Last night, Feb 25, 2009, in an auspicious moment twenty-five minutes into a press conference mainly about the Mexico drug wars crisis, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was asked:
Reporter: “Shortly after the inauguration there were raids on California medical marijuana dispensaries…do you expect these to continue?”, noting that the President had promised to end the raids in the campaign.
A.G.Holder: “No…What the President said during the campaign…is consistent with what we will be doing here in law enforcement. He was my boss in the campaign….He is my boss now. What he said in the campaign is now American policy.”
I will be following this developing story and will update this post when video becomes available. Meanwhile, bask in the New Federalism of President Barack Obama – a Taoist President just when we needed one!
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
-Henry David Thoreau
Wow, CNN’s American Morning just did a fairly balanced segment on the chaos in Mexico, which is descending into real civil war, with “100 beheadings of Police Chiefs” who dared to battle the narco-traffickers. CNN even had a brief statement from Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, a long time rational voice for harm reduction policies for all drug issues. Ron Paul appears, calling for outright legalization. CNN has a video report, “Drug Violence Crosses Border” that outlines the spillover of violence into the U.S. Here are a few newspaper headlines and You Tube videos following the carnage this month:
Headline: Feb 23, 2009 – Mexico: On the Border, a Crisis Escalates – This USA Today report is heart-wrenching with personal tragedy and dire predictions for the future, as 30% unemployment in Mexico threatens to swell the ranks of criminal organizations perpetrating unimaginable horrors – gangs that already have a presence in at least 230 cities across America, according to a Justice department report. The U.S. State Department has issued travel alerts for Mexico’s border areas and other tourist destinations.Drug Shootout in Mexico
Feb 23, 2009 – OPED: The War on Drugs is a Failure – In this important guest editorial in the Wall Street Journal, three former Presidents of Central and South American countries call on the Obama administration to rethink the modern prohibition – a catastrophe of epic proportions for the citizens of their countries. Fernando Henrique Cardoso (former President of Brazil), CeSar Gaviria (former President of Colombia) and Ernesto Zedillo (former President of Mexico).
LEAP consists of law enforcement personal, judges, DAs, lawyers and others who feel that the current “War on Drugs” is a total failure - only a repeat of the notoriously ineffective alcohol prohibition of the last century. In this video, a former federal agent with 30 years of experience on the front lines of the drug war testifies before the El Paso City Council last month.Former Fed says Let’s Legalize Drugs
Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil –only evil– and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs.
- Roger Q. Mills of Texas from an 1887 speech
Still reeling from the sight of Olympian Michael Phelps partaking of a plant steeped in their own cultural traditions, modern Earthlings – from Japan to British Columbia, Jamaica to Quincy, Mass - are grappling with taboos and prohibitions of the most popular, relatively benign (even medicinal) plant on the planet.
Headline: Feb 4, 2009 – Japan: Editorial: Marijuana Use Spreading – Gird you loins, sports fans - “incipient cannabis pollution” has claimed another revered athlete. Sumo wrestler Wakakirin was expelled from the ancient sport in his native Japan – where Shinto priests employ Cannabis hemp wands to bless everything from marriages to buildings – check it all out in Jack Herer’s “Emporer Wears No Clothes”. In the meantime, here is Wakakirin practicing his craft:Bloodfest-Wakakirin -Asahimaru
The article also mentions several Russian Sumo wrestlers busted for pot last year. As these guys obviously need a hearty appetite to excel at Sumo, their preference for Cannabis is not surprising. Skinny snowboarders must like it for some other reason. Many athletes probably like the smooth muscle relaxation; extra oxygen from dilated blood vessels (reason for red eyes); non-narcotic relief from aches and pains; and other side-effects of Cannabis use. Speaking of medical:
Headline: Feb 2, 2009 – Canada – BC Supreme Court Rules in Favour of Medical Marijuana – A federal judge in British Columbia has ruled the government’s monopoly on growing medical Cannabis to be unconstitutional and has given Ottawa a year to incorporate compassion clubs and other private growers into Health Canada’s medical marijuana program. Health Canada grows it’s Cannabis in an abandoned mineshaft and the medicine has a reputation for contamination, low potency and high price, with few takers among patients in the program. So, others have stepped into the breech.
Headline: Feb 9, 2009 – Storm Over the Sun’s ‘Jamaica Druggies’ Slur- When Amy Winehouse went to Jamaica to record a new album, a British tabloid said the Caribbean island was “awash with drugs like crack cocaine and cannabis”.Jamaicans on both sides of the pond were irate – “You can buy drugs in the UK as easy as buying a loaf of bread. And after all, Amy did get hooked on drugs in this country!’
If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being a gift from God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
Samuel Adams, Father of the American Revolution.
And the phenomenal Olympian Michael Phelps, who awed the world and garnered a record setting eight gold medals for swimming like a porpoise at last summer’s Olympic Games, was photographed smoking a “bong” – admittedly filled with marijuana (Cannabis).
Speaking of super athletes who like Cannabis, check out Arnold Schwarzenegger, current Governor of California, smoking “weed” on his famous documentary “Pumping Iron“Gov. Schwarzenenegger Smokes Marijuana
Interestingly, there is a scientific basis for the use of Cannabis in working out and historical basis for efficacy of Cannabis in hard labor in general, as in the case of the plantation owners in Jamaica who saw to it that their slave workers in the sugarcane fields had enough good Ganja (Cannabis) to dilate their blood vessels - bringing the blood near the surface of the skin, cooling the body and enabling more working hours in the hot sun.
Also, the bronchial dilation action of Cannabis would be a boon to a swimmer, allowing more efficient oxygen-to-blood transfer and greater capacity for the lungs.
Surely, Michael Phelps doesn’t really believe that he did anything wrong (other than jeopardize his advertising contracts). Perhaps soon America will acknowledge the relative benignness and benefits of Cannabis.
“It really puzzles me to see Marijuana connected with narcotics – dope and all that crap…it’s a thousand times better than whiskey – it’s an assistant – a friend.” - Louis Armstrong
Last night, Feb 25, 2009, in an auspicious moment twenty-five minutes into a press conference mainly about the Mexico drug wars crisis, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was asked:
The first to break this story was “Radical Russ”, producer of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Law’s Daily Audio Stash. Here is his post that includes an audio excerpt of the press conference. http://stash.norml.org/attorney-general-eric-holder-ending-medical-marijuana-raids-now-american-policy/
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
Wow, 
Headline: Jan 18, 2009
LEAP
Students For Sensible Drug Policy
Headline: Feb 4, 2009
Headline: Feb 2, 2009
Headline: Feb 9, 2009
