In reference to Kioko Munyao's two recent questions on the UN FAO Food Security & Nutrition Forum
http://km.fao.org/fsn/fsn-forum/main-forum/fr/?view=single_thread&cat_uid=30&conf_uid=316&thread_uid=649
1)"Are there practices that rural communities had that have been discarded that would have assisted in achieving a greater effect on poverty and hunger?"
Yes, absolutely. Cannabis agriculture has been banned, regardless of it's unique and essential food value.
Hempseed as a nutritional resource: An overview
J.C. Callaway, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Kuopio, Finland
http://www.finola.com/HempseedNutrition.pdf
The world's most complete and potentially available food and fuel crop has been legislatively banned from organic agricultural rotations, by the misanthropic "war on drugs." Hemp has also been torn from the wild lands where it would otherwise grow, expanding the arable base.
Cannabis is the only crop that makes biofuels and food from the same harvest. Identified as a "strategic food resource" in Executive Order 12919, Cannabis agriculture is as critical to sustainable human existence as it was to the founding of civilizations all over the world.
The earliest nomadic people planted Cannabis along their seasonal routes, for essential seed protein, oil, fiber, intoxication and entheogens that grew well without tending.
In "The Dragons of Eden" Carl Sagan wrote of the pygmy tribes that Cannabis was [i]"their only cultivated crop."[/i]
http://www.rexresearch.com/hhist/hhist1~1.htm
And
(2)"Is there evidence of communities blending 'traditional' production and livelihood systems with modern practice that has shown some success?"
Yes. In Switzerland, Chanvre Info
http://www.chanvre-info.ch/info/en/
has demonstrated that Cannabis can be used to produce food, fuel, building materials, paper, biodegradable plastics, herbal therapeutics.
The agronomic characteristics of Cannabis make it an effective crop for expanding the arable base, and for increasing production of crops grown in rotation with it.
Cannabis also produces biogenic pesticides that have therapeutic applications for humans and wildlife.
Atmospheric aerosols called "monoterpenes" are produced in abundance by Cannabis in a wide variety of soil & climate conditions. Monoterpenes reflect solar radiation away from the Earth and seed cloud formation.
Google "Hemp Climate Zone Map" to see all of the places in the world that hemp can be grown.
I invite people who share concern to consider the question,
"How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edZw3hXkGJo
Hemp grows well in Canada, and is subsidized by the European Union in every country. Why can't hemp be used in every country to help people and heal the environment?
I am wondering if Mr. Andrew MacMillan has had any success in finding fertile ground for Dr. Callaway's work?
Monday, September 14, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
The question is...
...why drink processed cow's milk when there's something that's better for most people's health, much better for the ecosystem than dairy farming, and tastes better than processed cow's milk?
If you're not yet aware of the nutritional benefits of Cannabis hemp seed, then look into it to realize that hemp is nutritionally unique and essential. The only common seed with three essential fatty acids, Cannabis is also the best available source of organic vegetable protein on Earth.
Harms induced by the counter-productive prohibition of 'marijuana' have included outlawing research into the many benefits of Cannabis agriculture, therapeutics, manufacture and trade. Cannabis is the only crop that produces biofuels, herbal remedies and complete nutrition from the same harvest.
Why isn't the government telling you this, instead of just some hemp fanatic blogging into the wind? Because "they" are not on our team. Look at the warmongering, radical economic disparity and racism that continue to define contemporary American politics. Despite endless rhetoric propping up people's naive hopes with empty optimism, "drug war" inertia is carrying us further into endless wars leading to global extinction.
God Forgive America for the synergistic collapse of environment, economics, and social structures that U.S. prohibition is orchestrating all over the world. Wonder why people are mad the US? Look at the misery we've imposed on the world by legislating essential resource scarcity. Consider the fundamental chain of conflicts and imbalances resulting from banning the world's most useful, potentially abundant, globally distributed, safely therapeutic, essentially nutritious, environmentally beneficial agricultural resource.
The real question is, how can people continue to accept the prohibition of Cannabis when there are so many reasons to be growing it and time is running out? How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered?
Hemp seed milk is the healthiest drink on Earth, and tastes great. There does not have to be malnutrition anywhere. Hemp seed has no growth hormones, no mutant A1 genes, doesn't require pasteurization, and contains natural preservatives in the form of antioxidants. Every one could be growing hemp seed, fresh, alive and fertile. We could all be making seed milk, ice cream, yogurt, and cheese at home if we wanted to. It's easy to grow and it's easy to eat.
The food industry is a $643,467,000,000 industry in the United States. If you see the enormous potential of this information, then contact me directly to give real value to your wealth. It's past time to be timid about our common future. We need to shift the economic base from soulless chemicals to spiritually vital organics.
"Essential civilian demand" (E.O. 12919) for industrial/nutritional hemp is entirely justified, considering the extreme conditions that threaten our species. We have nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself.
Search You Tube and BlogTalkRadio for projectpeace. Answers are presented there, when people are ready to accept the truth about Cannabis. The longer we wait the harder the transition will be and the less likely we will be to make it.
There is no money on a burned out planet. Invest in hemp, of unique and essential values. Hemp is the currency of the 21st Century. Anyone who doesn't have fresh fertile hemp seed when the music stops will be poor.
The most ancient and evolved economic system on Earth is demonstrated by the most ancient species, including Cannabis, dolphins and whales: "Help me help you help everyone."
Contact projectpeace {a} yahoo dt com
to shift human values through practical support for accelerating electronic global education of hemp's true essential value.
###
Posted online by: P.E.A.C.E. on Sep 7, 2009
"Milk May Endanger Your Health, and the Dairy Industry Knows It"
By Ari LeVaux, AlterNet.
http://www.alternet.org/story/142377/milk_may_endanger_your_health,_and_the_dairy_industry_knows_it/?cID=1314473#comments
If you're not yet aware of the nutritional benefits of Cannabis hemp seed, then look into it to realize that hemp is nutritionally unique and essential. The only common seed with three essential fatty acids, Cannabis is also the best available source of organic vegetable protein on Earth.
Harms induced by the counter-productive prohibition of 'marijuana' have included outlawing research into the many benefits of Cannabis agriculture, therapeutics, manufacture and trade. Cannabis is the only crop that produces biofuels, herbal remedies and complete nutrition from the same harvest.
Why isn't the government telling you this, instead of just some hemp fanatic blogging into the wind? Because "they" are not on our team. Look at the warmongering, radical economic disparity and racism that continue to define contemporary American politics. Despite endless rhetoric propping up people's naive hopes with empty optimism, "drug war" inertia is carrying us further into endless wars leading to global extinction.
God Forgive America for the synergistic collapse of environment, economics, and social structures that U.S. prohibition is orchestrating all over the world. Wonder why people are mad the US? Look at the misery we've imposed on the world by legislating essential resource scarcity. Consider the fundamental chain of conflicts and imbalances resulting from banning the world's most useful, potentially abundant, globally distributed, safely therapeutic, essentially nutritious, environmentally beneficial agricultural resource.
The real question is, how can people continue to accept the prohibition of Cannabis when there are so many reasons to be growing it and time is running out? How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered?
Hemp seed milk is the healthiest drink on Earth, and tastes great. There does not have to be malnutrition anywhere. Hemp seed has no growth hormones, no mutant A1 genes, doesn't require pasteurization, and contains natural preservatives in the form of antioxidants. Every one could be growing hemp seed, fresh, alive and fertile. We could all be making seed milk, ice cream, yogurt, and cheese at home if we wanted to. It's easy to grow and it's easy to eat.
The food industry is a $643,467,000,000 industry in the United States. If you see the enormous potential of this information, then contact me directly to give real value to your wealth. It's past time to be timid about our common future. We need to shift the economic base from soulless chemicals to spiritually vital organics.
"Essential civilian demand" (E.O. 12919) for industrial/nutritional hemp is entirely justified, considering the extreme conditions that threaten our species. We have nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself.
Search You Tube and BlogTalkRadio for projectpeace. Answers are presented there, when people are ready to accept the truth about Cannabis. The longer we wait the harder the transition will be and the less likely we will be to make it.
There is no money on a burned out planet. Invest in hemp, of unique and essential values. Hemp is the currency of the 21st Century. Anyone who doesn't have fresh fertile hemp seed when the music stops will be poor.
The most ancient and evolved economic system on Earth is demonstrated by the most ancient species, including Cannabis, dolphins and whales: "Help me help you help everyone."
Contact projectpeace {a} yahoo dt com
to shift human values through practical support for accelerating electronic global education of hemp's true essential value.
###
Posted online by: P.E.A.C.E. on Sep 7, 2009
"Milk May Endanger Your Health, and the Dairy Industry Knows It"
By Ari LeVaux, AlterNet.
http://www.alternet.org/story/142377/milk_may_endanger_your_health,_and_the_dairy_industry_knows_it/?cID=1314473#comments
Sunday, September 6, 2009
CANNABIS LEAF IS THE MOST EFFICIENT AND AVAILABLE SOLAR PANEL ON EARTH
"In 2005, total worldwide energy consumption was 500 exajoules (5×1020 J) with 80 to 90 percent derived from the combustion of fossil fuels.
"Most of the world's energy resources are from the sun's rays hitting earth.
"Mostly thanks to the Sun, the world also has a renewable usable energy flux that exceeds 120 PW (8,000 times 2004 total usage), or 3.8 YJ/yr, dwarfing all non-renewable resources."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption
An obvious question is, "What is the most globally available, sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective way to maximize energy production from the Sun?" The answer appears to be " Cannabis (i.e. industrial hemp) agriculture." Growing biofuels abundantly, organically, in more soil and climate conditions to the greatest benefit of soils and other crops grown in rotation with it, Cannabis produces more energy per acre, sustainably, organically, than any other crop that also produces food from the same harvest.
So that means if we can maximize our use of solar energy, then we can eliminate dependence on fossil fuels.
Isn't that, by itself, a good enough reason to end Cannabis prohibition?
"Most of the world's energy resources are from the sun's rays hitting earth.
"Mostly thanks to the Sun, the world also has a renewable usable energy flux that exceeds 120 PW (8,000 times 2004 total usage), or 3.8 YJ/yr, dwarfing all non-renewable resources."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption
An obvious question is, "What is the most globally available, sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective way to maximize energy production from the Sun?" The answer appears to be " Cannabis (i.e. industrial hemp) agriculture." Growing biofuels abundantly, organically, in more soil and climate conditions to the greatest benefit of soils and other crops grown in rotation with it, Cannabis produces more energy per acre, sustainably, organically, than any other crop that also produces food from the same harvest.
So that means if we can maximize our use of solar energy, then we can eliminate dependence on fossil fuels.
Isn't that, by itself, a good enough reason to end Cannabis prohibition?
SO MUCH MORE TO IT THAN WE'RE BEING TOLD
Prohibition is not about the pot or the coke. Black drug market fortunes are measured in mere hundreds of billions of dollars.
The 'economics of punishment' are profitable too, prison construction, law enforcement, electronic & weapons industries, etc...but the real money is being made by industrial giants who fear competition from the eventual return of industrial hemp industries.
Isn't it odd how silent Obama is about hemp? Only if you still believe he's other than a frontman for the chemical industry.
It's about food, fuel & fiber, measured in trillions. Obama isn't leading on hemp, but he could be smart enough to follow the growing majority of people who are demanding answers about the obvious values being ignored.
Prohibition is about the fortunes and power to be made by grabbing unevenly distributed resources. Cannabis is globally available to produce energy, food,fiber products and herbal therapeutics. If Cannabis were available in the US, the global awareness would shift more quickly.
If we don't solve global climate change it won't matter what problems we do solve.
Return to Reason trailer
http://www.youtube.com/projectpeace
Cannabis agriculture vs. climate change
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/projectpeace
We have nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself. How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered?
Freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom.
Come on people, what's left to debate? The quickest way to end prohibition is by "essential civilian demand" for hemp. It could happen next spring if DPA, LEAP, Dr. Bronner's, ASA, NORML, MPP and the rest of the drug policy reform community all said the same thing at the same time. Executive Order 12919 identifies hemp as a "strategic food resource" critical to national security.
Cannabis-based industries or extinction? It's a simple shift in values that's needed. Eventually we have to stop throwing the baby food out with the bongwater, but time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival.
Consider that industrial hemp is banned in the US because law enforcement claims that it's hard to distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana.
The truth is that it's easy to tell the difference between the two types of Cannabis because there's a difference in how they're planted. Industrial strains grow 4" apart, while commercial pot plants are grown a minimum of six feet apart.
Consider that a "strategic food resource" is concurrently classified as a "Schedule One" drug. The extremes of absurdity are consistent throughout the "drug war," posing a serious threat to the integrity of our legal system, and therefore a primary threat to national security.
The degree of criminal negligence for failing to recognize the incomparable nutritional value of hemp seed, particularly during a time of radical food insecurity and malnutrition, is staggering. Essential nutrition is the first line of defense against illness, so Cannabis seed nutrition ought to be fundamental to the healthcare discussion -- but it's not even mentioned in the White House.
What's up with that, Mr.& Mrs. President? Don't you want your children to enjoy the unique and essential nutrition contained in hemp seed? Please don't tell me that you don't know about it.
I am personally outraged and ashamed that it's taking this long for our generation to remember what our grandfathers knew. Hemp is an essential agricultural resource. Without it the United States would never have been founded. Without Cannabis our species will not see the end of this century.
Without the many benefits of Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and trade, we're all working for extinction.
The 'economics of punishment' are profitable too, prison construction, law enforcement, electronic & weapons industries, etc...but the real money is being made by industrial giants who fear competition from the eventual return of industrial hemp industries.
Isn't it odd how silent Obama is about hemp? Only if you still believe he's other than a frontman for the chemical industry.
It's about food, fuel & fiber, measured in trillions. Obama isn't leading on hemp, but he could be smart enough to follow the growing majority of people who are demanding answers about the obvious values being ignored.
Prohibition is about the fortunes and power to be made by grabbing unevenly distributed resources. Cannabis is globally available to produce energy, food,fiber products and herbal therapeutics. If Cannabis were available in the US, the global awareness would shift more quickly.
If we don't solve global climate change it won't matter what problems we do solve.
Return to Reason trailer
http://www.youtube.com/projectpeace
Cannabis agriculture vs. climate change
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/projectpeace
We have nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself. How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered?
Freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom.
Come on people, what's left to debate? The quickest way to end prohibition is by "essential civilian demand" for hemp. It could happen next spring if DPA, LEAP, Dr. Bronner's, ASA, NORML, MPP and the rest of the drug policy reform community all said the same thing at the same time. Executive Order 12919 identifies hemp as a "strategic food resource" critical to national security.
Cannabis-based industries or extinction? It's a simple shift in values that's needed. Eventually we have to stop throwing the baby food out with the bongwater, but time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival.
Consider that industrial hemp is banned in the US because law enforcement claims that it's hard to distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana.
The truth is that it's easy to tell the difference between the two types of Cannabis because there's a difference in how they're planted. Industrial strains grow 4" apart, while commercial pot plants are grown a minimum of six feet apart.
Consider that a "strategic food resource" is concurrently classified as a "Schedule One" drug. The extremes of absurdity are consistent throughout the "drug war," posing a serious threat to the integrity of our legal system, and therefore a primary threat to national security.
The degree of criminal negligence for failing to recognize the incomparable nutritional value of hemp seed, particularly during a time of radical food insecurity and malnutrition, is staggering. Essential nutrition is the first line of defense against illness, so Cannabis seed nutrition ought to be fundamental to the healthcare discussion -- but it's not even mentioned in the White House.
What's up with that, Mr.& Mrs. President? Don't you want your children to enjoy the unique and essential nutrition contained in hemp seed? Please don't tell me that you don't know about it.
I am personally outraged and ashamed that it's taking this long for our generation to remember what our grandfathers knew. Hemp is an essential agricultural resource. Without it the United States would never have been founded. Without Cannabis our species will not see the end of this century.
Without the many benefits of Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and trade, we're all working for extinction.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Bad news Good news Bad news
‘We Are Heading Towards an Abyss’
U.N. chief tells 150 governments that time running out on climate change
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/03#comment-1288491
Good news: There is a way to get from where we are to where we need to be.
Bad news: It means everyone saying the same thing at the same time. " Freedom to farm."
Organic agriculture is the only, immediately globally available, affordable proportionate response to climate change. Carbon sequestration and monoterpene production are just two of the reasons to end Cannabis prohibition, but there are many more. Global warming & global broilng (increasing UV-B) need to be addressed in every possible way.
Cannabis is the only crop that produces food and fuel from the same harvest, sustainably. The argument against biofuels, (supposedly inducing food insecurity) is worse than wrong -- it's backwards. When Cannabis is added back into the equation the most nutritious seed on Earth will be available everywhere, inexpensively.
Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. Every spring planting season that passes without the benefits of Cannabis agriculture manufacture and trade is an opportunity that's lost forever.
Good news: Essential Civilian demand for Cannabis is provided for in Executive Order 12919. We have nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself.
Here's a glimpse into one possible future, if we choose peace instead of war.
http://www.youtube.com/projectpeace
No less than a criminal negligence lawsuit against the "drug war dinosaurs" is needed before next Spring. The only reason we can't grow industrial hemp in the United States is because law enforcement claims that they can't tell the difference between marijuana and industrial hemp. That's a self-serving lie that's crippling the most "Gaia-therapeutic" industry stream on the planet, at the bidding of the chemical industries and other symptoms of the economics of punishment.
If we achieve extinction, it will be because our generation lacks the courage to shift its values in the face of the coming synergistic collapse of spirit, environment, economics and social evolution. All are connected. All are dependent upon the integrity of the others. Our economic system has been detached from the spirituality of organic farming.
Cannabis is an essential rotational tool for organic agriculture. The 60+ cannabinoids protect the plant from myriad assaults and pest infestations, and can be used to protect other crops .
How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered? There are several time lags to consider, that are hardly mentioned.
Cannabis seed is nutritionally unique, complete and essential. The freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom. If we reclaim the Constitution, then the First Amendment ought to be enough to rediscover our individual right to grow everything we need, in abundance.
www.cannabisvsclimatechange.com
projectpeace [at} yahoo {dot] com
U.N. chief tells 150 governments that time running out on climate change
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/03#comment-1288491
Good news: There is a way to get from where we are to where we need to be.
Bad news: It means everyone saying the same thing at the same time. " Freedom to farm."
Organic agriculture is the only, immediately globally available, affordable proportionate response to climate change. Carbon sequestration and monoterpene production are just two of the reasons to end Cannabis prohibition, but there are many more. Global warming & global broilng (increasing UV-B) need to be addressed in every possible way.
Cannabis is the only crop that produces food and fuel from the same harvest, sustainably. The argument against biofuels, (supposedly inducing food insecurity) is worse than wrong -- it's backwards. When Cannabis is added back into the equation the most nutritious seed on Earth will be available everywhere, inexpensively.
Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. Every spring planting season that passes without the benefits of Cannabis agriculture manufacture and trade is an opportunity that's lost forever.
Good news: Essential Civilian demand for Cannabis is provided for in Executive Order 12919. We have nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself.
Here's a glimpse into one possible future, if we choose peace instead of war.
http://www.youtube.com/projectpeace
No less than a criminal negligence lawsuit against the "drug war dinosaurs" is needed before next Spring. The only reason we can't grow industrial hemp in the United States is because law enforcement claims that they can't tell the difference between marijuana and industrial hemp. That's a self-serving lie that's crippling the most "Gaia-therapeutic" industry stream on the planet, at the bidding of the chemical industries and other symptoms of the economics of punishment.
If we achieve extinction, it will be because our generation lacks the courage to shift its values in the face of the coming synergistic collapse of spirit, environment, economics and social evolution. All are connected. All are dependent upon the integrity of the others. Our economic system has been detached from the spirituality of organic farming.
Cannabis is an essential rotational tool for organic agriculture. The 60+ cannabinoids protect the plant from myriad assaults and pest infestations, and can be used to protect other crops .
How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered? There are several time lags to consider, that are hardly mentioned.
Cannabis seed is nutritionally unique, complete and essential. The freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom. If we reclaim the Constitution, then the First Amendment ought to be enough to rediscover our individual right to grow everything we need, in abundance.
www.cannabisvsclimatechange.com
projectpeace [at} yahoo {dot] com
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
No tax on pot
The following opinion was written in response to a recent press release regarding the marijuana tax, written by Ken Reed, at the Green Cross in San Francisco. http://thegreencross.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=466
Taxing Cannabis is a very bad idea. It never should have happened in 1937 and it shouldn't be happening again now. A tax on medical marijuana will do nothing more than legitimize the dysfunctional government's unwelcome interference in our lives and our individual health.
Time is short. There is a more direct avenue to ending prohibition. Freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed is the first test of religious freedom.
With all due respect, Cannabis is not "medicine." Cannabis is in fact an unique and essential herbal therapeutic. Medicines don't make seeds. Herbs make seeds. The vast differences between drugs and seeds erodes the credibility of anyone who presumes to equate them.
I agree that some people may benefit from consulting professionals regarding the use of marijuana. But to put the world's safest and most healing herb into the hands of doctors dismisses the subcultural evolution, prejudice and ignorance against Cannabis inclusive therapies that has developed during seventy two years of prohibition.
Taxing Cannabis will have several really bad effects. The biggest drawback is concession of rightful jurisdiction over unique and essential natural resources. When valued properly, Cannabis is not illegal -- it's essential.
Secondly, taxing marijuana will drive the price up, enlarge an already unaffordable bureaucracy, and perpetuate the black market in untaxed marijuana.
Cannabis remains prohibited because people in the Cannabis culture persist in under-valuing the world's most useful, nutritious, potentially abundant, globally distributed, safely therapeutic agricultural resource. Seeking incremental change, we forfeit our own strongest argument.
I invite you to consider the "big picture" and recognize the opportunity and obligation of facing the fundamental challenge of our time head-on.
Please contact me if you would care to know more about the strategy I've developed for ending Cannabis prohibition by next spring. Your help is needed to make "essential civilian demand" for Cannabis an effective tool for implementing Cannabis freedom.
Taxing Cannabis is a very bad idea. It never should have happened in 1937 and it shouldn't be happening again now. A tax on medical marijuana will do nothing more than legitimize the dysfunctional government's unwelcome interference in our lives and our individual health.
Time is short. There is a more direct avenue to ending prohibition. Freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed is the first test of religious freedom.
With all due respect, Cannabis is not "medicine." Cannabis is in fact an unique and essential herbal therapeutic. Medicines don't make seeds. Herbs make seeds. The vast differences between drugs and seeds erodes the credibility of anyone who presumes to equate them.
I agree that some people may benefit from consulting professionals regarding the use of marijuana. But to put the world's safest and most healing herb into the hands of doctors dismisses the subcultural evolution, prejudice and ignorance against Cannabis inclusive therapies that has developed during seventy two years of prohibition.
Taxing Cannabis will have several really bad effects. The biggest drawback is concession of rightful jurisdiction over unique and essential natural resources. When valued properly, Cannabis is not illegal -- it's essential.
Secondly, taxing marijuana will drive the price up, enlarge an already unaffordable bureaucracy, and perpetuate the black market in untaxed marijuana.
Cannabis remains prohibited because people in the Cannabis culture persist in under-valuing the world's most useful, nutritious, potentially abundant, globally distributed, safely therapeutic agricultural resource. Seeking incremental change, we forfeit our own strongest argument.
I invite you to consider the "big picture" and recognize the opportunity and obligation of facing the fundamental challenge of our time head-on.
Please contact me if you would care to know more about the strategy I've developed for ending Cannabis prohibition by next spring. Your help is needed to make "essential civilian demand" for Cannabis an effective tool for implementing Cannabis freedom.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
IRS & DEA the deadliest letters in the USA
On Mon, 7/6/09, David Borden wrote
> My view, for whatever it's worth -- if a moderate level of
> taxation is what
> political research shows is needed to get marijuana
> legalized, we should go for it.
Hi David & friends,
Your views and work are worth alot to the drug reform effort. Perhaps you're right to have more faith than I have in political research and the system it studies.
The way I understand it, the end of the "drug war" that's currently happening came from the grassroots finally reaching the majority of the people, recognizing the idiocy of prohibition -- not our political system's reasoned wisdom and brilliant leadership. I think the opportunity for people to see the degree of harm & ignorance being imposed on us by a dysfunctional bureaucracy has never been more clear.
The US government has been worse than merely wrong about Cannabis nutrition, bio-fuels, therapeutics, and other dimensions of this plant that are suddenly being recognized as critical to individual health and global security. U.S. "drug war dinosaurs" have institutionalized criminal negligence, imposed scientific censorship and persited with cruel intransigence in failing to acknowledge (let alone secure) our basic human rights.
I definitely agree we should go for it too. In fact if we truly care about the future of this planet and the quality of life on it, we had better go for it all the way -- to a degree that will be certain to work from now on.
The present system doesn't work. If it did, then we wouldn't be headed for extinction. The dysfunctional prohibition was spawned and dragged out to absurdity by the dysfunctional system that now presumes to tax it. That doesn't sound like much progress to me, and is a terrible "message to send to the children."
'IRS' and 'DEA' are the six most expensive letters in the USA. Hardships imposed by the gross corruption and inefficiency of a predatory bureaucracy run amok has made the world unlivable for the vast majority of the people on this planet. We can afford neither the present drug policy nor the present tax system.
Prohibition has shown us how a government can be criminally wrong, beyond moral accountability. How many conclusions can be drawn from an unique and essential "strategic resource" being concurrently classified as a "Schedule One drug?"
Ultimately, the opportunity for shifting from a military industrial, chemically saturated society, to a sustainable, organic economy is what we are talking about. The shift from dependence on government providing energy and food to the people producing their own essential resources makes taxation obsolete.
The income tax system is the most inefficient form of taxation there is. Innumerable hours of people's lives are wasted computing the degree of "involuntary servitude" when simply taxing what people consume, not what they produce would achieve more equitable funding for a vastly reduced bureaucracy.
If we want both a free-market economy and a sustainable society we would eliminate production taxes on industries that heal the planet (gaiatherapeutic industries), and increase consumption taxes on luxury goods and services, not essential ones. The "luxury tax" would include costs associated with the net carbon component of production and delivery of any good or service. The more people spend, the more taxes they would pay.
Getting marijuana legalized is such a
> difficult thing that not a
> single country has achieved it yet, not even the
> Netherlands. People are
> getting arrested for marijuana every day, about 2,000 per
> day here in the
> US. We should not "make the best the enemy of the
> good" by insisting that
> marijuana have tax-free status, while time goes by and
> people continue to
> sit in prison and the arrests continue.
Absolutely. Releasing "drug war" prisoners is at the top of the list of priorities. Every day spent in jail is gone forever. Every day that a child spends without its parents is a crime against family that erodes the foundations of society. Recognizing prohibition as counter-productive to its own stated objectives will achieve the release of prisoners faster than taxing 'pot' to prop up an insolvent government.
That's why some in the drug policy reform community have always advocated the most direct avenues of legal challenge, frustrated as moderate mainstream activists conceding rightful jurisdiction over unique and essential resources. The Cannabis culture has been raped for decades by the system you are proposing we now pay taxes to. Asking for permission to grow the world's most valuable crop is weak.
To hell with the petrochemical war-mongering system. The world's oldest global culture can fund itself. We don't need permission to survive from an expensive, dysfunctional bureaucracy when we can produce our own fuel and food from the same harvest. The government of the U.S was dead wrong about Cannabis all these years, and it still won't recognize the true value of the plant.
Now that prohibition is imploding out of sheer economic necessity, the military/industrial government is trying to retain control by perpetuating rightful jurisdiction, in spite of criminal negligence that's been revealed.
Paying taxes on Cannabis would impact the Cannabis industry's competitiveness with established, toxic industries that are not being taxed.
Personally, I am not willing to settle for "what we can get," when what we need is so much more.
We should do
> whatever is realistic
> and effective that will end prohibition as soon as
> possible.
Extinction is presently realistic. It makes so much more possible and necessary. Are you willing to exercise "Essential civilian demand" for a "strategic food resource?" That's what made Cannabis illegal in the first place, so why doesn't DRCNet help initiate procedures identified in Executive Order 12919?
What about claiming our First Amendment Right to "every herb bearing seed" and "every green herb" ? Not another law needs to be passed if the spiritual relationship between nature and agriculture is appreciated.
>
> Besides, as long as there is government, and government
> services, tax
> revenues have to come from somewhere.
Eliminate the IRS and the DEA and we will have trillions to work with. Taxes don't have to be gathered from our income.
Alcohol is used
> safely by most of its
> users, and it is used religiously in many traditions.
> I don't get a tax
> exemption if I buy alcohol for a Jewish ritual, and I don't
> feel that that
> violates my freedom to participate in my familial cultural
> traditions.
Parallels between alcohol and Cannabis don't work. They are at opposite ends of several spectrums, beginning with the difference of their effects on human health and behavior, how they are produced, environmental impacts of crops, etc. Taxation of Cannabis will perpetuate the inertia of the drug war against un-taxed pot.
If I
> were to get such a tax exemption, I would not assume it to
> apply if I went
> to a bar. In some states here in the US there is a
> tax on food, in fact.
Money spent in your community is the most direct and efficient form of "taxation." This isn't figured into the equations around the current Cannabis economy, though it does operate to the benefit of communities where ordinary people profitm from growing & selling 'marijuana'.
>
> If the tax rates go too high, but it's legal, there will be
> many more
> activists than there are now working to reduce the taxation
> rate.
Better to consider a simpler route, even if it requires thinking outside the bong.
And
> personal cultivation will follow in short order too,
> because it will be
> politically untenable at that point to arrest people for
> it.
>
People are already growing marijuana everywhere, because it's increasingly impossible to make ends meet, and marijuana is so easy to grow well.
> My view, for whatever it's worth -- if a moderate level of
> taxation is what
> political research shows is needed to get marijuana
> legalized, we should go for it.
Hi David & friends,
Your views and work are worth alot to the drug reform effort. Perhaps you're right to have more faith than I have in political research and the system it studies.
The way I understand it, the end of the "drug war" that's currently happening came from the grassroots finally reaching the majority of the people, recognizing the idiocy of prohibition -- not our political system's reasoned wisdom and brilliant leadership. I think the opportunity for people to see the degree of harm & ignorance being imposed on us by a dysfunctional bureaucracy has never been more clear.
The US government has been worse than merely wrong about Cannabis nutrition, bio-fuels, therapeutics, and other dimensions of this plant that are suddenly being recognized as critical to individual health and global security. U.S. "drug war dinosaurs" have institutionalized criminal negligence, imposed scientific censorship and persited with cruel intransigence in failing to acknowledge (let alone secure) our basic human rights.
I definitely agree we should go for it too. In fact if we truly care about the future of this planet and the quality of life on it, we had better go for it all the way -- to a degree that will be certain to work from now on.
The present system doesn't work. If it did, then we wouldn't be headed for extinction. The dysfunctional prohibition was spawned and dragged out to absurdity by the dysfunctional system that now presumes to tax it. That doesn't sound like much progress to me, and is a terrible "message to send to the children."
'IRS' and 'DEA' are the six most expensive letters in the USA. Hardships imposed by the gross corruption and inefficiency of a predatory bureaucracy run amok has made the world unlivable for the vast majority of the people on this planet. We can afford neither the present drug policy nor the present tax system.
Prohibition has shown us how a government can be criminally wrong, beyond moral accountability. How many conclusions can be drawn from an unique and essential "strategic resource" being concurrently classified as a "Schedule One drug?"
Ultimately, the opportunity for shifting from a military industrial, chemically saturated society, to a sustainable, organic economy is what we are talking about. The shift from dependence on government providing energy and food to the people producing their own essential resources makes taxation obsolete.
The income tax system is the most inefficient form of taxation there is. Innumerable hours of people's lives are wasted computing the degree of "involuntary servitude" when simply taxing what people consume, not what they produce would achieve more equitable funding for a vastly reduced bureaucracy.
If we want both a free-market economy and a sustainable society we would eliminate production taxes on industries that heal the planet (gaiatherapeutic industries), and increase consumption taxes on luxury goods and services, not essential ones. The "luxury tax" would include costs associated with the net carbon component of production and delivery of any good or service. The more people spend, the more taxes they would pay.
Getting marijuana legalized is such a
> difficult thing that not a
> single country has achieved it yet, not even the
> Netherlands. People are
> getting arrested for marijuana every day, about 2,000 per
> day here in the
> US. We should not "make the best the enemy of the
> good" by insisting that
> marijuana have tax-free status, while time goes by and
> people continue to
> sit in prison and the arrests continue.
Absolutely. Releasing "drug war" prisoners is at the top of the list of priorities. Every day spent in jail is gone forever. Every day that a child spends without its parents is a crime against family that erodes the foundations of society. Recognizing prohibition as counter-productive to its own stated objectives will achieve the release of prisoners faster than taxing 'pot' to prop up an insolvent government.
That's why some in the drug policy reform community have always advocated the most direct avenues of legal challenge, frustrated as moderate mainstream activists conceding rightful jurisdiction over unique and essential resources. The Cannabis culture has been raped for decades by the system you are proposing we now pay taxes to. Asking for permission to grow the world's most valuable crop is weak.
To hell with the petrochemical war-mongering system. The world's oldest global culture can fund itself. We don't need permission to survive from an expensive, dysfunctional bureaucracy when we can produce our own fuel and food from the same harvest. The government of the U.S was dead wrong about Cannabis all these years, and it still won't recognize the true value of the plant.
Now that prohibition is imploding out of sheer economic necessity, the military/industrial government is trying to retain control by perpetuating rightful jurisdiction, in spite of criminal negligence that's been revealed.
Paying taxes on Cannabis would impact the Cannabis industry's competitiveness with established, toxic industries that are not being taxed.
Personally, I am not willing to settle for "what we can get," when what we need is so much more.
We should do
> whatever is realistic
> and effective that will end prohibition as soon as
> possible.
Extinction is presently realistic. It makes so much more possible and necessary. Are you willing to exercise "Essential civilian demand" for a "strategic food resource?" That's what made Cannabis illegal in the first place, so why doesn't DRCNet help initiate procedures identified in Executive Order 12919?
What about claiming our First Amendment Right to "every herb bearing seed" and "every green herb" ? Not another law needs to be passed if the spiritual relationship between nature and agriculture is appreciated.
>
> Besides, as long as there is government, and government
> services, tax
> revenues have to come from somewhere.
Eliminate the IRS and the DEA and we will have trillions to work with. Taxes don't have to be gathered from our income.
Alcohol is used
> safely by most of its
> users, and it is used religiously in many traditions.
> I don't get a tax
> exemption if I buy alcohol for a Jewish ritual, and I don't
> feel that that
> violates my freedom to participate in my familial cultural
> traditions.
Parallels between alcohol and Cannabis don't work. They are at opposite ends of several spectrums, beginning with the difference of their effects on human health and behavior, how they are produced, environmental impacts of crops, etc. Taxation of Cannabis will perpetuate the inertia of the drug war against un-taxed pot.
If I
> were to get such a tax exemption, I would not assume it to
> apply if I went
> to a bar. In some states here in the US there is a
> tax on food, in fact.
Money spent in your community is the most direct and efficient form of "taxation." This isn't figured into the equations around the current Cannabis economy, though it does operate to the benefit of communities where ordinary people profitm from growing & selling 'marijuana'.
>
> If the tax rates go too high, but it's legal, there will be
> many more
> activists than there are now working to reduce the taxation
> rate.
Better to consider a simpler route, even if it requires thinking outside the bong.
And
> personal cultivation will follow in short order too,
> because it will be
> politically untenable at that point to arrest people for
> it.
>
People are already growing marijuana everywhere, because it's increasingly impossible to make ends meet, and marijuana is so easy to grow well.
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