Century of Lies May 16, 2010

The failure of Drug War is glaringly obvious to judges, cops, wardens, prosecutors and millions more. Now calling for decriminalization, legalization, the end of prohibition. Let us investigate the Century of Lies.
________________

Alright, my friends. Welcome to this edition of Century of Lies. I’m going to call upon our guest, Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld. He’s author of a brand new book, “My Medicine: How I Convinced the U S Government to Provide My Marijuana and Helped Launch a National Movement” Irv, are you with us, sir?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: I am.

Dean Becker: Irv, thank you for being with us. I don’t know if you had a chance to hear, my voice is just about shot and I want to kind of turn it over to you, to talk about this book. I mean, I was really impressed at the amount of time; the years that you invested into fighting the Federal Government, in order to get your legal Cannabis. You want to talk about that decade long battle?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Well, as you said, it took ten years to fight the government and it was a struggle. But I had to do it and I did it the right way. I had the State of Virginia behind me, I’m from Virginia. I had the University of Virginia behind me and also my congressman, and I took on the Federal Government.

The Federal Government was worried about me suing them, so they gave me hearings and I won those hearings. But it took ten years and it was a long struggle, but I won. Thank God that now they’ve provided my medicine, for almost twenty-eight years.

Dean Becker: Now Irv, as I’ve read the book, it was not your desire to use Cannabis in the beginning. You kind of felt a little peer pressure, if you will, when you first started college. To give it a try and you found some amazing results. Correct?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: That’s true. I was an advocate against marijuana, also other illegal drugs, in high school. When I went to college in Miami, everyone in my complex smoked marijuana, most of the people. I finally gave into peer pressure. When I was exposed to it, I tried it. It didn’t do anything for me, but all of the sudden, after the tenth time, I realized that it helped me medically. I was quite shocked by that. But that’s what happened and so that’s what led me to take on the Federal Government and finally win.

Dean Becker: Now Irv, as I understand it, you have tumors that grow on the end of the long bones in your body and that back in the day when you were first learning that marijuana had that positive effect, you were unable to sit for lengthy periods of time. It was just uncomfortable to be. Correct?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Exactly. I could sit for maybe ten minutes and then I would stand for ten minutes. When I discovered that I had sat for thirty minutes the first time, it was because of Medical Cannabis. I had not used any other narcotics; any other drugs. Which I had prescriptions for Dilaudid, synthetic morphine, Quaalude, Valium, other medications and I had not taken anything for six hours. All I had done was smoke the Medical Cannabis. That’s when I realized that that must be what’s helping me. That’s why I did research and found that was the medicine that worked best for me.

Dean Becker: As I read the book, this was not an easy task. I mean, you didn’t have the doctors necessarily doing the legwork, the paperwork to advance your case, so to speak. It was necessary for you to educate yourself. It was necessary for you to do that legwork and to move this forward. Correct?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Correct. The first five years, I wrote up my own scientific project. With myself as the patient and my doctor as a researcher. Then when FDA stonewalled me for the first five years, then I met Robert Randall who was the first patient. He suggested I turn my scientific project around to a compassionate care protocol, saying that I had a qualified doctor who believed that marijuana worked.

Therefore maybe at the compassion of the government, they would give it. For the next five years, that’s what we did and again, I finally had hearings that the University of Virginia set up and I finally won those hearings. After ten years.

Dean Becker: Now in reading the book, you were standing before twenty representatives of the FDA, and telling your side of this? Correct?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Correct. I had fifteen minutes to divide my story. I used about 12-13 minutes and then took questions or statements. There was a person there in the audience that stood up and said he was an oncologist specialist from Venezuela, trying to learn pain palliations again, for cancer patients.

He said that the best medication he learned here in this country was Dilaudid, synthetic morphine. Which was the best medication he knew about in his country. The fact that I was using this and my doctor knew it and that Cannabis seemed to help the effects of it, he felt that this needed to be a study. That‘s what he stated and that‘s how I won.

Dean Becker: Let’s talk about that for a minute. There is the symbiosis or compounding, if you will, that those using these more exotic and sometimes dangerous drugs, like Dilaudid or OxyContin or whatever, are able to decrease their intake of these more dangerous drugs, just through the use of a little bit of Cannabis. You want to talk about that?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: That’s exactly what happened with me. That with use of Cannabis, that my intake of these other narcotics decreased substantially. That’s very important and I was hoping the Federal Government would want to research that. But they really don’t care about that. Which is sad, because it really did work. So we did private studies to show that that was the point of it. Here I still get it today, but the Federal Government still doesn’t want to know.

Dean Becker: Let’s talk about what you get. It’s three hundred pre-rolled cigarettes and it’s every twenty-eight days? Correct?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Twenty-five days.

Dean Becker: Twenty-five days, wow. Yes, sir. Now that’s again, marijuana grown by… under the auspices of the Federal Government. Approved by the FDA and DEA and shipped to you on a regular basis, by the U S Government.

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Correct, and your taxpayers money pays for it. Which I appreciate.

Dean Becker: Well… Yeah but the point of it is, as much as you appreciate it, you also think each and every other medical patient in America, should have that same opportunity afforded to them. Correct?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Exactly. That’s what I’m fighting for. Exactly. Again, it helps for me and I’m just sad about all the patients who would need it and don’t get it. The sad part is, especially with patients like glaucoma patients, once they go blind, they’re blind. There’s nothing that can be done for them. Nothing’s going to bring it back and Cannabis might have saved their sight.

The sad part is, as a taxpayer in this country… again, your taxpayers money, pays for me to get my marijuana. Well you know, my taxpayers money pays for me to get my marijuana, but it also pays for glaucoma patients when they go blind, for their disability payments and everything like that. It’s unnecessary.

Dean Becker: Robert Randall was using Cannabis for his glaucoma, correct?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Exactly. He was the first patient. He’s the one that proved that it was beneficial for his glaucoma and he won, and then I became the second patient, thanks to him.

Dean Becker: There is another one. One of the four surviving…

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Elvy.

Dean Becker: Elvy Musikka who…

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Elvy gets it for glaucoma, also. She was the third patient. She was able to prove the same thing that Bob did. That it helps her glaucoma and a judge believed it and the Federal Government finally relented and gave it to her.

Dean Becker: Then we still have George…

Irvin Rosenfeld: George McMahon.

Dean Becker: George McMahon, yes and…

Irvin Rosenfeld: He lives in Iowa. Yeah.

Dean Becker: He has a brittle…

Irvin Rosenfeld: A brittle bone disorder, but also a disorder called Nail Patella Syndrome. It’s a very rare disorder. It’s hereditary, a lot of people in his family have it. It cramps down his muscles, the muscles clamp down on his organs where it… he’s had half his organs removed. The bones are brittle. He’s actually a very sick person. But the Cannabis works for him and it’s kept him alive and made him survive this long.

Dean Becker: You were talking about the Federal Government has not deemed it necessary to evaluate what Cannabis has done for you guys over the years. Right?

Irvin Rosenfeld: Right. The sad part is, the Government does not want to admit how well it works for us.

Dean Becker: The fact is the Drug Czar and I guess nearly every representative of government talks about, that it has no legitimate medical use and yet, they totally ignore what it has done for you and Elvy and George, over the years.

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Very true, like you said. That’s why I wrote my book. Hopefully, once my book becomes public with everybody, that people would understand that it is medicine and it works. Hopefully, they’re going to call the congressmen and senators and say, ’Look, if this patient getting it, works… than why can’t it work for other people?‘ Hopefully things will change.

Dean Becker: Once again, we’re speaking with Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld, one of the four surviving Government supplied Medical Cannabis patients left in the U S. He has a new book, “My Medicine: How I Convinced the U S Government to Provide My Marijuana and Helped Launch a National Movement.”

Irv, over the years I’ve heard parts of your story and felt some sympathy and appreciation of what you’ve gone through. But in reading the book, this was truly an ordeal, was it not?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Very much so. Yeah, it was a complete ordeal. But the point is, I survived and I survived for a reason. I say, God helped me and everything else that happened, it just worked out that way. I was able to prove to the Federal Government that Marijuana worked and somehow win. Here I am, one of four people in the country who get marijuana from the Federal Government. I’m very fortunate and that’s why I want to help others.

Dean Becker: Irv, when you speak to, you speak quite often to various groups around the country in fact, a lot of state legislatures call upon you to give your story, do they not?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: They do, yeah. I’ve spoken to maybe nine different states.

Dean Becker: What is the response you get?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Well, there’s the prog. since they have no idea that Medical Marijuana’s given out by the Federal Government and they’re shocked when I show them my tin can. Show them my marijuana and say, “Here the Federal Government gives me this. They give me this and your tax payer’s money pays for it. But yet, your state is going to arrest people for the same medicine that they give to me. Your state’s going to have to pay to prosecute them, put them in jail and pay for all that. Isn’t it wrong that your tax payer’s money is paying to give me the same medicine?”, and they’re shocked by that.

Dean Becker: Once again, we’re speaking with Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld. Author of “My Medicine.” Now Irv, I understand that in the beginning, you found officials; law enforcement officials who agreed with your need for this supply and you found others along the way who were willing to stand in support, or at least not to oppose you, in your efforts. Correct?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Correct, yes. From the Chief of Police of Portsmouth, Virginia to the head of the State Crime Commission in Virginia and the head of the State Police in Virginia. All supported me and helped me, in any way they could.

Dean Becker: We’re starting to find U S Congressmen, some very notable ones, who have put forward bills to legitimize, or to move towards some more logical approach to this. But it’s really going to take action. It’s going to take communication from those out there listening, from people out there who will read your book. To show that they are in agreement. That they understand the failure of this prior policy. Correct?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: Correct. They’re going to need to read the book and be able to call their congressmen and their senators and say, ’Look, the way it is now, is not right. This is a medicine that should be allowed and doctors should have the right to take care of this. People should not have the right to decide this, that are DEA agents or being a politician, but doctors.’ That’s what’s important.

Dean Becker: Indeed. Indeed now, less folks negate what we’re talking about here. Over the years, do you have an approximate count, the number of marijuana cigarettes the U S Government has sent to you?

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: I’m getting ready to approach my hundred and twentieth thousand medical marijuana cigarette that the Federal Government’s given me. I applied to the Guinness Book of World Records to be sanctioned as the most medical marijuana cigarettes ever. They sent me back saying, “We’d love to be able to do that, but it has t be a record that can be broken and since no one else could substantiate that much marijuana, we can’t say that, because nobody else could beat you.” Therefore, I’m officially the longest Medical Marijuana smoker in the World.

Dean Becker: I want to commend you for putting together this story, that puts flesh on the bones, so to speak. That makes us understand better, what all you went through, to get to this point and to face down the Federal Government. We should all thank you for having done so and for proving the point that it hasn’t debilitated you. It hasn’t torn your life apart. It hasn’t destroyed your potential. In fact, tell the folks what you do for a living, please.

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: I’m a stockbroker. I’m a stockbroker in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. You can contact me at my cell phone number, (954) 536-9011. But an investment banker is what I am, an Investment Advisor. I make people money. I’m able to do that because the knowledge that I used to take on the Federal Government, I also use for my investments. So that’s important to me. To help people make money and also to help people with their medical problems.

Dean Becker: I tell you what Irv, I very much appreciate the book. I appreciate your courage and your efforts over the years. Your website, please.

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: My website for the book is, mymedicinethebook.com.

Dean Becker: mymedicinethebook.com. Irvin Rosenfeld, thank you so much and we’ll be in touch. You just inspire all of us, I think, to do a little more.

Mr. Irvin Rosenfeld: I’m glad I can do that and hopefully in the end, we’ll all win.
________________

Hello, drug policy aficionado’s. I’m Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts. Questions concerning drug policy pass by my desk everyday. One recently raised query asked, why the Federal Government has failed to find any positive use for marijuana. Let’s say that it did, but it didn’t.

In his 1998 ruling, in the matter of marijuana re-scheduling petition, the DEA’s Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young recommended, “That the Administrator of the DEA concluded that the marijuana plant, considered as a whole, has currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. That there is no lack of accepted safely forced use under medical supervision and that it may be lawfully be transferred from Schedule I to Schedule II.”

That ruling might suggest that the government found positive use for marijuana. But that was years ago. Despite Judge Young’s ruling, marijuana still remains in the most restrictive Schedule I of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act. Along with Heroin, LSD and GHB, among others.

Flash forward to the column, ‘Medical Marijuana and the Law’ that appeared in the April 22nd 2010 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. “Restrictive federal law and, until recently, aggressive federal law enforcement have hamstrung research and medical practice involving marijuana.”

Yet despite federal policy makers having hamstrung research and medical practice involving marijuana, four patients continue to receive an ongoing supply of Medical Cannabis under the Federal Government’s Compassionate IND Program. Established around the same time as Judge Young’s 1998 ruling. Further, a research review by American’s for Safe Access concluded that, “Privately funded study of these patients, confirmed that they have benefited from their use of Medicinal Cannabis.”

To summarize, Judge Young appeared to find positive use for marijuana years ago. If the federal policy makers have hamstrung research, while at the same time provide an ongoing supply to four patients, who have benefited from their medical use of Cannabis.

You can find facts like these concerning Medical Marijuana, in the Drug War Facts Medicinal Cannabis chapter at www.drugwarfacts.org. If you have a question for which you need facts, please email it to me at mjborden@drugwarfacts.org. I’ll try to answer your question in an upcoming show.

So remember, when you need the facts about drugs and drug policy, you can get the facts at Drug War Facts.
________________

I’m Ethan Nadelmann. I’m the founder and Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Dean Becker: Ethan, this last week, we’ve had two major presentations put forward. One, the Drug Czar’s new strategy and two, a major piece by the Associated Press talking about the failure of the drug war. You want to kind of sum up what you’ve discerned over this week?

Mr. Ethan Nadelmann: Well, I’ll tell you. The Drug Czar’s report of the Obama Administration’s drug policy, as I said in my piece on Huffington Post, it’s clearly a step in the right direction. For those people who say that, ’Obama’s done nothing,’ that’s not really true. They did move forward on trying to reform in a major way. The crack/powder mandatory minimum drug laws. They did approve of Congress’s recent move to repeal the federal ban on needle exchange and the statement by the Justice Department, that they would no longer go after Medical Marijuana in the state which had made it legal, were all very significant moves in the first year of the Obama Administration.

There are some very good things in the current document right now. They are really talking about more of a public health strategy. This is the most of past approaches, although they are not willing to use the language of law, harm reduction. They are supporting various initiatives in that area. So it’s clearly a step in the right direction.

Now that said, if you ask about the more fundamental issue, if you look at the budget for example. The budget has basically not changed at all. It’s still the same sixty-five/seventy percent, going for law enforcement, interdiction and other policies that have proven ineffective in the past. The basic paradigm, the whole notion that we’ve got to keep all this stuff illegal, that we still rely on the criminal justice system in a very major way. To deal not just with violence or predatory crime, but even simple drug use. That still permeates the document.

You still see within the document, notwithstanding the rhetoric about a public health strategy, this kind of knee jerk instinct to keep relying on supply control strategies. So in that sense, I’m disappointed. I would have liked to see some bolder shift. Not just on the rhetoric, but on the reality. I would have liked to see a real shift in the resources. But on some level Dean, it’s like trying to turn around an ocean liner. It’s pointed in a different direction. It’s going to take time and I’m impatient for it to turn faster.

Dean Becker: Now insofar as the AP major story. A couple of thousand words I think, talking about the drug war has failed to meet it’s objectives.

Mr. Ethan Nadelmann: Well that AP story, by Martha Mendoza, is just a breakthrough story. First of all, because it is so in-depth. Because she really did the work. She added up the numbers and she put it, not just in the last two years or the last five years. She put it in a forty year perspective, which so few people have done.

The second reason it’s significant, is that it didn’t just show up in a Leftwing or a Libertarian publication, it showed up on AP. I mean, if you look at the Google hits it’s getting, at the number of places it’s being reprinted, both online as well as the print press, it’s really astounding. For an AP story of that depth, this one is hitting all around the place.

I think that this is a story that… There’s lots of new stories out there. The New York Times, there’s something on the front page. USA Today, there’s something on the front page, Newsweek and Time. But more and more, AP plays a pivotal roll. Because it reaches into newspapers all around the country. So reading that, you just see the powerful enditment and even acknowledgement of failure, by many of the people associated with the drug war.

When you have the former drug czar John Walters say, ‘They really made a difference‘, but not having much evidence for that. You have the current Homeland Security Chief, Janet Napolitano offering some kind of lame excuse for why we have to keep doing more of the same. But you do have also, the current Drug Czar Kerlikowske saying, ‘I know there’s a problem with our federal Drug War budget. I want to move this thing faster.’

I have to tell you Dean, reading the piece yesterday and again this morning, it sort of hit me. A kind of rough analogy, that Kerlikowske may be playing a role with the Drug War. Not unlike the role that Gorbachev played in the downfall of communism. You know, he’s the guy who’s job it was still to stick the old system in place, but who could see the writing on the wall and began to open up room, for the much more major reformation that would follow him. Maybe in that way, Kerlikowske will prove to be a significant historical and transitional figure, in terms of shift in the National Drug Policy paradigm. From criminal justice to a public health and Civil Liberties and Civil Rights approach.

Dean Becker: We’ve been speaking with Ethan Nadelmann, the Director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Mr. Ethan Nadelmann: drugpolicy.org You should find a lot of information there. For those of you listening, I just want you to know, there’ll be a new look to Drug Policy Alliance, too. We’re rebranding our identity. In part to reflect our growing influence and the growing breadth of the movement. So I think people will be very excited by what they’re going to be seeing in the months to come.
________________

My name is Kathleen Stoudt. I’m Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at El Paso. I am a border research scholar. I teach courses on the border and I am active at various communities organizations. For several months, I have been part of the Ciudad Juarez support group.

This group grew out of a large conference that was held in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, last September. ‘The Global Public Policy Forum on the US War on Drugs.’ The summary of the conference, which is available at warondrugsconference.utep.edu, evidences frustration with the forty year old War on Drugs policy.

The support group has been meeting since January. We have been horrified by the escalating levels of violence. Numbering two thousand six hundered murders in Ciudad Juarex in 2009 and making it the Worlds largest murder capitol city. So we developed a three page statement that links U S policy to violence in Mexico and we have a seven point strategy for changing policies.

We wanted to time this, so that when President’s Obama and Calderón would be meeting in Washington D.C. next Tuesday and Wednesday, they would perhaps be aware of our support statement. They would be aware, because we’ve taken out a full page ad in the El Paso Inc. and we have an op-ed in the El Paso Times.

We have also notified various media, nationally and locally, about this and we will hold a press conference on Monday, May 17th at 1PM. Right near the border crossing on the bottom of Sante Fe` Street, just before the pedestiran bridge to Ciudad Juarez. So we hope to help frame the debates and change a policy that does not work.

Dean Becker: Katyh, El Paso has been focused on this now for quite some time, with a similar idea being presented within the City Council and appealed to Federal officials to re-examine this. You have now aligned yourselves with the business and government leaders of Las Cruces, New Mexico as well, correct?

Ms Kathy Stoudt: Well, I couldn’t say that the government leaders in Las Cruces are aligned. In El Paso, several members of the support group consist of City Council people. Including Beto O’Rourke, who made the first resolution in 2009 and joining him was Steve Ortega, with a comprehensive resolution earlier this year and Susie Byrd also on our City Council.

We have, and with a number of people who have signed onto this resolution, so far sixty-five people; community leaders have signed on and we had to send this over to the printer for formatting and type setting and everyday, there are other people who say, ‘We want to sign onto this also.’

So, coupled with the LEAP’s report that just came out of the White House National Office on Drug Control Policy, where there is some shift but not a dramatic shift policy, but an acknowledgement that the War on Drugs has failed. We think this is the right time for people and various organizations to align themselves together, to push for more progressive change.

Dean Becker: Just yesterday a major AP story appeared in newspapers across America, pointing out that…

Ms. Kathy Stoudt: Yes, it did.

Dean Becker: …the Drug War has never achieved it’s stated goals. Your thoughts?

Ms. Kathy Stoudt: Yes. I was happy to see that policy statement; that acknowledgement that the War on Drugs has helped to build the budgets of a number of different local, state and federal agencies. But it hasn’t really accomplished goals and it was never really set up in a way to achieve a specific outcome.

This statement was coupled with the leaking of an eighty-some page report, that came out earlier week and apparently will be released in a week or two from the drug czar’s office, Mr. Kerlikowske. I read throught that report and noticed that they are making a lot more emphsis on drug prevention programs and drug treatment programs. However, the report stops short of moving toward any kind of decriminalization or legalization of marijuana. That is to say, regulation control and taxation of marijuana.

So there’s more of an emphsis on demand reduction in the United States and possibly there will be some budgetary changes associated with that.
________________

Well, I hope you enjoyed today’s program. You’ll join us next week for more unvarnished truth about this policy of Drug Prohibition and I remind you once again. There is no truth, justice, logic, scientific fact, no medical data, no reason for this Dug War to exist. We have been duped. Please visit our website, endprohibition.org

Prohibido istac evilesco.

For the Drug Truth Network, this is Dean Becker. Asking you to examine our policy of Drug Prohibition.

The Century of Lies.

This show produced at the Pacifica studios of KPFT, Houston

Transcript provided by: C. Assenberg of www.marijuanafactorfiction.org