Cultural Baggage, November 19, 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 drugs, 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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How bass ackward can a nation be?
Just watch America and you will see.
They’ll fight and die forever more.
They love to wage unwinable war.
Drugs and terror. World wars forever.
Drugs and terror. World wars forever.
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You know it seems that the United States government has it’s heads so far up it’s posterior, that it’ll never see the light of day.

We are empowering our terrorist enemies. We are enriching the cartels and violent paramilitary south of our borders. We ensure that the violent gangs that prowl our neighborhood have reason to exist, selling contaminated drugs to our children, so they can buy their high powered weaponry.

We make sure there is more death, more disease, more crime, more addiction. All so that we can justify doing the same thing over and over and over again.

Had to get that out of my system. Welcome to this edition of Cultural Baggage. Today we’re going to be talking about Salvia. The supposedly ‘new’ drug. The ‘new’ danger. The ‘new’ threat to our children.

We have with us in-studio, Mr. Brian Arthur who has a shop, here in the mother-ship city of, Mazatec Garden and we also have online with us, former Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law, Mr. Buford Terrell. Let’s go ahead and bring Mr. Terrell into the discussion. Hello, Sir.

Mr. Buford Terrell: Hello Dean. How are you today?

Dean Becker: I’m good. Buford, you have been an observer of this drug war for years, if not decades, now and it seems like every once in a while they have to have a new threat, a new reason, am I right?

Mr. Buford Terrell: You are and they always introduce it the same way. That it’s new, it’s unprecedented, it’s going to kill all of the kids and cause harm and mayhem in the streets.

Dean Becker: Well, that’s it. That’s the story, isn’t it?

Mr. Buford Terrell: Yes.

Dean Becker: Yes it is. We also have with us here, in-studio, Mr. Brian Arthur. Hello Brian.

Mr. Brian Arthur: Hey, Dean.

Dean Becker: Brian, you have been a man with focus on a national scale, of late, with the Today show and the New York Times wanting your opinions in this regard. Let’s talk about that coverage for a moment. It’s not what it’s purported to be, is it?

Mr. Brian Arthur: Well, they came to me and wanted to do an hour long interview about Salvia and I was talking to them about some of the legal issues around Salvia and they asked for a description of what Salvia was like. That’s all they ended up using is this little sound clip with me saying that Salvia’s one of the strongest psychedelics that I’ve encountered.

Dean Becker: Now that seems a bit strange. So the used just a little tiny blurb of this one hour discussion. Did you have other things you wanted to relay that they have overlooked?

Mr. Brian Arthur: Yeah. I was talking about the medical potential of Salvia. That Salvia has never been shown to be addictive. That there’s no long term side effects that have ever been shown to be associated with Salvia.

They pretty much just ignored all that and just had a clip of me saying, ‘Hey, this stuff is really strong.’

Dean Becker: Now here’s a quote from Thomas Prisinzano, Assistant Professor of Medical and Natural Products at the University of Iowa and here’s his quote,

“You can give a rat free access to cocaine, give them free access to Salvinorin and they’ve stop taking cocaine. Now that umm, I don’t know, it’s something that we need to think about that, it’s not, perhaps that’s to say, it’s more harmless, or is it to say it’s more addictive? Your thoughts.

Mr. Brian Arthur: Well, Salvinorin is non-addictive. There’s been researcher’s who have stated that there’s no evidence to show that Salvinorin is addictive. But it is such a profound experience that it makes other substances like, it makes people reconsider their abuse of other substances.

Dean Becker: I’ve heard it said that it might be compared somewhat to the Ibogaine, which helps people to walk away from other addictions. You had mentioned during our private discussion that perhaps it has to do more with, exposing that area of the brain to the idea that, ’Well, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.’

Mr. Brian Arthur: Yeah.

Dean Becker: I don’t know how else to put it.

Here’s another quote. Professor Brian L. Roth, Director, National Institute on Mental Health, Psychoactive Drug Screening Program.

He said, “We think that drugs derived from the active ingredient could be useful for a range of diseases. Alzheimer’s, depression, schizophrenia, chronic pain and even AIDS or HIV.

There’s some parallels in that, to what’s going on with marijuana where it’s also been found to be perhaps useful in Alzheimer’s and MS and of course for pain and other malady’s. Buford, your thoughts in that regard.

Mr. Buford Terrell: Well, on this, it’s quite possible. Most of the drugs that the medical profession uses today, derive ultimately from natural products. I mean, even Penicillin came from a mold.

One of the problems is, the modern pharmaceutical industry has been so successful and the medical profession is rushed so hard to become scientific, that they have eliminated the idea of any ‘whole plant’ product being used for medicine.

I mean, when marijuana was dropped from the Pharmacopeia in 1943, it was because the attitude at that time didn’t believe anything should be a medicine except a single molecule processed chemical.

So, yeah. Salvia should certainly be investigated and I might point out, with your other comment. That, in the 1950’s LSD was used very, very effectively in treating alcoholics. Ecstasy (MDMA) has been used successfully to treat alcoholics.

Now I haven’t seen any medical studies, but just from many, many people, I know. I know a bunch of former alcoholics and former amphetamine users both, that say that using marijuana is what keeps them from going back to them hard, harmful drugs. So, yeah. This is something that definitely should be investigated.

Dean Becker: Well, we have this situation where I guess you can refine most any plant product and take out a certain molecule. Which is what they do with cocaine. Which is what they do with heroin.

Because I would much prefer that we had opium available at Walgreens and that we had Cocoa leaf available at the Kroger, than this horrible situation where criminals are refining it and smuggling it into the country. Your thoughts, Buford.

Mr. Buford Terrell: Are you going to go back to the original formula of Coca-Cola with Cocoa in it? {laughter} But one thing that I think has happened with all the prohibition laws. Before alcohol prohibition, this was a country of primarily beer drinkers.

When alcohol was prohibited it caused a great switch from beer to distilled, hard liquors and whiskey. When morphine was basically outlawed with the Harrison act in 1914, that brought in heroin as the street drug. It shifted more people from Cocoa to cocaine.

I mean, this seems to be a common feature of prohibition laws, is that the folk level mild drugs get replaced by the refined, purified, high power, hard to handle things.

Just imagine, if you would, if I outlawed coffee and people started sneaking around, eating Folger’s instant coffee crystals by the spoonful and OD’ing on it…. and it could happen.

Dean Becker: It could happen indeed. I guess that’s the point isn’t it? That they take this Salvia and they have extracts and so forth already but given time and enough chemists, they can come up with something even more powerful, that they can sell surreptitiously to our children, right?

Mr. Buford Terrell: I think so, yeah and I think part of the problem is, Salvia is no real threat on the marketplace. It’s really not. It’s not a popular drug and I don’t think it ever will be a popular drug. Simply because, it’s got the wrong kind of effects for most people to really like it.

Dean Becker: OK. Once again we’re speaking there with Professor Buford Terrell, former Professor at South Texas Collage of Law. We have in-studio with us, Mr. Brian Arthur. He runs a shop, The Mazatec Garden, here in the mother-ship city.

I want to read another quote here. This one from Clinical Pharmacologist, John Mendelson, “There may be some derivatives (he’s speaking about Salvia) that could be made that would actually be active against cancer and HIV. At the present time there are a lot of therapeutic targets that have many people excited.”

I wonder, why the US is so adverse, so afraid of studying say, marijuana or Salvia or even Cocoa leaf, perhaps, for it’s medicinal properties. It’s like we cling to this drug prohibition like it’s our mother’s…. breast. {laughter} Trying to stay legal there.

Mr. Brian Arthur: What the thing about Salvia is, it is still legal and so there’s an opportunity to study it while there isn’t a… it isn’t a scheduled substance and these people are trying to push the agenda of, ‘Well, this is a dangerous thing that our children are going to get a hold of…’

Dean Becker: It’s been around for, well forever… and they haven’t.

Mr. Brian Arthur: Well, it’s been in the mainstream since 2001. Both the L.A. times and the New York Times ran front page articles on it and then after that it started getting picked up by things like Maxim Magazine and all sorts of mainstream places.

Dean Becker: I want to come back to that thought here in just a minute.

Now, this is being, this new hoped for law, is being championed by a gentleman who calls himself, Doc Anderson. Now he’s not a doctor but he just plays one on T.V. You get the point, my friends?

Now, this situation is reminiscent. I remember when I was back, about 16 / 17 years old and Look and Life Magazine started their major, front page stories about, ‘Drug use in San Francisco’ and how it was starting to ‘thrive’ out there.

There was not a better enticement in the world, than Life Magazine telling me about the ’fun’ these people were having. I think the media is complicit in ratcheting up the hysteria and in ensuring that other kids hear about it. That the ’taboo’ is better known. Your thoughts, Buford.

Mr. Buford Terrell: Well, in the middle 1970’s huffing, or getting high from substances like gasoline, was totally unknown. A newspaper in Colorado ran a big scare story, about kids getting high from huffing solvents and sure enough, teenagers found out you can do it and by gum, they did it and they still do it.

The media has a responsibility to let people know what’s going on and they like what sounds spectacular. But, I’m not going to blame them for it. I think they’re doing their job. The main thing is, parents don’t know enough and parent’s don’t supervise what’s going on.

Right now, the biggest drug pushers in the country are parents that leave Vicadin and Darvon just sitting around in the medicine cabinet.

Dean Becker: Even the Drug Czar talks about that. That that is the latest wave. That use of marijuana is, in fact, going down.

Mr. Buford Terrell: About that….. .

Dean Becker: Well…. the people reporting they use, is going down. Yeah. CASA’s…. I’m afraid they’re just… putting their finger in the wind. They have really no idea.

Well, ok. I tell you what. Let’s talk about the Obama election. Let’s talk about, I think it’s kind of scary… even Bob Barr changed his mind. He use to be a zealot, a drug warrior but he’s now calling for the end of prohibition.

But Senator Biden, Chief of Staff, Raum Emanuel, the portended Attorney General Holden, and the more unknown Drug Czar candidate, might be Dr. Donald Vereen of NIDA, but all of these guys are not going to make a big turn around in the drug war. Yeah, your thoughts on that, Buford.

Mr. Buford Terrell: Well, there’s one thing about it. Raum Emanuel and Obama both, are experience classical politicians. They read voters. They read polls. They’re both very practical men and I think that, especially things like the voting margins, in the Michigan medical marijuana and the Massachusetts marijuana decriminalization, will have an effect on them.

Obama has already indicated that he’s in favor of ‘not’ letting the feds interfere with state medical marijuana laws. Congress is starting to feel it’s oats and not only the numbers but the orientation’s who changed enough there.

I like, I’m going to say that in this next session of congress we’re going to see, at least, decriminalization of marijuana on a national level.

Dean Becker: Let’s talk once again about the hysteria. We know, if you just look at the stats and here’s where I have the greatest discomfort with what the major media does. They don’t talk about the fact that the number of deaths from all hard drugs, all recreational drugs, hovers somewhere around the same level as do deaths from just Aspirin and Tylenol alone.

They don’t talk about the unnecessary hysteria. They don’t talk about the fact that we could lower the death rate from these illegal drugs if people could just pick up the phone and call for help, if they think they‘ve overdosed. Or that…

Mr. Buford Terrell: Let me say one word to you.

Dean Becker: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Buford Terrell: Deadline.

T.V. reporters especially have such quick turnaround with the new 24 hour news schedule and even newspaper reporters don’t have time and frequently don’t have the training or the resources, to do any kind of historically oriented, broad based, statistical research.

I know, I keep a log of stories in The Chronicle. Drug stories show up in school news, they show up in city council news, they show up in general police reports, they show up in international news, they show up in business news. So, here you’ve got reporters in a specialty that have drugs flipping over their left shoulder and they don’t know anything about them and they really can’t report anything except the one little snippet they heard.

What we really need is for big papers like The Chronicle, New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post to have, I guess you could say, a designated Drug Reporter, to come in and help out to co-write when drugs show up in these other specialist areas.

Dean Becker: OK Buford, I’ll tell you what. We’re going to take a one minute break and we’ll be right back.
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It’s time to play: Name That Drug by it’s Side Effects.

Loss of personal freedom, family and possessions. Ineligible for government funding, education, licensing, housing or employment. Loss of aggressive mind set, in a dangerous world. This drug’s peaceful, easy feeling can be habit forming.

(((gong)))

Times up. The answer: Doobie, jimmy, joint, reefer, spliff, jibber, jay, biffa, jazz, blunt, steege, greener, cracker, hogger, bone, carrot, maryjane, marijuana, cannabis sativa.

Made by God. Prohibited by man.
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Lock up Rush Limbaugh. OR Does he deserve our sympathy?

Rush Limbaugh was arrested for prescription drug fraud involving the narcotic, Oxycontin and was caught with Viagra, baring someone else’s name.

But he has called cancer patients, using medical marijuana, “The long haired, maggot infested, dope smoking crowd.”

Well, so much for sympathy. Let’s end the hypocrisy. Visit the Marijuana Policy Project Foundation at joinmpp.org or call 1-877-JOIN MPP (564-6677)
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You know my friends, it’s time. It’s time. On the drive in today, I’m thinking about the fact that America knows the truth. We realized we are being bamboozled, sucker punched on a daily basis by the banks and the corporations and the politicians and the cops and the cartels, pharmaceutical companies. We’re being shafted on a daily basis and yet we all remain so silent.

I see what goes on in other countries in the Western hemisphere, when the government gets too uppity, when the corporations get too greedy. The people react. The people do something. They speak up, they participate, they go to the rallies, the marches. The riots. They participate.

We can’t sit much longer while our nation is devoured, while our finances are flushed, while our rights are taken away. We’ve got to do something. So I urge you to think about that. You’ve got to do something. You know the truth. If you’re a long term listener to The Drug Truth Network, you know the full truth about the drug war.

It’s time to end it. It’s time to kill Obama’s fattest cash cow. It’s time to do our part.

OK. Once again, you’re listening to the Cultural Baggage Show here on The Drug Truth Network. We have with us in-studio, Mr. Brian Arthur, of the Mazatec Garden here in the mother-ship city and we have Professor Buford Terrell with us on the phone.

Buford, I want to just cut you loose here, man. I’m outraged by the situation, the ‘status quo’ if you will. Your thoughts, Sir.

Mr. Buford Terrell: Well. I am outraged. But on the other hand, I can see where it came from. The newest of our major prohibitions is against marijuana and that’s now 70 years old.

That means that almost everyone in this country, form Obama down to the homeless guy on the street, has been taught by anyone who ever taught in anything, whoever wrote in the newspaper for, that drugs are bad, that drugs are killers and they don’t know any better.

The only people that have broken out of this mind set that we’ve all been taught, are a handful that have run into reality one way or another. Somehow we’ve got to break the monopoly on education that has turned everyone in the country into a drug prohibitionist and they don’t even know they are.

That’s what the sad part is, is that the propaganda has become so universal that even people with the best minds and the fairest minds and the openest minds in the whole country, think they’re doing the right thing because they’ve never heard anything any different from school, from media, from government. And the people, most a lot of them, telling them these things think they’re right too. Because that’s all they ever heard.

Now, how we break through this? I’m not really sure. But somehow, somehow we’ve got to get the facts out there for people and break what’s been a monopoly on education for three generations, at least.

Dean Becker: All right. Buford, we’re going to have to cut if off right here but, I want to invite you back soon. We’re going to kick this around some more. This was Professor Buford Terrell from Southwest Texas College of Law and Brian Arthur from the Mazatec Garden, in the mother-ship city. Brian, closing thought to your customers and to the kids out there.

Brian Arthur: Well, if you’re interested in keeping another plant from being ’scheduled’ in the state of Texas, please keep an eye on the legal status of Sylvia.

The bill that Doc Anderson is putting in, will start going through the legislature in January and we’re going to be having a letter writing campaign for it. So, just please keep on eye on it.

Dean Becker: Your website?

Brian Arthur: It’s MazatecGarden.com

Dean Becker: Alright. Well, thank you very much and we’re going to get some other news here.
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A Play about…. marijuana.

Door opens. ugh.

Male voice: Get out of here Dewey.

Dewey: What are you all doing in here?

Male voice: We’re smokin’ reefer and you don’t want no part of this _hit.

Dewey: You’re smokin’ reefers?

Male voice 2: Yeah, of course we are. Can’t you smell it?

Dewey, using dramatic voice: No Sam, I can’t.

Female voice: Come on Dewey, join the party.

Male voice: No Dewey, you don’t want this. Get out of here.

Dewey: You know what, I don’t want no hangover. I can’t get no hangover.

Male voice: It doesn’t give you a hangover.

Dewey: Well, will I get addicted to it or something?

Male voice: It’s not habit forming.

Dewey: Oh, o.k. Well, I don’t know. I don’t want to overdose on it.

Male voice: You can’t O.D. on it.

Dewey: It’s not gonna make me want to have sex, is it?

Male voice: It makes sex even better.

Dewey: It sounds kind of expensive.

Male voice: It’s the cheapest drug there is.

Dewey: Hmmm.

Male voice: You don’t want it.

Dewey: I think I kinda want it.

Male voice 2: O.K. But just this once. Come on in.

Door shuts.
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Dean Becker: OK We got just enough time for Terry Nelson’s report. Thirty-three years working for the U.S. Government as a Customs, Border and Air Interdiction Officer. Mr. Terry Nelson.

This is Terry Nelson of LEAP. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Last week I attended LEAP’s annual board meeting. This time in Florida. The board members agreed that the time is right to increase our momentum and this will begin with our National Press Conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on 2, December.

We’re working on our limited budget and shifting our priorities just like you are. We have to focus our efforts to get more bang for your buck, as we depend on your donations to keep us afloat.

While in Florida, I heard a news report that Florida is facing budget cuts and all agencies have been asked to declare what and where they can cut. I was struck by a comment, from the representative from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, about your upcoming budget cuts. All of you out there have to tighten your belts and they have to do the same.

The difference is, that comments made by the FDLE representative, is that they will have to make cuts in the Amber Alert Program and also the Child Predator Program and that this could cause harm to our children.

The report used the word ‘could’ many times and alluded that it ‘could’ make things worse for our children. It did not say ‘would’ or ‘will’ in the release.

These scare tactics, using our children as pawns, must stop. I can certainly suggest cuts that can save money and that is in the Narcotics and Vice Units.

A quick search revealed that the 2008 budget, for the initiative to combat gangs, is Three Million Dollars. I think I can see a cut right there that will save the Amber Alert Program.

We know that gangs get much of their funding from the sale of prohibited drugs. Thus, ending prohibition will greatly reduce the gangs reach and influence.

At LEAP, we know an addiction can be beaten. But you never beat a conviction. Let’s put the estimated 79 Billion Dollars spent on the wasted war on drugs, into education and treatment.

According to Milton Freedman, the taxation of marijuana sales alone would bring in billions of dollars and would more than adequately pay for the research and the cures for addiction. As well as support the treatment for those that do become addicted.

Let’s take the criminal cartels and gangs and the obscene profits out of the picture and we can get our streets back. People will again respect the police and our jail populations will be manageable and it will be safer for ’all’ of our children (and note that I used ’will’ be safer).

Let’s spend the money on education and treatment instead of incarceration. We all want a better future for ourselves and our children.

Speaking for LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition at www.leap.cc, this is Terry Nelson. Signing off.
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Dean Becker: OK, I hope you enjoyed this show. I want to thank Professor Terrell and Brian Arthur for their participation.

Be sure to check out this weeks Century of Lies Show. Features a speech by Ray Manserick, Keyboardist of The Doors and he talks about the first rehearsal of The Doors and the first time they ran through Moonlight Drive, high on weed.

Also, next week on The Cultural Baggage Show, our guest will be Brian K. Alexander, author or a great book, The Globalization of Addiction - A Study in Poverty of the Spirit.

As always, I remind you that because of prohibition, you don’t know what’s in that 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