cannabisnews.com: For 300 Rhode Islanders, MJ Provides Legal Relief





For 300 Rhode Islanders, MJ Provides Legal Relief
Posted by CN Staff on September 07, 2007 at 15:59:30 PT
By Amanda Milkovits, Journal Staff Writer
Source: Providence Journal
Rhode Island -- The old life of Kelly Powers began to slip away two years ago. Her husband had bought her a new motorcycle for her 31st birthday, but during the vision test for her license, Powers realized something was wrong. She’d been getting chronic headaches and was clumsy at times. She had trouble holding a bottle for her infant daughter. Then her hands couldn’t seem to hold her baby.
It was multiple sclerosis. Within a year, the disease was claiming enough of her body that she had to give up her daycare business and retreat to her bed.The doctors increased her medication to between 20 and 30 pills a day, drugs that left the Warwick mother feeling like a zombie. She stopped driving her son to elementary school. She couldn’t talk on the phone without losing her thoughts and drifting off. She rarely left the house. She barely left her bedroom.Her husband, Bob, an electrician, took over the housework. Her mother and mother-in-law came over to help. Her sister came by at night to put the couple’s two young children to bed. “I felt like a bad mom. I couldn’t take care of my kids,” Powers says. “Here I am, this is my life, and everyone else is doing all the things I love.”Her husband, whom she’d met while singing karaoke at the old Venetian Gardens in Oakland Beach, crooned the Guns N’ Roses ballad “Patience” to her on days when she struggled. “My husband was crying because he couldn’t help me,” says Powers. “He was afraid to touch me, because I was in so much pain. I wasn’t me. I was in so much pain, overmedicated, and I was withdrawing from everybody.”There was one woman who understood, a friend whom Powers met in a multiple-sclerosis support group. Rhonda O’Donnell was also 31 when she was diagnosed, and she had to give up her nursing career when the disease blurred her vision and eventually left her hobbled. She’d tell Powers, You can have a pity party, but you don’t have to stay there.O’Donnell, now 44, was a dynamo in a wheelchair, lobbying at the State House for marijuana to be made legal for the chronically ill in Rhode Island. Her son Tom Angell had brainstormed the idea with a friend in his dorm room at the University of Rhode Island. Angell, who was president of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy at the time, had heard a speaker hosted by the group whose wife used marijuana to relieve her pain. He thought about his mother.Angell and his mother lobbied for the medical-marijuana legislation, which became law in January 2006 on a one-year trial after the General Assembly overrode Governor Carcieri’s veto. The law became permanent this summer.Powers accompanied O’Donnell when the former nurse obtained her medical marijuana card on May 1, 2006, the first day patients could be approved for the program. But Powers hadn’t been ready.She’d seen some of her relatives struggle with drug addiction, and she didn’t want drugs in her life. Would using marijuana make her a hypocrite? Her daughter was a toddler, but her son was just starting elementary school and was old enough to know what was going on. How could she explain to him that she was using an illegal drug? What would his teachers think? Or members of her church? The new state law, called the Edward O. Hawkins and Thomas C. Slater Medical Marijuana Act, allows patients with debilitating medical conditions, such as cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis, to possess up to 12 marijuana plants and 2.5 ounces of marijuana. An adult without any felony drug convictions may serve as a “caregiver” for a patient, providing him or her with marijuana. A caregiver can have up to five patients, and up to 24 plants and 5 ounces of usable marijuana if they have more than one patient. A caregiver with one patient can have up to 12 plants and 2.5 ounces of marijuana.As of early last month, 302 patients and 316 caregivers were enrolled in the program, according to the state Department of Health. A total of 149 physicians in Rhode Island have referred patients to the program. The Health Department has rejected 10 applicants as caregivers because of felony drug convictions, and a caregiver and patient have had their medical-marijuana identity cards revoked after being arrested for having dozens more plants than allowed.The new law left some gray areas that don’t come up for patients using other prescribed medications. Marijuana is illegal under federal law. Rhode Island doesn’t advise patients how to get marijuana, how to grow it or how to use it. So patients must grow it themselves, find a caregiver approved to grow it, or buy it off the street from drug dealers. Growers say they spend about a year cultivating the plants before they can be harvested — battling the usual gardener’s woes of pests and plants that can’t be harvested.In his opposition to medical marijuana, Carcieri, who twice saw his vetoes of medical-marijuana legislation overridden, cited problems with legally obtaining marijuana, and law-enforcement officials and others called marijuana a “gateway drug.” Supporters of the legislation said marijuana provides immediate relief from pain without the side effects caused by prescription pain medication. Some Rhode Island patients say they worry that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration may target them. Some worry about losing their jobs or their federally subsidized housing. The DEA has raided dozens of dispensaries in California, outlets that sell marijuana products to people with marijuana identity cards, and warned landlords in Los Angeles that they could face conviction and seizure of their property for renting to the dispensaries. And in Oregon, the agency subpoenaed the medical records of patients in the state’s medical-marijuana program for an investigation into marijuana growers.But Anthony Pettigrew, agent for the New England field office of the DEA, said that while marijuana possession is against federal law, “the DEA never targets the sick and dying.” The agency is more interested in organized drug traffickers, Pettigrew said. “I’ve been here for 22 years,” he said, and “realistically, I’ve never seen anyone go to federal jail for possessing a joint.”O’Donnell said she knew the legislation left some issues unresolved, but she believed the state needed to start somewhere. “People say, ‘Why don’t you wait?’ ” O’Donnell said. “That’s stupid to wait. We’d be waiting 25 years.”The work of O’Donnell and other patients helped make Rhode Island the 11th state in the country to legalize marijuana for medical use. But the very public battle overshadows the very private decisions of hundreds of people using the drug to deal with the ravages of cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis and other debilitating diseases.There was no medical-marijuana law the day Bobby Ebert drove down to Kennedy Plaza in Providence looking for someone to give him “the nod.”Shingles, an acute viral infection, wracked his body, escorted in by complications from AIDS. He’d been diagnosed several years ago, and his life of working as a roadie in the local rock ’n’ roll scene had ended. His body burned. He couldn’t eat. When he did, he vomited. He was taking dozens of pills, but they only dulled the pain, leaving him angry and isolated in his small apartment in Warwick. He felt like he was waiting to die.Ebert had read online that smoking marijuana could ease the pain of AIDS. He decided to try it on his own. It didn’t take long to find a dealer. And once he smoked, he says, it didn’t take long for the illegal drug to mute his pain.His search for marijuana became routine. He was beaten and robbed once. He saw the same thing happen to other people. He saw the police driving around. Although he was risking arrest by buying marijuana, he empathized with the officers. They had a job to do. But for him, marijuana was returning him to life, he says.As Ebert smoked the drug, his pain eased. His appetite returned. He decided to wean himself off his pain medications — Vicodin, morphine, fentanyl — and told his doctors why: he was smoking marijuana. When the state program became law, his doctors referred him.His family saw the changes in him. “He was miserable, constantly angry at everyone and in a lot of pain,” Ebert’s 76-year-old mother, Dolores Bishop, said last week. “I see a totally new boy. You know, he’s quite a gentleman now.”Ebert, 48, named his new Fender Stratocaster guitar “Heather” after his former caseworker at AIDS Project Rhode Island, and he feels well enough to play sometimes. The photos and artwork from his music days are hung on the living room wall and scattered across a shelf where his pain medication used to be. He can appreciate the wild turkeys that feed on the cracked corn he scatters outside his door, and the chipmunk that comes up to drink from a bowl of water he leaves outside.Ebert now gets his marijuana from a caregiver, but he’s afraid about what the federal government could do to patients like him who live in federally subsidized housing. In June 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people who use or grow marijuana for medical reasons can still face federal charges even if state law allows it.Ebert wrote this summer to Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and U.S. Rep. James Langevin, who both wrote back their support. “I believe that patients seeking the palliative benefits of marijuana, while abiding by legal regulations governing state-sponsored medical-marijuana use, should not have to fear federal prosecution,” Whitehouse said in a letter Ebert received last month.Langevin had voted for an amendment that would have prohibited federal money from being used to override state medical-marijuana laws. Langevin’s letter came this week, as Ebert was battling another round of shingles. His illness scares him. “I know what I’m going to die of,” he says. But while he has time, Ebert says he wants to convince other people with HIV how medical marijuana can help them. “Before this, I was angry. I hated life,” Ebert said. “Now, I love life, and I love to help people — to show them what I’ve gone through and say ‘don’t take the same roads.’ There are a lot of people who are afraid to come forward, so I’ll speak for them.”Denis Dubois was in his court-ordered rehab program when he got his medical-marijuana identity card last year. That made for some interesting conversations with his counselor.“They didn’t know what to do with me, because I’m there for substance abuse, but what I’m abusing is my medication,” Dubois said.He’d been arrested twice by Woonsocket police for growing marijuana, in 2000 and 2005, before the state legalized medical marijuana. He’d even spent two weeks in jail. Dubois, 35, the lead singer for a heavy-metal rock band, says he risked breaking the law because marijuana was the only thing that relieved his back pain.He was born with a hairline fracture in his lower spine, a problem that went undetected until 1999, a month before his wedding. He was getting ready for work at his parent’s travel agency and collapsed in pain. The doctors told him he had severe degenerative disc disease, and Dubois says, “it was made clear to me that it will get worse as I get older.”After surgeries and the insertion of titanium rods in his spine, the pain became so debilitating that Dubois was ruled disabled in 2000, he says. His prescription painkillers only dulled the stabbing pain and left him so exhausted he could barely move. It was around that time, he says, he began smoking marijuana for relief.One hot afternoon, Dubois stood in a small bedroom of his caregiver’s large Colonial in Woonsocket and checked the homemade growing system for his indoor marijuana garden. Small marijuana plants peeked up over pots. An enclosed area had taller plants growing under high-pressure sodium lights meant to simulate 18 hours of sunlight. His caregiver, Emelie Archibald, 51, picked up Marijuana Horticulture, a how-to book they’ve been using. Dubois is a friend of the family, and when he needed a place to live, Archibald welcomed him in. She calls him “the son I never had,” and having seen his suffering, she has become an advocate for medical marijuana. At a meeting for the American Association of Retired Persons, one of the members asked Archibald how she knew that Dubois wasn’t just selling pot on the street. Archibald said she shot back, “Would you sell your high-blood pressure medication on the street?”Dubois touched the leaves like a careful gardener and talked about the methods he’s read about. Other marijuana growers were giving him advice on how to increase the health and potency of his plants. Dubois says he wants to share seeds and cuttings and extra harvest with other patients. “There are many patients who can’t grow and don’t even have a caregiver,” he says. “You need to know somebody who can do this, who has the time and the money.”Medical marijuana, he says, has helped him regain his old life. The band he sings with, Rat Poison, recently was booked for regular gigs at a bar in Weymouth, Mass. He also credits marijuana with getting him off “heavy-hitting” pain medications, such as Oxycodone. He says his drug arrests made him feel like a low-life criminal. His illnesses cost him his marriage, his home and his ability to work, Dubois says. Now, marijuana is giving him a sense of purpose, of being able to help others. He cited the Declaration of Independence’s reference to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” “To me, happiness is living without pain,” Dubois says. “And if marijuana can do that, then who the hell are they to say no?”The sun was just a pale glimmer in the sky when Kelly Powers walked gingerly up the attic stairs to her corner by the windows. Her husband had left for work. The children were still sleeping. The early morning was hers. She picked up a glass jar of marijuana and loaded a small amount into a glass pipe that she’d been given for her 33rd birthday. She flicked a lighter and lit the bowl, inhaling. She held her breath for a few beats and exhaled, sending small plumes of smoke into the attic air. The attic, with its bare boards and exposed walls, has become her sanctuary. She used to be afraid to come up here because it is dark and empty and made her think about spirits in the old house. Now, she comes up here in the early morning to smoke, write poetry and think. She watched the birds land on the telephone wires. She sipped coffee from an Oakland Raiders mug and picked up a red notebook. She penciled drawings of an angel and the Virgin Mary, ideas for a tattoo. “I relate to her. She was so strong to deal with what she had to deal with,” Powers said.On July 7, 2006, with support from her team of doctors, Powers decided to get her medical-marijuana identity card. Only three weeks before, she had been writing poems about pain and loss: I am scared of my future. How can I be a good wife?Before getting her card, she’d tried marijuana during a camping trip with her husband. Her muscles had relaxed and the pain had receded. Bob Powers and O’Donnell urged her to join the program. After she did, Powers says she was able to give up much of her dependence on the painkillers that were leaving her groggy and exhausted. Even when she became legal in the eyes of the state, Powers needed the reassurance of her faith. She had talked with her pastor at the First Lutheran Church in East Greenwich about having multiple sclerosis and about her anger at God. Powers trusted her enough to tell her she was smoking marijuana to ease the pain from the disease. Her pastor understood and supported her, Powers says. When Powers got up the courage to testify at the State House that the law should be permanent, her church held a prayer circle for her. After her testimony appeared on TV news, churchgoers thanked her for her courage, she says. Some of them have cancer and they may end up benefiting from the law, she says. “I felt like maybe that’s my purpose,” Powers says. “I got involved in this to help people. I found the strength through God to fight for what I believe in.”The drug won’t stop the onset of her disease. She’s also been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a chronic illness with symptoms of widespread musculoskeletal pain. Her memory is slipping, she says, which frightens her. She takes hundreds of pictures of everyday moments to help her remember. She plays memory games and trivia with her son, who told her one day, “You’re lucky I’m very smart, because when you forget things, I can teach you.”On other days, she feels almost like her old self. Bob bought a karaoke system, which they take with them on getaways organized by the multiple sclerosis support group, and the family bought a new motor home for camping.During one get-away, Powers took a short walk and just sat for a while, breathing in the quiet of the trees. “When you’re so drugged up on things, you can’t think. And when you can’t think about where your life is going, you give up hope,” she says. “I’ve got my hope back.”The midsummer afternoon was heating up out at the pool behind Emelie Archibald’s house. The Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition was throwing a celebration for getting a permanent law passed. Archibald had made marijuana brownies for the occasion. A sign next the brownies said “Medical Marijuana Patients Only.”Kelly Powers took photographs of people at the party — Bobby Ebert, looking frail but happy, a smiling Rhonda O’Donnell, co-sponsor of the law Rep. Thomas Slater, D-Providence, giving a speech, Denis Dubois jamming on a guitar at the end of the pool. Powers noticed a tattoo of a face in a cloud on Dubois’ right bicep, and she told him that it reminded her of a cloud she’d seen one morning while praying for a sign that things would be OK. To her, the cloud looked like the face of Jesus.As one patient passed a joint to another, Dubois couldn’t help smiling — he’d gone to jail for this, he recalled later. Archibald called it “the first legal pot party in the state.”The woman who’d started it all had made her way up the stairs to the backyard. O’Donnell will never be able to return to nursing, a job she loved. But she says her efforts for medical marijuana will help hundreds of people with multiple sclerosis, cancer, HIV and other chronic debilitating diseases live with less pain — and without the lethargy and exhaustion caused by prescription medication.She had been the first to apply for the medical-marijuana identity card. She and her 76-year-old former mother-in-law went to a head shop in Warwick to buy a glass pipe, where a clerk had to show O’Donnell how to use it. Two puffs on a pipe were all it took to relieve the burning pain in her limbs. She wished her father could have found the same relief before he died.Walter O’Leary had been diagnosed with melanoma when he was just a few years older than she is now. He died in 1980 when he was 50, and she was only 18. She learned recently that her father had tried marijuana to help relieve his pain.“My dad was the greatest guy, law-abiding, a father, and he had to sneak this because what if he got arrested,” O’Donnell said. “How many people in these last 27 years have had to sneak this because they could get arrested? How many have wanted to do it, but it was illegal?”The law was too late for her beloved father. “All these people had to worry about being illegal,” she said. “And now, they don’t.”Complete Title: For More Than 300 Rhode Islanders, Marijuana Provides Legal Relief   Source: Providence Journal, The (RI)Author: Amanda Milkovits, Journal Staff WriterPublished: September 9, 2007Copyright: 2007 The Providence Journal CompanyContact: letters projo.comWebsite: http://www.projo.com/RIPAChttp://www.ripatients.org/CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #58 posted by Toker00 on September 10, 2007 at 14:43:09 PT
Whig
Thanks, man. Shut it down. We all know that is our only choice to end this madness. But it has to be across the board or it won't work. Solidarity. Toke.
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Comment #57 posted by whig on September 09, 2007 at 16:48:52 PT
Toker00
http://tinyurl.com/ywjku8
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Comment #56 posted by Hope on September 09, 2007 at 10:41:52 PT
Comment 30
My prayers are with Dr. Denny.I hope he wins the case.
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Comment #55 posted by afterburner on September 09, 2007 at 08:39:25 PT
Dateline: Canada
Fuelled by lame government propaganda, er "medical science," the media and local governments are resurrecting Reagan era attacks on "head" shops.CN AB: It's For Tobacco, Really (Wink-Wink, Nudge-Nudge), Calgary Herald, (08 Sep 2007) 
http://www.mapinc.org/newstcl/v07/n1038/a06.html?176Remember, they busted Tommy Chong for glass pipes (paraphernalia) in the U.S.A.
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Comment #54 posted by Had Enough on September 09, 2007 at 08:04:05 PT
Tank Link
At first our government leaders brought Czars to America, now they give us tanks. What’s next???Czars belong in Russia where they use tanks against their own civilians, they don’t belong in America.
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Comment #53 posted by FoM on September 09, 2007 at 07:40:21 PT
Toker00
Thanks for understanding. Some things put up a red flag for me and that is one of them. 
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Comment #52 posted by Toker00 on September 09, 2007 at 07:35:00 PT
Cool. Thanks.
FoM, it's obviously not the RIGHTeous thing to do, is it? That's smart, not dumb. Beliefs founded on Righteousness can't be wrong. The human body isn't dumb for rejecting the chip, either. Toke.
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Comment #51 posted by FoM on September 09, 2007 at 07:20:43 PT
Toker00
The link worked for me. I would never consider such a thing because of my religious background. That might seem like a dumb reason but I am serious.
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Comment #50 posted by Storm Crow on September 09, 2007 at 07:05:57 PT
They brough Al Capone down on tax evasion...
Could the sheriff be brought down on depraved cruelty to an animal? Is anyone there calling the Humane Society and ASPCA? 
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Comment #49 posted by greenmed on September 09, 2007 at 05:48:24 PT
Toker00
The link worked for me. Those chips seem like a very bad idea from the start. The link at the bottom of the page has made up my mind... I'll never chip a pet, nor myself.
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Comment #48 posted by Toker00 on September 09, 2007 at 04:35:46 PT
Gee, I don't know what happened...
Can you fix the link, FoM? It's ok if you can't. The story is available on Yahoo.Toke
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Comment #47 posted by Toker00 on September 09, 2007 at 04:32:30 PT
So they want to chip us, huh?
Just refuse for health reasons.http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-09-08-rfidchips_N.htm?csp=34Toke.
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Comment #46 posted by Hope on September 08, 2007 at 22:56:47 PT
Right, Whig.
Remember "The Toughest Sheriff in America".He went down. This Sheriff Arpaio should, too. The sooner the better. And put that "Personnel Carrier"/Tank in a museum, or scrap yard, or something! Don't bring things like that into American neighborhoods and use it against American citizens in their own homes and neighborhoods.It's absolutely outrageous. 
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Comment #45 posted by Hope on September 08, 2007 at 22:48:53 PT
Law Enforcement actions like 
the one in that story prove that way too many law enforcement officers and their leadership have absolutely no respect for the citizens of this country, and they make a mockery of the very foundation of our justice system..."Innocent until proven guilty."They went in like Armageddon, like all hell broke loose. They endangered every one in the area. The people they were after didn't. The police, or in this case, deputies, did.
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Comment #44 posted by whig on September 08, 2007 at 22:36:35 PT
Hope
That Sheriff Arpaio there has made a reputation for being a monster.
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Comment #43 posted by Hope on September 08, 2007 at 22:30:58 PT
FoM
That's exactly what I wrote when I first decided to comment. That is a horrible story! Then I thought maybe Aolbites might think I thought it was a horrible story in the sense that he shouldn't have posted it.It is a horrible story, though. My thoughts, exactly.I can't believe what "modern" law enforcement has become. They really are dangerous, cruel monsters.These ungodly and unnecessary shows of force have got to be stopped.
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Comment #42 posted by Hope on September 08, 2007 at 22:25:30 PT
Aolbites
Sheriffs with army tanks. Course people with foul mouths...even to women. Killing pets. A terrified child in the house. Disregarding the safety of everyone in the neighborhood. One major area newspaper buried the story and another didn't even report it.We've got us some country these days.I thank God they didn't manage to kill someone. It's a wonder they didn't. They were so cruel to that dog and the people that cared about it. And the people and children in that neighborhood? They were citizens of the United States...and they really saw real war in their streets. It's about protecting us? I don't believe that for a minute. It's war against our citizens by Law Enforcement...courtesy of our tax dollars and hideous leadership. It just makes me so sick.
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Comment #41 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 21:28:40 PT
aolbites
That is really a horrible story. 
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Comment #40 posted by whig on September 08, 2007 at 21:19:26 PT
Hope #38
Sounds like what I was saying in #32. :)
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Comment #39 posted by aolbites on September 08, 2007 at 19:54:41 PT
OT: Psyco Cops Burn Dog.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2004-08-05/news/dog-day-afternoon/full-=snip=-There would have been no fire if Arpaio's overzealous and unsophisticated SWAT deputies hadn't needlessly launched a dangerous assault in a densely populated area. Such operations should be reserved for the most dangerous situations, where innocent lives are at stake.In this case, there was one guy with a misdemeanor warrant holed up in the house. He hadn't fired a single shot. He wasn't threatening anybody. There were no hostages. There was no clear indication that the house was full of heavy automatic weapons.All Arpaio's deputies had to do was show a little patience and a modicum of common sense.But these are traits that neither Arpaio nor his deputies seem to possess.Instead, an entire neighborhood was subjected to a dangerous assault that left children traumatized, residents furious, and a puppy on fire. -=snip=-
was told that the dog had been "neutralized" with the fire extinguisher.
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Comment #38 posted by Hope on September 08, 2007 at 18:32:37 PT
Whig
Toker00 is referring to what he said in comment 13 and what I said about it in comment 15.Also, I voted in the Tennessee poll. Thanks. Those Judges...good judges, looks like. It seems to me that cannabis prohibition is also, "Arbitrary, unreasonable, and capricious", and worse even than that.
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Comment #37 posted by whig on September 08, 2007 at 18:02:33 PT
Toker00
I must not be the best card player at the table because I don't have any idea what you're holding there. :)
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Comment #36 posted by whig on September 08, 2007 at 17:57:54 PT
Toker00
It's important we keep telling the military men and women of this country that they are not allowed to follow illegal orders. An invasion of Iran would be a war crime.
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Comment #35 posted by OverwhelmSam on September 08, 2007 at 16:13:47 PT
Bad Cops Bad Cops
What'cha gunno do? What'cha gunno do when they come for you? The police say they are justified in using their weapons whenever they feel threatened. If police officers are so easily threatened, we need to change their justification for using their weapons.
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Comment #34 posted by Toker00 on September 08, 2007 at 15:41:13 PT
Hope
And I agree with you about the sadness. Their technology has reduced our ability to perform civil disobedience without us risking death, injury or jail, not from our enemies up front, but from our protectors who do no such thing as protect, but who sneak up behind us with traitorous legislation and bury the knife. Control of MSM effectively keeps any public displays of meaningful protest off the air. Sad as it is, that is our Ace, Hope. Someday it will be the only play we have left to end this game with cheaters and liars. Some day we may be forced to play our final card.Toke. 
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Comment #33 posted by Toker00 on September 08, 2007 at 15:27:48 PT
whig
That's cool, whig. We'll see how Sept. 11 thru 15 go and I will bring that up. That is an excellent idea though. Want to see the Truth in 'toons? Here:http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2007/070907pers.htmDark humor?Toke.
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Comment #32 posted by whig on September 08, 2007 at 15:14:34 PT
Toker00
October 17 is supposedly the 25th anniversary of the solidarity protests in Poland that brought down the soviet rule. What do you think about a national work stoppage that day?
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Comment #31 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 13:22:12 PT
Killers of Marijuana Advocate Still at Large
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=76906
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Comment #30 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 12:31:49 PT
Denney vs. DEA Heading for Trial
http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner09082007.html
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Comment #29 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 12:04:49 PT
Dankhank
Now it's 61 percent. Toker00 he looks a lot older. I haven't seen the video but maybe they will show it on the news at some point. I'm not surprised by it because it's near 9/11.
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Comment #28 posted by Toker00 on September 08, 2007 at 11:51:49 PT
Wow.
That Osama Ben Ded Laden guy looks worse every time they dig him out of his grave and prop him in from of the cameras. Good thing for him he's in the dry air of the desert. He'll be a Super Villain for quite a while longer I guess...Toke.
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Comment #27 posted by Dankhank on September 08, 2007 at 11:47:06 PT
now .....
130 59% no85 39% yes
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Comment #26 posted by Toker00 on September 08, 2007 at 11:29:01 PT
Crack tax or Black tax?
Yes.   81,    39%No.   121,    59%Not No but Hell No. 1Undecided. 4,     2%
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Comment #25 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 11:12:29 PT
Court Finds 'Crack Tax' Unconstitutional
SURVEY A Tennessee appeals court ruled against a so-called "crack tax" that allows the state to seize the property of people charged with drug crimes. Do you think such seizures should be allowed?Current Results:Yes - 40%No - 58%Undecided - 2%Please Vote: http://www.local10.com/news/14073391/detail.html
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Comment #24 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 10:25:11 PT
Thanks Had Enough and Hope
I don't know how many people have been arrested and had their life forever altered since this war on cannabis really began around Nixon's time but I am sure that now there is anger in many of their hearts because of it. 
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Comment #23 posted by Hope on September 08, 2007 at 10:18:18 PT
FoM... I agree.
"It makes people afraid and scared people often submit to the injustice. The problem is when people go beyond fear and move into anger. That's a danger that our leaders need to look at more closely."Cannabis prohibition is bad law. 
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Comment #22 posted by Had Enough on September 08, 2007 at 10:10:01 PT
re:21
Fear pushed to anger.Excellent point.I see angry people all over, when I’d rather see mellow people.People are being pushed, and people are pushing back.I wish this stuff could all end before it gets even worse.
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Comment #21 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 10:03:29 PT
Hope
I agree and I'll add one more thing. I believe the only way for our current system to survive is to keep people in a box and cannabis prohibition is a big part of that ideology. It makes people afraid and scared people often submit to the injustice. The problem is when people go beyond fear and move into anger. That's a danger that our leaders need to look at more closely.
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Comment #20 posted by Hope on September 08, 2007 at 09:49:26 PT
FoM comment 16
Some people are able to see that, excluding mean people and those who would hurt others, those differences in thinking among the members of humanity is one of the most beautiful things about it. We are people. We aren't domesticated animals to be kept in orderly herds for the benefit and enrichment of certain groups of the wealthy and influential. We're people.Cannabis prohibition isn't about safety or order. It's about mistreating, restricting, and abusing one group of people for the skewed perception of benefit for another group.I believe in law and order....when it's right. The laws and sense of order that forbid the use of cannabis by those who wish to, are not right. The laws prohibiting cannabis don't protect anyone. Not anyone at all. Most of the laws against cannabis, at this point, are hideously unjust, hideously, and are nothing more than an excuse for hateful, powerful people to bully, restrict, oppress, rob, and persecute other people, and make even make a living doing it.It's the case of a powerful bully persecuting someone who is not so powerful. I don't like that. I think it's wrong. I'm going to say so at every opportunity. 
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Comment #19 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 09:30:35 PT
Patrick
It's good to see you. We are still keepin' on. It's hard but we've come too far to turn back now. 
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Comment #18 posted by Patrick on September 08, 2007 at 09:24:57 PT
Good morning cannabis news
Hi FoM! 
I know I haven't posted in a very long time. I just lurk and read but today's article you linked on Tomothy Leary and Mayan's article link on Nixon sorta brought out the nostalgia in me. 
Just wanted to say hello and thank you for keepin on keepin on in the fight to free our beloved little weed.
Patrick
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Comment #17 posted by Hope on September 08, 2007 at 09:22:56 PT
Toker00
I do agree with your comment 5.Very much.End the war! Free the prisoners of war!
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Comment #16 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 09:22:12 PT
Another Thought
When I think of how we are now as a country I think we are seriously confused. We look at superficial issues and make them very important. We look at important issues and make them superficial. What is a country without the people? Why separate people based on opinions instead of trying to understand why some people don't think the same way? People who look at life differently then how they want us to see life aren't wrong or bad people.
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Comment #15 posted by Hope on September 08, 2007 at 09:18:40 PT
Toker00
That doesn't inspire me. It makes me sad. So many people are in the gears and works now. We've got to get to the control room and shut it down!
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Comment #14 posted by Hope on September 08, 2007 at 08:52:46 PT
"All over pot"
Had Enough said, "Even without a jail sentence a pot arrest creates Collateral Damage for life. Tony, for 22yrs has been going around ruining our fellow mans futures, all over pot. Property forfeiture, employment opportunities denied, loss of drivers license and any other license the arrestee might hold, costly legal system to deal with, no student loans for education, etc… Heavy burden put on our court system and jails.""Too much" pot is less dangerous, far less dangerous, than "too much" water. Some misled, strangely Puritanical, and vicious people have made it their business to keep other people from using that plant. They dedicate themselves to their cause even to the point of hunting the plant users down and caging and sometimes even killing them.I can hardly believe that in this, should be, more enlightened age, that this kind of thing is happening. It's so bizarre that this abuse of people over a plant has gone on for this long and is still going on.A group of "Hunters" is preying on a group of "Plant Gatherers".A group of basically war like people is preying on a group of basically peaceful people.Reason, compassion, and respect for our fellow humans, and their right to make use of a plant, if they choose to, hopefully, will soon put an end this particular hideous era of one group of people engaging in widespread and legal abuse of another group of people.
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Comment #13 posted by Toker00 on September 08, 2007 at 08:50:14 PT
Inspiration
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" - Mario SavioAnd therein folks, lies our power...Toke.
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Comment #12 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 08:35:44 PT
Mayan
That was intense. I can often tell if a person has a good spirit surrounding them and Nixon did not. I can't explain it but they appear almost without conscience.
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Comment #11 posted by mayan on September 08, 2007 at 08:05:36 PT
FoM
F*ck Richard Nixon.Here's a good one..."He Was a Crook" By HUNTER S. THOMPSON:
http://www.counterpunch.org/thompson02212005.html
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 07:42:01 PT
Interesting Article
America, Where Peace Has Been a Threat Since The Nixon Administrationhttp://www.progressiveu.org/031510-america-where-peace-has-been-a-threat-since-the-nixon-administration
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on September 08, 2007 at 07:16:17 PT
Had Enough
I agree that we need to vote. I am looking forward to listening to Farm Aid on XM Radio tomorrow. Neil will probably sing at least one of his new songs. I hope they have a great turnout and I hope everyone has a nice weekend. I haven't found any news to post so far but I'll keep looking. Farn Aid 2007: A Homegrown Festivalhttp://www.farmaid.org/
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Comment #8 posted by Had Enough on September 08, 2007 at 07:02:21 PT
Government Mule’s
rendition of 1968 Steppenwolf’s Don’t Step on the Grass Sam!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTMFzDZvA4&mode=related&search=Lyrics found herehttp://www.steppenwolf.com/lyr/dntste.htmlhttp://www.steppenwolf.com/
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Comment #7 posted by Had Enough on September 08, 2007 at 07:01:21 PT
Don’t Step on the Grass Sam!!!
“But Anthony Pettigrew, agent for the New England field office of the DEA, said that while marijuana possession is against federal law, “the DEA never targets the sick and dying.” The agency is more interested in organized drug traffickers, Pettigrew said. “I’ve been here for 22 years,” he said, and “realistically, I’ve never seen anyone go to federal jail for possessing a joint.””Even without a jail sentence a pot arrest creates Collateral Damage for life. Tony, for 22yrs has been going around ruining our fellow mans futures, all over pot. Property forfeiture, employment opportunities denied, loss of drivers license and any other license the arrestee might hold, costly legal system to deal with, no student loans for education, etc… Heavy burden put on our court system and jails. How can he feel good about his contribution to society while others have paid the price of his actions?But I do like how his last name is spelled…“Ebert had read online that smoking marijuana could ease the pain of AIDS. He decided to try it on his own. It didn’t take long to find a dealer. And once he smoked, he says, it didn’t take long for the illegal drug to mute his pain. His search for marijuana became routine. He was beaten and robbed once. He saw the same thing happen to other people. He saw the police driving around. Although he was risking arrest by buying marijuana, he empathized with the officers. They had a job to do. But for him, marijuana was returning him to life, he says.”More collateral damage here. Getting robbed. Having to run around cloak and dagger style to get herbal relief is dangerous. The prohibition laws create this income tax free BLACK MARKET. Along with all the ills of society that come with it.“He says his drug arrests made him feel like a low-life criminal. His illnesses cost him his marriage, his home and his ability to work, Dubois says. Now, marijuana is giving him a sense of purpose, of being able to help others. He cited the Declaration of Independence’s reference to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” 
“To me, happiness is living without pain,” Dubois says. “And if marijuana can do that, then who the hell are they to say no?””Not only did he get locked up, he ended up in divorce court, and no house to live in.“Walter O’Leary had been diagnosed with melanoma when he was just a few years older than she is now. He died in 1980 when he was 50, and she was only 18. She learned recently that her father had tried marijuana to help relieve his pain. “My dad was the greatest guy, law-abiding, a father, and he had to sneak this because what if he got arrested,” O’Donnell said. “How many people in these last 27 years have had to sneak this because they could get arrested? How many have wanted to do it, but it was illegal?” The law was too late for her beloved father. “All these people had to worry about being illegal,” she said. “And now, they don’t.””Life is too short to have to mess around with pot laws from prohibitionists for the sake of their greed.Prohibitionists should take note of those paragraphs, better yet the whole article.There are millions of people worldwide that have had too much collateral damage done. This will end…they should give up the fight, as they’ve have already lost, and quit wasting our coin to jail our fellow man.**************************Soapbox time.Everybody needs to get out and get registered to vote. Tell your neighbors. Vote these prohibitionists out of office, and keep doing it until they get the message that speaking out against this plant is just plain old stupid and political suicide. On the way to the polls take a friend with you and share the ride to freedom… Time to git r done…Vote!!!… Vote!!!… Vote!!!…
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Comment #6 posted by Toker00 on September 08, 2007 at 06:04:15 PT
The Sick need to go to their local Police 
Departments by the thousands in their wheel chairs, with their aids and drip bottle hangers, and all their ailments on display that Cannabis treats or even heals, and ask the Police Chief to schedule them an appointment with one of his Police Officers who will then examine them and give them a safer prescription than Cannabis, because Police Officers have finally convinced them of their Medical Expertise in denying them the use of the "dangerous" drug, Cannabis. Protect and Serve, right? Oh, you didn't mean the American People? You meant Protect and Serve the Pharmaceutical Fascists? Oh. Well then, it all makes sense, now, doesn't it?Toke.
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Comment #5 posted by Toker00 on September 08, 2007 at 05:16:38 PT
I'm tired of all the suffering and hiding too.
The War on Drugs. What a joke. A very very bad bad joke. A joke so bad, that it makes you want to lash out at the teller in defense. How dare you tell such a filthy joke in the presence of Humanity? Do you see anyone laughing, besides yourself? Do you think it's funny to tell such a horrible joke of human suffrage and corrupt government? You D.A.R.E to even call it a joke?!? Is it funny to you that your "joke" causes sick people to suffer needless agony and die early DEAths? Does it bother you that your "joke" caused healthy people to develop diseases because there are no "safe alternatives" to what is legally offered for medicine and recreation? I don't find that particularly funny. No one that I love or care for would find it funny either. In fact, no Human Being could possibly see humor in the War on Drugs!!! Take back your filthy joke and stop telling it!!! END CANNABIS PROHIBITION NOW.Toke. 
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Comment #4 posted by afterburner on September 07, 2007 at 22:30:07 PT
'Sneaky Puffs' Heather Mills McCartney 
“My dad was the greatest guy, law-abiding, a father, and he had to sneak this because what if he got arrested,” O’Donnell said. “How many people in these last 27 years have had to sneak this because they could get arrested? How many have wanted to do it, but it was illegal?”"No more need to smoke and hide when you know you're takin' a legal ride." -Peter Tosh, "Legalize It!"CN BC: PUB LTE: Race Riot Genesis Of Our Pot Prohibition, The Georgia Straight, (06 Sep 2007) 
http://www.mapinc.org/newstcl/v07/n1031/a04.html?176CN BC: PUB LTE: Marijuana Ingredient In Natural Selection, Nanaimo News Bulletin, (06 Sep 2007) 
http://www.mapinc.org/newstcl/v07/n1031/a05.html?176
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Comment #3 posted by Dankhank on September 07, 2007 at 19:24:52 PT
smokable medicine
found this interesting take on smoked medicine ...http://www.newstarget.com/021569.htmlwhile searching this ...http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=peripheral+neuropathy+cannabis&btnG=Search
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Comment #2 posted by Storm Crow on September 07, 2007 at 16:49:37 PT
By the time I finished this article....
Tears were in my eyes. How many people suffer needlessly because of a stupid, evil, immoral, racist and financially motivated law? We are guaranteed "LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS"! In my eyes, the laws against medical cannabis are in direct violation of this mandate! We die in agony, or kill ourselves over the pain that cannabis can ease, so we are deprived of life. Liberty? How many are in prison because they tried to ease their pain? The pursuit of happiness? How can you be happy if you are in pain 24/7? I feel that the laws against medical marijuana are UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! 
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Comment #1 posted by RevRayGreen on September 07, 2007 at 16:07:45 PT
So the DEA is targeting
the western states. Will an East Coast patient be raided or arrested by the DEA next ?
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