cannabisnews.com: Help Remove Cannabis Patients from Battlefield





Help Remove Cannabis Patients from Battlefield
Posted by FoM on February 16, 2002 at 21:00:17 PT
DrugSense FOCUS Alert #235 Feb 16, 2002 
Source: Mapinc.
Deroy Murdock, a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service wrote this in his syndicated column: The Bay Area clampdown recalls the DEA's Oct. 25 closure of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center. It operated with the blessing of West Hollywood officials and the L.A. County sheriff, all elected authorities. That was not enough to keep 30 DEA agents from spending six hours yanking 400 marijuana plants from its premises along with computers, documents and the medical records of its 960 patients. 
Until the Feds intervened, these outfits operated legally. Fifty-six percent of California voters approved Proposition 215, a medical marijuana measure, in 1996. Initiatives also have legalized medipot in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Oregon, Nevada and Washington. While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last May that therapeutic grass suppliers cannot assert marijuana's "medical necessity" to avoid federal drug laws, it did not address the validity of state statutes permitting clinical cannabis. Federal heavy-handedness has made drug decriminalizers rail against DEA chief and former GOP congressman Asa Hutchinson. As the Drug Policy Alliance's Glenn Backes says: "You have an appointed official, a career politician from Arkansas, who sits in Washington, D.C. and tells the voters of California and the other seven states that have supported medical marijuana: "It doesn't matter what you vote for. I have your tax dollars and I'm going to spend them going after sick people." You can read the rest of the column at this link http://www.mapinc.org/author/Deroy+Murdock We know that you, readers of our DrugSense Focus Alerts, are already doing your part sending letters to the editor. Because we also know, as a result of the votes above and respected national polls, that taking the patients off the battlefields of the War on Drugs has a solid majority of public support we are asking you today to help insure that our elected officials to understand this simple fact. With sustained pressure - both thru educating the media and the politicians - we can carry the day on this issue. So we are providing three alerts below -- from the Drug Policy Alliance, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and the Marijuana Policy Project -- in the hope that you will use them to take further action. From the Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicyalliance.org/ URGENT: STOP THE DEA! Protect Patients and Democracy!!! Your help is urgently needed! The DEA made numerous medical marijuana raids across the state of California yesterday (February 12th), closing down non-profit medical co-operatives and victimizing AIDS and Cancer patients. This comes on the very day that the U.S. Justice Department urged all law-enforcement agencies "to be on the highest alert" for impending terrorist attacks. Members of Congress need to know that these actions are unacceptable. How You Can Help Stop the DEA: CALL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS!! TELL THEM: 1) "I'm outraged that the DEA made medical marijuana raids in California on a day that law-enforcement agencies were supposed to be on high alert protecting citizens from terrorist attacks." 2) "The DEA should stop wasting millions of dollars attacking patients." 3) "Congress should cut the DEA's budget by the amount spent on these raids." 4) "Members of Congress should issue press releases and go on record opposing these raids." To Call: Find out who your Representative and two Senators are by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. You can also find out who your Senators are by going to http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index_by_state.cfm You can find out who your Representative is by going to: http://www.senate.gov/AFTER YOU MAKE THOSE PHONE CALLS, go to http://www.drugpolicy.org/action/frame_mdmj.html and fax your Senators and Representative. It is VERY IMPORTANT to follow up your phone calls with faxes. For more information on medical marijuana and the DEA raids, see http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/pr-february12b-02x.html From the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws http://www.norml.org/ Tell Your Congressmen to Oppose DEA Raids of California Medical Cannabis Co-operatives Send a message that this time the DEA has gone too far! On the morning of February 12, DEA agents carried out a massive series of raids on California's medical cannabis co-operatives and providers. The ultimate result of these raids is that hundreds of seriously ill patients who rely on these support groups must now turn to the streets and black market in order to obtain their medicine. Disturbingly, these raids took place on the same day that our nation's federal law enforcement agencies were to be on their highest alert protecting Americans from a possible terrorist attack. At a time when federal law enforcement resources are desperately needed to combat the real threat of terrorism in America, it is absurd that the DEA would spend time and money coordinating and implementing an assault on California's medical marijuana patients and providers. Even more appalling is that this action took place despite the fact that these clubs enjoy the support of California voters, local law enforcement, the San Francisco District Attorney's office, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Please take five minutes to write to your Congressmen and Senators, urging them to go on record opposing these DEA raids as a waste of time and money and as a violation of the will of the people of California. We also recommend that you request your elected official to introduce legislation in Congress to cut the DEA's budget by the amount of money spent planning and carrying out these misguided raids. Thank you for your help in this important matter. From the Marijuana Policy Project http://www.mpp.org/ Dear Friend, At a time when our nation is concerned about the war on terrorism, the DEA is waging an all-out war on medical marijuana patients. The Bush administration warned that there was a high likelihood of a terrorist attack on Tuesday. They were right: That day, DEA thugs raided a medical marijuana clinic in San Francisco, charging four activists in the Bay Area with the "crime" of providing medical marijuana to patients who are legally authorized to use it under state law. Each of the four defendants now faces between five years and life in prison. Significantly, the clinic was authorized by the local prosecutor's office, who expressed his outrage that the DEA is trampling the will of California voters in its sick crusade against sick people. Please visit http://www.mpp.org/USA today to fax a pre-written letter of outrage to your U.S. representative and two U.S. senators. The whole process takes less than two minutes. (You might have previously used this Web page to fax a pre-written letter to your U.S. representative. If so, thank you. But please visit the page again, because we did not have the Web page set up at the time for faxing your two U.S. senators.) In an incredible show of arrogance, DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson scheduled a speech in San Francisco for that night. He tried to claim that the DEA is merely enforcing federal drug laws -- and that medical marijuana isn't really a priority. But the crowd didn't buy it, catcalling him and shouting "Liar!" when he said science has shown that smoking marijuana has no medical benefit. News articles are available at http://www.mpp.org/USA He got a taste of the ridicule he deserves. And MPP wants to add to his disgrace by overwhelming congressional offices with letters of protest. Please visit http://www.mpp.org/USA right now to ask your three members of Congress to (1) rein in the DEA, and (2) pass H.R. 2592, which would allow states to determine their own medical marijuana policies without federal interference -- or raids. As you may know, the Bush administration ran two TV ads during the Super Bowl and newspaper ads in the week that followed, claiming that people who buy drugs are really funding terrorism. If that were true, why would the Bush administration's DEA shut down a medical marijuana clinic, thereby forcing hundreds of patients to buy marijuana from illegal dealers on the streets instead of a locally sanctioned clinic? And this isn't the first time. Let's not forget that in October, the DEA pushed 1,000 patients into the streets of Los Angeles after shutting down a clinic in West Hollywood. The Bush administration is pursuing a harm-maximization, hate-filled, destructive policy. It's time to "just say no" to the DEA. Please visit http://www.mpp.org/USA to tell the DEA's funders -- the United States Congress -- to come down hard on the DEA. The DEA doesn't answer to you -- or the voters of California, apparently -- but it must answer to Congress. Please act now. Sincerely, Rob Kampia, Executive Director, Marijuana Policy Project P.S. Please ask your family and friends to visit http://www.mpp.org/USA so they can send their own letters of protest, too. MPP is trying to generate enough pressure to force Congress to hold hearings on the DEA's abuses. ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing efforts Writer's Resources http://www.mapinc.org/resource/ TO SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL SEE http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm TO UNSUBSCRIBE SEE http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm Complete Title: Please Help Remove the Cannabis Patients from the Battlefield DrugSense FOCUS Alert #235 Feb 16, 2002 -- http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0233.htmlPrepared by Richard Lake, Focus Alert Specialist: http://www.mapinc.org Related Articles & Web Sites:DEA Raids Medical Marijuana Clubhttp://freedomtoexhale.com/raid.htmFederal War Against The Sick http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12015.shtmlPot Club Crackdown Continueshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12014.shtml3 Nabbed in Pot Bust Post Bail http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12012.shtml 
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Comment #10 posted by Dave in Florida on February 19, 2002 at 19:58:24 PT
concerned..
Just wondering about FoM.. She must be having computer problems or phone line issues.. no post and no notes!!
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Comment #9 posted by DdC on February 17, 2002 at 20:04:57 PT
Cannabis Has NO Medical Value...
Homegrown in the kitchen without chemicals and lab parephernalia, profits and taxes. No monitary inflation soaring cost past gold. Only prohibition keeps this vegetable so costly. Only prohibition kills people and rapes people in juviprison and steals peoples property for using it. Using it medicinally or preventively. Yet preventing illness is still taboo even amoung many hampsters and medcan users hoping to "bargain with the devil" as the saying goes. The war on drugs they don't sell is still a product. It cost $19 billion a year in budget money alone. International companies earn this money then launder it through the Partnerships as tax deductions keeping competition away from themselves. Slick. It purchases over 400 million plants of which 99.28% are non-psychoactive ditchweed. Then destroys these crude, cotton, meat, plastic, nuke, polyfiber alternatives. This WoD promotes the spreading of disease and adulterated scwagg and chemicals much cheaper than ganja that do harm people. Each new disease profits the same chemical treatment companies. Each new arrest pays someone in the prison industry. Each incarceration and future slave wager perpetuated by this intentional flesh farming. Now with the Military WoD is sold not only to Colombia so Sikorsky and Monsanto can profit. But Afghanistan through the Phillipines so Lockheed Martin and DowCorning can play. So Dyncorp servalence teams and equipment can be sold as it is too all the local copshops now using heat sensors on anonymous tip warrants. More war protecting Enron investments. More profits for Bush Cheney and Carlyles and Haliburton. While D.E.A.th groupies spread the lies of Nihas and Anslinger and Hearst. All for a reason. Now after 5 years of information posted on the net and news services like this and MAP there is no excuse for the Joy-ces lies and DARE brainwashings and the PDFA partnerships all laundering money for chemical corporations we never get to hear from. Those behind the tobacco products adding their deadly flavors and preservatives and pesticides not included in organic tobacco or ganja. Yet these lies still get print. Print owned by the same Hearst WSJ backing the fascist Mussolini before continuing to promote the war on products in competition. The trees cut for paper, not hemp. The plastic and booze sold in the advertizments, not cannabis. The nukes they now must bury in yuka while hemp biomass doesn't get used or grown by the bankrupted farmers. Aborting their babies with herbocide runoff and jerking the flags to the same old tune. The liars still get advertized while the truth is banned in Boston. Bush's enron ripped us all off in our CA power bills and now they continue raping this country of rights and cause suffering amoung the sick and frail portions with State rights, not for a lesser evil or to stop harm but for lousy profits. Duping the Joy-ce good intenders paving the roads to hell with their ends justifying means not unlike the past attemps throughout His-story. Pity is what we should give them, if they just didn't hurt so many, leave them alone. No bystanders. No too fat polka's blaring while lederhosined malnutritioned stuffing sourkraut and sausages and washing it down with steins of beer while the Nationalist waved their flags and scapegoated another group to blame. No bystanders sitting in Starbucks stuffing down bagals and Latte's while Nationalist waving their flags and blaming and scapegoating another group just as totally unrelated to the real problem. This is war? Is that really what they want?
Peace, Love and Liberty or D.E.A.th!
DdCNo Medical Value$$$
http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/27/27582.gifWhy I Support Marijuana Prohibition...
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionstuff.showMessage?topicID=122.topic
FARM-aceuticals
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Comment #8 posted by ekim on February 17, 2002 at 15:09:14 PT:
Montana doing a good job informing the people
Pubdate: Fri, 15 Feb 2002
Source: Montana Standard (MT)
Copyright: 2002 Montana StandardAuthor: Deroy Murdock    FEDS TERRORIZE CANNABIS COMMUNITYLast Monday, the FBI warned that "a planned attack may occur in the United 
States or
against U.S. interests on or around Feb. 12," thanks to 12 terrorists led 
by Fawaz Yahya
al-Rabeei, a Saudi-born Yemeni. Suspecting this, federal officials should 
have deployed as
many dedicated, talented agents as possible to protect high-profile targets 
such as San
Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf or the pyramidal 
Transamerica Tower.Think again. Washington instead chose Feb. 12 to unleash tough, gun- 
toting Drug
Enforcement Agency officers against AIDS and cancer patients. These 
federal agents raided
a suspected cannabis garden in suburban Petaluma, Calif., and purported 
medical marijuana
dispensaries in San Francisco and Oakland. They arrested four men who led 
these
operations.This unjust and ill-timed misallocation of law-enforcement resources 
epitomizes the Bush
administration's new effort to repackage the War on Drugs within the War on 
Terror."If you're buying illegal drugs in America, it is likely that money is 
going to end up in the
hands of terrorist organizations," President Bush declared Feb. 12. His 
point is not without
merit when it comes to cocaine, some of whose proceeds reach Colombia's 
Marxist FARC
guerrillas. Likewise, the Taliban profited from heroin and opium 
smuggling. Of course, the
War on Drugs relegates these products to the black market, where shady 
characters dwell,
rather than the sunshine of free trade.That said, one has to smoke something pretty strong to conclude that 
someone who uses
marijuana to fight side-effects of life-threatening AIDS wasting syndrome 
somehow is in
cahoots with Al-Qaeda. The Sixth Street Harm Reduction Center, a facility 
the DEA
crushed Feb. 12, served some 200 people enduring AIDS, cancer, Lou 
Gehrig's disease and
other serious illnesses. They now must buy their cannabis through illegal 
drug dealers.Three of the center's associates face between five and 40 years in federal 
prison. Officials
say James Halloran, 61, grew more than 1,000 marijuana plants in 
Oakland. That could
cost him 10 years to life behind bars.Compare these staggering potential terms to the actual
penalties two men received Jan. 31 for unwittingly helping 9-11 hijackers 
Abdulaziz
Alomari and Ahmed Alghamdi secure bogus Virginia ID cards. Victor 
Lopez-Flores got 27
months in prison while Herbert Villalobos earned a four-month 
sentence. His previous 18
weeks in custody earned his immediate release.The Bay Area clampdown recalls the DEA's Oct. 25 closure of the Los 
Angeles Cannabis
Resource Center. It operated with the blessing of West Hollywood officials 
and the L.A.
County sheriff, all elected authorities. That was not enough to keep 30 
DEA agents from
spending six hours yanking 400 marijuana plants from its premises along 
with computers,
documents and the medical records of its 960 patients. Until the Feds 
intervened, these
outfits operated legally.Fifty-six percent of California voters approved Proposition 215, a medical 
marijuana measure,
in 1996. Initiatives also have legalized medipot in Alaska, Arizona, 
Colorado, Maine, Oregon,
Nevada and Washington. While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last May that 
therapeutic grass
suppliers cannot assert marijuana's "medical necessity" to avoid federal 
drug laws, it did not
address the validity of state statutes permitting clinical cannabis.Federal heavy-handedness has made drug decriminalizers rail against DEA 
chief and former
GOP congressman Asa Hutchinson. As the Drug Policy Alliance's Glenn Backes 
says: "You
have an appointed official, a career politician from Arkansas, who sits in 
Washington, D.C. and
tells the voters of California and the other seven states that have 
supported medical marijuana: "It
doesn't matter what you vote for. I have your tax dollars and I'm going to 
spend them going after sick
people.""Of course, drug warriors like Hutchinson target healthy pot smokers, too. 
The FBI reports
that 734,498 Americans were arrested for marijuana violations in 
2000. Nearly 88 percent
of these individuals -- precisely 646,042 -- were arrested for mere 
possession.As the U.S. confronts budget deficits and a growing surplus of enemies 
dedicated to
America's destruction, Washington must rearrange its priorities. Neither 
cancer patients nor
classic rockers who use marijuana will murder another 3,000 innocent 
civilians in cold
blood.Every federal agent who stops pot smokers from lighting up is one less 
agent who can
prevent Americans from blowing up.
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Comment #7 posted by mayan on February 17, 2002 at 14:18:02 PT
goneposthole...
Joyce obviously has an ulterior motive...I mean, how could anyone post such blatant lies without one? Why does she never reply? What could she possibly say in the face of the truth? She never replies because she has no argument & it is comical when her ludicrous comments appear here because she gets ripped to pieces every time. Personally, I wish she would post here more often because it is quite evident who has the truth on their side...& it aint her. Joyce,Grandpa,Frances,DEA regs...Neil - the list is not much longer of those who have attempted to spread myths, untruths,half-truths & flat-out lies here. Why is it that list of names not longer & why do most of these names not post on good old C-News anymore? Because they have no legs to stand on anymore. We simply chopped them off with the truth. That is how & why we will win.
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on February 17, 2002 at 09:22:39 PT
Just a Note
Well it's Sunday again and no news. I'll keep looking but this is normal for a Sunday. I hope everyone has a nice day. 
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on February 17, 2002 at 08:25:52 PT
goneposthole
We are watching The History Channel and it was about building The Berlin Wall. They showed people jumping out of apartment windows to try to get free. Many died. They died fighting for freedom. We are fighting for freedom too. That's all I really want is freedom. Freedom to be myself and not hurt anyone in the process. Tha's all we want and they just don't understand how precious freedom is.
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Comment #4 posted by eco-man on February 17, 2002 at 08:17:25 PT
Will do, FoM. :)
RAID fallout. Father Nazarin. Re-Organization of the Former St. Martin de Porres Chapel. 
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/02/116461.phpMedical cannabis RAID. DEA legal documents against Ken Hayes, Richard Watts, Ed Rosenthal. 
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/02/116460.phpMAP-DrugSense FOCUS Alert. Please Help Remove the Cannabis Patients from the Battlefield. 
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/02/116459.php
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on February 17, 2002 at 08:06:37 PT
eco
Thanks eco. Keep up the good work you are doing. Keep getting the word out.
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Comment #2 posted by goneposthole on February 17, 2002 at 06:35:09 PT
Be the media
I wonder sometimes why all of this stuff goes on.
I seems to me that something other than just prohibition is on some agenda other than having marijuana illegal.
Like the posts from Joyce. I am very suspicious of why they appear. Her name and the issue she purports are provocative. If she is trying to get a goat, she succeeds. However, if their is a game plan behind it all, and she is merely following orders, a nefrarious scheme is sure in order. Why is it that she never replies, other than she does not have a leg to stand on. She hides, but cannot run. Call me a kook, paranoid schizophrenic, or just plain nuts. I don't care.I will call it intuition. At the heart of it all, winning the hearts and minds of poor wicked souls who are ensconced into the cracks and crevices of the DEA and wherever else it all is, is what is at stake.Those poor wicked souls inhale everything in sight, but cannot let their breath go. They have no freedom to exhale. We can only pity the pathetic condition they have.2 cents is starting to look like a lot of money. 
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Comment #1 posted by eco-man on February 17, 2002 at 05:47:47 PT
Latest RAID articles at San Francisco Indymedia. 
I posted the "DrugSense FOCUS Alert" above called "Please Help Remove the Cannabis Patients from the Battlefield" at SAN FRANCISCO INDYMEDIA. Along with other DEA RAID articles about the recent raids of the San Francisco and other medical cannabis centers, and people involved with them. San Francisco Indymedia (part of the well-known, international, Indymedia network) for ongoing reports on the DEA raids. BE THE MEDIA. Anybody can POST INFO, PHOTOS, AUDIO, VIDEO, COMMENTS there: 
http://sf.indymedia.org/ Fast search engine for San Francisco Indymedia site archives. Can also just leave the form blank, pick any month and day and year, and browse the article titles for that date. 
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/search/ Last 100 articles and summaries. San Francisco Indymedia. For more articles just keep clicking the "more stories" link. 
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/?&limit=100DEA Raid PHOTOS, links. San Francisco medical cannabis centers, arrests, etc..
http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/message.shtml?1x39701
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