Ganja Eases Traumatic Memories New Orleans...

Study: Marijuana Eases Traumatic Memories
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13601.shtml

Scientists have known for years that the brain makes substances almost identical to the active ingredient in marijuana, but the function of these cannabinoids remained mysterious. Researchers now say they help to extinguish traumatic memories. In certain situations, being able to forget is very important for emotional survival, said George Kunos, a neurobiologist at the National Institutes of Health.

Pot Blocks Painful Memories, Study Says
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13600.shtml

Dr. Lutz's study will only add to the argument in favour of decriminalization. But it is also a landmark in medical terms because it deals with one of the central survival mechanisms of the vertebrate brain: the ability to spot danger and flee from it. Scientists have long understood that the brain can reprogram itself not to flee if the danger goes away. That is called extinction of a memory. But scientists have not understood how it happens. Dr. Lutz's research shows that the answer lies in the body's store of cannabinoids, or cannabis-like natural chemicals, produced whenever the body needs them. The brain has a receptor for these cannabis-like chemicals and can use them to help reprogram the response to a fear. A problem is that the fear reaction can stick around when no longer needed. That can lead to panic attacks or paralyzing irrational fear. Dr. Lutz said his finding could mean that a person in the grip of trauma might be able to summon up the terrible memory, with the help of a psychotherapist, then smoke marijuana to enhance the ability of the brain to extinguish the memory. He said that smoking is by far the most efficient way of getting the substance to the brain, although researchers are looking at an aerosol to administer it straight to the lungs.

Nature
http://www.nature.com
Pot-Like Chemical Helps Beat Fear
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13596.shtml
'Natural' Cannabis Manages Memory
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13598.shtml
Natural High Extinguishes Bad Memories in Brain
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13593.shtml
Innate Cannabis Chemical Erases Fears
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020729/020729-6.html
Cannabis, the Importance of Forgetting by Michael Pollan
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MASHAction/message/400

He said that smoking is by far the most efficient way of getting the substance to the brain,
although researchers are looking at an aerosol to administer it straight to the lungs.

GW Pharmaceuticals
http://www.gwpharm.com
GW Hits High as Bayer Snaps Up Cannabis Drug Sativex
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread16348.shtml
Cannabis Medicine 'On Sale This Year '
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15773.shtml
Trials Show Cannabis Spray Helps MS Patients
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14667.shtml

Cannabis-Hemp / Dr Andrew Weil Links
http://pub40.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionlinx.showMessage?topicID=90.topic

GW Bush Gang: IG Farben 2001
http://www.Baltech.org/lederman/bush-farben-1-5-01.html

Seeking Rest From the Terrors, New York Pops Pills
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionffffhyperlinked.showMessage?topicID=27.topic
Friday September 28 2001
By Jonathan Landreth (Excerpted)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers are increasingly turning to sedation to help them escape the nightmares created by the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

According to doctors and pharmacists in the city, New York's denizens--many grieving for lost friends and family--are looking to medicine more than ever before to help fall asleep.

``The week of the 11th, there were very few calls because patients assumed we were tied up taking care of the disaster and probably thought their problems seemed small,'' said Charles Bardes, associate professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and a New York Hospital doctor.

``Now, in the third week since the attack, the floodgates have opened and I'm getting dozens and dozens of calls for sleeping pills and other drugs,'' Bardes said.

The two most commonly prescribed sleeping pills, those for which Bardes said he has seen a ``huge swell'' of requests, are Ambien from Pharmacia Corp., and Sonata from American Home Products Corp.

Some pharmacists said the spike in demand for these drugs was immediate.

``Right after the incident, sale of Ambien went up about 50%,'' said Rajan Kohli of independent Falk Drug & Surgical Supply near New York Hospital on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

A great number of elderly patients who are prescribed the drugs on an ``as needed'' basis were getting prescriptions filled for the first time, Kohli added. ``With all the added stress, they needed their sleep.''



VICIOUS CIRCLE

Consumption of sleeping pills and antidepressants is common in dealing with stress and anxiety resulting from trauma, but need not be continued after patients restabilize, experts say.

``People take the drugs to make them feel as if this had not happened at all. Many people are reporting sleep disturbance and anxiety, which is normal, but they may want to allow themselves to get to the feelings that the drugs are suppressing,'' said psychotherapist Susan Lukas, a New York Certified Social Worker. continued @ title link...

Therapeutic Use of Cannabis
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch07.html
Asthma Glaucoma Tumors Nausea/Cancer Chemotherapy Epilepsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Back Pain & Spasms Antibiotics & Antibacterial CBDs Herpes, Cystic Fibrosis, Arthritis & Rheumatism Expectorant Sleep & Relaxation Emphysema Stress, Migraines Appetite Salivation AIDS, Depression, Etc. Acceptable Risks One Man's Determination Compassionate Cannabis & Cruel Cops Merck Manual War on Drugs

CANNABIS LUNG CLEANER AND EXPECTORANT
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch07.html

Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the human lungs of smog, dust and the phlegm associated with tobacco use. Marijuana smoke effectively dilates the airways of the lungs, the bronchi, opening them to allow more oxygen into the lungs. It is also the best natural dilator of the tiny airways of the lungs, the bronchial tubes - making cannabis the best overall bronchial dilator for 80% of the population (the remaining 20% sometimes show minor negative reactions). (See section on asthma - a disease that closes these passages in spasms - UCLA Tashkin studies, 1969-97; U.S. Costa Rican, 1980-82; Jamaican studies 1969-74, 76.) Statistical evidence - showing up consistently as anomalies in matched populations - indicates that people who smoke tobacco cigarettes are usually better off and will live longer if they smoke cannabis moderately, too. (Jamaicna, Costa Rican studies.)

Millions of Americans have given up or avoided smoking tobacco products in favor of cannabis, which is not good news to the powerful tobacco lobby - Senator Jesse Helms and his cohorts. A turn-of-the-century grandfather clause in U.S. tobacco law allows 400 to 6,000 additional chemicals to be added. Additions since then to the average tobacco cigarette are unknown, and the public in the U.S. has no right to know what they are. Many joggers and marathon runners feel cannabis use cleans their lungs, allowing better endurance. The evidence indicates that cannabis use will probably increase these outlaw American marijuana-users' lives by about one to two years - yet they may lose their rights, property, children, state licenses, etc., just for using that safest of substances: cannabis.

SLEEP AND RELAXATION
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch07.html

Cannabis lowers blood pressure, dilates the arteries and reduces body temperature an average of one-half degree, thereby relieving stress. Evening cannabis smokers in general report more restful sleep. Using cannabis allows most people a more complete rest with a higher amount of alpha time during sleep as compared with prescription or sleep-inducing patent sedatives. Prescription sleeping pills (the so called legal, safe and effective drugs) are often just synthesized analogs of truly dangerous plants like mandrake, henbane and belladonna. As late as 1991, doctors, pharmacists and drug companies were fighting off new legislation to restrict these often abused compounds. (L.A. Times, April 2, 1991). Unlike Valium, cannabis does not potentiate the effects of alcohol. It is estimated that cannabis could replace more than 50% of Valium, Librium, Thorazine, Stelazine, other -zine drugs and most sleeping pills.

It is unconscionable that, over the past two decades, tens of thousands of parents have committed their own children, aged 11 to 17, to be treated by massive doses of so-called -zine drugs in order to get them off pot, at the urging of parent groups, the PDFA, the feds and administrators and doctors from federally approved, private and high-profit drug rehabilitation centers. Often, -zine drugs do work to stop these youths from using pot. They also stop a kid from loving his or her dog, too - and children stand a one-in-four chance of suffering from uncontrollable shaking for the rest of their lives. But at least they're not high.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said that 20-40% of -zine drug users have or will develop permanent lifetime pasies (shakes), November 1983. These prescription neurotoxins are chemically related to the pesticide and warfare nerve gas Sarin. Hundreds of private drug-rehabilitation centers and their leaders keep this policy alive and in front of the media, often quoting discredited reports from NIDA or DEA (see Chapter 16, debunking) because they earn fat profits selling their useless or destructive marijuana treatment for children. After all, a relapse just means using marijuana against after a number of bouts with an authority. This is mind control and an attempt to destroy individual free will.

DEPRESSION & HUNDREDS OF OTHER PRIMARY MEDICAL USES
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch07.html

One well known effect of THC is to life the spirit, or make you high. Cannabis users in Jamaica praise ganja's benefits for meditation, concentration, consciousness-raising and promoting a state of well being and self assertiveness.5 This kind of attitude adjustment, along with a healthier appetite and better rest, often represents the difference between feeling like you are dying of AIDS or cancer and feeling like you are living with AIDS or cancer. Cannabis also eases small pains and some big ones and helps senior citizens live with aches and pains like arthritis, insomnia and debilitating infirmities, and enjoy life in greater dignity and comfort. Legend has it, and medical evidence indicates, that cannabis is the best overall treatment for dementia, senility, and maybe Alzheimer's disease, for long-term memory gain and hundreds of other benefits. U.S. statistics of the 1970s indicated that you will live eight to 24 years longer if you substitute daily cannabis use for daily tobacco and alcohol use. New research is outlawed, of course.

ACCEPTABLE RISKS
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch07.html

Every U.S. commission or federal judge who has studied the evidence has agreed that cannabis is one of the safest drugs known. With all its therapeutic uses, it has only one side effect that has been exaggerated as a concern: the high. The DEA says this is not acceptable, so cannbis continues to be totally illegal in utter disregard for both doctor and patient. Every day we trust physicians to determine whether the risks associated with therapeutic, yet potentially dangerous drugs are acceptable for their patients. Yet, doctors are not allowed to prescribe the herb that Federal Judge Francis Young in 1988 called one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. We don't put out doctors in charge of stopping violent crimes. The police, prosecutors and prison guards should not be in charge of which herbal therapies people may use to treat their personal health problems.

Missing Nixon tapes
excerpts begin with the Nixon doctrine on why marijuana is much worse than alcohol: It is because people drink to have fun but they smoke marijuana to get high. This distinction was evidently enormously significant to Nixon, because he repeats it...

You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?

Richard Nixon missing tapes
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread12302.shtml

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.
From Benito Mussolini contributing to the London Sunday Express, December 8, 1935

You're enough of a pro, Nixon tells Shafer, to know that for you to come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and what the country feels, and what we're planning to do, would make your commission just look bad as hell.

The Shafer Commission of 1970
Marijuana does not lead to physical dependency, although some evidence indicates that the heavy, long-term users may develop a psychological dependence on the drug

Clinical experience suggests that it is helpful for patients with severe nausea and vomiting, arthritis, glaucoma, muscle spasms, premenstrual syndrome, seizure disorders, the AIDS weight loss syndrome, asthma, fibromyalgia, Tourette's syndrome, and depression, to name a few.
Many thousands of patients are using cannabis to treat these and other disorders. Given the legal risks, they would not be doing this if they did not believe it was helpful to them. These patients are in urgent need of a legal accommodation that allow them to use a medicine which they know is important to their well-being.

Testimony of Lester Grinspoon, M.D.
Associate Professor of Psychiatry,
Harvard Medical School

RX Marijuana Uses
http://marijuana-uses.com
Shared Stories of Medical Cannabis
http://rxmarijuana.com/shared.htm
Shared comments and observations
http://rxmarijuana.com/comments_and_observations.htm
Cannabis New Medical related articles
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml



Prohibition causes trauma, depression and D.E.A.th...

http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/Peterm.htm target=_blank>Peter McWilliams: 1950 – 2000
As a result, his AIDS viral load, which had been undetectable, soared to dangerous levels. Peter was also very fragile psychologically. Aggravated by his health and legal problems, he often suffered from debilitating http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/Peterm.htm target=_blank>bouts of depression. Certainly, he was badly damaged by being in federal detention, and he knew from that experience that he could not survive very long if he were sent to prison.

Rainbow Farm Massacre
http://www.mapinc.org/find?200
PREJUDICE: MARIJUANA AND JIM CROW LAWS
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch13.html
MY COUNTRY 'TIS OF THY PEOPLE YOU'RE DYING
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionfrm13.showMessage?topicID=26.topic
The Elkhorn Manifesto
http://www.sumeria.net/politics/shadv3.html

In 2000, there were 1,579,566 drug arrests in the US. Of those, 46.5 percent
-- 734,497 arrests -- were for marijuana.
There were 646,042 arrests for simple possession of marijuana in 2000.
Drug War Facts http://www.drugwarfacts.org

November Coalition
http://www.novembercoalition.org
FRCn Idiots
http://www.cannabinoid.com/boards/politics/media/35/35117.gif

U.S. law enforcement spends $7.5 to $10 billion annually enforcing marijuana laws.
According to the FBI, 720,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges in 2001.
Keith Stroup, (NORML) http://www.norml.org



Hemp extracts can be used to treat a variety of physical and mental ailments which include tuberculosis, glaucoma, depression, and the side effects of cancer therapy. Prior to this century, cannabis extracts were the most commonly used medicines throughout the world.

Hemp Related Articles
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/hemp.shtml
Omega3 and Vitamin E
http://www.alzforum.org/res/adh/hyp/#omega3
http://www.safariseeds.com

Dr. Heath/Tulane Study, 1974
The Hype: Brain Damage and Dead Monkeys
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch15.html

Tod H. Mikuriya M.D.
http://www.mikuriya.com

 

i didnt read teh whole thing because it was all teh same shit. while what theyre saying is true, its also increidbly biased FOR cannabis. its ignoring the actual problems of weed that should be reserarched in preventing.

plus, the terminally ill should smoke crack, havnt you read http://www.cocaine.org ?


anyway scientists are so slow, how can it take this long to work out what chemicals in the brain do, its as if scientists refuse to study their own minds. from what ive read it seems clear that cannabinoid receptors control the direction of thoughts / the mind resources to be used. what cannabis really does is generally inhibit judgemental thoughts, such as remembering traumatic experiences and linkning it automatically to trauma, when in reality, its just a memory that can be interpreted however. smoking cannabis removes the automatic emotional link to teh memory. since emotions hinder realisation, removing the emotional link (to whatever extent) allows people to look at their memories without emotional bias.

however, without the proper guidance, these memories can stimulate totally fresh emotion, which can be just as bad as before. thats why personal strength, or therapudic help is required to make it a beneficial experience. some people, moreso females than males, experience bad thoughts from cannabis. but it can happen to anyone.

teh study doesnt seem to take into account the fact that when you smoke cannabis, it can go awfully wrong and land you in the midst of a traumatic panic attack.



This is my reply to the cannabis news group.. it takes a while to get registered though lol




_________________________________________

It is as though the psychologists and neuroscientists of today are refusing to study their own minds in order to come to conclusions on the pharmacological effects of drugs in the brain. Why does it take this long to come up with minimal conclusions such as 'Endocannabinoids MIGHT be responsible for forgetting traumatic memories'.

Here is my take on the issue:

Cannabinoids affect neurons all over the brain, but more specifically, they affect pyrimidal neurons, the neurons that link many bipolar and one directional neurons that act as our brains biological 'Logic gates'. These pyrimidal cells have many connections to many other neurons. Almost as if they are the intersections of the highways in the brain.

Now, when one gets stoned, we can see that there are some very clearly observable affects of cannabinoids.

One aspect of the cannabis experience is area of concentration. The percievable area of concentration is much more specific than in the sober mind. This leads to people having trouble with logical sequencing, which requires the aknowlegement of numerous factors from different areas of long term, short term, and working memories. There is of course, practically no working memory in the stoned mind, and so a lot of desired logical sequences cannot be reached.

Cannabis has been said to 'hinder concentration' when it is well known that cannabis actually enhances concentration to levels impossible to many while sober. However the problem is that the concentration is on directional. it will keep advancing to whatever thought pops up. It is incontrollable and often directed at things that are not in the best interests of a task that the person must undertake. Spacially, people are said to have less coordination when under teh influence of cannabis. However this is ignorant to the real experience going on. Lack of coordination does not come from the depression of the CNS. it comes from the area of concentration that a person percieves. under the influence, one is able to perform amazing feats of phsyical attunity. However this is only possible in the aknowleged spacial area in the right hemisphere.

So how does this fit into the pyrimidal cell idea? Well seeing as these cells link many neurons together, it makes sense that cannabinoids affect the way these neurons channel nervous signals. pain does not seem to register in the same way when stoned as when sober. however, the pleasure gates are opened and pleasure can be felt much more when stoned. Is this a channeling of pyrimidal intersections?

Now I could of course go further in there but the real topic here is cannabinoid effects on emotional memory.

When stoned, and in teh right environment, bias is dropped in many ways. Experiences are taken as they are, as are thoughts and ideas. When sober, almost every experience is linked to an emotional or judgemental bias. For example, dismissing ideas immediately due to their laterality. Or prejudice to other cultures regardless of teh actual nature of the culture. This is dangrous for governments and is easily turned around to be seen as a bad effect of cannabis. For example, in the 1930's, prohibition propaganda cited that 'cannabis caused white women to be attracted to black men'. Of course, today, this is not a problem, and in non racist societies, white women often are attracted to black men for various reasons. What was really going on? were white women losing their judgement? well.. yes! but the problem was in teh judgement, not in its lack.
I hope this makes sense.

So what is going on here? linkning in with the pyrimidal idea, perhaps the purpose of these cells is to make automatic links between various thoughts. For example, when in a normal state, many logical sequences are executable. Mathematicians for example have many concrete logical links in their mind that can convert a symbol on a page to a string of individual functions that a good mathematician can calculate simultaneously.
In the same way, prejudice comes when, for example, the thought of another race automatically renders certain judgements.
Stereotypes have an important role in the mind. A person mustbe able to generalise in order too maximise survival potential. concrete links must be established in many instances so that they dont have to be re-established every time a person enters whatever situation it is that requires these links.

Now i hope all this has been linearly connective because through all this we can clearly see what is going on in the aspect of traumatic memories.

In the instance of traumatic memories, the memory is automatically LINKED, prejudiced, sterotyped, to an emotion, namely, trauma.

Pyrimidal cells most likely (through all this observation, but its not proven.. not that any of these studies have proven anything anyway) have a role in this by automatically linking memories to emotions. At teh same time, emotions can be linked to memories, and many other links can be made so that in people experiencing post traumatic stress, these connectios can link to almost all facets of their life.

so how does cannabis help? well what it does for many memories, is allow people to extinguish these emotional links by blocking off the pyrimidal-logic-connections. a stoned person will remember the memory but not the emotions that come with it. however they will generate new emotions at the time, depending on their state or teh significance of the memory. with the right therapudic/emotional support, the interpretation of memories can be changed for the better. however insecure/weak minded individuals (not their fault, just their nature)can succumb to merely remembering issues and developing totally new emotions that are just as traumatic, or alternatively, depressing and esteem-burning. This is why these beneficial uses of cannabinoids only come with teh correct guidance/education.

and so, we can conclude that PTSD is the overaction of stereotyped thought patterns (linkning thoughts to emotion), and cannabis allows for overcoming these connections by allowing for not only an emotionally fresh memory (subject to new perception), but increased ability to concentrate on all issues surrounding the memory, through increased-specific-concentration.

I hope this was interesting. Please point out any errors in the logical connections i may have made between cause and effect.

one must also remember that the endocannabinoids in the brain are specifically tuned and regulated at each site they work on. when smoking cannabis, the cannabinoids are subjected to every area of the brain at once. Im not sure if this is taken into account when people consider these issues of using external analogues of neurochemicals.

 

StonerBill Learn*

i didnt read teh whole thing because it was all teh same shit.

Funny thing about references that way...

while what theyre saying is true, its also increidbly biased FOR cannabis.

Did he really say that? Yup... oey ve!

its ignoring the actual problems of weed that should be reserarched in preventing.

Thats called reefer madness and thats what information does. Ganja is illegal cause prohibition makes money. Period.

plus, the terminally ill should smoke crack, havnt you read http://www.cocaine.org ?

Coming from a cracker or a stoner is the only way that makes sense. All reefer madness is theory. You can't fake pain relief or blame Ganja cause ignorants toke schwagg and have a bad time of it. If you go beyond you're own personal limits you deserve a bad time and should learn from it rather than cry about it to stop others not having a bad time. Grow up.

anyway scientists are so slow,

Get your head out of the sack, scientists work for corporations or the military, period. They work on what they get paid to work on, period. You think you can fix a broken system within the boundaries of a broken system using the broken systems technicians? and thats why the fascists can profit going on 70 years. Numbnut experts!!!

how can it take this long to work out what chemicals in the brain do,

Duh, its not what they do its the perception of what they might do is what the public hears on mainstream faux news and gossip shows. And klintoon gerbals hugging trees shunning ganja to promote hemp, bails of hay.

its as if scientists refuse to study their own minds.

They don't want you to have a gun out of fear you might use it why would they want us to have the much more dangerous independent thought? Don't be silly, keep on grazing in the multitude of pastures they direct you. Like I said, we are the wealthiest nation do to war, disease, crime and the occasional natural disaster. Treatment pays, cures and prevention don't. You trying to rock the boat or have an income less the the cost of incarceration, more business can be generated and taxed with you behind bars. Especially if you speak out.

"A man came around, tried to clean up this town,
his ideas made some people mad.
So he trusted his crowds and he spoke right out loud,
and they lost the best friend they had...
Flying Burrito Brothers

Homelessness deterrents bro, kill the messenger and disregard the message. Like all that same ole paranoia you started the reply with.

from what ive read it seems clear that cannabinoid receptors control the direction of thoughts / the mind resources to be used.

first, what you read can only have come from a research group using government schwagg and until 1999, only for harmful effects. No medical research. So thc receptors and transmitters must do more than even the top legal research cause the patients are getting relief somehow, regardless of theories.

Remote signals bypassing the corroded nervous system hardwiring of an MS or Parkinson patient? Transmitting beyond one brain into another? Maybe some Vietnamese buds or good Hawaiian under the right conditions? Definitely something to hide from the public. My 35 year observation is it is in direct conflict with human teachings, especially the herd mentality oh so required to keep people abusing themselves 50 years at a job. The educational system censored hemp for the message it would send to school kids. It might lead them to stronger fibers and nutrition. So whatever the system has even provided, its not the best it can be and until its removed from the just us system, it will remain a profitable product as a controlled schedule#1 substance. On both sides! And although I feel for the patients and busted I personally would prefer to participate in the underground economy over the bushit fascism. The money stays in the community and goes to people I know and trust over some middleman exploiter in DC.

what cannabis really does is generally inhibit judgmental thoughts,

Generally general? It all depends on the bud and the toker dude. And the sense to know when to toke and what you can handle. All education unrelated to the properties you assign Ganja. Ganja doesn't make everyone do anything. Prohibition creates the paranoia and every 30 seconds or so another toker will be paranoid as the piggies drag them off for possession. Inhibit judgmental thoughts? Only when inexperienced or doing something without proper instruction. The same as any sober one and boozers who will always do far worse. I ran boilers many years and can assure you had had to make quick judgments or not be here. At best the research is still under the conditions of prohibition and contaminants and adulterations. Like the phony comparison to tobacco products with added flame retardants not in Ganja. Or the preservatives and curing chemicals. Thousands not in Ganja but the research doesn't recommend smoking cause of the harm cigarettes have done. Not organic tobacco in Egypt, Turkey or Native Americans using 30,000 years, just American tobacco "products". And all the money made treating the diseases from smoking and drinking and the side effects of white powders. Just business dude. Reefer madness has a reason.

such as remembering traumatic experiences and linkning it automatically to trauma, when in reality, its just a memory that can be interpreted however.

man, why complicate things as anyone who knows anything about toking. Your short term memory is effected when your doing something you should be straight doing. Otherwise it doesn't matter if you forget what channel you were watching. But that is what lessens the trauma after the tragedy. That is why Israel soldiers are given Ganja for PTSD, and as a brain protection for nerve gas. It lessens the sharpness of the mental anguish causing the depression and harmful disorders later on. Plus the thc makes you forget unnecessary things like what you just saw walking through a room. Or we would have so much stuff to think about we couldn't live. So its as important to forget as it is to remember some times.

smoking cannabis removes the automatic emotional link to teh memory.

Where do you even come up with such matter of fact theories? I've experienced the same emotions as anyone, how silly. Ganja opens small brain capillaries to not only aid stroke victims but to expand area to store more memories to create bigger pictures to see what some might not want seen. Simple. Seems every very revolution including Jesus, started with Ganja cause it shows a glimpse of the truth, suppressed for generations sometimes. But enough to spur action to change the conditions instead of the sheep mentality of not questioning authority. So besides the direct profits of prohibition who knows what Ganja can do that those in power don't want us peons doing?

since emotions hinder realization, removing the emotional link (to whatever extent) allows people to look at their memories without emotional bias.

Yes emotions can cloud realism but I think Ganja shows truth and then that releases passion to make the truth real. The realists like Jefferson eliminated the "beliefs and theories in the Jefferson Bible he removed all the mystical stories and dealt with reality. Mamon invented words to separate the genders and classes to eliminate those illiterates from positions. Ganja probably helped expanded the ape brain to a size it had to split, thus human arrives. The trauma of a hurricane is losing physical possessions, that have nothing to do with reality. Yet most of the sheep race will put stock in these worldly possession, like their diplomas while losing common sense. Trained puppets making laws and more work to perpetuate a minority of rich to devastate the poor; paid by the workers. As a hospice caregiver the past 15 years I have also observed families and medical professionals treating their loved ones/patients as possessions. Instead of making them comfortable and calm. The past experiences of the trauma victim, what they're made of comes into play. Some react more intensely and others don't do a thing.

however, without the proper guidance, these memories can stimulate totally fresh emotion, which can be just as bad as before.

Rooooooooooooooooooooll another one, jus like the other one.....

thats why personal strength, or therapudic help is required to make it a beneficial experience.

If you're a gambler. Many quacks doling out fixes, I suspect anything called "the rapist"

some people, moreso females than males, experience bad thoughts from cannabis. but it can happen to anyone.

You seem to be fluent in doublespeak, don't ya think taking one side at a time is less confusing on your readers? Gender based? Have we not progressed passed this damn silly rumor? Ganja is a great balancer. If you are skinny, it gives munchies, if obese it curtails appetite. It is a natural antibiotic stimulating the immune system while curtailing it in arthritis victims. If a frigid woman tokes they might experience the truth and joy of sex more than one comfortable and experienced with the subject. But stop the reefer madness that got it its misnomer Marihuana, the M word. If your lilly white daughters smoke the heathern devil weed they will turn into vamps like Mary Jane, the Corsican dancer and prostitute tequila drinking reefer toking girlfriend of the notorious Poncho Villa! Arch enemy of all American fascist, especially newspaper magnet Randolph Hearst. Time and experience will equal the genders the same as it has in the workplace.

teh study doesnt seem to take into account the fact that when you smoke cannabis, it can go awfully wrong and land you in the midst of a traumatic panic attack.

Only in the comic books from DARE or the FRCn PDFA! Abuse of Ganja is not the properties of Ganja and panic attacks are not only overblown, but directly related to the persons metabolism, past physical condition, what they ate the night before. The thc levels or adulterations, all properties of prohibition, not Ganja. If someone has a panic attack they ate or toked beyond their own boundaries and thats just dumb. Thats why they're your boundaries. Peer pressure is low self esteem. Not Ganja.

This is my reply to the cannabis news group.. it takes a while to get registered though lol

and that was mine da dum bump...
DdC

Here's Andy Weils...

What No One Wants to Know About Marijuana by Dr. Andrew Weil

"a-motivation [is] a cause of heavy marijuana smoking rather than the reverse"
Dr. Andrew Weil (Rubin & Comitas Ganja in Jamaica, 1975)

What No One Wants to Know About Marijuana
http://deoxy.org/pdfa/marijuana.htm
From The Natural Mind by Dr. Andrew Weil
(last half of chapter four pg. 86-97)

Because marijuana is such an unimpressive pharmacological agent, it is not a very interesting drug to study in a laboratory. Pharmacologists cannot get a handle on it with their methods, and because they cannot see the reality of the non-material state of consciousness that users experience, they are forced to design experimental situations very far removed from the real world in order to get measurable effects. There are three conditions under which marijuana can be shown to impair general psychological performance in laboratory subjects. They are:

1.by giving it to people who have never had it before;
2.by giving people very high doses that they are not used to
(or giving it orally to people used to smoking it); and
3.by giving people very hard things to do, especially things that they have never had a chance to practice while under the influence of the drug.

Under any of these three conditions, pharmacologists can demonstrate that marijuana impairs performance. And if we look at the work being done by NIMH-funded researchers, all of it fulfills one or more of these conditions. In addition, the tests being used by these scientists are designed to look for impairments of functions that have nothing to do with why marijuana users put themselves in an altered state of consciousness. People who get high on marijuana do not spontaneously try to do arithmetic problems or test their fine coordination.

If a marijuana user is allowed to smoke his usual doses and then to do things he has had a chance to practice while high, he does not appear to perform any differently from someone who is not high

Natural Compound May Reduce Brain Trauma Damage
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread11033.shtml

Missoula Chronic Cannabis Use Research Study
http://www.maps.org/mmj/russo.4-2001.html
Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8466.shtml

 

Seeking Rest From the Terrors, New York Pops Pills

Friday September 28 2001
By Jonathan Landreth (Excerpted)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers are increasingly turning to sedation to help them escape the nightmares created by the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

According to doctors and pharmacists in the city, New York's denizens--many grieving for lost friends and family--are looking to medicine more than ever before to help fall asleep.

SLEEP AND RELAXATION
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch07.html

CANNABIS LUNG CLEANER AND EXPECTORANT
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch07.html

DEPRESSION & HUNDREDS OF OTHER PRIMARY MEDICAL USES
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch07.html

ACCEPTABLE RISKS
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch07.html

Study: Marijuana Eases Traumatic Memories
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13601.shtml

Pot Blocks Painful Memories, Study Says
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13600.shtml

Pot-Like Chemical Helps Beat Fear
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13596.shtml
'Natural' Cannabis Manages Memory
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13598.shtml
Natural High Extinguishes Bad Memories in Brain
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13593.shtml
Innate Cannabis Chemical Erases Fears
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020729/020729-6.html
Cannabis, the Importance of Forgetting by Michael Pollan
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MASHAction/message/400

Cannabis, the Importance of Forgetting by Michael Pollan DendeCannabist
Offline
Send Email Cannabis, the Importance of Forgetting, and the Botany of Desire
Lecture
http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/townsend/avenali/avenali_top.html

Michael Pollan is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine
and the author of The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the
World.

Excerpted from: The Botany Of Desire by Michael Pollan
http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/august_2001/books.html

Here Mr. Pollan really warms up to his topic. Not just for the obvious
titillation, the forbidden weed. Before reading part three, I was on
the fence regarding legalization of cannabis. I'm off it now, squarely
in favor. Prior to President Reagan taking the reins of power, pot was
more or less tolerated. It was a kind of goofy drug, glamorized by
people like Robert Michum going to jail for toking up, or the
Beats--Ginsberg and company, and, of course, hippies. But suddenly
Reagan came in and war was declared. He had a knee jerk conservative
reaction against what pot had come to stand for: "Whatever the case,
it's hard to believe such a powerful new taboo against marijuana would
have stuck if the plant hadn't already been a powerful symbol.
Certainly marijuana's close identification with the counterculture made
it an attractive target to a drug war that, whatever else it may have
been, was part of a political and cultural reaction against the
sixties."

This ongoing war, Pollan points out, has threatened fourth, first, and
sixth amendment rights. Think of it, not one person has ever died of
the effects of smoking pot. Alcohol, heroin, cocaine kill. Grass?
Benign by comparison, yet more users are prosecuted, if not persecuted,
for weed than for all the others. Why? Did you know if you grow
cannabis on your land, the land can be seized for being guilty of
growing cannabis? Huh?

Here Pollan puts some point to his blade: The old capitalist-based
Protestant religions that shaped our nation. What does marijuana do?
Takes you out, makes you more in the moment, encourages an exploration
of consciousness, expands the horizon of thought (or minute details
into a new horizon), causes short term memory loss, takes a bite out of
constant material concerns and yearnings, and, worst of all, like sex,
or meditation or (ha, ha) art, disrupts the need to control the
ever-numbing future tense/past tense fear that precludes the here and
now in a bath of perpetual worry.

Bring on the Judeo-Christian concept of monotheism. Pot tends to open
up to pantheism, even paganism; a Blakeian universe in a grain of sand
vs. the promise of heaven to come (or hell to pay). Apollo vs. Dionysus
once again. Where do the work ethic and reward-later concepts fit, the
capitalist approach, into the grain of sand view? It doesn't, and there
is the conflict. It boils down, too, to the Freudian (here anti-)
pleasure principle: "More even than most plant drugs, cannabis, by
immersing us in the present and offering something like fulfillment
here and now, short-circuits the metaphysics of desire on which
Christianity and capitalism (and so much else in our civilization)
depend."

But for Pollan, a gardener, the main thrust is that the garden, here
intoxicating, reflects a place both earthbound and transcendent. God
thrust Adam and Eve out of Eden because they ate of the tree of
knowledge, and they had then to toil in pain far away from generous,
pleasurable nature. It's been a rough climb for the case of nature and
pleasure ever since. "...for civilization seems bent on breaking or at
least forgetting our connection to the earth." It's no accident that
they paved paradise to put up a bank.
http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/august_2001/books.html

Author Michael Pollan talks about his new book, The Botany of Desire: A
Plant's-Eye View of the World.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/conversation/jan-june01/botany_06-29.html

Author Michael Pollan will lecture, speak on panel, Nov. 12 and 13
The Avenali Lecturer for 2002-03, Michael Pollan, will speak on
“Cannabis, Forgetting and the Botany of Desire” at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday,
Nov. 12, in 1 Pimentel Hall. The following evening he will participate
in a panel discussion on “The Ecology of Food” moderated by Candice
Slater, director of the Townsend Center for the Humanities.
Co-panelists include Catherine Gallagher, professor of English, and
Ignacio Chapela, assistant professor of environmental science. The
discussion will take place at 4 p.m., Wednesday, Nov.13, in 315 Wheeler
Hall.

Michael Pollan: Cannabis, the Importance of Forgetting, and the Botany
of Desire 2002-11-12
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events/details.html?event_id=24

Michael Pollan, Avenali Professor for 2002-2003, lectured on Tuesday,
November 12, 2002 at 7:30 pm in Pimentel Hall.

The webcast archive will be available for on-demand viewing the
following day, Wednesday, November 13.

The follow-up panel on the subject "Ecology of Food" will also be
available via webcast the day after the event.

Michael Pollan, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and
author, has done a
range of work in journalism, environmentalism, and architecture.
Pollan, originally from Long Island, earned his college degrees at
Bennington College, Oxford University (Mansfield College), and Columbia
University, where he received a masters in English in 1981. He served
for many years as executive editor for Harper's Magazine and writes a
column on architecture for House & Garden.

His first book, Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (1991), and his
most recent, The Botany of Desire (2001), are among Pollan's many works
that examine the intersections between science and culture. Shorter
work by Michael Pollan has been anthologized in collections such as
Best American Essays and the Norton Book of Nature Writing. Pollan has
given lectures on environmentalism, gardening, and nature at the
Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the New York Public Library, the Harvard Graduate
School of Design, the New York Botanical Garden, the New York
Horticultural Society, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and
Dumbarton Oaks.

Pollan received the Borders Original Voice Award for the best
non-fiction work of 2001. Other writing awards earned by Michael Pollan
include the John Burroughs prize for the best natural history essay in
1997, the QPB New Vision Award for Second Nature and the 2000
Reuters-World Conservation Union Global Award for Environmental
Journalism for reporting on genetic engineering.

For more information on Michael Pollan, visit the Avenali Professor
website.
http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/townsend/avenali/avenali_top.html

Selected Books by Michael Pollan

1. The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World. Random House,
2001.
2. Tulipa: A Photographer's Botanical. Christopher Baker
(Photographer), et al. Artisan, 1999.
3. Second Nature: A Gardener's Education. Dell Books, 1995.
4. A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder. Dell Pub Co,
1998.

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
http://tiger.berkeley.edu/sohrab/books/fast_food_nation.html
Expert Deplores Conditions in American Meat Industry
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/ngno/metro/oakland/092102white.html
Meatpackers' profits hinge on pool of immigrant labor
http://are.berkeley.edu/APMP/pubs/i9news/profitshinge122101.html

Other Michael Pollan Websites

1. Michael Pollan on Fresh Air
http://freshair.npr.org/guestInfoFA.cfm?name=michaelpollan
2. Ketzel Levine's Talking Plants
http://www.npr.org/programs/talkingplants/radio/010604.pollan.html
3. Bibliolatry
http://www.powells.com/features/bibliolatry/9.html
4. Michael Pollan on pbs
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/conversation/jan-june01/botany_06-29.html

Michael Pollan
http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/townsend/avenali/pollan_top.html

Michael Pollan, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and
author, has done a range of work in journalism, environmentalism, and
architecture. Pollan, originally from Long Island, earned his college
degrees at Bennington College, Oxford University (Mansfield College),
and Columbia University, where he received a masters in English in
1981. He served for many years as executive editor for Harper's
Magazine and writes a column on architecture for House & Garden.

His first book, Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (1991), and his
most recent, The Botany of Desire (2001), are among Pollan's many works
that examine the intersections between science and culture. Shorter
work by Michael Pollan has been anthologized in collections such as
Best American Essays and the Norton Book of Nature Writing.Pollan has
given lectures on environmentalism, gardening, and nature at the
Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the New York Public Library, the Harvard Graduate
School of Design, the New York Botanical Garden, the New York
Horticultural Society, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and
Dumbarton Oaks.

Pollan received the Borders Original Voice Award for the best
non-fiction work of 2001. Other writing awards earned by Michael Pollan
include the John Burroughs prize for the best natural history essay in
1997, the QPB New Vision Award for Second Nature and the 2000
Reuters-World Conservation Union Global Award for Environmental
Journalism for reporting on genetic engineering.

 

stop quoting other people. maybe when ive got time ill respond to your responses to my own response. you misinterpreted a lot of what i said for one thing but i will get to that when i have time.

as for your second post.. i dont quite understand. are YOU this pollan dude? if not why have you quoted all thos resources on him, quoting the exact same thing twice?

 

actually ill reply now

i dont find it funny myself, i find it boring. repeating a reference many times doesnt make it more true.

ok um yeh?

this isnt about why ganja is illegal. reefer madness doesnt get rid of the 'actual problems with weed'. are you suggesting there are absolutely no problems with weed?

the sentance you quoted was a joke: if your terminally ill, i think youll get more enjoyment from crack than from cannabis. thats waht i was saying. so i dont know what your response is actually responding to.

are you saying that there are no scientific groups that are not run by people opposing cannabis? most of the 'slowness' i was referring to wasnt even about costly studies on the pharmacology of cannabis but about the conclusions that are made from data found from either side of the debate.
but yes, there of course is a problem that MOST scientists who have resources work for corps or govt. but does that stop them being slow?? that just poses a reason for being slow other than being incompetant.

are you suggesting that i get my information from faux news and gossip shows?

did that even reply to the statement you quoted? it was referring to the methods of the psychology community on teh whole and you brought it back to an issue of the motives of corporate scientists?

paranoia? what are you TALKING ABOUT??? how can you possibly claim that my response was paranoid?

"par·a·noi·a (păr'ə-noi'ə)
n.

1. A psychotic disorder characterized by delusions of persecution with or without grandeur, often strenuously defended with apparent logic and reason.
2. Extreme, irrational distrust of others."

now while im not going to judge the irrationality of either of our arguements, clearly you fit the description best with oppinion of 'persecution... often strenuously defended with apparent logic and reason'. and 'extreem... distrust in others'.

when i say 'from what ive read' , i mean that ive made my own conclusions from the studies ive shown. studies are not made up. if anything they can be biased in the conclusions they make or the issues they focus on. are you suggesting that all results on the pharmacological effects of cannabinoids are not misinterpreted, but fabricated?

at what point did i refute anything there? well to answer my own question i would refute your suggestion that cannabis leads to psychic abilities of passing information from one brain to another. if thast what you were saying.... and if it was then perhaps i shoudl reconsider my refrain from judging you as 'irrational'?

i believe you misinterpreted 'judgemental thoughts' with a typical 'judgement' of a situation. the reference to 'judgemental thoughts' refers to prejudice neural pathways such as stereotypes and oppinions made through ignorance. i admit that i could have used better words, but at any rate, you once again misinterpreted what i said.

i wasnt making reference to short term memory in the quote you responded to. and teh rest.. well i dont see how it is even a response to what i said. thc can make you forget important things too, or are you claiming to be imperveous to that sort of thing when you get stoned? if you can forget what you just saw in the room then maybe youll forget that you dropped your cigarette on the carpet (in the hypothetical situation you smoked a cigarette in that room). whats your point?

do you know anything about brain chemistry? did you know that if you have a coffee withdrawal, it also expands the blood vessels in your brain. that results in a headache. how can you claim my theories are matter of fact when you suggest that mind expansion is caused by a physical increase in brain size due to an increase in the blood vessels? where did you even read that marijuana makes the blood vessels in your brain expand? according to you, all studies are lies and made up by corporations trying to make out that cannabis is bad? (not to say that its incorrect that blood vessels in tehbrain expand.. they do. but you cant use that in your case if you say that the studies IVE read are false, implying that either all studies are wrong or that you have access to important studies that ive not been allowed to see, because of course you know exactly the resources i use inorder to formulate my own understanding of neuroscience).

ok well once again you seem to be responding to something otehr than what i said. i agree with all that. except the bit about marijuana somehow changing teh genetics of humans so much so that it would cause a split in the brain. if you are refferring to the fact that humans have two hemispheres of brain, you may be interested to know that monkeys and pretty much all other vertibrates also have two distinct hemispheres in their brains.

dont make out that you know more than me about this issue and then reply with some nonsensical thing like that.

i said 'therapudic help'. did i say 'help from conventional therapists'?

therapeutic
adj 1: tending to cure or restore to health;...

look if you want to talk about gender equality that can have a whole other thread. the male and female brain are different. males and females think differently. HOW can you make out that males and females think the same? work place equality has NOTHING to do with the neuroscience of gender, it is about RIGHTS in a work place to allow females the same OPTIONS as males.
males and females have different strengths and weaknesses. we are not equal but different. the fact that we are both human beings means that we should both have the same rights. in the past, women have had less human rights than men. human rights have nothing to do with a higher susceptability to emotional states or reactions. they have to do with hormones during growth and subsequent neurological function.

i said 'it can go wrong'. you replied ' only in.. comic books'. the next sentance you said that 'panic attacks are not only overblown' (which implies that they exist at all). further into that sentance you mention 'levels of thc' as being a factor in panic attacks, but that 'ganja' doesnt cause them. may i ask quite bluntly: what the fuck is ganja if it doesnt contain THC?
if you toke beyond your boundries, what are you toking ON if your not toking GANJA? are you toking a cigarette? i dont believe so. are you toking some grass you pulled out of the ground? i dont think that either. are you toking on crack cocaine? well maybe but then thats irrelevant to this topic. no, i think in order to 'toke too much' you physically have to toke ganja in the process. therefor by your own conviction, toking ganja CAN lead to panic attacks. you stated conditions by which this CAN happen. i said it CAN happen. therefor you are agreeing with me. but at the same time dissagreeing with not only me but yourself?

ok look maybe youve smoked too much dope.

to conclude, perhaps you missed the point that im pro cannabis. or maybe that i actually agree that cannabis can help PTSD, but merely think that its a shallow conclusion to suggest that endocannabinoids's primary (or one of their primary) uses in the brain is to get over disturbing memories.


you might have also forgotten to read through this forum and realised that just maybe i have a tad more of a f***ing idea what the f*** im talking about.

you should feel priveleged that i stayed up and replied to this tonight when instead i could have gone to bed.

next time you reply, please do not reference any other peoples oppinions. if what you say is true then i will not be able to refute it. if you have no oppinion other than the things you read or the paranoid assumations you make about antyhing that goes so far as to say that theres a smidgeon of impurity in the glorious benignity of marijuana, then who are you to come here and tell me that I should learn from YOU?

maybe you feel insecure about the fact that im 17? tough shit.

 

boring DARE dribble doesn't impress anyone...
or do I waste my time with it...
I thought you were 12

"The most that one can say on the basis of ascertainable facts is that prolonged use of marihuana constitutes a 'sensual' addiction, in that the user wishes to experience again and again the ecstatic sensations and feelings which the drug produces. Unlike addiction to morphine, which is biochemically as well as psychologically determined, prolonged use of marihuana is essentially in the service of the hedonistic elements of the personality."
- Dr. Walter Bromberg, Bellevue Hospital, 1939

Of all experiences in the hasheesh state, my indoctrination into spiritual facts through means of symbols was the most wonderful to myself... I was lifted entirely out of this world of hitherto conceivable being, and invested with the power of beholding forms and modes of existence which, on earth, are impossible to be expressed..."
- Fitzhugh Ludlow, "The Hasheesh Eater"

"Hashish, in clouding the eyes of the body, enlightens those of the soul; the mind, once separated from the body, its weighty keeper, flies away like a prisoner whose jailer has fallen asleep with the key in the cell. It wanders happy and free in space and light, talking familiarly with the genii it meets, who astound with their sudden and delightful disclosures."
- Gerard de Nerval, "Journey to the Orient," 1851

"Marijuana is rejected all over the world. Damned. In England heroin is alright for out-patents, but marijuana? They'll put your ass in jail. I wonder why that is?... The only reason could be: To Serve the Devil - Pleasure! Pleasure, which is a dirty word in Christian culture."
- Lenny Bruce

"My disease makes it very hard for me to move. My biggest fear is that the police will come to arrest me for my medicine, tell me to raise my arms, and then when i can't do it, they'll shoot me."
- Cathy Jordan, Florida activist with Lou Gehrig's disease

"At this point it should be announced that most of the major (best and most famous too) poets, painters, musicians, cinéasts, sculptors, actors, singers and publishers in America and England have been smoking marihuana for years and years. I have gotten high with the majority of the dozens of contributors to the Don Allen Anthology of New American Poetry 1945-1960..."
- Allen Ginsberg, "First Manifesto to End the Bringdown"

"You're stoned, but you're a good man, and I will defend you to the death."
- Jay Leno to Bill Maher, "The Tonight Show," Oct 30, 2002

"I support decriminalization. People are smoking pot anyway and to make them criminal is wrong."
- Sir Paul McCartney

"The American Medical Association knows of no evidence that marihuana is a dangerous drug."
- Dr. William Woodward of the American Medical Association, in hearings on the 1921 Marihuana Tax Act

"We didn't choose to fight this drug war, it chose us. Now we have to do whatever it takes to fight this evil and change this system. No more shattered lives!"
- Chris Conrad, author "Shattered Lives"

"I used to tell people that it would be impossible for us to do kind of show that we did, week after week, and do drugs. While in fact the opposite was true. "
- Al Franken, talking about his time on Saturday Night Live

"Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the human lungs of smog, dust and the phlegm associated with tobacco use."
- Jack Herer, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes"

"Corruptisma repulica, plurimae leges. (The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.)"
- Tacitus, "Annals III 27"

"I'm not going to change my friends; I don't care what any of you think about that. I may have to wear a gas mask from now on."
- Ross Rebagliati, Olympic Snowboarding Gold Medallist

"To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. "
- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1895)

"Beer is a legal beverage, which, consumed in moderation, is consistent with a healthy lifestyle.... On the other hand, marijuana, crack, cocaine, and heroin are illegal ubstances that are destructive to the user's health regardless of the frequency of use. "
- From a pamphlet by beer-maker Anheuser Busch

"A Congressional Medal of Honor winner said today he was 'stoned' on marijuana the night he fought off two waves of Vietcong soldiers and won America's highest military honor.... It was April 1, 1970, when [Peter] Lemon, an Army Specialist 4, used his rifle, machine gun and hand grenades to smash a large attack on his position. He fought the enemy single-handed and dragged a wounded comrade to the rear before collapsing from exhaustion and three wounds. . . . 'It was the only time I ever went into combat stoned,' [Mr. Lemon said]. . . . You get really alert when you're stoned because you have to be. . . . All the guys were heads. We'd sit around smoking grass and getting stoned and talking about when we'd get to go home.'"
- New York Times, June 22, 1971

"I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive."
- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

"Subjectively, it produces an extraordinary dislocation of the ideas of time, space and personality. You feel that within you are two or more personalities - a Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, as it were - commingled, yet each striving to express itself. Or it seems that all those present in the assembly are in reality animated by one spirit, and that the barriers of personality and individuality are, in some inexplicable way, broken down. It is this sensation or illusion which is specially craved after by the dervishes, who find therein a foretaste of that Nirvana, or Absorption in the Universal Spirit, which is the aim of their pantheistic mysticism to attain..."
- Edward Granville Browne, A chapter from the history of Cannabis Indica, 1897

"Terence McKenna says the world is made of language. I agree with him, but I have no idea what it means."
- Tom Robbins, author of "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

"Drug users are as dangerous to our national security as any terrorist."
- US President Ronald Reagan, 1986

"I don't do drugs anymore. I'll tell you something about drugs, honestly, and I know it's not a very popular idea - you don't hear it very often anymore - but, it is the truth: I had a great time doing drugs. Sorry. Never murdered anyone, never robbed anyone, never raped anyone, never beat anyone, never lost a job, a car, a house, a wife or kids. Laughed my ass off and went about my day. Sorry. "
- Bill Hicks

"We must stop politicizing medical problems. We must stop building prisons instead of schools. We must begin to rebuild lives."
- Joycelyn Elders, former US Surgeon General

"The DEA is unequivocally opposed to the legalization of illicit drugs (including, marijuana, hemp, and hemp seed oil)."
- US DEA booklet, "Speaking Out Against Legalization"

"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, first director of the DEA

"As someone who spent 35 years wearing a police uniform, I've come to believe that hundreds of thousands of law-enforcement officers commit felony perjury every year testifying about drug arrests."
- Joseph McNamara, former San Jose Chief of Police

"I firmly believe that the war on drugs is doing more harm to our society than drug abuse itself."
- George Soros

"Germany needs the strength of every single man for the development of its national and economic freedom. Therefore, no German has the right to impair his strength through alcohol abuse. Such action is detrimental not only to himself, but to his family, and above all, to his people."
- Heinrich Himmler, 1938

"We've got a national campaign by drug legalizers, in my view, to try and use medicinal uses of drugs and legalization of hemp as a stalking horse to get in under the radar screen."
- US Drug Czar, Barry McCaffrey

"There being no law against muta then, we used to roll our cigarettes right out in the open and light up like you would on a Camel or a Chesterfield. To us a muggle wasn't any more dangerous or habit-forming than those other great American vices, the five-cent coke and the ice cream cone, only it gave you more kicks for your money."
- Milton 'Mezz' Mezzrow, "Really the Blues," 1946

"The most valuable of our crops, in quantity and value. "
- Kentucky hemp farmer, 1856

"An herb is not a drug. It's good for stress. When you need some temporary help in getting through the day, cannabis is the best way. "
- Willie Nelson

"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 to me 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 of marihuana."
- President Jimmy Carter, Speech to Congress, 1977

"A single glass of wine will impair your driving more than smoking a joint. And under certain test conditions, the complex way alcohol and cannabis combine to affect driving behaviour suggests that someone who has taken both may drive less recklessly than a person who is simply drunk."
New Scientist March 2002

"Professor Hall considers cannabis's contribution to danger on the roads to be very small; in his view the major effect of cannabis use on driving may be in amplifying the impairments caused by alcohol."
UK Lord's Report, 1998

"Drivers under the influence of marijuana retain insight in their performance and will compensate where they can, for example, by slowing down or increasing effort. As a consequence, THC's adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small."
Robbe, NHTSA 1993

" Last year, I took mescaline and then went to Disneyland, of all places. I sat there for hours and watched the Indian dancers who go on every 20 minutes. They came out of a tepee led by a guide who carried a microphone. I was able to better understand just how crassly commercial their routine was and why it sickened me. It was very illuminating."
- Elliott Gould, "Playboy" interview

"Recent floods and dust storms have given warnings against the destruction of timber. Possibly, the hitherto waste products of flax and hemp may yet meet a good part of that need, especially in the plastics field which is growing by leaps and bounds."
- Mechanical Engineering, February 1937

"They are good-for-nothing lazy fellows who live by begging or stealing, and pester their relations for money to buy the hasheesh, often assaulting them when they refuse the demands. The moral degradation of these cases is their most salient symptom; loss of social position, shamelessness, addiction to lying and theft, and a loose, irregular life makes them a curse to their families."
- Dr. Warnock, in the Journal of Mental Sciences, describing a hasheesh user.

"We used to chew some peyote, go up into the desert around Joshua Tree, and run around, jumping from rock to rock, thinking we were great gazelles. I came away understanding a lot more about myself and life."
- James Coburn, actor

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke

"Never let arbitrary law rule your judgments: it is the vice of the ignorant, who make a vain boast of their cleverness."
- Miguel de Cervantes, "Don Quixote"

"Jon Stewart: Every tourist book I read about San Francisco, says you have to come drink on our mountains.
Sam Rockwell: Yeah, smoke good sinsemilla and just chill out on tank hill.
JS: Tank Hill it's called?
SR: Tank Hill, yeah. We'd go up to Tank Hill and smoke dope and drink from kegs and chase girls.
JS: Now are you sure you didn't grow up in Jersey? Because it sounds similar. But that's what makes Americans one country in many respects."
- Sam Rockwell, actor, being interviewed by Jon Stewart. The Daily Show, January 2003.

"Bush admits that as a young man, he smoked marijuana. But he quit when it started to interfere with his drinking."
- Jay Leno

"Smoking's a way to let you down slowly from a ballgame. It also makes you use less of the resources around. It makes people better in the way they act towards society. Everybody's nicer. It's hard to be mean when you're stoned."
- Bill Lee, pro baseball pitcher

"The best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of first necessity to the commerce and marine, in other words to the wealth and protection of the country. The latter, never useful and sometimes pernicious, derives its estimation from caprice."
- Thomas Jefferson, journal, March 16, 1791

"* Annual drug deaths: tobacco: 395,000, alcohol: 125,000, 'legal' drugs: 38,000, illegal drug overdoses: 5,200, marijuana: 0. Considering government subsidies of tobacco, just what is our government protecting us from in the drug war? "
- William A. Turnbow

"I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried."
- George W. Bush, US President

"Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
That grow so incredibly high..."
- 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,' the Beatles, 1967

 

Great post, haven't seen anything this interesting in here in awhile.

 

I agree