Second, thanks for teaching me a new word (although the word has technically been around since Samuel Foote coined it in 1755): panjandrum.

panjandrum - a mock title for a person of great self-importance.

Great word. I'll have to use it myself sometime.

One of the first speakers was Marc Emery. He had dovetailed the event to officially announce his running in the Vancouver City election. Some media folks were there to video Marc’s announcement. These media people were well appreciated, as Michelle and Steve Kubby warmly thanked them, crediting their presence for improving the treatment and conditions at the holding facility when Steve was recently detained.

The rally was held outside of the Canada Place Trade and Convention Centre which is public property, so while security guards eyeballed us suspiciously from just inside the glass doors of the convention center, they had no reason to disturb us. A group of Vancouver bicycle cops were poised nearby, but didn’t interfere. A special group of cops videotaped periodically from an elevated position on a building across the road. Vancouver Police use video face recognition software; they like to tape our rallies and demonstrations.

After Marc and Chris, David Malmo-Levine spoke, reminding everyone of the Marijuana March taking place on Saturday at 2 o’clock, starting at the Vancouver Art Gallery winding up at the American Embassy, home of the DEA office.

After David, Toni from Florida had the microphone. Drug Free America Foundation Inc. is a significant sponsor of the ‘bad’ IDEAS conference, and Toni linked the foundation to Straight Inc. through the influence of the Semblers. Toni described having a 17 year old girlfriend who was ‘kidnapped’ at night, some 20 years ago, being warehoused at the Straight facility before being blindfolded and taken to a billet family. Toni’s friend phoned her in the middle of the night, once she had determined her whereabouts, and Toni rescued her.

After Toni, Elvy, one of the few medical marijuana patients receiving US Government Cannabis grown at the University of Mississippi spoke. She emphasized Cannabis is medicine and credited it for keeping her alive. She had left her medicine on the south side of the border, but received care and attention from the Vancouver Compassion Club, which was celebrating its fifth anniversary.

The rally featured an open microphone and several people voiced their opposition to the ‘bad’ IDEAS conference. There was the occasional musical interlude featuring a reggae band augmented by a traveling Australian fellow who happened upon the event with his didgeridoo. People smoked joints unafraid of the police clustered distantly off to one side.

John Gordon, and his friend, George, both spoke about the Drug War Vigil Video contest that they had initiated. The judging was to be done this week as per of the festivities associated with the Toker’s Bowl.

We were impressed to be joined by a Drug War tank accompanied by marchers representing the VANDU, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. The tank was pushed by 4 people inside, and was constructed of bamboo, zip straps, and laminated sign cardboard camouflage painted. The turret gun had flowers protruding out the end. The participation of VANDU marked a conjoining of forces to protest the mutual threat the ‘bad’ IDEAS conference posed to the advocates of needle exchange, safe injection sites, and other harm reduction initiatives, as well as the cannabis community. Dean Wilson, president of VANDU, gave a stirring speech, which possibly got the loudest cheering of the day.

Ken Hayes, formerly a compassion club operator from the Bay Area of San Francisco, now living in British Columbia gave a rousing speech. He took off his jacket to reveal his black tee shirt embossed with “It’s the Law”. He described facing state charges, which a jury acquitted him, telling him to go out and do it again. “It’s the Law”, was his powerful refrain.

Phil Lucas, a compassion club operator from Victoria, also gave a stirring speech. His refrain, which the crowd chanted, was “When the authorities lie, we get hurt.” Though, Matt Elrod, webmaster and librarian extra-ordinaire, didn’t hold the microphone, it was good to see him.

Chris Bennett is an accomplished articulate speaker, and he happened to be holding the microphone when a group of four narks passed by the demonstration enroute to the convention center. Chris pointed at them bellowing, “There’s the face of the people who want to jail us, rip apart our families, spread a propaganda of lies and misinformation.” The four burly white guys, wearing DARE shirts, smiling, ducked into the convention center hailed by catcalls.

Vancouver was also the site of another rally that afternoon. It was decrying recent cutbacks to the minimum wage announced by the provincial government. Hence, the few cops watching our protest left. Later, the local news reported that that rally had got out of hand with several people arrested and some property damage incurred.

Renee Bennett, nee Boje, spoke about the war on drugs and how America was drifting toward intolerance. Baby Shiva was there also.

Hilary Black made a brief appearance. She had changed her travel itinerary to remain in Vancouver for the rally, prior to going to Portland, Oregon, for the Cannabis Therapeutics Conference. She mentioned that in Portland she would be making a presentation to hundreds of medical researchers, all of whom are better educated than Linda Bentall. Her fingers were crossed that she would successfully be able to cross the border.

Richard Cowan made an excellent speech. He reiterated that on the heels of the NORML convention, better attended and more poignant than ever, he was convinced that legalization would be forthcoming. He called IDEAS, a nark junket.

Other speakers included candidates from the BC Marijuana Party. One was a teacher who advocated his intelligent preference was to use cannabis as he saw fit. It was a personal issue. Another, Norm Siefken, argued that from a health perspective cannabis was a safe choice compared to alcohol.

The ‘bad’ IDEAS conference ended for the day and some of the participates filed out the door, though our gathering, even passing the table with hand outs citing the benefits of cannabis. As they left, they quickly pulled off the large ostensible tags denoting their participation with IDEAS. Only a single fellow who runs a treatment center stopped to debate. Essentially, whatever facts or figures were presented to him, he deferred to his own source of facts, claiming ours were false or untrustworthy.

This concluded our good IDEAS rally. The most people gathered at any time was probably close to 100. But with people passing through, or staying only awhile, one could argue that as many as 300 people participated during the 5 hours.

Drug war is fraud.

"...the permissive, tolerant view, ...has no credibility."

Imagine a man, weighing 900 lbs. His ponderous bulk requires mobile supports. His bed needs the kind of oleo struts amade for Airbus landing gear. When he walks, it takes an entire minute for him to make a 5 degree course correction. He has to use the freight elevator to get inside office buildings, and every footfall striking the ground sends shock waves through modular flooring. He is morbidly, disgustingly huge. His dinner for the day would feed a family of four in Mumbai for a whole month, he eats so much.

Now imagine this person - so far beyond obese there are no medical terms for it yet - pointing to an anorexic and informing the world that the anorexic needs a diet. According to the fat man, the walking skeleton eats too much.

The antis have had the microphone for 40 years, blatting their blather to the whole world. They are the ones who receive grants from pharmaceutical corporations and breweries and distilleries, totalling millions of dollars...when they aren't stuffing their overly broad faces at the Federal trough courtesy of 'grants' made in the name of the American people. (Funny, I don't remember any government flunky coming to my home and asking pretty please, can we give the torturers of Straight, Incorporated' Federal taxpayer's money?) They have had the lion's share of the 'proceeds' of the DrugWar's propaganda budget. They've had the podium too. as well as the ears of sympathetic government officals with personal agendas barely hidden. And true to their greedy selves, they want to keep it that way.

connotation

\Con`no*ta"tion\, n. [Cf. F. connotation.] The act of connoting; a making known or designating something additional; implication of something more than is asserted. (Emphasis mine -k.)

A Vancouver anti-drug conference is being targeted by advocates of a more permissive approach to illegal drug usage. The B.C. Marijuana Party held a rally outside the trade and convention centre, because the International Drug Education and Awareness (IDEA) symposium is not open to anyone who supports drug use. (Emphasis mine -k.)

Now, note this statement:

The ones who are pushing permissiveness and tolerance have had their say for four or five years and they have only presented the permissive, tolerant view, which from my point of view has no credibility." says IDEA's president Linda Bentall. (Empasis mine -k.)

I won't grace this comment with a direct reply; the fraudulent nature of it is quite evident. Instead I call attention to something: the media's use of the negatively connotated words 'permissive' and 'tolerant'. No doubt after interviewing (the very articulate and photogenic) Ms. Black. Else, why the repetition?

The connotation of wording is important, as any student of propaganda will tell you. After all (for you omnivores [like me] out there) which would you rather have? A nice, thick, juicy Porterhouse? Or charred muscle tissue from a castrated bull? It's the same thing, but you can phrase almost any sentence to elicit an emotional response, be it negative or positive.

So, the question is, is the CBC reporting? Or editorializing?

The BBC is running this article on their website today. Pretty good article with some dissent from Ann Widecomb.