Our blogs about
America's Wars
War on Iraq
War on Drugs
War on Afghanistan
War on Columbia
War on Philippines
War on Venezuela

More
Matrix Masters
Blogs
World Events
US News
Science & Health
Earth News
Free Speech
News from Africa
News from Palestine
Bill of Rights Under Attack

Matrix Masters'
SUPPORTERS

Lorenzo's
Random Musings
. . . about Chaos,
Reason, and Hope

 

COLUMN: Vin Suprynowicz
'Relax your muscles as much as possible'

According to the outfit Common Sense for Drug Policy, which maintains the Web site www.drugwarfacts.org, there are now approximately 77,000 state, local and federal inmates imprisoned on marijuana charges. According to FBI Uniform Crime reports on numbers of marijuana arrests, in 1991 there were 200,465 arrests in the United States for marijuana possession. But far from being "phased out," arrests for marijuana possession rose steadily through the 1990s, reaching 646,042 in 2000 (3,742 of those in Nevada alone -- costing 10,000 police hours just for "processing.") More than half of all federal inmates are now nonviolent drug inmates. According to the government-funded National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 800,000 million youths between 12 and 17 tried marijuana for the first time in 1991. But in 2000, according to the same survey, 1.6 million youths between 12 and 17 tried marijuana for the first time. "If arresting more people is supposed to stop kids from trying marijuana, it seems not to be working," comments Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project in D.C.

What's life like in our prisons for those 77,000 marijuana convicts? Let's steel our nerves and go visit the Web site www.spr.org, where the Los Angeles outfit "Stop Prisoner Rape" has posted the little plain-talking handbill it has prepared for young men entering our prison system, titled "For Prisoners: Advice on Avoiding HIV/AIDS." The group's handout -- targeted primarily at heterosexual men who have no desire to ever be involved in homosexual activity -- advises: "HIV/AIDS transmission during a sexual assault is a serious concern. The following are practical tips for reducing your risk. ...

. . . Read more!


posted by A Curmudgeon 6:36 PM

 

Proposal S could put S.F. in the marijuana business
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, October 28, 2002

In the latest show of defiance against the federal government's crackdown on medicinal marijuana, San Francisco could get into the business of growing and distributing pot for sick people under a first-in-the-nation proposal on next month's local ballot. San Francisco's Proposition S would direct city officials to explore cultivating and dispensing the plant in light of the federal government's crusade against medical-cannabis clubs. "If the federal government continues to assault, intimidate and close our community-based cannabis clubs, leaving many thousands of our citizens unable to access medicine, I believe that we must have an alternative distribution network prepared to serve their needs," said San Francisco Supervisor Mark Leno, the measure's chief sponsor. The proposal comes after legislators and voters in cities and states scattered across the nation have challenged federal authorities by passing both meaningful and symbolic laws favoring medical marijuana. Leno said it's only a matter of time before Congress and federal officials buckle to the pressure.

. . . Read more!


posted by A Curmudgeon 6:15 PM

 

The New Politics of Pot
By Joel Stein | Las Vegas - Time Magazine

Posted Sunday, October 27, 2002; 10:31 a.m. EST

The drug czar is ready for pro wrestling. He already has the name, and now he's got the prefight talk down cold. In every speech he makes in Nevada, where Bush appointee John Walters has traveled to fight an initiative that would legalize marijuana, he calls out his three sworn enemies as if he were Tupac Shakur. The czar has a problem with billionaire philanthropists George Soros, Peter Lewis and John Sperling, who have bankrolled the pro-pot movement, and he wants everyone to know he's ready for battle. At an Elks lodge meeting in Las Vegas, he ticks off their names and says, "These people use ignorance and their overwhelming amount of money to influence the electorate. You don't hide behind money and refuse to talk and hire underlings and not stand up and speak for yourself," he says. By the end of a similar speech at a drug-treatment center in Reno, he says, "Let's stop hiding. I'm here. Where are you?" The czar is bringing it on.

Before the new czar was appointed in December, it was the government's preference not to address the legalizers. But the pro-pot movement has gained so much ground they can't be ignored as a fringe element. Americans, it turns out, aren't conflicted in their attitude toward marijuana. They want it illegal but not really enforced. A Time/CNN poll last week found that only 34% want pot to be totally legalized (the percentage has almost doubled since 1986). But a vast majority have become mellow about official loopholes: 80% think it's O.K. to dispense pot for medical purposes, and 72% think people caught with it for recreational use should get off with only a fine. That seeming paradox has left a huge opening for pro-pot people to exploit. Eight states allow medical marijuana, and a handful of states have reduced the sentences for pot smokers to almost nothing.

The midterm election Nov. 5 has lighted up the issue even more. While control of the House hangs in the balance and the race for the Senate is a dead heat, the political trend for marijuana is clear: support is gaining. The most interesting battles on the November ballot are over pot initiatives: to allow the city of San Francisco to grow and distribute medical marijuana, to replace jail with rehab in Ohio and decriminalize marijuana use in Arizona. Many of these proposals are relatively modest, but the pro-pot forces are also raising the stakes. In spite of the electorate's contentment with the paradox of loose enforcement, some particularly powerful people on both sides have taken extreme viewpoints in an effort to end the political stalemate and force Americans to choose. Either pot is not so bad and should be legal, or people should be arrested for smoking it. The battlefield for the showdown is Nevada, where Question 9 would allow adults to possess up to 3 oz. of pot for personal use. In fact, the state government would set up a legal market for buying and selling pot. To almost everyone's surprise, the race is too close to call.

****Ooooooo!! Mainstream media coverage - what is this world coming to???***********

. . . Read more!


posted by A Curmudgeon 5:20 PM

 

Court Backs Doctors on Marijuana
A federal appeals court ruled for the first time Tuesday that the government cannot revoke doctors' prescription licenses for recommending marijuana to sick patients. "An integral component of the practice of medicine is the communication between doctor and a patient. Physicians must be able to speak frankly and openly to patients," Chief Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder said.

The government argued that doctors were aiding and abetting criminal activity for recommending marijuana because it is an illegal drug under federal narcotics laws. But the appeals court said doctors have a constitutional right to speak candidly with their patients about marijuana without fear of government sanctions.

The court said doctors could get in trouble only if they actually helped patients obtain marijuana. Merely recommending the drug "does not translate into aiding and abetting, or conspiracy," Schroeder said.

. . . Read more!


posted by Hal 1:24 PM

 

Drug Warriors Crusade Against Reform Initiatives
(Daniel Forbes, AlterNet, October 24, 2002)
On drug policy, the voting public has proven ready to lead spaniel-like politicians by the nose, voting for one liberalization measure after another. But government, state and local officials have begun a crusade to scuttle reform initiatives around the nation. . . . Elsewhere, federal and state judges have stymied reform, in some cases by simply refusing to issue timely rulings. A Michigan appeals court blatantly let the clock run out on a Detroit medical marijuana measure, deigning to hold a hearing only long after the deadline for printing ballots had passed. In Florida, the state Supreme Court delayed holding a hearing for so long that the CNDP has decided not to gather any more signatures; it has 300,000 valid signatures in the bank should it return to the fray in 2004. . . . Turning to specifics, though several states vie for the crown of most unabashed electioneering, Ohio trumps all comers. A concerted effort by Governor Taft, the federal government and private activists to defeat the treatment-not jail initiative in Ohio bore only mixed results: until recently, polls favored the measure. But it may be defeated by a single wordy paragraph - the crucial summary at the top of the ballot, all that many voters read - that's promulgated by the Republican-controlled Ohio Ballot Board, led by Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican. . . . This ballot summary emphasizes the measure's $247 million seven-year cost, and it discusses the sealing of offenders' records and the 90-day maximum sentences. The state-approved summary doesn't mention the likely overall savings, nor indicate that drug dealers or violent criminals are excluded.
As I disclosed on Salon in July, 2000, the initial five-year media campaign was engendered at a meeting Barry McCaffrey convened in Washington nine days after the 1996 passage of the first two medical marijuana initiatives. Some forty officials and private sector executives met to discuss the use of taxpayer-funded messages to thwart other potential initiatives. They included two White House officials, the head of the DEA, representatives of the FBI, Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Treasury and Education, along with state law enforcement personnel and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. One private participant was quoted in the meeting's minutes as saying, "We'll work with Arizona and California to undo it and stop the spread of legalization to [the] other 48 states."

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 6:09 PM

 

Nerve Gas Antidote Discovered by Israeli Scientists . . . and It’s Cannabis!
(Dan Even, Maariv, October 11, 2002 )
Imagine yourself a scenario whereby you were unlucky enough to be in Tel Aviv at the time when a chemical attack is launched from Iraq. Teams from the civil command race through the darkened streets, tearing through the silence with blazing sirens, but, surprisingly, inside the homes of the residents of the city there is a peaceful atmosphere accompanied by a sweet and forbidden scent. On the TV screens appears the face of the Military spokesperson, the national Valium, a clone of the mythological Nachman Shai (IDF spokesperson during The Gulf War) and suggest that all worried citizens have a glass of water. Immediately after, the search and analysis teams of the civil command identify traces of chemical weapons at the place of impact, and the spokesperson instructs the citizens to activate the antidote, only that this time it is not an automatic injection of Atropine to the thigh, but rather lighting up of a marijuana filled cigarette, a joint, rolled and handed out by special teams of the civil command from confiscated dope seized by the Police and stored in a secluded warehouse.

"Take a toke" says the spokesperson with an authoritative tone, "the active ingredient will neutralize the effect of the gas, there is no need to be alarmed from a light sense of floating and an accompanied sense of hunger, these will pass within a maximum of two hours."

Sounds sci-fi? completely impossible in our reality? Not according to Boaz Wachtel, chairman of the Green Leaf Party who confronted the Ministry of Health and the Army with information supporting the claim that Marijuana protects from nerve gas, but has yet to receive any response. With his help a new research will soon be launched by a scientist in a governmental laboratory in an unspecified European country, to examine the possible effect of marijuana as a protection from the gas. The research has already received approval from the Helsinki committee. , Wachtel protests. "From a scientific point of view, there is support for the fact that smoked marijuana can help survival and reduce brain damage and prevent nausea and vomiting as a result of exposure to nerve gas. With this new research we hope to have results before the onset of the war so as to provide maximum protection from nerve gas with marijuana."

Evaporating nerve gas, for which we know the Atropine as a protection, are the Tabun, the Sarin, GB, GF, VX and the "Soman" known as GD. The Soman is considered a sever threat in professional publications due to the fact that the raw materials for its manufacture are easy to find. The gas causes death after sensitive neural centers in the brain are exposed to it.

In a research conducted by a group of researchers from the Chemical Warfare Institute of the US Army, headed by Dr. Margaret Philbert, rats were exposed to Soman and then were injected with a substance called HU-211. HU - 211 is an acronym for Hebrew University 211 also known as Dexanabinol. It is a synthetic canabinoid mirroring the effects of THC, the active ingredient in the marijuana (Cannabis) but without any psychoactive effect, due to the fact that it does not connect to the Cannabinoid receptors in the brain.

The substance was developed by Prof. Rafael Meshoulam from the Hebrew University, an internationally acclaimed researcher specializing in cannabinoid chemistry. In 1992, Pharmos, an Israeli, Rehovot based company purchased an exclusive license to develop and sell the substance for all uses. Among others, the company supplied the US Army with HU-211. In an experiment conducted by the US Army, the substance was injected into rats. The injection was administered 5 minutes after the onset of symptoms. It did not stop the convulsions due to gas exposure, but it did reduce brain damage by a staggering 86%. Administering HU-211 40 minutes after exposure reduced brain damage by 81.5%. The conclusion was that the HU-211, which mirrors the effect of marijuana, provides a defense shield for the brain during gas exposure but does not protect from epileptic like fits associated with exposure.

In a rare step, the US Army applied and received a special patent for use of the substance as a treatment for nerve gas. Now it appears that the patent was registered without prior knowledge or consent from Pharmos, who has requested the US Army to withdraw the registration. "We informed them that the patent should be shared by Israel and Pharmos" says Cynthia Webb, patent clerk at Pharmos.

The success of the US Army brought about interest in HU-211 also from the Israeli Ministry of Defence. "Due to the assumption that it has a possible use also in unconventional warfare, negotiations were held with Pharmos to examine possible cooperation, but the company has a condition to handing over the substance that the Ministry of Defense does not accept. Contact continues with intention to reach an agreement", said the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence, Rachel Nidak-Ashkenazi.

At the same time, Pharmos is examining the effect of HU-211 on traffic related head trauma. They have shown that HU-211 is effective in stopping nerve damage, and improving basic skills of though and movement in animals suffering from brain damage. The research is in an advanced, phase III, stage in a number of medical centers in Israel and the world. "If it was possible to administer the substance in the ambulance the results would be substantially better, but with current restrictions it is only administered 6 hours after the brain trauma", says Prof. Meshoulam.

The results of the US Army research brought about the initiative on the part of Wachtel and the Green Leaf Party. Wachtel, who served in the past in the Israel Defence Force attache in Washington D.C., recently succeeding in obtaining the necessary approvals for a pioneering research that will check the effects of Soman nerve gas and rats exposed to marijuana smoke. Expectations are that similarly to exposure to HU-211, so marijuana smoke protects from nerve gas.

"Cannabinoids (including marijuana) succeed in protecting from the irreversible damage caused by Soman exposure, thus shielding form the toxic effect without any side effects except for psychoactive ones: a sense of elation and spiritual release for a short time", it was written in the research proposal. In the first stage the survival of rats exposed to marijuana and Soman gas will be compared to rats exposed to Soman alone. In the second stage brain damage in both groups will be studied. The research will begin within the next few weeks. If it appears that exposure to natural marijuana smoke has a similar effect to that of HU-211 in nerve gas exposure then these are revolutionary findings. This is due to the fact that researchers claim that marijuana is healthier, more accessible, cheaper and easier to administer then atropine, which is today the main defense in both civil and military systems. The Green Leaf Party is demanding that the Government of Israel begin immediately with experiments to examine the effect of marijuana against nerve gas", declares Wachtel.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 2:07 PM

 

Salvia Divinorum Action Center - HR 5607

A bill (HR 5607) introduced in Congress on October 10, seeks to make the Mazatec ceremonial plant Salvia divinorum and its active principle Salvinorin A the next outlawed drugs under federal law. The CCLE is organizing and preparing opposition to HR 5607, and is also calling upon all interested people to express their opposition to this unwarranted extension of the US war on drugs.

. . . Read more!


posted by A Curmudgeon 10:05 AM

 

Judge gives Noelle Bush 10-day sentence
By Doris Bloodsworth | Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted October 17, 2002, 10:14 AM EDT

Noelle Bush was sentenced to 10 days in the Orange County Jail this morning by Circuit Judge Reginald Whitehead.

The 25-year-old daughter of Gov. Jeb Bush told the judge "I sincerely apologize." Although Whitehead did not discuss the reason for her jailing in open court, it was clear that the sanctions came as the result of a Sept. 9 incident in which a dime-sized rock of crack cocaine was found in her shoe while undergoing treatment at the Center for Drug Free Living, police reported.

Bush was accompanied by her aunt, Dorothy Cook of Bethesda, Md., as well as her two attorneys. She was led away in handcuffs to be booked into the jail.

***If this is "a private, family matter..." as Papa Jeb vehemently stated a while ago, where were Mommy and Daddy as their woman-child was being led away in handcuffs?? On the stump with Emperor Shrub perhaps? McBride's got my vote!!!! ****

. . . Read more!


posted by A Curmudgeon 8:30 AM

 

House members consider making rave promoters liable for Ecstasy use
(WLUC-TV6, Negaunee, MI, October 12, 2002)
Texas Republican Congressman Lamar Smith is proposing a bill to make it easier for the government to fine or imprison business owners who don't prevent drug offenses on their property. . . . The American Civil Liberties Union complains that it's unfair to hold rave promoters responsible for the action of their partygoers and such a law could be extended to events like Rolling Stones concerts.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 11:30 AM