The U.S. government had more drug usage going on then anyone cares to admit. I remember reading about a supply division that went through a random drug testing in the early 80’s, 19 out of 21 tested positive. Had they tested an engineering division (I was employed by the U.S.N. on an aircraft-carrier at the time) I am fairly confidant that the percentages  would have been higher. I made a deal with the guys that worked for me, they could smoke as much marijuana as they wanted provided they didn’t use chemicals, it took all of about 15 seconds for them to agree.
  The marijuana never bothered me because I knew that the guys would get the giggles, the munches, and then if tired a little shut eye, but you never knew what might happen with a person on dust or LSD.
  A friend on the aircraft-carrier used to get his cocaine in kilo bricks, again, natural substances did not bother me just so long as the guys weren’t doing chemicals.
  A couple of years after getting out I was on a major military base and asked one of the service personal what the drug of choice was now that drug testing had become so prevalent and was shocked when told LSD and heroin. I had to ask why and was given a logical reason.
  I remember walking into a room where U.S Commissioned Officers along with graduates from some of the finest colleges in this country had piles of cocaine amongst them, it was at the time considered normal.
  Reading books and watching movies in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s concerning drug usage on Wall Street, in Washington D.C. and by the Hollywood crowd, very few went to jail and if they did the sentences were different for the beautiful people who could afford cocaine versus the poor people who did crack.
  Drug usage takes capitalism to its purest form, there is a demand from consumers and there are people willing to supply the product. The Americans in the United States are the largest consumer of drugs world wide, yet we have the largest prison population in the world, do you ever stop to wonder why. Why are there so many poor people in jail when so many articles were written and movies made about rich people using drugs?
  If we were such in open society practicing the capitalism that we attempt to instill on others then drug usage should be legal because supply and demand is good, it redistributes wealth.
  The trickle down theory of economics isn’t working, the fat cats are exporting jobs and closing down factories, they don’t seem to care about the working class so if their children blow through tons of coke it could be looked upon as a redistribution of wealth process.
  One can not fault the poor people in South and Middle America or Afghanistan or Thailand or even the farmers in this country growing a small patch to save the farm, and if people are going to do drugs a natural one is much better then meth., dust or LSD any day.
  Anybody out there on Prozac or Ritalin (have you read the list of side effects if not they are included at end of article) or any other laboratory designed psychotic drug would be much better off with marijuana any day.
    Government has lied to the people concerning marijuana for more years then anyone would like to admit. The marijuana of the 60’s and 70’s gave people the munches and the giggles. Even cocaine in its leaf form, as it has been used for centuries in South America isn’t a problem, the problem came  because people forgot to use stuff in moderation.
   True market place economists believe in the laws of supply and demand. The esoteric ones will argue that for economics to work best government should allow the importation and exportation of consumer goods as the market place demands, unfettered access to goods at the lowest cost possible thereby allowing the markets to float, distributing work to the members of society deemed most able to do the job at the lowest price.
  In George Washington’s time hemp was a major crop used for rope and clothes. I would imagine that some people rolled their own marijuana just as they did with tobacco too. Those people weren’t stupid when it came to what nature or God would provide them with.
  Make no mistake it is much better to use plants that God provided then something some scientist concocted in a lab. People using chemicals manufactured with the help of a scientist, meth, dust, LSD, Prozac, Ritalin and the like will suffer much more damage then people chewing on or smoking plants provided by God.
  In a free society drug usage should be an educational issue not a legislative one and in a capitalistic society… one has to wonder why the big drug labs (Merck, Lilly) haven’t embraced marijuana, could it be anyone could grow their own and the big drug companies would lose billions in profits because of something that grows naturally and doesn’t have nearly the side effects?
  One has to wonder which idiot came up with the idea that Prozac or Ritalin is better then Marijuana. Only a drug company which makes billions of dollars because of lobbyists’ actions could lie to the people like this with a straight face.

The drug trade is capitalism at its finest
so it should be made legal
And
Truthful education is the key to any drug problem.

Chuck Jackson

Ease ban on cannabis, physicians group urges
ERIC BAILEY; Los Angeles Times
February 15th, 2008

  SACRAMENTO – A large and respected association of physicians is calling on the federal government to ease its strict ban on marijuana as medicine and hasten research into the drug’s therapeutic uses.
  The American College of Physicians, a 124,000-member group that is the nation’s largest for doctors of internal medicine, contends that the long and rancorous debate over marijuana legalization has obscured good science that has demonstrated the benefits and medicinal promise of cannabis.
  In a 13-page position paper approved by the college’s governing board of regents and posted Thursday on the group’s Web site, the ACP calls on the government to drop marijuana from Schedule I, a classification it shares with illegal drugs such as heroin and LSD that are considered to have no medicinal value and a high likelihood of abuse.
  The declaration could put new pressure on lawmakers and government regulators, who for decades have rejected attempts to reclassify marijuana. Bush administration officials have aggressively rebuffed all attempts in Congress, the courts and among law enforcement organizations to legitimize medical marijuana.
  Clinical researchers say the federal government has resisted full study of the potential medical benefits of cannabis, instead pouring money into looking at its negative effects.
  A dozen states have legalized medical marijuana, including Washington, but the federal prohibition has led to an enforcement tug-of-war.
  Given the conflicts, most mainstream doctors have steered clear of medical marijuana.
  The ACP position paper calls for protection of both doctors and patients from criminal and civil penalties in states that have adopted medical-marijuana laws.
  “We felt the time had come to speak up about this,” said Dr. David Dale, the ACP’s president. “We’d like to clear up the uncertainty and anxiety of patients and physicians over this drug.”
  Bruce Mirken, a San Francisco spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said the ACP position is “an earthquake that’s going to rattle the whole medical marijuana debate.” The ACP, he said, “pulverized the government’s two favorite myths about medical marijuana – that it’s not supported by the medical community and that science hasn’t shown marijuana to have medical value.”
  But officials at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said calls for legalizing medical marijuana are misguided.
  “What this would do is drag us back to 14th-century medicine,” said Bertha Madras, the drug czar’s deputy director for demand reduction. “It’s so arcane.”
  She said guidance on marijuana as medicine ought to come from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is unlikely ever to approve leafy cannabis as a prescription drug. Two oral derivatives of marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient, THC, have won FDA approval, and the agency is also in the early stages of considering a marijuana spray.
  An FDA spokeswoman declined to comment on the ACP’s position.
  The larger American Medical Association has urged research into medical marijuana, but opposes dropping it from Schedule I.

  On Dec. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court gave judges some discretion in sentencing for crack cocaine offenses. One day later, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, intending to narrow the stark disparity between sentences for crack versus powder cocaine, revised sentencing guidelines in order to make them retroactive.
  Why should anyone care about a bunch of drug users -- crack users at that -- who might receive two years off their sentences? It matters because of the racial inequities in our system.
  It takes the possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine (picture more than two cups full) to earn a five-year prison sentence. It takes only 5 grams of crack cocaine (picture half a teaspoon) to earn a five-year sentence. It is much easier for crack cocaine users to be sentenced to five years of prison. In fact, 85 percent of all federal prisoners in custody for crack cocaine are African American, and the overwhelming majority of them are there for the nonviolent offense of simple drug possession.
  Because of the war on drugs, the U.S. incarcerates 4,800 black males per 100,000 population. In South Africa during apartheid only 850 black males per 100,000 were incarcerated.
  The war on drugs is a failed, racist policy. I don't make these claims lightly. As a former public defender and prosecutor, I believe drug prohibition mirrors alcohol prohibition, another failed policy from our past. And it creates the same death, disease, crime and corruption.
  There is an obvious demand for drugs and when we prohibited them, we created the black market, which has one objective: Sell as much product as possible, for the highest price possible. Now the international drug cartels, and those who peddle drugs of unknown purity on our streets, have an endless stream of revenue. If drugs were regulated we could at least insure their purity (lessening the number of overdoses), make it harder for minors to obtain them, and possibly even raise revenue by taxing drug sales.
  We need to be treating drug use and abuse as a social and health issue just as we do our two most dangerous drugs, alcohol and tobacco. We need to legalize and then strictly regulate all drugs, which will put modern-day Al Capones out of business. We need to end this racist policy of mandatory minimum sentences, which saddles our judges with these sentencing disparities. Then let us stop incarcerating our young people with sentences that are more damaging than the use of the drug itself.
  If a person commits a crime while under the influence of drugs, they should be prosecuted in the same way as those who commit crimes while under the influence of alcohol. But mere possession or use of a drug should not be a criminal offense.
  We need to honestly educate our children about the relative dangers of various drugs, and we need to provide counseling and medical care for those who develop drug use addictions. We treat alcohol addiction as a medical and social problem; why don't we treat drug addiction in the same way? Locking drug users up is no solution, is prohibitively expensive and just makes the situation worse.

Jim Doherty of Shoreline is a member of and speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition; leap.cc.

Prozac side effects

WARNING

Suicidality and Antidepressant Drugs — Antidepressants increased the risk compared to placebo of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents, and young adults in short-term studies of major depressive disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders. Anyone considering the use of Prozac or any other antidepressant in a child, adolescent, or young adult must balance this risk with the clinical need. Short-term studies did not show an increase in the risk of suicidality with antidepressants compared to placebo in adults beyond age 24; there was a reduction in risk with antidepressants compared to placebo in adults aged 65 and older. Depression and certain other psychiatric disorders are themselves associated with increases in the risk of suicide. Patients of all ages who are started on antidepressant therapy should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, or unusual changes in behavior. Families and caregivers should be advised of the need for close observation and communication with the prescriber. Prozac is approved for use in pediatric patients with MDD and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). (See WARNINGS, Clinical Worsening and Suicide Risk, PRECAUTIONS, INFORMATION FOR PATIENTS, and PRECAUTIONS, Pediatric Use.)

Body as a Whole

Frequent:chest pain, chills; Infrequent: chills and fever, face edema, intentional overdose, malaise, pelvic pain, suicide attempt; Rare: acute abdominal syndrome, hypothermia, intentional injury, neuroleptic malignant syndrome¹, photosensitivity reaction.

Cardiovascular System

Frequent: hemorrhage, hypertension, palpitation; Infrequent: angina pectoris, arrhythmia, congestive heart failure, hypotension, migraine, myocardial infarct, postural hypotension, syncope, tachycardia, vascular headache; Rare: atrial fibrillation, bradycardia, cerebral embolism, cerebral ischemia, cerebrovascular accident, extrasystoles, heart arrest, heart block, pallor, peripheral vascular disorder, phlebitis, shock, thrombophlebitis, thrombosis, vasospasm, ventricular arrhythmia, ventricular extrasystoles, ventricular fibrillation.

Digestive System

Frequent: increased appetite, nausea and vomiting; Infrequent: aphthous stomatitis, cholelithiasis, colitis, dysphagia, eructation, esophagitis, gastritis, gastroenteritis, glossitis, gum hemorrhage, hyperchlorhydria, increased salivation, liver function tests abnormal, melena, mouth ulceration, nausea/vomiting/diarrhea, stomach ulcer, stomatitis, thirst; Rare: biliary pain, bloody diarrhea, cholecystitis, duodenal ulcer, enteritis, esophageal ulcer, fecal incontinence, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, hematemesis, hemorrhage of colon, hepatitis, intestinal obstruction, liver fatty deposit, pancreatitis, peptic ulcer, rectal hemorrhage, salivary gland enlargement, stomach ulcer hemorrhage, tongue edema.

Endocrine System

Infrequent: hypothyroidism; Rare: diabetic acidosis, diabetes mellitus.

Hemic and Lymphatic System

Infrequent: anemia, ecchymosis; Rare: blood dyscrasia, hypochromic anemia, leukopenia, lymphedema, lymphocytosis, petechia, purpura, thrombocythemia, thrombocytopenia.

Metabolic and Nutritional

Frequent: weight gain; Infrequent: dehydration, generalized edema, gout, hypercholesteremia, hyperlipemia, hypokalemia, peripheral edema; Rare: alcohol intolerance, alkaline phosphatase increased, BUN increased, creatine phosphokinase increased, hyperkalemia, hyperuricemia, hypocalcemia, iron deficiency anemia, SGPT increased.

Musculoskeletal System

Infrequent: arthritis, bone pain, bursitis, leg cramps, tenosynovitis; Rare: arthrosis, chondrodystrophy, myasthenia, myopathy, myositis, osteomyelitis, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis.

Nervous System

Frequent: agitation, amnesia, confusion, emotional lability, sleep disorder; Infrequent: abnormal gait, acute brain syndrome, akathisia, apathy, ataxia, buccoglossal syndrome, CNS depression, CNS stimulation, depersonalization, euphoria, hallucinations, hostility, hyperkinesia, hypertonia, hypesthesia, incoordination, libido increased, myoclonus, neuralgia, neuropathy, neurosis, paranoid reaction, personality disorder², psychosis, vertigo; Rare: abnormal electroencephalogram, antisocial reaction, circumoral paresthesia, coma, delusions, dysarthria, dystonia, extrapyramidal syndrome, foot drop, hyperesthesia, neuritis, paralysis, reflexes decreased, reflexes increased, stupor.

Respiratory System

Infrequent: asthma, epistaxis, hiccup, hyperventilation; Rare: apnea, atelectasis, cough decreased, emphysema, hemoptysis, hypoventilation, hypoxia, larynx edema, lung edema, pneumothorax, stridor.

Skin and Appendages

Infrequent: acne, alopecia, contact dermatitis, eczema, maculopapular rash, skin discoloration, skin ulcer, vesiculobullous rash; Rare: furunculosis, herpes zoster, hirsutism, petechial rash, psoriasis, purpuric rash, pustular rash, seborrhea.

Special Senses

Frequent: ear pain, taste perversion, tinnitus; Infrequent: conjunctivitis, dry eyes, mydriasis, photophobia; Rare: blepharitis, deafness, diplopia, exophthalmos, eye hemorrhage, glaucoma, hyperacusis, iritis, parosmia, scleritis, strabismus, taste loss, visual field defect.

Urogenital System

Frequent: urinary frequency; Infrequent: abortion³, albuminuria, amenorrhea³, anorgasmia, breast enlargement, breast pain, cystitis, dysuria, female lactation³, fibrocystic breast³, hematuria, leukorrhea³, menorrhagia³, metrorrhagia³, nocturia, polyuria, urinary incontinence, urinary retention, urinary urgency, vaginal hemorrhage³; Rare: breast engorgement, glycosuria, hypomenorrhea³, kidney pain, oliguria, priapism³, uterine hemorrhage³, uterine fibroids enlarged³.

Postintroduction Reports

Voluntary reports of adverse events temporally associated with Prozac that have been received since market introduction and that may have no causal relationship with the drug include the following: aplastic anemia, atrial fibrillation, cataract, cerebral vascular accident, cholestatic jaundice, confusion, dyskinesia (including, for example, a case of buccal-lingual-masticatory syndrome with involuntary tongue protrusion reported to develop in a 77-year-old female after 5 weeks of fluoxetine therapy and which completely resolved over the next few months following drug discontinuation), eosinophilic pneumonia, epidermal necrolysis, erythema multiforme, erythema nodosum, exfoliative dermatitis, gynecomastia, heart arrest, hepatic failure/necrosis, hyperprolactinemia, hypoglycemia, immune-related hemolytic anemia, kidney failure, misuse/abuse, movement disorders developing in patients with risk factors including drugs associated with such events and worsening of preexisting movement disorders, neuroleptic malignant syndrome-like events, optic neuritis, pancreatitis, pancytopenia, priapism, pulmonary embolism, pulmonary hypertension, QT prolongation, serotonin syndrome (a range of signs and symptoms that can rarely, in its most severe form, resemble neuroleptic malignant syndrome), Stevens-Johnson syndrome, sudden unexpected death, suicidal ideation, thrombocytopenia, thrombocytopenic purpura, vaginal bleeding after drug withdrawal, ventricular tachycardia (including torsades de pointes-type arrhythmias), and violent behaviors.

Ritalin

SIDE EFFECTS

Nervousness and insomnia are the most common adverse reactions but are usually controlled by reducing dosage and omitting the drug in the afternoon or evening. Other reactions include hypersensitivity (including skin rash, urticaria, fever, arthralgia, exfoliative dermatitis, erythema multiforme with histopathological findings of necrotizing vasculitis, and thrombocytopenic purpura); anorexia; nausea; dizziness; palpitations; headache; dyskinesia; drowsiness; blood pressure and pulse changes, both up and down; tachycardia; angina; cardiac arrhythmia; abdominal pain; weight loss during prolonged therapy. There have been rare reports of Tourette's syndrome. Toxic psychosis has been reported. Although a definite causal relationship has not been established, the following have been reported in patients taking this drug: instances of abnormal liver function, ranging from transaminase elevation to hepatic coma; isolated cases of cerebral arteritis and/or occlusion; leukopenia and/or anemia; transient depressed mood; aggressive behavior; a few instances of scalp hair loss. Very rare reports of neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) have been received, and, in most of these, patients were concurrently receiving therapies associated with NMS. In a single report, a ten-year-old boy who had been taking methylphenidate for approximately 18 months experienced an NMS-like event within 45 minutes of ingesting his first dose of venlafaxine. It is uncertain whether this case represented a drug-drug interaction, a response to either drug alone, or some other cause.

In children, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, weight loss during prolonged therapy, insomnia, and tachycardia may occur more frequently; however, any of the other adverse reactions listed above may also occur.

  One has to wonder which idiot came up with the idea that Prozac or Ritalin is better then Marijuana. Only a drug company which makes billions of dollars because of lobbyists’ actions could lie to the people like this with a straight face.