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Big thanks, brother Paul. Strong, powerful, clear, insightful writing with solid evidence included. May your good words travel into the hearts and minds of those who need to hear them.
Did you see one Rasta man, a Brother Jamison was recognized as a Cannabis practitioner by a judge the other day and freed?
Much love to you and Rio!
Rajjja
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—-Von Hartmann, Paul on 10/11/2012 7:15 AM wrote:
The latest in the treadmill of bureaucratic distraction, in the upcoming Supreme Court rescheduling hearing, will be seen as less than insignificant, in the broader context of how truly valuable Cannabis agriculture is to sustainable human existence on this planet. No less than a polar shift in values is required in order to initiate the massive global planting of Cannabis that is required to resolve climate imbalances, food insecurity&malnutrition, resource scarcity & disparity, and continued degeneration of the human social order.
Cannabis is both unique and essential, for three specific and inarguable reasons.
Please see
Emergency Preparedness, Response and Communications Committee on Homeland Security: “Essential Civilian Demand” at
http://
to understand why the foundations of spirituality, health and law are undermined by Cannabis prohibition.
Forget “rescheduling” — Cannabis is a “dietary essential”
Please see
LEAF
http://cannabisinternational.
to understand why Cannabis is both unique and essential, valuable far beyond the rightful jurisdiction of any court.
The legal distinction between “herbs” and “drugs” has yet to be made: Drugs don’t make seeds. Herbs do. You can make a drug from an herb, but you can’t make an herb from a drug. They are not the same thing. The DrugEA has no jurisdiction over any “green herb”* as long as the First Amendment is in force. Our freedom to farm “every herb bearing seed”* is the first test of religious freedom. *(Genesis 1:29-31)
Cannabis Ministry founder, Reverend Roger Christie, has been a political prisoner, indefinitely, coercively, imprisoned without trial, without bail, and denied visitors, since July 8th, 2010. Due process has been suspended to imprison a state-licensed Cannabis minister who has been openly reclaiming the spiritual legitimacy of the world’s oldest global culture for ten years on the Big Island.
On March 16th, 2012, President Obama signed Executive Order 13603, identifying “hemp” as a “strategic resource” available by “essential civilian demand.” He is the seventh American President to do so. Even President Nixon, who started the contemporary “drug war” on marijuana, signed an E.O. recognizing the strategic value of Cannabis. Thomas Jefferson identified hemp as being “of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country.” Objective review of the glaring, self-serving fraud in the DEA’s scheduling of marijuana has already been deemed “untenable” by a series of FDA-approved, gold-standard clinical trials, conducted over a 12-year period at the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research.
Most globally compelling is that in 2006 scientists came to understand the role of atmospheric aerosols called “monoterpenes” produced by the boreal forests, in protecting the planet from solar UV-B radiation. After cutting down half of the forests, the choice of what to plant has become overwhelmingly obvious and immediately critical. Production of monoterpenes has become an urgent priority. Feral Cannabis (so-called “ditchweed”) seed ripening right now in the midwest, that survived this year’s drought, is the most valuable seed on the planet, because it has been hardened off to climate conditions that are likely to continue and probably get worse..
Medical marijuana is an extremely important issue, but the larger, global dimensions of Cannabis ecology make resheduling look like a trivial detail. Revaluation of Cannabis from illegal to essential is the evolution of revolution. People have to start thinking ‘outside the bong’ about Cannabis, if systemic collapse is to be averted.
ROGER CHRISTIE on 10/11/2012 12:47:20 AM wrote
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Hello out there,
Aloha to thee. This important Wall Street Journal story from two days ago that might still benefit from adding links to their blog roll. LEAF, the-last-marijuana-trial dot com, THC-Ministry dot org, Cannabis International, Phoenix Tears, Nutiva dot com, etc. Mahalo if you’re into it.
All the best to everyone,
Roger
:-p
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—-St Cyr, Share on 10/10/2012 7:00 AM wrote:
>
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/
Ochtober 8, 2012, 12:07 PM
Appeals Court to Consider Benefits of Medical Marijuana
By Sam Favare
For the first time in 20 years, a federal court will review scientific evidence on the therapeutic value of marijuana, as a legal challenge by a group of doctors, medical professionals and patients makes its way to the U.S. court of appeals in Washington, D.C., next week.
Americans for Safe Access is hoping the challenge will change the government s classification of marijuana from a dangerous drug with no medical benefits, the Guardian reported.. Other groups, such as the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the American Nurses Association, the Federation of American Scientists and the American Academy of Family Physicians support either medical access to marijuana or its reclassification to one that has a medical benefit.
“Medical marijuana patients are finally getting their day in court,” Joe Elford, chief counsel for ASA, told the Guardian. “This is a rare opportunity for patients to confront politically motivated decision-making with scientific evidence of marijuana s medical efficacy.”
Last year, the Drug Enforcement Agency rejected the ASA s petition to reschedule marijuana, saying there wasn t substantial evidence the drug should be removed from schedule 1. The DEA cited a five-year-old assessment from the Department of Health and Human Services that said there was no consensus in the medical community on the medical applications of marijuana..
In its reply brief, the ASA says the criteria used by the DEA and HHS to determine scheduling are flawed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear arguments in the case on Oct. 16.
______________________________
http://www.guardian.co..uk/
Medical marijuana advocates hope lawsuit relaxes US drugs policy
A US appeals court will hear evidence that the drug has medical benefits a claim with which the federal government disagrees.
Michael Krawitz, from Elliston, Virginia, suffered a car accident while serving in the US air force which left him permanently disabled and in chronic pain.
Years later he received a prescription for medical marijuana while abroad, which, when used with other pain treatment, stabilised his condition for the first time.
But when the department of veteran affairs found out about his cannabis prescription, they asked him to undergo a drug test, he said, which he refused.
They have now denied him further treatment.
Later this month, Krawitz, 49, and other advocates for medical marijuana will go before the US court of appeal as part of a historic lawsuit that they hope will challenge the federal government’s classification of marijuana.
Under the Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is classified alongside heroin as a dangerous drug, with no medical benefits. Advocates argue that marijuana has a medical benefit and so should be reclassified.
A wide range of US organisations support either medical access to cannabis, its reclassification or both. They include two of nation’s largest physician groups, the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians, in addition to the American Nurses Association, the Federation of American Scientists and the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Oral arguments in the case are scheduled to be heard at the US court of appeal for the DC circuit on October 16.
It is the result of a long legal battle by the Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a group of physicians, medical professionals and patients advocating legal access to marijuana for medical use and research.
It marks the first time in 20 years the scientific evidence regarding the therapeutic value of marijuana will be reviewed by the courts.. Previous efforts have not been successful.
“Medical marijuana patients are finally getting their day in court,” said Joe Elford, chief counsel with ASA. “This is a rare opportunity for patients to confront politically motivated decision-making with scientific evidence of marijuana’s medical efficacy.”
Federal government says drug has no proven medical benefit
The case began more than a decade ago, when Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis (CRC) filed its petition.
In that time, ASA says, much has changed, and the government’s position is out of step with increasing evidence of the benefits of the drug.
Steph Sherer, executive director of ASA said: “At the heart of this issue of the scheduling of marijuana and the federal government’s refusal to look at the research that’s out there every day is a bigger gap growing between patients and doctors and the federal government.”
Advocates say that even the therapeutic research required to prove the case for the beneficial effects of the drug is subject to a unique and overly rigorous approval process.
While there is no conclusive scientific evidence in favour of medical marijuana, the research that does exist indicates it can be effective.
In a conference call sponsored by ASA, Dr Donald Abrams, director of clinical programs at San Francisco general hospital, told reporters research had shown cannabis benefited patients suffering from HIV.
He also said he recommended it to his cancer patients as treatment for a variety of symptoms.
“In my practice every day as a cancer specialist I see patients who have loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting from their chemotherapy, pain on and off of opiates, anxiety, depression and insomnia,” Abrams said. He added that cannabis could effectively treat all of those symptoms in lieu of five separate drugs.
Krawitz said: “The definition of cannabis as schedule I has caused my fellow patients to be imprisoned, denied work, housing, right to own a firearm, a place on a transplant list, and of greatest concern to me, is the latest casualty of the drug war, my VA doctor.”
In its decision last year rejecting ASA’s petition to reschedule marijuana, which has since been appealed, the drug enforcement agency concluded there was no substantial evidence that marijuana should be removed from schedule 1.
The DEA included the required scientific assessment from the US department of health and human services (HHS) which had been prepared five years earlier.
The HSS found there were no “NDA-quality [new drug application] studies that have assessed (marijuana) for any medical condition”.
It went on to say that there was no consensus of medical opinion on the medical applications of marijuana.
Patient advocates claim that marijuana is treated unlike any other controlled substance and say that successive petitions to reclassify the drug have been blocked by politics..
ASA say that there have been no NDA-quality drug studies of other substances, for instance Platelet rich Plasma (PrP) treatment of Achilles tendinitis, that are still widely accepted for medical use.
They cite the support of the AMA and the ACP and other groups as evidence of a growing medical consensus.
The AMA concluded in 2009 that “short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.”
Four states have filed petitions to reschedule the drug, including Washington, Rhode Island, Vermont and Colorado.
The drug remains illegal under federal law, although medical marijuana is legal in 17 states.
Government authorities have re-enforced the federal law by raiding dispensaries in states including California and Washington.
