Posted on 09/15/2002 8:38:29 AM PDT by JediGirl
Early in the morning of Sept. 5, dozens of armed men stormed a respected medical facility where nearly 300 people desperately ill from cancer, AIDS and other illnesses got their medicine. Brandishing semiautomatic weapons in the faces of terrified patients, including a woman paralyzed from childhood polio, they destroyed all of the medicine and took prisoner the facility's operators.
The work of Osama bin Laden? Hamas? Some other international terrorists?
No. This particular terrorist raid was carried out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The facility they attacked was the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana ( WAMM ) in Santa Cruz, Calif. A co-op run entirely by and for seriously ill people - 80 percent of whom have terminal diagnoses - WAMM sold nothing. All of the medical marijuana grown was given to members without charge.
The facility was supported by the community and worked closely with local officials. According to County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt, WAMM operated in an "exemplary" fashion. After the raid - which had been planned and executed with no warning to the local government - Wormhoudt told reporters she was "appalled" by the DEA's action.
The patients WAMM served are desperately ill. For many with AIDS or cancer, marijuana is the only thing that allows them to tolerate the horrendous side effects of the harsh treatments that keep them alive. Others endure excruciating pain that conventional medicines have failed to relieve, but which marijuana helps.
Because of this raid, many of these people will die prematurely - agonizing, horrible deaths - because the only medicine that helped them has been taken away.
What could possibly motivate such cruelty?
Desperation.
All around the world, governments and scientific experts are coming to believe that marijuana shouldn't be illegal - that it is simply not dangerous enough to warrant arresting and jailing even social or recreational users, much less people using it to relieve symptoms of cancer or AIDS. The British government has already moved to make marijuana possession a nonarrestable offense.
On Sept. 4, Canada's Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs released the most exhaustive investigation of marijuana data and policy options ever conducted by any government. The 650-page report declared that criminalizing marijuana amounted to "throwing taxpayers' money down the drain in a crusade that is not warranted by the danger posed by the substance."
But marijuana - which accounts for the vast majority of illegal drug use and arrests - is the engine that drives the war on drugs and keeps massive drug-control budgets pumped up.
So even as DEA agents were shoving machine guns in the faces of sick people, White House drug czar John Walters and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson stood in front of a Washington, D.C., press conference, spouting long-discredited myths as if they were proven facts.
Marijuana, said Thompson, is "a clear and present danger to the health and well-being of all its users" - a statement contradicted by reams of scientific research.
Indeed, in 1995, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet stated flatly, "The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health." This year, the British government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the Canadian Senate committee came to similar conclusions after extensive study.
But our government's drug war ideologues don't care about science. And they don't care how many sick people they literally torture to death in their desperate effort to pump up a collapsing policy.
...Uppp,,, time for a dose...
I thought that dozens of Sudefed tablet were used not S2HO4
Spending time in Genesis, I see. Perhaps you should skip ahead a few and read up on a certain tree, a certain lie, a certain fall...
Be careful who you talk to in the garden.
The evidence is overwhelming that FDR's New Deal Commerce Clause turns your federal government into and out-of-control regulation monster. Choose.
Just to toss another match into the fire here, I'm not suggesting free joints outside grammar schools but C2 controlled mj would be a lot more available to the sick than Marinol.
As for being "high", during an embarassment in south east Asia I was given pain killers that had me reliving Grateful Dead concerts I never attended. I did not become addicted to either the narcotic nor Jerry Garcia. If a chemo patient had a choice between three days of intense nausea vs. a C2 bliss, I have no problem with the latter.
Thanks for the quick fingers.
kj
You are mixing up things. Your are referring to things that happened in Europe in the middle ages. I forget what they called it. The bread got moldy but they knew they still had to eat it because it is all the had. It was called St someone or others dance.
Let me say, your choice of interest and reading matter is a waste of time.
Get another hobby is my advice. And stop reading factually suspect third rank addled literature.
St. Anthony's Fire or something like that?
Maybe you should ask for reparations.
Heaven forbid you actually try and do something tangible.
Poor you. So alone, so misunderstood in your superior understanding.
ephedrine or pseudoephedrine red phosphorous hydrochloric acid drain cleaner acetone toluene ether (engine starter fluid) muriatic acid battery acid lye lantern fuel antifreeze iodine, rock salt lighter fluid propane lithium batteries match sticks
In that case drain cleaner (lye) is a common ingredient in hominy.
Not changing the law, that's for sure.
For all the empty ignorant talk about the "Constitution", you dope heads seem to know very little about how laws are passed and changed.
The vast, vast majority of the pot available on the market in my area is grown right here in the good ole USA.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.