Mary Powers with Jacki Rickert 10-04-09.

MADISON: August 11, 2010 marks the first anniversary of the filming and release of the first of a series of very short films documenting lobbying efforts at the Wisconsin Capitol, the “Mary and Gary Show”.
The eventually seven Mary & Gary Shows tell the story of lobbying efforts for the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act (JRMMA) before its introduction in Nov. 2009 along with the final months of Mary Powers, a disabled Army veteran, cancer/AIDS/HCV patient and medical cannabis activist.
Mary was also the Secretary of Madison NORML as well as an active board member. Mary knew she would not live to see medical cannabis legal in Wisconsin, yet she spent the last months and weeks of her life at the Capitol, imploring lawmakers and staffers to do the right thing and support the JRMMA. Mary was able to gain the cosponsorship of both her state legislators, State Rep. Kelda Helen Roys and her State Senator, Mark Miller. Miller cosponsored the bill the day Mary passed away, on Oct. 22, 2009, at just 50 years of age.
Although Mary’s passing was a crushing loss for those who were fortunate enough to have known her, a high point in the campaign for the JRMMA was a Memorial/Lobby Day at the State Capitol Jan. 20, 2010 where hundreds of medical cannabis supporters paid their respects to Mary, a true activist..
Below is the second in the Mary & Gary series. we had a lot of fun making them, then I would rush home and edit each episode and had it online that night. I’m thankful Mary wanted to make these and share her story.


Second of seven Mary & Gary Showepisodes.
Mary’s life and her quiet dignity in the face of a heavy burden of serious illness and cancer treatments, being wheelchair bound and other indignities should be an inspiration to anyone who really cares about this issue and the quality of life for our veterans, seniors, sick, disabled and dying.
http://www.examiner.com/x-30194-Madison-NORML-Examiner~y2010m8d6-Mary–Gary-Shows-documented-Capitol-lobbying-final-months-of-MMJ-activist-Mary-Powers-life

Ashbury Park, NJ–(ENEWSPF)–August 6, 2010.   Fewer than one in five Americans nationwide believe that consuming marijuana is more dangerous than drinking alcohol, according to a national telephone poll of 1,000 likely voters by the polling firm Rasmussen Reports.
Fifty percent of respondents, including the majority of those who said that they drank alcohol, rated the use of marijuana to be less dangerous than booze. Only 17 percent of those polled said that cannabis is the more dangerous of the two substances.
Twenty-six percent of respondents said that both substances are equally dangerous.
Commenting on the poll results NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano, co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink, said: “By almost any objectively measurable standard, cannabis is safer than booze – both to the individual consumer and to society as a whole. However, given our government’s longstanding demonization of the cannabis plant and its users it is remarkable that anyone – much less half of America – recognizes this fact. Ideally, these survey results will spark a long-overdue national dialogue asking why our laws target and prosecute those who choose to possess and consume the less dangerous of these two popular substances.”
Respondents also agreed, by a nearly two-to-one majority, that marijuana was far less dangerous than smoking cigarettes.
A majority of respondents (65 percent) said that they believed that marijuana would be legal in the United States within ten years.
http://www.enewspf.com/index.php/latest-news/analysis/18028-rasmussen-poll-fewer-than-one-in-five-americans-say-marijuana-is-more-dangerous-than-booze-

Yesterday, Cannabis as Living Medicine (CALM), one of the most well- established medical cannabis dispensaries in Canada, was raided by police in Toronto for the second time in five months. In the last couple of months, a dispensary in Guelph, another in Iqaluit, and several in the province of Quebec were also raided.
Canadians for Safe Access, a national patient advocacy organization, is denouncing these raids. The result is that thousands of Canadians suffering from MS, Cancer, HIV/AIDS, arthritis and other critical and chronic illnesses have lost an important source of their medicine, laments Rielle Capler, a researcher and co-founder of the organization. They will have to go to the streets or suffer without their medicine. Capler adds, Rather than leave these dispensaries vulnerable to police raids, CSA is calling on Health Canada to work with them to develop regulations that would ensure their protection as well as the highest quality of care for patients. Our government should be supporting patients to access the best possible medicine, and supporting the organizations that are providing this vital service.”
While the use of cannabis for medical purposes is constitutionally legal in Canada, the Federal Governments program, which provides licenses to patients for legal possession of cannabis, does not provide an adequate legal source of this medicine. Government statistics show that only about 800 of the 4000 licensed medical cannabis users access the governments supply, which is considered by many to be inferior. Research indicates that over half of license holders acquire their cannabis from dispensaries, which currently supply high quality medicine to an estimated 20,000 Canadians with critical and chronic medical conditions.
Medical cannabis dispensaries, also know as compassion clubs, have played a vital role supplying safe access to cannabis for the critically and chronically ill in Canada for over 12 years. These organizations provide access to a variety of high quality cannabis strains and preparations that can effectively alleviate pain, muscle spasms, nausea, anxiety, and other serious symptoms. Compassion clubs are also at the forefront of academic peer-reviewed research on medical cannabis in Canada. Well-run dispensaries are appreciated by patients, accepted within communities, and their work has been lauded by various court rooms across the country.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/trenches/2010/aug/05/police_raid_medical_cannabis_dis

Marie Summers was in a ‘prison of pain’, until she overcame inhibitions about using an illegal drug. The result seemed like a miracle
Tell someone that you suffer from chronic migraine and you’re unlikely to get sympathy in scale to the pain you suffer.
Tell them you’ve got chronic migraine causing neuro-deficit, plus a small cavernoma with venous angioma and you will understandably get a blank stare. This collection of words is woefully inadequate at conveying the pain that has systematically dismantled my brain and disabled my body, but they are all I have without resorting to illustrations.
I’d suffered from worse than average migraines my whole life but gradually throughout my twenties the pain and frequency intensified. A couple of years ago I began to realise there was no longer a gap between attacks. My brain slipped into a loop, migraine begetting migraine, pain creating more pain, and nothing could stop the juggernaut of my malfunction.
Despite heavyweight preventative medications (each with its own difficult side-effects), mid-2009 my daily migraine became more sinister. I’d lived in constant pain for so long that I expected nothing better; what I did not anticipate was the rest of my body rebelling as well. Suddenly I couldn’t walk, and it wasn’t because I was in pain, it was because my legs were simply randomly unable. When I tried to force myself I began to shake and jerk, like a leaf caught in a storm, then I usually lost consciousness. I couldn’t focus on reading and writing or long conversations, and any movement made me unmanageably nauseous; I was nearly always unable to get out of bed. I was in and out of hospital but we kept coming back to the fact that migraines are doing this to my brain. If migraines continue to run amok within me they will progressively destroy my quality of life and potentially, significantly shorten it.
It’s difficult to describe what living within a broken body feels like without sounding as if it’s a call for pity. Pity is not what is wanted, understanding is. When pain is a constant, sickness and weakness creep into every corner of your self, and your mind begins to lose memories or words, you feel a wasted husk of a human. All the potential you once had seems a shadow, your beauty ephemeral and faded; you begin to feel a liability to those you love.
In what felt like a moment of madness, I Googled the medicinal effects of cannabis on migraines and related neurological conditions. What I found was a surprise, and almost an unwanted one at that. I didn’t want to read how effective it could be, because I didn’t want to feel compelled to try something that I’d once done for an illicit pleasure. I’ve been trained to expect my medicine to be extremely unpleasant, and like the Victorians were with sex, if I’m enjoying it I must be doing something wrong. After reading arguments for and against, I decided that trying cannabis had significantly less risk of side-effects than nearly every other prescription drug I had already legally tried, but with less of a “hit and miss” approach to the matter. I, like most chronic pain sufferers, am strongly advised not to take any pain relievers, from morphine to paracetamol, because they cause rebound pain and significantly compound the problem. When modern medicine sentences you to a lifetime of pain with little hope for a cure this simply adds insult to injury. Medical evidence shows that cannabis almost certainly does not cause rebound pain; in this it is almost unique among viable pain relief medicines. The opportunity to break the cycle chipping away at my brain seemed to be presenting itself; I still had to decide if I was brave enough to break the law at the advanced parental age of 31.
Taking my inspiration from Bertrand Russell, who said, “One should as a rule, respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways,” I reflected on the aspect of staying out of prison. This is of crucial importance to me, not for my own sake (I can be sick anywhere) but for my young son’s. Once I resolved that I was prepared to fight any charge that might be brought upon me in the event I was caught with cannabis, the decision had made itself.
After managing to find some marijuana, it sat unused and hidden in a far corner of the house. I continued to suffer as before, but I’d lost my courage. I remembered being high as a teenager, and I didn’t want to be like that again. I didn’t want to lose control of myself amid a roomful of sober adults. My internal battle waged for four weeks. Four weeks of society’s conditioning wearing away while I wept. Finally one night when the pain became too extraordinary, it was either try the pot or go to A&E to be scanned in case I’d had an aneurysm. In my hospital-jaded and exhausted state, I finally opted for the pot, reasoning that if it was an aneurysm it would still be there afterwards, but if not I’d feel better and save myself an unnecessary trip.
Within minutes of taking a small amount of cannabis there was not an inch of my body in pain, and my tremors had stopped. My body felt at peace, and I don’t think I can ever convey the enormity of that to anyone. Nothing hurt or felt wrong. I was still weak, but I could move with as much ease and grace as I used to. Yes, I was intoxicated, but it was not how I remembered it from my teenage years. Perhaps it was the smaller amount I used, just enough to free my body from its prison. I felt I was smiling more than usual, but this truly seemed to be because the mantle of agony I am normally covered in had been lifted. I certainly wasn’t hearing or saying unusual things. Nevertheless, the “high” period was brief yet the health effects remained for a full 24 hours. It seemed to be a miracle. I tried to imagine the warning label if this was manufactured by a pharmaceutical company: “Will induce slight giddiness and loss of any concept of time for approximately two hours. Full beneficial effects will continue for 24 hours.” An acceptable trade-off?
I had two weeks of this beautiful cure, and every day of those two weeks I became stronger. I was able to take up activities long abandoned and sorely missed. The excitement my husband and I felt was palpable. If I took it slowly, I was nearly normal and every minute my brain was taken out of its loop it was being allowed to recover. Personally, this is a joy, but in the bigger picture it could be an economic blessing. If the sick and disabled can benefit from cannabis the benefits would be felt by relieving the strain on the NHS and allowing some patients or carers to return to the workforce.
Sadly I don’t know how reliably I’ll be able to find cannabis. After years of searching I found something that can make my life bearable, even productive, but it’s just out of reach. I have every intention of continuing to seek it out, but I don’t know how achievable it will be. If you’ve been touched by cancer, HIV, MS, fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis you are among many who could possibly benefit from cannabis, but I would advise each person to fully research for themselves and speak to a trusted medical professional.
Most patients, friends, family members, doctors and politicians know that there is a great truth here that deserves more than it’s receiving. We need widespread medical trials now, and laws quickly changed to reflect the findings. It seems what is holding us back is not truth, but fear. Fear of a deluge of change and a “too liberal” domino effect that cannot be anticipated. My life and my family traded for your peace of mind, so you can be sure everything is as it always was.
Of course medicinal cannabis doesn’t have the same scope for making large pharmaceutical companies big profits that drugs such as Olanzapine or Lorazepam do. After all, how would you patent a daffodil? This would not be a deterrent for law-making in a civilised society, but in ours, perhaps. It’s time that we collectively grew up, and realised that the longer this issue remains unresolved we are throwing lives, money and progress down the drain. This may be one case where the grass really is greener on the other side.
Marie Summers is a pseudonym
Cannabis as a medicine
* Research has indicated that cannabis can relieve pain and nausea and stimulate the appetite, and can also help with the symptoms of diseases such as HIV, cancer and multiple sclerosis, but people who use cannabis regularly over a long period may develop a dependence on it.
* In 1999, a House of Lords inquiry recommended that cannabis be made available with a doctor’s prescription. Long-term clinical trials have been authorised but no conclusions have been made.
* It is legal for medical use in countries including Canada, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Israel, Italy, Finland, Portugal and 14 US states.
* Medicinal cannabis is primarily smoked, but it can be administered in capsules or by eating or drinking extracts. The two main components are THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (Cannabidiol). A high level of THC is what causes the user to get high, whereas higher levels of CBD lessen some of the effects of THC and increase others, making it more suitable for medicinal use.
* Colin Davies, 42, of Stockport was acquitted of supplying two MS sufferers with medical marijuana by Manchester Crown Court July 1999. Davies himself took the drug after suffering side-effects from prescription drugs. The judgment was the first of its kind in a British court.
* Jason Turner, 23, of Clifton, was spared jail by Nottingham Crown Court in 2009 after pleading guilty to producing cannabis in his loft, on the grounds that he needed it to help relieve the pain caused by the severe arthritis that he had experienced since birth.

Laurel A. Beechey
The World is a Stage
In studying history it often become apparent that the ancients knew more than we can ever comprehend. We have gotten so wrapped up in technologies and synthetics that we have forsaken many truths which need to be returned to our modern world. A wise man from the past can still teach us today, “Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.” – Hippocrates [between 460 and 377 BC]:
There are more allergies, syndromes, and physical, mental and emotions problems today than any other time. We may be blessed with being able to purchase our favourite foods all year round but at what cost? Fruits and vegetables, picked un-ripened to transport then gassed to ripen; hormones and antibiotics in our meat; pesticides and other chemicals that provide easier workloads for the farmers and give us the perfect looking product. Yet with all the food available to us so much of it no longer provides the essential vitamins, minerals and sustenance that it once did. Is it any wonder that it is difficult to find a family where everyone is in good health?
Too many people don’t eat well in the first place but even those of us who do, know we need something more. So some people have found various vitamin supplements help and others try Himalayan Goji Juice or Wheatgrass Barleygrass Juice or Tahitian Noni Juice or other drink or solid helps pump up their bodies and energy. But these don’t often show a great improvement to the people already eating well.
Recently my 85 year old Mom, who has several heart conditions, was found scraping and painting her front and back stairs and large living room window. She hadn’t done that much work in several years. Since her heart problems there have been many trips to the hospital which the nitroglycerine patch finally stopped but her energy level was nil it was very frustrating for her not to be able to work her garden or keep up small things around the house. When she suddenly had more energy that I did, I had to know why.
Turns out that her niece has been taking Hemp Hearts for quite a while and this innocuous heart of the hemp seed seem to have miraculous properties in her household, so Mom gave it a try too with obvious results and I noticed and decided I had to have some of that for myself!
No matter how good or bad we still need our food to keep our motors running. So it then comes down to making sure the motor is running smoothly and cleaning. It turns our that our bowel behaves much like a sewage system, collecting sludge and such over the years which accumulates on the interior bowel wall and does not allow the nutrients in our foods access to the wall where it can pass through. So no matter what you eat or take the goodness is being blocked. Hemp hearts remove this sludge allowing the foods we eat and drink to quickly absorb. Before getting any for myself I took the time to learn about them on the internet. Although I did not appreciate some of their over the top ways of loosing weight I could see why they would benefit most people.
Another problem many people have is that they are genuinely hungry. That is because they are not eating the foods which stave off hunger. You could have bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast, pancakes, syrup and six cups of coffee and still be hungry in a couple of hours. Protein staves off hunger and hemp hearts are very high in protein. It also high in ‘good’ oil, the beneficial kind of essential fats – polyunsaturated Omega 3 and 6.
Okay, there has to be something wrong with them, right? Well not that I could find. They are cholesterol free and said to reduce cholesterol; no gluten and in fact there are no known allergies to Hemp Foods and no THC, the active chemical that is in marijuana. Industrial hemp is grown for both food and fiber. Sorry, you don’t get a buzz on taking hemp hearts.
Hemp has been used almost since the dawn of man, about 7,000 years in fact, for woven fabrics and ships sails. The Latin name for the hemp plant, cannabis sativa, means ‘most perfect food’, and humans have also been using hemp seeds for health and energy for millennium. In Russian history their use of it as a food source staved off many bouts of starvations during wars. In more modern time meticulous records were kept when Czechoslovakian doctors, who had no modern drugs available, dissolved the ‘hearts’ of hemp seeds to cure tuberculosis with amazing results to not only cure but prevent the disease.
One thing our modern technology found, however, is a better way of separating the hearts from the shells so more can be produced and at better costs.
I have been taking them for over a month and although there has been no miracle cure for my Fibromyalgia, TMJ syndrome, degenerative discs and assorted other ills, my arthritis pain has subsided, I have tons of energy and I feel good. In fact it has been some years since I have felt this good.
If you are interested, learn more about hemp hearts and decide how they can help you. Most people are not going appreciate the ‘diet’ plan they talk about but that is only one small aspect of their use. I use mine as a cereal in the morning while others sprinkle some on their cereal.
Hemp Hearts can be purchased in Tillsonburg at health food stores and Coyle’s. They are also available over the internet. One helpful website I have used www.healing-source.com.
http://www.tillsonburgnews.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2693044

It’s rare to find a natural, organic, toxin free deodorant that works. I discovered Lafe’s deodorant at my local Bikram yoga studio locker room and it withstood the sweat test. I have looked for this every time I go out for my organic toiletries and I was recently informed that this amazing deodorant is available at most natural food stores, organic beauty shops and online.
Lafe’s Natural Bodycare team explains that their “deodorants were created to address consumer concerns that natural deodorants are only marginally effective. Since we started our deodorant line in 1992, we have been creating formulations using active ingredients with proven antibacterial properties. With consumer friendly ingredients such as natural mineral salts, baking soda, hemp oil, and essential oils…”
The Lafe team is able to create healthy, organic deodorants that are highly effective in eliminating body odor. Their line of deodorants are made with mineral salts, similar to those found in the earth’s crust. Mineral salts eliminate bacteria that cause body odor. Most of the standard antiperspirants plug up the pores of the skin, which is an unhealthy process.
Perspiration (good clean sweat) is a healthy process allowing toxins to be released from the body to keep it healthy.
Lafe’s natural deodorants are not antiperspirants being that perspiration is a healthy and natural process for the body Lafe deodorants are formulated to eliminate the bacterial cause of body odor.
As we move into the heart of this season and the heat has us sweating, it is great to find natural and organic products that withstand the test of summer sweat.
Pictured above is Lafe’s natural mineral spray, which is a truly unique blend of mineral salts with aloe vera that provide 24-hour natural deodorant protection. More remarkable benefits of this amazing Lafe’s organic deodorant include:
* skin nourishing mineral salts eliminate odor-causing bacteria
* healing aloe vera soothes, heals and softens the skin
* no aluminum chlorhydrate; no alcohol
* a non-staining and non-irritating formula
* no white residue
* a fragrance-free and hypoallergenic formulation
* an ozone friendly product with no harmful propellants
* no animal testing
* a paraben and proplyene glycol free blend
http://feelgoodstyle.com/2010/08/01/lafes-natural-and-organic-deodorant-is-sweat-proof/

THE only independent candidate so far to raise his hand in the federal election for the seat of Richmond wants laws changed to make it easier for farmers to grow the non-intoxicating version of marijuana known as industrial hemp.
Nic Faulkner, who has made one of his main platforms the abolition of state governments, yesterday issued a challenge to the major political parties, including the Greens, to debate Commonwealth law which he says makes it legally difficult to grow industrial hemp.
The Brunswick Heads resident said the plant, a type of cannabis with a low level of the intoxicating drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), could be a big boost to North Coast farmers.
But he said its production was restricted by conditions applied under the Commonwealth Narcotics Act 1967.
“A potentially huge industry for Australian farmers and manufacturers is being held back, an industry that would help rectify the Murray Darling basin water and land management issues,” Mr Faulkner said.
He added that growing hemp could help sequester carbon, produce biofuel and omega oils and be used for sewage and waste water management. He said it also used 40 per cent less water than cotton.
“It is a common sense, rational, scientific and medical fact that industrial hemp (low THC cannabis) is not a narcotic,” Mr Faulkner said.
He added it was also “time to open the debate on the whole cannabis prohibition issue”.
“Many hundreds of thousands of people all over Australia use marijuana on a regular basis,” Mr Faulkner said.
“Many people I have spoken to are disappointed that the Greens appear to have abandoned one of their core principals around the whole cannabis debate to attract more mainstream voters.”
http://www.tweednews.com.au/story/2010/07/29/nic-faulkner-independent-tells-greens-just-wear-it/

Mexican soldiers patrol following a drug war hit in Monterrey last month.

Photograph by: Reuters, The Ottawa Citizen

One can imagine how delighted the people at the Colombian Embassy were when they read the Globe and Mail last week. One article after another about their country — and none focussed on drugs and murder.
Instead, the theme was that after decades of civil war and criminal chaos Colombia has been transformed into a land of stability and optimism. The mood is “buoyant, hopeful, and utterly entrepreneurial,” one story reported. Colombia is “an eco-paradise with bustling cities,” another burbled.
The people at the Mexican Embassy were probably much less pleased by what they read. “Suspected drug hit men stormed a private party and killed 17 people in the northern Mexican city of Torreon on Sunday in one of the deadliest attacks in Mexico’s drug war,” read one story. Another reported on a car bombing. Gangsters apparently dressed a bound man in a police uniform and called in a report of a wounded officer. When police, paramedics, and a doctor rushed to the man’s aid, the bomb was detonated. At least three died.
The contrast between the two countries is exaggerated, of course. Colombia continues to be the world’s largest producer of cocaine, there are still leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries, and human rights continue to be violated in many horrible ways; and despite the bad press Mexico is getting, much of the country is unscathed by the savage war with, and between, drug gangs.
But it is true that Colombia is more stable and safer, for most, than it has been in decades. It is also true that Mexico is continuing its descent into the hell Colombia so recently exited.
Inevitably, some are drawing the conclusion that Mexico must do whatever it was that Colombia did. And since what Colombia did was engage in a massive escalation of military and police power, supported by billions of dollars from the United States and elsewhere, that’s the medicine Mexico needs.
This is unspeakably foolish. And we can expect Canada will be asked to help fund this foolishness, as we did in Colombia. So let’s get this straight now: What happened in Colombia is not a model for Mexico; what happened in Colombia is the cause of what’s happening in Mexico.
Let’s go back to the 1970s. For decades, cocaine had been a relatively obscure jet-set drug produced in Bolivia and Peru and smuggled in small quantities by minor traffickers. But then its popularity soared — especially in the United States and Canada. The scale of trafficking grew proportionately. Usually, the traffickers were Bolivian or Peruvian but Colombian marijuana smugglers increasingly acted as middlemen.
By the early 1980s, the Bolivians and Peruvians were sticking mostly to production, selling shipments of cocaine to Colombians who transported the drugs through the Caribbean into Florida. Dominating the most profitable part of the trade, the Colombians got very rich. And powerful. Colombia increasingly resembled a “narco-state.”
In the mid-1980s, the American government poured interdiction resources into Florida and the Caribbean. Under pressure, the Colombians increasingly shipped cocaine to Mexico and hired Mexican gangsters to smuggle it across the border into the U.S.
Meanwhile, American programs to suppress coca growing and cocaine production in Bolivia and Peru were ramped up and there were steep declines in exports by the early 1990s — which were more than offset by exploding production in the many regions of Colombia where the government’s hold was tenuous.
About the same time, Colombian and American officials put the squeeze on Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel. In the mid-1990s, the Cali cartel was targeted. Under pressure, the Colombians increasingly sold cocaine shipments to Mexican gangsters, who built their own smuggling and trafficking networks. By the end of the decade, all Colombia’s major drug lords were dead or in prison but thanks to a proliferation of smaller networks, and the increasing involvement of Colombia’s leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries in the drug trade, cocaine exports actually rose.
Meanwhile, the wealth and power of the Mexican drug lords grew rapidly.
See where this story is going? I was in Colombia and Mexico at the end of the 1990s, and I well remember Mexicans telling me how they feared “Colombianization.” They were right to be worried. Several years later, the Mexican government took down all the major Mexican drug lords. What followed this “victory” was the war we see now — a war pitting the government against gangsters, but also a war of gangsters against each other in a struggle for control of the fantastically profitable trade routes. “Colombianization,” in other words.
In the war on drugs, that’s the way it always goes: Eliminate kingpins and gangsters battle to be the successor;
drive down production in one place and it balloons in another; stamp out a smuggling route and new routes are created. The market will not
denied. It’s Economics 101.
Look at Afghanistan. It was never a major heroin producer. But “victories” in West Asia and the Golden Triangle of southeast Asia pushed the drug trade into that sad country and now it’s paying for weapons that kill Canadian soldiers. With victories like that we have been “winning” the war on drugs for 90 years — and today the illicit drug trade is far bigger and far more destructive than ever.
But editorialists, politicians, and drug cops never connect the dots. “More of the same,” they urge. “More of the same.”
The last thing Mexico needs is more of the same. What it needs, desperately, is for governments to follow the advice of the Vienna Declaration, which I discussed Friday, and “undertake a transparent review of the effectiveness of current drug policies” — followed by “a full policy reorientation.” Until then, the madness will continue.
http://www.flashnews.com/news/wfn03100726fn28540.html

When Dean Folda goes to pick up his medicine, he has a choice between cannabis products with names like “Grunk,” “Johnny Rocket,” and “Godbud.”
Folda, 47, says marijuana helps relieve his pain. He’s had a myriad of health issues over the years, ranging from an accidental gunshot wound when he was 10 years old to a hole in his aorta that required two open-heart surgeries.
“I could’ve probably been the biggest pillhead in the valley,” he said. “But I’ve found that marijuana did the same thing for me that the pain pills would do without the side effects.”
Folda isn’t sure just how or why marijuana works for him.
But a doctor and a chemist in Bozeman are aiming to take the mystery out of it.
Dr. Michael Geci-Black, a former emergency room physician, and Noel Palmer, who has a PhD in chemistry, run the first laboratory in Montana dedicated to studying medical cannabis, Montana Botanical Analysis.
“If it’s going to be a medicine, you’ve got to treat it like a medicine,” said Geci-Black, who started the lab in 2009. “So, I thought, ‘We’ve got to do some testing to see what’s in it.’ There’s no other medicine that doesn’t have the active ingredients (listed) on it.”
Even marijuana providers, or “caregivers,” aren’t always sure why certain strains of marijuana work particularly well for treating certain kinds of ailments.
A Kinder Caregiver in Bozeman, for example, sells 27 strains of marijuana in its plant form. It also has a menu that includes 16 baked “sweet treats,” plus four diabetic alternatives; two tinctures of liquid cannabis; one tea; and baking basics “cannabutter,” “cannaoil,” “ganja cream,” and “sweet leaf honey.”
But the head of the company, Robert Carpenter, admits determining what works best for a specific person is mostly a matter of trial and error.
“It differs so much for each person,” he said.
Marijuana providers from across the state pay Montana Botanical Analysis to test “cannabinoids,” chemical compounds in their strains of marijuana, so they can have a better understanding of how to dispense it.
“If you don’t know what’s in it, how can you dose it?” Geci-Black said. “We’re trying to establish product labeling.”
The lab tests 20 to 50 different strains each week, he said. Testing takes about three days and costs about $100 per sample.
“I really feel like the science, it’s going to help clarify these ambiguities that everybody has,” Palmer said.
Not everyone wants high THC
On Thursday afternoon, Palmer held the dried tip of a marijuana plant in the palm of his hand, a sample a provider had given the lab to test. He was working in the MBA’s new lab and offices in the Medical Arts Building on North Willson Avenue, where the neighbors are family-practice doctors and dentists.
For a typical test, Palmer dries a raw marijuana plant bud, then puts it in an “extraction” liquid, where it dissolves it into a lime green solution.
He puts a few drops of the solution in a vile, and puts the vile in a 3-foot tall stack of automated machines. The machines run the solution through a series of tubes and beakers, with the results displayed on a computer monitor.
The process, called chromatography, isolates cannabinoids found in the crystals on the edges of the marijuana leaves.
For the “OG Kush” strain, a line graph on the computer screen showed levels of about 25 different cannabinoids, primarily tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabinol (CBN).
A total of about 66 cannabinoids are believed to be present in cannabis plants, Palmer said.
“That’s why we’re interested — because THC is not the only one,” he said. “Patients tend to like lower THC and that often has other cannabinoids in higher levels.”
Cannabidiol, for example is not psychoactive, Palmer said, meaning it tends to relieve pain without getting the user “stoned.”
But it’s hard to find CBD in marijuana in Montana.
“It’s been an arms race for THC,” which is believed to produce the “high,”
Palmer said. “People have all but bred out CBD from cannabis samples.”
Some providers simply tout THC levels in their products, Geci-Black said. They don’t realize the chemical could have unintended side effects. People are making shampoos and soaps, he said, but THC may actually stymie hair growth.
“There’s one guy in town, he has lip balm that has like 13 percent THC in it,” Geci-Black said.
Even the most potent marijuana usually has no more than 20 percent THC.
What about a pill?
In Colorado, marijuana providers put cards detailing test results from labs like Geci-Black’s next to each strain in their display cases.
Frank Quattrone, owner of Pure Medical Dispensary in Denver, told the Denver Post earlier this month that he hopes the black-market names of marijuana strains “hopefully, will be come irrelevant.”
With knowledge about the chemical makeup of different marijuana, a provider could tell a patient with irritable bowel syndrome, for example, to eat a marijuana high in CBD, Geci-Black said. That could send pain relief directly to the digestive tract where it’s needed and allow them to function normally without having to be high, he said.
Or, if a patient has knee pain, Geci-Black said the provider could suggest they get a salve and apply that directly to the joint.
The possibilities beg the question: Will there come a time when patients don’t need to smoke marijuana? When chemical components will be extracted from it in some other more socially accepted form, like a pill?
Drug companies have already created synthetic marijuana in pill forms, like the drug Marinol.
“Anybody who argues against the medicinal effect of cannabis is just – with all due respect – uninformed,” Geci-Black said.
Geci-Black, who began practicing alternative medicine in 2007 and lives part time on an organic farm in upstate New York, said he’s gotten calls from people in half of the 14 states where medical marijuana is legal asking him for information about the lab.
Recently, he was a keynote speaker at a conference in Humbolt County, Calif.
In addition to testing for medicinal properties, the lab can test for mold and pesticides, so patients can tell if they’re marijuana is safe or organically grown.
“There’s a myriad of applications for this that are exciting,” Geci-Black said. “We’re just scratching the tip of the iceberg right now.”
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