Doctors claim Government failing to counteract ‘relentless pro-cannabis messaging’ in media

[Simple Jack]

Doctors claim Government failing to counteract ‘relentless pro-cannabis messaging’ in media

Group of top 21 doctors write letter arguing ‘avoidable misery’ is being caused by the drug – including record hospital admissions

The Government and HSE are failing to counteract “relentless pro-cannabis messaging” in the media with factual information about its harms, according to a group of specialist doctors.

The “huge amount of avoidable misery” being caused to thousands of people abusing the drug, including record numbers of hospital admissions, is being ignored, they say.

The group, which includes specialists in addiction, emergency medicine, psychiatry, neurology and general practice, describes the upcoming Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use as “an opportunity to move on from the endless conversation about legislation and to give renewed priority to the more important issues of prevention and treatment”.

Four years ago a broadly similar group of doctors claimed Ireland was “sleepwalking” into the legalisation of cannabis on the back of a campaign of misinformation about the drug.

In a fresh letter to The Irish Times, 21 doctors say the health problems arising from cannabis use “remain ignored”.

These include an estimated 22,000 people with cannabis dependence and record medical and psychiatric hospital admissions related to the drug – over 1,000 in 2020.

“In spite of the evidence of substantial and increasing harms, the public perception of the harms of cannabis has continued to decline. This in turn drives up use.”

Among under-25s, cannabis is a “bigger issue” than alcohol, according to the doctors, who say a comprehensive public health campaign is needed.

“While there is unrelenting pro-cannabis messaging on social and traditional media, there has been little attempt by Government or HSE to counter this with factual information,” the group says.

“As doctors, we are growing tired of seeing young lives, and the lives of their families, being derailed by the use of this drug. Cannabis problems are evident in every community, rural and urban, from the most affluent to the most deprived.”

The group includes two former presidents of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), a former president of the Royal College of Physicians and the head of the school of medicine at Trinity College Dublin.

GP and former IMO president Dr Ray Walley says he sees new cannabis patients on a “nearly weekly basis” and the age at which they present is reducing.

The State is abrogating its responsibilities to collect reliable data on the problem and medical bodies are “behind the curve” in speaking out on cannabis harms, he told The Irish Times.

“We are now where we were 50 years ago with cigarettes, or even worse off potentially.”

“This is not an in-your-face epidemic like heroin was in the 1980s,” according to addiction specialist Prof Bobby Smyth. “It’s an insipid, slow, background problem involving young people who are disintegrated in their houses.”

The Citizens’ Assembly, chaired by former HSE boss Paul Reid, is due to have its first meeting next weekend. It has already been challenged by a pro-cannabis group including three TDs who have questioned whether it is operating openly and transparently.

“We have grave concerns that this vital requirement is not being met,” according to an open letter from deputies Gino Kenny, Thomas Pringle, Violet-Anne Wynne, GP Dr Garrett McGovern, the Cannabis Industry Council Ireland and others involved in drugs policy and services. The group claims an advisory support group created to assist the Citizens’ Assembly was appointed in secret and at short notice.

The doctors in their letter cite data from the first years of legalisation of cannabis in the US and Canada showing public health problems have increased while the black market continues to operate.

“Road traffic accidents involving cannabis-impaired drivers are increasing. Emergency department attendances due to mental and physical effects of cannabis are also increasing. The adverse effects on young children from heavy parental cannabis use is a major concern.

“Cannabis use is associated with increased risk for psychosis, depression, anxiety and suicidal behaviours and worsens outcomes in those with mental disorders.”

Expressing support for the health diversion scheme introduced by Government last year they say no one should be locked up for “simple drug possession”.

Cannabis industry lobbyists in Ireland are “further skewing an already unbalanced public discourse”, they claim.

 

https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2023/04/11/doctors-claim-government-failing-to-counteract-relentless-pro-cannabis-messaging-in-media/

[wizzzard]

No mention of the harm alcohol does to society/individuals. I imagine that more A&E and hospital attendances are alcohol related than cannabis related. Same with road traffic accidents.

[catweazle1]

The doctors are the moderating influence in the tussle between us and the government. Our health is their priority, so it's not surprising they collectively hold the position they do. I personally see cannabis as an alternative route away from social and personal consumption of alcohol as the goto means to let go, sleep, or as a social lubricant etc.  What would happen is that cannabis would bring in some new problems.... but there'll be less spontaneous acts of agression in all its forms, the underpasses will smell less of piss, less social pathology overall I think. The way I'm seeing the trend is that our society is presently negotiating with itself about  possible applications for cannabis.

Edited April 13, 2023 by catweazle1

[Slippy One]

7 hours ago, Simple Jack said:

“huge amount of avoidable misery”

Oh the horrors!!

 

Bit late for April fools innit?

 

[twigs]

7 hours ago, Simple Jack said:

Group of top 21 doctors write letter arguing ‘avoidable misery’ is being caused by the drug – including record hospital admissions

 

  what no deaths? 

 

11,000,000 people will die this year from drinking alcohol and smoking fags, and the same will happen next year and the year after etc..

 

twats

 

 

[twigs]

6 hours ago, catweazle1 said:

The doctors are the moderating influence in the tussle between us and the government. Our health is their priority, so it's not surprising they collectively hold the position they do

 

even the ones that smoke weed ?  

 

from experience, dr’s are really quite partial to ‘drugs’  

 

 

[stu914]

Just now, twigs said:

11,000,000 people will die this year from drinking alcohol and smoking fags,

 

But that's OK, they've all paid the taxes on their deathly habits...

...as opposed to us who haven't... but then we're not prematurely dying of our habit either...

[Slippy One]

7 hours ago, Simple Jack said:

22,000 people with cannabis dependence and record medical and psychiatric hospital admissions related to the drug – over 1,000 in 2020.

22,000 that like to puff and chill. Over 1000 in 1 year?! That's only 2.7 stoners each day, or .000000018% of the population. I hear long covid from vaccines was .00034%.

 

7 hours ago, Simple Jack said:

“We are now where we were 50 years ago with cigarettes, or even worse off potentially.”

He's living in Harry Anslinger's time with this alarmist rhetoric, we now have vaping, edibles, skin creams, salves, seltzers...

 

7 hours ago, Simple Jack said:

“Cannabis use is associated with increased risk for psychosis, depression, anxiety and suicidal behaviours and worsens outcomes in those with mental disorders.”

Being harassed by dumb shit laws that don't work, under threat of fines and/or prison are the biggest causes of psychosis, depression, anxiety and suicidal behaviour..

 

[catweazle1]

7 minutes ago, twigs said:

 

even the ones that smoke weed ?  

 

from experience, dr’s are really quite partial to ‘drugs’  

 

 

So, that's beside the point, I was referring to their professional knowledge and the contribution they make to the discussion.

[twigs]

Just now, catweazle1 said:

So, that's beside the point, I was referring to their professional knowledge and the contribution they make to the discussion.

 

ooh hand bags

 

actually, my mum (who’s a nurse) says it’s not..  

 

because this is just one story of the two, the other isn’t being told, about the dr’s that support decriminalisation or legalisation etc  because of the harms the law makes..

 

 

[mystic_roots]

8 hours ago, Simple Jack said:

“Cannabis use is associated with increased risk for psychosis, depression, anxiety and suicidal behaviours and worsens outcomes in those with mental disorders.”

 

So why does smoking it relieve my anxiety? If it's that much of a problem then why is it legal to get a prescription for medicinal cannabis? 

 

As said before, only one side of the story being told. I agree alcohol causes more pressure and strain on the NHS and police than cannabis ever could.

[Slippy One]

Let’s never forget that alcohol poisoning kills over 7000 every year in the UK. 
 

This is only the direct poisoning number, the true number would be more like 30,000 if you count all the incidents while intoxicated. Even those sober young drivers killed by speeding booze heads would effectively be ‘death by alcohol’, so the true deaths could be 50k!  

 

Makes me mad at the hypocrisy and holier than thou attitude of the medical establishment. 

[Pepe Ramon]

Nobody seems to mention the amount of folks worldwide addicted to prescribed opioids in these sorts of scenarios.

 

The reality is, "they" are scared of cannabis, and of its healing powers...

[stu914]

3 hours ago, Arbre Medicinal said:

The reality is, "they" are scared of cannabis, and of its healing powers..

 

...all the money they'll lose if it's legalised...

 

 

[twigs]

rainy day read for those that haven’t read

 

The Emperor Wears No Clothes –

 

Chapter 16
by Jack Herer

The Emperor’s New Clothes
Alternatives to Prohibition

In conclusion, we see that the government’s case against cannabiscannabis is woven of transparent lies.

 

In this chapter, we bring to light some research that the government does not like people to know about. Then we talk about some realistic alternatives.

 

But first, a brief fable:
The Story of the Emperor’s New Clothes
(Paraphrased from Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tale)

There once was a very, very vain and terrible King/Emperor who heavily taxed his subjects in order to pay for his incredibly fine wardrobe made from the most expensive fabrics.

One day, two swindlers, representing themselves as great tailors from afar, arrived and sought an audience with the Emperor. They told of an amazing new fabric they had invented, made of a very expensive gold fiber that only the best, purest and wisest of people could see.

 

Excited, the Emperor asked to see a sample, and the men brought forth an empty spool. “Ah, isn’t it lovely?” they asked the Emperor.
The Emperor agreed, afraid to admit that he did not see anything because that would mean he was a dull and stupid person.

So, to test his ministers, the Emperor brought them all in to get their opinions. Once the power of the fabric was explained to them, all agreed that this was, indeed, the finest and most beautiful cloth in the whole world.

The Emperor ordered that much of the gold from the treasury be given to the supposed tailors to be spun into thread. They set about at once working day after day, pretending to cut and sew, while the Emperor and his ministers periodically came by to admire their handiwork – and to pay the enormous bills the merchants were running up in the course of their activities.

Finally, the big day came when all the people in the land were ordered to gather to see the Emperor’s new outfit, which they had paid so much for and heard so much about.
When he nakedly strode forth, all the people looked in disbelief and said nothing.

 

Then they sang the praises of the miraculous new cloth. “It’s the most beautiful work I’ve ever seen!” “Magnificent!” “I wish I had such lovely fabric!” They all cheered, afraid of being denounced and called stupid and impure if they did otherwise.

And the Emperor proudly paraded in front of his -subjects, secretly worried – afraid that he would lose the crown if the people knew that he, himself, could not see the cloth that draped his body.

As he passed through the crowd, a small boy perched on his father’s shoulder cried out, “But the Emperor has nothing on!”
“Just hear what the innocent says!” said the father. And each person whispered to another what the child had said. The word spread throughout his subjects what the little boy had said.
Then, everyone knew that the Emperor and all his ministers had been tricked by swindlers.

 

Now his guards and ministers, as well as the people, realized that the swindlers had not only tricked the Emperor, but he, the Emperor, had spent all their tax money, wasted on this farce.

 

The Emperor heard the people laughing and murmuring. He knew they were right, but he was too proud to admit he was wrong and had been made the fool. So he drew himself up to his full height and stared down at his guards, until he caught one guard’s eye.

The guard, looking nervously around, realizing this vain Emperor could have him imprisoned or even beheaded, averted his eyes and looked down at the ground. Then another guard, seeing that his fellow guard wasn’t laughing anymore, got scared and lowered his eyes to the ground, too. Soon, all the guards, ministers, and even the children pretending to carry his invisible train of gold cloth, were staring at the ground.

The people, seeing the ministers and guards, who a moment ago were laughing at the Emperor with them, now staring down at the ground, quaking in their boots, stopped laughing and quickly bowed their heads, as well.

The little boy who had first exclaimed that the Emperor was naked, seeing all the grownups around him, and even his father, completely scared and subdued, bowed his head in fear!
Then the Emperor, again pulling himself up to his full height, announced to his subjects, as he marched proudly through his empire, “Who is to say that these are not the very finest clothes of all?”

The Moral of the Story is…
We cannot simply call the Emperor (U.S. government) on his (its) acts of deceit and manipulation of fact. His guards (FBI, CIA, DEA, etc.) are far too powerful. His fear of shameful discovery so great he ceaselessly uses his power (through funding much of the United Nations and the world’s anti-drug crusades) to buy allegiance through bribery and intimidation (foreign aid, arms sales, etc.).

Those American citizens who would dare speak out against this tyranny are often slandered as “druggies” or “dopers” and may be threatened with the loss of their jobs, income, families and property. To win, we must drive a stake through the heart of (the U.S. government’s/DEA’s) lies, over and over and over again by hammering at them relentlessly with hardcore facts to defeat the evil of this hard-hearted Emperor (unjust cannabis laws) and even imprison these perpetrators, if necessary, to set our people free!

The Logical Analogy
We contend that America’s cannabis/hemp laws are like the Emperor’s clothes! Like tyrants and prohibitionists in the past, this Emperor relies on brute force, intimidation, fear and a virtual police state to maintain his authoritarian, despotic reign while draining the federal treasury, dismantling all vestiges of the Bill of Rights while imprisoning innocent souls.

General Barry McCaffrey, and now John Walters, acting the parts of the Emperor’s advisors, have all upheld the fallacy of the “pure fabric that only the purest eyes may see,” woven for them originally by Anslinger/DuPont/Hearst and their malevolent bureaucrats. Now it is co-maintained by energy, pharmaceutical, alcohol/beer companies, drug rehab professionals, drug testers, police, prison guards and prison builders – all with enormous financial interests and police-state motives.
When agents of the U. S. government deliberately act or conspire this way – be they President, Vice President, National Drug Czar, head of the DEA, FBI, or CIA – they should be imprisoned. And in an honest American society, they would be held accountable for the 16 million years they’ve already sentenced so many Americans to for the “crime” of pot.

Our federal bureaucracies and the U.S. Supreme Court are rapidly chipping away at our freedoms as outlined in the Bill of Rights (written on hemp paper). Hemp/cannabis has become their principal excuse for taking away our guaranteed Constitutional rights – more so than for all other crimes, political actions, insurgencies, strikes, uprisings and wars in the last 200 years combined! And the loss of basic freedoms is even worse in our satellite Central and South American countries, where their leaders have acted at America’s behest.

In Conclusion:
Truth or Consequences of Prohibition
When DuPont tells you that they bring “Better Living through Chemistry,” they don’t tell you that it’s only for 100 years, then the entire planet dies for their profit.
England and Holland have learned to treat their substance abusers as human beings – keeping them supplied with enough affordable medicants so they don’t disrupt the activities of others.

 

Such policies allow them to lead otherwise productive and normal lives. These policies are now firmly established, effective and popular in those countries. In the mid-1990s, Switzerland began its own experiments in localized tolerance of public drug use.

When the Swiss government tried, in 1997, to re-criminalize cannabis with a ballot initiative, it lost by 79% of the vote!

So, why should other-wise peaceful hemp/cannabis growers and users be labeled and persecuted as lifetime criminals while 35% of all robberies and burglaries are committed by heroin and alcohol addicts, 40 to 55% of murders, rapes and highway fatalities are alcohol related* and hero-in is more available in jail than on the streets.

 

Yet cannabis users statistically have the same or lower incidents of crime and violence as the non-cannabis-using population as a whole.
*FBI Statistics, 2005.

In fact, aside from cannabis usage, take the mob and the dealers out of heroin and other drugs and you reduce as much as 80% of non-alcohol related crime. As a direct example, throughout the “Roaring Twenties” era of alcohol prohibition, the murder rate rose consistently then dropped every year for the next 10 years following prohibition’s 1933 repeal.*
*FBI Statistics.
Let’s find another way to deal with drug usage or be prepared for continued exponential erosion of our freedoms, including the rights of self expression, public debate and a free press, including books and songs.

Accept the fact that virtually all drug-related crime ends if you treat addicts and users instead of removing them from society. Help them, educate and encourage them to be financially productive.
In 2006, the top priority of the U. S. government, the DEA and most of the Republican Party is to try to enact legislation that will automatically take away 100% of all citizens’ rights to privacy and freedom from unwarranted search – as if the drug war were a true state of emergency – in order to further their fascistic, police and prison-state agenda.

High-Tech Repression
In order for America to be cannabis free, all of us, smokers and non-smokers alike, will have to give up our Bill of Rights…forever! You will have to conform to the likes of Lyndon LaRouche, Jerry Falwell, Nancy Reagan, Edwin Meese, William Bennett, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, John Walters and minds of that repressive and ridiculous ilk. Each, in their smug ignorance, contributing to the permanent poisoning of the Earth while trying with all their might to completely annihilate the one thing that can save us: HEMP!

The computer, that great boon to mankind, will ironically allow the police to finish, today, the job the Roman Catholic Church’s Inquisition started (see Chapter 10: Dark Ages) because the Church could not stand “commoners” laughing at them, or knowing the secrets of, among other things, hygiene, astronomy and hemp. Using computers, the pot police can peer into an individual’s family background, his sales receipts, his income taxes, and so forth to enable them to blackmail and/or bribe Americans, as well as destroy their politicians, judges and other VlPs by exposing issues like their private sex lives or personal drug use.

For example, the son of Clinton’s former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, was systematically and perpetually badgered, over six months, by his friend (who had been previously busted and forced to work undercover for the DEA, specifically to set up young Elders) to get him to purchase a small amount of cocaine for himself. Elders’ son, who had never been known to deal, consistently refused, but eventually gave in to the friend’s constant pressure.

The government revealed the information about this transaction to no one for another six months until they could use it to directly blackmail Surgeon General Elders into recanting her soft stance on medical cannabis. Instead, refusing to be silenced, Elders resigned. With such blatantly underhanded tactics, the DEA is daily bringing us closer to Orwell’s 1984 nightmare.

Wasting Our Tax Money
Approximately 50% of all drug enforcement money, federal and state, during the last 70 years has been directed toward cannabis!
Some 70-80% of all people now in federal and state prisons in America wouldn’t have been there as criminals until just 60 or 70 years ago. In other words we, in our (Anslinger and Hearst inspired) ignorance and prejudice, have placed approximately 1.2 million of the 1.8 million people in American prisons (as of 2005) for crimes that were, at worst, minor habits, up until the Harrison Act, 1914 (whereby the U.S. Supreme Court in 1924 first ruled that drug addicts weren’t merely sick, they were instead vile criminals).
Eighty percent of these government “War on Drugs” victims were not dealing. They have been incarcerated for simple possession. And this does not include the quarter of a million more in county jails.
Remember, just 29 years ago, in 1978, before the “War on Drugs,” there were only 300,000 people in American prisons for all crimes combined.

Some radio and television preachers have added to the hysteria by calling rock music “satanic and voodoo” and associating it with the drug culture. They want to outlaw rock, burn albums and books, and lock up everyone who doesn’t agree with them. So does Carlton Turner. So does Lyndon LaRouche. So does William Bennett. So does General Barry McCaffrey. So does John Walters.

During the last three generations, Hearst’s and Anslinger’s propaganda and lies have been relentlessly jammed down Americans’ throats as unimpeachable gospel truth – resulting in the massive drain on taxpayer’s money to build the government’s anti-drug machine (see “Fighting the Police State” in the Appendix).
And virtually every state is in the midst of the biggest prison expansion ever in America’s and the world’s history, while political vultures, concerned only for growth of their prison-related industries and job security, demand that we build more prisons and expand tax bases to pursue this “law and order” madness against formerly misdemeanor or even non-existent offenses.

Double Standards
In the 1980s, when U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist was “nodding off” in court – and sending other druggies to prison for their habits – he kept feeding his eight-a-day Placidyl habit. This was the equivalent in dollars, “high,” and mental effect to that of a $70 to $125 a-day street abuser’s heroin habit.

Placidyl, a cousin of Quaaludes, is known as a “heavy down,” popular on the streets for imparting a very placid feeling in users.
The physical dependency and mental effects of using the legal drugs Placidyl, Dilaudid, Quaaludes, etc., are virtually the same as for the reviled barbiturates, opium, morphine and heroin. In essence, they disturb the body’s “endorphin” (pain-receptors and nullifiers) balance.

Rehnquist, who was said to have used Placidyl far in excess of normal limits, did not have to rob liquor stores, physically assault his fellow citizens, or commit any of the other anti-social behaviors attributed to “junkies.”

His habit was easily maintained because Placidyl was both legally available and within his normal income limits. Placidyl was also well labeled as to purity and frequency of dosage, while people with outlawed drug habits have to get by on a “dime of tar” (a 10 dollar bag) the purity of which – whether 5% or 95% – is unknown. The great majority of drug overdoses are caused by this unknown, unregulated, and unlabeled purity factor.

The government acknowledges that 90% or more of overdoses from illegal drugs would probably be avoided with accurate labels and appropriate warnings.

Policies Based on Ignorance
While researching this book over the last 33 years, we have talked with and questioned senators, legislators, judges, police, DAs, scientists, historians, Nobel Prize winners, dentists, and MDs. All knew little bits and pieces of the history and uses of cannabis, but virtually no one knew in any depth about cannabis in its 360-degree entirety except long-term medical researchers, such as Ungerlieder, Mikuriya, and writers like Ed Rosenthal, Dean Latimer and Dr. Michael Aldrich.
For example, 24 years ago, at a large California NORML fundraiser in February 1983, we spoke privately with then Senate Majority Whip Tom Rutherford, of New Mexico. He had been a leading pro-cannabis politician for a decade and was, at that time, probably the most knowledgeable elected government representative on the subject of cannabis, in the United States.

 

We asked him why the government didn’t just come out and legalize cannabis, especially with everything we knew medically, industrially and historically about cannabis.

We were shocked when he replied that he was not aware of any argument in favor of the legalization of cannabis, except to just end the lunacy of criminalization for at worst a minor act.

So, we enthusiastically outlined the facts and entire history of hemp/cannabis for him, figuring he must have heard some of it before. He sat literally in awe of the claims he was hearing for the very first time. When we finished speaking, he said, “If I had that knowledge outlined and documented for me as you just told it, the government, police and judicial system would be through persecuting pot.”
“But is it true?” he added.

This was in February 1983 and here were America’s top pro-pot politicians who literally didn’t know enough about hemp to fill a single page of a book, and some left public office in the Reagan “just say no” era before having learned enough to publicly support hemp /cannabis.

But now, many do know hemp is potentially Earth’s number-one crop and that the present laws are totally unjustifiable, and that the government’s position on pot is utterly false and can’t stand the simple light of truth.

What is the Law?
“All laws which can be violated without doing anyone any injury are laughed at.” – Spinoza, (c. 1660.)

To control cannabis is to give up our freedoms, for ourselves, our kids, and our kid’s kids, forever.
And that, my friends, is called fascism; and simply put, if the laws on cannabis are not over-turned, and if present Earth-destructive practices, such as strip mining, oil drilling, clear-cutting of trees, industrial pollution of waters, and use of pesticides and herbicides are not discontinued, our planet will soon die at the hands of these ignorant (not-knowing and/or evil) politicians who think they have a right to pass more and more draconian laws to fill more and bigger prisons and jails with some of our most decent citizens.

 

These same politicians portray themselves as being motivated purely out of concern for children. Meanwhile, they promote the massive ongoing environmental poisoning of these same children every day!

 

But to truly understand why tens of millions of Americans are scared silly of pot after 70 years of disinformation that continues to this day, consider the mentality and character of former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates (1978–1992), who has admitted to helping direct a program of squashing accurate hemp information and ordering the arrest and harassment of California cannabis Initiative workers for acting upon their civic and Constitutional right to collect petition signatures.

In September 1983, on television and through a police spokesman, Gates called hemp reform advocates “well-intentioned but terribly naïve regarding cannabis and [they] really don’t know much about it.”

In January 1984, Gates was asked by a parent at a San Fernando Valley, CA, public school, “What can I do if I find out my child has used cannabis?” He replied, “It’s too late. Once they’ve smoked one cannabis cigarette, they are lost to us forever!”*
*These exact words were also used by L.A. County D.A Ira Reiner in his 1990 campaign for State Attorney General. He lost.

A few months later, then–California Attorney General, John Van de Kamp, suppressed the August 17, 1990 report by his own advisory panel that called for hemp re-legalization. Gates testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on September 5, 1990 that “casual drug users should be taken out and shot.” He held to this position for almost a week, until public outcry for his dismissal* forced him to modify his comment to a call for stricter penalties.

 

Former Drug Czar William Bennett said, “I have no moral problem with beheading cannabis users, arms, feet and legs (seriously!). In July of 1998, Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, on
On March 3, 1991, the world was shocked to learn that Gates’ officers were indeed capable of such brutal and heinous behavior when the video “The murder rate in Holland [where “soft” drugs of Los Angeles police officers savagely beating a defenseless Rodney King (accused of speeding and evading capture) was revealed to the world. A urine test later revealed traces of THC. Gates continued to back his officers in the beating, through the time of the riots.
*Reiner was almost the only official to publicly support Gates.

In July of 1998, Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, on a fact-finding mission to Europe, added insult to ignorance by proclaiming to a Stockholm audience, “The murder rate in Holland [where “soft” drugs are treated as a legal product] is double that in the United States…That’s drugs.” Actually, the Dutch murder rate is 1.7 per 100,000, less than one-fourth that of the U.S.

This was only the latest in McCaffrey’s continuing stream of ludicrous misinformation. In December 1996, for example, he had been quoted in the media as saying, “There’s not one shred of evidence that cannabis has medicinal value…”

Conclusion
On the basis of the information provided in this book, we demand an end to the enforcement of these prohibition laws. All laws regarding the cultivation of the cannabis plant must be stricken from the books, including the U. N.’s Single Convention Treaty of 1961, at which Anslinger represented the United States. Although he was forced to retire by an angry President Kennedy for, among other things, his antics at the Convention, Anslinger’s legacy of lies and deceit lives on in 2007.
Our government owes an apology to all people who spent jail or prison time for cannabis (16 million years in aggregate time so far), had to go through the courts, had their educations, families and professions torn apart and their lives, wealth and health often destroyed.

We also owe an apology to honest-but-ignorant teachers, police and judges for our lack of courage to speak up and educate them. But there is no apologizing for the profit-minded corporate and government leaders who have acted illegally to censor and refute the undeniable truth of hemp.
What Justice Demands
Justice demands nothing less than the lifting of all penalties (criminal and civil) and the removal of all restraints upon the cultivation and use – both smoking and non-smoking uses – of this, our most remarkable plant.

Prisoners being held for the peaceful, non-violent possession, sale, transport or cultivation of cannabis hemp must be released immediately. Money and property seized must be returned. Criminal records must be wiped clean, amnesty granted and some sort of reparations paid for time served. These cannabis prisoners are the real victims of this monstrous crime against humanity called the “War on Drugs.”
In the end, half measures will not be acceptable.
In the meantime, we must begin with a moratorium on hemp/cannabis law enforcement. And we must move swiftly to restore and expand the national archives and historical record on hemp and its multiplicity of uses.

What You Can Do
We think, now that you’ve had a good look at our side and the government’s side of this story (both as we see it and as the media projects it), you’ll want to join us in putting this issue onto the state ballots and into the legislatures of this country, where everyone can express their opinions through registering and voting in the straight-forward manner set forth in our United States’ and individual state constitutions.

Teach hemp to everyone; talk about it – all the time. Look for hemp products, ask for hemp – buy hemp. Defend hemp. And use the information and suggestions about hemp politics and business included in the Appendix at the end of this book.

At the risk of repetition, let us once more state in the strongest possible terms, that cannabis hemp – indeed the plant we denigrate with the slang name cannabis – will become known to future generations, as it was known to past generations for millennia, as the number-one annually renewable, fully sustainable, non pesticide-requiring and most abundant source of paper/fiber/fuel/food/medicine on the face of the Earth; with more overall uses than any other known plant.

In other words, cannabis hemp is the greatest plant on Earth!
Write to your elected officials and to the news media, to help create a more conscious political leadership and favorable news coverage on cannabis and hemp. Give credit for good votes and coverage, and complain about bad. Register, run for office, and always vote!!
Demand that our prisoners of conscience be freed, rewarded and honored. They deserve to be welcomed home as heroes, and as P.O.W.s in this “War on Drugs,” to receive veterans’ benefits and rights – not the DEA or police.

Think of this…
If these “outlaw” citizens had not defied the government and preserved the hemp seed, our government and its prohibitionist policies would already have eradicated this plant from our Earth.
So, the heroes of this war are not William Bennett, Nancy Reagan, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Jr., the DEA, or DARE, but those who defied them.

 

These true heroes must have their lives and property returned. For defying these tyrannical laws, they must be remembered by each one of us for all time. For they saved the seed that’s going to save the planet!

Hemp for Victory!
Let our people go. Let our people grow. And never allow our politicians to again impose such fanatical prohibition laws against any natural substance in its natural form.

Democracy doesn’t work – ever – unless it is honest.
And if the suppression of hemp is just one example of the many lies with which American police/bureaucrats have been blackmailing their theoretical bosses – elected politicians and the public – then we are in big trouble!
We have reviewed this “drug war” against cannabis hemp/cannabis as thoroughly as we possibly could, and what we have seen sickens us. And only those with this knowledge of hemp, whose doors of perception have been cleansed, can kick the scumbags (the real criminals) out of office and reclaim our freedoms and our planet.
We therefore agree with the little boy from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale who, while watching the parade pass by, shouted with courageous innocence:
“THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHES!”
WHAT DO YOUR OWN EYES SEE?