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Cannabis should be legalized At the very least, cannabis should be legalized. It
defies integrity and rationality to cage humans for using cannabis. And
to cage sick citizens using cannabis for relief of pain is vile, morbid
and spiteful, for a civilization in 2007. The people that vote to cage a
human for using cannabis are the problem in society, not cannabis.
Canada must use all opportunity to separate itself from the failed war
on drugs, in order to help aid Earth's knowledge of the benefits of
cannabis =============== 1961 United Nations Single Convention on ============== Ed Rosenthal "This kind of police action is not just an assault
on marijuana, it's an assault on dissent. The authorities are not just
trying to control what people think, but the way people think. Marijuana
smokers are very individualistic people, and that's something the
government really doesn't want. I think it's important to show some
solidarity." "Listen," Ed continued a little more gently,
"these events are very meaningful to the people who go to them
because they're the celebration of a culture which has been under a
genocidal assault by governments for 30 years or longer. And it's important for people to
celebrate in spite of government repression." =================== U.S. Appeals Judge Gilbert S. Merritt of Nashville, Tenn
said that after 25 years as a judge, he favors experimenting with
legalization in certain states or areas. "I just have the general
feeling that what we're doing here is running into the same problems as
with Prohibition - but with longer sentences." he said. ============= If we eliminated all the kids who used illegal drugs before leaving high
school that would still leave half of them. ================ Cannabis addiction and other problems are uncommon.
"The number of cannabis users treated in drugs outpatient
facilities is low," says Dirk Korf. "In 1996, there were only 2000
[patients] in the whole country -- just 0.3 per cent of all Dutch
cannabis users." Of those, 42 per cent "are also having trouble
with alcohol or other drugs -- the rest usually just need counselling to
help change their lifestyle", says Sas. Most people who find
cannabis causing trouble with concentration or memory at work or school,
he says, apply rules, like no smoking on week nights, or they limit
their intake. This self-policing seems to work. Dutch teenagers
get among the highest scores in the world on international science and
mathematics tests. If there are serious problems caused by legalising
marijuana, then twenty-plus years of the Dutch experiment has not
revealed what they are. Debora Mackenzie From New Scientist, 21 February
1998 =============================== Just as proponents of syringe exchange, and of Latin
American sovereignty and rights, and of access to pain medication, and
of asset forfeiture reform, and of sentencing reform, and of police
practice reform, and of racial justice, and of smaller government, and
of violence reduction, and of civil liberties are discovering, it is
impossible to advocate for rational changes in one part of Prohibition
without feeling the full weight of an opposition dedicated to the
maintenance of the illusion that it can work. Because when as great a
structure as the Drug War machine has been constructed on a foundation
of thin air, akin to an overfilled balloon, it is the unassuming man
with the pin in his hand who must be silenced and defeated. So the feds are right. Medical marijuana is not
about the sick and the dying. It is about Lockheed Martin and the
defense industry. It is about the private prison industry, and the
companies who build them, and the unions of the men and women who staff
them. It is about textile and petrochemical companies. It is about an
excuse to deploy our military forces in Latin America. It is about the
seizing and conversion of assets into the treasuries of governments. It
is about the perpetuity of bureaucratic careers and bureaucratic
agencies. It is about the stick which is used in controlling poor and
minority communities. And it is about federal power over the lives of
every single American in every state of the union. It is not about the
sick. Or the dying. Or the children. Or even marijuana. It is about the
Drug War itself. So the time is upon us. The time for all of those
advocates of all of those rational reforms to arrive together at the
inescapable conclusion that the feds, in their own deceitful way, have
been right all along. To paraphrase President Clinton's own campaign
theme, "It's the Drug War, stupid." And it is time, through
the prism of caring for the sick, or allowing syringes to the addicted,
or justice to the oppressed, that all of the advocates of all of the
various sub-issues begin to examine, very critically and very publicly,
what the war has wrought. For we are fighting a common enemy in the drug
war establishment. And in defending their indefensible system, the thing
they want most to avoid is the coalescing of the resistance. Their
structure, the enormous and imposing Drug War machine, sits upon a
foundation which, like an overfilled balloon, is full of nothing but
air. What we need to understand, as the drug warriors obviously do, is
that we, as reformers, are in possession of the pins. =================== "...the
tyrant...is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may
require a leader." - Plato ======================== It is
thought that the Greeks and the Ancient Egyptians used opium poppies. A
terracotta statue discovered in Knossos, Crete depicts a smiling female
figure with closed eyes wearing a crown containing three poppies. It is
suspected that this was a representation of a goddess in an
opium-induced trance. The Ebers papyrus, written ca 1500BC, also
mentions the use of poppy seeds to treat head pains and also its use as
a sedative. Cannabis was described in these texts as a plant that
"if taken over a long term, it makes one communicate with spirits
and lightens one's body." However it was also later described as a
"liberator of sin". Cannabis is also mentioned in the Atharva
Veda, which may date back as early as 2000BC and also in Assyrian
cuneiform tablets which date from about 650BC.
Cannabis has been discovered in the abdominal
cavity of the skeleton from a young girl aged about fourteen who died
during childbirth in the fourth century BC in Beit Shemesh near
Jerusalem. It is believed the girl died because her pelvis was too
small to permit a normal delivery. This find has led to suggestions that
the plant was used to alleviate pain and increase the force of uterine
contractions. Archaeologists have also discovered various objects
in the Scythian Mountains that were used for rituals associated with
cannabis use. Pots and charcoal containing the remains of cannabis
leaves and fruits have been dated to 500 - 300BC and Herodotus also
recorded the use of cannabis by the Scythians and the inhabitants of
islands in the Araxes river. ============== The discovery of THC in Egyptian mummies is not
surprising considering that cannabis is indigenous to the Middle East.
There is general consensus that the Ancient Egyptian word
"shemshemet" means cannabis. There is also cited evidence of
cannabis use in the pyramid texts and cannabis is thought to have been
used as a drug since pharaonic times. [25 ] Hemp has been found in the
tomb of Amenophis III (1382 - 1344BC) and cannabis pollen has also been
identified on the mummy of Ramses II (1279 - 1213BC) ================== Singling out marijuana
as a serious threat to one's chemical equilibrium, and then failing to
include the arsenal of mind-altering, easily accessible pharmaceutical
options Prozac, demerol, morphine, lithium crystals, for example,
many of which have powerful, well-documented negative side-effects, is
intellectually, if not scientifically, dishonest. Alcohol, by almost any
measurement is a far more dangerous drug either by itself or in
combination with other drugs. =================== Dr. Hochman
said his group is also calling for more education efforts and the
creation of an electronic prescribing database for physicians. That, however, is about where
any agreement ends, as Dr. Hochman
charges that "billions are being wasted" by prosecuting and
imprisoning patients with addictions. "When we give up the infantile need to demonize and
punish, we will get somewhere with the problem of substance abuse,"
he said ============== I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm
for ============== Marijuana prohibition has been one of the greatest frauds
of the 20th Century. Let us hope that the new century ahead will see an
end to this sad chapter in history. Because, for an adult, using
marijuana with mindfulness seems to me as much a natural part of the
human experience as thinking, feeling, breathing, music, sexuality,
laughter, or other forms of prayer.
===================
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor, =================== You must be the change you wish to see in the world
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Ed Rosenthal |
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