DEAN BECKER: 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: On today’s Century of Lies we’re going to focus almost entirely on marijuana and the machinations and obstructions and deflections and dementia of the United States federal government in regard.
This is part of a discussion between a gentleman with muscular dystrophy talking to presidential candidate Mitt Romney about the use of medical marijuana.
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MITT ROMNEY: …and you have synthetic marijuana that’s available…
PATIENT: It makes me sick. I have tried it and it makes me throw up. I have tried all the medications there are and all the forms they come in [inaudible] the steroids. I have muscular dystrophy that [inaudible] against my DNA.
MITT ROMNEY: I’m sorry to hear that.
PATIENT: My question for you is will you arrest me and my doctors if I get medical marijuana?
MITT ROMNEY: I’m not in favor of medical marijuana…[continues talking over patient’s next question]
MALE: Will you answer his question, Governor?
MITT ROMNEY: I think I have. I’m not in favor …
MALE: No, he asked you…
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DEAN BECKER: This is what presidential candidate Ron Paul thinks on the subject.
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RON PAUL: I would absolutely never use the federal government to enforce law against anybody using marijuana. The federal government doesn’t have this authority. I mean in a state especially comes in and says you can use it and some of these have then for the federal government to come in and say that we are going to override the state law even if it’s just a modest legalization and override this law that’s an offence not just on the issue of states’ rights but how can people do this?
How can an individual talk to you like and say, “Well, I’m a compassionate conservative. I want you to suffer.”
That’s what they are saying. It’s outrageous and they don’t know the history. How long has this War on Drugs been going on? Essentially since the early 70s. The first marijuana laws were passed in 1938 and they knew they weren’t allowed to outlaw it so they passed a huge tax on marijuana.
And even the total War on Drugs is rather recent. You know think of all the respect that they have for the Constitution I guess in 1919 when they wrote a prohibition against alcohol. They knew they had to change the Constitution. Then they repealed it because it didn’t work.
All this drug war business is done without authority. It’s sort of obvious that they don’t have the authority to do this. We have probably spent 500 or more billion dollars since the early 70s. What do we do with individuals?
Say and individual who never committed a violent crime gets caught three times in a non-violent act using drugs. Even if they were hard drugs and they hurt the individual they can be put in prison for life. At the same time we have murderers and rapists and child molesters getting back out on the streets.
Who was it today who was just released after 35 years…shot somebody who was famous…anyway…He gets out. He’s back on the streets but yet they will mandatory sentences. Our prisons are flooded with non-violent criminals.
We treat who are drug addicts as criminals. Do we treat all alcohols as criminals? Oh, no – politicians drink alcohol.
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DEAN BECKER: The following audio is taken from a television commercial produced by Yes on 64’s campaign in Colorado to legalize marijuana like alcohol. It shows a young girl sitting out under a tree with her computer typing a letter to her mother.
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GIRL READING HER TYPED WORDS: Dear Mom,
When I was in college I used to drink a lot. It was kind of crazy. But now that I’m older I prefer to use marijuana. It’s less harmful to my body. I don’t get hung over and, honestly, I feel safer around marijuana users.
I hope this makes sense but, if not, let’s talk. I love you.
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DEAN BECKER: The closing frames show a graphic: TalkItUpColorado.org
A few days ago congressman Barney Frank got up once again in the halls of congress to call for common sense in the use of marijuana, medical marijuana and our dwindling resources. This is Barney Frank.
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BARNEY FRANK: This is not a case of people advocating that other people smoke marijuana. It is, for me, an advocacy that we allow people some degree of free choice.
I listened to the gentleman from Virginia and I admire his diligence but I have to say I disagreed with almost everything he said. There was one thing he said that I thought was appropriate. He said we shouldn’t be debating this at 7:30 and I agree we should have been debating it at 4:20. That would have been a much better time.
But, other than that, he says what about 15-year-olds? They’ll see marijuana centers. Well, they’ll liquor stores. They’ll see many more liquor stores than marijuana centers. The notion that because something is inappropriate for a teenager or a child adults should not be allowed to use it is mindlessness.
You can’t run a society that says we’re not going to let a 15-year-old see the things a 15-year-old can’t do. Liquor stores would be a great example.
I have been disappointed on this point with the Obama administration. The Clinton administration was quite sensible upon this. The Bush administration slipped back and I had hoped with the Obama administration it would be more sensible.
The gentleman from Virginia said, “Well, this is a great source of money for the Mexicans.”
Sure because we won’t let people grow it in America. To the extent that people are buying medical marijuana from Mexican drug cartels is somewhat wordebly overdone thing when it comes to regards to this. That’s because we have had people refusing to allow them to grow it America for the use.
People say, and again I’m surprised at some of my conservative friends, “Well, there’s no medical value.”
The federal government now becomes the arbiter and tells the states, “You may not make that judgment that there’s medical value. “
We know an awful lot of people think it has medical value for them. As to addiction and the notion that you’ll get all these drugs together…what marijuana has in common with Oxycontin (which the gentleman mentioned) and other drugs is that we treat them the same. They’re not the same in any rational way. They’re not the same in addictive prospects. They’re not the same except we treat them the same.
We’re the ones by this foolish policy that I regret the administration that I supported in engaging in who give people the notion that they are the same thing. It’s a very simple point. People in the states have voted that marijuana should be available for people who want to use it for medicinal purposes. The states are then in charge with setting up ways to deal with it.
We have ideological opposition announcing that they will not be allowed to do that. They will tell people it has no medical use despite the testimony of so many who think it does.
This, again, is a form that I thought we learned didn’t work and it’s prohibition of the worst sort. And, by the way, it is going to lead to very ineffective law enforcement because we are free country. You cannot impose in a free society like ours a regime of law enforcement that the public rejects without a great deal of oppression.
State by state by state the people of the state have voted to allow this. So when we send the federal agents in to disregard what the state did, to disregard state law of course you’re going to get resistance. I have to say, and I’ll just close by saying I think tonight’s CSPAN has merged with the Turner Movie Classics because “Reefer Madness” – that great movie from the 30s – appears to be being shown on both channels.
This notion that because 15-year-olds are watching us talk about how people who are ill and in pain should be allowed by a vote of the state to get marijuana prescribed by a doctor and that’s going to lead to a 15-year-old go out and do it makes no logical sense.
And, as I said, if you’re worried what 15-year-olds can see – they can see X-rated movies that are being advertised. They can see cigarettes being sold widely. They can see alcohol. They can see all manner of things that we don’t want them to do. This is a very sensible amendment.
No one has shown, let me say finally, and you know the DEA they don’t want to do this. I have not seen the evidence that says that medical marijuana has led to any problem. I haven’t seen it linked to crime. I haven’t seen it linked to anything negative. What we have, frankly, are some prejudices being used to interfere with people’s rights.
SPEAKER: The gentleman’s time has expired.
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DEAN BECKER: This is Representative Frank Wolf, Republican, of Virginia.
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FRANK WOLF: I hear people talking about states’ rights. If a state said that sexual trafficking is OK would we honor that and say we’re not going to protect? I would hope not. States in the past have done some things that have not been good in this country.
Secondly, we know that many of these marijuana dispensaries are simply fronts for illegal marijuana distribution. The FDA noted in 2006, “There is currently sound evidence that smoked marijuana is harmful.”
As required by the Controlled Substance Act the DEA requested a scientific and medical evaluation and scheduling recommendation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which concluded, “Marijuana “… the stuff that we’re saying tonight…anybody…and you saw the 60 Minutes piece. They come in and they buy, they take.
We talk about doctors…the number of doctors that were ripping off people with Oxycontin. The number of doctors that were devastating…you can go down to Broward County in Florida and go into some of these pain clinics...There are busses coming down and planes coming down to buy it and doctors are writing prescriptions.
So we’re going to hide behind and just say doctors are…the number of doctors that ruin, that ruin young people on Oxycontin whereby they die…THEY DIE! So to hide behind a “doctor says” that means it’s OK. But Health and Human Service said, “Marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no acceptable medical use in the United States, and lacks an acceptable level of safety for use under medical supervision.”
I may be the only one in this party that feels this way but, I’ll tell you, if this amendment passes and this becomes the law this will become a gateway to young people. This will literally send a message down to the Mexican cartels that there is going to be a market all over. It will also increase automobile accidents because you’ll basically be finding people who are driving while they’re high versus driving while they’re intoxicated.
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DEAN BECKER: My personal thought is that Representative Wolf ought to take another drink and try it again.
Sadly the bill was defeated in the House 163 to 262. 135 Democrats and 28 Republicans voted yes.
The following Drug Truth editorial is for Congressman Wolf and his whole pack.
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DEAN BECKER: The drug war is a lie. This truth becomes more evident with each passing day. Corrupt politicians and criminal justice officials cling to fabrications and their guns, cling to hysteria and propaganda, cling to the right to destroy lives and life’s potentials so their lie is not recognized.
Drug warriors continue to embrace the stories and distortions and Harrison, Ansliger, Rayburn, Hoover, and Boggs…of Bennet, Walters, and Kerlikowski…of Nixon, Reagan and Obama.
For more than 100 years these bastions of society, these leaders of men, process and war have risen through the ranks by embracing the lie of drug war like pledges to a fraternity they have bought the legacy, secured the reputation of the liars who came before them.
Those with time and grade in office must now work to protect their own reputations. Is it “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? Or is it, “Screw all the others so they don’t screw you”?
To all, all, every God damn one of you lying politicians, sleazoid officials, silent scientists, doctors doing additional harm and any and all of the other millions of profiteers in this first eternal war we will soon enough expose and screw you.
Dean Becker, DrugTruth.net.
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RICHARD FELDMAN: This is Richard Feldman and I’m the president of the Independent Firearm Owners Association.
DEAN BECKER: Richard, of late you’ve had a couple great pieces in the Huffington Post and the Business Week online has been talking about your organization, your stance taken. The fact of the matter is you are for gun rights but you’re also for legal marijuana maybe all hard drugs as well. Is that true?
RICHARD FELDMAN: You know there’s a connection between these two issues that runs very closely but perhaps it’s a bit subtle at first. They’re both civil liberties issues. They’re both issues about the right and role of government in the lives of citizens. And what has really pushed these two issues in some ways more and more together is the crime in America.
When you look at an issue like Trayvon Martin – why is it that white folks in suburbia are so fearful of a young black guy wearing a hoody? It comes back to the imagery of gang bangers and what is it that gang bangers are doing? They’re involved in the illegal marketing of drugs. That’s where the money is and that’s where the harm is being caused.
These issues are related in many ways on several different levels.
DEAN BECKER: Well, you know Richard, one of the points of aggravation for me is that for many of these people who either grow or dispense medical cannabis it’s a very valuable product. Sometimes just sitting there growing in the pot, if you will, and yet the federal government is trying to deny the right to possess firearms to protect themselves and their family from those who want to steal their product and rob their houses. Your response?
RICHARD FELDMAN: Well, there’s no question that under federal law marijuana is a Class I substance and therein lies the bulk of the problem. It is illegal under federal law and federal law is supreme and I can’t argue with federal authorities enforcing federal law.
You know it’s easy to blame the police but the real blame ought to be put on our policy makers, our legislators. They are the ones that write the laws. They’re the ones we ought to get mad at. And let’s start to show them that this issue has potency.
And, frankly, legislators are not leaders – they’re followers. And they’re going to follow the polls. They’re going to follow the power. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which way this issue is going and where the growth in this issue among young people is and if you want to be around in the future in American politics you ought to decide to be on the winning side of this issue.
DEAN BECKER: You know, Richard, last night I was trying to put together an editorial that kind of revolves around what you just said. That those politicians who have the intellect, the insight, the understanding to realize the desperate need for this change and that act towards making that change will get reelected. Well, hell, they’ll become heroes in the long run. But those who ignore and close their eyes and try to pretend that this solution is not available…well, we’re going to cut the wheat from the chaff aren’t we?
RICHARD FELDMAN: Well, you know, it doesn’t take very many times to prove that point. I’m old enough to remember back in 1970 at the beginning of the environmental movement there was a group of us that came to Washington and we picked what we called the “Dirty Dozen.”- the 12 worst congressmen with environmental records.
That election cycle we were very fortuitous (there was an element of luck involved) all twelve of them were thrown out of congress. Now sometimes it was for other reasons. But, let me tell you, the environmental movement was born and everybody wanted to be green and everybody was pro-environment. Easy to forget now but it was Richard Nixon that began the Environmental Protection Agency. Everybody wanted to be on the right side of a winning issue.
So what it needs is a focal point and it needs to have enough umph behind it to send the kind of message to legislative and political folks that this issue can make the difference between winning and losing.
DEAN BECKER: Alright, we’ve been speaking with Mr. Richard Feldman. Richard, you and I think a lot alike and I’m sure there’s much more we’re going to talk about in the future.
DEAN BECKER: Opening up a can of worms and going fishing for truth. This is the Drug Truth Network, DrugTruth.net
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DEAN BECKER: The following was recorded in Tucson, Arizona a couple of weeks back at the Patients Out of Time Cannabis Therapeutics conference. The speaker is Dr. Robert Melamede, president of Cannabis Science.
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ROBERT MELAMEDE: To me there’s nothing better than when we have the mixture of the patients and the doctors and the scientists and the activists so that everybody can voice opinions and get together on understanding what each other is doing because I think ultimately we all want what is better for everyone and that’s why we’re doing what we do.
I still am associated with the University of Colorado. I also would like to mention that I am a patient since we are at Patients Out of Time. I’ve been a cannabis user since I was 16-years-old when I started college and it’s done nothing but benefit my life. Now that I’ve turned into and am suffering from what I call “Old fart-itous” it’s become even more important. I’ve lost 2 inches of my height because of compressed discs, summationally B-27 so many of you know and understand how that predisposes you to autoimmune diseases and back issues. I’ve a herniated disc and broken vertebrae, etc.
So, it’s been a real blessing for me and I understand fully why so many patients are using it and that’s what I want to give a talk on today. Really the underlying mechanisms and then show some very dramatic examples of the kinds of things that we’re seeing.
Fortunately people who are using cannabis and have understood its benefits have become active enough now that, at least on the state level, the governments are listening to us when we vote. As a result we have a very unusual situation especially when one considers the lack of toxicity of this.
We have a situation where essentially we’ve created states that are filled with citizen scientists who are doing the experiments on themselves. Because there are a lot of responsible dispensaries in states like Colorado and California and soon to be in Arizona we see what happens when we’re getting non-official, non-FDA type data but certainly enough to convince me as to the validity of what’s typically called “Rick Simpson Oil.” Rick Simpson was a person who discovered the high-dose extracts have these beneficial effects for cancers.
I must disagree with Dr. Abrahms because we are clearly seeing cases where patients using high-dose cannabis who have been literally sent home to die have walked away with no more cancer.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ROBERT MELAMEDE: I think we’re really at the edge here of a revolution and I’d like to give, before I go into the specific cases that we’ve been involved with and we have to word everything very properly here, you know we’re working on a lot of thin ice, but anyway let’s continue here.
So ultimately I will show you some squemacil carcinoma tumors in humans. The beauty, again, is we don’t have to work with animals. We can work with humans. It’s a fundamental, in my opinion, that every human has the right to use a God-given plant.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ROBERT MELAMEDE: There’s something very fundamentally wrong with a government that outlaws the use of a plant that was used and grown by our founding fathers.
So, anyway, the value and safety of medical marijuana is increasingly realized by people around the world and that’s why we have this medical marijuana movement. The other important reality is we do have this endocannabinoid system and the thing that’s so amazing and unique about the endocannabinoid system is it literally regulates everything in our body. So that provides some novel opportunities to modulate the energy and mass flow that characterizes each of us. It’s that that I want to ultimately be looking at.
In reality every single one of our body systems, immune system, digestive, cardiovascular, neurological, immunological, respiratory, reproductive – they’re all regulated homeostatically by endocannabinoids so I want to go into a little of the underlying physical chemistry that has led into the emergence of life and the progression of evolution and the development of our lives and the evolution within our lifetimes of how our biochemistry changes and the impact that cannabinoids can have on that.
As a result of that global modulation we see it involved in such fundamental things as our appetite, our pain, body temperature, mood, memory and conscientiousness which ultimately are the collection of all these other things manifesting themselves in kind of these universal measureables.
This is a very critical point to understand where I want to go – that living systems of four dimensional dynamic structures in which all the components interact to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. So what I want to talk about is the underlying physics of essentially complimentary medicine, of alternative medicine of holistic nutriceuticals, etc. There is an underlying reality there and that’s what I focused on and that’s what I want to try to communicate a little bit about.
As such the dynamical systems both buffer and adapt to change – homeostasis. Therefore to implement systemic change that results in a body rejecting cancer is unlikely to occur from a single, “magic bullet” approach. So let me back up a second here.
What we’re talking about is the flowing biochemistry here. We are flow-dependent structures. If we’re not eating, breathing – getting rid of all of our waste – we cease to exist as a flow-dependent structure. We undergo a phase change to a more random state. We commonly call that death.
So we contrast the conventional pharmaceuticals, extracts of cannabis sativa plant contain over 100 biological-active compounds. We’ve heard people talking about the turpenoids, the flavonoids, the cannabinoids…all of these things and many of these things have very important biological, modulatory properties.
So you’re not tweaking one thread of a four-dimensional system – the fourth dimension being time, right?! Because we’re flow-dependent. So instead of pulling one thread in the system that’s designed to compensate for change the cannabinoid system has the opportunity to impact on that 3-diminsional fibers that are modified in time as we go through time and embrace the changes of time.
So we have something very, very unique and different here and what I’m really going to be talking about here is how life, in general, has emerged from the flowing energy that intrinsically organizes mass. This is something that we’re not generally taught because we’re not taught this field of equilibrium thermodynamics which I’m going to just touch on so we can embrace these basic properties that have created life, create health and how when they are imbalance they account for illnesses and disease and death.
So any successful treatment of cancer or, in fact, any illness must be able to reorganize the biochemical flows that are resulting in any given illness. It is, therefore, essential to understand what life is, how it was created and how it evolves.
If the unique properties of this plant are to benefit because of the fact, again, that it can impact on the system – our unique collection of molecules in such a multidimensional fashion.
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DEAN BECKER: Once again that was Dr. Robert Melamede, the president of Cannabis Science, Inc. speaking at the Patients Out of Time Cannabis Therapeutics conference in Tucson, Arizona. I had to cut it short. He went on for quite a while longer. But the speech will soon be up on the Patients Out of Time website which is http://medicalcannabis.com.
We got to wrap it up again but I want to encourage you to take the information that you’ve gained from these Drug Truth Network programs fortify yourself, embolden yourself and go out there and do something to end this madness of drug war.
It has no basis in reality. You know that. Please do something about it. Please visit our website http://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 the Pacifica Studios of KPFT, Houston.
Transcript
Transcript
Century of Lies / May 13, 2012
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DEAN BECKER: 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.
-----------------------
DEAN BECKER: On today’s Century of Lies we’re going to focus almost entirely on marijuana and the machinations and obstructions and deflections and dementia of the United States federal government in regard.
This is part of a discussion between a gentleman with muscular dystrophy talking to presidential candidate Mitt Romney about the use of medical marijuana.
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MITT ROMNEY: …and you have synthetic marijuana that’s available…
PATIENT: It makes me sick. I have tried it and it makes me throw up. I have tried all the medications there are and all the forms they come in [inaudible] the steroids. I have muscular dystrophy that [inaudible] against my DNA.
MITT ROMNEY: I’m sorry to hear that.
PATIENT: My question for you is will you arrest me and my doctors if I get medical marijuana?
MITT ROMNEY: I’m not in favor of medical marijuana…[continues talking over patient’s next question]
MALE: Will you answer his question, Governor?
MITT ROMNEY: I think I have. I’m not in favor …
MALE: No, he asked you…
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DEAN BECKER: This is what presidential candidate Ron Paul thinks on the subject.
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RON PAUL: I would absolutely never use the federal government to enforce law against anybody using marijuana. The federal government doesn’t have this authority. I mean in a state especially comes in and says you can use it and some of these have then for the federal government to come in and say that we are going to override the state law even if it’s just a modest legalization and override this law that’s an offence not just on the issue of states’ rights but how can people do this?
How can an individual talk to you like and say, “Well, I’m a compassionate conservative. I want you to suffer.”
That’s what they are saying. It’s outrageous and they don’t know the history. How long has this War on Drugs been going on? Essentially since the early 70s. The first marijuana laws were passed in 1938 and they knew they weren’t allowed to outlaw it so they passed a huge tax on marijuana.
And even the total War on Drugs is rather recent. You know think of all the respect that they have for the Constitution I guess in 1919 when they wrote a prohibition against alcohol. They knew they had to change the Constitution. Then they repealed it because it didn’t work.
All this drug war business is done without authority. It’s sort of obvious that they don’t have the authority to do this. We have probably spent 500 or more billion dollars since the early 70s. What do we do with individuals?
Say and individual who never committed a violent crime gets caught three times in a non-violent act using drugs. Even if they were hard drugs and they hurt the individual they can be put in prison for life. At the same time we have murderers and rapists and child molesters getting back out on the streets.
Who was it today who was just released after 35 years…shot somebody who was famous…anyway…He gets out. He’s back on the streets but yet they will mandatory sentences. Our prisons are flooded with non-violent criminals.
We treat who are drug addicts as criminals. Do we treat all alcohols as criminals? Oh, no – politicians drink alcohol.
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DEAN BECKER: The following audio is taken from a television commercial produced by Yes on 64’s campaign in Colorado to legalize marijuana like alcohol. It shows a young girl sitting out under a tree with her computer typing a letter to her mother.
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GIRL READING HER TYPED WORDS: Dear Mom,
When I was in college I used to drink a lot. It was kind of crazy. But now that I’m older I prefer to use marijuana. It’s less harmful to my body. I don’t get hung over and, honestly, I feel safer around marijuana users.
I hope this makes sense but, if not, let’s talk. I love you.
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DEAN BECKER: The closing frames show a graphic: TalkItUpColorado.org
A few days ago congressman Barney Frank got up once again in the halls of congress to call for common sense in the use of marijuana, medical marijuana and our dwindling resources. This is Barney Frank.
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BARNEY FRANK: This is not a case of people advocating that other people smoke marijuana. It is, for me, an advocacy that we allow people some degree of free choice.
I listened to the gentleman from Virginia and I admire his diligence but I have to say I disagreed with almost everything he said. There was one thing he said that I thought was appropriate. He said we shouldn’t be debating this at 7:30 and I agree we should have been debating it at 4:20. That would have been a much better time.
But, other than that, he says what about 15-year-olds? They’ll see marijuana centers. Well, they’ll liquor stores. They’ll see many more liquor stores than marijuana centers. The notion that because something is inappropriate for a teenager or a child adults should not be allowed to use it is mindlessness.
You can’t run a society that says we’re not going to let a 15-year-old see the things a 15-year-old can’t do. Liquor stores would be a great example.
I have been disappointed on this point with the Obama administration. The Clinton administration was quite sensible upon this. The Bush administration slipped back and I had hoped with the Obama administration it would be more sensible.
The gentleman from Virginia said, “Well, this is a great source of money for the Mexicans.”
Sure because we won’t let people grow it in America. To the extent that people are buying medical marijuana from Mexican drug cartels is somewhat wordebly overdone thing when it comes to regards to this. That’s because we have had people refusing to allow them to grow it America for the use.
People say, and again I’m surprised at some of my conservative friends, “Well, there’s no medical value.”
The federal government now becomes the arbiter and tells the states, “You may not make that judgment that there’s medical value. “
We know an awful lot of people think it has medical value for them. As to addiction and the notion that you’ll get all these drugs together…what marijuana has in common with Oxycontin (which the gentleman mentioned) and other drugs is that we treat them the same. They’re not the same in any rational way. They’re not the same in addictive prospects. They’re not the same except we treat them the same.
We’re the ones by this foolish policy that I regret the administration that I supported in engaging in who give people the notion that they are the same thing. It’s a very simple point. People in the states have voted that marijuana should be available for people who want to use it for medicinal purposes. The states are then in charge with setting up ways to deal with it.
We have ideological opposition announcing that they will not be allowed to do that. They will tell people it has no medical use despite the testimony of so many who think it does.
This, again, is a form that I thought we learned didn’t work and it’s prohibition of the worst sort. And, by the way, it is going to lead to very ineffective law enforcement because we are free country. You cannot impose in a free society like ours a regime of law enforcement that the public rejects without a great deal of oppression.
State by state by state the people of the state have voted to allow this. So when we send the federal agents in to disregard what the state did, to disregard state law of course you’re going to get resistance. I have to say, and I’ll just close by saying I think tonight’s CSPAN has merged with the Turner Movie Classics because “Reefer Madness” – that great movie from the 30s – appears to be being shown on both channels.
This notion that because 15-year-olds are watching us talk about how people who are ill and in pain should be allowed by a vote of the state to get marijuana prescribed by a doctor and that’s going to lead to a 15-year-old go out and do it makes no logical sense.
And, as I said, if you’re worried what 15-year-olds can see – they can see X-rated movies that are being advertised. They can see cigarettes being sold widely. They can see alcohol. They can see all manner of things that we don’t want them to do. This is a very sensible amendment.
No one has shown, let me say finally, and you know the DEA they don’t want to do this. I have not seen the evidence that says that medical marijuana has led to any problem. I haven’t seen it linked to crime. I haven’t seen it linked to anything negative. What we have, frankly, are some prejudices being used to interfere with people’s rights.
SPEAKER: The gentleman’s time has expired.
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DEAN BECKER: This is Representative Frank Wolf, Republican, of Virginia.
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FRANK WOLF: I hear people talking about states’ rights. If a state said that sexual trafficking is OK would we honor that and say we’re not going to protect? I would hope not. States in the past have done some things that have not been good in this country.
Secondly, we know that many of these marijuana dispensaries are simply fronts for illegal marijuana distribution. The FDA noted in 2006, “There is currently sound evidence that smoked marijuana is harmful.”
As required by the Controlled Substance Act the DEA requested a scientific and medical evaluation and scheduling recommendation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which concluded, “Marijuana “… the stuff that we’re saying tonight…anybody…and you saw the 60 Minutes piece. They come in and they buy, they take.
We talk about doctors…the number of doctors that were ripping off people with Oxycontin. The number of doctors that were devastating…you can go down to Broward County in Florida and go into some of these pain clinics...There are busses coming down and planes coming down to buy it and doctors are writing prescriptions.
So we’re going to hide behind and just say doctors are…the number of doctors that ruin, that ruin young people on Oxycontin whereby they die…THEY DIE! So to hide behind a “doctor says” that means it’s OK. But Health and Human Service said, “Marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no acceptable medical use in the United States, and lacks an acceptable level of safety for use under medical supervision.”
I may be the only one in this party that feels this way but, I’ll tell you, if this amendment passes and this becomes the law this will become a gateway to young people. This will literally send a message down to the Mexican cartels that there is going to be a market all over. It will also increase automobile accidents because you’ll basically be finding people who are driving while they’re high versus driving while they’re intoxicated.
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DEAN BECKER: My personal thought is that Representative Wolf ought to take another drink and try it again.
Sadly the bill was defeated in the House 163 to 262. 135 Democrats and 28 Republicans voted yes.
The following Drug Truth editorial is for Congressman Wolf and his whole pack.
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DEAN BECKER: The drug war is a lie. This truth becomes more evident with each passing day. Corrupt politicians and criminal justice officials cling to fabrications and their guns, cling to hysteria and propaganda, cling to the right to destroy lives and life’s potentials so their lie is not recognized.
Drug warriors continue to embrace the stories and distortions and Harrison, Ansliger, Rayburn, Hoover, and Boggs…of Bennet, Walters, and Kerlikowski…of Nixon, Reagan and Obama.
For more than 100 years these bastions of society, these leaders of men, process and war have risen through the ranks by embracing the lie of drug war like pledges to a fraternity they have bought the legacy, secured the reputation of the liars who came before them.
Those with time and grade in office must now work to protect their own reputations. Is it “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? Or is it, “Screw all the others so they don’t screw you”?
To all, all, every God damn one of you lying politicians, sleazoid officials, silent scientists, doctors doing additional harm and any and all of the other millions of profiteers in this first eternal war we will soon enough expose and screw you.
Dean Becker, DrugTruth.net.
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RICHARD FELDMAN: This is Richard Feldman and I’m the president of the Independent Firearm Owners Association.
DEAN BECKER: Richard, of late you’ve had a couple great pieces in the Huffington Post and the Business Week online has been talking about your organization, your stance taken. The fact of the matter is you are for gun rights but you’re also for legal marijuana maybe all hard drugs as well. Is that true?
RICHARD FELDMAN: You know there’s a connection between these two issues that runs very closely but perhaps it’s a bit subtle at first. They’re both civil liberties issues. They’re both issues about the right and role of government in the lives of citizens. And what has really pushed these two issues in some ways more and more together is the crime in America.
When you look at an issue like Trayvon Martin – why is it that white folks in suburbia are so fearful of a young black guy wearing a hoody? It comes back to the imagery of gang bangers and what is it that gang bangers are doing? They’re involved in the illegal marketing of drugs. That’s where the money is and that’s where the harm is being caused.
These issues are related in many ways on several different levels.
DEAN BECKER: Well, you know Richard, one of the points of aggravation for me is that for many of these people who either grow or dispense medical cannabis it’s a very valuable product. Sometimes just sitting there growing in the pot, if you will, and yet the federal government is trying to deny the right to possess firearms to protect themselves and their family from those who want to steal their product and rob their houses. Your response?
RICHARD FELDMAN: Well, there’s no question that under federal law marijuana is a Class I substance and therein lies the bulk of the problem. It is illegal under federal law and federal law is supreme and I can’t argue with federal authorities enforcing federal law.
You know it’s easy to blame the police but the real blame ought to be put on our policy makers, our legislators. They are the ones that write the laws. They’re the ones we ought to get mad at. And let’s start to show them that this issue has potency.
And, frankly, legislators are not leaders – they’re followers. And they’re going to follow the polls. They’re going to follow the power. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which way this issue is going and where the growth in this issue among young people is and if you want to be around in the future in American politics you ought to decide to be on the winning side of this issue.
DEAN BECKER: You know, Richard, last night I was trying to put together an editorial that kind of revolves around what you just said. That those politicians who have the intellect, the insight, the understanding to realize the desperate need for this change and that act towards making that change will get reelected. Well, hell, they’ll become heroes in the long run. But those who ignore and close their eyes and try to pretend that this solution is not available…well, we’re going to cut the wheat from the chaff aren’t we?
RICHARD FELDMAN: Well, you know, it doesn’t take very many times to prove that point. I’m old enough to remember back in 1970 at the beginning of the environmental movement there was a group of us that came to Washington and we picked what we called the “Dirty Dozen.”- the 12 worst congressmen with environmental records.
That election cycle we were very fortuitous (there was an element of luck involved) all twelve of them were thrown out of congress. Now sometimes it was for other reasons. But, let me tell you, the environmental movement was born and everybody wanted to be green and everybody was pro-environment. Easy to forget now but it was Richard Nixon that began the Environmental Protection Agency. Everybody wanted to be on the right side of a winning issue.
So what it needs is a focal point and it needs to have enough umph behind it to send the kind of message to legislative and political folks that this issue can make the difference between winning and losing.
DEAN BECKER: Alright, we’ve been speaking with Mr. Richard Feldman. Richard, you and I think a lot alike and I’m sure there’s much more we’re going to talk about in the future.
RICHARD FELDMAN: I hope so and I encourage your listeners to “Like” us on our Facebook and come take a look at our website. It’s http://independentfirearmowners.org or www.facebook.com/IFoA.org.
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DEAN BECKER: Opening up a can of worms and going fishing for truth. This is the Drug Truth Network, DrugTruth.net
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DEAN BECKER: The following was recorded in Tucson, Arizona a couple of weeks back at the Patients Out of Time Cannabis Therapeutics conference. The speaker is Dr. Robert Melamede, president of Cannabis Science.
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ROBERT MELAMEDE: To me there’s nothing better than when we have the mixture of the patients and the doctors and the scientists and the activists so that everybody can voice opinions and get together on understanding what each other is doing because I think ultimately we all want what is better for everyone and that’s why we’re doing what we do.
I still am associated with the University of Colorado. I also would like to mention that I am a patient since we are at Patients Out of Time. I’ve been a cannabis user since I was 16-years-old when I started college and it’s done nothing but benefit my life. Now that I’ve turned into and am suffering from what I call “Old fart-itous” it’s become even more important. I’ve lost 2 inches of my height because of compressed discs, summationally B-27 so many of you know and understand how that predisposes you to autoimmune diseases and back issues. I’ve a herniated disc and broken vertebrae, etc.
So, it’s been a real blessing for me and I understand fully why so many patients are using it and that’s what I want to give a talk on today. Really the underlying mechanisms and then show some very dramatic examples of the kinds of things that we’re seeing.
Fortunately people who are using cannabis and have understood its benefits have become active enough now that, at least on the state level, the governments are listening to us when we vote. As a result we have a very unusual situation especially when one considers the lack of toxicity of this.
We have a situation where essentially we’ve created states that are filled with citizen scientists who are doing the experiments on themselves. Because there are a lot of responsible dispensaries in states like Colorado and California and soon to be in Arizona we see what happens when we’re getting non-official, non-FDA type data but certainly enough to convince me as to the validity of what’s typically called “Rick Simpson Oil.” Rick Simpson was a person who discovered the high-dose extracts have these beneficial effects for cancers.
I must disagree with Dr. Abrahms because we are clearly seeing cases where patients using high-dose cannabis who have been literally sent home to die have walked away with no more cancer.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ROBERT MELAMEDE: I think we’re really at the edge here of a revolution and I’d like to give, before I go into the specific cases that we’ve been involved with and we have to word everything very properly here, you know we’re working on a lot of thin ice, but anyway let’s continue here.
So ultimately I will show you some squemacil carcinoma tumors in humans. The beauty, again, is we don’t have to work with animals. We can work with humans. It’s a fundamental, in my opinion, that every human has the right to use a God-given plant.
AUDIENCE: [applause]
ROBERT MELAMEDE: There’s something very fundamentally wrong with a government that outlaws the use of a plant that was used and grown by our founding fathers.
So, anyway, the value and safety of medical marijuana is increasingly realized by people around the world and that’s why we have this medical marijuana movement. The other important reality is we do have this endocannabinoid system and the thing that’s so amazing and unique about the endocannabinoid system is it literally regulates everything in our body. So that provides some novel opportunities to modulate the energy and mass flow that characterizes each of us. It’s that that I want to ultimately be looking at.
In reality every single one of our body systems, immune system, digestive, cardiovascular, neurological, immunological, respiratory, reproductive – they’re all regulated homeostatically by endocannabinoids so I want to go into a little of the underlying physical chemistry that has led into the emergence of life and the progression of evolution and the development of our lives and the evolution within our lifetimes of how our biochemistry changes and the impact that cannabinoids can have on that.
As a result of that global modulation we see it involved in such fundamental things as our appetite, our pain, body temperature, mood, memory and conscientiousness which ultimately are the collection of all these other things manifesting themselves in kind of these universal measureables.
This is a very critical point to understand where I want to go – that living systems of four dimensional dynamic structures in which all the components interact to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. So what I want to talk about is the underlying physics of essentially complimentary medicine, of alternative medicine of holistic nutriceuticals, etc. There is an underlying reality there and that’s what I focused on and that’s what I want to try to communicate a little bit about.
As such the dynamical systems both buffer and adapt to change – homeostasis. Therefore to implement systemic change that results in a body rejecting cancer is unlikely to occur from a single, “magic bullet” approach. So let me back up a second here.
What we’re talking about is the flowing biochemistry here. We are flow-dependent structures. If we’re not eating, breathing – getting rid of all of our waste – we cease to exist as a flow-dependent structure. We undergo a phase change to a more random state. We commonly call that death.
So we contrast the conventional pharmaceuticals, extracts of cannabis sativa plant contain over 100 biological-active compounds. We’ve heard people talking about the turpenoids, the flavonoids, the cannabinoids…all of these things and many of these things have very important biological, modulatory properties.
So you’re not tweaking one thread of a four-dimensional system – the fourth dimension being time, right?! Because we’re flow-dependent. So instead of pulling one thread in the system that’s designed to compensate for change the cannabinoid system has the opportunity to impact on that 3-diminsional fibers that are modified in time as we go through time and embrace the changes of time.
So we have something very, very unique and different here and what I’m really going to be talking about here is how life, in general, has emerged from the flowing energy that intrinsically organizes mass. This is something that we’re not generally taught because we’re not taught this field of equilibrium thermodynamics which I’m going to just touch on so we can embrace these basic properties that have created life, create health and how when they are imbalance they account for illnesses and disease and death.
So any successful treatment of cancer or, in fact, any illness must be able to reorganize the biochemical flows that are resulting in any given illness. It is, therefore, essential to understand what life is, how it was created and how it evolves.
If the unique properties of this plant are to benefit because of the fact, again, that it can impact on the system – our unique collection of molecules in such a multidimensional fashion.
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DEAN BECKER: Once again that was Dr. Robert Melamede, the president of Cannabis Science, Inc. speaking at the Patients Out of Time Cannabis Therapeutics conference in Tucson, Arizona. I had to cut it short. He went on for quite a while longer. But the speech will soon be up on the Patients Out of Time website which is http://medicalcannabis.com.
We got to wrap it up again but I want to encourage you to take the information that you’ve gained from these Drug Truth Network programs fortify yourself, embolden yourself and go out there and do something to end this madness of drug war.
It has no basis in reality. You know that. Please do something about it. Please visit our website http://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 the Pacifica Studios of KPFT, Houston.
Transcript provided by: Jo-D Harrison of www.DrugSense.org