The Disastrous War on Drugs Turns 40: How Does the Grassroots Stop the Misdirection by an Oxymoron?

The following is my reply to Ethan Nadelmann's essay concerning the future of drug policy reform

"The Disastrous War on Drugs Turns 40: How Do We Stop the Madness?"
http://www.alternet.org/story/149895/the_disastrous_war_on_drugs_turns_40%3A_how_do_we_stop_the_madness?page=entire

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The surest way to end Cannabis prohibition is to recognize Cannabis as both unique and essential to the survival of our species. The ecological argument of Cannabis vs. climate change has yet to be considered by the drug policy reform establishment, so how can we expect anyone else to understand that reintroduction of Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and trade to the free market economy is critical to the survival of our species?


DPA tripping to extinction
Or...
UV-B radiation is blocked by Cannabis monoterpenes -- so what's "illegal"?

What is it about Cannabis vs. climate change, that the drug policy reform establishment doesn't want to recognize the strongest argument in favor of ending prohibition -- Cannabis monoterpenes potential for radiative forcing as a biogenic way of addressing "global broiling" by increasing UV-B radiation?


If DPA won't bring attention to Cannabis vs. climate change, then all of you DPA $upporter$ who really want prohibition to end this year, instead of "someday,maybe" can stop sending money to George Soros, and start sending it to Reverend Roger Christie in Hawaii. As far as I know, DPA hasn't sent Roger a thin dime in twenty-five years of Cannabis activism.


Expanding upon my previous hurried comments, offered ultimately as good news (in harmonic tones effecting world peace)...

We the People must consider that prohibition of Cannabis could end in a week through a simple, objective shift in values. Cannabis is both unique and essential, not illegal. A matter of historical, religious and scientific fact, any other assessment of Cannabis as other than "strategic" treasonously undermines national security.

Cannabis is healing. Fossil fuels are toxic. Cannabis is globally distributed and free to anyone who wants it. Petroleum is unevenly distributed and expensive in every way. How could our species ever achieve balance as long as our money is based in toxins that are "Gaiacidal" and spiritually bankrupt, from inception?

Game over. The DEA has been begging to be sued for ten years of public fraud based on this spurious and fatally misleading definition of "hemp":

"...stalks and sterilized seeds — is what some people refer to as “hemp.” However, “hemp” is not a term that is found in federal law."

DEA Clarifies Status of Hemp in the Federal Register, October 9, 2001
http://www.justice.gov/dea/pub...

Neither statement is true.

It is a "misprision of treason" for failing to act in the interest of national security by refusing to recognize the true value of a strategic resource. Cannabis can't be both a "strategic resource" and a "Schedule One drug," so who is responsible for perpetuating this legal contradiction?

Come on DPA, MPP, NORML, etc. what EXACTLY is the hold-up in applying a fraction of your massive combined annual budgets to supporting the magnificent grassroots exercise of the Law of the Land, over anti-Constitutional prohibition statutes being tested in "Trial for the Century" of THC Ministry Founder, Reverend Roger Christie? If you recognize the historical significance of Cannabis, then you must see the power of Roger's challenge of wrongful authority. Why won't you support it?

Cannabis is not, cannot, and never has been truly illegal because without it our species won't see the end of this Century. Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. We don't have another planting season to waste.

The First Amendment is the first line of defense against prosecution by any objective court. Genesis 1:29 makes the end of Cannabis prohibition a matter of religious freedom. Our freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom. On page one of the King James Bible used in U.S. courts and swearing in of elected officials, "God" is quoted on the first page, referring to "herbs" three times.

Drugs don't make seeds. Herbs do. The legal distinction is enormous. Yet with all of the resources of the drug policy reform establishment applied to the argument against the horrid, inevitable results of prohibition, the most fundamental truths are still not being presented or supported.

Why does the drug policy reform establishment continue to fail in presenting the most straight-forward and powerful arguments? Millions upon millions of dollars have been applied to pointing out the problems and lobbying for legislative action. How much has really changed as a result of all that time and money spent?

My frustration with the drug policy reform establishment has to do with the oxymoronic paralysis of progress that is the direct result of a disparity of wealth that exists within the drug policy reform culture. Over the past twenty years of being involved with the global effort to end the "drug war" I've witnessed talented, intelligent communicators of truth, such as Reverend Roger Christie (See http://the-last-marijuana-tria.../) be roundly ignored by the inefficient and ineffectual expenditure of millions of dollars, countless volunteer work hours, and much too much precious time, to be content with another of Ethan's lucid, eloquent, informed, though practically incomplete, accountings of the harms of prohibition. What's missing is a cohesive, comprehensive, objective valuation of Cannabis as a "strategic resource""of first necessity""critical to national security""unique and essential""beyond the rightful jurisdiction of any court" as Jack Herer, Roger Christie, I and many others in the grassroots Cannabis culture have been writing, filming, and speaking in public about for decades, over and over again. And conditions continue to deteriorate at an accelerating pace without a proportionate response, and in the case of Ethan's recent NORML conference outburst, counter-productive public rudeness.

As brilliant and passionate and dedicated to a righteous cause as Ethan Nadelmann is, why is he and how can he not recognize Cannabis as both unique and essential? It is baffling to me. Prohibition cannot exist in the presence of true value, so what's blocking that shift?

Six American Presidents have recognized Cannabis as a "strategic resource" available by "essential civilian demand" yet DPA fails to acknowledge the power in that. Will President Obama be publicly mandated by the drug policy reform establishment to recognize Cannabis as both unique and essential, an historically revered "strategic resource" deserving of sacramental legitimacy? How bad do things have to get before Cannabis is recognized by the drug policy reform establishment as critical to national security and global integrity?

How long will it take before common awareness that (at last!) the majority of American's polled understand the urgent necessity of ending Cannabis prohibition leads to victory over unaccountability, falsehood and illogic? Instead of keeping the keep the ball rolling on the most recent wave of positive energy generated by Prop 19, by focussing on Roger Christie's "Trial for the Century" the drug policy reform establishment is ignoring (or in the case of NORML's St.Pierre & Belville, taking pot shots at) a major legal opportunity.

The Constitutional battle that's about to happen in Hawaii presents an opportunity to actively engage the 'feral government' that has blatantly traded due process for slander & libel, in the unlawful imprisonment-with-out-trial-or-bail of Roger Christie. Simply by accusing Christie of being a "danger to his community" the rights and privileges guaranteed by the State and Federal Constituions protcting freedom of religion have been suspended to silence a recognized "Peacemaker."

Roger Christie's trial is several magnitudes of significance larger than Prop 19, with a fraction of the investment from the monied elements of the drug policy reform establishment -- which includes the wealthy pot growers and most of the rich dispensary owners making bank on prohibition, whose vested interests don't favor seeing the Cannabis plant liberated.

There is so much to be said by the grassroots that has not been heard because the "freedom to complain" is being eloquently choreographed, scripted and substituted for the larger truth applied in direct action. On January First, 1992, Roger Christie and I set a legal precedent when we planted 'marijuana' in a public exercise of peaceful civil disobedience in Lahaina, Maui, after I sent a registered letter to Hawaii's State Attorney General, Warren Price. The formal challenge of rightful jurisdiction was six pages long (with references) and demanded that AG Price take individual responsibility for the true value of Cannabis. Once again a contest between Price vs. value. Price lost, and resigned from public office a few months later.

As I've written to DPA, MPP, NORML, etc. for years, the arguments in favor of Cannabis vs. climate change are the most broadly compelling, along with food security and nutrition, two areas where Cannais is both unique and essential. Why have there not been Congressional hearings to weigh the value of Cannabis agriculture against the lingering vestiges of "Reefer Madness"?

Ofcourse the conditions of environment, economics and social imbalance has created a condition of extreme global emergency, poised on the edge of synergistic collapse. The Earth's boreal forests are dying from pest infestation, logging, increasing UV-B radiation and warming of the atmosphere. The pines used to produce copious quantities of atmospheric aerosols called "monoterpenes." Presently, the balance of monoterpenes in the atmosphere is plummeting. If we don't start planting Cannabis as fast as we can, everywhere we can, it will soon be too late to avoid irreversible collapse. Expanding the arable base, increasing efficiency of our economic model to mandate accelerated reforestation with the help of the "Tree of Life" is humankind's only chance for survival.

If I am wrong, then I invite anyone to give me one good reason that's true not to grow Cannabis. If anyone has a better idea than Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and free, untaxed trade, for mitigating climate change, then I'll work on your idea for free for the rest of my life.

We have nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself. If we don't solve the climate change equation, it won't matter what problems we do solve.

There is no money on a burned out planet Mr. Soros, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Branson, Mr. Nadelmann... while US currency still has perceived value, please, invest in Roger Christie's "Trial for the Century" in order to reclaim the world's most useful crop. This is where the real progress can be made in a timely way.

Bans on irreversible plant technologies (GMOs) need to be immediately imposed on agriculture as unnecessary and counter-productive to feeding the world, and a threat to global integrity.


Free Roger Christie! Now!!