cannabisnews.com: Ras Calls for Open & Honest Dialogue on Marijuana
Ras Calls for Open & Honest Dialogue on Marijuana
Posted by CN Staff on June 01, 2002 at 12:11:52 PT
By Jessie Monz
Source: Royal Gazette
A Musican and social activist this week demanded a frank public discussion about marijuana use after reports that Bermuda would not even consider following Britain's decision to look at softening cannabis laws.Last week the Mid-Ocean News reported that Britain is moving closer to easing rules about cannabis, but drug treatment experts and the Bermuda Police Service said Bermuda would not do the same.
"It's time for open and honest dialogue on the issue," said dub poet and photographer Ras Mykkal. "We need to look at what marijuana is and why it is illegal. England is reviewing its policies. Maybe we should to the same. People should sit down and talk about it."The National Drug Commission disagreed. "We at the NDC have formed the opinion from our connection with Bermuda's youth that any move to lessen the penalties would be misunderstood by our youth as a move to legalise cannabis," said Christina Wineinger, NDC's chief executive officer.But Mr. Mykkal said the reason marijuana or the hemp plant had been made illegal had nothing to do with it being a dangerous, mind-altering drug. He said it had to do with economics. He felt the people in power could not figure out how to harness its economic potential, so they chose to ban it instead. "People need to understand why it is illegal and decriminalise it so people won't be doing long stretches in prison for the use of it," Mr. Mykkal said. "The bottom line is the illegal marijuana trade is a four-billion-a-year business. If the people in power are going to legalise it they want the money. They are not going to let people grow it in their gardens like they used to in the 1940s."Mr. Mykkal said cannabis sativa, the Latin name for the marijuana plant, had a long history. The first American flag, for example, was made from hemp cloth."The US pressured the rest of the world into making a law that made it illegal to control the economics of it," he said. "The only part that is illegal is the leaf. The stem is not illegal. The seeds are illegal if they aren't sterile. But 15 to 20 per cent of birdseed is hemp seed because of its value as a food source full of unsaturated fat and protein. Hemp also makes the best quality paper."He said the number one drug killer in the United States was nicotine."The number two killer is alcohol," he said. "Alcohol is the second biggest killer in the United States yet the Council on Alcohol & Drug Abuse does not take a hard line against it. They say people should be more moderate and responsible in their alcohol sales and consumption."The number three is aspirin through allergic reactions. Marijuana isn't even on the list. There have been no deaths directly attributable to marijuana use that I know of."He said prior to it being made illegal, 76 per cent of American medications made some use of the hemp plant."It is a medical relaxant," he said. "It is good for menstrual cramps and glaucoma. There are over 400 different medical uses."But Mr. Mykkal stressed that the worst thing you could do for your body was to smoke it."A marijuana cigarette has five times more tar than nicotine cigarettes," he said. "But most marijuana smokers might smoke two or three cigarettes a day, compared to the two packs that nicotine smokers smoke per day. I don't think it should be made a soft drug like alcohol or cigarettes. "But people need to be educated about the benefits and risks. It is illegal in Bermuda and I don't use it. But I hate to see people going to jail for five to 20 years for something that is not dangerous."However, a study published in the March issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association linked heavy marijuana use with brain problems.The study concluded that heavy, chronic marijuana users suffer memory loss and attention problems that can affect their work, learning and life.The authors of the study, Nadia Solowij at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and colleagues with the Marijuana Treatment Project Research Group, said their study confirmed and extended previous findings of cognitive impairments among chronic heavy marijuana users."For habitual users, the kinds of impairments observed in this study have the potential to impact academic achievements, occupational proficiency, interpersonal relationships and daily functioning," the study concluded. And a study carried out in Bermuda by the NDC found that high school students regularly smoke more marijuana than cigarettes. The survey of 3,698 students aged between ten and 16 in 13 public and private schools asked about their use of each drug during the 30 days prior to the survey.Less than one in four students admitting to being current drinkers while one in ten currently used marijuana compared to one in 12 regularly smoking cigarettes. Complete Title: Ras Calls for 'Open and Honest Dialogue' on Marijuana UseSource: Royal Gazette, The (Bermuda)Author: Jessie MonzPublished: May 31, 2002Copyright: 2002 The Royal Gazette Ltd.Contact: editor gazette.newsmedia.bmWebsite: http://www.theroyalgazette.com/Related Articles:March for Marijuana is in The Offing http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12718.shtmlRastafarians Hit It Big in Pot Fight http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13006.shtmlCourt OKs Use of Religious Pot on Federal Lands http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12983.shtml Smoking Pot No Risk to IQ, Study Says http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12434.shtml
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Comment #9 posted by goneposthole on June 02, 2002 at 07:04:05 PT
How it used to be
before reefer maddness.
http://www.gamtec.com/hemp/stockbergerltr.html
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Comment #8 posted by Jose Melendez on June 02, 2002 at 05:12:25 PT
How's this for open and honest?
Check out this great new "W" quote. "We cannot put our faith in the words of tyrants who solemnly sign... (snipped)
...treaties and then systematically break them." President George W. Bushfrom:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=1037741
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Comment #7 posted by Jose Melendez on June 02, 2002 at 04:39:05 PT:
save more steps
When you come to the link you want right click and open in a new window and then copy that url and paste. I didn't know how to do that for a long time and it was nice when I finally figured out how. Hope this helps you. When you right click, read the options, one should read "Copy Shortcut", with the first 't' underlined. It saves a step to click that or press 'T' on your keyboard...Peace,
Jose Melendez
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Comment #6 posted by p4me on June 01, 2002 at 20:54:58 PT
Day 41 of Robin Prosser's diary
This is the link of day 41 of Robin Prosser's diary. I could have traced the link back to cannabisnow.org and it is listed if you would like to go to her diary. I include the link to its presentation at marijuana.com because Paul Peterson has the first comment. Robin acknowledged Paul's idea of a hempfood diet and Robin says she may have to leave the Untied States. Her word that came from her typo but she liked it and repeated it.
http://216.9.192.82/article.php?sid=3592&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0ICBS,VAAI.POW
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Comment #5 posted by p4me on June 01, 2002 at 19:06:05 PT
My message at gocarolinas.com
FoM, I figured out what you were saying about frames. I put up the link at the gocarolinas.com messageboard I participate in and since I already wrote it I will put it here as evidence that I am not after the position of Choir Preacher. More on Medical marijuana by p4me
For those paranoid people that own oil stocks and pill company stocks
worried about how to hold back the tide of the whole world, your lies and
malicious behavior will not stand forever. The current wisdom is that
Canada will have the Supreme Court set aside all marijuana laws and
the United States will just have to live with it because if it is against the
Constitution it automatically takes Canada out of the UN Single Treaty
and it is all over. Because who is going to take a vacation in the US
when you are totally pissed off about the malicious and arrogant
behavior of our dimwit President and his cronies Ashcroft, Hutchinson,
and Walters when Canada is right here and they speak English. Make no mistake about it. I do not hide behind a front of medical
marijuana. I am for legalization period. I only think it completely
inhumane and malicious to fight and lie against medical marijuana. I
wanted to put up a site for the International Association for Cannabis as
Medicine (IACM) that summarizes in short order the science of
Cannabis as Medicine.
http://www.cannabis-med.org/english/patients-use.htm I have ulcerous colitus and have had it for over 20 years. I know the pill
companies want me to buy there pills but if I could grow marijuana my
medical expenses for medicine would be close to zero. And I know it
helps no matter what the idiots in Washington try to say. They just want
the money for their corporate clients. They need to do a study of MJ for
ADD but no. That would compete with Ritalin. Canada is probably going
to have prisoners grow their own so they can have it and cut down on
violence long before the US quits protecting the financial interest of the
1% that now control 63% of everything. Maybe someone in elected
office should think of the plight of the masses instead of the portfolio's of
the wealthy. Anyway the science is starting to come in not that the US is trying to
help. There is plenty of evidence that marijuana has medical value. The
pill companies just don't want people to grow medicine and the alcohol
industry sure has a lot to worry about too. That goes for the oil and
paper and cotton industries too. I think the whole thing about medical
marijuana only puts it into the hands of doctors. You shouldn't have to
pay a doctor $90 to get permission to smoke marijuana because it is so
benign and we have 5000 years of recorded history on cannabis. Well there is the link if you want to know. ICBS,VAAI,POW
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on June 01, 2002 at 18:05:13 PT
p4me
Is this the one you wanted? I'll tell you how to get the link you want when the page is in a frame. When you come to the link you want right click and open in a new window and then copy that url and paste. I didn't know how to do that for a long time and it was nice when I finally figured out how. Hope this helps you. I love the Internet but it can be really hard to figure out. I'm so use to doing one thing at a time and today with the satellite because the news is slow on the weekends I was listening to music with cool screen savers but they aren't screen savers but it would have been cool to have something like it back in the time many years ago.Now a days instead of looking at lava lights and lights all around a room you can turn on your computer and it can entertain you. And they think the Net wasn't created by stoners! I wonder what they they were smoking when they thought that! LOL!http://www.cannabis-med.org/english/patients-use.htm
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Comment #3 posted by p4me on June 01, 2002 at 17:38:42 PT
more specific on IACM
I think this information is very important because it is condensed and it is from the scientific community. If you follow this link http://www.cannabis-med.org/english/home.htm
it will not go directly to the page that summarizes everything. From the page mentioned above you would have to click on the underlined "here" under Frequently Asked Questions. Then on the 5th line down you would click on "Medical Uses of Cannabis and THC."Why that link is the same as the homepage is beyond me.
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Comment #2 posted by p4me on June 01, 2002 at 17:15:35 PT
link won't work
http://www.cannabis-med.org/english/home.htmThis link should work. The one in comment 1 has a / at the end that screws it up. I also put a period instead of a hypen in Paul Petersons links earlier today and I sent an email toUSNewswire to correct yet another mistake.
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Comment #1 posted by p4me on June 01, 2002 at 17:09:15 PT
IACM website has been updated
Some time ago Dr. Russo put up the website for the International Association for Cannabis as Medicine (IACM). They have recently added a page that tells in brief manner the knowledge the scientific community has about cannabis as medicine. For the first time I read about ulcerous colitis and only wish there were more studies on everything but especially the colitis since that is what I have. So I do not argue about medical marijuana anymore. I just say go here and read: http://www.cannabis-med.org/english/home.htm/ I hope that the Cnews readers will post this to the forums that participate in. The science grows stronger and I am thankful for having the internet where people that want to know can find out.I am particularly interested in a study comparing Ritalin with some whole cannabis pills. People are in pain and the politicians are playing games. The DEA position is inhumane, malicious, unAmerican, and a fraud upon the American people. Did anyone hear Busch's blurb on the news today about starting some race when he was not heard at the start of it. He said "God darn it." Well if there were a God that could darn and damned things I would pray that he remove Busch from the earthly realm. What that theoretical god would do after he removed him I could care less. Damnation seems appropriate to me, but then again I am an Extremist. I am also Cannabian.ICBS,VAAI,POW
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