I often run into people who have been so conditioned into believing that prohibition is the only option, they cannot even conceive of (or listen to) any alternative. They’re the ones who believe legalization is surrender.
I was thinking about them this afternoon, when I went to visit my friend George in the local hospital. He was over in the new Theodoric wing of the hospital. The nurse had finished attaching a syringe and tube to his arm and was in the process of draining him. I asked him what was wrong.
“Oh, it’s just the flu,” he said, “but the doctor said this is supposed to help me. So far, it hasn’t, but he said that just means they haven’t taken enough blood yet.”
After I spent some time with George (and he blacked out), I ducked into the room next door where a young woman was being covered with leeches.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she replied, “except for these leeches. I was doing fine but they told me I had to come here for treatment to purge me of ‘bad humors.’ I think they just didn’t like the way I thought.”
I wandered out into the hall and found a couple of doctors discussing bloodletting techniques. I confronted them.
“Why are you doing this? Bloodletting is archaic and destructive!”
“Oh yeah?” replied one. “What would you have us do? Ignore the sick? Let them die? We took oaths to cure people and nothing you say will stop us from continuing our duty.”
“But you’re not actually curing anybody,” I said. “You’re just making them weak. Can you actually point to success? You need to stop bloodletting and turn to actual proven alternatives.”
“It’s true that we’ve had limited success,” replied the second doctor, “but that’s no reason to give up. And I’m offended by your notion that we should just let these people die.”
And then they called security.
So I did the only thing I could — a hospital jail-break with George and leech girl. At least I saved a couple.
“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.”
— President Jimmy Carter,
Message to Congress, Aug. 2, 1977
ObamaCare’s Medical Marijuana
CN Source: Forbes Magazine August 13, 2009
by Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It, is director of the American Center for Democracy.
George Soros must be thrilled. Two hundred days into the Obama administration, and 16 years after Soros began his advocacy for drug legalization and promoting “medical marijuana,” the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is venturing into the marijuana cigarettes production and distribution. According to the Aug. 5 solicitation for proposals, the selected organizations will be controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and will have to comply with FDA regulations.
Newsweek: Ethan Nadelmann on Marijuana
Top Anti-Drug Researcher Changes His Mind * Legalize!
“But at this point, I’d be in favor of legalization. I wouldn’t encourage anybody to smoke any substances. But I don’t think it should be stigmatized as an illegal substance. Tobacco smoking causes far more harm. And in terms of an intoxicant, alcohol causes far more harm.”
~ Donald Tashkin,
(NIDA) National Institute on Drug Abuse
Thanks for the laugh Pete.
I’ve started to wonder if letting mosquitoes bite me might help.
Now, if the b@star@ds come at you with a hammer and chisel, and inform you that they are out to ‘pluck the stone of folly’ from your head, open fire while retreating, and (in a variation of a theme every grunt was taught regarding flame throwers) nail the guy with the hammer first.
Pete, you’re turning out to be quite the story teller. Great stories (especially the other one about the fire fighters).
I was just wondering if anyone has had any success penetrating the seemingly impervious armor these people have?
In one respect it’s about making a graceful, strategic retreat from the battle. Nobody wants to come out looking bad.
Does it help to point out that the basic goal to help society remains the same though one might switch tools to attain the goal?
Jesper, the way I look at it is that, so long as there’s a paycheck rewarding it is involved, the willful ignorance regarding this issue that’s displayed on the part of those with pretenses of intelligence will continue.
Those days may be heading for an end soon. Already, on significant Liberal blogs, the authors of the articles critical of the DrugWar are making heretofore verboten connections between the need for unemployment monies and the fiscal wastefulness of the DrugWar. (Of course, it helps when you continually tweak their noses for their pusillanimity for not mentioning this sooner.) Just like when drug law reformers began talking about using the word ‘prohibition’ in regards to the DrugWar, such changes usually start on blogs, then are picked up by the MSM and then repeated.
As to the ‘saving face’ aspect of the issue, I doubt there was much worry about the rank-and-file’s concerns when alcohol Prohibition was ended. It’s the top prohib ‘leadership’ that has had their snouts so far into the Gub’mint trough they’d need a world-class plastic surgeon to remove those snouts without killing the patient. I’d wager that for the most part they’re borderline sociopaths who could care less about the public, and are mainly concerned for where their next easy paycheck will come from. ‘Saving face’ for such creatures isn’t a consideration…
Forbes Magazine
About ObamaCare’s Medical Marijuana…
Do these some drug worriers ever consider the Americans they torture each day. The most vulnerable, the elderly and those suffering with debilitating diseases. Running through their bank accounts paying for every pill thrown at them and finding relief with a simple plant they can grow with their herbs and flowers. Each day wondering if some zealot will write an article demonizing them as terrorists or hurting kids or will they fall victim to some super cop saving the world in renegade fashion. Or a judge roy bean or a DA climbing the political ladder needing that tough on crime for the resume. Terrorists.
10 years ago I would have forgiven these yellow journalists out of censorship and justified ignorance. Maybe they could have claimed they didn’t know. Only a few books were out and magazines catering to the stoner crowds. Most seemed to have settled on Reagan’s lies stacked upon Nixon’s lies and omissions, falsely classifying cannabis including medicinal and Hemp never included in the 1937 Tax Act. Overturned in 1969 as being unConstitutional. Ford covering up tumor research was never “programmed” into the 6 o’clock news. So now Teddy Kennedy has one less potential weapon against his own dilemma. But since then we have an internet with information, news articles that can not be buried in-between fluff. No excuses and no ConPromises. Stop the gossip. 5000 years of medicinal use and even longer doing the initial “testing” throwing buds onto hot rocks inside of domed tapestries. Then hookahs and chiloms and incense in all of the ancient temples, did the prophets inhale?
Comparing chemical cigarettes to organic tobacco is comparing two entirely different substances. Thousands of years of tobacco use by Natives, Turkish, Egyptians, English and Early Americans finds no extraordinary death-rates. Not until the very same fossil fuel chemical corporations started adulterating the tobacco with very harmful substances, never mentioned by the drug worriers. For your smoking pleasure as Ronnie would get paid to say. No comparison. And therefore no comparison to organic cannabis. Maybe that’s why we have thousands of “cigarette” deaths and still can’t find that Ganja victim. Stronger pot today? Ask a Vietnam vet. Acapulco Gold, Panama Red and extractions much higher than the lies about BC bud causing problems. Hard drugs were invented by Bayer around the mid 1800’s. Cannabis used 5000 years. Can’t “Gateway” to what hasn’t been invented. No one is stupid enough to grow Ganja in a hemp field and risk pollinating kynd bud into burlap. Cops using this fib, work for the synthetic competition.
Hemp is a major reason for “marihuana” prohibition. More cellulose, greater tensile strength, Omega 3,6 and 9 EFA’s. Homegrown Carbohydrates or OPEC Hydrocarbons. A natural pest and weed deterrent that’s deep roots aerate the soil and prevents mudslides Vs Cotton’s 90 million pounds of abortion causing poisons running off into the water supply, air and dirt kids play in. Too versatile for an oil driven monopoly.
Then the subsidiaries you always hear about swift boating cannabis initiatives, like Ehrenfelds fiction. Lies and gossip is not the American way I was raised in. Laws preventing Constitutional rights to a jury of ones peers, no 404 gag orders against defending yourself. No mandatory minimum jury trial deterrents. Forcing 95% to cop a plea, including very profitable urine testing and probation costs. Double and triple jeopardy and losing the State Sovereignty to govern anything not deemed Federal by the 10th Amendment. The Commerce Act has no place in private gardens. Nothing the Czars hurl stands up to logic. Especially having a tax paid NIDA that is forbidden from conducting medicinal tests, only negative propaganda science. Honest.
The drug czar is not permitted to aid and abed “legalizers” in any way including telling the truth. At all cost, ends justifying means call it what you will but it is not American, not Justice and certainly not Fair to the users or Balanced reporting. Nixon lied and a two bit burglary covered it up. One trillion dollars has been spent arresting cannabis users since 1937. That is one trillion dollars has been profits to the few remaining hold outs wanting to punish Americans for a non victim vice. The true drug war zealots. The prohibition profiteers.
Corporate competition kept off the market and profits treating the problem. Those groups are the only ones left on ABC and cable news. The rehabs, cops and prisons. Our taxes paying for our own persecution is also not an America I want. It’s not an America I’m willing to sit by and let go on sale to the highest International Bankster’s bid. Time for ignorance to stop and let the laws of physics determine cannabis’ destiny. Because no matter what future hobgoblins ms Ehrenfeld spouts, cannabis either is or it isn’t. It does or it doesn’t. No talk just let it be. Let it provide for the people.
DeJa Vu All Over Again.jpg
But how can you say the techniques are not working? Patients are dying by the thousands! Surely that’s evidence that we’re having great success…
The key to medicinal fascism is to make them sick enough to “treat”, but not enough to take profits if they die. Push pills with side effects to buy more pills and spray the food with poisons to make you sick. Then outlaw all natural remedies from the damn commie socialists. War is good for wounding and then treating, Peace ain’t worth a dime. Cures and Prevention don’t bring home the bacon. Last cure was Polio and that took big bucks from the steel braces and leather strap business. Won’t make that mistake again. Ganja leads to being uncomfortable in a herd mentality. Obedient and unquestioning followers make the profits flow easier than truth and concerned citizens. Hemp would take jobs from polluters and OPEC crude oil and no need to kill trees. Bad for business. Prohibition keeps the money where it belongs with the old fascists. Healthy tokers ain’t good fer the drug war biz.