Thinking Outside the Bong

Why a comprehensive rationale is needed to end Cannabis prohibition in Spring 2010


Decades of grassroots activism, public education and scientific research have failed to end Cannabis prohibition in the United States and at the United Nations. There is obviously something broken in a system of governance that fails to acknowledge the true value of an uniquely essential, "strategic food resource."

Prolonged essential resource scarcity is threatening the world with sudden, unpredictable, unresolveable, synergistic collapse of environment, economics and social structures upon which we all depend for survival. Because 'time' is the limiting factor in the equation of survival, a comprehensive and conclusive analysis of Cannabis is urgently needed to end the prohibition of hemp in Spring 2010.

The most fundamentally destructive policy in human history, prohibition of the world's most nutritious and useful agricultural resource has imposed essential resource scarcity, banned research and impeded public awareness of critically important nutritional information for more than seventy years. Inflicting imbalance at every level of our existence, the prohibition of Cannabis -- both low-THC "industrial" hemp and high-THC 'marijuana' -- has engendered crises that can best be addressed by a simple shift in values.

Reconnecting agriculture to ancient spiritual dimension of proportionate gratitude for the succession of miraculous events that result in an abundant harvest, affords the Constitutional freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" under protection of the First Amendment. Giving thanks for the true value of Cannabis in a meaningful way, demonstrates respect for Nature and the processes that our present system of values is antagonistic toward.

Attacking the Natural Order as we have done and continue to do is self-defeating and unnecessary. There are resources and sustainable methods of agriculture that can provide what we need to live, without damaging the operating systems of the Earth. Shift our perception of Cannabis value will do more to afford balance in environment, economics and social evolution than any other single change in policy that we could make. Affordable, timely, and urgently needed, ending Cannabis prohibition must be recognized a s a global priority, followed by intensive, widespread organic cultivation, without crippling government regulation.

Since American farmers are still hobbled by hemp prohibition, it can be concluded that intimidated reasoning which fragments understanding of Cannabis value, rather than clarifying it, hasn't worked. A few years ago, concerns about "confusing the public with information" may (or may not) have been a legitimate concern, though undoubtably insulting to people's intelligence. In the current state of increasing public awareness about hemp seed nutrition and industry, we only perpetuate the stigma against hemp by accommodating a disingenuous, limited conversation.

Perhaps the most obvious impacted lie resulting from divisive attitudes toward Cannabis, has been to allow law enforcement/prohibitionists to perpetuate the myth that industrial hemp is difficult to distinguish from marijuana. This is simply not true.

Hemp is sown four inches apart over vast expanses of farm land; grows a single, unbranched stem 12-18 feet tall; and the single hemp bud is either covered with seeds or kicking out copious quantities of pollen from the male flowers growing among the female plants.

This lie is all that prevent you and I from feeding our families the freshest, fertile hemp seed possible from our gardens. Sterilized hemp seed has begun the process of oxidization, making health-building "cis-fatty acids" into toxic "trans-fatty acids." What power on Earth has the right to sabotage our well-being and our basic human right to eat, at such a fundamental level? Inducing scarcity of essential nutrition is far beyond the accountability of any court.

If put to judgement in the court of informed public opinion, considering the opinion polls concerning both marijuana and industrial hemp, I think our "fearless leaders" would be faced with the choice of becoming political dinosaurs, or stepping into a 21st Century understanding without the hangover from the "Reefer Madness" of previous generations.

That the UNFAO fails to recognize an ancient source of complete nutrition as fit for human consumption is the result of failing to distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana. 950 million people go to bed hungry every night. One in six people on Earth are malnourished. One in three dies of cancer. How bad do things have to get before the UN is held accountable for the true value of hemp seed?

Cannabis is also the only crop on Earth that produces both fuel and a complete food from the same harvest. This eliminates the argument against agricultural production of biofuels causing food insecurity. Regional production of hemp biofuels and would dramatically decrease fuel costs, enable efficient regional energy production/consumption, increase food security and improve nutrition.

Failing to acknowledge differences between low-THC hemp and marijuana obviates consideration of cross-pollination between low- and high-THC strains as the most effective strategy for discouraging pot plantations in wilderness areas.

A week-long series of educational events and media, culminating in a formal challenge of rightful jurisdiction will be backed-up with a non-violent demonstration of civil disobedience. Planting industrial hemp on the steps of the State Capitol building in Sacramento (as I did with the help of the Sacramento Green Party for Earth Day 1993) will provide a forum for people's legitimate questions and concerns to be responsibly addressed, while punctuating the end of hemp prohibition by formal public exercise of essential civilian demand.

The Attorney General of California, Jerry Brown has been notified (by registered mail) that it is criminally negligent to ignore the true value of hemp, considering the threat to national security imposed by present Cannabis policy. It is in fact a "misprision of treason" to fail to act in ending prohibition of a known "strategic resource" value in the context of the national and global crises we face.

Accepting an artificial, impotent, pigeon-hole approach to discussing Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and trade, rather than a realistic, comprehensive evaluation of Cannabis policies, will only perpetuate confusion and increase the dysfunction afflicting our world and threatening our children's future. Considering Cannabis in relation to climate change mitigation, food security, health, ecology, economics, and other major facets effecting our lives is perhaps the most direct route for getting from where we are to where we need to be to avoid extinction.

An iron-clad Constitutional legal strategy is currently in force that secures agricultural exercise of religious freedom. I will try to raise funding through a public speaking tour that begins at Humboldt State University in April 2010. Your help in sponsoring "Hemp is Our Legacy Week" could mean the difference between a conclusive, broad-based grassroots action and just another exercise of our "freedom to complain.

Timely Cannabis policy reform depends more than ever on practical support and encouragement from those who recognize the strength in persisting in a comprehensive, objective, science-based rationale. Please do what you can to help me help you help everyone.

BlogTalkRadio Show today at Noon!

My Radio show is today at 12:00 noon

Call in number is (347) 202-0195 if you can make it


Hemp History Week May 17-23, 2010

Hemp History Week will be celebrated in Sacramento, California, May 17-23 in a week-long series of events to recognize the ancient historical significance of the world's most ancient global culture. The final event will be a planting ceremony on the steps of the State Capitol Building to demonstrate that "Our freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom."

In response to AlertNet article entitled "In Drug War, Failed Old Ideas Never Die"

In response to"
"In drug war, failed old ideas never die" - By Bernd Debusmann
26 Feb 2010
Source: Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE61P1B8.htm

My response follows the AlertNet essay

"Solutions have been outlawed because problems are profitable."

Cannabis (i.e. inclusive of 'marijuana' AND industrial hemp) is an organic agricultural solution to many problems that have been intentionally created by the chemical/oligarchy/military/industrial complex (COMIC). This COMIC isn't funny. It's a deadly, dirty-trickster controlling most of the (dwindling) resources used to fuel the current (failing) chemically-based global economy. The COMIC has installed political clowns to populate the government institutions (including the U.N) used to control "We the People."

Cannabis has been identified in seven Executive Orders signed by six American Presidents as a "strategic resource," critical to national security. A strategic resource cannot possibly be a "Schedule One drug" (definition - of "no possible benefit" to society).

In fact, Cannabis seed is nutritionally unique and essential. Hemp seed is the only common seed with three essential fatty acids (EFAs) in proper proportion for optimum health; contains all of the essential amino acids in meaningful quantities; is the best available organic vegetable protein on Earth; and is a source complete nutrition capable of growing all over the world.

Cannabis is also the only crop that produces a complete food and sustainable bio-fuels from the same harvest (seed for food and stalks to make fuels) while improving soil structure and fertility. Cannabis is a tool for organic agriculture that has not been available in our lifetimes. That's why small scale organic agriculture has been broken and factory farms are taking over.

The food insecurity and malnutrition inflicted on the world in the name of the so-called, selective, hypocritical "war on some drugs and herbs" (i.e. drugs don't make seeds, herbs do) is a result of the UNFAO failing to recognize Cannabis hemp seed as food for humans, let alone the most available source of complete nutrition for the majority of the world's population.

On top of all that, Cannabis produces atmospheric monoterpenes that reflect solar radiation away from the Earth and seed cloud formation. Radiative forcing using biogenic, agricultural production of monoterpenes and other atmospheric aerosols may be the most globally available, proportionate response to climate change that there is. Conversion from chemical ag back to organic crop rotations works with Nature to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and produce oxygen.

"Misprision of treason" is committed by someone who knows a treason is being or is about to be committed but does not report it to a proper authority." (Wikipedia definiiton). Under present the circumstances of national and global emergency, any person that fails to act on ending the prohibition of industrial hemp is clearly guilty of misprision of treason.

May 17-23 is "Hemp is Our History Week" when people across the US will be educating the public about the true value of Cannabis. In Sacramento, the California Cannabis Ministry will be challenging the rightful jurisdiction of any court over natural resources that are both unique and essential. By exercising "essential civilian demand" for industrial hemp, under the protection of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it is intended that a week of education, debate and peaceful public civil disobedience will secure the relationship between agriculture and our freedom of religion. Our freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom.

A revolution of values is needed to recover from the extinctionistic trajectory we've been on since 1937 when hemp farming was banned and addiction to chemicals was imposed. The question is "How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered?"

The REAL Question
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edZw3hXkGJo

If you would like to help me help you help everyone (Dolphin Economics, 30 million year old system) then please contact projectpeace [at] gmail [dot] com with "essential civilian demand" as the subject.

Did you know that...?

...in addition to ALL of the "Founding Fathers" being Cannabis farmers, (according to the American Presidency Project -- http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/)

SIX American Presidents have identified "hemp" as a "strategic food resource" critical to national security (& George Washington makes # 7):

"Food resources" means all commodities and products, simple, mixed or compound, or complements to such commodities or products, that are capable of being eaten or drunk, by either human beings or animals' irrespective of other uses to which such commodities or products may be. put, at all stages of processing from the raw commodity to the products thereof in vendible form for human or animal consumption. For the purposes of this order the term "food resources" shall also include all starches, sugars, vegetable and animal fats and oils, cotton, tobacco, wool, mohair, hemp, flax fiber, and naval stores, but shall not include any such material after it loses its identity as an agricultural commodity or agricultural product."

December 5, 1942 Franklin D. Roosevelt Executive Order 9280 Delegating Authority Over the Food Program

January 3, 1948 Harry S. Truman Executive Order 9919 - Delegating Authority and Establishing Procedures

September 9, 1950 Harry S. Truman Executive Order 10161 - Delegating Certain Functions of the President Under the Defense Production Act of 1950

August 14, 1953 Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Order 10480--Further providing for the administration of the defense mobilization program

February 16, 1962 John F. Kennedy Executive Order 10998 Assigning Emergency Preparedness Functions To The Secretary Of Agriculture

October 28, 1969 Richard Nixon Executive Order 11490 - Assigning Emergency Preparedness Functions to Federal Departments and Agencies

June 3, 1994 William J. Clinton Executive Order 12919 - National Defense Industrial Resources Preparedness

"Sec. 103. General Functions. Federal departments and agencies responsible for defense acquisition... shall:
Identify requirements for the full spectrum of national security emergencies, including...essential civilian demand."

===================

"Essential civilian demand" for this "strategic food resource" will over-rule the counter-productive "drug war" when things get bad enough for all solutions to be considered.

We are "throwing the baby food out with the bong-water" in banning the world's most complete and (potentially) globally available source of organic vegetable nutrition -- a "strategic food resource" critical to national security -- mistakenly prohibited as a "Schedule One drug" with no beneficial uses whatsoever for the past 73 years.
=====================================
Proclamation 8412 - National Preparedness Month,
2009 September 4, 2009
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

Preparedness is an essential element of a resilient and secure Nation. My Administration has made preparedness a top priority, and we are working every day to ensure our country stands ready to respond to any disaster or emergency—from wildfires and hurricanes, to terrorist attacks and pandemic disease. Our goal is to ensure a more resilient Nation—one in which individuals, communities, and our economy can adapt to changing conditions as well as withstand and rapidly recover from disruption due to emergencies.

During National Preparedness Month, we underscore the responsibility of individuals, families, and communities—including the private and nonprofit sectors—to do their part before an emergency.

Now, Therefore, I, Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim September 2009 as National Preparedness Month. I call upon the people of the United States to recognize the importance of preparing for potential emergencies beforehand and to observe this month with appropriate preparedness activities, events, and training to enhance our national resilience.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA

NOTE: This proclamation was released by the Office of the Press Secretary on September 7, 2009 and it was published in the Federal Register on September 11, 2009.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=86588&st=Obama&st1=emergency+preparedness
www.presidency.ucsb.edu

Dolphin Economics

"You help me help you help everyone" sums up a 30 million year old economic system based in natural abundance that I call "Dolphin Economics." Dolphins have existed on Earth for so long by evolving an economic system that is in harmony with the Natural Order.

Mankind traded the economics of abundance for the economics of scarcity when political decisions were made that effectively shifted human economic values into anti-natural dependence on toxic, finite, unevenly distributed chemicals. That spiritless choice determined the terminal trajectory of humankind into which we were born, believing it to be "normal" and our only choice. It is neither.

The wrong choice was made by suspending common sense in banning the world's most useful and nutritious agricultural resource. Arbitrarily edited from the "free market" seventy-two years ago, Cannabis agriculture and knowledge of its true value was displaced by "Reefer Madness."

Prolonged, impose essential resource scarcity has led to economic insolvency, political corruption, radical disparity of wealth, and the brink of unstoppable synergistic collapse. If our species fails to shift values back into respect and appreciation for the Natural Order, by recognizing the true value of Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and trade, then the window of opportunity we may still have for healing this planet will silently shut long before we realize it's closed.

As insolvency sets in, crippling financial institutions and destroying the credibility of government, whether we realize it or not, people are being faced with the choice of either shifting values back to natural abundance or becoming extinct. It would seem an easy choice, except for the inertial thinking that defines the extinctionistic paradigm. As long as money is based in toxic commodities that are considered valuable, and organic agriculture remains crippled by erroneous valuation, then the direction of our evolution will remain locked on global extinction.

Re: Peter Reuter: "Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate"

As truly welcome as this over-do understatement is, merely pointing out the obvious -- that pot laws "don't work" -- ignores the fundamental harm inflicted on organic agriculture. Failure to consider prohibition's enormous impact on food security and nutrition when discussing the effects of drug policy indicates significant and disturbing conclusions. Pot laws are infinitely worse than merely ineffective at limiting supply and demand for marijuana. Blatantly counter-productive to its own stated objectives, marijuana prohibition has simultaneously imposed myriad hardships resulting from prolonged essential resource scarcity, in banning industrial hemp. Recall that it was competition from hemp-competitive industries that employed "Reefer Madness" hysteria as a diversionary strategy to ban industrial hemp and cripple small-scale organic farming.The diversion continues to this day and the economic dynamic remains. "Pot" isn't the point. It's the industrial uses that threaten the status chemical quo.

With notable exceptions of Cannabis activists who address the benefits of both "industrial hemp" and "marijuana," the drug policy reform effort has largely failed to prioritize the strongest arguments. Accountability for the true value of all strains of Cannabis is lacking, to the point of criminal negligence. Progressive comprehensive dialogue has been fragmented by artificial distinctions being perpetuated between therapeutic, nutritional, environmental, agricultural, cultural and economic dimensions of the subject, limiting the scope and diversity of analysis, leading to inefficiency and ultimately the loss of yet another planting season in the U.S.

This postpones the transition to peace and abundance for the entire world, as the roots of the black market and economic disparity lead directly to the drug war. The Cannabis leaf is potentially the most widely available and readily accessible solar energy collector on Earth.

What failure of governance has prevented a rational, timely response to what is known about the harms engendered by prohibition? What does it mean that Cannabis prohibition has persisted for more than seven decades, when the disaster of prohibitionism has been known since the bloody reign of Al Capone? What does it mean that radical global food insecurity and malnutrition continue without reference to hemp seed nutrition and Cannabis biofuels potential, even as the government jockeys for cut of the marijuana trade?

Wanton disregard for truth, history, common sense, compassion, and simple economics disqualifies government from having any rightful, credible jurisdiction over Cannabis agriculture, regulation, taxation, or bureaucratization. The government has no business in Cannabis. Farmers know what to do with Cannabis. We don't need to be taxed before we even get the industry started. Anyone who proposes a tax on Cannabis has taken a wrong turn. Start-up support from progressive communities would be a better choice. There is no unemployment on a farm. Jobs could be created overnight in both urban and rural communities, growing a variety of essential foods, culinary and therapeutic herbs. By far the safest ways for people to get marijuana are either grow it yourself or to buy it from someone you know who grows well.

The market in Cannabis is most effectively regulated by the consumers and producers of Cannabis. Market demand will inevitably favor the most natural products, as the health benefits and lower costs of production, favoring organic and biodynamically grown herbs, becomes more widely embraced. An insolvent, unaccountable bureaucracy that has prohibited free market development and research of Cannabis for seventy-three years does not have credibility on this subject, nor can the government mislead people into believing there's rightful jurisdiction. The true value of Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and trade are widely known. Public acceptance of marijuana is at an all time high. Excuses for banning industrial hemp are irrelevant in the face of looming environmental crises demanding every possible solution be considered.

Absolutely no restrictions or interventions by government are needed. Any regulation imposed is a flagrant violation of our First Amendment freedom of religion, imposing crippling regulatory and economic burdens on a gift from "god." Agriculture is a partnership between man and Creator. Government is too deeply vested in the competition to be objective about Cannabis agriculture. The economic tide is too strong to swim directly against. A radical shift in values is the most powerful tool on the planet for steering out of the trajectory we've determined over decades of prohibition.

What demands objective analysis is Government's unaccountability to the point of criminal negligence in failing to educate people about a known "strategic food resource," recognized as such by seven American Presidents. How is it that the world's most complete food, and a source of all EFAs and essential amino acids, isn't recognized by the UNFAO?

In addition to deconstructing the DEA and the IRS, I suggest increasing taxes on toxic industries to reflect the time value of prolonged environmental harms imposed by them. The urgency for a rapid shift in values is growing as time is revealed to be the limiting factor in the equation of survival.

No bureaucracy, no tax on pot, no limitation on cultivation. The gift of "every herb bearing seed" is a right, not a privilege. Drugs don't make seeds, herbs do. Mankind is far beyond its rightful authority in legislating scarcity of an unique and essential food resource upon which other species also depend for their survival.

Let the government bureaucratize and provide expensive chemical drugs. Leave gardeners alone to grow Cannabis in all of its forms. Let us recognize that prohibition of Cannabis was motivated by the industries in competition with it. Namely, the toxic chemical-based industries. In treating a "strategic food resource" as a "Schedule One drug" we have created imbalances in environment, economics and social evolution that threaten our existence. Mankind must choose active respect for the Natural Order over the spiritless consumption leading us to extinction.

Briefly,

Cannabis is both unique and essential, beyond the rightful jurisdiction of any court.

Nutritionally and for several other reasons, Cannabis is not illegal -- it's essential. Rightful jurisdiction over Cannabis has never been truly legal, because hemp is too valuable a natural resource to entrust to economically corruptible governments.

Cannabis is the only rotational crop that produces a complete food and organic, sustainable biofuels from the same harvest. This reverses the threat of food insecurity and malnutrition commonly associated with agricultural production of biofuels.

A "strategic food resource" cannot concurrently also be a "Schedule One drug." The former is critical to national security while the other has no beneficial use whatsoever.

Drugs don't make seeds, herbs do. "Every herb bearing seed" and "every green herb" was given to us by the Creator of All. The First amendment to the U.S. Constitution legally protects our spiritual connection to agriculture.

Executive Orders have been signed by six U.S. Presidents, identifying hemp as a strategic food resource.

Cannabis produces 58 monoterpenes that rise into the atmosphere, where they block solar radiation and seed cloud formation.