Transcript

Cultural Baggage / December 26, 2010

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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!”

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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.

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Hello and welcome to this New Year’s edition of Cultural Baggage. We’ll be bringing you many more voices from KushCon, the world’s largest convention centered around the marijuana industry, held in Denver Colorado just last week. First up, we’ll hear from Doctor Robert Melamine, the President of Cannabis Science Incorporated.

OK, I had this gentleman on the show a couple of weeks back. I met up with him here at KushCon in Denver. There’s all kinds of commerce going on here, security and accounting and God only knows what, but not too much science and here to talk about it is our good friend, Doctor Robert Melamine. Hello, sir.

Doctor Robert Melamine: Hello. Good to be here. Good to see you again.

Dean Becker: Yeah, Robert you know that as I was talking about, the diversity of these booths all the various parts of cannabis commerce are here but you guys are bringing forth information that will make this more possible around the country in the long run, right?

Doctor Robert Melamine: Well, the reality is that the science is simply an attempt to understand what’s real, right? You do experiments and you try to see what’s going on and quite clearly, at this point, the cannabinoid system, the endocannabinoid system that we all have is literally regulating everything in our bodies. Many, many illnesses can be attributed, really, to endocannabinoid deficiencies.

There’s a couple of times that there could be an illness that can be actually caused by potentially too much cannabinoid activity but for most people, most of the time, various illnesses really do reflect cannabinoid deficiencies and obviously the best way to rectify that is on one hand to use endocannabinoid producing biochemicals, like your omega-3 fatty acids and that will give you a certain range, you know, if you are deficient in those essential nutrients that will help you to some degree but in reality the only to really turn on cannabinoid activity is to “turn on” with cannabis.

Dean Becker: Right.

Doctor Robert Melamine: Because of the diversity of how all of our biochemistry flows and how different insufficiencies are associated with different illnesses, different strains will have the ability to impact on different ways on the individual’s unique biochemistry.

So, the whole cannabis business is really about change and discovering what works for an individual patient and a patient can do that by trying different strains and seeing which one gives them the maximum amount of relief.

We don’t have to be stuck in a linear model, “Oh, you know, like I am a white male or whatever I am and therefore, I should be taking “X” amount, “X” amount times a day.” That’s bull when it comes to the reality of what health is and the unique manner in which cannabis can impact on how our individual, unique needs.

It’s something is outside the paradigm or what goes in the pharmaceutical and the medical pharmaceutical model in industry that’s regulating in a very negative way and understanding the true – the truer understanding of health based on the most modern science and that’s what I try to do both with the company and in general to provide education based on my insights and my very rigorous approach to science.

Dean Becker: You know you’re mentioning of the pharmaceutical companies, they have but one true motive, I think and that is profits by selling the properties of one chemical combination as being a benefit, even though that chemical combination in many times tends to tear down our systems, am I right?

Doctor Robert Melamine: I think that the fundamental problem is that the scientific model that is used by big pharma, from my perspective, is completely wrong. From my understanding, it is from equilibrium thermodynamics that drives evolution and life and from that perspective one of the key understanding is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That essentially is what it means to have a holistic medicine. You want to have something that is going to impact on the whole organism and through changing the entire organism you change the problems that that organism had.

So, if we have cannabinoid deficiencies you wouldn’t want to just go and try and target it in most cases only where deficiency was because that deficiency is created by the whole organism. So, you want to somehow shift the biochemistry of the whole organism.

For example with cancer, you don’t want to follow a liner path to tries and kill a cancer cell you want to create an alteration in the organism whereby the organism no longer supports the needs of the cancer cell and therefore the cancer can’t be there.

So, one is a linear approach and is fundamentally flawed on basic principles, from my perspective. The other is a holistic approach that in a – especially by using cannabis in a very natural way, has the capacity to give a whole body shift in a manner that promotes health.

Dean Becker: I want to go back briefly to your thought about the very rare set of circumstances, where you could over medicate with cannabis. If I could guess and that is panic attack, that perhaps fresh exposure to some very powerful product could give a person the feeling that they are leaving the “here and now,” which I think most panic attacks are. Is that a fair guess?

Doctor Robert Melamine: That would be certainly one example, because remember, generally we all suffer from a particular kind of biochemical imbalance. We’re are all getting older and that’s associated with accumulating biochemical damages caused by free radicals, which is an intrinsic outgrowth of life. You can’t not have them, alright?

So, there are certain circumstances especially immunologically, where we need to really take advantage of inflammation and inflammatory type biochemistry. For example, with certain intracellular parasites like – like leishmania, tuberculosis, you need a really strong inflammatory response heal those illnesses, to reverse them. Cannabis has the opposite property, which is good for most other things.

Dean Becker: Oh.

Doctor Robert Melamine: So, for those circumstances using some experimental models cannabis literally could be lethal.

Dean Becker: Wow.

Doctor Robert Melamine: But those are the rarities, because remember, most of our biochemistry is in balance towards aging and here we essentially need to utilize the biochemistry of aging, meaning inflammation and free radicals to combat a very specific infection, in this case – in those cases.

So, there are circumstances, I am sure there are people whose over activity is giving them, potentially, schizophrenia, just normally. I actually wrote a paper on that, inflammation as a result of infection with certain parasites that happen to be in the brain. The body could be trying to protect itself by making lots of cannabinoids, so that you have super high local doses that’s giving us the schizophrenic phenomena.

Dean Becker: Wow. OK. Well, once again we have been speaking with Doctor Robert Melamine. Robert, share your website, please.

Doctor Robert Melamine: cannabisscience.com and there’s a lot on there and then we’ve got some of my videos, I know now not only on site, but on the Phoenix Foundation that I am associated with.

So in general, I try to put some knowledge out there based on my understanding of life and health and the immune system and aging and how we can minimize some of the negative consequences and improve some of our general possibilities for health and longevity.

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(The sound of heavy winds)

The winds of prohibition howl
As the irrational maelstrom blows
Pipe dreaming warriors raise their eternal chant
Dancing for rain in the deluge of a drug war hurricane

drugtruth.net

(Wind continues)

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You are listening to Cultural Baggage on the Drug Truth Network. We’re tuning to a recent event in December, KushCon. Next up, we hear from Cameron with Catnips.

Cameron Lund: My name is Cameron Lund. I am Catnips, medicated cannabis infused mints.

Dean Becker: Now were here at the KushCon. It seems that good gosh every aspect of commerce involving the cannabis plant is here, is being represented. Tell us a little bit more about catnip.

Cameron Lund: Well, catnips is a synergistic blend of herbs along with an oil extracted with a CO2 – supercritical CO2 process, so it is very pure. We can count on our dosage always being consistent. We test everything. We are making things in large batches so that we do have that standardized testing.

One thing that we love about catnips is the sugars we use don’t promote tooth decay, they don’t spike insulin levels and they don’t feed cancers. They’re alkalizing, detoxifying. We have ceremonial quality green tea. We have catmint, nettles, tulsi and peppermint and vanilla. All in the one little herbal tablets, very much like an Altoids type in size.

Dean Becker: Why I’ve got one in my mouth now without the benefit of the cannabis, I’m told.

Cameron Lund: Yeah.

Dean Becker: It is very tasty I think it certainly helps my breath for this interview.

Cameron Lund: (Laughs)

Dean Becker: If nothing else but you know this is, as you say, it has a certain dosage people know what they’re taking and for those with medical conditions, I’m sure that it’s, you know, they can kind of stager them throughout the day to have that continuing benefit.

Cameron Lund: Yes, exactly. Exactly, what we decided to do is make them a fairly low dose. So, it takes four of them for a standardized baseline 10 mg of THC. So, each one is 2.5 mg THC.

Dean Becker: Right and what many listeners may not know is that when you take an edible, it does not have an immediate impact as much as smoking does but that it takes a little bit of time to come on, it’s intensity increases and it tapers off after a certain period of time. I guess what I was trying to say there is the staggered use of these could allow a person to avoid those highs and lows, right?

Cameron Lund: Yes, absolutely by taking one of these mints maybe chewing on a mint once an hour, you can have a nice standard dosage throughout the day that would help deal with pain.

Dean Becker: Ok, would share your website?

Cameron Lund: catnipcannabis.com

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Young man: Ok, let’s say drug prohibition does support terrorism.

Older man: And murder?

Young man: And murder.

Older man: Torture?

Young man: And torture.

Older man: Corruption? Bribery?

Young man: And whatever.

Older man: What’s your point?

Young man: Change the law.

Older man: I gotcha. Make it cheap, more available, everywhere. Like soda or cheesy puffs.

Young man: Exactly.

Older man: Cocaine at the playground. Crack stands at the laundromat. Heroin at the mini mart. Like that?

Young man: Face it, old man. That’s what we’ve got now.

Please visit the website of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition at leap.cc.

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Dean Becker: You are listing to the Drug Truth Network at KushCon. Let’s get back to our interviews from KushCon.

Jeremy: Hi, my name is Jeremy for Greenwerkz.

Dean Becker: You’re here at KushCon. You guys are a cannabis company. Tell us what you do.

Jeremy: Oh, we have three locations in Colorado. We’re a medical marijuana dispensary, really focusing on quality of medication for patients. That’s pretty much it.

Dean Becker: Now, this is part of a burgeoning industry, if I dare say, here in Colorado, right? How long have you guys been in existence?

Jeremy: We just had out one year anniversary. We do have three stores in Colorado. Our second location was opened in July. You know, we’re just trying to lead the industry as far as top quality medicine.

Dean Becker: OK, now your website, please?

Jeremy: Greenwerkz.com

Dean Becker: Aright.

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(Serene music)

I am the Reverend Dean Becker of the Drug Truth Network standing in the river of reform, baptizing Drug Warriors to the Unvarnished Truth.

drugtruth.net

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Tammy Fanch: My name is Tammy Fanch. I am the owner of Dollars and Sense Bookkeeping and Business Solutions and we do bookkeeping for all businesses small and large.

Dean Becker: Now, you’re here at KushCon. Do you provide assistance to the cannabis industry as well?

Tammy Fanch: Absolutely, we do books for multiple dispensaries, multiple growers and laboratories right now.

Dean Becker: And this is a further indication of the overall commerce – the legitimacy of this commerce, is it not?

Tammy Fanch: Absolutely, this is a definite business industry and they need all business service, all the way form here form legal to payroll, all your employee services.

We’re at www.dollars andsensellc.com

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(Game show music)

It’s time to play: Name That Drug By Its Side Effects

Itching, difficulty breathing, bone pain, chest pain, dark urine, irregular heartbeat, fever chills, red blistered peeling skin, seizures, severe diarrhea, stomach cramps, swelling of the hands and feet, unusual bruising and bleeding

(Gong)

Time’s up!

(Kissing sound)

The answer: from the Searing Plow Healthcare Incorporated, a subsidiary of Merck and company Incorporated, Zegerid for heartburn.

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(Traditional string music)

Ladies and Gentleman, this is the Abolitionist Moment:

Prohibition is awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant stop.
We like it.
It’s left a trail graft and slime.
It don’t prohibit worth a dime.
It’s filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we’re for it.

Franklin Adams - 1931

Through a wiling or silent embrace of Drug War we’re insuring a more death, disease, crime and addiction. Some have prospered form a policy of drug prohibition and dare not let their stance taken to be examined in a new light but for the rest, ignorance and superstition will eventually be forgiven but what Houston has done in the name of Drug War will never be forgotten.

Please visit endprohibition.org.

Do it for the children.

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(New Year’s music/Auld Lang Syne)

Should old drug warriors be forgiven
And never brought to trial
Should old drug warriors be forgiven
Lessons never be brought to light
Four millions locked behind bars
Four millions locked up now…

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Alright, you are listing to the Cultural Baggage show here on the Drug Truth Network. We’re doing a show that we produced in Denver, while attending the KushCon convention. We hope you had a Merry Christmas and hope you will have a safe and happy New Year.

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Rachel Gillette: My name is Rachel Gillette and I’m an attorney in Colorado. I assist medical marijuana businesses, patients and care givers in making sure that they are compliant with the state law.

Dean Becker: Now is this a more criminal law or how – do you deal with folks who have encountered the long arm of the law as well as prevention?

Rachel Gillette: I do. I do. I have assisted some clients with a criminal defense aspect of this. Mostly, I help businesses but I do work with an associate that does all the criminal cases. So, we can handle it in our firm.

Dean Becker: Now this is – Colorado has showed itself to warmly embrace the idea of the cannabis industry. What has been your observation, the growth over the last few years?

Rachel Gillette: Well, I think we’ve had some really interesting legislation, recently with the House Bill 1284. I think they’ve created a lot of red tape, where there shouldn’t have been any because it was working just fine the way it was before.

Now they’ve introduced a huge system of ninety-nine pages of pages of regulation that is going to be a huge cost outlay for these businesses and I think it’s going to cause a lot of concern for patients because they are going to be tracking their purchases, putting them on video camera and I think that’s a real privacy concern freakily. So…

Dean Becker: I heard a gentleman at one of the seminars this morning talking about the a fact that there is no other industry on Earth, they don’t make the grocers grow 70% of their own produce, they don’t force video cameras in any other bit of commerce and the marijuana industry has been singled out. Is that kind of the problem in a nutshell?

Rachel Gillette: I think that is a very fair assessment.

Dean Becker: I definitely think that they – out of fear – are over regulating it and a lot of these regulations are arbitrary and capricious, I think, especially tracking patents, I think and their purchases, I think that is a huge violation of privacy

Dean Becker: And if I dare say that is likely to prolong the black market itself.

Rachel Gillette: I think it is likely to make the black market bigger. Here Colorado had an opportunity to take things out of the black market and make it legitimate and to be above board and here they are going to regulate people back into the black market, I think. That’s just the unfortunate consequence of when they do those types of actions.

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Dean Becker: Three million Afghanis are growing opium on the mountain side and despite $5 billion of US tax dollars, Colombia is producing more cocaine than ever before we’re got to do something different.

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You gonna let ‘em get it? At least right now we don’t let ‘em get it!

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Matthew Abel: My name is Matthew Abel and I’m marijuana lawyer in Michigan. Our law firm is called Cannabis Counsel, LLC. It’s a group of four lawyers and we do all marijuana cases all the time. About half the practice is criminal defense and the other half is representing businesses in this new emerging cannabis economy.

Dean Becker: Now we’re here at KC here in Denver it’s amazing the diversity of the commerce that’s represented here. Is marijuana going to make the leap to totally legitimacy here soon?

Matthew Abel: It looks like it. As some people have commented to me, it’s remarkable how many of the vendors here at the show are not necessarily vending to consumers but business to business vendors.

They are providing insurance packaging and marketing and a whole variety of things that these emerging businesses are using. That really is the hallmark of an industry that’s maturing and it’s really wonderful to see that.

Dean Becker: Right. The laws in Texas are way divergent from that of California. You say you are from Michigan, which has some similarities to Colorado and has a little more ways to go, I think, but you speak with other lawyers probably form around the country. Is it become a national consensus that this change has to be made?

Matthew Abel: Well, we think that we’re closer than ever and as some of the speakers this morning said, we are about at the tipping point and we really need to push it over the tipping point. The general consensus here is that within two years, Colorado will pass the legalization measure and that other states will soon realize the benefits of that and fall in line.

What I found interesting is that Colorado is requiring their – the departments that’s administering it to petition the federal government to change the scheduling of cannabis from a Schedule I, down and I think that’s pretty exciting. We need to do that in more states.

Dean Becker: Exactly. Is there a website you’d like to share?

Matthew Abel: Our website is cannabiscounsel.com

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Krishna Madappa: My name is Krishna Madappa and I am co-founder of an institute in Taos called the Institute of Science and Spiritual Sustainability. We have two other colleges Doctor Gary Schwartz and Doctor Martinez Hewlett. We have board members from around the world, biophysicists. Our work is essentially to inspire, enrich, empower, educate students, teachers and a global community on the science of wellness and ultimately to how we can self-navigate by recognizing the inherent intelligence that is already built into this grand bio-field, which is our field of presence within each and every one and how this can be not only measured but we can also enhance and train these practices to imbue wellness in all systems of life.

Dean Becker: Now this is very powerful thought to bring about those changes and to enable that better life, I guess, really and to me it begs the question that – is this a very extensive long term effort or how is it done?

Krishna Madappa: We know in very clear principles from a little Aesop’s Fable of the raven who was very thirsty and it came upon and the jug it had – it was a long neck on the jug but had very little water way down at the bottom. The raven was thirsty. So, what did the raven do? Gathered little pebbles and started start dripping pebbles in the water, until the water rose and the raven drank.

So, to response to you very, very soft directed question, it is won if we need patience, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite courage. Most import of all is infinite love. When all these are self-governing, then we also see how it informs all of life’s systems, this is a – this is also what we are researching.

We research field effects. Can we influence water from a distance? By sending energy of love. Can we transform the presence of a collective nature of a disturbed mind? To bring it more to a unified mind. We study that too.

So, in answer to your response, every moment that we are focused on this process, so that we can train to live our highest vision, then we know the lower vision with disappear on this earth and this is where we are now clearly transitioning in because we have lived in dualism a lot. We have studied in dualism and we have also seen the outcomes of dualism. We think that we are now very clear.

We are living in a unified field presence and that unified field presence is what we call in Sanskrit the all prevailing intelligent of prana and prana is two syllabi pra and na, termed the smallest particle of good intelligence if the universe, which is imbued us in every breath that we take. We can study this we can measure it. We can transform the collective and enrich and empower each and every one in this way. So, in every moment this is being done so we are not governed by time or space.

(Laughs)

Dean Becker: Well thank you so much, sir. We’re going to have to continue this in a longer discussion in a future show but I appreciate the thought. Thank you.

Krishna Madappa: Thank you. Thank you.

Dean Becker: Sure.

Krishna Madappa: Thank you.

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Dean Becker: OK, you are listening to Cultural Baggage on the Drug Truth Network.
That interview with Krishna [Madappa] was done because of he has some exciting things to share with us about cannabis and cannabis products and we’ll do that on a future show.

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Dean Becker: OK, I need to eat something I’m getting sick.

Gemma Star: Do you want to eat something and come back?

Dean Becker: No, let’s do this. Your name and your organization?

Gemma Star: Hi my name is Gemma Star. You can eat a Buddha Bar and take you shakes away. We make amazing medicinal marijuana edibles that are completely divine and delicious from gourmet culinary alchemists from the Pleasure Café.

Right now in Colorado, we’re in over forty dispensaries and we’ve been growing since June 1st. We’re also working on becoming nationwide right now with our amazing medical marijuana products that we make. We’re doing it.

Our mission is: “Om. Healing the world through food. Uniting nations peacefully on Earth. Om.” and that’s why we’re here to reprogram people for the medicine. I mean, reprograming people and the medicine is here to evolve you and to not to get you stuck. It’s here to heal you.

You eat a Buddha Bar and it’s not just medicine that you eating, the Buddha Bar is awaking your body, mind and spirit to become aware to breathe, meditate, stretch, eat right, have fun, laugh, life is good. Just bless it and eat it. The Pleasure Café.

Yung Pa Da God: And don’t forget to go to our website www.thepleasurecafe.com. We are legal infused product manufactures and we produce one of the most healthy, infused products in the market today, anywhere. Our products sweetened with honey, not sugar. It’s organic, whole foods energy bar that comes in four flavors. Go visit us on our website and leave us some feedback and tell what you think.

Gemma Star/ Yung Pa Da God: www.thepleasurecafe.com.

Yung Pa Da God: That’s Yung Pa and Gemma Star for the Pleasure Café.

Gemma Star: If you buy our CD, you get a free coupon for a Buddha Bar.

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Dean Becker: That’s about all I’m going to be able to squeeze into this week’s Cultural Baggage. Be sure to tune into this week’s Century of Lies. We’ll have more from KushCon on that show as well.

Starting next week, we’re going to get back to some live interviews. We’re going to start delving further into the situation in Mexico, as well.

And as always, I remind you that because of prohibition, you don’t know what’s in that bag.

So, please be careful. Happy New Year.

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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.

Drug Truth Network programs are stored at the James A. Baker III Institute for Policy Studies.

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

Tap dancing… on the edge… of an abyss.