Jeebus, aNOTHer pot thread?

[yondermtn]

http://missouriteapotparty.blogspot.com ... hanks.html


Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera reported head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, ranked 701st on Forbes' yearly report of the wealthiest men alive, and worth an estimated $1 billion, today officially thanked United States politicians for making sure that drugs remain illegal. According to one of his closest confidants, he said, "I couldn't have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you."

According to sources in the Mexican government, President Calderon is begging American officials to, in the words of reggae great Peter Tosh, legalize it. "Oh yeah," said an official close to the Mexican president, "Felipe is going crazy. He's screaming at everybody who comes in, 'Why don't they make this sh*t legal already! You're killing me here!' Look, everyone knows, when you have Prohibition, you create gangsters. And the more you prohibit, the more gangsters you make. El Chapo is hero now to all those slumdogs who want to be millionaires. Kids in the street, when they play games, they all want to be El Chapo, the baddest man in the whole damn town."

Meanwhile, many speculate that rich and prominent Mexican families are in cahoots with American businessmen in the alcohol industry, wealthy industrialists who launder the unprecedented profits from the drug business with their legitimate enterprises, and lawmakers who get gigantic kickbacks and payoffs to make sure that these drugs remain illegal, so they can remain rich, fat and happy. According to sources on both sides of the border, tens of millions of dollars in payoffs and kickbacks are stashed in Swiss banks every year, blood money from the brutal business made possible by a corrupt system supported by laws that don't, and have never, worked.

Rather than putting El Chapo and his kind out of business by modernizing outdated laws and in the process making billions of dollars from taxing drugs (as is done with cigarettes and alcohol), United States government has spent hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars chasing its tail, and offered a $5 million reward for the capture of El Chapo. Many have said that the offer is unofficially: Dead or Alive.

Meanwhile, as an epidemic of murderous violence rages on the Mexican-US border, and the American government wastes boatloads of badly needed money on the illegal drug business which results from the Prohibition laws, El Chapo is laughing all the way to the bank. "Whoever came up with this whole War on Drugs," one of his lieutenants reports he said, "I would like to kiss him on the lips and shake his hand and buy him dinner with caviar and champagne. The War on Drugs is the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and the day they decide to end that war, will be a sad one for me and all of my closest friends. And if you don't believe me, ask those guys whose heads showed up in the ice chests."

[airkooledchris]

I REALLY hesitate to publicly admit some opinions, and this is one of them, but it's what helps me sleep when I wonder why the hell they don't just get it over with now....

when enough of the existing old/voting population die, this and many of our stupid laws will change.
it's cold, and maybe even dark to think of it like that, but when you think about the majority of the people in charge and the world they grew up in, it's hard to imagine them changing their mind about anything no matter how logical it may seem to everyone else. their just stuck in their ways, and they lived in and supported this country for this many years and if they don't want no damned hippies getting their way - it's their choice. it doesn't mean I want old people to die, I just believe that's part of the process of evolution of state.

[Velokid1]

There's some truth to that. I know a lot of 60+ stoners though. They tend to be disabled and self-medicate.

An Idaho senator just introduced a medical mj bill today, and another in Indiana is about to do the same. (Or something like that... Senators/reps/whatever... I can't keep that shit straight.

[glasseye]

I know a lot of 60+ stoners though.

Smirk, smirk. Who yo' calling "disabled" ? Huh?

[hambone]

How can one make a PLANT illegal? That's nuts.
Bigger fish ta fry out there...

[ruckman101]

How do you hold a patent on a plant?

neal

[Sluggo]

How do you hold a patent on a plant?

neal

You don't. You can't hold patent on something natural. That's why they work so hard on synthetic drugs.

[ruckman101]

Pretty sure Monsanto already has. Of course those are unnatural plants.

Here in Portland, there is a couple who are franchising their strain of marijuana. Can't grow it without a license from them. Maybe that's what Monsanto is doing.


neal

[JLT]

Here in Portland, there is a couple who are franchising their strain of marijuana. Can't grow it without a license from them. Maybe that's what Monsanto is doing.

My understanding is that Montsanto is patenting their modifications of the DNA structure of the plant. That makes it easy (well, easier) to identify people who are using their strain without permission, using a DNA test that isn't subject to misinterpretation.

You've maybe heard of the Canadian farmer that was sued by Monsanto because some of their plants got into his field ... even though the seeds were naturally spread onto his land rather than planted by him. Much nastiness ensued. (I think he eventually won the case, but I won't swear to it, particularly if Monsanto appealed the decision).

There's already been some talk about patenting strains of pot along similar lines. The problem is that while Monsanto could sell a tangible benefit of their plant (not being killed by the Roundup used to kill all the weeds around them), there seems to be little incentive for likewise developing a patentable strain of pot. People are just going to use an "open-source" strain instead. But you can bet that Monsanto (and probably the tobacco companies, too) are keeping an eye on the situation, just in case the legal situation changes.

[yondermtn]

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/01/ma ... sident.php

http://www.youtube.com/worldview

[yondermtn]

http://www.naturalnews.com/031489_DEA_l ... juana.html

[glasseye]

Heh. I love the statement that the DEA is the armed enforcement division of Big Pharma.

"Sativex", basically an alcohol tincture made from raw cannabis plants similar to what's available in compassion clubs, is a legal prescription drug in Canada, the UK and soon the US. Like hash oil, only weaker.

From the GW Pharmaceuticals website:

"Sativex is the world’s first prescription medicine derived from the cannabis plant. The medicine is standardized by both composition and dose and is being developed for the treatment of conditions such as spasticity in multiple sclerosis, cancer pain, and neuropathic pain of various origins
Sativex is administered as an oral spray which is absorbed by the patient’s mouth. Sativex® contains active ingredients called ‘cannabinoids’, which are extracted from cannabis plants grown and processed under strictly controlled conditions. It is composed primarily of a 1:1 ratio of two cannabinoids-CBD (cannabidiol-a non-psychoactive cannabinoid) and THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). The CBD:THC formulation is believed to enhance the therapeutic benefits of THC while modulating the unwanted psychotropic and other THC-related side effects, such as tachycardia. The spray delivery system keeps THC from entering the blood too rapidly and also minimizes the development of unwanted psychotropic effects.

So, it's OK for Big Pharma to make and sell THC and CBD, but not for anyone else.

The site also lists all the conditions for which Sativex is effective. All the usual suspects. But wait, doesn't "Schedule I" mean that the drug has no medical uses at all? That's why it's in Schedule I, no? Then how come Sativex is legal?

The hypocrisy is transparent. It's all gonna come tumbling down. Soon.

http://www.gwpharm.com/faqs.aspx

[Velokid1]

The Feds Finally Recognize The Anti-Cancer Potential Of Cannabis — 36 Years Too Late!

Scientific trials have for decades documented the anti-cancer properties of cannabis and its constituents. Yet it took until this week for the website of the National Institute of Cancer, a component of the U.S. government’s National Institutes of Health, to finally acknowledged the herb’s therapeutic utility for patients living with disease or suffering from the adverse side-effects of cancer treatment.

In a newly added section to the website, entitled ‘Cannabis and Cannabinoids,’ the Institute states:

Cannabinoids may cause antitumor effects by various mechanisms, including induction of cell death, inhibition of cell growth, and inhibition of tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. Cannabinoids appear to kill tumor cells but do not affect their nontransformed counterparts and may even protect them from cell death.

…The potential benefits of medicinal cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.

It’s a stunning acknowledgment, given that the NIH is a branch of the very same government that presently maintains that the cannabis plant and all of its naturally-derived components have ‘no accepted medical use.’ Yet it also begs the question: Where has the National Institute of Cancer been all these years?

After all, the anti-tumor activity of cannabinoids were initially documented in 1975! That’s right; it’s taken 36 years for the Institute to get with the program.

Hopefully it won’t take them another 36 years to demand that the Feds finally assess whether these preclinical results are replicable in human trials.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/ ... onal/page2

[Hippie]

How can one make a PLANT illegal? That's nuts.
Bigger fish ta fry out there...

They still believe the Reefer Madness movie and posters from the '30s.

[Velokid1]

Analysis: Medical Marijuana Now a $1.7 Billion Market (and set to double within the next couple years)

http://justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2011/ ... on-market/

Big Pharma is all over this, you can bet your ass.

And now you have the National Cancer Institute, a Federal entity, coming out this month with an official statement that marijuana does indeed have medical uses, which puts the federal government in a bit of a predicament that may force their hand. Marijuana is illegal (rather than regulated) because it is classified as a Schedule I drug. To be classified as Schedule I, a drug cannot have any medical use. Well now you have the federal government saying there are medical uses for marijuana and at the same time saying there are not medical uses for marijuana.

Looks to me like Big Business has gotten tired of waiting around to cash in on marijuana and have finally started to allow a shift to happen at the federal level that will open the floodgates. And Big Business will be poised like an insidious weir, ready to scoop up every dollar that comes flooding through.

(I'm being dramatic, but you get my point.)