12/14/2011

Who's Involved?

There are many parties involved in the legalisation of marijuana. There is the DEA and law enforcement; marijuana dealers, growers, and buyers; and drug-related gangs, and gang-related victims. But the most influential players in this game of law defying activities are the activists; the Canadian and American citizens; and the business this sector has created, and competes with.

Marc Emery
freemarc.ca
Marc is a Canadian citizen, and a very prominent man in Canadian politics. Currently one of the most recognised marijuana activists in the country, he is the publisher of "Cannabis Culture Magazine," and "Pot-TV"; the leader of the BC Marijuana Party; the owner of Cannabis Culture Headquarters; a world famous marijuana seed retailer ("Marc Emery Direct Marijuana Seeds"); and the biggest financial supporter of the marijuana movement to date. Emery's seed retail resulted in his arrest.

Selling marijuana seeds may sound like an illegal activity, but it is not. It is so legal in fact, that doctors directed medical marijuana patients to his website to order their medication. The transaction that caused so much trouble took place when Marc Emery's cannabis seeds were ordered from the United States. The US government was outraged, and although under normal circumstances the person ordering the illegal substance would face the charges, where marijuana is concerned the laws become a little skewed. Emery was arrested in 2005 by American agents in Canada, and extradited to the US.

Statement from DEA; freemarc.ca;
 Enlarged version
Why did the Canadian government allow this and let the US government override them in such a way? This question stumps me.
I am confident that if the Canadian government had any issues with Marc Emery, they could have, and would have dealt with it themselves. Yet they didn't, and his pass time was no secret. Emery operated his business in full transparency and honesty; he went as far as to send his "Cannabis Culture Magazine" COMPLETE WITH THE MARIJUANA SEED CATALOGUE, to each member of parliament in Canada for years; as well as declaring income from his seed sales on his income tax.

Marc Emery paid over $580 000 to the federal and provincial governments between 1999 and 2005 (freemarc.ca)


Because of the monstrous injustice Emery is facing, many people wish to enable a "Treaty Transfer" and bring him home.

"The FREE MARC campaign wants the Canadian government to repatriate Marc Emery from the US federal prison system so he can serve his sentence in his home country of Canada. Marc Emery is a political prisoner, imprisoned for activism and funding the marijuana movement through marijuana seed sales." (freemarc.ca) Free Marc is a great campaign with a strong cause. I encourage you all to check out the website, http://freemarc.ca/ and get involved! It has all the information you need to contact government officials such as the Canadian Minister of Public Safety, the US Department of Justice, and Marc himself, and many other ideas. You should write for the rights of Marc Emery! I know I will!

Tommy Chong

Do you know who Tommy Chong is? If not, your parents probably do. Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin, often know as Cheech and Chong, were leaders in the counterculture movement of the 1970's. Exaggerating the "stupid stoner" stereotype, they were comedians who later came out with a series of movies, written by none other than Tommy Chong himself.
                                                                                   

"I'm [in jail] because I'm a doper comedian and I made a stupid joke about bongs being the only weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration had found, and next thing I know I'm looking at nine months." (Tommy Chong, A/K/A Tommy Chong) What Chong is referring to is his arrest. He was arrested for "conspiring to sell paraphernalia" of a company in which he was not involved. Nice Dream Enterprises is run by Paris Chong (son of Tommy), and although this may seem like a close connection, Paris openly admits that he never indulged in his fathers ideas, as they were unrealistic, other than printing the famous Chongs' face on the bongs, of course. And for this, the US government deemed it necessary to put a budget aside for the capture of Tommy Chong. The top American criminal targets of 2003 were Osama Bin Laden, with a budget of $25 million; his two sons, budgeted $15 million each; and Tommy Chong, with a whopping $12 million of criminal activity to his name. (The Union: The Business Behind Getting High)

 They found this unobtainable man at his house. Complete with a swat team armed with automatic weapons, helicopters, dogs, DEA, the LA police and numerous news crews, the take down of this dangerous stoner went remarkably well. When ask if he was in possession of marijuana he responded: "Of course, I'm Tommy Chong." (A/K/A Tommy Chong)
Google images: Tommy Chong; A/K/A Tommy Chong
  Many were baffled by this gross waste in tax payer's dollars, and the lack of evidence to support this man's conviction. "I'm highly for it. I think as long as [the US] is on code orange, and attacks coming from not only Iraq, but North Korea are immanent, the best thing to do is bust Tommy Chong. I mean they have literally busted Cheech and Chong." (Bill Maher, CNN, A/K/A Tommy Chong)

Chong served his sentence October 8, 2003 to July 7, 2004.


Prisons

"If you took the entire using population of all the illegal drugs combined, and you eliminated cannabis from that equation, there wouldn't be a big enough drug problem in either [Canada] or the United States to justify the massive expenditures that go towards fighting the war."

Enforcing marijuana prohibition is extremely expensive, but in the US it also has also assisted in creating a whole new business interest. In a 20 year period the US prison population has quadrupled, and private prisons are promoted as "one of the best investments you can make." I can't help but feel profiting off prisoners is bad, since this encourages arrests, and cannabis violators make easy targets. The US incarcerates at a rate of 726 people per 100 000 person population, while other countries act at a lesser rate. Japan incarcerates at a rate of 38 people per 100 000 person population. That is nearly a 700 prisoner difference. Currently, there are nearly 45 000 prisoners in state and federal prisons for marijuana violations in the US (excluding people in local and county jails).


88% of all marijuana arrests are for simple possession. (FBI - Uniform crime report, The Union)

Pharmaceuticals

"Marijuana in it's natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." (Frances Young, DEA judge) When looking at the conflict of nature versus man, nature often wins. It is difficult to compete a man-made, chemically based product against a natural one that already has the strength to solve the problem in question. Marijuana is a threat.

Google images: Marinol; glenwoodsmith.com
Proven to benefit people suffering from glaucoma, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy, arthritis, MS, nausea, depression, anxiety, hepatitis C, cancer, chemotherapy and AIDS, marijuana is like a super drug. So why bother with man-made replacements that include synthetic compounds like Marinol and Stavex? Natural remedies cannot be patented, making it impossible for the pharmaceutical industries to profit from it. Instead they use synthetic THC (delta-9 tetra hydro cannabinol), mix in some other stuff, argue that the medication offers no high, and put it on the shelves with their wallets ready for profit. (nida.nih.gov)

Marinol claims it is "a more viable medicine [than marijuana] because there is no high." The side effects are: dizziness, exaggerated happiness, and drowsiness. Are those not the signs of a high?

This also affects doctors whether they are aware, or not. Doctors are trained against prescribing marijuana from early on as they are continuously being seduced by drug companies until they find themselves with a strong bias towards the "product of choice."

 So how could have medicinal marijuana become legal if so many are against it? There are exceptions to every rule. Somewhere people who were not blinded by capitalism, and bought out by pharmaceuticals stood up and made a difference. One of these people was Dennis Peron: http://pdr.autono.net/DennisPeron.html


Citizens
Google images: Evolution; googlyfoogly.com
People believe what they are told. Especially if the word "study" or "scientific" is involved. Yet most of what is believed to be true regarding marijuana is false. Two of the largest myths are "marijuana kills braincells" and "marijuana kills." Both of these statements are based on the Heath/Tulan study. This study claims that after smoking 30 joints a day, for 60 days, the monkeys who were being used for the study died. What they chose not to share is that instead of administering 30 joints a day for one year, as the study suggests, Dr Heath pumped 63 Colombian strength joints through a gas mask for five minutes over three months. The monkeys died of suffocation, and no studies since show any signs of braincell damage or death.

"You have to smoke something around 15 thousand joints in 20 minutes to get a toxic amount of THC. I challenge anybody to do that." (Dr Paul Hornby, PhD, The Union)


#1 killer in Canada: Tobacco cigarettes (beat out AIDS, heroin, crack, cocaine, alcohol, car accidents, fire and murder combined)

#2 killer in Canada: Alcohol (alcohol leads to 55 000 deaths a year)

"There are no deaths from cannabis use." (Dr Lester Grinspoon, MD, The Union)

The Gateway Theory: "There is no inherent psychopharmaceutical logical property of the drug which pushes one towards another drug."

104 marijuana users = 1 cocaine user = less than one heroin user

Addiction: It is true that more youth are in addiction clinics for marijuana than any other substance. If offered the choice between prison or treatment, I'd opt for the treatment. 97% of marijuana users in treatment centres have been directed to by a judge or guardian.

"The use of criminal law for the basis of public health is a wholly bad idea." (Neil Boyd, The Union)

Google images: Joints; nationalfamilies.org


(all statistics and quotation from The Union: The Business Behind Getting High, unless otherwise cited)













12/08/2011

The Causes

Google images: neuroskeptic.blogspot.com
"Marijuana prohibition is unjust and illegitimate, and must be repealed. The persecution of the cannabis community has had terrible consequences. We have criminalised millions of our fellow Canadians merely because they prefer cannabis to coffee, or wine. Along the way we've spent millions of taxpayer dollars trying to stomp out drugs, succeeding only in creating a black-market economy." (bcmarijuanaparty.com/platform)

CRIMINALISATION

Prohibition is an issue because it seems to automatically criminalise everything related to the prohibited from growing and distributing, to indulging and publicising. When something is under prohibition, the government has banned it, so it is not regulated or taxed. The goal of prohibition is to reduce the amount of drugs available, and reduce demand, yet it has done the opposite.

Since marijuana has been criminalised all activities surrounding it have been pushed into the black market. Without regulation, this makes cannabis and other, more dangerous drugs, easier to obtain. In Canada there has been a 100 000% increase in marijuana users since 1937. This means in 2007 there was more  than 50 000 000 people illegally enjoying this substance. And with such high demand, growing is an increasingly popular and lucrative job. By the year 2000, British Colombia was home to 17 000 grow-ops.

As seen through history, prohibition encourages criminal activity. Prohibition strengthens crime simply because you have to be a criminal to identify with it.

Based on informantion from bcmarijuanaparty.com

Recently Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, as well as four former mayors stepped forward calling for marijuana legalisation and regulation in BC in order to reduce gang violence. This shows it is not just "potheads" pushing for legalisation, but also people of authority, as it would be beneficial in numerous scenarios.Through an educational campaign, Stop The Violence BC, they hope to improve community safety by broadening the public understanding between cannabis prohibition and gang violence. "Stop The Violence BC is calling for cannabis to be governed by a strict regulatory framework aimed at limiting use while also starving organised crime of the profits they currently reap as a result of prohibition." (stoptheviolencebc.org) In 2009, British Colombia had 43 gang-related deaths and 276 drive-by shootings, putting public safety at great risk.

BC's stance on marijuana prohibition: The Angus Reid Poll

87% attribute gang violence to drug trafficking
81% are concerned about increasing gang violence
75% think possession should not lead to a criminal record
69% find arresting marijuana producers and sellers ineffective
12% support the current marijuana laws

CONFUSION

"The line between legal and illegal regarding marijuana is fading year by year." ("A Federal Misstep with Medical Marijuana?") Medical marijuana is legal in 13 states and Canada, yet there is barely criteria to define who requires it; it is illegal in all other instances, yet laws are not enforced at public events such as Cannabis Day; activists are being arrested who have not broken the law; and in the US, state and federal laws contradict themselves.

FUN FACT: "If a young person if caught with so much as one marijuana cigarette [in the US], they cannot get a loan from the government to go to college. If they've been convicted of murdering somebody, or raping someone, no problem. They can go right down and they'll give them the loan."

Arresting activists for nothing other than activism is illegal. As stated in Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Mark Emmery and Tommy Chong, although convicted for different "official" reasons, are victims of this injustice.

Although medicinal marijuana is legal in 13 states, the laws concerning it are still a source of issues. According to The Tenth Amendment, "Powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." This means that even if the state law declares marijuana legal, the federal government and DEA can still treat it as illegal. In these situations, state police do not have the authority to stop the interference.

12/01/2011

Background Info

"The first prohibition: 'Thou shalt not partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.' And who was the big cop? [God.] And how many people did he have to watch? Two." (Jack A. Cole, director of LEAP)

Though prohibition of marijuana was made official in 1937, it has a long history of failing, from Cole's reference to Adam and Eve, to the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920's, to the drug prohibition of today. The rate of success in which the illegal act or substance in question has remained untouched is minuscule.



Interestingly, the first marijuana law in the United States ordered farmers to grow hemp. Although it is not widely known, hemp (which marijuana derives itself from) used to be one of the worlds' largest agricultural crops; hemp being the most durable, robust and natural soft fibre there is. Not only was hemp useful in manufacturing, but also in medication. In the late half of the 19th century at least 50% of medication was made from cannabis. And if it was good enough then, why not now you may ask? While the American government was momentarily infatuated with such a versatile plant, it was nothing more than that: momentary.


1938 film directed by
Louis J. Gasnier
Quickly the idea of "Reefer Madness" was introduced to society, claiming that smoking marijuana, or reefers, made people violent and play jazz, among other things. The government continued to encourage farming, but with the introduction of the Marijuana Tax Act, it became impossible to obtain seeds for growing. By making the Tax Act applicable to all hemp types - not just cannabis - the government indirectly banned it from agriculture as well as society. Once this was clear they made the executive decision to close the door. Hemp was prohibited.

In this time the first marijuana conviction occurred. For the possession of two joints, one received four years in jail.

 During World War Two, the US government noticed the absence of the super-strength material they had used during World War One, and removed prohibition under the pretence of "Hemp for Victory." Though hemp was indeed on the victorious side of conflict, so was marijuana, and this time the government took notice of what was actually happening. Cannabis did not make people crazy and violent, but relaxed and passive. Marijuana was under prohibition for the exact opposite reasons it was originally.

In 1978 the first exception towards marijuana prohibition was made. Proposition 215 was created in California, suggesting the legalisation of cannabis for medical purposes. While the government recognised that cannabis was used medicinally in the past, they were resistant in admitting that it had any therapeutic properties, until 1996, when California officially became the first state to allow medical marijuana. Since then, the legalisation of marijuana has become a hot topic. Whether the end goal is decreasing gang-related violence, profiting from regulated sales, increasing accessibility, or focusing on more threatening drugs, many activists and organisations have devoted themselves to marijuana legalisation.


The lack of conviction in the governments decisions to either prohibit or legalise cannabis shows a lack of knowledge around marijuana, and how assumptions such as "Reefer Madness" can replace the truth. This is not how a regulation as severe as Prohibition should be justified, yet, it is. And it is resulting in tax payers supplementing the costs of a law the majority does not support:

$75 000 is what a Canadian tax payer pays to maintain one prisoner in a federal prison for one year.

786 546 marijuana arrests were made in the United States in 2005.

           

The amount of incorrect information about marijuana that is being publicised is embarrassing.