09/24/08 - Martin Jansen

Program
Cultural Baggage Radio Show

Report from Martin Jansen in Nimbin Australia regarding police efforts to close their Hemp Musem + Poppygate Report with Glenn Greenway

Audio file

Cultural Baggage, Sept 24, 2008

Broadcasting on the Drug Truth Network, this is Cultural Baggage.

It’s not only inhumane it is really fundamentally un-American….. ‘NO MORE’ ‘DRUG WAR’ ‘NO MORE’ ‘DRUG WAR’ ‘NO MORE’ ‘DRUG WAR’ ‘NO MORE’ ‘DRUG WAR’

My Name is Dean Becker. I don’t condone or encourage the use of any drug, legal or illegal. I report the unvarnished truth about the pharmaceutical, banking, prison and judicial nightmare that feeds on eternal drug war.
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Dean Becker: Hello my friends. Welcome to this Hurricane Ike edition of Cultural Baggage. Today, thanks to Martin Jansen out of Nimbin Australia, we’re gonna hear about some goings on down-under and we’ll get a report from Glenn Greenway about the outrageous handling of the Opium crop in Afghanistan. But now, let’s go down-under.

Woman 1: So, this claim that there’s a lot of crime in Nimbin related to, especially to dealing and to the youth, what do you think about that?

Woman 2: Well, as a person living in Nimbin I never lock my car. I don’t have locks on my house. I find myself to be feeling very relaxed at night time. I don’t go out terrified to walk down the street. So really, if there was so much horrific crime here then we wouldn’t be behaving like that.

I mean the main crime that I can see is the Marijuana industry and that doesn’t generally promote violence and it’s a very peaceful place, Nimbin. I’ve always found it to be a very peaceful… As in all towns there is situations of violence. But, I wouldn’t describe Nimbin as having an enormous amount of violence in compared to other towns.

Woman 3: Ma’am

Woman 2: I mean, I feel very comfortable here, very peaceful.

Woman 3: May I ad that usually the violence comes more from alcohol scene then other kinds of drugs, more than marijuana. I don’t think marijuana does bring lots of violent instinct to tell the truth.

Dean Becker: There is, or was, a Hemp Museum in Nimbin Australia.

Woman 1: So tell me what’s happening at the moment with this thing with the museum.

Woman 2: In my opinion is seems the landlord who owns the museum, he has issued a new terms of agreement and it needs to have a new tenant to rent the building, that has no criminal record and new stipulations will come into place whereby they need to put, the new tenant needs to put CCTV cameras in every room.

Woman 1: Including the toilet?

Woman 2: Yeah, including well, I don’t know about the toilet actually.

Laughter

Woman 3: The inside and outside area too.

Woman 2: Yeah, the outside and inside area and direct links to the police station.

Woman 1: Right

Woman 2: There isn’t, it’s a museum, it’s for people to come and look. I mean if people are selling marijuana in the museum that’s not relevant to the tenant himself. I mean it’s a public building it’s like if I were to go to Kohl’s or anyone was to go to Kohl’s and start selling marijuana, they wouldn’t shut Kohl’s down.

Woman 1: You know that’s very true. What does it mean to you, the museum? …living here for awhile.

Woman 2: The museum is like a cultural center. There are lots of people coming from all over the world. We meet all sorts of different people here everyday from all different countries. We learn about their cultures, their language, there’s a lot of cross cultural communication happening.

Also, the museum is a place where people in the community meet and discuss things. It’s a good place for children, for mothers. In fact it’s the only place in some respects in Nimbin where all sorts of people can meet together. It’s a neutral ground. Anyone can really come in here and have discussions about anything. It’s a very…

Woman 3: No matter their religion background or race or age.

Woman 2: Yeah

Woman 1: Or whether the they’re rich or poor.

Woman 2: Yeah. It’s a very open place in that respect.

Woman 3: It’s important part of Nimbin.

Woman 2: Yeah

Woman 1: I notice it’s a really a very important place to the youth. Isn’t it?

Agreement all the way around.

Woman 2: There’s a lot of young people here.

Woman 1: I mean, what do you think will happen to the youth if ah, if this thing actually gets shut or cameras that…?

Woman 2: There isn’t any youth center in Nimbin as such. So, in that respect this has become a substitute for youth center. Admittedly it’s not specifically a youth center but the young people have been drawn to coming here.

Woman 1: What do you think of the art?

Woman 2: The art’s fantastic. I mean it’s got, it’s the history of the 60’s. It’s the history of the hemp movement. It’s got a lot of stuff about the communities around here.

Woman 1: The hippies.

Woman 2: Yeah, it has a…. the artwork is fantastic. I mean it’s totally unique. In the respect it’s very colorful, spontaneous. People look at it from all over the world. They take thousands of photographs and.. Yeah, and they take it to other places in the world and show people. So, it’s got a real cultural, artistic link between here and other parts of the world.

Woman 1: And I believe that Benny Zables has said he’d like to paint out this mural he did 30 years ago, if this gets closed as a protest. What do you think of that?

Woman : It’s almost as horrible as thinking about the museum closing, isn’t it?

Woman 2: Yeah, I mean all the murals above all the buildings in Nimbin is what give it a lot of character.

Woman 1: These are actually world class artists.

Woman 2: And when you come to Nimbin when you first approach the place, you’ve got the amazing mountains in the background and then you’ve got the colorful scenery and all the amazing murals above the buildings which fulfill you with a sense of color and excitement.

Woman 1: Yeah, so if this turns into a sort of tourist shop and all the arts ripped out, you know, it‘ll be quite a tragedy.

Woman 2: I’d like to see who would actually be prepared to rip that out at, I mean that’s like ethnic cleansing to the greatest degree. I mean who would actually be prepared to rip that down? It’s like burning all the books. It’s just ludicrous.

mans voice: …between Bagdad museum.

Woman 2: Yeah, it’s ludicrous. This place is.. ok, people might not necessarily think it’s fantastic, some people, but other people think it’s magnificent. I mean I remember when I…

Women : In fact many, many, many other people come here just to see the museum. …………

Woman 3: It’s not just a drug scene, yeah.

Man: What is your view about the propaganda used in the media and the language particularly on this issue of cannabis in this country? Do you have any views on what the war is like, the war on drugs?

Woman 3: I think they have to justify all the money they have to spend on it. You know, like the riots and the…

Man: Zero tolerance, what does that evoke for you?

Woman 2: That just means that there absolutely no leeway whatsoever. It’s got a tone of no compromise, treating everybody equally irrelevant of their situational circumstances or their anything. It’s just zero tolerance. There is no tolerance whatsoever.

Man: What about politicians screaming ‘being tough on crime‘. What does it mean for you as a listener, as an audience person?

Woman 2: I don’t really know what they mean by crime. I mean, there so many different types of crime to be perfectly honest. You know, there’s a lot of horrors going on in this world and I wouldn’t say they were going on in Nimbin. You know, the whole world is fraught with wars.

Man: Can you see the connection, that literal connection between the global struggle and local affairs?

Woman 2: Yeah, for sure. They’re definitely trying to test out new methods with Nimbin.

Man: Yeah.

Woman 2: Without a doubt. I mean Nimbin’s always been a bit of a testing ground for social reform or social experiments or whatever. But people need to remember that this is a community and there are a lot of children who live here, who love to live here.

There’s a lot of amazing things going on for the community and you know, marijuana is only one side of this community. It’s a whole myriad of amazing things that are happening here. And I mean, I’ve had my children here and they love to live here and they’re proud to live in Nimbin. You know people…

Man: But even so they all live here and also are exposed to this language, to this propaganda…

Woman 2: Sure.

Man: …if you want to call it that way… and I just wondered what the children take when they see this on the mainstream media reiterated at Molcium and meant to be the new speed, you know.

Woman 2: Sure. I think it’s up to the parents to sort of explain to children what all that language means and to be able to empower those children though education and understanding of those types of terminologies. I mean, really it depends how much television you watch as well as how much media you are exposed to, of course.

Man: Do you see any connections between this? The propaganda is almost like a war in itself. The war on drugs. The war on terror. The war on, what’s next?

Woman 2: Yeah.

Man: On us!

Woman 2: War on dissent.

Man: That’s all the time on us now, isn’t it.
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Dean Becker: All I can add to that it’s a war on logic, common sense and reality itself.

All right, you are listening to the Cultural Baggage Show on the Drug Truth Network and Pacifica Radio. We’re tuning into a report provided by Martin Jansen out of Nimbin Australia about the mechanism of the drug war. The US mandated, eternal, everlasting drug war.

In Nimbin they are trying to close down the Hemp Museum. This is the result of a barrage of law enforcement propaganda against the museum and its attendees. And because I haven’t had internet access for about a week and a half now, you’ll have to excuse the fact that all I know about the first voice we here, is that his name is Michael.

Michael: I think lots of people are going to be upset but I think a lot of people are going to be happy the museum closes and they say that you know by getting rid of that sore, as they perceive it, will fix the problem. In fact it will burst out all over the other places.

You know, it will just scatter a little bit and we’ll loose Oregon, you know, one of the real hearts of Nimbin, you know. It’s not the neighborhood sitting there with it’s government funding or even the hemp embassy or the community center, you know, it’s the museum that’s the last bit of freedom, in a way and what I see there always a little bit a life around the museum, you know. It might be young or wild or mentally unstable, but it’s alive.

Man 2: As yet, we’ve heard people say, it’s the center of town, really.

Michael: It’s a bit, it’s a lot of the heart of town I think. A lot of good people here. Ya know, no ones made money here. We’ve struggled to keep it afloat. Paid a huge rent to some landlord in Sydney that’s not even been here and this tourist industry, you know, grows on the back of Nimbin, goodwill and heart and creativity, which you can’t separate from pot really. And… they’ll throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I think it will be too late then. ’Cause then there will be a lot of people be quite happy to see the museum closed and it’ll be take a year or two and they’ll realize, ‘oh, the place is dead’ you know. I fear that’s happening.

Same with the hemp bar. A lot of people, very upset about the hemp bar closing. Right, where the Vietnam vets hug out, that was the hemp bar. Ya know it was, God help me, the cops for years said, “You got to get the dealing of the street, get it off the street.” Ya know people do have a guard out and they just, tug ’em.

Man: To what extent direct in real estate is involved with the ….?

Michael: It’s here to new development having… when they go to sell the blocks, it’s not that cheap any more around here you know, we’re a little suburb of Lismore or Byron Bay, you know, where it’s a million bucks a house in Mullumbimby now.

Ya know it’s beautiful country and the hippies always discover the good spots and then the developers follow. We’ve been here a long time. It’s only because of the sort of druggie image that stopped development happening here. You know I think that probably we’re too spoiled and comfortable like most of Australians you know, we’re rich, we’re rich, which in fact gives you guys opportunity to make change but we’re pretty selfish and most people will sit back and watch Nimbin get tamed and probably regret it but you know, we’ll get sucked into police propaganda we’ll be safer.

Hey, Casino’s not looking too safe or Ballin’ or Okarakar (sp?) or Lismore. They’ve got real violence problems all over the place. You know, much more than Nimbin. But the weed… you know all the black sheep who have gathered here for years who smoke pot. Mate we are the criminals and it‘s just, ya know, it’s crap.

I’ll tell you what has happened we didn’t talk about… what’s happened is the harder they’ve targeted pot, the more pills and powder have boomed across Australia, you know… and pot is such an easy bust, bulky and smelly and to smoke it is a total give away.

So, we’ve got this massive industry across Australia now with pill presses whacking out tiny little things ya virtually can’t find, if the cops ever find you, you can disappear them in a flash and who knows what’s in ’em. I mean pots an herb, we’re talking illegal pharmaceuticals have taken over. It’s really um… yeah, it’s pathetic that the system keeps not looking at the consequences of what it’s doing. It’s really pathetic.

Man: In pills now, easier for kids to get in a bottle of alcohol or something.

Michael: They’re everywhere. Pills are everywhere. Now, it’s a just um, the war on drugs is so backfired and caused so much division. You know, we’re sending out young soldiers into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban arming themselves with profits from growing the best pain killer on the planet, the Opium poppy, you know.

So, the whole medical world, ya know, the medics have tried to control pain relief across the planet. It’s probably the best business going. They’re not going to let us have an herb we can grow ourselves.

Man: Michael, what would you think about the new premium yourself, is there any chance of policy change?

Michael: All right, we write to him straight away. Great, you’d smoke weed, mate. Which you might understand a bit and look they’re just killing Nimbin and ya know, maybe he only said he only smoked weed a little bit but at least he did and maybe he’s understood a bit. I don’t think they’ve read it up. If you read the history of prohibition and how it came about, it’s just, whoa, lets get rid of this, lets start undoing this, you know. It’s a bad law, bad law based on greed and lies and it’s just going to undo it so baitedly.

Man: Is it state legislation that covers the legality of it?

Michael: In Australia the states really have it. But notice John Howard, every time anyone moves to do anything, John Howard just put a blanket on ‘em totally. So you’d like to think Red might be different but he’s totally inexperienced.

Man: What’s this coming at today, ya know hey, claiming that the most urgent crisis’ that we need more hours, you know, that’s just…..

Michael: Mate, and he’s a Christian. I don’t get these guys. Christians who love going to war, ya know. Christians who are going to say, ‘God made a mistake’ with Cannabis? Hello? They just haven’t thought it through, ya know, people are really deluded and ironically part… and as being one of the things that’s working a lot people up so, you know.

I can understand why Cannabis became a spiritual sacrament to so many cultures because it is mind expanding and it is, it does give you a different view of things and does wake you up to different feelings and energies and the love behind it all and different values, you know. Where it seems we got lost playing the Monopoly game. It’s all about money and owning as much as you can and controlling and we just lost the par.
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Commercial: It’s time to play, Name That Drug, by it’s side effects.

Persistent diarrhea, stomach upset, nausea and vomiting, bloody urine, fever, unusual bleeding, yellow eyes or skin, unusual tiredness or weakness. Pseudomembranous, colitis, dizziness, trouble breathing and congestive heart failure.

Times up. The answer: Penicillin, another FDA approved product.
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Drug prohibition, ninety years of success, lead us to this day. Our children pick up the phone and drugs are delivered within the hour because that’s how we like it. Overdose deaths, preventable by a phone call are assured by paranoia. Yes, we are #1. Violent drug gangs are the scourge of our continent. We insist that their jobs pay so very well. Terrorists turn flowers into million dollar bank rolls to buy bigger weapons to kill us. So each year we give them $500 Billion, to make it so. We are the champions of the world.

Blue. What is the blue? Is it a brotherhood or a gang? When a police officer dies he has hundreds if not thousands of fellow officers at his funeral. These fellow officers who oft times do not even know the fallen officer in any way come from different cities, from different states or even other nations to pay their respect to the blue. What is the blue? I’m sure it started out as something truly noble. What is the blue?

When an officer is wounded, ‘Officer Down’ is the call and all hell breaks loose. Sirens and lights go on and help arrives as soon as humanly possible. When an officer is charged with a crime, he’s walked through his arraignment by the union representatives and union attorneys who ensure the arrested officer’s every right and advantage. What is the blue? It is the ability to sway a jury, the inclination of a K-9 to sit down. The hunch of an officer, the phantom turn signal or California roll at a stop sign.

Little things like this is are all that’s necessary to search a person’s vehicle in this day and age. Such minor and uneventful things as sworn to from someone wearing the blue can be used to justify an otherwise unconstitutional and blatantly illegal search, arrest, conviction and incarceration of any citizen of the U.S.A. What is the blue?

It is represented by the not credible, illegal and unconstitutional enforcement of the drug laws. It is the 1.6 million non-violent US citizens arrested each year for a baggie, containing a puff of powder, a couple of pills or some plant leaves. There is not one person in law enforcement whether on the beat, presenting the case to the judge, wearing the black robes or writing the laws that dares to defend their drug war policy on this radio program. The blue is all these people.

Charlton’s, everyone, they allow their drug war to continue so they can guarantee their mortgage payments. The blue was and will again be a positive, constitutional brotherhood that stands for justice, community and the U.S. Constitution. But for now, blue is creating a stain on our society. The color of the stain, is red, blood red.
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WARNING: The Government doesn’t want you to hear this ad.

Because they’re embarrassed. They funded research indicating marijuana doesn’t cause lung cancer and might even prevent cancer. Government research has also found medical uses for marijuana and no one has ever died of a marijuana overdose. The more research the government conducts, the more they undermine their own war on marijuana users.

Visit the Marijuana Policy Project Foundation at joinmpp.org or call toll free 1-877-joinmpp (1-877-564-6677)
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Poppygate. Bizarre news about the US policy on controlling Heroin. Featuring Glenn Greenway.

Glenn Greenway: Despite it’s vaunted so called drug war, U.S. foreign policy has become manifestly and perversely hooked on the manufacture and sale of illegal drugs. Seven years ago, when America invaded the poorest and most invalid of Eurasian states, Afghanistan’s annual heroin output was in the neighborhood of 20 U.S. tons.

Under ongoing American and NATO occupation, Afghanistan’s ‘drug cup’ has completely overflowed. Shooting up to 1,000 tons of pure heroin annually. An astonishing fifty fold increase. An overabundance which far exceeds global demand. The manufacture and sale of illegal drugs is of paramount importance to Afghanistan’s financial standing and therefore U.S. regional strategic interests.

The ill-gotten gains, price supported by international drugs prohibition, are responsible for at least half of the country‘s anemic GDP. Western forces tacitly acknowledge this shame facedly by refusing to meaningfully engage in counter narcotics operations. Troops are ordered not to harm the drug crops for fear of upsetting the fragile occupation. Occupied Afghanistan, narco-state, narco-monopoly, the mother of all grow-ops, as if drunk on drug war, U.S. policy in the region has self-defeatingly created a dope plantation for the ages.

A black pit of corruption, police bait, disease, overdose and death, charging nineteen of twenty heroin syringes worldwide, at a military cost of actually gifting our enemies with drug war bounty. Prohibition inflated profits which turn flowers into high tech weaponry with which to kill American and allied troops.

The Afghan monkey on America’s back is fueling an explosion of HIV infection throughout the world. In Russia, currently home to one million people living with HIV, two thirds of new registered cases are being attributed to injecting drug use.

And, as if hoping for the worst, in Vancouver British Columbia former New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, blasted the cities safe injection facility stating, “I think heroin is a very deadly drug and I don’t think anyone should be encouraged to use it or be assisted in using it. I think that’s a terrible mistake.”

British Lieutenant Colonel Dave Wilson described last spring’s Afghan harvest, “As far as the eye can see, the fields of Helmand sway pink and wade in the breeze. The towns and bazaars are all but deserted as almost everybody, friendly or not, are busy in the fields harvesting the opium from the poppy’s. The beauty of the flower filled fields and tranquility of the workers belies the insidious harm of heroin addiction and the crime this spawns on the streets of the U.K.”

It is now poppy planting season in Afghanistan. A season following a year of crop failure throughout much of the country. The harshest winter in memory was a prelude for a summer of extreme drought that blighted all agricultural activity. Even a plague of locust apocalyptically appeared. As a result eight officials now warn of an acute food shortage this winter for a quarter of the population. Fully nine million people and the U.N. drug czar, Antonio Maria Costa, warns that poppy farming may increase as subsistence farmers have been pushed further into debt by the pitiable harvest.

The Stars and Strips, the U.S. militaries daily newspaper reports that poison tobacco, perhaps laced with heroin and or cyanide, is suspected in the critical illnesses in two U.S. soldiers serving in Eastern Afghanistan. At least one brigade has banned the purchase of locally bought cheap cigarettes. Some brand selling for as little as $4 a carton.

Of course, Afghanistan has also become the worlds pre-eminent producer of cannabis. The U.N. drug czar describes this situation as follows, “Thus today, Afghanistan has become the world biggest supplier of two drugs. The most deadly one, heroin and the one most commonly used, cannabis.”

In other new, a substance abuse counselor at Riker’s Island prison in New York is facing felony charges for allegedly attempting to smuggle 109 packets of heroin into the prison. He had been employed by the independent contractor, Prison Health Services. This is Glenn Greenway reporting for the Drug Truth Network.
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This is Gustavo de Greiff, a Former General Attorney of Colombia, talking about the drug problem to the Drug Truth Network.
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Dean Becker: As I indicated earlier, we’re still recovering from Hurricane Ike here at the mother ship, so I’m going to close out this show with a little segment from our new song, Eternal War.

If they stop Afghanistan from growing opium and they cut down the Columbian cocaine. When Mexico runs out of marijuana they think we’ll quit getting high. But Walgreen’s is always standing by.

Cut me loose, set me free, judge what I do, not what’s inside of me. Why do you, pick my pocket? Just let me light my rocket. Who made you the boss of me? Get out of my life. Let me be.

Music score

Are we just peasants in the field? Let’s stand for truth or forever kneel. Every 16 seconds we hear the slamming door. And we owe it all to eternal war.
.. The first eternal war

Eternal War is attributed to "Adult Users": Randy Wall on keyboards & producer, Roger Tausz on Bass & editor/mixer, James Reese is on guitar. Produced at Bong Island Sound studio.
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We have Eternal War on available on line at drugtruth.net in wave and .avi and .mpg and half a dozen file types and you can check it out at You Tube. Search for fdbecker (Tommy Chong interview) and as always, I remind you that because of prohibition, you don’t know what’s in the bag. Please, be careful.

To the Drug Truth Network listeners around the world, this is Dean Becker for Cultural Baggage and the unvarnished truth.

This show produced at the Pacifica studios of KPFT, Houston.
Tap dancing on the edge on an abyss.

Submitted by: C. Assenberg of www.marijuanafactorfiction.org