Youtube.....grrrr

[DrYRHead]

Ya, perhaps he is at some sort of emotionally numb stage of mourning about his son's death.
It is too bad that they ended with the Brett thing, for people do tend to remember the beginning and end of programs and stories the most.

[Salvianaut]

That would be exactly why they ended with it

And Paradoxic, you may be right, but I dunno.  I mean, seriously, there is no more hypocritical drug law than the one against Cannabis.  At least with hallucinogens you might argue that the mental experience could cause emotional trauma.  It's easy for people to spin that to make it look like a societal problem (even though psychoactives only really appeal to the type of people who are least likely to be "damaged" by them).  Cannabis, however... there's absolutely nothing to justify it being illegal.  On the one side, there is the enormous weight of the most sacred of personal freedoms, and on the other there is... what?  It might cause cancer, though they haven't found any proof of it yet?  Even though the government has a history of blatantly lying to the people about weed (not really the government, just the worst bits of it; don't get me wrong, I'm fine with our government I just hate the DEA and its fellows), even though the SUPPORTED explanation for the original criminalization was to find a way to put illegal mexicans in jail and the blatantly obvious but not official reason was to remove the threat it posed to the then fledgeling petroleum industry (headed by our friends at Du-Pont), even despite all of that, it's not being made legal.  It's not even being discussed.  If you cannot get something so patently harmless (if anything it has a positive societal effect; mebbe if weed was legal all of the gangbangers would be too high to do drive-bys ) made legal, what hope do hallucinogens have?  Hell; our first president had fucking HEMP FIELDS (and by hemp I mean marijuana, not the stupid industrial grade weak shit that receives the name now); several of our founding fathers smoked hashish, and there are letters from one of the early presidents (can't remember which; starts with an M i think, but I could look it up) talking about smoking hash with the troops and how great it is for relaxing them after hard fighting.  If they manage to vilify that, what chance does salvia or mushrooms or LSD have?

I mean, it's sad, but people see hallucinogens as somehow evil.  Outside of the drug community, using hallucinogens is seen as a "hardcore" activity on the level of using heroin.  People don't understand that most hallucinogens are harmless, and even if they did they would still see it as "evil."  Somewhere along the way the idea came up that entering altered mind states was unnatural, or against God, and that silly notion just will not leave us.

[DrYRHead]

After the alcohol Prohibition was repealed, I read that representatives form the alcohol and tobacco industries sent lobbyists to Washington, D.C., to get MJ made illegal. They thought that it would be a threat to their industries. At that point, Petro lobbyists may have also been lurking in the shadows as well.

As for the modern industrial hemp that is grown for fiber and hemp seed oil in many countries, I do not think that that mutant strain was the common type grown before the 1940s. The strain of hemp brought to the New World(the Americas) seems to be the one ancestral to most modern day Latin American MJ. Let me see here the Spanish Armada needed fiber for the ropes and canvas sails on their vessels, so they planted hemp in the Americas. I'm not sure if any of the USA founding fathers smoked Hashish, by the may have. However, what I do know is that the Spanish liked to smoke hashish, for the Moors had introduced it to them long, long ago. They may have picked up the habit of smoking MJ from them as well.

Last year I ran across a web-site about medical Cannabis tinctures of the 19 century. However, I need to go look it up. If I can find it, I may get back to you all with a link about it.

[DrYRHead]

Here is a link about the medicinal Cannabis stuff.

THE
ANTIQUE CANNABIS BOOK; http://antiquecannabisbook.com/



With Over 600 Pre-1937 Medical Cannabis Products Documented;---a Great Resource book for the Antique Cannabis Collector

[Salvianaut]

it wasn't just canvas and ropes.  It was everything.  Everything the plastics (petrol) industry does today, the cannabis industry did before.  And the alcohol/tobacco industries did play a part, but it was dupont's lobbyists who did the bulk of the bribing.  I cannot remember his name, but whoever the senator was who originally proposed it supposedly openly took campaign contributions from all three of those bodies. 

Washington definately had hemp fields  Not sure if he smoked hash, but with the attitudes towards it at the time, and him owning hemp fields, I'd imagine he did at some point.  I wanna say it was Madison who wrote the letters about smoking hash w/ the troops, but I'm not sure.  I am pretty sure it was around the spanish american war. 

One interesting little side note is that the original constitution is on hemp paper.  Good thing too; it probably would have long since crumbled to dust if not.  That's the sade thing; hemp actually makes better products than the substitutes of petrol and trees and other things which took over.  It has a longer and finer fiber than cotton, and makes the kind of clothes which go through generations of a family.  It makes a more durable and tougher paper.  Hemp seed oil is better for you in almost every way than soy (I think soy might have higher protein, or something like that, but hemp is a close second on even that).  Hell, hemp's the only source of bio fuel which could immediately give us cheaper fuel on a large scale - it's better for fuel than petro, in other words.  It's a hell of a lot better than corn, not to mention not currently being a food crop it would not completely throw off our food prices like using corn is. 

It's just the ultimate fucking plant.  It was on its way to being America's first billion dollar crop before being made illegal, and hemp/hashish use as a recreational drug was almost unknown at the time (and if you doubt that first billion dollar crop figure, start looking through old issues of Popular Science; it's on the cover of one of them).  Right now, it's a five hundred billion dollar a year industry in the US JUST for recreational use.  The government could legalize it and slap on a 50% tax and none of us potheads would care (hell, I'd feel happier paying my taxes on it anyway) because it would STILL be cheaper.  Doubt the overa  amt bought would go down though, so that'd mean two hundred and fifty billion dollars more in taxes every year.  Just for recreational use.  That'd be enough for... well, just about anything.  Considering that even though prices would go down usage would go way up, you could be looking at something more along the lines of a trillion dollar a year industry for recreational use.  A marijuana tax would actually add a significant portion to the US' annual tax income. 

And that's not even talking about the fact that if it was legal we'd probably go over to a hemp-ethanol fuel system right quick.  That'd be almost all the money in the oil markets staying right at home.  Terrorism would more or less end, especially if we exported our fuel and made it available cheaper than oil to countries like China who would otherwise buy up the surplus.  The common folk in the middle east aren't really making money off of the oil anyway, so their situation wouldn't get worse (and if it did, honestly, i don't care; a country should always worry about its own citizens first) but the terrorists and few non-terrorist assholes who control all of the oil profits would go broke, and the country would slip back into the stone age with the sudden complete lack of outside interest.  We'd probably have a good decade or so where the terrorists were too broke to attack anyone, until they could ramp up drug production and exportation to the point where it took over their oil profits.  Not to mention their nice little human traficking rings.  But all of that would take time, and it's quite possible that in that intervening decade the populace would grow a brain and realize that these retards were really just in it for the money, not out of any deep seated religious beliefs.  Maybe a few of them would actually read the Koran and see where it says that the christuians and the jews believe in the same god as islam, and that they should be treated as brothers.  Never know, but at least you'd get a break from all of the idiocy until they found another way to make money. 

So... why isn't pot legal yet?  I think what we need to do is start sending our representatives gifts of stock in the various organizations which would be doing the original expansion into the cannabis market after legalization.  A few years of that and you'd probably be able to buy super strength hashish in a candy store. 

[DrYRHead]

Here is an article from one of that sites history pages.

Info source; http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap1/Post1937.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MEDICAL CANNABIS

A SHORT GRAPHICAL HISTORY

1937 --- CANNABIS ITS THE END

Cannabis is unique in one respect; unlike other botanical medicines which were allowed to die a natural death as other better medicines or treatments came along, Cannabis instead was cut down in its prime---literally speaking it was outlawed.

It seems that the doctors, who had been prescribing Cannabis for their patients for almost a hundred years, had all failed to notice one little thing. That among other things, many of their patients were going around grabbing axes and meat cleavers and chopping innocent people to death. Or at least that was what the newspaper headlines, spurred on by police and government officials, would have us believe. Perhaps the following dictionary definition best describes the situation.

Marijuana: ----a subtle, crazing drug which is being surreptitiously sold in U.S. in the form of cigarettes. Narcotic officials named it "The Assassin of Youth," and state that it is as dangerous as a coiled rattlesnake. Its effects when smoked vary with different Individuals. It may make of its victim a philosopher, a joyous reveler, a mad insensate, or a fiendish murderer. Its purveyors whisper into the ears of Am. youth the wonders of a new cigarette with a real thrill, and without harmful effects. Students are lured to its use by promises of resultant keenness of mind, the easy solving of problems, an aid in exams. An addict was hanged in Baltimore in 1937 for a criminal assault on a ten-year-old girl. In Florida, a crazed youth killed his father, mother, two brothers, and a sister. In more than 30 cases of murder or degenerate sex crimes in 1937, marijuana proved to be a contributing cause. -- WEBSTER'S ENCYCLOPEDIC DICTIONARY of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE + others

And while many of us will find such a definition a bit amusing and of questionable accuracy, it should be noted that the wording was taken almost word for word from federal narcotics officials and their publication.

By the mid-1930s magazine articles were full of reports about the most bestial crimes being committed while under its deadly influence. Such titles as "Marijuana - Sex-Crazing Drug Menace" or "Marihuana-the Evil Weed" become common place. Religious leaders began screaming from the pulpits about the "Weed of Madness." Even comic books were having their super heroes opposing the deadly weed.

This book (essentially an antique price guide) is not the proper forum for the subjects of sex and politics, and has endeavored to avoid them altogether. However, the concept (propagated by our highest government officials) that Cannabis (now renamed Marihuana by them) was causing its users to go out and rape, kill and mutilate innocent people may indeed need some explanation. Unfortunately, without writing an entire new book, I can offer the reader none.

The following chart shows some of the contradictions between: Cannabis, its historical medical uses and what the D.E.A. (America's ministry of public morals and narcotics control) was claiming.

Table: listing but a few of the contradictions given during the Reefer Madness Campaign:

BEFORE THE REEFER MADNESS CAMPAIGN-------------------------------DURING THE REEFER MADNESS CAMPAIGN
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Historical Name -- Cannabis ------------------------------------------------Now re-named --Marihuana
Used experimentally to treat opium drug addiction --------------------Now called a dangerous habit forming drug
Medially recognized as an anti-Spasmodic agent---------------------- It use leads to uncontrollable muscle twitching
Medically recognized as a sedative ---------------------------------------Causes violent reactions, which often lead to
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------acts violence and murder
Recognized and was used to treat Mental Illness--------------------- Its use leads to and was the cause of insanity
Was medically used to treat nervous Tension-------------------------- Such a dangerous stimulant that its use causes --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------young girls to jump out of windows
A harmless medical agent that not even quacks wanted to use-----A dangerous drug, as deadly as a coiled rattle ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------snake
Users were called Patients --------------------------------------------------Users were now being called drug Addicts
__________________________________________________________________________________________


The list of contradictions can very literally go on and on---seemingly with no apparent logic behind it. And for students of disinformation, maybe it would be best not to look for logic where logic is not there to be found.

What is known is this: Starting in California (1909) one by one, states and local municipalities started outlawing the possession and cultivation of cannabis under various poison control laws. Which of and by itself is a bit odd, as mentioned previously, not one person has ever died from its use.

But suffice it to say the first recorded medical Cannabis arrest took place in Los Angles (July 6, 1919) and many more would follow. Although there may have been some confusion, a look at magazine articles from the 1910s, 1920s seems to lump numerous poison plants including loco weed, cannabis and a new drug called "marihuana" all together as if they were all one plant. Additionally, while many white people were using cannabis for medical reasons, it seems that the only ones that the newspapers said were using it, now renamed marihuana, were all (politely putting it) people of color, not a good thing at a time when few people of color could vote, etc.

In any case, by the 1930s the word Cannabis was seldom if ever used, and marihuana (a word suggesting something akin to a diseased brown skin Mexican) had been substituted by the nation's newspapers. Some suggest that the lawmakers themselves were so confused by the wording that they did not even know they were outlawing a common medicine. And as the horror stories spread, more and more states passed laws.

All this culminated in the passage of federal legislation known as the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. On October 8, 1937 the first federal conviction occurred under the new law. During the sentencing Judge J. Foster Symes, Denver Colorado, stated the following which shows best the mood of the era:


"I consider marihuana the worst of all narcotics---far worse than the use of morphine or cocaine. Under its influence men become beasts…Marihuana destroys life itself. I have no sympathy with those who sell this weed."
And while exceptions for the medical uses were made, high taxes and other forms of harassment made it prohibitively expensive to even cultivate the plant. As one large botanical and pharmaceutical dealer wrote to the D.E.A.:

"I have decided to discontinue the collection and sale of the herb owing to the fact that it has been placed in the narcotic list by both State and Federal laws. I have no cannabis *** and have not made any collection this season as practically all of the manufactures and dealers whom I have done business with have decided to discontinue the use and sale of this herb." - J.T. Huffman, of Manito, Illinois   

[Salvianaut]

Now if only something to that effect could get on primetime network news.  Along with anice description of cannabis by the AMA or, better yet, a neutral medical association from a country where cannabis is not persecuted.

We outta make a pamphlet.  Nay, a pamplet campaign   Spread them all over the US, stapled to every light pole and piled on every newspaper stand. 

Start with the current AMA list of facts on Cannabis.  Like how it can't even be proven that it makes the user lazy, that there are no proven or even suggested medical concerns and that not a death has ever been reported which was caused by cannabis.  Then a few "user testimonials."  Basically, people pointing out the fact that Cannabis is a weaker drug than alcohol by far and a less dangerous drug than both alcohol and tobacco.  Then, on the next fold or whatever, have a full expose' on the anti-cannabis campaign of the early century.  Pull up the most glaring examples, the most outright lies.  The things which are just so blatantly lies that even the most obstinate cannot deny it.  Make sure to reference EVERYTHING, and include as many lies directly from the government as possible.  Make it VERY easy for people to follow up the references (preferably official US gov't sites, or .edu history sites - very easy to do that for the AMA bit, of course). 

After this, start with an early description of the arrests made, and such ridiculous quotes from judges as you posted.  Then go on to figures - start with the absolute number of people imprisoned for Cannabis offenses.  I'm sure it's huge, probably sensationally so.  A nice figure to come after this would be the number of Cannabis users who died as a result of their imprisonment, but this information would be tough to get a hold of, I imagine.  If figures like that can be found, they would be great; the number kileld by cannabis offense imprisonments, the number of children sent to foster homes b/c their parents were in prison for cannabis offenses, all kinds of sensationalist bits of info.  The idea is basically to use this scum's tactics against them, but to use the truth as well; put NOTHING on the pamphlet which is not true.

Next comes a list of all the medical uses.  Harp heavily on the fact that it is a non-addictive alternative to commonly used narcotic painkillers.  Point out that, by restricting cannabis, the gov't is in effect peddling much more harmful narcotics and shoving addiction down the throats of countless innocent patients.  Some testimonials from medidcal cannabis users would be nice, telling how it has helped them and improved their lives.  Then testimonials from people busted by the feds in states where they were using medical cannabis legally.  Follow that with a bold print of the tenth ammendment.

Then of course some more factoids, any information available with absolutely reliable and un-deniable sources on the use of Cannabis at the time of the founding of the United States - Medicinal, Recreational, and Industrial.  End out this section with a quote on the income of the purely recreational cannabis market today, and some figures on what taxes on this sale would do.

After this section, I'd like to see a short discussion of the rights of the body.  By this, I mean the right to your body.  I'd start it with something like, "The most fundamental right which any man can claim is the right to his own body.  There is nothing more basic than the fact that only man and the creator which made him have any claim to ownership of the mind and body, or to determine what he does with those most fundamental possessions.  To claim ownership of the body and mind of another is little better than rape, and the basis of slavery."  Then go on with the views that other gov't forms have on the rights of the body.  You know, all the guys who Americans intrinsically hate, socialists and communists and all of them.  Well, at least the ones who claim that the body belongs to the state. 

Then end the whole thing with a full color, very patriotic page.  I dunno, this might make a better cover, but a Cannabis leaf (perhaps in red white and blue?  ) would be better.  But anyway, the end page, or bottom, or whatever it happened to be would be a large image of Uncle Sam with a flag in the background (basically a recruitment poster).  Under this, in a speech bubble, uncle sam saying, "Mister President, TEAR DOWN THAT LAW!"  (This isn't b/c I have anything against the president, I actually like him, but he's the favorite person in the country to pressure since clinton, and ppl will jump on that bandwagon with a vengence.  To keep from alienating patriots, you don't actually put blame on the pres). 

Something along those lines, done right and distributed on a large scale could have serious effect.  Cannabis is illegal out of ignorance - not of the lawmakers, as it was when it was banned, but of the populace.  How many millions of recreational and medical users are there in the States?  They are in every town, every neighborhood, and they almost all have the internet.  There are certain sights which a large percentage of them frequent.  All you have to do is get enough pamphlets out there with enough regularity to get it in the news.  Then the media does the rest of the work for you - even those too lazy to check your info, who just assume that you are lying, will believe it when they see the experts confirming it on national television. 

Anyway, it'd be nice.  I know people have tried pamphlet campaigns before, but I've never seen one that was too well designed.  For one, the medical associations have just come around to the truth, and they are the cornerstone of the whole operation.  Not absolutely necessary, but making success more likely by an order of magnitude.  None of the pamphlets ever seem to carry all of the information either, just a fraction; they seem to all be designed for the maker to vent his biggest annoyances, rather than to sway the public.  The only way to defeat propaganda, and that means designing it to sway the public, not express your views.  Then there's the fact that all of the pro cannabis organizations - with NORML as the leader and an excellent example - are pretty radically liberal.  This is, however a conservative country.  Instead of attempting to shit on the United States and make it a liberal issue, point out the fact that the prohibition itself was liberal - against the conservative long held beliefs in personal freedoms.  Make it a patriotic issue, an issue of the law betraying the people and the founding fathers to boot.

That's what I think anyhow.  Then you start a myspace group for the distribution, put it out through every drug information site, do everything you can to get it on the street.  Once the pamphlet is in the public eye, you've won.  Once people are educated on the issue, the issue will solve itself.

[JD1stTimer]

I believe NORML has good information which could be easily adapted to an easy-to-read flyer if you were to obtain their permission here: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7305.  I'm a member of national NORML and my local NORML chapter, and I don't see a reason why they wouldn't allow it if you give a tag with credit and a plug to make a donation or join.  Most of the people who execute the privilege of voting in the U.S. remain willfully ignorant of the truth.  For what reason I honestly do not have a clue.  Most of these people seem to have normal mental abilities when it comes to every other task besides electing politicians.  Perhaps the polling booth is simply the last place where it is socially acceptable to be a bigot.