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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Pope B16 Calls for Continuing Cigarette-Pharma Mercantilism

from Drug War Rant:

http://www.drugwarrant.com/2012/03/pope-calls-for-more-killing/

Pope calls for more killing

The Pope landed in Mexico today and doubled down on the failed drug war.

“We must do whatever is possible to combat this destructive evil against humanity and our youth,” he told reporters, referring to the some 50,000 people killed since 2007 as rival drug trafficking cartels fight each other and the state.

“It is the responsibility of the Church to educate consciences, to teach moral responsibility and to unmask the evil, to unmask this idolatry of money which enslaves man, to unmask the false promises, the lies, the fraud that is behind drugs,” he said. [...]

The pope’s strong words on the drug menace should offer comfort to Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who has staked his reputation on beating down the cartels.

The fraud that is behind drugs? Drugs aren’t beheading people. As far as unmasking the idolatry of money, well, it wasn’t really masked.

Identifying the traffickers as evil doesn’t do anything. It isn’t even news. Calling for “whatever is possible to combat it” is exactly what got us in this mess.

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http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2008/07/roman-catholic-church-cocaine.html

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2011/01/luis-martin-sj-punishment-for-drug-war.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/wiley-in-rome-april-1906.html

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Caswell Hazard & Co. Coca Wine

Broadway 24th Street Sixth Floor 39th Street New York and 212 Thames Street Newport, Rhode Island

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Drug War Cigarette-Pharma Criminal Mercantilism 101

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-war-promotes-drug-abuse-over-drug.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-pharmacokinetics.html

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

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/03/drug-war-tobacco-pharma-agricultural.html

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

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FOX Bill O'Reilly 'Jesuitical Casuistry' Text Book Example

O' Reilly's Jesuitical Casuistry

Uses certain words as 'red flag' terms to induce fear:

cocaine
narcotics
drugs

His reporting on the death of singer Whitney Houston last month refers to Houston being on prescribed "legalized" "narcotics" - never mind that she was apparently not upon any such drug as commonly known; narcotics means sleep inducing -- which includes alcohol -- but is generally applied to opiates.

Yet xanex, which is dangerous to mix with alcohol, is simply a tranquilizer implying that it is relatively safe.

Bill O' Reilly is an evil man.

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Hypocritical Hillary Clinton

at 24:10-24:17

“Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me,” she told an adoring crowd at the Women in the World Summit at Lincoln Center on Saturday. “But they all seem to. It doesn’t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They want to control women. They want to control how we dress. They want to control how we act. They even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and bodies."

What a hypocrite.

The government already to a large degree control the decisions we[*] make about our own health and bodies" since the 1906 cigarette mercantilism act (Food and Drug Act) granting the United States Department of Agriculture - an entity dedicated to the health of business rather than people, dictatorial power to ban substances from interstate trade, other than Tobacco, and establishing a labeling requirement for cocaine that was not also applied to caffeine and nicotine, thus creating a false impression that the former were necessarily more dangerous than the other two in the context accepted for the latter two (oral infusions or smoke leaves).

Readers of this blog are already likely aware that the main market threat to Tobacco was Coca leaf, and that a U.S. government -- U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment -- commissioned report in 1993 "Coca Reduction Strategies" concluded to the contrary that Coca should be legalized.

Yet what happened with that report?

What did the Clinton Administration do with it?

They simply ignored it.

As does the standard "left-progressives" which remains strangely silent about the elephant in the living room of this murderous cigarette-pharma mercantilism responsible for a majority of not 2/3rds of all of the cases one may hear called in our "Courts."

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GW and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals Fund Research of MJ for Epilepsy

so much for the US DEA myth of Medical Marijuana scam

Proceedings of the British Pharmacological Society at
http://www.pA2online.org/abstracts/Vol9Issue3abst101P.pdf

Effects Of Cannabidiol And Cannabidivarin On Intrinsic Membrane Properties Of Hippocampal
CA1 Pyramidal Neurons

Charlotte L. Hill, Nicholas A. Jones, Andrew J. Hill, Benjamin J. Whalley, Claire M. Williams, Gary J. Stephens. University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, UK.

Epilepsy is the most common chronic and disabling neurological condition in the UK and is thought to affect approximately 0.5-1% of the population (Bell & Sander, 2001). However, epilepsy remains refractory in about a third of epileptic patients despite optimal pharmacotherapy (Sander, 1993), demonstrating a clear need for the development of new, effective and well-tolerated antiepileptic drug treatments. Cannabidiol (CBD) and its propyl analogue, cannabidivarin (CBDV), are phytocannabinoids that have been shown to inhibit epileptiform activity in vitro and reduce seizure severity and mortality in vivo (Jones et al., 2010; Hill et al., 2010). Here, using in vitro electrophysiological methods, we have begun to investigate the mechanisms underlying the anticonvulsant effects of CBD and CBDV.

Acute, transverse hippocampal brain slices (300 μm) were obtained from adult, male, Wistar rats from which whole-cell patch clamp recordings were made using current clamp mode in visually identified CA1 pyramidal neurons. Slices were perfused with carboxygenated artificial CSF at room temperature.

A steady-state (at least 20 mins) was achieved and a control recording was made of intrinsic, postsynaptic membrane responses to hyperpolarising and depolarising current via the recording micropipette (-350 to 350 pA; 150 ms). Artificial CSF containing CBD or CBDV (both 10 μM; DMSO 0.1%) was then bath perfused and recordings made every 10 mins. The effects of CBD and CBDV reported here were assessed at 30 mins. Data are means ± SEM and statistical significance was determined using two-tailed, paired t-tests.

CBD (n = 6) significantly decreased membrane resistance from 105.0 ± 15.7 MΩ to 72.4 ± 6.2 MΩ (P<0.05), reduced mean spike count from 5.3 ± 0.4 to 3.1 ± 0.4 (P<0.001), decreased the instantaneous firing frequency between the second and third spikes from 40.6 ± 4.3 Hz to 22.6 ± 3.2 Hz (P<0.01) and increased spike width (1st spike, P<0.05; 2nd spike, P<0.001); CBD had no significant effect on spike amplitude when compared to control. In contrast, CBDV (n = 8) had no significant effect on membrane resistance, mean spike count, instantaneous firing frequency, spike width and spike amplitude when compared to control.

The results obtained for CBD on post-synaptic responses appear to be consistent with its anti-convulsant actions in vivo, which, therefore may be explained by CBD’s effects on intrinsic membrane properties. Although CBDV also shows anticonvulsant properties in vivo, it had no significant effect on the specific intrinsic, post-synaptic responses measured in this study. This suggests that the mechanism of action of CBDV may differ from that of CBD and is the subject of further current investigation.

Bell & Sander (2001) Seizure. 10; 306-316
Hill et al., (2010) Proc. Phys. Soc. 19
Jones et al., (2010) J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 332; 569-577
Sander (1993) Epilepsia. 34; 1007-1016.

Work funded, and phytocannabinoids provided, by GW Pharmaceuticals & Otsuka Pharmaceuticals

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