Transcript

Century of Lies / November 28, 2010

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(Ceremonial music)

In recognition of the outstanding bravery, courage and boldness of the US Custom Force in Sierra Blanca Texas in finding six full ounces of marijuana. Marijuana claimed by self-professed outlaw, AKA one Willie Nelson.

Because of the efforts of these brave customs officers, the nation can rest a little easier, knowing the end of Drug War is drawing near. Therefore, today the Drug Truth Network presents the US Customs Department with the third annual NO SHIFT SHERLOCK award.

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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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Ah, yes my friends, welcome to this edition of Century of Lies. I am Dean Becker and we’re going to have to have a couple of guests with us today. We’re going to bring in a little bit later, Chris Cain, a gentleman who is considered to be a threat to society for his use of medical marijuana.

First, I want to bring in one of the four federally supplied medical marijuana patients. It’s routed through the FDA, the DEA and some pharmacists and winds up in his hands.

He gets 250 pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes from the US government every twenty five days. Mr. Irv Rosenfeld. Are you with us?

Irvin Rosenfeld: I am here and actually it’s 300 cigarettes every twenty five days.

Dean Becker: Well, I don’t know. What did I say? I’m sorry.

Irvin Rosenfeld: You said 250.

Dean Becker: Ok. Ok.

Irvin Rosenfeld: Well, I understand why. (Laughs)

Dean Becker: (Laughs) Alright. Well, fair enough then. Irv, tell us a little bit about your condition. What was the justification? Why did the government allow this?

Irvin Rosenfeld: I have bone tumors on my most of the ends of the long bones on my body. In 1971, quite by accident, that cannabis was the better than all of the narcotics and drugs I was getting.

So, I decided that I wasn’t a criminal. I had a severe bone disorder that I didn’t ask for.

So, I took on the United States federal government and with the help of many people, it took me ten years but finally in 1982, I won.

The United States federal government has been supplying me 300 medical cannabis cigarettes every twenty five days for now going on – starting my twenty ninth year.

Dean Becker: And the total number of joints is astounding, how many are we up to.

Irvin Rosenfeld: We’re are now up to, from the federal government, a 120,000 medical cannabis cigarettes.

Dean Becker: Uh. Well, here in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with another gentleman who doesn’t have the same condition. He was injured in a – in his youth and now is now in a wheelchair and the Texas Observer had a piece about him that called him a “threat to society.” I believe – do we have him now?

Irvin Rosenfeld: Well, he is a threat to society.

Dean Becker: Well, hold on please I wanted to bring him on here so he can listen. Chris Cain, are you with us sir?

Chris Cain: I am here, yes.

Dean Becker: Hi, Chris. We have here Mister Irvin Rosenfeld on the other line with us. Welcome to this edition of Century of Lies.

Chris Cain: Thank you.

Dean Becker: I was just telling Irv how the Texas Observer wrote that piece that called – well, stated that, I don’t think that they were calling you, a “threat to society.” What were you going to say, Irv?

Irvin Rosenfeld: What I was going to say that definitely, Chris is definitely a threat to society. I work with quadriplegics and I mean, you just look at them and you know you’ll get threatened by then on marijuana. I don’t know, I think everybody in Texas would sleep a lot better knowing that a criminal like that is behind bars.

Dean Becker: Oh, my…

Irvin Rosenfeld: We can’t let can’t let quadriplegics run around free, using God forbid, marijuana.

Dean Becker: Right, now Chris, you do have limited use of your hands, correct?

Chris Cain: Yes, a bit. I have some finger dexterity. I have to use adaptive equipment for life. I’m paralyzed from my chest down. I am a C5-C6 quadriplegic.

Dean Becker: I see. I wanted to bring you two together; to kind of show the lack of rationale, of logic, that’s going on in this country that Irv is supplied on the constant basis by the same federal government that says that Chris Cain is a threat to society.

Chris, how many times have they been after you? How many times have you been hassled by the law for weed?

Chris Cain: Since 1999, I would say three times in my residence. A few times, they pulled me over in my car and searched my car nine times. And about fourteen times total over the last twelve years. It’s a small rural county and I actually live fifteen minutes out of town. So, I mean you would have to actually find me on on back roads and highways just to pull me over you know.

Dean Becker: Now, was there, I think I heads some mention of activism on your part that brought you to their attention?

Chris Cain: Well, after the first couple of times, when I was [unintelligible] and essentially sought after, I started going to Austin and testifying to the Committee trying to get a few of the bills that were drawn up, trying to get the Committee to vote for it. We lost like 3-6, one time 4-5 and I gave speeches on the steps of capitol.

The biggest newspapers were the Associated Press. Texas Monthly did a story on me about my situation and a raid that happened in 2003.

I was doing all of the right things, like I graduated with a college degree and I was a valedictorian of my high school. I wanted to let people know that I‘m a quadriplegic. I don’t want my body to be destroyed any worse than it is. The narcotics that they tried to prescribe to me and the side effects that they had just wasn’t going to happen.

I studied everything. I tried everything and it came down to the one thing that allowed me to operate and get my life back. Hopefully by being – I’m a public guy and an educated person that they would see that I am not going to do anything that would harm my body and I’m going to live the best life that I can and if that breaks the law, what can I do? I’ve run out of options, you know.

Dean Becker: Yeah, we’re speaking with – that was Mister Chris Cain. We’re also speaking with Irv Rosenfeld. You have a similar back story too, after gone through nineteen kinds of medication, right?

Irvin Rosenfeld: Well, yeah, I took all types of different narcotics and drugs that were prescribed by the doctors and when I discovered that cannabis was better than all the narcotics and drugs, that’s when I took on the government.

Chris, I’ve never spoken with you before and hearing you tonight you sound like a real threat to society and that’s why you should understand why you should be behind bars. You’re logical, you know. Are you sure you have a problem? You’re a quadriplegic. You’re not putting that on are you?

Dean Becker: (Laughs) Oh man.

Both Irvin Rosenfeld and Chris Cain speak: [Unintelligible]

Chris Cain: I’m a guy sitting in a wheelchair. I’ve got a lot of problems and I mean…

Dean Becker: Chris, you’ve got to take —

Irvin Rosenfeld: You’ve got to let me tell you something, Ok?

Dean Becker: Yeah, please.

Irvin Rosenfeld: I work with Paras and Quads with a disabled sailing organization called, Shake a Leg in Miami. I’m being very factitious when I talk about what you’re going through and I know exactly want you’re doing, Ok. Just to get out of the bed and get dressed to leave the house how difficult it is for you. People have not idea Ok.

Chris Cain: Right.

Irvin Rosenfeld: I’m being very factitious when I talk about what you’re going through.

Chris Cain: Of course.

Irvin Rosenfeld: I know exactly what you’re doing, Ok. People do not understand. Just to get out of the bed and get dressed to leave the house, how difficult it is for you. Ok? People have not idea, Ok.

Chris Cain: Right.

Irvin Rosenfeld: When people have a problem in life and they go, “How bad things are,” they have NO idea what someone like you goes through. And then to find as a medicine for your crippled body and people do not understand. They think – the police think they know medicine better than you, Ok? And that’s sad, Ok? That’s why I’ve been fighting all these years, not only once I got it for myself but for everyone else because it’s people like you that just does not make any sense for the people against us. Come on, look at him. You know, give me a break! You know?

Chris Cain: It’s a thing where we live in a country where we are supposed to be equal Americans. When things can happen in one state or one person can be treated differently and be given the medicine and one person can go to jail for life. When are you an equal American? When rights that are delegated to states affect patient’s civil rights so blindly. How can we be equal Americans?

Irvin Rosenfeld: Very true.

Dean Becker: I want to throw in this thought, Mary Jane Borden does a regular report for us on the Drug Truth Network, for the Drug War Facts, various facts she shares with us each week. I was speaking to her this week, Irv, and she told me that she has the same malady and she was trying apply for the federal status but she didn’t get it and you did. Correct?

Irvin Rosenfeld: That’s correct. That is correct.

Dean Becker: Again, I think that’s the disparity that Chris is talking about there. Where is the equality between Americans?

Irvin Rosenfeld: I agree. I agree completely that’s why I really think that at least the government could do is really open the Compassionate Care Protocols, which is what I’m under.

Dean Becker: Right.

Irvin Rosenfeld: Which says if you have a qualifying physician that believes that cannabis works for you, then out of the compassion of the federal government, they can give it to you.

So, that’ the least that we should do, I mean as far as reclassification of Schedule II or Schedule III or getting a federal law changed. There are all kinds of aspects that we’ve been fighting for everybody who aren’t legal.

In reality, even though we have fifteen states now and the District of Columbia, under federal law, they are all still breaking the law except for myself and three other people.

I want it to change and what scares me is with the election that we just had, there was more of the religious right that got elected and in two years if Obama loses, what could happen to our – what we’ve gained so far for medical use of cannabis in this country? It could get worse.

Chris Cain: Exactly.

Irvin Rosenfeld: So, that’s why I’m trying to do something more about that. I’m a federal patient and I know that I’ll be speaking in Denver on December 17th at the KushCon conference.

At that that point, I’m going to be giving what I hope to be, breaking news, that’s going to be something totally different that’s never been done in this country and I’ll be spearheading it. What I’m hoping that I’m going io do is to either bring some sensibility to medical cannabis in this country.

Dean Becker: But Irv, I will attending that KushCon conference as well for the DTN. Probably looking for some sponsors for my new radio program, as well, on American Freedom Radio and it purports to be the largest convention ever, dealing with marijuana in one regard or another right?

Irvin Rosenfeld: Supposedly. So I’m going out there again to talk about that, to promote my book. Again, I’ve released a book called, My Medicine, which is available at mymedicinethebook.com.

Chris, people like you, you need to get copies of it for any lobbying. They need to have copies of that book to be able to go – when you meet with your legislatures, to say, “Look, here is the federal patient. The government gives it to him.”

Chris Cain: Right.

Irvin Rosenfeld: Give them that book and go say look, “Read this book, you’ll then understand where I’m coming from. It makes you a better educated person.”

Again, most people in this country do not know the history at all and they need to know the history. My book is the history of the medical cannabis movement in this country because I’ve been involved in it for so long.

Dean Becker: Right. Once again, we’re speaking with – that was Irv Rosenthal. He’s a stock broker down in Florida and very successful at that. Now Irv, you often talk about that for you, marijuana does not lead to intoxication. It’s just a means to aleveing your pain, right?

Irvin Rosenfeld: Exactly, I get no euphoric from it and the reason for that, I think, is because I need the medicine. Doctors have come back saying, scientists have come back to say that we have and millions and millions of cannabinoid receptors throughout our body. Just like the endorphins that they’ve discovered.

When you ingest cannabis, it makes those cannabinoid receptors active and you get high. They think that mine are defective, so therefore I am not getting the euphoria and I am not getting the high either.

Dean Becker: Yes. Dr. Robert Melamede talks about those. They even test breed mice without cannabinoid receptors and they fail to thrive.

Irvin Rosenfeld: Exactly.

Dean Becker: Alright. Chris, I wanted to ask again. I wanted to share with you. I’ve been arrested thirteen times, nine of them for being drunk with drugs in my pocket but since I’ve quit the use of alcohol. I haven’t been arrested.

I’m wondering if, do they have a grudge against you? Is that the primarily the soul reason they are after you? Have you done something else that they are concerned about?

Chris Cain: Basically, I live in a small town. My last name is Cain. Well, the sheriff’s least name is Cain, right?

Dean Becker: Ok.

Chris Cain: So, if there’s rumors around that there’s marijuana being smoked by Chris Cain. I feel that it’s a possible political thing for the town that sees that someone that might be kin to the sheriff is smoking marijuana. He runs on a heavy anti-drug campaign. So I think he might have said these things politically because we have the same last name. That’s one thing I can think of because I’ve never had more than a misdemeanor amount on me at any time because I know that at any time I can be possibly pulled over.

I’ve had a few paraphernalia charges. I get searched all the time. I’ve been raided by the task force and even a helicopter because they keep thinking that I actually pushing it here that I’m a drug dealer.

They see me back in a rural area. I don’t have a 9-5 job. I work as an internet consultant and I am very successful and I’ve even offered to show them how I make my money and everything. If somebody will investigate, they assume that a guy that is a quadriplegic, he must be in a small town he must have gave up and turned to drug dealing.

Dean Becker: Oh my.

Chris Cain: But it’s been like this for twelve years and it’s really affected my character in this town. It’s affected my friends and my family and my house and business associates in dealing with me and it’s really affected my life in a whole large scale that you can only imagine. So, just pushing it there that I might be a drug dealer has really what’s hurt my life a lot.

Dean Becker: Well, sure. And it impacts your relationship with neighbors and friends and family, I suppose at times. Now, the point I’d like to get to here and I know a few people in wheelchairs and with certain incapacities and I know that it would be practically impossible for you to set up a grow site either indoors or outdoors with any type of success.

Chris Cain: Not individually, it would have to be – I can’t do anything as far as growing anything personally.

Dean Becker: Irv you were going to say something?

Irvin Rosenfeld: No, what I was going to say. It’s not possible for somebody in a chair. For a Quad I would be difficult. He could have somebody tell him what to do but for a Quad, you are right, it would be difficult for the m to do something like that, Paras could handle that.

What are they scared of, your wheel chair? Your electric wheelchair, because it goes twenty five miles an hour? I mean I don’t know. It’s just really sad that somebody that speaks – that is as educated as you sound and again we’ve never spoken before and I want to rectify that in the next few days. It’s – you’re not a threat against anybody but the people that are against this.

Dean Becker: That’s exactly right.

Irvin Rosenfeld: That’s the sad part about it. You are patient. You’re not a criminal. You sure as hell didn’t ask for this. Ok. It happened to you. So, that’s why were fighting for people like you and the sad part is Texas is a tough state. It’s probably bad, it not as bad as – I don’t know, Florida is pretty bad too.

Dean Becker: It’s hard. It depends on which county you’re in. Like in the major cities, Houston is better, I am sure, better than where Chris is and Austin is a lot better than Houston.

Chris Cain: Exactly. If you’re in the city and in your house and in you’re a small fish in a big pond, you’re really not going get messed with. If you’re some guy in town that people know and get talked about and they know you are smoking marijuana for some reason and it’s been spread around, it can be very detrimental.

The thing is that Evert County now – see Texas did allow the sheriff to have the option of even giving you a ticket and a fine for a misdemeanor amount of marijuana but our county sheriff said that no, any amount, a roach or anything, you’re going to jail.

Dean Becker: Yeah.

Chris Cain: And it’s like I could understand, ok, if that’s your policy but I need it. For a guy in a wheelchair, you really want to put me in jail? Recently, they were coming to my bedside.

I would be injured I had a pressure sore because of my spasms when I quit smoking marijuana because I was on probation. They came to my bedside when they said they found shavings in my offices, where I wasn’t even at.

They came to my bedside three times wanting me to get in my chair and turn myself in knowing that they were going to revoke my probation and put me in jail. They didn’t want to actually let me out. They just kept coming to get me into my wheelchair to put me in jail. It was just like, you know, when you can just give me a ticket or deal with it in court, why are you just trying to do this cruel and usual punishment?

Dean Becker: Exactly right, cruel and usual punishment.

Chris Cain: Yeah.

Dean Becker: That was Mister Chris Cain on the subject of an article that was recently in the Texas Observer. They called him, well, the title of it was a Threat to Society.

We also have on-line Mister Irv Rosenfeld, one of the four legally supplied medical marijuana patients. Irv, I want to come back to you and ask you again about the book. You have – it’s now been released almost a year, about a year?

Irvin Rosenfeld: No, it was really at end of April.

Dean Becker: End of April, Ok. What’s been the response to the book?

Irvin Rosenfeld: I’d say a very good response. We don’t have the hard bound edition out in the stores yet. It’s still the soft bound copy. It can be ordered through my website and though Facebook.

However, again, it’s helping people learn that it really is a federal program, that the United States federal government actually grows cannabis and supplies me on a daily basis and that same cannabis is what Texas is trying arrest Chris for – the same medicine

It’s just ironic because the federal government has been giving me this for over twenty eight years and of course three other patients that are still alive. There were thirteen of us when they shut the program down.

They don’t want us to study it they don’t want to know and that’s a sad situation. So, what this book is about is to help other patients be able to fight for themselves, to be able to say, you know, “I need this medicine. This guy needed the medicine and he took the federal government on and he got it. There is no federal program right now but you know I need the medicine just like he does and I’m going to do what I need to do to try and help me.”

Dean Becker: I’m want to read from that article in the Texas Observer:

“The sheriff knows that Chris Cain says he uses the drug for medical purposes, but has implied this is an excuse to get stoned. ‘I just don’t think marijuana has any role whatsoever except to make you high.’”

Dean Becker: Chris what is your thought? Your reponse?

Chris Cain: Actually, when someone reads a paper like that without any medical training, it’s dangerous. Honestly, they should enforce the law but like when Jim Stevens had his case where he said that breaking the law out of a medical necessity. I couldn’t agree with that because there’s a point where, if you do not smoke to stop the spasms, you’re going to be bed ridden. That’s all you can do.

Dean Becker: And let’s talk about those spasms because that is the main problem that you have to deal with now, Chris?

Chris Cain: Yes, when the involuntary spasms are so violent. They are even worse than a Multiple Sclerosis situation but my spasms get so severe, where I’m jumping out of my chair, I am tense, I can’t think, I can’t work. I am shearing my skin so that the heavy pressure sores that could leave me bed ridden for up to five months.

One of my recent situations where I took probation, the reason I took prohibition was, I going to quit marijuana and find -- force myself to find an alternative, even if it was get myself alcoholic drunk for six months just to show them that I was not smoking marijuana, so that they would leave me alone.

By not smoking mi injured myself that put me in bed and then when they gave me a probation visit that the probation officer did not know about, but it was a task force raid at my offices. They said they found – said they found shavings of marijuana at one my computers that I often had access to but I was bed ridden at the time and they come through months later and sais they have a warrant for my arrest.

Dean Becker: They just do consider you to be a threat don’t they? They’re just after you, man. Good God almighty.

Irvin Rosenfeld: One thing I like to point out to people is, you think of a quadriplegic and you think a quadriplegic can’t move. Well, if a quadriplegic can’t move why are they strapping him into the chair? You know? Involuntary muscle spasms. They will fall out of the chair.

You know, doctors understand that. Police don’t. They – like you said Chris, They don’t have any medical degrees and that a sad aspect that in our country the police make medical decisions, not doctors and that’s what we need to change.

We need to be able to have a doctor write you a recommendation that says that if legally he were able to recommend medical cannabis to a quadriplegic, he would. That’s what you need from a doctor.

You also need a letter from clergy, that this person, “Thank God that cannabis helps his condition” and then get a letter from a lawyer saying this person is a patient, not a criminal. If a policeman wants to make him a criminal, then call me first or call the doctor or call the clergy because we’re going into court and we’re going to argue medical necessity,

Dean Becker: Yeah.

Irvin Rosenfeld: Whether it is legal or not – I don’t know Texas law that well – but whether it’s legal or not, you’re no threat to society at all, Ok?

Dean Becker: Yeah.

Irvin Rosenfeld: You are trying to make the best that you can of a bad situation and that’s all that anybody can expect and hope for.

Dean Becker: Alright. Irv – Chris, let me give you about thirty seconds here, we’ve got to close it up buddy.

Chris Cain: I want to say one thing that you know there’s things that you can bring up for this and people have creative ideas but the one the thing it doesn’t stop is that grasp by the enforcement side even though they may know you have some friends down the road you are still being terrorized by these law officers.

Dean Becker: Indeed and fifteen seconds, Irv Rosenfeld.

Irvin Rosenfeld: All I can say is, you know, keep the battle up. Dean, you’re doing a great job. My book is mymedicnethebook.com or on Face book at mymedicenbook.com. Order it and my book can help you.

Dean Becker: I’m going to try to hook you guys with phone numbers so you can talk more extensively on this.

Irvin Rosenfeld: Do that.

Dean Becker: Thank you both for being with us here on Century of Lies.

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(Marching band music)

It’s time to lock up Willie
Mayor Bloomberg, Tim Lincecom
It’s time to lock up Bill Gates
Obama, Gore Clinton
Soon there’ll be a hundred million
Of us toking up in jail
Goodbye Constitution
Farewell freedom, oh so fair

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(Harmonica music)

There’s no time for delay
Don’t go playing the blame game
Look away, look away

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Mary Jane Borden: Hello Drug Policy Aficionados, I’m Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts.

The question for this week asks: Does InSite work?

Community based programs that provide needle to addicts are called supervised or safe injection facilities. While these facilities have existed in Australia and Europe, the first North American one called InSite opened in Vancouver British Colombia in 2003.

A recent article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal describes a legal controversy surrounding InSite. “To permit the facility to open, the then Canadian Liberal government exempted InSite from some provisions of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act related trafficking. In 2006 a Conservative Canadian government was elected and began to threaten Insight with a federal exemption.”

Presently, the facility functions because the British Colombian Court of Appeals upheld an earlier ruling that according the Harm Reduction Journal, “Protected the rights of injection drug users to access Insight as a health facility per the Rights and Charter of Freedoms component of the Constitution of Canada.”

The journal goes on to say, “Since its inception, Insight has been subject to an independent review by a team of physicians and scientists put in place to provide an arm’s length evaluation of the program. The results of this scientific evaluation has been published in peer reviewed, academic journals and have indicated that InSite has reduced unsafe injection practices, public disorder, overdose deaths and HIV/Hepatitis while increasing uptake of addiction services and detox.”

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Dean Becker: Alright, that was Mary Jane Borden. You can hear the full report on this week’s 420 Reports. I wanted to just jump in here and say thanks to Mister Irv Rosenfeld and Mister Chris Cain. As always, there’s no truth, justice, logic, scientific fact, medical data, no reason for this Drug War to exist.

Please, visit our website: endprohibition.org

Prohibido istac evilesco!

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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 Pacifica Studios at KPFT, Houston.

Drug Truth Network programs, archived at the James A. Baker III Institute for Policy Studies.

Transcript provided by: Ayn Morgan of www.eigengraupress.com