Damn government. Dying people should be allowed to do whatever drugs they want, as long as they aren't hurting other people, let them get wasted out of their minds.

If anyone is interested, I found a link to United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative. I really have no idea if this is a central or peripheral ruling on the matter, but it does provide some insight into how the Court views 'medical necessity' in relation to the Controlled Substances Act.

Unfortunately, unlike tobacco and alcohol, pot is easy and (comparatively) cheap to grow yourself and thats the real problem government has with it. If it required the kind of production that cigarettes did you can bet that it would be legal and taxed to shit by now.

Its like that movie 300....... only its pot

That's true, but you also have to take into account that if it was legal the price would drop like a rock. As far as I know most of the reason it's so expensive is 'cause it's illegal.

If it's cheap and easy to grow in small quantities, then it's reasonable to assume it'd be cheap and easy to produce in mass quantities.

I think a lot of people, myself included, would rather go to the gas station to pick it up then spend the money, time, and energy to grow in yourself.

Think about it, you can brew beer yourself. It's relatively cheap and easy to do. Not any harder or more expensive than pot. But very few people brew beer. In my life, I've known two people who have brewed their own beer. I don't know. I just don't find it a compelling argument.

You have heard of History and Archaeology, haven't you? Cannabis has been known and used throughout the world for food, fiber, paper pulp, medicine and part of the shaman's kit since neolithic times. Records have indeed been kept, some continuously, some rediscovered, but they are there.

We know about the Roman Republic and Empire, as well as Ancient Egypt and Sumeria. China has verified authentic written records going back continuously, without a break for 4,000 years. The Jews have been keeping written records for almost as long, and not just their scriptures. They all knew about cannabis, they all used it, and their physicians kept notes.

Hemp is the finest and strongest plant fiber there is, and is immune to salt rot, so it was the sinews (rigging) and muscle (sails) of the maritime industry. Even after the advent of steam, it was still used for rope.

Hemp produces more food per pound than any other cultivar, and more poundage per acre than any other. It's the seeds, son, the main ingredient in in "gruel" from time immemorial.

Hemp oil is the best there is for both illumination and for artwork. It burns clean and bright, and as an artist's medium it is clear, non-yellowing and remarkably stable.

But the Drug! The Drug! Omigawd, what about the DRUG???

Come on, awready, what about it?

It has only been in the past 78 years, after some 25,000 years of common use that cannabis has come into disrepute. What changed? No new discovery of previously unknown risks, that's for certain.

It was Greed, pure and simple, nothing else. Specifically, the untiring greed of William Randolph Hearst. He not only had newspapers and mining interests, he has $millions invested in timberland, pulp mills and in DuPont, which provided the chemicals for the wood-pulp paper process.

Threshing out seeds for food, and harvesting tops for medicine is quick and simple. Separating the stalk fibers (called "breaking") from the outer bark and inner pithy pulp (which was used to make paper) was for most of human history the very hardest physical labor known. That made ropes and sails very expensive, and hemp-based paper dreadfully expensive. Such paper was used only when people needed or wanted the very best. For example, the rough drafts of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written on hemp paper. The final revised documents were then transcribed onto parchment.

Then, in the 1920's, someone invented a mechanical hemp breaker. Overnight, hemp fiber and pulp became so damned cheap, that if it was allowed to continue, it would have made the sulfuric acid pulp wood process too expensive to compete.

There went W.R. Hearst's investment in timber, mills, and a big piece of DuPont. He immediately launched one of his by-then-famous hysterical tabloid crusades, hiding his economic interests behind a 99.999% false and 100% cynical campaign to Save America's Youth From The Devil Weed.

In hearings before the U.S. Congress, all interests, agricultural, maritime, medical, industrial, all except one, were against prohibition. The only testimony in favor of prohibition came from one man, Harry J. Anslinger, the newly appointed head of the newly created Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He didn't even use police reports or statistics. His sole contribution was reading aloud, verbatim from Hearst Tabloids.

One of Ansliger's aides, when questioned during one of the last days of hearings, said "The American Medical Association is in accord on this." Congress took that to mean that the A.M.A. had come around to the F.B.N. position. That was enough to pass prohibition. Unfortunately for everyone except W.R. Hearst, it was a deliberate misrepresentation. The A.M.A. was "in accord on this," but in opposition to prohibition.

pardon some of my spelling...

I meant to add that nobody bothered to cross-check to find out if the A.M.A. had actually changed its position. Time was running short. Everyone simply assumed that the counsel for the government would act and speak in good faith, and took his literally true but in-context false statement the way he and Anslinger, Hearst, et. al. meant it to be taken.

Um, wow. That was some post.

I don't have anything smart to say. Just that the dying woman should be allowed to smoke her pot if it makes her feel better.

Over all I find pot the least dangerous drug. I put cigs and alcohol right above pot, and their legal. But I have no facts or anything to back my opinions up, so you smart people can continue your discussion about constitutional rights and such.

we all know pot is bad because it encourages white women to fuck black men. that is one of the reasons it is illegal.

I am do not believe that government should have a regulatory role in what we put into our bodies - on the consumer side. On the supply side, the government should act "in the public welfare" to assure that products produced are what they say they are and are produced in a manner that is safe for both workers and consumers.

It is simply ridiculous that marijuana is not available for whatever a person would want to use it for. It is equally ridiculous that heroin, which is a far more effective pain killer than morphine or any of its synthetic equivalents, is not available in this country - or generally in the world, thanks to US pressure - for the relief of pain.

While Graybeard's data above is enlightening in the case of Marijuana, it does not speak to the myriad of other drugs that are effective, useful or just fun and are not available to anyone - even if they want to grow them on their own land - witness the fact that you all not allowed to buy opium poppy seeds in the US or grow the poppies, even if you are not going to make opium.

And then there are the forfeiture laws that allow the government to take your property without due process or even a trial convicting you of a crime.

Americans are really, really stupid when it comes to anything having to do with "morality" in part because we think morality is what someone else tells us it is, instead of what we develop ourselves and in part because we get so wrapped up in religious notions of "sin" that we cannot see that we are simply being manipulated by corporate interests who simply seek to control the market place in a way that secures their product(s).

I find your ideas intriguing, and would like to sign up for your newsletter.

Hell, fuck the newsletter. Does your revolution need a sociopathic hatchet man?

revolt

It's true, and I agree that I wouldn't personally go through the effort when I could just go buy some. Some people would though, and if pot were legal and highly taxed, those people would undercut the government and make it impossible for them to have a virtual monopoly on it (like tobacco).

Maybe not the only reason for the war on pot, but money always plays the largest part in everything to do with government.

thanks for that law, old-time cotton farmers.

i grew up in british columbia, so i really, really just don't get why pot is still illegal. even in BC it's only a technicality: if you have less than an ounce on you, it's the equivalent of a traffic fine -- mainly so that they can still bust gangs for trafficking it, which of course wouldn't even be a problem if it were legal and taxed.

some thing just don't make sense.

Physicians and shamans kept records, not necessarily the users. For example, Lester Grinspoon, M.D. found in the late 1970's that even though cannabis does degrade short-term memory, it enhances long-term memory.