USA continues with the head up their arse approach

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

I found this article of intense interest, in light of the advice this site recieved from a prominant drug law reformer at heart, and the only guy to really get a chance at change to the drug laws of NSW at least.

He is the guy that headed up the gov. committeee into the medical use of pot in NSW for patients that would benifit from it as medicine.

 

He doesn't come from HEMP, he certainly isn't from Nimbin, and inspite of all the hellabaloo that has come from that dirtection; Prof. Wayne Hall accompilshed in a short time what all the "in ya face" protesting couldn't do in 30 years.

 

His advice to us here was simple. He said get some average socially acceptable people that smoke pot to front the group. If they have medical reasons to use, then all the better. He advised us to have these stable, productive members of our society to get public. He insisted we need a journalist on side, as without positive media, we have no chance.

 

We can all stand on our digs, and insist that we have the right to grow hair down our backs, and smoke pot until we don't know what day it is, wear clothes that should have been burnt a year ago, and act whatever way we choose, and still front the war on drugs.

 

Well of course we do. And you wont get any argument from me, as I love my father, but I basically just described him to you all.

 

But! We are only going to scare an uneducated, self indulgent group of people that actually have the power to overturn the stupid laws that hold us captive in our own lives, or change them.

 

When going fishing, you dress the bait up to catch the fish, that's all I'm saying. You find out what the species you are targeting likes to eat, and you present it the way they want it. Sure it insults the senses to play the game their way, especially after they have held us down for so long, but the bottom line is; do we want to catch fish/change laws, or not.

 

Have a gander at this...

 

Reprinted from the San Francisco Bay Guardian by Elizabeth Hille

 

I SMOKE POT. I could probably be ID'd as a pot smoker in a crowd, but come to think of it, in almost all crowds someone has a joint. It was ironic, then, that I recently found myself, a proponent of the decriminalization of all drugs, in one of those rare jointless crowds when I attended a lecture by the pied piper of the drug reform movement, Ethan Nadelmann. He'd come to San Francisco to speak at the S.F. Medical Society.

 

As I waited for Nadelmann to take the stage, I overheard a conversation between two conservatively dressed, barrel-chested white men in their late 50s. The one with the curly white beard said to the other, "So my kid asked me, 'What's the difference between a pothead and a pot smoker?' "

 

"And what did you tell her?" asked the one who looked a lot like Santa.

 

"Well, I told her that a pothead's life is all about pot, whereas a person who smokes marijuana does other things with his or her life. They contribute to society. They are active. They're passionate and compassionate thinkers."

 

Nadelmann: Legalization's Poster Boy

 

Even among people who get high or drop or roll or whatever, there's a need to distinguish between what one is and what one isn't. Pothead, pot smoker, patient, drug user, junky: it matters what word is used and with whom. Image and phrasing count, just as they do in the world of advertising. Unfortunately, this need to differentiate can lead to setbacks in getting progressive legislation passed.

 

It seemed that the people in this crowd had come to hear Nadelmann because they don't think adults should be punished for what they put in their bodies. I'm sure the new head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Asa Hutchinson, doesn't hold this belief, since he has promised to enforce the federal ban on selling medical marijuana. But these people, most of whom were members of the affluent intelligentsia, were ready to fight for their right to puff. Standing in that room, it seemed to me that these mostly white, mostly middle-class types were so pissed off about our current war on drugs that they might be inspired to change our ineffective laws, as well as stereotypical images of who uses drugs. For instance, respected public figures such as George Soros, the billionaire bankrolling the Lindesmith Center's Drug Policy Foundation, are proponents of drug-law reform. Too bad Soros isn't on any public service billboards.

 

Nadelmann, too, should be on a billboard; he's practically a poster boy for drug-policy reform. Nadelmann started the Lindesmith Center with Soros. By the time he was 31, he'd already worked for the DEA and been a Princeton professor. He doesn't look like a drug-policy reformer, and indeed, one of the issues he and the Lindesmith Center are working on is changing the public image of what drug users and drug reformers look like. If that image changes, so might the country's abstinence-only attitude. And this development could lead to the end of the war on drugs.

 

In his speech Nadelmann stressed how the Puritan spirit is still strong in the United States. He said, "In the minds of many Americans, the approval of drug use, of any kind, means that we have to acknowledge that people use drugs, and many Americans would rather ignore this fact," he said. Following this logic, abstinence is the only alternative. This, of course, is the motto of the expensive and ineffective war on drugs.

 

In the United States drug offenses make up one-third of all federal criminal cases, according to the Department of Justice. While countries such as Canada and the U.K. seem to be moving toward the decriminalization of marijuana, the United States is still busy fighting the war, with Hutchinson calling the shots. Most of the countries in the European Union have already made marijuana consumption legal. And some of those E.U. countries have even gone as far as decriminalizing small amounts of other drugs, such as heroin, as well.

 

"Junkies are the new persecuted group," Nadelmann argued. "Historically we, as a culture, have needed to put our fears onto someone who is an 'other.' " He explained how our society has persecuted religious minorities - women, people of color, and queers to name a few. Though this prejudice hasn't completely ended, Nadelmann said, we have delegitimatized attacks on those groups. Junkies and drug users are a new kind of other. Putting someone down by calling them a junky doesn't earn you a skeptical look, an admonishment, or even a head shake, Nadelmann pointed out.

 

Perhaps, Nadelmann suggested, if we change the way we talk about drugs and drug use, we can change people's minds. Nadelmann ended his lecture by reiterating that "advocacy is not about self-statement; advocacy is about communicating."

 

The Problem With Prop. 36

 

While the recently passed Proposition 36 ( which would put drug users in rehab rather than in jail ) is a step in the right direction for those advocating drug reform, a recent guideline passed in Oakland takes reform a step backward. A few weeks ago the Oakland City Council cut in half the amount of medical marijuana patients are allowed to have. Before the reform, medical patients were allowed six pounds of marijuana a year. When the rule goes into effect Nov. 15, patients will be allowed only three pounds a year. This compromise might ease the minds of some councilmembers and the cops, but for some patients, like Angel McClary, this severe cut will mean halving their medicine.

 

McClary says the new law is a "death sentence." She is president of a patient-outreach company called Angel Wings and has been an activist for medical marijuana reform.

 

A middle-class mother, she needs to smoke pot or else her health deteriorates rapidly. The first thing I noticed about McClary was how skinny she is. She told me she weighs 95 pounds on a good day; on bad days she has to ingest spoonfuls of nasty pot oil so she can eat. She has a brain tumor, endometriosis, scoliosis, seizures, and a wasting condition. Her marijuana prescription is considered a medical necessity. This means that a doctor has decided there is no other legal alternative that would meet her health needs. Before she started smoking medical marijuana, McClary was in a wheelchair.

 

"What's worse?" she asked me. "If my kids cry because they see me suffering, or if I eat a [pot cookie] in front of them?" For the Oakland City Council the answer isn't so obvious. According to her doctor, McClary needs to medicate every two hours, which means she requires two ounces of pot a week, or six and a half pounds a year. "I don't even get high off this stuff," McClary said. It's just medicine. Under Oakland's new guidelines, patients can get more pot with a doctor's permission, but then the doctor might face legal repercussions. When the law goes into effect, McClary says, she's going to have to choose between "my life and civil disobedience."

 

McClary is worried about her own future, but she's also concerned about how the guidelines will be enforced by Oakland's police department. Hers is a valid concern, given the department's record of unfair practices. And now, with Hutchinson ready to enforce the federal ban, things could get far, far worse for medical marijuana patients in Oakland and the rest of the Bay Area.

 

McClary's case is a prime example of what Nadelmann meant when he exhorted his audience to offer a more realistic picture of who takes drugs and why. Apparently, however, the image of emaciated people in pain isn't enough to convince Oakland's City Council or, it seems, Asa Hutchinson.

 

*******************************************

 

Well, that's America, but we all have the same or similar obsticles to overcome.

 

I've had a thought for some time. I don't think we can change the law with it, and it isn't what we were advised by Prof. Hall. But it's something as a start.

 

We have a lot of members here. We had 500 + registered members by the time we closed the boards last time.

 

Inspite that we aren't supposed to have multiple registrations, I imagine there were a few.

 

However, how would everyone feel about writing a letter? It's best if we sign our real names to it, and our real addresses. I've put my real name and address on plenty of letters to gov. memebers in the past, and I've never had any trouble. However, I can understand the apprehension of anyone not wanting to.

 

Anyone growing in the house, I'd say be very careful about what address you give.

 

But validated names and addresses have far more weight than invented ones. But I would ask that at least we use names that seem real, so that they might actually read the letters, before they chuck them out. If we make up names like "Splif Burner" from 10 stoned av. bongsville, it's going in the bin, before it's even looked at, gauranteed.

 

My suggestion is that we get our letters ready, take our time, and politely present the reasons we genuinely believe why the law shoul dbe changed. Take your time. Make it as long as you need to, but remember, the longer it is, the less likely they're going to read it in detail. So to the point, and less than a single page, I would imagine, would be the go. But if you can't write your thoughts down without it being a book, then do so. Just try to make it lively, and brisk, so it captures the interest of the reader. BTW, all these guys have secretary that read the mail, so bulk is probably more important than quality. So if you aren't any good at letter writiing in your own opinion, it doesn't matter. Just add your letter to the weight of all the others, that the gov. rep.'s office is going to become inundated with.

 

Hold on to your letters, I can't see why each one of us, can't write one.

 

Then, we can publish an address to send all the letters to on the same day, or maybe even better, a day apart, so they recieve one every day for at 90 memebers, 3 months. We can easily orgaise it to send them staggered if that's what we all discide, we can just use the order we signed up in to send our letters by.

 

Then, we can write another letter, and find another member of gov. to send that one to.....

 

Anyway, we'll see what interest we can get back from you guys, without you, it's nothing.

 

chers

 

rob

[pipeman]

how sad not a single reply to this post. very interesting read tho.