A very key part of any 'fair use' argument, in my personal opinion, is that we need to see the articles to make the comments. Links are not an acceptable replacement, in my opinion, as they are often bad before we can even comment.

Thus you who comment here could help to make our argument if we end up having our day in court. Please use the comments systems at both cannabisnews and MAP!

Webpage:

Followed by the URL to the actual article (does not include LTEs as they, not being owned by the sources, are never snipped).

While it will take time to work all the bugs out and get most hawks doing it, it is already working fairly well. For an example of the results, see:

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n414/a07.html

These Webpage: links are going into a special field in the MySQL archives database. Each night all the Webpage: links are checked for bad links, and hopefully those which have gone bad are removed.

This is just one of a number of steps being taken in relation to the [Remainder snipped] sources.

Expect to see more of this in the future, at least until the issue is resolved.

The issue is rather simple. A small group of newspaper chains and a few individual newspapers appear to be unable to understand the concepts built into 'fair use' as it applies to 501(c)3 educational non-profits under both U.S. law and international treaty.

Just as they did last Fall with the DrugSense sister news site www.mapnews.org the legal departments of these chains/papers are now making legal demands that their news items be removed from cannabisnews.

For the most part these demands are being made to the legal site owner, DrugSense, rather than to Martha (FoM) or any other volunteer.

Once these demands are made they are turned over to the expert DrugSense legal team for appropriate action. When the legal team advises that items be 'snipped' pending resolution of the legal questions that is what is done.

As a volunteer, just like Martha, I am not in the loop about discussions between the legal team and the DrugSense board of directors, so there is not much that I can say. Even if I did know more, I would not disclose in this public forum what actions may or may not be under consideration or in play.

Personally I have to wonder why they are picking on us? When sources know full well that cannabisnews presents news items only to allow public discussion - and how else can they be discussed if you are unable to read them - on this important issue I have to suspect that some of this could be based on politics. Is the ONDCP, DEA or PDFA leaning on them? We may never know.

It would also be interesting to know if they are also going after the tens of thousands of other websites, many clearly commercial, for profit, sites, which also have copies of news stories from these very same sources?

Unlike www.mapinc.org where about 60 news items are posted each day, Martha can pick the handful she feels appropriate for discussion. If a good story is from one source that is making these demands, she can likely find another source that is not.

Thus while a search of cannabisnews will show a small number of 'snipped' items in the past, 'snipped' new items in the future will likely be very rare.

The bottom line is that both Martha and I are not involved - are not in the loop - when it comes to these legal questions. We talk frequently, and, like you, look forward to appropriate resolution of the questions.

Although we can hope that you would not, some of you may wish to discuss this. Remember that anything you write could be held against DrugSense in a court of law some day. Thus the less said here the better.

"Marijuana users who seek drug treatment do not necessarily reflect users in general, since these individuals may have other health issues such as anxiety or depression."

"This does not mean the drug caused brain damage in these cases, she said, explaining that the impairments seen in long-time users were "relatively subtle." "But although such deficits, if prolonged or irreversible, would be of "grave concern," other studies have found no such impairments in long-time marijuana users, according to Pope, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts."

"In this study, nearly half of the long-time marijuana users had in the past regularly used or abused alcohol or other drugs."

"[In a different study] Pope and his colleagues recently found "virtually no significant differences" between heavy marijuana users and non-users on a battery of neuropsychological tests."

Info exchange: Cannabis
http://www.infoxchange.net.au/ydanews/spring94.htm
"In regard to the moral effects of the drugs, the commission is of the opinion that their moderate use produces no moral injury what so ever..."

-Report of the British East Indian Hemp Commission.1894.

Around that time one Harry Anslinger, the chief of the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, found that people were listening with some concern, when he spoke of marijuana (which, by the way, is not a narcotic) as "..the foremost menace to life, health and morals in the list of drugs used in America". Most of this interest may be found in the coincidence of use in America at that time being in the Black and Hispanic populations, who were, in a depressed economy, being seen by the white population as unwanted surplus labour. As his outcries against marijuana advanced, so did Anslinger's career (shades of Joseph McCarthy).

The USA Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy 1987
"Cannabis can be used on an episodic but continual basis without evidence of social or psychic dysfunction. In many users the term dependence with its obvious connotations, probably is mis-applied... The chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political, and not toxicologic, foundation".

Dementia Associated With Alcoholism

American Description

Diagnostic Criteria

Impairment in short- and long-term memory
At least 1 of the following:
Impairment in abstract thinking
Impaired judgment
Other disturbances of higher cortical function
Personality change
Memory impairment and intellectual impairment caused
significant social and occupational impairments
Absence of occurrence exclusively during the course of Delirium
Memory loss followed prolonged, heavy ingestion of alcohol
Exclusion of all causes of memory loss other than alcoholism

Associated Features

Learning Problem
Dysarthria/Involuntary Movement
Hypoactivity
Psychotic
Depressed Mood
Somatic/Sexual Dysfunction
Addiction
Sexually Deviant Behavior
Odd/Eccentric/Suspicious Personality
Anxious/Fearful/Dependent Personality
Dramatic/Erratic/Antisocial Personality

Differential Diagnosis

Normal process of aging; Delirium; Schizophrenia; Major Depressive Episode; Factitious Disorder with Psychological Symptoms; Alcohol Amnestic Disorder; other causes of Dementia.
http://www.canjneurolsci.org/21maytoc/alcoholi.htm

Alcohol Dementia Directory
http://home.sufia.net/user/outreach/al-d.htm

Related Links
http://alcoholism.about.com/health/alcoholism//?once=true&

Cannabis Prevents Brain Damage
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=24.topic

Cannabis May Offer Protection Against Tumors
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionffffhyperlinked.showMessage?topicID=4.topic

Cannabis Blocks Irreversible Brain Damage
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionffffhyperlinked.showMessage?topicID=3.topic

The Hype Brain Damage in Dead Monkeys
(Rayguns suffocates Bonzo)
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=50.topic

The Ad PDF File:
http://www.compassionateaccess.org/pdf/nytimesad.pdf

The Ad:
http://www.compassionateaccess.org/nytimesad.html

The sample is seriously flawed. People seeking treatment obviously have some sort of problem.

To study tokers vs non, you would want to select subjects at random from the population, score their tests, then determine their usage history and analyze scores for various usage categories (non-user, short-term, long-term, light, heavy, etc).

This was clearly bull even in HS, with its cross-section of people who smoked pot: Jocks, Brains, Beauty Queens, whatever, in addition to the losers who were like that whether they smoked pot or not.

Marijuana has been used for eons. It's long-term use withstands the test of time.

Prohibition does not work. It never will.