TORONTO HEMP COMPANY (THC) - POTENT QUOTES ON MARIJUANA, LAW, AND LIFE
(This page last updated in February 2007)
On September 6, 1988, the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chief Administrative Law Judge, Francis L. Young, ruled:
"Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known....[T]he provisions of the [Controlled Substances] Act permit and require the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance." - Source: US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Agency, "In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition," [Docket #86-22] (September 6, 1988), p. 57.
"Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could." - William F. Buckley Jr.
Lots from the Senate Report (2002) including "Early drug legislation was largely based on a moral panic, racist sentiment and a notorious absence of debate", "The series of international agreements concluded since 1912 have failed to achieve their ostensible aim of reducing the supply of drugs", "The international conventions constitute a two-tier system that regulates the synthetic substances produced by the North and prohibits the organic substances produced by the South, while ignoring the real danger the substances represent for public health", "When cannabis was included in the international conventions in 1925, there was no knowledge of its effects", "The international classifications of drugs are arbitrary and do not reflect the level of danger they represent to health or to society', "Canada should inform the international community of the conclusions of our report and officially request the declassification of cannabis and its derivatives.", "In our view, it is clear that if the aim of public policy is to diminish consumption and supply of drugs, specifically cannabis, all signs indicate complete failure.", "Clearly, current approaches are ineffective and inefficient. Ultimately, their effect amounts to throwing taxpayers’ money down the drain in a crusade that is not warranted by the danger posed by the substance. It has been maintained that drugs, including cannabis, are not dangerous because they are illegal but rather are illegal because they are dangerous. This is perhaps true of other types of drugs, but not of cannabis. We should state this clearly once and for all, for public good: it is time to stop this crusade.", "The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada declare an amnesty for any person convicted of possession of cannabis under current or past legislation.","In effect, the main social costs of cannabis are a result of public policy choices, primarily its continued criminalization, while the consequences of its use represent a small fraction of the social costs attributable to the use of illegal drugs.", "In fact, more than for any other illegal drug, we can safely state that its criminalization is the principal source of social and economic costs.", "regulation of the production, distribution and consumption of cannabis, as part of an integrated and adaptable public policy, best responds to the principles of autonomy and governance that foster human responsibility and of the limitation of penal law to situations where there is demonstrable harm to others."
Lots from the Ledain Commission (1972) including: "The probable consequences of legalization seem to me to be less harmful than the evils of prohibition. Prohibition is very expensive economically socially and morally. It undermines the educative value of the law.", and "The federal government should remove cannabis from the Narcotic Control Act, as the Commission recommended in its Interim Report.
The federal government should immediately initiate discussions with the provincial governments to have the sale and use of cannabis placed under controls similar to those governing the sale and use of alcohol, including legal prohibition of unauthorized distribution and analogous age restrictions. Furthennore, this government-distributed cannabis should be marketed at a quality and price that would make the 'black market' sale of the drug an impractical enterprise.
The federal government should initiate a program fo develop efficient practical methods for cannabis production and marketing in Canada. A standard form of natural marijuana would seem to be most feasible at this stage, but hashish and synthetic preparations should also be explored.
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Louis Armstrong - Music Legend
"It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics dope and all of that stuff. It is a thousand times better than whiskey. It is an assistant and a friend."
Michael Bloomberg - New York City Mayor - A journalist asked Mr Bloomberg if he had ever smoked marijuana. He Said: "You bet I did and I enjoyed it."
The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.
- Noam Chomsky
There seems to be no stopping drug frenzy once it takes hold of a nation. What starts with an innocuous HUGS, NOT DRUGS bumper sticker soon leads to wild talk of shooting dealers and making urine tests a condition for employment - anywhere.
- Barbara Ehrenreich
"There is no logical basis for the prohibition of marijuana" "Our failure to successfully enforce these laws is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Colombia. I haven't even included the harm to young people. It's absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot. More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes." - Milton Friedman
I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
- Milton Friedman
Lots from the Fraser Institute, including "Unless we wish to continue the transfer of these billions from this lucrative endeavor to organized crime, the current policy on prohibition should be changed. Not only would we deprive some very unsavoury groups of a profound source of easy money, but also resources currently spent on marijuana enforcement would be available for other activities"
Lots from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), including "The mission of LEAP is to reduce the multitude of harms resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by ultimately ending drug prohibition." and "LEAP's goals are: (1) To educate the public, the media, and policy makers, to the failure of current drug policy by presenting a true picture of the history, causes and effects of drug use and the elevated crime rates‹more properly related to drug prohibition than to drug pharmacology‹and (2) To restore the public's respect for police, which has been greatly diminished by law enforcement's involvement in imposing drug prohibition."
Lots from the Supreme Court Decision, including:
"Canadian society is changing. Its knowledge base is growing, and its morals are evolving. Even if it was once the case, and in my view it never was, the prohibition against cannabis is no longer defensible. My analysis leads me to conclude that the little harm caused by marihuana casts doubt on the appropriateness of state intervention in this case. When I weigh the prohibition against, first, other available methods for countering the harm that marihuana use presents and, second, the problems caused by marihuana use, I must conclude that the legislation is inconsistent with the constitutional guarantee in s. 7 of the Charter."
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266 If there remained any doubt as to whether the harms associated with
marihuana use justified the state in using imprisonment as a sanction against its possession, this doubt disappears when the harms caused by the prohibition are put in the balance. The record shows and the trial judges found that the prohibition of simple possession of marihuana attempts to prevent a low quantum of harm to society at a very high cost. A "negligible" burden on the health care and welfare systems, coupled with the many significant negative effects of the prohibition, cannot be said to amount to more than little or no reasoned risk of harm to society. I thus conclude that s. 3(1) and (2) of the Narcotic Control Act, as it prohibits the possession of marihuana for personal use under threat of imprisonment, violates the right of the appellants to liberty in a manner that is not in accordance with the harm principle, a principle of fundamental justice, contrary to s. 7 of the Charter.
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276 The constitutional questions in the Caine appeal should be answered
as follows:
(1) Does prohibiting possession of Cannabis (marihuana) for personal use under s. 3(1) of the Narcotic Control Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. N-1, by reason of the inclusion of this substance in s. 3 of the Schedule to the Act (now s. 1, Schedule II, Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, S.C. 1996, c. 19), infringe s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Answer: Yes.
(2)If the answer to Question 1 is in the affirmative, is the infringement justified under s. 1 of the Charter?
Answer: No.
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280 In my mind, it cannot be denied that marihuana can cause problems of varying nature and severity to some people or to groups of them. Nevertheless, the harm its consumption may cause seems rather mild on the evidence we have. In contrast, the harm and the problems connected with the form of criminalization chosen by Parliament seem plain and important. Few people appear to be jailed for simple possession but the law remains on the books. The reluctance to enforce it to the extent of actually jailing people for the offence of simple possession seems consistent with the perception that the law, as it stands, amounts to some sort of legislative overreach to the apprehended problems associated with marihuana consumption. Moreover, besides the availability of jail as a punishment, the enforcement of the law has tarred hundreds of thousands of Canadians with the stigma of a criminal record. They have had to bear the burden of the consequences of such criminal records as Arbour J. points out. The fundamental liberty interest has been infringed by the adoption and implementation of a legislative response which is disproportionate to the societal problems at issue. It is thus arbitrary and in breach of s. 7 of the Charter. For these reasons, I agree with Arbour J. that fundamental rights are at stake, that they were breached, and that this Court must intervene as part of its duty under the Constitution to uphold the fundamental principles of our constitutional order.
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284 I agree with the majority of this Court on the arguments relating to
the protection of lifestyle and the shifting purpose of the Act. I will limit my comments to the arguments concerning the harm principle and the arbitrary nature of the legislation. The latter argument leads me to conclude that the inclusion of cannabis in the schedule to the Narcotic Control Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. N--1 (rep. & repl. S.C. 1996, c. 19, s. 94) infringes the appellants' right to liberty.
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289 The criminal law is one of the most aggressive weapons the state has
to enforce its dictates. This weapon must be wielded with great care. The courts must intervene when an enactment violates constitutional guarantees. More specifically, and without repeating the detailed comments of my colleagues, the courts must act when the right to liberty is infringed without regard for the principles of fundamental justice. In the present case, I believe Parliament has exercised its power arbitrarily.
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290 When the state prohibits socially neutral conduct, that is, conduct
that causes no harm, that is not immoral and upon which there is no societal consensus as to its blameworthiness, it cannot do so without raising a problem of legitimacy and, consequently, losing credibility. Citizens become inclined not to take the criminal justice system seriously and lose confidence in the administration of justice. Judges become reluctant to impose the sanctions attached to such laws.
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291 There are several basic tenets of criminal law that can be used
to measure the arbitrariness of a prohibition. I shall rely on three of these principles here: the need for the state to protect society from harm, the availability of tools other than criminal law that could adequately control the conduct and the proportionality of the measure to the problem in question.
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293 As mentioned by the majority, the reasons for adding marihuana to
the schedule to the Narcotic Control Act are nebulous, at best. The historical background outlined by the trial judge in the case of the appellant Caine clearly shows that Parliament's decision was made at a time when a climate of irrational fear predominated, owing to a campaign led by Edmonton magistrate Emily Murphy, who claimed that marihuana caused users to lose their minds, along with all sense of moral responsibility, becoming maniacs capable of murder and many other acts of cruelty.
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294 Fortunately, the consequences of marihuana use are nothing like
those described at that time. Although I do not accept the harm principle as an independent principle, I believe that the need for the state to protect society from harm plays an active role in any assessment of the arbitrariness of legislation.
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295 The inherent risks of marihuana use, apart from those related to
the operation of vehicles and the impact on public health care and social assistance systems, affect only the users themselves. These risks can be situated on a spectrum, ranging from no risk for occasional users to more significant risks for frequent users and vulnerable groups. On the whole, with a few exceptions, moderate use of marihuana is harmless. Thus, it seems doubtful that it is appropriate to classify marihuana consumption as conduct giving rise to a legitimate use of the criminal law in light of the Charter.
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297 The minimal harm caused by marihuana does not fit squarely
within the categories of conduct usually kept in check by the criminal law.
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298 Only three groups are traditionally identified as requiring state
intervention for their protection: young persons, pregnant women and certain people with medical conditions. This line of reasoning does not have to be pushed very far before it becomes obvious that criminal law is not society's preferred means of controlling the conduct of these groups. The use of imprisonment and all the other aspects of the criminal justice system, including the imposition of a criminal record, to suppress conduct that causes little harm to moderate users or to control high-risk groups for whom the effectiveness of deterrence or correction is highly dubious and seems to me out of keeping with Canadian society's standards of justice.
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299 This brings me to the third factor, proportionality. The harmful
effects of marihuana use have already been discussed and are highly debatable. The harm caused by its prohibition, however, is clear and significant. For the details, I refer back once again to the effects listed by Arbour J. (para. 200). A balancing of these two factors yields the result that the harm caused by prohibiting marihuana is fundamentally disproportionate to the problems created by its use that the state seeks to suppress.
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301 The harm caused by using the criminal law to punish the simple use
of marihuana far outweighs the benefits that its prohibition can bring. LeBel J. notes that the fact that jail sentences are rarely imposed illustrates the perception of judges that imprisonment is not a sanction that befits the inherent dangers of using marihuana. In the case of the appellant Caine, Howard J. also observed that the prohibition had brought the law into disrepute in the eyes of over one million people. These are exactly the kinds of reactions that are indicative of the arbitrariness of the impugned provisions. As I have already mentioned, and as Howard J. observed, when the state prohibits socially neutral conduct, it exposes itself to the risk of eroding its credibility.
"If John Lennon is deported, I'm leaving too...with my musicians..and my marijuana." - Art Garfunkel
In medicine, as in statecraft and propaganda, words are sometimes the most powerful drugs we can use.
- Dr. Sara Murray Jordan
I think that marijuana should not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry. It would be wonderful for the state of Maine. There's some pretty good homegrown dope. I'm sure it would be even better if you could grow it with fertilizers and have greenhouses.
- Stephen King
Lots from the Health Officers' Council of B.C., a group of public-health physicians, which suggested legalization was a workable strategy in its landmark discussion paper released in the fall of 2005.
The document, titled A Public Health Approach to Drug Control in Canada, contends that removing criminal penalties for personal drug possession and placing currently illegal substances under tight controls could not only help to start and maintain rehabilitation programs for addicts, but could also "reduce secondary unintended drug-related harms to society that spring from a failed criminal-prohibition approach."
The paper adds: "This would move individual harmful illegal drug use from being primarily a criminal issue to being primarily a health issue."
The arguments are persuasive: Legalizing illicit drugs would substantially reduce the crime rate, largely by driving the black market out of business and rendering it unnecessary for addicts to commit petty theft.
Lots from our 'People who support decrim' page, including: Toronto -- The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health applauds The Globe for its editorials this past week about decriminalizing the use of drugs, an important discussion that does not usually receive sufficiently researched debate. As Canada's largest addiction and mental health facility, we have strong clinical and research-based evidence to support a harm-reduction approach to drug use, including the decriminalization of cannabis.
While negative health effects can result from extensive cannabis use, studies in other jurisdictions have shown that reducing criminal sanctions for possession for personal use lessens the negative social and individual consequences, and does not lead to increased use. We urge the government to follow The Globe and the growing number of organizations and Canadians who support a more rational and balanced approach to drug policy.
- Globe And Mail 2001/08/25
The reality, said Richard Garlick of the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, is that most people who smoke dope don't get caught. It's a law that's applied in a discretionary way, he explained... "The deterrent effect ( of the law ) is extremely negligible," said Garlick, whose national drug education and prevention organization endorses decriminalization ( penalties similar to parking tickets ) rather than criminal records for marijuana users.
The pot debate has dragged on for nearly 30 years now, ever since the LeDain commission recommended dropping criminal sanctions for marijuana users. Since then, the Canadian Medical Association,
the Canadian Bar Association,
the Canadian Council of Churches,
Association of Police Chiefs,
the RCMP
and several political leaders have called for decriminalization, as distinct from legalization.
Tom Naylor, professor of economics at McGill University and expert on the underground economy, including drug trafficking, called the shift "a copout. All they are going to do is bring the law into line with actual reality." De-criminalization rather than legalization simply means the status quo, he said. "Because you don't shove people in jail - or very rarely - for smoking now. Everybody knows the law is stupid."
- Montreal Gazette 2001/06/02
As the issue of decriminalizing marijuana makes its way into the federal political arena, Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca MP Keith Martin is the latest politician to get in on the action... It's not the first time that Martin has expressed his view that people should not face criminal charges for minor possession of marijuana, as the Canadian Alliance ( CA ) MP has reintroduced a private member's bill for its second run through the House of Commons.
the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs ( CAPC ) has been supportive of the idea of decriminalizing marijuana since 1999. The RCMP has also indicated that people caught with small amounts of pot should not face criminal charges. Some Liberal MPs support decriminalization and even many right-wing members of the Canadian Alliance are saying it's time to decriminalize pot. Martin points out that his private member's bill is getting a lot of support from party members.
"If we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education" - Thomas Jefferson
The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?
- John Lennon
"Music and herb go together. It's been a long time now I smoke herb. From 1960s, when I first start singing." - Bob Marley
I don't like people who take drugs... Customs men for example.
- Mick Miller
"The biggest killer on the planet is stress and I still think the best medicine is and always has been cannabis." - Willie Nelson
Marijuana is self-punishing. It makes you acutely sensitive, and in this world, what worse punishment could there be?
- P. J. O'Rourke
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
- P. J. O'Rourke
I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police.
- Keith Richards
"When even one American who has done nothing wrong is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril." - Harry S. Truman - Former U.S. President
"Social Justice should have nothing to do with personal likes and dislikes."
- Sam Levenson
"He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it - namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain." – from "Tom Sawyer," by Mark Twain
"If you took a strain of marijuana, and tested it, it's not the THC, but all of the things together that make it good medicine. But the pharmaceuticals take THC and make it into a pill and it makes you go to sleep… or does nothing at all." - David Suzuki
"The problem is that we have a government in the pocket of big business and big business doesn't give a damn." - David Suzuki
"Putting things in proportion is an important and necessary activity. And, terrorism is bad, terrorism is evil, innocent people are hurt, it should be stopped, we need to fight it, but for heaven's sake, get it in proportion. . . . Do we spend the police budget, to take another example, on chasing people who smoke dope, or do we try to track down murderers and child abusers? Make your choices here." --Gwynne Dyer
In the Institute of Medicine's report on medical marijuana, the researchers examined the physiological risks of using marijuana and cautioned, "Marijuana is not a completely benign substance. It is a powerful drug with a variety of effects. However, except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications."
"I enjoy smoking cannabis and see no harm in it" - Jennifer Aniston
The whole imposing edifice of modern medicine, for all its breathtaking successes, is, like the celebrated Tower of Pisa, slightly off balance. It is frightening how dependent on drugs we are all becoming and how easy it is for doctors to prescribe them as the universal panacea for our ills.
- Prince Charles
"When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale." - Bill Clinton - Former U.S. President
* Biblical - Genesis 1:29
"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."
Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.
Isaiah 10:1-2
But instead, one brother goes to law against another--and this in front of unbelievers! The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.
I Corinthians 6:6-8
So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
Luke 6:36-38
Do not plot harm against your neighbor, who lives trustfully near you. Do not accuse a man for no reason- when he has done you no harm.
Proverbs 3:29-30
Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning-the third day.
Genesis 1:11-13
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground-everything that has the breath of life in it-I give every green plant for food." And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning-the sixth day.
Genesis 1:29-31
For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving...
I Timothy 4:4
"Marijuana inflames the erotic impulses and leads to revolting sex crimes" Daily Mirror (1924)
"I think the 'Just say no' mentality is so crazed. I saw a thing in a women's magazine the other day. 'He smokes cannabis, what am I to do? He laughs it off when I try to tell him, he says it's not really harmful...' Of course you're half hoping the advice will be, 'Well, you know it's not that harmful; if you love him, if you talk to him about it, tell him maybe he should keep it in the garden shed or something,' you know, a reasonable point of view. But of course it was, 'No, no, all drugs are bad. Librium's good, Valium's good. But cannabis, ooooh!' I hate that unreasoned attitude." Sir Paul McCartney
"I smoked this joint and then it hit me. I thought, what you gotta do is play your own simply blues." Iggy Pop
"Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn't like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton." Jay Leno
"I used to smoke marijuana. But I'll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening - or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early midafternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . . But never at dusk." Steve Martin
"Casual drug users should be taken out and shot" Darryl Gates Head of Los Angeles Police Department United States Senate Judiciary Committee (1990)
"Make the most of the Indian Hemp Seed and sow it everywhere." George Washington
"The drug is really quite a remarkably safe one for humans, although it
is really quite a dangerous one for mice and they should not use it." J.W.D Henderson Director of the Bureau of Human Drugs, Health and Welfare, Canada
" When you return to this mundane sphere from your visionary world, you would seem to leave a Neapolitan spring for a Lapland winter - to quit paradise for earth - heaven for hell! Taste the hashish, guest of mine - taste the hashish! " Alexander Dumas, 'The Count of Monte Cristo', 1844
"Mistrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong."
Friedrich Nietzsche
German philosopher (1844-1900)
"Our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose."
Herbert Hoover
US President
on the 18th Amendment enacting Alcohol Prohibition, 1919
"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."
Albert Einstein
"My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921
"First they ignore you; then they mock you; then they punish you; then you win."
Mahatma Ghandi
Indian independence leader
"Persons using this narcotic [marijuana] smoke the dried leaves of the plant, which has the effect of driving them completely insane. The addict loses all sense of moral responsibility. Addicts to this drug, while under its influence, are immune to pain, and could be injured without having any realization of their condition. While in this condition they become raving maniacs and are liable to kill or indulge in any form of violence to other persons, using the most savage methods of cruelty without, as said before, any sense of moral responsibility. . . . If this drug is indulged in to any great extent, it ends in the untimely death of its addict."
Emily Murphy
Edmonton Canada, 1923
campaigner for cannabis prohibition in Canada
"I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigarette can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents. That's why our problem is so great; the greatest percentage of our population is composed of Spanish-speaking persons, most of who are low mentally, because of social and racial conditions."
Floyd K. Baskette
Alamosa, Colorado
quoted by Harry J. Anslinger,
Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics
during the hearings on the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Upton Sinclair
Author of "The Jungle"
"Since you [US "drug tsar" McCaffrey] control a federal budget that has just been increased from $17.8 billion last year to $19.2 billion this year, is asking people like you if we should continue with our nation's current drug policy like a person asking a barber if one needs a haircut?"
Judge James P. Gray
Orange Country, California
Los Angeles Times
29 March 2000
"When we look down the road, I would say 10, 15, 20 years from now, in a gradual fashion, smoking will probably be outlawed in the United States."
Tom Constantine
Administrator of the DEA
in an interview with ABC TV network
"You're asking the government to control individual morality.
This is a government that can't buy a toilet seat for under $600."
Peter McWilliams
Author of "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do"
"The question arises, therefore, why cannabis is so regularly banned in countries where alcohol is permitted. [...] It may be that we can ban cannabis simply because the people who use it, or would do so, carry little weight in social matters and are relatively easy to control, whereas the alcohol user often carries plenty of weight in social matters and is difficult to control, as the U.S. prohibition era showed. It has yet to be shown, however, that the one is more socially or personally disruptive than the other."
Ph.D. H.B.M Murphy, M.D.
Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal.
"The Cannabis Habit" (1963)
published in 'Bulletin on Narcotics' by UNDCP
"Our youth can not understand why society chooses to criminalize a behavior with so little visible ill effect or adverse social impact... These young people have jumped the fence and found no cliff. And the disrespect for the possession laws fosters a disrespect for laws and the system in general... On top of this is the distinct impression among the youth that some police may use the marihuana laws to arrest people they don't like for other reasons, whether it be their politics, their hair style or their ethnic background."
"Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use."
;
"State laws should make the public use of marijuana a criminal offense punishable by a $100 fine. Under federal law, marijuana smoked in public would merely be subject to seizure."
;
President Richard M. Nixon's
National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse
"Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding"
March 1972
"Criminal penalties have clearly failed to prevent widespread use of marijuana... Law and health are two entirely separate issues."
Bob DuPont
Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse
President Nixon's 'drug czar'
1974 NORML annual conference
"Congress should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana... We should concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are a menace to society."
Dan Quayle
U.S. Representative and
Vice president under President Bush
March 1977
"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce [28g] of marihuana."
Jimmy Carter
U.S. President
Message to congress
1977
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves. -- Ronald Reagan, US President, The New York Times, April 13, 1980
"The existing evidence on policies of partial prohibition [decriminalization] indicates that partial prohibition has been as effective in controlling consumption as complete prohibition and has entailed considerably smaller social, legal, and economic costs. On balance, therefore, we believe that a policy of partial prohibition is clearly preferable to a policy of complete prohibition of supply and use.
We believe, further) that current policies directed at controlling the supply of marijuana should be seriously reconsidered. The demonstrated ineffectiveness of control of use through prohibition of supply and the high costs of implementing such a policy make it very unlikely that any kind of partial prohibition policy will be effective in reducing marijuana use significantly below present levels. (...) Hence, a variety of alternative policies should be considered."
National Research Council of the
U.S. National Academy of Science
"An Analysis of Marijuana Policy"
1982
"Western governments ... will lose the war against dealers unless efforts are switched to prevention and therapy... All penalties for drug users should be dropped ... Making drug abuse a crime is useless and even dangerous ... Every year we seize more and more drugs and arrest more and more dealers but at the same time the quantity available in our countries still increases... Police are losing the drug battle worldwide."
Raymond Kendall
secretary general of INTERPOL
January 1994
"The amount of money and of legal energy being given to prosecute hundreds of thousands of Americans who are caught with a few ounces of marijuana [1 ounce = 28g] in their jeans simply makes no sense - the kindest way to put it. A sterner way to put it is that it is an outrage, an imposition on basic civil liberties and on the reasonable expenditure of social energy."
William F. Buckley
"Legalization of Marijuana Long Overdue"
Albuquerque Journal
June 8, 1993
"So long as large sums of money are involved - and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal - it is literally impossible to stop the traffic, or even to make a serious reduction in its scope."
"Our emphasis here is based not only on the growing seriousness of drug-related crimes, but also on the belief that relieving our police and our courts from having to fight losing battles against drugs will enable their energies and facilities to be devoted more fully to combatting other forms of crime. We would thus strike a double blow: reduce crime activity directly, and at the same time increase the efficacy of law enforcement and crime prevention."
Milton Friedman
Nobel prize winner
"Tyranny of the Status Quo"
Milton Friedman, along with John Maynard Keynes, is considered one of the most influential economists of the 20th century.
"There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs."
;
"Although few marijuana users develop dependence, some do. Risk factors for marijuana dependence are similar to those for other forms of substance abuse. In particular, antisocial personality and conduct disorders are closely associated with substance abuse. (...) A distinctive marijuana withdrawal syndrome has been identified, but it is mild and short-lived."
;
"Except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications."
;
"Research should continue into the physiological effects of synthetic and plant-derived cannabinoids and the natural function of cannabinoids found in the body. Because different cannabinoids appear to have different effects, cannabinoid research should include, but not be restricted to, effects attributable to THC alone."
;
"Scientific data indicate the potential therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs for pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation. This value would be enhanced by a rapid onset of drug effect."
;
"Until a non-smoked, rapid-onset cannabinoid drug delivery system becomes available, we acknowledge that there is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting."
;
Report of the Institute of Medicine
for the Office of National Drug Control Policy
Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base
17 March 1999
"I’d always done a lot of (sniffing) glue as a kid. I was very interested in glue, and then I went to lager and speed, and I drifted into heroin because as a kid growing up everybody told me, ‘don’t smoke marijuana, it will kill you’ ..."
Irvine Walsh
author of the best-selling novel "Trainspotting",
about his own experience with drug abuse.
"By any of the major criteria of harm - mortality, morbidity, toxicity, addictiveness and relationship with crime - [cannabis] is less harmful than any of the other major illicit drugs, or than alcohol or tobacco."
Report of the British Police Foundation
March 2000
"I support decriminalization. People are smoking pot anyway and to make them criminal is wrong."
Sir Paul McCartney
Musician
September 1997
And here we come to the vital distinction between the advocacy of temperance and the advocacy of prohibition. Temperance and self-control are convertible terms. Prohibition, or that which it implies, is the direct negation of the term self-control. In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, it aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike. And if this is proper in one respect, why not in all respects? Yet, what would one think of a proposition to keep all men locked up because a certain number have a propensity to steal? -- Felix Mendelsohn, 1915
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. -- George Santayana, "The Life of Reason"
I'd rather that England should be free than that England should be compulsorily sober. With freedom we might in the end attain sobriety, but in the other alternative we should eventually lose both freedom and sobriety. -- W.C. Magee, Archbishop of York, "Sermon at Peterborough," 1868
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. -- C.S. Lewis, in "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment," an essay from "God In The Dock"
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. -- John Stuart Mill
Totalitarianism is when people believe they can punish their way to perfection. -- House Speaker Newt Gingrich, at a President's Day Republican fundraiser, May 1998
[In] my era everybody smoked and everybody drank and there was no drug use -- Current DEA Chief Thomas Constantine, July 1, 1998
Yes, if we harm ourselves it may emotionally harm others. That's unfortunate, but not grounds for putting us in jail. If it were, every time we stopped dating person A in order to date person B, we would run the risk of going to jail for hurting person A. If person B were hurt by our being put in jail, person A could be put in jail for hurting person B. This would, of course, hurt person A's mother, who would see to it that person B would go to jail. Eventually, we'd all be in jail. ... Roughly half of the arrests and court cases in the United States each year involve consensual crimes - actions that are against the law, but directly harm no one's person or property except, possibly, the "criminal's." More than 750,000 people are in jail right now because of something they did, something that did not physically harm the person or property of another. In addition, more than 3,000,000 people are on parole or probation for consensual crimes. Further, more than 4,000,000 people are arrested each year for doing something that hurts no one but, potentially, themselves. -- Peter McWilliams, Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do
Whenever the offense inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. -- Edward Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," 1776
The passing of an unjust law is the suicide of authority. -- Pastoral Letter of the American Roman Catholic Hierarchy, February 1920
The greatest service that can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture. -- Thomas Jefferson
Abusus non tollit usum. [Abuse is no argument against proper use.] -- Latin proverb
If you say, "Would there were no wine" because of the drunkards, then you must say, going on by degrees, "Would there were no steel," because of the murderers, "Would there were no night," because of the thieves, "Would there were no light," because of the informers, and "Would there were no women," because of adultery. -- St. John Chrysostom, "Homilies," circa 388
The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty. -- Lord Hailsham, former Chief Justice, "The Dilemma of Democracy"
Corruptisima republica plurimae leges. [The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.] -- Tacitus, Annals III 27
Republic . . . it means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose. -- John Wayne
I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse. -- Brendan Behan (1923-1964)
Narcotics police are an enormous, corrupt international bureaucracy ... and now fund a coterie of researchers who provide them with 'scientific support' ... fanatics who distort the legitimate research of others. ... The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help, and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents. -- William F. Buckley, Commentary in The National Review, April 29, 1983, p. 495
A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them. -- H. L. Mencken, 1918
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. -- Saul Bellow
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other in order that the people may require a leader. -- Plato
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -
Author: Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton -
Source: Richelieu (act III, sc. 1, l. 49)
Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law. -- Justice Louis Brandeis
He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it - namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain. -- "Tom Sawyer," by Mark Twain, Chapter 2, "The Glorious Whitewasher"
In any civilized society, it is every citizen's responsibility to obey just laws. But at the same time, it is every citizen's responsibility to disobey unjust laws. -- Martin Luther King Jr.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. -- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience," 1849
In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up. -- Pastor Martin Niemoller
When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.
When they took the 5th Amendment, I was quiet because I wasn't a criminal.
When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't own a gun.
Now they've taken the 1st Amendment, and I can say nothing about it. -- author unknown
The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are constitutional rights secure. - Albert Einstein
[There is] a duty in refusing to cooperate in any undertaking that violates the Constitutional rights of the individual. This holds in particular for all inquisitions that are concerned with the private life and the political affiliations of the citizens. -- Albert Einstein
An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. -- James A. Michener (1907-1997), in the novel, "Space" (1982)
One candle can light a thousand others without diminishing its light. -- Proverbial
If the doors of perception were cleansed
every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things
thru' narrow chinks of his cavern. -- William Blake (1757-1828)
All war is based on deception. -- "The Art of War," by Sun Tzu, circa 500 BC
. . . In any war, the first casualty is common sense, and the second is free and open discussion. -- James Reston, The New York Times, 1965
The first casualty when war comes is the truth. -- California Senator Hiram Johnson, 1917
So long as mankind shall continue to lavish more praise upon its destroyers than upon its benefactors war shall remain the chief pursuit of ambitious minds. -- Edward Gibbon
Magnifique, mais ce n n'est pas la guerre. [It's magnificent, but it's not war.] -- French General Rene Bosquet, witnessing the charge of the Light Brigade against Russian cannon
In war there are no winners. -- Neville Chamberlain
War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. -- Thomas Mann
The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it; but there it is. -- Winston Churchill
Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth. -- Mohandas K. Gandhi
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. -- Upton Sinclair, "The Jungle"
This vice brings in 100 million francs each year. I will certainly forbid it at once - as soon as you can name a virtue that brings in as much revenue. -- Napoleon Bonaparte
To make certain that crime does not pay, the government should take it over and try to run it. -- G. Norman Collie
La cucaracha, las cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque le quiere
Porque la falta
Un marijuana que fumar
[The cockroach, the cockroach
He can't travel
Because he wants
Because he lacks
Marijuana to smoke] -- traditionally sung by and about Pancho Villa's soldiers
When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril. -- Harry S. Truman
There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society with a large segment of people in that society who feel that they have nothing to lose. People who have a stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it. -- Martin Luther King Jr.
When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny. -- Thomas Jefferson
It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error. -- U.S. Supreme Court, in American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382,442
The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind. -- Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality. -- Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men. -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That is the essence of inhumanity. -- George Bernard Shaw
We should not forget that our tradition is one of protest and revolt and that it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past. . .while we silence the rebels of the present. -- H.S. Commager
We cannot, by total reliance on law, escape the duty to judge right and wrong... There are good laws and there are occasionally bad laws, and it conforms to the highest traditions of a free society to offer resistance to bad laws, and to disobey them. -- Constitutional scholar Alexander Bickel
Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can't stop what it's meant to stop.
We like it.
It's left a trail of graft and slime
It don't prohibit worth a dime
It's filled our land with vice and crime,
Nevertheless, we're for it.
-- newspaperman Franklin P. Adams, 1931, in the New York World, on the release of the Wickersham Commission report
Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth. -- Will Rogers
I am against Prohibition because it has set the cause of temperence back twenty years; because it has substituted an ineffective campaign of force for an effective campaign of education; because it has replaced comparatively uninjurious light wines and beers with the worst kind of hard liquor and bad liquor; because it has increased drinking not only among men but has extended drinking to women and even children. -- William Randolph Hearst, initially a supporter of Prohibition, explaining his change of mind in 1929. From "Drink: A Social History of America" by Andrew Barr (1999), p. 239.
Insanity [is] ... Continuing to do the same things and expecting different results. -- Albert Einstein
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. -- Seneca, A.D. 65
For over fifty years the United States has been committed to a policy of suppressing the "abuse" of narcotic and other "dangerous" drugs. The primary instrument in carrying out this policy has been the criminal sanction. The results of this reliance on the criminal sanction have included the following:
(1) Several hundred thousand people, the overwhelming majority of whom have been primarily users rather than traffickers, have been subjected to severe criminal punishment.
(2) An immensely profitable illegal traffic in narcotic and other forbidden drugs has developed.
(3) This illegal traffic has contributed significantly to the growth and prosperity of organized criminal groups.
(4) A substantial number of all acquisitive crimes - burglary, robbery, auto theft, other forms of larceny - have been committed by drug users in order to get the wherewithal to pay the artificially high prices charged for drugs on the illegal market.
(5) Billions of dollars and a significant proportion of total law enforcement resources have been expended in all stages of the criminal process.
(6) A disturbingly large number of undesirable police practices - unconstitutional searches and seizures, entrapment, electronic surveillance have become habitual because of the great difficulty that attends the detection of narcotics offenses.
(7) The burden of enforcement has fallen primarily on the urban poor, especially Negroes and Mexican-Americans.
(8) Research on the causes, effects, and cures of drug use has been stultified.
(9) The medical profession has been intimidated into neglecting its accustomed role of relieving this form of human misery.
(10) A large and well-entrenched enforcement bureaucracy has developed a vested interest in the status quo, and has effectively thwarted all but the most marginal reforms.
(11) Legislative invocations of the criminal sanction have automatically and unthinkingly been extended from narcotics to marijuana to the flood of new mind-altering drugs that have appeared in recent years, thereby compounding the preexisting problem.
A clearer case of misapplication of the criminal sanction would be difficult to imagine. -- "The Limits of the Criminal Sanction," by Herbert Packer, 1968
Power is sweet; it is a drug, the desire for which increases with a habit. -- Bertrand Russell, in The Saturday Review, 1951
If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business. -- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
Force loses its legitimacy when it is used instead of free and open discussion. -- Colombian diplomat Gustavo de Greiff
In defense of the Pygmies, perhaps I should note that a friend of mine who has spent time with them says that for such activities as the patient stalking and hunting of mammals and fish they prepare themselves through marijuana intoxication, which helps to make the long waits, boring to anyone further evolved than a Komodo dragon, at least moderately tolerable. Ganja is, he says, their only cultivated crop. It would be wryly interesting if in human history the cultivation of marijuana led generally to the invention of agriculture, and thereby to civilization. (The marijuana-intoxicated Pygmy, poised patiently for an hour with his fishing spear aloft, is earnestly burlesqued by the beer-sodden riflemen, protectively camouflaged in red plaid, who, stumbling through the nearby woods, terrorize American suburbs each Thanksgiving.) -- Carl Sagan, "The Dragons of Eden, Speculations on the Origin of Human Intelligence," footnote on p. 191, 1978 paperback edition, copyright 1977
And now for the vapor-bath: on a framework of three sticks, meeting at the top, they stretch pieces of woolen cloth, taking care to get the joints as perfect as they can, and inside this little tent they put a dish with red-hot stones in it. Then they take some hemp seed, creep into the tent, and throw the seed on to the hot stones. At once it begins to smoke, giving off a vapor unsurpassed by any vapor-bath one could find in Greece. The Sythians enjoy it so much that they howl with pleasure. This is their substitute for an ordinary bath in water, which they never use. -- Herodotus, 446 B.C.
The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England cannot enter - all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!. -- William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham, during a 1763 debate in Parliament
Each time a (person) stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others... he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. -- Robert F. Kennedy
The fight against drug trafficking is a wildfire that threatens to consume those fundamental rights of the individual deliberately enshrined in our Constitution. -- U.S. District Judge Juan Burciaga, Sept. 4, 1991
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. -- Thomas Jefferson
It is better do die on your feet than live a lifetime on your knees. -- Emiliano Zapata
Give to every other human being every right you claim for yourself. -- Robert Green Ingersoll
Silence gives consent. -- Canon Law
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave. -- William Drummond
The oppression of a majority is detestable and odious; the oppression of a minority is only by one degree less detestable and odious. -- William Ewart Gladstone
The God that gave us life gave us liberty at the same time. -- Thomas Jefferson
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression. -- Thomas Paine
Where is there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in his heart? -- Leo Tolstoy
The marvel of history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. -- William E. Borah
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. -- Thomas Jefferson
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot long retain it. -- Abraham Lincoln
It would be a good time to replace the drug war with something more constructive. The cure offered the drug war today has probably been more harmful and done more damage than the disease. -- George McGovern
It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny. -- James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. -- James Madison
If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else. -- Thomas Jefferson
. . . the solution is not to toss youthful offenders into jail or prisons. We long ago recognized alcoholism to be a disease, and abondoned efforts to treat alcoholics simply by locking them up. -- Oregon Governor Tom McCall
You all know I have terminal cancer - and I have a lot of it. But what you may not know is that stress induces its spread and induces its activity. Stress may even bring it on. -- Oregon Governor Tom McCall, quoted in "Fire at at Eden's Gate: Tom McCall and the Oregon Story," by Brent Walth, Oregon Historical Society Press, 1994
The biggest killer on the planet is stress and I still think the best medicine is and always has been cannabis. -- Willie Nelson, High Times, January 1991
“The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies.”
Lester B. Pearson
“Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.”
Lester B. Pearson
“We have achieved the most amazing things, a few million people opening up half a continent. But we have not yet found a Canadian soul except in time of war.”
Lester B. Pearson
A great gulf, however, has been opened between man's material advance and his social and moral progress, a gulf in which he may one day be lost if it is not closed or narrowed.
Lester B. Pearson
But while we all pray for peace, we do not always, as free citizens, support the policies that make for peace or reject those which do not. We want our own kind of peace, brought about in our own way.
Lester B. Pearson
I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given to participate in that work as a representative of my country, Canada, whose people have, I think, shown their devotion to peace.
Lester B. Pearson
The choice, however, is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction.
Lester B. Pearson
We know now that in modern warfare, fought on any considerable scale, there can be no possible economic gain for any side. Win or lose, there is nothing but waste and destruction.
Lester B. Pearson
We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest.
Lester B. Pearson
Whatever it is that leads men to fight and suffer, to face mutilation and death, the motive is not now self-interest in any material sense.
Lester B. Pearson
The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees. -- President Bill Clinton, August 12, 1993
The United States can't be so fixed on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans . . . . -- Bill Clinton, March 1, 1993, during a press conference in Piscataway, N.J. (Boston Globe, 3/2/93, page 3; and USA Today, 3/11/93
. . . unfortunately, we can't control the actions of everyone. -- Bill Clinton, April 20, 1993
When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly . . . [However, now] there's a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. -- Bill Clinton, MTV's "Enough is Enough," March 22, 1994
DEA Success Update: Let's see. After 20 years of relentless federal Drug War activity, while the price of world-class marijuana has gone from $60 an ounce to $450, the price of quality cocaine has plummeted from $125 a gram to $30, and 30%-pure heroin has dropped from $700 a gram to about $100. Way to go, boys! -- High Times, April 1995
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large armaments industry is new in the American experience. The total influence, economic, political, even spiritual, is felt in every city, in every statehouse, every office in the federal government. We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, farewell address January 17, 1961
Cannabis is not an addictive substance. Less than 1 percent of marijuana consumers are daily users. -- Ontario Justice J.F. McCart, 1997
If you will not fight for the right
when you can easily win without bloodshed;
if you will not fight
when your victory will be sure and not too costly;
you may come to the moment when you will have to fight
with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival.
There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight
when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. -- Winston Churchill
Two of the gravest general dangers to survival are the desire for comfort and a passive outlook. -- U.S. Army Ranger Handbook
Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be, the man who thinks, becomes a light and a power. -- Henry George 1839-1897
Most of these guys who aided the killings were pencil pushers like you and me. Auschwitz is unique on the face of the earth, not because 1.5 million people died because of hatred, not because it is the largest graveyard in the world. It is unique because the people were killed by a dispassionate bureaucracy. -- Jerry Markle, WMU sociology professor
Whenever "A" attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon "B," "A" is most likely a scoundrel. -- H.L. Mencken
Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction . . . if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong. -- Alexander Hamilton, 1804
If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states, then the juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that once was the citizen's safeguard of liberty. -- Justice Theophilus Parsons, 1788
It is not only the juror's right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the instruction of the court. -- John Adams, 1771
There has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the power and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what is the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their power, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and find all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws. -- Lysander Spooner, 1852
Stop tolerating in your leaders what you would not tolerate in your friends. -- Michael Ventura
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -- U.S. Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
I believe that the heaviest blow ever dealt at liberty's head will be dealt by this nation in the ultimate failure of its example to the earth. -- Charles Dickens, on "America"
If I instituted drug testing at Cypress, I would get a brick through my windshield, and I would deserve it. -- T.J. Rogers, President, Cypress Semiconductor
The right to be left alone - the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people. -- Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. U.S. (1928)
Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potato as an article of food. Government is just as fallible, too, when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the Inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere; the government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. ... Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. -- Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on the State of Virginia," 1787
There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. -- Bertrand Russell, "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"
Any fool can make a rule, and Every fool will follow it. -- Henry David Thoreau
Not only are we here to protect the public from vicious criminals in the street but also to protect the public from harmful ideas. -- Robert Ingersoll, then Director of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, in a column by Jack Anderson in the Washington Post, June 24, 1972, p. 31 (Ingersoll became the first director of the DEA in 1974)
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. [Who will police the police?] -- Latin proverb
I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. -- Thomas Carlyle
The point is that a great army of the American people oppose these laws. Nobody can say that that is a healthy condition in our democracy. Nobody can say that people like ours are comfortable when so many of our thinking citizens resist the attempt on the part of the government to regulate their conduct by law. The natural result of it is the breeding throughout the length and breadth of the country of a disrespect for all law. Nobody can gainsay the fact that the Prohibition law and the Volstead Act have found a new line of endeavor for the underworld; they brought to life the bootleggers, and the bootleggers begot the hijackers, and the hijackers the racketeers, so that gangland is interested in the maintenance of Prohibition because by its operation they are benefited.
I believe in temperance. We have not achieved temperance under the present system. The mothers and fathers of young men and young women throughout this land know the anxiety and worry which has been brought to them by their children's use of liquor in a way which was unknown before Prohibition. I believe in reverence for law. I raise, therefore, what I profoundly believe to be a great moral issue involving the righteousness of our national conduct and the protection of our children's morals. -- Alfred E. Smith, presidential campaign speech, Sept. 29, 1928, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Written laws are like spiders' webs; they hold the weak and delicate who might be caught in their meshes, but are torn in pieces by the rich and powerful. -- Anacharsis (f.c. 600 BC), in Plutarch's "Solon"
Right conduct can never, except by some rare accident, be promoted by ignorance or hindered by knowledge. -- Bertrand Russell
For every complex problem there is an easy answer, and it is wrong. -- H.L. Mencken
I never use the word "drug" without defining it. I define it exactly the way the DEA defines it, "a chemical compound capable of reproduction in standardized dosages." I explain that marijuana is a plant with many drugs in it, just like any other plant. -- Carl Olsen, Ohio NORML, in a message to the Drug Reform Coordination Network's "DRCTalk" listserver, Digest #459, Nov. 1, 1995
"How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can only be conjectured...No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a joyous reveller in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher, or a murderer..." HARRY J ANSLINGER Commissioner of the US Bureau of Narcotics 1930-1962
Marijuana is taken by ".....musicians. And I'm not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type..."
Harry J. Anslinger
Federal Bureau of Narcotics
1948
"...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."
Harry J. Anslinger
"Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."
Harry J. Anslinger
"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."
Harry J. Anslinger
"Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing"
Harry J. Anslinger
"You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."
Harry J. Anslinger
"Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind."
Harry J. Anslinger
There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others. -- Harry Anslinger, 1937 testimony to Congress in support of the Marijuana Tax Act.
Ignorance is no excuse for the law -- Bill D'Amico (damico@moose.cs.indiana.edu), 1994 Indiana legislature campaign slogan
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters. -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. -- John Locke (1632-1704)
What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. -- Hanna Arendt
Honesty is likely to make a greater and more lasting impression on our children than political posturing and hysteria. -- New England Journal of Medicine, Aug. 7, 1997
Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave, when they think that their children are naive. -- Ogden Nash
More Colombians die from diseases caused by American tobacco products than do Americans from Colombian cocaine. -- NORML News, New Zealand, as quoted in the final issue of Sinsemilla Tips, Vol. 9, No. 2, circa summer 1990, pp. 12-13
So much for the crusade against drugs . . . all America is actually doing is consolidating its position as the biggest dealer in addictive and lethal substances on the planet, waging war on all rivals, whether they take the form of the Thai domestic tobacco industry or the Colombian cocaine cartels. -- Columnist Alexander Cockburn, in response to news that Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco expect to sell 34 billion cigarettes in the Soviet Union by the end of 1991, The Wall Street Journal, as quoted in the final issue of Sinsemilla Tips, Vol. 9, No. 2, circa summer 1990, pp. 12-13
It is impossible to tell whether prohibition is a good thing or a bad thing. It has never been enforced in this country. -- Fiorella H. LaGuardia, The National Prohibition Law, Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 69th Congress, 1st Session (1926): 649-52
I smoke marijuana every chance I get. -- Allen Ginsberg, "America," 1956
Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil - only evil - and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs. -- Roger Q. Mills of Texas, 1887, quoted repeatedly during a December 1914 debate in Congress over alcohol Prohibition
It happened that a Countryman was sowing some hemp seeds in a field where a Swallow and some other birds were hopping about picking up their food. "Beware of that man," quoth the Swallow. "Why, what is he doing?" said the others. "That is hemp seed he is sowing; be careful to pick up every one of the seeds, or else you will repent it." The birds paid no heed to the Swallow's words, and by and by the hemp grew up and was made into cord, and of the cords nets were made, and many a bird that had despised the Swallow's advice was caught in nets made out of that very hemp. "What did I tell you?" said the Swallow. Destroy the seed of evil, or it will grow up to your ruin. -- "The Swallow and the Other Birds," Aesop's Fables
What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so sweet or peace so dear as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! -- Patrick Henry, March 1775
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. -- Tom Paine, 1737-1809
I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery. -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood. -- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, passed unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly in December, 1948
We can never solve our significant problems from the same level of thinking we were at when we created the problems. -- Albert Einstein
When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that an opinion is false, because it is of dangerous consequences. -- David Hume (1711-1776)
The highest result of education is tolerance. -- Helen Keller
The purpose of education is to make the choices clear to people, not to make the choices for people. -- Peter McWilliams, Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do
If they can get you to ask the wrong questions, then they don't need to worry about what answers you come up with. -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
They can do anything we can't stop them from doing. -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
I welcome the emphasis that is now being put on the drug problem. The efforts - to get to the people who are addicted, try to rehabilitate them; if they cannot be rehabilitated, at least to contain them; to educate people, to strongly discourage use of drugs by people who are casual users and first users, to stop this process among the young - all of these things are extremely important.
But, I have to tell you that it seems to me that the conceptual basis of the current program is flawed and the program is not likely to work. The conceptual base - a criminal-justice approach - is the same that I have worked through before, in the Nixon administration when I was Budget Director and Secretary of the Treasury with jurisdiction over the Customs. We designed a comprehensive program, and we worked hard on it. In the Reagan administration we designed a comprehensive program; we worked very hard on it. Our international efforts were far greater than ever before. You're looking at a guy whose motorcade was attacked in Bolivia by the drug terrorists, so I'm personally a veteran of this war.
What we have before us now is essentially the same program but with more resources ploughed into all of the efforts to enforce and control. These efforts wind up creating a market where the price vastly exceeds the cost, With these incentives, demand creates its own supply and a criminal network along with it. It seems to me we're not really going to get anywhere until we can take the criminality out of the drug business and the incentives for criminality out of it. Frankly, the only way I can think of to accomplish this is to make it possible for addicts to buy drugs at some regulated place at a price that approximates their cost. When you do that you wipe out the criminal incentive, including, I might say, the incentive that the the drug pushers have to go around and get kids addicted, so that they create a market for themselves. They won't have that incentive because they won't have that market.
So I think the conceptual base needs to be thought out in a different way. We need at least to consider and examine forms of controlled legalisation of drugs.
I find it very difficult to say that. Sometimes at a reception or cocktail party I advance these views and people head for somebody else. They don't even want to talk to you. I know that I'm shouting into the breeze here as far as what we're doing now. But I feel that if somebody doesn't get up and start talking about this now, the next time around, when we have the next iteration of these programs, it will still be true that everyone is scared to talk about it. No politician wants to say what I have just said, not for a minute. -- former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Oct. 7, 1990, addressing an alumni gathering at the Stanford Business School where he had returned to the faculty.
Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more you must have of the former. -- Horace Mann
To this day we seem to act in the world as though we know what's right for everybody. -- Robert McNamara, "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam." 1995
Our current drug crisis is a tragedy born of a phony system of classification. For reasons that are little more than accidents of history, we have divided a group of nonfood substances into two categories: items purchasable for supposed pleasure (such as alcohol), and illicit drugs. The categories were once reversed. Opiates were legal in America before the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, and members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, who campaigned against alcohol during the day, drank their valued "women's tonics" at night, products laced with laudanum (tincture of opium).
I could abide - though I would still oppose - our current intransigence if we applied the principle of total interdiction to all harmful drugs. But how can we possibly defend our current policy based on a dichotomy that encourages us to view one class of substances as a preeminent scourge while the two most dangerous and life-destroying substances by far, alcohol and tobacco, form a second class advertised in neon on every street corner of urban America? And why, moreover, should heroin be viewed with horror while chemical cognates that are no different from heroin than lemonade is from iced tea perform work of enormous compassion by relieving the pain of terminal cancer patients in their last days? -- evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould, "Taxonomy as Politics," in Dissent, Winter 1990, p. 73
Of all serious crimes under the law, smuggling... least violates the consciences of men. It is a crime against law and against government, but not against morality. The smuggler robs no man. He buys goods honestly in one market and sells them honestly in another. His offense is against an arbitrary regulation of government.... he simply fails to pay its demands. Many men otherwise honest are unable to see any moral turpitude in smuggling. ...government, in exacting toll, plays the part of the highwayman. -- "The Kaasan Bay 'Find,'" editorial, The Oregonian, Jan. 21, 1886, p. 2
Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself....
[During the Inquisition,] by paying so much attention to the devil and by treating witchcraft as the most heinous of crimes, the theologians and the inquisitors actually spread the beliefs and fostered the practices which they were trying so hard to repress....
Today it is everywhere self-evident that we are on the side of Light, they on the side of Darkness. And being on the side of Darkness, they deserve to be punished and must be liquidated (since our divinity justifies everything) by the most fiendish means at our disposal. By laboriously worshiping ourselves as Ormuzd, and by regarding the other fellow as Ahriman, the Principle of Evil, we of the twentieth century are doing our best to guarantee the triumph of diabolism in our time. -- Aldous Huxley, "The Devils of Loudun"
To the wicked, everything serves as pretext. -- Voltaire (1694-1778)
Revolutions, we must remember, are always made by minorities. -- Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1941)
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead
There's as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment as there is for a hummingbird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail. -- Prohibitionist visionary Senator Morris Shepard of Texas, 1930
The voters in this country
should not be expected to decide
which medicines are safe and effective.
-- Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey
If people let government decide
which foods they eat and medicines they take,
their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state
as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.
-- Thomas Jefferson
The drys seemingly are afraid of the truth. Why not take inventory and ascertain the true conditions. Let us not leave it to the charge of an antiprohibition organization, or to any other private association, let us have an official survey and let the American people know what is going on. A complete and honest and impartial survey would reveal incredible conditions.... -- Fiorella H. LaGuardia, The National Prohibition Law, Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 69th Congress, 1st Session (1926): 649-52
I don't know of anyone who can make a dollar go further than policemen and dry agents. By frugality, after a year in the service, they acquire automobiles and diamonds. -- Rev. Marna S. Poulson, superintendent of the New Jersey Anti-Saloon League, in a May 1925 address to a prohibition rally in Atlantic City, as reported in the New York Times and the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings of 1926 on National Prohibition.
The difference between a policy and a crusade is that a policy is judged by its results, while a crusade is judged by how good it makes its crusaders feel. -- Thomas Sowell
I presume, like the rest of us in the country, you are in the habit of household manufacture, and that you will not, like too many, abandon it on the return of peace, to enrich our late enemy, and to nourish foreign agents in our bosom, whose baneful influence & intrigues cost us so much embarrassment & dissension. the shirting for our laborers has been an object of some difficulty. flax is so injurious to our lands, and of so scanty produce, that I have never attempted it. hemp, on the other hand, is abundantly productive and will grow for ever on the same spot, but the breaking and beating of it, which has always been done by hand, is so slow, and so laborious, and so much complained of by our laborers, that I have given it up, and purchased & manufactured cotton for their shirting, the advance price of this however now makes it a serious item of expence; and in the mean time a method of removing the difficulty of preparing hemp occurred to me, so simple & so cheap, that I return to its culture and manufacture.
To a person having a threshing machine, the addition of a hemp break will not cost more than 12. or 15. D. you know that the first mover in that machine is a horizontal horsewheel with cogs on it's upper face. on these is placed a wallower and shaft which give motion to the threshing apparatus. on the opposite side of this same wheel I place another wallower and shaft, thro' which, and near it's outer end, I pass a cross-arm of sufficient strength, projecting on each side 15. I. in this form, nearly under the cross arm is placed a very strong hemp-break, much stronger & heavier than those for the hand, it's head block particularly is massive, and 4. f. high, and near it's upper end, in front, is fixed a strong pin (which we may call it's horn). by this time the cross arm lifts & lets fall the break with hemp stalks, and a little person holds under the head block a large twist of tobacco but larger, where it is more perfectly beaten than I have ever seen done by hand. if the horse wheel has 144. cogs, the wallower 11. rounds, and the horse goes 3 times round in a minute, it will give about 80. strokes in a minute.
I had fixed a break to be moved by the gate of my sawmill, which broke & beat at the rate of 200. lb. a day. but the inconveniences of interrupting that induced me to try the power of a horse, and I have found it answer perfectly, the power being less, so also probably will be the effect, of which I cannot make a fair trial until I commence on the new crop. I expect that a single horse will do the breaking & beating of 10 men. something of this kind has been so long wanted by the cultivators of hemp , that as soon as I can speak of it's effect with certainty, I shall probably describe it anonymously in the public papers, in order to forestall the prevention of it's use by some interloping patentee. -- Thomas Jefferson, Letters, December 29, 1815 (To George Fleming)
Don't hate the media, become the media. -- Jello Biafra
Listen to me and understand this: A man is not defiled by what goes into his mouth, but by what comes out of it. -- Matthew 15:11
And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth. -- Genesis 1:29
You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. -- John 8:32
Though I speak with the tongues of angels, if I have no compassion, I am a hollow-sounding gong. -- I Corinthians
They forbid marriage and inculcate abstinence from certain foods, though God created them to be enjoyed with thanksgiving by believers who have inward knowledge of the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected when it is taken with thanksgiving. -- 1 Timothy 4:3-4
You must not take up an untrue report. Do not cooperate with a wicked one by becoming a witness who schemes violence. You must not follow after the crowd for evil ends; and you must not testify over a controversy so as to turn aside with the crowd in order to pervert justice. ...You are to keep far from a false word. And do not kill the innocent and the righteous, for I shall not declare the wicked one righteous. -- Exodus 23:1-2, 7
Be on the watch for the false prophets that come to you in sheep's covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will recognize them. Never do people gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they? Likewise every good tree produces fine fruit, but every rotten tree produces worthless fruit; a good tree cannot bear worthless fruit, neither can a rotten tree produce fine fruit. Every tree not producing fine fruit gets cut down and thrown into the fire. Really, then, by their fruits you will recognize those [men]. -- Matthew 7:15-20
Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness' sake: For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. -- Matthew 5:10
If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. -- Mark 3:24
One believeth that he may eat all things. Another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let us not, therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: But to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. -- Romans 14:2,3,13,14,17
The King shall answer and say unto them, "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethern, ye have done it unto me." -- Matthew 25:40
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. -- Isaiah 61:1
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: And with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? -- Matthew 7:1-4
I shall make a covenant of peace with them. I shall rid the countryside of danger, and send them a fertile rain. I will free them from bondage. No more will they be as prey for an enemy. I will raise up for them a plant of renown to take away all their hungers and the shame of their persecutors. -- Ezekiel 34:25
There are six things Jehovah does hate; yes, seven are things detestable to his soul: lofty eyes, a false tongue and hands that are shedding innocent blood, a heart fabricating hurtful schemes, feet that are in a hurry to run to badness, a false witness that launches forth lies, and anyone sending forth contentions among brothers. -- Proverbs 6:16-19
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. -- Matthew 23:27
Therefore, this is what the Lord Jehovah has said: 'For the reason that you men have spoken untruth and you have envisioned a lie, therefore here I am against you' is the utterance of the Lord Jehovah. And my hand has come to be against the prophets that are visioning untruth and that are divining a lie. In the intimate group of my people they will not continue on, and in the register of the house of Israel they will not be written, and to the soil of Israel they will not come; and you people will have to know that I am the Lord Jehovah. -- Ezekiel 13:8-9
Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves tearing prey in shedding blood, in destroying souls for the purpose of making unjust gain. And her prophets have plastered for them with whitewash, visioning an unreality and divining for them a lie, saying: 'This is what the Lord Jehovah has said,' when Jehovah himself has not spoken. The people of the land have carried on a scheme of defrauding and have done a tearing away in robbery, and the afflicted one and the poor one they have maltreated, and the alien resident they have defrauded without justice. -- Ezekiel 22:27
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. -- Hosea 4:6
In later times, some shall ... speak lies in hypocrisy...commanding to abstain from that which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. -- Paul: 1 Tim. 4:1
Turn again our captivity, O Lord,
as the streams in the dry land.
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
He that goeth forth and weepeth,
bearing precious seed,
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him. -- Psalms 126: 4-6
And you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee for you; you shall return, every one of you to your property and every one to your family. -- Leviticus 25:10
From Cannabis Campaigners Guide - www.ccguide.org.uk - copied here on Oct 4 2003, please check this link for updates and to give thanks!
POTENT QUOTES ON
CANNABIS and the LAW
The Decriminilisation of Cannabis in the A.C.T. (Use Among University Students), by Jill M McGeorge, 1996
"Based on this work and previous research it is put forward that the decriminilisation of cannabis does not lead to significant increases in its consumption. It is recommended that, in support of the Australian national
policy of harm minimisation, all states and territories begin the process of lessening, if not abolishing, criminal sanctions against the possession and use of cannabis as a starting point towards the regulated control of substances currently prohibited."
"Make the most of the Indian Hemp Seed"
credited to President George Washington:
(Library of USA Congress 1794 vol. 33 p.270)
********************
Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971: The Police Foundation, 2000
"... the law's implementation damages individuals in terms of criminal records and risks to jobs and relationships to a degree that far outweighs any harm that cannabis use may be doing to society"(page 106, para 32)
"In considering the current operation of the law and sentencing we are of the view that the possession of cannabis should not be an imprisonable offence. Consequently, it should no longer be an arrestable offence in England and Wales under section 24 of PACE. Further, the prosecution of offences of cannabis possession should be the exception and only then should an offence, if there is a conviction, incur a criminal record." (page 107, para 37)
"We recommend that the cultivation of small numbers of cannabis plants for personal use should be a separate offence from production, and should be treated in the same way as possession of cannabis."(page 37, para 41)
"As the Government has rejected the House of Lords recommendations and it will be some years before a standard licensed cannabis product is available, we recommend that there should be a new defence of duress of circumstances on medical grounds for those accused of possessing, cultivating or supplying cannabis. We recommend that the burden be on the accused to prove the defence."(page 113, para 68)
Although many Governments refer to the WHO Report to try to justify cannabis because of the claims that it is a dangerous drugs, this section of the report is usually ignored, yet puts it into perspective:
"A great many assumptions have been made in extrapolating from health effects observed in laboratory animals to the probable health effects of equivalent doses and patterns of use in humans. In addition, there may be problems in extrapolating studies with pure THC to human experience with crude cannabis preparations. The plant material contains many other compounds, both cannabinoid and non-cannabinoid in nature and the possibility must always be considered that differences between experimental and clinical observations may be due in part to the effects of these other substances."
********************
SAFETY
Peter Bourne, President Carter's Drug Czar
''We did not view marijuana as a significant health problem--as it was not....Nobody dies from marijuana. Marijuana smoking, in fact, if one wants to be honest, is a source of pleasure and amusement to countless millions of people in America, and it continues to be that way.''
Source: PBS's Frontline: ''Drug Wars,'' October 2000
********************
March 20, 1997, Sydney, Australia:
The health of long-term marijuana users is virtually no different than that of the general population, according to the latest findings by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre in Australia. The study, which involved interviews with 268 marijuana smokers and 31 non-using partners and family members, is one of the first ever conducted in Australia to determine the effects of long-term marijuana use. Its findings were reported by the Sydney Morning Herald last month. "We don't see evidence of high psychological disturbance among the [long- term users,]" said chief investigator David Reilly. "The results seem unremarkable; the exceptional thing is that the respondents are unexceptional."
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."
********************
JON OWEN JONES, MP, July 2001
"Cannabis is a far less harmful drug than almost all the other drugs that you are likely to mention."
Source: BBC News (UK Web), July 17, 2001
********************
Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church Study, 1980
"Some participants had smoked at least two to four large cigarettes (each containing 1/4 to 1/2 ounce of cannabis) over 16 hours a day for periods of up to 50 years.
"...the most impressive thing... is the true paucity of neurological abnormalities. "
"Heavy cannabis consumers suffered no apparent psychological or physical harm."
*******************
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"
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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".
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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."
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Panama Canal Zone Report, 1925:
"There is no evidence... that any deleterious influence on the individual using [cannabis]"
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Schaeffer: A Neuropsychological Evaluation; A Case History
"...I.Q.'s of Zion Coptics increased after they began to use ganga"
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Cannabis in Costa Rica: A Study of Chronic Marijuana Use
Institute of Human Issues:
"No significant health consequences to chronic cannabis smokers"
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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."
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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."
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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."
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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.
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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".
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Cannabis Use and Cognitive Decline in Persons under 65 Years of Age: American Journal of Epidemiology, May 1 1999
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"Cannabis use was not associated with any particular ethnic group or with the onset of psychosis."'
Incidence of psychotic illness in London: comparison of ethnic groups, M King, E Coker, G Leavey, A Hoare, E Johnson-Sabine, University Department of Psychiatry, Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London NW3 2QG Department of Psychiatry, St Ann's Hospital, London N15 3TH Correspondence to: Dr King.
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"It was impossible to establish any criteria for an independent classification of cannabis psychosis, since symptoms recorded were either shared in high proportion with the other 2 groups or they occurred too seldom to make such an independent diagnosis"
A retrospective study of symptom patterns of cannabis-induced psychosis, Imade AGT, Ebie JC; Acta Psychiatr Scand 1991: 83: 134-136
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"What is dual diagnosis?
This term is used to describe people who are diagnosed as having problematic drug use and a serious mental illness (particularly a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia). This might involve a primary diagnosis of serious mental illness with a subsequent diagnosis of drug use which might have particularly adverse effects due to the mental illness. An example could be someone who has schizophrenia which is made worse by them smoking cannabis. Dual diagnosis may also involve a primary diagnosis of drug dependence which leads to, or contributes to, mental health problems. This sometimes happens with chronic users of stimulants such as amphetamine, cocaine and crack cocaine.
"Making an accurate diagnosis can be difficult because mental health problems may result in similar behaviours to when someone is intoxicated or withdrawing from dependent drug use. Examples have been given of people rapidly diagnosed as being schizophrenic without considering the role of drugs and alcohol. A period of 3 to 6 weeks of abstinence from drug use may be needed to know what is happening. "
From DrugScope has been created through the merger of the UK's foremost drug information and policy organisations: the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence (ISDD) and the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse (SCODA) - two charities with a total of sixty years in the national and international drugs field.
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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"
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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