PROFITABLE WAR

How many people have been imprisoned and killed over a "war on drugs" that
started as a minority-control effort, escalated into a tool to punish
anti-war protesters and is now a pandemic problem?

Seventy years and a trillion dollars later, the federal government is still
spending billions of dollars and destroying millions of lives to cover up a
host of abuses of power.

Environmentalists have been saying for 30 years that a return to commercial
hemp could not only provide an additional cash crop for U.S. farmers but
also provide a renewable resource, freeing America from dependency on
imported fuels.

For 25 years, the federal government has been providing marijuana to a tiny
group of patients for glaucoma, chronic pain, spasticity and nausea. The
first patient to receive medical marijuana for glaucoma 25 years ago still
has his sight, while a million Americans who may have been treated have
gone blind.

Researchers have reported that marijuana has dozens of medical uses and
that it supplies the body with a substance called anandymide, which is
critical for the immune system and pain control. One researcher even stated
that as much as 50 percent of the over-the-counter pain medications are
purchased to treat the lack of this substance in our diets.

Drug-company profits, energy-company profits, prison budgets and
law-enforcement budgets depend on drug laws designed to keep the population
of the country sick, tired and broke.

Sick, tired, broke and unarmed people are easy to control, especially with
SWAT team tactics, but does this sound like Jefferson's idea of a free
America? By the way, he grew marijuana.

Larry Monaghan