A View From The Street©

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!

   

    There is so much evidence that anti-marijuana laws are ineffective, inappropriate, unjust and racially motivated, that those that still spout eradication, elimination and imprisonment are either stupid, sticking their heads in the sand (and when you stick your head in sand your ass is sticking way out) or you benefit financially from this failed war on drugs.  There is NO other reason for this continued assault on American adults.

     When they say well...it still needs more study tell them this: (and you students out there can use this for a term paper on stupidity)   Say have you ever heard of the National Commission on drug abuse?  Have you heard about the Le Dain commission report?  Have you heard about the Wootton Commission?  Have you heard about the Wickersham Commission?  Have you heard about the Laguardia Committee report in New York city?  Well let me help you enlighten this collection of fools, the cops, the legislators, the politicians etc.

     1930:  The Wickersham Commission report on Alcohol prohibition (and prohibition in general) concluded:  "Corruption is rampant with up to ten percent of the enforcement employees (ie cops) being fired for cause in any given year of the prohibition.  The evidence that prohibition was NOT a success is overwhelming. (remember the first prohibition was eating an apple in the garden of Eden, and it didn't work then either.)

     1944:  The LaGuardia Committee report, the Mayor's committee on marijuana, written by the NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE!  Conclusion:  The practice of smoking marijuana does not lead to addiction in the medical sense of the word.  The use of marijuana does not lead to morpnine or heroin or cocaine addiction and no effort is made to create a market for those narcotics by stimulating the practice of marijuana smoking.  Publicity concerning the catastropnbic effects of marijuana smoking  is  UNFOUNDED!  (Now what was that BS about marijuana being a gateway drug?)   

     1961:  Joint committee of the American Bar association and the American Medical association on Narcotic drugs.  Conclusion Drug addiction is a problem for the physician rather than the policeman.  It should not be necessary for anyone to violate the law solely because he is addicted to drugs.  Drug addiction is a disease, not a crime and harsh criminal penalties are DESTRUCTIVE!!

    1970  Canadian Commission of Inquiry into non medical use of drugs.  Conclusion:  Marijuana does not constitute a threat to public welfare.  (Hey cops...are you listening?)

     1972.  US National Commission on Marijuana and drug abuse. Conclusion:  Possession of marijuana for personal use should no longer be an offense.  Casual distribution of small amounts of marijuana for no or insignificant remuneration not involving profit, should not be an offense. This was endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Assocdiation for Public Health, the American  Bar association, the National Education Association and the National Council of Churches.

      1972  US consumers *Union report on licit and illicit drugs. (This landmark study is a must read and is used as a basic text at Universities.)  Conclusions:  Stop emphasizing measures designed to keep drugs away from people. (It has never worked)  Stop publicizing the horrors of the "drug menace."  Stop increasing the damage done by drugs by misclassifying drugs.  Stop viewing the drug problem as a national problem to be solved on a national scale.  Stop pursuing the (unrealistic) goal of stamping out illicit drug use.  CONSUMERS UNION RECOMMENDS THE IMMEDIATE REPEAL OF ALL FEDERAL LAWS GOVERNING THE GROWING, PROCESSING, TRANSPORTATION, SALE, POSSESSION, AND USE OF MARIJUANA.
CONSUMERS UNION RECOMMENDS THAT THOSE NOW SERVING PRISON TERMS FOR POSSESSION OF OR SHARING MARIJUANA BE SET FREE AND THAT SUCH MARIJUANA OFFENSES BE EXPUNGED FROM ALL LEGAL RECORDS.
(Does that say it in plain English or what?)
consumers Union recommends that each of the fifty states similarly repeal its existing marijuana laws and pass new law legalizing the cultivation,processing and orderly marketing of marijuana subject to appropriate regulations. (Like tobacco?)

     1988 DEA administrative law judge Francis Young said that marijuana was one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man, that it had never caused a single human death, and that the Federal government policy toward marijuana is UNCONSCIONABLE!

     These are the facts as presented by several blue ribbon panels.  Like I said...Enough is Enough!

WHERE ARE THE RECREATIONAL DRINKERS AND THE SOCIAL MARIJUANA SMOKERS?

     Let's talk about the words we use to describe things and the word pictures that are projected.  It is one of the favorite ways the government uses to project the propaganda image they want.  For instance:

     The term "social drinkers" is used to describe what people do with alcohol.  We get an image of usually young people having fun and relaxing and drinking their favorite brand.  Yet there are no "social" marijuana smokers.  We are described as "recreational" smokers or medical patients or usually just "pot heads."  The government says we are  "recreational smokers" but  there are no "recreational" drinkers, just "social drinkers"...or drunks!  Or is having a beer at a football game "recreational drinking?"  It probabily is but they don't call it that. (I call paying $5 bucks for a beer robbery)

     Never any talk about "social" marijuana smoking althought I think that most marijuana smoking is social.   Recreational mj smoking seems to have a negative connotation as in having no value.   And I don't know what recreational smoking might be...I've never seen anyone smoking a joint while water skiing.  That might be recreational smoking.  I have never seen anyone smoking a joint while snorkeling.  That might be recreational smoking...sticking a joint in the top of the snorkel tube. 

     The problem is that recreational doesn't belong in the same sentence with the words <alcohol or marijuana.>  What they really mean when they say mj smoking is recreational is that we are dirty potheads.  I was really glad when was able to get a medical marijuana card for my Hepatitis C.  Then at least I had some status.  I went from being an old pot head to being a medical patient...and I felt better about it.

     The government wants us marijuana smokers lumped together in a negative view.  Why do we let them do it to us?  When...we should be viewed truthfully...as intelligent people that have discovered the benefits of the herb for all.  We are the free thinkers, we are the ones that care for the planet and the creatures on it.  We are the ones that want to return control to the people and take it away from the corporations that run this country.  Why should the sheiks in Arabia be getting the oil money that our farmers and our economy in America should be rightfully be getting. ( Besides oil is finite.  When the shieks run out they will be doing  just what they were doing before they found out about the oil...running around in the desert cutting one another's heads off)

     Why should we be paying exorbitant amounts of money for chemical medicine when we have learned, in spite of government restrictions on the study of cannabis in America, that it is a wonderful medicine that is cheap and easy to grow and absolutely...absolutely good for the human body.  We have heard that a study on mj at Hebrew University in Israel found that mj REGENERATES brain cells. Shouldn't that be HUGE news in America??  If not why not??
This government wants you to think that your brain is fryed in a pan like an egg so they can protect the Pharma-bastards that want to addict you and keep you hooked on their medicine!!

     We have been lied to so long that we have forgotten that mj is and always has been medicine.  It is only in museums like Paul Stanford maintains at the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation that we can see the old cannabis medicines that were manufactured all over the world, and used because THEY WORKED with no negative side effects!!  We can see old pictures of hemp fields in the South when we used the hemp for rope and clothing fiber. Old Ironsides for instance used 60 tons of hemp for sails and rope and we grew it right here in America!

     If they succeed in keeping the truth about cannabis away from the multitutes for another generation or two they will have succeeded in destroying the "institutional memory" of cannabis.  The dictionary defines institutional memory as the accurate keeping of records, memories, wisdom and know how for the use for future generations.  I'll give you a for instance:

     The governmant is trying to erase the institutional memory of the contamination at Hanford Nuclear Reservation.  In another 2 hundred years we will all be gone and so will the records of the contamination at Hanford.  Will 500 acres of flat land on the Columbia River be attractive to some future developer that wants to put a  resort and housing development there?

     If you are age 70 or younger, you have never been told the truth about cannabis.  How much longer must the government cover up the truth about this medicine, this savior of the planet, before we have all forgotten about it?  The institutional memory will be gone.

     Will we let them continue this propaganda and just accept it?  Remember there were no Nazi concentration camps. We were told it was just a figment of imagination!!
If we let them do this to us they will have won!

      FIGHT THEM.  SEEK AND DEMAND THE TRUTH!

LOOKING AHEAD & LOOKING BACK

     As time passes, we look to see if we are making any progress.  I've been on the Cannabis Common Sense show and writing these editorials for three years now.  And I'm a newcomer.  Both Paul Stanford and Dr. Leveque as well as most of the people in the tv control room and behind the cameras have been here longer...a lot longer.

     But let's look back:  Three years ago Dr. Leveque was examining patients in Paul's home, converted to a makeshift medical clinic.  That is where I received my examination.  It was exciting for me to get a medical card for marijuana to treat my Hepatitis C and...I could smell the medicine growing in the basement.

    It seems that running a marijuana clinic is a little like opening your doors to Lepers.  No body wants you in the neighborhood.  So the clinic moved to a commercial location and kept growing.  Soon parking there became a problem.  Too many sick people looking for help I guess and they were asked to leave the area again.

     This time the clinic moved to larger quarters.  But you see...we keep doing this tv show and more and more people realize medical marijuana can help them too.  So the clinic was again asked to move.  "Not a good fit for the neighborhood" they were told.

     Now three years later, a new 5000 sq. foot clinic to better serve sick people and I think this time the neighborhood will be more forgiving.  In the last 3 years Dr. Leveque has been made the official Oregon scape goat for medical marijuana. All these sick people being helped must some how be his fault.  They revoked his license to practice medicine.  They called him dangerous.  We call him a hero.  Now the board of medical examiners is getting their asses sued over it and the case is still in the courts.

     Meanwhile other doctors have stepped up and helped out.  You can now get a license for medical marijuana in Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii through this clinic.  That's progress!!

     When my partner and I first obtained our medical permits Oregon had about 2,500 patients.  Now 3 years later there are about 12,000 of us.  That's progress!!

     So what's ahead?  I for one intend to keep pressing for and advocating for the legalization and regulation of marijuana for all adults.  MJ is good for the human body.  We are wired to this hemp plant like no other.  And if we are why all the hassle over it??

     We must understand that the giant corporations that control the prescription drugs you must take, that control the oil and gas you must have, that control the paper you must write on, control the fibers your clothes are made of...CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT.  We still mistakenly call it a Democracy.  It is corporate rule and they have a MONOPOLY.  A monopoly on everything that hemp and marijuana in the hands of the people would jeopardize.  We are in a war, that pits a corporate controlled government against a wildly popular natural (God given I might add) plant.  And who wins this bullshit war is strictly up to you VOTERS.  We must get rid of a government that arrests sick people!!

     Look fore ward to what could happen if all drugs were legal and FREE.

1.  No more drug market.

2.  No one selling drugs.  (Couldn't make any money at it.)

3.  No one committing crimes.  If you need drugs you could get them free.

4.  No dealers shooting other dealers.

     I can feel some of you cringing when I say make all drugs legal and free.  Well if drugs were legal and free wouldn't we be a nation of drugged out zombies?

     NO!!  Drugs were legal in America until 1914.  We made it through the first 200 years OK.  We can do it again.  It's not legalizing drugs that that is scary...it's the war against us that is scary. The government that pursues a policy that says we have to arrest our children and sick people in order to save them is bullshit!!!!!

IS IS OK TO LIE TO CHILDREN?

     We see messages on TV all the time about talking to our kids.  Talk to your kids about smoking.  Talk to your kids about sex.  Talk to your kids about drugs.  But my question is:  Is it OK to tell your kids half-truths?  Is it OK to give them disinformation?  Is it OK to out and out lie to kids?

     The substance abuse and mental health services administration prints and distributes several  colorful brochures.  "Tips for For Teens."  There is one on alcohol, one on inhalants, one on cocaine and of course, one on Marijuana.  So let's see what they say:

#1  Marijuana affects your brain.    That's true, because all drugs affect the brain because that's where the receptors are.  It goes on to say THC is the active ingredient.  Well, it is just one of about a dozen "active ingredients."  I rate  that a partial truth, one that focus's on the euphoric effect only and ignores the beneficial compounds.

#2  Marijuana affects your self control, can affect your sense of time and coordination impacting things like driving.  True!  You should not drive within  4 yours of using Marijuana.  However, studies have shown that people that use marijuana are actually more careful drivers and have less accidents.  It goes on to say that in 2002 nearly 120,000 people were admitted to emergency rooms suffering from Marijuana related problems. For the life of me I can't imagine what marijuana related problems would lead a kid to an emergency room...other than uncontrolled munchies.  I  consider this one disinformation!

     #3  Marijuana affects your lungs.  There are more than 400 chemicals in marijuana.  A single joint contains 4 times as much tar as a filter cigarette. There are a lot of chemicals released if you smoke cannabis, but smoking is not a good way to ingest anything.  Remember nicotine is still a poison if you smoke it.  Cannabis is medicine.  Again...kids shouldn't smoke anything!!  I consider this one disinformation also.

     #4 Marijuana affects other aspects of your health.  Marijuana can limit your bodies ability to fight off infection.  Long term Marijuana use will increase the risk of certain mental illness. This is an out and out Lie  Marijuana is medicine and is therapeutic for the body and people that use marijuana every day will live 2 to 3 years longer.  Women that use marijuana during pregnancy will usually have babies that weigh more.

     #5 Marijuana is not always what it seems, and can be laced with other drugs.  A blunt may be filled with crack cocaine, PCP or embalming fluid.  I think that embalming fluid is a stretch, but this one is true. Don't smoke anything if you don't absolutely know what it is.  That is why medical patients like to grow their own.  They know what they are using.

     #6. Marijuana can be addictive  This is an out and out lie we have all been fed for the last 70 years.        If marijuana is addicting so is food, sex and TV.  It says that in 1999 more than 220,000 entered drug treatment programs to kick their marijuana habit.  That is garbage.  I don't know anyone that went to treatment that wasn't forced into it by some misguided judge or program.  I consider this gobble-de-gook statistics used to mislead.

     #7 Before you risk it, know the law.  Marijuana is illegal to buy or sell.  That's true and if it was legal for adults children shouldn't have it (Medical exception allows someone like myself to buy marijuana on the black market)   

     #8 Know the risks.  Using marijuana increases your risk of injury from car wrecks, falls, burns, and drowning.  I suppose that's possible, but highly improbable. I call this one scare tactics.

     Finally is says, "keep your edge." Marijuana affects your judgment, drains your motivation and can make you anxious.  I can only say it has never affected my judgment, although alcohol does, has never affected my motivation, alt ho alcohol does and has never  made me anxious, except to worry about being arrested by the cops.  I call this one scare tactics too.

     So the score on this pamphlet is 3 truths, 1 partial truth, 3 gobble-de-gook statistics, 2 disinformations, 2 out and out lies and 2  scare  tactics.  But isn't this information from an administration that out and out lies, uses disinformation and scare tactics, talk about WMD's,  lies about torturing prisoners.....

     So you see folks they are lying to you and lying to our children too.  Isn't that what the NAZI's did??

WHY POT IS ILLEGAL

     Let's see, Americans...if we set out to find a new miracle drug, say, one that would be beneficial for a wide range of ailments, low cost effective, and with no bad side effects, would we jump on it? NO we'd ban it.  How do I know?  We already have!! 

     And let's see, Americans.  If we set out to find a new source of oil to run our cars, something that did not need to be extracted from either the heat of the Arabian desert or the pristine Arctic, something we could grow here in America, a renewable crop, an oil that was NON POLLUTING, would we jump on it? NO we'd ban it.  How do I know?  We already have!!

    And again, if we set out to find a new miracle fiber, one that we could use to make paper so we didn't have to cut down any more trees, a fiber we could also use to make twine and rope and cloth, even fine linen cloth, would we jump on it?  NO we'd ban it.  How do I know?  We already have!!

     What is this miracle, this drug, one that can be used to treat pain, sleeplessness, and depression?  It is a tranquilizer, an effective cough medicine, a child birth analgesic, a glaucoma treatment, an appetite stimulant, and an aid to opiate, alcohol and nicotine withdrawal, one with no reported bad side effects or death?

     IT'S CANNABIS!!

     And where did this miracle, this cannabis come from? Straight from our maker.  In the book of exodus, God commanded Moses to make a holy oil, and one of the ingredients, besides Cinnamon and myrrh is guess what?  CANNABIS!!

     So if cannabis is older than Moses and has been used as medicine for at least 5000 years, are we just stupid?  Why is this wonderful product banned??

     There is an old investigator's  term that applies here and since I'm an old investigator, let's FOLLOW THE MONEY.  Set's see if we can figure out who would stand to profit from banning an  easily grown herb, in short, medicine you can grow yourself?  Perhaps such folks with names like Squibb, and Lilly, and Park and Davis and other pharma-barons that wanted to PATENT and CONTROL drugs. The problem is they banned a natural medicine that hurt no one, and added often lethal chemical cocktails to the market, such as Acetaminophen, a liver poison used to control pain.  Tylenol they call it. The world takes 11 billion aspirin tables a year.  Then we have Nyquil, a mixture of drugs and alcohol.  Nyquil is 50 percent alcohol.  More than 240,000 people are hospitalized every year from adverse drug reactions.  More than 2 million older Americans are addicted to tranquilizers and sleeping pills and this is before Ambien came along.

     My my, imagine having a patent on a drug that has addicted millions of Americans. Repeat business guaranteed you stock holders you!!

     Now let's look at the oil portion of the equation.  If you are talking motor oil you are talking about John D Rockefeller, termed "ruthless" by some texts on the old curmudgeon. He became Standard Oil and Standard Oil controlled 95 percent of the oil refining business in America.  (Remember hemp seed oil will burn right out of the pod and doesn't have to be REFINED..  So guess which oil baron did not want to compete with cheap, easily grown hemp seed oil? Interestingly enough, old John D died in 1937, the same year cannabis was banned. I can still hear the old SOB chuckling from his grave.

     Next in the mix are the timber barons.  How many years citizens, have we been cutting down trees to make paper?  In the early days of cutting down trees, only spruce was used, but the relentless pulping technology expanded the pulping process to include fir, hemlock, and southern pine. That's great.  More kinds of trees to cut down.  Never mind that a Chinese man named Ts'Ai Lun made paper from hemp fiber back in 105AD. 

     Does it appear to you folks that the pharma-barons, the oil barons and the timber barons all had and have a stake in not wanting to compete with cannabis?

     CAN YOU SAY CONSPIRACY BOYS AND GIRLS?

     What happened is that someone wrote a movie script about a fictitious marijuana smoker that  went crazy called Refer Madness and frankly it scared the non marijuana smoking public to death allowing Harry Anslinger, the  first drug czar to reek his havoc.  The end  result was that all cannabis was declared unlawful!

     Oh, and there is one more thing!  All the federal cops who used to point Tommy guns at alcohol users and distributors had nothing to do after Prohibition ended in 1931.  Fortunately for them, the cannabis war began in 1937 and gave them all gainful employment again.  Hooray!!

     So you see boys and girls that is why cannabis was made illegal and why it remains so today. Are we stupid?  No because most of this happened before you were born.

     But hear this!  When any administration tells us that marijuana is bad and therefore illegal ask this question.  Who trumps who, Gods command to use cannabis or some government official?  Sorry government I'll follow God instructions!!

DRUG SEEKERS?????

         Are you a chronic pain patient? Have you been labeled a "drug seeker?"  Many years ago a doctor prescribed Klonipin to a close friend of mine to help with anxiety and sleep.  The 'scrip kept coming month after month and year after year.  The first doctor finally worried that the patient had become addicted, sent her to another doctor.  Doctor #2 also kept the 'scrips coming but he too finally decided he didn't want to deal with the problem anymore and declined further treatment. 

    The patient winds up in the emergency room from the seizures caused by withdrawal from the medication.  The ER doctor gives a few Klonipins to tide the patient over long enough to get her out of the ER and refers her to another doctor now labeled a "DRUG SEEKER!"

     I personally know a half dozen folks labeled "drug seekers," folks with chronic neck pain and back pain, and I'm confused, because I'm not very smart.  These are not people asking doctors for heroin or cocaine or meth, they are just trying to get what the DOCTOR ADDICTED THEM TO IN THE FIRST PLACE.

     "Drug seeker," is a nasty term a label, a label meant to demonize and stigmatize, a label that allows us to categorize these victims of medical malpractice, as now less than human, something akin to lepers.

     We find it necessary to de-humanize humans so we can shun them, so we use words like hooker, transient, spick, wetback or.....DRUG SEEKER!   Oh, you're just a drug seeker says the respected physician, looking all doctor like in his white coat and stethoscope.  Part of me wants to throttle this hypothetical, but very real, doctor while screaming in his face drug seekers indeed...thanks to you and thousands like you.

     And again because I'm not very smart this doesn't seem to make sense to me.  Wasn't that what doctors wanted all along, customers?  (They're called patients,)  customers coming back again and again for advice and re-fills, repeat business?

     ISN'T IT DRUG SEEKERS THEY SET OUT TO CREATE?

     The pharmaceutical companies have created literally thousands of drugs we now can't live without.  I mean literally can't live without them.  Benzodiazapins when stopped will send you into seizures.  If you stop taking your high blood pressure meds, you risk blowing a gasket and dying.  If you stop taking your Vicodin, Oxycontin, or methadone, you'll be so sick you wish you were dead.

     And don't all doctors have to have a permission slip from the DEA to even write a prescription?  Perhaps it's the DEA's fault there are so many drug seekers!!

     The generation we call baby boomers have been raised on prescription drugs from Ritalin to Lo-pressor and now in their advancing age they are a treasure trove for the pharma-crooks to mine. Mining for pharma-profits.

     The bottom line is this:  The pharmaceutical companies have created a nation of DRUG SEEKERS a  catch 22  kind of situation for them.  And they're pissed off, tired of the label.  Is it any wonder then that folks in chronic pain seek medical marijuana, a no side effect medicine they can grow themselves?

     DRUG SEEKERS INDEED!!

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

     LEAP means, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.  It is a growing group of professionals in all parts of law enforcement that have realized the war on drugs is a total and abject failure.  It is not a war on drugs but a war on our children, our parents, and ourselves.

     LEAP was started by Jack Cole, a  retired Narc with the New Jersey state police.  He and I have similar backgrounds  I joined the Portland Oregon Police Bureau in 1961.  He joined the New jersey state police in 1964.  We have both worked vice and narcotics before there was a "war on drugs" and there wasn't much of a drug problem.  No marijuana here in Portland to speak of and we had about 20 heroin addicts then and we cops all knew where they lived.  Richard Nixon coined the  term "war on  drugs," running for president in 1968 and then he got congress to fund it.  Any police department willing to get involved got MASSIVE FUNDING.  The NJ state police narcs went from 7 men to 76 men.

     If drugs ever needed a boost it was the war on drugs that did it.  Both demand and price kept going up and up.  By the middle 1970's there were so many heroin addicts in Portland, they started the Methadone program.  It was an okay idea, but giving addicts heroin is a better idea.  Heroin is easier to kick and not nearly as hard on the body.  The war on drugs had the effect of creating a world wide multi-billion dollar industry.  Marijuana sold here in the early 1970's for $120.00 a kilo.  Now it is 320-350 an ounce.

     Arresting drug dealers or shooting drug dealers had no effect.  Lock one up and you have not solved anything.  You created a JOB OPENING, because when it come to drugs the only law that counts is the law of supply and demand. 

     After 30 years of throwing trillions of dollars at the drug problem and building more and more prisons, anyone with a modicum of common sense knows the WOD is not working.  The US has 4.6 percent of the world's population and 22.5 percent of the prisoners!!

     The land of the free?

     Will Rogers said, "if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing is to stop digging."  To me that means stop throwing money at it.  The drug war is lost you guys, run up the white flag and legalize drugs.

     Gulp gulp gulp...legalize drugs?    YES!

     Won't everyone use drugs then, won't we become a nation of drugged out zombies?  The answer is NO!  Drugs were legal in this country until 1914.   We got through the first 200 years okay!!

     In Holland where pot is legal, 28 percent of  10'th graders had tried it.  In America where it is illegal, 41 percent of 10'th graders have tried it.  HOW CAN THAT BE?  Holland made pot boring and took the black market out of the equation.

     What we have done in our brilliant strategy is to take weeds, and that's what we are talking here, simply weeds, marijuana from the hemp plant, and cocaine from the cocoa bush or heroin from the opium poppy it is a weed with ZERO value until we make it illegal.  Then the value comes astronomical.

     What happens when we make drugs legal?

1.  No more drug market.

2.  No one selling drugs.  (Couldn't make any money at it)

3.  No one committing crimes.  Those who felt they still needed drugs could get them FREE!

4.  No dealers shooting other dealers. 

     When is the last time you heard of  two beer distributors shooting it out over who would supply beer to a restaurant.  But they used to during PROHIBITION!!!

     I agree with retired officer Cole who says that a policy that says we have to arrest our children and sick people in order to save them is BULLSHIT!

View From The Street

Don DuPay

UNDER THE INFLUENCE??

     With more and more folks using marijuana as medicine, 12,000 looming in Oregon alone, over 100,000 in California, the establishment employers are worrying about employees being high on the job.  "Can't have these people using equipment and machinery," they say, "We could be in danger from them."  So...that is my question for now...JUST WHAT IS UNDER THE INFLUENCE??

     I can only draw from my personal experience, but it is considerable, as I have been using marijuana for nearly 30 years.  I think that marijuana in and of itself if it degrades ones abilities at all is statistically insignificant!  Marijuana's problem is it has one besides the DEA  is that it is an enhancer.  It makes things, taste  better, feel better, and act stronger.  Folks that watch the Cannabis Common Sense cable TV show  (live Friday evenings at 8pm on channel 11) tell us all the time that if they are using prescription pain killers, adding marijuana to the mix allows them to use less or stop the pharmaceuticals altogether.  (That's why the pharmaceutical companies hate us)

     If you are having sex, marijuana makes it better.  If you are using alcohol marijuana makes it stronger.  It increases the intoxicating effect. (stacking drugs)

     Right up front I'm going to say not everyone is a good fit for marijuana.  Some get nervous, paranoid, or uncomfortable.  If it bothers you, DON'T USE IT!! That's my disclaimer!

     But purely guessing I'd say those folks are few and far between.  I know only one person in my smoking career that fit that category.  But then there are the rest of us, the hundreds of thousands or may the millions of us that are experienced smokers and smoke every day.  (Myself for medical necessity as I have an incurable disease.)

     I am aware of a study done in Brittan about folks driving after using MJ.  They were found to be more careful drivers.  I've always thought so.  When I was a street cop in the marijuana smoking '60's I never arrested anyone for driving under the influence of it.  There were probably a half a million smoking pot on the West coast then.  Why didn't I arrest anyone for it?  Because it is essentially undetectable if you can't smell it. Ten years later when I started smoking it, to cut down on my alcohol consumption (police work is impossibly stressful) I became severely enlightened.  An Epiphany if you will.      

     I offer this information also.  In the past 30 years, I have been examined by various medical professionals, doctors in general practice, a cardiologist, and osteopathic doctor, and a psychiatrist for PTSD.  During routine medical exams I was always asked, "Mr. DuPay, do you smoke?"  I always said "no."  Early on just to tell if they could detect it.  They never could.. The cardiologist hooked me up to an EKG after I had smoked and he couldn't tell either.  "Well, your eyes will give you away," I hear you say.  Oh really???  My eyes have been examined during physicals, besides I've been examined for new glasses twice in the past five years.  NO ONE EVER SAID I CAN TELL YOU HAVE BEEN SMOKING MJ.

     My feeling is this, based on my experience.  Marijuana use in and of itself is essentially undetectable by medical professionals and of course police officers who cannot tell if you smoked a joint an hour ago or a week ago if they can't smell it!!

     And just what is "under the influence anyway?"

     All my medical prescriptions for blood pressure pills and probably all of your meds at home have warning stickers all over them, yellow and red, that say "don't operate machinery, or don't drive or don't mix with alcohol, may cause drowsiness."

     BUT YOU ALL DO IT EVERY DAY!   In other words you take your meds and DRIVE to work or DRIVE to the store or to shopping.  So...just what is under the influence??

     It is a MISNOMER.  What they actually mean is how does the medication degrade your ability to WORK, DRIVE OR PERFORM required functions!  In the case of cannabis, by itself, I still think it is statistically insignificant in JUDGING PERFORMANCE.

     To those concerned employers I say "don't worry,"  Your mj users will continue to do the same good job they have always done as safely as they have always done it.  And to answer the burning question I know you are asking, did I smoke any mj before I came to the computer to write this? I'll leave that to you to decide and if you think I did, I will also leave it to you to decide if it degraded or impaired my abilities.

View From The Street

Don DuPay

AH..THE RISKS WE TAKE

     Just being here on this earth is risky business.  The very act of  being born is risky.  You have to come feet first to keep from messing up.  And then it all starts.  Hoping you picked good parents, folks that will be nice to you, and not sell you to a traveling circus or leave you at the airport with a "needs a good home" note pinned to your shirt. 

     Then there is school and all the risks there..sharing all the available childhood diseases, like measles and mumps.  Risking the school bullies, or pedophile teachers or coaches.  Or some nut bringing a gun into the school and shooting the place up.  School is risky!

     When school is over, some will enter the military.  Definitely risky because the military operates on the very principle that YOU ARE EXPENDABLE.  The US Navy and I parted company when they told me that.  I am NOT expendable.  Young folks should learn not to participate in wars started by old men that can't fight-don't fight-won't fight.

      After the military if you're not maimed, disables or nuts you can look for work and start climbing the elusive corporate ladder.  Of course, gainful employment can be risky too with job injuries, harmful vapors, toxic fumes and other unsafe working conditions.  Even kitchen work can be risky, because everything in a kitchen is hot, slippery or sharp.

     After work you'll want to kick back and relax, pour yourself a glass of whiskey or slam a can of beer.  Alcohol is definitely risky.  It is a poison we use to exterminate germs and brain cells.  With your after work drink you might be smoking a cigarette.  Nicotine is sure risky, says so right on the package.  Some of us remember a bug killer called "Black Flag."  It's main ingredient is nicotine. Great stuff.

     If you watch TV you'd think we are a country of desperate housewife's and horny plumbers and of course they never talk about "safe sex."  (just more sex)  We remember the Monday night football intro where a naked blond woman jumped on a big burly foot ball player.   Well.....well..sex is a contact sport I suppose..but very risky if you don't know who you or what you are doing.

     I certainly hope I haven't depressed all of you with how dangerous every thing around you is, but SORRY that's the way it is!!

     Oh...wait...there is one thing that has no risk.  It's called cannabis, marijuana, pot, tea, grass.  It has never hurt anyone and never will.

View From The Street

Don DuPay

STEVE MCWILLIAMS AND OUR ROGUE GOVERNMENT

      If a hospital with holds needed medicine from a patient and that patient suffers more, or dies, then who is liable?  What if... the medicine with held treated the patient for depression?  What if... not only was the medicine with held, but the patient threatened with jail for using it?  What if... denied the medication for depression the patient became so depressed...the patient kills themselves?  What if...it wasn't a hospital that did this but a San Diego California judge?

     Of course I'm talking about the suicide death of San Diego activist Steve McWlliams.  I didn't know him personally, but I admire him for his actions against a disgusting, cold blooded and murderous government. Steve McWilliams wasn't secretive about what he did, us activists aren't.  He was in your face!  He smoked marijuana on the steps of the San Diego city hall to call attention to its medical use, and he grew 25 plants in his FRONT YARD!!  For 25 plants he was arrested and faced 40 years in prison.  And finally his last act of defiance was to take his own life saying, essentially, "screw you, I don't want to be here anymore."

     IT IS OUR MIS-GOVERNING GOVERNMENT THAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS DEATH!!

     I'm reminded now too of a story about a year ago where a 27 year old quadriplegic, Jonathan Magbie died while serving 10 days in a Washington DC jail.  He was a medical user unable to present a medical defense. In  Washington DC 69 percent of the voters approved medical marijuana.  Johnathan was in chronic pain and unable to breathe on his own.  The judge INSISTED he be locked up...to teach the quadriplegic a lesson I guess.  The jail, unable or unwilling to meet his medical needs allowed him to die while in custody.

     Why after 69 percent of the voters in Washington DC approved medical marijuana has the voters wish been denied?Because every year when congress does its budgeting they vote to re-establish the Federal law that prevents the local DC initiate from taking effect.

     IS THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SAYING WE DON'T CARE WHAT THE CITIZEN VOTERS WANT...IT AIN'T HAPPENING?

     Yeah so if voting doesn't matter, why vote?? This government doesn't care what you want, doesn't care if it's your medicine, doesn't care if you're sick, doesn't care if you're a quadriplegic, even if you're a quadriplegic because you served in Viet Nam, a war hero.

     This government tortures arrests, jails sick people...it's own citizens.  Is it any wonder then that this government okeyed torturing prisoners in Cuba or in Iraq.  Isn't with holding food water medicine to those in custody a violation of the Geneva convention even in a Washington DC jail?

     Sure!!  We, the marijuana activists, and practitioners of this ancient herb will over come this evil regime, but we have to use our powers together as one.  Look around and see who we all are.  Go to Hemp fest or our own Portland Hempstalk and look at the people that show up.  We are the power.  We vote, we spend money. Why are we putting up with being arrested, harassed and overcharged for using any body's medicine?  The short answer is...we don't.  Vote out the people that arrest the sick!!

     Now...I think I hear someone out there saying, "you're all a bunch of pot head hippies.  It's not real medicine."  Well it is medicine and listen very carefully.  If they can take my medicine away from me they  can TAKE YOUR MEDICINE AWAY FROM YOU TOO!  Or make it so expensive YOU can't afford it.  Isn't that's what has already happened??

View From The Street

Don DuPay