The USA-DEA Cabal

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 05 Aug 2002 12:00:00 GMT

Kaz Dziamka at YellowTimes.org - The USA-DEA cabal: an enemy of reason - Though you could argue (badly) that marijuana should be regulated, there is no excuse whatsoever for making industrial hemp illegal. Unless your name is Hearst or DuPont, that is, and you don't mind outrageous fabrications. But you knew that. [smith2004]

As every educated member of the genus Homo sapiens should know, hemp is the world's most important ecological resource - a virtual miracle plant, which, as a Popular Mechanics article pointed out in 1938, can be used to produce over 25,000 products. Industrial applications, which Rowan Robinson lists in The Great Book of Hemp, include textiles; cordage; construction products; paper and packaging; furniture; electrical and automotive applications; paints, sealants and cosmetics; plastics and polymers; lubricants and fuel; energy and biomass; compost; and food and feed.

...

Many Americans, brainwashed for over sixty years by misinformation and lies told by the U.S. government and the DEA, don't even realize that hemp and marijuana are not the same plants. (Many Americans don't even know what hemp is!) To be sure, hemp and marijuana are both members of the same plant genus, Cannabis sativa L., yet they are different species. In The Hemp Manifesto, Robinson explains the difference in this way:
Think of a beagle and a Saint Bernard - both Canis familiaris, but with utterly different looks, capabilities, and personalities. So it is with hemp and marijuana. Hemp is a stalky crop that has been grown for its fiber and edible seed for millennia; it is incapable of getting you stoned. Marijuana is a bushy form of cannabis that has been grown for its psychoactive and medicinal properties for an equally long time. The two are different plants and in two minutes a state trooper can be educated so that he will never mistake one for the other.
More objectively, hemp (or industrial hemp, as it should be called) is properly defined as Cannabis sativa with a one-percent or less (usually 0.3) concentration of the psychoactive ingredient delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol. The content of THC in marijuana, on the other hand, may range from 3 to 14 percent. This definition has been accepted by a coalition of farmers, businesses, and environmental groups in a March 6, 2001 letter, asking the Bush Administration to reconsider the current marijuana/hemp laws. Needless to say, the letter - an eloquent plea for sanity - has been predictably ignored by the Bush Administration, which may turn out to be even more foolish in its anti-marijuana campaign than the Clinton, Reagan, or Nixon administrations.

...

To return to the problem of the definition: Dr. West in Hemp and Marijuana explains that Cannabis is "the only plant genus in which can be found the unique class of molecules known as cannabinoids" and that it "produces two major cannabinoids -- THC ... and CBD (cannabidiol)." And while THC's psychoactive effect is well known, it is not commonly known that CBD blocks the effect of THC in the nervous system. Concludes Dr. West:
Cannabis with THC below 1.0 percent and a CBD/THC ration greater than one is therefore not capable of inducing a psychoactive effect. Hemp, it turns out, is not only not marijuana, it could be called "anti-marijuana."
...

In the 1930's the established timber businesses of Hearst, Kimberly Clark, and St. Regis "stood to lose billions," as Herer points out, if the new hemp processing technology was to be implemented. At the same time, as it happened, the synthetic petrochemical giant Du Pont was facing a potentially formidable natural opponent, hemp, to challenge the company's newly patented processes for oil - and coal-based plastics and the improved method of making paper from wood. According to Herer, "If hemp had not been made illegal, 80% of Du Pont's business would never have materialized and the great majority of the pollution which has poisoned the Northwestern and Southeastern rivers would not have occurred."

And so something had to be done to protect the business interests of the richest and most influential people in the United States against the emerging power of hemp industry. Hemp had to be outlawed, even though it seemed like an impossible task to try to ban the most useful crop in the history of humankind.

Paul Kirby at The Daily Freeman - Unnecessary roughness? Elderly man claims excessive force by police officer - more evidence that the best way to deal with a cop at your door is to shoot first and ask questions later. [kaba]

Bryon Okada at The Dallas/Fort-Worth Star-Telegram - D/FW plays key role in security bill - your luggage won't be sniffed at major airports on schedule, but they're still going to do it eventually. Incompetence abounds. [kaba]

Paul Marks at The Hartford Courant - Texan Learns To Rue Remark: `Rifle' Mention At Airport To Cost Him - $78 for causing someone to feel "uncomfortable". Remind me please, of where in the Constitution it says people have a right to feel anything. [kaba]

"I said, `What do you expect to find in there, a rifle?'" he said. When the trooper asked me, `Do you think that was an appropriate remark?' I said, `I do.'" That's when Hubbell was taken into custody by Trooper Wayne Foster.

Dana Cosgrove, head of the federal security force that moved into Bradley last week, sees it differently.

"What he said [regarding the wallet] was, `You better look at it real good; there may be a rifle in there.' And all that the people around him in the waiting room heard was the word `rifle.'"

Anxiety levels after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are high enough at airports, Cosgrove said, which is why cracks about guns, bombs or terrorism are cause for arrest. The airport's public address system issues regular reminders in both English and Spanish.

"I want to be sure that when people step on that plane they're 100 percent comfortable," Cosgrove said.

Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive via AlterNet - Anti-Bush Protesters Silenced at Ohio State Graduation - not quite an accurate title. The planned protest was to silently turn their backs to GW while he spoke. Eight out of sixty thousand did so. One man was escorted out by the police, but not arrested when he "agreed" to leave. [kaba]

Jeff, who is identified as an OSU alumnus on the group's web site, wrote: "I saw one of Columbus's Finest heading our way ... We were being led out of Ohio Stadium. To the officer's credit, he realized there was a three-year-old in my arms and was not at all hostile. I asked him if I was under arrest, and he did not answer me. When we reached the exit ... he told me we were being charged with disturbing the peace. If we chose to leave, the charges would be dropped immediately. With our daughter in mind, we chose not to fight it ... On this day, June 14th, 2002, I came to the realization that we no longer live in a free society."

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair