C.L.C.I.A.
CAMPAIGNER'S GUIDE
POTENT QUOTES ON CANNABIS and the LAW
********************
George Washington: (Library of USA Congress 1794 vol. 33 p.270)
"Make the most of the Indian Hemp Seed"
********************
SAFETY
The Lancet, vol 352, number 9140, November 14 1998:
"We.. say that on the medical evidence available, moderate indulgence in cannabis has
little ill-effect on health, and that decisions to ban or
legalise cannabis should be based on other considerations."
********************
Rosie Boycott, Independent on Sunday, 28 Sept 1997
"If alcohol is a tiger, cannabis is merely a mouse"
********************
Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894:
"The commission has come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp drugs is
practically attended by no evil results at all. ... ...moderate use of hemp... appears to
cause no appreciable physical injury of any kind,...
no injurious effects on the mind... [and] no moral injury whatever."
********************
LaGuardia Commission Report, 1944
"Cannabis smoking] does not lead directly to mental or physical deterioration... Those who
have consumed marijuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical deterioration
which may be attributed to the drug."
********************
1968 UK ROYAL COMMISSION, THE WOOTTON REPORT:
"Having reviewed all the material available to us we find ourselves in agreement with the
conclusion reached by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission
appointed by the Government of India (1893-94) and the New York Mayor's Committee
(1944 - LaGuardia)that the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no
harmful effects"
"the long-asserted dangers of cannabis are exaggerated and that the related law is
socially damaging, if not unworkable"
********************
Testimony of Professor Lester Grinspoon, M.D.
, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, before the Crime
Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of
Representatives, Washington, D.C., October 1, 1997: "Cannabis is remarkably safe.
Although not harmless, it is surely less toxic than most of the conventional medicines it
could replace if it were legally available. Despite its use by millions of people over
thousands of years, cannabis has never caused an overdose death."
********************
Jocelyn Elders, USA Surgeon General: "Marijuana is beneficial to many patients"
********************
The Report of the Australian Government 1996 says:
"The ... major possible adverse effects of chronic, heavy cannabis use ... remain to be
confirmed" "The major health and psychological effects of chronic cannabis use, especially
daily use over many years, remain uncertain"
"As has been stressed ... there is uncertainty. ......To varying degrees....inferences from
animal research, laboratory studies, and clinical
observations about probable ill effects. In some cases inferences depend upon arguments
from what is known about the adverse effects of other drugs,
such as tobacco and alcohol" "... "flashback experiences" ...have been rarely reported by
cannabis users... have typically used other hallucinogenic drugs" "The probable and
possible adverse health and psychological effects of cannabis need to be placed in
comparative perspective to be fully appreciated".
********************
Dr J. H. Jaffe, The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. L.Goodman and A Gillman, 3rd
edn. 1965. "There are no long lasting ill-effects from the acute use of marijuana and no
fatalities have ever been recorded ... there seems to be growing
agreement within the medical community, at least, that marijuana does not directly cause
criminal behaviour, juvenile delinquency, sexual excitement, or addiction."
********************
Panama Canal Zone Report, 1925:
"There is no evidence... that any deleterious influence on the individual using [cannabis]"
********************
Schaeffer: A Neuropsychological Evaluation; A Case History
"...I.Q.'s of Zion Coptics increased after they began to use ganga"
********************
Cannabis in Costa Rica: A Study of Chronic Marijuana Use; Institute of Human Issues.
"No significant health consequences to chronic cannabis smokers"
********************
US Jamaican Study 1974
"... as a multipurpose plant, ganga is used medicinally, even by non-smokers. ....There
were no indications of organic brain damage or chromosome damage among smokers and
no significant clinical psychiatric, psychological or medical) differences between smokers
and controls."
"No impairment of physiological, sensory and perceptual performance, tests of concept
formation, abstracting ability, and cognitive style, and tests of
memory" "[Cannabis smoking] does not lead directly to mental or physical deterioration...
Those who have consumed marijuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical
deterioration which may be attributed to the drug."
********************
The Kaiser Permanente study
"Marijuana Use and Mortality" April 1997 American Journal of Public Health".
"Relatively few adverse clinical effects from the chronic use of marijuana have been
documented in humans. However, the criminalization of marijuana
use may itself be a health hazard, since it may expose the users to violence and criminal
activity."
********************
Researchers at the University of California (UCLA) School of Medicine
have announced the results of an 8 - year study into the effects of long-term cannabis
smoking on the lungs. In Volume 155 of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical
Care Medicine, Dr. D.P. Tashkin reported: "Findings from the present long-term, follow-up
study of heavy, habitual marijuana smokers argue against the concept that continuing
heavy use of marijuana is a significant risk factor for the development of [chronic lung
disease. ..Neither the continuing nor the intermittent marijuana smokers exhibited any
significantly different rates of decline in
[lung function]<%quot;> as compared with those individuals who never smoked
marijuana. Researchers added: "No differences were noted between even quite heavy
marijuana smoking and non-smoking of marijuana."
********************
See Also: Proven : Cannabis is a safe medicine by Ian Williams Goddard
CANNABIS DOES NOT CAUSE CANCER
BOSTON, Jan. 30, 1997 (UPI) -
The U.S. federal government has failed to make public its own 1994 study that undercuts
its position that marijuana is carcinogenic - a $2 million study by the National Toxicology
Program. The program's deputy director, John Bucher, says the study "found absolutely no
evidence of cancer." In fact, animals that received THC had fewer cancers. Bucher denies
his agency had been pressured to shelve the report, saying the delay in making it public
was due to a personnel shortage.
The Boston Globe reported Thursday (1-30-97) that the study indicates not only that the
main ingredient in marijuana, THC, does not cause cancer, but also that it may even
protect against malignancies, laboratory tests on animals show.
The report comes on the heels of an editorial in the prestigious New England Journal of
Medicine that favors the controlled medical use of marijuana, and calls current federal
policy "misguided, heavy-handed and inhumane."
The Clinton administration has said that doctors prescribing marijuana could be prosecuted
for a federal crime.
Marijuana has been reported to ease the pain, nausea and vomiting in advanced stages of
cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses, but the federal
government claims other treatments have been deemed safer than what it calls "a
psychoactive, burning carcinogen."
However, The Boston Globe says the government's claim appears to be undercut by its own
$2 million study.
********************
The USA Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy 1987
"Cannabis can be used on an episodic but continual basis without evidence of social or
psychic dysfunction. In many users the term dependence with its obvious connotations,
probably is mis-applied... The chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political,
and not toxicologic, foundation".
********************
CANNABIS AND TOBACCO
Cannabis in Costa Rica: A Study of Chronic Marijuana Use; Institute of Human Issues.
"Users in our matched-pair sample smoked marijuana in addition to as many tobacco
cigarettes as did their matched non-using pairs. Yet their small
airways were, if anything, a bit healthier than their matches. We must tentatively conclude
either that marijuana has no harmful effect on such
passages or that it actually offers some slight protection against harmful effects of tobacco
smoke"
********************
SYNTHETIC THC - Marinol
At the 10th International Conference on Drug Policy, 1996, USA John P Morgan MD,
Professor of Pharmacology, City University of New York Medical School, said of Marinol, the
synthetic THC marketed in the States, "In a recent study, the scientists gave patients 20
mg of Marinol by mouth to see if it increased their appetite. Not only could they not detect
much appetite-increasing effect, but they learned the interesting fact that, in one-third of
people who take Marinol by mouth, you have no blood levels at all. The drug is so poorly
bio-available it's surprising that it got onto the market. There may well be some reason to
believe that there are individuals in our government who are interested in getting Marinol
on the market to diminish the pressure for marijuana smokers."
********************
BRAIN RECEPTORS
"The biochemistry of cannabis is explained as follows: the active ingredients of cannabis
(comprised of Tetrahydrocannabinol compounded with
cannabidiol, tetrhydrocannabivarin, numerous cannabinoids and the elements and
compounds common to most plants) temporarily attach to receptors on
cells such as those situated on the outer surface of the brain, the meninges, this gently
bringing about a feeling of well-being"....FCDA
Europe, "The Report".
********************
By Ddc (Ddc) on Tuesday, November 2, 1999 - 12:53 pm:
A-MOTIVATION
Dr. Andrew Weil (Rubin & Comitas Ganja in Jamaica, 1975)
"a-motivation [is] a cause of heavy marijuana smoking rather than the reverse"
********************
ADDICTION /DEPENDENCY
The Shafer Commission of 1970
Marijuana does not lead to physical dependency, although some evidence indicates that
the heavy, long-term users may develop a psychological
dependence on the drug"
********************
GATEWAY THEORY
The LaGardia sub-committee of New York 1944
"The use of marijuana does not lead to morphine or heroin or cocaine addiction and no
effort is made to create a market for these narcotics by
stimulating the practice of marijuana smoking"
********************
"Marijuana: Facts for Teens." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Washington, D.C. 1995, p.10.
"Most marijuana users do not go on to use other drugs."
********************
DRIVING
Crancer Study, Washington Department of Motor Vehicles
"Simulated driving scores for subjects experiencing a normal social "high" and the same
subjects under control conditions are not significantly different. However, there are
significantly more errors for alcohol intoxicated than for control subjects"
********************
U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (DOT HS 808 078), Final Report, November 1993:
"THC's adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small"
********************
Professor Olaf Drummer, a forensic scientist the Royal College of Surgeons in Melbourne in
1996
":Compared to alcohol, which makers people take more risks on the road, marijuana
made drivers slow down and drive more carefully.... Cannabis is
good for driving skills, as people tend to overcompensate for a perceived impairment.":
********************
MEDICINE
Dr. Anthony Henman:
"One of the best effects Marijuana can have in any terminal illness is to produce a degree
of euphoria which boosts morale in a depressing situation"
********************
The Economist March 28th 1992:
"Medicines often produce side effects. Sometimes they are physically unpleasant.
Cannabis too has discomforting side effects, but these are not
physical they are political"
********************
Professor Lester Grinspoon, Harvard Medical School, USA:
"Marijuana is one of the least toxic substances in the whole pharmacopoeia"
********************
Dr. James Malone-Lee, consultant St. Pancras Hospital, London:
"I'm quite impressed by what's happened to (MS) patients who have used it".
********************
PROHIBITION AND LAW
Albert Eistein:
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the
prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the
government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an
open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with
this." :My First Impression of the U.S.A., 1921
********************
President Jimmy Carter:
"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual
than the use of the drug itself"
********************
Judge James Pickles, UK:
"Cannabis never killed anybody and it's use is widespread. You can"t stop it. The law
defeats itself because all the efforts to stop drugs coming in only drives up the prices and
then gangsters move in to push the drugs. If they legalised there wouldn't be gangsters
and huge profits...The police are gradually decriminalising the possession of cannabis
because they realise
there's not much point prosecuting"
********************
President Abraham Lincoln (December 1840):
"Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans'
appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A
prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was
founded"
********************
Volney Brown Jr., Federal Magistrate-Judge,(retired)., Los Angeles. At the
DPF Conference, November 1996:
"There is only one thing wrong with drug law enforcement, just one - it doesn't work. And
when I tell you this I want you to believe me because I
have done it"
********************
Judge James Grey, Orange County Superior Court, Santa Ana, CA, at the DPF
Conference, November 1996:
"If we continue as we have for the past 20 years in California, in the year 2020, everybody
in the State will either be in prison or running one"
********************
Judge Pamela Alexander at the DPF Conference, November 1996:
"I am here because I am the first judge in this country to say, in 1990, that the war on
drugs was racist. It still is and that hasn't changed"
********************
Alexander Shulgin, PhD, Chemist and author, at the DPF Conference, November 1996:
"I, as a responsible adult human being, will never concede the power to anyone to
regulate my choice of what I put into my body, or where I go with
my mind. From the skin inwards is my jurisdiction, is it not? I choose what may or may not
cross that border. Here I am the Customs Agent. I am the
Coast guard. I am the sole legal and spiritual government of this territory, and only the
laws I choose to enact within myself are applicable"
********************
Ann Shulgin, PhD, Therapist and Author, Lafayette, CA, at the DPF
Conference, November 1996:
"Several generations of high school students have grown up ignoring and disbelieving
everything they've heard from government and police about
drugs, including information that was factual and valid, because they discovered for
themselves that most of what has been taught to them was simply not true."
********************
U.S. Representative Dan Quayle, March 1977:
"Congress should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana... We should
concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are a menace to society."
********************
By Ddc (Ddc) on Tuesday, November 2, 1999 - 12:55 pm:
LEGALISATION / DECRIMINALISATION
Sir Paul McCartney, Independent on Sunday, 28th September 1997:
"I support decriminalisation. People are smoking pot anyway and to make them into
criminals is wrong. It's when you're in jail you really become a criminal."
********************
Richard Branson, Independent on Sunday, 28th September 1997:
"I'd like to see the government back a programme of research into the medical properties
of cannabis and I do not object to its responsible use as a recreational relaxant."
********************
Detective Chief Inspector Ron Clarke, former member of Greater Manchester Police Drugs
Squad:
"I got tired of seeing otherwise innocent young kids from all walks of life getting criminal
records for, in effect, doing nothing more than millions of other people in society were
doing with alcohol"
********************
Sergeant Gordon Payne, Southampton Police
"The only solution to the drugs problem is the legalisation of all drugs"
********************
CRIME
Jamaican Study 1970:
"This study indicates that there is little correlation between the use of ganga and crime,
except insofar as the possession and cultivation of ganga technically crimes"
********************
The LaGuardia sub-committee of New York 1944:
"Marijuana is not the determining factor in the commission of major crime....The publicity
concerning the catastrophic effect of marijuana
smoking in New York City, is unfounded"
********************
TRIAL AND JURIES
President Thomas Jefferson (1789):
"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which government can
be held to the principles of its constitution"
********************
Chief Justice John Jay USA:
"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy"
********************
John Adams (Second USA President):
"It is not only his Right but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best
understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of
the court"
********************
Samuel Chase, US Supreme Court Chief Justice 1796:
"The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts"
********************
Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes:
"The Jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact"
********************
Judge Harlan F. Stone, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1941-1946:
"The law itself is on trial quite as much as the case which is to be decided"
********************
Plaque Outside Old Bailey, London
"Near this site William Penn and William Mead were tried in 1670 for preaching to an
unlawful assembly in Gracechurch Street.
This tablet commemorates the courage and endurance of the jury, Thomas Vere, Edward
Bushell and ten others, who refused to give a verdict against them
although they were locked up without food for two nights and were fined for their final
verdict of Not Guilty. The case of these jury men was reviewed on a writ of Habeas Corpus
and Chief
Justice Vaughan delivered the opinion of the court which established the Rights of Juries to
give their Verdict according to their conviction. "
********************
D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1972:"unreviewable and irreversible power [of the jury] to
acquit in disregard of the instruction of the law given by the trial judge. The pages of
history shine upon instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard
instructions of the judge"
********************
Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone:
"If a juror feels that the statute [law] in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes
upon the defendant's natural God-given unalienable or Constitutional rights, then it is his
duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is
no crime at
all - for no one is bound to obey an unjust law"
********************
CANNABIS LIFESTYLE
The Misuse of Drugs, Office of Health Economics
"It is certainly no longer true to say if it ever was, that smoking cannabis is a sign of
affiliation to an "alternative" lifestyle. Clearly, in the light of its popularity and to a degree
its apparent social acceptability questions are raised about the legalisation of cannabis"
********************
Peace or WoD
Liberty or DEAth
No Justice No Peace
FFFF
DdC
CAMPAIGNER'S GUIDE
POTENT QUOTES ON CANNABIS and the LAW
********************
George Washington: (Library of USA Congress 1794 vol. 33 p.270)
"Make the most of the Indian Hemp Seed"
********************
SAFETY
The Lancet, vol 352, number 9140, November 14 1998:
"We.. say that on the medical evidence available, moderate indulgence in cannabis has
little ill-effect on health, and that decisions to ban or
legalise cannabis should be based on other considerations."
********************
Rosie Boycott, Independent on Sunday, 28 Sept 1997
"If alcohol is a tiger, cannabis is merely a mouse"
********************
Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894:
"The commission has come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp drugs is
practically attended by no evil results at all. ... ...moderate use of hemp... appears to
cause no appreciable physical injury of any kind,...
no injurious effects on the mind... [and] no moral injury whatever."
********************
LaGuardia Commission Report, 1944
"Cannabis smoking] does not lead directly to mental or physical deterioration... Those who
have consumed marijuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical deterioration
which may be attributed to the drug."
********************
1968 UK ROYAL COMMISSION, THE WOOTTON REPORT:
"Having reviewed all the material available to us we find ourselves in agreement with the
conclusion reached by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission
appointed by the Government of India (1893-94) and the New York Mayor's Committee
(1944 - LaGuardia)that the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no
harmful effects"
"the long-asserted dangers of cannabis are exaggerated and that the related law is
socially damaging, if not unworkable"
********************
Testimony of Professor Lester Grinspoon, M.D.
, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, before the Crime
Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of
Representatives, Washington, D.C., October 1, 1997: "Cannabis is remarkably safe.
Although not harmless, it is surely less toxic than most of the conventional medicines it
could replace if it were legally available. Despite its use by millions of people over
thousands of years, cannabis has never caused an overdose death."
********************
Jocelyn Elders, USA Surgeon General: "Marijuana is beneficial to many patients"
********************
The Report of the Australian Government 1996 says:
"The ... major possible adverse effects of chronic, heavy cannabis use ... remain to be
confirmed" "The major health and psychological effects of chronic cannabis use, especially
daily use over many years, remain uncertain"
"As has been stressed ... there is uncertainty. ......To varying degrees....inferences from
animal research, laboratory studies, and clinical
observations about probable ill effects. In some cases inferences depend upon arguments
from what is known about the adverse effects of other drugs,
such as tobacco and alcohol" "... "flashback experiences" ...have been rarely reported by
cannabis users... have typically used other hallucinogenic drugs" "The probable and
possible adverse health and psychological effects of cannabis need to be placed in
comparative perspective to be fully appreciated".
********************
Dr J. H. Jaffe, The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. L.Goodman and A Gillman, 3rd
edn. 1965. "There are no long lasting ill-effects from the acute use of marijuana and no
fatalities have ever been recorded ... there seems to be growing
agreement within the medical community, at least, that marijuana does not directly cause
criminal behaviour, juvenile delinquency, sexual excitement, or addiction."
********************
Panama Canal Zone Report, 1925:
"There is no evidence... that any deleterious influence on the individual using [cannabis]"
********************
Schaeffer: A Neuropsychological Evaluation; A Case History
"...I.Q.'s of Zion Coptics increased after they began to use ganga"
********************
Cannabis in Costa Rica: A Study of Chronic Marijuana Use; Institute of Human Issues.
"No significant health consequences to chronic cannabis smokers"
********************
US Jamaican Study 1974
"... as a multipurpose plant, ganga is used medicinally, even by non-smokers. ....There
were no indications of organic brain damage or chromosome damage among smokers and
no significant clinical psychiatric, psychological or medical) differences between smokers
and controls."
"No impairment of physiological, sensory and perceptual performance, tests of concept
formation, abstracting ability, and cognitive style, and tests of
memory" "[Cannabis smoking] does not lead directly to mental or physical deterioration...
Those who have consumed marijuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical
deterioration which may be attributed to the drug."
********************
The Kaiser Permanente study
"Marijuana Use and Mortality" April 1997 American Journal of Public Health".
"Relatively few adverse clinical effects from the chronic use of marijuana have been
documented in humans. However, the criminalization of marijuana
use may itself be a health hazard, since it may expose the users to violence and criminal
activity."
********************
Researchers at the University of California (UCLA) School of Medicine
have announced the results of an 8 - year study into the effects of long-term cannabis
smoking on the lungs. In Volume 155 of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical
Care Medicine, Dr. D.P. Tashkin reported: "Findings from the present long-term, follow-up
study of heavy, habitual marijuana smokers argue against the concept that continuing
heavy use of marijuana is a significant risk factor for the development of [chronic lung
disease. ..Neither the continuing nor the intermittent marijuana smokers exhibited any
significantly different rates of decline in
[lung function]<%quot;> as compared with those individuals who never smoked
marijuana. Researchers added: "No differences were noted between even quite heavy
marijuana smoking and non-smoking of marijuana."
********************
See Also: Proven : Cannabis is a safe medicine by Ian Williams Goddard
CANNABIS DOES NOT CAUSE CANCER
BOSTON, Jan. 30, 1997 (UPI) -
The U.S. federal government has failed to make public its own 1994 study that undercuts
its position that marijuana is carcinogenic - a $2 million study by the National Toxicology
Program. The program's deputy director, John Bucher, says the study "found absolutely no
evidence of cancer." In fact, animals that received THC had fewer cancers. Bucher denies
his agency had been pressured to shelve the report, saying the delay in making it public
was due to a personnel shortage.
The Boston Globe reported Thursday (1-30-97) that the study indicates not only that the
main ingredient in marijuana, THC, does not cause cancer, but also that it may even
protect against malignancies, laboratory tests on animals show.
The report comes on the heels of an editorial in the prestigious New England Journal of
Medicine that favors the controlled medical use of marijuana, and calls current federal
policy "misguided, heavy-handed and inhumane."
The Clinton administration has said that doctors prescribing marijuana could be prosecuted
for a federal crime.
Marijuana has been reported to ease the pain, nausea and vomiting in advanced stages of
cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses, but the federal
government claims other treatments have been deemed safer than what it calls "a
psychoactive, burning carcinogen."
However, The Boston Globe says the government's claim appears to be undercut by its own
$2 million study.
********************
The USA Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy 1987
"Cannabis can be used on an episodic but continual basis without evidence of social or
psychic dysfunction. In many users the term dependence with its obvious connotations,
probably is mis-applied... The chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political,
and not toxicologic, foundation".
********************
CANNABIS AND TOBACCO
Cannabis in Costa Rica: A Study of Chronic Marijuana Use; Institute of Human Issues.
"Users in our matched-pair sample smoked marijuana in addition to as many tobacco
cigarettes as did their matched non-using pairs. Yet their small
airways were, if anything, a bit healthier than their matches. We must tentatively conclude
either that marijuana has no harmful effect on such
passages or that it actually offers some slight protection against harmful effects of tobacco
smoke"
********************
SYNTHETIC THC - Marinol
At the 10th International Conference on Drug Policy, 1996, USA John P Morgan MD,
Professor of Pharmacology, City University of New York Medical School, said of Marinol, the
synthetic THC marketed in the States, "In a recent study, the scientists gave patients 20
mg of Marinol by mouth to see if it increased their appetite. Not only could they not detect
much appetite-increasing effect, but they learned the interesting fact that, in one-third of
people who take Marinol by mouth, you have no blood levels at all. The drug is so poorly
bio-available it's surprising that it got onto the market. There may well be some reason to
believe that there are individuals in our government who are interested in getting Marinol
on the market to diminish the pressure for marijuana smokers."
********************
BRAIN RECEPTORS
"The biochemistry of cannabis is explained as follows: the active ingredients of cannabis
(comprised of Tetrahydrocannabinol compounded with
cannabidiol, tetrhydrocannabivarin, numerous cannabinoids and the elements and
compounds common to most plants) temporarily attach to receptors on
cells such as those situated on the outer surface of the brain, the meninges, this gently
bringing about a feeling of well-being"....FCDA
Europe, "The Report".
********************
By Ddc (Ddc) on Tuesday, November 2, 1999 - 12:53 pm:
A-MOTIVATION
Dr. Andrew Weil (Rubin & Comitas Ganja in Jamaica, 1975)
"a-motivation [is] a cause of heavy marijuana smoking rather than the reverse"
********************
ADDICTION /DEPENDENCY
The Shafer Commission of 1970
Marijuana does not lead to physical dependency, although some evidence indicates that
the heavy, long-term users may develop a psychological
dependence on the drug"
********************
GATEWAY THEORY
The LaGardia sub-committee of New York 1944
"The use of marijuana does not lead to morphine or heroin or cocaine addiction and no
effort is made to create a market for these narcotics by
stimulating the practice of marijuana smoking"
********************
"Marijuana: Facts for Teens." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Washington, D.C. 1995, p.10.
"Most marijuana users do not go on to use other drugs."
********************
DRIVING
Crancer Study, Washington Department of Motor Vehicles
"Simulated driving scores for subjects experiencing a normal social "high" and the same
subjects under control conditions are not significantly different. However, there are
significantly more errors for alcohol intoxicated than for control subjects"
********************
U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (DOT HS 808 078), Final Report, November 1993:
"THC's adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small"
********************
Professor Olaf Drummer, a forensic scientist the Royal College of Surgeons in Melbourne in
1996
":Compared to alcohol, which makers people take more risks on the road, marijuana
made drivers slow down and drive more carefully.... Cannabis is
good for driving skills, as people tend to overcompensate for a perceived impairment.":
********************
MEDICINE
Dr. Anthony Henman:
"One of the best effects Marijuana can have in any terminal illness is to produce a degree
of euphoria which boosts morale in a depressing situation"
********************
The Economist March 28th 1992:
"Medicines often produce side effects. Sometimes they are physically unpleasant.
Cannabis too has discomforting side effects, but these are not
physical they are political"
********************
Professor Lester Grinspoon, Harvard Medical School, USA:
"Marijuana is one of the least toxic substances in the whole pharmacopoeia"
********************
Dr. James Malone-Lee, consultant St. Pancras Hospital, London:
"I'm quite impressed by what's happened to (MS) patients who have used it".
********************
PROHIBITION AND LAW
Albert Eistein:
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the
prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the
government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an
open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with
this." :My First Impression of the U.S.A., 1921
********************
President Jimmy Carter:
"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual
than the use of the drug itself"
********************
Judge James Pickles, UK:
"Cannabis never killed anybody and it's use is widespread. You can"t stop it. The law
defeats itself because all the efforts to stop drugs coming in only drives up the prices and
then gangsters move in to push the drugs. If they legalised there wouldn't be gangsters
and huge profits...The police are gradually decriminalising the possession of cannabis
because they realise
there's not much point prosecuting"
********************
President Abraham Lincoln (December 1840):
"Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans'
appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A
prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was
founded"
********************
Volney Brown Jr., Federal Magistrate-Judge,(retired)., Los Angeles. At the
DPF Conference, November 1996:
"There is only one thing wrong with drug law enforcement, just one - it doesn't work. And
when I tell you this I want you to believe me because I
have done it"
********************
Judge James Grey, Orange County Superior Court, Santa Ana, CA, at the DPF
Conference, November 1996:
"If we continue as we have for the past 20 years in California, in the year 2020, everybody
in the State will either be in prison or running one"
********************
Judge Pamela Alexander at the DPF Conference, November 1996:
"I am here because I am the first judge in this country to say, in 1990, that the war on
drugs was racist. It still is and that hasn't changed"
********************
Alexander Shulgin, PhD, Chemist and author, at the DPF Conference, November 1996:
"I, as a responsible adult human being, will never concede the power to anyone to
regulate my choice of what I put into my body, or where I go with
my mind. From the skin inwards is my jurisdiction, is it not? I choose what may or may not
cross that border. Here I am the Customs Agent. I am the
Coast guard. I am the sole legal and spiritual government of this territory, and only the
laws I choose to enact within myself are applicable"
********************
Ann Shulgin, PhD, Therapist and Author, Lafayette, CA, at the DPF
Conference, November 1996:
"Several generations of high school students have grown up ignoring and disbelieving
everything they've heard from government and police about
drugs, including information that was factual and valid, because they discovered for
themselves that most of what has been taught to them was simply not true."
********************
U.S. Representative Dan Quayle, March 1977:
"Congress should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana... We should
concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are a menace to society."
********************
By Ddc (Ddc) on Tuesday, November 2, 1999 - 12:55 pm:
LEGALISATION / DECRIMINALISATION
Sir Paul McCartney, Independent on Sunday, 28th September 1997:
"I support decriminalisation. People are smoking pot anyway and to make them into
criminals is wrong. It's when you're in jail you really become a criminal."
********************
Richard Branson, Independent on Sunday, 28th September 1997:
"I'd like to see the government back a programme of research into the medical properties
of cannabis and I do not object to its responsible use as a recreational relaxant."
********************
Detective Chief Inspector Ron Clarke, former member of Greater Manchester Police Drugs
Squad:
"I got tired of seeing otherwise innocent young kids from all walks of life getting criminal
records for, in effect, doing nothing more than millions of other people in society were
doing with alcohol"
********************
Sergeant Gordon Payne, Southampton Police
"The only solution to the drugs problem is the legalisation of all drugs"
********************
CRIME
Jamaican Study 1970:
"This study indicates that there is little correlation between the use of ganga and crime,
except insofar as the possession and cultivation of ganga technically crimes"
********************
The LaGuardia sub-committee of New York 1944:
"Marijuana is not the determining factor in the commission of major crime....The publicity
concerning the catastrophic effect of marijuana
smoking in New York City, is unfounded"
********************
TRIAL AND JURIES
President Thomas Jefferson (1789):
"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which government can
be held to the principles of its constitution"
********************
Chief Justice John Jay USA:
"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy"
********************
John Adams (Second USA President):
"It is not only his Right but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best
understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of
the court"
********************
Samuel Chase, US Supreme Court Chief Justice 1796:
"The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts"
********************
Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes:
"The Jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact"
********************
Judge Harlan F. Stone, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1941-1946:
"The law itself is on trial quite as much as the case which is to be decided"
********************
Plaque Outside Old Bailey, London
"Near this site William Penn and William Mead were tried in 1670 for preaching to an
unlawful assembly in Gracechurch Street.
This tablet commemorates the courage and endurance of the jury, Thomas Vere, Edward
Bushell and ten others, who refused to give a verdict against them
although they were locked up without food for two nights and were fined for their final
verdict of Not Guilty. The case of these jury men was reviewed on a writ of Habeas Corpus
and Chief
Justice Vaughan delivered the opinion of the court which established the Rights of Juries to
give their Verdict according to their conviction. "
********************
D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1972:"unreviewable and irreversible power [of the jury] to
acquit in disregard of the instruction of the law given by the trial judge. The pages of
history shine upon instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard
instructions of the judge"
********************
Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone:
"If a juror feels that the statute [law] in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes
upon the defendant's natural God-given unalienable or Constitutional rights, then it is his
duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is
no crime at
all - for no one is bound to obey an unjust law"
********************
CANNABIS LIFESTYLE
The Misuse of Drugs, Office of Health Economics
"It is certainly no longer true to say if it ever was, that smoking cannabis is a sign of
affiliation to an "alternative" lifestyle. Clearly, in the light of its popularity and to a degree
its apparent social acceptability questions are raised about the legalisation of cannabis"
********************
Peace or WoD
Liberty or DEAth
No Justice No Peace
FFFF
DdC
