cannabisnews.com: Pot Party Has Higher Purpose





Pot Party Has Higher Purpose
Posted by CN Staff on January 21, 2007 at 09:47:55 PT
By Nicholas Spangler
Source: Miami Herald 
Florida -- C.D. Flash, organizer of the ninth annual Medical Marijuana Benefit at Tobacco Road, was nowhere to be found but surely around somewhere: near the stands selling incense and Tupac portraits and Indonesian mangosteen juice shots or mixing with the crowd or stealing a toke?Probably not, on the last. It seemed nobody was. This was like a bacchanal with only Fresca to drink. The air smelled, if anything, of hamburgers.
Into the crowd, then. Will the drug be legalized in our lifetimes? Should it be? ''Absolutely,'' said Dan Alexander, philosophy major and treasurer of the Florida Atlantic University branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, unsurprisingly. ``It's been illegal for 70 years in the U.S. but before that, for 6,000 years, it was perfectly legal everywhere. But people are afraid of the unknown. Water is more lethal. You can die from drinking too much water!''Dan told a sad story about the time his dad, a police officer active in drug education, heard him take a hit off his bong. ''Oh, no,'' said his dad. ''Oh, yeah,'' said Dan. ``It disappointed him.''Then Dan pointed out Elvy Musikka, a former Hollywood resident who now lives in Oregon, who said she's one of five people in the nation legally authorized to smoke marijuana for medical reasons. There used to be more, she said, but they died, not because of the marijuana but because they were quite ill to start with.''They've been shipping it to me 19 years'' to alleviate glaucoma, Musikka said. ``It comes from the University of Mississippi in pre-rolled cigarettes -- maybe 300 of them in a big tin. I go through a half pound in a month.''''After smoking daily for 19 years, my brain controls it. I decide when is the proper time to relax enough to let me get there,'' she said.Conversation took an abrupt turn to the Lord. ''Don't arrest a patient for using God's work -- don't call yourself a Christian and do that,'' she said. ``That's blasphemy!''She begged pardon for getting excited and mentioned that she never goes anywhere without a stash. She pulled out an amber pill bottle that held 10 very fragrant cigarettes. Somebody asked if getting on a plane was very difficult. ''Oh, I just stick it in my bag,'' she said. 'I don't ever tell them. I know it'll be harder to explain. Once in Tampa I got stopped, and I started talking to the lady, but she just waved: `Oh, just go on.' So I did.''There followed a brief interview with the artist Danny Fila, plowing through a hamburger at the bar. One of Flash's minions had invited him to do some drawings. He thought, in deference to the occasion, he'd sketch someone ``puffing a joint and then outside their head, a million little things going out of it.''And there, flitting by the corner of one's eye, was Flash. After nine consecutive annual Medical Marijuana Benefits and Concerts, marijuana remains illegal. And the prospect of legalization seemed still a bit dim, no?''I don't really -- you have to take it in context,'' he said. ``It builds public awareness and connection with the community. Honest hardworking people should not have to sneak around if they want to smoke.''Source: Miami Herald (FL)Author: Nicholas SpanglerPublished: Sunday, January 21, 2007Copyright: 2007 The Miami HeraldContact: heralded herald.comWebsite: http://www.miamiherald.com/NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/CannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on January 21, 2007 at 16:06:15 PT
MikeEEEEE
I've heard it so many times I recognize the way they spin it anymore.Hope, What about Switch Grass?http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html
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Comment #5 posted by Hope on January 21, 2007 at 15:54:22 PT
comment 2 The article.
Someone said the other day that corn used for ethanol was a bad choice and it would send the price of corn through the ceiling. That article says the people there who depend on corn as a staple in their diet are experience troubles because the price has doubled in the last two months.That's not good. First, the drug war...now the corn. We are burning their food for fuel now and their food prices are soaring. I imagine ours will, too...if they haven't already.
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Comment #4 posted by MikeEEEEE on January 21, 2007 at 15:15:50 PT
The warrior nation
FoM, I believe your right.American leaders are in denial about their failures in wars.
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on January 21, 2007 at 14:53:48 PT
MikeEEEEE
I bet he just wants more money from us again. 
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Comment #2 posted by MikeEEEEE on January 21, 2007 at 14:46:45 PT
Prohibition causes crime
What the Mexican president said:"The United States, unfortunately, is the biggest consumer of drugs in the world. That fosters this extreme drug-trafficking phenomenon in Mexico," he said."It's a very simple equation -- you can't get a significant reduction in drug supply if there's not a significant reduction in demand."For the full article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070121/wl_nm/mexico_president_dc
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Comment #1 posted by ekim on January 21, 2007 at 11:44:03 PT
candadit Bush said leave med use up to the States
looks for all the world to see that he wants to finish what his Dad started 
 a legaseahttp://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2005/02/18/irvRosenbergAndTheCompassi.htmlHow did Irv become a federal medical marijuana patient?It all started in 1976 in a fascinating case...U.S. v. Randall
In 1976, a Washington, D.C. man afflicted by glaucoma employed the little-used Common Law doctrine of necessity to defend himself against criminal charges of marijuana cultivation. On November 24, 1976, federal Judge James Washington ruled Randall's use of marijuana constituted a "medical necessity." In part, Judge Washington ruled:While blindness was shown by competent medical testimony to be the otherwise inevitable result of defendant's disease, no adverse effects from the smoking of marijuana have been demonstrated.... Medical evidence suggests that the medical prohibition is not well-founded.
Judge Washington dismissed criminal charges against Randall. Concurrent with this judicial determination, federal agencies responding to a May, 1976 petition filed by Randall, began providing this patient with licit, FDA-approved access to government supplies of medical marijuana. Randall was the first American to receive marijuana for the treatment of a medical disorder.Randall chose not to be silent about his victory, and started organizing others, which led to:Randall v. U.S.
In 1978, federal agencies, disquieted by Randall's outspoken opposition to the medical prohibition, sought to silence him by disrupting his legal access to marijuana. In response, Randall, represented pro bono publico by the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson, brought suit against FDA, DEA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Department of Justice and the Department of Health, Education & Welfare.Twenty-four hours after the suit was filed, federal agencies requested an out-of-court settlement. The resulting settlement provided Randall with prescriptive access to marijuana through a federal pharmacy located near his home.The settlement in Randall v. U.S. became the legal basis for FDA's Compassionate IND program. Initially, this program was limited to patients afflicted by marijuana-responsive disorders and some orphan drugs. In the mid-1980's however, the Compassionate IND concept was expanded to include HIV-positive people seeking legal access to drugs which had not yet received final FDA marketing approval. Irv Rosenfeld met Randall, who convinced him to go after the same legal arrangement, which he successfully did (around 1983). Irv has a rare degenerative bone disease called multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses, a painful bone disease.More patients joined the Compassionate IND program, but in the 1980s, it looked like it would grow significantly because of AIDS. So The George H.W. Bush administration shut it down in 1991.Again, from marijuana-as-medicine.org: The Compassionate IND program was closed because too many people were asking for access to medical marijuana supplies. In order for marijuana to be classified as a prohibited Schedule I drug it must not have "accepted medical use in treatment" in the United States. The federal government knew that hundreds of approved Compassionate INDs would quickly undermine that criteria and marijuana would have to be rescheduled. Rather than respond in an honest and open way, the federal government closed the Compassionate IND program for marijuana.
The existing patients were grandfathered in because it would require public and embarrassing court cases to deny them medicine at this point. The AIDS patients in the program died (this was prior to the AIDS cocktails that could prolong life). And finally, Randall died, making Irv Rosenfeld now the oldest living legal federal marijuana patient.
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