Freddie Freak

Source: WorldNetDaily

Author: Joel Miller
A family in Pueblo, Colo., is suing the DEA and the Colorado Bureau of Investigations after a no-knock raid resulted in their two sons being arrested and jailed despite the fact no drugs were found on the premises.

According to the suit, “black-masked, black-helmeted men brandishing automatic weapons and wearing all-black uniforms with no insignias suddenly burst into the house unannounced, kicked the family’s dog across the floor, ordered the entire family to ‘get on the [ expletive ] floor,’ held them at gunpoint, searched the house, found no drugs or contraband, but nevertheless carted off the family’s two sons, Dave and Marcos, and imprisoned them illegally and without charges.”

The ACLU of Colorado filed the suit for the family, according to the Feb. 21 Rocky Mountain News. Court documents date the raid Aug. 19, 2000.

“The next thing we knew,” said Dan Unis, the father of the family and a Pueblo County social worker, “there were five or six police with masks and automatic weapons and stuff yelling at us. It wasn’t the nicest language in the world. I see my dog go flying across the room because one of them kicked it.”

Unis said he asked them for a warrant, but “they couldn’t produce one.”

So far, neither the DEA nor the CBI have had anything to say about the case. But Mark Silverstein, ACLU legal director, said this: “Once again the war on drugs misses the target and instead scores a direct hit on the Constitution. These government agents had no search warrant, no arrest warrant and no lawful authority whatsoever. They carried out this armed home invasion in flagrant disregard of the Fourth Amendment, which forbids unreasonable searches and arrests without probable cause.”

“I think it was a bunch of cowboys out having a good time,” said Unis. “It was totally unnecessary.” And unconstitutional. Police cannot arrest and jail people for days at a time without filing charges; it’s called illegal detention. – While being unconstitutional and unnecessary, many such raids are also foolhardy and deadly.

Officers of the six-county Capital Area Narcotics Task Force, one of 49 federally funded, multijurisdictional narcotics teams operating in Texas, “were accused of mistaking ragweed for marijuana in May when they raided a Spicewood home and held residents at gunpoint as they ransacked the property and [ somebody call PETA ] kicked the homeowner’s dog,” according to a Feb. 4, Austin American-Statesman article. That version of the story, taken from court documents, is denied by the taskforce overseer, but of late CANTF hasn’t had much luck in being safe.

Tony Martinez, 19 and unarmed, was killed by taskforce officers during a raid on a mobile home in Del Valle, Texas, Dec. 2001. He wasn’t even the target of the raid.

Deputy Keith Ruiz was shot dead during a drug raid while breaking down the door of a different Del Valle mobile home Feb. 15, 2001. Thinking there were burglars outside, Edwin Delamore, 21, fired from inside and killed Ruiz. He’s now charged with capital murder.

When Jacqueline Paasch was stirred out of bed at 6:30 a.m., April 7, 2000, by a commotion downstairs in her West Milwaukee home, she probably didn’t expect to be gunned down. But, as the Feb. 7 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tells the story, based on an anonymous tip about “possible drug activity at a home in the 1700 block of S. 54th St., and then finding marijuana seeds in a garbage receptacle near the home,” a tactical unit of the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department burst into Paasch’s home and shot her.

Paasch, who was hit in the left leg, now has limited use of her toes and needs a brace for walking long distances. The city denies any wrongdoing but did recently agree to pay $700,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Paasch.

The settlement, said Paasch’s attorney, Mark Thomsen, “reflects the reality that the county could not reasonably justify the shooting.”

The same could be said about the settlement for the Sepulveda family of Modesto, Calif., though it was dramatically smaller. Eleven year old Alberto Sepulveda was shot dead during a Sept. 13, 2000, SWAT raid that targeted the boy’s father. An officer on the scene accidentally squeezed off a shot, killing the boy instantly. Last month, the family settled a federal lawsuit over the death.

The only question that remains: Can $450,000 replace Alberto?

If we didn’t have so many unconstitutional and reckless drug raids, such a question would never have to be answered.

Canadian Press:
Pot doesn’t cause lung cancer, researcher says

Pot doesn’t cause lung cancer, researcher says Also doesn’t seem to cause emphysema or birth defects, Senate hearing told.

OTTAWA (CP) – Smoking marijuana does not seem to cause lung cancer, emphysema or cause birth anomalies in fetuses, a prominent U.S. researcher told a Senatecommittee Monday.

John P. Morgan of City University of New York Medical School said heavy marijuana smokers do show some symptoms of lung damage, such as coughing, frequent colds and bronchitis, but not the life-threatening conditions seen among tobacco smokers.

”We are some 30 to 40 years into this marijuana epidemic and still have not seen evidence of pulmonary cancer in marijuana smokers.” He was speaking before a special Senate committee reassessing federal legislation and polices on marijuana.

Morgan said there are reasons to believe the heavy smoker of cannabis will not succumb to emphysema, a condition frequent among cigarette smokers.

He said cannabis contains just as many harmful compounds and irritants as tobacco, but even heavy marijuana smokers – those who consume four to six joints daily – don’t smoke nearly as much as tobacco smokers. ”The critical issue is the amount of smoke inhaled.”

He said marijuana smokers have slightly more respiratory complaints than non-smokers, but the difference is so small that it is of no practical significance.

Morgan also criticized research purporting to show fetal damage among women who smoke marijuana and scoffed at the theory that marijuana is a gateway leading to hard drugs. ”Many critics in the United States have decided that marijuana incites some biochemical trance that leads people to tramp the streets looking for heroin and cocaine.”

But statistics show that most marijuana smokers never go on to other drugs, he said. ”There is no gateway, there is no credible gateway theory.” He said prohibition of marijuana only makes young people more interested in trying it.

Rates of marijuana use in The Netherlands, where the drug is freely available, he said, are lower than in the United States where it is banned. He attributed opposition to decriminalization of marijuana to what he called ”the drug-law industrial complex” in the United States. ”I don’t believe anyone should go to jail for using a psychoactive substance,” Morgan told the committee.

The committee’s hearings continue.

The Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis bill (Senate Bill) currently being considered by the Legislature would provide relief from suffering for certain people with cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis (MS) and spinal cord injury by allowing them to use marijuana as a medicine.

Physical suffering is a horrible thing to experience. It is unpleasant also to watch someone you love suffer for months or years with intractable nausea, unremitting pain or uncontrollable violent muscle spasms that result from debilitating or terminal illnesses. Fortunately, prescription medicines often control these symptoms, and the quality of these medications continues to improve.

Unfortunately, there are always people who fail to respond to available prescription medications or who experience intolerable side effects. In some highly specific situations, people have found that smoking small amounts of marijuana can bring relief when prescription medications have not.

Available scientific data support the possibility that they may be correct. Many people who receive potent cancer chemotherapy have said that they can get through it more easily if they smoke a little marijuana, maybe in addition to the prescription anti-nausea drugs that their physicians prescribe. I have heard the wife of a man with spinal cord injury say that one puff off a marijuana cigarette controls her husband’s violent leg spasms to where he can sleep through the night. I’ve taken care of AIDS patients wasted away to skin and bone who were able to gain weight because marijuana controlled their nausea and made them hungry again. I believe these people when they say that their suffering has been relieved by smoking a little marijuana, and I think that they should be protected from the possibility of arrest and prosecution on drug charges.

SB 8, introduced by Sen. Roman Maes, D-Santa Fe, would establish a medical cannabis program administered by the Department of Health and overseen by an advisory board of physicians nominated by the New Mexico Medical Society. People with specific medical conditions (cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, MS and spinal cord injury) would be eligible to apply. Their personal physician would be required to attest in writing that the patient has the specific serious medical condition, that appropriate prescription medications have been tried and have failed to provide relief, and that the potential risks and benefits of medical cannabis have been thoroughly discussed.

New Mexico physicians would not prescribe marijuana to patients because the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency prohibits that. No pharmacy or “cannabis buyers’ clubs” would provide marijuana to patients because a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision (United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative) prohibits that. A New Mexico medical cannabis program would simply protect people with serious medical conditions from arrest and prosecution on drug charges for the possession of small amounts of marijuana for their medical use, and it would do nothing more than that.

It is argued that there are insufficient scientific data to warrant making cannabis more readily available as a medicine. But one form of marijuana is already available by prescription, demonstrating that physicians and the federal government have recognized indications for the use of marijuana-derived medicines. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has licensed an oral pill called Marinol which is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) purified from marijuana plants, dissolved in sesame oil and put into capsules. Physicians prescribe Marinol to stimulate appetite among people with terminal AIDS and to act as an anti-nauseant and anti-emetic (to suppress vomiting) in
people undergoing cancer chemotherapy.

Some people who find no relief from Marinol respond well to smoking small amounts of marijuana. In some cases, this is because people who are nauseated and vomiting do not tolerate swallowing pills. Between 1978 and 1986, the University of New Mexico Medical School conducted studies of smoked (inhaled) marijuana versus Marinol among patient receiving cancer chemotherapy under the Lynn Pierson Therapeutic Program enacted by the New Mexico Legislature in 1978. Quoting from their report to the Legislature: “Results acquired under the State of New Mexico’s Controlled Substances Therapeutic Research Act indicate that oral THC (Marinol) and inhaled cannabis are both effective as anti-emetics and anti-nauseants. The efficacy of the inhaled form is superior to the oral form (Marinol), but this difference is statistically significant for vomiting only. This may be due partially or wholly to the tendency of the capsules to be regurgitated during chemotherapy, or to the sesame oil vehicle failing to consistently dissipate in the gastrointestinal tract, thus preventing optimal absorption.”

So, more and better marijuana-derived medications should be developed, but it is likely to be years before they are available.
Meanwhile, let’s protect people who know that their physical suffering is relieved by smoking small amounts of marijuana from the possibility of arrest and prosecution on drug charges.

What’s the message we send to our children if we pass Senate Bill 8?
I think it’s that we care enough about our fellow citizens who are sick, dying and suffering to make the clear distinction between marijuana as a medicine and marijuana as a recreational drug.

Source: Albuquerque Journal Author: Steve Jenison, M.D.
( Dr. Steven A. Jenison is the administrator of the Infectious Diseases Bureau of the New Mexico Department of Health.)

Dutch drug policies do not increase marijuana use, first rigorous comparative study finds

This findings appear in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Craig Reinarman, professor of sociology at UCSC, coauthored the article, “The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy: Cannabis in Amsterdam and in San Francisco,” with Peter D. A. Cohen, director of the Centre for Drug Research (CEDRO) at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and Hendrien L. Kaal, now an instructor at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. http://www.ajph.org/current.shtml

The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy: Cannabis in Amsterdam and in SanFrancisco
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/5/836 – http://www.ucsc.edu/currents/03-04/05-03/drug_study.html

May 3, 2004

Dutch drug policies do not increase marijuana use, first rigorous comparative study finds

By Jennifer McNulty

In the first rigorous study comparing marijuana use in the Netherlands and the United States, researchers have found no evidence that decriminalization of marijuana leads to increased drug use. The results suggest that drug policies may have less impact on marijuana use than is currently thought.

The findings appear in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Craig Reinarman, professor of sociology at UCSC, coauthored the article, “The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy: Cannabis in Amsterdam and in San Francisco,” with Peter D. A. Cohen, director of the Centre for Drug Research (CEDRO) at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and Hendrien L. Kaal, now an instructor at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

The study compared the cannabis (marijuana and hashish) habits of users in Amsterdam and San Francisco to test the premise that punishment for cannabis use deters use and thereby benefits public health.

“We compared representative samples of experienced marijuana users to see whether the lawful availability of marijuana did, in fact, lead to the problems critics of the Dutch system have claimed,” said Reinarman. “We found no evidence that it does. In fact, we found consistently strong similarities in patterns of marijuana use, despite vastly different national drug policies.”

Highlights of the study include:

. The mean age at onset of use was 16.95 years in Amsterdam and 16.43 years in San Francisco.

. The mean age at which respondents began using marijuana more than once per month was 19.11 years in Amsterdam and 18.81 years in San Francisco.

. In both cities, users began their periods of maximum use about two years after they began regular use: 21.46 years in Amsterdam and 21.98 years in San Francisco.

. About 75 percent in both cities had used cannabis less than once per week
or not at all in the year before the interview.

. Majorities of experienced users in both cities never used marijuana daily or in large amounts even during their periods of peak use, and use declined after those peak periods.

The Netherlands effectively decriminalized marijuana use in 1976, and it is available for purchase in small quantities by adults in licensed coffee shops; in the United States, marijuana use carries stiff criminal penalties, and more than 720,000 people were arrested for marijuana offenses in 2001.

The study was funded by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Dutch Ministry of Health.

In identical questionnaires administered in Amsterdam and San Francisco (cities chosen for their similarities as politically liberal northern port cities with universities and populations of roughly 700,000 people), nearly 500 respondents who had used marijuana at least 25 times were asked detailed questions about their marijuana use. The questionnaire explored such issues as age at first use, regular and maximum use, frequency and quantity of use over time, intensity and duration of intoxication, career use patterns, and use of other illicit drugs.

“In the United States, marijuana policy is based on the assertion that strict penalties are the best way to inhibit use,” said Reinarman.

The study’s findings cast doubt on that scenario, he said. Despite widespread lawful availability of cannabis in Amsterdam, there were no differences between the two cities in age at onset of use, age at first regular use, or age at the start of maximum use.

The study found no evidence that lawfully regulated cannabis provides a “gateway” to other illicit drug use. In fact, marijuana users in San Francisco were far more likely to have used other illicit drugs like cocaine, crack, amphetamine, ecstasy, and opiates than users in Amsterdam, said Reinarman.

“The results of this study shift the burden of proof now to those who would arrest hundreds of thousands of Americans each year on the grounds that it deters use,” said Reinarman.

Cognitive Performance Unaffected After Marijuana Smoking – Pot “Has No Effect on Accuracy,” Study Reveals

New York, NY: Marijuana smoking has virtually no effect on complex cognitive task performance – including reaction time, memory and mental calculation – in experienced users, according to the findings of a Columbia University study published in this month’s issue of Neuropsychopharmacology.

“Although marijuana significantly increased the number of premature responses and the time participants required to complete several tasks, it had no effect on accuracy on measures of cognitive flexibility, mental calculation, and reasoning,” researchers concluded. “The relatively few accuracy impairments observed is congruent with several other studies investigating acute marijuana effects on psychomotor and simple cognitive performance. Moreover, the present data expands these findings by showing that more complex cognitive performance is only minimally affected following acute marijuana smoking.”

Eighteen subjects participated in the three-session outpatient study. During each session, participants completed a battery of baseline computerized cognitive tasks in various domains, including reaction time, attention, memory, visuospatial processing, reasoning, flexibility and mental calculation. Subjects were then administered marijuana cigarettes ranging from zero to 3.9 percent THC in a double-blind fashion before completing another series of cognitive tests 20 minutes later.

Researchers found subjects’ accuracy on the tests was unaltered following their use of marijuana. “In summary,
… the finding that accuracy was unaffected by smoked marijuana indicates that heavy, daily marijuana smokers will not fulfill the DSM-IV [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition] criterion for marijuana intoxication that requires impairment of complex
cognitive functioning,” authors concluded.

The study’s findings follow those of a Harvard study published last month in the Archives of General Psychiatry determining that long-term marijuana smokers who abstain from the drug for one week or more perform identically on cognition tests as nonusers. A previous study on marijuana and cognition by researchers at John Hopkins University in Baltimore found “no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and nonusers of cannabis” over a 15-year period in a cohort of 1,318 subjects.

The WHO Project on Health Implications of Cannabis Use – A Comparative Appraisal of the Health and Psychological Consequences of Alcohol, Cannabis, Nicotine and Opiate Use.

Cognitive Performance Unaffected After Marijuana Smoking – The study’s findings follow those of a Harvard study published last month in the Archives of General Psychiatry determining that long-term marijuana smokers who abstain from the drug for one week or more perform identically on cognition tests as nonusers. A previous study on marijuana and cognition by researchers at John Hopkins University in Baltimore found “no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and nonusers of cannabis” over a 15-year period in a cohort of 1,318 subjects.

AAMC represents a fellowship of Health Professionals, patients, educators, clergy, caregivers, and community members. Included in AAMC membership are experts in the field of cannabis medicine including clinical applications, cultivation, history, and medical preparations. – The Primary Mission of AAMC is patient advocacy, patient rights, and support. Additional aspects of the AAMC Mission include clinical research and educating decision makers. Klikk the pic for www.letfredomgrow.com.

Dutch drug policies do not increase marijuana use, rigorous comparative study finds – This findings appear in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Craig Reinarman, professor of sociology at UCSC, coauthored the article, “The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy: Cannabis in Amsterdam and in San Francisco,” with Peter D. A. Cohen, director of the Centre for Drug Research (CEDRO) at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and Hendrien L. Kaal, now an instructor at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

“Even Cary Grant did acid, because he made so many movies he didn’t know who the hell he was. With the right people and in the right place, it can be an enormous, beautific, birthing experience.”
- Carlos Santana, musician – Cannabis Culture Forum

No longer a pipe dream – New animal research now indicates that marijuana-like compounds can aid a bevy of debilitating conditions, ranging from brain disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson’s disease, to pain and obesity. Research from California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco points to the promise of marijuana-like treatments for those with the fatal brain disorder ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Medical marijuana helps – The Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis bill (Senate Bill) currently being considered by the Legislature would provide relief from suffering for certain people with cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis (MS) and spinal cord injury by allowing them to use marijuana as a medicine. Physical suffering is a horrible thing to experience. It is unpleasant also to watch someone you love suffer for months or years with intractable nausea, unremitting pain or uncontrollable violent muscle spasms that result from debilitating or terminal illnesses. – By Dr. Steven A. Jenison.

Pot doesn’t cause lung cancer – Pot doesn’t cause lung cancer, researcher says Also doesn’t seem to cause emphysema or birth defects, Senate hearing told.

The History of Hemp in Norway
Written by Jan Bojer Vindheim
Raid a house, kick a dog, plug a suspect – A family in Pueblo, Colorado, is suing the DEA and the Colorado Bureau of Investigations after a no-knock raid resulted in their two sons being arrested and jailed despite the fact no drugs were found on the premises.

THE NETHERLANDS MUST EXPORT THEIR DRUG POLICIES