Only dopes call it dope!

I know it's been sometime since you wrote this ridiculous
article but after just finding it today and reading it, it truly amazes me how
1937 style propaganda still lives and breathes stronger than ever in our
society delivered in such ignorant articles as yours and the right wing Sun
Media.You say you couldn't care less about a Canadian being thrown into an
American prison, well then why bother writing about it? Cause you do what you’re
told right? Can't write about the fact that Canadians are being policed by
Americans or other important issues like that, yet you have no problem telling
lies and age old propaganda.
Too bad Canadians
don't put the money, passion and drive to eradicate a medicinal plant into
actually solving crimes and arresting actual violent people like child and
human sex trafficers, rapists, serial killers, violent drunks, murders, you
know back to protecting children like the pot law was supposed to do in the
first place. How many little boys and girls have been molested, sexually abused
or raped by a drunk uncle, dad, or grandfather, neighbor or family friend? Yet
you’re going to make it sound like adults that smoke pot are smoking up with
their children and raiding the fridge because of munchies...hahaha...now that's
moronic! It's a medicinal plant and even the Conservative government still give
out medical marijuana cards, so who's the moronic dope now, that would be you.
Yes I take offense to being called a moron just because I smoke pot.

Fact, the drug alcohol kills more teens than any other drug
legal or illegal.
Fact, 300% more people die of prescribed prescription pills
than all illegal chemical drugs combined and that's not even counting the
underground black market but we sure don't hear Canadian journalists reporting
on that. You just keep making these ridiculous claims without any actual proof.
Propaganda-It's powerful on small minded idiots that don't question anything.
Fact, Canadians spend more on marijuana arrests than all
violent crimes combined. You know what that is...completely stupid!
Btw, when did you study smoke and become a smoke expert? Would love to hear that story sometime.

Anyway Mr. Coren, if you have the courage to read on, you
will learn that not only does marijuana smoke either have a neutral or positive
effect on the lungs it has 100’s of other medicinal properties dating back to
the beginning of time. Dr. Donald Tashkin, UCLA, M.D., for the past38 years the
U.S. government's and the world's leading marijuana researcher on pulmonary
functions, strictly lungs and cannabis for over 38 years. So no matter what you
say Mr. Coren a simple 2-5 year study showing the negative effects of marijuana
means nothing to people like me because we all know that an expert is much more
credible then some biased doctor that is putting his negative spin on his
marijuana study just to give his career a boost either financially or
politically.

Cannabis has either a positive or neutral effect in most
areas of the lung, 1967-97; UCLA Pulminary studies.

In 1976, Dr. Tashkin, M.D., UCLA, sent a written report to
Dr. Gabriel Nahas at the Rheims, France, Conference on “Potential Cannabis
Medical Dangers.” That report became the most sensationalized story to come out
of this negative world conference on cannabis.

This surprised Tashkin, who had sent the report to the
Rheims conference as an afterthought.

What Tashkin reported to the Rheims conference was that only
one of the 29 pulmonary areas of the human lung studied the large air
passageway Did he find marijuana to be more of an irritant (by 15 times) than
tobacco. This figure is insignificant, however, since Tashkin also notes that
tobacco has almost no effect on this area. Therefore, 15 times almost nothing
is still almost nothing. In any event, cannabis has a positive or neutral
effect in most other areas of the lung. (See Chapter 7, “Therapeutic Uses of
Cannabis.”)

(Tashkin, Dr. Donald, UCLA studies, 1969-83; UCLA Pulmonary
Studies, 1969-95.)

Afterwards in 1977, the U.S. government resumed funding for
ongoing cannabis pulmonary studies which it had cut two years earlier when
Tashkin reported encouraging therapeutic results with marijuana/lung studies.
But now the government limited funding only to research to the large air
passageway.

We have interviewed Dr. Tashkin dozens of times. In 1986 I
asked him about an article he was preparing for the New England Journal of
Medicine, indicating that cannabis smoke caused as many or more pre-cancerous
lesions as tobacco in “equal” amounts.

Most people do not realize, nor are the media told, that any
tissue abnormality (abrasion, eruption, or even redness) is called a
pre-cancerous lesion. Unlike lesions caused by tobacco, the THC-related lesions
contain no radioactivity.

We asked Tashkin how many persons had gone on to get lung
cancer in these or any other studies of long-term cannabis-only smokers
(Rastas, Coptics, etc.)

Sitting in his UCLA laboratory, Dr. Tashkin looked at me and
said, “That’s the strange part. So far no one we’ve studied has gone on to get
lung cancer.”

“Was this reported to the press?”

“Well, it’s in the article,” Dr. Tashkin said. “But no one
in the press even asked. They just assumed the worst.” His answer to us was
still that not one single case of lung cancer in someone who only smoked
cannabis has ever been reported. It should be remembered that he and other
doctors had predicted 20 years ago, their certainty that hundreds of thousands
of marijuana smokers would by now (1997) have developed lung cancer.

Why no Sun Media articles about the facts and the truth?

Marijuana Produces brain cells.


University of Saskatchewan Research Suggests Marijuana
Analogue Stimulates Brain Cell Growth

ScienceDaily (Oct. 16, 2005)— A synthetic substance similar
to ones found in marijuana stimulates cell growth in regions of the brain
associated with anxiety and depression, pointing the way for new treatments for
these diseases, according to University of Saskatchewan medical research
published today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Xia Zhang, an associate professor in the U of S
neuropsychiatry research unit, led the team that tested the effects of HU-210,
a potent synthetic cannabinoid similar to a group of compounds found in
marijuana. The synthetic version is about 100 times as powerful as THC, the
compound responsible for the high experienced by recreational users.

The team found that rats treated with HU-210 on a regular
basis showed neurogenesis – the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus.
This region of the brain is associated with learning and memory, as well as
anxiety and depression.

The effect is the opposite of most legal and illicit drugs
such as alcohol, nicotine, heroin, and cocaine.

“Most ‘drugs of abuse’ suppress neurogenesis,” Zhang says.
“Only marijuana promotes neurogenesis.”

Current theory states that depression may be sparked when
too few new brain cells are grown in the hippocampus. It is unclear whether
anxiety is part of this process, but if true, HU-210 could offer a treatment
for both mood disorders by stimulating the growth of new brain cells.

But Zhang cautions that HU-210 is only one of many
cannabinoids. His previous work with marijuana shows that while the plant may
contain medicinal compounds, they come in the same package as those that cause
symptoms such as acute memory impairment, addiction, and withdrawal. Also, the
HU-210 used in the study is highly purified.

“This is a very potent cannabinoid oil,” Zhang says. “It’s
not something that would be available on the street.”

Marijuana has been used for recreational and medicinal
purposes for centuries, evoking public interest and controversy along the way.
As a medicine, the plant is used to ease pain in multiple sclerosis patients,
combat nausea in cancer patients, and stimulate appetite in people afflicted
with AIDS. It has also been used to treat epilepsy and stroke.

Zhang’s work is the latest product of the U of S Neural
Systems and Plasticity Research Group
(http://www.usask.ca/neuralsystems/group.htm), a multidisciplinary effort by
researchers from the Colleges of Arts and Science, Engineering, Kinesiology,
Medicine, Pharmacy and Nutrition, and Veterinary Medicine. The group
collaborates to study the function of neural systems, from nerves to brain, in
living organisms. In particular, they look at how these systems change over
time with experience.

Zhang’s research is supported by a grant from the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), as well as a CIHR New Investigator Award.
The Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation provided funding support to
establish the Neural Systems and Plasticity Research Group, as well as
post-doctoral fellowship awards to research team members Wen Jiang and Shao-Ping
Ji.

Again, why no front page articles about this break through?

Another Fact:
Emphysema Sufferers Benefit


During a later interview, Tashkin congratulated me on the
tip I’d given him that marijuana used for emphysema produced good results among
persons we knew.

He laughed at me originally, because he had presumed that
marijuana aggravated emphysema, but after reviewing his evidence found that,
except in the rarest of cases, marijuana was actually of great benefit to
emphysema suffers due to the opening and dilation of the bronchial passages.

And so the relief reported to us by cannabis smoking
emphysema patients was confirmed.

Marijuana smoke is not unique in its benefits to the lungs.
Yerba Santa, Colt’s foot, Horehound, and other herbs have traditionally been
smoked to help the lungs.

Tobacco and its associated dangers have so prejudiced
persons against “smoking” that most persons believe cannabis smoking to be as
or more dangerous than tobacco. With research banned, these public health and safety
facts are not readily available.

In December 1997, we asked Dr. Tashkin again, and he
unequivocally stated that “marijuana does not cause or potentiate emphysema in
any way.” In addition, there has not been one case of lung cancer ever
attributed to smoking cannabis.

. . . And So On

Most of the anti-marijuana literature we have examined does
not cite as much as one single source for us to review. Others only refer to
DEA or NIDA. The few studies we have been able to track down usually end up
being anecdotal case histories, artificial groupings of data, or otherwise
lacking controls and never replicated.

Reports of breast enlargement, obesity, addiction, and the
like all remain unsubstantiated, and are given little credence by the
scientific community. Other reports, like the temporary reduction in sperm
count, are statistically insignificant to the general public, yet get blown far
out of proportion when presented by the media. Still others, like the handful
of throat tumors in the Sacramento area and the high rate of injuries reported
in a Baltimore trauma unit are isolated clusters that run contrary to all other
statistics and have never been replicated.

So Mr. Coren, if you had the courage and brain cells to read
this please tell me your medical back ground and degrees and how such credible
world renowned doctor's could possibly be saying exactly opposite of your age
old reefer madness dribble?

Sincerely,

Mike Krahn

Canada a true Hillbilly in an ever changing world!

Well where to begin this blog. I am so ashamed at the current status of our country and it only seems to be getting worse under Harper's Communist Conservative's. We can't even get the world to vote us into the UN yet counties like Portugal are notice and accepted, for one because they are open to change and new ideas of failed policies (decriminalizing the personal use of ALL drugs) and having great success.

We suck at taking care of the environment, the tar sands are one of the biggest dirtiest oil operations in the world. We have wars, obesity, diabetes, 33,000 people a year dying of prescription drug overdose, conservative Mp's that drive around drunk with cocaine in their pockets, Catholics and priests raping children for the past 100 years, Bp oil spills, human trafficing and hundreds of thousands of children being smuggled into the sex trade dying of std's or of beatings by pimps because they said no to the 40th John of the day, sexual creeps, predators and stokers like Col. Russell Williams and Harper still wants to throw peaceful adult cannabis users in prison for a joint and a few plants. How does this solve anything? Has nothing truly changed since the 40's? Am I to believe that marijuana is the same evil today that is was proclaimed to be during refer madness? We spend billions of dollars on the failed war on drugs and just a few hundred thousand on people that smuggle our children. If I don't live in the real life story of George Orwells 1984 then I hate to imagine the future.

Stephen Harper has for the 3rd time a new bill, bill s-10 which is another attempt for mandatory minimum's for cannabis offender's. It's 2010 and with bills like this you send a message to people that nothing in the world has changed since refer madness! The Conservative's have been telling us the whole time they've been in office that they are tough on crime and that crime rates are going down. Well then why do you need to spend billions on more prisons if crime rates are going down? I know because he plans to make money off the prisons by filling them up with peaceful cannabis offenders thus leaving the real criminals free on the streets to do what they want. Welcome to Canada parole for pedophiles and mandatory prison for cannabis offenders.
Even the US has pulled away from the failed policies of mandatory prison for cannabis offenses so why continue the same failed waste of money mistakes? Cause it's either Harper's way or the highway. Any leader that can sit in his office and knowingly repeat a failed policy is not a leader at all but a puppet that works for himself and large industry.

We need a true leader, a leader that is not afraid of change. A leader that is not afraid to stand up for the ethical and moral rights of it's people. A leader that can't be bought by large industry but will stand up to large industry. A leader that can keep us industrialized yet move forward with green ideas and innovations like...like countries such as Germany! An industrialized powerhouse that has embraced the green eco-friendly markets with great success.

Not complete...to be continued!

Mike Krahn

Why is Canada Copying US Failure?

My name is Michael Krahn and I live in Gimli, Manitoba. I am writing you today to ask your view on the issue of Marc Emery (Prince of Pot) VS. Canada and the US. I wonder if you share the same spineless view as Stephen Harper and the Conservative’s as they cower to the US which is putting pressure on Canada to send a Canadian to be tried and convicted in the US. Do you believe that the US has a right to come into our country and tell us what to do? I don’t get it, are we Canadian or American? It shocks me to see our Canadian government JUMP every time the US talks about Canadian pot entering the US, while guns enter Canada from the US at a steady pace. Marijuana is definitely NOT comparable to a weapon designed for destruction, furthermore, what about all the criminals, pedophiles and sexual offenders that flee the US and end up in Canada? What about all the cocaine, crack, meth, heroin, and prescription drugs that come from the US? Why are these all secondary when it comes to pot? Stephen Harper is no different from J. Edgar Hoover, who back in the 40’s ranted and raved that marijuana is evil. Everything evolves and so most these old school Draconian pot laws.
For 25 years Marc Emery has been selling seeds all around the world and for 25 years our government and authorities did not consider Marc Emery to be any type of threat UNTIL the Yankees came along. Why is it that all of a sudden they have the right to walk in and tell us what to do? There is no victim here yet, but if the US is allowed to bully their will upon us (as they do everywhere in the World) they will lock this man up forever. It is common knowledge that the US wants Marc Emery because he is an activist rather than a criminal; speaking out against prohibition and being heard by multitudes of people.
If our government allows the US to do what they want, then the next step will be to start arresting people that speak out against war, the government, or anything that goes against the US administration!
Below I have posted a letter written by Larry Campbell and it seems to me that if even one person in law enforcement or the government believes that pot laws need to be changed, then it should most definitely be debated. We live in a “democracy”, which is supposed to mean that the values of the government should reflect the values of the people: and they DON’T. So please Mr. Chomiak, as Canadian’s we need to stand up for ourselves, stop being bullied by the US and make Canada a leader on the world stage once again; rather than a recurring joke as we have already accomplished concerning many issues such as the environment.
If our government does not stand up and help Marc Emery I am personally going to start flying an American flag over my Canadian flag and I will also encourage everyone I know to do so as well because as long as our government allows another government to walk in and start policing at will, we might as well conform completely. “I am Canadian…no American…which is it?

Sincerely,

Michael Krahn


Why is Canada Copying US Failure?
by Canadian Senator Larry Campbell (09 Jan, 2008)
The Harper government's U.S.-style tough line on drugs benefits no one but criminals and their syndicates


Is there really anyone anywhere in Canada who believes that U.S. drug policies are working? Or that they are deserving of being copied here? This is the direction Prime Minister Stephen Harper would have us go. More prisons and more people in prisons has not worked for our southern neighbours, and there is no logic behind the move to increase criminal penalties for drugs. In fact, logic dictates that we move away from criminalization and focus instead on a policy that emphasizes medical intervention for those Canadians who abuse drugs.

What about our teens? In the pique of a rebellious phase they grow a few plants, get arrested and end up getting their higher education in prison rather then university. And the burden of a criminal record makes them pariahs in the job market. Can we afford -- either financially or socially -- to emulate a system that has created in the U.S. the most incarcerated population on Earth? Or should we continue to distinguish ourselves from our neighbour by continuing to exhibit humane and socially profitable measures that make our citizens some of the healthiest and most compassionate people on the planet?

This Conservative government refuses to look at the science, or even the simple facts. Minimum sentences for non-violent offenders may play well with a hang 'em high crowd, but it will do nothing to solve drug problems in this country. The Conservatives have spread their "big lie" for so long that they have begun to believe it, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

We should be putting our efforts into increased treatment for addiction, education and increased medical treatment for those with mental disabilities. We should also legalize marijuana in this country to keep the profits from being funnelled into criminal hands. Did you know that in the U.S. the government produces and distributes about half a pound each month in marijuana cigarettes to medical patients? The Canadian government could produce it like cigarettes, put the derived funds straight into health care and addictions treatment and programs. The pot could be sold in liquor stores where children will not have easy access and the quality can be monitored.

When drugs are produced by regulated industries, they cost a mere fraction of the price of the products produced and marketed by clandestine criminal organizations. By leaving some drugs in the hands of criminals and their syndicates we leave control of the purity, dosage and pricing totally in the wrong hands. Why not take away their motivation for involvement in the drugs trade? Regulated industries all have motivation for legitimacy. They hire working people who live in our communities and spend their income in our stores and shops. We all have an investment in the task of reducing drug harms and that investment is one that can either prove to be profitable, or costly.

Criminals have control of these substances only because we make the drugs illegal. Through legalization we have regulation and we remove the death grip the gangs and cartels have on the drugs black market. If a poll were to be conducted among these drug dealing thugs and gangsters, asking if they prefer prohibition or legalization, prohibition would be the unanimous choice. Legalization runs counter to their needs. It is truly prohibition that continues to line the pockets of those criminals who are the real threats to all our communities. Prohibition is a failure that bears no resemblance to any logical solution to our drug problems. We must end prohibition, not expand it.

Senator Larry W. Campbell is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an international, non-profit educational organization made up of current and former members of law enforcement who believe the existing U.S. drug policies have failed.

Hemp Revolution

Hello! My name is HempMike and I am starting this blog to re-educate the world about Hemp and to let everyone know that American driven propaganda demonizing Hemp is wrong!
First of all, to anyone that still thinks that you can get "high" from hemp in any way ask yourself this: Do you get drunk every time you eat corn or barley?