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the evil itch

i must say i'm quite surprised by the responses here. i, as many of my other friends believe, a lot of these events for the legalisation of marijuana don't get many people out there coz too many are spending their time stoned, and get too lazy to go out and do stuff.

not that i've heard of any rallies for the cause or anything... you see i'm from australia, and according to the stats, we have about twice the amount of users (of all drugs and alcohol) per population than you yanks. yet, i seem to have never heard of any attempts to organise stuff...? Are you dudes just "in the zone" with the circle and the message isn't gettin noticed byt he general pop, or is it just australia?

 

Medicalman

I will admit that I'm not much of a "crusader" for the cause. I don't generally attend rallies and such, and I rarely discuss things in public. I find that by maintaining a lower profile, docs take me much more seriously. Most of the docs that contact me from referrals from other docs they know, have done some small amount of poking around and expect something like the circus that Marc Emery puts on. Once we start corresponding or speaking, they relax and become much more open. Once I start mentioning the limited circumstances where MJ is not adviseable, they really start listening. I guess I prefer to act more like the Gandhi of Ghanja than the Clown Prince of Pot, but I certainly don't look down on whatever folks do in their own way to get the word out. Iguess various MMJ and medical forums are about as public as I get.

Best
MM

Lothar121

What a sad percentage. We need more people donating to the mpp and NORML

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Logos

Medicalman, you my friend are an unsung hero. I have been struggeling with the very problem that you have solved already.

How do we get the local doctors to become more wiling to accept the realities of medical marijuana.

the group I mentioned working with is facing that issue right now. Interested in an apprentice? Or Doctor referrals from other states?

I'll PM ya.

Logos
P.S. Welcome to Marijuana.com!

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mindraver

i donate money annually, but do not spend as much time as i would like to pushing for legalization.

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whozzat

rick and Dr. Zombie, you both are furthering the goal more than you know. You guys have beat your heads into the subject so much, i'm sure it's everyday talk...you've made many subjects commonplace for many...good for you both.
I picked other, because though i don't give money, i give canna-products (buds, brownies, etc.) to those in need. I also have given away hundreds of seeds and planted several dozen more in remote patches, hoping for continued wild growing. Set-up 4 different peoples grow spaces for them., attended rallys and shared all information i could around the globe. Though in my professional life the subject is never touched upon. For this reason I don't even consider myself an activist, but really, like many around, just an underground hoper.

gold9472

I sent this letter to congress. I've given medical research to my senators. We need to do more people. It's time to show the American people again what it means to be American.

Dear Representative,*

First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this rather lengthy email. I hope that it helps to educate, and motivate you to do what is right. Too many people are suffering when they don't have to, and the current administration is making every effort to arrest people that are just trying to get by.

My reasoning for this email stems from the fact that my grandfather, Walter Gold, passed away 3 years ago from Pancreatic Cancer. Just recently, I found that In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice – lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia. In February 2000, researchers in Madrid reported in the March issue of "Nature Medicine" that they injected the brains of 45 rats with cancer cells, producing tumors whose presence they confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). On the 12th day they injected 15 of the rats with THC and 15 with Win-55,212-2 a synthetic compound similar to THC. "All the rats left untreated uniformly died 12-18 days after glioma (brain cancer) cell inoculation ... Cannabinoid (THC)-treated rats survived significantly longer than control rats. THC administration was ineffective in three rats, which died by days 16-18. Nine of the THC-treated rats surpassed the time of death of untreated rats, and survived up to 19-35 days. Moreover, the tumor was completely eradicated in three of the treated rats." The rats treated with Win-55,212-2 showed similar results.

Knowing this today, I'm infuriated by the fact that my grandfather had to suffer when the possibility existed that he didn't have to.

There are a couple of arguments that I think should be separated; most notably the distinction between industrial hemp and marijuana, which I will tackle first.

The DEA's current arguments for the continued prohibition of industrial hemp are 1) that it contains trace levels of THC, and 2) that it would be impossible to tell the difference between hemp farms and marijuana farms, and therefore, in order to continue the prohibition of marijuana, it is also necessary to outlaw hemp.*

It is true that hemp and marijuana are both Cannabis sativa; however the important thing to acknowledge is that they are distinctly different cultivars. For the past 3000 years they have been bred for different purposes: Marijuana has been bred for large flowers, while hemp has been bread for long stalks. Marijuana cultivars need several feet of square feet per plant (when grown outdoors) to ensure enough sunlight for the flowers. Hemp on the other hand, is grown with dozens of plants per square foot. This intensive planting makes the individual plants grow tall and lanky, with few branches, in order to compete for sunlight. In addition, the flowers of a hemp cultivar are nearly non-existent; I have seen both types up close (hemp farm in Nova Scotia, Canada, and various indoor/outdoor marijuana plants), and one cannot mistake hemp for marijuana. This is analogous with saying that the DEA cannot distinguish between a Beagle and a Great Dane, which of course are both Canis familaris.*

Another argument is that it would be easy to hide marijuana plants among hemp plants – again, because of the plant/square foot requirements this would not be as easy as it may sound. Indeed, you could grow a pot plant in a hemp field, but it would be drastically inferior due to constant struggle for sunlight, nutrients, and water. As it is, people are currently hiding pot plants in corn fields.*

As to the THC argument, the weakest marijuana strain contains ~ 3% THC, while the average hemp plant contains ~.05% THC. Its true, hemp contains trace THC, but it is not true that you can get ‘high’ from it. There are inexpensive tests to ensure this.*

What is VERY interesting, is the origin of hemp/marijuana prohibition. Prior to 1937 neither cultivar was illegal, but the marijuana tax act of 1937 made ALL variations of Cannabis Sativa to expensive to grow (though not technically illegal – that would follow later after an onslaught of racists newspaper reports, and outright lies perpetrated by lumber and newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst and the US Commissioner of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger).*

Oddly enough, 1937 was also the year that George Schlichten patented his ‘decorticating machine’ which was the first machine to efficiently separate the hemp fiber from the stalk; an advance that prompted the February 1938 issue of ‘Popular Mechanics’ to declare hemp the ‘First Billion Dollar Industry, due to its ability to compete with the petrochemical and lumber industries for the manufacturing of textiles, fuel, and treeless paper. Ironically, although the issue was written prior to the act, it was not published until several months after the act was in place. I have attached a scan of the article, and in the web sites listed below you can read of many of the environmental aspects of this crop.*

Personally speaking, given that alcohol and cigarettes are legal, I feel that this is the true reason for the prohibition of Cannabis Sativa.* Unfortunately, I can’t say that I believe this was the first or last time industrial lobbyists have affected political change for their benefit.*

As this letter is already more lengthy then I intended, I will try to keep my arguments for the legalization of marijuana short.*

Suffice it to say that, medicinally, thousands of people around the world have offered experiential evidence that it works to alleviate their suffering. In fact, THC is proven to reduce swelling in glaucoma patients, reduce nausea in chemotherapy and AIDS patients allowing them to eat, and to decrease the chronic pain that many people suffer with daily for a number of reasons. I will not judge them. If it works for them, and it is not hurting anyone, then what is the harm? One of the most common arguments is as follows: *

“Everyone knows that like cigarettes, combustion of the lungs, no matter what is being smoked, greatly increases the risk of lung cancer. Since marijuana smoke is thicker than cigarette smoke, the chances of getting lung cancer or brain damage is a serious risk, not to be taken lightly”.*

This may be true, but it doesn’t acknowledge alternative ways of consuming marijuana via orally or through a device known as a ‘vaporizer’. A vaporizer will heat the plant material to 400 degrees Fahrenheit; not hot enough to combust the dried flower, but enough to turn the THC resin into a gas and then run through a cooling mechanism to be inhaled.*

I am not an advocate of a national pot smoking orgy – but neither am I an advocate of legislation that depends on obfuscation and logical chicanery to make its arguments.* In the trial of Ed Rosenthal, a man who was deputized and hired by the city of Oakland to grow medicinal marijuana, the judge refused to let the jury know that this was the case. They were only allowed to know that he was a man growing a lot of pot. That was it. He was convicted, and after the conviction when the jury was informed by the media of who he was, the jury came forward as a whole and publicly apologized to Rosenthal. Fortunately, a fair-minded California judge who criticized the federal government for interfering with a law that was passed with the majority of voters on a ballot initiative only sentenced Rosenthal to time served: one day. Enter Ed Rosenthal in any search engine for the full story.*

These are the types of ‘strategies’, as well as the DEA hemp arguments above, that start the alarm bells ringing in one’s head. If the federal government’s stance was based on reason then the Truth could stand on its own. But since it is NOT based on reason, then they must use alternative means to twist the arguments.*

The last point I would like to make is the notion that pot makes you lazy. I would like to remind you that we live in a nation where the average American watches 8 hours of television every day!! If sitting on a couch staring at a TV doesn’t make one lazy, then I don’t know what does. As well, I am familiar with many well-educated, motivated, intelligent, creative, and family-oriented individuals who make marijuana one aspect of their lives; Business owners, artists, salespeople, social workers, etc. They are not drop-outs, they are not 30 or 40 year olds with the brain of a 5 year old (despite sometimes decades of smoking) and they are definitely NOT lazy.*

I have no doubt that there are people who abuse marijuana. But I cannot see that alone as a reason to prohibit it for all. If the abuse of something by some were the ONLY criteria for prohibition, there really would not be much out there that was legal.*

If any of these arguments pique your interest in the topic, I have included a short resource list.*

RESOURCE LIST:*

"The Emperor Wears No Clothes" - Jack Herer. This is a fully documented book regarding the origins of marijuana/hemp illegality. It also takes the unusual step of adding photocopies of actual documents regarding this issue, so that you don't have to look elsewhere for the footnote sources (although you can if you like)*

Web sites:

HEMP
• http://www.hempcar.org
• http://www.naihc.org/ (North American Industrial Hemp Council)*

MEDICINAL MARIJUANA
• http://www.mpp.org/medicine.html*

GENERAL
• www.mpp.org (marijuana policy project – where you can read White House commissioned reports recommending the decriminalization of marijuana)
• www.norml.com
• www.cannabisculture.com*

I hope that these arguments shed some more light on a topic that has spent too many decades stuffed in a closet in order to line the pockets of the few.

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. President.
Speech, 18 Dec. 1840, to Illinois House of Representatives

"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear to me than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use. . . . Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana."

President Jimmy Carter
Speech delivered to Congress August 2nd, 1977*

Sincerely,*

Jonathan

Logosnote: WOW

Greenbud

Holy SMOKE!!

I hope a copy of that went out to every government official all the way up to G. Dubya. And I'd go one better; print that baby out and mail it too, just to make sure they *ALL* read it.

Excellent, my friend, excellent.


Back to the original subject: I am a member of and donate my time to MPP, DRCNet, my local NORMAL chapter, and LEAP. I send $$ when I can, although right now I am an under-employed computer technician (and full-time grower of fine herb!!) so $$ is tight right now. I research the history of drug policy and try to keep up with current MJ-related events to gain more ammo against the anti's and to educate those who have bought into the propaganda.

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stonerchick

Don't find out until the 29th or so, but if all went well, I consider the act of circumventing drug tests an act of civil disobedience so in my own way, yes, I am helping the cause.

MerlinBurb

I am pretty dissapointed at the large number of ppl that havent done anything. Money does change things, and think if the 233 of you donated just 10 bucks, thats almost 2500! thats just the small ppl on this thread of this forum on this website that responded to this question. There are many more ppl out there that need to take action.