Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
"Lawmakers, as they call themselves, can add nothing to it [natural law], nor take anything from it. Therefore all their laws, as they call them,--that is, all the laws of their own making,--have no color of authority or obligation. It is a falsehood to call them laws; for there is nothing in them that either creates men's duties or rights, or enlightens them as to their duties or rights. There is consequently nothing binding or obligatory about them. And nobody is bound to take the least notice of them, unless it be to trample them under foot, as usurpation. If they command men to do justice, they add nothing to men's obligation to do it, or to any man's right to enforce it. They are therefore mere idle wind, such as would be commands to consider the day as day, and the night as night. If they command or license any man to do injustice, they are criminal on their face. If they command any man to do anything which justice does not require him to do, they are simple, naked usurpation and tyrannies. If they forbid any man to do anything which justice would permit him to do, they are criminal invasions of his natural and rightful liberty. In whatever light, therefore, they are viewed, they are utterly destitute of everything like authority or obligation. They are all necessarily either the impudent, fraudulent, and criminal usurpations of tyrants, robbers, and murderers, or the senseless work of ignorant or thoughtless men, who do not know, or certainly do not realize, what they are doing." -- Lysander Spooner
# Steve Sack at Marc Brands Liberty - 9-11 Crutch - cartoon commentary on Bushnev's incessent use of 9-11. Grin. [smith2004]
# I attended a concert last night given by HuDost, "a Music ensemble based around the core of singer/songwriters Moksha Sommer, Linda Worster and JemalWade Hines. What started out as an acoustic trio project has turned into a fully produced ensemble record with special guests Pir Zia Inayat Khan, Pandit Mukesh Desai (not at concert), Jami Deva (not at concert), Dan Walters, Cybele (not at concert), and George Tortorelli." Moksha Sommer has an amazingly pure soprano voice. Right on pitch with no vibrato. And her trills thrill. JemalWade Hines gets amazing sounds out of his electrified acoustic guitar. I've enjoyed Linda Worster's solo folk music for many years now. Dan Walters' bass playing reminded me of Jaco Pastorius. George Tortorelli made beautiful fluid music on his many bamboo flutes. I had heard Moksha, Jemal, and Linda play together before at a coffee house, but the addition of bass, flute, and percussion was something to behold. The concert had an elemental theme: earth, water, fire, air, ether. A DVD of Alex Gray's art was projected on a screen behind the band. They played for nearly three hours. The room was filled with spiritual teachers and seekers, so it was a feast for heart and soul as well as for ears and eyes. And there was whirling, belly dancing, and poetry reading. MMMmmmmmmmmm!!
# Claire Wolfe at S.W.A.T. Magazine - Criminals Have More Rights Than the Police (And Be Very Glad They Do) - (PDF) a review of Amendments four through eight to the U.S. Constitution, focusing on the death of number four. This is Claire's second piece in S.W.A.T., but the first one written exclusively for them. Her "Enemy at the Gate" article will be a regular feature. [clairefiles]
Until about forty years ago, our homes and possessions were considered sacred. No warrant, no entry, no search--except in the most extreme urgent circumstances, for instance, when someone's life was in immediate peril.
Then came the War on Drugs--and we forgot our traditions, our history, our protections, our rights.
# Fred Gardner at Counterpunch - Study: Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer - Donald Tashkin surveyed 1,209 Los Angeles cancer patients about their marijuana use. He concluded that marijuana does not cause cancer, it may even help prevent it. It also helps with pain: [drugsense]
Abrams had results of his own to report at the ICRS meeting. He and his colleagues at San Francisco General Hospital had conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled study involving 50 patients with HIV-related peripheral neuropathy. Over the course of five days, patients recorded their pain levels in a diary after smoking either NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes or cigarettes from which the THC had been extracted. About 25% didn't know or guessed wrong as to whether they were smoking the placebos, which suggests that the blinding worked. Abrams requested that his results not be described in detail prior to publication in a peer-reviewed medical journal, but we can generalize: they exceeded expectations, and show marijuana providing pain relief comparable to Gabapentin, the most widely used treatment for a condition that afflicts some 30% of patients with HIV.
To a questioner who bemoaned the difficulty of "separating the high from the clinical benefits," Abrams replied: "I'm an oncologist as well as an AIDS doctor and I don't think that a drug that creates euphoria in patients with terminal diseases is having an adverse effect." His study was funded by the University of California's Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research.
# Ricard Cowan at Marijuana News - More Stupid Prohibitionist Tricks: Orwell Died Before Cliff Kincaid Was Born, But He Knew Him All Too Well - Interesting exchange between Mr. Cowan and a staunch prohibitionist. The interesting part starts about half-way down the page. [drugsense]
Also, I have smoked cannabis almost every day since 1967. I started in my native Texas when I was 27, when the penalty for possession of any amount was life in prison. You may judge for yourself whether it has damaged my capacity for rational discourse, but you might also note that the threat of harsh penalties did not deter me from starting, and decades of prohibition have not kept me from easily accessing cannabis. (By the way, I was gay before I smoked cannabis, but did not become a Christian until after I smoked. Could that imply that cannabis is a Pearly-gateway drug?)
