auron
15-09-2007, 02:38 AM
The Marijuana Conspiracy - The Real Reason Hemp is Illegal
by Doug Yurchey, June 15, 2005
http://www.illuminati-news.com/marijuana-conspiracy.htm
THE REAL REASON CANNABIS HAS BEEN OUTLAWED HAS NOTHING
TO DO WITH ITS EFFECTS ON THE MIND AND BODY.
Doug Yurchey
MARIJUANA is DANGEROUS. Pot is NOT harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does NOT pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Various big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people.
The truth is if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! Entrepreneurs have not been educated on the product potential of pot. The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about an extremely versatile plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies.
Where did the word 'marijuana' come from? In the mid 1930s, the M-word was created to tarnish the good image and phenomenal history of the hemp plant...as you will read. The facts cited here, with references, are generally verifiable in the Encyclopedia Britannica which was printed on hemp paper for 150 years:
* All schoolbooks were made from hemp or flax paper until the 1880s; Hemp Paper Reconsidered, Jack Frazier, 1974.
* It was LEGAL TO PAY TAXES WITH HEMP in America from 1631 until the early 1800s; LA Times, Aug. 12, 1981.
* REFUSING TO GROW HEMP in America during the 17th and 18th Centuries WAS AGAINST THE LAW! You could be jailed in Virginia for refusing to grow hemp from 1763 to 1769; Hemp in Colonial Virginia, G. M. Herdon.
http://www.illuminati-news.com/graphics/hemp-washington.jpg
"I grew Hemp", George Washington
* George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers GREW HEMP; Washington and Jefferson Diaries. Jefferson smuggled hemp seeds from China to France then to America.
* Benjamin Franklin owned one of the first paper mills in America and it processed hemp. Also, the War of 1812 was fought over hemp. Napoleon wanted to cut off Moscow's export to England; Emperor Wears No Clothes, Jack Herer.
* For thousands of years, 90% of all ships' sails and rope were made from hemp. The word 'canvas' is Dutch for cannabis; Webster's New World Dictionary.
* 80% of all textiles, fabrics, clothes, linen, drapes, bed sheets, etc. were made from hemp until the 1820s with the introduction of the cotton gin.
* The first Bibles, maps, charts, Betsy Ross's flag, the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made from hemp; U.S. Government Archives.
* The first crop grown in many states was hemp. 1850 was a peak year for Kentucky producing 40,000 tons. Hemp was the largest cash crop until the 20th Century; State Archives.
* Oldest known records of hemp farming go back 5000 years in China, although hemp industrialization probably goes back to ancient Egypt.
* Rembrants, Gainsboroughs, Van Goghs as well as most early canvas paintings were principally painted on hemp linen.
* In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down. Government studies report that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees. Plans were in the works to implement such programs; Department of Agriculture
* Quality paints and varnishes were made from hemp seed oil until 1937. 58,000 tons of hemp seeds were used in America for paint products in 1935; Sherman Williams Paint Co. testimony before Congress against the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.
* Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR ITSELF WAS CONTRUCTED FROM HEMP! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; Popular Mechanics, 1941.
* Hemp called 'Billion Dollar Crop.' It was the first time a cash crop had a business potential to exceed a billion dollars; Popular Mechanics, Feb., 1938.
* Mechanical Engineering Magazine (Feb. 1938) published an article entitled 'The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that Can be Grown.' It stated that if hemp was cultivated using 20th Century technology, it would be the single largest agricultural crop in the U.S. and the rest of the world.
The following information comes directly from the United States Department of Agriculture's 1942 14-minute film encouraging and instructing 'patriotic American farmers' to grow 350,000 acres of hemp each year for the war effort:
'...(When) Grecian temples were new, hemp was already old in the service of mankind. For thousands of years, even then, this plant had been grown for cordage and cloth in China and elsewhere in the East. For centuries prior to about 1850, all the ships that sailed the western seas were rigged with hempen rope and sails. For the sailor, no less than the hangman, hemp was indispensable...
...Now with Philippine and East Indian sources of hemp in the hands of the Japanese...American hemp must meet the needs of our Army and Navy as well as of our industries...
...the Navy's rapidly dwindling reserves. When that is gone, American hemp will go on duty again; hemp for mooring ships; hemp for tow lines; hemp for tackle and gear; hemp for countless naval uses both on ship and shore. Just as in the days when Old Ironsides sailed the seas victorious with her hempen shrouds and hempen sails. Hemp for victory!'
Certified proof from the Library of Congress; found by the research of Jack Herer, refuting claims of other government agencies that the 1942 USDA film 'Hemp for Victory' did not exist.
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/dcf9a4114e.gif
Hemp cultivation and production do not harm the environment. The USDA Bulletin #404 concluded that Hemphemp produces 4 times as much pulp with at least 4 to 7 times less pollution. From Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938:
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/6bc8f3d174.gif
'It has a short growing season...It can be grown in any state...The long roots penetrate and break the soil to leave it in perfect condition for the next year's crop. The dense shock of leaves, 8 to 12 feet above the ground, chokes out weeds.
...hemp, this new crop can add immeasurably to American agriculture and industry.'
In the 1930s, innovations in farm machinery would have caused an industrial revolution when applied to hemp. This single resource could have created millions of new jobs generating thousands of quality products. Hemp, if not made illegal, would have brought America out of the Great Depression.
William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane) and the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division of Kimberly Clark owned vast acreage of timberlands. The Hearst Company supplied most paper products. Patty Hearst's grandfather, a destroyer of nature for his own personal profit, stood to lose billions because of hemp.
In 1937, Dupont patented the processes to make plastics from oil and coal. Dupont's Annual Report urged stockholders to invest in its new petrochemical division. Synthetics such as plastics, cellophane, celluloid, methanol, nylon, rayon, Dacron, etc., could now be made from oil. Natural hemp industrialization would have ruined over 80% of Dupont's business.
THE CONSPIRACY
Andrew Mellon became Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury and Dupont's primary investor. He appointed his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
Secret meetings were held by these financial tycoons. Hemp was declared dangerous and a threat to their billion dollar enterprises. For their dynasties to remain intact, hemp had to go. These men took an obscure Mexican slang word: 'marihuana' and pushed it into the consciousness of America.
MEDIA MANIPULATION
A media blitz of 'yellow journalism' raged in the late 1920s and 1930s. Hearst's newspapers ran stories emphasizing the horrors of marihuana. The menace of marihuana made headlines. Readers learned that it was responsible for everything from car accidents to loose morality.
Films like 'Reefer Madness' (1936), 'Marihuana: Assassin of Youth' (1935) and 'Marihuana: The Devil's Weed' (1936) were propaganda designed by these industrialists to create an enemy. Their purpose was to gain public support so that anti-marihuana laws could be passed.
Examine the following quotes from 'The Burning Question' aka REEFER MADNESS:
*
a violent narcotic.
*
acts of shocking violence.
*
incurable insanity.
*
soul-destroying effects.
*
under the influence of the drug he killed his entire family with an ax.
*
more vicious, more deadly even than these soul-destroying drugs (heroin, cocaine) is the menace of marihuana!
Reefer Madness did not end with the usual 'the end.' The film concluded with these words plastered on the screen: TELL YOUR CHILDREN.
In the 1930s, people were very naive; even to the point of ignorance. The masses were like sheep waiting to be led by the few in power. They did not challenge authority. If the news was in print or on the radio, they believed it had to be true. They told their children and their children grew up to be the parents of the baby-boomers.
On April 14, 1937, the Prohibitive Marihuana Tax Law or the bill that outlawed hemp was directly brought to the House Ways and Means Committee. This committee is the only one that can introduce a bill to the House floor without it being debated by other committees. The Chairman of the Ways and Means, Robert Doughton, was a Dupont supporter. He insured that the bill would pass Congress.
Dr. James Woodward, a physician and attorney, testified too late on behalf of the American Medical Association. He told the committee that the reason the AMA had not denounced the Marihuana Tax Law sooner was that the Association had just discovered that marihuana was hemp.
Few people, at the time, realized that the deadly menace they had been reading about on Hearst's front pages was in fact passive hemp. The AMA understood cannabis to be a MEDICINE found in numerous healing products sold over the last hundred years.
In September of 1937, hemp became illegal. The most useful crop known became a drug and our planet has been suffering ever since.
Congress banned hemp because it was said to be the most violence-causing drug known. Anslinger, head of the Drug Commission for 31 years, promoted the idea that marihuana made users act extremely violent. In the 1950s, under the Communist threat of McCarthyism, Anslinger now said the exact opposite. Marijuana will pacify you so much that soldiers would not want to fight.
Today, our planet is in desperate trouble. Earth is suffocating as large tracts of rain forests disappear. Pollution, poisons and chemicals are killing people. These great problems could be reversed if we industrialized hemp. Natural biomass could provide all of the planet's energy needs that are currently supplied by fossil fuels. We have consumed 80% of our oil and gas reserves. We need a renewable resource. Hemp could be the solution to soaring gas prices.
Hemp
THE WONDER PLANT
Hemp has a higher quality fiber than wood fiber. Far fewer caustic chemicals are required to make paper from hemp than from trees. Hemp paper does not turn yellow and is very durable. The plant grows quickly to maturity in a season where trees take a lifetime.
ALL PLASTIC PRODUCTS SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP SEED OIL. Hempen plastics are biodegradable! Over time, they would break down and not harm the environment. Oil-based plastics, the ones we are very familiar with, help ruin nature; they do not break down and will do great harm in the future. The process to produce the vast array of natural (hempen) plastics will not ruin the rivers as Dupont and other petrochemical companies have done. Ecology does not fit in with the plans of the Oil Industry and the political machine. Hemp products are safe and natural.
MEDICINES SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP. We should go back to the days when the AMA supported cannabis cures. 'Medical Marijuana' is given out legally to only a handful of people while the rest of us are forced into a system that relies on chemicals. Pot is only healthy for the human body.
WORLD HUNGER COULD END. A large variety of food products can be generated from hemp. The seeds contain one of the highest sources of protein in nature. ALSO: They have two essential fatty acids that clean your body of cholesterol. These essential fatty acids are not found anywhere else in nature! Consuming pot seeds is the best thing you could do for your body. Eat uncooked hemp seeds.
CLOTHES SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP. Hemp clothing is extremely strong and durable over time. You could hand clothing, made from pot, down to your grandchildren. Today, there are American companies that make hemp clothing; usually 50% hemp. Hemp fabrics should be everywhere. Instead, they are almost underground. Superior hemp products are not allowed to advertise on fascist television. Kentucky, once the top hemp producing state, made it ILLEGAL TO WEAR hemp clothing! Can you imagine being thrown into jail for wearing quality jeans?
The world is crazy...but that does not mean you have to join the insanity. Get together. Spread the news. Tell people, and that includes your children, the truth. Use hemp products. Eliminate the word 'marijuana.' Realize the history that created it. Make it politically incorrect to say or print the M-word. Fight against the propaganda (designed to favor the agenda of the super rich) and the bullshit. Hemp must be utilized in the future. We need a clean energy source to save our planet. INDUSTRIALIZE HEMP!
The liquor, tobacco and oil companies fund more than a million dollars a day to Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other similar agencies. We have all seen their commercials. Now, their motto is: 'It's more dangerous than we thought.' Lies from the powerful corporations, that began with Hearst, are still alive and well today.
The brainwashing continues. Now, the commercials say: If you buy a joint, you contribute to murders and gang wars. The latest anti-pot commercials say: If you buy a joint...you are promoting TERRORISM! The new enemy (terrorism) has paved the road to brainwash you any way THEY see fit.
There is only one enemy; the friendly people you pay your taxes to; the war-makers and nature destroyers. With your funding, they are killing the world right in front of your eyes. HALF A MILLION DEATHS EACH YEAR ARE CAUSED BY TOBACCO. HALF A MILLION DEATHS EACH YEAR ARE CAUSED BY ALCOHOL. NO ONE HAS EVER, EVER DIED FROM SMOKING POT!! In the entire history of the human race, not one death can be attributed to cannabis. Our society has outlawed grass but condones the use of the KILLERS: TOBACCO and ALCOHOL. Hemp should be declassified and placed in DRUG stores to relieve stress. Hardening and constriction of the arteries are bad; but hemp usage actually enlarges the arteries...which is a healthy condition. We have been so conditioned to think that: Smoking is harmful. That is NOT the case for passive pot.
Ingesting THC, hemp's active agent, has a positive effect; relieving asthma and glaucoma. A joint tends to alleviate the nausea caused by chemotherapy. You are able to eat on hemp. This is a healthy state of being.
{One personal note: During the pregnancy of my wife, she was having some difficulty gaining weight. We were in the hospital. A nurse called us to one side and said: 'Off the record, if you smoke pot...you'd get something called the munchies and you'll gain weight.' I swear that is a true story}.
The stereotype for a pothead is similar to a drunk, bubble-brain. Yet, the truth is one's creative abilities can be enhanced under its influence. The perception of time slightly slows and one can become more sensitive. You can more appreciate all arts; be closer to nature and generally FEEL more under the influence of cannabis. It is, in fact, the exact opposite state of mind and body as the drunken state. You can be more aware with pot.
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/c0b150ccbe.jpg
The pot plant is an ALIEN plant. There is physical evidence that cannabis is not like any other plant on this planet. One could conclude that it was brought here for the benefit of humanity. Hemp is the ONLY plant where the males appear one way and the females appear very different, physically! No one ever speaks of males and females in regard to the plant kingdom because plants do not show their sexes; except for cannabis. To determine what sex a certain, normal, Earthly plant is: You have to look internally, at its DNA. A male blade of grass (physically) looks exactly like a female blade of grass. The hemp plant has an intense sexuallity. Growers know to kill the males before they fertilize the females. Yes, folks...the most potent pot comes from 'horny females.'
The reason this amazing, very sophisticated, ET plant from the future is illegal has nothing to do with how it physically affects us…..
…POT IS ILLEGAL BECAUSE BILLIONAIRES WANT TO REMAIN BILLIONAIRES!
ps: I think the word 'DRUGS' should not be used as an umbrella-word that covers all chemical agents. Drugs have come to be known as something BAD. Are you aware there are LEGAL drugstores?! Yep, in every city. Unbelievable. Each so-called drug should be considered individually. Cannabis is a medicine and not a drug. We should DARE to speak the TRUTH no matter what the law is.
i am all i am
15-09-2007, 04:09 AM
I LOVE YOU.
G'day Auron.
Great post mate. Here's one I did in the sub-forum Political Manipulations / Coverups, although not coming from the same perspective, it shares a common theme, and there is more from The Emperor Wears No Clothes in the first link.....
THANK YOU.
http://www.lifeshore.com/smiley/data/media/3/3D_emoticon_S34.gif With LOVE http://www.lifeshore.com/smiley/data/media/3/3D_emoticon_S36.gif
http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1851&highlight=marijuana+facts
http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1964
The question that I believe should be asked in regards to marijuana is very simple.
Is there a cover-up ?
If we take a closer look at the history of marijuana, we can see that there is a definate pattern in regards to prohibiting the cultivation and use of this plant. From observing this, our second question arises.
Why ?
There are two opposing views in regards to the use of marijuana. One view is that marijuana causes countless problems for the user and thus those surrounding them (family, friends, society in general). The other view being that marijuana is of benefit to the individual for many different applications (medicinal benefits, spiritual insights, peaceful and relxed state of being). These views can be argued for and against (as they have been) forever without any benefit in aswering the above-mentioned questions. Could the fact that there exists a cover-up be indicated by the distraction caused by the arguments between the two opposing views ?
It is not the argument for or against marijuana that I am advocating one way or the other. My purpose is to understand the above-mentioned questions and how that relates to our individual freedom.
I am going to discuss the following quotations as an examination of a possible cover-up and leave it up to you, the individual, as to how this relates to you and your personal freedoms. Thank you for reading the text (I know that there is a lot of reading here) and I am optimistic that you will gain some benefit from doing so.
All quotes have been taken from 'The Emperor Wears No Clothes', by Jack Herer, or http://www.jackherer.com/
__________________________________________________ _______________
Close acquaintances of John F. Kennedy, such as entertainers Morey Amsterdam and Eddie Gordon* say the president used cannabis regularly to control his back pain (before and during his term) and actually planned on legalizing "marijuana" during his second term a plan cut short by his assassination in 1963. "How Heads of State Got High," High Times, April, 1980 (see appendix in paper version of this book).
* As reported directly to this author by Eddie Gordon, reknowned harmonica virtuoso, member of the Harmonicats, and the number-one harmonicist in the world, who smoked with Kennedy and performed numerous times for him.
Is it possible that J.F.K. was assasinated because of marijuana ?
That there has been a cover-up of his assasination is in no doubt. The reasons behind it have been many. Those that assasinated J.F.K. are the obvious ones that can answer this question. Even more obvious is that they will not do so.
So this leaves us to our own speculation. We have no specific evidence to go on at this time (although there may be existing evidence not currently circulated).
The powers that run the world also run the drug trade. David Icke has written about this himself. If marijuana was legalised, both the cultivation and use of, how would this effect the profit of those that now make the money from this lucrative crop ?
Could it be feasible that they would react to the proposed legalisation of marijuana by assasinating J.F.K. ?
If we broaden our scope a bit, we can also see that those that control the international business would be severely effected by the leagalisation of marijuana/hemp.
In the Twenties, the early oil barons such as Rockefeller of Standard Oil, Rothschild of Shell, etc., became paranoically aware of the possibilities of Henry Ford's vision of cheap methanol fuel,* and they kept oil prices incredibly low - between one dollar and four dollars per barrel (there are 42 gallons in an oil barrel) until 1970 - almost 50 years! Prices were so low, in fact, that no other energy source could compete with it. Then, once they were finally sure of the lack of competition, the price of oil jumped to almost $40 per barrel over the next 10 years.
* Henry Ford grew marijuana on his estate after 1937, possibly to prove the cheapness of methanol production at Iron Mountain. He made plastic cars with wheat straw, hemp and sisal. (Popular Mechanics, Dec. 1941, "Pinch Hitters for Defense.") In 1892, Rudolph Diesel invented the diesel engine, which he intended to fuel "by a variety of fuels, especially vegetable and seed oils."
And if we add this together with this next quote....
How to Save the World with Cannabis/Hemp/Marijuana!
This is my work in progress. I sent this to Virgin Earth Fuels. I'm going to send it to the Virgin Earth Challenge as soon as I figure out how to enter the challenge. Thanks to all you MySpacers who encouraged me to do this.
Plant hemp on 600 million acres of secondary farm land in the United States.
Plant hemp on 600 million to 1 billion acres of secondary farm land in Canada.
Plant hemp on 1 to 2 billion acres of secondary farm land in Russia and Siberia.
Plant hemp on 1 to 2 billion acres of secondary farm land in Africa.
Plant hemp on 500 million acres of secondary farm land in South America.
Plant hemp on ? acres in Australia.
Plant hemp on ? acres in Asia.
Plant hemp on ? acres in Europe.
All fuel will be made of methanol or a derivative of hemp.
All fossil fuel, oil, coal, and natural gas will no longer be used. It will stay in the ground for emergency only. For example, when we had the earthquake Krakatoa, there was about two years that the sun was blocked in that area.
All paper will be made from hemp. No trees will be cut for paper. That's the way it was 130 years ago. That will save half the trees on the planet that would otherwise be cut down in the next 30 years. All the trees will be healthier and bigger.
Most building material will be made from hemp composite.
20 to 50 percent of all proteins for food will be made from hemp seeds. In China, from 5,000 years ago to about 150 years ago, approximately 50 percent of all food was made from hemp seeds. And 20 percent of all food in Europe. On the Chinese border from Laos to Nepal to Tibet to Afghanistan all the way up to the northern border of Upper Mongolia, 50 percent of all proteins for food is still made out of hemp, and 90 percent of all butter. This starts on either side of the border to about 100 miles away from the border.
No more cotton for clothing, unless it is raised organically. Clothing will mostly be made from hemp, bamboo, soy and flax.
Dr. Raphael Mechoulam in Israel believes that 30 percent of all medicines will be made out of cannabis or combinations of cannabis and other drugs.
The arid land from the Sahara all the way across the world will be planted with hemp.
People from 18 to 30 years of age, throughout the world, will join a different kind of military, the Hemp Corps, for planting and harvesting and packaging hemp. In return for four years of duty, they will receive four years of college paid by the government.
People will live about two year's longer using cannabis.
Everything will be a lot more fun. There will be new jobs for everybody. The auto industry will build cars mostly from hemp. Computer companies will be build computers of hemp. Furniture will be made of hemp cloth and hemp composite wood.
Hemp grows everywhere, from the Equator to the Arctic Circle, from the valleys to about 6,000 feet up in the mountains. It's the healthiest of the 3 million plants that grow on Earth. It has the deepest roots. It's the only plant you can grow over and over each year, and the soil will only get better.
People will be able to pay their taxes with hemp.
I wrote my book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes", 25 years ago. I have been teaching people how to save the world with cannabis/hemp/marijuana since 1979.
Prove us wrong! Prove us wrong! Prove us wrong!
We hereby extend our $100,000 challenge to prove us wrong!
We can now see that there would be a great concern for the individuals that profit from multi-national companies use of the worlds natural resources. The amount of money that would be restructured throughout society could literally free everyone from the debt that is currently rife throughout the world.
So the question as to whether it could be feasible for those in power to react and assasinate J.F.K appears to be a big YES.
To protect their interests, those in power have done far more than to kill one individual. To doubt that this is possible is ludicrous to say the least. But, is it the reason why J.F.K was assasinated ?
As the evidence is circumstantial, we will have to await further evidence before we can say for certain that this is the case.
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The Mystic Philosophers
Cannabis legend and consumption are fundamental aspects of many of the world's great religions. For example:
SHINTOISM (Japan) Cannabis was used for the binding together of married couples, to drive away evil spirits, and was thought to create laughter and happiness in marriage.
HINDUISM (India) The God Shiva is said "to have brought cannabis from the Himalayas for human enjoyment and enlightenment." The Sardu Priests travel throughout India and the world sharing "chillum" pipes filled with cannabis, sometimes blended with other substances. In the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna states, "I am the healing herb" (Ch. 9:16), while the Bhagarat-purana Fifth Canto describes hashish in explicitly sexual terms.
BUDDHISTS (Tibet, India, and China)From the 5th Century B.C.E. on ritually used cannabis; initiation rites and mystical experiences were (are) common in many Chinese Buddhist Sects. Some Tibetan Buddhists and lamas (priests) consider cannabis their most holy plant. Many Buddhist traditions, writings, and beliefs indicate that "Siddhartha" (the Buddha) himself, used and ate nothing but hemp and its seeds for six years prior to announcing (discovering) his truths and becoming the Buddha (Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path). Regarding the
ZOROASTRIANS or Magi (Persia, circa 8th to 7th Centuries B.C.E. to 3rd to 4th Centuries C.E.), it is widely believed by many Christian scholars, commentators, etc., that the three "Magi" or Wise Men who attended the birth of Christ were cult references to the Zoroastrians. The Zoroastrian religion was based (at least on the surface) on the entire cannabis plant, the chief religious sacrament of its priest class, and its most important medicine, (e.g., obstetrics, incense rites, anointing and christening oils), as well as lighting or fire oils in their secular world. The word "magic" is generally considered derived from the Zoroastrians "Magi."
The ESSENES (ancient Israeli sect of extreme Hebrewites approx. 200 B.C.E. to 73 C.E.) used hemp medicinally, as did the THERAPUTEA (Egypt), from whom we get the term "therapeutic." Both are believed by some scholars to be disciples of, or in a brotherhood with, the priests/magician of the Zoroastrians.
EARLY JEWS As part of their holy Friday night services in the Temple of Solomon, 60-80,000 men ritually passed around and inhaled 20,000 incense burners filled with kanabosom (cannabis), before returning home for the largest meal of the week (munchies?).
SUFIS OF ISLAM (Middle East)Moslem "mystical" priests who have taught, used, and extolled cannabis for divine revelation, insight, and oneness with Allah, for at least the last 1,000 years. Many Moslem and world scholars believe the mysticism of the Sufi Priests was actually that of the Zoroastrians who survived Moslem conquests of the 7th and 8th Centuries C.E. and subsequent conversion (change your religion and give up liquor or be beheaded).
COPTIC CHRISTIAN (Egypt/Ethiopia)Some sects believe the sacred "green herb of the field" in the Bible ("I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more." Ezekiel 34:29) and the Biblical secret incenses, sweet incenses, and anointing oils to be cannabis.
The BANTUS (Africa) had secret Dagga Cults,* societies which restricted cannabis use to the ruling men. The Pygmies, Zulus, and Hottentots all found it an indispensable medication for cramps, epilepsy, and gout, and as a religious sacrament.
*Their "Dagga" cults believed Holy Cannabis was brought to earth by the Gods, in particular from the "Two Dog Star" system that we call Sirius A and B. "Dagga" literally means "cannabis." Interestingly, the surviving Indo-European word for the plant can also be read as "canna," "reed" and "bi," "two," as well as 'canna,' as in canine; and 'bis,' meaning two (bi) ß "Two Dogs."
The RASTAFARIANS (Jamaica and elsewhere) are a contemporary religious sect that uses "ganja" as its sacred sacrament to communicate with God (Jah).
Now this quote relates to the second question of, why ?
Remember, this is not an argument for or against the cultivation and use of marijuana. What I am doing is showing that there is a cover-up.
The use of marijuana can be shown throughout history. The above quote is specific evidence as to this fact. If we are able to see that marijuana was so widely used throughout individual cultures of the world, the question as to why becomes easier to understand.
What purpose did these cultures use marijuana for ?
Would marijuana use be conducive for those wishing to rule the world ?
Or, would it in fact be the opposite ?
I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions to the above questions.
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Cannabis Medicines Forbidden
While embracing wine as a Sacrament, and tolerating beer and hard liquor, the Inquisition outlawed cannabis ingestion in Spain in the 12th Century, and France in the 13th. Many other natural remedies were simultaneously banned. Anyone using hemp to communicate, heal, etc. was labeled "witch."
Saint Joan of Arc, for example, was accused in 1430-31 of using a variety of herbal "witch" drugs, including cannabis, to hear voices.
Church Sanctioned Legal Medicines
Virtually the only legal medical cures allowed to people of Western Europe by the Roman Catholic Church Fathers at this time were:
1. (a) Wearing a bird mask for plague (see picture). (b) Setting fractured bones or cleaning burns.
2. Bleeding pints and even quarts of blood from all flu, pneumonia, or fever patients (victims) was the most used treatment in Europe and America by doctors until the beginning of the 1900s. It does not work! And did not work for thousands of years no matter how much blood they took.
3. Praying to specific Saints for a miraculous cure, e.g., St. Anthony for ergotism (poisoning), St. Odilla for blindness, St. Benedict for poison sufferers, St. Vitus for comedians and epileptics\.
4. Alcohol was legal for a variety of problems. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII singled out cannabis healers and other herbalists, proclaiming hemp an unholy sacrament of the second and third types of satanic mass. This persecution lasted for more than 150 years.
Satanic knowledge and masses, according to the Medieval Church, came in three types:
To Summon or Worship Satan; To Have Witch's Knowledge (e.g., herbalists of chemists) of making, using, or giving others any unguent or preparation including cannabis as medicine or as a spiritual sacrament;
The Mass of the Travesty, which can be likened to "the Simpsons", "In Living Color", rap music, Mel Brooks, "Second City-TV", "Monty Python", or "Saturday Night Live" (Father Guido Sarducci-type group) doing irreverent, farcical, or satirical take-offs on the dogmas, doctrines, indulgences, and rituals of the R.C.Ch. mass and/or its absolute beliefs.
Because medieval priest bureaucrats thought they were sometimes laughed at, ridiculed, and scorned by those under its influence often by the most learned monks, clerics, and leading citizens ingesting cannabis was proclaimed heretical and Satanic.
Similar questions can be asked in relation to the Christian religion.
Once again I'll leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions.
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"Natural Mind"
United States government-funded studies at St. Louis Medical University in 1989 and the U.S. government's National Institute of Mental Health in 1990 moved cannabis research into a new realm by confirming that the human brain has receptor sites for THC and its natural cannabis cousins to which no other compounds known thus far will bind.
In order for a chemical to affect the brain it must bind to a receptor site capable of receiving it.
(Omni, August 1989; Washington Post, Aug 9, 1990)
Although morphine fits the receptor sites of beta-endorphin roughly, and amphetamines correspond loosely to dopamine, these drugs as well as tricyclics and other mood altering drugs present grave danger to the subtle balance of the nerves' vital fluids. Omni and the Washington Post cited no physical dangers in natural cannabis.
One reason cannabis is so safe to use is that it does not affect any of the involuntary muscles of breathing and life support. Rather, it affects its own specific receptor cites for motion (movement strategy) and memory (mental strategies).
On the molecular level, THC fits into receptor sites in the upper brain that seem to be uniquely designed to accommodate THC. This points to an ancient symbiosis between the plant and people.
Perhaps these neuronal pathways are the product of a pre-cultural relationship between humans and cannabis. Carl Sagan proposes evidence using the Bushmen of Africa to show hemp to have been the first plant cultivated by humanity dating to when he was a hunter-gatherer. Some scientist assume that these receptor sites did not evolve for the purpose of getting high: "There must be some kind of neuronal pathway in the brain that developed, whether there were cannabis plants or not," speculated mystified St. Louis University pharmacology professor Allyn Howlett in 1989.
But, maybe not. In his book Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradise, Dr. Ronald K. Siegel, psycho-pharmacologist at UCLA indicates the motivation to achieve altered states of consciousness or moods is a fourth drive akin to hunger, thirst, and sex. And humans aren't the only ones to get high. Siegel recorded numerous observations of animal intentionally getting intoxicated during his experiments.
Cannabis hemp is part of our cultural, spiritual, and physiological heritage, and was the backbone of our most stable and long surviving cultures. So, if you want to know the long term effects of marijuana use look in the mirror!
If it is true that there is a correlation between marijuana and the brain, what conclusions can we draw about the government maintaining marijuana as an illegal drug and prosecuting anyone that cultivates and uses it ?
There are many questions that I have not answered, but each question shows us that we can answer the original questions that I proposed.
Is there a cover-up ? .....YES.
Why ? .....This is for you to decide.
If anyone would like to offer their own reasons as to the question why, please feel free. I would definitely like to hear and discuss all individual perspectives that are put forth.
With LOVE.
_____________________________________
WHEN PAIRED OPPOSITES DEFINE YOUR BELIEFS, YOUR BELIEFS WILL IMPRISON YOU.
i am all i am
15-09-2007, 04:21 AM
I LOVE YOU.
Oooops. I missed the quotes in the first post and when I added them I ended up with to many characters in the text and required to split them up. So...
THANK YOU.
http://www.lifeshore.com/smiley/data/media/3/3D_emoticon_S34.gif With LOVE http://www.lifeshore.com/smiley/data/media/3/3D_emoticon_S36.gif
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The Emperor Wears No Clothes
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Chapter 14
More Than Sixty Years of Suppression & Repression
1937: Hemp banned. An estimated 60,000 Americans smoke "marijuana," but virtually everyone in the country has heard of it, thanks to Hearst and Anslinger's disinformation campaign.
1945: Newsweek reports that more than 100,000 persons now smoke marijuana.
1967: Millions of Americans regularly and openly smoke hemp leaves and flowers.
1977: Tens of millions smoke cannabis regularly, with many persons growing their own.
1998: One in three Americans, approximately 90 million citizens, have now tried it at least once, and some 10-20% (25 to 50 million Americans) still choose to buy and smoke it regularly, despite urine tests and tougher laws.
Throughout history, Americans have held the legal tradition that one could not give up one's Constitutional rights and if someone was stripped of these protections, then he or she was being victimized. However by 1989, if you signed up for an extracurricular activity in school or applied for a minimum wage job, you could be asked to forego your right to privacy, protection from self-incrimination, Constitutional requirements of reasonable grounds for search and seizure, presumed innocence until found guilty by your peers, and that most fundamental right of all: personal responsibility for your own life and consciousness.
By 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that these intrusions into your privacy were constitutional!
In November 1996, as earlier stated, California passed a statewide people's initiative that legalized medical marijuana within the state. Also in November 1996, Arizona passed a statewide initiative (by 65% of the vote) that included medical marijuana but, unlike California law, Arizona's legislature and the governor (now impeached) can and have since rejected the people's law. This was the first rejection by the legislature and the governor of any Arizona state initiative in 90 years!
The Armed Forces and Industry
The Armed Forces, as well as many civilian factories, will boot you out if you smoke marijuana; even if you smoke it 30 days before testing and while off duty. These tests are done at random and often do not include liquor, tranquilizer, or other speed/downer type drugs. However, according to OSHA and insurance actuarial findings, plus the AFL-CIO, it is alcohol(!) that is involved in 90-95% of drug related factory accidents.
In fact, numerous U.S. Army test of the effects of cannabis on soldiers (through the 1950s and '60s) at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, and elsewhere, show no loss of motivation or performance after two years of heavy (military sponsored) smoking of marijuana.
This study was repeated six more times by the military and dozens of times by universities with the same or similar results. (Also, British Indian Hemp Report; Panama/Siler study; Jamaican study, et al.)
South African gold and diamond mines allowed and encouraged Blacks to use cannabis/Dagga in order to work harder.
(U.S. Government Reports, 1956-58-61-63-68-69-70-76.)
Privacy is a Right
Groups like NORML, HEMP, ACLU, BACH, and the Libertarian Party (for example) feel that as long as military personnel (unless on alert) or factory workers do not smoke cannabis while on duty or during the period four to six hours before duty, it's their own business. This is consistent with the conclusions of the U.S. government's own Siler Commission (1933) and Shafer Commission (1972) reports, as well as the LaGuardia report (1944), the Canadian Government Study (1972), Alaska State Commission (1989), and the California Research Advisory Panel (1989), all of which held that no criminal penalties are in order for its use.
Inaccurate Urine Testing
Military/factory worker marijuana urine tests are only partially accurate and do not indicate the extent of your intoxication. They indicate only whether you have smoked or been in the presence of cannabis smoke or have eaten hempseed oil or any hempseed ffod product in the last 30 days. Whether you smoked or ate it an hour ago or 30 days ago and sometimes if you haven't smoked it at all the test results are the same: Positive.
John P. Morgan, M.D., stated in High Times February 1989 (and in 1999 he still says), "The tests are far from reliable. Tampering and high rates of false-positives, false-negatives, etc. are common, and further these testing companies are held to no standards but their own."
At 20-50 nanograms (billionths of a gram) per milliliter of THC Carboxy Acid (a metabolite) these tests can be read as positive or negative yet results derived from this part of the scale are known to be meaningless. To the untrained eye, any positive indication sends up a red flag. And most testers are untrained and uncertified. Still, the decision to hire, fire, detain, re-test, or begin drug abuse treatment is made for you on the spot.
"I believe the tendency to read the EMIT [the urine test for THC metabolites] test below the detection limit is one of the important reasons why the test was not often confirmed in published reports," Dr. Morgan said.
In 1985, for the first time, Milton, Wisconsin, high school kids were ordered to have urine tests weekly to see if they smoked pot. Local "Families Against Marijuana" type organizations were demanding this testing, but not for liquor, downers, or other hazardous drugs.
Hundreds of communities and high schools throughout the country were awaiting the outcome of constitutional challenges in Milton in 1988 before implementing similar testing programs in their own school districts. Because of this ruling in Milton's favor, testing for high school students participating in extra-curricular activities has since been widely adopted and continues across the United States in 1998.
For instance, in Oregon the testing of high-school athletes has spread by court order to any and all extra-curricular activity. Band members and majorettes even debate team members, some debating on the marijuana issue can now be tested at will in all states except California, where even a high school student can, since 1996, legally have a doctor's recommendation or acknowledgement for the medical use of marijuana.
(NORML reports, High Times, ABC, NBC & CBS News, and LA Times, 1981-1998, Oregonian, October 23, 1989.)
Baseball and the Babe
Former Baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth first ordered in 1985 all personnel, except unionized players, to submit to these urine tests. From the owners to the peanut vendors to the bat boys, it is mandatory in order to be employed. By 1990, it had been incorporated into all contracts, including ball-players.
Now, since November 1996, a professional baseball player (or any other sports player for that matter) in California may take advantage of cannabis as medicine, and continue to play baseball professionally.
Aside from the civil liberties questions raised, it is apparently forgotten that "Babe" Ruth would regularly invite reporters to accompany him while he drank 12 beers prior to playing a game, during alcohol Prohibition.
Many "dry" organizations and even the league commissioner implored him to think of the children who idolized him and stop, but the "Babe" refused.
If Peter Ueberroth or his ilk had been in charge of baseball during Prohibition, the "Sultan of Swat" would have been fired in shame and millions of children would not have proudly played in "Babe Ruth Little Leagues." Lyndon LaRouche's "War on Drugs" committee told us that, along with new marijuana laws, they expected to implement their most important goal: anyone in the future playing any disco, rock 'n' roll, or jazz on the radio, on television, in schools, or in concert, or who just sold rock 'n' roll records or any music that wasn't on their approved classical lists would be jailed, including music teachers, disc jockeys, and record company executives.
Tens of millions of average Americans choose to use cannabis as self medication or to relax during their time off the job, and therefore risk criminal penalties. Job performance should be the principle criterion for evaluation of all employees, not personal lifestyle choices.
The Babe Ruths of sports, the Henry Fords of industry, the Pink Floyds, Beatles, Picassos, and Louis Armstrongs of the arts, and one out of ten Americans have become criminals and thousands unemployed for smoking cannabis, even when merely unwinding in the privacy of their own homes.
Robert Mitchum's film career was almost destroyed by a 1948 marijuana arrest. Federal Judge Douglas Ginsburg was on the verge of being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 when it was revealed that he had smoked grass while a university professor and his name was withdrawn from nomination. However, George Bush's appointee Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' 1991 admission that he smoked marijuana in college was not an issue in his controversial confirmation.
Dividing Communities and Splitting Up Families
"Help a friend, send him to jail," says a billboard in Ventura, California. This is an example of the "zero tolerance" campaign's inform-on-your-neighbor tactics being used to enforce the laws against the victimless crime of cannabis smoking.
Here's another example from TV: "If you have knowledge of a felony you can earn up to one thousand dollars. Your name will not be used and you will not be required to appear in court." * One man received a postcard in jail saying, "Our informant received $600 for turning you in. Crimestoppers."
*(Crimestoppers, Ventura, California, October, 1989.)
Surveillance and Seizures
In rural California, where cannabis growing has supported whole communities, the well-armed CAMP forces go into a thick forest discovering 15-foot tall, lush, hearty eight-month-old plants. These are hacked down, piled up, and smothered with gasoline and rubber tires. Uncured, they burn slowly.
Elsewhere, a helicopter pilot circles over a neighborhood, peering into a heat sensitive camera pointed at a house. "We're looking for the indoor sun," he explains matter-of-factly.
"We only pursue specific objectives," houses where grow lights have been bought or some other tangible basis exists to suspect "manufacturing a controlled substance": a felony.
"Look, there's the light from the house." His thermal-sensitive screen shows heat leaking out from under the eaves of the house. Site confirmed.
Next they obtain a search warrant, raid the property, seize the house under civil proceedings, and prosecute its inhabitants under criminal law.
(48 Hrs., CBS television, "Marijuana Growing in California," October 12, 1989.)
UnAmerican Policies & Political Extortion
Richard Nixon ordered the FBI to illegally monitor John Lennon 24-hours a day for six solid months in 1971 because Lennon had given a concert in Michigan to free a student (John Sinclair) from five years in jail for possession of two joints.
(L.A. Times, August, 1983.)
The drug, oil, paper, and liquor companies want pot illegal forever, no matter whose rights they suppress or how many years we have to spend in prison to assure their profits.
Politicians who are liberal are investigated and, we believe, are blackmailed to keep their mouths shut on this subject and others, or risk being exposed for some past indiscretion by themselves or members of their families possibly sexual or drug-related.
Police, Secrets & Blackmail
A few years ago, then Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates (1978-1992) ordered surveillance of City Councilman Zev Yarslovsky, City Attorney John Van DeKamp, and Mayor Tom Bradley, among others. He monitored their private sex lives for more than a year.
(Los Angeles Times, August, 1983.)
J. Edgar Hoover, as Director of the FBI, did this for five years to Martin Luther King Jr. and, in the most "sick" situation, deliberately drove actress Jean Seburg to suicide with terrible ongoing federal letters and information fed to tabloids exposing her pregnancies and private dates with blacks. In fact, using the FBI, Hoover harassed selected targets, for as long as 20 years because of their civil rights stands.
The former director of the FBI and also direct overseer of the DEA, William Webster, answered questions about the squandering of 50% ($500 million) of federal drug enforcement money on cannabis enforcement this way: "Oh, marijuana is an extremely dangerous drug and the proof [referring to totally discredited brain and metabolite studies by Heath, Nahas] is now coming in."
Webster then asked for more money and more unrestrained powers to stop pot. (Nightwatch, CBS, January 1, 1985.)
(1998 footnote: The DEA's budget for marijuana information alone figures out to 10 times the cost of 1985's budget and 100 times the cost of its 1981 budget.)
Public Humiliation
Entertainers caught with cannabis have had to do a "Galileo" type recanting to stay out of jail or to retain their television, endorsement, or nightclub contracts, etc. Some have had to go on television and denounce marijuana to stay out of jail (e.g., Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, David Crosby, and actress Linda Carter). Our courts and legislators have sold our American "guaranteed" Bill of Rights, written on cannabis, to secure a cannabis-free world.
"Don't suspect your neighbor, turn him in." Any hear say is to be reported. That which revolted us as children the spectre of Nazis and Commies asking everyone to spy and inform on one another; Stalin's secret police taking persons from their homes at night to administer stupefying drugs and extort information; a government spreading lies and creating a police state has now become our everyday Amierkan reality.
And those who dare to stand against the tide of oppression face the prospect of financial ruin.
Seizure: Feudal Law & Order
When the federal government seizes cars, boats, money, real estate, and other personal property, proceeding are set into motion based on laws that originated with medieval superstition.
English common law of the Middle Ages provided for forfeiture of any object causing a man's death. Known as a "deodand," the object, such as a weapon or run-away ox cart, was personified and declared tainted or evil, and forfeited to the king.
Today's in rem (against things rather than against persons) forfeiture proceedings are civil suits against the property itself. Relying on analogy to the deodand, a legal "personification fiction," declares the property to be the defendant. It is held guilty and condemned, as though it were a personality and the guilt or innocence of the owner is irrelevant.
By applying this civil label to forfeiture proceedings, the government sidesteps almost all the protections offered by the Constitution to individuals. There is no Sixth Amendment guarantee of right to counsel. Innocent until proven guilty is reversed. Each violation of a constitutional right is then used as the basis for the destruction of another.
The violation of the Fifth Amendment's "innocent until proven guilty" due process standard is used to destroy the prohibition of double jeopardy. Even acquittal of the criminal charges the forfeiture is based upon does not prevent re-trying the same facts, because, even through the government couldn't prove a crime was committed, at the second trial the defendant must provide proof of innocence.
The Supreme Court holds that it is constitutional to forfeit property in rem from a person who is completely innocent and non-negligent in his use of the property. Lower courts accept prosecutors' arguments that if it is permissible to forfeit property from completely innocent persons, then constitutional protections could not possibly apply to anyone who is guilty of even a minor drug offense.
Unlike civil suits between individuals, the government is immune to counter-suit. The government can use its unlimited resources to repeatedly press a suit in the mere hope of convincing one juror the defendant did not provide a preponderance of evidence.
Forfeitures imposed by the English Crown led our nation's founders to prohibit bills of attainder (forfeiture consequent to conviction) in the first article of the American Constitution. The main body of the Constitution also forbids forfeiture of estate for treason. The first Congress passed the statue, still law today, stating that "No conviction or judgement shall work corruption of blood or any forfeiture of estate." However, early Americans did incorporate in rem (proceeding against a thing) procedures under Admiralty and Maritime law, to seize enemy ships at sea and to enforce payment of customs duties.
It was not until the outbreak of the Civil War that these Customs procedures were radically changed. The Confiscation Act of July 17, 1862, declared all property belonging to Confederate officers or those who aided the rebels to be forfeitable in rem. The U.S. Supreme Court held that if the Act was an exercise of the war powers of the government and was applied only to enemies, then it was Constitutionally allowable in order to ensure a speedy termination of the war.
Today, the passions of the "War on Drugs" have caused Congress to once again use in rem proceedings to inflict punishment without the nuisance of the protections provided by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. "We have to save our Constitution," says Vickie Linker, whose husband served two years in prison for a cannabis offense. "We have the truth."
Entrapment, Intolerance and Ignorance
When not enough persons seem to be committing crimes, the DEA and police departments often resort to entrapment to make criminals out of unsuspecting and otherwise non-criminal persons. Government agents have been caught time after time provoking and participating in drug smuggling and sales.*
* High Witness News department, High Times magazine; "Inside the DEA," Dale Geiringer, Reason Magazine, December, 1986; Christic Institute "La Penca" lawsuit; DeLorean cocaine trial testimony and verdict of innocence; Playboy magazine, etc.
This constant fanning of public fears of marijuana turns into demands for more money for a "War on Drugs" (a euphemism for war on certain people who freely choose to use selected substances) and political pressure for the permission to use unconstitutional means to enforce the constantly harsher laws.
In an October, 1989, Louisville, KY, address to the Police Chiefs of that state, then Drug Czar and social-drinking, nicotine-addict William Bennett* announced that marijuana smoking makes people stupid.
* This is the same man who helped engineer a $2.9 million grant for the Texas National Guard to dress its agents up as cactus to patrol the Mexican border. This was the National Guard unit that later shot and killed a young American-born Mexican sheep herder assuming him to be an illegal immigrant.
He offered no proof, and although crack was not a major issue in Kentucky, proclaimed that more money was necessary for the war on drugs because of this new found marijuana-induced danger stupidity! (Which, as far as we know, is still not a crime.)
Bennett was seen to brace himself with a late-morning gin and tonic in December, 1989, as he tried to pitch a similar anti-marijuana message to representatives of the broadcast and film industries in Beverly Hills, CA.
(High Times, February, 1990. See "Booze Brunch" in appendix of the paper version of this book.)
Have your balloons and bumper stickers ready; Bennett is running for president in 2000!
PDFA: Slickly Packaged Lies
Another recent development has been the formation of the PDFA (Partnership for a Drug Free America) in the media. PDFA, with primarily in-kind funding from ad agencies and media groups, makes available (free of charge to all broadcast and print media) slick public service ads directed primarily against marijuana.
In addition to releasing such meaningless drivel as an ad which shows a skillet ("This is drugs.") on which an egg is frying ("This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"), PDFA is not above lying outright in their ads.
In one ad, the wreckage of a train is shown. Now, everyone will agree that no one should attempt to drive a train while high on marijuana. But a man's voice says that anyone who tells you that "marijuana is harmless" is lying, because his wife was killed in a train accident caused by marijuana. This contradicts the direct sworn testimony of the engineer responsible for that disaster; that "this accident was not caused by marijuana." And it deliberately ignores his admissions of drinking alcohol, snacking, watching TV, generally failing to pay adequate attention to his job, and deliberately jamming the train's safety equipment prior to the accident. Yet, for years the PDFA has described the train accident as being marijuana-caused, even though the engineer was legally drunk and had lost his automobile driver's license six times, including permaently, for drunken driving in the previous three years.
In another ad, a sad looking couple is told that they cannot have children because the husband used to smoke pot. This is a direct contradiction both of the clinical evidence developed in nearly a century of cannabis studies and of the personal experiences of millions of Americans who have smoked cannabis and borne perfectly healthy children.
And in yet another ad, the group was so arrogant in putting out lies that it finally got into trouble. The ad showed two brain wave charts which it said showed the brain waves of a 14-year-old "on marijuana."
Outraged, researcher Dr. Donald Blum from the UCLA Neurological Studies Center told KABC-TV (Los Angeles) News November 2, 1989, that the chart said to show the effects of marijuana actually shows the brain waves of someone in a deep sleep or in a coma.
He said that he and other researchers had previously complained to the PDFA, and added that cannabis user's brain wave charts are much different and have a well-known signature, due to years of research on the effects of cannabis on the brain.
Even after this public refutation, it took the station KABC-TV and PDFA weeks to pull the spot, and no apology or retraction had yet been offered for the deceit. Despite being ordered by the courts to stop, the PDFA has shown that ad continuously on hundreds of TV channels throughout the United States for the last decade.*
* Groups including the American Hemp Council, the Family Council on Drug Awareness, and Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) have decided to step up their pressure to expose PDFA lies and get their distortions banned from the airwaves or, better yet, replaced with accurate information on the medical, social, and commercial uses of hemp.
Perhaps a more valid ad for the PDFA to produce and the networks to run would show a skillet ("This is the PDFA.") and an egg frying ("These are the facts.").
DARE: Police Propaganda
The DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, a national program that was initiated in 1983 by then Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, has become yet another tool disinforming the public on hemp.
Typically, a police department spokesperson will conduct a 17-week course at a local elementary school to promote personal responsible behavior by young persons while irresponsibly giving them distorted information and outright lies about cannabis.
Most of the course does not deal with drugs as such, but rather with making choices about how to act when there are opportunities or pressures to drink, smoke, steal, lie, break laws, etc. However, the program's truly useful support for good behavior is undermined by an undercurrent of lies and innuendo about marijuana's effects and users.*
* In an interview, L.A.'s main DARE instructor, Sgt. Domagalski, gave information on the program and made such unsubstantiated and untrue statements as marijuana leads to heroin, "The guy across the street or next door has been smoking marijuana for years and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him. There is something wrong, but it may not be obvious." And, "People in the Sixties smoked marijuana and thought there was nothing wrong with it. Now it's watered and sprayed and pampered and they're not concerned what they spray it with, either. But parents don't know this. They got all their information in the Sixties, and they're not interested in this new information." (Downtown News, July 10, 1989. Also see letters section, July 31, 1989 for BACH's reply.) See chapter 15, "Debunking" for the facts on his "new information."
In 1999, DARE still consciously teaches these same lies to our children and threatens any community that dares to tell DARE to stop or cease in their school district. However, in 1997 the city of Oakland, California, withdrew from the DARE program and has so far suffered no consequences. What makes the DARE program uniquely dangerous is that it provides some accurate information, but undermines itself and the public record by using lies and innuendo about marijuana.
For example, according to teachers who sit in on the sessions,* the police officer will remark, "I can't tell you that smoking pot causes brain damage, because you all know people who smoke pot and they seem pretty normal. But that's what it does. You just can't tell yet."
* Some of the teachers we talked to find themselves in the uncomfortable position of knowing the real studies, or have used cannabis themselves and know its effects, but cannot openly present their case for fear of being urine tested or dismissed.
No supporting evidence is then offered, and the literature that goes home with the child (and is potentially seen by marijuana-savvy parents) tends to appear more balanced, although it refers to mysterious "new studies" showing the dangers of marijuana.
But throughout the entire course, the police officer refers to lung damage, brain damage, sterility, and other unfounded claims of health damage and death being caused by marijuana.
Or they report on studies detailing the cardio-pulmonary risks of using cocaine, then mention marijuana smoke unrelated except by context. Or the "well-intentioned" officer tells anecdotes about persons he claims to know who "started" with marijuana and ultimately destroyed their lives with hard drugs, crime, and depravity; then lumps marijuana in with genuinely dangerous drugs and describes how youngsters or fellow police officers were killed by these desperate, drug crazed criminals.
Then the officer encourages the students to "help" their drug-using friends and family by becoming a police informant. These kinds of indirect lies through innuendo and implication are given in an off-hand manner calculated to leave a strong, permanent impression on the sub-conscious mind, without basing it on any research or other sources that can be objectively studies or directly challenged just a lasting, indistinct mental image.
What makes the DARE program uniquely dangerous is that it provides some accurate information and has genuine value for young people, but undermines itself and the public record by using these irresponsible, underhanded tactics.
If DARE officials want responsible behavior from students, they must also act responsibly. If they have information about marijuana that is hidden from the rest of us, let's see it. But, so far as we know, no DARE organization has yet dared to debate any marijuana legalization advocacy group* or include their literature in its program.
* Since 1989, Help Eliminate Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) and the Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp (BACH) have issued ongoing standing challenges to publicly debate any DARE representatives in the Los Angeles area, which has yet to be taken up. These groups have also offered to provide free and accurate literature on cannabis for DARE's use, but as of July 1998, have received no response.
The Media in a Stupor
Despite a strong injection of reason and fact into the cannabis debate by the media in the late 1960s and 1970s, the national media has largely failed to distinguish marijuana prohibition from the broader "drug war" hysteria, which "sold more copy" in the 1980s.
Hemp activists have been ignored, their events censored and excluded from calendar listings even paid advertisements about events or legal, non-smoking hemp products are refused by news sources. What ever happened to fact checking?
Instead of serving as the probing watchdogs of government and keepers of the public trust, corporate news groups regard themselves as the profit-making tool for forging "consensus" on national policy. "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself." President Jimmy Carter August 2, 1977
According to groups like Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and researchers like Ben Bakdikian and Michael Parenti, these corporations define and protect the "national interest", often meaning their own vested financial interests and political agendas. It must be remembered that many of the largest publishers have direct holdings in timberland for paper development, and the pharmaceutical drug, petrochemical companies, etc. are among the media's major advertisers.
In an article published in the L.A. Times Magazine May 7, 1989, entitled "Nothing Works," (and since mimicked in hundreds of magazines, including Time and Newsweek), Stanley Meiseler laments the problem facing schools in drug education programs and inadvertently reveals the news media's own assumptions and bias:
"Critics believe that some education programs have been crippled by exaggerating the dangers of drugs. Principles and teachers, watched closely by city officials, feel pressured not to teach pupils that marijuana, although harmful,* is less addicting than cigarettes. Failure to acknowledge such information means school programs can lose credibility. But more honest programs could be even more harmful." (Emphasis added.)
The harm Meisler predicts is an expected increase in consumption when people learn the health benefits and lack of physical or psychological risks involved with cannabis consumption. Many persons decide that they prefer pot (which apparently does not need to advertise) to alcohol and tobacco, for which so many advertising dollars are spent.
* No specific studies showing the alleged harmful effects were cited in the article. In fact, cannabis was barely mentioned except for this reference and a note that detoxification businesses report some success in "breaking a mild dependence on marijuana and alcohol."
Ongoing Justice
President Jimmy Carter addressed Congress on another kind of harm done by prohibition and the drug issue August 2, 1977, saying that "penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Therefore, I support legislation amending federal law to eliminate all federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana."
However, his efforts to apply even this bit of reason to America's marijuana laws 21 years ago were derailed by a Congress determined to show that it is tough on crime, no matter whether an action is criminal or poses any real threat to society, no matter how many persons are hurt in the process.
And this attitude of intolerance and oppression has escalated in the post-Carter years. By 1990, some 30 states had established "Special Alternative Incarceration" (SAI) camps (called "boot camps") where non-violent, first time drug offenders are incarcerated in a boot camp-like institution, verbally abused, and psychologically worn down to break them of their dissident attitude towards drug use. Now, in 1999, there are 42 states with special alternative incarceration camps implementing similar programs.
The inmates are handled with robotic precision, and those who don't conform are subject to incarceration in the state penitentiary. Most of these offenders are in for marijuana. Even more states are considering implementing similar programs.*
* In These Times, "Gulag for drug users," December 20, 1989, pg. 4.
What pretext has been used to rationalize this anti-American policy? A handful of official government reports and studies that are touted by the DEA, politicians, and the media to show that marijuana really is "damaging to an individual."
LaRouche Declares War on Rock 'N Roll
If you thought Anslinger's music craziness was over after he went after jazz in the 1930s and 40s, then consider this:
One of the chief organizations among the 4,000 or so "Families Against Marijuana" type groups today is Lyndon LaRouche's "War on Drugs" committee, supported by Nancy Reagan, TV evangelists Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, and other right-wing activists.
In January, 1981, this author and five members of the California Marijuana Initiative (CMI) secretly, by pretending to be pro-LaRouche, attended the West Coast convention of this organization, whose guest speaker was Ed Davis, former Los Angeles Police Chief, who was at that time a freshman state senator from Chatsworth, California.
As we each walked in separately, we were asked to sign a petition endorsing a Detroit reporter who had written an open letter to the new President, Ronald Reagan, asking him to give immediate presidential clemency and make a national hero of Mark Chapman, who had murdered John Lennon of the Beatles six weeks earlier.
The letter stated that John Lennon had been the most evil man on the planet because he almost single-handedly "turned on" the planet to "illicit drugs". The evils of rock 'n' roll are a constant theme of the "War on Drugs" publications.
To keep up with the part we were playing, we signed the petition. (John, forgive us we were playing a clandestine role: under-cover CMI anti-narc. We remember you for "Give Peace a Chance," "Imagine," and all the rest.)
After we signed the petition, their leaders took us to the back of the room to show us some of the goals that would be achieved when they would come to full power over the next decade.
On five or so long tables set up in the back of the Los Angeles Marriott LAX meeting room were hundreds of recordings of Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and others, and dozens of pro-nuclear power publications.
They told us that along with new marijuana laws, they expected to implement their most important goal: anyone in the future who played disco, rock 'n' roll, or jazz on the radio, on television, in schools, or in concert, or just sold rock 'n' roll records or any other music that wasn't from their approved classical lists, would be jailed, including music teachers, disc jockeys, and record company executives. School teachers, if they allowed such music by students, would be fired. (LA Times; KNBC-TV.)
They were dead serious.
Their magazine "War on Drugs" has always spent more space denouncing music with the "evil marijuana beat" than on heroin, cocaine, and PCP combined!
Ed Davis was genuinely shocked and embarrassed about this out-front aspect of their anti-music dogma and said, "Well, I don't believe we could ever get legislation at this time outlawing these other types of music or their lyrics. But I do believe with the new Reagan Law-and-Order Administration, we are going to be able to pass some new and stronger anti-marijuana paraphernalia laws, even recriminalizing marijuana altogether in the states that have decriminalization laws now . . .That's the start."
I called his office a few days later and was told by an assistant that Davis had no advance idea of this group's musical fixation and that he had accepted the invitation based solely on the name "War on Drugs". Most of what Davis predicted that day has come about. Those visionaries of a new society, one free from the influence of pot and any mention of it had their way in the 1980s. Remember James Watt and the Beach Boys in 1986?
Since 1981, TV programs have been censored, cut, and pulled from the air for having a pro-marijuana connotation or even making jokes about it.
In an episode of "Barney Miller", Detective Fish (Abe Vigoda) was told that some brownies he'd been eating all day were laced with pot. He looked forlorn for a moment, then said with a sigh, "Wouldn't you know it, this is the best I ever felt in my life and it's illegal." This episode has been pulled from distribution.
The late "screaming comic", Sam Kinison, stood on the stage of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" in 1986 and bellowed "Go ahead, you can have the cocaine! Just let us smoke our pot!" The line has been deleted from audio portion in subsequent re-runs.
The Reagan/Bush drug czar, Carlton Turner, from his position as the White House Chief Drug Advisor in the mid 1980s quoted to the press passages of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and told police and interviewers that jazz musicians and rock singers were destroying the America he loved with their marijuana drug-beat music.
In 1997, in an episode of the TV series "Murphy Brown", starring Candice Bergen, Murphy undergoes cancer treatment from which she is vomitting constantly and has lost her appetite. Finally she is told by her doctor to illegally use marijuana for nausea and appetite stimulation. Murphy smokes pot and she is saved by doing so.
The Partnership For a Drug Free America and DARE tried unsuccessfully to stop this episode from airing as it "Sent the wrong message to our children" What wrong message!? That marijuana is the best anti-nausea and the best appetite-stimulant on our planet and can save millions of lives?
Paul McCartney & His Band on the Run
Timothy White interviewed Paul McCartney, formerly of the Beatles, for a book and developed it into a radio program called "McCartney: The First 20 Years." He asked the songwriter to explain his song "Band on the Run", on the album of the same name.
"Well, at the time, bands like us and the Eagles were feeling like and being treated like, outlaws and desperadoes, you know," replied McCartney.
"I mean, people were getting busted for pot, that is. And that's about all they were getting popped for. Never anything serious."
And our argument was that we didn't want to be outlaws. We just wanted to be part of the regular scene, you know, and make our music and live in peace. We didn't see why we should be treated like criminals when all we wanted to do was smoke pot instead of hitting the booze.
"And that's what the song was about; it was my reaction to that whole scene. . ."
"And the county judge / who held a grudge / will search forever more / for the band on the run."
From "The First 20 Years", broadcast on KLSX 97.1 FM (Los Angeles) and other stations of the Westwood One radio network January 29, 1990.
McCartney also wrote the famous line that got the song "A Day in the Life" banned from British radio: "Had a smoke. Somebody spoke and I went into a dream." A vocal supporter of marijuana legalization, McCartney has repeatedly been arrested and was imprisoned for 10 days during a concert tour of Japan. The Japanese government canceled his tour and banned him from playing in that country, costing him millions of dollars. To his credit, he has continued to speak out for pot smokers.
The Ultimate Hypocrasy
While waging its self-styled "War on Drugs" against Third World peasants and American civilians, the Reagan/Bush/Quayle/Clinton/Gore administrations (1981-1999) have encouraged and covered up drug smuggling and distribution by high ranking officials of the U.S. government.
On one hand, Bush violated international law by invading Panama to bring reputed drug smuggler and long-time Bush/CIA employee Manuel Noriega to the U.S. to stand trial.
On the other hand, he refused to extradite Oliver North, John Hull, Admiral Poindexter, General Secord, Lewis Tambs, and other Americans to Costa Rica, where they are under indictment by that government for operating a drug smuggling operation there.
(The Guardian, British newspaper, "Cocaine shipped by contra network", July 22, 1989.)
Federal hearings conducted by U.S. Senator John Kerry's (MA) Subcommittee on Terrorism and Narcotics in 1988 and 1989 documented widespread acts by the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) to block investigations by the Customs Department and FBI into cocaine smuggling by "intelligence operatives" under the guise of national security. No indictments were ever handed down, and witnesses testified under grants of immunity with little media attention.
Special Iran-Contra investigators failed to act on this information or evidence developed by the Christic Institute implicating government complicity in narco-terrorism. And when General Secord was convicted in January 1990 for crimes related to the Iran Contra drugs-for-arms scandal, he was given a fine of $50 and a brief probation when a federal judge decided that the poor fellow had already "suffered enough."
This from an administration that promotes the death penalty even beheading For marijuana dealers.*
* On the Larry King Show in late 1989, then drug czar William Bennett, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2000, said he had no moral problems with beheading drug dealers - only legal ones.
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