The Chronicle of a Chronic

New trends in anxiety disorders

2012-07-03T11:37:00.004-07:00

Antonio E. Nardi; Leonardo F. Fontenelle; José Alexandre S. Crippa

Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent and economically burdensome of all psychiatric diagnoses, yet they are among the most commonly misdiagnosed and undertreated.¹ The experience of anxiety has a universality that extends across times and cultures. Only in the past few decades have scientists been able to develop rigorous diagnostic schemas to improve clinical and basic research data on anxiety disorders.² Over the last five years, however, research in the field of anxiety disorders is growing in such a rapid pace that an up-to-date supplement is just one tool in our effort to keep research results within reach of readers in the area.³
Anxiety disorders are not a problem of our time: several literary reports and antiquity myths demonstrate that symptoms of what we name anxiety disorders nowadays were observed long ago. Maybe one of the oldest examples lies in Greek mythology - the god Pan. He was responsible for anxiety and was the origin of the term "panic".¹ In several stories, Pan is reported to cause fright, screams, fears, terror and suffering. Like other woodland gods, he was feared by those who had to go through the forest, because meeting one of these deities could provoke overwhelming and irrational fear, for no reason at all, or what was known as "panic terrors" or "panic attacks". The fear of meeting Pan again and of being startled once more made travelers stop journeying through roads and avoiding going to the market (in Greek, ágora), thus developing agoraphobia (fear of large open or public places).¹
Paradoxically, anxiety is a complex and useful mental function.² It generates a range of behaviors that occur in response to any threat. During the last years, research into the phenomenology, pathophysiology, and neurobiology of anxiety disorders has grown so much that results translatable into clinical practice may offer hope and help to people with anxiety disorders.
The psychobiology of anxiety disorders is one of the most interesting and rewarding areas of contemporary medical research. At least three central neurotransmitter systems - noradrenergic, serotonergic, and gama-aminobutyric acid (GABA) -are acutely affected by certain pharmacological compounds that provide therapeutic benefit.² However, new neurotransmitter systems have also been discovered to underlie anxiety symptoms and disorders, such as the endocannabinoid system posing new challenges to investigators.⁴
The translation of neuroscience findings introduced new insights into the causes of anxiety and supported the development of novel psychosocial and pharmacological treatment approaches, besides leading to a better understanding of the interaction between genes and the environment. Animal studies have indicated that fear and anxiety-like states are mediated by structures that include the amygdala, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, locus coeruleus, and periaqueductal gray matter.²
Today, the psychopharmacology of anxiety disorders has been leading psychiatry in the direction of biology. This biological perspective entails the consideration of anxiety within the framework of the evolutionist paradigm. Charles Darwin (1872), in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,⁵ pointed the way for the search for adaptive value of behavioral and psychological processes. Anxiety and fear are rooted in the defensive reactions of animals, observed in response to the danger normally found in the environment. The interpretation of a stimulus or situation as dangerous depends on the nature of cognitive operations. In humans, cognitive factors acquire importance due to the intervention of the system of socially codified symbols, whether verbal or non-verbal. The behavioral responses to fear are accompanied by intense physiological alterations - physical symptoms - and changes in the emotional state.
The 21^st century will probably be marked by the provision of genetic and neuroimaging data about panic and other anxiety disorders.⁶ Anxiety symptoms seem to originate from a fear network with altered sensitivity.² Recent research on the physiological correlates of anxiety features has yielded remarkable findings concerning regional brain activity and structure in different neuroimaging studies.⁶ It will also further our understanding of the sites of action of effective therapies.
Over the last century the mysteries of anxiety disorders have been revealed through basic and clinical research, and patients who suffer from a frightening anxiety disorder can be sure that its diagnosis and efficient treatment are already part of everyday clinical practices. We have, however, to perfect these practices so that we can continue to improve our knowledge about these disorders.
This supplement of RBP Psychiatry shall bring up some different and challenging conceptions of anxiety disorders. We are proud to organize this supplement with an outstanding collection of contributions by experts in the leading edge of research in the field.

References
1. Berrios GE. The History of mental Symptoms. Descriptive psychopathology since the nineteenth century. Cambridge: University Press; 1996.         [ Links ]
2. Gorman JM, Kent JM, Sullivan GM, Coplan JD. Neuroanatomical hypothesis of panic disorder, revised. Am J Psychiatry. 2000;157:493-505.         [ Links ]
3. Machado S, Paes F, Velasques B, Teixeira S, Piedade R, Ribeiro P, Nardi AE, Arias-Carión O. Is rTMS an effective therapeutic strategy that can be used to treat anxiety disorders? Neuropharmacology. 2012;62:125-34.         [ Links ]
4. Zuardi AW, Crippa JA, Hallak JE. [Cannabis sativa: the plant that can induce unwanted effects and also treat them]. Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2010;32(Suppl1):S1-2.         [ Links ]
5. Darwin C. The Expression of Emotion in Man and in Animals [1872]. London: Fontana Press; 1999.         [ Links ]
6. Linares IM, Trzesniak C, Chagas MH, Hallak JE, Nardi AE, CrippaJA. Neuroimaging in specific phobia disorder: a systematic review of the literature. Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2012;34(1):101-11.         [ Links ]

2012-07-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

The Crash Report: Hemp for Victory

Written by Crash Barry

Since 2009, Maine law has allowed farmers to grow industrial hemp, but the federal Drug Enforcement Agency will lock 'em up if they try. Even though everyone agrees you can't get high from smoking the stuff. It's just another example of government-sponsored reefer madness stigmatizing anything cannabis-related.
Doesn't matter that industrial hemp has the potential to bring much needed cash to Maine's agricultural sector and new manufacturing jobs to unemployed workers across the state. To the feds, the harmless plant needs to stay on the "bad" drug list, along with heroin, cocaine, crystal meth and opium. The irony, of course, is that the U.S. annually imports about $400 million worth of hemp products, mostly from China and Canada. And yet if Maine farmers decided to sow a field with industrial hemp, they'd face five to 20 years behind bars for growing a plant with such low THC levels, you'd pass out from smoke inhalation long before catching a buzz.

The war over hemp isn't lost, though. Earlier this month, a bi-partisan amendment to the Senate Farm Bill to exempt hemp from the "Controlled Substances Act" was briefly discussed, then discarded. And in the House, the issue has been sent to committee via a bill introduced by Ron Paul and co-sponsored by 33 others, including Maine's Chellie Pingree. And on June 11, David Bronner — CEO of Dr. Bronner's, one of the largest natural soap manufacturers in America — locked himself in a cage across the street from the White House, with a dozen hemp plants. The stunt allowed Bronner to explain how he'd prefer to spend his company's annual $100,000 hemp oil budget on domestic hemp, rather than importing foreign oil.
When and if the ban is lifted, Maine could be poised to capitalize on hemp. According to a 2005 study by the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station, farmland across the state is well-suited for growing hemp for fiber. And most of Maine, south of Aroostook County, has adequate land and climate for cultivating hemp seed crops. Growing hemp is considered "green agriculture" because the plant doesn't require pesticides to thrive. And hemp is excellent to grow in rotation with other crops. Planting tight grids of hemp suppresses weeds, counters erosion and restores organic matter to depleted soil.
Hemp also fits well with Maine's long history of papermaking. An acre of hemp translates into four times more paper than an acre of forest. And it only takes four months, instead of many years, to grow and be harvested.
Plus, farmers can earn good money. Basing the numbers on Canadian prices, at $3,800 per acre, hemp is more valuable than Maine's traditional crops. An average acre of blueberry barrens generates about $3,100. An acre of potato field brings in about $2,700. (Due to fruit flies and blight, per acre yields tend to fluctuate.) The only legal crops more valuable than hemp are tomatoes and tobacco, neither of which thrive in Maine.
(Of course, these numbers are nothing compared to the value of Maine's number one cash crop: Marijuana of the "gets you high" variety. Imagine an acre of super-fine, six foot tall organic ganja shrubs. With one plant per square yard, an acre of marijuana grove could conservatively pull in $10,000,000. Of course nobody in Maine would ever plant an acre of ganja. The sheer number of employees required to tend a pot plantation of that size would make it tough to keep a mega-patch secret. Besides, to avoid federal drug charges, most guerilla growers tend to keep their garden plots to under 99 plants. But the image of an acre of primo weed is certainly nice to envision.)
Many conspiracy theories abound, trying to explain why hemp is illegal. Some claim the Dupont family unduly influenced government bureaucrats to favor post-war synthetic fibers and fabric, like nylon, over hemp. Others blame the Hearst newspaper syndicate for fomenting hatred toward marijuana and hemp as a way to protect the assets of lumber and woodlot barons, while demonizing the ethnic groups who loved to smoke the weed.
Propaganda from drug czar mouthpieces blurred the hemp issue even further. General Barry McCaffrey opposed legalizing the plant, insisting it would be confusing and send the wrong message to children. And local law enforcement officials, like Roy McKinney, the longtime head of the Maine DEA, complain that cops would have difficulty distinguishing between industrial hemp and the psychoactive variety, despite easy-to-spot dramatic differences in appearance and cultivation techniques for the two crops.
That sort of bureaucratic babble is maddening, especially since hemp could help bring back to Maine some of the manufacturing jobs lost in recent years to automation and overseas outsourcing. With 100,000 residents either under-or-unemployed, Maine continues to lag behind the rest of the country in recovering from the Great Recession. And the latest economic numbers show that Maine was the only New England state to have a reduction in gross domestic product in 2011.
A hemp industry could jump start, or at least stimulate, Maine's economy. In addition to the new farm and hemp processing jobs, there would be increased demand for trucking. Many abandoned fabric and paper mills could be retrofitted to handle hemp fiber. And the products that could be manufactured in the state are amazingly diverse. In addition to creating textiles and rope, hemp fiber can be mixed with Maine lime into "hempcrete," a greener form of concrete. Hemp is a helpful ingredient in paper recycling. Combined with wood, hemp turns into fiberboard for use in building construction. And hemp can be molded into chips or biofuel to burn for heat and electricity. Or the fiber can be pulped and transformed into rolling papers or Bible pages.
Hemp seed is an even more valuable food resource and an excellent vegan protein, chockfull of omega oils. Hemp, in various forms, has found its way into many types of breads, snacks, milks, oils and cereals. Hemp makes delicious beer. Paints, varnishes and lubricants can be also derived from the magic plant. And just think of all the ad agency, sales team and web design jobs connected to promoting and selling a plethora of Maine-made hemp products.
In fact, the only conceivable downside to the widespread cultivation of hemp in Maine would be the possible negative impact on the local marijuana crop. Industrial hemp fields have male and female plants in order to produce seeds. In recreational and medicinal cannabis gardens, however, growers only keep un-pollinated females to prevent unpleasant-to-smoke seeds from forming. The possible danger comes mid-summer when hemp pollen can catch a ride on the breeze and pollinate the marijuana. The solution, though, is simple. Mainers could mimic the north African ganja farmers who cover their pot plants with tight-meshed nets on windy days.
It's not far-fetched to envision a day soon when hemp is legal to grow in Maine. After all, interest is growing in legalizing the wunder-crop. Current Senate candidates Cynthia Dill, Andrew Ian Dodge and Charlie Summers have expressed support for the possibility, while the other three candidates — Danny Dalton, Angus King and Steve Woods — declined to comment.

Secret documents, incriminating evidence or whistle-blowing notes may be e-mailed to tips @ crashbarry.com.

2012-07-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

By Marie Cendejas

There’s a increasing interest in the non-psychoactive medicinal benefits of cannabis, despite legislative resistance to appraise the long list of claims of the healing power of cannabis.

The plant's abilities as a painkiller and an anti-nauseant are well documented, but the plant also has a long history claims of other medical uses. In ancient Chinese traditional pharmacology, cannabis has a track record of helping over 120 ailments and conditions.

Inflammation has been found to both instigate and worsen a long list of diseases like heart disease, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and gastrointestinal tract disorders. Outside of its painkilling claim cannabis shows its ability as an anti-inflammatory aid.

For the past three years there has been an ongoing study of 500 participants with multiple sclerosis. This has been the largest study of its kind to this date.

The study examined the effects of just the active chemical in cannabis, rather than the whole plant. The amount of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) varies across a plant. Researchers found the THC provided subjects with some relief from the symptoms like stiffness and muscle paroxysms, but couldn't slow down the progression of the disease.

Multiple sclerosis is a progressively degenerative disease that affects the central nervous system. Nerve cells are coated in a fatty layer that helps them communicate with each other. In individuals with multiple sclerosis, the coating gradually degrades, leading to peripheral neuropathy and interference with mobility, eventually leading to nerve death.

Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease are also neurodegenerative disorders, and likewise have very limited treatment options. Cannabis has shown to improve neural communication, which had given researchers a reason to be hopeful. In other studies, cannabinoids have been shown to be protective and capable of increasing neural plasticity.

The British Pharmaceutical Codex 1934

2012-06-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

The British Pharmaceutical Codex
1934

Cannabis
Synonyms - Cannabis Indica; Indian Hemp; Ganjah; Guaza.
Cannabis consists of the dried flowering and fruiting tops of the pistillate plant of Cannabis sativa Linn. (Fam. Cannabinaceæ), an annual dioecious herb indigenous to Central Asia and the Northern and Western Himalayas, and cultivated mainly in tropical districts of India, Africa, and North America.
Cannabis occurs in flattened, dull green masses which remain more or less compacted together by the adhesive resinous secretion. The tops vary in length from about 3 to 30 centimetres, the smaller tops being preferred; they consist of the upper part of the stem with ascending branches, which are longitudinally furrowed and bear numerous covering and glandular trichomes. The leaves are alternate and consist of simple or palmately compound bracts, each having two linear stipules and bearing in its axil two bracteoles, each of which subtends a single pistillate flower or a more or less developed fruit occasionally containing an oily seed. The taste is very slight and the odour somewhat heavy and narcotic.
The diagnostic microscopical characters are the conical, curved, unicellular cystolith-trichomes with enlarged bases; the similar but more slender trichomes without cystoliths; the numerous, usually 8-celled, rosette-shaped, glandular trichomes with either unicellular or multiseriate pedicels; the bracteoles with very numerous small cluster-crystals of calcium oxalate; the red stigmas with long cylindrical papillæ laticiferous tubes with brown contents; occasional, more or less lignified, phloem fibres from the stem, and brown, thick-walled, pitted cells from the palisade layer of the pericarp.
Cannabis contains a soft, brown resin (cannabinone), the chief constituent of which is cannabinol, C21H26O2, a viscid, reddish oil, possessing a powerful narcotic action, but resinifying and becoming less active on exposure to air; choline, and traces of volatile oil, fat, and wax are also present. Cannabis yields to alcohol (90 per cent) from 10 to 22 per cent of extractive. The ash is about 15 per cent. The following test has been used for the identification of cannabis: Shake 0.1 gramme in powder with 5 millilitres of light petroleum for three minutes and filter; to 1 millilitre of the filtrate add 2 millilitres of a 15 per cent w/v solution of hydrogen chloride in dehydrated alcohol; at the junction of the two liquids a red colouration appears, and, after shaking, the upper layer becomes colourless and the lower layer acquires an orange-pink colouration which disappears on the addition of one millilitre of water.
Varieties: Tinctures of cannabis, prepared from African, American, German, and Indian varieties of the drug, when examined by oral administration to cats appear to possess about the same degree of activity, and this activity is not destroyed by long storage of the drug in a dry condition.
Standard: Cannabis contains not more than 10 per cent of fruits, large foliage leaves, and stems over 3 millimetres in diameter, and not more than 2 per cent of other foreign organic matter. Acid-insoluble ash, not more than 5 per cent. When a mixture of 10 grammes of finely powdered cannabis and 100 millilitres of alcohol (90 per cent) is shaken occasionally during twenty-four hours and then filtered, 20 millilitres of the filtrate, evaporated in a flat-bottomed dish, yields a residue weighing, when dried at 100 degrees, not less than 0.20 gramme. Cannabis indicæ herba I.A. consists of the tops, in flower and in fruit, of the female plant cultivated in the East Indies.
Cannabis, in powder (Pulvis Cannabis : Pulv. Cannab.), contains the constituents and possesses the diagnostic microscopical characters of Cannabis, and complies with the limits for acid-insoluble ash and residue on extraction with alcohol (90 per cent) of the unground drug.
Action and Uses: Cannabis acts chiefly on the central nervous system. It first produces excitement with hallucinations, a feeling of happiness and indifference to surroundings, this stage being followed by deep sleep. The hallucinations include inability to estimate time and space. In the East the hemp is smoked and almost immediately produces symptoms of pleasurable excitement, followed by depression and lethargy. Cannabis is used as an anodyne sedative or hypnotic in mania, spasmodic coughs, phthisis, asthma, and dysmenorrhoea. It has been used in the treatment of chorea and paralysis agitans. It does not produce constipation or loss of appetite. Cannabis is usually administered as the extract in pills, or as tincture. In cases of poisoning the stomach should be evacuated and the usual methods adopted to prevent collapse and respiratory failure.
CANNABINÆ TANNAS: Cannabine tannate is a brownish powder which may be obtained from an aqueous extract of cannabis by precipitation with tannic acid. It has been used as a hypnotic in nervous insomnia, in dysmenorrhoea and in menorrhagia. Dose - 0.25 to 0.5 gramme (4 to 8 grains).
CANNABINONUM: Cannabinone, the brown resin obtained from cannabis, has been used as a hypnotic in hysteria and insomnia. Dose - 0.016 to 0.06 gramme (1/4 to 1 grain).

Mind Control

2012-06-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

Mind Control projects

2012-06-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Mark Phillips and Cathy O'Brien expose the Federal Government's involvement in Mind Control projects, research, and abuse of its' own people. This is the National Shame of the United States Federal Government. Mark and Cathy tell all and underscore the insensitivity and involvement of our national leaders, judges, doctors, and many others to this nightmarish horror it has inflicted upon millions of people in the United States. Mark touches on the sources and history of mind control while Cathy unveils publicly the horrors she and her family have been subjected to, horrors which continue to this day. Her story will not only infuriate you, but will educate you to the reality of US mind control. Filmed 2006-7-21 in Edmonton Canada.

Marijuana Must Be Made Legal Today! (Share This Video)

2012-06-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

HELP ME END MARIJUANA PROHIBITION LEGALIZE CANNABIS MEDICAL MARIHUANA WEED 420 HIGH OBAMA RON PAUL PIPE BONG JOINT KUSH DRUG WAR SEEDS News VAPORIZER BOWL HASHISH BLUNTS HASH GANJA HEMP legal cops POT PRIVACY CIVIL RIGHTS LAW ACTIVIST HERB smoke HIGHTIMES ECONOMIC COLLAPSE MEXICAN CARTELS PATRIOTS MARYJANE conservatives Libertarian Liberal NEW YORK JERSEY CHRONIC NWO freedom ALEX JONES PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX PLANET toke Sinsemilla BAKED MSNBC CNN cbs fox marc emery wikileaks cancer IAMHEMP420

Third Annual Hemp history week 2012 06 05

2012-06-05T10:41:00.001-07:00

Cannabis and the Bible

2012-05-31T11:49:00.001-07:00

Rob Menard - 96 is Your Fix Part 1

2012-05-14T10:44:00.003-07:00

How to discharge just about all debts and so called bills by understanding the rules that many want to remain hidden.

Rob Menard - 96 is Your Fix Part 2

How to discharge just about all debts and so called bills by understanding the rules that many want to remain hidden.

Rob's youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/mrmitee
www.thinkfree.ca
www.worldfreemansociety.org

Rob Menard - 96 is Your Fix Part 3

Rob Menard - 96 is Your Fix Part 4

Rob Menard - 96 is Your Fix Part 5

New information concerning the Remittance Option available to Canadians when paying most bills. This is Version 2.0 with a step-by-step guide for you.

Rob Menard - 96 is Your Fix Part 6

Rob Menard - 96 is Your Fix Part 7

Rob Menard - 96 is Your Fix Part 8

2012-05-14T10:44:00.001-07:00

This is a new book called Devon's Findings It is a political science fiction you will not be able to put it down order your copy by sending me an email and I will get back to you asap.

NATURAL CURES FOR THE HEALING OF A NATION

2012-05-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

Ezekiel 47:12 says:

"Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.” NKJ

Rev. 22:1-2 "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of YAHWEH and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." NIV

I have always loved those verses. I can remember vividly as a child listening to the fiery sermons down at First Baptist Mt. Olive in Memphis. Pastor Crawford would usually wrap up his sermons squalling about how the earth rocked and reeled like a drunk man as the Savior was being crucified for "your sins and mine". And then toward the end of the sermon he would always work in that verse in Ezekiel and Revelation. You know the one about this tree whose leaves were good for the healing of the Nations. I wasn't exactly sure what that meant at the time but I sure loved the imagery. I could just see a nation of people lining up to be soothed with a balm made from the leaves of this tall tree with broad, green leaves. And no matter what their hurt, whether it be physical, mental, or emotional, those leaves would bring relief.

Well, that was a long time ago. A time when I along with those in that congregation were looking through a glass darkly. Yes sir, we were all Hebrew Israelites unaware back then. Today I am not exactly sure how much of that verse in Ezekiel and in the Revelation is literal or figurative. But what I do know is that the Word speaks volumes on the healing power of herbs.

And to that extent and purpose is the reason for this blog. YAH willing, I and the COFAH network will try to bring to YAHWEH's people, a message of hope and healing through the use of natural medicines that YAH has given us. I hope that this blog will become a community where we can interact peaceably and help one another. I have spent considerable time studying and researching natural cures, but that by no means says that I know it all. Fact is, I don't. But what I do know, I will share with you. And I pray that you will do the same. We can learn from one another.

As I mentioned before, the use of herbs permeates the Word. I read somewhere that herbs are mentioned no less than 3,000 times in the Bible. If you don't believe that, consider these verses as an example:

Genesis 1:29 "And YAH said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat".

Notice in this verse how YAH distinguishes herbs from other vegetation. In fact, if you read Genesis 1:11-12 and Genesis 1:29-30 you will quickly begin to see that herbs are specifically mentioned repeatedly. And wherever YAH mentions something more than once we should be wise enough to ponder why.

Here are some other verses that mention specific herbs:

Exodus 16:31 "Now the house of Israel called its name manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey."

Numbers 11:5 "We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic."

Numbers 24:6 "Like valleys that stretch afar, like gardens beside a river, like aloes that YAH has planted, like cedar trees beside the waters."

Psalms 51:7 "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

Isaiah 35:1 "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the rose". Yes brothers and sisters, the rose can be used medicinally.

Jeremiah 23:15 "Therefore thus says YAHWEH concerning the prophets: "Behold, I will feed them with
, and give them poisoned water to drink; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone forth into all the land."

Matthew 13:31 "the least of all seeds (mustard): but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof."

Matthew 23:23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others."

Luke 11:42 "But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of YAH; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others."

There are many more references to herbs in the Bible. I won't list them all here but I will cover as many specific herbs that are mentioned as possible. One verse that I do want to briefly touch on today and examine is gall. Do you remember when Yahshua was being crucified and the centurions tried to give him wine mixed with gall?

Matthew 27:34 "They gave him wine to drink, mingled with gall; and after tasting it, he was not willing to drink." Gall is an herb. In Hebrew the word gall means bitterness. Gall is a bitter herb, but more importantly it comes from a plant of the opium family. It is a narcotic and is used to relieve pain. It was mixed with wine to help criminals endure the pain of crucifixion. But remember Yahshua refused to drink it after he tasted it. For he knew that he had to endure the pain of crucifixion without being anesthetized.

I believe in the power of herbs and that YAH has given them to us for the specific purpose of healing. Fact is, most of the conventional medicines that we take came from herbs. Modern medicine merely synthesizes and isolates the active ingredients in these herbs and patents them so that they can be sold in a more potent and dangerous form.

For example, did you know that aspirin came from white willow bark? And digitalis (used to treat congestive heart failure and certain heart arrhythmias heart) came from the foxglove plant? The flower, lily of the valley is also used as a heart medicine. Neither of these two herbs is something that you would want to experiment with unless you are under the care of a licensed naturopathic doctor.

But there are many other herbs that are much safer and can be administered by anyone. I will cover many of those herbs in the next installment of this blog, YAH willing. Until then may YAWEH’s peace rest upon you.

Stars From Space

2012-05-03T06:54:00.001-07:00

HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL USES OF CANNABIS AND THE CANADIAN "MARIJUANA CLASH"

2012-01-21T07:25:00.001-08:00

HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL USES OF CANNABIS AND THE CANADIAN "MARIJUANA CLASH"

Prepared For The Senate Special Committee On Illegal Drugs

Leah Spicer
Law and Government Division

12 April 2002

LIBRARY OF PARLIAMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Part I – Cultural Uses of Cannabis Throughout the World

A. Historical Origins and Uses of Cannabis
1. China
2. Central Asia
3. Ancient Near East
a. Sumerians
b. Biblical Origins

B. Properties of the Production of Cannabis
1. Climatic Conditions for Cannabis Production
2. Classes of Psychoactive Cannabis Preparations

C. Cultural Uses of Cannabis
1. India
2. Africa
3. South America – Brazil
4. Jamaica
a. Ganja Socialization in the Home and Use Primarily by Males in Lower-Class Working Families
b. Rastafarians
c. Working Class Women in Jamaica

Part II – North American Context of Cannabis Use
A. History of Cannabis in North America
B. Cannabis Use in Canada

Conclusion – The Marijuana Clash in Canada:
A Moral Debate

INTRODUCTION

This paper provides a brief summary of the cultural uses of cannabis throughout history. As far back as the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, the cannabisplant was originally harvested for the fibre from its thick-stemmed girth for use in everything from a ships’ rigging, to the noose that hangmen slipped around the necks of the condemned.([1]) Even today, cannabis is cultivated for similar industrial purposes such as making paper and clothing.

The focus of this paper will be on the much more controversial usage of cannabis. In addition to its production of fibre, the cannabisplant also became known as early as pre-historical times for its thick sticky resin (delta-1-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC([2])), which produces psychoactive effects in humans.

Presently, in some countries this intoxicating resin is illegal (e.g., Canada). Yet, in other countries the use of cannabis is tolerated (e.g., Netherlands). These wandering legalities of cannabisare not rootless and can be best understood with cultural and historical perspectives in mind. As anthropologists and historians have revealed, cultural traditions, climatic differences, medicinal practices, as well as historical, political, legal and economic forces play a large part in the type of role cannabis has in different societies and cultures.([3]) This creates marked cultural differences in uses of the plant as well as the context of its use. For instance, many cultural groups from around the world believe that “the smoking of marijuana is a valuable means of relaxation, introspection, and sociability”([4]) while other cultural groups believe that “marijuana has the immediate effect of producing a burst of energy sufficient for completing laborious tasks.”([5]) The realization that cannabis plays significantly different roles in various cultures is of great significance for Canadians since Canada is a mosaic country containing a cross-section of immigrants from countries throughout the world with varying cultural values regarding cannabis. Recognizing different cultural usages of cannabis is challenging however, because ‘we do not like to see other people defend something we [as Canadians have historically] regard[ed] as morally wrong.’([6]) However such an understanding is important not only for gaining insight into why the cannabis issue has come to a boiling point in Canadian society (as well as many other countries), but also for informing future policy developments on cannabis in Canada.

To begin, this paper gives a brief description of the historical origins of the cultural psychoactive uses of cannabis. Before continuing with further cultural uses of psychoactive cannabis, a description of the climatic growing conditions and the potency levels of psychoactive cannabis is given in order to emphasize that environmental conditions play a significant part in the cultural use of the cannabis plant. Following this is a discussion of the various cultural uses of cannabis in regions such as India, Africa, Brazil and Jamaica. The second half of the paper then discusses the North American and specifically the Canadian cultural context of the use of the cannabis plant, including an examination of the economic, political and legal factors that have influenced its use. It illustrates that Canadian society did not use cannabis for psychoactive purposes until the middle of the 20th century. The paper concludes by emphasizing that since Canadians have recently been exposed to different cultural uses of psychoactive cannabis, knowledge of other cultural uses of cannabis is important for future policy development of the cannabis issue in Canada.

PART I – CULTURAL USES OF CANNABIS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

A. Historical Origins and Uses of Cannabis

It is difficult to say exactly where and when the cannabisplant originated. Some believe its origins were in central Asia. Others however, believe that because of its extensive medical and agricultural documentation in ancient Chinese literature, the cannabis plant actually originated in China. “Although the body of literature concerning hemp (cannabis) has grown rapidly in the last decade, the exact origin of the plant has yet to be established; the historical routes of its diffusion remain obscure.”([7])

1. China

Archaeologists discovered an ancient village in China, containing the earliest known record of the use of the cannabisplant. This village dates back over 10 000 years to the Stone Age. Amongst the debris of this village, archaeologists found small pots with patterns of twisted hemp fibre decorating them. This use of the cannabis plant suggests “men have been using the marijuana plant in some manner since the dawn of history.”([8]) Cannabis fibre (hemp) was not only used in China as decoration, but it was also used to make clothes,([9]) ropes, fishing nets([10]) and paper.([11]) It was also important as a food plant and was originally considered one of China’s five cereal grains.([12]) The cannabis plant took on such great importance in the Chinese culture that early priest doctors began using the cannabis plant’s stalk as a symbol of power to drive away evil.

Eventually, when the process of extraction was developed, the Chinese realized the psychoactive use of the oil (resin) from the cannabis seed and applied this to their medicinal practices. The first evidence of the medicinal use of cannabis is found in the book Pên-ts’ao Ching, attributed to the Emperor Shen-nung of about 2000 B.C. Since Chinese medicine has its origins in magic, this book provides records of the Chinese using marijuana both in their medicinal and ritual practices. It was used in cases involving menstrual fatigue, gout, rheumatism, malaria, constipation, and absentmindedness, and to anaesthetize patients during surgical operations.([13]) Other historical therapeutic uses of cannabis that are also emphasized in folk medicine throughout modern Asia include ‘wasting diseases.’ For example, in Thailand, “cannabis is frequently used to stimulate the appetite of sick people and make them sleep… its use to counteract diarrhoea and dysentery is equally common.”([14])

There is debate in Chinese history over the hallucinogenic use of the cannabis plant’s psychoactive properties. Some Chinese denounced marijuana as the “liberator of sin.”([15]) This may have been due to the growing Chinese religion of Taoism in which “anything that contains yin, such as marijuana, was regarded with contempt since it enfeebled the body when eaten. Only substances filled with yang, the invigorating principle in nature, were looked upon favourably.”([16]) However a late edition of the Pen Ts’ao asserted that while “ma-fen (the fruits of cannabis)… taken in excess will produce hallucinations (literally ‘seeing devils’), if it is taken over a long term, it makes one communicate with spirits and lightens one’s body.”([17]) By the first century A.D., Taoists were using cannabis seeds in their incense burners to provide hallucinations that they valued as a means to achieving immortality.

However, by the 8th century A.D. cannabis had fallen into the background as a hallucinogen and opium took on much greater significance as a hallucinogen in Chinese culture. This non-adoption of cannabis as a hallucinogen can be explained on a cultural basis.

Opium is an Euphorica, a sedative of mental activity. Cannabis, on the other hand, is a Phantastica, a hallucinogenic drug that causes mental exhilaration and nervous excitation. It distorts the sense of time and space. Overuse may cause rapid movements… these effects were duly noted by Chinese physicians at least from the second century A.D. or earlier. They were in every respect inconsistent with the philosophy and traditions of Chinese life. The discontinuation of the use of cannabis by the Chinese can perhaps simply be referred to its unsuitability to the Chinese temperament and traditions. The conformity of an individual in Chinese society is regulated by a culturally instilled sense of shame. The Confucian personality is a shame-oriented personality. The adoption of opium and the non-adoption of cannabis reflect a behavioural response to traditional Chinese society. The opium user was more likely to remain pacific and sedated, and thus not challenge social norms. Cannabis, with its stimulating of erratic effects, was likely to induce acts that might bring shame upon the user or his family.([18])

Thus, while the psychoactive properties of cannabis have been cited as used by the Chinese, the value of cannabis in China was primarily as a fibre source. There was, however, a continuous record of hemp cultivation in China from Neolithic times, suggesting that cannabis use may have originated in China, rather than in central Asia([19]) where the origination of cannabis has long been attributed.

2. Central Asia

Many western scholars attribute the origins of cannabis to the Scythians around the 7th century B.C. in and around Siberia, North Central Asia. According to Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived in the fifth century B.C., marijuana was an integral part of the Scythian cult of the dead wherein they honoured the memory and spirits of their departed leaders.([20]) These funeral ceremonies involved the erection of small tents, into which they placed metal censors containing rocks heated from the funeral fires. The Scythians would throw cannabis seeds onto the heated stones to create a thick vapour that they would inhale and become intoxicated. “Seemingly, the purification was the Scythian counterpart to the hard-drinking frazzled Irish wake, with marijuana instead of alcohol as the ceremonial intoxicant.”([21])

This first ethnographic description of ancient peoples inhaling marijuana as a psychotropic stimulant was further confirmed by a Russian archaeologist, Professor S.I. Rudenko in 1929, who discovered that marijuana was also used by the Scythians in everyday life.([22]) Not only did Rudenko come across the embalmed body of a man and a bronze cauldron filled with burnt marijuana seeds, but he also found some shirts woven from hemp fibre and some metal censors designed for inhaling marijuana smoke, which did not appear to be connected with any religious rite. “To Rudenko, the evidence suggested that inhalation of smouldering marijuana seeds occurred not only in a religious context, but also as an everyday activity, one in which Scythian women participated alongside the men.”([23])

As recently as 1993, Russian archaeologists confirmed Rudenko’s theory when they discovered a 2000-year-old woman’s body frozen in a tomb in the same Siberian burial ground where Rudenko had made his first discovery. The female Russian mummy was so well preserved that intricate tattoos were found on her left arm, leading the archaeologists to conclude that she was both a Scythian princess and a priestess. Buried in a hollowed tree trunk, the archaeologists found a few of her possessions buried alongside her, including a small container of cannabis, which ‘archaeologists believe was smoked for pleasure and used in pagan rituals.’([24])

3. Ancient Near East

a. Sumerians

Several cannabis commentators believe that the peoples of the Near East were the first to use cannabis for religious purposes due to man’s inability to engage in introspection.([25]) The theory is that the cannabis plant assisted in giving man the ability for introspection, but that man initially believed his own introspection was actually the gods speaking to him. According to Julian Jaynes, a psychologist who wrote, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, “ancient people from Mesopotamia to Peru could not ‘think’ as we do today, and were therefore not conscious… they experienced auditory hallucinations – voices of gods, actually heard as in the Old Testament or the Iliad – which, coming from the brain’s right hemisphere, told a person what to do in circumstances of novelty or stress.” Terrence McKenna expanded this theory in his book called Food of the Gods, and suggests that, “psychoactive plants, like the psilocybin mushroom and cannabis, acted as catalysts and accelerators for mankind’s transition into consciousness and self reflection. The hallucinations and mystical insights experienced by those who consumed these plants convinced the ancient worshippers that they had come into contact with the divine.”([26])

In an example of this, the Sumerians of the Ancient Near East each developed their own ‘personal deity’ whom they would worship each day by burning cannabis. The Sumerians believed that the daily worship of their personal deity assisted them in earning a living and being courageous in battle. However, commentators believe that this ‘personal deity’ was actually just a “personification of a man’s luck, and his capacity for thinking and acting.”([27]) In other words, cannabis became entrenched into Sumerian religion because they believed it was putting them in touch with their gods. Researchers believe however, that cannabis inhalation was actually just facilitating the Sumerians’ discovery of personal inner thinking.

b. Biblical Origins

There are many contested theories of the appearance of the use of cannabis by peoples of the Near East in the Old Testament. These theories are often challenged as being quite obscure with no clear history.([28]) However as C. Creighton wrote in his article, On Indications of the Hachish-Vice in the Old Testament, “there are reasons… why there should be no clear history. All vices are veiled from view, and that is true especially of the vices of the East. Where they are alluded to at all, it is in cryptic, subtle, witty and allegorical terms. Therefore, if we are to discover them, we must be prepared to look below the surface of the text.”([29])

In Creighton’s text, he asserts that cannabis appears to have been eaten by both Saul and Jonathan in I Samuel 14, 25-45. In Jonathan’s case, the Bible passage is as follows:

And all [they of] the land came to a wood, and dropped; but no man put his hand to his mouth: for the people feared the oath. But Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with the oath; wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand and dipped it in an honey-comb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his eyes were enlightened.([30])

Creighton asserts that over the years the Hebrew words ‘yagarah hadebash’ have been translated incorrectly into ‘honey comb.’ He says that, “The earlier [translations], however obscure, show that the ‘honey’ was of a peculiar kind”([31]) and that the Syrian version of the text is actually a better account. The Syrian account says that Jonathan dipped his rod in a field of flower-stalks with resinous exudation, which would be produced in times of heat – similar to the behaviour of cannabis resin.

If proof exists that peoples in the Old Testament used cannabis, this in fact predates the belief that the word ‘cannabis’ originated with the Scythians. Like Creighton, commentators such as Sula Benet, Sara Bentowa and Chris Bennett also delve below the surface of the Biblical text to argue that the word cannabis was actually borrowed by the Scythians from Semitic languages such as Hebrew. The word ‘kaneh bosm’ appears several times in the Old Testament([32]) “both as incense, which was an integral part of religious celebration, and as an intoxicant,”([33]) but a specific example sees Moses using it in Exodus 30:23 when God commanded him to make “holy anointing oil of myrrh, sweet cinnamon, kaneh bosm, and kassia.” Benet explains that in this passage the Hebrew definition of kaneh bosm is ‘aromatic reed,’ kan meaning ‘reed’ or ‘hemp,’ while bosm means ‘aromatic.’([34]) The linguistic resemblance of the word ‘kaneh bosm’ to the Scythian word cannabis, and the Hebrew definition of kaneh bosm provide Benet and Bentowa with enough evidence to assert that the intoxicating properties of cannabis were probably first used by the peoples of the Near East and then spread through contact with the Scythians.([35])

Today, there are groups such as The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church who fully believe in the teachings of the Bible and that “marijuana is a godly creation from the beginning of the world… Its purpose in creation is as a fiery sacrifice to be offered to our Redeemer during obligations… Ganja (cannabis) is the sacramental rights of every man worldwide.”([36]) As further confirmation of this belief, they point to the Encyclopedia Brittanica’s section on Pharmacological Cults, which states: “the ceremonial use of incense in contemporary ritual is most likely a relic of the time when the psychoactive properties of incense brought the ancient worshipper into touch with supernatural forces.”([37])

B. Properties of the Production of Cannabis

Before continuing with an outline of several cultural uses of the cannabis plant’s psychoactive properties, it is important to describe the climatic conditions required for growing cannabis since this is an influential factor in the cannabis plant’s production of the psychoactive resin (THC). In addition, it is necessary to clarify that there are different classes of psychoactive cannabis preparations, as well as various cultural names for each class.

1. Climatic Conditions for Cannabis Production

Cannabis is like a weed and will grow almost anywhere. However, its optimum resin-producing environment is in very hot climates where cannabis protects itself from death by producing as much resin as is needed in order to trap in water. “Depending on the conditions under which it grows, cannabis will either produce more resin or more fibre. When raised in hot, dry climates, resin is produced in great quantities and fibre quality is poor. In countries with mild, humid weather, less resin is produced and the fibre is stronger and more durable.”([38]) Thus, since Europe has milder, humid weather, it is not surprising that “most Europeans knew very little of the intoxicating properties of cannabis until the 19th century when hashish was imported from India and the Arab countries.”([39]) Prior to the 19th century, most Western countries used the cannabis plant only as a source of fibre.

2. Classes of Psychoactive Cannabis Preparations([40])

The cannabis plant has two significant varieties that were catalogued in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus. The most common is cannabis sativa, which is gangly, loose-branched, can reach a height of twenty feet and is productive of fibre and inferior seed oil. Cannabis indica grows to three or four feet in height, is densely branched, shaped like a pyramid and yields higher quantities of intoxicating resin.([41]) There are three separate resin potency levels in cannabis plants, subject to which part of the plant is used. Each potency level has a different name dependent upon cultural language.

Mild Potency: Marijuana (Europe and North America), Mariguango (Mexican) Dagga (South Africa), Kif (North Africa), Bhang (India):

The flowering leaves of ripe male and female hemp plants secrete a sticky resin which is the source of all, or almost all, of the THC (delta-1-tetrahydrocannabinol, the ingredient which reproduces in man all the mind-altering effects that follow smoking or eating marijuana or hashish) in cannabis. In this form of cannabis use, the leaves and sometimes the stems and even seeds or entire plants are ground up and smoked or baked into cookies. The potency varies with the THC content. Bhang is a little different as it usually involves only leaves, is drunk and is usually somewhat richer in THC than North American marijuana.

Intermediate Potency: Ganja (India):

The dried flowering tops of cultivated plants are covered with THC as a result of not having released their seeds. These are harvested and used in ‘ganja.’ Ganja is usually smoked, however it is also drunk, or baked into sweets. Outside of India, it is virtually unknown.

High Potency: Charas (India), Hashish (Arabia and North America), Hashishi (Syria):

Almost all of the THC is contained in the resin on the leaves near the flowering tops. The resin is scraped off of the leaves, pressed into blocks, and usually smoked. Hashish is about 10 times as powerful as marijuana and is the only cannabis derivative that has the capacity to produce hallucinogenic and psychotomimetic effects with any regularity. An Indian pharmacologist, Chopra, has described another method of harvesting charas: Sometimes men, naked, or dressed in leather suits or jackets, passed through the fields of cannabis sativa rubbing and crushing roughly against the plants early in the morning just after sunrise when a fall of dew has taken place. The resinous material that sticks on is then scraped off them and forms the charas resin of commerce.

Other common names for cannabis include grifa in Spain and Mexico; anascha in Russia; kendir in Tartar; konop in Bulgaria and konope in Poland; momea in Tibet; kanbun in Chaldea; dawamesk in Algeria; liamba or maconha in Brazil; and bust or sheera in Egypt.([42])

C. Cultural Uses of Cannabis

1. India

Cannabis has always been a customary part of life in India, and was “intimately associated with magical, medical, religious, and social customs in India for thousands of years.”([43]) This may partially be due to India’s semi-arid climate, perfect for growing an abundance of cannabis.

According to legend found written in a collection of four holy books called the Vedas, an Indian god named Siva is described as The Lord of ‘Bhang,’ the drink made of cannabis leaves, milk, sugar and spices. Historically and continuing today, “bhang is to India what alcohol is to the West.”([44]) Orthodox Hindu rules have traditionally prohibited the use of alcohol except for the warrior Rajput caste who, despite the rules, indulge in alcohol. For Members of the Brahmin caste, cannabis was unequivocally sanctioned for social use in order to help achieve the contemplative spiritual life they strive to lead. According to one historian of cannabis, even in the 1940’s bhang was integral to social activities including special festivities and in the home.([45]) In special festivities such as weddings, it was said that a father must bring bhang to the ceremonies to prevent evil spirits from hanging over the bride and groom. Bhang was also a symbol of hospitality. “A host would offer a cup of bhang to a guest as casually as we would offer someone in our home a glass of beer. A host who failed to make such a gesture was despised as being miserly and misanthropic.”([46])

Cannabis is also renowned in India for its use in the Tantric religious yoga sex acts. About an hour before carrying out the yoga ritual, the devotee would put a bowl of bhang before him and after reciting a mantra to the goddess Kali, the devotee would drink the bhang potion. “The goal of the Tantra initiate was to achieve unity of mind, body, and spirit through yoga and marathon sexual episodes. This was fuelled by bhang, which heightens the experience.”([47])

The most potent Indian preparation of cannabis called ‘charas’ has the same religious importance to many Hindus that wine has to Christians celebrating the Eucharist. The Hindu mystics who smoked charas in the prayer ceremony called Puja especially favoured charas.([48]) As well, the holy men called ‘fakirs’ who were famous for walking on hot coals and sleeping on beds of nails, believed that charas put them in closer communion with their gods.([49])

While the cannabis plant’s pre-eminence in India was, and continues to be its association with religious life and as a social lubricant, cannabis was also used as a medicinal aid. In Indian folk medicine, hemp boughs were thrown into fires in order to overcome evil forces. Sushruta, a legendary physician of ancient India, recommended it to relieve congestion, a remedy for diarrhoea and as an ingredient in a cure for fevers.([50]) A number of years later, when the Indian Hemp Drug Commission of 1893-1894 heard testimony from hundreds of both native and Western doctors about the cannabis plant’s therapeutic uses in treatment of everything from cramps and headaches to bronchitis and diabetes as well as its use as an analgesic for toothaches and anaesthetic for minor surgeries, the Commission realized that “hemp drugs appear now to be frequently used for precisely the same purposes and in the same manner as was recommended centuries ago, [and] many uses of these drugs by native doctors are in accord with their application in modern European therapeutics. Cannabis must be looked upon as one of the most important drugs of Indian material medica.”([51])

Despite the fact that the Indian Hemp Drug Commission rejected total prohibition of cannabis because of its importance in medicine as well as in cultural rituals and traditions, in 1896 the British Indian Government passed Act XII to discourage the habitual use of cannabis and its use as an intoxicant. The Act requested that state governments improve their local excise systems. Later in 1930 the Dangerous Drugs Act was passed, empowering state governments to make rules permitting and regulating the inter-state import and export from the territories under their administration, the transport, possession and sale of manufactured drugs (which included medicinal cannabis).([52]) While there continued to be no national legal provisions for the control of the cannabis plant, the India national government persisted in pressing state governments to discourage the use of cannabis. By 1964 India had both signed and ratified the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 and then in 1985 the cultivation, possession, use and consumption of any mixture of cannabis came to be prohibited with severe penalties by the national government of India under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. Today, although cannabis continues to be an integral element of cultures in India, the laws seem to have succeeded in discouraging its use. “From the numerous popular stories that are current among the people, it would appear that the habitual use of cannabis existed on a much more extensive scale in India in past centuries.”([53])

2. Africa

The cultural use of cannabis is widespread throughout Africa. While the plant is not indigenous to Africa, several traditions of religious, medical and recreational cannabis smoking have developed since its introduction to Africa over six centuries ago.

Aside from Egypt, where cannabis has been grown for over a thousand years due to the influence of India and Persia, the first archaeological evidence of cannabis in central and southern parts of Africa comes from 14th century Ethiopia where two ceramic smoking-pipe bowls containing traces of cannabis were discovered.([54]) Researchers hypothesize that since cannabis was outlawed in Egypt in the 3rd century A.D. and was punishable by religious law and judicial authorities, several Muslim communities who wanted to continue to grow cannabis migrated south and introduced cannabis to Ethiopia.([55]) Researchers also believe that later on, around 1500 A.D., the fully developed trade routes between Arabia, Turkey, India and Persia with the East African coast, permitted the Arab traders to introduce cannabis to the more southern parts of Africa.([56])

While Arab traders and North Africans brought cannabis to the central and southern parts of Africa, they did not import techniques of psychoactive cannabis use. For the Hottentot tribe of the Cape of Good Hope, “the simple but efficacious practice of throwing hemp plants on the burning coals of a fire and staging what might today be called a ‘breathe-in’ seems to have been popular initially.”([57]) The King of another tribe called the Kafirs, also of the Cape of Good Hope, administered cannabis through beverages very similar to the Indian ‘bangue.’ “Those the chief desired to entertain were offered food and intoxicating spirits which they must drink, although against their stomach, not to condemn the king’s bounty.”([58])

Eventually, by 1705, the Hottentots learned the art of smoking. The habit of smoking cannabis, which many tribes called ‘dagga,’ spread from tribe to tribe quite quickly. The primary method in which southern and central African tribes learned of smoking dagga was through their trading relations with the nomadic ‘San’ tribe hunters. “The hunters were addicted to smoking and so in exchange for tobacco and dagga they supplied feathers, game, and other products collected in the hunt.”([59]) Learning the art of smoking dagga altered African culture from chewing to smoking, and elaborated the techniques of dagga consumption.([60]) Several different pipes began to be developed out of gourds, bamboo stalks and coconut bowls. When smoking cannabis reached the northern areas of Africa, “it was the North Africans who developed the water pipe, which cooled and to some degree purified the smoke.”([61]) North African tribes referred to cannabis under the name kif in this apparatus.

There are several examples of how cannabis took on different prominent symbols in African tribes. In North Africa, “music, literature and even certain aspects of architecture have evolved with cannabis-directed appreciation in mind. Some homes actually have kif rooms, where family groups gather to sing, dance, and relate histories based on ancient cultural traditions.”([62])

A researcher visiting the Congo, discovered that around 1888, the King of the Balubas tribe, which had conquered several tribes near it with similar rituals,

ordered all the ancient idols and fetishes of conquered territories to be publicly burned. He realized that a multiplicity of tribal gods would hardly serve as a unifying force, so he acted to strengthen his lordship and bind his subjects into one ‘nation’ by replacing the old idols with a new and more powerful one – Cannabis!([63])

Thus for the Balubas tribe, cannabis took on ritualistic importance on state and feast days and as an evening pastime.

Cannabis was also incorporated into many African tribes’ religious and magical beliefs. The Bashilenge was a religious cult that developed out of several small clubs of hemp smokers who had their own plots of land for the cultivation of hemp.

Each tribesman was required to participate in the cult and show his devotion by smoking as frequently as possible. They attributed universal magical powers to hemp, which was thought to combat all kinds of evil and they took it when they went to war and when they travelled. The hemp pipe assumed a symbolic meaning for the Bashilenge somewhat analogous to the significance that the peace pipe had for American Indians. No holiday, no trade agreement, no peace treaty was transacted without it.([64])

The Bashilenge tribe also made cannabis an important part of their jurisprudence.

Any native accused of a crime was required to smoke dagga until he either admitted his crime or lost consciousness. In cases of theft, the robber had to pay a fine, consisting of salt, to each person who witnessed his smoking. The crime of adultery required that the guilty male smoke dagga as well. However, there was no fine. The amount of dagga to be smoked depended on the status of the man who had been cuckolded. If the latter were important, the guilty man had to smoke until he lost consciousness. He would then be stripped, pepper would be dropped into his eyes and/or a thin ribbon would be drawn through his nasal bone.([65])

Several tribes such as the Zulu and the Sothos were known to smoke cannabis prior to going to war. “Young Zulu warriors were especially addicted to dagga and under the exciting stimulation of the drug were capable of accomplishing hazardous feats.”([66]) There are those historians who also believe that the Zulus were intoxicated with dagga when they attacked the Dutch at the Battle of Blood River in 1838.([67]) Similarly, the Sothos tribe used dagga to strengthen their spirits prior to an onslaught.

Besides for Northwest Africa where “cannabis either was not introduced or was not accepted until after the Second World War”([68]) African tribes throughout the rest of the continent also used cannabis in folk traditional medicinal practice. “The plant was used as a remedy for snake bite (Hottentots), to facilitate childbirth (Sotho), and among Africans of Rhodesia as a remedy for anthrax, malaria, blackwater fever, blood poisoning, and dysentery. It was also famous in relieving the symptoms of asthma.”([69])

Africa became a country of cannabis cultures long before the arrival of Europeans. Despite the Europeans’ attempts to outlaw the psychoactive use of cannabis, it continues to be deeply ingrained in the cultures of several African tribes.

3. South America – Brazil

In 1549, the French and the British imported Angolan slaves from the southwest coast of Africa to work as labourers on the sugar plantations of northeastern Brazil. “The slaves carried the seeds in cloth dolls tied to their ragtag clothing. The planters permitted slaves to grow their maconha between the rows of cane, and to smoke and dream during the periods of inactivity between harvests. But the planters stuck to their perfumed cigars.”([70]) Many planters felt that allowing their slaves to smoke marijuana, encouraged them to work hard.([71])

Cannabis came to be regarded in Brazil as the opium of the poor, used for cordage and clothing, comestible and spice, energizer and invigorant, as well as medicine and euphoriant.([72]) This pattern of cannabis use replicated a pattern that Vera Rubin calls the “ganja complex.” “Except for ritual purposes involving members of the priestly class, regular multipurpose use in the folk stream has been generally confined to the lower social classes: peasants, fishermen, rural and urban artisans and manual labourers.”([73])

Upper class use of cannabis in Brazil was not unheard of however. In 1808, the Portuguese Royal Court, threatened by Napoleon’s invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, escaped from Portugal to Brazil, settling in Rio de Janeiro. The Court spent approximately six years in Brazil, returning to Portugal at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1817, Queen Carlota Joaquina, wife of Emperor Don Joao VI, King of Portugal and Brazil, was dying. She asked her favourite Angolan slave who accompanied her back to Portugal from Brazil to “bring an infusion of the fibres of damba do amazonas, with which we sent so many enemies to hell.” The slave made an infusion of cannabis and arsenic and gave it to her. “Upon taking the infusion, Dona Carlota felt no pain while dying because of the analgesic action of diamba.”([74]) With this account, there are some anthropologists who believe that it was actually the Portuguese Court who introduced cannabis to Brazil during their short stay.

Whether it was the Angolan slaves or the Portuguese Court who introduced cannabis to Brazil, there are indications that smoking marijuana was also observed among the Indians during the Colonial period.([75]) The Catimbo Indians used marijuana in their own practices in order to receive spirits to cure sick people. An influence of the African Angolan practices led the Catimbo to also use marijuana to induce divination, revelation of secrets and mystic hallucinations.

In the 19th century the use of marijuana was prohibited in Rio de Janeiro. However, the prohibition was not enforced in the provinces where smokers continued to enjoy marijuana use and began growing their own plots next to their houses for personal use.([76]) Often cannabis was used for medicinal and therapeutic purposes: “usually, a preparation of tea, mixed with marijuana leaves is swallowed by the patient to relieve rheumatism, “female troubles,” colic and other common complaints such as toothaches in which marijuana is packed around the aching tooth.”([77])

Near the beginning of the 20th century, the ‘ganja complex’ had fully developed and many lower class individuals were smoking marijuana both in rural areas and within the cities. Groups of canoemen and fishermen as well as other lower-class Brazilians gathered together on a weekly basis for sessions of collective smoking. This custom, was called Club de Diambistas([78]) in which the primary goal was the search for psychedelic experiences.([79]) It was also smoked in the military barracks and in the prisons, to alleviate boredom and despair.([80])

4. Jamaica

Cannabis did not take root in Jamaica until the mid-nineteenth century when East Indian indentured labourers were brought over by the British to work in Jamaica.([81]) Eventually, their knowledge of the cannabis plant and methods of smoking cannabis, or ‘ganja,’ diffused to the black working class.

While cannabis is presently officially illegal in Jamaica, ‘cannabis is integrated with many dimensions of Jamaican culture and is governed by social rules that guide its use and inhibit abuse.’([82]) For Jamaicans, ganja is thought of not only as a recreational drug, but certain cross-cultural groups within Jamaica also view it as an herb that has both religious and medicinal value. Anthropological studies have shown that the use of ganja in Jamaica is extraordinarily widespread.([83]) It is possible to recognize three major groups who use it in culturally varied ways. First and traditionally, lower-class Jamaicans are socialized to the uses of ganja at a very young age because of its domestic use in the home. In addition, young children become exposed to their fathers social use of ganja. Secondly, members of the Rastafarians, a politico-religious movement in Jamaica, use ganja as a religious sacrament. Thirdly and most recently, perhaps due to the growth of Rastafarianism, it is no longer unusual to see Jamaican women smoking ganja in the manner of their male counterparts.

a. Ganja Socialization in the Home and Use Primarily by Males in Lower-Class Working Families

Through the ingestion of teas and tonics in herbal remedies, all young children in lower-class working families in Jamaica have at one time or another been exposed to ganja. This social strata of Jamaican society holds the belief that ganja helps to ‘maintain good health and prevent illness and is therapeutic for a variety of complaints including upper respiratory infections, asthma, intestinal problems, glaucoma, gonorrhea, wasting due to malnutrition, and infant diarrhea, endemic fevers, discomfort of teething, and skin burns and abrasions.’([84]) Although the child may have been well aware of the basic ingredient of the teas or tonics, the child never heard the ganja ingredient spoken of by any of the family members because “an aura of secretiveness often surrounds this ordinary practice.”([85])

Subsequently in a youngster’s adolescent years, even though young boys were cautioned against it, they would often be introduced to smoking ganja by their older peers, who had discovered that their fathers were regular smokers. Not to take part in smoking ganja classified the non-smoker as an outsider because it was symbolic of courage, and of crossing the line from child to man, as well as a sign of friendship and trust.

On one level, smoking the substance is considered adventurous by the adolescent boy: by participating in an illegal practice, even though it is widespread among his elders, the young smoker believes he is demonstrating courage, defiance, and, most importantly, manhood. In subtle ways, the smoking of ganja is considered by the young almost as a rite de passage, an audacious act signifying transition from adolescence to maturity. On another level, particularly for males from the lowest socio-economic rung of the society, smoking symbolizes camaraderie, equality, and belonging; it is a sign of friendship and trustworthiness.([86])

Not all boys become regular smokers however. To become a regular ganja smoker is dependent on the boy’s reaction to his first experience, and this is determined by the boy himself, as well as his peers through a culturally standardized ‘vision.’ During the first ganja smoking experience, the boy is supposed to see a little dancing person or creature, symbolizing a positive ganja smoking experience. If a boy’s peers decide that he did not see the vision, they say “he doesn’t have the head for it” and this means the boy had a negative ganja smoking experience.([87]) Although a negative experience has the potential of giving the boy social marginality, it is not entirely detrimental, since members of the Jamaican middle and upper class have traditionally disapproved of ganja smoking and considered it illegal. Those who did not participate in ganja smoking had much better chances for upward social mobility.([88])

When working-class men establish their own households in their twenties, regular users of ganja plant their own supply in an inconspicuous place near their homes. Unlike in younger years when ganja smoking was a central part of social life, at this stage ganja smoking becomes “a natural part of the daily round, an almost unnoticed routine at work parties, lunch breaks, evening visits, and the like.”([89]) Ganja is valued for its ability to increase work capacity, specifically manual labour. The working-class man believes that regular doses of ganja build his blood as well as his strength. In addition, ganja provides immediate bursts of energy.([90])

Traditional ganja smoking at the working-class level is thus highly based on customary behaviour depending on age, peers and work. Sex could also be another category since traditionally, the female ganja smoker was rare and considered disreputable.([91])

b. Rastafarians

The Rastafarian cult, unique to Jamaica, is a movement whose members believe that Haile Selasssie, Emperor of Ethiopia, is the Black Messiah who appeared in the flesh for the redemption of all Blacks exiled in the world of White oppressors. For Rastafarians, Ethiopia is the Promised Land where Black people will be repatriated through a wholesale exodus from all Western countries where they have been slaves.([92])

The Rastafarian movement began to take shape around 1930-33. In 1940, Leonard Howell launched the doctrine of the Rastafarian movement and recruited a large following (between 500-1600 people) to join him in the hills of St. Catherine, overlooking Kingston where he would not be harassed by the police for the radical principles of his doctrine.([93]) Howell became leader of this cult known as “Ethiopian Salvation Society” at the commune called “Pinnacle.” For a living, the people of the commune grew cash crops, including the ganja herb. Many Rastafarians continue to be ganja farmers today.

Ganja became a predominant symbol in the Rastafarian movement and its use became a religious sacrament. Even today, it is believed that ganja is a holy herb and when inhaled, it allows the Rastafarian to ‘loosen up’ his head and truly perceive himself as a Black person without the pre-conditioned forces of European society. This in turn permits the revelation that Haile Selassie is truly their God and Ethiopia, the home of the Blacks.([94])

The herb is the key to new understanding of the self, the universe, and God. It is the vehicle to cosmic consciousness; it introduces one to levels of reality not ordinarily perceived by the non-Rastafarians, and it develops a certain sense of fusion with all living beings.([95])

In defence of the belief that cannabis forms part of their heritage, Rastafarians cite several sections of the Bible. They believe that “God who created all things made the herb for human use” and will cite Genesis 1:12 as their proof text:([96])

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Rastafarians also cite the following sections of the Bible as further proof that their use of cannabis is legitimate:([97])

…thou shalt eat the herb of the field. (Genesis 3:18)

…eat every herb of the land. (Exodus 10:12)

… Better is a dinner of herb where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. (Proverbs 15:17)

…He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man. (Psalm 104:14)

Ganja smoking was also a symbol of protest for the Rastafarians against the Jamaican establishment and representative of the Rastafarians freedom from Jamaican laws.

Although Haile Selassie passed away in 1975, ganja continues to be an ideological symbol for Rastafarians and continues to be used in the Rastafarian faith to reinforce their liberating ideology.([98])

c. Working Class Women in Jamaica

Although traditionally it was socially inappropriate for women to smoke ganja, the present situation in Jamaica shows that the number of women who smoke cannabis in a similar recreational manner to their male counterparts has increased dramatically.([99]) This may be due to the influence of Rastafarianism or possibly due to men’s lack of ability to provide support to women and children due to the harsh economy. “When there are no benefits for conforming to the social norms, social rules tend to be observed less stringently.”([100])

There are a widespread number of views amongst Jamaican women regarding ganja smoking. Similar to Western medical belief, many Jamaican women believe that it is especially harmful to smoke ganja while pregnant. However a number of other Jamaican women believe that ganja smoking actually aids the mother’s care-taking abilities as well as the health of both the baby and the mother.([101]) In a study carried out in Jamaica in 1980 of 30 ganja smoking pregnant women and 30 non-ganja smoking pregnant women it was found that ganja smoking was indeed beneficial for both mother and baby.([102])

Of significance in relation to cultural uses of cannabis, the study showed that rather than acting as a recreational outlet, ganja smoking helped the pregnant women to deal with the difficulties of pregnancy in a society where, multiple pregnancies are common, families are often in financial difficulty and women must continue to perform hard labour throughout their pregnancy.

For many women, ganja was seen as an option that provided a solution to problems during pregnancy such as loss of appetite, nausea, and fatigue. Ganja helped to increase their appetites, control and prevent the nausea of pregnancy, assist them to sleep, and give them the energy they needed to work. For women who are responsible for the full support of their households and who need to accomplish work while not feeling well, ganja smoking is an available and inexpensive solution to this problem. The women with several pregnancies, in particular, reported that both social and private smoking alleviated the feelings of depression and desperation attending motherhood in their impoverished communities.([103])

Melanie Dreher illustrates in her study that ganja smoking not only has become a recreational activity for many women who decide to breach lower-class social norms it also has a symbolic meaning attached to it for many pregnant women in Jamaica.

PART II – NORTH AMERICAN CONTEXT OF CANNABIS USE

A. History of Cannabis in North America

While there is strong historical evidence illustrating that the psychoactive properties of cannabis have been used as part of cultural practices of several societies throughout the world, it is unclear when the psychoactive properties of cannabis were discovered in North America. Some scholars believe that cannabis probably existed in North America long before the Europeans arrived. In Chris Bennett’s book Green Gold: Marijuana in Magic and Religion he says, “there is some very good physical evidence that indicates cannabis played a part in some of the native cultures prior to the arrival of Columbus.”([104]) In 1985, Bill Fitzgerald discovered resin scrapings of 500-year-old pipes in Morriston, Ontario containing “traces of hemp and tobacco that is five times stronger than the cigarettes smoked today.”([105]) Other archaeological evidence includes stone and wooden pipes and hemp fibre pouches that were found in the Ohio Valley from about 800 A.D.([106])

Elders of some North American native tribes can also remember their ancestors using cannabis in a ritual manner. According to Richard L. Lingeman in his book Drugs from A to Z, a 79 year old member of the Cinco Putas tribe in California

recalls his grandmother’s daily ritual when he was a small child. She took some cannabis flower tops out of an intricately carved box then rolled it in handmade corn paper. She held the resulting ‘joint’ upright in front of her and, watching the rising swirled smoke, prayed: “Oh thank-you Great Mother!” for each of the gifts the day had brought, as well as thanks for her present relaxation.([107])

Even today, there are some North American tribes, especially those from Mexico, who have used cannabis as sacred gift under the name Rosa Maria or Santa Rosa, and continue to use it today.

Indians in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Hidalgo, and Puebla practice a communal curing ceremony with a plant called Santa Rosa, identified as cannabis sativa, which is considered both a plant and a sacred intercessor with the Virgin. Although the ceremony is based mainly on Christian elements, the plant is worshipped as an earth deity and is thought to be alive and to represent a part of the heart of God.([108])

However, some scholars are doubtful that cannabis was an integral part of the cultures of North American native tribes. “With few exceptions, cannabis has not penetrated significantly into many native religious beliefs and ceremonies.”([109]) These scholars believe that the cultivation of cannabis in the New World originated by its introduction through white settlers. Even if North American natives had been using cannabis prior to White man’s arrival “unfortunately much of the religion and culture of the aboriginal peoples of the western hemisphere was destroyed or driven underground by the European invaders.”([110])

Hence, there is little evidence that the natives of the continent introduced the white settlers to the cannabis plant or its psychoactive properties. The earliest known evidence is that Louis Hebert, Champlain’s apothecary, introduced the cannabis plant to North American white settlers in 1606. However, the white settlers did not discover the psychoactive properties of cannabis until the end of the 19th century. Rather, the cannabis plant was widely grown across North America for its use as a fibre in clothing and cordage and to provide sails and rigging for ships. The pilgrims also planted hemp soon after its introduction, and used it to cover their wagons.

Colonial governments realized quite quickly the profits that could be made from the production of cannabis fibre (hemp). King James I commanded the American colonists to produce hemp, and later in 1619, the government of the colony of Virginia imposed penalties on those who did not produce cannabis, and awarded bounties for cannabis culture and manufacture.

Similar attempts to stimulate the industry occurred in Eastern Canada as well. Hemp was grown under the French regime, and was the first crop to be subsidized by the government. In 1801, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada distributed hemp seeds to farmers. Later, in the 1820’s, a gentleman by the name of Edward Allen Talbot, Esq., wrote Five Years’ Residence in the Canadas. He believed that if Canada produced enough hemp to supply Britain, this would end their dependence on a foreign power and greatly benefit Canadian settlers. In 1822, the provincial parliament of Upper Canada allocated 300 pounds for the purchase of machinery to process hemp and 50 pounds a year over the next three years for repairs. The 1823 budget also offered incentives to domestic producers. Mr. Fielding, Finance Minister said that there was a market in Canada and with some government encouragement a mill could be established in Manitoba to draw from crops in the vicinity. There were six hemp mills in Canada at the time, and the government financed a seventh, the Manitoba Cordage Company. Near the end of the 19th century however, cannabis production became overshadowed by cotton production since it was less labour intensive. Even with the invention of a new machine in 1917 to make it easier to separate cannabis fibre from the internal woody core, cannabis fibre production did not rise in production again. The new petroleum based synthetic textile companies and the large and powerful newspaper/lumber barons saw hemp production as a threat to their businesses. Thus in 1937, the United States enacted the Marijuana Tax Law, and levied an occupational excise tax upon cannabis fibre producers. The Canadian government, following the American lead, also prohibited production under the Opium and Narcotics Act on 1 August 1938.

Between the years of 1840-1900 cannabis was also used in medicinal practice throughout North America. During this time, more than one hundred papers were published in the Western medical literature recommending it for various illnesses and discomforts. The first physician to introduce cannabis to Western medicine was W.B. O’Shaunghnessy of Scotland. He introduced cannabis to Western medicine in 1841 after observing its use in India and performing experiments on animals to satisfy himself that it was safe for human use. Soon after its introduction to North America, physicians began to prescribe cannabis for a variety of physical conditions such as rabies, rheumatism, epilepsy, tetanus and as a muscle relaxant. Cannabis became so common in medicinal use that eventually, cannabis preparations were sold over the counter in drug stores.

In 1860, the first American Governmental Commission study of cannabis and health was conducted. Dr. R. R. M’Meens reported the findings of the Commission to the Ohio State Medical Society. M’Meens found that,

cannabis effects are less intense than opium, and the secretions are not so much suppressed by it. Digestion is not disturbed; the appetite rather increases; the whole effect of hemp being less violent, and producing a more natural sleep, without interfering with the actions of the internal organs, it is certainly often preferable to opium, although it is not equal to that drug in strength and reliability.([111])

Up until the early 1890’s doctors continued to find cannabis valuable for treatment of various forms of neuralgia especially treating migraine attacks, epilepsy, depression and sometimes for asthma and dysmenorrhoea. Some doctors such as H.A. Hare also recommended cannabis to subdue restlessness and anxiety and distract a patient’s mind in terminal illness. Dr. Hare believed cannabis was as effective a pain reliever as opium.

However, the 1890’s also found some doctors suggesting that the potency of cannabis preparations was too variable, and individual responses to orally ingested cannabis seemed erratic and unpredictable. “Cannabis Indica has fallen considerably in the estimation of the profession, both in the old country and in this, due no doubt to its variability and often noticeable uncertainty of action.”([112]) In addition, since the invention of the hypodermic syringe in the 1850’s, there was an increased use of opiates and soluble drugs that could be injected for faster pain relief. Cannabis was difficult to be administered by injection because it is highly insoluble. Chemically stable drugs such as aspirin, chloral hydrate and barbiturates were also developed at the end of the 19th century. And while barbiturates were found to be quite dangerous, and many people died from aspirin induced bleeding, cannabis continued to fall out of practice as a medicine.

Simultaneously, as cannabis began to fall out of practice as a medicinal drug, its use as a recreational hallucinogen was realized in the United States. In 1916, Puerto Rican Soldiers and Americans stationed in the Panama Canal Zone were reported to have been using marijuana, and military authorities did not enforce its disuse because they did not feel it was as harmful as drinking alcohol. But medical experts began to “consider cannabis as a narcotic, implying the dangers of overdose and habit… and saw it as an aphrodisiac, adding sexual excitement or uncontrollability to its detriments.”([113])

In 1915 California became the first state to make it illegal to possess cannabis. By the 1920’s marijuana had become a major ‘underground drug,’([114]) traced to an influx of Mexican workers into the Southern United States in the 1910’s and 1920’s.([115]) Subsequent use was apparently largely confined to lower class ethnic minority groups, with a high proportion of urban-dwelling Afro and Spanish Americans among the known users. “When Mexican labourers introduced marijuana smoking to the United States, it spread across the south, and by the 1920’s, its use was established in New Orleans through its importation from Havana, Tampico, and Veracruz by American and Mexican sailors, and use was confined primarily among the poor and minority groups.”([116]) Later in the 1930’s, “cannabis was the first psychoactive substance (besides alcohol) that became a common subject in modern popular music, with jazz classics from the 1930’s such as Louis Armstrong’s Muggles and Cab Calloway’s That Funny Reefer Man topping the bill of marijuana-inspired fare.”([117])

The recreational spread of cannabis use, especially in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, assisted in enhancing the narcotic classification of cannabis by medical experts at the end of the 19th century. Therefore, medical experts also supported the American Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, as well as the Canadian Opium and Narcotics Act in 1938, both of which not only controlled the cannabis economic industry with prohibitive taxes, but also prevented further experimentation on the medicinal effects of cannabis. Years later in 1954, a new offence was created in Canada for the ‘possession for the purpose of trafficking’ and in 1956, cannabis was also incorporated into the more comprehensive United States Narcotics Act. Internationally, cannabis began to be controlled in 1961 by the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, requiring states to adopt the necessary legislative and regulatory measures in order to limit the production, distribution and use of prohibited substances to medical and scientific purposes. Canada both signed and ratified the convention in 1961 and the United States later acceded to the convention in 1967.

Thus, while white settlers to North America have used cannabis since the early 1600’s, psychoactive usage for purposes other than medicine was not heard of until the 20th century. Before this, priority was placed on the economic viability of cannabis fibre production and later, the cannabis plant’s scientific medicinal uses. By the time North Americans were exposed to other cultural values of cannabis (smoking marijuana), via methods such as travel to other countries and incoming immigrants, cannabis was already well on its way to being considered by the North American laws, of little value. Despite reports that emphasized the harmless effects of smoking marijuana, such as the La Guardia Report published in 1944 by the New York Academy of Medicine, cannabis continued to be proscribed. These laws were not only prohibitive of industrial production and medical research of cannabis, but also prohibitive of the psychoactive use of cannabis that was, and continues to be, an integral part of the cultures that introduced it to North Americans.

B. Cannabis Use in Canada

While people in the United States were introduced to the psychoactive use of cannabis (marijuana smoking) in the early 1900’s by way of ethnic immigrant settlers and contact with other cultures outside of the United States, “there are no reliable accounts of the non-medical use of cannabis in Canada which predate the 1930’s.”([118]) Even between the years of 1930-46 there were only 25 convictions for cannabis possession in all of Canada.([119]) Meanwhile in the United States, several newspapers had begun publishing reports of young people using marijuana. In 1933, Detective L.E. Bowery of the Wichita Police Department claimed “no denial can be made of the fact that marijuana smoking is at present a common practice among the young people of the city, and that it is constantly becoming more prevalent…”([120]) Later, by the early 1960’s

cannabis was well established in many American universities and among many high school aged youths. This may have been due to the American involvement in the Vietnamese War, as well as due to the evolution of the 1960’s hippie psychedelic ethos, the growth of underground newspapers, and the mass media’s attention to the drug.([121])

It was not until the mid-to late 1960s, when this level and type of usage was imitated in Canada. “In 1962 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported only 20 cases connected with cannabis. In 1968 the number of cannabis related cases had risen to over 2300, and in 1972 there were nearly 12000 cannabis convictions in Canada.”([122])

The spread of marijuana use among Canadian youth in the late 1960’s is attributable to an adoption of the American social forces of the psychedelic ‘hippie’ movement. Like their American counterparts, a Canadian ‘counter culture’ began to protest society’s values placed on them and held sit-ins and demonstrations against injustices such as racism, poverty and the lack of women’s rights. One of these demonstrations occurred in 1971 in Vancouver’s Gastown. The event was a ‘smoke-in,’ with a few hundred cannabis activists, and hippies in attendance.([123])

Travel, is another possibility as to how marijuana use spread quickly throughout Canada during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The late 1960’s brought about a time when Canadians followed their fellow American counterparts to regions such as the Far East where they became exposed to different cultural practices of cannabis use in their search for cheap hashish. “Travel and transportation are crucial variables in drug history, just as they are in the history of infectious diseases.”([124])

Thus in part, the increase of marijuana use in Canada during the 1960’s could also be correlated with the increase in numbers of people travelling from other countries to settle in Canada, bringing with them, an array of cultural practices. Until the 1960’s, Canada’s immigration laws prevented immigrants from countries other than Britain, the United States, and Europe from settling in Canada. Moreover, immigrants were expected to shed their distinctive heritage and assimilate almost entirely to existing cultural norms of a ‘white settler’ society. Therefore until this time, contact with cultures that may have used cannabis for purposes other than industrial or medical purposes, was limited.

In 1961 however, Canadian immigration policy changed and since this time people have travelled from their native countries in Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, Central and South America([125]) to come to live in Canada. But while immigration laws were expanded in 1961, the Government continued to expect immigrants to assimilate to the white settler society. It was not until the late 1960’s to early 1970’s when the Canadian hippie movement came into full swing, that

under pressure from immigrant groups, the Canadian government rejected the assimilationist model of immigration, and instead adopted a more tolerant policy (multi-culturalism policy) that allows and indeed encourages immigrants to maintain various aspects of their ethnic heritage. Immigrants were now free to maintain some of their old customs regarding food, dress, recreation, and religion and to associate with each other to maintain these practices. This is no longer seen as unpatriotic or ‘un-Canadian.’([126])

However only certain cultural values of incoming migrants were allowed to exist, while others that conflicted with Canadian ‘common-values’ were ignored. For many migrants who came from societies where cannabis was integral to their culture, this was one practice the Canadian Government would not permit. Such is a form of “legal moralism in which the government intervenes in drug use in the name of its responsibility to preserve common values that are vital to the well-being of society.”([127]) However, the increase in cannabis use throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s illustrates that these ‘common values’ regarding cannabis were beginning to deteriorate and new moral values were permeating the cannabis issue in Canadian society. The transnational movement of an array of cultural values was occurring in Canada, even despite laws that legitimated or prohibited them.([128])

During the period of Canadian social change in the late 1960’s, both by protests from the hippie movement and transnational movement of cultural practices, the Canadian Government seemed prepared to ease up on marijuana prohibition. In the early 1970’s the Le Dain Commission was appointed in Canada to undertake a complete and factual study of marijuana use and its effects. It concluded that, “Canada’s prohibition laws had only served to create a sub-culture with little respect for the law and law enforcement, as well as diverting law enforcement capability, clogging the judicial system, and providing a base of funds for organized crime.”([129]) In 1972, Trudeau added this recommendation to his election platform although his government did not change the marijuana laws after his re-election. As marijuana use continued to steadily grow especially amongst youth throughout the 1970’s, in 1978, yet another report was commissioned on marijuana laws, recommending once again, that marijuana be decriminalized and legalized.([130]) Later in 1979, under the leadership of then Prime Minister Joe Clark, the Progressive Conservative government of 1979-80 gave notice in its Throne Speech that it intended to reform the Criminal Code provisions regarding cannabis, but the Conservative Government was defeated before making these revisions. Meanwhile, a number of regional studies that were conducted in various populations throughout the 1970’s in Canada showed that current use amongst students was fast approaching 25 percent, with 1979 being a peak year where over 30 percent of students in grades 7, 9, 11, and 13 reported use in the previous 12 months.([131]) Youthful cannabis use in the 1970’s could be viewed as a continuation of the epidemic of the sixties.

Despite the 1978 report that advocated the decriminalization and legalization of marijuana, in 1979 the Liberal government made the decision to sign the UN’s Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971). The newly elected American Reagan-Bush Administration heavily influenced this decision with its campaign on the ‘War on Drugs.’ By signing the convention, the Canadian Government halted any plans to legalize marijuana([132]) and prevented conflict with their American neighbours.

Throughout the 1980’s the Reagan-Bush administration carried out ‘The War on Drugs’ campaign. In Canada, regular Gallup polls showed evidence that cannabis use was stabilizing and even may have been decreasing in the youth population.([133]) This may have partly been due to several prohibition measures that were enabled by national, provincial and local organizations in order to suppress cannabis use as well as cannabis trade. And although marijuana use in both the United States and Canada had moved from primarily lower class use to use across a spectrum of societies, the non-using population continued to forcefully object to marijuana use because of the lifestyle they associated with it.([134]) Thus, smoking marijuana became more of a private and personal activity, done at home and out of sight of friends, coworkers and family members. In 1987 Canada’s Drug Strategy (1987) was implemented ‘to address both the supply and demand reduction strategies and programs in enforcement, treatment and prevention programming were funded.’([135]) Some say that at the time, this may have been the most severe cannabis censorship strategy in the world.([136])

However, the 1990’s saw a substantial increase in cannabis use across Canada. Between 1993-1994 alone, cannabis use increased from 4.2% to 7.4%.([137]) As well, while 1980’s statistics show that cannabis use was much higher in adult populations between the ages of 30-49 years of age, the 1990’s saw a reverse of this trend in Canada. The statistics for Ontario show that between 1996 and 2000, cannabis use among 18-29 year olds increased from 18% to 28%.([138]) According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s Ontario Student Drug Use Survey, this was a result of weakening perceptions of risk of harm and weakening moral disapproval of drug use.([139])

Although increasing acceptance of marijuana use may be attributable to a number of factors, the 1990’s were described as the decade of immigration in Canada, with the average number of immigrants per year remaining well over 200 000 throughout.([140]) Thus once again, just as in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the increasingly permissive attitude of Canadians towards marijuana could potentially be linked to theories of transnational movements of cultural values, therefore leading Canadians to increased exposure and acceptance of different values of marijuana usage. As Kearney suggests, ‘global implosion’ tends to take place when migrants move from their homeland to another nation. They bring with them their cultural practices, which may go through ‘transnational transformations’ as they are adapted to the national culture.([141])

The mid-1990’s also saw the rise of a cannabis decriminalization movement joined by hundreds of recreational smokers who say that Canada’s laws against cannabis are outdated and out of step with the rest of the Western world. Many governments in a number of European countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain, have now decided not to prosecute for possession of cannabis for personal use. Despite this, in 1997 the Canadian Government passed the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which prior to its enactment was criticized by The Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, The Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario, The Canadian Police Association and The Canadian Bar Association, for its war on drugs approach.([142])

With the enactment of such a heavy-handed law in 1997, which continued the trend of Canadian prohibition of cannabis despite the growing permissive mentality for its use, the past five years have seen the marijuana issue quickly rising to a boiling point. Several Canadians have gone directly to the police and to the courts to challenge what they say are the country’s anachronistic drug laws([143]) and the courts have made decisions in favour of marijuana use for medicinal purposes.

Of significance is the 1997 Terrence Parker case([144]) that ultimately led to Canada’s adoption of a system regulating the medicinal use of marijuana in July 2001. Terrence Parker, who uses marijuana as a means of controlling his epileptic seizures, had been arrested and charged numerous times since 1987 for marijuana possession. However, when he was charged once again in 1997, an Ontario Court judge ruled that people must be able to access necessary medical treatment without fear of arrest. Thus on 10 December 1997 Terrence Parker became the first Canadian to be exempted from further prosecution for possession or cultivation of marijuana.([145]) Later when the case was appealed in 2000, the Court of Appeal for Ontario upheld the decision and said that by making marijuana illegal throughout Canada, Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At this time, the Court ordered the federal government to clarify the rules surrounding medical marijuana. By April 2001 the Federal Government released its proposed solution. After further deliberations, in July 2001 Canada began regulating the medicinal use of marijuana. The regulations allow access to marijuana for symptoms associated with terminal illnesses, for symptoms associated with medical conditions listed in a schedule and for symptoms associated with other medical conditions. The application process differs depending on the symptoms involved.

Also of recent significance are court challenges that have arisen in Canada regarding the religious use of marijuana. In Canada, Ontario’s Church of the Universe has been arguing for the religious freedom to smoke marijuana in various cases since 1989. Since the ruling in the Terrence Parker case, Brothers Tucker and Baldasaro have filed a challenge that the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is not only unconstitutional for people who need it for medicinal purposes, but also unconstitutional in their continued battle for the recognition of their rights to use cannabis as a sacrament. However, as of 30 January 2002, Ontario’s Church of the Universe had not yet received a court date.

Similar court cases are also occurring in the United States. For instance, in September 2000, the Supreme Court of Guam dismissed criminal charges against a man who claimed that he is a Rastafarian and was importing marijuana for religious use. The Guam Supreme Court concluded that because marijuana was a necessary sacrament of the Rastafarian religion, and because the prosecution failed to justify the burden placed on the practice of the Rastafarian religion by the law against importing marijuana, the importation ban violated Guam’s free exercise protection.([146]) Because Guam is a United States territory, in November 2001 the case was appealed to an American Federal Court in Honolulu where the American Civil Liberties Union argued,

Just as eight states have passed local laws recognizing the usefulness of marijuana for medicinal purposes, the U.S. territory of Guam should be allowed to guarantee individuals the right to use marijuana for religious purposes without fear of federal interference.([147])

The American Court will not likely give a ruling until Spring 2002.

While the argument for the religious use of marijuana has not yet been as successful as the argument for the medical use of marijuana, in 1991, a Canadian Law Reform Commission Report entitled Statutory Criminal Law recommended a study:

to determine whether or not any groups in Canada traditionally make use of controlled drugs in their religious practices. If a need for some mechanism is found in the study, the report recommends that a statutory mechanism for application by religious groups for exemption be adopted. Further, the LRCC report recommends that specific exemptions be granted to individual religions to avoid the uncertainty and litigation inherent in a general broadly worded exemption. It also suggests that an exemption from drug offence legislation only be granted when it is sought by a bona fide religion; the drug used is central to a ceremony or practice of the religion; and its use would not indirectly make the drug more widely available in the general community.([148])

This recommendation by the Law Reform Commission of Canada has not yet been adopted by Canada. Eleven years ago when the study was suggested, this may have been too large of a step in the way of a permissive attitude towards marijuana use for Canadians to take. However, the recent acceptance of marijuana use for medical purposes in Canada does suggest that Canadians are becoming more open-minded to certain valid uses for marijuana.

Such open mindedness to the psychoactive use of cannabis is new to Canada and has only been developing since the 1960’s. Finally, the psychoactive usages of cannabis have reached Canadian soil through Canadians’ exposure to other societies who have known its use for centuries. The past 40 years have seen several different, and fast-paced social developments of psychoactive cannabis users in Canada. The overlapping epidemics of the 1960’s and 1970’s saw the cannabis user as the ‘flamboyant explorer and adventurer([149]) where “young people deserted the suburbs and congregated in costumed array in central city neighbourhoods. In the summertime, they roamed across the country as hitchhiking transients. The media were fascinated by these ‘hippies’ or ‘flower children,’ and sensationalized their drug use.”([150]) The 1960’s and 1970’s saw a steady increase in use especially by youth. However, the 1980’s ‘war on drugs’ era saw a levelling out of cannabis use amongst the youth population, and rather a quiet, but steady increase of use in adults between the ages of 30-49. At this point in time in Canada, studies show that marijuana use “was more frequently reported by single (never married) respondents, people looking for work, and, in the working population, blue-collar workers.”([151]) The 1990’s saw this trend reverse itself, with reports of cannabis use once again steadily increasing amongst those between the ages of 18-29. Between 1996-2000, reports show that for this age range, cannabis use increased from 18.3% to 28.2% with use tending to be highest among those with some post-secondary education and lowest among those with a university degree.([152]) While there is evidence that marijuana smoking is once again becoming a social activity, it is with the worry of protecting oneself from rumours that would refer themselves to as a ‘drug addict.’

Joints are rolled as discreetly as possible, very quickly, and in such as way that they look as much like a cigarette as possible… If there is one thing, however, that is important to young people, it is the image their parents have of them. Rumours spread quickly, and who knows what parents might learn from a neighbour? If they are afraid of police intervention, it is not so much because of the potential risks as it is because they are afraid that the police might burst into the family home. Therefore, they hide from neighbours who could potentially talk with their families, and more readily smoke in public areas where there is less of a chance of running into someone they know.([153])

While there have been fast-paced increases and decreases of marijuana use over the past 40 years in Canada “in retrospect, cannabis usage rates in the late sixties seem modest”([154]) compared to today. For instance, the proportion of ‘past year cannabis users’ aged 30 to 49 years steadily increased from 15.4% to 46.5% between 1977 and 1996.([155])

This growing permissive attitude in Canada of marijuana use was validated in a May 2001 survey. University of Lethbridge sociologist Reginald Bibby found that 47 percent of Canadians favour the legalization of marijuana, which is up from 31 percent in 1995 and 26 percent in 1975.([156]) There are also many, such as the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the RCMP and the Canadian Medical Association Journal who to varying degrees feel that marijuana should not necessarily be legalized, but at least decriminalized in some manner.([157])

However, in the face of a much more permissive attitude towards marijuana, there are still many Canadians who are of the traditional Canadian mindset that marijuana use should continue to be illegal. Many continue to believe, as the Canadian Police Association has advocated, that legalizing marijuana use will have several serious harmful societal effects including sending the wrong message to youth, facilitating the use of more harmful drugs, contributing to soaring health-care costs, and encouraging driving while high.([158])

The conflict between the growing numbers of Canadians who are taking a more permissive attitude towards marijuana use and those who continue to view the marijuana issue in the traditional Canadian manner is coming to a rapid boil in the 21st century. Distinct values in favour of marijuana use are coming to the foreground in Canada, some of which have already led to a reintroduction of the medicinal use of marijuana. Policy makers, who continue to grapple with future policy development on the controversial marijuana issue, must realize that ‘the moralistic legal vision that has dominated Canadian discourse supporting the maintenance of prohibitions against drugs’([159]) may no longer suffice as more and more Canadians step outside of this common morality.

Conclusion – The Marijuana Clash in Canada:
A Moral Debate

The first half of this paper studied various cultural values found throughout the world in favour of cannabis use for psychoactive purposes, values often deeply embedded in a culture’s historic rituals and practices. In contrast, the second half of this paper examined North American, and more specifically Canadian, values where there is little history of psychoactive cannabis use and traditionally, most of society opposes the psychoactive use of cannabis. The comparison exemplifies that “the use of cannabis has a different meaning in [many] Eastern cultures where a long history and tradition surrounds its use than it does in the West, where it is a relatively recent phenomenon.”([160])

Cultural differences play a large part in the adoption or non-adoption of marijuana. For example, as mentioned in this paper, the Chinese did not embrace the psychoactive use of cannabis because it was inappropriate in respect of the Chinese temperament and tradition of a shame-oriented personality. They discouraged the use of psychoactive cannabis because they felt it was apt to provoke impulsive acts that might bring shame upon the user or his family. In comparison, anthropological evidence illustrates that several eastern societies actually wanted to adopt the psychoactive use of cannabis for the very reason of its capacity to produce motivational effects, providing increased work capacity (Jamaica) and the ability to win wars (African tribes).

Aside from the recent resurgence of marijuana use for medicinal purposes, Canada has not embraced the psychoactive use of cannabis. Unlike many eastern societies that believe the psychoactive effects of marijuana produce impulsive effects, traditionally, Western culture associates marijuana use with an “introspective, meditative, non-aggressive stereotype”([161]) or the “amotivational syndrome.”([162]) This moral belief developed out of the 1960’s hippie movement use of marijuana. “The public mind often conceives of the marijuana-user as a long-haired hippie”([163]) leading a way of life many believed was irresponsible and lazy. Westerners, who are noted for cultural emphasis on achievement, activity and aggressiveness([164]) tend to associate marijuana use with a life-style and set of values very different from their own.([165])

Cross-cultural comparisons of cannabis use are therefore difficult to apply to the Western situation – Western society views the effects of psychoactive cannabis differently, and this understanding of its effects gives rise to Western moral opposition towards anyone who uses marijuana no matter what the cultural background is for their use of marijuana.([166])

Canadian laws have promoted and tried to protect this moral hegemony since the early 1930’s, but especially during the 1980’s when the American “War on Drugs” campaign began. However as a result of several factors such as the hippie movement in the late 1960’s, travel to other countries, and the transnational movement of cultural practices, Canadians have gained exposure to other cultural values of marijuana use which has resulted in the emergence of new Canadian attitudes towards marijuana, threatening the traditional moral hegemony. “Where the moral issue is not accepted uniformly throughout society, it intensifies conflict.”([167]) Since the early 1990’s, groups of Canadians have been forming a decriminalization movement and questioning traditional Canadian values about marijuana use. The Canadian law, which has upheld these traditional Canadian values and morals towards marijuana use, is facing increasing pressure from the Canadian public’s recognition of other values of cannabis use.

Such is the ‘marijuana clash.’ While on the surface the debate includes scientific arguments regarding the harms or benefits of marijuana, below the surface the debate is actually informed by preconceived cultural morals and values.([168]) In other words, prior to seeking an answer to scientific questions, for instance of marijuana’s desirable or noxious effects, it must first be established whom the question is directed to([169]) because this highly influences the answer. “Our morality ebbs and flows in accordance with our personal ethics, where our ethics are the ideal and morality is the means by which we approach that ideal.”([170]) Therefore, it is only natural that cultural backgrounds obscure answers to scientific questions in regards to marijuana. All sides of the debate can represent and defend their moral position by drawing upon scientific reasoning. Thus “the marijuana controversy is primarily a political, rather than a scientific debate” because it pits morals against morals, that are informed by cultural backgrounds. In turn, the ‘marijuana clash’ involves people in Canada who strive to legitimate their moral positions (defended by scientific reasoning) through the enactment of laws.

As Canadian society has recently, over the past forty years, been exposed to other historical cultural values of psychoactive cannabis uses, one can postulate that this may be the reason why marijuana usage rates in Canada have increased. Whether or not they are aware that their permissive attitude may have developed from exposure to other cultural values of cannabis, many groups have begun to promote these ‘new’ values towards cannabis use in opposition to the traditional Canadian moral position. Thus, it is important for Canadian policy makers to be conscious of other cultural values of psychoactive cannabis use. Canadian policy approaches to marijuana in the 21st century failing to take into consideration the existence of other cultural values towards cannabis in Canada will result in ineffective policies that will simply continue to escalate the moral debate over cannabis use. This does not mean that insight into different cultural values of cannabis use will solve the ‘marijuana clash.’ Rather, it will help to deconstruct the moral conflicts that veil the underlying scientific cannabis question in Canada.

([1]) Stuart Walton. Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication. London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd, 2001. p. 96.

([2]) The chemical make-up of the cannabis sativa resin was not discovered until 1964 by an Israeli named Raphael Mechoulam who synthesized the basic chemical properties of the resin. (Solomon Snyder. Uses of Marijuana. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. p. 5.)

([3]) Richard Rudgley. Essential Substances. New York: Kodansha International, 1994. p. 5.

([4]) John Kaplan. Marijuana – The New Prohibition. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1970. p. 17.

([5]) Lambros Comitas. “The Social Nexus of Ganja in Jamaica.” In Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. Chicago: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 129.

([6]) Ibid.

([7]) Sula Benet. “Early Diffusion and Folk Uses of Hemp.” In Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. Chicago: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 39.

([8]) Ibid., p. 4

([9]) Hui-lin Li. “The Origin and Use of Cannabis in Eastern Asia.” Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. Chicago: Mouton & Co., 1975. p. 54. A traditional practice dating back to second century B.C. and still seen today, is that mourners for the dead are required to wear clothes made from hemp fabric.

([10]) Ibid., p. 53.

([11]) Ernest Abel. Marijuana: The First Twelve Thousand Years. New York: Plenum Press, 1980. p. 7.

([12]) Hui-Lin Li. p. 55.

([13]) Abel, p. 12.

([14]) Michael Aldrich. “History of Therapeutic Cannabis.” In Cannabis in Medical Practice. Ed. Mary Lynn Mathre. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc. Publishers, 1997. p. 36.

([15]) N. Taylor. Narcotics: Nature’s Dangerous Gifts. New York: 1966.

([16]) Abel, p. 13.

([17]) Ibid., p 56.

([18]) Hui-Lin Li, p. 59 and footnote 8 on p. 61.

([19]) Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hoffman. Plants of the Gods – Their Sacred, Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers. Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 1992.

([20]) Abel, p. 23.

([21]) Ibid.

([22]) Abel, p. 24.

([23]) Ibid.

([24]) Alessandra Stanley. “Tattooed Lady, 2,000 Years Old, Blooms Again.” Special to the New York Times from the Moscow Journal. 12 July 1993.

([25]) Chris Bennett. “When Smoke Gets in My Eye.” Cannabis Culture. April 1995.

www.cannabisculture.com/backissues/apr95/smoke_in_my_i.html, Bennet discusses several theorists assertions that marijuana assisted man in self-reflection and belief in the divine. This section uses a few of Mr. Bennet’s examples.

([26]) Bennett, p. 3.

([27]) Ibid., p. 5.

([28]) Abel and Sherman, Smith and Tanner believe that there is no valid evidence of marijuana in the Old Testament and that references to ‘kaneh bosm’ are actually references to sugar cane.

([29]) C. Creighton, M.D. “On Indications of The Hachish-Vice in the Old Testament.” Janus. Amsterdam: 1903. p. 1.

([30]) Ibid., p. 3.

([31]) Ibid., p. 2.

([32]) Chris Bennet provides several passages of the appearance of Kaneh Bosm in the Old Testament in his article “The Hidden Story of Cannabis in the Old Testament.”

([33]) Benet, p. 40.

([34]) Benet, p. 40.

([35]) Both Benet and Bentowa put forth arguments as to how Scythians came into contact with the people of the Near East. Benet argues that they were actually Ashkenaz tribe of the Old Testament and Bentowa argues that they were the relatives of the Medes who were neighbours of the people of the Near East.

([36]) The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church. “Marijuana and the Bible.” Beacon Press, 1988. p. 1.

www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_spirit2.shtml.

([37]) Encyclopedia Brittanica, 5th edition, 1978, as quoted in Green Gold The Tree of Life: Marijuana in Magic & Religion. p. 95.

([38]) Abel. pp. x-xi.

([39]) Ibid. In order to limit the length of this paper, the History of the cultural uses of cannabis in Europe has been omitted. Suffice it to say that in Europe, the development of the use of cannabis occurred similarly as this paper’s section on the cultural uses of cannabis in North America.

([40]) The chart in this section was taken from Solomon Snyder. Uses of Marijuana. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. pp. 5-7.

([41]) Richard Davenport-Hines. The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics, 1500-2000. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 2001. p. 3.

([42]) Davenport-Hines, pp. 2-3.

([43]) Michael Aldrich. “History of Therapeutic Cannabis.” In Cannabis in Medical Practice. Ed. Mary Lynn Mathre. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers 1997. p. 36.

([44]) Abel, p. 18.

([45]) Ibid.

([46]) Ibid.

([47]) Ibid.

([48]) Matthews, p. 17.

([49]) Carol Sherman and Andrew Smith with Eric Tanner. Highlights: An illustrated history of cannabis. Toronto: Smith Sherman Books, 1999. p. 17.

([50]) Aldrich, p. 37.

([51]) Ibid., p. 38.

([52]) I. C. Chopra, R. N. Chopra. “The Use of Cannabis Drugs in India.” United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention Publications. 1957/01/01.

http://www.undcp.org/bulletin/bulletin_1957-01-01_1_page003.html.

([53]) Chopra and Chopra. http://www.undcp.org/bulletin/bulletin_1957-01-01_1_page003.html.

([54]) Nikolaas J. Van Der Merwe. “Cannabis Smoking in 13th-14th Century Ethiopia: Chemical Evidence.” In Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. Chicago: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 79.

([55]) Brian M. Du Toit. “Dagga: Cannabis Sativa in Southern Africa.” Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. Chicago: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 83.

([56]) William A. Emboden Jr. “Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa L.” Flesh of the Gods. Ed. Peter T. Furst. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972. p. 226.

([57]) Ibid.

([58]) Abel, p. 138.

([59]) Du Toit, p. 94.

([60]) Ibid., p. 139.

([61]) Emboden, p. 226.

([62]) Ibid., p. 227 (Quote of composer and writer Paul Bowles).

([63]) Ibid., p. 226.

([64]) Benet, p. 45.

([65]) Abel, p. 144.

([66]) A.T. Bryant. The Zulu People, cited in T. James, “Dagga: A Review of Fact and Fancy,” Medical Journal 44 (1970): 575-80.

([67]) Abel, p. 142.

([68]) Du Toit, p. 101.

([69]) Michael Aldrich. “Medicinal Characteristics of Cannabis.” Ed. Mary Lynn Mathre. Cannabis in Medical Practice. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Publishers, 1997. p. 41.

([70]) David T. Courtwright. Forces of Habit. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. p. 41.

([71]) Gilberto Freyer. Nordeste. Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olimpio Editora, 1937.

([72]) Courtwright, p. 41.

([73]) Vera Rubin. “Introduction.” Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 4.

([74]) Harry William Hutchinson. “Patterns of Marijuana Use in Brazil.” In Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. Chicago: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 175.

([75]) Alvaro Rubim De Pinho. “Social and Medical Aspects of the Use of Cannabis in Brazil.” In Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. Chicago: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 294.

([76]) Ibid., p. 295.

([77]) Hutchinson, p. 181.

([78]) Jayme R. Pereira. “Contribuicoes para o Estudo das Plactas Alucinatorias, particularmente da Maconha,” 1958. p. 129.

([79]) Rubin, p. 4.

([80]) Ibid.

([81]) Abel, p. 102.

([82]) Melanie C. Dreher. “Cannabis and Pregnancy.” In Cannabis in Medical Practice. Ed. Mary Lynn Mathre. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc. Publishers, 1997. p. 162.

([83]) Lambros Comitas. “The Social Nexus of Ganja in Jamaica.” In Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. Chicago: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 120.

([84]) Dreher, p. 162.

([85]) Comitas, p. 126.

([86]) Ibid., p. 129.

([87]) Rubin, pp. 261-262.

([88]) Comitas, p. 130.

([89]) Ibid., p. 127.

([90]) Comitas, p. 129.

([91]) Dreher, p. 163.

([92]) Leonard E. Barrett, Ph.D. The Rastafarians: Sounds of Cultural Dissonance. Boston: Beacon Press, 1977. p. 1.

([93]) According to Barrett, p. 85, Leonard Howell advocated six principles that formed the doctrine of the Rastafarian movement: 1. hatred for the White race; 2. complete superiority of the Black race; 3. revenge on Whites for their wickedness; 4. humiliation and persecution of the government and legal bodies of Jamaica; 5. preparation to go back to Africa; and 6. acknowledging Emperor Haile Selassie as the Supreme Being and only ruler of Black people.

([94]) Barrett, p. 216-217.

([95]) Ibid., p. 217.

([96]) Ibid., p. 129.

([97]) Ibid.

([98]) Barrett, p. 129.

([99]) Dreher, p. 163.

([100]) Ibid.

([101]) Dreher, p. 164.

([102]) Ibid. Babies of ganja smoking mothers were found to be more socially responsive and were more autonomically stable in comparison to babies of non-ganja smoking mothers.

([103]) Dreher, p. 168.

([104]) Chris Bennett, Lynn Osburn and Judith Osburn. Green Gold: Marijuana in Magic & Religion. Frazier Park, CA: Access Unlimited, 2001. p. 267.

([105]) Judi Martin, “Historical Evidence Lies Buried Near Morriston,” Sparetime Magazine, 28 August 1985, as quoted in Green Gold: Marijuana in Magic & Religion. p. 267.

([106]) Hemp Museum in Amsterdam. As quoted in Green Gold: Marijuana in Magic & Religion. p. 268.

([107]) As quoted in Bennett. pp. 268-269.

([108]) Ibid.

([109]) Richard Evans Schultes. “Nectar of Delight.” Plants of the Gods – Their Sacred, Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers. Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 1992. p. 8.

([110]) Bennett, p. 267.

([111]) www.lindesmith.org/library/mmjgrins.html, p. 3.

([112]) (“Cannabis Indica.” An ephemeris of Materia Medica, pharmacy, Therapeutics and Collateral Information 3 (April 1892): 1290-1291.

([113]) H. Wayne Morgan. Drugs In America: A Social History, 1800-1980. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1981. pp. 20-21.

([114]) Rudgley, p. 10.

([115]) Courtwright, p. 43.

([116]) Schultes, p. 8.

([117]) Ibid.

([118]) Melvyn Green and Ralph D. Miller. “Cannabis Use in Canada.” In Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 498.

([119]) Ibid.

([120]) Abel, p. 226. As quoted from M.H Hayes and L.W. Bowery, “Marijuana” Journal of Criminology 23, (1933): 1093.

([121]) The Report of the Canadian Government Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs – 1972. Chapter 4.

([122]) Green and Miller, p. 499.

([123]) Complete History of Cannabis. p. 5. www.cannabisculture.com/library/history_of_pot.html.

([124]) Courtwright, p. 46.

([125]) Will Kymlicka. Citizenship and Identity. p. 21. and Myer Siemiatycki and Engin Isin, Immigration, Diversity and Urban Citizenship in Toronto. p. 77.

([126]) Kymlicka, p. 21.

([127]) Line Beauchesne. “Conditions for Real Public Policy on Harm Reduction: the Role of the Federal Government.” Brief Submitted to the House of Commons Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs. March 2002. p. 4.

([128]) In anthropology, there is a body of literature concerned with forms of population movement and the movement of information, symbols, and cultural practices (cultural values) across transnational boundaries. The theory postulates often these movements initiated by migrants will conflict with the jurisdiction and power of states to which the migrants move and assimilation will take place. At the same time, these movements of cultural values often immensely influence the people of the state and changes to the nation state will occur. I am postulating in this paper that marijuana use, which has been shown to be an integral cultural practice to many different societies in the first part of this essay, is an example of this transnational movement and transformation theory. See: M. Kearney, “The Local and the Global: The Anthropology of Globalization and Transnationalism”; R. Rouse, “Making sense of settlement: class transformation, cultural struggle, and transnationalism among Mexican migrants in the United States; World Cultures Institute UC Merced, “California, Merced and the Pacific Rim”; Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”; Anthony King, ed. “Culture, Globalization and the World-System. Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity.”

([129]) “The Complete History of Cannabis in Canada.”

www.cannabisculture.com/library/history_of_pot.html.

([130]) www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1789.html, p. 5.

([131]) Blackwell, p. 239.

([132]) “The Complete History of Cannabis in Canada.”

www.cannabisculture.com/library/history_of_pot.html.

([133]) Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “Recent Trends in Illicit Drug Use among Young People, Canada.” MMWR Weekly. 25 January 1985/34(3); 35-37.

([134]) John Kaplan. Marijuana – The New Prohibition. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1970. p. 4.

([135]) Diane Riley, PhD. Drugs and Drug Policy in Canada: A Brief Review & Commentary. November 1998. http://www.cfdp.ca/sen8ex1.htm.

([136]) “The Complete History of Cannabis in Canada.” p. 5.

([137]) Riley.

([138]) CAMH Monitor eReport: Addiction & Mental Health Indicators Among Ontario Adults, 1977-2000.

([139]) Adlaf, Ivis, Smart and Walsh, Ontario Student Drug Use Survey, 1977-1999, Addiction Research Foundation.

([140]) Usha George and Esme Fuller-Thomson. “To Stay or Not to Stay: Characteristics Associated with Newcomers Planning to Remain in Canada.” Canadian Journal of Regional Science. Spring-Summer 1997. p. 181.

([141]) Kearney, p. 554.

([142]) Riley.

([143]) Isabel Vincent. “Enforcers Challenge Cannabis Liberation Movement.” Globe and Mail. 6 April 1998.

([144]) R. v. Parker. 31 July 2000. Ontario Court of Appeal.

([145]) Amina Ali and Owen Wood. “The Need for Weed: Medical Marijuana.” CBC News. July 2001. www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/medical_marijuana.html.

([146]) Alchemind Society. “Rastafarian wins religious defense before Guam Supreme Court.” Cannabis Culture. 15 September 2000.

([147]) American Civil Liberties Union Freedom Network.

www.aclu.org/issues/drugpolicy/cases/Guam_v_Guerrero.html.

([148]) Professor Brian Etherington. Review of Multiculturalism and Justice Issues: A Framework for Addressing Reform. Department of Justice, Research and Statistics Directorate. May 1994.

([149]) Rodolphe Ingold. “A Retrospective Look at Drug Addiction Trends from 1970 to the Year 2000.” Drugs and Drug Addictions: Indicators and Trends. French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addictions. p. 187. This study shows similar patterns as Canadian trends.

([150]) Judith Blackwell. “An Overview of Canadian Illicit Drug Use Epidemiology.” Illicit Drugs in Canada: A Risky Business. Judith Blackwell & Patricia G. Erickson, Eds. Nelson Canada, 1988. p. 237.

([151]) Blackwell, p. 239.

([152]) CAMH Monitor eReport: Addiction and Mental Health Indicators Among Ontario Adults, 1977-2000. p. 62.

([153]) Sylvain Aquatias. “Ethnographic Approach to Cannabis Use in the Parisian Suburbs.” Drugs and Drug Addictions: Indicators and Trends. French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addictions. p. 203.

([154]) Blackwell, p. 237.

([155]) CAMH Monitor eReport. Addiction and Mental Health Indicators Among Ontario Adults, 1977-2000. p. 62.

([156]) Julian Beltrame. “Reefer Madness: The sequel.” Maclean’s. 6 August 2001. Vol. 114. pp. 22-25.

([157]) Ibid.

([158]) Ibid.

([159]) Line Beauchesne, p. 4.

([160]) Canadian Government Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs. Appointed by the Government of Canada under Part I of the Inquiries Act on 29 May 1969. p. 8.

([161]) Lester Grinspoon. Marijuana Reconsidered. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971. p. 333.

([162]) Comitas, p. 129.

([163]) Kaplan, pp. 4-5.

([164]) Grinspoon, p. 333.

([165]) Ibid.

([166]) Canadian Government Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs. p. 3.

([167]) Kaplan, p. 17.

([168]) Eriche Goode. “Marijuana and the Politics of Reality.” In The New Social Drug. Ed. David E. Smith. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1970. p. 170.

([169]) Goode, p. 172.

([170]) Rosenwig, M. Pour une éthique de la clinique des assuétudes et des addictions Conférence prononcée au Colloque Quelle prise en charge des patients toxicomanes… aujourd’hui… demain? Société Belge d’Éthique et de Morale Médicale, Mons, 23 avril, 1999. pp. 3-4. (excerpted from Line Beauchesne).

The Truth About Marijuana

2011-10-31T07:08:00.000-07:00

by Peter

Nov 27, 1995
The debate over the legalization of Cannabis Sativa, more commonly known as marijuana, has been one of the most heated controversies ever to occur in the United States. Its use as a medicine has existed for thousands of years in many countries world wide and "can be documented as far back as 2700 BC in ancient Chinese writings." When someone says bhanga, ganja, kinnub, cannabis, bung, chu ts-ao, asa, dope, grass, rasta, or weed, they are talking about the same subject: marijuana. Marijuana should be legalized because the government could earn money from taxes on its sale, its value to the medical world outweighs its abuse potential, and because of its importance to the paper and clothing industries. This action should be taken despite efforts made by groups which say marijuana is a harmful drug which will increase crime rates and lead users to other more dangerous substances.

The actual story behind the legislature passed against marijuana is quite surprising. According to Jack Herer, author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes and an expert on the "hemp conspiracy," the acts bringing about the demise of hemp were part of a large conspiracy involving DuPont, Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and many other influential industrial leaders such as William Randolph Hearst and Andrew Mellon. Herer notes that the Marijuana Tax Act, which passed in 1937, coincidentally occurred just as the decorticate machine was invented. With this invention, hemp would have been able to take over competing industries almost instantaneously. According to Popular Mechanics, "10,000 acres devoted to hemp will produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of average [forest] pulp land." William Hearst owned enormous timber acreage, land best suited for conventional pulp, so his interest in preventing the growth of hemp can be easily explained. Competition from hemp would have easily driven the Hearst paper-manufacturing company out of business and significantly lowered the value of his land. Herer even suggests popularizing the term "marijuana" was a strategy Hearst used in order to create fear in the American public. "The first step in creating hysteria was to introduce the element of fear of the unknown by using a word that no one had ever heard of before... 'marijuana'" (ibid).

Dupont involvement in the anti-hemp campaign can also be explained with great ease. At this time, DuPont was patenting a new sulphuric acid process for producing wood-pulp paper. "According to the company's own records, wood-pulp products ultimately accounted for more than 80% of all DuPont's rail-road car loadings for the next 50 years" (ibid). Indeed it should be noted that "two years before the prohibitive hemp tax in 1937, DuPont developed a new synthetic fibre, nylon, which was an ideal substitute for hemp rope" (Hartsell). The year after the tax was passed DuPont came out with rayon, which would have been unable to compete with the strength of hemp fibre or its economical process of manufacturing. "DuPont's point man was none other than Harry Anslinger...who was appointed to the FBN by Treasury Secretary Andrew MEllon, who was also chairman of the Mellon Bank, DuPont's chief financial backer. Anslinger's relationship to Mellon wasn't just political, he was also married to Mellon's niece" (Hartsell). It doesn't take much to draw a connection between DuPont, Anslinger, and Mellon, and it's obvious that all of these groups, including Hearst, had strong motivation to prevent the growth of the hemp industry.

The reasoning behind DuPont, Anslinger, and Hearst was not for any moral or health related issues. They fought to prevent the growth of this new industry so they wouldn't go bankrupt. In fact, the American Medical Association tried to argue for the medical benefits of hemp. Marijuana is actually less dangerous than alcohol, cigarettes, and even most over-the-counter medicines or prescriptions. According to Francis J. Young, the DEA's administrative judge, "nearly all medicines have toxicm, potentially lethal affects, but marijuana is not such a substance...Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care" (DEA Docket No. 86-22, 57). It is illogical then, for marijuana to be illegal in the United States when "alcohol poisoning is a significant cause of death in this country" and "approximately 400,000 premature deaths are attributed to cigarettes annually." Dr. Roger Pertwee, Secretary of the International Cannabis Research Society states that as a recreational drug, "Marijuana compares favourably to nicotine, alcohol, and even caffeine." Under extreme amounts of alcohol a person will experience an "inability to stand or walk without help, stupor and near unconsciousness, lack of comprehension of what is seen or heard, shock, and breathing and heartbeat may stop." Even though these effects occur only under insane amounts of alcohol consumption, (.2-.5 BAL) the fact is smoking extreme amounts of marijuana will do nothing more than put you to sleep, whereas drinking excessive amounts of alcohol will kill you.

The most profound activist for marijuana's use as a medicine is Dr. Lester Grinspoon, author of Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine. According to Grinspoon, "The only well-confirmed negative effect of marijuana is caused by the smoke, which contains three times more tars and five times more carbon monoxide than tobacco. But even the heaviest marijuana smokers rarely use as much as an average tobacco smoker. And, of course, many prefer to eat it." His book includes personal accounts of how prescribed marijuana alleviated epilepsy, weight loss of aids, nausea of chemotherapy, menstrual pains, and the severe effects of multiple sclerosis. The illness with the most documentation and harmony among doctors which marijuana has successfully treated is MS. Grinspoon believes for MS sufferers, "Cannabis is the drug of necessity." One patient of his, 51 year old Elizabeth MacRory, says "It has completely changed my life...It has helped with muscle spasms, allowed me to sleep properly, and helped control my bladder." Marijuana also proved to be effective in the treatment of glaucoma because its use lwoers pressure on the eye.

"In a recent survey at a leading teaching hospital, 'over 60 per cent of medical students were found to be marijuana users.' In the same survey, only 30 per cent admitted to smoking cigarettes" (Guardian). Brian Hilliard, editor of Police Review, says "Legalizing cannabis wouldn't do any harm to anybody. We should be concentrating on the serious business of heroin and amphetamines." "In the UK in 1991, 42,209 people were convicted of marijuana charges, clogging courts and overcrowding prisons...and almost 90 per cent of drug offences invlove cannabis...The British government spends 500 million pounds a year on "overall responses to drugs" but receives no tax revenue from the estimated 1.8 billion pound illicit drug market" (Guardian). Figures like this can be seen in the United States as well. The U.S. spends billions of dollars annually in its "war on drugs." If the government were to legalize marijuana, it could reasonably place high taxes on it because people are used to buying marijuana at inflated prices created by risks of selling illegally. It could be sold at a convenient store just like a pack of cigarettes for less than someone would pay now, but still yield a high profit because of easy growing requirements.

An entire industry could be created out of hemp based products. The oils extracted from seeds could be used for fuels and the hemp fiber, a fibre so valued for its strength that it is used to judge the quality of other fibres, could be manufactured into ropes, clothing, or paper. Most importantly, the money the government would make from taxes and the money which would be saved by not trying to prevent its use could be used for more important things, such as serious drugs or the national debt.

The recreational use of marijuana would not stimulate crime like some would argue. The crime rate in Amsterdam is lower than many major U.S. cities. Mario Lap, a key drug policy advisor in the Netherlands national government says "We've had a realistic drug policy for 30 years in the Netherlands, and we know what works. We distinguish between soft and hard drugs, between traffickers and users. We try not to make people into criminals" (Houston Chronicle). In 1989 the Lancet report states "The Dutch have shown that there is nothing inevitable about the drugs ladder in which soft drugs lead to heard drugs. The ladder does not exist in Holland because the dealers have been separated."

We can expect strong opposition from companies like DuPont and paper manufactures but the selfishness of these corporations should not prevent its use in our society like it did in the 1930's. Regardless of what these organizations will say about marijuana, the fact is it has the potential to become one of the most useful substances in the entire world. If we took action and our government legalized it today, we would immediately see benefits from this decision. People suffering from illnesses ranging from manic depression to multiple sclerosis would be able to experience relief, the government could make a fortune off of the taxes it could impose on its sale, and its implementation into the industrial world would create thousands of new jobs for the economy. Also, because of its role in paper making, the rain forests of South America could be saved from their current fate. No recorded deaths have ever occurred as a result of marijuana use, it is not physically addictive like alcohol or tobacco, and most doctors will agree it is safer to use.

Who is Judge and Jurry

2011-03-31T08:16:00.000-07:00

* The DEA is Out of Control: We Can Stop This!
* Federal Drug Agency Bans Pro-Legalization Police Group From Conference (Press Release)

David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org, 7/20/01

Another chapter has opened in the long Robert Downey drugs and the law saga. Forbidden by California's Proposition 36 from sending the actor and repeat drug law violator to jail again, a judge sentenced Downey instead to one year in a residential treatment center with drug testing.

This time, anyway. The sentence was "not a gift," the judge admonished him, it was going to be "hard work." And should Downey fail the treatment program, the judge warned, the next time he would get four years in a state prison.

Four years? For having an addiction, a medical problem? The idea of incarcerating a human being for four years for personal drug use is obscene. One wonders whether Downey's judge was a neutral and thoughtful arbiter of justice, or a spoiled tyrant upset that the voters had tied his hands this time, and who decided to take it out on Downey by threatening to destroy him if he disobeyed again.

But it really isn't the judge's business. If Robert Downey -- and perhaps more importantly, the many thousands of nonviolent offenders with fewer financial resources who are dragged into California's courts each year -- use drugs in private, it is their private business and no one else's, or at least not the government's, even if they do harm to themselves. Should an addiction lead to behavior that is legitimately considered criminal (e.g. theft, dangerous driving, child neglect, etc.), that is another issue, and other existing laws already deal with that. But drug use in and of itself is not a criminal act, but the decision of free individuals, unwise in some cases but ultimately their own.

Friends or family members of the addicted, even coworkers or colleagues, can legitimately voice their opinions and urge their troubled friends to seek help, and providing help to those seeking it is laudable. But it is entirely another matter for the state, through force or threat of it, to coerce an addict, much less a non-addicted user who happens to get caught, to submit to state-approved treatment programs and destroy them through incarceration if they disobey or fail. That is morally unjustifiable, a violation of basic human rights and freedom.

I'm glad that a new law kept Robert Downey out of prison this time, even more so that some 20,000 less wealthy people each year will receive the same benefit. But I was also glad to see protesters from the Libertarian Party holding signs reading "end the drug war" and other such slogans in the background during newscasts following Downey's court date. As Prop. 36 supporters point out, the new law is a "first step" toward treating addiction as a medical issue rather than a criminal one. But it is equally important to remember that it is only a first step, the situation is still unacceptable and much remains to be done.

Much to be done, to reach the only morally acceptable goal: ending prohibition.

Massive Cannabis field in Afghanistan

2011-03-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

Walking through a massive marijuana field in Afghanistan

marijuana as far as the eye can see...

some of my helmet cam footage from my most recent deployment to the Kandahar region of Afghanistan. Post originally on Feb 12 2011

Weed in Afghanistan

Giant Afghanistan marijuana field

And in stark contrast to the massive cannabis fields in Afghanistan the US allows the existence of such operations to continue, but in the US it is a completely different story. It seems to me that this duality is set up for the Government to dispense their grow supplies and eradicate the internal grow ops, I call this elimination of competition and suppression of the people. The cost of this can of operation must be enormous.

Pot Eradication Continues
Tagged with: Cannabis Busts Hawaii Police Propaganda
Raids Net 1,821 Plants on Windward Big Island
Helicopters took to the skies Monday through Thursday for marijuana eradication, police said.
“Monday, we seized and eradicated a total of 1,302 plants from seedlings to 5 feet in height from Fern Acres, Hawaiian Acres and Orchidland,” said Lt. Richard Sherlock of Hilo Vice Section. “( Tuesday ), it was just a morning mission. It was a total of 519 marijuana plants from seedlings to 10 feet, mostly from lower Puna and some out in Honokaa and Papaaloa.” The total for the eradication mission Monday and Tuesday was 1,821 marijuana plants.
Sherlock said Honolulu and Maui police, plus the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Hawaii National Guard and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park rangers assisted Big Island police in East Hawaii. Lt. Miles Chong of Kona Vice Section said the same agencies, except for park rangers, provided support in West Hawaii.
“We seized or recovered 1,171 plants ( Wednesday and Thursday ) with efforts concentrated in the Ka’u and South Kona districts,” Chong said.
There were no arrests or incidents reported on either side of the island.
More precise plot locations, including numbers of plants uprooted from each site and whether plants were on public or private property, will be available in a required report by police to the County Council within 30 days.
Meanwhile, figures in a report from Police Chief Harry Kubojiri to Council Chairman J Yoshimoto dated Sept. 3 reveal that uprooting done in August included four pulls of fewer than 24 plants from patches on private property.
The latest “Counter Cannabis” operation is the third since voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative in November making adult personal use of marijuana on private property the lowest law enforcement priority. It’s second multiday eradication effort of the fiscal year that started July 1.
The so-called “Peaceful Sky” law defines adult personal use of marijuana on private property as possession of 24 or fewer plants or 24 ounces or less of dried marijuana.
A caller from Ocean View told the Tribune-Herald that police confiscated fewer than 24 plants from his private property during the operation this week. The man said that he is considering filing a complaint against the police.
A report on East Hawaii eradication that took place Aug. 17 and 18 states that all plants pulled up were on private property. Plots uprooted include 16 plants from one location and 10 from another in Eden Roc subdivision, while seven plants were removed from private property in Kalapana Black Sands subdivision. A West Hawaii pull on Aug. 19 netted 15 plants from private property in Honomalino.
No arrests were made.
“The ordinance doesn’t say it’s illegal; it just says it’s the lowest priority,” Sherlock said. “If ( officers ) drop into a patch and it happens to be ( 24 or fewer ) plants, we can’t just get out. We can’t walk away from it, unless it’s medical. And on that chance, on every mission, we have a direct line to state narcotics enforcement. We call them to verify if there’s a medical marijuana permit. And on every mission, we do run into that, where people have medical marijuana permits. And when that happens, we do verify it and we do walk away.”
Daniel Wolf Braun, president of the Peaceful Sky Alliance, sent a letter to the council Sept. 9, protesting the use “leftover money that was secured prior to … the ‘lowest priority’ initiative” for eradication. He stated that police department time and resources for eradication “appear unaccounted for or inappropriately directed.” Police have said that money for the most recent missions was from the Big Island’s $159,000 portion of a federal grant to the state for eradication that was budgeted in the fiscal year that ended June 30.
The Tribune-Herald has asked Kubojiri, the mayor’s office and Council Chairman J Yoshimoto about “rolling over” funds from the previous fiscal year.
Assistant Police Chief Marshall Kanehailua said Friday that police are in discussions with county Corporation Counsel Lincoln Ashida on a number of issues related to marijuana eradication, and an answer is forthcoming.
“There are some other issues raised regarding the Peaceful Sky Initiative that we’re trying to answer, and in answering ( those issues ) it will answer your question,” Kanehailua said. He said that in addition to money, those issues include help by other police departments in eradication efforts. In a Sept. 4 letter, the Peaceful Sky Alliance protested the participation of other counties’ police and the National Guard in helicopter surveillance and marijuana eradication on the Big Island.
Kanehailua said police are also using money from the DEA’s Domestic Cannabis Eradication and Suppression Program. The DEA program gave the state Department of Land and Natural Resources $475,000 this year.
A Thursday call to the Peaceful Sky Alliance was not returned, but a voice message on the marijuana advocacy group’s phone said: “Peaceful Sky Alliance is currently filing complaints regarding the continuing nuisance of police helicopter over-flights.”
County Prosecutor Jay Kimura has said as recently as May that he considers the Peaceful Sky ordinance problematic, and that he is awaiting an opinion from state Attorney General Mark Bennett on the law’s validity. A call to Kimura’s office Wednesday to ask if he has received that opinion was not returned.
Source: Hawaii Tribune Herald (Hilo, HI)
Copyright: 2009 Hawaii Tribune Herald
Contact: http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/share/letters/
Website: http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/
Author: John Burnett

Testing the Weed Testers, Ctd. Health & Medicine David Downs — Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 9:42 AM

2011-03-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

Last month, we reported that none of the so-called medical cannabis laboratories testing local supplies for potency and safety have passed an independent, third-party audit — which is necessary to prove lab validity in the real lab world. To that end, several mainstream scientists had formed the Alliance for Cannabis Science, based in Montana, to voluntarily provide such audits. Now, the Alliance has a peer. On March 1, two Oakland labs, Steep Hill and CW Analytical, said they were forming the Association of California Cannabis Laboratories in Oakland “to address the growing need for standardization in the cannabis quality assurance industry.” The two labs met to with representatives from a third lab, Pure Analytics, “to discuss policies and technologies in the evolving industry.”

“The more we standardize our protocols the more we truly serve our industry and the patient community," said Dr. Robert Martin, co-founder of CW Analytical.

“The mission of the organization is to promote sensible and consistent testing methodology between the labs, and to act!” the group said in a release. The group will provide a forum for inter-lab communication and conflict resolution.
David Lampach, co-founder of Steep Hill and amateur chemist, said: “We are honored and excited to sit down with our colleagues in a spirit of cooperation to encourage the betterment of our industry as a whole.”

Still, all unaudited lab data is suspect, said Debby Goldsberry, head of Berkeley Patients Group, at a NORML conference. “Anybody can open their doors and say, 'We test cannabis.' What does that even mean?”

“There is no real lab out there that's doing good testing,” said Berkeley Patients Group spokesman Brad Senesac. “There's no standards. I just don't think we have good labs out there yet.”

Afghanistan cannabis production

2011-03-02T10:16:00.003-08:00

Afghanistan is well known for its production of opium but cannabis production has been allowed to boom. Almost half of the country's provinces now grow the drug.
Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri reports from the Balkh province where it's the only way for local farmers to make money.

MARIJUANA AND THE BIBLE by The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church

2011-03-02T10:16:00.001-08:00

Found it at: Schaffer Online Library of Drug PolicyWhere you will find tons of excellent information.

OFFERINGS OF DEVOTION

With offerings of devotion, ships from the isles will meet to pour the wealth of the nations and bring tribute to his feet. The Coptic Church believes fully the teachings of the Bible, and as such we have our daily obligations, and offer our sacrifices, made by fire unto our God with chants and Psalms and spiritual hymns, lifting up holy hands and making melody in our hearts. Herb (marijuana) is a Godly creation from the beginning of the world. It is known as the weed of wisdom, angel's food, the tree of life and even the "Wicked Old Ganja Tree".

Its purpose in creation is as a fiery sacrifice to be offered to our Redeemer during obligations. The political worldwide organizations have framed mischief on it and called it drugs. To show that it is not a dangerous drug, let me inform my readers that it is used as food for mankind, and as a medicinal cure for diverse diseases. Ganja is not for commerce; yet because of the oppression of the people, it was raised up as the only liberator of the people, and the only peacemaker among the entire generation.

Ganja is the sacramental rights of every man worldwide and any law against it is only the organized conspiracy of the United Nations and the political governments who assist in maintaining this conspiracy. The Coptic Church is not politically originated, and this was firmly expressed when we met with the political directorate of the land during the period of pre-incorporation. We support no political organization, pagan religion, or commercial institution, seeing that religion, politics, and commerce are the three unclean spirits which separate the people from their God. Because of our non-political stand, the church has received tremendous opposition from the politicians, who do not want the eyes of the people to be opened.

Through its agency, the police force, the church has been severely harassed, victimized, and discriminated. Our members have passed through several acts of police brutality, our legal properties maliciously destroyed, members falsely imprisoned, divine services broken up and all these atrocities performed upon the Church, under the name of political laws and their justice. Walter Wells -- Elder Priest of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church of Jamaica, West Indies THE USE OF MARIJUANA IN ANCIENT TIMES The use of marijuana is as old as the history of man and dates to the prehistoric period. Marijuana is closely connected with the history and development of some of the oldest nations on earth. It has played a significant role in the religions and cultures of Africa, the Middle East, India, and China Richard E. Schultes, a prominent researcher in the field of psychoactive plants, said in an article he wrote entitled "Man and Marijuana": "...that early man experimented with all plant materials that he could chew and could not have avoided discovering the properties of cannabis (marijuana), for in his quest for seeds and oil, he certainly ate the sticky tops of the plant. Upon eating hemp the euphoric, ecstatic and hallucinatory aspects may have introduced man to an other-worldly plane from which emerged religious beliefs, perhaps even the concept of deity.

The plant became accepted as a special gift of the gods, a sacred medium for communion with the spiritual world and as such it has remained in some cultures to the present." The effects of marijuana was proof to the ancients that the spirit and power of the god(s) existed in this plant and that it was literally a messenger (angel) or actually the Flesh and Blood and/or Bread of the god(s) and was and continues to be a holy sacrament. Considered to be sacred, marijuana has been used in religious worship from before recorded history. According to William A. Embolden in his book Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa L, p. 235: "Shamanistic traditions of great antiquity in Asia and the Near East has as one of their most important elements the attempt to find God without a vale of tears; that cannabis played a role in this, at least in some areas, is born out in the philology surrounding the ritualistic use of the plant. Whereas Western religious traditions generally stress sin, repentance, and mortification of the flesh, certain older non-Western religious cults seem to have employed Cannabis as a euphoriant, which allowed the participant a joyous path to the Ultimate; hence such appellations as "heavenly guide". According to "Licit and Illicit Drugs" by the Consumer Union, page 397-398: "Ashurbanipal lived about 650 B.C., but the cuneiform descriptions of marijuana in his library "are generally regarded as obvious copies of much older texts."

Says Dr. Robert P. Walton, an American physician and authority on marijuana, "This evidence serves to project the origin of hashish back to the earliest beginnings of history." THE USE OF MARIJUANA AS INCENSE According to the Encyclopedia Britannica: "Pharmacological Cults" "...the ceremonial use of incense in contemporary ritual is most likely a relic of the time when the psychoactive properties of incense brought the ancient worshipper in touch with supernatural forces." In the temples of the ancient world, the main sacrifice was the inhalation of incense. Incense is defined as the perfume or smoke from spices and gums when burned in celebrating religious rites or as an offering to a deity. Bronze and gold incense burners were cast very early in history and their forms were often inspired by cosmological themes representing the harmonious nature of the universe. The following piece was taken from "Licit and Illicit Drugs", page 31. "In the Judaic world, the vapors from burnt spices and aromatic gums were considered part of the pleasurable act of worship. In proverbs (27:9) it is said that 'Ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart.'

Perfumes were widely used in Egyptian worship. Stone altars have been unearthed in Babylon and Palestine, which have been used for burning incense made of aromatic wood and spices. While the casual readers today may interpret such practices as mere satisfaction of the desire for pleasant odors, this is almost certainly an error; in many or most cases, a psychoactive drug was being inhaled. In the islands of the Mediterranean 2,500 years ago and in Africa hundreds of years ago, for example leaves and flowers of a particular plant were often thrown upon bonfires and the smoke inhaled; the plant was marijuana." (Edward Preble and Gabriel V. Laurey, Plastic Cement: The Ten Cent Hallucinogen, International Journal of the Addictions, 2 (Fall 2967): 271-272. "The earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia brewed intoxicating beer of barley more than 5,000 years ago; is it too much to assume that even earlier cultures experienced euphoria, accidentally or deliberately, through inhalation of the resinous smoke of Cannabis?" (Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa L, p. 216.) "It is said that the Assyrians used hemp (marijuana) as incense in the seventh or eighth century before Christ and called it 'Qunubu', a term apparently borrowed from an old East Iranian word 'Konaba', the same as the Scythian name 'cannabis'." (Plants of the Gods - Origin of Hallucinogenic Use by Richard E. Schultes and Albert Hoffman) "It is recorded that the Chinese Taoist recommended the addition of cannabis to their incense burners in the 1st century as a means of achieving immortality." (Marijuana, the First Twelve Thousand Years by Earnest Abel, page 5) "There is a classic Greek term, cannabeizein, which means to smoke cannabis. Cannabeizein frequently took the form of inhaling vapors from an incense burner in which these resins were mixed with other resins, such as myrrh, balsam, frankincense, and perfumes." (Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa L) "Herodotus in the fifth century B.C. observed the Scythians throwing hemp on heated stone to create smoke and observed them inhaling this smoke. Although he does not identify them, Herodotus states that when they "have parties and sit around a fire, they throw some of it into the flames. As it burns, it smokes like incense, and the smell of it makes them drunk, just as wine does us.

As more fruit is thrown on, they get more and more intoxicated until finally they jump up and start dancing and singing." (Herodotus, Histories 1.202.) EVIDENCE INDICATING THE SEMITIC ORIGIN OF CANNABIS The name cannabis is generally thought to be of Scythian origin. Sula Benet in Cannabis and Culture argues that it has a much earlier origin in Semitic languages like Hebrew, occurring several times in the Old Testament. He states that in Exodus 30:23 that God commands Moses to make a holy anointing oil of myrrh, sweet cinnamon, kaneh bosm, and kassia. He continues that the word kaneh bosm is also rendered in the traditional Hebrew as kannabos or kannabus and that the root "kan" in this construction means "reed" or "hemp", while "bosm" means "aromatic". He states that in the earliest Greek translations of the old testament "kan" was rendered as "reed", leading to such erroneous English translations as "sweet calamus" (Exodus 30:23), sweet cane (Isaiah 43:24; Jeremiah 6:20) and "calamus" (Ezekiel 27:19; Song of Songs 4:14). Benet argues from the linguistic evidence that cannabis was known in Old Testament times at least for its aromatic properties and that the word for it passed from the Semitic language to the Scythians, i.e. the Ashkenaz of the Old Testament. Sara Benetowa of the Institute of Anthropological Sciences in Warsaw is quoted in the Book of Grass as saying: "The astonishing resemblance between the Semitic 'kanbos' and the Scythian 'cannabis' leads me to suppose that the Scythian word was of Semitic origin. These etymological discussions run parallel to arguments drawn from history.

The Iranian Scythians were probably related to the Medes, who were neighbors of the semites and could easily have assimilated the word for hemp. The Semites could also have spread the word during their migrations through Asia Minor. Taking into account the matriarchal element of Semitic culture, one is led to believe that Asia Minor was the original point of expansion for both the society based on the matriarchal circle and the mass use of hashish." The Ancient Israelites were a Semitic people. Abraham, the father of the Israelite nation, came from Ur, a city of Babylonia located in mesopotamia.

The Israelites migrated throughout Asia Minor and could easily have spread the religious use of marijuana. THE ISRAELITE USE OF INCENSE It was said that Moses, at the direction of Almighty God, first brought in the use of incense in public worship, and that the other nations of antiquity copied the practice from him. It was however a practice that began with Adam. The "Book of Jubilees", an Apocryphal book, (the Apocrypha was considered canonical by the early church and is to this day by the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church) states that "on the day when Adam went forth from the Garden of Eden, he offered as a sweet savour an offering of frankincense, galbanum, and stacte, and spices, in the morning with the rising of the sun, from the day when he covered his shame."

And of Enoch we read that "he burnt the incense of the sanctuary, even sweet spices, acceptable before the Lord, on the Mount." Incense was assigned miraculous powers by the Israelites. It was burned in golden bowls or cauldrons placed on or beside the altar. It was also burned in hand-held censers. In the Blessing of Moses, a poem belonging to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and written about 760 B.C., the sacrificial smoke is offered to the God of Israel. Let them teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law; Let them offer sacrificial smoke to thy nostrils, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thy altar.

Throughout the Bible the ancient patriarchs were brought into communion with God through smoking incense and at Mt. Sinai God talked to Moses out of a bush that burned with fire (Exodus 3:1- 12). After Moses brought the Israelite people out of Egypt he returned to Mt. Sinai at which time God made a covenant with Moses in which the Ten Commandments were revealed. Exodus 19:8 describes the conditions at the time of this covenant. Exodus 19:8 "And Mount Sinai was altogether on smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. The Mysterious smoke mentioned in the covenant on Mt. Sinai is also referred to as a cloud. Exodus 24:15 "And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount. 16 And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

Scriptures make it abundantly clear that the clouds and the smoke are related to the burning of incense. Exodus 40:26 describes Moses burning incense, a cloud covering the tent of the congregation and the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle. Leviticus 16:2-13 describes how God appeared in a cloud and refers to it as the clouds of incense. Numbers 16:17-19 describes how every man of the congregation had a censer full of burning incense and that the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the congregation. Isaiah 6:4 describes how Ezekial saw God in a smoke-filled inner court. Numbers 11:25 describes how God was revealed to Moses and the seventy elders in a cloud; that the spirit rested upon them and that they prophesied and ceased not. The Book of Grass by Andrew and Vinkenoog includes a section on Ancient Scythia and Iran by Mircea Eliade, one of the foremost experts on the history of religions.

On pages 11 and 12 is the following: "On one document appears to indicate the existence of a Getic shamanism: It is Straho's account of the Myssian KAPNOBATAI, a name that has been translated, by analogy with Aristophanes' AEROBATES, as 'those who walk in clouds'; but it should be translated as 'those who walk in smoke'! Presumably the smoke is hemp smoke, a rudimentary means of ecstasy known to both the Tracians and the Scythians..." This passage should be carefully noted. Biblical passages make it abundantly clear that the ancient Isrealites also walked in clouds and in smoke.

In fact it was in the clouds of smoke that God was revealed to the ancient Isrealites. The words "smoke" and "smoking" appear fifty times in the King James Version of the Bible and two separate times the Bible says of the Lord, "There went up a smoke out of his nostrils." II Samuel 22:9, Psalms 18:8. There are numerous other places in the Bible that mention the burning of incense, the mysterious cloud, and smoke.

This common thread is found throughout the Bible, including the New Testament. St. Matthew 24:30 "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the Earth morn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory."

Revelations 1:7 "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen."

Revelations 8:3 "And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer: and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

4 And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the Angel's hand." Revelations 15:8 "And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power." THE SYMBOLISM OF FIRE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD The word "fire" is mentioned several hundred times in the King James version of the Bible. The sacrifice of the Lord is made by fire (Exodus 29:18, 25; Leviticus 2:10-11; Leviticus 6:13; Numbers 28:6; Deuteronomy 4:33; Joshua 13:14; I Samuel 2:28; II Chronicles 2:4; Isaiah 24:15; Matthew 3:11; Luke 1:9; Revelations 8:4-5) Abraham, the father of the Israelite nation, came from Ur which was a city of Ancient Sumer in South Babylonia. For the Babylonians, fire was essential to sacrifice and all oblations were conveyed to the gods by the fire god Girru-Nusku, whose presence as an intermediary between the gods and man was indispensable. Girru-Nusku, as the messenger of the gods, bore the essence of the offerings upward to them in the smoke of sacrificial fire.

At Babylon: "The glorious gods smell the incense, noble food of heaven; pure wine which no hand has touched do they enjoy." (L. Jeremias, in Encyclopedia Biblica, i.v. 4119, quoting Rawlinson, Cuneif. Inscrip. IV, 19 (59).) The most important of the ancient Indian gods was Agni, the god of fire, who like the Babylonian god Girru-Nusku acted as a messenger between men and the gods. The fire (Agni) upon the altar was regarded as a messenger, their invoker. "...For thou, O sage, goest wisely between these two creations like a friendly messenger between two hamlets." According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the section on "mysticism": "The Vedas (Hindu sacred writings) are hymns to the mystic fire and the inner sense of sacrifice, burning forever on the 'altar Mind'.

Hence the abundance of solar and fire images: birds of fire, the fire of the sun, and the isles of fire. The symbol system of the world's religions and mysticisms are profound illuminations of the human-divine mystery. Be it the cave of the heart or the lotus of the heart, 'the dwelling place of that which is the Essence of the Universe, "the third eye", or the eye of wisdom' - the symbols all refer back to wisdom entering the aspiring soul on its way to progressive self-understanding. 'I saw the Lord with the Eye of the Heart. I said, "Who art thou?" and he answered, "Thou"'."

The ancient Indian mystics said, "...that in the ecstasy of bhang (marijuana) the spark of the Eternal in man turns into light the murkiness of matter or illusion and the self is lost in the central soul fire. Raising man out of himself and above mean individual worries, bhang makes him one with the divine force of nature and the mystery 'I am he' grew plain. (Taken from the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report which was written at the turn of the twentieth century.) The concept of spiritual or inner light was found throughout the ancient world. As we shall see that spiritual light was directly related to the burning of incense. According to Lucie Lamy in "Egyptian Mysteries", page 24: "The Pharaonic word for light is akh. This word, often translated as 'transfigured', designated transcendental light as well as all aspects of physical light; and in the funerary text it denotes the state of ultimate sublimation. "The word akh, first of all, is written with a glyph showing a crested ibis, ibis comata.

This bird - the name of which was also akh -- lived in the southern part of the Arabian side of the Red Sea (near Al Qunfidhah) and migrated to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) during the winter. Both these places are near the regions from which sacred incense came, and were called the "Divine Land". The bird's crest, together with its dark green plumage shot with glittering metallic specks justifies the meanings 'to shine', 'to be resplendent', 'to irradiate'; of the root akh in the hieroglyphic writing. "Akh indeed expresses all notions of light, both literally and figuratively, from the Light which comes forth from Darkness to the transcendental light of transfiguration. It is also used to designate the 'third eye', the ureaeus, related in old tradition to the pineal body and to the spirit." In the next chapter we will see that the sacred cloud of incense was instrumental in the transfiguration of Christ.

Note that Ethiopia was referred to as the "Divine Land" and that it was the source for the sacred incense. The ancients also referred to Ethiopia as the "Land of God". The ancient Egyptians believed that they had received their divinities from Ethiopia and have always held to the ancient and honored tradition of their southern origin. Ethiopia is so important in ancient history that it is mentioned as being in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:12). The ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote: "The Ethiopians conceived themselves to be of greater antiquity than any other nation; and it is probable that, born under the sun's path, its warmth may have ripened them earlier than other men.

They supposed themselves to be the inventors of worship, of festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifice, and every religious practice." MARIJUANA AS THE CHRISTIAN SACRAMENT According to Jack Herer in The Emperor Wears No Clothes or Everything You Wanted to Know About Marijuana But Were Not Taught in School, "The Essenes, a kabalistic priest/prophet/healer sect of Judaism dating back to the era of the Dead Sea Scrolls, used hemp, as did the Theraputea of Egypt, from where we get the term 'therapeutic'." The Theraputea of Egypt were Jewish ascetics that dwelt near Alexandria and described by Philo (1st century B.C.) as devoted to contemplation and meditation. Alexandria is where St. Mark is traditionally held to have established the Coptic Church in 45 A.D.

The Coptic Church has been neglected by Western scholars despite its historical significance. This has been due to the various biases and interest of the Catholic Church which claimed Christianity for its own. The result is that for the Coptic Church there is very little history. It is however assumed that the Coptic religious services have their roots in the earliest layers of Christian ritual in Jerusalem and it is known that the Coptic church is of ancient origin going back to the time of the first Christian communities and even before.

Tradition states that "Coptic" was derived from "Kuftaim", son of Mizraim, a grandchild of Noah who first settled in the Nile valley, i the neighborhood of Thebes, the ancient capital of Egypt. At one time Thebes was the greatest city in the world and history records that by 2200 B.C. the whole of Egypt was united under a Theban prince. The splendor of Thebes was known to Homer, who called it "the city with a hundred gates". (Richard Schultes states that in ancient Thebes marijuana was made into a drink.) According to E.A. Wallis Budge in The Divine Origin of the Herbalist, page 79, "The Copts, that is to say the Egyptians who accepted the teachings of St. Mark in the first century of our era, and embraced Christianity, seem to have eschewed medical science as taught by the physicians of the famous School of Medicine of Alexandria, and to have been content with the methods of healing employed by their ancestors."

The Essenes were an ascetic sect closely related to the Theraputea that had established a monastic order in the desert outside of Palestine and were known as spiritual healers. It has been suggested that both John the Baptist and Jesus may have been of the Essene sect as they were both heavily dependent on Essene teachings. The scripture makes no mention of the life of Jesus from the age of 13 to 30. Certain theologians speculate that Jesus was being initiated by the Essenes, the last fraternity to keep alive the ancient traditions of the prophets. Every prophet, however great, must be initiated. His higher self must be awakened and made conscious so that his mission can be fulfilled.

Amongst the Essenes' ritual lustrations preceded most liturgical rites, the most important one of which was participation in a sacred meal -- an anticipation of the Messianic banquet. Throughout the ancient world sacrifice was a sacramental communal meal involving the idea of the god as a participant in the meal or as identical with the food consumed. The communion sacrifice was one in which the deity indwells the oblation so that the worshippers actually consume the divine. The original motive of sacrifice was an effort toward communion among the members of a group, on one hand, and between them and their god, on the other. At its best, sacrifice was a "sacrament" and in one form or another life itself. The central focus of the early Christian church was the Eucharist or the "body and blood" of the Lord. This was interpreted as a fellowship meal with the resurrected Christ. In meeting the Resurrected One in the Eucharist meal the Christian community had the expectation of the Kingdom of God and salvation. Christ communicated life to his disciples through the Eucharist or Christian sacrament. Christ said in describing the sacrament, "Take, eat, this is my body, this is my blood. Do this as often as you will in remembrance of me." (I Corinthians 11:24- 25) Baptism is defined as the Christian sacrament used in purification and the spiritual rebirth of the individual. I Corinthians 10:1 makes it clear that the smoking cloud of incense was directly related to baptism.

I Corinthians 10:1 "Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the Cloud and in the sea; 3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat: for they drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. In the Biblical story of Creation, God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed and to you it will be for meat." (Genesis 1:29) Marijuana is technically an herb and was considered a spiritual meat in the ancient world. From this passage in Corinthians we see that the spiritual cloud resulting from the burning of incense was instrumental in the baptism of the Israelites.

This baptism is also compared to the "eating and drinking" of the spirit of Christ. Spirit is defined as the active essence of the Deity serving as an invisible and life-giving or inspiring power in motion. Scripture makes it abundantly clear that the sacrificial cloud or smoke contained the Spirit of God (Christ) and was instrumental in inspiring, sanctifying, and purifying the patriarchs. In Numbers 11:25 the cloud results in the Spirit resting upon Moses and the seventy elders. This passage indicates that they prophesied ecstatically. "Prophesy" is defined as follows: to utter or announce by or as if by divine inspiration; to speak for God or a deity; to give instruction in religious matters.

Throughout the Holy Bible prophets of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The smoking burning cloud of incense contained the spirit and was instrumental in bringing about the spiritual revelations of the prophets. In the ancient world marijuana was used to reveal the future. The virtues of marijuana include speech-giving and inspiration of mental powers. "Psychoactive" is defined as effecting the mind or behavior. When we of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church think of mind or behavior we think of that inward essence or element that makes up the individual. This is the person's spirit.

We are all spiritual beings. It is just as important to keep the spiritual part of a person healthy as it is to keep the physical body healthy and in fact they are related. Hence marijuana and its relationship to spiritual food. In the Apocrypha (Book of Jubilees), Chapter 10, God tells an angel to teach Noah the medicines which heal and protect from evil spirits. Surely God taught Noah about marijuana. In the ancient world marijuana played an important role in purification and protecting from evil influences. Note the following concerning the transfiguration of Christ:

St. Matthew 17:1 "And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart.

2 And he was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as light.
3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.

4 Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.

5 When yet he spake, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him."

The Bible Dictionary by John McKenzie, page 898, says concerning the transfiguration that the cloud and the formula of the utterance of the Father are derived from the baptism of Jesus. He says that the change described in the appearance of Jesus suggests the change which is implied in the resurrection narratives. Some of the synonyms for transfiguration are transformation, metamorphosis, transubstantiation, and avatar.

These terms imply the change that accompanies resurrection or deification. Across the world, legends of godlike men who manage to rise, in a state of perfection go back to an era before human beings had cast away from the divine source. Hence the gods were beings which once were men, and the actual race of men will in time become gods. Christ revealed this to the people of his day when he told them to whom the word of God came, "Ye are gods." (St. John 10:34) St. Matthew 17:2 says that during the transfiguration of Christ that his face did shine as the sun. The face of Moses also shone when he returned from the cloud on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 30:34). The shining countenances are the result of their resurrections, of their being spiritually illumined in the cloud of smoking incense. Most people are under the impression that Christ baptized with water. As you can see from the following account of John the Baptist this isn't so. John the Baptist baptized with water and Christ baptized with fire.

St. Matthew 3:11 "I indeed baptize you with water into repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." It is only logical that this baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire is related to the baptism of Christ in the burning, smoking cloud of incense and to the baptism of the patriarchs in which the patriarchs did all eat of the same spiritual meal (incense).

In the section dealing with the "Holy Spirit" the Encyclopedia Britannica states that Christian writers have seen in various references to the Spirit of Yahweh in the Old Testament an anticipation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It also says that the Holy Spirit is viewed as the main agent of man's restoration to his original natural state through communion in Christ's body and, thus, as the principle of life in the Christian community. The patriarchs were recipients of a revelation coming directly from the Spirit (incense) and this was expressed in the heightening and enlargement of their consciousness. It is clear from Scripture that this spiritual dimension was also evident in the life of Jesus, in whom the experience of the Hebrew prophets was renewed. Through the Eucharist Christ passed this spiritual dimension on to his apostles. One of the apostles even makes mention in Philippians 4:18 of a sweet smelling sacrifice that is well pleasing to God. Christ compares this baptism to the drinking of a cup. St. Mark 10:38 "But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" This cup is referred to as the cup of salvation in Psalms 116:12. Psalms 116:12 "What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. It is called the cup of blessing in connection in connection with the eucharist.

1 Corinthians 10:16 "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood and the body of Christ? 17 For we being many are one bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of one bread. Here we see a connection between the cup of blessing and the communion of the blood of Christ. Blood is the life-giving substance of the living being. Christ communicated life to his disciples through the Eucharist or Christian sacrament. In I Corinthians 10:16 we note the mention of bread as the communion of the body of Christ and that we are all partakers of one bread. This is the spiritual bread or food used by Christ and his disciples. (A synonym for the Eucharist or the Body and Blood of the Lord is the bread of life.) It is interesting to note that the finest marijuana in Jamaica is called Lamb's bread. 1 Corinthians 12:13 "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jew or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 1 Corinthians 11:25 "After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 26 For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.

If these passages are compared to 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, it is plain that the "eating of one bread" is the same as the patriarchs "eating the same spiritual meat" and the "drinking of one Spirit" (the cup) is the same as the patriarchs "drinking of the Spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." By making this comparison we see that the terminology of the Eucharist is directly related to the smoking cloud of incense used in the baptism of Christ and the patriarchs. It is interesting to note that smoking was referred to as "eating" or "drinking" by the early American Indians. Peter J. Furst in Hallucinogen and Culture states the following: "Considering its enormous geographic spread in the Americas at the time of European discovery, as well as the probable age of stone tobacco pipes in California, the inhaling (often called "drinking" or "eating") of tobacco smoke by the Shaman, as a corollary to therapeutic fumigation and the feeding of the gods with smoke, must also be of considerable antiquity."

In Licit and Illicit Drugs, page 209, the following is quoted: "Columbus and other early explorers who followed him were amazed to meet Indians who carried rolls of dried leaves that they set afire -- and who then "drank the smoke" that emerged from the rolls. Other Indians carried pipes in which they burned the same leaves, and from which they similarly "drank the smoke". The Encyclopedia Britannica states in the section on "Sacrifice" that the interpretation of sacrifice and particularly of the Eucharist as sacrifice has varied greatly within the different Christian traditions because of the sacrificial terminology in which the Eucharist was originally described became foreign to Christian thinkers. We of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church declare that the true understanding of the Eucharist has been passed down from generation to generation so that we are able to give an accurate interpretation of the sacrificial terminology used to describe the Eucharist. We have shown, using history and Biblical passages, that his terminology is directly related to burning smoking incense.

We have shown that the "eating" or "drinking" contained in the terminology concerning the Eucharist is associated with the inhalation of smoke. We have shown that marijuana was used as incense and that it was the number one spiritual plant of the ancient world. We of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church declare that the cup that Christ baptized his disciples with in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire was in fact a pipe or chillum in which marijuana was smoked. This is a bottomless cup and soon as it is emptied, it is filled again and passed in a circle. There is a picture of this cup or pipe below, as well as on the cover.

Like the pipe of the ancient North American Indians, this cup was a portable altar. Christ was the Father of the doctrine of the Eucharist which is the communion that Jesus gave his brethren. Jesus taught that the communion is his body and blood. Jesus was not speaking of His physical body and blood. He was speaking of His spiritual body and spiritual blood that was the communion of his holy church. The supper that Jesus celebrated with his disciples "on the night that he was betrayed" (1 Corinthians 11:23) inaugurated the heavenly meal that was to be continued. 1 Corinthians 11:23 "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: 24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it and said, Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. 25 After the same manner also he took the cup, which he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink of this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. 27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat of this bread, and drink of this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and let him eat of the bread, and drink of that cup. 29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. Christ said, "Do this in remembrance of me." Here the original unity of man with God is restored. In general the reception of the Holy Spirit is connected with the actual realization, the inward experiencing of God. Marijuana has been referred to as a mild euphoric (the producer of a feeling of well-being) that produces a profound religious experience of a mystical and transcendental nature.

This religious experience is said to be brought about by the stirring of deeply buried, unconscious sensitivities so that one experiences ultimate reality or the divine and confirms the feeling of the worshipper that he has been in the presence of God and has assimilated some of His powers. To be lifted above sense to behold the beatific vision and become "incorporate" in God is the end sought in ecstasy. The priest or mystic in enthusiasm or ecstasy enjoys the beatific vision by entering into communion with God and by undergoing deification. The experience of ecstasy, states Mircea Eliade, one of the foremost authorities on religion, is a timeless primary phenomenon. Psychological experience of rapture, he continues, are fundamental to the human condition and hence known to the whole of archaic humanity. (Some of the synonyms of rapture are bliss, beatitude, transport, exaltation.) Baudelaire, a member of the Club Des Hashichins (Hashish Club) founded in Paris around 1835 and writer of Artificial Paradises states the following about hashish: Hashish is the unadulterated resin from the flowering tops of the female hemp plant. "One will find in hashish nothing miraculous, absolutely nothing but an exaggeration of the natural.

The brain and organisms on which hashish operates will produce only the normal phenomena peculiar to that individual -- increased, admittedly, in number and force, but always faithful to the original. A man will never escape from his destined physical and moral temperament: hashish will be a mirror of his impression and private thoughts - a magnifying mirror, it is true, but only a mirror.

He cautions that the user must be in the right frame of mind to take hashish, for just as it exaggerates the natural behavior of the individual, so too does hashish intensify the user's immediate feelings. Baudelaire describes three successive phases a hashish user will pass through. He says the final stage is marked by a feeling of calmness, in which time and space have no meaning, and there is a sense that one has transcended matter.

He says that in this state, one final supreme thought breaks into consciousness. "I have become God." Realization of one's union with God is necessary in understanding the true Christian sacrament. The understanding of man's relationship to God and God's relationship to man (God in Man and Man in God) was quite prevalent in the ancient world, particularly among the religions that utilized marijuana as part of their religious practice. Said the great Hindu sage, Manu, "He who in his own soul perceives the Supreme Soul in all beings and acquires equanimity toward them all, attains the highest bliss." To recognize oneness of self with God was contained in all the teachings of Gautama Buddha. In the Liturgy of Mithra (the Persian god of light and truth) the suppliant prays "abide with me in my soul; leave me not," and "that I may be initiated and the Holy Spirit may breathe within me." The communion became so intimate as to pass into identity: "I am thou and thou art I." Athanasius, a theologian, ecclesiastical statesman, and Egyptian national leader who was closely tied to the Coptic Church in Egypt said, "Even we may become gods walking in the flesh," and "God became man that man might become God." Western theology (Catholic and Protestant) teaches that the spirit created matter but remained aloof of it. In Hinduism and other Eastern religions, the spirit is the inside, the matter is the outside; the two are inseparable. Eastern theologians hive rightly perceived that the God one worships must posses all the aspects of his worshippers' nature as well as his own divine nature. Otherwise, how can he create beings whose nature is entirely foreign to his own? What, then, would be the meaning of the Biblical phrase: "God made man in his own image"? The fact that modern Christendom has no sense of union with God has led to numerous churches without the understanding for building a Christian culture and kingdom to replace the confusion of modern politics. This lack of understanding was not lacking in the ancient church and was a major source of enthusiasm for the prophets of old. In fact, the power of the early church was manifested due to this understanding of the spirit of God dwelling in man, the temple of God.

To the ancient prophets it was not a God above, nor a God over yonder, but a God within. "Be still and know that I am God" -- for the visionaries and mystics of every time and place, this has been the first and greatest of the commandments. In 1 Corinthians 11:28 Christ said, "Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup." Probably the most relevant study to date about what might be considered typical marijuana experience concludes that marijuana gives spontaneous insights into self (Dr. Charles Tart, "On Being Stoned: A Psychological Study of Marijuana Intoxication", Science and Behavior, 1971). The sacramentality of marijuana is declared by Christ himself and can be understood only when a person partakes of the natural divine herb. The fact is communion of Jesus cannot be disputed or be destroyed. Marijuana is the new wine divine and cannot be compared to the old wine, which is alcohol. Jesus rejected the old wine and glorified the "new wine" at the wedding feast of Cana. Cana is a linguistic derivation of the present day cannabis and so it is. (Some Biblical scholars -- and there is a certain amount of support in early tradition of the view -- have looked upon the miracle of Cana as a sign of the Eucharist.) Note the references to new wine in the Bible: Isaiah 65:8 "Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it; so will I do for my servant's sake" Acts 2:13 "Others mocking said, "These men are full of new wine." Isaiah 65:8 declares that the new wine is found in the cluster and that a blessing is in it. When one mentions clusters, one thinks of clusters of grapes. Webster's New Riverside Dictionary, Office Edition, defines marijuana: 1. Hemp 2. The dried flower clusters and leaves of the hemp plant, esp. when taken to induce euphoria.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says the following about hemp: Seed producing flowers form elongate, spike like clusters growing on the pistillate, or female plants; pollen producing flowers form many branched clusters or staminate, on male plants. Here and in Webster's, marijuana fits the description of the new wine and as history has shown a blessing is in it.

Baudelaire said the following about the effects of hashish: "This marvelous experience often occurs as if it were the effect of superior and invisible power acting on the person from without...This delightful and singular state...gives no advance warning. It is as unexpected as a ghost, an intermittent haunting from which we must draw, if we are wise, the certainty of a better existence. This acuteness of thought, this enthusiasm of the senses and the spirit must have appeared to man through the ages as the first blessing."

In the books of Acts the apostles were accused of being full of new wine. Acts 2:13 was the time of pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles. Numerous outpourings of the Spirit are mentioned in the Acts of the apostles in which healing, prophesy, and the expelling of demons are particularly associated with the activity of the Spirit. Incense (marijuana) was used by the ancients for healing, prophesy, and the expelling of demons.

When Christ ascended into heaven in the cloud (Acts 1:9-11) he sent his disciples the Holy Spirit with the "gift of tongues" (Acts 2:3) and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and were given the power to prophesy or witness. (Marijuana has been credited with speech giving and inspiration of mental powers.) The first two gifts of the Holy Spirit are traditionally said to be wisdom and understanding, which no doubt are the two things most needed by the human race. In Jamaica today marijuana is referred to as the "weed of wisdom" and is reputed to be the plant that grew on Solomon's grave, a man known for his great wisdom. Marijuana expands consciousness and enhances the capacity for mystical and creative inspiration.

In Acts 2:3 Fire speaks figuratively of the Holy Spirit. Fire was also a means which to transport a saint to heaven. 2 Kings 2:11 "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." Recent writers have speculated that this passage was in reference to flying saucers. That is because they look at this passage physically. This ascension of Elijah like the ascension of Christ in the cloud into heaven is the "withdrawal" from the external or physical world, to be the inmost reality of all. This can be referred to as ecstasy, rapture, or transport and is a result of the Holy Spirit.

Ecstasy, rapture, or transport therefor agree in designating a feeling or state of intense, often extreme mental and emotional exaltation. Rapture is defined as ecstatic joy or delight; joyful ecstasy. Some of the synonyms of rapture are bliss, beatitude, transport, and exultation. The true rapture is therefore one in which one is spiritually transported to the heavens.

Don't expect to float up into the sky. Marijuana as history has shown is the catalyst used to achieve the spiritual journey into the heavens. That is why in India it was referred to as the Heavenly-Guide, the Poor Man's Heaven, and the Sky-flier. That is why Professor Mircea Eliade, perhaps the foremost authority on the history of religion, suggested that Zoroaster may have caused hemp to bridge the metaphysical gap between heaven and earth. One dictionary defines marijuana as the leaves and flowering tops when taken to induce euphoria. Euphoria is defined by the same dictionary as great happiness or bliss. (In India, marijuana has been referred to as the joy-giver and the soother of grief.) Bliss is defined as the ecstasy of salvation, spiritual joy. Some of the synonyms of bliss are beatitude, transport, rapture, ecstasy, paradise, heaven. Throughout the ancient world there is mention of "magical flight", "ascent to heaven", and "mystical journey".

All these mythological and folklore traditions have their point of departure in an ideology and technique of ecstasy that imply "journey in spirit". The pilgrimage from earth to heaven is not a journey to some other place or some other time, but is a journey within. One must realize that "death" through which we must pass before God can be seen does not lie ahead of us in time. Rather it is now that we have a man of sin within us that must be killed and a new man free from sin that must be born. This is actualized in baptism and the sacramental life in the church. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). The effect of baptism is spiritual regeneration or rebirth, whereby one is "enChristened", involving both union with Christ and remission of sins.

In Titus 3:5 baptism is the "bath of regeneration" accompanying renewal by the Spirit. Some of the synonyms of regeneration are beatification, conversion, sanctification, salvation, inspiration, bread of life, Body and Blood of Christ. Sara Benetowa of the Institute of Anthropological Sciences in Warsaw is quoted in the Book of Grass as saying: "By comparing the old Slavic word 'Kepati' and the Russian 'Kupati' with the Scythian 'cannabis' Shrader developed and justified Meringer's supposition that there is a link between the Scythian baths and Russian vapor baths. "In the entire Orient even today to 'go to the bath' means not only to accomplish an act of purification and enjoy a pleasure, but also to fulfill the divine law. Vambery calls 'bath' any club in which the members play checkers, drink coffee, and smoke hashish or tobacco." St. Matthew's account of the institution of the Eucharist attaches to the Eucharist cup these words: "Drink of it, all of, for this is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins (st. Matthew 26:27).

Drinking the sacramental cup therefor serves like baptism (Acts 2:38) where Peter said unto them, "Repent, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church declare a three-part doctrine of the Holy Herb, the Holy Word, and the Holy Man (Woman). The present and future benefits to the individual communicant have their importance given them by Jesus, who said, "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day." (John 6:54) As such we must see that the divine person who is active in creation, in renewal, and in human rebirth and resurrection, is also active in the Eucharist. There was a profound change in America when marijuana smoking started on a large scale in the late 1960's. A large number of people resisted the draft, resisted the war ... started letting their hair and beards grow ... became interested in natural foods... the ecology and the environment. What we really saw was the awakening of our generation to the beginning of Christian mentality through marijuana smoking.

The earmarks of this mentality are: I don't want to go to war; I really don't want to be part of the political-military-economic fiasco you call society. Like the Indians Hemp Drug Commission three quarters of a century earlier, the Canadian Le Dain Commission conducted an inquiry into the use of marijuana. On page 156 of the report is the following: "In the case of cannabis, the positive points which are claimed for it include the following: It is a relaxant; it is disinhibiting; it increases self-confidence and the feeling of creativity (whether justified by creative results or not); it increases sensual awareness and appreciation; it facilitates self acceptance and in this way makes it easier to accept others; it serves a sacramental function in promoting a sense of spiritual community among users; it is a shared pleasure; because it is illicit and the object of strong disapproval from those who are, by and large, opposed to social change, it is a symbol of protest and a means of strengthening the sense of identity among those who are strongly critical of certain aspects of our society and value structure today."

On page 144 of the Report, marijuana is associated with peace. "In our conversation with (students and young people) they have frequently contrasted marijuana and alcohol effects to describe the former as a drug of peace, a drug that reduces tendencies to aggression while suggesting that the latter drug produces hostile, aggressive behavior.

Thus marijuana is seen as particularly appropriate to a generation that emphasizes peace and is, in many ways, anticompetitive." In a magazine article by G. S. Chopra entitled "Man and Marijuana" on page 235 is a section dealing with Human Experiments. One hundred persons with an established marijuana smoking habit smoked marijuana. They described the symptoms as follows:

"I have done things today which I usually dislike but which I rather enjoyed doing today." "Nothing seemed impossible to accomplish."
"I assumed a cool and composed attitude and forgot all mental worries."
"I behaved in a childish and foolish manner."
"It relieves sense of fatigue and gives rise to feelings of happiness."
"I feel like laughing." "My head is dizzy." "I feel like taking more food."
"The world is gay around me."
"I feel inclined to work."
"I am a friend to all and have no enemy in the world."

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, in the section on "Roman Catholicism": "To understand the meaning and use of the Eucharist we must see it as an act of universal worship, of cooperation, of association else it loses the greater part of its significance. Neither in Roman Catholic nor in Protestant Eucharistic practice does the sacrament retain much of the symbolism of Christian unity, which clearly it has.

Originally, the symbolism was that of a community meal, an accepted social symbol of community throughout the whole of human culture." Marijuana has been used as sacrifice, a sacrament, a ritual fumigant (incense), a good-will offering, and as a means of communing with the divine spirit. It has been used to seal treaties, friendships, solemn binding agreements and to legitimize covenants. It has been used as a traditional defense against evil and in purification. It has been used in divinations

(1. the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge; 2. unusual insight; intuitive perception.) It has been used in remembrance of the dead and praised for its medicinal properties. Most Christians agree that participation in the Eucharist is supposed to enhance and deepen communion of believers not only with Christ but also with one another. We must therefor ask the question, "What substance did the ancients use as a community meal to facilitate communion with the Lord?"

The answer to that question is marijuana. Hemp as originally used in religious ritual, temple activities, and tribal rites, involved groups of worshippers rather than the solitary individual. The pleasurable psychoactive effects were then, as now, communal experiences. Practically every major religion and culture of the ancient world utilized marijuana as part of their religious observance. Marijuana was the ambrosia of the ancient world. It was the food, drink, and perfume of the gods. It was used by the Africans, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Asians, the Europeans, and possibly the Indians of the Americas.

Would it be too much to suggest that the ancient Israelites also utilized marijuana? The following information was taken from the most authoritative books dealing with the history of marijuana. They are mentioned at the end of this work. MARIJUANA IN INDIA In Indian tradition marijuana is associated with immortality.

There is a complex myth of the churning of the Ocean of Milk by the gods, their joint act of creation. They were in search of Amrita, the elixir of eternal life. When the gods, helped by demons, churned the ocean to obtain Amrita, one of the resulting nectars was cannabis. After churning the ocean, the demons attempted to gain control of Amrita (marijuana), but the gods were able to prevent this seizure, giving cannabis the name Vijaya ("victory") to commemorate their success. Other ancient Indian names for marijuana were "sacred grass", "hero leaved", "joy", "rejoicer", "desired in the three worlds"' "gods' food", "fountain of pleasures"' and "Shiva's plant".

Early Indian legends maintained that the angel of mankind lived in the leaves of the marijuana plant. It was so sacred that it was reputed to deter evil and cleanse its user of sin. In Hindu mythology hemp is a holy plant given to man for the "welfare of mankind" and is considered to be one of the divine nectars able to give man anything from good health, to long life, to visions of the gods. Nectar is defined as the fabled drink of the gods.

Tradition maintains that when nectar or Amrita dropped from heaven, that cannabis sprouted from it. In Hindu mythology Amrita means immortality; also, the ambrosial drink which produced it. In India hemp is made into a drink and is reputed to be the favorite drink of Indra (the King of Indian gods.) Tradition maintains that the god Indra gave marijuana to the people so that they might attain elevated states of consciousness, delight in worldly joy, and freedom from fear. According to Hindu legends, Siva, the Supreme God of many Hindu sects, had some family squabble and went off to the fields. He sat under a hemp plant so as to be sheltered from the heat of the sun and happened to eat some of its leaves. He felt so refreshed from the hemp plant that it became his favorite food, and that is how he got his title, the Lord of Bhang. Cannabis is mentioned as a medicinal and magical plant as well as a "sacred grass" in the Atharva Veda (dated 2000 - 1400 B.C.) It also calls hemp one of the five kingdoms of herbs...which releases us from anxiety and refers to hemp as a "source of happiness", "joy-giver" and "liberator".

Although the holy books, the Shastras, forbid the worship of the plant, it has been venerated and used as a sacrifice to the deities. Indian Tradition, writing, and belief is that the "Siddhartha" (the Buddha), used and ate nothing but hemp and its seeds for six years prior to announcing (discovering) his truths and becoming the Buddha. Cannabis held a preeminent place in the Tantric religion which evolved in Tibet in the seventh century A.D. Tantrism was a religion based on fear of demons.

To combat the demonic threat to the world, the people sought protection in plants such as cannabis which were set afire to overcome evil forces. In the tenth century A.D. hemp was extolled as indracanna, the "food of the gods". A fifteenth-century document refers to cannabis as "light-hearted", "joy-full" and "rejoices", and claimed that among its virtues are "astringency", "heat", "speech-giving", "inspiration of mental powers", "excitability" and the capacity to "remove wind and phlegm". Today in the Tantric Buddhism of the Himalayas of Tibet, cannabis plays a very significant role in the meditative ritual to facilitate deep meditation and heighten awareness. In modern India it is taken at Hindu and Sikh temples and Mohammedan shrines. Among fakirs (Hindu ascetics) bhang is viewed as the giver of long life and a means of communion with the divine spirit. Like his Hindu brother, the Musalman fakir reveres bhang as the lengthener of life and the freer from the bonds of self.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission set up to study the use of hemp in India contains the following report: "...It is inevitable that temperaments would be found to whom the quickening spirit of bhang is the spirit of freedom and knowledge. In the ecstasy of bhang the spark of the Eternal in man turns into the light the murkiness of matter. "...Bhang is the Joy-giver, the Sky-filler, the Heavenly- Guide, the Poor Man's Heaven, the Soother of Grief...No god or man is as good as the religious drinker of bhang...The supporting power of bhang has brought many a Hindu family safe through the miseries of famine. To forbid or even seriously restrict the use of so gracious an herb as the hemp would cause widespread suffering and annoyance and to large bands of worshipped ascetics, deep-seated anger.

It would rob the people of a solace on discomfort, of a cure in sickness, of a guardian whose gracious protection saves them from the attacks of evil influences... MARIJUANA IN CHINA Hemp was so highly regarded in ancient China that the Chinese called their country "the land of mulberry and hemp". Hemp was a symbol of power over evil and in emperor Shen Nung's pharmacopoeia was known as the "liberator of sin".

The Chinese believed that the legendary Shen Nung first taught the cultivation of hemp in the 28th century B.C. Shen Nung is credited with developing the sciences of medicine from the curative power of plants. So highly regarded was Shen Nung that he was deified and today he is regarded as the Father of Chinese medicine. Shen Nung was also regarded as the Lord of fire. He sacrificed on T'ai Shan, a mountain of hoary antiquity.

A statement in the Pen-ts'ao Ching of some significance is that Cannabis "grows along rivers and valleys at T'ai-shan, but it is now common everywhere." Mount T'ai is in Shangtung Privince, where the cultivation of the hemp plant is still intensive to this day. Whether or not this early attribution indicates the actual geographic origin of the cultivation of the Cannabis plant remains to be seen. (An Archeological and Historical Account of Cannabis in China by Hui-Lin Li) A chines Taoist priest wrote in the fifth century B.C. that cannabis was used in combination with Ginseng to set forward time in order to reveal future events. It is recorded that the Taoist recommended the addition of cannabis to their incense burners in the 1st century A.D. and that the effects thus produced were highly regarded as a means of achieving immortality.

In the early Chinese Taoist ritual the fumes and odors of incense burners were said to have produced a mystic exaltation and contribution to well-being. Webster's New Riverside Dictionary defines marijuana: 1. Hemp 2. The dried flower clusters and leaves of the hemp plant, esp. when taken to induce euphoria. Euphoria is defined as a strong feeling of elation or well-being. Like the practice of medicine around the world, early Chinese doctoring was based on the concept of demons. The only way to cure the sick was to drive out the demons.

The early priest doctors used marijuana stalks into which snake-like figures were carved. Standing over the body of the stricken patient, his cannabis stalk poised to strike, the priest pounded the bed and commanded the demon to be gone. The cannabis stalk with the snake carved on it was the forerunner to the sign of modern medicine (the staff with the entwined serpents.) MARIJUANA IN JAPAN Hemp was used in Ancient Japan in ceremonial purification rites and for driving away evil spirits. In Japan, Shinto priests used a gohei, a short stick with undyed hemp fibers (for purity) attached to one end. According to Shinto beliefs, evil and purity cannot exist alongside one another, and so by waving the gohei (purity) above someone's head the evil spirit inside him would be driven away. Clothes made of hemp were especially worn during formal and religious ceremonies because of hemp's traditional association with purity. MARIJUANA IN ANCIENT IRAN Ancient Iran was the source for the great Persian empire, Iran is located slightly to the northeast of the ancient kingdoms of Sumeria, Babylonia, and Assyria. According to Mircea Eliade, "Shamanistic ecstasy induced by hemp smoke was known in ancient Iran." Professor Eliade has suggested that Zoroaster, the Persian prophet, said to have written the Zend-Avesta, was a user of hemp.

In the Zend-Avesta hemp occupies the first place in a list of 10,000 medicinal plants. One of the few surviving books of the Zend-Avesta, called the Venidad, "The Law Against Demons", calls bhanga (marijuana) Zoroaster's "good narcotic", and tells of two mortals who were transported in soul to the heavens where, upon drinking from a cup of bhang, they had the highest mysteries revealed to them. Professor Eliade has theorized that Zoroaster may have used hemp to bridge the metaphysical gap between heaven and earth.

MARIJUANA IN ANCIENT EGYPT In the book, Plants of the Gods: Origin of Hallucinogenic Use by Richard E. Schultes and Albert Hofman, page 72, it is stated that the specimens of marijuana nearly 4,000 years old have turned up in an Egyptian site and that in ancient Thebes the plant was made into a drink. MARIJUANA IN EUROPE According to Nikolaas j. van der Merwe (Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, South Africa) the peasants of Europe have been using cannabis as medicine, ritual material, and to smoke or chew as far back as oral traditions go. Marijuana was an integral part of the Scythian cult of the dead wherein homage was paid to the memory of their departed leaders.

This use of cannabis was found in frozen Scythian tombs dated from 500 to 300 B.C. Along with the cannabis a miniature tripod-like tent over a copper censer was found in which the sacred plant was burned. It is interesting to note that two extraordinary rugs were also found in the frozen Scythian tombs. One rug had a border frieze with a repeated composition of a horseman approaching the Great Goddess who holds the "Tree of Life" in one hand and raises the other hand in welcome. MARIJUANA IN AFRICA The African continent is probably the zone showing the widest prevalence of the hemp drug habit. When white men first went to Africa, marijuana was part of the native way of life. Africa was a continent of marijuana cultures where marijuana was an integral part of religious ceremony.

The Africans were observed inhaling the smoke from piles of smoldering hemp. Some of these piles had been placed upon altars. The Africans also utilized pipes. The African Dagga (marijuana) cults believed that Holy Cannabis was brought to earth by the gods. (Throughout the ancient world Ethiopia was considered the home of the gods.) In south central Africa, marijuana is held to be sacred and is connected with many religious and social customs. Marijuana is regarded by some sects as a magic plant possessing universal protection against all injury to life, and is symbolic of peace and friendship.

Certain tribes consider hemp use a duty. The earliest evidence for cannabis smoking in Africa outside of Egypt comes from fourteenth century Ethiopia, where two ceramic smoking-pipe bowls containing traces of excavation. In many parts of East Africa, especially near Lake Victoria (the source for the Nile), hemp smoking and hashish snuffing cults still exist. MARIJUANA IN THE NEW WORLD According to Richard L. Lingeman in his book Drugs from A to Z, page 146, "Marijuana smoking was known by the Indians before Columbus." After the Spanish conquest in 1521 the Spaniards recorded that the Aztecs (Mayans) used marijuana. The present day Cuna Indians of Panama use marijuana as a sacred herb and the Cora Indians of the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico smoke marijuana in this course of their sacred ceremonies. In the Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa L by William A Emboden, Jr., pages 229 and 231, is the following: "A particularly interesting account of a Tepehua (no relationship to "Tepecana") Indian ceremony with cannabis was published in 1963 by the Mexican ethnologist Roberto William Garcia of the University of Veracruz, northernmost branch of the Maya language family. "In his account of Teehua religion and ritual, William Garcia (1963:215-21) describes in some detail a communal curing ceremony focused on a plant called santa rose, "The Herb Which Makes One Speak", which he identified botanically as Cannabis Sativa: According to Garcia it is worshipped as an earth deity and is thought to be alive and comparable to a piece of the heart of God." MARIJUANA USE BY THE MOSLEMS It is interesting to note that the use of hemp was not prohibited by Mohammed (570-632 A.D.) while the use of alcohol was.

Moslems considered hemp as a "Holy Plant" and medieval Arab doctors considered hemp as a sacred medicine which they called among other names kannab. The Sufis (a Moslem sect) originating in 8th century Persia used hashish as a means of stimulating mystical consciousness and appreciation of the nature of Allah. Eating hashish to the Sufis was "an act of worship". They maintained that hashish gave them otherwise unattainable insights into themselves, deeper understanding and that it made them feel witty. They also claimed that it gave happiness, reduced anxiety, reduced worry, and increased music appreciation. According to one Arab legend Haydar, the Persian founder of the religious order of Sufi came across the cannabis plant while wandering in the Persian mountains. Usually a reserved and silent man, when he returned to his monastery after eating some cannabis leaves, his disciples were amazed at how talkative and animated (full of spirit) he seemed.

After cajoling Haydar into telling them what he had done to make him feel so happy, his disciples went out into the mountains and tried the cannabis themselves. So it was, according to the legend, that the Sufis came to know the pleasures of hashish. (Taken from the Introduction to A Comprehensive Guide to Cannabis Literature by Earnest Abel.) SUMMARY Due to the prosecution of God's church from the beginning of the Christian era and due to the persecution against marijuana the true understanding of the Eucharist has remained hidden from Christendom and the world, only to be revealed in these times, the culmination of all human history.

We of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church declare marijuana for the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and for the resurrection of mankind. The fruits of the mystery are remembrance of the passions and death of Christ, propitiation for sins, defense against temptation, and the indwelling of Christ in the faithful.

Preparations for communion consist of confession of sins, fasting from sin, and reconciliation with all mankind. As such the participant in the Eucharist will be in a condition in which prayer and meditation are easy and fruitful.

He will find his emotion purified and stimulated, his spirituality quickened and his heart filled with love.

SOURCES Richard E. Schultes, article: "Man and Marijuana" Richard E. Schultes and Albert Hofman, Plants of the Gods - Origin of Hallucinogenic Use (McGraw-Hill Book Co. [U.K.] Limited, Maidenhead, England [1979]). G.S. Chopra, article: "Man and Marijuana", International Journal of the Addict,1969, 4, 215-247. Earnest L. Abel, Marijuana, the First Twelve Thousand Years (Phenum Press, New York, 1980) Earnest L. Abel, A Comprehensive Guide to Cannabis Literature Earnest L. Abel, Marijuana Dictionary: Words, Terms, Events and Persons Relating to Cannabis(Greenwood Press, Westpoint, Connecticut [1982]) Edward M. Breecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports, The Consumer Union Report, "Licit and Illicit Drugs", (Little, Brown, and Co.) Louis Lewin, Phantastica, Narcotic and Stimulating Drugs: Their Use and Abuse, (London: Kegan, Trench, Turbner and Co., Ltd. Translated from the second German edition by P.H.A. Wirth, 1931) (N.Y., Dutton, 1964, reprint, 1924, trans. 1931) Sula Benet, Cannabis and Culture, ed. V. Rubin (The Hague: Moutan, 1975) Richard E. Lingeman, Drugs from A to Z, A Dictionary (McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1969, 74) John R. Glowa, The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Drugs (Chelsea House Pub., N.Y., New Haven, Philadelphia, 1986) George Andrews and Simon Vinkenoog, The Book of Grass: An Anthology on Indian Hemp; Chandler and Sharp Series in Cross Cultural Themes (N.Y., Grove Press [1967]) Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, 1985, 90, 91, 92. Peter T. Furst, Hallucinogens and Culture (Chandler and Sharp Publishers, Inc., 1976) Baudelaire, Artificial Paradises Dr. Charles Tart, "On Being Stoned: A Psychological Study of Marijuana Intoxication" (Science and Behavior, 1971) William A. Emboden, Jr. Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa L S.I. Rudenko, Frozen Tombs of Siberia (Dent., London, 1970) Edward Atchley, A History of the Use of Incense in Divine Worship E. A. Wallis Budge, The Divine Origin of the Craft of the Herbalist Egon C. Corti, A history of Smoking, by Count Corti; Translated by Paul England (G.G. Harrap, London, England, 1931) Francis Robicsek, The Smoking Gods: Tobacco in Mayan Art, History, and Religion (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1978) Diodurus, Histories 1.97.7 Herman Scneider, History of World Civilization, 2v (New York, 1931) M.N. Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization (Oxford University Press, N.Y., 1922) Sir Charles Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism 3v. (Routledge & K. Paul, London, 1921) A.A. McDonell, India's Past (The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1927) Charles Anthon, A Classical Dictionary (N.Y., Harpers and Brothers, 1848) G. Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization: Egypt and Chaldea (London, 1897) Lucy Lamy, Egyptian Mysteries Friedrich Ratzel, History of Mankind (N.Y., Gordon Press) R.H. Charles The Book of Jubilees, cap, iij, (London, 1902) Alfred Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1987) Geoffrey Wainwright, Eucharist and Eschatology (Epworth Press, London, 1971) Webster's Third New International Dictionary, 1966 The Book of the Dead, Edit. E.A.W. Budge, British Museum, 1895, p. 250 J. Jeremias, in Encyclopedia, Iv, 4119, quoting Rawlinson, Cuneiform Inscription IV. 19 (59) Cnf. the story of Bel and the Dragon. John McKenzie, The Bible Dictionary (N.Y. MacMillan Pub. Co., 1965) Encyclopedia Britannica, "Holy Spirit" (15th Edition, 1978) Micropaedia, Ready Reference and Index Encyclopedia Britannica, "Sacrifice" (15th Edition, 1978) Encyclopedia Britannica, "Pharmacological Cults" (15th Edition, 1978), p. 199 Encyclopedia Britannica, "Coptic" Encyclopedia Britannica, "Essenes" Encyclopedia Britannica, "Theraputea" Encyclopedia Britannica, "Sacred Pipe" (15th Edition) Encyclopedia Britannica, "Incense" Encyclopedia Britannica, "Hemp" (Microppaedia Ready Reference and Index, p. 1016) Encyclopedia Britannica, "Roman Catholicism, The Eucharist" (Volume 15, p. 998) Encyclopedia Britannica, "Mysticism" King James version of The Bible The Apocrypha We hope you enjoyed this pamphlet. If you have any questions or comments, we would like to see them. Send them to the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, P.O. Box 1161, Minneola, FL 34755-1161. We of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church decided to publish this pamphlet in order to give the public an opportunity to study the church and its doctrine; not from inflated and misleading media but from historical and Biblical reference. The Church has received extensive publicity as "60 Minutes" has done a segment; Life, Omni, Science, Rolling Stone, and High Times magazines have all done articles, countless newspaper articles have been written, and various brothers have been on radio and TV talk shows around the country. We of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church revere ganja (marijuana) as our "holy" Eucharist and "spiritual intensifier" with Biblical, historical and divine associations for its use. Ganja is the mystical body and blood of "Jesus" -- the burnt offering made by fire -- which allows a member to see and know the "living God", or the "God in man".

Medical Marijuana, The Truth!

2011-03-02T10:15:00.002-08:00

This is somthing I have done some research on and feel strongly about.
Please watch.

LEGALIZE CANNABIS

2011-03-02T10:15:00.001-08:00

LEGALIZE MARIJUANA CANNABIS HIGH MARIHUANA MEDICAL WEED 420 OBAMA RON PAUL PIPE BONG JOINT KUSH DRUGS SEEDS WAR NEWS VAPORIZER BOWL HASHISH BLUNTS HASH GANJA HEMP legal cops POT PRIVACY CIVIL RIGHTS LAW ACTIVIST HERB smoke HIGHTIMES CUP hydro ECONOMIC COLLAPSE MEXICO PATRIOT MARYJANE conservative NEW YORK JERSEY CHRONIC NWO freedom GMO LIBERTARIAN ALEX JONES PRISON PLANET toke Sinsemilla HOSSER420 BAKED MSNBC CNN CBS Marc emery wikileaks love health cancer prop 19 California fox news ABC bp

Cannabis Science, Inc, with CEO Robert Melamede, PhD

2011-03-02T10:15:00.000-08:00

April 18, 2010 - President and CEO of Cannabis Science, a publicly traded company researching and developing phtyo (plant-based) cannabinoid medicines, Robert Melamede, PhD is interviewed by Mark Pedersen,
The interview continues here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kSJnT...
More from the Cannabis Patient Network: http://cannabispatientnetwork.com/
Visit Cannabis Science, Inc at: http://cannabisscience.com
Interview conducted at the Sixth National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics, held in Warwick, Rhode Island, April 16 - 17, 2010 - hosted by Patients Out of Time: http://medicalcannabis.com/

Marc Emery (The Prince of Pot)

2011-01-21T09:27:00.000-08:00

Medical Conditions Treatable with Medical Marijuana

2011-01-21T09:07:00.000-08:00