PART 7:THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHES

Chapter 14 

More Than Sixty Years 

of Suppression & Repression 

1937: Hemp banned. An estimated 60,000 Americans smoke "marijuana," but virtually everyone in the country has heard of it, thanks to Hearst and Anslinger's disinformation campaign. 

1945: Newsweek reports that more than 100,000 persons now smoke marijuana. 

1967: Millions of Americans regularly and openly smoke hemp leaves and flowers. 

1977: Tens of millions smoke cannabis regularly, with many persons growing their own. 

1998: One in three Americans, approximately 90 million citizens, have now tried it at least once, and some 10-20% (25 to 50 million Americans) still choose to buy and smoke it regularly, despite urine tests and tougher laws. 

Throughout history, Americans have held the legal tradition that one could not give up one's Constitutional rights and if someone was stripped of these protections, then he or she was being victimized. However by 1989, if you signed up for an extracurricular activity in school or applied for a minimum wage job, you could be asked to forego your right to privacy, protection from self-incrimination, Constitutional requirements of reasonable grounds for search and seizure, presumed innocence until found guilty by your peers, and that most fundamental right of all: personal responsibility for your own life and consciousness. 

By 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that these intrusions into your privacy were constitutional! 

In November 1996, as earlier stated, California passed a statewide people's initiative that legalized medical marijuana within the state. Also in November 1996, Arizona passed a statewide initiative (by 65% of the vote) that included medical marijuana but, unlike California law, Arizona's legislature and the governor (now impeached) can and have since rejected the people's law. This was the first rejection by the legislature and the governor of any Arizona state initiative in 90 years! 

The Armed Forces and Industry 

The Armed Forces, as well as many civilian factories, will boot you out if you smoke marijuana; even if you smoke it 30 days before testing and while off duty. These tests are done at random and often do not include liquor, tranquilizer, or other speed/downer type drugs. However, according to OSHA and insurance actuarial findings, plus the AFL-CIO, it is alcohol(!) that is involved in 90-95% of drug related factory accidents. 

In fact, numerous U.S. Army test of the effects of cannabis on soldiers (through the 1950's and '60's) at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, and elsewhere, show no loss of motivation or performance after two years of heavy (military sponsored) smoking of marijuana. 

This study was repeated six more times by the military and dozens of times by universities with the same or similar results. (Also, British Indian Hemp Report; Panama/Siler study; Jamaican study, et al.) 

South African gold and diamond mines allowed and encouraged Blacks to use cannabis/Dagga in order to work harder. 

(U.S. Government Reports, 1956-58-61-63-68-69-70-76.) 

Privacy is a Right 

Groups like NORML, HEMP, ACLU, BACH, and the Libertarian Party (for example) feel that as long as military personnel (unless on alert) or factory workers do not smoke cannabis while on duty or during the period four to six hours before duty, it's their own business. This is consistent with the conclusions of the U.S. government's own Siler Commission (1933) and Shafer Commission (1972) reports, as well as the LaGuardia report (1944), the Canadian Government Study (1972), Alaska State Commission (1989), and the California Research Advisory Panel (1989), all of which held that no criminal penalties are in order for its use. 

Inaccurate Urine Testing 

Military/factory worker marijuana urine tests are only partially accurate and do not indicate the extent of your intoxication. They indicate only whether you have smoked or been in the presence of cannabis smoke or have eaten hempseed oil or any hempseed food product in the last 30 days. Whether you smoked or ate it an hour ago or 30 days ago and sometimes if you haven't smoked it at all the test results are the same: Positive. 

John P. Morgan, M.D., stated in High Times February 1989 (and in 1999 he still says), "The tests are far from reliable. Tampering and high rates of falsepositives, false-negatives, etc. are common, and further these testing companies are held to no standards but their own." 

At 20-50 nanograms (billionths of a gram) per milliliter of THC Carboxy Acid (a metabolite) these tests can be read as positive or negative yet results derived from this part of the scale are known to be meaningless. To the untrained eye, any positive indication sends up a red flag. And most testers are untrained and uncertified. Still, the decision to hire, fire, detain, re-test, or begin drug abuse treatment is made for you on the spot. 

"I believe the tendency to read the EMIT [the urine test for THC metabolites] test below the detection limit is one of the important reasons why the test was not often confirmed in published reports," Dr. Morgan said. 

In 1985, for the first time, Milton, Wisconsin, high school kids were ordered to have urine tests weekly to see if they smoked pot. Local "Families Against Marijuana" type organizations were demanding this testing, but not for liquor, downers, or other hazardous drugs. 

Hundreds of communities and high schools throughout the country were awaiting the outcome of constitutional challenges in Milton in 1988 before implementing similar testing programs in their own school districts. Because of this ruling in Milton's favor, testing for high school students participating in extra-curricular activities has since been widely adopted and continues across the United States in 1998. 

For instance, in Oregon the testing of high-school athletes has spread by court order to any and all extra-curricular activity. Band members and majorettes even debate team members, some debating on the marijuana issue can now be tested at will in all states except California, where even a high school student can, since 1996, legally have a doctor's recommendation or acknowledgement for the medical use of marijuana. 

(NORML reports, High Times, ABC, NBC & CBS News, and LA Times, 1981-1998, Oregonian, October 23, 1989.) 

Baseball and the Babe 

Former Baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth first ordered in 1985 all personnel, except unionized players, to submit to these urine tests. From the owners to the peanut vendors to the bat boys, it is mandatory in order to be employed. By 1990, it had been incorporated into all contracts, including ballplayers. 

Now, since November 1996, a professional baseball player (or any other sports player for that matter) in California may take advantage of cannabis as medicine, and continue to play baseball professionally. 

Aside from the civil liberties questions raised, it is apparently forgotten that "Babe" Ruth would regularly invite reporters to accompany him while he drank 12 beers prior to playing a game, during alcohol Prohibition. 

Many "dry" organizations and even the league commissioner implored him to think of the children who idolized him and stop, but the "Babe" refused. 

If Peter Ueberroth or his ilk had been in charge of baseball during Prohibition, the "Sultan of Swat" would have been fired in shame and millions of children would not have proudly played in "Babe Ruth Little Leagues." Lyndon LaRouche's "War on Drugs" committee told us that, along with new marijuana laws, they expected to implement their most important goal: anyone in the future playing any disco, rock 'n' roll, or jazz on the radio, on television, in schools, or in concert, or who just sold rock 'n' roll records or any music that wasn't on their approved classical lists would be jailed, including music teachers, disc jockeys, and record company executives. 

Tens of millions of average Americans choose to use cannabis as self medication or to relax during their time off the job, and therefore risk criminal penalties. Job performance should be the principle criterion for evaluation of all employees, not personal lifestyle choices. 

The Babe Ruth's of sports, the Henry Fords of industry, the Pink Floyd's, Beatles, Picasso's, and Louis Armstrong's of the arts, and one out of ten Americans have become criminals and thousands unemployed for smoking cannabis, even when merely unwinding in the privacy of their own homes. 

Robert Mitchum's film career was almost destroyed by a 1948 marijuana arrest. Federal Judge Douglas Ginsburg was on the verge of being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 when it was revealed that he had smoked grass while a university professor and his name was withdrawn from nomination. However, George Bush's appointee Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' 1991 admission that he smoked marijuana in college was not an issue in his controversial confirmation. 

Dividing Communities and 

Splitting Up Families 

"Help a friend, send him to jail," says a billboard in Ventura, California. This is an example of the "zero tolerance" campaign's inform-on-your-neighbor tactics being used to enforce the laws against the victim less crime of cannabis smoking. 

Here's another example from TV: "If you have knowledge of a felony you can earn up to one thousand dollars. Your name will not be used and you will not be required to appear in court."* One man received a postcard in jail saying, "Our informant received $600 for turning you in. Crimestoppers." 

*(Crimestoppers, Ventura, California, October, 1989.)  

Surveillance and Seizures 

In rural California, where cannabis growing has supported whole communities, the well-armed CAMP forces go into a thick forest discovering 15-foot tall, lush, hearty eight-month-old plants. These are hacked down, piled up, and smothered with gasoline and rubber tires. Uncured, they burn slowly. 

Elsewhere, a helicopter pilot circles over a neighborhood, peering into a heat sensitive camera pointed at a house. "We're looking for the indoor sun," he explains matter-of-factly. 

"We only pursue specific objectives," houses where grow lights have been bought or some other tangible basis exists to suspect "manufacturing a controlled substance": a felony. 

"Look, there's the light from the house." His thermal-sensitive screen shows heat leaking out from under the eaves of the house. Site confirmed. 

Next they obtain a search warrant, raid the property, seize the house under civil proceedings, and prosecute its inhabitants under criminal law. 

(48 Hrs., CBS television, "Marijuana Growing in California," October 12, 1989.) 

UnAmerican Policies & 

Political Extortion 

Richard Nixon ordered the FBI to illegally monitor John Lennon 24-hours a day for six solid months in 1971 because Lennon had given a concert in Michigan to free a student (John Sinclair) from five years in jail for possession of two joints. 

(L.A. Times, August, 1983.) 

The drug, oil, paper, and liquor companies want pot illegal forever, no matter whose rights they suppress or how many years we have to spend in prison to assure their profits. 

Politicians who are liberal are investigated and, we believe, are blackmailed to keep their mouths shut on this subject and others, or risk being exposed for some past indiscretion by themselves or members of their families possibly sexual or drug-related. 

Police, Secrets & Blackmail 

A few years ago, then Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates (1978-1992) ordered surveillance of City Councilman Zev Yarslovsky, City Attorney John Van DeKamp, and Mayor Tom Bradley, among others. He monitored their private sex lives for more than a year. 

(Los Angeles Times, August, 1983.) 

J. Edgar Hoover, as Director of the FBI, did this for five years to Martin Luther King Jr. and, in the most "sick" situation, deliberately drove actress Jean Seburg to suicide with terrible ongoing federal letters and information fed to tabloids exposing her pregnancies and private dates with blacks. In fact, using the FBI, Hoover harassed selected targets, for as long as 20 years because of their civil rights stands. 

The former director of the FBI and also direct overseer of the DEA, William Webster, answered questions about the squandering of 50% ($500 million) of federal drug enforcement money on cannabis enforcement this way: "Oh, marijuana is an extremely dangerous drug and the proof [referring to totally discredited brain and metabolite studies by Heath, Nahas] is now coming in." 

Webster then asked for more money and more unrestrained powers to stop pot. 

(Nightwatch, CBS, January 1, 1985.) 

(1998 footnote: The DEA's budget for marijuana information alone figures out to 10 times the cost of 1985's budget and 100 times the cost of its 1981 budget.) 

Public Humiliation 

Entertainers caught with cannabis have had to do a "Galileo" type recanting to stay out of jail or to retain their television, endorsement, or nightclub contracts, etc. Some have had to go on television and denounce marijuana to stay out of jail (e.g., Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, David Crosby, and actress Linda Carter). Our courts and legislators have sold our American "guaranteed" Bill of Rights, written on cannabis, to secure a cannabis-free world. 

"Don't suspect your neighbor, turn him in." Any hear say is to be reported. That which revolted us as children the spectre of Nazis and Commies asking everyone to spy and inform on one another; Stalin's secret police taking persons from their homes at night to administer stupefying drugs and extort information; a government spreading lies and creating a police state has now become our everyday Amierkan reality. 

And those who dare to stand against the tide of oppression face the prospect of financial ruin. 

Seizure: Feudal Law & Order 

When the federal government seizes cars, boats, money, real estate, and other personal property, proceeding are set into motion based on laws that originated with medieval superstition. 

English common law of the Middle Ages provided for forfeiture of any object causing a man's death. Known as a "deodand," the object, such as a weapon or run-away ox cart, was personified and declared tainted or evil, and forfeited to the king. 

Today's in rem (against things rather than against persons) forfeiture proceedings are civil suits against the property itself. Relying on analogy to the deodand, a legal "personification fiction," declares the property to be the defendant. It is held guilty and condemned, as though it were a personality and the guilt or innocence of the owner is irrelevant. 

By applying this civil label to forfeiture proceedings, the government sidesteps almost all the protections offered by the Constitution to individuals. There is no Sixth Amendment guarantee of right to counsel. Innocent until proven guilty is reversed. Each violation of a constitutional right is then used as the basis for the destruction of another. 

The violation of the Fifth Amendment's "innocent until proven guilty" due process standard is used to destroy the prohibition of double jeopardy. Even acquittal of the criminal charges the forfeiture is based upon does not prevent re-trying the same facts, because, even through the government couldn't prove a crime was committed, at the second trial the defendant must provide proof of innocence. 

The Supreme Court holds that it is constitutional to forfeit property in rem from a person who is completely innocent and non-negligent in his use of the property. Lower courts accept prosecutors' arguments that if it is permissible to forfeit property from completely innocent persons, then constitutional protections could not possibly apply to anyone who is guilty of even a minor drug offense. 

Unlike civil suits between individuals, the government is immune to counter suit. The government can use its unlimited resources to repeatedly press a suit in the mere hope of convincing one juror the defendant did not provide a preponderance of evidence. 

Forfeitures imposed by the English Crown led our nation's founders to prohibit bills of attainder (forfeiture consequent to conviction) in the first article of the American Constitution. The main body of the Constitution also forbids forfeiture of estate for treason. The first Congress passed the statue, still law today, stating that "No conviction or judgement shall work corruption of blood or any forfeiture of estate." However, early Americans did incorporate in rem (proceeding against a thing) procedures under Admiralty and Maritime law, to seize enemy ships at sea and to enforce payment of customs duties. 

It was not until the outbreak of the Civil War that these Customs procedures were radically changed. The Confiscation Act of July 17, 1862, declared all property belonging to Confederate officers or those who aided the rebels to be forfeit-able in rem. The U.S. Supreme Court held that if the Act was an exercise of the war powers of the government and was applied only to enemies, then it was Constitutionally allowable in order to ensure a speedy termination of the war. 

Today, the passions of the "War on Drugs" have caused Congress to once again use in rem proceedings to inflict punishment without the nuisance of the protections provided by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. "We have to save our Constitution," says Vickie Linker, whose husband served two years in prison for a cannabis offense. "We have the truth." 

Entrapment, Intolerance and Ignorance 

When not enough persons seem to be committing crimes, the DEA and police departments often resort to entrapment to make criminals out of unsuspecting and otherwise non-criminal persons. Government agents have been caught time after time provoking and participating in drug smuggling and sales.* 

* High Witness News department, High Times magazine; "Inside the DEA," Dale Geiringer, Reason Magazine, December, 1986; Christic Institute "La Penca" lawsuit; DeLorean cocaine trial testimony and verdict of innocence; Playboy magazine, etc. 

This constant fanning of public fears of marijuana turns into demands for more money for a "War on Drugs" (a euphemism for war on certain people who freely choose to use selected substances) and political pressure for the permission to use unconstitutional means to enforce the constantly harsher laws. 

In an October, 1989, Louisville, KY, address to the Police Chiefs of that state, then Drug Czar and social-drinking, nicotine-addict William Bennett* announced that marijuana smoking makes people stupid. 

* This is the same man who helped engineer a $2.9 million grant for the Texas National Guard to dress its agents up as cactus to patrol the Mexican border. This was the National Guard unit that later shot and killed a young American born Mexican sheep herder assuming him to be an illegal immigrant. 

He offered no proof, and although crack was not a major issue in Kentucky, proclaimed that more money was necessary for the war on drugs because of this new found marijuana-induced danger stupidity! (Which, as far as we know, is still not a crime.) 

Bennett was seen to brace himself with a late-morning gin and tonic in December, 1989, as he tried to pitch a similar anti-marijuana message to representatives of the broadcast and film industries in Beverly Hills, CA. 

(High Times, February, 1990. See "Booze Brunch" in appendix of the paper version of this book.) 

Have your balloons and bumper stickers ready; Bennett is running for president in 2000! 

PDFA: Slickly Packaged Lies 

Another recent development has been the formation of the P.D.F.A (Partnership for a Drug Free America) in the media. P.D.F.A, with primarily in-kind funding from ad agencies and media groups, makes available (free of charge to all broadcast and print media) slick public service ads directed primarily against marijuana. 

In addition to releasing such meaningless drivel as an ad which shows a skillet ("This is drugs.") on which an egg is frying ("This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"), P.D.F.A is not above lying outright in their ads. 

In one ad, the wreckage of a train is shown. Now, everyone will agree that no one should attempt to drive a train while high on marijuana. But a man's voice says that anyone who tells you that "marijuana is harmless" is lying, because his wife was killed in a train accident caused by marijuana. This contradicts the direct sworn testimony of the engineer responsible for that disaster; that "this accident was not caused by marijuana." And it deliberately ignores his admissions of drinking alcohol, snacking, watching TV, generally failing to pay adequate attention to his job, and deliberately jamming the train's safety equipment prior to the accident. Yet, for years the P.D.F.A has described the train accident as being marijuana-caused, even though the engineer was legally drunk and had lost his automobile driver's license six times, including permanently, for drunken driving in the previous three years. 

In another ad, a sad looking couple is told that they cannot have children because the husband used to smoke pot. This is a direct contradiction both of the clinical evidence developed in nearly a century of cannabis studies and of the personal experiences of millions of Americans who have smoked cannabis and borne perfectly healthy children. 

And in yet another ad, the group was so arrogant in putting out lies that it finally got into trouble. The ad showed two brain wave charts which it said showed the brain waves of a 14-year-old "on marijuana." 

Outraged, researcher Dr. Donald Blum from the UCLA Neurological Studies Center told K.A.B.C-TV (Los Angeles) News November 2, 1989, that the chart said to show the effects of marijuana actually shows the brain waves of someone in a deep sleep or in a coma. 

He said that he and other researchers had previously complained to the P.D.F.A, and added that cannabis user's brain wave charts are much different and have a well-known signature, due to years of research on the effects of cannabis on the brain. 

Even after this public refutation, it took the station K.A.B.C-TV and P.D.F.A weeks to pull the spot, and no apology or retraction had yet been offered for the deceit. Despite being ordered by the courts to stop, the PDFA has shown that ad continuously on hundreds of TV channels throughout the United States for the last decade.* 

* Groups including the American Hemp Council, the Family Council on Drug Awareness, and Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) have decided to step up their pressure to expose PDFA lies and get their distortions banned from the airwaves or, better yet, replaced with accurate information on the medical, social, and commercial uses of hemp. 

Perhaps a more valid ad for the PDFA to produce and the networks to run would show a skillet ("This is the PDFA.") and an egg frying ("These are the facts."). 

DARE: Police Propaganda 

The DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, a national program that was initiated in 1983 by then Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, has become yet another tool dis-informing the public on hemp. 

Typically, a police department spokesperson will conduct a 17-week course at a local elementary school to promote personal responsible behavior by young persons while irresponsibly giving them distorted information and outright lies about cannabis. 

Most of the course does not deal with drugs as such, but rather with making choices about how to act when there are opportunities or pressures to drink, smoke, steal, lie, break laws, etc. However, the program's truly useful support for good behavior is undermined by an undercurrent of lies and innuendo about marijuana's effects and users.* 

* In an interview, L.A.'s main DARE instructor, Sgt. Domagalski, gave information on the program and made such unsubstantiated and untrue statements as marijuana leads to heroin, "The guy across the street or next door has been smoking marijuana for years and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him. There is something wrong, but it may not be obvious." And, "People in the Sixties smoked marijuana and thought there was nothing wrong with it. Now it's watered and sprayed and pampered and they're not concerned what they spray it with, either. But parents don't know this. They got all their information in the Sixties, and they're not interested in this new information."(Downtown News, July 10, 1989. Also see letters section, July 31, 1989 for BACH's reply.) See chapter 15, "Debunking" for the facts on his "new information." 

In 1999, DARE still consciously teaches these same lies to our children and threatens any community that dares to tell DARE to stop or cease in their school district. However, in 1997 the city of Oakland, California, withdrew from the DARE program and has so far suffered no consequences. What makes the DARE program uniquely dangerous is that it provides some accurate information, but undermines itself and the public record by using lies and innuendo about marijuana. 

For example, according to teachers who sit in on the sessions,* the police officer will remark, "I can't tell you that smoking pot causes brain damage, because you all know people who smoke pot and they seem pretty normal. But that's what it does. You just can't tell yet." 

* Some of the teachers we talked to find themselves in the uncomfortable position of knowing the real studies, or have used cannabis themselves and know its effects, but cannot openly present their case for fear of being urine tested or dismissed. 

No supporting evidence is then offered, and the literature that goes home with the child (and is potentially seen by marijuana-savvy parents) tends to appear more balanced, although it refers to mysterious "new studies" showing the dangers of marijuana. 

But throughout the entire course, the police officer refers to lung damage, brain damage, sterility, and other unfounded claims of health damage and death being caused by marijuana. 

Or they report on studies detailing the cardio-pulmonary risks of using cocaine, then mention marijuana smoke unrelated except by context. Or the "well-intentioned" officer tells anecdotes about persons he claims to know who "started" with marijuana and ultimately destroyed their lives with hard drugs, crime, and depravity; then lumps marijuana in with genuinely dangerous drugs and describes how youngsters or fellow police officers were killed by these desperate, drug crazed criminals. 

Then the officer encourages the students to "help" their drug-using friends and family by becoming a police informant. These kinds of indirect lies through innuendo and implication are given in an off-hand manner calculated to leave a strong, permanent impression on the sub-conscious mind, without basing it on any research or other sources that can be objectively studies or directly challenged just a lasting, indistinct mental image. 

What makes the DARE program uniquely dangerous is that it provides some accurate information and has genuine value for young people, but undermines itself and the public record by using these irresponsible, underhanded tactics. 

If DARE officials want responsible behavior from students, they must also act responsibly. If they have information about marijuana that is hidden from the rest of us, let's see it. But, so far as we know, no DARE organization has yet dared to debate any marijuana legalization advocacy group* or include their literature in its program. 

* Since 1989, Help Eliminate Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) and the Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp (BACH) have issued ongoing standing challenges to publicly debate any DARE representatives in the Los Angeles area, which has yet to be taken up. These groups have also offered to provide free and accurate literature on cannabis for DARE's use, but as of July 1998, have received no response. 

The Media in a Stupor 

Despite a strong injection of reason and fact into the cannabis debate by the media in the late 1960's and 1970's, the national media has largely failed to distinguish marijuana prohibition from the broader "drug war" hysteria, which "sold more copy" in the 1980's. 

Hemp activists have been ignored, their events censored and excluded from calendar listings even paid advertisements about events or legal, non-smoking hemp products are refused by news sources. What ever happened to fact checking? 

Instead of serving as the probing watchdogs of government and keepers of the public trust, corporate news groups regard themselves as the profit-making tool for forging "consensus" on national policy. "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself." President Jimmy Carter August 2, 1977 

According to groups like Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and researchers like Ben Bakdikian and Michael Parenti, these corporations define and protect the "national interest" Often meaning their own vested financial interests and political agendas. It must be remembered that many of the largest publishers have direct holdings in timberland for paper development, and the pharmaceutical drug, petrochemical companies, etc. are among the media's major advertisers. 

In an article published in the L.A. Times Magazine May 7, 1989, entitled "Nothing Works," (and since mimicked in hundreds of magazines, including Time and Newsweek), Stanley Meiseler laments the problem facing schools in drug education programs and inadvertently reveals the news media's own assumptions and bias: 

"Critics believe that some education programs have been crippled by exaggerating the dangers of drugs. Principles and teachers, watched closely by city officials, feel pressured not to teach pupils that marijuana, although harmful,* is less addicting than cigarettes. Failure to acknowledge such information means school programs can lose credibility. But more honest programs could be even more harmful." (Emphasis added.) * No specific studies showing the alleged harmful effects were cited in the article. In fact, cannabis was barely mentioned except for this reference and a note that detoxification businesses report some success in "breaking a mild dependence on marijuana and alcohol."

The harm Meisler predicts is an expected increase in consumption when people learn the health benefits and lack of physical or psychological risks involved with cannabis consumption. Many persons decide that they prefer pot (which apparently does not need to advertise) to alcohol and tobacco, for which so many advertising dollars are spent. 

Ongoing Justice 

President Jimmy Carter addressed Congress on another kind of harm done by prohibition and the drug issue August 2, 1977, saying that "penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. 

"Therefore, I support legislation amending federal law to eliminate all federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana." 

However, his efforts to apply even this bit of reason to America's marijuana laws 21 years ago were derailed by a Congress determined to show that it is tough on crime, no matter whether an action is criminal or poses any real threat to society, no matter how many persons are hurt in the process. 

And this attitude of intolerance and oppression has escalated in the post-Carter years. 

By 1990, some 30 states had established "Special Alternative Incarceration" (S.A.I) camps (called "boot camps") where non-violent, first time drug offenders are incarcerated in a boot camp-like institution, verbally abused, and psychologically worn down to break them of their dissident attitude towards drug use. Now, in 1999, there are 42 states with special alternative incarceration camps implementing similar programs. 

The inmates are handled with robotic precision, and those who don't conform are subject to incarceration in the state penitentiary. Most of these offenders are in for marijuana. Even more states are considering implementing similar programs.* 

* In These Times, "Gulag for drug users," December 20, 1989, pg. 4. 

What pretext has been used to rationalize this anti-American policy? A handful of official government reports and studies that are touted by the DEA, politicians, and the media to show that marijuana really is "damaging to an individual." 

LaRouche Declares War on Rock 'N Roll 

If you thought Anslinger's music craziness was over after he went after jazz in the 1930's and 40's, then consider this: 

One of the chief organizations among the 4,000 or so "Families Against Marijuana" type groups today is Lyndon LaRouche's "War on Drugs" committee, supported by Nancy Reagan, TV evangelists Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, and other right-wing activists. 

In January, 1981, this author and five members of the California Marijuana Initiative (C.M.I) secretly, by pretending to be pro-LaRouche, attended the West Coast convention of this organization, whose guest speaker was Ed Davis, former Los Angeles Police Chief, who was at that time a freshman state senator from Chatsworth, California. 

As we each walked in separately, we were asked to sign a petition endorsing a Detroit reporter who had written an open letter to the new President, Ronald Reagan, asking him to give immediate presidential clemency and make a national hero of Mark Chapman, who had murdered John Lennon of the Beatles six weeks earlier. 

The letter stated that John Lennon had been the most evil man on the planet because he almost single-handedly "turned on" the planet to "illicit drugs". The evils of rock 'n' roll are a constant theme of the "War on Drugs" publications. 

To keep up with the part we were playing, we signed the petition. (John, forgive us we were playing a clandestine role: under-cover CMI anti-narc. We remember you for "Give Peace a Chance," "Imagine," and all the rest.) 

After we signed the petition, their leaders took us to the back of the room to show us some of the goals that would be achieved when they would come to full power over the next decade. 

On five or so long tables set up in the back of the Los Angeles Marriott LAX meeting room were hundreds of recordings of Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and others, and dozens of pro-nuclear power publications. 

They told us that along with new marijuana laws, they expected to implement their most important goal: anyone in the future who played disco, rock 'n' roll, or jazz on the radio, on television, in schools, or in concert, or just sold rock 'n' roll records or any other music that wasn't from their approved classical lists, would be jailed, including music teachers, disc jockeys, and record company executives. School teachers, if they allowed such music by students, would be fired. (LA Times; KNBC-TV.) 

They were dead serious. 

Their magazine "War on Drugs" has always spent more space denouncing music with the "evil marijuana beat" than on heroin, cocaine, and PCP combined! 

Ed Davis was genuinely shocked and embarrassed about this out-front aspect of their anti-music dogma and said, "Well, I don't believe we could ever get legislation at this time outlawing these other types of music or their lyrics.  But I do believe with the new Reagan Law-and-Order Administration, we are going to be able to pass some new and stronger anti-marijuana paraphernalia laws, even re-criminalizing marijuana altogether in the states that have decriminalization laws now . . .That's the start." 

I called his office a few days later and was told by an assistant that Davis had no advance idea of this group's musical fixation and that he had accepted the invitation based solely on the name "War on Drugs". Most of what Davis predicted that day has come about. Those visionaries of a new society, one free from the influence of pot and any mention of it had their way in the 1980's. Remember James Watt and the Beach Boys in 1986? 

Since 1981, TV programs have been censored, cut, and pulled from the air for having a pro-marijuana connotation or even making jokes about it. 

In an episode of "Barney Miller", Detective Fish (Abe Vigoda) was told that some brownies he'd been eating all day were laced with pot. He looked forlorn for a moment, then said with a sigh, "Wouldn't you know it, this is the best I ever felt in my life and it's illegal." This episode has been pulled from distribution. 

The late "screaming comic", Sam Kinison, stood on the stage of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" in 1986 and bellowed "Go ahead, you can have the cocaine! Just let us smoke our pot!" The line has been deleted from audio portion in subsequent re-runs. 

The Reagan/Bush drug czar, Carlton Turner, from his position as the White House Chief Drug Adviser in the mid 1980's quoted to the press passages of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and told police and interviewers that jazz musicians and rock singers were destroying the America he loved with their marijuana drug-beat music. 

In 1997, in an episode of the TV series "Murphy Brown", starring Candice Bergen, Murphy undergoes cancer treatment from which she is vomitting constantly and has lost her appetite. Finally she is told by her doctor to illegally use marijuana for nausea and appetite stimulation. Murphy smokes pot and she is saved by doing so. 

The Partnership For a Drug Free America and DARE tried unsuccessfully to stop this episode from airing as it "Sent the wrong message to our children" What wrong message!?That marijuana is the best anti-nausea and the best appetite-stimulant on our planet and can save millions of lives? 

Paul McCartney & His Band on the Run 

Timothy White interviewed Paul McCartney, formerly of the Beatles, for a book and developed it into a radio program called "McCartney: The First 20 Years". He asked the songwriter to explain his song "Band on the Run", on the album of the same name. 

"Well, at the time, bands like us and the Eagles were feeling like and being treated like, outlaws and desperadoes, you know," replied McCartney. 

"I mean, people were getting busted for pot, that is. And that's about all they were getting popped for. Never anything serious." 

And our argument was that we didn't want to be outlaws. We just wanted to be part of the regular scene, you know, and make our music and live in peace. We didn't see why we should be treated like criminals when all we wanted to do was smoke pot instead of hitting the booze. 

"And that's what the song was about; it was my reaction to that whole scene. . ." 

"And the county judge / who held a grudge / will search forever more / for the band on the run." 

From "The First 20 Years", broadcast on KLSX 97.1 FM (Los Angeles) and other stations of the Westwood One radio network January 29, 1990. 

McCartney also wrote the famous line that got the song "A Day in the Life" banned from British radio: "Had a smoke. Somebody spoke and I went into a dream." A vocal supporter of marijuana legalization, McCartney has repeatedly been arrested and was imprisoned for 10 days during a concert tour of Japan. The Japanese government canceled his tour and banned him from playing in that country, costing him millions of dollars. To his credit, he has continued to speak out for pot smokers. 

The Ultimate Hypocrisy 

While waging its self-styled "War on Drugs" against Third World peasants and American civilians, the Reagan/Bush/Quayle/Clinton/Gore administrations (1981-1999) have encouraged and covered up drug smuggling and distribution by high ranking officials of the U.S. government. 

On one hand, Bush violated international law by invading Panama to bring reputed drug smuggler and long-time Bush/CIA employee Manuel Noriega to the U.S. to stand trial. 

On the other hand, he refused to extradite Oliver North, John Hull, Admiral Poindexter, General Secord, Lewis Tambs, and other Americans to Costa Rica, where they are under indictment by that government for operating a drug smuggling operation there. 

(The Guardian, British newspaper, "Cocaine shipped by contra network", July 22, 1989.) 

Federal hearings conducted by U.S. Senator John Kerry's (MA) Subcommittee on Terrorism and Narcotics in 1988 and 1989 documented widespread acts by the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) to block investigations by the Customs Department and FBI into cocaine smuggling by "intelligence operatives" under the guise of national security. No indictments were ever handed down, and witnesses testified under grants of immunity with little media attention. 

Special Iran-Contra investigators failed to act on this information or evidence developed by the Christic Institute implicating government complicity in narco-terrorism. And when General Secord was convicted in January 1990 for crimes related to the Iran Contra drugs-for-arms scandal, he was given a fine of $50 and a brief probation when a federal judge decided that the poor fellow had already "suffered enough". 

This from an administration that promotes the death penalty even beheading For marijuana dealers.* 

* On the Larry King Show in late 1989, then drug czar William Bennett, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2000, said he had no moral problems with beheading drug dealers -only legal ones. 

Chapter 15 

The Official Story 

Debunking "Gutter Science" 

After 15 days of taking testimony and more than a year's legal deliberation, DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young formally urged the DEA to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana. In a September 1988 judgement, he ruled: "The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision . . . It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record. In strict medical terms, marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." 

Yet former DEA Administrator John Lawn, his successor, Robert Bonner, and current DEA Administrator John Constantine - non-doctors all! - have refused to comply and have continued to deprive persons of medical cannabis, according to their own personal discretion. 

Wasting Time, Wasting Lives 

More than 100 years have passed since the 1894 British Raj commission study of hashish smokers in India reported cannabis use was harmless and even helpful. Numerous studies since have all agreed: The most prominent being Siler, LaGuardia, Nixon's Shafer Commission, Canada's LeDain Commission, and the California Research Advisory Commission. 

Concurrently, American presidents have praised hemp, the USDA amassed volumes of data showing its value as a natural resource, and in 1942 the Roosevelt administration even made Hemp for Victory, a film glorifying our patriotic hemp farmers. That same year, Germany produced The Humorous Hemp Primer, a comic book, written in rhyme, extolling hemp's virtues. (See appendix I of the paper version of this book.) 

Yet even the humane use of hemp for medicine is now denied. Asked in late 1989 about the DEA's failure to implement his decision quoted above, Judge Young responded that administrator John Lawn was being given time to comply. 

More than a year after that ruling, Lawn officially refused to reschedule cannabis, again classing it as a Schedule I "dangerous" drug that is not even allowed to be used as medicine. 

Decrying this needless suffering of helpless Americans, the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (N.O.R.M.L) and the Family Council on Drug Awareness quickly demanded Lawn's resignation. His successors, Bonner, and now Constantine, retain the same policy. 

What hypocrisy allows public officials to scoff at the facts and deny the truth? How do they rationalize their atrocities? How? They invent their own experts. 

Government Doublespeak 

Since 1976, our federal government (e.g., NIDA, NIH, DEA*, and Action), police sponsored groups (like DARE*), and special interest groups (like PDFA*) have proclaimed to public, press, and parent groups alike that they have "absolute evidence" of the shocking negative effects of marijuana smoking. 

*National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Drug Enforcement Agency, Drug Abuse Resistance Education, Partnership for a Drug Free America. All subsequent researchers found Heath's marijuana findings to be of no value, because carbon monoxide poisoning and other factors were totally left out. 

When U.S. government sponsored research prior to 1976 indicated that cannabis was harmless or beneficial, the methodology of how each study was done was always presented in detail in the reports; e.g., read The Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana (1976) and you will see exactly what the methodology of each medical study was. 

However, when our government bureaucrats deliberately sponsored negative marijuana research, time and time again Playboy magazine, NORML, High Times, etc. had to sue under the new Freedom of Information Act to find out the actual laboratory methodology these "experiments" employed. 

What they found was shocking. 

Dr. Heath/Tulane Study, 1974 

The Hype: 

 Brain Damage and Dead Monkeys 

In 1974, California Governor Ronald Reagan was asked about decriminalizing marijuana. 

After producing the Heath/Tulane University study, the so-called "Great Communicator" proclaimed, "The most reliable scientific sources say permanent brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the use of marijuana." (L.A. Times) 

The report from Dr. Heath had concluded that Rhesus monkeys, smoking the equivalent of only 30 joints a day, began to atrophy and die after 90 days. 

And ever since, dead brain cells found in monkeys who were forced to smoke marijuana has been given maximum scare play in federal booklets and government sponsored propaganda literature against pot. 

Senator Eastland of Mississippi used it throughout the mid-1970's to horrify and stop national legislators from supporting N.O.R.M.L's decriminalization bills in Congress, mostly sponsored by the late Senator Jacob Javitts of New York. 

Reports of the study have also been distributed by the hierarchy of drug rehabilitation professionals as part of their rationalization for wanting to get kids off pot, based on supposed scientific studies. It is used to terrorize parent groups, church organizations, etc., who redistribute it still further. 

Heath killed the half-dead monkeys, opened their brains, counted the dead brain cells, and then took control monkeys, who hadn't smoked marijuana, killed them too, and counted their brain cells. The pot smoking monkeys had enormous amounts of dead brain cells as compared to the "straight" monkeys. 

Ronald Reagan's pronouncement was probably based on the fact that marijuana smoking was the only difference in the two sets of monkeys. Perhaps Reagan trusted the federal research to be real and correct. Perhaps he had other motives. 

Whatever their reasons, this is what the government ballyhooed to press and PTA, who trusted the government completely. 

In 1980, Playboy and N.O.R.M.L finally received for the first time after six years of requests and suing the government an accurate accounting of the research procedures used in the infamous report: 

When N.O.R.M.L/Playboy hired researchers to examine the reported results against the actual methodology, they laughed. 

The Facts: 

Suffocation of Research Animals 

As reported in Playboy, the Heath "Voodoo" Research methodology involved strapping Rhesus monkeys into a chair and pumping them with equivalent of 63 Colombian strength joints in "five minutes, through gas masks," losing no smoke. Playboy discovered that Heath had administered 63 joints in five minutes over just three months instead of administering 30 joints per day over a one-year period as he had first reported. Heath did this, it turned out, in order to avoid having to pay an assistant's wages every day for a full year. 

The monkeys were suffocating! Three to five minutes of oxygen deprivation causes brain damage"dead brain cells." (Red Cross Lifesaving and Water Safety Manual) With the concentration of smoke used, the monkeys were a bit like a person running the engine of a car in a locked garage for 5, 10, 15 minutes at a time every day! 

The Heath Monkey study was actually a study in animal asphyxiation and carbon monoxide poisoning. 

Among other things, Heath had completely (intentionally? incompetently?) omitted discussion of the carbon monoxide the monkeys inhaled. 

Carbon monoxide, a deadly gas that kills brain cells, is given off by any burning object. At that smoke concentration, the monkeys were, in effect, like a person locked in a garage with the car engine left running for five, 10, 15 minutes at a time every day! 

All subsequent researchers agree the findings in Heath's experiment regarding marijuana were of no value, because carbon monoxide poisoning and other factors were totally left out and had not been considered in the report. This study and others, like Dr. Gabriel Nahas' 1970s studies, tried to somehow connect the THC metabolites routinely found in the fatty tissue of human brains, reproductive organs, and other fatty areas of the body to the dead brain cells in the suffocated monkeys. 

Now, in 1999, 17 years have passed and not a single word of Dr. Heath's or Dr. Nahas' research has been verified! But their studies are still hauled out by the Partnership for a Drug Free America, the Drug Enforcement Administration, city and state narcotics bureaus, plus politicians and, in virtually all public instances, held up as scientific proof of the dangers of marijuana. 

This is U.S. government propaganda and disinformation at its worst! The public paid for these studies and has the right to the correct information and history being taught in our taxpayer sponsored schools. 

In 1996, Gabriel Nahas, in France, sued Mishka, the translator of the French edition of this book, "L'Emperor est Nu!", for damages. Mishka wrote that Nahas' studies were viewed by the world as garbage. The French court, upon hearing all the testimony by Nahas, and after Nahas had spent an quivalent of tens of thousands of American dollars on legal fees, awarded him its highest insult: one franc, the equivalent of approximately 15 cents American for damages, and no legal fees! 

Lingering THC Metabolites 

The Hype: 

It Stays in Your System for 30 Days 

The government also claimed that since "THC metabolites" stay in the body's fatty cells for up to 30 days after ingestion, just one joint was very dangerous; inferring that the long range view of what these THC metabolites eventually could do to the human race could not even be guessed and other pseudo scientific double-talk (e.g., phrases like: "might be," "could mean," "possibly," "perhaps," etc.)* 

* "May, might, could, and possibly are not scientific conclusions." Dr. Fred Oerther, M.D., September 1986. 

The Facts: 

Government's Own Experts Say That Metabolites Are Non-Toxic, 

Harmless Residue 

We interviewed three doctors of national reputation either currently working (or having worked) for the U.S. government on marijuana research: 

- Dr. Thomas Ungerlieder, M.D., UCLA, appointed by Richard Nixon in 1969 to the President's Select Committee on Marijuana, re-appointed by Ford, Carter, and Reagan, and currently head of California's "Marijuana Medical Program;" 

- Dr. Donald Tashkin, UCLA, M.D., for the last 29 years the U.S. government's and the world's leading marijuana researcher on pulmonary functions; and 

- Dr. Tod Mikuriya, M.D., former national administrator and grant distributor of the U.S. government's marijuana research programs in the late 1960's. 

In effect these doctors said that the active ingredients in THC are used-up in the first or second pass through the liver. The leftover THC metabolites then attach themselves, in a very normal way, to fatty deposits, for the body to dispose of later, which is a safe and perfectly natural process. 

Many chemicals from foods, herbs, and medicines do this same thing all the time in your body. Most are not dangerous and THC metabolites show less toxic* potential than virtually any known metabolic leftovers in your body! 

* The U.S. government has also known since 1946 that the oral dose of cannabis required to kill a mouse is about 40,000 times the dose required to produce typical symptoms of intoxication. (Mikuriya, Tod, Marijuana Medical Papers, 1976; Loewe, journal of Pharmacological and Experimental Therapeutics, October, 1946.) 

THC metabolites left in the body can be compared to the ash of a cigarette: The inert ingredient left over after the active cannabinoids have been metabolized by the body. These inert metabolites are what urinary analysis studies show when taken to discharge military or factory or athletic personnel for using, or being in the presence of cannabis within the last 30 days. 

Lung Damage Studies 

The Hype: 

More Harmful Than Tobacco 

According to the American Lung Association, cigarettes and tobacco smoking related diseases kill more than 430,000 Americans every year. Fifty million Americans smoke, and 3,000 teens start each day. The Berkeley carcinogenic tar studies of the late 1970s concluded that "marijuana is one-and-a-half times more carcinogenic than tobacco." 

The Fact: 

Not One Documented Case of Cancer 

There are lung irritants involved in any smoke. Cannabis smoke causes mild irritation to the large airways of the lungs. Symptoms disappear when smoking is discontinued. 

However, unlike tobacco smoke, cannabis smoke does not cause any changes in the small airways, the area where tobacco smoke causes long term and permanent damage. Additionally, a tobacco smoker will smoke 20 to 60 cigarettes a day, while a heavy marijuana smoker may smoke five to seven joints a day, even less when potent high-quality flower tops are available. 

While tens of millions of Americans smoke pot regularly, cannabis has never caused a known case of lung cancer as of December 1997, according to America's foremost lung expert, Dr. Donald Tashkin of UCLA. He considers the biggest health risk to the lungs would be a person smoking 16 or more "large" spliffs a day of leaf/bud because of the hypoxia of too much smoke and not enough oxygen. 

Tashkin feels there is no danger for anyone to worry about potentiating emphysema "in any way" by the use of marijuana totally the opposite of tobacco. 

Cannabis is a complex, highly evolved plant. There are some 400 compounds in its smoke. Of these, 60 are presently known to have therapeutic value. 

Cannabis may also be eaten, entirely avoiding the irritating effects of smoke. However, four times more of the active ingredients of smoked cannabis are absorbed by the human body than when the same amount is eaten. And the prohibition inflated price of black market cannabis, combined with harsh penalties for cultivation, prevent most persons from being able to afford the luxury of a less efficient, though healthier, means of ingestion. 

Lab Studies Fail to 

Reflect the Real World 

Studies have proven that many of the carcinogens in cannabis can be removed by using a water pipe system. Our government omitted this information and its significance when speaking to the press. At the same time politicians outlawed the sale of water pipes, labeling them "drug paraphernalia." 

How Rumors Get Started 

In 1976, Dr. Tashkin, M.D., UCLA, sent a written report to Dr. Gabriel Nahas at the Rheims, France, Conference on "Potential Cannabis Medical Dangers". That report became the most sensationalized story to come out of this negative world conference on cannabis. 

This surprised Tashkin, who had sent the report to the Rheims conference as an afterthought. 

What Tashkin reported to the Rheims conference was that only one of the 29 pulmonary areas of the human lung studied the large air passageway Did he find marijuana to be more of an irritant (by 15 times) than tobacco. This figure is insignificant, however, since Tashkin also notes that tobacco has almost no effect on this area. Therefore, 15 times almost nothing is still almost nothing. in any event, cannabis has a positive or neutral effect in most other areas of the lung. (See chapter 7, "Therapeutic Uses of Cannabis.") 

(Tashkin, Dr. Donald, UCLA studies, 1969-83; UCLA Pulmonary Studies, 1969-95.) 

Afterwards in 1977, the U.S. government resumed funding for ongoing cannabis pulmonary studies which it had cut two years earlier when Tashkin reported encouraging therapeutic results with marijuana/lung studies. But now the government limited funding only to research to the large air passageway. 

We have interviewed Dr. Tashkin dozens of times. In 1986 I asked him about an article he was preparing for the New England Journal of Medicine, indicating that cannabis smoke caused as many or more pre-cancerous lesions as tobacco in "equal" amounts. 

Most people do not realize, nor are the media told, that any tissue abnormality (abrasion, eruption, or even redness) is called a pre-cancerous lesion. Unlike lesions caused by tobacco, the THC-related lesions contain no radioactivity. 

We asked Tashkin how many persons had gone on to get lung cancer in these or any other studies of long-term cannabis-only smokers (Rastas, Coptics, etc.) 

Sitting in his UCLA laboratory, Dr. Tashkin looked at me and said, "That's the strange part. So far no one we've studied has gone on to get lung cancer." 

"Was this reported to the press?" 

"Well, it's in the article," Dr. Tashkin said. "But no one in the press even asked. They just assumed the worst." His answer to us was still that not one single case of lung cancer in someone who only smoked cannabis, has ever been reported. It should be remembered that he and other doctors had predicted 20 years ago, their certainty that hundreds of thousands of marijuana smokers would by now (1997) have developed lung cancer. 

Another Fact: 

Emphysema Suffers Benefit 

During a later interview, Tashkin congratulated me on the tip I'd given him that marijuana used for emphysema produced good results among persons we knew. 

He laughed at me originally, because he had presumed that marijuana aggravated emphysema, but after reviewing his evidence found that, except in the rarest of cases, marijuana was actually of great benefit to emphysema suffers due to the opening and dilation of the bronchial passages. 

And so the relief reported to us by cannabis smoking emphysema patients was confirmed. 

Marijuana smoke is not unique in its benefits to the lungs. Yerba Santa, Colt's foot, Horehound, and other herbs have traditionally been smoked to help the lungs. 

Tobacco and its associated dangers have so prejudiced persons against "smoking" that most persons believe cannabis smoking to be as or more dangerous than tobacco. With research banned, these public health and safety facts are not readily available. 

In December 1997, we asked Dr. Tashkin again, and he unequivocally stated that "marijuana does not cause or potentiate emphysema in any way." In addition, there has not been one case of lung cancer ever attributed to smoking cannabis. . . . 

And So On 

Most of the anti-marijuana literature we have examined does not cite as much as one single source for us to review. Others only refer to DEA or NIDA. The few studies we have been able to track down usually end up being anecdotal case histories, artificial groupings of data, or otherwise lacking controls and never replicated. 

Reports of breast enlargement, obesity, addiction, and the like all remain unsubstantiated, and are given little credence by the scientific community. Other reports, like the temporary reduction in sperm count, are statistically insignificant to the general public, yet get blown far out of proportion when presented by the media. Still others, like the handful of throat tumors in the Sacramento area and the high rate of injuries reported in a Baltimore trauma unit are isolated clusters that run contrary to all other statistics and have never been replicated. 

The spurious results of Heath, Nahas, and the pregnant mice and monkey studies at Temple University and UC Davis (where they injected mice with synthetic third-cousin analogues of THC) are now discredited in the body of scientific and medical literature. 

Though these studies are not used in scientific discourse, mountains of DEA and pharmaceutical company-sponsored literature about the long-term possible effects of these metabolites on the brain and reproduction still goes to parent groups as if they were brand new studies. This disinformation is still very much alive in U.S. government, DEA, DARE, and PDFA reports. 

(Read the 1982 N.I.H.; the National Academy of Science's evaluation on past studies; and the Costa Rica report, 1980.) No Harm to Human Brain or Intelligence Hemp has been used in virtually all societies since time immemorial as a work motivator and to highlight and renew creative energies. 

Naha's Prescription for 

Bloated Police Budgets 

Incredibly, a famous study which found that cannabis reduces tumors (see Chapter 7), was originally ordered by the Federal Government on the premise that pot would hurt the immune system. This was based on the "Reefer Madness" studies done by the disreputable Dr. Gabriel Nahas of Columbia University in 1972. 

This is the same Dr. Nahas who claimed his studies showed pot created chromosome, testosterone (male hormone) damage, and countless other horrible effects which suggested the breaking down of the immune system. Nahas' background is in the O.S.S/CIA and later the U.S. where he worked closely with Lyndon LaRouche and Kurt Waldheim. 

In 1998, Nahas is still the darling favorite of the DEA and NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) yet no anti-marijuana studies of Nahas' have every been replicated in countless other research attempts. Columbia University specifically disassociated itself from Nahas' marijuana research in a specially called press conference in 1975! 

Old, discredited Nahas studies are still trotted out by the Drug Enforcement Administration today, and deliberately given to unknowledgeable parents' groups, churches, and PTAs as valid research regarding the evils of pot. 

The dissemination of Nahas'* dangerous horror stories is paid for with your tax dollars, even years after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1976 specifically forbade Nahas from getting another penny of U.S. government money for cannabis studies because of his embarrassing research in the early 1970's. 

* Nahas, in December 1983, under ridicule from his peers and a funding cut-off from NIDA renounced all his old THC metabolite build-up and unique chromosome petri dish tissue damage studies, conclusions, and extrapolations. 

Yet the DEA, NIDA, VISTA, the "War on Drugs," and now-deceased writer Peggy Mann (in Reader's Digest articles and her book Marijuana Alert, with foreword by Nancy Reagan) have used these discredited studies on parents' groups such as Parents for a Drug Free Youth, etc., often with Nahas as a highly paid guest lecturer, without a word of how his studies are really considered by his peers. 

This, we assume, is done to scare parents, teachers, legislators and judges, using scientific terminology and bogus non-clinical statistics, ultimately aimed at selling more urine-testing equipment. Therefore, more profits are created for the drug-rehabilitation clinics and their staffs of professionals; and to maintain funding for the DEA, local police, judicial, penal, corrections and other government pork barrel, police state interests. 

The "War on Drugs" is big money, so the shameless petitioning for more police and more jail cells continues. And we still have thousands of judges, legislators, police, Reader's Digest readers, and parents who have for years used and cited Nahas' studies in particular as the prime reasons to continue these unjust laws and to jail millions of Americans over the last decade. 

The DEA, after Nahas' 1983 waffling renouncement, consciously and criminally continues to use his studies to polarize ignorant judges, politicians, press, and parent groups, who are unaware of Nahas' denouncement. These groups trust the government to tell them the truth their tax dollars paid for. Most of the media, press, and television commentators still use Nahas' 1970's, unreplicated studies as gospel, and much of the frightening folklore and street myths that are whispered around school yards spring from the deceitful "scientist's" work. 

Refuted and never replicated results are still taught, while the honest researcher faces prison if he attempts to test any thoughts about the medical use of cannabis. 

In fact, using Nahas' refuted and unreplicated synthetic THC petri dish studies on the immune system, hysterical Families for Drug Free Youth, or "Just Say No" organizations have gotten the press to say marijuana could cause AIDS - which has no basis whatsoever, but the press published all this rhetoric creating more Reefer Madness! 

Gabriel Nahas, in 1998, is living in Paris and goes around Europe teaching as gospel the same old lies to less informed Europeans. When asked to debate us (H.E.M.P.) on cannabis before the world press on June 18, 1993 in Paris, he first enthusiastically accepted until he found out that we would be speaking on all aspects of the hemp plant (e.g. paper, fiber, fuel, medicine). Then he declined, even though we met all of his requirements. 

Radioactive Tobacco: The Untold Story 

Tobacco smoking kills more persons each year than AIDS, heroin, crack, cocaine, alcohol, car accidents, fire, and murder combined. Cigarette smoking is as addictive as heroin, complete with withdrawal symptoms, and the percentage of relapses (75%) is the same as for "kicking" cocaine and heroin users. 

It is far and away the number one cause of preventable death in the U.S. today. Tobacco smokers have ten times the lung cancer of non-smokers, twice the heart disease, and are three times more likely to die of heart disease if they do develop it. Yet tobacco is totally legal, and even receives the highest U.S. government farm subsidies of any agricultural product in America, all the while being our biggest killer! What total hypocrisy! 

In the U.S. one in seven deaths are caused by smoking cigarettes. Women should know that lung cancer is more common than breast cancer in women who smoke and that smoking on the pill increases cancer and heart risks dramatically. 

Seven million dollars a day promotes the tobacco business, and it is estimated that the cigarette industry needs about 3,000 new smokers a day to replace those who quit or die each day from smoking. 

Kentucky's principal business and agriculture for 100 years (until 1890) was  the healthful, versatile, and useful cannabis hemp. It has since been replaced by non-edible, non-fibrous, soil-depleting tobacco, which is grown in soil fertilized with radioactive materials. 

U.S. government studies have show that a pack-and-a-half of tobacco cigarettes per day over a year for just one year is the equivalent to your lungs of what some 300 chest x-rays (using the old, pre-1980s slow x-ray film and without using any lead protection) are to your skin. But while an x-ray dissipates its radioactivity instantly, tobacco has a radioactive half-life that will remain active in the lungs for 21.5 years. 

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said on national television that radioactivity contained in tobacco leaves is probably responsible for most tobacco-related cancer. No radioactivity exists in cannabis tars. 

(National Center for Atmospheric Research, 1964; American Lung Assn.; Dr. Joseph R. DiFranza, U. of Mass. Medical Center; Reader's Digest, March 1986; Surg. Gen. C. Everett Koop, 1990.) 

Some Studies the Feds 

Don't Talk About 

The Coptic Study (1981) 

No Harm to Human 

Brain or Intelligence 

Hemp has been used in virtually all societies since time immemorial as a work motivator and to highlight and renew creative energies. 

(Jamaican study; Coptic study; Costa Rican study; Vedas; Dr. Vera Rubin, Research Institute for the Study of Man; et al) 

In 1981, a study showed that 10 of American's heaviest pot smokers (from the Coptic religion and residing in Florida) actually believed that using 16 huge high potency spliffs* a day had improved their minds somewhat over a period of 10 years. 

They were studied by Drs. Ungerlieder and Shaeffer (UCLA) and who showed absolutely no brain differences between them and non-smokers nor did it confirm any increase in IQ that the Coptics had claimed. 

*One spliff is generally equal to five average American joints. 

Longer Life, Fewer Wrinkles 

Most studies (matched populations, past and present) indicate that everything else being equal an average American pot smoker will live longer than his counterpart who does no drugs at all; with fewer wrinkles, and generally less stress thereby having fewer illnesses to upset the immune system, and being a more peaceful neighbor. 

(Costa Rican and Jamaican Studies) 

Jamaican Studies 

(1968-74, 1975) 

Definite Benefits For 

Marijuana Smokers 

The most exhaustive study of hemp smoking in its natural setting is probably Ganja in Jamaica A Medical Anthropological Study of Chronic Marijuana Use by Vera Rubin and Lambros Comitas (1975; Mouton & Co., The Hague, Paris/Anchor Books, NY). 

The Jamaican study, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Center for Studies of Narcotic and Drug Abuse, was the first project in medical anthropology to be undertaken and is the first intensive, multidisciplinary study of marijuana use and users to be published. 

From the Jamaican Study introduction: "Despite its illegality, ganja use is pervasive, and duration and frequency are very high; it is smoked over a longer period in heavier quantities with greater THC potency than in the U.S. without deleterious social or psychological consequences. The major difference is that both use and expected behaviors are culturally conditioned and controlled by well established tradition." "No impairment of physiological, sensory and perceptual-motor performance, tests of concept formation, abstracting ability, and cognitive style and test of memory." 

Positive Social Attitudes 

The study outlines the positive reinforcement given socially to ganja smokers in Jamaica, the universal praise for the practice among users, who smoke it as a work motivator. 

Subjects described the effects of smoking making them "brainier", lively, merry, more responsible and conscious. They reported it was good for meditation and concentration, and created an general sense of well-being and self-assertiveness. 

No Link to Criminal Behavior 

Vera Rubin and her colleagues found no relation of cannabis to crime (except marijuana busts), no impairment of motor skills, and smokers and nonsmokers alike had identical extroversion scores with no difference in work records or adjustment. Heavy use of ganja was not found to curtail the motivation to work. 

From the psychological assessment the smokers seemed to be more open in their expressions of feeling, somewhat more carefree, and somewhat more dis-tractable. There was no evidence of organic brain damage or schizophrenia. 

No Physiological Deterioration 

Marilyn Bowman, in a battery of psychological tests on chronic cannabis users in Jamaica in 1972, found "no impairment of physiological, sensory and perceptual-motor performance, tests of concept formation, abstracting ability and cognitive style and tests of memory." These Jamaicans had smoked anywhere from six to 31 years (16.6 mean average) and the average age at the first puff was at 12 years and six months. 

In the 1975 study between users and non-users, no difference was found in plasma testosterone, no difference in total nutrition, slightly higher performance on the intelligence sub-tests (not statistically significant), and "a basic measure of cell-mediated immunity  was no less vigorous in the users" 

Finally, "Users in our matched pair sample smoked marijuana in addition to as many tobacco cigarettes as did their partners. Yet their airways were, if anything, a bit healthier than their matches. 

"We must tentatively conclude either that marijuana has no harmful effects on such passages or that it actually offers some slight protection against the harmful effects of tobacco smoke. Only further research will clarify which, if either, is the case." 

No "Stepping Stone"/Gateway Effect 

As to the stepping-stone or gateway drug charges leveled against cannabis: "The use of hard drugs is as yet virtually unknown among working class Jamaicans no one in the study (Rubin's) had ever taken any narcotics, stimulants, hallucinogens, barbiturates or sleeping pills" 

In America during the late 1800's cannabis was used in treating addiction. Opiate, chloral hydrate, and alcohol addicts were successfully treated with potent cannabis extracts. Some patients recovered with less than a dozen doses of cannabis extract.1 Likewise, smoking cannabis has been found to be valuable in modern alcohol addiction treatment.2 

Costa Rican Study (1980) 

The Jamaican results were largely confirmed by another Carribean study, the 1980 Cannabis in Costa Ricah - A Study in Chronic Marijuana Use edited by William Carter for the Institute for Study of Human Issues. (ISHI, 3401 Science Center, Philadelphia.) 

Again researchers found no palpable damage to the native population's chronic cannabis smokers. Alcoholic social problems, so evident on neighboring cannabis-free islands, are not found in Costa Rica. 

This study makes clear that socially approved ganja use will largely replace or mitigate the use of alcohol (rum) if available. 

The Amsterdam Model 

Since adopting a policy of tolerance and non-prosecution of cannabis/hashish smokers (it is available in cafes and bars) and rehabilitation and diversion programs for hard drug users, Holland has seen a substantial reduction in cannabis consumption among teenagers and a 33% drop in the number of heroin addicts. The strategy of separating cannabis sales from hard drug dealers by bringing pot above-ground has been quite successful. (L.A. Times, August 1989). In 1998, despite constant pressure from the U.S. government and the DEA, the Dutch government has totally refused to re-criminalize marijuana! 

More Prohibitionist Deceptions 

Scientific American reported in 1990: "The alarming statistics, cited by testing advocates, to demonstrate the high costs of drug abuse . . . do not always accurately reflect the research on which they are based. In fact, some of the data could be used to 'prove' that drug use has negligible or even beneficial effects." (March 1990, page 18) 

One of the examples given is the often cited statistic former president George Bush utlized in 1989: "Drug abuse among American workers costs businesses anywhere from $60 billion to $100 billion a year in lost productivity, absenteeism, drug-related accidents, medical claims and theft." Yet according to a 1989 assessment by NIDA, all such claims derive from a single study that grew out of a 1982 survey of 3,700 households. 

The Research Triangle Institute (RTI) found that households where at least one person admitted having used marijuana regularly reported average incomes 28 percent lower than average reported income of otherwise similar households. RTI researchers ascribed the income difference to "loss due to marijuana use." 

RTI then extrapolated costs of crime, health problems and accidents to arrive at a "cost to society of drug abuse" of $47 billion. The White House "adjusted" for inflation and population increases to provide the basis for Bush's statement. 

Yet the RTI survey also included questions about current drug use. The answers revealed no significant difference between income levels of households with current users of illegal drugs, including cocaine and heroin, and other households. 

Thus the same statistics "prove" that current use of hard drugs does not result in any "loss," in contrast to a single marijuana binge in the distant past! 

Official Corruption: Carlton Turner 

In all the research this author has done about the misapplication of public funds and trusts, nothing, it seems, compares with the either totally ignorant or willful manslaughter of fellow Americans by the bureaucrats and politicians of the following story: 

One Man & His Drug Scams 

The U.S. government policy, starting in the Nixon and Ford administrations and continuing under Carlton Turner* (Drug Czar under Reagan 1981-1986), allowed federal medical marijuana, supplied to the individual state marijuana medical programs, to consist only of the leaf of the marijuana plant, even though it's usually only one-third as strong as the bud and doesn't contain the same whole spectrum of the "crude drug," i.e. the THC and CBNs. 

* Prior to becoming Special White Hose Adviser (read: National Drug Czar) Carlton Turner, from 1971 to 1980, was the head of all U.S. government marijuana grown for drugs by reason of his position at the University of Mississippi. The U. of Mississippi Marijuana Research Program is directed by state charter to discover initiate or sort out the constituents of Thc a "simple" crude cannabis drug that works as a medicine then synthesize the substances with beneficial medicinal properties to attain their full potential for pharmaceutical companies. 

For example, the leaf's relief of ocular pressure for glaucoma patients is much shorter lasting and therefore unsatisfactory, compared to the bud. Also, the leaf sometimes gives smokers a headache. The federal government until 1986 used only the leaf. Turner said to the pharmaceutical companies and in interview, that leaf is all Americans would ever get although the bud works better. Still today in 1999, the seven legal marijuana users in the U.S. only get leaf, branch, and bud chopped up and rolled together. Although buds work better for chemotherapy, glaucoma, etc., the branches can be as toxic as smoking wood. 

Turner said, in 1986, that natural marijuana will "never" be given as a medicine and, as of April 1998, it still hasn't. (Except in California, where citizens successfully voted, in November 1996, to overrule the federal government on medical marijuana!) 

The Reasons Given: 

- Buds are too hard to roll through a cigarette machine. (Forget the 25 million Americans who do quite well at rolling bud everyday.) 

- By extracting compounds from the "crude drug" of the bud, there would be no pharmaceutical patents, therefore no profits. Therefore, his program would have worked against his former employers, the Mississippi University's legislative charter and funding. 

(Interviews by Ed Rosenthal for High Times Magazine; Dean Latimer, et al; National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.) 

Although buds work better for chemotherapy, glaucoma, etc., Turner said they will "never" be given. It also became evident the famous marijuana 'munchies' (appetite stimulation) were not working for the cancer chemotherapy patients using federal leaf. 

And even though no studies have been allowed to compare leaf with bud, we know of doctors who unofficially recommended bud and watch their wasting cancer patients put on weight (NORML). 

Poisoning Pot Smokers 

In August and September, 1983, Turner went on national television to justify the illegal marijuana spraying (by plane) of paraquat in Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee by the DEA. He said it would teach a lesson to any kid who died from paraquat-poisoned pot. Turner was forced to resign after announcing his conclusions in public that marijuana caused homosexuality, the breakdown of the immune system, and, therefore, AIDS. 

Looking into the therapeutic potential of cannabis is the most controlled and discouraged research, but any tests pursuing negative or harmful effects of cannabis are promoted. Since these tests often backfire or are inconclusive, even this research is rare. 

Turner quoted "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" to show how jazz (rock) singers are eroding the America "he" loves with this hallucinogenic drug marijuana! Which he meant to stamp out. 

Phony Paraquat Kits 

During the 1978 Mexican marijuana paraquat scare, and while still a private citizen working for the state of Mississippi marijuana farm, this same Carlton Turner called High Times magazine to advertise a paraquat tester. Unknown to Turner, High Times was not accepting ads for any paraquat testers because all evidence showed the testers didn't work. 

Dean Latimer then a High Times associate editor, strung Turner along in virtually daily phone conversations for a month, listening to Turner talk about how much money Turner was going to make from sales of the device. 

High Times wanted to see a sample. When Turner delivered his prototype version of the paraquat test kit to High Times, it was a total "Rube Goldberg" type rip-off, "just like the dozen or so phony kits other companies tried to buy ad space for at this time," wrote Latimer in an article published in 1984. Turner apparently never thought High Times was ethical enough to check the contraption out. He assumed they would just take the ad money and run print the ad and make Turner rich. 

He didn't care if some kid died or was bilked out of money believing in his bogus paraquat test kit. 

After this attempted mail fraud, this man became President Reagan's national drug czar in 1981, recommended by George Bush and Nancy Reagan. 

A Wanton Disregard For Life 

Turner even said that he doesn't even care if hundreds of kids die from smoking pot the federal government has deliberately sprayed with paraquat. 

Then at the April 25, 1985, PRIDE conference in Atlanta, Georgia, with Nancy Reagan and 16 foreign First Ladies in attendance (including Imelda Marcos), Turner called for the death penalty for drug dealers. 

Turner was, after all, Reagan's, Bush's, and the pharmaceutical companies' own hired gun, who saw his entire mission as not against heroin, PCP, or cocaine, but to wipe out pot and jazz/rock music 

Carlton Turner was forced to resign after Newsweek magazine excoriated him October 27, 1986, in a large editorial sidebar. His resignation was a foregone conclusion after being lampooned in the Washington Post and elsewhere as no other public figure in recent memory for his conclusions (in public addresses) that marijuana smoking caused homosexuality, the breakdown of the immune system, and, therefore, AIDS. 

He resigned December 16, 1986. What should have been front page headline news was buried in the back pages during the Iran-contra scandal that exploded that week. 

Urine Testing Company 

After his resignation, Turner joined with Robert DuPont and former head of NIDA, Peter Bensinger, to corner the market on urine testing. They contracted as advisers to 250 of the largest corporations to develop drug diversion, detection, and urine testing programs. 

Soon after Turner left office, Nancy Reagan recommended that no corporation be permitted to do business with the Federal government without having a urine purity policy in place to show their loyalty. 

Just as G. Gordon Liddy went into high-tech corporate security after his disgrace, Carlton Turner became a rich man in what has now become a huge growth industry: urine-testing. 

This kind of business denies the basic rights of privacy, self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment) rights, unreasonable search and seizure, and the presumption of innocence (until proven guilty). 

Submission to the humiliation of having your most private body parts and functions observed by a hired voyeur is now the test of eligibility for private employment, or to contract for a living wage. 

Turner's new money-making scheme demands that all other Americans relinquish their fundamental right to privacy and self-respect. 

Bush Strikes Again 

President Ronald Reagan, at the urging of then Vice President George Bush, appointed Carlton Turner as the White House Drug (czar) Advisor in 1981. 

At conventions (1981-1986) of pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyist the American Chemical Manufacturers, Turner promised to continue the research ban on the 400 chemical compounds of cannabis. 

Bush managed to continue to direct this effort, simply by not allowing any grants for private or public research with a positive implication to be issued by NIDA or NIH, or approved any recent FDA applications unless they pursued negative results. As of this writing (July 1998) President Clinton's policy has remained the same. 

Comparison to Alcohol 

There are many terrible drug habits. The worst of which is alcohol, in both numbers of users and the anti-social behavior associated with extreme use. Alcoholism is the leading cause of teen-age deaths: 8,000 American teenagers are killed each year and 40,000 are maimed from mixing alcohol and driving. (MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving; SADD, Students Against Drunk Driving; NIDA, National Institute on Drug Abuse, etc.) 

In fact, U.S. government/police statistics confirm the following strange numbers: 

The mortality figure for alcohol use are 100,000 annually, compared with zero marijuana deaths in 10,000 years of consumption. 

From 40-50% of all murders and highway fatalities are alcohol related. In fact, highway fatalities that are alcohol related might be as high as 90%, according to the Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times. 

Alcohol is also indicated in the majority (69-80%) of all child rape/incest cases; wife beating incidents are in great majority (60-80%) alcohol influenced. 

Heroin is indicated in 35% of burglaries, robberies, armed robberies, bank robberies, grand theft auto, etc. 

And there were more than 600,000 arrests for simple marijuana possession in the U.S. in 1997 (up from 400,000 in 1992), according to the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

next

The Emperor's New Clothes