Century of Lies, Sept. 9, 2008

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.
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Dean Becker: Hello, my friends. Welcome to this edition of Century of Lies. Today, I’m not wearing my Law Enforcement Against Prohibition shirt, I’m wearing my 'herb, my anti-drug" shirt. And why? Because today we’re going to talk marijuana, medical marijuana. We’re going to talk about courage. We’re going to talk about the future. We’re going to talk about the upcoming NORML convention out in Berkley, California.

And with that, let’s go ahead and bring in our first guest for today, Mr. Paul Armentano.

Hello, Paul.

Paul Armentano: Hi, Dean. Good to be here.

Dean Becker: Well, thank you, sir. As I was telling the listeners, you work with NORML. What is your job, again?

Paul Armentano: Deputy Director of NORML and the NORML Foundation. And I’ve been with the organization, oh, about a dozen years or so at this point.

Dean Becker: Well, you’ve been around. We’ve been seeing at these things for quite some and, Paul, I’m glad to have you with us. Why don’t you tell the folks about the upcoming NORML convention?

Paul Armentano: As you mentioned, it will be in Berkley, California. It will run from Friday, October 17, through Sunday, October 19. And Friday and Saturday, those days are sponsored by NORML and the NORML Foundation and then Sunday will be a special one-day seminar sponsored by the NORML legal committee and Oaksterdam University and that day will focus more specifically on the growing use of medical marijuana and the business of medical marijuana that is really blossoming in California.

Dean Becker: Yeah. We will have as our second guess today Mr. Ilia Gvozdenovic from Oaksterdam University to tell us more about that. But, Paul, let’s talk about some of the notables that will be attending this convention.

Paul Armentano: Sure. Well, we’re very pleased to have U.S. House Representative Barbara Lee, she will be receiving an award for her outspoken support of medical marijuana at this year’s conference. Obviously we will have numerous people from NORML’s board of directors, many people that are performing some of the cutting edge research on medical marijuana. I’m really proud to say that we have organized a panel with some of the only researchers in the United States to actually have federal permission to study with clinical trials the use of medical marijuana. We’re bringing in Carl Hart, from Columbia University, who published a study last year comparing the use of Marinol® versus inhaled marijuana in people with HIV. We’re bringing in Donald Abrams who has published a couple studies now, over the last two years, looking at the use of marijuana in neuropathic pain and also studying the vaporization of marijuana and how that is a safer alternative to smoking. We’re bringing in Dr. Mitch Earlywine who is one of the most noted authors on the use of marijuana for health. So I think it’s going to be a very educational and a very unique group of panels for people who make their way to Berkley.

Dean Becker: Well, Paul, you mentioned that there were, you know, a couple of these doctors, scientists that have been able to do these studies here in the U.S. And the truth be told, though, I mean, with every legislative investigation, if you will, into medical marijuana and into all of the various pronouncements by the Drug Czar, et cetera, there is always this thought that ‘well, it may have those properties but more studies are necessary.’ And yet, the fact is, the federal government tries their dangdest to quash any further studies or to supply marijuana for those studies, right?

Paul Armentano: In fact, that is going to be a large topic of discussion. When I contacted these researchers, and there’s a couple of more that will be accompanying them, I said ‘Look. While people want to know about the findings of your work, you know, they, if not more want to know about the political hurdles investigators face in this country.’ Not in just getting the study approved but in how they have to design the study, how they have to write up the findings, how they have to pitch the study to scientific journals, how they have to talk to the media about their work. Because yes, as you stated, the U.S. government and the NIDA, which has to approve all marijuana research in this country and actually sponsors eighty percent of the research on scheduled drugs in the world, has an agenda. And their agenda is not to support the therapeutic use of marijuana. They actually state that in black and white. So, it really, these investigators really are to be commended not only for getting this work out there but having to jump through all these hoops to actually do the sort of research that the government tries its darndest to prohibit. So there again, I think this is going to be a very interesting panel for people.

Dean Becker: Thank you for that, Paul. We are speaking with Mr. Paul Armentano, Deputy Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Paul, just this week, a couple of stories broke. First, I want to address the fact that it has been shown that marijuana and the five or six cannabinoids contained therein serve as great antibiotics to thwart, like, the ‘superbug’ which runs rampant in our hospitals. Your thoughts?

Paul Armentano: You know, this is a very interesting study. I got my hands on it about six weeks or so ago and I forwarded it to a couple researchers on this issue, who will remain nameless but who have, you know, have done quite a bit of this work. And they said ‘This is a very, very important study. You’ve got to run with this.’ So I wrote about this about two or three weeks ago and the most fascinating part of this study, for me, was the fact that when you read it the investigators who did this trial, and they’re a team from the United Kingdom and from Italy, they talk about how prior to 1952 cannabis was used as a topical antiseptic agent in medical treatment. And you’re talking to somebody who’s written a booklet on medical marijuana, who has studied this issue now for close to fifteen years, and I’ve got to tell you, I was unaware up until that point in time that there had been any research in this direction, as using cannabis as an anti-bacterial agent, and here I am reading that prior to the mid-nineteen fifties this was common knowledge among investigators. This was something that physicians were utilizing, that they were aware of, and then it simply went down the memory-hole for the past fifty years until these researchers brought it back into the fold by discovering that you can use five of the cannabinoids in marijuana and that they are, they can stave the spread of MRSA, or the ‘superbug’, which is really an amazing finding.

Dean Becker: Isn’t it though? And I find myself astounded that, as you said, ‘it was just forgotten down the memory-hole.’ It has lost its stature or even the knowledge of its existence. And yet we look back in time, prior to 1937, the early part of the twentieth-century, cannabis products, ointments and, you know, various tinctures and other medicines were available on the shelf just for those purposes alone, as ointments to rub your horse’s legs, et cetera, it was know for its healing properties and when they came along in, I guess the late thirties, Anslinger said ‘There’s a danger afoot. It’s called marijuana.’ And people didn’t know that he was talking about cannabis and so they went along with him. And that’s, we wound up where we are know, right?

Paul Armentano: Yeah, yeah. Pretty much. Like I said, it’s really something. And what’s interesting too is when you go back to the early 1950s, and certainly at that point they didn’t know the difference between THC and CBD and these other cannabinoids that have been now been identified in marijuana, they simply knew it worked. Fast forward to today and this study that came out of Italy, you know, interestingly enough they did isolate five compounds in marijuana, they tested the antibacterial properties of all five, they found they were quite potent, but they also tried to discover the mechanism of action. They wanted to know why these compounds in marijuana were halting the spread of MRSA and they weren’t able to get an answer to that question. So interestingly, you know, here we are fifty years later and we still don’t know why, in this particular indication, marijuana works but we do know that it works.

Dean Becker: Exactly. You know, Paul, it’s been my observation over the years that the drug war is a mandate of the U.S. government, that they pay, in effect, bribe other countries to go along to get along. And the, I don’t know what to call it exactly, the conservative or, I’ll just call it bass ackward approach to this is creeping north of our borders to Canada. I want to share with you a little clip I caught out of Canada talking about, well, what the new government might do.
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This is Cheryl Rose and her daughter Haley Jade. In 2000, at the age of seven, Haley started having seizures. Since then she has had many seizures. Almost every day, in fact. She’s had many brushes with death. In the summer of 2008 Cheryl got Haley a medical marijuana license from Health Canada. Haley’s condition immediately improved dramatically and her medical testing now shows marked improvements. As far as anyone knows, fifteen-year-old Haley Jade Rose is the youngest legal marijuana user in the entire world. What would happen if Health Canada were to shut down this program? What would happen to Haley? Would she have to quit using marijuana and risk losing her life or would her mother be forced to break the law and get marijuana for her anyway? If Stephen Harper gets a majority government we may quickly find out. They railed against the program when they sat in opposition. They cut four million dollars in funding to medical marijuana research. And they have offered mandatory minimum sentences for the growing of even a single marijuana plant. If they get a majority we can all be sure that they would cut the program and endanger the lives of thousands of Canadians. Canadians like Haley. Get out and vote. Stephen Harper must be stopped.
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Dean Becker: All right. Once again, we’re speaking with Mr. Paul Armentano, Deputy Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Paul, you had a chance to hear that and I want to interject one thought here: I don’t think Haley at fifteen is the youngest. I know of at least one youngster in the U.S., his name is Jeffery who was eight or nine years old when he became a medical patient but that’s besides the point, isn’t it?

Paul Armentano: You know, it’s a powerful ad. And I was made aware of it yesterday and saw the ad. Certainly, I’m well aware of the intentions of the Harper government in Canada and the fact that they take a very hard line, U.S. style approach to the drug war. You know, one of the first things though that came to mind when I saw this ad was I thought to myself, you know, why don’t we see political ads like that in this country? I mean, there’s an election looming in this country too, a big one, and you’ve got two candidates, you know, vying for the highest office in the land and you have one party that is really trying to reach out to some of the disaffected young people, to different minorities, essentially to individuals that are disproportionately and adversely impacted by the war on drugs, yet that party isn’t saying a word about it. They didn’t mention it at their convention and they’re doing their best not even to talk about it on their platform when, in my mind, they should be running the sort of ad like the ad that you just aired. And, because it would appeal to their base and it would separate their candidate from their opponent and I am just frustrated that in 2008 neither party wants to talk about how a vote for them would be a vote for drug law reform when we know there are millions and millions of Americans and voters that support drug law reform yet no political party, no major political party in the United States is speaking to them.

Dean Becker: Exactly. So true, Paul. Now, we also in the last few days, I don’t know what else to say, recognized the twenty-year anniversary of a ruling by DEA Law Judge Francis L. Young that said ‘marijuana is the safest therapeutic agent known to man.’ Your thoughts there, sir?

Paul Armentano: I think it’s great that the Marijuana Policy Project and some other groups are commemorating the twenty-year anniversary of Francis Young’s ruling. It really, it’s hard to, you know, underscore the importance of that ruling. That was the end result of a lawsuit, actually brought by NORML, all the way back in 1972. It took until 1986 to actually get hearings and after two years of hearings the ruling was made in 1988. But the ruling was made by the DEA, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s own Administrative Law Judge. I mean, you could not find an environment less likely to release a statement and a ruling like that. But, in fact, the evidence, even at that time, that marijuana had medical value and was inappropriately scheduled as an illicit Schedule I drug under federal law, was, the evidence opposing that ruling was so strong even at that time, that hearing of the DEA top judge in the land saying that, in fact, marijuana’s the most safe and therapeutically active known to man. Unfortunately, as many people know, the ruling of a DEA Administrative Law Judge is not binding. It’s only a recommendation and the agency can, in fact, reject the ruling from it’s own administrative law judge. That is what the DEA did and, in fact, only a couple of years ago a similar ruling was made by the current DEA Administrative Law Judge, a woman named Judge Bittner, who ruled, in fact, that it is inappropriate for the NIDA to have a monopoly on the production and supply and distribution of marijuana for medical research and she argued that it was in the common interest, or in the public interest, to expand such a program so that private entities could actually cultivate marijuana and produce marijuana for medical research. And the DEA has not yet decided whether they are going to follow her recommendation or reject it. If I was a betting man, I would assume the DEA will probably reject that ruling much like they rejected Francis Young’s ruling twenty years ago.

Dean Becker: Exactly. And, you know, they have to keep saying this stuff because, trust me, folks, their mortgage payment depends on that lie standing forth. You know, Paul, over the last few years and really since, time, since they began investigating it, they’ve shown -- lately though, top notch scientific journals, et cetera -- that as we mentioned earlier, it helps fight infection, it helps those with MS, with Parkinsons, with Cancer, you know, to fight the wasting, the AIDS wasting syndrome, those with spinal injuries, the list goes on and on and yet, because the people remain silent it just continues on. We’ve got about forty seconds. I want you to get folks out to that NORML conference, I want to encourage folks to participate and do their part. Paul, wrap it up for us, about thirty seconds.

Paul Armentano: Sure. People, go to our website, www.NORML.org, they can learn everything they need to register for the thirty-seventh annual NORML conference. They can book their flight. They can find a roommate online. They can look through the agenda. They can see who the speakers are, what panels there are going to be, what social events there are going to be. This is really going to be a terrific conference. We expect to have about 500 or 600 attendees. If you care about marijuana law reform, if you care about networking with other activists, you’ve got to come to this conference. I can’t stress it enough. The NORML conference, you know, every year is really the conference for the marijuana activist. This year’s going to be no different.
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Dean Becker: All right. Once again, we’ve been speaking with Mr. Paul Armentano of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. And you Canadians, you guys need to get down here too. I mean, we’ve got to work together. We’ve got to end the madness.

And with that, I want to bring in our next guest, from Oaksterdam University, Mr. Ilia Gvozdenovic. Are you with us, sir?

Ilia Gvozdenovic: I am, sir. Thank you very much for having me online.

Dean Becker: Well, thank you so much. I get a chance to get out there to Oakland every year or two and observe, you know, the truth and, in fact, in my opinion, the patriotism of the good folks or California and what they’re up to. Tell us about that third day of the NORML conference.

Ilia Gvozdenovic: I tell you, we are going to doing a little canna-business class there. Oaksterdam University is all about providing quality training for the cannabis industry and at the NORML conference all of this center of education for the year, from what’s going on in the cannabis reform movement to what’s next and where we’ve been and we’re there just to help and increase that training. We’ve established a university here in Oakland and then a second satellite campus down in L.A. and so we’ve got room for students to come in and learn and get trained on this industry as to how to find a job, how to grow, how to cook and create edibles, how to start a business, how to follow the laws and how to pay taxes, most importantly. We preach the politics and the legal issues to students because in this industry we’re getting a chance to prove that we are just like every other commercial business and every other industry, that we can follow the laws and that this is a medical commodity, this is an issue that is important for patient rights and its an issue that’s important for civil rights and the prohibition that’s been on marijuana hasn’t been working for the last seventy years and it’s time to do something different. And taxing and regulating marijuana would make a lot of sense for a lot of issues...

Dean Becker: Exactly. Ilia, I don’t know how much of the program you got to hear with Paul Armentano but we were talking about all the various maladies, all the various means of relief that can be provided by medical marijuana. And it’s just proven itself, has it not?

Ilia Gvozdenovic: It absolutely has. And I think the university is a little bit of a proof there that the industry is ready to move forward. We have students eager to learn how to get a job in this industry and how to play their part and move the laws forward and change current laws. And what we have in California are the wet and dry counties now as we had as alcohol prohibition ended. And we have counties that are allowing medical marijuana and countries that aren’t quite, even though it’s a statewide law. And so we’re educating folks and teaching that this is a safe and therapeutic medicine and that there are ways to work in the industry and to do it properly.

Dean Becker: Now, I know the caliber of some of the instructors that you have at Oaksterdam University: Jeff Jones, formally with the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, and Chris Conrad, the court marijuana expert, right?

Ilia Gvozdenovic: Yeah, he’s a court appointed expert in cannabis. So that when you have a case and you need someone to explain what amount of cannabis there was and go through it in an expert analysis, you bring in Chris Conrad. We also have folks from the Pier 5 law offices, Laurence Lichter and folks trained by Tony Serra, Omar Figueroa and James Clark and Sara Zalcan. These are lawyers that have been fighting this fight for a long time, over ten years now, different medical marijuana, cannabis cases. And then, one of our esteemed lawyers is a civil lawyer, Mr. Robert Raich, who has argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court multiple times and comes in and explains the different business entities that an entrepreneur might want to start in the cannabis industry and the positives and the negatives for the different formations of a business, whether it be a S-corp or a C-corp or a non-profit or a cooperative or an LLC.

Dean Becker: And it’s, I don’t know, being from, you know, middle America, when I come out to Oakland I’m always astounded at, truthfully, the freedom that exists. The openness, the willingness to share that truth. Tell us about Oaksterdam. What’s that all about?

Ilia Gvozdenovic: Well, you know, we’re working with the community and the concept is this is the Oakland version of Amsterdam and at one point -- it was coined by an AIDS patient -- when Oakland had twelve different dispensaries, medical cannabis outlets that a patient could come up and receive their medicine and pay for an edible or a smokable or a tincture and at that time Oakland decided that it was time to regulate and allow formally for these businesses to be here and give them a licensing fee and they actually regulated downwards, unfortunately, they brought it from twelve down to four. but what we got a chance to do here is was prove that we were willing to work with the community. And there’s a huge licensing fee for these medical cannabis dispensaries, it’s kind of like a liquor license, the city generate over a hundred thousand dollars per year from these dispensaries. In California alone the numbers are way larger. I think it’s upward of a hundred million a year gets paid in sales taxes, but I’m not exactly positive on that number. But the concept of Oaksterdam is revitalizing Oakland. We are bringing life back to a city that has gone through a huge downturn, has a major problem with violence and murder, and what we’re doing is bringing life back and tourism back. The University is one small step there where anybody, not just patients, but anybody over eighteen can come and learn about this industry and find out where we’re at and where we’re going and where we’ve been, all the way to other little tourism things that have come out like, there’s a new bicycle pedi-cab, you know, a bicycle taxi service that’s called Oakster Cab that’s out here in Oakland now as well.

Dean Becker: Well, once again we’ve been speaking with Mr. Ilia Gvozdenovic of the Oaksterdam University and they will be teaching a course there as part of the NORML conference. Ilia, thank you so much and I’ll see you here in a few weeks.

Ilia Gvozdenovic: Excellent. Thank you so much, sir. I’ll talk to you soon.

Dean Becker: OK. Thank you.
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And you know, my friends, I have been working with a local group of musicians, The Adult Users, and we have produced a brand new song. It’s making it’s broadcast premier right now on the Drug Truth Network.
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Pfizer and Merck kill more of us
Than the cartels’ crap ever could
They thank us for our silence
Each year’s hundred billion dollars
And the chance to do it forever more
Drugs... the first eternal war
Cut me loose
Set me free
Judge what I do
Not what’s inside of me
Why do you pick my pocket?
Just let me light my rocket
Who made you the boss of me?
Get out of my life.. let me be
If they stop Afghanistan from growing opium
And they cut down the Colombian cocaine
When Mexico runs out of marijuana
They think that we’ll quit getting high
But Walgreens is always standing by
- Repeat Chorus -
(SOLO)
Are we just peasants in the field
Let’s stand for truth or forever kneel
Every 16 seconds we hear the slamming door
And we owe it all to eternal war
.. The first eternal war
© 2008 Drug Truth Network
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Dean Becker: OK. Once again, that was The Adult Users: Randy Wall on vocals, Roger Tausz on bass, James Reese on guitar. And the song is Eternal War. You can catch it on YouTube, search for FDBecker to see the extended version and you can check it out also at DrugTruth.net.
I want to thank Paul Armentano and Ilia Gvozdenovic for their part of our discussion today.

I also want to make mention that on October 14, we will host a one hour debate between the DA candidates of the Gulag City, Clarence Bradford and Pat Lycos. On this week’s Cultural Baggage you’ll hear reports from the BBC, featuring the words of Jack Cole, Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. And you’ll also hear from Judge Jerry Paradis from New Zealand, also speaking on behalf of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Well, my friends, once again I remind you: there is no truth, justice, logic, scientific fact, no medical data, in fact no reason for this drug war to exist. We’ve been duped. The drug lords run both sides of this equation.

Please do your part to end this madness.

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 Gee-Whiz Transcripts. Email: glenncg@zoominternet.net