Invoking the Church Arson Prevention Act

I believe that the "Church Arson Prevention Act" could be invoked to prevent future dispensary
raids, if the "medical" dispensaries are associated with a spiritual and nutritional, holistic
wellness center. Eliminating artificial distinctions that have been created to define people's use
of Cannabis broadens the legal defense for our many over-lapping rights to grow and use it.

The British Columbia Compassion Club Society in Vancouver is the perfect example of what a
wellness center could be. One of the reasons that dispensaries in the U.S. don't work for people
as well as they could is because the healing properties of the plant that are offered at most of
the clubs are limited to just the buds. The whole plant has healing properties, as does the act of
growing it outside, and sharing it with others creates a healing community of like-minded, mellow
folk.

I attempt to reflect what I see, and reason a way beyond it, in order not to be blinded or
paralyzed by it. From my perspective, ending prohibition is a conscious healing, not a war.
Our economy is based on toxins and scarcity. Of course we're a sick society. If it were a war to
be fought, rather than an illness to be healed, then we would be in real trouble. Wars are what
the drug warriors are geared up for. To fight against insanity leads nowhere. Re-balancing our
conscious appreciation of Cannabis is much quicker, and leads to sustainability within a
functional Natural Order.

But 'time' is the limiting factor. The sense of urgency for ending prohibition is as important as
the integrity of the rationale. That's why this Spring, 2008, is the season for everyone to plant
openly and publicly, after a coordinated series of educational programs and meetings.

Fortunately, the global brain is waking up, electronically. It is now possible for people to
communicate, instantaneously, for the first time in our species' history. We the People are the
government, if we choose to learn control of our politicians, as a baby learns to control its
fingers.

Most voters support medical marijuana. The government doesn't because the people in office aren't
working for us. Problems are profitable. Prohibition is the weight around the neck of the finest
horse in the stable, and still she is the largest cash crop in the state. That says much about the
value of it.

Here's how I see prohibition ending by next Spring.

1. Drugs don't make seeds. Herbs do.
2. Genesis 1:29 and :31, "every herb bearing seed""every green herb"
3. Article One, the "free expression" of religion.
4. Individual Cannabis Ministries, millions of us claim our ancient, global cultural legacy.
5. Teach what we know to our communities, using digital video and computer technology for the
common good.
6. Cite the Conference of Mayor's Resolution of June 2007 declaring the drug war a costly
"failure," and demand accountability of our elected officials rather than continuing a
counter-productive policy.
7. Formally challenge the government's rightful jurisdiction over an unique and essential natural
resource, invoking "essential civilian demand" as provided for in E.O. 12919.
8. Designate Cannabis as a "critically determinate crop" because of its nutritional value, and
extremely valuable monoterpene production.
9. Plant publicly after conducting regional "Town Hall Meetings"/First Freedom Seminars inviting
cooperation with the Department of Justice.
10. Designate Community Trust-held lands for Cannabis Cultural Centers, including agricultural
demonstration project, hemp seed cafe, a wellness center (i.e. holistic healers, herbalists,
nutritional counseling), where Cannabis is grown biodynamically for seed, fiber and pure outdoor
herbal therapeutics.

Prohibition is a necessary obstacle to assure the competitiveness of the chemical industries.
Behaviorally akin to paranoia, there is created a perceived villain, who is out to get you or your
kids. In truth, 'marijuana' is not the villain, petrochemicals and economic disparity are the
corrupt forces fundamentally warping human values.

If our generation continues to allow prohibition to continue, rather than recognizing our
obligation to reclaim our civil liberties, then our children will suffer for our impotent defense
of the self-evident, god-given, natural freedom to farm.

Announcing: CCM's "Cannabis Freedom" Series

The California Cannabis Ministry invites you to celebrate our "First Freedom" by participating in the "Cannabis Freedom" series.

Inspired by the U.S. Department of Justice's "First Freedom Project," the interviews and discussions celebrate Article One in the Bill of Rights as " a fundamental freedom on which so many of our other freedoms rest."
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/religdisc/firstfreedom.html

Because Cannabis is the world's most ancient global culture, with a long tradition of peaceful cooexistence, "hemp" and "marijuana" have enormously significant throughout the evolution of human society. The spiritual dimensions of the Cannabis culture encompass economics, agriculture, art, philosophy, and many other facets that will be investigated from a "religious" perspective.

In the spirit of sincere appreciation for immeasurable sacrifices made by those who have gone before us in the fight for freedom, the California Cannabis Ministry is presenting an on-going series of public access television programs, to initiate environmental, economic and social healing. By exercising "essential civilian demand" for Cannabis hemp seed, recognized in Executive Order 12919 (Clinton, 1994) as a "strategic food resource," we may yet be able to secure our "freedom to farm" in preparation for planting Cannabis, globally, for food, fuel and fiber in the Spring 2008.

Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. Every planting season that passes is gone forever. We the People have an obligation to present and future generations to secure the quality of life on Earth. Cannabis is the only common seed with three essential fatty acids. Hemp seed is also, potentially, the best available source of organic vegetable protein on Earth. Because of its true value, Cannabis has never been.

Thanksgiving to the Creator for the harvest is a tradition that bridges issues of food security and spirituality. The California Cannabis Ministry seeks to resolve the gross negligence of institutions that ought to be teaching people about the incomparable nutritional value of Cannabis hemp seed, rather than prohibiting the cultivation of it.

In truth, our "first freedom" was articulated, twice in succession, by the Creator, as quoted on the first page of the Bible (and equivalently, in all other religious texts), in Genesis 1:29/30:

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed,
which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed;
to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so."

Drugs don't make seeds. Herbs do.

Please join us for an open and honest, science-based discussion, investigating the true value of Cannabis agriculture, manufacturing, and the efficiency of regional, organic economics.

Anyone interested in the research and communications being carried out by the California Cannabis Ministry is welcome to visit the Ministry blog or contact me directly. Practical support for this work is naturally encouraged.

for peace,

Paul J. von Hartmann
California Cannabis Ministry
http://www.californiacannabisministry.blogspot.com

Project P.E.A.C.E.
Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics
http://www.webspawner.com/users/projectpeace

(831) 588-5095 cell phone
============

"Cannabis Freedom"
with Paul von Hartmann
Tuesday, September 12th at 3 pm

The mission of MCTV15 is to encourage and support the use of media for sharing thoughts opinions and events by, and for the people of Siskiyou County.

http://www.mctv15.org/Public/HomePage

The case of Hemp-Info: Swiss Courts Corrupted by Chemicals

Last week the District Court of Morat, Switzerland, sentenced Cannabis agriculturist, André Fürst, the owner of Hemp-Info, to 29 months in prison and a fine of 150.000 Swiss francs (approx. 98.000 euros). Mr. Fürst’s "crime" was years of open and public development of agro-industrial ecological methods of hemp utilization, demonstrating realistic solutions to major environmental, economic, and social problems.

Unfortunately, a free market in Cannabis is an economic threat to the black market in drugs, and the corrupted political establishment, economically vested in chemical- and prison-based industries. After years of global activism and harrassment by Swiss authorities, André has finally become a casualty in the global "war on herbs" being orchestrated by the United States. The U.S. has been exerting its economic influence on Swiss drug policy for years, interfering with progressive development in a nation which has traditionally been politically independent.

The authorities in many Swiss states (cantons) were, until recently, applying a pragmatic and humanistic approach to drug policies. Now the Swiss authorities have begun a "witch hunt" of their own, caving into temptations of money and power the fruits of the bad example set by the U.S. "War on [Some] Drugs [and Herbs]."

For decades, the U.S. prohibition has proven to be invariably disastrous environmentally, economically and in its tragic consequences eroding fundamental human rights. Only by dismissing the fact that Cannabis is an "herb bearing seed" and categorizing the world’s most useful plant as a "drug" have the economically corrupted courts been able to usurp control over this unique and essential, strategic natural resource. The anti-natural precedent set by Cannabis prohibition is incalculably dangerous, because it unlawfully extends the legal jurisdiction of governments over people’s Natural rights, that are the original basis for those governments.

In the future, perhaps after the Natural Order has collapsed, beyond recovery, maybe the Swiss people will wake up to reclaim the role of social progressive, properly adjusting to local attitudes of tolerance. In the meantime, free market activists, supporting the god-given right to farm "every herb bearing seed," are under pressures from the corrupted judiciary, which is absolutely unworthy of any society claiming to be "democratic."

If the Swiss National Council had agreed to revise drug legislation as federal authorities had proposed, the case of Hemp-Info would have been dismissed. André Fürst offered Switzerland a future without farmer’s subsidies, that included a workable plan to protect Swiss youth from drug criminality, that disempowered the black market, and cut off a lucrative source of financing for international terrorism.

Fribourg justice, short-sighted and dogmatic, rejected all of André’s reasonable arguments, which are based on irrefutable scientific, political, sociological and economic evidence. The Fribourg judges have failed to uphold laws that protect the Swiss people’s collective interests. The judges in Fribourg have choosen instead to favor the wealthy corporate conglomerates, the parallel, chemically-based economy and the pervasive, hypocritical, pseudo-morality that is poisoning human society with "legal" drugs, while starving most of the world’s children.

In judging André Fürst a criminal, the judiciary is pushing all farmers in the direction of corporate control. People who are ill, that rely on the proven therapeutic properties of ’marijuana’ and other forbidden plants, will now be forced to seek their chosen herbal remedies amid the dangers of the black market, as before. Cannabis users are being forced by the courts to support organized crime, while risking their health in purchasing products of unknown purity and quality.

Besides the incalculable personal tragedies inflicted on the Swiss Cannabis culture, this policy will cause considerable harm to the whole of Swiss society, and the rest of the world. The inevitable, disasterous impacts of prohibition effect everyone.

All this is happening because a phytotherpeutic ("plant healing") herb, which is safer and more useful than either "legal" tobacco and alcohol, presents a threat to the pharmaceutical, petroleum, and other chemically-based multi-national industries in Switzerland and the U.S.. Hemp-Info demonstrated that Cannabis can be used to produce everything that is currently being made from petroleum and timber, using chemically intensive methods and anti-natural resources.

When criminal groups (like the Hell’s Angels and the Yakuza) take over the Swiss Cannabis market (as has already happened in Canada, Sweden, Hawaii, and other places), everybody will bitterly regret André Fürst’s conviction. The organic products and realistic, healthful control measures which he was prosecuted for pioneering will be looked back upon as visionary.

The judiciary authorities in Fribourg must be held accountable for their limited thinking leading to an illogical decision. By favoring policies which are proven to be counter-productive to society their decision is a direct threat to the integrity of the Swiss justice system.

As a result of inducing scarcity of herbal Cannabis, predictable increases in the use of dangerous chemical drugs (including alcohol, methamphetamines, crack, heroin, cocaine, and benzodiazepines) will certainly begin to plague Switzerland, just as they have infected the U.S. and other prohibitionist countries. Organized crime, increasing spread of HIV/AIDS, deteriorating economics, and a "drug war"-impoverished infrastructure will soon degrade the quality of life for all Swiss people.

In spite of Hemp-Info’s obvious determination to base their activities on Cannabis laws proposed and supported by Swiss federal and parliamentary committees, the Fribourg Court has advanced the repressive poliices advanced by the prosecution. In particular, the Fribourg Court failed to render a clear legal decision regarding the different methods of Cannabis analysis. The results of these tests can be so erratic that they can show THC levels, varying from 0.3% to 3.0% in the same sample of hemp. The Fribourg Court also refused to assess the legal juridiction of the THC standard established by French law.

This arbitrary measure is missing any proven scientific or agronomic basis and has no authority in regard to Swiss legislation. The Court inexplicably ignored the fact that hemp is an herb, not a "drug" and certainly not a "narcotic." This decision insults the Rule of Law and the spirit of authors of the drug legislation, by disregarding or changing established legal and historically relevant definitions.

As far as Hemp-Info has not received any response to these fundamental questions and because there are other critically compelling reasons to reject this sentence, André Fürst will continue his struggle for freedom to farm Cannabis and will register an appeal of this decision with the Cantonal Court of Fribourg.

If the people of the world recognise why this case is of pivotal importance to all of our freedoms and the quality of life on this planet, then perhaps there is still hope for reversing the symptoms of imbalance that have resulted from imposed essential resource scarcity. The years of agricultural development that André Fürst has shared with the world at the demonstration project called Hemp-Info, is too valuable to be lost in such a sad and meaningless miscarriage of justice.

Paul von Hartmann , a friend of Hemp-Info