdown targets large dispensaries (MSNBC)

As for using marijuana as medicine, Sabet said the proper path should be one where components of marijuana are studied and possibly approved by the Food & Drug Administration for use in pharmaceuticals.

Judge rules for pot dispensaries as feds threaten major crackdown

“This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The administration is simply making good on multiple threats issued since President Obama took office,” said Kevin Sabet, a former adviser to the president’s drug czar.

What about the possible elephant in the living room that may be found with an inquiry within the powerhouse Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, D.C. law firm where Holder served as a pharmaceutical industry legal representative, Covington & Burling?


Holder - Breuer Law Firm Long Involved With Drug Policy
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/01/holder-breuer.html

Covington & Burling's Continuing Involvement With Drug Policy Organizations
Longtime Tobacco-Pharmaceutical Legal Powerhouse
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/09/covington-burlings-continuing.html

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DPA Raising Suspicions with its Continuing Neglect of Harm Reduction - Coca

The DPA continues to neglect the coca issue along with that of the plants perverted into white power poisons of abuse- focusing upon Medical Marijuana and limited sanitary measures for the existing concentrated drug forms, thus pretending that MJ is the only illicit substance with therapeutic benefit, while maintaining the fear of the other drugs. Thereby, it serves to slow drug policy reform to a speed of progress best described as glacial.

Having attended the conferences of the DPA and it predecessor organization the Drug Policy Foundation since 1989, I noted that the DPF was more comprehensive until about 1993- for instance downplaying the very issue that inspired their creation -- the hysteria over cocaine --- eliminating the cocaine panel and folding that issue into a virtual woman's panel on Latin America.

Now this year - 2011 - Bolivia has DENOUNCED the 1961 U.N. "Narcotics" Treaty, yet the DPA still refuses to invite Evo Morales to its conference, let alone hold a Coca panel- lest it educate people that Coca has many benefits that remain widely unknown because of the drug war.

So what could be the reason, indeed the hidden hand, upon and strangling drug policy reform?

The funders? George Soros may be involved with certain investments that would suffer under a comprehensive legalization program- e.g. allowing the return of the plant drugs no only mainly known of their concentrated drug forms. IOW Opium and Coca leaf extract products rather then simply the white powders of concern, as heroin and cocaine HCI. However, the problem with the DPF came before Soros became its funder. Likewise, the previous major funder Richard Dennis was involved with commodities trading- yet the DPF was way better run under his time, than his successors (post 1992).

The founders? Co founder Arnold S. Trebach was a notorious apologist for the drug war as supposedly simply well-intended:

Despite its bad reputation, however, I am, on balance, prepared to ascribe “a good motive”, in Senator Lane’s words, to the HNA itself. Although I have long considered it a repressive piece of legislation, a fresh reading of the historical record now leads me to believe that it was, on the whole, a rather intelligent, rational and progressive one.
The Heroin Solution, Arnold Trebach, at p 122

Yet the DPF was still a better organization during its early years (1987-1992), with my observations of Trebach, along with DPF now DPA figures of Ira Glasser and Ethan Nadelman, being yanked from higher up in the political pyramid.

Rather the problem was already there- something working upon behalf of slowing the pace of drug policy reform in order to go the easiest upon the existing markets threatened by re-legalization and re-popularization of the plant drugs.

Coca after all had been advocated (and feared by the USDA and its politically allied AMA-APhA) as a "Tobacco Habit Cure".

So then, what about this? (- towards the end of the very introductory DPF letter of Trebach and Zeese dated March 1990):

The Foundation is not a legalization organization, even though many in the Foundation support outright legalization. The Foundation is concerned with a variety of issues, including education the public about the effects of drug use, preventing the spread of AIDS among drug users, allowing the medical use of currently prohibited drugs, allowing doctors to prescribe drugs as they and their patients see necessary, expanding the availability of drug treatment, creating more effective and less corrupt police forces, preventing the erosion of civil liberties, ensuring the proper use of drug tests in society, and developing social, instead of criminal, controls to prevent drug abuse.

The Foundation is an education, research and legal center. It publishes books, articles and newsletter; rewards people for outstanding achievement in the field of drug policy; responds to media and scholarly information requests; presents regular forums and annual international conference; and represents in court those wronged by the drug war.

The Foundation is a charitable corporation under the laws of the District of Columbia and section 501 ©(3) of the U.S Internal Revenue Code. Thus, all contributions to the Foundation are tax-deductable. To maintain its independence, the Drug Policy Foundation neither seeks nor will it accept government funding. The Drug Policy Foundation extends thanks to these persons and organizations who provided vital support during 1988-89. Special thanks go to our three largest contributors: the Chicago Resource Center and its president, Richard Dennis, and executive director, Mary Ann Snyder; the Linnel Foundation in Boston, Mass., and the late Robert Linnell; and Anne “Petey” Cerf of Lawrence, Kan. Their support was and continues to be invaluable to the work of the Foundation.

While the Drug Policy Foundation has outstanding counsel in Kevin Zeese, the leading Washington law firm Covington and Burling accepted the Foundation as a pro bono publico [for the public good] client in regard to corporate and tax matters in 1988. We have received valuable advice from Marialuisa Gallozzi, the Covington and Burling associate assigned to take primary responsibility for advising the Foundation. Having Covington and Burling in our corner is a source of great comfort.”

Covington & Burling just happens to be perhaps the largest law firm legal representative of food, drug and pharmaceutical industries, and is the firm that has not only represented but rather COORDINATED the legal representation of the cigarette industry.

For nearly the same amount of time, Covington & Burling has had its pro bono program

If you are aware of the history of the drug war as agricultural mercantilism to protect Tobacco from Coca, and aware of the Coca issue's neglect, the plausible potential conflict of interest is quite evident.

Holder-Breuer Law Firm Long Involved with Drug Policy
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/01/holder-breuer.html

DPF-Washington, D.C. Pro Bono Legal Connection
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-policy-foundation-legal-connection.html

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

DPA Refuses Agricultural Panel
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/09/ignore-harm-reduction-of-highlighting.html

So far, additional information about this valuable and other such advice given to the Drug Policy Foundation, this Covington & Burling relationship with the various drug policy reform organizations, nor any other such pro bono program relationships regarding organizations promoting drug policy reform, has not been forthcoming.

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Ignore Harm Reduction of Highlighting Agricultural Mercantilism- Drug Policy Alliance

of the enormous continuing mega boondoggle of Tobacco Mercantilism Against Coca

We're not going to move forward with your proposal below on agricultural policy because I believe it's still not a clear connection for many of our attendees, and doesn't touch on their main work areas. As for the topic of coca, we won't be having an entire panel, but if you come to the conference I think you'll find that it's addressed on a couple of them, primarily panels with a South / Latin America focus.

Drug Policy Alliance- August 15, 2011

Coca is the stimulant described as the safest natural stimulant plant, whereas Tobacco the most dangerous- taking some 100 million plus lives during the first century of mass manufactured Virginia Bright Leaf cigarettes.

Coca was what the U.S. government via its United States Department of Agriculture targeted for its sale and use as a "Tobacco habit cure" and its growing popularity particularly through the southeastern U.S. where Tobacco predominates politically and agriculturally.

Coca was what the British medical journalist Anita Bennett informed the 1993 'Latin America' where she met myself and Ira Glasser who then expressed an avid interest in her notation of the utility of coca tea to women for easing childbirth (relaxing the muscles of the vagina) and hence reducing the tragic instances of brain damaged newborns.

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/it-was-criminal-mercantilism-to-protect.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html

The DPF to its credit approved the COCA ’95 panel proposal that I moderated with speakers Roger Rumrill, Anthony Richard Henman, Dr. Jorge Hurtado (by video) and UCLA’s Dr. Ronald K. Siegel, which was that breakout panel session’s 2nd best attended (including Ethan Nadelman and Jacob Sullum), bested only by a California topic specific panel at a conference held that year in Santa Monica, California. It also deserves credit for publishing Anthony Richard Henman’s paper in its 1989 conference compendium, as well as my papers "The Ever-changing Ever confused Popular Conception of Cocaine"; "Cocaine Prohibition Water or Gasoline [for treating the flames of drug abuse]"; and "Cocaine Conversion- Onwards to Coca!" respectively in 1990, 1991 and 1992 (though strangely in contrast to the 1989 Henman article, don’t appear within the DPA online library). Likewise, I appreciate being placed upon the DPF cocaine panels in 1991 and 1992, plus Ethan Nadelman’s decision placing me upon the Foreign Trade panel that latter year.

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/11/17-years-ago-just-say-whoa.html

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirOL9PgXPAEu4y-7zok9xwvpxdqbhp0HXlrhtp0M7_BYPViuvi6MtfCbEJynGsqilNYqp2QLHYVrJe-Qt_XCs64OVnABP6YfQuas_vZugJkWrRv9eRRkKlLmM89rT_IEXRyYZFcmxvwbc/s1600-h/City+Paper+JSW+December+18+1992+p26_1280.GIF

Yet ever since the DPF/DPA has seriously stalled out on the Coca issue.

It stopped holding a cocaine panel at each year’s conference (even as continuing otherwise regarding MJ). It has relegated coca to a sub-topic within a generally female ‘Latin America’ panel.

It denied every paper proposal that I have made to them after 1992, and have published or presented precious little regarding coca- a rare exception being an excellent 1st place awarded paper in the DPF’s brief (1996-2000) ‘Student Paper Competition’ – appearing as a presentation hand-written into the schedule at the conference itself and thus not appearing in the printed conference materials.

It denied my 1994 panel proposal- ‘Coca- Turning Over a New Leaf Towards Reducing Health Care Costs’, that had the support of Harvard’s Dr. Lester Grinspoon, who phoned DPF President Arnold S. Trebach, only to be rebuffed.

It denied all of my other proposed panels regarding Coca as well as the broader issue of the drug war’s perversion of drug forms and modes of use, such as that in 1997- ‘Tinctures of Opium, Wines of Coca, etc: Popular, Pre-Prohibition Uses of Natural Plants Perverted by Drug Prohibition into today's "Hard" Drug Plague’.

Should not that alone have qualified Coca as ‘HARM REDUCTION’?

It’s undeniably bad to ban whole Coca- ensuring that cocaine is only available in highly concentrated forms.

It’s undeniably worse to ban Coca- ensuring that the far larger markets in general for stimulants is denied Coca, while the stimulant that is the one that those pushing the early 1900s Coca ban were evidently most concerned with protecting- the one that’s the most politically established in the U.S., and the one most dangerous: Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco.



Yet drug policy reform organizations utterly neglect this broader issue of this Panama Canal construction era Agricultural Mercantilism (the U.S. took over the Canal Project in 1903 and completed and opened it in the year of the Harrison ‘Narcotic’ Act banning ‘Coca, cocaine, etc”- 1914- with the USDA exploring the domestic feasibility of Coca, Opium and other drug crops agricultural potential): the shameful history of the USDA-AMA-APhA Tobacco-Pharma alliance embodied by such figures involved with this trio of special interests described as a ‘knight showing great prowess’ Harvey Washington Wiley, and the subsequent decades many cigarette advertisements in medical journals. Though the DPF/DPA accepted by 1999 ‘History Panel’ proposal, I, along with the Coca-cocaine issue and the early politicking of the AMA-APhA and USDA would be excluded, including at the subsequent such panel in 2003.

Harvey Wiley Resume
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/harvey-wiley-resume-1915.html

Given their relative safety this has been an absolute disaster for health care costs:

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/coca-leaf-stands-out-among-all.html

In each major category of intoxicant used by our species, there appear to be one or two drug plants that researchers have noted, are more controllable, hence safer, than all the other plants or synthetics in that category. Coca leaf stands out among all the stimulants, licit and illicit, as the easiest to control and the one least likely to produce toxicity or dependency.

And they would know that in 1914:

... there are tens of thousands of people in the United States who die every year from the excessive use of cigarettes; and yet I find Senators still pulling away at the cigarette as though t were a perfectly harmless thing. I believe the Senator will agree with me that there are many thousands of people who die from what is called tobacco cancer, a cancerous growth affecting the throat from overuse of cigars; and we find perhaps 60 percent of the Senators pulling away at the cigar as unconcerned as though no one were dying as a result of these cigars...

U.S. Congress, Senator Porter James McCumber (R) North Dakota, August 15, 1914

Nonetheless our governments have proven their loyalty to this apostasy from common sense with the descent into and continuation of this criminal mercantilism primarily for the sake of Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco that came in the early 1900s.

The United National World Health Organization reports that Tobacco cigarettes have cost some 100 million premature deaths during the 1900s.

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/08/tobaccos-relative-toll.html

How would finally beginning to highlight this suppression of coca/protection of Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco not qualify as HARM REDUCTION?


Illustration: 1900s sales chart of cigarette production spikes at the times of the 1906, 1914 and 1937 drug control statutes.

By banning Coca, and protecting Tobacco- conveniently ‘grandfathered’ by the 1906’s Act’s exclusion of its USDA based jurisdiction [!] over substances not included in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia – allowing its mass sale in a fashion that would otherwise be considered adulterated and misbranded for the unlabeled additives, and reckless for such as burn accelerants to boost sales while increasing house fires, the authorities have not merely created the black market perversion of Coca into concentrated cocaine, rather they have additionally suppressed and denied a highly useful stimulant, for the sake of allowing the rapid spread of the most dangerous and physically addictive stimulant that’s politically established in the U.S. This has undeniably tremendous costs economically in lost productivity, lives and enormously increased medical costs.

The DPA must not pretend that such does not qualify as “HARM REDUCTION”.

Holding this panel proposal “Agricultural Mercantilism” would be excellent as a start.

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/08/agrilcultural-politics-of-drug-policy_27.html

Panel Proposal for 2009 Drug Policy Alliance International Conference

Harvey Wiley

Agricultural policies gave forth the existing drug control regimen; this dates back to its milestone of the 1906 U.S. Pure Foods and Drugs Act granting the Bureau of Chemistry of the United States Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) the power to ban a substance from interstate commerce via declaring an ingredient as deleterious to health, and of limiting its jurisdiction to substances within the U.S. Pharmacopoeia from which Tobacco was conveniently dropped 1 year earlier in 1905.

Since the U.S.D.A. was established to promote agricultural commodities, its empowerment would have severely unappreciated detriments regarding the market protection of the most intrinsically toxic yet domestic agricultural commodity of Tobacco from the foreign 'menace' of least toxic Coca.

With the public health thus beneath mercantilism, the consequences have been thus severe for numerous people, entities and interests.

Potential Speakers:

Sharon Y. Eubanks , former prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice, and the lead prosecutor for a R.I.C.O. act suit against the major cigarette companies by the U.S. department of justice, who in 2005 resigned in response to the Bush administration’s commands to reduce the proposed settlement by 90%. She gave interviews to CBS about this.

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/06/bush-administration-accused-of-rigging.html

Marialuisa S. Gallozzi is a food, drug and insurance company attorney. Since 1987 she has been with the Washington, D.C. law firm Covington and Burling, long established with food and drug law. In 1988, she was assigned “primary responsibility for advising the [Drug Policy] foundation” according to a letter dated March 1990 appearing in the 1988-1990 Biennial Report of the Drug Policy Foundation (a reform organization) by its Presidents Dr. Arnold S. Trebach and Kevin Zeese, crediting her with giving them valuable advice.

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

Her activities include that upon GMO plant made pharmaceuticals, as a panelist of “Perils and Pitfalls of Plant Based Pharmaceuticals” with her paper “The U.S. Food Industry’s View of Plant Based Pharmaceuticals”, viewable here.

Her published papers include "Inactive Ingredients in Over-the-Counter Drug Products," Regulatory Affairs FOCUS magazine (August 2002).

She is prominent within insurance law, so described as:

Rising star Marialuisa Gallozzi enters the tables in recognition of her vast experience in asbestos, silica, pharmaceutical and other coverage claims, in addition to insurer insolvencies. Described as “an expert on London insolvency matters and schemes of arrangement,” she works with US, Bermuda and London market insurers and captive insurers. Peers consider her “an intellectually strong negotiator and adviser with excellent judgment.”

---

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

It was initially founded in 1919 by Judge James Harry Covington, a former U.S. Representative from the 4th District of Maryland (1909-1913) who was in office shortly after the enactment of the 1906 Food and Drugs Act, through the time leading to the 1914 Harrison Act, and who was appointed as a Judge by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. It became Covington and Burling with the addition of Chicago lawyer Edward Burling, who was married to Louise Peasley, a daughter of railroad tycoon James C. Peasley of the Burlington Railroad also president of the National State Bank (of whom another daughter Mathilda was married to Frederic A. Delano- uncle of later U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was on the original Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in 1914), who moved to Washington, D.C. to become chief counsel of the Shipping Board during World War I, following U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's government’s nationalization of the railroads and seizing control of the shipping industry. (The early 1900s brought a sharp increase in federal law-making, not limited to the 1906 Food and Drug Act and the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Tax Act.)

The founders of Covington & Burling 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. Our lawyers are supported by nearly 100 paralegals and by information management specialists in the library, and in the litigation and practice support, and technology departments.

http://www.covingtonandburling.com/offices/washington/description.html

This firm’s oldest practices is its presence in food and drug law, with its web-site in 2005 listing 18 attorneys at its Washington, D.C. headquarters – 9 partners including two former Chief Counsels to the Food and Drug Administration (including Marialuisa Gallozzi, ”assigned to take primary responsibility for advising the [Drug Policy] Foundation”), and 9 associates – who devote all or a major portion of their time to this practice, plus 6 additional lawyers at its offices in London and Brussels. According to the firm’s site at

http://www.cov.com/practices/oid52689/description.html

Covington & Burling has a large and comprehensive food and drug law practice. The Firm’s food and drug practice began at the Firm’s founding in 1919 with representation of the National Canners Association (now the National Food Processors Association and still a client). From that time, the Firm’s practice has steadily expanded to include all types of food and drug work and work relating to scientific and technology research. Past and present clients for which the Firm serves as general counsel or principal outside counsel include the Animal Health Institute, American Institute of Biological Sciences, American Bakers Association, American Forest & Paper Association, Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology, Corn Refiners Association, Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association, Epilepsy Foundation of America, Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils, International Dairy Foods Association, National Food Laboratories, National Pharmaceutical Council, Consumer Healthcare Products Association and Toxicology Forum.

This work includes political organization on behalf of its clientèle industries. According to the firm’s site at

http://www.cov.com/practices/oid6266/description.html

The Firm was actively involved on behalf of major clients in connection with each important statutory revision in the federal food and drug laws, including the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and its major amendments, including —

the Pesticide Amendments of 1954,
the Food Additives Amendment of 1958,
the Color Additive Amendments of 1960,
the Drug Amendments of 1962,
the Animal Drug Amendments of 1968,
the Medical Device Amendments of 1976,
the Orphan Drug Act,
the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984,
the Generic Animal Drug and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1988,
the Prescription Drug Marketing Act of 1988,
the Safe Medical Devices Act of 1990,
the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990,
the Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992,
the Animal Medicinal Drug Use Clarification Act of 1994,
the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994,
the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996,
the FDA Export Reform and Enhancement Act of 1996,
the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, and
the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997.

Our lawyers have advised or represented clients in a wide range of legislative matters at both the federal and state levels. We have prepared draft legislation and analyzed legislative proposals, including interaction with Congressional members and staff. We have prepared Congressional testimony and advised clients in connection with committee and subcommittee hearings. Our lawyers have advised clients on compliance with new statutory enactments, and represented trade association clients in rulemaking proceedings to implement new statutes. As the 104th Congress undertook to address the issues of general regulatory reform and more specifically FDA reform, firm lawyers played a major role in conjunction with food, drug and cosmetic industry trade associations and other clients in analyzing and drafting legislative reform proposals, and in preparing testimony for presentation at committee hearings.

http://www.cov.com/practices/oid6266/description.html

Covington & Burling’s clientele amongst pharmaceutical and agriculture related firms includes:

GlaxoSmithKline, Monsanto, Merck, Warner-Lambert (Pfizer), Eli Lilly, The Balli Group

Covington for decades has been a preeminent antitrust advisor, regularly providing U.S. and EU antitrust advice to Rx and OTC pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology firms around the world in connection with mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, litigation, R&D collaborations, licensing transactions and other strategic transactions. We have been home to four former heads of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and two Chairmen of the ABA Antitrust Law Section - a unique distinction among law firms actively practicing in the antitrust area.

Unmentioned in the firm’s web site is its long established activities as one of, if not unquestionably in every way the world’s largest, legal representative of such agricultural-commodity related industries in one way or another, of pharmaceutical and Tobacco (cigarette) interests.

Covington & Burling also represents every major American tobacco company, including Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., Lorillard Tobacco Co., Philip Morris Inc., and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co, as well as the now-defunct industry trade association, the Tobacco Institute. The firm helped develop and coordinate the Whitecoat Project, an attempt to keep controversy alive regarding the dangers of passive smoking by hiring scientists to back up and attempt to give credibility to the tobacco industry's point of view that second-hand smoke is not a health risk.

According to internal tobacco industry documents analyzed in 1999 by Public Citizen and the Center for Justice and Democracy, Covington & Burling was a principle organizer and funding conduit for tort reform efforts on behalf of the tobacco industry. Covington & Burling has acted as a pipeline to direct money from its tobacco industry clients to tort reform groups in the states and across the country. For example, in 1995, the tobacco industry allocated nearly $5.5 million to the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), more than half of ATRA’s $10.2 million budget according to the Associated Press.8

A memo written by a Covington & Burling partner that year reveals the extent to which the law firm helped orchestrate the tobacco industry's tort reform agenda. Written to the industry’s "Tort Reform Policy Committee," the memo called for an expansion of efforts, including a "communications program … intended to enhance our ability to enact favorable legislation at both the federal and state level." The memo noted that "these media activities, to be effective, must not be linked to the tobacco industry."

Covington & Burling is also one of the largest contributors of pro bono work for a wide array of causes from Big Brothers/Sisters to medical marijuana (Therapeutic Cannabis), and has provided valuable legal assistance in a number of such cases, including that by that firm’s Partner Dr. Michael Michelson. This includes work for various tax exempt status Foundations dedicated to some issue or another, including the Drug Policy Foundation. Philanthropic and Grant-Making Organizations.

The Firm’s lawyers are regularly sought out to advise on the creation, reorganization and funding of private foundations (including family and company foundations, as well as foundations affiliated with associations or other tax-exempt entities), supporting organizations and public charities and the use of charitable contributions to accomplish specific client goals. In addition, charitable remainder and charitable lead trusts, which require analysis of the federal and state income, gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer tax consequences of each structure, are used to achieve clients’ charitable, tax and family goals. Our clients include the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, the Packard Humanities Institute, Verizon Foundation and UTC Foundation. In one instance we represent affiliated grant-making organizations worth well in excess of $1 billion.

Covington & Burling’s practice with foundations is a long established connection, with the name Frederic A. Delano (Edward Burling’s bother in law by marriage), appearing amongst the 1909 founders of the Carnegie Institution of Washington D.C. (with Daniel Coit Gilman, Cleveland H. Dodge, Andrew Dickson White, and Elihu Root, Darius Ogden Mills and William E. Morrow), and in 1921 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was incorporated by Frederic A. Delano, Robert S. Brookings, Elihu Root, who became its first president, John W. Davis, Dwight Morrow, James T. Shotwell. Frederic A. Delano’s name appears as the 1924 founder of the influential Washington D.C. planning group “Committee of 100.”

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The Drug Policy Alliance grossly undersells drug policy reform by limiting 'Harm Reduction' more simply towards things as clean needles and safer crack pipes.

Coca Come Back
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/02/coca-come-back.html

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