Broadcasting on the Drug Truth Network, this is Cultural Baggage.
“It’s not only inhumane, it is really fundamentally Un-American.”
“No more! Drug War!” “No more! Drug War!”
“No more! Drug War!” “No more! Drug War!”
DEAN BECKER: My Name is Dean Becker. I don’t condone or encourage the use of any drugs, legal or illegal. I report the unvarnished truth about the pharmaceutical, banking, prison and judicial nightmare that feeds on Eternal Drug War.
-----------------------
DEAN BECKER: Hello, my friends, welcome to this edition of Cultural Baggage. Here in just a second we are going to bring in our guest. She’s working up in Oklahoma to change these ridiculous drug laws especially in regards to marijuana. With that I want to welcome Norma Sapp. Are you with us?
NORMA SAPP: Hi. Hello there, Dean. How are you?
DEAN BECKER: I’m good. Yesterday I went to a meeting of the first ever Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition right here in Houston. It was really a very enlightening, very much a powerful event.
You guys are working to change it city by city up there in Oklahoma.
NORMA SAPP: That’s what we’ve just started out doing. Our intention, of course, February 12th we held our lobby day at the capital and we could not get our voices heard. They decided not to hear the bills that we had so we decided to start a statewide initiative.
The statewide initiative, of course you probably know this, takes lots of money so we’ve decided to organize our groups in each country and start on city initiatives and do a death by one thousand cuts until we can afford the statewide legalization campaign.
DEAN BECKER: Give us a little more detail with what you mean by a “death by one thousand cuts.”
NORMA SAPP: The most you can do in a city is like a decrim bill to direct the police to make it a ticket instead. You can’t go less than state law in the cities so death by one thousand cuts is to do all the cities we can in the state and get the police used to just making it a ticket and stop making it so lucrative to either pull you over and tear up your car or those kinds of things or tear up your house in the city.
We’ll start there getting them used to that then go on as soon as we can afford the larger campaign for the state for legalization.
DEAN BECKER: As I understand it you are going for the two biggest cities first – Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
NORMA SAPP: Yes. The Oklahoma City one has already been filed and as of last night the report was that they had somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 signatures towards 6,200 signatures.
DEAN BECKER: Wow, that’s really good, quick work. We have a similar thing. I don’t think we have as much room to get this done like in Houston or maybe Austin but we do have the ability to force the city council, the mayor to put this on the ballot. Will have any teeth? Will it have any means of change actually?
NORMA SAPP: You’re right. It’s just kind of a Band-Aid but what happens now here in Oklahoma is an ounce or less is supposed to be a misdemeanor in our state. It’s up to the DA and the arresting officer how they charge it because there’s enhancements that can happen.
Let’s say it is your first time and it is an ounce or less but if you are within 1,000 feet of a school, church, park they can enhance it with those things. Usually on a first offense it doesn’t really send you to jail – not for very long, anyway – maybe you bond out.
The second time you get stopped it will be a felony. It will be a state charge and you know what happens after that. Then there’s the “three strikes and you’re out.” We have so many people right now just waiting to get into our prisons. Our county jails are full and some of the county jail sheriffs have actually sued the Department of Corrections because they cannot keep anymore of their prisoners in there. They don’t have any room for their own prisoners.
DEAN BECKER: This reminds me. We have a situation that you are probably well aware of. There was a bill passed in 2007 or 2009 which said it is no longer necessary to arrest, no longer necessary to jail anybody for under 4 ounces of weed. That’s a fat sack of weed and yet district attorney, police chiefs and sheriffs continue to do this because they can. They can select the older law. It’s starting to rattle the cage again. It’s kind of grating against the budget if you follow my drift. Your thoughts?
NORMA SAPP: I knew about that and I wondered how it was working out. I didn’t know. Is there a lot of counties that are just going ahead with the old law?
DEAN BECKER: Oh, Harris County in particular. We arrest about 10,000 kids every year for under 4 ounces of weed just because we want to. I want to share this with you. 2 reasons – one is you get federal grant money based on the number of arrests not on the number of tickets. Secondarily, the primary funder (our judges are elected here in Texas) of those judge’s reelection is the bail bondsman who need the business. It’s crazy.
NORMA SAPP: Tell me about your republican meeting. Was it the state GOP?
DEAN BECKER: It’s a new organization. It was founded by Ms. Ann Lee, the mother of one Richard Lee, the founder of Oaksterdam University, longtime republican, stalwart here in Texas, here in Houston.
The speakers were Ann Lee. We heard from a Texas judge, John Delaney. We heard from Terry Nelson, a 33/34 year law enforcement veteran. We heard from a couple of other folks who spoke boldly of that need for change. It was well received. 3 TV stations were there – Univision, Telemundo and CBS.
We are starting to find allies within the broadcast media even here in the “gulag” city.
NORMA SAPP: I did see your governor on some night show some night saying he was going to go for change so that’s very encouraging.
DEAN BECKER: Yes and I think slowly all these politicians are going to walk away from this drug war.
NORMA SAPP: The republicans have...actually, the people who were Ron Paul people that have a home in the GOP they know his message and they understand what true conservatism is. That really is the base of this. I’ve always been wondering why the GOP did not pick up and run with this.
DEAN BECKER: That’s a really good question isn’t it? From my perspective...if folks were to read my book and any politician, either party, if you finish the book you will have the tools to become a hero to this nation – heck, to the whole world because you can be the one standing forth proclaiming why this drug war needs to end.
The most glaring failing of the prohibition is that as of this point and time they are unwilling to be in an open, public debate. They no longer can defend this policy. I think we got them on the run.
NORMA SAPP: Back to what you said about your state...in our state 76 out of our 77 counties could not meet payroll without the fines and forfeiture from the drug war so that is some of their concern I’m sure.
DEAN BECKER: I saw what I think was a CBS report coming out of Oklahoma talking about your situation and they had a statement from a law enforcement official talking about the fact that they can’t allow this to happen. It would undermine their whole endeavor.
NORMA SAPP: That’s Mark Woodward. He has been the spokesperson for Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics for many years. I spent 45 minutes talking to Mark while I was at the capital and he was sympathetic to those children who have the epilepsy and other patients. He actually told me that he was very open to using the oils because it doesn’t get you high. That was his words.
It does show so much promise.
DEAN BECKER: A big chunk of that meeting yesterday (the Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition) had two or three mothers coming on and talking about how it benefits their children, how it diminishes the seizures and/or otherwise helps their healthy.
We’re going to have a segment follow this from that with Thalia Michelle. She had me crying. I think you should listen in to it. Maybe the friends up there in Oklahoma could share that audio as well. The fact of the matter is the truth is there. It’s obvious. It’s just waiting for some politician to embrace it, to be part of that change, to be part of the truth and reality and the positives that could come from the use of medical marijuana. Your thoughts there?
NORMA SAPP: I’ve seen the same thing across the nation – candidates who are running with that in their platform are beating out the incumbents in the polls.
DEAN BECKER: It just seems so handy, so readily available. If folks would just make use of it.
NORMA SAPP: I know and it’s going to happen. How can you keep a plant illegal? It’s been the wrong thing for one hundred years and we have really damaged this country. We have damaged families.
At one point about 15 years ago Mary Fallin who is our current governor was in the senate. She held an interim study on women in prison. There was a woman that came from Minnesota and said, “If you right by a lady then the next three generations will prosper.”
We have actually done the opposite because when we lock up parents and put their children in foster care those children will probably be scarred for the rest of their lives and that will hand down to their children and they will probably not prosper as well as they should have and be able to take care of the third generation.
DEAN BECKER: Yesterday Judge John Delaney when he was speaking to Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition he talked about - and this goes on 150 times a day – SWAT teams kick in the door, shoot the dogs, frighten the kids and just rampage the house and tear it to shreds. Many times there is minimal to 0 illegal drugs involved. It’s just not the American way is it?
NORMA SAPP: No it isn’t. I’m really scared of that. Every day I read about some other little town getting a tank or some other armored vehicle and I know what they are going to with that. They are going to take people down in their homes in the night and scare them to death. I believe it was in Texas not too long ago that there was an officer that was killed because they didn’t know who was coming through their door. It’s just so scary.
DEAN BECKER: If I may say that officer that you are speaking about they took that to the Grand Jury and the Grand Jury refused to indict the homeowner because he was just protecting his home.
I think we have to realize – this is America. This is not how it’s supposed to be. It’s been a gradual osmosis, incremental change over the decades and people just have come to accept but this is not my America.
NORMA SAPP: We got to get over this quickly because I’m seeing an awful lot of the people who were in the war who come back over here and, of course, somebody wants to give them a job right away and it’s usually in law enforcement and they are so used to treating the people around them as an insurgent. I see it happening to the citizens of the United States by those same officers. They are scarred from the war and they have the toys (the tanks and the guns) and they treat us like insurgents.
DEAN BECKER: Yeah and, again, not my America.
We’ve got just a couple of minutes. Once again we are speaking with Ms. Norma Sapp out of Oklahoma.
Norma, share your website, point them to where they can learn more and get involved.
NORMA SAPP: Right now all I have is a Facebook page and it’s under my name. I have one for Oklahoma NORML as well so anybody can get in touch with me there. We’re putting together a website which will be out next week and that will have all of our information and everybody’s contact.
DEAN BECKER: We met and I’ve been trying to remember when it was. It’s been 10-12 years ago on a march or at a conference somewhere. It’s good to meet up with you again and get the chance to talk about how our two states might learn from each other, parallel the course together.
NORMA SAPP: I have an extra Facebook page for just that rivalry. It’s called Texas vs. Oklahoma – who will legalize first? Let’s do it, Dean.
DEAN BECKER: Be careful up there. We’ve got a law on the books already – under 4 ounces, don’t have to arrest or jail anybody but they just keep on doing it so build some teeth into the new laws would you?
NORMA SAPP: Yes. Thanks for having me.
DEAN BECKER: Thank you so much and you take care. We’ll be in touch soon, OK?
NORMA SAPP: OK.
-----------------------
(Game show music)
DEAN BECKER: It’s time to play: Name That Drug by Its Side Effects.
Light headedness, nausea, vomiting, headache, malaise, fatal disturbance in brain function, imbalanced electrolytes, over dilution of sodium in the blood plasma, osmotic shift in pressure ruptures, cerebral edema, seizures, coma and death.
{{{ gong }}}
Time’s up!
The answer! And before I give you the answer let me tell you a little bit more about this product. It’s found in baby food. It’s a major component of the explosives used by the terrorists. And it’s freely available in the hallways and used in the classrooms of every school in our nation. Prolonged exposure causes severe tissue damage. Inhalation of even a slight amount can be deadly.
Dihydrogen monoxide is a killer. Otherwise known as water.
-----------------------
DEAN BECKER: The following segment was recorded on March 15th at the first ever meeting of Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition.
-----------------------
ANNOUNCER: Let me introduce our next speaker. Our next speaker is Thalia Michelle. She is the co-founder of MAMMA (Mothers Advocating Medical Marijuana for Autism). She is a longtime autism advocate. She has been working with TTMR which is The Thinking Mom’s Revolution. She has a blog by the same name and a book by the same name. The book is a collection of stories of autism families and the challenges and triumphs that come with trying to help their children.
She became passionate about medical marijuana because over the past couple of years there have been a lot of reports about how it can help for autistic children. She has a son who is autistic and she recognizes that that could be a solution for her that she does not have access to in Texas.
She is now moving to Colorado. We’re changing the laws in Texas and we’re going to make this happen for these kids.
I want to welcome Thalia Michelle.
[applause]
THALIA MICHELLE: Wow! I’m blown away. I’m really new to the scene – really, really new. All my focus and attention and everything that I have done has been about autism, autism, autism....vaccines or no vaccines and up and down the food and the gluten free.
I’ve been very focused and autism - I don’t know if you knew this or not but about one-third of autistic children have seizures, have epilepsy as well. My friends, like my co-founder here, Amy Faywell, who I would encourage you all to say hello to and meet. Some of my friends were tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Thalia, you need to pay attention to this medical cannabis thing with the epilepsy.”
I’m going, “Yeah, yeah, guys, I need to raise money for these kids they need horse therapy and they need to go here and I need to do this with autism.”
Pretty soon it got too much and the autism moms were shaking me and saying, “Pay attention to this. This is important!”
I’ve woken up. It took me awhile to get here but I am awake. I know what’s going on and things have to change.
Her kid is in danger in the state of Texas. I’m not OK with that. She’s not the only one. My friend [name snipped] in Hayes County her daughter was having 300 seizures a week. I shouldn’t have said her name because she committed a felony. She committed a felony. She’s a church going, tax paying, republican voting, conservative Christian mother with a child who has 300 seizures a week and she committed a felony. I’ll tell you what – that girl’s doing really well right now and [name snipped] doesn’t regret what she has done.
She only regrets that her state and her state officials and the law do not support her and her child and her family. I’m mad about that. I’m upset about that. If you aren’t we’re made of different stuff.
Don’t you worry, sweetheart, that CBD portion will get passed. That’s happening next year – that’s a no brainer – but you’re right, it’s not enough. It’s not good enough because this isn’t just about pediatric epilepsy.
I have mothers contacting me from California, contacting Amy. Amy has been chatting with one of them from California and the child is banging his head into a window and knocking out the glass and there was scars in that child’s head and blood and he’s 15 and he can’t talk and the mother is looking at institutionalizing him.
She was on this waiting list for Charlotte’s Web (the CBD oil) for months and months and you know what she did? She went out and bought some edibles with THC in it and she gave it to her son. I’m here to tell you that child is not banging his head anymore into glass. He is not biting his arms. He is saying words, sentences. He’s using an augmented communication device and he’s excited because he can communicate with his parents.
[applause]
Do not tell me that it is OK to dope that child up with an anti-psychotic or an anti-depressant or some kind benzosulfate-goopedy-goop that has a gazillion side effects so the kid can barely tell what room he is in but he can’t have a little THC because it might get him stoned. It might calm him down. He might sleep a little bit more...what?! What?!
OK, let’s just say we don’t want to give the kids THC...fine – what about THCA? That’s a precursor to THC and it is non-psychoactive and it has a lot of the same calming effects. It works on the endocannabinoid system in the same way as THC. What’s wrong with that?
Why should a parent, my friend who is committing a felony, be at risk for going to CPS the way the judge up here earlier was talking about – why is she at risk to go through that system that he is talking about? ...because she wants to help her daughter who has had three lobotomies already. That child has had three brain surgeries already.
This is their last hope and the state of Texas is going to turn around and tell her that she can’t?! I’ve got a problem with that. I have a big problem with that.
Here’s what I am going to do. I’m going to rally my MAMMAs. I’m going to rally my MAMMAs. My MAMMAs are super strong. They’ve been watching their kids suffer many, many years and they’ve been wiping (excuse my language) shit off of their 12-year-olds for a long time. And they are tired and they want some answers and they want some changes.
I’m going to have those MAMMAs walk into their churches and have a sit down with their pastors. I’m going to have those MAMMAs educated those pastors and explain to them that we aren’t talking about smoking dope for these children. We are talking about oils and tinctures, extracts - a healing plant, a miraculous, God-given plant, a precious gift given to us from above.
They are going to explain how these things work and how they can help their child and they are going to ask those pastors to pray for them. Then we’re going to ask those pastors to contact their state officials on behalf of the mothers.
One thing I know is that Texas is red and Texas will not turn green until “red” says so. I’m going after educating the pastors and the churches and asking them to educate the legislators and ask the MAMMAs to contact the legislators, too. I believe when we have enough mommies and enough pastors contacting the legislators that we’ve got a chance at doing something next year but, yes, I am with you CBD is not enough.
That’s the danger because there is 15 states right now ready to flip CBD only. It’s not good enough. It’s not good enough for those Post Traumatic Stress Disorder vets and the AIDS patients and the children with cancer who need THC because there is science out there that proves THC stops and kills cancer cells. We don’t want those people forgotten.
It’s easy to look at a child with seizures and get dramatic about and watch Sanjay Gupta and say, “CBD, CBD, CBD...” and I love CBD, God knows that’s what helping most of my population but there are many others. Medicinal marijuana is not about CBD only.
I’m so grateful to you all. I don’t know a whole lot about decrim. I learned so much just listening to the judge talk just now but I do know that I have mothers in danger of getting into that system because they are trying to help their children and that’s not OK. I may be one of those mothers pretty soon. I don’t know.
There is a hemp CBD oil that is very similar to Charlotte’s Web that is legal called RSHO. It’s in high demand right now. It doesn’t have the turpines but you can supplement that with essential oils. It does help a lot of kids. My son is using it right now. It is legal.
I’ll tell you, seeing my kid go from aggressive to calm, being able to sit and watch a TV show – whew! I want to try the real stuff. I really do and God bless America I think we can do it.
If there is anything that Amy or I can do to help support this cause, if there is anything our special needs moms can do to support this cause we want to be part of it. We want to help and we want to help the decrim section, too, because we don’t want our MOMMAs getting caught in all of that and being taken away from their children when they are trying to help them not bite themselves anymore, or hurt their sisters or keep them out an institution.
But there is one straight course and that is to seek truth and to pursue it steadily. I am going to steadily pursue the truth on this issue and I’m not going to give up.
This week I sent a copy of my book to President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Senate Majority Leader Reed, Minority Leader McConnell, House Majority Leader Cantor, Minority Leader Pelosi and Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.
I started it off with, “I write this day to beseech you to reconsider our nation’s addiction to drug war. Make no mistake the drug war is ending slow and bloody but it is ending. It is my hope that you high echelon officials would combine forces and dare to say what is so obvious – that the drug war is a fiasco, a festering collection of lies, innuendo and fear. Whether it is one or all of you we must not wait another 4 or 8 years to realize the futility of this second, hopeless attempt at prohibition. This madness will, indeed, end in the near future. I ask that you talk to one another about this everlasting fiasco and seek to actually control the manufacture and sale of the ludicrously named controlled substances for adult use. Some president or scrum of senators or representatives will, indeed, speak the full truth in regards to the use of drugs and will become full-blown heroes to this nation.”
I told them if I may assist in any way don’t hesitate to call on me. I ask you, friends out there, don’t hesitate to call on me. My email is dean@drugtruth.net. You can get a copy of my book at http://endthedrugwar.us. Please check it out.
As always I remind you that because of prohibition you don’t know what’s in that bag. Please, be careful.
-----------------------
DEAN BECKER: To the Drug Truth Network listeners around the world, this is Dean Becker for Cultural Baggage and the Unvarnished Truth.
This show produced at the Pacifica Studios of KPFT Houston.
Transcript
Transcript
Cultural Baggage / March 16, 2014
-----------------------
Broadcasting on the Drug Truth Network, this is Cultural Baggage.
“It’s not only inhumane, it is really fundamentally Un-American.”
“No more! Drug War!” “No more! Drug War!”
“No more! Drug War!” “No more! Drug War!”
DEAN BECKER: My Name is Dean Becker. I don’t condone or encourage the use of any drugs, legal or illegal. I report the unvarnished truth about the pharmaceutical, banking, prison and judicial nightmare that feeds on Eternal Drug War.
-----------------------
DEAN BECKER: Hello, my friends, welcome to this edition of Cultural Baggage. Here in just a second we are going to bring in our guest. She’s working up in Oklahoma to change these ridiculous drug laws especially in regards to marijuana. With that I want to welcome Norma Sapp. Are you with us?
NORMA SAPP: Hi. Hello there, Dean. How are you?
DEAN BECKER: I’m good. Yesterday I went to a meeting of the first ever Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition right here in Houston. It was really a very enlightening, very much a powerful event.
You guys are working to change it city by city up there in Oklahoma.
NORMA SAPP: That’s what we’ve just started out doing. Our intention, of course, February 12th we held our lobby day at the capital and we could not get our voices heard. They decided not to hear the bills that we had so we decided to start a statewide initiative.
The statewide initiative, of course you probably know this, takes lots of money so we’ve decided to organize our groups in each country and start on city initiatives and do a death by one thousand cuts until we can afford the statewide legalization campaign.
DEAN BECKER: Give us a little more detail with what you mean by a “death by one thousand cuts.”
NORMA SAPP: The most you can do in a city is like a decrim bill to direct the police to make it a ticket instead. You can’t go less than state law in the cities so death by one thousand cuts is to do all the cities we can in the state and get the police used to just making it a ticket and stop making it so lucrative to either pull you over and tear up your car or those kinds of things or tear up your house in the city.
We’ll start there getting them used to that then go on as soon as we can afford the larger campaign for the state for legalization.
DEAN BECKER: As I understand it you are going for the two biggest cities first – Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
NORMA SAPP: Yes. The Oklahoma City one has already been filed and as of last night the report was that they had somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 signatures towards 6,200 signatures.
DEAN BECKER: Wow, that’s really good, quick work. We have a similar thing. I don’t think we have as much room to get this done like in Houston or maybe Austin but we do have the ability to force the city council, the mayor to put this on the ballot. Will have any teeth? Will it have any means of change actually?
NORMA SAPP: You’re right. It’s just kind of a Band-Aid but what happens now here in Oklahoma is an ounce or less is supposed to be a misdemeanor in our state. It’s up to the DA and the arresting officer how they charge it because there’s enhancements that can happen.
Let’s say it is your first time and it is an ounce or less but if you are within 1,000 feet of a school, church, park they can enhance it with those things. Usually on a first offense it doesn’t really send you to jail – not for very long, anyway – maybe you bond out.
The second time you get stopped it will be a felony. It will be a state charge and you know what happens after that. Then there’s the “three strikes and you’re out.” We have so many people right now just waiting to get into our prisons. Our county jails are full and some of the county jail sheriffs have actually sued the Department of Corrections because they cannot keep anymore of their prisoners in there. They don’t have any room for their own prisoners.
DEAN BECKER: This reminds me. We have a situation that you are probably well aware of. There was a bill passed in 2007 or 2009 which said it is no longer necessary to arrest, no longer necessary to jail anybody for under 4 ounces of weed. That’s a fat sack of weed and yet district attorney, police chiefs and sheriffs continue to do this because they can. They can select the older law. It’s starting to rattle the cage again. It’s kind of grating against the budget if you follow my drift. Your thoughts?
NORMA SAPP: I knew about that and I wondered how it was working out. I didn’t know. Is there a lot of counties that are just going ahead with the old law?
DEAN BECKER: Oh, Harris County in particular. We arrest about 10,000 kids every year for under 4 ounces of weed just because we want to. I want to share this with you. 2 reasons – one is you get federal grant money based on the number of arrests not on the number of tickets. Secondarily, the primary funder (our judges are elected here in Texas) of those judge’s reelection is the bail bondsman who need the business. It’s crazy.
NORMA SAPP: Tell me about your republican meeting. Was it the state GOP?
DEAN BECKER: It’s a new organization. It was founded by Ms. Ann Lee, the mother of one Richard Lee, the founder of Oaksterdam University, longtime republican, stalwart here in Texas, here in Houston.
The speakers were Ann Lee. We heard from a Texas judge, John Delaney. We heard from Terry Nelson, a 33/34 year law enforcement veteran. We heard from a couple of other folks who spoke boldly of that need for change. It was well received. 3 TV stations were there – Univision, Telemundo and CBS.
We are starting to find allies within the broadcast media even here in the “gulag” city.
NORMA SAPP: I did see your governor on some night show some night saying he was going to go for change so that’s very encouraging.
DEAN BECKER: Yes and I think slowly all these politicians are going to walk away from this drug war.
NORMA SAPP: The republicans have...actually, the people who were Ron Paul people that have a home in the GOP they know his message and they understand what true conservatism is. That really is the base of this. I’ve always been wondering why the GOP did not pick up and run with this.
DEAN BECKER: That’s a really good question isn’t it? From my perspective...if folks were to read my book and any politician, either party, if you finish the book you will have the tools to become a hero to this nation – heck, to the whole world because you can be the one standing forth proclaiming why this drug war needs to end.
The most glaring failing of the prohibition is that as of this point and time they are unwilling to be in an open, public debate. They no longer can defend this policy. I think we got them on the run.
NORMA SAPP: Back to what you said about your state...in our state 76 out of our 77 counties could not meet payroll without the fines and forfeiture from the drug war so that is some of their concern I’m sure.
DEAN BECKER: I saw what I think was a CBS report coming out of Oklahoma talking about your situation and they had a statement from a law enforcement official talking about the fact that they can’t allow this to happen. It would undermine their whole endeavor.
NORMA SAPP: That’s Mark Woodward. He has been the spokesperson for Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics for many years. I spent 45 minutes talking to Mark while I was at the capital and he was sympathetic to those children who have the epilepsy and other patients. He actually told me that he was very open to using the oils because it doesn’t get you high. That was his words.
It does show so much promise.
DEAN BECKER: A big chunk of that meeting yesterday (the Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition) had two or three mothers coming on and talking about how it benefits their children, how it diminishes the seizures and/or otherwise helps their healthy.
We’re going to have a segment follow this from that with Thalia Michelle. She had me crying. I think you should listen in to it. Maybe the friends up there in Oklahoma could share that audio as well. The fact of the matter is the truth is there. It’s obvious. It’s just waiting for some politician to embrace it, to be part of that change, to be part of the truth and reality and the positives that could come from the use of medical marijuana. Your thoughts there?
NORMA SAPP: I’ve seen the same thing across the nation – candidates who are running with that in their platform are beating out the incumbents in the polls.
DEAN BECKER: It just seems so handy, so readily available. If folks would just make use of it.
NORMA SAPP: I know and it’s going to happen. How can you keep a plant illegal? It’s been the wrong thing for one hundred years and we have really damaged this country. We have damaged families.
At one point about 15 years ago Mary Fallin who is our current governor was in the senate. She held an interim study on women in prison. There was a woman that came from Minnesota and said, “If you right by a lady then the next three generations will prosper.”
We have actually done the opposite because when we lock up parents and put their children in foster care those children will probably be scarred for the rest of their lives and that will hand down to their children and they will probably not prosper as well as they should have and be able to take care of the third generation.
DEAN BECKER: Yesterday Judge John Delaney when he was speaking to Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition he talked about - and this goes on 150 times a day – SWAT teams kick in the door, shoot the dogs, frighten the kids and just rampage the house and tear it to shreds. Many times there is minimal to 0 illegal drugs involved. It’s just not the American way is it?
NORMA SAPP: No it isn’t. I’m really scared of that. Every day I read about some other little town getting a tank or some other armored vehicle and I know what they are going to with that. They are going to take people down in their homes in the night and scare them to death. I believe it was in Texas not too long ago that there was an officer that was killed because they didn’t know who was coming through their door. It’s just so scary.
DEAN BECKER: If I may say that officer that you are speaking about they took that to the Grand Jury and the Grand Jury refused to indict the homeowner because he was just protecting his home.
I think we have to realize – this is America. This is not how it’s supposed to be. It’s been a gradual osmosis, incremental change over the decades and people just have come to accept but this is not my America.
NORMA SAPP: We got to get over this quickly because I’m seeing an awful lot of the people who were in the war who come back over here and, of course, somebody wants to give them a job right away and it’s usually in law enforcement and they are so used to treating the people around them as an insurgent. I see it happening to the citizens of the United States by those same officers. They are scarred from the war and they have the toys (the tanks and the guns) and they treat us like insurgents.
DEAN BECKER: Yeah and, again, not my America.
We’ve got just a couple of minutes. Once again we are speaking with Ms. Norma Sapp out of Oklahoma.
Norma, share your website, point them to where they can learn more and get involved.
NORMA SAPP: Right now all I have is a Facebook page and it’s under my name. I have one for Oklahoma NORML as well so anybody can get in touch with me there. We’re putting together a website which will be out next week and that will have all of our information and everybody’s contact.
DEAN BECKER: We met and I’ve been trying to remember when it was. It’s been 10-12 years ago on a march or at a conference somewhere. It’s good to meet up with you again and get the chance to talk about how our two states might learn from each other, parallel the course together.
NORMA SAPP: I have an extra Facebook page for just that rivalry. It’s called Texas vs. Oklahoma – who will legalize first? Let’s do it, Dean.
DEAN BECKER: Be careful up there. We’ve got a law on the books already – under 4 ounces, don’t have to arrest or jail anybody but they just keep on doing it so build some teeth into the new laws would you?
NORMA SAPP: Yes. Thanks for having me.
DEAN BECKER: Thank you so much and you take care. We’ll be in touch soon, OK?
NORMA SAPP: OK.
-----------------------
(Game show music)
DEAN BECKER: It’s time to play: Name That Drug by Its Side Effects.
Light headedness, nausea, vomiting, headache, malaise, fatal disturbance in brain function, imbalanced electrolytes, over dilution of sodium in the blood plasma, osmotic shift in pressure ruptures, cerebral edema, seizures, coma and death.
{{{ gong }}}
Time’s up!
The answer! And before I give you the answer let me tell you a little bit more about this product. It’s found in baby food. It’s a major component of the explosives used by the terrorists. And it’s freely available in the hallways and used in the classrooms of every school in our nation. Prolonged exposure causes severe tissue damage. Inhalation of even a slight amount can be deadly.
Dihydrogen monoxide is a killer. Otherwise known as water.
-----------------------
DEAN BECKER: The following segment was recorded on March 15th at the first ever meeting of Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition.
-----------------------
ANNOUNCER: Let me introduce our next speaker. Our next speaker is Thalia Michelle. She is the co-founder of MAMMA (Mothers Advocating Medical Marijuana for Autism). She is a longtime autism advocate. She has been working with TTMR which is The Thinking Mom’s Revolution. She has a blog by the same name and a book by the same name. The book is a collection of stories of autism families and the challenges and triumphs that come with trying to help their children.
She became passionate about medical marijuana because over the past couple of years there have been a lot of reports about how it can help for autistic children. She has a son who is autistic and she recognizes that that could be a solution for her that she does not have access to in Texas.
She is now moving to Colorado. We’re changing the laws in Texas and we’re going to make this happen for these kids.
I want to welcome Thalia Michelle.
[applause]
THALIA MICHELLE: Wow! I’m blown away. I’m really new to the scene – really, really new. All my focus and attention and everything that I have done has been about autism, autism, autism....vaccines or no vaccines and up and down the food and the gluten free.
I’ve been very focused and autism - I don’t know if you knew this or not but about one-third of autistic children have seizures, have epilepsy as well. My friends, like my co-founder here, Amy Faywell, who I would encourage you all to say hello to and meet. Some of my friends were tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Thalia, you need to pay attention to this medical cannabis thing with the epilepsy.”
I’m going, “Yeah, yeah, guys, I need to raise money for these kids they need horse therapy and they need to go here and I need to do this with autism.”
Pretty soon it got too much and the autism moms were shaking me and saying, “Pay attention to this. This is important!”
I’ve woken up. It took me awhile to get here but I am awake. I know what’s going on and things have to change.
Her kid is in danger in the state of Texas. I’m not OK with that. She’s not the only one. My friend [name snipped] in Hayes County her daughter was having 300 seizures a week. I shouldn’t have said her name because she committed a felony. She committed a felony. She’s a church going, tax paying, republican voting, conservative Christian mother with a child who has 300 seizures a week and she committed a felony. I’ll tell you what – that girl’s doing really well right now and [name snipped] doesn’t regret what she has done.
She only regrets that her state and her state officials and the law do not support her and her child and her family. I’m mad about that. I’m upset about that. If you aren’t we’re made of different stuff.
Don’t you worry, sweetheart, that CBD portion will get passed. That’s happening next year – that’s a no brainer – but you’re right, it’s not enough. It’s not good enough because this isn’t just about pediatric epilepsy.
I have mothers contacting me from California, contacting Amy. Amy has been chatting with one of them from California and the child is banging his head into a window and knocking out the glass and there was scars in that child’s head and blood and he’s 15 and he can’t talk and the mother is looking at institutionalizing him.
She was on this waiting list for Charlotte’s Web (the CBD oil) for months and months and you know what she did? She went out and bought some edibles with THC in it and she gave it to her son. I’m here to tell you that child is not banging his head anymore into glass. He is not biting his arms. He is saying words, sentences. He’s using an augmented communication device and he’s excited because he can communicate with his parents.
[applause]
Do not tell me that it is OK to dope that child up with an anti-psychotic or an anti-depressant or some kind benzosulfate-goopedy-goop that has a gazillion side effects so the kid can barely tell what room he is in but he can’t have a little THC because it might get him stoned. It might calm him down. He might sleep a little bit more...what?! What?!
OK, let’s just say we don’t want to give the kids THC...fine – what about THCA? That’s a precursor to THC and it is non-psychoactive and it has a lot of the same calming effects. It works on the endocannabinoid system in the same way as THC. What’s wrong with that?
Why should a parent, my friend who is committing a felony, be at risk for going to CPS the way the judge up here earlier was talking about – why is she at risk to go through that system that he is talking about? ...because she wants to help her daughter who has had three lobotomies already. That child has had three brain surgeries already.
This is their last hope and the state of Texas is going to turn around and tell her that she can’t?! I’ve got a problem with that. I have a big problem with that.
Here’s what I am going to do. I’m going to rally my MAMMAs. I’m going to rally my MAMMAs. My MAMMAs are super strong. They’ve been watching their kids suffer many, many years and they’ve been wiping (excuse my language) shit off of their 12-year-olds for a long time. And they are tired and they want some answers and they want some changes.
I’m going to have those MAMMAs walk into their churches and have a sit down with their pastors. I’m going to have those MAMMAs educated those pastors and explain to them that we aren’t talking about smoking dope for these children. We are talking about oils and tinctures, extracts - a healing plant, a miraculous, God-given plant, a precious gift given to us from above.
They are going to explain how these things work and how they can help their child and they are going to ask those pastors to pray for them. Then we’re going to ask those pastors to contact their state officials on behalf of the mothers.
One thing I know is that Texas is red and Texas will not turn green until “red” says so. I’m going after educating the pastors and the churches and asking them to educate the legislators and ask the MAMMAs to contact the legislators, too. I believe when we have enough mommies and enough pastors contacting the legislators that we’ve got a chance at doing something next year but, yes, I am with you CBD is not enough.
That’s the danger because there is 15 states right now ready to flip CBD only. It’s not good enough. It’s not good enough for those Post Traumatic Stress Disorder vets and the AIDS patients and the children with cancer who need THC because there is science out there that proves THC stops and kills cancer cells. We don’t want those people forgotten.
It’s easy to look at a child with seizures and get dramatic about and watch Sanjay Gupta and say, “CBD, CBD, CBD...” and I love CBD, God knows that’s what helping most of my population but there are many others. Medicinal marijuana is not about CBD only.
I’m so grateful to you all. I don’t know a whole lot about decrim. I learned so much just listening to the judge talk just now but I do know that I have mothers in danger of getting into that system because they are trying to help their children and that’s not OK. I may be one of those mothers pretty soon. I don’t know.
There is a hemp CBD oil that is very similar to Charlotte’s Web that is legal called RSHO. It’s in high demand right now. It doesn’t have the turpines but you can supplement that with essential oils. It does help a lot of kids. My son is using it right now. It is legal.
I’ll tell you, seeing my kid go from aggressive to calm, being able to sit and watch a TV show – whew! I want to try the real stuff. I really do and God bless America I think we can do it.
If there is anything that Amy or I can do to help support this cause, if there is anything our special needs moms can do to support this cause we want to be part of it. We want to help and we want to help the decrim section, too, because we don’t want our MOMMAs getting caught in all of that and being taken away from their children when they are trying to help them not bite themselves anymore, or hurt their sisters or keep them out an institution.
But there is one straight course and that is to seek truth and to pursue it steadily. I am going to steadily pursue the truth on this issue and I’m not going to give up.
[applause]
-----------------------
DEAN BECKER: Once again that was Thalia Michelle. You can learn more by just going to MAMMAwarrior out there on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/thinkingmomsrevolution).
This week I sent a copy of my book to President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Senate Majority Leader Reed, Minority Leader McConnell, House Majority Leader Cantor, Minority Leader Pelosi and Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.
I started it off with, “I write this day to beseech you to reconsider our nation’s addiction to drug war. Make no mistake the drug war is ending slow and bloody but it is ending. It is my hope that you high echelon officials would combine forces and dare to say what is so obvious – that the drug war is a fiasco, a festering collection of lies, innuendo and fear. Whether it is one or all of you we must not wait another 4 or 8 years to realize the futility of this second, hopeless attempt at prohibition. This madness will, indeed, end in the near future. I ask that you talk to one another about this everlasting fiasco and seek to actually control the manufacture and sale of the ludicrously named controlled substances for adult use. Some president or scrum of senators or representatives will, indeed, speak the full truth in regards to the use of drugs and will become full-blown heroes to this nation.”
I told them if I may assist in any way don’t hesitate to call on me. I ask you, friends out there, don’t hesitate to call on me. My email is dean@drugtruth.net. You can get a copy of my book at http://endthedrugwar.us. Please check it out.
As always I remind you that because of prohibition you don’t know what’s in that bag. Please, be careful.
-----------------------
DEAN BECKER: To the Drug Truth Network listeners around the world, this is Dean Becker for Cultural Baggage and the Unvarnished Truth.
This show produced at the Pacifica Studios of KPFT Houston.
Tap dancing… on the edge… of an abyss.
Transcript provided by: Jo-D Harrison of www.DrugSense.org