MEDICAL MARIJUANA: HEALTHCARE MIRACLE AND DRUG WAR VICTIM

The largest minority is the last to be freed from legal persecution and
flat out denial of their constitutional rights. Marijuana users, former and
current, are mainly silent in demanding that their natural rights be
recognized, or they're coughing. Medical marijuana is still held in
shackles although the people have voted to set her free.

Smoking pot does not make a person evil or dangerous, just criminal in
America for seventy odd years. The pursuit of happiness seems like an
orphan stepchild in the viciousness of the government's war on cannabis.
The evil weed looks pretty sweet on closer examination.

Original research by J.M. McPartland, DO and Patty Pruitt in the July '99
issue of Alternative Therapies, analyzes some of the aromatic compounds in
marijuana and explores their possible use in medicine.

There are over 400 compounds in marijuana, seventy are unique to the
cannabis plant. Most of these are cannabinoids, of which THC is the most
psychoactive. The others have effects which help to soften the stronger
psychological effects of pure THC.

Delta 9--The Devil's Child

Pure THC can cause hallucinations, even
psychotic episodes, disrupt short term memory and does affect the immune
system, but it benefits Alzheimer's patients.

Cannabidiol and cannibinol, two other compounds in pot have anxiety
reducing, antipsychotic, sedative and pain killing properties. Volatile
terpenoids which are aromatic components of the plant flower have sedative
and memory improving powers.

Cannabis plants are being bred to contain different proportions of
compounds for different medical conditions by GW pharmaceutical company in
England, even though medical marijuana is not yet legal there.

American breeders are locked out of a megabillion dollar market and
millions of aging Americans suffer because they can not legally grow
medical varieties of cannabis without fear of legal persecution, even where
the people have voted to legalize it.

Cannabinoids are even more potent antioxidants than vitamins A, C or E,
which are essential for preventing cellular aging and cancers. Smoking the
dried flower is not the healthiest way to get high or feel better. Burning
almost anything, spliffs or flame broiled burgers releases several
varieties of benzenes and other toxic substances. Moldy pot releases
poisonous fungi and aflatoxin which can infect the lungs.

There are vaporizers which heat the buds only enough to release their
cannabinoids, but they don't protect against aspergillus, a mold which
infects herb. Herbal extracts which can be made into a lollipop or a patch
are being developed in Europe, and will dominate the market for treatment
of many illnesses.

It's The Smoke Stupid

Holding ganga smoke in for any longer than a second
is superfluous, since cannabinoids are rapidly taken up in the lungs.
Holding a toke in until you choke and cough is giving you a carbon monoxide
or dioxide buzz.

Medical marijuana has been voted legal in California with Proposition 215
and a cascade of other states and districts have followed. That's fitting
because California was the first state to pass marijuana laws in the 20's
because of Hearst newspaper propaganda.

The electorate has spoken, if you're sick and suffering it's OK to get
high, because you're no longer an economic unit. Otherwise you're a
malinger, it's a war out there in global trade, we don't want your
attention wandering.

The economy depends on the underground herb and its users. but it would be
transformed if it were legalized. The plant and it's autumn flowers are
more beautiful and fragrant than prize winning roses, and the glut of wine
grapes would be replaced with boutique buds.

Men In Black Breaking Down Doors

Without tokers restaurants would be hard
up for help, no janitors would be cleaning your toilet, no ditches dug,
walls built, fewer painters, carpenters, accountants even. We are
everywhere, but we're still stoned in the back of the bus. Law enforcers
used to say we don't make the laws we just enforce them, yet with their
continued persecution of medical marijuana users in California and other
states, they've shown the lie to that. They are so delusional that some
even claim medical authority. If you're in an accident who do you want to
show up first, the Drug Czar or a paramedic?

Some potheads say that cannabis is the medicine for what ails western
civilization. Relieves stress, lowers blood pressure, improves sex and
music, strengthens social relationships and encourages gardening and
connection with the earth. I wish to praise the leaves of grass, especially
the dried flowers.

Without weed we'd still be listening to oompapa bands, cheering two handed
set shots in basketball, there would be no personal computers,
environmental movement, organic farming, or health food superstores.

For all the creative juices the kind has stirred, it also seems to dope
most of it's users into complicity with the loss of their constitutional
rights. Many stoners won't even vote, don't make no difference dude, as if
they had tried.

The best part about pot is the same as the worst thing about it. It reduces
your cares and worries, for a while, so much so that the largest minority
does not effectively fight to restore their rights, vote the despots out of
elected office and prosecute the fascists who have been leading the war on
people who use illegal drugs, for war crimes.

Almost all illegal drug users in America are marijuana users, a few percent
prefer other illegal drugs. These white powder drugs are unhealthy, made
worse by their criminalization and demonization.

Marijuana has been linked with these other drugs with outright lies, to
hoodwink the voters, especially the elderly who would most benefit from
cannabis. The actual "gateway" drug by the government's own surveys is
tobacco. Unless you include caffeinated sodas or white sugar.

It is clear by now that the War On Drugs is run by American nazis, complete
with storm troopers and master plans. Gary Webb's book "The Dark Alliance"
documents the role of the CIA in importing drugs into the country.

Acid Dreams a book by Martin Lee and Bruce Schlain uncovered the history of
how the CIA initiated much of the drug use in this country in the fifties
and sixties. They began creating and testing drugs for military or covert
activity use.

Their scientists created a highly potent extract of cannabis, which they
called the Truth Drug. It was a gateway drug for the CIA, which led to
harder drugs, including, cocaine, methamphetamine and LSD. Other books,
investigations, and sworn testimony implicate the DEA, sitting politicians
and multinational banks in profiting from drugs.

Frau Feinstein Salutes Hitler

The December Harpers magazine details the
numerous losses of our constitutional rights from the War on people who use
Drugs. The entire bill of rights has been hoisted on the petard of
prohibition.

California's senator Feinstein is currently pushing a bill which would
eliminate the first amendment rights on the internet. It's billed as
methamphetamine legislation, but makes it a federal crime to write about
all illegal drugs on the internet. With Feinstein's fascist law this
article could get me ten years in prison.

Her ideological soul mate Orrin Hatch from Utah is co-sponsoring it. It's a
shame they couldn't get Hermann Goering to sign on.

The December '99 issue of Cannabis Culture magazine reports on Jeb Bush,
governor of Florida, going ahead with plans to release a genetically
altered fungus, a fusarium designed to kill pot plants. Farmers are
fighting it because Supermold could wind up killing tomatoes, sugar cane,
ornamental flowers, and lawn sod crops. Maybe Bush wants to save the
Everglades.

The government would like to ban everything except genetically altered food
and high density TV watching. Using drugs can be unhealthy, but people do a
lot of stupid and unhealthy things, some with government approval.
Illegality makes all these bathtub meth labs, operated by tweakers, more
dangerous and damaging to users and the watersheds.

The prohibition on drugs costs billions, increases violence and criminal
activity. This is good for business. The secret teams need the black market
for drugs to maintain an enormous untraceable cash flow for their black
operations. Pharmaceutical, alcohol, tobacco and agricultural industries
are threatened with competition from cannabis and conspire to lie to the
public in television ads, public relations and news stories to prevent
ending the War.

This Is Your Brain On Fried Eggs

The Center for the Study of Addiction and
Substance Abuse (CASA) is one of these well funded propaganda machines. It
is affiliated with Columbia University, headed by Joseph Califano of the
Reagan administration. It is notorious for delivering misinformation
directly to the media, without peer review. The media loves their slant so
much they pay for it.

CASA particularly likes to link marijuana with harder drugs, and downplay
the benefits of medical marijuana, regardless of the truth. The December
issue of High Times reports that it is heavily funded by the federal
government, Coca Cola, Ford, Carnegie, pharmaceutical companies, Dupont and
by the media including Hearst, CBS, NBC, Time Warner and Dan Rather.

The media regularly report misinformation about marijuana, but ignore the
DEA's own administrative judge. In 1987 after hearing expert testimony, he
declared marijuana the safest known drug with therapeutic value, and
ordered it removed from Schedule 1 which says it has no medical use.
Complying with that order would end the feds insistence that medical
marijuana violates federal law, it was overruled and the judge retired.

Dozens of government and independent studies, have been suppressed or
ignored, because they concluded that there was no basis for criminalizing
cannabis and that it had many medical and health care uses.

America is spending close to $100 billion a year on all aspects of the War
on people who use illegal drugs. It is mainly a war on marijuana users, the
largest minority in America still denied their human rights. We just don't
seem to have any ambition to change that, and they keep building prisons.